//------------------------------// // I Awake...Or Is It Turn On? // Story: Deductive Synthesis // by The_Watcher //------------------------------// It was dark, very dark. I felt like someone replaced my bones with cement and I was chained to the ground, didn't fell like moving at the moment. There was a soothing rhythm but I didn't know if I was hearing it or feeling it, hell I couldn't even tell if I was smelling it, everything just was so disoriented I couldn't even get my thoughts right. I just waited there for sleep to overtake me but it never did. Eventually the fatigue waned enough for me to think. 'The hell.....?' Never a good sign when that's your first thought. I don't remember getting drunk though. Everything slowly got into focus and I could now tell the rhythm was both felt and faintly heard, I also had this strange cooling sensation over my body. I could still feel but it felt..... dulled. I flexed my fingers, they moved but there was a faint resistance. I tested everything else and although everything responded, except for my toes and most of my facial features which was a bit worrying, I encountered the same odd resistance. My torso felt slightly raised like something was propping me up. 'Something isn't right. Why aren't my toes and face responding? What happened?' Then to memories came flooding back hitting me like a train. A train loaded with bricks. And cement. And heavy stuff. 'Well then, hope I didn't just screw myself.' I was likely to have a mental breakdown latter. Actually scratch that I wont. I grew out of that. I tried to open my eyes, something wasn't right about them, they resisted for a moment before opening when the promptly shot open in shock and confusion or at least I assume they did. I stared at a shifting reflective surface like a moving mirror, faint yet powerful light dancing through the ever shifting patten of waves. I was underwater. And I wasn't drowning. It took my a moment to repeat and process this new information. After recovering from the initial shock, I assessed the situation to the best of my ability. It's was drilled into me, never act without first observing the situation. Only fools run in without seeing the whole picture. 'It's not that deep, only about 15 feet. Its too dark to be day although I can see clearly so it must be night with a full moon or few clouds. Shore should be close by because wind blows toward land so that's not a problem. But more importantly than any of that why am I not drowning?' At that moment something even more concerning accord to me. I wasn't breathing at all. I quickly sat up, the water offering some resistance, but froze when I looked at myself. I was covered head to toe in grey armor with a few lighter grey highlights colored a almost non-reflective silver here and there for details, faintly glowing blue lines covering the armor in geometric patterns. The only thing not consistent with the varia theme was the shoulder plates which where standard UA/Multi-Threat plates from halo. Any kinks in the armor you could see was covered in a muscle like weave trademarked by the nano suit. There was also a plate on my chest for extra armor, little on its surface. Many would have the core visible on the chest piece but I didn't, what kind of idiot exposes the core like that? Freaking lunacy if you ask me, an idiotic idea in the name of esthetics. My right arm was bulkier than my left having an extra layer of armor, flexing it yielded no difference I could tell but then again I was underwater. I recognized the design instantly. She really did it. I was in the Artimus suit. ' .....Me Gusta.' Since when did I start thinking in memes? When I ended up in candy land apparently. Explained why I wasn't breathing, I didn't need to anymore. That in turn explained why I wasn't drowning. I took a closer look at the lines. They where a faint carnelian blue that slowly pulsed every few seconds like a heart beat. 'Raw magic. Basically my blood now, it's my power source being generated by my core.' My core is a specialized generator that constantly generated a huge amount of magic, like a constantly changing battery to the power of 100. I named the core the "Runeic Engine", fitting if I say so myself. As for how the core actually works, I got nuthin'. I don't know what specific laws this world follows yet. The power was stored in four large synthetic crystals protruding out my back at a 45 degree angle at roughly one and a half feet long, the bottom set slightly smaller then the upper set at one and a fourth feet. As I said they where synthetic and where specifically designed for this purpose making them more effective than any naturally occurring crystal, assuming crystals are magic here, looking like huge perfect quarts crystals. I looked over my shoulder to see they where glowing the same color as the lines. They appear to be what was propping me up when I woke. I was very glad I gave the suit touch receptors even If they weren't perfect so I could still feel things like the water on my ski...armor. 'This may take some getting used to.' I slowly stood feeling a bit off balanced but with the water reducing my weight it made things easier. 'Time to test some things.' "Run system diagnostics." I ordered, my voice sounding distorted and artificial not having vocal cords anymore. I sounded excited however which was unlike me, is this what excitement feels like? I like it. A status report appeared in the center of my vision as my HUD came to life. My shield indicator appearing top center halo style, followed by my power level indicator to my left and my hazardous environment detector to my right. My weapon system status was next to my bottom left and my visor status to my bottom right after that. Lastly my motion sensor appearing to my top right, all colored a light blue tent. The suit ran basic assessment and maintenance scenarios, which I eyed in interest. I was starting to notice a pattern however and I wasn't very happy about it. It looked like whoever sent me here decided to pull a metroid prime in that several of the functions where either damaged, offline, or missing entirely. Fantastic. This was going to be a problem if I ever face heavy resistance. "Of course this would happen. *sigh* Might as well head toward shore. At least the views nice. And I'm talking to myself again." In regards to the surface which was indeed nice. I sadly doubted I could even find something like that back home. At least not without treading deep into the wilderness. 'Alright then, time to test motor skills.' I slowly lifted one foot and took a step, it was more sluggish then I was hoping. The sand around me looked like windswept dunes in a dessert that haven't been disturbed in hundreds of years, colored a pale gold. I took some more steps, getting used to the way my new body moved and soon I was having no problems at all. 'Water, baby's first training wheels for walking.' I headed in the direction the waves where going as that should lead to shore if weather patterns where similar to earths and saw things from strange fish to colorful corals, All having no business being that neon. 'Now this is why I payed for a scuba diving lessons. Well I didn't pay for it my shrink did. Said it would help. Had trouble convincing her I was fine for another mission.' It took me about 2 hours to reach shore give or take a little. The system diagnostic continued to run in this time and I learned a few things about my new body from the status screen. Firstly I was freaking 7'2 and was over 900 pounds. An considerable improvement from my old 6'2 and 180 pounds.'.....Interesting. I'm a walking tank. hope I can fit I twilight's library, I'm going to read every single book.' The suit could auto repair internal damage, so I'd slowly get my stuff back over time and didn't have to worry much if something actually managed to harm me which I doubted as my armor was made of FREAKIN' IMPREVIUM, name says it all. If It still is anyway, It may have changed to better coincide with this worlds different materials. I'd keep damage to the outer hull to a degree though so a time may come to replace a few plates. As I exited the water, I immediately fell on my face. 'Darn and I was doing so well.' Standing up my suspicions where confirmed as it was night but it was still easy to see, and as I looked up I found out why. You know earth's night sky? Doesn't even compare. This was indescribable, the best way I could put it is it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and I've been around the block. Actually if you've been to the arctic it looked kinda like that but with more stars. I just gawked at it and I spoke in the most sophisticated of manners. "Wow." 'Well fail much.' Not that I cared, my brain was overloaded. My gaze dropped until I was looking back at the water and got my first good look at my face. It was more halo than anything, looking almost exactly like the commando helm from reach. I didn't have the communicator thing on the side of my head and I didn't have the sun shield above the visor, other than that I just ripped off Carters look. It was dark grey like my armor with silver highlights and the visor was the same carnelian blue. It wasn't transparent and glowed slightly like all the other things. It made me look and feel like and Intimidating badass. It showed no emotion whatsoever. Fitting really, I've always had a problem with apathy, but when my parents died it got exponentially worse, not to mention after my "job"...... I was sent to several therapy sessions and I still had difficulty showing or feeling emotion, many called me as cold and lifeless as the machines I worked on. I always found the insult odd because machines aren't cold, most produce a lot of heat. It was one reason others found me intimidating in the first place. They where right in my opinion, things that should shock, scare, or horrify me had no effect on me whatsoever when I was in my "emotionally dead" state and it didn't help I spoke in monotone most the time. It was always a bit disconnecting and unnerving to not feel anything but know I should. It made me feel wrong. It was only around when I started to watch a certain show I started to show emotion again. But it was scary, after all I've been through did I want to feel again? The way my parents died....and my friends...and the war....., how did I know my emotions would not simply destroy me? Or I would lose control? ever since that day I have been emotionally unstable, where you to push me hard enough I would explode in a fit of extreme emotional overload. Getting depressed to an unstable level, crying for hours, I haven't done that in a long time, going berserk in anger. That last one had me worried. I didn't want to think about it. 'I guess I really am a machine now.' I joked. joking. Only thanks to the internet. Also meant I was stable. Guess this whole thing had me looking up. I'm not normally this expressive even in my own head. I stared for a moment longer before gathering myself and taking in my surroundings. I was on a beach that stretched on forever in each direction, the perfect sand soft to the touch. In front of me was a forest that was relatively dense, the everfree? No this was different the trees where more pine like, reminded me of Louisiana. The ground was covered in a thin layer of grass. 'hmm...grass isn't a characteristic of pine forests. But then again this is Equestria, what the hell do I know. Was going to need to fix that.' How did I know this was Equestria? well maybe it was the fact everything looked like a cartoon, outlines and everything. It had a simplistic and endearing look to it that I rather enjoyed. Something was bothering me though and I had learned to trust that feeling. I had developed it over time and experience and it saved my, as well as several of my teammates, asses several times in Iraq and other classified spec-op operations. Call it the experienced soldier's intuition if you will. It was too quite. Only the sound of waves pierced the air. There should be at least some sound, this silence was an omen. I spread my legs and tensed, prepared to act in a moments notice. There was tension in the air. A spear suddenly flew from the tree's, but whoever threw it wasn't getting any metals in javelin throwing. I sidestepped and easily dodged the spear and my assailants decided now was a good time to strike. Nine diamond dogs exploded from cover from the trees, one of them trying to tackle me. By now my combat drive had kicked in, something I made to replace the effects of adrenaline. Time seemed to slow down and once again I sidestepped and delivered a quick ridge hand strike to the back of its neck with more force than I was intending, nearly breaking it. He/she/it was out before it hit the ground. 'Ouch, right super strength need to be careful.' The other eight seeing me so easily beat their comrade caused them to hesitate. Good now I have the initiative. I used the moment to get a closer look at them. They wore collars and vests, ragged and worn. They appeared to be somewhere in the 5 foot and above area me being taller than them by 2 feet easily. They ranged in color but brown was obviously a dominate trait, others being grey or black. No surprise there. They carried clubs and crud spears except for one that seemed to be the leader carrying a rather pathetic looking sword. My inner smith nearly hanged himself at the look of it. He was slightly bigger than the rest and wore bands across his chest with vials stuck in slots. I quickly used the suits detectors to find out what I could about them. Apparently the yellow vial was filled with some sort of knockout gas according to the chemical signatures, made some back in chemistry class so I had the jist of what was needed, I'm assuming it turns to gas when exposed to air. 'Interesting.' Whatever the red one was it was highly volatile and would obviously exploded if thrown, probably wasn't safe to have on you either. 'Primitive explosives, how cute.' One of them decided to speak up. "What is big metal thing! It's scary!" One whined. 'Broken grammar, I can already tell I'm gonna love these guy's' "No matter!" The assumed leader yelled "Is strong. Work with other slaves in the mine. Now bring honor to alpha!" 'Slaves? You mean like that episode with rarity? Unacceptable. I can't just leave them so how do I find them? Options.' One: Run and leave the slaves. One: Beat them senseless leaving one conscious and demand he take me to the den. Two: Kill them and look for it on my own. Three: Kill them leaving one alive to take me to the den, using fear as leverage. Four: Pretend to be knocked out by the gas and let them take me to the den leading me directly to the slaves as well as having the element of surprise. Now there's an idea. Risky but there are always risks. It'll allow me to gather more Intel as well so I'm gonna go with plan four. Gonna wreak these guys a little first though. 'Come to think of it there's a song that could go with this.' For some reason as soon as I think that I could swear I could hear it in the background. I suddenly charged palm striking a diamond dog in the chest before he could react sending him flying into a tree with several broken ribs. I then back-flipped axe kicking one that came up from behind in the head, instant KO. I was agile relying on never actually being hit rather than heavy armor and moving in the suit was shockingly easy, being far more nimble than I was expecting. The others where on me now slowly surrounding me. One quickly swung its club at me, me blocking it with my arm to it's surprise and dodging a second attack from the one to my left following up the attack. They where sloppy but strong. One got lucky and glanced me with his spear from behind but I hardly even noticed. My shields took the blow and where hardly even effected, they probably couldn't even hurt me with those weapons. I stepped in and swept the one with the spear off his feet followed by an uppercut while he was suspended in the air sending him flying several feet, he didn't get back up. I felt a presence from behind followed by a swishing noise. Leaning an incredible 95 degrees back I saw a blade fly over me an inch from my face. My hand impacted the ground, my feet flying up catching the blade blasting the sword out of the dogs hold. Landing on one foot settling into a mantis stance I find the dog was the leader giving me a look that could kill recovering his sword. The other dogs where retreating back not wanting to interfere. We stood off circling each other before he got impatient and lunged anger in his eyes. I moved my head slightly to the left letting the blade fly over my shoulder, he was wide open now. "Fool." His eyes shrank when I was literally an inch from his face. I use my wrist to shove his arm away completely throwing off his momentum leaving his exposed. I deliver two brutal jabs to his shoulder and elbow nailing the critical nerves effectively paralyzing his arm before a followed through oped hand strike to his solar Plexiglas causing his to skid back several feet, bellowing in pain in the process. He slammed into a nearby tree cradling his arm, the other dogs looking speechless. I was into things at this point. I charge one of the dogs delivering a flying double round house to his jaw sending him reeling. Landing on my palm, I pivot and redirect my downward momentum into a spin kick to one of the remaining dogs making him collapse into a curled ball on the ground before back flipping landing on my feet to do the classic over the shoulder backhand to the face of another that was unlucky enough to be behind me. I had all but one hiding behind a tree eating dirt and man did it feel good. 'God this is easy, too freaking easy. It's a little scary actually considering I'm at like less than 20% strength. When I get all my weapons back and my shields and core are back to maximum output I'll be unstoppable. I almost feel guilty that I'm destroying them without even trying. What if I figure out a way to use magic considering I'm made of the stuff on top of everything else? Then I would just be dominating.... sounds like fun, need to look in to that.' The leader roared in anger when he recovered from the hit that I did forever ago and threw one of the knockout vials at my face. 'Now or never.' I let the vial strike me shattering it, and the liquid turned to a yellow gas encasing my head. I shuddered a moment before pretending to black out and went limp. The dogs and their leader howled in victory. The leader cursed at his troops for being weak before putting his arm in a sling. Two quickly bound me in rope not that it would do any good, I could break it easily if I wanted. It was rather worn and would break easily. The others got the ones I decked back up, which was like all but two, many spiting up blood. The one I axe kicked lost several teeth and the one I sent flying could hardly stand, staggering every other step. The other one I uppercut kept having coughing fits. All the others weren't fairing much better, that one I double roundhoused shall never speak a coherent sentence again. They are lucky I was holding back, it could of been far worse. After they recovered he ordered two to carry me so they could head out for the den. Yeah good luck with that. After many failed attempts they finally managed to pull me with 4 working together. They dragged me unceremoniously on the ground, no honor at all these flea bags. This had just turned into a waiting game, just perfect. I decided to spend this time studying up and reading, after turning off my touch receptors as I didn't WANT to feel being dragged I proceeded to scan over each dog individually. They couldn't follow my gaze as I locked on to each one, them grumbling about this or that. They where all males 'gender roles?' and were pretty strongly built having powerful arm muscles and the density according to the scanners of their skeletons surprised me. It was far harder than human bones, must be from their diet of minerals. To think I broke those bones so easily looking at the injured ones, I could really do some damage. Forget punching through brick walls, I could punch through military grade steel. With a followup at least. After thoroughly examining the anatomy of all nine of my subjects, observing how they moved and how their muscles tensed, I was practically an expert on the basics of diamond dog anatomy. I loved biology. Although I was talented with tech, biology was always my true favorite. Bipolar interests I know. It helped in combat to know structural weaknesses however, both my interests came in useful on the field. They had dragged me for about two hours now, dawn peaking over the horizon. The leader decided to rest here for a while and the D-Dogs spread out doing various things. One was particularly curious of me, I swear to god if he pee's on me I'm not responsible for what happens. During the fight he stayed back looking too petrified to move being the one who asked what I was. He cautiously examined my arm in interest sniffing it with a confused look on his face when he lightly bit it, earning his a small shock from my shields. He yipped and fell back in a rather humorous manner earning him either laughs or death stares from the others. "Runt! stay away from metal thing or you be beaten!" The "Beta" as the others called him yelled. "Runt" quickly scampered away, tail between his legs with a look of terror on his face. 'Harsh much.' It was obviously a pack society with poor Runt at the bottom. The dogs started some idle chat making me feel like I've lost some I.Q. points. I caught bits and pieces of their conversations, something about a "Dominion" and dragons also came up. Also rumors of some legend walking around. They brought up something about how some dogs went missing a while back as they where hunting slaves from the "pony town" but the beta shot that down saying how weak they where. I listened to their gossip but it quickly turned to things like dinner, mates, sleep, and other dribble. Losing interest I once again decided to look at my suits final status report in detail and what I found had me dumbstruck. yo, watcher here! I finally decided to go ahead and contribute to this truly epic universe, the ideas been bugging me a while. Being in this world would truly be an honor and I greatly respect the other writers for what they've made, if you haven't read their story's you should as they are epic. Sit back and wait for the fireworks, I'm just getting started.