Remnants, Forgotten.

by AnkhOmega

5: Mobilisation.

Mobilisation.

Princess Celestia was very distracted today, which was most certainly annoying to the weasly looking business executive complaining about the one percent rise in the tax on timber, which he claimed would doom the paper industry to extinction.

She was distracted by a feeling she'd been having since she sent her faithful student that letter almost a week ago. She'd had a terrible feeling like something had, or was going to go very wrong sometime soon. The oddest thing about the feeling was that it had a faint sense of familiarity to it. It almost felt like an old memory, one that had degraded to the barest of hint of a smell, or the faintest reminder of a taste.

She was mulling the feeling over, making sure to appease the executive with a few plaintive “That sounds reasonable”'s or “No, I was unaware of that, could you please elaborate?”'s, when a letter appeared in front of her with a puff of dragon fire and smoke. She grabbed it in her magic, unfurling the scroll.

She started reading the letter, which drew several snorts of anger from the executive. “Oh no, please do go on. I can read and listen at the same time.” she soothed. He reluctantly calmed down and continued his impressively detailed rant.

Her face dropped, any attempt at hiding her feelings was foregone as she dropped the letter and stormed out of the room, leaving behind an outraged businesspony to scream his frustrations at an empty throne. She didn't care. Something much more important to her had popped up.

She found the nearest balcony, spread her wings, and took flight. She sped as fast as her wings could carry her towards the town of Ponyville. The letter and the feeling had been all but confirmed to her, her student was in trouble, and it didn't sound good.

Back in the throne room a few guards were escorting the, still yelling, petitioner out of the room and setting about letting the remaining ponies know that day court was cancelled for the time being. In between a squadron being dispatched to follow the Princess' trail and a message being crafted for Princess Luna, a sole unicorn guard decided to file away the letter that had set the princess off. Naturally, as he picked it up his curiosity got the better of him and he read the message it contained.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Spike here, Twilight's been acting really weird for the past couple of days, she teleported into her room and she keeps crying. She's been screaming at night and won't eat anything, the girls won't tell me what happened. I'm really worried Princess, could you drop by sometime soon and see her? It might help if somepony like you were here for whatever she's gotten herself into.

Twilight's Number One Assistant,
Spike.

..\\..

Twilight woke with a start. It had been a few days since she had left the Bunker under the Everfree, and she had yet to rest properly. Not only was she burned out from being in full panicked research mode most of the last day or two, she was being plagued with night terrors any time she tried to sleep.

As far as she could remember after waking the dreams she had were the same. Always in a room of pure white, feeling blades and saws rip open her body. Feeling bone be extracted, feeling as her skull was split by a saw and parts being removed. Feeling something cut out her eye.

Seeing a metal arm take her still beating heart from her chest.

She had woken each time after seeing the, usually internal, organ be removed. Luckily for her, the nightmarish images faded relatively quickly after waking.

She rolled over in her bed, tugging her blanket up. She had researched non-stop for the past two days, stopping only to attempt sleep when she couldn't focus anymore. All of her research, through her private collection of books, and what she could convince Spike to leave outside her door, proved fruitless. There were no descriptions of any civilisation with technology like what she was now partially composed of. There wasn't even the slightest hint of Authority networks, Library servers, or even floating orbs of metal.

She felt incredibly tired mentally, and more than a little grouchy. It wasn't enough that her research had been pointless, but during the last two days Spike and her friends had been near constantly bothering her. With one exception, they had come to mutter apologies through her door, ask if she was okay, or try and coax her out of her room (usually trying to get her to eat something). The one exception was Applejack, the one pony she actually did want to talk to, who didn't come by at all.

Twilight wasn't sure how she felt about Applejack at the moment. One the one hoof, she had left her alone after being 'upgraded', like the rest of her friends. Understandable, she herself had had a good old fashioned freak out between research sessions the day she had gotten back, and a few more after that, but it still hurt.

On the other hoof, Applejack was apparently in love with her. Twilight wasn't sure what to do about that, but she knew they needed to talk. She wasn't sure of her own feelings about her anymore either, she had to admit a certain attraction to the farmer, both her personality and her physical form were something to be admired. But Twilight had never viewed anything between them as more possible than a late night fantasy, the kind that lead to imagining herself with anypony. And sometimes everypony.

She blushed lightly, those particular fantasies had always surprised her with her own....vigour, imagined though it may be.

Still, the idea in and of itself didn't sound bad to her, she was just unsure. Doubly so after all that had happened. Triply so after she had had a look at herself in a full body mirror. It was an....interesting sight.

All in all, the concoction of thoughts rushing around her head, coupled with her failure to find anything useful in her books, had driven her to the only logical solution to her predicament.

She was going to stay in bed. If not for the rest of her life, then at least for the day. She was going to stay in bed and try to come to full terms with all that had happened. And if that meant sobbing like a newborn foal, again, then so be it.

She thought she should also probably let the orb in. It had been sitting on her balcony most of the time after she returned home.

..//..

Applejack bucked a tree.

She had been doing that a lot over the last couple of days. It helped distract her from how horrible she felt, and helped focus her thoughts. She still couldn't believe her own actions, nor that of her friends, Twilight was obviously shaken up by what had happened and they had ran away from her. She had ran away from her.

She bucked another tree.

She hated herself for that. She had heard Twilight's cry as she ran away, and had gone back a few minutes later, finding Twilight and her Stetson absent. She looked up at the brim of her hat while she remembered, she had gone to the Library the day after to check on Spike, and had heard Twilight freaking out in her room. She very nearly worked up the courage to knock on her bedroom door, when she noticed her hat and the note it had once contained placed just outside it.

She bucked the tree again.

The note was resting on the brim of the hat. Twilight had definitely read it. And she had returned it, along with the hat. Applejack didn't know what that meant. She knew they needed talk, she needed to know Twilight's thoughts on what she had said. She needed to apologise. She needed to see if her friend was okay.

Buck.

She was afraid. Afraid of what Twilight would say. Afraid of how she'd feel after what she'd done. Afraid Twilight would hate her for running.

Buck.

She was mad. Mad at herself for behaving like that. Mad at life for doing whatever the hay had happened to her friend. Mad at the damn tree she was bucking for not dropping its damn apples.

She bucked hard enough to splinter the wood, two hoof shaped indents were left in the tree from her actions. She turned, snarling at the tree. The tree had emptied itself long ago. The buckets she had placed were already full.

She sat down, pulling her hat down over her eyes. She needed to talk to Twilight. She needed to do it now, before she got herself fully stuck in her routine and her worries.

She ignored the apples in the buckets, and the half-full wagon she had been dragging around the orchard. She needed to talk to Twilight now, the apples could wait.

She set off down the dirt path to Ponyville, doubts nagging at her mind as she walked. She steeled herself against the thoughts. Delaying further would only bring more pain.

..//..

“You have sixteen notifications, five have been marked as important.” the orb chimed out, for the fifth time.

“Say it one more time and I swear to Celestia I will throw you out a window.” Twilight resounded, completely serious. She looked out from under her pillow.

The orb was floating a few feet away from her bed, diligently attempting to get her to listen to it's messages. She was regretting her decision to let it in, as it's repetition was grating to say the least and was quickly eroding her patience.

A small spark of intuition flashed through her mind as she said, “If...If I listen to the important ones, will you be quiet?” she asked, tentatively.

“Affirmative. Do you wish to listen to all five notifications?” It asked, when she mumbled an affirmation from under the pillow it continued. “One: Tutorial not completed. It is highly recommended to complete the Tutorial in order to understand basic functionality. Two: Salt units have been activated. Three: You are currently set to ignore Authority Network traffic. Some functions are halted until Networked through you. Four: Salt units are mobilising to Grid-Kilo Kilo 7. Five: You require sustenance. It is recommended that you consume either a source of food or magically charged gemstones.”

Twilight sat up slowly, the pillow falling away from her face as she did so. “There's a tutorial?” She asked, “Why didn't you tell me sooner?!”

“This unit was threatened with expulsion via a window when it tried.” The orb responded. Despite the lack of any clear inflection in it's voice, Twilight still felt that it was unduly smug.

“Oh. Yeah, right. Run the Tutorial please.”

“It is required that you allow Authority Network traffic access to begin the tutorial.”

She rolled her eye, and thought a command. Command: Allow Authority Network traffic access. A conformation in text appeared in her vision, then her head was full of noise. She swayed slightly as it threatened to overwhelm her, there was so much information passing through her mind, whispers and shouts of warnings and requests. She lay down again, trying to focus on the voices was giving her a migraine, but it was impossible to ignore them.

Strings of text and numbers started to scroll through her sight, swimming over, under and through each other. She was about to make them stop when one voice rang through, hushing them all to background noise. The textual assault on her eyes slowed and died down, retreating to a single corner of her vision. The voice in her head spoke out again, addressing her directly.

“Tutorial activated. Hello Twilight.” The voice of Princess Celestia spoke inside her mind.

Twilight was suddenly bolt upright and looking around the room frantically. The absolute last pony on the planet that she wanted to see her like this was the Princess. After nearly giving herself whiplash from scanning the room, she asked quietly, “Princess Celestia?...Is that you?”

“Not quite, my faithful student. I am just the tutorial program, this voiceprint was selected from your memories due to connotations of learning, admiration, and respect attached to it. Please, refer to me as Tutor. I think that may be less confusing for you.” The tutorial spoke, it's words resounding in her head. She thought on it's choice of voice for a moment, concluding that it's reasoning made a certain sense. Even if it did make her a little uncomfortable to have the Princess speaking in her mind.

“Now, let's get started, shall we? The noise you heard earlier was the combined network traffic of an active Authority network. It was quite the mess of alerts, wasn't it? It seems we've been offline for a while. Don't worry, after completing this program your sub-conscious should filter and automatically respond to the less important messages.” Tutor informed her, “I'm going to send you a test notification, just use a Command to respond to it like this: Command: Respond, [Answer].”

As Tutor finished a line of text appeared in the bottom right hand side of Twilights vision, asking the question 'Do you prefer chocolate or vanilla?' Command: Respond, Chocolate. She thought, becoming slightly amused by how easily she was picking up the command system.

“Brilliant, I knew you could do it.” Tutor cheerfully responded. “Now, let's try something a little more advanced. Raise your appendage of choice and focus on reaching out, without your magic, and grabbing something.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow, wondering where the program was taking her with this, and settled her focus onto a quill on her bedside table. She raised her right forehoof, pointing it towards the quill and focused on lifting without reaching for her magic. After a few minutes of awkwardly glaring at the feather, Twilight felt something strange going on with her hoof. There was a slight hiss, and a soft click.

Twilight looked down at her hoof in horror. Her entire leg seemed to be coming apart before her eyes, panels opened and strange wires extended from hidden depths. Odd shaped connectors snaked out of holes that weren't there before, moving around as if they were looking for something to connect to. Small telescopic arms poked out of compartments, tipped with all manner of specialised tools. Twilight began to panic.

She started waggling her forehoof, a desperate reflex action, whipping the wires around frantically. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard Tutor telling her to calm down, she ignored the voice. She raised the other hoof to try and push the strange appendages down, she practically screamed when she saw her other forehoof had becoming a similar writhing mass of wires and tools.

She did scream when she felt her rear hooves do the same.

A frantic banging on her door snapped her out of her panic. Spike's slightly muffled shouting filtered into her head. “Twilight?! What's wrong? Are you okay?”

As she struggled to think of a way to both keep him out and let him know what she was freaking out over, the wires and tools slowly started retracting into her legs, sealing themselves away seamlessly, as if they were never there.

“Yeah...I..uh, I'm fine!” She shouted, “Nothing to worry about!”

“Okay....” Spike didn't sound even slightly convinced, but he still left her to herself.

“Sorry about that.” Tutor chimed in. “Kind of lost control there for a moment.”

“Ya think?” Twilight deadpanned.

“Okay, sorry. Let's try something a little less strenuous.”

..//..

Applejack knocked on the library door. It was an odd gesture, considering that it was a public building, but it was still her friends home, and she felt like she was intruding.

“Just a second!” Spike's voice rang out from inside the tree-house-library. After what felt like a few minutes the door opened to show the little purple dragon looking very frustrated. He softened his look slightly when he saw her at the door.

“Howdy Spike...Is Twilight...still up there?” She asked, not quite able to look him in the eye while as she asked. He led her through the library, leaving her outside Twilight's bedroom door to, presumably from the smell, return to the kitchen to continue making lunch.

She raised a hoof to knock on the door, but she hesitated. She put her ear to the door, reasoning that she didn't want to intrude on her if she was doing something. She listened intently when she heard Twilight talking to herself.

“So I Just...Like this?.....” After a few moments Applejack heard her giggle softly. Applejack wasn't sure what was going on, and doubly unsure whether or not she should intrude. She carefully opened the door and peeked inside.

Twilight was looking out of a window, facing away from the door luckily. She had an oddly serene smile across her face. She giggled again, laughing at a scene only she could see. Applejack couldn't help but smile, seeing her friend happy, despite the recent events, was a good sign. She knocked on the door.

Twilight spun around, her face dropped slightly when she saw Applejack in the doorway. Applejack started to worry that she was mad at her, she put on a smile to try and defuse the situation.

“D'ya mind if ah come in?” Applejack asked tentatively, Twilight nodded and waved her in. Applejack closed the door behind her as she came in, there were a few minutes of awkward silence as she sat down next to Twilight and tried to think of what to say.

“Ah just-”
“Is what-”

They interrupted each-other as they started to speak, after a mutual smile Twilight said, “You go first.”

Applejack nodded slightly before starting. “Ah...Ah just wanted to apologise first up. For runnin' away like ah did. Ah shouldn't have done that. Ah just kinda panicked, 's a lot to take in, 'specially after ah spent most of the day writin' that letter.” Applejack cast her eyes to the floor. “Ah'm pretty sure ya read it. Hopefully that shed some light on why ah reacted like ah did.”

“So, it's true then? What was in the letter?” Twilight asked, Applejack simply nodded in reply. “Well...I have to say...I'm flattered.” She said, with a light smile. Applejack raised her head, looking deep into Twilight's eyes with unabashed hope. “But...umm..” Applejack's ears folded back pre-emptively, “Do...do you still think I’m pretty? I mean, I kinda look a little bit...” Twilight waved a metal hoof over herself for emphasis, “...different now. And I'm kind of going through a bit of a...thing right now.”

Applejack nodded slightly, taking a long look over the mare sitting next to her. The metal covering her limbs was amazing, and unsettling. Applejack wasn't anything even close to resembling an expert on symbols, engraving, or magic, but even she could see the mastery put into the construction. The part of Twilight's face that had been replaced still looked like her, greyed out and engraved, but it still looked like part of her face. The most unsettling thing to Applejack was the new eye. It looked empty, like there was nothing behind the glassy exterior. Then Twilight would blink, shutters would appear out of nowhere, contract, and then recede into nothingness again.

Applejack shook her head, “Twi', It ain't never been about your looks. Ah love you for you. Your new...features are a lil' odd sure, but ah don't care.” She smiled at Twilight, “An' this thing ya going through? Maybe...maybe ah can help ya through it. If ya'll let me, a'course.”

They smiled at each-other, Applejack risking a scooch closer, and began gazing out of the window together. They sat there for a few minutes, Applejack enjoying time spent with one she held dear, Twilight finding herself relieved she might not have to go through this alone.

A loud thump from the balcony shocked them out of their reverie. Before they could turn and see what had caused the noise a patchwork voice yelled out. “Alert. Aspect of Galaxia detected. Defense protocol Zeta active.” Core Unit-002 floated off of the shelf it had taken to resting on and moved itself the the middle of the room and began glowing a bright blue. A solid wall of opaque blue energy was then projected out from the ball, effectively splitting the room in half. “Alert. Evacuate the Authority immediately.”

Before either Twilight or Applejack could try and figure out what had spooked the orb, a soft yet commanding voice spoke. Despite it's slight muffling from being on the other side of the shield, it was clearly recognisable.

“Not exactly the warmest welcome I've ever received, My Faithful Student.” the soft voice of Princess Celestia echoed through the room.

Comments

[The Lone Shadow]

They (Twilight's friends) seriously think a half-hearted apology like that is enough after what they did.....? AGAIN, I might add! (The last time being the Royal Wedding) dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Vinyl_shock.png

[Aatxe360]

The pacing is a little fast, I agree. I'll keep going and see what happens.