Alex Mercer, disguised among the bushes, sat on the hillside and calibrated the radio station with his only hand, which he managed to resurrect with a sin in half. The navigation module, of course, was left in a hiding place in the swamp - it turned out to be a natural suitcase without a handle... Carrying with you, replacing the virus information environment with technology, is inconvenient, useful only in the distant, potentially unattainable future, to quit is waste. Mercer simply didn't have the tools and knowledge to fix such a subtle problem. But a radio with a pair of active circuits is different, to restore it is not to assemble a space dish in a shed. Mercer knew what circuits could be mutually replaced in this seemingly harmless box, where to throw the wires and where to connect an antenna made from improvised materials... The decision is temporary, of course - if it turns out that local lawyers do not own radio technology, then in the Black Hawk Down only for the sake of assigning a navigator and a couple of remaining emergency packets, and it was worth climbing. Yes... the lack of other consumers of familiar technologies from whom they could secretly steal was seen as a big problem.
But Mercer will be able to survive, using technologies that are already viral. Even if he did not have giant industrial units, extensive electrical networks and factory complexes, one after another releasing formidable armored divisions into the streets of Manhattan, but he had almost waste-free production and close to 100% efficiency. The swamp swell was regularly generating solar-charged mass - very slowly based on local elementary elements, but it was a success. The surrogate had to be additionally treated with helium, which Alex quietly absorbed through the lung, melting a garden hose into his trachea. The opposite end was lost behind the back, where a pair of small sharpened cylinders, under the size of cat horses, were fixed. It could be considered that the operation ended in complete success... Unless, of course, you count the attack of that crazy pink pony.
Crazy world! Could Mercer, being in his right mind and sober memory, have assumed that he would someday be fired at not with 120-mm land mines and salvoes of "Hellfires", but with cotton candy and pies?! Cotton wool, however, looked damn delicious - earth glucose is excellent fuel for the brain. It is a pity that trying this cotton candy is like chewing scraps of asbestos... The jam went worse, because there was some component in its watery base that caused severe chemical burns to Alex upon contact with tissues. I had to, gnashing with the few remaining teeth, wash myself in the swamp water and pick out the burning muck from under the armor plates. In fact, Alex was lucky that everything went as planned, strictly according to notes. The evolved had a hastily drawn up escape plan in case of failure, which included a balloon that was seen in the city, a couple of benches, a lamp, a newsboy cart and a white cat seen in an alley that decided to take a walk at dawn... It's good that this plan was not destined turn into action - Alex wasn't sure he could live peacefully after this humiliation.
Speaking of sunrises. Mercer, pretending to be part of a local cultural site, managed to find out the reason for their suddenness, like the sunset, which he had observed hours earlier. The location was perfect; as you know, you want to hide well - hide in plain sight, and the building next door was clearly the social center of the town. Alex quietly broke the sculpture and melted it with a charge of phagocytes, dropping pieces into the fountain. A risky, in fact, move - if some local saint was depicted, then especially zealous clergymen only got an extra reason to burn it. However, judging by the cheerful expression on the statue's face and the ease with which it rushed up, Mercer doubted this. It was ridiculous to believe that Alex would fit in a volume corresponding to local females, but the statue was larger than them, only maintaining proportions... The Luna still hung motionless in the night sky, a scattering of stars gleamed at the evolved overhead, but he could no longer afford admiring the local beauty. Mercer watched everything around him, noticing patrol patterns, recording conversations, and memorizing the movements of the armored ponies. Sullenly I thought that he would not be able to fully reproduce one of them: walking on all fours with twisted shoulders was, of course, an entertaining experience, but it was only an imitation, a substitute for a real ODE of a pony, as his jacket was an imitation. During the fight against the epidemic, Mercer already had an idea whether he could create a structure similar to a hunter for himself, but in this place even the starting, genetic data had nowhere to take! It is not clear how the bones move, how the ligaments of muscles flow under the skin... The hours passed imperceptibly, one after the other, until the night haze near the town hall with its lighted windows suddenly began to gradually melt, turning into twilight. Mercer even managed to be delighted: how, is there really a normal dawn here? He focused on the town hall e, and the gift of speech left the evolved... although he was already deprived of the opportunity to speak, as ordinary people do.
She came out onto the terrace.
To say that Mercer was dumbfounded was only to call him once more disguised as a statue. If the ponies he had seen earlier looked more like very, very high-quality, insanely realistic plush toys, then this creature was much closer to the embodiment of the concept of "aesthetic beauty". Although the real reason for such a strong impact on Alex's appearance could also be that the new type was the only individual that at least somehow resembled horses familiar to humans - and therefore finding it in the local colorful kaleidoscope was akin to Corbusier's dog. (1) An impeccably clean hide, milky white and almost gleaming with gold, like her regalia - sophisticated, thought Mercer, that was the word for this design. The last humanAlex could consider himself to be a specialist in horse breeds exhibitions, but even in his opinion, the mare's shape (hardly, given the dimorphism he saw, it was "he") attracted attention. Almost a swan neck, a more austere muzzle, on which expressive eyes were located, not devoid of a spark of reason and self-esteem... An absolutely fantastic mane, sparkling blue-green, although it was difficult to say what it owes such a color - to its roots or strength that made it flow as if in a liquid stream. Not so tall for Mercer, the mare was one and a half times ahead of other ponies, and with the tip of the horn she would have gotten the top of the old form of the evolved one.
"Horns?" This winged mare also had a telekinesis tool with her, in addition to her luxurious wings! Taking into account jewelry made of precious metal, including a crown devoid of any pretentiousness, and seeing on the part of the guards the obvious submission of a large individual... This is what happened, the local hierarchy was based on biological superiority? This is interesting, not just shocking, Alex thought, fighting the temptation to get to know the creature better. What did McMullen write about genetic programs? Rigid innate patterns of behavior, instincts as such are not observed in intelligent... All the skills of primates need additional training - both humans and chimpanzees do not understand from birth, for example, that the hierarchy can be based on who eats for whom. But a human possesses the gene memory in non-encoded sequences, which the virus uses as a master key. So could the local intelligent people have had something similar, only taking into account the "witchcraft" they saw, using it with might and main? Or did this plaster queen take her place not so much by gene programs and magical dominance, but by inheritance? For personal qualities, after all? If the development of their species was in any way similar to that of terrestrial horses, then emotions could evolve from the corresponding instincts: the main concern of representatives of the genus Equus, social animals is to ensure safety for themselves and their relatives... In higher primates, everything is much more blurred and demanding on direct transfer of experience, but the horse instinctively seeks obedience, because a loner is less likely to survive, escape from predators, and the group's experience can be relied on in search of water and food. And if in ordinary ungulates the hierarchy in most cases is determined by age, state of health and experience, then here at the helm was... it turns out, here the most evolved individual demanded to herself respect and obedience in exchange for the safety of the herd, as if in their evolutionary doctrine was influenced by the patterns of polymorphism?
There was definitely a hierarchy among the locals, only some sort of wrong one. When the second "elongated" mare arrived on a flying carriage, moving by itself in quite Aristotelian physics,(2) and began to angrily pronounce something white, even though she was smaller, Alex realized: aha, the new one was even higher rank. Imagine Mercer's surprise when both not-very-cat-horses laughed merrily and in a much more informal atmosphere began to whisper as if they were close friends or even sisters! At that moment they were the last to resemble the members of the horse inquisition sent by the Mercer’s soul... Not medieval blockheads. They also corresponded to the usual image of the medieval aristocracy, looking at everyone else like dirt, they also corresponded so-so: they spoke with their soldiers in a polite tone, calmly - and they responded with restrained respect. The reaction to the mint-colored pony that poked into their window (not the one that crept up to the town hall under an inverted box, conveyed something to the mares and disappeared on the roof with the help of a rope, involuntarily reminding Mercer of one captain of the Black Watch) was also strange. After a couple of hours, the horse left the building, smiling from ear to ear, humming something and not having any problems with the guards. Such a strange attitude towards unequal self (by the standards of almost that the old Western environment) clearly spoke of an alien psychology.
The second horned-winged quadruped, meanwhile, also seemed to be the most entertaining specimen. The head with a luxurious flowing mane seemed larger in relation to the body; the proportions different from her friend and the shorter stature made the mare look like a teenager, but those restless, penetrating eyes and long eyelashes could only belong to an adult. The cat-horse crowned with silver was as blue-dark as the night itself - its hooves seemed to be made of chiseled obsidian, the ballerina's ankles maintained a proud posture... into a fist and beat mercilessly. The first mare even seemed now in comparison with the late, softer, airy or something... "plump" for such an elongated creature (especially a horse) would sound strange. If Mercer got it right, Snow White's name was Coaeluum, and the smaller one was Loodai; the guards singled out in a voice an appeal to individuals of a higher rank, well, and put the same title in front. Alex was just watching the patrols of a dark girl that clearly bore the features of bats - another bizarre mockery of this world at its knowledge! - but then Yin and Yan left the town hall. Out of the corner of her eye, Mercer noted a slight smile on her lips, instead of the preoccupied efficiency and ambition she had displayed upon arrival. The thought flashed through him that the mares were definitely relatives - they behaved too relaxed in relation to each other. Alpha individuals, meanwhile, came out to the square and settled down next to each other, turning away from Alex. Their horns glowed softly in the darkness of the night; the poses changed, expressing concentration and exertion.
Alex Mercer precipitated. Unnatural, he still managed to avoid a nuclear bomb.
And it was not at all because Alex experienced another shock that it finally dawned on him when he looked at Yin-Yang: all the natives (including the nag with water manes) are fucking exhibitionists. It was, in fact, foolish to expect that xenos, looking like higher mammals, would reproduce by budding. Mercer did not think that his thoughts at such a moment for some reason should take condemnation - for him, the clothes were just another optional body cover, and the technically advanced also sported naked, and constantly. Maybe it was a completely different matter. Alex was not eager to discuss this topic.
Here is the sun and the moon, suddenly swapping places in sync - it was really worth your attention. A planet that easily changes its torque, which makes it easy to "switch" between a satellite and a system-forming star... Could this phenomenon be linked with two alphas who illuminated something with their horns at night, aiming at the sky? Some quantum violinists know what Sir Hawking would have thought if Alex Mercer had been. But if it really was true... Yes, the decision to flee instead of establishing contact was correct - if Mercer had stumbled upon local celestials, into whose dimension he so maliciously flew, he probably would have already hung crucified on a dissecting rack, hung with a bunch of pipes and disassembled for parts... (3) Hell, how strong are these creatures supposed to be? Over the eighteen days of the outbreak, Alex tracked down one of McMullen's old colleagues, who claimed that Green was, despite a primitive vision from the Marines and Gentek, a "personalized evolution" in the flesh. And who were these - the embodiment of heavenly bodies?
Seriously though, Mercer should have been very careful until he figured out all this supernatural, potentially inexplicable bullshit. Maybe these queens, if the evolved one touches someone seriously, they will be swatted from orbit with a meteorite, or they will be sent to the sun altogether. Mercer would be sweating cold if he could in his current statue-like state, when the white cat-horse glanced at him, turning towards the streets. What else could they be capable of? If only, in addition to freezing breath and weather control, the alphas did not have X-ray vision... Fortunately, the wing-horns did not pay attention to Mercer, and they were clearly going to leave the square. Alex would have exhaled with relief with his only lung, if the airways were not blocked by a mineral-like cover: two super mutants moving space objects without much stress - for one night this is too much, it was time to be honored to know. Moreover, the most suitable time was coming, the changing of the guard... The blue-and-white duet, of course, seemed to be magnificent creatures - Alex would not have come up with a better and more elegant design for a four-legged, combining the features of a zoomorph with full-fledged intelligence. However, the abominable hunter-leader did not scare him as much as these fluffy twins, in theory, not capable of causing more rejection than some kind of cat! Huge, at once built shorthair cat, streamlinedI am sensible and in a wig with a built-in wind generator. It's a shame that Mercer had to make do with only scraps of data and associations from a past life - clearly insufficient to begin to understand all this devilry.
As the poets say, all I know is that I don't know anything about it, the evolved one muttered to himself, breaking the outer cover, and disappeared on the roof of the nearest house, gently pushing himself off the pedestal. And it's good that the guards at that time were looking the other way: the prospect of getting stuck in the image of a statue and enduring impudent pigeons until the next night, say, did not inspire. It was necessary to hurry, until the streets of the city were blocked by ungulates with the rising of the sun... Yes, if only for the part of ignorance, this town, inhabited by creatures with superpowers! Either everyone here is so rich that magic capable of being provided with excesses is considered ostentatious and bad form, or poor, dragging out a miserable rural existence, and look happy and peaceful, because they are zombified by the witchcraft of this couple. In theory, if the "magic" of these ponies is in any way similar to its human representations, then an object of any complexity can be obtained without infusing much effort and without stretching gigantic production chains, without creating the corresponding sectors of the economy. Of course, the economic models of people are hardly applicable to a world in which there is some semblance of technology, which, according to the precepts of Clark (4), can be considered magic, but still! The idea that zoomorphs are very (by the standards of humanity) consistent and at the same time for them nothing is of particular value, Alex saw not without foundation. The same source of energy, a dam with a power plant was available here, as if waiting for someone to power powerful machines from it and turn on the switch to turn on the civilization familiar to Mercer...
But no - the town was almost never electrified, and the lanterns worked on some other principle, as if they had let in unusually bright fireflies. Offhand, the pony village seemed small, but built up densely, diligently. Most of all, it resembled a garden overgrown with moss, where houses were placed between crumbly earth and stone paths, many of which were piled up with fanciful facades, tents and spiers. An institution with a sign, the drawing of which repeated the one seen in the balloon, and could at all serve as an illustration to the antipode of the word "laconic". The market, not far from which the UH-60 was thrown, seemed to have spontaneously emerged; on every free patch of it there were some kind of pens, counters. Among the tents with multi-colored awnings could be seen the local headquarters of Yin-Yang's henchmen - Alex did not get even closer to them, deciding that he had got enough intonations and data for the momentary needs. During the short walk in the open... nothing happened. During the day, there were a lot of ponies who walked past Mercer, who had dug in in the gardens, on some sort of pony business and periodically asked the knowledgeable, but because of what, in fact, all the noise, and why was there smoke from the outskirts of the settlement? Now almost all the civilians were asleep, and there was no need to be afraid of some particularly big-eyed Glass Cutter. The evolved vampire pony under the canopies of the houses avoided thanks to the IR sensor (they turned out to be quite alive and warm-blooded), and if someone unaccounted for it and noticed, then apart from a long glance at their commander in the back, Alex, apparently, did not wait for a reaction... From a distance, he was not that much different from a normal pony, almost eliminating the uneven, limping gait and hiding much of the curvature of the spine. In the guise of Loodai’s officer, quietly cursing the unusual design, Alex with a bottle of alcohol borrowed from a pharmacy (well, at least in pharmaceutical traditions, another world showed similarities to Earth) crept up to the helicopter. He had already walked through the city on four legs, hiding his bare flesh in the shadows, collecting phrases and details - the main thing was not to be seen by the patrols - but now it was time to get out of the shadows, to enter into short-term contact with potentially unfriendly creatures. The ponies probably already knew that the evolved one was able to change shape; Alex saw in the eyes of the guards, as he hobbled towards them, suspicion, replaced in record time with bewilderment and shock. The plan was, in fact, idiotic - to take it like that with impudence, impudently... But it worked! I didn’t have to knock out the guards, try to break the barrier on our own and then break off in front of the crowd that came running, that I just wanted to ask how to get to the library. What a big one, damn it, it was a tree...
Mercer was even delighted when the guard's stupor passed, and the small ponies - only in comparison with the original form of the evolved - tried to stop him. Dammit! To pretend to be a horse, to crawl on all fours... If Mercer had an alternative, would he engage in such absurd nonsense? Alexander understood that his craving for anthropomorphism and other culturally determined traits were to blame for such a reprehensible attitude, but to do with it was not going to do anything. Probably, with such an approach, it would not cost him anything to rip off the head of an armored pony; Whoever says horses are better calming than a cup of lavender tea have not actually tasted real tea. Communication with Equiids shook Alex no worse than the injection of an adrenaline rush right in the heart - and at such moments Mercer became usually nervous and truly deadly. And, nevertheless, Human, who quite recently killed a reasonable one, was like pressing a button, restrained himself. Perhaps the main reason could be the fear of snatching a kick from potentially omnipotent beings (if the local sun and Luna were not giant lamps, holograms, or how else could this phenomenon be truncated with Occam's razor). Maybe the bestial human nature was guilty, which did not put their own kind in anything, but did not tolerate bullying of a defenseless animal. Maybe it happened because the same sentinels could harm his sister, and here Mercer was responsible only for himself - that's the laws of wartime on his part and ceased to operate. Or was Alex sparing them simply because the ponies weren't edible?
Truth must have been found somewhere in the middle, taking a certain share from each motive. Be that as it may, thanks to the surprise effect, Mercer scattered the guards like kittens - at a distance, being prepared, it would probably be more difficult to deal with them without critical self-harm... Alex would give a lot now for a javelin with a set of charges. Paired with a machine gun, he should have gone very well, because air conditioners on local roofs could not be expected to be found, and the concentration of birds in the air steadily increased. Leaving behind several guards with either bruises, or fractures and concussions, Alex rushed into the city. Where there were cakes, festivities and balloons, it should have been revealed what the balloons were inflated with. Reddish-red smog of virions, harmless media that dragged out the virus-affected neighborhoods, could not read data here and mark targets for Mercer, but quite well excited the local population. Surprisingly, the four-legged soldiers instantly forgot about the evolved and began to pull civilians out of the hearths! The patrol would not have done that, but these sorcerers... apparently, the difference in psychology again affected. Still not enough for Mercer to rush to the noses with open arms, however; Alex waited until the last that a snow-white arch-witch would appear right in front of him in a golden flash and knock out with a death ray, but everything turned out well. Moving at a fast pace, jumping over houses and screaming zoomorphs with the usual dexterity, the evolved one took the necessary chemicals and was like that.
Human was busy fixing the radio until noon. He left the terraformer with his left hand, in exchange for some remote means that would help to cope with the flyers, attached a machine gun to the clawed stump and went to the hills that surrounded the settlement. The hunger of reason, which a couple of times overtook Mercer during the fight against epidemics, was still not felt, even his slightest hints. As if... as if he had been cut off, left beyond the bounds, a place of mind-emptying striving, giving way to some... incompleteness? It was as if a piece had been cut out of Mercer, an outlandish message he had not read, about which he could not remember anything except that this message in his homeworld was supposed to burden Alex's brain. And the attachment of this mental baggage had to be located somewhere in the area of the shoulder blades - as if a piece of a puzzle had been squeezed out of its structure, now Mercer understood this sensation that way. Something that should have mattered in the wake of Green's assassination has disappeared. But what? Is it not the drawing of his jacket, which could be easily reproduced, copied at any moment? (5) point, dissolving among the vegetation using the same camouflage coat. While scouting the surroundings, he was disturbed by some rather large creature and, hiding, foolishly stuck into the underground passages - but fled from there even faster, giggling nervously. Not only did Alex get too sick, because his head was occupied with the most stupid thoughts, a state of euphoria and a completely inappropriate desire to have fun (7), but he was also barked by the local inhabitants. Several dog-headed mutants with impressive-looking muscles did not pursue him and, after barking for an ostratus, disappeared among the boulders, raising clouds of earthen dust. Well, yes, they would try to grab Mercer! Larger ponies, unambiguously intelligent due to the wearable armor and cold weapons, they still did not resemble creatures capable of purely physical parameters to pose a threat to a evolved one. Compared to the hunters who were able to open the Abrams like a tin can, these mutants did seem like Maltese lapdogs. Be a virus for overgrown dogs adapt At first, Mercer could have created not bad minions, fierce and very dangerous. Under the feet of an unsuspecting victim, the muscular scruff of the neck breaks the ground, a twisted mouth flashes, and it is followed by the main blow, flying over the head with two huge gray anvils with razor-claws... However, Alex wrote off all these remote plans for the air - what- then it was unhealthy in the paths of dogs and in the surrounding environs, even more harmful than the already familiar plasma of beryllium. Well, no one guaranteed that local excavators could not single-handedly pull a train and cause an earthquake with a snap of their fingers. Mercer's pony studied at least superficially.
When Alexander, having cleared his stomach, sat down again by the handles of the station and pulled out a homemade antenna, the atypical fun left Human, but the feeling that his life was a performance, and he himself was an actor, who, due to the collapse of the scenery you have to improvise terribly, and a new plot twist is about to fall on him. Mercer hooked up the miraculously surviving dashboard battery by shooting his eyes over the top of his equipment. The world around him was crazy, behaving terribly wrong... But Alex could not help but admit that he could be called, in a very familiar framework, beautiful. For the locals, it probably smelled of not toxic metal, but the multicolored herbs summer-like juicy, swaying under the oncoming wind. A small cozy town in a valley, on the other side, closed by a huge dense forest, filled with a thousand rustles and birdsong... Not a bad place to spend your vacation at any other time, in fact. A female pegasus flew in the distance, pushing a large curly cloud ahead of her. She moved relaxed, basking her light lavender skin in the sun and exposing her almost white mane to the currents of the wind. Mercer, captured by this picture, looked at the fragile representative of a world unfamiliar to him and wondered what need in general could force him to invent a way to move around the sky no longer lights, but clouds. Another evidence that he got into some kind of a children's fairy tale, where everything is fluffy, bright and magical. Well, poisonous be healthy, not without it.
Yes, the world was outwardly pretty, almost idyllic, if you do not look at the details and do not grab your head for any reason. But this world was alien to Alex Mercer, a creature who could not even define himself. Universe, seriously? Zeus didn't even have five minutes to think about what these eighteen days have turned him into, and in addition he is being thrown into a whole new world, into a completely unfamiliar state of the environment? Even the Luna here was incorrect, giving out clearly not reflected light, because it was not possible to assimilate it into a cloud, as the radiation of a daylight. Celestial bodies here were controlled manually... accumulated, that is, if the natives could influence the change of seasons in the same way... Yes, and at a smaller level, they could also engage in terraforming, judging by Humaneuver with a cloud from that pegasi.
“This world seems artificial, huh,” Mercer grumbled, tuning into a number of frequencies. “Let it turn out to be an artificial formation, a secret government testing ground in the Atlantic, where I accidentally thundered. Khu-ha... Or beyond the Arctic Circle. Or something else. Anything, if only on Earth... Universe, please!”
Having stumbled upon a couple of waves of ponyaty music, Alex listened to the unusual sound for a while, after which, with a sigh, he turned to the familiar military bands. It was fucking stupid... but Alexander Mercer just had too many brains to recklessly hope for anything less obvious. Sighing, Alex again brought the earpiece that he had scratched out of the only headset he found to the slit in his skull, and began in a strange voice:
“Red Crown, this is Citadel-17. Kha... I crashed in an unknown area... My resources are running out, it is not possible to establish coordinates. The on-board computer is out of order. I ask, kha, evacuation... landmarks - a small settlement, located in the bend of the river...” Mercer called and called the data known to him, until he finished the request. The only response was a static hiss. After waiting a little in reception mode, Mercer began to re-dictate the introductory:
“Red Crown, this is Citadel-17. I was wrecked in an unknown, hah, area...”
Half an hour later, when the radio station crashed into silence at the click of a toggle switch, Mercer tied it up with a banner of mass and put it behind his back, to the life-giving balloons. The cold forend of the machine gun pressed against the forehead, the eye closed, the claws of the only right hand clenched convulsively, so that whitish blood oozed out of the cuts - in the absence of oxygen, the numerous iron with which it was saturated did not instantly oxidize, giving the usual crimson, which pretty much frightened the evolved one at night. Mercer never received a clear reception and blessed military "I hear you well, Citadel." Calling home from a party where everything is charged with drunken fumes, and calling a taxi did not work. Alex's thoughts were confused, reminiscent of the speech of an unknown madman who was eager to convey some valuable information to the environment, but was unable to do so. Once he had already fallen for something untested, for self-deception, when he decided that he was able to deceive the monstrous state machine and not pay for it. Is anyone surprised that this method didn't work again when used again? The likelihood of success was... well, let's say, no more than Alex's ability in this world to blow up local residents, just touching them and using nuclear forces to start a lithium reaction. It is unlikely that the Universe would be generous with a gift comparable to this... She's too nasty bitch.
After a little hesitation, Alex got on his prostheses and wandered towards the descent from the hilly ridge. The locals, no doubt, had a radio - they could have detected how the stranger was trying to get in touch with their own, so they should quickly get out of the pegasus' zone of responsibility. At other times, Alex's thoughts would have captured, perhaps, aggressive and conceited attitudes. Almost three weeks of fighting on the streets of the doomed city tempered the mutant, the source of which volunteered to come under Green's wing. His canopy almost destroyed Zeus - but every blow, every bullet he spat out, stopping the streams of a blood surrogate, every killed made him stronger. Forged more and more perfect forms. Obviously, they would not be enough here... Previously, people tended to appease the deities, imaginary interaction with them. Challenging the god of winds, will you dare to engage in a fight with his material embodiment - a tornado? If you are a mere mortal, it will be at least stupid. But if you have already died once, if a turbine rumbles in your chest, extremely evenly dispersing blood throughout your body, and your bones are stronger than aircraft steel, you have the opportunity to rebuff the forces of nature. Perhaps the incarnations of celestial phenomena too! Survival is not the strongest and not the smartest, but the one who best adapts to changes - so it was said long ago by one humanwho is well versed in biology. And in the art of adapting, Dr. Mercer was a true professional... Then, a couple of days ago, Alex would not have been afraid to oppose Yin-Yang, if they caught his sister with the edge of their unfriendly attention.
Now Mercer grumbled to himself under a nonexistent nose: "We will work with what we have." To understand this world (and it seems that it really was a different dimension, where it was thrown by a nuclear explosion in an unknown way) outright was unthinkable, and for sure the natives did not think exactly like people. But, on the other hand, negotiating with the xeno for Alex now seemed a hopeless task due to rationality and civilization, even if they walked on four legs, and were chemically twisted in the Shancourtua spiral. (8) However, before meeting with their rulers, it would be nice to learn something about these same mares from independent sources... more or less independent and not influenced by public opinion. With a flexible enough mindset to let a strange-looking alien come closer to him and not poke spears in his direction.
Mercer nodded to himself. Insufficient data problems in his past life he loved. The head of a evolved humanwas not sitting on a long neck for beauty, you know - his new state could not only quickly move in space and make holes in living beings that were not provided for by physiology. From under the zygomatic arches of Mercer, with a rumbling rumbling spiky plates extended upward, capable of being controlled by muscular effort. Pretending to be one of the xenos is a dead act, but Alex could have started to look a little more friendly, more familiar. If the evolved one understood correctly, the ears played an important role in the expression of emotions among the Equiids, so it was a reasonable move. The natives already knew that Mercer was different from them and was capable of sneaking into other people's skins. But if he remains himself, moreover, he begins to look a little more familiar, discovering the channels of information familiar to him...
Funny, Mercer suddenly decided. A long neck, exceptional bony, stilted legs, a mask in the shape of a skull, bony "ears" were added, the cough, due to the toxic air, has not gone anywhere... well, now he is officially Grievous. Mercer recalled the correct name of the general, accidentally stumbling upon it in the memory of the pilot, under whose "guidance" he was restoring the radio. It remains only to walk hunched over, hands behind his back, and reflect on the intrigues against some local Kenobi. Well, those astropathic twins, white and dark navy blue, were (9) retired Jedi fugitive for looks. In any case, there was no similarity between them and that rather lively-looking old mare who raised her high at the sight of Mercer on the farm.
Alex suddenly turned around and threw out his hand, just towards the trees. An organic bolo projectile immediately flew there, for a couple of which the evolved one spent almost all of the accumulated reserve. Mercer peered through the M249's sighting bar into the green. Just a moment ago, it seemed to him that someone motionless, extremely reminiscent of a pony, froze there, but the vein turned out to be wound around the most ordinary rotten stump. The mutant, now more like a walking skeleton, frowned, crouched down and froze, listening intently through the louder rumbling that preceded the delayed detonation. However, he was soon forced to admit that there was nowhere to hide among the pair of trees on the hill - Mercer could see perfectly well that he was here alone, and he had no reason not to trust his improved vision. No unusual sounds, lights or shadows...
“The worker's plan may have appeared, but, kha, the nerves are naughty,” finally grumbled Mercer, going up to the stump in the shadow of another tree and removing the bolo from it, deactivating the bomb next to enzymes, this tiny analogue of a devastating attack. “Gods, I really need to sleep.”
Alex, reopening the helium supply, galloped on with a side step. He didn’t turn around anymore, though the mutant had a vague sense of bad omens haunted him. Therefore, he did not see how, after seven minutes, the stub of a tree disappeared in a flash of green flame, and large frightened eyes stared in the direction of Ponyville. The changeling's neck was still sore as the biped's weapon gripped it so hard. This drone did not consider itself the smartest member of the swarm, but he definitely had the brains to understand that some terrible and dangerous predator burst into the life of this disgustingly kind pony - with no less ambition than the Queen and a desire to remake everything for himself.
Changeling transformed as a Pegasus and darted in the opposite direction as fast as his wing-force would allow. It was becoming too dangerous to keep track of this two-legged... It would be enough if he reported to the Queen about what he had seen.