//------------------------------//
// Rise, Little Batpony 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

The Immortal Dream's cargo hold was still, but it couldn't hold its silence. "Alive?" Nyala asked, the suit of armor that had always been Braen acting as her immobile body. "I am? That's good, right? I still can't feel myself... I feel... weird. What happened to me?"

"Your body is a suit of armor," Shinespark replied, trying to maintain professionalism in the face of her awe that the armor was still working with a mark other than her own. "What do you remember? I'm not sure how to explain things based on what you know..."

"Like I said," Valey added, eyes still watering. "You're safe. Bad stuff happened, and you're in a body that's pretty different from your old one, but bananas, it's good to hear your voice for real again."

Nyala made the sound of sucking in a breath, even though she didn't have lungs to suck with. "You knew me, then?" she asked. "Before whatever this is happened? Did... I die?" She sounded worried, face entirely unexpressive. "I don't remember anything about me at all. How long was I gone? And did I have a name?"

"Six years," Valey whispered. "You're Nyala. I'm Valey. Your sister, sorta. Those two are Shinespark and Maple, and they're some of the more trustworthy folks I've met."

"Six... years..." Nyala repeated, growing distant. "Wow. I guess I'm lucky to be back. I feel alive, sort of? I'm not sure how to tell. I feel like I should be able to move..."

Shinespark cut in. "Your new body can move, but it takes power to do so. It's supposed to be powered by the brand of the soul inside it, but I didn't design it specifically with you in mind. You might need to sleep a lot more than usual to keep it charged for when you're awake."

"Brands and souls?" Nyala sounded curious. "How does this work? Did you tie my mind to this armor? I can see and hear."

"You can see," Shinespark sighed. "Good. And it works through lots of technology I'm sure we'll have the time to explain if you want to know how it works in detail. For now, I'd like to get you hooked up to a proper power supply just so we can verify you can move, and take things from there. You might be a person, but you're also the subject of a science experiment to give you a new body."

"Okay," Nyala offered, sounding not very disturbed. "I'll just be here, unless there's some way I can help out!"

Maple gave her a conflicted smile. "For someone who just woke up with no memories in a metal body, you're taking this very well. I know I'd probably panic..."

"It's weird," Nyala said, unable to turn to face her. "I don't know if I was anywhere, or if I was, where I was. But some part of me feels incredibly relieved right now for no real reason, from before you even told me I had been gone. Like something bad is behind me and the best is yet to come. I don't get what's going on, but I just don't feel like panicking, either. It's nice. I almost wouldn't mind coming back to life more often."

Maple made eye contact with Nyala's visor slits, hoping that was where her eyes were. "Well, I hope you'll be able to feel it if I hug you, because it sounds like you need it."

"Heh heh..." Valey chuckled wetly, giving Maple a pat on the head with her wing as she strolled past. "Believe me, you'll get to do this at least once more when we get your original body back. That's a when, not an if. For now, though, I'm totally down with just hanging out and enjoying this..."

"I got it!" Shinespark called from the far wall, a cable strung with her magic that plugged into Nyala's back. "You're connected to the ship's main power, which is a little low but should be fine. Can you move now?"

The suit seemed to glint slightly brighter, and Nyala took another breath. "Oh wow," she murmured. "It's like there's a little voice inside me that's telling me how this body works that just appeared. It sounds like you, Shinespark!"

Shinespark nodded. "It is armor, after all. First I made it to protect me, and it got a lot of enhancements before it reached the point where it could use another pony's soul. It's also a work in progress, so instead of connecting the armor's sensors to you like a nervous system, it just mixes the audio reporting it would give a normal pony with the line from the microphones that serve as your ears. You should be able to mentally turn it off once you get used to it."

Nyala's head rotated. Then her legs moved, and she almost stumbled but seemed to catch herself. "Now it works!" she cheered, turning her joints more carefully. "I can move! Yes!"

"How is it?" Shinespark and Valey asked eagerly, voices overlapping.

"I'm not sure." Nyala waved around a forelimb while the rest of her stood completely still. "Sometimes it just does things all at once with me barely thinking about them. Other times it's one at a time. It feels... the wrong size, I guess, but I think I can get used to it." She adjusted her head so she was looking straight forward, then back down at the ponies. "I didn't used to be this big, did I?"

"Nope." Valey shook her head. "You were taller than me, but not by much. But eh, we'd probably have to train to use armor too, so I'm sure you'll get used to it."

Nyala looked backwards, trying to see the cable in her back. "It's saying something about my power levels. What happens if I unplug this?"

Shinespark nodded. "You have an internal mana core that acts as a battery. Under normal use, it can last up to eighteen to twenty hours, and closer to thirty if you conserve power properly. Given how the armor works, the worst-case scenario for running out of power is that you fall unconscious, but you should produce enough power on your own to at least retain your thoughts, hearing, vision and maybe speak at all times. I'll need to study the data after you've used it for a few days, and wouldn't be surprised if it's a few hours less for you, but a single charge should be enough to give you the same sleep cycles as the rest of us as long as we can secure a reliable charging point. Unfortunately, this ship's power isn't nearly as infinite as we'd hoped, so that could be a problem..."

"Woah," Nyala interrupted. "There are weapons in here?"

"Combat armor," Shinespark offered with a shrug. "I'll be disabling most of them, I think. If power is a concern, you definitely won't be needing to fly with the rocket boosters."

"I won't be able to fly?" Nyala sounded like she had been slapped.

"Wait a minute..." Valey breathed. "You were expecting to be able to? I mean, your old body had wings..." She ruffled her own. "I thought you didn't remember anything."

"I don't!" Nyala protested, taking a clunky step back. "It... was more like an expectation, I guess. Like how I expect to walk on four legs. This armor is supposed to do that, right?"

Valey scratched her head. "Weird... Must be because the armor isn't a natural body, or something. Whatever. Did I mention I'm glad to have you back?"

"You might have said that," Nyala replied. "I'm sorry I don't remember you, though. It sounds like... Woah, hey, you'll tip me over!"

"You're a suit of armor, you big softie!" Valey growled, tackling her in a ferocious blind hug. "You can take it! Bananas, I haven't gotten to do this in forever..."

"I'm still learning how this moves! I don't want to crush you!"

They hit the tread plate floor with a clang, a few tiny dark spots of moisture on the floor where Valey had passed by. Maple watched them from a safe distance, smile wobbling and chest tightening as Valey's hat drifted to the floor beside her, and she wiped away a tear with a sniff as her friend made far more noise.

"Sounds like mission accomplished," Amber's voice said from beneath the hat.

"It looks like she needed to do that for longer than I've known her," Maple whispered back, the stone picking itself up in Shinespark's aura and hovering between the two. "I'm glad."

"Yeah, like fifty times longer," Amber replied, audibly rolling her eyes. "We've known her for less than two months. Remember, though, no matter how much it sounds like this is the happily ever after... it's really just the beginning. I said mission accomplished, but it's more like mission successfully started."

Shinespark nodded away from the stone. "Braen was a constantly-evolving project. There's still a lot of incomplete features I kept documents on. If we could get a proper lab, I could add so many things that could help her feel like a normal pony again..."

"Not like that. This is a temporary solution," Amber insisted. "They're too glad to worry about anything else right now, and believe me, my eyes are wet over here, too. But I'll bet you it won't take past tomorrow morning for them to get up and out and start talking about what to do next. Valey didn't tell you the whole story, and I'm not going to break it if she doesn't want to, but at the very least Nyala's real body is still out there somewhere and they're going to try to get it back. So be there for her, okay?"

"I will," Maple promised. "You can be sure of it. Though you do a good job of being there as well, Amber."

"Heh..." Amber chuckled once. "Well, I've been busy with things in Riverfall and Ironridge as well. I might even have a surprise for you before long, but you didn't hear that from me."

"A surprise?" Maple frowned in worry. "It's nothing bad, is it?"

"You might be annoyed at me for keeping it a secret, but trust me, this will be worth it... and I'm not saying anything more! You'll have to wait and see." Amber paused. "It's something you'll love, I promise. In other news, I'm still trying to figure out why Hemlock did what he did, but am in Ironridge at the moment so if there's anyone you want to talk to, be sure to say within the next day or so."

Maple swallowed. "I hope you're right, because that just sounds like something to be nervous about. We'll call you tomorrow night at the latest, okay?"

"Deal. And if anyone else is listening, don't let them give Valey flak for all her blubbering, or tell her that I can hear it from here. She deserves this. Trust me."

Maple and Shinespark put the stone down, looking up instead. In the room's far corner, Nyala sat, looking as awkward as a half-animate suit of armor could and holding a leg around Valey as the batpony bawled, clung to her and generally made a racket. Maple gave her an encouraging smile, and Nyala saw it and nodded.

Behind them, the door to the pantry was still closed. Ignoring it, Maple climbed up several short flights of scaffolding, sighed, and stepped out through the door to the deck.