The world spun.
Sassi’s vision came in scattered bursts, the venom in her bloodstream making her entire body limp. She wasn’t sure what time it was, only that the mare was spread-eagle against a wall, a thick, reddish substance cementing her to the concrete.
The Thestral was still reeling from the magical mind-control, the horrific, violating sense of being used and controlled making her feel sick. The Spider venom made her unable to focus on anything. Sassi was only vaguely aware of a booming voice, dozens of multi-limbed bodies moving past her.
The last thing she recalled before falling unconscious was the memory of a horrified voice, the roar of guns as she had been dragged away.
Astral.
Astral lost track of time. It was only fifteen minutes, but the pain was merciless, unrelenting as magic coursed through his body. Only one word pushed him through, cementing the singular goal of the entire procedure.
Sassi.
She had gone through decades of pain. Astral wasn’t about to buckle over fifteen minutes that could be the key to saving her. He’d endure it as long as he needed to.
I promised.
Vial trotted back and forth, tapping various keys on the monitors off to the side and ensuring the magical fields remained stable. The unicorn occasionally looked towards Astral, worry shining in his expression.
Don’t worry about me. Just make sure it works!
His mind was clear, but somehow an odd fuzziness was permeating his senses. Maybe it was the painkillers and other chemicals being dumped into the stallion’s system, but it felt weird. No looniness from the painkillers or other side effects, so that was a bonus. Or maybe that was just temporary.
As the crystals slowly began to decrease their magical output, the Thestral had to blink. For a few moments, Vial moved slowly, magical sparks likewise seeming to be moving in molasses. It then sped up again as the unicorn nodded in approval.
“Procedure complete,” Vial muttered, looking at the various charts and scans of Astral. “Take a step out of the station, carefully.”
Astral did so, the world seeming somehow sharper, more refined. He could see the minor imperfections on the tiled floor, and hear the hum of wires in the distance. The cool breeze of the ventilation in the lab against his fur made the Thestral shiver.
“Ok, the procedure took surprisingly well. You’ve got the highest compatibility I’ve seen yet,” Vial explained, scanning the Thestral with a spell. “I guess those chemicals did some good. How do you feel?”
“Really weird,” Astral said, “the world slows down sometimes, and my senses are definitely sharper. I feel lighter too.”
“That’s normal. And with heightened reflexes, you’ll have a ‘super sense’, per se, if combat arises. It lays dormant until you sense a threat, even subconsciously. When you have an adrenaline dump, fight, get startled, or anything that could be perceived as a threat, everything will slow down. It’s an automatic response.”
“That explains Sassi’s movements.”
“Exactly. How about anything else? Lingering pain? You should be starting to feel pretty good.”
Astral blinked. Nothing hurt, and he did feel good. A pool of energy was quickly forming in the pony’s body as if running to Canterlot and back would be a breeze.
“I do feel pretty great. Tons of energy.”
“Excellent. Now let’s get you into the armor. While it can amplify your natural movements when needed, it’s also designed to help acclimate to your own body when the armor is off. It should be seamless, wearing the armor and leaving it.”
“Alright, just tell me what to do, Vial.”
“Stand here.”
Moving to stand in front of the armor’s case, Astral watched as robotic arms peeled the suit apart into a dozen pieces.
“Stand still. Initializing suit-up sequence.”
At first, the metal and mesh were ice-cold against Astral’s fur and skin. Within moments of locking into place, however, the stallion didn’t feel anything as the mesh matched his body temperature. It was the oddest sensation, just a faint weight against his body despite the armor weighing far more than he did.
“Limbo reactor online. I hope it holds…” Vial muttered, watching as a small backpack-like object was latched onto Astral’s back.
“Reactor?”
“We never were able to solve the power generation issue. The reactor on your back is a miniaturized portal. It converts latent Limbo energy into useable electricity to power the suit. But something always interfering with our efforts on the other side. It barely drew enough power to even sustain basic functions, less than ten percent. You’ll need to recharge after about four hours; that’s as long as we could make it last even with the best batteries we have. Even so, some systems may…wait…”
Tapping a few keys, Vial’s eyes widened in shock.
“Reactor output at one hundred percent,” he whispered, “all systems online, Limbo connection stable. But how?”
Tears abruptly pooled in Astral’s eyes. His eyes flickered to his discharged saddlebags, where a soft, friendly blue glow emanated from where he had stowed the Queen’s gift.
“Joro.”
“What?!” Vial exclaimed, shaking his head. “Never mind. Well, that solves the power issue. Carefully take a step over here. We need to calibrate the tactical systems.”
Running through a brief drill of looking at a five-point light system, Astral barely felt the armor as he moved.
“Shields online; they take a good five minutes to recharge once completely depleted, so don’t let them run too low if possible. Take cover and let them recharge. They’re meant for last-ditch defense, not a constant barrage of blows or bullets. It’s an exponential escalation for how much power they drain for absorbing a strike. A would-be fatal strike would drain everything, but minor hits only a few percentage points,” Vial explained. “I hope that makes sense. Usually, we have an entire day to acclimate them to armor systems, and then a week-long training course. We were meaning to then move on to a month of tests, but we never even got to the one-day rapid deployment tests.”
“It makes sense.”
Vial tapped a few more keys, the metal walls opening up to reveal a vast array of items.
“The armor can heal you, but it’s meant as a support system to keep you alive until actual treatment. I’ve activated the auxiliary power systems, so the armor can utilize a wide range of available power options if it senses them, when the reactor isn’t enough. It’s experimental though and may be finicky,” The unicorn walked over to a small set of metal saddlebags, a robotic arm slotting them onto the armor.
“These are the life support systems and the cartridges. You have three spares. Each is slotted in here…” he showed Astral how to reload the rectangular objects into the armor. “Antibiotics, stimulants, painkillers, antivenom, coagulating, and healing foam; it’s a comprehensive mix. You don’t want to use more than one or two of these, but three is for an emergency. There are more in Silo Three. Last I heard, they were being spread around as a one-stop medical station, if necessary,” Vial explained.
“I’ve put eighteen total doses of the follow-up serum in the packs as well. That’s nine syringes. That gives you four spare doses; it’s all we have here at this station. I’ll set reminders for you to inject them. There may be another station in Silo Three, but I don’t know anything outside of rumors.”
The next set of containers was along Astral’s flanks; Vial gently putting the contents of Astral’s previous saddlebags into them, including a brightly glowing stone that made Astral smile.
“Basic cargo storage. You’ve got your old items, and a survival it with a few days’ worth of food and water. The armor has waste elimination and recycling, so don’t worry about that. Just spit the tar into your helmet and it’ll dispose of it. There’s a drinking tube to water reserves inside, to the bottom-right of your HUD.”
Astral nodded, noting how the display was fairly minimalistic. A crosshair, magical shield status, and physical health condition along with reactor output.
“The helmet has night vision, heavy-duty filters, scanning suites, the whole smash. There’s an onboard AI to answer questions and activate them if you can’t reach any of the manual buttons. You’ve also got a map and basic motion tracker, so getting lost isn’t an issue. Just tell the AI where you want to go.”
“Got it,” Astral paused, “Erm, how do I get out of this thing?”
The unicorn let out a snort at that.
“Emergency repair kit. It’s with the medical supplies. There’s a wrench to release each segment under the edges of the armor plating. The armor mesh isn’t a single solid piece, as you saw. But when power is run through the fabric, the pieces work together. It’s stronger than a bulletproof vest, and the plating can take any known projectile like a champ. It’s also modular and can be worn by multiple users if needs be.”
Another few presses of keys, and Vial gestured to the new items.
“And these are to replace your shotgun.”
Astral felt a surge of excitement, an odd swelling of emotion that brought more tears to his eyes. In any other circumstance, he’d be drooling over the beautiful tools in front of him.
The two saddle-mounted weapons were cut-down, tri-barreled miniguns. A black belt fed into each, the rectangular ammunition containers on the rear. If he had to guess, a simple kick to some smoothed extraction levers would eject the magazines and reload them. Blue internal lights made the weapons glow softly.
All he could see now, however, were the keys to rescuing Sassi.
“Emotional swings?” Vial asked, glancing at the readouts.
“A bit, yeah.”
“That’s normal. Let’s get these on you.”
The guns that were strapped to Astral’s frame must have weighed easily half of his body weight each, and yet he still felt light as a feather.
“You have ten thousand shots per gun, and a spare magazine for each,” Vial explained. “The bullets are small, about three times the size of a grain of sand. But coated in magical plasma, they’ll aggressively react with any unarmored targets. They’re far more effective than even your explosive rounds, but minimal effectiveness against armor. The suit can utilize raw metal to obtain more ammunition in an emergency, but it needs to be connected to the reactor. They can function on batteries for a limited time if connected to a normal battle-saddle as well.”
“Miniguns and cannons online,” a disembodied voice abruptly said; the AI.
Tapping each side of the miniguns, Vial gestured to the larger barrels that locked into place above the tri-barreled assembly.
“These are the cannons. They fuse about a dozen normal shots together before being fired, so it uses more ammo. However, it can punch through heavy armor, but they fire much slower, only about two shots a second. They overheat fairly quickly too. You can switch in your HUD, voice command, or use the passive neural interface. The helmet has a similar system to your other one and can pick up on pointed thoughts.”
“No testing range?”
Vial shook his head.
“Try it out in the hall when we’re done. Ok, that’s armor, medical, shields, guns, AI, and power generation…walk around the lab for a few minutes to get the onboard systems used to your movements. Just say ‘activate calibration mode and tutorial.’” Vial then let out a sigh.
“The best advice I can give you is from what Sassi once said about being modified. ‘“If you can think you can do it, then you can. That’s what these modifications do.’”
The Thestral nodded in thanks, activating the calibration and tutorial in his helmet as he walked. The AI ran through a series of simple ‘how-to’ instructions ranging from checking vitals, systems, movement, reloading; everything he needed for a combat scenario. Vial seemed to be recording something, speaking into a camera above a monitor for the minutes he was walking around.
A final chime echoed. Apparently, that did it.
“Calibration and tutorial complete,” Astral relayed, Vial nodding and tapping a few keys. A file popped up in Astral’s HUD before vanishing.
“Perfect. And I just finished making a few messages to you for later. They’ll pop up automatically. The AI can answer questions about the armor as well, but I think that covers everything.” A square robotic arm then jutted out from the wall. “Well, that’s not necessary, but…”
“And that is?”
“A tactical marker. Squad symbol for later deployments. Not necessary now.”
Astral smirked, the rumbling fire in his chest flaring.
“Do you have the icon for a meteor by chance?”
‘Perhaps you will be the meteor who helps to burn away the evil of this place.’
I remember, Joro.
Tapping a few keys, Vial nodded in confirmation, the robotic arm making a matching set of icons on Astral’s shoulder pads.
“Looks good in gold,” Vial mused. “Oh, one thing I didn’t mention, but I suppose it’s worth a shot. You have a satellite communications feature on the armor to pair with other helmets, or broadcast on a wide spectrum. I doubt that’s enough to punch through the Silo’s shielding, and it probably would be seen as a virus by Equestrian Intelligence. But at the very least, you can record and play back your helmet footage. From what messages I got, they’re trying to monitor things down here. So, on the other end, everyone will be looking for a message.”
Astral took a few deep breaths, feeling oddly good. His emotions were muted, for now.
“Well, it’s worth a shot. Then I guess that’s it. Thank you, Vial,” he said, the previous statement about emotions being torn to shreds as Astral’s throat clogged up. “I can’t thank you enough for this.”
Gesturing to Astral, the two made their way back up the small elevator and to the escape pods.
“Consider this my best attempt to do some good in this world. I should be thanking you for the chance at some form of redemption,” the unicorn admitted, pausing next to an empty escape tube.
“You’ll have about four hours from now until the effects wear off. That’s my best guess. By then you’ll need to be in the medical center. So set a timer. Your emotions may be a bit up and down, but overall, you should be combat-ready. Assuming Sassi was taken to the Queen on the reactor level about twenty-five floors down, there’s a utility tunnel that leads to the upper third of Silo Three. Go there, and through the nearest utility stairwell. The medical center will be on your left, past three sets of security doors. After that, I don’t know much about the layout. The suit can scan for a general blueprint of that Silo.”
Silo Three.
The chill that ran down Astral’s spine was offset by the massive guns on his side. That could wait.
“Thank you again, Vial. Is there any way to track Sassi with the armor?”
“Not directly. You can try to tap into the Silo systems and have it scan for any personnel still alive. But there’s no way to know. Sorry,” Vial said.
Astral flipped up the gold visor, meeting Vial’s gaze.
“Then I’ll go floor by floor. If you see my parents…just, in case that camera was faulty, let them know I want to do this. Whatever the outcome may be, and that I love them.”
Vial nodded, reaching out a hoof, shaking Astral’s.
“I’ll do that. Good luck, Astral. You’re better than this Silo deserves.”
With a nod, Vial was then gone, whisked up through the tube.
And now I’m alone.
His thoughts abruptly stopped, the stallion letting out a growl.
No, I’m not alone. There’s someone here.
I’m on my way, Sassi.