Chapter 16
Chapter 16:
(Hey, I know this chapter kinda feels like it's all over the place. It jumps from thing to thing really quickly and I feel kinda bad that it goes on like that, but I found a sudden need to compress a number of events into this trip back home because they might not be back for a while ;) I promise, like with the rest of the story, all of it serves a purpose (except the scene at the end of the chapter, that's just showing the family dynamic developing), even the stuff that's not exactly obvious, you know me and laying the roots of an idea that doesn't flower for three or four chapters :D, anyway, that's enough of my awkward explanations. Enjoy, hopefully)
I woke to the sound of my Pipbuck alarm buzzing. Ruby had both her forelegs wrapped around my one and was trying to focus enough to poke the silence button with a hoof. I leaned down and pressed the button with my horn, a trick I'd gotten very good at over the years, and the device went quiet.
“I dunno why you set that.” She grumbled, turning and snuggling back into my chest. At some point in the night the zebra blanket had fallen to the floor. I realized I didn't know how long the effects lasted otherwise, but I was glad it had passed.
“I set it before I knew I was gonna have company. I figured it would be best to get up and do stuff for a few hours before going back to bed to try and not screw up my sleep cycle if at all possible.”
Ruby just grunted and put a wing over my side. “You stay...we sleep...”
I shrugged to myself, not like it was a bad option...Except that with a BANG the bedroom door crashed open and CB flipped through the air with a burst of magical energy, crashing down on top of us. “GUYS! GUYS WAKE UP!” She cried, squirming her way in between us and actually pushing Ruby right out of the bed.
Ruby squawked in surprise as she crashed to the ground. “CB, sweetie, I love you but you gotta stop crashing in like this when we're sleeping...” She glared at the filly while she sat up, pushing the discarded blanket to the side. I had grabbed CB in my magic and set her on the end of the bed while I pulled myself up to sit.
“But we went to school!” She said happily and I realized Xem was standing in the doorway. “Did you know the teacher in town is a changling?”
“Yeah I think Lily mentioned it a few days ago when she was telling me how she learned about her abilities...” I said, yawning.
“He's SO COOL!” She started to launch into a whole explanation of her day but Ruby cut her off.
“CB please, we're still really tired after everything that happened this morning and we just want to catch up on our sleep...”
“This morning?” CB asked curiously. “But Nightmare Night was yesterday! You two have been in here asleep since yesterday afternoon!”
“What? No...” I looked down at my pipbuck and realized the alarm indicator read 29 hours...we had slept through the alarm for more than a full day. “Oh wow...guess it took a lot more out of us than we realized...”
“I don't know what makes you two special. Brutus and Lily got up last night no problem.” She looked between for a moment, then added. “You two smell funny...”
Ruby still managed to blush brightly and I coughed a little. “We don't have easy access to showers, you don't smell so nice either...”
Xem had stepped into the room, standing beside Ruby, I could see on his face that he realized what had happened between us adults, he was a lot less naive of those sorts of things than CB was.“Come on CB, we should go, we have homework to do.” He said.
She nodded and hopped off the bed. She paused when she landed and looked at Xem for a moment, then smiled and leaned in, kissing him firmly on the lips, which he happily returned. Ruby gasped and her wing shot out, shoving to the two of them over, grabbing up the blanket they had been standing on and throwing it to me on the bed. I'd been so shocked by the sight that the blanket had just smacked me in the face before I could react.
“Out you two!” Ruby snapped, while the confused children pulled themselves back up.
“What the hay was that?” CB asked, clearly grossed out with herself.
“I'm not sure...” Xem stammered.
“Did you kiss me?” She asked, looking sternly at the zebra.
“I...I dunno...maybe?”
“AUGH! GROSS!” She cried, storming out of the room in a huff.
Xem looked back at us in confusion, looking at the blanket in my lap that I'd just pulled myself free of. “Is...that my grandfather's blanket? The one from his lock box?”
“Yeah...” Ruby said kind of sheepishly.
“Oh...well I guess it's good to know she feels the same way about me that I feel about her.” He smiled a little.
“Don't over think it Xem, you're still just children.” Ruby said seriously.
“I know...If she is my soul mate I'm not going to do anything that might jeopardize that...and girls are still too weird to figure out.”
“I'm 226 years old and I still don't understand girls.” I grinned.
“Well I should get to my homework.” Xem said, heading out of the room.
Ruby waited until he turned the corner at the end of the hall before turning back to me. “So...should we worry about that?”
“I think we should just make sure the blanket stays out of their reach and the awkwardness of childhood will shield them from most of it.” I laughed, folding up the blanket and sticking it into one of my saddlebags.
“So...only works with soul mates.” Ruby smiled, climbing back onto the bed and nuzzling my cheek. “Guess we should probably stick with this relationship eh?”
“I was thinking it was a good idea yeah.” I nodded, pressing back against her contently.
“So the wedding is back on?” Lily asked from the bedroom door, making both of us jump. She looked excited at the prospect.
“Yeah, I suppose it is.” Ruby nodded and Lily squeed with joy. “I hope Clank gets over smothering Ratchet soon so he can get back to helping me with planning.”
“Don't forget CB.” I added.
The changeling nodded happily. “Of course, can't leave her out of it. She's almost as excited as me and Clank.”
“Clank and I.” Ruby said.
“Clank and you what?” Lily asked, already losing herself in typing away on a computer that sat in the hallway. “Anyway, you two should get up, you've been in here for a day and a half and they're gonna start talking. Also shower because you two stink of sex and sweat and that's gross.” She stuck her tongue out at us for a moment before turning back to the computer. “And we changelings have more sensitive senses of smell than ponies or zebras so it's all the worse for me.”
I grabbed the door in my magic and slammed it quickly.
“Thank you.” Ruby sighed, pushing herself up out of the bed, yawning and stretching. “So what's on the agenda today?”
“I wanna look at those hard drives Xeha gave me. They seem to be intact, so I want to take them back to my nice new lab and inspect them.”
“It's already the afternoon. You sure you don't want to wait until tomorrow morning?”
“I want to get to work as soon as I can. I would have been at it yesterday if not for our unexpected interruption.”
“Well I'm sorry, I hadn't planned on having sex with you for 12 hours.” She smirked.
“I was actually talking about the whole Nightmare Night, saving Ratchet's life thing, but way to make it all about you.” I laughed, kissing her cheek as I started for the door.
“Sure you were.” She sighed, getting up and following. “You know Firebird has a nice big shower?”
“Oh does she now?” I asked, heading into the hallway, closing the bedroom door once Ruby had followed, Lily was already gone from the hallway. “How is it we always seem to end up in the shower?” I grinned.
“Well most normal adults, despite the lack of facilities, still try to shower as often as possible whenever the need arises, and after a long period of fooling around with your soul mate I'd say that's one of the best times to do it. I don't know about you, but I don't wanna go out in public smelling of sex. It gives the wrong impression to the more questionable citizens of the wasteland.”
“I think my sarcasm is starting to rub off on you.” I grinned.
“Play your cards right and I might have something I rub off on you.” She winked.
“Augh! Gross!” This time it was Brutus who said it and I lost it, laughing myself almost sick at the disgusted look on his face. “I thought CB was kidding when she said you two were still in bed, and in bed TOGETHER.”
“Why would I not be in bed with my fiancee?” Ruby asked matter-of-factually.
“More like why WOULD you be in bed with your grandfather?”
“Okay, first, gross, second, he's 6 generations removed from my genetics, that means we only share...” She paused, getting a thoughtful look on her face.
“1.5625% of our genetics, approximately.” I finished and she smiled and nodded.
“So the wedding is back on?”
“Yeah it is.” I nodded. “So I expect a damned good bachelor party.”
“Why're you asking me? It's the best buck's responsibility to plan the bachelor party.”
I just looked at him expectantly, gesturing with a hoof for him to keep going. “So...”
“So...you're asking me to be your best buck?” He asked hesitantly.
“Hey! Prize for the pony in the front row.” I grinned. “I have what? 8 friends in the whole wasteland, it's not like I have a lot of choices, and I'm certainly not going to be asking my brother to do it.”
“Alright, I suppose I can manage something.” He nodded happily, though he still looked bewildered by the whole situation.
“Thanks, now if you don't mind, we're trying to get cleaned up so I can get back to my lab and get to work on trying to find out whats in Venture's hard drives.”
“Oh yeah yeah of course.” He nodded, turning and wandering off, still kind of dazed and confused.
“Was he dropped on his head as a foal?” I asked, looking back at Ruby.
She laughed and shrugged. “He's certainly suffered his fair share of head injuries over the years yeah...anyway, shower.” She said, pushing me on.
//////////
I was glad to be back in my lab, even if it was new and I hadn't spent very long in it so far. It was a very comforting environment. Sitting surrounded by dozens of computers, the hum of each tower, the scent of the ozone lingering in the air from the static electricity...I was never more at ease than in a place like this. Ebony and Ivory above my monitor on a pair of hooks I'd put in. Made them look decorative but also kept them easy to access from anywhere in the room, since I didn't like to wander around with the holsters on. Everyone but Brutus and Lily had come back to the hospital with us. CB and Xem sat at a small table on the far side of the room doing homework, Ruby had gone to meet with some of the council to give them an update on where we were with our Pyro investigation, then to meet up with the unicorns here who had been studying the masks here while we were away.
“So how's it going?” CB's voice made me almost jump out of my chair. I'd been so engrossed in the computer monitor I hadn't even heard her come up, really not a good sign if someone wanted to get the drop on me...
“Uhh it's not going very well so far.” I said, smiling to her as I turned back to the encryption filled monitor. “These are very complex little toys my brother has built.”
“What's all that mean?” She asked, pointing to the screen.
“This is all the data on the hard drives.” I explained, pointing to the small open casing the two drives sat in, wired through another system and then into my main system so any safe guards on the drives wouldn't fry my whole network. “But the computer doesn't know how to read it.”
“But I thought you plugged in hard drives and the computer made them work, like when I helped you set up all these computers.”
“Well it's not that simple, because these drives are from a different kind of computer, so they were programmed to work with that computer and to not let any other computers access them. These computers we use are all from my time...” CB shifted and pulled herself up into the chair, sitting in my lap and looking at the computer curiously. I wrapped my hooves around her and went back to typing. “But these hard drives are brand new, and the computer doesn't know what to do to make them work, so I'm trying to teach the computer what to do with them.” I switched the inputs and showed her the code I'd been writing to try and break the hard drive encryption.
“So all this will make the hard drives work?” She asked, looking at the code intently for a few moments before looking up at me.
“Well not quite. The hard drives work just fine, but they have programing in them that tells them not to work with other computers, so I'm trying to make my computer tell the hard drives it's safe. If I do it wrong the hard drives might break and then we'll lose all the data on them.”
“Oh, well can I watch for a while? I'm all done my homework and Xem said he needed to go for a walk.”
“A walk?” I asked, looking back and realizing that Xem had indeed left. “Was he okay?”
“He seemed fine.” She shrugged. “Just said he needed some air to clear his head after all the stuffy homework in here. I don't think he's comfortable around all the computers. Every time they'd buzz or beep he'd jump or watch them nervously.”
“Well historically Zebra's have been a lot more in tune with nature than ponies. Natural medicines, homes made from simple materials. It wasn't even really until just a few decades before the war that they really started to make technological advances, and even then it was only some parts of the zebra population, not all of them.”
“Oh okay.” She nodded, looking back to the computer screen.
“Are you sure you want to sit and watch me work?” I asked. “It's all pretty boring stuff.”
“No it's fine.” She said. “I want to see for a while, it's interesting.” She cuddled back against me and I just shrugged.
“Alright, well I can get lost in my work, so don't blame me if you end up stuck in my hooves all night while I work.”
She just nodded and I set to work again.
///////////
“Hey.” Again I jumped, dammit I needed to stop losing myself so deeply in my work. “What are you two doing?” Ruby asked, coming up beside us.
“Uhh I'm working on the code trying to break the encryption on the hard drive. She's watching and keeping me...”
“ZzZzZzZz...” I realized CB was asleep in my lap, resting her head against my chest.
“...Company.” I sighed a little. “I warned her it was boring work.”
“Well to be fair it's almost 1 A.M.”
“You're kidding.” I looked down at my pipbuck and sighed. “Poor thing...I wonder how long she's been asleep.”
“CB...” Ruby said softly, nudging her gently.
The filly groaned and opened her eyes slowly. “Wazzat?” She muttered, looking up at her.
“Come on, lets get you to bed.” Ruby smiled.
“Mmhm.” CB nodded. She looked up at me and kissed my cheek. “Night Cane.” She said tiredly, hopping down and starting for the door.
“Good night CB.” I replied, watching her wander out of the room slowly.
Ruby gave me the weirdest look, which reminded me all too much of the crazy love look that Firebird had give Ruby and I. “That might be the cutest thing I've ever seen in the history of ever.” She said, grinning stupidly.
“Yeah well...” I stammered, unable to think of anything to say. It was a sweet gesture after all...
“Anyway, I know it's late, but we have some work to do if you're up for it?”
“Uhh yeah, I should get away from these screens for a while anyway. I have a dozen or so decryption programs ready to go, and they'll take all night unless one of them happens to crack the drives.” I said, pushing myself up from the computer and stretching, my back cracking loudly.
Ruby smirked, taking her turn to kiss my cheek. “That's why I love you Sugar, it's the middle of the night, I tell you we have work to do and you don't make it into a sexual innuendo.”
I looked at her curiously for a moment. “Wait...was it supposed to be innuendo?”
“No, it's actual work.” She laughed, starting for the door. I followed along behind her. “I think we've figured out how to manipulate the glyphs in the masks using unicorn magic. We've been testing it out and we seem to have a grasp of it, I figured you'd want a crack at learning it too.”
“Of course, anything that might help in battle is a must. If we gain the ability to reprogram the masks of attacks in mid battle that would be fantastic.”
“Uhh...well about that...” She said, looking at me kind of sheepishly.
“What about it?” I asked flatly.
“We...kinda need to test if we're right...but nopony is brave enough to put on one of the masks and let us try...”
I sighed deeply and looked at her quietly, doing the best extremely unimpressed face I could.
“Come on! PLEASE?” She gave me big puppy dog eyes. “I'll...I'll...I'll make you cup cakes!”
I gave her a very confused look now.
“I don't know how, I don't know if the ingredients still exist, but I will find a way to make you cup cakes!”
I shook my head and just nodded. “Sure, why not, I'd love to risk myself for cup cakes.”
She broke into a big grin, hugging me tightly. “I promise Sugar, even if it takes me a decade I will find a way to make you cup cakes.”
“Alright alright, I already agreed.” I laughed, squirming free. “Come on, it's getting late.”
“It's not GETTING late, it IS late.” She smirked and continued on. We walked into a lab at the end of the hall, Brutus and three other unicorns stood around a table with a small pile of masks on it.
“When'd you get back?” I asked him.
“About an hour ago, brought the rest of the masks and some extra equipment from Firebird's for the tests. You're going to let us experiment on you?”
I just nodded.
“You're a braver buck than I am.” Brutus said to me, shaking his head a little.
“I've always known that.” I grinned, trying to put on a cocky brave front, but when I saw the elaborate set of shackles and chains that I knew I was meant to occupy it still worried me.
“Alright well I suppose we should get to work.” One of the unicorns said, and I just nodded. They took me over to the set of chains and started opening the whole set up, then I stood in the middle while they put them back in place, wrapping the chains around me, snapping the shackles into place and locking everything to the floor. When they were done I had just enough slack to stand up straight, though I'd be able to sit or even lie down with no problem. Ruby came over to me now, a small glowing ring in her hooves.
“What's that?” I asked, looking at it curiously.
“It's a magical suppression ring. Slavers use them to control a unicorn's magic, though usually it's connected to the rest of their outfit so it can't be removed so easily.” She slipped it down over my horn and I felt a wave of nausea as the warm feeling of my magic drained from my body, leaving me feeling very weak...I suddenly had this horrible fear of Venture having an army of changelings I didn't know about and I had just walked into a terrible trap, but Ruby just stepped back and smiled encouragingly.
“Good luck.” She said, kissing me for a moment before she stepped back to the table to stand with the others.
“Alright, we're going to start with the default glyph set of each mask configuration we've identified in order to establish a base line.” One of the unicorns said.
Ruby picked up one of the masks and came over to me, smiling still as she slipped the mask over my head and securing it before stepping back quickly. At first I didn't feel anything, but when I drew my first breath I felt it, a wave of magical energy seeping through my body, my worry and fear giving way to unbridled rage, the sight of Ruby making me burn with lust. I wanted nothing more than to get free, kill everypony else in the room and take her until she broke in two. I felt like I was speaking, but maybe it was just a silent whisper, I could feel my lips moving but couldn't hear any sound. I thrashed against the restraints in a desperate, but pointless, attempt to free myself, trying to focus my magic on the chains, but with the suppressor in place it was useless.
Finally after what felt like forever Ruby stepped forward slowly and pulled the mask off my face, looking saddened and horrified. I know I screamed at her, even trying to lunge forward towards her, the rage still burned in me for a few moments before I fell back on my haunches and sat panting hard as all the anger and hatred vanished. I realized I was still very much aroused, and blushing brightly, slid all the way down to the ground, muttering apologies.
“It's okay...it's okay...” Ruby kept saying, lifting me up and hugging me close. She was shaking and I knew had I had to have been saying terrible things when that mask was on.
“Should we stop?” Brutus asked me.
“No no, we've already started, no point making you restart the whole experiment with somepony else.” I sighed.
“Alright.” Ruby smiled softly, stepping back slowly.
“Ready to keep going?” Brutus asked, lifting another mask off the table and walking over to me.
“Y...Yeah.” I nodded, taking a deep breath and standing up straight again. He lifted the mask up and pulled it over my head, then stepped back. I stood for a moment before taking another breath. This felt radically different from the first one. I felt the energy drain from my whole body, no desire to do anything, go anywhere...I just wanted to lay down and die...I realized I WAS laying down, Ruby and Brutus both stood over me, looking worried. At least I think they looked worried, everything was blurry and I just couldn't be bothered. I felt really bad that I was such a horrible pony, I just needed to die and make life easier on my friends...though I felt bad that I would be leaving Brutus alone in this world. He was so cute...wait Brutus was cute? Well it was his mask so I suppose it made sense that I ended up with feelings for bucks...All the more reason to kill myself instead of breaking Ruby's heart again...
The whole world snapped back into clear reality suddenly and I didn't feel so bad. Brutus was putting the mask back on the table, Ruby was writing on her tablet computer. “H...Hey...” I called quietly, feeling ridiculously drained. “Little help?”
“Oh, sure.” Brutus said, coming over and helping me back to my hooves.
“Thanks babe.” I smiled, leaning over and kissing him deeply on the lips, much to the shock of the everypony in the room, especially Brutus, who stood in place until the last effects of the glyphs dissipated and I pulled away. “Oh...Oh sorry...” I blushed brightly. Everypony was silent and the tension was thick in the room...Until Ruby broke out into fits of hysterical laughter.
“I...I can't believe you did that!” She fell over laughing. “T...That was the...the most romantic kiss I've seen in my life, and it's my fiancee kissing my best friend! Oh...oh just wait till Crackshot hears!”
“Ruby, relax...” Brutus sighed, blushing just as badly as me. “It was a fluke, just because of the mask...”
She finally got herself under control and we resumed the tests. It didn't get much better from there. Another of the unicorns was a lesbian, which was a weird experience because I was already a big fan of mares, but I felt the strangest desire to experiment with sex toys...and in places that didn't exist on my body...Another was straight like me, but instead of rage I felt an emptiness inside, and all the feelings of anger and betrayal I had towards Venture melted away. We finally got through all the main tests and I was exhausted, we hadn't even started the manipulation tests yet.
“I...I don't suppose we could wait until morning to finish these?” I asked, panting hard, unable to bring myself to stand anymore for the time being. “I'm tired, I'm awkwardly horny and I have the most insanely conflicting emotions. I just want to hug Ruby and cry for a few hours.”
“Yeah I think so.” One of the unicorns said. “We didn't realize how physically draining this process was, so we should break for a while. Though we have a lot to work with so far.”
“You sure you want MY comfort?” Ruby grinned. “I'm sure Brutus would be happy to keep you company.”
“At this point I'd just take a warm body and kind word.” I said flatly. Brutus came over and pulled the magic suppressor from my horn, then started undoing the chains. “I am sorry about that.” I said to him.
“Don't worry about it Cane. You're under going some pretty radical changes when you put on those masks so it doesn't surprise me that you aren't totally right in the head,” he smirked, “and really I've had worse kisses than that.”
He finally got all the chains undone and Ruby came over, having just finished packing up her equipment. “Come on my brave beautiful stallion, lets get you to bed.” She grinned, wrapping a wing around me. I was too tired to even make a joke or try to say anything to Brutus besides “G'night” and started out of the room, leaning tiredly against her as we walked. “I'm sorry if I said anything mean.” I said to her once we were out of the room and by ourselves. I was surprised to see it was almost 6AM now, according to the clock on the wall.
“Sugar, I have NEVER been spoken to in my life, the way you spoke to me earlier, but I don't blame you for a moment. I know you didn't mean those things you said and I know you are sorry for each and every one of them.”
“I can't remember what I said. At the time I wasn't even sure if I was talking. I kind of remember thinking I might have just been muttering under my breath...”
She laughed and shook her head. “You were screaming at the top of your lungs. Made fun of me for being a Dashite, mocked my parents, called Brutus all kinds of names...which made the romantic kiss all the funnier.” She added. We wandered into the bedroom she's laid claim to and I saw my stuff had been moved from the room I'd been in. “Want me to lay out the wedding blanket and help you work through some of those confusing emotions and awkward arousal?” She asked, helping me sit on the bed.
“Honestly, no.” I sighed, flopping back on the bed. “I've had enough emotional manipulation from Zebra magic today.”
“Then you'll love this.” Ruby dug into her pack and pulled out a mask, setting it on the bed. I floated it up curiously and saw it contained no glyphs at all. “We figured out how to remove the glyph marks completely. Totally changes our ability to infiltrate the group if we can ever pin their location down.” She turned off the bedroom light, moving back to the bed just by the light of my glowing horn and got into bed beside me, taking the mask and setting it on the bedside table. “For now, why don't you get some sleep? You've had a messed up sleep schedule the last few days and it can't be doing you any good with all the extra pressure you've been under.”
“Thanks Ruby...I don't know what I'd do without you...” I said, snuggling contently into her forelegs and nuzzling my face into her neck.
“Wither and die most likely.” She laughed quietly, hugging me close. I smiled and wrapped a leg around her, drifting off to sleep in a matter of moments...
When I woke it was about 4PM the same day, Ruby was gone from the bedroom, my body felt a lot better and my mind wasn't so bogged down with crushing sadness fighting against blind rage for control of my emotions.
I spent a few more minutes just laying in bed, then finally rolled out from under the warm covers and headed back to my lab. I was amazed to find the system flashing 'unlock 50% complete' on the main monitor. That meant it had cracked one of the hard drives. I pulled up the file directory, eager to get to work studying the contents, but when I started scrolling through the files I couldn't help but break out laughing, 200 years and here I was, sitting looking at a side of Venture I'd have thought long dead...
“What's so funny?” I turned and saw Ruby, Xem and CB coming up behind me.
“Look at this.” I gestured to the screen, still with a big silly grin plastered on my face.
“You broke the encryption on the hard drives?” Ruby asked, leaning in and looking at the screen curiously. “I don't know what any of this means...” She shrugged, looking back to me.
“I broke into one of the hard drives, but this was the easy one. These...” I gestured to the dozens and dozens of directories. “Are TV shows.”
“What?” Xem asked blankly.
“Wait, I remember Crackshot telling me about those...TV shows were things you watched and they weren't real?”
“For the most part yes. Sometimes they were shows about ponies real lives, but those were generally really dumb...But you see when Venture and I worked we missed a BUNCH of TV shows we watched, so we'd record them onto hard drives, and we'd make time to watch a few episodes of this or that when we were working late into the night together, this is one of those hard drives, or at least the contents are from one of those hard drives, this thing is almost brand new, which means he went out of his way to keep them.” In that moment I genuinely missed Venture again for the first time in a long time.
“So what do all these folders mean?” CB asked, looking curiously at the list.
“Well Venture was very organized when it came to things like this.” I lifted CB up and set her in my lap. Xem grabbed two other chairs and offered one to Ruby. She smiled and sat down on one side of me, Xem sitting on the other. “So this is a list of TV shows.” I gestured to the list on the screen. “These ones are movies.” I opened another screen and showed her that list, but switched back to the TV shows. “So now all these folders are different kinds of shows. Anime, cartoons, documentaries, dramas, Fantasy, news, Sci-fi, sports...Though sports was more his thing than mine.”
I clicked open the cartoon folder. “These are shows for children, all shows either drawn by hoof, or animated by computer.” They were all enthralled by the information. “So each of these has dozens of episodes of shows to watch... Duck tails, Darkwing Duck, My little Horsy, Tail Spin...lots of others.” I clicked back and selected the Sci-Fi folder. “There was a lot of talk about going into space, building massive ships the traveled between planets, meeting weird and wonderful aliens from other planets...some of it was amazing. These here were the best.”
“Firefly? Like the bug?” CB asked, looking up at me.
“Kind of.” I shrugged.
“What's a Star Gate?” Xem asked, looking very concerned.
“Are there shows about the other 8 Deep Space things?” Ruby asked.
“How come that folder says Lost when it's right there?”
“What's the difference between a normal leap and a Quantum one? Is that like the cola?”
“Guys guys!” I yelled, trying to silence them before they could continue. “They're just the names of different shows, you're over thinking it.”
“Sorry...” CB muttered, looking down at the ground.
“It's okay, I know it's exciting to see something like this but you just have to go a little slower, how about I start off with a movie and we'll go from there?” They all nodded.
“Alright perfect. Ruby, I want you and Xem to go round up some food, Sparkle-Cola, whatever candy you can get your hooves on, CB I want you to go swipe one of those couches from the waiting room, the one that's shaped like an L, I have to reorganize my office a little to make this work, if you come across Brutus and Crackshot invite them too, I'm sure Crackshot will have a field day with this.” Again the group nodded and the children hurried out of the room, laughing together as they vanished from sight.
“So how's the work going on the masks?” I asked Ruby before she could leave. I had the hub of monitors on the wall wrapped in my magic and was in the process of reconfiguring it already.
“Pretty well actually. After we left they kept working and we're pretty sure they have it mastered, but they're leaving it for the time being, they said they didn't want to press you too hard too fast...what are you doing?” She asked when the monitors floated into the air and started to break apart.
“I'm...making some...changes...” I said slowly, focusing on my work. The casings of the monitors pulled away and the rest of it started to come together, sitting now as one huge monitor, pieces of the casings breaking apart and wrapping around it. I floated a roll of duct tape out of a drawer and with some expert work had the whole thing together again and hanging on the wall, all the cables now wrapped together and no visible sign of the mess I had made of the back of the monitors.
“Wow...that's something else.” She laughed. “Anyway, I should go help Xem.” She said, heading out herself.
Crackshot showed up with Xem and Ruby when they came back, all of them loaded up with junk food. “Cane...don't lie to me now...did you really get TV?” She asked hopefully.
“I really did. That hard drive contains 500 movies, hundreds of TV shows and thousands of songs.”
She got kind of teary eyed and looked at the directory on the massive monitor. “I have never been so happy that you came into my life as I am right now.” Crackshot said, hugging me tightly, actually getting teary eyed.
“Uhh...thanks?” I muttered stupidly, patting her back. She stepped back and moved out of the way when CB came in with the couch and set it on the ground just in front of the island.
“Woo!” Crackshot leapt up and crashed down on the middle of the couch. “I haven't watched a movie in 200 years, I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am for this.”
“Iron Buck?” I asked and Crackshot squeed with delight, making the others look at her like she was insane.
“I promise, Crackshot not withstanding, this movie IS awesome.” I smirked, pulling up the movie and starting it before moving to the doors, closing them and turning off the lights, moving back to the couch and sitting down, Ruby sat beside me and cuddled up, Xem sitting on the opposite side to me, all of us surprised to see CB sit beside him and rest against him, much like Ruby did with me, but the movie started and we just settled in to watch it. Everyone 'ooo'd' and 'ahh'd' throughout it, Crackshot repeatedly struggled not to blurt things out ahead of time but they quickly learned that the good stuff was coming whenever Crackshot snorted or gasped.
Part way through the movie it paused and a message flashed up 'Decryption 100% complete.' “Ooo, the other hard drive is done.” Of course I was shouted down by all the others in the room when the movie paused. “Yeah yeah, hold on, hold on!” I laughed, getting up off the couch. I pulled the hard drive out and got the movie going again, taking the hard drive and moving to sit at another computer behind the others so I could still watch while I worked. I reached out with my magic and grabbed some of the junk food from the couch, floating it over to me and setting it down beside the monitor. Okay, NOW I was the most comfortable I could be.
I started going through the files, a lot of it was old schematics, financial reports, resource requests...it looked like Venture had kept almost all the old data...and almost all of it was useless. I found a folder of news articles, most of them dated after I had been frozen and started reading through them, finding they all shared a common theme. “No way...I don't know...how this could work...”
“What is it?” I jumped and swore softly.
“Seriously, if we get attacked while I'm in my lab, I'll just end up dead won't I?” I sighed, turning and looking at Ruby. “These articles...They talk about Princess Luna approving some new mega-spell project that Venture was going to head up, but it was top secret...Massive amounts of Bits from the royal coffers were put into this project, a huge transfer of personnel and equipment to Sugar-Star Enterprises...”
“Your company was called Sugar-Star?” Ruby smirked.
“Yeah...you didn't know that?”
“Well...I guess we never really talked about it...you always just called it 'the office' or 'work' I didn't realize I didn't know the name...” She shrugged.
“Anyway...” I laughed, going back to the computer monitor, “there are requisition forms, plans for a massive server network. These plans are the sort of thing we talked about if we ever got unlimited resources, and from the look of it Ven just might have gotten that from the Princess.”
“THAT WAS AWESOME!” CB cried, leaping up off the couch and I looked up and realized the movie was over. “I can't believe I've never seen a movie before! Are they all that good?” She asked, looking over the back of the couch at me.
“Not ALL of them, but we mostly just got the good stuff. Though I have some movies that are SO bad that they're good.”
“How does that work?”
“Quantum Entanglement?” I shrugged and she gave me a confused look.
“No one really knows why B movies are so good when they're so cheesy.” Crackshot said, pushing herself up off the couch and stretching. “It's some kind of movie magic, now come on kiddies, lets get you some dinner and we'll see about watching Iron Buck 2, right Cane?”
I nodded happily and Crackshot's face lit up. “We'll bring you back something.” She said, the three of them heading out of the room. Ruby hung back with me, looking over the documents with me.
“So the goddesses...they really were just regular rulers?” Ruby asked.
“Well yeah.” I said, looking over at her. “They were very powerful alicorns, but they weren't goddesses by any means. They're mother, Queen Faust, she was probably the closest thing to a real goddess in all of Equestrian history, but no pony knows what happened to her.” I turned back to the screen, going over requisition forms one at a time, the minutes dragging on until almost 20 had passed, before I finally found what seemed to be a proper solid lead. “Look at these magic and scientific tomes they had brought in...Teleportation basics, Advanced Teleportation, Quantum Tunneling, Wormhole Theory, Star Swirl the Bearded's unabridged magical texts, volumes 1 to 28, Sub-molecular Displacement...holy shit...”
“What does it all mean?” Ruby asked.
“It means they were working on some kind of teleportation mega-spell, it might even be how they manage to overwhelm whole settlements now. Presumably he has the spell up and running by now. He can probably move his whole army anywhere in the wasteland in a matter of minutes.” I stood up from the desk and paced slowly for a moment, taking a chance to get the next movie up and ready for the others. “Tomorrow...we NEED to go to the old zebra settlement and look for clues.”
“I'll talk to Brutus, we'll get it all put together.” Ruby nodded, looking back at the doors as the others returned.
“The food choices weren't fantastic...” Crackshot started but CB leapt past her, a couple of plates of food in her grip.
“BACON!” She cried, landing in front of me, two of the plates had a small pile of bacon, mashed potatoes and a sliced apple, the other had potatoes, an apple and a half and a piece of cheese about equal to the pile of bacon on the other plates.
“BACON!” I cheered, floating two of the plates out of her grip, giving the non-bacon plate to Ruby, who smiled gratefully.
Crackshot had a big bowl of hay with her weird irradiated sauce on it. Of all the things to make it out of the old base when the Pyros had attacked I couldn't believe two cases of that sauce had been among them, Xem had a plate made up the same as Ruby's.
“Now, movie!” Crackshot said, settling back onto the couch with the children.
“Yes ma'am.” I laughed, starting the movie with a quick magical bump to the main keyboard.
Tomorrow we'd set out for the Zebra settlement. Xem probably wasn't going to be happy about it, but for now...we could just enjoy the movie...
Footnote: 25% to next level
This fanfiction is based on Fallout Equestria by Kkat; a familiarity with the source material may aid your understanding.
You can read Fallout Equestria by Kkat on Equestria Daily
The Fallout: Equestria logo used above was designed by DotRook, who, according to the original deviantArt page, allows usage in supplementary materials created for and associated with the series. Images really do make a difference, so he has our eternal gratitude and respect.
If you enjoy Fallout Equestria Side Stories, you will want to check the Fallout Equestria Side Stories post on Equestria Daily and the Fallout Equestria Side Stories thread on Ponychan
The Ponychan group is also a hatching ground that you can join if you want to share your experience, writing or comments with us.
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BUT WAR ALWAYS CHANGES
IT'S JUST THE BASIC CONCEPT OF IT THAT DOESN'T
1798445
I believe that is what the statement is referring to yes
Ruby and Cane are a couple again? What would I want more?
I have to admit the family dynamics were the parts I enjoyed the most in this chapter. I somehow got the impression CB is way closer with Cane than with Ruby. Daddies little filly maybe?
The working of the masks was also interesting. Cane seems to be into S&M if he's doing something like this willingly... And coming to the movie night - wasn't the tiltle of this movie Iron PONY in earlier chapters? 
1800819
Nope, Chuck Testa. Wait...I mean, no it was actually called 'Iron Mare' because I had a brain fart and called it that without remembering that a mare was female. I am in the process of ret-conning the chapters with the proper names, as well as finally correcting the temporal anomalies of the older chapters, which is also giving me the chance to re-read the story and make sure I haven't smashed any more of my older continuity.
And yes, CB likes Cane more than Ruby because CB already had a mother, but she never had a father before.
And finally...yes...maybe he is...just a little...
1800854
What happened to her father actually or was she simply a one night stand? 
ad1. Understandable
ad2. Yeah I also thought that
ad3. Ah yes... There was that one SADDLE that Ruby liked so much
1800884
1. Thank you
2. I never really thought of that, I suppose he was probably killed when she was very young. He's really a non-entity to me
3. Why do you think he always calls Fluttershy by MS. Fluttershy?
JK JK JK
1800916
Goldenblood would be angry about that...
2. Each story needs some red shirt...
3. That picture will never leave my head canon
1800931
2. How did you know his name was Ensign Ricky?
3. HEADCANNON ACCEPTED!
iambrony.steeph.tp-radio.de/mlp/gif/175866%20-%20animated%20changeling%20Doomie%20headcanon%20headcanon_accepted%20pinkie_pie%20pinkie_pie_changeling.gif
1800948
2. ROTFL
3. Goldeblood will kill you for that, and we both know he's somehow still alive/schemed it all
1800959
3. They were before she hooked up with Goldenblood. She was going through an experimental phase, he has a weakness for pegasi in general, not just red/pink ones, and he was already used to taking orders from her since she was technically his boss.
1800974
images.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw3441-Fluttershy_thread.jpg
1800985
I believe that was my brain running mostly on autopilot as weird ideas spun out of it...I went a few much weirder places but my brain put the kibosh on it before my hands could put it out there
1800993
Wait until the introduction of rarity in CSI. Then we will talk about weird
1801001
Can't wait