Chapter 17. Concoction Ninety Two, Version Nine
I stood in the display room of Advanced Weapons Development Laboratories. Twelve hundred years of being locked away hadn't had any visibly adverse effects on it. It was dust free, the electric blue satin beds in the display cabinets looked as good as when it was made. I was afraid it would disintegrate the moment I touched it, leaving blue fluff all over the black and chrome of the weapons lying there.
"Is it okay to touch?" I asked the two ponies who were Brainstorm. "It is so old I'm afraid it will all disintegrate!"
"Fear not, Aneki," came their voices. "The display is current, not from back when we were locked away. It is perhaps two years since we laid it out like that, before we put ourselves under for our last bout of hibernation. Surely you did not think it has been sitting like that since we were locked in here?" Brainstorm, part one stated.
"We even use a magical stasis field on it to keep it all nice and fresh!" Brainstorm, part two added.
"Stasis, I find that hard to believe," I muttered.
"You are right. It isn't real stasis. It's a simple spell that holds all the molecules of the air in place. That stops the oxygen and other potential corrosives from touching anything, thus preventing chemical aging."
"It keeps the dust out too!"
"You are so full of surprises," I added, still muttering. Admittedly, they had some good ideas. I just didn't feel generous enough to tell them so at the moment. "So where should I start?"
Most of the display cabinets were around the edge of the spacious octagonal room, interrupted only by gaps for doors, one of which I had just passed through, one directly across that had metal plates welded over it, and one to the right. In the center, its opening a few paces from me, was the sales counter, positioned so Brainstorm could move quickly between there and the lab. Integrated into the left most side of it was the most elaborate of the display cabinets, this one fully encased in glass. In this case was something unique. It looked nothing like the other guns I could see. In fact, I wasn't even sure it was a gun. It appeared to be more like some sort of expanded construction kit, or a complex antenna. Its core was a barrel or tube. From this short lengths of perpendicular rod held small curved pieces of metal at some distance from the central tube. The curvature of those suggested that they belonged tightly packed around the core, rather than sitting out at the end of the little sticks. There were several layers of these odd protrusions of varying lengths. Within its shadows, there appeared to be some sort of cable-work as well as some tiny and intricate machinery. Whatever it was, I decided to worry about it later.
"Pistols are always a good place to start," Brainstorm answered my question. "There is one in the cabinet immediately to the left of the door you just passed through."
I turned to look at the thing. Its outer grip was designed to hold onto the retracted hoof wall of a pony, allowing the fingers to hold the inner grip as well as operate the trigger, safety catch, and other controls that were in there. Reload. Eject. Clean. Hmm, seemed to be everything you would need there. I extended my fingers and reached for it. As they closed around the inner grip, the gun moved itself about, settling itself into the correct position for firing.
"And what if I want to walk?" I asked.
"Put your hoof on the floor and see," Brainstorm answered.
I did, and as my fingers retracted and hoof wall extended the gun folded backwards, reconfiguring itself so it was hugging my leg like some sort of weird boot. "Convenient," I agreed. I lifted my hoof and extended my fingers again, and was rewarded with a gun, again ready, nestled in my grip. "You guys have too much time on your hooves," I observed.
"That, Aneki, is an understatement," Brainstorm concurred.
"And what if I want to use my fingers for something else?" I asked.
"Let go of the grip," Brainstorm instructed. I did, and the gun folded back into a sort of boot, but clear of my fingers.
"And if I want to use it again?" I casually asked. I wondered if they had solved that contingency with as much elegance.
"Grasp the grip," Brainstorm replied. Got him. How could I grasp something that was currently integrated into some sort of boot that was totally out of the reach of the fingers of that hoof.
"And how do you suggest I do that?" I asked, sarcasm showing through.
"Reach out with your fingers to where the grip should be, and grasp it," Brainstorm replied, totally seriously.
I did, reaching for the grip that wasn't... was there, as the gun unfolded itself, and placed its grip within my grasp. Oh, just too beautiful! I didn't care if I ever had to shoot anypony. This thing was a work of engineering genius and I wanted it.
"This thing is practically reading my mind, isn't it?" I asked.
"Quite so, quite so. It is reading your intent, filtered by your actions. Just thinking the gun into your fingers will not work. You have to reach out for the grip at the same time. It stops it getting in your way by accident."
"So what does this fire? What sort of ammunition does it need?" I asked.
"Whatever you put in it," came the confusing reply. Well, it was a straightforward enough answer, but given the context, it was confusing.
As I pondered that, a drawer extended from the pedestal on which the display cabinet sat. In it were assorted cartridges and boxes with codes written on them. One thing they all had in common was that they were colorful. Some were red, some were blue. Others were green and yellow. There were even multicolored ones. I reached in and took the most colorful cartridge.
"Yes, yes, wonderful choice! You will enjoy this one. Press the Reload button and insert the cartridge," Brainstorm instructed.
I fingered the reload button, and two panels at the top of the gun folded out, revealing a chamber that was simply too big for the cartridge I had chosen.
"It's the wrong size," I stated.
"One size fits all," Brainstorm responded.
"If you insist," I replied dropping the cartridge into the weapon's maw. It responded by closing itself around the cartridge. The reload button moved against my finger, becoming firm and unresponsive. Tactile feedback. "So what next? Where can I fire this thing without doing any damage?"
"She didn't try to shoot us!" said one.
"Yet," added the other.
"Don't give me ideas, Brainstorm," I responded. After an appropriate pause, I continued. "Seriously, didn't I tell you I didn't want to kill ponies? That includes you two, irrespective of what I think of you."
"Just fire into the room. That is a demonstration cartridge. It is harmless at anything greater than point blank range, and at that, all it would do is cause a bruise," Brainstorm explained.
"Okay," I said, pointing the gun at specifically nothing at all. I flicked off the safety catch, and pulled the trigger.
With a quiet chuff, a little burst of blue luminescent gas shot into the air in front of me, eddies forming at the edges of its path, until the air resistance became too much, ending the trail with a little floating cloud. I fired again, being rewarded with a red trail this time. So pretty! I only vaguely noticed the lights of the showroom dimming as I went on an atmospheric decorating spree, firing the little colored bursts in all directions, watching as their trails and clouds interacted and color mixed. That wasn't enough! Soon I was bouncing and dancing through the trails as I added more, enjoying the airbound beauty, stirring it with my movements, marvelling as little patches attached themselves to my body, following my moves, leaving more trails.
Eventually I felt the reload button go soft, and the gun would fire no more color bursts. Again, I had useful tactile feedback. This pistol was their smallest weapon. Was it also their most featured, or did other guns offer even more? This pair had spent their years making art. How frustrating it must have been for them to have no audience. Having to do everything remotely must have also been agonizing. The colors of the luminescent gasses faded, and as they did, the showroom lights became brighter again.
"Did you enjoy that? You were romping about like a filly," Brainstorm commented.
"Compared to you two, I am a filly," I responded. "There is nothing wrong with appreciating beauty."
"The comment was not critical. It was most refreshing from our point of view too. We have not had the pleasure of seeing a pony in many years, let alone seeing a pony dance."
"Damn, you're making me blush," I muttered, as if I really was bothered by the canned duo. "So, you've impressed me with this gun. It's a wonderful piece of art, but what about real world applications? The monsters under our beds might be scared away by the glow, but I've not had a problem with them for some years. And then there is the matter of supply. I wouldn't want to have to come back here to the only shop in H'ven that sells the ammunition cartridges designed for your guns."
"Cartridges are only needed for gasses and liquids because they won't stay where you want them otherwise," Brainstorm commented. "Other ammunition can be sourced just about anywhere. For example, you could use the gun to fire nails into wood. In that case you just put the nails into the loading port. The gun will take nails one at a time and blast them out with enough force to embed them into whatever you are building."
"Why would anypony build anything out of dead tree?" I asked. It was quite an uncommon resource. The trees of H'ven were regarded as a rather important source of fresh air. Any trees that died were spirited away by Central and a replacement planted in its stead. Everything was made of metal or some variation of plastic or ceramic.
"What has the world come to?" Brainstorm asked. "If only we had managed to grab the Hellite modifier, we could have watched all of this in person!"
"Indeed. Indeed. What has it come to? Perhaps what was common practice for our generation has been lost to history," his other self expanded.
"More than likely. You are relics of a forgotten era after all," I agreed. "I'm not sure being a Hellite would have helped you that much, anyway," I added.
"Of course it would have. We would not have needed to confine ourselves to this tank using the inferior alternative we had available to us at the time," Brainstorm replied.
"But if you had been seen, they would have killed you for being one. They really don't like Hellites at all up there," I reminded them.
"Ah, such is life. We would have had to go to Hell instead, would we not? We expect it would not be that different to these underlevels anyway. This problem also existed in our time, sweetie, so we were prepared for that."
"So what is so special about a Hellite?" I asked.
"You do not know? She doesn't know!" Brainstorm said.
"Neither do you, I suspect," I responded. I figured insulting their knowledge might be the quickest way to get them to talk.
"The Hellite body is designed for harsh environments. It can withstand very high pressure, very low pressure, continuous submersion, impacts greater than a normal pony body can survive, is resistant to disease, and is immune to generic modifiers."
"But you fixed my horn with modifiers before!" I objected.
"The hellite modifier does not affect a unicorn's horn, so concoction sixty four, version five worked on you without modification," Brainstorm explained. "Your repaired horn is, however, resistant to further generic modifier intervention. We saw to that while you were napping. Only specially crafted modifiers could have any effect: modifiers with the required key."
"Oh?" I said. So they had done more than just scan me. It made sense though, because it was the pain in my head that had knocked me out. "So, now you have told me what a Hellite is, specifically a very tough pony, but you haven't told me what they do, or why they are needed. We are needed," I corrected myself.
"You are needed to do things and go places ordinary ponies can't," Brainstorm said. "The most obvious role has been one of maintenance. Generations earlier, you were purportedly involved in the completion of the H'ven dome, before the extermination. There are references to doing things outside H'ven too, although that is more myth than fact as nopony seems to know what, if anything, exists outside."
"So Hellites have effectively been assigned a life of hard labor?" I asked. "That doesn't seem to be fair that some random event makes you, or in this case, me, a slave of the system."
"It is but a small price to pay for immortality," both parts of Brainstorm chorused.
"What?" I spluttered. Immortality?
"Immortality," they repeated. "It's this convenient state where you don't die of old age. You get a body that stays young and healthy forever, as long as you don't get yourself killed. For that benefit, you are expected to help others by doing things they cannot. Actually, that, we think, was the way the system was originally set up. As you said, the bastards up top kill Hellites these days."
"It sounds to me like the breezie tale got it wrong. If any ponies were dark and twisted creatures, it was those from above, jealous of their weak bodies and comparatively short lives," I muttered darkly. Sure, I was drawing conclusions from rumor and fable, but that was all the information I had to work with at the moment. There was an old saying about where there was smoke, there was usually fire. "So you know this immortality is a fact?" I asked. "It isn't as if I have ever seen or heard of any immortal ponies before."
"Celestia and Luna," Brainstorm stated.
"This sun thing that doesn't work anymore, and Luna, the... what was it called... ah, the moon?" I asked. "They aren't ponies. They are just some crapped out automated systems that are meant to move light patterns on the sky dome. You have one of the backup systems just next door, and that looks like it has been sealed up for as long as you two have been."
This time Brainstorm spluttered. "According to what we were taught, Celestia and Luna were the old rulers of ponykind, and were immortal. One raised the sun in the morning with her magic, the other the moon at night."
"News flash. There is no sun. The day sky is evenly lit. Luna is a crescent shaped light that moves across the sky dome at night. The clapped out machinery next door is one example of what makes that happen. There isn't anything magical about it at all," I said. "And if the ponies were immortal, where are they?"
"She has a point. She has a point," one part of Brainstorm seceded.
"Anyway," I said, dragging the conversation back to the weapon on my hoof, "this gun thing could shoot nails into plastic, or presumably, ponies?"
"Yes, yes. Or if you want something less dangerous, you could put a cake of soap in there, or even a carrot."
"I know what soap is. Presumably a carrot is of a similar consistency," I stated. That resulted in more exclamations.
"Carrot is a delicious food, found in natural purple, or designer orange. Surely you eat that?"
"I've not seen any dispensed by the food generators. All that means is that I've not seen the right sort of generator yet. One I have with me dispenses some lovely colored stuff that tastes wonderful. I hadn't seen that before I found it, so perhaps I am in for more surprises," I conjectured.
"You don't grow food anymore?" Brainstorm asked, his voice quiet.
"No. It all comes from food generators that convert waste biomatter into food," I explained. "And you should know how that works, because I can see the feed line running into your tank."
"Maybe we should stay in here and dream of days gone by?" Brainstorm asked his other self.
"Maybe, but if I still have legs, I wouldn't mind getting out of here and stretching them every few hundred years," the other responded. "It sounds like the world needs some serious adjusting, too. Can you imagine those emergency food generator things becoming the primary source of food? Shocking!"
"Maybe you should get out there and start shooting at Central with carrots?" I suggested. "And on a more serious note, in the unlikely event I want to shoot something for real, what then?" I asked. "Nails?"
"Drop a block of metal into it. Feed it an old tool or something like that, and let it bite off what it needs," Brainstorm answered. "The integral unicorn's horn makes the bullets as needed. It also provides the operational forces used by the gun itself, and the propelling force for the projectiles. With some practice, you should be able to control the power put into the projectile, as well as the size, and thus mass, of the projectiles it creates."
"It sounds like this gun does just about everything," I observed. "So why do you have bigger ones available?"
"Longer range, higher rate of fire, fully automatic fire, larger magazines, multiple horn versions for significantly stronger weapons..."
"I think I get the picture," I said, "and you were having trouble competing with other designers?"
"At the time, yes, we were. Of course our weapons were nowhere near as refined as they are now. Whether they stack up against what is currently available, we don't know," Brainstorm said.
"Neither do I. As I said, weapons appear to be rare. They are probably all locked in the basements of Central's deniable facilities, as seems to be what they do with old technology of some use. That's where I got my portable food generators from."
"We could have the whole market!" Brainstorm enthused.
"I think you already do," I responded, "and it is currently standing in your showroom."
"Say what?"
"Do you really think Central would let ponies wander around with weapons? There has to be a reason why they are rare. They are not going to put weapons in the hooves of the very ponies they are suppressing. Imagine if just one charismatic pony managed to break free of their programming. They could incite a revolution, and if ponies had guns, it could be very messy," I said.
"I can see your point."
"Unless... admittedly, having ponies wipe each other out would solve overcrowding, so if I started to see weapons in the hoofs of average ponies, I would suspect Central of trying to engineer exactly such a situation," I theorized.
"You don't like Central at all, do you?" Brainstorm mused.
"It's taken you this long to work that out?" I asked, sarcastically. "So what do you want me to do now?" I said as I removed the pistol from my hoof, waited for it to reconfigure itself, and placed it back in the display cabinet. "Do you want me to try each gun out or should I just take this one? It's small enough not to be inconvenient." I paused. "You do know I can't pay you, don't you?"
"Pay? You can't pay? The tragedy!" Brainstorm, part one said in a silly voice.
"Of this we are aware," Brainstorm, part two added. "Payment would not help us at all at the moment."
"We would, however, like you to try out our masterpiece, the weapon for which our research led to our incarceration."
"The pinnacle of our technology, advanced when it was designed twelve hundred years ago, refined over the centuries that have passed."
"And tweaked to perfection since you arrived!" Again I had lost track of which Brainstorm was saying what. It didn't seem to matter.
"Okay, so where is this super weapon?" I asked needlessly, as the fully encased cabinet opened like a flower, offering me the delicately complex device from within. "So this... whatever it is... is actually a gun? How am I supposed to grip it?"
"That is part of it, yes," Brainstorm answered. "Just reach out for it."
I did as instructed, and watched as the complex collection of parts reacted to me, forming places for my fingers to grip. Two places. It was big enough that it required a pony to hold it with both front hooves? That was awkward! I reared up, took a step forward, and grasped the weapon in the two indicated locations. Finding the balance didn't feel quite right, I tried to release my grip so I could adjust it, but found my fingers rather stuck!
"What?" I asked, then asked again, a little more panicked, as the weapon began changing shape, grasping at my hooves and legs, pulling me closer to itself. The little panels stuck out on the stalks moved in and out, clicking and clacking, the cables behind them writhing, before emerging, and plunging straight into my legs, piercing directly through my tough black hellite skin.
"Aaaaah!" I cried. What was it with this place and pain? I watched in terror as little pieces of machinery forced their way into my body, as all of those little panels on stalks rippled to some strange choreography as they worked their way nearer, then cut their own access points into my body. There they seemed to turn into some sort of goo, and merge with whatever it was that served me as flesh nowadays.
"The other part of the weapon," Brainstorm explained, "was installed in your body earlier."
"After we had examined your hellite body from one end to the other, we had enough information to upgrade concoction ninety two, version eight to version nine, featuring new versions of the modifiers required to integrate the weapon into a pony's body, this time optimized for a Hellite.
I don't know if it was with pain or frustration, but I screamed. Loudly.
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TBH it feels like you are setting up a mary sue, but I still approve.
4414186
Depends on what she faces once she leaves. A Mary Sue wouldn't have anything like real challenges or conflict; the world would go out of its way to bend to her convenience. If this level of equipment is just what she'll need to survive, though, then Brainstorm is just filling the same role Q does for James Bond.
4414186
Nah, Mary Sue was a wimp. ALL SHALL FALL BEFORE THE GREAT AND POWERFUL ANEKI.
Or will Aneki continue to fall before all else, pretty much like she's been doing so far? The reality is I haven't given her anywhere near the power of any of the princesses, although she may be able to give The Great and Powerful Trixie's fireworks display a decent challenge using her new pistol.
So this weapon she is putting on...
It would not happen to be an iron mare suit would it?
How about some artificial wings made of bullshitium that let her fly and sling razor sharp feathers at her enemies?
Gee I wonder why anyone would think to lock these two nice ponies away forever? Why I think they should be given immortal bodies and free reign over the entire facility. Surely that would never result in anything anypony might later regret.
4414586
Nope. It's not armor. It is merely a "gun".
4414872
What? Ship the canned ponies? You seriously think they haven't shipped themselves?
4415495
One government is as bad as the next. At least if this pair of nutcases got into power, things could be interesting!
Holy- completion of the dome? Before the extermination? That implies they worked on it before H'ven had a dome. Which pretty much rules out the "vacuum of space outside" theory. The whole thing is probably just on Equestria, dug into the ground.
lol. Oh, how the time has mangled the facts
Wait, I thought these weapons worked on the user's horn?
Hah. Bastards. They wanted her to take that one all along.
4466110
The world's biggest post apocalypse stable. So, could this be FOE after all?
Reference the breezie tale in chapter 13. It refers to the Hellspawn helping build the town in the dome. That is what I was referring to. Nonetheless, there had to be a time when H'ven was constructed, be it spaceship, stable, alien petting zoo or whatever, because it sure ain't natural.
Actually, time has mangled the facts in our world. Carrots were originally purple. Orange appeared much later.
There wouldn't be much of a market if it was limited to that. These "common" guns were designed for use by all ponies. It was just their super gun that went "elitist", despite the reduced marketing potential, and that was only because there was no other way to do what they wanted to do.
I guess 1200 years would allow for something like that to be produced. But why a pistol? Rifles are for better. Higher velocity is never a bad thing.
So the Hellspawn that saved Aneki probably had a better understanding of what was going to happen to her and yet still returned her to the ponies of the surface. Unless 4J2 is in on this and there is a "system".
Just what stuff needed to be implanted and how much of the body does this "gun" cover? Seems like something that wouldn't want to come off.
6373993
They make a full range of weapons. Aneki is a newbie, so they suggested she start small.
The hellite was not aware that this was Aneki's second exposure. She didn't expect Aneki to convert.
Read on!
It seems... very uh... very poorly thought out, to try to kill off things that can do maintenance you can't.
It also seems even more poorly thought out to banish or drive something into the underlevels for the exact same reason that they need structural engineers. If even a few really wanted to, they could probably make the city collapse, killing most if not every pony alive within it.
Not that I think any should, but good gravy were the politicians really that...
...
Nevermind, carry on.