//------------------------------// // A Friend? // Story: To be or not to be... // by Suke //------------------------------// SWEET APPLE ACRES (OMNI) ‘Did that bastard just throw me out?’ was Omni’s first thought as he lifted himself off the poor dark blue pony. Getting to his feet, he noticed the horn and wings. ‘That’s one odd looking pony’ before ‘Ooooooh crap’ when he saw the crown.  The pony’s eyelids slowly raised themselves off of its eyes. Realisation dawned upon its face and the horn on its head began to glow a similar dark blue to the pony’s coat. It was then when gravity decided to let go of Omni. “What the fuck?” Omni said as he waved his arms in a futile attempt to get gravity’s attention. “I don’t know who you are, but you better have a good reason for tackling a princess of Equestria!” demanded the pony who Omni realised was somehow levitating him. She (he figured it was a she by the word ‘princess’) stood up, proving to be almost as tall as Omni. Her mane flowed in the windless air, dark as the night sky, seemingly containing its own stars. Her tail was the same, and on her flank, where it was like someone had splotched on some ink, there was an image of a crescent moon. “So? What are you and what are you doing h-” “Luna! Look out!” From behind him, a silhouetted creature appeared in the corner of Omni’s eye. It was in mid-air, headed for the pony, or Luna if he’d heard right. Before Omni could get a good look at it, a beam of light, again from behind, struck the creature. It vanished in a cloud of wispy black smoke, accompanied with a horrible screech. “I’m glad that worked.” The same voice from behind said with a sigh. Another voice spoke up, “The others don’t seem to be attacking.” Luna glared at Omni, “I’m willing to bet this ‘thing’ has something to do with that. Are they waiting for your orders?” “I… I’m not like them!” Omni paused to consider his next few words. “I think… I think they’re what I’m here to get rid of. Please believe me.” “How do you expect to get rid of them? You have no horn for magic, your claws are blunt and you have hardly a muscle on you. You wouldn’t stand a chance.” “I don’t know that yet, but I’ll figure something out. Could you please put me down?” “No. I shall not.” As if on cue, Omni saw two more creatures come into view. One seemed to be headed towards the ponies behind him, whereas the other went straight for Luna. Luna, already using her magic to hold Omni, did the first thing that came into her head. Omni was thrown at the silhouetted assailant. ‘Shit! What do I do? What do I do?’ A voice shouted from his rucksack, “Punch the blighter!” Without a moment’s hesitation, that’s exactly what he did. Right fist into the face, knocking it to the ground where it burst as the first did. Around the same time another screech announced a third defeated Everto. When Omni hit the ground, he rolled and stopped himself, steadying himself with one foot, the other leg’s knee and a hand. Taking off his rucksack he opened it up to find a familiar face on his phone’s screen. “What did I tell ya? Another one bites to dust,” a maniacally grinning Holo-Thunder boasted. “Before you get confused again: It seems the ever-present magic in the air is a great power source for your phone. Same probs goes for your watch to, as useless as that’s gonna be. Enough of that though. FINISH THEM!” There was another screech, causing Omni to look up. More Everto were attacking the ponies. With phone back in bag, and bag back on shoulders, Omni ran into the fray. (APPLEJACK) ‘What in tarnation’ she thought as she watched the talking biped run towards the remaining monsters. Applejack, while the others either covered their eyes or focused on Celestia (Celestia herself being occupied briefly with her own personal assailant), was the only one to witness it kill a monster with a simple punch. Behaving like predators, she’d assumed the monsters would at least be able to survive a hit like that. ‘Maybe they aren’t so scary after all.’ Just as she thought that, the mysterious ally reached another monster and punched it. Nothing happened and both involved seemed to stare at each other. The first to react was the ally once more, punching with the other fist, the desired effect being the result; another screech. Applejack thought she heard a voice from the biped but his mouth hadn’t moved. It then nodded to nopony in particular and ran at more of the monsters, only swinging the arm he’d just used. By this point, all the attackers were focused on the one-punch fighter. Celestia was slightly out of breath. Everypony was now watching the one-sided fight. To her left, Applejack heard Rainbow Dash whisper, “Awesome.” On her other side, Doctor Whooves was shaking behind a fallen tree, hooves over his eyes. Twilight just looked on in silence, most likely thinking up millions of questions. When Applejack looked back at the scuffle, it was all over, the last screech echoing into the night. The victorious biped had his claws on his knees, and was breathing heavily. Celestia turned to Luna, whose mouth was hanging open. “It seems the thing’s-” ‘thing’ was said mockingly. “-chances were quite high, dear sister.” “B… But… How?” was all Luna could say. The thing in question turned to Luna and shrugged. He opened his mouth to speak, but a loud voice coming from his bag interrupted him. “Woo Yeah! Omni is in the HOUSE! Well, metaphorically speaking. Hey is there any VIPs here? I need to have an ickle private chat with ‘em.” Celestia, showing no signs of surprise, calmly replied, “I believe that would be my sister and me.” “Spot on! Omni my man! Open your bag and hand your phone over to the lovely lady, if you’d be so kind. I assume she’s a lady; can’t see a thing in here.” The being known as Omni followed the disembodied voices instructions, pulling out a strange object that glowed on one side. Celestia levitated it, then she and Luna walked a fair distance away so none could hear them. Luna could be heard raising her voice a couple of times, but not enough to make out what she was saying. During this moment of quiet, Applejack decided to approach Omni. He stared at her as she did this. “Erm… Howdy,” she said, trying to ignore the awkwardness of having to talk to someone much taller than she; almost twice as tall. “Ah’m Applejack, though most call me AJ. Ah think I speak for us all when I say we’re mighty thankful for taking care of them monsters.” “Thankful!?” shouted the familiar voice of Doctor Whooves, obviously over the state of shock he was in earlier. “He’s the reason they were here in the first place, what with their coming out of the same breach in space-time. What is that monstrosity anyway?” He pointed a hoof at the metal cuboid Omni had flown out of. “Beats me. H-T said  it was like something called a Tardis.” “And who’s this H-T you speak of? The mastermind to your dastardly plot to mess up reality as we know it?” “He’s a hologram of a man calling himself Thunder. Confusing personality and occasional maltreatment of myself aside, he’s an alright guy- I mean hologram. Claims he’s just a clever automated response program.” “Yeah, about that: I lied,” H-T called over. “I’m actually an AI based on Thunder’s personality and such. I like that name though; H-T. Has a ring to it.” (OMNI) Omni looked over to the princesses who were returning from their private chat with H-T. The AI in question, smiling from Omni’s phone, looked like he was leading the way, the white coated princess levitating the phone in front. Omni was glad for the interruption, as the smaller ponies were showing blank expressions during his explanation, except for the brown one with the hourglass on his flank, who was showing blank, mixed in with anger, with a little bit of fear. “Luna and I have conferred with H-T, and we have learned that Equestria is under threat once more from those creatures you saw earlier. They are known as Everto, and are capable of worse things than the likes anypony has encountered before. Twilight, I would have you gather your friends at the library at dawn, where H-T will explain the situation in greater detail. My sister and I will be there, once I have raised the sun, as will Doctor Whooves and Omni.” The purple pony nodded and turned to the winged pony with the rainbow mane and AJ, “Come on girls.” They galloped off into the trees, AJ pausing briefly to tip her hat to Omni. The brown pony, the one believed to be Doctor Whooves, huffed and trotted after them. Once the disgruntled one disappeared from view, Omni turned to the princesses. For some reason, the fact they were royalty and one even mentioned raising the sun, he wasn’t really that much intimidated. It might have had something to do with the white one’s soft smile. “Now, Omni. H-T says you can change your form to blend in with your surroundings. Could you do that before heading into town?” “I guess so. I don’t really know how.” “It’s easy. Thunder tinkered with the bracelet you had on when he found you. Just slip it on then ‘poof’; Omni the Pony, at your service. Before you do that though, I should probably mention that relying on that right arm of yours ain’t gonna cut it. Lucky for you, your new home has access to a fancy alloy Thunder went and made called Malium. This shit’s more adaptive than the Borg, and non-sentient too, so win-win. The station is made of it, which is why it was still there when you found it. “Only way anyone can do any damage to it is if they… get… in- SHIIIIIIIIT!” Omni guessed the problem and quickly looked to the station to see the door open. Small scratching noises could be heard from within. He made to run and jump in (seeing as the ground floor was now the first floor), but H-T shouted, “STOP!” Omni looked questioningly at the hovering phone, which continued to speak, “It’s too late. They’ve just about breached the floor. Knew he should have put some Malium under the floor.” The same voice he heard when stood at the door on Earth boomed out, “Security Breach! Self-destruct in 10 seconds!” “Aaaawww, really?” moaned the AI. “Welp, I suggest a rapid retreat, and possibly a shield to contain the explosion. Wouldn’t wanna do more damage to this lovely orchard.” “Agreed,” the sisters said, simultaneously. The three of them ran for a few seconds until the princesses stopped, turned and made a bubble of magic around the ticking time bomb with a couple metres space between metal and magic barrier. The building had started counting down from 5. Just after 1, Omni heard H-T talking quickly from the phone, “All necessary files transferred. Now just to back my-” BOOM! The explosion lasted within the bubble for close to a minute. Once the rubble settled and the fires went out from oxygen starvation, the princesses released the barrier. There was now a small crater filled with the remains of Omni’s brief home. The phone let off a small tune; Omni grabbed it out of the air and examined the screen. H-T’s face was gone. An image of an opened letter had a 1 next to it so he tapped it. Up came a message addressed from H-T: Firstly, please imagine this in fancy ‘ye olde’ writing, if you can. You done that? It doesn’t really matter, since I’m sure you won’t get it anyway, but humour me just this once. Dear Dominique ‘Omni’ Guillory, While in your phone, I messed with its memory capacities so there was space to store files on Everto to help with the Library gathering we got planned. I also added files on your old home, in case you wanted to, you know, reminisce (or just remember life as it was). I also messed with the camera and light functions so you can project stuff. Was meant to help with explanations at prior mentioned gatherings, as well as project myself. Sadly, there wasn’t enough time to put a backup me on this phone. Probably should have done it sooner… then again, probably should have closed the friggin’ door.          :P I mentioned before that there were more people being offered this job, but they would be greeted by different versions of me, tweaked here and there to make each of us ever so slightly individual. I say this because I want you to know, in the brief time we hung out, that I, the AI named H-T, had a blast (mind the pun)! I regret not being able to assist you any more than I already have, be it in saving this world, the worlds that followed, and/or recovering your memories. Had you chosen the ‘chicken’ option, I’d have stuck with you. My only other regret is not being able to annoy you with what would have been a perfect Navi impersonation, and I can only hope you eventually learn what I mean by that. I wish you luck, Omni of the kick-ass right arm. AI assigned to Lille Aftermath Station, H-T. (LUNA) Luna didn’t think Omni had realised, but he was crying. H-T had briefly gone over the state of Omni’s home world, and how he was made to sleep through it all, said sleep causing amnesia. Celly had followed it up with the knowledge that, in similar situations of memory loss and minimal social contact afterward, most ponies were known to count the first genuinely friendly face as a true friend. They may only do this subconsciously, but even so, it would be as if they had known the friendly pony since foalhood. Watching as Omni finally noticed his own tears, Luna considered H-T’s and Celly’s words. A dear friend, lost so soon after just meeting him. The biped ran towards the rubble, dropping his ‘phone’ on the way. It was distressing to watch, to say the least, as he tried digging through the mess. Her eyes were watering up a little. Then something caught her eye above the wreckage. (H-T) It was weird, looking down on Omni recklessly rummaging around. As a program, he hadn’t seen through the eyes of his hologram. That was just something for people to look at, calm them a bit. A lot less disconcerting when you’ve got a face to talk to rather than a room. Now, he was floating above what was best considered as his body. He looked at the transparent image that he was now; almost identical to his creator, bar a few differences that probably represented the tweaks that made him unique. He guessed at ‘Magic’ being the cause of this anomaly. The two princesses looked at him, and even Celestia showed some surprise. H-T smiled and raised a finger to his lips. They got the message. Returning his attention to his first and only friend, H-T thought to himself: ‘A place where things like friendship and love produce powerful magic, eh? Not bad for a first world. Hopefully get him into the groove of things slowly, unless he has Thunder’s luck in those matters. First though, he needs to pull himself out of the dirt.’ “It’s pointless mate. There are plenty more friends to be made here, plus you’ve got a job. DO EEEEEEEEEET!” Omni frantically turned to find the source of the voice, but H-T had gone. A/N: So, yeah, killed H-T off 'cause the combination of him and Omni would fucking Mary Sue the whole thing, plus every god damn HiE does game/anime culture references. With H-T gone and Omni with no memories, I feel that this differs from the average HiE.