CHAPTER 5
“We are immortal. Our “gods” disowned us. We must create our own reasons to exist.”
Legion crept silently through the underbrush at the edge of the forest, its tactical cloak keeping it unseen from the searching eyes of the many pony soldiers patrolling the edge of the town. The geth had returned only minutes ago, and it was evident that its ‘sighting’ had had quite the effect on the small town. Where once there were no soldiers visible, Legion now saw hundreds of them roaming the perimeter. Pegasi flew from cloud-to-cloud in the sky, an act which Legion found quite curious, and unicorns and regular ponies stayed in small groups, patrolling the forest.
The addition of hundreds of new guards seemed not to have put a damper on the mood of the town. Even from its further away vantage point, Legion could clearly see ordinary ponies strolling throughout the town, going about their business. The guards seemed to be quite polite to them; that is, they were not subjugating the ponies in any way. Rather, the two parties stayed separate from one another. The guards went on their patrols, and the ponies went about their days. Legion hoped that this was a sign that the ponies were peaceful creatures. However, with no other evidence to back up that conclusion, Legion had to remain cautious.
Legion stopped its observation when it suddenly heard a crack next to it. It whipped its invisible head around, bringing the M-98 Widow to bear, seeking the source of the sound. When it found it, it immediately went completely silent. Standing only a few feet away were three pony guards, one unicorn and two regular. They all stood still, moving their heads and looking around the area. Legion stood perfectly still as well, not wanting to do anything that may draw their attention. The geth made ready to run away when the unicorn locked his eyes onto Legion’s invisible photoreceptor, as though he could tell that it was there.
The unicorn squinted as his white horn suddenly began to glow. He closed his eyes in concentration, then opened them wide as a burst of energy spread out from the horn and passed over the landscape. The energy rushed towards Legion, and Legion was just about to sprint away when the energy wave passed harmlessly beneath its feet. Confused, Legion looked around to see the effect of the energy burst. Beneath it, there suddenly appeared several purple blobs, each roughly matching the shape of an animal. Everywhere that the energy passed over revealed more purple blobs, and each one was an animal shape. The blobs moved, as though they were running away. And when Legion noticed one of the purple blobs scurry up a tree, it realized that that was exactly what they were doing.
Life detection, Legion noted. It would be ineffective against the geth, as whatever technology was used to perform the task seemed only to detect organic tissue, none of which Legion had. Still, Legion found it quite curious. While all previous reconnaissance missions had shown no use of advanced technology, this soldier had just used something that the organic races on the Citadel still were experimenting with. What’s more, it seemed to have come directly from the unicorn’s horn, almost as though the ability was natural… Legion almost came to the conclusion of natural biotics, similar to the abilities of the asari, before realizing that no known function of biotics could reveal life forms. This was either a very advanced form of the ability, or it was something else entirely…
Seemingly satisfied that nothing was there, the three guards turned and moved in the opposite direction, away from Legion. Legion lowered its sniper rifle, then turned back to face the town. Not much had changed, but the geth did notice that several of the guard groups patrolling nearby had all moved off as well, leaving a perfectly clear path from the forest to the town. Checking around it to make sure none of the ponies were looking in its direction, Legion slowly crept from the woods and entered into the small gap of empty land that lay between the forest and the town.
It rushed forward, the tactical cloak beginning to flicker as power was drawn away from the emitters. Fortunately, none of the guards seemed to notice, and Legion successfully made it to the other side, squatting behind a building to let the power generators recharge. With the amount of guards patrolling the town, it was likely that Legion had just trapped itself here for an undetermined period of time. It was going to need all of the power reserves available to it.
When the tactical cloak was sufficiently recharged, Legion crept back out from behind the building, then calculated a path to the water tower it had previously used as an observation point. With any luck, none of the soldiers would have commandeered it. The path calculation complete, Legion set out for its destination, ready to continue reconnaissance.
Twilight Sparkle’s eyes flickered open as she yawned widely, allowing the morning sunlight to pierce her retinas. Very slowly, she sat up in her bed, then hopped out and stretched out her tired legs. Turning to look at the clock, Twilight was happy to find that she still had half an hour before her flying lessons with Rainbow Dash continued, which would hopefully be enough for her to actually have breakfast this time. Trotting into the kitchen, Twilight chose to forgo having a filling breakfast, and instead grabbed a simple protein bar from her pantry. Eating too much would cause cramps during her training, and even more pain was something that the alicorn wanted to avoid.
She lifted the protein bar with her magic and ripped the cover off, disposing of it in the trash can. She wandered back into the main room of the library, eating the very light breakfast, and began to think about the events of the previous day. A new creature had been found, and it was still unclear whether or not it was friendly. The panic that its discovery had created had not been helped when Twilight had informed the citizens of Ponyville that three hundred guards were coming to stay for a while and look out for the creature. But so far, there had been no more sightings of it. It had not quite yet been twenty-four hours since the original sighting, but that hour was fast approaching, and Twilight was still worried that it would make a reappearance.
She swallowed down the last few bites of the protein bar, then glanced at the clock hanging on one of the walls. Her meeting with Dash was in fifteen minutes, so Twilight decided that now would be a good enough time to leave. She stepped out into the cold winter air, which reminded her once again that she still needed to get her coat augmented for use with wings. Shivering at the chilling winds that passed through the town, Twilight set off for the edge of town where Rainbow Dash had anchored her cloud house.
As she walked through the streets, which were just now beginning to show activity, Twilight also took notice of the guards roaming through the streets. While most were focused on the perimeter of the town, several were still checking the interior. The creature had gotten in before, and it could do it again. Fortunately, the guards were all respecting the space of the citizens of Ponyville. They kindly moved out of her way as she walked down the streets, and generally seemed to be trying not to bother anypony.
A few minutes later and Twilight was out of Ponyville, and she began to approach Rainbow Dash’s home. The cyan pegasus was already present beneath her home, the feathers of her wings rustling in the cool air. Her large magenta eyes turned up as they caught the movement of Twilight, and as the young princess drew nearer, Dash leapt into the air and began hovering a few feet off of the ground, her whistle hanging freely around her neck.
“So you actually decided to be on time today,” Dash said jokingly, giving a wry smirk.
“Oh ha-ha,” Twilight fake laughed. “Let’s not forget that you were late our first day!” Dash’s lips turned up in a pouting expression as she lowered back to the ground, her hooves landing softly in the dew-covered grass.
“All right!” she said, changing the subject. “Well, since we didn’t meet yesterday, let’s make sure you haven’t forgotten anything. So drop and give me twenty!” Rolling her eyes at Dash’s attempt at a drill-instructor voice, Twilight lowered to the ground and balanced herself on the tips of her wings, then began doing the wing-ups. They started off difficult, though not as difficult as her first few attempts, and progressively began to get easier. As she finished the twentieth wing-up, Twilight was surprised to find that she had hardly even broken a sweat.
“Well done, Twi,” Dash said, clapping her friend on the back. “I guess just start hovering, then begin to move forward. Let’s make sure you can still do that.” Twilight got back on her hooves and stood up, then started flapping her wings. It was slow at first, but as she built up speed and power, her hooves began to leave the ground. A few seconds later and she was airborne, hovering several feet above the grass and staring down at the satisfied pegasus below her.
“Start moving forward!” Dash reminded the alicorn, who was seemingly in shock that she had gotten up so quickly. The command from Dash broke Twilight’s reverie, and she slowly angled forward, beginning to move ahead.
“Okay,” Dash said as Twilight flew forward. “Now we’re going to try something new. I want you to tilt your wings up just a little bit, and try to gain height while you’re moving. Do it slowly, or you’ll just come to a complete stop.” Twilight did as her friend commanded, slowly tilting her wings up and allowing the wind to pass beneath them, thus causing her to raise in height just a small bit. After she had risen a few more feet she angled her wings back down and levelled out.
“Well done!” Rainbow said. “Alright, come on back down and I’ll explain a few more things to you.” Twilight nodded, but just as she was about to angle her wings in the other direction to lose altitude, she noticed a rustling in the bushes on the edge of the Everfree, just a few hundred meters away. She stopped her forward movement and came to a hover, watching the area where she had seen the rustling.
“Hey…” Twilight said. “Did you see that?”
“See what?” Dash asked, launching herself up and coming to hover next to Twilight. “I don’t see anything.”
“There was some rustling in the bushes,” Twilight explained, pointing to where she had seen the disturbance. “Right over there, at the edge of the Everfree.” Dash squinted her eyes, but after a few moments had passed and she didn’t see anything, she turned to face her friend.
“It’s probably nothing,” she said. “Besides, there are a few guard patrols in that area. If that creature is coming back, they’ll find it.” Twilight stayed hovering for a moment longer, still watching the area, before she sighed and lowered back to the ground, followed by Dash.
“Okay,” the pegasus continued. “Now let’s talk about flying against the wind…”
Legion clambered up the ladder to the top of the water tower, being as careful as possible not to make any noise on the rusted ladder. It was clear that the metal was quite old, and looked to be under threat of collapsing any day now. Legion hoped that would not happen while it was climbing. As Legion neared the top of the water tower, it poked its head over the edge of the ladder, looking out for guards. It appeared that the tower was not being used by any pony guards as a vantage point, which seemed foolish to Legion. The tower provided perfect sightlines across the entirety of the town, not using it seemed wasteful.
Legion climbed up the rest of the way and paused, dropping the tactical cloak to let the emitters recharge. However, Legion did not let them recharge all the way, as its high up perch left it open to being discovered by any of the hundreds of pony guards below, or pegasi in the sky. Reengaging the tactical cloak, Legion began walking around the rim of the water tower, using its advanced photoreceptor to map out a 3D representation of the town to assist in reconnaissance.
Although the geth did not possess any form of motion tracker or life-signs detector, Legion could still clearly make out the guards in the crowds of ponies that bustled in the streets below. They all wore reflective golden armor, which seemed rather ineffective to the geth. It was not very thick, offered poor protection around the stomach, and shined very brightly, making stealth a difficult task. This led Legion to believe that the armor had not actually been tested in a very long time, which was perhaps another indication at peace. That or they had conquered the entire continent and did not have to worry about uprisings. Either situation was possible. However, Legion was beginning to lean more in the direction of “peaceful”. The actions of the citizens did not indicate a fear of the guards, and the guards did not assert their authority at the citizens. They each maintained a mutual respect for one another, which Legion hoped could extend to non-ponies as well. Even so, Legion still wanted to be as careful as possible, lest it risk jeopardizing the mission.
Quietly, Legion deployed the M-98 Widow from its back and propped it up against the railing of the water tower, then peered down the scope to get a better look at the further-away sections of the town. And not too far away from where Legion had left the forest, it found something quite curious. Hovering only a few dozen meters above the ground was a cloud. This was not necessarily unusual, except that it seemed to actually be several clouds grouped together, all joined by flowing liquid rainbows. Windows were set into parts of the cloud, and there was even a front door. Beneath the cloud-home was a cyan pegasus with a prismatic mane, and next to it was the lavender alicorn that Legion had seen quite a bit of. If Legion’s observational skills were anything to go off of, and they were, then it appeared that the blue one was teaching the lavender one how to use its wings. Whereas the blue one was flying with ease, the lavender one was clearly struggling to stay in the air for very long.
Legion continued to watch the two ponies for several more minutes, occasionally taking its eye away from the scope to check for any curious soldiers. However, whatever the two ponies were doing, it seemed to be coming to an end. The lavender one waved goodbye, and the cyan one flew up to the cloud, somehow managing to step on the surface of it, then opened the door and disappeared inside. Legion followed the lavender one with its scope as it left the scene, disappearing behind buildings as it reentered the town. Curiously, Legion pointed the scope towards the town center, and as it had expected, the lavender alicorn entered it a few minutes later, heading straight for the house built into the tree. It too disappeared inside, but Legion was able to see a small amount of movement through some of the windows.
Setting a new objective for itself, Legion packed up the sniper rifle and placed it back on its back. The programs within the mobile platform then struggled to achieve consensus, deciding on the next move. Only a few seconds later, which may as well have been hours for the debating programs, they all came to an agreement: the lavender one was clearly important, as it had been observed involving itself in many things throughout the town over the past few days, including meeting with the leadership, and sitting amongst them. It had also been wearing a crown, possibly meaning that it could be royalty as well. If Legion was to determine the peacefulness of a civilization, then the best place to look was at the royalty. Using the 3D map that it had created not long before, Legion began climbing back down the ladder, and set a waypoint for the tree-house. It was time for some much more close-range reconnaissance…
“Spike, I’m home!” Twilight yelled into the library as she entered the door, closing it shut behind her. “Spike?” There was a pause before the dragon trotted into the room from the basement, carrying a feather duster with him.
“Hey, Twilight,” he said. “How was flying practice?”
“Good, Spike,” Twilight replied, flexing her wings out. “I’m making some good progress, according to Rainbow Dash.”
“Cool,” Spike said, only half-interested. As he walked over to the bookshelves and began dusting them, he pointed a claw at the door to the kitchen. “You got another letter. I left it on the kitchen table.” Twilight turned and trotted into the kitchen, then approached the table, grabbing the rolled-up scroll with her telekinesis. She carefully removed the wax seal that kept it closed shut, then unfurled the scroll so it was hovering flat in front of her.
Twilight Sparkle,
I understand that the guards my sister sent to you arrived yesterday, and you have already issued orders to them. While I have the utmost faith in both your ability and theirs, I stress the importance of having some proper guards to take watch over the night. It is for this reason that I have allocated two hundred of my own guards to dispatch to Ponyville later this day. They shall hopefully arrive by nightfall, and they can relieve my sister’s guards until the morning. I understand that three hundred guards is already quite a large number for Ponyville to support, but it is very important that this creature be found, and if it uses the cover of night to sneak back in, my guards are much more likely to discover it than Celestia’s.
With hope,
Princess Luna
Twilight rolled the scroll back up and sent a small burst of magic to it. It disappeared with a pop, having been sent to the drawer of her desk that she reserved for all letters sent from one of the princesses. The young alicorn stepped back out into the main room of the library, then took a seat in the couch, sighing. Spike took a brief respite from his cleaning and sat by the pony.
“What’s up?” he said. “More business about that thing from yesterday?” Twilight paused before answering.
“… Yeah,” she said, turning to face the dragon. “Princess Luna is sending two hundred of her guards to take the night shift…”
“Two hundred?” Spike asked, surprised. “But Princess Celestia already sent three hundred, isn’t that enough?”
“I thought it would be, Spike,” Twilight replied. “But the princesses seem to really want to capture this creature. They both were under quite a bit of stress when they came to yesterday’s celebration, I could see it. Something else must be going on…”
“Don’t worry, Twilight,” Spike said, standing back up and gripping the feather duster. “I’m sure everything is fine. If that thing tries to come back here, the guards will find it with no problem. We’ll be okay…” He walked away from the couch and continued dusting the bookshelves, while Twilight continued sitting for a few minutes, just thinking to herself.
It seemed that there were never calm times for her. Ever since she had moved to Ponyville, after the banishing of Nightmare Moon and the freeing of Princess Luna, her daily life had become a constant source of adventure. Some of it was fun, some of it not as much. As for this particular creature, Twilight did not know which category it fit into. With any luck she would never find out, and she could simply live like a normal princess, dealing with some trivial matters rather than something where the fate of Equestria hung in the balance.
Sighing, Twilight stood up and moved for the stairs at the back of the library. She slowly plodded up each step, becoming more and more tired as she reached the summit.
“Spike, I’ll be in my room,” she called back down the stairs. “If you need me, just knock…”
“Okay!” Spike called up after her as she disappeared into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Twilight immediately moved for her bed, grabbing a book with her telekinesis and taking it with her. She settled on top of the covers, not bothering with getting underneath. She lay down, crossing her hindlegs atop one another, then opened the book at the last point she left off at, and continued reading…
Legion slowly crept closer and closer towards the tree house, still looking for an easy entrance. As far as the geth could tell, there were only two entrances: one door leading to a balcony on the upper levels of the tree, and the main door out front. The balcony door was too high up for Legion to reach without making a lot of noise, and the front door would give the geth away far too easily. It was almost resigned to simply wait until nightfall where it could sneak in far more easily, but it seemed that a stroke of luck had come to the geth.
Three ponies rounded a corner and entered into the town center. Two of them were recognized instantly, but one seemed to be a new face. At the head of the three was the cyan pegasus from earlier that day, and taking up the rear was the yellow pegasus from several days before. In the middle was a pink normal pony with a large, puffy mane, and what appeared to be a tattoo of balloons on its flank. Upon closer investigation, the other two ponies had tattoos as well. The cyan one was a rainbow lightning bolt, and the yellow one was three pink butterflies.
Legion had only had close contact to a pony once, and that was its initial scan of the yellow pegasus. Even then, it had not been from an angle where the flank was exposed, so the strange ‘tattoo’ had gone unnoticed. As Legion looked around the town center, it noticed that all of the ponies had these flank tattoos, and each one was different. What they were, Legion could not even begin to guess. It hypothesized some sort of cultural tradition or rite of passage, but neither seemed to make logical sense. Why they would willingly mark themselves permanently Legion did not know. But this species was rather confusing to the geth. Perhaps, if it was able to establish peaceful contact, it would be able to find out.
The three ponies approached the door to the tree and pushed it open, disappearing inside. Fortunately for Legion, they did not bother to close the door behind them, as they were likely just dropping by. Quickly, the geth snuck in through the now-open passageway and into the tree…
“Twilight, are you here?” Rainbow Dash called into the large library, attempting to find the location of her friend. Instead of Twilight, she found Spike, her dragon assistant, dusting bookshelves. At the arrival of the new ponies, Spike turned around and approached them.
“Hey guys,” he said. “Twilight just went upstairs, she’s pretty tired. I think the past few days have taken a lot out of her.”
“Oh dear,” Fluttershy said quietly. “Well, if she’s tired, we can always come back some other time…”
“That won’t be necessary, girls,” Twilight said, emerging from the top of the stairs and trotting down. She reached the ground floor and trotted up to her friends, smiling wearily. “How can I help you?”
“We were just headed down to Sweet Apple Acres,” Dash answered. “Applejack has some new cider mixture that she’s considering using next year, and wants us to come try it out, so we figured we’d ask if you wanted to come too.”
“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie shouted excitedly, which was not abnormal for the earth pony. “Come on Twilight! It’ll be fun!”
“Well, I guess so…” Twilight answered. “You don’t mind looking after the library for a little longer, do you Spike?”
“Nah,” Spike said, waving a claw. “I’ve got this. You go ahead.” Twilight smiled in thanks at the young dragon, and the four mares all turned to depart. They left through the still-open doorway, the purple aura of Twilight’s magic closing it after they all exited. It slammed shut, cutting off the steady supply of cool air that had been flowing into the main room and causing it to settle throughout the home. Spike sighed, grabbed the feather duster, and continued his cleaning…
Legion watched as the four ponies left the tree/home, all of them conversing in their unfamiliar language. After they shut the door, effectively sealing the geth inside until further notice, Legion turned its attention to the purple lizard creature who had remained behind. It let out a sigh and grabbed a pink feather duster, then continued with the task it had been doing when Legion had entered: dusting bookshelves. Legion briefly contemplated the role of the creature, wondering if it was a slave, or a servant, or just someone else who happened to live here. Until it got a better grasp of their language, Legion would not be able to know.
The brief conversation that the four ponies had held was a perfect opportunity for Legion to run the translation program held within its omni-tool, but it could not use the device without lowering the tactical cloak. However, this building seemed to serve as some form of library, as it was filled with massive shelves containing hundreds, if not thousands, of books. Of course, Legion could not simply take a book while the lizard was present. It would no doubt be curious about the presence of a floating book, and that would blow the geth’s fragile cover. Deciding to look elsewhere, Legion turned to the stairs at the back of the room and advanced toward them, being careful not to step on anything that could draw attention to the unit. Taking great care to remain unheard, Legion crept silently up the wooden stairs, soon coming to a short hallway with doors to three more rooms.
Curiously, Legion approached the first of the three doors and quietly turned the knob, pushing it open to reveal the room beyond. At the opposite end of the room, on a raised platform, sat a small bed. Set into the walls of the platform were even more bookshelves, all of them stocked full with large novels. On the wall adjacent to the bed was a desk with several pieces of parchment on it, and a quill sitting in an inkwell at the back. The rest of the room seemed to be random clutter, assorted trinkets that the owner had collected over the years. Moving as quietly as possible, Legion approached one of the many bookshelves and grabbed a random tome from it, flipping open to a random page to observe the print.
As expected, it was totally alien to the geth. The translation software would also be useless on it, as it could only translate spoken words. Without that prior knowledge, Legion would have no way to understand the writing. But it still flipped through the book, trying to find some clue as to what it was about. Every few pages was an illustration, most of them crude drawings of stars and solar systems. This led the geth to believe that it was an astronomy textbook. Whatever it was, it was horribly inaccurate. It showed all solar systems as being geocentric, which was accurate for this system, but not for all of the others throughout the galaxy.
Legion put the book back where it had found it, then reached for another section of the bookshelf. It grabbed another book at random and pulled it away from the shelf, then once again flipped open to a random page. This one appeared to be geared towards botany, as it was filled to the brim with pictures of flora from around the continent.
Legion continued the process of randomly picking books and selecting pages to look over for another several minutes, before it suddenly heard the sound of something walking up the stairs. Legion quickly put the current book that it held, which it had concluded was a narrative, back onto the shelf before it stealthily moved across the room, close to the entrance. The door was pushed open, and in walked the purple lizard that Legion had seen before. Not taking any chances, Legion deployed the sniper rifle on its back and aimed it for the creature’s head, prepared to fire at a moment’s notice.
Fortunately the lizard took no notice of the flickering of light standing in the corner by the door, and instead it advanced further into the room, grabbing a thin book off of a table on the other side of the room. It then settled in a small basket with a blue blanket, before it flipped open the book and began to read. Quietly, Legion exited through the open door and moved to the next room, continuing reconnaissance…
Princess Celestia moved sullenly down the halls of Canterlot Castle, going over in her mind the news that had just been delivered. Only a few hours ago, a team of specialized medical ponies (along with several squads of Nighthawk soldiers) had arrived at the frontier settlement of Westrock to judge the extent of the illness. Upon arriving they had unfortunately found that all of the town’s one hundred inhabitants had been exposed to the mysterious illness and were exhibiting symptoms. To make matters even worse, more and more ponies were disappearing, and the culprits were still unclear. Celestia still firmly believed that the changelings were responsible, but she would not know until the next attack.
Also somewhat troubling to the Princess was that the medical ponies had yet to identify the source of the illness. If it was a virus or a bacteria, the ponies would have discovered it very quickly. The medics were still running tests to see if it was a genetic illness, but there was no evidence pointing to that being the case. As such, Celestia was confronted with the very real possibility that this disease could be something entirely new.
A few moments later, Celestia came to her destination: the stairs leading to her private quarters. Both of the princesses had their bedrooms at the top of two separate towers, a decision which Celestia was beginning to regret. As she trudged tiredly up the stairs, her legs threatened to give out from under her. With a spark of magic from her horn, the princess disappeared from the winding staircase and emerged in her bedroom, where she immediately collapsed onto the bed.
In between dealing with the ponies of Equestria, receiving the news from Westrock, and deciding what to do about the disease, her day had been very long, and very draining. But she forced herself back to her hooves, knowing that her day was not yet over. Celestia tiredly walked to her writing desk and took a seat, withdrawing a piece of parchment and a quill from a drawer. She laid the parchment flat on the desk, then dipped the quill into an inkwell, and began writing…
To whom it may concern,
As per the Equestrian Disease Outbreak Protection Act of 1214 FD, signed into law by the eighty-first Equestrian Council, the town of Westrock is hereby quarantined, and is to be made off-limits to all who are not already present. Should any pony choose to ignore this law, the Royal Equestrian Guards stationed at the settlement of Westrock have the express-written consent of the ninety-third Equestrian Council to use any force deemed necessary to keep the individual out.
Signed,
Princess Celestia
December 18th, 2003 Fall of Discord
Replacing the cap on the inkwell, Celestia rolled the letter up and sealed it shut with the royal seal, then sent it on its way with a spark of magic. With any luck, that would give the medical ponies at Westrock the peace and quiet that they needed to source the disease, and develop a cure. Of course, as long as the diamond dog (or changeling) incursions continued, that peace was going to be difficult to come by.
But now, Celestia found herself with a rare occurrence: her schedule for the rest of the day was clear. Smiling, she climbed into her large bed, removing her crown, chestplate, and horseshoes as she did, then pulled the blanket over herself. There were enough troubles in the world today, but for now, they could wait. For now, Celestia just wanted to catch up on her sleep…
Legion exited the third room of the upper level of the tree/home and reentered the hallway beyond. Its reconnaissance of the remaining two rooms had not had much luck. One appeared to have been a study or office, as it was full of scrolls. Legion had unrolled a few and, based on the format, determined that they were letters. The second room had just been a bathroom.
Moving quietly to avoid disturbing the lizard in the bedroom, Legion crept back down the stairs into the main room of the home. From what it could see, the main room branched off into a kitchen/eating area and another bedroom, but that was it. Just as Legion was about to go into sleep mode and wait for something else to happen, its invisible optic moved across another door, set into the back of the stairs.
The geth quietly opened this door, which revealed another stairwell, this one going down. Legion stepped into the stairwell, closing the door behind it, and moved down the stairs until it entered a large circular room, the diameter of which matched the main room above. It was filled with all sorts of various items, some of it appearing to be pieces of machinery. In the middle sat a workbench, and on that were several construction tools.
Legion was about to dismiss the tools to begin examining the machinery, when suddenly it got an idea. It was unable to run the translation program because that required usage of the omni-tool. It was unable to use the omni-tool because that would override the tactical cloak. But if Legion could make alterations so that the omni-tool would function without actually displaying the physical representation, it would be able to run the translation software while remaining invisible.
Moving quickly, Legion disabled the tactical cloak and approached the work bench, choosing to remain standing over it instead of sitting in the small stool available. It placed its left hand, palm facing up, on the workbench, then grabbed a flathead screwdriver with the right hand.
Quickly and quietly, Legion used the rusting screwdriver as a wedge to pry open a hole between two parts of the synthetic muscle tissue on the outside of the forearm, beneath which was the omni-tool microchip. The synthetic tissue was strong and durable, but designed to be flexible to give additional dexterity to the geth, so creating a gap wide enough was not a difficult task. As it pried open a gap, the screwdriver slipped and sliced into the tissue, leaking some white conductive fluid out and onto the head of the screwdriver. The breach quickly sealed itself, and Legion was able to continue working.
As soon as the gap was created, Legion set aside the screwdriver and upped the brightness on its photoreceptor to use it as a directional flashlight. The light illuminated the hole that had been created, and granted Legion an unobstructed view of the microchip. Very carefully, Legion removed the chip, set it on the top of the workbench, then began to make its modifications…
“Bye, girls!” Twilight called from her front door, waving a hoof goodbye to her three friends. Pinkie bounced away happily, while Fluttershy had to physically drag Rainbow Dash out of the town center and towards her cloud house. The cyan pegasus had had just a little too much of Applejack’s new cider to drink, which to Twilight was perfectly understandable. The new formula had been delicious, but Twilight was intelligent enough to know when to stop. Fluttershy had been on the same boat as Twilight, and Pinkie seemed immune to the effects of the beverage.
Looking up at the sky, Twilight realized just how late it had become. While there still was a modicum of sunlight streaming over the horizon, stars were starting to blink into existence as Luna’s moon rose to the sky. Twilight turned and opened the door to her library with her magic, then stepped inside, savoring the warmth.
As winter came closer and closer, the nights became even colder. It had gotten to the point that Twilight had resorted to using a heating spell to keep her warm during the walk back home. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were not as adversely affected, as pegasi had a natural resistance to extreme cold. And Pinkie Pie was just Pinkie Pie.
“Spike!” Twilight called into the empty main room of the library. “I’m home!” A moment later, Twilight heard the sound of Spike’s claws as they walked through the upstairs hallway, then the dragon came into view as he began walking down the stairs.
“Hey, Twilight,” he said. “How was it?”
“Very good!” the alicorn replied. “Applejack says she’s going to start selling it next year.”
“Nice,” Spike said indifferently. “So should I get started with dinner?”
“You can go ahead, but I’m not quite hungry yet,” Twilight replied. “Plus, I’ve got some reading to do. I’ll be upstairs.”
“Alright,” Spike said as he began to walk towards the kitchen. Just as Twilight was about to start climbing up the stairs, Spike turned and faced the alicorn.
“Oh, by the way, one of the screws on the lamp is loose,” he said. “Just thought you might like to know.”
“Thanks, Spike,” Twilight said. She turned away from the stairs and instead moved towards the basement door. She turned the knob with her telekinesis and pushed the door open, then began walking down the stairs…
Very carefully, Legion lowered the now-modified microchip back into its housing beneath its forearm, trying not to damage any of the pins on the underside of the chip. As soon as it was back in the housing Legion lightly pushed on it until it made a click, signaling that it was secure. Just to be safe, Legion quickly began running diagnostics on the omni-tool. As it had intended, Legion was now able to access the functions of the omni-tool right on its HUD, rather than requiring the holographic representation that organics preferred. Now all it needed was something to seal the gap that had been made…
Legion scanned the room for any sort of tape or adhesive, while also considering escape methods. As it considered possibilities, the blue eye passed over a thick roll of duct tape, which the geth deemed sufficient to perform the task required of it. Legion picked up the roll and pulled off a piece that was about a foot long. It returned to the workbench and placed one end of the tape on one side of the gap, then wrapped it around several times until the length of tape had been used up. While the synthetic muscle tissue would return to its original shape eventually, Legion preferred that it happen quickly. Because the tape was holding it in place, it would effectively expedite the process.
Just as Legion finished with the tape, it suddenly heard the sound of the basement door swinging open. Activating the tactical cloak, Legion quickly darted out of the center of the room and took cover behind one of the various pieces of machinery just as the purple alicorn began walking down the stairs. It approached the workbench and reached for the screwdriver, when suddenly it paused. Its large purple eyes squinted at the screwdriver, as though it was examining the tool. Legion activated the short-range zoom function on its HUD and also began to examine the screwdriver, trying to find what the pony had seen.
On the tip of the screwdriver, and a little bit on the handle, was the white conductive fluid used by geth to transfer energy throughout the unit. In its haste to finish the modifications to the omni-tool microchip, Legion had neglected to clean off the screwdriver to eliminate any evidence of it ever being there. The alicorn looked around the basement, confused, but then simply shrugged and grabbed a dirty rag.
Of course, ‘grabbed’ was not the most accurate term. What the alicorn seemed to actually be doing was a very precise form of telekinesis. Biotics had limited telekinesis abilities, and even then it was not accurate at all. Lifting and manipulating a rag, then leading it to clean off a screwdriver, was something that most organic biotics could only dream of.
The purple alicorn discarded the dirty rag, then picked the screwdriver up with the same form of telekinesis, before it turned and exited the basement. A few seconds later the door slammed shut, and Legion heard the sound of hooves walking on the upper floor. Pausing to make sure that the pony was gone, Legion stepped out from behind the piece of machinery, still hidden by the tactical cloak.
As long as that pony was here, Legion was not comfortable with leaving the basement. Too many things could go wrong that could lead to its discovery once again. Instead, Legion moved to the edge of the room that was most shrouded in shadow, then deactivated the tactical cloak. If that pony returned, it would likely mistake the hibernating geth as just another piece of machinery, or it would not notice it at all. Legion quietly folded up into the compact form and deactivated the blue photoreceptor, causing its world to plunge into darkness.
Just before the rest of the programs went into sleep mode, Legion quickly set an alarm to reactivate it in eight hours. That would be very early in the morning, and hopefully the pony and lizard would both be asleep. Then, the next day, Legion could continue reconnaissance, and finally begin getting translations from the creatures. If all went well, then all it would need was one day for the translation software to run. One day, and it could officially make first contact.
Princess Luna stood on the balcony joined to her bedroom, looking out over Equestria as the moon rose high into the sky. At these higher altitudes, the normally cold air was multiplied by several times, dropping the temperatures of Canterlot to sub-zero. But for Luna, a simple warming spell was no difficult task. The cold air was abated by the field of warmth that surrounded the princess of the night, keeping her perfectly comfortable at her high up perch.
This night had not been an easy one. Almost as soon as she woke up to assume her duties, she had been filled in on the events of the day. The arrival of the ponies at Westrock, and their discovery that all had been infected, had been the most important piece of information delivered to her. The discovery troubled her, and quite frankly, it scared her. That the ponies did not even know the source of the illness was troubling, but also troubling was that her sister had had no choice but to enforce the Equestrian Disease Outbreak Protection Act.
Accompanying the team of medical specialists were several squads of Luna’s elite soldiers, the ‘Nighthawks’. They prided themselves with being the best of the best, being able to move from place to place unseen under the cover of darkness. A single squadron could wreak havoc on an international scale. If the changelings were the true culprits behind the abductions at Westrock, they would find out.
A knock at her door ended Luna’s time watching over Equestria, as she knew that now she must attend the Night Court. The probability of anypony actually showing up was slim to none, but still she made a point of going every night. On the way out of her bedroom she grabbed a history novel from her bookshelf, and then opened the door where there were two guards waiting for her. At her presence they both bowed, then turned and led her down the short hallway to the stairwell.
As they walked the route to the throne room, Luna’s mind also began to wander to the strange creature that they had encountered in Ponyville. The moment she saw it she had gotten a horrible feeling. It was not one that she could easily interpret, all she knew was that it was not supposed to be. And yet it was, and she had seen it. And though it had run off, Luna had a sinking feeling in her that believed they would be seeing more of that creature.
After several more minutes of walking, Luna entered the throne room and approached her throne. As she had expected, nopony was present to speak with her. Sighing, Luna flipped open her history book, and continued to read…
Light flooded Legion’s photoreceptor as it reactivated, and an internal alarm rang, indicating that eight hours had gone by. Quietly, before it fully reactivated, Legion gazed across the basement, looking for any forms of life. Confident that it was alone, Legion completely unfolded back into its normal form, and reactivated the tactical cloak. The cloak emitters had had more than enough time to recharge to full power during the sleep cycle, so Legion walked up the stairs and opened the door to the main floor with no reservations.
As it had expected, no living beings were present in the main room. It was incredibly dark, as the only source of light was from the moon, which shone brightly through the window. Now that Legion was clear of the basement, it would have to wait again. Though this time, it couldn’t risk going into sleep mode and having the emitters fail sometime during the night. If that happened, then the first thing that the pony would see when it came down in the morning would be a seven foot tall synthetic standing dormant in the center of the room. Instead, Legion was simply going to have to remain active through the night, fully cloaked in the main room. Once the pony came down in the morning it would be able to run the translation program, and begin to gain an understanding, albeit a rudimentary one, of their language.
Moving to a corner of the room, Legion squatted down and deactivated the cloak, deciding that it would be able to reactivate it manually when the pony came down. Then, with nothing left to do for at least the next five or so hours, Legion stared out into the middle of the room, beginning its long and uneventful wait…