Lost Contact
Twenty four hours.
Twenty four hours since the overload.
Twenty four hours of unknowns.
Twenty four hours of worry.
Twenty four hours of lost contact.
“Thank you all for meeting me here on such short notice,” Rose’s humanoid body said as she pulled out a chair from the cafes exterior table and sat down. Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie had already gathered and taken their seats, though hadn’t been waiting for any longer than a few minutes already.
“Well of course,” said Rarity, sharing a quick look with her friends. “If there’s anything we’ve learned about you, it’s that you only ever organize meetings like this when they’re important.”
The waiter brought a quartet of menus to their table, silently distributing them. Pinkie Pie was the only one to actually open one, while Rose casually pushed her’s away. “This one will not be an exception to that rule. First, I must ask you a question. Rarity, around this time yesterday, did you notice a strange magical disturbance?”
Rarity nodded. “I did! It very well knocked me off my hooves! Why?”
Rose’s eyes wandered to the few ponies wandering the street. “Every other unicorn in town has reported having the same feeling at that time. Pegasi and earth ponies were unaffected. None of them know why.”
“Oh dear…” gasped Fluttershy. “Do you think you have an idea of what caused this?”
Rose met her gaze. “I have more than an idea. I know exactly what caused it.”
Pinkie stuck her menu to her face, peering over it with wild eyes. “Was it aliens from outer space?!”
“No,” Rose answered her with a flat stare.
“Oh…” said Pinkie, lowering her menu in thought before raising up again to browse through her options. “Welp, there goes my idea!”
“Well if it wasn’t that,” Rarity remarked with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, “then what was it?”
“Do you happen to recall the events that transpired during the Summer Sun Celebration?” asked Rose, leaning on the table with interlocked fingers.
Fluttershy placed a hoof over her mouth. “You mean that time that Alex nearly died…?”
“Yes, that. Do you recall feeling a similar sensation at the time?”
“I do…” Rarity nodded, her eyes wandering down to the table. “I didn’t think about it before, but you’re right, the sensation was similar…” She looked up at Rose. “But it wasn’t nearly as bad as what I felt yesterday, though!”
“The device that nearly killed Alex at the Celebration was a Power Core,” Rose started. “It was small, but still capable of generating large amounts of energy. What you felt then was a result of the Core’s containment field failing to initiate, allowing its energy to radiate freely. The shock that the Core delivered to Alex when he stopped the power build-up traumatized the device enough to jump start its containment. It was the equivalent of kicking machinery when it fails to start and suddenly find it working again.
“Had it not been contained, energy would have built up until it grew unstable and exploded, turning Ponyville into little more than a crater. We call this process a Core Overload. What you felt yesterday was another Core Overload, but for a Power Core several times larger than the first. Large enough, in fact, that it felt more powerful than the first time despite the fact that it’s nowhere near Ponyville.”
Fluttershy’s brows creased in worry. “Wh-what happened? Where was it?”
“The changeling hive,” Rose answered, turning her head Fluttershy’s way. “Alex initiated the Leviathan’s Omega protocol. It’s a last resort protocol meant to prevent our technology from falling into possession of those who would misuse it. It works quite simply: cause the vehicle’s Power Core to overload and annihilate everything nearby. Truth be told, we’ve never detonated a core before, but we estimate unparalleled levels of destruction.”
Pinkie Pie slowly lowered her menu, which actually drew more attention to her than if she had lowered it quickly. However, she held a thousand yard stare straight into the center of the table. “So that was the doozy…” Pinkie gulped and dragged her eyes up to Rose. “What happened to them…?”
Fluttershy looked between Pinkie and Rose for several seconds before the dots connected and gasped, both hooves shooting to cover her gaping mouth as she stared. Rarity’s expression fell, and her blood ran cold.
Rose crossed her arms over her abdomen as she stared solemnly at the table. “They all managed to get out of the hive and aboard a transport in time, but… I lost contact with their transport shortly after the detonation.” She shifted in her seat. “I still haven’t found them.”
A dark cloud hung over the table. Tears flowed freely as their lungs struggled to keep a regular rhythm. Fluttershy buried her head under her ever tightening hooves, unable to even wail openly. Pinkie’s face fell flat against the table, a quiet sob that produced the occasional pained squeak brought the only indication of the thoughts that circulated her mind. Rarity made every effort to keep her rapidly disintegrating composure together. Her deep breaths were the only thing that even remotely enabled her to continue talking instead of breaking down altogether.
“B-b-but you’re still looking, right?” Rarity croaked. “You still haven’t given up, r-r-right…?”
Rose looked away. “The lack of results has made things more… difficult for me to continue. I’ve had to halt my own efforts for the time being and separate myself from the network, but I’ve placed Hyde in charge of search and rescue in my stead.”
“Of… of course…” Rarity gulped, a fraction of an inch from breaking down entirely. “Th-these a-are trying times for… for all of us…” Just as she began to sob, her watery eyes shot open, and she stared back up at Rose. “What about Spike?! Some… somepony has to—”
“I’d like to delay that as much as possible,” Rose interrupted, avoiding eye contact. “He doesn’t need to know until we’re absolutely sure.”
Rarity’s lips trembled. “Yes… Of… of course…” With no further thoughts to keep her mind focused, she joined her remaining friends in the circle of tears.
It was a moment none of them could ever truly acknowledge as even being possible; mourning the loss of so many near and dear friends at once. And without even giving them a proper goodbye. Half of their group was simply gone. Vanished. They had all spoken together just the other day, but to think that that would be the last time… It could not have been anticipated, and even with hindsight, it remained unimaginable.
Lost in thought, none of them noticed the distant thumps that started to rattle their spoons and forks. The jingling grew in intensity, though it wasn’t until the thumping and clanking that accompanied the tremors drew close enough that they were all brought back to reality. Several ponies ran down the street in the opposite direction of the noise in a clear attempt at escape. It didn’t take much longer for Sub-Commander Hyde to step into view and continue thundering his way towards them. His armor was still scarred, and dirty, with most of the paint seared away—a relic of the previous day.
Rarity sniffed and wiped away as many tears as she could before he could get too close. “Well this evening somehow got worse…”
Hyde stopped several meters away from the table and crossed his arms. “Well hello to you too, Curly.”
“My name is Rarity!” she sneered through grit teeth and water-logged eyes, smashing a hoof against the table.
“I know that,” Hyde acknowledged, adding an amused huff. “I just don’t care.”
Pinkie Pie slammed both hooves on the table and stood up from her seat, tears still streaming down her face. “Get out of here, you big meanie! Can’t you see we’re grieving here?!”
“I don’t care about that either, Cupcake,” Hyde growled, turning his crimson gaze on her.
“What are you doing here, Hyde?” Rose snapped, not bothering to even look at him.
Hyde unhooked his arms, placed a fist over his chest, and bowed his head. “Apologies, Commander. I came to personally tell you know that Raven three found a group of wanderers that needs medical attention. It’s them.”
Fluttershy slowly raised her head, the fur on her face matted around red eyes. “It’s them…?” She quickly looked up Hyde, a glimmer of hope sparkling across her features.
Hyde turned his head to her and nodded once.
The four individuals seated around the table looked at each other for exactly two seconds before they all jumped to their hooves/feet, knocking over their chairs and bolting down the street. Hyde followed them with his eyes, quietly laughing at their reaction.
Suddenly, the waiter for the cafe walked outside, whistling a tune with closed eyes as he approached the table Rose, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie were sitting at. When he opened his eyes a moment later, his entire body froze, and he stared up at the giant that was now eyeing him.
“What are you looking at?” Hyde growled.
Earlier...
Twilight groaned, aware of the pains that ached all over her body, though none of it could compare to the throbbing in her horn and side. On the other end of the gap in her memory, all she could remember was the screaming; the flash of light; the tearing of metal. Then... nothing. At least the pain made it clear she was still alive.
Not daring to moving any other part of her body, Twilight’s eyes fluttered open. The shield that covered her face was gone, taking her HUD with it. Darkness lay around her, though a modicum of light coming through holes near the ground pointed toward the idea that a large object was covering her. The orientation of the dirt told her she was lying on her side, and from what she could see, she somehow managed to find a rock as an unfortunately uncomfortable pillow. The pain on the side of her head hinted that she had hit it hard enough to damage her armor to the point that it could no longer project her face shield.
Aside from the sound of her own breathing, booms of lightning could be heard somewhere off in the distance. Gritting her teeth, Twilight forced her foreleg to move. Instead of helping, the armor around her leg resisted the motion. With a grunt Twilight fought against the stiff servos until the armor shot her leg straight out without warning. Twilight yelped at the sudden action, which sent a bolt of pain shooting up through her leg.
Electricity crackled from somewhere on her back, and the armor’s limbs began to automatically convulse while constricted her body further. Through only a single functioning ear, Evie’s broken voice spoke: “Cr-r-r-r-ritical failUre-Ure-Ure. Eeeeemergency-cy-cy pilo-o-o-o-o-o—jection advised.”
“Yes!” Twilight groaned as she fought against malfunctioning the armor. “Let me go! Please! Eject me!”
A loud hiss forewarned a series of mechanical pops, and the pressure on Twilight’s body had suddenly lifted. Twilight sucked in several breaths as much of her pain subsided. Even though she liked Rose’s armor while it worked, it was clearly a deathtrap if it ever malfunctioned like that. Thankfully, the AI anticipated that sort of problem.
“Twilight?” Rainbow Dash’s voice called out. “Twilight, can you hear me? Where are you?”
“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight shouted back after breathing a sigh of relief. “I’m here! I’m over here!”
Part of Dash’s face appeared in one of the gaps of light, the illumination in her eyes indicating that her armor was somehow still intact. “Twilight! Are you okay?”
“Kind of…” Twilight grunted as she attempted to wiggle free. Her armor had opened up along the rear of her legs and back, though her position and the cramped space she found herself in made things difficult. “Everything hurts… I don’t think anything’s broken, though. Just feels like bruises.”
Rainbow Dash disappeared from sight. “Hold on! This thing looks heavy, but I think I might be able to move it.” Several hollow, metallic thuds followed. “Here. I think I got it…” Light filled the space around Twilight for a brief moment, accompanying Dash’s unseen grunts of effort, though it quickly faded again, followed by a clang. “Almost! Just gotta get the right angle, and…!” With a final hurrah, the section of the former Raven’s hull that covered Twilight’s body lifted up and fell away, landing with a loud, metallic clamor.
For the first time since she awoke, Twilight felt like she could properly breathe and see. A crimson sky met her gaze, with dark clouds hanging above, all of them drifting in the same direction. Red lightning arced above them in short bursts, seemingly in the direction the clouds were all traveling. In the unseen distance, louder, more constant thunder came from somewhere much further away. Tiny white flakes hovered in the air, dancing to an unheard tune before laying themselves gently on the ground. Could it be snow? No, it was too warm for that. A brief sniff gave Twilight her answer.
Ash.
Dash fluttered over to her and helped pull her out of the husk of her biomech armor. The unicorn stumbled as she attempted to regain her balance, though with her friend supporting her, she eventually managed to remain standing. After taking a moment to collect her thoughts and take a few deep breaths, Twilight began to inspect her ruined armor. Most of it was still intact, though the side she landed on crushed a trail of rocks, severely denting and even bursting the armor in the process. With the armor’s padding, it was enough to keep her from any serious harm besides bad bruising, but it clearly damaged some more sensitive electronics in the process.
“You feeling okay?” Dash asked, laying a tender hoof on her shoulder.
Twilight nodded. “Yeah, just a few deep bruises. I think I’ll be okay. Were you able to find everypony else?”
Dash began to walk in a direction, slowly enough for Twilight to follow at a limp. “I found AJ and that changeling. Her armor got busted too, but she’s okay. Thorax is worse off: broke his leg. Still haven’t found Alex, though.”
Twilight grunted as she followed Dash while ignoring the bruises. “He has to be somewhere around here.”
Dash frowned at the dark thought her mind entertained. “What if he didn’t make it…?”
Twilight shook her head. “Knowing him, he put a lot of effort into his armor. There’s no way it isn’t better than what we used. If we made it, he did too.”
As Twilight followed Dash up a hill, she noted the scattered debris field around them. The entire aircraft had been annihilated, to the point that it almost looked like confetti shot from Pinkie’s cannon. None of it looked even remotely salvageable. The edges of the larger pieces looked sheared, as if torn apart by a dragon of immeasurable strength. Beneath the thin layer of ash was little more than dirt and rocks, lending credence to the idea that they were somehow still in the badlands.
Unless they weren’t, and the explosion destroyed the local flora and… yes… just the flora...
Eventually, Dash led Twilight to the other two survivors of the crash. Thorax and Applejack hid under a more complete section of the Raven’s hull that had imbedded itself into the ground, taking shelter from the ashen snow. Thorax, undisguised, lay on his left side, with his right foreleg extended. A very obvious but smooth cut in his exoskeleton ran the length of his leg’s forearm, a viscous green fluid attempting to ooze itself out of his body. Given its neatness, it was probably caused by a piece of the aircraft.
Applejack sat as far away from the injured changeling as possible without actually exposing herself to the ash, but still kept a keen eye on him. The cow-pony’s power armor was nowhere to be seen, and her fur was still a patchwork from Rose’s surgery. If it weren’t for her cutie mark and tail, Twilight might not have been able to recognize her immediately.
Doing what her friend seemed incapable of, Twilight limped over to the changeling to try and comfort him. “Hey, Thorax. How does your leg feel?”
After a few heavy breaths, Thorax managed an answer. “Bad… It… it hurts a lot, actually. I mean, everything hurts, but… but not as much as that.”
Twilight hovered a hoof over the broken exoskeleton, but didn’t dare touch it. “I guess it feels as bad as it looks…” she breathed. A glow surrounded her horn and the changeling, and faded after a few moments of concentration. Thorax responded with a relieved sigh.
“There, that should dull the pain a bit,” said Twilight. “I only know a few rudimentary healing spells. Nothing that could actually fix you, though.” Her eyes wandered over to Applejack, and fell upon the patches of bare skin that contained scars so perfectly healed they weren’t even visible. A sparkle shined in her eye. “But we know someone who can.”
Applejack raised a brow. “Who, me?”
Twilight gave her a confused look. “What? No. Alex.”
Dash shot her an equally puzzled look. “Alex can cast healing spells? Since when?”
Twilight rolled her eyes and shook her head. “He can’t, but he does have something that can repair bone and soft tissue. It’s the reason Applejack was able to recover from so many broken bones and surgery so quickly, and without any scars either. It’s a combination of microscopic machines and reconstructive gel. Alex probably has some with him in case of emergencies.”
“Okay, so find Alex, get the changeling’s leg fixed,” Rainbow Dash recapped as she turned away from them. “I’ll get back to looking.”
Just as the pegasus’ wings shot open for takeoff, Twilight held out a hoof and yelled to stop her. “Wait! This is just a guess, but Alex went into the front of the Raven before it got destroyed. Maybe he’s further down the hill?”
Dash nodded in understanding. “Good idea. I’ll look further out.” With that, she went airborne.
Wings outstretched, Rainbow Dash glided down the hill, eyes scanning over the wreckage. Already aware of her intentions, the Virtual Intelligence in her armor searched with her, highlighting some objects of interest on her HUD. The hill eventually led to a short drop off; about twenty feet at most. While the VI called out several different objects, only one really caught Dash’s attention: a green object near a section of the Raven’s hull, just on the edge of the drop off. Among all the browns and greys, Alex’s armor stood out easily enough.
Dash swooped down to get a closer look, landing in the area beneath the drop off. Her eyes grew wider and wider as she approached, and soon her blood ran cold. The green object she spotted was indeed Alex, though she hoped to find him in better shape. His body hung from the drop off, with his left arm crushed and firmly wedged up to the shoulder between the rock and what looked like the front of the aircraft. How he managed to go from the inside to the out was anypony’s guess, but the blown out cockpit window looked like the biggest culprit.
What chilled her, however, was the piece of metal that hung down from section of hull and pierced through his helmet’s visor. A tiny amount of red liquid dripped from the hole in the helmet.
///Critical system failure. Heavy damage sustained.
///Warning: pilot vital signs critical. Unresponsive.
///Initiating defibrillation subroutine.
///Pilot unresponsive.
///Error detected.
///Initiating system restart.
…
///Critical system failure. Heavy damage sustained.
///Warning: pilot vital signs critical. Unresponsive.
///Initiating defibrillation subroutine.
///Pilot unresponsive.
///Error detected.
///Initiating system restart.
…
///Critical system failure. Heavy damage sustained.
///Warning: pilot vital signs unresponsive.
///Initiating Lazarus protocol.
Without warning, Alex let out a yell. His right arm shot up and immediately latched onto the piece of metal going through his right eye. His remaining eye darted in every direction, taking in whatever information it could through the broken visor.
“Holy sh… Alex, are you okay?!” Rainbow yelled, although her question went completely ignored.
The human’s mechanized legs curled out of reflex, though they pushed against the rock face with intent. With every scream, Alex attempted to pull the sharpened metal from his eye. However, with the protrusion being a fragment of the larger piece crushing his arm, it remained steadfast.
///Warning: left arm sustained heavy damage. Servos unresponsive.
///Disconnect it!
///Initiating emergency separation.
After a loud hiss, Alex slipped away from the eye-impaling piece of metal as his body fell away, leaving his left arm and shoulder behind. Grunts and yelps peppered the air as Alex tumbled down the rock face, until he hit the ground on his rear—hard—whereupon the air was pierced by a loud and punctual “Fuck!”
Rainbow dashed over to him to see if he needed help, though with all his thrashing and stumbling, she couldn’t manage to get terribly close. “Alex, hey, are you okay?”
Alex grunted and groaned as he rolled himself onto his knees. His remaining mechanized hand pressed against his visor, ineffectively attempting to staunch the bleeding. “My eye!” He screamed. “My fucking eye! Aaarrgghh!God fucking dammit!”
Seemingly aware of the pointlessness of his actions, Alex’s helmet began to unfold. However, the mechanism became stuck almost immediately as sparks flew from his neck. After a few seconds of this, Alex grunted “God dammit!” before throwing a quick punch into the side of his head with his remaining arm. He then grabbed the same side of his helmet and pulled. It took several seconds of effort, but he managed to pry the right half of his helmet from his head, tossing the piece away to be forgotten forever.
Alex brought his hand up to touch his face, delicately laying a finger against the sensitive flesh. Each touch brought on a fresh sting, eliciting a wince. “Ah! Fuck, fuck, fuck!” The fact that he couldn’t see out of that eye was enough to tell him that the artificial oculus was damaged beyond functionality, and the blood was a major indicator of biological damage. Though without even a simple mirror, there was no way for him to tell to what extent. Except…
He turned his head up to Rainbow Dash, acknowledging her presence for the first time. “How bad does it look?”
She didn’t respond. Instead, she stared with eyes as wide as saucers and a hoof draped over her mouthpiece. To Alex, this was answer enough.
Alex nodded through his unstable breathes. “Right… Bad… Fuck!” He winced as he blinked. The eye itself must have shattered and left jagged pieces. It couldn’t stay in, lest it shred his eye lid. This required a delicate touch. Rose could do it effortlessly, but she wasn’t an option at the moment. No way in hell Rainbow Dash could do it. Twilight, on the other hand…
After taking in several deep breathes, Alex hoisted himself up to his feet and briefly dusted himself off, though the blood on his fingers was soon smeared over his chest and thighs. His armor was scratched all over, with a number of smaller dents here and there, but it was still functional for the most part. He made every effort to avoid blinking, and his teeth remained clenched just to ward of the constant stinging and throbbing on his face.
“Hey, Dash…” he muttered, flicking his hand to cast off whatever blood continued to cling to his fingers. “Did you—ack fuck…! Did you find any of the others…?”
Rainbow Dash blinked at him. “Um… yeah, they’re just up the hill. Hey, are you okay? Your, uh… um… what about your arm…?”
Alex looked down at the space where his left arm once was and then looked up at where he left it. “Speaking from personal experience, Dash, losing limbs the first time around is the hardest. After that, it’s just an inconvenience. You know where Twilight is? Can you bring me to her? I need her to help me with my eye…”
Dash shook her head to regain her senses. “Uh, yeah. Everypony’s right up the hill.”
After performing a brief system diagnostic, Alex determined his armor to be in mostly working condition. The more robust systems like limb articulation remained intact—missing arm notwithstanding—though the more sensitive systems were either damaged or, such as the case with his armor’s magic shield, blown out entirely. The quantum storage device delivered a number of errors, indicating its use would in inadvisable until repaired. While not fantastic news all around, it did provide Alex with the knowledge that his armor at least retained its mobility, enabling him to leap up the drop off instead of finding another way.
Rainbow Dash took her time leading Alex back to the others, giving the human time to examine the area around them. The incinerated terrain, the bits of torn aircraft, the clouds with red lightning, the ashen snow… It was like an entirely different world.
“Christ, look at all this…” Alex murmured. “This place looks like hell.”
“Trust me, it looks way worse from up there,” Dash responded, dragging her eyes skyward, then pausing. “Hm… I don’t like those clouds. Something’s not right about them.”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume you’re talking about the red lightning.”
Dash brought down her gaze and shrugged. “That’s part of it, yeah. But those clouds… I dunno, they just give me this weird feeling.”
Alex nodded. “Yeah, you and me both. When we get back home, I’m gonna see what I can do about getting some instruments out here to figure out what’s going on. In the meantime, the sooner we get away from ground zero, the better.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.”
A brief moment later, the two of them came upon the others huddled under their shelter from the ash. Upon seeing them, Twilight immediately gasped. “Oh my gosh, Alex! Your arm!”
He waved her off as he approached. “It’s replaceable. I’ve got another problem, though.”
As Alex knelt down next to Twilight under the shelter, she inhaled sharply. “Ow… it’s your face.”
“My eye,” Alex corrected.
Twilight shook her head as both she and Applejack stood to get a close look. “No, your face. You’ve got a really big cut going through your eye. Can you see out of it? How bad does it hurt?”
Alex inhaled sharply through his nose. “Can’t see out of it, and it hurts like hell. It’s also shattered and tearing up my eyelid. I need you to take it out before I can administer any painkillers.”
Applejack shuddered and nearly gagged at his words, then immediately sat herself down again.
Twilight nodded with a gulp, lighting her horn. “Alright, I-I think I can do that. What do I need to do?”
Alex sucked in a breath. “Okay, just try to see if you can feel around my eye, okay? Can you do that?”
“Mhm…” Twilight nodded again as she allowed her magic to probe the human’s eye socket. “What am I supposed to be feeling?”
“The human eye has six muscles, four of which attach directly to the ocular nerve behind the eye,” Alex quickly explained. “My nerve has a cybernetic extension and the muscles are all artificial. They’re all secured around the eye with a latch-type mechanism that goes flush against it. The latches needs to be pulled up about three millimeters, which will let you disconnect the muscle from the eye. Can you feel them?”
Twilight bit her lip. “I-I think so.”
“Okay. Pull it up, and then pull the muscle away from the eye.”
“Okay, I think I got it,” said Twilight after a brief moment of silence. Several minutes later, Twilight nodded. “Alright, I counted six.”
“Good,” said Alex. “The ocular nerve is simple: it’s just a clip connection with a twist. You need to carefully—and I really mean carefully—take out the eye, twist it forty five degrees counter-clockwise—yours, not mine—and pull them apart. It’ll give you some resistance, so make sure you hold the nerve’s connection in place before you pull.”
“Ah can’t look…” Applejack muttered, turning herself completely away from them.
After biting her lip a little harder than she should have, Twilight dispelled the light in her horn. “Just… give me a second…” She shut her eyes and took several deep breaths before returning her attention back to him. “Okay… Okay…”
“You ready?” Alex asked.
Twilight nodded. “Yeah, let’s do this.”
“Okay. Just try not to pull out my nerve,” said Alex before taking and holding a large breath.
The lavender glow began to slowly pull the eye free from Alex’s face, making a sickening squelching noise and eliciting a strained groan from the human. After several seconds of groaning, Twilight stopped. “Alex, are you okay? Do you want me to stop?”
“Just get it over with,” he grunted back.
Biting her lip once more, Twilight went back to the task at hand and popped the damaged oculus out of its socket. Alex teeth clamped together as he growled a rainbow’s worth of curses and swears. Twilight wasted no time following Alex’s instructions by disconnecting the cybernetic nerve and gently pushed it back into his inflamed eye socket with a quiet, though sickening squelch.
While Alex busied himself with further swearing and beating the ground, Twilight allowed herself a closer look at the device she extracted from him. It was small and roughly spherical, though it looked nothing like an eye at this point, even without all the blood. It looked like some sort of really sharp spike had been driven through, but thankfully didn’t manage to go all the way.
By the time Twilight finished satisfying her curiosity, Alex had calmed himself down to simply heavy breathing. He raised his head up to look at Twilight; the left side of his face still covered by his damaged helmet with half a dead, grey visor, and the right side bleeding and already starting to swell. “Thanks,” he muttered. “I needed that.”
Rainbow Dash held a hoof close to her chest as she looked through strained eyes. “Geez, dude, that looks painful…”
“Not as bad as you’d think, actually.” Alex banged a fist against his chest. “Got a supply of painkillers in the armor. Exocortexes give me a constant headache. Just needed to… up the dosage for this…” He paused to breathe for a few moments. “How about you three? Everyone alright?”
“We’re fine,” said Twilight, putting the damaged oculus aside, “but Thorax is hurt pretty bad.”
“Thorax…?” Alex muttered before turning his head towards the changeling that cautiously eyed them. “Oh right. The changeling. What’s the matter with him?”
“His leg is broken,” Twilight answered, moving to sit next to Thorax. “The exoskeleton on his left front leg is fractured. It’s bleeding and exposed. He can’t walk, and it’ll get infected if we don’t do anything.”
Alex followed Twilight and knelt next to Thorax in turn. For several moments, the two maintained eye contact, or at least what anyone could call eye contact with Alex now missing an eye and having the other hidden behind a broken visor. Thorax remained silent, staring back like a wounded dog awaiting judgement from a stern master. Satisfied that he could discern no malicious intent in him, Alex looked down towards Thorax’s cracked leg. “That doesn’t look pleasant. How bad does it hurt?”
“Worse than anything I’ve ever felt…” Thorax managed with bated breath.
“It could always be worse…” Alex muttered as he looked over the leg. “Believe me, I know.”
“I was thinking you might have something to help him,” said Twilight, taking a hoof and carefully running it along the back of Thorax’s head to provide at least some measure of comfort. “Something like those nanobots Rose uses for surgery.”
Alex slowly nodded. “Yeah, that would do it… I don’t have any with me, but… maybe… Hey Dash?”
“Yeah?” Rainbow Dash acknowledged from behind them.
“I need you to get something for me,” said Alex. “Inside the Raven’s cockpit, right around where you found me, there’s should be a white box with a blue cross on it. Think you can find it?”
“Sure thing!” Rainbow quickly saluted and took off back down the hill. She returned less than a minute later. “Here you go! One white box with a blue cross.”
Alex grinned; blood stained teeth and swollen face making the smile look wicked. “That’s the good stuff; thanks!” Alex said as he took the square metal box by the handle. Taking a few steps towards Thorax, he laid it on the ground in front of him, and popped it open. On this inside of the box’s lid was a small screen, with an equally small keyboard occupying the space beneath it.
Twilight blinked at him. “Wait what? I thought you had Rainbow Dash go get a first aid kit.”
“This is a first aid kit,” Alex clarified as he began typing, though without his other hand, he found himself repeatedly correcting his typing errors. “God fuckin’ dammit… Fuckin’ hate this bullshit… Uh… Right. The nanites are programmed primarily with human biology in mind, but even then, they still need to know where they’re going. Rose does this kind of programming every time, we just don’t see it. Getting them to work on Thorax would take a whole other set of code, and quite frankly, we don’t have time for that. What I can do is set them to repair his leg by assembling a homogeneous base: chitin.”
After several minutes of typing, Alex raised the keyboard and clipped it to its screen, revealing the actual first aid kit underneath. Taking up half of the box was a large plastic syringe sitting in foam packaging. The other half contained what a normal first aid kit needed to: medicine, bandages, sterile pads, antibiotic gel, splints, tape, stitching tools, scissors, and a disinfectant spray; all neatly arranged and expertly compacted. As useful as the more advanced stuff was, it never hurt to have a simpler fall-back plan.
“Thank you, Rose… Hold his leg for me please,” Alex asked Twilight as he removed a cloth from the kit and wiped the green fluid clinging to Thorax’s leg. He then took out the bottle of disinfectant spray and held it up for Thorax to see. “This stuff is going to sterilize your leg and prevent it from getting infected. I have to warn you, though: it’s going to burn and sting and hurt like a mother fucker.”
“Umm…” Thorax hesitated as he tugged on his leg, though it remained firm in Twilight’s magic. “Is this really necessary?”
“Yup,” Alex stated, hovering the bottle above his leg. “It’s gonna hurt like hell in three, two, one…”
Thorax yelped as Alex repeatedly sprayed the cracked leg with the disinfectant. “Ow ow ow! That burns! Ow!”
“That means it’s working,” Alex replied as he set the bottle aside and reached for the large syringe. Thumb on the plunger, Alex applied a generous helping of the nanobot/construction gel mixture into the crack in Thorax’s leg. Once done, he set the syringe aside, grabbed the changeling’s leg, and forced the crack closed with a tight squeeze. When Thorax winced and grunted, Alex clicked his tongue. “Sorry, buddy. Need to make sure this stuff does its job.”
After a solid minute of squeezing his leg, Alex removed his hand to examine the injury. As expected, the nanobots sealed the wound by bridging it closed with a chitinous structure. Although the nanobots’ work was a different color from the changeling’s black exoskeleton, giving the obvious impression of a beige scar. “There we go. That should hold you.”
Thorax raised his head to get a better look at his leg. “It still hurts, though…”
Alex groaned as he carefully switched from kneeling to sitting. For some reason he was starting to get dizzy. He reached back for the kit, took out a small bottle, and tossed it next to his head. “There. Take three of those.”
“Alex, look at me,” Twilight suddenly ordered.
“Yeah?” he drawled, turning his head towards the unicorn. Behind Twilight, Applejack gagged and immediately looked away. Both Rainbow Dash and Twilight pulled away with a very visible wince.
“Oh gosh…” Twilight muttered. “Alex, your eye… you’re bleeding all over the place.”
He nodded slowly. “Oh… so that’s what that is…”
After taking a deep breath, Twilight levitated the syringe over to herself, though bit her lip when she found it virtually empty. Tossing it aside, she brought the rest of the first aid kit over to herself and sifted through it. “We need to do something about you… Here we go, this should work. Come lie down over here. Dash, help me keep his head up.”
The human did as he was asked and shuffled his way closer to Twilight as best he could while still remaining on his rear before lying down. The bulk of his armor kept his head from touching ground, so Rainbow Dash carefully held the back of his head in her hooves
“Could you also put the rest of your helmet away?” Twilight requested.
Almost immediately, the left half of Alex’s helmet began to twitch and fold away, but sparks also began to shoot out of the side of his neck, eliciting a surprised yelp from the two ponies. Alex, his patience dwindled, reached over and forced the left half of his helmet back into its “inactive” position. With his head completely uncovered, Twilight allowed herself some relief that at least the other half of his face was untouched.
She still had a difficult time looking at him, however, and felt even less hope. The cut on his face extended from his forehead, though his right eye, and a little further down his cheek. Taking another deep breath, Twilight magicked the second and final clean cloth from the med-kit and began to clean the blood from his face.
“You sure you know what you’re doing, Twi?” asked Dash.
Twilight pursed her lips and shook her head. “Absolutely not. But somepony has to do it…”
“That’s reassuring,” Alex mumbled, seemingly half asleep with his intact eye closed.
A forced smile graced her lips for half a second. “Come on, it can’t be that hard, right? Just need to stitch all this up! Like a stuffed animal…”
Alex suddenly held a finger, though he still appeared half asleep. “Clean… Disinfect… Stitch… Ointment… Bandage…” he drawled before he lowered his hand once more.
“Sounds like this ain’t his first rodeo,” Applejack commented, keeping her gaze well away from them.
“I just know protocol…” Alex replied while expelling all the air in his lungs.
“Good!” Twilight perked before muttering through grit teeth. “Because I didn’t…”
An hour and a half and two dozen stitches later, Twilight finished bandaging Alex’s face as the last of the sun’s light faded over the horizon. The end result had Alex looking like a mummy while barely having his good eye and mouth unwrapped. It certainly wasn’t work that would net Twilight a medical degree, but she was confident that it was enough to stop the bleeding and keep it from getting infected — at least until Rose could fix him properly.
Twilight wasn’t entirely sure how painful the stitching process was for him without local anesthetic, but based on the amount of swearing, she gauged somewhere in the area of five out of ten. Whatever painkillers his armor was supplying him with probably helped, but only just. Still, she was impressed with his ability to keep his head still despite it all.
“There, good as new,” Twilight announced, allowing a smile to grace her lips.
“Thanks,” Alex sighed, already half asleep. At some point, Rainbow Dash had gotten tired of holding up Alex’s head, and found a smooth enough rock to lay it against as a makeshift pillow.
Dash, who had been laying on her back and eyeing the strange clouds, raised her head to glance at Twilight’s handiwork. “Looks just like that time Alex was in hospital! Good job, Twi.”
“Oh god, don’t even try to remind me…” Alex muttered.
“Hospital?” asked Thorax, who was now sitting on his haunches with his repaired foreleg outstretched. “What happened to him?”
“It’s a long story,” Twilight began, “but to make a long story short, a machine Alex made — a power source, actually — it malfunctioned and electrocuted him while he was trying to turn it off. The doctors said over ninety percent of his flesh was burnt.”
“My heart stopped too,” Alex added, turning his head to look at Thorax. In that one moment, the two of them made eye contact, and the changeling truly saw the human for the first time. The iris of Alex’s remaining eye visibly twitched, turned, and contracted as it focused on him, and a green flash sent a chill through his body. “Wasn’t enough to kill me, though.”
Rainbow snickered. “It would’ve been if Twilight hadn’t saved you.”
A smirk crossed his lips as Alex turned his face up again. “Dammit, Dash, you just had to undermine me…”
“Welp, Ah can’t find a gosh darn’d thing,” Applejack announced as she walked up to them and sat beneath the makeshift shelter. Half-way during the stitching, she had left to go find materials for a fire. “Can’t find any sticks, pitch, or kindle. Can’t even find any trees that don’t look burnt all to nothin’.”
Twilight sighed and shook her head. “Whatever trees were here before were probably incinerated by the explosion…”
“Sure looks that way,” Applejack sighed in turn. “Anypony got any ideas?”
“If we can’t get any wood, maybe there’s something else we can use?” Rainbow Dash suggested.
“If there was something around here besides wood we could’ve burned, they would’ve burnt up with the trees too,” Twilight countered. “We’ll probably have to go without tonight.”
“Hundred miles past where Celestia lost her horse shoes, and we can’t even find somethin’ that burns…” Applejack swore under her breath. She then looked over to the human. “Hey, Alex? Got any ideas?”
Alex mumbled something in response, though none of it came out even remotely intelligible. He then fell into peaceful silence and stopped responding to further attempts to address him. Concerned he may have stopped breathing, Twilight held an ear to his mouth. Satisfied, she nodded to the others. “He’s asleep. We’ll have to keep an eye on him.”
Applejack released all the air in her lungs in one large groan as she allowed her legs to give out under her. Laying her head down, she shivered at the first breeze of cool air against her exposed skin. “It’s gonna be a long night…”
Twilight flashed her a warming smile. “Hey, don’t worry. I’ll see what I can do about an insulation spell.”
Alex’s eye shot open as a timed micro-dose of adrenaline shocked him awake. All the convenience of a built-in alarm clock, but without the noise—save for the never ending drone of distant thunder. He stared up at the piece of severed hull above him for several moments before his brain made the decision to move. In a single, fluid motion, Alex’s armor sat him up, enabling him to look around. Unlike what he was expecting, none of the others were present.
Rainbow Dash’s voice spoke from behind him. “Oh hey, you’re finally up.”
The human twisted himself until he could see the pegasus properly. She had been lying on her back, possibly keeping herself occupied by imagining drawings on the surface of the shelter. “Yeah, I uh… hey, where is everyone?”
Dash jerked her head to the side. “They just went up the hill to look around; get a better idea of this place. I volunteered to keep an eye on you, but you seemed okay. I was just about to head up there too.”
Alex nodded as he stood up, though he slowed down halfway through as a small head rush overcame him. “Whoa… uh… Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I think I’ll come with."
With a grunt, Rainbow Dash flipped herself onto her front and stood up, then quickly beckoned him over. “Alright, let’s go. Come on.”
Alex quietly followed after Dash, taking notice of the hoof prints in the thin layer of ash on the ground that gave away the route the others had taken. The two walked in silence until they neared the top of the hill, where Alex managed to spot the others. He had originally expected them to be looking in all directions, trying to find a bearing for the group to travel in. Instead, they all stared in silence in a single direction, right over the top of the hill.
Only when he reached them did he understand why. Alex’s feet slowed as his jaw fell.
“Good god…”
Beyond the top of the hill, in the direction of the former changeling hive, was hell itself.
In the far distance sat a titanic crater, easily dozens of kilometers wide and dominating the horizon. Fresh lava filled its interior, forming a deadly sea of bubbling, molten rock. The dark clouds overhead swirled about the center of the apocalypse, where a twisted plume of bright red energy burst from the pool of lava, twirling around like a tornado of light. Several bolts of crimson lightning jumped from the clouds to the lava within the crater at any given moment, explaining the constant drone of thunder.
Alex shuffled past them, his eye wide, refusing to look away, until he unceremoniously dropped to his knees, kicking up a small cloud of ash in the process. His heart dropped as blood drained from his features. He muttered under his breath with a slack jaw.
“Oh my god… It… I…”
“It’s all gone…” Thorax exhaled, equally staring into the hell-hole that was once his home. “The changelings, they’re… they’re all gone…”
Twilight managed to tear her eyes away and turn them towards the changeling. “Thorax? Are you alright…?”
Thorax’s hind legs gave out from underneath him. “I… I wanted to help them… I wanted to learn how to get love from friends and teach them…”
Twilight opened her mouth to say something but stopped. What would she say? What could she say? Her eyes fell from Thorax to stare at the ground. As far as anypony knew, Thorax was the last changeling left. The mere thought alone was paralyzing. What was it truly like to be the last anything? No pony could truly understand the thoughts going through Thorax’s head.
Unless…
Her eyes turned to Alex, who knelt with his back to her and head hung low. A tight grip seized her heart. She took a step forward, hesitated, then continued. “Alex…?” she called, barely above a whisper. He didn’t respond. She didn’t address him again until she was standing beside his kneeling form. Now that she could see his face proper, she found herself surprised to see that he didn’t appear sad, but that if anything, she could discern a frown through his bandages.
“Alex…? Are you alright?” Twilight asked.
Alex’s good eye opened, staring at the ground. For a moment, he looked up at the crater, but no sooner clenched his eye shut and lower his head again.
“I did this…” he muttered.
“I want you to power up the teleporter, and…” I was caught on my own words. I couldn’t say them, but I had to. It was my responsibility. My duty. I had no choice. “…and… initiate the Omega protocol.”
Alex visibly flinched, clenching his eye even more until he loosened a moment later. He took a deep breath. “This was my legacy… This is what I left them…”
“I want to make a change to the protocol. Once you’re done with the teleporter, I want you to transfer all our data, and then yourself onto this drive.”
He sucked in another breath, letting it out in a slow sob. “I saved our work. I saved her… but…”
Almost instantly, the lights dimmed and a deep red light filled the room. An alarm began to ring and an automated voice, distinctly different from that of Rose, boomed throughout the entire room: WARNING: FACILITY CORE OVERLOAD IN TEN MINUTES. EVACUATE THE PREMISES AND ATTAIN A MINIMUM DISTANCE OF SEVENTY KILOMETERS.
“Seventy kilometers…” Alex whispered as a tear squeezed itself past the corner of his eye. He sighed. “It was in the middle of nowhere, but… there was a town… Mont-Saint-Michel…” His entire body bent as he lay his hand flat against the ground, and a quick sob escaped him. “I wanted to help people…”
My face snapped up to hers and I instantly gripped her by the shoulders. “Don’t you see? Forget cold fusion, Christina. We’re looking at a source of infinite energy!”
His hand rolled into a fist, scooping up ash and dirt. “But I did this to them…”
“Alex, wait!” she called out, just as I opened the driver side door. “Where are you going?”
I stopped, hand on the car door, and looked back at her. Christina. My old colleague. Probably my best friend. Her face… her eyes… she wanted to know why. I wanted to tell her; To make her understand. But she wouldn’t. Not now. Not yet. I got in the car and left. She’ll understand.
Some day.
Alex unfurled his fist and stared into his palm. Powdered dirt and fresh ash mixed over crusted blood. “I left them all behind with… with this…”
“Alex, what are you talking about?” Twilight asked, inching closer to him.
The human winced, as if her words ignored his armor and struck bare flesh. He sat still as a statue until he turned his head up and forced himself to look at the sea of lava and the magical storm above it.
“When I left Earth,” Alex began with a heavy gulp, “I… I initiated the facility’s omega protocol. I detonated the primary core. Just…” He hesitated, then shut his eye and hung his head once more. “Just like this…”
“What…?” Twilight breathed, taking a step back. He caused all this before? The very same day he landed in her basement? The same day he told her Power Cores were safe? That they could be abused and turned into weapons by the wrong people? No. No, he couldn’t have done that. This time, this was just… it wasn’t an accident, no, but it was—
“Why?” came Thorax’s unsteady voice.
Alex’s head sprung up, his eye wide open and staring ahead. Underneath his bandages, his expression turned to that of a frightened child, barely clothed, that heard the growl of a monster in the dark.
“Why did you do it?” Thorax croaked, stomping his good hoof.
Alex cautiously turned his head to look over his shoulder at Thorax. Tears slid down the changeling’s chitinous visage as they did down the human’s cheek, though only the latter’s eye appeared as glossy as ever. His throat trembled as he stared at his accuser, and he soon found himself staring at the ground once more, unable to meet his gaze any further.
“The… the changelings…” Alex began. “They were a threat, I— I had to…”
“What kind of threat were they to you?!” Thorax screamed. “You beat them in Canterlot! You slaughtered them in Ponyville! You killed the guardians, you took the ponies back, and you forced them all back into hiding in the hive! What could they have done to you?!” Thorax sobbed openly now, his wobbling legs barely able to keep him up. “I wanted to help them… I could have showed them a better way… They didn’t have to live like this… And now… Now they’re all go-o-one!”
The changeling finally collapsed onto his side and curled into a ball, allowing his tears and emotions to flow freely into the ash around him. Alex collapsed forward as well, propping himself up on his elbow as his forehead lay against his metal fist.
“I’m sorry…” Alex wept. “I’m so sorry…”
Breaks in the clouds became more and more frequent as the group began the long march eastward back to Equestria, occasionally allowing bright streaks of sun to shine down on them. Thankfully, everyone could manage to walk on their own, if at an impaired gait. Hunger became a common tune among them, but due to the cybernetic nature of the Raven’s usual passengers, nothing edible could be salvaged from the wreck. The wasteland they traversed proved to be an equally fruitless venture, forcing them eastward with nothing to occupy their time except each other.
“So, uh… Thorax… What was it like living in that hive?” Alex asked, however through a combination of emotional exhaustion and blood loss, he wasn’t quite sure he was capable of understanding the response. Thankfully, his augmentations didn’t know what it meant to be tired, and could keep his body moving regardless.
“It wasn’t that great, to be honest…” Thorax breathed an answer while keeping as little pressure on his repaired leg as possible. Twilight walked between them. “Well, it wasn’t bad. I mean, it was okay…” He sighed. “I guess I don’t really have much to compare it to.”
“It looked pretty crowded in there.”
After a brief pause, Thorax nodded. “Yeah… it was… They weren’t very friendly, either. It could get scary sometimes, like when someone wanted to sleep where you were sleeping. But the queen always reminded us that we worked better together. Sometimes I think that was the only thing that kept me from getting hurt.”
Alex turned his head towards the changeling and frowned. “They treated you like shit, but you still wanted to help them live a better life. Why?”
“It’s more complicated than that…” Thorax sighed. “Things were tough in the hive. There was barely enough food and space. The queen was a very hard ruler, and… they all wanted to live up to her ideal. Make her proud. None of us knew any other life, so…”
“But you had an idea,” Alex remarked. “You thought of a way out. A way to improve everyone’s lives, but would also involve subverting the one with power.”
“Kind of, yeah.”
“I’ve been in that position myself, Thorax. I know how you feel.”
“Do you?”
“I do,” Alex began. “My Power Cores… they opened so many doors not just for myself, but for all other members of my species, too. They were the key to a better way of living for everyone, but there were powerful people with their own interests who would’ve sooner seen them disappear, or even would’ve stolen and monopolized them.” He sighed. “So I hid them and myself away. I thought that, someday, after I was strong enough to defend myself from them, I would come back to show everyone that better way to live and fix the world.” Alex flashed a smirk. “It was a pretty grand dream, I know… but I thought I could really do it. Then it was all taken away from me, and I was dumped in Equestria. For all I know, they’re all dead now…”
“Just like me…”
“Just like you…” The group hiked in silence for a minute, and then Alex spoke again. “I’m… I’m sorry things turned out they way they did, Thorax. If there’s anything I regret about all this, it’s putting you in the same position I was in, but… it gets easier. Trust me on this. I had some doubts at first, but… Ponies are nice. I don’t know how, but they… they have this way of getting you to be the best version of yourself. Get yourself settled in, make a few friends… Just keep looking forward and everything’ll be okay.”
Twilight failed to suppress her growing smile. She looked up at Alex, who continued to look straight ahead with a faint smile. His remaining eye shined, not with artificial light, but with the reflected light of the sun. In that moment, he appeared just as human as the day he dropped into their lives.
“Somethin’ tells me we ain’t gettin’ much closer to food n’ water,” Applejack said as she looked up at the trees that had been stripped of all their leaves and most of their branches. Some had even been snapped in half. The air still smelled of ash and all the trunks appeared burnt, providing little mystery as to why.
“Every step we take is another step closer, Applejack,” said Twilight, briefly bringing a smile to her face.
“I think she means we still have a really long way to go…” Rainbow Dash clarified as she nudged the grey remains of a former grassy plant, only to have it disintegrate at her lightest touch.
Alex walked up from behind her as he examined the remains of the trees. “Judging by the damage, it looks like we’re still well within the radius of the heatwave. Speaking of which…” He turned his head towards the changeling. “I gotta say, Thorax, I’m impressed you managed to survive the initial blast as well as you did without some kind of armor. Figured you’d end up looking more like these things.”
Thorax shrugged. “I guess I just got lucky.”
“Yeah, no kidding. Luckiest thing in the world, I’d say. Anyway, if we keep moving at our current pace, we should be able to find living plants in about two hours... maybe an hour and a half, depending on the terrain.”
“Uuuggghhh…” Dash groaned. “We still have another hour and a half until we find food?!”
“I didn’t say that,” Alex corrected. “I said an hour and a half until we find plants that haven’t died.”
“Wow, that’s depressing…” Thorax commented as he hobbled around an incinerated shrub.
“Definitely ain’t kiddin’ about that…” Applejack added with a sigh.
Rainbow Dash swooped down in a long arc, almost appearing to gain more speed, but keeping expert control over her descent. Jets of harmless blue flame poured over her wings, splaying out as she glided down a rocky mountainside. She sped over her friends, then tightly looped around to stop square within their airspace before dropping down into the middle of their circle. The others lounged around as they awaited the flyer’s return, idly chatting as they sat on rocks in the shade of trees whose leaves were mostly blown away, save for those with the strongest grip.
“Hey guys! The forest on the other side of the pass is okay!” Dash declared, eliciting a brief cheer from everyone else. “I even managed to spot a river, so we’ve got something to drink, too! We should get going.”
“Fuuuck thaaat,” Alex drawled. “We’ve been walking for hours. Sit down, we’ll get going in a bit.”
Upon seeing everypony else’s reluctance to move from their spots, Rainbow Dash groaned between her teeth and dragged her hooves next to Applejack. “Ugh, fine… but I’m getting really hungry...”
“We all are, Sugarcube,” Applejack smiled as her friend sat next to her. “Just need ta sit down an’ rest for a bit, that’s all.”
“Right, so, uh… Alex,” Thorax started, rolling his next words around his tongue as the human turned his attention to him. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about something…”
Alex leaned forward, resting his one elbow on his right knee. “Sure, ask away.”
The changeling hesitantly pointed a hoof towards the space where his left arm would be. “Aren’t you supposed to have… you know… something there…?”
“What?” Alex asked as he pointed toward the empty but sealed shoulder joint. “You mean another arm?”
“Yeah… I-I mean, I don’t want to pry—if you don’t wanna talk about it, it’s fine—but it just seems kinda weird to me… You know, the way you’re going without it and all. Doesn’t it hurt?”
Alex shook his head as he laughed. “Ha ha ha! Nah, man, that’s fine. Yeah, I’m supposed to have another arm, but that one got crushed. Had to leave it behind. And no, it doesn’t hurt.”
Thorax blinked at him. “So humans can just leave them behind? Do they grow back?”
Somehow, this caused Alex to laugh even harder. “Ho ho holy fuck no!” He took a few seconds to suppress his laughter. “Humans are about as good at regrowing limbs as… I dunno, as fish are at walking, or something. Ain’t gonna happen. I actually lost half of my left arm at the Gala in Canterlot.” He pointed to the other three ponies. “Just ask them. They were there.”
A shudder ran through Twilight’s body and she covered both eyes. “Oh gosh… Can we please not talk about that? I had nightmares for weeks.”
Alex quelled his laugh with a few seconds of violent coughing, then held his hand up in apology. “Right, right, sorry.”
“Ah don’t get how Twilight’s more shakin’ up than you are about that,” Applejack questioned through a confused squint. “Ah mean, you’re the one that ended up on the floor—”
“Can we please just drop the whole thing?” Twilight’s hooves snapped down, her eyes pleading with Applejack. “Please?”
“Was what happened really that bad…?” Thorax asked, only to receive a very stern “Yes,” from Twilight.
“Yeah, it wasn’t exactly fantastic,” Alex admitted, his eye lingering on Twilight before it switched over to Thorax. “Long story short, it was a painful and traumatic experience for everyone.”
“Right… but you somehow got it back, right?”
“Kinda, yeah. I’m an experienced engineer with a lot of resources, so I made myself a replacement.” Alex flexed his cybernetic arm. “Then I replaced all my other limbs too, just because I could.”
“Wow, that’s actually pretty cool!” said Thorax, his eyes wide and bright before he cringed. “And also kinda creepy…”
“Meh,” Alex shrugged. “Cybernetic augmentation isn’t for everyone, I guess.”
“So Thorax, I’ve got a question for you,” asked Alex as the group trudged through the forest. Evening sunlight streamed through the gaps in the leaves, swirling with the motion of a light breeze. “Have you ever gone undercover before? That’s the kind of thing changelings do, right?”
“Once,” said Thorax, his gaze following the sway of the leaves. “I went to Manehatten on a scouting mission for a few days. I was supposed to find a potential source of love for the hive.”
Applejack scoffed as she eyed the trees for fruit. “Ain’t much love in Manehatten, Sugarcube.”
“No, there isn’t…” Thorax confirmed with a shake of his head, before he suddenly perked up and looked over at her. “Wait, how did you know that?”
“Ah lived in Manehatten for a while as a filly.” She turned to look at him and pursed her lips in an apologetic smile. “Felt homesick and went back to Ponyville. Been livin’ there with my family ever since.”
“Wow. Is the lack of love why you went back home?”
She shrugged. “Somethin’ like that. Ah just didn’t feel comfortable there.”
“Manehatten’s a pretty big place,” Twilight added. “It can be a little overwhelming for ponies who aren’t used to it.”
“Amen to that,” said Alex as he picked up a stick and tossed it somewhere into the brush. “We have a city just like it back where I’m from. Spent a week there with my parents as a kid. I mean, I was born and raised in a city, but that place… I dunno, something about the size and number of advertisements just unsettled me.”
Applejack raised an eyebrow at him. “Size? How big were those billboards?”
“Some took up the entire side of a building.”
“Whoa nelly…”
“Yup…” After a brief moment, Alex asked: “So do you guys think there’s any food or something around here? Like some fruit?”
“Ain’t nothin’ of the sort from the look of it,” Applejack answered, her eyes returning to the trees.
“Even if we don’t find fruit, we could just graze for a while,” Twilight suggested. “It’s not the most glamorous lunch ever, but if our ancestors did it, we could too!”
Alex scoffed. “Speak for yourself. My ancestors were endurance hunters. Plus, my digestive system can’t process grass, remember?”
“Oh, right…”
“Hopefully we find some nice fruit.” His stomach rumbled, though his armor muffled the sound. “Ugh, and I hope we find it soon. I’d really rather not resort to having to eat anything nasty…”
“Hey guys, over there!” Rainbow Dash suddenly called out, taking to the air and flying off ahead. “It’s the river!”
Everyone perked up and instinctively wormed their head to look around the trees at what Rainbow Dash had pointed out. “I don’t see it…” Alex muttered.
“No, wait, she’s right! I can hear it!” Twilight marveled with her voice increasing in volume until she broke into a gallop. Applejack’s own face lit up, and she followed suit.
Alex, unable to hear above human sensitivity without his helmet, flopped his arm against his side and glanced at Thorax, who met his look. The changeling still couldn’t move faster than a walk. Turning ahead again, Alex called out, “Alright! We’ll just catch up! I guess…”
When the two of them did finally catch up, it felt as if they were intruding. Upstream, Rainbow Dash quietly drank from the river, her helmet’s mouthpiece parted through the middle. Further down, Applejack lay on her back in a shallower part of the creek, grinning as water flowed around her, washing away the grime. For her part, after taking a long drink, Twilight dunked in her head and proceeded to rinse out her mane and coat, which had gotten filthy with dirt, ash, and sweat over the course of the day.
While Thorax stood and stared, Alex eagerly waded into the river. “Oh my god, yes,” He stuck his metallic hand into the water and shook it about to wash off dirt, ash, and blood. Dissatisfied, he moved toward a rockier part of the bank and scraped his palm against the flooded stone before trying again.
He then cupped his palm and attempted to bring water up to his mouth, though his hand’s shape and the rigidity of its components meant most of the liquid flowed through his fingers before he could get any more than a few drops. “Ah, mother fucker,” he swore as he bent himself lower and lower to drink more water before it all dripped from his hand.
“Having some trouble there, big guy?” Dash chortled as she waded through the water towards him. Her mouthpiece automatically closed over her muzzle, and the shield over her eyes reformed immediately after.
“Yeah, I am…” Alex grumbled, slapping his hand against the water.
“Just stick your head in,” Dash suggested. “It’s a lot easier.”
Alex pursed his lips and pointed towards his head. “Hello? Bandages? I don’t want to ruin them.” In that moment, a blob of water floated in front of Alex’s face, suspended a purple aura. He looked over to Twilight, who simply smiled back at him, her horn aglow. He returned her smile with another, and nodded. “Thanks.”
Just as Thorax finally lowered his head to take a sip, Applejack’s head perked up. “Hey, y’all hear that?”
Everyone glanced at her for a moment before focusing on their hearing. “What are we supposed to be listening for?” Twilight asked.
Applejack squinted her eyes in confusion. “Ah dunno… It was somethin’ weird, but Ah can’t hear it anymore.” She shrugged as she rolled and stood out of the water. “Guess I was just imaginin’ things.”
“Wait wait wait,” Alex interrupted, holding up a hand as his eye narrowed. “Nobody else move; I’m getting an idea. AJ, put your head underwater.”
Applejack quirked a brow. “ ‘Scuse me?”
“You said you heard something and then you suddenly didn’t,” Alex pointed out. “The only difference between those two times was you were lying in the river when you heard it and you weren’t when you didn’t. Sound propagates more easily through water than air, so someone please stick your head underwater.”
Twilight followed through first by placing the side of her head in the river, while ensuring her ear went under. Applejack mimicked her soon after, but both of them frowned in confusion as they focused.
“Do you hear anything?” Dash asked, though clearly not quite as eager for an answer to that question as Alex was.
“It’s mostly sounds like running water,” Twilight answered. “But… There’s definitely something else. No idea what it could be, though.”
“What does it sound like?” Alex inquired.
“It sounds like a… pulse? Not like a heartbeat, though. It’s keeping a regular rhythm. Sounds like it might be three, maybe four times a second?”
Alex suddenly dropped to his knees and submerged an ear, completely uncaring of if his bandage became wet or not. His eye grew wider by the second as he listened. “Holy shit, that’s a Raven.”
“What?”
“I said that’s a fucking Raven!” Alex repeated as he shot up, twisting around between looking upstream and downstream in an attempt to find the source of the water-bound noise.
“Um… why are we excited about a bird?” Thorax asked, some hesitation in his voice.
Alex shot him a look. “What? No, not the bird—the ship! Three point seven three hertz! That pulsing in the water is from a medium sized gravity engine!”
Without a moment to spare, Rainbow Dash launched herself into the air, well above the tree line, and scouted the horizon. It didn’t take very long before she pointed and cheered back down. “He’s right! I can see it over there to the south! But it’s gonna miss us by a mile!”
The human carefully held his hand to his forehead. “Fuckfuckfuck— okay, think. We need to get its attention. My QSD’s fucked, so I’ve got nothing. There’s gotta be something around here we can use. Sight and sound! We need something easy to see that makes a lot of noise! Like a flare, or some fireworks, or—”
Just as he uttered those words, light surrounded Twilight’s horn as a whip-like whisp, charged brilliantly for two heartbeats, then launched skyward, shrieking past Rainbow Dash. The magical flare exploded every couple of seconds as it ascended, sending out a dazzling array of sparks in the form of her cutie mark with a loud clap each time. A hundred feet, three hundred feet, five hundred feet. Twilight’s cutie mark had been painted in the sky well over a dozen times before the flare finally gave out at the apex of its trajectory.
“Holy shit…” Alex muttered, his neck craned back. “That’ll work.”
“Wow, Twi. Where’d ya go n’ learn that?” Applejack commented while mimicking Alex’s motion.
Twilight just smiled and shrugged. “It was something my brother taught me before we left. Just in case.”
“Hey guys, it worked!” Rainbow Dash beamed as she zipped back down to them. “It just turned! It’s heading this way!”
Alex shook a finger at her, his gaze still drawn skyward. “Remind me to get your brother a present some time…”
Less than a minute later, the pulsing became a hum as the aircraft broke over the trees, the Liandri logo painted on its hull greeting them as warmly as a smile. The group jumped and cheered as its ventral spotlight focused on them, proving to them that they had truly been found.
“Searching for landing zone,” a synthesized voice came from above as the large aircraft began to hover away from the tree-covered river. Adrenaline surged through them as they chased after the slow-moving aircraft in its search for a clear place to land. The forest itself proved to be denser than any of them would have liked, though after a few minutes, the Raven came across a clearing in the trees: a field of tall grass.
Finally, the group of survivors slowed to a walk as the Raven’s landing gear extended. The cargo bay door opened with a droning whir, and a loud clunk announced the aircraft touching down. With the door fully open, two Novas marched out to meet them, Link Guns at the ready.
While the three ponies advanced undeterred, Alex held out his hand to block the changeling among them. “Thorax, stay behind me.”
Thorax looked up at him. “What? Why?”
“I need to make sure they don’t kill you on sight.”
“Okay, that’s a good reason,” Thorax muttered as he skittered behind Alex.
As the two approached the Raven, Alex called out. “Units! There is one changeling with us. It is designated as friendly. You will treat it as such.”
“Affirmative, Commander,” the Novas called back with a nod each.
Alex smiled. It was good to hear synthetic voices again. He then glanced at Thorax and jerked his head toward the Raven. “Alright, let’s go.”
As Thorax followed Alex, he took notice of both Novas tracking him with their heads, knotting his insides and encouraging him to rush ahead of the human and onto the ship. Only after Alex traversed the ramp did the Novas reboard the aircraft.
“Alright, everyone, get comfortable,” Alex announced. “We’re going home.” As everypony settled in, Alex turned to look out across the field one final time. A gentle breeze blew across forest at the clearing’s end, swaying the tree’s branches as if they each wanted to wave them goodbye. A smile formed across his features, and he took in a last, large drag of fresh air.
Alex then extended his middle finger. “Ah ha ha ha! Fuck you, nature! I don’t need to eat any of your foraged bullshit! Suck it!” He punched the button to raise the cargo door and began walking toward the cockpit. “Alright, let’s go. I’m fucking starving.”
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Always happy to see this updated, even if it is rather slow to do so. But the length of each update makes it worth it!
niiiice! Story still alive AND a nice new chapter.
Seems, like actually seeing the destruction he brought might have been positive for him. I'd like to see him put more of a fight against this doppelgänger of his in the future and interact more with Twilight and co. I like the idea of them being the antithesis to his solitary crazy scientist persona and also being his salvation in a sense.
Oh, man, another good chapter, even as feelsy as it got. Thats friggin rough with what happened.
Two things I can think of is that either globally there some changelings remaining, or mainly, Thorax can one way or another shift to female and partho or preshift or synth have whatever young?
Alex left the World Wound on Earth? I hope the Equestrian version didnt do a Tarterus Doom cross. That could get annoying.
Until you can create energy from the vaccuum reliably at all times Alex, Cores? Everything you use is natures bounty. The hydrogen you fuse in cascade to generate your mass etc.
Man, seeing this updated always makes my night. Keep up the great work!
I have to say that I have enjoyed this story so far. It looks like things are leading to sum major happenings. Keep up the good work. I look forward to seeing the next chapter.
Dragonfox
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Same!
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I’m so glad you guys are so excited to see this story update, even if I’m rather slow about it. And even if I don’t reply to comments sometimes, reading them just fills me with glee and motivation. So much so that I’m proud to say that I just finished the next chapter. Well, save for a paragraph in the middle, but that shouldn’t take terribly long. So depending on how quickly editing goes, it should be out relatively soon. Though knowing me, that still might be a while. Fingers crossed!
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Huzzah! My happiness has doubled!
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HUZZAH!
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Huzzah! Awesome!
I'm soooo glad I took the time to re-read this whole thing!
I had forgotten how much I adore your writing, and how much it has improved over the span of this story. I think your other readers would agree with me when I say that your words convey so much emotion, and this chapter certainly isn't an exception. It was easily one of my favorites, and I'm going to kick you in the ass to publish the next chapter, now that you're done with school (almost). 
With love as always,
-F
I feel bad for the changelings...
Hope that little realization stops whatever weirdness is going on.
Alex loves the ponies and his idea of keeping them safe is to hold everyone else at gun point or kill them. He is a monster.