//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: It Awakens // Story: Revelation 21:6 // by Silent Scout //------------------------------// The first thing she noticed, as she became aware of her surroundings, was the constant beeping sound coming from her left. It took her a couple more seconds to realise that she was in fact completely naked, if you don’t count the fact that every inch of her was covered in bandages, even her Pipboy was missing. I don’t recall ever getting that hurt, but then again if I was to dream up something like oddly colored and armed ponies, then maybe I was. And where the fuck is my Pipboy? Slowly she opened her eyes, just to slam them closed again from the bright light that flooded the room. She tried again but this time not opening them all the way and squinted at everything around her until they adjusted. Looking to her left she confirmed that there was in fact a heartbeat monitor on a stand right next to her, beeping away in rhythm with her heart. Turning her head to the right, she felt her stomach drop as she saw sitting at a table a purple pony with a horn looking at papers; while an orange pony and cyan pony with wings sitting on a sofa in front of a window. A butter yellow pony was adjusting the window’s blinds, none of them seemed to be paying her any attention in the slightest. Realising that what had happened earlier was not a dream did not raise her spirits in the slightest and only proved to worsen her mood. Her thoughts were interrupted as she was repeatedly poked in her left side. Turning to investigate she found two large blue eyes inches from her own, pink filled the rest of her vision. The sudden face mere inches from her own caused her to scream, “SON OF A BITCH,” and would have fallen from the bed if it were not for the handcuffs she had on either wrist that were connected to the bed. Her sudden outburst and erratic heart beat, had alerted the other ponies to the fact that she was indeed conscience once again. The pink one moved closer to her again, despite the Wanderer’s best efforts to keep her back, saying something that she couldn’t figure out. But whatever it was it was being said at incredibly fast speeds. “Hi, what’s your name? My names Pinkie Pie. Where are you from? I’ve never seen something like you before. You’re new to this town, right? Silly me, of course you're new here because I know everypony that lives in Ponyville, since I am friends with all of them. With that being the case that means I get to throw you a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party and introduce you to all the other ponies in town. What kind of cake do you like? What’s your favorite color? Why haven’t you answered any of my questions?” To the Wanderer’s relief she saw the pink menace become encased in a purple glow and levitated away from her and towards the other ponies in the room. One of them even seemed to say something to it with what she could only guess, as she saw a scowl on its face. She felt and heard her heart slow back down to a more stable pace as the purple horned pony and yellow winged pony approached her together. The purple one had a look of curiosity on its face while the yellow one had the same scared but concerned look from earlier. None of which really interested her though except for the paper and quill being levitated in the same purple glow that had both moved the pink one and which now shrouded its own horn. Trying to reach out and grab it, she was halted by the restraints around her wrists that only allowed for short distances. The handcuffs had become rather annoying and something that needed to be dealt with if she planned on finding where Dogmeat was. Glancing over towards the door she could see that there were currently two guards posted just outside and would most likely cause a bigger problem after she had removed the restraints. The purple one seemed to be trying to communicate with her but since she couldn’t understand it to begin with, she couldn’t care less for what it had to say. A quick look around the room, she found just what she had hoped for. Sitting just on the end of her bed was her very own medical information. It wasn’t so much the information on the paper, which she knew she couldn’t read but the paperclip attached to it. Using her feet, she attempted to lift the clipboard onto the bed and pull up towards her, failing at each attempt. The yellow one saw what she was doing and grabbed it with its mouth before bringing it over to her. Taking the medical charts into her left hand she smiled at the yellow pony as a sign of appreciation. Flashing her canines however proved to have the opposite effect as it jumped back and hid behind its mane. This seemed to not go over so well with the rainbow maned pony as it was now hovering in front of her glaring daggers at her while, from what she could tell, screaming at her, she gladly returned the glare. Not being able to understand and talk back to these creatures proved to be the most annoying part of this whole predicament for her. Doesn’t matter I’ll be out of here soon enough. Seeming to have lost all interest in yelling at her some more it flew over to its yellow friend, drawing the attention of the purple horned pony. She took advantage of the distraction and swiped the paperclip holding a few of the papers together and placed it under her sheets. Looking over the medical charts she saw a outline of a pony body that they used in place of a human body that she had seen on normal charts. There was an arrow pointing towards the right foreleg’s shoulder, the same one that had been dislocated, with some scribbling in the strange curling text. Talking to no one in particular she said, “They must have popped that back into place for me, even though if they hadn’t chased me around town in the first place that wouldn’t have happened.” Further inspection of the pony outline showed that the back right leg was covered in marks around the knee from where the joint motor had blown shrapnel into her knee and surrounding area. There was even a mark at the head which was as far as she could guess an indication of a mild concussion sustained during the fight. The talking had drawn the attention of the purple pony, as it turned back towards her, she made it look like she was testing her range of motion with her restraints on. The handcuffs were obviously meant for a pony as it allowed her to nearly bring her hands together and a considerable amount of range at which she could stretch out. Taking the time to look around the room she made note of each pony in the room and those that she could see standing just outside the door. From her position she could see that in the room was the purple horned pony, that she remembered being called unicorns, standing right next to her bed watching her and writing something down every couple of seconds while the two winged ponies stood closer to the door talking with each other. What were those damn things called, I could have sworn it was in that same damn book back in the vault. This is just going to bug me until I remember. Giving up only for the moment she continued her examination and saw the same orange normal pony with the same rope resting next to it on the sofa that sat beside a small window. The thing that they all shared though was that they were all female ponies. The only male ponies she had seen since coming here were the guards that stood outside the door and the ones that had attacked her and Dogmeat. With all the ponies sitting around in the room, the Lone Wanderer couldn’t start her next plan of action and was forced to do the only thing she could do, she prayed that something would happen soon to cause them all to leave. ---- Twilight had been there taking notes about the strange creature all day ever since she had sent the letter to the princesses about the creature the day before. They had sent a letter stating that she should take thorough notes about it and wait for their arrival in the next two days and that all its weapons should be locked up until then. Removing the armor and the device from its leg proved to be a difficult challenge as none of them knew how they worked and in the end she was forced to use her magic and teleport the thing out of them. From there it was all taken to Twilight’s Library and stored in the basement lab to be kept safe from everypony until the princesses arrived. Having removed the armor and undersuit that it wore, they quickly discovered from its nude form was that it was in fact female. The doctors had the job of removing the bits of metal from its leg and to force the joint back into socket. Most of their initial reactions at seeing the corpse like being was to either faint or scream like little fillies, though she had to admit the creature was very frightening to look at. The idea to completely wrap the creature in bandages was decided between the doctors to make it easier on both them and the nurses to look at the thing without having panic attacks. When the doctors were done and had taken the blood samples they needed to run tests on, she began her study of the creature. From her first examination of the being it was ape like in appearance with little fur covering the body and stood on two legs, placing it roughly as tall as Princess Celestia. Upon closer inspection she saw that the clawed appendages on the end of its front legs were similar to that of Spike’s claws but with dull round tips instead. The more interesting thing about the creature was its mouth, as the teeth indicated that the things diet consisted of both meat and plants making it omnivorous. Fluttershy had taken the dog to her place for treatment and had only returned after lunch once she was sure it would be fine alone. Applejack had joined them later that afternoon when she had finished her daily chores to make sure that this creature would not pose a threat to her friends if it woke up. She didn’t like how it was able to take on that manticore so easily while it was already hurt by Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash had herself arrived shortly after with news of a scheduled storm that would be taking place that evening, but stuck around to see if the thing would wake up or not and ask it a few questions. It proved to be several hours before the thing finally awoke and alerted everypony by yelling something none of them could comprehend. Pinkie Pie had managed to sneak into the room without anypony noticing that she was there and stood inches away from its face and speaking to it extremely fast. Not wanting anything bad to happen to her friend, Twilight used her magic to levitate the pink pony away from it and saw that there was an immediate effect as the monitor’s beeping noise slowed back down. All attention seemed to be on her as she approached the thing that sat there hoof-cuffed to the bed, notes and quill floating alongside her. After she cleared her throat she began, “My name is Twilight Sparkle and I have some questions that I need to ask you. First, what are you and what is your name? Second what are you doing here in Equestria and what are your intentions?” The beings attention was lost as it started to watch the quill and paper floating there and she even made a move to grab it but when she was stopped by the cuffs she frowned at the restraints. She seemed to give up on trying to grab the quill and then changed targets. Twilight watched as the creature in front of her used its feet to reach for the medical clipboard on the foot of her bed. “Oh let me help you with that,” came a quiet voice from directly behind Twilight. Walking up from behind her, Fluttershy grabbed the clipboard and gave it to the ape thing. Fluttershy’s response to the toothy grin that she received, in return for her efforts, only solidified the idea of how little effort is required to scare the poor pony as she bolted to the other side of the room away from the bed. Rainbow Dash on the other hoof wouldn’t stand to have one of her friends intimidated by anypony. She rocketed up to its face screaming, “What’s the big idea scaring her like that, she was only helping. Your not so tough without all your armor and zapper so don’t think I’ll let you get away with bullying my friends.” In response it only glared back at her not saying anything to her. “Rainbow, while I’m sure Fluttershy always appreciates you standing up for her, it wasn’t really called for this time. All it did was smile at her, you know her even better than I do about how timid and skittish she can be around others,” lectured Twilight. Rainbow Dash merely grunted in response before she flew over to where Fluttershy sat, allowing Twilight to return to her notes and examining the creature before her. She was surprised to hear it start saying something to itself as it looked over the medical charts in what she could only guess as a look of amusement but at what she had no idea. She watched and took notes of how the creature moved while it stretched its different legs and the amount of range that they had, similar yet again to that of Spike. Its interest seemed to change yet again as it started looking around the room at everypony present, it seemed to have something on its mind while looking at each of them in turn before settling back down. “It sure is gettin’ dark out. We best be gettin’ back home before it starts to rain.” Applejack’s sudden statement caused Twilight to jump as she hadn’t heard the cowpony speak the entire time she was there until that moment. A quick glance outside proved the cowpony right though as it had indeed become considerably darker with all the clouds out. Collecting all her notes, she placed them into her saddlebags while everypony waited before heading for the door with her friends in tow. Fluttershy was the last to exit the room saying her goodbyes to the creature, who only looked at her in confusion as to what she had said, and closed the door behind her. The guards gave them a firm nod as they continued to stand in position on either side of the door and wait for their shifts to end and their replacements to arrive. “Girls, I’m going to be here tomorrow trying to find out anything I can about that thing before the princesses come tomorrow. If you want you can all join me again, but I am not sure if you will find any of it as interesting as I do.” The others were not as excited about returning to the hospital the following day as Twilight was and backed down from the offer. Applejack looked back at the building they were leaving before she finally replied, “Ah’ll try and come by after Ah finished up with my chores, but thats going to take me all mornin’ again. Ah wouldn’ feel right leaven ya in there with whatever that thing is, after what we all saw it do.” Saying their goodbyes to each other they made their ways to their own homes across Ponyville. ---- Really? That didn’t take long for them to leave and they even closed the door for me. Ask and you shall receive I guess. Wasting no time, she pulled out the paperclip from beneath her sheets and got to work picking the locks on the handcuffs restraining her. It only took a few minutes to break through the simple locks, but she didn’t like the idea of walking around naked. To solve her problem she pulled the sheets off and made a simple toga, not quite satisfied but having nothing better she moved ahead with her plan. Her next step was to get out of the room without getting caught again but with her leg not fully healed yet she couldn’t just take on the guards outside the door leaving only one other option, the window. The window would normally be too small for her if she was in her power armor, but since she didn’t have any of that she could just barely fit through. Once through the window her victory was interrupted by the sudden clap of thunder followed by a downpour of rain that came. She needed to find her things and fast before the guards outside her room realise that she is not actually in there. The last thing she wanted was for them to find her walking the streets naked and unarmed. The positive side of things was that due to the rain, no one would be out walking around and those that were, would be too much in a hurry to be very observant making it that much easier to hide. Grabbing her impromptu clothes closer to her body she made her way farther into the city, on the hunt for what was rightfully hers.