Mash Effect

by Raugos

Chapter 2

Great, now what?

As if on cue, a deep synthetic voice resonated through the darkness.

< Assuming direct control >

Harbinger!

He whirled around and fired a full clip of incendiary rounds into the darkness behind him, but the shots failed to hit anything. There were no sparks or ichor spatters, only the thundering echo of his assault rifle.

“Show yourself!” he shouted.

< As you wish >

A thin stream of purple energy materialised in the space ahead of him. It rapidly spread and branched out like roots, gradually interconnecting in the air to form a… pony’s face? The purple hologram was easily the size of a house, and it—no, it was a she. It was a female pony.

“Wha—huh?” Button’s mental gears ground to a halt. “Wha—what is this? This doesn’t look right at all!”

The entity hovering before him wasn’t a Reaper he’d encountered before, but it was strangely familiar. Come to think of it, its voice, although deep and harsh as a grinding stone, had sounded almost feminine…

“Miss… Cheerilee?” he blurted.

The disembodied head suddenly smirked.

Oh no…

This was bad. This entity was a thousand times worse than a Reaper. He wasn’t ready. The entire galaxy wasn’t ready. It was a Teacher. Nopony was ready to face a being of such power!

He popped the heat sink on his assault rifle and began blasting away at it on full auto, but his bullets proved ineffective as they passed right through the strands of energy. He felt his heart rate shoot up when his rifle beeped out a heat warning. He collapsed the rifle and swapped out his trusty shotgun in spite of logic telling him that scattershot would be just as ineffective as his rifle’s. His legs were shaking by the time is secondary weapon overheated; he was out of options. He had no biotics and no tech-based attacks.

< Your time starts now >

Huh?

Button raised an eyebrow, and that was just about all he had the time to do before his HUD flickered and strings of numbers and characters started zooming all over his vision.

[….Who is the inventor of the Amniomorphic Spell? ….. Name the first Unicorn King… ….. 153 x 7 = ? .... When did Nightmare Moon attempt to usurp the throne and create eternal night? …. …. 88/11 + 5a = 18, a = ? …… What is the capital of the Griffon Kingdom? …. ]

His jaw dropped when he realised what was happening. Sweetie, AB and Babs weren’t missing; he just couldn’t perceive them because this wasn’t the real world. He glanced around, taking in the vast expanse of darkness containing data that his mind had given the shape of a disembodied head of Miss Cheerilee and dozens of sentences and equations floating in the air.

I’m in cyberspace.

About a second later, a surge of electricity tore through his spinal cord and cybernetic implants, sending him into a seizure as he lost control of all his faculties.

“Aaaarrghh!” he screamed as another current surged through his body.

How is this happening?

More inane questions and equations crowded his vision.

< You cannot answer >

I’m being… examined?

[ …. When did the first mayor of Ponyville take office? …. …. How old is Princess Celestia? …. … ….. 98 – 37 x 2 = ? …. …. What is the Griffish word for ‘friend’? …. .. .. 123 x 0 = ? … … When did the first Apple-Orange civil war begin? … ….]

< You are ignorant >

[ … Friendship = Magic*Accord … … 153 x 7 = 1071 ….. The first Windigo was sighted in 1673 BNMM. … ….. Mayor Mare is the 37th Mayor of Ponyville. …. Baltimare is the seventh city to gain independence from the rule of the Two Sisters… …. .. The maximum aerial velocity of an unburdened phoenix is 187.543 kilometres per hour….]

Button groaned as useless facts and figures began bombarding his brain along with the previous stream of maddeningly difficult questions.

Noooo, I’m being Indoctrinated! No, wait. Even worse. I’m being Educated!

His armour offered no protection from such an attack. He needed software for that, but his cybernetics hadn’t come installed with adequate firewalls and he couldn’t adapt to a hacking attempt like an AI. He wasn’t prepared. Button tried to get up and run, but the pain was too great, and the electrical surge in his cybernetics was frying everything up. He could just imagine his flesh sizzling wherever it came into contact with his synthetic parts. Everything was out of sync and he had no more coordination than a puppet being manipulated by a thousand drunken ponies.

< You will be improved >

Oh, great blinking health bars, the Teachers are in league with the Reapers!

“Nooooo!” he cried. “Let me go! This isn’t how it’s supposed to end!”

[ …. What is the most magical part of a dragon? …. …. 54/6 + 72/8 = ? …. The last known legitimate king of the Crystal Empire is King Tempest. … ….. Parasprites are the fastest breeding macro-organisms known to ponykind. … What is the First Law of Thaumaturgy? … ]

He curled into a ball and covered his ears, but the stream of data was relentless. At any moment, he was going to turn into a drooling, mindless husk of his former self, incapable of anything other than being a know-it-all Teacher’s pet and agent of the Reapers…

In his desperation, Commander Button Mash called on his one last hope…

“Moooom!” he wailed.

“Hold fast, young one!” a mare’s voice called out.

Although he had his eyes shut tight, a blinding flash of light still managed to penetrate his eyelids, followed immediately by a thundering crash that shook the ground. The brightness died down, and his ringing ears soon picked up the crackling noise of residual electricity. At the same time, the debilitating current in his cybernetics dissipated, restoring his HUD and allowing him to regain full control of his body.

He cautiously opened his eyes and blinked in surprise when he saw somepony standing in front of him. Though, the term somepony could only be applied very loosely. The pair of hooves he saw were translucent and blue in colour, and when he looked up, he saw that the pony’s entire form was ethereal in nature, as if she was made of pure energy. He was pretty sure she was a mare, going by her voice and the long, wavy manestyle. She was also really tall, even taller than a well-built stallion like him. And he suspected that she was an alicorn too; the horn was obvious, but unless she unfolded her wings, those translucent lumps on either side of her could’ve just as easily been some misshapen saddlebags.

Glancing to the side, he saw the trace remains of purple energy in the space where the Teacher’s head had once hovered.

“Did you do that?” he asked the ethereal alicorn. “Did you kill it?”

The mare shook her head. “No. I am merely holding it back.”

Button got back onto all fours and stretched his legs, satisfied that his ordeal hadn’t inflicted lasting damage. “Okay, it’s just a short break, got it. Now we just need to figure out how to get out of here before the Reapers try to brainhack me again.” He glared at the purple sparks and muttered, “I just never expected them to enlist a Teacher to do it.”

“Getting out of ‘here’ won’t solve your predicament,” the mare asserted.

“What are you talking about? Of course it would. We’re—”

“I cannot come to your aid every time this happens.”

Button frowned and gazed at the mare. She was glowing very brightly, so it was hard to make out her expression beyond the two very luminescent eyes. He looked to the side and noted that she had a splotch of darker energy on her flank with a sharp crescent of lighter energy over it, which he surmised was her cutie mark.

“Suppose I believe you… who are you, exactly? Are you an AI?”

The mare tilted her head. “No. But you may consider me an ally.”

“Okay, whatever. But what was that about not helping me if this happens again?”

“Consider the nature of the… brainhack, as you call it. It is something you fear, is it not?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t anypony be afraid of that? The Reapers have recruited Teachers to help them wipe out the galaxy!” he cried, throwing one hoof up in the air in emphasis. “Nopony would stand a chance against them!”

“But why are these ‘Teachers’ such fearsome creatures? Why do they affect you so?”

Button’s frown deepened. “Because… well…”

Why would he fear them? He was Commander Button Mash, sole survivor of the quarray eel attack on Everfree Prime, the first pony Spectre, and the only organic being who’d actually made contact with a Reaper and survived with his sanity intact! How was it possible for him to be taken down by something as mundane as a test?

Because… that’s not all I am.

He rubbed the back of his head with a hoof. He was also… just Button Mash. The idea felt out of place and suspiciously coercive, but there was a grain of truth somewhere in that. If that was true, but he wasn’t fully convinced just yet, then maybe it was because he was… unprepared. Maybe it was because there was a hypothetical test coming up, and maybe he had hypothetically procrastinated instead of… studying?

He shook his head.

Blegh. The idea was disgusting!

But… it would explain his unexpected weakness to such an approach. It was the one form of attach that he’d simply not prepared for, and completely disgraceful for a soldier of his calibre to have overlooked. The whole mission could’ve failed because of this oversight!

If it hasn’t already. I’ve got to get out of here right now.

Somewhere in the space station where his real body lay, probably spazzing out from overloaded synapses, his comrades were waiting for him to snap out of it and get a move on. The ship was set to self-destruct. They needed to get back to the Harmony ASAP, and he would take any help he could get.

He looked up to the blue alicorn and asked, “What must I do to stop it?”

“Only you can answer that,” she replied, glancing to their left.

Frowning, Button followed her gaze and felt his eyebrows shoot back up when he saw three consoles arranged in a semicircle.

“What the hay—where’d these come from? What are they for?”

“Perhaps you should find out.”

After casting a suspicious look her way, he cautiously trotted towards them, painfully aware of what’d happened the last time he’d messed with a console. But nothing untoward happened when he reached them, so he decided to see what the blue one was all about. Strings of bright blue alien symbols started flashing across its holoscreen, and he found to his surprise that he could understand them. And it wasn’t so much reading sentences as knowing what they meant.

To pass the Teacher’s test, all he had to do was to Study. He would beat them at their own game; he would infiltrate academia under the guise of subscribing to their nefarious ideologies, and once in a prominent position in Education, turn everything on its head to suit his purposes for the benefit of ponykind and all other races of the galaxy. But to do so, he first had to sacrifice himself and allow the Teachers to Educate him.

The second holoscreen’s symbols were in red, but he understood them just as easily. To defy the Teacher and persevere through the test, all he had to do was to Procrastinate. He would just carry on doing what he liked, entertaining himself and others. He needed no education, and he was sure that he could convince his peers to keep from being Indoctrinated and Educated as well. Ponykind would suffer from the resulting ignorance, yes, but their species would live on, and slowly rebuild itself from the ashes of their ruined civilisation, free from corruption. The cost was great, but it promised existence free from the influence of Teachers.

The third one was green, and it confused him at first. It required reaching out and communicating with the Teachers, to tell them of the needs of his peers for… gratification, and their short attention span. But at the same time, they would also acknowledge their need to learn. There would be no Education. There would be no entertainment. Instead, there would be a compromise, a merging. Teachers would understand what it means to be a… child, to require sufficient stimulation, and colts and fillies in turn would learn from their elders. It would be called… Edutainment.

Slowly, Button turned away from the console towards the ethereal alicorn. “So… if I pick one of these, the brainhacking will stop? Just like that? And we will be able to destroy the Changeling base and defeat the Reapers?”

She nodded. “Yes. Take responsibility. Accept the consequences of your choice, whatever it may be, and the nightmares will bother you no more.”

“But, but…” He tried to think of something to say, but his brain seemed to have short-circuited. It was all so… so…

Argh!

In the end, he hung his head and simply settled for, “Oh, buck it.”

The alicorn flinched as if he’d slapped her. “Child, mind your words!” she scolded.

Something snapped inside of him. He whipped his head back up and stomped over to her until their faces were inches apart. She shrank back a little, but he maintained his aggressive stance and growled, “Really? I mean, really? After all we have done?” His voice rose in volume with each word as he vented his feelings on the matter. “My species is dying on a hundred worlds across the galaxy fighting the Reapers, and you’re telling me that the only solution is to muck around on a console that popped out of the middle of freaking nowhere and everything will be fixed just like that?”

He broke eye contact and stomped angrily back and forth like a caged animal. It was just so… unfair. Ridiculous. Contrived. Cheap. He could feel rage boiling up inside of him at the thought that all the battles he’d fought alongside his comrades were rendered pointless and/or unnecessary because of such a simple solution that had seemingly been pulled out of somepony’s backside!

“Child, why would the solution’s ease make it so undesirable?” the mare asked. “Wouldn’t you prefer—”

“You don’t get it,” he interjected, pointing a hoof at her in accusation. “We’re caught up in a war for the survival of our species—no, for the survival of all sentient races across the galaxy. How can a conflict of that scale be fixed with a push of a button? It’s practically Deus Ex Machina!”

The mare frowned. “I don’t think—”

“I mean, what is this, some crazy hack’s fanfiction? This can’t be how it’s supposed to pan out!”

“Child!” the mare thundered, flaring out her wings aggressively. “Calm down and stop being ridiculous.”

Uh oh, she’s getting violent.

Button took a step back and quickly skimmed his stats on his HUD. Kinetic barriers were up. Weapon heat sinks had vented down to 15% capacity. Good. He discreetly switched his weapon to fire Disruptor rounds; the mare wasn’t flesh and blood, so perhaps bullets with electric charges would be more effective.

“Now,” began the mare sternly, “you should not give in to your—”

Button paid no attention to the rest of her words. Time had been steadily ticking away during their conversation, and if it was passing in cyberspace at the same rate as real time, he wasn’t going to survive the suicide mission. He had to get out now, and he suspected that the alicorn was the one keeping him here. Why else would she offer him solutions that all ended either in Education or severe damage to his species? She was just looking for an easy way to Indoctrinate/Educate him because he’d resisted the first brainhack attempt! She must be in league with the Reapers too!

He cocked his M-22 Eviscerator shotgun and pointed it at her chest.

She blinked in surprise.

That’s right. I’m onto you, trickster. You had me going at first, but I see through your sweet words! Button narrowed his eyes and braced for the weapon’s recoil.

“What are you—”

Blam!

The point-blank shot produced a shower of blue sparks and flame when it tore through the creature’s body. It reeled from the impact and staggered to one side like a drunken griffon, clutching at the gaping hole in its chest with a hoof. Although its translucent and luminescent nature made it difficult to discern its expression, he got the distinct impression from its hanging jaw and wide eyes that it was all at once shocked and outraged. It repeatedly closed its mouth and opened it again, as if it couldn’t wait to tell him off but couldn’t decide where to start.

He cocked his shotgun and took a step back, ready to blast it again if it tried anything.

However, that proved unnecessary when the alicorn straightened up glared at him. Then, it snorted and growled in a voice as deep and ominous as thunder, “So be it.”

With those parting words, the alicorn’s form fizzled out and dissipated like stardust. Soon after, the world flickered and spazzed between darkness and bright flashes of light like a badly damaged screen. A cacophony of pounding hooves, gunfire, shouting and metallic creaking assaulted his ears at the same time, and he shook his head vigorously in an attempt to shake off the sensory overload. And… he could also sense the Teacher’s datastream lurking at the edge of his consciousness, waiting to take hold. It seemed they hadn’t given up on taking him down via software yet.

The tangled mess of light, darkness, sounds and electricity overlapped and warped inside his head, growing in intensity until it was all he could do to not curl up on the floor again, getting brighter and louder until it had become a screaming singularity of stimuli.

“Commander, snap out of it! If I die, I’m gonna kill you to death!”

Somehow, with all the chaos in his mind, he still managed to isolate the stimulus of a hoof striking him across his left cheek. And somehow, it was the grain of sand that tipped the scales, causing the mass of stimuli crowding his senses to collapse like a star going supernova.

He jerked up and opened his eyes, and realised that he was being carried on Sweetie’s back like a pair of saddlebags whilst she was cantering through a corridor, dodging gunfire. Babs was glaring at him as she ran alongside her.

“Finally!” she huffed, “Now get off the dumb robot and—”

Button saw a pair of figures galloping towards Babs unnoticed. They were pony shaped, but their hides were a naked and wrinkled grey dotted with protruding wires and metal plating. Blue, unblinking eyes utterly devoid of expression were fixed on her.

Husks!

He quickly rolled off Sweetie’s back, and the couple of seconds he took to hit the floor, roll and spring back onto his hooves was all his cybernetics needed to reconfigure his targeting system and shred the mechanical abominations with a full-auto barrage from his assault rifle.

Babs blinked, turned to see the smoking corpses on the ground behind them, then snorted and said, “Would’ve gotten them if you weren’t distracting me.”

Button didn’t argue. It was obvious that they’d carried him out of the central control chamber, and judging by the periodic shudders and muted booms, the ship was well on its way to meltdown. They were moving down a dimly lit corridor that had lots of husks and changelings popping out of adjacent chambers and contiguous tunnels. Apple Bloom was in the lead, gunning down anything that got in the way with her semi-auto shotgun and sweeping aside anything she missed with her biotics. There was no cover, so she was relying on relentless fire and her kinetic barriers to protect her from the few changelings that managed to return fire.

Now that Sweetie no longer needed to carry him, she was able to bring her own cannon to bear on their enemies, picking off any changelings that were setting up to fire or toss spells their way. Babs was apparently playing rear guard and throwing out biotic shockwaves to keep the horde and its parasprite swarms from catching up and overwhelming them.

“Status report!” he barked.

Apple Bloom spared a glance back and yelled, “Good ta have ya back, Commander! We’re heading back to the Harmony!”

“The self-destruct sequence caused the platform to collapse,” Sweetie Bot explained. “We are now on an alternate escape route. We have five minutes to reach minimum safe distance.”

I was blacked out for over five minutes? Yikes!

“Incoming message from the Harmony. Patching through,” the mech continued.

“Commander?” Scootaloo’s voice buzzed through his earpiece, “Thank Celestia you’re not dead. Where are you?”

Button delayed his response to mow down a trio of husks and answered, “We’re on the way. What about the others? Did we save the prisoners?”

There was a slight delay before Scootaloo finally answered, “Most of them. All survivors are on board; we’re just waiting for you.”

“Affirmative. En route!”

Button winced when he heard the crack of Apple Bloom’s kinetic barrier shattering, followed by her brief shriek of pain. Ignoring the protests of his burning lungs, he put on a burst of speed and shored her up with his body when she listed dangerously to one side. Her breathing was laboured, and a quick glance told him that her armour had been penetrated at the shoulder. A little blood was leaking out.

“Ah’m fine. Just a scratch!” she protested.

“Like hay you are,” he retorted. “I’ll take point. Give your shields time to recharge!”

AB looked like she was about to argue further, but then Button’s shields buzzed and crackled from absorbing a few hits. If he hadn’t been galloping so close to her side, she probably would’ve been hit. She promptly snapped her mouth shut and fell in line.

“Lead acknowledged. Transmitting route overlay,” Sweetie Bot piped up.

After a second, Button’s HUD began overlapping his regular vision with a three-dimensional, glowing arrow that flowed towards their exit. And not a moment too soon, or he might’ve gone the wrong way and wasted precious time and momentum when their corridor branched off in three different directions.

< You cannot escape >

Oh no…

The voice was an unholy combination of Harbinger’s and Miss Cheerilee’s – deep and menacing with an undertone of cheerfulness that promised tonnes of homework. Button groaned and swayed when an unexpected pulse of energy surged through his cybernetics. His vision flickered and fragmented for a second or two before regaining integrity, but with the addition of strings of characters and symbols zooming across his field of vision.

[ … Archibald th- B-ave w-s … 72100… + 87 … .. the first griff— … 53 … to be granted Equestrian citi---ship … by Pr1ncE55 Luna. … … 6 >2 … ]

Oh, flaming pits of doom, it’s coming back. They weren’t done with Indoctrinating/Educating him yet!

“You okay?” Apple Bloom called out.

He stumbled and nearly toppled over when another jolt through his nerves disrupted his rhythm, but quickly regained his balance and bulled onwards. He needed all his concentration to stay on course and not get overwhelmed by the neural attack. Ignoring the data being forced into his head was hard enough.

“Three minutes remaining,” Sweetie reminded.

Button grit his teeth as he shouldered a husk aside and blew another’s brains out. An explosion rocked the ship, and he heard Babs swearing as his last hoofstep failed to hit the floor when it should have. He flailed for a split-second, overbalanced, and then the floor rushed up to meet him. He fell at an angle on his chest and skidded along for some distance.

Luckily for him, the shockwave had surprised the husks and changelings as well, and his team were able to get back on their hooves without taking too many hits and resume their frantic gallop to safety.

< Pony, you’ve changed nothing. Your species/grade has the attention of those infinitely your greater/smarter >

[ … Starswirl the Bearded was the first pony to discover the Breezies in 879 BNMM. …. … The mortality rate of breaking a Pinkie Promise is 0.183 .. …. .. ]

< That which you know as Reapers/Teachers are your salvation through destruction/education >

[ .. There were sixty-two Equestrian monarchs before the rise of the Two Sisters... .. 4 x 52 = 208 … ,.. The Wonderbolts were founded in 87 AB. .. … Harmony is the root of all magic. … … ]

Button scrunched his eyes in an attempt to clear his vision, but it was useless. It didn’t stop the datastream.

“We’re here!” AB cried out. “Scoots, we’re at the extraction point. Get us out of here!”

Button swept his gaze around. Their corridor had opened up into a large chamber that was maybe a fifth the size of the central control chamber. It was shaped like a vertical cylinder and there was a sloping ramp that led from their position all the way to the centre of the space. Empty space.

“What? Where’s the Harmony?” he yelled.

“Hang on, Commander, I’m coming!” Scoot’s voice buzzed in his earpiece.

He heard a series of explosions echo through the ship, followed by a bright flash of light that emanated from the bottom of the chamber. He then dove to one side to avoid large chunks of debris falling from overhead.

“Hurry up, Chicken, I can’t keep these suckers off for long!” Babs’ shout from behind was followed by the sound of a biotic detonation and the shrieks of several husks.

Then, like a phoenix rising from its ashes, the Harmony rose into view from the bottom of the chamber and hovered close to the edge of the ramp.

“Move!” Button shouted.

His squadmates didn’t need to be told twice. As one, they all broke into a mad dash for their ride out of hell. As they made their way up the ramp, dodging debris raining from above and gunfire from behind, the Harmony’s door slid open, revealing Spike and Featherweight. Together the dragon and pegasus provided them with covering fire; Featherweight was picking off their shooters with his sniper rifle whilst Spike mowed down swathes of husks with his machine gun.

[ --- -^ - .. -- 12^2 = 144 … .. The moon weighs roughly [redacted] tonnes…. .. Dragons are not native to Equestria…. -- … 20 x 5^2 = 500 ---…. .. Hardback the Brooding was the first dragon to make peace with the Two Sisters after losing to Princess Luna in a 93-hour staring contest. … ]

Sweetie, AB and Babs had overtaken him. The surges in his cybernetics were becoming stronger and more frequent; he was having difficulty putting one hoof in front of the other in the right order. By the time they’d all leaped onto the Harmony, he was still only a quarter of the way to the edge.

“Come on, run!” Apple Bloom shouted.

Something clamped onto his tail, and Button’s forward momentum was arrested. He lost his balance and crashed to the floor. A husk had chomped down on the end of his tail, short though it was. A second later, it was decapitated by a blast from Sweetie’s assault cannon.

But it had cost him a precious seconds, and the distraction had apparently been all that was needed for the Indoctrination/Education process to tighten its grip on him.

[ .... – Contrary to popular belief, Griffons are not born from the union of a lion and eagle. ---.. .. 83 – 3 x 0 = 83 …. ^ … . The first railroad in Equestria was built in 870 AB -- -- … Starswirl the Bearded was the founder of the College of Everfree. … ]

He couldn’t run anymore. There were too many neural misfires going on in his head to make a coordinated leap to safety.

“Commander, what’re you doing?” AB cried from the Harmony’s doorway.

“What’s going on out there?” Scootaloo demanded.

“I’m being… Indoctrinated. Can’t… can’t make it,” he growled.

“Oh hay no; we didn’t go to all that trouble just to have you quit at the finish line!” Babs shouted. “You’re coming home whether you like it or not!”

Squinting ahead, Button saw a flash of bluish/purple light coming from the Harmony, and the next thing he knew, he was being lifted bodily into the air. Babs was trying to pull him in with biotics!

But the effect was cut short when a thunderous explosion from above sent a shockwave bearing down on all of them. The Harmony suddenly dropped a few metres before Scootaloo managed to re-stabilise it, and a dislodged platform crashed onto the end of the ramp, effectively destroying it and widening the gap by a good thirty strides. The impact sent him rolling back down the ramp and into the swarm below.

“Commander!” a half-dozen or so voices cried out at once.

“Get out of here!” he shouted into his coms. “You must warn the rest of the galaxy. If we all die, the Reapers will win! I’m not worth that!”

“Rumble, fly out there and bring him in!” Scootaloo yelled.

“On it,” Rumble replied. “Just hang on, Commander!”

“No!” he shouted back.

“I can—” Rumble began, but Button cut him off.

“There’s no time!” he shouted. “Get your flanks out of here!”

This is my fault. If he had taken the necessary precautions to protect himself against the Examination and Education, he wouldn’t have been slowed down. He wouldn’t need rescuing like he did now. If they tried to come back for him, they were all going to die. He should have prepared. He should have… studied.

[ .--… House Blueblood is the oldest noble bloodline of Canterlot – .. … Ursa Majors are not native to Equestria; the leading theory behind their introduction to equestrian is through shooting stars. .. . 4288/4 = 1072 .. . .. . 9(20 + 30) = 450 ..---… . Griffish is the most widely spoken language outside of Equestria, followed by Zebrican… ..]

“Go! You’re not dying for my mistakes!” he roared through the pain in his skull. Then, more softly, he added, “I’m sorry. There’s no time…”

There was a moment of silence on the coms, which gave him the opportunity to focus on the horde that was descending on him. He still had enough coordination to turn his weapons on the last few changelings attempting to shoot down the Harmony with their guns and magic bolts. His kinetic barrier shattered and fizzled out after absorbing a few direct hits, but he was past caring about his safety at that point. He was already expendable.

The husks fell easily enough, but he could do nothing against the parasprites that latched onto him and began tearing at his skin. He ignored them in favour of taking down anything that could damage the Harmony.

“Goodbye, Commander,” Scootaloo murmured.

“No!” Babs screamed. “Button, you get your—”

Button winced as he killed the com channel. He couldn’t bear to hear the anguished cries of his friends.

The Harmony’s door slid shut, and it slowly ascended through the chamber. The repeated impacts from falling debris was slowing it down. The shields were holding, but only barely. Some of the larger pieces were breaking through the barrier and striking its hull.

One or two changelings fired at the frigate, but Button took them out easily with his assault rifle. Then, a changeling queen flew into view and landed just a few strides away from him. He tried to open fire, but was only rewarded with the beeping warning of his overheated weapons. Another shockwave rattled the space station, but the queen ignored it and began trotting towards him. Its minions had surrounded him and were standing still.

Button noted that the queen was possessed by Harbinger, as her eyes were glowing bright green and the joints between her carapace plates appeared molten with green fire.

< Your destruction/education is inevitable >

[ --- .. The antidote to poison joke was not discovered until 558 AB…**. … 2^3 = 8 .. … Laughter has the highest emotional mass of all the Elements of Harmony… .. … In Old Equestrian, ‘Celestia’ begins with an ‘I’ …. . Energy = Magic*Chaos^2 …. .. ]

Button grimaced as his pain shot through his nerves. The station shook, and dull roar became audible, growing in volume until the floor was trembling. He squinted as the corridor behind the queen became blindingly bright, and a mighty wind blew forth as the flames of the explosion came rushing towards them.

And then, through the corner of his eye, he saw a flare of blue light as the Harmony engaged its thrusters and sped to safety. It won’t be long before she engaged her FTL drive to leave this cursed corner of space.

They’ll make it.

As the roar of the Harmony’s engines faded away, he thought he saw a shadow of the ethereal alicorn he’d encountered in cyberspace lurking amongst the changelings present. But when he blinked, the apparition disappeared.

< You have failed >

Button grunted in pain as the queen grabbed him with magic and lifted him into the air, twitching helplessly in her grasp. But in spite of his situation, he felt pretty calm and satisfied.

Meh. I no longer matter at this point.

He locked eyes with Harbinger/Cheerilee’s puppet and replied, “Yeah, you got me. I failed.” Then, he grinned and added, “But my friends haven’t; they’ll finish what I couldn’t. And I’ll go down knowing that I did everything I could to stop you. So there.”

And it was then that Commander Button Mash blew a raspberry at the immortal enemies of all advanced organic life in the galaxy, just as the flames came roaring and engulfed them all. It was the only raspberry in the history of the known universe to be accompanied by a thermonuclear detonation, and it was so totally worth getting annihilated at a sub-atomic level and having his particles scattered in the darkest corner of the galaxy.

Comments

[nemryn]

The moon weighs roughly [redacted] tonnes

Luna's been eating too much ice cream, apparently.

[BlueNinja]

The maximum aerial velocity of an unburdened phoenix is 187.543 kilometres per hour

Dayum, that's faster than my Hyundai can get.
Those endings.

It was just so… unfair. Ridiculous. Contrived. Cheap.

Isn't it, though.

“I mean, what is this, some crazy hack’s fanfiction?

Um ... I'll be over here.

The mortality rate of breaking a Pinkie Promise is 0.183

That seems frightingly high.
Ah, Featherweight is Thane, and dialog implies Apple Bloom is Jacob. So, where's Samara, Zaeed, and Kasumi?

Commander Button Mash blew a raspberry at the immortal enemies of all advanced organic life in the galaxy

Bwahaha!