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// Chapter 5 (Rewritten) 
// Story: First Equestrian Armored:  Elements of Harmony 
// by computerneek 
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…  Though Tactical is right, theirs do feel different…  Temporary, almost.  It’s a weird tickling feeling on that…  Oh, I don’t know what sense that is.  Tactical is calling it the ‘subspace scanners, type C’.

The feeling I’m getting from myself- on that same sense- is much more…  solid.  Strong, but much more solid, like I’m touching myself rather than sticking my hoof in a lake of earthworms.

…  that was a weird analogy.  I’m not sure where it came from.

I…  Okay.  I understand I’ll stop feeling their new bodies when they wake up; for now, I’m only feeling them because it’s only through me that they can do anything right now, including respond to threats.  Or…

Or replenish their ‘fuel tanks’.  They’re all starving- and Applejack is absolutely famished.  Tactical is telling me that, if I run her straight for the river, she has a good chance of running out of fuel before she gets here…  but continuing to operate until well after I can reignite her power plant, thanks to battery backups and solar activity, in theory.

I listen through their ears for a second, and start moving myself back towards the farm…  Yes, the way should be clear, and the door is still open.  I…  I ask Tactical when they’ll wake up.

Tactical promptly refers the question to DCC…  which promptly queries THEIR DCCs…  Which are responding with lots and lots of numbers and other information I understand to be the Bolo equivalent of medical information.  DCC then answers Tactical, which passes the answer straight back to me.

I can expect them to remain unconscious for a good three more weeks at the least.

So I feel into their bodies.  Interesting how I can do that at the same time as I move my own, and keep them separate.  I start them on a little parade out to the river.  It’s a good thing nopony is out to see them; none of them have the fuel- nor power- to run their Optical Transparency Matrices really at all.

Especially if they’re going to make it as far as the river.

They do.  Applejack did run out of fuel, as expected, but made it to the river and was able to reignite the power plant.  I keep them in the river long enough to top off all their tanks, then ask Tactical how long they’ll last outside the river…  With only one power plant operating at a bare-minimum idle, rather than powering such things as my decision matrix- apparently, my mind takes a lot of power- and motive power, they’ll all be able to last a minimum of three weeks.  I nod- again, the Bolo equivalent of the action seems not to involve any physical motion- and have them move back into the position they were in before.  To my luck, not one of them is spotted in the action.

I then splash my way back into the river.  I slow down quickly when my front produces a splash going in; I don’t want to splash, that’ll attract attention!  I successfully slide the rest of me in without splashing.

I…  Wait.  Why am I so much bigger than I was before?  I fill myself up and set a course upriver, towards the Ponyville Lake.  I…

Tactical is answering my question.  It seems that I felt- on that ‘Subspace Scanner, Type C’ sense- the same as all the others did…  Until I decided I wanted to maintain communication with my ‘design cores’, where that feeling almost instantly fell to what it is now…  What’s more, I remember the different feeling, even though I wasn’t feeling it at the time.  Tactical is also pointing out that my rate of growth seems to have magnified itself when that happened.

Rate of growth?  …  Oh, I didn’t realize I was growing…  Slowly.  Right now, I’m about twice as big as I was when I…  woke up.  I ask Tactical how big I will become.

Tactical immediately passes the question to DCC…  which answers, then Tactical appends something to its answer before feeding it back to me.

DCC’s answer is a set of dimensions…  that are absolutely enormous.  I won’t fit in that shed when I reach full size.  Tactical’s addendum is a note that it is unknown whether I will stop growing at DCC’s dimensions- my ‘design dimensions’, apparently- and that, at my current rate, I will reach full size in about a week and a half, rather than everypony else’ three and a half.

I blink- again, no physical motion involved- and ask my Design Cores for an acceptable-looking auxiliary- to basically be me, but a pony.  They consider for a moment and, somewhere early on, inform me that they do not believe I know enough at the moment to assemble an acceptable avatar.

I…  I divert myself from the river, and make a path around town to Twilight’s castle.  They’ve suggested some things that might be helpful- and I’m certain I can find something in Twilight’s library.  Then of course, even if I can’t, I’m sure Spike can.

How I’d ask him…  I don’t know.


As it turns out, I’m glad Twilight’s castle doors open inwards- and that she never locks them.  They swing open with barely a bump, and I move myself inside.  I can sense Spike reading a book in the library to my right; he seems worried.

I freeze, backing up slightly to perform a “double-take”; it’s slightly different, though, because in this position, I can see him and what he’s reading in the reflections on the crystal.

There are piles of books on either side of him.  The ones on the left side look like a stack prepared for study; the ones on the right look like a discard stack, for studied books.  Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Spike do this- usually, it’s Twilight.

Many of the books in the discard stack look like books on magic.  My design cores don’t think magic study would help, though, so that’s not very useful.

Many of the books on the inbound stack look like books on mechanics…  Physics.  Hmm, that’s the category my design cores are looking for.

The book he’s reading seems to be one of them.  It takes me but a microsecond to read through the page he’s looking at; my design cores don’t consider it very useful, though, since it’s talking about how strong various materials are- and apparently, I already have an extensive database on that topic.

So, I read the scroll Spike has been scribbling his notes on.  This takes another microsecond.

Spike takes good notes.  He must have been studying under Twilight.  He’s got quick but thorough descriptions of the parts he couldn’t understand…  and it so happens I am able to pull from my knowledge to fill in the holes, the parts he could understand without issue.  He’s even got diagrams!

My design cores inform me that this is enough to work from, for at least a basic avatar.  It won’t be flight capable, nor very fast, but I’ll at least be able to look like a pony.  And tend to my animal friends myself, rather than relying on other ponies.

I turn and leave, heading for the lake.





A week and a half has passed.  I am absolutely enormous now, and no longer parked in the lake; I outgrew that a few days ago and, invisible, floated myself into the Everfree Forest.  Tactical informed me that nothing the Everfree can throw at me can touch me, so it’s not dangerous.  I simply landed in the woods, and switched off my Optical Transparency Matrix.

Here I still stand.  I’ve spent much of my time idly listening to the world around me; as it turns out, I don’t get tired anymore…  but can get very, very bored.

I watch myself reach full size, counting off the last few centimeters.  I watch myself…  stop growing at exactly the dimensions DCC suggested.

DCC also watches this, and immediately dumps Fusion Nine through Eleven into self-test…  which they pass.  Four through Eight then enter ignition.

Once they ignite, Nine and Ten start the same process.  I find myself wondering why DCC wants all my reactors running.

Once nine and ten are online, Fusion Eleven starts its ignition…  and I can feel the power drain as it starts up…  until it ignites, where it starts feeding me power as well.

…  Wait, what’s that it’s doing…?  Fusion Eleven seems to be making…  Oh!  Those tiny, almost insect-like things are ‘nanites’, a part of DCC…  which is working to restore my repair and manufacturing capability…  Which will allow me to actually build that auxiliary I designed.

I watch, and I wait.  Manufacturing- a part of my mind I discovered while I was in the lake, the part that actually builds stuff- already knows what I want.  It’s just waiting for DCC to restore my manufacturing capability before it starts building my new auxiliary.