19. Long Since Floated Away
I.D. INJECTOR DOE
That Indestructible Something
By Chatoyance
═════════════════════
19. Long Since Floated Away
"I am away from home and must always write home,
even if any home of mine has long since floated away into eternity."
- Franz Kafka
Gregoria lay on the moist grass, watching her best friend graze. Rachel seemed happy enough, her pale gray tail twitching occasionally in pleasure at the rich flavor of the Pensacola Bahia. The grass was a deep emerald green, with wide, juicy blades, and it was delicious.
Entre Ríos had been an excellent choice. Crown's expansive Argentinian estate had provided a safe and isolated home. Fifty acres on a side, 'El Rancho de la Manzana Rey' afforded the new, growing menagerie a profound sense of security and peace. Crown had finally decided he was permanently done with the Estados Unidos. The place had become too totalitarian, too much of a panopticon. Cameras everywhere, zero privacy, and total surveillance of the civilian population had convinced him that there was no future for him, or those he cared about, in that crumbling empire.
Argentina demanded fluency in Spanish, but this was not an issue for Gregoria. She had no desire to mingle with the human population, nor to visit Nogoyá, the closest - but still fairly distant - city. She did not feel the need to learn the local speech, she had nothing to say to anyone now who walked on two legs - except, of course, for the members of the small colony of diamond dogs.
Malus Crown had spent the past year working hard with his new team to find any and all Equestrians lost upon the globe. The Ranch of the Apple King now had a population of fifty-three unhuman residents, and more trickled in constantly. Most were ponies, a small number were diamond dogs or griffons, and all were easy to care for. The rich, flat, semi-tropical grassland was ideal for equines, and even without the pigs and chickens, there were many free roaming rabbits and other small game for the burrowing canids and the sharp-beaked griffons. Crown had not yet discovered another dragon. Randal, perhaps, truly had been one of a kind.
One other addition had been discovered in Aix-les-Bains, France. Another Changeling. Her name was Thérèse, and while she was not - perhaps thankfully - a queen, she was a cultured, if somewhat stern drone who was expert at altering her appearance. Crown had Nadzieja training her in Polish espionage techniques.
Only two of Crown's original team remained with him, Nadzieja and Guillaume. Malus had suspected that some of his team had been compromised, and while Gregoria, Michel and Damon were busy in the desert, Crown had cleaned house. He refused to go into detail as to what, exactly, he had done, but he had assured Gregoria that there was no longer any threats remaining.
Nadzieja and Guillaume knew completely now about the Equestrians in their midst. They seemed so utterly nonplussed and totally compliant that Michel had suggested that Malus had used his Changling powers ruthlessly on the two. Certainly the raid of Crown's American ranch had made of Malus a new person. He was polite always now, and never showed his temper any more. Sometimes, though, he became strangely distant, almost brooding. He spent most of his time with his puppies and dogs, feeding on their unconditional love. The raid had shocked him. He had been sure he had been safe within the country of his birth.
Rachel trotted over to where Gregoria lay in the warm grass. The day was hot, and the air filled with moisture. Rachel finished chewing her mouthful of South American grass, and nuzzled Gregoria affectionately. The scars on Rachel's head, even the stitches, had all healed up. There was no physical sign at all of what had been done to her, save for the lack of her flowing mane of mystical energy. She looked healthy and seemed happy - for the most part.
Occasionally, though, a look of awareness would seem to appear in her eyes. Her gaze would steady and focus, and for a brief moment, Rachel seemed like her old self. She would start to try to say something, and then the curious moment would fade, slowly, as if Rachel were forgetting a dream. Once, when this had happened, Gregoria was certain she had seen a small tear.
Gregoria nuzzled her best friend back, and then relaxed as Rachel began nibbling at and grooming Gregoria's mane. Above, through her half-closed lids, Gregoria saw the gray and blue form of a pegasus circling. She would land soon. She never strayed far from Rachel.
Gregoria sighed as she enjoyed the careful, loving grooming of her mane. There was no doubt that despite everything, Rachel still knew and felt love for Gregoria. There was so very much that had been stolen from Rachel, but even without speech, or apparent thought, friendship, love, had turned out to be something truly indestructible.
──── ∆ ────
"Will Rachel ever be able to talk again? Or... think? Is she just... gone... or what? What did you learn?"
Once a week, Crown held a little dinner party of sorts for what Gregoria figured must be those he felt closest to. She was sitting with Damon and Michel, with Chelsea to her left. The little gray pegasus with the sky blue mane had turned out to be the young former Shetland. Rachel had succeeded in returning her to proper Equestrian form that wondrous and terrible night. Chelsea seldom left proximity to Rachel now.
Rachel, for her part, stood behind both Gregoria and Chelsea, eating her dinner from a large bucket. It was her favorite meal, a mixture of grains and corn and bits of fruit, and it was her favorite bucket, the one with the flowers painted on it.
The shiny, green eyed Changeling levitated a glass and drank from it, then placed the glass back upon the low table. Crown shifted on his large pillow - they all lay with folded legs on soft, comfortable cushions. Malus no longer made any effort to live as humans did. He cleared his throat. The sound was a strange, insectoid noise.
"One day, yes. I think that is entirely possible. Rachel was patterned off of the version of Celestia that her lover, Rick, held in his mind and heart. That Celestia was a goddess, a deific entity that had constructed Equestria, in his belief, from utter chaos. Rick's Celestia was immortal, all powerful, but not all-knowing. Rick Deckard truly put his Rachel on a pedestal, perhaps as high as any human man could.
"There is no doubt that Rachel is at least immortal. I would find it unlikely that she would not be able to eventually heal completely, and regain her mind. I do not know what will happen when that event occurs though. I know what I hope might happen..." Crown's angular, fanged muzzle dropped, his expression unreadable. His moods passed like clouds across the moon now, leaving Gregoria often unsure of what he was thinking.
"How do you know she's immortal?" Gregoria felt shocked at the revelation.
Crown shifted again, uncomfortably. "There is no point in keeping it from you. It's been long enough. Rachel is content, and she is safe, we are all safe, at least as safe as it is possible to be on this earth." Changling eyes fixed on Gregoria, green and expressionless. "I know that Rachel is immortal, because they killed her. Several times."
"WHAT???" It wasn't just Gregoria, Chelsea was shocked, and Damon was outraged. Only Michel seemed calm, and a glance at him revealed not indifference, but grim, cynically fulfilled expectations.
"Please! Look behind you - our Rachel is alive, she's safe, she's right here!" Malus Crown shook his head slowly. "I was afraid to tell you about what they were doing, what they did... try to be calm. That was months and months ago. Now, do you think you can stand to hear this? I know pony sensitivities are..."
Gregoria stared, her eyes watery, but steady. "I need to know. I think we all need to know." She looked around, Damon nodded angry assent, Michel nodded resignedly, and Chelsea... Chelsea just looked at her plate.
"Chelsea?" Crown's green mane fell softly across half of his face as he looked at the emotionally fragile pegasus.
Chelsea nodded, silently.
"Alright, then." Malus used a hoof to sweep his mane from his eyes. "I've only understood the whole picture, at least what I think is the whole picture, for about a month and a half. It's taken time to crack the codes and access the information in the boxes that you brought back from S-4. That was a smart move, by the way."
"It was kind of a last minute idea. Know your enemy, right?" Damon had thought of taking a few of the tower cases on the research level with them as they left. Michel had carried them back down to the basement, and then to the tunnel below. There was quite a bit of free space on the teflon 'sled', so it was easy enough to drag them when they made their escape.
It had been a very straightforward exit from the secret base - there was no human left to monitor their movement, or to send out squads to investigate the rumble of Michel's rapid digging. There were no squads to send. Randal had been most thorough, and the facility had been quarantined when the entire population suddenly perished. That is what had kept more humans from arriving in force while the three Equestrians had been there.
"Indeed." Malus used his horn and sipped his drink. "Especially when our enemy is so... ruthless. Psychopathic, really."
Crown paused, lost in thought.
"I don't know how to put this gently. Try to bear with it." He set his glass down again. "The humans within the Black Projects Group are not of one mind. They are... in conflict... over what they believe about reality. Some are very aware, and understand things just as we do. But others, a larger faction, are in disagreement, and they are sure the universe is really out there, and that little gray men really come from other worlds. It is a conflict of ideology and cosmology, both.
"S-4 was staffed with humans from both camps. Rachel... Rachel represented a way for the group who knows the world is a simulation to... prove their position. This would mean dominance and control for them. Despite demonstrating, rather... disturbingly - and that is all I dare say about it - that Rachel was truly immortal, they still failed to make their point. The other faction became convinced that Rachel was an... artificial life-form from outer space and... they endeavored to figure out how her... batteries... worked."
"Jesus fuck." Michel stared at his claws, as if he were imagining them around human necks.
"Even that, of course, did not kill her. She truly is immortal." Crown stared at his fluted glass.
"Why doesn't she wake up then?" Gregoria felt numb, unable to take in what Crown was implying. "Or heal up or... basically come back to us?" The surgical wounds on her head had vanished during the escape from the S-4 facility, though it had taken weeks for all of her shaved poll to grow back. Big injuries seemed to heal faster than small ones.
"It would not be safe to try to have her head scanned, or to bring in the equipment and staff to do it here. Right now, I must concentrate on protecting us all, and finding those like us, lost in the world. I can't speculate on what might or might not be damaged in her brain. I can say that... she must be healing, if slowly. Were she a mortal being, she would not have survived... what they did to her... head." The words came out of Malus Crown like something he had to force out of his body. It was clear there was more he knew, much more, that even he was having trouble with thinking about.
'What was with all the pickled stiffs we saw?" Michel was never burdened with the weight of delicacy or tact.
Crown jerked his head up at that, and half smiled, the Changeling fangs gleaming in the light. "Ah. Yes. That. Those were partly preservation for scientific reasons and... partly trophies. Like big-game hunters from the nineteen-hundreds, the various secret groups operated - and operating - the major nations of the world like to show off their... achievements. It's a bit of an old-boy's club, I'm afraid, and that room of 'pickled stiffs' as you put it was done up like that to show off the... trophies... to impress special visitors."
"No, the animal men! What's the deal with them?" Michel licked chicken off of his claws.
"Apparently there are, or rather were, a few little errors during the Victorian rewrite of reality. Total reconstructions of the world are not truly total. There seems to always be little pockets, little areas that escape being completely overwritten. Maybe an island in the middle of nowhere, maybe a single patch of forest somewhere in, say, South America. A single, hundred meter circle in Antarctica. That was from the rewrite before the Victorian one, actually. Nopony knows why some things escape a total reconstruction. At least our enemies in Majik-Umbra don't."
Malus speared an olive from the remains of his salad, and gobbled it. "It seems that these little exceptions are considered a challenge to the dominant paradigm, and must be eradicated for the mental well being of the world population. That is one big reason they want us, by the way. They want to maintain the status quo. If the world were suddenly to be rewritten, as Equestria, say, then the big men in power are convinced that they would no longer be gods among men. And they are certainly right. I think the cartoon has well demonstrated that dictators and despots are not tolerated under pony rule."
Gregoria felt Rachel, who had finished with her bucket, sniffing and nuzzling at her back. Just as Chelsea clung to Rachel, so Rachel seemed to cling to Gregoria. "Is there anything I can do to help Rachel heal? Why aren't we doing anything?"
The tall Changeling raised his head. "Because there is nothing we can do. Human medicine is not going to fix her. If I did take the risk of exposure to have her head scanned, we might discover that her brain has been cut or damaged. Now what? Humans can't fix that kind of damage in themselves, much less an Equestrian. Need I remind you that we are not the same as earthly animals? We aren't from around here. Human doctors could only make things worse."
Gregoria put up with Rachel licking her cheek. It seemed to be some kind of a kiss, it was certainly an affectionate action. It made Rachel happy, at least, and that was enough.
"Unicorn medics!" Gregoria had begun reading the fanfiction that Rachel and Rick had loved so much, in order to understand what principles were determining their situation. "In the stories, there are unicorn doctors, and not like on the show, real magic doctors who can look into a body with their powers and regenerate flesh and rewire nerves and cast healing spells and..."
"And all sorts of amazing extrapolations that have nothing to do with the cartoon. I know. Name a unicorn we know that has the specialized training that also is described in those fictions? Which one of us has attended the Royal Equestrian College Of Thamaturgical Medicine? Point them out, and let's get to work!" Just a touch of Crown's old temper could be heard in this outburst.
Rachel had folded her legs and set herself down on the floor next to Gregoria. She lay her head on Gregoria's middle, her nose tucked into the earthpony's flank. Gregoria had become used to being Rachel's comfort pillow. "Okay... okay..." Gregoria forced herself to calm down, so that her tone would not upset Rachel. "How about this - what if we try to make our own college? How about we find out which of our unicorns has any ability even close to the stuff in those stories and get them practicing and learning? They could study human and equine medical stuff, and practice magical healing on any or all of us. Sweet doughnut holes - I'd be willing to let Michel there cut me with a claw, if it would help train somepony to cast 'cure light wounds'!"
"Cure light wounds?" Michel found that hilarious "I thought Rachel was the nerd." Over the past months, Gregoria had talked incessantly about Rachel, about their friendship, and about how much she wanted her friend entirely back.
"I've... I've been studying... Rachel stuff. For when she comes back." Gregoria hung her head over Rachel's own. Rachel's violet eye stared back, the lights on, but nopony home. Gregoria lowered her muzzle and gave Rachel a gentle lick on the cheek. It made Rachel smile and close her eyes in contentment.
Gregoria slowly raised her head. "I'm gonna be the best friend she ever had. I want to do all the stuff she likes to do with her. I can be ready. That's... that's what I can do, you see. I can be ready for when she wakes up and... and..."
Chelsea scooted over and pressed against Gregoria, the weight warm and comforting. "Me too. We'll be ready, Greggy. We'll all be ready."
──── ∆ ────
The gash wasn't very long but it seemed to have hit something important. Gregoria had been trying to dig out a yam to give to Rachel, and hadn't expected there to be an old, rusted knife buried in the soil. She and the other earthponies had ploughed the pralines out of the rich soil, they had walked it and sung to the crops and done their special magic. Gregoria had been over this very spot multiple times. Somehow, they'd all missed a six-inch long dagger just under the surface. That, or it had been churned up by the plough from deeper still. In any case, it was especially embarrassing considering how Gregoria could reach right into the ground through her hooves and count the very roots.
Of course, she had not had any reason to actually bother to do that, and so she hadn't. As she watched the blood gush out of her foreleg, she resolved to use her talent and search the fields for any other buried surprises from long, long ago. After that thought had passed, Gregoria realized she was in serious trouble. The furrow was filling up with crimson.
Chelsea was already fast on the wing to the new pony village, yelling for help. Gregoria tried to staunch the flow with her other hoof, but it didn't seem to work.
Soon Chelsea was back, two unicorns in tow.
Pledget and Anodyne, two of the new medical unicorns studying at the clinic Crown had arranged to be constructed, arrived. They were being strongly encouraged to hurry by a worried Chelsea. Rachel had never left Gregoria's side, and had tried, several times, to stop the flow of blood by licking the wound. It hadn't helped.
"What is your level of pain?" Anodyne was being very professional, as he always was. He was a very serious pony. He had once been called 'Carl', but he had changed his name when he started study as a thaumatic physician. Taking new Equestrian-styled names had been catching on among the hundred and fifty 'citizens' of El Rancho de la Manzana Rey... or 'Little Equestria' as it was gradually starting to be called.
Gregoria felt a little dizzy, but she didn't actually feel much pain. Just a stinging feeling. "Not much. I'm not in any pain, actually. I feel a little weird, but I'm not in any pain."
Anodyne frowned at that and gave Pledget a concerned look.
Pledget was busy, horn glowing, eyes shut. Finally the unicorn mare opened her eyes. "Transverse laceration of the anastomotica magna. I need to initiate TK clamping with thaumatic support and localized regenesis."
"Is she going to be okay?" Chelsea pressed into the body of Rachel, who stood nearby, pawing the ground with a hoof.
"We're going to do our best." Anodyne turned to Gregoria, who was swaying slightly, Quite a large pool of blood surrounded her leg. "I'm going to numb your leg. You need to stay still. Once your leg is numb, lock all of your joints in place so you cannot fall. I'd rather you don't try to lay down, because that could increase the loss of blood. Ready?"
Gregoria nodded. She felt very woozy now, and her leg had finally begun to hurt. "Yeah... I'm starting to feel some pain now. Real... dizzy."
"That's understandable. Here we go." Anodyne's horn began to glow, a gentle orange, the color of his coat.
Gregoria looked drowsily surprised. "Huh! The pain is gone. Can't feel my leg though."
"Lock them. Lock your legs now." Anodyne maintained the glow from his horn. He knew exactly where the correct nerves were, because he could sense them, and he was maintaining a field which blocked the passage of any signal along them.
Gregoria locked her legs with some difficulty. She felt clumsy.
"Now just stay still. We'll take good care of you." Anodyne generated a pair of planes of force and positioned them on either side of Gregoria's body. Multiple telekinetic entities was one of the first things medical unicorns were trained to do. It made sense - the more grasping fields, the more that a single unicorn could do. The unicorn medical school had needed to imagine what medicine would be for a nonhuman civilization, and over the past eight months since the school was started, it had been an exciting and fascinating mixture of study and invention working together.
Pledget had been an intern practicing at a clinic in Scotland when she had awakened after a long shift surprised to be a unicorn. She was normally a bit of a comedian, but she was very serious in her work. Her dark emerald horn glowed with viridescent light as she pushed her mind deep into Gregoria's leg. Her magic worked as both tools and microscope, and soon her inner eyes beheld the ruptured artery, the dissected flesh, and the rushing blood as if she were a miniscule pony working on a miles-high giant.
Green force flowed along the slice in the vessel, and Pledget grasped the edges with her will. She gently pulled the divided walls together and held them in place, her verdurous energies strengthening the layers of cells.
The next step was tricky, because it needed to be done without letting go of the now closed artery. Pledget wished that Uberty, her trained, earthpony regenesis nurse was here, but it was her day off, and she was apparently out with her friends enjoying the pond at the far end of the ranch. Earthponies had a natural talent for regenerating cells and inducing cell division. Guided by a unicorn, they would work miracles. Pledget was on her own, though, and hoped all of her practice had been enough.
Pledget had regrown small cuts and tears in the skins of ponies, abrasions that were easily fixed. This was the largest wound she had ever faced, and it would have to be an emergency. She tried to induce the feeling, the curious sensation that Uberty had taught her. Uberty called it the 'song of life'. It was almost what a sound would be if music could be eaten.
Under her thaumatic gaze, a single cell divided before its time, and vastly more quickly. Then another, and another. Pledget widened her magical awareness, and ran the silent song of life like a suture, round and through and round again, all along the length of the damage to the artery. Wherever her virent glamour played, the cells divided and met one another across the gap, joining walls, healing in accelerated time.
When Pledget finished, and she could finally withdraw and open her eyes, she found her poll dripping with sweat, and her legs wobbly with exhaustion. She studied the leg, and the only evidence of the deep incision was a thin, white line beneath the blood-drenched hairs. It was a simple blessing that bacteria and viruses could not attack Equestrian cells. Pledget studied the ancient, rusted blade laying in the dirt. No, not a simple blessing. It was a Celestia-send. "I'm done." Pledget's voice was shaky.
"Pledget!" Anodyne looked frightened. "You were really deep this time. I've been trying to get your attention! This pony is in shock. I think she lost too much blood. Can you do sanguinous regeneration?"
The emerald green unicorn shook at the thought. "I wouldn't know where to start! I mean... I know where to start, the marrow of the femur, but I don't know which cells to activate, or how many, or how to use Uberty's song for that - I could end up churning out millions of clots waiting to happen! I'm worn out just doing what I did!"
"Run... find Uberty. Or get Samantha, she knows most of Ub's stuff. Or anypony!" Anodyne's horn was bright and pulsing. "I am keeping this pony alive by cyclic tissue suffocation and systemic compression. I'm trying to rotate the blocks on her limbs and organs so that they all get a bit of blood, but... I can't keep this up forever."
Pledget ran immediately off in the direction of the growing pony village. Anodyne was using his telekinetic fields to decrease the volume the remaining blood needed to fill. It must be an incredible strain to not only carefully compress all the major arteries and veins, but to cycle through body parts, opening up some for a whiff of life, and then closing down to move onto another. Pledget knew she couldn't do that. The number of separate telekinetic entities was difficult to imagine. Anodyne must have a hundred thamatic 'hands' at his disposal. She hadn't realized just how accomplished he had become with his horn.
Gregoria's head drooped to the ground. Her eyelids fluttered, twitching. She was barely aware, and found herself dropping in and out of consciousness.
"What's going on?" Chelsea hadn't understood much of what the two medical unicorns had been talking about, but she understood that it wasn't good, and that Gregoria was in trouble. "What can I do to help?"
Anodyne kept counting, cycling through limbs and organs. "... seven... do you know Uberty?... eight... tan unicorn, pink mane?... nine..."
Chelsea shook her head. "No... there's a lot of ponies now. I haven't met all of them. I just stick with Rachel and Gregoria."
The cycle had started over. "... two... Samantha? You know her?... three..."
"No! I don't mingle much. I stay with Rachel and Gregoria. I know Damon and Michel!"
"... six... I need a... seven... medical earthpony... eight... fly! Get one... nine..."
"I don't know any!" Chelsea's eyes filled with tears. What had happened in the human base had been so horrible, she'd just wanted to stay with her two friends. Other ponies frightened her. Everything frightened her. Only Rachel and Gregoria were safe.
Chelsea turned to Rachel. The tall body of Celestia stood, nervously flicking her tail and twitching her ears. The white face pointed off, not looking at anything in particular, but it was clear that whatever was left of Rachel was upset and afraid.
"Rachel, please. Celestia, please... this is... this is bad. Greggy's in real trouble. She needs your help. I can't do anything, and the medic is doing everything he can, but... I'm scared, Rachel, princess, please. Save Greggy, fix Greggy, she needs you, I need you, please..." Chelsea trailed off, tears running down her cheeks.
Rachel continued to stare at the horizon, her ears flicking back alternately, a hoof mindlessly digging a trench in the earth.
Anodyne was at his limits as a unicorn. "... three... four... three... No! Four... four... SWIRL!... five..." It was hard to concentrate on so many things at the same time. All those discreet instances, using just the right pressure - not too much or the tissues would be damaged, not too little or the blood pressure would plummet - trying to act as a universal cuff over vein and artery and organ and limb, then cycling through them so no single part would die... it was too much.
The orange unicorn found himself losing control. He was already beyond exhaustion, his head felt like it was being beaten with a mallet. Why wasn't Pledget back? Why couldn't this pegasus just try to find somepony, anypony? This poor mare could die at any moment and...
Anodyne was surprised to find himself laying on his side. What had happened? He raised his pounding, aching head. Ah, he had fallen over. He had collapsed. The unicorn medic tried to get up but found his legs weren't obeying him.
Suddenly he was awake again. Some pegasus was screaming at him, sweet Luna, it wasn't time to get up yet, class didn't start for another - oh! Great Baker Of Cupcakes, the mare! The earthpony mare! Anodyne tried to block out the screaming and yelling and crying which was only making the pain under his horn worse. He struggled to get to his hooves, managing to roll onto his belly. Anodyne struggled to lift up his body with his forelegs.
With a thump he crashed back to the ground. The pounding was even worse now, if that was possible. He must have used up almost all of his thaumic reserves. Ponies needed magic as much as they needed water or air. The theoretical possibility of a unicorn killing themselves through thaumic depletion suddenly entered his thoughts, and he felt fear. What if the reason he was this bad off was because he had fatally overextended himself?
Anodyne rolled his eyes to get a look at his patient. The yellow earthpony with the black mane was immobile, legs still locked, still upright because of that, but she didn't look like she was breathing. Her eyes were open, but rolled back into her head. Her muzzle gaped, the tongue hanging out, touching the grass. It was a horrible sight.
She was his patient, this nameless Equestrian. Anodyne decided he couldn't live if he just gave up. Even if it killed him...
Anodyne forced himself back to his forelegs. His rear legs still wouldn't obey, but he was up enough to clearly see the unresponsive yellow mare. He sent his will into his horn, to return to acting as magical life support. Instantly everything exploded in white searing pain and he found himself flat on the ground again.
"I will take over from here. Rest and heal, my little pony."
Chelsea stopped crying and saw, through her tears and shock, the princess of the sun standing over Gregoria. Celestia's shining, multicolored mane of light waved and rippled in the anagogic winds that only she could feel. A golden glow enveloped Gregoria, covering her and lifting her into the air. Gregoria's legs unlocked and her body became limp, like a doll.
The solar regent winked a violet eye at Chelsea as she wove odylic energies in and through the dying body of the little yellow earthpony. For a moment, Gregoria became constructed of currents of light, a pony-shaped circuit diagram of esoteric design and purpose.
Then the moment was gone.
Gregoria watched the little beetle, crawling on a verdant stem. She looked up, across the flat grassland. She didn't remember laying down. Had she fallen asleep? It was a particularly warm and humid day, and Rachel had been so very content grazing. Rachel liked to graze.
There was an orange hoof nearby. Gregoria raised her head from the ground and noticed the unicorn stallion laying beside her. It wasn't Damon. Oh. Maybe somepony came by and got into a discussion with Chelsea or something. Maybe they had been chatting and fell asleep too. That was okay. Only the orange unicorn didn't look okay. He was laying there, but he was awake, and his head was up, and he was staring at her. No, not just her. He kept looking behind her too. He seemed... what? Frightened? No, not exactly. More like... like he had seen a UFO or a triple rainbow or something.
Gregoria turned her long neck to look behind her. Chelsea was there, also possessed of the same, overawed expression. Doughnut holes! Had something cool happened while she'd been asleep in the grass? Gregoria felt disappointed at the thought. Even though she knew that things like flying saucers were just evidence of unknown injectors, she'd always wanted to see one.
Gregoria looked around, trying to discover if whatever amazing thing Chelsea and Mister Orange Horn had seen was still visible.
Alas, all there was to be seen on the wide, lush field was gray-maned Rachel, poor, sweet, far-away Rachel, contentedly munching on the long, tender, blades of grass.
THE END
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Oh my goodness.
Well, it's a somewhat positive note, at least.
Nicely done, Chat!
"Celestia" is giving "Rachel" time to heal and just be happy. And eat the flowers.
If rachel was self conscious i would say she was a troll. As it stands however, that's just plain sad
Well, I suppose an ending with a positive gradient, at least, is all we could have hoped for, after last chapter. Here's hoping Celestia will pop up more frequently for here on. Unfortunately, I think I see the problem. Celestia is immortal. Rachel is not. Rachel's mind was destroyed, and is unlikely to heal over time, while Celestia's will heal and fill in the gap. Eventually, the Celestia that used to be Rachel will wake up for good, and remake the world. Here's hoping. Or, I suppose, she may wait until after 'Rachel' is no longer needed before assuming control. Such choices!
To me, the mind is the most holy thing I can think of, so Rachel's state, or rather, what caused it, is something which just makes me sick
. To know that she will recover and that all found injector victims are now somewhat safe again only partially puts me at ease. After all, I bet it's just a matter of time if they're found out again, and I don't want to know what happens then 
. Their best bet would truly be Rachel, or rather Celestia, converting Earth to Equestria. Celestia, because I don't think Rachel's mind survived at all, and what recovers will mostly resemble the Celestia Rick thought of.
All in all, the last chapters really warrant a "dark" tag in my opinion, maybe something to consider. And if you wanted to create feelings in your readers, you have certainly managed to do that with me. But I don't know for sure yet what the overall direction of these feelings is, I have to let them settle for a few hours first
Ow my brain...
Also, holy swirl-balls
*here
Now, that ending.
This was a good story. There comes a time when that is the only thing that can be said. This is one of those times.
*Ears perk* Song of Life?
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Yes. That was a loving nod to you, specifically, my most excellent Peach Clover.
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I thank you for the reference, but I would disagree with Uberty's use of the term ^^;;
You know what? I liked this fic a lot, and I'm glad you decided to come back and finish it.
So here, take this:
imageshack.us/a/img442/794/ifuckinglovethisfic.jpg
It's funny the thoughts that go through one's mind just before sleep. I thought about a scene after Gregoria found out about what happened and tucking Rachel into bed one night would begin singing a lullaby. I couldn't remember the words to the song as I went to bed, but I looked up the song after I got up and well... have a listen:
Well, having now just finished this (Sorry!)...
Can I have a sequel?
That was one hell of a ride. When you look at it from start to finish, it's really an epic story, with a beautiful if bittersweet ending.
I have to say the combination of trail-blazing ponies and intense bittersweet remind me of A Taste of Grass, a little bit. This fic is much more intense though, gut-wrenching even (Like when I realized what had happened to Rachel
, at the beginning of the chapter). It's not a bad thing of course.
This story is very, very powerful. I don't really know what else to say right now. It affected me deeply, in a way I wasn't prepared for, and I need time to recover.
You are a very good writer.
One day you are going to wake up as a pony and it is going to be Trixie, and you will be compelled to be boastful and vain and petty.
Sadly, I think that Rachel is gone but, in some ways, if I'm right, she was always an illusion. Only Celestia remains but, I suspect, that was always the person the System was trying to create.
Without a new paragraph break, you're not making it clear enough that someone new is speaking.
Last thoughts for this chapter: So much misanthropy.
So Rachel hasn't recovered her mind. I find that… sad not necessarily in a way beyond words but in a way which I do not presently seem to be able to find the words to express. Still, as Gregoria says, she seems happy enough, so it's at least a bittersweet ending for her, I suppose…
I'm glad that Rachel may yet recover.
"I think the cartoon has well demonstrated that dictators and despots are not tolerated under pony rule."
…Weeeeell, it's never really implied that anyone votes the Princesses into office, is it? It might be more accurate to say that non-benevolent autocrats aren't tolerated.
when Chelsea is pleading with Rachel:
…We're about to have a Friendship is Magic (healing magic, specifically), moment, aren't we? :)
Ah, yes. :) I am now having happy feelings that I am not finding the words to articulate.
…Oh. Well. Well, we have proof that she can heal! Apparently it's just going to take a bit longer for it to fully work.
Now just two chapters (or possibly chapter-like entities) left.
But Uberty is earth pony, not unicorn. It may be mistake... or maybe it's just Anodyne's slip. He was quite busy at the moment.
Weird,
As I said prior, I wasn't keen on the THE plot twist, but you've done a good job with this Fic.
However, I really think you need the Dark tag and possibly the tragic tag.
Good story.
Because the ratings are disabled I will leave a thumbs up here.
👍
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It was my hope that other authors would jump in and continue within this universe. The outcome for our characters can pretty much only go one of two ways - either Rachel wakes up completely and goes full-on Celestia, and this time successfully transforms reality into Equestria... or she never does and this Injection becomes a failed genre shift for our cosmos. Both directions provide many possible stories. In a full Equestria, we could find misfits, still human... and some still from previous iterations... coping with the change in reality, which would be interesting. In the direction where Rachel never transforms the world, our transformed ponies will have to deal with being misfits themselves, and as their invisibility to the human world is gradually lost, there could be many possible stories of them seeking out other misfit populations from other Injector alterations of the past, scattered around the globe. They could, maybe, pool their abilities and powers, and try to change their situation, found a realm of their own, or even come out to the world. So many possible stories in either of the two paths.
The real dark tragedy is that nobody wanted to play in the sandbox I created. So... you, as a reader, can make any happy ending you want. Desire Equestria? Rachel woke up and changed everything. Desire the human Injection to remain dominant? Rachel never wakes up and humanity remains preserved. So, as you can see, the story is only as dark, or tragic, as the reader chooses to imagine the ultimate outcome, and that is different based on what the reader prefers.
Since this is the case - one reader's 'dark and tragic' is another reader's 'best happy ending', it is impossible for me to label the story as light or dark, happy or sad.
My happy would be Rachel waking up and everything goes full Equestria - except that since our protagonists know about Injection, they then seek out all the misfit colonies from previous Injection events prior to humanity, and help them join the pony world as equals. They would even help any human misfits left over, so they didn't feel like outcasts. Everyone equal in a magical reality shared with kindness for all.
But I think we all know that there are those, here on this site, who would find my happy ending dark, evil, and sad. They would want the Injection that made the human world to remain dominant, they would want our protagonists to be forever misfits and outcasts, and Rachel to never wake up. Indeed, they would want all the misfits from previous Injections to be Secured, Contained, and likely, Put To Death (rather than Protected). And they would want a way to permanently prevent Injector events from ever happening again. Humans forever, anything different destroyed. This would be my 'Bad End'. This would be dark and tragic to me.
Injector Doe cannot be easily described in terms of light or dark, happy or sad and tragic. I actually think that makes it particularly special.
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Ratings are rubbish. What matters to me, is that you enjoyed the story, that you, personally, liked it. I am honored. Thank you for reading this book. It is one of my novels that I am the most proud of, actually.
Moving story. Gave me plenty to think about. Not all of which felt good. But facing harsh truths never does.
My only complaint was that the pacing felt a little fast, but thats not really a negative, I just wish there was more of it.
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Thank you very much for reading my work!