//------------------------------// // Disc0rd // Story: Cyberpony Y2K // by J3sterking //------------------------------// Vinyl lived for music. Sure, it's what she had been made it do, but she felt like this wasn't some programming thing. She loved music—and not even just the stuff she made. Techno, rock, even classical. There was something soothing about it, even in the worst of times. She'd also found out that if she muted her speakers, she could listen to music without anyone else hearing. Often times, when stressed, she'd just play some music until she was calm again. The only way anyone could tell was by her eyes, and only if you knew her well enough to know what the dancing bars meant. Just as suddenly as it had started, the pain stopped, leaving a general feeling of numbness in Vinyl. "Owwwwwwww," she said, her newly reactivated voice box sluggishly drawing out the sounds. "Whyyyyyyyyyyy?" "Oh, get over it," Limestone said. "Rip the band-aid off, am I right?" "Limestone!" Pinkie chastised. "That was not nice." "Hm-mm," Marble said, somehow sounding more stern. Blurry forms of gray appeared in her vision as her optics booted up. "I still can't move," Vinyl said. "That'll be a minute, sorry," Fluttershy said in her ears. Vinyl felt someone poking at her throat again. "How are you feeling?" "Wonderful," Vinyl drawled. "Cherry goddamn sundae." "Oh, really?" Another set of metallic grinding, followed by a shape appearing in her view. "You don't sound like it." Vinyl didn't answer for a minute. "Did I just swear?" she asked. "I'm...not s'posed to do that..." Couldn't, actually, because Fancy had told her not to. "You don't have to worry about that," Octavia chuckled. A light tinking sound alerted her just as a pony's face appeared in view. Yellow coat, with slightly curled pink hair streaming from her head. She wore a white doctor's coat, and looked into Vinyl's face with concern. "Don't worry, you're safe," she said. Vinyl didn't want to try answering that at the moment. "Where am I?" she asked instead. "Um..." "We can't answer that just yet," Pinkie's voice came, with another grinding sound. "Sorry. We have orders." Fluttershy moved out of Vinyl's face, letting Vinyl get a good look at Pinkie...or, so she assumed it was Pinkie. Hanging from the ceiling by a series of metal tentacles was a massive construct. She couldn't see much of its main body, partly because its mechanical eyes were in the way. Four eyes on long, flexible stalks, each one different. Two were made to resemble normal pony eyes of different colors, one was simply a red screen with a lighter red dot in the center, the last she wasn't even sure functioned as an eye. It was simply a metal ball, painted to look like an eye, except at the edges where the pain had been scraped off. That one looked more directly at her than the others, and Pinkie's voice sounded from somewhere just behind it. "You might wanna hold still, we're putting in some new plating for your throat, then we'll see about the rest of the bullets, alright?" The eyestalk gave a happy bob, sending the eye rolling in its socket, producing that grinding sound she'd been hearing up until this point, and, presumably, chipping off whatever paint was left on the far edges of the eye. "Ahh..." Vinyl squeaked. "Are you gonna scream?" Maude's monotone voice came. "Really, please don't," Limestone added, the red eye narrowing. "O-okay," Vinyl squeaked. Behemoth. That's what she was looking at—the only thing she could be looking at! It had to be the size of a truck, probably bigger! And what was with the four eyes and voices? Good God! What was she even looking at? One of the tentacles, this one with a tool at the end, began jabbing at her throat. "You ever considered replacing your casing?" Limestone asked. "This stuff isn't that durable." "Uh..." One of the imitation eyes turned to look at her stomach, and a couple of small tendrils came out to pull the jacket away. "Sorry, but your jacket seems to have been ruined," Maude's voice came. "N-no worries." Discord. She was at a DISCORD base. Granted, they didn't seem like they planned on killing her, but she also knew that Canterlot would not care if they blew the base to smithereens with her inside it or not. "Here, I shall make you another," Rarity's voice came, from somewhere on her right. "Consider it an apology for letting you get caught up in this mess." "No worries." "Is she alright? You didn't damage her with that stunt, did you, Limestone?" Pinkie asked, that eye grinding once more as the stalk turned to look at the red one. "You brutes! Don't you see you've scared the poor thing?" Rarity snapped. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Miss...Vinyl, was it?" "Eyup." "I'm Rarity, Rarity Belle. This here is Doctor Fluttershy, and—well, you've met Applejack and Octavia, right?" Vinyl nodded weakly. "Hey, she's moving again!" Pinkie said. Maude's tentacles fished a bullet out of her stomach. "Getting rid of all these holes is going to take a while," she said, still showing no emotion. "I'm actually with Limestone on this one. This could be a good opportunity to replace some of it with armored plating." "Mm-hm." "She's not in much of a condition to make that choice right now," Fluttershy put in. "We can always do that later, if she wants it. She might want to stay away from the fighting." "You're...you're the Behemoth," Vinyl choked out. All four eyes turned to look into her face. "These are the Pie Sisters," Rarity said. "There's a long story behind that, and I'm sure they'd be happy to tell you sometime when they aren't performing surgery on you." "But, yes, we're the Behemoth," Pinkie said, eye rolling again. "Mm-hm." "So, um, yeah...do you think you could...patch the holes? I can worry about the other stuff later," Vinyl said with a chuckle. "Mm-hm," the last of the Pie Sisters said. "Oh! This is Marble Pie, and she's excited to meet you, and is hoping we can get along well once you get used to us," Pinkie said, eye doing a couple of three-sixty spins. "Mm-hm," Marble said with a slight bob. Maude finished fishing out bullets and a few scraps of fabric from her stomach. "Fluttershy, do we have any of the responsive paneling in stock?" she asked. "I'll go check," Fluttershy said, rushing off. Well, she was clearly intending to move fast, but she wasn't moving very quickly, especially when she had to briefly take flight to get past a pegasus leaning against the doorframe with legs outstretched. Vinyl focused her gaze on the pegasus, quickly realizing a few things. This pegasus was wearing punk city garb, focusing on a black jacket, white tank top, and worn, scuffed up jeans. She wasn't wearing shoes. She was an android. And she had a rainbow mane. Vinyl shouldn't have been surprised, really—as she'd told Fleur earlier, Rainbow Dash was the most believable part about the whole 'Discord' mess. Vinyl had seen the pictures of her, taken during shots of action. Rainbow Dash had gone rogue after Wonderbolts were declared illegal for civilians to own, so her design was slightly outdated, though she still had the signature 'Wonderbolt blue' coloring, as crayons would put it. Her arms were folded across her chest, hiding her weapons from view. Oh, and her eyes were like those of the older Wonderbolts—designed to look like a pair of flight goggles. The glass was red, and showed no signs of imitation pupils. "Hi," Vinyl said. Rainbow Dash gave a slight nod. "Heard the screaming, thought I'd check to see if everything is alright." "No worries, Dashie, we have everything under control!" Pinkie said, with a chorus of agreements from her sisters. "That's good," Rainbow Dash said with another nod. "So, Melody, mind explaining this one?" Octavia stiffened. "It'll be in the report," she muttered. "You can give that now," Rainbow replied. Octavia pointed to Vinyl. "She was here for all of it, wasn't she?" Rainbow asked. "And if you know that, then that means you already have an idea what happened?" Octavia asked, raising an eyebrow. "Because I was making sure you weren't followed, and you were, up until the train station," Rainbow growled. "By whom?" Rarity demanded. "I'd have noticed—" "It was a drone of some sort. Tiny, winged thing. I didn't get a good look at 'im myself, but it's not that hard to figure out who sent him." "But he didn't follow us here, so we're good," Octavia said firmly. "Octavia," Rainbow said in warning. "You narrowly escaped death today." "I was shot at repeatedly. I only got out because Vinyl saved my flank," Octavia snapped. "I think I got--" "The Princess of Inquiries was asking after you," Rainbow interrupted. "An Alicorn?" Vinyl burst out. A moment of silence passed, as Rainbow focused her attention on her. "Oh, um, sorry," Vinyl said. "You can just, uh, continue." "An Alicorn was asking after you," Rainbow repeated as if the interruption hadn't occurred. "I need to know what Fancy knows, because we have to assume that anything he knows, the Princess of Inquiries knows as well." There was a moment's silence, which Octavia broke. "I—" "Rainbow Dash!" The Wonderbolt jumped, turning to see a scowling Fluttershy holding up a small bundle. "Are you court-martialing my patients again?" "I wasn't--" "OUT!" Fluttershy grabbed her roughly by the coat, shoving her out the door. "If you've got nothing better to do, go fetch some armor plating for Applejack, just stay out of my way!" She paused. "Um...please." Rainbow stared at her in mute silence, before moving off to comply. Fluttershy turned around, face quite pink. "Um, sorry about that," she said. "I, uh, lost my temper." She gave an apologetic smile. "It's fine, darling, this is hardly the time or place for it," Rarity said. "As she herself admitted, the Alicorn failed to track you here. Not like any of them could, anyway." Fluttershy unwrapped the bundle, setting up a few sheets of smooth, white panels, still blushing. "We...do have a problem, though," Octavia admitted. "Fancy and Fleur both figured out I'm with Discord." Rarity gasped. "Both of them?" "I didn't confirm it to either of them, so Fancy has an excuse not to say anything," Octavia said. "I trust him. He won't spill. Fleur...I'm not so certain." "I figure she's good enough, if she didn't have that chip in her brain," Applejack scoffed. She took off her hat, dusting it off. "Rarity, can you go mention this to the Boss? She'll wanna know." "Certainly, as soon as Rainbow Dash is back," Rarity replied. "She said Princess of Inquiries?" "I think so," Vinyl said. "Is...that better or worse than one of the others?" There were no more than six Alicorns at any time, supposedly picked because they represented the Elements of Harmony. From what she knew, some of them were a far cry away from the mythical artifacts of goodness. "Inquiries is bad," Octavia muttered. "Very bad." "She's kinda...on a longer leash than the others," Pinkie said, rolling her eye slowly to one side. "A real meanie." "There aren't many Inquisitors, especially as she's rather new," Rarity said, "but you and Octavia will both want to stay in the castle for a while, at least until we think she's no longer looking." "Bloody Tartarus," Octavia muttered, resting her face in her hands. "An Alicorn...I can barely hold my own against an unarmed pegasus, what am I supposed to do against a deity?" "They ain't deities, they bleed same as any pony," Applejack scoffed, "but ain't none of us were ready for that confrontation yet. The plan ain't gonna change because of Midnight Sparkle, no matter how hard she looks." A violet streak soared across the Manehattan skyline, wings twisting, before alighting on an arm stretched out from a violet cloak. "Well?" Midnight asked, voice taking on a slightly metalic hum. "Did you see her?" Spike turned, his mechanical head looking her right in the eyes. "She was beautiful," he whispered. Midnight blinked. "What?" "That pony...with the violet mane! She was gorgeous!" He puffed out his wings, spinning around on her arm, briefly hanging from her elbow upside-down. "I—wow! I think I'm in love, Midnight!" Midnight stared at him, then rubbed her face. "Spike," she chided. "What about Octavia?" "Oh, um...she was with the pretty mare." Midnight slammed a palm into her face, making a dull, metalic ping as she hit her prosthetic eye. Her vision from that half blurred, the world turning into a teal mass briefly, as she winced. Gotta remember to stop doing that, she thought. "Did you at least see where they went?" she asked. "Er...a train?" "Which train?" Midnight demanded. "I don't know. The conductor might!" "Who was the conductor?" Midnight asked. "Erm..." Spike cocked his head. "A minotaur?" Midnight sighed, wings sagging with a rattling of metal. Her horn lit up, and she poured a little magic into Spike. "Direct line, Minuette. Authorized: 'Summer Sun'." His eyes lit up, accessing the free energy, before a series of green lights lit up along his spines. A hologram appeared in the air above him. "Hey, Princess," Minuette said, smiling at the hologram of Midnight on her end. "Any luck on your end?" Midnight asked. "Not really. These gang members don't know who hired them, though I think it's safe to assume it's Filthy Rich." "Safe to assume, but we can't arrest ponies on 'assumptions'," Midnight said. At least, not the upper nobility. "What about Octavia and her android?" "No luck. Only a couple of living ponies saw her in action. Unless Fancy or Fleur told you something, the only others are either dead or MIA." "What about that pegasus?" Minuette shrugged. "He got beat up by an Earth pony. He knows nothing more than that. As far as that big Earth pony gangster went, I don't have the foggiest clue. He's not a small name, either—he's experienced. Goes by 'Rough Tumble'. He and the boss pony both vanished before Indigo and I arrived." Midnight sighed. "So no leads, then?" "Nope. I wanna check out Everfree, though, see if Octavia is actually one of them." "Leave that to Sour," Midnight replied. "She's there, she can find that out shortly." "Got it. What do you want us to do with these guys?" "Cull them. We don't need trash in our kingdom," Midnight ordered. "You got it, boss. Any orders for what to do next?" "Hang around in Manehattan," Midnight answered. "I'm going on the move again. I lost the trail on my end..." She gave a glare to Spike, letting him know what that meant. "...But I want you and Indigo to stay here. How's she holding up, by the way?" "Rookie's doing just fine," Minuette said with a grin. "Her aim is only slightly worse in the field than during training, and she doesn't waver hardly at all. She's shaping up to be an excellent Inquisitor." She flashed a supportive grin at her off-screen partner. Midnight smiled. A consoling thought, at least. "Make sure she gets a chance to voice her thoughts on this case," she answered. "Relay anything that sounds useful back to me." "Heard and accepted," Minuette answered. "I'll call you the moment I find anything useful." "Thank you," Midnight said. "End call." Spike ended the call. "Well, it's hardly my fault," he said, flapping his wings in a disgruntled fashion. "I don't remember programming the ability to find ponies attractive into you," Midnight muttered. "Next time, stay focused. This could have been huge." "I know, I know," he apologized, head bowed. "Sorry." "It's alright. We'll get more chances," Midnight said. And they would, she was sure. She'd make sure of it.