Twilight galloped through the palace corridors like a mare possessed, other ponies driving to avoid her manic charge. Outside the walls a distant buzz could be heard as the Hive battle swarms collided with their Horde cousins. The Young princess shuddered at a distant boom signalled that another Hive H’Karton drone had broken through a nest’s defences. The nuclear suicide bomber would have incinerated hundreds of his brothers and sisters supporting him but would have taken out many thousands more of the Horde, and more importantly shut off another of their mad brethren’s Mass-Progenitors.
Twilight felt her heart jump into her throat as she reached her destination. She skidded round the open doorway and into the banquette halls, currently being used as a makeshift hospital. The moment she went through the doors the smell of antiseptic hit her like a wet slap, quickly followed by a round of cheering and whoops from the wounded soldiers. Twilight looked around as the soldier whooped and cheered and was baffled for a moment, before looking down and remembering she was covered head-to-hoof in congealed green blood.
“Woooo! Twilight!” Rainbow Dash whistled from a bed near the door. “You look like an avenging angel of death!”
“Uhhh yeah.....” Twilight puffed, as she tried to get her breath back. “Are you ok?”
Rainbow Dash’s grin dropped from her face, the Pegasus rolled over revealing the tightly wrapped and bloodied bandages compressing her back. Twilight gut dropped. “Oh Dashie...”
“The doctors couldn’t save my wings.” Rainbow said sadly looking back, she turned to Twilight. “Its...Its ok, could be worse, still here ain’t I?” A silent moment passed between them, unspoken words and emotions filling each twitch.
Suddenly a shadow swept over them and Dash’s eyes widened in panic. Twilight whipped round as a Hive drone staggered towards them, hissing and chattering wildly. Twilight recoiled, the humanoid insect was missing chunks all down the left side of his body, both left arms amputated at the shoulder. As the drone staggered towards them flakes of chitin and flesh peeled of and crumbled, its entire body seemed to be decaying. With a sudden rush of fear Twilight saw the creeping red lines around the broken patches and bite marks in the Drones exoskeleton.
He was infected.
The drone gave out a pained squeal and dove forwards, zeroing in a on the immobile Rainbow Dash. Twilight leapt at the drone, trying to tackle it away from the injured ponies. Suddenly moving impossible fast despite its extensive injured the drone leapt 6 foot straight up in the air its body crackling with green lightning.
Twilight hit the ground and skidded along the floor, grimacing as pain rolled through her chest. Gasping for air she rolled over just in time to see the Drone come crashing down on the struggling Rainbow Dash, a sharp crack as the lightning discharged downwards. Twilight yelled and leapt back, ripping the drone away from Dash and prepared to kill the insane drone before it fully converted to a Horde.
But the drone hung loosely into the air, eye’s dark and limbs loose. It was already dead.
Mind numb Twilight dropped the dead insect, which was down rapidly crumpling to dust and rushed to Rainbow who was squirming and hissing on her hospital bed. “Bandages!” Rainbow gasped indicated her dressings, now badly lacerated by the Hives claws. “Take them off! OFF!”
Twilight ripped the bandages apart, if the infection got into Dashes blood stream and took a hold.............
But when Twilight peeled back the last blood stained strip of fabric there was no claw wounds, no bite marks, in fact if she hadn’t know better there seemed to be no evidence that Dash and only a few hours ago had her back nearly completely eviscerated. The skin was smooth and unblemished apart from the rapidly shifting cobweb patterns of green Hive energy dancing juts under the skin.
“Ohh!” Dash gasped. “Tickles, oh...ohhhhh, ahhhh.”
Twilight flattened her head against her friends back and squinted hard as she caught a flicker of movement. The energy under Dash’s was intensifying around her shoulders and two tiny numbs started to protrude from the joint. Dash giggled again from the feeling and the two nubs wiggled and grew a few millimetres.
“Princess Twilight?” A raspy voice sounded behind her. Twilight looked round to see two more Hive standing behind her, their plate sized hands, splayed fingers, lack of secondary limbs and sweeping head crests identified them as Royal Escorts.“We require you to accompany us.”
“Your Queen can manage fine without me.” Twilight replied, “I’m exhausted.” Twilight yawned and turned back to inspect Rainbow again. “I’ve been fighting for three hours straight and just want to make sure my friends are ok and make sure your crazy brother there hasn’t messed Dash up. Go bother Celestia, I keep telling you that she’s in charge.”
“Your friend’s cellular regeneration is stable, she will live.” The left Guard replied. “The Sunborn Princess fate is less certain.
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Several doctors, both Hive and Pony were exiting Celestia’s chamber when Twilight arrived. One of the Hive Medics was carrying a harpoon, smeared with dark crimson blood. The Medic handed the Horde weapon to the Royal guards who immediacy crushed it, hands glowing with green power.
The crowd quickly dispersed leaving Twilight with a single Hive, similar to the Guards but unmistakably female. Twilight bowed and greeted the Hive Battle Queen. “Greetings Queen Elloma-ta.”
“Queen Elloma-ta died five hours ago in combat.” The Hive Queen replied. “I am her cloned replacement; Elloma-ka.”
Twilight looked up and quickly inspected the Hive Queen. She looked identical to the Hive Battle Queen she’d known before but if this one was a clone that would make sense. Twilight did however try to ignore the fact that Elloma-ka was no less than four hours old but apparently fully mature. Twilight may have been thankful that the Hive had come out of nowhere when their insane cousins awoke but there was a lot about them that made Twilight’s brain hurt.
Elloma-ka cocked her head slightly and gave Twilight the equivalent of a telepathic tap on the shoulder. Twilight jerked out of her chain of thought and got down to business. “What happened?”
“The Sunborn was defending our landing zone and cloning pods from the Hoard. Unfortunately these Hoard had evolved to level 5 so were armed with projectile weaponry.”
“They can do that now?”
“Theoretically the Hoard can become advanced as we are within a few weeks once they awake from hibernation… … … … … … … … ” Elloma-ka stared into the space next to Twilights head, finger reflexively twitching. The entire Hive Swarm’s telepathic network was processed and co-ordinated by the Battle Queen and her immediate sub-ordinates. Elloma-ka’s predecessor had often zoned out and even stopped talking mid-sentence. “… … … … We have always stopped them before they reached stage 5 in our universe but your ‘magic’ is accelerating their growth.”
The Hive Queen coughed slightly and a largish flake of chitin fell from her crest. “However, the Sunborn wiped out the entire advanced cultivate before succumbing to her injuries. The recorded memories from the Hive present are…..breath-taking.” Elloma-ka coughed again, growling as more chitin flaked off. “I will attempt to wake the Sunborn, if you wish to speak with her I advice you do so quickly. Any other creature would be long dead by now.”
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Celestia still looked asleep as Twilight tip-toed up to her mentors’ bed. It was deadly quiet in the chamber, thought the distant sounds of battle had been getting progressively quitter since Twilight had arrived in Canterlot. The room had been cleared of medical equipment apart from an IV drip dispensing a gently shimmering liquid and a hulking piece of Hive organic machinery. The Hive machine suddenly juddered, grew some legs and climbed out the window with an apologetic whistle.
Twilight pulled a seat and flopped down next down to Celestia. Sweat was pouring off the white Ailcorns forehead, which Twilight dabbed at with a cloth that had been left on the bedside table. Twilight blew air from her nose and just sat there, staring at Celestia unable to move, unable to speak. Trying to find words for Rainbow had seemed impossible, this felt for all the world like a mighty obsidian cliff face stretching above her.
“You’re not dying.” Twilight whispered. “I know you….can’t just be dying, not today. In the past few days I’ve seen what us Alicorns can be truly capable of and I am frightened Celestia. You’ve always know what to do, I need you to tell me how to use this power at my hooves. So you can’t die today Celestia, I need you, your sister needs you, your people need you.”
This train of thought and babbling went on for a few minutes before coming to an abrupt stop. Twilight leaned back and closed her eyes, embarrassed and frustrated that she couldn’t find the words she wanted, that she was more pleading to the powers-that-be to spare Celestia than find something truly important to say.
“You can’t die.” Twilight repeated again. The concept seemed so weird and foreign…
After all…
“You can’t die, your immortal aren’t you?” Twilight glanced back at her wings. “Does that mean I’m immortal too? Never really had to think about it before.”
Celestia suddenly smiled gently, eyes cracking open and turned her head to look at Twilight. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask that question.” Celestia said, blinking and trying to prop herself up. Twilight gently wrapped her hooves around Celestia, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible. Twilight was torn; wanting so badly to hug Celestia and never let go, but worried that the slightest pressure might snap her in half.
“I can hear the Hoard screaming in my head.” Celestia said, looking fairly woozy as Twilight pulled away. Lines of red suddenly shot up around Celestia’s neck, for a few moment Celestia writhed in pain before the line shrunk back down. Celestia gingerly lifted up the bedcovers and peeked down at her abdomen. Celestia grimaced, retched slightly and dropped the covers, which immediately crawled back up on tiny back legs and tucked itself in.
The two ponies shuddered slightly in unison. Hive bio-tech was very advanced but rather creepy. “Is it bad?” Twilight asked, dreading to think what Celestia had seen under the medical cocoon.
“Pretty bad.” Celestia replied shrugging slightly, voice tired but controlled. “Could you get a candle please? It’s very dark in here.” Twilight stood up and began looking through the draws set against one side of the wall. “I might not survive the night; we have a lot to discuss.”
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(Meanwhile)
Forge was intrigued by Twilights dream, he’d been able to deduce from context in their previous conversations that Twilight hadn’t been born an immortal so still unusual to him that she was still sane. Beings that were born without an upper age limit had a naturally adapted psyche’s to deal with the nature of their existence and cope with outliving virtually everything around you. ‘Mortal’ beings on the other hand who made themselves ‘immortal’ tended to go insane after about four of their normal life spans if they weren't so already.
For that reason Twilight, who had lived millions of times longer than her original unicorn species lifespan and remained sane was a highly mathematically improbable. He was aware that she had been hearing the voices of her long dead friends in her head, but the inexplicable nature of magic gave her some leeway.
“Note;” He thought to himself, “Do not mention that this unit is aware of voices inside Twilight units head, Twilight unit will likely respond negatively.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Twilight sat mesmerised as Celestia held her hoof in the candle, the undulating orange flames lapping like waves over Celestia’s coat. Celestia removed her hoof from the flame, wiped the soot off then presented it back to Twilight.
Twilight leaned in, eyes meticulously working over the patch of skin, but there was no damage. Her coat wasn’t even singed. “How do you do that?”
“How would you do it?”
Twilight was perplexed but quickly answered, “Well, there’s quite a few spells I could use to protect from fire; heat absorbsion, err, ice shield…well I guess a small force field could do it…… wait…” Twilight suddenly looked up as she realised what Celestia was getting at. “Is this how Alicorns are immortal, we cast magic to protect us from everything?”
Celestia smiled warmly from ear to ear. “Well that’s the abbreviated version of it. Our innate magic gives us the ability to automatically create wards to protect us from danger. We can still be hurt and killed, since wards feed directly off magic the damage can outpace the rate of which we can replenish it. And of course wards can be very specific about what they protect you from.”
Celestia grunted and indicated her chest. “If you’re attacked by something outside your knowledge or in a way you’re not expecting then you can be in trouble. But we also have cellular regeneration like nothing else on this planet and our innate magic does extend to broad spectrum shielding and integrity fields, not as effective against any one specific thing but it still makes us incredibly tough.”
Celestia suddenly let out a long hacking cough and went very pail. Twilight suddenly felt very fragile, the Hoard were from a different reality, which meant they were perfectly suited to penetrate Celestia’s wards. Twilight glanced out the window for the moment before turning back to Celestia, there were still a few questions that needed to be asked if Celestia fate was uncertain.
“What about old age?”
“As far as I know there’s no upper age limit. Cellular regeneration pretty much prevent ageing once you reach maturity.” Celestia sighed and looked at the bushel of flowers that had been left on the bedside table. “It is worth noting that we can choose to die and age, with conscious effort you can override your natural instincts. Our immortality is a choice. I strongly suspect that Cadence is going to go that way. Your brothers very…VERY lucky.”
Twilight turned away again and closed her eyes. This was the big question, the one question that had been whispering in the background since the first fateful day she’s opened her eyes and seen the wings on her back. “Celestia, why did you make me an Alicorn? I know Cadence was born as one, so why did you do this to me.”
Celestia started to say something. Stopped. Started again. Flustered and sighed and rolled over. “Well…I don’t want to say destiny, that a bit of a…a… I think the phrase is ‘cop out’? I’ve been looking for a successor for protector of our world for a while. After Sunset Shimmer turned out badly I was starting to get pessimistic, then you came along. And I knew were the one to be princess I could never be.”
“The Princess you could never be…but…what?”
Celestia was starting to look bad, sweat running of her like a leaky tap. “Twilight I wish I could give you clearer answers but what being an Alicorn means to me… its nothing like what I know in my heart you can make it mean. Have you ever heard of the Strait’s Wars or the Zenith Empire?”
“No…should I have?”
“No you shouldn’t of.” Celestia clamped her eyes shut and flinched at the memories. “We did a good job of erasing its traces from history, the last testament to how things were.”
“What do you mean?”
“Twilight, I wasn’t always a princess, in fact…” Celestia leaned into whisper. Twilight could see a lot of pain and sadness in her mentor’s eyes. “Celestia wasn’t the name I was born with, my sister and I chose them after the Straits Wars. There was a time when I wasn’t a very nice pony Twilight, none of us were, and can you image a race of vain and selfish gods among the mortals?”
Celestia suddenly whipped out a hoof and gently stroked Twilights face. Celestia’s eyes had unfocused, the pain forcing her into times gone by “She was so much like you… so good…showed me how wrong we were… what I needed to do……” Celestia began crying and curled up under the bio-cocoon, mind gone into the depths of the past. “I’m sorry Galaxia... you didn’t leave us any choice.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Twilight wandered out of the chamber, chewing her lip in deep concentration. What Celestia had told her would take a while to process but right now there were more immediate concerns. Elloma-ka was leaning against a wall, half obscured by shadows, next to the door while the two Royal Guards fitted extra armour plating over her body. One of them tried to move in front of Twilight but not fast enough to block the view of Elloma-ka’s rapidly deteriorating flesh.
“It’s ok.” The Queen whispered, gently brushing the head of the nervously chittering guard. “You’ve both performed admirably.” The two guards stood eyes dreamy but locked on Elloma-ka. The Queen pressed her fingers against the Guards temples, shutting her eyes in concentration. All three Hive smiled then the two Guards dropped dead, leaving Elloma-ka holding two effervescing spheres of green light.
Twilight stared gobsmacked, unsure what to make of what just happened. Elloma-ka turned to look at Twilight and smiled sadly. “Oh don’t worry, they’re not dead. I’m sending their minds back through the Ansible to our world.” Elloma-ka explained, “Those two are resistant to the degradation you have no doubt seen on other Hive drones.”
Elloma-ka stepped forward into the light revealing that half her face was rotted away. “Few creatures can adapt to survival in parallel dimensions, and our worlds do not even share a common origin....well...err.....you know it is difficult to verbalise. Anyway despite our genetic reinforcements we were never going to last long in this world without piggybacking on the Hoards neural network. Their ‘nightmare’ sustains them, killing them is pushing the nightmare back.”
“It must be a terrible nightmare. No wonder you’re all so suicidal when fighting them, they must really scare you.”
Elloma-ka laughed and shook her head, poise relaxing as she slid down the wall to be level with Twilight. “Oh no, we’re like that normally! It’s a characteristic of any hive-mind race. Though they do scare us” Despite being only a few hours old Elloma-ka suddenly looked very old and tired to Twilight. “Another characteristic that that we don’t always get on with or even like other life forms, you can be so chaotic and disordered. But we do like your race. And I do like you; the Sunborn chose well.”
“Thank you.” Twilight said. She strongly suspected that Elloma-ka had been listening in on her and Celestia’s conversation, but that was probably another habit from living in a race where thoughts are shared.
“Before I go, I have a question.” Elloma-ka said pulling herself back to her feet. “Well not quite a question, could I just observe your reaction to something we found in the Hoard’s neural network?”
Twilight nodded and felt the telepathic probe gently brush against her mind. Elloma-ka suddenly clenched her fists and let out a deep hiss. Twilight recoiled as the telepathic ‘feeling’ signal triggered a rush of emotion and memories. Both Twilight and Elloma-ka staggered as the connection was shut off.
“Last time I felt like that…” Twilight grimaced, “…was when I looked into King Sombra’s door. It showed me my worst nightmare.”
Elloma-ka nodded slowly, a flash of deep concern passing over her ruined face. The Queen straightened up and turned to leave. “Thank you Twilight, I advise you go get some rest, we can handle it from here.”
“Wait, what was that all about?” Twilight gasped, trotting after the Queen. “And I’m not resting whilst you’re out there fighting those abominations.”
“Don’t call them that. They’re insane but there still part of my species.” The Queen said, continuing to walk away. “And you’ve done enough. The battle is approaching endgame, and your people have helped end it a lot earlier than if we were fighting alone. Also you haven’t noticed yet due to the adrenalin but you have numerous broken ribs. Goodbye Twilight, we won’t meet again.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Twilight awoke with a jerk accidently launched herself out of the bed and was sent sailing through Forges inner compartments. She flapped her wings to slow herself down, unfortunately Twilight remembered to late that, that Forge hadn’t pressurised the cabin, so she ended up painfully bashing her wing tips against a door frame.
“Twilight, are you operational?” Forge beamed to her. It was very disconcerting to think she was inside of him, reminded her far too much of being swallowed. Not a pleasant experience. “I require assistance.” Forge continued.
“I’m...better Forge.” Twilight beamed back, restarting her magical impulse spells, “Just point the way out.”
Following a path of strip illuminations Twilight jetted through Forges desolate interior, all unused for millennia before the universe had even begun to end. Looking around Twilight was reminded more of being in ancient ruins than being inside a stomach. Then again she probably counted as an ancient ruin as well.
Twilight popped out of a cargo bay door and flew round to Forges mono-eye, it was the closest thing he had to a face. “Ok Forge what’s them issue?”
“We have reached a crossroads.”
“Sorry. What?”