From the Journal of Twilight Sparkle:
I thought the Dogs would do the usual thing and take us to one cell where we could plot an easy escape. For the second time today, I was wrong. They almost did, but an underling informed our jailor he was violating ‘protocol 36’, and we were quickly split up two per cell block.
Their cells were much more secure than those used years ago when Rarity had been captured. That made sense, the mine was still expanding back then. It was much more developed now.
Each cell was big enough for one pony. It’s door was well constructed, and a ward prevented you from reaching through the bars or using magic in your cell. It was a good ward too, I could see the one on the cell opposite my own. The etched thaumaturgic circuit was fed by multiple charged gemstones just above the door. It would be nearly impossible to break out, but not impossible.
The bare stone walls were mostly sandstone, which couldn't be avoided in this region. The doors hinges were on the outside, but I could see the connection points on the cell opposite my own. If I was reading the ward correctly the force field was cast on the door, not the space where the door was. I could chip the hinges free with a hoof in a few hours, push the door down and be on my way.
Unfortunately, I was still tired, hungry, and low on magic. Escape would be pretty tricky in my condition, especially without help. I would have to free the others too. Which is why breaking the door down was my backup plan. Like it or not, I had to trust the magus’s deal first.
The sound of a key rattling in a lock down the hallway made my ears perk. I had been a few hours since I had been locked in my cell. Maybe whatever the Dogs were up to was over and we could be released now.
A moment later the Magus trotted down the cell block towards me. She was carrying somepony in her magic, a grey unicorn mare, fairly young but certainly an adult. “Dinky!” I gasped in shock as I recognized her.
The Magus looked towards my cell as I gasped. “Ah! There you are. I was wondering if you knew this mare. She’s quite talented, I thought she might be your student.”
“What have you done to her?” I demanded through clenched teeth.
“A stun spell, though admittedly I put a little too much power into it. I was just a little upset at the time. Understandably so if I do say myself. Death by lightning is the worst thing to revive from. Every single muscle aches for an hour afterwards.” she informed setting Dinky down gently on the floor.
My eyes widened in shock, “She killed you?” I simply couldn’t believe that. Dinky was interesting and eccentric but she wasn’t a killer.
“No, two of your guards did, but she punched the hole they used in my defenses.” The Magus sat down facing me. “She’s rather impressive, you shouldn’t waste her potential. Equestria could use more good mages.”
“What do you care about Equestria? You tried to take it over in the past, and you kill ponies now!” I growled.
“What do I care?” The Magus exclaimed incredulously. “Princess, you insult my honor! I have literally bound my soul to this land! I have sworn blood oaths and sacrificed aspects of my own consciousness as parts of deals for the power to protect everypony in Equestria. We didn’t try to take over Equestria, it was ours! You overthrew us, you made Celestia into a true sovereign, she is not capable of that on her own. That’s why we existed!”
“Celestia is an excellent ruler!” I scoffed.
“Yes, she is, for domestic affairs. Celestia is a pacifist and an idealist, she can’t understand that sometimes violence is the only option. She will destroy this kingdom without the security we provided it. Why do you think we spent so many resources controlling what she knew of the outside world? She made a utopia, we kept it safe… You fought the Arc. The world is evil, ponies would have never survived without an equal evil protecting them.”
“I have never believed that story.” I said rolling my eyes, “Luna understands threats, sure Celestia can be too diplomatic sometimes, but with her sister at her side this kingdom can survive anything. Even you!”
“I hope so.” the Magus said sadly. She stayed quiet for a few long minutes before opening the cell across from me with her magic and setting Dinky’s unconscious body inside. “I’m not the threat to Equestria. Nor are you. In fact, I was bluffing when I said I would kill you before.”
“What? Why?” I asked.
“I would have knocked you unconscious. You may think I mean this nation harm but I do not. Equestraia needs you. You did what it took to defeat the Arc for good, few ponies could bring themselves to do what you did.” She answered at last.
That caught my attention. She admired me, I could use that to bring her onto my side… Unless it was a trick. “You know, everypony deserves a second chance. We could be friends-”
“No.” She shook her head sharply, “We can never be friends. We are not so different you and I, but our differences define us. You would imprison a murderer and hope he repents. This is foolish, you make him repent. You don’t let a potential asset escape, you, and I know a dozen spells which would force him to see the light.”
“But that’s evil! You can’t force somepony to be good. Free will is-”
“A right, not a privilege.”
I snorted angrily, “Just because you have power-”
“Firstly, you forced Discord to be good under threat of eternal imprisonment.”
“That was different! He was a threat to the entire world!” I exclaimed with an angry stomp.
“Secondly, I am a weapon. My power is not my own. It is my King’s, he dictates my actions not I. I am free to choose how to carry out his decrees, but I can not defy him.” She said simply.
I paused, ran what she said through my had a few times then asked, “You are a slave?”
She shook her head again, “No. I am a servant. I gave my freedom up willingly for the power to protect that which I valued. I wanted to be a hero… But in life the monsters win, so I became a monster.”
“That’s not true!” I said, stepping as close as I could to my cell’s door. “I have made some cruel decisions in my past, but I have always been just and fair. My friends and I are proof that heroes can win too.”
“The difference between us Twilight is you believe the ends do not justify the means, while I am the opposite.” She replied after a moment of thought. “The needs of the many outweigh the rights of the few. You are a godling Twilight, you were mentored by a mare who ascended to divinity, and became a divine yourself. You are a cut above the mortals, you have the power to be good and win on occasion.”
I was starting to understand what she was saying. “But you don’t believe anypony could do what I have?”
She shook her head. “No. For those of us with no power, who wish to help the many ponies of this land, we have to resort to deals with infernal powers. An evil means to accomplish monstrous deeds, to achieve a greater good in the end.”
“I think you could still be good if you tried.” I insisted. “But why tell me any of this?”
She nodded her head towards Dinky, “Because of her. I needed you to understand that despite your impression of me, I care for our Kingdom. Don’t waste her potential. Without us you need protection, if you believe anypony can be a hero and fight off the darkness beyond our lands… You need powerful ponies with good hearts.”
I knew a challenge when I saw one. “I do. You would be a good addition to the Guard.”
She laughed, “A colt with a pointy stick would be a good addition to your guard. I tore through them like tissue paper just this morning! Was it take your new recruit to work day?”
I bit my lip, “Er- well… my castle’s garrison was mostly cadets… I assume we will run into you in the future?”
She nodded.
“I’ll just have to prove to you that good can get things done then.” I said in a determined tone.
“You will fail. I have thirty years of examples to prove you wrong.”
“I’ll still try.” I said in my best irritatingly cute voice. “What’s your name?”
“My apologies, I thought I introduced myself before. I am Genesis.” she said while giving me a polite bow.
I blinked in surprise, “You do not believe you can change, but your name is Genesis?”
I swear she smiled behind her porcelain mask, “The Tribunal provided a label by which I may be known. The Fifth Magus of House Hematite has always been called Genesis. I suppose you could say the name belongs to the mask. The mare behind it has no name.”
“Oh I see, so Genesis is a title. You have to have some name for yourself-” the sound of wood splintering echoed faintly through the mine followed by a single horn blasting an eight note melody.
Genesis's head whipped to the right. “That’s not an Equestrian war horn.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m assuming it’s human.”
Her eyes snapped back to me. “What?”
“Intelligence indicates humans are staging an attack on this mine.” I replied smugly.
“You banished them to the end of time… Unless... you missed some! I knew it! Never send a good pony to dispose of an enemy…” She stood up and started to walk down the hall, “I may have to bury this mine to stop them. As I agreed to let you go, the nearest escape tunnel is down the hall to the right. Fourth door on the left.” Her hooves beat a rapid pace down the hall as she galloped towards the sounds of battle in the distance.
Captain’s Log: August 18th 0913
The sun did it’s usual thing, finding that one angle where the curtains focused the sunlight right into my eyes like a laser. On the best of days that was a terrible way to wake up. On the day we were going to do some real life commando raid stuff it was even worse.
As I blinked the sleep from my eyes I hit my head squarely on the roof of the RV. “Ow! Why did I take the loft bunk?” I moaned as I slid down to the kitchen, stepping squarely on Ad’ika’s hoof.
She made an absolutely terrifying insect sound, wings buzzing in a panic, looking for all the world like a giant cockroach. When we both stopped screaming, she brushed her mane back into place and grinned, “Sorry. Was catching a nap.”
“It’s fine. Just… cockroach flashbacks. Why are you a quadruped?” I asked, wondering when she had returned to her real form.
“Oh! Well Tess wanted to try out this shape to see how she liked it.” She answered.
“‘Kay.” I cleared my throat, “Well there is a topic to deflect, I mean a mission to do. Where is everyone?”
She tapped a hoof to her chin in thought, “Well I don't smell Kaily so she’s probably still testing out her weapons. Tess is probably still-”
“In the bathroom…” Tess’s voice interrupted quietly. She sounded rather stressed.
I walked over to the door and knocked on it gently, “Are you ok? You sound like bad Taco Bell.”
“Fine… Think that’s all of them.” She replied with a moan.
“All of what?” I asked in concern, flicking my omnitool on and tapping my way to the first aid screen.
“We slept together Captain,” Ad’ika cheerfully quipped, “We lost track of how many times and well she got a bit full.”
I slapped a palm over my face, “Ew…”
“I only regret the four hours in the bathroom…” Tess moaned.
I was faced with two options. Continue to let myself be distracted with dirty thoughts and awkwardly stumble along, or man up and get the day moving. Taking a deep breath, I chose to man up. “Lieutenant, the second you are able you will familiarize yourself with a weapon. At oh six thirty we will resume our mission and plan our attack enroute.”
I turned to Ad’ika, hooves clicking on the floor as I spun, “Ambassador, you are free to pursue a relationship with my crewman… but keep the details to yourself. Especially when we are on duty. In the future please find a better moment to engage in… intercourse.” The last thing I needed was constant sex going on in earshot.
She snapped a hoof up in a salute. “Aye Captain! Sorry Captain!”
The bug girl didn’t have a single hint of sarcasm in her voice. She was honestly respecting my phony rank. It felt good, but also bad. “You may call me Mister Tylor if you prefer.”
“But isn’t Mister an honorific for males?” she asked with a frown.
I felt my lips purse in confusion. “I am a- Oh… right…” I sighed and turned around looking for the bag of mission gear.
Ad’ika sat down at the table, “I’ll call you Miss Tylor.” she announced.
“How about just Tylor?” Kaily asked.
I jumped turning towards her voice. I hadn’t even heard her come in! “Woah! Where did you-”
“Stealth generator.” She said tapping a small box on her belt. “I wanted to make sure everything worked.”
She set the bag I was looking for down on the table. “Everything’s ship shape. You should probably arm up. We are going to be tucking and rolling right?”
I nodded, then pointed to the bag, “Pass me a side arm… and give Ad’ika that stealth generator. Sure she can take a Dog’s shape but if she comes barreling out of the RV with us that won’t matter.”
Kaily grinned and passed Ad’ika the box, “I actually was going to recommend that! Ever since I woke up this morning I’ve been feeling really good. You know like when I worked out how we could get the Sagan’s batteries to charge efficiently? Like that.”
“That’s good!” I said with a nod. “We have a pretty big problem to work out today.”
She nodded again then sat down on the couch, “I have a few ideas for this to go over smoother then it might otherwise. Where’s Tess-”
“Bathroom.” Ad’ika and I said together.
“Still?” She asked raising one eyebrow.
“Yeah I said she has till oh six thirty. Then we move out.” I replied. Switching my omnitool on to check the time I added, “So, she has eight minutes.”
“I’m good.” Tess moaned as the bathroom door clicked open. She moved over to the couch and sat down with a wince, “So, what’s up?”
“I’ve revised our strategy.” Kaily informed calmly, “Ad’ika will take the second stealth generator so they can exit the Sagan completely unseen. You and I will hold them off as planned, but you go outside and do the grunt work. I’ll stay inside and keep modulating the shields. I read up on how they work and I’m pretty sure I can modify the shield emitters to send electric shocks through anything which touches them. I figured out a way to use them to send enough microwave energy into an area to cook a potato in a few seconds too. Downside is each method requires me to stay at the console and push buttons.
“Also after studying the mine’s layout I’ve determined that there is a cellblock along the route to where we think the ore is being held. Judging by the smoke on the horizon in the direction we know the mine and a town to be I’d say a raid just happened. If we free the captives we know they probably took we will have some help or at least a distraction.
“Since I’ll be modulating the shields, if you direct them back to the Sagan I can use the shield emitters to bottleneck the mine by changing their geometry to fill the entrance entirely once we have is cleared. That way we can let the slaves make a run for it by creating an opening in the shields and keep the Dogs from chasing them down. If we tell them this is a rescue mission, then the whole thing Phoenix wants with diplomacy later will have a leg to stand on.”
I blinked a few times as I took in everything. “That sounds like a good plan. Better then mine. I was figuring we should just ram the Sagan on in and run out with the cloaking devices up.”
“If we are springing ponies it would probably help if I looked…” Ad’ika trailed off then shook her head, “...actually no. If I do it in my real shape it might help repair some of the stigma.”
Tess nodded in agreement, “Too bad we don't have transporters. We could just beam the stuff out. We should totally do the ‘ramming speed’ entrance though. That sounds awesome.”
“It would be good psychological warfare.” Ad’ika comments, “Diamond Dogs generally break under pressure without their elites to back them up. Maybe we could play some intimidating music, like Tess did when she saved me.”
“That’s not a bad idea, I do have the loudspeakers on this thing.” I spent a few moments thinking of anything we could use which would be appropriate. “Well… we could play the theme for Team America.”
“No!” Tess and Kaily shouted irritably.
“Theme to Red Dawn?” I asked timidly.
“What about the theme song for Yamato Twenty One Ninety Nine?” Ad’ika asked.
We all turned towards her slowly. Tess and I gave her incredulous looks as Kaily asked, “You’ve seen Yamato?”
The bug girl nodded, “Yeah it’s a great show!”
“You don’t think it’s real do you?” I asked carefully.
She snorted, “Please! It’s animated drawings. I’m not stupid.”
Tess started to stand up. “So, you recognize that humans make videos for entertainment, but-”
Kaily put a hand over her mouth, “Let’s not make her feel bad, ok?”
Tess clenched her teeth then nodded, “Sorry… Yeah Yamato might work.”
“You know,” Kaily mused, “They never have heard human music before. So, they won’t get any of it. Remember how Phoenix said humans are feared here? We could play the stupidest thing ever and make it into the scariest thing they have ever heard.”
I couldn't help but crack a grin at the thought of busting in and playing the Kool Aid jingle. “Ok, what are you thinking?”
“We could play a Justin Bie-”
“No!” Tess’s shout sounded like a gunshot. “We are not polluting this world with stupid human shit!”
“Kay so that’s out… What if we picked something thematically appropriate?” I asked.
“That’s probably best.” Tess said with a nod. “We’re going to be saving a lot of people and stealing something. What fit’s that?”
“Don’t your heroes have theme songs? Wouldn’t one of them fit?” Ad’ika asked.
I grinned, gently scratched the changeling behind her ears, and stepped over to the driver’s seat. “Addy, you’re a genius!”
I rummaged through the cabinets under the dash, took out my old CD wallet and flipped through for a moment. “Ah ha! I have it!”
Taking one disk out, I slid it into the CD player. I checked to make sure the intercom was still working. Everything was ready to roll. “Ha! This will be perfect!”
“What are you-” Kaily began.
“Being a hero!” I giggled in a completely girly fashion. Blushing deeply at the sound of my laugh I passed the keys to Kaily. “Y-you drive. I need to work the replicator.”
Kaily turned the key, buckled up, and started to drive. As the RV crawled through the forest I worked with my omnitool, carefully producing individual plastic plates. I had wanted to make it out of metal but there simply wasn't enough power to do it. For the first hour everyone talked among themselves. But as I started to put the plates together they began to notice what I was doing.
“Are you building armor?” Tess asked as I slipped a black fake boot onto my right hoof.
“Yep!” I continued to attach the various bits and pieces I had already made.
“Out of plastic? Is it at least duraplast?” Ad’ika asked in confusion.
“Your uniform should be protective enough.” Kaily commented a she turned the RV to avoid a tree.
“No, just plastic. It’s a costume is all.” I clicked the thy plates into place and looked at the armor so far. So far it looked ok. Not good but ok.
“Why?” Tess asked leaning into the cabin.
I turned and looked up at her with a grin as I slid on the gloves. “Tess, I’ve known you forever. I enjoy many things. See, what we are doing doesn't feel very… Starfleet. They are never the aggressors, not even when being hostile is the best course of action.
“Addy reminded me that we have many heroes, and that each one has a point. A Federation Captain is a representation of courage and the tenacious nature of the human spirit. But they are not the sort of hero you see fighting off evil dog people to save slaves while stealing from the slave owners. We are here to kick some ass, not peacefully resolve the conflict or explore.”
“Fair point…” Tess said trailing off as my omnitool replicated the chest plate. “Is that…”
I slipped the chest plate on and tapped the white N7 logo, “You can fight like a Krogan, run like a leopard, but you’ll never be better than Commander Shepard.”
There was a full ten seconds of silence before Kaily objected, “You can’t be Shepard!”
“Why not? Shepard’s gender is ambiguous.” I gave her a grin and flicked my omnitool on, “I have one of these!”
“We are federation officers!” Tess hissed nodding her head towards Ad’ika.
If I could have said anything about the deception we had to play, I would have. Was it a good idea to let the changelings know about roleplaying? Would they get suspicious?
“Lieutenant Paris gets to be Captain Proton.” Ad’ika quipped supportively.
“Yeah!” I exclaimed my grin returning thanks to the unexpected support. “Besides, I’m totally a biotic.”
“No you’re not.” Tess objected.
I closed my eyes, concentrated on the left shoulder plate, and with a little difficulty snapped it into place with my telekinesis.
“Er- You know what? Never mind. Carry on.” Tess admitted before sitting down.
Kaily laughed, “Oh my god! You’re even going to be using a miniaturized mass driver for a weapon. We should get Phoenix to make you working armor later!”
“There is a problem though.” Ad’ika said as she moved to sit between Kaily and I on the floor. “The only class which gets Tactical Cloak is infiltrator, and they don't have biotic powers.”
The Sagan screeched to a halt as Kaily slammed on the breaks and twisted her head incredulously, “How do you even?”
“What? We have access to Her Highness’s holodeck. Mass Effect is a very popular game. Hell one of us wrote the story down as novels and published them a decade or so ago. They are a big hit in Equestria.”
I felt myself grin widely, “So, you are saying I’ll be recognized like this?”
She nodded, “Yeah, by anypony who enjoys science fiction tales.”
I clipped the second shoulder plate into place. “We are definitely getting Pheonix to make me working armor. Kaily, all ahead full.”
As I queued my replicator up to make the next few parts Ad’ika asked quietly, “Later, can you make me Tali’s suit?”
I looked Ad’ika directly in the eyes and grinned. “Congratulations!”
She blinked, “Huh?”
“You just made a friend.” I said as I returned to piecing together the awesomest crappy cosplay ever.