Chapter 5
Chapter 5:
"Hey, hey wake up." CB's voice cut through my dreams of watching the Equestria Games. That filly was very formidable when she wanted attention.
"Lemme 'lone...go bug Ruby...She likes you..." I muttered, rolling over to find...human Ruby, still snuggled into my back, arms wrapped around me, which was when I snapped back to reality, such as it was. Still in this weird human world, a human version of my fiancee asleep beside me, a human version of my daughter...geeze...brain no go good.
"What're you doing in here?" CB asked, sitting down on the bed.
"We were talking, musta fallen asleep, what do you want squirt?" I asked tiredly, rolling over again and pushing myself up to my hooves and hoping off the bed. Ruby grumbled to herself and glared angrily at us without getting up herself, pulling a pillow into her arms instead.
"I have to go to school and I wanted to take you to show off." She said hopefully.
"Isn't the slaver story good enough?" Ruby asked, yawning and flopping down onto the opposite end of the bed.
"How do I explain getting away?" She replied. "Instead, blue and yellow pony." Ruby said.
"Sweetie not today." Ruby said. "Paul and Cane are supposed to start working on the computers today, don't you have a show and tell coming up in a few days or something?"
"Well...yeah..."
"So I'll go then." I offered. "I can't imagine you getting anything but a 100% with something as awesome as me to show off, you wouldn't want to take me NOW and then not be able to use me later and get an easy A."
"I guess." She said, sighing dejectedly.
"It's not that bad." Ruby said, finally rolling over and off the bed, sitting on the floor for a minute before pushing herself up. "Come on, I'll make you breakfast."
"Nah, I'm good." CB said. "Lily was already awake when I got up, she's got your armour all pulled apart, so we made breakfast."
"Oh, she didn't make a mess did she?"
"Well there's pieces all over the room, but it's not more of a mess than it usually is."
"Good, I like my mess the way it is, have fun at school then kiddo."
"I will." She hugged Ruby and kissed my horn before heading back out of the room with a quick "Bye guys!" *Slam* and she was gone.
I sighed and flopped against the side of the bed. "I guess I'm awake." I said, floating my armour off the dresser and pulling it on slowly. "So I gotta ask, where's CB's mom?"
Ruby got quiet for a minute, looking kind of conflicted. "Well, you were honest with me so I'll be honest with you."
"Please do." I nodded, looking up at her curiously.
"CB is my daughter." She said softly, sitting down on the bed again. "Brutus and I...we were young and kind of stupid...he was confused about his sexuality and I wanted to try and help him...His one time with a woman and he ends up with a baby. A woman named Elizabeth said she'd raise her as her own daughter. Elizabeth had lost her husband a few months earlier and they had never had children of their own, and it still let me and Brutus be part of her life. When Elizabeth was killed a year ago when bandits attacked her caravan it was decided that she'd come back to live with me. She still doesn't know we're actually her parents."
"Oh, well that's nice..." I said softly. "At least she still has you two, in my world her parents were actually her parents."
"Are you sure?" Ruby asked, moving to the dresser to get dressed.
"I should think so. You were honest with me and you've only known me for a day. I've known Ruby for a year, we're getting married and we know every weird and wonderful thing about each other, I can't imagine her omitting that little fact for so long."
"True enough." She said, putting on undergarments then pants and a simple T-shirt before she moved to the door.
"No armour?" I asked, moving to follow her.
"Nah, with the Ruby Star out of commission I have other work to worry about for now." She said. "I'll stay on base probably until my baby gets fixed, unless there's an emergency or anything I'm not needed for anything...the fuck?" She trailed off as she walked into the living room, which was actually pretty clean now. Lily sat stretched out on the couch, holding the helmet in her hands, tinkering with a screw driver inside the helmet. Pieces of the armour sat all around the room. The gloves were hooked to a computer, the legs and torso were sitting in the corner, now painted jet black with L.E.D.s along the seams of the armour. The arms sat beside a power outlet, a cable running into the outlet from the arms.
"Hey guys..." She muttered, waving distractedly. She dug at the helmet for a minute. "Oh come on you piece of shit..." She slapped the side of the helmet and the eyes lit up, the same green as Lily's eyes when she powered up. "Perfect!" She smirked, setting the helmet down on her stomach. "Morning." She said, smiling at us now.
"You cleaned?" Ruby asked.
"Uhh, not so much cleaned as I liberated some space." She pointed to a crate that sat in the corner. "All your clothes are in there instead of all over."
"What's with all the upgrades laying around?" I asked, moving to the computer and looking at the code curiously as it flowed along the screen. The keyboard really was a marvel of technology. I couldn't use it with my hooves but my magic would be sufficient to type on it, and soon enough I had about mastered it.
"So I figured an upgrade to the armour was in order." Lily finished, and I realized I had asked a question then totally zoned out. I looked back at her and saw Ruby at the door talking to a young woman.
"Alright, perfect, thank you ma'am." The woman said, the two of them writing something out.
"Who's that?" I asked softly, walking over the Lily, trying to stay out of sight.
"I dunno. I think she's a tech working on the ship, she gave Ruby a time table for the next three weeks, don't know what they're talking about now though."
Ruby closed the door and smiled happily. "22 days to repair the Star," she told us, "I expected way worse."
"Oh that's fantastic." Lily grinned, sitting up and setting the helmet on the coffee table. "Hey look at this." She held her hand out to the helmet, her hand glowing faintly with magical energy. The helmet started to glow in kind and slid open and then down into a simple collar. She slid the collar on around her neck and with another wave of her hand the helmet raised up and closed around her head. "See?" She laughed, her voice the gender neutral robotic voice I had come to associate with Mare-Do-Well.
"That's amazing." Ruby said, studying the helmet curiously as Lily released it and it slid back around her neck.
"I hope to have the whole thing to wear as a set. Collar, boots, gloves and pack. All able to be deployed with just the slightest push from my powers and I'm armoured up and ready to go in seconds."
"That's awesome!" Ruby said, sitting down and looking at the collar around Lily's neck.
"I wanted to do the upgrades to my armour for a long time, but mom was always worried I'd break the armour and we'd be unable to fix it before I was needed for something. So I'm glad I finally got the chance to make retracting armour, hopefully that means I'll be able to do the same with my armour when I get home."
"Well if you have nothing else why don't you pack up your work and bring it to the lab where Cane and Paul are going to be working."
"Yeah I think that'll be good." She said, grabbing up the torso armour from the floor and tucking it under her arm. "Lets hit it."
We headed out of the room, meeting up with Brutus and Paul in the hallway.
"Wow, not limping or anything." Ruby said as they walked up.
"What can I say? He's a gentle lover." Paul answered, wrapping an arm around Brutus's waist and holding him close. Despite himself Brutus managed to keep a straight face.
"He's kidding." Brutus said. "We didn't do any butt stuff."
"Butt stuff?" Lily laughed. "My Brutus doesn't do anything BUT butt stuff."
"Ha ha. But butt." I said, rolling my eyes.
"Excuse me ma'am?" A tech had walked up behind us and Ruby turned to talk to him.
"Come on guys." Brutus said, starting down the hall with us while Ruby stood and talked to the tech for a minute.
He showed us to a server room that again looked much like the one back home at the original Collective base. Four rows of server boxes, a wall lined with terminals and a table near the entrance where the computers Brutus had bought in The Hub were all set up now, much fancier and more powerful than the simple terminal towers.
"Sorry about that." Ruby said, coming in a moment later, writing something in a small book and tucking it away in her pocket.
"That's fine." Brutus said. "I have to get to the council meeting so are you good to handle this?" He asked her.
"Oh yeah yeah, I'll get them set up in here and I'll meet you for the debrief at 10:30."
"Alright sounds good." He said, heading out of the room.
"So I take it you two are pretty familiar with server rooms?" She smirked.
"Yes." We both answered. Lily moved to sit at the table, sitting the torso piece on the table and setting to work on it with a screw driver.
"Perfect, these computers," she gestured to the computers at the table, "have all been loaded up with some fancy decryption and hacking software that Brutus bought..." She was cut off as someone knocked at the door gently. I took on a vacant look and leaned down to sniff idly at the floor. Ruby sighed and moved to the door, muttering something about not even being back for a full day yet.
"Yes?" She asked, opening the door.
"I'm sorry to interrupt ma'am." He said. "I was hoping to schedule a meeting with you and I'm not going to have another chance to ask until after my shift."
"Of course Tim." She nodded, pulling the little book from her pocket. "Seven PM?" She asked after flipping it open and looking at it.
"That would work just fine." He said, smiling and stepping back again. "Thank you ma'am." He started off down the hall.
"See you later." She called, closing the door behind her as she turned back to us. "Sorry." She smiled sheepishly.
"What was that?"
"Don't worry about it." She said, launching back into her explanation of the hacker software they had gotten, sadly for Brutus, it took Paul and I all of ten seconds to suss out that the software was essentially useless, luckily for Brutus both had their own custom cracking programs installed in their respective Pip devices and they started copying the software onto the computers, though Cane's took a little extra work to make work with the human software, similarly as it may look and act the code was still incompatible until they worked a way to patch the systems together, which took them the better part of the hour Ruby spent explaining the systems and what they were hoping to get done.
While they worked over the next hour another dozen people came to talk to Ruby, each asking about making an appointment, and each very polite and formal.
"I do freelance theoretical scenario enactment." She said.
"Like a one woman think tank?" Paul asked. "People tell you what they want to do and you help them plan and or implement it?"
"Exactly." She nodded. Something about that seemed...weird...but who were we to argue.
"Anyway, I have to meet up with Brutus and put together the official debrief of what happened to the Vertibird and submit it to the security director."
"Yeah sure we got this." Paul said.
"I'll keep em in line and make sure they don't get distracted playing games or anything." Lily added, but quickly returned to her own work as she worked to make sure the torso slid open and closed smoothly.
"Alright, I'll see you guys later." She said, heading out. I finally settled into place beside Paul, sitting between him and the doorway so people wouldn't see me as easily if they happened to look in, giving me more time to shut up and look disinterested.
//////////
“I never realized your people were so trained and disciplined.” Paul said to Brutus and Crackshot when they came to check on our progress with the computers.
“What do you mean?” Brutus asked.
“Well earlier when Ruby was giving us the run down of the server set up and where everything was 7 or 8 soldiers came in and asked Ruby if they could schedule an appointment with her, each one stood at attention and addressed her as Ma'am, I knew soldiers in the military that weren't that stuck on ceremony, let alone guards and techs that just work for your organization. What is Ruby's other job? She just said she does freelance work helping people work out scenarios?”
“Oh yeah, she's great at it.” Brutus said, struggling not to smirk. “You should tell her you want to schedule an appointment.”
Crackshot smacked him in the chest. “Don't you dare.” She said to Paul. “Did you see the two of them on the Vertibird?” She asked Brutus. “The two of them sat in the cockpit and talked about stupid shit for the whole trip. I haven't seen Ruby that comfortable and relaxed around a guy in years, at least a guy that isn't you. Paul you should ask her to dinner, don't ask her for anything else.”
“Wait what?” Paul was clearly just as confused as Lily and I. “What does her freelance work entail?”
“None of your concern. You have any scenarios you need worked out?”
“No I'm pretty well versed in how to do the computer work.”
“Well there you go. Ask her to dinner.” Crackshot said again. “Oh speak of the devil.” She dropped her voice to a gravely whisper as Ruby came through the door to the server room.
“Hey guys did I miss anything?” She asked.
“Nah, the encryption on these things is amazing. Castor has clearly done a hell of a job on them, but I'm getting there, a few days, maybe a week and they'll spill the goods.” Paul replied. “Uhh Ruby, if you're free I was wondering if you'd like to get dinner?” He asked, kind of lame in front of everyone, but if I knew Paul, and I did, he didn't even realize just how lame and embarrassing it should have been.
“Oh, uhh I'd love to.” She said, blushing a little. “How about at 11? I know it's kind of late but I have work I have to finish.”
“Sure, it'll give me some more time to work on the hard drives.”
“Sounds good.” She nodded, smiling happily. I wasn't great with human expressions but she looked almost giddy.
“Uhh hey Ruby?” Lily asked.
“Yeah?” The pink haired woman replied, looking over at her.
“I wanna make an appointment with you.” Lily said with a grin.
“You what?” Paul and Ruby asked simultaneously. “Do you even know what I do?” Ruby continued.
“Nope, but I'm curious.” She shrugged.
“Alright, but don't come crying to me when you don't know what to do.” Brutus laughed.
“Yeah...” Ruby looked at Lily intently for a moment. “Sure, why not, wanna go now?”
“Love to.”
With that the two women left, leaving Paul and I just as confused as ever, and Brutus and Crackshot laughing with each other.
"Seriously, what's so funny?" Paul asked.
"Don't worry about it." Crackshot said. "I'm sure she won't PUNISH you for being ignorant, it's not like you know her that well yet."
"Yeah, give it time, I'm sure she'll have you WHIPPED into shape." Brutus said, both of them roaring with laughter and heading out of the room.
"I don't get it..." I said, watching the door close behind them.
"I'm not sure I do either." He sighed, but we quickly returned to our work after both of us set an alarm on our systems to tell us when it was 10:15 so Paul would have a chance to go get cleaned up and ready for his date. When the time came we made our way back to Brutus's quarters, Paul dug through his stuff and went into the bathroom, coming out clean shaven and freshly showered, still dressed in his jump suit. "It's the only clothing I really own." He shrugged.
"Dude seriously?" Brutus laughed, going into his room. He came back out a minute later with denim pants and a black dress shirt and tossed them to him. "Here, these'll work a lot better."
Paul caught them and looked at the clothes. "But you're almost a foot taller than me and a lot broader shouldered."
"They're not mine, they're an old boyfriend's, he was built like you." Brutus explained. "Don't worry, they're clean." He added.
"Alright thanks." Paul went back into the bathroom and came back out a few minutes later in the clothes, he looked a lot better and more relaxed.
As if on cue there was a knock at the door. Brutus got up off the couch and opened to door. Ruby was supporting Lily heavily; who looked very out of it.
"Holy shit what happened?" I asked, jumping up and moving to help.
"I might have overdone it a little." Ruby said. Lily was actually glitching, her human form was shifting and twitching, her eyes turning green, her skin darkening, and she'd shiver and it would snap back.
"Why don't we go?" Paul said quickly, moving to the door. Ruby stepped back from Lily a bit. "Don't worry, give her 30-40 minutes and she'll recover." Ruby said. She was dressed nicer than she had been before, but surprisingly similar to Paul. She had black denim pants on with some kind of threaded belt. She had an emerald green long sleeve shirt that buttoned up in the front. I wasn't sure if it was fancy attire or not, I was bad enough at pony fashion. It looked like simple relaxed clothing, but she looked very nice in it.
"Alright, well I'll keep an eye on her." I said, moving to sit on the floor beside Lily.
"I'm on guard duty at midnight." Brutus said, taking up his rifle from beside the chair he'd been sitting in. "So I need to head out too." He opened the door and ushered the other two out before I could ask any more questions.
"Lily, talk to me, what happened?" I asked.
"Cane...I...she...she's amazing..." Lily said finally, turning and looking at me with glazed unfocused eyes. "She's like some kind of goddess..." She sighed deeply and melted against the couch, literally, she started to ooze and get runny, her leg stretching to the ground and starting to coil up a little.
"What did she DO?" I asked, starting to freak out a little.
"Oh come on Cane, you gotta know she..."
Footnote: 30% to next level.
Stats
Page generated in 0.04 seconds
Total duration
1,044 users online
1,912 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Yay, new chapter, looks like I'm not sleeping too soon :).
you know the way you worded that you made it sound like ruby is a sex fiend the way lilly just melted but i am willing to guess that she is just a really good masuse
This story just keeps getting worse and worse! I mean seriously, I just wasted six hours of my life reading through your stories! Why would anyone bother with all of this crap? Come on, you're probably some lonely guy who lives in a basement and has nothing better to do! Your characters are so unrelatable, and the story is so predictable.
The character Jack has the worst written accent I have ever had the misfortune of reading! And that part with Discord doesn't even sound like it's written by the same person! There are serious issues with the canon you have created, and "Carry on my Wayward Pon"? Seriously?
2351566
I know it's late to say now, but it's not that long a chapter, like 20 minutes tops
2351600
LOL, well just wait and see my friend, just wait and see.
Oooh,somepony woke up on the wrong side today,guess trolls are everywhere
you look on the internet. Regardless the chapter is amusing as the the others,very laid back which I say is good for actiony stories though for your story its more of a reinforcing of the idea that the wasteland isn't all that dangerous as normally portrayed,granted the setting is in the Collective base. Anyways,Ruby must be amazing at massages or well..you know...
Also,CB being Ruby's kid,guess that will come into play in later chapters ?
2351832
Probly a bad place for you to read, I hear there're things called libraries. Professionally written, editted and/or in some way informative. Ty for comment :).
Oh, also I relate slightly to cane :3.
i have found the first mistake!!! :
"We were talking, musta fallen asleep, what do you want squirt?" I asked tiredly, rolling over again and pushing myself up to my feet and hoping off the bed. Ruby grumbled to herself and glared angrily at us without getting up herself, pulling a pillow into her arms instead.
it should say hooves not feet
2361477
Thought you were pointing out the first spelling mistake, luckily there's hardly anything but grammatical errors :).
2355292
2357104
Sadly a failed April fools joke from my sister
The parts she's complaining about are the parts she wrote/told me to write into the story
2370269
....oh
That explains why the 'complaint' was so long and vocal on specific parts. Most actual trolls usually have a few one liners to bait others...at least the ones I've come across at least.
2370819
Yeah I think she was just sort of going for a knee jerk reaction
Oh well, there's always next year haha
2370819>>2364470
I'm no good at trolling, and I posted my comment one day early so the whole thing fell flat. What can a person do? In all honesty I love Jack and "Carry on my Wayward Pon" is fracking hilarious.
2372263It's all good,though I have no idea why anyone would want to be a troll in the first place. Unless you lost a bet and had to be one or something...that or for a joke like your attempt. Cheers
2372263
*pats lipah33* we forgive ya.
I was pointed here from the prequel, FoE: War never changes, and I had expected many things. This is not even close to anything i had expected. This is just so much better. I only hope that updated will be more frequent than "one in every life time"
... you have me hooked on this story.
<tl;dr> This story is even better then the first one, it is just AWESOME.
2392261
I try and check once a day :)
2400825>>2372345>>2361477>>2301178>>2293399
So by no means do you have to, but my brother has a story on here and it just hit the front page, if you guys would be nice enough to throw it a thumbs up or a fave I'd be much appreciative of it.
He's an awesome writer and the story is actually really good 
but like I said, by no means feel obligated to. 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/96524/otr-the-fall-of-the-night
2409115
i feel obligated to press that link all of a sudden...
*CLICK*
2409302
I right clicked 'cos I'm awesome :3
2409115 ive got a question. did you get the idea for the retractable armour from Dead Space?
Mistake Number 2:
"Dude seriously?" Brutus laughed, going into his room. He came back out a minute later with denim pant and a black dress shirt and *tosses* them to him. "Here, these'll work a lot better."
Paul *catches* them and *looks* at the clothes. "But you're almost a foot taller than me and a lot broader shouldered."
it should be tossed, catched and looked
I miss pony ruby... She kicked butt