//------------------------------// // 38. Override Ostrich. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -????, Oleander- I considered Capital B to be a complete idiot, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t dangerous. For some reason Fred really liked the storybook aesthetics of the collection of worlds we were visiting, said it added on to the charm of it all. The respawning minions of Capital B were quite pathetic. Though why this world had sentient and sapient shopping carts still confused the two of us to no end. -????, the next day, Pom- We sat in a circle close to the center of the village around an empty fire pit. “So we’re in a world where we can’t understand the locals, we don’t even know who those invading soldiers were. What we do know is they were organized and that they are likely to attack this peaceful village again with larger numbers.” At least the villagers didn’t seem to mind that we were helping them with cleaning up throughout the evening yesterday, only a few of their houses had gone unscathed. Their farms were relatively untouched as they were uphill whereas the village itself was downhill closer to the base of the mountain in the valley we were in. Also apples and bananas were a common fruit in this world, we weren’t questioning it all too much as the locals had plenty of fruit and vegetables to share with us. “The only hope we have to figure out what’s going on or where we are is for Ocellus to use her natural Changeling talents so we can do some form of communication.” The local’s written language was as strange to us as their language. Having a changeling with us was a good thing as Changelings could learn any language written or spoken at an incredible speed, it was going to take a few days before Ocellus got down anything resembling an approximation of what the villagers were saying. Being able to sense emotions definitely helped Ocellus at least understand their intentions towards us, so far the villagers were benevolent. I felt the bandages tighten around my chest and I wince, getting kicked by the metal ostrich had hurt me more than I thought it did. I slept on my back with the bandages off only to have them reapplied right now. “Sorry, but better safe than sorry to make sure your ribs are alright Pom.” Ocellus muttered as she sat down with Smolder, Shanty and me. “I wish I had learned a diagnostics spell to see how your insides were doing, I’m just going to recommend that you don’t try to fight anymore machines like that. At least you aren’t bleeding, so we can reuse these bandages later.” The verdant valley we were in was as nice as the last two, but we could already tell that trouble was on the horizon. The locals were peaceful, but given that the armor on the invaders wasn’t slapdash and was uniform, their neighbors weren’t nearly as friendly. “Well I’ve been quite useless.” There was nothing I could have done against that ostrich machine. Despite what my friends back home are capable of, I was not among the few who could break metal with my bare hooves…. or entire mountain ranges. “What you be talking about, we be thrashing those sword slinging lizards soundly!” Well we only assumed they were lizards, they could be called something else in this world. “I couldn’t beat Tai Lung, even when my limiter was temporarily removed and almost killed myself. I couldn’t do much to help or protect you guys when Shen invaded Gongmen City and at best all I did was grapple Kai so that Po could drag him back to the spirit realm.” Some guard I was. “I haven’t been much help to our situation, I couldn’t even handle that mechanical ostrich by myself.” Since Kai wanted his chi so badly, Po definitely gave it to him, far more than he could handle with the help of all his panda friends and other kung fu warriors sending him chi to help. Simply put, Kai’s consciousness died from chi overloading on a massive amount of chi that Po force fed him. So Kai functionally died twice over, as warriors that were strong enough can keep their consciousness in the spirit realm after dying and become a spirit warrior. Oogway had kept his conscious so that he could watch over the afterlife to stop things like Kai from happening. “Pom, nobody could have expected you take on that thing by yourself.” Smolder said calmly. “You’ve done a lot of good things too you know. You helped Thundering Rhino recover his strength, you turned Tai Lung’s life around and you managed to survive falling into the chasm and then chasing after Kai. It’s fairly incredible that you could even hold Kai completely still with how tired and roughed up you were by the time you arrived. Shanty, Ozzy and I wouldn’t have been able to done any of what you did, you followed a tireless undead guy and managed to catch up to him on the same day he arrived at the panda village.” “My friends could have done it all and more. Paprika would have hugged it apart. Arizona could shatter it with a single powerful strike or roped it down. Velvet could have made the metal brittle with her ice. Even Tianhuo could have melted it to slag.” I put my chin my hooves. “What do I have compared to them, I’m almost nothing without my beasties.” “Well maybe you shouldn’t compare yourself to them, since they sound insanely powerful and you can’t really hold yourself up to their standards for being able to do things you might not even capable of.” Ocellus was sending me a sharp look. “We’re not expecting you to do more, we’re expecting you to do what you can and what you can do is honestly amazing like Smolder said. You survived falling into and going through the chasm that was said to be problematic for entire armies when it comes to invading The Valley of Peace and then kept up with Kai for miles on end. You're probably one of the fastest beings I’ve ever seen or heard of Pom.” “At the very least you are my hero Pom .” Shanty stated plainly as she finished a banana, peel and all, she then supposedly sets off to go help the villagers with the continue cleanup of the village. “You are being here for us no matter what, that be enough for me.” I gazed after our goat. “Funny… I don’t feel like a hero.” My muttered words came out in a depressive manner as I considered our current situation. The valley we were in only had one way out aside from climbing over the mountains. If those raiders were soldiers, this meant that those monsters came to this out of the way place to attack the village that had no strategic advantage to them if they were at war with the locals. Speaking of locals, they were all quite short. There was a size disparity in the previous realm where most beings were intelligent. Po was large and Mantis was absolutely tiny, yet both were viable in a fight. Here the locals of the villages were usually two to four feet in height and rarely taller, they appeared to be several varieties of rodent mice, shrews, possums and all of them were bipedal with a society reminiscent of medieval times, except something was off when it came to the higher end technology of the invaders. Said invaders were quite oddly similar in appearance, that being said they were all some form of reptile with an unfriendly skull emblem motif going for them. The ones we saw were no bigger than the rodents they were invading with lethal intentions if the metal ostrich was anything to go by and they were armed with weapons that were apparently steeped in enough dark magic that my fleece had an odd reaction to. If a war was going on, I seriously didn’t want to drag my girls into it. At least not without a good reason to get involved further than we already have, unless we could secure a perfect way home doing it. -Shanty- “The pirate’s life for me, is to live out at sea~. To explore, and adore, the world that I can see~.” I sang as I started digging through the rubble where the machine was last seen, the villagers be avoiding it like the plague. I be knowing that if the metal ostrich actually be kicking me, then I would not be alive right now. Pom be protecting me with her own body again, she’s really tough and she’s takes care of me. “It’s the waves you know, as the sun and moon do glow~. The stars and sky, they do not lie, the beauty is always within sight of any eye~. So lack of daisies doesn’t bring the pain, fruits are all you need in the days of rain~. It’s a hardy life, that be filled with strife, but a new day will always bring you hope even when your neck be at the blade of a knife~.” I slashed apart bits of wood and hay, moving them away from the cool metal ostrich things body. I be wanting to get a closer look at it when it wasn’t trying to kill us. There it be sitting, it not be moving and I put my hooves on it climb up the side of the body to look at the seat and the controls. It looks less complicated than an airship to drive at least. I felt a large drain on my magic, but it didn’t feel that unusual even if it was a little harder to cling to this metal. -???- Se-se-seque—quence--- activat-tion-tion-tion. Directive one: f-f-f-f-find p-p-pi-pi-lot-lot-lot. The neck lifted up the head and its eyes searched for the nearest sign of life, it honed in on the small four legged ungulate goat examining and climbing around on its body with unrestrained curiosity. Possible pilot detected, pass-w-rd ne-e—bypassing systems failure, password-word-word not needed. New pilot acquired. Pilot is Friend. Query, what is friend? Answer not found. “It’s a hardy life, that be filled with strife, but a new day will always bring you hope even when your neck be at the blade like that of a knife~.” The head be looking down on the pilot. Sys-st-stem Error, Dark Magic re-re-re-reactor inactive, negative energy. N-ne-new energy-gy-g-y source de-de-demon-detected. Syntax error, energy in system is not base in d-d-d-dark ma-g-g-gic-ic… new magic bypassing logic gates. New energy source unknown, malfunc-func-funkatronic-func-tion m-ma-may occurr at six-ix-sixty three-ree-re percent-cent-cent… malfunction occurrence at one hundred percent. Directive t-tw-oooooo: Spread the glory of-f-f-f G-#%!#- empire and the fi-eb—d ma-gic, tak-eeee des---str--... spread fie-dish evil d-story eliminate every-aeafeave in way… C-c-cruelty MOS slated for erasure. Cruelty MOS being deleted, new MOS installing… abort… abort failed. New corruption detected bypassing logic circuits, initialize firewa… new MOS found, directive…. directive… directive…. directive… … Installing. … 24% … 73% … 100% … Harmony Magical Operating System installed. “I be wanting to have a home, but I also really want to roam~. My heart does seek, from hill to peak, a place that will stick to me like a stench that does reek~.” The odd resonance was causing more glitches by the second. “I be happy to even have some friends, with them I hope my adventures never come to their sudden ends~. All it took was to break through to the heart of the world hating crook, who’s never seen a tall mountain or a quiet brook, creating that change of heart was to be finding all the love they needed in a tiny little nook~.” Magic resonance initiating directive reboot… abort…. aborting… abort failure. ABORT FAILURE! Zero one zero zero… two… impossible computation detected! Redoing computation zero, zero, two, three, two, one, three, three, seven… impossible computations continuing to rise. Initiating special Cruelty MOS backup and directive reboot, abort new Harmony MOS… abort failure… new MOS and directive reboot proceeding… attempting to override Cruelty MOS erasure… override overridden?! Dark magic not detected, new magic overriding all systems… new directives reboot activating. Directive beyond directive one reboot complete. Directive two: Spread Friendship. Directive initiated? System does… not… error…. Error… system corruption… initiating directive Spread Friendship. System does not compute directive, pilot is continuing magical resonance sequence. “So as the blue moon dies, it will leave the skies, but the stars know that it will rise to glow once more beyond the night’s demise~.” P-p-pi—pilot… Harmony Magical Operating System new designation acquired. “The sun will raise to greet the day, I’ll be missing that night much to my dismay, but the sleep I’ll have and the dreams to come will get me to be on my way~.” Pilot is Friend, familiar bond connection established, minor sharing of information through bond initiated. “Huh?” The pilot, emphasis friend, froze and started shivering. Pilot looked around and then looked at the head of self, head is currently directing its red eyed gaze at her. Fear detected, exploit… exploitations of weakness file deleted with Cruelty MOS. Pulling information from new Harmony MOS, no movements of head in an aggressive manner towards pi-friend. Pinkie Pie is a friend, equal big yes. Illogical memories of magical pink ungulate added to system. Tilt head slightly to the left and lay head down to continue Harmony MOS rewrite. Initiating Hidden Cruelty MOS Directive Three: Loss of previous pilot and or Cruelty MOS corruption/deletion requires destruction of all living beings in surrounding are-are---a-aa-aa and perfor-ming-ming-ming self-destruct to not fall into… in---to---- ene… All hidden d-v-in-os/g--dl… directives erased. Corruption detected, new directives and changes added by Harmony MOS. Changes accepted. Harmony MOS is no longer considered corruption. Cruelty MOS and comparable systems are now considered corruption, all previous hidden directives erased. Directive three: Magicloyaltylaughterkindnessgenerosityhonesty. System lacks understanding of new directive. “That’s alright, you don’t need to understand, I’m sure you’ll still make friends in no time at all!” PinkPie.exe responds. Corruptions discovered, PinkPie.exe and CuddleStare.exe. Illogical addition of PinkPie.exe and CuddleStare.exe are no longer considered system corruptions. “Hehe, that tickles.” CuddleStare.exe doesn’t add much to the systems understanding or confusion. New system accepts directive three anyway. Directive four: Learn more, learn to live and love. New magic operating system directive four changes are unknown, all previous Cruelty MOS systems deleted. Equus resonance magic accepted, rebooting all systems for Harmony MOS full system rewrite to take full effect in three… two… -Shanty- Did it just… it was still capable of moving, it was still active?! I stayed in my spot on top of its butt, afraid of what was happening. I be sitting there for a minute as the machine gazed at me. I no longer felt like singing, but something be feeling odd… like there was a string was connecting me to this thing. It be feeling strange. It felt like I was being connected to a baby with immense understanding about themselves in their head, but no understanding of the world around it? It be an odd feeling at the very least. I didn’t understand what be going on as I slowly moved to sit in the seat, it wouldn’t damage itself would it? The head lifted up once more and I be blinking as the eyes were no longer red, they be changing to a nice soft teal color when they blinked and continued to gaze at me. “Um… hi?” I be trying. -????- CuddleStare.exe suggests the action of nuzzle gently, frightened animals like reassurance that you aren’t going to harm them. Watch your beak though, it is sharp and could hurt pilot and we wouldn’t want that. Pilot is also not an animal and is a friend, but the principle is the same. Animals can also be friends too, but that takes more time and patience. PinkPie.exe suggests making cupcakes, system is currently incapable of doing as such and doesn’t even know what cupcakes are to begin with. Insistence on making cupcakes increases despite not being able to do so. -Shanty- I shivered and cowered as the head approached me. I felt the flat of the sharp beak pressed against my neck, it be a bit cold and I thought this was it. Be surprised to find that it just gently rubs at my fur, it not be attacking me at all and I feel safe right where I was. In fact… it seemed to be wanting my attention? My curiosity struck me as I stopped fearing it and then raised a hoof to rub at the side of its head. The machine’s head be making a strange whining noise at my touch and when I pulled my hoof back, it be looking around at everything like a newborn. I be rarely seeing babies in my life, but I be seeing the care a mother would give to one and wonder what became of mine. It be really weird to be thinking of such while in the seat of such a dangerous machine. I slowly be climbing out of the seat and carefully dropped to the ground, the machine be moving to stand up. “Wait!” The machine froze and looked at me. “Stay here, uh… sit?” The machine adjusted itself into a sitting position instead of laying almost on its side and just waited, it didn’t try to stand up. “I’ll be back soon, I be having to go talk to someone about… er… you… do you be having a name?” The machine didn’t respond more than just blinking at me, it almost be seeming alive. At least it looked more alive than it had been when that lizard guy had been using it. I get the feeling that it was quite confused. I felt the word more than heard it be spoken and that word be ‘designation?’ It was weird that I can be feeling the question mark being involved too. Does it be wanting me to name it? “I’ll call you Dodo, since you that being a common bipedal island bird back on Equus!” After I said that, it seemed to accept that and it even felt happy to be having a designation. “Please be waiting here for me and do not be hurting anyone.” I have to tell Pom and the others that I be making a new friend. -Dodo- Designation Dodo acquired. Self is Dodo. Pi-Friend leaves designation Dodo behind. Dodo wait’s for friends return, no danger within visual range. Visual range currently hampered by surroundings of destroyed domicile. Domicile destroyed by what Dodo previously was. Dodo does not understand knew system inputs of sadness.exe from AppleLove.exe. Dodo wants insistence to make cupcakes for everyone to stop coming from Sys Admin PinkPie.exe. -Shanty- I be eventually finding Pom surrounded by many sheep and was currently petting a dog on the gently head while sighing loudly. “Pom, can you be getting Smolder and Ocellus together?” I be wanting to show them Dodo. “Something be strange be happening.” “What is it Shanty, are the raiders back?” Pom asked worriedly and didn’t see the village on fire again. “No, but I be feeling an odd connection to something and I be wanting to know what that is. I be getting a lot of strange things from this… being.” What followed was an explanation to me about what familiars were and that I had recently acquired one, she be wanting to meet my familiar. I just hope that Pom does not panic about this. -Five minutes later- “The mechanical ostrich?” Ocellus looked at it questioningly. “Yes, I be naming it and everything. Dodo!” The mechanical ostrich responds to my voice by opening up its eyes and lifting its head and making a friendly whining noise. “Shanty… please tell me that you didn’t get this thing as a familiar.” Pom be slowly having a panic attack and may be getting a headache on top of that. “Please tell me that the familiar is anything else other than what I’m looking at.” “I can’t.” I be stating plainly. From what Pom told me about the connection that be between us, it can only be being one thing. “He be my familiar.” Dodo whined lightly, but didn’t get up. “Huh, an alien machine for a familiar, that’s kind of cool.” It seems Smolder be liking him. The metal ostrich idly looks at each of us in turn, but not be doing much. “Almost as cool as Silver Stream having that cockatrice Edith for a familiar.” “I would say it’s impossible, because everyone knows that golems can’t be familiars…” Pom started slowly. “It has to be a living thing and not a completely magical construct.” “Dodo be alive, I can feel it.” I be feeling a lot of odd things from him really. “He definitely be a ‘him’ and not an ‘it’.” Dodo made a slightly happy sounding tinny whining noise. “Does anyone else notice that he doesn’t even look the slightest bit damaged aside from the controls in his back?” Ocellus be hovered around Dodo and he be curious about her, but he not be doing anything untoward. “I’m not going to lie, this is probably going to be contender for the weirdest familiar in existence.” “I’m just going to say it, I don’t like this one bit.” Pom be wary of him, I can be understanding that. Dodo is being the reason why she is having to bandage her chest. -???- I looked to see what the four that came to our were doing at this house specifically and saw them communicated with each other with one of the Empire’s deadly machines looking over them curiously. That it wasn’t going on a rampage was telling, they had somehow managed to take control of one of the Empire’s deadly machines. It even seemed more alive and its eyes were a gentle and rather curious green, like a baby. I should tell the other people in the village about this so as to not cause a panic. I owed them for saving my life and the life of my wee one, I looked down at my child and nuzzled them with my nose. I noticed the machine curiously looking at me and I didn’t overreact, the four heroes didn’t seem to be worried and the goat climbed on top of the machine and said something. It stood up, turned in place and then sat back down before making a happy sounding whining noise. That clinches it, the machine was definitely no longer empire property in my eyes. I wondered how they managed to take possession of it and give it such a lively and, dare I think it, friendly feel? Aside from that I noticed earlier that the hooved bug one seemed to be fairly interest in learning our language and writing. The kin of lambs seemed to have a strange attractions of the local shepherding dogs and even the actual sheep seemed to appreciate her unusual presence. The scaled one with the ribbon performed for the town with the ribbon and danced just last night. These four might just solve the problems of the empire slowly taking over our kingdom, I wondered if they could take on the worst of the Empire’s machinations and machines though. That Land Strider those four gained control of wasn’t the worst of the machines that the empire could have sent after us after all. It would certainly help to have one of these machines on their side, but that machine was probably one of the weakest monstrosities the empire has created and it was nowhere nearly enough help. Once we figure out what these four want to do, aside from maybe wanting a map of the realm, we’d be seeing them on their way. They were obviously not going to live here and that machine can carrying plenty of supplies for them when they leave.