Button Mash fought the Reapers. He didn't expect the ending.
Commander Button Mash has assembled a team of the brightest, toughest and deadliest allies in the galaxy, and the time has come for them to launch a suicide mission – to assault the Changeling Base and free his fellow Equestrians from the clutches of the dreaded Reapers.
Button Mash barely had time to register Scootaloo’s shout over the com system before an explosion rocked the Harmony SR-2. He was nearly thrown off his hooves, but he managed to steady himself and one of the crew even as the G-forces threatened to send them careening all over the place. Scootaloo had apparently failed to evade a projectile, and they were now spinning out of control.
He ground his teeth as alarms blared throughout the ship. Anything that wasn’t nailed down was flying around like a pinball, and he was pelted with various objects ranging from data chips to unsecured assault rifles. He felt something like a coffee mug shatter on his forehead. The chaos continued for what felt like a minute, until another explosion sent a shockwave through the hull, followed by the long, drawn-out screech of metal on metal as the ship suddenly and rapidly decelerated.
With a loud groan, the ship finally came to rest, and he opened his eyes to the sight of flickering lights, smoking electronics and fractured walls in the CIC. He’d fared a little better than that, since his N7 combat armour had protected him from loose flying objects, and his cybernetically augmented skeleton and musculature ensured that he was way more durable than the average pony. His crew, however, weren’t as lucky, and they were sprawled all over the floor of the Harmony’s CIC in various states of consciousness. Wasting no time, Button activated his foreleg-mounted omni-tool and sent a request to the medbay for assistance. If they were lucky, concussions were the worst injuries that anypony had sustained so far. He got an acknowledgement almost immediately, assuring him that Dinky and her staffs were tending to the wounded. They’d be sending help up to the CIC as soon as they got Engineering and the living quarters covered.
Once he was sure that nopony’s life was in immediate danger, he began scanning through the damage report he’d pulled up. His ship wasn’t looking too good…
“Ugh, darn it,” he heard Scootaloo groan over the coms. “Commander, you might want to take a look at this.”
Button tore his eyes away from the damage report and cantered into the cockpit. He stood next to the pilot’s seat and felt his mouth settle into a grim line as he beheld a field of brownish metal with a black hole on its horizon surrounded by a fiery sky of red and yellow, scattered with the debris of thousands of wrecked spacecraft.
“Oh, that’s just great,” he muttered.
The changelings’ main base of operations was a massive, several kilometres-long dreadnought that floated on the edge of the accretion disc of a black hole, and they’d just crash-landed right on top of it. There would be hundreds of changelings in there, no doubt guarding the ponies whom they had abducted for the as of yet undetermined but doubtlessly nefarious schemes of the Reapers. Somehow, they would have to find a way to rescue the captives – if there were any left alive, that is – and disable the space station to deprive the enemy of their assets.
“Kind of makes you wish we’d brought bigger guns, huh?”
Button looked down and saw the Flight Lieutenant looking up at him expectantly from the pilot’s seat. Although she’d not asked, he knew that she was wondering just how they were supposed to take down a ship of that size without atomics or an armada at their disposal. The Harmony’s cannons simply didn’t have the firepower they needed.
Frowning, he turned his attention back to the changeling base and pointed towards a gap in its hull, about a hundred metres from their crash site. “There,” he said. “That looks like maintenance shaft. Let’s get scans of this thing and see if it leads anywhere. Whatever we find, it looks like the rest of this mission will have to be done on hoof.”
Scootaloo snorted. “I’d call you crazy, but you’ve pulled off enough crazy stunts to make that pointless, so I guess I’ll have to settle for ‘good luck, Commander’. We could use the time you spend pew-pewing up the place to patch up the Harmony anyway. Gonna need it to reach minimum safe distance.”
“Hey, our primary mission is to rescue the prisoners. I never said anything about blowing up the place!” he protested. “Although… that would be pretty cool.”
The orange pegasus rolled her eyes and held one hoof up. “Rule Number One about Commander Button Mash: everything he fights in ends up exploding. Everything.”
He grinned and bumped hooves with her. “And with zero casualties! Assemble the gang; it’s time to kick some major changeling flank!”
* * * * *
Button’s kinetic barrier instantly shattered when it was pelted with several dozen green magic bolts and about a hundred or so bullets. He ducked back into cover, cursing silently for being so stupid as to stick his head up when he was pinned down by suppressing fire.
“Button-Commander, circuits are overheating. This unit is not designed to withstand ambient temperatures of this intensity,” a mechanical voice said through his earpiece.
“Hang on, we’re a little busy!” he replied.
Sweetie Bot’s path through the space station’s thermal ventilation shaft was blocked by a reinforced valve, and the only way to open it short of detonating some major ordnance was a control panel at the far end of the engineering deck that they were fighting in. There were at least twenty-odd changelings hunkered down by the crates and pillars up ahead; they’d have to be careful if they wanted to take them all out without any casualties, but Sweetie’s systems would probably fry before that happened. If they didn’t take the risk, there won’t be anypony left to sneak into the next chamber and hack open the security door into the station’s inner chambers.
Button took a deep, calming breath and reassessed the situation. He was in charge of Fire Team One, which comprised of him, Babs Seed, Rumble and Apple Bloom, and they were pinned down by gunfire and spells from the changelings in an entrenched position roughly fifty strides ahead. Fire Team Two was bringing up the rear about twenty yards back; Diamond Tiara was in charge of leading Spike and Featherweight.
The changelings were laying it thick with their suppressing fire, and it was only a matter of time before reinforcements arrived. His team needed to break through quickly or they would be overwhelmed.
His ocular HUD flashed blue at the bottom of his field of vision, notifying him that his shields had regenerated. Good.
“Rumble, get me a potato. Babs, AB, I need you to grab em when they scatter!” he shouted as he set his saddle-mounted M-8 Avenger assault rifle to full-auto. “DT, get your team up here on my mark!”
And just then, he noticed a drop in the frequency of bullets striking his cover. Some of their enemies were reloading, and he couldn’t have asked for better timing.
Game on!
“Go!” he shouted, standing up to his full height. His kinetic barrier crackled when it absorbed a few shots, but it held well enough for him to fire recklessly in a wide arc at the entrenched changelings, forcing them to keep their heads down.
“Fire in the hole!” Rumble hollered.
By the time the changelings noticed the grenade that he’d tossed, it had already bounced amongst them and it was too late to grab it with magic to throw it back. They scattered; some dashed off to the sides, others took to the air. And when they left their cover, Babs Seed and Apple Bloom utilised their biotics to lift them up into the air. The grenade went off, and those closest to the blast were shredded instantly. The rest were picked off by gunfire as they floated helplessly in the mares’ biotic fields.
“Bam. Headshot!” Rumble crowed.
“Hey, I was gonna finish that, you kill stealer!” Babs growled.
Apple Bloom frowned at Rumble. “Yeah, we already had em. Couldn’t ya go shoot something else?”
“Whoa, whoa, it’s a kill assist, not a steal,” the grey pegasus protested as he took aim and fired his sniper rifle again. “Teamwork, ladies.”
“Button-Commander, this unit’s core systems are sustaining damage. We estimate heat-induced critical failure in sixty seconds.” Sweetie Bot’s mechanical voice was uncharacteristically urgent.
We’re out of time. We need to get that valve open now!
“Rush em!” he shouted as he popped the glowing heat sink out of his rifle and swapped in a cold one. There were still more than half of the changelings up for the count, but they would fix that soon enough. He broke cover and dashed forward, spitting gunfire at anything with a black carapace.
“I. Am. Dragon!”
Button felt the floor shake as Spike charged past him, roaring. The tank-bred dragon stood well over twice the height of a normal pony and was about six times the weight, which would have been intimidating enough without the heavy suit of armour and massive shotgun. He barely slowed down despite soaking up lots of spells and gunfire, enabling Button and the rest of his squadmates to advance.
A second later, Babs galloped past Button. Not to be outdone by the dragon, she apparently wanted a big slice of frontline assault as well. Unlike Spike, she was completely naked, unless the crazy tattoos counted. Not that it seemed to matter, since she was completely enshrouded in a field of biotic energy that appeared to be just as effective at keeping out bullets as a standard personal shield.
Six armoured changelings charged out to meet Spike. Two stayed on the ground to toss spells at him whilst four circled around him in the air, pelting him with gunfire. His shield had shattered long ago, but his heavy armour and durable scales seemed up to the task of keeping him alive under that onslaught. But he obviously couldn’t keep that up forever, as there was blood leaking out of a few holes in his armour.
Button shot down one of Spike’s assailants whilst Rumble took out another, and by that time, Babs had gotten close enough to leap into the air and biotic-punch one of the flyers straight into a stack of steel crates. It didn’t get up.
That was all the distraction Spike needed to rip up some grating on the floor with his bare claws and swat the last flyer out of the air. He then lashed out with his tail to send the last armoured changeling flying, assisting its propulsion further with a shotgun blast to the belly.
“Heh heh,” Spike rumbled as he scraped off some damaged scales. “I win.”
There were only four or five changelings left, and they had retreated to hunker down in heavy cover farther back. The coast was clear enough to make a run for the controls.
“Featherweight, get that valve open!” he ordered.
“You got it, Commander!” A moment later, the pegasus had stowed his sniper rifle away and was zipping straight for the control panel.
“DT, Rumble, give him covering fire. Make sure the bugs don’t—”
“Hey Spike, fastball special!” he heard Babs say.
Button stopped talking when he turned and saw Spike grab the biotic mare and throw her like a javelin at the changelings. She flew in an arc, trailing wisps of dark energy like smoke. Babs rolled forward just before impact and struck the ground on her back, just a few strides away from the changelings, but her biotic field and momentum allowed her to bounce up into the air again. She somersaulted once in the air and landed right side up this time. Her hind hooves touched down first, and that was when she brought down both front hooves that had been charged up with ridiculous amounts of biotic energy.
Babs let loose a wild scream as she slammed her front hooves into the floor, and the resulting shockwave blew all five changelings out of cover. Button winced when he heard the sound of their carapace cracking and splitting as they struck walls, debris and crates.
Rumble whistled in awe. “Remind me not to steal your cousin’s kills next time,” he said softly to Apple Bloom.
“Hmph. No finesse, though,” Diamond Tiara scoffed.
“Valve’s open, Commander!” Featherweight called out.
Right on cue, Button heard the dull whoosh of air as the blockage in the thermal ventilation shaft was removed.
“Acknowledged,” Sweetie Bot responded. “Proceeding to the next area. Hacking will begin momentarily.”
Button Mash breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay everyone, form up and wait by the door. We—”
< Assuming direct control >
He recognised that voice, that deep, rumbling, unearthly mixture of psychic and synthetic syllables that penetrated the minds of organics and synthetics alike. The voice of a Reaper.
Harbinger.
As one, Button and his squadmates turned to see a flash of green light and fire blooming from behind a broken stack of crates. He heard the chorus of clicks and clacks as they loaded in fresh heat sinks and readied their weapons. Not long after, an armoured changeling strode out into the open. Its armour was still wrecked, but its body was healed. Its eyes were glowing bright green, and the joints between its carapace segments seemed to be leaking bright flames and cinders of the same colour, as were the holes in its legs.
The changeling was possessed by Harbinger.
“Take it down!” Button roared.
A storm of bullets rained on the possessed changeling, but its personal barrier withstood the onslaught, even with the few warping fields that Featherweight and Diamond Tiara threw at it. Button kept firing until his assault rifle beeped out a heat warning, then switched to his M-22 Eviscerator shotgun and continued blasting away.
This continued for several seconds, and Button felt his jaw drop when their weapons had all burned out their heat sinks. The freakish thing was still standing without a scratch.
< Our power is unmatched. Your attack is an insult >
“We’re gonna need a Plan B…” Rumble murmured.
“Like what, harsh language?” Featherweight asked.
“Graargh!” Spike roared and charged straight at the changeling.
Its horn flashed, and the next thing Button knew, he was sprawled on the ground several yards back from his original position. His HUD indicated that his kinetic barriers were slowly being eaten away by residual dark energy from the possessed creature’s magical pulse. Everypony else had been knocked back by the blast as well.
Spike was the only one standing; the blast had only slowed him down. He took a swipe at it with his claws, but they only produced sparks when they scraped ineffectually against Harbinger’s barrier. The possessed changeling whirled round and bucked out, and although Spike blocked it with a raised forearm, Button heard his armour buckle and crack from the impact. The dragon roared in pain and lashed out with his tail, but Harbinger deftly leaped over the low swipe.
Button and his squadmates had been busy reloading their weapons whilst the two were engaged, and by the time their guns were ready, Babs had already caught up with Spike and leaped into the fray. They kept Harbinger locked in melee combat whilst Diamond Tiara and Apple Bloom kept tossing biotic attacks at it. Button, Rumble and Featherweight took pot shots whenever Spike or Babs broke off to catch their breath.
“Sweetie, we got an ETA on the door yet?” Button asked.
“Pending. We have encountered resistance.”
There was gunfire in the background of the robot’s transmission.
“Well, hurry up! My father’s domestic VIs were faster than this!” Diamond Tiara snapped.
“Acknowledged.”
“Why won’t this darned thing die already?” Rumble growled when his gun overheated again.
“It can’t keep this up forever. Don’t stop shooting!” Apple Bloom urged.
Button silently agreed. He could see its barrier flickering and warping under the strain of their attacks, and it was only a matter of time before it broke. Unfortunately, Harbinger still had a whole lot of firepower in its horn, shield or no.
< I will show you true power >
The changeling’s horn glowed brightly for a second before bolts of black lightning laced with green magic arced from its tip and struck Button and each of his squadmates. His kinetic barrier broke instantly, and pain surged through his nerves. He could feel his skin burning. They all went down screaming.
< This hurts you >
Button Mash grimaced and slowly crawled back onto his hooves.
“We’re not done yet,” he growled.
< You prolong the inevitable >
Button responded by firing a burst of rounds at Harbinger. They bounced off its barrier.
< Pitiful >
Button grinned inwardly. His shot had distracted the possessed changeling, and that was enough for Babs to get up and slam a biotic punch into Harbinger. At the same time, Spike had managed to crawl close enough to breathe a jet of dragonfire from the other side.
Harbinger’s barrier warped and shattered. But before Spike or Babs could attack its physical body directly, the possessed changeling repulsed both of them with magic and zapped them with black lightning again.
By that time, Button had already reloaded his rifle and he fired a few rounds at Harbinger before it could finish off his downed squadmates. His aim was a little off, but a few bullets did strike it in the hindquarters and draw fiery ichor. It hissed angrily and fixed its eyes on him, horn aglow as it charged up another spell. He leaped aside and dodged the bolt of dark energy it sent his way and returned fire just as it was about to blast him again to throw its aim off.
Button then executed a series of short dashes interspersed with small barrages of gunfire whenever he changed direction, zigzagging towards his target. His frequent barrages, although poorly aimed, served well to disrupt its concentration and aim since it had to throw up a foreleg or use its wings to zip off to one side to protect itself due to its lack of a shield. Button found its retaliatory salvos of magic and biotics easy enough to dodge.
Time seemed to slow as he dashed, skidded and dove side to side, all the while lessening the distance between him and his opponent. Sparks and shrapnel exploded out of the floor wherever its spells struck, but he was already less than ten strides away and he tuned them out as he poured all his strength into one wild leap.
He crashed into Harbinger’s changeling puppet, and he felt the heat radiating from its body as they crashed onto the floor and wrestled. They rolled, and Button somehow ended up pinned to the ground. It lunged for his throat, but he just managed to stick his right foreleg in the way before it could clamp down. He grit his teeth as his armour plating was slowly crushed under the pressure of its powerful jaws and punched it in the muzzle with his free fore hoof. It didn’t let go.
Ow, ow, ow, dang it, ow!
Then, he remembered something pretty useful.
Oh, right.
He activated his omni-tool and experienced the longest half-second of his life as it flash-forged a silicon carbide blade over his free foreleg. As soon as the glowing blade was ready, he rammed it into the changeling’s throat. It pierced the plating on its neck with a wet crunch, and the abomination released Button’s leg as it gurgled and choked on its own fiery blood.
< You cannot stop us, Button >
Button quickly leaped off his foe as it burned inside out into a pile of ash and cinders. After Harbinger’s parting words had died away, he scoffed and kicked its ashes into a cloud.
“Yeah, you’re on fire today. I can tell,” he retorted.
“We are at the other side of the gate. Commencing hacking protocols,” Sweetie Bot announced through the coms.
“Right. Everypony regroup at the door!” Button ordered. His squadmates took a little longer to get back on their hooves than he liked, but considering what they’d just faced, he probably couldn’t ask for much more.
“Just hang on, we’ll be through in a—”
He trailed off when the chittering of a million insects became audible.
“Oh crud, I hate parasprites,” Featherweight groaned.
Black clouds burst out of the deck’s ventilation shafts and surged towards them. Button grimaced at the memory of how the Reapers had modified parasprites to tear at flesh and inject paralysing venom. They were sleeker than their original forms, had fangs and were completely black in colour. Absolutely nasty.
“Move it, ponies!” Button shouted. Guns were useless against such a threat, and conventional kinetic barriers were no protection either.
Nopony needed telling twice. They quickly formed a defensive semicircle in front of the door as the swarm descended upon them. Spike’s breath seared gaping holes into the black cloud, and the bodies of charred parasprites rained down like burning confetti. But the dragon’s fire could only do so much; there were simply too many of them.
“Stay close if you wanna stay alive,” Babs announced. Her entire body glowed with biotic energy as she reared up and balanced on her hind hooves, and as she lifted up both forelegs like she was pushing a boulder, a dome of biotic energy expanded around her.
Everypony huddled close to get inside the protective dome, and it was just enough to cover all of them as the parasprites set upon them, thumping against and gnawing on the barrier. Spike continued to flame at them, but their numbers seemed limitless.
“Sweetie Bot, we need that door open, like, right now!” Diamond Tiara was grinding her teeth as she watched the swarm seethe and surge beyond Babs’ barrier.
“Breaching firewall. Standby,” came the monotonous reply.
Babs groaned and swayed as the swarm pulsed and put pressure on the dome. Button put a hoof her shoulder to help steady her as Apple Bloom asked, “How are you holding up?”
“Hey, Cuz, think you could, I don’t know, help me, maybe?” Babs said through gritted teeth. “Or any of you guys, really. Just because I’m better doesn’t mean I want to do all the work.”
Apple Bloom grinned sheepishly. “Oh, right.”
Featherweight and a slightly grudging Diamond Tiara joined Apple Bloom in adding their biotic energy to the barrier, and Button quietly sighed in relief as the dome expanded a little and pushed back the swarm. Meanwhile, Spike was still busy cooking bugs.
“Button-Commander, security has been breached.”
“About time!” Rumble said as the doors hissed and ponderously began to slide open.
“Okay everypony, get ready to make a run for it!” Button announced.
A ray of green light from beyond the swarm caught his attention, and his jaw dropped when he glimpsed the dark figure of a changeling just beyond the barrier. It was twitching and convulsing as parts of its body became molten.
Oh hayseed, not another one!
< Assuming direct contr— >
Blam!
Button felt a concussive shockwave pass through the air inches to one side from his head, and a split second later, the changeling’s head exploded before the possession was complete, and the rest of its body disintegrated into ash and cinders shortly after.
He whirled around in shock and saw that the door had opened wide enough for a pony to squeeze through, and Sweetie Bot was standing on the other side, smoke wafting out of her assault cannon’s barrel.
“Control denied,” the synthetic pony deadpanned.
There were times when Button wondered whether the robot was hiding a sense of humour underneath that monotone, but he set that thought aside for another time.
“Everypony get inside, now!” he ordered.
One by one, they slipped in through the opening as Babs maintained the barrier and inched her way backwards. Even when she’d made it to their side, she kept the barrier up to plug the opening as Sweetie bot worked on getting the door closed.
“Getting tired over here,” she muttered as sweat poured down her forehead and neck.
“Done.”
The doors slid shut, and the orange mare heaved out a sigh as her barrier collapsed. She toppled over, but Button caught her just before she hit the floor.
“Take it easy, you did great,” he said as he eased her to a resting position.
“Don’t baby me,” she growled. “I’ll be ready to kick more flank soon. Just give me a minute.” She put a hoof on her belly, and a loud gurgle became audible. “Ugh, stupid implants are screwing with my metabolism.”
“Maybe this will help.” Spike reached into an ammo pouch and tossed a rectangular object at Babs.
Button stared as it bounced on the floor and landed next to her.
Babs raised an eyebrow. “A chocolate bar, really?”
“If you don’t want it, give it back,” Spike retorted.
Babs snatched it up and tore open the wrapping. “Thanksh,” she mumbled through a mouthful.
“Wait, you brought food on a suicide mission?” Rumble asked incredulously.
The dragon shrugged. “I’m always hungry.”
“Umm… any chance you got some spares?” Featherweight piped up.
“Ahem,” Diamond Tiara cleared her throat impatiently. “If anypony still remembers, we have a mission to carry out.”
Button nodded. “Right. Sweetie, what’s next from here?”
“Our scan indicates that this corridor will diverge three hundred metres from our current position.” Sweetie’s eyes projected a green-hued hologram of the changeling’s ship into the air before her. “One leads to the holding chambers, and we estimate a high probability that our captured crew are being held there. The other pathway leads to the central control chamber, where you can overload the critical systems and destroy this vessel. Given the likelihood of detection, we would advise dividing into two parties to accomplish both goals simultaneously.”
“All right. DT, you take Rumble, Spike and Featherweight to rescue the prisoners. I will take Babs, AB and Sweetie to the control chamber. Once you guys have freed our crew, we’re gonna blow up this place. Move out!”
* * * * *
“Ah don’t like the look of this,” Apple Bloom murmured, cocking her saddle-mounted shotgun as the platform on which they stood hovered into the station’s central chamber. “Why’s it so empty? Ya’d think them bugs would have stationed at least a field’s worth of guards in here if it’s as important as you say.”
Button had to agree. The hexagonal indentations on the walls of the vast chamber reminded him of a beehive, but one that was completely devoid of activity. It was in stark contrast to the swarms of monsters that they’d faced in order to reach the station’s control centre. It wasn’t the massive mainframe with gigantic cables pulsing with energy that he’d imagined. Instead, it was more like a flat hexagon the size of a hoofball field propped up on a pedestal in the middle of the empty space, with a tiny computer console sticking out of the floor in the centre of the platform.
“Think we made a mistake?” Apple Bloom asked as their platform docked at the edge of the hexagonal platform.
“Negative.” Sweetie Bot hopped onto the central platform and began sweeping the immediate area with her optic scanners, emitting two sweeping beams of green light from her eyes. They reverted to their normal state after a few seconds, but her anti-materiel cannon remained primed and ready. They were too close to take chances now.
“Button-Commander, we can confirm that this is the station’s primary control centre. This interface will enable you to access all of the facility’s critical systems and overload them.”
“Whatever,” Babs growled. “Just do what you have to so we can get out of here. Every second I’m not smashing something’s face in is a second they have to set up a trap. This looks way too easy right now; it’s making me twitchy.” Her entire body glowed blue and rippled with suppressed biotic energy for a second in emphasis.
“Once the self-destruct sequence is initiated, we estimate that a conservative ten minutes would be available to return to the Harmony and reach minimal safe distance,” Sweetie added. “Given the high probability of encountering further resistance within that timeframe, the odds of surviving this operation are unfavourable.”
“Wow. Didn’t know I needed an AI to figure that out for me. Thanks,” Babs drawled.
“Gratitude acknowledged. You are welcome.”
Button thought he saw Babs’ eye twitch, and quickly stepped in between them before the implant-laden pony could blow a fuse. Not that he wouldn’t have paid good credits to see the psycho biotic mare go hoof to hoof with the pony-built-around-a-cannon, but this was hardly the best time and place to enjoy such a spectacle. They could settle it after they were done blowing up the changelings’ base of operations.
“Cool it, guys,” he said all three of his squadmates. “AB, Babs, you’re right; this looks a little too convenient. So watch our backs. If anything comes by, keep it distracted until Sweetie and I finish hacking into the system.”
Both mares nodded and trotted off to keep a watch for any activity from the multitudes of access tunnels and ports on the walls of the chamber. That just left him and Sweetie Bot to trot briskly but cautiously towards the console at the centre of the platform. No surprises popped up along the way, and Button had to admit that he was a little disappointed when they reached it without encountering so much as an automated turret defence. It was very disconcerting to find something so crucial so… unprotected.
“Standby, hacking now,” droned the synthetic. Her eyes switched to a dull red that slowly brightened from the bottom upwards to indicate the extent of her progress.
“Gotcha. Let me know when the package is ready.”
Button compulsively reviewed the status of his armaments on his HUD as the seconds ticked by. Hardware was close to optimal, and organic vitals were back in the green.
“Firewall breached. Preparing data package. You can now access the system.”
Button raised his omni-tool and checked the vitals of the other team. “DT, what’s your status on the prisoners?”
“We got them easily. We’re heading back to the Harmony.”
“Copy that. It’s time to light the fireworks.”
“Do try not to get killed.”
“Right. Here we go.” Button interfaced his omni-tool with the console and set to work. After a few seconds, he managed to set the system to manual override and pulled open a data port for the package.
“Is it ready?”
“Ten seconds. Standby.”
Something flickered on the holoscreen of the alien console. It looked like a face, but before Button could give it further thought, Sweetie produced a spherical data module and held it within hoof’s reach. He grabbed it and wasted no time in plugging it into the system. The console accepted the connection without complaint, and the holoscreen began flashing warning symbols in rapid succession as the overriding commands set about turning the ship’s critical systems inside out.
“Countdown initiated. Ten minutes and counting,” Sweetie reported.
Button nodded. “Okay, let’s get—”
The entire chamber went dark. There was no explosion, no winding-down hum to indicate a loss of power, not even a tell-tale click of a switch. It was just a sudden loss of light.
“—horse apples, they were up to something!” he swore as he activated his armour’s floodlights and spun around, but the darkness stretched on in all directions, seemingly to eternity. His squadmates were nowhere to be found. “Sweetie? AB! Babs? What happened?”
He got no answer. A quick consult with his omni-tool indicated that there were no com channels available. No squadmates, no Harmony. Nothing.
As if on cue, a deep synthetic voice resonated through the darkness.
< Assuming direct control >
Harbinger!
He whirled around and fired a full clip of incendiary rounds into the darkness behind him, but the shots failed to hit anything. There were no sparks or ichor spatters, only the thundering echo of his assault rifle.
“Show yourself!” he shouted.
< As you wish >
A thin stream of purple energy materialised in the space ahead of him. It rapidly spread and branched out like roots, gradually interconnecting in the air to form a… pony’s face? The purple hologram was easily the size of a house, and it—no, it was a she. It was a female pony.
“Wha—huh?” Button’s mental gears ground to a halt. “Wha—what is this? This doesn’t look right at all!”
The entity hovering before him wasn’t a Reaper he’d encountered before, but it was strangely familiar. Come to think of it, its voice, although deep and harsh as a grinding stone, had sounded almost feminine…
“Miss… Cheerilee?” he blurted.
The disembodied head suddenly smirked.
Oh no…
This was bad. This entity was a thousand times worse than a Reaper. He wasn’t ready. The entire galaxy wasn’t ready. It was a Teacher. Nopony was ready to face a being of such power!
He popped the heat sink on his assault rifle and began blasting away at it on full auto, but his bullets proved ineffective as they passed right through the strands of energy. He felt his heart rate shoot up when his rifle beeped out a heat warning. He collapsed the rifle and swapped out his trusty shotgun in spite of logic telling him that scattershot would be just as ineffective as his rifle’s. His legs were shaking by the time is secondary weapon overheated; he was out of options. He had no biotics and no tech-based attacks.
< Your time starts now >
Huh?
Button raised an eyebrow, and that was just about all he had the time to do before his HUD flickered and strings of numbers and characters started zooming all over his vision.
[….Who is the inventor of the Amniomorphic Spell? ….. Name the first Unicorn King… ….. 153 x 7 = ? .... When did Nightmare Moon attempt to usurp the throne and create eternal night? …. …. 88/11 + 5a = 18, a = ? …… What is the capital of the Griffon Kingdom? …. ]
His jaw dropped when he realised what was happening. Sweetie, AB and Babs weren’t missing; he just couldn’t perceive them because this wasn’t the real world. He glanced around, taking in the vast expanse of darkness containing data that his mind had given the shape of a disembodied head of Miss Cheerilee and dozens of sentences and equations floating in the air.
I’m in cyberspace.
About a second later, a surge of electricity tore through his spinal cord and cybernetic implants, sending him into a seizure as he lost control of all his faculties.
“Aaaarrghh!” he screamed as another current surged through his body.
How is this happening?
More inane questions and equations crowded his vision.
< You cannot answer >
I’m being… examined?
[ …. When did the first mayor of Ponyville take office? …. …. How old is Princess Celestia? …. … ….. 98 – 37 x 2 = ? …. …. What is the Griffish word for ‘friend’? …. .. .. 123 x 0 = ? … … When did the first Apple-Orange civil war begin? … ….]
< You are ignorant >
[ … Friendship = Magic*Accord … … 153 x 7 = 1071 ….. The first Windigo was sighted in 1673 BNMM. … ….. Mayor Mare is the 37th Mayor of Ponyville. …. Baltimare is the seventh city to gain independence from the rule of the Two Sisters… …. .. The maximum aerial velocity of an unburdened phoenix is 187.543 kilometres per hour….]
Button groaned as useless facts and figures began bombarding his brain along with the previous stream of maddeningly difficult questions.
Noooo, I’m being Indoctrinated!No, wait. Even worse. I’m being Educated!
His armour offered no protection from such an attack. He needed software for that, but his cybernetics hadn’t come installed with adequate firewalls and he couldn’t adapt to a hacking attempt like an AI. He wasn’t prepared. Button tried to get up and run, but the pain was too great, and the electrical surge in his cybernetics was frying everything up. He could just imagine his flesh sizzling wherever it came into contact with his synthetic parts. Everything was out of sync and he had no more coordination than a puppet being manipulated by a thousand drunken ponies.
< You will be improved >
Oh, great blinking health bars, the Teachers are in league with the Reapers!
“Nooooo!” he cried. “Let me go! This isn’t how it’s supposed to end!”
[ …. What is the most magical part of a dragon? …. …. 54/6 + 72/8 = ? …. The last known legitimate king of the Crystal Empire is King Tempest. … ….. Parasprites are the fastest breeding macro-organisms known to ponykind. … What is the First Law of Thaumaturgy? … ]
He curled into a ball and covered his ears, but the stream of data was relentless. At any moment, he was going to turn into a drooling, mindless husk of his former self, incapable of anything other than being a know-it-all Teacher’s pet and agent of the Reapers…
In his desperation, Commander Button Mash called on his one last hope…
“Moooom!” he wailed.
“Hold fast, young one!” a mare’s voice called out.
Although he had his eyes shut tight, a blinding flash of light still managed to penetrate his eyelids, followed immediately by a thundering crash that shook the ground. The brightness died down, and his ringing ears soon picked up the crackling noise of residual electricity. At the same time, the debilitating current in his cybernetics dissipated, restoring his HUD and allowing him to regain full control of his body.
He cautiously opened his eyes and blinked in surprise when he saw somepony standing in front of him. Though, the term somepony could only be applied very loosely. The pair of hooves he saw were translucent and blue in colour, and when he looked up, he saw that the pony’s entire form was ethereal in nature, as if she was made of pure energy. He was pretty sure she was a mare, going by her voice and the long, wavy manestyle. She was also really tall, even taller than a well-built stallion like him. And he suspected that she was an alicorn too; the horn was obvious, but unless she unfolded her wings, those translucent lumps on either side of her could’ve just as easily been some misshapen saddlebags.
Glancing to the side, he saw the trace remains of purple energy in the space where the Teacher’s head had once hovered.
“Did you do that?” he asked the ethereal alicorn. “Did you kill it?”
The mare shook her head. “No. I am merely holding it back.”
Button got back onto all fours and stretched his legs, satisfied that his ordeal hadn’t inflicted lasting damage. “Okay, it’s just a short break, got it. Now we just need to figure out how to get out of here before the Reapers try to brainhack me again.” He glared at the purple sparks and muttered, “I just never expected them to enlist a Teacher to do it.”
“Getting out of ‘here’ won’t solve your predicament,” the mare asserted.
“What are you talking about? Of course it would. We’re—”
“I cannot come to your aid every time this happens.”
Button frowned and gazed at the mare. She was glowing very brightly, so it was hard to make out her expression beyond the two very luminescent eyes. He looked to the side and noted that she had a splotch of darker energy on her flank with a sharp crescent of lighter energy over it, which he surmised was her cutie mark.
“Suppose I believe you… who are you, exactly? Are you an AI?”
The mare tilted her head. “No. But you may consider me an ally.”
“Okay, whatever. But what was that about not helping me if this happens again?”
“Consider the nature of the… brainhack, as you call it. It is something you fear, is it not?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t anypony be afraid of that? The Reapers have recruited Teachers to help them wipe out the galaxy!” he cried, throwing one hoof up in the air in emphasis. “Nopony would stand a chance against them!”
“But why are these ‘Teachers’ such fearsome creatures? Why do they affect you so?”
Button’s frown deepened. “Because… well…”
Why would he fear them? He was Commander Button Mash, sole survivor of the quarray eel attack on Everfree Prime, the first pony Spectre, and the only organic being who’d actually made contact with a Reaper and survived with his sanity intact! How was it possible for him to be taken down by something as mundane as a test?
Because… that’s not all I am.
He rubbed the back of his head with a hoof. He was also… just Button Mash. The idea felt out of place and suspiciously coercive, but there was a grain of truth somewhere in that. If that was true, but he wasn’t fully convinced just yet, then maybe it was because he was… unprepared. Maybe it was because there was a hypothetical test coming up, and maybe he had hypothetically procrastinated instead of… studying?
He shook his head.
Blegh. The idea was disgusting!
But… it would explain his unexpected weakness to such an approach. It was the one form of attach that he’d simply not prepared for, and completely disgraceful for a soldier of his calibre to have overlooked. The whole mission could’ve failed because of this oversight!
If it hasn’t already. I’ve got to get out of here right now.
Somewhere in the space station where his real body lay, probably spazzing out from overloaded synapses, his comrades were waiting for him to snap out of it and get a move on. The ship was set to self-destruct. They needed to get back to the Harmony ASAP, and he would take any help he could get.
He looked up to the blue alicorn and asked, “What must I do to stop it?”
“Only you can answer that,” she replied, glancing to their left.
Frowning, Button followed her gaze and felt his eyebrows shoot back up when he saw three consoles arranged in a semicircle.
“What the hay—where’d these come from? What are they for?”
“Perhaps you should find out.”
After casting a suspicious look her way, he cautiously trotted towards them, painfully aware of what’d happened the last time he’d messed with a console. But nothing untoward happened when he reached them, so he decided to see what the blue one was all about. Strings of bright blue alien symbols started flashing across its holoscreen, and he found to his surprise that he could understand them. And it wasn’t so much reading sentences as knowing what they meant.
To pass the Teacher’s test, all he had to do was to Study. He would beat them at their own game; he would infiltrate academia under the guise of subscribing to their nefarious ideologies, and once in a prominent position in Education, turn everything on its head to suit his purposes for the benefit of ponykind and all other races of the galaxy. But to do so, he first had to sacrifice himself and allow the Teachers to Educate him.
The second holoscreen’s symbols were in red, but he understood them just as easily. To defy the Teacher and persevere through the test, all he had to do was to Procrastinate. He would just carry on doing what he liked, entertaining himself and others. He needed no education, and he was sure that he could convince his peers to keep from being Indoctrinated and Educated as well. Ponykind would suffer from the resulting ignorance, yes, but their species would live on, and slowly rebuild itself from the ashes of their ruined civilisation, free from corruption. The cost was great, but it promised existence free from the influence of Teachers.
The third one was green, and it confused him at first. It required reaching out and communicating with the Teachers, to tell them of the needs of his peers for… gratification, and their short attention span. But at the same time, they would also acknowledge their need to learn. There would be no Education. There would be no entertainment. Instead, there would be a compromise, a merging. Teachers would understand what it means to be a… child, to require sufficient stimulation, and colts and fillies in turn would learn from their elders. It would be called… Edutainment.
Slowly, Button turned away from the console towards the ethereal alicorn. “So… if I pick one of these, the brainhacking will stop? Just like that? And we will be able to destroy the Changeling base and defeat the Reapers?”
She nodded. “Yes. Take responsibility. Accept the consequences of your choice, whatever it may be, and the nightmares will bother you no more.”
“But, but…” He tried to think of something to say, but his brain seemed to have short-circuited. It was all so… so…
Argh!
In the end, he hung his head and simply settled for, “Oh, buck it.”
The alicorn flinched as if he’d slapped her. “Child, mind your words!” she scolded.
Something snapped inside of him. He whipped his head back up and stomped over to her until their faces were inches apart. She shrank back a little, but he maintained his aggressive stance and growled, “Really? I mean, really? After all we have done?” His voice rose in volume with each word as he vented his feelings on the matter. “My species is dying on a hundred worlds across the galaxy fighting the Reapers, and you’re telling me that the only solution is to muck around on a console that popped out of the middle of freaking nowhere and everything will be fixed just like that?”
He broke eye contact and stomped angrily back and forth like a caged animal. It was just so… unfair. Ridiculous. Contrived. Cheap. He could feel rage boiling up inside of him at the thought that all the battles he’d fought alongside his comrades were rendered pointless and/or unnecessary because of such a simple solution that had seemingly been pulled out of somepony’s backside!
“Child, why would the solution’s ease make it so undesirable?” the mare asked. “Wouldn’t you prefer—”
“You don’t get it,” he interjected, pointing a hoof at her in accusation. “We’re caught up in a war for the survival of our species—no, for the survival of all sentient races across the galaxy. How can a conflict of that scale be fixed with a push of a button? It’s practically Deus Ex Machina!”
The mare frowned. “I don’t think—”
“I mean, what is this, some crazy hack’s fanfiction? This can’t be how it’s supposed to pan out!”
“Child!” the mare thundered, flaring out her wings aggressively. “Calm down and stop being ridiculous.”
Uh oh, she’s getting violent.
Button took a step back and quickly skimmed his stats on his HUD. Kinetic barriers were up. Weapon heat sinks had vented down to 15% capacity. Good. He discreetly switched his weapon to fire Disruptor rounds; the mare wasn’t flesh and blood, so perhaps bullets with electric charges would be more effective.
“Now,” began the mare sternly, “you should not give in to your—”
Button paid no attention to the rest of her words. Time had been steadily ticking away during their conversation, and if it was passing in cyberspace at the same rate as real time, he wasn’t going to survive the suicide mission. He had to get out now, and he suspected that the alicorn was the one keeping him here. Why else would she offer him solutions that all ended either in Education or severe damage to his species? She was just looking for an easy way to Indoctrinate/Educate him because he’d resisted the first brainhack attempt! She must be in league with the Reapers too!
He cocked his M-22 Eviscerator shotgun and pointed it at her chest.
She blinked in surprise.
That’s right. I’m onto you, trickster. You had me going at first, but I see through your sweet words! Button narrowed his eyes and braced for the weapon’s recoil.
“What are you—”
Blam!
The point-blank shot produced a shower of blue sparks and flame when it tore through the creature’s body. It reeled from the impact and staggered to one side like a drunken griffon, clutching at the gaping hole in its chest with a hoof. Although its translucent and luminescent nature made it difficult to discern its expression, he got the distinct impression from its hanging jaw and wide eyes that it was all at once shocked and outraged. It repeatedly closed its mouth and opened it again, as if it couldn’t wait to tell him off but couldn’t decide where to start.
He cocked his shotgun and took a step back, ready to blast it again if it tried anything.
However, that proved unnecessary when the alicorn straightened up glared at him. Then, it snorted and growled in a voice as deep and ominous as thunder, “So be it.”
With those parting words, the alicorn’s form fizzled out and dissipated like stardust. Soon after, the world flickered and spazzed between darkness and bright flashes of light like a badly damaged screen. A cacophony of pounding hooves, gunfire, shouting and metallic creaking assaulted his ears at the same time, and he shook his head vigorously in an attempt to shake off the sensory overload. And… he could also sense the Teacher’s datastream lurking at the edge of his consciousness, waiting to take hold. It seemed they hadn’t given up on taking him down via software yet.
The tangled mess of light, darkness, sounds and electricity overlapped and warped inside his head, growing in intensity until it was all he could do to not curl up on the floor again, getting brighter and louder until it had become a screaming singularity of stimuli.
“Commander, snap out of it! If I die, I’m gonna kill you to death!”
Somehow, with all the chaos in his mind, he still managed to isolate the stimulus of a hoof striking him across his left cheek. And somehow, it was the grain of sand that tipped the scales, causing the mass of stimuli crowding his senses to collapse like a star going supernova.
He jerked up and opened his eyes, and realised that he was being carried on Sweetie’s back like a pair of saddlebags whilst she was cantering through a corridor, dodging gunfire. Babs was glaring at him as she ran alongside her.
“Finally!” she huffed, “Now get off the dumb robot and—”
Button saw a pair of figures galloping towards Babs unnoticed. They were pony shaped, but their hides were a naked and wrinkled grey dotted with protruding wires and metal plating. Blue, unblinking eyes utterly devoid of expression were fixed on her.
Husks!
He quickly rolled off Sweetie’s back, and the couple of seconds he took to hit the floor, roll and spring back onto his hooves was all his cybernetics needed to reconfigure his targeting system and shred the mechanical abominations with a full-auto barrage from his assault rifle.
Babs blinked, turned to see the smoking corpses on the ground behind them, then snorted and said, “Would’ve gotten them if you weren’t distracting me.”
Button didn’t argue. It was obvious that they’d carried him out of the central control chamber, and judging by the periodic shudders and muted booms, the ship was well on its way to meltdown. They were moving down a dimly lit corridor that had lots of husks and changelings popping out of adjacent chambers and contiguous tunnels. Apple Bloom was in the lead, gunning down anything that got in the way with her semi-auto shotgun and sweeping aside anything she missed with her biotics. There was no cover, so she was relying on relentless fire and her kinetic barriers to protect her from the few changelings that managed to return fire.
Now that Sweetie no longer needed to carry him, she was able to bring her own cannon to bear on their enemies, picking off any changelings that were setting up to fire or toss spells their way. Babs was apparently playing rear guard and throwing out biotic shockwaves to keep the horde and its parasprite swarms from catching up and overwhelming them.
“Status report!” he barked.
Apple Bloom spared a glance back and yelled, “Good ta have ya back, Commander! We’re heading back to the Harmony!”
“The self-destruct sequence caused the platform to collapse,” Sweetie Bot explained. “We are now on an alternate escape route. We have five minutes to reach minimum safe distance.”
I was blacked out for over five minutes? Yikes!
“Incoming message from the Harmony. Patching through,” the mech continued.
“Commander?” Scootaloo’s voice buzzed through his earpiece, “Thank Celestia you’re not dead. Where are you?”
Button delayed his response to mow down a trio of husks and answered, “We’re on the way. What about the others? Did we save the prisoners?”
There was a slight delay before Scootaloo finally answered, “Most of them. All survivors are on board; we’re just waiting for you.”
“Affirmative. En route!”
Button winced when he heard the crack of Apple Bloom’s kinetic barrier shattering, followed by her brief shriek of pain. Ignoring the protests of his burning lungs, he put on a burst of speed and shored her up with his body when she listed dangerously to one side. Her breathing was laboured, and a quick glance told him that her armour had been penetrated at the shoulder. A little blood was leaking out.
“Ah’m fine. Just a scratch!” she protested.
“Like hay you are,” he retorted. “I’ll take point. Give your shields time to recharge!”
AB looked like she was about to argue further, but then Button’s shields buzzed and crackled from absorbing a few hits. If he hadn’t been galloping so close to her side, she probably would’ve been hit. She promptly snapped her mouth shut and fell in line.
After a second, Button’s HUD began overlapping his regular vision with a three-dimensional, glowing arrow that flowed towards their exit. And not a moment too soon, or he might’ve gone the wrong way and wasted precious time and momentum when their corridor branched off in three different directions.
< You cannot escape >
Oh no…
The voice was an unholy combination of Harbinger’s and Miss Cheerilee’s – deep and menacing with an undertone of cheerfulness that promised tonnes of homework. Button groaned and swayed when an unexpected pulse of energy surged through his cybernetics. His vision flickered and fragmented for a second or two before regaining integrity, but with the addition of strings of characters and symbols zooming across his field of vision.
[ … Archibald th- B-ave w-s … 72100… + 87 … .. the first griff— … 53 … to be granted Equestrian citi---ship … by Pr1ncE55 Luna. … … 6 >2 … ]
Oh, flaming pits of doom, it’s coming back. They weren’t done with Indoctrinating/Educating him yet!
“You okay?” Apple Bloom called out.
He stumbled and nearly toppled over when another jolt through his nerves disrupted his rhythm, but quickly regained his balance and bulled onwards. He needed all his concentration to stay on course and not get overwhelmed by the neural attack. Ignoring the data being forced into his head was hard enough.
“Three minutes remaining,” Sweetie reminded.
Button grit his teeth as he shouldered a husk aside and blew another’s brains out. An explosion rocked the ship, and he heard Babs swearing as his last hoofstep failed to hit the floor when it should have. He flailed for a split-second, overbalanced, and then the floor rushed up to meet him. He fell at an angle on his chest and skidded along for some distance.
Luckily for him, the shockwave had surprised the husks and changelings as well, and his team were able to get back on their hooves without taking too many hits and resume their frantic gallop to safety.
< Pony, you’ve changed nothing. Your species/grade has the attention of those infinitely your greater/smarter >
[ … Starswirl the Bearded was the first pony to discover the Breezies in 879 BNMM. …. … The mortality rate of breaking a Pinkie Promise is 0.183 .. …. .. ]
< That which you know as Reapers/Teachers are your salvation through destruction/education >
[ .. There were sixty-two Equestrian monarchs before the rise of the Two Sisters... .. 4 x 52 = 208 … ,.. The Wonderbolts were founded in 87 AB. .. … Harmony is the root of all magic. … … ]
Button scrunched his eyes in an attempt to clear his vision, but it was useless. It didn’t stop the datastream.
“We’re here!” AB cried out. “Scoots, we’re at the extraction point. Get us out of here!”
Button swept his gaze around. Their corridor had opened up into a large chamber that was maybe a fifth the size of the central control chamber. It was shaped like a vertical cylinder and there was a sloping ramp that led from their position all the way to the centre of the space. Empty space.
“What? Where’s the Harmony?” he yelled.
“Hang on, Commander, I’m coming!” Scoot’s voice buzzed in his earpiece.
He heard a series of explosions echo through the ship, followed by a bright flash of light that emanated from the bottom of the chamber. He then dove to one side to avoid large chunks of debris falling from overhead.
“Hurry up, Chicken, I can’t keep these suckers off for long!” Babs’ shout from behind was followed by the sound of a biotic detonation and the shrieks of several husks.
Then, like a phoenix rising from its ashes, the Harmony rose into view from the bottom of the chamber and hovered close to the edge of the ramp.
“Move!” Button shouted.
His squadmates didn’t need to be told twice. As one, they all broke into a mad dash for their ride out of hell. As they made their way up the ramp, dodging debris raining from above and gunfire from behind, the Harmony’s door slid open, revealing Spike and Featherweight. Together the dragon and pegasus provided them with covering fire; Featherweight was picking off their shooters with his sniper rifle whilst Spike mowed down swathes of husks with his machine gun.
[ --- -^ - .. -- 12^2 = 144 … .. The moon weighs roughly [redacted] tonnes…. .. Dragons are not native to Equestria…. -- … 20 x 5^2 = 500 ---…. .. Hardback the Brooding was the first dragon to make peace with the Two Sisters after losing to Princess Luna in a 93-hour staring contest. … ]
Sweetie, AB and Babs had overtaken him. The surges in his cybernetics were becoming stronger and more frequent; he was having difficulty putting one hoof in front of the other in the right order. By the time they’d all leaped onto the Harmony, he was still only a quarter of the way to the edge.
“Come on, run!” Apple Bloom shouted.
Something clamped onto his tail, and Button’s forward momentum was arrested. He lost his balance and crashed to the floor. A husk had chomped down on the end of his tail, short though it was. A second later, it was decapitated by a blast from Sweetie’s assault cannon.
But it had cost him a precious seconds, and the distraction had apparently been all that was needed for the Indoctrination/Education process to tighten its grip on him.
[ .... – Contrary to popular belief, Griffons are not born from the union of a lion and eagle. ---.. .. 83 – 3 x 0 = 83 …. ^ … . The first railroad in Equestria was built in 870 AB -- -- … Starswirl the Bearded was the founder of the College of Everfree. … ]
He couldn’t run anymore. There were too many neural misfires going on in his head to make a coordinated leap to safety.
“Commander, what’re you doing?” AB cried from the Harmony’s doorway.
“What’s going on out there?” Scootaloo demanded.
“I’m being… Indoctrinated. Can’t… can’t make it,” he growled.
“Oh hay no; we didn’t go to all that trouble just to have you quit at the finish line!” Babs shouted. “You’re coming home whether you like it or not!”
Squinting ahead, Button saw a flash of bluish/purple light coming from the Harmony, and the next thing he knew, he was being lifted bodily into the air. Babs was trying to pull him in with biotics!
But the effect was cut short when a thunderous explosion from above sent a shockwave bearing down on all of them. The Harmony suddenly dropped a few metres before Scootaloo managed to re-stabilise it, and a dislodged platform crashed onto the end of the ramp, effectively destroying it and widening the gap by a good thirty strides. The impact sent him rolling back down the ramp and into the swarm below.
“Commander!” a half-dozen or so voices cried out at once.
“Get out of here!” he shouted into his coms. “You must warn the rest of the galaxy. If we all die, the Reapers will win! I’m not worth that!”
“Rumble, fly out there and bring him in!” Scootaloo yelled.
“On it,” Rumble replied. “Just hang on, Commander!”
“No!” he shouted back.
“I can—” Rumble began, but Button cut him off.
“There’s no time!” he shouted. “Get your flanks out of here!”
This is my fault. If he had taken the necessary precautions to protect himself against the Examination and Education, he wouldn’t have been slowed down. He wouldn’t need rescuing like he did now. If they tried to come back for him, they were all going to die. He should have prepared. He should have… studied.
[ .--… House Blueblood is the oldest noble bloodline of Canterlot – .. … Ursa Majors are not native to Equestria; the leading theory behind their introduction to equestrian is through shooting stars. .. . 4288/4 = 1072 .. . .. . 9(20 + 30) = 450 ..---… . Griffish is the most widely spoken language outside of Equestria, followed by Zebrican… ..]
“Go! You’re not dying for my mistakes!” he roared through the pain in his skull. Then, more softly, he added, “I’m sorry. There’s no time…”
There was a moment of silence on the coms, which gave him the opportunity to focus on the horde that was descending on him. He still had enough coordination to turn his weapons on the last few changelings attempting to shoot down the Harmony with their guns and magic bolts. His kinetic barrier shattered and fizzled out after absorbing a few direct hits, but he was past caring about his safety at that point. He was already expendable.
The husks fell easily enough, but he could do nothing against the parasprites that latched onto him and began tearing at his skin. He ignored them in favour of taking down anything that could damage the Harmony.
“Goodbye, Commander,” Scootaloo murmured.
“No!” Babs screamed. “Button, you get your—”
Button winced as he killed the com channel. He couldn’t bear to hear the anguished cries of his friends.
The Harmony’s door slid shut, and it slowly ascended through the chamber. The repeated impacts from falling debris was slowing it down. The shields were holding, but only barely. Some of the larger pieces were breaking through the barrier and striking its hull.
One or two changelings fired at the frigate, but Button took them out easily with his assault rifle. Then, a changeling queen flew into view and landed just a few strides away from him. He tried to open fire, but was only rewarded with the beeping warning of his overheated weapons. Another shockwave rattled the space station, but the queen ignored it and began trotting towards him. Its minions had surrounded him and were standing still.
Button noted that the queen was possessed by Harbinger, as her eyes were glowing bright green and the joints between her carapace plates appeared molten with green fire.
< Your destruction/education is inevitable >
[ --- .. The antidote to poison joke was not discovered until 558 AB…**. … 2^3 = 8 .. … Laughter has the highest emotional mass of all the Elements of Harmony… .. … In Old Equestrian, ‘Celestia’ begins with an ‘I’ …. . Energy = Magic*Chaos^2 …. .. ]
Button grimaced as his pain shot through his nerves. The station shook, and dull roar became audible, growing in volume until the floor was trembling. He squinted as the corridor behind the queen became blindingly bright, and a mighty wind blew forth as the flames of the explosion came rushing towards them.
And then, through the corner of his eye, he saw a flare of blue light as the Harmony engaged its thrusters and sped to safety. It won’t be long before she engaged her FTL drive to leave this cursed corner of space.
They’ll make it.
As the roar of the Harmony’s engines faded away, he thought he saw a shadow of the ethereal alicorn he’d encountered in cyberspace lurking amongst the changelings present. But when he blinked, the apparition disappeared.
< You have failed >
Button grunted in pain as the queen grabbed him with magic and lifted him into the air, twitching helplessly in her grasp. But in spite of his situation, he felt pretty calm and satisfied.
Meh. I no longer matter at this point.
He locked eyes with Harbinger/Cheerilee’s puppet and replied, “Yeah, you got me. I failed.” Then, he grinned and added, “But my friends haven’t; they’ll finish what I couldn’t. And I’ll go down knowing that I did everything I could to stop you. So there.”
And it was then that Commander Button Mash blew a raspberry at the immortal enemies of all advanced organic life in the galaxy, just as the flames came roaring and engulfed them all. It was the only raspberry in the history of the known universe to be accompanied by a thermonuclear detonation, and it was so totally worth getting annihilated at a sub-atomic level and having his particles scattered in the darkest corner of the galaxy.
Button regained consciousness alone in the dark, and immediately realised that he was in the death-grip of a husk. He twisted and turned, kicking at his assailant, until the ground gave way under him and he fell.
“Oof!”
The impact sent his brain into hard reset, and he simply lay on the ground panting. He felt hot and sweaty, and it was because – and at that point, his brain finished its start-up routine – he was just tangled up in his blanket.
“Oh.”
He sheepishly squeezed out of the heavy fabric and felt his way to the bedside table. He clicked the lamp’s switch on, and groaned when he saw the clock. He then shambled over to the curtains and pulled them aside, revealing a deep blue sky that promised a sunrise within the next half-hour or so. Too early to be up, and yet too late to try to go back to bed because he was sure that peaceful rest would only be cruelly snatched away by his mom or the alarm clock the moment he fell asleep.
He sat on his bed and stared at the wall glumly, pondering his next move. Slowly, fragments of his recent experience came back to him and reassembled in his mind, until… Button’s eyes widened and he found himself grinning like an idiot.
“Best. Dream. Ever!” he cried, throwing up his hooves and flopping backwards onto his bed.
Unfortunately, whilst his brain was engaged in cataloguing every minute detail of his epic suicide mission for future replays, some sneaky part of his mind saw fit to remind him that today was Monday. That meant that school was going to happen. His smile wilted instantly.
“Aww… this is the worst day ever!” he moaned.
Button lay on his bed staring at the ceiling for several minutes, but when fate failed to provide a snowstorm or some other natural disaster to spare him from a day of cramming knowledge into his head, he sighed and hopped onto the floor. Since he was already up, he might as well do something before it was time to go to school. It was just a matter of deciding what to do.
He frowned and put a hoof to his chin as he surveyed his room. His Joyboy was sitting quietly on his beanbag, calling to him…
Button grinned and dashed towards it, but when he reached out with a hoof to pick it up and begin another epic adventure, something stopped him. Guilt. It was a feeling that had been growing in the past few days, and it was reaching critical mass. He didn’t like it. Although not debilitating, it was nevertheless a negative status effect that needed to be purged from his system before it reached too many stacks. The buff to Happiness that his Joyboy would provide could counter its effects for a while, but Guilt’s duration was practically infinite and seriously overpowered. He didn’t know who was in charge of tweaking real life’s settings, but he felt that whoever that was, he or she was doing a very poor job of keeping things balanced.
But back to the problem: what’s the cure?
He remembered experiencing something similar in his dream, and then… it clicked in his mind. Miss Cheerilee had announced that there was going to be a little in-class test on Friday. Although she’d used a less threatening term, the reality was that he was going to be examined.
I didn’t survive the mission because I didn’t prepare.
Although Button was pretty sure that the consequences couldn’t be that dire in real life, it wasn’t something he wanted to find out first-hoof. He gazed longingly at his Joyboy and sighed. Sometimes, he really wished that real ponies got to reload from checkpoints.
Squaring his shoulders, he marched over to his schoolbag and whipped out his textbooks. He’d treated Intellect as his dump stat for far too long. He’d come close to failing a few Knowledge checks in the last semester, and it would be a really bad idea to hope that things wouldn’t get harder as time went along. As Mom always said, “If life gets hard, it means you need to level up.”
It was time to do some grinding.
* * * * *
Princess Celestia allowed herself a rare yawn as she trotted through the palace. It was a little chilly, so she took a little detour to the royal kitchen and returned to her original course with the addition of a steaming-hot mug of coffee in tow. Her destination was the top of the west tower; sunrise was due within the next twenty minutes, and this morning she fancied a nice view of Ponyville as she raised the sun.
She savoured the bitter flavour of her drink as she ascended the tower on hoof; the dimly lit and undecorated stonework interior of the stairwell was wonderfully serene, and it was one of the few places where she truly felt alone with her thoughts, away from the servants and guards and even the comforts that ponies felt were their leaders’ due. Small wonder Luna spent so much of her time in this tower when she was keeping watch.
A stiff breeze blew into the tower when she opened the thick double doors to the balcony, which she soon realised was empty.
That is unusual, she thought as she trotted out. Luna was seldom elsewhere near the end of her nightly duties. Celestia was just about to head back in and try the north tower when she heard her sister’s voice.
“Up here, Tia.”
The tower’s roof was a sharp spire with one clerestory window jutting from it, and perched on her haunches rather precariously on top of the ledge provided by that window was her sister. She wasn’t making eye contact, and if Celestia had to guess, she was instead staring vaguely in the direction of Ponyville, far below. Between her knitted brow and the bright moon giving her a dark silhouette, she looked like a brooding gargoyle.
“Luna? What’s the matter? You look… conflicted.”
“I was just thinking about one of our subject’s dreams. It is nothing, never mind.”
“It can’t be ‘nothing’ if it’s gotten you into this mood.” Celestia went over to the balcony rails, sat down, and then tapped her hoof on the floor beside her. “Wouldn’t you like to talk about it?”
Luna hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and glided down to her. After taking a seat by her side, she asked, “What would you like to know?”
Celestia smiled. “Well, we could start with what’s bothering you. Did the dreamer react poorly to your presence? Was it a nightmare?”
“I am not certain if I should categorise this colt’s dream as a nightmare.”
“Oh? This is getting interesting. Do tell.” Celestia shifted closer to her sister and draped a wing around her. Then, after a moment’s consideration, she offered the mug to her. “Coffee?”
“No, thank you.” Luna shook her head. “One aspect of his dream was putting him in distress. I held his fears at bay for a time and advised him on how to confront them…”
“And?”
“He shot me with an M-22 Eviscerator,” Luna deadpanned.
Celestia felt her smile become a teensy bit strained. “That is… oddly specific. Care to explain what that is? It does not sound very pleasant, least of all something that a colt should have in his dreams.”
“It is a fictional weapon,” Luna replied with a grimace, absentmindedly rubbing her chest with a hoof. “A remarkably painful one.”
“I thought you can’t be harmed in the dreamscape.”
“That does not mean I cannot be hurt. The stronger the dreamer’s imagination, the more vivid the experience, and let me tell you, this colt has an imagination wild enough to temporarily convince my subconscious that he had given my lungs a new breathing hole.”
Celestia opened her mouth to say something, but after a moment of silence, all that came out was a thoughtful “Ah…”
“Ah, indeed,” Luna said wryly.
“Okay, I would then guess that you’re upset because he’d turned on you. But—” Celestia tilted her head and raised an eyebrow, “—wait, you’re smiling now. This is becoming a little confusing for me.”
“The colt faced his fears before waking, and he was… very mature about it. I should have realised that he simply needed far less help than I had estimated, and I should not resent him for that.” Luna rose to all fours, gently easing out from under Celestia’s wing and flared her horn. Once the moon had set beyond the horizon, she gave her a smile and said, “Thank you for that, Tia, I do feel better now.”
“Oh, you’re welcome.” Celestia got up and was just about to bid her sister good morning when she saw her leap onto and balance on the balcony’s broad stone railing with her wings spread wide. “Wait, where are you going?”
“To the training yard.”
“Goodness, why? Aren’t you sleepy?”
Luna grinned wolfishly. “I have just been treated to the spectacle of a colt leading his schoolmates on a suicide mission to assault the fortress of a dreaded enemy, slaying countless foes and barely escaping by the skin of their teeth before the fort is destroyed by an atomic inferno worthy of Discord himself. And it was glorious,” she declared, sweeping her wing out in a grand gesture. “And now that you have assuaged my disquietude, I am far too excited to go to bed. I could use some exercise, and the guards could use some training. A ten to one sparring match would be an adequate challenge, I believe. Good morn!”
And with that, Luna dove from the balcony and glided down towards the training grounds, leaving Celestia alone on the west tower. She blinked a few times, then wordlessly drained the last of her lukewarm coffee.
“Hmm. Mondays…” she murmured as she raised the sun.
