Coarse Diamonds

by Darkonshadows

-103-

Rubis had a lot on her mind, she had seen quite a few horrors and a lot of death waking up. She had little idea what was going on when she woke up and sometimes she wish she hadn’t woken up at all, not everyone made it out of that facility alive and they lost a few ponies trying to hold a clear path for others to escape through.

The Humans that hadn’t chosen some tunnels to escape through had went down fighting while Rover dug a way out for the thawed, well he dug a passage that could be crawled through well enough to the best of his ability. He couldn’t dig a tunnel big enough for the Centaur-pede however, which led to a rather hectic series of problems. One of those problems was that the Centaur-pede was drained, damaged and in need of repairs, but it had successfully dug its way out through several half collapsed tunnels and was still capable of returning to space.

Ms. Poulette would forever remember the screams and horrors of what had happened to her, especially the fact that she had been abducted from what she had been doing previously. She had been looking forward to job prospects on a new and burgeoning planet for the people of Equus and that was all shot to hell and back. She didn’t want to live on Applin Three or Five anymore, too many bad memories and mental scars. She wanted to go somewhere else other than those two planets, anywhere at all and that is why she chose to stick with Rarity’s crew. That was aside from her growing need to pay back her saviors for saving her life from being frozen, from being chained and abused, from becoming enslaved to the whims of the unknown. At least with these people she could get her life back in order and maybe some direction.

Upon seeing the Centaur-pede for the first time, Rubis had been a little awe struck by the mobile fortress. That it was designed for moving cargo containers was kind of underselling what it was truly capable of. Gilda and the later introduced Greta were the ones who built it, it surprised her more that it even got back into space and now here she sat on the ramp with little clue of what to do with herself.

Rubis was hopeful Ember would live again and not die in her trauma induced sleep, which would be a horribly ignoble way for her to go. Rarity’s crew seemed to not have many people, but what people they did have… they were impressively tough and sturdy lot. It was like Rarity had a crew of full of Femme Fatales of incredible valor. If not for the three males she would meet later, she would have figured the crew to be full of people with tastes leaning in a specific direction. At least she was quite sure of where Greta’s tastes lie, she was most certainly sure the griffon was after female companionship and that was only after having been in Greta’s presence for five seconds. Five seconds where the griffons eyes lingered on the Parrote’s body in an intense manner that showed interest.

She was just watching Applejack and Mare-Do-Well talk to one another. According to what she was heard after seeing the mare for the first time, Mare-Do-well lost all of her powered armor and her EVA suit took lots of damage and one hoof was a blackened mess from a point blank explosion. Even then the costumed mare looked like she had a ridiculous pain threshold that ponies weren’t very well known for, heck most ponies wouldn’t be able to hold conversations while under that kind of suffering.

“Do you not need to go to medical Miss Do-Well?” Rubis finally interrupted their conversation. “Are you not in horrible pain?”

“I’ve had worse as a vigilante, I can go a few more minutes without medical aid.” Mare-Do-well had peeled off her EVA suit to reveal the mare underneath was wearing a mask and costume, she obviously took her secret identity seriously. “Speaking of aid, can you help me with Applejack here? She’s being rather stubborn.”

“Well why can’t I know who you are now? It’s kind of silly that you’re keeping your secret identity safe when you’re hurt like that!” Applejack was an honest mare and hiding behind a mask still didn’t sit well with her, but Mare-Do-Well had something in common with her. They were both stubborn and Mare-Do-Well didn’t want to go to medical with Applejack following along. “I’d like to thank the mare underneath that get up properly.”

“You already have, so can we not do this? It’s a privacy thing, it’s also a matter of my enemies coming to kill my family. Heck, knowing I was even on this planet might attract them, sometimes silence is better.” It had recently occurred to Saffron that she was friends with the crew of this ship and her enemies might go after all of her friends on the Shining Jewel, well they could try to go after them. They had been attacked by three different pirate raids while on the surface or so Trapeze had said when she came to greet them, all her friends survived those attacks. Being told her father was okay in a roundabout way was nice and tactful of Trapeze, the mare new how to work her magic. Saffron really didn’t want to endanger any of them once it got out that she was no longer roaming the streets of Canterlot or even on Equus anymore, unless Chrysalis had another Mare-Do-Well running around to match the Mauve Mare-auder changeling.

“Then why did you put on the darn disguise in the first place when you could have been running around as yourself here? There’s no one on the planet that would connect you to a random mare.” One thing Applejack would like to make clear, she didn’t hate Mare-Do-Well and was confused by the secrecy. It was honestly a rather weird decision by the mare to run around in that costume. “It don’t make a lick of sense that you’d need to wear it here.”

“Let me ask you something, do you have a security blanket? I look at your hat and think that’s a thing you hardly take off of your head unless you’re forced to. Well this is kind of like that, I’ve been putting on this costume for quite a while. I’m so used to it that it is second nature to me to wear it and it makes me feel safe with who I am as a hero.” That and Saffron had another reason, one that was clearly a good one to wear the costume. “Also doing heroic things without the costume would give away my identity pretty fast. If any of the guards back on Equus see a mare like me fighting out of my costume exactly like Mare-Do-Well, then I’ll never be able to go back to that planet. I wouldn’t be able to hide who or what I am anymore. I’d even be on a wanted list for saving people from being poisoned, beaten and trampled on by criminals, since they don’t have my identity they can’t exactly arrest me. When you choose to be a vigilante your identity becomes the most important thing to those you love, will come to love and every single thing you hold dear aside from that. Criminals don’t exactly care who they have to maim to get that information about me, much less the chances of a single dirty guards who would sell the information of who I am at the drop of a hat and or blackmail me into doing horrible things. Not only would you knowing my identity endanger you, your family and mine, anyone who is vaguely related would get caught in the crossfire as well. So excuse me if I can’t exactly be honest about who I am without getting a lot of people killed.”

“Huh, never actually thought about that, but aren’t you feeling those injuries of yours?” There was hardly any strain the mare’s voice which sounded deeper than it was supposed to be. Applejack was surprised by how strong it sounded despite being beaten and battered within an inch of her life. “You certainly don’t sound like it, but you’re a sight more stubborn than I am.”

“Oh I’m feeling my injuries alright, I’ve blacked out three times on the way to the Centaur-pede and a few times on the way up.” Saffron waved her good gloved hoof around in the air and seem to almost trip from the sitting position she was in, only to sit up straighter a few seconds later. “I’m a wreck right now and need a good twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep, but I can’t do any of that knowing my identity isn’t safe. The only thing keeping me going is knowing that I’m not safe and neither is anyone else around here if my identity gets out in any way. The people on this ship I know I can trust, but you’re too honest for your own good. If someone asks who I am and you knew, would you be able to keep a secret if it was your family on the line? You can’t know that it won’t or will happen, heck it might happen if anyone knows I visited your farm and you have to go back there eventually. I kind of wonder how your family is handling all that slush.”

“… I can’t exactly lie, but I can bend a truth a little. I can honestly say I’ve never seen you around the farm, well the real you at least. I’ve seen you around the Human base as Mare-Do-Well. I can explain away any recording of you that anyone might have and nobody could have recorded you being at my farm. We’re a low tech family and don’t need any of that fancy stuff other farmers might need, I prefer to do things with my own strength.” Applejack received a nod from Mare-Do-Well and she smiled as they reached an understanding. “I’m sure Granny, Big Mac, Apple Bloom and Sugar Belle are taking care of things, besides the trees could use a little water. If you happen to be wondering about the others, well Sugar Belle could learn to do a little more farming. She’s definitely got cooking down well enough if my brother has anything to say about it. The Countess is just visiting, she tends to do that every so often and I seriously don’t want anyone thinking she’s you! Not that anyone would after she ended up firing that Spend Gallop guy, you know the one that used to be her manager. That stallion was a crazy one, and not exactly in a good way either. I have enough worries with wondering if some crazy pony will go after her just because she’s a celebrity and not because she’s suspected of being a hero.”

“Oh I’ve definitely met far worse stallions than Spend Gold Gallop, I can assure you of that.” Reaching out with her good hoof, the one not burnt beyond recognition by being at the epicenter of an explosion, Saffron solidly shook Applejack’s hood with the intention of parting as friends. “I can also honestly say they all deserved what they had coming to them.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance then, thanks for keeping me alive through all that. You took a lot of bullets for me and I honestly appreciate it. Apple Bloom won’t be losing her big sister anytime soon and she might have a new adopted sister when I can get around to talking with Babs. We can give that filly a loving home and we can actually understand what she’s going through, we know the pain of loss in our family. In this case something good is coming from our grief.” Chuckling dryly Applejack was just happy to still be among the living after everything she saw. “If your armor could talk, then I don’t think it would appreciate you nearly as much as I currently do. I, Mac and Bloom lost our parents, they don’t need to lose me so soon as well.”

“If my armor could talk, I think it would actually be proud it lasted so long before it was ripped off of me. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes and my powered armor was a trooper to the end. Good thing the makers of that armor are still around, I can always replace it. What I can’t replace are those lost lives, not to mention I can’t exactly get the blood of those innocents I couldn’t help off my hooves now.” Mare-Do-Well needed another suit of powered armor, but the prototype build was given a good long field test and Greta had all the data for it stored away in the Centaur-pede. Thankfully the data only pertained to the armor and not the mare wearing it. She threw her blackened and burnt hoof around Applejack while clenching her teeth in agony. “Now come on, you need medical treatment too. I hear the people of this crew buy some really effective medical drugs when it comes to killing pain. Thankfully it’s all legal or else I’d have something to say about it, even in the state I’m in. I’ll wait until you’re under to have that piece of metal pulled out of you before I get out of my costume.”

“Wait for moi, I am needing to have my desecrated feathers removed.” Being stripped of what was once her colorful beautiful feathers was going to hurt Rubis emotionally, but it needed to be done and she still needed a bit of medical help. “It will be a rather unpleasant experience, but I hope to have companionship like what you two have just shown me. Would clothes after I am… plucked… be a little too much to ask of your hospitality?”

“Trust me, clothes are not a problem around here and you’ll get some for free. Rarity-sama is exceedingly generous like that and we wouldn’t deny you your decency. You’re our guest and I’ll see to it that you get something nice to wear.” The blue furred mare with the sword smiled brightly as she came up to Rubis levitating measuring tape and quickly measured her tall form. The Parrote thought the mare in question was quite lovely with her hair done up in an ornate bun and the kimono was quite stylish, it made the fact that Rarity was a fashion designer more believable. The way she looked over Rubis and seemed to sympathize with her about her appearance made her feel a bit better about what she needed to do to get her appearance back to the way it was. “I’ll get Coco to work on it, she’s got a lot of free time even if she’s bringing all of our combined designs to life, practicing wrestling and in general being the most dependable crew member we have. Any preferences on what you might want? I’m Sassy Saddles by the way, I help manage Rarity’s store. You must have looked absolutely beautiful before this happened to you, well we’ll have you feeling better in no time!”

Rubis was summarily pushed towards the waiting elevator, she would soon see that medical was a bit busy.

-

“Opal… come on. Now that Rarity is back, you’ll have to show her the truth.” The bandaged Coco had seen better days, getting caught up in fighting pirates was not something she’d thought she would be doing with her life. She was still meek and friendly mare Rarity knew, but she put up one hell of a fight to make sure Babs was perfectly safe. Though she even surprised herself when she started to beat up pirates with her bare hooves, she was now actually quite scared of herself with how easy it was to throw them around and slam them bodily into the walls and floor. Macropussians were supposed to be strong and she had beaten one in a contest of strength, an alien kangaroo that were an entire race of lightning bruisers to quote one of Opal’s games. “She’s going to know something is wrong when you don’t respond to her visibly. You really can’t keep hiding what happened to you forever and Rarity is going to be extremely worried about you when you only keep responding in text.”

“Sure I can… possibly… maybe…” Opal wasn’t appearing on the screen, but her voice could be heard. Coco was the only one Opal was willing to confide in at the moment, she needed emotional support and Gilda wasn’t exactly good at that.

Coco was a very supportive, caring and understanding individual. From what Opal saw, she could also kick ass and take names when pushed into a corner. When Coco’s magical adrenaline hits the roof and a little bit beyond even that, she was the most dangerous Pony on the Shining Jewel. Sure Lightning avoided being injured this time, but she wasn’t the one that took down five Krad, a Macropussian and a Ceantir within three minutes.

Krad were a race very similar to humans, only they were lizards that could handle any poisonous or toxic environment in existence. You could create an antidote to any poisonous substance from their blood. They had tough skin, claws and teeth, which was about all they had aside from their unique reaction to being poisoned being excessively useful in medicine. Their technology level was about on par with Humans, only they didn’t have very good medical technology ironically due to their relatively sturdy biology. Their strength was only barely above what normal Humans were capable of and they were a race that were Human friendly. They had head like snakes or alligators, claws like a Komodo and were one of the few cold blooded species to ever get into space. They prefer to inhabit warm planets, dry or wet, it didn’t matter as long as it wasn’t cold.

The Krad were specialists at cleaning biohazards and pollution on planets, being immune to poison, toxins and other stuff helps immensely with that. Even normal changelings weren’t immune to some caustic substances a Krad could survive, though changeling queens were a quite the coin toss as to what might actually work on them. The Krad were exceedingly hard to kill discreetly, so they made for some dangerous businessmen when used to broker deals.

“Opal, you can’t honestly think that you can live effectively like this!” Raising her voice was a rarity for Coco, especially since she did it about as often as Fluttershy would.

“I still have my shows, my games and control of the ship, I think I can go on for a little while longer like this.” There was no ounce of confidence in Opal’s voice, she didn’t even believe herself when she said it.

“Opal, we’re friends. I’m sure everything will be okay as soon as Rarity is done getting her leg put in a bio-cast, the very first thing she’s going to do when she wakes up is ask about you. It’s either that or how many dress designs I’ve finished.” Coco had three notebooks with five hundred variations of a wedding dress that might look good, nice or gorgeous on Rarity’s cousin Sugar Belle. It had been a few hours since Rarity gave the orders to start on that. She had plenty of free time and was going to do some of Rarity’s job for her where it came to caring for Opal. “Also Rarity would be disappointed if you stayed away from her without a good reason. Though I have to wonder why I am the only one that has your confidence about this change of yours.”

“It’s really hard you know, it’s like I’m living a constant nightmare. I don’t want anyone to react badly to this… whatever this is…” Despite not having seen what was exactly wrong with Opal, Coco was still ready to keep pushing Opal to tell everyone why she was being so reclusive. She was their happy kitty and now she was upset over something that didn’t sound like a really bad thing at all, one would think a Human would fear leaving a kid in charge of an entire spaceship and you’d be right. These were not Humans that Opal was dealing with, so really they trusted opal to keep piloting the Shining Jewel. “I’m at least still connected to the ship. You know what, can you leave me alone please?”

“Opal did you or did you not research psychology because you wanted to help… masseuse I want to say…” It was always hard for anyone, Coco included, to remember Vera Blossom’s name when you weren’t Rarity.

“Her name is Vera Blossom!” Opal shouted at Coco and then blinked, she… wasn’t getting an error message to immediately delete Vera’s name. Of course she wouldn’t thanks to her current circumstances, still it was interesting that she could remember Vera and there wasn’t a drone on her at the moment. This was a weird bit of phenomenon that allowed her to remember Vera’s name, because somehow that related to her current state of existence. “That… I… Vera… I know Vera… third spa sister… how am I remembering her? This is even freakier than I thought, some freak of nature I’ve turned out to be…”

“Don’t you even start with the unusual game Opal, we’re all unusual here.” Though the name seemed vaguely familiar to her, Coco had problems remembering why.

“No, that shouldn’t be possible. I shouldn’t even be able to say her name at all right now, I can remember the absolute fact that she exists!” There were a number of reasons why this horrified Opal, but she wasn’t going to let her attention slip. She was keeping a very tight amount of attention on medical to make sure absolutely nothing went wrong. “I think I might be clinically insane at the moment.”

“To be fair, you can’t be more insane than Chrysalis.” Those words were exactly the right thing for Coco to say, it calmed Opal down immediately.

“Well there is that. Even I know that nobody can go full blown crazy like Crystal Dick can. I really need to contact Vera about this sudden change in events, though I personally have my doubts about how well this is going to go.” Frankly this was ridiculous for Opal, suddenly remember everything about Vera without the mare’s unusually poignant ability to be ignored or easily forgotten coming into play or even getting in the way. “I need the psychiatric help right now anyway.... hey Vera, can you tell me if there’s a drone with you at the moment.”

“No, why do you… wait did you just find a cure to my…” The way Vera perked up was really quite sad and Opal felt bad about telling her the truth when the situation suddenly looked hopeful for her.

“No, I didn’t cure whatever it is you have, right Coco?” The answer Opal hoped Coco would give would be an affirmative, if not then things were far weirder than they were supposed to be.

“Right…. um who’re you talking to, Is it our masseuse? I can’t see her on the screen.” Though Coco remembered that the masseuse was an important member of their crew and had helped out vastly during the pirate attacks. “Then again I guess that’s normal for her. While I can’t remember her name or appearance, I can at least remember that she has a problem with being easily ignored.”

“Well that’s better than most of our crew at least Coco, but it’s still in full effect for you. At least you know what’s wrong, even if you can’t do anything against its effect on you.” Well at least that was something, but Opal acknowledged that Coco didn’t break Vera’s unique ability. Instead she was trying to think around it, which obviously isn’t working as coco was still calling her ‘masseuse’. It was close enough that Vera actually smiled about it. “I guess it’s just me Vera, for some reason I’m able to keep you in mind and actually see you. It has to do with how I’ve changed recently that is making me capable of seeing you without someone having to point at or touch you.”

Vera’s mood notably soured at Opal’s words, for once she would like for her curse, for what else in Tartarus else could it be, to not affect everyone she was becoming close friends with. That Coco and everyone were making an effort to do what Rarity and Celestia do for her was nice, but it wasn’t exactly the same as being able to look directly at her and tell her that she actually exists and was there. She needed to hear that someone cared that she was a living breathing pony, someone other than her family that cared for her and could conceptualize that Vera Blossom actually did in fact exist. Opal now being able to do that gave her some hope, which was until Opal dashed that hope horribly by mentioning that she had changed in a way that she could perceive her existence without needing one the drones to point her out constantly.

“Let me guess, you have some psychological problems related to this issue at hoof with yourself Opal. In what I am going to assumed is a well educated guess, if I help you then you might go back to missing the fact that I’m here or will return to having to struggle to remember that I’m alive!” Vera put a hoof to her chest and started breathing, she was getting pretty angry now and she was going to say something Opal probably wouldn’t want to hear. “Why in the world would I want to help you when you give me another being that can actually see me as being important?!”

“Because Vera, you’re not selfish. You’ve never been selfish, you massage and talk to the crew about their problems and you help everyone. You even know your problems effect almost everyone on the crew, I’ve made a concerted effort for you before I changed into something that scares me.” Opal need help and she was calling the one pony onboard who could get her back into psychological help, because downloaded psychology information doesn’t really help when you’re not an emotionless machine. She had to admit that she had emotions and that people cared about her. She was Opal, the crew’s mascot, the pet, the friendly ear and runner of all things important on the good ship Shining Jewel. She needed more than just Coco to be here for her, she sorely needed Vera’s help. “I need you Vera… you’re my only hope.”
“Fine, what happened to you Opal?” It took a moment, but Vera inhaled and then decided to bite the bullet. If Opal to back to having to fight to remember her, then so be it. “What exactly do you need my help with?”

“Vera Blossom, report to… report to the atmosphere farm on deck two. I need help working through my issues and you are the most qualified crew member to help me adjust to some recent changes.” She needed this, Opal absolutely needed to confide in more than Coco and she needed to be talked down from doing anything drastic. She needed to be told everything was okay, because Rarity currently couldn’t do it while she was in medical. “I believe we have a lot in common Vera, only I’m finding it very hard to want to exist right now. My responsibility to the crew is what’s holding me together at the moment.”

“Then please hold on until I can see just why you’ve been acting so strange lately… being able to recognize my existence says there’s a lot more going on here that might be beyond even me.” Closing her eyes and putting on a firm frown, Vera opened them with a laser guided focus. She wanted Opal to keep the ability to remember her, but not if it was at Opal’s expense. “I’ll do what I can Opal, does Coco know everything that’s wrong with you?”

“No, I’ve only told her that I’m not exactly fully connected to the Shining Jewel’s computers anymore and it’s causing me issues. Look I feel really awful and I need you to see why personally… Coco you can come see what’s wrong too. You’ll see exactly what the problem is in the atmosphere farm.” There was worry for Opal, especially if the atmosphere farm were compromised because of it. “Please, don’t cause a panic, the atmosphere farm is working just fine. It’s what’s in the atmosphere farm that you should be worried about.”

It didn’t sound like the problem was with the atmosphere farm itself, which was a total relief for the two ponies who were about to see something bizarre. If the problem had been with the atmosphere farm, then everyone on the ship would be in danger when they slowly started running out of breathable air. In all, when the two did eventually see the problem, it wasn’t as bad as Opal was making it out to be.

Comments

[Liquid_Pride]

Why do i feel that everyones favorite Kitten has come down with a very sudden case of body?

[Razzy]

Hmm, maybe she has a body now?

'Opal need help' - needed