A “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” Fanfiction
Written by Jade Dawn
Dr. Green Vale leaned against the side of the elevator as it steadily rose up the many floors of the LexCorp building, absentmindedly listening to the little pings of the display screen as it went up, up, up to Tech Lexicon’s penthouse at the very top. The green earth pony scientist adjusted his grip on a briefcase tucked under one foreleg, and with his other hoof he wiped a bit of nervous sweat from his forehead and blonde mane.
He felt tired. The poor scientist had stayed up all the previous night going over data from the LexCorp drones at the Bronclyn Bridge, compiling every scrap of information they’d gathered and readying it for a report to Mr. Lexicon, not to mention going over decryptions of the alien ship’s data up until the last minute. He’d only lasted through to this morning by the grace of the holy nectar that was coffee. The fear of failure had been a big help too.
There was a time when he’d have been kept awake by the sheer thrill of the pursuit of science. When the mere prospect of being able to study a being of extraterrestrial origin would have brought him to levels of excitement he could barely contain, let alone the vessel that he’d allegedly come to Equestria in. And if he’d been working anywhere else he probably would be that excited.
But alas, he worked for Tech Lexicon.
“Get a job at LexCorp!” his peers had told him. “They work with all the stuff you love to study and research, you’ll thrive there!” And he, the young naive fool he’d been, had listened and sought out LexCorp. But Vale hadn’t thrived. What had actually happened was that he’d just learned how to survive. And so it was that he found himself here now, helping plot the endangerment and potential death of countless innocent ponies, all for the sake of killing one alien.
He couldn’t understand the ones who happily worked for Lex. What did they get out of it? How could they live with themselves?
The elevator made a little pong sound as it came to a stop, and Vale flinched as the doors slid open. The den of the lion lay beyond. He took a final deep breath, steeled his nerves, and stepped forth into the valley of death.
If ever there was a singular space that could bring the term “luxury” to life, Tech Lexicon’s penthouse was it. A vast, opulent suite of intricate tiled floors, lusciously colored walls, curtains, and pieces of furniture, gigantic floor-to-ceiling windows, and an assortment of artistic pieces and exotic trophies that Lex had accumulated for his personal collection over the years. A display case bore miniature replicas of some of LexCorp’s technological accomplishments; the LexWing supersonic jet, the TRK-426 “Centaur” mech, even one of the LexCore reactor. Vale noted a painting of the darkness-shrouded figure of Grogar looming over the diminutive figure of Gusty the Great, who glared up defiantly up at the overwhelming odds before her. Vale had seen this painting before, and a part of him wondered if Lex somehow identified with it in some way; as the once simple unicorn had risen up against Grogar’s dark powers, so had Lex, a simple earth pony, risen up amidst the arcane might of the alicorn Princesses and the Elements of Harmony.
He made his way to Tech Lexicon’s office, dominated by an ornate work desk set in front of one of the giant sets of windows that looked out the city. Mercy was already there, setting up a ring-shaped device on the floor before the desk. Vale knew it to be a holographic display emitter.
The scientist coughed nervously. “Uh, g-good mor–“
“Mr. Lexicon will be ready shortly,” Mercy said, not looking up. “Get yourself ready.”
Vale silently nodded. As Mercy finished arranging the emitter, he set his briefcase down and opened it, revealing a laptop computer and several sheets of papers and notes within. Next he pulled out a small USB-like object and separated it in two, connecting one piece to his computer, the other to the hologram emitter; this would allow him to sync the laptop’s data with the device.
He’d just finished setting up and loading his files when Tech Lexicon himself trotted into the room, his red mane and gray fur looking cleanly brushed. “Ah, Dr. Vale,” he said as he went to his desk and took a seat. “So good of you to join us this morning. I take it last night’s research yielded some results?”
Vale nodded. “Y-yes sir.”
Lex got comfortable in his seat, while Mercy came up next to him to lean against the desk. “Now then…you did work on getting some sort of idea of where he came from, did you not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Let’s begin with that, then.”
Dr. Vale reached down and tapped a few keys on his laptop. “The data we pulled from the ship before it closed us out was somewhat spotty,” Vale said as he worked. “Several portions of what we extracted are incomplete. But we at least were able to pull a reasonably complete flight plan from the computers, among other things…ah, alright, here we are.”
The center of the hologram emitter began to glow blue, and soon a three-dimensional image was being projected in mid-air before the desk, showing what seemed to be a map of a solar system laid against a grid. A red star dominated the center of the system, surrounded by seven planets orbiting around it, each of various sizes and forms. Scattered amongst the grid were clusters of illegible text; a strange written language of lines, dots, and occasional other shapes like squares, diamonds, and circles.
“S-so what you see here is a map of the ship’s system of origin,” Vale began pointing to various parts of the system with a hoof. “The, uh, the star here, by our best guesses it’s a class M3 red dwarf. Um, the inner five planets you see here are all rocky terrestrial planets, then the outermost two are gas giants…well, actually one’s a gas giant, then this outer one’s technically an ice giant, and then of course there’s a variety of asteroids and comets and, uh, other little sub-planetary objects beyond that…j-judging by our best understanding of the flight plans, the whole system is about twenty lightyears off from us, give or take a few.”
Lex nodded. “And which one is his planet?”
“Ah, just a second,” Vale said as he tapped on his keyboard. “Yes, here we are, this one right here.” The hologram zoomed in, focusing in on the fourth planet from the alien star; a world of shimmering deep blue seas tinted purple by the light of its red sun, broken up by large continents and small islands covered in dark forests and reddish deserts, haloed by a rosy atmosphere.
Lex leaned forward in his chair, peering at the glowing image of the strange alien world. “So…this is where he comes from.”
“I-it would seem so, Mr. Lexicon,” Vale replied. “It’s of course well within the star’s range of habitability, atmosphere is a very close match to our own…a-at least going by Supermane’s comfort in ours. It’s bigger than us, though; I-I’d say it’s about maybe twice the size of our own Equus, and of course with the larger mass it’s gravitational pull would be greater, probably would have a denser atmosphere than ours too…”
Lex stood up from his chair and stepped in front of the desk, beginning to pace in a slow, steady circle around the hologram. He stared into the floating image of the alien planet, letting its reflection dance across his piercing emerald eyes as he thought to himself, his mind beginning to put the pieces together.
“Higher gravity, denser atmosphere, dimmer red sun…” He mumbled out loud. “Hmm…yes…yes, I see how he could…hmm…Dr. Vale, would you be kind as to bring up the footage we gathered from last night?”
“Uh, r-right, yes sir.” The alien system disappeared and for just a moment the hologram blinked out. A second later it was back on, now displaying a series of framed videos from the Bronclyn Bridge “disaster” the night before. Some were overheads taken from high above the city, watching as a great cloud of smoke rose and spread over the river from the glow of the burning bridge. Others were close-ups, showing the hooded and cloaked Pony of Steel swooping around the bridge, blowing out the fire, lifting rubble, welding damaged sections back in place with red beams of heat from his eyes, and darting straight through the bridge to remove the final explosive and carrying it high into the air to harmlessly detonate in the sky.
“He made a pretty good showing last night, I guess you could say,” Vale said. “Pretty much all of his reported range of abilities, even a new one or two…that, uh, that breath of his, we weren’t expecting that, so that was a surprise there…”
Lex didn’t reply. He just gazed into the repeating holographic videos, peering intensely at the image of his adversary. He watched every movement Supermane made, every tiny little action, every minute detail that the resolution of the recordings would allow him to see, marking it all down and running it by what he now knew of the world of his birth.
“What’s he doing here?” Lex suddenly asked aloud.
Vale blinked. “Hm? What, where?”
“Here.” Lex said with a bit of irritation as he pointed a hoof at one of the floating video displays. Within the frame, they saw Supermane sweeping up and down alongside the bridge, just before the second bomb exploded and rent the middle of the bridge asunder. “He keeps going back and forth just before it goes of, like he’s looking for the bomb but can’t find it.”
Vale trotted around to Lex’s side. “Ah, yes, we noticed that too. Not quite sure what to make of it–“
“But then just a bit later, right here…” Lex pointed at another display showing Supermane streaking right through the remaining intact support tower and taking the bomb with him into the air. “…he finds the last one almost instantly without any trouble. Why? How?”
Mercy stepped past the desk and walked up to look for herself. “You know, the way he’s turning his head it almost looks like he’s listening for something.”
“You…you think he could somehow hear the bombs?” Vale asked. “From that distance?”
“Or he’s trying to see them,” Lex said. “Many of the stories about him say he’s somehow aware of objects not immediately within his line of sight, sometimes through several walls or floors away from him. Or perhaps it’s a combination of both.”
“But how? Without magic it’s impossible to see through a structure like that.”
Lex raised an eyebrow. “So you’ve confirmed that he’s non-magical, then?”
Vale nodded as he went back to his laptop. “We had the drones equipped with our best thaumic sensors, and…well, perhaps you should see for yourself.” With another tap of buttons, the images went through a sudden shift in appearance, now rendered in startling displays and layers of color. The visual effect was not unlike that of a thermal image, but in actuality it displayed concentrations of magical energy. They could see a faint blue glow from the planet’s ambient magical fields, the bright glows of the ponies on the bridge, dimmest in earth ponies, brightest in unicorns…
…but Supermane’s form was completely dark.
Lex narrowed his eyes at the displays. “Incredible...”
“Nothing?” Mercy said, her voice betraying a hint of surprise. “No magic at all?”
“We double and triple-checked our data. There’s no question about it; his levels on the Starswirl Scale are an absolute zero.”
The Starswirl Scale was a measurement of a pony’s magical capabilities. Where a pony fell on it depended on a case-by-case basis and often varied, but generally speaking most earth ponies tended to be around the lower end of the scale, around a ten to a twenty or so. Pegasi usually fell into the middle thirty to fifty, and unicorns could take up almost anything from fifty to an eighty. Twilight Sparkle’s Starswirl Scale rating was estimated to be somewhere around ninety-nine, with only Starlight Glimmer rivaling her, and Celestia and Luna being somewhere over a hundred.
But for a pony to register as a zero was almost a complete anomaly. It meant that either something was seriously wrong with their magic…
…or they weren’t a pony at all.
“Well well well…” Lex muttered as he took this new revelation in. “…right. Alright, I see how he works now.”
Vale blinked. “Y-you do?”
“I do. As a matter of fact, it’s fairly obvious once you stop to think about it.” He stood up from the desk and began to trot around the hologram. “Now think. We are dealing with a creature who very much resembles a pony in almost every possible outward way, to the point where it looks so much like one of us that anypony who doesn’t know better would assume that he is a pony. Now, consider the environment that would have spawned him. A high-gravity habitable world dwarfing our own, orbiting a star emitting only the dimmest of red light…”
“W-well yes, but–“
“Don’t interrupt, I’m trying to teach you something here,” Lex said. “Really, try to pay attention, this is the kind of science I’m paying you to tell me about. Got it? Good. As I was saying…we all know by now what the general range of Supermane’s abilities are. He’s incredibly durable and fast, he can control his personal gravity field, project beams of thermal energy from his eyes, and so on and so forth…based on all this, his lack of magic of any kind, and what we know about the world of his birth, I believe that we can pin down the origins of his powers right down to the environment he came from, and how his body interacts with our own.” He shot a patronizing glance at Vale. “Are you getting this, doctor? Are you beginning to comprehend what I’m saying here?”
Vale paused as he thought, focusing less on his employer’s patronizing tone and more on the science at hand. “…I…I think so, yes…coming from a higher gravity world he’d have a much stronger skeletal and muscular system than us…he’d be able to run faster and jump higher…denser atmosphere would mean a higher lung capacity so that could explain his super breath…under a dimmer star his eyes would probably be adapted for normally darker conditions so his vision would be quite acute…”
“Yes?” Lex goaded. “Keep going, you’re getting warmer.”
“And…theoretically he might also have a denser molecular structure, which would make him more resilient than our bodies.”
“There you go, Vale, now you’re getting it.”
“Now wait, hold up,” said Mercy. “More durable, a better jumper, better senses? Okay, I can believe that. But flying and shooting lasers? Look, I’m no scientist, but there’s something missing here. Even taking his native biology into account it still doesn’t explain him to that degree.”
“Exactly,” Lex said. “You are absolutely right, Miss Grace.” He looked back at Dr. Vale. “Now see, she’s realized that we’re missing a crucial factor here. How do we bridge the gap between a simply more powerful pony and Supermane? He’s already better than us on a base biological level…but where is he getting the power to make him truly super? Think, Vale, think hard…the answer’s literally a part of everyday life.”
Vale frantically wracked his brains…partially out of a legitimate mental search for the answer, and partially because Lex’s emerald green eyes were boring holes through his soul. And then suddenly–mercifully–it dawned on him.
“The sun!” he exclaimed. “His cells are drawing in excess solar energy and that’s where he’s getting the power for his abilities! Under his native red sun he would have absorbed far less and thus remained comparable to our own physiology, but with our yellow one he’s taking in an exponentially greater amount of solar radiation and...”
“Yes!” Lex cried. “Exactly! This is the kind of science I pay you for, doctor!”
“W-well, from a theoretical standpoint it could work–“
“‘Theoretically’, Dr. Vale?” Lex asked. “Only theory? My dear Dr. Green Vale, this is fact. This is reality. It’s staring right at us with those sapphire-blue eyes of his, this is far beyond theoretical.” He turned to the holographic images of Supermane. “Oh, of course some of it will take longer to figure out…I’d be extremely interested to know how he flies, for instance, and perhaps his heat vision is excess energy being converted to heat…but yes, the answer lies in the sun. His cells must be positively soaking in its radiations…strengthening his muscles, his skin, his senses…” He pointed a hoof at Supermane’s seemingly frantic search for the second bomb. “Just imagine what that kind of a power boost is doing to his hearing, his sight…it already would have been more advanced on his homeworld, but now…do you realize that it’s entirely possible that he’s seeing spectrums of light that our own eyes could never come close to seeing? Infrared, ultraviolet? He’s practically staring right through the bridge itself.”
“I, erm, I suppose that would explain his supposed precognitive abilities,” Vale offered. “It’s not that he has a sixth sense; he’s literally seeing through walls and hearing sounds ponies normally can’t hear. Still don’t quite understand why he couldn’t find the second bomb…it looks like he heard it but for some reason even with all that he couldn’t see it in time.”
“Mercy, do you know where our dear Mr. Girder put the second explosive in?” Lex asked.
“He said he’d put it in some electrical conduit running through the bridge,” she replied. “Lead-lined. They were getting removed for better and less potentially toxic materials as part of the bridge renovations.”
Lex nodded. “Lead…yes, I believe I shall have to make a note of that. It could very well be useful.” He waved a hoof at Vale. “Thank you Doctor, this has been most informative. You may leave now.”
“I, uh…y-yes sir. Thank you sir.” Dr. Vale meekly went about disconnecting his computer from the hologram, watching it flicker out one last time as he packed his things.
But then Lex had a sudden last thought. “Oh, doctor, one last thing I meant to ask about…how far have your teams gotten in decrypting their language?”
“Language? O-oh, yes, that…” Vale scrounged around his briefcase for a sheaf of notes buried within. “Yes, we’ve, erm, we’ve been working on that…it’s, um…it’s been slow going, unfortunately, we are dealing with a completely alien written language of course. B-but we think we’ve managed to get a reasonably solid translation of at least one word. It appears in the star charts like the one you saw…seems to be in reference to the aliens’ home planet.”
“I see. And what might that be?”
“Um…” Vale flipped through his notes. “…’Krypton’. Keep in mind, our translations are still rough, but this is the best we could do.”
Lex nodded, looking once again like he was more thinking to himself. “Alright…thank you Dr. Vale, that will be all. You may go.”
Vale nodded, quietly repacking his notes and heading back to the elevators. Lex, meanwhile, sat back down in his seat behind the desk, tapping his hooves together as he mulled things over.
“Feel any better, sir?” Mercy asked.
Lex shrugged. “I feel better knowing a bit more about what makes him tick, yes. Knowing’s half the battle, after all. Know your enemy and you can get a reasonable head start on figuring out how to tear them apart at the seams.”
“Right…so what’s our next move?”
“Hmm…I’m going to have to dwell on that one for a bit. We know he’s very resistant to damage. Those bombs were able to blow through solid concrete and metal and he shrugged them off without any trouble. Of course, we have plenty of weapons that are capable of much more damage…just need to think of a way to be able to try them on him without linking them back to us. Ah, and that reminds me…” He glanced down at a wristwatch around his foreleg, then stood up and adjusted his tie with a little smirk. “It’s about time I head on down for this morning’s press conference. I think it’s about time LexCorp bestowed another act of generous charity upon this fine city of ours.”
BRIDGE BOMBING AVERTED BY SUPERMANE
POLICE INVESTIGATE POSSIBLE TERRORIST CONNECTIONStory by Lucky Lead and Dawning Hope
“Good job, both of you,” Whiteout said as he looked over the mock-up of the morning paper, congratulatory in his words, solemn in tone over the topic. “Lucky, good writing, Dawning, nice job on getting those quotes.”
“Just doing our jobs, sir,” Lucky said, her voice sounding a bit deflated.
Dawning couldn’t help but frown a bit. Ordinarily Lucky would be eating up Whiteout’s words of praise no matter how gruff or reluctant. But here and now she came across as a lot more sullen than usual.
She’s worried too, Dawning thought.
“You too, kid,” Whiteout told Quicksnap as he looked over the printed photographs of the scene. “Good pictures.”
“I’m, uh, I’m sorry I couldn’t get Supermane,” Quicksnap said apologetically. “It was dark and everything was going crazy at the bridge…”
“No no, I get it,” Whiteout sighed. “I’ll let this one slide. But you remember–“
“I’ll get it chief–I mean, sir. One way or another, I’ll get that picture of him for you, I promise.”
“Hmph. You see that you do…and don’t think I didn’t notice that ‘chief’ there, kid. Now…go on, back to it, you lot.”
The three left Whiteout’s office and headed back into the busy newsroom, Quicksnap going his own separate way while Dawning and Lucky walked back to their respective desks together.
“You…you okay, Lucky?” Dawning asked.
“Me? I’m fine. It’s what happened last night that’s not.”
“Mm-hmm. You, uh…you seemed a lot more bothered about the bridge than you did about the train.”
“Because the train was an accident, Dawning,” Lucky replied as she stopped and turned to him. “A big oversight on LexCorp’s part that almost cost lives and one that they should be held accountable for? Yes, but it was still a technical malfunction, and nopony was hurt or killed because Supermane was there to save them. But the bridge was bombed; and yeah, Supermane saved everypony there too, but the fact that it was bombed that all but says that somepony planned it out. And that bothers me.” She pursed her lips. “And…okay, maybe I was kinda caught up in the moment of Supermane showing up in public…”
Dawning was about to reply when somepony from across the room shouted out, “Hey, guys! Lex on the radio and he’s talking about the bridge!”
There was something of a clamor as ponies left their desks to crowd around the radio set in the far corner of the room. Lucky Lead pushed her way to through to the front of the gathering, Dawning following close behind. From the radio’s speakers they could hear the ever-so-recognizable voice of Tech Lexicon loud and clear.
”…the events on the bridge last night have left this city scared and trembling, and crying for justice against those who committed this shameless and brazen act of terrorist aggression. I know many of you want answers, and…I wish I could provide them, truly. Unfortunately, I cannot. I can, however, offer some small help in this time of crisis. And so it is with something of a melancholy half-pleasure that I announce that LexCorp is in talks with city council to take control of repairs to the Bronclyn Bridge, under the supervision of our LexConstruct subsidiary company. Our brave law enforcement officers will ensure that the guilty are apprehended…and I will ensure, as I have always done, that this city and its residents will be cared for.”
Lucky scowled and shook her head as a round of applause echoed from the set. “Of course. Of friggin’ course. Tragedy strikes and all he sees is the chance for a PR stunt like this…” She sighed in irritation. “So much for holding him accountable for the blackout.”
“I dunno…” Dawning said. “I’m sure ponies will still–“
“They won’t,” Lucky interrupted. “You know they won’t. Because now that Lex gets to play the hero role again, everypony’s gonna forget about how that tram of his went wrong.” With that said, Lucky turned away from the radio and started making her way back to her desk, Dawning following close behind.
“Um…Lucky?” Dawning asked.
“Yeah, what?” Lucky said as she stopped to listen to him.
“Well…I’m not saying that I’ve got anything to support it or anything, or even a hunch, just hypothetically, like…what if Lex…you know?”
“What if Lex what?” Lucky asked. Then after a moment she got it, and a look of concern crossed her face. “Oh…oh geez…there’s a scary thought.”
“You…think he’d be capable of that?”
“As far as resources go? Absolutely…but sweet Celestia, I hope not. He’s a cocky rich smarmbag and I’d love nothing more than to see him get knocked down a few pegs…but good grief, not because he went and did something like that.” She shook her head. “B-but you know, really thinking about it, it doesn’t make sense…Lex is kinda more an opportunist. He’d sooner jump on a tragedy and take advantage of it than he would deliberately cause one. At least, I hope he wouldn’t…anyway, I don’t think Lex would purposefully bomb the bridge just to make a showing for himself out of it. And I really don’t want to be proven wrong…”
Dawning quietly nodded. She was right, he thought. Even for a crack at a public relations stunt it would be extreme for him, so if Lex really had planted those bombs it probably wouldn’t have been for that.
But that didn’t improve Dawning’s inner mood much. Because he had a pretty good idea of just why Lex–if it really had been him–had planted those bombs in the first place; he had wanted to draw Supermane in, either in the hopes of killing him with the explosives or perhaps other reasons.
Either way, if Lex really was connected with the bridge bombing, then it meant that he was now fully willing and able to kill ponies and sweep it under the rug just to get to Dawning. Which also meant that he knew now that Supermane and the ship were connected. Which would in turn confirm that he had the ship, or at least access to it.
It was bad any way you looked at it. And as Dawning thought about everything that had happened to him over the past few days–the Elements coming to search for him, his public mystique destroyed, and now Lex putting ponies in danger just to take a shot at him–he began to feel a growing sensation of helplessness.
What am I gonna do?…