Equestrian Rim : Here Comes Tom!
The howl of metal struts and heavy machinery being tested to their limit crashed through Rainbow Dash's helmet.
"AH! Dammit, AJ!" Rainbow tossed her head over to look at her co-pilot, then remembered her training and refocused on their fight. They were the only defense Equestria had, its one hope. "AJ! We gotta create some distance, we're no good going hoof to claw with this thing, it's too strong!" Even speaking through state-of-the-magic headsets and surrounded by densely insulated alloys and equipment, the noise was incredible.
The Jaeger, piloted by the two impromptu pilots, had been dubbed Tom at the last minute by Twilight herself. The metal chassis squealed in pain as the Kaiju hammering against the hull pushed harder at the machine's limbs. Massive, several meter wide ball joints and gears churned, fighting to keep the Jaeger upright against the monster's weight, beating against him. The untested metal device they had scraped together was being pushed to its very limits already.
And they had only just started fighting.
"We're already fetlock deep in the apple sauce, Rainbow. It's now or never! Come on, with me!" Applejack sneered from inside her helmet, feeling the click and shift of the armor she was locked into as she readied a retaliatory counter attack. "Right hoof!"
"Dammit!" Rainbow cursed again, but matched her co-pilot's movements fluidly. The duo could feel one another's intent, what the other was doing at the controls through the Drift, so talking wasn't needed. Applejack and RD still preferred it for attacking though, despite what Twilight had trained them on.
The steel grey Jaeger, Tom, squared his hind legs and stopped the sky scraper tall beast's advance on them. The left front leg bent down slightly, then the right rotated to thrust up and struck under the monster's jowls. The entire Jaeger's front end left the ground as the metal creation put all of his might towards killing the enemy.
Kaiju bone and muscle were crushed, skin tore, and a monstrous screech echoed through the harbor city of Manehattan. The Kaiju and its hellish appearance fell away from the devastating upper cut, dazed and confused by the suddenly formidable opponent.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash panted inside the relative safety of their Jaeger's cockpit, sweating through their coats and into the plasteel armor they wore as combat suits. The room they did their nasty work in was hot from the mass amounts of engines and machines working around them.
"We need a plan AJ! Twilight was wrong, we're still no match for it, just like Celestia." Rainbow looked over at AJ again despite knowing she needed to stay focused. She was panicking on the inside, but she didn't dare let it show. "Maybe we should-"
"Rainbow Dash!" Applejack shouted over the thundering footsteps of their Jaeger, as both they and the Kaiju circled one another. "Are you suggesting we turn tail and run? We can't do that!" Her eyes remained trained on their enemy, the creature had recovered from their lucky hit, and stalked as a timberwolf stalked its meals in the Everfree.
Rainbow jerked her head over, the action following over to the mecha's great neck outside. "Are you kidding me? Buck no I'm not, but we gotta do-"
"HEY, get ready! Left hoof, now!" Applejack's eyes widened and she screamed the orders, adrenaline pumping through every vein in her body and bringing it to the point of shaking. Rainbow instinctively followed the command, and Tom danced to the right while his left hoof pushed off from the ground with enough force to fissure the harbor's concrete pavement.
The Kaiju charged across the dock, sprinting on all fours towards the Equestrian machine of war. The beast roared, its voice climbing to the pitch of a screech as it made to slam into the metal brawler facing it down.
Tom's left hoof made contact first and punched into the Kaiju's neck, knocking the hulk to the side.
The Kaiju landed its own attack though, one claw rending a great gash in the Jaeger's armor plating over the right shoulder. As the monster from beyond the depths of the Atlantic Ocean was forced back, both of its claws latched onto Tom's right leg. The Kaiju regained its footing quickly, seething breaths venting from its mouth in fury.
Applejack cried out as the Kaiju's claws sunk into their armor, getting ready for doing what looked like something really, really bad. "Rainbow, pull back now! Now! Right leg, RIGHT!" She looked on as the monster jumped back, pulling their leg along with it.
Both ponies screamed together as their Jaeger was dragged down onto its face. Their hull squealed and the world shook around them from the terrible impact.
Rainbow Dash shook her head and refocused on the cockpit's HUD. The crystal heads up display was cracked down the center from the force of the attack. "AJ!? Are you alright?"
Another bang against their Jaeger made both ponies scream again, AJ's voice answering Dash's question.
"Ah'm fine! We gotta move it or lose it Dash!" Applejack was already engaged in setting up another attack, a stroke of pure improvised nonsense coming to her. "Uh, roll over!" She shouted quickly.
"What!?" Rainbow's eyes scanned the HUD, then caught onto what Applejack was doing via the motion controls and her partner's subconscious. The pegasus joined in, letting her instincts take over just like she'd painstakingly trained to do over the last eight months.
Tom rolled onto his back under the duo's command, just before the next blow from the Kaiju fell on them.
"Now! NOWNOWNOW!" Rainbow yelled the words, focus trained entirely on the most desperate fight of her life.
The legs on their Jaeger mech all locked, then shot up under the Kaiju's head like pistons slamming home in a mana engine. The several hundred ton mechanical limbs made contact with four times the force of their first successful attack.
The Kaiju had been standing over them, and now suddenly wasn't. The attack flung the chitinous creature back through the air, shrieking. When it landed, somewhere in the distance, the Earth itself shook from the weight crashing into the urban cityscape, reverberating through Tom and onwards for kilometers around.
"Yes!" Dash was breathless from seeing such a great blow dealt to the murderous abomination. "We did it! Applejack, oh my gosh." Finally out of breath, Rainbow inhaled a massive gulp of air, then looked over at her friend again. "I mean, I totally knew we could do it." One of her hooves disconnected off her gantry cradle, and was then held under her chin in a pose of confidence.
AJ looked back at Dash with a smug smile showing through her helmet's clear visor. "Is that the truth?" The farmpony cracked her neck, then faced forward again. The calls of other ponies and Twilight came through the radio, calling out congratulations and atta-boys, obviously watching what was happening.
Applejack's face spread into a grin while she stayed on task, not wanting to let up. "Let's not just celebrate quite yet Dash. Help me get Tom here on his hooves again."
Rainbow responded while they went back to work, the gears and pumping hydraulic apparatus around them working their trained movements into information for the Jaeger to perform. "You think it's still alive after that!?" she exclaimed at Applejack. There's no way that thing's still alive, there's blood everywhere... Her eyes scanned the ground around them, looking over the carnage she and her friend had caused against the unprovoked enemy they fought against.
Concrete, re-bar and building crunched around them from outside of their instrument capsule. The wall's insulation and their helmets thankfully reduced it to dull cracking and thudding noises.
"I... doubt it RD, but let's make sure. I can't see the thing in all this dust, so we don't rightly know yet." Applejack glanced over to her old friend, then hesitantly turned down the comm radio. Twilight and the others were being distracting, and she didn't want nor have the heart to tell them to stop chattering at her.
Rainbow nodded her assent to AJ. "Yeah, alright, let's go make sure that thing never hurts anypony ever again... for good." She growled out the words, flexing her legs and body in the restraints that held her into the controls.
Applejack looked at her friend again briefly, while Tom slowly righted himself under the duo's command by rolling back over then standing slowly. The legs supporting his massive weight moved with an engineered grace, shifting to one position, then another, leg segments clunking and shifting until once again he was upright. Every movement he made spoke volumes of just what the creation made to save ponykind and every other race on Earth, was capable of.
Rainbow stared out of her Jaeger with focused determination over the battlefield, eager to see the body of their enemy. She called over the communicative equipment to her partner, still searching the ground. "Alright, where the hay is the body?" They couldn't spot the massive monster anywhere immediately in front of them.
Light glinted off the reflective clear-steel visor off the Jaeger's imposing head as it searched the area. It swiveled from side to side over the battlefield to match the pony's movements. Rended buildings and a spider web of steel frame refuse lay strewn across the dock and nearby businesses of Manehattan. Tom stomped across the ground, slowly, mechanically, at the behest of both ponies. It was faster than anything else of its immense size, but still slow, barely finished in time to defend the city.
Applejack grunted. "It must've gone pretty far. I don't see it through all of this dust." Her eyes shifted back and forth. "Well lets go get 'er then. Stay on your hooves, Dash. I got a bad feeling about this." She felt the tense worry in Dash through the Drift link they shared, but also the hate. That was far stronger. It made her worry.
Tom's rough shod body rounded a smashed and toppled skyscraper, where the Kaiju had definitely been thrown. Dust settled near a large crater on the other side as they moved past the corner, but there was no sign of the Kaiju.
"APPLEJACK, DASH, LOOK OUT! We still have a reading!" Twilight's voice screamed the warning into Rainbow's fuzzy ears over the radio.
Rainbow had enough time to think 'huh', and feel her partner's surprise through the drift, before everything around her began to buck, then jerked from side to side violently. Another yell came from Twilight came. "Six o' clock! SIX!" She was drowned out by a burst of static and the screaming of metal. Applejack's voice was nowhere in the mix at all.
Rainbow tried to get a handle on things, tried to think of how it could sneak up on them like that. Her hooves worked in the controls, trying their best to sync up with AJ's movements and commands.
"BUCK, BUCK!" Rainbow barely heard the screamed curse from somewhere, and had to think twice about just what it meant. It wasn't a curse, the feeling through the Drift said it was her partner giving an order. She raised up her hindquarters in the air during a brief, split second of stability, then bucked behind herself with everything she had.
The monster's howl echoed into Tom's cockpit, along with sparks and ruined apparatus showering both ponies. The Jaeger crashed against the ground again, making everything jump in the aftershock.
Rainbow finally got a handle on what was going on after the whiplash finished. Tom had just kicked the creature's hind legs out from under it, but its front legs were wrapped solidly around them. There was a huge, armored hand-like thing, tipped with serrated talons and crushing Tom's head visor.
"APPLEJACK!" Rainbow screamed out the name, hoping her friend had a plan, something. She couldn't make out anything over the Drift. The emotions and hysteria of her mind were too frantic, and too much was happening at once.
Rainbow was thrown to the right in her harness, slammed against the controls as the Jaeger was shoved over. She pushed out her hooves, trying to get Tom to escape the grapple, move forward, get up, anything.
The unbearable screeching became a thousand times worse. Above Rainbow the cockpit split open, and she was bathed in dusty sunlight. She looked over at Applejack, still screaming, but now to tell her friend they needed to get out. Her hooves tried to hit the release switches for her harness. I can fly us out of here, I can-
The claws and talons returned, ripping more of the Jaeger's head and circuits out. Half of Tom's head was suddenly gone.
Rainbow watched on horrified, while the pony just beside her was torn free of the cockpit. She stared at the empty space beside her for a moment.
"Applejack?" Circuitry and wires sparked everywhere around in the ruined capsule as the only response. The image of her friend being pulled away stayed burned into her eyes.
Suddenly, Tom again crashed against the floor of the city, slamming Rainbow forward in the control harness. In disbelief, she looked up again for her friend.
"No! NO!" Rainbow couldn't stop looking. All the while, Tom shuddered again as more of the Kaiju's pounding assault slammed against his back. There was more screaming through her headset, but it didn't register.
"Applejack." Rainbow's eyes glued themselves to the hole in her cockpit; they were wide and wrought from emotion. She could feel Tom still obeying her, feel the load of suddenly knowing that she was the only pilot, feel Applejack still, and every thought her friend had ever had. And the last ones she'd had.
Something snapped.
Rainbow gave up trying to push the Kaiju off. Instead, she pulled her legs around her head, and brought it down to her.
Outside, Tom's front legs churned and bent back, finding purchase on the creature's body. He pulled and crushed with his engine driven mechanisms at Rainbow's command, wrestling the Kaiju standing over him onto the ground in front.
All the while Rainbow was screaming, as madly as she could. Her legs pushed herself and her remaining friend up, then came down over the Kaiju's neck.
Kaiju. The word means giant monster in Japanese.
The first of these Kaiju made land fall off the coast Baltimare. We didn’t know what to think, or how to react. Here was a creature more chaotic than Discord, more ruthless than Nightmare Moon. It was like nothing that Earth had ever faced before.
It didn’t take long for the thousands dead to become hundreds of thousands. Ponies everywhere in the city unable to escape the destruction were at the mercy of the beast. It was a slaughter, we just weren't ready for anything like it. It didn't seem like anything could be done to stop the killing.
Until Celestia and the Elements of Harmony showed up.
Together, the six famed mares from the little Equestrian town, Ponyville, lit up their magic necklaces as one. Anyone lucky enough to still be alive, or present from trying to help, cheered while the beast's demise reared up on the near horizon. There was no way it could stand up to their best magical defense, the battle's end was near.
Except it never came.
The Kaiju stood untouched by the magic of Harmony and Friendship. There wasn’t a sound after the hum of the magical energy breezed away through the air, like a dying whisper of hope.
Then the screaming began again, ponies fleeing once more in every direction. The Kaiju thundered towards our world's saviors, who stood there as helpless as everypony else.
Celestia stepped in then, her magic and spells from a thousand years of guiding the world standing at the ready. Her wings had spread wide and carried her across the landscape to the forefront with the ferocity of the sun and power itself.
It took everything Celestia had to win, everything, but by the end of it all the monster from beyond the reaches of our world lay dead, rotting in the shattered remains of what used to be one of Equestria’s finest cities.
The damage was done. Even in the wake of our victory, we couldn't find much reason to celebrate.
Worse, Celestia didn’t recover from her battle, she fell into a deep coma. Luna was left to take up the banner, and memorialize her sister’s sacrifice and the tragedy of the event. She did so, but with a heavy heart. The sun set slowly for weeks afterwards.
We rebuilt, we moved on; ponies everywhere from around the world came to help in Equestria's time of crisis. Germany, Great Britain, Australia, Japan; the love and kindness from all around on Earth rose up and came to help their fellow equines.
The body of the Kaiju was destroyed, and hardly anypony spoke of the event again once all was fixed.
Except for Twilight Sparkle. She didn't stop. That mare wanted to know why what had happened, happened. The rift was still there after all, and with it, everypony's silent concern over what might come next. We were afraid, terrified. Our Princess was barely able to stop one Kaiju, and no one wanted to ask the thing we all wondered; what if it happens again?
It did, one year and a month later.
We were in luck though. If it weren't for Luna and Twilight's friends, everything could have ended there. In relative secret, Equestria had funded a project for the Element of Magic; the construction of a massive containment machine. It was something big enough to fight back against monsters. It was called a Jaeger, and it was a creation unlike Earth had ever seen before.
There was a heavy loss that came with the second Kaiju's defeat, but it wasn't in vain. We had gained a way to fight back.
Less than a month later and another Jaeger was made, bigger and stronger than the first, and its creation was celebrated. Alongside it though, was the crippling knowledge that the rift was still untouchable.
Kaiju came, more and more through the rift over the ensuing months, and they didn't just stick to Equestria. They spread like wildfire, attacking every major city and country in the world. They weren't simple beasts, they were an army, they were a plague.
Communicating with them was impossible. Making peace with them simply wasn't an option. So, for the first time in Earth's history, we went to war right back. Where the strongest defense in the Equestrian arsenal failed, ponies of every race and background banded together and succeeded with Jaegers. We figured, if we couldn’t fight the beasts with our traditional, conventional methods, we would create something that could. We created monsters of our own; our massive hybrids of magic and technology.
Jaegers were constructed in every country and by every race that could manage the funds and resources. New industries were made, new practices. Griffons, Minotaurs, Zebras, everypony worked to defend the ones they loved with weapons, because we had no choice.
We were beating the Kaiju. We even got good at it.
Jaeger pilots became celebrities, the Kaiju seemed helpless against the weapons and technologies that were raced into completion in the next few years.
Until now.
Rarity had never been a mare to get down and dirty, so to speak. In fact, even a year before she started trotting through this multi-layered research laboratory, she would have never gone near such a place. What was once her pristine alabaster coat, devoid of any imperfections, was now a dulled mess of black smudges from numerous oil spills and working with grimy tools. She often grimaced at the sight of her rough appearance, but still, she couldn’t complain all that much. It was, in fact, now her job to get down and dirty.
The grated floors clacked and clanged as Rarity’s hooves made contact with their metal surface. She had become quite accustomed to hearing the floor’s raucous protests, but still, she longed for the blissful silence that her boutique’s carpeted floors had preferably provided.
The change from full time dressmaker to lab assistant had been rough, but Rarity still maintained the hope that one day she could go back to her little boutique in Ponyville. Back to her simple life of creating the newest fashion craze every season with the slow hum of her sewing machine, and the complete and utter silence that came when hewing seams of a dress together...
A large steel door separated diagonally, halting Rarity’s train of thought. The next, smaller hallway revealed another door. She sighed and shook away the casual reminisce of her old life that always plagued any free moment she had to herself. I mustn't think of my lot so poorly, she thought. After all, I could be far worse off than having to help one of my dearest friends in the world in her research.
Rarity’s horn glowed a deep azure, then the keypad off to the side beeped and booped until the next large metal door hissed with life. The two corners parted and soon the white unicorn came face to face with a cluttered lab, bathed in a sterile fluorescent light. Her eyebrows furrowed and her gaze surveyed the chaotic placement of various tools and crumpled slips of paper. I did not leave you like this...
“Arrgghh!” The sudden frustrated shout clued in Rarity as to why the relatively clean lab lay in such disorder. She slowly trotted in to find one of her best friends hunched over, levitating various slips of paper around her head.
The unicorn would quickly scan one or correct something on another, before then consulting a glowing data console beside her. Every once in awhile, she would cease her multi-tasking to pay particularly close attention to a certain sketch or report, only to let out a frustrated groan, likely after noticing a mistake in her calculations.
Rarity studied her workaholic friend with remorse for a minute before trying to speak to her. Perhaps if I start by talking about something work related this time? Things had been difficult lately, more so trying to get Twilight to relax some, and not work herself to death.
"Twilight," Rarity trotted to her friend’s side, she got an absent grunt for her trouble. Refusing to back away at her friend’s reply, she continued. "Uhm, good day! I won’t ask how well you are you seem...great.” She stared at her friend, who was furiously scribbling at something. “I don’t suppose...you have made any progress in trying to make the pilot linking more lenient, perhaps?"
Twilight was well aware that Rarity referred to the manner in which pilots were chosen. The level at which they could sync properly, via memories or like-mindedness, was very difficult to manage. Pilots that just didn't sync, just didn't sync, and there had been little progress in the past to overcome that requirement.
Twilight looked up from her data console quickly, the bags under her eyes stretching nearly to her violet furred cheekbones. "Nope, although I've all but given up on that. While I think guardsponies would be better suited to piloting exclusively, so far we've managed the last couple years to get enough candidates." She paused, groaning and rubbing her bloodshot eyes with both hooves. "What matters now, is figuring out how to get that rift closed, and making sure the firepower we churn out can keep up... keep up with these DAMN MONSTERS!" The button board on the desk flipped as Twilight abruptly stood up and strode away, keys and office refuse clattering to the ground.
Rarity cringed at the unexpected use of an expletive. Oh dear, this is going to be one of the bad days...
The librarian turned scientist trotted over to a table topped with various expensive looking tech covering the surface. She quickly went to work tinkering with the parts, all the while maintaining an awkward silence between the occupants of the room.
Rarity cantered over to the table, dodging various flying screwdrivers and spare parts as she did. “Twilight, darling... I simply cannot sit here and watch you coddle yourself in such indignation! It hardly seems befitting a mare of your stature to be toiling away all night in this grease-bucket like this, and alone!” Rarity’s horn lit up with its crystal blue aura, and the entire plethora of oil stained tools on the floor dispersed to their own individual cubbies along the far wall.
Twilight watched them go at first, then growled in retaliation and tried to struggle against her assistant’s magical grasp. Unsurprisingly, she found herself unable to compete with the well rested mare. A strangled noise escaped her throat in one last act of defiance, before she gave up and let her own horn dim.
Twilight ceased her fighting and turned her attention to the white unicorn, who did not look happy.
Rarity raised both of her eyebrows in an expectant look. "Well?"
Twilight straightened, frowning, and began to try and reason with the other mare. “Rarity, I’m perfectly fine... I just can’t sleep very well, is all.” Her posture slouched back after a moment and she drooped her head. “It’s been a month since we’ve made anything that somewhat resembled progress. Need I remind you the Kaiju attacks are starting to get more frequent? We just... three more Jaegers were destroyed last week, and...” She raised her head to lock eyes with Rarity, a clear, puffy red tint infecting her sclera. “I can’t rest, Rarity. I couldn’t, even if I tried...”
Rarity began to speak, but found herself unable to even begin to console her friend. She knew why she wasn’t able to sleep. It was hard for everypony to get through things... especially them, after what happened to Applejack. Her chastising gaze returned to sympathy, thinking of how exactly to give her friend the usual reassuring pat on the back.
Both ponies were interrupted by the metal creak of the heavy steel doors whooshing open. Their movement exposed the presence of a familiar yellow pegasus.
Fluttershy blinked in surprise, suddenly the center of attention. Despite the fact that she knew both mares inside for as long as she could remember, she hunkered down on her legs from the realization that she had two sets of eyes now staring at her.
Rarity turned around and spoke up first. "Fluttershy, darling! How are you? What a pleasant surprise. It's been too long, really." She gave what she hoped was a friendly—and not a weary—smile. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"
Fluttershy looked from Twilight to Rarity, and felt the tension in the air. “Hello girls, um... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to barge in..."
"Nonsense, we can always make time for you. I hope you had an easy time getting through security; it's just for the occasional reporter or other nosy pony that tries to sneak in, you understand." Rarity laughed halfheartedly and straightened her mane absently with a hoof.
"Oh, no trouble, no." Fluttershy looked at Twilight, who seemed to be jittering a hoof against the floor, as if she were waiting for something. Or maybe for somepony to leave. "I’ll be going now...” The mare made a quick turn and quickly began to dash away. Her eyes widened and a look of absolute terror filled her expression as she quickly found herself unable to escape the room.
A light blue aura covered Fluttershy while she floated up and slowly back over to her friends.
"Fluttershy, wait! We haven't seen you in months." Rarity had acted quickly, not wanting to chase the other pony. "Now, please, tell us how you've been."
"Are you sure?" Fluttershy flapped her wings absently, instinctively trying to regain control of herself. She watched Twilight's tired gaze while she drifted closer to her friends in Rarity's magic. The other mare looked exhausted, beyond exhausted. "I'm not interrupting? I know you two are super busy and need to focus and..."
The pegasus was gently placed down on the metal grated floor. She remained in a leg-locked, paralyzed position in front Twilight and Rarity.
Rarity decided to let Twilight keep privacy, before answering. “Fluttershy, dear, don’t be silly. You weren’t interrupting anything important; just Twilight and I discussing a few issues with one of our Jaegers. Nothing that can’t be sorted out later.”
Fluttershy's legs seemed to ease themselves while the white unicorn spoke her reassurances. “Oh, well okay. I have just missed you both so much, and with Pinkie in another country and Rainbow... Well, I wanted to see you both, and I was just wondering if you wanted to talk... maybe? We could even talk and get lunch?” Her voice seemed to taper off into a mumble towards the end, but from the look of epiphany on Rarity’s face, the other mare must have thought it was a splendid idea. It was Twilight that was her concern, though.
Rarity turned and beamed at Twilight. “That’s a wonderful idea, Twilight. Don’t you agree? Let's get some food, unless you would like to-”
"No, I'm not tired, just too much coffee, and I did sleep some..." Twilight looked towards her terminal longingly, and then back at Rarity. The other mare had raised her eyebrows and opened her eyes a little more as if to say, really? to her. “Um... sure, that sounds great, girls. Let’s uhh... let’s go to the cafeteria and get some food.” She shook her head a little and shrugged out of her lab coat as her final response.
Rarity looked back at Fluttershy, smiling friendlily. "Wonderful, and thank you for coming, Fluttershy." She gave the pegasus a sudden hug, squeezing her tight. "We're always happy to have you as company, even if we're neck deep in work."
Fluttershy gave her usual, characteristic gentle smile back. "I'm glad, I just wish I could do more to help sometimes..."
The three ponies began to walk astride one another into the large, curve roofed hallway that connected the many research labs, hangers and sections of Canterlot's leading development facility. It had been here that the first Jaeger was built, before the manufacturing and assembly was then moved elsewhere over the years.
Rarity looked over at her yellow friend, skillfully detecting the dreary tone she adopted and recognizing the pegasus' doubt. Years of being friends and spa buddies had given her a lot of insight into the other mare. "Fluttershy, darling, you do more than anypony could ever ask of you. Why, I read that article the other day, the one about you." She rested a hoof on her friend's shoulder while walking. "All of those animals and sea life that you were able to save and organize new homes for along the coast of China? That was nothing short of breath taking, putting together a concerted effort like that is hardly matched by those rock-brained construction ponies or the Jaeger mechanics. All they can do half of the time is argue about which tool can turn a bolt better." She hmphed indignantly in finality at the subject.
Fluttershy grinned and nodded. "Oh, it was nothing special Rarity, I just had to help them. When the Kaiju die, their bodies poison the wildlife... it's terrible..." She sighed and frowned, continuing. "I know I probably would have heard about it on the television, but is there any news yet about a way to stop them? To stop all of this violence?"
Twilight stopped and stomped a hoof on the metal paneling under their feet. The bang of metal echoed a moment in the hall. Both Rarity and Fluttershy stopped to stare in surprise and worry at their friend. The purple unicorn's head was facing the floor, her eyes clenched shut.
"Twilight?" Rarity began.
"No, there's nothing, no... no news, or any progress at all." Twilight sniffled, barely holding back tears. A gasp escaped her when she felt a warm body suddenly embrace her front.
Fluttershy clung to her friend, fully aware of what Twilight was facing on the inside, a constant struggle to try and save everypony. "It's okay, Twilight."
Twilight sniffed again, louder that time. "I'm sorry, I... Just dust in my eye." Twilight pulled herself from Fluttershy's motherly hug, the pegasus' wings unwrapping from around her. She smiled into the other mare's caring eyes, managing to get her back at leg's length from herself.
After a moment, Fluttershy spoke to Twilight, breaking the quiet. "Let's go eat, okay?"
Twilight nodded solemnly, looking at Rarity, and then the path they were taking. "Yes, lets, I'm sorry about that, girls." She cleared her throat, and tried to ignore the worried look that her assistant was giving her. "Ahem, I just wish I had something is all. It'll be eight years since this all began soon, and we're no closer to a resolution than when we started..."
"Shall we talk about nicer things?" Rarity smiled widely and beamed at her two friends. She got the elevator for the three of them, pressing her hoof to the button to call for it. "Fluttershy, how has Ponyville been? You still live there, don't you?"
Fluttershy stepped into the elevator along with the other two mares, then blushed in response to the question. "Oh, uhm, no..."
"No? You moved away? That's too bad, I always hoped that at least one of us would stay there in peace. You travel quite a bit though don't you? I imagine you've settled near Cloudsdale in order to get around easier and see your parents." Rarity took to watching Twilight while she spoke; the other mare seemed to not be paying attention.
Fluttershy was wedged between her two friends in the elevator and was unable to shy away from either while she responded. "No, I am staying at... my coltfriend's home." She shyly looked down at the floor.
Silence reigned in the elevator for a moment.
Rarity's eyes abruptly came near to popping out of her skull as she rounded on the pegasus. "YOU WHAT!?" Her voice bounced off of every wall in the closed space, forcing both of the other ponies to cover their ears in pain.
The cafeteria was abuzz with ponies coming and going. Three mares sat at one far corner, busily chatting about news of the utmost importance.
"It's just, I met him and he was so sweet and helped so much with all of the work over in Japan, and he's nice... Did I mention how sweet he was?" Fluttershy dreamily stared down at her food while Twilight chewed mechanically beside her.
Rarity stared at nothing from across the table, muzzle slightly agape. "I never would have imagined dear, congratulations on finding your special somepony! I'm ever so jealous, and you're sure he's the one?"
Fluttershy looked up and nodded. "I am, I apologize for not telling you both, but we met a few years ago, and it only recently became something more." She let out a happy squee of excitement, her wings flapping briefly. "I'm so excited, I could just yell my love for him from the rooftops." Her quiet voice barely made it over the noise from the other ponies in the mess hall. "Well okay, maybe not, but I am excited."
I cannot believe Fluttershy of all ponies was able to fall in true love before me, hohum. What have you done with your poor self, Rarity? Rarity stirred her fork absently in the mushy peas sitting on her plate, stewing in her thoughts at the same time. Another more worrying thought poked at her though, the one concerning her friend's wedding.
"I'm glad you were able to find happiness in these trying times, dear. Please make sure you tell us all about the wedding." Rarity maintained her grin while speaking, hoping to now move on to another subject.
"Oh, I will, and... Wait, are you not coming, Rarity?" Fluttershy tilted her head slightly, her long pink mane moving with it.
Rarity looked over at Twilight and met her friend's eyes, trying to form words or get help from her fellow scientist.
"We really can't, Fluttershy." Twilight said quickly, in an apologetic tone. "We want to, we do, and congratulations by the way..." That made up for staying so quiet, she hoped. "But... there's only bad news I'm afraid, not good. The Kaiju are getting bigger, they're coming faster, and they're trying to destroy us completely. I theorize to make us go extinct. Every nation on Earth together can barely make Jaegers as fast as we... as we lose them. We have to keep working towards a solution, anything." She laid a consoling hoof on her old friend's shoulder, hoping that the words weren't too harsh or frightening for her. I always forget how sensitive she can be.
Fluttershy watched her plate of food before nodding. "I understand, Twilight, perhaps we can wait until you win this." She smiled and looked up happily at the unicorn. "O-or maybe I can talk him into having two weddings for me," her smiled wavered and flashed into a bashful grin for a moment, before she blushed and ducked her head down to take a quick bite of her apple.
"Oh ho," Rarity cooed suggestively, "I see, very clever Fluttershy. If you get married twice, that means you get two honeymoons as weeeell." The white unicorn grinned wolfishly and leaned across the table slightly at her friend.
Fluttershy's eyes widened and her head shot upright, her face and cheeks turning redder than a fire truck with a fresh paint job. "I- I- T-two- Oooh..."
Fluttershy fainted with a splat into her tray of carrots and mushed peas.
Rainbow Dash's face splatted into her own vomit with a wet, slappy noise. A groan escaped her lips while she rolled over out of the mess, her mane covered in her own sick. The ceiling stared down judgmentally at her, disapprovingly.
After being on her own for so long, evading and avoiding her life and guilt as much as she could, drinking was usually the only thing left that filled her time. The wide open sky and clouds stretching to the horizon weren't her home anymore, they reminded her of things, about working on Ponyville's weather team, of her friends.
Rainbow avoided her friends; she hadn't seen them in a while and wasn't sure how long it had been. Pinkie Pie had been the hardest to ditch, but eventually the party goer had stopped trying to find her too. They were all busy, they were all busy saving the world.
Everyday though, Dash told herself she couldn't save anypony. The constant reminder had put her where she was now, sweating in the Appleoosian heat in her apartment room.
"I'm useless." Rainbow Dash whispered the words out from between her lips, not even aware she was speaking.
The ceiling stared down judgmentally at her, disapprovingly.
