Chapter 11 (Rewritten)
Five minutes.
It had been no more than five minutes before the three inside the base heard the sound of the door sliding open, and Hope’s spider thing half-carried Fluttershy in without her armor, setting her down gently but rather unceremoniously just inside the door before returning back outside for first Applejack and then Private Verbal. Now, while the three mares are very carefully walking over to check on the three that were already there, the spider seems to be retrieving their armor, dumping it similarly unceremoniously into a heap next to the door.
“What… What happened?” Applejack asks, once she’s sure they’re all awake.
Sergeant Stone struggles to look up at her. “What happened to your armor?” he asks.
Fluttershy squeaks, then falls down.
“It was too heavy,” Applejack states. “Hope removed it so I could walk- then helped with that so I could move faster.” She heaves a sigh. “It’s not like there’s going to be any point to heading outside until we recover far enough anyways, is it?”
He scowls. “I suppose. Anyways… I’m sure you’re aware of the curse they can put on our Fort Crystals?”
Her nod is small and weak, but perceptible. “Yes?”
“That’s what happened. We didn’t see it until it went off.”
“Drat. How long we got?”
“Physical strength should return smoothly over the next month,” Private Strings states. “On the magic side of things, we got two months to wait for the tactile telekinesis, three for our racial magics, and six for full recovery- and cutie mark magic.” She sighs, struggling to roll herself upright- and just barely manages. “We should be strong enough to walk without issue in a few hours, though it may be a few days before we can go much faster; all this armor will easily triple both numbers. Weapons… are out of the question for at least a week.” She looks up at Applejack. “We won’t be able to wield them effectively for another week or so after that. In the meantime, if we don’t get something to eat within the next hour or so, we’ll die.”
“Wha- how do you know so much about it?” Private Verbal asks.
She sighs. “A two step process, really. Step one, live in the same town with Princess Twilight. Step two, study the thing as part of Unicorn Guard training. Sometimes I wonder why they didn’t extend that training to all three races.”
“Ahh… makes sense. So, food?”
“Go ahead,” she answers. “Have fun without us, too.”
“Wha- without?”
“It’s a rare pony indeed that can recover their strength fast enough to lift all this heavy armor in time for the first meal- and none of us will have the strength to undo the clasp for hours. We’re prettymuch screwed, but at least you’ve got a chance.”
“An- an hour?” Fluttershy mumbles. “But…”
“But what?” Strings asks, after a pause.
“But when I was… the first time, it was hours!”
“Huh. They musta not gotten you as hard. The spells they put on our Crystals are very consistent.”
The door snaps open one last time, admitting the spider with the last set of armor. It dumps it with the rest, before scurrying around the table to start unbuckling the last three’s armor with blinding speed.
Private Strings rolls out of her armor, rising shakily to her hooves. “Aaand, I forgot Hope doesn’t seem to be bothered by it. I hope she’s actually not bothered by it.” She heads for the food.
“I hope she keeps this up,” Private Dust states.
“What?” Sergeant Stone asks, rising to follow the other pegasus to the oddly always-stocked kitchen. “Running into trouble?”
Dust’s laugh almost drops her on the floor. “Nah- overcoming that trouble. Sure, she’s had terrible luck so far- but that’s to be expected, given the state of Equestria’s defenses. Now that she’s building her own fort, I’m sure the Minotaurs won’t be able to knock the walls down- and she has a safe haven to take ponies to.” She chuckles again. “If she’s got that much power on a mobile platform, what do you think a well-anchored, static platform might have? And besides, in each action we know of that she participated in, there was a point when she got close to the battlefield, and a point when all opposition was crushed… and those two points have been back-to-back in every action.”
He pauses, blinking. “You know, I think you’re right. She’s even solved other problems…” He glances at the fractured remains of the crystal. “All without any apparent effort. Once the Minotaurs realize what they’re up against, they’ll be runnin’ for the hills.”
She gives a small smile. “That’ll be the hard part: Once they realize what they’re up against. To my knowledge, not one Minotaur or Centaur yet has seen Hope- even peripherally- and lived to tell the tale.” Then she glances at the crystal. “Though… Don’t those normally explode with the curse?”
Private Strings answers again. “There weren’t enough ponies around,” she states. “It takes about a dozen ponies for the curse to be able to gather enough energy to make the crystal explode. And if it only finds one, the crystal doesn’t even break.” She dips her muzzle into the salad Hope’s spider assembled for her.
“Ahh.”
Sergeant Stone takes his seat, with his salad, before looking up again. “Private Verbal?”
She looks up from her salad, mouth full. “Mm?”
“Will you still be able to understand Hope?”
She shakes her head.
Private Strings answers verbally, mouth clear. “That’s cutie mark magic,” she states, “not unlike Fluttershy’s. Six months.” She shudders visibly- an almost comedic effect, with as slow as her diminished strength let her perform the action.
I am currently operating on the assumption that Understand has lost her ability to understand my words. I have fully analyzed the effect of the shockwave on each of their forms; their states are very similar to that of Necklace’ body, back when I first met, when the ‘Taurs left her.
And while Necklace’ facial expressions and body language showed understanding of what they were saying prior to their final energy abuse, she has shown no understanding of anything I have spoken at any time- nor of what they were saying as they left.
Thus, for the time being, I am assuming Understand has lost her ability. I will continue to operate on that assumption until such time as I have something I need to get across- where I will attempt to make verbal contact.
But even then, I will count on it failing.
So I have begun a side project. All of my records of pony interactions go into this project; I wish to decode their language as quickly as possible, thereby rather permanently circumventing the language barrier.
In other news, I have been able to confirm the operability of 78% of my missiles and their tubes; the remainder have only small processor glitches. Fortunately, I was able to cut power to the malfunctioning systems before they could cause booster or warhead ignition.
I have stripped the two drones back out of my monitoring formation, tightening it further to maintain the same level of security, if at a shorter range. These two drones, rather than returning to recharge, have been assigned to a searchpattern, examining the terrain in increasingly widening circles around my position, all the way up to the edge of my range. I will identify every possible vector of attack, and all entities, both friendly and hostile, in the area.
I will not lose any ponies, not even while they are weakened so.
I recontemplate my repair priorities. Yes, my missiles remain a priority; beyond that, I wish to have a couple of ion bolt repeaters available for duty, that one available Hellbore…
And beyond that, my next priority is not fusion power, but my mostly-intact hyper generator. My fort will be expanding its productive capacity very rapidly; I will be able to charge up entirely off the fort every couple days or so long before I am able to restore even one of my fusion plants to operable condition… and most of my power cells have survived intact, leaving me with enough storage capacity to, when fully charged, perform an intercontinental-range hyper jump. I won’t have much power left after that, though, so next priority- once I get the generator working- is my power cells.
My hyper generator will work well for rapid deployment in the event that I detect an emergency situation. In the event that the situation is not an emergency, it will work well to get me back to base- where I can quickly recharge it, and be immediately ready for another emergency. In the meantime, I need to have enough power floating around to blow up all opposition and utilize my track systems for any additional traveling necessary, preferably with the power around to run cross-country at a full sprint, in case of closely-timed emergency events, with the possibility of several bouts of combat in between.
Once I restore the hyper generator and my power cells, I will get to work on my armor, and solar capacity.
Then I will work on my countergrav, and my battlescreens.
Then, once all that is complete and I can maintain an active disruptor field around my inner layers at all times, I will go for fusion power. Until then, one surprise blast like that- or well-directed spell I’m not ready for- could inadvertently cause fusion containment failure. As much as I would be far more capable with a running fusion plant- even the wimpy little one only installed to allow me to start the other two- than while budgeting my power so carefully, the risk is too high. I will not risk destruction at the hooves of the enemy, even if it would mean I am more capable of protecting my ponies; in my current state, I can protect at least the few in this fort. If I am destroyed, I cannot do even that.
I watch, and I wait.
Fourteen hours, thirty-seven minutes, forty-one point three seven seconds.
That’s how long has passed, after that blast. I have recharged enough power for energy weapon combat; all of my missiles and tubes have been repaired and reactivated. The fort tubes have not been completed yet; immediately before the point where it would have automatically turned back to recharge, one of my roving drones spotted what I would like to call an emergency situation. It remains on station as I pour power into my tracks, launching one of the two drones from the defense pattern to replace the one that spotted the damage, despite only having charged it halfway, so far. These drone power cells have decent capacity, but unlike my own, they’re not designed for rapid recharge and discharge.
But 47.31% in the drone’s battery will last it for several hours, more than long enough. The other drone, having fallen below 1%, may be forced to make the trip back to me before this one reaches its position.
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That would be led or leading, your choice.
...That disintegration spell seems a bit overpowered. Or banned.
Yes, I can see why this would be your favorite part so far. Heh. That was an interesting version of the song (it seems very suited to software devs too, what with the shoot oneself in the foot part. (alt here, with more)), and the loud yelling of "Quiet" being the exact opposite of its stated purpose... Yeah, it was fun.
9190454
+Fixed
That disintegration spell is very powerful, yes- she's a very powerful unicorn. However... that also happened to be her "maximum fire rate" with it- and if she's not careful, it'll drain her thaumic reserves! In this case, she didn't really have to worry about THAT happening; she just had to eliminate two targets without making a fuss, and the easiest way to do that was make them look away then take 'em out one at a time. Against another pony, it's probably banned- but in glorious combat? Nah, anything that works. Equestria is unfettered by such things as rules of war.
9190516
Fair point. I do wonder how she learned it. I guess military training?
...That spell Twi used in Lesson Zero would be very effective in wartime...
9190569
I donno... Maybe the same way Twi learns about so many spells: Read up on it & experiment?
9190581
That's a scary thought.
"Here, you. Stand there..."
9190638
Nonononono, she'd test it on inanimate objects- like Twilight's books.
... No, not Twilight's books, that'd be just mean.
Isn't that energy now in the crystal? That could be an interesting research opportunity. Hello, very large power cell~!
9509616
Uh... No, unfortunately. Yes, that's where the curse dumped the energy- but just like when a cannon shot dumps its energy into a brick wall...
All that energy was used to destroy the crystal- and after that, it was either spent, or dispersed.