//------------------------------// // Chapter 11 // Story: Millennium Wake: Part 1 // by Chaotic Dreams //------------------------------// Chapter 11 Sporting a necklace of rainbow light that would unfold into a weapons harness whenever she needed it to, Rarity and her group stepped out of Rainbow Industries and into the dark and stormy morning. The city’s maelstrom winds began to buffet them as the towering cloud-buildings cracked their deafening whips. Rarity’s mane was blown every which way by the ever-present tempest in Cloudsdale, each bellow of the storm vibrating her flesh and bones. Daybreak’s mane, constructed of metal, didn’t twitch in the slightest. Nor did the rest of her. The white unicorn found herself wondering if the middle of a bank of thunderheads was really the safest place for a robot, but realized that Daybreak must have had some kind of lightning-deterring enchantment on her. Otherwise, she would’ve been struck by now. The group stood in silence for a moment. Well, silent save for the natural roar of the city and Surprise’s bouncing up and down in excitement on the cloudy walkway. Each bounce brought a small peal of thunder and crackles of electricity. Firefly was shooting nervous glances over her back at the factory, but she too said nothing. The tugs in Rarity’s horn were even stronger now, seeming to point to a particular skyscraper, but there was something she wanted to do before going there. “So… I guess this is goodbye?” Rarity inquired, turning to Daybreak. The metal pony was silent for a moment. “I suppose it is.” Rarity turned back to face the city, filling her lungs with the ozone-rich air in preparation to say the words she was struggling to find. She’d mended problems between her fellow best friends back in her own time, certainly, but that was far different than trying not to end on a bad note with a pony who wasn’t even real, much less alive... and the only friend Rarity had in this time who wasn’t completely bonkers. Storm clouds flashed and roared in what was, despite all the sounds of the city, a rather uncomfortable silence. “Then I wish you the best of luck in your newfound freedom,” Rarity promised. “And before you go… I just wanted you to know that it doesn’t matter to me why you were created, even if it was only to be a friend to the real Twilight’s daughter. To me, you’re your own pony. I don’t see you as just a tool of living ponies or your ‘Mother,’ no matter how anypony else sees you. To me, you really are a friend.” “That’s beautiful,” Surprise whispered right into the white unicorn’s ear. “Surprise!” Rarity gasped, jumping a little before shooting a glare at the insane pegasus. “Wait… where’s Daybreak?” “She disappeared when you were trying to make amends for hurting her oversensitive feelings,” the frizzy-maned pony chortled. She what? So, some of those lightning flashes hadn’t been lightning flashes. Rarity turned to see that, indeed, the android pony had simply left without another word. The white unicorn tried not to be hurt at Daybreak’s sudden departure. Her only sane friend in this new time, leaving her the first chance she got... Well, Rarity couldn’t entirely place the blame on Daybreak; Rarity had known she’d brought up a touchy subject the moment her thought had telepathically slipped into Daybreak’s mind. It had been an accident, to be sure. But, if Daybreak really had only been created to be a friend to the real Twilight’s daughter, then a reminder that even the ponies who created her saw her only as a tool couldn’t weigh too lightly on her psyche. Now, the android would never know that Rarity didn’t think of her the same way, that she really did consider her a friend. But wait, was their friendship even mutual? By the way Daybreak had acted, it seemed that the robot saw Rarity as a mere tool as well. Daybreak had helped Rarity escape Sparkle Technologies, but she had needed Rarity to escape her thousand-years of imprisonment there. She claimed she would’ve helped Rarity even if doing so wouldn’t have given her freedom, but... was that true? Surprise did seem to have a point. Disappearing as soon as they reached the next metropolis based on a single slipped thought did seem to be oversensitive, regardless of circumstance. Suddenly not sure what to think of the robot she still hoped was her friend, Rarity turned her attention to her newest companion. “Firefly? Are you alright?” The odd-looking pegasus had been gawking at Rainbow Industries like it was an escaped torture facility, but her head whipped around at her name. “Of course!” Firefly almost shouted, laughing a hollow, forced laugh. “We should get cracking on finding that Disk of yours… away from the factory…” She gulped, her eyes returning to the fortress of light. “Certainly,” Rarity agreed, raising an eyebrow. She pointed a hoof towards one of the cloudy skyscrapers sporting a rainbow tech billboard reading ‘Highlton Hotel and Suites.’ “My locator spell seems to be getting stronger, and there’s a tug every time I look at that building. Do you think you could get me down there?” “That should be far enough,” Firefly muttered to herself, before looking at her companion with a smile. “Sure thing!” Where once a rather odd pony had been standing, there was now the beginning of a trail of polychromatic light that dashed around Rarity’s hooves, cutting into the cloud around them. In the blink of an eye, a section of the dark, spongy material had been severed from the rest of the cloudbank. The rainbow blur solidified, revealing Firefly at the edge of the newly-formed miniature cloud. She gripped it with her mechanized front hooves and began to push it across the chasm of sky to the other building. Rarity, anxiously gripping the small cloud, silently thanked the pegasus for not zooming them across at what seemed to be her regular speed. The white unicorn would have surely been thrown off the cloud, or at the very least would suffer severe motion sickness. Surprise floated along beside them, doing loop-de-loops around Rarity’s little island of cloud. Whenever the white pegasus wasn’t arcing overhead in her continual vertical circling, Rarity could marvel at the crackling, booming bulk of a city Cloudsdale had become. The Highlton Hotel loomed before them at last as Firefly pushed Rarity’s section of cloud into the walkways that made up the outside of the skyscraper. Before Rarity even had the chance to begin trotting to the door, though, a pegasus in a bellhop uniform darted out the building and skidded to a stop uncomfortably close to her. “Greetings, ma’am!” the bellhop announced cheekily. “Welcome to The Highlton Hotel, Cloudsdale’s premier five-star lodging facility! Are there any bags I can—” “Out of the way, bucker!” Firefly’s voice shouted furiously over the bellhop’s cheerful chatter. A split second later, the owner of said voice rammed into the pegasus and knocked him across the walkway. “I don’t have much time, and you’re not about to waste it!” “Firefly, what are you doing?!” Rarity gasped, about to rush over to the fallen bellhop who was now struggling to pull his head out of the cloud flooring. But before she could so much as move, Firefly zipped in front of Rarity with a pleading look. “Please, you have to listen to me!” she blurted. “I’ll help you get these Disks, I’ll help you do just about anything, but you have to help me! Take me with you! Convince President Rainbow to let me accompany you on your travels after Cloudsdale! I can’t go back there! I just can’t!” “Whatever are you talking about?” Rarity inquired uneasily, raising a quizzical eyebrow. “What’s wrong with Rainbow Industries?” “It’s not Rainbow Industries that’s wrong, it’s President Rainbow!” Firefly cried out. “But out of all the imprints I’ve met, she seems closest to her original,” Rarity reasoned. “What could possibly be wrong with her? If she had deviated from the real Rainbow somehow, I think I would have noticed it when I met with her.” “That’s just it!” Firefly went on, desperate frustration straining her voice. “She’s JUST like the real Rainbow! In fact, she’s more Rainbow than the real Rainbow was Rainbow! And she’s turning me into another Rainbow too!” “She’s what?” the white unicorn asked, trying to understand. She wasn’t succeeding. “You have to make her let me go, or I’ll lose myself to her completely!” Firefly demanded. “I’ll be her again any moment now; increasing the distance between us always shakes up the control a little, but not for long. She never had an heir, so she’s been ponynapping ponies for centuries and... CHANGING them! Please, so I don’t become just another clone of her! Please!!” By now Firefly had leapt up and was pressing her hooves against Rarity’s shoulders, hope and a primal fear warring in her eyes. Before Rarity could back up and let Firefly fall to the cloudy ground, or simply push her away with a cry of “Ruffian!” fueled by her own growing fear of this new pony, Firefly fell of her own accord and began coughing spasmodically. “Help… He… H…” Firefly gasped between her wracking coughs. But before Rarity could try to help the fallen pegasus, a shiver ran through Firefly’s body that jerked it in ways that shouldn’t be physically possible for a pony. In that one swift motion, the formerly odd and now downright freaky new pegasus stood up, brushed herself off, and turned to stare excitedly at Rarity. “Hiya, Rarity! Sorry about that; sometimes being the most awesome pony in The ULE since the real Rainbow Dash takes a lot out of me, and I break down a bit. But don’t worry! The doctors say it’s only temporary, and soon I should be awesome all the time! Please ignore any un-awesome things I may have said when I wasn’t myself.” Rarity simply stared at Firefly, her face contorted in absolute horror. ‘Don’t jump to conclusions, Rarity...’ the white unicorn said to herself, her thoughts racing. ‘She may just be as insane as Surprise is, only in a different way. Multiple personality disorder, perhaps. This doesn’t mean that something is wrong with Rainbow’s imprint too… Right? Oh, who am I kidding?! What happened to Rainbow’s imprint?! What did she do to this pony?!’ “Is something wrong?” Firefly inquired, tilting her head. “Oh, my un-awesome side must have scared you. Unfortunately, I’m told I did that to a lot of ponies before the radical President Rainbow took me into the company and brought out the real awesome me.” “What has she done to you?!” Rarity demanded. “How long has this been going on?! Who were you before all this happened?!” “Huh?” was all the response Firefly could muster. “She was Firefly,” Surprise piped up, demonstrating her strange ability to analyze ponies as if they were no more than open books. “Her height was and still is approximately seven point one hands. She was and still is nineteen years old. Her coat was pink, her mane and tail were blue, and her cutie mark was two blue lightning bolts. However, her coat was dyed blue and her mane and tail were electrified with rainbow technology when Rainbow’s imprint ponynapped her from her family. Her IQ was Highly Above Average until Rainbow Dash’s imprint began supplanting her original persona, gradually lowering her intelligence to Average and altering her mindset to be a copy of that of the original Rainbow Dash’s. Where she was once kind yet introverted and very bookish, her brainwaves are slowly being forced to change into wavelengths more accommodating of thoughts focused on speed, being ‘cool’, and becoming a Wonderbolt. Her original mind isn’t gone yet, but it’s slowly dying as the copy-mind takes over.” Rarity nearly fainted, blots of darkness swimming through her vision as she struggled not to fall into a ladylike swoon. Surprise had been right about the white unicorn in her initial uncanny assessment; Rarity really was prone to displays of regality even when she didn’t want to or need to. And if Surprise had been right about that, then the white unicorn had no doubt that the white pegasus was right about Firefly. “Firefly…” Rarity muttered, trailing off as she searched for the words and fought not to wretch at the mere idea of what Rainbow’s imprint was doing to this poor, innocent pony. And then there was the part about Firefly being only the latest of centuries of others subjected to the same thing… How was Rainbow’s imprint even doing that, and why hadn’t any other ponies stepped up to oppose this madness?! It took all she had not to demand that Firefly take her back to Rainbow Industries then and there so that Rarity could fire this weapons harness into Rainbow’s floating face. However, she knew the fat lot of good that would do. Rainbow technology was almost certainly completely useless against a being who was already made of light. The blue flame of cold fury bottled up inside her, though, was itching to be let out in some form or fashion with every new atrocity that fueled it. This crime was nowhere near the scale of evil planned by Twilight’s imprint, but even she had only planned to mess with ponies’ bodies, not their minds. This was the plight of a single pony, but it was still inexcusable. One way or another, Rarity made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t let Firefly’s real self die while Rainbow’s imprint stuffed her brain full of the brainwaves of a pony long dead and gone. There was no more room for a warped imprint in this new time, be they encased in that metal monstrosity Twilight’s shade had been building or a real pony’s living flesh. Rainbow’s imprint had already proved it didn’t deserve to exist once, no less twice. “…Stick with me,” Rarity finished lamely. “Even when we leave Cloudsdale. I’ll need you on my journey.” Firefly -- the real Firefly -- suddenly crashed through the oppressive mindset that was trying to control her. “THANK YOU!” she blurted, tears of joy appearing in her eyes. Just as quickly as Firefly had shoved aside the darker entity she shared a body with, the monster knocked her back in and reasserted itself with a shiver. “I mean, I’ll have to see if it’s okay with President Rainbow. But thanks for the invitation, great-auntie Rarity!” “My pleasure.” Rarity was trying very hard not to hiss her words through her teeth, choking back quivers of disgusted rage at what that polychromatic abomination was doing to this pony. “Now, let’s go get that Disk.” “Sure thing!” Firefly saluted. “And thank you, Surprise,” Rarity said graciously to the white pegasus. “Pinkie’s imprint said your skills would be useful, and she was right.” “What skills?” the bouncing pony inquired, cocking her head with a curious pout. “Never mind,” Rarity laughed humorlessly as she trotted over and helped pull the still-struggling bellhop out of the clouds. Before the pegasus stallion could say anything, though, Rarity announced “No, we don’t have any bags for you to carry, thank you. However, you could help us find somepony we believe to be staying here. Let’s see… My horn seems to be indicating… I mean, I think we need to go to the penthouse.” The bellhop gave her a quizzical look before reassuming his cheery demeanor. “Certainly, ma’am!” He smiled. “Please follow me. I’ll just stop by the front desk to buzz Miss Free Spirit that you’re coming up and then—” “Let’s let it be a surprise,” Rarity interjected. “If you say so, ma’am!” the bellhop agreed. “Are you friends of hers?” “I suppose you could say that,” the white unicorn told him. And he could say that. He’d just be wrong. “A SURPRISE?!” Surprise shouted. “I LOVE SURPRISES! I’M SO SELF-CENTERED!” The bellhop raised an eyebrow at the sugary white pegasus, before shrugging and leading them all into The Highlton Hotel’s lobby. It was a far cry from the light show of Rainbow Industries’ lobby, but Rarity supposed it was posh in the style Cloudsdale had adopted. Dark thundercloud chairs littered the space in cozy clusters, each facing giant rainbow technology panels with moving pictures like the billboards outside. The group stepped into one of the elevators waiting at the far end of the lobby. Rarity still felt a little disconcerted at the sensation of the floor rising up under her hooves. The ride was longer than the near-instantaneous transport at Rainbow Industries had been, but the white unicorn supposed that that was due to the company’s elevator being made of light rather than the hotel’s clouds. Where the first elevator Rarity had ridden shot along on beams of light, this spongy little room could have been lifted by a cable made of lightning for all she knew. “Here we are!” the bellhop announced as the elevator abruptly halted. Rarity felt like she should’ve kept rising on the inertia of their ascension, but she too stopped with the rest of the small room. The doors opened out onto a short hallway leading to a set of very large, very grand doors made of storm clouds interlaced with rainbow technology. The ceiling overhead was nonexistent, and why would it be anything else? There was no need for cover in a building that was among clouds higher than every other cloud over The ULE. The hallway opened up to the bright blue of morning, and Rarity had no doubt that the views of night here so close to the sky were spectacular. Well, at least they would be if there weren’t so few stars. “If you need anything, just ask Miss Free Spirit to buzz down to the front desk. Have a nice day!” Rarity thanked him as the group stepped out into the hall and the elevator doors closed behind them. She took a deep breath, unsure of what she would find on the other side of those doors. Like Rainbow’s imprint had said, the odds of the pegasus in possession of the Disk being a Seeker were extraordinarily low. Still, the fact that she had a Disk at all was suspicious if she couldn’t play it. Rarity simultaneously hoped she would get to vent a little of her internal raging blue flame and feared the horror she would be facing if such action became necessary. “Well, better now than never,” Rarity announced. “Ready, ladies?” Firefly nodded while Surprise simply drooled, and the white unicorn stepped forth and knocked on the door. There was no response. Rarity was about to ask again when Firefly flew in front of her and pressed a large rainbow-tech button next to the door. A buzzing sound erupted throughout the hallway. “Hiya, Miss Free Spirit!” Firefly called to nopony Rarity could see. She supposed this was what was meant by ‘buzzing’ somepony, though the white unicorn couldn’t see how the sound was transferred. “We’re, uh, complimentary room service!” “It’s about time! I’ve been waiting for that famous Cloudsdale hospitality all day!” a new voice cheered from nowhere. There was a click, and the doors opened all on their own. Firefly immediately dashed inside the plush penthouse, rushing straight towards a green pegasus mare. “I’ll hold her down, great-auntie!” the double-minded pony shouted. “You look for your Disk!” “Wait!” Rarity called back in alarm. “I’m sure if we just talk to her—” Rarity’s words died in her throat as Firefly barreled straight into—and then through—the illusion that Free Spirit really was. The light composing the false pony sparked and dissipated as Firefly crashed into the wall on the other side, the illusion seeming to be somehow different than any holograms or rainbow-tech images Rarity had so far seen. “The plot thickens!” Surprise chortled. “What the—” Rarity gasped, halting herself just before letting an unladylike swear escape her lips. Why couldn’t anything in this new time make sense? Why was Free Spirit an illusion?! She could reason that the false pony was a spell projected by a unicorn, but there was no other unicorn in sight. And why would a unicorn cast an illusion of a pegasus in the first place? It wasn’t like seeing a horned pony in this updated Cloudsdale was uncommon. Rarity’s question was answered when she heard a pained groan escape from the direction of Firefly, though the noise did not come from Firefly’s lips. “Get off me, you freakin’ four-legs!” the voice shouted angrily as Firefly was roughly shoved to the ground by an unseen force. A strange imprint in the cloud-wall Firefly seemed to have just flown into suddenly pressed itself out, the air in front of it shimmering and sparking. The sparks began to intensify, flashes of light flickering into sight before vanishing again. Finally… whatever it was… gave up the ghost. “You shorted out my camouflage unit!” Whatever Rarity had been prepared for, it was not this. The creature standing before her rose about a full pony’s height higher than any equine besides the Royal Sisters, and IT WAS STANDING ON TWO LEGS! How did that even work?! The thing didn’t even look like it had the capacity to stand on four limbs if it had wanted to, as Discord or Iron Will the minotaur had looked to be able to. What’s more, whereas those odd creatures had had at least a little equine nature about them (or bovine, which was close enough), this thing lacked any equine features at all. There was no hair except on its head, which was long, straight, golden, and tied up with a bow. The rest of the thing sported only smooth whitish, pinkish skin poking out of clothes specially tailored to fit its peculiar form. Those clothes somehow reminded Rarity of Applejack, with their rustic, outdoorsy quality. The thing wore a rust-colored button-down under a leather vest, though unlike any clothing the white unicorn had ever seen, the creature also wore fabric over its hind legs that covered each leg individually in navy blue fabric. It’s voice sounded feminine, though there were no familiar distinguishing characteristics to make certain it was indeed female. As Rarity continued to gawk at the oddity that was bordering on otherworldly monstrosity, it reached behind it to grab a long cylindrical piece of metal strapped to its back. In one quick motion, the creature undid the strap and swung the metal stick around to point it at the ponies. The end of the stick glowed threateningly, humming with energy even though Rarity couldn’t sense any magic. “What are you?!” Rarity gasped. “I should be asking you the same question,” the creature laughed darkly. “No, wait, I KNOW what you are! You’re intruders! I also know what you’re about to be—dead, if you don’t high-tail it out of here!” Rarity backed up nervously, then remembered herself and her horn ignited. In a flash, her magic activated the rainbow-necklace and the weapons harness unfurled around her, charging with its deadly energies. The freaky creature narrowed its eyes, its apparent weapon humming all the louder and glowing all the brighter. “So it’s gonna be like that, huh?” it said. It was so strange to hear such fluent Equestrian coming from that alien mouth. “We’re gonna have a good ol’ fashioned Old West standoff? All we need now are some tumbleweeds and that overplayed death-whistle-tune.” Then again, even if it did speak perfect Equestrian, Rarity still had no idea what it was talking about. “What is that thing?” the white unicorn asked Surprise, not taking her eyes off the alien being. “It’s a two-leg,” Surprise answered. “And it’s fair game!” Firefly suddenly announced, leaping up and assuming a battle stance besides Rarity as a weapons harness of her own unfurled around her from the odd contraption she was already wearing. “No two-legs are allowed outside of the walled compounds! The government will be all over your flank when we report this!” “Not if there’s no little pony left to report me,” the two-leg snickered. “That’s a two-leg?!” Rarity inquired incredulously. “I had thought they were something like minotaurs or diamond dogs! Where in The ULE did they come from?!” “They didn’t come from The ULE,” Firefly noted. Rarity’s brow furrowed in confusion. Didn’t The ULE encompass the entire world? “They came from… somewhere else. Nopony really knows. What we do know is that they’re not supposed to be outside their designated compounds!” “That’s right, keep the weird aliens locked up in their little cells while your government spends over fifty years debating whether or not to open trade with us,” the two-leg chuckled darkly, revealing a mouth of unequinely sharp teeth. “Never mind that what we have to offer could solve all your world’s problems. It’s alien and it’s strange, so that makes it bad.” “Don’t spread your lies!” Firefly shouted. “Don’t listen to her, great-auntie! Two-legs can’t be trusted!” The two-leg said nothing for a moment, continuing to eye the ponies, its weapon humming and crackling with that energy that wasn’t magic. Finally the grim sneer on the two-leg’s lips began to slide into a barely-controlled smile. Then it began to quiver. Then the creature did the thing Rarity had been least expecting. The two-leg lowered its weapon and burst out laughing. “Alright, alright, I can’t take it anymore!” the creature guffawed. The two-leg swung its weapon back behind it and stuck out a… hand? Isn’t that what the non-clawed appendages with tinier appendages on them were called? “Put ‘er there. I’m Megan, pleased to meet ya’!” Rarity flinched back at the offered hand, looking up at… Megan with confusion. “You mean you aren’t mad we broke into your room?” Rarity inquired suspiciously. “Not at all!” Megan laughed. “Facing down a human takes guts. Humans are what we ‘two-legs’ call ourselves, mind you. And I like guts in my fellow sentient beings.” “No offense,” Rarity spoke. “And I mean, you are rather frightening to look at, but that’s only because I’ve never seen anything like you. But I’m a little… behind the times. What is a human exactly, and why do they take guts to face? Also, how are you walking on clouds in the first place? I can’t sense any magic on you.” “Two-legs don’t take guts to face,” Firefly spat. “Actually, according to my calculations, it would be reasonable to be wary of them… not you again! Get out of my head…! Your head!? This is my head! You’re the imposter here…! I said GET OUT!” Firefly collapsed in a coughing fit again. Rarity rushed to her side, but after another violent shiver, the conflicted pegasus shook off the white unicorn’s hoof and rose back to her feet with a confident smile. “Sorry about that,” Firefly apologized. “I have relapses from my awesomeness training every once and a while. But two-legs don’t take guts to face! I could take you with both hooves tied behind my back!” “Oh really?” Megan chuckled wryly, raising an eyebrow. “Bring it, crazy.” “Are you challenging me?!” Firefly sneered. “You’re not even allowed out of your compound, and for good reason! First, I’m going to kick your flank, and then I’m going to send you crying home to where you belong!” “Come at me bro!” Megan laughed, spreading her forelegs wide. Firefly looked like she was about to snap. Then she did snap. Flying towards Megan in a multicolored rage, the split pegasus bellowed a war cry as her weapons harness reformed into twin blades of light on either foreleg. Megan snapped the smaller digits sticking out of her hands, and Firefly froze instantly. She didn’t so much stop as have every iota of her being have its inertia sucked away. “Now you listen here, my little pony,” Megan announced very softly, her voice dripping with menace in a mood change every bit as swift as Firefly’s. The human walked up and put her face centimeters away from the pegasus’ nose, staring into her unmoving eyes. “The only reason your government has asked us, not forced us, to stay in the walled compounds is because they’re still debating whether or not they want to open trade with humanity. And we give them that choice. We give it to them because we’re good beings, and we believe all sentient species are equal and deserve to choose for themselves whether or not they wish to interact with other sentient species. “We’re not the silly rumors your public has developed out of fear of the unknown,” Megan continued. “For the most part. We’re not full of lies, we’re not completely untrustworthy, and we don’t secretly intend to destroy your world. But we could destroy your world, just like we could force you to interact with us in a benevolent relationship. It would be a lot easier and faster than sitting by and listening to you bicker and slowly destroy your world yourselves, especially when we have the means to help save it, and you all are too scared to give us a chance. So either treat me with the respect my race struggles to treat yours with, or I’ll show you just WHY it takes guts to face down a human.” . . .