Comprehension & Consequence
"Alright, careful, careful..." Small beads of sweat drifted down Spike's head as he worked his sharpened claw downwards, in small mistake and the pain to come would be enormous. "Easy, almost there... and... AHA! Got it!" He declared happily as the cast on his arm fell uselessly to the ground by the bed.
He twisted his arm and wrist around to check for pain or limited mobility, happy to find neither present. Thank Celestia for his dragon body, he couldn't imagine how other ponies managed to tolerate being bed ridden for eight weeks when two had nearly driven him insane. Jumping onto his freshly healed legs, save a nice little nip where he'd learned the lesson of slow and stead, the drake stretched out his body for the first time in what felt like forever.
Parched from his untimely cast removal, the drake took a few tentative steps to the kitchen to get something to drink. His legs didn't feel right, but he chalked it up to not being in use for so long. A few days of getting his muscles back up and he'd be right as rain.
"Let's see here." He declared opening the fridge and finding some delicious orange juice. "Ah! There we go." He pulled out the citrus rich beverage, opened the carton, grabbed a glass and proceed to fill it and empty it. He may have been injured, but he still had his class.
'Mmmm, feels good to be up and about again.'
Yea, and now Twilight wont have to wait on my hoof and hoof now.
He sat at the table with a fresh glass and enjoyed the act of sitting on something that wasn't a bed. He stretched out his tail one more time just because he could and relaxed into the the backrest to ponder what he'd do next. He didn't know on the grander scale what he wanted, but the drake was certain that getting out of the library would be a good start.
He chugged the remaining juice and caught the scent of something atrocious, his scales, his entire body hadn't been cleaned properly in two weeks, it shouldn't have been as big of a shock that he'd smell like plot. Maybe a shower being the first order of business was a better idea.
He placed his dish into the sink and quickly made way for the bathroom upstairs, keeping his arm and nose as far apart as he could. Grabbing a towel from the closet, Spike smiled to himself as anticipation began to grow. He hadn't had a shower in too long, and he could already feel the tension in his muscles melting away from the hot water soothing into them.
Though, as he walked into the bathroom, a sight to his right made him freeze in place. Flinching from the emotion of it all, the drake forced himself to turn and see what he looked like, to see the truth that everypony else would soon see. His one green eye took in the sight and he didn't know how to feel. Everything from his head down looked pristine, butt he white bandage that covered his left eye was a stark contrast to that.
He lifted a claw and remembered all the times he had to clean out the eye socket. It was a feeling that made him throw up the first time he was conscious for it. It felt so wrong, having a staril pad or que tip push so far into his cranium and push into places he didn't even know had feeling. He sometimes felt a fuzzy feeling in his socket, doctors referred to this as akin to a phantom limb where the body part that was taken still feels like it was there.
Bracing himself, Spike slowly reached up and felt for the binding of the bandages. The doctors said that the orbital was to receive no water unless staril to prevent infection until the socket either healed shut or he got a glass eye, so he'd either need to get goggles or clean it right after his shower.
Unwrapping the bandages, he held off just as the last of the wraps were done. He'd never seen the scars before, he'd felt Twilight and Sin clean the socket a few times until he could do it himself, but feeling and seeing were vastly different things. His arms shaking, the drake gulped and gently pulled the bandages down to reveal a sight that nearly made him loose the orange juice he'd drank.
He stood in awe of the massive crater that covered damn near half of his face, the discoloration and unnatural appearance only added to the hideousness of it. He lifted a claw and stopped short just of where his eye had been and pushed into the indent, past the phantom eye and into the crater. It looked and felt so wrong. He stood there for thirty minutes, just staring at his refelction, coming to terms with the fact that this is what he looked like now.
A small drop escaped his remaining eye and fell to the floor. He knew it would be bad, but this? He'd never, he could never have mentally prepared himself to see. A few more tears flew liberally leading to a hicup, and then a sob. Seconds later, the drake fell to his knees and cried, he cried and cried, begging something within him to restore what was lost.
Denial was a subtle thing some times, one could say they acknowledge a fact but never really think about it because they didn't see it all the time. Most days, aside from cleaning, he didn't even acknowledge he was missing his eye, he just tried not to think about it and carry on as if it wasn't true. But staring himself in the face, seeing the damage and horror he'd become, denial was absolutely hopeless.
"Why did I have to go in there?" The drake asked himself through the tears. "Why couldn't I have just let it go?" His emotions were a mix of pain and anger, it was a stupid decision that he would have to live with for the rest of his life. The entire time he'd been in bed, he could only think about the wrong he'd done, but now he was acknowledging the wrong done to him. How would other ponies look at him? With pity? With skepticism? What farther consequences would follow the stupidest decision of his life?
Slowly, his mind grew blank as the questions and emotions hit their boiling and simmering points. Unable to think clearly about anything, Spike stood from his place and slowly dragged his feet to the shower, turning the water on and stepping inside and letting the warm water cascade down his body. He didn't think, didn't feel, didn't move, he simply stood in front of the flow on autopilot as realization truly set in on just how different his life was going to be.
Malich sneered as he read over some reports from the Vale. Six of his griffon mercs were deployed to investigate a growing camp of Zeborican migrants into the area. None of them had been heard from for the past two weeks and that meant on of two things; his assets were either capture and kill or they'd gone rouge
The latter was a rarity, but it did happen from time to time. Triple M. had employed all races and the incentives for their mercenaries were unmatched by any security or relocation company. Though what solidified it was that not a single one of them had returned. One or two leaving in the middle of a mission was understandable, but six? No, that was too many. Somebody was messing with Malich's assets, and the ashen pony didn't take kindly to someone messing with his assets.
And what was the best way to ensure such destruction of his assets wasn't seen as tolerable? Why an over reaction of force and violence of course.
"Radclif!" He barked, slamming the file down, garnering the older stallion to enter his office. "Take an official order, I want the Thanatos Seven deployed to the Vale immediately! Tell Slade to head the investigation and slaughter any who get in his way!" The older stallion's eyes went wide.
"Sir? Are you sure that's a wise course of action?" Radclif wasn't as naive as he lead his boss on to believe, he'd read many of the reports Malich received for... alternative reasons, but he did know about the Thanatos Project and the destructive capabilities there in. Dragon Riders weren't known for their subtly. But Malich demanded his judgement not be questioned, he was in no mood for such things. It wasn't about the money so much as it was about the reputation. To harm Triple M. employees was to harm Triple M. And that kind of disrespect and humiliation was the biggest button anyone could push.
"That's an order. Tell them to find out what happened to the team that was dispatched for the Vale investigation, File," He paused to look down at the paper. "22-114. I want to know what happened and I don't care how they find out." Any resistance Radclif would have offered was quickly smashed by the look of unbridled hatred in Malich's icy blue eyes. He knew better than to challenge him when he got this angry.
"Will do, sir." He quietly closed the door, leaving the Vice president to his thoughts. He couldn't let word of this get out to the general public, the entirety of North New Equine used Triple M. as a police force to keep the population in line. And with the economy slowly easing its way back into recession, the security forces were being called more and more every day to investigate various crimes that started to pop up more and more.
The Senate was on his back again, though this time they were trying to get back into his good graces. They needed money to pay off the exuberant debts they were occurring, not that it mattered, considering the deficit was enough to make any good business pony hurl in disgust. He could give them all the money in the Federation, and they'd spend it all in a year's time. So many of the politicians in the Pegasi/Unicorn consortium were so bent on "saving" the country from itself that they promised damn near socialism to get elected.
Of course, those chickens would come home to roost soon. He'd just need to hold things together long enough to see it prepared for and used to his advantage.
He sighed and looked back at the file. He felt his anger on the raise and quickly looked away. He needed a break from this place, he needed to get away for a bit before he drove himself crazy. Drinking helped, but he had a feeling even the finest of Firewhisky wouldn't set him right after the time he's been having.
That's when a thought occurred to him. It had been months since his personal expedition to Equestria, they'd managed to capture the ruby dragon Golvec and domesticate him.
A small smile took the young vice presidents face as he put the logic together. He'd do well to accompany Thanatos, he could use the mount experience and the time away from the office. The Vale was a beautiful place, what better excuse and opportunity would he have to get some relaxation and field experience?
Radclif finished up the official order, signed his name, and stamped down the official seal of Triple M. Executives. He looked over the order and shook his head. "This is insane." He commented, thinking about all the possible destruction that the dragons could cause. The Zeborican migrants were anything but violent. They just wanted somewhere to go away from the dangers of their homeland. They were a peaceful people, but to the Federation, they were simply problems that needed to be fixed.
The donkey State of Orval was their safe haven and port of entry, though, that did also lead to the first and only Changeling incident. An estimated one thousand and seven hundred zebra had entered the country through that state about a decade ago. A time before the insectioids entering the country was a concern. The Orvalians welcomed them with open forelegs for the trade work the zebras brought.
It all started with finding a great number of zebra complaining of pains and aches to the local medical agencies. Many of the unicorn doctors preformed scans and found the parasites within, but were unable to know what to make of them. Soon after the government became involved and interviewed the migrants for any explanation. The information wasn't hard to find, but they didn't call them "changelings" they called them "Skin takers" which initially lead the Orvialian oligarchs to believe the parasites would take over the host's mind.
Though, that theory was quickly disprove when six hundred and seventy-two zebras were reported to have died all in one day, all around the same exact time. It was a mystery as to why it happened until the autopsy's came back to show the varying sizes of black and gold chitnes insectoieds within the bodies of the zebras.
A few days later, a state of emergency was declared, and many security and investigation agencies were hired to handle the situation. Triple M. was one of these organizations. This was back when Mandylion was still part of the company and headed all mercenary missions himself to show his subordinates that he was willing to fight along side them. He and his son, Gemini, had brought some tracking dogs and unicorns to assist in their efforts in finding any changelings who'd come to maturity and threatened the Federation.
The search was fruitless for the first few days, but a report of unnatural fear overtaking donkey foals in a small city to the south gained their attention. Mandylion decided to investigate, and in that investigation, found that the donkey foals had been infected with parasites similar, but much smaller, to the parasites the zebras were reported to have. This lead to Triple M's dogs catching the sent of the changeling queen and tracking her down to a small makeshift hive in a close cave.
The queen was quick and powerful from what Radclif was told, but the mercenaries proved more than a match. Once dead, she was electrocuted, burned to ash, and had the remains sealed away in an urn to ensure that she would never return. Happy though Triple M. was for their success in capturing and killing the queen, none could deny that there were still multiple donkey foals infected. With Triple M's medical devision only just starting out, they didn't have the resources to help the foals, nobody did. Even the best doctors of the pegasi/unicorn consortium could not stop the infection without killing the foals.
As such, thirty five donkey foals died from various means of attempted removal ranging from surgery to magical sedatives. Obviously, it was this incident that the Federal Senate used to justify more controlled border entrances as a matter of national security, when your platform was on dead foals, you typically go unchallenged.
It was a bitter sweet victory for the father and son, but it was the start that Triple M. needed to raise to the top.
Radclif sighed as he walked through the halls and boarded the elevator. However, instead of going down a few levels to inform the messengers of his superiors plans, he pushed the button that took him one level up. The top level.
Quickly, he exited the door, opened the scroll and set it down upon a nice wooden table next to a blood red quill and a small glass sphere that held, what looked like a small ethereal green eye inside. An invention called the "scanner sphere". The scanner sphere slowly levitated over the parchment, moving over the words slowly and carefully. The quill arose from it's ink holder and quickly began to magically scribble down what was on the parchment.
Radclif hated this part of the job, it felt so wrong to betray his boss's trust in this way, but when he received orders from the highest power in the company to duplicate and record his son's every written letter, the orders weren't to be questioned. Bad things happened to those who crossed the Triple M. Executive, and the old pony knew better than to become a statistic.