“It’s nice that you’d protect Opal on my behalf Gilda, but you’d have to get in line if someone hurts my baby. The only reason I wouldn’t be dealing with the problem that even thought of touching Opal is if I’m not around anymore. I guess that would make you and Greta her godmothers if you’re looking for more work, though I guess anyone can volunteer for the position… except for Chrysalis.” Coughing into the hoof that wasn’t encased in a cast, Rarity continued on with the meeting ignoring Chrysalis’s confused and slightly hurt puppy look. “Speaking of work and if we may continue the meeting… Greta dear, how soon can you make some new power armor for Mare-Do-Well? Also what is the status on making personal shields for the crew?”
Gilda didn’t say anything, she just crossed her arms on the table and stared at Rarity with a predatory look. Her tail was waggling happily though, so she approved of taking care of Opal if something happened at least.
“The personal shields are going to take me a while to get around to working on, but yes I would like the job of looking out for Opal. Mostly because she’s so adorable!” It seemed Greta was all for watching out for Opal if anything happened to Rarity. “As for the Mare-Do-Well armor system, well I still need to go over the data we got from it while it was still operational. I’m quite sure we can build a better Ar-Mare-Do-Well version two.”
“Does anyone else have anything else to address while we’re all still here? Any concerns about me or anyone else in the crew? Something like that would be a good thing to bring up right now.” That opened the floor up so it wasn’t just Rarity running the meeting, she wanted to at least let her friends talk about what they wanted to.
“So you say Opal came from your magic, a spark of energy and it basically swallowed an AI. Where did the spark of energy that made Opal what she is come from?” It was a concern that Saffron had that they were harboring some kind of dangerous energy leeching lifeform… and she wasn’t thinking about Chrysalis at all when she thought that. Nope, she wasn’t thinking about how Chrysalis was feeding off of that little filly that for some reason. Okay, yes, that bothered her a lot now that she was focusing on it. Opal didn’t seem bad in comparison as she didn’t seem to be trying to hurt anyone.
“I haven’t the foggiest idea where Opal’s original spark of life came from, but I’m acknowledging her as part of my family anyway. Sure she may be an energy based being, but she’s still my daughter.” Turning her gaze from the peacefully sleeping cat, Rarity turned to Gilda sharply. A thought had just occurred to her and it was a poignant one at that, there was a grave injustice happening now that Rarity thought of it. Her ridiculous amounts of generosity would not let this particular thing slide one bit. “Gilda I need you to do something for me and it is an immediate concern. In fact I’m giving it top priority, even if this meeting might be ongoing for a while. Come over here so I can tell you please.”
“What is it Boss Lady?” Gilda got up from her comfortable and lazy position and made her way over to Rarity. She approached the one that graciously gave her a hangar to work out of and leaned over to hear several whispered words. The griffon looked a bit shocked and mildly surprised at what was being requested of her. Gilda turned towards the kitchen and started to saunter off. “I’ve got nothing I really want to bring up right now, so I’ll get right on that. Since I’m going to be busy thanks to Rarity’s request, Greta will field any engineering questions everyone else might have if any.”
Gilda went into the kitchen and started gathering supplies for something, she was drawing a lot of stares and Rarity decided to distract them from that. It wasn’t of any importance to them and Rarity preferred if they didn’t question it. It seemed like Gilda liked the idea well enough to go along with it.
“Don’t mind her, I asked her to do something special for me and she has apparently agreed to it.” Drawing everyone’s attention back to her, Rarity took a breath and decided to address a few more things since it seemed like no one was going to speak soon. “I have to ask Trapeze, since you’re the leader of your troupe, are you ever going to move on from the Shining Jewel. I ask because eventually you might want to make your own way with your own ship, you can’t possibly want to travel around with a disaster zone like me for too long.”
“Nope, not happening! I’m sticking to all my friends like glue and I don’t think I’d find a better deal or transportation than your ship Boss Lady. I can run my troupe out of your ship easily enough, though I might take on a few more real true blue troupe members if that’s okay with you. Not that I mind Saffron or anyone else willing to join my troupe for a show or two on a temporary basis if they ask.” Trapeze tilted her hat to Rarity with a real and loving broad smile, she was affectionate with her words and her attitude. Friendship meant a lot to her, even finding out Bernard was not the bunny she thought he was didn’t matter. He had been a true friend to her, even if he had been keeping secrets from her. Though thinking on it, Bernard had been getting pretty strangely affectionate around her and rather protective ever since those pirates nearly hurt her. She didn’t think much of it because they were best friends forever, her sweet little Lagotorphin was a constant companion she could rely on. “If for whatever reason any troupe member I take on is bad business, then I’ll have to do more than apologize to you profusely. Anyone I hire specifically for the troupe’s business would be my responsibility and I’d need to be the one to keep them in line. If there is ever a point that I think I need to leave Shining Jewel to go my own way, I’ll notify you personally. There will be a possibility that I will sobbing my eyes out like a little filly while notifying you.”
“Rover is always in line and will help Trapeze pony with protecting interests.” Idly commented the Diamond Dog who was juggling seven balls, catching one in his mouth every so often to spit back into the pattern without getting any slobber on them. “New pack and life is making me happy, Rover would fight to protect it with claw and gun. Prefer teeth to stay in head. I am having painful history with losing puppy teeth.”
Bernard, even in his bandaged state, spoke up excitably while throwing affectionate looks Trapeze’s way. He also sent a salute Rarity’s way, he had no issues with Rarity and even approved of her as a comrade.
“Saffron, Mr. Cumin, do either of you have any complaints about working conditions?” At this point Rarity was trying to strike up a conversation with the people that were a part of her crew.
“None that I can think of good Lady Belle, you took us in when we no longer had a home and I have no complaints about you. Except that we might need more internal defenses, I’m actually enjoying being in space.” After saying his piece Coriander turned a stare to his daughter. “Though I fear my daughter might drive me into an early grave with all the danger she gets into. I don’t like seeing my daughter hurt, but I would never stop her from doing what she thinks is right.”
“It hasn’t been that bad father, the things I have fought have barely been twice as dangerous as anything I did back on Equus.” What Saffron wasn’t saying, was that nothing has been less dangerous than anything she’s ever faced on Equus. The Antilur thing was actually three times more dangerous than any evil shadow spirit that Equus ever produced and the last notable one of those in history was the Nightmare that infected Princess Luna. Being near Rarity was like an adrenaline rush waiting to happen and it helped that Rarity was an altruistic pony that liked to go completely out of her way to help people. “I have no complaints despite the fact that I’m still covered from head to hoof in bruises. I’m quite used to it and I have yet to permanently tarnish my appearance.”
Bernard idly commented with a series of squeaks about something that sounded suspiciously like, if anyone tried to tarnished Trapeze’s appearance at all then he’d violate them with rusty tweezers, a septic spoon and a salt shaker.
“Remind me to train you in professional methods of torture later little guy.” Despite not understanding what he said, Chrysalis could very well read his disposition towards Trapeze and what he’d do to anyone that hurt her in any way.
Bernard gained a feral grin and squeaked to Chrysalis while nodding vigorously. He had heard what the Changeling Queen had done with a live beaver before. It was also quite demented what Chrysalis could do with a skateboard, a pound of raw eggs and a doll’s house, Bernard wouldn’t mind learning a thing or two that he would never do in front of Trapeze. He knew Trapeze wouldn’t approve, not that she had to ever know if he ever did anything like that to someone who really deserved it and even had it coming.
“I’d rather not know what comes of that.” It was better that Trapeze not question Chrysalis about what she might teach Bernard, she likely didn’t have the stomach for what Chrysalis could do to someone with just a toothpick alone.
“I believe almost all of us can agree to that.” The shudder of revulsion that traveled through Coco’s body was quite noticeable, it wasn’t like she wasn’t the only one that didn’t want to know what Chrysalis could or would do to someone that crossed her. Not after she heard about the thing with the action figure, a gallon of petrol, a stick of bubblegum and three coins of Equestrian currency.
“I’ve already scheduled full sessions for everyone, starting with Rarity after this meeting.” Dully intoned Vera who was trying to keep her right eye from twitching, she was failing horribly. She was getting used to being called ‘the masseuse’. “So long as you let me vent on all of you as well, I’m getting quite stressed.”
“Thank you Vera, I wouldn’t mind you getting everything off your chest first even if I’ve been needing to get all my issues off mine personally. A nice massage would go a long way to help that too. Speaking of getting things off our chests, Coco could you please remove Mr. Spew from my person please?” Rarity didn’t know when Mr. Spew got on her, but he was clinging to her fur at her chest level and he seemed… sad in a way. He likely missed Ember and Rarity would be visiting medical frequently over the next few months, the creature might have disgusted her a bit but she could understand how it felt. Coco took a minute or two to coax the deadly sewer squid off of Rarity, she willingly let the squid cling to her and Rarity considered taking a shower before meeting Vera after this. “Now that that is over with, anything else that needs to be brought to my or anyone else’s attention?”
“Aside from talking about your cousins impending wedding, there’s really not much else to say Rarity. Though I would like to know what Gilda is doing in the kitchen.” Tilting her head, Sassy looked into the kitchen to see Gilda working on something.
“Oh it’s just something special for all of us and more importantly Opal when she wakes up. Opal hasn’t had much to eat beyond a nice looking tomato bisque and hot grilled cheese sandwiches.” Rarity thought it was nice to have friends like Gilda, even if the griffon was a bit of a brute and not very ladylike. The griffon could do nice things even if she got grumpy about it and this was one of those things where Gilda wasn’t acting very grumpy at all. “I figured she might be able to indulge in something special now that she be will able to taste it.”
“Speaking of special, I know Opal can’t walk yet. As smart as she is, she really doesn’t know how to use her body, well aside from her mouth that is. I’m assuming my personal expertise will be called upon to help her get the idea of how to manipulate her limbs.” There was something that Vera needed to do like yesterday if Opal was going to be moving around on her own anytime soon and she didn’t have a problem teaching the cat to walk. “Though I think that should really be your job Rarity, you’re her mother and isn’t teaching your daughter how to walk on of the things you have to do?”
“I’ll just bring her to our session and make it a family thing.” If it sounded like a good idea, then Rarity was going to do it. “Are you alright with that Vera?”
“That’ll be fine and it might help Opal to have you be there for her. Might also help you to have her there too.” That was settled as far as Vera was concerned, she still had questions as to how Opal overcame her well known problem even if she knew Opal couldn’t answer them. She was happy to have two people who can remember her, but it also gave her hope that with time others might be able to overcome Vera’s strange affliction.
“With that I believe we’re about done here. I, Coco and Sassy can handle our clothing business and we’ll call Trap Bar to see if anyone needs EVA suits while we’re in the area.” They were the providers of the best and most comfortable EVA suits around and Rarity had to capitalize on that fact. They could always use more funds.
“Wait, I actually have something to ask Sassy that’s very important! Why won’t you give me the time of day?” It actually looked like Chrysalis was quite upset about this, only Sassy gave her a flat look. The flat look was because Sassy knew what Chrysalis was actually talking about and it wasn’t her verbally noted amorous intentions towards Sassy.
“Chrysalis, I hope you do realize that there are basically no time zones in space. If there were, space ships always tend to work on their primary home planet’s time based on the time zone you live in. It’s either that or you use the nearest planets time zone.” It seemed like Sassy was explaining that as if Chrysalis was a three year old grub.
“Oh… no wonder I can’t get the time of day from you! I always thought there were some kind of system wide time zone thing. So the time onboard this ship is set to Equestrian Standard?” Tilting her head and closing her eyes to think, after scrunching up her nose Chrysalis tried to figure out what her issue with that was. “Does that mean space ships clocks are constantly working on two different time zones at all times?”
“Well yes, the ES for most ponies is the time zone Canterlot resides in. Some people try to follow more than two time zones, it’s not exactly important really. Of course the less said about how Luna and Celestia can warp the time zones on Equus with their abilities over the movements of the sun and moon the better.” Nobody, especially not Rarity, wanted to tell the two princesses how to do their jobs. Luna kind of messed up the planets time when she was still Nightmare Moon and Celestia thankfully fixed that.
“So does that mean I’m almost perfect twice over? I didn’t think the universe could handle more of me.” Okay Chrysalis was acting to haughty for Rarity’s taste, she sent Sassy a look and the stylish kimono wearing mare slowly rolled her eyes. “Then again it take a lot to be this…”
Sassy levitated her sheathed sword from her back and with a quick rotation slammed it over Chrysalis’s head, that shut her up and made her blush while sending Sassy a dopey affectionate look.
“Can you please hit on me more, I enjoy it more than I normally would if it were anyone else.” Yep Chrysalis was a lost cause, now if anyone knew what the cause was that was lost to begin with.
“Does anyone feel bothered by the fact that Chrysalis doesn’t know that hitting on someone is supposed to be figurative in meaning?” As soon as Coco asked that every hoof and talon raised up in acknowledgement, the exception being Coco herself having asked that and Chrysalis who didn’t get why everyone else was raising a limb.
“So it is not supposed to be both figurative and literal?” Chrysalis had thought she figured out ponies a long time ago, even as long as she has lived she still didn’t understand everything about ponies even now. Well there were also two griffons, the mutt and Opal so maybe she should do some research as to what she was missing. “I don’t mind it being literal in my case if it bothers you that much.”
“We are talking about Chrysalis here. One of her rituals for courtship involves kidnapping, be it a friend or family, to get the attention of the one she’s attracted to.” For a lack of better words for it, Rarity just thought it was a mildly odd Changeling tradition. It was only slightly odd because Changelings never really focused on actually ever hurting anyone physically. Sure they were sometimes scary, sure they were strange and might look ridiculous with their large fangs for a species that doesn’t even eat meat, but for the most part Changelings as a species weren’t dangerous if you didn’t account for their sanity challenged queens. Every Changeling Queen in existence was sanity challenged in at least some way, the rest of the species are polite and for the most part friendly by comparison. Well when they weren’t cocooning you to feed of your love and Chrysalis solved that problem personally. “I won’t tell her to live like a Pony, as such I hope she doesn’t expect us to live like Changelings. We all have our own cultures here, like Rover having a large mound of dirt in his room that he sleeps in.”
“You’d make terrible Changelings anyway, you don’t fear me enough and I’d like to think I’m far more dangerous than Ember ever was… provided she wasn’t breathing fire directly at me.” There were a lot of reasons to fear Chrysalis, if she weren’t as affable as she acted most of the time then Rarity might have had more issues with her taking up space in the Shining Jewel. There many were things about Changelings that always had pony philosophers scratching their heads, such as why Changelings never wanted nicer or friendlier queens.
“Moving on, does anybody has anything negative to say about how I’m running things?” Nobody spoke up and Rarity kind of felt her heart warm up at the fact that they didn’t.
“You are doing fine, even if I could turn us into a military powerhouse and take over the universe.” Nobody took Chrysalis’s bait, because she might actually have plan to do just that and they didn’t want to know. “No takers? You guys are no fun! Fine, I didn’t want to take over the universe anyway.”
“We’re not doing anything related to universe spanning dictatorships Chrysalis and I’m just guessing that’s what you were thinking.” The innocent smile Rarity received didn’t make her feel any better. “Right then, this meeting is coming to a close and I need to have a session with Vera. So who wants to try and wake up Opal?”
Everyone stared at Opal and nobody moved. They really didn’t want to wake Opal up, she looked really comfortable as she was. Rarity didn’t want to interrupt her nap and Opal seemed to having any trouble with all the noise they had been making.
“I’m not about to do it, I’m never cruel to children. Even children not of my own species.” Chrysalis stated for clarity when she got some looks. “If I wouldn’t wake nymphs or grubs sleeping on top of me, then I’m not about to do it to your Pony hive mind daughter. Changeling Queens are very protective of their children and if you have any reaction similar mind to what anyone like me would do, then I’d rather not attempt it.”
“Are you all really being that lame? I’ll do it! You guys are being a bunch of wusses.” When Gilda came over to them she looked to have a few splotches of flour on her feathers, it was kind of hard to notice and Rarity was one of the few that could see it. She looked down at the sleeping Opal in her basket and slowly pushed a singly claw into the outer edge of Opal’s ear and slowly slid it up and down the inside of it.
Opal’s face twitched and she rolled over, Gilda apparently took offense to Opal ignoring her and dusted off a bit of flour over Opal’s nose causing her to sneeze loudly. That woke up Opal and she yawned, before smiling up at Gilda with bright cheer filled eyes.
“Hey Gilda, why are you covered in flour? Also can someone help me with these blankets, I still don’t know how to use my limbs correctly and I seem to be stuck.” Soon Opal would be freed by Rarity and then they would go through the fun process of teaching Opal how to walk and use her limbs.
Throughout all this Lightning had stayed particularly silent, she didn’t feel like speaking up and now was a good a time as any. She hadn’t been paying attention to anything discussed and was thinking of her old fighter, she wasn’t getting that P-wing fighter back and it was an old model anyway. Why did that news have to hurt so much?
“Is everything alright Lightning?” Rarity paused in getting Opal out of the blankets she entangled herself in.
“Actually I have an announcement to make, but first no… I’m not alright. When is my session with…?” She looked to the drone looked where it was pointed and nodded at Vera. “With her is what I want to say.”
“You’ll be next in the queue behind Rarity, Chrysalis is last.” Of the patients Vera has to work with, Chrysalis was the most taxing given that she enjoyed massages as much as she did pain and couldn’t stop making sensual sounding comments.
“Right, on to my announcement then. I figure that since I’m the only real pilot on the ship. I’m going to be teaching anyone who wants to learn how to fly a ship without Opal’s assistance, mostly because without Opal, Gilda, Greta or me we would be in dire straits with going anywhere. My lessons will mostly be for smaller ships, but I know a thing or two about navigation and communications which will be a part of the lessons I’m going to teach.” Lightning sighed and rubbed her forehead with a wing. “Also if anyone needs assistance with anything, well I don’t really have much to do around here without a fighter to pilot. I haven’t exactly been feeling very useful lately, I really don’t want to freeload off of you guys. I’ll go work up a schedule now. While I may not have a dream, at least being here is giving me something like a purpose and I have to give thanks for that.”
With that Lightning got up and quickly left the mess hall, there were several worried looks sent after her.
“Speaking of dreams… never mind, this meeting is over. I have a daughter to take care of and teaching her to walk will be taking up quite a bit of time. Thank you all for coming, now you can go about your business whatever it is you feel like doing. Come along Vera, we have much to discuss.” Rarity scooped up Opal in her magic and asked her precious little fluffy ball of energy in the shape of a vaguely humanoid cat a pointed question. “Since you still have a connection to the system, can you open up our sales menu?”
“Of course I can mom, just because I’m a slight degree separated from the systems, it doesn’t mean I still can’t work them.” With a smile and a thought she opened up their sales menu to this system, they needed the work to make money for more supplies. This whole thing with Applin Five was not only a setback financially, but a lot of people died because of the conspiracy being perpetrated by Tempest Technologies. It was a surprise that Rarity could keep pushing forward despite that, then again they were about to have a session with Vera. “Though I do have to program an avatar of myself because I don’t think I can appear on the screen anymore… well unless I can convert to pure energy and enter the computers again. This is only a slight problem, programming my appearance to show up in the sales menu shouldn’t take too long.”
“So should we work on quadrupedal motion or bipedal motion first? I’m asking because Opal can do either and getting her acquainted with the right muscles groups...” Pausing as a thought occurred to her, Vera saw realized something very odd about Opal’s body. “Opal if you made that body, then how do you not know how it works?”
“I may have made this body, but it was made while I was delirious with power and I don’t exactly have an owner’s manual for it. It’s also quite foreign to me to even be breathing air, so please just accept that I somehow have a body that I made under duress and don’t exactly know how to use it.” The sights, sounds, tastes, touch and smells were all quite new to Opal. She had no idea how she did this or even how her body worked when her brain was basically a mass of raw energy. “I believe the term for this is, how do I biology?”
-
“Why haven’t you ever brought up charges against those mares then?” Celestia asked Thorax in a disbelieving tone, they were sharing tea and the Drag Queen was using her as therapist. Not exactly the brightest idea when Celestia was a constant bundle of nerves with her horrible day to day life, at least Twilight makes it better.
Speaking of charges, Celestia should probably be brought up on some with what she did with Twilight. Only Twilight didn’t resist and actually consented to what was happening so there wasn’t a case if Twilight wasn’t making it one, even if Celestia had been on bananas at the time. She still felt guilty about actually enjoying every moment she spends with Twilight now. The outcome of Twilight becoming an alicorn was either to survive how roughly she was treated or out of need to not die of old age as a suitor, the first she didn’t like and the second made her blush that Twilight might have formed an eternal bond with her.
“It’s technically recognized as molestation, it’s really kind of hard to rape a Changeling when we can manipulate our genitalia out of existence.” Thorax had seen better days and was avoiding Cadence like she was the living embodiment of a Changeling destroying plague. “Also I really don’t want to kick up a fuss about this, I’m just going to stay in my asexual form and keep my doll based anatomy.”
“I really should have a talk with Cadence about her ideas on what real love is, you’re clearly scared to death of her.” Not that Celestia would ever tell Thorax that she thought it was funny at first, only now did it come off as truly horrific. She already got enough horrors from Luna’s lunacy, maybe it was Cadence taking out her frustrations on Mr. Thorax instead of Chrysalis. Thorax was the most innocent sounding Changeling she’s ever met and that was saying something.
“Enough about my problems, what are we going to do about the humans that invaded the Applon System and nearly wrecked the ecosystems of the two habitable planets in said system?” They couldn’t sit around on this, they had to take more action and the EDF already had a storm of information on the operations of Tempest Technologies. “I heard that some of them even managed to escape both planets those ecosystem wrecking scams were set up on.”
“We already have the EDF in full force in system. Even with the few humans and pirates that got away we will be taking the humans to task about all the information garnered from this. One thing is for certain, military grade equipment was legally sold to the Tempest Technologies Company. So they cannot deny government involvement, but they will try to scapegoat any other government to hide the truth that they were either all in on it or to keep us off the real culprit.” It was kind of paying off for Celestia to have dealt with Chrysalis’s shenanigans as long as she has. Speaking of shenanigans, she had an idea. “I really don’t want to go to war, that’s some messy business me and Luna really don’t want our 'mostly' peaceful world to get involved in. Which is why I’m going to send an ambassador. It will not be just any ambassador though, it will be a Changeling disguised as a Pony to infiltrate and discover the truth behind whoever was actively supporting Tempest Technologies. I’m going to be honest, I don’t like people picking on my little ponies or even the other races of our world. They hurt my people and even sold some of them into slavery, so as you can imagine I’m quite mad about this.”
“Do you want me to send Deep Throat out to investigate?” Thorax wanted to work with Celestia on this. Sure Thorax knew they haven’t lost a single Changeling to this plot, but it could be a prelude to a personal invasion of their world and their allies needed their help. He wasn’t a very strong leader like Chrysalis, but at least he could make an effort to help Celestia.
“No, I actually want you to put Hard Throb on it.” Celestia had thought this out. Hard Throb might be accident prone, but he was the stealthiest Changeling she had ever seen… next to Chrysalis that is. Even she still hadn’t figured out how he got a wheelchair onto the chandelier in the middle of the gala without being seen. At least someone should have seen him, it was known that he didn’t even use an invisibility to spell as they had magical detection for it at the gala.
“Oh yeah, that might actually be better… well once his spine recovers from that thing with the wood chipper.” Thorax readily agreed, Hard Throb was a really good agent even if he was almost always three hooves in the grave with the last one holding on for dear life.
Celestia was calm on the outside, but on the inside she was seething with anger and despite that anger she would not be violent without reason. That didn’t mean she couldn’t spread this information around to anyone who will listen, she would have to contact the Plurt and Parascine leaders as they were good allies to have do their own investigations. The Caccerans and Macropussians were also likely to be an option, the former were more neutral and the latter were a bit aggressive but diplomacy would still have an effect. She didn’t trust The Krad or Ceantirs to be worthwhile endeavors to contact. She was definitely keeping the Pendaxons away from her people, never trust a species that have a habit of eating other sentient beings behind people’s backs. As for Foggres, well she didn’t even know how to contact those lunatics, but if she could she would have Luna talk with them. The recent incident at Streusel Station put the Foggre species in a rather poor light.
Having finished her mental checklist of off world allies, enemies and between, Celestia decided to get into contact with Luna to have a lengthy discussion about the future and where to go from here.