To Devour a God

by the7Saviors

Chapter XXXIV – Bursting with Potential

After a bit of digging on my own, I discovered that Doctor Whooves was right. I really didn't have to subject myself to intrusive experiments regarding my bias factor if I wasn't comfortable with it. While it was a relief to know I had actually had a choice this time around, I hadn't decided whether I'd forego the tests or not. I knew the potential benefits—what it meant to share my bias factor with the rest of ponykind.

I knew how selfish it would be not to let Wendigo examine me and my unique bias factor. That said, the prospect still made me incredibly uncomfortable. Yes, I was a researcher myself, but if anything, that just made my decision all the more difficult. I knew what went into intensive and invasive research, even if experimentation on the equine body wasn't my forte.

Still, I had plenty of time to think about it, so I did my best to put the matter out of my mind for now. Thankfully, it wasn't all that hard to do. In a move I didn't entirely agree with, the higher-ups had decreed that the next two weeks be spent on my Daeus Hunter training. This was different from my original schedule, which had been a week of Daeus Hunter training followed by a week researching what we knew about the Cannibal.

I was also meant to share what I knew about the behavior of various Avidaeos in general. I may not have had any combat experience, but I had plenty of practical knowledge where the Avidaeos were concerned. I'd gained a lot of insight into Hive Cells during and even before my admittedly short career at HQ. I knew how the cell cooperated with one another, how they broke things down, how they themselves broke down, their behavior in certain conditions.

The creatures the Hive Cells would form depended on several factors, including their environment and, more importantly, the kinds of materials they devoured over a certain period of time. The fact that these cells were semi-sentient was troublesome and could allow for a worrying amount of unpredictability. The good news was that, assuming there was no catalyst for evolution or adaptation, Avidaeos were creatures of habit for the most part.

That meant that, in most cases, they were easy to track and, if you knew what you were doing, it was easy to read their movements. Again, this wasn't always the case and there were plenty of outliers that made Daeus Hunting difficult. More often than not, it was these outliers and that ever-present element of unpredictability that caused the most casualties on the battlefield.

One couldn't account for everything, but Hive Cell researchers like myself tried to fill in as many gaps in our knowledge of Avidaeos as possible—or that's what I believed anyway. I still believed that because it was an objective truth, but as I spent the next two weeks learning the ropes within the relative safety of the training room, I realized that Daeus Hunters could also fill in those knowledge gaps through simple observation.

I knew they could, I'd just never actually thought about the scientific implications or applications until now, not really. In fact, I found a lot of my preconceptions about the work of a Daeus Hunter falling away in the face of actual combat. Ever since my brother joined the Daeus Hunters, I'd told myself I respected the profession, and I did. I was finding out, though, that somewhere deep down, I'd been looking down on Daeus Hunters.

I'd somehow convinced myself that researchers were superior simply because we were working to wipe out the cause of this world's monstrous infection, while Daeus Hunters only worked to cure the symptoms. In reality, that entire thought process was ridiculous to begin with. Both roles had their own strengths and were equally vital to our survival.

If anything, it would likely be Daeus Hunters that dealt the final blow to the Avidaeos threat—presumably with a whack from a Daeus Arm of some kind. Now, as I was repeatedly forced to stare down the hungry maw of one Avidaeos after another, I was beginning to gain true respect for what Daeus Hunters did. Yes, the Avidaeos were magical holograms, but they were terrifyingly life-like holograms that could physically harm me.

The Avidaeos thrown at me weren't too vicious and the damage they could do was blunted, but combat training was still a heart-pounding affair. While two weeks wasn't enough time for me to get used to battle, it gradually got easier to prepare myself for it. It helped that I was allowed to use my new Daeus Arm, the Witch Talon, during my sessions. Normally, that was a privilege reserved for those who'd already progressed beyond the rookie stage.

In my case, I had no choice in the matter. Some—like Trixie, probably—would've seen it as special treatment for my talent. Personally, it felt more like I was handicapped and being given an aid to help with a disability. Granted, it was a very nice aid and I appreciated all of Derpy's hard work, but it still drove home the potential danger I posed to other Daeus Hunters and their Arms.

Until I could somehow get a handle on my bias factor, the Witch Talon was a necessity. Of course, with all of that said, I'd be lying if I said the weapon itself didn't utterly fascinate me. When Derpy explained how the Witch Talon worked, I was reminded of why I'd almost walked the path of a magitech engineer at one point in my life.

There were quite a few things about the Daeus Arm that had been modified, but all the important changes lay in the core and the configuration of the mana circuits within. The mana circuits had been converted into mana conduits. Those conduits would channel my own altered mana directly, rather than use the self-replenishing mana source seen in other Daeus Arms.

It was the job of Derpy's modified core to keep the devour module stable while my mana was being channeled. In theory, it would keep the whole Daeus Arm from breaking down and the Hive Cells within from turning on me or dying outright. There were a ton of other little details involved, but that was effectively the gist of how the Witch Talon worked in laypony terms.

We'd all worried about how things would fair, given how little time Derpy had been allowed to work on the core, but thankfully, there'd been little need. The first training session with the Witch Talon had gone off without a hitch—at least, where the Daeus Arm itself was concerned. My first real training session against an attacking target had been a floundering, panic-fueled disaster, but that was beside the point.

The important thing was that the weapon worked as intended for the most part. Over the next two weeks, Derpy made little adjustments and improvements to the core using my observations and the Doctor's notes. She continued to tweak the Daeus Arm until she was satisfied the potentially volatile weapon wouldn't blow up in my face. I had no need to worry about my weapon, but my training was another matter entirely.

My first week had been spent learning battle tactics and putting them into practice through actual combat. My teachers had been many, from Cheerilee, to Applejack, to Bon Bon. Even Lieutenant Spitfire joined in to give me a few pointers. Evidently, this was the same with all recruits, and I can't say I didn't appreciate all the help as somepony who'd never even so much as watched an action movie.

With all that guidance, I was able to go from a bumbling foal on the battlefield to somepony who had at least an inkling of what they were doing. I still bonelessly flopped into bed every night with plenty of new bruises to go along with my marginal improvements, but there was also an unexpected but welcome sense of accomplishment as well.

By the end of my first week, I'd actually managed to take down a decent amount of the smaller Avidaeos on my own, somewhat consistently. But then the next week came, and I was essentially forced to relearn everything I knew. The following week marked the start of my team training sessions with the 1st Unit. Training with the Retaliation Team was an entirely different and far more difficult experience.

I found it surprisingly hard to keep up with their pace. I found myself flustered or thrown off-kilter when I needed to be focused and vigilant more often than not. It didn't help that Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash all worked together like a well-oiled machine. More than once, I'd begun to feel like a useless burden, but I wasn't entirely alone in my struggles.

Fluttershy had, apparently, also taken to the magically projected battlefield once the training room had opened back up. True to her word, she'd chosen to wield the massive blast gun model of the ranged Daeus Arms. Unlike me, who'd been training alone for the first week, Fluttershy had actually spent that same week training alongside Rainbow Dash.

Given their apparent history, I wasn't entirely surprised. What was surprising was that, according to Rainbow and Rarity, Fluttershy was both a terror and a saint with her chosen weapon. Just as promised, Rarity had taken it upon herself to teach Fluttershy about bullet crafting and evidently, Fluttershy had taken to it like a fish to water.

When I got some downtime to speak with my prospective team members, I learned that Fluttershy had a knack for bullet crafting. Initially, she only focused on crafting various types of Heal Bullets, all of which had been absurdly effective in power, efficiency, and range. It wasn't just the efficacy of the bullets, either.

Fluttershy seemed to instinctively know just where to be and when to act whenever a teammate needed healing. In this regard, most would consider the shy pegasus a genius. This was, however, balanced out by an unexpected quirk of her personality that had been unwittingly uncovered by both Rarity and Rainbow Dash.

This particular quirk only manifested in combat and was only uncovered because Rarity convinced the mare to craft more offensive ammunition—according to Rarity herself, anyway. Rainbow Dash had been the first to see the change in Fluttershy during the first training session in which she'd chosen to use offensive bullets.

Fluttershy, it seemed, had some anger issues to work out, and fighting Avidaeos was an incredibly effective way to vent whatever frustrations she'd been hiding all this time. It sounded so far removed from what I knew about the mare that I didn't believe it at first. But then it came time for team training sessions, and I saw for myself just how right Rainbow Dash had been.

The mare was indeed a terror to behold. Any injury sustained by the team was met with all the white-hot fury of a mother defending her precious foals. The complete devastation she unleashed on her foes was frankly horrifying, and just went to show how talented Fluttershy was at crafting powerful bullets. What stopped this from being a boon was the fact that it completely disrupted team tactics and put everypony in danger more often than not.

Seeing this, and being a near victim of it myself, I was uncomfortably reminded of my own disastrous mistake in the training room. Fluttershy's attacks weren't quite as destructive as what I'd done, thankfully, but it was a near thing. I couldn't help but think it might've been better for the pegasus to focus on healing like she'd planned originally. Fluttershy herself must've agreed because that first team training session was the last time she'd used offensive bullets.

And then there was Pinkie.

Pinkie Pie had her own special quirk in that she was completely and utterly insane. I'd known there was something off about the earth pony, but seeing her in action, it all clicked into place. If I had to describe the mare's fighting style with her giant pink boost hammer, I would've called it... bouncy. The mare pinballed across the battlefield at nonsensical speeds, her movement boosted by her jet-propelled Daeus Arm.

She moved so fast, in fact, that I was almost certain her boost hammer had been modified in some way to drastically increase the booster's power output. She was a blur, only stopping briefly as her ludicrous inertia smashed her into Avidaeos, knocking them over, dazing them, or just crushing them into paste outright. All this while giggling to herself like a madmare, her previously springy mane whipping about her face like limp drapery in a tornado.

I had my suspicions, but the madness and sheer bloodlust in her eyes and too-wide smile was far beyond anything I could have expected. It sent shivers down my spine, and if I was being honest, I was more afraid of her than I was of Fluttershy. That said, when the work was done and the battle ended, Pinkie went back to just being Pinkie, as if she hadn't just been whaling on Avidaeos with all the enthusiasm of a psychotic serial killer.

When I pulled Applejack aside to ask about it, she just told me not to worry about it and not to ask. Just like with everything else Pinkie did, it was better not to know. I was more than skeptical, obviously, but Applejack went out of her way to assure me that the pink earth pony was completely harmless... to anything that wasn't an Avidaeos.

There was clearly a story there, and I was sure everypony else knew it, but they also knew better than to pry. In the end, I still had many, many reservations, but I ultimately decided to follow the Captain's advice. Pinkie might've been completely unhinged in combat, but I did notice that she had no problems following orders and coordinating with the rest of the team when necessary.

I'd gotten the hang of group tactics more or less by the end of the second week. Before I knew it, I'd moved into my third and final week of projection room training. According to Applejack, if all went well, there'd be an assessment of everything I'd done and learned until this point at the end of the last week. I wasn't told who'd be reviewing my progress, but if whoever it was found my results satisfactory, I would move on to my final test, so to speak.

It was the same with Fluttershy and, presumably, Vinyl Scratch. I hadn't seen much of Vinyl Scratch in the weeks following my magical mishap in the training room, but I assumed she was doing just fine. Regarding the actual week itself, the training this time around was supposed to be focused around Hive Cell activation, or the burst state as Applejack called it.

The first time I stumbled upon the phenomenon was during my first encounter with the Cannibal. I'd had no idea what was going on back then, not until Nurse Redheart explained it to me later. She'd told me it was a state Daeus Hunters reached during combat when their adrenaline reached a certain threshold. Both the threshold and the effect of this heightened state differed for each creature, and the effect in question was temporary, but it was almost always a boon in battle.

Though I'd experienced this burst state myself a few times during training, I didn't know where my actual threshold lie, nor did I know enough to capitalize on the phenomenon. That was what the final week of training was for, and that's why the training was solo. The way Rarity explained it to me was that the burst state was effectively the “combat mark” to our “cutie mark”, except that it wasn't unique to ponies like cutie marks.

The other difference was that, unlike cutie mark talents, the burst state had to be honed and refined in battle. Because of the unique nature of burst states, it wasn't exactly something that could be taught other than to give a few general tips and advice. I had yet to pinpoint when I'd go into my burst state—to me, it just kind of happened out of nowhere—but I did know the effects.

In my case, I went into a temporary state of hyper-cognition and hyper-awareness. For a short time, I could think and react several orders of magnitude faster than the average Daeus Hunter. It was basically as if time slowed to a crawl, and a few seconds turned into what felt like a few minutes, almost. It was an incredibly useful ability, but, like I said, I didn't exactly know how to make full use of it yet.

Fluttershy also had a useful ability, as it turned out. Evidently, with just a look, the pegasus could somehow disrupt the Hive Cells that constituted the body of an Avidaeos, freezing the beast in place for a precious minute or two. Rainbow Dash had taken to calling it, “The Stare”, and after seeing it in person, I couldn't help but agree with the name.

Fluttershy could affect several Avidaeos at once, as long she could get them to focus on her. The only drawbacks were that she couldn't move while she was pinning the enemy down, and she couldn't quite control when it happened yet. It was a dangerous downside, but if she learned how to control her burst state properly, it could provide some amazing opportunities.

As for the others, once Rainbow Dash got going, she could move so fast she essentially teleported across the battlefield, leaving miniature sonic rainbooms—her terminology, not mine—and afterimages in her wake. By my estimate, when her burst state was active, she was even faster than Nightmare Moon, and not by a small margin either.

Applejack's burst state was as simple, straightforward, and stubborn as her personality. Her overall strength and endurance shot through the roof, allowing her to take far more punishment and dish out far more raw damage than should've been physically possible, even for a Daeus Hunter. The mare basically became an immovable mountain with the striking force of a falling meteorite.

Pinkie Pie was a special case in that she was somehow always in a burst state, from the beginning of the battle right to the very end. The effect of her burst state seemed more esoteric than the others. When I asked Pinkie herself, all she told me was that she was always “right where she needed to be”.

I still wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, but according to Applejack, Pinkie always came out of the fight with the most damage done and the least amount of damage taken. Given how powerful Applejack herself was, that was saying something. I couldn't wrap my head around it, so I chose to just chalk it up to some enigmatic seventh sense.

It was while I was listening to Rarity's explanation of her burst state that I started to suspect there might be more to these burst states than just Hive Cells and adrenaline. Some seemed plausible with how Daeus Hunter bodies worked, like my hyper-cognition and hyper-awareness or Applejack's drastic boost in strength and endurance. But then you had Pinkie's strange seventh sense and Rarity's burst state.

Fluttershy's “Stare” was strange, but that could be explained by her Hive Cells manifesting some internal call-and-response reaction through visual perception. I couldn't properly explain why Pinkie's burst state didn't make any sense, but Rarity was different. Her burst state seemed as simple as Applejack's at first glance. The first part of her burst state gave a drastic increase to her accuracy and dexterity.

That made sense as a sniper, and if that was all it was, then I wouldn't have an issue. It was the second effect of her burst state that completely baffled me. Not only was her accuracy perfect in the truest, most literal sense of the word—no matter the distance or angle of the shot—but the shot itself pierced right through the thick Hive Cell layer to hit the core directly.

In other words, if this were an Ogres and Oubliettes campaign, Rarity would have rolled a Nat 20 for damage with each shot. A shot like that could cripple larger Avidaeos and outright kill the smaller breeds in one hit. And this apparently worked on every single Avidaeos. Armor thickness, wind resistance, distance, ammo type, position. All was ignored for as long as Rarity could hold on to her burst state, which, according to Rarity, was about two shots—three on a good day.

It was an easy enough burst state to understand, if you didn't think about it too hard. The question I had was how her burst state could affect so many external factors. How did the bullet gain such godlike piercing power? Rarity herself confirmed she didn't use any special ammunition outside what she normally carried with her. It was absolutely baffling and utterly fascinating to think about.

It made me wonder about Spike's burst state, but, like Vinyl Scratch, I hadn't seen him much since I woke up in the lab. In any case, I spent the third week doing my best to take advantage of the burst state, but I was having trouble even as the end of the week rolled around. I learned that I had a fairly average threshold for activation, and I was able to use my burst state to avoid attacks, but that was the end of it.

Desperate and frustrated, I went to Applejack again for some more advice, but surprisingly, she directed me to Nurse Redheart. I couldn't help but be a bit skeptical, but then again, the mare had been the one to tell me about Hive Cell activation in the first place. Deciding it couldn't hurt, I took some time to go see her in the infirmary. To my further surprise, she completely understood my plight.

“It's a fairly common problem,” the physician said with a knowing nod, “there are many burst states like yours, easy to use but difficult to master,” she paused and leaned forward in her chair to look me in the eye, “in these cases, I find it's easier to take a step back and think about how your other talents might compliment your ability in combat.”

“You mean like the talent related to my cutie mark?” I asked, then gave her pristine, armletless wrists a bemused glance, “and why do you sound like you've experienced this yourself?”

“I haven't, of course,” Redheart tittered lightly, “but I did study psychology for a time, and I sometimes apply what I learned to my work. In this case, I believe perfecting your burst state is a matter of the mind. Specifically, I believe you need to change how you think about how to use your ability. Shift gears, so to speak.”

“Shift gears, huh?” I muttered, lowering my gaze and giving her words some thought. After a second, I looked back up at the mare, “what would you suggest, then?”

“Well, like I said, think about your other talents and how they could help you,” Redheart replied, “you're not the first to come to me for help about this exact issue, and I'll tell you the same thing I tell to everypony who asks me about how to use their burst state ability.”

She paused, and I leaned forward, eager to hear what she had to say, “...Yes? What did you tell the others?”

“I'm sure you've heard some ponies refer to the burst state as a 'combat mark'?” Redheart asked pointedly. When I nodded, she continued, “Well, oftentimes, the abilities burst states provide are complimented by one's cutie mark talent. It's not always the case, but that should give you a clue as to how to use burst state effectively.” She gestured to me with her clipboard, “Ask yourself, Miss Sparkle, how can I use what I know to help me gain an advantage?”

And that was all the mare had to say on the matter. I mulled over her words as I left the infirmary, and it didn't take me long to realize the solution to my problem. It was such an easy solution, in fact, that I felt stupid for not realizing it sooner. I had no easy solutions in regard to controlling my burst state—that I would need to learn the hard way—but in terms of taking advantage of that brief window of opportunity, I already had everything I needed.

Just like Nurse Redheart said, it was a matter of the mind. Specifically, for me, it was a matter of knowledge. It might not have been as extensive as Vinyl Scratch or her grandfather, but I'd done plenty of research regarding the Avidaeos. Their abilities, their habitats, their tendencies, and most importantly, where, when, and how they were vulnerable.

I was a researcher, so I'd fight like a researcher. I'd reference, observe, test, and apply everything I knew to take down the enemy. After all, that was the whole reason I'd chosen to become a Hive Cell researcher. I could never fight the Avidaeos directly like my father or brother, so I would battle them the only way I knew how: Through science. Through understanding.

Knowledge is power, and I would use that power to crush the Avidaeos.

The only thing that changed was that I'd obtained the ability to fight the Avidaeos head on. That didn't mean I had to give up on the scientific method. I just needed to tweak it a bit for combat purposes, and I was confident I could do that much. I'm sure Fluttershy and Vinyl Scratch would do just fine. The former mare was turning out to be a promising Daeus Hunter in her own right.

If she could just put a lid on that temper of hers when using offensive ammunition, Fluttershy would probably be unstoppable. I had high hopes for both her and Vinyl, but in the meantime, I had to focus on what I could do. With only two days left of projection room training, I didn't have a lot of time, but now that I knew what to do, all the worry tearing me up seemed to fade away. I even felt a bit excited now that I was looking at this from a different angle.

Anxiety?

How could I possibly be anxious when there was science to be done?

Comments

[Anon E Moose]

How could I possibly be anxious when there was science to be done?

Mad Science has entered the building

[Booster Spice]

Hive cells drive me nuts cos they sound exactly like the sort of thing that cant evolve but are designed by psychotic alien race for the pleasure of betting on the resulting fights, like the Gamesmasters of Triskelion from Star Trek Origional Series?

At least theres Pinkie to even the reality breaking, and Twi and th rest are coming along nicely. Be a bit of a suprise if Spike could go the full Godzilla.

[Commander Darklight]

welp her goes the neighborhood