Forgotten Shy (Edited)
Some time passes in silence. “Are you okay?” Fluttershy eventually asks.
“I am,” the invisible stallion replies. “Why do you ask?”
She shudders. “Four nights ago, the Everfree exploded, not far from here. Pinkie said this hill you’re under cracked.”
“I have no records of fresh damage in that timeframe.”
“Fresh?”
“Affirmative. Repairs on long-past damages are well underway as we speak.”
Her eyes open fearfully wide. “What if something from the forest attacks you?”
“They can’t hurt me.”
“But what if those past damages are…” She fades into a terrified silence.
I am enjoying the company of this mare- and if the rest of the townsfolk go from apprehensive to worried about my welfare as fast as she did, I have very little to worry about. I elect not to mention my battlescreens. “Those damages were inflicted by the passage of time- and not a little bit of it- during a period of inactivity. They will not return, even if I were to shut down today, for many, many years.”
Fluttershy remains silent for a minute, processing what had been spoken- and wondering why this stallion had triggered the reaction in her normally reserved for her animal friends, rather than the shy face that shows whenever she meets another pony. Her gaze shifts slightly. “Can I use one of those seats again?”
Excavation efforts had only revealed more metal; magic still can’t touch it, and no amount of prying had been able to open any of the hatches or covers they’d found. Some Pegasi had just shown up with the most powerful nonmagical cutting equipment known to ponykind; just getting it here had cost the Princesses a fortune and now, right in front of everypony, including the Princesses, it simply isn’t working!
Twilight vents her frustration- yet again- against the surrounding terrain. She watches her power skip and dance across the metallic surface before it plows into the stone and dirt on the side, blowing away yet another ton or twelve of Everfree soil with a satisfying boom. Why can’t anything work? We can’t lift it, we can’t open it, we can’t cut it, and what’s more, we can’t even- Oooh, I just found something!
She calls out her discovery, then gets to work with the dozen unicorns present to reveal their find. Rather than a flat hatch, it seems to be some sort of dome, with two long pipes sticking out of it, side-by-side, though they looked like they could be independently raised to point almost vertically. Twilight identifies what looks like some kind of shield attached to the base of each pipe, and is most interested by the puffs of mist that ejected some rock from the insides of the pipes as soon as they had the rest cleared off. The pipes, Twilight discovers, have an internal diameter of about ten centimeters.
“Is that some kind of control station?” one of the unicorns asks.
Twilight takes a critical look down one of them, shining her hornlight down it. At least it didn’t block that. “I don’t think so,” she replies. “It looks more like a smaller version of those.” She indicates the massive pipes above their heads, the lower one of which now has as much as twenty meters length hanging free from the rock. They have yet to find the other end, if indeed it has one.
“So you’ve just uncovered another way for it to kill us?” Rainbow asks. They’re in Twilight’s castle now- all five friends, exclusive of Fluttershy. Applejack had asked if she’d found anything today.
“We think, yes,” Twilight replies, shrinking slightly. “At least this one’s smaller.”
“What was that about the mist, again?” Rarity asks.
Twilight looks back up at her. “As soon as we had the rocks cleared off of the ends of the pipes, little puffs of mist came out of them, propelling any debris inside them out. It’s like it was cleaning itself.”
“Cleaning itself?” Pinkie Pie chips in. “Every once in a while, one of my party cannons will get jammed- and I’ll have to unjam it before I can use it. That’s probably what it was doing!” She’s quite excited for some reason.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Rainbow finishes. “Like it’s getting ready to shoot somepony.”
In tandem with Twilight, Applejack plants a hoof on her face and speaks up again. “For the umpteenth time, we already know it doesn’t want us dead!”
“Maybe it’s getting ready for a par-TAY!”
Four hooves meet their owners’ faces around the table, two of them on a repeat performance.
“Ma’am?”
Fluttershy mumbles in her sleep.
“Ma’am?” It’s louder this time.
One eyelid opens groggily. “Huh?” She fails to recognize the metallic color in the ceiling, the calm glow across it, and blinks both eyes quickly. “Wha?” Her vision clearing and her mind coalescing, she takes a look around. “Oh! I’m sorry!” she squeaks, trying to shrink further into the amazingly comfortable seat.
“No problem,” the calm, invisible stallion replies. “You were so peaceful it was a shame to interrupt.”
She squirms slightly in the seat. “Sorry, these seats are just so-”
“Comfortable?” He finishes for her, while she stifles a massive yawn.
She giggles. “Yes, that. I haven’t slept that well in ages!”
“I’m glad I could help. You were out for about three hours.”
Her eyes widen for about a second before she hops out of the seat, landing on all fours. “I should go, then.” She starts walking towards the exit. “Though, um, if you don’t mind, can I sleep here tonight?”
“You’re quite welcome to, Milady.” Even though she can’t see him, and she has the distinct feeling he doesn’t even have a body the way she does, he still manages to give her the impression that he’s bowing to her.
Her blush heats up. “Please, call me Fluttershy,” she squeaks.
“My apologies.”
Fluttershy seems to have simply accepted the comfort of the remodeled passenger bay crash couches, and not noticed some of the other side effects. After all, if she had even a clue that the nanite-infused gel cushion had dynamically reshaped itself to support her body in exactly the manner it needed to be, she might not have tried them out. Had she known that those same cushions also served as a pathway by which medical nanites could be fed in and out of her body, delivering nutrients and repairing damages, she may well have avoided them like a lone Melconian footsoldier avoids a hunting Bolo.
The crash couch medical system is not nearly as swift as the nanovats in the medbay, but just as capable. It spent her 3.152 hours of sleep working on her internal repairs; she didn’t seem to notice the absence of any need to stretch, probably chalking her good cheer up to her good nap. I know better; it may not have entered her conscious mind, but I did repair a few issues in her body- mostly swollen tissues, but there was one collapsed artery in her left foreleg, forcing an increased flow through the other artery serving the same leg. I also repaired a few chronic muscle tears and frayed nerves. Each and every one of these repairs contributed notably to her sleep quality and, probably, her mood upon awakening as well.
I did not activate the neural link built into the headrest, but I did gather additional data on pony neurology. Given a few more scans, preferably including some earth ponies and unicorns, I should be able to finish adjusting the link so as to be fully compatible with them, if it is needed.
Thanks to the repeated attempts by one of the locals to breach my aft hull by magic, I have been able to engineer, construct, and test a successful magic defense system, replacing my tuned battlescreens. It’s similar to a battlescreen, though it draws far less power and has no effect against nonmagical attacks. However, even when the now-identified Princess Twilight Sparkle produced massive blasts of magic, blasting terrain away with the approximate magnitude of almost thirteen tons of TNT, I noticed absolutely no additional drain or strain on this barrier. Additionally, Fluttershy had no reaction whatsoever when she stepped through it- I had it running at minimum power- on the way out.
Given how apparently easy magic is to block, I find myself wondering if I might be capable of reproducing it, given an understanding. However, unless I am able to reproduce it with far greater magnitude than any I have seen yet, I fear it will not be of much use to a Unit of the Line like myself; Hellbores do more damage. It still makes me curious enough to plan some experiments. Fluttershy had been with the party that first came to inspect the crater from my Hellbore- along with Princess Twilight Sparkle, Daring Do, one Unicorn, one Pegasus, two Earth ponies, and another of the Princess’ breed, which I have not seen in any of the settlements. Perhaps the breed is something specific to the Princesses? I find myself wondering if Fluttershy could convince the others, separately or together, to come ‘explore’ the passenger bay. Probably best not to ask- no doubt somepony such as herself will wish to share.
Fluttershy doesn’t notice the absent pains as she leaves- but she does notice, once she breaks into a canter towards Ponyville, just how nice it feels to move. Excited by the now lovely feeling of the grass on her hooves and the wind in her mane, she breaks into a full gallop, giggling madly as she detours around the town so she doesn’t have to slow down. She’d forgotten how fun it was!
She doesn’t notice that any townsfolk that see or hear her stop to stare. After all, many of them had never seen her move so quickly, even in the air- nor had any of them ever seen quite so happy a Fluttershy.
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8641310
Will do, and thank you! At this point, I'm going to have to slow down; my vacation has ended. However, you may rest assured the story is far from over!
Bloody Hell. A Bolo with MAGIC!!!???
Oh this. This is shaping up to be a fine adventure. Can hardly wait for more.
OK. Now I'm hooked
8641905
Bolo with magic? Possibly, yes. Since Zeus has no inherent technology for magical manipulation (his AM screen is a modified kinetic battlescreen), it may take a while- and a lot of potentially interesting failures- for that to happen, in full.
8641953
Glad you like it!
what a great story! it would be great if fluttershy becomes its commander.
A fedora wearing war machine..never thought I'd see the day.
8752714
Fedora wearing...?
8752842
That's a reference to:
Milady has started to become connected to, if I may reference the stereotype without using it to insult, fedora-wearing, neckbearded, hipsters. It's pretty unwarranted, but then, so are most stereotypes. (It's not even a proper fedora, for a start.)
As ridiculously implausible as it is, this line made me imagine how amusing it would be if, immediately following that line, the Bolo fired a blast of compressed nitrogen, confetti, and streamers from them. (With the sound of a party horn edited in, if in cartoon form.)
The hellebore-as-party-cannon WOULD be a funny event for a future chapter. Especially if he can replicate whatever allows the original to precisely place decorations and party favors around the room when fired.
City-scale redecoration in a flash!
Something I wanted to use for my story, but that I may not get to (or decide to add) that you may be interested in, is a scene where the Bolo tries to reverse-engineer magic with a bunch of vat-grown horns. Basically, it's a failure montage of a bunch of amusing and disturbing effects (BLORT!) (I have to imagine that a horn blowing up would be fairly funny, if it's not actually attached to someone). Between that and the one that goes flying around the room like a drunken rocket, it could also serve as inspiration for a rather effective micromissile swarm.
Have we yet heard its identification outside comments?