Chapter 1

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Do you ever get hit by a truck and roll down a hill full of sharp stones then run over by a stampede of horses? No? Then you cant believe the pain I’m in. Sure maybe once a while I got sore from my mission but holy crap I’ve never felt pain like this much.

The last thing I remember is I was in the middle of a war zone with the rest of my squad, practically mowing down the enemy. Me, as a shield, shredding the bastards with a pair of minigun on each of my hand, suddenly I heard someone shouted ‘ION CANNON!’ and got blown off my feet or rather blowing my feet.

Now I’m lying down face planted, my limbs are messed up I can’t feel my toes nor fingers. My backbones feel odd like it was reshaped somehow. It’s not a strange feeling but to think back I only use the War Machine form, it has nothing to do with my bones except strengthen it.

A sunlight hit my eyelids making me hiss in pain, I did something stupid which is open both of my eyes and the pain doubled. I tried to cover my eyes but instead, I feel yet another pain but this time it feels like something hit my eyes with a blunt object.

‘AAAUGGGHH WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME!??!’

For the record I have a very high pain tolerance, even if I got shot by a sniper I wouldn’t even flinch. But this time is way off the chart, my body feels like I’ve been swimming in a lake of lava, something is planted near the end of my tailbone, two more limbs behind my back, my eyes feel like has been forcefully widened and that’s a bad thing since the eyes are my only weakness, that’s why I always wear my mask

‘Wait...my mask!’

Realizing that my mask isn’t on my face, I immediately searched for said item leading me to snap my eyes open and letting the sunlight reached my eyes once again

Hello pain, it is nice to meet you again

“AAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!”

After a minute or so I finally get to see without hurting myself. The first thing I see is that I’m surrounded by trees indicating that I’m in a forest of some kind. There 3 feet in front of me is my mask, my signature. A mask that based on Wrench’s mask from the game Watch Dog 2, I’ve made it so the mask can be separated into two pieces, the LED visor and the bottom part, so I can drink or eat without revealing my eyes. Unlike the original one that uses a limited amount of emotes mine can mimic almost all of my expression

Instead of two X’s like on the original mask, mine has a pair of blue pixilated eyes that can follow my eyes, eyelids and eyebrows movement. I also add some of the original ones like the ‘? ?’, ‘! !’, ‘^ ^’ and ' '> <'

I reach out to grab my mask, expecting to see a fingerless hand I was greeted by something else. A hoof. A small hoof covered by a dark colored fur, a lighter colored fur showing where my scars should be. By the size of it, the only thing I could think of is a child, or should it be called foal, sized hoof or even smaller.

‘wut?’

Looking at the rest of my body I could tell that I’m some sort of Equine judging by the shape of it if you didn’t count the extra pair of dark feathery wings on my back. I’m still wearing my clothes that somehow fit my current body, black leather hoodie with a baggy red undershirt, blue jeans covering my flank down to my hind legs.

Now the weird thing about it is I don’t remember morphing into this form, let alone having it. For those who don’t know, I am a shapeshifter but I can’t just change my body all nilly-willy and just transform my limbs into a different appendage like claw, wings or even grew another one. The reason to that is I am an abnormal shapeshift, my body can’t accept another being DNA thus making me unable to morph into another living being but that doesn’t mean I’m useless

Being an abnormal shapeshifter has its ups and downs, for example, me. I can’t copy other’s DNA thus absorbing mass from another creature is pointless to me, in return I can absorb other resources (metal, rock, wood, etc) as many as I want without getting bothered by the weight of it and make something out of it like weapons, vehicles, furniture and other things.

Normal shapeshifter can only absorb a certain amount of mass to morph into another creature or other things bigger than themselves. Since I cant copy other living being’s DNA, thus making me unable to do much with other’s flesh. I usually stick with technology, being able to turn myself into a fighter jet is pretty awesome

Heck, I can even turn myself into a fully armed walking impregnable fortress with the size of a 2 stories building

Sighing in defeat and making a mental note to solve all of this later I returned to the task at hand, or hoof in this case. Walking with four different limbs is something I got used to it since most of my transformation is quadrupled due to the sheer size of it. Grabbing the mask with both of my forehooves I bring it to my face.

Feeling the locking mechanism activates, which are four screws on each side of the mask that dig below the skin penetrate the skull, I activate the HUD of the mask. The satisfying sound of Windows XP starting up reach my ear making me smile under the mask, that smile was immediately gone after a warning popped up

No Signal, Unable to Connect With HQ

I frowned, why in the seven layers of hell can’t I connect to base? I’m literally a god damn signal transmitter that can reach cell tower in the radius of 50 miles away. Maybe the trees are blocking the signal if that is the case then I’ll have to find my way out of here

Mentally command my mask to open the map, a square screen popped up on the right top of my HUD that has a blinking icon of my mask surrounded by a green colored circle that surrounded by a blank screen. Well at least I’ll know where the hell I am going without going in a circle

***

I’ve been trudging this forest for what feels like hours but in reality, it’s only been 30 minutes and starting to question what kind of forest did I ended up. I came across a lot of weird flora and fauna. There’s this patch of blue flowers that dimly glowed, I decided to avoid it cuz I don’t know what it’ll do. Fought and killed a juvenile manticore, or at least what I think a manticore, normal manticore doesn't have a red-ish mane and those horns are way too big. And a shit-ton of wooden wolves

I’m not kidding, wolves that made out of woods literally jump out from a bush and try to bite me with their wooden jaws, the result a lot of their teeth got shattered. The reason for that is I have a layer of metal underneath my skin that acted like armor.

But that doesn’t mean that they gave up. After countless encounter with them, I’ve grown tired of them and made a solution to avoid the wooden wolf by disguising as one of them. Wearing one of their comrade’s corpse as a coat to mask my scent and using the skull as a helmet, hiding my mask under it

“You can’t take away the pain we feel
created as monster that com-Ouch!”

It was dumb of me to walk with closed eyes. Rubbing the pain off my snout from walking straight up a fence that has a fuck ton of apple trees on the other side of it

‘Wait apples?’

Sure is, an orchard of apple trees with the biggest apple I’ve ever seen. My stomach growled reminded me that I haven’t eaten anything since the last time I ate, doing the most logical thing I jump to the other side and climb one of the trees

Even though I have a pair of wings I doubt that they can carry me, with how small they are I bet they’re just for shows.

Plucking one of the apples from the branch I checked if it has any harmful substance within because if you live in my world there’s no way for an apple can look like this except if you mixed chemical with it. After scanning the suspicious looking apple I found it save to eat, I lower the bottom part of my mask and take a bite of it…

….

…w..what is this?...

…w…why am I crying?...

…why did this APPLE IS SO GOD DAMN GOOD?!?!...

I kept munching on the apple, tears streaming down my face. I never taste something like this in my life, I can’t even describe how good these apples are. Serving in the military since I was 16 made me rarely eat something with good quality, the only thing I can compare to this is the dried banana chips that I stole on a mission, those chips probably the sweetest thing I've eaten in the past 8 years and it has nothing compared to these apples

I finished eating the whole apple on my hooves, without thinking I snatch another one and ate it like I haven’t eaten in a month

Meanwhile, not far away from our shapeshifter, a certain orange cowmare named Applejack is harvesting apples with a technique known as tree bucking, using her strong hind legs to kick the tree and knocking down the apples down to a basket she prepared.

Tomorrow is the Summer Sun Celebration and she got to play a part of it, taking charge of the food is one of the most important ones. Not to mention her relative are visiting for a gathering so she has to make a lot of food both for them and the celebration, meaning she had a lot of work to do, thankfully Applejack have her brother to help out her chores

Applejack was about to buck another tree before her sixth sense reacting up. Working in a farm for a long time tending the apple trees and dealing with Timberwolves has been leading her to develop another sense that allows her to sense somepony messing with one of her apple tree or Timberwolves entered her orchard. Right now she feels both of them at the same time

She frowned, looking toward the deeper part of the orchard. She fought a few Timberwolves before and come back without a scratch. bucking apple trees since she was a filly really strengthen her body, mainly her hind legs. A single buck from those can shatter a Timberwolf into pieces

Walking toward where her instinct telling to go, which is near a tree that has nothing wrong with it. Applejack confused, why did her feeling lead her to nothing? She swears that her ‘sixth sense’ was never wrong, and she can prove it. Sniffing the air around her, the sharp pony nose of her pick up a familiar smell, a Timberwolf scent above her

Applejack swiftly bucks the apple tree beside her causing a figure to fall down along with the apples. The first thing she saw is a Timberwolf’s head, it was enough to set her fight or flight off. With a quick-thinking Applejack turns her body around and buck the Timberwolf midair.

A satisfying CRACK reached Applejack’s ear made her smile but an THUD followed by a groan made her alarmed once more, thinking the wooden wolf survived her infamous buck. She turns toward where the Timberwolf was, ready to finish of the intruder.

She gasped in horror, what suppose to be a Timberwolf was, in fact, a young colt, two hooves mark imprinted on his chest explained how he ended up sticking on a tree. Applejack horrified at what she had done, she had accidentally buck, and possibly killed, a foal. Tears streamed down the young pony face showing a painful expression, although his eyes are covered by a Timberwolf mask.

Overwhelmed by guilt the cowmare can only watch the badly injured foal slump toward the grown, revealing a pair of crooked wings and this discovery increased Applejack’s guilt. Pegasis’ are well known to have hollow bones that makes them lighter and allowing them to fly, a kick from an Earth Pony can break or even shatter their bones but this is Applejack we’re talking about.

She was about to check he’s alright but stopped when something came out from the foal’s mouth. Blood came out from his open mouth and pooling beneath him, soaking the dark-colored fur in red. There’s no doubt, the least injury that she had inflicted is broken bones but after seeing the blood she knew it was worse than a that, there’s a possibility that she had caused an internal damage to an organ or two. Judging by where she bucked him there’s a chance that she hit the heart and lungs

Applejack took a step toward the unmoving colt, each step shaking her to the core. taking the last step, not bothered by the blood that soaking her hooves, she bends down and nudges the young colt, expecting some kind of reaction which he never gives, she checks if he is still breathing activity by putting her nuzzle on his.

nothing

Placing a hoof on the colt's neck to check if there's any pulse, despite using a hoof that ended with a hard nail, her Earth Pony magic allows her to detect any pulse with it.

and still nothing

Applejack fell on her haunches burying her face in her hooves, crying over what she had done.

Chapter 2

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After Applejack's little...incident that involving a mysterious colt that unknown to anypony is, in fact, a robotic shapeshifter, she told her brother to help her deal with the injured colt. She told the whole story about why there's a bleeding colt in the middle of the orchard, even though her sobbing made it hard to understand it but Big Mac gets the gist of it. He had suggested bringing the colt to the hospital so they can heal with him and locate the colt's parents.

She manages to avoid telling him that she possibly killed an innocent foal

Using a wooden cart that they usually use to transport apples, they carefully place the colt on the cart which is a hard thing to do for only a pair of Earth Pony. The pair manages to reach the Ponyvile hospital without anypony knowing what's going on thanks to the colt's small body and Rainbow Dash actually doing her job so that not much pegasis flying around dealing with the clouds.

The Ponyvile hospital is one of the most visited places in the whole town aside from Sugarcube Corner, mostly visited by ponies with minor injuries such as paper cuts, a scratch wound, or even sore hooves. The most serious case in hospital history is when a unicorn came in with a slightly cracked horn. If not for being founded by the state itself they would be out of business.

But today is a little bit different

a disheveled Applejack came in with her big brother, instantly greeted by one of the nurses who work there. The Apple siblings, or rather Applejack, exchanged words with the nurse known as Nurse Redheart and told her that a badly injured colt needs medical attention. Redheart thought it was one of those case which turns out being nothing more than a twisted ankle. Do horses even have ankles?

Imagine how horrifying Redheart's expression is when she sees the shape of the colt's body. She knew that pegasi have a smaller body shape compared to other race but this one, might as well calling it matchsticks because how small and skinny he is, countless of wood splinters embedded on his back, a pair of twisted wings that couldn't be used again even with the strongest healing magic, dried blood from his mouth and what caught most of her attention is a pair of hoof marks imprinted on the colt's chest.

Nurse Redheart was about to demand an explanation about why in the name of Celestia there are hoof marks stamped there but she restrained her self, there's a more important matter at hoof, an explanation can wait later. She ordered a stretcher to bring the patient to the Emergency Room, she followed closely behind the colt but not before giving the Apple siblings a suspicious look

The tension in the waiting room is so thick that a butter knife can cut it, it been an hour and a half since the colt has taken to the Emergency Room. Applejack's fidgeted every now, worried about the young colt that she bucked while Big Mac trying to calm her down which not that helpful because how she is shaken up by the situation.

suddenly, a wild Pinkie Pie appears

the hyperactive party mare decided to pop up into existence, startling the two ponies, babbling something about a party for a new pony that her sense picked up. After a few minutes or so she finally takes notice of the Apple siblings states, completely devastated. Applejack is crying into her brother's neck, Pinkie was about to ask what's wrong but she was cut off by somepony who entered the room.

Doctor Horse, one of the best doctor in Ponyvile, walk it with sadden expression, Nurse Redheart walk behind him with teary eyes. Applejack asked how's the colt doing, the doctor gave her a small smile before saying.

"He's is alive even if its barely. I can't believe he's still alive with all of those injuries."

The Apple siblings sighed in relief, glad that the colt is alive but Applejack is still worried about him so she asks about his condition. Doctor Horse levitated a clipboard from somewhere and read the full report of the colt's condition to the Apple siblings and the party mare.

Applejack assumes there are only a few broken bones and internal bleeding that she had caused, but not the other.

During the colt's treatment, the first thing they noticed, aside from the obviously broken wings beyond help, there is a trace of malnutrition if the size of his body says anything, there's also countless scars all-over his body, no doubt there's more underneath the clothes. One of the staff is brave enough to remove the odd clothes, stallions usually wear frilly dresses for special occasions, not to mention the pants, it's unheard of ponies wearing those things.

The room fell into silence, every eye of the room occupants stare toward the now naked colt. Shock, disgust, and anger filled the room. He looks like just gone trough Tantarus and back with how many scars covering his small body. The most eye-catching are either the burn mark on his back, a third-degree or even higher, or the one on his chest that looks like caused by an explosion.

Some of the staff fainted right on the spot, the others are making a run for the bathroom to empty their stomach. The only remain ponies in the room that haven't pass out or left are Doctor Horse and Nurse Redheart, both of them are in a very ill state. The undressing part wasn't done yet, there's still a piece of the mask that still covering his eyes, Doctor Horse tries to remove the mask with telekinesis which is a difficult task when his mind try to imagine what the colt has gone through.

His effort is futile, maybe that he's too distracted to use telekinesis. Redheart tries to pry off the mask using her hoof only to drag the colt head with it, something shiny caught her eyes, she never expected to find four screws head on each corner of the mask. Doctor Horse thought it was a decoration meaning the mask is enchanted so only the wearer can remove it, he cast a scanning spell so he can figure out how to dispel it. he wasn't prepared to detect four screws screwed into the colt's head and through his skull just a millimeter away from hitting the brain.

Doctor Horse had to stop reading out loud because of how distressed the listeners are. If Applejack wasn't devastated before she is now, soaking her brother's neck with tears. Big Mac actually shows some expression, horrified, disgust, and worry, not like his blank face he always wore, his face is also greener than usual. the worst of them is Pinkie, being a hyperactive-party-loving-always-go-lucky pony her mood was changed 180 degrees, her mane has lost its puffiness leaving as straight slightly darker mane covering one of her eyes, her coat turns a little darker and tears dripping down from her muzzle.

Dismissing Readheart, Doctor Horse was about to escort the three outside but Applejack wants to see how's the colt doing.

The room is deathly quiet save for the constant low beep from the machine beside the now maskless colt, despite being covered in scars his face is spotless from any of it, said colt is lying motionless on one of the hospital beds, an oxygen mask placed on his muzzle. his chest is warped in a bandage that slowly risen every now and then. But for some reason, there's no IV bag connected to him so Applejack asked that, worried for the colt's health.

"There is something blocking the needle, I've never guessed that he has a second layer of skin made out of metal, we still don't know how much metal did he have in his body." Doctor Horse shuddered "I'm starting to think that he escaped from some sort of twisted lab."

"w-what makes you say that?" asked Pinkie.

"There's a serial number on the back of his head." Doctor answer with a monotone voice, not trying to think about what sort of lab that uses foal for an experiment.

"Will he be alright' doc?" asked the red stallion.

Doctor shook his head "A part of the metal skin around his chest is blocking the lungs from taking oxygen, something made it bend. We tried to fix it but we feared that it will do more harm, I'm sorry but he doesn't have much time left."

"It's all mah fault..."

The other ponies whipped their head toward Applejack who drops her head in shame. "What do you mean AJ?" asked the party mare.

Applejack told her what happened at the orchard, she makes it hard to understand with the constant sobbing and tears she let out a long the stories.

"Xa...wa..up!"

No, go away I wanna eat more mochi with Taokaka.

"Xan..rich..wak..up!"

Would you like a refill on your cup of tea, Felix?

"WAKE UP!"

"GAH!" I yelped from my sleep, my view is greeted by the sight of my sister, Tifanny. She is a year older than me, brown hair that reaches her shoulder, bright green eyes, freckles across her nose bridge, slender body with a flat chest. Despite being my sister she is a different kind of Anomaly, being able to control all 4 elements, water, fire, earth, and wind, making her an Elementalis. She is also in the same squad as I am which is the Special Anomaly Squad or S.A.S

“What is it, sis?” I asked, my mood is soured because she just ruined my dream, having a tea party with your waifus is a rare thing to have you know.

“Don’t ask me ‘what’, we’re in the middle of a god damn battle and you decided to sleep in the middle of it. Are you trying to kill yourself?!?!” Jeez, it's like she is in her period. Wait, battle? What battle? The last thing I remember before blacking out is eating some juicy…red…apples….

“Oh…how did I not notice that?” where we are right now is indeed in the middle of a battle. The field is covered by bodies of humans, demi-humans, and Zalichs. Pools of blood formed here and there, scattered weapons, destroyed war vehicles, and I together with my sister are in the middle of the two colliding forces ‘huh seems like the whole turning pony thing is just a dream.’ “so what's our objective?”

“Seriously, didn’t you listen to a word that I’m saying during the briefing?” She asked only to receive a shook of my head. She let out a frustrated groan “Honestly Alex, you’re the worst brother anyone could have ever asked.”

So to make a ridiculously long plan short Theodor, our squad leader, sent us to disable the AA guns that are shooting down our air supports, the reinforcement won’t be coming if we don’t take out those guns. And do you know where the AA guns are? It's on top of the enemy base, behind a big ass heavy-armed wall on the other side of the field which means we have to power through waves upon waves of enemy. Another day another shit job for the SAS.

“So what's our plan?” I asked,

“Just do what you always do kill as many enemies as you can and draw their fire while I sneak behind them and destroy the wall, after that you can go mass genocide inside their base. Theo said it is clear to use him”

I immediately whip out my iron pan flute that I've been modified, a mechanical tube attached to it with a couple of little straws that designed to fit the holes on my mask so I can play it without removing my mask. I hold it dangerously near my mask like I was going to blow it as hard as I can "Are you sure about that?" I asked.

I think I'm still in a dream, Theo never gave me permission to call him unless its a last resort, considering how much weapons I installed on him. It's safe to say that its an overkill, just imagine a flying tank armed to the teeth, capable to destroy a small town just cruising through the sky above you.

Not a pretty thing to think about right?

“Yup, just don’t go nuts about it, we’re low on materials to fix him so keep the damage at the minimum. Oh and Theo just set a new password to launch the nuke so don’t bother cracking the codes.” She said before stomping down her feet at the ground, making a hole open up in front of her “See you on the other side!” She says, jumping down to the freshly made hole.

“Fucking Theo, always messing up with my inventions, can’t he keep his paw to himself? I swear to god if he isn’t the captain he would be 6 feet under for touching my stuff.” I muttered to myself.

Connecting the straws to my mask, I blew it to play a certain song to call him, the mechanics inside the tube sets the air flows to different directions and play the tune automatically so I don't have to do it myself. For added effect, I let out a thick smoke with an hiss every time I blew it.

Once it finished playing it, a screech from a distance can be heard and soon followed by a gigantic bird-like shadow.

Applejack finished her guilt-filled story, sobbing with her head buried in her hooves beside the injured colt. Pinkie and Big Mac are on her sides trying to confront her by patting her on the back.

"If I may interrupt this, I have to ask everypony to leave the poor colt, please." Doctor hooves asked nicely.

They did so but before they could step outside the room and "AAAAGGGHH" echoed throughout the hospital, possibly alerting every single pony inside.

All attention was drawn toward the source, there on the bed the colt awakens wide eyes and drenched in sweat, breathing heavily.

Chapter 3

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"AAAAAAGH!"

I jolted from my sleep, breathing heavily and drenched in sweat. God dammit, that dream is still haunting me, I thought it was gone forever. If only I wasn't dumb to enough charge right in there like some sort of muscle brain.

Sighing deeply, I notice that I'm lying on a comfy bed, I mean it's really fluffy and comfortable to the point I thought I was lying on a cloud. Back on my base bed like this is considered a luxury, even though we're allowed to model our base as our wish, we're pretty much poor. All of our money is to support our family, so if we like something, for an example a coffee machine, we have to build it our self, lucky there's a junkyard near our base and a technology genius: me.

Just imagine, the S.A.S picking up scrap metals from junkyard just so they can enjoy a movie night or have access to the internet for other purposes other than communication and briefing from HQ, definitely not for watching some kind of perverted anime.

The second thing I notice is my mask is not where it supposes to be, adding the fact that my eyes are bigger than before is making the situation worse. My breaths quicken and ragged, more sweat dribbled down my body. I cover my eyes with forehooves, trying my best to keep my eyes safe from anything.

‘Keep calm Alex, don’t need to panic, panicking only makes things worse, stay calm, keep your cool and observer the situation.’

A slight nudge is enough to make me go full-blown panic, despite being in the military and train every day to become a ruthless killer without mercy there is something on the back of my head that makes me want to get away from the foreign object as far as possible. I yelped, drop down to the floor and bolted toward the only thing I see as a cover, under the bed.

'Since when did I start acting like a child?'

Applejack and the others are shocked, she just lightly touches the colt and he just avoids it like his life depends on it. The theory of the colt escaped from a sick, twisted lab that uses foal as a test subject filled their head with images of what sort of things the colt went through to be frighted like that. The poor dear must be traumatized.

Lowering her body so she can see the colt under the bed, she greeted with a sight of the colt curled up into a ball shaking like a leaf, both of his front hooves are covering his face mostly the eyes.

“C’mon out little feller” She pleaded in a soft tone “Nopony is goin’ to hurt you”

The colt’s ears perked up, he slowly shook his head and said "N...no."

"Don't be shy little fella, Ah'll keep you save, promise."

"M...mask."

“Whats that?”

“My mask…I need it.”

Applejack stood up, her eyes searching the room for the missing mask. Near the bed, on top of a small table that the staff prepared lays the mask that the colt wears when she first ‘meets’ him. She grabs it with her hoof, four noticeable holes on each corner reminding her about what Doctor Horse told her. There was a screw in each hole that keeps the mask attached to the colt, it seems that Doctor Horse had removed the screw.

Shaking her head to get rid of the horrifying picture about how painful it is to have four screws deep inside your head, she drops back down and slowly stretching her hoof that holding the mask to the colt.

“Here ya go little fella.” she said softly

The colt moved one of his hoofs away from his face and slightly open his eyes, after taking a quick look at his mask the colt cover both of his eyes with one hoof. The other free hoof outstretched to take the mask off from Applejack’s hoof.

But something terrifying happens.

The colts nail hoof split into five different parts, each of them is different sizes with the middle one being the longest. This looks like a Minotaur’s hand but made out of ba unch of metal parts. Applejack knew that because when she was living with her relatives in Manehattan, during her time living in a huge city she came across many different species such as Griffins, Minotaurs, Zebras, Diamond Dogs and many others.

Series of clicks and clacks that came from the metals of the strange metal limbs making Applejack’s mind drift off once again, many question popup inside her head. What is that? What happens to his hoof? Did somepony actually do some strange experiment on him? Is this a side effect of the experiments?

Her trains of thought derailed when the colt snatched away the mask from her hoof, he quickly withdrew toward the far side of the bed and quickly messing with his mask. Applejack getting a front row seat of his flank and I must tell you, she did not enjoy any of it.

Sure Applejack is single because other than she had no time for looking for a mate the mares out number the stallions by 10 to 1, but in Ponville stallions are considered a rare sight to be seen, with the ratio far different from any other places, which is 20 to 1, most mares in this small town are either single or lesbian.

To have a free look at a stallion’s flank this much, other than her own brother, is only for those who already in a herd or married, to Applejack this is more like a torment. Lots and lots and lots of scars all around the colt’s flank, especially near his bumhole, are enough to tell that this colt is a victim of a sexual abuse.

Foal abuse is rarely happened but not unheard of in Equestria, sure the other species all around Equs, such as griffins and dragons, trains their young ones rather rough by ponies standards but it can't be helped because it's in their natures of being warrior or predator race.

To know that such innocent little defenseless colt is treated like that is enough to make Applejack's mind filled with twisted images about what terrible things did to the colt, evil ponies torturing him for their own amusement while the colt begs for mercy that fell on deaf ears.

A lone tear drop from the farmer's eyes.

After putting on my mask I notice something was off, the locking mechanism wont do their things. Running a scan to find out whats wrong with it I detected that the screws are gone, rolling my eyes I grew four more screws from my hoof nail and plunging it to the holes.

Feeling the screws dug into my head I let out a silent sigh and something that nagging me on the back of my head for a while is gone, huh that's weird I have to scan my self if something is wrong with me. Selecting for a Deep Scan on my mask to detect any sort of problem I have, not a moment later a 3D silhouette of my current body pop out, the chest part is colored yellow and the wings are red while the rest of my body is green.

I turn to my back and see that my wings are warped with bandages, I heard from one of my teammates, who happen to be a bird demi-human, that their wings are sensitive to them. Best not to move those while looking like that. Looking past those damaged wings I see something staring at me.

The only way I can describe it is a female horse, or a mare, that wearing a Stetson hat and has a blond mane and orange coat. I was going to assume that it was some random horse but the more I stare at her the less she looks like a regular livestock animal. Her eyes are bright green with something I never thought to see on an animal, a spark of intelligent.

Her face is far different from most animals I came across, it's more like staring at another person rather than an animal. I follow where she is staring at, at first I thought she was looking at me but seeing closely she rather focused on my ass. To find out if the mare is can understand me I did something to test if she would react or not.

"Hey, I know my ass is horrible but its still tight and it can fit two at the same time."

What? its not like she would understand it...and...oh my god...

The mare's pupil suddenly shrinks to a tiny dot and let out a choked breath before standing up and walking toward another set of cream colored hooves.

'Wait, is she the one who gave me my mask?' I wondered to myself, now that I think about it I do heard a woman voice when I'm looking for my mask but its rather blurry, one second I can think clearly and the next everything seems fuzzy and my body feels like on autopilot.

I shrugged, making a mental note to make future me solve this out.

I crawled out from under the bed and see 3 more horses’ creature other than the stetson-wearing one, she is talking to another one that has a cream-colored coat and brown mane wearing some sort of lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck, I can say that he is a stallion due to the more square shaped muzzle of his. I also notice the other two, one of them is a mare who has a dark pink coat with a darker pink straight mane and the other is a big stallion that has a red coat and short orange mane. Whats strange to me is the lab coat wearing one have a horn sprouting from his head while the others don't have it, does that mean he's a unicorn? I guess mythical creatures here are real, it's not a long stretch because I somehow transformed to a freaking pegasus.

Each of them has different kind of marking on their ass the orange one has 3 red apples, the red one has a green apple and the pink one has a blue and 2 yellow balloons surrounded by colorful confetti, I can’t see what the cream one had because the orange one is blocking him. My mind thinking about those marks, are those meant to be something or it just a sign of ownership like the one I see on the farming facility? I look toward my own butt and thankfully I don’t have one of those things, it would be embarrassing to have a tattoo on my ass.

The red one and pink are staring at me while orange and cream talking to each other. Huh, I guess they are a different kind of demi-human that I haven’t seen yet, but it doesn’t make sense why did I turn in to one.

Ignoring the stares from the two pastel-colored horses are giving, I look around the room for a way out. I see double doors that possibly lead to an exit from this place, I crawl out so that I can stand up only to be picked up by the back of my neck by the red horse.

Caught by surprise I blurt out the first thing on my mind “Hey-ey-ey what gives? Put me down the fuck you creep!” thankfully my mask is able to disguise my childish voice so I don’t sound ridiculous.

I immediately dropped down on my butt resulting an ‘ouch’ from me, grumbling I look up to meet the stallions eyes “Whats your trouble bud? If you have any say it to my face!” I snapped, the stallion just stare at me with a shocked expression. “Yeah, that’s right just keep your mouth shut!”

Turning around with a huff, I walk toward the exit only to be blocked by the orange mare, her face is confronted in anger “Listen’ here youn’ one, ah don’t appreciate somepony callin’ my brother a creep and cursin’ li-AUGH” the way that she talks to me like a child is starting to get on my nerve, I shoved her out of my way it a ‘move bitch’ and continued my walk toward the door without batting an eye toward the fallen mare.

Unknown to me the other horses are gaping at what did I just do.

***

Walking down to another hallway, I kept thinking that I’m in some sort of maze rather than a hospital. I came across some other staff and every time I walk past them they always have these sad watery eyes, heck even some of them cried their eyes out when they see me.

I’m starting to think that I’m in a mental hospital.

It took me a while to notice that I was lacking my clothes so I'm walking butt naked only with my mask on, figuring out that it was a common thing to have since most of the horses I came across are wearing next to nothing. I could make another set of clothes but the one that I previously wore has something important in it.

Turning another corner, I almost bumped to one of them, a mare to be exact. Like every other horses here, she had this sad face complete with disheveled pale pink mane, baggy eyes socket and trails of tears on her pale fur, a nurse hat with a red cross on top of her head showing that she is a…well a nurse in this place, a red cross mark on her butt.

“Sorry miss, I wasn’t looking where I’m going so...s’cuse me.” I said before slipping around the mare and continued my walk.

Not even five-step away from her, I heard a gasp behind me and the mare say “Young one, what are you doing here?! You suppose to be resting in your room!” followed by a series of foot- I mean hoof steps

Without even turning my head behind I replied “No thanks miss, I’m looking for my clothes and a way out here from here.”

The mare catches up to me and blocking my way, a determined expression on her face "No, no, no, you're badly injured and need to rest. Come on I'll lead you to your room so you can have a nice nap-nap time and get those wings healed in no time."

"Sorry miss but I have to go home before any of my friends or Mr.Bubble worried about me, besides I had far worse injuries than a pair of broken wings." having your bottom part got blown up by an anti-tank mine is pretty painful if you ask me "Could you show me where are my clothes are?"

The white horse was going to answer but something beat her to it.

"There he is!"

Both me and her turn our head toward where that voice comes from, the horses from before come running to us every one of them has this face of anger, especially the orange one.

'Ah shit, what did I just do this time?'

Chapter 4

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“AAAGGHHBGLUBGLUBGLUBGLBUB AGH ptew ptew ptew, I ain’t tellin you nothing! AGHGLUBGLUBGL” after the four of them catches up to me, the orange one pick me up by my neck, despite my relentless struggle, she just carried me like a kitten to a nearby bathroom where she proceeded to violently ‘scrub those nasty words out of my mouth’ as she put it, with the help of the pink one holding me down over a sink. The pink menace somehow get a hold on my bottom part of my mask exposing my mouth for the orange one shove a hand -hoof?- full of liquid soap.

Two things I learned that day. One, despite being a pastel colorful creature that looks like come out from a children books, they're as strong as a high-class demi-human, no matter how much I struggled the pink one just hold me in place while the orange one is washing my mouth. Two, the hospital soap is tasted nastier than regular soap.

Or is it just my new horse tongue, I don’t know one of the two.

I was able to ‘turn off’ the taste bud on my tongue so I don’t taste the soaps, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that my torment is over with how rough she is cleaning me. It's not worse than the time I was captured during the Battle of Oasis, I heard that hot water can make your skin smooth but not hot boiling water poured all over your body.

I lost half of my face, an arm, a leg and both of my testicles during my time as a prisoner. Not to mention that I was used as a test subject to try out a new drug that they created resulting me to gain a pair of boob and a new gender. Let just say that when my team rescued me I was in some sort of underground prison covered in scars and a huge amount of questionable white sticky liquid substances from head to toe.

Thankfully I was in Capture Mode when that all happen so I don’t have to go through all of that and possibly lose my sanity. Unfortunately I, an abnormal shapeshifter Anomaly, cant just change my gender without having a mechanical dick, but one of my teammates, who happen to be a scientist, was able to reverse engineer the gender-bending drugs and gave me another one that allows me to reclaim my family jewels. It was an annoying 2 weeks with all the constant flirting from everyone when I go out to spend my time in town, not that I blame them, having two large badongas does attract a lot of unwanted attention.

That includes the bullying from my sister for having bigger tits than her.

“Now, what do we say Mr. Dirtymouth?” the pink mare asked, using that ‘I’m not angry just disappointed’ tone mum always used when she found out that I’m watching porn.

I was about to make another snarky reply if not for a warning pop up, showing me that I was in a danger state with all of the soap water that entered my stomach, some of it got to the lungs and damaging it. Choosing not to make my situation worst, I comply “I-cough-I don’t know miss, I’m sorry?”

Suddenly the mares dropped her angry face and suddenly brights up, literally, and her mane inflated like a balloon, a wide smile that would make Joker proud adorned on her face before pulling me to an unexpected hug, burying my face on her fluffy chest. My instinct kicked in and almost hit the pink mare with a solid right hook, it took me almost all of my will to hold it back.

"It's alright little buddy." She said, softly patting my back. She broke the hug and stare deeply into my eye "But you can't say those nasty words and said bad things to other ponies."

Ponies? huh come to think of it they are smaller than average horses "Y-yes mam, I'll do my best."

“Of course you’ll, little guy,” she said “Now come, Doctor Horse was worried about you, you shouldn't move around because that might make your condition worse. Let’s get you back to your room, Doctor wants to talk with you.”

Wait, is that his name, Doctor Horse? Who in the right mind names their son like that? It’s ridiculous. My train of thought derailed when a weird sound entered my ears, it's that boing sound you heard in a cartoon show. The pink pony leaves the room by bouncing away like a ball, every time she bounces she let out that boing sound somewhere from her.

I just stare at her until she leaves the bathroom, I could feel my processor getting fried trying to figure how she did all of those things in the past 5 minutes, removed my mask without me knowing, inflatable mane and finally the jumping sound effect. To avoid further damage I shove the entire thing to ‘Figure it out later’ folder.

I felt something nudge my naked ass, or rather flank, and made me yelp away. Acting on instinct I tuck my tail between my hind legs to cover my private parts.

Turning around to see what just touched me, the orange mare is staring at me with a worried expression, her muzzle is near where my ass was.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Hey, what are you suppose to say if someone nuzzles your bare ass with their nose?

The mare recoiled back, her expression changes as if she tried to figure out what she did wrong. I'm starting to see if asking her why did she nudge me like that doesn't point out her mistake, probably a common thing to do around here. It's not much of a stretch if walking naked in public is a usual thing to do.

Deciding to keep my distance away from her to avoid any more of my personal space being invaded, I take a step back toward the exit that followed by another one step, keeping an eye on the orange mare so that she doesn't try anything weird. She was about to said something but I just noped out from there. The sooner I leave this place the better, I still want my sanity intact even although I lost it several times before, thankfully Amanda, one of the members of S.A.S who happen to be a Magic User, can stick it up together.

But since I can't contact HQ or Base I rather not take the risk to go full insane, sure I have a pretty solid mental defense, alongside with a couple of traps here and there to prevent anyone from entering my mind but I think it’s not strong enough to hold my sanity intact.

Bolting out from the bathroom I heard a shout of ‘wait’ from the orange mare but I ignore it, getting out of this place is more important. Looking around the hallway, the pink pony is nowhere to be found as well as the two other stallions, finding a way back to the room I was in is sound a lot easier than it does, thankfully I was able to track down where did I came from and just follow the trail backward.

After walking what it felt like 5 minutes, I just remembered that I had a mini map just sitting on the right side of the screen of my visor, I take the liberty to introduce my palm, or hoof, to my face. Ms. Hoof says hello to Mr. Face.

I like to call my right hoof a Ms. because I use it to jack off a lot of times and it got me to wonder, can I still molest my rod of meat with this thing? It's basically a stump that ended up with a nail. Maybe I can use my hoof lock to rub it.

Wait a sec, if I remember correctly a horse male part is bigger than human’s, ponies is basically a descendant of horses so probably it’s just a bit smaller than the original. Don’t ask how did I know that, but I learn a valuable lesson to not get in the shower with a demi-human horse in the summer season.

I can’t walk straight or even sit for a week.

Embarrassing story aside, I mentally click the mini-map so that I can see the full size of it. I was disappointed in myself when I found out that I’m walking in a circle all around the hospital, other than that I’m confused because between the place I found those apple trees to where I am now is divided by a field of undiscovered territory, a sea of a blank map between the two places.

Making a mental note to update my map later, I focused on the hospital map to find out where the hell is the room. Turns out the room where I am supposed to be right beside the fucking bathroom where I was, I just take a wrong turn and walk around the hospital.

I turn around and follow the right direction, grumbling all the way.

But my bladder had another idea.

'Ah fuck, welp might as well get rid of the soap out of my system. Hopefully, it didn't corrupt any of my personal data.

Back in the bathroom, Applejack sits on her haunches staring blankly at the floor her mind is trying to figure out what did she do to scare the colt like that, all she did is giving him a small nudge like every other mare to their foal.

Her mind snapped back to those scars near his private parts, did he just freaks out over a small physical contact? It’s a lot worse than she thinks if the colt reacted like that. She reported those scars to Doctor Horse and he said that there might be a possibility. If just a small nudge from her can send him to a fatal state like that she was expecting more than a jump and a small ‘hurtful’ sentence.

Memories of the colt hiding under the bed replay in her head, he was acting like a lost colt would scared, terrified, and full of fear. She could even see the terror behind the colt's eyes even if it was just a glance, but when he wore the mask he just acts like a completely different pony. Did she hit him too hard so that there might be a personality change? Doctor Horse said that there is a slight chance of short-term memory loss because of the concussion but not that.

Applejack wasn't sure about what Doctor said because after he wore that mask it just completely turned 180 his attitude, that mask is probably has something to do with him and the screws has something more uses than keeping the mask in check. She tried not to think who place that thing into an innocent little colt's head.

The mask might be a mind controlling device like she seen in one of her little sister's comic, its something about aliens from space taking control over the world if she remembers correctly, but that seems too much of a stretch.

Her ears caught the sound of hoof steps soon followed by the door being opened. A small dark-colored hoof pushed the door out of the way, she stares at the masked colt on the doorway, said colt stares back with his blue 'eyes' on his mask. He sighed, mumbling under his breath before walking past the farmer mare without batting an eye.

Applejack, being a kind pony she is, followed behind to help him deal with whatever business he had to deal like every other mare with their colts his age. Nearing toward one of the bathroom stalls, the colt stand motionless in front of the door stall, Applejack was going to ask him whats wrong but the colt beat her to it.

"What do you want?" he asked with a bit of hostility, not bothering to turn his head toward her.

"Ah just wanted to help ya." she said.

The colt turned around, even if his face is covered the mask, the glass part of it showed how irritated he was "Yes, you can help me by staying away from me, comprende amigo?" the colt spatted with venom in his voice.

Applejack took a step back with a shocked expression she, never in her life she heard a stallions being this aggressive much less a foal or any foals for that matter.

The colt cleared his throat "Sorry about that." At least he has a tendency to apologized "I'm just having a bad day, that's all. That is to put it lightly. Just wait for me with the other, just say that I'm taking a leak if anybody wondering."

The colt entered the stall followed by the sound of water hitting against water not long after, it surprised Applejack because he can go dealing with his business all by himself unlike most of the colts his age. Choosing to do what the colt say, she leaves the bathroom and walks toward the previous room, her mind is clouded with thoughts about the mysterious colt.

Chapter 5

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Leaving the Japanese-like stall, I walk toward one of the sinks in the bathroom to wash my han- I mean hoof out of habit. Even though I don't even touch my new horse wee-wee because it's attached to the backside of my body, I still want to see what else my body has other than being turned to a small mythical equine with wings.

Scratch that, tiny mythical equine with wings because I can’t even reach the god damn sink.

Groaning in displeasure, I extend all of my hooves from the floor with the help of hydraulics from the joint of each hoof. Retracting back my forehooves so I can stand on the sink, being careful not to slide into the damn thing, followed by my hind hooves.

Getting a good position so I don't fall off, I wash my hooves like I usually do with my hands. After that, I take a good view of my self on the mirror on the opposite side of the sink. Staring back on the mirror is a skinny masked colt with dark fur with lighter fur all across his body, bandage wrap around his back and stomach holding down his broken wings so it can't be moved to avoid any more harm. Two hooves mark imprinted on his slightly caved-in chest.

'Huh, weird. I thought the microbots should have that fixed by now.'

Mentally command the bots to repair the injury on my chest, the healing process should take up to 30 seconds to fix that dent, a minute top because 50% of my blood is infused with bots, I also mix them to my white blood cells to make me immune to almost all disease and poison. Huh, to think back when the orange pony, you know what I'm tired calling these ponies based on color, I'm gonna name the orange one Lisa because I'm getting countryside vibes from her and the pink one Pinks cuz you know... she is pink. Ahem, to think back when Lisa and Pinks 'cleaning' my mouth from bad words, my system blaring alarm like I was on the verge of death. Did I became weaker when I came to this world or-

'Wait, what the hell? why it isn't getting healed yet?'

During my more than one minute rambling on my mind I notice that my dented chest hasn't fixed yet, it's been longer than it should be but I see nothing changes on the dent. Commanding the bots to fix it once again, the result nothing changes, the dent isn’t even moving one inch. I order my mask to detect how many bots did I have and where they are, I can only stare at the result.

Micro bots : None

None? As in nothing? Nada? Slich? Out of microbots Eh whatever I can make more anyway. Reaching toward my inner depth, I began constructing more bots out of-

‘Wait what?’

I frantically searching for materials to make the microbots, I swear I have at least enough metal to build a whole city made out of it. Looking for any metal in my inner depth I can't find a single gram of it anywhere in my body, except for my second layers of skin, some part of the brain, four limbs, and the power core.

Wait if every material that I stored inside of me is gone does that mean…

Nope, I still have my personal things, thank god it was only my material that somehow disappeared from my storage. But still, it doesn’t answer how the hell I lost so much stuff.

There is no way I’m out of materials, every time I clean up the field I always pick up any sort of metal scrap from broken weapons, armor, and vehicle. Being a part of the S.A.S meaning that you have to deal with the shitiest job of all time, being in the frontier on any battle or war. Not that I'm complaining being the meat shield, or metal shield, of the team, it's actually a perfect position for me, I got to keep any metal scraps I can pick up without the higher-ups complaining about me 'stealing' the resources during the after battle clean up.

I chalk this up as the side effect of my arrival here, I don’t know if getting blasted by an ion cannon can transport you to a land of magical creatures that seems come out from a children books.

Or maybe this is the afterlife world that some nutjobs are talking about.

Either way, I still need to find a way to contact HQ, if that’s possible, and get back to business. Earth is at a dangerous state seeing how many them damn aliens are invading it.

But first things first, I need to fix my chest. Seeing that I somehow lose all of my metals and other things to make microbots, I decided to use the metal skin to fix the dent, in exchange, I replace the metal skin with wood that I absorb during my encounter with the wooden wolves. It’s not as tough as the metal one but it did the job well enough.

I feel the metals gathering around by damaged chest, focusing on repairing it, little by little my chest returned to its normal state, and a couple of seconds later it healed completely without any sign of the dent left behind. I still have some metal leftover and my wings are badly damaged so I began to focus on repairing it.

But before I forcefully heal it, I run a scan to see if it possible to repairs them just like my other limbs. The wing’s skeleton structure is a bit similar to the ones that birds have, most of the bones are either fractured or downright broken to the point it can’t be saved, that is if you’re a normal Pegasus. Most of the joints are tangled or bent in the wrong direction, thankfully I can repair those injuries without using any material.

Knowing that I have limited material, I must use them efficiently. I reconnect back the broken bones and sealing the fractured ones after I did those things I make sure that I didn’t leave any mistake behind. Running a scan one more time to make sure I did everything right, I let out a satisfying sigh.

All I need to do now is wait for it to heal naturally or find materials to fix it completely.

There is one more thing that I need to see before I go talk to Doctor Horse, I still can't believe that someone named their child that, it’s coincident that he landed a job as a doctor much like to his name. Remembering that the ponies are much more colorful than the one back home, their colorful eyes making me curious about what mine is like.

After making sure that I was alone in the room and there is no way someone can take a peek at my face, I mentally command my mask to split in half from top to bottom, it folded itself to the edges of my face with clicking sound so that I have a clear view of my face. Just I suspected my eyes are also changed from regular brown to dull blue but I was caught by surprise when I saw my new eyes.

They both had no pupil, just like a dead man's eyes.

'Huh, I guess all the 'dead inside' joke that I post on the internet really paid off.'

I was both stunned and shocked at the same time, at one hand it is really cool as fuck on the other I'm freaking out, I mean how the fuck can I see stuff without pupils, this doesn't make any sense! sigh oh well I at least I can see so that's a good thing.

Turning my attention away from my new weird eyes, I check on something that always bugging me at the back of my mind. Every ponies that I came across has this but marking, I don’t know if it’s mean something special to them or a mark-like-tattoo that has something to do with their culture, whatever it is it would be embarrassing for me to have a butt tattoo. I let out a sigh when I saw that my ass is clean from the marking.

‘Other than the whip marks from the torture session when I got captured.’

Shaking my head to get rid of the dark memory, I check other parts of my body that have changed, other than getting turn into a skinny dark-colored Pegasus with blue dead eyes and unkempt brown mane and tail, there is nothing that caught my attention.

Closing back my mask, I hop down from the sink and walk toward the door. Exiting the bathroom, I step into the empty hallway, taking the right turn this time so I don’t get lost in this hospital maze, I walk to the other set of doors beside the bathroom.

Pushing the door with my muzzle, I see the ponies from before talking to each other. Lisa is talking to the doctor while Pinks is with the big red stallion, they all stopped their conversation as soon as I enter the room. Red is staring at me with a sad face who then nudged by Pinks who has a huge smile, he began walking to me.

I keep my guard up and my eyes on his every movement so that I stop him when he tries anything funny. Red stopped in front of me and scooped me without any warning, I almost decked him on the nose, and warped his forelegs around me to give a firm yet soft bear hug.

‘Damn, I never think that pony’s fur can be this soft.’

“Sorry.” I heard him whispered which I respond with a confused ‘huh?’

Before I could ask why he is apologizing, he slowly put me down on the ground and walks back to where he was. I'm still trying to figure out what the heck just happen but a soft cough from the doctor snaps me back into reality.

I walk up to him and ask “So, you want to talk?”

“Yes, it's about your condition.” He told me sternly “A you colt like you mustn’t leave the bed until your body is fully healed, and you shouldn’t wander all alone without a mare to protect you, what would happen if you tripped and there is nopony to help you get up and-“ His tone changes, at first he uses that disappointed tone, then worry and finally I tuned him out.

As he ranted how should I not leave my bed to recover from whatever the thing that knocked me out caused me, I only pick up pieces of what he’s blabbing about, something about I should be with mares all the time.

Even though I cut the connection from my eardrums to the brains I still can hear his words, it seems that pony’s ears are not simple as my previous one, I had to keep my head low and ears pressed against it to keep his voice down.

For some reason, I got those feeling when you’re playing an old video game from the, what people call it, ‘Ancient Age’. Nostalgia, I think its called, and it kinda reminds me of…

…Mom.

He is using that tone when mom found out that I did something bad.

Immediately the mental dam that I’ve created from training the training I had for years busted open as if it was made from paper, thousands of memories about mom being played in my mind at a fast rate. The first time she heard me talking, my first day at school, her reaction when I discover my abilities and her death.

I’m so lost at the sudden rush of memories that I don’t notice my tears ducts are leaking again.

"...I understand that you want to get out of your bed and play but you should know better other than wandering around all by yourself, honestly, what did your mother has taught you?"

Doctor Horse looks down at the masked colt. As expected, the colt has his head lowered in shame and ears plastered on his head, what the doctor expecting was-

Plip-plop-*sniff*-plip-plop

The colt is crying, tears slipped past the glass part of the mask.

"Mommy."

And he is calling for his mother.

the doctor's mind kicked to full high gear panic, he never meant to make the colt to cry his eyes out. He was calling for his mom maybe what Doctor Horse said about his mother makes him miss her? Doctor can figure this out later, for now, there is a colt that needs to comfort.

In the blink of the eye, the doctor gave the young pony a gentle yet firm hug but because he is acting without thinking there are a couple of problems. One, he is hugging the colt as mares do with their young ones which placing his head between the hind legs, two, he is a stallion.

"GET YOUR DICK OUT OF MY FACE!!!"

Chapter 6

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As I sat on the bed, my leg crossed so that my private part doesn’t dangle freely for all to see even though it’s getting cramped by the second. Lisa and Pinks stared at me with that half disappointed half mad look, I stare back with unamused emote on my mask.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” I asked even though I already knew the answer.

They stared at me harder as if they’re sending a mental note through the hive mind.

“It's not my fault, that guy knows whats coming for him.” I retorted back.

Yeah, after Doctor Horse, snort snort, shoved his dick up my face when I’m still in my lockdown state, I busted one of his nuts right then and there.

When I said I busted his nut I mean not in a good way.

I uppercut that motherfucker’s nut sack and because I hit it with a mechanical limb it made an crack sound when I punch it or was it just my imagination?. Either way, I’m not feeling guilty about it, I mean who the fuck shove their dick to a child's face anyway?

Well, there is that one guy in the dark alleyway, but last time I’ve seen him, he got a gender transplant after he lures in a wolf demi-human to his spot. But hey, that guy is a pedo, everyone knew whats comin’ for him. But this guy, he is a freaking doctor and shoved his dick up my face.

How fuck up is that?

Or maybe that was something to do with their culture like the bunny demi-human, every mating season they would relieve each other’s needs and for your information, the bunny people only have a single gender, no I don’t mean that they are herms, or if you prefer more simple word futas.

They are one of the unique demi-humans on earth because for some reason every one of them is females, never in the entire history, there have been a male bunny people. To reproduce they would find another species of male, whether it be human or demi-human, and stuck with them as a soul mate or find another male that more suitable for breeding if they already have one. So bunny demi-humans ain't the perfect type for a partner in life unless you have a buff-ass body and top-notch physics then you'll be bunny chicks magnet because they're a warrior race that desires strong offspring.

And no, they do not know the meaning of whore. They said that this method has been used since the dawn of time so it ain’t much of a taboo.

The same thing goes for the lamias apparently, the half human half snake people. Except they're hunter race so they're attracted to more agile and durable spouse, they had a way to find the perfect match by coiling them, like snake did with their prey, and proceed to do the mating ritual in that position, if the male succeeded to stay conscious the whole time then they're worthy for the lamias to breed.

How did I know this? Well Sintia, one of the members of the same squad as me, is a half human half snake and half dragon demi-human, dragged me into her room and proceed to rape me, it took me a moment to realize that it was the first day of heat season. She warps me with her long scaly green snake tail and did the whole mating ritual, dislocate both my shoulders and legs, shatters a couple of bones all the while with her draconic strength.

And apparently, I am a worthy mate.

Thankfully I can produce sticky-white-cum-like substances to cool off her burning desire without getting her pregnant. But that doesn't mean she stops using me like a damn sex toy. After a full week of being paralyzed, yes the lamias can inject venom with their fangs and they can control how deadly it can be, and getting crushed like a tin can the matting season finally passes.

When the other found me in her room I was already worn out, covered in bite marks from top to bottom, slept away peacefully warped in her tail me like a blanket. The both of us are covered in sweat and other body fluids that you all know damn well what the hell those are. After that fiasco, I had to work my ass off so that I don't get replaced by another person because I haven't done any mission in a week, on the other hand, Sintia got a scoot free because she went through her heat cycle.

That freaking lucky bitch.

Wait what the hell am I talking about? Whatever. Anyway, after I Shoryuken that doctor’s balls, and knocked him unconscious, the whole room lit in a blaze, not in the actual flame of course. Everybody here screaming their head off, both Lisa and Pinks frantically called for the nurse to help the doctor who has a case of foam coming from his mouth. Red just stared at me like I’m going to bust his nuts next.

And I just sit in the middle of the room without a care in the world, glaring at the doctor.

After a good 5 minutes of panics, everyone calmed down. The nurse that I almost bump to earlier came in with another nurse, who I don’t pay much attention to her, bringing a stretcher. They, somehow, carried the knocked doctor out of the room with the said stretcher, probably to another room so that another doctor can check his damaged nut sack.

Sucks to be him.

After that fiasco, the room occupants started to calm down. I still sat on the middle of the room observing all the things that happen, figuring out that Doctor Horse isn’t going to wake up soon, I decided to find a way out by my own.

Five steps from where I am sitting before, I felt pain flared from one of my new pony ears. And I must tell you that those things are sensitive as fuck. Imagine your ear getting bit by a lion and the lion’s teeth are made out of hardened lava, times that by 10 and you get the same feeling that I felt.

Turns out it was Lisa who is biting down my right ear and drags me toward the hospital bed, I had no other choice but to comply to avoid any more pain. Despite being a herbivore, its still freaking hurt even without canines.

I still have a second layer of skin that protected me but for some reason, it doesn’t cover my ears, probably because earlier I was thinking of my previous form when I formed the wooden layer of skin so that doesn't include my new pony ears.

Lisa proceeded to plop my ass down on the bed and chewed my ears off, figuratively of course. I manage to pick up some of her words while I tuned her out, she was saying that I shouldn’t be throwing punches when somepony is giving me a ‘hug’.

Madafaka what the fack? When someone, assuming that word is the equivalent to ‘somepony’, is hugging the others, they don’t shove their dicks up each other faces, well unless you’re one of those herm people, y’know those guys who have both dick and pussy.

I swear to god if I visit that one village again I’m sure my mind would shatter to dust. Last time I was there to spend my week worth of vacation, don’t ask how my sister talk me into it, I came out as a blubbering mess of a slut.

Yep, definitely going to be my worst and best vacation ever.

Hey don't judge me.

Anyway, after Lisa was done her hour-long lecture about being a good colt, not that listen to her, she told me to go apologise to Doctor Horse when he wakes up, which again I ignored because I was too busy figuring out how the hell I will leave this place, sure I can jump out from the window right beside of my bed but that could go north really fast. After that how am I going to return to Base? I can’t even get a single bar of signal, via tower or satellite, so I can’t contact HQ.

Its weird enough that I cant get a signal because I’m sure that every corner of the world is covered and there are more than 300 satellites floating in the atmosphere that I can have access to, only for contacting the HQ of course.

The mechanic part of my brain is acting like a transmitter because I like to get access to the internet 24/7 and in touch with the HQ. Because I’m the Go-to guy for those missions that required a lot of firepowers, I’m often doing mission more than four times a day so communication is a critical factor.

No matter how far I am from the Base or HQ I can always contact my teammates or the other higher-ups for reinforcement. But because my method that I use, which is powering through the obstacle, I never actually got to command a squad, I only gave the point of the objective and the squad leader will take care the rest.

Hey, just because I can’t command a single squad well it doesn’t mean I’m bad at teamwork. Not going to brag or anything but when another member of S.A.S is teaming up with me, we’re whopping ass left and right.

Anyway, after Lisa gave me a one hour worth of lecture, we started this little staring contest because she knew that I wasn’t listening to her because I wasn’t answering to her question that I didn’t listen.

I was too busy planning on how to get back to the Base, thankfully it’s wasn’t my first time being lost but this time is not in the middle of bumfuck nowhere jungle. I was going for the basic survival game plan, built a house, find out where the heck you are, construct something to make contact with, sent out an SOS signal and finally wait for rescue.

I did all of that just in one day so it doesn’t really count as getting stranded. Well there is one time I crash landed on an island that has a natural electromagnetic field covering it, so any attempt on communication with radio is a complete failure and the island can’t be seen with satellite cams, but that is going to ‘Escaped from Hell’ folder because I had to run 24/7 from huge big tiddy Amazon women that want to have sex with me.

Most people would think that place as a heaven on earth but with how many skeletons scattered in the cave near their village, all of them has their pelvis shattered, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why there is not a single male in that island.

Fortunately, I don’t have the urge to go there and slap dem thicc thighs because there are specific things that can pump me up. One of them is neko-cat girls and some demi humans.

Yes, I am an otaku and I’m not afraid to admit it. Anime is one of the biggest sources for my arsenal, aside games and movies.

Crap, I went off topic, again, I was planning on where should I build my temporary base, guessing that I’m in sort of town judging how much building I saw when I glance out through the window, I should make my base hidden. The forest from earlier where I woke up should be good enough to hide it but the leaves seem thick enough to block the signal I sent out.

Speaking of signal I should have received any sort of it since I’m in the middle of a town. A town means civilizations and that leads to th-

My trains of thought were cut off when the nurse from earlier walk in with a clipboard in her mouth and a stethoscope around her neck, ‘Huh so that’s how they grab things, it should make sense because how the hell they can grab something with their hooves.’

All of the room occupants turn their head to her direction, she paused for a moment for the sudden attention that we’re giving her before continued walking toward me, taking a moment to realize that Red is fidgeting in the corner of the room while staring at me as if I was going to lash out any second.

To be fair he has the front row seat of my Nut Bustin’ show.

She shook her head and mumbles something about the poor stallions, she looks at me and smiled, not that kind of smile I always came across, a genuinely sweet smile that you gave to others close to you.

"Hello dear, my name is Nurse Redheart and I am going to examine your condition." alright fair enough, I did got hit by something hard enough to leave a dent and because I'm not too familiar with this body I should let her handle it.

It was the standard checkup, she asks me where does it hurt, checking my injured wings, listening to my breathing cycle all the while I tried to figure out 'How the hell did she grab the stethoscope with her hoof?!?!'. That thing is basically a giant thumb with a thick nail at the end of it, there is no way that she can grab thing with those, thankfully my mask is covering my shocked expression so that I don't embarrass my self.

"There we go dear all done, you're such a brave colt." Nurse Redheart says as if I was younger than I already am, and giving me a kiss on my forehead before writing something on the clipboard with a quill, not that surprising since elf usually writes with bird feather.

"Uhh, what?" I asked.

"I’m sorry, what was that dear? I really didn’t catch that one.” She asked, tilting her head to the side and her left ear lowered.

“Its just a simple health inspection, why do you have to praise me like that?” I asked again.

She had this unease look on her face, her eyes darting here and there as if there is an answer written somewhere in this room “Uum…well…I wasn’t expecting for you to be brave like that, the other colts are accompanied by their parents so that they don’t cry their eyes out most of the time, it was a surprising thing that you don’t shed a single tear given the fact that you’re alone.”

Seriously? Does someone cry just because of that? Well not that I can blame them because they are just kids anyway.

“O…kay? Anyway, can I get out of this place?”

“Not yet dear, we still have to fill the paper for your visit, I understand that you want to meet your mommy and daddy very much but we still have to document your visit. Is it alright to ask you a couple of question?”

My blood turns cold at that last part, is this some sort of simulation to dig out information from me? I never saw anything like this, I have been captured and put into a simulation before but nothing like this one, the other fake reality fabricator machine are usually limited to only visualization and audio simulation, not all blown reality copy like this.

The only computer that is capable of simulating all 5 senses is the one I created by myself, not to mention it only can work up to 8 minutes, 10 minutes top before combusting into a fireball. I can easily break out from the fake reality with ease because technology is my stuff but this one is an odd one, I can’t feel a single code traveling through the air like any other simulation, but there is something in the air, can’t place a finger on what it is but I can feel it.

“Well dear, if you don’t want to answer it’s alright but it will be a really huge help to find your parents or relative.”

I thought everyone know that my parents are gone. Oh well, what the heck, the past is the past, its time to enjoy the present and plan out the future. Might as well play along to see where this is going.

"Yeah sure, ask me anyway."

Chapter 7

View Online

I was prepared for any question she gives me, this might be an advanced simulation that will squeeze every bit information out of my head or making me blurted out something without me thinking so I boost up my mental defense to 11.

“Do you remember your name?”

O-KAY, maybe I’m not in some sort of fake reality machine because whoever made this clearly doesn’t know who they are supposed to be interrogating but hey it might be some other way to drop my guard down.

“Xandrich.” I simply said, even though it was my code name, I and my buddies were often calling each other by our code names rather than our real names to keep our identity secret.

“Xandrich, huh? That’s a …uncommon name,” she muttered way louder than it should have. Writing down on the newly gained information down on the clipboard “How about your parents, do you know their names?”

Hah, I knew it! They would use my parent’s information to track mine down. A couple of my personal enemies already did that trick on me in the past and the results are fruitless, because my connection only limited to my teammates, my sister and couple of those who blended in with the society, there aren’t many people that actually important to me so that ‘do me a favor or your family’s dead’ trick won’t work on me.

And because of that reason every time we get a mission Theo always send me to do some recon stuff, meaning it always me who has the first step to hell. At least I can steal a couple bunch of shit without anyone knowing.

That includes a latex based creature that can shapeshift into different things, but mostly demi-human, from an illegal lab and somehow ended as my best friend, but hey who the hell needs to know, right?

“Why should I? They’re both dead anyway.” I said with a sniffle. 'Darn dust, this pony nose is sensitive.'

I think that caused an impact more than I thought all of the room occupants let out a loud gasp and look at me with eyes full of concern and sadness, the worst of them is Redheart. The clipboard and quill dropped from her hoof, her eyes are at the edge of bursting out tears with how watery they look.

Without any warning, she gave me a hug that was way gentler than Pinks’s. I was starting to get used with the random hugs from them, still, it was a pain in the ass to hold back a solid right hook.

“I am very sorry dear.” She whispered, “I didn’t mean to make you remember those horrible times.”

The other join in for a group hug even Red that was frightened from the accident earlier joined, even though he was a bit hesitated. This continued for about a couple of minutes before awkward coughs from me.

“Could you guys get off? This is getting uncomfortable.”

“Nu-uh we’re not getting off until all of your sadness go bye-bye. A sweet colt like you shouldn’t be thinking about bad things.” Pinks protested, determined to cheer me up.

“It’s not a big deal actually, really. They’re already gone since I was younger so I really don’t know much about them,” ‘No, I watch them die right in front of me.’ “Besides, I still have others that can take care of me.”

That doesn’t stop them from hugging the crap out of me. After a couple of antagonizing minutes of being the center of the group hug, they released me from my fluffy jail. I’m starting to doubt that this is not some sort of simulation because I can feel their fur, is not as soft and fluffy as Pruto's but I can feel them as clear as a rain.

‘Thank god, I thought I was going to be suffocated to death.’

A loud growl filled the room, almost like the same growl from Theo when he caught me red-handed fiddling around with the main console, I frantically look around the room for the possible thing that emitting the sound.

As I search around the room for such thing, I notice the other room occupants are staring at me. I was about to ask why are they looking at me but my stomach decided to speak for itself.

Looks like those apples aren’t enough to fill the hole.

That alone earned a round of chuckles and giggles from the ponies around me, “Oh is our cute widdle colt is hungry for a yum-yum? Don’t be worry because Aunt Pinkie got something to fill up your tummy!” Pinks, the now named Pinkie if she speaks in the third person for a moment there, said. The way she said that is rubbing me off the wrong way.

She reach inside her cotton candy-like mane with her hoof and pull out a cardboard box that was way too big to fit in her mane, “Six freshly baked cupcakes with extra frosting, I know colts like you couldn’t resist treats like this so eat it slowly or so you don’t get a tummy ache!”

As soon as my eyes landed on the heavily covered cupcakes with strawberry frosting I immediately hate it, the only thing I hate more than the shit-flavored paste MRE HQ gave us is overly sweet food. The first cake I ever had in my entire life is on my fifth birthday and that is the last time I eat cake, I don’t dislike the bread part of it but the thing I hate about it to this day is the frosting part.

They tasted like if you mix sand with whipped cream, it has a crunchy/rough texture that lingers around your mouth longer than it should have and when that thing touches the upper part of my mouth it gets me very uncomfortable.

Plus the cupcake frosting is colored pink which reminded me of my shameful ‘phase’.

I was about to decline but my stomach rumbled once more, making me rethink my decision “Alright if you insisted.”

I was about to grab one of them but stopped midway and think ‘How the hell am I suppose to grab it with my hoof?’ I’ve seen the nurse somehow write with it but still wondering how she did it. I discard this little question for later because there is no way I can grab it without keeping my hoof clean from the frosting.

‘I wish I still have my hands…oh wait I’m a shapeshifter! Silly Alex how could you forget that?’

I turn my hoof to a mechanical hand and use it to pinch the cupcake and lift it, ignoring the slack-jawed stares others gave me. Flicking my free hoof to reveal a sharp blade, I use it to separate the top part with the rest of it and discard it to a nearby trashcan.

I open the bottom part of my mask by folding it aside and threw the other part of the cupcake, along with the wrapper cus why not, to my mouth. It tasted really really good, the flavor is well balanced and the texture is perfect, it has a buttery taste with a hint of cinnamon, not bad for a simulator.

I repeat this with the other cupcakes, removing the top and eat the rest.

Whipping away the leftover crusts on the corner of my mouth, I unfold the bottom mask part and gave a quick thanks to Pinkie, who strangely staring at the trash can with a blank face, before turning my attention to the nurse “So Nurse Redheart, was it right?” she nodded “You mind picking up where we left off?”

“Err…certainly dear.” She picked up the quill and clipboard from the floor “Again, I’m sorry for bringing up your pare-“

I'm really getting tired of them giving me their pity stop her with the universal ‘hold up’ sign with my still extended fingers. “Just…can we do not talk about them?”

“Y-yes, yes of course.” She cleared her throat, trying her best to not stare at my hand. “How about your herd mothers, do you know any of their names?”

‘Wat.’ “The heck is a ‘herd mother’?” I asked.

She had this uncertain eyes while she looks at me when I ask her that question, is it suppose to be a common knowledge? “It’s what you call the other mares that married to your daddy an-“

“Waaaaiiiit, wait, wait. Let me stop you there.” I cut her off “You’re saying that polygamy exists here?”

“Yes dear, didn’t your school teach you that? It’s a common knowledge among the society.”

Yeez, whoever made this simulation must be pretty sad, well sadder than me, and hoping for a harem of his own. Sure there are a few races that only consisted of female but polygamy is uncommon but not unheard of, it’s heavily frowned upon in the civilization, except in a couple of certain places, and some country has a law against it. But that doesn’t stop some people from forming a harem behind the closed door.

“No, there is only my dad, mom and big sister in my family, and as far as my knowledge my school doesn't teach me whatever a mother herd is,” I said. They stared at me like I grown a second head, well I can but I was speaking metaphorically. "What? is it that rare for a guy to marry a single girl?"

"Well actually yes dear, because of the male to female ratio is heavily unbalanced all across Equestria its a very rare thing to hear. On average stallions will claim four to six mares as their mates, a relationship like is what we called a 'herd' hence the name 'herd mothers'." Nurse Redheart explained. "To think that a stallion is married to a single mare existed."

I gave my best poker face to her as she said the last sentence, "Nope, don't have anything like that, never knew something like that exists. Dad already got his hand full with us, there is no point marrying others." 'Equestria? what kind of name is that?'

"Is that so? I'm sure if he married more mares he wouldn't have any trouble raising you and your sister." I questioning the logic behind that.

"Y'know what, I'm getting uncomfortable with this whole polygamy stuff so can we move on to the question so I can get home before dinner?" I asked, while the dinner mostly consisted of the MRE paste that most likely someone else shit mixed with dried veggies HQ gave us, I and my teammates agreed to cook it into something more edible, tonight it is my turn to cook so I rather not miss it. Speaking of food, the mare that gave me cupcakes, Pinkie I do believe her name, is now staring at me as if I just kicked a box full of kitten so I voiced out my thought about her "And I don't like the looks she gave me so can we get over this quickly, please?"

Nurse Redheart gave her a glance before returning her attention to the clipboard "Yes of course dear." I'm starting to hate when she called me that "Do you live with your relative, aunt, uncle or others?"

"Don't have any of those either." I do actually, they're just over the sea but she doesn't need to know for their sake of safety "I live with my sister and friends."

"Now next question, do you know where it is or the address?"

"Classified," I replied without thinking.

She gave me a perplexed look, same goes with the other in this room, clearly not expecting that answered "W-what was that deary?"

"Classified." I repeated, "As in 'you do not need to know' or 'not allowed' classified."

She stares at me like that for a moment before regaining back her smile from earlier "Don't be shy dear, as soon you're discharged from here or in a condition to freely move around we will escort you back to your sister."

I know I somehow got put inside a child avatar in a simulation but by god I can't handle being treated like this, nevertheless I should keep my cool so I don't accidentally leak an information, even the tiniest amount can reveal where my Base is "No, don't worry about it I can get there myself. Just give me my clothes back, show where the exit is and it'll be the last time you see me."

Her smile faltered a bit "B-but don't you know how dangerous it is to be all alone?" she urgently said "Colts like you shouldn't be walking all alone without a mare accompany, there are some terrible ponies out there that will do...unspeakable things to you, an-an-" the rest she just rambling off, listing 'horrible' things that would happen to me.

And most of them are pretty childish compared to what I've been trough. Shot, burn, frozen, stabbed, punched, kicked, suffocated, raped, gang banged, mind raped, anything that could potentially kill me, break me or something like that, you name it. I was probably the most durable unit the military could have ever gotten.

I had enough of her rambling so I end it by extending my hand to shut her mouth up, it took her a moment to realize that I had her mouth shut.

"You clearly don't know who or what I am."

Chapter 8

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"So let me get this straight, you're actually a 27 years old human, not a 6..ish years old colt?"

"Yup."

"And you have an ability to turn into anything you want as long you have the...materials for it?"

"Yeah, well except other living beings since I can't copy their DNA. God, why it has to be so...diffi...cult?!"

"Here, Ah'll give' ya a hoof."

"No, no, no. No thanks miss cowgirl...mare...whatever you're called. I got this."

"Err...okay?"

"Yes, I am aware of that part, ahem, any way you said that you're working as a soldier in the squad name 'S.A.S' is that correct?"

"Uh-huh, one of the first squads that often deployed at the beginning of every single war actually."

"Right, right. And you need to go back to wherever this 'A-mare-rica' place is?"

"Its pronounced America, but yeah pretty much."

"And if you don't get there on time, your 'commander' will give you punishment for not cooking up a dinner for them?"

"That and get beat up by the other members as a punching bag when training, I'll be lucky if I don't have to pay it with my body."

As I struggle to put on my pants, I could see Redheart stares at me it something in between disgust and horror. Probably I should rephrase the last part more precisely, being treated as a lab rat doesn’t fit well for me, but hey everyone vouched for me to take that position since no one else in the group has a super healing factory.

Well, there is Ghost, a code name for Becky, but she doesn’t really have a physical body like us. Technically speaking she does possess one, not the flesh and bones ones, her body is like made out of dark mists that shaped like a female's body, she is an astral creature after all. We don’t really know how a Wraith is able to gain consciousness since they’re summoned creatures usually used by demons, necromancers or Dark Arts user. From what we learn from her past, she was actually a person that was used as a sacrificial by some sort of cult to summon The Dark One that said will be the one who brought world destruction.

Personally, I call them a group full of nutjobs.

A couple days later after she was killed, somehow, she was able to return back to the living world as a ‘wandering soul’ and little by little he feed on the despair of other captives that was going to be used as sacrifices, or stress reliefs for some female cases, and eventually gained her current body.

Just don't ask me how the hell did she feed on other people feeling, it's like trying to fill up your stomach with the winds. I swear to god if I meet other creatures that can do that kind of thing I would eat my own leg flesh and bones.

A couple weeks or months later we, as in my sister and I, discovered her when investigating the source of 'bloody-murder-screaming' reported at night. That is how we met for the first time, though not officially since she still hasn't regained all of her minds and still relays on her Wraith instinct to take revenge on the cultist.

Anyway, back to the future. After I explain to the nurse that I'm not actually what she see, because I want to know how well this simulation taking this because I'm planning to bag this and set it up on the base, and told her the 'need-to-know-basic-only' info, and finally getting back my clothes cus sure ass hell I won't be walking around butt naked, even though in a different form, while someone keeping an eye on me as long as I'm in here. I may have some messed up kinks but not that fucked up.

“You know what, screw these stupid hooves!” I yelled out of frustration after five minutes of struggling to wear my pants, and not to mention the shirt and jacket, I don’t think these equine limbs made to be bent that way.

Transforming all four of my legs to the original shape, well close to my human limbs at least, I easily put the pants on and the other clothes, grumbling all the way. Because the materials only limited to metals I can’t exactly imitate the skin thus leaving the smooth metal surface clear as rain, as a result, I look like a half droid half pony similar to mismatched toys.

“There we go finally I g-whoa what the-!” I was being careless with my new body, designed to walk on all four I instantly lost my balance when standing on two legs or hind legs, I ended falling square face first. I don’t have enough materials to reshape my backbones, I still have woods in my storage but the weighs of both of my arms might snap the wooden backbones.

Well, at least I won’t be walking butt naked anymore.

By the way, 'Freaking ow,' I know a pony's muzzle is sensitive but fucking hell it hurts like a motherfucker.

I feel someone lift me up by the hem of my jacket, at first I was going to punch whoever lifting me up but I was slowly put down on my rump, kinda like a dog that was sitting on its ass.

Turns out it was Red who did it, I was surprised and even though I yelled at him earlier he seems to be happy to help. I have experience dealing with ‘emotionless’ people so to speak so it was easy to know what he is saying.

I gave a little nod and said thanks.

He nodded back and walk toward the Stetson hat wearing pony that is looking my mechanical limbs with worry and fear.

Ignoring Pinkie, who still looking at me with those eyes though I’m sure her hair is a bit puffier than before, I look toward Nurse and said “Well, now you know. To be honest, I'm surprised that you don’t even know me, I mean who doesn’t know about the stunt I pulled on the orphanage.” Well basically half of the world does, but hey there is no problem boasting my accomplishments once in a while right? “So, can I get out from this place now? I might give away too much information,” ‘not.’

She has this uneasy look, I must say whoever design this simulation got to be the best inventor I’ve ever know, well besides my father that is. “W-well, in time dear when your wings are healed up and we’ll need to fill up your paper.” She said, slowly retreating back out of the room “You know us adult with our paperwork, h-heh busy, busy, busy!” she then leaves the room but not before whispering something to the blond mane one and Big Red, both of them followed her leaving the room.

The only one who remains in the room with me is Pinkie, for some reason the way she looks at me is like she saw me throw a bag full of kittens into the river right in front of her.

“…why…”

Even if it was barely a whisper I could still hear her said something under her breath.

“Why what?” I asked.

“Why didn’t you eat the frosting?”

I stared at her for what it feels like a full minute or two, 'why wouldn’t I eat the delicious creamy substances that perfectly placed on top of the fluffy, flawless baked lump of bread? Because it’s fucking disgusting. I rather stuff myself with 5 days worth of MRE shit paste than lick a single drop of them.' is all I wanted to say but because I don't want to be rude, I know that this reality is a simulation but I gotta have respect for it.

Other than the growing hate from when I was a child, it has a massive amount of sugar that will compromise a stealth mission. The smell of burning sugar can attract small rodents and alert demi-human’s smelling sense.

In some cases, the excessive amount of sugar will end up clogging my exhaust ports. Because of the heat from my power core that directly connected to the fuel tanks and the mechanism to turn food into biofuel, some sugar that manages to slip through somehow turned into cotton candy.

“I just don’t like sweet much.” That was an understatement.

“Oh….” Suddenly her mane inflated like a balloon and her eyes sparkled with joy. I am sure that this mare is a bio-polar if her attitude just went 180 turns. The thing that worried me the most is the way she smiled, it's so wide that I’m sure it looks like a maniac.

‘Oh dear god above don’t let her be one of those ‘Joker’ guys,’ I silently pray.

“Why don’t you say so? It’s really weird for a colt like you didn’t like sweet, many foals in town can never get enough of it, but everypony had their own preference! Probably you didn’t like strawberry flavor frosting so tell me what you like so that I can get it perfectly fit for your tongue. Actually, don’t I bet there is another kind of flavors that surely your liking-“ the rest of her sentences are just random blabbering that I tuned out.

Just the one thing that I need to turn on my ‘no fucks given’ mode.

‘Oh god, she is a hyperactive, maniac, happy go lucky, sweet loving AND a chatterbox. Just kill me now,’ Is the last thing I thought before forming a plan in my head to escape this virtual hell.

***

Outside the room where our Abnormal Anomaly is, the three ponies that leaves the room silently standing near the corner of the hallway. One of them reads the paperboard and mumbled the stuff that she had written on it as the other two constantly glancing to each other, the room where they were in and the nurse.

“We already searched the Ponyville’s citizens IDs and we haven’t got a clue of his identity. Nothing matches up with his name or appearance so there could be a possibility that he is from other towns,” The nurse stated “Somehow he is able to move around without trouble despite his injuries. Foals are known to have a high healing factory but he with how fast he recovered is unexpected to put it lightly.”

Applejack also wondered the same thing as the nurse, being on the receiving end of her infamous buck that can annihilate a Timberwolf with a size of an adult pony surely will put somepony to crack a few bones but if it’s a foal then it would be a life and death situation.

But this colt, Xandrich, just stands up and walks away as if it doesn’t bother him at all. Aside from his foul mouth and harsh words, he is definitely different from other foals. His hooves did surprise her and the others, it can split, extended, and takes another shape. Applejack heard a thing called prosthetic limbs that can replace severed limbs, is that what are those things are?

Applejack could think of it as a good or bad thing. On one hoof she is terrified knows that Xandrich doesn’t have any of his four hooves but she also feels happy to know that he can walk again.

There is also a problem about his head, it seems that he thinks he is a human shapeshifter that born in a place called America and had been in service in the military since he was 16. He also doesn’t know what a herd is and said that he was from a place where their stallions can only have one partner which is weird.

When Nurse Redheard asked him a question, avoiding the subject around his parents, most of which he answered ‘qualified’ or just bunch of delusional mumbo jumbo.

If they want a clear answer they would need to bring him into reality.

He did mention an orphanage, could it be that he ran away from there?

“Will he be alrigh’t Nurse?” surprisingly, it was his brother spoked.

Said nurse look up from the clipboard and answered with uncertainty in her voice “Physically he can be discharged and returned home in one week but he has to return once every three days for check-up until he is completely healthy” She said “I am not really sure about his mental health, he clearly went through something really terrible. My theory is whatever caused those scars made him create a false reality to cope with his surroundings.”

“What ‘bout his hoovs’?”

“I…rather not think what happened to them.”

After that followed by a silence, the tension in the air is so thick you can grab it. After a couple of seconds, Applejack said “So what do we do now?”

“First we have to find out what city he is from and then we need to track whe-“ Nurse Redheart was cut off by a certain pink pony that suddenly appears between her and the female apple.

“APPLEJACK, HELP!” Pinkie yelled right next to her ear and made others jump in surprise.

After recovering from the shock, and suddenly lost hearing, she asked “Wha’ is it Pinkie, can’t ya see we’re busy?” as she rubbed her ringing ears.

“ITS XANDRICH!” the pink pony yelled, even if her mane returned back to her bouncy state she did not have that happy-go-lucky face she always has. She looks like in a verge on panic. “HE- HE JUMPED OUT OF THE WINDOW!!!”

“WHAT?!”

Chapter 9

View Online

Walking through the painfully colorful village, or small town, filled with equally colorful ponies starting to hurt my eyes to the point I was thinking about gouging them out. Seriously did whoever create this false reality ever heard the color grey? With how colorful they’re it makes me stood out like a sore thumb, being the only one who has dark colored fur and heavily clothed compared to them.

I know the amount of clothing I have on right now can be said as standard to society, well real life society that is. Whoever made this simulation is really a pervert, pretty much everyone here is naked, well they're ponies after all but do you really have to design their genitals for fuck sakes? That guy walking with a boner and its swinging in the breeze but nobody really gave a crap about it, even he doesn't give a fuck about it.

And the eyes, I can feel them staring at me with their big googly eyes. I’m the type of person people called a ‘nobody’ because how easily I blend in with others, its not like I have something weird or special and nobody will ask why I wear a mask, because I’m not the only one, or is it because I hang around the Red District for too long?

After doing many undercover missions I somehow gain a sixth sense that can ‘detect’ if someone watching me from any direction, even if it was a security camera. Of course, it wasn’t anything like my style at all, being all stealthy and not firing bullets on everything that moves, but when Ghost or the loli elf isn’t around I was usually picked to do it.

Now I’m starting to miss the white and empty walls of the hospital, it kind of reminds me of the training simulation back at Base. ‘Why did I do that?’

***Couple minutes earlier***

‘Now, if I want to get out of here usually I only need to racks up my CPU beyond the simulator’s limits but I rather not make any unnecessary damage. Sure I can fix a god damn Space Rocket with scrap metals but I have the blueprint for it ’

“Do you prefer chocolate? Vanilla? Oh wait you did say that you didn’t like sweet, is it because of your teeth? I heard that foals never bother to brush their teeth after eating sweets. Poor Button can’t eat anymore after-“

‘Well it's down to two ways, either find a glitch in the system that I can exploit or make a backdoor to take control over the simulator. Finding a spot that weak enough to be breached should be easy, must be somewhere in the forest near I woke up.”

“-never brush his teeth so he can’t have any more sweets! Oh, I should tell you how Sweetie Bell tried to bake a cake for his birthday but somehow it turns into a cake monster! But then-“

‘Is she still going off with her mouth of her? Whoever made this really knew how to irritate me, at least Dom kept it on a tolerable level, did she even need to breathe?’

“-erypony has a piece and the party was a blast! *GASP*”

‘…must be scanning my brain for any type of ‘odd’ things to correct’

“Oh I know, we should have a party celebrating your recovery together with Welcome to Ponyville party!”

‘Ponyville, seriously? Who the hell designed this simulation, a five-year-old? Well, there could be a possibility for a kid to have an IQ higher than an average human, probably even higher than the Wise Dragon beastfolks or elder elves due to some sort of factor that affecting their brain, perhaps an Anomaly that has something to do with their IQ. And wait did she just say a party?’

“-ere would be colorful balloons, streamer, and all kind of flavored punch-“

‘Oh god.’

“-uge and yummy cake, and there would be all sort of games, like pin the tai-“

‘Oh dear God please no.’

“And every foal in town would be invited, of course, noponies wants to party all by themselves without others right?!” Pinkies finally ended her long one-sided talk with another big smile that creeps me the fuck out. How could she, a colorful pink pony that seems just pop out from a children TV show, make the Joker smile that can be seen as creepy and adorable at the same time?

And just like that, everything I doubt from the creator washed away like rain. I forgot the first thing Theo taught me, never underestimate your enemy, in this case, whoever controlling this simulation known what I’m trying to avoid all these years.

Socialism, one of my greatest weakness.

Even though I am great at working with the other S.A.S members, like a well-oiled machine one could say and great at blending in public, I was terrible at being on the spotlight at public, the same can’t be said when I’m in combat.

Because of constantly being a force to be reckoned in the battlefield I got a lot of attention, by the attention I mean multiple bullets, beams, projectiles, etc being fired at me. Little by little it became a habit of shooting anyone that is staring at me. So whenever I became the center of attention I immediately snapped to Defensive Mode with trigger-happy attitude.

I do, however, go to the higher up party, but it was more like a ball than an actual party, being a security guard or just mingles with others.

Even though it wasn’t much of a critical thing for me but I rather not give out any of my personal issues with a stranger, who knows, maybe they can use it to their advantage. It’s a lesson I learned when I was in my puberty days.

Still, the slightest slip-up can lead to a terrible situation like that time which leads me to an unseen disaster, well to my pride and social image at least, the latter being not much of a problem because I rarely care about it. The good thing is I got a new nickname and recognized as 'that guy who dresses weirdly' in public.

Both of which are ridiculously embarrassing.

I don’t know if the guy who runs this simulation, I’ll call him Bob from this point, knew of my little habit or just trying how I reacted.

Well, a stupid person being stupid, I gave him an unexpected answer.

I jump out of the open window.

And by the time I left the solid floor and past the window, I realize that the room was not on the first floor it was on the third floor.

One thing I said before the gravity taking me down to the hard ground was “Shit.”

***Present***

‘Well, whatever, I have to get to the forest before those three catches up to me.’ I thought to myself.

I’m walking on the more inactive part of the town, I could, however, go through the market district but with how busy and numerous amount of colorful moving equine, that would put LSD trip to shame, I rather avoid unwanted attention.

Even if there are fewer ponies on this road the attention was still given by the idle bystanders, I could feel their bizarre large eyes staring at me. The weird thing is I’ve only seen 2 or 3 stallions this far and I remembered that Nurse Redheart, the only pony that doesn’t make me want to gauge my eyes out I met, said that the mares are outnumbered the stallions 10 to 1.

With that in mind, I was wondering what is Bob using this simulation for? Well aside from using it for me of course, judging by the odd setting I gathered so far is only leading to one thing which is-

“LOOK OUT!!!”

I was too deep in thought I can’t even respond in time, suddenly something smashed on my right side and sent me tumbling to an alley, my head collided with something and the sound of metal hitting metal being hit rang through my ears.

Thankfully I hit the mechanical part of my head and not the fleshy part, even though it covered with a layer of wood skin I’m sure it wasn’t effective as the metal one, regaining my footing, hooving?, I stare at the thing that hit me.

Or somepony.

Eckh, that left a bad taste on my tongue.

Lying near a turned dustbin is a foal, or filly if you want to be accurate, sprawled with comical stars circling her head. Her eyes spinning in the opposite direction of each other like a cartoon character.

‘I think Bob is a five-year-old girl, I’ll just call her Sarah then.’

She has an orange coat and purple mane and tail, the wings on her back indicating that she is the same race as me, a pegasus. She shakes her head to get rid of the stars, once her eyes stop spinning she stood up and glared at me.

“Hey, can’t you hear me? I said get out of the way, sister!” she snapped.

I raised an eyebrow at her odd chosen words “Well, excuse me for not listening to you,” I snapped back, not wanting to lose an argument with a freaking colorful talking pony “If you’re using that big eyes of yours to actually see the damn road you might not crash into somebody else, but hey what do I know? Am I supposed to take the blame even though you’re the one who crashed into me? Heck no.”

I think I might overdo it seeing how she had a terrified expression and took a few steps back, and how the hell did her pupils turn in to a pinprick? Well, I don’t really care about it anyway since I can chalk it up as the ‘logic’ of this false reality.

"Oh my Celestia you're a colt," she whispered. Celestia? who the fuck is that? “I-i-i-I’m sorry I shouldn’t yell at you!” she apologizes almost stammering with watery eyes, she bowed her head several times “Please don’t tell me to your herd mothers!”

Again with the herd mothers, god I’d never get used to this. “Whatever just look at where you’re going first so you won’t crash to somebody else,” I said simply and walk around her. Now that we’re standing side by side I was an inch shorter than her, am I younger than her?

Before I could turn at the corner I heard a shout of “Oh no!” taking a glance at the purple haired filly, I could see her looking at the remains of a scooter, maybe that was what she’s riding.

She sniffed a couple of times before wiping her tears from her face, even though I was the victim, more or less, I was starting to feel guilt filling my gut. Even if I have the heart of metals, literally, I have a soft side for children.

Walking back to her side, I could clearly see what part of the scooter that’s broken, the damn thing break into two pieces right between the plank that is used for standing on. Taking a closer look I could see the little mushroom and moss decorated the wooden plank, indicating that it was already rotten.

“It was my first scooter…” She sniffed “I found it in the junkyard and thought it would be my lucky day…”

‘No wonder it's in bad condition, she took it from a dump.’ I thought, sure we might take what we found in the junkyard near the Base but at least we refined it so that it could be used. Well, mostly the magic caster of our team does it because she is the only one who can use alchemy but hey I helped too.

I have ten years worth of Alchemy knowledge sitting on one of my many folders but because I have nothing to generate magic like elves and other magic caster has, it’s just as good as garbage.

I put my hoof on her back and gave her a few pats to calm her down “Don’t worry, I can fix it for you” I said.

She cast a side glance at me with her teary eyes, “You-sniff-you can?”

“Of course no problem, it would be as easy as pie, It's not rocket science right?” I said, picking up the broken scooter and absorbing it just by touching it. “Just wipe the snort and tears out of your face.”

I heard a mumbled ‘okay’ followed by the sound of her snorting even harder. I fix the scooter from the inside of my questionable body, by dissembling it into pieces, replacing the broken part with reinforced wood leftover from the forest and giving it a few finishing touches.

Reaching the inside of my unbuttoned jacket as if going for the inner pocket, I pulled out the scooter as if I was a street magician, but in reality, I pulled it from my body and checking it for any flaw, just like any of my other creations, it doesn’t have any.

The wooden parts are replaced with reinforced wood, sturdy enough to handle a heavyweight. The rusted metals are polished back to their glory day, so shiny that you can even see your own reflection.

All and all it looks like a brand new one.

I turn toward my ‘fellow’ Pegasus and presented her fixed scooter, “Here you go, it’s not my best work but I think it would be sufficient.”

Whipping the last tear from her eyes, she takes a look at her scooter and gasped “Wha-how…are you really giving this to me?” she asked, barely containing her happiness with how huge her smile is, thankfully it wasn’t as big as Pinkie’s.

“Well…yeah, it is yours right? You found it in the junkyard and it doesn’t belong to anyone now does it?” I said, placing the scooter in front of the orange coated pony who proceeds to ride it.

With a simple push, she dashed toward the other side of the road, almost crashing to a wall but her wings help her stop just in time. I should probably tell her that I lubricate the wheels with oil so that they would spin easier.

She dashed back and practically pounces on to me and wrap her forehooves around my neck, again, I had to hold myself from sending a right hook at her, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” she screamed at the side of my head before jumping back and circled around her scooter.

‘Ouch, I hope my ears aren’t bleeding.’

“This is so AWESOME!!!” she squealed “how did you do all of this anyway?”

Feeling a little mischief, and paying back for what she did to my ears, I decided to play a joke on her “That my dear…” leaning in closer and so did she “…is a secret.” I whispered with a wink.

She almost fell down but quickly sat on her haunches and pouted “That’s not fair…” she mumbled, hooves crossed against her chest.

I let out a chuckle “Whatever, I gotta go anyway. Better not making big sis waiting.” I rustled her mane, despite the height difference, and walk out from the alley, I turn to the corner and continued my walk toward the forest. ‘Now, where the hell is that damned forest? I could go straight toward that apple orchard and backtracked to where I came from or find another way rather than getting caught trespassing and which will probably end up in some police station or something.’

My train of thought derailed as I heard something rolling by my side, at the sight of the scooter steer I could guess who it is.

“So any reason you decided to follow me?” I asked.

“I notice that you don’t have any mare with you so I decided to guard you as saying thanks for fixing my scooter,” She replied with a cheery tone, ‘Guard? Woman, do I look like a prisoner to you?’ “That and I never knew your name. Let me introduce myself I’m Scootalo, Rainbow Dash number one fans!”

‘Scootaloo? Rainbow Dash? Just hearing those names already giving me diabetes and I bet whoever Rainbow was definitely has something to do with rainbow, maybe the fur?’ Rolling my eyes at the ‘creative’ names.

“The name Xandrich, a member of the S.A.S.”

Chapter 10

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“Whats S.A.S?”

Sometimes, there is a situation that could be where everything suddenly from worst to incredibly terrible in a blink of an eye, whether you thought it can’t get any worse or when everything’s is running smoothly just as planned. Like when you thought there is nothing can go wrong when you mix soda and baking powder for a simple school project.

“Its just another name of a squad in the west side of the Kruglekerg city.”

The result? The whole room is covered by a thin layer of both mixture and I almost lost a finger.

“Kurgle-what? I never heard a city with that name.”

Don’t ask me how in the Alcherous that happen, it's still a mystery to this day.

“Seriously, not even the name? Huh, thought everyone in the world already knew it, being one of the towns where those who wants to be Adventurer or soldier trained and all.”

From there on out, I name those type of situation as ‘fuckening’, as in ‘there it is, the fuckening’. For example, if one would find one of the MK.XXV Rhino Tanks on a recon mission that was supposed to have a very low-risk level, fully armed with AP rounds machine gun and HE shells, covered with titanium plating and enchanted by an archmage to the point it could withstand an anti-tank cannon. Not rifle, not one of those disposable anti-tank weapons, a freaking cannon.

A single blast from it can take out the latest Silver Tract Tank model in an instant, heck even those tanks need at least five shots of Panzerschrech to disable it, not destroy it. As expected from one of the tank generations during the Great War era, they made to last longer than today's tanks.

Well at least I got one more unique tank model for my collection after that unpleasant experience, hopefully, it’s still somewhere inside my unlimited storage and fully functional after what I did to it.

During my internal monologue, I notice that Scootalo wasn’t following me anymore if the lack of the scooter wheel sound indicates anything. I glance behind and saw her looking at me with a weird look, something between surprised and confused.

“Why are you staring at me like that, is the something on my face?” I asked

“Where are we going?” she asked, as if it was a usual thing to follow a stranger around, “We’re near the outskirt of the village, aren’t your herd mothers worried about you?”

I just raise an eyebrow “Go home, where else?” which is exactly true, though probably Bob/Sarah might boost the security around where I woke up or moved the ‘virtual gateway’ to somewhere else, either way, it’s not much of a problem. If the former did happen I’ll just do what I do best, powering through it and if it’s the latter I just track it down, though it will take more time seeing how my cybernetic part of my brain didn’t catch a single bit of data.

Speaking of which, I really do need to restock my supply of metal, even if it’s just virtual reality, and god forbid I use my personal stuff, most of which I don’t know how to recreate it or the materials are going to cost me an arm and leg. Scootalo -snrk- said that she got her scooter from a junkyard, maybe there are scrap metals lying around.

“Wait, your home isn’t here in Ponyville?” she asked.

“Nope, as I said before I came from Kruglekerg City, its somewhere near the forest border. I know it wasn't the best choice to be stationed at, on a town near where monster usually makes their nest, but hey that's why the higher-ups post us up there, to keep things safe and all." It has been common knowledge, where I'm from which is a highly advanced country including the military, for a city to have 3-7 Squads posted in them depends on how big and important the city is.

Other than keeping the city safe from monster attack, which is also a job for the local SWAT or police forces, and sometimes heroes, though their part of the job is only guiding the civilians toward the save zone we, as in the Pratestes or commonly known as Guardians, also have a duty to defend the entire nation from outsides forces, be it other nations attack or some sort of unknown creatures, mostly we got send to deal with war and possibly expand our territory but the latter is much less frequent. Not because we're already a huge nation compare to the neighboring ones, the main reason we can't expand more is the risk of exploring and cleaning up the location. We might have claimed a huge chunk of the continent for our selves but that doesn't mean all of it is inhabitable.

It's a lesson that Freghea Kingdom never learns and the reason why that nation is wiped off from the map.

She looks at me with that look again as if I just grown a third, or fifth, leg or hoof. Scoot was about to say something but my skin feels like being pricked by a thousand tiny needle.

Since I’ve known my way around the battlefield, being a 'hardener veteran' soldier that I am, somehow I develop some sort of ‘sixth sense’ to predict where an attack is coming from, using only the sudden change in air pressure and other factors I can avoid most attack, I might not be one of those Demi-human or Beastfolk that has avian traits but but my five senses are sharper than an average human.

That or my radar caught something within it's range.

‘Warning, an unidentified object detected, 4 o’clock high, approaching at 3 knots.’

“GOT YOU!”

I swiftly roll aside to avoid whatever that unknown thing is, the wind brush against my new ears making me realize how close it was. And I’m sure that unknown thing is actually someone if I’m not mistaken, I'm pretty certain that I heard a voice belong to a tomboy judging by the tone and how high the voice is and I’m sure I saw something that screamed ‘rainbow’ on the edge of my sight.

I push against the ground during mid-roll to add more distance from where I’m at before. Taking an aggressive stance, front body lower than the back like a wolf, I witness one of the most childish yet ridiculous things I’ve seen in my life.

Near where I was before is an adult mare pegasus with the most bizarre mane and tail color.

It was freaking rainbow, the fact that the mane didn’t mix up and stay completely separated by color despite the blowing wind is beyond me.

'Bet my left kidney that pony is 'Rainbow Dash' Scoot was telling about.'

Oh did I mention Rainbow, still trying not to lose my shits over a name, is floating a couple feet above the ground with her wings that are way too small to lift something with her size and flapping it with the speed of an average dragon flaps which is way too slow? No? Well, she is doing it right now.

I swear if this simulation is tempted me to shut down my brain because how weird it is, it's working.

Impossible logic aside, Rainbow is definitely a mare with how sleek her body is, or probably a very feminine stallion because of the whole rainbow mane and tail thing, with fair a share of muscle on her body clearly showing her athletic traits, mainly focused on her wings.

"Huh, where did he go?"

Is she looking for me? The only male specimen around here is me so its probably just an attempt to hinder me from the only exit I could think of. Normally, I would just reprogram the simulation to make it go 'poof' but since I can't even grab a single digit code from the data stream it would take a miracle for the system to suddenly glitched, giving me an opening to exploit.

Come to think of it, since when another Quantum Computer was constructed? One of the ways to escape from a computer simulation is to overwhelm the computer, and given that I possess a miniature Quantum Computer, this thing only has one-third of whatever the original has. Still, even if it’s a miniature it’s a Quantum Computer nonetheless, the gap between it and the rest of the computer family is huge.

There is only 10 exited in the whole world, excluding mine, in my knowledge and each one is used by a nation ruler, be it queens, kings or presidents depending on what kind of government they use. Not to mention the manufacturing of one unit would cost a fortune enough to buy a large kingdom, and that’s not including the program, software and the installation.

“You wont get away this time!”

*SWISH*

*TWACK*

In the middle of conducting my train of thought, I didn’t realize that Rainbow attempt to capture me again, so I retaliate out of habit. I dashed forward and slip right under her, I guess it surprised her with how wide those eyes can expand. Twisting my body mid-slide, I put both of my front hooves on her chest and giving it light ‘push’.

Though, it was more like a shove than a push actually, I reflexively activate my air pump mechanisms in my arms- er front legs, releasing a high pressured air. It wasn’t enough to inflict permanent damage, a bruise or two at worst. Casting a glance behind as I nailed the landing, Rainbow is lying upside down under a tree which has a distinct dent on its bark, a pair of 'U' shaped mark imprinted oh her 'chest'.

'Ouch, gonna feel that in the morning.'

And let's not forget the comically spinning star and eyes.

At this point, I wouldn't even bother to argue with how childish this virtual reality is.

"Rainbow Dash!"

Yup, shouldn't even be bothered.

Ignoring the orange blur passing me, I walk toward the direction my 'compass' is pointing, I was completely done at this point. I just wanna go back to base, have my memory erased and lie down on my comfy bed with Pruto. I swear if it wasn't for him I would be a rough shapeshifter with a doomsday device attached on my chest by now.

"There he is!"

'Oh god not her again.' I didn't even need to look at whoever that was, the voice is already annoying enough and not to mention how much of a chatterbox she can be. I broke to a sprint, pumping extra power on each step. I could hear multiple hoof steps right behind me so I guess Pinks and Lisa are chasing me, followed by a steady beat of windy whoos.

They're yelling something along the line of 'stop', 'please, we just want to help you', and 'come back here you squirt!' which I ignored. I'm not going to be trapped in this childish virtual prison, I'm a proud member of S.A.S, dammit! Torture in both forms of physical and mental that could bring adult man crying on his knee I can take it head-on, but family-friendly mental 'torture'? Nope, I think I'll hold on to my pride and man card, or what's left of the latter.

Breaking through the foliage and earning me a few scratches, some of which is leaking blood but I couldn't care less, I kept running until their voices are out of my hearing range. I stopped once I step into a clearing, not because I need to catch a breath but because of a manticore carcass lying in the middle of it which confuse me for a second.

A big creature such as that is known for not going down without a fight so it makes me wonder why there isn't a single claw mark or any sign of battle recently happen until I caught the sight of the caved in face.

'Ah right, it's the manticore I punched earlier.'

Which is pretty freaking convenient now that I need something to fix my chest and wings While I can't just use random biomass I picked up from a dead animal to fix any injuries on my body, because of the whole different DNA thing and other factors that aren't allowing me to heal up without looking like a chimera, I can break it down to its most basic form (calcium, protein, calories, etc. Basically nutrients you get on every single serving of cornflakes) and have my body speed up the healing process.

Rapid healing factor, thankfully I still have that perk despite being an abnormal shapeshifter.

Absorbing the dead manticore, leaving a puddle of blood where it's head was, I quickly mend my injured chest and wings. Replacing the metal bits from my flesh and bones, repair it with the materials I got from the carcass, I manage to heal it at an acceptable level before leaving it to my new equine body to take care of the rest. Even if I don't have an ounce of micro or nanobots I still can 'command' my body to heal, those bots are more like an auto-heal thing rather than the actual rapid healing factor.

The wings part is a bit hard, it was a whole new territory for me so I just fix the part that I can with my knowledge of winged creatures anatomy and leave it to heal naturally. It might just fake parts of my body but I like to avoid any possible damage to my real body, for all I know these things are connected to what left of my brain and can damage it if I mistreat it.

Running a quick scan on my whole body, I get the same 3D silhouette but this time my chest is on the green area and yellow for the wings.

After confirming it was slowly healing, I start walking toward where I was woken, that is until the sky visibly getting darker at a fast rate. Turning my head to the sky, I can see the sun start descending, the sky becomes darker each second and stars popping up here and there. The sun is replaced by the moon soon after.

And all of that happens in the span of fewer than 5 minutes.

Ah yes, the bullshit of this virtual world has no ends, for all I know there will be a creature made entirely of magic. No, wait we have those in the real world so it wouldn't be much of a surprise.

Freaking spirits, trying to steal our unique shapeshifting abilities with magic, its fucking bullshit with how they can become a Magi Beast that can destroy an entire nation but to be fair they lost their sense of reasoning once they became a Magi Beast.

Well then, I suppose I can continue this train of thought once I dealt with the yellow eyes that's glowing in the bushes, with how many they are I can assume that I am surrounded from all side, only leaving me one solution to get out from this situation.

Reinforcing my spine with metals and wood so it can support the weight of my mechanical arms, I stood up on both hind legs which now resemble a boot for better balance and took a fighting stance. My two front hooves doubled in size and taking the shape of a gauntlet, moonlights shine upon the shiny surface making it looks like an enchanted gauntlet. The blue light from my visor switched to red for a more dramatic feeling.

With a quick scan of my surrounding area, I detect more than 25 of them wooden wolves, some of them are bigger than others. I was thinking about using the remaining reinforced wood in my storage as an armor before discarding that, with how many and fragile they're, speed is more optional than defense.

Calculating my chances of winning, which is more than 99.63%, I let a challenging roar to the air.

"COME AND GET SOME YOU BASTARD!!!"

And the forest filled with the sound wolf's howls and breaking woods for a few hours forward.

Author's Notes:

So, after a few months waiting, a new chapter finally arrives.
To be honest I was expecting it to be done a few months earlier, maybe like a month or two after the previous chapter but it took way longer than I thought.

Anyway, I won't be using an 'it was school thing' as an excuse for a couple of chapters ahead because guess who just got a month full of holidays...!!

That's right its ya Boi Erik, rolling down the street without a backpack hanging on his...well...back.

And probably I would start spewing excuses like 'writer block' or 'family issue' when in reality I would be just too lazy to work on a new chapter.

Well, anyway enough of my ramblings.
Thanks for reading this chapter!
And as always, keep a look out for any grammar error, typo or any error on this chapter and let me know!

See you all in the next chapter! or in the next chapter on my other story... :P

Chapter 11

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"STAY DOWN-"

*Crack*

"YOU DAMN-"

*Crack*

"ABOMINATION!"

With a final blow, I caved the gigantic wolf head, green ooze that I assume its 'blood' leaked between the cracks. I let out a huff of steam as the gigantic wooden wolf construct stumbled around before it fell to the side with a loud thud and the sickly greenish-yellow light, probably the veins, finally, finally, dimmed down. The fight has taken more time, and my patience, than what it suppose to be, even though the wolves are nothing more than wooden constructs they proved themselves as a quite formidable opponent.

Bob or Sarah really doesn't want me to find wherever the 'virtual gate' is and buffed up the security around it. I was expecting something like a 7 headed hydra or a dragon but not wooden wolves, they might have an advantage in quantity but they're incredibly weak, one or two punch to the head and they become a bundle of sticks.

What I'm not expecting was a group of wooden wolves that possess the ability to regenerate their injury unlike before, they also now able to combine into a larger version. Not only their size is twice bigger than before but it also amplifies their strength and the wooden skin density. In the 'second stage' alone they're able to cut down a tree with a single swipe.

When all of them combined, they became a gigantic wooden wolf, height as tall as the treeline and huge enough to make me like a gnat. Fortunately, this simulation also included something called 'physic' and 'common sense', while the gigantic wooden wolf has an advantage in strength and size it also has its own disadvantage, mainly its slow movement.

I, of course, exploited it excessively, moving as much as my little body can with the help of my gauntlet arm I modified so that it has a grappling hook function. There's a wee bit of problem though, I don't have enough material to make a cable, chain or rope to attach it to the hook so I made a makeshift rope from vines I managed to grab during the fight, barely strong enough to pull my weight, keyword barely.

It snapped every time I pull it too strong or when the wooden wolf jerked its head, so I need to use both of my arms/forehooves at the same time. I was planning to simply punch the living hell out of it with the help of gravity but it's fur, or more like it's hide, is incredibly thick for nothing more than a patch of grasses, its even strong enough to withstand a force enough to knock down a wall.

However, it wasn't strong enough to shrug it completely, every time I landed a hit it leaves a patch of dead grass and visible dent...before it disappeared in less than a minute.

So ridiculously tough and equally ridiculous regenerative ability? Forget wood construct, this thing is at least a C rank monster, at a minimum a full 4 person party seasoned Adventurer of the same rank would be required to deal with it.

I knew I should've to use fire since, y'know, they made out of freaking woods but with the possibility of starting a wild forest fire, thus raises the chance of being found and dragged back to that seizure-inducing village, I refrain myself and use only close quarters combat which is getting me nowhere, might as well pelting it with pebble.

Rather than hitting it on random places, I opted to just focused on a single place. I anchored on its head by embedded my now transformed spiked boots/legs to its snout and proceeded to machine-gun punch its temple. It didn't even have the time to throw me off, besides it kinda pointless the spike is at least 2 inches deep before its head caved in from getting hit multiple times by a rocket-propelled punch.

Its been more than an hour or two since the fight started, power core is overheating with how little I use it, my clothes are tattered, except for the jacket since it is enchanted with minor mending and strengthening rune, and I stand victorious on top of my oppone-

The body moved.

...

[Warning, you are in the vicinity of a forest, by using an incendiary device Gauntlet Flamethrower may cause a wildfire, do you still wish to continue? Y/N]]

I was about to select Y option but on second thought maybe it's not the best decision no matter how irritating it was to fight the same enemy over and over again. The thing I am fighting is basically a wooden construct so it basically falls in the category of non-living things, its just a bunch of grass, branch, and wood that clumps together and held with, I don't know, magic?

If that the case then there's no problem, magic is considered another form of energy and it is one of the things I cant absorb, once inside me any type or form of energy is going to disperse to who knows where.

The gigantic wooden wolf began to light up again so I have to act quickly, placing my right arm on its temple and give it a little flex, there's a slink noise coming from my arm. The wooden wolf jerked for a moment before sagging down, the green lights once again dimmed down.

I transformed the piece of metal I lodge in its head into a liquid state so I can slip between the cracks and goes for its brain. While I can't actually see it I can feel it is like a ball of moss, there's a connection attached on the back of it leading to the spine, feeding it a steady stream of energy.

I coated the ball of moss with liquid metal and cut off the connection, the moment I cut it the head crumbled down and I lost my footing, thankfully there's a pile of sharp pointy stick to land on.

'Ouch'

After absorbing the pile of wood I walked to the main course, the now headless wooden wolf is currently regenerating the missing part, I launch my left gauntlet right in where its core should be, still connected by a rope of vines, I turn it to a drill mid-flight and went straight to the glowing parts. Like the brain it's core has soft, moss-like surface but sturdy as wood oak. It was an odd thing to notice, most construct usually have a crystal-like core, be it artificial or harvested from magi beast, but then again this is virtual reality so most common sense gets thrown out the window.

Coating the core with the now liquefy drill bit, I absorb it and the whole body crumbled down just like its head then absorbed it too because I can never have enough material, though it would be nice if I can get my hands on some metal. I yank back my arm and reconnected it with a 'clank' to the rest of it, then I transform both the arm gauntlet and boot back to its 'original' shape, I still kept it metal in case there's another ambush waiting ahead.

With that done turn around and began walking again to the pinpointed location on the minimap.

I arrived on where the virtual gate is, or rather where it should be, the area sounding it is still the same when I first arrived, no unnatural things such as differently textured surface, codes seen by naked eye or distortion in the air, if I didn't know better I would think this is a whole 'nother world.

Running a scan on the surrounding area, the result I got is the same as any average forest, with a few [Unknown] for some weird glowing flowers and plants, no sign of strange things yet. I scan the area a couple more times with different types of scans: thermal scan, micro-magnetic scan, radiation scan heck I even with the microscopic scan I didn't get a single result I'm looking for.

The only scan that has different results is the magic detecting scan, it was a side project I was working on before the S.A.S got a magic user but was abandoned once the elf got recruited, it's only on the prototype stage but since then I never complete or use it.

Right in the middle of it, there's this small cone-like structure enough for a child to fit in made out of blue dots, the tip of it leading up above the foliage.

'Huh, seems like I was drooped in, no wonder it hurt like shit when I woke up,' I let out a sigh, raise up both my forehooves, unfolded a pair of claw at the tip of it and launch it at one of the sturdy looking high branch 'might as well see how high it is, can't believe they would go this far to keep me in here.'

Giving the vine rope a few tugs, making sure both the claw and rope is secured and strong enough, I pull up the rest of my body and climb trough the foliage. I kept my eye on the blue dots trail that goes up, up, and up, until it disappeared outside my scan distance.

'...You know what, fuck it, I'm tired of being here.'

As I start heating up my power core, I transport the metal on both hind hooves to my chest and back, next I get rid of my wings by converting them to biomass and replacing them with a pair of rocket engine, its a crude, smaller engine based on Stellar Titan^TM's second-gen rocket engine so it wouldn't be enough to reach the outer atmosphere.

[Power core has reached the second stage. Alert, insufficient power outlet detected, imminent meltdown in T-minus 3 minutes.]

I ignore the warning and focused on forming a pair of arms and hands with thrusters on the palm, giving it a few bursts along with the engines for a safety check. Both are working as intended so it should be fine.

"Alright, power core check, engine check, thrusters check, what else...oh right the jacket, almost forgot about it."

I attach my skin to the inner part of it to make the jacket a second layer skin and made a whole for the engine to pop out.

[Warning, meltdown in T-minus 60 sec-]

"Yeah yeah whatever, now, time to blow this joint!" with that I blasted off to the sky, there's a bit of wind but isn't strong enough to knock me off course, activating the magic-vision, note to self think of a better name, I followed the blue dots trail.

Currently, I'm above 5000 feet and rapidly raising and still, there's no sign of the gate.

7000 feet, still nothing, don't tell me this thing is way above the atmosphere!

10000 feet, I forgot to cover my hind hooves and now I'm feeling numb down there because of the cold, speaking of cold my power core temperature core stop raising.

12000 feet, I started to stall and power core temperature is dropping, thrusters stop working because of the damn thing frozen, the engines barely have enough power to lift me up.

13000 feet, power core is at the negative temperature, both thrusters and engines are frozen, too cold to ignite them with biofuel, I'm starting to dip down and can see the space, turns out the 'planet' is smaller than earth so no wonder the air is pretty thin already, but the GOD DAMNED TRAIL STILL LEADING TO EMROY KNOWS WHERE!!!

And with that, I started to fall.

I thought this would be the same as the time I got deployed via space shuttle as a part of the 97th Shock Trooper Infantry Regiment but I was dead wrong, at that time I was dropped inside of a space capsule, a container designed to withhold high temperature as it enters the earth atmosphere and keep whatever inside it safe, now however I'm just free-falling without any safety equipment, no holo-shield, no heat-absorbing material on hand, or even a parachute.

Physic already know where this is going, gods already know where this is going, how in the hell did my brain not? Probably the lack of oxygen and said organ is only half of what it originally is.

Thankfully the thin layer of ice give me a few seconds before th-OH GOD IT BURNS! IT FUCKING BURNS! AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!

Chapter 12

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It was the tenth time Applejack released a sigh that day, this day is without the doubt the most hectic day in the past few months for her.

Not because of the Summer Sun Celebration is right around the corner, no less than two days from now, she already developed an efficient way to prepare. What troubled her mind is the young masked colt, she can't help but worried about his safety.

Given the fact she is the one who kicked and hospitalized him, even if it was an accident, she felt it was her responsibility to nurse him back to health and should apologize for the injury she inflicted.

A cold yet soft breeze snaps her back to reality, making her shiver despite being covered by a fairly thick blanket, a glance to the other side of the room confirms where it was coming from, with all thought of the masked colt clouded her mind she forgot to close her window.

After she walks towards it, Applejack took a moment to stare past her orchard of apple trees and to the border of the Everfree Forest. It still boggles her mind how a colt can outrun the fastest flyer in the Equestria, still, her friend wouldn't give up that easily and chased him into the forest, at last, it was for naught and he disappeared deeper into the woods.

Pinkie had rallied a small group of the townponies to search for the colt after giving them a brief explanation, others would eagerly help if not for the Celebration is just in two days, Applejack also volunteered but both of her friends insisted her to help Mac back at the orchard and leave it to them.

Even after the sun goes down, she hasn't seen a single fur or mane of them.

Ting

What is that up in the sky? Something shiny with white trails behind it? Oh my, a shooting star, what a fortunate event to happen! Applejack closes her eyes and wished for the masked colt to be away from any harm he might come across in that forest.

She opens her eyes and the shooting star is already gone, she released a sigh once more this time with a bit of weight off from her chest and once the window closed shut she hopped toward the bed and rewarded with a night of beauty sleep.

Little did she know, if she just makes a wish with her eyes open she would know that the 'shooting star' landed right in the deeper part of the Everfree Forest.

'God fucking damn it,'

That was the first thing that came to mind, other than the constant 'pain, pain, pain' and 'oh god when does it end?', once I touch the ground. Thankfully I found a place to land, read crashed, without leaving an obvious 'something landed here' crater, If it wasn't for the autopilot function I would be smack dabbed in the middle of a burning forest.

During the reentry, I forgot there's only a limited amount of metal inside me and used most of it to form the thrusters and the engines. When things started to heat up I used the rest of it to reinforce the more vital upper parts of my body, mainly my chest where the power core resides and head, completely ignoring the bottom parts.

It was a mistake that bites me in the ass.

In a split second, my senses and thoughts are filled nothing but pain, pain, and more pain, without thinking I did something very very stupid by reinforcing the fleshy parts with wood, a fucking flammable material, coating the bones and adding a second layer of skin.

It gave me a breathing room to focus on and made me realize what I just did. Before I can undo it the pain comes back tenfolds as my legs got cooked from both inside and outside, it was enough to knock me unconscious if I had not disabled my nervous connections, well some parts of it.

I should've figured it does more damage than preventing it. I made a little, but an incredibly useful, program during the usual skirmish with the neighboring countries. Using the cybernetic half of my brain, it can temporarily disable my perception of pain by disabling certain parts of the other half which produces the chemical causing the feeling of pain via a small dose of electricity. I got the idea when I saw an infantry soldier took hits on the shoulder, he didn't realize the bleeding wounds before another soldier point it out.

It took a great effort programming this procedure, making something that can turn off the sense of pain with a push of a button is not an easy thing to do. Hell, fiddling with a human brain without causing too much damage is already hard enough, not to mention the only brain I can legally test it with is my own brain which is only a half and way more fragile than others.

With how much recourse and time I invested in this project, and almost got a dishonorable discharge by conducting illegal experimentation, I eventually perfected a program that can suppress most of my senses, I creatively name it AntiSense.exe.

Even with all the help I can get it took way longer than it was intended to but the fruit of the labor is definitely worth it, not only it can numb my sense of pain, but it can also suppress other senses such as hunger, fatigue, moral, and much more. But there's one thing that made this program can only be used on me.

It was specifically made for the right half of the human brain.

It was no wonder why was my brain felt like being stabbed. I should've realized it sooner, even if my organic part of my brain function the same as always, the thought of it being replaced by an equine's never crossed my mind, the fact that I still think and act like a human, aside of walking on all four, cemented it.

The pain from that alone was enough to knock me out for a sec but long enough to activate autopilot, yet another program I made to make me function without me being 'awake'. By the time I came back to my senses, I was greeted by a moss-covered wall which it aggressively introduced itself to my face, then it proceeds to bury me under the rubbles. Thankfully my already reinforced skull is tough enough to withstand the impact, the same couldn't be said for my mask.

"This just kept getting better and better..." I groaned to myself as the damage report pop up in my display, which tells jack shit with how much it is glitching and the glass-like cracks in the middle of my sight don't help at all.

'Note to self, replace one eye with cybernetics, consequences be damned...'

I could still see the 3D silhouette despite it flickering, from where my hips suppose to be and down is all black, signing it is no longer there, both arms and wings-turned-engines are in the red, and lastly, the head and torso parts are yellow.

This could be a pain in the ass to fix, I could regrow my bottom parts with the material I got from the manticore carcass but without microbots it would take an entire week making sure it doesn't end up as a useless slab of meat with shapes.

Oh well, for now, focus on what can be fixed. I absorb back the engines seeing it no longer serve its purpose and closing the hole on the jacket, said jacket can barely be called a piece of cloth with how tattered and burnt it is, hopefully, the mending enchantment can fix it.

Now for the HUD, thankfully the glitches can be fixed by rebooting the system and none of its circuits or components inside the visor part of my mask are damaged. Most of the damage is absorbed by the outer shell of the visor, a layer of bulletproof acrylic, which is cracked. It was easy to fix, by absorbing and making it into a more moldable state, I can restore it like a lump of clay.

With the HUD fixed, I can start focusing on what needs to...yeah, no. Both my arms are beyond fixing, wires and components are fried, joints malfunctioned and the metal casing melted, the whole thing looks like a badly shaped pole. It'd be easier just to absorb the damn thing and reform it so I just did that.

My head suffered minor damage, the reinforced skull itself has no damage but my neck bone suffered some fractures on both axis and atlas while the middle vertebrae got dislocated, I can feel my skin being pushed from inside. This could be a little bothersome, fixing the fractures is easy but setting back the single bone without microbots is a bit harder.

I have several anatomy data of almost every sentient being that have been documented, sadly there's none belong to pony or horses, the closes thing I have is that of a centaur's. With the lack of information, I don't have a single clue on how to fix my neck.

So I just turn the entire thing into metal, carefully avoiding the nervous system before jamming it back to its place, and revert it back. It's not practical but hey it works, the 3D silhouette's head just turned green.

Finally my chest, with how the thing is almost entirely made out of metal there's not much that needs to be fixed, just around where my shoulder should be, a couple of burnt wires and melted circuit boards is not hard to restore.

With all system back to working condition, I pulled my self out from the rubles and scan the surrounding area for any hostile or living creature. After a quick sweep, the biggest living creature nearby is a spider the size of a golf ball in the corner of the room.

Speaking of the room, the place I crashed appears to be a throne room of a castle, or what left of it anyway. Time had taken its toll, evidently shown by how weathered down the floor and wall are. There's a pile of rusty armor and weaponry scattered around, most of it is damaged beyond recovery but I still got a bit of material out of it.

Though it makes me wonder, how can ponies hold sword and spear with hooves? The armor is definitely designed to fit their bodies but why make something that requires opposable thumbs to use? Gah, forget about it, I don't have time to think about it.

For now, lay down what I know and plan from there, so far I got :
1. I am trapped in a virtual reality
2. My body is physically altered to that of an equine
3. I have limited material
4. The only way out I know is somewhere up there

Alright, I can get out from here, just gather enough material to build a very tall skyscraper or the necessary material to build a spacecraft. Its a matter of quantity or quality. I need a boatload of metals to build a skyscraper, sure there's an ocean of trees around here and the ground is practically unlimited but I can't make it entirely out of those two materials alone. Building a spacecraft requires less material but it needs to be heat resistant, titanium and aluminum would be an ideal material but where do I get it? I can fabricate the hulls but I still need the raw material.

It would take years, if not decades, just to get out from this hell hole, and probably the war against Zalichs would come to an end before I knew it. The only thing I can do right now is to pray so that we won like always.

I shook my head, there is no time to waste, the sooner I began the sooner I would escape from here. First thing first, establish a base. I could use this castle as a home base, it's a good deal of distance from the village but still deep enough to discourage any curious soul.

For the material to construct additional equipment and limbs, I remember Scooter said there's a junkyard near the village so I would have to make trips to get some, an iron ore deposit would be more fitting but it would have to do for now.

All in all, I think it could be done, its just a matter of time before I get out from here.

Chapter 13

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Securing this castle ruin is harder than its sound, while it is doable but with my state of being in half there's no way I could move without crawling and I am not too keen on fighting while dragging my torso.

With limited material and not an ounce of microbot to reform my organic body, I resorted to making my whole body from metal. It's not enough to create a whole replica of my human or equine body but it's enough to make a standard, albeit modified, search bot.

A pair of caterpillar tracks for stable movement, a rectangle main body big enough to fit both my power core and brain, an acrylic dome on top of it containing a single lens for scanning. As weapons, an arm on the side right side that ended with a clamp, and a basic laser cutter on the left side is sufficient enough to keep things away. A piece of sufficient equipment for exploring some old ruin.

Doing this I can do 2 tasks at once, the first one is to map the entire place and secure it, the second is to gather material lying around that I can find. So far there's only a few rusted armor and weapon, a couple of nails and metal sheets from the front gate, a handful of ornaments, and metal bars from the dungeon cell block.

There are some noteworthy things around when I'm exploring, like this statue in the middle of a room with stone orbs that emitting some kind of strange energy that I steer away from. The last time I messed around with some unknown energy I left a pretty big hole behind, thankfully it was in the middle of a desert so no one really cares.

As I go deeper there are more things that I kept track of, such as secret passages are scattered here and there, surprisingly most of them still work despite the whole place looks like has gone through more than a century, a decent-sized library filled to the top with books, expectedly time has taken its toll, only a few of them are readable, If I can read horse language that is, one of the characters is literally a horseshoe.

Fortunately, the books have another use for me, the binding of it made out of some metal, most of them have either a plate or nails holding them together so I cleaned the whole library empty, shelves included because why not.

After leaving the now empty room behind I venture deeper into the castle looking for a specific place, now from my knowledge, a castle similar to this bound to have some sort of vault or armory somewhere underground. Though it might have been emptied the vault itself is what I am after.

A whole room made out of tough materials, presumably tougher than what I currently got inside my body, is enough to secure at least one of the upper rooms for a base of operation and to construct a couple of equipment, assuming the vault is the size of royal treasury room.

Speaking of equipment, with no way to connect to HQ or any orbital satellite and being monitored 24/7, there's only a limited amount of it and I can't use any military-grade stuff the public hasn't know yet, which is not much but most of the stuff in weapon category is enough to decimate a small army.

[Alert, unknown energy reading detected, caution is adviced]

A popup appears on my HUD, seems like my sensor picking up something, sending a mental command to open the detail of it I was greeted by a wall of text, skimming most of it and only reading where it's from, which is right below me, I consider if it's worth investigating.

'Might as well check it, could be something useful.'

Dissolving the pair of caterpillar tracks to a pool of liquid metal, I began absorbing the stone below me bit by bit similar to how an Acid Slime move underground, once I hit something that definitely not rock or dirt I began drilling a small hole enough to fit a cable and form a camera on the other end.

It seems I hit the jackpot.

While it is not a vault filled with gold, precious gems, and other riches like most royal treasure rooms like I was expecting, the room I drilled into holds more value, well for me at least. Rows upon rows of weapon and armor, mostly designed after horse armor bur smaller, filled the room with no space to move around, if I had to guess it could fully equip a whole battalion of ponies.

All the things in this room seem like they could be sold for a huge amount of cash but the one that catches my eyes, or rather lenses, is on the back of the room. A pair of full set horse armor bigger than the rest, one colored dark as the night with an emblem of a moon painted on both sides of the flank while the other is more bright-colored with a sun emblem instead. Between the armor is a pair of weapon, a scythe, and a greatsword crossing each other.

Normally I would gobble all of them like there's no tomorrow but my sensor is practically overloading with the [Unknown energy], not to mention the big armors practically emitting it, made me think again.

Then again, this is just a simulation, if there's any damage inflicted on my real body, it would be fixed before I know it by the self-repairing program I made, right?

...right?

A few hours later the room is gone.

No, I'm not revering how the room is empty, the whole room is gone. When I entered the room I notice the ceiling I absorbed is in fact not hard stone but metal so I look around for a bit and discover not only the top part made out of metal but the floor and all 4 walls are also metal, so I thought to my self 'why not take the whole thing?'

So I did.

The only thing keeping it from caving it is the wooden pillars I erected while excavating the room, I am well aware of using wood pilar without any foundation is a stupid idea and the wood will rot over time if termite doesn't eat it first, so this is a temporary solution.

With my newly acquired materials, I backtracked my way to the surface.

'Huh, morning already? That took longer than I was expected,' I shrugged, idly took note of a bird perch on one of the broken windows, who knows it could be someone's familiar or a disguised drone, 'now then, where's a good place to start...'

Picking a strategic place to defend is essential to set up a base of operation. In a forest, most bases are either hidden underground or up above covered by thick foliages to avoid being discovered, some utilized Magic Tool or Artifacts to make sure it is properly hidden.

Of course, I can make a base somewhere deeper in the woods, high enough so that no wild animal can reach it, it's still would be pointless if someone keeping an eye on me 24/7. No matter how well hidden I make it, sooner or later Bob would send something to destroy it, so this leaves me with two choices.

Either keep moving from place to place, gathering material, and stay in a spot only for a short amount of time to make something necessary or build a base that can be called a fortress with enough firepower to defend against an army.

Naturally, I pick the latter.

Not only defending is my forte, with this castle ruin I don't have to make a base from scratch, just a bit reinforcing here and there and it will be sufficient enough to keep wild animals out. And when I have enough metal I can easily turn this into a full-blown iron fortress, but for now, a single room is all I needed.

I opted to make my base on one of the towers near the entrance, not only it's high enough to see beyond the treeline it also has a clear look on what seems to be a bridge across a ravine. With how the other 3 sides of the castle are surrounded by forest, the bridge might be the only safest way to here.

Still, I can't just focus all my attention on only 1 spot, the risk of being attacked by wild animals from all sides is still present, other than Manticores and wooden wolves I am sure there's a lot more dangerous and vicious beast out there.

Gah, dammit, if only there's a volcano nearby I can collect sulfur for gunpowder and make a crap ton of bullets and explosives. I suppose I can mark that as a future objective, I'll have to make do with what I have.

Reinforcing the area around my room using metal bars is incredibly tedious, I have to insert each bar one by one and making sure the wall doesn't crack. While I can just tear down the whole tower and rebuild it back with reinforcement, it would take longer and I don't have the necessary ingredients to make a proper cement mixture.

For defense, I replaced the main door with hardened wood I gather from the nearby forest and reinforce it further with a couple of metal plates. Behind it a tripwire that acts as a trigger for a pair of ceiling-mounted, rapid-fire crossbows, each loaded with enough arrows to put down an orc.

While it seems simple and easy enough for a greenhorn Adventurer to avoid, I purposely made it like this because I still haven't put something that is worth protecting and I don't have much firepower on hand. Who knows what Bob will send here, probably a fuck ton of those wooden wolves, a pack of wild dragons, or, god forbid a Magi Beast. If that's the case I can just ditch this place without losing too much important stuff.

I might come across a place with rich recourses like iron ore deposits or an underground volcano but for now, this castle ruin is just a temporary safe zone.

Speaking of recourses, I should explore the surrounding area for any of it and see if there's one then I can mark them for future use, a standard High Altitude Warfare Kit for Surveillance (H.A.W.K.S) drone should do the job, it can map out the area from high above the clouds and agile enough to avoid branches to get more accurate details under the foliages.

But another problem appeared, while I have the necessary material to make one, powering it is another thing. This drone uses a pack of four 40 volts batteries to power it, be it magical or not. While I have something equivalent to a nuclear powerplant I don't have anything to store energy separately.

'Of all the things I need, it has to be something so common I can order it online or buy it at a convenience store...' I sigh, if I make a battery with the material I currently have the drone would only last for about 5 minutes, 'got no lithium or any of those powder mana crystals.'

I could just explore by myself and look for materials but it would take ages to find and the risk of leaving my base unmanned and unprotected is worth considering. Sure I have put down some traps to keep wild animals out but that's it, I don't have anything to take down something big while I'm gone.

"Well, there is that one place..." I muttered to myself, god just thinking about it hurts my brain, all those bright color feels like a nail jammed into my eyes and straight to my brain, nevertheless the place is full of loot ripe for taking.

Walking in on a plain day is definitely a no-no and I don't have any equipment necessary to sneak around, but why risking getting caught stealing from houses and stores while there's a whole field of free stuff? If I remember correctly there should be a junkyard somewhere in that village.

While I doubt there would be high-quality material being thrown away, the amount and variant of junk make up for it, I need stuff other than metal to make necessary equipment such as rubber, plastic, and silicone.

"I don't have any other choice do I?" With a heavy sigh and set a waypoint on the edge of the forest.

I check the crossbow trap once more and make sure everything is working as intended before I head out toward the village, this time I'm more prepared and armed than last time. If all goes well this would be a walk in a park, just get in, get the stuff and get out, it's simple as that.

What's the worst that can happen anyway?

Author's Notes:

Huh, I was planning to update this story after the other one but what the hell, I already finish half of it before my other story so 'why not finish it?'

So yeah, I know I've been neglecting my stories and how long I've been inactive on this website, heck there's more than 100+ unread story just sitting in my bookmark.

I'm just gonna throw my excuses here and blame it on my lack of motivation and laziness, other than that I have fallen down to The Rabit Hole that is Vtuber (Curse you, you damned wild rabbit!) and spends almost all night watching them.

After this, I would be working on my other story which I have been neglecting for the past 7 months so don't expect any update soon.

As always please tell me if there's any typo and/or grammar error, also let me hear your thought and criticism of this chapter so that I can improvise my writing!

Thanks for reading this chapter and stay safe!

Chapter 14

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"Come on, squirt, keep it up!"

In an effort to keep pace with her idol, Scootalo kicks the ground as hard as she can with her hind leg to push the scooter, both of her wings flapped rapidly to give a little boost.

She had been chasing the rainbow-themed pegasus for a while, claiming that this one-sided tag game is some kind of training so she could be, in her own words, 'fastest scooter in the world'.

Not wanting to disappoint her idol, Scootalo pushed her body to its limit, her wing abuzz and both of her hind legs are ablaze with the constant kicking, it felt like her limps are going to fall apart at any moment but she persisted, she wouldn't let her idol down just like that.

She was so close to touching the tip of the multicolored tail, just a bit more, and then-

"Wah!"

Having so focused on the tail, she failed to see the rather big rock in front of her, as a result, the scooter flung her forward.

Being thrown without warning, Scootaloo had little time to process what just happen, when her mind catches up, there's only little she could do other than girth her teeth and cover her face.

Just when she was about to hit the ground, something hold onto her barrel, stopping the little filly from planting her face on the dirt.

Turning around she was greeted with Rainbow's face, despite the smile she wore, the worries in her eyes are clear as a day.

"You alright there, squirt?" she asked.

Scootaloo nodded and flashed her own smile, "y-yeah just surprised, that's all."

"Jeez, you should've look where you're going," she then put her down gently.

After thanking the rainbow maned pegasus, Scootalo went to check on her scooter, thankfully nothing was damaged other than a few scratches on the handlebar.

Making her way to Rainbow, who's lying down on a branch of a rather big tree, made her realize how tired she is, not to mention how sore everything is. When she arrived under the tree shade, it felt like she was in heaven and promptly collapsed, taking big gulps of air.

The two pegasuses sat there in silence, other than Scootalo's heavy breathing, and their mind wanders in different directions. At least Scootalo is, Rainbow just drifts off to a half-asleep state.

Her eyes landed on the scooter, what was once a broken piece of wood on wheels with rusty steer was now something that looks like a factory-new scooter. She still has no idea how the strange masked colt manages to fix it, maybe he's secretly a unicorn and has a horn under that hood.

She wonders what happens to him after yesterday's ruckus. Xandrich, if she recalled the masked colt name correctly, had run off into the Everfree forest where many beasts and foal-eating monsters reside after being chase by Rainbow and her friends, Applejack and Pinkie pie.

The pink-colored mare had gathered a hoofful of the townponies to search for the colt, but from what Scootaloo gathered, none had any luck finding him. However, most things she heard were from the rumors circulating the marketplace, and more often than not they're misleading so she wouldn't put her trust in that.

But why bother guessing from hearsay of stallion gossips when she can just ask the pony who participates in the search?

"Hey, Rainbow Dash, can I ask something?"

"You just did but go ahead, twerp."

Letting out a tiny giggle at the joke, Scootalo asked the question, "it's about that colt yesterday, I heard he got lost in the forest but that can't be true right?"

In her mind, it can't possibly happen, right? No pony with a right mind would willingly enter Everfree Forest. Not to mention, Rainbow Dash is the fastest flier in Equestria so it would be hard for somepony to outrun her, especially for a colt.

After a moment all she heard was silence from the blue mare, "...Rainbow Dash?" She asked again, maybe she didn't hear her question, "you did catch that colt before he got lost right?"

"Y-yeah of course I did!" answered Rainbow, though she sounds uncertain about it, "he's safe and sounds so don't worry about it!"

Scootalo let out a sigh, she knew her idol wouldn't let her down, "that's a relief, so do you know where is h-"

"Oh wow, look at the time!" Rainbow suddenly cut her off, "Sorry squirt but there's something urgent I gotta do, we can talk later. See ya!"

And off she goes with her signature rainbow trail, which is kind of rude of her, but if there's something urgent, she can't be blamed. Still, at least she can tell her where Xandrich is before flying off.

With her idol being busy with whatever she's doing and their daily hanging out time cut short, it left rather plenty of free time. She has nothing else planned until noon and she rather not sitting idly lest she gets restless, so with nothing better to do, Scootalo decided to do her pastime activity.

Treasure hunting.

*Crunch Crunch Crunch*

Sneaking in the junkyard was an easy thing to do, not only it was on the edge of the village, there's practically no one guarding it. Well aside from a meter tall wire fence and a single guard pony who's sleeping on the job, all I had to do was cut a couple of wires, and it's an all-you-can-eat buffet.

*Crunch Crunch Crunch*

With the materials I got from the castle ruin, I was able to make a more 'humanoid' body, or at least close to one, but I ended with a top-heavy body, buffed arms, and torso with small legs. The reason for this is because each arm has a grappling mechanism I use to swing from tree to tree, completely avoiding the ground and those pesky wooden wolves.

*Crunch Crunch Crunch*

Still, I gotta say while their metals are sub-par quality, then again maybe that's because they're here in the first place, the quantity seems to make up for it and it seems they won't miss a couple of tons of old metal. I already got my hand on what I need but why only take some when you can have all of them, scrap metal? Give me all of them, dead batteries? Down the hatch they go, used clothes? No one gonna misses them.

Although the last one only consists of only socks and most of them are still in a good condition, why someone threw them away is beyond me but hey, free shit so I'm not going to ask questions.

Grabbing another bar of an old rail track, I took a bit out of it like chocolate, while I rather not taste the rust, the feeling of 'eating' something brings comfort to my mind, plus it is easier to process it. I could just spread myself as strings around the junkyard and absorb all the stuff like a plant root but it wouldn't feel the same.

I already had enough to build a handful of H.A.W.K.S and other types of drones so if Bob raise an alarm I could just bounce out of here.

'Leaving out something like this in the open, I can't help but feel this is a trap,' I think to myself, shoving down the rest of the rusty bar down my mouth.

Well, whatever, I've been trapped or ambushed countless times but when you have a regenerative ability you tend to power through it. Most often than not it works in my favor if you don't count the collateral damage that is.

Just in case Bob decides to send something to me, I swept the surrounding area with a scan. With my luck, there's probably an ambush waiting just around the cor-

[Unknown life sign detected, caution is advised.]

Huh, that was quick, I thought Bob would at least take some precautions. I pulled the detailed result of the scan, it seems whatever it detected was something resembling an Equus, a small one at that, with two lumps of something on its back, probably wings.

A tiny voice on the back of my mind whispered this could be another trap and I should get out of here, I quickly dismiss that voice since I have enough material to create whatever I need. I'm curious what did Bob send to capture me this time, activating thermal vision I can see a lump of heat signature nearby. Just as the report says, the lump is only a bit bigger than my pony body.

I could just confront it head-on, but there are so many ways that can go wrong, so I opted for a stealthier approach.

While I don't have the necessary material or technology to create a stealth field generator, I can use the surrounding piles of junk as cover, I just have to be small enough to use it.

One reshaping later, I am now small enough to fit through the gaps, using a snake-like search robot and modified to be more flat and wide enough to fit both of my brain and core, and giving it some additional parts such as small legs along on its sides for greater mobility. A pair of giant fangs for self-defense and a pair of antenna for more accurate sensor reading in case Bob decided to have an entire battalion hidden somewhere.

I gave myself a look over, with a length of almost a meter long and multidirectional joint between each segment, it's easy to just 'stood' up and twist yourself to examine your own body. My body is divided into several parts, each part has two pairs of long stick-like legs and is covered with a plate of hardened metal which because I did a rush job it ended up looking like a carapace.

Making sure everything works as intended I ran a diagnosis and fix any issue that popped up, as always nothing seems like out of the picture. A 3D silhouette of my current body popped up in green color showing everything is...well all green.

Letting out a hum of satisfaction, I began crawling through the gaps between the junks, making sure to avoid any opening.

Despite looking like something out of someone's nightmare, being a centipede offer more mobility than a snake, at least in my opinion. Plus if this is a trap I could easily escape by separating my body into different parts and have my important bits haul ass while the other creates a diversion.

As I got closer to the heat signature, I can see whatever or whoever it is darting from one place to another as if searching for something, or rather someone.

In case this goes south, I had some of my lower segment armed with a couple of fully charged brick batteries, making them into makeshift walking shock bombs. While bombs like this wouldn't do much against organic creatures, at the very least it would be an effective stunner, this whole place is littered with conductive materials so a single bomb would affect a large area.

I created some basic remote-control receiver chips and installed them in my lower segments before detaching them, each segment then crawled in different directions like some sort of overgrown cockroach. On my minimap, I can see them represented as green dots, each has a status description above them that said [Armed].

After planning an escape route and being careful not to be in the range of the bombs, I slowly poke one of my antennas out and forming a camera at the end of it, giving me a real-time view of whatever giving out the heat signature.

I let out a hum of amusement, not expecting Bob to send out his smallest minion that I know. Not too far from where my 'eye' is Scootaloo, the same orange pegasus I bumped yesterday, darting from one pile to another, searching for something.

My sensor hasn't picked up any other sign of lifeform other than her, which raises a massive red flag, either it has somehow tampered or Bob is actually stupid enough to only send her. Just to be safe I armed the rest of my body, except my head and the part that store my core, with retractable blades and spikes so they can wreak havoc if Bob decided to teleport an entire army here.

Better deal with it now, this place is an ideal battleground for me with all the materials scattered around. I retracted both of my antennas and reshape my head, and since I don't have a model or time to create one, it ended up as a blocky shaped pony head with sharp edges and no facial feature, both of which I can solve by covering it with coat and mask respectively.

I slowly climb up as to not make any noise and poke my head up, being careful not to reveal my centipede-like body. I double-checked both the trap and my body for any mistake or error, after a brief report of all parts working as intended, I called out to the orange filly.

"Hey, Scootaloo!"

Huh, never knew a pony could squawk.

Author's Notes:

I was planning on finishing this before Hololive En Council debuted but it seems they just sapped away my motivation.

Well, excuses aside, I was thinking of speeding up things a bit at least until Nightmare Moon meets our little shapeshifter but it seems it wouldn't work well with the current pacing, but I let you guys decide whether or not I should be skipping things or not.

I have some things planned for the future and eventually bring him back to his own world rather than being stuck here forever but the question is how should I do it.

Oh and another thing, I have a side gig (if you can call it that) so I most likely be a lot slower on update my stories, so maybe once every couple of months, so I apologize in advance!

Anyway as always, keep an eye out for any typo and grammar errors, and let me know what you think about this chapter so I can improvise my writing skills!

Stay safe and stay inside everyone!

Chapter 15

View Online

If one would describe what a junkyard is they would tell you it was nothing but a place to pile up trash on, waiting to be recycled or left to rot, but for Scootaloo it was a place full of treasures waiting to be uncovered.

In the midst of the so-called 'rubbish' she could find something worth to be used and in good shape, sometimes she wondered why somepony throw away those stuff.

Searching through the junkyard made her feel like she's an explorer combing through an ancient temple that has been lost to time, similar to those Daring Do book Rainbow seems to like. But instead of some artifacts from a long lost era, she's searching for something that can be used.

From the smallest thing such as marbles, hoof-held mirrors and other knicks-knacks to something like her new scooter she found yesterday.

Speaking of her scooter, Scootaloo wondered what happened to the masked colt, Rainbow said that she already caught Xandrich before he got eaten by a monster living in the Everfree forest but why did she run away before she answered her question?

Well, there's always a next time to ask, if not then she can search him herse-

"Hey, Scootaloo!"

If anypony said they saw her squawk like a chicken, Scootaloo would deny it and probably kick their flanks for saying things.

Her eyes scanning around the trash piles looking for the culprit, whoever just called her out definitely saw that embarrassing thing.

"Up here, Scoot!"

Her attention instantly on a piece of cloth sitting on a large trash pile, no wait, it wasn't just a cloth because it has a mask sticking on it, strange, that mask seems familiar, she could've swore she seen it befo-

"Xandrich?"

"Yeah, who else could it be?"

Realizing she just did something embarrassing, right in front of a colt of all things, Scootaloo tried to play it cool by leaning on a discarded wooden box.

"Oh, uh…I was just surprised to see you here, yeah that!"

Scootaloo internally cringed, that sounds like she had to reassure herself.

Xandrich's eyes, if it could be called that, stared directly at her as if he's looking for something, then suddenly his head snapped forward, his gaze combing through the trash piles.

Scootaloo didn’t know why he did that, maybe something catches his attention? She tried to take a peek at what he’s actually looking for, though if she paid a little more attention she would’ve noticed the trash around her moved as if something was crawling under it.

The silence caused an uneasy feeling in Scootaloo's stomach, but her mind remembered what Rainbow had said about the masked colt, didn't she say he was in a safe place? Or did she lie about him?

However, why ask herself a question while the answer is right in front of her?

"So…uh Xandrich, I wasn't expecting to see you here, I-i mean why would a colt like you be here all alone?"

He seems to be confused with her question judging by the question marks on his mask.

"Huh what's that supposed to be?"

“Er, it's just that Rainbow said you’re in a safe place, wherever that place is, so why are you here in a junkyard?”

He let out a snort, “What, you think I’d let that flying rainbow catch me that easily? Bah, I could easily out run her with one- er two hooves tied."

"But they're trying to help you! A colt like you shouldn't be out here by yourself, what if a bad pony found you all alone?"

"You make it sound like I'm some damsel in distress, trust me I'm far from being one, how did you think I got away from them. Besides who said I need help, I can get back home all by myself."

Scootaloo racked her brain, trying to find something to rebuke his logic. However, it's been a whole day since Xandrich went into the Everfree forest, where all sorts of beasts and monsters live, and came back unscathed.

She didn't know how he managed to come back from the forest, let alone survive, without getting hurt at all but if he can out run the faster flier in the whole Equestria then a couple of monsters shouldn't be a problem, right?

Oh who is she fooling, definitely not herself for sure. There’s a reason why entering the Everfree forest is forbidden, while she never went there the hearsay of other ponies is enough to discourage anypony who’s courier about the forest.

The weather changing by itself, animals goes to hibernate and woke up without help, and other unnatural pno- phenomo- phenomem- things happening inside it, entering it is the same as suicidal!

“Well I think I wasted enough time here, probably head back home soon, gods know what kind of extra work Captain gonna give me if I report in late, see ya’ Scoot!” and with that the colt disappeared amongst the trash.

“W-wait!” Scootaloo shouted without thinking, while she can't figure out why Xandrich is so determined to go home alone but at least she can get him to stay away from the forest.

Scootaloo almost released a sigh as the colt’s head popped back out.

“Yeah?”

“W-well actually there’s something important I want to tell you,” Scootaloo said the first thing that came to her mind, "we, well everypony actually, are going to celebrate the Summer Sun Celebration, there's going to be lots of food, the sweet kind, pretty flowers, even princess Celestia herself going to be here! There's going to be lots of fun so you have to come…er, pretty please?"

Xandrich tilted his head, his weird mask displayed a '. . .' as if he was thinking about it, "Well…I don't see why not, I might join in for a wee bit, but I cant make promises, alright?"

Well if that's the best she can get, might as well take it, "Alright then, the celebration is happening tonight but you better be there soon, I heard Pinkie Pie is bringing her famous cupcake!"

While his mask completely covered the face, Scootaloo could clearly see his disgust, "Those sugar bombs? Ew, yeah no thanks, I think I'll pass on that. Well, see ya when I see ya again, Scoot!"

And with that the colt disappeared once again and if the little filly wasn't so focused on him, she would notice an odd looking giant bug made out of metal silently crawl away.

[Uploading H.A.W.K.S programs…

…

Upload complete, begin data synchronization…

…

Synchronizing complete, begin diagnostic…

Unit_1 status : …STANDBY

Unit_2 status : …STANDBY

Unit_3 status : …STANDBY

Unit_4 status : …STANDBY

Unit_5 status : …STANDBY

Diagnostic complete, no error detected.

Awaiting flight order…]

A row of bird shaped drones perched on the stony window sill of the tower I had claimed as a base, each one emits a soft red glow from the eyes indicating they’re very different from their natural counterparts.

Well aside from the fact it's made out of inorganic materials, the difference in weight, the lack of feather which reveal the smooth metal surface it's constructed from because I didn’t have the right materials to make a proper shell. It’s not like there’s a pile of polymer or plastic in the junkyard so I had to make do with what I got.

Other than the drones, I also managed to grab enough material to build a charging station for the drones and a long range antenna dish that sat on the roof, both of which connected directly to me since I didn’t have enough material to build a separate generator or computer.

Oh well, I could always go for another scavenge run in the future, but for now I need to gather information, which these drones come in.

[Uploading flight path…complete]

One of the drones squawked like a bird, indicating its start of patrol sequence, and took off with a flap of its wings toward the forest then disappeared among the foliage.

On the corner of my HUD, a window appears, showing a live feed of the drone that just left, weaving up and down, left and right, avoiding branches, vines and other obstacles. At the same time my minimap kept track of the drone, represented as a pair of wings with a 1 between it, and updated the area around it.

Occasionally other blips appear on the map, marking it as a 'there's something here', be it a pack of beats, a patch of unknown glowing floras, cave mouths, or something else that can't be identified.

Aside from scouting, the drones would act as an alarm system after securing the perimeter, too bad I don't have enough materials to arm them or make a proper security drone, the best they can do is attack the target like a bird using their sharp talons.

Seeing the drone works like a charm, I began uploading the other flight path to the rest of the drones. Once completed they all squawked before flying off to different directions. Unit 1 through 4 I sent to scout the surrounding area of my base while Unit 5 is on route to the eye searing colorful pony village.

It didn't take long for Unit 5 to reach the edge of the forest, once there I had to dim the live feed because god damn, the first time I laid eyes on the village, it gave me a migraine with how colorful it is, but now? It out right disorienting

Or maybe because I haven't slept in the last 24 hours.

Decorations raging from colorful lights, hanging ornaments, ribbons and other colorful trinkets covered the entire village, making it look like a miniature Las Vegas with how bright it is. Ponies of all shapes, sizes and colors are flocking here and there doing various kinds of stuff, the majority of which happens around the big building in the center of the village.

Oh right, wasn't Scootaloo said there would be a celebration about summer sun? Marking the changing of season perhaps? There's some places that celebrate it but usually it's at the end of every winter as a 'holy shit we survive the cold' kind of celebration.

Manually control the drone, I move closer so to get a better picture but high enough for an eagle-eyed view. Despite being named Ponyville, the settlement is big enough to be called a small town rather than a village.

Thatched roof buildings seem to dominate a large part of the residency, however there's some that stick out like a sore thumb, for example a gingerbread house that looks straight up from a story book with a giant cupcake on top.

Seeing the steady stream of ponies exiting it with a bag full of pastries and breads, I could tell the building is a bakery. Talk about making a statement.

I ordered the drone to mark any place that might be useful, such as the scrapyard for more materials, the local bar for alcohol, the hospital for possible chemicals, and various stores that might have useful stuff.

However what I needed is information thus the logical place to look for is a library. At first I thought the town didn't have one but when the drone circled around for the third time I found it.

Who would've guessed a big fuck off tree is actually a library, while Ive seen building that built around a tree, this is the first time I seen one build into it.

How and why someone would decide to hollow out a tree and use the husk as a library is beyond me, probably some weird sense of humor. Too bad there's no opening big enough for the drone to slip in.

Pulling away from the tree library, I decided to put the drone where it can keep an eye on most of the inhabitants, the center might be a good plac-SHIT!

I immediately took control of the drone and bank it to the right, narrowly avoiding a blue blur that came out of nowhere. While whatever that thing was didn’t hit the drone, it still knocked the metal bird off balance but thankfully nothing was damaged.

I looked around, trying to find whatever that thing was, if it turns out to be that blue flying pony from yesterday I might give her a scratch or two for the trouble.

However it might not be needed, not far off the ground was the blue mare, Rainbow Dash if I remember correctly, still flying albeit at much reduced speed.

If look can kill the drone would be a slag of metal with how hard she glared at it as she shouted something, too bad the drone isn't designed to pick up sound but I'm sure whatever she spouted would make a sailor blush.

I can't help but smile as she continues to fly without paying attention to what's in front of her…

…Which happens to be a horned purple pony bystander.

I let out a chuckle as they both crashed and tumbled down into a puddle of mud, the purple pony clearly wasn't happy with the accident as she, she's definitely a mare, covered with mud.

Both of them get into a bit of an argument before Rainbow suddenly bolts away in a blur and returns in a blink of an eye, this time with a…

I had to run a quick diagnostic on the drone in case the lenses are damaged or there's a software malfunction, because how the hell does she just grab a cloud and push it around like it's made out of cotton.

Of course the physics defying shenanigans doesn't end there as she proceeds to hop on it like a bouncy castle causing the cloud to let out a localized rain, a heavy one at that.

I could feel my eyelid twitch at the blatant, cartoonish way of breaking the law of physics and the logical side of my brain screams for explanation. Sure an average mage could violate it to some degree, they might call it ‘magic’ or ‘divine intervention’ and call it a day but there’s a fully logical and scientific reason behind it.

While summoning rain can be done, it is easier than it sounds. There are evidences of it has been done in the past in records, both physically and digitally, and summoning one require an extensive and complex ritual that can only be done in specific condition, such as the weather condition and whether or not the region is suitable to do it, if it can be done anywhere then building a town in the middle of a desert wouldn’t be much trouble.

And certainly it's not as simple as stomping on a cloud and demanding it to give rain.

Gah, I better not dwell on it, this world is just a simulation with its own set of rules, didnt stop the feeling of a migraine coming.

Shaking my head, I refocused my attention back to the purple and blue duo and mentally ordered the drone to get closer for a better view, it then perched on a nearby tree.

The now soaked to the bone purple pony, which turns out to be a unicorn judging from the horn, said something to the pegasus as she, it's definitely a mare, brushed aside the damp mane with an exasperated sigh.

Rainbow looked sheepish and said something before flying around the unicorn, in less than a minute she picked up enough speed fast enough that a small tornado formed.

My brain once again kicked to override, trying to figure out how she managed to achieve such speed with those small wings and in sort amount of time, however I immediately put a stop on that before it overloaded my processing unit.

The tornado departed, revealing the purple unicorn with a disheveled mane. The culprit roared with laughter, no doubt at her ‘handy work’, she’s not the only one who finds it funny as a small child sized, green and purple scaled bipedal lizard decides to join in.

Huh, since when was that lizard here, and why didn’t I realize it? Eh, probably due to the size.

After a minute Rainbow and the lizard manage to stop laughing at the purple pony’s mess of a mane. The unicorn says something to Rainbow, something about the sky and cloud with how she’s pointing above to which she responds by lying down on a cloud, which has no right of existing by being this low on the ground.

Probably I shouldn’t call them ‘clouds’ by this point, even when it almost touches the ground it remains in this puffy, cotton-like state rather than turn into fog or water droplets.

As I churned over the not-cloud cloud, Rainbow the purple unicorn, screw it I’ll start naming her Uni because y’know, she’s a unicorn, conversation comes to an end as the pegasus prepares to take a flight.

In an instant she streaks across the sky, the drones tried its best to keep track of where she is but unfortunately it can only catch its trails, not that I blame it since I built it out of scraps.

While her speed could rival some of the Old World jet aircraft, it's not what I found to be absolutely baffling. Even though the drones could barely keep up I could clearly see Rainbow clearing the sky of clouds, in less than a minute the once cloudy sky was now clear of any obstacle.

‘Wha- how in the- when di- WHAT?!’

I could feel my processor overheating and a migraine started pounding at the organic brain’s doorstep. I mentally sent an order to the drone to return and patrol alongside its brethren before ending the live feed.

I think I need to lie down for a moment to process all of this, it’s probably the sleep deprivation that makes me see things.

Without realizing I curled up near the window, silently wishing to wake up from this nightmare before drifting off to sleep

[Warning! Warning! Massive energy spike detected! Warning! Warning!

Source detected to be less than 10 meters! Recommended course of action, initiate procedure GTFO!]

I woke up with a groan, the emergency alarm constantly blaring making my head ring like a bell and worsening the migraine, god it's worse than a hangover, at least Amanda has a cure for those.

It took me a moment to process what the alarm was about before bolting upright and began arming for a fight, both my front and back hooves began to change to a more human form and doubled in size to accommodate additional weapons and mechanism, at the same time I formed an armor under the skin and reinforced the bones with some metal.

As I read the more detailed report from the alarm, I got a report from the drones, saying that there’s something in the throne room where the energy spike was detected, and appears at the same time the spike happened.

From what I gathered, Bob decided to flush me out from my little fort by popping in something inside, something powerful if my sensor is correct. Well, I wasn’t about to give up without a fight.

Running a last minute diagnostic scan to make sure everything works as intended, I began walking down the stairs.

It’s time for another beat down.

Chapter 16

View Online

I questioned myself whether dealing with whatever Bob pulled out of his ass is worth the headache, so far everything he throwed at me can be solved with sufficient firepower or simply ignoring it. However, this is a bit of a special case.

"...ter thousands of years we will finally have my reven…"

No, It’s not some giant dragon that spit flame hot enough to melt metals and immune to any attack or some kind of Magi Beast that can adapt at a rapid pace. While it's not something that can turn my temporary base into a crater, it damn near made me just want to pack up and move.

“...bring Eternal Night! No pony will ever chalan…”

Sure I can just ignore it and sleep away until morning comes but the constant barrage of warning notifications makes it hard to just get a wink of sleep, while I can turn it off, I don't want to take any chances in case Bob decides to slip something in again.

“...th Celestia imprisoned, we, Nightmare Moon alone, will rule Equestria fo…”

And why haven’t I burst into the room and simply killed whatever it was? Well, since Bob literally controls the playing field, I had to be cautious, that means I have to actually plan something instead of going in guns blazing, not to mention my alert notification is going off like crazy.

That, and I had jack shit in to make bullets with, well the propellant that is, I doubt pressurized air would pack quite a punch compared to gunpowder.

That’s why I opted for a stealthier approach.Entering the throne room from a hole on the roof, I was able to hide in the rafter and let my scanners gather data on whatever the hell was emitting the energy spike.

A window displaying a live feed of one of my drones showing what caused the energy spike, even as my sensor reading is off the chart I couldn’t help but sigh in disappointment and frustration.

One of the lessons I learned early on before I even joined the army was ‘never underestimate your opponent’, heck it's a lesson everyone who wields a weapon and fights is expected to remember by heart. No matter what you are, be it a lowlife bandit, a common Adventurer, or even the highest order of knight, never ever underestimate the enemies.

Even the Gods themselves learned that lesson.

Who would have thought a race that isn’t ‘blessed’ with the ability to wield magic, lacked a natural weapon unlike the Demi-Humans and Beastfolks, and considered the weakest race in the world, able to brought down one of the ‘creator of the world’ that reside high above the mortal plane and replaced one of the Gods with their own.

I knew I shouldn’t underestimate this situation…but it's so damn hard not to.

Of all the bullshit Bob has thrown at me, this took the cake. He could have sent one of the creatures residing in the forest, maybe one of those glowing bears my drones came across that's definitely a Magi Beast, but nooo, he had the gall to drop one of those pastel colored ponies right in the middle of my temporary base.

Maybe ‘pastel colored’ isn’t the right word and the equine is bigger than a regular pony, but still.

At least he made her, it's definitely a female or a mare, different from the ponies I’ve seen before. Fur that’s dark as the night it almost looks like it absorbs the surrounding light, mist-like blue mane and tail that seems like a patch of blue space dust blown by an unseen breeze alongside with the presence of horn and wings greatly distinguished her from the others.

Aside from those, she had some pieces of armor on, though calling it ‘armor’ isn’t quite right, decorative pieces is more appropriate since it offers little to no protection. A helmet, some sort of chest piece with a symbol at the center and some types of greaves that only protects the front of her legs.

However what got me interested was the symbol, on her chest piece and both of her flanks, a crescent moon on a purplish background which is the same mark on the armor set I found underground.

Is there some sort of connection? Probably those were hers at some point in the past, I should probably run a scan on those armor if that was the case.

Well, mystery armor aside, so far the pegacorn, unicogsus? have to come up with something other than smashing two words together, has only been pacing around the throne room, monologuing like some saturday cartoon shows villain.

By the 9 remaining gods, the longer I listened the more I wanted to shove a drill in my ears. Just like any cartoon villain, she goes on and on and on about her plan to take over the world, or ‘put the world under her hoof’ as she put it.

Of course she had to talk as if she's some kind of actor on a stage in front of audiences, what's that? You're imprisoned on the moon for a thousand of years? Big whoop, most people would pay to set foot on the Land of the Lunar Rabbits, me included.

And how would she accomplish such a thing, you may wonder. No, it doesn’t involve a giant radio tower that brainwash people into mindless puppets, or poisoning water sources with dubious potion, or even the classic arming a group of rebels to topple the government and ruling the country with an iron fist, or hoof in her case.

Nope, none of the above, instead she would, and I quote ‘put the world in an Eternal Night’ so her subjects will ‘love her night’, suggesting she had some degree controlling the freaking moon. After all the absurd display this simulation had to offer, for this one I had to manually disable some sub-programs so it doesn't clog up by trying to find the logic in that because…

That’s…

That is….

That is the stupidest plan I have ever heard.

"Who goes there?! Show yourself or face the wrath of Nightmare Moon!"

Whoops, I guess I said that out loud, kind of stupid of me to disable that many sub-programs at once.

I already got enough data to confirm a 65 percent win chance if I fight her, which could be worse unless Bob decides to pull something out of his ass.

Dropping down, I landed on a three point pose and released pressure with a hiss from my mechanical limbs. My eyes instantly locked on the piece of bone that's sticking out of her forehead, according to my scans it's where the unknown energy concentrated, a potential weak spot I could use.

There's a flash of something in Moon's eyes that I didn't recognise, bewilderment maybe? Whatever it was, it's replaced by her usual ‘I-am-better-than-you’ smug look, heck she even had the gall to look down on me past her nose.

Well she actually is looking down due to height difference but it still irked me.

“Hmm, so our sister has finally lost her mind and sent a colt to stop us,” she laughed to herself, “No matter, we, Nightmare Moon, will bring Eternal Ni-”

Not wanting for the migraine to worsen, I cut her off with a sigh, “can we skip to the part where we beat the crap out of each other?"

She raised an eyebrow, "excuse us?”

"Listen, I barely got enough sleep and my head is ringing like a church bell so why don't we cut the chase and throw hands," I noticed how my mouth moved before I could process it.

Either I accidently turn off some inhibition programs or I am simply too tired to care, I don't know which.

I got in a boxing stance, the hydraulics in my arms primed to give a little bit of oomph on each punch, and the miniature jets on my heels warmed up to give extra mobility.

"Because gods know how long I could take listening to your absolutely stupid plan to take over the world by turning it into a cold wasteland without offing myself."

Maybe this is Bob's plan, to fill my head with ridiculous and illogical junk so the cybernetic part of my brain would just short circuit itself in an attempt to solve it.

Nightmare Moon, as expected, went absolutely pissed with how hard she glared, "stupid? Our plan which took ages to hatch and perfected during our time imprisoned on the moon would certainly work, even if you or that foolish unicorn tries to stop me. We will bring an Eternal Night where the moon shine brightly and everypony-”

“Would be happy forever and pray to you as their glorious goddess and yadda-yadda-yadda shut it, you already did all that speech so much I lose brain cells every time you repeat it. So for the sake of my sanity, shut the fuck up.” fearing that might be the case, I open up the equivalent of the Task Bar in case some part of my cyber-brain is on loop trying to find some logic in Moon's stupid plan.

Turns out, there is one such program that’s working as if it's on overlock and using a considerable amount of memory. Said program just so happens processing the ‘Eternal Night’ plan by pointing out its numerous flaws which my mouth happily takes.

“Did you even consider the consequences of an eternal night? Of having the moon hanging over you? Of not having a day and night cycle? No, forget that, of course you haven’t. Even a child could see the problem, you utter brain dead buffoon,” I unconsciously dropped my stance as I felt another migraine coming.

I faced a still intact wall of the throne room and a small hatch on my shoulder popped open, revealing a small projector lense that began…well, projecting images of barren wasteland, “here’s what gonna happen by the first week the temperature drops low enough to freeze everything, and without sunlight crops would stop grow, thus no food and soon starvation for your ‘beloved subjects’, in case they haven’t frozen to death.”

“That’s preposterous, surely there is no-”

“SHUT IT, I’m not done yet,” the images on the wall was replaced by a picture of an earth-like planet, however half of it is covered in desert while the other is a frozen wasteland with only a small piece of the middle part covered with lush greenery, indicating only that part is habitable, “not only you’ll doom your subjects but almost the entire world with the other part of the hemisphere turned into a scorching desert with no night time to cool it off, which is effectively a death zone for any living beings.”

As my mouth runs off on its own, I noticed my processing unit logs became less cluttered and the scan process speeded up significantly, a window popped out displaying my chance of winning has risen to 70 percent.

Well then, let's see how long I can bullshit my way out of this.

“Furthermore-”

This is officially the worst night for Twilight Sparkle.

It all started with her getting sent to some village called ‘Ponyville’ to oversee the Summer Sun Celebration by her mentor which is reasonable but usually she sent somepony else, not her. She had something more important after all like stopping Mare in the Moon’s returns.

Not only that but Princess Celestia says to ‘make friends’ while she’s here, which makes no reason, she would only be here until the celebration is over, why should she make friends?

And when she met the town inhabitant, ‘hectic’ seems to be appropriate to describe them, don't get her wrong they’re nice and all but she wishes they could turn it down a notch or two.

And after the preparation was complete and everypony gathered in the town center to witness Princess Celestia raise the sun, what Twilight had feared happened.

The Mare on the Moon or known as Nightmare Moon, returned after her a thousand years of banishment, to bring an eternal night to all of Equestria.

Of course she had seen the sign but did anypony listen to her warning? Nopony did, even her faithful assistant, Spike, dismissed it as an old pony’s tale.

And here she is now, deep in the forest, trying to find where the ancient castle of the Royal Pony Sister, the place where the Elements of Harmony was last known, is.

At least she wasn’t alone searching in this Celestia forsaken forest, speaking of which…

“So do any of you know where the Royal Pony Sister castle is?” Twilight asks her…friends? Acquaintances? It's been less than a day since she knew them, yet they seem dead set on following her.

Pinkie, who has been bouncing all over the place since they entered the forest, simply answered with a smile, “Nope, no idea!”

“Almost nopony has ever set a hoof in this here forest sugar cube,” Applejack elaborated.

“Even if they did, they surely lost their minds,” added Rarity “Just look at this place! So…dreadful and dirty.”

“Pff, you’re always scared of little dirt, be a mare for once, Rar,” snorted Rainbow, “you could take a few pages from Fluttershy here, she went into the forest almost daily.”

That stopped Twilight on her track and turned her attention to the shy pegasus who shrink under her stare, she would’ve never guessed the timid mare would regularly enter the forest.

“Well, I only explored the outskirts to forage some berries for the animals.” Fluttershy whisper-answered. “It's too dangerous to go deeper, it's where beasts like manticore, timberwolf and cockatrice make their nest.”

That puts Twilight a little on edge, she knows what kind of beasts those are from books, “So this forest is a monster nest?! How come there's not a single guard keeping watch?”

“Ah know you've been here not long ago sugar cube, but ah'm sure you know that ponyville is a wee small town,” Applejack explained, “we ain’t blaming Princess Celestia for not sending guards, we hav’ a militia if there trouble with monster.”

“Speaking of the militia,” interjected Rarity, “I’ve heard some ponies talk about how half of them and some volunteers went inside this forest, do you know anything about that, Applejack?”

Suddenly the air around them chilled, whether it's Nightmare Moon’s doing, the forest’s ‘unnatural’ property or the sudden change of topic, Twilight didn’t know. Whatever it was, it did put an uneasy atmosphere between them, even Pinkie stopped bouncing around.

The stetson wearing mare seems uneasy with the question, instead of answering she just let out a series of ‘ah’, ‘erm’, and ‘ya see…’

Fed up with Applejack’s lack of answer Rainbow huffed, “a colt is missing inside this forest after he escaped from the hospital,” she shrugged at the look the cow-mare is sending, “what? it's not like it's a secret, besides I owe that colt a beat up after what he did.”

Rarity gasped, concern making itself shown on her face, “Oh my goodness, I never thought such a thing could happen,” she then turned her attention to the shy mare, “Fluttershy, dear, do you perhaps know where he is?”

Fluttershy shook her head, “I’m sorry Rarity, but not even the critters know where he is though some of the birds said they saw him go deeper toward the timberwolves territory.”

With that revelation, sorrows enveloped the entire group, even Pinkie's bouncy mane seems a bit…deflated.

Perhaps after all of this is over she can ask Princess Celestia some help to search for the colt, and if the worst happens, bring back the remains to his herd family and give him a proper burial.

For now she can only offer a silent prayer for the lost colt, wherever he is right now.

“-nd in less than a decade, most living things would effectively wipe off the world, leaving behind less than 10% of the original population of all living things, all of which can only be found at the last habitable zone.” I finished off my presentation, “and congratulations, you are now a ruler of dying world, hooray”

If the eggheads back home heard my explanations they would be having a stroke, heart attack and aneurysm at the same time, because how ridiculous it is.

To be fair, I dont have the exact data or knowledge to make an accurate simulation of a tidally locked planet, my noggin can only store a handful of useless data.

Speaking of data, my scan has gotten me a sizable amount of data somewhere in the middle of my bogus explanation and it both filled me with relief and worry. Relief because my scanners are working properly and now have a high chance of winning, or at least doing as much damage, against whatever the giant horned and winged pony is supposed to be.

In fact the data I gathered was so accurate and complete, it's categorized the winged pony unicorn as an “Unknown Creature” rather than as an ‘N/A’’, thus automatically marked her as a 'living being' with biosigns on my hud, and that worries me

Either Bob manages to get access to my inner working codes and make some changes or he got his hand on an undocumented Quantum Computer powerful enough to simulate a whole living, breathing world. I don't know which is worse and to be honest both possibilities scare me.

I ran another scan to find any conflicting or missing data, be it the heartbeat pattern, blood flow, air intake, anything that could be a sign of something out of place. Alas, the data I gathered was very much accurate with no mistakes, an airtight system with no flaw.

However, this opens up another opportunity and a way to confirm if this wasn’t a simulation being run on a Quantum Computer. This wasn’t my first time dealing with a simulation like this, where the illusion is almost real, down to the very grain of sand, and almost all of them had the same weaknesses.

Power.

Well, to be more accurate computing power.

A normal computer couldn’t hold a candle to a Quantum Computer, however they could be specialized in a way thus can imitate the power of the super computer, be it crunching numbers of liquid capitals, decrypting a highly secured file or even simulation. However it still had its limit like any computer.

If that is the case, then I just have to overload its processor by forcing it to simulate a fuck-ton of stuff at the same times. Usually I could just turn myself into a metal factory where the computer had to simulate every spark, every furnace flame, every single particle from all the machinery, until it crashed the system and reset itself or, even better, blew a circuit.

However since I don’t have that much material I need to figure out a way.

While I was thinking of a way to wreck this simulation, a low, almost inaudible sob reached my ears.

“Th-this is not what we want,” Nightmare Moon sobbed, wiping a tear off with her front hoof, “W-we just want our subject to love our night, not…not that.”

…well this is quite a turn, I had my fair share of some nutjobs monologue their ‘evil plan’, most of them was cut short by their demise via a piece of lead shoved into their cranium, but I never seen one where they realize whats the consequences of their action, much less remorse about it.

Then again, most missions I got sent to usually never require bringing them back.

Sighing, I couldn't help but feel even more disappointed at the supposed ‘big bad’ that set off my alarm sobbing like a child after a spanking session.

A unicorn with wings containing enough energy similar to Dragon and the ability to control celestial objects alongside with a god complex sounds like, as the Commander put it, a good opponent, one that will result in huge amounts of collateral damage when fought.

However, it was reduced to a sobbing mess by a nonsense rambling with little to no thought behind it. In a way, I felt insulted. This could be one of Bob's plans to get my guard down, maybe it was his intention to target my pride so I might slip something important off.

Well whatever his plans are, I’m sure I can deal with them later, for now with a supposedly this simulation equivalent of a demi-god, a plan began to cook up in my noggin, it's still half baked but I’ll manage to make it up as I go.

“Oh, c’mon, don't be a crybaby, I’m sure you can undo…whatever the hell you just did.” I said, deactivating the projector.

“Y-yes, we are able to,” she sniffed, “b-but after what we did, we can never face our sister and subjects! We fear we might be banished once aga-”

I slammed my foot down, hard enough to crack the floor which startled Nightmare Moon, “listen here, I don't care what beef you got with your sister, or what you did to your…subjects,” I fired up my Core, the heat traveled down to the tips on my metal limbs, “after listening all of ‘revenge’ this and ‘ruling over the world’ that, really get my gears grinding.”

More heat and power began surging across my body as I armed the hydraulics, ready to release the pressure at a moment's notice.

“So how about a little spar to take your mind off it,” I clenched my left hand and pulled back, air began hissing from the mechanism inside, threatening to escape, “I’ll go first.”

I swing my arm-

P S S S H

-and the fist went flying toward her head.

a Killing Machine In a Colt Body

by Erik_The_Shitposter

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16