Twilight's library, Equestria.
10:00AM SET, 24 hours after Twilight’s first dream
*Buzz buzz*
Twilight's alarm clock buzzed.
*Buzz buzz*
It buzzed again.
*BUZZ BUZZ*
It buzzed a third time, much louder than the previous two in an attempt to wake somepony up.
The alarm clock was, in Twilight's opinion, one of the greatest inventions in Equestria.
She received this particular alarm clock for a birthday some years ago and when she had, she had been overjoyed.
"You input a time using the dials on the back and it buzzes when said time arrives! Isn't it marvellous?!" Twilight overexcitedly screamed.
"Yea Twilight, real breakthrough. But if you don't mind it's 2am and you've been telling me how many hours it is until the thing buzzes for the past seven hours" Spike responded irritably.
"I'm so sorry Spike," Twilight said, whispering now.
"I'm just so excited! Now, instead of relying on you to wake me up I can just make this thing do it for me! I can't wait for morning! I'll have so much more time to do my daily tasks than usual!"
Spike grunted.
"Do you always have to get up at ten Twilight? I was enjoying being able to sleep in on a morning in Ponyville."
"Oh yes Spike, it's something I always have to do. I have so much planning and so many tasks to do I need the time!"
Spike pulled his cover over his head.
"Please go to sleep Twilight..."
"Fine Spike. We'll do things your way."
Twilight hugged he alarm clock and began to whisper very quietly to it.
She obviously didn't whisper quietly enough though.
"Either make love to the thing or go to sleep!" Spike yelled from his cot.
Twilight reluctantly gave into her assistants demands and placed the alarm clock on the table stand next to her bed.
"Goodnight my precious. See you at 10am, always." She whispered before falling asleep.
Twilight had sworn she would always get out of her bed the instant her alarm buzzed at 10Am without fail and plan out what she already hadn't planned the previous day.
Today however her oath was broken.
Twilight hadn't slept for fear of more nightmares. She didn’t want a repeat of her first dream… Somehow she had managed to make it through a full day and another night without sleeping and strangely showed no signs. She looked fresh as a daisy and like she could take on the entire world, looked.
She didn't feel that way.
She felt scared, confused, shocked, angry, helpless and very tired.
She felt scared because there was a beast from hell dwelling within her dreams. She felt confused as to why she had been forced to witness what she did. She was shocked by the amount of violence that existed. She felt angry that she had been forced to watch murder and helpless because she was powerless to stop it. She felt tired because she had spent all night feeling all of the previous feelings and had forgotten to sleep in-between. Her thoughts were slow and her energy all but gone. She had a splitting headache and just wanted some peace.
Peace.
Twilight thought of peace. She had a pretty peaceful life yesterday, but now...
Now, would her life be peaceful? Could she live after witissing such horror?
Could she live knowing that creatures that were very different and very violent existed? Could she live in peace?
Asking herself generated no answers and only served to increase the pain in her head.
Twilight groaned.
"Morning"
Twilight twisted her head towards the source of the voice.
The voice came from the left of Twilight's bed.
She looked and she found something unexpected. Spike was standing beside Twilight's bed with a mug of coffee in one hand and some pain killer tablets in the other.
"I know you don't like coffee or tablets but these are good for you. You don't look so good Twilight and these will be a bit of a pick me up."
Spike held out both items in front of Twilight. Twilight quickly declined both. She hated the vile taste of coffee, the fact that coffee was cheating your body out of what it needs and simply didn't like the idea of dulling your body's senses with medicine.
"Come on Twilight," Spike began, practically shoving the mug of coffee into Twilight's face.
"You need it"
Twilight had to admit, she was tired and the headache showed no signs of leaving.
Maybe cheating would be acceptable, just this once.
"Fine Spike, you win"
Twilight took the offered items and looked at them closely. The coffee was a colour not that different to mud and produced a large pillar of faint steam. The tablets looked like a ridiculous sized thing to swallow.
As much as the idea of consuming the two items displeased her, she decided to go along. After all, they may help.
She placed the tablets in her mouth and took a sip of the coffee.
She was assured the two items would help.
She was deceived.
The coffee burnt her mouth when she took a sip and the tablets made it feel like she was trying to swallow a tennis ball. Even after she had managed to swallow the vile mix of burning coffee and oversized tablets, she experienced no relief. Her headache was still present and she still felt like she was about to collapse from sleep deprivation.
Time, Twilight thought, to blame someone.
"Hey Spike! You lied! These things didn't make any difference!"
"Give it a minute" The little dragon responded, sighing as he did so.
Twilight did as she was told and waited a minute.
She was pleased with the results.
She gained an insane boost of energy and the pain from her headache vanished.
"That's much better," Twilight began, looking very happy with her assistant.
"Now if only there were a way to make evil dreams vanish from ones memory without a trace" Twilight said in a very serious tone.
"Yea, Twilight. About those evil dreams…"
"Um... Yes?" Twilight asked, confused as to why she had brought the subject up and also about why Spike wanted to press the matter.
"What in Equestria were you dreaming about last night? You were mumbling some pretty weird things."
"Are you sure you want to know, Spike? It may get a little… Confusing."
"It caused you to lay awake all night. Of course I want to know"
"Well then Spike... This may sound crazy but…"
Hallowed Forest, Northern Shelf, Pandora.
10:05AM SPT.
The Northern most glaciers that Pandora possessed were, on a normal day, quite quiet.
On a normal day, the whole area was shrouded in darkness and only the very fringes of the area saw sunlight.
On a normal day, only the foolish or the incredibly brave would try and navigate the huge arctic forests that grew in the area.
Today was far from normal.
All three norms for the area were changed by one individual.
In one of the many dense forests upon the glacier, one that darkness usually inhabited, a light glowed softly and someone could be heard muttering, someone who was far from foolish.
Ajax sat upon a log, illuminated by a roaring fire and looking deeply at his loot pile and thinking of what it means for him.
The loot pile consisted of only one item though. Ajax assumed most items of value had been buried by snow. He may not have dragged any high tech blaster or plasma cannon away from his pillaging but he did manage to take away the one prize he desired, power.
Power would lead him not only to payback, but to anything he can care to mention.
As is the way with the world, everything begins and leads to power.
Life begins with power.
Creation cannot take place without power.
Victory cannot be achieved without power.
Destruction cannot take place without power.
It was the last thing on his list that Ajax was interested in.
Sure, creation and victory were good, but nothing says revenge like glorious destruction.
Ajax was encased in his metal tomb for eternity by Hyperion.
Ajax was forced into submission by Hyperion.
Ajax wanted to server Hyperion, but now he wants only to destroy them.
He’s not alone with this desire for revenge, almost every other mechanical being he has encountered that were conceived by Hyperion want to destroy them.
He now, after months of gathering resources and pieces of information under the cover of darkness and the veil of stealth, has the tool with which he will enact his revenge.
It wasn’t something, upon first glance, that looked particularly amazing, but upon closer inspection it reveals itself to be a piece of technological glory.
It was a power core. Something similar to an AI core but different in the fact its sole purpose is to provide massive amounts of power to the piece of equipment it is installed into. They were usually installed into Hyperion outposts to give it extra juice when called upon.
Ajax picked his prize up in both his freezing hands. He cursed the damned inventor of artificial senses. He enjoyed the sense of being more human for having them but they didn’t make life easy. Flesh is weak, held back by its pathetic senses, metal is strong. Even though they made his life a little more irritating, Ajax willingly accepted the gift of senses. The technology doesn’t come cheap, after all and he felt more human with them active.
Ajax shook off the irrelevant thoughts he was having and focused back onto the power core and how it was going to help him.
Ajax had been gifted with free will not long after Hyperion had shipped him to Pandora, so he’d had plenty of time to prepare.
The base plot was revenge, spectacular revenge.
He had, over time and with the help of all the renegade Hyperion personnel on Pandora, gathered a large stash of mechanical parts. But not just any parts, parts for a very special machine.
Ajax’s personal favourite in Hyperion’s line of destructive creations.
An Obliterator Class Mortar Cannon, one of Hyperion’s finest.
What Ajax and the rest of the renegades had built may be rusty in a few places and have an ugly paint job, but it was fully functioning, and this was the last piece of the very complicated puzzle.
The cannon alone was incredibly potent in its field, it could turn a city into a smoking crater in a matter of seconds, but it wasn’t powerful enough for Ajax.
When he finally unleashed the weapon upon Hyperion, he wanted it to cause complete and utter devastation and cause a very spectacular explosion. Adding a bucket load of energy into an already bunker busting shell seemed like a good way to achieve this goal.
Soon, when he got back to the cannon, he would have his revenge.
“Ajax? Can you hear me? Please say you can hear me.”
Ajax’s train of thought crashed when the ECHO device installed in his head made itself known. ECHO communicators were nifty little devices. A sort of worldwide radio that could be used anywhere. They were technologically fascinating. They were however, incredibly annoying when they were implanted in your head.
“Pick up the damned device Ajax.”
Even more so when you can’t switch it off.
“Pick. Up. The. Damned. Device.”
The person trying to contact him obviously had something deeply important to say. Either that or someone was getting impatient.
“I’m here. What’s the matter? Someone get worried now?” Ajax joked, very unlike his usual self.
“I’ll worry less when I see that core with my own eyes”
Ajax looked at the slab of metal in his hands.
“I’ve got the core, don’t you worry. Just who am I talking to anyway?”
“It’s your guardian damned angel Ajax, here to tell you you’re life’s in danger”
“Is this really the time for jokes? I admit, I may have begun speaking a bit loosely but that’s only because I’ve just pulled off a flawless theft of the thing we’ve all been looking for, what’s your excuse? Eh?”
“Jokes? You think I’m joking do you? And what was that about a ‘Flawless theft’ you overzealous coffee machine?”
Ajax knew who he was speaking to, just by that last statement. Only one person he knew would take such offense to a completely innocent statement and find a need for insults.
“Dex? Is that you? Only you would compare someone to a coffee machine”
Dex was the only known name for a loader that had joined the ranks not too long ago. He was the robot you went to if you needed an update on the current happenings of Pandora. News, enemy activity, it was all from him. He came in known as Dex and has existed forever since. Not a people person and very irritable. He also had a talent for insulting those with a higher intelligence than himself, namely, Ajax.
“Yes, it’s me. Care to ask any more idiotic or irrelevant questions?”
Yep, that’s Dex.
“Does ‘Why are you calling me?’ count as an idiotic or irrelevant question?”
“As a matter of fact, it doesn’t. I’m calling because I’ve got something important to tell you.”
“And that would be?”
“You’re an idiot”
“Yes Dex, great stuff. Next time I’m stealing vital pieces of technology in order to fight evil I’ll remember that little lie you just told me”
“You really are and idiot Ajax”
“And why is that?”
“Hmm… Let me think… Ah! Maybe it’s because you let a member of the outpost you raided survive!”
“What? Explain.” Ajax’s shifted from his previously laid back state into a very serious one.
“You let someone survive. Some engineer, Hyperion records tag him as “Fawks”. He managed to crawl away and tell Hyperion of your little attack and of some very interesting facts he’d learnt.”
Ajax cast his memory back to a few hours previous, to back at the outpost.
He searched through what he could remember and he didn’t like what he found.
Ajax did indeed leave someone alive, crippled but alive. He had been under the effects of the ‘Technical bug’ that occurred thought. Ajax was calling what happened at the outpost a technical bug but it was the farthest thing from. He felt fine when it had happened. What happened was far from logical and far from natural.
“Dex, something happened at that damned base, something I can’t explain, something that prevented me from tying up all loose ends.”
“I don’t want to hear it Ajax, but here’s something you may want to hear.
You’ve had a bounty put on your head, $1000000. Every bandit and mercenary on the planet is on a blood crusade for your bounty”
The ECHO device gave nothing but static back to Dex.
“Ajax?”
Still nothing.
“Ajax damn it, speak.”
The ECHO device transmitted muffled sounds, sounds of a struggle.
“Ajax? What’s going on!!?”
“So, you’re called Ajax are you?” An unfamiliar voice spoke.
“Yea,” The voice of Ajax began.
“Mercenaries. Got it.”
Twilight’s library, Ponyville, Equestria.
10:30am SET
Twilight’s library was unusually silent for this time in the morning. Usually there would be the sound of Spikes small feet upon the wooden floor or the sound of quills scratching paper, but today there was only silence. Spike sat looking awkwardly down at the floor on which he sat, Twilight was watching him. Tensions were high following Twilight detailing to Spike her dream. They remained in this locked state for several seconds but the tension between them finally broke.
“Well, that sounded like an interesting dream Twilight.”
Twilight just continued watching him.
“And I’d love to hear more but—“
“You don’t believe me, do you?” Twilight interrupted.
“Well, I… Uh… Sorry Twi, I can’t lie to you. I can’t believe you. It sounds too strange.”
“Please Spike, you’ve got to believe me. Who else can I tell?”
“Your friends would be a good start. In fact, I’m surprised you haven’t talked to them already.”
“My friends…”
It was true. Twilight’s friends had been the go-to people when she’d been having problems and they were very understanding when it came to subjects like this. Maybe she should go and ask her friends for advice.
Yes, that was an excellent idea. Twilight would go and ask her friends what she should make of this strange dream. Heck, she may even send a letter to Princess Luna for advice, after all, who’s Equestria’s number one night expert? Yes, that was also an excellent idea.
“Thanks Spike!” Twilight excitedly said before setting to the task of writing her letter.
“Yea…” Spike trailed.
“Zzzzz…” Twilight had fallen asleep on her desk again, the coffee’s affects wearing off and the effect of two nights without sleep taking hold.
“Have fun with that…”
And so, Twilight began to dream. She was given no relief from her torture though, she dreamt of her mechanical killer yet again, and his current situation.