//------------------------------//
// Upbringing 
// Story: Cold Scales 
// by Konatra 
//------------------------------//

Spines sat in a crisscross position on a very soft and warm pillow that squished around her form. In her hands were a glass of green fizzling liquid and a blue glazed cake-like object. They both tasted extremely and unexpectedly delicious, despite being on a ship that could be millions if not billions of years old. The cozy room was dimly lit and well heated and around her were various well-made sketches and paintings of her in heroic poses. 

She took another bite of the odd cake thing that tasted a lot like grounded gemstones that had somehow been reformed into a paste-like material. The drink was much like carbonized kiwi with a hint of cherry, also very good. 

For once in the past few days or months for that matter, she finally had time to herself and to relax. When the androids returned her to the safety of the main ship, she learned that the hostile area they were in was actually the enemy ship that this one took down and crashed into all those years ago. Their presence activated the defensive grid and now the whole ship was on high alert, luckily the enemy ship was not set for hostile engagement and kept to itself mostly but the androids had a close eye on it for any sudden movements. With the crash her new friends lacked the ability to counter against the threat without using heavy firepower and the forward railgun, doing so would surely cause heavy damage to the mountain and almost certainly destroy Canterlot in one heavy quake. That was not an option at all.

Thankfully the androids were very very motivated to do everything to keep her happy so they went to create her own room with wooden walls and stone tiled flooring. They even made all this art for her in the span of ten minutes. "These guys sure know how to please a woman..." She muttered taking another bite. She asked for an hour to unwind for all the stress she stocked up in the past time and now that time was just about up because she knew she had to put matters into her own hands now. The Hunter, no, Tendrix was gone, and who knew when if ever he could come back. 

The androids had time to debrief her while they took her out of the danger zone and they revealed a lot of information to her. Tendrix was a very high-ranking general in a galactic war, Tendrix belonged to the group of aligned systems know as 'Unity' who were fighting against the extremely violent invading force known as 'Void'. So now it appears that Tendrix lost a lot of his memories during the long years trapped in isolation and after the heavy damage he took from the demons he also was at a really low state of power...even far less so at the moment. 

The thought made her feel terrible so she set the food down on the small table next to her. If she focused hard enough she could feel the presence of another being inside her. Tendrix still lived, the way he defended her with the robot proved this but the chances of him regenerating were unknown. They even said it was possible that she would absorb him and take his abilities if he were too weak to resist it. The idea of that worried her greatly. 'He did everything to save my life and now I might kill him.' She shuttered. 

The door slid open and the leader android named Bek walked through calmly. "Lady General Spines, are you ready to discuss our next course of action?" As sudden General of this ship she was now the only commander allowed to direct all further operations of the Unity forces. She sat up in a more refined position.

"I am ready Bek, please update me on what you know." Internally she felt a huge gap in her stomach deepen since she couldn't even understand the amount of power she held now. 

Bek nodded and began his report. "The general stability of this vessel is still within flight capacities, surviving crew members are at a count of 1568 out of 20000. 10000 are MIA while the rest are damaged beyond conventional repair. Would you like to begin surveillance protocol?"

Spines quirked her eyes. "What's that?"

"We send out our scout units to survey the land and ensure it stays secured from Void activity. Of course, you can specify the specifics of our protocols as you see fit. Bek pulled out a circular device from his chest cavity, it lit up to show a holographic projection of the planet. "We can also have our satellites ejected into the atmosphere to have 24/7 watch on the planet. With that, we can also develop teleportation stations installed across the map for quick first response measures." The hologram showed several dots all around each major area on the planet.

All of this sounded crazy to Spines, suddenly she was in control of the safety of the planet from the Void threat. While the thought was scary she felt she owed Tendrix for his sacrifice and for the fact that this planet needed a protector now since Tendrix was no longer able to be that person. At first, she thought someone like her had no chance to meet up with the expectations but remembered that Tendrix by himself managed to hold off the enemy for years, she had a whole army on her side with such advanced technology. She clenched her fist and grit her teeth in rising anticipation. "What is your command General?" 

Spines stepped forward with determination in her eyes. "I want those satellites up and running as soon as possible as well as those spy bots. I also want any of our strongest units stationed near the boundary of the Everfree forest...I also want us not to focus not only on the Void but also any crimes we encounter." She wanted to protect everyone she could and this could be her chance to put Equestria in an era of absolute peace. She thought for a moment. "You said that ten thousand more androids were missing, do you have any idea where they might be?" Having more droids could really increase their sphere of influence around the globe.

"Yes, our storage of replacement units were detached during the last battle, quick scans show remnants of the storage bins are on the southern side of this planet's moon while the other signals are coming from a buried crater 622 kilometers east, it's below the ocean floor." 

Spines lost a bit of her gusto. "So I guess we can't get them then?"

Bek shook his head. "With little effort, we can easily reclaim our lost units, first we must restore Research and Development stations to create new spacecraft and sea terrain drills. The retrieval operation is at estimate approximately  eleven days for completion." Spines marveled at the very idea that all of these impossible tasks could be done in little less than over one week.

"Alright, you have your orders. Let's do this!" She pumped her fist in the air. 

"Understood Lady Spines, do you also want to begin creation on your new suit?" He asked before he walked out.

"Suit?"

He nodded. "Yes, your specially designed battle suit. We have the technology to create a Mark XV Omega Type power suit to greatly augment your physical powers." Once again Spines found the words in her mouth to stagger with all this overwhelming knowledge.

"Hell yeah I want a super suit. Ooh ooh! Can I make a few design choices?" Her nerdy side took a moment to come out in full force, no way was she going to pass up an opportunity to be like those heroes in her comics. 

For once the android seemed to relax in his posture and gave a small chuckle. "My my, you really are quite different from Lord Tendrix that is for certain. Of course you have full control over the way your suit looks, come with me to R&D and we can see what we can do for you Lady." Spines made a girlish squeal and followed the tall robot.

"This is going to be so cool! I'm going to make it green and purple and black...oh and it'll have a cool mask with glowing eyes like Iron Stallion. Oh, and I want WINGS! I so want to fly for reals, would they flap or would they be engines...what do you think Bek?"

"Well I- She cut him off again.

"Oh, and I want to have cool metal boots that let me jump really high and I want to have hand cannons like you guys, you think it should be a skin type suit or bulky, you think it'll make my butt look big?..."

This would go on for some time.