//------------------------------// // Ch. 3 A Rolling Stone // Story: A Heart of Stone // by TheWhiteFreak //------------------------------// Ch. 3 a Rolling Stone I walked through the snow for what felt like hours with no direction in mind as I had no idea where I was and the snowstorm had got even worse and could barely see two feet in front of me, not that I cared, I just watched my only two friends die right in front of me,i felt dead inside. Like there was a hole in my heart and I was slowly bleeding out, I couldn’t even find the drive to look up at the sun to see the passage of time or get a general direction of what direction I was going. I wasn't even looking where I was going and I ended up tripping on a tree root that was sticking out of the ground. I lifted myself out of the snow and snapped my head back to the offending tree, "GOD DAMMIT!" I lunged at the tree and in one swift motion tore it out of the ground, roots and all. "GOD DAMMIT!" I roared again as I swung the tree around and struck another tree, making it explode in a shower of splinters. "WHY!?" I dropped the remains of the tree and tore another out of the ground and smashed it into another, and another, and another until I was surrounded by piles of splinters and chunks of trees all the while crying out in anger and sorrow. I collapsed on my hands and knees, "why? why did it have to be them? Why does it hurt so much?" I crawled over to the splintered stump of a tree and leaned my back against it. "The first friends in my life, and they die right in front of me" I deadpanned as I tilted my head and looked up at the sky. I sat there for what must have been hours as I was almost completely buried by the falling snow. I was starting to feel hungry which bothered me as I wasn’t even sure that I have a stomach but it must have been my body telling me that I was running out of magic or something and I needed to feed soon. I looked down at my hands and saw the visible effects of my hunger; my fingertips were no longer the clear blue color and had darkened into something similar to tinted black window glass. the snow shifted and fell of as I rose back to my feet and looked around at the forest and decided to try something, I placed my hand on a nearby tree that wasn't in pieces and tried to feel if there was any magic in it for me to drain. I could indeed feel a slight magical current flowing through it and reached out to drain from the tree. It was significantly easier to drain than that pony and it suffered the same effects as it withered and died, leaving only a brittle husk behind that fell down under its own weight. It only took the edge off of my hunger like a piece of bread would if one was starving and I went to the next tree and repeated the process. After some time I finally felt full and I looked back and saw the path of death that I left behind, there was at least two dozen trees that had fallen over after I drained them. I continued walking until the trees became sparse and spread out as I left the forest and was met with only frozen tundra that stretched for miles in front of me. The sight caused me pause for a second before I started walking again all while thinking about the memories that Copy and Duplicate had given me. I struggled to focus on them but was met with only a cacophony of sound and images that were indecipherable and left me with a headache. I decided to leave the memories for another time and instead focus on learning my new body, I lifted my hand and again focused on creating a sword in my hand which was much easier the second time around as I created a double-bladed straight sword. It changed back into my hand and I then tried to focus on something a little more complex. I focused and watched as the crystal and stone formed and extended and formed into the shape of a two-headed axe about four feet in length. I swung my axe hand around, marveling at how easy it was for me to use and how light it was. I passed by a rock sticking out of the ground and decided to test the edge and durability of my weapon and swung it down at the stone. The stone was cleaved in two leaving only a mirror smooth cut in between the two pieces and not even a scratch on the axe. Impressed with the weapon I changed it back and thought of a weapon that would be even more complex, a flail, with only a little more effort than before, I was soon holding a spiked ball in my left hand and a ten-foot chain that led back to my wrist. I was surprised that I could still control the chain like it was still my arm as it coiled and twisted like a snake as I swung it around and smashed a rock to rubble with little effort. After changing my hand back and deciding to save my strength and magic in case I don’t find food anytime soon and continued walking through the howling storm that did not even make me feel slightly cold. It had been a couple of days of wandering without seeing another intelligent creature and the only company that I had was the occasional memory from Copy and Duplicate that became clearer. I learned through the memories that changelings as a whole were a hive mind of sorts where the drones followed a Queen but they were still capable of individual thought and that they survived by feeding off of the emotions of others, freely given or taken, it didn’t matter, much like myself, the most powerful of these was love but they were just as capable of feeding off of lesser positive emotions while feeding off of negative emotions would be the equivalent of poison to them. I also learned that they were the last of their hive that was killed off a month ago by an army of mercenaries but none of the memories would show a clearer picture of what this army was. They were making their way north in order to find another hive run by a queen called Chrysalis when they were captured by the other ponies. I had been surviving on hunting the local fauna and draining them when I could and draining any plants or trees I happened across. When I first attempted hunting I became woefully aware of how living as a human where the only challenge to getting food was having enough money to afford it as it became painfully apparent that I could not sneak up on the prey as a giant suit of armor and I wasn’t able to make any throwing weapons from my body. I soon developed the method of creating a very long crystal chain and would snake it under the snow and entangle my prey so I could reel it in and drain it. While this was not the most time effective way of hunting, it was the only one that truly yielded any results. One day I came upon a moose; he was a behemoth of a creature, standing easily at twelve feet tall and probably weighted at least a couple tons. I was almost salivating (you know, if I had a mouth that is) at the amount of magic that the beast would have. I quickly crouched down so that he wouldn’t see me and silently extended my chain towards him. Although I could not see where the end of my chain was I could feel it and I knew that I was close to my prey, a mere foot away from his back leg I heard a klaxon alarm ring out that startled the moose from his grazing. I tried to catch him as he bolted off but I missed his back leg. “NO!” I tried to grab him again but he was weaving far too much for me. I groaned in anger at my lost meal as I retracted my chain. I quickly looked over to where I had heard the alarm and grumbled as I walked up the hill. “Someone’s gonna pay for making me lose my meal.” I huffed as I crested the hill and looked down. What I saw reminded me heavily of a military town with groups of small identical wooden houses all organized in a square pattern around a central machine that I couldn’t identify and groups of ponies that were all bundled up in winter clothes. I crouched down just in case they were as hostile as the other ones that I met, silently thanking the snow storm that obscured my presence. I spied on the town for a few minutes, absorbing the details of the town and finally let my guard down a little when I saw a small puff of a coat that was undoubtedly a small pony. ‘Wait… a small pony is called… a colt or filly. Do they treat them like they do human children? Does that mean this… town won’t attack me outright? Knowing my luck, they probably will but I have to find out where I am.’ I gave myself a quick nod before I rose back to my full height and slowly approached the town in the most nonthreatening manner I could. I was maybe a hundred feet away from the closest building when I heard the ear-shattering klaxon alarm going off again and the center structure roared to life and shot a massive ball of fire into the air, lighting the whole town up in a bright red glow. I stumbled back; surprised by the strange alarm that went off and watched as the fireball hovered in the air about twenty feet above the machine it emerged from. I then felt a pulse of magic as the fireball began rocketing towards me, I quickly dove to the side as the fireball engulfed where I was standing, creating a deep gash that carved through the snow and the earth underneath. I scrambled to my feet and looked back to the strange tower and watched in horror as another fireball was created. ‘Son of a bit-' my thought was cut off as I felt another pulse of magic and the fireball launched itself at me again. I once again dove out of the way but this time I wasn’t able to avoid the blast entirely as I felt the flames hit my left foot. I howled out in pain at the feeling that reminded me of when I put my human hand on a hot exhaust pipe of a crane in the shipyard. ‘FUCK! Why does this hurt so much? Every other time it felt like nothing’ in a fit of brilliance the answer became clear, ‘my body is made of magic so of course I am more susceptible to magical attacks.’ I was desperately clutching my foot, hoping to alleviate the pain somehow. I rolled on to my hands and knees, hoping to escape from the weapon that was about to kill me and saw a circle of red lights and little scribbles appeared underneath me. The magic circle seemed to be floating in the air right above the snow as it slowly spun in a circle before quickly spinning 90 degrees and locking in place. ‘Oh shit, please don’t tell me.’ I winced as I turned my head back to the weapon and saw yet another ball of fire floating above it. I watched the fireball leave the machine and rocket towards me yet again; time seemed to slow down as I stared my death in the face. ‘NO! I refuse to just roll over and accept this!’ I shouted out in my head with defiance and brought both my hands up to absorb the magic in the fireball. I felt the fire reach my hands and kept going and engulfed the rest of my body. The pain was excruciating, like I was bathing in the business end of a flamethrower, I couldn’t breathe, my mind went blank, my vision became clouded, seconds dragged on for what felt like days, the flames blocked my vision of anything else. The flames suddenly disappeared and I was greeted once again with the sight of the village in front of me, my arms went limp and the rest of my body soon followed as I collapsed on the ground. I was somehow still conscious yet I couldn’t move I could see that my hand had ended up in my line of sight and I could only stare at my hand as the crystal had lost all color and was black as the night sky, even the blue lines in between the plates had turned black. ‘Son of a bitch, why didn't that work?' I tried to move, but my body wouldn't even flinch 'so this is how it ends for me huh? I always knew that I would die young but I thought it would be as a human. I’m sorry Copy, Duplicate; I wasted the life that you gave to me.’ My vision was darkening once again and I simply waited for death’s sweet embrace, not even noticing the bright red body of a unicorn entering my field of vision. ** “Buck its cold tonight!” a pony completely wrapped up in a heavy coat and boots said to no pony. The stallion in question was Red Shot, a unicorn stallion with a bright red coat and a dark blue mane and tail that was cut unevenly and unkempt, sticking out in almost every possible direction and bright blue eyes. He was also carrying his specialty bow ‘Hawkeye’ that he had enchanted back in Canterlot to never break and also give his arrows greater penetrating power, enough to punch through solid stone at a hundred hooves. He was currently on guard duty on the Protector Tower, the most recent invention of the mad scientist Second Gear, possibly the craziest and most infuriating pony that Red Shot had ever had the misfortune to work for. Although Red was a smart stallion, he could in no way decipher the techno-babble that Second Gear always used when he described his latest brain-foal but what he did understand about this tower was that it would protect the town from the local inhabitants of The Icelands with little effort... supposedly. “Stupid machine, making me stand out ‘ere in the cold with nopony to talk ta.” He huffed at the machine and gave it a swift kick with his front hoof. All of a sudden the machine’s proximity alarm went off in an ear-shattering noise that made Red leap back and bring his hooves up defensively as the display lit up with a two-dimensional display of what set it off. It was a large bipedal creature that made Red Shot’s breath catch in his throat. ‘A Yeti!? What in Celestia’s name is one of those doing so far from the mountains?’ A second display lit up and a jumble of letters and numbers quickly scrolled across the screen as the ‘targeting- algorithms’ as Second described them calculated out the threat and given by the fireball that erupted from the tower’s cannon showed, it was hostile. He watched as the fireball rocketed off towards the eastern end of town towards the supposed target, he watched as the target, some huge bipedal creature that looked nothing like the fur covered yeti the machine thought but was covered in armor made of what appeared to be stone and blue crystal, quickly dove away from the blast. Another blast fired from the tower and this time the ‘thing’ wasn’t able to avoid all of it and was caught in leg, it howled in pain that sounded like a griffon’s talons on a chalkboard. Red Shot quickly descended the stairs of the tower and heard as another blast of magical fire launched from the tower but he did not watch to see if it connected with the creature, he had to wake up the other guards in case this threat was too great for the Protector Tower to handle, or if Second Gear greatly overestimated its capabilities. He raced towards the barracks where his fellow mercenaries were bunked and kicked the door open with a loud bang. “Everypony up! We got an intruder at the east end!” he shouted out and saw that most of them were already up from the alarm. All the guards quickly donned their winter clothes before throwing on their armor over it and quickly following Red Shot out the door, grabbing their weapons on the way. The alarm had also woken up most of the other scientists and they were all looking out their windows and doors as the two dozen mercenaries raced towards the east end of town. They soon came upon the scorch marks from the Protector Tower and saw in one of the craters was a massive suit of armor that easily stood hooves taller than the biggest earth pony he had ever seen, That Big Macintosh pony that he met that one time when he went to Ponyville to get some of their renown apples, but it looked different, no longer did it have that strange blue glow but was now black and darkened. He was brought out his thoughts by one of his fellow mercs gingerly poked the creature with his sword. “Hey! Watch it! We don’t know what’s in that armor” Red had his bow drawn in his red magic aura as he cautiously walked around the creature, the others all had their own weapons at the ready. He soon came upon the face of the creature and saw a blue glow that drew his vision and saw two gems where its eyes should have been were staring back at him before they too turned black. The sight slightly disturbed him but the voice of another pony drew his attention. “So Shot, what are we gonna do with this… thing” A grey earth pony asked him. “What ya think!? We’re gonna get rid of it.” “No you will not!” A new voice that he recognized as Second Gear called out from behind him. “Gear, get back to yer house, this is a matter for us mercs, that’s why ya pay us right?” he said with a great deal of sarcasm. “No, we pay your salaries for doing what we require of you, and at the current moment, we require that you detain that specimen and let us study it” his nasally high and mighty tone grated against Red Shot’s ears. “No way in Tartarus! We ‘ave no idea what this thing can do.” “Then you shall not receive your stipend for the month.” Those words were Second Gear’s personal favorite and would use them every time Red Shot disagreed with him. He shook with anger and growled through clenched teeth, “FINE! Take you stupid ‘specimen’, I hope it kills you!” he shouted as he huffed past Second Gear and his fellow mercenaries followed behind him. Second Gear simply glanced at him before clearing his throat and looking to his fellow scientists, “gentlestallions, shall we?” he said as he lifted the creature with his magic and a few others soon joined in and carried his newest specimen back to his lab.