Atropos moved his almost responsive eyes from panel to panel, from projection to projection, let into the work station after the misunderstanding had been quenched. At his disposal was more or less the most detailed mass of information about this world that there was - not that he needed it all so much, of course. He could see all he wanted as it was, but this just added a more numerical and more ocular angle to it. Faint strings of leftover magic signifying the form of the landscape at any given coordinates, the amount of entities within, their parameters… Nothing a regular equine could sensibly process so easily, even the ones working alongside him, those specifically trained, but definitely an open book to him.
Despite how indubitably irritating the situation was for the fear deity turned glorified zombie, that book was firmly seated in the genre of comedy.
“Oh, has… has anyone got a spare mug? I think I just got mine melted,” an analyst from a cubicle some blocks away inquired shakily in the midst of the thick hum and drum of their equipment.
“Penfold, we’re saving the world here. Your coffee can wait,” replied the armor-wearing pony that paced nervously at the front entrance.
“But I—” the awkward interrupter of silence disregarded continuation, sighed, and evidently returned to work, a deep, irregular cracking in his voice.
“Quarter-hour till break, keep it together,” the guard - Sentinel, as he was called - dismissed the issue, sounding little better than that himself.
It took Atropos some effort not to crack up with laughter at the situation - and even more not to do the same at what he clearly saw this “Equestria” to be. Something, though, pressed at his chest, and kept his jaw clenched shut, also sending occasional twitches to the still somewhat heavy fore and hindlegs. Among that, his mouth could not help but dry out frequently, causing sympathy, somewhat, for the poor mistake of nature with the crystal-molten mug.
The issue that was causing all those unwanted bodily shifts, as well as the genre denomination of Equestria’s hopes for the future, was just the absurd state the land was in.
When he drifted idly in the dreamscape, chewing mostly on a single mind, and making plans as to where to allocate his food for the next couple millennia, he presumed the little weirdnesses to be just the kinks of separate minds. That certain things were merely how these simpletons interpreted the natural order of Equestria to be. That they have not, in fact, dealt with a considerable amount of disasters both natural and magical through the so-called “magic of friendship”. Commoners did very often simplify things for their own belief. Surely there were at least some failsafes, some structures and institutions in place to keep a disaster - like this one - from going that far out of control. He may not have spoken highly of them when conversing, but that was a logical assumption, at least to him.
What caused the most stir within was the fact that he was right, somewhat. There were failsafes and institutions.
But, by the sweet ichor of Nyctasha, were they useless. He himself was allocated to one of them. What should have been just one of many things a reasonable ruler would install in order to thwart a world-devastating threat… was one of the last that they had at their disposal.
Because they truly, truly did solve all of their problems with friendship. Atropos honestly struggled to decide whether that was absurdly funny, or insanely depressing. At least he forced himself into comprehending it at all… with time.
“What’s with the readings in the southeast?” a voice inquired from behind him, close enough to be directed at the covertly undead thestral. He hoped for half a second that that was not the case, but the echo, as read by the nightkin ears, stated that something equine was turned towards him.
“I need a moment,” he blurted out, his voice skipping an octave or two, causing him to pretend to hiccup. It took about three to four seconds to acquaint himself with the data he paid no attention to previously, far more interested in what was still intact than what had already fallen. “It’s, uh… A massive energy formation, clearly directed, significant of… summoning, or resurrection, but it’s clear—”
Dismissing interloping thoughts of just how pointless it probably was, saving these things that is, Atropos was instead overcome by an intense desire to slap himself on the head. To his credit, he resisted having a sickly arm spring up from his shoulder and do that for him.
“How can you tell?” the mare that greeted him just six hours ago tilted her head, somewhat surprised. Sure enough, that was the reason the bodybound entity longed for self-imposed corporeal punishment. How could a weird batpony with a scar across half his face and not much else to show beyond that know such a fact?
Her eyes drilled into him, and the presence of the vanilla-coated, hornless, wingless equine made him oddly uneasy - upon arrival, Atropos was rather glad to shamble off to his workplace, earning a sigh from the mare and an approving grunt from the guard Sentinel. Now they had met again, inevitably so. And simply put, he did not like her. “We’ve been trying to figure what it means out for a while now, it’s got, like, a lot of interconnections with other uncommon signatures, but we kinda thought you wouldn’t be ready to really work yet, so we didn’t ask, and now if we know we can—”
The amount of air her lungs apparently held was not what the physical norm for such a creature should have been - and yet, that was not what made his new spine shudder in her presence. He took the forty seconds, in which the mare drew out all the possible outcomes of them using this little bit of knowledge, to quickly resolve a dilemma.
It was going to happen sooner or later, and putting it off was becoming childish. He had intended for this, after all. This was why he agreed - no, put forward - the idea to cage himself in a corporeal body. Interaction. Learning about them. Lack of knowledge already caused a large mishap, and he could not afford more.
And yet, when push came to shove, and he forced himself into a community, the first thing he did was shovel himself away into the corner and work alone - in retrospect, more interested in their defenses than the enemy’s offense, occasionally daydreaming of how they would be useless against him. Only that was not the point. Atropos - Bane - was letting himself go.
If he did that, then coming up with legitimate excuses to use in the talk with the disgusting Princess would be an issue. Moreover, a bigger issue would be that the pony race would most probably be lost.
“Halt… Halt, if you please. I know this signature. How about I—” he looked blankly at Sentinel, who had begun to approach them, irritation visible on his face. Atropos attempted an ensuring facial expression, and had to have had some manner of success, as the guard stared back, and returned to his post without a word. “—How about I just give all of you a little… low-down, when we are on break. We should… work together. Isn’t that right?” The thestral’s body attempted a smile, barely helped by the one already engraved in it.
“Yeah! Yeah, yeah. You should really have told us right away, we have been trying to get at it for hours. I knew Princess Luna didn’t make space for you just so you could sit here in the corner, you know! Though I was half afraid she thought we were going rogue, although why would we do that, but, perhaps, if—”
As the mare turned from speaking out loud to mumbling to herself, all while trotting jumpily back to her cubicle for the last few minutes of the shift, Atropos sighed to himself, and began to construct a detailed explanation of why he knows exactly how that freakish thing’s magic worked, why he knows what it appeared to be doing, why seventy-five percent of Equestria could wave itself goodbye, and why Canterlot itself was going to have a large problem, as it had only just began to move…
Applejack leaned against the starkly gleaming and polished wall of a considerably large room of the former store. Her limbs twitched, and her breath came in and out in infrequent puffs. The pony’s ears, neck, and head would all twitch erratically when a dull nerve remembered it had nothing but mauled remains to connect to. Deep claw marks crossed her left cheek and lower lip, each of the violent now-brown lines sending out a signal of pain into her system - only to be lost amidst what blew it far, far out of the water.
The earth pony’s mind had attuned itself to these hardships in the days before. Pain came second or third, never first. If it did, then that was it. Not a task of the body, but a task of the mind. So no, it was not the exhaustion, which the short break she allowed herself barely softened, and not the many injuries, which the volunteer doctor among the jewel store inhabitants said would last her the whole lifetime if not treated magically, that bothered her.
It was that she came upon an impasse, one her psyche refused to cross, but did so step by step regardless. Whether to congrtaulate herself on how she passed through the crisis despite adversity, or to panic in regards to what that entailed, AJ could not decide, despite having spent a number of hours in seclusion, left with nothing but physical pain and mental freedom.
Having looked out the window and seen nothing but a pair of masked and armored griffon guards grimly interfere in a fight between some still richly clothed ponies, screaming desperately both at each other and the guards themselves, the orange pony realized that little had changed outside. With a stuttered sigh, she sat down on her hunches, not far from a barely motioning white and dark purple shape atop a thick mattress.
Applejack had talked to it many times over the past hours, receiving nothing but errant twitches and occasional quiet moans of a pony that, unlike her, allowed her body to lose itself to the clutches of unconsciousness. AJ herself had no such luck. Hours spent laying on her back and side, without much perturbance by the others in the building even, all to no avail. She had no right to rest, but no way to challenge anything.
“This is all a big, giant, stinking travesty, I tell you,” the earth pony said hoarsely and monotonously, glaring at the white unicorn. “You know I don’t get it. You know that. But I still can’t get it out… Nah I can’t. It doesn’t fit. How?.. How can this?... Gah, whatever, don’t mind me.” AJ rubbed her eyes harshly, moaning in frustration. “You wouldn’t want to know, would you. And I mean, would any of us, really? It ain’t nice knowing that you’ve all done screwed it up, huh?” A downturned grin jerked its way onto her snout. “That it just blam, and went to all the hells it had.”
What caused the insides of her chest to twist the most was the faint suggestion of peace on the unicorn’s face. Somehow, for some reason, AJ despised the idea that after all that had happened, Rarity would not even have a single nightmare. If she did, it did not look it. She slept like she was just very, very tired.
Well, Applejack was not tired. Not just, anyway. Applejack, Applejack was slowly beginning to realize, was more dead than anything else. And those without a life to worry over… Their nightmares stretched beyond unconsciousness.
“Big words. They said we were important, yeah? All of us, making this world a better place. No, we weren’t special, you know, we just had that opportunity. They put us out there, and had us make an example of how to be a good freaking pony. And so we did. I am telling this to you right now, and I wanna kick my own teeth out because of how damn stupid this is.”
The pony turned on her back and laid on the cool, barely tarnished floor of the former office, fumbling with the white bandage covering where her eye used to be.
“We were important, Rares! Nothing unlike anyone else, but still important! Stuff happened, we got through it, everything was fine, nothing ever went wrong! If it did - well jokes on them, nothing was going to bring us down! Years,” she had giggled hoarsely, sending a pang of pain down her throat, “it went on for years…”
Nothing else surrounded her, the chaos was gone. The ponies that crammed the other rooms spoke and clanged their things, sure, but that was nothing her mind singled out. Not even the mare to her side murmured as AJ lay there for long minutes, mumbling to herself. It was like a vacationer’s hotel, on an early, early morning. Although it was the brink of darkness, the quiet and the casual noises made it all the more similar. That worked for all the worse.
“And now… What now, Rarity? What now? Huh? What now, can you tell me? WHAT. NOW.” Applejack startled herself a little with the harsh echo of her own voice, barely sounding like what it used to.
“We are still important,” came a quiet word from her side, surprising the earth pony further.
“Wha?.. You awake?” she twitched and fumbled in the unicorn’s direction, rashly and quickly, as if terrified at the prospect of having been listened to when talking to the unconscious mare.
The answer took a while to come, but Rarity’s now open eyes, staring right at her, replied more or less by themselves. Perhaps a bit too much, them widening and rushing left and right at AJ’s question. Brows furrowing at seeing the light scowl in the corner of her lips.
“I think I am,” came the measured response. “Are you okay?”
Applejack glared at the white unicorn for a good ten seconds or more.
A significant part of what her tirades to an unconscious pony entailed was another fact that caused the earth pony a good amount of distress. She was pretty certain that even looking at Rarity made her boil.
“What do you think?” AJ quipped coldly.
“You look tired,” Rarity stated plainly, almost aloof, almost as if it were a casual meeting after a full day of farmwork and they crossed each other on the street. The unicorn rubbed her face gently, getting up from the floor, not even considerate enough to shudder at the knees or look mournful.
“No shit I do.” It took her some effort not to grit teeth openly, but by the unicorn’s stare, she still looked steaming. “Yeah you can see, alright, you can see.”
The other mare was less than unaware to Applejack’s treatment of her, but visibly restrained herself, her grim scowl turning into an uneven curve, eyes growing large upon observing the orange pony. Rarity stopped, and gasped quietly at AJ’s appearance.
“AJ, you are not okay. You have to rest. You— No, no, you have to rest. There is no point talking like this. And do not misunderstand me, we—” The white mare raised a hoof to signal a yawn, quickly turning away and covering it up with that same hoof, as if it mattered. “—we have a lot to talk about indeed, but… No, you are absolutely not going to do in this condition. Did you just spend the day watching over me?” The unicorn’s eyebrows twinged, head tilting, the concern so saccharine AJ barely contained the urges swelling up in her forehooves. “Do you… Do you know how shortsighted that is? Oh dear, oh, Applejack, how can you…”
The earth pony sat where she sat, breathing audibly, gazing at the torn hat that hung off a rack in the far corner on the room. That at least caused the now absent nerve to add more pain to focus on. What she wanted to do was not good, or right.
“Have you even looked in the mirror? You haven’t, have you? Had you seen yourself, you would probably… Most probably, you would have followed exactly what the doctor had to have said after cleaning your wounds,” Rarity had switched to a nearly lecturing tone, eyes visibly going over the mess that was the orange earth pony’s head. “But no, you have to make sure I am safe, don’t you?..” A faint, misguided smile overtook the other mare’s mouth for a second - fortunately, it did not last, as it was giving the urges more ground.
“I have looked in the mirror, thank you very much,” Applejack mouthed, finding a distraction to talk about. “I’m messed up, but I’m alright.” She still stared at the hat in the corner - the clothing rack was just above where a huge pile of glass, some shards stained with red, lay disassembled. Her distant eyes clearly caused the unicorn to track that out.
“Oh dear. Oh… Oh dear.” Rarity put together the few cuts more red than others, and the remains of the reflective glass. “Applejack… I am going to be right back. You need rest. And when you are up, we will be making adjustions,” she said as she bit her lip, eyes looking over the former office, now fit with mattresses and such. “This is no starting point.”
“Where are you going,” the earth pony leaked through her teeth, frowning more and more vehemently with each word.
“You need sleep medicine, and since there was clearly a doctor to clean you up… I will try my luck. I’ll be right ba—”
Rarity could not finish, as Applejack had lunged at her, throwing them both on the ground, and topping the unicorn. They stared at each other for a few seconds, an eye of unconcealed bloody rage, and eyes of absolute confusion. Then, AJ’s forehoof came swiping against Rarity’s face, followed by her head, forehead smashing into muzzle.
Only just having turned woozy after a much required break, a complete blackout that left nothing but hazy, purplish, droopy remnants upon awakening, Rarity was now considering that perhaps the nightmare was simply delayed. Her being violently pinned down and beaten by her closest friend definitely qualified for a nightmare, and definitely did not qualify for something that should really have happened under any circumstance.
The pain, however, was real, much more real than her weak attempts to struggle away, eyes gaping desperately, mouth flinging open but unable to ask the questions needed, or give the answers demanded.
Her friend wailed on her for some more time, having begun to moan and groan grizzedly, contrasting the higher pitched responses Rarity herself was giving out. She was, in frankness, far too shocked to scream or do anything loud of the sort. Her eyes locked onto the one AJ had, but found nothing that wished to respond within the bloodshot orb. Weakly, she tried to kick and fight back, gaining minor success in pulling herself further back away, but even having recently slept, the unicorn was in no condition to wrestle the exhausted, clearly maddened earth pony.
Applejack mumbled something desperately, illegibly, and her groans eventually turned into sobs and whimpers. She had begun to miss punches, and even the ones that did hit now only felt like prods and swats, nothing compared to the first blows that lacerated Rarity’s snout. Only those sobs and whimpers were not of grief, or sadness.
They were nervous, desperate. AJ began to breathe quickly, opening and closing her mouth, gulping audibly. Eventually, her eye started to dart to and fro, locking then on to the hurting, confused Rarity. Two shaking, but firm forehooves stomped by the sides of her head, and the green eye stared right into her face.
“Rarity,” growled the pony, half-whispering, lower jaw shaking. “Where are we?”
“Applejack…” the unicorn whispered back, softly, keeping calm to the best of her ability. “You are not okay. You need—”
“Where are we?!” AJ spat at her, the words sounding primal, barely coherent. Their snouts pressed into each other’s as the earth pony lowered her head, staring menacingly. “Answer.”
“We are… in a quarantine zone…” Rarity whispered back, shaking and beginning to fear looking into Applejack’s eye. “Or… refugee camp, rather. We are in a refugee camp in Canterlot.”
“Right. Why are we here?”
“App—”
The unicorn moaned rather loudly, the earth pony’s forehead crashing right into her snout. If there was no exhaustion to soften the blow, she would have been dealing with a badly broken nose.
“ANSWER.” Applejack’s speech was only fringely coherent by that point.
“Because…” the white mare took in a deep breath, shuddering. “Because something terrible has happened. Equestria is… in peril. They want us to be safe, and so we are here.”
“Something terrible,” the orange pony repeated her words, leaving her eye to wander around for a short bit. “You know your fancy euphemisms, that you do.” Speaking somewhat more clearly, AJ spat the words nonetheless, barely letting them pass through the tensely shaking mouth. “So you’re not just cuckoo and in denial. Right. What are you then, Rares?”
“I… Applejack… I don’t quite understa—” Rarity braced for another splatter of spit to land on her face - or, perhaps, a blow - but received nothing. “—understand. What is supposed to be wrong with me?”
A lot of things, she knew. A good many that would not leave easily. They resided as far within her mind as she had the power to shove them away. They would no doubt resurface then on, but for the time, they were hidden. Not that AJ’s rabid inquisition was making it very easy.
“You act like nothing’s wrong, Rares,” AJ spoke, stuttering and gasping in speech, twitching and shaking, but keeping the menace in her stare. “Like this is all just another end of the world. Common stuff, ain’t it? For us, huh? We’re all high and mighty, the bunch of us, we’ve all been through the motions, came on top too. That’s how you act. Woulda gone and checked your hooficure if I hadn’t stopped you, I bet.”
“Applejack…” Rarity paused, working together a reply. “What… exactly… is wrong with that?”
What her friend, after having beaten her up and yelled at her, shot at her in a rather accusatory tone, was exactly what kept her from taking her own life hours ago. That was the whole point. How was it such a crime?
How—
A couple of gears ran quick in the unicorn’s head, adding together details, and a frightening fact clicked.
“You’re blind,” the orange pony stated plainly. “I’m the mare without an eye, but you’re the one who’s blind.” She nodded to herself, and finally took the stare away from Rarity, so as to look around - as if watching the other inhabitants of the building, judging them as she went. “And so are they. No different. You have no respect. For reality, that is. No respect at all. You’re all deluded.”
Their home town had been ravaged, their minds had been visited by something best left untold, all whom they had known were gone, they pulled all the muscles there were to get to this safe haven, only to be demeaned, humiliated, mutilated, and killed. Taken apart, one by one, the Element Bearers were peeled and peeled, until there was little left.
Rarity nearly ended it upon realization of just what was lost. Her life was her friends and her art. She was never extraordinarily strong-willed. It seemed logical to her what nearly caused her to snap.
Applejack… Applejack’s life was her friends, her family, and her work. And she was a very, very, very staunch pony. She would not do… that.
But by no means at all did that mean she would not be affected. To the contrary.
AJ had taken the worst of it, and what remained of her…
“You think it’s gonna be fine, huh? That Dash and Pinkie all gonna come back to life cause Twilight casts some shmancy spell, and we’re gonna pull a stunt so all this is solved, bam and done? Huh? That what you think?” the mare spoke, looking at the ceiling in place of Rarity. “It’s all gonna be fine. Don’t worry. All gonna be fine. They just went to Aunt Annurca’s farm down south, ‘s all gonna be fine. Right?” Her head twitched rapidly, back to pressing Rarity’s aching snout within a second. “Huh? You think it’s all gonna fix itself?”
Rarity was lost for words.
“When you were laying there, I went out. Snuck out, went to the walls they put up. Heard some noises, y’know, wanted to see what was up, wasn’t thinking all clear, nah,” AJ spoke harshly, monotonously, eye twitching in place, drilling through Rarity’s skull. “Got onto the wall. Luck and all. You know what I saw? For the half minute I was there till the griffs pulled me out and told me not to go there again?”
They stared at each other, the unicorn shutting her eyes and sighing in defeat.
“Been there for half a minute, again, I’m telling you. So what I saw? Cousin Braeburn, Cousin Beacon, and Cousin Beauty. You know what they looked like. Oh, and back when we broke our spines to get to here? I saw them in the woods, you know. Thought, nah, WISHED I was going crazy.”
“This is all so wrong,” Rarity said to nobody in particular, tears of nervousness and locked up grief showing on her eyes.
“So tell me, Rares, am I crazy? Did I just go loony and none of this ever happened? Huh? Cause if so, I’m a shit loon. I make too much sense, don’t you think? Don’t you think that you’re all blind for not seeing this for what it is? That they,” - she lifted a hoof to point in the direction of their presumed neighbors - “INSISTED that we take the good big room? That they were HAPPY to see us? That they said they were GLAD we survived? That the doc MADE me go ahead of the line to clean my wound? That nobody questions that we’ve got the entire birdbeak military up in here while I ain’t seen an armed pony around here at all? That we’re somehow in QUARANTINE, even though I’m not seeing a disease here at all? That, all that, that all ain’t crazy, Rares. That is stupid.”
It was an infernal tease. What AJ said, about the others… It lightened the chest, for her. To know that they were already a symbol of hope, even as shattered as they were. That there was such a stepping stone to helping all those ponies recover, to make sure that…
...that what happened to AJ would not happen to others. And yet, it was this exact fact that drew her poor, unfortunate, maddened friend up the wall. At least, perhaps, there was one good thing to this unpleasant conversation.
But that did not make an answer any more obvious.
“And so I thought about how stupid this all was. A while with nothing to do does that, it makes you think, ‘specially when you ain’t got your life no more. There’s something funny I realized. It’s never ever not been stupid. We’re all like this. We’ve been like this our entire lives, but it was fine!” Applejack grinned a grin that caused Rarity’s intestines to curl together and shiver in unison. “Fine! Everything WAS fine! Only, you know - NOT!”
The orange pony kept the grin for a while, simply looking at the unicorn. Then, her eye closed, and clicking, coughing sounds started to come out. Soon enough, AJ was sobbing and laughing at the same time, smiling, but with an infernal rage in her eye.
“So why’m I telling you this… And why I’m doing this to you. We’re why, Rares. We’re what’s wrong. They see us, and they think everything is fine. My eye’s torn out, you look like you’ve been ridden by a yak for a month, Fluttershy’s gone missing, Pinkie got thrown into the trash, Dash is dead, and Twilight is somewhere up there. But nope, just seeing us makes them happy and smiley. We made this. Us.”
The mare’s stance loosened, and the unicorn was given a slight extension of movement. She felt up her face, looking at the earth pony in a mix of panic and pained understanding. Rarity understood.
“But we ain’t the root. The root…” AJ stepped away from the beaten Rarity completely, and walked towards a wall, northeast, knocking her hat off the clothing rack unceremoniously, not bothering to pick it up. “...is in those towers. Older than us. The Princesses, Rarity. They made us be the heroes, they made us save Equestria, that’s what we do now, that’s all that’s left now.”
Applejack was unsalvageable, Rarity understood.
“And that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” the beat up, eyeless, exhausted farmer pony with a dirty, bloodstained blonde mash topping a cut-up face with an eye that burned of genuine murder, turned towards the dumbfounded white mare. “If I talked any sense into you, you are going to help me.”
“So… In conclusion, this signature, it…” Atropos stuttered, giving a vacant look at the dozen or so ponies sat down on a sofa and a mat, listening to him for the past ten or so minutes. “To round it up, it contains something with a lot of…” He stopped himself from using the word “mana”, having learned truly enough that the denomination was alien. “...magical energy in tow. Only a portion is native, the rest is induced. It is old, it is big, and it is… Oh, I could say angry, but then, I shouldn’t suppose that it has emotion. This cloud - if it is one at all, of course - it is moving, if slowly at that. As you—” his hoof lifted up for a short stopping motion, directed at himself. “—we have already found, prolonged observation causes this… equipment of ours to start misbehaving. Our vision is unreliable, so to say. And it would seem that it should take us a while before we find out for ourselves, as the course it had been keeping for as long as I could see it has it going around this city. It is already going through the… recent casualties.”
Several of the ponies visibly shook, eyes twitching, hooves tapping nervously on the floor. They grit their teeth, staring in directions for mere sections, and forcing themselves back into the meeting-lecture-public humiliation-unending exposure for a mightily unwilling entity-thing. One good job they definitely did was give Atropos himself incentive to hold off on having a “lunch break” of his own, showcasing textbook (if there ever was one) reactions of genuine, uncopable shock. It was quite filling. Would be, anyway…
“Therefore, as our unprotected, unshielded, unprepared cities are being taken down by an unrelenting horde of the undead, something even more unthinkable approaches from behind, to make sure that we are all fully undone.” He lost himself to a streak of likely unnecessary sarcasm, topping it with a somewhat disturbing smile - not that anything that his mouth formed would be anything else. Confused snickers that resembled sobs all too much not to be delicious were the answer, as well as a few stares. Could have been worse. “Lastly, something that I just cannot help but shake… My, uh, equipment is acting as if it had seen something of this before. I… suppose this could be something you… guys have looked at before. At some point. Or, perhaps, it is just an error. I am not all too sure. That is all.” He nodded, retroactively realizing how stupid that looked, and immediately caught himself wanting to leave for his cubicle. Forcing himself to stay, Atropos did his best to smile calmly and shrug, as if to compensate for how positively chewed-up his social skills were.
Either he was going to get good at them, or he was going to get good at excuses. Or, more likely, all of them would be dead, and he will be having to find a way off-world, because the grim recounting was, at most, a quarter of what he actually found out. Knowing too much about panic, he fed only the safest information in the safest way possible to his co-workers. And only half of them or so had begun to exhibit symptoms of hidden panic! A good result, at the speed they were all going.
Atropos was given a few nods and acknowledgements from the intellectual workers, and little more. They were less than excited to continue talking about the task in front of them on their period of rest - especially not after having had to listen to a creepy newcomer talk to them about things they wish they could say were unfounded. Although… many kept their eyes on him. In those eyes, and, more reliably, traces of thoughts, Atropos could see a touch more to their relationship with him. They were sorry.
Sorry that they did not immediately flock even closer to him and begin socializing voraciously, ripping into the new arrival like a pack of literal social animals, to bring him into the fold, and make him feel like one of theirs. At least eleven felt even more sorry for his disfigurement, and at least four of those found him to be attractive - three stallions and a mare. A dark, ugly, awkward, unnerving, scarred nobody just walked up and told them something they were working their backs off to figure out, all of which fit together at that - and damned he was if he could find any negativity.
Perhaps, had he managed to escape from Equestria when and if it fell, and then grown tired of his life as a near omnipotent embodiment of fear, this experience of settling into a body would allow him to settle down somewhere, and doubtlessly become rich off creating stories based on this nonsense world.
Atropos was just realizing that his own thoughts were definitely starting to turn to mush when things had begun to go wrong again.
“Hey, um… Atropos?” the mare that called him in, and caused all this to happen, walked up. After all the effort to forget that she exists, so as to lighten the mental load… “This does all check out. For good or for bad, mostly for bad though, I’ll be compiling a report soon enough to see if we can may— Ugh, I’m talking shop again.” She raised a hoof to vaporize any hope of talking about non-social matters. “You… did okay,” the earth pony mare lied spectacularly. “It’s good to have you here. Even if you won’t tell how you know all this.”
“I’m an agent,” Atropos repeated the trite excuse that seemed to work so far, even though the fact he had to use it about three times now spoke otherwise.
“Oh, but that’s not good enough, nah, I’m more, like, about how you know where to look in all this… These readings, they’re completely alien! I’ve seen maybe… maybe four or five similar streams in there. Doubling as a tech translator here, and everyone else, too! I wonder where the Princess sent you with that sort of knowledge.” The mare’s eyes were two open, hungry, dark orange voids that awaited background information that he was yet to remember. That very Princess did give him a very short background, but even that he already had filed away under “unnecessary” in his memory, out of reflex.
“I worked in the north,” he drew out a stumbling reply, shrugging to himself.
“Ooooh.” The mare pointed at a free spot on the mat, where some others used to sit during the impromptu lecture. “That must have been exciting. Is that where you?..” She crossed her mouth with a hoof, having sat down. The humor of seeing the extent of the ponies’ politeness somewhat countered the realization that he was meant to sit next to her. Before more thinking was done on the matter, the body of the thestral came down hard on the floor, reasonably far away from the mare, but doing the job regardless.
“No, it…” He stopped to quietly curse himself for having forgotten to lie and say yes. “It was… an accident. A very… silly accident. Hah-heh, nothing more.” He was meant to say that yes, it was, in fact, from his service, but, not being used to proper deceit… This seemed to suffice, at least to him.
“Why didn’t you have it fixed? I kinda get keeping a beauty scar, but, you know…” The trapped entity was, at the very least, not alone in being awkward.
“It’s recent,” he replied, drawing up the one explanation the void of his thoughts offered him. “Gotta wait a bit. That’s what the doctor said.” Hopefully, medicine worked the way he just assumed it did.
“Ah… Well, if that’s what the doctor said, then that’s what the doctor said. I’m not a medic,” — Atropos was rather glad to hear that much — “and, well… I’m not a medic, so I’m here, I guess. Not out there, in the quarantines. Actually… Actually, let’s not talk about those.” The mare shifted uncomfortably, having already given him something to look forward to when he had mental freedom from the body for the night. “Not exactly something we like to discuss much, you know. So let’s… um…”
Atropos kept quiet, smiling inadvertently, having forgotten to relax his muscles. Unfortunately, that called for a continuation, before he scampered off. He knew he would, even if he was not supposed to. This took a lot of getting used to, and this was the getting-used-to part.
“Oh, I am such a screw-up,” the mare sighed out, lightly tapping herself on the forehead, reminding Bane to learn to do that instead of borderline cracking his carcass each time. “Didn’t even tell you who I was. Like, I’m sitting here, asking you stuff, going on and off topic to topic, and you’re like, who’s that even supposed to be? Pfff.”
She held up her hooves and turned right to him, met with a persisting smile and two half-closed eyes that, thankfully, did not express the sea of frustration Atropos was bathing in internally.
“My name is Vision. Silly, silly, I know, but, well, I guess it makes sense I ended up running this little bunch. I’m in charge of our branch - I take reports, I send reports, and… I make reports. So if you think you aren’t doing enough paperwork, well, that’s because of me. I’m actually a linguist, but, well, talents go hand in hand, I guess… See, this is why I was so interested in how you knew what this was. Looks almost like a whole new language to me, maybe even something I once saw… So we may have some common ground here, if you know a bit more. This is, like, well… Completely natural!” She motioned with her hooves for a few seconds, smiling awkwardly, eye twitching just a bit, cheeks flushing red. They stared at each other for a while. Atropos was trying to figure out which exact emotion that was. There was even a little bit of fear.
“Okay,” he replied after a period of silence, and did not resolve absolutely anything.
“Come on, Vis, let go of the guy, he’s new on the team, no need to gobble him up,” the inadvertent savior of the situation spoke, approaching from behind, recognizable by the light clunk of the armor if nothing else.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Promise,” the thestral’s mouth grinned without will for it as he spoke, nodding uncomfortably at them both. “This is our first day, after all. We’ve got at least two weeks until we’re all dead, as I told you.” The dose of sarcasm may have been a bit on the heavier side, but Atropos felt it was fitting.
“Right... “ Vision scrunched her mouth up, giving the two stallions looks. “I’ll go… recreate some recreation. Got about ten minutes to go, and then back to work.”
“Just pretend they are all just dots on the screen,” Atropos spoke before forcing himself to reconsider ever opening his mouth again.
The mare just scowled, more sad than angry, and trotted off to a group of ponies that would look at them every now throughout the conversation. The one that was, gladly, over, with at least middle-of-the-road marks to be given. At last, Atropos had time to dream about—
“Yeah, you spec-ops guys are cold, you know that?” Sentinel spoke to him, not having departed at all.
“Well, I worked in the north,” the thestral answered unevenly, with a sigh, not even sure if that qualified for a logical response.
“Sure… Actually...” the guard began, with far too much enthusiasm for Atropos to be excited about continuing. “Actually, I’m kinda fascinated by you guys. Nothing weird, just… well, who hasn’t dreamt of being a super-spy or something? In your childhood I mean. I grew out of it.” Even the quite literally alien mind within the batpony could tell that was not the case, just from the motions and the tone of voice. “But I just, well, just wanna say that you guys are cool. I dunno what you were doing up there, but it’s never quiet there, so it’s got to be something hardcore. No wonder you’re not… well… You don’t look too phazed, yeah? Every one of us, when this all just happened, when they woke us up…”
The guard took a long pause, looking down grimly. Atropos imitated patient attention, more glad to not be expected to talk back than anything else.
“Let’s just say it was rough. I’m fine now, we’re all… fine now.” Sentinel was a terrible liar, though not for lack of a good reason. “But, what I mean is, you’re gonna be fine here, I think. We need someone like that. Things can get crazy… I think. Hope not.”
“Somehow I doubt that my aura of sanity spreads very far,” the nightkin grinned in response, admittedly amused at the idea.
“Maybe you underestimate yourself. You’re cool. You should be. And, uh…” The bulky guard stepped in place uncomfortably, visibly doubting what he was going to say. An entertaining enough picture, if nothing else. “Just want to ask before we’re back to work. Which team were you on? Back there? I know they assign agents to teams. Just gimme a name, I’m curious. I have, like, a journal, and… Well, might as well add a name. Want to be an expert on this, what little I can find.”
Atropos stared, dumbfounded, at the stallion. He moved his lips a little, as well as his eyes, not pretending to be thinking so much as thinking is proper.
His team. That was a funny question. He knew he should have had an answer, but he did not.
“Dire,” he said to himself, unsure as to what that could even mean. “The Dire.”
“Scourge,” his mouth blurted out a word, and left him to wonder what that meant, too.
“Oh, right, okay. Won’t keep you. Thanks for indulging me, and, uh… stuff. Good luck… have fun, I guess.” Sentinel departed, and left Atropos to wonder what he just tapped into in his errant thoughts. “You’re on our team now!”
“Right.”