Werewolves of Knicknik

by Atuhor Name

CH. 23 Trust

Trust

“I can’t stand this.” Twilight said pacing about the room, followed every step by adoring spiders.

Before Naudia could even finish opening her mouth Twilight moved on.

“I can’t be up here right now, we need to be back down there. Taking a break right now just feels bad, I hate it.”

“Do you really feel up to going back down there so soon?” Naudia asked.

“After what we saw, could you imagine staying up here?” Twilight asked back.

Naudia knew the correct answer to that question.

Nothing was said.

Twilight walked out of the room.

-------------------

“Gwynn,” Twilight growled. “I need to see the First Administrator.”

“Your werewolf traits are showing, may I ask why?” Gwynn said guardedly.

“I can’t stand sitting around right now. I need to be back on the ground in Equestria pushing forwards in this investigation.”

“But Twilight-”

“Don’t wanna hear it right now Naudia.”

Twilight and Naudia had a huffy flight over to the First Administration offices. The offices were not what Twilight was expecting. She was expecting something gaudy, something that oppressed. She was not expecting a multi story tall tent-ish building that looked like it could fold up complete with creases where things like the windows were designed to fold closed.

The First Administration headquarters was built around a tree and inside the feeling like all of this was designed to just be packed away and moved out overnight was still there. Like this was a seasonal store. Walls weren’t walls, instead they were partitions, inflatable office chairs, stand mounted ceiling fans.

“Twilight if you’d just let me-” But Naudia was cut off this time by the cacophony of sound coming from the actual First Administrator’s office.

The desks here were a lot nicer, or at least more expensive, being clearly set up to still fold up but being made out of more expensive materials and fold up more neatly, storing screens and chairs inside all in one. There was a huge variety of different yunguaq at work here, a bio-luminescent rat woman, some sort of goat thing with long floppy ears and a pair of intricate connected horns that moved to hold objects. Twilight watched as a moose-man made out of jellyfish split himself up instead of walking around another hurrying aide.

Underneath all this scurrying about were hundreds of rats carrying little packages between desks, some of them not even meant for this room, just using it as a temporary shortcut.

Twilight and Naudia followed Gwynn to the desk at the end of the hall where the First Administrator was working. His desk was almost entirely boring, there was no picture of somebody, or any kind of indication other than documents that this desk had any owner at all. Behind him on the wall was a giant clock that wasn’t accurate to the current time.

Gwynn walked around the desk to whisper into the First Administrator’s ear. After drawing a line through another document he looked up at Twilight and Naudia.

“So.” His voice cut through all the sounds around them as clearly as if through a totally silent room. “You want to get right back to work again Twilight.”

“Yes.”

“And you Naudia?”

“She’s having second thoughts.” Twilight said before Naudia could say anything.

The First Administrator shot a glare at Twilight who felt a chill run up her soul.

“And you Naudia?” He repeated. “Having doubts?”

“YES!” She blurted out. “We’ve got more than the entire population of Equestria up here as best I can tell, why don’t Twilight and I have backup? Why are WE having to risk everything?”

The First Administrator sat back in his chair.

“The first reason as I’ve already told you is that this is all a test to see if Equestria can even handle governing itself and catching Nerteln on it’s own.”

Twilight nodded, Naudia had forgotten this.

“The second is because disrupting Equestria too much will awaken-”

The clock behind the First Administrator ticked once, Twilight noted that the time was less than a half minute til midnight.

Twilight suddenly realized that nobody and nothing in the room was moving. She could feel the slow head turn as everybody in the room dragged their eyes up to the clock on the wall. She thought she could hear herself breathing.

The First Administrator very slowly turned his head to the clock on the wall as well. Then he turned his head back to the still frozen aides.

“Well. Get on with it, the longer it takes you to order and design city lifting cables the longer we’ll be here.”

The room full of people started working again and Naudia could taste the fear in the air, fresh, sharp, like somebody had spiked the room with lemon.

“That, is the reason I can’t send down much more for you guys than I already have.” The First Administrator said. “I’ll be honest I’m pushing it with how much I’ve already done, and I’ve had to push back against a lot of pressure to just let things play out how they may and hope it doesn’t effect the Awakening very much.”

“Awakening? What the heck could you guys be worried about waking up?” Twilight said exasperated.

“Remember how I told you Equestria WAS, all a dream, then it wasn’t, backwards in time? This clock tracks the next time the Vatermorder that dreamed you all up will wake up. So until certain conditions are met I have to keep interventions to a minimum, until we are ready to go all out and frankly be out of Equestria inside of an extremely short period of time for what we have to do.”

“So why can’t we just wait it out until you’re ready?”

“By our own laws letting a nerteln take over too much means we have to nuke the place. It was generally meant for habitats but since people don’t tend to live on planets like this, an oversight means that we would have to…” The First Administrator picked up that Twilight and Naudia didn’t know what nuke meant. “Cleanse the surface of the planet of all life.”

“So that’s the hand we’ve been dealt?” Naudia said aloud. “Stuck between a soul eating psychopath, something with the power to warp reality and you guys?”

“If I had to choose I would choose to keep Equestria intact, but the risk of the Vatermorder waking up sooner than if the planet was empty or evacuated of life, or a third war against the nerteln is too great to the universe at large.” The First Administrator turned to the clock on the wall as if he expected it to tick again. “So what I need you two to do is take one of those out of the equation, and since there is exactly a 0% chance of killing the Godbreaker I need you to find and kill the nerteln. Once you do that we can start making big moves.”

“How do you know it’s impossible to kill the Godbreaker?” Naudia asked.

“There have been more attempts to kill the Vatermorder than there are possible combinations of atoms in the observable universe.”

“Oh come on, I’m an astrophysicist I’m not that gullible.” Twilight protested.

“He has outlived an unknown number of universes before this one and there are no restrictions on his power. But he encourages any and all to try and kill him, the entire culmination of universes have been put to the task and failed, again and again and again.” The First Administrator said. “But that is not your concern, unfortunately it’s mine and why I can’t change things inside of Equestria too much.”

“From what you’re saying I think it’s even more imperative that I go back down there and keep working then.” Twilight said.

“Very well,” The First Administrator waved over that jellyfish moose thing Twilight and Naudia saw earlier. “Tell my aides at the Food service workers union and the potato farmer’s union that I need to cancel my appointments today, things are accelerating.”

“Are you coming down with me?” Twilight asked Naudia.

“Yes.” Naudia said with a hint of shame in her voice.

“Don’t get too discouraged, in any kind of reasonable situation you would be following behind an army of specialists in killing nertlen. Unfortunately you were born on the most unreasonable planet I can think of.” The First Administrator said. “The best I can do for you right now is listen and watch through those tablets of yours.”

Twilight and Naudia were significantly taken aback by that.

“Anyways, go to the Werewolf village, look around there for evidence of the nerteln. We’re pretty sure that isn’t their main base, but you need to root out any boltholes before you pull the noose shut.”

“What are we even looking for?” Twilight thought to ask.

“Those guards are too overt an example, we think the nerteln is using rune magic instead of hardcasting, so you need to look for places that you can feel are wrong.”

Naudia opened her mouth to ask, but Twilight had already caught on.

“Like those poor souls in Kana right?”

“Yes.”

-------------------

“Why do you trust him?” Naudia asked as soon as they were out of the room.

Twilight had to think about that one for a moment.

“It’s hard to put into words.”

Twilight did her best to try and put herself in Naudia’s horseshoes for a moment, try and trace back this thought to the disconnect between them.

“You didn’t look into the shard.” Twilight said.

“No, I looked right at it, I just didn’t try and touch it like you did.”

“Then you didn’t look INTO the shard.” Twilight shivered despite herself. “I… understand what is going on here, I understand it far more than I would ever want to. All of this to you is something outside trying to creep it’s way in.”

Naudia took a step away from Twilight.

“You might understand what is happening, but there, looking into that shard, it feels like it has infected me. I can feel it coming up behind me.”

Naudia looked behind them, there was nobody there in the temporary hallways.

“Whoever is down there, for whatever the reason they chose this magic, they must die. To let them live would be an indescribable tragedy.”

Naudia tried to think of something else to say after that. Down the stairs, into the car, all the way til they had to go down to the line to Equestria where they came up.

Any argument she could have against that was stomped flat anytime she remembered the camkut. What if this nerteln magic could kill that godbreaker thing? Camkut. Are we sure there has been enough research to prove it’s always unsafe? Naudia could feel the thought slide out of her head, pushed aside by memories of the camkut. Fight off the First Administration? Even if it this nerteln magic could be that strong, the camkut.

Eventually Naudia had to give up, it wasn’t healthy to remember the camkut that much. She had to think of something else.

“How are you adapting to that leg Twilight?” Naudia asked.

“Just walking around? It’s fine, I don’t even have to think about it. But… it feels unnatural.”

“How so? I’ll admit I’ve had to use a prosthetic once or twice do to monsters out in the badlands, but I’ve never talked to another changeling about theirs.”

“You did?” Twilight asked incredulously.

“Yeah, changelings just grow limbs back. There is nothing worse though than having grown an inch back on your hoof and having a wooden leg that hasn’t been adjusted yet.”

“I’ve always known you had a hard childhood, but I could never imagine it was THAT bad.”

“Well changelings were designed for war in the first place. So naturally the first order of business was to make sure that we could lose a fight and then get back up from that.”

“I’ll never get used to that.”

“So what’s so weird about your leg if walking around is so normal?”

“I’ve gotten used to having a slime body. Simple things like reaching for a bottle of ketchup that’s just a little too far away, squishing a bit to walk around things, stretching upwards to peek over something. Small things I don’t even think about until one of my legs just can’t do it anymore.”

“Yeah, a lot of these countertops just aren’t quite short enough for-” Naudia stopped walking. “What the hay is that?”

They had been interrupted in their journey to the line back down to Equestria by a petting zoo. It took Gwynn a good couple seconds to figure out what they were actually talking about and why they would be concerned.

“Oh that, that’s just a petting zoo, I was certain Equestria had something like that, but I could be wrong. It’s just a place where you can go to pet and sometimes ride animals.” Gwynn explained.

“But… but it’s like… the things there look dangerous whatever they are.” Naudia said.

“But that’s a… NO, you are not allowed to be ignorant about this, we have to stop here, NOW.” Twilight demanded to Gwynn, before leaning in close and asking, “They are safe right? Just a normal foals petting zoo right?”

Gwynn nodded, confused as to why Twilight would ever be concerned about something as tame and child friendly as this.

Hesitantly Naudia reached her hoof out to touch the creature, slowly, slowly.

Until it got tired of waiting and pushed itself against her hoof.

“This, is a T-rex Naudia.”

The T-rex gave a happy little rumble as Naudia began to pet it, gradually gaining more confidence. It was a feathery creature with a jaw much larger than she was comfortable with, but the way it leaned into her hoof was just adorable, especially with the way it waved it’s little arms around.

It was abundantly clear this was an exceptionally tame and gentle animal.

“The T-rex had an astonishing bite strength which at the time allowed it to even crack bones and get to the marrow inside!” The guide who was herding this walking dinosaur exhibit said.

“What really?” Naudia asked.

“My wife has never heard of dinosaurs before now.” Twilight explained.

The guide’s mouth dropped open for a second as if he couldn’t quite process that information properly.

“Well then, now is the perfect time to learn, and just this once it’s on the house, Nobody should go through life without at least having ridden on a T-rex.” He said enthusiastically

-------------------

There was a kind of child-like joy in Naudia’s eyes right now. Even though her changeling education had severely neglected natural history, as they didn’t have a natural history. There was something completely magical about riding on top of a small-ish T-rex that was universal. It was the kind of joy one should never grow out of.

The guide for the petting zoo, turned out to be some sort of charmingly chubby looking skunk creature that Twilight found out was actually some sort of insect mimicking a skunk. Unfortunately there were allosaurus to be pet and she couldn’t dig into what was going on there.

“The reason they have feathers like they do is because we had to re-engineer them from birds, specifically chickens.” He said. “As you can see they very much look the part, even if they likely aren’t even remotely similar under the surface.”

Twilight and Naudia, scholars that they were, had their ears glued to this sort of explanation. This was some sort of ideal for them. A real, living piece of history was right there, and they could pet it, ride around on it, it wanted to play with them. And then right over there was somebody ready to dispense facts about these wonderful creatures. And there were so many creatures, Twilight had been nuzzled by an allosaurus, touched the sail of a spinosaurus, ran alongside an alioramus.

History was here, and she could touch it with her own two hooves.

“I think I needed something like this.” Twilight said to the guide.

“Aww, don’t cry little pony, it’s not like you’ll never see another mesozoic petting zoo again.” The strange skunk-bug guide patted her hoof.

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of actually.”

-------------------

As they were being strapped in to the launch vehicle Twilight had a thought to ask Gwynn.

“How do we even survive something like this? Wouldn’t the forces just liquefy our brains?”

“Uhh, okay it’s a bit harder to explain for you guys since you’re slimes, but basically you no longer have organic brains.”

“Wait, so we’re running on a computer now?!” Naudia exclaimed.

“Yes, but likely not one you’re familiar with.” Gwynn seemed impressed at how fast they caught on. “Your brains are a type of multi-system isentropic computer.”

Twilight and Naudia’s jaws dropped.

“Could… could you just say that one more time? I think my ears aren’t working right.” Twilight said.

“Your brains are a type of multi-system isentropic computer?” Gwynn restated.

“That’s what we thought you said.” Naudia said after her mind had re-ordered itself slightly.

“Isentropic.” Twilight stated at Gwynn.

“Yes.”

“So our brains run without entropy by using adiabatic processes?”

“Yes, and they are quite reversible too.”

“I think the both of us have massively underestimated how advanced you guys are.” Naudia spoke for both of them.

“Well the way they work is they are a combination of light based, mechanical, and magmatter based computing to maximize the amount of computing able to be done in a space. Yours is obviously a bit more complex because of your slime biology, there are… workarounds to transmit information.”

“Mechanical computing, what? Even we’re past that.” Twilight said aghast.

“How do you even do computing with light?” Naudia asked.

“You can look up more of the details yourself.” Gwynn said. “But basically the mechanical parts are very tiny, measured in atoms and transparent to light, they’re for kinda slower stuff like accessing memories. The light based stuff just goes through stuff like magmatter and graphenite, and that’s for your quick reaction sorta thinking. And the magmatter is so small it can work around and even inside of the atoms, so that is used for your short term day to day thinking.”

Twilight and Naudia just sat in silence contemplating the implications of such computing technology working on themselves, in themselves.

“I hope you’re appreciating all this educational stuff about yunguaq, I had to study up on it pretty hard. We thought it would really help you guys keep going.”

“I can’t say it’s not helping, but it feels like I’m a cave-pony walking into downtown Manehatten most of the time.” Twilight said.

“Good, now that you’re all strapped in, it’s time to head back down to the surface.” Gwynn said.

Twilight and Naudia instantly tensed up.

Even with the foreknowledge of what was going to happen it was still an unpleasant minute down to Equestria again.