‘I need to find my armor,’ StarChaser thought, ‘I don’t care what it takes to get it back, I will find it. If it’s within 1,000 miles my implant should be able to locate it, but I won’t be able to interact with it unless I get that helmet on my head.’
After completing their training, every magitech pilot gets implanted with a microcomputer to help them interact with their suit. Using this implant, their suits literally become a part of them, if not physically connected. This implant also allows pilots to locate their armor so long as it’s within approximately 1,000 miles, after that all they will get from their implant is static. Within 10 feet they can remotely interact with the suit’s onboard computers to a limited degree, and when wearing it, the pilots can control every controllable aspect of the suit.
‘I hope I can locate it before I get into trouble for leaving through the window,’ StarChaser thought as he opened said window, ‘Because if that Alicorn gets mad, I will NEED that armor to even think about surviving…’
Taking a deep breath, he launched himself out of the room and into the clear night sky.
‘This place is BIG!’ StarChaser thought as he flew in the general direction that his implant was telling him his suit was, unfortunately that was right at the huge palace where he assumed the Alicorn ruled from. ‘Assuming that Alicorns are still the highest ranking ponies, of course it probably wouldn’t be that bad if an Earth Pony were in charge.’
Utilizing the un-suited training that was a part of the pilot training program, he managed to slip by the guards and into the castle itself.
‘Well, no turning back now,’ he thought as he turned towards the nearest staircase that lead down. ‘I really hope that my suit still has power, I don’t want to have to use my own aura to power it; that hurts.’
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he almost immediately had to go partially back up the stairs when the glow of a torch heralded the coming of a guard. He barely re-entered the shadows when a white earth pony in golden armor walked past the staircase that he was hiding in.
‘Hm… I would have thought that the guards belonging to a purple Alicorn would be more… purple. Maybe there is more than one Alicorn around here, and that one wasn’t as high up as the actual ruler, that would explain why she showed up…’
After waiting for about 15 minutes to memorize the guard’s paths, he crept out of his hiding place and, moving from shadow to shadow, made his way towards his armor.
‘Why isn’t it called a suit?’ StarChaser wondered to himself as he snuck through the lower levels. ‘If it were up to me they would be called ‘Exo-suits’, that just sounds cooler.’
After a couple of close calls, he finally reached a door where his implant told him his armor was behind.
‘It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to see what is inside that room before I enter it,’ StarChaser thought as he used his implant to remotely activate his suit, ‘after all, I wouldn’t want to find out that that Alicorn was on the other side of that door.’
After a concerning long boot-up time, his vision suddenly shifted to see the inside of the room from his helmet’s view point. ‘Hm… the room looks clear, now if only I could turn my ‘head’,’ StarChaser thought as he mentally deactivated the remote viewing feature.
Taking one last look around to make sure that no guards were coming, he opened the door and slipped inside.
The room looked like some sort of lab, with a table in the center with his armor resting on it. On a separate table rested his helmet, the lights on it weakly glowing.
Throwing stealth to the wind, StarChaser quickly stepped up to his helmet and quickly put it on his head.
“Magitech armor mark V activating, Welcome back… StarChaser… Energy core… at 0%... charge, emergency reserves at… 5%... warning… system diagnostics aborted due to critical power levels… emergency recharge required… do you wish… to continue…”
It took a few seconds for StarChaser to realize that he had been asked for confirmation. Cringing in anticipation for what was about to happen he stated “Confirmed, begin emergency recharge.”
It felt like he was being drained by a Darkling, but instead of emotions being sapped, it was his own strength being pulled away from him. It only lasted for a few seconds, but that was a few seconds too long for him.
“Emergency recharge complete, emergency reserves at 50%, energy core at 0% charge, shielding offline, thaumic boosters offline, analyzing current situation,” The AI stated.
“Well, this is new…” StarChaser muttered.
“Unknown location, it has been over 3,000 years since last activation, diplomacy highly recommended.”
“Wait, over 3,000 years!!!” StarChaser shouted.
“Confirmed, after you were put into stasis, this platform was mostly unaffected by the stasis spell. As most of this platform’s functions where not needed they were turned off to preserve energy. Thus the energy core lasted for about 3,001 years. It was at this time that the energy core ran out of power and I was forced to shut down to prevent critical memory loss, unfortunately this meant that I was unable to continue to keep track of time.”
“I… 3,000 years… no… that means that… that StarLight is… gone…”
“… Confirmed, the possibility that StarLight survived is… all but nonexistent.”
StarChaser didn’t notice as the purple Alicorn along with a full squad of guards burst into the room. Nor did he notice when the Alicorn, upon seeing that he was in shock, ordered the guards to gently lead him to a room or that she allowed him to keep his helmet. Not even when the guards had lead him to a room did he notice anything. All he knew was that the only Pony he truly loved was long dead, and he hadn’t been there for her…