//------------------------------//
// Say your goodbyes if you've got someone to say goodbye to 
// Story: Bionic Titan: A New Dawn 
// by KorenCZ11 
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Zap Flash








When I woke up, I was in the suite. HD was sleeping softly beside me, and the sun was rising outside the window. I’d beaten my alarm. Not too unusual, all things considered. I’m always antsy before a big job like this one. Today was the day.

Over the course of the week, we found out that HD was something of a natural when it came to titans. I’ve never believed, for my entire career piloting, that it was very hard. She said that somethings were difficult, but just like I thought, it was easy for her too. Who knows, maybe that says something about us, or something about everyone else.

Flying was her favorite part. After two days, she practically mastered the Swift Wind. She even said that it was starting to feel a little sluggish. She was up for it, so we tried putting her in a winged Mercury II. The upgrade was tremendous, and HD loved it. She flew and flew til she went all the way to the border. Her time getting there and back was almost half what it’d taken in the Swift Wind, and she was totally jazzed to go faster. That is, till she unplugged and got CLIF’s famous backlash. If she’d really been working out, she would’ve blown her back out doing the stunts she did. Luckily, it was just backlash, and after a day of rest, she recovered and was ready to get back at it again. Nothing can turn off a junkie, I guess.

She tried out the Grimgarde and didn’t like it. Since the other team had come back successful and Gaston liked what he saw with the Heat Hawk, he ordered a second one and we received it the day before yesterday, using the funds he got from the job in the first place. That one was her favorite. She even played with the blades. I never thought HD could look remotely scary, but when she was in that titan, she had a glint in her eye that I didn’t like. She reminded me of the old boss after he’d taken a shot of candy. He could, and would, do anything to anybody like that. He’d come on to her like that once. I nearly beat him to death. I never wanted to put HD in a titan because I feared she might get hurt or worse in one. Now, I think my fears have turned the other way.

The big lady never canceled her card, so we lived like executives for these last six days. If all things went well, this could be our every day from now on. And if they didn’t, I’d at least be okay in saying that we went out living well. To escape poverty and fighting for a little while was nice. We were still on Cavalria, and maybe I wanted to see what else was out there, but that was okay. As much as she was the one crying about being left alone the other day, I didn’t want to be left alone either.

A vague memory of somepony I knew telling me to run away flashed before my eyes. A black burning heap. The smell of rosemary. The odor permeated my nostrils and made me sick. Rubbing at my eyes, I got out of bed and made my way to the bathroom. It was clean, the water worked, and it smelled nice in here. There was even a little sprayer thingy in the toilet that cleaned you out when you were done. How I would’ve wished for one of those when our fabricator wasn’t working right.

As I went to wash my hooves and had the water running over them, another memory showed up. Big claws, a little pegasus. A broken boat, bodies all around. She coughed and hacked up water. Her vitals were okay. I scrubbed and scrubbed, and finally, the memory went away.

It wasn’t just her attitude that made me uncomfortable the other day, it was that place. We’d flown right over it. To anyone else, it was just another spot on the vast ocean. But I knew what was down below the surf. I’d put it there.

I moved to the living room and opened the room terminal. This place was as high class as one could get in Cavalria, and we’d been eating real food every day. There was only one more real object on the menu we hadn’t tried yet, and since this was the last time, I went ahead and called in an order.

She wasn’t up yet, and I didn’t think she would be for a while. I’d wake her up when the food came, but until then, I decide I’d watch her sleep. It could be the last time I get to do it.

Sometimes, she slept peacefully, like this. Her chest rising slowly, her soft body breathing calmly. Her mane was always so curly, but not quite wild. There were common shapes, rings it liked to form like somepony had brushed it that way, but that was just how it fell. She used to be just another kid, but after a while, she became… this.

A feeling would burn me alive looking at her. My imagination sometimes ran wild. There were things I wanted to do to her, things that make me disgusted and ashamed of myself, but things that would never go away. But sometimes, that burning feeling turned in a softer direction. I’d simply want to hold her, to be beside her, to feel her warmth.

But that too, was wrong. I’d taken something from her before I even knew who she was. Her memory, her family, her life before. If not for me, where would she be? Would she have lived in a world like this all the time? Never sickly and hungry, never desperate or homeless like we were back then.

I tried my best. Keeping her safe and alive felt like my mission in life. I could only do what I could do. I didn’t know what I was doing. But it was still my fault. And at the same time, it was all I could do. How many other HD’s are out there, by my hoof? Perhaps it’s better that I’ve become more thorough. Then again, maybe it’s worse. My world, at least, is certainly brighter for having an HD in it.

Maybe there’s a greater world out there where things can be changed. But, that doesn’t feel right either. It’s just a fantasy.

If this goes through, and we really get all that money, then I can let her go. Tell her what I did and why she’s here. It’s fine if she hates me. Maybe she’ll want to punish me for it. I’d be okay with that too. I just want to see her well off for once. Living like this has been nice.

She rolled a bit, and some of her mane had fallen into her mouth. I moved it away, but just as I did, she took hold of my hoof. She didn’t wake or stir, but she held it, kept it close. I wouldn’t dare move like this. It, too, was nice.

Twenty minutes later, the room service arrived. I leaned down and shook her gently. “Hey, breakfast is here.”

“Breakfast?” her snout twitched. Her eyes opened wide and she sat up straight. “What is that?” Then, feeling the strain from yesterday’s launch, she felt her back. “Oh, geez.”

I got up and got the door. A bot with a tray was waiting there. Two hot plates of pineapple pancakes covered in syrup and sugar and a mountain of whipped cream with all kinds of berries and two bananas. I set one on my back and picked the other up with my free hoof. “Go brush your teeth and all that.”

“Okay, okay.” She got out of bed and stretched. I had to look away. On the one hoof, maybe today was our last day alive. Maybe she would say yes if I asked. On the other hoof, if I brought it up, things would change irreversibly. And if we survived, things would never be the same. I wouldn’t do it.

Once she was done, she came to the table in our little suite and turned on the wall terminal. Here, you didn’t have to do some janky setup to get a main terminal to display on a flat surface to watch a show or a movie, it was just made to do that. A world where everything just works and it’s easy. I could get used to that.

“What is this, anyways?” she asked, unfamiliar with the items on the plate.

I wasn’t any better, but I’d at least read the description. “Pineapple pancakes with powdered sugar, whipped cream, syrup, strawberries, blueberries, and bananas. It comes with coffee, cream, and sugar too, which is what the drinks and those little cups are I guess.”

“It smells good, but isn’t coffee supposed to be bitter? Well, maybe that’s what the sugar is for, but I’ve never seen it like this. How do they get it in little boxes like that?” She picked up one of the little white crystal cubes and studied it.

“Don’t ask me, I don’t know any more than you do.” At times, it was embarrassing to be like this. The hotel staff didn’t believe we really had the money to be here. The other people gave us odd looks like they knew we were part of another class. And when we were confused by things that were common place to them, like a pool, a sauna, a tennis court, and beach volleyball, I could feel them laughing at us in their heads. That was a different kind of burning.

Most of the food had been familiar until this point. Real hay burgers, real soup and curry, real rice and eggs, real vegetables and dairy. Fruits, berries, and deserts were not something we knew anything about, so we’d avoided them for the most part. It certainly smelled sweet.

“Well, here goes nothing.” She cut a piece out with her fork and ate it. Her eyes lit up and I could see the sparks going off.

“I figure it’s good, huh?”

“it’s sooooo sweet! It’s like, all kinds of things from ice cream to hot cake, but they sort of blend together, and there’s a kinda sour part to it, and it’s creamy and, and… oh, I don’t know, just eat it!”

To her credit, she had more words to describe this than I did. So many new tastes and flavors. It was a lot of sugar, I could tell that, but the berries and the yellow fruits inside the cakes added another element to it to balance it out. It wasn’t too much in any direction, and it was kinda mellow compared to something like chocolate ice cream. With more of the little berries, there was more sour and different kinds of sour to add to it, and if you added the other yellow thing to it, it got sweeter and softer. And then all together, it was something else completely. And maybe a little too sweet.

Sipping at the hot drink, it was so bitter, but warm and sort of jittery. “You know, this is kinda nice too.”

HD took a swallow of her coffee. “Ick! Is this what coffee tastes like? Here, you can have it.”

Shocker. “You could put some of the other stuff in it. I think people drink this with all kinds of stuff usually. Though, I’m kinda liking it the way it is.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, other people can do whatever they want. I’m going to order a juice again.”

Wasting real food would be a tragedy, so I took it instead. “Alright, suit yourself.” I made my way through all the items on my plate, taking drinks of coffee in between bites. The bitter washed out the sweet and sour, which I think made them both taste better. Something about the constant switching of flavors on my tongue made it all come together in a way I just can’t describe. This was the correct sequence of things.

With that out of the way, I had the terminal pull up the local news, then the Miyako news. Cavalisa’s news was being presented by a group of hippogriffs talking about whatever the conglomerate was doing this week to compete with the others. They always had high praise for SAST and all its doings, but everybody knew that the news corporations were also owned by SAST and simply there to spread propaganda. Of course it’s a great thing SAST is closing off development into aquatic research and selling all of its aquatic facilities to CLIF to focus on space. It’s not like all of our greatest resources are found on the ocean floor and much more could be accomplished with deep sea mining than it ever could by venturing out beyond AE territory into the stars. It’s not as if CLIF, the most aggressive conglomerate out there, has been encroaching on SAST waters for the last twenty years with newer and better aquatic titans this whole time. Nothing to be worried about, please direct your attention away from the hippogriffs behind the curtain.

They finally got to the local weather, which as far as I was concerned, was all they were good for. We didn’t really have the pegasi to manipulate the weather like AE did, so ours ran a natural cycle that could be predicted with relative accuracy. Cavalisa was in the beginning of our typhoon season, and today was not the day to have one. Luckily, there were only a few storms brewing out in the ocean, and not along our path.

On the Miyako side, they were all about the festivities of today’s Summer Sun Celebration. Twelve hundred and seventy nine years ago, the Equestrian sun queen disappeared, and today is the day the former head of Equestria and the current CEO of AE, Luna, celebrates her memory. Families gathered and feasted, and today was to be a day of rest for all within AE’s umbrella. For company and family, as both were one. This flavor of propaganda, as all news was just propaganda in this day and age, was a bit nicer in that it at least encouraged unity too. Everywhere wants you to be a die hard patriot, but the griffons have their warrior spirit on display during their holidays, the changelings call for martialing of arms on theirs, and SAST calls for praise of the company. A gaggle of oligarchs, a company of dictators, and a circus of fools.

One of these days, a war is going to break out. And I don’t want HD to be here when it does.

“Seems like it’s all clear,” she commented.

“So it does.”

We sat as the news anchors went on about the forecast for the week.

“Hey, Zap?”

“Yeah?”

She moved a bit of mane off her face. “Do you think, if things go well after this that we could…” HD paused, looking for the words. My heart raced. She looked deep into my eyes, those thoughts from earlier finding their way into my head. “F-find somewhere to… to go to school together?”

My pulse eased. “Well, sure. I’ve always wanted to give you the chance to go to school, I don’t—”

She leaned in and put her hoof on mine. “Not just me. Us. Together.” and back it was to racing. “I’ve been thinking a lot this past week.” She scooted a little closer. “I never really understood why I didn’t like the older brother routine you would have sometimes, but after talking about it, I think I do now.” She brought her other hoof around and held mine between them. “I don’t want you to look at me like a sister. And if things go alright and we suddenly have money, I don’t want you to leave me either.” she swallowed and broke eye contact, her face getting redder. “I don’t ever want you to leave me. Because I—”

I jumped out of my chair and hopped away. The burning and the fear fought within me like raging beasts. She can’t say that. She doesn’t know. She wouldn’t say that if she knew. But I can’t tell her now. We have to do this together. There’s more people than us involved in this mission, and if things are… I can’t, I can’t.

“What’s wrong?”

Those big golden eyes. How my heart aches. “Let’s… talk about this after. After it’s over.”

She’d worked up her courage and wouldn’t be denied. “No.” Stepping out of her chair, she cornered me. “Zap Flash, I love you. And no matter what happens from here on out, we’ll be together, forever.”

I hated that I was so small. HD was just as tall as I was, but she was so much more. My heart was ready to burst, my body was shaking. The burning would take over if she went any further. She was inches from my face, her nose just about touching mine. I could taste her breath.

“Don’t you love me, Zap?”

“I do!”





Time evaporated. I’d come to realize that it wasn’t just me who felt the burning. It’d always been there, hidden beneath the surface. Once upon a time, after I’d saved her from our old boss, she’d tried to thank me like this. It didn’t feel right. I’d just saved her from this, why would she just give herself to me? It wasn’t right. We were too young. It didn’t make sense.

But things are different now. By every standard, she was an adult. I was an adult. We’d been through everything together, and we were still together. And now… we’d always be together.

“What is it you wanted to say, earlier?” She asked.

I pulled her close and drank in her scent. There was nothing in this world so close to my heart. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her. “There’s some stuff I haven’t told you. But… it’s hard to say. And I know it’ll upset you. We’ve got other people counting on us today, and I don’t wanna rock the boat right before all this, ya know? It’s why I… it’s why I backed away at first.”

She kissed me and nestled herself against me. “I understand. You can tell me later. There’s a lot I don’t know about you. I’ve always wanted to know everything about you, but I didn’t understand what I wanted either. Things are changing all over. It feels like we’re living at the edge of a cup about to overflow, and it’ll either kill us or bring us to new heights. We’re walking on a tightrope, and we’ll either reach the end or fall off.” She brought her hoof up and pressed my cheek to hers. “This week just showed me that all I really want is you.”

“I love you, HD.”

Another hour lost. When my alarm rang signaling the time to get ready and go, we got up and showered together. Tail in tail, we checked out of the suite and took our bag to the tram and down to the south side. Beyond today, a new life awaited us, one way or another. And through it, we’d be together.





If ever people know a couple, they’re sensitive to changes. Blackrow had seen us come in together for a week. HD being who she is quickly acquainted herself with everyone, and everyone knew HD. ‘The Girlie’ wasn’t used by anyone anymore, and Gaston was talking behind my back about getting her on as a regular member of the crew.

The easiest tell were the changelings. When we walked by, you could see their ears standing on end. They could taste the change in the air. Some of them would fall into a little trance and chase us a bit like a hungry cartoon character following a scent. Others would give us funny looks, not necessarily knowing anything had happened, but that there was a different air around us. Maybe more due to the horde of changelings than anything else.

It wasn’t mentioned until we’d reached the hangar and met with Ligament for the final checkup.

He turned the moment we entered the room. He raised his snout, he sniffed the air, and just like the others, his ears stood on end. Alert and energized, the good doctor made his way to us. “So… what happened here?”

A status like this isn’t something you can hide from changelings, so I didn’t bother. “We made peace with our impending deaths.” HD blushed a little, but didn’t deny anything. Weird, considering she’s the one who made the move in the first place.

Ligament hummed. “Hmm? Well, it’s about time I suppose. Being around you two before today has been rather obnoxious. We can smell it, you know, and it’s always annoying when the feeling is mutual, but not acknowledged. Like this, it’s like candy to us and hard to focus around, but at least pleasant. Otherwise, it’s like taking a hit, but the high is weak and unsatisfying.”

She blushed harder. “Oh! I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to distract…”

He waved her away. “No, no, it’s better this way. And fairly normal at that. People die in our business relatively frequently. If you don’t live fast, there’s a good chance you live unfulfilled. This is better, for everyone. It certainly boosts morale among us, anyways.” Then, he addressed the hoard. “Go on, all of you! You have work to do, we are two hours out from launch! If you want them back, make sure you do your jobs!”

The hoard, about seven other changelings, snapped out of their trance and dispersed back into the facility. Ligament took one deep breath and exhaled heavily. “Ah, that’s the good stuff.” Rubbing his snout like he’d just snorted a line, he went back into business mode. “Anyways, Mister Comet is supposed to be here at ten thirty to give us our final protocols before the mission. I’d like to have you both hop into your life suits and give me a few laps before you move out.”

He eyed both of us, then returned to his tablet. “Your mental states seem well, so we just need to make sure there are no mechanical or physical impediments. You’ll be in those suits for a while, so better get ready for it.”

Since that was mostly for her, HD nodded. “Got it!” Then she rubbed her rear. “Ugh, it’s one thing being plugged in, but to wear it for so long…”

I patted her shoulder. “Hey, you wanted to do this, remember? It’s part of the job.”

“I know.” she grabbed the hoof, leaned over and nuzzled my neck. “I still want to do this, so I won’t complain anymore.”

Ligament’s whole body buzzed into the air like he’d just been electrocuted. He zipped around and jabbed a hoof at her. “Okay, you cannot do that. Or anything like it. Being around you? Pleasant. That? Utterly intoxicating. Half the staff will be drunk and useless if there is any more of that. Stop it.”

“S-sorry.” And now she was really red.

“Go on, shoo!” Ligament shouted behind us. Again, a group of changelings dispersed. I’d never considered how bad this kind of thing really affects them. No wonder people talk about affairs that happen in the dock all the time. If you’re an addict, you’d never be able to let it go until the next one comes along.

There was only one operation today, and since we were going to be stealing a prototype AE suit, Gaston had been loaned the most modern AE suits he could find for use in the docks: the AE 011 Terra Maestro I. This machine was a ground use titan made in the second generation of titans as one of the first land combat units. It has limited aquatic capabilities, but is overall more resistant to weather conditions across the board than other suits of its generation. Heavy for an AE suit, but that weight was mostly contained in the weapons and armor. Hundreds of years ago, there was a vehicle weapon called a tank. It was big, heavy, and had the most powerful mobile artillery the world could produce sitting on top of it. In the modern age, the TM line of AE suits would be the equivalent. Grimgardes only wish they could reach this level of defense in their own suits, but even the third generation GII suits don’t come close to this, and the TMII is even stronger than this one.

However, also like GII titans, they tend to be beam sponges because they’re slow moving targets with big guns. After two goes at it, AE discontinued the Terra Maestro line in favor of developing faster and more agile ground units. Of the few AE suits you could find on the market, this one was available for that very reason.

Because AE’s design philosophy is high performance, modulation, and low production costs, they tend to have large fleets with titans that can generally be outfitted for anything. Of the things that are valuable on an AE suit, the interior frame and muscle layer are the most important. I’d never been in one of these, but now that I had, I was a little sad this might be my last time in one.

It was a quality piece of machinery. It was of course slow, heavy, and limited to the ground, but this thing was powerful. Properly equipped, I’d say even this model was enough to go toe to toe with stuff from the fourth generation. You’d have to be really, really good to actually land a hit like that, but one hit is all it would take. And if it came down to CQC… I wouldn’t want to be on the other side of this thing at all.

Another bonus was the high capacity magic generator. You could power all kinds of spells with this without even trying. I thought it would be fun, so I even managed to get the titan to fly for a little while, though it was incredibly taxing on me and the machine.

I got yelled at for that, but it was worth it just to see how far I could push it. And considering all that, it was a thirty-five year old model. The cutting edge, the bleeding edge of Bionic Titan tech was going to be right at our hooftips, and this was just a taste of what it would be capable of.

Over the week, I’d seen the face of that machine in my dreams. It was obviously something special, but why, I couldn’t say. I dreamed of the cockpit, the finished machine with all its armor in strangely complete detail. The power, the magic, the flight. Things still had to go right, but if we could just get in there… I can’t imagine what we’d be capable of.

But then comes the other problem. When we got out of our TMIs, HD said she had a headache. She attempted to use magic a bit, but she just felt overwhelmed and sickly afterward. She said she hated the feeling of being trapped to the ground and like her wings had been torn off. Everything about the titan was wrong to her, and that had me worried. What is this thing going to require of us? A titan that needs two ponies, specifically? Why? I could fly anything you put me in, but what about her? She isn’t just HD anymore, she is my Helium Delight. I don’t know what I would do if she got hurt without me. We’ll be together, but what am I about to put her through?

I had questions, and when 10:30 arrived, so did our employer.





Today, we had everyone who was going on the mission in the conference room with us to hear Mister Comet speak. Gaston, his brother Gallant; the other pilots Tendon and Sinew; our ground escorts Garrod and Elise; our mechanics Heron and Geffery; and our helmsman Gerund. With HD and I, that made eleven total. Every non-pilot would be helping run the ship up until the mission began, and the pilots would be servicing their own machines. It was going to be hard just to get there. But, the Mimic was fast and capable. It’d run more distance in less time before, and gotten away just as quickly. So long as everything went well with the machine, it would all be alright.

When the clock struck 1030, the conference room flashed green. A second blind, and right where we’d last seen them, Comet and his entourage appeared. He took his hat off, sat at the head of the table, and let out a breath. “You would not believe the day I’ve had. It’s always so busy this time of year. Holidays simply aren’t sacred anymore. Everyone is scheming, and sometimes I just can’t understand why the higher ups don’t keep people on staff for days like this.”

What are we, his friends?

Gaston coughed into his claw. “Eh, yes, suppose so. Mister Comet said had new information for us, yes?”

The giant violet stallion straightened. “Right, I did say that.” He wasn’t wearing his gloves this time around, and when he stroked his beard, you could see his hooves were red, but his coat had a sock pattern to it with a very dark blue covering his wrist. That particular color reminded me of something, but I couldn’t say what. The word royal comes to mind.

Comet scanned the room and again, he stared at me for a long time before moving on. “There is a password. However, our spy only recovered a list of them and we don’t know which one it is. They’ve been changing it every day, however we do have assurance that the password is selected from this list and not some randomly generated series.”

HD groaned. “I knew it sounded too easy. Of course there was a password, what kind of idiot would leave something this precious unprotected?”

Mister Comet laughed. “You’d be surprised, Miss Delight. It’s more common than you think.”

Something in me was extremely agitated by that. Why does he remember her name? Or no, it was the tone. How casual he was about it.

“Well,” Gaston asked, “you have list, yes?”

The big stallion scratched at his beard. “Unfortunately, our spy was slain in the process of getting it to us. I have a list, yes, but I do not know if it is the full list.”

I had to stop and take a breath. “So, you come in here slinging money around like it’s water, you tell us this should be simple, and then all the sudden you don’t know if we can even get the machine out? What happens if you don’t have the password on your list? Are we just fucked or what?”

I was angrier about this than I should be. Between putting HD at risk and how much I wanted to plug into this machine, I couldn’t decide which was worse. And that was very concerning.

“Mister Flash, that is why I’ve come to see you all today. There is now added risk. I won’t be upping your pay for success, but I will pay for a failure. If after trying every password and not starting the machine, you may retreat and receive half of our initial agreement. And if you wish to back out, I will find something else for you to do for ten percent and your silence.”

The reactions were mixed. The mercenaries seemed unphased. They came and they might just leave with no work put in and a nice wad of credits. The crew members looked unhappy, but like they could move on. HD was disappointed, but she took hold of my hoof, and maybe things would be just fine. One percent of two B was still twenty million. We’d have to find jobs, but we could still move to AE or space, get a place of our own, and enroll in a school somewhere. Maybe we could work for a while and buy our own titan to start a company with. I’m not exactly a learned mechanic, but I can maintain one well enough. Another job, a safer job, and one HD doesn’t have to come along for. That… would be better.

“We take job regardless.” Gaston announced.

“Hey, what!? No way!” at least half of us shouted.

He shot claws at the employees. “You like shiny new toys? You find hundred million to pay for! Blackrow cannot afford to not take job!”

And all of the sudden, the mercs and I were in the minority. If we backed out, we’d probably be in a lot of debt. SAST could buy us and turn us into whatever they wanted with guns pointed at our heads in the event we had our own opinions. Worse than being poor and living in poverty would be enslaved to debt. And if I backed out now, I would be just as screwed as everybody else. Gaston is plenty spiteful enough to ruin my reputation all over Cavalisa and I’d never find work again.

He even glared at me, daring me to say what was on my mind. I knew the old bastard too well to do it. Goddess condemn me for keeping my promises.

Again, Mister Comet scanned the room. “So… there are no issues?”

Squeezing my hoof tighter, HD answered for everyone. “No issues, Mister Comet.” And not a soul made a sound to the contrary.

The violet stallion smoothed his mane back. “Indeed.” He opened his terminal, then sent something to everyone. “As promised, your first payment. And for you two, the list.” Nodded our direction.

There was nothing quite like seeing a new set of zeros at the end of your account balance. If things didn’t work out, maybe we just escape deeper into Miyako and disappear. We didn’t have paperwork, sure, but we could just claim we were stranded and be brought under AE’s umbrella. With this kind of money, we could buy citizenship and everything. All right there in my account, only accessible by my unique magical frequency.

But then, there was the list. A series of words that I couldn’t make heads or tails of. Loyalty, Honesty, Laughter, Kindness, Generosity, Wisdom, Truth, New, Dawn, Harbinger.

“Is this… really it?” HD asked.

“That is what my Spy repeated to me.” Comet answered. “It may be incomplete, broken, or missing words. I figure you try it all and see what sticks.”

“It just seems so random. Why these words in particular?” I asked.

And then, Mister Comet took on a thousand yard stare. “Perhaps it means something to the designer. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it myself when I first heard it, but the more I thought about it, the more it reminded me of an incantation. It could mean nothing of course, but then again, maybe it was a hope for the future. All I do know is that, whatever the password is, you must say it in unison, together.”

With that, a wrist terminal the big stallion was wearing beeped. He clapped a hoof over it to stop it, then picked up his hat. “Ladies, Gentlemen; that is the signal for the end of our time together. I wish you the best of luck, and hope to hear a good report within the next two hours. Until then.” He took a bow, and in another blinding flash of green, he left the way he came.

“What a weird guy.”

Gaston tapped a claw on the table. “Weird, very wealthy guy.” Then he clapped his claws. “Time to move out. Everyone to stations. We depart to Miyako, now.”








Oxford








The day had finally arrived. After a quick brief to my hired thieves, I made all the necessary preparations with my other teams. With all the pieces in place and every precaution taken, today would be a Summer Sun Celebration to remember, for everypony.

And yet… there is still one thing that unnerves me. Twilight knows something about that boy, something that terrifies her to her core. She feels guilty about it. But why would that be? He’s not one of us, so it’s not as if she created a miracle or something which she neglected to tell the rest of us about. Perhaps, in the future when we expand to the point it becomes necessary, it will be our generation’s turn to have families. When more observers need to be created to stand watch over the universe. But this isn’t that time, and that’s Twilight’s whole philosophy. Then again, considering her mother, it could be that she’s beginning to play with toys she shouldn’t. Or rather, she already has?

That would be the most logical reason, but I know my cousin too well. She wouldn’t have the heart to play with life or something so blasphemous. I wouldn’t put it past her to toy with the idea though. Still, I never turned up anything too outlandish in my research through our archives, so it could be anything. Maybe even something Aunt Celestia created, which there are no limits to.

As the Meteorite found itself above Equestria and then the dragon spine mountain range where Canterlot castle was situated, the clock struck 1100. In an hour and twenty, the fireworks would start. Moving to the bridge, I addressed my crew one last time before descending to the surface. It has been 49 years since the attack of the first titan. On that day, a new era started. Today, that era closes as we advance to the next stage. Extending our reach to the stars above, we take new frontiers into our sights. The next generation of titan and space ship are the future for all sapient life on earth.

And today, we remind the world who leads them.





The castle was as it always is on the Summer Sun Celebration: bustling with life. Royal guards, hidden guards, local security, armed forces; every government employee was here with their families to celebrate the holiday. The one day of the year when nearly every room in the castle was full.

Before Mother catches me, my first task was to see Dusk. No doubt she knows I’m here, the castle has already detected and made note of the Meteorite’s presence. However, in her own domain, I become harder for her to detect.

The best place to hide from your own mother is the place she’s least likely to look: her own room. When I teleported in, Dusk was already here, waiting for me. He was as close as one could get to a living brother for me. A grown stallion with a short cut black beard kept in immaculate condition, and a mane to match with something of a superhero quaff and a dangling ringlet. Without making things weird, he was as pretty as a stallion could be for all the reasons stallions could be. He never beats me in the weight lifting competitions, but he always has a mare on his shoulder, or under his wing, and sometimes both. He could, would, and has seduced just about every creature out there, and the scary part of that is not the looks he has naturally, but the mind his mother cultivated in him.

For as white and bright as his coat is, a pinkish color with red, orange and yellow hues closer to his hooves and feathers to match, he has a very dark personality. Growing up in the world and with his mother’s near undivided attention, he’d seen and was told to look for all the things wrong with society. How best to use and manipulate them to his advantage, how the mind of the sentient creature thinks. Just decades of that would create a capable spy in the right hooves. Centuries with his mother has created the greatest information gatherer in the world. The only two creatures out there Dusk can’t outwit are his own mother and his full blood older sister. The horrifying thought is that he may one day surpass them too.

He turned his head the moment I landed in Mother’s room and smiled. He had a few of them he wore like party suits, but this one was genuine. “Ah, my green-eyed brother, welcome home.” He hugged me, we fought for supremacy in a short contest of strength, and eventually, he tapped out. “Alright, alright.”

“I won’t have you beating me. My physique is all I have on you.” I put a hoof on his shoulder. “How are you?”

He motioned forward to a table set up in mother’s chambers in front of her fireplace. It was one of the most secure rooms in the castle, and only the five of us can actually warp in here. “I am well, but anxious, Ox. I found something.”

He sat down and poured out some of mother’s favorite liquor. Dusk doesn’t exactly like alcohol, so this must be something nasty. I followed suit. “I see that. What’s the subject?”

Dusk sipped at the drink, frowned, then downed it. “It’s sis. She made something.”

Royal reserve was one of the strongest liquors in the world that ponies could still drink. It was so bad, that it could even do a number on us before our bodies caught up and repaired the damage. Alicorns can only be intoxicated for so long before that ‘near-immortality’ thing kicks in. My record is about a few hours and I have the strongest resistance to the stuff.

I sipped at the lighter fluid. Disgusting, as always. “What did she make exactly?”

He pulled up his terminal and sent me a file. “She’s been playing with toys she shouldn’t.”

The title read: Unique Replication—Theory and Practice Regarding Generation of Unique Specimens For Specific Utility, by Enlightenment S.T.

First, that is a Twilight title if I’ve ever read one. Second, the one word in this that already has me worried is ‘generation.’ That boy’s face came to mind. If it weren’t for his smallness and higher cheek bones, he would be the spitting image of cousin Whiskey.

“What is this, Dusk?”

My brother rubbed at his snout. “An idea. You ever hear the story of how Twi was born?”

I didn’t like where this was going. “More than a few times. Her mother was playing with dark magic, cast a fatal spell on her father to give him the ability to… well, you know, and then she was born, and cursed for many years. After a decade of searching for a solution, Aunt Celestia found it and came back to Underhoof to clear the effects from her and everybody else, including my father.”

He let his eyes fall to the table. “Do you ever wonder if that’s true, Ox?”

“Is it not!?”

He gave me a side eye and put a hoof over his lips. “No.” Dusk poured and downed another shot. “There was a third party involved. Dad was totally innocent and totally normal. Mom was in love and desperate. And there was one creature who lived among them that had the power to make her dream a reality. And unbeknownst to her, he did it.”

A third party? “Wait, when did this happen?”

Nodding, Dusk sipped at his glass. “There was once an entity named Discord. They called him the god of chaos, and as it happens, he had the hots for mom. However, their relationship never panned out, and he was a bit upset about it. Around the same time, Dad joined the royal guard. Take a guess when that was.”

The answer was obvious. “June, a thousand and two hundred years ago.”

“Correct. They’d been fighting over her conduct with stallions, and also what they might do with Discord now that he was making a ruckus. After they dealt with him, she’d planned on running away with dad to who knows where, which caused a real fight. And Dad tried to stop it.”

“So… I don’t understand, the timing doesn’t make sense.” If that happened so long ago, where do we come in?

“And you’re right, it doesn’t. The story starts up again after Mom spent about a thousand years searching for Dad’s lost soul out in space. Discord’s curse kept it trapped to this realm, which made it possible for her to not only recover it, but restore Dad to life. She catches it, brings him home, and from there, she starts working on a project to deal with your mom. After gathering all but one of the elements of harmony—”

“She had them all? On her own? How did she manage that?”

Dusk clapped his hooves. “If you’ll shut up and listen, I’ll tell ya.” Continuing, he went on, “She’d found a way to draw them out of ponies. Sort of… distilling the nature of the element within them, forcing them to resonate with her own element, and tearing it out of their soul, causing it to manifest. It was a technique she had developed with Discord.”

“That sounds awful. What happens to the rest of their nature when distilled to the element? Do ponies remain themselves after such a process?”

Dusk crossed his forelegs. “Yes and no. When this process is completed, the inversion of nature manifests itself as a raging beast. The elements were supposedly used to combat this, but this is Mom we’re talking about. No doubt there were failures at one point. The report says something about using children to get manageable distillations, which means adults were tested at one point, and the results were unsuccessful.”

I sucked air in through my teeth. “Yes, I really can’t see her hurting a child if she couldn’t protect it.”

“She does have a soft spot for kids, that’s for sure.” Then, Dusk poured more liquor.

“Do you really need more of that?”

He locked eyes with me and gave me a hard stare. I didn’t comment any further. “Seeing that children were her best option, she traveled the world with Dad to find the right children. It took most of a year, and she loved Dad. They did what lovers do, and with his curse intact, Twi was conceived.

Mom was just about ready to go get her last element to solidify her plan, when Twi decided to grace the world with her presence. She needed help, so to her sister she went. Twi was born, and then, Dad’s stability failed. His body and soul broke back into its pieces, and that is why she left her behind with my step dad, ya know, after ruining his life.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, that was totally his fault for the most part. Uncle Nighty wasn’t a bad guy, but he was a dumb teenager once in his life.”

He tapped a hoof on the table. “You know who Mom is. That poor stallion might never have lost everything if she didn’t show up.”

I rolled my eyes. “What, do you regret being born now?”

He looked at his full glass. “Not too much, I suppose, but some awful shit happened to get me here, and Twi’s got it in her head she can do it better. I don’t like seeing history repeat itself, Ox, I didn’t think I was old enough for it yet.”

“Okay, back up. Explain.”

He sucked down his lighter fluid. “Upon finding Dad, she also found Discord. He’d been cast into space and found himself a comet. Now, with Dad and Discord’s souls stuck to it, Discord was steering that comet straight for home. Whatever he intended to do once he got there is unknown, but he had a grudge to scratch, and Mom now had a weakness. Caught between a rock and a hard place, she sought desperately to save Dad and Twi. Her solution was to gather the elements again, completely destroy the flow of time, and take a small town into her custody to restart life on earth with.”

“Huh?”

“Aunt Luna had been working on Luna city at the time. There was an old working habitat already built by then. One small town, specifically located in South Dartmoor, had just enough of a gene pool to reset the world. Once she’d saved all those she’d chosen, she’d let things return and not stop the comet.”

That was harder to swallow than this royal reserve. “Aunt Celestia?”

“I confronted Mom about this.” He ran a hoof through his mane. “The report wasn’t as detailed as what she told me.”

“Goddess among us.”

“I know, Ox. I knew she was capable if pushed far enough, but to just…” he shook his head. “Regardless, she got pretty far, but along the way, a bunch of ponies wormed their way into her heart. And when Twi and Dad pleaded with her to stop and let him go to save the world, she gave in. Using all six elements that were keeping Dad alive, Twi destroyed the comet, and with it, Discord.”

“And how do we figure in?”

Dusk held a hoof out. “Dad was alive again for a while there. Your story is still true. The only thing about it that wasn’t true is where the curse came from. He, just like many of Twi’s childhood friends, all got it but didn’t suffer any consequences from it for very long. When Discord was destroyed, so was it.”

I scratched at my cheek. “Ugh. It still bothers me to know my father was fifteen at the time.”

“You have seen pictures, there isn’t a pony alive who would call that boy any less than twenty at the time. Her real sin was being a slut and not bothering to ask how old he was.”

“Fair.” I sighed. “And what about Twilight? Why is all that relevant?”

“A few decades ago, it seems sis had a similar idea. She wanted to have her own kids, but you know all about her ‘we are the observers’ shtick, and though she had the baby fever, she wanted to find a way to do so without creating a new alicorn. Turns out, tech has advanced to the point where, in theory, she could’ve.”

Uncomfortable. “And that’s what this paper is about? Organic generation?”

“Of any creature, Ox.” He looked up to the dark ceiling in mother’s chambers. “Using what’s printed in Twi’s paper, one could take an empty egg of just about anything, strip it of DNA, refill it, and then incubate it in an artificial womb. From there, you take a blank sperm cell, fill it with whatever you want, and then let nature work inside a test tube. Monitored, you can edit the genetics as the baby is forming. You could create somebody made for whatever you wanted them to be.”

And then, it struck me. That kid’s cutiemark. It’s a neural link overload sign. I swallowed. “Did… did she?”

Dusk shook his head. “Nah, Twi’s too right and proper for that. However, this archive had been accessed three times before she felt her guilty conscience and buried it within mom’s archives.” He held out a wing and curled his feathers. “Mom found it first. However, she is the only known entity to have accessed this paper. i.e. not only has somebody else found this thing, but your boy? He’s the result of it.”

How could that be? What is he doing on that island then? If someone used Twi’s paper to make him, how did they lose him? “There’s a lot about this that doesn’t make sense. When you say known entity, does that mean you’re totally in the dark or chasing a lead?”

Leaning over the table, Dusk tented his hooves. “Both. One was done with a text-book CLIF snow walker. The other, however, had a signal with magic I don’t recognize. Mom’s looking into it, but this was done over two decades ago, and magic is harder to trace. Regardless, the outlook is not good. Today is the day, right?”

“Correct. However, given this information, provided he and that mare he almost certainly loves are in sync, they could very well be the ones to start it.”

Dusk’s ears perked up. “Oh?”

I nodded. “His mark, remember? It’s a neural link warning. He’s got genes from my family, and Twilight seems to think they found and recreated Rainbow Dash for the female set. If you were going to make the ultimate titan pilot, a small earth pony stallion with the stamina of an apple and the endurance of the greatest wonderbolt who ever lived, you’d certainly be on the right track.”

He tapped his lips. “Well now. Maybe there’s hope for this kid yet. I heard the mare is one of Pinkie's descendants.”

I huffed. “Her and all of Twi’s other friends. My step mother included. Every other generation introduced another one, and her father was of Rarity’s descent, giving her the last piece. The boy was created, but she’s some kind of bloodline miracle.”

Dusk turned his snout like he smelled something rank. “Awkward. If he loves her like you said…”

I waved him away. “Oh, she’s seven generations out from anywhere near what his blood is made of. They’re so far apart you wouldn’t even find them in the same parts of the world.”

Dusk shrugged. “If you say so.” Then his ears stood on end and he sat up straight. “Mom’s coming.”

I hardly had time to sit up before the room lit up with a golden flash. Aunt Celestia, in golden regalia of old, alabaster splendor, and dawn horizon mane appeared beside us. She leaned down and kissed each of our heads in turn, then put her wings around us. “Hello, boys. And what might you be scheming up in here? Luna is quite vexed that she can’t find you right now, Oxford.”

Powerful as Dusk and I are, two hundred is nowhere close to two thousand two hundred. This mare is one of two who can still deal with a titan with her own power. One of the last old entities on the planet.

Ever the charmer, Dusk kissed his mother back. “Just talking about today’s activities, Mom. Ever figure out that signature?”

She sighed. “Let’s talk about ugly things in an uglier place. Be done with this and come up to the party room. My darling Twilight has arrived, and she’s quite upset about her lack of progress into where this boy came from. I’m not ready to invite her or Luna into the loop just yet, however.”

“Yes Ma’am.” We both stood and began charging for the warp.

Before we cast, she held up a golden feather. “Oh, and do be kind to those children when you ‘surprise adopt’ them. Whether they get the Harbinger running or not, they’re about to go through a life changing spectacle, and it wouldn’t be good to traumatize them further with something awful like the truth of who they are.”

Again, we assented. “Of course.”

And then, the world flashed golden.