Encounter
In which Ponies are first encountered
As the descent to my new home started, I reflected on past events.
Like I said, I'm a clone. I'm a clone who for all intents and purposes, should not exist. Only because one Maya Brooks saved me from the Cerberus labs. Maya groomed me to replace the original Shepard, and make everything the way it should have been: Humans before Aliens. Only the plan to - ahem - remove - the first Shepard didn't work so well. It was executed perfectly, even if he killed all of the CAT6 mercenaries assigned to kill him. But enough about that.
There's never much time to think when you're in an adrenaline filled situation; every choice or decision must be made in a split second and then followed through by the related action. I hadn't realised it, but the entirety of what happened after I fell from the Normandy was like that. The threat of Citadel Security discovering me was too damn high! The only time I had relaxed was after I left the Citadel, if only for a split second.
I activated my Omni-tool and accessed the ship's autopilot. A quick scan for suitable landing locations showed that there was one close to where I was descending. The site was a clearing in the middle of a large, overgrown forest. It also contained some ruins, perhaps leftover from some indigenous species that wiped itself out, like we humans almost did, oh so many times before. The turbulence you would expect from diving into the atmosphere of a planet was mostly blocked by the freighter's built-in motion dampers, and protected from the flames of high speed reentry by the limited kinetic barriers. The ship carefully set down near a sort of keep, a large castle if you will. The place was in quite the state of disrepair, but I would have liked to see it in its prime. The remaining architecture was beautiful by modern standards, quite a lot like the Roman era of architecture too. Whoever built it had an astounding knowledge of mathematics, it must have been perfect down to the milimetre.
The landing of the freighter dislodged some of the stone work, collapsing some sections of the keep. Well, I can't worry about old hunks of rock now, there's work to be done! With the ship set down, I'd need to disguise it, find a good place to build a hideout, and...I stopped myself. I keep getting worked up over what I'm going to do, setting plans that hinge on certain aspects that just don't work that way. I keep building on an unstable foundation, going higher and higher, regardless of any other way to build it, following one diagram the whole way, and CRASH! The whole thing comes toppling down like a tower of building blocks! Actually, a lot like the dislodged parts of that well-crafted castle.
I put the ship into a state of grounding, disabling engines, lowering kinetic barriers, reducing the signals that would be a give away to any passerby. Now if the Normandy comes along, I won't be hidden much longer. The original me has an uncanny knack for ferreting out "secret" operations. Speaking of him, why is he so special? If it's biological we should be equals. If it's a matter of augmentations, I have those as well. If it's a matter of forces, he should be dead! I had hundreds of mercs at my disposal and he killed every last one of them. Maybe it's who he has at his disposal. Krogan? Check. Turian...Check. Quarian? Yep. Humans? Plenty. Salarians? More than enough. Robots? No, but unnecessary. Artificial lifeforms are inferior to regular life. No way I'd get a Drell. I moved out of command room and into one of the airlocks. I opened it and closed it behind me. I went walking through the ruin.
I fought him one on one, mano a mano, with plenty of little distractions to keep him from being too fancy. I got him into hand-to-hand combat. I almost had him beaten until his lackeys backed him up. I even used the same tactics as he did. Hell, I used my medigel at the right time too. My CAT6 mercs were the best of the best, top of their classes, they should have been more than a match for his ragtag band of misfits. But the three little teams destroyed what was effectively a small army by 21st century Earth standards. Maybe it was the Prothean he picked up on Eden Prime? I should get a Prothean too. Now, where am I? The forest?
There was a small hut nearby, almost one of those old Teepees you'd see in the Western B movies, because I assume those are still B rated. A small squat little hut, with a door barely tall enough for me to squeeze through. Inside, I found the stereotypical evil witch dwelling style house, complete with double bubble, boil and trouble, middle of the room, suspended over the fire pit, cauldron. The walls were lined with books and scrolls of untold arcane knowledge. Half finished potions littered the room, I had even stepped in one on the way inside. Well, it was fun and all, but I'm going back to the ship. And then I was hit by a tree.
Coming too, I saw stone work on a ceiling. This stone work was not unlike the old castle the freighter had landed in, but in an obviously better condition. I heard the clip clopping of little horse feet on stone. I looked down. My armor was scarred with the marks of various attempts to pierce it. Crap, I'd just painted that! My helmet was still on, and I suspected I had a concussion. A tree trunk had been swung from the trees just as I had left the hut. I think I managed to catch a glimpse of pink hair-ribbon before the tree hit my face. Did I mention that I was on an operating table? Whatever hit me with the tree must've thought I'd died, and took me in for testing. I checked the hardsuit logs. Gah, scrambled!
The clip clopping ended and I froze stock still. Whatever had me captured thought I was dead, there was no reason for me to give my survival away. I picked up a strange language, almost like the neighing of a horse? that couldn't be right. Regardless, I filed away the language snippet for future reference. The creature came over to me and began moving the operating table out of the room. I heard more horse noises as I was carted down a hallway. We entered another room. This one had a few more horse-noise-creatures. If anything, they were discussing me. One of them looked over me. Surprise, surprise, this thing looked a lot like a horse. It shined a flashlight into my helmet to try and elicit a reaction. My optical enhancements rendered me immune to the sudden flash of light, so I still didn't move. The horse-creature made more noises, and I detected a pattern. Could I translate this thing's noises into words? My questions went unanswered as the creature lowered a large device over me. A few levers were pulled and the device began to chip away at my armor. I delivered an overload charge to the device before it cut too deep. The chipping machine blew up in front of me. The horse things went into a panic as I sat up and looked around. Computer stations were set up to monitor me and the machine. I reached for one of my guns...nothing. My guns were gone, and I had spent all of the old guy's hard earned money on them!
I rolled off the table and to my feet. A horse scientist tried to block me, but a swift knee to the face took it down a notch. The other horse scientists started trampling one another to get away from me. A biotic shockwave sent them flying off of their feet, and out of the way. I walked out of the open doorway. This was indeed a science lab, in nearby rooms I saw science horses experimenting on various creatures. One room held a chitinous horse-like insect, one a large scorpion tailed cat-esque creature, in one there was a piece of Prothean technology, and in another one was pieces of my armor and weapons. Well, judging by that room, I'm not going to get my guns back any time soon.
A troop of horses armed with Corinthian style helmets and spears came into the room opposite me. Some of the horses had horns, others had wings. Technically I could call them unicorns and pegasi. One unicorn coloured white and blue stood in the front of them. It made more horse noises at me, did it sound angry? Poor thing, it thought it could stop me. I put it into a biotic stasis field, stopping it in its tracks. The other unicorn horses began to shoot some sort of biotic field out of their horns, while the pegasi horses charged me with their spears. I charged the pegasi myself and plowed right through them, sending more than one of them flying. God, I haven't tried using biotics since I fought Shepard, I forgot how much effort I needed! I paused to catch my breath, and the white and blue unicorn came out of the stasis field. It was visibly frightened, as it saw how much more powerful my biotics were over the unicorns. Nonetheless, it put aside its fear and charged me too. I mustered my strength and jumped; I jumped right onto the horse's back! The unicorn madea distressed noise, and I exerted my dominance over it. I rode out of the room.
I came out into a room out of a fairytale, a huge throne room. With no time to lose, I steered the hapless unicorn by the horn to the massive doors at one end of the room.