//------------------------------//
// Fused Bonds 
// Story: The Fused and The Severed 
// by Golden Cake 
//------------------------------//

When I woke up in the morning to the sounds of chickens crowing, I politely woke up Aloe, Lotus, and Octavia, and we all went downstairs for breakfast.

We had actually slept in for a little bit, so the leftover breakfast was already on the counter.

I was surprised that I’d actually slept in. I usually had a good internal alarm clock for waking up at the right time.

For breakfast, we had hashbrown’s and pancakes, though there weren’t many left.

As me and my three roommates ate, I was ok with giving a bit of my breakfast to them when they finished their’s and were still hungry. I had a trained metabolism, and didn’t need to eat as much as they might’ve needed to.

When we finished breakfast, I cleaned off our dishes, as it was easier for me since I had hands, and then I stepped out of the front door of the farmhouse and looked around.

It was a pretty sunny day today, I guess Rainbow was already on cloud duty.

As I stepped off the porch and looked around for work. I hoped that Twilight wouldn’t be upset with me for sleeping in.

I saw her near the farm’s front gate a few minutes later, though, so I didn’t need to worry for long.

“Sleep well?” She asked, as she kept her eyes fixated on some kind of wire mechanism next to the gate.

“Sorry, Twilight, I didn’t mean to sleep in,” I said.

“I know,” she said assuringly. “It’s not a big problem, but you will need to get used to waking up early soon if you plan on staying here long.”

I looked to the sides of the fences, and asked her what she was working on.

“I’m trying to make sure that the electric fence is ready for the severed wave that will pass us today. I was doing recon the other day and saw them in Appleloosa, they have an oddly specific pattern of places they attack,” she said.

When she mentioned another wave of severed, I thought of Fuzzy Fun from the desert town we were in previously, when she sacrificed herself to buy me and some other members of our group, and a filly we found, time to escape.

“What can I do to help?” I asked quickly.

She looked back at me with a hint of concern in her face. I guess I sounded a lot more worried in my tone than I realized.

“Well… you could prepare some indoor defenses, in case things get bad and we need to fall back.”

I looked at the ground and shut my eyes, before I felt Twilight put her hoof on my leg.

“Don’t worry, Dan. We’ve had this kind of thing happen before, we’ll be fine if we prepare,” she said hopefully.

I looked at her and nodded, trying to force a smile.

I then left to prepare defenses, starting with the barn.

I didn’t have much experience with boarding up planks and setting up traps, but Pinkie Pie was there to help me with it.

She looked sort of down, so I asked her how her morning was.

“Ok,” she said, as she smacked a nail into the plank which was covering one of the barn’s window’s, and used the end of her long poofy mane to grasp a hammer to do it. I didn’t even bother thinking about how that was physically possible, must’ve been magic or something.

Pinkie then sadly looked into the window we were boarding up.

“I remember the first party I threw here for my family,” she said. “That was the day I found out who I really was.”

She was tearing up a little bit, and I responded by gently patting her head, which she leaned against my leg.

“We all have lost one’s Pinkie,” I said comfortingly. “Trust me, you’re not the only one who feels this way.”

She stopped leaning her head against my leg and looked up at me, as I looked her in the eyes.

“At least you still have your friends, right? I have a friend back at my military camp, I know I’d do anything to keep her safe,” I said.

Pinkie smiled slightly, and looked down at my fusion bracelet.

“Your bracelet thingy… I think I’ve seen more like it,” she said.

“Hmm?” I asked.

There was no way there were more fusion bracelets around here, we weren’t near any of General Celestia’s outposts, the only way to get them out here would be from a supplies drop or something, but those are always found by our soldiers minutes after they land. They’re also pretty essential for establishing bases far from our main outposts, our team needs them to be stronger together.

Pinkie noticed my confusion and told me to follow her, and she led me into the farmhouse, at the end of a hallway on the second floor.

She looked up at a string hanging from the ceiling, then back at me.

I understood, and I jumped up, and pulled the attic staircase down, and me and her ascended into the dusty attic.

I pulled another string that was dangling from the ceiling, which lit up a lightbulb, which illuminated mostly the center of the room in a yellow light.

“I was checking up here one day to see if I had any extra party supplies, so I could throw a party for everypony,” she said. “But I found this weird crate instead.”

Pinkie led me to a dark green colored, military crate, which was hidden in the corner on the other side of a stack of boxes.

I opened it, and threw the lid aside.

Just like Pinkie said, there were fusion bracelets in there, several of them, among other things, like food rations and other supplies.

I picked up a bracelet and looked at it for a moment, before I put it in my pocket and looked at Pinkie.

“I might need to have a talk with Twilight,” I said dryly.

Pinkie looked at the bracelets, then she looked at me worriedly, and stepped a bit closer to me.

“Just don’t do anything dumb, please Dan,” she said.

“I… won’t,” I muttered.

When I left the attic, I went down to the first floor and saw Twilight blockading windows in the living room. I tried not to berate myself for forgetting about defenses and tried staying focused on what I would say to her.

“Twilight,” I said.

“Twilight’s ear flicked, and she looked back at me.

“Hey. You and Pinkie forgot about defenses, the electric fence didn’t give me much trouble, so I thought I’d help you two out,” she said.

I took the fusion bracelet out of my pocket and held it in front of her.

“How did you get this?!” I asked quickly. “Do you even know how much our military needs those drops?!”

Twilight’s eyes widened.

“I… umm, I forgot we had those!” She responded quickly.

I raised an eyebrow at her, and she looked back at me with a bit of venom in her expression.

“Hey, we did not STEAL those! You don’t know what it’s like living off the land like this!! You don’t even KNOW how much we’ve all been through, all while you have your fancy military drops and established camps!! I’m SO sorry that THIS IS WHAT OUR WORLD HAS COME TO!!! She yelled.

My anger faded a bit, as she fell back onto the couch and shut her eyes.

“Death, monsters, stealing… why did things have to come to this?” She said shakily. “What happened to peace and harmony?”

I looked at the window she was boarding up, then slowly sat down next to her.

When she noticed me sit down next to her, she opened her eyes briefly to look at me, and moved a bit farther away from me.

We were both just silent for a moment, as I thought about what to say.

“I never wanted the world’s to come to this, either,” I said.

Twilight kept her eyes shut, but her ears perked up.

I looked at the ceiling.

“Sometimes I think to myself, what would life be like if none of this had happened? It’s painful to think about,” I said sadly. “I wouldn’t have to be fighting so hard to be stronger for those who I love… and I would still have my family… it’s just so much pain to take when you just… lose someone like that.”

I felt Twilight suddenly rest her head on my lap, but I kept looking at the ceiling.

“We do still have people we care about though, don’t we?” I asked, looking down at her.

She looked up at me with teary eyes, as she nodded shakily.

I scratched behind her ears and patted her head, as she relaxed a bit more.

Then, after a while of simple, content silence, I looked at the side of the couch and picked up the fusion bracelet, and placed it next to her. Her eyes were still shut, so for all I knew she was asleep, but I still had to tell her this.

“Twilight, I’m sorry I was so harsh about the supplies drop,” I said calmly. “Things really have been hard for all of you, and I don’t blame you for doing what you needed to.”

I looked down at her, then back to the windows, and I was about to gently stand up to continue boarding them up, when Twilight spoke.

“I appreciate you saying that,” she whispered, as she opened her eyes and looked up at me. “I was beginning to worry that we’d lost a new friend.”

She smiled, and I smiled, as we both stood up.

Twilight looked at me, then at the windows, and finally at the bracelet on the couch, and her expression grew curious.

“Umm, I know this is sudden, but… what if we used those bracelets to defend our farm? We have a good amount of time to experiment with them before the attack.”

My eyes widened a bit, as I looked at her.

“Are you… sure, that you want to do that?” I asked. “I don’t know ENTIRELY how they work, and it is sort of… intimate.”

Twilight looked at the bracelet, then back at me with confidence, as she smiled.

“I’ve known my friends ever since I moved into Ponyville, and I’m sure that we all trust you by now,” she said.

After she said that, both of us went into the attic and got the rest of the bracelets, which we took into the barn to test fusion.

There were actually more than enough bracelets for all of us. Celestia’s military really had intense preparation, I guess in case we had new recruits without bracelets or something.

When Twilight gathered everypony in the barn to announce that we were testing fusion, some of them were hesitant, but most of them were quite curious.

Applebloom was curious about how it would work, but Applejack didn’t allow her, I suppose in case something were to happen.

“Fluttershy, Rarity, Octavia, Aloe, and Lotus seemed the most doubtful about doing it, but Twilight was at least able to convince Fluttershy and Rarity that they’d already been through so much, this would be nothing, and it could even bring them closer together as friends.

As I took six bracelets off the bench we had them placed on, and held them in front of Twilight and her friends, as everypony else stood back, I looked at them questioningly.

“Are you all sure you want to do this?” I asked slowly. “Remember, these can’t be taken off once you put them on.”

Twilight confidently nodded, and once all of her friends were sure, I slowly equipped the bracelets on each of their forelegs.

Once I equipped the bracelets on them, the mechanisms tightened, and I heard them all wince in pain.

“Guys!! Are you ok?!” I asked quickly.

After a moment, Applejack spoke.

“Yeah, yeah, that just hurt quite a lot!”

I forgot that it hurt initially, but that was an essential part of it storing your DNA safely, and I told them that when I remembered.

“Well, at least that means our normal bodies will be safe, right darling?” Rarity asked.

I nodded, before I looked at my bracelet, and held my arm out in front of them. When I did that, we all got into a closer circle, and we were all right next to one another.

Everypony else then raised their hooves with their bracelets in the middle of our circle, as we were all touching, and their bracelets glowed brightly with their own aura’s.

Twilight shut her eyes, and everypony else did the same, and so did I.

After a few seconds, our bodies all went numb, and our forms phased together, and merged with a GIANT flash of white light, which I was sure could even be seen from outside the barn.

Then all seven of us were someone entirely knew, and entirely different, but also similar, in small ways.