CHAPTER-6: Curse or Gift?
“When they said, ‘sir, I think we’ve arrived!’ I was overjoyed. When they said ‘sir, there’re anthropomorphic ponies down there!’ I sent them to get a psych eval.” –Captain of the New Hope
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When the infiltrator awoke, she was not in a dark, dank prison cell; much to her surprise. She was, in fact, in a hospital bed. All her armor had been stripped, and she was surprised that the ponies had been bold enough to remove the neural interface connector from the back of her head, without fear that she may be injured.
The room smelled of antiseptic, and it was much like the old historical fiction texts she read when she wasn’t on duty described it. A pungent, piercing odor permeated everything. She was alone in her room, which apparently had a bathroom. Of course, there were all kinds of medical instruments surrounding her, and when she examined herself closer, she seemed to have an IV drip in her left arm, and she had some kind of heart monitor clamped on her right index finger. When she looked around, there were four stools directly across from her, stacked neatly, two to a stack. Light came in through a shuttered window at her left, and there was a light fixture above her head, mounted on the wall. She noticed a clopping sound coming from the hallway, and it sounded like there were a few nurses outside the door, talking. She didn’t have her enhanced hearing without her suit, but she could make out a few words the nurses were saying.
The door opened, and she repositioned herself so that she was sitting with her legs crossed on the bed, rather than laying on it.
When the nurses entered, they gasped, and the infiltrator smiled a bit at their surprise.
“Call the princesses, since she’s awake. Oh, and get some food and her… tools.” One nurse, who appeared to be in charge, whispered to another behind her.
Two of the initial three mares walked into the infiltrator’s room, and began busily checking instruments, and changing an almost empty IV bag. When one nurse, who had a red cross on her flank, blue eyes, cream yellow coat, and red mane, finished checking the medical instruments, she turned to the infiltrator.
“A nurse will be bringing your things and a meal in in a bit, miss 9904117.” She said, and the infiltrator smiled and shook her head lightly.
“That’s my Identification Number, not my name. My name’s Clarissa. Clarissa Hawley.” The infiltrator said; a bit of amusement creeping into her voice.
“Oh, uh, sorry, Clarissa. All we could find on your uniform was that number, and… we didn’t want to judge, so…” The mare trailed off, looking nervous.
“It’s alright.” Clarissa said in a calm voice, trying as best she could to calm the nurse before she bolted out of the room. Clarissa couldn’t blame the nurse; she’d be scared if someone with unknown weapons walked in and almost murdered what had to be some high ranking officials. While thinking about those officials, her thoughts turned to her adopted father. She wondered what he was doing right now; she knew he must be grieving, but… she didn’t want him to kill himself trying to find her. Although there was nothing she could do, Clarissa couldn’t help but feel a little remorse at her actions. If she’d just stayed behind, and let the Terrans kill her, maybe her father would have some closure.
As the nurses left, Clarissa pondered other such philosophical ideas, and came to a conclusion.
She’d never be able to get over what she’d done during her career; that much she knew already. So, she had to move on. That process included developing attachments, possibly a family, and settling down. When thinking about a family, though, she almost cried. It was quite possible that she wouldn’t get to see any members of her race, forever.
After several hours of deep thought and munching on a salad, she began to notice something odd. An tingling sensation built up in her right hand; a warm tingling feeling much like when an appendage “goes to sleep”; but she could feel her arm just fine, and it was more like a soft ebb and flow than a bunch of needles poking at her arm. She noticed a slight blue glow surrounding her hand, and she immediately resisted the urge to scream.
She rubbed and patted her arm like it was on fire, and her eyes widened as the aura grew from a slight blue glow to a deeper, rich blue. It seemed that her emotions were fueling the aura, so Clarissa tried to calm herself via meditation. The glow had calmed down, but was still noticeable when she heard a rough knocking on the door to her room.
“Come in!” Clarissa immediately responded, and repositioned herself from her meditation pose into a more comfortable one. She glanced over at her things, which consisted of the semi-powered armor, her nano repair tool, medical nanite projector, datapad and helmet. Her weapons were missing from their holsters, in exception to her sniper rifle, which she hadn’t used yet. She turned to the door, which was opening slowly. She could hear several lowered voices outside, but she could not see anything besides a purple hoof, which was gripping the door handle. When the talking ceased, the door opened fully.
There, in front of Clarissa, stood the creature whose palace she’d blown a hole in, Cadence, was her name, and Shining Armor, the stallion who she’d come close to killing, and whose wound she’d healed, along with two other creatures. Their beauty was unfathomable; both their manes flowed in an unseen wind. One, the shorter of the two, had what looked like stars trapped in her ethereal mane, while the taller had a plethora of colors in hers. The taller one was pure white, while the shorter was purple, and they both had wings and a horn, like Cadence. The stools at the back of the room were enveloped suddenly in light, and as the tallest of the three sisters-
Her thoughts cut off right there. She’d noticed that thoughts had been inserting themselves into her head ever since the events at the alien portal; no doubt inserted into her mind via Shining Armor. She then turned her thoughts back to her observations.
The tallest pony wore a golden tiara and chest piece, both with purple gems set into them. She had a golden sun emblazoned on her flank. ‘Celestia’ was who Shining Armor’s memories referred to her as.
The purple one, whose name was Luna, had a black splotch on her flank, with a white crescent moon on it, and she had decorative armor as well, which consisted of a tiara and a chestplate of something that shone like obsidian, and the chestplate had a white crescent moon emblazoned upon its front.
There were two guards outside the door, one of which Clarissa could see, and the other just around the door, so that Clarissa could see part of his leg.
“We detect a magical energy source somewhere. ‘Tia, do you think it could be her?” The purple one, Luna, said in a proud, royal, voice as she pointed a hoof at Clarissa.
“It’s possible.” The tallest one said, as the ponies enveloped stools in magic, and set them down. They all took their seats at the same time, as if it were carefully choreographed. Clarissa struggled not to giggle.
“It’s probably her, and, judging from what she already did to me, I would suspect she’s going to try something.” Shining Armor gave Clarissa a look that could destroy a lesser being’s soul.
“If this is what you’re talking about, then… yeah I guess I am the source of this ‘magic’.” Clarissa said, holding up out her right arm for all to see. The aura was glowing brighter now, fueled by Clarissa’s lack of control, and the slight emotions she felt running through her head.
At this, Shining Armor growled, and got off his stool suddenly.
As a reflex, Clarissa hopped up out of her bed, taking the IV out of her arm, and grabbing her .50 cal. RAMS sniper in one fluid motion, pointing the business end at Shining Armor, and settling into a comfortable shooting position. The others tensed, but they didn’t seem to know what was going on. Shining Armor and Cadence, however, did.
Cadence leaped between the two soldiers, and she gave an apologetic look to Clarissa.
“Honey, I know you’re still frazzled after what she… did to you, but, please. She didn’t mean it.” Cadence looked at her husband hopefully.
Clarissa was still in her shooting stance, and she had a clear shot at Shining Armor’s flank due to her height. She was about 5’ 5”, but she was still taller than the ponies, which, on average, stood a little over three feet tall; with exceptions.
Two examples of those exceptions were in the room; Celestia was markedly taller than any pony Clarissa had seen so far, and Luna was slightly taller than the average.
Clarissa relaxed her grip on her sniper rifle, and stepped out of her shooting stance, not wanting to shoot Cadence, but also having confidence that the situation had been defused. She placed her rifle on the bed, and picked the front part of her chestplate, and pressed it onto her undersuit, which the ponies had been kind enough to leave on. The chestplate whirred, and she checked to make sure it was on securely. She then reached for the combination shield generator/power module back of her chestplate, and pressed it on. It whirred as well, and she heard a distinct clunk of metal on metal as the armor pieces locked into place.
As she was putting her armor on, the ponies watched in silence. Shining Armor shot an angry gaze, Celestia a watchful eye, Luna an authoritative look, and Cadence seemed happy that she still had her life.
When Clarissa was finished applying the armor, she attached her tools to her belt, and put her rifle on her back. She opted to leave her facemask and helmet off for the moment. She sat down on the foot of her bed, resting her hands in her lap.
“What did I do to him, besides holding him hostage?” Clarissa asked sincerely, a little concern in her voice. She’d never held this kind of concern for enemies in the past, but she really didn’t consider Shining an enemy; more like a victim of circumstance.
“You scanned his mind, and peered at his memories. Nothing was remained untouched by your prying mind, and you took everything that came within your ethereal sight. Captain Armor has nightmares every night about it, from what Cadence tells us. We try to assist him as best we can, but such a traumatic experience cannot be fully righted, even by the Princess of the Night.” The darker Alicorn, Luna said. Clarissa felt a stab of remorse, which, surprisingly, didn’t go away. The use of the word “Alicorn” deepened it; it was yet another memory taken from the mind of Shining Armor.
“Mind rape, then,” Clarissa gazed off towards the window for a moment, and then quickly turned to Shining Armor. “I… I didn’t know what I was doing, I just felt this sudden power, and a voice, and then...” Clarissa trailed off. She thought for a moment while Armor and she stared at each other. “The voice said that I’d ‘found its gift for me’, and that I should use it wisely. Then, I just looked into his eyes… and there was no going back.” She felt a tear well up in her eyes. Normally, she wouldn’t even have this kind of reaction to one of her own memories. Once she realized that she was feeling Shining Armor’s emotions concerning his memories, and not just receiving his memories, she sobered up, and it was easy to simply block the emotions as they came. She still felt a bit remorseful, because, well, that was more her emotion than Armor’s.
“This voice… was it female?” Luna asked, giving a worried glance to Celestia, who returned it with a look of sorrow.
“No, actually… It was a deep bass. I felt like it struck a chord in my head or something when it spoke, it was just…” Clarissa trailed off.
“This is troubling. Could it be Discord?” Celestia said as she turned to the other three ponies, and Luna put a hoof to her chin in thought.
Clarissa remembered what Discord was, or, rather Shining Armor did, but when she sized Discord’s actions up to those of the Terrans, with their public executions, the Vanu with their experiments on people, and just the general depravity and violence of war… Discord was like nothing. True, he was powerful, but he didn’t murder anyone. He didn’t turn people into… not-people. He had more respect for life; it seemed, than the humans.
“We doubt that Discord hath access to such alien artifacts or that they would grant him access to their abilities. If Discord had activated the artifact, and he ended up like our scientists did, perhaps it would not be such a bad thing.” Luna grinned at the thought, and she looked to her larger sister for input.
“I think our guest may have some insight as to what may have been going on.” Celestia said, looking pointedly at Clarissa.
“Uh, last thing I knew, I was on Auraxis, on a black op. Some Terrans came beating down the door, and my only viable escape option was a portal device which looked similar to the thing you found. It was made of the same material, had the same objects in antigravity fields around behind it. Although, the X-shaped one on yours was missing… I wonder if that has anything to do with it? Maybe putting in the object triggered some latent trap or something, I don’t know. Whatever it was, it gave me this,” Clarissa held up her right arm, which was glowing softly due to the aura that surrounded it. “And I’m not certain whether this is a curse, or a gift.”
“It’s magic. Don’t you have magic on… Auraxis was it?” Cadence asked, truly puzzled.
“No, but we have tech that can do some pretty amazing stuff. This… magic. What can I do with it, besides… y’know.” Clarissa stopped before she said “mind rape”, or something to that affect.
“You can do many things with it, other than, as you so eloquently put it ‘mind rape’ ponies. You must already be quite powerful if you could conduct that kind of spell on Captain Armor without killing yourself. Combat magic like that is very advanced, and Shining has been trained to defend against it. I was surprised when Cadence told me that he was still awake. I thought you would’ve tried to cap off your assault with a sleep spell, but, no. This is why I suspect that you weren’t doing it willfully, and also why I didn’t char you to a crisp as soon as I heard you’d violated my most prized Royal Guard captain’s mind.” Celestia sighed as she finished.
Conversation continued for hours, and was mostly about Auraxis and human history in general. During the extended history lesson, some of the ponies were shocked to learn of the technology at the humans’ disposal, the exploits of Clarissa, and the mysterious alien artifacts that so intrigued the Vanu.
Celestia couldn’t help but wonder: What else is out there?