Equestria Digital

by DeltaChevron


Dangers From Afar

When I reached Rosy’s room I found two new beds had been set up and my bag had been placed on one of them and Mist’s bag was on the other. I undid my ears and put the ribbon and worksheets on my bed next to a new bag I hadn’t noticed. It was a black messenger bag trimmed in red and modeled after my larger blue and grey one. Its flap was emblazoned with a blue-grey six toothed gear flanked by 3 pairs of matching wings. It was beautiful and had been perfectly sized for my small frame. There was a neatly written note attached to the bag.


Inaba,

I thought you could use a bag of proper size.
The symbol will allow you to be quickly identified
as a member of The Mancers. If you have not
already been informed I filled out the paperwork
and called in a few favors to have it pushed through.
While we were missing most of your personal information
(age, race, ect.) there was enough for us to work with.
We’ll talk more this evening when I take you to HQ.

Sunny


I put the note and my worksheets inside the new bag and moved my mechanical pencil from my old bag into the new one. With some difficulty I pulled the Mexican blanket out of my bag and draped it over my bed. I ignored my laptop, textbook, charger cable, and well everything else that was in it, except the duck tape, I moved that into my new bag. We played in the courtyard for about an hour before Sunny arrived to take me to The Mancer HQ.




“Sunny, will you tell me more about The Mancers?”


She smiled “The Mancers have a long and important history, in both Equestria and Trottingham. Before the formal organization and construction of the Black Vault in Canterlot many of the articles now classified as more dangerous than Discord were mostly stored in what is now our headquarters. At the time the number and size of the articles was minimal, as a result HQ isn’t as deep underground but it is very vast, like an underground single-floor warehouse. We’ll be going in through the northeast entrance, it’s the closest one to the house and, should you continue to attend, the school.”


“Okay, but what exactly do we do? I mean you said the research new technology, and I’m guessing it involves things your family owns or owned and these dangerous things am I right?”


“Truthfully, yes The Mancers are mostly trying to reverse engineer some of the things. Others are just things we’re trying to learn everything we can about them. The other thing is we’re trying to learn were all of these things are coming from; we have acquisition teams that get sent out whenever something new pops up. But most of us have families we can’t just up and leave for a month to chase something down so SCP usually beats us to it. The general public doesn’t know about any of that, all they know is that The Mancers are the oldest group in the city, work to support its defense, and have friends in very high places both locally and abroad, as well as having an extensive information network.”


“I could probably help with the acquisition thing.”


“How?”


“I’ll explain later but do we have anything, you know, living?”


“A few, most of them are kept frozen for long term storage so we have to keep them in a separated part of headquarters. It requires near constant attention so there’s almost always someone in the area to make sure nothing thaws out. A few of the things look harmless enough but there was an incident in the early days and it’s been a case of better safe than sorry ever since.”


We walked pretty slowly for about fifteen minutes before I caught sight of a large building. It was at least two stories high with a third floor in one place which was probably offices or something at one point. It was obviously an assembly plant of some sort at one point and had only recently been abandoned as the windows still had plenty of glass left in them. We entered on what turned out to be the second floor of the building and had to go down a nearby set of stairs to reach the lower floor.


“This factory was built about eighty years ago and was used to produce carriages, the company moved to a newer facility five years ago and the city took possession of the building and all the land around it. It is actually located next to the eastern wall of HQ so I authorized the expenditure and testing of a few systems we had just finished studying, the elevator for one, a scaled up test of our successful powered dumb-waiter. Unfortunately because it uses a larger power system than the small scale model it isn’t yet feasible to install them in most buildings, they’re just too costly.”


We took the elevator down till it stopped and she opened the button console to reveal a ten digit number pad.


“This is also too expensive for mass distribution, we’ve built a few for banks but that’s about it. We’d been studying this device for ten years before we figured out how to work and then it was a matter of weeks before we made this functional replica. They’re installed at every entrance and everypony picks their own four digit PIN. It’s set up to accept a new code so go ahead and put yours in.


Easy choice “Alf-Layla-Wa-Layla.” I punched in the numbers


“What does that mean?”


I smiled “It’s Arabic and can be translated as ‘a thousand nights and one night’. It’s a portion of the name from a very famous collection of stories. But I doubt you’ve ever heard of it.”


The elevator door opened to reveal another door with three concentric rings acting as a seal. I put my code in a second time to confirm it and the rings spin around till they aligned their hidden tumblers and the door split open with a hiss. I was half expecting to find Jeremie seated in front of the supercomputer terminal typing away and giving instructions. I wasn’t far off, in the sense that there was somepony seated at a terminal giving instructions through a headset. I didn’t realize I was staring at it until Sunny commented on it.


“Something else we haven’t yet been able to successfully replicate. Fortunately we have hundreds of them in storage for when one stops working.”


“I can probably help with that to.”


Everything was brightly lit from the overhead lighting; it looked like the fluorescent lighting you would see in a research lab. Not surprising since that’s what HQ was supposed to double as. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all made from some form of white tile. Whatever the material was it probably made the tiles sound, fire, and water proof. I couldn’t find a speck of dust anywhere as I was taken on a tour I made mental notes about things that would need to be separated and regroup. We had made it halfway to specimen containment when I saw something that made me panic.


“STOP!” I yelled


“What, is something wrong?”


“Yes, this, this big orange thing right here. We need to get rid of it, like NOW.”


The object in question was something I recognized because I had been bored and look up certain things. It was an orange cone, about five feet tall and a foot wide with a black tip. I knew exactly what it was and more importantly how dangerous it was and how to safely get rid of it.


“We need lead, LOTS of lead,” I was panicking “concrete or cement to if we’ve got it.”


“INABA!” Sunny yelled “Calm down and explain, what is this thing and why do we need lead and concrete?”


She was right, deep even breaths “This is a W88 thermonuclear warhead. If it goes off there will be nothing left of this city but a massive crater. But that’s only half of the weapon’s danger. It also creates a very dangerous substance called fallout, its radioactive dust and ash that falls from the sky after detonation. It can’t really explain what radioactive material is but all you need to know is that it is very, very bad.”


“How bad are we talking?”


“Not sure how large the radius would be, but everything in and around it would suffer from burns and an incurable poisoning. The effects would be felt as far away as Canterlot in the form of mutations and birth defects.” The more I talked the more scared everypony seemed to become “That’s why we need to encase this thing in a layer of lead probably a foot thick should be enough. Lead blocks radiation, simple as that. The concrete is for additional protection.”


Sunny nodded “You heard her get to work ponies! After it’s sealed up we can have it sent to The Black Vault.”


“No, even sealed up its still dangerous. All we’re doing is making sure that if there is any radiation leaking it won’t be able to spread. But, I haven’t the slightest idea how to disarm this thing. If we’re going to do anything with it we’ll be lowering it down into a very deep hole where, hopefully, nothing can ever find it.”


“This seems like something the Princesses should be informed about.”


“By all means send them a letter. Just don’t call it a W88 it won’t mean anything to them, the important part of the name is thermonuclear. Make sure the letter asks if they know of a safe way to dispose of it, like sending it to the moon.”


Sunny blinked, looked around, then blinked again “This W88 as you called it has been here for centuries and not once has anypony had even the slightest idea what it is. We had our thoughts that could be a weapon, but as it is the only one we had no desire to test that theory. You see it and not only name it, but vividly describe its supposed effects at only a glance.”


“Sunny Smiles, I promise I will tell you everything about me later. But if this has been here for centuries then identifying other things that are just as dangerous needs to be our top priority right now. Is there some kind of catalogue system used to document everything that’s stored here?”


“I’ll have our most recent log books brought to us in my office.”




“So, who and what are you – Inaba?”


“Not my given name, close enough. Took it from a legend. My real name no longer matters. I’m a foreigner, not only to this country but to this world. Originally I was a creature known as a human, a kind of tall, bipedal, mostly hairless ape. I’m currently a girl, but I was born as a boy.”


She scowled “So I’m letting someone who is mentally a colt spend time very close to my granddaughter.”


“I’m twenty years old. She’s way too young for me. Plus, I…I think I’m starting to see her as a little sister. My only sibling growing up was my older brother. We both always wanted to have a younger sister to be able to protect. Who we could embarrass by threatening destroy her boyfriend if he treated her wrong.”


“How did you know about the, what was it called again?”


I sighed “W88 Thermonuclear Warhead. In my world we have access to almost any information at the press of a few buttons using a device called a computer. As long as it is connected to something called the internet you can probably find an answer to any question.”


“And what is this, internet?”


“That is a question with such a confusing answer I’m better off not even trying to explain it. The basics of it that it is millions of computers connected together and sharing information with each other. That’s the extremely over simplified version of the answer. Anything more and it wouldn’t make sense to you. I know because it barely makes sense to me. Though you may be older, wiser, and smarter than me, when it comes to computers you probably don’t know anything.”


“Back to the topic of what you are.”


“Right, as I said I was human before but when I came here I chose to become a Digimon. I set a few conditions with the group who sent me here. First I would be Antylamon and could digivolve, or transform, into its early form of Lopmon which I am right now. As Antylamon I’m extremely fast so I could quickly get to new things for us. Now as I said early I was boy. Partly by my own fault and probably by the power of a gigantic human intolerant flaming pigeon I now find myself as a girl.”


“Your large rabbit form right and what do you mean by gigantic flaming pigeon?”


I nodded “Okay, according to information in the third season Antylamon was one of twelve warriors known as the Deva who served the four Digimon Sovereigns. The Sovereigns rule the Digital World and have it split into four quadrants, each under the direct control of one. I met Azulongmon, the Azure Dragon of the East, who rules over the eastern quarter of the Digital World. The flaming pigeon is Zhuqiaomon, the Vermillion Bird of the South, he dislikes humans and I could see him taking advantage of my transformation to have good laugh at humanity. Anyway, Azulongmon told me he was acting as the representative of the group and that they had been contacted by the Queen of the Looking Glass Kingdom. I don’t know what her stake in this is but, I have good feeling it’s not for the detriment of this world.”


“Who is this Queen?”


“I don’t know for sure but if I had to guess it would be someone named Alice. There are two main published stories about her. In the second story she travels through a mirror into the Looking Glass Kingdom and is made its queen. What I can’t figure out is how she is still its queen. At the end of the story she returns to her world and learns she was just dreaming, so how can she still be its queen?”


“She may have gone back, or when she left her reflection may have taken over as queen. Out of curiosity how strong are you?”


“There are seven levels in a Digimon’s growth: egg, baby one, baby two, rookie, child, adult, perfect, and ultimate. Right now I’m in my child form and my strength reflects it. That being said I could probably kill a member of the Royal Guard, in armor, with some effort. Not that I would mind you. As Antylamon I doubt that the Guard would even be able to stop me if really started going. A good rule for Digimon strength is it takes one of an equal or greater stage to beat another. But, even still Digimon can vary greatly in power from one another.”


“Could you give an example?”


“I could give you hundreds. But to keep it simple I’ll compare Numemon, an adult level Digimon, to Agumon, a child level. You’d think that because Numemon is a greater level it would mop the floor with Agumon, but the opposite is true. When a Digimon digivolves it isn’t always into something stronger, I don’t know the finer points of the process but I do know that much.” As I finished an earth pony walked in carrying a stack of book.


Sunny smiled at me “We can continue this discussion at a later date. For now though I think you have told me enough.”


I was surprised as I started looking through the books. There was practically everything you could think of in this place; Gou’ld hand device, zamor sphere launchers, a pair of Stargates with DHDs, Xbox 360, enough instruments for fifty heavy metal groups, the remains of a few UFOs, classic cars, a couple of tanks, some mechs, a baseball autographed by Babe Ruth, and yes even a stainless steel kitchen sink being stored on shelf 27-C. They said it was for the new kitchen that was going in. It really was like a giant storage unit for all things miscellaneous. One thing that was strange was the guns, lots and lots of guns and ammo. Plenty of ammunition, body armor, computers, networking equipment, two-way radios, it was like a military shopping list. I spent about an hour making notes and suggestions for proper storage of everything, keep away from fire plenty of space between the areas.


“I’m almost afraid to ask how you got most of this stuff down here.”


“We have a few places with surface access for large objects, but most of it is just carried in.”


Then the book of live specimens arrived. Yes book, singular, as in only one and not more than one. It wasn’t nearly as interesting as the others but it still held a few surprises. Luckily all the books were formatted the same. Each page was devoted to a single item; if they had more than one of the same thing the number was listed. It had acquisition date, location, and time. There were notes about the unidentified objects guessing at their function and even listed a temporary name. When I got near the end I saw something that made me groan.


“What did you find?”


I turned the book toward her “See this giant six tentacled jellyfish thing? It’s called the Scyphozoa. Make sure it never thaws out. In the fiction that it’s from it is able to brainwash people by using its tentacles to alter their mind. There was only one ever shown and I don’t know if it can be killed otherwise I’d suggest that right away. As long as it’s frozen we might be able to shatter it that would probably work.”


“Is there a way to undo the brainwashing?”


I shook my head “I don’t know. In the show they either de-virtualized the affected person, didn’t let it finish the brainwashing, or it wore off after the person had finished whatever they were supposed to do. Problem is the Scyphozoa’s master is supposed to be dead, so there’s no telling what it will do just that it will be bad. Other than that all I can see is keep everything frozen. The stuff I recognize is either dangerous or causes problems.”


“Like what?”


“Rapid movement of glaciers, rapid melting of glaciers, volcanic eruptions, rapid continental drift; do you want me to keep going?”


“No, I believe you’ve made your point. I think we should be getting you back to the house, don’t want the girls to worry about you.”




When we got back to the house Rosy and Mist began peppering me with questions. I told them we went to look at the old factory, not a complete lie but I couldn’t really tell them we went to The Mancer HQ. That reminded me that I need to ask Sunny if we have some sort of public office. We had dinner in Rosy’s room and I ended up with a stomach ache from all the smores I ate. We skipped out on Truth or Dare because I insisted they finish the homework we’d been given. Of course because of how I rationalized it to them they couldn’t really argue. By the time they were done it was dark outside so we turned the lights off and it was time for scary stories.


“And just when the last pony thought she was safe. There standing right behind her just inches away was… the headless horse!”


The lantern flickered off and then back on showing Mist’s head covered by a sheet. Rosy screamed and I laughed


“That’s not very scary.” I said


“Oh yeah, then let’s hear you tell one!”


After providing them with some necessary information I began. “You've heard of the Sierra Madre Casino. We all have, the legend, the curses."


There's gonna start being action soon enough.