Twilight messed with timespace, biology, and experimental magic, much to the chagrin of the other creatures across the multiverse.
Twilight Sparkle has been asked by the royal sisters to find a new way to protect equestria and in turn the planet, after the the elements were sealed in the tree of harmony. What better way to do that than make an Alicorn! What could possibly go wrong
FAIR WARNING This may get weirder as time passes and I will add to the description and edit tags as necessary to provide adequate warnings Warnings: Swearing nudity graphic descriptions of gore suggestive themes/mention of sex(no im not putting the tag because it barely comes up and is hardly described bad grammar Stuff that will probably offend/put off some people More soon to come. This is a heavy work in progress (and pretty weird) so Please proceed with an open mind
se feel free to suggest edits, point out errors, ir noticy me of contradictions or inconsistencies. (because irony^).
BTW, comments contain spoilers...so go there afterwards.
The Monoliths, probes constructed by their creators to observe fledgeling civilisations and gather data on how they may fit in in the galaxy as a whole. Monolith #47,130 was posted on a quaint little world that it's sentient life forms referred to as Equus. It had been here for approximately 12,017 years silently observing the native species evolve and change over the millenia. It had a complex mind it was sentient and had emotions to better understand it's objective, long dormant, waiting patiently, until it was needed for whatever purpose, all it did now was simply make reports to send home to notify someone of its findings.
Developmental report #672 local mideval time period
The Equestrians have been steadily developing, albeit slowly by comparison, the reason: the Equestrians can bend the universe to their will to some extent, therefore progress is slower and disproportionate due to the reliance on what the natives call 'magic'. Unlike many other planets this one has rather than one singular species rise to sentience, several have done so, they call themselves, ponies, griffons, minotaurs, zebras, dragons...see full report for complete list. New tecnology detected today: rudimentary kinetic weapons. Further information pending.
General Biology report: species "Pony"
Primary body configuration: bipedal
Primary manipulator: hands, levitative force
Locomotion: walking , flight
Breath; oxygen Hemoglobin: iron based 2 more pages included ... More biological reports included ... ........compiling............ .........done............... ............sending............ .............done................ ..continue observation... ....dimensional anomaly detected.... .....close observational protocol....... ...observing........................................ Analysis: low power dimensional tear, checking ... Dimensional experimentation confirmed... Compiling report........................................ Observing..................................................
" TWILIGHT!!!!! YOUVE GOT A LETTER FROM THE PRINCESSES!!!!" Spike yelled hopefully loud enough to break Twilight from her book induced stupor.
About 2 seconds later Twilight appeared in a flash of magic right next to the unsuspecting Dragon,
"WAH, Twilight... You startled me... Here's your letter," Spike said.
"Thank you Spike, now let's see... What has she went me"
Dearest Princess Twilight Sparkle,
It has come to our attention that equestria is without a major defense ever since the Elements of Harmony were returned to their tree. Relations with the griffons and minotaurs are not going well thus my sister and I have decided that that it is best to be prepared just in case. Therefore we request that you and your friends meet us at the castle tomorrow at noon to discuss solutions. Be thinking this over in the mean time.
Sincerely, Princess celestia and Princess Luna
"So Twilight what did it say?" Spike asked as soon as Twilight finished reading.
"Uhh, well... She seems to want me to come up with some kind of defense in place of the Elements, since we cant currently use them and the griffons and minotaurs are having relations issues with equestria," Twilight replied with a hint of worry in her voice
"Well what did you have in mind?" Spike said thoughfully.
Twilight mulled it over in Her head for a few seconds before responding," I'll have to brainstorm some more but I may have a few ideas."
Tommorrow, 10:00
Twilight had gathered Her friends and explained her situation and was now well on Her way to Canterlot leaving Starlight and Spike in charge of the castle.
"What do you think twilight came up with?" starlight asked,
"I dunno, she was muttering everything from magical transmitters to something about experimental forms of magic," Spike responded,
"well I guess we'll just have to trust her, something I might add, I am kind of uncomfortable doing considering what I've heard of her past experiments," starlight shuddered a bit at the last part,
" I'm gonna go check our medical supplies in case she does something stupid." Spike replied.
"Agreed" starlight added sympathetically
Train to canterlot 10:30
"Ummm, don't mean to burst your bubble Twi but why do we need to be here?" Rainbow retorted,
" Ah agree, why'd y'all drag us along?" AJ added.
" I brought you along because the princesses requested it and because I need some other options for ideas if mine don't pan out, and it might help the decision along to have some more diverse opinions" Twilight responded.
"Awww, I thought it was going to be a party, not some boring meeting." Pinkie whined,
"Um, pinkie dear, you always think everything requires parties, I do think it is not the most appropriate thing in this situation, this sounds quite serious," Rarity explained.
2 hours, 3 bags of candy, and a lot of chit-chatting later,
The Train squealed into the Canterlot Central Rail Station and suddenly stopped on a dime with its magic brakes. After the train had unloaded most of it's passengers, Twilight and her group had made their way out into the city proper, where a large royal carridge, essentially a limo, was waiting for them.
"Finally some dignified traditional transport" Rarity quipped.
"OooOOoohhh, fancy!" Blurted Pinkie,
Fluttershy almost whispered "It's nice".
Twilight was nose deep in notes, while AJ and Rainbow just shrugged. Everyone boarded and soon the carridge was off. During the short flight nobody save Pinkie said anything
"OoohIhopetheressnackstherewilltheyhavepieorcakeooohmaybecakepiehybrid..." Pinkie babbled on.
Within All of 5 minutes the 6 had arrived at the gates of the palace, the guard looked them over and opened the massive gate while politely saying "welcome back princess."
Twilight led them into the beautifully decorated foyer absolutely covered in gold and silver inlays and decor and continued on to the extravagantly adorned doors of the throne room.
Celestia, sitting upon her gilded throne, looked up from the scroll she was currently reading to see the door opening, she stood up from her throne, readjusted her gold trimmed white silk dress to remove troublesome bunched up spots and walked to the door to greet her former student
"Why, Hello Twilight and friends!" Celestia said.
" Hi princess," Twilight happily replied to her former teacher, her friends remaining quiet to be polite. "You summoned us here to discuss..."
"I am sorry but we must forego the pleasantries, Please follow me to a more appropriate place to begin what I have summoned you for" Celestia interrupted,
with that she then made her way out of the throne room towards a side door leading further into the palace.
"At last the 6 hath arrived" Luna said, relieved that she didn't have to wait any longer. " we were beginning to think thee were not going to be here, May we please begin now?"
" Yes Luna, we can start now" Celestia replied, she then proceeded to gently shut the conference room doors with her magic.
"As you may know we have summoned you all here to discuss possible solutions to the current issue of the Elements of Harmony being inaccessible to us at the current time, and possible solutions to this problem," Celestia began in a very serious tone. " Twilight, what have you come up with thus far"
Twilight cleared her throat and looked at her notes, " The first idea I have on the issue is, to somehow transmit the Elements' magic to where it is needed, although I'm unsure how effective it would be, does any pony have anything to add to that, or any concerns?"
Celestia was the first to speak,"In theory it could work but I'm worried about this methods reliability and maximum range, as well as the possible size of the transmission and reciver units, they may end up too heavy to use effectively,"she commented.
" I believe she is right darling, it would be ever so dreadful to lug around a heavy machine to use the Elements' power," Rarity added, "and with the risk of it not working, I simply could not trust it"
"Does any pony else have objections?" Twilight asked," no? Okay then, that was the only plan I came up with last night that seemed practical, sooo does any pony have some other ideas to consider before I go into the non practical plans?"
" I could totally be a good defense, I'm awesome at kicking some serious ass when I need to!" Rainbow said with her usual gloating tone,
" I do not believe it wise to put thou in that kind of situation" Luna objected, " thy previous encounters , as well as thy own mortality hath provided plentiful evidence of thy shortcomings."
Pinkie then interrupted, "why dontcha just let twilight use her super-duper-amazing alicorn magic?"
Fluttershy then started to speak, the whole room went dead silent so they could hear the timid pegasus, "I wouldn't want twilight to hurt herself, you know how she can get overstressed," she then noticed everyone looking at her, " oh, did I say something wrong?" she shivered.
"No you haven't Fluttershy, but you do bring up a valid point, Twilight wouldn't be the best option if worse comes to worse", Celestia agreed.
"Ah'd have ta agree with the princess and flutters, y'all know how ya get under pressure, 'wouldn't want y'all to get hurt if ya can help it." Applejack stated.
" Well what in the hay are we supposed to do now !?, Oh let's make another princess for fucks sake! I don't care at this point, we've gotten nowhere," rainbow almost yelled, wait why's everyone staring at me?"
" I think you just solved it, I can make another alicorn! The possibilities are limitless! Ooh! And those means I can try magic assisted genetic engineering!" Twilight suddenly blurted.
" huh, it certainly has it's merits, with the right training and some patience, it could work, not to mention that it would give the public something to look to for protection, don't you agree Sister?"Celestia added.
Luna then replied "We agree, dear sister, this plan could be our solution, doth anypony object?"
Everypony in the room started collectively denying any objection.
Celestia then added,"Well Twilight, looks like you've got some work ahead of you, you will get complete control of the project and any resources you need to complete the project,"
"I'll get right on it princess!"Twilight happily replied, looking like she'd piss herself out of the excitement from the promise of new science.
"Well this is just great, just fucking peachy! Just when I thought everything was gonna be fine the damn company downsised" I ranted sorely," 'least the dumb fucks gave me enough compensation to last a few weeks" about ten minutes later I reached my driveway and drove my ever-reliable 92' Subaru SVX into the garage, shut off the engine and just sat there, thinking.
After a few minutes I unloaded the car, closed the garage door, and entered my little flat. The place was small, 1 floor, a basement, and a decent sized yard, basic amenities, I liked it at least. I put my box of stuff from my desk in the entry way, walked another 10 feet into my study/gaming room and booted up some Destiny. I started thinking about what to do, ' I think I'm gonna go out to the shooting range tomorrow, yeah, that oughtta help, may as well look for a job too,' I thought.
Two and a half hours later I had a bowl of cheap ramen, and went on the internet, I just watched dumb videos and read the news for a few hours, ' man, Dave you've stooped low to be reading an article about fucking pothole issues of all things, in fucking Colorado, Land of the potholes! Ugh." Another hour later and I'd thrown on some sweat pants and an old t-shirt with what used to be a picture of the space shuttle on it, it was a faded mess now. I brushed my teeth and just sorta flopped on the bed dejectedly.
I finally fell asleep, then even my dreams started to go nuts, I had a dream where I was in some kind of glass tube thing being observed by this weird purple lady, her head looked like it came straight outta MLP, even stranger was the fact that it seemed almost real, almost real enough to be scary.
I went about my life for the next few days, looking for work, and doing some blacksmithing to make some money on the side until I could get back into a job. Ever since the first weird dream it kept happening, with each iteration becoming more vivid, until it reached a point. In the dream I felt seasick, and my perception of reality distorted beyond belief, memories flashing past, then it stopped, all was still.
Week 1, Researching the biology of alicorns for this was tough, thankfully Luna and Celestia provided DNA samples for me to work with. What the new alicorn will harness for its abilities is still up for debate.
Week 2, Decided on plasma/electricity related abilities would be most useful, due to time constraints a 'soul' Will have to be transplanted into the body, splicing in small amounts of Dragon dna (to allow the alicorn to survive its own abilities) into lungs and skin, success.
Week 3, Testing experimental forms of magic (my own cocktail of Alicorn, unicorn, runic, and hints of dark magic) were initially failures, even with alicorn length horn analogs, reshaping the first horn and adding a second smaller horn of similar shaping (approx. Average unicorn length) to use as a stabilizer proved successful. Safety note: don't touch either of the horns while active, it is VERY painful.
Week 4, chupacabra DNA added for eyes, magic proofing, and assorted internal organs, added my own DNA to the mix for good measure. The spellwork required to put all of it together is almost complete. Finding a compatible soul is next.
Week 7, the body is nearing completion, and I found a method to find a soul, although no ponies seem to fit the parameters, I am expanding the search to beyond our dimension.
Week 10, A soul has been found that is compatible, sepating it is the hard part, progress is slow but promising.
Week 11, body is complete, and the soul is ready for transplant, added magical failsafe to prevent the alicorn (confirmed female) from going rogue.
Week 12, massive anomalies detected during transplant, the alicorn is fine but has some additions in the form of unknown metallic objects intertwined with organs, some of which are producing massive amounts of energy, removal impossible due to how well the parts are intertwined with organs oherwise the alicorn seems to be alive and asleep, cutie mark is still unknown I pray to Celestia this still worked.
Hoofnote... Alicorn's magical reserves are quite large, not quite celestia standards, but certainly powerful enough to compete with myself or Princess Cadence without even trying, and and with the right skills she may even be capable of takimg on Princess Luna without too much issue
[detected dimensional anomaly]... [analysis protocol engage]... [WARNING; DIMENSIONAL TAMPERING DETECTED]... [engaging main artificial intelligence matrix, stand by]
*** The AI system and its long dormant conciousness awakened, ready and waiting to work, it' had basic feelings and a personality of sorts so it could think outside of the box in situations that the purely logical core couldn't.
It spoke to itself in a metallic and distant tone as it worked out a solution." I am detecting the presence of another conciousness being moved across the rift, Assesing situation. Can the process be reversed: NO, risk too high. Other options... Help the victim of the experiment. Providing help, Weapons... Check, protection...Check, travel...check, perception... Check, posessions... found...crating...storing.... mark location...check, part time mental link...Established. Good luck traveller. ***
" Ohh, please work, please work..." Twilight worried as she looked at the still body of her creation laying on the medical bed. ~bleep~bleep~bleep~bleep~.... The heart rate monitor turned on along with all of the other medical equipment in the room attached to Twilight's project, " YES! It worked, she's alive! Ha ha yeeesss!" Twilight yelled triumphantly. "Spiiiiiike, I need to send this to the princesses!" *** 2 hours later Twilight's lab
All of twilight friends and the royal sisters had gathered in the main room of Twilight's "lab" it was simply one of the many unused rooms the only difference being the addition of plumbing and equipment indicative of a laboratory, it was filled to the brim with many monitors, scanners, tools, and assorted other implements of science. Twilight took off her labcoat revealing a simple gray t-shirt and denim jeans both stained with who knows what, "Sorry for not looking more presentable, I wouldn't want to soil my normal clothes with all of my science," Twilight said a bit sheepishly.
" It's quite alright twilight we understand" Celestia stated in a nonchalant attitude, "So, you said something about the projects completion?"
"Yeah I have princess, I have created another alicorn to serve as a defense mechanism for equestria in the absence of the Elements, she may not be able to replicate the Elements effect but she Will, in time be able to protect equestria from larger threats so that the princesses don't have to be involved, although I may have over engineered her a bit." Twilight calmly stated.
Celestia walked up to the form of the alicorn lying asleep on the observation table, "does she have a name yet?" celestia asked.
Twilight responded, " I was planning on her picking a name once she wakes up, which should be as soon as I inject her with the nullifying potion to cancel out the sedatives,"
"What is the status of her brain, will we need to teach her everything From scratch?" Celestia asked while looking over the alicorn.
"No, I transplanted the soul and memories of another being into it, unfortunately no ponies, or any of the sentient beings on Equus were compatible so I took one from another dimension, one that shouldn't freak out as much as be confused, it was nonreligious, and lived alone, so it shouldn't try to kill us thinking we're some kind of demons, although I don't know it's original gender, so I'm unsure as to how it will react to that," Twilight responded matter of factly.
"Ok, for now I'll ignore the morality of doing this, but I will have a stern talk with you about it later, but for now would you please awaken her?" Celestia said in a very stern voice.
"Uhh... Alright, here we go" Twilight nervously replied, she then proceeded to inject a small syringe full of the bluish nullifier potion.
*** Dave's POV.
I tried to wake up, finding myself in the rift between sleep and awake, I started to feel my body come to, everything felt weird everything from my skin to the arrangement of my organs was off, I sure hope I'm still dreaming. I also became very aware of a migrane that made me feel like I'd gotten hit with a plane to the head, that was enough to wake me up, "Ughh" I muttered, I reached around for my glasses and not finding anything, so I opened my eyes to see that I was in something that looked like a doctor's office, exept the ceiling was shiny and almost like glass, and oddly enough I could see fine without my glasses. I looked around a bit and then suddenly saw a pair of huge eyes staring at me to my right, "Ahh!... The fuck?" I groggily slurred, " please tell me I'm still dreaming," I asked nobody in particular. I also noticed my voice was different, more feminine, I couldn't describe more than that.
" Sorry ta tell ya this pal, but ya ain't" I heard someone say, it was feminine and sounded like some stereotypical Texan.
I looked around again and saw that there were 7 other figures in the room, all of which were weird colors, ranging from butter to navy blue I realised they were the same as the main characters of MLP plus some. Then I looked at myself, I was greeted with 2 mounds of flesh which I asumed were attached to me, and after I removed the sheet covering my body I also noticed I was covered in a deep purplish fur that slowly changed to a bluish color near the ends of my appendages, I felt my face and I had huge eyes and a shout, along with 2 fucking horns on top of my forehead, I was obviously a girl but other than that I had no clue what I was,'ok let's take this logically' I thought before talking," Ok, before I totally loose it can someone please tell me what happened to me?" I asked, looking at myself in disbelief.
"You're an Alicorn now" the white one near the bed stated I a calm and almost soothing tone..
" ok... That doesn't tell me much... Umm can someone please tell me where I am at least" I asked barely remaining calm.
" You are on the planet Eqqus, in the country Equestria, in the town of Ponyville, in my castle, in my lab" The purple one stated, nervously
"Okay, good now, can someone please tell me who all of you are, so I don't have to call everyone by color" I asked, I then moved my legs off the side of the bed, and sat up.
The purple one then said, I'm Twilight sparkle, these are Applejack, rarity, pinkie pie, rainbow dash, Fluttershy, Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna," she said pointing at each one as she stated their names.
In my head I sorta said, 'i knew it' then moved on to looking each of them over, twilight was wearing some of what I'd call work clothes, Applejack had on a plaid shirt and dirty overalls, Rarity was wearing a white blouse and a black skirt, rainbow dash was wearing a sports bra and some shorts, pinkie was wearing a printed tank top that read, 'PARTY TIME' in bright pink lettering and short-shorts, and Fluttershy was wearing a pair of dirty overalls and nothing else, Celestia was in a silky white dress, and Luna was wearing a similar dress but it was patterned like the night sky, both were a fair bit taller than the rest of the group.
"I'm gonna assume twilight was the one that did this to me, as she said this is her lab?" I asked, Everyone in the room just nodeed, " Twilight, would you please come here for a sec," I said with an almost sadistic grin. She walked up to me and I decided to give her a piece of my mind, I ottoman slapped her in the head (spreading the hand as wide as possible and using the weight of the arm to impart more force). She stumbled a bit and cradled the side of her head.
" What in tarnation did ya do that for" Applejack almost yelled "Yeah, why the fuck did you hit our freind" Rainbow Dash added angrily
" I did it because she dragged me out of my own fucking universe, and dropped me here without thinking of how I'd feel about this clusterfuck," I said flatly.
" Oh uhh point taken ah guess" she said in a sorta guilty understanding tone. " I guess that makes sense, just don't do it again or I'll beat the shut outta you" Rainbow fumed in reply.
Twilight piped up and said, "why in tartarus did that slap hurt so much!"
"It's called an Ottoman Slap, it takes advantage of the users arm and hand to impart more force, aka it hurts a lot, or maybe I'm just a lot stronger, and I hope that hurt enough to teach you something" I stated
" I do believe she deserved that" Rarity added, and everyone save Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.
" ohialmostforgotthatihavetothrowyouawelcomeparty!!!" Pinkie almost yelled, and then she Zipped off out of the door.
"Uhhhhhh... The fuck?" I said in utter confusion.
"Don't mind her, we don't even know" rainbow dash answered.
Then Celestia spoke up, "what's happening to your cutie mark?"
I looked at my hips and sure enough they were acting weird, they were changing between several images and sometimes flickering. " huh, weird" I commented, not really caring because it looked kinda cool.
"I'll research it when I get the chance, but first, let me tellyou about yourself"
*** 20 minutes later rarity's boutique
"Thanks for making me something to wear" I told Rarity, glad that I wouldn't have to walk around nude anymore.
" It really is no trouble darling" she said as she finished making the pants I wanted, a simple pair of denim jeans nothing overly fancy. "Here try these on" a he then handed me the pair of jeans, just as I asked, she'd even embroidered the end of the left pant leg to look like a little bit of lightning dancing across the bottom, a nice touch in my opinion I slipped into the pants, they were comfortable and felt durable as well. Within the hour she had made me a blue t shirt and underpants as well.
" I can't thank you enough, rarity" I told the seamstress
Soon I walked outside to meet up with everyone else, I stumbled a few times because I hadn't gotten used to the new leg geometry or having hooves, but I got there, I couldn't wait to figure out how to fly, as I'd figured out that I also had some awesome looking wings as well, the main feathers had the colors of the fire spectrum, gradiating from a dark blue to a bright orange with a black tip on each, save a few of the ones at my wingtips which were an electric blue, I also noticed my hair was pretty cool too, it had the color of fusion plasma, muted pinks whites and slight yellows, and the ends of it were very similar to the princesses' in that it sorta looked aetherial and wavy, and it had an electric blue stripe running through it. In the boutique I'd also seen my horns in the mirror, rather than a smooth spiral cone like the average unicorn they were like blades in shape, they were bolt straight, flat ish, and had something like a tanto tip, the short one had the tanto part facing the opposite direction, both of them had some kind of weird softly glowing writing on the surface.
We had decided to find a quiet place to talk everything over, we chose Fluttershy's place, everyone but twilight, fluttershy, the princesses and I left, on the way I kept thinking everything over, about earth, and everything I left behind, it was a scary prospect, so I chose not to think about it too much and focus on the task at hand, what I'm doing here, why, and getting the lay of the land so I can live some kind of life. *** Fluttershy's cottage
I walked inside and was greeted with the tidal wave of what I can only describe as zoo-smell and tons of animals roaming about, and right then and there I realised that my sense of smell was waaay stronger now.
"Come on everyone, take a seat, don't worry my animals won't bite,"Fluttershy almost cooed,
"Nice little place ya got here," I said trying to ignore the stench.
We all set down to some tea and twilight and I started asking questions about each other, she also pulled what I'd assume was their equivalent of a smartphone, it was made of wood and had a little circular screen on it, as well as a tiny keypad composed of typewriter style keys.
"What do you want your name to be?" twilight asked first.
" that's a bit tough, ummm, I think I'll go with Nova because it sorta fits, I guess, and it sounds cool" I answered.
"Ok, well that's easy enough, what else do you want to ask me?"
" how am I going to earn money?" I asked
"I'll let the princesses answer that one" she responded.
Luna cleared her throat, "Thee shall be paid by us and receive free medical care, magic, weapons, and flying training, in return for thy service protecting Equestria should it require it. We shall also provide lodging should thee requireth it," she then continued," Thy will be kept under observation by Twilight, until thy are ready to enter society"
"Ok, I can agree to that" I said without much thought to what confinement entailed
" you're taking this well, in supried that you aren't an insane mess" Celestia stated, she seemed pretty suprised.
" just focusing on here and now, and once I find the bar and some good stiff drinks, I'll be ok, by the way, after were done here I'm going to your bar so in can take my mind off of this shit" I replied with a grin
"Unfortunately we can't bring you along, the public would freak out and you're kind of a top secret project, we got you to rarity's with a cloaking spell, but I can bring you a bottle of something, once twilight has deemed it safe"Celestia added with a weird grin on her face.
"Fine, but you owe me a bottle of alcohol" I said, more than a bit dissapointed.
It had been about a day since I got here and I was already breaking my personal record for most weird stuff seen in one day, most of those things being magic, and equestrian writing. Reading equestrian would be easy if they wrote it the same as English, but instead all 3 different types of ponies wrote it differently, and learning magic is confusing as all fuck.
"Lesson 1: accessing your magic, ok Nova, so what I want you to do is, for lack of a better term, reach inside yourself mentally and grab your magic, the push it to your horn..s," twilight said with some hesitancy.
" okay I think I found it" in a couple seconds my longer horn lit up with something that looked like plasma, and it arked to the other horn regularly and from Twilight's expression, it probably looked pretty scary to get close to.
" Ok, now direct it at the steel ball on the ground in front of you, and try to pick it up" After saying that she put on a face shield and backed up, not a good sign.
" Alright then here goes" I directed it at the steel ball and then, 'PIIIINNG' 'THUNK' I'd just blasted it into the wall, then I noticed it glowing red, "uhh, I think I did something wrong"
"Try to limit the power output next time, and maybe try to 'grasp' it rather than push it into the air, although I was expecting worse considering the magic you're using is a highly volatile coctail of different kinds of magic, so congrats for not blasting a hole in something," she said with some renewed confidence. *** 1 hour later
" Finally! I picked it up" in stated triumphantly, not realizing it was heating up, and then proceeding to drop it into my hand.
" Doesn't that hurt?" twilight asked with a concerned look on her face.
I then noticed the orange glowing orb in my hand, "Uhh...suprisingly...No, it's kinda hard to describe, I can tell it's really hot but I'm not getting any pain from touching it, weird" I said while confusedly looking at the steel ball in my hand.
"Well I guess adding Dragon DNA into your skin worked," she said noting it down in a hefty looking binder.
"That's cool, but how do I stop myself from doing that?" I asked still observing the slowly cooling ball.
"We'll save that for another time, for now I'll note this down and ask you some questions,"
"I've noticed that you have some devices implanted in you, do you know how to control them, and do you know where you got them," she asked with an obviously puzzled tone.
" I've never tried to so I might as well figure that out," I then tried to control the device attached to my heart, surprisingly, I'd did something, it seemed to direct something to my hands, I then pushed it out, and a tiny little jet of plasma came out of my index finger," huh, interesting" I stopped the plasma and continued experimenting, as Twilight feverently scribbled down notes, with 3 pens, using both hands and magic to hold them.
"This is great scientific data, keep experimenting, I really want to see where this goes!" twilight said excitedly while still scribbling notes.
Then something crashed through the door to the lab, I whipped around and found Rainbow Dash sitting there with a disappointed face, I also noticed that I had something on my face, some kind of weird visor, I touched it a bit finding 2 round end pieces, where the "lens" was attached each having a small flat antenna looking thing on it, it had a heads up display which currently had Rainbows vitals targeted, "This is New," I thought about retracting it, and it collapsed into a little disk on the side of my head and dissapeared" weird, I'll have to mess with that more later," I stated still kinda amazed at what my new body had to offer.
"Come on twilight, you told me to come along and teach her how to fly, and we're not flying right now, so hurry up," Rainbow impatiently nagged.
"Yeah twilight, I kinda want to figure out how to use these wings," I added
"Ok done, now I'm going to teleport all of us to the middle of the desert, so we can do this in peace, and still uphold Celestia's gag order"
Twilight then charged up her magic and then,'POP' I was dizzy as fuck, and also in the desert.
"Do teleports always feel that way" I asked still trying to clear my head of the dizziness.
"No, it won't be as bad after you learn how to do it yourself" she said with just a hint of smugness.
"Okay Nova, let's get down to business, spread your wings and kneel down like your about to sprint," Rainbow said, without hesitating any longer, I complied, "Okay now flap your wings hard and fast, and start running",
"Alright" I said simply, I did as she said and after about 50 feet I took off, flew for 20 feet then crashed, "Ow, my fucking face, ahrgh," I got up and looked at my nose, and sure enough it has a large bloody gash running from my left nostril to about the middle of my snout.
"Oohhh, thats gotta hurt," Dash said, wincing at the sight of it,
"Yeah, it does, and it also feels tingly, wait, the fuck's going on with my nose?" I said as I watched the skin slowly knitting itself together,
"Odd, I never added any improvement to regeneration, it shouldn't be any faster than the norm for an alicorn, maybe it was the thing that put the devices in you, I hope you don't mind me studying this more in depth" she said with a scary looking grin.
"Uhh... You study me for hours a day, it's not like this is any real change to that," I replied, "anyway, back to flying" *** "Whaaa...'THWUNK' Ow" I muttered after the upteenth attempt at flight,
"Well that's the farthest you've gone yet, just about 100 deca-hooves" she said sounding mildly impressed
" How long is a deca-hoof exactly?" I asked after getting up and dusting off
"About this long" she held her hands about a meter apart.
"Good to know" I replied *** Twilight's castle, that evening
Everyone was resting in one of the castles rooms, starlight was looking me over in curiosity while, Twilight was nose deep in a book, I couldn't read the cover because I hadn't learned how to write in 'equish' yet, and rainbow dash had left about an hour ago. Spike then walked in with a scroll and handed it to twilight.
" Oh, a letter from Celestia" Twilight said as she undid the seal," it's to me and Nova"
Dear Princess Twilight,
I'm going to talk to you about some unacceptable behavior of yours tomorrow, meet me in my office at 10:00 sharp.
I understand that Nova can't read our language yet so please send her to Princess Luna. Luna wishes to speak with her about her predicament tomorrow.
"Twilight, I assume you already know why you're here?" celestia said sounding like a disappointed parent.
"I took a soul from another dimension for the project" Twilight quiverred in her seat upon saying this.
"Twilight you should know better than this, you're lucky Nova isn't freaking out about this, or at least that she isn't lashing out about it, if you picked wrong we could have had a clinically insane alicorn running amok, why did you do it, why did you commit such a moral injustice to her?" Celestia continued.
Twilight just sat there quivering for a few seconds before shakily answering, "I-I d-did it because, I couldn't find a compatible soul for the project,"
"Please enlighten me on your idea of 'compatible' please" she added sounding unimpressed
" the soul had to be capable of not freaking out from the process as well as being intelligent, and without the potential to use the power for evil, as well as the capability and willingness to fight when the situation dictates, pleasedontsendmebacktomagickindergartenibegyou,"she just barely managed to say before starting to panic.
"All valid reasons and I can see why you had trouble finding somepony to fit the bill, but you can't just grab somepony, or in this case someone, and do that to them, its morally unthinkable, and I think you may have gotten carried away, I know how you get when the pursuit of knowledge is involved, but there are places that you just don't go, I hope you're understand the severity of this," Celestia continued," but we can't reverse the process without risking permanent damage, and what's done is done, but this doesn't excuse you, you will receive punishment for this once I decide what is fitting, until then, if Nova decides to lash out at you or hurt you physically, I won't stop her,"Celestia said with a disappointed note in her voice.
"I'm sorry princess..." Twilight squeaked out while in tearing up "I-I didn't realise...I...I"
"I'm not the one you should be apologising to, " Celestia said, *** Luna's office was cosy and soothing to be in, it was painted in dark tones and had blue accents here and there, Upon seeing Luna I realised how big I actually was, I was about 3 inches shorter than Luna, who looked to be some odd 7 ish feet tall, Celestia was about 8 feet tall by this guesswork. Luna smiled warmly as I stepped to the center of the room, she motioned me to sit down at one of the chairs around a small coffee table depicting a labeled map of the moon. We sat down in the plushy chairs and Luna began to speak.
"Tell us what hath happened, how thy feel, hold nothing back" Luna said in a smooth calm voice.
"Huuuhhhhhh, well I've been holding back my emotions ever since I got here, I just locked them up and focused on logically figuring out what to do," I started, "I've never really let it sink in that I'm stuck here, in a body I dont know, on a planet far from my own, with a species far different from mine, it's just....hard to believe it's just gone... I miss home"
"We understand thy plight to some degree, we hath also been banished from our world, unable to return, if thy need our advice, we shall be here for thee" Luna continued, understanding in her voice, then she hugged me.
"Thanks..." I said still letting everything sink in
"Tell us about your previous life, we wish to know"
"Well.... My original name was David, I went by Dave, I am 25 years old, I had a career in programming, I did blacksmithing, knife collecting and some shooting sports for hobbies, I had a nice life going before it was taken, I know I lived alone but i still miss everyone I knew... I'm still finding it hard to accept" I sighed after saying that, telling as a great weight was lifted from my shoulders.
"We are sorry for thy loss, although we may never understand your burden, we shall do what we can to assist you in recovering, we shall visit with you in your dreams should you need it," Luna said in a quiet and understanding tone.
"Thanks for listening, Princess" I said quietly
"Just Luna, If you would like" she added. *** I met up with twilight outside Celestia's Chambers, she was shaken and her eyes bloodshot, whatever Celestia said or decided to punish her with, I think she deserved it. We said nothing as she teleported us back.
I had been transfered to a research lab in canterlot, because twilight was punished with complete magic and flight probation, as well as restriction of magical reading material for 5 months for twilight that would be torturous. Here I would begin combat and weapons training, as well as more about equestrian society and language while the researchers studied me.
Currently I was sitting in my new room awaiting whoever celestia sent to start testing, while I waited I looked over my research file (thank goodness it was in a scripture I could read) and found some interesting things, firstly I had some pretty weird eyes, I'd never payed much attention to them because I never looked close enough, they were weird and apparently I could see really well with them, my pupils were pretty normal looking, but the irises were swirled purple, blue, and iridecent black, kinda like an oil spill, groovy. I continued to read and took note of the failsafes and the fact that i was also sterile, then a female unicorn scientist walked into the room with a clipboard and suitcase, she had maroon fur, a tan mane and was wearing a lab coat, black pants, and a pair of red framed oval glasses.
"Hello, I am Doctor Cranberry, I am the head researcher at this facility, it is a pleasure to meet you" she said with a friendly smile on her face, then she opened the suitcase revealing some needles filled with various liquids, a magnifying glass, an electric shaver and a small metal device I couldn't identify. "Ok I'm going to shave some fur from your shoulder so I can attach a monitoring device" the shaver buzzed softly as she shaved a square patch of skin and adhered the device to me, "you will feel a prick when I turn it on," she pushed a small button on it and I felt it pinch a bit then subside.
"Uhh what's it do?" I asked wondering what it was designed to do
"It measures blood pressure, heart rate, breathing, and magical coefficient." she answered simply
"What's a magical coefficient?" I asked back.
"Simple, it's the amount of magic stored in your body compared to the rate at which it's used" She again answered without hesitation. "Okay Nova, I'm going to ask you to strip down so we can examine your body easier, don't worry I'm only mildly turned on by this" she said calmly.
"Wait what now" I asked in disbelief
"Joking, but I do need you to remove your clothes so we can give you an examination properly"
"okay ...I guess" I hesitantly stripped down and then layed down on my bunk. She then pulled up a chair and started carefully examining everything and probing, much to my chagrin, everywhere, and I might add that it was the weirdest feeling experience of my life to this point, and that's saying something. Dr. Cranberry scribbled down some notes and then walked over to the wall and got on the PA system and started asking for assorted doctors to come to my room.
"Can I get Doctors, Cherry and Scalpel, to appartment E-13 please" she spoke to the panel in the wall,"So any questions?" *** After another 30 minutes of poking me with needles and other tools in every place imaginable I felt prickly and sore, so after the doctors left, I didn't put my clothes back on, shut the lights off and went to sleep.
I slept until sundown and then I got up and looked around the room I was given, I hadn't paid it much notice until now, the walls were gray and made of some kind of plastic, I had a dresser, a bookshelf, a bed, a trunk by the foot of the bed, a compartment in the wall, and one in the floor, not great but better than twilights basement. Celestia and Luna had given me a few books, pictures and little curiosities before they sent me here, all of it was still in a cardboard box by the door, I decided to go to sleep again and organise tomorrow,
I fell asleep easily enough, but something was different.
"Hello?" I heard a distant voice call out, I decided to go closer, I came upon a massive gray slab covered in an unknown language, the writing lit up and it spoke.
" Hello Traveller" the slab spoke in an alien sounding voice.
"What are you" I asked it
"I was the one who altered you, I reasoned that you would need help to cope with this universe, so I altered you, I added a hybrid microfusion reactor into your heart, means to travel through space, weapons, regeneration and the visor. I have transferred your possessions from the other universe here should you need anything from there. I have given you coordinates to the storage location and myself, come to me as soon as convenient, we have more to discuss," it spoke then simply faded out of existence.
"Strange" it was the only word I could describe it with. *** I awoke, got dressed and started to try some more magic, supposedly a scientist was going to come in today to ask me questions about my mental state, I managed to pick up a sheet of paper without burning it by the time the scientist got here, i recognised her as Doctor Cherry from yesterday, she was a 'Bat Pony' with gray fur, orange eyes, a lab coat and a small hoop earring in her left ear.
"You should recognise me, I'm Dr. Cherry, today I am going to ask some general questions about your mind and personal preferences for future reference," she picked up a clipboard and pen, " okay first the preference stuff, any alergies or dislikes food wise?" she began
"Other than rasins no complaints and no allergies" I said not even needing to think"
I awoke to a knock at the door, I tossed on my clothes and answered it.
" Hello Nova, I have news from Celestia for you," the intern at the door said before handing me a scroll and leaving, I opened it and started reading
Dear Nova,
Today is the day that you will be declassified, I will release the files that don't involve your origins, or twilights blunder, just enough to keep them from asking questions. Your combat training is scheduled for next week, and you will be able to go about equestria, you will have to get formal permission but it shouldn't be overly hindering.
~ Princess Celestia PS, please burn this note after you're done reading.
After finishing I incinerated it with plasma and then jumped for joy in my head, I decided to look into the box of books and livery for the room, *** 1 hour later
I had finished putting everything up, as I'd still live here for a while, then I got up and read some more on magic in some kind of handbook. I did this until I heard the earsplitting sound of an alarm blaring outside, I got up and went to the door, I found it locked, so I listened outside, other than the alarm I heard running and drowned out yelling, "what the fuck is going on" I said to myself, I went to the PA system and called, "what's going on, why am I locked in," no response.
I resorted to melting a hole in the steel door with raw magic and climbing out, I looked around, the building was deserted,"the fuck," usually it was bustling, I decided to keep moving and soon came to an intersection with an elevator, immediately I saw a red stain on the elevator door and a corpse leaning on the wall to the left, "Damn, what the fuck happened" I said to nobody. I looked the corpse over, it was fresh and it's midsection was torn open, it's innards looking ready to fall out, it was male, insearched him finding a pistol in his grasp and a key card, I grabbed them and left down the hall to the right, I checked the pistol, it seemed to still have ammo, it seemed to be magic based , its front looked like a railgun and the back resembled a deagle, I pushed a lever on the side and it's top slid open revealing a red glowing crystal, I closed it and test fired it, "Ptcrt" it fired a red bolt of energy and the top part slid back as it fired then it returned to its original position, I wiped off some blood and put it in my waistband on my back, I continued moving noticing more blood and entrails strewn about the walls and floor, "Nasty" I said to nobody except the entrails. My priorities were to either get out of kill the killer then get out, option one was looking good about now, I came to a set of double doors and peeked around, only a corpse, I took the keycard she had and her ammo and trudged onward. I activated my visor and pulled up a map of the building, I looked for the stairwells, I was on the third floor near a stairway, I chose to avoid the elevators because of the likelyhood I'd get cornered, on my way down the stairs I found a dead... Thing, it's body was grotesque, and I couldn't tell if it was from whatever killed it or its natural appearance, it was bipedal and had a chitinous shell,other than that it's body was too destroyed to get any more information other than that it has green blood, I searched it and found a large dagger clearly made for stabbing, and a ranged weapon that looked like it was organic in construction, looking like the bastard child of the nechro chasm, and a needler rifle, the ammo was a pack of green needles banded together, the thing also had a wicked looking bayonet-ish protrusion on the front, I used a strap made of a torn lab coat to hold it to my back, I pocketed the rest of the creatures ammo and continued down the stairs into the main lab area.
It was ransacked, everything was broken or destroyed, several things being on fire, I looked around and heard something move, "who's there?!" I blurted drawing the pistol from my waist,
"Screeeeehh," whatever it was answered. It then got up and ran at me, 'Ptcht, Ptcht, Ptcht' so I shot it, the creature died and fell over on a table. I looked it over, it was obvious that it was a channeling now that I had a better view of its body, the only weapon it had were its claw-like hands, so I moved on. I continued on to a different corpse laying on the floor near a potted plant, this one wasn't pony, or channeling, it resembled a Griffin, it's color was a mottled brown, and it was wearing some light mail armor, it was male, and he also had a sizeable hole in his head, he had nothing but a knife on him, so I moved on, I went down a flight of stairs when I saw something more disturbing than the corpses and blood, it was one of the scientists, a yellowish mare with an orange mane, her upper torso was on one side of the room and her lower torso and legs were on the other, her intestines strewn about in between, her face was a look of horror and pain, I was disgusted, I left the room and made my way to the front door and burst out of it into the streets of canterlot where a squad of guards were waiting.
"Uhh, Hello officers?" I said not realizing that no was still covered in green and red splatters from the changeling and searching the bodies I found.
Apparently the cops in this world aren't as brutal as the ones on earth, instead of beating the shit outta me upon seeing me covered in blood they just took me to their dispatch station with the surviving scientists, and started to question the remaining 10 of us individually, they even let me keep the guns id picked up if I unloaded them and didn't act threateningly. I looked around, the scientists I knew were still alive, there was also the janitor and some other staff. A stallion walked out of the room and motioned me to enter, I was the last one to question, so i got up and quietly walked into the room, and sat at the table.
"Hello, you must be Nova, I am commander Iron Shield, the leader of this guard division," he shook my hand and sat on the other side of the table and readied a quill, "You aren't being arrested, all I'm asking is that you tell me the truth," He stated in a calm tone. I told him of the horrors I saw, and what i did while in the building, including why I was covered in blood. "Anything else?" he asked,
"No, thats all I have" I responded calmly,
"okay, from the information gathered from all of the survivors, we've concluded that griffons and changelings attacked and prevented the alarms from sounding until it was too late, the survivors escaped and the attackers left, leaving you to make your way out on your own, you killed a changeling attacking you, and then we found you covered in its guts outside. does that sound like a logical assumption?" Iron Shield stated calmly.
"It seems logical," I said,
"You may leave now, thank you for your information" he finished. I walked out of the room and came upon a guard waiting for me,
"Hello, miss, you're free to go home, although you may be contacted later by us, the others were sent to medical, but from the news it doesn't seem like you'll need anything but a fresh set of clothes" he stated
"Thanks for the tip," I stated simply as I passed. I left the building, and headed for the castle to talk to Celestia and Luna, because my apartment was currently in a crime scene, and I didn't care to see that horror show again. I looked at myself, I was filthy, and I felt sticky from all the blood.
I reached the castle gates and asked the guard for access. "Hello, I'd like to enter my name's Nova and I need to speak to Celestia" i said, worrying that he may refuse access due to my current state.
"Celestia told me to let you in if you ever came here, normally I'd say no, but the princess has her reasons" he stated simply as he opened the gate.
"Thank you" I said very relieved that Celestia had expected me to show up. I entered, the castle was decorated everywhere, I kinda felt guilty for leaving bloody hoof prints on the carpet. I went to the throne room (thank goodness there were signs), once in I walked towards Celestia, her guards reflexively drawing their weapons.
"At ease guards," she said calmly, " Nova, you look terrible, I saw the report and the News, although I didn't suspect it was this bad," she said as she walked up examining me, "Come to the royal bath house with me, we can talk of this while we bathe" she said, motioning me to come with her.
"Wait, we? I know that ponies have communal baths, but are you sure you want to get in the bath with me when I'm covered in blood?" I asked unsure what she was thinking.
" I do not mind, and there is plenty of soap." she answered, we rounded a corner and entered a large room with a giant tub in it, Celestia, opened a rectangular mini floodgate and let the warm water rush into the tub, then promptly closed it when it was full. Celestia locked the door, and then undressed and stepped into the tub, "Come in, the water is perfect," she said in a jovial tone,
"Ok, suit yourself," with that I disarmed and got undressed, I realized that the blood had soaked through leaving sticky spots all over my everything, I wasted no time and stepped into the warm bath. The water started to turn green and pinkish from all of the gore on me,
"Oh yeah, thats nice" I said realizing this was the first time Ive bathed in Equestria. "By the way, you owe me for a bottle of alcohol, as I'm officially declassified", I joked a bit.
"Once you have a permanent address, i'll send it to you", she said giggling a bit
"Damn it, I just walked through a nightmare incarnate, why must you torment me so?" I said with a bit of sarcasm.
"First just come closer so we can talk this over," she said motioning me to scoot over, I complied, and then she grabbed the soap and motioned me to turn around, she started speaking as she started to remove the gore from my wings. "From what I've heard, it seems like the griffons teamed up with the remainder of Queen Chrysalis's hive, then they may have heard about you and decided to ransack the lab to find you, after all you are, to put it bluntly, a weapon, and they saw that as a threat," she said sympathetically
"Makes sense, although Im still wondering why there was a changeling in the building even after they left, wouldn't it make sense to leave with the rest?" I asked confused.
" I will look into it, for now, I think its best to not trouble yourself with it," she said as she finished with my wings, she then handed me the soap and turned around, I took that as the signal to do the same to her back and got started, "I may have given twilight too much freedom on our project now that I think about it, I should have known that she would have gotten overzealous," she sighed and looked a bit forlorn as she finished.
" Well, I'm here and Whats done is done, and mistakes get made, its just a fact of life," I said quietly, once I was done I finished washing myself, and just sat there for a bit, Celestia then looked at me and started to speak.
"You wanna have sex to take your mind off it?" she asked,
"uhhhh, no, I'm not gonna delve into that, I just barely got used to my body, and where my mind came from, sex isn't as open as It is here," I answered a bit puzzled as to why she'd ask, she was sexy but i didn't think it was the best idea, id read in the guidebook id gotten that ponies in Equestria had lower inhibitions , and that public nudity was perfectly legal, and because of the skewed population density, it was common to have "herds" of multiple mares to a stallion, I understood why it was so spur of the moment, but I still found it odd that she'd ask right now of all times.
"I understand, it was rushed anyway, although if you want to in the future, just ask me, and since the lab you were living in was destroyed, I will give you a room to stay in, and I'll get my tailor to make you some more clothes, and while you're here we can asses your combat skills at the guard training grounds" Celestia said apologetically, I got out of the tub, dried myself, combed my hair with magic and looked at my pile of clothes on the floor
"Thanks, and by the way, could you magic my clothes clean? I don't know the spell," I then held up my shirt observing the nastiness on it.
"Sure, oh and by the way I've invited Princess Cadence and shining armor over to meet you tonight at dinner, I sent the invite just before the lab was attacked," she smiled and cleaned the blood from all of my possessions and then teleported something onto my horn. "here's the key to your room, and if you come across nobles, Ignore them," she said cheerfully. I slid the keyring off of my horn and left to following a little map on the key's tag. *** Celestias POV
I watched Nova leave then I thought to myself, 'Poor thing, I wish I could help her more, she seems calm now but the stress could build, and I don't wish to repeat the incident with Luna, I'll have to keep an eye on her'. I got out of the tub, dried myself, put on my dress, and walked out to return to my duties.
I moved into my new room with what little I had on me, it was spacious, had a nice big window, a bathroom, and a large bed, on all of the other news is slept on in equestria, I'd barely fit, but here I had some room to spare for once. I went to a trunk on the end of the bed and put all my weapons but the weird changeling rifle, and I started to look it over in detail, and I removed the makeshift sling. I pushed what looked to be a mat release and a small compartment on the back opened revealing a tray to put the needles in, the sides had some green spines similar to the needler, on top was a weird holographic scope, it looked as if someone had taken the front and top of the nechrochasm and put it on the lower rear portion of a needler rifle, and then added the needle parts back on, although it was cool to be honest. I chucked it in the trunk and grabbed my pistol and knife back, and started to explore the castle.
The castle was huge, and the whole thing was ornatly decorated from floor to ceiling. I was surprised I didn't get lost. *** Cadence pov- en route to canterlot
"Oh shining I can't wait to meet the new alicorn," I said excitedly, I didn't know what to expect, oh the possibilities!
" I know Cadie, you've been saying that the whole trip," Shining said boredly, How could he be so bored at a time like this? His little sister engineered an alicorn! Flurry squirmed and giggled a bit,
"Hey flurry, do you want to meet the alicorn too?" I asked flurry, I got a cute little gurgle in response. *** Canterlot Castle Dining hall
" Nova, Princess cadence hath arrived," Luna called to me down the hall,
"Ok be there in a sec" I sprinted down the hallway and stopped next to Luna, I saw Cadence and Shining walk up to us.
" Hello! In princess cadence! Who are you? Oh and what's your talent?" Cadence asked excitedly, while shaking my hand.
"Whoa calm down there. Anyway I'm Nova, and my butt Mark thing makes no sense, I Don't know what it means or why it acts broken." I said a bit surprised at Cadence's enthusiasm.
"I'm shining armor, nice to meet you Nova, don't mind my wife, she'll calm down soon enough, and this is our daughter Flurry heart" shining said with a much more normal tone
"Cute kid" I said simply as Cadence tapped me on the shoulder.
"Can I see your cutie Mark? Maybe I can find out what it is" she said this time a little more collected.
"Sure I guess" I pulled down the side of my pants revealing my cutie mark to cadence, "just wait a sec" the mark flickered from the cannons and shield to something else for a split second then went back to normal, "the scientists that were examining it said that it had something to do with multiple conflicting talents, its weird"
" Well in can tell where the starry splotch thing behind the mark came from" she looked at Luna almost accusingly
"What hath we done wrong?" Luna almost panicked
"Luna I'm joking, nothing is wrong" cadence said in a calm and collected tone at last, "why do you have two horns?" she asked me
"I thing it had something to do with unstable magic cocktails and stabilising it, having to use it is annoying because it's really easy to set stuff on fire" I said matter of factly as Celestia walked in.
"Come everyone, dinner is ready" Celestia then turned and led everyone to the dining hall.
" Hey How bad was the first magic surge" Cadence asked me.
"It didn't happen until I started with stuff other than holding small things, you know like using magic for a long time or for large objects, I think I picked up a lead cube and held it up for about 2 minutes before I shot a hole through it, a crystal wall, and a tree behind the wall, much to Twilight's displeasure.
" mine happened when I picked up a glass of water, I thought I had it down but my magic surged and I vaporized the water and melted the glass, then the molten glass set the table on fire, thank goodness Celestia put it out. Cadence added with nostalgia. We Sat down at the table and I was presented with a bowl of some kind of soup it looked like it had hay in it, I tasted it.
"Huh, odd" I said upon it touching my tounge.
"Do you not like it, you can always get something else" Celestia said questioningly
"No it's not that but,it's juzt that I've never had hay before, at the lab they gave me fruit and some lettuce most of the time, and twilight gave me mostly apples and some kind of drink she claimed to be nutritious," I said apologetically We continued to eat until about 10:00 by my standards, then I decided to go to bed,
"G'night, I'm gonna go to bed cuz I have to wake up early tommorrow" I said while walking back to my room, when ingot there I undressed and went to sleep, undecided to put the pistol under my pillow in case the fucking griffins and changelings attacked again. *** 'Hoooooooooooooooooooonk' "Ahhh what the fuck is wrong with you" I looked up at Celestia holding an air horn, giggling, "ya know I like my eardrums, and I should have told you that I'm not one for getting up early" I growled
"Gotcha" she said stifling a laugh.
" uhhhhhhhhgghh, where's the coffeee "I groaned
"Fine here you go" she said teleporting me a mug of coffee, she giggled a bit more as I grabbed it, it was a bit lukewarm so I heated it up with plasma and took a sip, it had chili peppers in it, but I decided to not give Celestia a reaction, cuz it actually wasn't bad. "Thanks"
"It may he a little...hot" she said with a grin
"Actually it was kinda lukewarm, by the way thanks for adding chili powder, it's a nice touch"
"Oh come on, Even I can't tolerate those peppers, how can you possibly be able to stomach that stuff"
"Hah this is a joke, back where I came from there were chili peppers hot enough to make your mouth numb" I said a bit proud of myself for outsmarting her joke.
"How!? Those were the hottest peppers equestria has to offer," she said a bit shocked
"Selective growing" I said continuing to drink trying not to laugh at her dumbfounded expression, then I grabbed my phone with magic and took a picture, 'click'
" What was that for?" she asked apparently unaware of her hilarious expression
" Memories, and something to laugh at, take a peek" I turned the phone around and showed her,
"Haha haha haha haaa, my face, oh I never knew it could be so funny looking" she said out of breath from laughing at a face that perfectly displayed her complete and utter confusion, at fucking spicy peppers of all things.
" I'm keepin this for a long time," I quickly hid the phone and finally got up. I got dressed and armed myself, and Celestia teleported us to the range where the guards trained with various firearms.
"Finally I get to test this weird ass thing" I said looking over the changeling rifle.
"You should get some other weapons as well to broaden your abilities, Luna has offered to help financially for your arms and armor, show me what you can do" she said encouraging me to the course.
I loaded the gun,'chlik'. Aimed and fired, 'PZZHT!' ping the target rang, It felt good, I fired again and began to run through the training course, it was pleasing to me to do this again after what felt like forever, I started to think about home, then it hit me, why the fuck am I here, why..., I dropped my gun and sat there, why? Anger built in my chest, I wanted to kill that little purple bitch, and I fucking would! "You little purple BITCH, I'm gonna fucking KILL YOU!, *** Celestia Pov
The odd rifle barked as nova took a shot, the target rang from the hit, a good shot, again, and again, she isn't half bad. I saw her suddenly stop and drop the rifle, "why did you stop?" then I heard her cry out with the strength of the royal Canterlot Voice, then she ran out onto the crossbow range area of the grounds, "Nova,STOP!, what are you doing!?" I screamed, she didn't stop, seemingly ignoring the arrows and bullets puncturing her and still running at something, then I saw her take flight, "Please ...Stop," I yelled in vain at the enraged alicorn, then I remembered Twilight's failsafes, If I'm remembering right I can stop her by a tuned magic blast to the horns!, "I'm so sorry for this Nova" I shot her in the horn with the tuned magic blast and she cried out in pain, it reminded me of when I first had to confront my sister, she fell to the ground clenching her head in pain. "Nova, what in tartatus just happened!" I asked angrily
"No, I need to go back, need to go back, ahrgh, why am I stuck in this fucking place, why did it have to be me?" she mumbled almost too quiet to hear.
"Nova! Snap out of it, come on that's it" I said as her sanity returned to some extent, "What happened, why did you freak out"
"I...I....I Remembered too much, ih went out to the range with my friends often, some of the best f-fun I had, I-I Just wanna go home, I miss everything...." she was choking up through the whole sentence, I hugged her, obviously this had been building up I in her for a while. She just sat there softly weeping into my chest, this must have been just too much for her to block out, at least she isn't banished or dead. I looked at her, in less than 10 seconds she went from clean, calm, and collected, to a raging insane mess, all because she remembered her past life, she was pricked with a couple of arrows and bullet holes, if she were a normal pony she would be dead. I teleported us and her equipment to my bedroom so I could deal with this in private.
"Sir, the strike team has returned, Sir!" Major Gruff said loudly to his commanding officer General Swift.
"Report" The General ordered.
" The strike Team has reported destroying the lab and killing as many of the workers as possible, they report no sign of the new weapon, Sir" the major responded
" Casualties?" the General asked
" we've lost two griffin soldiers, 1 changeling drone, and the infiltrator drone was killed after we left.
"Note the losses and prepare a squadron of changeling spies to find it, the government will keep the talks going to keep us off of the radar for now." the General spoke with authority. The Major left the room and headed deeper into the base to relay the information to Queen Chrysalis.
The catacombs were dark, wet, and cool, for griffins this was uncomfortable, for a changeling it was perfect.
"Queen Chrisalis, I relay a request from the general, he wishes for a small team of spies to be sent to canterlot to find the weapon or information about it" the major said as politely as he could manage to the large and imposing Changeling standing before him.
"Oh, does he, might I ask that you remind him that my changelings are already dwindling in numbers as it is, and I haven't had enough time to increase the size of my brood, I shall give him 3 spies and no more until I've increased my numbers, got it?"
"Yes ma'am" the major said, his voice wavering.
"Now Scram! Before I decide to kill and eat you." the Queen then turned and left to attend to her growing eggs.
The Major, deciding not to stick around, hastily left the catacombs to ensure his life would not be ended. *** "Sir, Queen Chrysalis has complied with the request, and she wishes time to increase her numbers" the major stated.
"Good, I shall grant her request, as much as I hate her attitude we need her too much to have her leave, destroying the weapon is too important, and her stealth skills are unrivalled, I know she's a bitch, but we have to tolerate it" the general said lighting his pipe. "Prepare the spies for deployment once they are sent up"
"Yes sir" the major replied and, left the general's office.
I set Nova on the side of the tub so I could remove the arrows and bullets without ruining the carpet, she'd gone quiet since I brought her inside, now she just sat there, staring into the void looking broken and sullen. I used my magic to persuade an arrow out, She remained silent and unwavering, thank goodness these weren't broadhead arrows.
I finished removing the bullets and arrows, throughout the whole ordeal she just took it, completely ignoring the pain.I'd erased the immediate memories of the guard at the range and any of the maids we passed- I felt guilty but it was necessary for the time being. I'd repaired her clothes and cleaned her up a bit, her body stopped bleeding quite fast as it repaired itself, then I vaporized the arrows, bullets and what little blood there was to remove evidence. I took her to my bed and just hugged the poor thing, she respnded a bit to this, only mumbles and slight movement towards me. And to think I should be worrying about a changeling that stayed behind, it was a spy, controlled by the queen. I should have addressed Nova's predicament more directly, Nova had probably seen a lot, First, being forced into a new body, then, the concept of being stranded on a new world, then the murder of so many innocent ponies so close by and not being able to do anything, remembering old friends must have been the last straw, then she lost it, poor thing.
I sat there for a few minutes before I heard a soft knock at the door. "Who is it" I answered
"It is me dear sister, May we enter?" I heard Luna say in a bit of a worried tone.
"Come in Luna, what do you need" I replied as Luna walked in.
"We heard yelling and we wished to see what hath happened" she said, obviously very worried.
"The yelling was Nova having a mental breakdown, she said something about remembering friends after she ran off and got shot, and almost did something regrettable." I said quietly, then Luna sat down next to me.
"When we had spoken to her we saw distress and longing to go back, but we did not suspect it was this bad," Luna looked at the barely responsive Nova in my arms, and sighed deeply, "Sister, we shall watch her while thy return to thine duties, we shall inform thee of any change."
"Thank you Luna" I said before she teleported herself and Nova to her room. I rose from my bed and teleported myself to the throne and sat down. *** Luna Pov
We transported us to our room, we placed Nova on the bed and tried to speak to her.
"Nova, it is us, Luna, will thy please respond?, Can thou hear me?" we spoke to her quietly."Doth thee wisheth to speak? Hello?
"Fuck this planet... Fuck twilight... Fuck everything" Nova mumbled to us.
"It is alright, be still, calm thyself," we said to the blank stare of the unfortunate alicorn. We received no response, then she got up and started to leave unexpectedly, we noticed the clenched fists, we also noticed that the runes on her horns were now glowing blood red rather than their usual blues, and violets, we knew she would not respond, and we could not grab her with magic, thus we shall find our sister. *** Nova Pov 'Twilight can go die in a ditch', in thought to myself, 'I need my gun, I need to shoot something right the fuck now.' I walked briskly to Celestia's room and entered, I retrieved my weapons and went out to the training area for the guards, I found a crowbar in a janitors office, perfect. On the range I was still furious I drew the rifle and pulled the trigger, it fired, the needle embedded in the target, then I noticed the trigger ring could be pushed forward, so I did, 'BZOOT!' the rifle collected the needles and fused them into one long javelin and fired, the glowing green javelin sailed through the target and embedded itself in the wall behind. I then emptied the rest of the pistols power crystal, then I went to the meelee training dummies and beat the shit out of them with the crowbar, damn that felt good. *** Celestia Pov
I had just left the throne room when I saw Luna come up to me.
"Sister, Nova spoke a bit then left, we hath not seen her since" Luna said with a worried look on her face.
"When did this happen, Luna?" I asked, worried that Nova would cause more trouble
"By our estimates 2 minutes hath passed since she hath gone" Luna said
"Scan for her magical signature, on the south end of canterlot, I'll scan the north" I said urgently.
"What are we looking for dear sister" Luna asked as her horn lit up.
"Her signature is unstable and random, it should be obvious enough" I lit my horn and prepared the spell, then both Luna and I activated the spell."in found her, she's in the gaurd training grounds near the east wall, I'll go see what she is doing, and by the way what did she say?"
"She expressed her distaste in this world and Twilight Sparkle, although she said it with more implied anger and swearing" Luna replied
"Good to know" I said back.
In the training yard I saw nova using some alien form of martial arts on the dummy, as well as prolific use of a prybar, she was silent, she only kept hitting and kicking, I'd never seen any of my ponies act this way, it simply wasn't their nature, Nova obviously knew something about fighting, she executed attacks brutally and efficiently, I also saw several other dummies laying on the ground nearby, decapitated and dismembered. It pained me to see such actions, I hoped she would stop but she continued, I lowered the sun but she still relentlessly attacked the dummies in more and more elaborate and brutal ways.
"Nova" I said to her
"Buisy....Right....Now" she sounded worn and tired. The voice I would expect to hear from a soldier returning from war. I watched in silence as she removed her shirt, she was not sweating,rather, steam was rising from her, then she stabbed the dummy with her horns, the dummy caught fire. I saw Nova roll over to the side panting.
"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked almost pleading her
"No" she replied panting, she got up, she retrieved her weapons and shirt, not bothering to put it back on then left. I would have been worried about her getting raped looking like that around the nobles, but now, she looked angry enough that only the stupidest nobles would try, and they wouldn't survive long enough to undo her pants. I was hoping that it wouldn't come to this, she was acting like Luna during her spiral into insanity, I hadn't realised this until now, but she was without a true friend or a herd to turn to, usually ponies suffering depression from a loss, would turn to their loved ones,their herd mates or friends but nova was grieving for everyone she cared for, she knew she would never see anypony she knew ever again,and she didn't trust anypony enough to open up about it, and she was met without the sympathy or compassion of most ponies, only Twilight's relentless desire for knowledge as well as her friends who, save fluttershy, would do anything for Twilight if they saw Nova as a threat. I need to find a way to help her get over it before she becomes another Nightmare Moon.
"I hope Nova forgives me, I feel like dragon shit, why did I do this" I muttered to myself. Then I heard a knock at the door. "Come in, it isn't locked" I said half heartedly. I saw Rainbow Dash hover herself inside and land almost silently.
"Hey Twi, how's it going" Rainbow said in a comforting tone, "Don't keep heating yourself up about Nova, you made a mistake, so what. I make mistakes all the time, no biggie."
"Have YOUR mistakes caused a pony to be mentally scarred for life, or caused mental breakdowns!? HUH!? My "mistake" caused its victim to be trapped in our world, friendless, and angry, and I'm the only one to blame."
"I thought Nova was taking it pretty well, what happened?" Rainbow asked me, confused.
"I got a letter today that Nova had a mental breakdown during a combat skill assessment, she apparently remembered something about her old life and lost it," I said dejectedly.
"So she locked herself in her room crying?" Rainbow probed more.
"You forget that she used to be male, and from another dimension, she didn't just run off crying, no....she ran onto a gun and archery range in a blind rage while the trainees were practicing, she would be dead right now if it wasn't for her being an alicorn, the only reason she stopped is because Celestia used one of my failsafes."
"But no one's hurt right?" she continued her probing
"NO, don't you get it, Nova isn't alright, I caused her to do this, I deserve to beat myself up about it, I. FUCKED. UP...... sorry for yelling at you, I'm just...just so ...Furious at myself for doing that, and there isn't a thing I can do about it," I almost screamed.
"Oh,...ohh, I'm sooo sorry Twi, I didn't mean to go that far" rainbow apologized. She quietly left and shut the door. I sat in silence for a minute or so before doing anything.
"Spike....Take a note."
"Ok " spike replied quietly, he hadn't said much since I read the letter, he was probably worried sick about everything going on.
Dear Nova,
I, Princess Twilight Sparkle, issue you a formal apology on my behalf, I am deeply sorry about your abduction, and any other mistreatment I have caused you, I was in the wrong. Accept this apology if you want, but feel free to reject it, I understand.
~Princess Twilight Sparkle.
"Ok Spike, send it off" spike shot out a lick of flame and the letter was gone.
For the past day Nova had started to talk again, and she would occasionally engage in conversation, but she seemed different, she had a very short temper, especially with anypony she doesn't know, she almost ripped a noble's arm off when said noble called her a bitch, and she seems much more distant and spacey sometimes, she also refuses to say a word about her past or why she is so short tempered all of a sudden, the reasons are obvious but I can't understand why she refuses help.
Equestria has declared war on Griffins, due to their attack on the lab last week, this I've accelerated Nova's combat testing and training, she has proven herself VERY lethal with Shotguns, machine guns, and long range weapons, almost deadly enough to be scary, as most targets I've thrown at her are shot within seconds, all with deadly accuracy.
I've sent Nova to the canterlot shopping plaza with 200 bits to buy weapons, I hope I don't regret sending her alone. **** Nova Pov
I was sent to downtown Canterlot to buy guns for myself, I didn't usually like shopping but in a gunstore it was amazing. I rounded a corner and passed through an alleyway to get to one of the stores Celestia said may be worthwhile to check, as I walked in the alley I felt something grip my butt.
"I don't know who you are, but if you don't let go you'll regret it" I said threateningly
"Ooh you're gonna be fun to..'WUMP' " he said as I punched him into a wall, he got up with a bloodied face, and booked it down the alley to the main road.
I found the store, it was out of the way and looked like an antique shop mixed with a thrift store, and I did see some guns inside the window, so i walked in.
"Vel allo dere, velcom to our schtore, vat caan 've do forr u" the mare behind the counter said in a thick russian accent.
"I took notice of your selection of guns, I need some arms to suit my needs" I said back to her as I walked to the counter.
"Mai assistant mees scherry blozzom vill help u vit dat, ven u arr ready to check out I will rrink u ahp" the mare said with a smile.
"I am miss Cherry Blossom, I will help you should you have questions," a scrawny tan mare with blonde hair said as she pointed me in the direction of the weapon rack on the back wall. After about 20 minutes of looking undecided on a rifle that looked like the volk from CODIW, except the electronics glowed green and were covered in strange writing, it also had a universal data cord that I could use to program it and it's scope. I also picked a pair of pp-2000s with a magical holographic sight integrated into each, and a simple 8 gauge pump action shotgun. The pies de resitance was a Huge shoulder fired 30 mm anti material sniper, it was a bullpup with a giant top mounted magazine, side mounted scope with some kind of magic based ballistics computer, and a heavy recoil compensated barrel with a huge muzzle brake, it was obviously designed to be fired prone with a bipod but being 7 foot tall had its benefits.
I brought my bounty to the counter and paid about 150 bits for the whole lot, I also took a buisiness card. I made my way back to the castle via 1920's esque taxi and walked inside where I saw Celestia in all her 8 foot glory, giving me a weird glare.
"You didn't kill anyone did you?" she asked staring a hole through me
"No, but I beat the shit outta one that grabbed my butt" I said with some pride that I had a physical reason for beating up somepony.
"Well it's better than unprovoked attacks on random ponies, so congrats you earned some more of my trust" she said probably surprised that I hadn't come back covered in the innards of somepony, especially when the nobles treated me like shit most of the time. "So I see you've done some shopping, how much did you spend?"
" a hundred fifty bits for the whole lot" I said happy that I didn't have to settle with overpriced canterlot shit.
"Well why don't you go put your stuff up and go to my room, I have a couple of questions to ask you so I don't risk too many more lives for dumb reasons," she said letting me in.
"Ok ill be there in a couple minutes" I said nonchalantly as I picked up my guns with magic and walked off. 3 minutes later I knocked on Celestia's door.
"Come in" she said in an almost musical tone. I walked in to see Celestia looking over a cake sitting on a traytable by the bed. "Ok Nova, before I get deeper into the question just remember that this may sound weird, so please no punching."
"Ok, no punching you if I don't like what I hear, got it" I replied in a confused tone
"Ok, ummm, do you like mares or stallions? Now don't get mad yet but I'm asking because several stallions sent me a letter asking to date you, so I wanted to know whether I should turn them down or not," she said in a hesitant tone
"Since I was a straight guy before this clusterfuck happened, and i haven't really changed my mind, I'd say mares, but that doesn't mean I want to be in a relationship, I'm still trying to wrangle my anger toward that little purple shitsucking bitch.. Don't mean to swear but...yeahh" I fumed a bit at the end.
"I understand completely, I know you are feeling uhh well, to be honest way more than angry at everything, and I'm not trying to get you into a relationship, I am just trying to prevent having to clean up entrails from a bachelor trying to court you, blood stains are hard to clean, and my maids would probably quit if they had to deal with that." she said in a weird joking tone.
"Good, uhh now I'm going to go shoot stuff, seeya" I said as I got up to leave.
"You're not going to stay for cake?" Celestia said as I was about to open the door.
"If this is an excuse to get me to talk about my mental state again, then no" I said still preparing to leave.
"No, I'm just offering you some cake, most ponies would die at an opportunity to share cake with me" she said in an almost pleading tone. I sat down next to her and she cut me a piece, then promptly cut herself about a quarter of the cake for herself, I took a bite of the honestly waaay too rich came.
"Dang, they would literally die at the opportunity, from diabetes and heart failure, how the fuck do you eat so much of this?" I said as I fiinished the first bite.
"It's my little secret, I'm not telling you until you tell me why you won't accept mental help all of a sudden," she smirked at this
"Its because I don't Want to think about the past! It's too fucking hard to stay sane otherwise! I don't want to be questioned about it! Don't you get it?" I finished my cake and got up to leave "thanks for the cake" I said as I walked out. *** Celestia Pov
I watched Nova walk out angrily, I guess she was right, she was so against help because she was still grieving, and she is confused by everything, and on top of that she is treated like shit because the nobles are jealous, so she has trust issues,Oh my. I feel bad for pushing her, I need to give her something to do to get out her violent tendencies, she knows enough to receive an assignment, combat and flight wise, although her magic is still a bit lacking, I will need to see to that.
"Oh, maid! I forgot to give this to Nova could you please give it to her for me" I asked the maid who brought the cake, I handed her a manilla folder with Nova's first official assignment.
"Right away princess" she said quickly before leaving the room. *** Nova Pov
I was loading the magazine of my weird AK thing which I found out enchanted the bullets as it fired, I heard a quick and barely audible knock at the door.
"What is it?" I asked the someone behind the doorI
"The princess forgot to give you a folder of stuff, so she sent me to deliver it" She was probably a maid, so I opened the door with magic and she stepped in, clutching a yellow folder. "Here you go, pleasedonthurtme" she cowered a bit as I took the folder, the label said 'Alicorn mission plan 1' in red ink on it.
"Thanks, by the way I try not to hurt ponies who don't bug me, you don't have to fear me" I said as I looked over one of the pieces of parchment in the folder.
"Okbye" the maid said as she zipped off, apparently I'd earned the reputation of having the shortest temper in canterlot, let them be scared, just means fewer pun obsessed idiots to deal with,(they make it a point to turn everything into a horse pun).
I read the assignment, apparently once I was properly trained, armed, and armored, I would be posted with the royal guard to protect the canterlot airbase, because it was a huge target for the griffins, and possibly changelings, well... At least it's simple enough.
" whare's the blacksmehth!" I said to myself for the nth time, I had been looking for an armorer that would do something other than plate armor or mail for the last 4 hours and I was pretty tired of the utter lack of armor development. I was contemplating just making some pykrete slabs and taping them to myself with the closest thing to duct tape this world had to offer.
"Ya know what...fuck it I'll just get some at the airbase, they've gotta have something that doesn't weigh a ton there" I said to the din of the street. *** Canterlot airbase
I arrived at the gate to my first assignment and I was already having problems.
"What do you mean I can't be here, I just handed you the clearance paperwork!" I just sat there wondering how it was mentally possible to be so block headed "uhhhgh, I'm surrounded by fucking morons."
"Hey Ozzy, open the gate, she's clear," I heard some dude say from beyond the fence.
"Finally someone isn't being a dick!" I said as I walked through the gate to greet the non idiot.
"Well nice to see ol' sunbutt waznt pullin my leg when she said she was sending over an alicorn, heh anyway I'm duke, I'm the commander of this place, who might you be?" 'Duke said with a funky accent that I couldn't really identify
"I go by Nova, and I was created as a living weapon!" I said sarcastically, I think I found someone I can be friends with.
"Well we can use er'y gun we get, with war start'n an all, anyway, ya familiar with plane safety?" we started walking to some kind of little outbuilding near the gate
"I know all of the safety stuff, I can actually fly a plane if I get the chance" I replied to his question.
"Well good, so here's the barracks for the guards, next to it are the washrooms, and over there near the tower is the mess hall, well getcha fitted for combat armor and a helmet next" he continued. At the armory I was quickly assaulted by a mare with a tape measure, she was short and stocky with long black hair and white fur, she was feverishly writing in a notebook.
"This is our armorer and seamstress, she goes by needles, best darned body armor you can get, darn comfy too." he slurred a bit
"Man am I glad to see something other than plate armor, that's the only thing canterlot has, and I've looked" I said utterly relieved that plate armor wouldn't be my fate today.
"Come here miss, I need to know some more about your fighting style to make Some armor that won't get ya killed" Needles said beckoning me with a finger.
"I don't want heavy or bulky, maneuverable comfortable and light are what I can fight with" I said as I looked at her sketch of my planned armor.
"Alright, hold on, ok, I am thinking, the lightweight fabric underneath with composite plates where it's needed, for maneuverability I'll add a jump rocket pack and Some tough boots, throw in fingerless gloves and that's your armor" she said almost triumphantly as she dropped her pencil, I looked it over, it looked like something a titanfall pilot would wear, minus the extra technology, then she revealed the helmet.
"Tough composite helmet with built in comms, and add a balaclava, you like what I've planned" she designed a helmet that a us soldier would wear plus ear nubs and horn protector.
"You're the expert, I don't have any complaints" I said as she grabbed a grinder and left to another room.
"It'll be done in 2 days" she said before she activated the magic grinder and went ham on something.
"Well that's needles for ya, she'll kinda just roll with sumpthin and won't stop, 'least she works fast." Duke said with a shrug, "after you've got some equipment you'll be put on duty, real simple shit, patrollin, stoppin shifty behavior, stuff like that, anyway ill get ya to the weapons stockpile so I can arm ya, sorry ya could'nt bring nothin but them pistols, brass says we need to use issued stuff,"
"Yeah, kinda sucks, but at least I still have at least something I'm used to," I pulled out my pp-2000s and showed him one,
"Pretty funky thang ain't it, what's the weird little mark scratched in the side there" Duke said as he inspected my sidearm
"My Initial, in an ancient alphabet" I answered as he looked at the little Viking rune that meant the letter 'N', I took back the pistol and put it back on its lanyard. **** 2 days later
"Try it on, let's see" Needles said admiring her work as I put it all on. "Any pinching, poking, scraping... Anything?"
"Nope, it fits good, and looks cool," I donned the helmet and activated my visor, "helmet fits good, too"
" Well I'm gonna go take a nap, if anyone needs me just holler, " Needles walked over to an old couch on the side of the room and flopped over on it.
"I guess since I have everything I guess I'll get to work then, see ya at supper," I holstered my pistols, and slung the service rifle over my shoulder, the rifle was strange, it was a weird assault rifle, wood furniture, boxy receiver, ak style mags and a weird mechanism, the bolt handle pivoted around an axle rather than sliding in a linear fasion, it was kind of like a mag fed maxim gun actually. *** 2 hours later I was patrolling the hangers on the south side of the base, I got a pretty good view of some of the aircraft ponies had, as well as other interesting tidbits. The bombers were gigantic aircraft with 8 engines, canard style wing setup, and with nose art ranging from comedic to resque, the fighters were similar, 1 rear engine, canard wings, and similar nose art, I found the relatively advanced design weird for the current tech. Pegasi were sorta like flying soldiers, they were armed with Smgs and minimal armor to reduce drag and mass. I found it all pretty interesting, until I was interrupted by an earsplitting alarm
"SCRAMBLE, SCRAMBLE, this is not a drill" I heard running and hangar doors opening, and quickly saw tons of fighters being readied for flight as well as Pegasi taking off, I checked the sky, a few bombers were approaching from the east, they were very strange looking and they were accompanied by a huge entourage of fighters.
"Oh shit" I watched as the friendly bombers spooled up and taxied away to escape a possible bombing, the fighters engaged each other and the sky filled with multicolored beams of light and tracer bullets mingling.
I took to the air because I wasn't much use on the ground, I started flying towards the lead bomber, it was a massive gray aircraft that had 4 engines, and was bristling with guns, it had a side fuselage and was puking black smoke from one of its starboard engines, I found a blind spot and flew to the plane's starboard wingtip and grabbed on for dear life as I crawled to the smoking engine.
I wedged myself between the engine housings and looked at the gaping hole in the engine housing in front of me, I didn't have explosives but I did have a gun, I put the muzzle of the rifle to the hole.
"This oughtta be fun," I said into the radio unsure whether it was on, then I pulled the trigger.
Bang bang bang bang bang bang..." the engine sputtered and finally died, I grabbed the fuel lines and cut them and used magic to light the fire, and weaken the wing, crashing this thing on the base wouldn't be a smart move. I slid off of the trailing edge of the wing as I saw more fire erupt from the wing, then I saw the other starboard engines go up in sooty orange flames, I started flying again and followed the dying bomber to make sure it crashed, I shot the wing with some magic nd watched the gas tanks finally burst in a huge fireball the wing bent and broke off and the mighty bomber started to fall, I watched some griffins jump out before it turned turtle and started to spin out of control.
I clicked the comm button and spoke
"One down, uhhhhh, 2 more to go" I said as I looked at the remaining bombers, the fighters had just shot the second one down and there were still shit tons of griffin fuckers flying around. Flew at another bomber, went under its nose and got right under the bomb bay doors, I cut a hole with magic and crawled in, I clicked the radio again,"get the fuck away from the closest bomber, it's gonna light up like a firework in a few seconds!"
"Rodger that, clearing out now, this better work rookie, or your dead meat, and I fucking mean that," I heard the radio screech back at me. I tried to use magic to arm the bomb but I couldn't seem to grab it, so I started to unscrew the detonator on the nose cap, so I could get at the explosives inside, once I'd unscrewed it I chucked it aside and started to heat the inside of the bomb, I jumped back out of the hole I cut and finished heating it up to ignition temp, 'BOOOM' I watched as the plane exploded in a huge cloud of debris and fire as all of its ordinance went up, I clicked the radio again,
"How's THAT for a fireworks show, WOOO!, Fuck Yeah!" I shouted as I watched the plane's flaming wreckage careen off into the distance. "Oh fuck, shit shit shit shit shiiiit!" I turned around in time to see the last crippled bomber drop it's payload on the west side of the base. "FUUUCK YOUUUU!!!" I yelled as I unleashed a raw magic beam on the plane, I watched as it started falling with a huge hole where the cockpit used to be, I clicked the radio again, "oh shit, I'm fuckin sorry, i... I didn't see it till. Was too late" I said hesitantly into the radio.
"Woah, don't beat yourself up about it, we got most of them, the only real damage we got was one of the runways, we still got one, heck I'd be cheerin for ya, never saw anyone detonate ordinance INSIDE the plane till now, then again, I hav'nt seen a true war either...." I shut off the radio and put myself into a descent slope and started to glide down.
I landed near the storage buildings and sat down against the wall, I just wanted to sit and think in peace for a bit. 'what the fuck is going on with my life, I get transported into a new fucking dimension, get put into a new body, walked through a mass murder crime scene, freaked out and ran into a gun range, and now I'm fighting in a war that my creation probably kickstarted, what the fuck, universe.' I thought as I stared off into the distance.
"Hello general, what can I do for you today," a slightly happy Chrysalis said, she was hopped up on anger towards equestria, and she was loving every minute.
"Report on the changeling spies, and an approximate date I can field the changeling army," the general stated simply
"The spies are on the trail, I feel they are close to discovering its nature and location, and my little army should start becoming fieldable wiithin, ohhh I don't know, about a month if I accelerate their growth, he he heh I'll finally have my vengance on Twilight's little group, just perfect." Chrysalis hissed in delight at the thought of killing Twilight and now with herself alllied with the griffins, it would be easier than ever.
"Good, I expect regular updates from now on, good day," the general was pleased to see that the changeling queen was finally cooperating more readily, he started leaving the lair to return to his paperwork.
In his office he saw a large red folder sitting imposingly on his desk, "Oh great, they fucked up, whaaat is it this time" he groaned, he sat and flipped open the folder and started to read the overview.
Canterlot air base bombing failure report
BOMBERS LOST: 4 of 4 deployed FIGHTERS LOST: 17 of 24 deployed %PAYLOAD LOST: 75% destroyed, 25% confirmed hit SOLDIERS LOST: 37 of 50 deployed. Damage to target: severe runway damage WARNINGS: Unknown heavy magical weaponry used; Proceed with caution
The general picked up the phone and input the code to transmit to the whole base.
"This is the general, I am disappointed at your performance during the canterlot bombing run, next we shall try Cloudsdale DO NOT disappoint me, I want cloudsdale's air force crippled, we cannot afford another loss, that is all" he barked into the phone. **** Changeling lair Crysalis Pov
"I am finally, Finally, going to kill Twilight, it shall be a day to remember." I walked to the massive egg sac in the middle of the room and inspected the eggs within, they were developing well, I started to wonder what I should wear on the day of Twilight's execution, as I rarely if ever wear anything, eh a thought for later.
I examined myself, a new batch of eggs was growing within me, it meant I couldn't be disguised convincingly until I moved them to the sec, no matter, I'm safe enough down here for now. I paced to one of the cucoons on the wall, it had a pony spy in it, and in the next; a griffin traitor, there were more cocoons ready to be used, the anger, sadness, and fear they produced were not as nutritious as love, and what love they had was too little to feed a brood of changelings, but the other stronger emotions would have to do. Since I was focusing the emotions to the brood I may have to step so low as to eating physical food to sustain myself. I continued to pace until I was abruptly interrupted by muffled yelling and then a splash, I looked to see a pony bound up on the floor, another POW to imprison and feed on, the soldier who dumped the mare here had left, so I got to work.
I had been summoned to the canterlot training grounds by Celestia and Luna for some kind of "test" I had no idea what it was but apparently Luna was to be the one administering it, nothing else was said in the letter other than a note to be prepared for anything. Walking into the center of the grounds I saw Luna standing there, wearing only a tank top and shorts, I walked to her and greeted her.
"Umm...Hello Luna, you summoned me here for a test of some kind?" I asked worried as to what it could be
"I shall not tell, but we shall start thine test momentarily, but first, remove thine armor and thy weapons," she spoke with a tone that said something along the lines of confidence and commanding.
"Uhh, ok I guess," I stripped down to my normal clothes and set them near the wall,"what do I need to do exactly?"
"Defend thyself!" she tossed me a huge ass greatsword and drew her own and started to charge me, I jumped out of the way while I got my bearings, I'd taken jiujitsu in high school, and learned how to fight with a sword, but something this big was out of my knowledge, I held it low and tried to strike as Luna whipped around, she parried and I hopped back as she thrust at me, " other....'TING' .... Than.... 'tschk' .... Defahhhnding .... Myiiiieself.....what......'skkshhhk'....... Do I.....'TINGNNSHHK'.....Do? I asked between strikes.
" Try.....'WHOOFHS' ..... To ...... 'PIIING' ...... 'Defeat'...... 'WHAPP' ....Me." she said with a look of massive enjoyment on her face.
I started dodging away and noticed that these swords were sharp, Luna swung at me as I dodged and her blade caught my shirt and sliced through it like a hot knife through butter, if I'd been any closer I'd have organs spilling out, "OH FUCK!" I ducked and rolled out of the path of another strike," Are you ahahhh, TRYING to kiiiill meeEEee," I said as I tried desperately not to get disemboweled.
" Would thy regeneration not fix thine body?" she asked as she swung at me some more while I tried to keep my distance
"That doesn't mean iiIIIiit doesn't hurt!" I doged again and blocked another strike and was almost knocked over. She didn't answer, I blocked again and tried to get my blade moving faster. I noticed very quickly that although I could be more maneuverable I was outclassed immensely by luna's strength and skill with this kind of weapon, I was so fucking fucked.
"Fuck fuck Fuck fuck Fuck Fuck!" I yelled as I started to at least try using martial arts with this sword, I tried distraction by feinting left and flicking my hand at her head, then bringing the blade up and sttiming right, blocked. " How the FUCK!" I jumped back and brought up the sword again.
"We have over a millennia of experience, thou shall not defeat me so easil'TING' thou art clever." I ran back and narrowly missed being bisected....Again, I swung low and dodged her attack, which would have sliced my arm off, and hit her in the hoof, the blade impacted with a 'thwhack' and left a small mark in the surface. "We are impressed, nopony hath been able to strike us in millenia," She swung the sword again and I blocked in kind.
We fought for several minutes until I was feeling like I would explode, I dodged and parried for the umpteenth time and then my wings sprung open as if on reflex and started to heat up and glow a deep cherry red, one could see the heat coming off, I was feeling cooler already, I jumped away again and realised that neither of us seemed really if at all fatigued, it was very odd. Luna was getting a bit more aggressive, and I was becoming more and more worried at what would happen to me. Luna thrust her sword at me and I tried to push it away but she brute forced it at me and then I felt pure, unrelenting pain as it penetrated just under my chest. "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHGGHHH, AHHHH, FFFFFUUUUUCK, AHHHH, WHHHHAT THHE FFFUUUUCK" I screamed in agony as I fell to my knees, with the sword still stabbed into me "WHy DiD yOu dO thAt" I said breathless, Luna ripped the sword out and I felt as if I'd been stabbed by ten million needles, "AHHHGGGHHH" I saw a small jet of plasma and something that looked like Co2 shoot out for a couple seconds before they petered out as my body slowly started repairing itself.
"Oh, We are sorry, we... We did not mean to do that, we were carried away, sorry," Luna cowered a bit as she dropped her sword and looked at the hole it left, I heard Celestia say something from her balcony.
"10 minutes 28 seconds," then I heard a teleport and she was next to me, "How do you feel?" she asked in an all too serious tone
"Like I just got fucking stabbed, what'd ya think, that I'd be fine and fucking dandy!" I yelled
"We... Didn't know....we thought you couldn't feel pain, the arrows and bullets, how did you ignore that? She said sheepishly
"I was in a blind rage, I could barely tell which way was up, rrrrrhggghhhh, that hurts like a bitch, fffuuuuuckh," I rose, and started to walk away, when I reached my gear I sat down on my bag and sighed in relief as the pressure was removed from the still regenerating wound. *** Celestia Pov
"Did you have to use your enchanted sword?" I asked
"We thought it would be no difference, and we prefer it to the other swords in the armory.....We Hath Said Sorry!" Luna said with a bit of hesitation.
"Luna, it isn't about preference, it was supposed to be a fair test of her swordsmareship not whether she could beat you or not, if you wanted to use your preferred weapon, you should have at least given her a weapon she is confident with, and before you say it, if you wanted to know her preferred meelee weapon, you should have asked.
"We understand sister, we shall make the next fight fair, but do not expect us to as thou would say 'go easy' on her." Luna got up and started walking to Nova who was currently from what I could tell, assessing the damage. *** Nova Pov
The hole had almost knitted itself back together, when I saw Luna walking towards me...
"I must ask thee a question, what is your preferred close range weapon?" she asked with some strange urgency in her tone
"Uhhh, why do you want to know, and why now of all times?"
"We are sorry for the pain we have caused, but we must know so we can duel on an even field"
"I can fight with shorter swords, knives, axes, and basically anything I can inflict blunt trauma with, if ya really wanna know so bad" I replied with some soreness
"Why did thou fail with the greatsword?" she asked another question.
"Big, heavy, slow, I'm not as strong as you, and I've never used one extensively," I replied, then I pulled out my knife from my bag and started to fiddle with it.
"Hath we caused permanent harm to thee, and doth thou wish a rematch sometime?" she asked a more normal question this time.
"Well I'll give it to ya for giving me a scar, that's an achievement, and I'll rematch you in a week," I answered with a bit of a grin
"Why aren't thou angry with us?" she asked with a very concerned tone.
"Eh, I can't really die, and I know you got a little overzealous, not a big issue, physical harm means very little to me now, pain is just a side effect," I got up and started to re-arm myself as Luna walked off then I heard Celestia giggling behind my back.
"What is it now..." I asked without turning around
"You got a wing boner" she giggled more
"What now?" I knew what it was but I had plenty of reason to keep it from them.
"When Pegasi, or alicorn get 'turned on' their wings unfold reflexively" she explained in an overly complicated way.
"I was venting heat, here the feathers are still really hot, touch one" I said looking at her like she was an idiot
"Oh trying to hide it are we, here I'll touch one, just to prove my OW!, oww, okay then, I still think my sister turned you on," She was obviously trying to get a reaction.
"Think what you will, Luna is hot, I'll admit, but I've been learning the art of not giving a shit about other people's opinions, so I really don't care what you think,"
"Aww I was hoping you'd get all flustered,then I'd take an embarrassing photo, you're no fun" she almost pouted, I turned to her and looked her in the eye.
"I've had 2 younger siblings, weird friends, and annoying co-workers, it'll take a lot more than accusing me of being turned on to get a reaction" I said with a tone that screamed 'try me bitch' and slung my bag over my shoulder and started leaving.
"Wait, I have a new assignment for you, the airfield guard was not an effective move," she handed me a briefcase and turned on a hoof and walked off. *** I reached my room and tossed the case on the bed and chucked all of my weapons and armor in the trunk, undecided to look at myself in the mirror in the bathroom. I removed my shirt, I'd need to fix it, and looked at the pinkish line running diagonally from the bottom of my ribcage it was about 3 inches long and there was a similar scar on my back just left of my spine, all of the other injuries I'd received from luna's sword had healed up just fine, Eh, I'll blame magic. I put my shirt back on and opened the case on my bed. On top there was a to-do list of what I needed to learn before embarking on the mission/assignment, I read it over, I needed to know how to drive a car and pilot a plane, I could do that easily, I was working on my pilot's licence back on earth and driving is second nature, I looked at the rest of the requirements, mostly magic skill requirements, magic is cool but using it is like trying to, as a very displeased Scottie once said, trying to hit a bullet, with a smaller bullet, blindfolded, while riding a horse.
I put away the case and decided to get some rest but equestria didn't seem to like that idea and I heard a knock at the door.
"Come in, but make it quick" I sat up and looked to a mare standing in front of me, she wore expensive clothing and jewelry and was holding a package in her arms.
"The princess told me to bring the clothes I tailored to you, she also said not to get on your bad side, I hope I'm not interrupting anything?" she seemed very nervous
"Nah, just my mindless fidgeting," I said as I grabbed a weird little knick knack from Celestia, my shit from the lab was brought here after the investigation and I got my books and random shit back.
"Good, well here is your clothes, and if I may, this was a pleasantly simple on for once," she said as she seet down the cardboard box and started to leave, "ta ta now" she left the room and shut the door. I put the box in the closet and flopped on the bed to take a fucking nap.
I had been staring at the ceiling for over an hour, it was a pretty nice ceiling to be fair, but it was very uninteresting after the first 30 minutes. I got up and grabbed a little box from the shelf, inside was equestria's equivalent of a rubiks cube, it was made of steel and had sides inlayed with different metals for the different colors, copper, brass, silver,blackened wrought iron, suprisingly some gold, and bare steel, I scrambled it and began to solve it.
About 2 hours later I had scrabled and solved it 3 times and just as I finished solving it a 4th time I heard a knock at the door, not a loud knock by any standards but enough to hear. I put aside the puzzle cube and opened the door, I saw a unicorn maid standing at my door with a piece of paper in her hand and a duster in the other.
"What is it" I said in a slightly bored voice.
"I was assigned to dust this room, the princess also told me to bring you this," she was about average height and had a teal coat, orange eyes, and a blue and pink mane,
"Whatever, just don't break anything," I took the sheet of paper as she walked in. I opened it and read the message sloppily scrawled accross it, it had only 5 words, they were 'ENJOY YOUR LAST 10 SECONDS', I turned around and saw the maid looking at me with a smug grin, she gripped the duster jumped at me, she pulled the duster's fluffy end off revealing a long green crystal blade. I tried to dodge but the doorway blocked me and I felt the blade swipe across my chest.
" shhhiiitt, YOU SHITSUCKING ASS WAD, YOU ARE DEAD!" I yelled and swiped her legs, she fell and I punted her across the floor, her knife going rolling away, I pulled my knife and put it against her throat, "WHY DID YOU DO IT" I said in a seething mad voice
"What" she squeaked
"Why did you, try to KILL ME!" I said whilst pushing the knife harder against her neck.
"What" she said again
"Say WHAT one more time and I'll remove your HEAD!" I yelled, she remained quiet and then spat in my face, I held her limbs with magic and wiped off the... Not spit, I pulled away my hand and saw green. I immediately slit the obviously not a maid's throat and watched as green blood spurred out and it transformed back into a changeling, it's black chitinous body going limp. *** Celestia Pov
'WHUMP' I looked up from my paperwork and saw Nova standing at the foot of the throne, there was a dead changeling on the floor in front of her. "Nova, why is there a dead changeling there?" I asked, I kept a straight face while mentally worried about why it was here.
"Little fucker tried to kill me, I killed it first" she answered in a tone that made my skin crawl.
" Are there any more?" I asked hoping Nova wouldn't do something stupid.
"I dont know, but if they show their ugly little faces, I'll turn em into a green smear on the floor," she said again in that disturbing voice, I looked her over, her shirt was shredded and I could clearly see the scar Luna gave her, as well as a new one running from her right breast to under her left, the blue shirt she wore framing it for all to see, I looked to my guards, they had wisely stepped back, I looked at her she looked back, I saw her expression noticably calm down, and she turned and walked off.
I looked at the body,
"Guards, please remove the body, and conduct a standard changeling test on all castle staff, if they look like they came from Chrysalis bring them to me for interrogation," I spoke and the guards immediately sprung to action, they dragged off the body, and hustled about in every direction before they were gone and a new set or guards was protecting me. *** Nova Pov
I'd calmed a bit, I looked at the knife in my hand, it was the weapon the changeling carried, it glowed a soft green, I could feel magic in it, I looked at the wound, it was now a long scar, my shirt was shredded and stained with brownish dried blood, whelp there goes this shirt, I thought as I walked, I wasn't looking where I was going and ran into something, I turned my head and saw Luna staring back at me.
"Uhh, hi Luna...." I said hesitantly
" Greetings, Nova, we were looking for thee," I stepped back and she looked at me, "What hath happened?, thou look terrible,"
"Unfriendly company, if you want to know more ask your sister" I said to her as I fiddled with the knife.
"How unfortunate. Although we hope to cheer thee up, we hath purchased thee a self propelled vehicle," she said putting on a smile
"Well at least theres some good news, thanks Luna,"
"Our sister hath told us to teach you to operate one, and to find one that thou would liketh, follow us to it,"
"Ok, lead the way," I said as she walked down the hall and I followed. We walked for about 2 minutes and we finally came to a large door,
"This is the royal garage, most of the vehicles are owned by our sister, we shall show you thine's vehicle.
"Cool," I said simply as I looked at all the various wheeled vehicles, everything from a palanquin to the more modern self propelled transport.
"We hath arrived, looketh upon it, doth thou like it?" she asked while standing next to my new set of wheels.
"Now that's cool," I said as I looked it over, since equestria's cars looked a bit dieselpunk- ish this was no different, it looked like a 39 plymouth pickup, without the fender mounted headlghts, smooth hubcaps and odd tires, a shorter roof, lower stance and a large engine with side exahaust pipes, it was primarily plain steel, but the front was painted with flames, I was still confused by equestrian tech, considering they still occasionally used steam cars and carridges, but had things like computers and advanced electronics.
"We found a stallion who wished to sell it, we thought thou would liketh it" Luna said as I looked at it, it was very cool, obviously had some time put into it and it looked like it would be loud and fast, it had a flat bed cover and the brand name was Pheonix.
"I can't wait to take this thing for a ride, where are the keys?" I asked, Luna looked at me like I was crazy.
"With thou know how to operate it?" she asked with a confused look on her face.
"Heh, yep, and I forsee a shit ton of fun coming from this thing.
"These are thine keys, proveth your skill to us," she handed me the keys and I got in, the drivers side was on the left as usual, I sat down in the somewhat used but comfortable chair and ratcheted it down so I could sit normally, I was glad that I'd gotten a well used truck, it had character, and everything was already broken in. I put the key in the ignition, which was in the dash, and turned it, the truck did nothing, I looked at the switchplate in the dash in front of the shifter, the switches were labeled, there was also a little number next to each, I went in order, power, fuel, ignition, start button, the truck whined and sputtered, then roared to life, I put it in first and gave it some gas, it moved to forward and I turned it toward the exit.
"We are impressed, please continue, we wish to observe your performance." she said as she reclined in her chair, I was glad that this thing had reclining chairs, otherwise my horns wouldn't fit, I drove it out into the streets and revved it, it rumbled fiercely, I drove it out to the main road and cruised it along, it handled well and was perky as fuck, I could tap the gas and it would jerk forward hard, when I got to a stop sign I giggled a bit in glee as I saw a noble in their fancy car pull up next to me. I had the window down and he had the top down on his and he turned to me and spoke.
"Do you wish to race?" he almost sneered
"Your on, what stakes?" I said back to him as I found some thick canvas seatbelts and strapped them on, it looked like an old aircraft harness.
" If I win, I should like to see you in the nude" he said, obviously very confident in himself.
" Alrighty then, if I whup your ass I get fifty bits, deal? I spat back at him.
"Deal, first to the end of the promenade is the Victor, butler, would you count us down please?" he said in his annoying snobby voice
"Very good sir," I heard the butler say as he stepped out and whipped out a cloth to start us off. "Three, two, one, start," thee butler said very simply as he flicked the cloth down.
I dropped the clutch, and felt the tires skid and then finally grip, the truck screamed at wide open as it took off, I shifted up and looked at the snob, he was right next to me sticking out his tounge like a little kid. I shifted again, the truck continued to plow along, I also noticed that it had 4 wheel drive, because I found the switch to engage it, I flipped it, I heard a metallic clunk, and the truck jerked a bit, I looked to Luna, she was holding on for dear life, and I had the biggest fucking grin on my face, I shifted to 7th (dang it has a ton of gears) and continued to floor it, I looked ahead and saw the end nearing swiftly, I had no idea if I was winning but I was the happiest living thing on the planet right now," WOOOOOOOOO, YYYEEEAAAAHHHHH, HAHAHAHAHAAAA!" I yelled in glee as I stomped the brakes at the end of the promenade, the truck turned sideways a bit then stopped. "That was the most fun I've had in a long time, thanks Luna, this is awesome" I put the truck in neutral, engaged the parking brake, and got out. " who won,?" I asked the snob who stopped nearby.
"I believe it was too close to call," he turned to a nearby fellow snob, and asked him, "Did you see who got to the end of the shops first?" he asked, the other snob then turned and said,
"I believe you lost, by a hair sir, twas a fine race" he said before returning to whatever he was doing. Mr. Snob turned to me and opened his coin bag and handed me 5 ten bit coins.
" I do believe you have won, I may be unhappy that I have lost, but I will pay my due, however I do wish to race you again someday" he said in a disappointed tone, I pocketed the coins
" I'll see ya later, good race, even if I'd lost, I still had a ton of fun, if I ever see ya again I'll race ya again." I returned to the truck and saw Luna doing breathing exercises in the passenger seat, "little to fast for ya" I said with a smirk, as I started the truck again.
"We hath not experienced such swiftness in millenia," she said after she calmed down a bit,"We command thee as your princess, to not drive like that in our presence"
"Fine, I'll drive slow for now, but I'm not making any promises." I said as I drove back to the castle, "what's this do," I looked at a switch that had a cloud printed on it.
"That function hath been made in many pegasus vehicles, it allows thou to fly the vehicle and moveth upon the clouds, the pegasi hath designed it, we do not endorse its use in our presence," at the end of her explanation it sounded like she was pleading me not to push it.
" good to know," I pulled into the garage and stopped, it sputtered and the engine was silent, I turned everything off and disembarked.
I was chilling out in my room when I heard something outside it sounded like an old air raid siren, I looked out the window and saw a giant gold bubble going up around the city, the alarm continued wailing as I saw the reason, there were griffin bombers, loads of them, circling canterlot. My phone buzzed, I looked at the little round screen and saw a message.
Come to the throne room I need your assistance it was from Celestia, I grabbed my pistols and ran to the throne room, for the simple fact that it was probably serious because of the air raid going on outside, I reached the throne room and saw Celestia, she looked strained, and her horn was glowing very brightly, it almost hurt to look at it.
"What's going on!?" I said realizing I had my visor on, it was displaying a warning over celestia's horn telling me to stay clear.
" I need you to power this spell while luna gives orders to the guard, and I calm the public, come here and I'll hand the spell off to you." she said in a very urgent voice.
"But I'm shit at magic." I said as I approached her.
"Just put as much power into it as you can, the spell doesn't need you to do anything but provide power"
"Alright, I guess," I lit my horn and I felt for, lack of a better term, a huge weight being applied to my horn, I pumped magic in saw through one of the windows that the shield changed color to match my magic. I saw Celestia leave and I just stood there outputting tons of magic into the shield I was handed. I saw my horns start to heat up, they were glowing red in less than a minute and it was getting uncomfortable, my visor was flashing red that I was overheating, my wings popped open and the temperature started to fall off a bit.
I heard a voice in my head say something amongst the din, it said two words, "startup complete", I felt power flood into my horn and body, I saw arking electricity all over me, the shield outside brightened a bit. I felt something come to the forefront of my mind, Heat sink was the word, my horn was engulfed in plasma and glowing bright yellow, I felt something appear on my head, it seemed to take away the exess heat, once it started its work my magic flowed more freely. My vision started to go pink and everything was blurry. *** Celestia Pov,
I'd finished explaining to the public what was going on And then I saw the shield brighten, I scanned it, the power input was ridiculous, it was nearing levels similar to those that Luna would put out. I walked in to the throne room, and saw something that was mildly frigtening, Nova was dumping magic into the shield, her horn was glowing red and she had some kind of strange device on her head, her wings were extended and glowing with heat as well, lightning was shooting all around her, and her eyes were also engulfed with magic.
The sensor spells around the castle let me know that the bombers had given up, I kept looking at Nova, her current state reminded me of when Twilight took her entrance exam, except probably even less safe to stand near.
"You can stop....The bombers gave up... Uhhh Hello?" I tried to speak to her, she probably dodnt hear me so I shouted using the royal Canterlot Voice "STOP!" the result was immediate, Nova's magic cut off and the device dissapeared, she collapsed to her side and I saw her wings yet out a cloud of something, I walked to her slowly, the residual magic signature gave me a headache, I wondered 'how does she even use this magic', I stood over her and she rolled onto her back.
"What the fuck just happened?" she asked in a breathless voice, I didn't know what happened besides the magic dump so I just winged it.
"You might have just unlocked your full magical potential," I said hoping I was right
"My body feels like a pincushion" she said in the same breathless voice, "Did I do it right?"
"You did, you also scared the guards half to death" I noticed that the guards in the room had backed off, and one of them was standing in a yellow puddle.
"Heh....heh.....heehhh, cool," she started to stand up, once she was on her hooves again, she stumbled off to the door like she was drunk, it gave me a little chuckle, I also realised that I still owed her some alcohol. *** Nova Pov
My head, and well, everything else felt prickly and sore, I could barely walk, and my eyes had decided to go nuts, one minute I saw a normal hallway, the next I saw nothing but black and white outlines, fucking magic, fucking up my head. I managed to stumble into my room and collapse at least half on the bed, I fell asleep within seconds.
Some unknown amount of time later I heard a soft knock at my head? I woke up to see Celestia knocking on my head.
"Whhhrrrbhhh, what....time?" talking coherently was hard at the moment.
"You've been asleep since 4:00 yesterday, it's noon now, sooo about 21 hours, give or take", she said in a whisper
"Uhkay, hold on sec" I stumbled to my feet and sat back on the bed, "Uhhhghhh, my head..... D'you have some painkillers, my head feels like I got hit with a truck" I said, finally able to make coherent sentences. I saw in by bleary vision that she teleported me something, a pill, and a cup of what I hoped was coffee, I grabbed the pill and swallowed it with the aid of the coffee."thanks"
'click' "that's gonna go in a scrapbook" I heard her say.
"Whaaa?" I slurred
"Your expression was Priceless," she giggled as she watched the camera print the photo,"Oh My Gosh, this is great" she started laughing at the picture, I just sat there, hungover as fuck, watching her break down laughing.
"Quiet...." I whispered, she calmed down a bit and held the photo to my face, I looked at it, my eyes finally cooperated and I saw my face with an expression of 'aw yes' my eyes were squinted and looking up, my mouth was barely opened, my ears were flopped over, and I was clutching the coffee cup like it was treasure, giving me a pretty funny face that made me look like i was in pure bliss, I was too wasted and tired to really do much more than smile. I finished the coffee and started to attempt movement. *** Later after I'd figured out how to walk again, started to try and get to the dining room, keyword being tried. I had realised very quickly that being drained of magic also means that my whole being cannot function coherently enough to do anything for a prolonged amount of time, case and point, failing to successfully walk on tile, I found myself flopped over backwards on the tiles for the 16th time and had just opted to sit here until my brain and legs were on the same page, I decided to also figure out other methods of locomotion requiring minimal brain effort, I decided to try dragging myself along with my slightly more functional arms, I rolled over, stuck out my arms and pulled, I moved, so repeating it was only logical. 20 minutes later I finally reached the door to the dining hall where I would hope Celestia was so I could at least not miss breakfast, I pulled myself through onto some carpet and actually managed to stand up, I stumbled awkwardly to the table and flopped into the chair.
"Uhh Nova, why are you covered in dust?, I thought you were magically drained, not drunk?" celestia said to me as my brain tried to calculate how to pick up a coffee cup.
"What's the difference, and floors are too slippery, can't walk slipp floor when hanhovblr" my brain totally gave up on speech in favor of coffee.
"Magic drain should cause migranes and tiredness, not....whatever your doing now..., Here lemme send Twilight a message. Celestia said as she pulled out a gold brick
"Nopurpml bitpsh no purple noplurpl no....." Speaking was near impossible right now, I finally took a sip of coffee, and then just chugged it, the heat was nothing, but my aim was and I ended up getting it all over my face and still destroyed t shirt. I then flopped over again and fell asleep dispute the caffeine, fuck magic, being hungover sucks. *** Celestia Pov
I sent my message just in time to see Nova chug a cup of coffee, and then promptly flop over completely asleep, I had no idea why she was acting extremely hungover, magic deprivation is just a nuicance.... or at least it should be, But the wayward alicorn at the table was in fact hungover and exausted enough to have incomprehensible speech and impaired movement, I hope twilight has some insight.
I had finally come out of the hungoverness, I also made a mental note to NEVER EVER DO THAT AGAIN.
In my room i had time to think: I thought of the war going on, Celestia told me after I peeled my face from the table that the war went into full swing last night, and that thousands of troops were deployed only a few hours ago. I also thought of what I should do with my life, I wondered where I would go, I had no intention of staying here, I hated it, the rules were very strict, and I wasn't allowed to leave unless I was asked to, and there was very little to do, on top of that I was basically Equestria's nuclear arsenal, I would end up sitting for years until I was needed. I wanted to leave, I wanted to live my life on my own terms, fuck Celestia and her little war, fuck the griffins and changelings, I'm in charge of my own fucking life, I'm not someones trump card! I tossed my few possessions into the trunk and grabbed a chair to knock out the guards. I tried the door, locked, so I kicked it, 'Whack' the door didn't budge, 'whack' I heard wood start to buckle, 'Whack,' the door broke off its hinges and fell outwards. I grabbed the chair and whacked the first guard upside the head with it, he flopped back, I saw his friend pull out a radio.
"WE NEED BACKUP, WEAPON IS ATTEMPTING ESCAPE, I REPEAT WE NEED,'WHAM'" I hit him too, I flung the chair aside and sprinted down the hall, holding the trunk in my magic. I heard running, behind me, many hooves running,
"shit shit shit shit shit" I cursed under my breath, they had prepared for this, I needed to get to the garage, if I got there I could get away. I heard the perusing menagerie of hooves getting louder, and I started to hear it coming from more directions, I picked up the pace, I tried to put as much distance between me and them, I heard more still, how many of these fuckers are there?
*** Celestia Pov
I was holding day court, for once the nobles were cooperating, I was surprised that they hadn't broken out in a fit of yelling, then I heard the guard's comunication gems say something.
"....Backup....We need....'CRASH'" I only got bits of it, but the guards immediately closed in around me with their weapons out.
"Guards, what is happening?" I asked the wad of guards currently blocking me in.
"Weapon, escaped, we are protecting you of she comes here," I heard one of them say, weapon?....oh ponyfeathers, Nova was having another breakdown.
"I want every guard on the premises ready and waiting, don't let her leave the castle," I ordered my living wall, I heard one in the corner bark orders and return to his position at my side. *** Nova Pov
"Fuck fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck fuuuuuuck" I said under my breath as I sprinted past the throne room, I saw guards at the entrance to the palace as well, one of them started yelling as soon as he saw me.
"STOP, YOU ARE UNDER ARREST!" I ignored him and continued to run. I felt like a bank robber as I bolted through the halls. I jumped down a flight of stairs and ran to where I thought the royal garage may be, then I heard yelling overhead, it sounded like a VERY pissed Celestia,
"ATTENTION ALL CASTLE STAFF, NOVA HAS ESCAPED, IF YOU SEE HER, NOTIFY ME IMMEDIATELY, DO NOT LET HER ESCAPE!" I still ran, as soon as i got to the garage I jumped in through the door and slammed it, I heat welded the lock shut and quietly moved away from the door. I walked to my truck, it was just as I left it, I put my trunk in the bed and closed the bed cover over it.
I heard yelling from the door I entered,
"We know you're in there, come out with your hands up!" the voice commanded, I got in the truck and started it, it rumbled to life once more. I shot the door outside with magic, it blasted apart and I floored it, the truck roared and took off towards the hole.
Outside I saw guards gathering,
"Oh FUUUUUUUUUCK" I drove through the line of them, they got tossed aside easily. I shifted up and drove, I headed toward the city's edge, overhead I saw Pegasi with spotlights, beaming right down on me. "Fuuuuhhhkkkk" I groaned as I continued my mad dash, out of the city. I saw the large fence nearing ahead, I smacked the pegasus mode and heard the truck groan, the wheels folded open and under, and the steering wheel unlocked, I could move it out and in now. I pulled back on the wheel as hard as I could and the now flying truck veered up, I kicked it over the fence and throttled up using a sliding lever next to the shifter, the truck jolted forward, I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a fucking swarm of guard behind me, their vehicles also taking off to continue the pursuit, and the Pegasi just continued to shine their lights on me. I looked out at the sky ahead of me, it was clear and sunny, I started to look around for some place to hide. *** Rainbow Dash Pov
I was rudely interrupted from my extremely important nap by my phone, I pulled it from my pocket and looked at it. Little miss egghead had sent me a message, it had gone to all of our friends too.
'Everypony, come to the castle immediately, I have to show you something urgent.' I begrudgingly flopped off of my cloud, and lazily flapped my way to Twilight's place, "uhg this better be good," I grumbled to myself as I landed at the front door and loudly knocked, "Twilight, you woke me up this better be good or I'll...'Click....creeaaaakk," The door opened, I saw spike poke his head around.
"Twi's in the map table room, so's everyone else," he grumbled a bit about sleep afterward and walked off. I found my way to the room with the map table thingy and flopped my butt into my throne.
"Rainbow Dash! You're late, we've been waiting here for ten whole minutes!" she gave me her customary angry glare.
"Just get started already, you woke me from my extremely important nap, so this better be good!" I grumbled as I slouched further into the chair.
" I know it's an inconvenient time to call everyone here, but we have a major issue, Nova has ran away." Twi sat there to let it sink in, then AJ piped up.
"Whah Would she up an' run off lahk that, Ah thought she was gettin used ta 'questria?" Aj looked disappointed.
"That's the problem, not even Princess Celestia knows, although the map seems to want us somewhere, it might know where she's going," Twilight gestured to the map, all 6 of our cutie marks were circling around something in the badlands.
"Uh, Twi, it's pointing to the middle of nowhere, how does that have anything at all to do with your creation jailbreaking?" I sat up and looked at the map, it still had the same place marked.
"We can't be sure, it may be what we're looking for, or it could be Zebras having relationship issues, the point I'm trying to explain is that we need to go and look," Twi put on a confused face as she stared at the map intently.
"Umm, I could send some birds to go look....oh, Umm that is, if it's okay with you...." Fluttershy almost whispered her idea.
"That's a start, but we need other options," Twi continued her staring contest with the map, as Fluttershy cowered behind her hair.
"What if I throw a PARTYYY!, I haven't met a single pony who could possibly turn down a party!" Pinkie suddenly blurted.
"How are you going to find her, it isn't like she'll just know you invited her, or even want to come," I said to the crazy party mare.
"I'll use my pinkie sense to find her! Gottagobye!" Pinkie jumped up and was literally gone in a puff of smoke.
"Uhhhhhhhhhhh, I'm just gonna ignore that," everyone just nodded at my comment as awkward silence ensued. *** Nova Pov,
The fuzz had finally broken off the chase, I looked at the landscape far below, there was the usual trees and grass, far ahead on the horizon there was a long grayish band, I had no idea what It was but I'd find out as soon as I got there, I looked at the dash clock, I'd been running for 3 hours, I looked back ahead and continued to drive, or as it was, fly the truck. Then I heard a 'Pop'
"Hiya!" I heard a voice next to me and I jumped,
"What the fuck! How...." I started as the pink mare stuck her hand in my mouth,"frrrrhhh?"
"Why'd ya run off silly! I thought you liked Celestia?"she removed her hand and looked at me expectantly.
"I don't, I'm leaving, anything else is my own damn buisiness" I adjusted course slightly, putting myself due south.
"Aww come on, tell auntie Pinkie, pwetty pwease?" she pouted in my face and I shoved her away.
"You're not my aunt, nor am I telling you jack diddly shit, so get outta my truck before I make you" I seethed in Pinkie's general direction.
"Well technically I am because Twilight created you, so she is your mother, and she considers me family, so I AM your auntie Pinkie, that means I can be the...."
"Do you ever fucking shut up!, I don't fucking care what you think, just leave me ALONE!" I shouted in her face causing her to stop for at least a tenth of a second.
" Hey don't yell at your Auntie Pinkie" she said with mock disappointment.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH, get out get out GET OUUUUT, you ignorant pink asshole!" I reached over and rolled down the window. I strapped in and went into an aileron roll, the truck shuddered in protest and I saw Pinkie flopping around loose in the cabin, she finally flew out the open window, I couldn't hear anything from her but the screeching wind, any speech was too garbled to hear. I rolled up the window once more and returned to my original task of flying towards the gray band on the horizon.
I was still wondering how Pinkie even got in the truck in the first place even an hour later, I also made a mental note to stay away from her at all costs, I looked at the dash, it had a few metal toggle switches I hadn't used before, at least they were labeled, whomever had built this thing knew what they were doing, the 4 swithches were labeled in order from left to right, Boost, airbrakes, gun, and parachute, none were really useful at the moment, but it was good to know.
I was nearing the, from what I could tell, gray desert, the change of scenery was abrupt, I looked down, what I saw was confusing, the land had a very clear dividing line, on the equestrian side, grass and trees, on the other, gray dirt, obviously not natural. I continued until I saw a clearing, it was only a few hundred feet from the border, good for looking at the unnatural phenomenon along it. I throttled back and came in for a landing, I swapped to ground mode again and heard the crunching of dirt under the tires. I felt satisfied beyond belief that I'd crossed the border, or at least what I hoped was the border between nations. *** Twilight Pov
I was continuing to think of ways to find and return Nova to Celestia, nothing seemed practical at the moment, I was about to give up and just go look when I heard an abrupt 'Pop' and accompanying noise maker sounds.
"Whaaat is it Pinkie?" I asked the pink party pony standing behind me.
"I found your daughter! And a pony who can turn down a party." her emotions did an almost complete 180 as she finished the sentence.
"Wait, Daughter?, I've never had foals, you must be mistaken," I was utterly confused at Pinkie's logic.
"You made Nova Didn't 'cha? That makes you her mother!, it does, right!?" she asked in an enthusiastic but puzzled voice.
"Uhh, by your logic yes, but more importantly, what did you find?"
"She was flying her truck away from canterlot, but she was all angry and grumpy, I tried to get her to talk but she just got grumpier, then she got Suuuuper grumpy and did a barrel roll, then I fell out of the truck, and now i'm here!" I heard pinkie bounce to her seat and do something similar to sitting down.
"Anything else you would care to report?" I asked Pinkie with a crown
"Hmmmm, oh, she was headed due south, aaaaaaand, I gave her an invitation if she changes her mind...."while Pinkie continued to ramble on, I looked to Fluttershy.
"Fluttershy, I'm going to need you to find Nova, by my predictions you should be ideal to talk to her," Fluttershy looked at me with a look of fear, as per usual,"You have had the least contact, and you're approachable enough, sooo, could you please find her? I really, really don't want to be in more trouble from this..." I said with the biggest most pleading grin I could manage.
"Ohh, um, okay.....if you really want me to," Fluttershy managed to squeak out before falling silent once more.
"Great!, you might want to get packing, once you've called her down we'll come in and bring her back to Celestia, and everything will be good again, yay us, another happy ending" I sincerely hoped my thrown together plan would work.
The Badlands, a vast desert-like expanse to the south of equestria, I'd only just barely learned that I was here, an old roadmap in the glove box had a thin sliver of this place labeled at the very bottom, nothing but a small indication that I was in this barren expanse of a place, the weather was gray, as in litterally gray, barely any sun, empty vastness all around, a perfect place to hide.
I rumaged around in the junk left in the truck from its previous owner, a half empty pack of cigarettes, registration info, dirty leather work gloves, old maps, none of which were very new or at all useful, a crappy dead flashlight, some replacement fuses, and a set of cracked aviator style shades. I looked in the bed of the truck as well, I only found a tire iron, a small toolkit, a emergency kit of dubious vintage, and a half used roll of duct tape, I at least had duct tape. I opened the steamer trunk with all of my possessions in it and did a quick inventory, 100 pistol bullets, 12 shotgun shells, 10 30mm sniper rounds, 90 assault rifle rounds, 13 books, 1 box of clothes, 3 pistols, 1 giant ass sniper, 1 boomstick, 1 assault rifle, 1 changeling rifle,1 gas lantern, 1 cheap lighter, 1 dagger, 4 assorted nick-nacks, a poster, lab report on my construction,my phone, and a box of 20 assorted magic batteries. Most of my junk was somewhat useful, but I sincerely hoped I could find something to eat in this already horrid looking place.
I got back into the truck and started heading further in, I opted to go by ground because it seemed to use less fuel this way, there were no roads, the only thing I could assume was constructed by intelligent beings was a large spire-like structure in the distance to the southwest of me, I lined myself up with it and watched the barren earth roll past.
After awhile it was easy to lose concentration. I started seeing fleeting images in the edges of my vision, images of creatures, flashes of colors, trees and grass, I couldn't be sure if it was real, I caught myself looking backwards or in the rearview mirror several times while trying to discern real and imagination, the only real things I saw were dirt, dead plants, and the ever approaching spire, I checked the fuel, the needle wavered on 1/2, I looked to the speedometer, 180 kilohooves per hour, I assumed it was similar to kilometers but I couldn't be sure, nor could the speed be certain, with very few references I couldn't tell if I was going 10 or 100 kph. When I'd first gotten my car the first thing I did was take a friend on a road trip to the Bonneville salt flats to watch Speed Week, when we were on the salt we couldn't guess speed for the lack of reference,driving on this expanse was the same. As I was driving along this barren wasteland I looked back upon my memories from earth, friends, family, places, it all danced on my mind, anything to reduce the boredom. I whistled bits of songs from home, watched the sun set to my right, the moon rise on my left, everything went by in a blur. I clicked on the small lights mounted behind the grille, they barely illuminated anything, but they were better than nothing. The spire loomed larger but still kept its distance, I wondered what inhabited it, if anything at all. *** Celestia Pov
"Twilight, I know you don't want to see Nova again but you're the only one I know of who could find her and bring her back, Ok?" I said to a pained Twilight, she was the only one I'd brought to my conference room, the others would be clued in when I needed them.
"Ok....it's Just that I feel that...I'm responsible, not just for her running away, but for the war, and...just everything..."Twilight snivveled
"Ok, just calm down and tell me what you have so far..."
"We have a direction, and maybe a method of tracking her, If Fluttershy could call her, I could track it, then we could get an idea of her location, at least...I hope," she had a forlorned look on her face, it was heartwrenching to say the least.
"Okay but....Why Fluttershy?, I'd think she'd respond better to Luna or rarity, I'm not trying to change your mind but...."I was interrupted before I could finish.
"I picked Fluttershy, because she's the only one that she might listen to, b...but I'm not even sure of that now...' Twilight sighed in confusion after managing to spit out her sentance
"Why don't we try?" I responded in an encouraging voice. *** Nova Pov
The empty wastes rushed past my windows, I made a small adustment to my course and continued my contemplation on the universe, I did this for what seemed like hours, I was finally broken from my stupor when I heard my cellphone ring, I looked to the passenger seat where I had tossed it, I read the screen, Fluttershy was the word printed on the screen, I hadn't seen much of her, much less received any attempt at communication, I stared at the screen while the phone continued to ring. I found it odd that she would try to call, I decided to answer, it's not like they can actually find me out here.
"Uhhh, Hello?" I began
"Oh, umm, hi.....it's F-Fluttershy" I barely heard her voice, I was surprised that I actually had a signal this far out.
"Why did you call me?" I asked hoping it might reach her.
"I c-called y-you b-bec-cause Twilight T'Beeep, beeep, beeep'" I apparently most whatever signal the phone still had as I continued to barrel along. I thought about what she said, Something about Twilight, I was kind of glad the signal died because Twilight was probably told to look for me, typical....
I was probably less than 40 miles away from the spire at this point, I looked upon it, it was huge, easily a kilometer tall, if not more, I started to see tiny colorful dots flying around and into it. **** Twilight Pov
"Is it ringing?" I asked Fluttershy as she held her pink phone to her ear.
"Um, uhh, yes," Fluttershy said at her customary volume.
"Ok, just keep her on the line for as long as you can, but try to aim for 2 minutes or more, got it?"
"Okay, I-If you say so, H-hello, it's Fluttershy....oh Um I'm c-calling you b-because Twilight Told'Beep,beep,beep' oh um Twilight?
"Save it Fluttershy, kinda trying to concentrate here." I tried to track the magical signal but it seemed to elude me.
"Um, she hung up,"
"Hold on Fluttershy,"
"Um, Twilight? It's kind of important"
"Uhhg, I lost it, what was it you were trying to say, Fluttershy?"
"Um, she hung up, I tried to tell you, b-but you wouldn't listen....oh Um did I do something wrong?"
I could only assume the expression on my face was that of pure confusion,"no...no you're fine....it's Just that I didn't think she'd hang up that fast, are you sure she hung up?"
"Um, the phone went beep beep beep, does that not mean she hung up?" I looked at Fluttershy's phone with a scrutinizing glare.
"Can I see your phone for a minute?" i watched as she handed it over, then I looked at the little screen, it read:
Connection Broken, attempting to recconnect.
"Ok, so it Wasn't your fault Fluttershy, that's a relief," I handed Fluttershy's phone back and looked at her with a relieved smile.
"Um, if you dont mind that is....why did the line go dead?" she asked with the most adorable confused face.
"The connection was broken, so it could be 1 of 3 things, 1 she interrupted the signal herself, 2 her phone's battery died, or 3 she is too far away, I would guess 2 or 3 are the most likely", my plan had already failed, and we didn't even get to the part I predicted would fail. Back to the drawing board then.
"Um, is there anything you got out of it?" Fluttershy asked as I looked back at my spellbook in contemplation.
"All I have is the location of the last magic net relay she passed, um could you hand me that map please?" I grabbed a marker and wrote in the map Fluttershy placed in front of me.
"Okay, from what I got from the spell, the last magic net relay she passed is, riiight abouuuut, here, umm, any thoughts Flutters?"
"Um, isn't that near Crysalis's old hive?" she pointed to a large red circle on the map.
"Um, yes it is, but Why would she go there?, I would assume she would avoid it none of the Equus reference books have any new information on that place,so she wouldn't know we just reformed most of the changelings less than a year ago. So why else would she go there?"
"Umm, I don't know, b-but maybe she has a reason?" she sounded like she was hoping that she wouldn't have to go near that place again.
"Maybe it's a coincidence and she's just heading to Zebrica?" I pointed to the country in question on my map while still looking at the gray splotchy band that is the badlands. I continued to stare at the map, trying to estimate an approximate course. "We may have to do this the old fashioned way, I hate to admit but, I'm stumped.
I saw the looming spire finally within reach, I hoped dearly that I wouldn't be shot for trespassing, once I finally made it to the wall of the structure I simply stared in awe, the gigantic structure was probably taller than anything humans have ever constructed, the top of the spire reaching above the clouds it was surrounded by, I shut off the truck and approached the wall. I knocked my hand against the surface, it's surface was plasticy in texture, it was probably pretty thick if it had so much weight on it, I looked around it, I could only see a few of the inhabitants, they still looked like tiny dots from this distance, I looked closer, I saw that it looked Pony-esque, nothing else was clear enough to make out, I had no clue if they were at all hostile so I just kept my distance, because although I couldn't really die, getting shot or stabbed was still unbelievably painful. **** "So uhh where did you say she went exactly?" Rainbow Dash said before she took off
" I said South, if you can't see her from an altitude of 400 decahooves, that means we need to keep moving." I said as she rose into the sky." it has been 4 hours since we left the train, we haven't seen much evidence that she has been here other than several hundred feet of tire tracks and some hoof prints, I've brought along some spells to aid in tracking her, but we haven't had mich luck. I kept mulling possible motives over in my head, none immediately jumped out, nor could I find any good reasons to go to the badlands, even though it was desolate,making it ideal for hiding it was still teeming with very hardy and vicious creatures, which in most reasoning eliminates most of the benefits.
"Hey Twi? I see a little silver dot near the hive!" Rainbow yelled down, I armed myself with binoculars and flew up to meet her, thank goodness Celestia removed my flight and magic restrictions temporarily.
"Umm, hold on, Oh! I see it...is...Is it moving?" I looked at the little silver dot near the hive, it seemed to be moving, I was unsure if my eyes were playing with me, so I asked Rainbow.
"Yeah it is, it's gotta be her, Let's go get em!" rainbow dash basically yelled before shooting off, I saw a rainbow trail forming behind her as she screened towards the thing we hoped was Nova.
"Come on Pinkie, try to keep up, I don't want to loose her," I shouted down at pinkie who immediately yelled back.
"Okie dokie loki," she said as she bounced off. I flew off after Rainbow, from this distance the little sliver dot was clearly the truck that Celestia described to me, I saw the truck swap to air mode and suddenly fly directly west. Rainbow pulled off a right angle turn and shot off after it. When I caught up I found Rainbow pinning down a very ragged Nova.
"Rainbow....You can get off her now,"
"You sure Twi? Remember everything she did back at the castle?"
"I'm sure, now just get off her..." Rainbow slowly edged off while I kept an eye on Nova to make sure she didnt act irrational again. She got up and dusted off a bit and looked like she was about to speak when pinkie popped out of nowhere.
"ooOOOooohh, Twily you found your niece! Now we can have a welcome hope partayyy!!" I looked at Nova who was now a lot angrier
" How many FUCKING times do I have to hammer it through your ignorant fucking head, I AM NOT RELATED TO THIS PURPLE BASTARD!" Nova shouted at pinkie who didn't seem to care much. I recoiled a bit at the wording she used.
" Now Nova Don't be more irrational you're already in enough trouble as is.... Lets not make it worse."
"I'm the one in trouble? I'm the one in to trouble!? Says the ignorant motherfucker that started this mess and got off the hook easy! For what you did you should have been fucking EXECUTED! You heartless piece of shit...." everyone's jaw dropped, my eyes started to water, I really had gotten off the hook easy, compared to what she'd been through. I looked at the ragged and dirty figure standing before me, she had lost everything, then I saw her draw her pistol and point it at me.
"Please don't.... I....I'm sorry....." I heard a mechanical click as the weapon was readied. I looked up to see her with a completely serious face and knew it was over.
" anyone moves or tries something stupid I'll shoot...." Rainbow and Pinkie stood stock still, eyes watery, Pinkies mane deflated. I looked her in the eyes, the pistol pointed right between my eyes.... I closed my eyes and prepared for the inevitable,
"NOOOO!!!!" I heard my companions scream before 'BANG!' ....... ....... I opened my eyes, expecting to be dead, I looked up.... Time seemed to slow, I saw Nova falling over, the pistol vaguely pointed to her head, a sinister grin on her face. Blood smattering out the opposite side of her head.....she committed suicide..... What have I done.
"NOOOOOO!!!" I screamed along with my friends as time resumed and I saw Nova fall to the dirt.
I heard something as I came too, why the fuck am I still alive...
Bleep....Bleep....Bleep.....
I thought that should end this cacofany of shit.. Stupid regeneration....
Bleep....Bleep....Bleep.....
"Uhhhhggghhhh, why the fuck am I still alive?" I opened my eyes as I groaned
"Your regeneration saved you, you'd be dead if it weren't for that," I heard someone say from somewhere.
"That's why I fucking shot myself asshat..."
"Yep she's still alive...." I heard someone else say from nearby.
"Why, Nova....Why did you do all that?" my hearing woke up enough for me to tell that someone as Celestia.
"I hate this place," I said as i let my eyes adjust and I sat up.
"That's not an answer," I heard her say as I looked at her, her face was one of disappointment.
" I did it because I can't fucking stand this shithole, I was fucking dumped here because of your dumbass student, I am a fucking weapon so you kept me cooped up and away from living my life, and proper justice wasn't served because you are so fucking overprotective of your little purple pet! That is why I tried to end it, Happy?"
"Oh....I've never seen it like that, we all knew you would develop problems from the get go but none of us predicted it to be this....severe..... Unfortunately we can't send you back, other than the risk of death or ending up in the wrong dimension, there is the issue that because you're an alicorn....we cant separate your mind and body like twilight did originally to bring you here....sorry." Celestia 'drooped' a bit after finishing her sentence.
"Uhhgh, whatever, just......just don't make the same mistake,"
"We will try our best not to repeat this, although there is still the question of what you're going to do, putting you back on active duty seems like a foolish decision,"
" I'll fight for you this once,...Only if the situation is dire, in other words I am the last resort, no exeptions... Got it?
"Why? Why now re-join us?" Twilight said as I looked myself over, I was wearing nothing and I still had scars, normal enough
"Money.....and anger management." I said as I swiveled my legs off the bed and looked at everyone in the room. Only Twilight Celestia, Spike and Pinkie, who was currently being surprisingly quiet.
"Uhhhhhhhh, no comment" Twilight looked pretty worried at this.
"Why's she here?" I pointed to Pinkie who promptly stared at me in a very creepy way.
"Punishment, we had Luna search your deepest fears, the only one we could really fulfill was pinkie,"
"No fucking way, and why the fuck? Fucking seriously who does that?"
" You have to learn one way or another" Celestia shrigged and her horn lit, in a flash we were in a room without doors or windows, the only ammenities being a sink, toilet, bed, and some weird small panel on the wall.
"What the fuck, where are we?" I looked at Celestia with a glare that probably embodied the essence of the chernobyl reactor meltdown.
"You and pinkie's new home." with that she teleported away with Twilight, bastards.
"Fuck my liiiife," i muttered into my hands as I heard Pinkie say the first of most likely many things.
"You wanna play a game!" she blurted happily as i simply stared at her.
"What kind of game?" I asked back with almost immediate regret.
" All you have to do is solve my puzzles and sTaaY In onE PiEcee..." the last part of thd sentance sounded like what I could assume Cthulhu farting sounds like, guttural and terrifying.
"Uhhhhhhh, no thanks!" I backed up and scooted behind the bed, she spoke again in the same terrifying voice,
"iTS JUssst A GaaaAAAaaame!, if you win you go free, IF I Win I wIILL eaT YOu uP!!" she dissapeared after that without a trace.
"Oh ffffffuck...." **** Celestia Pov "You think we went overboard with pinkie?"
"Go big or go home, And I need her to be complient so that we can stop the griffins of the war escalates too much more, the only way to do that is to show her who's in charge." i kept looking at the magic video feed and grabbed another handful of popcorn.
"Good point, but why did you not give her any shirts?"
"Thats to make things interesting, by the way, how did you convince pinkie to do all this?"
" I told her that id reward her with a big party after she went through with it, all she needed to do was scare the tartarus out of nova with any means necesary, I even told her Nova's worst fears.
"Good job Twilight, by the way, what are her worst fears?"
" The main ones are places without escape, being at the mercy of somepony else, being eaten alive by pinkie, and pinkie in general, neither I nor luna knows why its pinkie specifically."
"Well this should be interesting at least." Nova was now yelling something at the ceiling, not entirely inaccurate, as she was over 2 Megahooves underground, contained in a specially constructed containment facility below the crystal caverns, a giant game of wits, sanity, and Pinkie.
I had been squatting behind the bed for about an hour now, I peeked over, nothing... I looked to a newly opened corridor across the room, deployed the targeting/scanning visor and creeped out from behind thd bed, it was protected by a very heavy looking door, much like one on a submarine, it had appeared out of nowhere about 2 minutes after pinkie went nightmare mode and dissapeared, I just didn't dare move for the rest of the hour. It was true that I was somewhat scared of pinkie pie and her disturbing abilities...that was before I got put on the recieving end of a facet of her that I never knew she had, now i could say that I had expirienced true fear, fighting through every version of the underworld would probably be more preferable. I looked in the weird silver panel on the wall, it looked like a food dispenser, at least thats what I thought it looked like, not very useful at the present moment. I also noticed a heavy looking crate near the door, again something that wasn't here before, it was old looking and covered in what looked like blood,on the lid it had written in haphazardly carved letters, the word 'Begin' I carefully opened the lid, and inside was a folded up piece of leather, an old rusty pick axe, a handgun, and most unusually, a set of old glasses, blood red framed and oval in shape, the lenses were a weird shade of pink. I grabbed the leather scrap and unfolded it, it was a note, scrawled out in blood, it read, simply, 'don't die yet' in small print at the bottom, in the center of the roughly hiking trail map sized sheet there was a dot of blood in a square. I moved away from the door once I grabbed the gear and set it on the bed, I continued my little survey and found a pair of worn jeans, a belt and an old leather jacket under the bed, I put it all on and slipped the axe through my belt, picked up the crossbow and put on the glasses after deactivating the visor. "Alright bitch, Ill play youre little game...deal me in" I turned the locking wheel and shoved the door open, simply a hallway, empty of any signs of life, I walked forward into the hall and began what I hoped would not be my last venture. **** Celestia Pov
Nova had finally begun her official punishment and had already been pretty successful with navigation, I was contemplating releasing this as a reality Magivision show, A thought for another time, I had given pinkie explicit directions and patterns to follow through the many rooms and corridors, I had also taken the liberty of adding in some magically created creatures derived from pinkie clones to spice it up some more. This should teach her to behave. **** Nova Pov The halls and rooms went on for ages, i had picked up a somewhat grotesque looking backpack to carry anything I find in the catacombs. I hadn't found much more thsn some cryptic notes and an ornate dagger, I hadn't seen Pinkie yet... Good, since this was probably a puzzle I decided to pace myself with exploration as to not get lost, the leather sheet had turned out to be a self updating map, showing the current location of me and the places i'd explored although it was extremely crude it worked. This seemed like a really overly complicated way to make me comply, I would have expected solitary confinement but this was too much, Celestia was gonna get a serious case of footupassitis when I got out if here. I tried to use my magic, what little I could figure out without much luck, i could only hold things or make light, shooting the walls had no effect, damn.
After some more exploration I went back to my room, which was probably pretty safe, this seemed to be relatively commonplace horror game logic, first stage was about deciet and anxiety either it would lul me into a false sense of security, or just scare me out of my skin, second stage would add in some danger in some way or other, third would be terrifying and risky, constant appearances, and extreme risk of death, at least that would make sense in most situations. I pulled out the notes and the dagger, when wearing the glasses, certain words of letters were highlighted in pink, and on others it would allow me to see an image fragment, the dagger looked importat so I put it on the bed for later, as soon as I set it down a grotesque and monstrous pinkie pie appeared in front of me, "AHH, FUUUUUCK!" I jumped back on instinct and grabbed the crossbow, I fired, the beast seemed to ignore it, the crossbow reloaded and the monster spoke. As it did my glasses blurred and showed pictures of runic magic symbols and a face.
"DOnT wOrrrY, Itll Be oVer sOoN" I saw the creatures mouth go wide and it pounced on me.
"FUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH" I felt its slimy mouth all around my head...then I woke up, in the bed, apparently I would come back here after "died"....maybe, did it even hurt me? I closed the hatch and made sure to seal it better and then I decided that I'd had enough bullshit for today and went to bed. ***** I woke to the sound of a soft "clunk" and looked around, the metal plate thing opened, and it confirmed my suspicions that it was a food dispenser, by extruding a block of something that smelled vaguely like vegetables. "Great, camping rations" I grabbed the block and took a bite, yep tasted like salad, as I ate the chute produced a water bottle, the water contained within was distilled and tasteless.
I decided that my best bet of survival, at least mentally, would be to either kill the fucker(s) or just avoid them all together. After eating a third of the brick sized food bar, I stashed it in my bag and and decided to go for another excursion, this time giving zero shits about the stupid supposed puzzle. I realized pretty quickly that this puzzle wasn't going to let me win, this was a prison, I was the prisoner, prisoners don't win against the prison, at least not usually...
It had been about 2 days, I had exclusively stayed in the vault as I had started calling it. I was making a plan to escape, this prison was much like Alcatraz, seemingly impenetrable, but like Alcatraz, it isn't perfect, afterall some clever dudes in a raincoat raft had supposedly escaped. I started to look at the details and making some logical assumptions, 1 this place is haphazardly built, as if it was thrown together one afternoon, 2 magic is extremely limited, so even if I knew how to teleport it wouldn't help, 3 i was first placed in this room, althoigh the importance of that information was suspect. My bodily functions seemed to be normal for now, which was weird because I thought they ran on magic, which based on the 'no complex spell' thing, shouldn't he possible based on the hasty build quality of this place, as excluding my vital spells from the whatever it was thats keepimg me from using most of my magic would probably take months. So by that logic I wasn't being run on magic, at least not entirely. I activated the visor and looked into it a bit deeper, I fiddled with it until my view changed from various vision modes to a relatively non invasive menu mode, on the far left of my vision I could see little labeled boxes, 6 of them, labeled from top to bottom as; information, maintenance, settings, navigation, communication, and finally, blueprints. The last one was weird but interesting, it was also interesting in the fact that i hadnt figured this out sooner. The left disk on the visor could rotate, allowing me to navigate the menus. I swapped to the 'information' button and clicked the disk in slightly, as soon as i clicked a short summary of apparently me popped up.
Hello Traveler, your body has been outfitted with several extra abilities to allow you to survive in most situations, these including but not limited to, weapons, regeneration, speed/agility, and increased perception and adaptation. The power for your new body is provided by a hybrid antimatter fusion reactor contained in the right side of your chest, high power active abilities are locked to begin with to prevent issues with lack of control, activation/deactivation of these abilities can be done whenever you feel it necessary in settings.
A simple paragraph but very useful, I went into settings and unlocked my 'active' abilities, which included weapons and tools, whatever it was that did this to me, I silently thanked them for this, because now, I could hopefully escape, depending on how much digging I have to do. Escaping wouldn't be easy, even with my newfound goodies, mostly because Celestia, I had no idea where Luna or Cadence stood on this matter, so trusting them to not shoot me on sight after escaping would be risky.
I woild still have to alcatraz the shit outta my predicaments, one of them being the party mare turned nightmare fuel that was probably waiting for me just outside the door, the other being digging out, even with digging implements it wouldn't be easy. I decided to see what I could do, as well as making a better plan then to dig and then run away. **** The pink creature decided to just watch me from the corners of my vision, creepy as fuck. It hadn't attacked me again after the first instance, although that in and of itself was worrying, at least I was intact. I had been wandering the unoccupied areas of the labrinth for the past couple of days, trying to discern where I was or where would be the best place to try and dig, I found an area that seemed worth trying, upon hitting it with the pick, it sounded more hollow than anywhere else, so I thought of giving myself a mining drill, after a few seconds I heard and felt something coming from my arm; about halfway down the back of my arm something was assembling itself, parts flashed into existence and then found their place among the others, within about ten seconds the drill was done and displayed a green indicator on a small rearward facing screen on the side of the unit, i looked it over, the device looked like something a borg from star trek would use, almost, it had the greenish glow but it was less....less thrown together looking as well as more minimised, it was more of a skeleton in some areas while others were fully encased. I felt a button under my index finger and one under my middle finger, both were encased in the tool latched onto my arm. I pressed the button under my index finger, I was rewarded by a rewarding click of the button and the end of the drill started up, since it was a mining tool the bit reciprocated as well as rotated, acting like a very angry jackhammer. I pressed the tool into the wall and saw cracks form as the drill began to bite in, soon I saw noticable pieces falling away, i continued to chip away at the wall until I felt something on my shoulder.
I immediately swung around to find a different pink abomination staring me down, this one looked more like pinkie, her body was almost the same other than the slightly demonic looking tail and the red glowing eyes. I tried to run but was stopped by something grabbing my leg... I looked back and saw that a long black tounge had grabbed my foot and shin (if thats what it was, i have no idea what the horse terminology is) I felt it tug back on me, it knelt down and trarted to reel me in. "FUCK!" I pointed the drill to her head and waited to get close enough, once it touched i turned the drill on and it immediately bored into her head, the tugging ceased for a second and I removed the drill, I was about to free my hoof from its mouth when its tounge suddenly tightened and it sucked my right leg into its mouth,"No no no no no....no no....Shit!" i braced my other leg against its face and pushed, but to no avail, I tried harder and even used the drill again, this time it did almost nothing....shit... she could adapt. My other foot slipped in beside its compatriot and I was now waist deep in this thing, "Gosh Fucking Damnit" i whacked it on the head with the drill's casing and was unsuprised that the creature just shrugged it off, "motherfucker....." i jammed the drill in its eye and turned it on, the creature immedieately stopped again and I gained a foot of ground before it started again. I realised that this was an losing battle en with my wings, channeling plasma at its face and frying it, and even using my wings as a rocket by pumping plasma through them and using magic to help force the air through, even after all that I was still sitting at about chest height in this fucker, killing it from inside would be easier so I just let it finish, and realised how gross this thing was, it felt like I was in a water balloon filled with corn syrup, probably the most nasty thing I have ever expirienced. Once my head joined my body I shifted so i was facing forward and prepared another weapon, whatever this thing had in it didn't seem to ne causing harm at the moment. I swapped to a probably overkill circular saw, overkill because the blade was six pointed and razor sharp rather than having little carbide nubs mounted on many little teeth, I was about to start the saw when I felt movement, it was walking....somewhere....I decided to wait on the texas chainsaw massacre for a bit so I could figure out where this thing was going, it felt like farther into the labrinth, but I wasn't sure.
After awhile the thing stopped and probably sat down, because I felt myself drop before everything settled again, then the fucker slapped her stomach, which ended up hitting me in the face, immediately after that my current prison started filling up. "Oh shit", this was what I really feared, since being eaten alive was not as scary as I originally thought this was the next worsed, being trapped and drowning, I fired up the saw and the blade spun up, as soon as it did that, i moved the blade away from parrallel with my face and shoved it into the creature, I heard a sickening tearing noise as the blade blended anything in its path to a bloody pulp, "HAHAA DIE MOTHERFUCKER" I yelled over the whirring blade as it finished its dirty job and I stepped out, i immediately turned around and sliced its head off before doing anything else, because I didnt want it to be alive anymore than a fly wants a spider to live. I looked at myself, filthy, bloody, and in desperate need of some Russian brain bleach. "Fuck this place..... Damn I need some alcohol...." I looked around, for some reason the thing had eaten all of my junk along with me, but i wasn't complaining, i whipped out my map and looked, I was pretty far from "home", apparently against the east wall. I decided to try drilling again. This time I had much better results within 20 minutes I shoved the last bits of a hole out into an empty cavern, upon crawling out through the scarcely 3 foot wide hole I found myself in a cave full of crystals, I had read about this place in a book before my bout with insanity, as well as seen it in the tv show. I got up and looked behind me, the prison was just dug into the wall, now that I was clear of the magic dampening field I could use full range of my somewhat limited magical skill. "Alright, thats it, Celestia is gonna get one hell of an ass whupping. For this bullshit" I retracted the drill and began to search for an exit. ***** 3 hours later I had found an old indistrial elevator shaft well as old mining equipment lying around, I grabbed whatever was useful from the junk and placed it in my bag before inspecting the elevator. At the bottom of the shaft was the elevator, and it had obviously been stick here for awhile, it was rusted through in areas and looked as if it would just fall apart. I shoved the ancient doors aside a bit and squeesed in, I needed to duck to get in. Once through I looked up, I found the emergency hatch and shoved it out and climbed onto the roof of the car, I flew up the empty shaft until I was once again on the surface. I found myself in an old abandoned mining town positioned on the back of the mountain, apparently this wasn't the same cave as I thought. " Time for a hike I guess, " I wanted to stay on the ground for now to remain more hidden, In the air I was pretty obvious, among the grass and foliage I could be inconspicuous enough. As I walked I would abruptly change direction ant then fly along my normal course for awhile then land and continue walking, all in the effort of covering my tracks, I had assumed that they would be searching for me now, it wasn't as if they would leave something as dangerous as me unmonitored. 3 hours later I rounded the mountain onto the"front" where canterlot was posistioned, I could see the underside of canterlot, it looked pretty weird from this angle, id went around on the opposite side of the mountain, in otherwords where the train tracks weren't, getting to the city in relative stealth would only require a bit of a climb, almost 1000 ft. straight up. My climbing expirience was completely composed of a crash course my uncle gave me on a climbing trip, and the gym in elementary school, so to say the least I was a climbing noob, climbing a vertical wall, without safety equipment, at least dying wasn't an issue.
After about half an hour and a few failed attempts I'd finally figured out how to effectively climb this thing, basically shi mying along a long outcropping until another one came into reach, climbing up and repeating. After 3 hours, and a couple of breaks later, i'd reached the underside of the city, there was a small catwalk and a ladder leading to a hatch in the bottom of the structure, upon arriving at the catwalk and jumping the guardrails opposite the gate, I looked up at the massive and very alien looking structure above me, I felt like I was sitting below a spacecraft from Independence Day. After id remembered enough of Will Smith ranting about stinky aliens and deserts, I climbed the ladder, on the hatch it had small red letters that spelled out 'canterlot service access tunnel 1, authorized ponies only' I tugged the handle and found it to be locked, as would be expected. For some reason I'd learned how to pick locks, mostly because of my freind from highschool and the internet. I didn't have a paper clip, or any hairpins so pi used my newfound ability to create some decent picks, I looped my lege into the ladder rungs and began to pick and prod the lock....after 10 minutes of fiddling with pins and tesion, the lock begrudgingly let me in, i shoved the door open and climbed up, making sure to relock the door to slow down any persuers. I looked out across the girdir filled sub levels of canterlot, huge steel beams in a giant lattice occupied the space above, while catwalks and the bowl shaped bottom of the structure sat below, the structure of canterlot looked like a large bowl from here, definitely more practical to embed a large piece of the foundation rather than sticking it to the side of the mountain without any extra suport, upon further inspection I found a diagram on the walls that laid out the sublevels like in a mall. After reading the panel while straining to see by the dim light, I found out that the lower levels were devided into 12 levels, the lowest 4 being the support structure and the lowest part of the sewer system, above that was the bulk of the sewers, and above that was a subterranian set of appartments, shops and maintenance facilities. I found out where a stairwell was, it was actually pretty close, probably for ease of movement during inspections and maintenance. After ascending the dimly lit metal stairway I found myself looking at a large hatch, which looked like it was designed to hold pressure, printed in worn red letterin it said something along the lines of 'cannot be opened when light is red' the rest of the labels were illegible, the light was glowing a dim red, and considering that this was a sewer, opening it would be a very bad idea. Luckily there was a service elevator nearby so I could get to the inhabited levels without smelling like shit.
Upon reaching the upper limit of the elevator I disembarked and looked about; tunnels loads of them, each wide enough for a 2 lane road. Along the sides I saw various shops as well as hatches labeled with maintenance access, considering my location i assumed I was in the industrial district. I wandered for awhile before reaching a large number of shops, mostly those related to tools, hardware, and other carpentry/equipment shops, i had no need to shop but it is always useful to know where hardware stores are, considering my somewhat worrying knowledge of how to weaponize almost anything, it could be very helpful to me.
After amfew hours I finally decided to bite the bullet and confront Celestia.
Canterlot Castle, a giant and widely regarded as beautiful place, at the moment it wasn't as appealing of a place to me, even though the likelyhood of me dying was low, I didn't fancy becoming a kebab again. The gates were guarded as per usual, but they weren't a big deal. I walked to the gate ragged and still bloody, and the guards made the mistake of getting in my way, I knocked one out with a single punch to the temple, and the other I chucked with my magic at one of the throne room windows. I jumped the fence and barged through the doors of the palace, once i reached the throne room I lit my fist with plasma and falcon punched the door in. "Suprise motherfucker, guess who you just pushed over the line..." I walked foreward slowly while my visor appeared. The display flashed red upon me locking on to Celestia.
"I thought you would run off again, that would be much more logical decision to fighting a goddess," she kept a calm straight face and just sat contentedly on her throne.
"I aint feeling logical, and I have one hell of a grudge to settle..."
"Oh and what would that be?" she comtinued to stare me down with her calm face.
"You have done Nothing but cage me up.....you locked me away because you had ho idea what to do with me.... YOU fucking threw me in a dungeon.....ALL YOU'VE DONE IS LOCK ME UP!!....You haven't let me live a normal fucking life ASSHOLE....and I plan on giving you a piece of my mind..."
"Suit yourself...Guards! Clear the area...." she stood up to her full height and stared down at me as her guards retreated, she lit her horn and almost instantly she was wearing some plate armor, as well as holding a large ornate greatsword. "I Princess Celestia, hereby order you to stand down, should you disobey I shall not hesitate to smite you where you stand" she spoke with sudden force and walked down to me, she placed the sword tip on the ground and rested her arms on it, then spoke again, this time with a softer tone, "Nova...Please don't make me do this...I do not want to hurt you..."
"Its too late for that bitch...you've already done enough harm," I used my abilities to give myself a sword, short and sharp with a sabre blade.
"Sobeit," she raised her sword and prepared. I swiped the blade at her and she blocked, I recovered and we both began taking turns trying to disembowel the other, the blood began to flow as we began to cut into eachother,mostly me taking hits.This persisted for about 2 minutes before celestia fired a spell at me, instead of doing anything expected, it stopped before me for a split second...then exploded at me. I was thrown against the far wall and fell to thr floor soon after, "Please stay down...you've already done enough harm" she approached me as I got up again, bloodied and enraged.
"If you wanna play dirty Ill play dirty," I armed myself with the saw I used in the dungeon on my left hand, on my right I armed myself with something akin to the gluon gun from half life, "I've had enough of you, and everyone else's hairbrained bullshittery," I fired a beam of bright pink....something....at celestia as I ran at her. Celestia was thrown back a bit by the weapon, and blocked as the whirling blade of doom came mere inches from her face.
"STOOOOOP" that didn't sound like Celestia....I looked to my left and saw Luna and Twilight standing there, along with a platoon of guards. "Why hath thee engaged in combat?" luna looked at both ofmux with a glare id expect a mother to give her misbehaving children. She was met with only silence and stares. "Sister?, you hath not answered us,"
"Nova challenged me for putting her in solitary confinement, even though it was a much wiser decision than to let her roam free"
"Oh...of course...blame it on me asshole, the one whose only here because of your overzealous student and your own ignorance...", I waited a second to let them respond as I backed off a pace and lowered my weapons,
"Just stop Nova, please...." Twilight piped up and then immediately went silent when I gave her a death stare of epic proportions.
"Oh I should stop?, why in the fuck should I stop if you won't pay me the same courtesy Th..."
"What did I do? I've done nothing but protect you, why are you antagonizing me Now?"
"Because You went too fucking far and brought me here! You kept locking me up! You wouldn't fucking consider what i wanted to do with my life! All you fucking did was follow your own little addiction! What the fuck?
"I......I.....oh............." Twiight quieted down and then slinked back a bit before starting to have something of a panic attack.
" And YOU... You didn't give justice where it was due... Because youre too weak to really punish your overexited student when she misbehaved..." I pointed at Celestia as I ranted, my voice was rough and tired... I felt like my legs were jello and my brain a puddle, adrenaline and sttength gone from the short fight and violent end to the battle, I felt ready to collapse.
" Hath we done anything wrong in thine eyes?" luna piped up from behind me and I turned around.
"No....you are one of the few I know who hasn't perpetuated my agony, the only time I can see as being painful was the sword incident....but that's nothing compared to what the others have done psychologically....thank you for that....." I turned to the door and began to slowly and painfully walk toward the door, my sounds were taking a lot longer to close up, and something was probably broken or ruptured from the explosion, heh, sun butt is at least clever....
"Nova....we wisheth to propose a deal to thee, one that shall in principle reduce thine agony" I'd barely noticed the concersation picking up behind me, I turned back around to listen...
"And what....would that be?..." I looked to the group and heard luna speak a bit more
"We wisheth thou to become our apprentice, thou shalt need a teacher... And a friend"
"I...i think ill take you up oj that offerrr... I....I think...imma just....nap....here.." the last thing i heard before falling into the blissful realm of unconciousness was a muffled question..... Something about pain. ***** I awoke in a bed, not a hospital bed, but a normal mattress with a good set of sheets... I opened my eyes, i immediately saw a pair of teal ones staring back at me. "What...What happened?"
"Thou collapsed so we hath brought you to our chambers to alloweth thee to rest,"
"General! I bring news!" The private approached his CO and saluted.
"Spill it Private..." the general looked up from his paperwork to face the soldier in front of him.
"Queen Chrysalis has told me that her swarm will be ready for training within the next week,and an invasion within 2 months, and on a side note, she seems much less angry, and more cooperative, as far as I've heard, she hasn't threatened anyone in the past few days,"
"That's some good news private....I want updates every 2 days. Dismissed."
"Yes Sir!" **** Chrysalis Pov "Yessssss, I shall have my revenge.....that little purple bitch will make a fine wall decoration..." I couldn't help but scheme and imagine all of the ways I could spill the guts of Twilight Sparkle, my plotting was interrupted by a little tickling in my brain, one of the changeling spies I had sent out had figured out that the supposed weapon WAS the new alicorn, the previous spy had been killed trying to assasinate the new alicorn to remove the threat, but failed. I thought out my orders and thought them back to the ling, "This new alicorn would make a wonderful drone," I told the ling to keep an eye on her and give me information on location and habits so that I could swiftly capture and convert her into a partial changeling for me to control. ***** Within the hour I had gotten some more prisoners, some of them I cocooned for transformation, the rest I imprisoned to use for food. There were enough left to feed me for another week, once the lings had finished developing i would no longer need physical food to sustain myself, as I only needed it during reproduction, or in times of famine. Today I decided to eat a griffon traitor, she was small but strong and would be excellent.
I pulled her free of the wall and looked her over a bit before finally swallowing her, she wasn't very fun because she was unconcious, but at least it was less work for me. I ate the leftover goo and returned to the egg sacs to tend to them. **** Many eggs began to fracture, the shells crumbled away and revealed the tiny alien creatures that were changling young, they instinctively found their queen, and joined their brethren to begin something resembling life.
I looked out the window towards the amber horizon as the sun set, Luna had started training me in a similar fashion to herself, and every night at sunset we would begin training, and end just before dawn, it had only been a week but progress had been made, I sharpened my skills with swords a bit and modified some of the albeit limited jujutsu moves I remembered from highschool to work against the different geometry of ponies. Today marked the end of basic combat training and would begin training me in the art of magic combat. I had calmed down considerably once celestia had agreed to not keep me locked down so much, and had thankfully issued a restraining order on Pinkie (who was now somehow still alive after being drilled, sawed, shot, and burned, and being at the 1st place spot on my shitlist) to prevent more problems, now I was pretty content to be trained as their trump card, mostly because of the aforementioned freedom to live my life as I choose so long as Luna was aware of my plans. Today also marked the day Luna would help me forge an enchanted weapon of my design so that I could deal damage on an even more rediculous calibur. My reputation with the public was still shit, and my short temper still attested to that, I kept it under enough control to avoid killing anyone, but depending on what they did, it could still mean a trip to the ER with broken bones for the unlucky offender. Luna was different, I didn't snap at her because 1, She's pretty nice, 2, I don't want to become a kebab again, and 3, She is one of the few creatures on this planet that I could consider a friend of sorts, the only others being Fluttershy and a hesitant maybe to Rarity.
As soon as the sun slowly scooted its way beyond the horizon, I left the window in my little room, put on my shirt and track jacket and began to walk towards the castle training grounds, I had adopted an almost completely nocturnal schedule, and I was glad to see that my eyes could well... see in the dark very well, only in the monochrome but certainly better than nothing. My ability to make tools and weapons from seemingly nothing was something d experimented on, when adrenaline and fear were at the wheel I could manage several at once, but under normal strain it was a pretty strenuous process.
After I had returned from my mental away mission I had already arrived at the training grounds, I saw luna standing beside a billowing forge holding a large sledge hammer.
"Art thou ready to begin?" she called to me as I dropped my stuff by the gate and walked over to the anvil sitting before her, she wore a thin tank top and a large leather apron.
"Yup, Let's get this show on the road.." I grabbed a hammer and a large bar of the strange damascus-esque metal Luna brought along, it was far different from steel in mass and color, it was far darker and much lighter. I put it in the forge and we waited, the sword I was planning on making would be a beefy tanto sword with a magic twist, The final weapon would be about 4 feet long total, With a blade capable of being launched at the enemy and returned to tye hilt...hopefully, it would also have a secondary dagger blade mounted inside tha handle just in case the main blade was prevented from being returned to the hilt via a winch built into the pommel, compared to Luna's sword, my idea of magic choices was pretty mundane, so she decided to add in her own enchantments to make up the difference.
"Ok That's probably hot enough"I said after a few minutes of waiting before the white hot bar with some tongs and stuck it on the anvil, I struck it with a hammer to start and luna followed up with a second strike, and began to draw out the shape. We drew out a rough shape by the 5th heat and finished forging the main blade with a 6th, there were no power tools so I used magic to spin up a manual grinding wheel and began making a hollow grind, this stuff was Really tough, it had to be heated to blindingly white hot to even begin forging and even when it wasn't hardened it was still decently hard to grind, still remained flexible As I continued whittling away I heard Luna say something.
"After thou hath finished the sword we shalt help thee enchant it, Please summon us when thou hath finished" Luna got up and removed the apron to allow me to finish working. **** After I had finished the several hour grinding process, I hardened and tempered the blade, polished it, sharpened and honed the edge and began the forging of the second blade.
6 hours later the sword and its mechanical bits were finished, all I needed now was some help from luna to enchant it. I got up and brought the newly finished weapon to Luna, who was currently reading in her room.
"I finished the sword...." I presented the blade to her for inspection. My hands were coated in a layer of black dust that had been ground into the short hair. Luna looked at the blade with the eye of a connisuer before she picked it up, I had left a large almost mirror finished flat area where a fuller would usually be toward the handle, it was blank for now until it was enchanted and runed by luna.
"Thou hath done well, allow us to prepare the the enchantments." she walked to the center of the room and placed the sword on a blank rune outline, and began to change and fill it in, within a few minutes she finished and we watched as the sword was wrapped in magic and levitated from the floor. Luna whispered to me as soon as the sword stopped moving.
"Lay thyself under it, and remain still while we position your limbs" I silently complied and lzued down under it, luna adjusted my position before she continued. I felt the pommel against my chin and the rectangular guard laid across my chest and down my torso. I felt the now somewhat familiar sensation of magic charging up before I heard a sudden and intense Crack and felt the energy being drawn from me and poured into the sword, this sensation lasted for a few minutes and then I felt myself stand up. Then it stopped, inmfront of me the sword hovered, the hilt presented to me, the whole weapon was glowing white, I grabbed it, and the white faded and i saw the blade in it's new glory and infused with my magic, the damascus-ish pattern on the metal was much more visible now, and the flat area had a menagerie of runes etched into it, all of them were glowing a deep blue, sureounded by a ring of runes in the center of the largest portion of the flat area was a small etch of the voyager 1 spacecraft, the blade jad a practically mirror finish. My work looked great, the elongated modified tanto tip segwaying into the relatively wide straight edged blade, flowing right into the hand guard and finishing with the heavy hexagonal pommel-esque cage surrounding the spool of cable.
"Holy fucking shit... That was cool...." I looked the sword over one last time and looked into the etched runes, the flat area was mirror smooth and looked like a piece of outer space was put in it. On the handle there was now a little glowing symbol right where I prefered to rest my thumb, I pressed it and i felt that I suddenly knew how to control it. It felt amazing.
The enchantments we had put in the sword were the aforementioned launchable blade, the ability for me to call it to my hand like Thor, a magic beam fired from the blade, assorted durability spells, the ability to spontaneously superheat the air around the blade to cause an explosion, and my favorite was the ability to steer and essentially fly the blade around like a missile, the dagger part was much less impressive but still had Durability and rediculous sharpness. Compared to Celestia or Luna's weapons, this was still pretty far from being similar, power wise, match but it was pretty destructive all the same.
"So... What's it actually made of?" I was never given the acual name of the stuff, just an alias and how to forge it.
"The material is known as celunite, Tis' an alloy of lunarum, celestite, titanium, and small amounts of tungsten carbide and silicon."
"Thats pretty neat, so, let's go try it out" mentally I was jumping around like a little kid at Christmas."
"Let us test it's worth, then we shalt construct a scabbard"
"Sounds like a plan" **** After a good 30 minutes of testing the sword, and it's abilities on some, now dismembered, training dummies, I had decided to call it quits for tonight and "hit the hay"....gosh damn I hate these ponies' insatiable urge to make puns of everything.
I stripped down to nothing and flopped into bed, as soon as I turned off the lantern I was using to light the room, my brain drifted into the glorious realm of sleep.
My dreams had been weird as of...well since I was dragged onto this planet, but they were weirder now that I had a new volley of shit to deal with shot in my general direction. This time it was a surrealistic environment that I could have passed off as something Salvadore Dali would have put to paper. There were trees in many odd shapes and colors, ranging from neon yellow to ugly brown, there was the ever vigilant Monolith sitting off in a pile of melting clocks. The ground was smooth and flat and appeared to be made of plastic. I looked out across the weird environment and began to see its inhabitants, the three ponies currently at the top of my shitlist, cloned and re proportioned, all of them were of varying sizes and clothing, each was going through the trees as if they had something urgent to do. I watched the scene devolve into them either eating one another or performing mitosis and making more of themselves. I watched the scene for a few minutes before I realised that I was not a pony, I was my old human self again, I marveled at myself for a bit before I felt a gentle tap on the shoulder. I quietly turned my head around and saw Luna standing behind me. She sat beside me and then spoke.
"Thou art troubled, we hath seen dreams of this sort before....."
"That's probably obvious enough to anyone in the waking world too...Why are you here all of a sudden? You haven't come to me before in my dreams.
"Our dear sister hat forbade us from entering your mind until now... Please tell us what thou art feeling,"
"Lonely, worried, tired, probably some lingering anger and sadness, a bit of fear, ya know, Usual Ptsd stuff."
"What Doth thou mean by P-T-S-D?"
"It's an acronym for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, it's probably not that serious right now but it... It's tough to manage if I think about it too much"
"Ah, we see thy point, upon our reform we were also fearful."
"Not quite, it means I am having trouble coping with being dragged to this place with no hope of return..."
"Why doth thou speak of this issue in a lighthearted manner, would it not be prudent to speak it freely and completely rather than hiding one's feelings?"
"If you were a man, and came from my planet, you'd understand, I wont explain it now but, it has to do with habit..."
"We now believe we see thou burden, and we are sorry that we can never truly understand what thou must feel..."
"That's also why I can't bring myself to forgive Twilight or Celestia... And probably never will," off in the distance the figment's had begun to explode into bloody chunks as I started to feel my anger welling up.
"Is it not better to 'forgive and forget' as the saying goes?
"Unlike you, I have no hope of return... I can't ever forgive them because their mistake is permanent... Its simply so severe for me to ever truly forgive... Sure I'll eventually get over the depression and pent up rage... but nothing I can think of could make up for the injustice I've been dealt, nor the countless times I've had to see my past life, or think about how everyone I knew would react to my dissapearance." If I was crying I couldn't tell, my mind was other places, and in dreams, anything could he true.
"We...see"
A long silence persisted for some amount of time before luna spoke again.
"It is nearly time to wake, I shall meet with thou at breakfast... Before we depart, Is the form you have similar to thy's original appearance?"
"Basically identical..." I felt my face droop a bit at my response.
"Twas but a question, we did not mean harm,"
"I know...just pokes at a sore spot is all...you are probably needed for something, I need to wake up, so I guess this is goodbye for the next ten minutes" With that I watched aout across the now very messy dreamscape as it collapsed and I returned to conciousness."
I awoke...sort of.... My brain said get up but my body was't feeling like cooperating and I flopped onto the floor with a soft thud as a result.
"Uhhhgg....fuhhhh...." I slowly came to and reoriented myself and balanced myself enough to stand up...and also relived some of my early struggles with hooves and oddly proportioned legs. I stumbled to the restroom, cleaned myself up a bit and stared in the mirror for a bit, the mirror was big enough to see one's entire upper half, it also helped that I was pretty tall. I traced my finger along the scar across my chest, it was a light pinkish in color and was decoid of hair, I also touched the spot I was run through wIth Luna's sword, I looked on for a little longer, looking at my body, face and hair for a bit before walking back out and putting on some basic clothes; Jeans,and a thin T shirt, my other clothes were nice and all, but it left something to be desired in durability, and putting on armor was just overkill.
I went down a short flight of stairs and found my way to the dining room. For Luna, Me and the late shift staff, this was breakfast, for celestia and the rest, this was dinner and/or dessert, depending on how late everyone woke up.
"Good....whatever time it is" I said as I entered the small room and sat toward's luna's end of the table at the only empty seat and realised that Cadence was sitting across from me.
"Good night to you sleeping beauty" Cadence Joked at me as i just stared and eventually responded
" 'wouldn't call myself beautiful this early....or really at any time" I grabbed some coffee and took a large sip as cadence made a weird stare of disbelief.
"I know your'e kidding but you really have some low self esteem, but you certainly have the body to swoon basically any stallion you wanted..." she seemed to space out a bit before I responded
"I don't mean to burst your'e little love fantasy bubble but, 1, I'm not really interested in a relationship, 2, Im into girls, 3, I have such a radically different personality from any other ponies that I probably could'nt hold a relationship even if I wanted one, and outliving anyone you get into a relationship with is something I don't really want to expirience" I took another swig of the stupidly hot coffee and waited for a response before I saw cadence stare at me a bit before saying something."
"I think you have one taker" and I saw her point at Luna who was staring at me"
"Huh, never though of that, By the way, what exactly are you doing here?, and why all of a sudden the weird obsession with me finding a girlfriend?" I looked at her a bit before she finally gave me something useful.
"Celestia requested that after luna finishes training you, that I give you some mental therapy to help with your temper and stress"
"If this is fucking mind control You'll have a few kilotons of ass whupping to get through first" I said as my face gave her a death stare, which was akin to me saying; 'Don't fuck with me or you won't shit right for a week'
"No... It isn't, it's much better than that, besides, if it was that easy one of us would have probably already done it, the only reason We haven't is because of your magic resistance, We can't get any spells through your skin, magic just seems to slide off, the only reason Celestia got a good hit off on you was because she used an explosion and kinetic energy to fling you"
"Phew....Cuz I kinda like having full control over my own brain"
After I ate I got up and left for my room to retrieve my stuff for studying magic. ****** Celestia Pov
I watched as cadence dragged Nova into a conversation about hooking up with Luna, and watched as Luna seemed to silently agree, I remained Silent to avoid causing Nova to snap at me, during the past few weeks as Luna trained her, she seemed to avoid me... Maybe I was too harsh with her...
When Nova left, Cadence Started talking with Luna across the room and I decided to change the subject back to the conversation that we were having before Nova entered.
"Back to the topic at hand, Do you think your method of therapy will work?" Cadence looked at me
"Any mare on this planet, no matter how distressed, should be sane and happy by the time I'm done."
"But Nova's mind isn't from this world, nor was she originally a mare, aould it still work then?"
"Uhhm, Im not sure, I couldn't hurt to try..."
"Just be careful, her temper and ire are something no creature in their right mind should toy with, She's already put several nobles in the hospital, some of which were highly calculated fractures and strikes, barely missing vital organs or veins."
"I'll make sure that I am, but I must be leaving aunties, Shinie's probably wondering when I'll be back, Ta Ta" With that Cadence left and only Luna and I were left in the room, Luna was finishing her muffin when I decided to ask her some questions. **** Nova Pov
I walked through the halls thinking of random things about magic and it's properties, most of which revolved around how to shoot portals, teleport or travel faster than light. I was rudely interrupted from my mental wanderings by something grabbing my shoulder
"Huh?" I turned to find Luna looking at me with a weird expression and while holding a spellbook
"Shall we begin?" **** 4 weeks later I learned some serious Shit and even made up some of my own, I was taught everything from attack, to shields, to teleporting, It was actually pretty easy to learn once i knew the "code" of it, and realising the similarity to a set of commands made my life way easier. And allowed me to pick up the spells taught to me pretty quickly. Luna said something about being ready for combat, and that Id pick up other skills In due time. For now she left me with a note telling me to meet her in her room some time around sunrise. So I made my way to her room in the top of the northeastern tower.
As soon as I entered I asked why I was needed.
"Hello Luna, you asked for my being here?"
"Yes, We requireth you to answer a question."
"Ask away,"
"Doth thou thinketh us attractive?, and if so, doth thou accept our request to court thee?"
"Uhh, unexpectedness aside, Yes I do find you attractive, and yes you may. As cadence said, your'e about the only sentient thing that I would feel comfortable loving... So Lets give this a try shall we?"
"We are Glad you accepted, thou art the first creature interested in us since our return." she said in a solemn tone, obviously the public was still fuzzy with her Nightmare Moon debacle.
"I am too...wait what are you doing with your....well damn" Luna had just stripped down to her panties ans gave me one hell of a seductive look... And it didn't take long for everything else to come off as well. ***** After a few hours of sex and a shower later I flopped in bed not regretting a thing, other than not having a dick anymore, Luna had both bits, which was awkward as fuck, until I decided that my brain was already broken enough, so why not, and we had somewhat awkwardard (for me) sex until both of us were exausted, it was enjoyable, but really weird being on the opposite end. I think I can make this work ****** I fell asleep almost immediately and soon I drifted into a dream, which turned out to be more like a drug trip than a dream until i felt something stab me in the arm. I immediately woke and saw a big fucking changeling remove her fangs from my arm, I tried to move or speak but I was paralysed, I could only move my head, I tried to teleport to no avail, on my horns was a glob of green goop plastered over them, my mind jammed into overdrive and then proceeded to poir in nitrous when i saw her get in top of me and begin wrapping me up with green slime. My brain searched for answers and simultaneously attempt them as The warm goop was wrapped on me, I tried to superheat myself to boil the shit off but that was thwarted when she used some sicky green magic to cool my temperature back to it's normal 100 ish. Soon my head was gooped up as well and I felt myself being lifted up, my imaginary brain engine exploded from strain and I resolved to just wait. I could still see as the changeling hefted me up and flew out my window, the changeling was about as big as celestia, and had a weird transparent section of her abdomen, I passed out after a few minutes of flight and drifted off into a dream, I called for Luna To no avail and soon even the dream faded.
Waking up in a green sac of goo after falling asleep somewhere else is never a good thing.... Usually because it means that some form of very wrong has happened, and that it is imperative that that wrong be corrected, as such, I woke up in a sac of green goo, which was somehow allowing me to breathe... I also happened to be staring at the same changeling that had kidnapped me.
"Oh... Already awake I see? You really are resilient" the Changeling was obviously Chrysalis now that I had gotten a good view of her in the dark I could only see in monochrome, so color was a bit hard to distinguish. I fouldnt really talk so I decided to start figuring out my options for escape. And trying to do such right in front of her was probably a bad idea, so I rolled my eyes sarcastically instead. "You are mine now, destined to be my leverage to finally take equestria as my own, if you defy me I will punish you..." her voice sounded like there were several voices speaking in time. She was obviously keeping me uninformed of everything othernthsn the bare minimum to prevent or at least postpone escape. She decided to leave me in the gooey thing and just leave the room, 2 of her minions were posted to guard me... Hah, as if they could stop me, once I broke out of this gooey prison I could teleport or just plain rip and tear my way through these little bastards... Which i was looking foreward to because they helped instigate my existence in this universe.
The first part My day was boring for the most part, there Isn't much to do when one is trapped afterall, so i decided to experiment with the functions of the visor, because that still worked at least. I checked the 'settings' tab first and scrolled through, all the while learning more about myself and what was going on in my hack job of a body. I managed to find an almost sci fi style readout showing all of my organs and their assorted attached devices, it had my 'main reactor' labeled as being offline, I looked further in and found out that it was because it needed to recalibrate itself and run a diagnostic. So everything was running on standby from... somewhere. I also found out that I had tons of intricate little bits to keep all of the normal functions running. After a few hours of poking around in the setttings I decided to sleep and allow myself to think about some of the things I found and why they were added, as well as contemplate the meaning of a list of coordinates I had in my brain. **** In my dream, as soon as I was aware of the fact that I was dreaming, I almost immediately saw Luna flicker into existence, her image was faded and grainy but visible enough.
"...an......ear.......s.......va?.....lease.......spond....." she sounded like a hand radio that was at the end of it's range.
"I can hear you... But it's rough..." I tried answering to what I thought was her question, her image flickered and vanished only to flicker back into existence several seconds later. **** Luna Pov
"Did you find her sister?" Tia asked us in a very expectent voice.
"I hath seen but a flicker of her dream, and a whisper of her voice, we do not know where she hath been taken,"
"Thank you for trying Luna, I will summon Twilight for assistance in this matter, in the mean time I suggest we resort to other methods.
"We understand Sister, but we wish to comtinue our search, Please inform the night court we of our absence"
"I will handle it sister, just make sure to avoid exhausting yourself" with that Tia left our chambers and left us to continue our search. ***** I awoke at what I could asume was around 8 pm, although I could never be sure. Contact with home through my brain was sketchy, Luna had managed to contact me 7 times, each time it invariably failed Luna finally gave up after the eighth attempt outright failed off the bat. I had about an hour of mental peace and quiet to cultivate a plan to escape before chrysalis finally showed up again. My current plan was to slowly make a precise incision partially through the suprisingly tough outer layer of this cucoon, then when the right moment presented itself I would tear it the rest of the way through, kill the guards, and run...the last part would need work. I also thought on what my purpose in this thing was in the first place, and whether this liquid was doing something important. I pulled up a small analysis program I found. Which I would gess as to allow my body tl know how to cope with various harmful agents,I selected a region to scan, my lungs were the most convinient so I picked them and allowed it to run to hopefully analyse the purpose of the liquid other than a substitute breathing medium. I put scans for my bloodstream and various other regions of my body in a que and waited, while also starting to toss around a backup plan, or some way of communicating with home, without magic, in a form that ponies could recieve and convert to a message, that immediately ruled out conventional radio, and there was also the problem of complexity, the message would have to ne rediculously short to prevent interception or problems with decoding, and yet very descriptive to ensure the message wouldn't be misunderstood, and. My location would also be a problem... Because I had no idea where the fuck I was.
My mental calculating was cut short when I saw Chrysalis walking up to me, in the dim light I could see that she was, 1, nude, and 2, very pissed off at something.
"You're more resistent than I thought, the gell hasn't even touched your mind or body yet, by now most ponies would be well on their way to becoming a changeling. Although, I must say, that in and of itself is impressive, but totally useless to me..." she gaped her mouth and stabbed her fangs into the cucoon, and I saw a very dark liquid seep from the two needle like teeth and start to dilute into the 'mystery goo' that I was currently residing in. I felt no immediate change, and desperately hoped that my immune system and my ludicrous internal body temp would prevent it from doing much.
After she left, I heated my finger nail up and began to carefully slice into the cuccoon's outer layer, thus allowing me to retain some kind of stealth and begin a hacked together plan of escape. After it was most of the way through I waited, all I would have to do was wait for the guards to look away for a second. After about 20 minutes both guards began to visibly relax a bit, another 10 minutes and I tore the cuccoon's back open in one swift move, and tore my way out, the guards remained almost completely oblivious, the sounds of buzzing and hoofsteps drowning out most other noises, I snuck up behind one of them and positioned my longer horn against the back of it's neck and quickly plunged it straight through its neck, I apparently hit slmething vital and the changeling immediately went limp, I dragged my horn out of the wound and watched the little fucker's green blood spurt out, the other changeling looked toward me and jumped at me, I countered and slammed the changeling into the floor...hard, it was still alive so I grabbed it by the head and gave a sharp twist to the left.
"DIE YOU LITTLE SHIT!" I almost yelled but refrained a little bit to keep from having attention drawn to me.
The changeling went limp and I grabbed their weapons, Being on par with luna in terms of scale, I could relatively easily weild two normally 2 handed weapons without too much of a problem. I quickly made my way to a door and used my magic to bore a small peephole, I got a good look through the hole and fired up a modified teleport spell, I flashed onto the other side of the door and immediately squeesed into a ventilation intake across the little hall.
After I had crammed myself into the duct I squirmed farther in and around a corner before I finally relaxed a bit and began to think.
I quickly began to think over my options, as well as looking through my mind blueprints for anything that could be useful to me. At first nothing really came to mind, So I kept crawling the vents in an attempt to get somewhere other than here. I kept pushing on through the cramped duct, I got to a large vertical shaft after about ten minutes of crawling. At the base of the shaft was a massive fan, and it was running, and although jumping through it would'nt kill me, it would hurt, and it would be noisy, which would alert everyone to my location. From what i could see, tunnels amd rooms above me were either dungeons, catacombs, or something similar, so hopefully I would find a sewer or a storm drain below it, which would hopefully get me out of here. Teleporting was risky, because If I misjudged the distance between here and outside, I could end up fused into a wall or someone outside, and although I could pull of extremely long range teleports by using a heavily modified spell, I wouldn't trust it. I gave myself a set of gekko style climbing pads mounted on large segmented feet to allow me to climb down to a lower duct.
Through the ducts I could hear buzzing, and talking, As far as I could tell, none had entered the ducts yet. I slowly made my way down and stopped at the fan, In the center was the motor, it was on top of the blades, and had a massive cable protruding from the side, which ran along one of the support girders and dissapearing into a wall. I decided to risk it and disconnect one of the terminals and climb through, when I finished unbolting the cable with magic, I pulled the thick cable away from the giant motor, It sparked and crackled for a second before ceasing. I pulled the cable to me, and waited for the fan to lose its momentum, Considering that I could gain energy from electricity, I grabbed the positive and negative leads in my hands and felt the current flow, Unlike when I was human, having hundreds of volts pumped through me felt good. The fan slowed to a stop and I clImbed through the gap, reconnecting the terminals to the motor after I passed, the motor creaked and buzzed before finally spinning back up. **** After a few hours of traveling down I had repeated the fan maneuver 2 more times and I finally reached the bottom of the duct. The bottom was slightly dished and had a drain at the center, on the edge of the round duct I located the service hatch and gave it a firm tug...nothing, I carefully and quietly started to laser out the deadbolt, Pulling the same peephole teleport trick with the door back up in the catacombs wouldn't work here, the echoing of the spell firing and the air displacement would rat me out faster than I could say "Oh shit". After the deatbolt was severed, I tugged the door open and climbed through it onto a catwalk and quietly shut the door, I heat welded it shut and continued on.
After a 20 minute fumble through the maintenance shafts I found a large locking hatch which read "sewer access"
"Well shit"
I mentally shut off my ability to smell and rotated the large handle on top, I swung it open and decended into the horrid place below me, and was immediately rewarded with a rushing stream of shit cascading along about 3 feet below, along the side of the sewer there were a few small walkways and cables to hold, no doubt to keep the unfortunate bastards who worked down here from falling into the shit stream of probably doom. I shimmied over to the walkway and walked along the thin metal grate, I would assume that I could probably get to the surface if I traveled along the sewers long enough, although the sooner I got out of this place, the better. **** An hour and a half passed and I could finally see a manhole I was confortable leaving through, It read "Griffonstone Industrial district" outside I could see dark...night... Perfect. At night this would make a decent place to hide and possibly arm myself a little better, because although I had quite the array of extremely powerful weapons at my finger tips curtesy of the monolith, they ran off of my own energy, and although I had a lot, under fire or during multitasking It would be over strained pretty quickly, especially while flying with my makeshift boosters or using large amounts magic, not to mention that they were quite obvious and very easy to pinpoint, and having an entire army come down on my head because I fired once would really suck.
I climbed from the hatch out into the empty road of the industrial district, I had gotten lucky and emerged into the middle of a back road near a storage warehouse on the outskirts of the district, I could see some factories about 2 miles distant, and more warehouses. My legs and lower torso were caked with shit and fuck knows what else, and I had no clothes. I walked around in the dark empty streets until I found a suitably large place to bathe, in this case, a small warm resuvuior that was being used to dissipate heat from something within an adjacent factory. After I removed the caked on crap smoothie, I summoned myself some weird "clothing" from my mental blueprint library, it was composed of a jumpsuit made of some kind of synthetic material underneath some "chaps" which had some pockets and places to clip things to, some metal wraps holding my hair away from my face, and on top was a hoodie-esque jacket,the main diference being material and fitting, it was much more fitted and more breathable, the colors of the clothing were relatively dark, although with the limited light it made identifying anything beyond that almost impossible. The clothes seemed to be adaptable, but required cery little energy to keep together, so little in fact, that it was almost unnoticed until I changed the length of the sleeves on the jacket to something shorter. I continued my trek through the districts until I found a remote enough warehouse to hide in for the day, I entered the warehouse through the skylights and hunkered down in a back corner behind a massive stack of large crates, each was easily big enough for me to fit into with room to spare, in the dark I translated the equish writing on the crate and read out the words written on the crates, in this stack all of the crates had designations for army clothing, each code read like this "typ;00, Des. Cam; sz 32; F" which I could assume was information on the color, size and gender configuration, of the uniforms contained within. And upon checking in one, it seemed that I was correct enough for my purposes. After checking a few other crates I found more crates of clothes and finally backpacks, I took one and opened It, I dug through other crates and found bayonet compatible knives, camelbaks, and some helmets, as well as vests and straps for everything. I stocked up and found a good place to sleep, which turned out to be inside the center of one of the stacks, the crates were staggered enough so that I could remove some crates from inside and slip in, I pu the extras on the stack and left one out to use as a makeshift door. Once I crawled in and slid the crate back in with It's brethren, I started fiddling around in my head about how to contact someone in equestria, without magic to keep the changelings from finding me, or a method of getting home quickly enough to avoid tracking. Teleporting was too risky because of the unkown distance and the possibility of having the teleport interrupted and causing me to be completely emulsified on appearance. Flying there on my own could work, but being out numbered an army to one would really suck, and self destructing could end badly for me. I kept thinking it over until I had a dumb but possibly feasable Idea to steal a plane, stealing it would he hard, but escaping with it would be easy, because by the time a counter attack could be launched, I would already be gone, and with a bit of magic It could be survivable....and having a fighter plane just sounded cool.
After an uneventful day of waiting around in the warehouse, the sun finally set and I began to plot my escape....not the best plan but probably the most likely to get me out of here with minimal bullet holes... And bringing back a somewhat functional specimen of the enemy's tech could be valuable.
At around 11 at night I slunk out into the streets and quickly and quietly made my way towards a runway in the distance. Luna had given me quite the crash course in fighting, magic the know how into my head hole and then practice, then repeat. I used a cloaking spell to hide everything, including my smell and sound...I was still trying to figure out a way to make myself intangible to other creatures. My training had also included improved locomotion...basically how to parkour, so getting somewhere fast on foot...hoof...thing was easy, all I needed now was my shoulder cannon and sword... Then the pain train would be complete. I got to the runway by 11:30 and made my way to the nearest hangar. The side door was locked, but using magic to force the locks open was pretty easy, the door seemed to lack an alarm by the looks of the inside frame. A quick survey to ensure that the hangar was empty and I quietly snuck in and assessed what thw hangar contained, a huge bomber, far bigger than any prop driven warplane built on earth, it was so big that It even had 2 small fighter planes mounted to the bottom for fast deployment, it was painted a mottled brown and OD green, camo scheme, with the griffonia flag plastered on the tail fin, fuselage, and wings. Flying it would be a challenge, it was simply too large to turn at any reasonable speed. I was committed to flying it, since I already broke into the hangar. I began a quick preflight inspection, and made sure that everything would last at least long enough to crash land back home, It was already fully laden with bombs and fully fueled, so I climbed in and began to turn everything on, after everything was primed and ready I got back out and hacked open the switch box to open the door, made a hard connection and stuck it back together, and booked it to the plane, the doors were slowly creaking open as I primed and fired each of the 6 massive engines, each uttering their sputtering protests before roaring to life.
"Come at me ya little bastards! I fucking dare you!"
I used my magic to remove the choks, then I throttled up to taxi to the nearby runway, I barely had expirience flying a glider back home with my dad, and I had no clue how to do anything but steer, use the throttle (because big levers labeled throttle are obvious) and flaps, and hopefully land....good 'nuf.
I was halfway to the strip when I saw the flashing lights of police cars closing from my left, I turned right and made my way onto the strip. **** "Sir! We have an unauthorised launch taking place.... Hangar 2b"
"Tell em ta shut down...NOW!"
"This Is air traffic control, you are not authorised to take off, shut down your engines Immediately...I repeat, shut down now..."
"Anything?"
"No response."
"I want Every Damn Security Truck On That Plane, Now!!" the liutennant manning the tower smacked a button on the control panel, across the base klaxons blared and strobes flashed to life, the commander took the mic in his claw and spoke with a vengance.
"All security members, We have a code 2, Stop That bomber AT. ALL. COSTS." Immediately after the message ended, the sirens blared and about 10 military police trucks rushed toward the slowly departing bomber. **** I lined up at the end of the runway and locked the brakes, I shoved the throttles foreward and took off the brakes, I set the flaps to takeoff, and let the beast of an aircraft start accellerating, The speed climbed and I feelt the plane shudder as It began to lift Its massive hull from the ground. Then I heard a soft thud, accompanied by a deafening screeching.
"Shiiiit!"
I shut off the engine and used the rudder to compensate, the end of the airstrip was nearing.
I pulled up hard and felt my stomach invert itself, the bomber shuddered and finally lifted off....barely, ahead was nothing but empty land, So I climbed in altitude as high and fast as I could without stalling, and dumped the payload to reduce the mass. Below I saw many explosions erupt, the plane immediately became more responsive, I could see things giving chase behind me, but I was well on my way to freedom. ***** 20 minutes.....I got 20 minutes....then I saw it.
A seething black and green mass closing in on me.....
"Oh Fuck No...." behind the tail I could see changelings... Thousands of them.....ready to ring in the apocalypse with a scowl... And I was right In front of them. My brain decided to dump some adrenaline into my system (or whatever my crazy innards ise instead), I almost shit myself in fear when a changeling smacked into the top edge of the rudder and took a sizeable chunk of the tail fin with it. Within minutes I was being pelted by changelings, and soon I was In the thick of it, the seething mass closed in, I heard another engine sputter and die, then they started landing on the wings. The tore at the sheet metal and doped fabric of the wings.
A bright orange flame erupted from the left wing, the right following soon after, more engines gave up the ghost and Just as I felt the altitude sink, The seething mass emmitted a sickly green field and enveloped the plane, on the cockpit glass I heard a mighty thud and saw Chrysalis staring down at me. Within seconds she tore off the panes of glass from the coclpit and slashed me from my seat.
"You thought you could escape ME!?" she held me up to her face and stared me down, "I do believe you failed....how unfortunate, now...onto the more pressing matter of your conversion to one of us..." she bit me hard in the neck and pulled away with a sinistar grin plastered on her demented face.
"Fuck You...." I kicked her hard in the abdomen and let myself fall away from the back of the stricken aircraft, fires blazing from its wings and rapidly breaking apart as the changeling queen began to shoot off towards equestria...which was in the opposite direction that I was headed. My head burned and my insides felt like the core of the sun, my wings spread and immediately began to glow in an attempt to release the rapidly building heat, I straightened out my wings and pulled into a slow glide...my visor flickered into existence and I saw warnings begin to flash Into existence... All of them screamed about foreign contaminants, failed attempts at removing them, or the overheating caused by said attempts. My body felt like lead and my head was a brick... Whatever chrysalis did to me had certainly done a number on me, my wings soared into the white hot range and the warnings became more urgent...I dove for a small lake about a mile distant. As I plummeted my vision went and I heard a deafening splash and hissing before my brain finally gave into the toxins in my system and I fell into blissful unconcious.
I awoke to a clap of thunder overhead, rain pelted my face, I opened my eyes and sat up, what once was a small lake was barely a pond, the ground around was scorched and most of the trees surounding were lightly charred, the clothing I made had dissapeared, and my backpack was sitting in burned pieces nearby, my visor flickered to life and displayed a simple message.
[Minor damage repaired, toxin purged.] [WARNING: power levels low, recharge in progress]
My brain shook itself from sleep and I stumbled to my hooves...then immediately forgot that I had hooves instead of feet and flopped over, I tried again with more success and stumbled from the water to what remained of my pack. I grabbed the knife and what cloth I could salvage from the burned remains, I was too drained to make myself any kind of tools or clothing, So I walked to the nearest tree and collapsed, I fell back asleep and slept for a few hours before finally waking up with enough energy to do anything meaningful.
"Uhhhhhhhhggghhhhhh, my fucking brain...."
"Join us"
"Who the fuck!?"
"The hive urges you"
"Fucking Great! Just what I needed! My mind to ne even more fucked up!....dammit." I decided to ignore the weird nagging in the back of my head and just try to get somewhere useful. I was In a forest....honestly more of a jungle, at least my landing had scared off most of the animals. Further out I could see a couple more small ponds and streams. I grabbed my knife and hacked off a hefty tree branch to use as a rudimentary club to increase my range a bit. I flew up a bit and looked around, many miles out I could see civilization, and the seething blob writhing around it, my heart sunk and I realised that I was too far away to stop the little bastards, saving anyone would be impossible and the the odds were stacked too high to save anyone,I would have no chance of winning short of nuking the whole town. was still doing pretty bad on energy for my mechanical bits, enough so that even getting there would take too long to help at all so, I had no choice but to let it happen and trudge on. *** I walked for a few hours before I saw the black and green mass, dissipate from around the town, immediately after the mass was far enough out, I took off. Flying as fast as I was, it was a bit of a struggle, forcing me to fly slow and close to the ground to take effect of the ground effect to save what precious energy I still had while it recharged. ***** The town was in ruins...houses flattened, mutilated bodies strewn in the streets, changeling goo,and signs of a bloody firefight. The town was named Horseshoe prairie, and was probably in the mining industry based on the large number of rusted out diggers and equipment on the far side of town. My brain failed to comprehend how many had died, the expirience seemed almost surreal. Many of the bodies looked like the remnants of mortal kombat brutality moves, bodies bisected or ripped apart in some cases, others were piles of gore or just limbless torsos, several looked like they had been bitten in half, and a few had been reduced to puddles of goo with the odd bone or hair sticking out. Even though I had enough tolerance to survive the lab incident without puking, this was too much, I dry heaved several times before coming to my senses and continuing to trudge on.
After a hour of scrounging I had found and taken anything worth keeping or bringing along in memoriam to the town, I set the rest ablaze and left an anvil engraved as a tombstone at the entrance. I had seen too much, chrysalis needed to be ended, O felt a smoldering anger kindling inside me, whoever she thought she was, I was gonna rip her a new one, I checked up the things I gathered and set out to put a 30mm bullet through her head. I had gathered a few old guns from the houses...more for sentimental reasons, as I lacked any ammo, an old knapsack enchanted with something luna called the "bag of holding spell" which I found on the body of a unicorn wearing a doctor's labcoat it was filled with a few medical supplies and nothing else, a few photos, and some other things I would need or want to use later. It scared me how effective she was, not a sign of life, no survivors anywhere, all of the animals and pets were butchered with only bloody bones remaining, and any trace of food had been taken. **** During my training luna had said at pne point that I have the second strangest dreams she had ever witnessed, only rivaled by discord, she had asked me why they were so radically different than most ponies, to which I responded with a simple "i dont know". This dream was different, it was calm, serene even, ahead of me was the monolith, silently sitting atop a small hill in what looked like somewhere in the great plains of the United States. It spoke with it's usual intensity to me and then fell silent.
"Find me. You will need it" after that It dissapeared, leaving only a set of coordinates floating where it once was. They matched the first set in my visor. I looked around for what felt like only a brief instant before I awoke. ***** The coordinates were out of the way, I was desperate to try and help the situation with chrysalis, I hoped that visiting the physical presence of the mysterious talking brick would he worth it. I thought back to when I had first spoken to it, it basically said "here's some powers to not die, dont panic too much" and left it at that. I was grateful that it had done that..but I still had questions...maybe another time, I had a changeling ass to boot to pluto. ***** As I came upon the alien slab I immediately felt rejuvinated? I walked up to it and waited, within a few seconds It woke and the lettering on its surface glowed a soft blue.
"I see you have made it, much has changed..."
"Completely true..."
"I see now that I was right in helping you, Traveler. I have watched your life in this world on occasion, and I realise that you do not know how to take full advantage of your abilities, you have done well thus far, but to have a fighting chance against the insects plaguing this world, you need more." I felt knowledge rush into my head, and the monolith continued. "There... I wish that we could stay and discuss, but I know you have much to do, so I will not impede you, I hope you return. Goodbye Traveler" the block also seemed less robotic, the first time it spoke it was robotic and distant, but now it spoke like a person...almost. ***** I had one hell of an arsenal, my abilities were still very squed to attack and my defense was still crap (comparatively) but now I had one hell of a way to punt chrysalis 6 feet under. Apparently I had been using my abilities wrong, and I needed to change reactor modes to effectively make weapons and armor....would have been useful earlier....at least the monolith isn't a cold calculating logic machine, but sometimes personality is less important than ability to fufill a task properly.
I took to the air and dumped plasma out my wings until I was screaming along fast enough to get a similar effect to reentry.
"Woooooo!, Get some!" I yelled...or at least tried to, the wind noise and the fact that I was traveling faster than sound made sure to stop that, but even without the yelling I was still excited to give chrysalis one hell of a fight.
I stopped briefly in the everfree forest to stash my bag of not so useful stuff and mark it, and then continued on at ludicrous speed towards canterlot.
I saw the black mass blanketing canterlot, any hope at targeting chrysalis would be nearly impossible to fufill, so I decided to head for the castle, it would be the most likely to contain the changeling queen.
Alarms blared and fires raged across the griffon main base, the changelings had taken over.
"SIR! WE'VE GOTTEN AS MANY AS WE CAN EVAC'D WE NEED TO LEAVE NOW!" the general simply stared out at the destruction and quietly followed to the escape chopper.
The heli lifted away and joined the rest heading away from the destruction in the wake of the betrayal, only 4 out of the original 12 helicopters escaped to the capitol of griffonia. The griffons declared the changelings the more prudent threat and dropped any dissagreement with equestria in favor of living for another day. The front lines had a drastically different paradigm, the soldiers almost immediately stopped fighting each other to make an attempt to fight the swarm and try to escape.
Meanwhile in ponyville, a bright orange glowing thing streaked across the sky, all simply watched as it dove straight into canterlot.
I slowed down a bit and checked the castle, my hud didnt show her, so I swung back around and shot outside, i landed on one of the pillars to spot around, I saw the bitch hovering above the city watching the destruction from indide a massive force field, in her grasp were cuccoons that contained all 5 princesses, and twilight's friends being forced to watch the horrendous acts being committed below. All of my rage and pent up emotions came loose and I felt my insides boil, I summoned my sword and found my giant 30 mm cannon in my room, then returned to the roof of canterlot where I aimed up and pulled the trigger until the mag ran dry, all 5 AP bullets deflected from the shields with barely any effort, I dumped 4 more mags with antimagic and HE rounds, the shield fizzled, I dropped the cannon aside and shot ag her like a living tank shell, screaming.
"Hello Bitches! Im BAAAAAAAAACK!!!!"
I hit her like a freight train and sent her reeling back, we hovered momentarily until she shot back, I used a modified shield spell to send the bolt back at her, and she promptly caught it and reabsorbed the magic.
"Oh....look who we have he-THWACK" I gave her a smack upside the head and kicked her down, she blasted me back and threw a few powerful punches and I caught them...with my face and body. I slashed her with my sword and she blocked with a magic shield, she roundhouse kicked me and sent me through a building. I slung a thin beam of magic slashing across the sky, chrysalis deflected and shot back, i dodged and felt a shockwave as the bolt vaporised a building across town.
Twilight Pov.
I watched in horror as nova and chrysalis duked it out above, I wished that I could stop this...
Celestia Pov,
I saw great explosions above the city, the power involved was insane, billions of thaums of magical energy being expended, both combatants circling around each other, throwing building leveling blasts all the while. The collected love of countless ponies fueling chrysalis and the explosive rage of Nova keeping the fight going strong. I flinched in the cuccoon when a massive shockwave from a smaller blast touched down across town.
Luna pov.
We saw nova unleash her rage, much as we had done over a millenia ago, her body was changing, as she passed I saw her body begin to shift from it's normal purples and blues, to a firey purple mane and a body of jet black which began to heat intil it reached incandecencd and her eyes glowed a bright orange, her body was now comparable to celestia in height, the strikes only increased in force and frequency.
I fired the blade from my sword, and watched it sail through the shield and graze chrysalis on the side, the blade flew back and reattached itself to the hilt, I clipped the sword to my back and sent another magic beam her direction. With the second I bought I formed up a hilt for a weapon in my hand, and used magic to create the large sword blade, I swung the massive magic weapon at her and hit another magic blade, we exchanged slashes like madmen and I slowly pushed her towards the outskirts of the city.
Then it hit me... Something was amiss, supposedly she had defeated celestia... Yet somehow I was going toe to toe without being completely wiped off the planet by her. I sent an earthshattering magical beam in her direction before flying out over the empty fields around the mountain, Chrysalis' ire had been directed at me, therefore keeping it away from the city, I kept duking it out with her before the real heavy hitting attacks reared their ugly heads.
I was violently punted into the dirt below by a massive explosion before me, I climbed from the burning crater and immediately dumped concentrated magic downrange, then I rose up again and continued the dogfight above, to my suprise, I had done some damage, not much, but enough to give me a tiny ember of hope that I would survive...or even win.
"What a foal...thinking that you can take on a creature that has defeated celestia! You overestimate yourself..." Before I could speak, I saw a massive pink cloud erupt from the changelings blanketing the city and envelop chrysalis.....
"You thought I wouldn't have a backup plan this time? What a foal....shame too, you would have made an excellent drone." Chrysalis was now glowing a sicly green around the extremities and was considerably larger and more...jagged looking
I shot first and hit a shield, then I charged my sword with my magic and watched the blade become enveloped by plasma, soon forming something similar to a lightsaber, and soon we were driven back into a frenzy of strikes, neither combatant being able to land a strike on the other, attacks became FAR more violent when chrysalis sent a Huge magical Blast my way and hit me at point blank.
Twilight Pov
I was nervous, but not about my own fate as much as Nova, and the rest of equestria, now....it was looking pretty bad, Chrysalis was sending out enough energy to almost saturate Nova's magical resistance, the blasts alone were still able to throw around Nova Like a toy to a foal. I could only hope that She would last long enough to let a few escape. I witnessed chrysalis unleash a massive spell on Nova, sending her shooting through a building...at that moment, my hopes of surviving this were dwindling...ponies were dying left, right, and center, and our mose effective weapon had just been punted through a building. She shot back out of the rubble quickly, but it did little to spur my hopes, If she had been thrown away that easily, it wouldn't matter if she got back up a hundred times.
I decided to make a change of plan, any of the attacks I could use without killing civillians were ineffective, a rifle against a tank would be an effective comparison, so I shot myself towards the encased princesses and party, and freed as many as I could before making a mad dash back to fight chrysalis...hopefully they would take the point and get the hell outta dodge.
Celestia Pov
I felt a blade graze my side as I saw nova sloppily hack it open, she moved to Luna and Cadence before shooting nack into the sky to distract chrysalis, my magic had been drained before my cucooning, as had everyone elses. I decided that it would be best to round up as many ponies as possible and evacuate the city.
I vaporized the rest of the cucoons and everyone began to follow me at the gesture of a hand towards a large public emergency shelter. As soon as we rushed in I began explaining my best contingency plan to everyone inside.
"Attention Ponies..." at that the room changed from panicked screams to almost silent in an instant,"...The ongoing fight outside has gone out of control, and we must evecuate the city...everyone here will follow twilight into the subterranian levels and escape the city through an underground train tunnel leading through the whitetail woods and looping back, from there you will head to the nearest town of ponyville, cadence and shining armor will come along and provide directions and protection, Luna and I will search for any other survivors, Twilight...make sure to evacuate the lower levels as well....Now, Lets Go..." Everypony immediately scrambled to action and filed down to the lower levels Via, a small tunnel built into an underground bunker beneath the building. My sister and I went out. ***** 2 hours later, train tracks leaving canterlot.
Our bunch was now back together, we had managed to save about 300 ponies, and were now walking along the torn up train tracks away from canterlot...My sister and I had donned our millenias old armor and weapons to defend the group... All were weary, and not even pinkie could bring their spirits up...it tore me apart to see my little ponies in such a way...I also mourned countless lives in the city, and the ones who had died heroes defending the group...above the massive city I saw a flash and watched as Nova was blasted from the mountain into the grassy plains several megahooves east of ponyville, a smoldering crater was left behind, Nova Didn't get back up...she had fought valiantly...I continued my silence as I simply watched the black smoke rising from the crater.
3 days later,
We had finally reached ponyville, Luna had retrieved the battred, but still breathing form of Nova from the crater, she was now nude and caked with charred earth, her sword was retrieved from the dirt nearby, it was stained with the blood of countless changelings...maybe even chrysalis herself...the the blade was still true...but it was apparent that it and it's wielder had been shoved to tartarus and back.
Within the bounds of ponyville, I could see what became of canterlot, within days it became a changeling hub, thousands of them seething around the city, much like a wasp nest or a colony of fire ants. Within a week I saw the first bit of hive forming, and within 2 I saw massive clumps of resin like hive structures forming all across canterlot... I dared not look at it any longer, and left to tend to the survivors for today, all had been taken in to one house or another by the inhabitants of the town, or had been set up in hotel rooms... At least friendship still lived on.
After a quick check in with the most in need of help I turned my attention to Nova, she had taken a lot of damage, several new scars on her arms and body, a few lingering cuts and some slowly healing bruises and magic burns, after a quick scan with my magic, even though seeing through the magic resistance was hard, I managed by passively scanning in quick bursts. My scans showed that her body, however it worked, was ruggedly persisting, the many implants and organs were all slowly but surely rebuilding themselves using what little magical energy was left behind to bolster their efforts. To help the process along luna had supplied her with small magic transfusions into her horn every few days, up until now I had never realised how much Luna cared about Nova, now it was pretty obvious, as she probably saw much of herself in the somewhat wayward alicorn; lost, confused, angry, lonely, and also expiriencing a new world to get used to and likely many other feelings as well, the fact that she was related by Dna to her probably heightened the feeling.
She had only awoken 4 times for brief periods in the last few days mostly mumbling about needing to fight back or suddenly talking in some gibberish language that sounded similar to old draconish or griffish, and unfortunately nopony knew when she would wake up again, or what she was saying, so I left her to rest more.
By the time I set the sun, I had lifted my spirits a little bit, a local griffin by the name of Sarah who was probably about 20 years old had adopted a 10 year old colt we brought along, his Father died several days after we escaped the city due to an infected bite wound he had gotten while fighting our final push out of canterlot, his mother was missing and we had suspected the worst. But once we finally reached the little safe haven Sarah had decided to take in the unfortunate colt as her own son, it warmed my heart to see it happen and to see the colt eventually become accustomed to having a griffon as a mother and I retained hope towards winning this ordeal, or that we could at least adapt.
Twilight POV
Over the past few days I was terrified for my life, Chrysalis had invaded canterlot again, but this time she succeeded. The whole town watched in awe as the changelings invaded, all of us were dumbfounded by the defeat of Nova, after a battle on the scale of that of Celestia an nightmare moon, she was defeated and thrown out of the sky as if she was nothing. The day the survivors arrived was the worst by far, seeing the inhabitants of ponyville stare in stunned silence at the broken and badly injured parade trudge into town, I heard the telltale alarm of the hospital staff arriving and then I blacked out, I awoke on a hospital bed with a soft beeping behind my head, after a few days of observation, visited my friends, Unfortunately Rainbow Dash had gotten the worst injuries.
"Hey Twi..." Rainbow sounded raspy and tired, and her face spoke volumes about what she saw. She was bandaged across her stomach, back, arms and her left wing...It broke my heart to see her like this.
"Hey Dash....How Are you?"
"Alive... And feeling Not Awesome...."
"I hope you get better soon...I was just dropping by to say hello"
"Thanks Twi....I...really appreciate it" I said a quick goodbye and left...She seemed....weary, as if she had the weight of the world put on her shoulders, I decided not to press the matter and went to go find the rest of my friends.
2 Weeks Later
I awoke with a huge cramp In my back and a migraine...although it was better than previous attempts...I could think like a more rationally capable person, rather than a derranged rabid spider monkey smoking crack, or a sloth that smoked a bunch of joints, (both of which happened), I looked at my surroundings...I was In a basement...a furnished basement of someones house, next to my bed was a heart rate monitor and a few of the strange equestrian medical instruments I knew all too well from my first few weeks in equestria, My horns were lightly charred but still intact, and my wings were still useable although it would he hard to fly with so many feathers pulled out. I had no idea where my stuff was so I decided to just go upstairs
"Eh...fuck it...I dont give a shit if someone is offended..." And I got up and groggily stumbled up the stairs onto the main floor, I was immediately greeted with a very haggard looking Celestia jumping back in shock.
"Y-you're awake!? Oh Stars...I..I think you should see luna...Ill fill you in with the details once I round up everyone.
"How long was I out?"
"Just over a month...."
"Thanks...uhmm is there anything I can wear for now?"
"Luna Probably has something, Ill tell her to bring it to thd meeting" **** 1 hour later, living room of small house
I sat down in an empty spot on the couch next to a very relieved Luna, I had On a baggy hoodie and a pair of torn up and blood stained Jeans and as of nowa Luna...as she seemed very reluctant to let go now that I sat down.
"Just to ask the million dollar question, what exactly happened after I fought Chrysalis?"
"Although I have No idea what a dollar is, The rest of us evacuated canterlot with a couple hundred others and we trudged here for refuge." Dash said flatly.
" What happened to the rest of the city?"
" Ta put It simply....They're prolly turned inta changelings or dead..."
" Damn....Can't Imagine the aftermath. On the way back from escaping I passed through Horseshoe Prarie...it....wasn't pretty..."
"How many survived?" I heard Twilight ask to my left.
"None....the whole town was dead... Demolished buildings....bodies in the streets.... I left a makeshift headstone for the town and torched it... If you remember the lab invasion, Imagine that 100 Times worse....none of you were there but you probably saw the news..." A quiet wave of internal cringing swept across the room...at least that's what everypony (save mine) looked like.
"You hath fought valiantly... We thank you for that... But we must formulate a plan to retake the castle... Doth thou have any ideas?"
"Uhhmm, Lulu? Dont you think it's a bit premature for that?, She just woke up an hour ago and you're already making plans for a counter attack? Wouldn't it be better for all of us to save that for later?."
"We are sorry we only wished to expedite the, as Nova would say, "beating Chrysalis to a bloody pulp"
"Im all for giving her a boot up the ass but I would have to agree with Celestia, We are still recovering, dash can barely walk, Twilight needs therapy, and Pinkie is uhh...Depressed? So...maybe we should postpone that for a few more weeks.
"By the way Twi...since you have a hard on for lessons, lemme tell you what I learned from fighting Queen Chrysalis,"
"Ooh, Is it something profound?, I once heard that Clover the clever learned something like that!..."
"Its probably not profound but it'll probably keep you alive, I learned that she is a bitch...obviously...and that when you get the chance to kill or capture someone as crazy as her, Do it....If you did that after you defeated her a second time, it would have probably saved a lot of time and casualties.
"Ehhhhh, My bad..." Twilight gave an awkward frown and tried to shrink into the couch a bit.
" We all make mistakes but sometimes you need to accept the consequences of being dumb." After a few more minutes of talking about the tragedy, everyone went off to their business and I was left inside to do the simpler tasks, like helping fluttershy do chores. Celestia proposed an Idea to me before she left to go do something in the market... She wanted me to become part of the family, so that she could keep an eye on me...she also posed the Idea of marrying Luna...I said I would think about it before she left, I didn't like the posh stuff of royalty...I was more for working for my money and doing things myself, and it felt weird to be waited on...somewhat unnerving... What would I even do? Equestria is pretty peaceful save the odd monster or random magic problem...which would make my ability to be a weapon pretty overkill, on the order of killing a Turkey with a Surface to air missile, overkill.
Luna had been crafting a plan on how to bring down chrysalis in her current state, it wasn't going to be pretty... The only plan that she had proposed with a fighting chance was for the alicorns harness our anger and rage and become entities like that of Nightmare Moon, for me and luna that wasn't much of a stretch, but for Twilight, Cadence, and Celestia...not so much...they all were....too...soft too nice and overly compassionate to do that, twilight had a crazy side but even as extreme as that could go, I highly doubted her Ocd would much.
In the following days I kept letting my mind wander to the drawing board for horrifically destructive guns and cannons...It just felt good to imagine the horrific ways I could send this crazy insect off with a gun powerful enough to punch a hole through mars. I was glad that Celestia hadn't decided to try and read my thoughts or dreams, She would probably feint from the seemingly unending number of changelings being ripped apart in disturbingly similar ways to the bodies of the lab incident, honestly I suprised myself at how well I was handling my emotions at the moment.
Within a week I began to see battle plans begining to proliferate on the walls of the little house, none of which were very good, all of them were mostly dumb plans to look heroic while being blown to tiny pieces. I was drafting my own plan as well...but as plans go, as soon as your feet touch battlefield the plan gets thrown out the window and burned and one is forced to improvise. I looked to canterlot to see that it looked more like an alien tumor than a city, and I could also faintly see a hazy bubble surrounding it...most likely a shield.
1 more week later
"Nova? Thou hath spoken of a plan in the making?"
"Yes... Although im unsure of whether it will succeed...."
"Nova...tis at this time that success is near out of grasp....we shall be fufilled even if we shall die in the attempt"
"In that case, Ill give you a summary....So, you may be familliar with several massive shore cannons from nefore your banishment? learned about them in an old book from the archives, and decided to remember them in case things went south.
"Yes we are familliar, we had them constructed during a war with the griffon empire...what hath millenia old cannons anything to do with the defeat of the queen of changelings?
" we use them to take out defenses and cripple the army inside, and then we storm the castle and put a bullet in her head....what....dont look at mw like that...everyone else's plans involved going in guns blasing to die a heroic death! At least i have some kind of method of even having a chance...if we add on your nightmare moon plan it could work..."
"Yes...but how will such massive weapons ne hauled and aimed? They doth weigh nary the same as a warship."
"I was planning on mounting them on a barge and firing them from the sea to the east of equestria, and ark shells inland to bomb the crap out of the shield."
"Tis a valid plan...but how doth thou know if it will survive firing a shot after one and a half millenia hath passed?"
"I don't, we're kinda screwed anyway so what difference does it make that we die in the attempt or get captured and die slow painful deaths in a cage....or worse"
"Thy present a valid point...though we must ask that we are not near the weapons as they are fired."
Next day.
"Nova! I have a suprise for you!" celestia climbed up into the loftthat I decided to begin inhabiting and chucked a huge manilla folder onto my face.
"WHUMP!....ARGH...FUCK.., my face....ow....why the fuck did you just chuck this at me?"
"It's all of the paperwork regarding Your and Lulu's marrige!"
"Whutnow?...Neither of us have even proposed....much less even asked!? By the way, how in the fuck it this more important than the insect invasion over there!?" I pointed in the general direction of canterlot..
"Oh....right...you have different customs, It's far more fluid here, and Luna asked me to make it so, sooo yeah...the official cermony will happen after we retake canterlot...."
"Kaaaayyy?, whatever...just as long as it isn't super formal bullshit...ya know what, lets just do this as soon as we end this, do the ceremony covered in blood and standing in entrails! Because fuck tradition."
"Hmmm, luna always was a warrior princess before her banishment, maybe thats another reason she chose you...you lack the mindset of many ponies nowadays ....she might like it..Ill go tell her!" 2 minutes later
"YAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!.....THUD!...WE KNEW YOU WOULD NOT DISSAPOINT!" I found myself tackled to the ground by a very extatic Luna.
"AT LONG LAST!!!"
"WHAT THE FUUUUUCK!....Luna....Chill out ...."
"We are sorry Nova...but we are happy that thee also detest modern formalities..."
"So you liked my idea with the whole being wed covered in the blood of our enemies?"
"Such a perfect thing hath been impossible for millenia...we Adore the idea! As we do thyself....we are sorry for the haste in making us officially married...but we could not wait any longer....we are sorry if thy should dissagree" she looked noticably more distraught at this.
"Its no biggie...just try to at least tell me before going all gung ho on something? Ok? "
"We shall try our best to abide by that....but we promise nothing!"
"Close enough....I guess"
Battle plans by Nova And Luna, Transcribed By a very unhappy Twilight Sparkle
Phase 0.5, any alicorns capable of becoming entities similar to nightmare moon, do so before the plan begins.
phase 1: long range bombardment with magic diffusing and high explosive shells....plus whatever Nova comes up with
Phase 2, long range teleport to 5 megahooves above the castle and glide into the city (Note: if there is an absorbtion field gliding is the best bet to get in safely)
Phase 3, fight her all at once and keep fighting until evacuation is mandatory
Phase 4, "nuke the crap out of Chrysalis" whatever that means...hopefully it is powerful.
Phase 5, begin cleanup and re inhabit canterlot.
"Nova, What does Nuke the crap out if Chrysalis mean?" i heard twilight ask as she read back through the plan.
"It means that I will cause the single largest non magic explosion this planet has ever or probably will ever see...although I can't gaurantee that the city will still be attached to the mountain...so if you can reverse and or free as many ponies as possible before I do it.
"Don't be silly, I fought the most powerful being on the planet! The explosions from that were probably the largest possible. I doubt you can top that."
"Alright...dont believe me? I bet you 100 bits that Ill debunk your little theory"
"The odds are in my favor...so...Deal, I expect payment upon detonation"
"Dont get too cocky now..."
"I dont even have one....I just doubt your abilities...by the way, what should I buy with the 100 bits I win..." She giggled a bit...but I had an ace...and somewhere to get uranium ore.
"Well...I will see you later then"
"I hate to break it to you Nova...but I think you're going to be paying up...Twilight usually never gets scientific facts wrong" celestia patted me on the back before walking off with Twilight.
"Doth thou actually have a plan to enact such destruction ?
"Yes...although Im gonna need to do some tests."
"We shall discuss this farther in my chambers...we may be under scrutiny"
"Agreed"
Outside luna's room.
Inside the room Luna scanned several times and placed some kind of spell on the room...because I wasn't great at identifying non combat spells I had only my guesses as to what it was.
"Doth thou wish to share how thee shalt create such an explosion?
"Pour as much plasma as is necessary into a shield and collapse it in on itself, then let it go, the expanding plasma and superheated air will cause a massive explosion and the shockwave will do the rest"
"Well thanks for the tip," I saw a flicker of green flame and luna vanished only to be replaced by Chrysalis maniacally laughing as she stared down at me.
" how long..."
"Oh...how long I was disguised as your precious little luna and friends?...about 2 days... Oh...your little angry face is adorable...I can feel the anger and sadness seeping from it...you know...your love for luna is odd, burning very strong but subtle, delicious all the same, but now I have another alicorn to eat...oh...you dont like that do you...how sad...well tata! She let a flash of magic flyand dissapeared
I felt my insides burn with rage...i was sick of this bitch ruining everything, Nothing mattered anymore, she just needed to die a horrible death. I felt my wings snap open and begin to siphon off heat, the runes on my horns began to turn from a sicly blood red to a deep black, magic poured into it....this was different... Rather than the usual heat and electrical feel of my normal magic I felt only smooth cold energy culminating, I peeked at my horns, they were enveloped by what Twilight described to me as dark magic, perfect. I looked at myself, now my coat was an onyx black and my hair was a crackling mass of purple plasma and lightning, my eyes had taken on a blood red hue and my horns were now longer and sharp enough to gut a dragon.
"CHRYSALIS!!!!"
As soon as I let my anger be known to the whole of equestria with a blood curdling roar of anger I teleported outside and shot off like a rocket towards canterlot.
I felt like watching the world burn today...or at least the part that was inhabited by insect bitch, I had finally gotten somewhere, I had someone to love for the rest of my eternity, but chrysalis took that away...along with everything else I even had a chance of being attached to in this world...nothing mattered anymore If she was dead I would be happy.
I called my sword to me....only to be greeted with nothing, I tried again...still nothing...no matter Ill find it later.
Chrysalis POV
I had to hand it to myself, my new plan had worked, The only real outlier was that alicorn Twilight grew in a lab, but i had already proven her to be insignificant compared to my power. I placed her sword in a cuccoon next to the weapons of all of the foes I had defeated on my quest to domination, i placed It right next to the greatsword of Luna and the morning star of Celestia, it softly glowed blue in its little glob. I watched for a few seconds as the many runes and images softly pulsed, then I saw it chPunge to a sicly toxic green, then to a deep red, then soon to a deep pulsing black and purple. I averted my eyes...for some reason it scared me, then it pointed it's hilt west and pressed against the chamber walls tightly. It seemed to alter it's angle as if it was trying to get somewhere...then it hit me...She was flying this way. No matter, she would crumple under my might. I decided to Give my little princesses turned slaves a hard time for it.
"It seems your precious little lab rat is coming to rescue you...how sweet...Totally futile, but a nice thing to try before she to becomes a helpless little slave such as yourselves... or maybe she'll be a broodmare like your pitiful little group will be once I am done with you." I could see the anger beginning to rise in the 4 I had not cuccooned, the other 5 were well on their way to being nothing more than mindless drones, Celestia Spoke first.
"Youre nithing more than a Mon...AHHHHHGHHH" The magic restrictors and their cuffs were laced with a pain spell that I could trigger at any moment, I felt only bliss when Celestia felt the agony of the spell.
"She'll KIck your sorry ASS!!" Twilight's little verbal rebellion ceased as I activated the spell, she fell in a twitching heap after I released it."
"Oh... Nothing from the one closest to the little mutant rat? I thought You loved her, so much so that you married her in law only 2 days before I and my lings had replaced all of you. Still nothing? I see, 'show no weakness because my lover wouldn't? Too bad, you also get a pain spell." I activated it and saw Luna desperately try to hold her little stoic poise, she eventually gave in and she too fell in agony as I simply watched the little thing squirm in pain on the dirty floor, nude and helpless like her little posse.
Nova Pov
I landed at the hive and immediately blasted the guards into crispy dust, I kicked the door open and began going up, ignoring the weird and occasionally changing structure in favor of making my own doors, I heard a changeling scream at me with one of their weird little guns pointed at me.
"STAND DOWN NOW,"
"Or what..."
"WE WILL SHOOT" the changeling was obviously internally shitting itself... So I grabbed it by the neck and lifted the dainty little bug up without even trying.
"Suit yourselves" I squeezed harder and harder until I heard a sickening crack, the changeling was obviously dead but I wanted to drive the point home So I adjusted my grip to its head and crushed it into gooey green mush right in fromt of all the others. They all immediately started firing and I ignored all of it, by the time I was done nothing but splattered entrails and broken chitin remained, I grabbed one of their guns and scrounged some ammo from the rest and continued on paying no heed to the many changelings running in fear or trying to kill me.
Chrysalis Pov
"It seems the lab rat has entered...and killed a whole platoon of changelings...no matter, I have millions more waiting...Guards, prepare the slaves a front row seat for the fight, I wnat them to see every last drop of blood spilled on this day..."
"I had barely gotten a glimpse of the little rat before she killed the ling I was looking through, she seemed different, at first I thought I was staring down Nightmare Moon herself but I quicky saw the differences, the firey hair, glowing eyes, and a face of cold determination rather than Nightmare's signature psychotic grin...it almost scared me...but I had seen worse.
Ripping through droves of changelings was the therapy session I needed, every time I stabbed, sawed or ripped through another one I felt a bit more confidence that I could win, My limbs were caked in blood from the scores of bugs I had killed and I was still ripping through more. I decided to use a bit of dark magic to summon a sword from....somewhere....It was huge for a normal pony...but to me It was perfect, the tip of the blade had a large harpoon esque tip facing backwards, the surface was covered in deep red glowing runes and I could feel dark magic almost literally oozing from it, I had no Idea how I figured out how to do that but at the moment it was half past stab and I was running late for an appointment with bloodshed.
About 10 minutes later I kicked in the throne room door and saw chrysalis staring at me from across the room, weapon drawn and magic at the ready.
" Hello Nova...nice to see you again...come back for more of a beating? How lewd...but I will not dissapoint, soon you will be just another slave destined to do nothing more tha..WHAM!!
" I had Punched her in the face mid monologue, and boy did it feel good.
"Well then" Chrysalis said simply before sending a magic beam towards me, I dodged in kind and pulled the sword out of my magic in favor of wielding it with something I had a better understanding of using, chrysalis teleported herself a weapon an. Somehow hovered up despite the odd wings, I flapped into the air and held a hover across the room...waiting for any indication of her next move, she flinched her head and shot another spell at me, I put up a hasty shield, it barely held back the blast and I retaliated, I sent a blast at her while I dove across the room and tried to skewer her through the heart, I the blade of the sword sailed through her shield and sliced nothing but air as she dodged backwards and to my left.
Soon the dogfighting began, both of us zipping around the room throwing spells and slashes, soon the fight went outside and the real fight began...
Chrysalis sent a HUGE Beam my direction I dropped away just before it hit and I watched as the blast put a crater in the mountain after punching through the wall and another tower, I responded by letting loose a spell that sent a massive shotgun blast of tiny crystaline shards at her, I was rewarded with a few hitting a shield and most missing.
" WHAT THE HELL DOES IT TAKE TO KILL YOU!?" I shouted hefore I dove in and took amother slash, the sword connected and ripped a thin green line across Chrysalis's midsection, She backed off a bit and I prepared for another hit, It never came...instead I felt the familliar pang of something grabbing at my mind...the slight whisper I had in the forest soon became a loud and commanding voice, screaming in my head. I saw a cloud of magic corcling my head before I managed to block it out, I dove from the hole in the wall and shot off a machine gun burst of raw magic shots, each of them causing a small explosion upon hitting the tower, I saw chrysalis fly out flanked by changelings, several of which were about the size of a full grown grizzly bear. I dove past and blasted away the cuccoon around the sword, and called it to my hand, as soon as I touched it several bolts of electricity arked to it as I positioned it in my other hand and dove back outside carefully dodging the changeling platoon trying to hit me with magic.
Twilight POV
I was forced to stare out on the battle, at first it started slow...but it was soon raging out of control and I saw magic beginning to punch holes in the walls, One of chrysalis's shots missed me by only a few hooves and ended up melting a hoke in the wall. I was sincerely hoping that Nova had the strength to defeat her...at this point I didn't care if she was killed, even though I dispised killing...I had seen enough in the past few months for me to accept it. If she was still alive...I doubt she wluld ever dare look at anopony the wrong way ever again...
Luna POV
We could only watch as our dear Nova dueled with the evil queen... At least her anger had a valid reason to manifest, the dark magic had given her a body and abilities much like ours over a millenium ago, She hath also summoned a dark weapon of tartarus we had summoned a crecent blade, she wielded a longsword. We could do nothing but watch and hope that she could win...and put a gory end to this horror, such that we may have a warriors wedding ceremony atop the corpses of our enemies. We saw the first of soon to be many changeling corpses crash into the throne room through the now very pitted and burned roof.
I hacked changeling qfter changeling to goey chunks, but for every one I killed a dozen more took its place, even with two swords and magic, my dent in their numbers was like a 22 cal pistol to a tank's armor....basically nonexistent. Within her living armor chrysalis sat back and quietly sent orders to kill me...cheap move bitch. I dove through the numbers and grabbed for the one in control, desperately clawing through the seething pointy mass of bug horses, but as before I could barely stave off the millions of things trying to keep me back, so I began to do something twilight would probably freak out about...I poured magic into my horns and let it accumulate between them in a sparking black mass...then I let all hell break loose, in an instant the beam vaporized a hole in the mass, barely large enough to see through...but it gave me enough time to teleport right up in chrysalis's face...immediately after I grabbed her with my magic and teleported away from the swarm and bolted for the edge of the city, once far enough away I began charging my final stand...I formed up a tiny shield with as much magic as I could muster and dumped in plasma...the shield began to glow a soft red...then orange...then incandescent white...then it became hard to look at...I used the last bit of magic I had to teleport away....
An earth shattering shockwave shook the city, in the distance a huge expanding cloud of superheated gas filled the view and dissapated, a tiny green speck still sitting where it was just prior to the explosion, the blast had failed...chrysalis survived...somehow...and I was exhausted... Crap...
"Come on!....How in the fuck do you survive that!? A voice replied in my head...it was smug.
"Magic....bitch."
"Well fuck you too..."
"Gladly"
I felt a flash of magic behind me and immediately realised that chrysalis was standing behind me...
"I see you've come to gloat..."
"No...just mind control you like I did shining armor last time I tried to take over I suppose there will be no resistance?"
"Just my broken ass brain."
"Perfect..." she spun me around and ...licked? My face amd then made a snide comment before locking horns with me and activating some kind of spell.
"Ahhh. The taste of defeat"
I was floating...then I felt a pitted hand touch my shoulder...
"Nice brain you have here...very....Distant, but robust...with just a touch of caring, have a good look before it gets locked away forever..."
"Id like to see you try"
I opened my eyes My mind or ar least the part I was in now, resembled a spacecraft of some variety...a large control panel sat squarely in the middle of the room, several things seemed to be patched into it. It was surrounded by a massive segmented window looking out across a vast plain of what I would assume would be my personality and memories...as well as everything else, all of it lazily drifting around a small star-esque object in the distance. Chrysalis simply stared.
"I have never seen a mind organized like this...ponies'.minds are usually very simple...thoughts of ther talent and how to do it...life goals, and dreamlike thoughts floating around in a relatively ordered manner...yours....how?... How do you stand such a thing?...the other princesses and mine are the only thing I could compare the complexity to...it is almost hard to look at...but no matter a brain is a brain... And I came here to make you nothing more than a mindless slave." she punched her fist into the control panel and immediately a green tendril-like goo began to spread across the massive and very analog looking control panel, as soon as it was finished spreading it formed a seat for chrysalis to sit in, and a helmet linked into the mass. Immediately I heard an alert...then it silenced and was replaced by an eerie pulsing fleshy noise.
"Before I am trapped...id like ro ask something..."
"Since' you're basically a prisoner anyway...I see no reason to deny it."
"How the hell does this work?"
"This place is your, psyche. An expansive but yet infinitely small magic plane...within it your mind manifests and forms physical objects from untainted magic...your brain may be a box of fat with wires like a computer, but this is the screen."
"Thanks for clearing that up....soooo...how much longer..."
"About 10 minutes out there, in here it will be about double... It would be faster if only your mind was weaker"
"Well thanks for that...but I don't think It's gonna end up like that, I picked up a large wrench from the corner and quietly walked over to the one invading...and swung.
A.sickening smash echoed through the cabin and I suddenly felt as if I was being dragged by the mind...somewhere
Soon I returned to the real world and saw chrysalis stunned in front of me, I picked up my sword and ran it into her abdomen...the large blade smattered with green protruding from her back.
"..,how..,"
"My brain my rules...bitch" I gripped harder on voyager before I spoke again.
"See you in tartarus..." I gave the sword a hard twist and jerked it from her body...she coughed up blood onto me, slumped over and fell back, her body flopped onto the ground like a sack of fleshy potatoes, she twitched for a few moments and then life finally left her. I used the back of my sword to snap off the horn at the base, I grabbed it and looped it into the waistband of my, now quite ruined pants, the blood and heat as well as the odd change in size and proportion had done a number on them.
I looked around... Changelings simply stood frozen in place...then They began to look around like idiots before they all took to the sky...several remained, they simply disguised themselves and quietly left.
I found the bombed out and badly burned throne room about 3 minutes later, chrysalis's weapons dropped near the giant hole in the southern wall, I walked over to the cuccoons strewn across the remaining wall, and began slicing them opem with the swords...Twilight's friends rolled out coughing and heaving... As well as about 20 other high ranking officials and Shining armor. Celestia, Luna, Cadence, and Twilight were chained to some chairs facing one of the gaping holes, all of them had several restrictor rings latched onto their horns, I started with luna and worked my way down the row, breaking the cuffs and removing the restrictors,
"....you won...what became of chrysalis?" Celestia asked first...most lkely the question on everyone's mind.
"Dead...I ran a sword through her..."
"It would have been better if she could be reformed...but I understand your choice"
"You look terrible... Are you okay?"
"Yeah... Most of these are finishing healing...the scars....they're staying. Twilight came to her senses and then began to ask questions
"...Nova....you won?...how? "
"Confuision...and a big knife" ...I held up the swords for effect, both of which were still covered in gore".
"Wait...YOU KILLED HER!? What could have possibly....oh....nevermind....i..think it's probably for the better...."
"Yeah...I know you despise killing and all, but she's already killed too many so I gave her the death penalty.. It was only fair."
"Thanks...and Sorry...for everything...I...should never have done that to you to bring you here..."
"I also apologise...my treatment of you was totally unacceptable...I really have no idea what compelled me to sentence you to that punishment." Celestia apologised with a very solemn look plastered on her face.
" I still resent you for what you did...but at least it gave me opportunities and abilities I could only have dreamed of...so thanks for that at least, although I will ask you to FUCKING THINK YOU MORONS!.....that felt good."
I looked at myself...I was still in my Nightmare form...so I let it drop and I returned to normal within a few minutes..., I checked my visor and was pleased to see that my wounds had healed...So I began getting the rest of the ponies back on their hooves,
Several hours later, it was the dead of night, we had torches and the equestrian equivalent of road flares lining the streets among the remaining changeling architecture, we had found many of the captured ponies in the canterlot sublevels, there were several hundred that had completed transformation into changelings, and almost 20,000 missing...but at least the majority of the population of about half a million was still alive and mostly intact.
"Do you Princess Luna, Do you take Nova's hand in marrige? No matter the circumstance? Celestia spoke suprisingly calm for the hell she had just witnessed.
" We do"
"And do you Nova, take Luna's hand in marrige? No matter the circumstance?"
"Ive seen some serious shit already...so...Yes!"
"With that over with...I pronounce you...wife....and well...wife... You may kiss the bride.... s" Luna grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me into one hell of a kiss, we stood there in each others bloody and messy embrace for almost a whole minute before separating.
The few ponies there clapped and cheered...most of them were probably just happy that life continues on.
"Oh...Nova, stay there for a sec, I have something else that I need to tell you"
"What's that?" Celestia leaned in and whispered in my ear"
"Once canterlot is rebuilt, You're going to have a coronation...since you just married a princess."
"Cool, although If I were you I wouldn't expect g something regal from me.... Not one for froo froo shit."
"I know...you'll see when it happens"
2 months later
Cantelot had been rebuilt in record time...probably because magic, and the fact that few buildings had actually been destroyed, just built over. I had moved in with Luna, as soon as the city was suitable to live in.
Luna's chambers were huge, and relatively sparse, they were decorated heavily with paint and engraved baseboards and such, but things like furniture and belongings were scarce, until that is I moved in...During the 2 month rebuilding I had gone out and found all of my crap, both the stuff I collected up from within equestria, as well as my possesions that the monolith dragged in and neatly boxed up in some kind of pocket universe...thing, which was now proudly sitting in a box under the bed, other than tossing in a couple small things, I hadn't opened it, mostly because I didn't want to get emotional about it...because bad things tend to happen...aka, shit bursts into flames. On the walls hung a few new banners luna had commissioned and several of the better looking weapons we owned. Tonight was saturday night...and I was reading over Twilight's little report of the battle from her perspective, apparently If Chrysalis had been at her normal peak in power, I would have literally vaporized her...but with the extra boost from the entire hive, It wouldn't have mattered if I had nuked her or crashed the moon into her. As I thought about the article Luna spoke to me.
"Nova, tis' probably the time for you to prepare for the coronation"
"Alright Lulu, lemme just find my clothes." Celestia had gone full on "warrior princess" with the outfit, which meant that it was pretty minimal, basically some traditional lightweight leather armor consisting of an arm guard, shin guards, and some back protection, And the actual clothing was basically an ornamented loincloth and top. I put it all on and strapped my sword onto my back and luna braided my hair and tied it off with a piece of copper wire. "How is it...anything put on wrong?"
"We see nothing wrong, we shall have to complement our sister on the outfit... For once she went with our advice on something."
"Ill see you out there."
In the throne room I could hear lots of people, I waited about 2 minutes before celestia began to speak, I could barely hear the speech...thank goodness it was short... Then one of the guards near the door waved me in. I walked up to the throne and knelt, the room was almost dead quiet, save a few odd noises or shuffling around."
Celestia quietly picked up a small crown from a weird cushion thing and put it on my head, I heard clapping and stood up and about faced, more clapping happened and everyone started filing out... After the last few left and the doors closed I was tackled by Luna.
"OOF"
"We are sorry... We did not mean to do that...we became over excited:
"No...it's fine, just startled me is all." I picked up the crown from the floor and gave it a quick look, it was much more angular than the other princesses' chosen headwear, it was made of a few different materials, a dark and quite heavy metal scored with tiny little lines and patches, a much lighter and more whitish metal, and something resembling orange tempered steel, the gemstone laid into it was a very vibrant orange which seemed to give off a bit of light and looked as if it was alive...really strange it was ground into a very pointy diamond set into crest of the item was beveled much like a small blade which flowed seamlessly into the gem, the overall size was about equivalent to luna's crown.
"Do you like it?"
"It looks fucking awesome!"
"The gem is a draconic sapphire from down south, when charged with magic it gives off light and heat... And it can also act like a magic collector and battery. The orange metal is tempered damarescus steel, the white is a titanium compound, and the dark color is meteorite of lunar origin, composed of selinite rich iron which gives the dark color.
"Duuude, thats fucking awesome...thanks for making this"
"You're the one who killed chrysalis, and finally won the heart of my sister, I think you've probably earned it." I placed the crown on after that and left with everyone else. Celestia, Luna, Twilight and I made our way into a conference room adjacent to the throne room and sat down at a large hardwood table, where celestia placed a large folder and began to talk
"Ive brought you here to discuss the matter of a new princess, As of now Nova is one level below Luna In terms of political influnce... Don't abuse it..., next is the matter of succession. When I step down in a few millenia, Luna will take my place as the primary ruler, and will most likely be re crowned as queen because she is married, Nova will be ushered in to take the original place of luna and so on, Twilight has already discussed her plans with me for when I step down so we need not waste time on that, Nova at the moment posesses no authority over any military units other than any guards assigned to her, and will have only an advosory role in politics until she is trained in the inner workings of our government. Any questions before I move on?....no?...moving on. This room is now magically sealed and mute to the outside world, anything said within these walls is not to leave this room unless otherwise instructed.
As all of us already know Nova was originally the product of a confidential experiment, her actual origins were never fully released to the public, and she was therefore given a forged backstory to keep the public out of the loop, we wrote her existence off to a voluntary experiment conducted on a willing subject by the name of Polaris, because the research division her file was assigned to after custody was removed from twilight was part of a government installation known as Dark Star, Nova must be informed and sworn to secrecy on the matter...and because of her new rank she has full authority over the installation and it's subsidaries. the only ones who may challenge this are myself and Luna.
On other matters we have a massive influx of recently converted citizens coming back into canterlot and we need to decide on how to handle this matter...the public currently has a very bad view of changelings, bad memories of the wedding of cadence resurfacing, and the ever present resistance to new species making themselves known, as with the immigration of zebras several years ago as well as non pony species such as griffons there is resistance. And just as with the griffon influx hesitency because of the supposed threat of being eaten alive, the public is afraid that the changelings will kidnap and replace them...so we must find a solution to this within the next year...possibly sooner, depending on what happens."
"Ohhhhhhkay?....that's alot to take in....is there anything else I should know?" celestia looked me in the eye and gave me a death stare that bored through me like a hot drill through butter. Then she spoke in a whisper that sounded as if it was made of razor blades.
"If you break her heart, I break you..."
"Ok.........ok.....just chill....." ahe abruptly changed her demeanor and gave me a weirdly satisfied smile and went back to her usual collected demeanor.
"Okay then! With that done, let's stop here for today and get something to eat shall we!"
That night, 10:00 pm. Luna Pov
I entered the dream realm as I did every night and began scanning for anything out of the ordinary...suprisingly... Nothing... Except for the usual one of distress, My New wife Nova...her dreams were extremely unusual, either becoming lucid dreams or becoming something only a demon of tartarus would dream of.
I stood before the heavy almost vault like door that separated me from the chaos beyond, I pulled thd large red "open" lever mounted on the surface, the door screeches as deadbolts retract and some kind of large mechanism pulls the heavy door inward slightly and off to one side, I stepped in and waited for the door to close behind me and prepared for what lies beyond, I opened the inner door and found myself staring out across a war torn battlefield...one entity standing at the center, It was Nova, in her nightmareish form...staring at something in the distance, I walked over to her to attempt to comfort her, avoiding the bodies and dropped weapons, I saw what she was staring at, in the distance, was what appeared to be the canterlot mountain...but rather than the namesake city, I saw a massive softly orange glowing crater, I could'nt place the meaning of it all but I could remove her from this nightmare, I sent a pulse of magic into her and watched the landscape fade away to the science fiction esque interior of her inner psyche, looking out across the strange object in the distance. After several seconds Nova returned to her usual form and stared at me with an expression of relief.
"Thanks for that...." she sounded shaken...moreso even then after her bout with the late chrysalis.
"Tis our duty, but we must ask...what did it represent?"
" some kind of surrealistic representation of what I thought could have happened...."
"How so"
"You saw my attempt at killing chrysalis by giant explosion...so imagine that but multiply the effects ten fold and detonate it in the middle of canterlot...that was my plan as a last resort....if nothing else worked I would grab on to chrysalis and cause a similar explosion while also detonating the little reactor that sits in my torso... It would probably have vaporized canterlot, a good portion of the mountain and killed everything even remotely callable life in the area....in all honesty It could have been worse than that even, If I concentrated all of my magic into a tiny point It would have caused a massive tear in spacetime very similar to a black hole...but it would immediately suck in the city and then implode...then it would rebound and literally wipe the entire planet of life....as I am now i could never do that...but as the form Im going to call Pulsar, the power I had at my disposal would have made an extinction event easy...that tartaric sword makes it easy to change into that form...but I fear that I may accidentally doom us all."
"Fear not...we too had the same worries... After our return we wondered about and feared the possibility that we could accidentally kill the world by crashing the moon into it, celestia may have had a similar fear of her own at some point...but nothing has come of it as of yet...and it seems that thou art better at controlling thy anger, as nightmare moon we went insane with a lust for power, but as pulsar you remained sane....very, very displeased, but sane nonetheless, so we congratulate thy sanity."
The throne room was completely devoid of anyone... Just as it usually was past midnight or so. I sat on the armrest of the throne just next to Luna... She was finishing some paperwork for the night and I was staring blankly at a somewhat foreboding black envelope that I was handed... On its surface was a single starburst pattern... Perfectly symmetrical and stamped onto the envelope in silver ink. Just below the logo a small white sticker was placed neatly on the surface... On the sticker was a bright red stamp... It proclaimed in bold red stenciled letters
[TOP SECRET]
... I was somewhat wary of what it meant... I would be running the equestrian equivalent of Area 51...and this envelope probably contained a contract. Luna looked to me expectantly....so I undid the piece of string from the 2 little buttons and flipped open the top flap... And immediately I felt magic trigger itself, a small rune in the flap had just done a scan, It didn't explode.... So that was good the envelope suddenly flipped open like a paper flip phone, inside the envelope there was a single flat gemstone set into a, credit card sized piece of metal, it sat on a stack of blank papers, on the metal card It had only a few words embossed into the surface... "touch to horn"I read quietly, I did as it said and brought the metal card near my foremost horn, as soon as the object touched the surface I felt a spell fire... I immediately felt something on my neck and a flat black sphere enclosed me... On the inside of the bubble a projection appeared. And immediately began to talk, it was a somewhat scraggly old stallion with a set of thick glasses and a short greyish beard.
"Hello Princess Nova... It is a pleasure to meet you...this recording is top secret, anything said in this recording is Not to be discussed with any sapient creature other than Princess Luna or Princess Celestia, Twilight sparkle is especially forbidden to hear this information... And due to her nature and persistence the information present will appear encrypted from anypony attempting to read your memories, the bubble you now see around you completely isolates you from the outside world. Now... Let us begin....
As you may have heard, the organization I work for Is called Dark Star... The public doesn't know of our existence... All they have is a set of false leads and dead ends, and any change to that would warrant termination or memory wipe... But as both actions are nearly impossible on a creature such as yourself... We will instead detain you as pertaining to the protocols stated by your creator... As of this moment you are hereby enstated the head manager of this facility... Project reports and permissions for experiments will be routed through me, and any orders you have will be fufilled to the best of our ability, the object around your neck that resembles the jewelry that celestia and Luna wear is essentially just a large necklace with some magical power backup crystals... The same as any of the princesses... But within the central gemstone is another function... The master key to the entirety of Dark Star, it also allows you to see magically cloaked documents, although... Because of the strange nature of your eyes.. Reading these documents without the master key may be possible. But now onto the real meat of this message, enclosed in the magically sealed documents are all pf the necessary codes, maps, and locations to all of the facilities we possess, any other information can be obtained frome one of our facilities, and one of our many duties also encompasses special operations and your safety and defense.
Please destroy this recorded crystal as soon as is convinient by means of consuming and digesting it for the best possible assurance of security due to the lack of traceable magic residue, which would remain if it were simply vaporized by, raw magic or high energy plasma beam. ... The process will be perfectly safe to perform due to your hybrid nature... As well as the consumption of most materials according to stomach acidity and magical absorbtion tests conducted by the team of scientists within the canterlot medical research subdevision in canterlot. "
I let that sink in... Now It was official. I popped the gemstone from its little card and looked at it.... I apparently had to eat it... I hesitated a bit before putting the small round disk of gemstone in my mouth... Suprisingly, it didn't really taste at all bad... It was bland but not unpleasant, I swallowed it and moved on to the metal card, I used magic to superheat the iron card and then squished it into a small ball and popped it into my mouth... It again was bland... But the temperature I was sustaining it at kept it at a consistency something like chewing gum, I swallowed it as well and waited, within about a minute the bubble faded and I closed the envelope.
"so?" luna asked staring at me with a questioning gaze.
"it is official ..." i said simply and teleported the envelope to our room... Teleporting inanimate objects or myself was reasonably safe for short distances, but for long range or with other ponies it was probably too unstable... In either case it would probably collapse and crush everything in transit, out of existence or it would collapse harmlessly and leave the occupants or myself stranded in omega kind of void.
I got up and began to walk off to think about my new position but before I got all the way up I felt Luna grab me by the arm and pull me into the throne on top of herself, she hugged me slightly before speaking.
"May we ask thee a question?"
"sure"
"doth thou wisheth to have a foal?"
"If it were actually possible I would say No... I'm not very good with children and I already have enough to worry about right now, why do you even bother asking? I can't impregnate you, and you cant impregnate me..."
"There exist spells to solve infertility..."
"I have no Idea if it would even work... And if it did... What kind of crazy genetics would come of it? I cant imagine that my genome is even compatible... Or if i'm even remotely capable of becoming pregnant....whose to say that anything could survive within me... The temperature is stupidly hot, and I have no clue if your sperm would get anywhere before being burnt to a crisp... You should know... You've been in there... "
" we still remember the exact sensation... The heat was certainly a suprise when thee were near thy peak... It only served to drive us on more in the end but it certainly wasn't the correct temperature to facilitate the survival or creation of life....please do think about it....we will do research into the subject...please do not say no immediately...this means a lot to us"
"I'll see...I'm not promising anything...but I won't write it off so soon."
"we urge thee to understand...when and if we find a solution we will ask...possibly beg thee to procreate....but when this is done will remain up to thee, it may be as soon as possible or centuries from now.'
"okay...good to know..."
I walked down the halls to our room...the new thing around my neck was kinda heavy...but not unbearable. I stopped to readjust the new hefty piece of jewelery, even though mine was comparatively small It weighed a lot, I could only imagine how much that behemoth of a neclace weighed down celestia. Celestia found me several minutes later and struck up a conversation.
"it seems our sister wants to have a foal eh?"
"aparently....and how the fuck do you know all of the stuff we talk about?"
" Observation spells around the castle...I look over them each morning to stay up to date on gossip"
" .....Sneaky littl..."
"and to tell the truth...I watched you and Luna..Uhum 'Do it'...But I must say...When I watched you two going at it...It was the best 'fun' I've had in centuries."
"back to the whole wanting a foal thing?"
"Oh...Um yes... I will assist her in her search... and just between us..." she leaned in and whispered in my ear, "legends say..I am 'Potent' enough to get even a sterile mare pregnant..."
"Okay then...Kinda too much info...but thanks for the sentiment I guess?"
"oh and by the way I have a letter for you..."
"thanksbye..." I grabbed the letter and did a very small teleport to the janitors closet... Conversation had gotten weird fast and I just wanted to read the letter and go to bed, I flipped open the letter and saw a few short lines of softly glowing blue text.
Princess Nova Is requested to travel to the main facility of Dark Star for official buisiness no later than 10 days after the arrival of this letter, imformation on location is included in the introduction packet...