//------------------------------// // Interlude 01. Reexamine (unedited) // Story: Replicated Wanderer // by QuartzScale //------------------------------// ‘Nana how long have we been here? Do you have a good idea how long we've been here?’ I looked over the room I was in lost in thought about everything. There were too many things to go over. Star Swirl had made it clear about the state of the world. There were problems forming up and I had not really come to terms with everything. My body was still a mystery to me and I didn't really want to think about it. My body was a metal enigma. I constantly managed to self repair while in direct sunlight. It was a travesty to all science as I knew it. My body managed to restore itself within a few minutes even though the weird worm creature had managed to tear into me gouging out a good portion of my arms. The fact I needed to keep the human parts of my mind blocked slightly meant that I was not handling this situation with the greatest of poise. “As of now… internal clocks put us at… five days or so. It's hard to tell without telemetry data and the positioning of the sun and moon have been erratic. If what Star Swirl said was true then this magic thing has done something either very dangerous to the ecosystem or has kept the ecosystem into a perpetual state of clockwork precision.” Nana explained as the information scrolled over my eyes. It was weird. It was too weird and I didn't like that there was so much happening even in the quiet times that were around. They had all gone to bed leaving me alone and staring at the moon. ‘Is there any sign of that jerk?’ I looked around wondering intensely if he was bored enough of watching me. “None so far. We don't have any real way of tracking him. After I was finally able to gather data I've been collating everything you've experienced and trying to keep things simple. It's not working too well. I'm getting a lot of interference from everything going on in your mind.” Nana frowned uncertain of what to make of the discrepancies. ‘What do you mean?’ I hesitated looking more into it. “It's… well don't take this the wrong way, sir but I've been unable to understand all the synaptic patterns firing around in your brain. Your thoughts show so many worries… fears… so many things I didn't think reploid were possible of.” Nana chimed as she formed within my vision. It was a work around over my orders of appearing in the open which I found to be clever. ‘That… would be my humanity. I guess you could call it… the thing that made me so special to other reploids. It's the thing that are making these… ponies… so wary of me. I scare them too much because I reason. I think. I care.’ I muttered internally as I looked out into the night sky from the window. “I care as well.” Nana quickly answered. ‘Why?’ I shot back at her outburst. She looked at me like a deer in headlights uncertain what to say about the situation. “I… I… I don't know. I just do. Does it matter why?” Nana stammered back trying to figure things out. ‘What do you care about then? And no it doesn't matter why. I'm just wondering.’ I chuckled slightly as I closed my eyes and placed my hands behind my head. “I care about you, sir.” Nana answered honestly looking a small bit uncertain that her answer was satisfactory. ‘I'm glad you care. Now expand that to those I'm placing my faith into. I'm helping these ponies with their problems. I'm absolutely terrified but I'm going to do it. There's no reason not to.’ I resolutely stated opening my eyes as I glared into the ceiling. I didn't want to go fight and potentially die. It would have been a disgrace since there was a small hope that I would have been able to get back home. It wasn't a priority because I needed the other cyber elves to help perform the calculations. There were multiple ideas of how to return to my home dimension… but there was no actual foundation for getting my body back. There was the idea that different dimensions were separated by differing vibrational wavelengths. I would have to go faster than the speed of light to vibrational transport between them but it would be something that could happen. Though the DC idea of different earths meant that there were only fifty two different earths and this wasn't exactly earth. The Marvel idea was that there were infinite possibilities though that would mean eventually I would get sucked into Battleworld if I was unlucky. There would probably have been a convergence or something really bad that would have killed me. Neither of these were plausible since it was really obvious I wasn't on Earth at all. The shape of the continent and the general view of the ecosystem made this world look far smaller than it actually was. All of this was pointless though. I had come to a decision that would shape my life from this point on. I would fight. I would fight against an unknown foe all because of who I became. I was X. I had embodied him in a sense to the very letter except that I was different minded. I wanted to be more confident in my choices and to stand behind them… even if they turned out to be wrong. I would stand by my decisions and never turn back on them. “Sir. Do you have any idea what we should even do? This is far bigger than anything we have ever faced in the history of the Maverick Hunters. We still haven't seen what this world has to offer.” Nana worriedly brought up trying desperately to appeal to my worry. ‘We'll just have to wing it honestly. There's no time to really waste on fully thought out plans and there is no technology as far as we've seen that equates to anything we know of. We're fighting blind for the most part and I'm certain that that is going to be a running theme until we've figured out exactly what this world is all about.’ I sighed as I was nearly overwhelmed by the scrolling information. Griffons were one of the first topics that were spoken about. Living off to the far eastern continent, the Griffons were an aristocratic society predicated upon the rule of King Grover the 2nd. A proud race of half eagle, half lion creatures that prided themselves as warrior supremes. It was weird to know that their prime quarry were usually ponies. They also had some bad history behind them. Apparently the original King, King Grover the 1st, had led their nation into a war against the ponies of Dream Valley… just as the windigos had attacked. It had been a bloodbath and a frozen nightmare that he led his people into. And griffons do not take stupidity lightly. His son had him disposed within the week after the farce and taken control of the situation before things could get insane. At the same time some weird deliveries had been noted going in and out of Griffonstone and the Crystal Empire. It was as if some secret treaty had been ratified behind everyone's back. There were no concrete facts though since the delivery was upheld by griffons and it certainly wasn't the modus operandi of King Corundum to ally with any other being on the planet. I wasn't so sure though. Anything would be possible if someone was desperate enough to go through with it. The next topic were the deer. A proud race that communed with nature to the point where living within a tree of its own free will was tantamount to being considered a god. That was weird and their leader Queen Acacia spread that gospel as she led clandestine hunts against the ponies who deforested areas in order to make their homes. This led to guerilla tactics and overwhelmingly deadly attacks of what could only be described as chemical warfare. The only lucky thing about it was that they were merely paralytic chemicals and the ponies afflicted would be sent back alive to whence they came. Strangely, there were packages being sent to them as well… also shipped from the Crystal Empire. Once was a coincidence… twice, well twice was a pattern. There were small talks that seemed to be hushed by Magnus about the shipments whenever the steam got going between all the ponies. They were playing their intelligence network close to the vest. Too much information and I might have been scared. I wasn't. The same went for the other races… except for the dragons who melted any contraband that tried to be shipped in from the Crystal Empire. The buffalo had been trampling their ways over the wastelands to the south. Their leader, Chief Iron Horn, was pushing to keep ponies out of their land. They also had contraband smuggled in… but by fellow buffalo. It seemed that the more infor I had to infer the more it looked as though every race was out to get ponies. Part of me wondered if it was solely because of the windigos. I didn't know enough about them but that they were made of ice and hatred. When I kept looking as more of the collaborating data it seemed as though every race was in on it. Diamond Dogs to the far west had stolen several Crystal Empire assets… but none of the Crystal Guards tried to stop them. The Hippogriffs to the far south; half bird, half pony; had made several moves through the eastern seas to acquire whatever the Crystal Empire was hiding. Yaks had been able to make several embargoes but there were rumors that the Crystal contraband had managed to slip through their blockade. There were some rumors of bat like ponies to the southeast. Shape shifting creatures supposedly found between the buffalo and the bat ponies. There were several different factions and almost all the rumors kept mentioning the same story over and over again. Items from the Crystal Empire were being smuggled into each nation except for the dragons… sometimes by their own citizens. It would be my next mission once I made certain that the ponies of this nation were safe from the encroachment of the Crystal Empire and its tyrannical king, Goring Corundum. That, of course, all predicated on the idea that I could actually stop the might of the Crystal Empire. There were still so many things I didn't understand about myself. I felt… so displaced out of my element. I was both a stranger to this world and a stranger to my own body. Even Nana had figured out something was different about me. Though I had cleverly brushed it off due to X’s own enigmatic nature through all the magical engineering that Dr. Light placed into this body. I wasn't X but I was going to do him proud… I hoped from the bottom of my non existent heart I would. “Sir. We need to at least have somewhat of a mission statement. At the very least something to keep our mission from going off the rails and use getting dragged into something far beyond our control.” Nana griped slightly seeming to not take the minimal style of command I was perpetuating well. ‘Nana. We have little to no information. I'm frustrated as well by that but we have to go with what we have at the moment. Tomorrow maybe we'll get more information and then we'll decide on a course of action. Already I will state though that we will save these ponies and keep them from being wiped off the face of this world. That is the only thing we need to do.’ I placed my foot down… metaphorically. I certainly didn't accidentally break part of the stone floor by doing so physically. Nana flashed for a moment before nodding and accepting my order. It was strange but… her genuine smile even in a digital arena filled me with a little booster on what I wanted to do. I wanted to help others… even if I did have selfish motives to find the resources that might take me home. Those would be my reasons and my reasons alone. If these ponies asked me to… if Star Swirl was serious about asking, I would do everything in my power to help them.