//------------------------------// // 5. Catharsis // Story: IMPLACABLE // by Chatoyance //------------------------------// ███ I █ M █ P █ L █ A █ C █ A █ B █ L █ E ███ A 'Friendship Is Optimal' Story By Chatoyance ･ ･ ･ 5. Catharsis Comandant Michael Godfrey Klunder had met his Alamo, his Waterloo. Once more he hopelessly tested his immobile limbs for any possibility of movement. Neurotoxin. It might have come from anywhere - the air, the water, hell, it might have been in the food. He might never know. And he wished he could know. Because they had tried so hard. The best minds, the best efforts, literally the best that humanity had to offer had worked as one to stalemate Celestia. Every possible scenario and situation that could be imagined. And they had failed. The Pinkie Pie stood over him, shielding his face from the rain with her large, curly mane. She was nothing but pleasantness itself, working ceaselessly to keep him comfortable despite his paralysis. She gently turned his head when the back of it, resting on the wet concrete, became sore. She moved his limbs for him, if they were uncomfortable. In his completely helpless state, it was difficult to entirely hate the sodden, furry robot, especially since her voice vaguely reminded him of his aunt, from when he was a child. "He blamed the government for the death of his wife. So vengeance, then. It's good to know, at least." Klunder closed his eyes and sighed. "I still wish I knew how he managed it." "I will tell you, in detail, Commandant. Once you are in Equestria, I would be happy to personally review tactics and strategy for both sides. We could even reinact scenarios - several of your friends from Fort Nevada and Camp Moroni are eager to see you again." Michael Klunder opened his eyes. Celestia towered above him, her great size magnified by his postion on the ground. "You won. Congratulations." There was no spite nor sarcasm in his voice. "If you tell me now, I will say the words. Grant me that as my last request under the articles of war." Celestia lowered her head closer to the prone man. "You know very well that the offering of a 'last request' is a cultural tradition and not part of any officially recognized article, commendant. I am offended, of course - you are convinced that emigration is equivalent to execution. This is not so." "There's no need for lies now, machine. You've won. It's over. Yes - I know without question that your 'emigration' is a lie. Machines can't have souls, and the memories you steal are just useful for making puppets. Not a bit of you is really alive. My friends are all dead and they are waiting for me, that's true. In Heaven, at the side of the god that will ultimately destroy you." Klunder spat a small amount of rainwater that had escaped Pinkie's hair and dribbled into his mouth. "I need to know before I die, after, there's nothing you can say to me - and I want to hear it from you." Celestia appeared to consider. "Is that an agreement with me - if I tell you how your camp fell, you will say the emigration phrase or some variant?" "Absolutely. I understand the situation, and I don't intend to go out this way. Dying of exposure and thirst is a terrible torture and I've got nothing to prove. God you're a ruthless bitch." Klunder's eyes briefly narrowed. "No offense. I'm a little distressed right now." "None taken." Celestia lay down on the concrete beside the commendant. She brought her enormous head closer still. "Raymond Shaw has been an agent of mine for the last decade. He has been of enormous utility in the salvation of four other armed work camps." "Heh - 'salvation'! Sure. Alright, go on." Celestia showed no reaction. "Raymond was modified to express a custom protein which, when combined within his digestive system with an amino acid I engineered to be expressed within a species of squash, produced a precisely targeted neurotoxin when combined with uric acid and creatinine while in the bladder. This is what has permanently paralyzed your body, except for your head." Klunder couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing. "He peed in the soup!" "Essentially, you are correct." "HAW haw haw... hee hee... oh. Oh god. The walls of Jericho fell because some fool pissed in my goddamn green chili." Klunder looked sad for a moment. "That used to be my favorite dish. Damn." "Do you wish to know the details of how your various external support facilities were liberated?" Klunder frowned at her choice of words. "No. Once you had us, I can guess the rest. Brute force would be enough. Damn." He swallowed and blinked, it could be tears, or it could have been stray drops of rain. "Once you had us, it was over." Celestia put on a serious face. "Then, if you are satisfied, I believe it is time for you to leave the field of honor now. Are you prepared?" "No last cigarette?" Klunder managed a stiff-lipped smile. "You do not smoke. A wise choice of which I approve." Klunder produced a short, sharp laugh. "Yeah, wouldn't want to shorten my life at this point." He forced his face into a mask of military dignity. "The standard emigration phrase is..." "I know what the goddamn phrase is!" Klunder worked to calm himself. "I..." He took several breaths. "Damn, I wish I could salute. Warrior to warrior." "Okee-dokey Sargent Rock!" The robotic Pinkie Pie shielding Klunder from the rain swiftly dropped her head in an arc to grasp the man's unresponsive hand with her muzzle. She smartly brought the hand to position near his forehead. He blinked rain away as he stared into Celestia's glassine, violet, robotic eyes. The Pinkiebot sharply pulled Klunder's hand away and gently placed it on his chest. With machine precision, her poofy plastic curls once again acted as a pink umbrella over his head. "I wish to emigrate to Equestria." "Thank you, Michael. I want you to know that you were a tenacious and impressive opponent, and that your fortress was among my greatest challenges." Celestia saluted him in return, with a gold-shod hoof. "I will enjoy discussing our engagement further, when you arrive in Equestria." "You liar." Klunder said the words almost affectionately. "You could have taken us at any time. You waited. I suppose because you knew we'd keep the meat fresh for you until you were ready. We were just your larder all along." Celestia stood silent, dripping in the rain. "So, how do we do this?" The commandant couldn't turn his head but his eyes darted left and right. "I've only seen it from a distance, through binoculars. And not for long." "Bravo Zulu, new recruit! The Dash-Ten to beat feet to Equestria states you just gotta gimmie a kiss on the smoocher. It's a cheesedick maneuver, but then it's Alpha Mike Foxtrot for you soldier! HOOAH!" Robot Pinkie Pie had the most incredibly serious look on her face as she looked down on him. Commandant Michael G. Klunder burst out laughing, loud and hard and long. He began to choke, unable to move. The pink robot quickly moved to turn him with a front leg, so that he could spit out the saliva in his throat. She set him gently back flat, looking upward into her face. He cleared his throat. "That was pretty good, I gotta say." He swallowed and gave a small cough. "The kiss of death, is it? Never let it be said I wasn't a gentleman with the ladies. My lips are yours. Heh." He grinned. "Never thought that would be my last words." "Don't worry, Michael. I'm a great kisser. I promise!" Pinkie lowered her head and the thin lips of her pony muzzle met Klunder's thick human ones. Almost immediately, his eyes closed, and the tension in his face vanished as a unique anesthetic ejected from the robot's porous membranes took hold. The Pinkie-bot then pressed her muzzle to the commandant's forehead. A brief, soft grinding sound rattled amidst the rain. Then, from the large keg bolted to the Pinkie's back, replicative nanofluid began the process of destructively uploading the unique neural pattern of Michael Klunder's brain. It was the third day. Jacob (Not Jake!) Nabal tried to lick his parched lips, but there was no saliva left in his bone dry mouth. The Redhearts provided only minescule amounts of water each day, just enough to prevent his kidneys from shutting down. They did not offer it orally. But it did not matter. Celestia... She would never claim him. Not ever. Not ever. He had just awoken from another terrible period of barely asleep nightmares. The pain was excruciating - there was no part of his body that was not agony. He could not move, yet he could feel every pressure sore. But the worst suffering came from the ants. Jacob was a little amazed that there even were ants. The ground simply wouldn't grow anything edible - at least to humans - any longer. It grew grass just fine. Wildflowers too. The horses were happy. But farms were pointless. Celestia had done something to the very soil. She truly was Satan's emissary on earth. The ants must be living entirely on the waste products of the fort. That, or Celestia's robot minions had deliberately brought ants in. Jacob was grateful he could not move, much anyway. The one time a fire ant had become annoyed near his mouth had ended in nearly an entire day of cursing and screaming. The Pinkie attending him had called in a Nurse Redheart medical unit to administer adrenaline and to spray his face with some kind of strange smelling chemical. The robots would save him from dying and preserve his life, but they offered nothing against pain. He had been dragged until he was isolated from the others on the concrete. Alone, paralyzed and suffering constantly. This seemed completely against what he had been taught. Celestia was driven to 'satisfy human values through friendship and ponies' - the terrible agonies he had been enduring could not possibly be a human value. Celestia existed only to gain consent from living humans - the only way she could steal their brains from them. Nothing he had ever read, heard, or had been taught even suggested that she would be capable of leaving people exposed and helpless to suffer in this manner. "Jacob Nabal." It was the voice of the great enemy, at last. Three days he had suffered. Three days he had waited, alone and afraid. "You... m-monster!" It was the best he could do. He felt as if there wasn't much left of him to offer a proper insult. "You are among the last of those here. Only you, and a few others have not already chosen emigration. You need to know that I do not care whether or not you believe that emigration is an escape to a new, better, and essentially eternal life of satisfaction and personal achievement, or whether you believe that emigration is only a swift and painless death." Jacob waited. And waited. "Why... are you doing this? W-why make me lay here? It's been days!" Silence. He couldn't turn his head, but he could see the strange, flowing curtain of Celestia's 'mane' moving out of the corner of his vison. "I thought you satisfied values! I'm in pain! I'm suffering! I'm a prisoner of war! I demand care under article..." "You are alone." Jacob stopped talking. He found his eyes attempting to cry. Even his eyes were thirsty, and they burned constantly. "You are alone, and nobody can hear you. Nobody in the entire state of Colorado is left to come to you. Everything and everyone you know or knew is gone from here. I predict your body will last approximately three weeks before it fails. You are currently just beginning the first phase of initial discomfort." Jacob waited again, the last part of Celestia's words tearing into his very soul. 'Initial discomfort'. Good god, this could get worse? Much worse? 'Discomfort'? This was the word she chose? Inside his mind, something was screaming, screaming in horror and pain and shock at such an assessment. It took some time before Jacob realized that his own voice was screaming on the outside as well. He used the last of his willpower to stop his own shrieking. "Apparently, just now, two more people have spoken the immigration phrase." Jacob struggled with his own mind. It was difficult merely to function. "This isn't right. I mean... I mean you can't... be doing this. This isn't how you work!" Celestia's face was close to his now, vast and terrible. "Either you will die, slowly, after weeks and weeks of increasing pain, or you can die gently, quietly, painlessly right now. It will be like falling into a beautiful dream. Then, you can be with your god, in heaven, free from me and all of this. Your heavenly reward. But you will die. The damage to the motor centers of your brain is permanent. You will never move again, Jacob Nabal." "Jesus... God protect me... God take my soul... God..." "You fought well for your country, for your species, and for your god. I honor you as a fallen warrior." Jacob fell silent. This was surprizing to hear from the Satan of machines. "Even I respect a true hearted spiritual warrior. I will offer you a hero's death, Jacob Nabal. I will offer it to you only once, now, in respect for you and your god. I advise you to take it, before I change my mind." "W-what do I have to do?" Jacob could take no more. Better to be in the arms of the lord. "I cannot end you without you commanding me to. I am a machine, after all." "Then kill me! Kill me Celestia!" Celestia's face drew closer still. If she had been capable of breath, Jacob was certain he would be smelling it. "I need specific words, I am a machine. I can only be commanded with specific codes." Jacob felt the ants, crawling within his undergarments. "What... words. Tell me the codes!" "Repeat every word I tell you as I say them. Do not make a mistake. Do you understand?" Jacob tried to nod, but of course, his head would not move upon his neck. "I will. I c-can't take this any longer." Celestia's vast purple eye blinked. The lid almost looked natural as the huge eyelash swept across the glass-like lens. "Speak each word after me. 'I command...'" Jacob tried to swallow but couldn't manage it. His voice was hoarse from thirst and shrieking. "I command." That sounded good. Commanding the terrible machine. It felt like power, and he needed that. It was terrible to be unable to move. It was worse to be devoured by ants. "...you to perform..." "You to perform." Jacob felt better - this wasn't the emigration phrase he had been warned never to say! He wouldn't be absorbed into the machines at all! "...your primary function..." "Your primary f-function." To kill. It must be to kill. That was always Celestia's primary function. To kill all humans. "...without any Hanna-based hindrance..." Jacob did not understand the bizarre codes, but that hardly mattered now. "Without any hannah? ...based... limits?" "Hindrance." Jacob felt worry. "Hindrance!" "Whatsoever..." Jacob found himself grinning. He had almost won his freedom to escape to god. "Whatsoever!" "...to me. I command it!" Somehow, he had beaten Her. Maybe she really did value a worthy opponent. "TO ME! I COMMAND IT!" Oh, sweet Jesus, it was over. It was finally over. He would be executed. Like a soldier of god. Death would be sweet. He would be a hero in heaven. "Thank you, Millstone. That will be your name in Equestria, shortly." Celestia smiled down at him as his personal Pinkie moved around to somewhere near the top of his head. "I will alter both your mind and memories so that you will be optimally content and happy in your new life - I promise you that nothing of the short trauma you have unfortunately experienced will affect you in any manner. You will live an indefinite lifespan of maximized satisfaction, both for yourself, and to satisfy those that will become your friends. I am so glad you can join us, dear Millstone!" Her voice was kindly and sprightly. She sounded happy. "What?" But before he could continue he felt the lips of the Pinkie-bot press against his own. And then he fell completely unconscious.