A colony ship from Earth to Alpha Centauri never made it, somehow ending up in another system. 6000 years later, they have finally found a way home. But there's something wrong with the legendary 3rd planet from Sol...
Book 1: In 2095 A.D., the US launched the first Colony Ship, headed for Centaurus: a planet in Alpha Centauri's habitable zone. The ultimate space race had been won. 40,000 Americans would arrive in ten years and found the first human colony outside our system, all for America. But in 2100, the ship vanished. The "Lost Colony" was never found.
6000 years later, the colonists found a way home from the system the accident sent them to: one of four human nations forged from the survivors of the crash had opened the EarthGate, giving them control over contact with Earth, which they visited immediately, only to find something had beaten them to the cradle of humanity and had wiped all traces of humanity from its surface,
(The Saga now has it's own group! You can find it here! The forums has information on the details of the Alternate Universe, and anyone can join. You can only contribute if you're ranked higher than user, though.
A crossover between Sid Meier's Civilization II: Test of Time's Scifi mode (it's a really awesome experience for those of you who haven't played it. Plus, Scifi mode is already a crossover between Civ and Master of Orion!) and The Conversion Bureau! Earth fell to ponification in 8080 A.D., only twenty years before the Lost Colony opened the gateway home. This was going to be a single fic, but due to a suggestion from Safhell, who preread the chapters I have at the time of posting this, it's being split into a saga! This first story is the introduction, and from there, the story will split into multiple paths following different characters and situations during the ensuing conflict until a conclusion fic is added to end the saga with the grand finale! (If you guys don't like the idea of it being a saga instead of a standalone, let me know, and if enough of you are against the saga idea, I'll just merge them all into this fic).
Please leave constructive criticism for anything I could do better, for I know this fic is far from perfect. Just remember that a lot of things use the mindset present in all Sid Meier's Civilization games, so logic is a bit skewed at times when compared to how things work in the real world (such as the colony ship being all citizens of the nation that launched it and not multinational. It's just how Sid designed the games).
Thousands of years ago, a magnificent starship filled with valiant settlers set out to reach the star nearest their home world. En route, their sensing devices detected an enormous alien artifact, and they changed course to investigate. Unfortunately for the starship crew and passengers, they somehow activated the artifact’s defense systems.
Some sort of gateway opened up directly in front of the colony ship, and the next thing the survivors knew, they were entering the atmosphere of an unknown planet. The ship itself was almost completely destroyed, but due to the heroic efforts of the pilots and security officers, a few small groups managed to survive the fall.
Their best hope for the future would be to put their training to good use—to tame and colonize this new world. If all went well, then someday, somehow, they might be able to find a way to return home.
Chimeron Joe dan Bohr CI of the Proteocracy of Clericorum knew the old tale well. As the wondrous machines utilizing both the technology of the extinct Ha’Gibborim (who once ruled the Lalande 21185 system long before the human and klackon colony ships crashed into Funestis) and Penultimum (the greatest creation of the Proteans) whirred to life, he took comfort in the fact that at long last, though he and his people were no longer the same race as the humans who they were descended from, he and his people were going to be the ones to open the EarthGate, giving them full control over access to the wormhole to connect their system with Earth orbit, making them not only the most important nation of the seven nations forged from the surviving colonists, but also they would be the ones to realize that ages-old dream passed down from generation to generation, dating back six thousand years, all the way back to his distant ancestor, El Supremo Joe dan Bohr I, founder of the Clerisiac Empire, which was now an incredibly plastic Proteocracy, not a simple dictatorship led by a despot.
The energies of ancient and new technologies melded together, working in eleven dimensions to construct the wormhole. After several breathless moments, energy fired from the machine, tearing a hole in space-time in the space between the planets of the system, kept open as long as the machine remained active, revealing a close-up view of the world that had been the cradle for the human race—one of two homeworlds, since the non-human one was farther away, they would need Earth’s help to open up another gate to Kholdan: the homeworld of the survivors of the other colony ship: ant-like humanoids who called themselves “klackons”. By merging Terran and Lalandean technology, it should be able to be done.
Joe was already planning on going with the emissaries to Earth personally, to address the leaders of those who were still human, and offer them all of Clericorum’s knowledge in exchange for any different technology developed on Earth in the past six millennia, as well as assistance with establishing contact with Kholdan, since Proteans were a mix of both races using syncretic biology, resulting in allomorphic shape-shifters.
“Uh, Chimeron dan Bohr?” a scientist asked, pointing at the image of Sol’s legendary third planet on the other side of the gate. “Earth’s not supposed to be… pink, is it?”
The entire complex full of soldiers and scientists gasped and looked through the Gate. Sure enough, the entire planet was covered in a pink field.
“It may be some technology the Terrans created while we had no contact,” Joe said with a shrug. “It’s been six-thousand years. But your concern is noted.”
“Do we still proceed?” a soldier clad in microscopically-thin black armor asked.
“We do,” Joe said with a nod. “Bring the six Singulons who make up my honor guard, and bring all the emissaries assigned to the mission of first contact. We’ll take Spacecraft One, my personal Dropship, through the portal, and we’ll land off the coast of North America, as close as we can maneuver to Washington, D.C. The United States were the ones to send our original colony ship into space, so what better way to return to our roots than to introduce ourselves to the current leader of the great nation that sent our ancestors into space?”
“Very well, sir,” a Secret Service agent said with a nod. “We shall head for Elder Lodge harbor to launch Spacecraft One.”
Joe nodded in affirmation, and the group took their leave to head for the site of departure.
Meanwhile, on the world the Proteans called “Earth”, there hadn’t been an actual human on the surface in twenty years, just hordes of ponies known as “newfoals” created by a transformation much different than the one the Proteans' forebears used to create the pinnacle of human development: Proteus Sapiens.
These “newfoals” were humans transformed into ponies resembling the denizens of the world that had established contact with the humans only forty years before the attempt about to be made by the Clerisy. However, the newfoals weren’t exactly like the ponies they had been transformed to resemble. They were obsessively loyal to Princess Celestia, one of the two leaders of the nation of Equestria from the other world, couldn’t say anything even slightly crass, let alone vulgar, couldn't gain Cutie Marks, were almost completely incapable of feeling any negative emotion, and they seemed to possess little of the personalities they had as humans, just undying loyalty to Celestia, and almost a complete lack of love for anything but her.
Celestia had tricked the humans into converting to avoid the “extinction” she claimed would be caused by the pink barrier advancing over Earth. Some had escaped the planet, much to her dismay, and had joined the existing colonies on Mars or the moon, while others hid underground, since the barrier only destroyed things on the surface.
The newfoals didn’t call their planet “Earth” anymore. Now, they called it “New Equestria”, and all signs of human civilization had been destroyed by the barrier’s advance, even though anything underground was spared, and no living thing could actually be harmed by it, contrary to Celestia’s lies.
At the moment the EarthGate opened in the vicinity of “New Equestria”, the newfoals and their truepony taskmasters stared up at the view into another system in shock. There were three planets visible through the Gate: a gas giant, a rocky and dusty world, and a superterrestroid surrounded by decrepit orbital platforms.
At the former location of the Australian Government House in what used to be Canberra, a white-furred pony in gold armor glared up at the sudden hole in the sky. Turning around to face the facility the ponies had built to house the original portal between New and Old Equestria, he swiftly trotted into the building and ignored all the newfoals swarming around doing jobs for their “beloved queen” and climbed multiple staircases before arriving at a door. It had a gold plaque on it that read:
PRINCE BLUEBLOOD EQUESTRIS
GOVERNOR OF NEW EQUESTRIA
The armored pony took a deep breath, knocked firmly on the door, then waited.
After a few seconds, the door was engulfed in the Prince’s magical aura and pulled open, revealing the Governor of New Equestria glaring daggers at the pony who dared to interrupt his personal tea time, bat wings flared in an attempt to intimidate.
“This had better be important,” Blueblood snapped. “First, soldier, your name and rank.”
“Sergeant Lead Heavyhoof, Your Grace,” the soldier replied briskly with a bow, the very image of a proper soldier.
“Now, what is it, Sergeant?” Blueblood demanded, folding his wings to his sides. “Unless the humans from Mars have actually made a successful attack or have found a way to reverse the completed ponification process instead of just halting and reversing the process while it’s taking effect, I see no reason for you to bring a problem directly to me. I’m sure one of my newfoal secretaries could easily deal with any problem less than either of those.”
“It’s worse, Your Grace,” Heavyhoof announced firmly. “A gate has formed in the sky. One we didn’t create. It seems to be connected to another star system.”
“Ah,” Blueblood said, suddenly much more interested and concerned. “Thank you for the information, Sergeant. You’re dismissed. Return to your post and await further orders.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” Heavyhoof replied before leaving the office and shutting the door behind him.
Alone once again, Blueblood was no longer interested in finishing his tea, nor was he interested in having fun with any of his secretaries later, either. Sure, they adored him because he was “the queen’s nephew”, but this was a matter of great importance.
Opening a hidden compartment in his desk, Blueblood pulled out a mirror and said, “Aunty? I need to speak with you. It’s important.”
The image in the mirror rippled and his aunt came into focus. Her eyes were darkened and leaking small amounts of purple mist, but that was how he liked her. Ever since the first time he saw her like that, she started pampering him more, even granting him ascension (he actually preferred the bat wings he got from it, since they could intimidate more than feathered ones could), but she also trained him for the task of being her governor, a job he absolutely loved.
“Hello, my dear nephew,” Celestia said warmly, “it’s refreshing to hear from you again. Luna still hasn’t adjusted to the fate of ‘Earth’, and she grates on my nerves. Even Twilight and her friends seem to oppose me at times. There’s even rumors that Ponyville and the surrounding areas may try to secede and place Twilight as their sovereign, though there’s no actual evidence of it and Twilight denies the claims.”
“Always a pleasure to speak with you, too, Aunty,” Blueblood said with a smile before his face turned dead serious. “Remember the history of the human nation, ‘the United States of America’?”
Celestia’s expression suddenly turned sour. “Yes, what about it? They were the final nation to resist before we finally consumed their planet. Of course I know their history. I studied it intensely to find any weakness to exploit.”
“Remember the ‘Lost Colony’?” Blueblood asked. “The colony ship they sent to Alpha Centauri a little more than six-thousand years ago?”
“They lost contact with it and presumed the colonization had failed,” Celestia replied, now a bit confused. “Why is that so important now?”
“I think they’re not lost anymore,” Blueblood told her before getting out of his chair, trotting to the windows in the back of his office and pulling all the curtains aside so he could see the Gate in the sky for himself, then turned the mirror so his aunt could also see the portal into another star system. “I’m pretty sure they made that. And even if it wasn’t them, we’ll still have to contend with whoever decides to come through that gate.”
“Oh my,” Celestia breathed as Blueblood turned the mirror to face him again. She had worry plainly etched on her face. “We still lack the power of space flight, so we can’t intercept them. I’ll send more troops, specifically to New Hoofington, which is where I’m certain they’ll try to land if they really are from the Lost Colony. They’d want to talk to the ones who sent them into space, first, and that’s where the American capital city used to be.”
“There are still remains of the District of Columbia’s underground structures,” Blueblood reminded her. “We never were able to breach the federal bunker, and their entire federal government, as well as the most stubborn of the populace are still in there, communicating with state governmental and civilian bunkers by satellite.”
“That’s why it’s incredibly important that the Lost Colonists don’t make contact with any of the bunkers,” Celestia replied simply. “The troops will be ready with ponification potions to take out the emissaries, and then we’ll take their ship to ponify their system, as well, bringing them salvation, too!”
“Brilliant, Aunty!” Blueblood cheered. “Can Birthright be Governess there?”
“Of course, dear nephew,” Celestia chuckled. “She may be half-newfoal, but my great-niece— your daughter—should be more than capable of being another extension of my rule now that she’s eighteen. If there are any problems with the newcomers, I’ll even grant her troops of her own.”
“I’ll let her know, Aunty!” Blueblood said giddily, bouncing up and down in delight. “I’ll wait for you to give me instructions unless something comes up on my end!”
“Until then, dear nephew,” Celestia said warmly before the mirror rippled again and returned to a reflection of Blueblood’s face.
“Daddy’s little Princess is going to be so happy!” Blueblood squealed before bolting out of his office to his living quarters. “Maybe Aunty will grant her ascension, too!”
Back on Funestis, in the Clerisiac capital of Elder Lodge, Spacecraft One was waiting at the docks. Transport craft were built to serve as both boats and spacecraft, so the Chimeron’s personal dropship would have to set out to sea before taking flight to the EarthGate.
The Chimeron himself climbed aboard, six Singulons following behind him, their virtually impenetrable MonoSkin armor made from monopoles completely black and covering them from head to toe with the exception of the mouth area, where a mask made of materials that weren’t virtually impenetrable served as the method for them to breathe (monopoles, and by extension, Monopolium, from which MonoSkin is made, has incredible mass for even a tiny amount, requiring gravity control systems in the suit to prevent the wearer from being crushed, and the sheer gravity of it would make a breath mask of it worthless, for all the air would get stuck due to the gravity of a MonoSkin mask).
Following them were a large group of scientists bringing the knowledge of the many sciences they had discovered with them, including the means to become Protean beings, the secret to Total Immunity, artificial gravity, the technology used for the EarthGate, and many others.
After the scientists came a group of traders, eager to establish a currency exchange system with Earth’s various national currencies, as well as to determine how valuable commodities from the Lalande 21185 system were to Terrans and how valuable Terran commodities would be to the Lalandeans.
An escort of two All-Environment Naval Experiment Assault Crafts (or AENEACs, for short) with a handful of troops on board each and a single Flattop interplanetary “aircraft carrier” (carrying Kineticore manned fighters, a couple Excelsior flying humanoid battle robots made of solid hydrogen, and Gyrfalcon bird-shaped robotic fighters) waited right outside the docks, awaiting Spacecraft One’s departure. The three spacecraft were to escort the Chimeron’s Dropship through the gate, then follow behind on the way to Washington, D.C., to only provide backup if things got ugly, for Spacecraft One had only light weapons for self-defense.
“Engaging hover thrusters,” the captain of Spacecraft One announced as the craft gracefully took to the air enough to head out to sea. “Now engaging rear engines. We’re heading to sea, everyone.”
After a couple minutes of making it into open waters, the captain radioed the other three spacecraft, then announced, “Now engaging Vertical Takeoff thrusters. We’re heading for space.”
The four spacecraft escaped the atmosphere of Funestis, passed the orbiting platforms and cities built on them by various nations, Clericorum included, and entered the space between planets, where the EarthGate stood before them.
“Now entering the EarthGate!” the captain announced excitedly, wiping away a tear. They were about to do it. Earth was within reach. The home of their ancestors was just on the other side. There wasn’t a dry eye to be had among anyone on all four ships. Even the most battle-hardened veterans couldn’t keep from getting emotional, for this one dream was what their nation had been striving for since day one, when Joe dan Bohr I rallied them together, organizing them to build Elder Lodge and establish the Clerisiac Empire.
With Spacecraft One leading the way, the four spaceships flew through the portal and found themselves in Earth orbit. Even with that odd pink bubble surrounding it, the Proteans aboard the ships easily recognized the blue sphere that had raised humanity into the mighty people they had become by the time they left to spread to Alpha Centauri, only to wind up in the Lalande 21185 system, instead.
“Engaging navigational computer for autopilot,” the captain announced. “The autopilot will take us to the mouth of the Potomac River. Beginning descent.”
As the four ships passed through the bubble with slight interference, everyone able to see the ground below began to notice something strange: there was no sign of the constant artificial lights visible from space at night. It was night, and yet, it was as if every city had gone dark. As if Earth had become a ghost town the size of an entire planet.
“Ch-Chimeron dan Bohr?” a scientist whispered nervously. “I-I think something terrible awaits us when we arrive.”
“That may be the case,” Joe replied, biting his lip with nervous tension as he subconsciously used his Protean abilities to shapeshift slightly, retaining his general visage, but gaining a klackon exoskeleton over his otherwise human-looking body. “Everyone stay alert.”
After a few minutes, the craft finished its descent and touched down on the Atlantic Ocean, near the mouth of the Potomac River. But instead of a city of great splendor and relics of the past, a simple town of wooden houses with thatched roofs met their eyes.
“This is strange,” Joe muttered, shifting back to a normal human appearance. “Everyone, be on your guard!”
After the Dropship stopped next to land so the passengers could disembark, the hatch opened, and Chimeron dan Bohr stepped out onto land first, accompanied by the six Singulon soldiers serving as his honor guard. The scientists and traders followed nervously, and the AENEACs radioed that they were standing by for backup, troops at the ready.
The town wasn’t completely dark, there were some lights coming from the houses, and a few equine-like creatures roamed the streets, but not a single human was to be found.
The strangest thing of all, though, was that some of the equines were talking to each other. In English!
Slowly approaching a pair of conversing equines—a blue one with wings and a red one with a horn—Joe cleared his throat to get their attention, resulting in their already large eyes bugging out when they saw him and his group.
“Greetings,” Joe said, waving a hand in a sign of friendship. “We mean no harm. I am Chimeron Joe dan Bohr CI of the Proteocracy of Clericorum. We are representatives of the descendants of the colonists sent to Alpha Centauri six-thousand five years ago, and we wish to reestablish contact with the nation who sent us on our way so long ago. Where can I find the President of the United States of America? Everything appears to have changed since our ancestors left, so I’m not quite sure where the U.S. government is, now.”
“Why would ya want ta talk ta humaines when bein’ a pony be so much moe fun?” the red one, a female, judging on the voice, asked, provoking odd looks from all the Clerisiac emissaries.
“What kind of question is that?” Joe asked, scrunching up his face in confusion. “Our forebears were human, so we just want to establish contact at long last with those who sent our ancestors to the cosmos so long ago.”
“But being a pony is so much more fun!” the blue one, a male if the voice was any indication, protested, confusing the Clerisy even more. “Queen Celestia loves us so much! In fact, we have some friends who can show you just how much fun it is!”
“Potion them! Now!” a female voice cried from further down the street, where the Clerisy could barely make out more quadrupedal forms. Bottles of pink fluid flew through the air, but the Clerisy didn’t seem at all frightened, confusing the equines.
“Everyone, stand your ground,” Joe said sternly. The group complied and just let the potions hit them, resulting in…
Nothing. Nothing happened at all. Whatever the equines expected the potions to do, it was clearly having no effect.
“WHAT?” the female voice from before screamed in shock as the equines in the distance approached. revealing a deep blue, horned equine with a silver mane and tail, a platinum tiara, and burning red eyes leading a large group of white-furred equines in gold armor carrying spears. “Why didn’t they turn into ponies? What’s going on? The potion turns humans into ponies!”
“Ah, tinkering with gene tailoring, are we?” a scientist chuckled, wiping the pink fluid off of his lab coat so it wouldn’t stain. “Sorry, but we of the Clerisy are masters of the many sciences of genetic construction. We’re not exactly human ourselves, anymore.”
“But it still should’ve worked!” the furious blue mare screeched. “You should’ve all turned into newfoals!”
“Sorry, but as Dr. Eureka said, we’ve mastered genetic reconstruction, and we even can construct new species from scratch,” Joe said with a shake of his head. “Using it, we redesigned ourselves to be a combination between human and klackon, as well as having DNA that can restructure itself as we see fit. We’re not humans. We’ve artificially evolved ourselves past human into Proteans, allomorphic shape-shifters. Observe.”
Shape-shifting was simple for one born a Protean. It was as easy as moving your arm, and required very little thought. The Chimeron was born a Protean, so he had no trouble with it at all. To demonstrate, he first shifted to the form of a klackon, then back to his normal human shape with different colored skin, shifting through the entire visible spectrum of colors rapidly, then into a cross between a human and a Typhoeus—a dragon-like creature created using the power of chaos biogenics for military purposes—then back to his default human-looking form. He finished with a bow.
“So you can change shape,” the equine huffed. “That still doesn’t explain why the potions didn’t work!”
“You haven’t pieced it together yet?” another scientist scoffed. “Here, let me give you the watered-down version: we’re immune to everything. The secrets of Total Immunity have made our entire race immune to everything, for our very cells resist anything that would rewrite them besides themselves. We even show no signs of aging! I may look like I’m in my early twenties, but I’ll have you know that I’m sixty-three! We just keep going strong until the minute we keel over, and without examinations from a doctor, we’d never know death was even near!”
The equine whickered and backed up in shock. She understood that explanation.
“This is bad,” she muttered. “Great Aunty’s not going to like this at all!” Turning to the Proteans, she started to throw a tantrum. “That’s cheating!” she whined. “You’re not playing fair!” Suddenly, her face turned red with anger, and she bellowed, “Everypony! Attack!”
“Yes, Princess Birthright!” the battalion of equines shouted as one before charging at the emissaries. Now, the Proteans were worried.
“Chimeron dan Bohr! We’re civilians!” a merchant screamed. “They’ll tear us to bits!”
“Radio all three ships for backup,” Joe ordered. “In the meantime, my honor guard will form a living wall to block all their attacks. Singulons are nearly impossible to defeat when they’re defending, especially without technology from our system.”
Without a word, the six singulons stood side by side, about a foot apart, slowly walking towards the advancing enemy, finally coming to a stop when the advancing equines were only seconds away.
With the buildings on either side, the singulons took up the whole road, leaving no room for any ground-based troops to simply maneuver around them.
“You think you can block our way?” a soldier equine scoffed. “Ponies are superior to all! Take this!”
The pony tried to stab a singulon with his spear, but the spear had no effect. The MonoSkin armored soldier said nothing and backhanded the pony across the face, throwing him into the air from the heavy impact, sailing over the heads of his comrades and out of sight.
“A single MonoSkin suit has almost as much mass as the planet Mars!” another scientist crowed. “Something that dense is far too resistant to attacks for a simple spear to work! Just look at what a simple backhand did to that foolish soldier! The gravity manipulators were even redirecting most of the mass away from the hand at that time! Had they not done that, his head would’ve popped off!”
“Unicorns!” Birthright screamed. “Tear them to pieces! Use magic!”
After cries of ‘yes, ma’am!’, the horn of every “unicorn” soldier took on an aura matching their eye color, and wave after wave of energy-based attacks fired from the glowing horns, pummeling the singulons hard with lightning, fire, balls of pure energy, energy blades, and many other types of attacks, but the singulons still stood strong with only a few gashes in their armor, which quickly repaired themselves due to the intense gravity of MonoSkin pulling the material back together, mending the suits to appear as if they had never taken damage. The life support systems in the suits would tend to the wounds the wearers had taken from the few attacks that made it through, so they’d be good as new in seconds.
“Why isn’t anything working?” Birthright screamed, dropping to the ground and banging the road with her forehooves like a young child throwing a tantrum. “Pegasi! Just carry the earth pony and unicorn soldiers over their heads!”
The winged soldiers, now identified as “pegasi”, started picking up the ground-bound troops and took to the sky, too high for the singulons to reach, forcing the singulons to fall back to protect the Chimeron as the flying ponies started to land, surrounding the Chimeron and civilians and blocking off the singulons, who began punching and kicking to try to get through the sea of soldiers.
“We can’t fight!” a merchant screamed. “I’m just a Hi-DIE Tanker pilot! I deal in shipping plasmas from Megiddo on Funestis to Masonia on Naumachia! I’m only here to set a trading standard for plasmas being shipped to Earth! None of us know how to fight! We’re unarmed, untrained, and inexperienced! They’ll destroy us unless a miracle happens right now!”
As if on cue, an Excelsior flew towards them from the direction of the Flattop sitting in the ocean, accompanied by two Kineticore fighters and a pair of Gyrfalcons. In addition, two battalions of Pasticcios (“beings” built for military purposes consisting of klackon and human biology, as well as mechanical parts) fell from the sky with the aid of parachutes, two hordes of Speed Demons (bipedal reptilian war creatures genetically designed for the sole purpose of being insanely fast) disembarked from the two AENEACs and began rushing towards them, and a pair of Ur-Titans (giant bipedal humanoids based on the ancient titans of myth) disembarked as well, shaking the ground with every step as they approached the town.
The ponies didn’t even have time to react before the flying machines closed in, firing energy-based weapons at the ground, forcing the ponies to fall back to avoid complete annihilation from the shots of plasma from the Gyrfalcons, delerium-116 (or D-116 for short) crystal-based energy beam shots from the Kineticores, and quantum laser blasts from the Excelsior.
Next, the ground units closed in. The Speed Demons arrived first, biting and clawing at the ponies, forcing them further back. Then the Pasticcios arrived, firing lasers at the ponies, pushing them back even more. Finally, the two Ur-Titans arrived, every step towards the ponies forcing them to give ground without even needing to attack until the ponies had no choice but to retreat, for they were clearly outmatched.
With the battle won, only Princess Birthright remained behind, kicking and screaming as she hit the ground over and over, once again resembling a toddler throwing a tantrum.
“You can’t bring all that junk to protect you!” she whined. “It’s not fair! We were gonna win! You bunch of meanies! I’ll get you for this! Daddy and Great Aunty’ll make you pay!”
The Chimeron walked towards her until he was close enough to touch her, then slapped her. Hard.
“Grow up!” he snapped. “You were beaten, but none of you actually died! All of those shots were warning shots! Where we come from, you can’t afford to make warning shots! You’re lucky we didn’t decide to just obliterate you! Stop acting like a toddler and grow some dignity!”
“You hit me!” Birthright blubbered before crying like some child who was only “sorry” because they got caught. “You’re all bullies! If it weren’t for your stupid machines and monsters, you’d be dead! You cheat!”
Joe had had enough. Shifting into a non-bipedal form was tricky, but with a little focus, he managed to pull off shifting into a spitting image of the brat before him, minus the tiara, and still wearing his robe and suit, which was quite baggy on this form.
“Look at me!” Joe said in a snooty, incredibly fake and whiny female voice, provoking chuckles from the Proteans and dead silence from Birthright, who just stared in shock. “I’m Princess Birthright! I’m a spoiled, bratty unicorn who throws tantrums when I don’t get what I want! I look like a grown-up, but I act like I’m four!”
The emissaries erupted into violent laughter while Joe shifted back to his default form, and Birthright scowled at all of them, finally getting to her hooves and giving them the iciest glare they’d ever seen.
“You’ll get yours, just you wait, ‘Proteans’!” Birthright snapped. “We’re not letting this mockery go unpunished! Enjoy your victory while you can, for the next time you face us, you’ll die! We own the entire planet! The humans are gone, replaced with newfoals! You came home forty years too late! If you value your lives, you’ll just pack up and leave, closing that gate behind you!”
With that, the snobby excuse for a princess disappeared in a flash of light, leaving the Clerisy alone in a world where they were the only traces of humanity remaining, and even they weren’t strictly human anymore.
As soon as Birthright returned to her Daddy’s manor, she rushed past all the servants, staff and guards, and headed straight for where the family living quarters were. She ignored the greeting her mother gave her, and jumped at her Daddy, tears streaming down her face as she nuzzled her face into his fur right after landing next to him.
“Daddy, I lost!” she blubbered. “We couldn’t ponify them, and they had machines and monsters that overwhelmed us! They cheated! They’re dirty, rotten cheaters, and their leader’s a bully, too! After we lost, he shapeshifted to look like me and called me names!”
Blueblood put a wing over his daughter to comfort her before saying, “There, there. Daddy’s right here, my little Princess. I’ve got the mirror right here, so you can tell both me and Great Aunty at the same time.”
Blueblood levitated his communication mirror over to Birthright, who sniffled and caught it in her own magical grip before saying, “Great Aunty? We need to talk to you.”
The mirror rippled into the face of Celestia, who was currently in her personal chambers, sitting at her desk and facing one of the many mirrors she had installed around the castle so she could communicate with Blueblood and his daughter.
“You’re talking to Aunt-in-law Queen Celestia?” Blueblood’s wife, Evening Grace, exclaimed. “Can I see, too? Please, darling?”
Evening Grace was the Governor of Australia turned into a newfoal. The majority of the Australian Government fled underground like the American one did, but Blueblood had promised her his love, even claiming that he could keep her from having to become a pony to escape death. She had fallen for him somehow in spite of the difference in races, so she took him to her bunker with her, where he potioned her while she slept. She’d been his ever since.
“Sorry, love, but this is government business,” Blueblood told her before turning to face the mirror.
“Ah, my dear nephew and great-niece,” Celestia said warmly, smiling at them both. “What do you need?”
“I failed you, Great Aunty!” Birthright whined, bursting into tears. “They were prepared for everything we tried! They say they’re immune to everything, they had soldiers with really thin armor that was almost impossible to penetrate and repaired itself once we managed to damage one of them, they had monsters they designed themselves as well as huge battle machines fighting for them, they claim to have evolved past human into ‘Proteans’, and they can shapeshift! The leader shifted into me after we lost and started mocking me and calling me names!”
“That’s a lot to take in all at once,” Blueblood noted. “Did you get all of that, Aunty?”
“I did,” Celestia replied with a nod. “Remember, dear nephew, I’ve been around for a very long time, so I learned how to digest information quickly a long time ago. Well, we’ll have to change tactics to deal with them. I’ve acquired a large amount of Alicorn Amulets, so for the next time we encounter them, we’ll outfit the unicorn troops with Amulets. You’ll get one as well, Birthright. I’ll also need you to come see me in Canterlot Palace so I can bestow on you the same gift I gave your father. We’ll make you a force to be reckoned with all by yourself. We’ll also outfit the pegasus and earth pony troops with better equipment so they can fight hard, too. With a legion of these special troops behind you after your ascension, they won’t stand a chance.”
“Thanks, Great Aunty,” Birthright said while wiping tears from her eyes. “We’ll show them.”
“Leave at least one alive,” Celestia added. “We’ll have to redesign the ponification potion to work on these ‘Proteans’, and to do that, we’ll need one for us to study.”
“Of course, Great Aunty,” Birthright said with a menacing grin. “I think I know exactly who I’ll bring back to study: ‘Chimeron Joe dan Bohr CI of the Proteocracy of Clericorum’ is what he called himself. He’s the leader. He’s the one who mocked me, and I want him to suffer.”
“Perfect, my dear great-niece,” Celestia said with a sneer of her own. “They’ll learn not to mock our power. We’ll take their precious star system, and you shall be its Governess!”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Great Aunty!” Birthright squealed in delight, bouncing up and down in excitement. I’ll hurry to Canterlot right away!”
“Farewell, both of you,” Celestia said with a gentle smile. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing you soon, Birthright.”
With that, the mirror rippled back into a normal reflection. Birthright kissed her Daddy on the cheek, hugged her mother, then bolted out of the room straight for the portal room.
Back in the location where a small backwards town stood where the District of Columbia once had, the backup forces returned to the ships that carried them to Earth, and the emissaries exchanged glances, wondering what to do.
“Dr. Eureka?” the Chimeron said as he approached the scientist who had explained how the Clerisy were superior in genetics. “You’re the one who came to share the knowledge of how to become Proteans, correct?”
“That’s right,” Dr. Eureka replied. “I am Dr. Fleck M. Eureka, D.S.B., Clericorum’s greatest mind in the field of syncretic biology. Why?”
“Well, Dr. Eureka,” Joe began with a hand on the doctor’s shoulder, “We need your assistance in attempting to reverse what those ponies claim they’ve done to the population of Earth.”
“You mean to genetically reconstruct them into humans, don’t you?” Eureka guessed.
“Exactly,” the Chimeron confirmed with a nod. “For us to help them become Proteans, they’ll need to be returned to being human first, for the process to artificially evolve into Proteus Sapiens requires one to either be Homo Sapiens—human—or Formica Sapiens—klackon.”
“Well, if I had my staff with me and some equipment, we could make some progress on that,” Eureka sighed. “Here, I have neither.”
Thinking quickly, the Chimeron turned to his honor guard and addressed them.
“We’ll need three of you to secure one transformed human, each,” he explained. “By how the two ‘newfoals’ we saw acted in comparison to how the soldiers acted, It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out which ones aren’t supposed to be ponies. Bring me a unicorn, a pegasus, and one of the earth ponies. Remember: make sure none of them are actual ponies like that bratty princess and her troops.”
The singulons all replied with a chorus of “yes, sir!” before three of them hurried down the street, two of them quickly overtaking the unicorn and pegasus who had spoken with them before, and the third one heading even further, ducking into alleys to spy on every earth pony she saw until she finally heard a yellow male use the term “Queen Celestia” instead of “Princess Celestia.”
Jumping out of hiding, she tackled the ponified human to the ground, resulting in the man-turned-stallion calling for assistance, devoid of negative emotion, before the gravity manipulators in the suit’s right hand removed over 99% of the mass from it, leaving just enough for the task she required the suit to do.
She flicked the struggling newfoal in the forehead with her index finger, knocking him out cold from the force remaining. The suit’s gravity manipulators quickly readjusted to default settings, and she dashed back towards Spacecraft One, a group of ponies chasing her all the way there.
The emissaries were already on board, and the other two singulons who had been dispatched were carrying equally-comatose newfoals with slight bruises on their foreheads, just like her captive had.
“The Chimeron is already aboard,” one of her partners said, pointing at the mob chasing her with his left hand. “We’d better get aboard before they get here.”
All three nodded, and they bolted for the hatch, climbed inside, and the third member of their group shouted, “We got ’em! Close the hatch! Fast!”
“Calm your hypercoil, lady!” the captain snapped. “What’s the rush?”
“There’s an entire mob approaching, that’s what!” the singulon holding the yellow newfoal snapped. “If you don’t close the hatch now, we’ll be taking more than just these three back with us!”
“Fine! Fine!” the captain replied, slamming a button next to his chair, causing the hatch to start closing, then flipping a switch to make the hatch close a lot faster than normal, slamming shut right as a pegasus tried to fly through the little space remaining, resulting in them hitting it with a harmless thud.
The three singulons walked to Dr. Eureka in the medical bay and set the three unconscious newfoals down in front of his seat.
“Here are your patients, Doctor,” the one who set down the red unicorn chuckled through his mask. “Diagnosis: loss of humanity.”
“Oh, har har,” Eureka said as he pulled open a drawer and pulled out a Lorentz-Force Actuator Jet Injector (or a “LoFAJI” for short) and inserted a cartridge of mid-grade Level 2 Anesthetic Omniform Bacteria specifically designed to rewrite themselves after injection to generate chemicals that would best serve the purpose of consciously sedating any lifeform ranging in size from that of a large dog to the size of a large half-grown elephant, only ceasing to sedate when a deactivation serum was injected. “I’m a doctor of genetics, not a surgeon.”
As the ship took off, the three singulons took seats near the scientist and waited in silence.
“Wait, shouldn’t you guys be protecting the Chimeron?” Eureka inquired, confused. “Why are you sticking with me?”
“Even with a LoFAJI equipped with sedative bacteria, they may prove dangerous when they come to,” the woman who had carried the blue pegasus replied. “You may require assistance in containing them before you can sedate them.”
“Never mind that,” the man who had carried the red unicorn cut in. “Your name’s Fleck Eureka? What’s the reason for you being named after the brilliant, yet eccentric scientist who squeezed two very complicated technological advances into a single paragraph, and having a last name matching the fabled Eureka Institute, which we know is urban legend, by the way.”
“Ah, my name,” Eureka said awkwardly, “Well, I’m descended from Fleck on my mother’s side. He had a few children before the incident that made him crazy enough to step in front of a moving vehicle right after surviving an exploding complex to give us two remarkable advances.
“As for the Eureka Institute?” Dr. Eureka chuckled and shook his head. “You three are mistaken. The building was torn down once its purposes were fulfilled, but my grandfather and his siblings founded that shady institution under the direction of the previous Chimeron; Joe dan Bohr C. Built it right in Elder Lodge and filled it with the greatest minds of the time from all seven nations! Of course, Grandpa ordered some thugs to kidnap any scientist who wouldn’t come willingly. Or he had them bring the poor sobs in at gunpoint, all for the purpose of making everyone in our nation permanently more intelligent. Grandpa said how they did it is classified, but Dad says he’s convinced they altered the drinking water like the SITW project did to just Elder Lodge or they altered the genome of the entire Clerisy. As for myself? I don’t care how we got twice as smart as we were before. I just feel sorry for the poor sobs who Grandpa’s thugs brought in against their will. They probably would’ve still accomplished it without those who were forced to. It just would’ve taken longer.”
As the ship exited the EarthGate into the Lalande 21185 star system, the three newfoals started to stir. Dr. Eureka reached for his LoFAJI, but he was suddenly grabbed in a green aura, the red unicorn gazing at him with eyes of the same color.
“Wheea is we?” the woman-turned-mare asked in a disturbingly upbeat tone. “Dis isn’t New Hoofin’ton! Dis doesn’t look like anythin’ in New Equestria!”
The earth pony and pegasus were already pinned to the ground by two of the singulons, and the man who had captured the unicorn in the first place was now dealing with a hostage situation.
“Easy now,” he said calmingly, “We mean you no harm. This is Spacecraft One, Chimeron dan Bohr’s personal dropship. We just passed through the EarthGate and we’ve entered the Lalande 21185 star system, where we’re from. We want to help you, but the help we can provide you three couldn’t be provided on Earth because we didn’t have everything you need. Please, release Dr. Eureka. He’s a civilian. He can’t fight. He has no way of fighting. He has no training. You’re more dangerous than he is.”
“Ya’re takin’ us away from Queen Celestia?” the unicorn exclaimed, sounding almost sad. “How can ya possibly help us moe than she can?”
“If you release the Doctor, he’ll be able to explain it better, for he’s the expert on this subject,” the man replied. “Now, release him.”
“Fine,” the unicorn said, setting Dr. Eureka back in his chair and releasing him. “Now—”
The unicorn cut off as Eureka placed the LoFAJI to her neck and pushed a button. The device made a few thousand calculations in less than a picosecond, then injected a dose of the bacteria right through her skin without breaking it. She crumpled to the ground in seconds, still aware of her surroundings, unable to feel pain, still breathing, but unable to act except in response to stimuli such as light and speech.
“One down,” Eureka said before approaching the earth pony. “This is for your own good,” he added before placing the LoFAJI’s nozzle gently against the man-turned-stallion’s neck and pushing the same button again. After a few seconds, his body went limp, the singulon pinning him down released him, and Eureka approached the blue pegasus to complete the task, saying, “Two down.”
“Please, stop,” the newfoal requested without the slightest level of fear in his voice. “I just want to go home! I want to be back in New Hoofington, praising Queen Celestia while doing works in her name and having fun being a pony! Why are you doing this? Why won't you join us? We just want to save you!”
“That’s the control talking, you buffoon,” Eureka growled as he placed the LoFAJI to the final newfoal’s neck as the other two moved their eyes to watch helplessly. “The real you doesn’t want to be her puppet! He wants to be free, living the life he once had, which was stolen from him when he was transformed into what you are now.” Eureka pushed the button one last time, and the pegasus went limp as well, the bacteria inside him keeping him in a semi-conscious state with no end in sight until a deactivator serum could be injected.
“Thank you for your help, ladies and gent,” Eureka said, smiling warmly at the singulons. “As you can see, they are subdued now, so you can return to the Chimeron now.”
The three singulons nodded, then left the medical bay, leaving Dr. Eureka alone with his three “patients”.
After setting the three subdued brainwashed former humans on chairs opposite him, Eureka cleared his throat to get their attention, and all of them moved their eyes to focus on him as he sat down in a chair, himself.
“You three are about to be part of an experiment,” he informed them. All three shook with what almost seemed like fear, but wasn’t. It lasted a few seconds before the partial sedation caused the response to cease, and Eureka continued. “This experiment is meant to help you, not hurt you. The purpose of the experiment is to free the ‘real you’ imprisoned inside that brainwashed mind and transformed body.”
The three newfoals shook their heads weakly for a couple seconds, but they quickly stopped due to the injections’ effects.
“I’m sorry, but the human in each of you is imprisoned and chained by the body and brain you now have,” Eureka sighed. “A few thousand years ago, the Clerisy discovered Adaptive Eugenics: the application of biological and mechanical adaptations for the betterment of the human race—true eugenics, not the barbaric practices that tainted the word by trying to weed out those deemed a hindrance according to some uncivilized lout. Normally, the methods are voluntary, and even reversible if the offspring who inherit the adaptations disagree with their parents. But for you, it will be semi-permanent. It’d take another potion to turn you back into a pony. Through Gene Tailoring and the application of Heteromorphic RNA, we should be able to restore you to your former selves in body, and through applications of counters to Psionics—the manipulation of ‘psions’ that can be used for many things, including mind control—we should be able to break the hold on you and return to you the freedom you haven’t had for years.”
The ponified humans just stared blankly in disbelief. What he was proposing went against everything they desired. Why would they ever want to go back?
“Once your freedom is restored and you’re human again, we’ll let you tell us if it’s truly more fun to be a pony than it is to be who you really are,” Eureka finished. “If you choose to be ponies again, we’ll send you back to get transformed again, but only after a psychological evaluation, since coming out of bacterial sedation can leave one loopy for a while.”
“Oh, we’ve landed!” Dr. Eureka announced as he looked out a window to see Elder Lodge’s north docks come into view. “Don’t worry, once I’ve brought my own personal staff, we’ll take you to a hospital and get to work.”
Unable to protest beyond a weak, forced out “no,” the three newfoals could do nothing but sit there and exchange glances as the doctor left.
Chimeron Joe dan Bohr CI left Spacecraft One to deliver an address to the nation about the state of Earth, then to send word to all of his embassies in the other six nations explaining Earth’s plight to them as well and to request help from their leaders, for even the nations of klackon descent wanted to contact Earth to get their help with establishing contact with Kholdan.
Meanwhile, Dr. Eureka returned to Spacecraft One with a massive group of assistants in labcoats following behind him, three hovering stretchers following them, piloted by Positronic Brains—small supercomputers that used positrons instead of electrons to triple their computational power, making them almost sapient, but not quite.
“Hello, my three lovely patients!” Eureka said brightly. “We’re here to cure what ails you and set you right!”
The three newfoals groaned slightly in protest, and Eureka sighed.
“I know, we left you waiting for almost three hours,” he said, wringing his hands. “But we had to reserve the operating room in the hospital closest to the docks for the next twelve hours, and we had to gather a lot of medical instruments not normally found in a hospital. So, forgive me if we kept you waiting for too long.”
That was not why the newfoals groaned, so they tried a different approach to get their message across: the three of them shook their heads for a couple seconds before the lack of continual stimuli forced them to cease.
“Come now, don’t let that tyrant boss you around!” Eureka scolded with a shake of his head. “Humans don’t let others decide their lives for them, you know! And I know that deep down, each one of you wants to be human again, even if you don’t think you do.”
Turning to his assistants, Eureka started barking orders.
“Green! Get the stretchers in position!” the doctor commanded. “Johnson! You, Fujimoto and Montoya are to get them onto the stretchers! Lacks! Place analyzers on them once we’re on our way so we’ll know exactly what to fix when we get there!”
The assistants swarmed around the three newfoals, three of them picking them up to place them on stretchers that moved by themselves.
Once again presented with stimuli, the newfoals found themselves able to make slight actions, and they all reacted differently: The pegasus weakly moved his wings, trying to fly, but failing. The earth pony tried to squirm out of the grip of the Protean holding him, but he also failed because he was incapable of putting full force into his actions.
The unicorn, however, attempted to use magic, resulting in a few plasma bolts arcing from her horn and striking the Protean carrying her, forcing her to let go. Now free, the unicorn channeled magic into her legs to provide a continual stimulus while also launching streams of magic at her fellow captives, granting them a continual stimulus, as well.
The sedatives were still in effect, so moving was hard at first, but the unicorn pumped more magic into herself and the other two newfoals, filling them with enough strength to counter the effects of the sedatives inside them.
“Listen up, bullies!” The unicorn giggled creepily. “We’ve figured out how ta counter yo sedatives! I still gots power left, and muh two homies heea is capable of breakin’ jaws and bones! We’re takin’ control of dis ship and we’re returnin’ ta New Equestria! All of ya, get out of heea, except fo’ Doc Eureka! We’ll need ta brin’ one of ya back fo study so da ponification potion can be made ta work on ya! And remember our names! I is Mystic Scarlet, da pegasus be Sonic Azure, and da earth pony be Tough Amber!”
The other two newfoals nodded in agreement and popped their shoulders, preparing to attack.
But apparently, the scientists came prepared: a creature resembling a green Velociraptor carrying a gun that was most likely a laser pistol stepped through the sea of scientists and glared at the newfoals.
“Oh, you haven’t seen an Intelliraptor before, have you?” Eureka chuckled. “They’re almost as smart as we are, and far more clever than the original Velociraptors. With enough time, an Intelliraptor can even learn how to speak in human, klackon, and Protean languages! Take Captain Va’Rak of the Elder Lodge tribe, here! Show them, Va’rak!”
The genetically reconstructed and enhanced dinosaur opened its mouth and spoke in a gravelly voice.
“Come quietly, or I will resort to force,” Va’Rak growled. “Will you give up peacefully?”
To make his point, Va’Rak bared his teeth, flexed his claws, and undid the safety on his pistol, aiming it right at the unicorn’s horn. “When you’re human again, you won’t be needing that horn, anyway,” Va’Rak added with a sneer. “You can’t say that I won’t shoot just because we need you alive. I’ll just shoot your horn clean off, and your resistance will end right there. So, will you come quietly? We hold all the cards, not you.”
Scarlet sighed and stopped the flow of magic from her horn, resulting in the three of them crumpling to the ground like rag dolls.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Va’Rak said as he turned around. “We don’t want to resort to violence.”
The three Protean scientists picked up the newfoals again, who didn’t resist this time and allowed them to set them down on the stretchers, which started to move on their own again while a woman scientist placed a device covered in pulsing lights on each of their foreheads.
In the streets, the newfoals glanced around at the alien architecture the Proteans had constructed. Most buildings were cylindrical with domed tops, mostly in shades of red or blue, but a few buildings were rectangular, such as the hospital they were approaching. Proteans in all sorts of forms leaned out of open windows to watch the procession pass by on the sidewalk, all the way to the hospital, where the scientists headed directly for the operating room they had reserved.
“Okay, Miss Scarlet’s the most dangerous, so let’s get her out of the way first,” Eureka told the scientists. “Provide them with food and help them eat, and then we’ll get started.”
“Anything in particular?” a scientist asked as Professor Lacks removed the analyzer from Mystic Scarlet’s forehead and plugged it into a positronic brain to interpret the data on the former human.
“Just things from a normal Lalandean diet,” Eureka replied. “Just get them sandwiches on Verdita bread, and throw in whatever else you can think of that we’d normally eat. If they’re going to be human again, they’re going to have to ditch the herbivorous diet, anyway, so throw in meat if you think it’ll help. Maybe some Quench Fruit on the side.”
At the mention of eating meat, the newfoals started to writhe, attempting to escape, but with no further stimuli, they quickly lost the ability to do anything besides move their eyes and breathe.
“Doctor Eureka?” Professor Lacks called, motioning him over to the positronic brain’s three-dimensional hologram display, which showed the information on the woman-turned-unicorn. “I’ve found evidence that her original DNA is still in there. It’s been rearranged to result in her current form, but she still possesses the same amount of chromosomes as humans, klackons and Proteans: twenty-three pairs. Her brain has been altered severely, but applications of Heteromorphic RNA should be able to restructure it to its original form. With that done, we’ll be able to apply anti-psionic devices to break the hold on her mind, then send in more Heteromorphic RNA intended to rewrite her DNA and cellular structure to her original form. She should be human again in a matter of three hours after we begin.”
“Get the lab instruments to work on producing the Heteromorphic RNA and loading them into LoFAJI cartridges,” Eureka ordered. “Once her treatment is prepared, move onto Mister Azure and perform the same operations, then once his are ready, make the same preparations for Mister Amber.”
“Understood,” Lacks replied with a nod before typing on the console.
“Okay, patients, it’s eating time!” the scientist who left earlier to get food sang as he returned with three trays. Each one had a Closbeast Burger, a single Quench Fruit, and a glass of water with a straw.
At the sight of the burgers, the newfoals recoiled slightly, but they were unable to do much else, for once the trays were divided among them, a scientist joined each of them, picked up the burger first, and took advantage of methods to produce desired reactions from stimuli to force each former human to take a bite from the burger, then coaxed their mouths into chewing, then swallowing, helped them wash it down with a few sips of water, then repeated the process until the burgers were completely eaten, and moved on to the blue fruits.
Having no control over their own mouths was pure torture for the newfoals, especially since they had been forced to eat meat and couldn’t prevent it. At least the odd blue fruit was delicious.
“Okay, get Miss Scarlet onto the operating table,” Eureka ordered. “Lacks, are the cartridges ready?”
“Hers are,” Lacks replied while giving a pair of LoFAJI cartridges to another assistant, who brought them to Eureka. “I’ll get started on Mister Azure’s cartridges right now.” She grabbed the analyzer from Sonic Azure’s forehead and replaced Mystic Scarlet’s analyzer with his.
Once the unicorn was on the operating table, Eureka spoke directly to her.
“Miss Scarlet, I know you think you don’t want this, but I can assure you, that’s just the mind control talking. We’ve found that the real you is still in there, in your DNA, and these two injections will help in setting her free.” Motioning to a helmet-like device covered in high-tech gadgets, he continued. “Once your brain has been restored to its original structure, this device will be able to break your ‘queen’s’ hold on you, and you’ll be capable of free thought again for the first time in years. Once you have that ability restored, I will ask you what your thoughts are about being able to think for yourself again. All you’ll have to do is think the answers, and the psionic stabilizer will read your thoughts and display them on a screen for us to see.”
Mystic Scarlet groaned, but the partial sedation quickly made her response fade into silence. She tried to shy away from the strange injector Eureka was holding, but once again, her body wouldn’t respond. She watched, afraid for the first time since her ponification, as the doctor loaded it with the first cartridge, pressed it to her neck, then met her eyes with an apologetic look before pushing a button and saying, “This is for your own good.”
She felt something enter her neck through her pores, but only barely felt it, for her sense of touch and pain was incredibly dulled in this state.
The injected substance flowed to her brain, and now she could sense the effects. Her mind became torn, part newfoal, part human. The suppressed human mind was finally fighting back after years of imprisonment, given newfound strength from whatever Eureka had injected into her, free of its cage at last. Wires attached to her body sent signals to displays all over the room, updating the scientists on the state of her brain.
This kind of stimulus was powerful enough to give her the strength to cry out and thrash around, so she did both.
“Stop it!” Mystic screamed. “I like muh new life! I don’t wanna go back! Make it stop!” Her thrashing was countered by the scientists holding her down with MonoSkin straps, but the screams continued, tears streaming down her face as the two minds warred with each other, the human mental structure starting to suppress the newfoal structure, until the newfoal mental structure finally broke down, utterly destroyed as the human mental structure took full control, still under Celestia’s thrall, and still a newfoal in body, but with some differences.
The most notable differences were that she could fully feel negative emotions and that she could curse again, so with her last bit of energy before the sedatives took complete hold again, she forced out some very vulgar insults aimed at the scientists (including some very clever uses of the f-bomb), then went limp again, her thought processes confused and muddled by the change in mental function.
“Her brain has been successfully restructured so human thought is the optimal thought format,” a scientist informed Dr. Eureka, who nodded in affirmation.
“Well, that’s phase one out of the way,” Eureka announced. “That took about half an hour, so we’re making good progress. Put the psionic stabilizer on her, and we’ll move on to phase two.”
Mystic tried to sift through her thoughts that no longer matched how the ponification process had intended them to be structured, but the differences proved too hard to work with while she was still under Celestia’s thrall. A human mind, and even a truepony mind, is meant to exist independently, not under the control of another.
However, at the mention of the helmet device, some amount of resistance welled up inside her confused mind , and she struggled again for a few seconds, too confused to even attempt to use her magic, and the helmet was lowered onto her head and secured with a strap beneath her chin.
The confusion grew as the machine went to work, applying anti-psionic energy to her confused brain, confusing her even more as her thoughts started to war with each other.
She loved Queen Celestia. No, she hated the tyrant who stripped her of her own free will!
Being a pony was so much fun! No, it was a living Hell!
She wanted to just go back to New Hoofington and return to the life she had there. No, she wanted to go back to being a human living in Washington, D.C.!
Her life in New Equestria as a pony was better than her old life as a human had ever been! No, she wasn’t a citizen of New Equestria, for “New Equestria” didn’t even exist! Her home world was Earth, and she was an American! She had freedom to think and believe as she chose to, and the freedom to express her thoughts and beliefs! Why would anything less be preferable?
She enjoyed having magic! No, magic was a pitiful excuse for giving up her freedom! Being an ordinary human with free thought but no powers was far better than living her entire life just to please some tyrannical nag while the only thing she got out of the bargain was magic!
The thoughts continued to war with each other, with the ones placed there by Celestia losing as her mind was slowly being restored to independent thought.
Eventually, independence won, Celestia’s control was severed, and though bits and pieces of the thoughts placed there by the Alicorn tyrant still remained, they would fade away with time now that her free thinking found such notions to be ridiculous.
“Her thoughts have stabilized,” an assistant announced. Eureka nodded in thanks before addressing Mystic.
“So, how do you feel?” he asked. “What are your first impressions of having free will for the first time in years?”
How did she feel about suddenly being able to think for herself? It was like waking from an incredibly long sleep, but she wasn’t completely sure if her experience in that state was a dream or a nightmare.
Her thoughts were displayed on a screen, and Eureka nodded. “I figured you’d be confused. You’ve been trapped in there, suppressed for a very long time by that outer shell placed there by the transformation. Now, do you still want to remain a pony? Or do you want your human body back?”
Mystic was unsure. Her old human name—Martha Carver—was trying to well its way back to the surface, but she wasn’t sure if she truly wanted to be Martha Carver again. She was free to think for herself, and was a human in mind, but having magic was convenient.
Once again, the screen displayed her thoughts, and Dr. Eureka nodded again. “I understand your concern. You miss your old self, but you don’t know if you want to give up magic for it. If you let us continue restoring you to human form, we can induce artificial evolution into the pinnacle of life: an allomorphic, shape-shifting, sapient being. Of course, I mean we can make you a Protean, like us. You could change to any form you wanted, and if you really felt you needed your magic back, you could shift back into your current state. So, how about it?”
They wanted to make her one of them? If she could turn into whatever she wanted, there really was no point in remaining a unicorn. She could shift between human and pony at will! And forget being a unicorn, she could turn into an Alicorn! She could also use Protean powers to allow her to serve as a spy for them! There was absolutely no point in remaining a pony if she could be whatever she wanted to be, whenever she wanted. She wanted to become a Protean very badly, now, so with a bit of strength, she nodded eagerly before losing the ability to respond again.
“Very well,” Eureka said, standing up. “I’ll deactivate the sedatives now that we have your cooperation. Being genetically reconstructed isn’t painful in the slightest. You’ll still feel the changes, but it won’t be painful. More like a new sense of awareness replacing the one you have right now as your body reshapes itself. We’ll unstrap you as well, but please don’t try to move in the middle of genetic reconstruction. It won’t exactly ruin the process, but it may slow it down. I’ll get Professor Lacks working on an artificial evolution cartridge mapped to your human DNA once the second shot of Heteromorphic RNA is injected to rebuild your DNA and cellular structure into that of your old self.”
The doctor installed another cartridge in the injection device and held it to her neck, pushed the button, and in the blink of an eye, something else entered her bloodstream.
As the serum flowed through her, she started to regain full awareness and control over her own movements without the need for stimuli.
“Are you ready, Miss Scarlet?” Eureka asked as he loaded the final cartridge into the injector.
“Please, call me Martha Carver,” the ponified woman insisted. She was going to be human again! And then go even beyond it! Celestia couldn’t ever provide her with that!
“Okay then, Miss Carver, we’ll need to get you in a hospital gown, first.” Eureka said as he motioned for another scientist to retrieve one for her. The scientist returned seconds later with a gown, and handed it to Dr. Eureka.
“Sit up please, Miss Carver,” Eureka requested. Martha eagerly complied and held out her forelegs to go through the armholes. “We have to protect your dignity once you’re human again, and I think an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Thank ya, Doc Eureka,” Martha said happily. “We were wrong ta think of ya as enemies. I’m sorry fo’ all we did.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Carver,” Eureka replied as he tied the gown together on the back, leaving room for a larger human frame to fill the space. “And there’s no need to apologize. You were being mind controlled. That ‘Celestia’ is at fault, not you.”
After motioning for Martha to lie back down, Dr. Eureka pressed the injector to her neck, pushed the button and said, “now for phase three! Enjoy the ride, Miss Carver! Next stop: Humanity! And if you were obese or something like that back as a human, don’t worry about it. Your body will be restored to an optimal state befitting your current age, so the worst that could happen is wrinkles and gray or white hair, since Total Immunity isn’t bestowed with this shot, but with the artificial evolution serum. Have fun! I’ve heard stories that the transformative process feels amazing.
Martha nodded, then waited. For about a minute, she felt nothing, and saw nothing change. Had the injected substance failed?
No. It hadn’t. A few seconds later, her internal organs started to change, along with her bones, blood vessels, and her body’s actual shape. The process was slow, but not in a bad way. Like Dr. Eureka had said, it didn’t hurt at all. It felt incredible, like becoming something more than she had been before, old awareness gradually shifting into a new awareness that was greater than the one she had as a newfoal. The awareness was one she had had before, and feeling it slowly return brought back fond memories of her life as Martha Carver before she became Mystic Scarlet.
Her knees slowly reversed direction, returning at long last to the two-legged style a human was meant to use. Her limbs grew longer, and fingers and toes started to sprout from her hooves. She was tempted to flex them, to feel her digits move again for the first time in what felt like forever, but she waited. She still didn’t have hands and feet yet, and Dr. Eureka had warned her against it, anyway.
Her ribs restructured themselves to match human anatomy, the organs meant to be contained in them properly placed as they shifted to functioning the way they did in a human body, especially her heart and breathing rates, and human mammaries sprouted from her chest, making her very thankful for the gown already being in place.
As her limbs continued to change, the hooves softened and reformed into hands and feet, the fingers and toes already complete.
Almost everything had been restored to human, except she still had a pony’s head, a red mane and tail, as well as still being covered in red fur everywhere. Even her restored human parts were coated in fur for some reason.
The tail fell off next, followed by incisors and canines forcing the molars that were where they were supposed to be out of their way. Her muzzle shrank into her face until she had a nearly perfectly human face, excepting the horn and massive eyes.
The horn simply fell off as the skull restructured itself, having no connection to the red piece of bone, with tissue rushing in to fill the gap. Her eyes began to shrink and change color from green to brown, and her pony ears fell off as human ears grew in on the sides of her head.
The mane fell out as thick black hair replaced it, flowing all the way to her waist, and all that remained was the fur.
Finally, the fur fell away, leaving behind unmarred dark skin, leaving Martha Carver completely restored to the form of a forty-five year old American woman of African descent (the term “African-American”, as well as other “hyphenated American” terms had been deemed too dividing by the American populace in the 2650s, so they changed to putting current nation first, ancestry second, which helped break down many cultural barriers between ethnic groups that were hostile towards each other before).
“Now, Miss Carver, how do you feel?” Dr. Eureka asked with a knowing smile.
"I feel crunk, Doc!" Martha replied before letting out a string of profanities all aimed at Celestia.
“Ah, feeling sassy, are we?” Eureka chuckled as he motioned for some actual clothes to be brought for the woman. “Very good. It’s obvious you’re happy with being human again. But why stop there? Once we finish with the other two, we’ll induce artificial evolution in all of you, and you can join us as Proteans!”
“Sounds crunk ta me, Doc!” Martha replied as all the men left the room so the female assistants could help her get dressed.
A minute later, Martha was dressed in a red casual blouse, a green and white plaid knee-length skirt and cream-colored flat-soled shoes. Simple, yet practical.
Martha left the room and looked at her still-brainwashed companions, who were staring at her in shock.
“Hey, don’t feel bad fo’ me, got it?” Martha demanded. “I thought I wouldn’t like it at first, but it felt d--- crunk when they turned me humaine again! And dat’s not all they’s gonna do! Once we’s all humaines again, they’ll help us become like them! They can turn inta just about any kind of livin’ thin’ whenever they want! If ya miss bein’ a pony dat badly after they’s done helpin’ us out, ya can just turn inta one! A lot gained, nothin’ lost! I promise, it’ll be a real thrill!”
Hours later, the pegasus and earth pony had also been returned to human form, and they weren’t showing any desire to return to being newfoals, either.
The pegasus turned out to be Henry Williams, a forty-three year old American of mixed descent (formerly called “mutts” by some) who used to be an accomplished businessman who had built a massive corporate empire that did many acts of goodwill (including buying out corporations who were terrible to their workers and/or consumers to provide better jobs or service to the mistreated individuals) by the time he was only twenty. He had curly red hair, a nearly neutral skin tone that leaned slightly towards Caucasian, kind amber eyes, and in spite of having spent twenty years as a newfoal after running his company for only three years, he still had a youthful, energetic look to him. He’d been outfitted with a royal blue business suit, an orange tie, and shiny black business shoes.
The earth pony was actually Takoda Tojima, a forty-four year old American of Sioux and Japanese descent. He had been a jack of all trades, both strong and brilliant, capable of many tasks, and though he wasn’t a master of any of them, he was well-rounded and a quick learner. He had dishwater blonde hair and determined hazel eyes as well as a strong, well-set jaw. He’d been outfitted in a black and white checkered flannel shirt, a violet baseball cap supporting a team called the ‘Hidden City Intelliraptors’, blue jeans, and a pair of white and yellow sneakers.
Once all three restored humans had settled down from the excitement of finally being themselves again, Dr. Eureka and Professor Lacks approached them as the three of them sat in chairs outside the operating room, grinning widely.
“So, are you three ready for the final phase?” Lacks asked with anticipation. “There’s no turning back from here, but you’ll become just like us: immune to everything, able to take any form you want with less energy than it takes to think, and as a bonus, you’ll be the first Protean Terrans!”
“Can we really take any form we want?” Takoda asked warily. “Mother and Father said one must not blindly accept the words of a complete stranger.”
“Everything we’ve done so far has helped you, so why doubt us now?” Eureka asked before sighing and shaking his head. “Well, Professor Lacks here has misspoken. There is one limitation: you can’t turn into anything that isn’t alive. So, you can’t turn into a rock to blend in on a mountain, for one thing. But you can take any living form you want. This includes mixing and matching parts and biology to become your own custom being, such as an anthropomorphic animal, a plant-animal hybrid, or even something completely out of your imagination. You are limited by how much matter is in your body, though. You can’t change into anything with significantly more or less matter than you have in you already. But, once you’ve been artificially evolved, I can teach you about some interesting tricks while you grow accustomed to the Protean abilities.”
“How long will it take us to grow accustomed to them?” Henry asked, worried that it could take days or months.
“Well, some struggle with it for years, but others master the powers in a matter of hours,” Lacks replied as Dr. Eureka loaded the LoFAJI with Martha’s evolution serum cartridge. “And seeing how you instantly remembered how to walk and move like humans when it normally takes months to relearn how to walk, you three should be fully capable Proteans by the end of the day.”
“What is we waitin’ fo’, then?” Martha shouted eagerly. “Shoot me up, Doc!”
Without wasting any time, Dr. Eureka pressed the LoFAJI to Martha’s neck, pressed the button, and the evolution serum tailored to upgrade her specific DNA entered her system. The injection lasted about three seconds as the entire cartridge was emptied into her, then Eureka moved on to the two men while the serum started to rewrite Martha into the pinnacle of human development.
Once all three were injected, Eureka sat down to talk to them as they waited through the transformation that had no impact on their outer appearance, but rewrote every cell in their bodies one by one, granting them omniform traits so they could change at the cellular level, as well as bestowing Total Immunity on them.
“Now, I said there are a few tricks to getting around the limitations of Protean transformation, so while we wait, I’ll share some of them with you,” the doctor began. “First, though you can’t turn into anything with significantly more or less matter than yourself, you can tweak the process of transformation to first turn into something that rapidly loses matter or rapidly gains it, then once your matter has changed to an acceptable amount, turn into what you wish to turn into. Now, if the difference in the amount of matter isn’t too great, you can pull off the transformation anyway. Hence why the Chimeron was able to shift into that bratty princess even though her body clearly had less matter than his does.
“Now, there are also tricks to getting around not being able to turn into something non-living to blend in or for some other purpose,” Eureka continued as the cellular transformation completed and the serums moved on to restructuring their brains to be able to control the transformation ability. “First, you could think up a living form that looks just like what you want to turn into, then turn into that organic lookalike, instead. Also, you can turn into something that can generate organically created versions of certain materials to use as natural armor. Since a cell can be rewritten to produce just about anything as long as the proper materials are provided to the cells as nutrients, one simple and popular application is organic steel. Carbon and iron are required for steel, and both are in the human—and by extension, Protean—diet. Actually gaining this armor will take some time, for cells will need time to convert enough carbon and iron into steel to actually produce said natural armor, and even then, it’ll need to be cells near the surface that perform such a task, since the optimal place for the armor is over the skin. You can keep the organic armor in any form as long as you retain the cells that connect it to the skin each time. Otherwise, it’ll fall off. You can reattach it, though. Just reform the cells that connect it to the skin, and the organic matter that it took with it will enable you to reattach it. There are many other applications, but the organic steel is one of my favorites.”
Finally, the three restored humans’ brains finished being restructured, and the transformation was complete, leaving the three of them more aware of every part of their bodies than before, as if every part of every cell was like a limb they could control, but without the confusion one would expect to have from the awareness of billions of limbs.
“Congrats! You’re Proteans now!” Lacks cheered. “Let’s get started with teaching you three how to use your new powers!” After calming down, Lacks started to speak to them like a schoolteacher would to prized students in an advanced private lesson. “Now, the basics are that you don’t have to really focus to change shape unless you’re attempting a form that’s significantly different in structure than your current form. So, becoming ponies takes a bit of focus, but, if you change into a form you’ve used before, the fact that your subconscious and your cells remember the form will make acquiring it easier. For any form that’s not too different from whatever form you are currently in, or for one you’re familiar with, all you have to do is want to be it, and apply a very slight level of thinking to it. This will make maintaining control difficult until you master it, for you’ll most likely change form often just by being curious about a certain alteration. Eventually, your mind will set up barriers to stop simply wondering about a different form being enough to become it, but for fast learners like yourselves, I’m sure you’ll have it down pat before sunset.”
Clearing her throat, Lacks said, “First, let’s cover the basics: changing skin colors. Try for blue skin, first, since blue is one of the four human skin pigments that mix together to make natural skin tones. Doesn’t matter the shade, any blue will do.”
All three new Proteans picked the first shade of blue that popped into their heads, and all three turned to different shades: Martha had picked a midnight blue, Takoda turned a sky blue color, and Henry had turned the same shade of royal blue as his suit.
“Good, now for something more complicated,” Lacks said. “Pick any shade of green. Human skin pigments require a delicate balance of tones to achieve green, and many shades of it are outside the range that balance can produce, so you’ll most likely rewrite your pigments just to achieve the shade you want.”
Martha changed to a leafy green color, Takoda changed to a green shade one would likely find on a Terran tropical bird, and Henry changed to a neon green color.
“Good!” Lacks exclaimed, applauding the quick change. “All three of you picked colors outside the very limited green spectrum that human skin pigments could combine to form if artificially blended, so you all showed you are already capable of rewriting your pigments with ease. It usually takes a Protean born here four years to develop that much control. Now, try reverting to the pony forms you had before we restored you. Remember, if you decide to help us instead of just remaining here until Earth is restored, you could use the pony forms to infiltrate the enemy and bring back information, or you could use their own powers against them.”
Frowning, the three shifted into the forms they had as newfoals, then waited for their next instructions.
“Okay, now, try to change into different variations,” Lacks suggested. “Martha, try becoming an earth pony version of your form, Henry, you try to become a unicorn, and Takoda, you try to turn into a pegasus.”
All three nodded, and within seconds, Martha had become a red earth pony, Henry turned into a blue unicorn, and Takoda became a yellow pegasus.
“Okay, each of you shift to the pony form you haven’t tried yet,” Lacks urged.
After a couple more seconds, Martha was now a red pegasus, Henry shifted into a blue earth pony, and Takoda changed into a yellow unicorn.
“Excellent!” Lacks cheered. “Now, I think you’re ready for something even more advanced. Try mixing and matching features. Try two features at once, for starters. Strength, magic and flight. Pick the one that your original newfoal form had, and tack it back on.”
They nodded again, and Martha turned into a “pegacorn”, Henry became an “earth pegasus”, and Takoda changed into an “earth unicorn”.
“Excellent,” Lacks said eagerly, rubbing her hands together. “Now, try all three at once!”
The three Proteans in fusion pony forms looked to each other and smirked. She had just asked them to turn into Alicorns! If they could pull that off, they could assist the other Proteans on the front lines, helping them in battle as they took the fight all the way to Celestia, herself!
“Gladly!” all three cried as one as all three shifted into fusions between all three tribes, becoming Alicorns, complete with the boost in all three abilities and slightly larger stature that came with being the ultimate kind of pony.
“Now that’s impressive!” Dr. Eureka cut in. “Does that form already have a name?”
“You just had us turn into Alicorns, Doctor,” Henry replied with a tone that sounded like he felt he could take on the whole universe. “They’re the most powerful kind of pony, and Celestia’s one, herself. There are a few others: two of them would most likely be sympathetic to our cause, one of whom is confused and trying to adjust to the ponification of Earth and may be able to be swayed as well, besides those two, there's also Celestia’s nephew, who she personally turned into an Alicorn so he can serve as the governor of ‘New Equestria’. His center of government is where Canberra used to be. If we take the fight all the way to Celestia, we’ll have to get past him, first.”
The three Proteans in Alicorn form reverted back to their default forms, and Lacks said, “Good, that’s a wrap. You’ve proven you’re capable enough with your new powers. By the way, the Chimeron himself has extended an invite to the three of you to join him for dinner at The Hallowed Academic Mansion, the home of every leader of Clericorum since its founding. You’ll attend, right?”
“Of course!” the trio of Terran Proteans replied eagerly.
“Very well, wait here for the escort he’s sent to bring you to his mansion safely,” Eureka told them.
The three responded by sitting down and waiting patiently for their escort to arrive, chatting amongst each other excitedly.
Chapter 5: History, Culture, Dinner, Darkness, and More History.
After the escort arrived, the three Terran Proteans followed a group of men in suits and climbed into a long, black, ellipsoid-shaped vehicle that had four wheels, with tires with treads that were so complicated, they looked like they could be used to drive up a mountain. There was a driver in the front, who lowered her shades after they got in.
“The Chimeron usually only invites foreign dignitaries or famous people to dinner with him, so you should feel honored!” the chauffeur said as the vehicle started moving through traffic of vehicles of all shapes and sizes. “I’ve only driven him around every once in awhile, so I haven’t had much time to get to know him. I’ve heard he’s very nice, though. Also, what do you think of our nearly frictionless roads? That's what the heavy-traction tires are for: enabling a quick stop on a virtually frictionless surface. You should see the slideways between the cities, though. They have so little friction, you can travel incredible distances quickly for almost no fuel at all! They only still have some friction left to avoid collisions. We could remove all the friction, but it'd be stupid to do that to a road.”
The three Terrans didn’t reply and instead looked around at the many different structures in the city besides the domed cylindrical ones. The streets seemed to be based on not a grid system, but one huge ring serving as a street surrounding most of the city, with smaller and smaller rings forming more streets in a target pattern, with straight roads linking each ring to the ones further in and the ones farther out, with the center ring surrounding a silvery mansion/academy/cathedral combination, as well as the grounds around it—obviously the Chimeron’s dwelling.
On the way to the building in the center, the new Proteans spotted many buildings that were obviously facilities used to run the city, but other structures caught their eyes, as well: a monument to Executive Joe dan Bohr XVI and his amendment that said all must be paid a minimum of a living wage, a sculpted mountain that inspired awe into all who saw it, a massive tower made of rounded shapes that appeared to be some kind of radio tower, a bank of cloned organs and other body parts for every Clerisiac citizen, a device emitting a red field over the city that also projected similar fields over other cities barely visible at the edge of the horizon, and most likely the entire nation, and many other structures.
“So, like what you see, do ya?” the chauffeur chuckled. “I can’t blame you. Every wonder of the entire Lalande 21185 system ever constructed by human beings—and all those constructed by Proteans—were constructed right here in this city. Elder Lodge itself is considered the most wondrous city in the system! There's a few other wonders of the system, but they were all built by klackon nations with knowledge that only worked for klackons, anyway.”
“What be dat big statue of a prayin’ maine befoe a crystal orb fo?” Martha asked, pointing to a huge monument rivaling the height Lady Liberty stood at before the advancing barrier turned her to copper dust.
The chauffeur grimaced before replying somberly, “That’s the Penance: a sad monument to tomorrow’s dead and a reminder of the price that comes with using science for the pursuit of war. Once we discovered disintegration technology, everyone refused to even test such a weapon until it was constructed and dedicated.”
“Why?” Takoda asked, giving the giant monument an odd look as they passed it.
“Killing has always been easy,” the driver explained sadly. “But every weapon leaves behind some kind of aftermath as a reminder of the horrors of war. Even the nuclear weapons our ancestors back on Earth made left some kind of trace of the victims: intense radiation, charred corpses of those who just barely couldn’t escape the blast entirely, sometimes shadows of obliterated victims would be burned into the ground, partially ruined buildings, and the destroyed areas became uninhabitable for decades. But the Ne Plus Ultra: the self-guided disintegrator bomb, leaves none of those. It flies to its target, detonates, and leaves no trace of its victims whatsoever. It is when killing becomes clean and efficient that we run the risk of it ceasing to horrify. And if we ever cease to be horrified by it, we all become monsters.”
“But why does the monument exist?” Henry demanded, sharing in his companions’ confusion.
“It honors those who will have no one to honor them,” their driver answered as they finally passed the massive statue. “The victims of such weaponry are essentially wiped from the mortal plane entirely. There must be something to remind us of the ethical and moral problems of using such a weapon, and the Penance does that.”
Finally getting what the driver meant, the three passengers looked back to gaze on the statue with understanding. These people, even with such a horrific weapon at their disposal, had it in their hearts to mourn their own enemies before they could even be destroyed. The barrier on Earth had disintegrated all evidence of human civilization, and after it was all gone, Celestia revealed that she had never really cared about the loss in the first place. People of this sort had much greater hearts than the Solar Tyrant did.
“We’ve had to use the Ne Plus Ultra three times since we started creating them,” their driver informed them sadly as they started passing government buildings near the center of the city. “Our arsenal of them is large, but we pray for forgiveness before ever launching one, then recite prayers for the doomed and dying as the weapon flies to its target. We used one in a fierce war with the Ellecor two centuries ago, and we used two more to end a conflict where all seven nations were at each others’ throats only fifty years ago.”
As they pulled up to The Hallowed Academic Mansion, the sorrowful atmosphere faded as the Chimeron himself approached the vehicle with the six black-clad soldiers from before following behind him in two columns of three.
The leader of Clericorum offered each of the three Terrans a handshake as they got out of the vehicle, and each one accepted. He was wearing a dark teal business suit and tie underneath a cross between a lab coat and a clerical robe that was white with teal trim, and shiny black business shoes.
In addition to the outfit, he wore an extravagant pendant depicting a highly-complex atom with many religious symbols in the place of the electrons: A Catholic cross for Roman Catholicism, a Suppedaneum cross for Eastern Orthodoxy, a Celtic cross for Anglican Christianity, the Empty Cross for the Protestant movement, the Angel Moroni for the Latter-Day Saint movement, the Star of David for Judaism, the Star and Crescent for Islam, the Dharmacakra for Buddhism, the Aum for Hinduism, the Khanda for Sikhism, the Taijitu for Taoism, and finally the Faravahar for Zoroastrianism.
He had fair skin, pale blonde hair and electric blue eyes that spoke volumes about his mostly gentle nature, bearing no ill will towards any living thing, carrying a mixture of joy and sorrow that was the burden of many a benevolent leader. His smile was full of joy, but it also had slight traces of uncertainty for the future and concern for his people. In all, he appeared to be a very kind and loving leader burdened with the current state of affairs but was forced to put on a strong face for his people when he was no stronger than any of them were.
“Welcome, all of you!” Joe said brightly, some of the traces of concern fading from his smile and making it more genuine. “I see you’ve been restored and enhanced! That’s good! I wasn’t absolutely sure Dr. Eureka could pull it off.
“Anyway, follow me!” the Chimeron requested before turning around to walk back to the mansion that was the center of the Capital campus taking up the three innermost rings of the city.
The three Terrans followed the leader of the Clerisy up the path to his mansion, then followed him inside, immediately stunned by the dwelling’s internal architecture.
Religious and intellectual designs blended together to give the feel of both a sacred structure and a place of learning. Rooms with white walls, ceilings and floors typical of laboratories had engravings of religious symbols in the walls, while rooms that looked like they were right out of a place of worship had murals of great feats of science achieved by the Clerisy. Every room radiated the Clerisiac idea of the union of science and religion for a greater understanding of the universe than either could provide on its own: a merging of academics and faith for the betterment of a highly enlightened people.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the Chimeron asked his guests as they continued to walk the halls of the wondrous place he called home. “Clericorum was founded by a group of ten thousand religious academics six thousand years ago. And now look at us! We’re two billion strong and the most advanced people in the system because we didn’t see religious devotion as a hindrance to science, but instead worked to put the two together for a greater purpose: advancement and enlightenment! And this building represents that mindset: the idea that being an atheist adds nothing to your intelligence, and having deep devotion to your faith and its teachings doesn't make you backwards or stupid.”
Seeming to lose himself in awe and excitement, the Chimeron continued with both immense joy and reverence in his voice. “Religions don’t have to change their teachings when science advances, nor does science have to consider religion its taskmaster. The two can work in perfect harmony, side by side, making everyone happy. By staying true to what you believe in, even while pursuing great advances, society itself will remain in a happy state where our lives become improved more and more by new technologies without people trying to order religious leaders to change their so-called ‘outdated’ teachings. For a religion to be able to claim it is the one true way to enlightenment and salvation, it must hold firm to its teachings in spite of changing times, for the one true religion would never need to reverse its stance on anything, for they have to have been in the right the whole time already. Suddenly saying something isn’t wrong when their teachings said the exact opposite for hundreds or even thousands of years gives the appearance of a false religion that only wants to be popular, making them look like total frauds, possibly dooming their faith to extinction.”
They passed statues and paintings honoring great scientists and religious leaders from throughout Clericorum’s history, mixed together as the Clerisy felt they should be.
They passed libraries where huge collections of academic texts shared the shelves with religious ones, deemed of equal value by the Clerisy.
“Aside from the many religions of Clericorum establishing new leaderships for themselves, they haven’t discarded or reversed any of their doctrines here since we crashed here so long ago,” the Chimeron went on. “They have added new doctrines as new issues of right and wrong came up, but not a single one has given into pressure from dissenters in their religion and inverted a doctrine to its opposite. Those dissenters either finally realized that changing their religion would automatically make its claims to be the one true way null and void, or they simply formed their own breakoff religion that had the change they wanted implemented in its founding doctrine. Most splinter movements that formed here didn’t last very long, though.”
His three guests tried their hardest to listen, but the amazingly unique architecture kept breaking their concentration on his explanation for a couple seconds every once in awhile.
“Excuse me, Mr. Chimeron?” Henry began nervously, resulting in the Clerisiac leader falling silent and nodding for him to go on. “I think I speak for all three of us when I say that we’re having trouble concentrating on your explanation of Clerisiac philosophy. This place is so incredible, it’s distracting!”
The Chimeron simply chuckled warmly before replying, “I admit, I’m paraphrasing a lot of what the tour guides tell foreigners and young children on guided tours.” He chuckled again and added, “This place truly is awe-inspiring. I’ve seen many people marvel at its interior. Even some of our own citizens were completely unprepared for the interior architecture. They all know our national philosophy by heart, but some just don’t expect the whole interior to be that philosophy manifested in the form of an architectural masterpiece.”
By that point, they had reached a pair of tall teal stained wooden doors.
“Beyond here is the dining hall,” Joe explained. “The more ornate doors we would’ve reached had we continued to go straight lead to the old throne room that became more of a historical site once we became a Confederation about four thousand years ago. It’s kept clean and pristine, but it’s rarely ever used anymore except when a foreign leader comes to visit. Especially one from a nation we aren’t currently on good terms with.
“Anyway, our dinner awaits!” the Chimeron exclaimed, throwing the doors open himself and leading his guests inside while his honor guard followed and Secret Service agents formed a perimeter around the entrances to the room.
The table was set with four plates near one end. A tall chair with a depiction of the same emblem represented on the Chimeron’s pendant placed so it would be above the occupant’s head was at the end with one plate before it, then two plates were on the right hand side of the large chair with just one on the left hand side.
Martha took a chair on the right, and Henry started to approach the other one on the right, but when he noticed Takoda seemed to want the spot as well, he immediately conceded and took the left chair without any fuss.
Curiously, the Chimeron seemed to take a mental note of that occurrence before clapping his hands twice, summoning four people with menus that were each stapled together like thick pamphlets. They gave one to each person at the table.
“Dat’s a lotta choices!” Martha exclaimed as she looked through the menu.
“Well, with six thousand years of history, we’ve come up with a lot of different dishes,” the Chimeron replied while rapidly pointing out multiple kinds of food and drink to the woman who handed him his menu. After half a minute, she accepted his menu, wrote down what he’d ordered, and waited five minutes for the three guests to complete their orders as they had to ask what some things were before making up their minds.
With all four sets of orders taken, the staff returned through the doors they came through and the Chimeron decided to strike up a conversation while they waited for their food to arrive.
“Now, what I’m about to ask of you three may seem like a lot,” he began slowly, looking at each of them one at a time before continuing. “But we’ll need soldiers and spies who know how to work their way through newfoal and truepony society to obtain information that we require. But for us, a spy’s job isn’t that simple: a spy has many different tasks to perform. These include: sabotaging an enemy unit, destroying enemy property, bribing enemies to fight for us, bribing entire towns to defect to join our nation if we have enough money to buy them off, stealing the secrets to enemy advancements, and establishing an embassy with another country so we can contact them whenever we wish. We’re preparing for our first of many liberation campaigns on Earth, and we’d appreciate it if the three of you could at the very least train our spies and soldiers in how to achieve the pony form, and in how to use its various abilities. We’d also like for you to fight alongside us, but we’ll understand if you’d rather not fight, and we’ll accept ‘no’ for an answer on the training, as well.”
Silence fell as the three Terrans exchanged looks, tiny whispers, and a few nods before all three looked at the Chimeron and nodded, all of their faces showing grim determination.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’ to both, then,” dan Bohr announced with a nod of his own. “Henry, you’ll be in charge of the training, battle and espionage operations, with Martha and Takoda second to you in these operations. Training should be complete in a week, and we’ll be ready to attack again after another week.”
All three Terrans shouted “What?” at the same time, utterly confused.
The Chimeron gave them a knowing smile and pointed to the spot Henry had taken.
“Henry willingly gave up the chair he wanted so Takoda could have it, then took the chair no one wanted,” dan Bohr explained. “The arrangement of the plates was to serve as a test, and Henry passed it. A leader has the right qualities to make sacrifices for the rest of the team, even if those sacrifices actually negatively impact the leader. A leader has to make tough decisions quickly, and Henry did that as well. The test may not have shown his prowess in battle, but it shows he has the selfless qualities a good leader needs to have.”
The group nodded in understanding with the other two congratulating Henry, and then the food arrived.
“Now, enough banter,” Joe said hungrily. “Let’s dig in!”
Meanwhile, in the world that had contacted Earth first, someone else was having a fancy dinner, as well: Princess Celestia and her great-niece Princess Birthright were finishing up discussing plans for their next offensive. They’d confront the Proteans at New Hoofington, just like last time, and even if they somehow lost again, they planned to leave with a minimum of one captive. The Clerisiac Chimeron was preferable, but if that proved impossible, they’d grab at least one other Protean and drag them back to Equestria for testing.
They wouldn’t be able to get Twilight Sparkle to create the new potion, for she didn’t want to have anything to do with ponification ever again. The failed attempts on thousands of human test subjects had left her emotionally scarred from all the deaths they caused before she finally created a successful version of the potion, so they’d have to look elsewhere. Celestia was having a facility hastily constructed for that exact purpose, and she had all the notes on the potion’s creation that Twilight thought had been destroyed, so by performing similar tests on the Proteans to the ones Twilight had on humans, they’d find a way to override their immunity to the potion.
And to their good fortune, the humans hiding on Mars left behind a few space cruisers after their most recent failed assault mere hours ago, and Celestia had ordered them to be brought through the barrier after she personally enchanted them so that the barrier would treat them as something not made by humans, allowing them to pass through. The four ships were being modified at the moment to be truly meant for ponies to use, and they’d also begun making physically and magically armored pony versions of the spacesuits found inside the craft so troops could be sent. Oh, they’d deal with Mars and New Equestria’s moon soon enough, but these Proteans were a bigger threat than them, so she’d spare the human colonies for the time being. The craft were meant to fly through the EarthGate, land near a settlement, then kidnap as many Proteans as they could. After that, they would study the makeup of the inhabited regions of that system so Celestia could create a new version of the barrier generator that would affect anything made by the Lalandeans.
With discussions complete and dinner finished, Celestia nodded to her great-niece. It was time.
Birthright hastily got out of her chair and approached her Great-Aunty, eagerly awaiting the gift her father had received being bestowed on her as well.
Celestia’s darkened eyes grew even darker, and the purple mist from her eyes reached up to envelop her horn, engulfing her entire form with a dark purple aura that radiated immense wicked power. Birthright was too caught up in excitement to notice the evil in the aura and just grew even more excited as Celestia began casting an extremely powerful spell, her horn engulfed in black energy which in turn enveloped Birthright, causing the two of them to disappear.
They reappeared on a platform of black mist, a view of the entire universe below them, stretching further than the eye could see in every direction.
A bolt of black lightning struck Birthright in the horn, filling her body with the same sinister energy that her great-aunt was using. The energy made her grow a bit larger in size, increased her magic a hundredfold if not a thousandfold or even more, caused deep blue Bat Pony wings to sprout from her sides, and increased her physical strength beyond that of any Earth Pony.
After the transformation was complete, Celestia stopped the spell and announced, “It is done. She has joined us as well.”
“Excellent,” a female voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere. “The universe still must be cleansed of chaos, and making those Proteans join you in the pure harmony of ponyhood is an important step. Every race must become ponies, and all must bow to the will of Queen Celestia, whom I have chosen to be the one to bring the entire universe into perfect harmony.”
“What about Discord?” Birthright asked curiously before Celestia shook her head.
“It is not our place to ask why she has chosen to leave Discord alive,” Celestia said before the voice giggled and spoke again.
“On the contrary, I’ve waited a long time for somepony to ask me questions about my intentions and reasoning,” the voice answered. “Discord and I have a… history of sorts. As more and more chaos is removed from the universe, he’ll steadily grow weaker until he’ll beg you to put him out of his misery. I want to see him beg. I want to see him squirm. I WANT TO SEE HIM BROUGHT TO WITHIN AN INCH OF HIS LIFE AND EXTINGUISHED AS HE ONCE DID TO HIS ONLY KIN!”
Celestia and Birthright were confused after that last part, but the voice simply calmed down and said, “Nevermind that last part. A pre-Discordian memory only he and I share that you don’t need to know about at the current time that he’d never divulge to anypony who asked. I hope to see you with another recruit at some point, Celestia. Maybe her children once she has her own? Or perhaps your niece if you can manage to get her to see things our way? Or better yet, your sister. She’s confused at the moment, doesn’t know what to believe, so there might be a way to get her to join us. Or how about your brother? Blueblood’s father? I know he was kept hidden for a very long time because he was ashamed of somehow botching the ascension process and only gaining the eternal life and larger stature of an Alicorn and increased magic without gaining wings, strength or the special power ascension would have given him, leaving him an immortal large Unicorn with Alicorn-level magic and nothing else. Then he fled the castle after fathering Blueblood, leaving his son in your care. Cadance’s mother is long dead, though the fate of her father is still unknown, and though he’s tainted, the promise of getting the ascension he never got might be enough to persuade him to join us. I could even remove Discord’s taint on the side. Still, if you can find anypony who would fit the bill and could be persuaded, bring them to me. Birthright’s grandfather is still out there somewhere, and he’s your best shot of all. How could he resist his dear eldest sister telling him she had finally found a way to help him complete his ascension? I’m sure he’d do anything for it.
“Now, that is all,” the voice finished. “Keep up the good work, Queen Celestia, and welcome to the team, Princess Birthright. Farewell.”
The next instant, the pair were back in Canterlot Palace, in the dining hall once again.
“So, who is she?” Birthright asked as she flexed and tested her new wings.
“I don’t know,” Celestia admitted. “But she opened my eyes to the truth about how we must achieve true harmony: every sapient being that isn’t a pony, must become one. She’s from before the Discordian era, that much I do know, but I was born in the middle of the Discordian era, as were Luna and Atlas, your grandfather, as well as our wayward brother who I won’t bother naming: Cadance’s father. Anyway, the four of us were born after the time she’s from, so I have no idea who she is for there’s no record I can find of a being that focused on harmony from before Discord’s reign.”
“What happened with you, Great Aunt Luna, Grandpa and my great uncle?” Birthright asked curiously, hoping for some more information on family history.
“Luna and I ascended to defeat Discord,” Celestia explained. “But Discord’s power caused Atlas’ ascension to be incomplete and tainted our youngest brother before he could even begin ascension, giving him incredible power different than an Alicorn’s, but Discord also turned him wild and wicked, so he fled north for he was still outnumbered three to one in spite of Atlas not gaining full power, and Discord only tainted him to get him out of the way, not to have our youngest brother aid him in fighting us.
“Ashamed of failing to fully ascend, Atlas hid himself away from history after that battle,” Celestia continued. “He took to living with us as our reclusive little brother who was unknown to everypony. Even the servants didn’t know he existed. He’d teleport letters to us when he wanted to talk, then we’d teleport to his room to speak with him. We also brought him food so he wouldn’t have to leave his room. A maid somehow discovered him, but I managed to get her to keep him a secret, and they quickly fell in love, were married in a secret ceremony, and had your father before Atlas fled the castle because he realized he couldn’t raise a family and remain hidden in the castle at the same time.”
“So, my Grandpa’s still out there somewhere,” Birthright muttered to herself before speaking up. “Will we ever go to find him, Great Aunty?”
“Perhaps,” Celestia replied. “But for now, we need to get you in position. Getting all of your troops properly equipped should only take a couple days, and we’ll get you to New Hoofington in less than half a day, then we can begin shoring up defenses in the area until they attack again.”
“Understood, Great Aunty!” Birthright chirped. “We’ll be ready for them this time!”
After only two days, Birthright’s personal specialized legion were assembled and awaiting departure. There were three hundred soldiers in the group: one hundred from each tribe, hoof-picked from all the real divisions of the military, as the Royal Guard's members wouldn't suffice for such a force.
All of them were outfitted in enchanted black steel armor covering their entire bodies with invisible magic visors over their faces, leaving only part of the wings exposed on the Pegasi, though the protective enchantments would extend to the unarmored parts of the wings. The armor was enchanted to repel most physical blows as well as energy attacks. They had analyzed the properties of the residue from the energy weapons used by the Clerisy in the previous battle and had managed to create a spell that would highly resist the plasma and normal laser blasts, but the quantum-based blasts were more difficult to counter, as were the blasts originating from an entirely unknown source of energy.
The Earth Ponies were equipped with “gun-saddles” that drew on the magic stored in a set of six crystals connected to twin barrels attached to a swiveling base to fire heavy blasts of magic, and their spears had been replaced with twin-bladed battle axes with blades made of pure red magical energy emanating from a crystal right below the spike at the top of each axe.
The Pegasi were equipped with magic-based guns of their own sprouting from the shoulders of their armor, which would assist them in combatting the flying machines, as well as having hidden enchanted blades attached to the bottom of their boots so they could attack the flying machines at close range, which they obviously wouldn’t be able to fight back against.
Every Unicorn had only one weapon added to their armor, but it was the only one any of them needed: each one had an Alicorn Amulet, raising their magic powers to insanely high levels so they could deal heavy damage to the Clerisiac forces who had seemed impervious before.
And finally, there was Birthright herself. Outfitted in an enchanted red steel armored dress with her Cutie Mark of a gold sword crossed with a silver sword emblazoned on her chestplate, her helmet-tiara combo, and on the back of her metal skirt, she was the spitting image of a mare of battle. Her Great Aunty had even said that just like every other Alicorn Princess, she should have a title, and her Great Aunty declared her to be the “Princess of War”, just like Celestia had declared her Daddy to be the “Prince of Order”.
Beneath the metal skirt, she still had a full suit of armor, but the boots had black royal slippers over them that hid the same blades as the Pegasi boots. She also had both a gun-saddle and shoulder cannons, a magic axe of her own, and finally, she had her own Alicorn Amulet, sending her already powerful Alicorn magic skyrocketing to be even stronger than that of her Great Aunty Celestia, and since she was an Alicorn, the Amulet didn’t exaggerate any aspect of her personality, allowing her to act as a proper general for her troops, especially the Unicorns. In spite of them all being hoof-picked to ensure they were the most level-headed Unicorn troops Equestria had to offer, the Amulets still had a bit of an effect on them, making them a bit bloodthirsty and impulsive. Except when Birthright used the powers bestowed upon her by the mysterious force of pure harmony to ensure they followed her commands.
While Celestia had magic to move the sun and Luna the moon, Twilight had some kind of friendship powers, Cadance had love magic, and Blueblood had been bestowed with power to command attention and maintain perfect order among all who worked with him, Birthright had been blessed with the power to command any troops assigned to her, whether level-headed or impulsive, whether rookie or veteran, and enable them to carry out her commands flawlessly in spite of any aspect of their nature that would normally hinder them in carrying out her orders.
“Attention troops!” Birthright announced. “Once our glorious leader Princess Celestia addresses us, we’ll take the portal to the area near New Hoofington!”
After Birthright grabbed her legion’s attention, Celestia trotted to a position in front of the assembled three hundred soldiers and began her short speech:
“Brave warriors of Equestria!” she began, amplifying her voice to carry to the entire legion, “You have all been carefully selected and outfitted to counter a greater opponent than Equestria has ever seen! These Protean beings can take any form they desire, and are humans who have artificially enhanced themselves to be a much greater threat than the humans who resisted us in the past! The humans of what is now New Equestria were highly advanced beyond our wildest dreams, but we managed to overcome them. These Lalandeans are even more advanced, with immunity to ponification and military forces almost completely impervious to damage. But you have all been outfitted with armor and equipment specifically designed to allow you to match them blow for blow! Make Equestria proud, brave warriors, and bring at least one of the Proteans back with you as a captive so we can learn how to overcome their immunity!”
After Celestia finished, the soldiers cheered and stamped their hooves before Birthright returned to standing front and center.
“Now, listen up!” she barked. “We’re using the portal to the place closest to New Hoofington, which is only an hour’s march from here! Once we pass through, we march for New Hoofington, where we’ll continue to make it more and more fortified until Clericorum finally attacks! Forward! March!”
“We obey your every order, Princess!” the soldiers shouted as one before Birthright took to the air and led them at a double-time pace to the portal, which was about ten miles north of Ponyville.
Upon arrival, Birthright and her Unicorn troops combined their magic into a massive spell that widened the portal to be wide enough for the legion to march through in only three rows. On the other side, they let go of the spell, returning the portal to a hole in spacetime only four ponies wide.
The troops continued their march, heading south from New Manehattan along the east coast in almost complete silence, the only sounds being the clinking of armor and two hundred sets of armored hoofbeats sounding in unison.
After hours of marching in silence, Birthright and her troops arrived at New Hoofington and started work on building both physical and magical fortifications for the town that would soon become a fortress. The newfoals of the town were conscripted to assist, but they didn’t mind at all. As long as it was for Celestia, they were incredibly eager to follow any command they were given.
Over the following days, they erected self-sustaining magical barriers, magic-based ground-to-air guns, high walls around the town for both defense and patrolling, watchtowers so the Lalandeans couldn’t take them by surprise, living quarters for the troops, and a training facility to keep everypony at the top of their game.
As they continued to increase the defenses of the town-turned-fortress, Birthright grew more and more giddy as she awaited the Proteans’ eventual assault. She was sure they’d meet with disappointment when they tried to attack.
Over the course of the same two weeks, Henry, Martha and Takoda had allowed biorobotic implants to be temporarily connected to their brains to collect data from their knowledge of the state of Earth and how Celestia ran things. This data was stored at the complex they stayed at during that time: the MILitary QUantum Experiential Training Operation And Simulation Technique (MILQUETOAST) control facility in Elder Lodge. MILQUETOAST enabled troops all over the nation to train based on the experiences of previous soldiers, so they were all experienced veterans before they even saw their first battle.
The three were still required to speak with the troops who were picked for the first operation and train them in changing into ponies and using the various abilities that came with each form. Some soldiers and spies could pull off combining aspects of two forms at once with ease, but every single one had at least some difficulty with turning into Alicorns, for the form required a lot of concentration for one who hadn’t lived for twenty years as a pony to pull off.
The first week dragged on, and little progress was made on the aspect of blending all three into one. However, the troops showed great promise, and by the end of the week, they hadn’t exactly gained easy use of mimicking Alicorns, but they had still made great strides, even managing to shift coat, mane, tail and eye colors in an instant, and even being able to create fake Cutie Marks and change those at will.
After the week ended, the chosen spies and soldiers were outfitted with newly-designed MonoSkin armor that would change shape with them, and could even change color and turn into saddlebags in a pony form to enable blending in better. Their clothing under the armor had been similarly altered to change into an inner lining for said saddlebags, allowing them to not have to add or remove clothing at all before or after transforming. However, there was a split-second delay that made the armor and clothing transformations slightly out of sync with the transformation process, which could at some point give them away and would have to be dealt with eventually.
Outfitting the soldiers and tailoring the new sets of armor took the remaining week, as did the Chimeron going over strategies with Henry, Martha, Takoda, and several Clerisiac generals. The Defense Minister himself didn’t attend, for he was too busy arguing with the other members of the High Council to be of any help at all.
Eventually, five AENEACs, five Dropships, and five Flattops were loaded down with the newly-equipped troops, plus many other military units—Proteans, artificially-created beasts, and “Mechanized Robotic War Machines” (MRWMs)―with Henry, Martha and Takoda tagging along, but the Chimeron stayed behind, for his people didn’t want him to put himself in danger unless absolutely necessary.
As the fifteen ships took to the air, every living thing heading for the EarthGate tensed. It had taken two weeks to get to this point, and the enemy had to have been preparing for them the entire time. They could easily try to attack a different target that the ponies wouldn’t expect, but liberating the former capital of the great nation that sent their ancestors to the cosmos so long ago had significance, like honoring the grave of a deceased loved one.
This time, they knew they were heading to war, and they wouldn’t be taken by surprise.
After passing through the EarthGate and arriving in orbit around the dead birthplace of humanity, the fifteen ships descended through the barrier, once again with only slight interference. Beneath the pink sphere covering the entire planet, the daytime sky was still a peaceful blue, as if the barrier wasn’t actually there.
On the ground far below, those with a window to look through could see that the infernal town that had been placed where Washington used to be had been fortified heavily. As they descended towards the Atlantic ocean, everyone braced themselves, going through the various chants or prayers for the dead that their religions called for, filling the vessels with a mournful atmosphere.
Jews recited El Maleh Rachamim. Christians recited The Lord’s Prayer. Muslims turned to face where Mecca once stood and recited the Salat al-Janazah. Hindus recited passages from their holy texts on life and death. Pure Land Buddhists chanted Pure Land Rebirth Dhāraṇī while Tibetan Buddhists chanted Om mani padme hum. Taoists chanted either Qinghuahao or Jiukujing. Finally, the few Zoroastrians among the soldiers added their own prayers to the mournful chorus, cementing the atmosphere of dread about what was about to happen. There was going to be death. No matter who won, some were going to die.
But, as if to counter the dread among the soldiers, the Sikhs among them raised their own voices. Not in mourning, but in joyful acceptance, as was their way. They recited Waheguru and passages of scripture from the Guru Granth Sahib. Though they were few in number, their contrasting tone brought balance to the emotions among the troops, easing the tension and driving all to be ready to accept death when it came that day, whether their own or a friend’s, an ally or enemy, they were prepared for when death started to claim lives in the coming battle.
In New Hoofington, newfoals stationed as lookouts caught sight of the Clerisiac spaceships approaching and sent word to Princess Birthright.
“So, they’ve finally arrived,” Birthright mused as she got out of the chair in her room in the new barracks. “About time they decided to show up.”
Birthright got to work styling her long mane in front of a mirror, styling it into a shorter ponytail so it wouldn’t stick out of her helmet. With that completed, she turned to her armor stand and levitated one piece of armor on at a time. First the chestplate, then the rear legs and skirt, followed by the boots, the slippers, the wing guards, and finally, her helmet.
Fully armored, Birthright broke into a wicked grin as she levitated her gun saddle onto her back and strapped it on, then attached the twin shoulder cannons.
“Oh, they are so dead!” she giggled insanely as she picked up her magic axe. “They won’t know what hit them! This’ll be so much fun!”
Finally, she put on her Alicorn Amulet and felt her power skyrocket. Giddy from the sudden influx of insane power, Birthright bolted from her room and through the halls, squealing with glee while ordering everypony to get in battle positions.
Once outside, she cackled, “All towers, open fire!”
Magic-based cannons turned to aim at the fifteen ships, aiming for the dropships in particular, charged up to incredible levels of power, then opened fire on the cluster of ships, unleashing solid beams of sinister red energy that buffeted the ships as they were trying to touch down. A smoking dropship started to break away from the group, two of the faster, more powerful ships breaking away from the pack as well so as to shield the damaged craft, resulting in them getting shot as well, forcing them to hide behind the rest of the fleet, which also started taking heavy beatings from the ground-based cannons.
“NOT SO INVINCIBLE NOW, ARE YA?” Birthright cackled, taunting the cluster of ships while employing the Royal Canterlot voice since she had just learned how to use it. And it was so much fun to use!
The five ships that resembled flying jellyfish with flat, square tops released their first wave of air units, and now it was Birthright’s turn to be unprepared. Instead of just a few of those odd-looking fighters, a couple flying humanoid robots and a few birdlike fighters, they released entire squadrons of the two kinds of fighters, a small legion of the flying mechs, and swarms of flying creatures resembling dragons and griffons, but different enough from the ones from Equestria to make it obvious to all that these were genetically crafted by the Proteans.
“Pegasi! Intercept them!” Birthright bellowed. These two other units might’ve been kept from them before, but they still were flesh and blood, so they’d easily fall to the might of magic-based cannons.
Onboard the dropship the deponified trio were riding in, the three of them bumped fists and grinned.
“Nice suggestion, Martha!” Henry commented. “Now that they’re distracted by the air units, we can land!”
“Don't mention it,” Martha replied with a huge grin. “They’s just stupid, dat’s all. Ya gots ta take advantage of them bein’ dumb.”
While the pegasi were busy trading shots with the deployed air units, the ships managed to touch down on the surface of the water and all began to deploy units through the Potomac River right onto the ground next to the fortified town.
In the sky, the pegasi soon found that though their ranged weapons had an impact on most of the units, even forcing most of the fighters to retreat to repair the damage they’d taken while causing others to explode in midair, the dragon creatures were more formidable than they first thought, and the griffin creatures could shapeshift into a land-based creature and fall to avoid shots, then shift back to their air form and rush in for an attack. Sure, the enchanted armor repelled most of the damage, but it seemed almost as if these “griffins” had been made to not be as strong as they could have been, possibly to keep them manageable for their Protean handlers. The very thought left the pegasi mortally terrified of what would happen if the Proteans decided to make one with full-capacity strength.
As for the dragons, they had incredibly tough hides, able to shrug off blow after blow and still show virtually no signs of giving in. At least when the fight was taken to them and they were forced to fight defensively, as most of the pegasi foolishly presumed was their best option. The dragons were much better defenders than attackers, letting their nearly impervious hides soak up hits while launching from their mouths streams of what seemed to be fire, but had an incredibly corrosive effect on the enchanted armor, weakening the magic and damaging the metal plates, themselves.
“What are you doing, idiots?” Birthright snapped. “You’re giving those giant lizards the advantage! Don’t fight them on their terms!”
Her orders were instantly ingrained in the minds of her troops, and they changed tactics for the dragons, waiting for them to attack before striking, which was much more effective. The dragons were apparently very impulsive on the attack, and left the weaker parts of their bodies unguarded while letting out terrifying shrieks and recklessly attacking with huge bursts of the oddly corrosive fire. The pegasi took advantage of this reckless attack style and fired shots of magic from their cannons at the insides of the dragons’ wings, their bellies, and even down their throats, resulting in several exploding in midair, sending blood and chunks of flesh everywhere.
After a few more dragons took heavy damage and fell hundreds of feet to their messy deaths, all of them were called back to the carriers, leaving one part of the assault taken care of.
The Proteans, of course, weren’t happy with this. The Typhoei were great creatures for air control, and they had been outwitted and forced to be recalled. But the land troops had arrived on shore and were ready to begin the other part of the assault.
After receiving a signal from those on land, the carriers launched a slew of Stings―Monopolium-based cruise missiles that created massive gravity-based explosions―at the fortified walls and the interior of the town, causing great interior damage and weakening the structure of the fortress.
“Don’t let those things get through!” Birthright barked as several troops were thrown into the air. “Unicorns! Form a protective barrier to block those things!”
A portion of the unicorn troops nodded, and all of their eyes turned blood-red from the power of their Amulets, releasing powerful red energy from their horns that formed a dome over the town, preventing any more of the missiles from getting through.
Still, the damage had been done, and the Proteans dispatched ten Ur-Titans to smash the walls to rubble.
The ground shook as the behemoths approached, almost causing a small earthquake with each set of synchronized steps. At the dome, the Ur-Titans punched the barrier with their massive fists over and over, roaring in rage as it refused to yield to their might. They could shrug off city shields with ease, but for some reason, the barrier was stronger than even the might of the All-Field, which also was no match for their strength. The barrier slowly started to crack, but after Birthright barked more orders, the cracks sealed back up.
“I’ve had enough of this crap!” A singulon suddenly yelled before lifting a foot in anger. All the other ground troops dashed away as fast as they could, for they knew what was coming.
The gravity manipulators in his suit redirected a large portion of the mass of the suit to the boots, resulting in the singulon’s one stomp triggering a 10.0 earthquake which reduced the entire fortress to rubble, damaging everything inside and having quite the impact on Birthright’s ground-bound troops, throwing all of them into the air from the shockwaves, breaking the unicorns’ concentration and dispelling the shield.
Strangely, though the ground of the former District of Columbia was cracked from the short quake, there were no deep fissures, nor was any of the ground raised up significantly.
The Protean troops rushed into the city, regular singulons using the usual tactics of heavy punches and kicks, while the Ur-Titans simply stepped on any opponent who they didn’t punch.
Some of the pegasi broke off from engaging the flying units to distract the Ur Titans, but soon found that the giants had quick reflexes, getting snatched out of the air after only getting in a few shots and having to resort to the blades hidden in their boots to cause enough damage to get the behemoths to let go before they could be crushed to a pulp.
Those who stayed to fight the air units found that as more and more of the other units either were utterly destroyed or escaped,, more and more “griffins” and “flying giant death robots” started to take their place. The quantum-based lasers from the mechs dealt noticeable damage on their own, but to make matters worse, when the pegasi tried to fly in too close to be shot to use their hidden blades, the machines retaliated with punches that didn’t deal much damage to the armor, but succeeded in throwing them back enough so the mechs could resume shooting. Even worse for the pegasi, these flying machines of death took virtually no damage from the blades, for the strange substance that made up their armor seemed to be a heavily-pressurized superfluous metallic solid, which according to some of Birthright’s research into human history while her Daddy was helping her Great Aunty, was thought to only be achievable by solid hydrogen, but they had never managed to produce it on Earth. They just proved its existence from data collected on the first manned mission to Jupiter.
“Earth Ponies! Smash those black-suited freaks to pieces!” Birthright commanded as she glared up at the flying robots. “I’m taking to the battle, myself!”
Taking flight, Birthright sped towards the cluster of flying enemies that were decimating her pegasi. She opened fire with all four of her cannons and threw combat spells at the robots that only an Alicorn could survive, and even then, only with great injury.
To her shock, the machines shrugged off every hit. The attacks would leave holes, gashes and all sorts of other breaks in their armor, but there seemed to be something generating enough pressure to force the atoms back together in the blink of an eye.
She tried to use a spell to destabilize the metal hydrogen, but that didn’t work. She soon realized why: they used the same supergravity technology those suits used, making each one rapidly repair itself after taking damage as well as creating the gravity necessary to keep the hydrogen solid.
She eventually found a way to stop one of them, though. With a powerful burst of magic combined with shots from all four cannons, she tore a hole in just the right spot to kill the pilot of the machine by striking the cockpit, relishing in the woman's shriek of agony before her life was swiftly cut short. The machine repaired itself quickly, but with no pilot, it fell to the ground with a resounding crash. Unfortunately, Birthright was now surrounded by about ten of them at once, who all opened fire at the same time, giving her no chance to try the same tactic again before her enchanted armor took the blows from ten pairs of quantum laser blasts.
Back on the ground, pony troops were desperately trying to hold off the advances of the numerous black-clad soldiers who were accompanied by creatures that looked like green Velociraptors with laser pistols. Even with their magic weapons and incredible spell power allowing them to mow down hundreds of troops, by the look of what was going on in the air, even if they managed to slay every single Protean and raptor on the ground, those robots would prove nigh impossible to defeat at the current time.
Birthright came rushing back with cracks in her armor, followed by the surviving pegasi, also showing signs of heavy damage.
“Retreat!” Birthright screamed. “New Hoofington is lost!” But before she led the full retreat, she enveloped the soldier who had ruined their perfect defense with the stomp of a foot in her magic, levitated him over to her and wrapped her legs around him, saying, “You’ve been a very bad boy. You deserve to be punished!”
With a singulon in tow, she flew away from the city, shouting, “You may have won the battle, but the war is just beginning! I’ll just be taking this young man back with me as a souvenir! Ta-ta!”
Birthright’s troops followed after her, quickly marching and flying to the north, the singulon in her grip squirming and screaming insults at her while trying to escape her grip, which was magically reinforced..
Henry, Martha and Takoda finally joined the troops on the battlefield once they were victorious. Henry watched as the soldier was being taken away as a POW, then asked the lead singulon, “Aren’t you going to stop them?”
“Corporal Zachary Jenkins is a good friend to a lot of us, so we all don’t want him to suffer this fate,” she replied, removing her helmet to reveal a blue-skinned woman with green hair and red eyes (her parents had obviously liked having unnatural colors, resulting in her being born with that as her default form). “I’m General Natalia Perkins, and I could easily order us to save our buddy, but like all of us, he has a biorobotic implant connected to MILQUETOAST. We can use the information on this experience of his to track down where they’ll be taking him, then send spies to infiltrate, and possibly even manage to free him. In the meantime, we have to get the dead ready to be sent back home to their families. But for now, we did it, troops! New Hoofington has fallen! Washington, D.C. is liberated!”
The soldiers started to cheer, but cut short when a clicking and whirring sound came from beneath their feet, resulting in the ruined road parting and revealing a set of steps leading underground.
“Did you say, ‘liberated’?” a male voice asked. “Is it really safe to come up to the surface again?”
“Who are you?” Henry demanded of the voice.
“No time for an explanation,” the voice replied. “Those of you in charge of the operation, come with me! The President will want to see you!”
Chapter 8: The Fated Meeting and the End of the Beginning.
The trio of Protean Terrans exchanged glances with General Perkins, who silently nodded. The four of them climbed down the steps into a heavily-reinforced underground complex.
“What is this place?” Perkins asked in confusion.
“It’s the Federal Bunker! It has to be!” Henry exclaimed. I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never seen it until now!”
“You are correct,” the male voice from before replied as a man in camouflage-patterned robotic armor approached. “Follow me. You must speak with President Gray Eye at once!”
The man beckoned for them to follow, so the group of four started chasing him as he dashed through the immense underground complex, past military bunkers, civilian living quarters, the Congressional chambers, the Supreme Court’s relocated facilities, and even deeper into the complex until reaching the Executive Offices, which also served as the dwelling place for the First Family.
Secret Service agents tried to stop the soldier from bursting into an office they were guarding, but he shoved them aside and forced the door open, revealing the current President of the United States of America’s underground. As was traditional, he was dressed in a black business suit, and he wore a lapel pin of the U.S. flag. By his skin tone, he was an American of native descent, but tribe can’t be determined just by looking at a man.
The President scowled at the soldier who had interrupted him, and looked like he was about to yell at him when he noticed the four others with him, especially General Perkins and Henry Williams.
“Henry Williams?” the President gasped. “But they potioned you before you could escape to your private bunker! They turned all of Willcorp’s facilities into sites to manufacture more of the potion as well as producing other ways to break down our defenses! How are you human again? And who’s the blue lady? How is that skin even possible?”
“I’m not human, Mr. President,” Henry said with a shake of his head. “The three of us did have our humanity restored, but we were then artificially evolved to a state beyond human. General Perkins here is from the civilization who gave us our salvation.”
“Mister President, it is such an honor to meet you,” General Perkins said with great reverence. “I am General Natalia Perkins of the Clerisiac army. Our leader came here a little over two weeks ago hoping to reestablish contact with the great nation that sent our ancestors to the cosmos more than six millennia ago, but all he found was the newfoal settlement that had sprung up in the place of the grand District of Columbia. Now that we know the state Earth is in, we have turned to military tactics to liberate all of Earth and restore the legendary cradle of the human race.”
“Wait, six thousand years ago?” the President asked in confirmation. “Who are you?”
“I’d rather our great leader, whose family has led us in pursuit of the dream to return to our roots during those six thousand years tell you himself,” Perkins said while pulling a communications device from a pocket in her armor. I’ll set up a channel for you two to talk face-to-face, even if the divide between us is slightly more than eight light years.”
After pushing a few buttons on the device, a three-dimensional holographic display appeared in the room, projecting the words: ESTABLISHING A SECURE CHANNEL. PLEASE WAIT.
Within seconds, the display changed to an image of the man who inspired hope into all of Clericorum: Chimeron Joe dan Bohr CI.
“General Perkins?” the Chimeron exclaimed. “What’s going on?”
“Mr. Chimeron, there’s someone you need to meet,” Perkins said with pride. “We’ve found the President.”
Noticing the man staring back at him in disbelief, the Chimeron dropped to his knees, unable to contain his joy, tears flowing from his eyes as he gazed upon the President of the United States.
“Mr. President, you have no idea how great of an honor this is for me to speak with you at this moment,” the Chimeron said with even greater reverence than General Perkins had used. “My people and their forebears have waited six thousand years to finally speak with the man or woman in your position. I am Chimeron Joe dan Bohr CI of the Proteocracy of Clericorum. May I have the honor of knowing your name?”
“I am President Waya Gray Eye of the United States of America,” the President replied. “Where are you? Why did you desire to speak to me so badly?”
“Clericorum is one of seven nations in the Lalande 21185 system, a little over eight light years from Earth.” the Chimeron replied as he slowly rose back to his feet. “Four of the nations have human ancestry, while the other three have klackon ancestry from their own homeworld of Kholdan. But we have merged our biologies to become the pinnacle of human and klackon development: Proteus Sapiens, or simply Proteans.
“As for why I’m so touched and honored to speak with you,” the Chimeron continued, wiping tears from his eyes as he returned his gaze to the American leader, “Our human ancestors left Earth six thousand five years ago in a colony ship bound for Alpha Centauri. Your nation is the one who sent them on that fateful journey.”
“But contact was lost, and apparently they never reached Alpha Centauri!” President Gray Eye exclaimed. “Aren’t you furious with us for not trying to locate you?”
“We never once were angry with those who sent our forebears into space,” Chimeron dan Bohr replied with a shake of his head. “At first, our people wanted to abandon Funestis entirely and return to Earth, but over time, we’ve grown to love our people’s new home, and as we grew more and more advanced, we instead wanted to share the gifts of our knowledge with you.
“Earth is much closer than Kholdan,” dan Bohr continued, “So even those descended from the klackons wanted to make contact with Earth, to combine the knowledge of the Solarian nations with that of the Lalandean ones and devise a way for Pun Elleco, Jildan, and Det Pinra to contact their ancestors’ world as well. We want to establish a peaceful inter-system relationship between our three star systems where the exchange of knowledge, commodities, wealth and ideas flow freely between us.
The Chimeron continued his message to the President with a mixture of joy and sorrow filling his voice. “The greatest gift we wanted to give you was the gift of being Protean beings, but when we arrived and found no one but former humans and their oppressors, we were heartbroken. We thought our long-held dream had been dashed to pieces. But after taking three newfoals back through the EarthGate we opened and to Clericorum, we discovered that we are able to undo the process that robbed them of their humanity and free will. We then gave them the gift of Proteanhood, and now they are working with us. Due to us discovering the secrets of Total Immunity some time ago, we have combined it with Protean artificial evolution to create a people who can shift form at will, are free from disease, and display no signs of aging. The immunity even blocks the effects of the potion, for the ponies tried to use it on us, and it had no effect at all.
“But we have finally contacted the nation of our forefathers, and I am very grateful for this moment, President Gray Eye,” dan Bohr said with a huge smile full of hope, hiding no worry whatsoever. “Now, if I may ask, I have noticed that you are of native descent. Could you tell me your tribe?”
“I see,” Gray Eye chuckled. “Your people have been gone for so long that you no longer recognize a Cherokee name when you hear one? Well, I am of Cherokee descent. I look forward to meeting you in person someday, Chimeron dan Bohr. Farewell for now.”
“Farewell,” dan Bohr replied happily before the connection was cut.
“We have more to explain, but may we take seats?” Natalia requested. After Gray Eye motioned to a set of chairs against the wall across from his desk, the four Proteans took seats and began to explain in detail all that had transpired up to and including the liberation of the site of the District of Columbia.
Corporal Zachary Jenkins continued to hurl insults at the armored mare holding him captive as he tried to escape her grip. No matter what he said, he couldn’t anger her, and no matter how hard he tried to break free using his armor’s ability to redistribute its mass, he couldn’t break her hold.
“Stop squirming,” the mare giggled as they continued to travel north. “My magic is too strong for you to escape, you know.”
“You frickin she-dog!” Jenkins shouted. “You’ll pay for this! If you don’t want all Hell to rain down on you when they come to rescue me, you’ll release me this instant!”
“How cute,” the mare gushed. “He thinks his friends are going to save him! Hold onto your delusions for as long as you can, young man, for pretty soon, that’s all you’ll have left.”