Denial for Equestria

by computerneek

Collect (Rewritten)

I light the backup thrusters a little too early this time, and decide to jump the rest of the distance while it pauses to reverse direction. I land in a haystack… Erm, what LOOKED like a haystack, but whatever was underneath was evidently a lot tougher than hay. I… Well, I was decapitated in the impact. I disconnect.

All electronics on my launch vehicle fail halfway up. I suppose I will be getting a second free ride to the moon- and kick the emergency latches, blowing the door off. The charges are a bit powerful, burning my fur, before I leap overboard. Hopefully, I’m not too high to survive, nor too low to aim for a lake… Wait. Is that a house of clouds?

Yes, yes it is! What kind of world have I found myself in…?

Whatever. Regardless of the answer, my launch vehicle has already disappeared through the clouds- looks like the front ‘lawn’- and I’m fast approaching the same. I spread my wings- only to become glad they can point straight backwards, because I lack the strength to fight the wind with them.

Wait one… I activate my system clock for a few seconds to measure my speed and estimate the total time of acceleration, based on my heart rate.

How? Based on these numbers, I experienced a period roughly ten seconds long of almost fifty gees! Yet I hardly noticed it, standing against it as I did. Fifty gees should have slaughtered me!

Hmm… My wings are only aching slightly from the wind, to boot. Much less than I might have expected from the hypersonic winds on my feathers.

I get an idea. I stick out my hooves in front of me.

I pass straight through the cloud layer. I felt its resistance, but as expected, it buckled right out of my way. I catch a glimpse of the ground and awaken my analytical cores to help me nail the timing for my experiment.

I attempt to catch myself on my hooves when I strike the ground at Mach 6.

I… Wait.

It WORKED.

I’m standing in a brand-new crater a few inches deep, but I’m alive… and unharmed, as near as I can tell. I look left, and right… and turn around just in time for what looks like a fragment of my launch vehicle to nail me between the eyes. Drat! I lose signal.

Good thing my Light VLS is designed to handle misfires; my launch vehicle explodes in the launch cell. I lose signal.

I lose signal from my launch vehicle during the acceleration phase. I blow the door off and jump free, but it explodes while I’m still in the act. I lose signal, and add manual controls to the design. Much more, and I’ll have to find a way to clear off a Heavy VLS hatch.

My launch vehicle performs flawlessly. It was willing- with some persuasion, including a full reprogramming with drone-sourced code- to stop in a hover just above the ground… Or, in this case, above a lake. I have discovered that I cannot swim… I disconnect when my heart stops, and order the vehicle to explode in orbit.

My launch vehicle door fails and falls off early. I fly out of the vehicle during deceleration; I land a bit roughly on the ground. I’ve managed to break a few limbs but, with the able assistance of the tech spider I managed to pack into the launch vehicle this time, I am able to stop the blood loss before I lose too much.

… Though Medical disagrees with my methodology; welding a duralloy tourniquet to my leg, formed from a piece cut from the hovering launch vehicle, isn’t exactly healthy. Though, my wings are okay… Perhaps now, I can find a way to use them?

I flap a few times, and manage to land on my side, snapping my left wing cleanly in half… and losing too much blood. My spider is not able to fashion a tourniquet in time; I disconnect when my heart stops, order the vehicle to explode in orbit, and send the spider back to my launch cell.

Wait one… My tech spiders are decently strong, and covered in sensors… I might prefer to get out alone, but I’m also running out of appropriately-sized chemical warheads to modify. If I send a spider along, it should be able to help eliminate any of those strange wooden wolves- or occupy them long enough for me to escape, at least. It should also be able to help me to climb out of that crater.

I fall off a ladder before I reach the launch cell, breaking my neck when I land. I disconnect when my heart stops. I believe this is the first time I’ve died within my war hull, save the launch cell explosion.

I climb out the hatch successfully, after the spider I sent ahead confirms the coast is clear. The sky is darkening rapidly; it must be evening. I climb out of the hole, and experience a malfunction while walking through some blue flowers. I order a suicide and disconnect.

I route around the blue flowers this time, and get hopelessly lost in the woods. At least it’s daylight this time.

I find a tree.

Yes, I find a tree, in the woods. Only, this tree appears to be made of crystal, and has six gemstones embedded in it. I freeze in the middle of trotting towards it, landing painfully on my face.

An alert has gone off.

Not an intruder alert. Not a power systems alert. Nothing with my war hull. Not even the one to tell me I’m suffocating, or hungry, or anything else. No, this is an actual, dangerous area alert. Triggered by the detection of harmful radiation… My spider is shielded against this, but I am not; this radiation can damage my electronics. I look critically at the tree, and send my companion spider over to investigate. Radiation intensity is only a little higher at the tree; I query Medical and DCC both for safe exposure times at the intensities detected.

Results come in. My electronics should be okay for close to an hour, and Medical reports it can keep up with any and all biological damages caused at that intensity. I trot up to the base of the tree, looking up at it.

It’s a very pretty tree. I wish I could be this pretty.

I stick out a hoof, and lay it against the tree. Such beauty, I almost wish- What?

The tree is glowing. The radiation is intensifying as it does so.

The glow brightens. I withdraw my hoof, but it does not reset. I start to backpedal, but hooves don’t have any traction against air. I let my hooves hang.

It drops me rather unceremoniously on the ground. The glow is gone; the radiation is returning to original levels. I am wearing a necklace.

I look down at it, and have my spider join in the effort. It appears to be gold, but when my spider performs a metallurgical analysis on it, it most certainly isn’t; rather, it’s something rather much closer to duralloy. As a matter of fact, it might even be stronger than duralloy, to an extent. I query Damage Control for the possibility of manufacturing and using this material for my war hull; perhaps they would refuse to send a “golden” Bolo onto the battlefield.

… Or perhaps it’s my built-in institutional paranoia and designed-in fascination with combat readiness. I shake my head. I don’t care which; Damage Control has indicated the negative, as it is not in my blueprints. I decline to awaken any of my design cores to answer the query.

There rests what looks like a dark blue gemstone on the front of the necklace. It’s shaped like a tree… And, yes, it’s not a real gemstone. What it is I’m not entirely sure; my spider was unable to perform a materials analysis on it, but I have noticed it seems to be feeding my onboard systems’ power grid. I look up at the crystal tree… Yes. It’s not shaped like just any tree, it’s shaped like this tree. I peer back down at it… And yes, the discoloration is visible on the spots that match where the gemstones reside in the real tree.

Interesting.

I lift a hoof to touch the gemstone on my necklace. All seven gems- this one and the six on the tree- match my touch with a soft glow… and trigger a high-radiation warning. The glow- and radiation, my spider confirms- fades back to nothing when I draw my hoof away.

I look up at the tree, reaching out to stroke it gently. “Thank you,” I mutter.

Nothing happens.

I leave the tree. I discover a pathway leading through the woods, and decide to follow it.

I encounter a castle. A very, very large castle, which appears to be in ruins. I spend some time exploring this castle, spider at my side, but find nothing of interest. Except a few books, but as it turns out, I can’t read. I pick a dusty tome out of a hidden nook and carry it with me- or, more accurately, with my spider. It’s more easily able to carry such an object.

I am tempted to activate a lingual analysis program and learn to read in a matter of seconds. I resist this temptation, though- I’ll take it to… Oh, that purple pony in the library, I think. She might be able to teach me to read… In a safe manner, hopefully.

Onboard Damage Control unexpectedly notifies me that all system issues accrued during my stay in the cave with the tree in it have been resolved… Okay. I set a course out of the castle, following the path from it. I cross a bridge quickly, weary of the constant creaking, and pause for my spider to catch up. Not that it would normally need to, as it can move several times as fast as I can, but I didn’t want to risk overloading the bridge and crossed separately.

I continue walking through the woods, down this empty path.

At least twelve hundred eighteen heartbeats pass- I wasn’t counting for the first part- before I find the edge of the woods. Here, I carefully balance the book on my back, using my wings to create a platform for it to rest on, and send my spider back to my hull as I resume walking up the path. In the end, my spider didn’t do anything but sense- and carry the book, but I could have done that myself, in theory.

I… I…

Power levels in my war hull have fallen too low to maintain an active connection; I lost signal. I relegate to System Standby to await recharging.

---

Doctor Horse trots over the hill alone, breathing in the fresh air during one of his very few breaks. He really wishes this strange ailment would go away- and that ponies would quit bothering him about it. At least he’s been able to effectively identify and combat the symptoms- like the cancers, or the… The list goes on. But the ailment itself, that won’t stop spawning other problems? Nope. He’s calling it Constant Ailment Syndrome- and he finds it interesting how it doesn’t seem to afflict the younger generation as strongly.

He finds it rather annoying that Twilight went not only to him but to lunatics like ‘Doctor’ Whooves, better known as Time Turner- or, to some, the ‘gizmo guy’- for help.

He glances down at the Everfree as he crests the hill, trotting across the grass.

Just in time to spot what looks like a filly with a book on her back collapse. As she falls away from him, the book falls off her back- and he spots her wing, right as she lands on the other one.

And she was using it to support the book.

He breaks out of his trot, into a gallop towards the filly. It takes him a good six seconds to reach her- a speed that few, like Pinkie or Rainbow, could match.

… or like any of the Element Bearers, for that matter.

But that’s unimportant. As he arrives, he smells raw blood- so however she landed, whatever happened, she’s bleeding.

So he lifts her in his magic, turning her over- sure enough, she’s broken her wing. The bone punctured her skin, as well, exposing the inside of an artery.

He turns one eighty degrees, placing her on his stretcher then, with the lightly blood-spattered book and nurses Sweetheart and Tenderheart, teleports back to the hospital.

He’s got a life to save.

… Oh, and she looks like the fillies they’ve pulled out of smoking wreckages, or found dead, or… He still wishes Twilight had responded with something other than panic over the amount of blood getting on her books. That one had died of blood loss right before he’d gotten to her! In any case, she’s a visual match, so Twilight will need to be informed. Alongside umpteen bazillion other ponies that don’t really need to know, but will probably find comfort in that the survival rate has gone up.

Comments

[LostArchivist]

Snerk. I guess they DO grow on trees...

I wonder what this one represents, or is it different somehow?

[Demonicwolf]

So update at any time soon?