Chapter X
Hivanti nodded to himself in satisfaction. “Now that that little trouble-maker is out of the way, I can concentrate on those escaped animals,” he said to himself.
With an air of smugness, Hivanti readjusted his circlet, then delved once again into the mindscape.
* * *
The attack came without warning.
One minute, everyone was looking at Donny's dance with bemused expressions on their faces, and the next they were all doubled over in pain.
“What the heck is this?” Donny screamed at no one in particular.
“I can feel it in my head! The Mindstealer is inside my head!” Alik yelped.
Hexomer and several others keeled over in pain instantly, thrashing about and unable to say anything beyond tortured screaming.
Captain Hale was in pain. His world seemed to explode around him as he heard a voice whisper in his mind. It told him to do things, to take his gun and slay the others. To tear them to pieces with his own hands and drink their blood...
He watched in abject horror as his arm slowly raised itself, its weapon systems coming on-line of their own accord. He could feel the invading presence's glee as Hale sighted down poor Donny, the anticipation clear in its mind...
No! I'll not become your puppet! he screamed in the silence of his mind.
Slowly, his arm powered down, thankfully obeying his command.
He looked down at his arm in disbelief, pain still shooting through his skull. No one has ever been able to resist the orders of a Psywarrior for any length of time before.
Yet somehow here he was. Resisting.
“How is this possible?” he gasped in pain.
Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the pain stopped.
Hale dropped to knee, panting heavily. Once he had caught his breath, he glanced around at the others. “Is... is everyone okay?” he asked everyone one by one in their native tongue.
That is, he asked everyone until his eyes fell upon Twilight.
* * *
The quickness and strength of the attack had taken the purple pony quite by surprise. It was a vicious, brute-force attempt at breaking into another's mind that lacked any sort of finesse. It was clear that the mind behind it usually got what they wanted, when they wanted, however they wanted it. It was petulant, forceful and needy. It was also highly intelligent, crafty and ruthless.
The mind felt strong. Extremely strong. The best analogy Twilight had for the mind assaulting her was a professional boxer who didn't care if they fought dirty.
It was arrogant too. Blueblood level of arrogance, except this mind actually had the power to back up that arrogance.
The invading mind's arrogance, however, was the only reason that it did not notice that Twilight had only briefly been incapacitated by the assault. This gave her just enough time to perform the mental equivalent of a parry: In her mind, she imagined a copy of herself doing exactly what the attacking mind wanted her to do. That done, she took a small portion of the power at her disposal and used it to trick the attacking mind into attacking her mental construct instead of her with a variant of the 'Want It, Need It' spell.
With that out of the way, she then took a mental step back to examine the power that was assaulting her and her friends. What she found was... disturbing.
The attack was designed to disengage the victim's personality from control of its body. She assumed that the next step after that was to take control of the victim's body, but she couldn't be sure unless she let the assault take its course.
Luckily for her friends, her True True Self spell was still in effect. While the original purpose of the spell was to cure her friends of Discord's influence, it had a secondary function: It protected those under its influence from further tampering.
She was extremely happy to see that, even though the spell was designed with Discord in mind, it still worked against this alien power. As long as she and her friends fought for control, the enemy wouldn't be able to control them.
The scientist in her was fascinated at the alien's power; The ability to control another was difficult, even with magic. To be able to do it without any apparent magic was a miracle!
However, the pony in her was absolutely horrified. Just like Chrysalis or Discord, these Dridune were attempting to subvert and remove the most fundamental truth of sapient life.
She had questions, but now was not the time.
Now was the time to act.
Reaching out with her will, she exercised a small portion of her power and slapped the mind controlling her imaginary self. She then broke the illusion and the attached spell, allowing the invading presence to see that it had been duped.
She felt the consciousness pull back, ceasing its attack against her friends and turning all of its attention towards her. She felt its confusion at what she had done. She also felt a small worm of doubt enter its mind.
She couldn't let it escape and plot another attack against her and her friends, though. It was crafty, and might use that craftiness to physically hurt them instead of mentally.
She needed to distract it just long enough for her to construct a trap.
Quickly, she reviewed what she knew about the invading force as it tentatively poked at her defenses. It was crafty, sure. But it was also extremely arrogant. If she could somehow appeal to that arrogance, and anger it, she might be able to distract it long enough.
She needed something that would draw its attention. Something that could be infuriating, confusing and illogical, yet could not be ignored or denied.
Unbidden, an image floated to the top of her consciousness, one that made her grin uncontrollably.
* * *
Hivanti was perplexed. Here was something entirely new; somehow, these animals were resisting his attempts to usurp their minds, albeit at great personal cost.
He could feel it, though. The strength that they had was not their own. Some force was weaved into their consciousness, making it so that the only will that could be exerted upon them was their own. He was attempting to chip away at it, but it felt like the mental equivalent of hardened steel: it would take time to gain any degree of control.
Then, without warning, the one mind in the group that he thought he had control over suddenly struck back at him.
He quickly realized that the equine had employed some sort of strange mental construct to protect herself from his intrusion. The attack hadn't actually hurt, it just surprised him. It felt weak, as if the user had only just become a Psywarrior.
He had trained plenty of Psywarriors in his days, and he knew a feint when he saw one. It was clear that the mind was trying to get his attention; but for what, he had no clue.
curious... he thought to himself as he pulled back his assault on the others. Tentatively, he poked at the mental defenses of the strange creature. It was soft, pliable, yet whenever he would touch it, it would strike him with that same weak attack.
"Clearly this needs to be investigated further..." he said to himself.
“Boy, you can say that again!” he heard a bubbly voice say in his ear in Chimeric.
Quickly, he turned his astral projection to the left to see who had dared interfere with his thought process.
Next to him was something that he never thought he would see in his entire life. It was vibrant, pink, and four-legged, and was currently busy bouncing next to him, Its darker, poofy pink mane and tail bouncing right along with it. It had comically large, extremely expressive eyes that were a brilliant shade of blue, while on its flank there appeared to be a tattoo of some sort that depicted three round objects with what appeared to be string trailing from the bottom of each. On its face it wore a broad, almost manic expression of glee that seemed to stare into his very soul.
“Who, or what, are you?” he asked it as he mentally probed the strange creature. It seemed to be a mental construct of some sort, but somehow it felt far more real than just a simple construct. There seemed to be a real personality behind the mad grin that was being directed towards him.
“My name's Pinkie Pie! What's yours? Oh wait, don't tell me. I'll guess! Is it Deep Sea? How about Cthulhu? Oh! How about Captain Meanie Pants! On account of how you seem to be such a-”
“Begone,” Hivanti said, dismissing the construct with a wave of his hand. On command, the construct dissipated into nothingness.
“Now then, where was I?” he said as he refocused his attention to the mind in front of him.
“I believe I was just about to introduce you to my pet Gummy! Say hello Gummy!” Pinkie said in Hivanti's right ear. As she said this, a pair of strong, yet toothless jaws clamped down on his projection's facial tentacles.
Hivanti almost jumped clear out of his trance at that.
“What in the name of the Emperor!?!” he shouted into the mindscape as a small reptile went flying from his face.
The PInk One deftly caught the creature, then stuck it in her hair without missing a beat. “Oh! You have an emperor? What kind of emperor is he? Is he wise? Foolish? Does he wear footsie pajamas to bed? Oh! I bet he's constantly scowling like this!” the pink pony said as she quickly put her face into the most mocking scowl that she could muster, all while the small reptile in her hair began to chew on said locks.
Quickly, Hivanti pooled his ego and hurled it at the offending pony.
“No one mocks The Emperor!” he shouted at the offending construct.
As the psychic attack struck the annoying pink specter, it broke apart at the seams, leaving behind nothing but the fog of the mindscape.
“Finally, maybe now I can-” he started to say, but was interrupted as a loud noise and streams of confetti seemed to explode all around him.
“WOOHOO! PARTY TIME!” Pinkie shouted as she fired her party cannon.
Hivanti turned and glared at the evil pink apparition, his astral projection glowing ominously, burning away the imaginary confetti that covered him.
“Awe, don't be such a grumpy grumps. I know what you need! Cake!” she said as she somehow produced a large, frosted confection from her mane.
That was the last straw for Hivanti.
“I. WILL. NOT. BE. MOCKED!” he screamed, each word punctuated by a psychic attack directed at the bubbly pink pony.
This attack was designed to not only destroy the construct, but to also erase the mind behind it. It was his most devastating ability; If used, it would leave its victim a vegetable.
However, as the hellish fire reached out to engulf the pink pony, Pinkie somehow managed to dodge the rage fueled attack. This only seemed to infuriate the Psywarrior more, as he continued to throw attack after attack at the manic construct. Each frantic attack missed though, as the pink pony bounced further and further away from Hivanti, her mouth constantly babbling insanity as she moved away from him.
On and on they went. She would continue to babble at the increasingly wrathful Psywarrior, while he continued to chase her, his attacks becoming increasingly more frenzied. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he had finally cornered her.
He held up his glowing fist, pure rage flowing through his whole being as he towered over her. He was going to erase this figment, track it back to its place of origin, and erase the mind that had created such a demonic idea.
“You have nowhere to hide you annoying little-” he started to say, but stopped as the realization suddenly hit him.
He had cornered her.
In a place that was supposed to be completely devoid of walls, floors and ceilings.
“Well, not that this hasn't been fun, but I really need to get going. The Cakes are letting me practice my piping in the morning, and I have to tell everypony that Twilight will be home soon! Bye bye!” she waved as she faded from existence.
Hivanti quickly looked around, his confusion and alarm mounting. While he had been chasing the strange being, a large maze seemed to have been quietly constructed around his psyche, imprisoning him within. He quickly discovered that the maze's construction didn't seem to follow any sort of euclidean logic.
Oh, and the walls seemed to avoid any attempt he made to destroy them. In fact, any attack he made just seemed to loop around and strike him in the rear.
“Banthis dung,” he said after several of these failed attempts.
* * *
Gotcha, Twilight thought as the door of her trap swung closed. Quickly, she reinforced the borders of the planair maze with magic and constructed the exit.
While she didn't want to make one, she still had to in order to complete the spell. That was the weakness of binding magics; you had to put in some sort of key or method of escape, otherwise the spell would fail.
Hopefully, the Psywarrior wouldn't find the exit or break out before she and her friends managed to escape.
After she finished wrapping up the prison, she sent it back along the Psywarrior's link back to his body, effectively imprisoning him within his own head. She wasn't sure how long it would take him to break out, but she wasn't going to take any chances...
* * *
“What do you reckon she's doing?” Donny asked Hale as he slowly approached the unicorn.
Hale scratched his head in wonder. “I don't know. On a guess however, I'd have to say it has something to do with the fact that we're not being mind-raped right now,” he said.
He examined her closer. The unicorn's eyes and horn were both giving off a brilliant white light, while her body seemed to be releasing quite a bit of heat. There also seemed to be an almost electric quality in the air, something that he could almost taste.
Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. Twilight groaned, then shook her head to clear it.
“What the heck was that?” Hale asked her carefully.
Twilight's head snapped up at the sound of his voice, then quickly looked around at the others who were all staring at her. She blushed at the sudden attention and looked extremely flustered.
“I... um...” she said, then took a deep, cleansing breath. “I think we were just attacked by a Psywarrior,” she said.
“No crap. That's not what I asked. What the heck was up with the glowing? And why were we able to resist the brain-stealer's control?” he asked her gruffly.
Twilight looked up at him, shocked by his hostility. “Well, to answer your second question first, The spell I cast on each of you earlier strengthened your minds against any effect that would change your mind against your will,” she told him.
Hale looked stunned. “You... you can do that?” he asked her in awe.
“To answer your first question, I was glowing because I was fighting the Psywarrior,” she told him. “I managed to trap him in a magically constructed maze, but I'm unsure about how long it will take him to break free. We need to hurry and get off this station while he's occupied,” she told him as she got back up on her hooves.
He looked down at her in awe and fear. “...seriously? You... you actually managed to out-brain a Psywarrior at his own game.”
She looked at him, unsure about the reaction she was receiving. “Um...Not sure about the terminology, but yes...” She started to say, but then shook her head. “Look, I know that you probably have about a million questions for me. You probably have some fears that need to be answered as well, and I would love to answer all of them. But now is not the time. For now, you just have to trust that I'm your friend, not your enemy,” she said as she stomped one of her hooves on the metal deck plating.
Hale's face became an unreadable mask as he scrutinized her. Nodding once, he turned to Donny and gestured his thumb towards the taken apart console. “I'll accept that for now Sparkle,” he said quietly. As he talked, he started walking after Donny, his remaining arm swinging wildly to help him keep his balance. “Based on your past actions, I'll trust that you're on our side,” he said as he received his other arm from the engineer. “But know this: Most species don't take kindly to others messing with their minds,” he said pointedly as he reattached his arm.
Twilight gasped at him in shock. “I would never even consider anything like that!” she said in horror. “It would break one of the highest laws of ponykind! To take control of another's mind...” she trailed off when she noticed that Hale wasn't paying attention anymore, and was instead addressing the other escaped prisoners.
These people must have been fighting this war for a very, very long time to be this suspicious of their own allies, she thought to herself as she sat down on her haunches.
She hoped to one day change that.
Yay, OP Twilight Sparkle
4208930 Not quite. She used deception, not power, in this scene.
4208937
There is more than one type of power.
Oh this one was FUN! Pinkies mind destroying powers win again!
4208946
Agreed completely. Twilight's intellect is arguably more important than her raw magical strength.
I was wondering about the direction this was going to go; either she could resist the control, or something external like a rebel attack would have to save them. Interesting that she can resist something that even psywarriors need the special gems to fight.
4209262 That is actually going to be a fairly important point later on. Remember that fact for later.
Oh pinkie pie, you magnificent pink pony. just a thought, does a psywarrior need constant access to a mind(s) to control their targets or is it like a set number of parameters for the body follow until they need an update of orders or something? bleh, 3 things give migraines: Mind sciences, Time travel and pulling all nighters on fimfiction.
4209277 They can actually do both. They can actively control a mind, or program it to follow a set of parameters. Jalath was programmed.
4209268
Yeah, I imagine that has serious implications for them both culturally (she's clearly superior sans gems) and in terms of science. I can only imagine how badly they'll want to get their appendages on her brain... Assuming they can even comprehend whatever biological processes are behind magic.
4209268
Huh, I never ever considered the spells she had in place years ago after that nasty game Discord played with them all. Now I have to look back and consider any other fail-safes she might have lurking to save a purple pony from an untimely demise.
You do realize she'll have an excuse to put a Want-It-Need-It enchantment on something on that capital ship waiting for orders to blow the base to smithereens... right? Now, Twilight wouldn't put it on a bomb, but the human would.
4209262
I could see her going "total badflank pony of mass destruction Twilight Bucking Sparkle" on all the Psywariors and Dridune (I'm not sure that is spelled right)
4209460
Twilight's not really about blowing stuff up, though. And that's not generally a good idea on a space station. Sci-FI power is generally about controlling computer systems and out-maneuvering the opponent; locking down sections, venting atmosphere, and catching them in killzones.
4209483
I was referring to after they get off the station.
4209420 Indeed. I can't remember what story it is, But I do know in one story somewhere on this site, Twilight DOES put a Want-it-Need-it spell on a grenade and throws it into a group of enemies. It was glorious.
Weaponized Pinkie Pie. Pretty sure that's covered by a number of treaties as a crime against all ponykind.
4209710 I think that happened in Into the Black: A Mare's Tale
4210301 Most like, or a story like it with Twilight sent to somewhere with humans and turned into a total badass. There are a few, they all good too.
Only Pinkie would be aware of being used as a mental construct. The question is, was she summoned, or just make a connection with Twilight? The answer is, yes.
4210700
Twilight battles the evil overlord! (Okay, just a Dridune--but still evil!) Nice work, and skipping the proofing didn't mess it up too much. Who'd ever get flustered about little things like using "your" for "you're?"
Oops... I guess there's ONE pony that might notice...
Calm down, Twilight! He's writing nice things about you!
4214708 whoops. thanks for the catch! and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
4214708 Um... could you point out precisely where I made the error? because I'm not seeing it.
4214779
Well, if I'm going to do this, I'll give it a little extra effort... Let's see...
This gave her just enough time to preform the mental equivalent of a parry: (perform)
Luckily for her friends, her True True Self spell was still in effect. (two trues? I'm not sure either way on this one.)
“Based on your past actions, I'll trust that your on our side.” (you're)
“But know this: most species don't take kindly to others messing with their minds.” (Shouldn't the first letter of "most" be upper-case?)
4215025 Thanks man, you are the best!
To the author: another great work, and if I was not ready for bed then I'd comb it for typo's, but so far I only saw a few and those are already covered by my colleague here.
4209710
Someone remembers that? I am still kind of proud of that one. It started with me describing how I play tabletop RPG's a while back and the idea then started to go around. Too bad my other ideas were seen as too cruel.
4214708
Who?
This is the internet.
EVERYONE.
4223046
Not everyone, surely?
At least a few are occupied with making bawdy "Naughty Lass" jokes about the title: The Nautilus Protocol."
4224663 Funny thing is that I haven't had a single one of those jokes.
...until now.
Great story you've got going. Please keep posting new chapters!
1500 views! WOOT!
And now I'm caught up.
Interesting story, I like the unusual angle to it~ Progression feels a tad... slow sometimes, not sure why, but beyond that~ Good story thus far.
4380935 I'm glad you enjoy it!
yeah, it may seem slow at times, but you must remember two things: one, this is my first, real story (and by real, I mean longer then three chapters.) and two, I'm trying to construct a believable world, with backstory and intrigue. If tolkien has taught me anything, its that that sort of thing takes time.
I am trying to speed things up in this next chapter, though, so keep an eye out for it!
I'm quite stoked that this story is actually still ongoing after all this time. Most stoked indeed.
But seriously, I'm really liking this one. It's very nicely old-fashioned. Aliens and cyborgs and space wars and ponies. It's the total package.
Everyone should read this story.
4385496 I'm glad you liked it so much! yeah, I'm a sucker for the classics. Give me star wars/star trek/stargate sg1 any day.
HA! That delightfully evil little minx. (Don’t tell me she’s not evil. She willingly inflicted Pinkie Pie upon an unprepared sapient being. That has to be against the Geneva convention. Somehow.)
When you described the dance that he was doing, all I could think of was the Macarena. XD
MUWHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA THE PINKIE PIE HAS BEEN UNLEASHED! CUPCAKES SHALL RAIN DOWN FROM THE SKY AND ALL WHO DEFY HER WILL BE NOMMED INEFFECTUALLY BY GUMMY TILL THEY STOP RESISTING!
Or he will be highly annoyed because she has yet to engage her own version of physics and is still managing to outdo him at every turn.
Didn't...sic a construct of Pinkie Pie on him....
Sicced...the REAL Pinkie Pie on him...
WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED AT THIS?!?!?
Also, no one deserves that, regardless of how evil they are.....
I'm so glad I continued reading the story, it has really been getting more interesting every chapter that I pass.
As soon as I read this, I had the same thought as Twilight
quiet
variant, and Want It Need It (Capitalize, possibly remove apostrophes)
attached
planar maze
She had almost finished the maze when a thought occurred to her: 'When this guy gets out, he's going to hurt my friends, and I can't beat him this way again... Better make this count.'
The maze was already nearly a mile on a side as she defined the edges and added a floor and ceiling that perfectly matched the material of the walls. Stretching her mind she copied the entire maze she had just built, and stacked identical copies on top of and underneath the existing section until she had a cube, one mile on a side with each layer linked in a couple of places.
'Now let's up the difficulty...'
Each level of the mile-wide cube rotated at random like a Rubik's cube before coming to rest, then she squared up the dimensions, making sure that each wall was exactly the same dimension as the floor and celing that ubuted it. That done, Twilight reach further out and made 26 copies of the original cube, slotting them into place around the original and linking them together to form a cube 3 miles on a side. A memory of the vivisection table came unbidden to mind, and with a frown she repeated the process once more for good measure, adding 26 new cubes until the maze was now 9 miles on a side.
Her brows knit in concentration 'Now to teach him a lesson...' as she programed the maze to torment him by performing several tasks at random times.
'First, we'll make the whole maze shrink at 5% an hour until its just barely navigable, then snap back to normal. Then, we'll increase or decrease the temperature at 5% an hour until it's just barely tolerable, then snap back again. Oh! Mosquitoes! I'll throw in a smattering of mosquitoes and some hornets to roam around the place.' She thought a moment more 'and I'll have it blare random loud noises every so often!'
'Hmm... now what if somepony tries to rescue him?' She thought hard, then added a program that let anyone enter the maze at will, but blocked them from leaving by any means but the exit. 'Oh, and every time someone goes in, it should move the exit to a new random spot!'
Twilight smiled to herself as she crafted the exit that would seal the spell, and had almost finished when the image of one of her friends caught in her situation flashed to mind.
With an angry scowl she shut off the lights and the gravity, sealing the spell.
5078530 ANYONE who encounters a projection of Pinkie and doesn't have "hug!" as their first reaction deserves having her as a distraction.
Ohh, never mind, I thought you meant like more than 2 months.
'The' should be lowercase.
And this should be uppercase.
Uh, lowercase again.
Perhaps 'planar'? Not sure if this is intentional or not.
Also, u do stnk.
5560783
For fucks sake.....that's not a maze that's just torture!!!
Twilight, you clever girl using Pinkie.
The Psiwarrior looks around to see...
images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/3800000/Movie-Screencaps-labyrinth-3801111-1024-576.jpg
When an oddly dressed pony blinks into existence
orig14.deviantart.net/3e25/f/2011/210/c/2/dance_magic_dance_by_sorcerushorserus-d423jgm.jpg
Who then starts singing dance magic... the whole time... for the hours, days, or longer it takes to escape the...
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/3a/fa/37/3afa37a24d6037bc8f0be1c0c8f58e23.jpg
Now I wonder if the Pinkie on Equestria told her friends that Twilight would be home soon