//------------------------------// // Research // Story: The Winds of Change: Fog of War // by AgentSnail //------------------------------// Research "Who are you looking for?" The Nurse asked, flitting her eyes up at Twilight and Lyra. "Jason." The nurse stared. "You know, tall, black, holes in his legs..." "Oh yes, let me check my book of released patients." "Released? He broke his leg two nights ago!" "Well he made quite a scene leaving yesterday, despite my attempts. Scared quite a large number of reporters in the process, too." "Do you know what happened to him?" Lyra asked, stepping up to the window as a small box floated next to her head. "He made me leave a note, but I suppose I gave that to Princess Luna yesterday. I'm not sure." "How can you not remember anything!?" The aquamarine mare asked, angrily tapping her hoof on the glass. "It was something specific, Canterlot, I think. But that's all I know." The nurse shrugged. Lyra groaned and walked towards the door, before a hoof on her shoulder forced her to stop. "Where are you going to go, Lyra?" Twilight asked. "It's not like you'll find him there, Canterlot isn't a small city." "I know, but he's all alone out there, after this happened, it can't be good for him." "There's no way he's alone, otherwise we would've seen Scootaloo. And plus, he wouldn't have left her behind. He's still pretty loving, for a changeling." She paused, wiping an eye. "And that begs the question, why would he leave Dash?" "I think he deserves to grieve in whatever way he wants, Twilight. Most of his friends just died." "I know, but it just doesn't-" She stopped at another look from Lyra, wiping at her eye as it dampened again. They were silent for a while, before they both started walking. "I wonder if he took Evening? That's what she calls herself, right?" Lyra asked/ "I'm not sure." Twilight responded, pushing the door open. "I don't think having another changeling around could possibly be good for things. Besides, it's not like he's been completely honest with us anyway." "What do you mean?" Lyra asked, figuring she already knew what Twilight was getting at. "He's-" She looked around before turning back and lowering her voice. "I think he wasn't always a pony. The stuff that came through, it's- I think he's human." Lyra burst out laughing, throwing her head backwards and drawing a few looks. "You sound like me, Twilight. I think you should do a little more research." "But his stuff, there was like one mention of ponies and it was in text, with a little picture just had some more words on it, in fancy writing, kind of." "And that proves it?" "Well what other explanation is there?" She asked, her breathing more audible than usual. Lyra stared at the lavender mare for a moment before speaking up. "Can you prove it?" She asked, and Twilight started to respond before stopping. "You can't make these hypothesis without making sure they're proven. You know what would happen if that wasn't true and you said it anyway? He's different enough as it is." Twilight held up a hoof to rebut, before putting it back down. "You're right. I'm not going to push it." "Good. I'm going to try to find him, maybe figure out why he's in Canterlot like this." "Whatever you want." Twilight replied, sighing. "It just won't sink in." She said. "What?" "That Dash is gone. I just keep expecting her to fly by or something, land next to me and say something. It was the same these last few weeks while Jason was gone with her two, I just keep thinking that she's away." "Yeah, I know the feeling." _________________________________________________________________ "Jason, you've been in here for an hour, how're things coming?" Star asked, walking into the empty side room that was mostly rebuilt. "Depends how you look at it." He pointed at a scorch mark against the stone. "Getting the power's no problem, hell, applying it isn't a big deal either, I understand how it works. But there's all this timing and precision involved, and I just- that's the hard part." "I wouldn't complain, you've done more in a day than most ponies can do in a month." "Yeah, why is that?" He asked, scratching his head. "I guess you're talented." "I don't think that's it though, most of these things just felt natural, gave me a sense of deja vu." He turned and moved into the other room, tapping a sleeping Scoots on the shoulder gently, as she shifted in her slumber. "Maybe it's the nightmare?" Evening asked, apparently listening in on the conversation. "How's that, it's gone." Jason replied, checking his head just in case. "That's not what I mean, he used spells like those. Mostly, anyway. Chrysalis did some stuff with me while she had me under her influence, and I just kinda caught on to the magic. It's like the answers just store themselves away for later." "Well that's...convenient." Jason replied, sighing as his eyes drooped. He hadn't slept since the day Dash'd died, and honestly, he was scared about what would happen when he fell asleep. At the very least he'd wait until Scoots woke up, he didn't want to suck her into a nightmare. "Well, you sure have been busy these last twenty four hours." Luna said as she walked in. "Thanks a lot for making me find you like this." The Princess said with a slight laugh. "Yeah, sorry." "It's not your fault, that stupid nurse smudged the writing, I could hardly make it out. Put that on top of all the other stuff I have going checking back here..." "Ah, thus the twenty four hours." Jason filled in, leafing through a tome. "Yes, I put in a slip to have her reviewed. I would have just fired that mare on the spot, but apparently I can't do things like that anymore. What is it you call a situation like that?" "Bullshit?" "Yes, bullshit indeed." She giggled. "I like that word. I shall deem it the royal bullshit." Jason let out a guffaw. "Don't do that, Princess. If someone finds out what that means, you'll be a laughingstock." "Alright, I will heed your judgement. By the way..." She reached into a rather royal looking saddlebag, before she tossed a sack to the ground, a few bits spilling out. "Your pay." "All that?" He asked, his jaw threatening to hit the ground. "No, the rest is in the bank. That's only like three hundred bits right there, you're due for a lot more than that." Jason couldn't formulate a response. Luna giggled again. "Bullshit." "How old are you?" Jason asked with a smirk. Luna's expression straightened, and she gave him a regal smile. "My apologies, it's been a while since somepony's had the courage to be so...formal. It's quite refreshing." "Well it was either that or screw up big time. I wasn't good at being formal." "Speaking of age, I see you've got an entire fort over there." She said, lifting a hoof to point at a castle made entirely of books. "You can thank Scoots for that one, actually the little filly built the whole thing in an hour, fell asleep right after. Made it out of all the books we went through, too." "Yes, I'm worried about that, what are you planning? This is related to Rainbow Dash, correct?" Jason nodded. "I'm trying to go back in time to fix things. They'll be better that way." "I see." She narrowed her eyes. "Technically what you're doing is illegal, did you know that?" "If I did it wouldn't have stopped me." He replied as his expression hardened. "Well listen, I can't allow this operation to continue. That said, I never saw this operation. Understood?" Jason and the other two nodded. "If you get caught, your rank will only get you so far, Jason. But I'll see what I can do to help." She paused, tapping the tip of her hoof on the marble as she thought. "Why are you going out of your way like this?" Evening asked. "This seems pretty risky, even if you are in power forever." Luna sighed. "I used this spell before, many years ago. Starswirl wasn't the one to create it, I was. He just rediscovered it half a millennium after I destroyed the scroll." "What'd you do with it?" Star asked. "Same thing as us?" "To much the same extent, I tried to bring my mother back to life after she was killed by some of the other immortals that used to rule this planet. It only worked for a week, because I didn't think to keep the paradox running. Everything reverted after the time limit ran out, and it was like she never lived those extra seven days. But I still remember the whole thing, such is the virtue of storing one's memories." "Huh?" "I was worried that I wouldn't have them after I changed the past so I enchanted a book. I'm sure there are easier ways now, but that's what I had to work with. I was only a young mare, at that point. I didn't really think about what I had done until I screwed it up." A tear made it out of her eye and down to the tip of her muzzle. "Just- don't make the same mistakes as me." She said, turning to leave. "Luna, hold on a sec." Jason said, taking a step towards her. "Thanks, for all of this, for everything." "It's my pleasure." She said, throwing an arm around Jason and catching him off guard. Too...Many...Hugs. Luna's mane blew into his face and he coughed, quickly developing a fit as little stars poked at his nose and he sneezed. "Sorry." she said, letting go. "I forgot that sometimes ponies don't have good responses to my mane. Or tail." She turned around again, and walked towards the door. "Send for me if you get down to the wire." "I'll be sure to." He replied, flashing her a smile. Whether it was time or the idea that this plan just might work, he was starting to feel better. Every thought of Dash didn't result in uncontrollable grief and tears, although the emptiness was still there, pulling at his conscience and threatening to bring him back to the wreck he'd been as he'd held her in her hooves, as the last words left her mouth. He wiped his eyes, slightly glad that he was crying like this. It just proved that she meant something, that she had been there. This whole episode with Nightmare, short as it was, he wished he'd known her side of the story. If they didn't finish in time, if this spell didn't work, well, the next plan of action would be a return to how normal life was supposed to go. Had she been human, had this all been on earth, he wouldn't have even had this option. But the sense of closure that brought was nowhere near superior to the chance, the sliver of hope, that he could bring her back. "Evening, look for a memory transfer spell." He said, turning around and standing up straight. "Why?" "Because, I'm going to try to keep my memories from now, give them to my past self." "But why would you want to do that, especially with all the grief?" "I don't want to forget how I felt, the mental decisions I made. I don't want to look at her and feel anything less than I would now, think that it was just another happy ending. Because god dammit it wasn't! And I'll be dammed if I let myself sink to a level where I'm deleting my own memories just to feel better." Scoots stirred, stretching out a hoof and yawning. "Will I remember anything?" Scoots asked, carefully getting to her feet on the small pile of books. "I don't know, Scoots. I'll have to see if I can find a way to move them." "Same here, Jason." Evening said, tracing a pattern on the marble with one of her hooves. "You could probably use the hive mind for me, I know how to get the memories to you if you can push them back out." "We'll work on it, okay? But seriously, if I can just get one that works on both of you, that'd be great." Jason mumbled, starting to succumb to his exhaustion again. "You need some sleep, Jason." Star said, "We can keep working, we'll wake you up if we find anything." "No, I can just rest when this is over." He shook his head, trying to wake himself up. "I'm fine." "Wait, Jason." Scoots reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a bag of coffee beans. "Catch." "Oh, you've been eating these the last few days?" "Well I was, until I started seeing things. It messes with your mind, man." She said, scrunching up her face. "But seriously, dad, take a rest." "That's the first time you've called me that." He said, trotting over and pulling her into a hug. "I love you, Scoots." "Yeah, same here. Now come on, tell us some story." Jason sat back and sighed, leaning against a table. "What kind of story? War stuff?" "Did you ever fight in one?" Star asked. "Before you came here, I mean?" "No. My friend Ben went on a rotation though, he was supposed to get back two months ago. God dammit, why did it take me so long to remember that?" He looked at the ground, sighing. "How could I be this busy? Forgetting shit from back there already... But seriously, that's a big thing! I think I'm legitimately not all here... I must've had that thought at some point and just forgotten to mention it, right?" He sighed. "I bought a car too by the way, that was supposed to get delivered at some point." "What's a car?" Star asked. "Self propelled vehicle." Jason replied, his response almost robotic at this point. "You have one of those?!" Scoots asked, getting visibly excited. "Actually...I had two." He said, smirking. "A cutting edge thing that I ordered and a beat up twenty five year old truck." "Isn't that older than you, Jason?" Evening asked. "Only a little, shut up!" He chuckled. "Not that being younger than a car's a bad thing..." "Wait, you're in your twenties?" Star inquired. "Yeah, how old did you think I was?" "I dunno, older." "Well I am pretty mature..." Scoots guffawed, which didn't exactly help his case. "So when you say rotation..." Star began, gesturing with a hoof for him to finish the statement. "Okay, I lived in a country called The United States of America. We have the strongest army in the world, at least a million guys strong. The thing is, there are these guys that will commit suicide as part of an extremist portion of a religion. Now, there's a country called Afghanistan, and thousands of members of Taliban and Al Qaeda, which are only slightly less extreme, stick bases there to plan attacks on the western world. We take them out now, and we don't have to worry about them later. Battle them on our terms." "Yeah, alright, that makes sense." Star said. "So Ben said he wanted to make a difference, give back to the country, and he left a little over a year ago. The nice thing about technology is that you can communicate that far by video, so we did that a fair amount. Warfare's a lot different than it is around here, with air power able to hit anything in the area within a few minutes. That and the fact that all weapons are ranged." "Why would he go there?" Evening asked. "Seems kinda pointless." "Tell that to his fourteen confirmed kills, as of last time we talked." Jason said, letting himself slide down the side of the table slightly. "What's it like, killing somepony?" "I guess I've only killed griffins, but it's not hard after the first few. You just get numb to it. That said, you shouldn't assume you'll react as well as we did." He replied, shuddering slightly. "Sometimes it still scares me." "I wish you never had to fight, Jason." Scoots said, walking over to lean on his side. "It's not that bad, Scoots." He replied, sticking an arm around her shoulder and squeezing slightly. "Just you watch, we'll get though this." "We better, general." Scoots replied, giggling slightly. _____________________________________________________________________ "Arrival time will be delayed while we remove the dead cow from the track." The speaker said, crackling slightly as Lyra groaned into her hooves. This was like the fourth animal they had to move, and they were already hours behind schedule. Not that trains ever ran on schedule to begin with, but this was starting to get ridiculous. "In the mean time, feel free to get food from the dining car." She wasn't going to do that either, all they ever had was hay this, hay that. That's all she'd been having for the last week, and it was getting boring. Sometimes she thought about just eating the grass off the ground, but given the bad rep and the fact that she co-owned a business, that probably wasn't a good idea. But there just weren't that many foods, unless you wanted to spend a lot of bits on something fancy. Maybe that was partially related to the fact that Ponyville was a small town, but really. Jason was a human though, he had eaten meat before, probably. Her head filled with thoughts of meat, but she couldn't figure out what it would look like. She'd seen a carnivore eat another animal before, and she didn't want to again, but she kinda doubted that Jason ripped stuff from animals like that. Well this did a good job of stumping her. "Our apologies, the cow was not dead." A few more crackles. "But she appears to be incredibly hard to move." Lyra sighed again, grinding a hoof into her forehead. This was going to be a long trip. _____________________________________________________ Jason awoke with a start, hopping to his hooves as he cursed under his breath. How many hours had he wasted sleeping like that? "I see you're awake." Evening said. "Not like you were really out that long, it was only a few hours. But man, you looked practically dead." "Yeah, I feel a lot better. I really hope that wasn't time we're going to need later." "Meh, it's not going to come to that." She pushed a book down the table towards him. "Now this on the other hand, I'd like to see you do." "Which one, the fire thing or the one that slows down time?" "Both, if you can. They're prerequisites for the one that stops time, and then it's just a straight shot to the Starswirl wing." "But why the fire one?" "It's not like other magic, it's- weird. You're doing stuff without a direct link to your horn. But apparently that's a necessary thing to have, whether it's this spell or another." "Well aren't you the scholar?" "I try." Evening replied with a smirk, sticking out her tongue. "Now come on, I want to see you do this." "You act like I'll get it first try. Since those first spells things have just become harder to pinpoint." He said, walking into the side room and knocking aside a piece of rebar with a small kick. "Plus, this is still a long ways off." Jason set the book on the ground and stared downward, trying to memorize the formulas and directional management of the two spells before he looked back up and aimed at the wall, where a piece of paper was taped. "Whenever you're ready." Evening said impatiently. "I know, hold on." Jason replied, funneling energy through his horn as a point in the middle of the paper began to smoke. "JAAAAASSSSON NOOOOOOOO!" Came a voice down the hallway, before he was tackled sideways. He tried to break the spell but it had already gone beyond his control. He tried to scrub off some energy, but the moment he lost concentration had done its damage. Jason looked at the smudge of aquamarine in the corner of his eye before a deafening explosion sounded and a crack slithered its way through the roof. "Lyra, what are you-" CRACK! Jason looked back up in horror as the crack faltered and split apart, and the ceiling started to crumble downward. He hardly had time to think before the other spell went through his head and he funneled magic and the rocks slowed their descent. Evening screamed, her voice getting lower as time continued to slow down. Jason grabbed Lyra and threw her over his shoulder, sending a rock into the wall as he dove into Evening and pushed her out of the way of another projectile. It was only a few more seconds to the door, before he exited, galloping out with the two mares across his back. Scoots was in the process of getting up, trotting over to Star as things started to hit the ground in the back room, sending bass vibrations through Jason's bones as he set down the two mares and tried to cancel the spell. He tried again, and then started to panic when it didn't wear off. He wasn't screwed if he couldn't figure it out, but it meant waiting until he ran out of power to keep it working. And that, by extension, meant he would have less power to use later. Scoots was staring as he shifted around, no doubt looking like a blur. He gabbed a piece of paper as he started to feel the fatigue, scrawling a message and sticking it to her forehead as he went looking through the books. His light perception was all funny, colors were off and light beams coming through from the upper windows almost seemed more defined. It wouldn't be bad to have a spell like this all the time, if it wasn't so tiring like this. He took a deep breath, starting to get tired and out of breath, almost like he was sprinting around the whole time. A falling paper from a pony upstairs started to speed up as it floated by, appearing to return to normal speed as the dull, low voices of the others sped back up as they looked over. "Jason, what the..." Scoots said, looking down at the note and back to him. "Yeah, this is promising." He said after a heavy breath, smirking down at a hoof. "Maybe this wasn't so much of a pipe dream after all."