Chapter 35. The Challenge
As we neared Habitat Ten the buzz around it became palpable. Even though no pony was visible from the catwalks leading to its entrance, subtle variations could be seen in the light coming from within, accompanied by the muffled sounds of many voices as ponies went about settling themselves into their new home. I was amused to see somepony had painted No Bigots on the wall to the right of the door. Somepony else had written Embrace the new fashion - display your heads with pride.
Bittersweet, Cacha and I walked through the entrance, and down the ramp, into the lobby of Habitat Ten. As we did, I felt a tingle, and noticed a few tiny fireworks going off on our bodies and equipment. Evidentially, Brainstorm had cast a modifier killing membrane spell across the opening. It also felt noticeably warmer for the few seconds it took for my body to adjust.
While the differing temperatures didn't bother the Hellites directly, lower temperatures resulted in annoying problems such as condensation, liquids freezing when it wasn't convenient and so on. As such, warmth made living a little more pleasant. Then there were the foals; they needed the warmth to survive, but at the moment there was only one of them in our herd, and it was curled up, asleep, inside me. I wondered what secrets about its sire it would reveal. Would seeing the foal help me recognize its father, when we went up into the life support chamber looking for answers?
It was like a camping ground in here. Sleeping mats were scattered all over the floor, the occasional one occupied by a snoozing pony. Other ponies were milling about. Some were eating from bowls, presumably filled in the kitchen or canteen. Almost all of the ponies visible had taken the advice written on the wall outside, their faces visible. Clearly not all of the ponies were in here at the moment, though, or it would have been a lot more crowded.
"Is anypony off on a repair mission?" I asked the nearest, a pony with a lemon colored face, highlighted with a bright orange mane.
"It's more like clean-up duty," she answered. "Centuries of disuse does tend to make a mess of a place. Most of us are down below, making the place more habitable. Nopony is out in the main habitat at the moment."
"How is progress?"
"Pretty good. Some of us have already moved into the living quarters. It's quite luxurious!"
"A mat on the floor here is luxurious compared to what we have had to put up with for the last few centuries," Bittersweet deadpanned.
"And that is exactly why there hasn't been much in the way of fighting over who got to move in first," the pony said.
"Your name?" I asked.
"Oh, they call me Carrot Top, which is stupid, because most carrots are purple, with a green top. Well, that's what one of our food generators produces, anyway."
"Whole carrots?" I asked. Every food generator I had ever encountered produced food in ready to eat form.
"Weird, eh?" Carrot Top said.
"Ammunition production!" I said. "Brainstorm will love that!"
"I'm not sure I want to know what you mean by that," Carrot top said.
"It's not as bad as it sounds. They used to make weapons for a living, and pieces of carrot apparently made good, not-fatal rounds."
"So, you know about guns?"
"She does," Cacha said at the same moment I said, "I do."
"You do, too, or you wouldn't be asking," I said.
"The oldest stallion has one, although it is rare that he ever removes it from the safe in which it is locked. The only reason I even saw it was because I am his daughter," Carrot Top explained.
"I didn't know that," Cacha said.
"Let's hope it stays locked away," I said.
"I do not recall it being fired in my lifetime," Bittersweet said. "Once it was brought out and waved about to settle an argument between two stallions, but that was all. I believe it is more a symbol of leadership than actually useful as a weapon."
"Welcome to the new order," Cacha and I chorused.
"Huh?"
"If a gun is the symbol through which leadership is determined, we have a new leader."
"If that is so, my father will challenge. He's an arrogant pony. He likes thinking of himself as being above the rest of us."
I wondered if those of Central, up in the life support chamber, noticed the increased power usage caused by Habitat Ten being brought back to life. There was no doubt that the jump was noticeable; I could clearly read it on the graphs displayed on the remote engine monitoring screens I had rigged up on the magical displays above Habitat Ten itself. It was just a matter of whether they had a way to monitor the engine outputs up in the life support chamber or not. It was only logical that there had to be a command center somewhere up there. It certainly wasn't down here.
As for Habitat Ten itself, it wasn't a bad place to call home. It certainly had its quirks, not having been designed for ponies in the first place, but we were an adaptable lot. Hell hadn't been designed for ponies to live in either, and the Hellites had survived down here for a couple of millennia. By comparison, this was pure delight. We even had furniture! Its design was a little odd though, more suited to the strange species that had lived here before.
At first we just crammed ourselves into the top floor, camping out on the carpeted floor. With a week of furious activity, the sexless, or more accurately, intersex, were able to remove the remains of the former residents and settle in a little better. The week didn't seem that long to me, but then, Cacha and I had spent a portion of it out exploring the other tanks.
We only had a couple hundred years before the power failed, so we couldn't consider these to be permanent lodgings... unless we failed to get out of Habitat Eleven, in which case Habitat Ten could be very permanent as our final resting place, as it had been for the former inhabitants.
We hadn't extended the invitation to move to Habitat Ten to the fertile yet. They needed to learn to be a little less bigoted... okay, a lot less bigoted. Then again, by the time they learned that, we would probably have been able to convert all of the sexless into fertile ponies themselves. It wasn't as if we hid where we had moved to. We were still responsible for taking on the more dangerous repair missions, so meetings between the two groups was mandatory.
For that we decided to use the top floor of Habitat Ten. The main portion of the floor, the foyer, remained an open area in which visitors could relax while waiting for their appointments. Once all the bones and sleeping mats were removed, it was quite an impressive space. One of the smaller lounges connected to the foyer was converted to an office for Cacha and myself, complete with receptionist for when we were out. If there was a problem, that was where the fertile had to come and visit us.
Below the top floor were a number of floors done in a similar fashion to the lower levels of the life support chamber, with the exception that these had not been stripped for their resources. There was a shopping mall, residential areas, a hospital, and so on. Below that was a rather unusual artificial environment, mimicking what must have been the natural habitat of the creatures that had lived here. There was a sky, although it wasn't as impressive as the sky-dome up in the life support chamber. It was only a few stories up from ground level, and just a flat, ordinary ceiling made of translucent blue plastic, illuminated from behind. It was what was below ground level that was intriguing. Soil, lots of it, and it was full of tunnels. Due to instability of the soil, we decided that exploring that could wait.
As soon as the hospital was cleaned out and sanitized, that was where Stormie and Brainstorm were planning to set up the equipment from their old lab. Suitable vessels had already been appropriated for use as gender reassignment tanks. So far there were two ponies on the waiting list for their use: Berry and Bittersweet. Both had volunteered as test subjects in their enthusiasm. Actually, they were the only two that knew of the possibility, having been adopted into our inner circle.
Crimson's coat had parted company with him; one moment he looked like his old self, the next, he was as Hellite as the rest of us, his former coat and skin a pile of hair and dust at his hooves. He wouldn't be making a wearable coat out of it, as he had planned! Cacha and myself had a good chuckle as it was swept away.
Of course, when everything was looking promising was when things got messy. I was strolling through the foyer at the time.
"Shit! It's Richard the Great and his entourage," a pony called from above. "He has to have at least a hundred mares and their kids with him."
While we had been visited a few times by the fertile ponies, usually it was Bright Star, Cacha's father, or one of the few mares that still felt an attachment to their child, regardless of whether the rest of the community had shunned them or not. For their head stallion to show up unannounced, accompanied by his herd reeked of intended foul play.
"Get Brainstorm and Crimson!" I yelled at the pony nearest one of the stairwells. She scampered a few paces and pushed the elevator call-button. That would work, too. The doors opened and she vanished inside, the doors closing behind her. Hopefully she would find Brainstorm or Crimson quickly.
"What are we going to do?" Cacha asked, from her usual place beside me.
"Stall Richard the Arrogant until our boys get up here, I guess," I said. "Of course, that depends entirely on Richard being civil."
I formed the pistol around my hoof, mentally flicking through the ammunition spells I had written. What I wanted was something non fatal, but likely to stop Richard the Great in his tracks. Now, how as I going to stop an arrogant bastard that effectively called himself Big Dick? Aim at his pride. It could backfire, and enrage him further, but that was all I could think of. It was an emergency measure anyway. It was still possible that this could be sorted out with words. Aha! This spell would do it! It disintegrated hair. It wasn't particularly passive, either. Like my other disintegration spells, the atomized material would react explosively. I loaded the spell, but kept the pistol folded around my hoof.
Ready, I walked to the ramp, and positioned myself at its base, so that anypony walking down the center of it would be forced to change direction to get around me. This was really the job of the stallions, but until they got up here, I would need to stand in. Letting Richard and his mares get into the habitat would be a major strategic mistake.
As the sound of many hoofbeats clanging on the catwalks increased, the pony who had called out the warning dashed down the ramp, and around, getting behind me, where she stood. Others began to gather around us too, forming a pony barricade against those that approached. I hadn't asked them to help, but it was obvious that they understood all too well what was happening.
The herd of black-clad ponies reached the ramp and began descending, a large, olive-green maned pony at the front. He had a primitive looking metal contraption strapped to his chest. It took me a few moments to realize it was a holstered gun of a very old design. The pony stopped when he was still a few paces from the floor, giving him a vantage point. The first of his mares stopped a pace behind him.
"These lodgings look quite acceptable," the stallion stated. "We shall be moving in. You useless freaks will leave at once." Well, he didn't mince his words, did he? A murmur spread though the gathered intersex. I could feel their tension. Having what was theirs taken was something they had experienced too often, nonetheless they did not move. There was a difference this time, a significant difference.
I didn't budge. "Clearly you are incapable of following simple rules," I said to the stallion. "No bigots are allowed down here. Please leave immediately."
"Who do you think you are addressing, you unfuckable freak?" Yup, he was a bigot, all right. I wanted to shoot him, just for that, but stayed my hoof. Neither Brainstorm or Crimson were sexist, but to this prick, stallion to stallion confrontation would probably be all that would work.
"I am Aneki, a mare," I said. "This is my home. You are not welcome here."
"As if you could stop me, although, if you are one of these new mares, I will allow you to join my herd. You are a unicorn? Yes, you will join my herd." The stallion took another step further down the ramp. I mentally reached out to my gun. It was ready, as I nearly was. The only thing holding me back was the hope that this could be solved with words.
I heard the elevator doors slide open. Brainstorm's voice rang out clearly. "Richard the Great, I presume. I see you have recognized my superior genetic material, and have come to give me your mares."
I almost laughed.
Richard's voice boomed out. "Young upstart! You will learn to respect the order of things around here. These worthless unfuckables can move back to wherever they came from. I'm moving in with my herd now. The old lodgings are getting too cramped for me. You can head over there, and if you are lucky, I'll let you keep one of your mares."
A twitter swept through the crowd of the intersex that had gathered, but none moved. They had been assured beforehoof that we would not be vacating our home for Richard the Great, or any other stallion.
Another voice rang out, this time Crimson's. "Richard, it appears we have a problem, then. We, in Habitat Ten, do not recognize your authority. You are also breaking our primary rule by being here, so kindly remove your arrogant ass, and take the asses of your assets with you."
I wondered if Crimson was going a little too far with those insults. Some of those mares could be nice. Maybe.
Richard the Great reached up to his chest and unfastened the holster, withdrawing the ancient pistol. From his vantage on the ramp, he had a clear shot at any pony here, should he choose to shoot. He aimed it in Crimson's direction. Yes, that insult had been a bad move. I lifted my own hoof, extended my fingers, allowing my hoof pistol to fold out, ready.
"I have the gun. You will respect my seniority," Richard the Great barked.
"Richard the Great, if I was you, I would lower your weapon, and back out of here, right now," Brainstorm said, raising his voice. "One of the mares standing in front of you has taken out two death-squads from the life support chamber. I'm sure she has you in her sights now." That was a pretty clear message to me, as much as to Richard the Great, specifically, if I wasn't pointing a gun at him, I should be. I felt Cacha tense beside me. She wasn't wearing her pistol.
There was a loud crack from Richard the Great's old weapon, and somewhere behind me somepony yelped. Gun smoke wafted about Richard the Great, as he stood there, looking stunned. He'd probably never fired the thing in his life. After a moment, he began to move again, as if hunting for another pony to shoot. By now he must have felt committed to this course of action. I raised my weapon, selecting my target.
"Aneki, take him out!" Brainstorm commanded. I squeezed the trigger. Unlike the old gun, mine was near silent. The resultant explosion was anything but. The force of his mane exploding knocked Richard the Great head first to the floor, his mane now a cloud of acrid smoke. The stench of burned hair alone would be enough to drive away some of these invaders.
"Next!" I yelled. I don't know why, but it seemed to fit at the time. The invading mares stampeded, trying to escape along the same route they had come. Catwalks were not good places to stampede. Folding my weapon, I leaped up the ramp after them, skirting the stunned stallion. A few mares, fillies and foals had already fallen over the safety rail in the crush, but fortunately, they had landed on the gentle curve of the top of the spherical habitat. The ones further out were, however, at risk of sliding down the rapidly increasing slope, to their deaths below.
Immediately I reached out with my magic, grasping the mare at greatest risk, levitating her back towards me, where I put her safely on the catwalk, clear of the running ponies. She may have been in shock, because she just stood there, unmoving. I was reaching out for the next mare when I noticed another leaning over the safety railing, trying to reach a bundle of cloth that was at risk of sliding. There was no way that the mare could reach that bundle, not even if her legs were five times longer than they were. Why would she risk her life over a pile of rags? When the rags moved, understanding hit me hard; that was her foal! They had carried their foals here, wrapped against the cold, believing their stallion was taking them to a safe, warm place.
In desperation, I reached out for the bundle, catching it before it could slide too far. That was when the mare fell. I screamed, trying to split my magic between the two ponies, but as soon as I started to reach for the mare, the bundled foal started to fall. Two at once was too hard for me from this distance. I stabilized my levitation around the foal, watching in horror as the mare hit the curved surface, rolled, and started sliding towards her doom.
As she was vanishing from sight, another glow wrapped around her, halting her slide, then lifting her up, depositing her on the catwalk beside the mare I had rescued. As I levitated her foal to her, she collapsed in a heap, sobbing, legs wrapped around her offspring. I felt like sobbing too. Death was not something I wanted to result from stupid conflicts down here.
"We can't have these ponies dying, can we?" Brainstorm, the source of the second levitation spell, asked. "You are doing well, young Aneki. Help me rescue the others."
I returned my attention to the rescue. It was not long before we had all six ponies who had been in danger on the catwalk near me. Cacha and a couple of the others from down below had come up and were assisting the ponies back down into the lobby. The mares, fillies and foals that had gone over the railing where the slope was gentle were helped back onto the catwalk, too.
Richard the Not So Great still lay where my shot had felled him. Crimson and Stormie were standing near him, prodding him with their hooves.
"Is he dead?" one of the mares asked. Richard was their stallion after all.
I shook my head. "I don't like killing. I just blew up his mane. He should wake up again soon. He'll probably have a headache and be ruder than usual."
"Is that even possible?" a nearby intersex pony asked.
"He will be polite when he wakes up," Brainstorm stated.
"And if he isn't?"
"He will be polite when he wakes up, again," Brainstorm stated.
"Ah!" I said as Brainstorm's meaning sunk in. Until Richard was polite, Brainstorm was planning on booting him in the head.
The bullet Richard the Great fired had grazed the flank of one of the intersex, but the injury was not significant. I had survived a lot worse. She was being attended to by others, down in the hospital: its first patient. More fuss was being made over her than the wound warranted, but nopony minded.
I had remained in the foyer, not that far from the base of the ramp. In front of me stood the black pony, his head hung low. His true color was hidden by his deployed hellite armor. It also hid him blushing with embarrassment, something his body language made clear he was doing. His mane was no longer on his head, although some of it was still hanging in the air as a foul stench, the air currents of air purification system not sweeping all areas of the foyer evenly. His gun lay on the floor before him, in multiple, twisted pieces, its ancient explosive ammunition having been removed and destroyed separately. His perceived rank also lay there, symbolically, in a similar condition.
Maybe his mares would still care for him, but the other stallions, even those he had lorded over for decades, would now laugh in his face. Maybe one, Bright Star, wouldn't. My experience with Bright Star suggested he was a congenial fellow, but from what I had been told the other two certainly would laugh. He was probably wondering what the two newcomers would do to him after this. Crimson had watched over proceedings, but apart from making comments, had not intervened. Brainstorm had administered the lesson. Neither Brainstorm or Crimson had expressed anything that could indicate rank between them. That must have been really confusing for Richard the Great, as he knew no other way.
Brainstorm's lesson had been... violent. Brainstorm had bashed the black pony every time he had tried to reassert himself. Every time he had a nasty word to say he found himself waking with a sore head. Even though he was wiry, Brainstorm sure could deliver a powerful kick. Then there were the mares, Stormie, Cacha and myself, all of who were obviously armed (Cacha had put on her gun). Every time we stepped near Richard the Great, he shied away. We were now standing at three points around him. We weren't threatening him, but he very obviously considered us to be a threat.
"What is going through your mind right now, young Richard?" Brainstorm asked. "Revenge, perhaps?"
"Revenge would serve no purpose," Richard replied. "I have been beaten, my authority totally destroyed. Not only are you older than me, you are also better armed that I was, as are your mares, and your friend. My personal code of honor demands that I respect this change."
"You can't be particularly happy about it," Stormie said.
"Of course I'm not happy about it!" Richard said, raising his head to look directly at Stormie. "But that is irrelevant, isn't it?"
"I'm glad you understand," Brainstorm said.
"What happens to me now?" Richard asked.
"Go back to your mares," Brainstorm said.
"What? Did I hear you correctly? Go back to my mares?"
"Sure, why not. There isn't room for them down here yet. We still have a lot of cleaning up to do before we can have that many ponies live down here. Of course, if you and the rest of the fertile want to actually help down here, things would be ready sooner."
"If you were to accept the offer, there are rules you and all of your mares would be expected to obey," Stormie said.
"What rules?"
"The main one was painted on the entry way. It may look like a joke, but we are serious," Stormie said.
"You mean the no bigots thing?"
"That's right. Even if your dick has no use for the intersex, you will treat them with respect, as will any mare that you bring down here with you," Stormie said.
"That would be... difficult," Richard admitted. "And living under the authority of somepony else would also be hard."
"Then, return when you think you can manage," Brainstorm said.
"It does puzzle me that you allow your mares to speak for you," Richard said. "Why?"
"We are treated as equals," I said. "Perhaps you could learn to treat your mares with respect, to treat them as equals. When you can do that, perhaps treating the intersex with respect would not be such a great leap."
"You have given me things to consider. May I leave now?" Richard asked. His phrasing made it clear he was choosing his words with care, thinking before speaking.
"You may," Brainstorm said.
"And my mares?" He nodded to the small number of mares, fillies and foals we had rescued earlier, who were now sitting to one side, watching proceedings.
"That's between you and them, isn't it?" I asked. "If they were to stay, they would be subject to the same rules. Perhaps they are not ready to live by them yet either. You should also understand well enough that in introducing two new stallions, we have introduced two new bloodlines, and as your bloodline is probably shared by most ponies here, the more foals these newcomers have and the less you have, the better for the Hellites as a whole. As such there will be a redistribution of mares sooner or later, irrespective of what you wish."
"That has always been the way," Richard grudgingly admitted. "Now, I shall take my leave."
Richard the Great gathered himself together, raised his head and approached the mares of his herd. "Are you coming?"
One of them immediately rose, a second doing so after her friend did. Their two fillies joined them.
"My daughter lives here. I wish to live with her," one mare said. "Sorry, but I will be staying."
"I haven't developed yet. Maybe I am a mare. Maybe I'm not," an older filly said. "I will stay here where they don't seem to mind which way I turn out."
Richard looked at the few who hadn't stated their intentions, but hadn't risen, either. "And you?"
One rose, moving to join the other mares that were leaving, but the others didn't.
"We are going to try this new lifestyle," one of the remaining mares said. "It is the first significant change there has been in decades, and these ponies are going places quick. I want to be here to see it myself, to join in. The new bloodlines are are also a plus."
The others nodded their agreement, so without another word, Richard the Great turned, and walked up the ramp. As he and the ponies that had chosen to return with him crested the ramp and vanished from sight, there was a rustling among those that had remained. Then, starting with one, followed rapidly by the others, the newcomers bloomed, their facial armor peeling back to reveal their faces. They had taken their first step.
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Hah!
Okay. "A gun" versus that monstrosity incorporated in Aneki. That safe is slag before he has the chance to get his gun out of it
Alas! Would've been a kind of freaky souvenir, anyway.
Hah. She plays nasty
Hah
Welp. Ouch
"young" Richard, hah. Asserting seniority as well as superiority
What she isn't mentioning is "I more or less started this whole thing. Gender is irrelevant to us."
So. They actually saw him being humiliated. Extra ouch
The winds of change are blowing!
Heya, new reader here!
Saw the story when it was featured on the 9th, just finished reading through it this morning. Really enjoyed it!
I absolutely love the atmosphere or these kinds of stories, very much has a Portal/Metro feeling to it. (I just love abandoned places in general)
The writing is solid, a little too predictable at times though.
At any rate, loved it so far, can't wait for the next chapter!
I can't upvote this enough.
You know, just eating a carrot is a thing. You don't need to cut it into even slices to be able to eat it without dying of radiation poisoning.
Probably kinda looks like a reptile at the moment.
Heh, 3 unicorns that are guns.
Habitat 10 uses the same systems as Hab 11 but is much smaller with a small population. So that means that the small habitat would not use over 5% of the resources Habitat Eleven uses. I am thinking 2.5% would be high as well. And this is 2.5% of the 10% Hab 11 already uses. So it would go from like 10% to 10.25%.
Probably almost two millennia, the split was like 400 years before the Brainstorms. So 1600 years ago. 700 years after the engines came online.
Habitat Ten was a windfall. Wonder what the fertiles think about this.
Looks like is out for another crusade again. Oh bother.
Now if they could set up their own separate com system that is scrambled for Central couldn't listen in.
Or, you know, you could levitate him off the ground with magic.
And then Aneki locked them in and shut off the power.
Or generate two turrets, that might freak them out. Or magic him back the steps he took. There are just SO many options.
At least the Brainstorms are a bit comedic and nutty. Which I guess is why you added them, fun to play with.
He did crush a mare's skull on accident. Something Aneki never did.
Brainstorms are equal cause they are just about the same since they spent 1200 years together. Aneki saved them in a way. They both do different things, Aneki and Cacha allow the Brains to continue their experiments and the rest of the ponies benefit from the two nutcases.
6377021
You are comparing diameters, when you should probably be comparing volumes. The percentage it would jump would much less than 1%, but it would still be noticeable
It's not a privacy issue - they can have private channels on their comms units. It's simply that there aren't enough of them to go around. the habitat PA system probably hasn't been discovered yet either.
Most definitely.
I think his modifiers reacted with the ones he used to rebuild himself when he was in the tank. He's stronger than the average Hellite, even though I've not said much about it.
6377311
This... is in the wrong direction, I think? I'm not entirely sure which direction you're meaning to say it'd go. Say the ratio of diameters is 10:1. Cube that for volume, and the ratio of volume is 1000:1. If anything, power consumption scaling with volume and not diameter means that Habitat Ten is even more negligible in terms of power requirements.
6410359
That is exactly what I meant. It would be like turning on one more room light in an apartment complex.