Chapter 31: External Forces
"What does this red button do?"
"It's white," I said, again.
"And I'm pink and purple," Lee replied, so what's your problem?
Demi snickered.
"I've never had socks before," I insisted. "Four. Brown. Hooves."
"Meh, so now you have three brown hooves and one white one," Lee responded.
"So what about my genetic sample? That should have made the new hoof the correct color."
"If we check the genetics, I'm sure they will be correct. The pigment simply failed to do its job," Lee said. "You have four legs again, and they all work. You should be jumping around for joy."
"Oh, whatever. I'll have to dye it black or something," I muttered.
"Then it will still be the wrong color," Lee pointed out.
"Who cares? You obviously don't. I just don't want to have beacon attached to my forelimb. It makes sneaking about in the dark hard."
"Oh, I see. I thought you were just being vain," Lee commented.
"Well, there is that too, but from that angle, having a sock could be cute," I replied.
"Lucky you. So now you have two options. Enjoy yourself."
"Should I dye myself too then?" Demi interjected, indicating her beautiful white coat.
I snorted. "Wear a coat."
It wasn't as if I'd just discovered my offending white appendage. I'd been walking about on it for a few days. It was just one of those conversations that happens around the drinking fountain. The whole operation had been over relatively quickly. Some memory orb had been jammed on my horn while the auto-clinic set to work. It saved sedating me, and I got to watch some sappy performance of some of the Stable's former entertainers. Their humor wasn't too bad though, so when I returned to reality, I had a smile on my face.
I was expecting the Stable Four mares to find the whole auto-clinic a lot more traumatic than they did, but in retrospect, this was just another machine doing unspeakable things to them, and that was something they were quite used to, having been constantly harassed, zapped and bashed by the errant robots within their stable. This time, however, the machine was healing instead of hurting them, and there was a pony they trusted watching over them for the entire process.
Once I had been repaired, we had guided each mare down to the machine, and helped them through the process. We started with Helvetica, and worked our way down to Bubbles. It had taken the rest of the day and had left us tired but encouraged. Some mares could be cured during their first stint in the auto-clinic. Chicory went through the same process as Lana had, with the same results. Her injuries were recent enough that she was back on her hooves immediately. She spent her time since then outside, exercising to regain her muscle tone.
Surprisingly, Helvetica received much the same treatment. Although her body was seriously atrophied, her main injury was "just" a broken spinal cord. The auto-clinic also took time to cut apart and rejoin her previously broken bones in several places. She spent the next day resting, and doing light exercise, which basically involved moving her legs a little as she lay there. She wasn't able to stand on them, and would not be for some time to come. After that, she put her cladding back on, and went back to shuffling around as per usual. Lee and I discussed her case, and decided what she needed was a better exoskeleton, in effect, power armor. We could program it so that it gradually increased the load on her limbs, so as to build up strength. Taking data gathered during Helvetica's treatment, Lee had vanished down to the secret levels of the stable, returning shortly after, promising a surprise later in the day.
Parsley, who was fitted with cybernetic eyes during her first session was shuffling around outside, so delighted with being able to see again, that she hadn't complained about still being forced to wear her cladding. Like Helvetica, her muscles had severely atrophied. That was a pity, because her coat was an attractive pastel green, nicely accented by her pale pink mane and tail. She had chosen to have powder blue eyes, a change from her original lemon-yellow. Lee had also taken her data down to the depths of the stable.
Cherry Sundae had also been fitted with cybernetic eyes, although, as we had feared, the results were less than spectacular. Bubbles, still two legged, was riding her, explaining to her what she could see. Coupled with her ability to feel her way with her magic, and a lot of good old fashion poking at things with her nose, or a hoof, she was gradually building up some sort of understanding of the alien signals that were bombarding previously unused sections of her brain. She had chosen to have her irises pink, to match her coat, not that color was something she really understood. It just seemed logical.
Some joker had pushed Demi into the auto-clinic to see what it would say. I guess it should have been no surprise when it announced she was a pegasus with a birth defect, and only the vestigial beginnings of a wing hidden beneath her skin on her wingless side. "But I'm an earth pony!" she had insisted once released from the auto-clinic. Her DNA report stated otherwise. It wouldn't be the first time earth ponies had a pegasus offspring, either through recessive genes, or spontaneous mutation. The auto-clinic suggested no action be taken. It wasn't equipped for dealing with missing wings.
Some of the other ponies were in getting their second treatment at the moment. Shadow was assisting Red Tape with the process, which was fitting, considering he was a healer. Mostly they were getting old bone breaks reset, and nerve grafts where nerves had been fried or torn. Hopefully after this, there would be a lot less shuffling going on!
And that finally left me some time to try to deal with the Goddess' problem, and as a certain pink and violet pony was with me, now seemed opportune.
"Okay, Lee, this time you are going to tell me a little about why the Goddess is or isn't having problems with your ship, and if it isn't your ship that is causing the grief, what is?"
"You heard Ruby," Lee replied. "I'm the center of it all. She was right. It's time you came down to the lower levels with me again. You can walk now, so getting there shouldn't be too hard. And grab your kid sister. The little monster is great at levitating. It makes getting down there a lot easier." Lee can't levitate things? That's right. Since mother died, she hasn't been able to use any magic, other than those magical fingers she somehow willed into existence.
"Not one for the kids eh?" I asked, puzzled by why a cybernetic killing machine in a pony skin would call my sweet little sister a monster.
"Oh, she's all right. I'm just not mother material. If I ever was, that part of me died with my old human body," Lee replied.
That was the first thing Lee had said that emphasized her mind really was robotic, and that hormones no longer played any significant role in her existence. She really was just a flesh covered machine. And she couldn't levitate things. Was she implying that Duct Tape could levitate herself?
After a quick trip to the surface to get Duct Tape, we descended to the lower levels of the stable. That makes it sound so easy. There was a lot of dodging, ducking under and climbing over rubble, old steel beams and so on, although there were not as many tight spots as I recalled. I paused a few times to hold my horn against the nastier protrusions, reforming them into smooth sections of wall, for the lack of a better description of the piecemeal sides of the tunnel poking through the rubble. When we reached the shaft down, I found out just how good Duct Tape was at levitating. She picked up Lee, Demi and myself all at once, and lowered us down the shaft, one after the other, following in a cloud of her own magic. The little monster could self-levitate! And she could do it while carrying three larger ponies. What's more, that wasn't her special talent. She was still a blank flank. If her power grew with her size, I could imagine her growing a set of wings and turning into a princess without the help of the Goddess!
"Lee, how did you get your bike-thing to the surface if you built it down in the ship?" I asked. thinking of how the machine was bigger than the path we were currently negotiating. Hell, we had removed our battle saddles, and even stripped off our barding to make traversing the tunnels easier. The 'carrying it up all the levels' bit I could work out: little sister power!
"I took it up in pieces," she responded in a matter-of-fact voice. "It was disassembled after it was finished, and reassembled once on the surface. Duct Tape helped carry it up there with her magic, something I seem to be unable to do." Note to self: Yup, Lee definitely can't levitate things.
"Must have been a lot of work reassembling it," I commented.
"Not really. I had it made so it could be broken into easily transportable sections," she replied.
"Had it made? I thought you made it?" I responded.
"Sort of. And that's where your Goddess's complaint comes in," Lee replied. "I need to tell you a story about a human called Lee, I think."
This human, Lee, who had lived, at an estimate, over twelve hundred years ago, had been assassinated for inventing a sort of teleport machine for space-ships because, as Lee the pony explained, it was going to mess up another mega-corporation's profits. Her grandfather, a mad scientist, from what I understand, revived her, using an implanted artificial intelligence to take over the job of the damaged sections of her brain. (What was it about Lee and getting shot in the head?) That intelligence was now the Lee I knew. But Lee wasn't the only thing/creature in which these A.I.s were installed. The robots she had complained about the absence of apparently also used these things as brains, as did all of the systems of her ship. It didn't need a crew to operate it, as it was quite smart enough to look after itself. Apparently the ship's own systems and the robots repaired and modified the spaceship as needed.
That was until nasty aliens (yes, another batch of the bloody things) had shot her ship full of holes, and Lee too, apparently. Perhaps another bullet to the head? No. I knew what had happened next: that was the dream Lee had woken to so often over the years. Three alien soldiers had broken into her ship, killing all on board. Two had fallen before Lee had taken a fatal shot through her chest. What exactly happened after that Lee didn't quite know, because the ship's systems shut down, no longer logging events, and the robots left the wreck, taking their knowledge with them. And Lee was dead too, which really messes up observing and remembering things.
Anyway, the point of this story was that often the ship and robots knew what Lee wanted. They could understand a complex task when simple instructions were given. Sometimes she didn't even need to ask. Eventually Lee had realized all of these A.I.s were talking to each other via tiny antennas built into them at an atomic level, sort of like telepathy, and that included the one in her head. They were literally reading her mind. And that, apparently, was what the Goddess was bitching about. Since Lee had returned to her ship when we came here a couple weeks ago, the ship's systems had recognized her, and reactivated. Now they were trying to prepare the ship for her, which was somewhat difficult, considering it was a twisted wreck buried in the ground under thousands of tons of dirt, rock, cement and rubble, and its army of repair robots was missing.
"So Anne, tell me what pain is," Lee requested.
"Umm, it's your body sending damage reports to your brain, isn't it?" I responded.
"Pretty much. So, all that's really going on here is that the systems of this messed up spaceship are filing damage reports, requesting repairs and so on," Lee stated, waving a hoof around. "And to someone who can receive their signals, that would come across as screaming agony."
"Oh....." I voiced. "Wouldn't it make more sense to have used wires?"
"Why? Everything can communicate with everything else. They all link up, and synchronize, in effect becoming a single large intelligence, a gestalt," Lee said. "They don't need something as primitive as wires for that. And you are forgetting that half of the systems were mobile: my robots."
"So that means you have the brain power of all of these A.I.s?" I asked, wondering exactly what sort of monster Lee was. Was she just the mobile terminal for something much more sinister?
"Alas, no," she replied. "That sort of brain power would be awesome! While they can read my mind, and act on my wishes, mentally speaking, I don't get any benefit or feedback from the system. I cannot hear these damage reports. They simply would not put me under that sort of stress. If they wished to communicate that to me, it would appear on a terminal, or the ship would speak to me about it."
"So what's to stop the robots and ship's systems from doing what they want? Why do they pay you any attention at all?" I asked, the gap In Lee's logic seeming a little on the huge side. I could imagine self duplicating rogue robots spreading through Equestria, hell, through the universe like a plague.
"Because they were designed to ultimately serve a single purpose, and that is to look after me, to keep me safe," Lee replied.
"Well, they monumentally failed at that, didn't they?" I responded.
"Pretty much. And since I was dead, they had no purpose to serve, and shut down, which is why the ship has been lying down here quietly for generations."
"And reactivated a couple weeks ago when you returned," I said. "What about fifteen years ago, when you were first installed in my mother's head? And if they did shut down, why aren't your robots still here?"
"I really don't know. Maybe they were removed from the ship when it crashed. Perhaps the ship's systems stayed dormant because I was being suppressed by your mother's mind. Perhaps they became active, and subtly helped in the development of the cybernetics, then went back to being dormant when we left. Had my robots still been on board, they could, no, would have followed us. In fact, when my A.I. went active again, they would have tried to revive me in human form, and maybe even killed off all they saw as a threat."
"Whoa, Your robots were killers?" I asked.
"Sure. Aren't the robots here killers as well?" Lee asked, tilting her head and blinking her big pink eyes innocently.
"Well, yeah, they are. So what were these robots like?" I asked, imagining things shaped like Lee's human cyberframe lumbering about on two metal legs.
"They were cute little things that ran about on wheels, or hovered. They were quite small. Maybe the size of your kid sister," Lee answered, drawing the angular shape of one in the air.
"Thanks a bunch," Duct Tape protested. "I'm a big filly now!"
"So to get back to our fundamental problem, how do we stop the ship's systems from sending all of these damage reports?" I asked.
"I don't know," Lee responded. "We could find all the A.I. modules and pull them, but that's a lot of work. The ship is large, and the modules are behind bulkheads, in walls, and so on. It would have been a lot easier if I still had my robots."
"Could you make some robots?" I asked. She had made that motorcycle thingie.
"I could, but we'd need to hunt down some of the A.I. modules to put in them," Lee said.
"Either way, this could take days, or weeks," I muttered. "Poor Ruby, stuck with the Goddess in her head for that long."
"Why don't you just tell the ship's systems to stop sending reports?" Duct Tape asked.
"Huh," Lee and I chorused.
"You said they are listening to your mind, so just ask them to stop," Duct Tape spelled it out for us.
Lee fell silent, staring intently at Duct Tape for a few moments.
"Damage reports acknowledged as received. All repair systems returning to stand-by," a voice crackled through a decayed speaker.
"Well, I'll be!" Lee said a moment later. "That worked a treat!"
A magical flash drew our attention to Duct Tape, and as we watched, a red computer logic symbol appeared on her flank. She turned her head, staring at the new Cutie mark. "Well, I'll be..." she said, echoing what Lee had said moments before.
I laughed. "Congratulations, Duct Tape, it would appear you are going to be a wonderful systems analyst!"
"Congrats, kid," Demi said. "You got yours a lot younger than I got mine!"
"So what is your skill then?" Duct tape asked, staring at Demi's cutie mark of me.
"It's looking after your big sister! She gets hurt so often she needs some one to care for her!"
"Oh," Duct Tape said. "That's kind of funny!"
"So Lee, what did you bring us down to see?" Demi asked, trying to steer our visit to the lower levels back on course.
"Come look," Lee replied, indicating we should follow.
Lee led us further into the twisted remains of her spaceship, through the areas I had seen before, to the open bulkhead door through which I had seen the scary open volume. From within came the feeble glow of the few inadequate lights the unicorns of Stable Lab Four had managed to string across the gap. There was no floor, or catwalk. Down below was the curved lower surface of the almost cylindrical structure. At the other end, I could make out another bulkhead door, but the bulkhead in which it was mounted was twisted and crushed. To either side were various pieces of equipment, or twisted mounts from which equipment had been torn, as well as more openings. Light was spilling from one of these openings, suggesting that this was our destination.
"What is this place?" I asked, referring to the floorless room.
"Pretty much an unfilled void," Lee answered. "It was towards the rear of the ship. Beyond that far wall was the main engine, reactors and such. Branching off each side of the main engine were the four secondary engines. Areas to the sides of the void contained automated machinery shops, areas where my robots were made and so on. There would have been rooms built within the void eventually, but clearly that didn't happen. When we first took flight, the ship was only partially completed. Most of the interior was still in vacuum. The jump drive at the front of the ship hadn't been completed. Neither had the medical bay for that matter; it was finished a little later."
"So how did you move about in the void then? You couldn't levitate yourself, surely? And what about air?" I asked.
"Zero gravity, so floors didn't mean much. We were in space, and for what it's worth, yes I could levitate myself, or fly about as I needed." she chuckled.
"You had magic then?" I asked, gobsmacked.
"Nope. Technology. Don't forget that I was a cyborg. A lot of me was machine, including a couple of tiny levitation engines, for a lack of a better description," Lee stated. "Actually, you saw the remains of my old levitation engines when you were looking at my human cyberframe. It would be mighty handy if I could install some of them in this body. As for the lack of air, wearing a space-suit dealt with that problem."
"Handy? What's that mean?" Demi asked.
"Bah! To hoof, convenient, whatever. I keep forgetting you ponies don't have hands," Lee said. "Anyway, Duct Tape, if you would be so kind as to float us over to the auto-factory, it would be appreciated."
"Sure thing," my diminutive sister replied, and again I found myself floating.
"Lee, you referred to your ship's engines in the past tense," I commented.
"Yes. Most were damaged or destroyed in the battle. I doubt any survived the crash. Most likely they were torn off some distance from here."
"Have you looked?" Demi asked.
"Nope. Not enough days in the hour to do everything," she replied with a smirk. "It isn't like it makes much difference if the engines are there or not, does it? This wreck isn't going anywhere."
"What's powering this place then? The stable reactor?" I asked.
"Ship's reactor," Lee replied. "One of them anyway. This thing had several fusion reactors. Most were up the back with the engines. Some auxiliary ones were dotted about. This room is running from one of them."
"After twelve hundred years, and you just start a reactor?" I think my eyes must have popped out of my head at that.
"Nope. It was still running on standby. That's what has been powering all of the A.I.s. It brought itself back to full power when the ship's systems tried to come back online. I looked it over and it's in good shape. Its auto repair systems seem to have looked after it."
"And the fuel?" I asked.
"Water is plentiful. Even down here. Maybe an underground stream or something. It uses electrolysis to separate the hydrogen and oxygen from water, dumps the oxygen into the ship's living areas, and sends the hydrogen to the reactors," Lee explained.
"So there is no radiation?"
"As a rule, no. Not like what you get with your nasty magic burning things," Lee answered. "Maybe a stray neutron that escapes containment, but nothing to really worry about."
Relieved about that, I relaxed as Duct Tape floated us through the opening in the side of the cavernous room, and into an area which I was delighted to see actually had a floor. Duct Tape deposited each of us as we made it through the doorway, then landing herself, retreated to the corner of the room to the right of the doorway where a blanket was lying on the floor. She lay down on it and curled up. "Wake me when you are ready to go back," she yawned. Hmm... lugging around three other ponies must be tiring for the youngster. No surprise really.
"Okay, Lee. You have us down here. What are we looking at?" I asked.
"This way," Lee said indicating another doorway, through which a moderate amount of sound was coming: mostly white noise, but with the odd click or whir. We went into the room beyond.
In front of us, neatly laid out on a bench were pieces of what could probably be described as light power armor. They had even been painted violet, with pink highlights. Behind the bench were various waldos that were attending to an auto-lathe and numerically controlled milling machines, as well as other machinery that's complexity defied description. Another piece of armor appeared from within, and was deftly placed on the bench.
"This is one of the ship's auto-factories," Lee said. "There were several, but this is the only one I could get working again. Some were for making my robots, some dealt with clothing and the like, and some made general parts as required by the ship. This is one of those. This is what I used to make the new bone for your foreleg."
"What did you use for materials?" Demi asked. "You had a whole bike made down here."
"Scrap, bits of the ship itself, whatever I could get my hands on," Lee replied. "Er... hooves on."
"And what's this it's making now?"
"Helvetica. It's making the new improved Helvetica. Actually, it's an exoskeleton for her. It's been designed to help her recover, and to give her some protection."
"New super cladding," I grinned. "Cool."
We met Ruby-Goddess on our way back to the surface. We had been carrying Helvetica's new cladding through the twists and turns of the tunnel through the rubble of the collapsed stable when we came across the rather frustrated alicorn. She wanted to see Lee's spaceship, but her larger size meant she physically couldn't fit past some of the obstructions. She was complaining bitterly that even if she came down here as a teleport capable alicorn, she would be unable to use the skill due to the likelihood of fatally materializing in something solid. She simply could not get down there. When she stopped her monologue, we were finally able to get a word in.
"No headaches, then, I assume?" I questioned.
"The screaming has stopped. I can still hear whispers, but they are tolerable. The Goddess thanks you." She nodded.
"And your part of the deal?" I asked, looking Ruby-Goddess up and down, wondering if the Goddess would find some reason to go back on her word.
"Oh, I have guests," Ruby-Goddess stated. "I shall talk to you through another of my daughters later. The Goddess is departing."
And she did, leaving Ruby standing in front of us with a puzzled look on her face. The Goddess had been true to her word.
"Anne, you've shrunk," Ruby finally stated.
"Welcome back, Ruby," I said. "I hope you will forgive me for what has happened to you."
"I will not forgive you for saving my life," she replied. "I will thank you instead."
"Do you understand what has happened to you?" I asked.
"I do. I may have not been in control since my swim in the Goddess' vat of I.M.P., but I have been alert, not asleep as you were told," Ruby explained. "Thank Celestia that I was not given the full treatment like the others there. I doubt anything of their original selves remains, mentally speaking. Certainly nothing remains physically."
She turned her head back, and looked first at her wings, then at her flank, where her stylized 10mm submachine gun cutie mark was still visible. "Well, yay," she said. "I ain't a blank flank. I can't say my last performance with a submachine gun was particularly spectacular though, considering how I ended up strung up on the lookout tower. Oh, did Violet live?"
I sadly shook my head. "Sorry, she was already gone by the time I got there."
"And I must have been moments from joining her," Ruby surmised. "I remember getting strung up, and hanging there for a while. The next thing I realized was I had that Goddess in my head, and I was in her vat. I can't say I ever want to do that again. Getting warped into another type of creature is... unpleasant."
"I can imagine," I responded. "Actually I don't need to imagine, me being more machine than pony and all, even though I wouldn't describe my conversion as warping, just as warped."
"Sorry about that, Anne!" Red Tape called from near by. I hadn't realized he was listening.
"You're forgiven, Dad," I called back. The great tragedy of my life had been reduced to father-daughter banter.
"Sorry to change the subject again, but how is my sister Cherry Opal? Did she make it to safety?" Ruby asked, worry painting itself on her features.
"Yes, you did good. You and Violet gave everypony else the chance to get to safety. You will be a hero when you get back to the stable."
"A hero, huh? Me, a hero like you?" Ruby asked smiling.
"I'm no hero," I responded. "I just do what I can."
Ruby laughed. "Then neither am I, because all I did was to do what I could. All the ponies from Stable Four are like that, silly."
"So you are all heroes then," Demi stated, looking at each of us, "and trust me, you are heroes!"
I blushed, then shrugged. "I'm just me. Come on, let's go give Helvetica her new cladding."
"Whee!" Helvetica squeed with delight as she trotted past us. "I can move again!"
"Awesome," Lee quietly expressed her pleasure with Helvetica's new cladding. "I wasn't expecting her to be quite so mobile quite so fast!"
We were on the surface again, standing in on of the sheltered areas, watching as the recently healed were outside prancing about in the gloom and generally behaving like foals. There was just enough light from the shelter's lamps to stop them stumbling over any uneven patches on the ground. Fitting Helvetica's new cladding had only taken minutes. Her adjusting to it had taken no time at all.
"The wonders of technology, and more importantly, the wonders of determination," I said. "No doubt Helvetica will soon be spoiling to get back to her kid."
"I would be, if I had one," Lee commented, effectively nullifying her earlier comments about not being mother material.
"You did have a kid. Me," I reminded her.
"I thought you wanted to forget that," Lee stated.
"Even if you look and sound different, I still know your past. Maybe in time I will come to see you for who you are and not for who you were."
"Oh, cheer up, Mum," Demi said, snuggling me. "It's your turn to be the parent."
I snuggled her back. "Yes, it is, isn't it."
"Hey guys, sorry to butt in, but you should come and see this!" Parsley interrupted us, shuffling over to where we stood. "Something odd is going on up in the sky."
We followed Parsley away from the buildings to where we had a clear view of the sky in the direction of Splendid Valley. Perhaps an uninterrupted view would be a more accurate description. All I could see were layers of gloom, darkness, and the patchy shadows of the clouds. Perhaps there was a moon up there somewhere, because it wasn't pitch black.
"What are we looking at?" I asked Parsley.
"That," she replied, nodding in the general direction of some particularly dark clouds far out on the horizon. "I watched those clouds come down through the cloud ceiling. It's too dark and too far away for me to be sure, but it looks like something is riding on them."
"What? Like a pony or something?" Lee asked.
"No. Like a city. I thought I glimpsed lights and walls," Parsley replied. "It's been hovering there for a while now, like it is waiting for something."
"I'll be back in a moment. I'm going to go grab Victory and have look through her scope," I said.
As I was trotting back down to where I had left my battle saddle, I came across Ruby, who seemed somewhat agitated.
"Is something wrong, Ruby?" I asked.
"Yes, there is. I thought I was no longer connected to the Goddess, but she's been calling into my mind again. Something is happening in Maripony, something to do with her visitors. The Goddess is calling for all of her children to flee, to fly, to save ourselves," Ruby answered, as she paced in a circle.
"Flee from what?" I asked as I stepped over to my battle saddle and extracted Victory. Was this to do with that cloud bank Parsley had spotted?
"I don't know!" Ruby exclaimed, frustrated, "but if it scares the Goddess, it must be scary beyond belief!"
"Parsley has spotted something she thinks is a city on clouds that is floating over Splendid Valley," I said, turning back the way I had come. Ruby followed. "Do you think it could be the Enclave? Could the Enclave be enough of a threat to the Goddess that she would have her daughters flee instead of fighting?"
"I don't know!" Ruby sounded exasperated. I guess, even free of the Goddess' control, she had a lingering connection.
"Do you know who her visitors were?" I asked.
Ruby shook her head. "She was in my head. I wasn't in hers."
"Come on then, let's see if we can glimpse anything from this far away," I suggested, indicating the sight on my sniper rifle.
We half-walked, half-ran back to where I had left Parsley watching the night sky. She had shuffled from where I had last seen her. Following her tracks I found she had gone a few dozen paces further in the direction of Splendid Valley in order to climb a local vantage point.
"Parsley," I called, "Has anything changed?"
"Yes," she responded. "I can see a glow. It's reflecting off the bottom of the clouds.."
I trotted up the rise to stand next to her, and levitated Victory to my eye. It took me a few moments of hunting around before I was able to focus on what Parsley had seen. There it was. Even at this extreme range I could see it, huge and dark, and sitting on massive thunderclouds, the odd flashes of lightning giving me glimpses of the sinister looking structure. There seemed to be secondary structures attached to it, also riding their own clouds. Perhaps it was multiple structures clustered together in formation. Bloody hell! Was this what the Enclave was hiding from us up above the clouds? Clearly they had been far too busy looking after their own interests for the last two hundred years to bother coming down to help us, as their propaganda suggested they intended to do. And that brought up the next question. What the hell were they doing hovering over Maripony? It was now gently lit from below by the glow Parsley had mentioned. What was happening on the ground, we couldn't see because of the topology of the terrain. I levitated my rifle over to Parsley, holding it so she could look through it.
"Damn, girl, you must have pretty good eyes if you could spot that from this distance," I said.
"They are cybernetic eyes, aren't they?" she replied. "I'm not sure I would have been able to see it with my old eyes."
"Oh, that's a point," I responded. "I also have cybernetic eyes."
"Did you see the glow?" she asked.
"I'm guessing it may be from a huge alicorn shield. Maripony is where the Goddess is, so she must be generating it," I surmised.
"Why? To keep the Enclave out?" Parsley asked.
"Something has her very scared," Ruby said, skittering up behind us. "She keeps telling us to flee. She said she had visitors earlier. I wonder if she meant the Enclave, or if it was somepony else."
"You aren't fleeing?" Parsley asked.
"We are a long way from Maripony here," Ruby said. "If we have to run from this distance, nowhere would be safe."
"If the problem is the Enclave, that would be quite correct," I said. "They can fly. They have an army. They have guns. Worse, they have organization while we only have small groups and a lot of anarchy. Our largest factions are Red Eye, Unity, and if you are feeling generous, the Steel Rangers, though they have pretty much self destructed of late."
"So they attack the Goddess, and remove a significant power base," Parsley said. "Then they would destroy Red Eye and his followers after which they could take over the wastelands with little problem. But why so aggressive? And why now after ignoring us for so long?"
Over the next half an hour or so, the other ponies all came up to the surface to hear about what was going on. The air had taken on a tangible charge as we all discussed what could be a life-changing situation. Stocking up with everything we could, and vanishing back down into Stable Four was seriously suggested. If things got ugly up here, I had to agree...
The flash lit the night sky. My Pipgirl clicked. Even though I wasn't looking in the direction of Maripony at the time, I knew that was where it had come from. Snapping around to face the source, my eyes quickly adjusted, and I was able to see the resultant inferno spiraling skyward, illuminating the clouds with the eerie green-gold glow of balefire. I could see nothing that could be identified as an Enclave flying city, and that had been there moments before. The explosion had dwarfed all near it, and was plainly visible with the naked eye. Almost immediately I felt the ground quake. I could see the shock wave heading in our direction.
"Get underground NOW," I yelled. Even at this distance from a megaspell explosion it could be dangerous. Fortunately the lay of the land would allow the explosion to disperse somewhat once it exited the valley, but I still didn't want to get hit by what was coming. I guesstimated twenty to thirty seconds would pass before the shock wave arrived.
Levitating Parsley, I ran for the ramp down into the stable myself. I had no delusions about us being able to lock ourselves safely down there, but getting out of the path of the debris being propelled in our direction was a start. As soon as I had Parsley to the ramp, I let her go, reaching out with my magic for the next slow pony. I knew we only had seconds... Too many slow ponies! As I got the second to the ramp, the remaining stragglers lifted from the ground together, and shot towards me at speed. The angle they were moving was wrong for it to be the shock wave. Moments later I was airborne myself, and the whole lot of us tumbled down the ramp, assisted by unicorn magic. We hadn't even come to a stop when the boom hit. There was a whoosh and clatter as sand and airborne debris blasted past. Above us the roof of Red Tape's stall rattled and banged, and my Pipgirl started clicking again.
Silence descended on us, interrupted only by the sounds of ponies trying to right themselves, gasps, and coughing.
"What was that?" somepony sobbed.
"I think it was a megaspell," I managed between coughs. "Fortunately it was far away enough not to kill us outright."
"Did the Enclave...", some pony asked. I didn't catch who.
"No," Parsley said. "Their floating city thing would have been destroyed in that blast too."
"Red Eye?" Demi wondered aloud.
"That would be the logical conclusion, as he is the only other significant power out there," I agreed. "I guess we will know soon enough."
After carefully removing a couple of ponies from on top of her, Ruby struggled to her hooves. She looked quite stunned.
"What about the Goddess?" Helvetica asked from where she was lying.
"Ruby?" I asked.
"The Goddess is dead," she said quietly. "I can no longer feel her."
That was when we knew our world had changed, drastically.
Footnote: Level Up! Perk: Sure footed. Four hooves are better than three.
Special thanks to the team of proof readers.