Sometimes They Call Me Super

by KorenCZ11

Persona II: Innocent Sin

Applejack

---

“What in tarnation? Applejack, what’s goin’ on with the TV?” Macintosh said from behind me. Ah didn’t move, Ah didn’t even respond. He came and sat next ta us and watched the message with Uncle Blood and Ah. When it finally finished, Ah was stunned.

“Bah, just another crazy hijackin’ the air waves. Probably wasn’t even real footage,” Mac dismissed. Ah could feel that there was a look of horror on my face when Ah finally turned ta him because he just about reared himself off his seat.

“Wasn’t even real!? Are ya outta yer damn mind!? Do ya even pay attention ta the news!? How could it not be real!? Monsters have been showin’ up around the city fer a month now, and ya don’t think that this little threat ain’t nothin’ more then some crazy blowin’ smoke?!” We were centimeters from each other's snouts, and he put a hoof on me and pushed me back.

“Okay, somepony is takin’ this way too seriously. Listen, Applejack, Ah know ya like them Supers just as much as the next pony, but Ah don’t really think that ‘fake news’ is worth much.” More often than not, My brother gave me a reason ta want ta hit him in the face, but the words ‘fake news’ had my interest more than my anger. Ah took a deep breath and calmed down.

“Fake news? What do ya mean by that?”

“Ya got yer phone on ya? Let me see it real quick, Ah’ll show ya.” Ah took the device outta the pocket on the bandanna around my neck and gave it ta him. A few swipes and several taps that looked like corrections later, he gave it back with another story on it from the local news station.

“As it turns out, all that crap was made up. The foundry that they said a monster destroyed was really scheduled for demolition months ago, and the harbor thin’ was just the dock owner tryin’ ta hide pony remains. Pretty expensive coverup is ya ask me, but Ah figure it’s better ta shell out cash than lose everythin’ on homicide charges.” Ah read through it and Ah just couldn't believe what was there. A cover story!? That’s… that’s just ridiculous! How could they just… lie like that? And not just the foundry, but both the fights at the harbor too! There's no way they could just... manipulate information like that.

“Ah… Ya really just believe whatever they tell ya?” Macintosh shrugged and scrolled a little further down the page.

“They say the witnesses were paid off by a gang boss who was in control of the harbor at the time.” He pointed my attention ta that particular part of the page. They even used Goose! But Ah know better, last time he was at the harbor, he was with me…

“Unbelievable.” Ah couldn't contain my frustration at the ordeal. Ta my right, Uncle Blood leaned back in his chair and stretched himself out.

“It might be just a little strange that all of those incidents just happened to get redacted after they were put out though, wouldn’t you say? However, with the city being as skeptical as it is, I think you’d be hard pressed to find anypony who buys into this ‘TV threat.’ It’s quite possible that this is all real, and a monster might show up in the city. But on the other hoof, how many times has somepony hijacked a TV station in the last two months? Twice, Three times now? Just another crazy is relatively easy to dismiss. For somepony who seems to keep up with the news, forgetting that wont do you any good Applejack.” Uncle Blood got up and headed ta his room, but then stopped and came back with a little pad of paper in his hoof.

“Before I forget, would you mind giving me your and Applebloom’s numbers? I’ve forgotten to do this twice now.”

“Oh, sure.” Ah quickly scribbled the numbers down and gave the pad back. Satisfied with that, he headed toward his room.

“Oh, and before you go out, I think you should remember to keep in mind that ponies tend to get in trouble with motorbikes like yours. I know you couldn’t do anything to hurt yourself, but please try to keep from getting a ticket. If you have that on your record, It’ll only make your already expensive insurance even more so.” He stopped at the edge of the hallway then looked me dead in the eye.

“I get the feeling that this particular threat has some weight to it. If you hear something today, talk to me. I have the weekend off. If we need to take a little family trip, then maybe we should. Macintosh, do you work Sunday?” The red irises finally broke from their hypnotic gaze and Ah could finally look away. Macintosh looked just about as confused as Ah did, and he was slow ta respond.

“Um… well, Ah suppose Ah could get off work if Ah really needed ta…”

“Good. Do that. I’ll start making plans. Call the apartment if you need me, I’ll be working from home for the next few weeks.” And then disappeared behind his door. The noise of the TV was the only thin’ now penetratin’ the wall of silence that Uncle Blood had left in the livin’ room. Finally free of the spell, my thoughts broke through the fog.

“Well… that was weird.”

“Eeyup.”

---

“Where do ya want me ta park?” Ah asked the air.

“Take it around the back of the castle. It took a lot of effort, but I made a garage a while back. Just be thankful that the internal road runs right by this place, otherwise, there would be a lot of fake trees for you to drive through.” Eventually, after circlin’ the castle three times, Ah found the slight indentation she was talkin’ about. Ah tapped the spot three times and it opened up just like she said it would. Ah guess it’s noticeable, but only if you’re lookin’ fer it. What’s the point of the garage bein’ secret if nopony can find the castle in the first place? Ya need ta be with somepony who’s got the brand ta get in anyways, and it’s not like there ain’t trees in every which direction fer at least a mile.

Begrudgingly, Ah drove down the crystalline ramp and watched as lights came on all around me. As far as Ah could tell, ya could fit a pickup truck in here if ya wanted, but that’s about it. A few more seconds of ever lowerin’ hall until finally Ah saw the reflection or Rarity’s black sports car. The actual garage could likely fit five, maybe six full sized vehicles if need be, so Ah suppose Twilight had always intended fer more ponies ta show up with vehicles. Ah didn’t see any reason ta take up much space since the bike was really just about as big as Macintosh is, so Ah just parked by the edge of the hallway leadin’ back out. After wanderin’ through darkness and barely lit halls, all adjusted ta Twilight’s dark adapted eyes, Ah found my way ta the livin’ room, where everypony else was waitin’ fer me.

“Would it kill ya ta turn the damn lights on around here?” Twilight rolled her eyes, which Ah could swear were bloodshot around the edges. Somepony's tired.

“It might. But I suppose I could adjust them to be a little bit brighter for you.” Wow, she sounds like shit too. What happened? Ah let that though file itself away and made it a point ta check Pinkie over ta make sure she looked normal again. Save fer a few bald patches around the parts where Ah think her leg was broken the worst, she looked like she was back ta normal.

“Glad ta see you’re okay Pinkie.” She looked at me and smiled, but it didn’t last long, and she put her eyes back ta the floor real quick.

“Yeah, thanks…” she just about whispered. Ah was about ta press on that, but a cue from the others told me not ta.

“Well, now that you’re here, did you see the news this morning?” Twilight asked, now in business mode. Ah nodded.

“Yeah, and what’s worse, Ah heard my brother’s reaction ta it. He didn’t even believe it was real. Ah mean, it’s not like he has any reason ta, the last couple station hijacks ended up just bein’ kids screwin’ around, and somepony covered up everythin’ about the monsters we’ve been dealin’ with up till now. It wasn’t any of yer family was it?” As soon as Ah read the story, my thoughts went straight toward the night princess. Cover story, that’s exactly somethin’ she’d do.

“Surprisingly, no, it wasn’t. Well, at least not the ones from the last two weeks. The article I sent you about the guard she had covered up, but only because she has guards stationed to watch over the roads in the province now. As for this though… I’m sure it must’ve been Argent, or whoever is pulling the strings over there… Honestly, even though we have proof that some serious stuff is going down in the tower, we don’t actually know who's ordering it.” Toward the end there, it was more like she was talkin' outloud than ta me. Her jaw was rotatin’, and Ah noticed that the bags under her eyes were more… visible than normal. Ah know the mare has a hard time sleepin’ but…

“As far as I’m concerned, it has to be Mister Stannum. After all the horrible things I saw down in that tower, it wouldn’t surprise me if he did it on purpose to make it look like nothing was really going to happen. If he did that, then he could kill more ponies in the aftermath,” Rarity said.

“K-kill ponies? W-what good would that do him? T-the families of his workforce live here...” Fluttershy asked.

“Oh, right, you two weren’t here when we watched the recording. We should probably show them that first, shouldn’t we Twily?” Goose said. Twilight rolled her eyes then nodded.

“I suppose. I don’t know how you figured out my foster brother’s nickname for me, but Twilight is just fine, thank you.” Her horn started ta glow with it’s violet corona, and then the table lit up. “This… it gets a little gruesome, but I’m sure that’s nothing you two haven’t seen before as of last week. But um… the sounds… well, I’m just going to play it.” The table flashed the number five in a circle that slowly disappeared and changed ta four down ta one just like in an old movie reel, then it started. The view was like it was recorded from a child’s perspective. The image was that of an elevator with gold colored doors. A white hoof in a black suit slid a key-card into the bottom of the floor panel and another panel slid away to reveal a keypad. The hoof pressed five, zero, one, four, and then the elevator started ta move.

“This was shortly after… Um, that mare I met gave me the key. We believe that she did something to my memory before I left, but I couldn’t tell you what. There wasn’t magic involved, so Twilight can’t reverse it either. It’s such a strange haze about it. I can remember everything she’s supposed to be in, and everything she said, but it’s as if all the mentions of her name and what she looked like are just… gone. Had I not tried to talk about her, I doubt I ever would have noticed the memories weren’t there,” Rarity said.

Several minutes passed and then finally, the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. The camera feed cut out, and then, from the other side of the hallway it restarted and the elevator doors closed. The hall was a dingy steel gray, lit only by the green glow of low level lights that lined every direction.

“As you can guess, my power interrupts the working parts in the camera, so it cuts out like this a few times. Every single one of those lights has a disruption crystal in it. For the entire rest of the video, my magic is suppressed. That mare said that she’d fed the cameras in the lower sector a looping playback and I had an hour before it ran out to find what I was looking for. However, it didn’t take that long, and they caught on long before I was done.”

From here the camera went from door ta door and checkin’ inside each window. Most of them were filled with laboratory equipment, drills, what looked like lasers, and fer a while, it continued like that. She checked another lab, all of them either empty or occupied by one very busy hazard equipped pony. On one room she stopped and watched the pony work on whatever they were doin’. The suit covered up all of their features, so not even the race of said pony could be determined, but whatever was goin’ on here was certainly interestin’.

The Lab worker was doin’ somethin’ with a green glowin’ crystal, most likely a disruption crystal. The worker took some kinda pastry knife lookin’ blade and chopped off the end of the crystal, then set the whole crystal aside in favor of the dust the other piece turned inta. The lab worker then scraped the dust inta some kinda receptacle, and then hooked that ta a big machine. Next, they moved ta pull some kinda sickly yellow vial out of a drawer that was full of ‘em. They put the vial in the other side of the machine and then flipped a few switches which started ta spin the machine. Even from the other side of a door that was likely protected with all kinds of magic and at least a few inches of whatever kinda steel based on the window depth, the microphone picked up everythin’.

Once the machine was done, the lab worker took out the vial, which was now filled with a green glowin’ sand. The lab worker put a cap on the vial then then turned ta the door just as the video feed cut out. It started back up again in a much darker place across from where the lab worker was. The suited pony exited the door and then removed their mask. The mare, now identifiable by her short round muzzle and long lashes took a phone out of her suit pocket and dialed a number.

“Hello? Yes, the next batch is ready. Whether or not it works the way we want it to is yet to be seen, but all the same, it’s done. Very well. To the next phase I suppose.” She put the device away and then slid the vial in her pocket. The dark green mare with the dusky orange mane headed down the hallway, and then the camera blinked ta another view, this time inside the door the mare had just left.

“At this point, I decided it would be best if we figured out just what was in those vials. I stole one and got pictures of all the readings in the room. I thought that if we could recreate the experiment, we might be able to reverse the damage it might do, whatever it was that it did. While I was in the tower, I met Stannum Argent’s son, Silicon, and I thought that this mare looked strikingly similar to him. She could have been as old as my father so the idea popped into my head that she might be his mother. Were that the case, she might be clued into what was going on, so from here on, I follow her.”

After the screen had taken clear images of all the written and digital data around the room and Rarity pocketed one of them yellow vials, she returned ta the hallway which the other mare had yet ta leave and followed her at a distance. No idea how she did it, but Rarity managed ta keep the camera focused on the mare without ever losin’ sight of her, all the while keepin’ unnoticed. The other mare reached an elevator at the end of the hallway and once she stepped inside it, the camera blinked out again, only ta come back with a view from above.

“I needed to get on the elevator with her, but remain unseen. It was difficult, but I managed to open the emergency hatch and hide above it.”

The mare typed in a few numbers inta the keypad and the elevator floor display went from negative one ta negative twenty in a hurry. The door opened and the camera blinked once again. Now Rarity was in some hidin’ spot, carefully watchin’ the mare travel. The new location was much less like the previous in that this place was much more… open. Almost like it was some kinda cavern with seemin’ly no bottom and steel catwalks that looked easy ta fall off of. Where Rarity was gettin’ this view from was completely unknown ta me.

“How are you recordin’ her right now?” Ah asked.

“I am not afraid of heights, and the lighting seemed safer to walk on than those dreadful catwalks. I think I move right about… here,” Rarity said, intently watchin' the video feed.

The camera blinked and now she was closer ta a cross section between two walkways. The mare turned left and entered a door in the side wall of the cavern, then the camera blinked and was showin’ the inside of another hallway. Here, the mare met with another suited worker.

“This is the sample. Let’s just hope it works this time.”

“Indeed. And if it doesn’t, well… I suppose we’ll just have to show our hoof, now won’t we?” The muffled and distorted voice replied. The mare nodded and put her mask back on. The two walked inta another door and then the camera blinked and the view was from behind them. The other lab worker put the vial inta some machine slot and then began pressing buttons and switches on a very advanced looking computer console.

“Test subject C45 preparation complete. Now administering vaccine version 135…” The camera focused in on the screen the two were lookin' at and a familiar scene from a different angle began ta play out. However, there was sound to accompany it this time. The pony from before reacted when the vent in the room opened. His eyes, wide and bloodshot, grew frantic and he began ta beat on the door. His nose started ta twitch and the bangin’ stopped. As if it would do any good, her curled himself inta a tight ball, hooves clamped over his nostrils as best he could until… he started ta change.

The snappin’ bones, Ah could deal with. The horrible crackin’, wasn’t the worst thin’, neither was the sound of bone scrapin’ on metal. It was the screamin’. Of everythin’ that could’ve unsettled me, of all ponies, it was the horrible low moan that became frantic pantin’ bursts of agony that rippled out across the chamber in distorted liquid screechin’. It didn’t stop. It only became louder and filled with rage as the contorted creature, only barely recognizable as a pony now, started ta destroy everythin’ around him. In a strange clarity, the mare said,

“Version 135, negative. End the experiment, I’ve seen enough.” The room was filled with a bright red beam of energy that focused in on the creature. It looked like the pony had just about kicked it when it lunged at the source of the beam once more, only ta be met with another beam, this time through it’s half exposed skull. The mare made an angry noise and quickly turned toward the door.

“Eek!” Rarity’s voice said from the video feed. The camera blinked out and was now headed fer the elevator, then the video stopped entirely.

“And that was where I was nearly caught. I was going to explore more, hopefully find where the mirrors were being produced in the tower, but I had to escape as quickly as I could. I don’t believe anypony saw me escape, but from here on it’s just a race to the door. I don’t know about you, but climbing twenty flights of stairs while running from security guards isn’t something I would call a fun afternoon… especially after hearing… that.” She shuddered.

“I-I don’t blame you, that was um… n-not something anypony should have to see…” Fluttershy said.

“If nothin’ else, we have more information now. It’s just unfortunate that this is about as real as it gets. Ah doubt we can risk goin’ back either, so…” Ah began.

“We fight monsters, or die trying, am I right? I mean, it’s not like we have much of a choice anymore,” Goose finished. Twilight shook her head, scrapin’ her teeth together in frustration.

“We don’t know that we don’t have a choice. We don’t even know what our options are, we don’t know whether or not he’s actually ready to release the new airborne virus, or even if there’s any more of it than what is being tested on those innocent ponies. We don’t know if there are more mirrors floating around, and we don’t know why the mirrors cause such a violent and drastic transformation.

Obviously, the two are working on the same principle, and both manipulate the virus, but we can’t figure out how it’s happening. The virus was an enigma to us before, but now this is just one impossible mystery mixed with another. I know we could never do what those ponies are doing, but maybe if we’d continued experiments with the virus, we might have a way to fight this. But at the same time, that’s what caused all this in the first place!” She started ta dig her hooves inta her mane and scratch at her head.

“Gah! The problems of the past are the current generation’s responsibilities, but we’re so stuck in a quagmire right now that I don’t even know how to begin to look for a way out! I can’t show up and make demands for mother and Luna’s information, I can’t put out an emergency evacuation with out getting either of them involved, I have no authority anywhere but here, and I can’t even help you with anything outside the castle! It’s just so infuriating! What is the point of being the daughter of the most powerful pony in the world when I’m reduced to nothing more than a glorified prisoner!?” Twilight slammed her hooves on the table, quickly drawing them back in pain. “Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it! I can’t do anything but watch and hope you all don’t get hurt!” finally stopped and rested her head on her forelegs.

Ah’d just about finished makin’ my way over ta her when Ah noticed the wet stains and mats all over her coat. Her wings had missin’ or feathers half bitten off here and there, and her mane was beyond the normal messy that it typically was. Ah’ve seen this before. Without sayin’ a word, Ah put a hoof in between her wings and started ta rub her shiverin’ back. Moments passed, and soon the silent sobs and shakin’ stopped. The tension started ta fade from her muscles, and she began ta relax.

“Twilight?” Ah asked softly. Her ears twitched.

“Hmm?” Even just a noise came out shakily. Poor mare.

“How long has it been since you’ve slept?” She sniffed.

“T-two, maybe three days...” Ah shook my head and picked the mare up ta throw her over my back. The limp body barely protested and Ah just sighed.

“Meet me down in the trainin’ room in an hour, all of ya. Even if we’re about dead where we stand, we’re gonna do everythin’ we can ta make it hell fer the pony tryin’ ta destroy our city. The princess taught me some new tricks last Wednesday, and it’s about time Ah passed ‘em on. Dismissed.”

Comments

[Will]

Well, Twilight must be very overworked. Though I guess it's necessary, what with her being the leader of the only reliable superhero guild in their city. Trying to combat the threat of unstoppable monsters would probably take everything you've got, and even then it may not be enough. And the whole fake news bit is a rather interesting take on imminent doom. Means not many are likely to start worrying at all if they believe the cover stories like Big Mac.

Reality conspires to make good deeds harder for these girls. Honestly, I think that they may have less of an idea of what's going on than us, and that's unsettling. Not to mention that the only one who seems to be playing with at least a half decent hand is Applejack, and she doesn't like showing all her cards even to those she's working or living with.

A friend of mine once decided to forgo sleep in favour of doing sweet FA. He didn't last a day, and even the time that he spent "awake" (if you can call it that) consisted of him stumbling around with a drugged smile and the newfound ability to laugh at. Literally. Everything. I cannot even begin to fathom the waking nightmare Twilight must be experiencing right now.

[KorenCZ11]

8021474 FA?
Eh, 48-72 hours is liveable, at least from my experience. Some days are worse than others with the insomnia, and I have very much spent a couple days straight awake before. Last time I made a full 48 was over winter break in December. for two days in a row, I laid down in bed, unable to sleep, ending up sending several hours reading and playing Yugioh, then having to get up and interact with people.
It sucks, but eventually you give in and force yourself to sleep.