The probe sent to the coordinates eventually returned a positive signal, so a crewed vessel was soon sent after.
When we first re-entered realspace, we thought we were under attack. High energy particles raked out shields, filling our viewscreen with static. A moment later, the bridge officers reported that it was “merely” a diffuse beam of gamma rays. Setting the engines to full power let us exit it shortly enough.
When the viewscreen cleared up, my first reaction was despair. No stars, no cities, no life. The only light I could see were the dim glow of our controls. Except ... something was emitting that beam of gamma rays.
I informed the captain, she directed the ship to turn and point towards. At first, what we saw made no sense. A vertical line of blue-hot plasma, stretching lightyears away from us. A pinprick of light flickered in the distance, at the base of the plasma. Seeing as there was nothing but dust around us, we powered towards it.
The bridge crew was rendered speechless as we got close. At first, we were confused by the glowing ring. A portal? An installation?
But as we got close, we realized it was too big to possibly have been artificially built. The slight gravitational pull as we slowed to orbit explained the rest. In the ashes of this dead universe, a lone super-massive black hole remained. Its monstrous ring glowed to near fusion, magnetic currents funneling charged particles towards deep space like a galactic lighthouse.
As we stared a flickering light caught our notice, and further deepened our bafflement. A large space-platform was also in orbit. We watched it silently as it zipped by underneath us. The discussion was brief. We were sent here to investigate, and this was literally the only thing worth investigating within lightyears, if not the entire dimension.
We sent a message back to the operations team in a second shuttle behind us, warning them that we were going into a gravitational well. The engines were then re-lit once more, and we dove after that installation.
The installation, like the refueling station, was minimally decorated. Simple white paint covered in tiny scratches, burn marks, impact craters covered the entire outer shell. Yellow-black caution tape marked areas to steer clear, red text and arrows marked points of interest. As we drifted close, a red light flashed green. Large hangar doors opened up, a glowing shield keeping the air inside before us.
No hails, identity confirmations. It felt like we were walking into an automaton. But it seemed to be inviting us instead of threatening us, so there really wasn’t anything else to do but go in.
The hangar lights flickered on as we passed through the barrier, giving us our first sight of sapient activity, if only barely. Rents in the floor ending in a small shuttlecraft with its nose partially embedded in the wall, all its windows blown.
It was impossible to tell how long ago it had crashed here, the space was perfectly clean, perfectly sterile. So sterile, in fact, that anyone who wanted to check out the hangar needed to keep our helmets on, since despite being pressurized, there was no oxygen. Otherwise, one had to wait inside.
Three of us were chosen specifically for exploration, due to us being equipped with cybernetic bodies, along with a hip-high robotic spider carrying various instruments. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and I, the spider was Fluttershy’s drone, being remotely controlled through the radio signal maintained to the second shuttle orbiting outside.
I was checking if the flow rate of my oxygen tank was stable when Fluttershy’s drone sent a ping through the radio. “Twilight? I think you should take a look at this.”
I blinked, then quickly trotted over. I froze at the sight of the dark stain covering the side of the shuttle, a smeared trail leading deeper into the installation.
The spider drone had a needle dipped into the substance, her voice a curious hum. “It almost looks like blood, but there’s so much more mixed within, and missing others. No platelets, for one. There’s also oil, and metal fragments in this. Somehow, its not drying, nor evaporating. Whatever it is, this feels extremely artificial.”
By now, Rainbow and Applejack had walked over, their systems green.
“You think they died?” Rainbow asked, leaning over the spider drone.
The spider’s cameras whirled along the edge, all the way across the floor. “The hoofsteps look to be roughly evenly spaced. Even if injured, they seem to be stable enough to walk steadily, though to be truly sure I need to find them. Oh, I do hope they didn’t die.”
Applejack was standing by the shuttle’s side, which was barely even stained. “How long ago do ya think this happened? At the very least, its long enough for all this ‘blood’ to have dripped off these panels and fallen to th’ floor.”
All of us stared at the pool in front of us. “Only one way to find out,” I said, following the blood trail.
Like the hangar airlock, the doors opened for us the moment we walked close. The trail went onwards in a straight line, lights clunking on ahead of us as we walked. A few minutes of silences passed until suddenly, the shuttle crew sent us an alert. “Hey, Away Team? It seems like the hangar doors are--”
Yellow warning lights lit up and began spinning. A video feed was sent over the wireless, showing the point of view of the support craft. The hanger doors closed amidst flashing yellow lights as the back of the installation opened up like a metal flower. We could see a brief glimpse of golden panels on the inside.
The feed suddenly jerked up; the installation was headed straight for the black hole’s particle jet. The panels opened wide, ionized air arcing over the metal shell as high energy radiation started to slam into the installation. Moments later, the feed was filled with static, the interference was too much.
The floor shook underneath us. We clung to the railing as the air seemed to be charged with energy. The hazard lights seemed to be getting brighter, too. It took a moment before I realized. “Its ... using the gamma rays for power.” I whispered.
Rainbow blinked as the static cleared, and we could see the panels folding away. “Wait, those are solar panels? Well, not solar but, you know what I mean.”
“Seems like it,” I said. “I would ask why anyone thought that would be a good idea, but well, there really isn’t anything else around here.”
We waited in silence until the installation’s hazard lights turned off, then kept following the trail.
There were a few doors and hallways along the way. Most stayed dark, though a few seemed to be left open.
The first open door did not give us a very good impression.
"Shit!" Rainbow Dash shouted. Lines of magic lit up around her hooves, projecting a blue shield over the door. Her wings flared as she leapt backwards, pushing us all back.
It took us several moments to disentangle our hooves. “What the heck was that?” Applejack asked, patting down her mane. I looked over my shoulder as I helped Fluttershy’s droid flip over.
Rainbow Dash slowly inched forwards to the door, peeking an eye around the entrance. “I thought I saw ... “ Her voice trailed off.
Seeing her trail off, Applejack and I gave each other a look, then moved to glance around Rainbow. We both gasped at the sight.
The bent cannon barrel of a massive mech lay pointing at us, its torso torn in two. I could see scratch marks on the floor leading to a larger sliding door, currently shut. Behind it was a mass of destroyed weaponry, stacked carelessly. Enchanted blades, Heavy autocannons, sliced armor, charred combat vehicles, and more, many I couldn't recognize.
I gently pulled Rainbow back, and closed the door. "Maybe we'll come back to this. Later."
There were two more rooms like it. Massive charred vehicles, laser cut spacecraft.
Another few minutes of walking, I was distracted by a dimly lit stairwell down, strange blocky text labeled something I couldn't identify. There was ... a feeling in the air that made my heart race.
"Twi?" Applejack asked.
"Just a moment. It's ... calling to me." Rainbow and the drone watched the stairwell as Applejack and I went down.
The glowing barrier before us still let me see beyond it, and I gasped. Massive shelves stretching deep into the distance, packed with books, scrolls, tablets, shells. I jerked my head back at the sound of a crackling speaker. Except ...
"I know that language," I realized.
"Really?" Applejack raised an eyebrow.
"Well, no, but I know who does," I said, quickly assembling a folder full of pictures and sending it across the coms. "Get Pinkie on the line."
I glanced at the downloaded text document. "'Nitrogen environment, acquire full eva suit before proceeding' in Galactic Standard. An older dialect, but still translatable." I said.
Rainbow snorted. "I guess that would explain this builder's penchant for stupidly large space balls."
Applejack blocked my way back down the stairwell. "Sugar, we got plenty of time to explore after we figure out who's using this."
I sighed, flopping on her foreleg. "Add it to the list of mysteries, then."
We moved on after the trail.
The second to last open door was unlike any other. It was still styled like a massive garage, except there was only one occupant.
A tracked micro bus, a body of sharp angles and covered in scarred armor plate, sat waiting, watching. I shivered at the cold weight as I paused at the entrance, yet there was no movement I could discern.
As I began to look away, I saw a flash of a white, flowing dress. I snapped my head back, but it was gone.
The last door was the most disturbing of all. At first, we thought they were survivors in cyrostasis.
Then, we wiped off the frost, and realized something was terribly wrong. I stared at the grey Terrasire. "This is ... Octavia?"
Applejack walked over from down the aisle with a frown. "They're all Octavia."
Rainbow glided over to us, Fluttershy's drone carried beneath her. "Did a random check, these are all clones," she said with a grimace. "Didn't recognize half of the species there, no idea what the hay any of this means."
"Clones?" I pondered
Fluttershy tapped the edge of the chambers. "Some, but not all. Some groups looked mixed, with shared traits. I .. I'm not sure I want to think about what it was done for."
I slowly walked along the aisle, brushing the frost off a cyro chamber. This one was not a pony, but instead a dragon-pony hybrid, with a grey underbelly and scales of dirty gold. Small black horns curved around her ears and over a short cut black mane.
The resemblance was clear as day.
"Bodies, of every sapient species," I whispered. "Any face needed to blend in and acquire knowledge. Knowledge for the acquisition or construction of weapons. More bodies to fight with them."
"An' a foe that made this necessary," Applejack finished.
A crackling noise over unseen speakers made us pause and look around, ears swiveling. After a moment, it cleared up. "Ah, Equestrians!" the female voice said. "I honestly didn't expect visitors in the Eternal Forge after the first ... well, not that matters. I see you've brought oxygen masks; I apologize for the sterile air, but getting rid of oxygen was the easiest way for me to stop things from rusting around here.”
“Who are you?” I call out, looking up at the ceiling.
“Who am I? Well, I’ve had many names over my time active. Seer, Thief, Traitor ... but I prefer the Interloper.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Oh! I apologize, this form of communication is probably a bit strange for you.” The Thunk Thunk Thunk of circuit breakers slamming into place lit up the rest of the walkway. “Just follow the lights for a face to face meeting! Give me a moment to freshen up a bit.”
The lights followed the blood exactly.
Fluttershy gasped. The only reason she didn’t rush forwards was both Applejack and Rainbow Dash holding her back.
“Hm?” the Interloper said. “Oh, I do apologize for the mess. I never bothered cleaning up the body since, you know, didn’t expect visitors. Its taking a bit longer than I expected to wake up her internal systems. Tea?”
“How could you call your subordinate just .... just something to clean up!?” Fluttershy demanded.
There was a confused pause from the Interloper. “We appear to have a few misunderstandings,” she said slowly. “First, I never make anyone do what I wouldn’t do myself. Nobody wants to do what I do, so I do everything myself. Which means every single body you’ve passed by in the past hour ...” The body, the griffoness in front of us twitched, jerked, straightened up. It turned around, giving us a bloody grin, “-- they’re all mine.”
The rest of her torso was not much better. Her left talon was completely gone, a bluish goo covering the stump. The off-white fur of her chest was marred by a tear through her ribcage, the wound permanently stained black even as blue goo started filling in the gaps. “Second, I’ve had many, many years to design bodies that will fight down to the last cell cluster. This is annoying, but if its just to sit here and talk through the speakers, I can keep this up for a few hours before I need to get some food into her.”
“The heck kind of fight did you get into that needed to be able to walk away from a dragon attack?” Rainbow blurted, though despite her casual voice, even she was pointing her ears forwards slightly.
The Interloper sighed. “That is indeed one old story, in a place far, far from here. Let’s just say, there were some omnipotent beings so bored that they started playing with the lesser beings’ lives for entertainment.” Her face darkened. “I didn’t like that. So I spent countless years training, researching, and outright stealing technology to figure out what could kill a god. Then I figured it out. Then I ambushed them. Told them to choke on a cactus if they were that bored. Escaped their realm and pulled back all of my assets to hide here.”
Her face turned tired. “Then, I just watched the rest of the empires for a while. I had sacrificed everything for this self-assigned mission. Once I could find no further purpose for existing, I shut everything down for cold storage. Then, your little crew ran into me, and here we are.”
“How ... long was a while?” I ventured curiously. My mind was racing at the morsels dangled in front of me. Thousands of years of history, preserved!
The Interloper shrugged. “I stopped watching after the third dimensional alliance collapsed. Guess they were done after a few millennia of being trapped in a broken timeline. It was the oldest, too. I ... couldn’t find it in me to stay conscious. I simply stopped recording any new data, its not like anything happens here.” She glanced at Fluttershy, who had changed from shaking in outrage to brimming with curiosity. “So, what’s on your mind?”
The drone jerked. “Oh! I’m sorry, I got enraptured by the blue ... blood? That’s coming out of you. I’ve never seen any life with something like it.”
At this, the Interloper smiled with a bit of pride. “I’m not surprised you haven’t. It was a rare group of sapients, slime molds of a type. Friendly enough from the three generations I infiltrated. Collected enough of their genome to conduct my own experiments, and designed something like a biological nanoswarm.”
She was gesturing with her arm to continue, but Applejack held up a hoof. “Those ... bored gods. I feel like I’ve heard reports with something like it from some of our exploration teams--!”
The Interloper left an oily blue streak as she dragged herself in front of Applejack in a single movement, not blinking as Applejack’s reflexive training tore through the griffoness’s cheek. “Tell me,” the Interloper slowly said, a rumbling hiss coming over the speakers, completely ignoring Rainbow sliding in front of Applejack. “Have you heard of any mention of a group called the Restless?”
“Uh, no?” Applejack guessed.
“Unfortunate.” The Interloper leaned back onto her haunches, eyes going blank. I shivered as I felt an icy pressure press down on my spine, and looked around in worry. “It seems that I have been forgotten more completely than I thought.”
“W-what?” I stammered, backing away slightly at the Interloper’s sudden change in attitude until I bumped into someone’s leg and squeaked.
The Interloper nodded at the person behind me, and I whirled. A pale woman in a grey dress, covered in sewn-on steel plate and long black hair stared down at me. “Deloria,” the Interloper called out. “Please escort our guests back to the hangar. I must prepare to take the field again.”
Deloria gave a shallow bow. “Of course, my Master.”
“W-wait!” I stammered as we were forcibly guided away.
Rainbow’s hoof pushed against my muzzle. “Come on Twi, when the giant angry supercomputer says its time to get out, its time to get out.”
I pushed her hoof out of my face even as her wing shoved me back. “That’s it? Is this going to be the last we see of you? I want to learn more from you!”
The body didn’t move, instead slowly falling over like a puppet with its strings cut before it was hidden by the lights turning off one by one behind us. The floor rumbled like a beast coming alive, the visible lights flickering as voltages surged.
Then: “I must inspect what state the multiverse has become in my absence,” the Interloper said. “I will send a liason. What you do with the history is up to you, as long as you keep my name out of it.”
“How will I recognize you?” I asked.
Chilling mist streamed out of the room of frozen clones, and a grey Terrasire mare with a sleek black bob cut stepped out, her acid yellow irises piercing the shadows.
“You will.”
....
...
..
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