H'ven Sent

by otherunicorn

Chapter 25. Choices

Securing the perimeter around Advanced Weapons was an interesting challenge. To the rear we had the thick lab wall and high security door of Brainstorm's lab. To the front we had glass display windows and the showroom entrance, with panels welded over them, dating all the way back to Brainstorm's original incarceration. How well they would stand up to an onslaught was debatable. If the situation became really desperate, we could lock ourselves in the lab and close the door between the showroom and the lab, but that would trap us just as surely as Brainstorm had been trapped. We needed access to the shooting gallery, and that was through the showroom. At the moment, the greatest protection we had for that front wall and sealed up entry was ignorance. According to Crimson, he, and his team, had simply not known their destination was on the other side of that thin wall. It had also been presumed to be as strong as the walls around the lab.

We figured any attempts to gain access would be through the doors from the service corridor, so that is where we concentrated our efforts. With Cacha pulling guard duty, armed with one of Brainstorm's boot pistols, she and I had gone up several levels of the stripped staircase, and harvested the remaining stairs and floor plates. More of the salvaged steps were welded across the doors of the lowest three levels. Some were used to fashion a floor, one level above the access corridor. Hopefully the lack of stairs would prevent any fool pony from trapping themselves in the oubliette we had accidentally created. Needless to say, I welded in the last of the new floor from below.

The remainder of the salvaged steps and floor plates were taken down to our level where they were used to reinforce weak points. If the thugs from Central cut through the door through which they had seen us last retreat, they would be faced with a new wall of solid metal just inches behind it. Of course, we made cutting through that door as difficult as we could. I had made the cavity between the original door and our new wall totally watertight, then filled it with liquid meant for the food generators. Any penetration of the door would result in their cutting equipment getting a shower of sewage, extinguishing their cutting torch flames, or shorting out any electrically powered tools. I was not aware of any form of unicorn horn based cutter existing. I hoped they didn't because how they could be combated I did not know. Maybe, if they made it through the to the new wall, I'd just have to weld as fast as they cut!

With that done, we had stocked the shooting gallery with more suitable materials for the continued conversion of Brainstorm, Stormie and Crimson to Hellites. The armor and weapons we had initially tossed in were looking somewhat worse for wear. We ripped some of the equipment out of the failed Celestial Body Simulator and tossed it in there too. Other materials required were taken from Brainstorm's stock of chemicals. A couple of mattresses had been dragged out of Brainstorm's living quarters to offer some physical comfort, although there were bets being taken on how long the ancient materials and springs would last against the resource harvesting modifiers before the mattresses collapsed and dumped those on them onto the floor.

Somehow Cacha had managed to convince the modifier bomb to do a controlled release that kept an optimal number of modifiers in the air while not having the clouds so thick that ponies constantly choked on them. Sneezes, however, were a frequent occurrence!

Once that was done, it was just a matter of waiting.

---

"Oh, dear... that was weird," I muttered, stirring. I shook my head to try to dislodge the confusion of sleep.

"What was?" Cacha asked, from where she lay beside me. We'd been sleeping on one of the beds in Brainstorm's tiny, on-site living quarters. Of course, the mattresses were missing, so they weren't the most comfortable place I'd slept.

"Oh, just a stupid dream," I said, as I rubbed my eyes, "or perhaps I should call it a nightmare."

Cacha stirred, moving so she could look me in the eyes.

"What was it about?" she pushed.

"Like it makes any difference. Dreams are just a jumbled mess of fact, fiction, ideas... whatever," I said.

"So what did you dream about?" Cacha tried again. She was being rather persistent. I wondered if I had been talking in my sleep. That could have piqued her interest.

"You. I dreamed about you, about you trying to get turned into a stallion, and the ugly mess the whole situation became," I muttered.

"Oh," Cacha quietly voiced. "I guess I haven't really thought hard about the details of what could come after such a transformation. I've been assuming that life would go on like normal, but better. What was the worst part of it?"

"Well... you wouldn't be you anymore, would you?" I asked, tapping her on her nose with one of my fingers.

"Wouldn't I? I don't see how I would be all that different," Cacha said.

"And there is the problem, nicely summed up, coming from your own mouth." I said. "You... you are stunningly beautiful right now, and so feminine. I'm not just talking about your looks, either. Your movements, your behavior, your very essence: you. I just can't picture you turning into some muscle-bound male. I think the result would be very artificial, with you pretending to be stallion-like: a cliche of what you are trying to become."

"Oh. I'd never thought about it that way," Cacha admitted, with a tilt of her head that sent her mane swinging.

"You told me that you were raised as a girl, didn't you?" I asked, thinking back to our earlier conversations.

"Yes, like everypony else in Hell, we are all raised as what we appear to be: fillies. It isn't until puberty fails to turn us into a functional mare that we know something is wrong," Cacha said.

"I'm betting that despite your recent affirmations to the contrary, you self identify as a female," I said.

"Umm..."

"So why not let Brainstorm turn you into a mare?" I asked "Think about it. Don't be such in such a rush to get turned into a male."

"Umm..." Cacha tried again. "What about, you know... us... I thought you weren't into mares."

"I do like you, but no, I'm not into mares," I confirmed. "However, I do enjoy your company, and I don't mind snuggling with you..."

"But?" Her expression was as close as a pony could get to emulating a question mark.

"But what's the rush? I'm pregnant to a pony I've never met, trapped by the situation in the laboratory of a pair of reprobates who did nasty things to me, while death squads from Central poke about outside. I kind of have enough happening. I don't need to try to help a mare who's just been trapped in the body of a stallion because she was hoping to impress me. Let me get used to being in this body first."

"Oh, yeah, I see what you mean. I destroyed your life. You need time to adjust," Cacha said, glum.

I wrapped a leg around the sad mare and gave her a hug. "Maybe what I need more than anything at the moment is a best friend. Maybe that is what you need more than anything else at the moment, too. That is something we can both be. And snuggles are wonderful. It doesn't need to be about sex."

"Yeah, maybe, but it would have been nice not to be useless," Cacha mumbled, looking somewhat dejected.

"Useless? You are not useless. You are a most helpful mare. Look how often you've saved me," I said.

"I still feel useless," Cacha said, totally failing to object to being called a mare.

"You had it hard when you grew up, didn't you?" I asked.

"Yeah, most of the ponies with my condition get treated poorly. It's fine until we reach the age where we should mature. Then we go through a period of hoping we are just late to develop, all the while getting berated. Then, finally when we reach eighteen, we are officially recognized as failures, although by that point it's been pretty obvious for a while. That's when we start getting sent out to do the dangerous stuff," Cacha seethed. "Sorry. It's not your fault. I shouldn't be getting angry."

A voice interrupted our conversation, although at this point, I had the feeling it was going to loop back into trying to reassure Cacha. It was Stormie calling out for us, presumably with an answer to Cacha's earlier request. I took the interruption as a gift.

Cacha and I climbed off the bed, stretched, (I shook, out of habit), then walked out to see what Stormie wanted. It appeared both she and Brainstorm were taking a break from the shake and bake room, as we were jokingly calling the shooting range while it was full of modifiers. Presumably Crimson was still in there. Stormie indicated she wished to speak to us as she settled herself on the table that had become her favorite resting spot.

"Well, my friends, it isn't good news," Stormie said. "None of the concoctions we have here can help you, Cacha. At the moment, you are stuck with your girly body. Concoction sixty three will work on you, but all it could do would be to rebuild you as a true mare, though admittedly, you would be functional that way."

"And before you ask, if you were subjected to a second treatment, it could not convert you back to a true male from there, because your genetics are still faulty. It would simply rebuild you more or less as you are now," Brainstorm said, "thus being a major waste of time and effort."

"Oh," Cacha said, her voice betraying nothing.

"It isn't a total loss," Brainstorm reassured Cacha. "Maybe in time we can work out a way around the problem. We have succeeded in writing a spell that can correct the damage to the ovaries and testes of Hellites. It's difficult to perform, so we won't be offering it to every pony we meet, but it is a start. We will use it only when it is needed. With it, the next generation will be born without the faulty genes. It also functions as a shielding spell, preventing any further modifier attacks, if those modifiers are still active, so any newly conceived fetus can reach maturity undamaged. Unfortunately, the spell dissipates when a foal is born, leaving the foal's gonads open to attack, unless we cast the spell on them too. It is a temporary solution until we can create modifiers of our own to do the task, or until we can eliminate all the detrimental modifiers themselves. We at least have a decent head start on that task. We will be basing them on the modifiers we used to protect unicorn fetuses, and this time we will make them cure both faults."

"Oh, I guess that is all good news. You will use the spell on Aneki, won't you? Hopefully it isn't too late for her foal," Cacha said.

"Aneki and her foal are fine. We detected no damage to the DNA of either when we scanned her. Nor were there any signs of any of the genocide modifier in her body," Stormie said. "We couldn't detect any in your body either, for that matter, which makes us wonder if the modifiers have vanished altogether, having done their job. Whatever the case, we will cast the spell on Aneki before we leave for Hell, but before we do, we want to test it on somepony who isn't pregnant."

"I suppose you could let it loose on my gonads then, even if they are male," Cacha said.

"It should work on either sex, so thank you, we will take you up on that offer," Stormie said.

"Hey, if you converted me to a mare, would I be able to have colts? Real colts?" Cacha asked.

"If the spell works, yes, although we would need to cast it on you again, after your conversion, because the conversion would replace your testes with ovaries," Brainstorm said.

"So, let me get this straight," I interrupted, "You have a spell that can correct the DNA of ovaries and testes, and any eggs or sperm they may contain or produce, but you can't do the same for the rest of the DNA in a pony's body?"

"That sums it up," Stormie agreed. "It is a very high level spell, and damned hard for us mere unicorns to cast. You'd need a magical specialist to even have a chance of expanding its field of influence, and neither Brainstorm or I are that good. We are much better suited to technology. What we will be working on is a way to achieve what the spell does, using modifiers. And that, I am afraid, will take us some time."

"There... there is no rush," Cacha quietly said. "I've been talking to Aneki, and she doesn't think I can be a stallion."

"Why not?" Brainstorm asked. "I'd like to know her reasoning. As we said, we should be able to work out the details of the conversion with time. We just need to make new modifiers."

"That's not what I meant. I'm really a girl, inside," Cacha admitted. "Even if my DNA says my body should be male, my mind is female. I've always lived as a girl. The reason I wanted to be a boy so much was that if I was, I would be valuable to my community. Even more so than if I had been a mare. It would make returning to them so much more impressive. Instead of a useless thing, I would be a stallion. I would be the first Hellite born stallion in generations. I thought it would be glorious, that I would be able to face all of the ponies that laughed and ridiculed me, that I would be special! Aneki pointed out that if I got converted, despite my new body, I would be a mare pretending to be a stallion, and that I would look trite at best, and ridiculous at worst... and that would put me exactly back in the same situation I was trying to get away from. It was a childish dream. That's all."

"I can understand all that, but what about you and Aneki? You wanted to be a stallion for her, too, didn't you? That's what you said to me," Stormy said.

"Umm... I was getting ahead of myself. Aneki doesn't want a stallion," Cacha admitted, blushing furiously.

"She's into mares?" Brainstorm asked, somewhat taken aback.

"No. She just wants a best friend, at the moment. I can be that for her as a mare. I can be that for her exactly as I am."

"Oh?" Stormie voiced. "I think I see what's going on here. Cacha, more than anything, you want acceptance, don't you?"

"So, there is no rush, is there?" Cacha asked. I wrapped my leg around the funny little mare and gave her a squeeze. It seemed she had understood what I had said enough to take it to heart. I was proud of her. I was glad she was capable of listening and understanding, too.

"Maybe there isn't a rush, but I will point out that your best opportunity to be converted to a fully functional mare is right here, right now, in that tank beside me," Brainstorm said. "We don't know when we will next have the opportunity to set up a conversion tank. For that matter, when we flee down to Hell with you, we won't be able to carry all of our concoctions or equipment with us. Maybe we will be able to come back up here to salvage it later, but setting it up again could take months, maybe even years. Conversely, right now, we are stuck here for at least another week while we are transformed into Hellites. Converting you to a mare now would not inconvenience anyone. In fact, it would be even quicker than Stormie's conversion because you are most of the way there already."

"Umm..." Cacha said.

"As we said earlier, it may be possible to convert you to a stallion later, if you wanted it, so what you choose now won't mess up your future options," Brainstorm said. "but that won't be until we work out how to fix the genetic damage right throughout your body."

"Umm... Aneki?" Cacha asked.

"You don't need my approval, silly. Follow your heart," I said.

"I want to be a real mare," Cacha stated emphatically.

---

Comments

[QPaysTaxes]

Why am I distinctly reminded of the Dyson sphere from Ghosts of Onyx by the description? Just for that, I'm gonna read this.

[Bambi]

What happened to Crimsons one liner?

[Viking ZX]

I don't know. At this point this just feels like you really want the story to go one direction, so you're determined to have it go that one direction regardless, and that's why it feels forced.

[Keiger]

This feels much better. Some of the dialogue doesn't feel quite natural in a way that is is shortened and conclusions are made before logical process.
So, it feels forced in an "Impatient Dungeon Master" kind of way, chopping the NPC's dialogue down to make things go faster. They have a whole week to go over it right?
*cough*sliceoflifechaper*cough*mightbegoood*cough*here*cough* What? I had a coughing fit...

I love your story and I think you are a fantastic author. Something like this is BIG and in the future you should really take your time with it, really hammer it out. This chapter is by far, an improvement over the last. It is good enough that you could leave it be and keep going and just call it a bump in the road. Possibly make the next chapter slice-of-lify and have them internal monologue n stuff then later down the road, if you care to do so, combine the 2 into a more fluid chapter.

Take what I've said with a grain of salt, I am just trying to be helpful. Try not to take any of my ideas literally unless inspiration jumps you (at which point I hope mace works). When writing, the ideas must all come from you. Help like this is just an attempt to plant the seed of creation you might need.

I have like a dozen more things to go over but my mind is drawing a blank right now. Mmm pizza, then board games.

[otherunicorn]

4698552
I disagree. The previous path has been abandoned. I had criticism about Brainstorm not being able to fix Cacha. I had criticism about Cacha-Aneki. So now Brainstorm could fix Cacha with time, if she wished, but Cacha had abandoned the quest to be Aneki's stallion and is instead being her friend. I had one of the stronger critics go over this chapter before I released it.

[otherunicorn]

4697590 What happened to half of the chapter? Same thing. It got the axe. The one liner had nowhere to go with the changes.

[ferret]

I don't think the story would be ruined with Cacha and Aneki being intimate with each other. It's a situation where patience is called for though. The new version seemed more patient than the other one, which leaves foreshadowing and speculation for you to expound on later when it's actually called for. In particular I don't think you have to treat the Twins as a Magic Bullet. There is plenty of stuff they're simply not capable of doing, and it might not even make sense why they can do one thing but not another, to the untrained eye. Their genius is in weaponry, and their experience in the tank forced them to learn a lot about biology and genetics, but beyond that... it's not silly or unnatural to assume that they won't be inventing sex change vending machines in the near future.

[Nyerguds]

Looks like I missed something there? Ah well. I'm travelling, so my internet access is sporadic these days.

Anyway, no matter what was changed, axed or rewritten... I like it

[Fourpony]

With Cacha pulling guard duty, armed with one of Brainstorm's boot pistols

She has no qualms against killing.

as we were jokingly calling the shooting range while it was full of modifiers.

How do you stop the modifiers from leaving the room when doors open?

It is a temporary solution until we can create modifiers of our own to do the task, or until we can eliminate all the detrimental modifiers themselves.

Modifiers hunting modifiers to make more modifier hunters. Nanobot battles are its best.

Maybe we will be able to come back up here to salvage it later, but setting it up again could take months, maybe even years.

Or set up a lift along the support column to quickly move from HELL to the laboratory.

Oh wow, that drawing was back in '08, you have been into this pony thing for a long time.