Spike glanced in the direction she was looking. "Oh. Right, you wouldn't know. Twilight's taken her on as her new student of friendship. See there was this whole thing with the cutie map and time travel and... uh... well, let's just say that in the end Twilight decided it would be better if such a powerful unicorn was shown the ropes on how friendship worked."
Fluttershy quirked an eyebrow. "So... basically, Discord reformation two point oh."
"...Yeah, actually. That's a pretty good way to look at it."
"Hmm. Incidentally, do you have any idea where Discord is?"
"Uh, no. He kinda vanished after you did."
The yellow pony frowned. "Weird... I'll have to check on him." Fluttershy flicked her tail. "If you'll excuse me, Spike, I think I should have a chat with our latest reformed villain."
"Uh, okay." Spike nodded as she walked off. "Just remember, she's still new to the whole friendship thing!"
Fluttershy's ear twitched in acknowledgement, but she was more focused on the pair of purple ponies standing near the stairs. Twilight looked up with a brief smile, which faded as she saw the stern look on her friend's face.
"Um... Fluttershy--"
"Starlight Glimmer."
The unicorn blinked at being so suddenly addressed. "Uh--Hey, there, Fluttershy." She smiled awkwardly. "You... look... different."
Fluttershy's eyes simply remained on Starlight.
"...Um. So..." Starlight rubbed the back of her head. "I... I'm sorry about, you know, what happened with the whole cutie mark thing, and, uh, locking you in a room... and... stuff."
"I hear you did something with time travel."
Twilight winced. "Fluttershy--"
Fluttershy held out a hoof. "I want to hear it from her."
Starlight took a deep breath. "...yes, I modified one of Star Swirl's spells and used the cutie map to... attempt to stop the Sonic Rainboom from ever happening, because I kind of thought that your cutie marks led you to destroy everything I worked for and... I was wrong... I really am sorry."
"Hmm." Fluttershy put down her hoof. "...You're growing your bangs out."
"I... what?"
"Sorry. Your forelock." She gestured at her head. "It's longer."
"Um. Yes. I thought it was time for a..." Starlight paused. "Fluttershy, you're... not going to say anything about the time travel, or the cutie mark thing, or... anything?"
Fluttershy gave her a flat look. "Your cult--and don't deny that it was a cult," she firmly interjected as Starlight opened her mouth, "was at least founded on the ideal of equal opportunity, even if it went about it the entirely wrong way. And as for the time travel thing... I'm friends with a spirit of chaos. A little reality warping isn't enough to faze me. And you seem to have cleaned up after yourself, as far as I can tell." She managed a faint smile. "Frankly, Starlight, if I got caught up on every little thing everybody did that hurt me, I'd probably have moved out of Ponyville long ago."
"So... you're... okay with me?"
"Well, I'm willing to forgive you and give you a chance, if that's what you're asking."
"Oh." Starlight smiled. "That's good."
"Of course," Fluttershy continued, "I've also been through a lot recently and come back with a few extra tricks so..." The rods on her back flicked up and the holographic wings flared out. "...try not to screw up your second chance, okay?"
The unicorn gulped. "Got it."
Twilight looked between them. "...Soooooo! Fluttershy, I have a lot of questions about, you know, everything that happened--"
Fluttershy's lips quirked. "Of course you do."
"--and I was wondering if you'd want to keep telling us about your crazy adventures on... Mars?"
"Not just Mars, but that was where I left off. Actually..." She glanced at the snack table and sighed. "Well, it looks like I'm going to have to stop Angel from hogging all the chopped carrots--again. Why don't I get him, and you and the girls meet me on the upstairs patio?"
"Right now?"
"I mean, after the party has wound down." Fluttershy smiled faintly. "I don't want to kick anyone out of a Pinkie Pie party."
Twilight nodded. "That sounds good--hey!" She rushed into the crowd. "The banners are not for climbing, Pinkie!"
"But they're just so fun to climb!"
Fluttershy chuckled to herself. "Pinkie Pie..."
Starlight smiled. "That pony is an enigma."
"Mmm." She turned to look at her. "Time magic, huh?"
"...yes." The unicorn kicked the ground. "That's... something I did."
"Are you familiar with hyperbolic curvature and cross-quantum threadwork theory?"
Starlight blinked. "Uh... I did study some of that to make the time portal, yeah. Why?"
Fluttershy looked at her for a moment or two.
"...So you know how I disappeared three months ago?"
Starlight Glimmer looked around the party. "I kind of gathered, yes."
"Well, I spent the whole time in another world."
"Really?"
"Mmmhmm." Fluttershy shut off her rods, gesturing for Starlight to walk with her. "You see, when I first arrived I was in a very weird place..."
"...and that's how I got this hole in my ear."
"Oh sweet Celestia," Starlight murmured, closely following Fluttershy as they trotted out onto the large west-ward facing veranda. "That sounds... horrible, really. I don't know how you kept your cool after that."
"Well, to be honest, I focused on getting back to Reinhild's apartment..." The yellow pony put the rabbit on her back down, looking around with a faint smile. "You know, this garden wasn't here when the palace first sprang into being."
"No?"
"No. AJ and I planted it ourselves, when we realized how good the space up here was for it." She ran her hoof against a flower. "Twilight was up in Canterlot, working on the grand equestrian pony summit, and we figured it would be a nice surprise for her to come back to."
"Well..." Starlight smiled awkwardly. "It certainly looks pretty!"
"Yeah."
Silence descended for a moment, Angel Bunny hopping around the bushes as the two of them stood there.
"...Sooooooo." Starlight rubbed the back of her head. "This Reinhild... fox. She sounds... like a grumpy sort."
"Grumpy?" Fluttershy gave an amused snort. "Yeah, she's grumpy, when she's not too busy ripping into you for making a dumb move. She's strict as a ruler and just as smart, and she doesn't really tolerate any jokes." Her smile grew nostalgic. "And despite it all, she's one of the best friends you could possibly have."
"Reminds me of Spitfire," Rainbow Dash quipped, gliding down. "Hey, you haven't gotten past that mongoose attacking you, have you?"
"No, I was just catching Starlight up on what we talked about in the spa."
The blue pegasus shot Starlight a look, earning her a wince and a slight backing up from the unicorn. "Really. Shy, you do know she kinda tried to break time, right?"
"I've been so informed," Fluttershy replied, her tone level.
"Okay. Um. I'm... just saying... are you sure you want her to know about--?"
"I am."
"Okay, your decision." Rainbow gave Starlight a final look. "So... anyway... the girls are wrapping up the party downstairs, and they sent me ahead to make sure you're ready to talk about your cool adventures on Mars.
"Oh, I am." Fluttershy smiled. "In fact, I think I'll get to the part where I lost my eye."
"Really?!" Rainbow grinned--then frowned. "Er--I mean, uh. That sounds terrible. Like really bad."
Silence set down once again, resting as the two of them stared at each other.
"...You think my eye looks cool," Fluttershy stated flatly.
"I think your eye looks cool," Rainbow Dash admitted reluctantly. "But I totally get that losing your eye was a horrible experience and that it wasn't cool at all!" she added quickly.
"Mm, by your own definitions I believe my actions in that situation were cool, awesome, and radical," Fluttershy pointed out.
"...Really?"
"Although yes, losing my eye was very traumatic."
"Oh."
"Can we agree that image-emotional-impact is morally neutral?" proposed the yellow pony.
Rainbow blinked. "Uh..."
"That coolness, awesomeness, and radicalness are neither good nor evil," Fluttershy clarified, "but can be used in the application of good or evil."
"...you know, actually, yeah." Rainbow Dash nodded. "That... kinda makes sense."
The sound of hoofsteps caught their attention, and they turned to the four mares and dragon stepping out onto the patio. Fluttershy couldn't help but chuckle as she saw the foldout lounge chairs that Twilight was levitating. "You always think ahead, don't you?"
"Well, maybe a little. I don't think we all want to stand while you're telling us about... you know." The alicorn set the chairs up, glancing at Starlight. "I'm assuming you... want her in on this?"
"Well, yes. There are certain things I need to talk to you about later, and I suspect Starlight would be able to help." Fluttershy glanced at the mare, who fidgeted at the attention. "I just got done catching her up, actually, at least to the point I was back at the spa."
"Well then." Rarity took up a position in one of the chairs. "Don't leave us in suspense, darling. I'm sure we all want to know what exactly happened to that ruffian."
Fluttershy chuckled dryly. "Never saw him again. But Reinhild certainly got her fur ruffled when I made it back to the apartment..."
Reinhild walked into main room with a grumble, tossing her toggle case on the table as she sagged onto the couch beside Fluttershy.
"...Um." The pegasus held up a hoof. "So--"
"Out of our jurisdiction," she replied with a grumble. "The hostage situation is trumped by corporate sabotage. Apparently he tried to rig an MV into a CC fabricator, or whatever."
Fluttershy frowned. "MV and CC...?"
"Master's Voice, Core Consciousness--have you read up on Cogs?" Reinhild noted her look of confusion. "Right... you've probably seen some of them. They look like Vectors, but they're made of metal or plastic--"
"Oh, the robot people." Fluttershy nodded. "Yes, I have seen them on the streets."
"Yeah, don't let them hear you call them robots. Cogs are people, not tools, so they're never going to give themselves that heavily specialized stuff you see on drones. The big difference is the Core Consciousness unit. Ordinary computers are programmed, CCs learn and grow like Vector brains. So trying to hack a fabricator is a bad thing." Reinhild gestured at nothing in particular. "Especially if he was trying to install some sort of Master's Voice."
"And, um... what's Master's Voice?"
Reinhild shrugged. "Mysterious control program all Vectors have. If we hear a human singing--not a digital recording, but analog works--we become... placid. Susceptible to suggestion."
Fluttershy blinked, her eyes turning to the toggle case. "That... sounds like it could be dangerous."
"It could be. Problem is, nobody knows how it got there, nobody knows what part of us controls it--or if they do, they're not telling." Reinhild shrugged. "And the humans are all dead anyway. So, not a big threat. Just a mystery of the past."
"So..." Fluttershy took a breath. "If I'm understanding this... that, um, mongoose was going to implant a secret possible control method into the next generation of metal people."
"That's what CompuMax says, anyway." Reinhild rubbed her forehead. "Of course it's possible he just found out their CEO had been skiving money to a top-secret something or other and wanted to find out what that was. Or maybe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or something else. Point is, they're handling it, and we're not allowed to look into it further."
Fluttershy frowned. "So... is he a good mongoose, or a bad mongoose?"
"He's a mongoose that's out of our hands, and that's what matters."
"...oh."
"That," Reinhild added firmly, "and making sure you can get hold of me if something like this happens again. If I'd been there, I could have kept you safe and gotten the guy to a proper IRPF building."
Fluttershy rubbed her ragged ear quietly. "That... would be nice."
"Problem is, you have a zipchip. If you had a toggle... maybe I could get you a PDI to handle the calls. It'd have to be installed on something you can handle... a UI lens might work..." The fox picked up her toggle case and started tapping through it. "Hmm. Almost 200 creds put together."
"That's, um. That's what my EMLA job paid me."
"So if you take another contract, it's probably just within your budget then. Especially if you can negotiate a better payment based off your work on the last one..."
Twilight cocked her head. "Why didn't she just pay for the thing herself?"
Fluttershy sighed, rolling her hoof with a flick of her ear. "Everything is about business. Giving a gift isn't something you do lightly, not even a casual one. It's... more intimate, in a way. Not necessarily romantic, but very forward. Telling people about things they'd like is fine, but if you buy it for them and don't expect a payment back it... it's not something you'd do outside close family, or specific celebrations."
"What?!" Pinkie Pie shrieked, her jaw agape. "No surprise cupcakes or surprise hoof-carved statuettes or surprise gyrocopters or anything?"
"They do still have birthday parties," Fluttershy assured her with an amused grin. "And a few other holidays--some are holdovers from Earth, and some are more business-based. The fact is, Reinhild was already letting me live with her, without paying rent. Even with the stipend she got that was considered pretty generous." She rubbed her metal leg. "I think she got teased about it at her workplace--not in a bad way, but apparently I was supposed to be calling her 'Auntie Reins' or something. I only really heard about that once, and that..."
She trailed off for a moment, her eyes downcast.
"...well, I had other things on my mind at the time."
The other ponies glanced at each other warily.
Rarity cleared her throat. "I, ah... know this normally goes without saying, darling, but... we are your friends, and we will be ready to listen and support you. Entirely free of charge."
Fluttershy chuckled wryly. "I know. I'm sorry. It just takes a bit to get that rooted back into my mind."
She glanced around. "So... as I was saying, Reinhild pointed me toward a place I could get a UI lens with built in PDI."
Twilight tapped her quill to her scroll. "And that means...?"
"Oh, right. UI stands for User Interface--basically I got a monocle that acted like a miniature smart surface, letting me call up network stuff on demand. And PDI, that was a Personal Data Interface... kind of like an assistant that lived in the monocle and could look up anything for me."
"So, kind of like what I do for Twilight," Spike said.
"Kind of," Fluttershy agreed. "But Votum never ate gemstones. He did help me land another EMLA contract, though, one that actually paid better than the first..."
"It's good to see you again, Fluttershy. And look at you!" Suchart clapped his hands together. "Little miss bigshot, official animal handler and everything."
Fluttershy hid behind her mane. "Yes, well... I had some help."
"Really?"
She tapped the translucent pane in front of her eye. "Votum, my new PDI. He's been such a big help."
A sigh came from behind her, and she turned to see a disapproving expression on a plastic face, catlike face.
"...Um... hello. My name's Fluttershy. What's yours?"
"AleaFaulkner."
Fluttershy smiled brightly, holding out her hoof. "It's nice to meet you, miss Faulkner."
The cog kept her arms crossed.
"...um..." Fluttershy glanced to the side, slowly lowering her hoof. "Is... something wrong?"
"It doesn't have a gender."
"What?"
"Your PDI," the cog said flatly. "It doesn't have a gender. It's not a person."
Suchart rolled his eyes. "She didn't mean it like that, obviously. This girl talks to everything. Birds, beasts, I'm pretty sure she can get a conversation going with a nymph if she wanted to."
"Well, I've tried," Fluttershy admitted, "but they tend to be remarkably chatty about nothing and I can't get a word in edgewise."
The tiger snorted. "My point is, she treats organic animals with respect and care. I'm not surprised she extends that same respect and care to digital ones."
Alea quirked a brow. "Really."
"Yes, really! On our last--" Suchart cut himself off, coughing for a moment or two.
"Oh dear." Fluttershy hovered up. "Are you alright?"
"I--hmmph! Heh... I'm fine, really. Just a cough... I'll get a checkup when we get back to the city."
"You'd better," Fluttershy admonished firmly. "That's a pretty deep cough you have there, it sounds like you might have a build up in your lungs."
"Huh, I was fine this morning... maybe it's something I ate." Suchart chuckled for a moment, before his cough returned. "Ugh... alright, alright! I'll set up a quarantine tent, if you tell Alea about the bear."
The cog looked between them. "The bear?"
"Oh, yes, fuzzlebuckets was such a good girl--"
"She was a full-grown grizzly!" Suchart shouted over his shoulder, pulling something out of his pocket and tossing it on the ground. "Three months pregnant!"
"...Well, yes," Fluttershy allowed, "but she was very understanding about the whole thing, and I made sure she got extra fish for her troubles. I don't see why everyone kept insisting she had to be a lateral."
Alea stared at her for a moment. "...you're shitting me."
"Um. No." Fluttershy looked her in the eyes. "No I am not."
"...Huh." After a moment, the cog shook her head. "Right, well. I suppose if you're actually able to do that sort of thing, this should go relatively smoothly." She hovered over to the few crates of equipment in the center of the camp. "I'll have to double check to make sure this isn't some lateral scam, of course."
Fluttershy opened her mouth for a moment, about to protest, and then shut it with a sigh. "I'm going to go out and find a nice deer for you to examine..."
Starlight cocked her head. "Hey, what's a lateral, anyway?"
"A morphism." Fluttershy shrugged. "It's... a sort of natural mutation. Most vectors walk on two legs, but there's enough animal genetics in there that around one in two hundred vectors look like actual animals. They can still talk and they're all fully intelligent, though." She managed a small giggle. "Every time I'd bring an animal in, Alea would come up with a new test. First it was the gene scans, then intelligence tests, then she tried to have some sort of communication thing where.... well, she didn't believe me until Venus, let's just say that."
"Venus?"
"Yes, it's... well, I went to Venus after I got off Mars, so maybe I should wait to talk about it until then."
"Hold up." Applejack held up a hoof. "Ya said laterals were 'a' morphism? Thar more than one?"
"Oh, yes. Plantigrade and digitigrade are the most common, so nobody comments on them, but then there are taurs--they're kind of built like Tirek was, four legs and two arms, but the lower part is always like the animal it's based off of. Micros are about half as common as laterals, they're essentially small Vectors--about as big as rabbits. They classify a lot of what falls outside the normal as a morphism actually--strange fur patterns, hooves or horns, hybrids, Reinhild was born with a twin-tail morphism--she got her second tail removed before I met her."
Twilight nodded, scribbling down notes on her pad. "That's a remarkably wide spread of genetic variability."
"Well, they were literally created as a demonstration of the mastery of genetic control," Fluttershy pointed out.
Rarity nodded. "I suppose, with that sort of variety, it makes sense they thought you were one of them..."
"Oh, I still stood out," Fluttershy assured them quickly. "By their standards I looked like an unusually-colored lateral equine with a trait from a completely different family. The wings," she clarified at their confusion. "That happens, but it's rare, and stacking that on top of another two morphisms made me..."
Her ear flicked.
"...let's see, I'd guess something like a one out of fifteen thousand chance of existing naturally, at best? Probably a lot more than that. Most people thought I was a blip of some sort."
"A what?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"A blip, they're... basically, custom-tailored vectors." Fluttershy let out a sigh. "Everything is about business. If you want a super special and very unique child, and you have the money... well, the vectors were created artificially anyway, it's not like they have any grounds to stand on. Of course there are a few laws--you can't make a child that has to obey you, and the child has to be sterile because technically they're an untested genetic combination, it's... they treat child rearing differently over there." She shook her head. "It's one of the more unnoticed horrors."
The gathered ponies fell silent for a moment or two.
Then Fluttershy cleared her throat. "Well, speaking of horrors, it was three days later that I saw Suchart die."
"D-D-Die?!" Spike squeaked.
"...it wasn't pretty," she admitted. "If anybody wants to throw up after I explain what happened, I won't blame you..."
Twilight took a breath, slowly letting out. "If you don't want to talk about it--"
"This is something I can't gloss over," Fluttershy insisted. "It's... it's what really kicked things off. What made me realize I needed to do something myself, about the situation. It was gruesome and terrifying and... and without it, I don't know who would have found me in the end but I certainly wouldn't have come home on my own terms."
She folded her ears back. "Suchart wasn't just sick. He was... infected."
"Suchart?" Fluttershy warily poked her head into the tent. "How are you feeling?"
The tiger groaned quietly. "Whoever whipped up this--cngh--this virus must be an evil genius or something..."
"Oh dear..." With a light flick of her wings, Fluttershy glided over. "Let me just look you over--"
"You--hnf, cnnn--you've done more than enough, Fluttershy." Suchart tried to smile. "Don't you want to go talk to--cnf, hrnf, hnng--animal friends?"
"The animals out here can wait." The pegasus was already pulling out equipment from the bedside bag. "They already know how to survive on their own, and they know we're only here to check up on them." She wrapped a small band around his wrist. "Everyone's worried about you, you know?"
"You're just saying that."
"No no, it's true, they're all wondering if you're going to make it the full session. Alea's even considering calling for a medical evac, just for you."
"Alea didn't--krrnf--strike me as an altruist."
Fluttershy rolled her eyes. "Well, okay, she said if you had to die it should be somewhere where she didn't have to deal with your corpse. I think she was joking, though?"
Suchart's chuckle suddenly morphed into a deeper, hacking cough, accompanied by wild beeping from the band on his wrist. Fluttershy's eyes shot to it, widening as she saw the fluctuating numbers. Her hooves dove into the bag, tossing aside various objects until she found what she was after; strapping the two pads to her forehooves, she flicked a switch and prepared to give the tiger a stabilizing jolt--but she never got the chance.
A wretched squelch announced the rupturing of Suchart's skin, tangled streams of red rushing from rends on his limbs, from under his clothes, from his ears, from his eyes. Fluttershy gasped, dropping the machine as the threads sought each other out, gathering tightly above the still writhing form of the tiger. An outline was formed, and then a hand--a twisted hand like none she'd seen, gripping her friend's arm with two fingers and two sharp blades as the rest of the blood steadily condensed into a glittering, diamond-like body. Two powerful legs and a sweeping tail poured out a set of hips that looked almost akin to an axeblade; as she backed away, Fluttershy witnessed the formation of a head that was half teeth and scattered with nine, orb-like eyes.
The creature looked down at the torn, still form of Suchart. Slowly, it turned, its alien gaze fixating on the trembling pegasus. The fanged mouth opened, a single, gentle hiss emerging with sibilant cadence.
"...mmmmmiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnne...."