Chapter 42 - Lyra Machine and Tool
Speed rushed ahead,at least three rockets and a balefire egg reached the monstrosity first. They detonated against the things chest in a blinding flash of light which sent her flying back from her target.
Oh. So that’s why the cult was not worried. Artillery support.
As dad liked to say, it was time to de-ass the area. Unfortunately, I had to turn towards the explosions. Great.
I pushed against the ground with all my might, did my best to ignore the eldritch abomination from Tartarus just slightly left of where I was running towards and raced for the mirror-bubble. The clatter of my hooves on the decaying asphalt was lost amid the gunfire, rocket launches, and explosions. They made it almost impossible to concentrate on focusing my will on shielding myself from what was to come.
I was fairly certain that my new merged form would survive encountering the silvery barrier in front of me. Not completely, just fairly.
There was still the chance I would d—
A rocket detonated behind me, a missed shot. The blast hurtled me forwards, head over hooves through the barrier. Pain overwhelmed me the instant I touched the silvery dome. I could feel my pelt dissolving, withering,and flaking away, even as it healed and regrew.
I grit my teeth and focused my will on holding myself together. It only slowed the process. I needed to think through the pain, to understand it.
I tried to scream to vent some of the pain and frustration, but the noise came out mangled, deep, and slow. Why? The mystical energies at play were familiar somehow. Gears had known this…
Of course! A temporal effect like the Spirit Realm. Could I control it?
I did my best to will myself to stick to one speed of time. My pelt began to drop away a piece at a time. The degradation wasn’t slowing.
I finally landed from the blast. I could see the city behind me through the dome. Everything seemed to be progressing along at hyper speed. The demon vanished in an instant, burning away with flames as colorless as anything else on the other side. Ponies moved around at the speed of Rainbow Dash, seemingly making sure it remained burning.
So that was what was happening. Time in here moved more slowly, but things which entered were not brought into the same dilated temporal region. If my machine mind and targeting systems couldn’t process fast moving objects, I would have had no idea what to do and likely would have taken centuries in here.
I couldn’t dilate myself to match the timeframe. I’d tried that and failed already. But maybe I could dilate the field to match me.
I drew on every ounce of spiritual energy stored in my being and began to shape it. I could feel power flowing from me as if I broke a hydraulic line. Without the energy from Rainbow’s sacrifice, this would have been well beyond my power to tackle. I might not even have enough power to do it as it was, but every second I could correct the dilation, the less time would pass before I could succeed from the outsider's perspective and the more time we would have to stop the Enclave.
Outside the dome I saw Dash and Desi sit to look into the dome where I’d vanished. A cultist came up to them, gave them some weapons, pointed east and then ran off.
More trouble? It mattered not. I had a mission here. I closed my eyes, reached out with my magic, and took hold of the lines of energy coming from the machine creating the mirror-dome. No artifact this powerful could be commanded to shut down by a Warlock, but, just maybe…
I leaned on the thaumic currents with all my might, pulling them down, left, and inwards. Each movement drained more and more of my power, but they did move. The dome rippled, shimmered, and seemed to groan as I pulled on the magic fuling it. Slowly, ever so slowly, the world outside began to slow.
More cultists ran by, heading the same way as the first. Why?
Oh, right. The Eye had reflected evil. They had to stop the reflection, and the source of that reflection. I mean, otherwise it would keep reflecting in the Eye, right?
With my luck it would be Uncle Gale and his murder friends. With Dash’s luck as the cherry on top, the Enclave likely knew what was here and what we were doing, too.
I gave the thaumic currents one last yank. They fell into place with a crackle and thunderous boom. The world outside moved at what seemed to be a normal-ish pace.
Not perfect, but I could get things done in here without months or even years passing outside. And too much time probably hadn't passed. Good enough.
I stood up and yelped as my pelt fell away entirely, leaving my chassis exposed. I could tell I was still me, and my systems reported my talisman was functioning fine. I could regrow it once I got a hold of some food to use as the raw materials… But it was pretty unsettling to look at myself and see the smooth white armor plates with all of the random bullet holes poked into them over the last few weeks as well as all of the upgrades poking out.
At least my crappy armor had survived. The webbing was a little ragged though… I mentaly corrected “it survived” to “it survived as a costume item”.
I frowned and hung my head a little. I’d looked pretty before I started this journey… If I survived I’d need to get mom to fix me up. Forget the five year oil change and coolant replacement. I needed a full rebuild for sure.
I turned my attention to the center of the domed area. The Lyra Machine and Tool complex lay before me. Six simple square multi-story concrete buildings and a big chain-link fence protected area where a few huge cargo wagons were parked in front of a loading dock.
If it hadn't been for the remarkable intactness of everything, it would have been just like any other ruined part of the city. Instead, some of the mint green and cream-yellow paint on the buildings was still… Well, nice looking.
I should have brought a camera.
I started to trot wards the complex and looked for a way in other than the front doors on the buildings. It didn't take long to find one. One of the loading dock’s bay doors was open. A shipment had to have been being delivered when the bombs dropped. An easy way in.
I started to run, which was easier said than done without my pelt. It was a little bit more than decorative like I’d thought before. With my newly expanded knowledge I understood it served a dual purpose of disguise and additional cooling surface. While my flank and ear radiators could keep me working for the most part, the pelt’s skin connected to those radiators at many micro-valves and much like an organic's skin, helped to shed excess heat rapidly.
Which meant I had to stop my run after a hundred yards and settle on a jog. The jog turned to a walk as I passed through the chain link fence via a nice rust hole. The shipping yard was weirdly clean. Sure there were bits of old paper laying about, and the wagons were obviously left where they had been, but I couldn't see a single crate, tool, or any other useful object lying around anywhere.
Nopony could have gotten in here to loot anything. The time dilation alone would have killed them. Aren't loading docks usually full of tools? Dollys, warehouse loaders, crowbars, hammers, everything you needed to move, open, or close shipping crates.
Where was everything?
I began to step a little lighter and double checked my battle saddle. If the time bubble preserved the packing paper I was stepping over, it might have preserved anypony or anything which had been here when it was turned on… After all, Dash turned this on. She’d gotten out somehow. Probably by being the only pony to work out where to download a speed-hack for reality.
Yeah… Relocated goods that were of no immediate survival value. Ponies probably lived here.
I crept up to the open bay door and leaned just enough to look past the gray cinder block wall into the dark interior. I could see… nothing. Not one thing. Not even shelves. There were floor brackets for shelves to be bolted down, but no shelves, nor even bolts which might have secured them.
Okay. Yeah. Nope.
I bent down and put my battle saddle’s bit in my mouth so I could be ready to fire at a moment’s notice. Let’s make this quick. Ponies are certainly here, and desperate for metal for some reason. That would be fine, were I not made of metal.
I spent a minute looking for any stairs. Dash’s plan had mentioned the loading dock… Yes that’s there the secret entrance to the MoA lab was. Where was it again?
I closed my eyes and played back my memory. A thing I should have remembered I could do in the past, except back then I was a total sillyfilly who did her best to not be the badflank robot she was.
“... the stairs going from the dock’s unloading floor to the store room level… a hidden stairwell inside the stairs “ Dash’s words replayed for me, crystal clear and precise.
We’re never forgetting anything ever again, me. There are things a good robot should do to be more like a pony, but forgetting stuff is not one of them. We’re not going to be a hyper-derp like every robopone in fiction and insist on perfectly mimicking ponies.
I turned my attention to the room once more. The unloading level clearly had shelves, but it couldn’t be the storage area. Stairs had to lead up to the storage area.
I ran my eyes along the walls for a moment until I spotted them. The warehouse was split-level with most of the storage on a section about two meters above the loading dock for… some stupid reason. Why make ponies have to carry heavy things up stairs? Fortunately I could see the stairs from here. Unfortunately they were at an angle to me and it was very dark in the warehouse, so I couldn’t see if they were blocked off or covered by anything. But I could check for security devices.
I closed my eyes and did my best to sense any machine spirits in the room byond the bay doors. Nothing. I gave things a quick look to make sure there wasn’t anything shielded, then slowly crept out of hiding and quietly trotted across the empty room.
It took me a minute of slow, careful, quiet trotting, but I made it the twenty yards to the stairs where a major problem was waiting for me.
Dash had given me instructions on how to open the hidden entrance in the stairs. That entrance was already open. The stairs folded down in the center to form a one-pony wide stairwell going down instead of going up, and the entrance had been jammed open with a scrap piece of I-beam.
Poneis differently lived here.
I had no choice. I had to proceed. Fate of the world depended on it.
I climbed down the stairs into the dark stairwell. The air was strangely humid, and cold. Well, cool. My systems told me the lab below was 21 degrees, and about 63% humidity. Pre-war that would have been a very damp, sticky, fur-washingley moist day with a bit of a chill… Like spring just after winter.
Nopony liked feeling damp all day, let alone kinda cold. Why would anypony set climate controls to this? It had to be climate controls too. I could hear air flowing and fans humming in the darkness beyond the stairwell. This did not bode well...
I reached the bottom of the stair sand felt my snoot bump against a cold metal door. Hoping the noise didn’t alert anyone or anything, I carefully felt around for a handle or button to open the door. Eventually they found it, a small square panel next to the door. A green light illuminated as my hoof touched the panel, followed by a red light which cast a ray across me, momentarily let me see the MoA seal printed on the door.
Kingdom of Equestria Ministry of Awesome Extra-Territorial Operations Headquarters
TOP SECRET CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR ENTRY
OS-SAP III CLEARANCE REQUIRED FOR ENTRY
Trespassers will be executed by site security without trial.
Vigilo Confido
Well, at least this was the right pla—
“Welcome back, Ministry Mare,” A pre-recorded macho and gravelly stallion’s voice announced as the door hissied open, shattering all hope of stealth.
“Well buck me right in the plot,” I grumbled to myself around the saddle’s control arm.
Shame I couldn’t control the shotgun without this dumb thing…
The hallway in front of me screamed “science lab”. Big square tile floors, all white of course. Simple stainless steel trimmed cinder block walls, also white, with a big yellow stripe along the middle of each wall occasionally punctuated with big glass windows looking into dozens of little labs, each with its own security door.
It was exactly what I thought Equestrian science labs were like when I was avoiding listening to my fighting parents yelling about weather or not to leave Zebrica for Equestria. If I’d been able to regenerate my pelt the fur on the back of my neck would have stood on end. The only thing missing was random announcements about various exparim—
Three short musical notes played out on chimes over the intercom before the same digitized voice spoke once more. “Internal Security is detecting Unauthorized Persons within Lab A. Researchers are advised to remain clear of Lab A.”
My eyes dilated. I took a step back from the door, ready to bolt. Unfortunately for me, the world, was actually, at stake.
I gulped, took a moment to steel myself then trotted through the open doors. Lab A was on my immediate left. Unlike the other labs it had no window, just the door. The open door. While Dash had said not to go into it without her, she’d also probably not realized there was sompony in here.
From what I could see, Lab A was smallish. Maybe the size of a big living room. I could just poke my head in and see who was in there. They couldn’t have left. I’d have seen them. I’d poke my head in, blast them with my shotgun if I had to, then leave.
Nothing else.
I poked my head into Lab A. The room was lined with work benches covered in all kids of incredibly advanced looking tech I couldn’t even begin to identify. Most of it was made from a shiny silvery metal, some with a polished finish, some with a matter or textured finish, but all looked like it belonged to a set.
Interesting as that was, there was nopony in the lab. There was however another door at the far side of the lab that led to a staircase going down. I frowned around my saddle’s control bit. Dash had said Lab A was huge. It had to be a series of rooms, or maybe this was an annex and there was a main section down the stairs.
I looked back to the items laid out on benches where workers had been attending to them before the war. Nothing looked like it was an active hazard. No gas, sparks, or eerie sounds like an overloading spark battery. The dangerous artifacts must be in the main chamber. I should still peek inside to see what I was dealing with. After all if I didn’t and got blindsided by three mares with miniguns mid-mirror disarming that would be the end of me.
I took a few steps into the Lab’s outer room and began to slowly make my way to the second door and the staircase. As I moved I could see more of the workbenches. This wasn’t a prototyping lab, this was a reverse engineering lab. Every scrap of paper was documenting a part of the device and how it functioned, or trying to work out what the device was.
Strange. Must be some advanced Zebrican totems, or maybe this was captured Neighponese technology. Zebrica had captured a lot of Neighponese military hardware… right? I think so. Those memories came from Jasmine and like all organic memory was fuzzy.
I was nearly to the door when I noticed one particular device had a little light on the side that was lit up green. I closed my eyes for a moment, let out a worried sigh, and decided to give it a look before I looked down the stairs. After all, it could be an armed explosive of some kind with the detonator on whoever was in the main lab section.
The device looked similar to a pipbuck in a few ways. It had a small screen, a few tactical controls, notably a dial and three buttons. There was a slot on the top for what I assumed was either a data-matrix crystal or a holotape cartridge. The only difference was it was a simple flat rectangle that would fit into the frog of your hoof nicly rather than something to wear on a leg.
A note sat next to it, along with a simple black plastic rectangle with a few metal contacts on one side. I made sure to quickly read the note.
Tofu, I know you can contact Miss Dash via her red line. I’ve gone to look for you. If you get back before I find you, you need to call Miss Dash immediately. I’ve gotten this device to work. It is not a simple dictation machine. It is a translation matrix. It listens to us and learns our language to a small degree. I listened to the first data-crystal in the stack and Miss Dash will want to hear this immediately. This crystal contains mission data. Exactly what they were doing is still unclear because the device can’t translate their language to Equish completely yet, but you can pick up some very important things. It also provides text translations. We could use it to determine what each control on other devices is for. As in, we could do that right now.
- Doctor Bright
Translation matrix? Neat! I grinned to myself and began to take a few more steps to the door, then stooped, hesitated, and looked back at the data-crystal.
Yeah, not knowing what this stuff was was going to bother me… I sighed and did my best to remember I could just ask Rainbow in a few minutes… But then it occurred to me that if this note was still here, the researchers evacuated on the last day. Rainbow wouldn’t have been told anything about this note. This was something she did not know.
And something I could totally learn right now. Something which would explain where all these tools were from and—
The fact that these weapons matched the description of the Star Blaster and Desi’s rifle, as well as her belt, hit me like a ton of bricks.
She said she was from the future… Were these future pony tools? Jasmine believed her explanation of time travel was horseapples. I could learn where her stuff came from right now. This was an internal security problem. I had to know.
Keeping my eyes on the door leading to Lab A’s stairs, I backed up until I could reach the translator and slipped the crystal into the slot. The device chirped. Its screen glowed faintly and displayed some words in a runic language I simply could not read.
So I pushed buttons. Each button made the device chirp and changed the screen. After a half dozen presses I grumbled under my breath. “Come on you stupid thing.”
The runic language instantly changed to Equish, at least, some of it did. One part of the screen was the word play in a square of purple light, and some of the other words were numbers strung together like an index or identification tag.
On a whim I fiddled with the buttons until the largest number was highlighted on the screen, and after a minute of bucking about discovered you could touch the screen itself and make the device chirp weirdly, so I pressed the word play with my nose hoping it worked like the runes on a messenger gem.
It did! The device began to play a recording of a deep, gravelly voice. Speaking incredibly broken Equish.
“Leader’s fallen-tree, romantic evening beneath the stars forty-three thousand nine hundred ninety-six-point-two. The transportation has undiscovered the location of itself due to damage accepted within the boundaries of the prior wedding proposal. The group containing myself and the others have the sole option of constructing a danger arrival. The assistance conjurer has been defenestrated and should shout for assistance within some time. Shields are stuck in the down position due to a pseudo-scientific problem. The group containing myself and the others may not survive a dangerous arrival. Willpower-supply positive probability. End fallen-tree.”
I blinked several times. “Wut?”
I understood just enough of that message to know it was saying something important, but the rest was just so much confusion. How does pseudo-science lead to an inability to hold up a shield?
I stared at the device for a moment, wondering if I could risk the time to play it again. My left ear twitched as the sound of rubber on metal echoed up from the stairwell. Somepony was coming up!
I quietly set the device down on the counter and began to back up, doing my best to walk quietly and time my steps to those coming up the stairs.
Click, click. Click, click. One, two. One, two.
The rhythm was all wrong. I couldn’t move quickly to its steps. Whatever was coming up wasn’t a pony. It had to be a biped of some kind. The cult had access to minotaur weapons, maybe a minotaur? Or perhaps a younger dragon who could still fit in the building?
My heart skipped several beats as I realised I was technically underground. Hellhounds could have dug their way into the lab! I’d hate to have to hurt one.
I was halfway to the door when a red light began to flood the stairwell, casting long shadows which stretched out the doorway from me. Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to sneak out into the hallway before it reached the top of the stairs.
Fight or run?
If I shoot here, I risk hitting one of the artifacts Dash said are very dangerous. If I run, I have to fight it later. Ponies are fast, Hellhounds are faster, Minotaurs are great shots, and there’s a good chance a dragon small enough to be in a pony building could fly.
Fight.
I braced myself, took aim at the door, and prepared to fire.
The light grew brighter as the source approached. The color shifted, turning pinkish as a yellow glow was added to the mix. If the thing walked on four legs the glow would have matched a unicorn’s aura. But it wasn’t a unicorn. Or anything else I’d thought of.
The creature finally ascended the stairs enough for me to see it properly. It was a biped, but short, kinda hunched, and oddly shaped. Like a pear with legs, a head, and narrow shoulders. It was clad in a sleek, mirror polished, suit of armor made from the same silvery metal that either artifacts in the room were made from. Beneath the plates of armor was a simple gray jumpsuit, and between the cloth and the metal I could see the wires, rods, and servo links of some sort of robotic exoskeleton.
The creature’s face was hidden behind an angular helmet with a golden visor. It had a pair of gauntlets which made its taloned hands seem skeletal. One of them held a boxy-looking pistol fashioned from a gray metal with an underslung red flashlight. The other hand held a large bronze xiphos of minotaur design based on the runes set in it and the fact it was glowing with an angry blue light.
I’d heard about minotian power weapons. That was one. We’d made the power fist using the same magic. That was bad. Even worse was the creature was wrapped within a magical shield of golden shimmering light.
I fired my shotgun. A full meter of fire belched from the barrel as the buckshot streaked forth to make the unknown thing just go away. I saw the shield spark white as the lead shot disintegrated against it. Not a flicker, not a wobble, just some sparks.
“I am become error,” I whispered to myself in terror as it leveled its gun.
The creature emitted a burst of static followed by a modulated voice. “Encountered an unknown Zebrican robot. Eliminating.”
I turned and began to run. A bolt of white light lanced past my left ear with a sound like an electric hawk’s cry, and vaporised a hoof-sized hole in the concrete in front of me.
Whatever that ray had been, it was absurdly hot. Might even be a heat-based laser weapon. I could have looked at the concrete to see if it was glowing to verify that. Instead I took off down the hall deeper into the lab.
That was likely the wrong decision… But I didn’t fancy my chances doding fire by zig-zagging up stairs.
I duck and wove as I sprinted down the hall, looking for the mirror lab. If I could destroy the mirror before the creature killed me that would be enough. Vinyl was dead. I could join her if I could bring the mirror’s barrier dow—
Another bolt of white light blasted past me and exploded a chunk of the floor. This time I could see glowing red concrete around the rim of the crater. Yep. Heat-ray.
I looked to my left, the labs were all labeled with letters. Nothing with words or names. Had Dash forgotten the letter? I’d have to look through the windows too—
Another beam sliced through my left foreleg, melting some of the armor plating but leaving the inner workings undamaged.
I didn’t have time for this! I had to take down the dome! Rainbow couldn’t enter until the dome was—
There! To my left! A lab containing a single full length mirror atop a large platform of silver, brass, and gold, connected to the mechanism by a ton of glowing blue wires.
I spun to race into the lab only to realise the door was closed, and the panel next to it was lit up red. Locked.
Would the pin work? Probably but there was no time to be scanned!
I took aim at the lab’s window, doing my best to not point in the direction and fired two shots. The round shit the window and spiderwebbed the bullet proof glass…
“Luna’s motherbucking tits! OF COURSE IT’S BALLISTIC GLASS!” I shouted at myself rather than the window.
Well, that was it. No more time. I would be shot now. If only I still had my LAERS. They’d probably overload that shield fast enough to save me. I couldn’t dodge easily in this open hallway. I’d bucked up too badly to recover.
I’d failed.
Everypony was doomed.
I deserved this.
I closed my eyes to wait for the next shriek and the blinding pain it would bring.
The creature spoke again. “Robot, who programmed you to swear?”
I frowned and opened my eyes slowly. “I’m not a robot. I’m a—”
I stopped myself from saying warlock just in time to realise that would probably be a bad idea. ThHis thing knew what Zebrican robotics looked like.
“Cyborg?” The creature asked.
Why wasn’t it shooting me?
“Technically, yes,” I replied.
The creature adjusted its aim, clearly deciding to shift from center mass to my head. “Explain the technicality.”
“Uhhh… Necromancy was used to put a soul into this platform,” I answered half-truthfully.
“Who are you?” the creature asked. “Name. Nationality. Military unit.”
“I’m actually just a post mare,” I answered reflexively. “My name is Whirling Gears, I was built in Equestria pre-war and I was born to immigrants too so I guess I’m technically an Equestrian citizen, but I work for the Kingdom of Lith. Um, and I also live there. It’s where the Crystal Empire was.”
The Creature lowered its weapon slightly. “A post mare?”
“Yes… But I’m currently helping Rainbow Dash because she needed a mechanical person to get in here to unplug that mirror so she could get back in.”
I looked at the creature, trying to see what its reaction would be. The body language was… alien.
“Four years and people are already making new nations…” The creature muttered to itself.
“Huh? Um, no. It’s been ten years since Pip fired the gardens,” I answered.
The creature stepped back, seemingly in surprise. “Excuse me, ten?”
“Yes,” I nodded, cleared my throat, then pointed one hoof at the creature. “Now if you don’t mind, WHAT THE BUCK ARE YOU?!”
“I’m a unicorn,” the creature answered, still sounding shaken. “Has it really been ten—”
I shook my head slowly. “No, you can’t be a unicorn. Not unless someone else stole mom’s research too… Which since Sparkle Cola stole it somehow I guess is plausible? Nice to meet a fellow brain-bucket.” I said and did my best to smile friendly to not be shot.
An act which was probably very creepy without my pelt. Dammit...
“Huh?” the creature said-asked. “What? Oh… No, this is a costume I beefed up because, you know. Apocalypse! Might as well dress how you want.”
I raised an eyebrow… Or at least I activated the circuit to do so. I wasn't sure if I had mechanical actuators for that or if it was current based.
“What?”
“Take the battle saddle bit out of your mouth and I’ll show you,” the creature said.
Remembering I had plasma pistols in my forelegs I could use for a single desperate shot, I nodded and let go of my saddle’s trigger.
The creature holstered its pistol in a thigh holster, dismissed its sword’s enchantment before sheathing it on its back, then bent forwards. Its exoskeleton clicked and hummed loudly as it reconfigured shape. The creature's hands folded up into simple hoof-boots as it touched the ground, clearly now in an equoid stance. Then its helmet’s visor retracted to reveal a pair of golden eyes and filthy mint-green fur.
“See?” the creature, or rather unicorn, said in a voice that was definitely a mare’s now that it wasn’t modulated by the helmet. “The exoskeleton lets me walk upright as long as I want and also triples my strength. Neat, huh?”
I blinked twice. “I’m sorry but… Why?”
“Because I can and have all the time in the world and supplies to tinker with. Obviously,” she huffed. “Look, can you prove you’re here with Rainbow Dash? If you are, I’ll help with whatever she needs. She sort of put that shield up and bolted with my wife and I still in the office.”
I shook my head, reeling from that little anvil of knowledge. “Oh holy buck the time dilation…”
I looked back up as quickly as I could. “How long has it been for you?”
“Time dilation?” the mare asked, cocking her head slightly.
“Yeah. The shield had a temporal effect. Rainbow thought it was a death-effect but what was really happening is anything passed through aged to death in milliseconds. I was able to process events fast enough to correct the dilation before my systems failed and—”
I stopped talking, thought for a second then facehoovd. “Oh my, Luna… I could have walked out and had her come in right away… I fixed the problem… Aside from the shield being a portal.” I coughed and lowered my hoof. “We should shut it down anyways. It sort of makes portals to Tartarus randomly… Also it’s been about 216 years since the war.”
The mare sputtered, her eyes nearly popping out. “WHAT?! Two centuries?! I— But— No! No it’s fine. That means everything’s back to normal and this is some weird relic, right? Good! I can just… go get to have a normal life. Good.”
“Not really no,” I said apologetically. “Uh… There’s a few small nations, and mine is hopefully going to start the first real rebuilding effort soon with help from Los Pegasus. Maybe. Not sure. I haven't been paying attention to that. I’m supposed to be delivering a book. Like I said, I’m a post mare.”
The mare took a deep breath, then sighed. “I’ll process that later. Right now, more important stuff. Can you or can you not prove you’re here working with Rainbow?”
I attempted to raise an eyebrow again. “Wait, if you’re pre-war why don’t you call her Ministry Mare Dash?”
She snorted and smiled enough for me to see the corners of her mouth past her helmet’s chin guard. “Please, we go way back and the country she was in charge of exploded.”
“Way back?”
She nodded once. “Mhm. We went to Canterlot University together. I helped her study for her weather pony licence. She did a Rainboom for my wedding, and she’ll totally deny it but she was also in my book club.”
“Oh,” I said with a little frown as I processed everything. “So, you were from Ponyville?”
“Yep! I imagine that’s one of the few places still standing, right? No strategic value. That’s why they put stable 2 in Sweet Apple Acres… Do they still make Zap Apple Cider? The Everfree must have survived too, so you should be able to still get them.”
I shrugged. “I have no idea, uh… What’s your name?”
She blinked then laughed. “Sorry, thought it was obvious. I’m Lyra Heartstrings, welcome to my factory.”
I sat down and put my head in my hooves.
Lyra took a step forward. “Are… are you okay?”
“You’re alive.” I said flatly.
“Yes. Why?” she groaned sadly. “Did one of my company’s products do something horrible in the wasteland? Buck me with a wine bottle…”
“Probably,” I muttered as I did my best to hold in a sobbing fit. “But… I— I was traveling with Vinyl Scratch.”
Lyra froze. “Excuse me?”
“She’d survived as a ghoul… Uh… balefire zombie. She was sane. Not feral. She wanted to apologize to you… but… she died a few days ago…” I said just before failing to hold back the tears any longer.
I cried for a few minutes before I felt an armored pair of legs pull me close in a hug. “Hey… It’s okay. Everypony dies. Zombie, huh? Heh… Guess it’s good she didn’t invite us to the Stable.”
I took a deep breath and collected myself. “I— I’ll tell you everything later. Right now, all you need to know is that Rainbow needs that shield down so she can get in here and use a control center to shut down a megaspell some very very bad people took over that can actually destroy the planet by firing asteroids into it… And… And Vinyl was killed by them with it. Took out a whole city.”
“Uhhh… I’ve been here for four years, broke into the MoA lab after two weeks looking for food,” Lyra said slowly with a very worried expression on her face. “I’ve never seen any control room for a super weapon.”
“It’s probably hidden somewhere. Fake wall,” I muttered. “Look, let’s just unplug that mirror.”
“Or, you could press that MoA pin on your collar and let me talk to Rainbow… I don’t think you’re a very sophisticated robot. You’re definitely a pony, so I believe you a little bit. But I still want to talk to her before letting you go.” Lyra said in no uncertain terms.
I winced. “Uh, well… I’m a Zebra, actually.”
Lyra snorted dismissively. “One who was born here. Just because I am— Uh, was, a defense contractor, doesn’t mean I’m racist. You’re one of us, not one of the Empire.”
“Oh, good,” I sighed in relief due to her only being a nationalist. “Also the pin has a privacy charm. You couldn’t hear her if I used it.”
Lyra gave me a deadpan stare. “Did… Did she not tell you how to use conference mode?”
I frowned. “Conference mode?”
“Double tap it and everypony in two meters can hear and speak. I manufactured those for her,” Lyra said with surprising politeness.
I closed my eyes tightly. “First my saddle has an auto-loader, and now this. I really wish people would tell me these things!”
I tapped the pin twice. “Rainbow? It’s—”
“BUCK!” Rainbow’s voice shrieked through the pin. “Bad timing! It’s the Battle of Emerald Jungle up here right now! GET THAT SHIELD DOWN!”
“It’s safe to enter now,” I explained quickly. “It wasn’t a death effect. It was warping time so much that people would age to death instantly on entering. I fixed that. I can take it down still, and I will, but you can enter now, and please do, because there’s a mare here with a very nasty gun who seems like she’s friendly now but might still kill me if—”
“Hey, Dash! The Hoofhand Gauntlets work awesome. You owe me ten bits,” Lyra said loudly.
“The buck?” Dash murmured quietly. “That sounds like… Lyra? Did— Did you make one of those neural prototype things and somehow back yourself up on—”
“Nope, time dilation. Apparently. Octavia’s fine too. We were in here when you set up the shield. My office’s safe room was a good shelter.” Lyra said with a laugh. “So what’s this about a battle up there?”
“I’ll tell you shortly,” Rainbow shouted, took a breath, then groaned. “Buck that grazed me… Gears, we’ll take the bubble down later since you made it safe to enter. The Enclave is here in full force. They somehow know about the HQ. I’ll be right there, with some help. Vinyl made it! She showed up with a cyber hippogriff… Also your moms here with a bunch of robot… zombie… uh, junk golems. Oh, and Ribbon’s defected. It’s been a weird hour.”
Hour? Okay, guess I didn’t fix the dilation completely. Wait did— “My mom?!” I sputtered.
“Yeah. Over and out,” Rainbow said unhelpfully.
I spent several long moments staring at the wall trying to process how, why, when, and what my mom was doing here of all times and places.
As I stared down the hall, I saw a middle aged cream-colored mare poke her head out from the entrance to Lab A. She had a two tone pink and blue mane that was starting to go just a bit gray. Consistent with any mare in her 60s.
“Oh, thank goodness. You disabled it,” she said with a relieved look.
Lyra turned around. “No, but it’s okay. It’s a friendy cyberpony. Probably a MAS project, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, my mom is Black Swan.”
And she’s here. For… why? … processing...
I stood bolt upright. “I need to make sure she’s okay! She’s not well! Like, off-in-the-head not well!”
The older mare eeped and pulled back into the lab.
Lyra called out. “It’s okay she’s here with Rainbow. There’s a battle outside though so get in the ship!”
My ears perked up. “Ship?”
“Oh, thank goodne— Battle?! Lyra get your butt in here with me!” the mare yelled with worry. Then a fraction of a second later added, “And take that ridiculous thing off!”
“No!” Lyra countered like a foal. “Rainbow will need somepony to help her make the doors seal again.”
“Excuse me but what ship?” I asked, confused even more but also kind of hopeful I might get to shoot Gale with a ship’s main gun. “We’re not near water. Is it like a training ship down here or something? Like the flood control room simulator back in—”
Lyra rolled her eyes. “The alien spaceship that crashed her like forever ago and the MoA stole all of their cool stuff from by making nerds help reverse engineer it for free via their TV show. Really, you should go to more Conspiracy Cons.”
My jaw dropped. “W— What? T— The RMSE Protector is real?!”
“Yeah. Since all the actors were MoA Agents they shot some scenes in the ship. There were still lighting rigs in it when Bon and I moved in.”
“IT’S JUST DOWN THOSE STAIRS?!” I shrieked at roughly 3.4 kilofanfillies worth of volume.
“Always has been,” Lyra laughed.
As I tried to process that Lyra gave me a little push. “Heh! I’ll bet you also don’t believe in the Little Gray Mares. Go help your mom get here safe then you’ll get to see everything. We’ll be able to hold up in there for a very long time so it will be our fallback point. I’ve been fixing it for the last four years. Bonbon and I were going to try and escape in it. We figured the planet would be pretty bucked up so, you know. Moon.”
I felt the most amazingly potent wave of confusion hit me like a truck. I just stood there, processing everything in circles, only able to agree with Dash that this was the weirdest hour of all time until suddenly I was on my back with a very weirdly lucid mom hugging the crap out of me and yelling something.
“WHIRLING GEARS, WHAT IN THE WORLD DID YOU DO TO YOUR POOR LEGS?! IS THAT STEEL RANGER ARMOR YOU'VE WELDED TO YOURSELF?! DO YOU WANT TO GIVE YOUR POOR MOTHER A HEART ATTACK?! WELL TOUGH TEATS! I’M NOT PUTTING A HEART BACK INTO MY BODY!”
Mom was observing a change to the environment?!
What even is today?
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The answer is that today is the Best Day, Gears.
...
Wooo!
Heee!
Poor Gears, she is so confused right now. Also, the gang is back together again! I love Gears's last line at the end of the chapter, so funny.
Few story make me laugh you have done well but! Dont think you can stop now just becus you did it once the secent time will be much harder.
Wonderful chapter! Poor Gears is now a candidate for the Utah Home for the Terminally Bewildered...
Hey Meep:
A few minor corrections:
"...Poneis differently lived here." This should be '...Ponies Definitely lived here...'
Vigilo Confido: Watch Trust... Humm... Trusted Watcher? Vigilance in Confidence? Confident Vigilance? Why does Latin have to be so hard?
"...Hoping the noise didn’t alert anyone or anything, I carefully felt around for a handle or button to open the door. Eventually they found it, a small square panel next to the door. " Shouldn't that be: '...carefully felt around with my hooves for a handle...'??? The only other logical thing would be Gears using the snout she just bumped into the door with to find it, and that's silly.
Oh, and there is no mention why Gears cannot see... she has cybernetic eyes and her eyes are not really confined to the visible spectrum, or are they? If they are, I suggest a 'mental note to self' about having Mom upgrade her eyes. If not, then you might have Gears speculate that something is draining energy in the surrounding area, mostly in the visible spectrum, perhaps as a concealment device? If she can't see in the visible, then either there is none, or it's being drained away somehow. But that don't make much sense since she finds the door panel and it lights up green.
Wait... "...Nope, time dilation. Apparently. Octavia’s fine too. We were in here when you set up the shield. My office’s safe room was a good shelter..." of whom Lyra mentions as her wife, yet later... "...Bonbon and I were going to try and escape in it..."
Octavia was Vinyl's wife. Bonbon is Lyra's. Are both alive and well there? Or, is the Octavia reference meant to be Bonbon?
Rainbow's condensed 'what's happened recently' report only fails to mention Speedy. Ribbon, Ribbon... Ribbon Loom? Oh, right, Miz Tank Gurl. That took me a few minutes to remember who was who. :) You might want to expand that bit a little....
"...Oh, and Ribbon’s defected. It’s been a weird hour..." Perhaps something like: '... Oh, and Ribbon's defected to our side. It's been a weird hour...'
Other than those minor hiccups, a VERY GOOD chapter Meep!!
I can't wait to see Mom fixing Gears, fixes and upgrades! Mom's meeting Desi, who'd just die to help Mom, and learn more Science! "Cuz, Science!" hehehe. Desi's ability to speak binary might just surprise Mom, and impress her enough to take Desi as an assistant, and/or adopt the adorable Taco-loving filly as Gears' sister.
I wonder if Lyra, pre-war, installed anti-air defenses in her complex. If so, the Enclave would be pretty much 'bucked' when the shield goes down. Although, Rainbow had better be inside if that's the case, or she'll be screaming as she reassembles herself from being blown to bits by said anti-air cannons once she's on the ground.
Hehehe... I STILL love: "Caloric Energy Levels Low, Insert Taco." (grins and giggles) I was out with friends last wensday to play Euchre and got to use that phrase on my friends. You should have seen the looks I got! ;) Too bad the bar we were playing in didn't serve tacos... I had to have a burger instead.
Keep at it Meep! I'm loving this story!
Rhymer, the Frank Pony
Lyra and Bonbon are alive!
Also SPACESHIP
I hope we get to see the battle over the last hour, Now that all party members are here, its time to face some baddies
Gears not only made it, but managed to analyze and reajust the mirror effect while being affected by it? Thats some serious overclock.
And Lyra is wearing Master chiefs helmet while sitting on top of the Quest. Because of course there has to be a Glimmer of hope in how long things have taken, even if it requires a causal loop from an unknown future reality?
Its best day today Gears, cos your mom sorted out that all her todays were yesterday, and that fixed the index lockup loop. Now she is running all the updates and is very, very annoyed.
Now Black Swan has access to Lyras Alienware Rig.
This gonna be good.
Probably a Tuesday
10466254 Never could get the hang of Tuesdays.
PHHHFFAHHAHA! If only you knew, Lyra. If only you knew.
I do love the new, lucid Dr. Swan.
<3
You know, considering that the EQG mirror portal is the power source, the shield being a temporal problem feels like it should have been more obvious to me in hindsight.
It's the least convenient development, so that's probably what's happening.
Interesting. With the time dilation, they could have been in here for a relativistic very long time.
The full merger has brought a pretty impressive improvement in robotic pony efficiency.
Maybe not ponies.
A translation matrix? Translation from what?
Oh my, it's an alien tech reverse engineering lab. Could be some useful tech in here.
Magic, I bet.
A biped? Well great, the alien reverse engineering lab had alien crash survivors.
Wait, what? That doesn't sound like an alien survivor whose technical analysis called magic pseudoscience.
Neither does this person talking about Zebrican robots.
Ahh, there we go. No Gears death today, probably.
Oh shit, it's Lyra.
Yeah, that's an understandable reaction.
Most likely, but that's an unrelated issue.
Nice, Octavia too. Might make for a bit of a love triangle, but everyone has to be alive for that, or at least alive or undead, so it's nice that it's possible.
Bad surprises and good surprises. Good on Dash for succinctly communicating all of those details.
Ship?
Hundreds of years later and Bon Bon is still anti-fun.
That would be fun.
Neat.
A good day.
Well, with Dash's rundown of just what Star Drop is and what it was supposed to do, I guess we can forgive her if her Project turned out to be 220% cooler... or, at least more destructive.
Good thing about dropping rocks... you get all the effects of a nuclear blast (Mega Spell), without all the radiation. Same blast effect, giant vaporizing ball of flame, massive shock wave, thermal wave, etc... just NO radiation. You'd get the same effect dropping a titanium-steel telephone pole from orbit.
Dash's research crew missed a bet... You can drop ice balls too. Big ones. Ever heard of Tunguska? Makes the air blast effect over Hiroshima look positively anemic.
For 'high tech' ice balls, shape the icy mass into an aerodynamic shape and core it with a metal cylinder about 3 feet wide and 30 feet long. BLAM!... Ice explodes above the surface, flattening things, and shoving the metal 'spike' into the ground, where it 'squashes' due to kinetic forces into a molten puddle of metal. In about 4 milliseconds, the kinetic energy becomes pure heat, flashing the metal pool into a super dense, super hot plasma, that expands into the relative vacuum around it, explosively... just like a Nuke... only, neither explosion has any radiation in it.
I know, scary thoughts... but hey, I think of this kinda stuff all the time due to knowing a bit of physics, and writing Science Fiction.
slightly insane Thestral,
Rhymer, the Frank Pony
Great update! Still loving the story. Hope all is well.
10493325 It's fine :3 Just working on another fic. Editint it today, and will do anotehr chapter of this soon.
10503377
Well, at least you recognized it as a reference?
(At about 1:40)
In the end, there can be only one. Homage.
ahead, but at least
fueling
mentally
and, much like an
Ponies
Although I'm not sure what the rest of this sentence means either...
Did you mean definitely?
stairs and
experim—
somepony
stopped
dodging
Also, your mom's here
Ha. Nice callout.
And there's Portal too. Or maybe Black Mesa...
Shiiiiiiit... I know how this show ends...!
Let's see if I can parse that...
"Captain's Log, Stardate <something or other>. We are lost in space due to damage taken during <some sort of battle?>. We've launched an emergency <some sort of drone messenger, but I forget the term> and should summon help soon. Shields are down due to <a metaphysics?> problem. We may not survive a crash landing. <With luck we will?> End log.
Holy crap! That's Lyra! Aside from Black Swan, that's another person who can help rebuild, too!
That's a hell of a listing of "oh crap" factoids there...
I rolled a Nat 1 again... What's this one? Although it may also be from the original, which I've still managed to not read yet...
Huh, the weird news goes the other way too. That's quite the time for everyone to arrive!
And every time I think we've seen the end of that...
I love how that's the last straw. Really, though, that probably is the weirdest thing that could happen, given that her mom's been slightly insane for two centuries...
Also, her speech is hilarious. I really love Swan. She's a great character (probably because she IS quite a character. :P).
10503532
You made me get up and go to the door to see if my mom was there. *hrumphs*
Also, I hat ehow I do 2 drafts and spend 8 hours with an editor but there's still apparently a billion errors per chapter. It's incredibly disheartening. Like I can't do anythign right no matter how much effort goes in.
Close! It's "Captain's log, Stardate 43996.2. The ship has lost navigation due to battle damage. We will be forced to attempt an emergency landing to affect repairs. A distress beacon has been deployed and help should arrive soon. Unfortunately, we have lost shields due to extensive burn-outs within capacitors and power transmission conduits within the shield subsystem. We're unlikely to survive the landing. Wish us luck. End log."
I ran it through google translate like 8 times then back to English. Full on Darklong of the Shoe levels of Enrgish was thus obtained.
Its a thing I made up because Rainbow would have to have some military tragedy to compare things too aside form Shattered Hoof which was a massacre, not like, a clusterfuck like the IRL Battle of the Somme (1 million died in that one battle).
Thanks. This whole story exists because I came up with Swan for a FoE RP and then decided "Fuck it. Her kid's worth a book."
10503628
)
Don't feel too bad. I have to triple-edit stuff myself. Some stuff just gets by sometimes. It helps if you do your editing on different days, but then everything takes a really long time. And hey, you're clearly doing everything else right, because the story is great. (Unironically just edited for my own typo.
Oops, sorry?
10503581
I'm not sure what you meant about the original. I was mentioning several things there and I'm not sure which it applies to.
Thanks for the song link, though. It's like Santa and the M&M: "So it does exist! *faints*" :D
10503611
Did Red Alert get permission to use the actual one? Also, is all the text and description in yet another language?
I'm kinda surprised that she wasn't already playing some sort of rowdy drinking song, and he'd still reply "No, that's still too fancy, here..."
That would have really fit my mental image of the character.
I may have misplaced what reply this goes to, but it really fits on several levels that Swan used a villain's transformation sequence. Although I'm not sure if she knew that or not. Then again, given that she's objectively a little bit worrying to everyone else (What they see: Creepily, opening trenchcoat: "Hey, kid. Do you want to replace your d̡ècay͢in̛g flesh with eternal metal and wires?") I can imagine that she'd not really care about that and just appreciate the opening to use it.
Oh, that makes sense then.
Huh, that was not at all what I expected for the source of that. Although, on that note, have you ever heard the band "Gloryhammer" yet? It's a power metal band that sings about a wildly anachronistic space Scotland with wizards and dragons. I have no idea how they sing some of it without corpsing mid-song, though.
Oops, found another: Silverhawk.
Regarding the closing single quote, that's an actual grammatical rule and not just a style guideline. I even went and checked.
So that should be:
(admittedly, the FimFic editor doesn't do smart quotes, but you see that there are basically three ' marks at the end-- the single quote, and then the double quote-- because you have nested quotes.
10505861
1. My fave band
2. You get more Dash to the Stars when I get more Gloryhammer to inspire it. (It's exclusivly written to their alblums >>)
10505900
That... explains so much. Although I'd have thought this story would be, personally.
It's nice to know of another fan. :D
Are you aware of this? Someone made an 8-bit bootleg remix of most of their best songs. I'm not sure that list is inclusive of their work, but it has at least most of said remixes.
10505922 No. This story uses this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeWZ_G-c1P2YWWCQgHfvh7iZsPPYYUmwB
Put it on shuffle and just let the randomness shape the world. it's how I roll.
As for remixes... THOU SHALT NOT TOUCH GLORYHAMMER
10507077
Buuuut... give it a try? :D
They aren't remixes, really, just an instrumental version that's usually really damn good. I have both on my MP3 player (and yes, I actually went and bought them, at least in the case of the originals...)
Interesting playlist, I'll have to listen to that later.
Somehow, I can never quite expect what will happen in any given chapter. I certainly didn't expect those two to be here!
10786382 Is that a bad thing?