The Story of Dr Sine

by AperturePony

Rating: teen
Tags: Dark, Alternate Universe, Sad, Tragedy
Length: 30589

The backstory of the infamous Lucius Sine. Sometimes beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Dr Sine's rise to the position in which we see him in The Story of Aperture, and a brief explanation of some of t's lore.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-07-07 17:58:50 UTC

The full thing until I break it up

The Story of Dr Sine: 1

One warm April morning in Manehattan, young Lucius Sine was sat out in the garden of his penthouse apartment, reading. The air was fresh and sweet, due to the numerous flowers and plants that adorned his rooftop garden. He loved it up on the top of this skyrise, where he and his family had lived for the last few years. Lucius was very young when his family had moved from a quiet suburban street on the outskirts of the city to the larger open plan penthouse on this skyscraper, to make an impression on his father’s business clients. If he managed to get close to the edge of the garden wall and peer over, he could almost see his old street on the horizon. His mother and father were out, as they were most of the time, attending a formal party or celebrating some sort of financial boom in his father’s business. Lucius wasn’t exactly sure what it was that his father did, but whatever it was, it kept the whole family living the highlife. He stepped away from the wall and returned to his book; as usual, it was about biology. Lucius read through it at a rapid pace. He mostly knew it all anyway. He finished the tome and tossed it onto an increasingly large stack of the things growing behind him. Standing, he walked inside through the open glass threshold, and around the house to the library. He opened the mahogany doors and was met with a collection rivalling that of the Canterlot archives. The room was hexagonal, and every wall had a large wooden book shelf crammed with books of all sizes and shapes. He closed his eyes and illuminated his magic. He picked one at random and pulled it from its shelf. He opened his eyes to look at his choice. ‘Equestrian Myths and Legends’

Nope, he’d already read that one. He put it back and tried again. ‘Advanced Astronomy: The Minor Celestial bodies’

Lucius smiled happily. He loved astronomy. Carrying the book out onto the open air of the garden, he sat down in the bright sunlight and began to read. It was a shame it wasn’t already night. He scrutinised the information in it’s pages for the rest of the day, until at 12 noon the families maid turned up to make him his dinner.

He turned as she entered the room via the large oak doors. “Hello Lucius!” she called kindly “What do you want for dinner?”

“Can I have an apple pie?” asked Lucius, hurrying back into the kitchen

“Of course you can” She beamed and fished around in the cupboards for the ingredients. Whilst it was cooking she walked around the house, dusting the table tops and sorted Lucius’s piles of books back onto their respective shelves. Once the house was spotless once more, she returned to the kitchen and checked on the pie.

“Do you know when mother and father are going to be home?” he asked “I heard they were going to a big party tonight, and I was wondering if they’ll be back before I go to bed”

“I’m not sure if they will Master Lucius” responded the maid. “Your father is giving a speech at the Mayor’s birthday, and the festivities will be going on late, until the early morning, I expect”

Lucius was sad. He wanted to tell his mother and father about all the astronomy he had learned that day, But it looked like it would have to wait. His face brightened when the maid gave him his pie.

“Oh wow!” he exclaimed “this is the nicest looking Apple Pie ever! Thank you!” he hugged the maid’s legs. He wasn’t just happy to have been given the pie, but to also have some company for a while. He was fed up of his parents being out all the time, he barely ever saw them.

After dinner it was dark, and whilst the maid washed the dishes, Lucius hurried up the spiral staircase to his bedroom, and out onto his balcony. Up here, he was the tallest pony in the entire city, and it was where he was closest to the stars. He kept his telescope on the balcony, and he looked up at the moon with its mountains and the cratered pattern on the surface. His father had told him that Princess Luna was in charge of the night.  He said that Celestia wanted to make all the laws, and rule on her own, so she put her sister in charge of the moon, when everypony was asleep. Lucius felt bad for Luna. Being awake at night sounded lonely. At least he had the maid to talk to, poor Luna didn’t have anypony. His father was part of a group of ponies who had been set up like a secret club. They called themselves The Children of the Nightmare, and held meetings and other secret things. To Lucius it sounded like a lot of fun. He agreed that it was unfair for Celestia to make Luna control the moon all alone, but his father had said he wasn’t allowed to come to the meetings that he went to until he was older. It just wasn’t fair thought Lucius. He wanted to help Luna, but he had to wait until he was older. He stepped away from the telescope and went back into his room. He got into bed and got out his bedtime reading, a huge thick book of Equestrian history. He read a few pages and then put it back under his pillow, he didn’t want to read it all in one go.

The maid came up to his room, having finished the dishes.

“Goodnight Master Lucius”

“Goodnight”

He listened as she went downstairs and turned off the lights, then the reassuring click as she locked the door from the outside. It meant nopony could get in except his parents, and they wouldn’t be in until much later. He was all alone. He opened his bedside drawer and took out a small creased piece of paper. On it was a crudely drawn picture of a black pegasus, streaked with green lines and red hair. The paper was well worn, and Lucius held it close to his chest. It was Blaze, his only friend. His parents didn’t approve of imaginary friends, and they had screwed up his picture when they saw it, but little Lucius had saved it. He wished that Blaze was real.

The Story of Dr Sine: 2

20 years later

A huge cheer rose from the whole crowd of ponies assembled outside Equestria’s top university, the successor to Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns. Amongst the ponies celebrating their success was 24 year old Lucius Sine, now to be known as Dr Sine. Despite his and his fathers hatred for Celestia for overshadowing the rightful princess of Equestria, he had been assured that Celestia’s connection to the school was only as its namesake. A doctor of science. It was his greatest dream come true. It had been years of hard work, and he had thought at some points that it would never end, but the relief at the work having paid off was overriding. If only Blaze could see him now. Dr Sine had been offered a conditional job at Equestria Laboratories, the largest scientific research facility in the whole of Equestria, considering his dissertation was accepted, and now it had been he would start work within a week. He would have the chance to work alongside the greatest minds of all Equestria, making a real difference to the world.

Looking out across the crowd of ponies gathered in the courtyard to watch the scholars collect their awards, he spied his mother and father at the back of them, and when the other ponies had dissipated, he rushed out to greet them. He was surprised they had come, because his father had an appointment at Manehattan hospital for his heart. He was an aging pony, and his frivolous lifestyle wasn’t doing it any good. When his parents saw him, they turned from their talking to meet him. His mother met him with a warm embrace, and was suitably dressed for the occasion, she wore a pearl necklace and a large decorated hat. His father was wearing his normal tuxedo, and once Lucius’s mother finally released him, took his sons hoof in his own and shook it, strongly. His mother had tears in her eyes, and dabbed at them daintily with a small handkerchief. His father spoke to him in admiration.

“By Jove, my son, a doctor of science. You’ve made me proud son, and our whole family proud. You were always cleverer than me, and it’s not too late to turn back to my business, I’d rather a smart young stallion like yourself ran it that the spineless fools I’ve got back there…”

Lucius smiled and shook his head

“Thank you for the kind offer, but I’m going to have to decline father, Equestria Labs really is where I belong”

The older stallion smiled and shrugged. “If you ever change your mind, there’ll always be a place for you on the top! I’m sure if Miss Evangeline was with us now, she’d be so proud of what you’ve achieved”

Lucius was saddened at the memory of Evangeline, his previous house maid. She was hurt in an accident in Canterlot a fair few years ago and had been subjected to an experimental procedure in Equestria Laboratories to save her mind from her broken body. Though he’d never admit it, she was more of a mother to him than the mare stood next to him.

His mother piped in in her shrill voice,

“And Equestria Laboratories, my oh my, you’ll be famous!”

“Lucius, my colt, may I have a word with you over here?” Asked his father.

The two of them walked through the bustling crowd of ponies celebrating, and they spoke in hushed tones.

“You and I both know what the Children of the Nightmare plan, and being inside that facility will give you the prime position to spy on her and find out when the tyrant is at her weakest. One of our trained operatives will assassinate her, and Luna will rule supreme. You have been blessed with this golden opportunity; don’t let her tell you otherwise.”

Lucius and his father returned from their short walk to find his mother conversing with Princess Luna.

“Your majesty” said Lucius’s father, bowing low enough to touch the floor “might I commend you on a simply stunning display of stars last night. It took my breath away”

“You are too kind, George” replied Luna “Truly, there are not many ponies who see the night as you do. I sometimes feel that my sister is unfortunate as the rest of the kingdom never to see it”

There was a hint of bitterness in her voice. Suddenly the conversation was interrupted by Princess Celestia, who descended from the sky to stand with Luna. She turned to Dr Sine and smiled sweetly

“Ahh, you must be Dr Sine. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Luna has mentioned your name more than once. I hear you are coming to work at Equestria Laboratories? Well, I hope you are very happy, and find fulfilment in your work.”

She turned to mingle with the rest of the crowd. George Sine spat on the ground.

“A fly in your mouth, George?” she asked without turning round

Lucius’s father said nothing.

At the end of the festivities, Dr Sine’s parents left for Manehatten, and he headed out towards his new house hear Equestria Labs. It was on the outskirts of the city, and was prime real estate. It was smaller than his Manehatten apartment, but probably twice its value, because of its placement near the imperial capital city of Canterlot. He unpacked his boxes of books, virtually everything else was provided. The only thing he was missing was company. He was hoping that his colleagues at work the next day would be good company, or else he didn’t know what he’d do. As the day faded to night he finally finished stacking up his hundreds upon thousands of books, and climbed the spiral staircase. The one thing he had requested when choosing his place of residence was that it have a balcony. He stepped out onto the balcony and looked at his view.  It was of Canterlot Castle, illuminated by the pale white light of the moon, picking out only the edges of the pearly towers and the shimmering gold atop the spires. He unpacked the last item from its box, his old telescope. He blew off the dust and adjusted it to focus on the glowing crescent in the sky. The image had not lost any of the clarity it had 20 years earlier. No matter how much time passed, the moon never changed.

Sine dreamed that night that he was on the moon. He was being suffocated with no air, and was all on his own. However it was easy to move and despite the pain in his chest he could run and jump like a superpony. He woke up, but the last memory stuck with him. It would be easier to use muscles on the moon, because the gravity was weaker. The heart was a muscle. If he could send ponies with heart problems to the moon, their hearts would be under less pressure, and they’d recover quicker. Dr Sine was spurred onwards by the thought of his father, and his weakened heart. After getting ready for work, he vowed to raise the idea at the first think tank he was invited to.

The Story of Dr Sine: 3

5 years pass

Dr Sine sat in the requests office of Equestria Laboratories. Despite being one of the most well respected and accomplished scientists Equestria Labs had ever seen, he still dreaded having to request funding. He sat on one side of a desk, and the three councillors walked in and sat at the other side of the desk. There was the Chancellor, in charge of Equestria’s bits and taxation, and the minister for health, who was in charge of the Equestrian Health Service. Lastly, there was princess Celestia herself, who made the overall decision. Despite Equestria Labs being under Luna’s control, Celestia was in charge of pledges for funding. Dr Sine silently loathed to have to present to her, but kept himself in check. He couldn’t ruin everything based of one rash emotion.

“My deepest thanks for choosing to hear my proposal, councillors, and your majesty” Sine stood, and gave a small bow to Celestia, who didn’t really care for such formalities

“Thank you Doctor, you may continue”

“I would like to quote some numbers. 38% of Equestria’s residents attended our various hospitals and clinics last year. Over 61% of these were for heart related illnesses. The weakened heart cannot deal with the intense strain it endures here on Equestria and is difficult to treat. However, my team and I have devised a solution. I am asking for 100,000 bits to construct this”

With a flash of his magic, Sine removed the cloth covering a small model of a building. It was not dissimilar to the Equestria Laboratories they were in at that moment

“The Equestria Laboratories Moon Branch. A research facility based on the moon, containing a hospital for heart and other muscle related diseases. The chance of suffering a heart failure from one of the many diseases here on Equestria in 1.0 gravity is 78%, but on the moon in 0.4 gravity it decreases to 12%.”

“The bits I requested are for construction of infrastructure, recruitment of staff and rocket propulsion to get to the moon. Not only that, but the modular construction from the cost efficient materials we have built this facility from, means we can mine the resources from the moon, and with our recent breakthrough in nuclear fusion, the moon branch can be self-sufficient, requiring no more bits to be used on the project, and the mining rigs will actually generate an income. Given, say, 15 years and it will have generated more than it cost to build. Do you have any questions?”

The chancellor raised his hoof “How long will it take, from this point, to have the base operational, should we decide to fund it?”

“Construction of materials  here, a shuttle fight and assembly on the moon should take between 3 weeks and a month”

The short timescale and relatively low cost had gone down very well. Dr Sine left the room to get a drink of water whilst the three talked over the pros and cons of the idea. He sat outside and wiped his brow. After what seemed like forever, Sine was called to return to the room.

Celestia stood, voicing the unanimous decision of the three.

“We have decided to allow funding for the project. We also request that you include additional features in the design, such as an education centre and some of our prior planned royal guard training facilities. To compensate for your having to revise the design, we will be happy to increase your budget from 100,000 bits to 500,000 bits. We will also assign any manual labourers you need for speedy construction of your infrastructure. It has been noted also, that the number of heart related deaths is on the rise, so we ask you also research preventative medicine, not just treatments. The rest of the facility may function as you choose.”

“Thank you, thank you all!” Dr Sine was barely able to hide his happiness “I’ll begin design revision immediately”

Celestia beamed brightly, shook his hoof and then the three left the room. Sine sat down to work on his laptop. 500,000 bits! He could expand the whole facility, and add all the aesthetics and extras he had wanted. He mailed all of the other staff to give them the green light for production, and sat down to get started. “Hang in there father” he muttered quietly.

1 Month and 2 weeks later

Dr Sine looked through the window of the space shuttle as he and Luna visited the newly completed Equestria Laboratories facility for a myriad of final checks.

“Hopefully this will not be necessary soon, if our work on Portal technology is a success” He told her, gesturing the shuttle craft they were in.

“Quite so. It would make the trip far more efficient” she agreed. It always surprised Sine how clever and well-spoken Luna was, considering in Alicorn terms she was only a teenager.

The small shuttle lowered onto an aperture in the roof, which opened revealing a silver mesh landing pad bellow. The small ship descended into the facility. The interior of the facility matched with that of Equestria Labs back on the planet, white washed panels and square tiled floors. The two of them walked through the expanse of corridors, surveying everything for Celestia back home. When they were satisfied that the facility was operating correctly, they returned to the ship.

“We’re ready for the first batch of patients and scientists to come up now” said Sine opening the door of the shuttle for Luna. She sighed.

“The moon is so beautiful. I wish I never had to go back to Equestria”

The Story of Dr Sine: 4

4 Months later

Dr Sine walked into the central AI chamber. Many technicians in lab coats were looking at the prone form of 3.0, the new AI system that they had been testing. She was based on the same pony that 1.0 and 2.0 had been, Evangeline, and was basically an improved version of their software. Dr Sine was not surprised to hear that many attempted activations had already failed. The same had been the case for 1.0 and 2.0, with the flood of data their minds received on activation, they often went rampant immediately. Dr Sine was going to observe from the one way glass as Sky Nova tested her verbally for rampancy. On all the other tests, she had been fine for a few minutes, then when a few trigger phrases were used, she showed her true colours at last. Blaze, his robot companion stood behind the glass window with him, watching. Blaze had never been rampant upon activation, because he wasn’t based on a real pony. He was truly artificially intelligent. He started as a blank slate, and from prolonged interaction with Dr Sine and his co-workers, he had developed his personality. The other scientists were a little wary of Blaze at first, but he had grown to be accepted and now nopony even gave him a second thought. He had even been a huge aid when they had worked on sentry turrets. Celestia had been aware of the rise in militant groups throughout Equestria and had commissioned Equestria Labs to design non-lethal sentry guns, as a deterrent to guard key locations around her castle. The work had gone slowly, because their AI couldn’t distinguish between friends or foes quick enough and was easily disabled. The redesign into filly or colt sized bodies for easy storage made it easier to have a younger AI, so they took a copy of Blaze’s programing and used that. Since then, Equestria Laboratories Stationary Sentry Turret, or EQLSST’s had performed exceptionally well, and Celestia had personally congratulated them after the turrets fended off an attack from the Children of the Nightmare. Naturally, Dr Sine had argued with his elderly father about this, as the two didn’t share the same views. Sine’s father called him a foal, and a servant of the tyrant, and Sine argued that he wasn’t responsible for the failure, but his father’s poor leadership. The truth was that he was warming to Celestia, she had showed him kindness, and helped support him on the facility, and he was grateful. He was beginning to see that his father had been wrong to hate the princess, and that he had been wrong to believe him.

Dr Sine was broken from his memories by a cheer from his fellow scientists. 3.0 had finally responded to the trigger phrases with irritation, but were prepared to give Sky a chance rather than using violence. She was now correctly configured, and was ready to aid the facility in its operation. Dr Sine smiled. It was another achievement under his belt, and he was quite the veteran scientist now. He put his arm round Blaze, and the robot followed suit.

The Story of Dr Sine: 5

5 years later

A grey haired Dr Sine was sitting in his lab, he head in his hooves. He just couldn’t believe what had just happened. Luna was always such a kind pony, and she had always been fiercely loyal. However, in the early hours of the morning, she had refused to lower the moon. From what he had heard, she had changed into a huge pony with a jet black body and a purple mane and declared that she was now the sole ruler of Equestria. Celestia had banished her to the moon. He hated Celestia. His father was right all along. He smashed his hoof down on the lab bench before him, knocking a rack of glass vials to the floor, which shattered. The tyrant had obviously faked it, there was no way that Luna was evil, she was the nicest pony that Dr Sine knew. Celestia had banished her so she could be the sole ruler, and her first decree?

She banned Science.

“SHE BANNED SCIENCE!” Sine smashed his hoof on the bench again. She had used an excuse, claimed that she thought that Equestria Labs portal experiments might have caused Luna’s corruption, but Sine thought otherwise. He thought that Celestia had always hated science, and now she had her tyranny secured, she had made it illegal.

Sky Nova hurried into the room. Sine didn’t even acknowledge him.

“Sir, you have to come quickly. Celestia has given us an hour to leave the facility. Pack your things, we have to go!”

“No” said Sine standing up “This is my life. I will not let Celestia remove me from my home”

“The royal guards are coming; they’ll arrest you if you stay. She’s giving us a chance to get away, don’t waste it”

Dr Sine slowly stood. As much as he resented it, he had to leave, and not just for himself. He looked at the charging socket on the wall, where Blaze was connected. He was prepared to throw down his own life, but not the life of his only friend. He unplugged Blaze from the charger, and led him to the doorway.

“Are you coming” asked Sky Nova

“Science isn’t worth dying for” replied Sine as he and Blaze ran out of the room. He was impressed by Blaze’s speed; the new hydraulic leg joints he had just added had really increased his mobility. The trio stopped at the intersection of two corridors. One led to the surface, and the streets of Canterlot, the other to 3.0’s control room.

“Sine, you and Blaze head on out. I’ll go and ask 3.0 to shut down” said Sky Nova, and hurried towards her control room. Dr Sine and Blaze stepped out into the street, and made for Sine’s Canterlot apartment without looking back.

A week had passed since Equestria Labs had shut down, and Sine didn’t know what to do with himself. He couldn’t go out and get another job because science had been outlawed. He was sitting on a large amount of bits, greater than most ponies in Equestria, but he was bored. He just stayed at home, he had already read the hundreds of books in his library, and had just about exhausted all of Equestria’s literacy. More importantly, Blaze was becoming slow and sluggish. His battery level was severely depleted, and without access to Equestria Laboratories, Sine couldn’t charge him up. To add to his emotional trauma, his father, who had spent the last five years living in the Equestria Labs Moon Branch, had died of a heart attack upon receiving news from the ground that Celestia had taken sole rule of Equestria. With his last breath he had demanded that Sine must destroy Celestia, and at this moment in time, Dr Sine didn’t feel like arguing. After all he had done for the Princess, she had just betrayed him, and her sister, and all of Equestria.

Blaze suddenly wobbled and his eyes flickered, losing their usual green glow. One of his wings slumped on his back, completely drained. Dr Sine made up his mind. Though science wasn’t worth dying for, friendship was.

In the dead of night, beneath the new pattern of the mare in the moon, a constant reminder of Celestia’s betrayal, Dr Sine and Blaze sneaked out to Equestria Laboratories front door. It was boarded up, so Blaze used his super strong hydraulic legs to break away the wooden boards, and Sine slowly opened the door, ushered Blaze inside, then closed the door after them. Inside the facility it was dark, and only the dim light from Blaze’s robotic eyes lit the way to Sine’s Lab. Suddenly all the lights flashed on, Dr Sine and Blaze panicked, expecting a royal guard ambush. Instead, there was a loud message from the speakers of 3.0’s voice.

“Burglars. You know, I thought it would take you longer to try and steal from me. It has only been a week. Anyway, neurotoxin never goes stale, so it doesn’t matter either way”

There was a hiss as she filled the room with the deadly gas.

“No, wait, I’m a scientist, Dr Sine!” He called desperately

The neurotoxin was quickly sucked away and the speaker replied

“Very well, I’m glad you came to your senses. Come to my control room, and we’ll talk business.”

Once the two had entered 3.0’s control chamber, she turned to face them

“I’m glad it was you two. You were always my favourites”

“What happened to Sky Nova shutting you down?”

“He met with a terrible fate”

Sine realised that 3.0 was thoroughly corrupt. However, this meant that she was probably going to be game for some rule breaking, and that suited Dr Sine just fine. He outlined his needs to 3.0, and she agreed to let him come into the facility and perform whatever research he wanted. She would assist in every way she possibly could. The arrangement suited both of them, though Sine wasn’t sure how far he could trust 3.0.

For months the three continued work, but as 3.0 watched, she noticed that Sine seemed to be unnaturally attached to Blaze. He was only happy when his faithful companion was by his side, and Dr Sine became irritated and snappy when Blaze was shut down for charging. Partially to help Sine get on with his life further than Blaze, and partially for her own amusement, 3.0 designed a lab accident. Whilst Blaze was helping to build one of the new test chambers she had commissioned, she crushed him with a huge spike plate. Blaze’s robot body was destroyed beyond repair, but Dr Sine managed to salvage his memory and personality chip intact. His genetic engineering experiments had recently come to fruition, so he made the choice to advance Blaze’s development once again. He took the memory chip to his lab and looked at the recently installed tank in the wall. It was glass, and filled with a clear orange fluid. The liquid was thick, like treacle, and inside was a half formed pony. This was Dr Sine’s dream realised, Blaze as a real life pony, in flesh and blood. Using a scalpel and laser, he cut an incision on the back of its head, and fused the chip to the memory centre of the brain. He then deposited the slimy mass of embryonic pony back in its fluid.

When the final checks were completed, Sine ran a huge amount of power through the tank, the electricity activating the advanced muscle composites he had made Blaze from. The lights in the facility when out, and the only glow was from the blue flashes of electricity that arced through the tank. A few bolts shot out of the glass and shattered equipment on the benches, but finally it stopped. After a few seconds of stillness, the lights flickered back on. Dr Sine looked at the form in the tank, now the same size as a normal pony, slightly bigger than Sine. He had modified the molecular structure that Blaze was made from to be overcharged by electricity, explaining the rapid development from an embryo to a full size pony. After a moment, the tank was crisscrossed with a pattern of cracks as Blaze’s greater mass tried to occupy the same area, unsuccessfully. The glass shattered. Blaze’s form tumbled out into the lab. Sine stepped forward to catch his prone body. Blaze opened his cool green eyes and focused on Dr Sine.

All the fears Dr Sine had about his friends new body dissipated. Blaze looked at him with recognition, albeit some sleepiness, not surprising considering the stresses his body had just been through.

“Hello Blaze, quick cognitive test, what was the first book we ever read together?”

“As if I’d forget that Lucius. We read the third Daring Doo book, on release date.”

Blaze was exactly how Sine had wanted him, and the two lived happily for a year or so afterwards, breaking into the lab every night and with 3.0’s help, conducting genetics experiments. Dr Sine had come to the conclusion that all the strife in Equestria was caused by the differences between ponies, and that this was a genetic factor, a throwback from the reign of Discord. He couldn’t find a specific gene to target, so he chose a much more ambitious course of action. He was going to use Blaze as his template, and genetically engineer a new race from scratch. He wasn’t sure how, as the technology he’d used for Blaze was a prototype, and had been destroyed by his creation, but that was going to be his next move, somehow.

As fate would have it, things were about to start moving very rapidly indeed.

The Story of Dr Sine: 6

One summer morning, Dr Sine and Blaze were walking through Canterlot’s shopping district. Occasionally they’d received an odd look or two, but Blaze wasn’t as strikingly different as he had once been. The strangest thing about him was his lack of a cutie mark. Most of the Canterlot ponies had got used to seeing the two, under the premise that Blaze was Dr Sine’s cousin from a far off land who had come to live with him. Dr Sine was browsing through a range of new record players, and Blaze was getting himself some lunch. Finding nothing he wanted, Sine left the shop and headed to the restaurant. The sky was overcast, and began to rain heavily as Sine approached the restaurant, forcing him to sprint to try to get out of the deluge. Blaze already had a bowl of salad, and Sine sat next to him, and ordered a coke. A pony in a grey suit stood at the bar had been looking at them surreptitiously from behind his pint of cider, and after a while stood up and walked over. Sine recognised the pony as one of his old colleagues, Dr Anton Starlight, but he had changed dramatically since the two had last spoken, his bright yellow mane was now moonlight silver, and there were wrinkles forming beneath his eyes. Sine realised sadly that they were both aging faster than he would have liked.

“Anton! It’s been a long time! How’ve you been?” asked Dr Sine

Anton sat on the opposite side of the table, a bright grin on his face.

“Not too bad, yourself?”

“I’m alright” replied Dr Sine “If a little bored. Since the old days, I’ve had nothing really to do…”

Anton quickly leaned across the table to the two ponies and spoke quietly, his voice masked by the noise of the other customers.

“I was in the same position as you a while back, but I knew a stallion who knew a stallion. There’s an illegal science facility in the blasted gouge, right up but the Crystal Mountains. It’s called the White Mountain research facility, and it’s state of the art. Quite a few of our ex-colleagues joined, we’ve got everything. We need ponies with brains, and that’s why I’m here. I did some digging in the Equestrian Archives, and found out a bit about your ‘cousin’ here” He gestured to Blaze. “Now, it struck me as odd that you’d just given up on science just like that, and more so when the ponies I asked in passing about you mentioned you had a cousin who happened to share the same name as our mutual android friend. It seems that Blaze missed every census return until this year. Odd…”

Dr Sine was looking somewhere between panicked and angry

“I know you made him, and that’s what I want you to do for me. Come and try life at White Mountain, we need ponies like you. Just because the tyrant doesn’t invest in the future of Equestria doesn’t mean we don’t have to.”

Anton stood, his cider untouched, and slipped a business card from his pocket and slid it to Sine.

“That’s our address. I’m trusting you because I know you’ll do the right thing”

Anton walked to the door, and opened it, letting in a blast of wind and rain from the gale outside, and stepped out, seemingly vanishing into the storm.

Dr Sine and Blaze sat for a while pondering the offer. Dr Sine knew that he would need the White Mountain’s technology to start work on his new pony master race, but also that life in Equestria Labs was treating him well. After thinking over the offer carefully, he decided. Science was built on the shoulders of change, and staying at Equestria Labs would simply leave him to stagnate in boredom for the rest of his life. After the two had finished their beverages, Dr Sine stood.

“Come on Blaze, we have to go to the station. I need to check train times to the Crystal Mountains.”

“So we are going?” Asked Blaze.

“Just for a trial, yes. Let’s not jump into anything just yet”

“Aren’t we going to tell 3.0?”

Sine thought for a few moments about what she would do if she found out that they were leaving her. He winced at the thought.

“No. We are not going to tell her anything”

The Story of Dr Sine: 7

After an overnight train journey, Dr Sine and Blaze clambered off the train onto the platform of Dusty Falls. It was a town similar to Appleoosa, and sure lived up to its name. Everywhere was deserted, the only sounds were the shutters on the windows banging gently and the breeze. Blaze and Sine walked through the town towards the largest of all the wooden buildings, a saloon named ‘The Salt Plains’. The faded sign depicted a huge field of salt, and a pony with a spade looking over it.

Inside were the few residents of the town, mostly middle age males, farming or drinking types by the look of them sat, slouched over tankards of cider or pots of salt. There was a slightly out of tune jukebox in the corner playing songs that were popular in Canterlot 30 years ago. Sine strode up to the bar. A burly stallion with a chin of coarse black stubble walked over. After looking Blaze up and down, he turned his attention back to Dr Sine and asked

“What brings you two down ta Dust Falls? Somat tells me you’re not ere for t’ farms”

“We just need a bearing. We’re heading for the Crystal Mountains”

“Aah, scientists huh?” The bartender dropped his voice.

“I’ve seen some of your type through here before. They said they was mountain climbers, but I seed otherwise. You wanna head out north from the back of ere. Head towards the tallest mountain ya can see, then by the time the sun has set, you will be at the Blasted Gorge. If you can’t get to White Mountain from there, then frankly, they don’t want ya”

The bar tender opened a door in the back of the tavern, and the two followed him out into the dry heat outside. He pointed to the sparkling mountain range on the horizon, the multi-coloured many faceted summits, glimmering with rainbows in the harsh midday sun. The tallest of them all stood high above the rest, and seemed far more pristine than its brethren.

“Head for the Sparkling Peak, and you can’t go wrong” said the bartender “Though with t’ heat and sand the journey’s a mighty harsh one. Ya’ might consider staying a night and setting off at dawn if you’re gonna be in with a chance”

Dr Sine looked out across the desert. The sand dunes were giving off a heat haze in the midday sun. He agreed that it would be a better idea to set out at the crack of dawn whilst it was still dark.

Sine paid the bartender for a room upstairs, and he and Blaze went up to the room. It was wooden, and had not been painted, revealing the bare wooden planks the bar was made from. Dr Sine unfurled a small map of Equestria, and placed it on an upturned wooden box of straw that served as a table. He used a compass to plot a rough across the expanse of desert that spanned from the border of Dusty Falls to the largest of the great lakes, far ahead. Like the bartender had said, if they made straight for the Sparkling Peak, then they would pass straight through it. The journey would be long and arduous, So whilst Blaze slept, Sine hurried about the moonlit town collecting supplies. He found many water carriers and two shrouds to protect them from the sand and the sun.

The next morning dawned, and at 6, before sunrise, Dr Sine and Blaze set out. Passing through the bar, Sine noticed that the ponies were all slumbering in the same seats they had been when he’d first seen them. He realised why the town seemed so deserted.

Wrapped in the khaki cloaks, Sine and Blaze set out across the sea of sand. It was bitterly cold, and the wind blew across the dunes, blasting them with loose top sand. As they walked, the icy cold quickly became scalding heat, and it became painful to walk on the red hot sand. Dr Sine tore some strips of material from the bottom of his shawl and wrapped his and Blaze’s hooves to stop them from burning, and carried on. The two drank a full flask of water over the first day, and later the blistering heat began to cool to the freezing chill of night. Blaze was tired and wanted to stop, but Dr Sine forced him onwards. He too wanted to sleep, but with the shifting sands of the desert, they would certainly be buried alive. For another day they continued walking, and Dr Sine’s calculations told him they were half way.

On the third day the heavily sleep deprived duo were walking along one of the few pieces of land that marred the deserts unchanging shape, a rocky outcrop. It was safer to travel on this, so they traversed it carefully. At the end of the day they had one of the flasks of water remaining. However, the next night there was a terrible sand storm. The winds blasted the two mercilessly, and blistered any unprotected skin. Dr Sine’s cloak was just about shredded, and Blaze was beginning to falter. His body was slightly stronger than Sine, but his grit wasn’t as strong and he was losing morale fast.

Sine reassured him as they fought through the storm, when all of a sudden, the sandy ground beneath them gave way. Blaze slipped into the sinkhole, flailing wildly and screaming. Dr Sine caught hold of his hoof just in time, and slowly dragged Blaze from the maw of the sand, though the damage was already done. The weight of the sand had crushed his wings, snapping the bones and tendons alike, leaving his featherless wings as a bleeding mess, and the red hot sand had spilled into his eyes, burning them horribly, and had blinded him. The experience caused Blaze the most excruciating pain, and even when Sine dragged him out he was still screaming. Dr Sine gave him the last half of the water, and used the rest to wash his damaged eyes, but it was no use. Blaze’s eyes were ruined. Dr Sine took off his own shawl, exposing his body to the sandstorm and wrapped it round Blaze’s ruined face. Sine couldn’t see the mountain through the clouds of sand, and he was feeling desperate. He had no idea whether Blaze and himself were ever going to make it. Forcing himself and the screaming Blaze onwards, Dr Sine was beginning to lose focus. His vision was clouding at the edges, but he knew that the clouding was certain death. He had exhausted his body and now he and Blaze were going to die, dehydrated and confused in a desert far from home. If he wasn’t so dehydrated he would have been crying. Suddenly, he felt a cold liquid splash on his hoof. He looked down and could just make out the edge of a clear lake, the water was fresh. He pushed Blaze’s head down into the water, and he drank some himself. Blaze was silent now, having torn his vocal chords and having no energy left to continue.

At the edge of the lake, just round the corner, Dr Sine could see a shape, and there were lights glowing brightly from it. That was it. The White Mountain. He had to get there, even if he died once he had, he couldn’t fail now, not when he was but a few hundred meters from his goal. Taking Blaze’s hoof, he led him towards the shape, everything else faded to obscurity. Dr Sine was ignoring the pain of the sand blasting off his skin, of Blaze’s choking cough, or the darkness fringing his vision. He walked slowly with the last of his energy towards the shape.

As he approached, he saw that the structure was a white concrete and glass building, proudly bearing the name White Mountain. It was bracing the sand storm well, and Dr Sine saw a pony at the window, backed by a bright orange glow which cut through the night like a ray of salvation. Sine stumbled to the glass and banged his hoof against it as hard as he could, twice. His strength failed him and he sunk to the dusty ground, accepting his fate. Blaze drew close to him, and the two lay there as the violent storm raged on. Sine slowly slipped into sleep.

The Story of Dr Sine: 8

Dr Sine woke slowly on an operation table. He opened his eyes, then winced at the painfully bright surgical light. He body was screaming in pain all over, and looking down, he saw that his skin was all badly burnt, and large blisters were swollen of numerous parts of his body. He saw two surgeons working on his thigh, performing a skin graft. Noticing Sine was awake for the first time, the nurse aiding them panicked.

“Thought he was going to be out for the full operation!” she exclaimed, and before Dr Sine could react, she placed a mask over his face, administering an anaesthetic.

Dr Sine woke again in a hospital bed in a white and cool blue room. He slowly slid back the blankets and inspected his body. It was crisscrossed with scars, but he noted that it was very good, considering how little of his skin was left when he had arrived. Looking at the mirror on the other side of the room, it looked as if most of his injuries would heal with time. But Dr Sine didn’t care. There was only one pony in the whole world he cared about, and he was in a much worse state than himself last time he had seen him.

“Where… is… Blaze?”

A nurse hurried into the room after hearing his voice. She was met with the sight of Dr Sine attempting to leave his bed. She tried to force him back into his bed, but Sine was having none of it. Eventually she was forced to bring him a full set of crutches so he could walk to the intensive care unit. Dr Sine used the crutches to limp down to the post-surgery intensive care. Finally, he reached the large glass observation window of Blaze’s room. Blaze was in a sorry state. He was unconscious and had a tube in his mouth to artificially breathe for him, and his throat was scarred from restorative surgery for his vocal chords.  His wings were gone, left with only two stumps, with numerous exposed bony protrusions from his spine. His skin was blistered and scarred like Sine’s own, and his mane and tail had been shaved off in the surgery. Worst of all were his eyes. The eyelids were gone, and his eyes themselves were bloodied hunks of red muscle, all the recognisable features of an eye gone. He seemed to stare out, unseeing. It was barely recognisable as the pony he had once been.

“Most of the scientists voted to keep his life support switched on until you were awake, so you can say your goodbyes” said the nurse accompanying him

“And then you want to kill the power?” asked Dr Sine

The nurse winced at Dr Sine’s poor choice of words, but nodded.

“You will do nothing of the sort! This is just another trial for me. Medical genetics happens to be my speciality. I have the capability, and you have the technology. I can rebuild him, bigger and better than ever before!”

Sine turned to walk out of the intensive care unit towards the nearest vacant lab. This would be his base of operations, and he spread out a large sheet of paper to begin planning

“Oh, and nurse…” he called to the pony accompanying him “If the power to that vault is cut off, you will have to answer to my wrath, and I’ll warn you, I am not particularly level headed…”

The Story of Dr Sine: 9

Dr Sine had mostly healed from his ordeal over the 6 months he had lived in White Mountain. He had taken a job as a scientist in the biology department, and had made excellent progress down to their new elaborate equipment. White Mountain allowed its employees to perform their own research independently, and then make presentations to the board to request funding or public distribution. Sine had set to work on his genetically engineered master race that he was sure would impress the directors. He planned a batch of 25 of the master race, as a show case for what it was capable of.

Blaze had remained in suspended animation whilst his body came to grips with the trauma it had experienced. Some doctors said he’d never survive, and it was foolish to prolong his suffering, but Dr Sine had quickly snuffed out such views. Blaze would survive if it was the last thing Sine ever did. Whilst he waited, Dr Sine set about repairs to his faithful companion. He took a sample of the few cells left in Blaze’s eyes, and began re-engineering them. His redesigned eyes were far stronger and more durable. He added extra muscles to the lens, so that Blaze would be able to adjust the focus on his eyes by concentrating on it. The effect on the visuals was that the eyes developed black lines across the pupil where the extra muscles were attached, and the green became far cleaner, with the removal of some of the now obsolete focusing tendons. Dr Sine kept a cell sample from these new eyes in storage to be used later. With a small sample his newly designed eyes, he snuck into the medical bay in which Blaze was being kept, and applied a thin membrane layer of the cells onto the raw muscle of Blaze’s exposed retina. Standing for a moment he looked at his friend, Blaze’s mane and tail had grown back and his skin was almost as it had been.

He left, and began work on new wings. He needed Blaze’s new wings to be stronger than last time, so he doubled the density of the regular pegasus wing bones to add more of a ridged structure. This made them heavier, so he had to expand the length of the wing to compensate. He made the feathers tougher, so they would maintain shape much more easily. It took him many weeks work to simulate each change on his computer, and then to make the changes, so by time he had started engineering the wings, Blaze had been unconscious for ten months.

One day a sandstorm was raging outside. The friction of the sand particles produced static electricity, and one bolt of this crashed down onto the roof of White Mountain. The electricity was conducted and caused a power surge, which shot through all the equipment, shocking the half completed wings Dr Sine was developing, and in the intensive care unit it shocked Blaze. His body had always had an affinity to electricity, so the shock suddenly resuscitated his damaged heart, which began to function independently, slowly his brain regained control of his body, and within minutes he was fully awake.

Dr Sine was over the moon at Blaze’s recovery, and Blaze was very happy with his new eyes. Sine accelerated progress on the new wings for his friend, and within another week they were ready. Blaze was anesthetised, and Dr Sine surgically attached the two new wings two his back. He put a splint on Blaze’s side to hold the new structures in place until they healed onto his body. After exactly one year since arriving at white mountain, Blaze was once again fully healed, in fact he was stronger than before down to Dr Sine’s improvements.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” Sine said to Blaze as they worked in the lab. Now that Dr Sine had the code for Blaze’s new eyes and wings it was a simple matter to insert this code into a copy of Blaze’s genome. Working into it even further, he made changes to the structure of the brain, and increased the muscle bulk for all the areas of the body. Using this new code, he modified the DNA of cells taken from 25 test subjects who had been used in one of the other scientists’ experiments. He placed each of the new master race embryos in a glass container like the one Blaze had been born in. He activated the genes for nine of his master race to be unicorns, eight to be pegasi and eight to be earth ponies.  He then used hormones to tweak each of the ponies’ improvements to their chosen species, such as more strength around wings, or greater strength to their rear legs, etc.

Over the next six weeks, Dr Sine watched the embryos develop into foetuses, then into tiny baby ponies. He kept a constant electrical charge through the tanks to speed up their growth. When each of the ponies was the equivalent of a five year old filly or colt, he stopped the machines and removed each of them from the tanks. Just like Blaze, none of them had cutie marks. He gave each of them names, a designation number. He led the little procession of foals to the lift down to the underground part of White Mountain.

The Story of Dr Sine: 10

Despite how large The White Mountain Research Facility seemed on the surface, it was really only the tip of the iceberg. Below the howling desert sands was a bustling ant hive of activity, and was where most of the larger labs were. There was one in particular that Sine was looking for, the Athletics Testing Centre. Once he knew if his foals were a success he could move onto the next step of his plan. He received many strange looks from the other scientists he passed, leading a procession of 25 black foals, each talking quietly to one another. After a short walk through the utilitarian concrete walled corridors, they reached a large chamber, simulating an outdoors athletics centre. The roof was extremely high and painted blue, and embedded with a bright heat lamp, representing the sun. Most of the ground was grass, but around the outside was a long clay running track, long jump and javelin set. In the centre was a weight lifting set and a few trees and a picnic bench. This was where most of the scientists stayed whilst they weren’t working, because it was so similar to the outside world.

Dr Sine and Blaze directed the foals to varying tasks. First up was number 3, who was a pegasus, laying on a bench surrounded by dumbbells. Upon Dr Sine’s instructions, she lifted the two smallest ones in her front hooves effortlessly.

“Very good” commented Sine “Now try the next ones”

The small filly lifted all but one of the large weight set, and she could quite easily support 35 kilograms on each hoof. Sine was extremely happy. This was exactly what he had wanted to see. His tests showed that when the foals were fully developed, they would be 40x as strong as a regular pony of their age.

Blaze was watching the foals warming up at the start of the running track. He was a remarkably fast runner himself thanks to Dr Sine’s improvements to his muscles, and he challenged them to a race. He stretched out, preparing to show off his immense speed, but when they set of, the filly and the colt easily managed to keep pace with him, despite their shorter legs. Blaze pulled out all the stops and bolted as fast as he could, pulling away from the two foals. Blaze smiled, he was still on top. Suddenly the two shot by him at an unbelievable speed, and try as he might, Blaze just couldn’t beat them. Distracted, he lost concentration and stumbled over. His reinforced wings protected him from damage, and he picked himself up and recorded some lap times. The foals beat the all-time record on this track by 15 seconds, and he was fairly certain that they’d beaten the world record by a fair bit too.

Dr Sine showed one of the colts how to throw a javelin correctly, and demonstrated it, getting 6 meters, not too shabby to say he hadn’t warmed up, and his age. However, when the colt threw the javelin, it shot away like a gunshot, and narrowly missed the two ponies racing on the track. Dr Sine measured it as 42 meters, and he felt like jumping for joy. His master race was 110%. It was everything he’d ever wanted it to be, and so much more. His jubilant celebrations were broken by some shouting from the outer corner of the test chamber. One of the foals had hit one of the others with a poorly aimed tennis shot, and they were becoming aggressive. As Dr Sine watched, the unicorn, Ten, screamed a stream of abuse at the pegasus, and charged up her magic to attack him. Her horn blasted a bright pink and a huge bolt of fiery magic straight at him, and smashed the pegasus back, the bolt of magic carried him through the air and into the wall. The blistering heat of the blast immediately destroyed the wall, and the pegasus was blasted out of the chamber into the empty space between rooms beyond. He tumbled down ablaze until he faded from view.  The unicorn stood breathing heavily for a moment, her horn still glowing as it cooled down.

All of a sudden the pegasus shot back into the room through the hole and screamed in rage. He swerved to the side to miss another blast of magic, and tackled her to the ground. The impact rocked the whole chamber and put a small crater in the floor.  There the two brawled on the floor, throwing punches and kicks that would have killed regular ponies.

“Shouldn’t we do something?!” asked Blaze, who felt at a loss for the whole encounter

“No, let them fight” replied Dr Sine who was watching intently. Though he hadn’t intended for the two to fight, it had proved a very good opportunity to watch them demonstrate their abilities. The machines he had used to grow them had certainly imputed a lot of information, because though they were only the equivalent of five year olds, they showed the fighting expertise of a pony who had been training in martial arts their whole life.

By now the pegasus, Seventeen, had the upper hoof, and he ruthlessly rained blow after blow onto the unicorn’s face. These were humiliation wounds; he intended to cause the maximum damage before he the killing blow. As much as Dr Sine was enjoying this demonstration, he did not want to see one of his master race killed, especially not wasted in a petty dispute such as this.

“Seventeen, desist from attacking Ten immediately!”

The colt did as he was told and stepped away. Ten lay for a moment, gathering strength, then picked herself up and stood unsteadily. Her whole face was bloodied and swollen and her yellow mane was caked in sweat and blood.

“Clean yourself up” said Dr Sine, tossing a wet towel to Ten. He led the rest of the foals back towards his lab. Ten shot Seventeen a vengeful look as he passed by her, but they didn’t touch each other. Dr Sine’s word was the law, and it was the only one they felt obliged to follow. She used the towel to wipe away the blood, and held it as a compress against her forehead to stop the bleeding. She tuned and followed the rest of them out of the room.

The Story of Dr Sine: 11

Dr Sine sat in his lab and watched the foals sleep with a look of smug satisfaction on his face. His grand plan was all fitting together. He’d keep training the foals, make them even stronger, and then he’d implement the special surgery he had decided on. It would change their brain chemistry drastically, emphasising some emotions and suppressing others, as well as adding another muscle and stamina upgrade. Whilst watching the two fighting earlier, he realised that they would need enhanced reaction times to make full use of their enhanced bodies, so an organ for producing additional neurones when they were needed.  He had detailed a list of what he would need, and set to work on his computer to work out the proteins he would need to make these new organs. Blaze walked in carrying two mugs of hot chocolate, and placed one on Dr Sine’s desk. He looked at the foals sleeping on the ring of pods around the lab.

“Are you sure that they are the master race?” He asked without turning.

“Yes, of course, why do you even ask? They’re like you. They’re better than everypony else”

“But they’re so strong, and so violent. They don’t seem to know how much is too much”

“Too much is never enough” butted in Dr Sine

“I just think you should implement something to control them” responded Blaze “They are too dangerous to be loose cannons”

“I already have. The next surgery I have planned is going to alter their brain chemistry to improve their loyalty to me. They’ll be virtually unable to disobey me.”

Blaze whirled round at Dr Sine’s last comment.

“And this is what you want for the whole pony race? To have a race of super ponies who will blindly follow orders with no moral guidance!?”

Dr Sine stopped typing and span 180 degrees on his chair to face Blaze.

“And what, pray tell, is your problem with that?”

Blaze stormed out of the room. Sine was worried he had upset Blaze, but he knew he’d come round later. He always did after an argument. Dr Sine felt unusually calm looking over the sleeping faces of the master race, even Ten’s slightly swollen head looked peaceful. For a moment Dr Sine wondered what he was to the foals, like how he considered Blaze as his friend, even though he had made him. Was he their father? Were they just another experiment? He felt a slight cool detachment from them, but he’d always been remarkably detached from his own family anyway. And now they were all dead. He was the last of the Sines, sole bearer of his family name. Finally coming to a decision, he opened the file on his computer containing the subject names. He went through them one by one and amended their names.

One Sine

Two Sine

Three Sine

It was never to be official, but making a note of it somewhere made him feel better.

The Story of Dr Sine: 12

Three weeks had passed since the first training session, and Dr Sine observed that the foals had grown even more quickly than expected. Blaze was still adamant that he would not partake in the next batch of surgery, and Sine was not ready to tell the rest of the staff the exact nature of his project. That would spoil the big reveal to the bosses, and scupper his chances of persuading them to endorse his work. He decided that he needed Blaze on board, regardless. One night whilst Blaze slept, Dr Sine sneaked into his room and fitted an electrode right over where the memory chip was embedded in his brain, and used his computer to look through the memories that were stored as data. He selected all the ones relating to what the surgery was, and why Blaze had refused and deleted them. He removed the electrode and left.

Sine felt bad about manipulating Blaze, but he had to do it to ensure that his latest and extremely important surgery was a success. The next morning Blaze awoke and happily helped Dr Sine prepare the test subjects for their operation and helped Dr Sine during the surgery itself. The new neurone organs Dr Sine had designed fitted perfectly, and after the operation each of the foals was in and extremely stable condition. When they awoke, they moved faster and with much more precision than they had before, and were ten times as quick as regular ponies. Their fanatical loyalty to Dr Sine had increased as well, and now Dr Sine was sure that they were ready for the real test.

In one of the lowest parts of White Mountain was an abandoned test chamber, designed years ago to attempt of control the weather with an enormous faraday cage. It had failed, and it turned out that the cage simply reflected the natural static electricity from the air into huge bolts of lightning and it had far too much voltage to be used as a power source, so it sat in one of the lower rooms, and warmed the bottom of the facility with its immense power.

Dr Sine knew that electricity was capable of speeding up growth in the genetic code he had written, so one week after they had recovered from the last operation, he brought the foals down to the room. Shutting down the cage to begin with, he sent the foals into the room and stood them in a ring around the huge piece of machinery and taped a copper rod to each of their front legs. Then he and Blaze sealed the chamber and stood at the reinforced glass window, watching as the cage powered up. With a bright flash of brilliant blue, the faraday cage unleashed its immense power on the foals, and they glowed bright blue in the darkened chamber. Dr Sine and Blaze watched wide eyed as the foals soaked up the power like a sponge, and started to grow. After five minutes of exposure they had grown to the size of teenagers. Unable to handle the voltage it was outputting, the cage exploded, showering red hot metal over the newly grown ponies, but the unicorns all simultaneously caught the burning husk of the mane cage, holding it with a rainbow array of magic colours, and the pegasi used their reinforced wings to shield the rest of their siblings from any smaller debris.

Dr Sine was finally certain, his master race was complete. All that remained was for the board of directors to approve, and using their contacts in high places, then Dr Sine could distribute his completed genome to every pregnant pony in the kingdom, and soon Equestria would be populated with the master race. He used the chambers intercom whilst Blaze rounded up the master race and led them back to the labs.

“Hello, this is Dr Sine. I’d like to arrange a meeting with you please Sir. My project has reached fruition, and I want you to see the finished product. I can guarantee you will not be disappointed”

The stout masculine voice on the other end of the intercom told him to present his project to the board of directors at midday next Tuesday, so the whole staff of White Mountain could all watch. That gave Dr Sine and Blaze three days to plan the presentation. More than enough time, the board couldn’t help but be impressed. Dr Sine was in the final stages of his plan. Soon all of Equestria would be free from Celestia and her tyranny. It had been ten years since Luna was banished, and Sine was getting older every day.

He decided that to complete his plan, he needed to live as long as his master race. He used their DNA to formulate a serum that would prolong his life into the foreseeable future, and he also included some of the increased muscle and bone strength code. He drank down his serum before bed that night. When he awoke, he felt fresh and rejuvenated, as strong and fast as he had been 25 years ago, when he was only 20 years old, and was reassured by the fact that he would live long enough to see the master race destroy everything Celestia stood for, and return the rightful princess to the throne. Though he had no idea how long the serum had added to his lifespan, it had halted the aging process, and in simulations with single cells, they had lasted the equivalent of 10,000 years. He now felt ready to take action, with his body in its peak and his master race in toe, nothing could go wrong.

The Story of Dr Sine: 13

Dr Sine tapped loudly on the door to the conference room where he was presenting his idea to the board. It was more of a show than a presentation. In the largest room atop the Facilities blasted exterior, a huge stage had been erected, surrounded by a large standing area for the scientists, and a box with plush seats for the board of directors. Sine gulped down his nerves as the scientists crowded into the room, to see what was important enough to address the directors personally. He had practiced his words enough times, run through the every motion with his master race, carefully organised every detail of the showcase he was about to put on. The last scientist walked into the hall, and the door slammed shut. Dr Sine walked out and stood in centre stage. The room was completely dark, but two unicorns were in the rafters, shining their magical light down on him. Sine spoke loudly and confidently, he was a showman, a ringmaster, captivating his audience.

“Fillies and gentlecolts, I have gathered you here today to experience a view of the future. The improved future of all pony kind.”

Another light illuminated a huge block of metal on the stage.

“This is a block of steel, it weighed three and a half tonnes. Far too much for a pony to lift you might say”

The block was encased in a pink glow. In the shadows, Ten focused hard on the block, and lifted it up high into the air before lowering it softly to the ground. A spotlight lit her and she turned to face it. Her horn flashed a brilliant pink and she fired a bolt of magic at the steel, which glowed a bright red. A pegasus swooped from the rafters, and shot straight through the heated block, forming a neat round hole straight through. Another earth pony leapt onto the stage from the darkness carrying two small swords and span them faster than the eye could register at the glowing block. It a matter of moments it was transformed from a block of molten steel to an incredibly accurate representation of White Mountain’s exterior facility. The three ponies stood still in the spot lights as Dr Sine used his strong public speaking voice to demonstrate their abilities. Suddenly the back of the stage was lit by the other 7 unicorns, each casting a dazzlingly bright light, then the other seven pegasi soared over their heads, traveling at speeds far beyond the norm for ponies, and weaving round the crowd in spectacular fashion. The remaining earth ponies leapt onto the unicorn’s backs and threw 7 javelins to the pegasi who caught them with a display of grace and elegance nonpareil. The unicorns all simultaneously teleported to the front of the stage, and the earth ponies ran, leaping off their backs and hurled shurikens at the pegasi in front of them, who evaded effortlessly, and caught the earth ponies out of the air before they fell into the crowd. The unicorns teleported in formation to the centre of the stage and caught the earth ponies and the swords thrown by the speeding pegasi. All through this, Dr Sine had been explaining the properties of his master race, and how these were implemented. The full twenty five of the master race stood in numerical order at the centre platform of the stage.

“And with the genes distributed through Equestria, a new age of prosperity and happiness can begin, culmination with the replacing of the defunct Equestrian race with the new master race!” Sine raided his voice into an exclamation of triumph as his master race stood assembled. The unicorns pooled together their magic into one immense globe of bright rainbow light, growing larger and larger, until it filled the hall. The pegasus group flew around inside it, spinning it faster and faster. Sine’s head appeared in it, and his final words boomed out, amplified by the magic.

“With the master race at our helm, we can overthrow the tyrant queen and return the throne to the rightful princess of the night!”

With a crash like thunder the orb vanished and left the stage with the twenty five elite ponies stood in a line, and Dr Sine at the front.

For a moment the crowd was still, in a stunned silence, then all at once they began cheering and shouting praise for Dr Sine and the wonderful ponies who would bring about the golden age.

In the front row was Blaze, cheering even louder than the rest in Dr Sine’s victory.

After a minute of jubilation, the same masculine voice boomed from the shadowy box, the director was making his judgement.

“So you say that the master race is your doing?”

“Yes” replied Dr Sine

“You designed them from scratch, so there are no malfunctions or deformities?”

“Yes Sir” replied Sine, expecting the resounding ‘yes’

“You are a truly warped pony Lucius”

Dr Sine’s face fell “But Sir…”

“You have created twenty five hideous aberrations against nature. You seek to destroy what 100,000 years of evolution has created, just because YOU believe YOU can do better? You disgrace the name of science and you are not worthy to call yourself a scientist. We should have left you and your filthy mutant friend out in the desert to die”

Each word hit Sine like a physical blow. He sunk to his knees, and cried out

“Noooo!”

“Consider yourself, and all of your mutant freaks, banished from the White Mountain. I will give you one hour to pack your belongings and get out before I send the guards to dispose of you. You are a disgrace to scientists and a disgrace to all pony kind. Hopefully you will die in the desert and rid us of your incompetence”

Dr Sine sunk even lower, and lay on the floor crying. The congratulatory cheers of the other scientists became boos and hisses, jeered insults at Dr Sine and Blaze’s expense. Some ponies even climbed onto stage with makeshift daggers made from broken glass, but the master race easily fended them off. Blaze flew up onto the stage and helped Sine to his hooves, and then back to his lab.

The Story of Dr Sine: 14

Dr Sine was a broken pony. Without the support of White Mountain he was nothing but a collection of ideas with no purpose. He sent Blaze to tend to the master race and try to figure out what to do with them.

As Sine packed his case, tears falling into the case, a black robed pony brandishing a long dagger opened the door silently. It was one of the director’s personal assassins. He crept closer across the laboratory towards the doctors exposed back, and raised the dagger, aiming carefully for the precision kill.

As Sine packed his small razor into his case he heard the sound of magic being used behind him. He whirled round and narrowly missed the assassins’ blade. Sine easily side steeped the next attack, down to his enhanced reflexes. Acting on instinct, he swung his hooves round in front of his face, which happened to still contain his pocket razor. The small blade dug into the assassins neck, and with a whiney of surprize he collapsed, lifeless at Dr Sine’s hooves.

Dr Sine was enraged beyond belief. Not only had he been disgraced and expelled from White Mountain, they had also planned to kill him. Sine knew why. He had been at the facility for a year and a half, and during this time he had learnt a great deal about the leadership and the other scientists projects, information which could be disastrous is leaked outside. But Lucius Sine cared little for anypony else, lest they had something he needed. He made a decision, and gathered together Blaze and his master race. They would leave White Mountain, but they would ensure they were not forgotten. Dr Sine took his case of belongings and led the 26 super ponies to lab gamma. He knew that Professor Comet Light was working on something of particular interest. It was a wrist mounted device that tapped into the magical potential energy of the surroundings, and concentrated it the same as a unicorn’s horn. He had always intended to use it as a tool for pegasi to aid in heavy lifting up high in the sky, but Sine had other ideas. He, Blaze and the 25 stormed into the lab. Comet Light knew why they were there and tried to defend his work, but he was no match for the 25. They killed him easily and left the body where he fell, behind a pile of boxes in his lab. With the five prototypes in hoof, Sine gave one to Two, Seventeen, Eight, Nineteen, Nine and Twenty Four. They were the best flyers of the group, and that was crucial for his plan. Dr Sine and the 17 earth and unicorn ponies still accompanying him arrived at the director’s office. He was in the middle of an important meeting with his council, regarding how to dispose of Dr Sine’s master race.

“Perfect” Thought Sine

He kicked open the door and strode into the ornately detailed room. The eight unicorns flanked him and quickly paralysed all the senators and the director himself. Dr Sine had already anticipated that the directors personal guards would be concealed in the shadows of the roof, and when  they dropped down to arrest him, he was not surprized.

“Lucius Sine!” boomed the director “Just what do you think you are doing!? Surely your pathetic life should have ended a fair bit ago!”

“Sorry to disappoint you Sir”

“What did you hope to achieve from this?” The Director asked, his voice mocking “Did you really think that I’d be unprotected?”

“No, I anticipated you’d have guards sir” responded Dr Sine

“And you were caught by them anyway?! You are truly more stupid than I ever imagined!”

“I don’t think so” Sine said smugly. Five bolts of bright blue magic shattered the huge window of the director’s office, hitting the guards and heavily wounding them. Sine knew that the potential energy would be extremely strong in the sandstorm outside, so he had his pegasi fly in it to charge the gauntlets. The master race’s earth ponies ran into the room, and whilst the unicorns held their paralysis spell, they hurled the guards out of the shattered window into the blistering sandstorm beyond. They then drew out their daggers and killed each and every one of the terrified board members, and hurled the corpses out of the window also. The pegasi flew into the office in formation, and the 25 ponies, Dr Sine and Blaze all surrounded the Paralysed director.

Dr Sine closed in on the helpless pony, and delivered a sharp kick to his face.

“I was wrong about you Lucius” spat the director, choking on a mouthful of blood. “You aren’t stupid after all. But I was right when I said you were warped. More than you can possibly imagine!”

“My name is Dr Sine” snorted Dr Sine derisively and turned to walk away. The master race and Blaze moved in, for their long awaited kill.

Dr Sine stood outside the room listening to the Director’s screams as he was dismembered by Sine’s own creations, and then slammed the door and walked away. Picking up his case from the corridor, he returned to the room after the master race were done disposing of the body. Now all that remained was a few small clumps of hair and skin, a crimson puddle in the centre of the room, and a long red streak all the way to the shattered window. On the far side of the office was a way out to the hangar containing the director’s private jet, and his computer. Sine took a copy of all of the director’s files, and wrote out some code on the reactor control program. Then he hurried through the doorway into the hangar and boarded the jet. His master race accompanied him, and Blaze clambered into the pilots seat. They set off through the sandstorm, gaining altitude until they were circling high above it. Dr Sine walked up to the cockpit and sat in the co-pilot’s seat. The small plane circled the facility for a few minutes, until Dr Sine’s handy work became clear. The top right hoof corner of the facility exploded in a plume of fire, turning the sand around it to glass. Though the damage it had caused was relatively small, it would take them some time to repair it, and made certain that they would never forget him.

Blaze set the plane on co-ordinates to land near Canterlot, and they prepared to sit and wait; it would be a long flight. Sine took the opportunity to read through the directors files, most were useless, but one interested Dr Sine greatly. It was a culmination of all the information the director had acquired regarding a mysterious entity known only as ‘The Sanctum’. It referred to the White Mountain Research Facility as being ‘The 4th Sanctum’, a smaller part of the greater organisation. It also listed names and addresses for all of the other Sanctums. He was intrigued to notice that The Children of the Nightmare, of which his father had been a part, was listed as ‘The Eighth Sanctum’. There was a short description of what each Sanctum stood for; this could be useful to him if he was to attempt another takeover. Dr Sine thought for a moment. If he could manage to get one of the other sanctums to follow his ideas, he could still succeed in his dream. However, this would take time, and he needed to catch up on the world’s events first. He was a year out of sync, and was determined to get back on top. His time at White Mountain hadn’t been wasted; the 25 ponies sat with him were a monument to that.

The Story of Dr Sine: 14

Sine looked from the windows of the plane as it crossed Equestria. Blaze was keeping it above cloud level to avoid the strange craft being seen by the inquisitive eyes of the ponies bellow. At the present, the jet was cruising above the fabled Everfree Forrest. Suddenly a strange shape caught his attention, jutting from the darkened treeline. It was a building, mostly obscured by the trees, but from the high angle of the plane, Dr Sine could see its domed surface.

“Take us down here” ordered Sine “I think I saw something” Blaze obediently lowered the plane into a small clearing nearby. The 27 ponies were careful to always keep the plane in view, for it was very easy to get lost in Everfree. They pushed through the foliage and were faced with an awe inspiring sight. Before them, floating above a huge chasm was the legendary floating town of Bloodstone. Sine decided immediately that this would be the perfect base of operations, far away from the prying eyes of society. He knew from the legends in the books he had read when he was but a foal, that Bloodstone was fabled for its ever shifting co-ordinates, so the first thing he did was to tag it with a tracer. This meant that wherever he was, his computer would be able to point him towards the beacon. Secondly, he moved in on hoof to inspect the island.

The few buildings that still stood were too small for his purposes, and he required large amounts of electricity for his experiments, so the higher he was from the ground, the smaller the risk of the power being conducted to it through something. Because of the moonbase project, Dr Sine’s Canterlot apartment contained detailed plans on construction of a base of this sort, and Sine easily replicated Equestria Laboratories’ modular panel design, and used it to create a tall obelisk like tower, which contained only his lab at the very top, bellow that a meeting room, and the sleeping quarters, and at the bottom, a small manufacturing plant that could, given the raw materials, fabricate any item that was programed into its computer. The base was only temporary, and was made to be easily disassembled and moved, such was the beauty of Equestria Laboratories panels.

Dr Sine sat in his new lab as the rest of his companions rested in their beds, and the crisp moonlight flooded into the room. His mind wandered back to Equestria Laboratories. He wondered what had happened to 3.0, he knew that he really ought to have told her that he was leaving, rather than just disappearing, but he knew that in her rampant state she would more than likely have killed Blaze and himself at the notion that they might leave. Despite that, he felt sorry for her. It wasn’t nice to be alone, Sine himself knew that. All the lonely nights that young Lucius Sine had sat awake, listening for the reassuring sound of his parents hooves on the tiled floor downstairs, only to be disappointed by the silence every time. He hoped that 1.0 and 2.0 were company enough, save all the other robots that littered the facilities many workbenches. Perhaps it was for the best. She might have just given up fighting and shut down. Dr Sine dismissed the notion. That was one thing that he knew she would never do.

His thinking was broken by a quiet tap at the door. He stood and opened it. Blaze was stood outside.

“Aah, Blaze, come in” Sine ushered his friend into his lab. He walked over to the dispenser on the side and prepared them a mug of tea each. “Sit down Blaze, have a seat”

Blaze didn’t move. Dr Sine brought back both steaming mugs and put them down carefully on the table on the centre of the room, then sat back in his seat. Blaze clearly wanted to talk to him

“What’s on your mind?”

Blaze sucked up his courage and spoke

“It’s the master race”

“What about them?”

Dr Sine braced himself for the worst. He had always had nightmares that one day the master race might fall out of favour with his and Blaze’s great dream. He was already thinking of plans to try and escape them when the time came.

“They’re too loyal to you” finished Blaze.

“Too loyal?!. What in Equestria are you talking about?”

“They can see no wrong in what you’re doing. They blindly follow orders. They act like hydraulics, only responding to your input”

Sine was not surprised. Almost all of the chemical modifications he had made to their brains had been a success. There were only two, Ten and Seventeen, who had not responded well to the treatment, strangely they were also the prime examples of his master race. Four, on the other hoof was the strongest of the earth ponies, an extremely adept weapon specialist, was undeniably, even zealously, loyal to his master.

“Why is that a bad thing?” asked Sine “I don’t want them questioning my orders, or undermining my authority. I need them to be with me ‘till the last breath”

“But they aren’t your own guards!” protested Blaze “They are supposed to be the first of the new species! They are supposed to be the examples before you spread the DNA around. You’ve become too attached to them on a personal level and now you’re burring our goal, your goal, in their eyes. They don’t see themselves as architects of a species, but as mindless soldiers, following you!”

Sine leapt from his chair filled with rage, knocking over the table and spilling the tea. He grabbed Blaze by the throat.

“You listen here Blaze! We are in this together and that means we need trust! I need you to trust me to do what is best for our goal, and that doesn’t mean you can betray me too! Everypony I ever trust betrays me in the end!”

Blaze easily shrugged of Sine’s hoof.

“Mindless soldiers…” he murmured

“Implying that that’s not what I want!” screamed Dr Sine, in the upmost anger “I want to save Equestria from all the failures and defects and deformities that have been the product of 100,000 years of bad evolution! I will not let you take this away from me”

Blaze turned and stormed out of the room to his sleeping quarters. Dr Sine crumpled into his chair and cried heavily all night. He had been nasty to his only friend, and now Blaze was unhappy too.

The next night, he sneaked down to Blaze’s room with the electrodes and removed all memories of the argument from Blaze’s memory. He deeply wished that he could remove them from his own troubled mind.

The Story of Dr Sine: 15

The next day Blaze was bright and cheerful as usual, and though Sine was still sombre, he was ready to start work on tracking down their next potential candidates. Using the data he had gathered from the director’s computer, he was attempting to track down the other sections of the mysterious Sanctum. It was proving extremely difficult. The only information relevant to contacting the others was a photograph of a worn wooded=n plank, in which was engraved a series of pictograms and words scrawled in High Equestrian, the lost language of the tribal ponies.

The bulk of the text Sine could interpret was

First of all are the darkened league,

The second line of glyphs were in poor condition, apparently burned by a fire. The next line read;

Third are the purest and seek for but love,

Fourth strive for progress, to go beyond and above

The Fifth now-

The wooden plank was damaged here also, slashed across with scored lines.

And Sixth seek to return chaos to all

Seventh fight for where their alien gods roam,

But Eighth find their celestia closer to home

Ninth seek to purify their whole land

And in Solaris’ name Tenth will stand

The puzzling runes also included a cryptic clue as to where each could be found. The only one Sine could understand was that of the Seventh Sanctum, which stated ‘look to the place where the sun crosses the horizon. There you will find us’.

Sine took Ten, Four and Seventeen with him. They travelled to the mountains above Manehattan, that Dr Sine had watched from his penthouse apartment many times. To hide their identity, they donned hoods and cloaks and took on the persona of traveling scholars. Reaching the bottom of the mountain, Sine threw back his hood to reveal his horn and Ten followed suit. From his own research Dr Sine had discovered the logo of the Seventh Sanctum, a circle composed of square blocks, the top one being larger than all the rest. He and Ten cast a projection of this shape into the sky high above them. Sine was making it extremely obvious that he wanted an audience. From the mouth of a small cave came one solitary pony, a tan mare with sunken yellow eyes that heavily dilated in the bright open sun. Wordlessly, she led the three ponies down into the caves, traversing the winding passages with no second thought. Soon there was a noise brewing, and all of a sudden the four walked out onto a rocky peninsular above a huge chamber filled with ponies. Sine estimated that there must have been around 500 members of the Seventh Sanctum, all gathered to see the new arrival.

A voice emanated from somewhere

“Why have you come?”

“Because it is the will of the gods” declared Sine. He prepared to recite the speech that he had spent hours devising and perfecting.

“Seventh Sanctum, I am here to convey a message. As I lay sleeping last night, one of the greater beings, a celestia, reached out to my mind. Naturally I was in awe at the beauty and power it emanated, but I was inspired. It told me to come here and to seek you out, and to show you their gifts to us as a species!”

The three master race ponies stepped forward so everypony could see them. Seventeen flew round the room at immense speeds and Ten produced balls of light, Four flipped his swords about his body at deadly speeds.

“These ‘heralds’ are what the gods feel we should become. They are part pony, part alien like themselves and they are super enhanced. They have assured me that we will succeed in their resurrection, and that both myself and the heralds are to play a vital role in their victory candescence. Who’s with me!”

The crowd gave a triumphant cheer. Sine beamed happily. The fact that he had just won over a huge crowd of ponies he had just met was attributed to the excellent example that the master race had made.

Suddenly Sine was pushed away from the peninsula by a pair of strong hooves and teleported alongside Four, Ten and Seventeen into a large office, decorated like an Edwardian gentlecolt’s study. Stood in the centre was a dark blue unicorn wearing a smoking jacket. He looked fit to burst with anger.

“Now look here old chap” he began “I don’t know who the Dickens you think you are, waltzing into my chambers and receiving adoration, from my Sanctum when you are clearly spouting a load of old codswallop!”

“I was spoken to by the gods” replied Dr Sine flatly. He was not going to take no for an answer.

“Liar!” shouted the unicorn “I have the sole greatest psychic connection to the minds of our gods, and I can tell you sir, that there has been no such visitation. If you don’t leave immediately and take your tacky black ponies with you, I’ll be forced to remove you!”

Dr Sine acted quickly. He leapt forward out of the reach of the unicorn guard, straight at the leader of the Sanctum and pinioned him to the ground. Seventeen extended his huge wings extremely quickly, and slammed the guard out of the frosted glass window down into the crowd of expectant ponies bellow. Sine had made the first move, however, the leader was too quick for him, and easily kicked him off into Seventeen, knocking them both flying. Ten cast her paralysis spell and it caught the Seventh Sanctum’s leader unaware. He hung, suspended in the bright pink glow.

Four lunged forward with his sword and stabbed it straight through his torso. The unfortunate pony convulsed, and then hung limply, with a trickle of blood escaping his lips, and a look of surprise still on his face. Four ruthlessly hacked off the pony’s head and gave it to Dr Sine. He walked out onto the peninsula once more, now bearing his gory trophy aloft.

“Death to the false prophet!” cheered Dr Sine, and the audience cheered alongside him. He tossed away the severed head away into the crowd and prepared to leave.

The Story of Dr Sine: 16

He led the Seventh Sanctum members back across Equestria to Bloodstone, which had moved to just off the coast and over the horizon of the Manehattan, where they built a whole new base from the same panels, on top of the existing one. The expanse of facility they now possessed was a slight reminder of the old days of Equestria Laboratories. It seemed like such a long time ago that the young stallion of Lucius Sine had walked in or the first time.

Now that he had his army, Sine could set to work. He needed to gather all the information about the other Sanctums. The Seventh Sanctum had a huge archive of data regarding any of the alien contact Equestria had experienced, and reading through all of their books showed Dr Sine just how much Celestia and her ministers had censored the news from the population. The Seventh Sanctum had managed to save one copy of every book regarding the alien incursions, and also had a fair amount of data on the history of ‘The Sanctum’ as a whole, knowledge that the director had lacked at White Mountain. From his continuing study of all the sources he could find, Sine came to the conclusion that he could gather valuable resources and increased military numbers from the other sanctums. He planned to discover where he could find them all, and to merge all of the smaller Sanctums into one large one, reminiscent of the old times before the schism that had torn them apart. With himself as the leader he could use the mass of numbers to storm Canterlot and destroy Celestia.

He didn’t even want to take over Equestria himself, he just needed to get rid of the tyrant who was in control, with Celestia gone, Luna would be released from her imprisonment, and she could take her place as rightful princess of Equestria.

A stroke of luck came for the Seventh Sanctum as they sat in Bloodstone, which was at that point far out in the middle of the ocean.

Sine was sat with Blaze discussing battle formations for the heralds, when suddenly there was a crack like thunder. Dr Sine was confused, because it was the middle of the day and the bright afternoon sun still shone through his window. He hurried out onto his balcony and was greeted with an astounding sight. A huge portal, like a gash in the tapestry of reality had torn open a quarter of a mile away, it must have been two miles high by three miles long. The other side was a shifting mass of crimson and purple, with random bursts of other colours swirling like a cloud of unearthly gas. Some of the strange substance floated through the tear, and into the air before them. Dr Sine stood, his mouth agape. All of the other ponies aboard the island left their quarters and came out to stare at the huge portal. Slowly, something started to move through, as if sucked by an unforeseen force towards the realm in which the ponies stood. It was an immense chunk of rock at lease a kilometre high and wide, pointed at the bottom like it had been pulled directly from the ground. The island itself was mostly a kind of dull black rock, but parts were covered with shiny coats, like small chunks of granite or marble. The whole thing was riddled with honeycomb passages, and most bizarrely of all, once it was through the portal, it didn’t fall. The island was flying, rather than merely floating like Bloodstone, and it was much larger, perhaps three of four times its size. The strange maroon tear in the air shimmered now that the hulking rock was through, and with a small sound like water draining down a sink, it collapsed in on itself. The whole scene was silent, but for the lapping af the waves bellow. All at once, pandemonium broke out across the ship. The Sanctum Members were dancing about together and whooping with joy, some with hats even threw them in the air in jubilation. Dr Sine nodded to Ten, who used her magic to amplify his voice, and he cleared his throat for an impromptu speech.

“Brothers!” he called out across the ponies below him “The old gods have rewarded your loyalty at casting out the traitorous old leaders and embracing your new lieges, the Heralds! Rejoice, for the heavens shine bright upon us blessed few. Together we shall make this bounteous gift our new promised land!”

The crowd broke into wild celebration once again, and Sine turned and walked back into his room. He didn’t believe in the old gods of The Seventh Sanctum, aliens yes, the proof was undeniable, but they were no gods. The aliens were mortal beings like themselves, well the rest of the ponies. The Heralds and himself didn’t age giving the illusion of immortality. However if these lucky coincidences kept happening then he was not going to complain. The appearance of this huge flying rock was perfectly timed to secure his position of power in The Seventh Sanctum, and he intended to use it for all it was worth.

Over the next two days the Sanctum moved quickly, moving supplies and eventually infrastructure from Bloodstone to the new floating island. As useful as Bloodstone had been; a base that was moving was impossible for enemies to track down, but it was impractical not knowing where your own base was. It was far simpler to use the island, which, when they had added engines, would be under their control. The Equestria Labs style buildings were reassembled in different shapes, but now they were also painted in dark colours, black and dark red, to blend in with the strange rocks.

As soon as his lab was reconfigured, Dr Sine and Blaze set to work on discovering where exactly the floating island had come from. The portal it had come from clearly led off the planet, no such conditions existed on Equestria, but Sine was excited to discover that the portal might not have been a purely physical portal to somewhere in the universe, but to another universe entirely. Back at Equestria Laboratories, 3.0 had started a portal testing program just before he had left. Apparently she had recruited some test subjects, and was running trials with a prototype quantum funnelling device. The portals it had produced when he had seen her test it were round or oval shaped, and would only open and close on command. Inspection of the rock showed no means of opening the portal, or closing it, so Sine had assumed it was down to the immense gravity of the object ‘tearing’ a hole from one universe to the next. He vowed to make this his next large research project, when he was done with the master race.

The Story of Dr Sine: 17

Over the next years, the Sanctum worked on the island, building engines and studying the new elements and compounds aboard their new home. Dr Sine slipped easily into the role of Director, as he was an extremely good public speaker, even if he didn’t actually believe what he was saying. It was for this reason his father had always tried to push him into politics. Sine was the greatest religious leader the Seventh Sanctum had ever witnessed, and soon all memory of the time before Dr Sine liberated them from their heretical leaders was a distant memory, a dark age that had been long forgotten. The expanse of flat ground on top of the island was built up into huge towers and spires, and soon a bustling city was progressing, based entirely on the Seventh Sanctum’s doctrine. The 500 few members they had when the cult was taken over by Sine had grown exponentially, until they had 2000 members living on the island. Despite this, Dr Sine did not attempt to produce any more of his master race, as it would have led to tension between the others. However, he did attempt to produce one more genetically engineered pony. As luck would have it, one Seventh Sanctum member was on leave in Canterlot when she happened to meet with Princess Luna. The princess did not meet many ponies out at night and Luna was happy to join her for a drink and a bite to eat afterwards. After the meal, Luna had dabbed her mouth with a napkin, and the Sanctum member had managed to acquire it. From the few cells on the paper, Sine had isolated the extremely complex gene that led to a pony being born and alicorn. Unfortunately, it took a lot of work to copy the code, as it was structured entirely differently to regular pony DNA, some other features were coded for, so Dr Sine had to sacrifice his improved versions from the stored genome.

The experiment was a secret, Dr Sine didn’t want the rest of his master race to know, so he and Blaze gathered in his lab before the birthing tube at midnight, Dr Sine had his  lab soundproofed so he could run loud experiments at night, and he and Blaze donned their safety goggles, ready to create life once again. Sine hit the switch, and the lightning rod on the roof angled up towards the cloudy sky, drawing in the power from the charged air into Dr Sine’s machine. With a crackle of electricity, and a flash, the small speck of cells in the orange tank began to swell. The lightning could be seen in the bright tank, much the same way as a filament could be seen in a light bulb. After a few minutes, the strange looking alicorn body was at about the age of a teenager. Sine killed the power and the pony slowly climbed out of the tank. It matched the physical requirements of the master race, large wings and horn, and it’s mane was straight rather than curly, but it’s body was a cool ice blue, and it’s eyes were gold, like a lions. The new foal stood before the two scientists, and Blaze raised his glasses to look more closely. Suddenly the filly collapsed, holding her head and screaming. Blaze jumped back but Sine was by her side immediately. The filly was writhing in the grip of some invisible tormenter, her gold magic flashed about the room sporadically, damaging equipment left on the workbenches. Blaze quickly extended his large wings to shield himself and Sine from the bursts of energy, and after a few moments more the filly slumped and her eyes closed.

“Sorry Twenty Six” Sine said quietly, and kissed her cheek gently. He looked up at Blaze with tears building up in his eyes, Blaze had never seen Lucius Sine cry in all the years he had known him, but he was unusually attached to his creations.

“What are we going to do?” he asked, as the tears broke free and began to run down his face in a stream. He looked the epitome of misery, sat cradling the head of an essentially still-born alicorn.

A short while later, by the pale glow of the moon, Blaze and Sine stood at the edge of the city, high above the ocean, the only attendee’s at the funeral of Twenty Six. Neither of them said anything, and with a nod from Sine’s tear streaked head, Blaze tipped the body, wrapped in a white shroud, off the cliff down to the sea bellow. Neither of them looked to see it land, and turned to return to the facility. Sine deleted the version of his alicorn genome. He was not going to risk it again.

Twenty Six’s death was not an equipment malfunction, neither was it a genetic error, the only explanation Sine could find to put his tormented mind at rest was that she had extremely enhanced psychic powers, far beyond any other pony ever, and the manifestation of this had destroyed her mind. Sine had discovered that he had some small level of psychic power himself, but for all these years he had left it untapped. Now he was a leader, it might serve him well to be able to read minds, to search for deceit, so he brought up all the books he could acquire and attempted to teach himself. It was met with limited success, because his other senses continued to disrupt his concentration, and he found it difficult to maintain focus on the mind of one individual. He made a note to return to his studies later, when he had less on his mind; after all, Dr Sine new the value of patience better than anypony before or since.

Soon work on construction engines was completed, and Dr Sine was very happy with the level of craftsmanship and intelligence that had gone into their design. The engines on the outside were not much of a sight, large fat cylinders that blasted fire and steam out of the bottom of the island, but the reactors that powered them were another matter. Immense towers of glass and polished metal filled with red hot plasma which powered the colossal engines. The chamber in which they were housed was a natural structure, refitted for their purposes, so the huge room was adorned with stalagmites and other features that added to the ‘underground feel’ of the whole place. All the honey comb caves were connected up, meaning navigation around the city was as easy as pie, considering you know the place or have a map.

The Story of Dr Sine: 18

Sine ordered the city to be moved from the sea towards the Crystal Mountains, as a test of whether the engines could take the strain. The huge floating island moved at an acceptable pace, and soon the rock was floating behind the Crystal Mountains, hidden from the view of anypony in Equestria. Whilst Dr Sine studied the strange realm from which the rock had come, Blaze and the other scientists worked on light bending technology. Their experiments were a success in part; they could create large scale invisibility, but not the small pony sized kind they had been hoping for. This technology was applied to the flying city, so that it could become invisible whilst moving over densely populated areas.

Sine was still having difficulty finding any other accounts of the strange phenomenon he had witnessed, knowing it couldn’t have been a one off. From his calculations, he assumed that such portals could exist from another universe anywhere in the galaxy, and were randomly generated when objects of enough mass travelled too close to the borders between this universe and the next. He made a sudden breakthrough when one of his Canterlot spies managed to acquire copies of two books from the archives. One was a deep sea fisherman’s account of a strange light, like a tear in the sky, which had spewed fire and brimstone into the sea around him. The ponies of Equestria had always assumed the author was mad, but Sine knew better. The other book was from the restricted science section of the library, and the operative had risked a life sentence from the guards to retrieve it. It was a documentation from Celestia about a being called Soulfeeder who lived in a realm known as ‘The Afterlife’ or rather, one of the many afterlives. Dr Sine knew Celestia was not a liar, nor was she prone to religious ramblings, so her experience must have been based on fact and evidence. The details were shady at best, but he managed to discover that Soulfeeder was an alicorn, similar to Celestia herself, who existed as keeper of the dead in the Afterlife. Portals to and from the afterlife could be manufactured by force using magic, or in some cases occur naturally. The book contained no accurate description of the afterlife, but Dr Sine was certain that it was the realm from which the floating city had come. The strange matter that had come through alongside the rock was equally as interesting. It was not in any of the four states of matter that existed in Equestria, solid, liquid, gas or plasma, but something between a gas and a liquid. It had mass, and could support any amount of weight in itself up to, but not exceeding its own mass, but it didn’t appear to exert any friction on its surroundings, nor did it seem affected by gravity. It burned if set alight, but was extremely unreactive otherwise. Sine proposed that this strange state of matter made up the majority of the afterlife, and this was how rocks like the island were carried, in currents like waves through the universe. This also meant that it would be possible to travel through the afterlife, though this would require Sine to come across another portal, and that was not likely. Also, if it closed then the test subject would be trapped, until they found another way out.

The island city was perfect for the Seventh Sanctum’s needs. It was manoeuvrable to wherever they saw fit, and was large enough to hold all of their building, libraries and churches.

During the next few years, Sine researched deeper into robotics, or rather organic-robotics. He directed his research specifically at the mind, the most powerful organ the body had to offer. He used the same system as Blaze’s memory chip to store false memories that could override an individual’s real mind and make them remember things that never happened. It was based on an idea one other scientist at White Mountain had been working on for instant learning, but he couldn’t find a way for the real brain to accept the new memories once the chip was removed. Dr Sine used the prototypes of these chips on test subjects harvested from isolated regions of Equestria. For the duration that the chips were embedded on their necks, the ponies remembered being attacked by the royal guards and Celestia, in a simulation Dr Sine had created himself on his computer and installed on the prototypes. The three once normal ponies grew to hate Celestia and were happy to join The Seventh Sanctum.

This gave Sine an idea. If he could add a chip like this to a large number of regular ponies, he could force them to believe in his ideas without having to lie to them. It was perfect. A plan began to form together in his head.

He would use the loyalists to storm Canterlot and bring in the island as a support unit. He would defeat the guard quickly, and once he had control, he would round up the civilians, ship them up to the city and process them into additional troops. The more ponies the rebels used to defend against them, the stronger their second wave would be.

Dr Sine knew that for his takeover to be a success, he had to wait for the perfect moment, no compromising, and Sine was a master of patience. Over the next 700 years he ruled the Seventh Sanctum, sending out small task forces to steal and pillage, keeping them in the public eye. The fact that they were never caught made the ponies of Equestria feel unsafe, and made them doubt that Celestia could rule alone. More covertly, some his followers infiltrated all of Equestria’s major organisations, including the weather factory. The Children of Nightmare took the Seventh Sanctum’s increased presence as a sign to follow in their hoof steps. The group began attacking small businesses and anything openly associated with Celestia, calling for the monarch to stand down and abdicate. Celestia and the Equestrian guard quickly found and targeted the leaders of such rebel factions and disposed of them quietly to avoid them receiving martyrdom. Sine knew that the Children of Nightmare were foolish to attempt their stand when they did, the Equestrian Guard was at full strength and given plenty of time to prepare. Dr Sine learned from every failed attempt of others to gain power, and then 880 years after Luna had been banished, he sent a letter to each of the other Sanctums that remained, one, three, six, eight, nine and ten. He asked them to join him and mount a combined effort to overthrow Celestia and change history. With the huge numbers from the other Sanctum’s, their success was assured. Sine was confident that the reputation he had built up would encourage the others to join him. Unfortunately, it seemed the others did not share Dr Sine’s passionate dream. The only two replies were form the first and tenth.

The first’s message read

“To whom it may concern,

We have observed your actions to this point, and we do not share in your views. For this long we have abided with your antics for you serve your purpose, but do not think you are the only one with half a brain around here. If you become a threat to our security or our own master plan, we will not hesitate to destroy you.

The Director of the First Sanctum”

The second was even more of a blow to Sine’s plan.

“Dr Sine, director of the Seventh Sanctum.

It seems you do not fully comprehend the forces you are dealing with. You seem to think that your Sanctum is more powerful than us, and you are sadly mistaken. You blaspheme the name of our immortal empress, the sun goddess herself, but in her mercy we are willing to overlook your mistake this once. Desist any action which does not support the solar princess entirely or we will be forced to declare a state of war.

You have been warned.

The high council of the Celestial Guard”

Sine was furious. Not just that any foolish ponies were drawn in by Celestia’s act, but also that they had claimed to be stronger than his Sanctum. Dr Sine knew that his was by far the most mighty of all the organisations in Equestria, and he would prove it if necessary.

The Story of Dr Sine: 19

That night Sine modified the magic gauntlets he had stolen from White Mountain and added a ring of 3 motion activated blades that would retract and extend on a flick of the wrist.

No more time for games.

He sent Four, Ten and Seventeen to the largest and greatest place of worship for the Celestial Guard, an elegant building between Ponyville and Canterlot devoted to catching the glory of the sun at dawn and morning it’s going down at night. The three heralds jumped out of the floating city, and soared down, Seventeen on his wings and the other two using small compact gliders. They hid in the forest surrounding the temple and waited. They could see the front of the building, a white gleaming devotion to the sole ruler of Equestria. Behind the Romanesque colonnade that spanned the front of the building were three guards, burly bouncer types, armed with small machine guns. The letter from Dr Sine had put them on edge, and they were not taking any chances. Stealthy as the dark itself, Seventeen shot out of the trees and soared over the colonnade, attempting to draw the guards out into the open. The three ponies heard and moved out just as planned. They raised their guns and pointed upward, this was not part of the plan. One fired at the dark and a hail of bullets whizzed past Seventeen. Four ran out into the open and leaped at one guard, as he did he snapped out his gauntlet’s blades. Ten fired three quick bolts of magic out and knocked the guns from the guards’ hooves, before they could open fire at Four. Seventeen swooped down and crushed one of them to the ground, using the momentum of gravity to aid in his assault. Four used the gauntlets’ curving blades to deal with the other two.

Ten was horrified to see how much he was enjoying the killing, and Seventeen agreed with her. They had been unhappy with this mission, and they did not want to hurt the Celestial Guard, but when Sine gave an order they had to obey it. However, Four had always been an excellent fighter, and the only thing he loved more than the thrill of killing was Dr Sine. He was the loyalist of all the heralds, and this made him overly meticulous about carrying out orders. Ten and seventeen stood and watched their disgraced kin with disgust and some fear. If they could, they would both have flown away right now, and never had anything to do with Dr Sine or Blaze ever again; But protocol dictated action, and they were physically incapable of acting against Sine’s wishes. Four finished his precise dissection of the unfortunate guards, and the three moved into the large oak doors. Seventeen hit them with a shoulder charge and splinted the heavy door inwards. Once inside, they spared one moment to take in the beauty of the place, richly embroiled tapestries of the royal alicorn, plush red carpets for the whole room and huge marble statues of the princess in many elegant poses. In the centre of the room was a huge statue of Celestia’s cutie mark, built into an ornate fountain that jetted water many meters into the air. The stained glass windows depicted many pictures of Celestia vanquishing beasts and monsters, and the largest showed her using the fabled Elements of Harmony to defeat Nightmare Moon.

Ten and Seventeen stood in awe, but were broken from their reverie by Four. He threw down his pack and opened it, producing two large cans of fuel. He began dousing the carpet and the tapestries in the black liquid, then turned to them.

“Are you two gonna stand their gawping whilst I destroy this filthy heresy myself?” He shouted. The two really did not want to destroy the beautiful monument, and simply stood, wishing that they were not there. Four shrugged and kicked Seventeen to the ground ruthlessly and tore off his saddlebags.

“I knew our lord was misguided to think you two were capable of this” he continued. From one bag he produced a large mallet and smashed away the intricately caved legs of one statue, and it fell smashed, to the floor where it broke into many small chunks of marble. Seventeen closed his eyes to try and blot out the sacrilege. Four extended his gauntlet wrist blades, still dripping with blood, and slashed through many of the paintings and decorations. Finally, he took out some plastic explosives and placed four of them around the central fountain, and one on each of the hexagonal walls.

“Don’t you think maybe Dr Sine would want us to do upstairs?” asked Ten. “Me and Seventeen have a can of fuel each, we’ll do the next floor.

Four brightened slightly that the other two were willing to help him destroy the temple, and he continued to wreck anything he could on the lower floor.

Ten and Seventeen hurried upstairs, but instead of destroying what they found, Ten stuffed as many small items into her bags as she could, and Seventeen followed suit. Anything they couldn’t carry they gathered into a huge pile in the centre of the room. Seventeen found a huge cylindrical container in one of the boilers, and they filled it with precious artefacts. Seventeen snuck outside through a window and used his wings to dig a deep hole. Ten passed the canister out of the window and scattered a small amount of fuel about. She destroyed a few marble plinths to make it look as if Seventeen and herself had been destroying the room. They buried the casket of relics just inside the forest so no one would ever know, and marked the spot themselves by destroying the trees in the area. If one day they did manage to get free of Dr Sine, then they could recover it and return the artefacts to their rightful owners, even if they couldn’t it was better than watching them burn.

The three ponies left the facility, Four dragged the bodies of the ponies he had killed inside and used the sharp edge on his wrist blade to cast sparks onto the fuel soaked floor. The fuel caught fire, and within a few seconds the whole building was ablaze. Ten and Seventeen were saddened by the mindless destruction, but it was in the flickering orange glow of the burning building that Four looked most alive. Their work done, the three heralds returned to the city.

The Story of Dr Sine: 20

The next day Dr Sine, Blaze and the heralds stood in Sine’s laboratory, and looked at the days newspaper. The front cover read ‘Shrine of the Celestial Fanatics Destroyed by Terrorists’. Dr Sine smiled at the pictures of the burnt ruins of the once might fortress. It gave the clear message to the Celestial Fanatics, or Celestial Guard as they called themselves, that The Seventh Sanctum was not a throwaway issue.

Suddenly a guard rushed into the room, his armour clattering and his breath hoarse.

“What is the meaning of this!?” exclaimed Dr Sine

“The Celestial Fanatics…Army…attacking” panted the guard. Dr Sine ran to the balcony and threw open the doors. He saw on the flat plains beside Canterlot a huge mass of black shapes. He realised that it was the Celestial Guard, coming to attack them. “fools” cursed Dr Sine “If they mean to attack us then they are sadly mistaken. Prepare the island to move over there, we will bring the fight to them”

Whilst the city moved, it’s cloaking activated, Dr Sine discussed his battle plan with the heralds. He would send the mane forces of the Seventh Sanctum forward, the same way as the Tenth Sanctum was moving, but Blaze and the 25 heralds would fly out and attack from behind the enemy lines. If they successfully killed the Tenth Sanctums Director, the whole army would fall apart and by the time they got to the bulk of the Seventh Sanctum they would be in disarray. He gave each of them a gauntlet and gave the unicorns and earth ponies gliders. The plan relied of surprise, so Dr Sine had to deploy his ground forces immediately. Each of the Seventh Sanctum’s members was equipped with a full set of black body armour, and a spear, these could be charged with magic to use as projectile weapons, or simply as a melee weapon. Using the newly designed teleports Sine had created during his study of the afterlife rift, they teleported onto the ground. The individual Seventh Sanctum troops heavily out gunned the Tenth Sanctum, and Dr Sine was confident in their victory. He put Blaze in charge as squad leader and sent the master race down to the launch pad on the edge of the city.

As the 26 of them moved through the abandoned city, they had a strange uneasiness about them. Everything was going according to plan, and that was generally not a good thing. Blaze led them through the computer hub, the nerve centre of the whole city, a vast room filled with all the computers and servers that kept the place running. Seventeen stopped and listened.

“Quiet. I think I heard something”

“Quit being a coward Seventeen” Snapped Four “Your just trying to find an excuse to-“

Suddenly, there was an explosion that knocked them off their hooves. It had blown a whole in one of the walls and they were confronted by a squad of ponies in huge suits of cybernetic armour. Both groups were equally shocked by the other, but the Celestial Guard recovered first. The lead robot raised its hoof

“Burn in holy fire heretics!” it shouted, and a torrent of fire burst from the end of the hoof, igniting Twelve and Thirteen in the blast. All of the Sanctum Members leapt forward into battle. Four and Five drew out their daggers and leapt onto the first suit of armour, stabbing and slashing through its joints before stabbing through its face plate. The daggers drew back covered in blood. One robot swung for Ten, and she raised her magical shield to protect herself, Sixteen jumped in to protect her, but the robot was too fast and Sixteen was blasted by the red hot fire.

“Death to the nonbelievers” shouted another robot. Its shoulder opened and revealed a missile launcher. Twenty Four saw what was about to happen, a missile in this tight confined space would kill them all, so she flapped her wings and flew straight at the suit, ramming her gauntlet straight into its face plate.

The missile exploded, and the two burning husks fell, the suit crushed Twenty beneath it’s burning chest as it fell.

Yet another robot forced its way past the corpses of its brothers and blasted a column of fire across the room, which caught One, Fourteen and Seven in its range. The three fell to the floor, screaming as their bodies burnt. One hulking robot kicked away the corpses and brought its fist down into the floor, knocking all the survivors onto the ground. Ten saw her chance and jumped to her hooves, she ran, and Seventeen stood, backing her up, the robot aimed its flamethrower at them but it was too late. Ten stabbed her gauntlet into the glowing disk in the centre of its chest. The suit collapsed, but something wasn’t right. It was glowing and crackling with energy. Sparks shot from its joints and the two could hear the pony inside screaming in fear. There was a loud bang and the suit exploded in an immense fire ball. The small room that they had been fighting in was on the very edge of the city, and the explosion was great enough to destroy a portion of the floor below. The room and all of its occupants fell from the side of the city in the explosion, and crashed into the ground below.

The EMP of the explosion wiped all the computers memories, and shut down all electrical appliances on board the city. From Dr Sine office he felt the explosion and panicked. All the lights went out and the huge island began to lose altitude. Dr Sine quickly hit the switch for the auxiliary boosters, and the city steadied itself.

In the wreckage of the room below, Seventeen slowly came around. His head throbbed violently and he could feel blood running down his flank and neck. He unfurled his wings which he had wrapped around Ten to protect her, she was the only one in the room he cared about. Her mane was a mess and she was covered in small burns and cuts, but seemed otherwise unhurt. He remembered her words from the night previously, and took a decision. He carried her unconscious form from the burning wreckage and spread his wings. He gripped Ten tightly and soared away from the battle, hoping never to see Dr Sine ever again.

A short while after, Four awoke. His front legs were badly broken but he fought through the pain. From the burning wreckage he found that only three other ponies were alive. He dragged their bodies from the fire and went back in. He fought through the fire and flames, to find his swords and search for survivors. The only ponies he couldn’t account for were Seventeen, Ten, Fifteen and Five. He assumed that their bodies must have been destroyed or burnt beyond recognition. Picking through the wreckage he couldn’t seem to find Blaze either. He managed to find what he was looking for, his swords and an undamaged gauntlet. It was still connected the wrist of its previous owner, but with two quick blows from his knifes it was his to take. He sat by Nine, Two and Eight, the other survivors, and charged the gauntlet before sending a magical flare up into the sky.

Sine was using his battery operated scanners to watch the battle unfold, thought the Seventh Sanctum were cutting through the Celestial Guards numbers rapidly, they did not seem to be breaking formation. He would have expected the death of their leaders to have crippled the Tenth Sanctum’s war effort entirely. He panned the camera up to the top of their ranks, and caught sight of their Director, wearing bright gold battle armour pushing on the offensive. How had the master race not destroyed him yet!?

His attention was distracted by a bright flash to the left of his vision, and he looked to see a bright green magic flare shoot up into the air. He followed the glow down, and saw a huge pile of burning debris, flames licking out of the ruins. Beside it were a few of his master race, slumped down.

Dr Sine’s heart skipped a beat. His creations… No, It couldn’t be… They must be alive; they couldn’t die, not like this!

Dr Sine dropped everything and sprinted as fast as his legs would carry him out onto the starboard of the city, and stared down at the huge hole that had been blown out of it, then down to the wreckage bellow. With tears welling up in his eyes he pieced together what must have happened, and sank to his knees, screaming silently at the injustice of it. They’d come this far, and now they were dead. Dr Sine blotted out the rest of the universe and lay on his side crying. The salty tears stained his cheeks and Sine stayed there for an hour time, sobbing.

Finally, he stood. Perhaps Blaze was ok. After all, somepony had to have sent the distress beacon. He was distraught at the loss of his master race, his foals, but Blaze at least gave him a reason to keep on living. He watched the final stages of the battle, The Seventh Sanctum had killed so many of the Tenth that they were starting to look like they wanted to retreat. A stray shot from a magically charged spear hit the Director, and his golden armour conducted the blast, vaporising him. With that, the Tenth Sanctum broke formation and fled.

The Story of Dr Sine: 21

At the end of the battle Sine reviewed his troops. The main fighting force had only lost 125 ponies in the fight, but the master race had suffered dearly. Four, Nine, Eight and Two were the only survivors, and the EMP had destroyed most of the files on Dr Sine’s computer, including instructions for creating the birthing tubes that in turn made the master race. Dr Sine renamed the few survivors the Sanctum Elite, two earth ponies, one pegasus and one unicorn.

In an ode to their fallen heroes, the rest of the Seventh Sanctum tattooed their bodies black, to match the colour of the surviving Sanctum Elite.

The news that Blaze was gone was too much for Sine. Now he was completely alone in the universe, but for his four foals, the Sanctum Elite. He tried to go on, and continue the fight as if he had just lost one of his generals, but it was more than that. Blaze had been like a brother to him his whole life, from the first sketchy picture, he had been with him for 940 years in one form or another, and his death made Sine feel like he had lost an important part of himself. One night whilst the rest of the Sanctum was asleep, he couldn’t take the pain any longer. He walked out to the engine room. He climbed over the protective railing and let himself fall into the grinding gears that kept the turbine running. Unfortunately for Dr Sine, Eight had also been pacing the ship, unable to sleep, and when he saw Dr Sine fall into the engine, he thought it was an accident. In an act of unshakable loyalty, he used his magic to halt the spinning machinery and dived into the huge gears. Slipping unsteadily on the oily surfaces, he spied Dr Sine’s leg wedged in a conveyer belt and retrieved his master’s broken body. In doing so, he used up all of his magical energy, and whilst he lifted Sine to safety, he exhausted himself, and the machines restarted, crushing him between its millions of teeth and pistons.

This only added to Dr Sine’s sadness, that one of his own foals had sacrificed themselves to give him another chance at life. Despite his depression and his crippled body, he vowed to live on in respect to those who had died in his name. The engines had done a significant amount of damage to Dr Sine in the time he was wedged in the machinery and when he awoke, his body was nearly destroyed. The only reason he lived was through Sine’s determination to not let Eight’s sacrifice be in vain. He was partially blinded by the oil that had gone in his eyes, all his leg bones were broken in multiple places, and many of his blood vessels had been ruptured under his skin. This made him extremely pale, with blotchy red patches around his body. He commissioned a pair of dark glasses to cover his ruined eyes and spent a lot of time in the hospital, performing bone reconstruction magic. His legs would never be as strong as they were before, and he no longer had the genetic codes he had used to create the high density muscle he had before. Fortunately, Sine had retained his mind's capacity for learning, and decided to use technology to repair his body. He wired up the same robotics he had used on Blaze’s robot eyes all those years ago to his own brain. The optical sensors did not adjust to light the same way as a pony’s eye, necessitating his dark glasses to remain on, but it was an improvement nonetheless.

During his research, he tested out dark and previously untested spells, allowing him to see into another pony’s mind. He used it for secretly spying on Seventh Sanctum members who he thought may be plotting uprisings. This only ever proved to be the case once, and Dr Sine had Four dispose of the individual.

Just before the turn of the century, a sensational event happened in Equestria which aided Dr Sine’s control of the Sanctum immensely. One night, a small task force of aliens landed on Equestria, a splinter faction of a greater tendril that was crossing the galaxy. Many of the Seventh Sanctum were driven into a mad blood lust by the arrival of their gods, but for the most part Dr Sine managed to stop them from taking action. He saw that the Equestrian military was too strong for the aliens to win the battle, hence he had not attempted his own takeover yet, but in the struggle many of them would probably die. The small task force of aliens was defeated, and to Dr Sine’s surprise another huge organic ship arrived to reinforce the invaders. However, his fears were quickly resolved as another ship exited the strange afterlife portals that Sine noted must be becoming more frequent, and dragged the ship away with it. Another task force destroyed the remaining ship, and the invasion drew to a close, with victory for the populus of Equestria. Secretly, Dr Sine was happy that the invasion had failed, but the rest of the Seventh Sanctum was mortified. They vowed to recreate the portal and bring the aliens back, a promise Sine promised to fulfill when they had destroyed Celestia, through he had no intention of doing so.

Finally, Dr Sine had decided the date for the attack on Canterlot, exactly 1000 years after Equestria Laboratories was shut down. The number of spies present in Canterlot was increased tenfold. They revealed to Sine that one pony, Twilight Sparkle was obstinate that Nightmare Moon was going to return on the longest day of the 1000th year, so it might be a good idea to postpone the attack slightly, because Twilight may have put the princess on edge.

This turned out to be an excellent decision, when on the longest day of the thousandth year  Nightmare Moon did actually return, and immediately she banished Celestia to the sun.

At first Sine was ecstatic. The true princess of Equestria had returned and taken back control. However, when he saw her he realised that Celestia had been telling the truth 1000 years ago. Luna really was possessed by an evil creature, Nightmare Moon was far larger than Luna and was truly monstrous. Worst of all, she wanted to bring about eternal night. Because of this, Sine was as happy as anypony else when the daylight broke the horizon once again, even if it meant Celestia had returned.

Sine’s spies in Ponyville told him that Twilight Sparkle had arrived there from Canterlot the day before Nightmare Moon, and that she and her five friends were the new bearers of the Elements of Harmony. They had defeated Nightmare Moon and transformed her back into Princess Luna and she was now ruling alongside Celestia as she had 1000 years earlier. Sine had the faintest glimmer of hope that she might actually stand up to the tyrant’s commands this time. Sine was disappointed. Luna was shy to go out in public, Equestria Labs did not re-open and none of the laws were changed. Celestia still ruled as if her sister was not even there.

Reordering his schedule, Dr Sine prepared his attack once more, but this time he could eliminate another liability. He had always worried that Celestia may have attacked him with the Elements of Harmony, and destroyed him before the invasion began, but now this could be resolved. Despite the Elements of Harmony being stronger in the possession of their new bearers, they now relied on the six ponies all being in the same place to harness their potential. To resolve this, Dr Sine forged a letter from Celestia to Twilight, the element of magic, asking her to come to Canterlot immediately, alone. He would destroy her train on the way in as the invasion commenced, and the Elements of Harmony would be rendered useless.

With every piece of the puzzle in place, the next day Dr Sine briefed his troops on what the gods had asked them to do, posted the letter to Twilight, and that night he began the attack.

The Story of Dr Sine: 21

The Seventh Sanctum members in the weather factory produced a dense fog which enveloped Canterlot and obscured it from view. Next, pegasus shock troops equipped with gauntlet blasters attacked the city and quickly took down the guards, and destroyed a fair portion of the castle with them. A small group were given specific instructions to seek and destroy Celestia, if possible keeping her body recognisable so Dr Sine could display it as a monument to his victory. They made straight for the top of the tallest tower, where the solar princess was sleeping, and rained blast after blast onto the turreted roof. One thing Dr Sine had not taken into account was that though Luna was out all night, she could return via a magic portal whenever she so wished, and did so to help her sister. Sine wanted Luna to be the figure head of his new order, but he needed to have all the power before he could start bargaining. Watching the battle from the island, he was telepathically tuned in to one of the Sanctum members who was attacking the princess, watching through his eyes. Five pegasi with some intelligence between them began pooling their magic gauntlets energy together, creating one huge ball of energy, which they launched at the tower. Luna was talking to a tan stallion and as it was fired she prepared a teleport. Fortunately, she managed to escape before the blast hit, but the stallion was blasted away from the tower. Celestia was also knocked from the tower, but she teleported before she hit the ground. This irked Dr Sine immensely, as killing Celestia had been his primary objective. However, with the two princesses gone, and most of the resistance swiftly dealt with, Dr Sine brought the floating city into the mist and began releasing the bulk of the army, the rest of the pegasi and all of the earth ponies and unicorns. They began rounding up civilians and using the short ranged mechanical teleports, brought them to the city for conversion. A few royal guards were captured, and Sine decided that their extensive military training made them superior, so he decreed that any of the royal guards would become sergeants and lead out squads of newly converted Sanctum members. By morning the whole city was in his control. It was a hollow victory without Blaze at his side to share it with. If he robotic eyes were capable, he would have cried at the memory.

For the next month or so Dr Sine divided the Seventh Sanctum. Half he sent to track down Celestia, and they were also tasked with keeping the invasion a secret. Sine was not ready to fight the Equestrian Guard yet, and it was a great deal of work to keep the rest of equestria from knowing. He ordered trains to be wrecked on every line in, and closed the railways, then kept mail in and out of the city strictly censored. He also manufactured news stories about what was causing the fog that was shrouding the city.

The other half were tasked with destroying any other resistances that inevitably sprang up. A group of ponies had managed to save some of the civilians from outside, including Twilight, and escaped into the mountain tunnels. Sine was worried that they might re-discover Equestria Laboratories in the mountain, so he co-ordinated this half of the Sanctum’s movements himself. He had managed to lock onto the mind of one member of the squad, Aperture, who happened to be the tan stallion from the castle. Using telepathy to read Aperture’s mind, and seeing through his eyes, he guided the troops as best as he could, but the cave network was unfamiliar to him. After almost a month had passed, he ultimately failed to stop them, and the squad made it all the way to Equestria Labs. Sine directed his squad of Sanctum members to chase them, but right in the back door to the facility, the entrance was sealed and the squad was gassed with neurotoxin.

Well, Sine at least knew now that SHE was back online. She’d probably kill the rebels anyway. He mostly ignored the squad and focused on the other half. They had tracked Celestia down, her teleport wasn’t very strong, and she was weakened from the fighting. She’d teleported to the flat plains below the mountain and was running across the unicorn range, headed for Vanhoofer. Her life as a monarch had not done her any good, and the years of cake eating finally caught up to her. She was easily outpaced by the well trained Seventh Sanctum, and when they caught up to her, they immobilised the princess, and were happy to report that they were bringing her back to Canterlot alive. Sine was happy to hear that she’d be there in a matter of days. He decided to check back on the stallion he was watching, and found, to his shock, that he was still alive. Not only that but he was on board the Seventh Sanctum’s floating city with one of his friends, a green pegasus. He was heading up towards the reactors, and Dr Sine intended to see that he died. Calling Four and Nine to his side, he took the lift down to the room and the three of them hid in the shadows. Dr Sine watched the ponies approach, seeing that one of them was an ex-sanctum member he had Four execute him. He then offered the other two a choice, join him or die. Unfortunately, the two managed to overpower the two master race, and Sine was horrified to see Nine crushed to death by the pegasus, and Four was beheaded by Aperture right in front of him. Stricken with terror and distraught at the death of two of his last foals, Dr Sine tried to escape, but Aperture slashed his legs with a spear, effectively immobilising him. The two remaining ponies left, leaving the dying ex-sanctum member to destroy the reactor.

Dr Sine fought through the pain and forced his magic to the limit of his strength, and prepared a teleportation spell. Just as he finished, and the flash of magic began to teleport his body, the spear shattered the glass housing on the reactor, and a bolt of plasma arced out towards the two. It hit Sine in the moment that he teleported, and the blisteringly hot discharge burned away half of his skin, on the left side of his body.

Dr Sine teleported away from the crippled city, and found himself on top of Canterlot mountain, in a pool of his own blood. He was in unimaginable pain, his entire left had side was blackened muscle, and his ribs could be seen through the flesh. The tendons in his back legs had been, cut, but the heat of the plasma had somehow fused his back left leg back together. With only three functioning legs, and most of his body ruined, Dr Sine was forced to lay where he had landed. The only consolation was that the architects of his downfall, Aperture and his friend, were going to die alongside his city, and his hopes and dreams. Now he was truly alone, Blaze was dead, alongside all of Sine’s master race. His only friend and all of his foals had been snatched away from him. Suddenly, he caught sight of something that made his blood boil with rage. He saw, silhouetted against the silver disk of the moon, two tiny specks shooting away from the city as it plunged out of sight. It was Aperture and his pegasus friend.

Dr Sine was filled with rage and hatred. Gritting his teeth, some of which could be seen through his non-existent jaw, He swore that he would get even with Aperture. He’d make him pay for all the suffering that he had put Sine and the rest of the Seventh Sanctum through.

But there was much to do, yet again. He needed to get to medical treatment, but he couldn’t go into town. That was suicide, so he had to make do with what he could. He found a small cave on the back of Canterlot mountain where he could sit and tend to his wounds as best as he could. Then, when  he was strong enough, he would find Aperture again, and he would make him pay the ultimate price.

Dr Sine spoke only one word as he lay, smouldering in the dark cold cave.

“Retribution…”

Chapter 1

The Story of Dr Sine: 1

One warm April morning in Manehatten, young Lucius Sine was sat out in the garden of his penthouse apartment, reading. The air was fresh and sweet, because of the numerous flowers and plants that adorned his rooftop garden. He loved it up on the top of the sky rise where his family had lived for the last few years. Lucius was very young when his family had moved from a quiet suburban street on the outskirts of the city to the larger open plan penthouse on this skyscraper, to make an impression on his father’s business clients. If Lucius managed to get close to the edge of the garden wall, he could almost see his old street on the horizon. His mother and father were out, as they were most of the time, attending a formal party or celebrating some sort of financial boom in Lucius’s father’s business. Lucius wasn’t exactly sure what it was that his father did, but whatever it was, it kept the whole family living the highlife. Lucius Sine stepped away from the wall and returned to his book. It was about biology. Lucius read through the book at a rapid pace. He mostly knew it all anyway. He finished the book and tossed it onto an increasingly large stack of books growing behind him. Standing, he walked inside through the open glass doors, and around the house to the library. He opened the mahogany doors and was met with a library rivalling that of the Canterlot archives. The room was hexagonal, and every wall had a large wooden book shelf crammed with books of all sizes and shapes. He closed his eyes and illuminated his magic. He picked a book at random and pulled it from its shelf. He opened his eyes to look at his choice. ‘Equestrian Myths and Legends’

Nope, he’d already read that one. He put it back and tried again. ‘Advanced Astronomy: The Minor Celestial bodies’

Lucius smiled happily. He loved astronomy. Carrying the book out onto the open air of the garden, he sat down in the bright sunlight and began to read. It was a shame it wasn’t already night. He scrutiny the book for the rest of the day, until at 12 noon the families maid turned up to make him his dinner.

He turned as she entered the room via the large oak doors. “Hello Lucius!” she called kindly “What do you want for dinner?”

“Can I have an apple pie?” asked Lucius, hurrying back into the kitchen

“Of course you can” She beamed and fished around in the cupboards for the ingredients. Whilst it was cooking she walked around the house, dusting the table tops and sorted Lucius’s piles of books back onto their respective shelves. Once the house was spotless once more, she returned to the kitchen and checked on the pie.

“Do you know when mother and father are going to be home?” asked Lucius “I heard they were going to a big party tonight, and I was wondering if they’ll be back before I go to bed”

“I’m not sure if they will Master Lucius” responded the maid. “Your father is giving a speech at the Mayor’s birthday, and the festivities will be going on late, until the early morning, I expect”

Lucius was sad. He wanted to tell his mother and father about all the astronomy he had learned that day, But it looked like it would have to wait. His face brightened when the maid gave him his pie.

“Oh wow!” he exclaimed “this is the nicest looking Apple Pie ever! Thank you!” he hugged the maid’s legs. He wasn’t just happy to have been given the pie, but to also have some company for a while. He was fed up of his parents being out all the time, he barely ever saw them.

After dinner it was dark, and whilst the maid washed the dishes, Lucius hurried up the spiral staircase to his bedroom, and out onto his balcony. Up here, he was the tallest pony in the entire city, and it was where he was closest to the stars. He kept his telescope on the balcony, and he looked up at the moon with its craters and the cratered pattern on the surface of the moon. His father had told him that Princess Luna was in charge of the moon.  He said that Celestia wanted to make laws and rule on her own so she made Luna in charge of the moon, when everyone was asleep. Lucius felt bad for Luna. Being in charge of the moon sounded lonely. At least he had the maid to talk to, she didn’t have anyone, because everyone was asleep. His father was part of a group of ponies who had been set up like a secret club. They called themselves The Children of the Nightmare, and held meetings and other secret things. To Lucius it sounded like a lot of fun. He agreed that it was unfair for Celestia to make Luna contol the moon for no reason, but his father had said he wasn’t allowed to come to the meetings that he went to until he was older. It just wasn’t fair thought Lucius. He wanted to help Luna, but he had to wait until he was older. He stepped away from the telescope and went back into his room. He got into bed and got out his bedtime reading, a huge thick book of Equestrian history. He read a few pages and then put it back under his pillow, he didn’t want to read it all in one go.

The maid came up to his room, having finished the dishes.

“Goodnight Master Lucius”

“Goodnight”

He listened as she went downstairs and tuned off the lights, then the reassuring click as she locked the door from the outside. It meant nobody could get in except his parents, and they wouldn’t be in until much later. He was all alone. He opened his bedside draws and took out a small creased piece of paper. On it was a crudely drawn picture of a black pegasus, streaked with green lines and red hair. The paper was well worn, and Lucius held it close to his chest. It was Blaze, his only friend. His parents didn’t approve of imaginary friends, and they had screwed up his picture when they saw it, but little Lucius had saved it. He wished that Blaze was real.

Chapter 2

The Story of Dr Sine: 2

20 years later

A huge cheer rose from the whole crowd of ponies assembled outside Equestria’s top university, the successor to Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns. Amongst the ponies celebrating their success was 24 year old Lucius Sine, now to be known as Dr Sine. Despite his and his fathers hatred for Celestia for overshadowing the rightful princess of Equestria, he had been assured that Celestia’s connection to the school was only as its namesake. A doctor of science. It was his greatest dream come true. It had been years of hard work, and he had thought at some points that it would never end, but the relief at the work having paid off was overriding. If only Blaze could see him. It was a shame that Blaze had to stay at home, his new mechanical body was too big to move. Dr Sine had been offered a conditional job at Equestria Laboratories, the largest scientific research facility in the whole of Equestria, considering his dissertation was accepted, and now it had been. He would have the chance to work alongside the greatest minds of all time.

Looking out across the crowd of ponies gathered in the courtyard to watch the scholars collect their awards, he spied his mother and father at the back of them, and when the other ponies had dissipated, he rushed out to greet them. He was surprised they had come because his father had an appointment at Manehatten hospital for his heart. He was aging and his lifestyle wasn’t doing it any good. When his parents saw him, they turned from their talking to meet him. His mother met him with a warm embrace, and was suitably dressed for the occasion, she wore a pearl necklace and a large decorated hat. His father was wearing his normal tuxedo, and once Lucius’s mother finally released him, took his sons hoof in his own and shook it, strongly. His mother had tears in her eyes, and dabbed at them daintily with a small handkerchief. His father spoke to him in admiration.

“By Jove, my son, a doctor of science. You’ve made me proud son, and our whole family proud. You were always cleverer than me, and it’s not too late to turn back to my business, I’d rather a smart young man like yourself ran it that the spineless fools I’ve got back there…”

Lucius smiled and shook his head

“Thank you for the kind offer, but I’m going to have to decline father, Equestria Labs really is where I belong”

The older stallion smiled and shrugged. “If you ever change your mind, there’ll always be a place for you on the top! I’m sure if Miss Evangeline was with us now, she’d be so proud of what you’ve achieved”

Lucius was saddened at the memory of Evangeline, his previous house maid. She was hurt in an accident in Canterlot a fair few years ago and had been subjected to an experimental procedure in Equestria Laboratories to save her mind from her broken body. Though he’d never admit it, she was more of a mother to him than the mare stood next to him.

His mother piped in in her shrill voice,

“And Equestria Laboratories, my oh my, you’ll be famous!”

“Lucius, my boy, may I have a word with you over here?” Asked his father.

The two of them walked through the busting crowd of ponies celebrating, and they spoke in hushed tones.

“You and I both know what the Children of the Nightmare plan, and being inside that facility will give you the prime position to spy on her and find out when the tyrant is at her weakest. One of our trained operatives will assassinate her, and Luna will rule supreme. You have been blessed with this golden opportunity; don’t let her tell you otherwise.”

Lucius and his father returned from their short walk to find his mother conversing with Princess Luna.

“Your majesty” said Lucius’s father, bowing low enough to touch the floor “might I commend you on a simply stunning night last night. It truly took my breath away”

“You are too kind, George” replied Luna “Truly, there are not many ponies who see the night as you do. I sometimes feel that my sister is unfortunate as the rest of the kingdom never to see it”

There was a hint of bitterness in her voice. Suddenly the conversation was interrupted by Princess Celestia, who descended from the sky to stand with Luna. She turned to Dr Sine and smiled sweetly

“Ahh, you must be Dr Sine. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Luna has mentioned your name more than once. I hear you are coming to work at Equestria Laboratories? Well, I hope you are very happy, and find fulfilment in your work.”

She turned to mingle with the rest of the crowd. George Sine spat on the ground.

“A fly in your mouth, George?” She asked without turning round

Lucius’s father said nothing.

At the end of the festivities, Dr Sine’s parents left for Manehatten, and he headed out towards his new house hear Equestria Labs. It was on the outskirts of the city, and was prime real estate. It was smaller than his Manehatten apartment, but probably twice its value, because of its placement near the imperial capital city of Canterlot. He unpacked his boxes of books, virtually everything else was provided. The only thing he was missing was company. He was hoping that his colleagues at work the next day would be good company, or else he didn’t know what he’d do. As the day faded to night he finally finished stacking up his hundreds upon thousands of books, and climbed the spiral staircase. The one thing he had requested when choosing his place of residence was that it have a balcony. He stepped out onto the balcony and looked at his view.  It was of Canterlot Castle, illuminated by the pale white light of the moon, picking out only the edges of the pearly towers and the shimmering gold atop the spires. He unpacked the last item from its box, his old telescope. He blew off the dust and adjusted it to focus on the glowing crescent in the sky. The image had not lost any of the clarity it had 20 years earlier. No matter how much time passed, the moon never changed.

Sine dreamed that night that he was on the moon. He was being suffocated with no air, and was all on his own. However it was easy to move and despite the pain in his chest he could run and jump like a superpony. He woke up, but the last memory stuck with him. It would be easier to use muscles on the moon, because the gravity was weaker. The heart was a muscle. If he could send ponies with heart problems to the moon, their hearts would be under less pressure, and they’d recover quicker. Dr Sine was spurred onwards by the thought of his father, and his weakened heart. After getting ready for work, he vowed to raise the idea at the first think tank he was invited to.

Chapter 3

The Story of Dr Sine: 3

5 years pass

Dr Sine sat in the requests office of Equestria Laboratories. Despite being one of the most well respected and accomplished scientists Equestria Labs had ever seen, he still dreaded having to request funding. He sat on one side of a desk, and the three councillors walked in and sat at the other side of the desk. There was the Chancellor, in charge of Equestria’s money and taxation, and the minister for health, who was in charge of the Equestrian Health Service. Lastly, there was princess Celestia herself, who made the overall decision. Despite Equestria Labs being under Luna’s control, Celestia was in charge of pledges for funding. Dr Sine silently loathed to have to present to her, but kept himself in check. He couldn’t ruin everything based of one rash emotion.

“My deepest thanks for choosing to hear my proposal, councillors, and your majesty” Sine stood, and gave a small bow to Celestia, who didn’t really care for such formalities

“Thank you Doctor, you may continue”

“I would like to quote some numbers. 38% of Equestria’s residents attended our various hospitals and clinics last year. Over 61% of these were for heart related illnesses. The weakened heart cannot deal with the intense strain it endures here on Equestria and is difficult to treat. However, my team and I have devised a solution. I am asking for 100,000 bits to construct this”

With a flash of his magic, Sine removed the cloth covering a small model of a building. It was not dissimilar to the Equestria Laboratories they were in at that moment

“The Equestria Laboratories Moon Branch. A research facility based on the moon, containing a hospital for heart and other muscle related diseases. The chance of suffering a heart failure from one of the many diseases here on Equestria in 1.0 gravity is 78%, but on the moon in 0.4 gravity it decreases to 12%.”

“The bits I requested are for construction of infrastructure, recruitment of staff and rocket propulsion to get to the moon. Not only that, but the modular construction from the cost efficient materials we have built this facility from, means we can mine the resources from the moon, and with our recent breakthrough in nuclear fusion, the moon branch can be self-sufficient, requiring no more money to be used on the project, and the mining rigs will actually generate an income. Given, say, 15 years and it will have generated more than it cost to build. Do you have any questions?”

The chancellor raised his hoof “How long will it take, from this point, to have the base operational, should we decide to fund it?”

“Construction of materials  here, a shuttle fight and assembly on the moon should take between 3 weeks and a month”

The short timescale and relatively low cost had gone down very well. Dr Sine left the room to get a drink of water whilst the three talked over the pros and cons of the idea. He sat outside and wiped his brow. After what seemed like forever, Sine was called to return to the room.

Celestia stood, voicing the unanimous decision of the three.

“We have decided to allow funding for the project. We also request that you include additional features in the design, such as an education centre and some of our prior planned royal guard training facilities. To compensate for your having to revise the design, we will be happy to increase your budget from 100,000 bits to 500,000 bits. We will also assign any manual labourers you need for speedy construction of your infrastructure. It has been noted also, that the number of heart related deaths is on the rise, so we ask you also research preventative medicine, not just treatments. The rest of the facility may function as you choose.”

“Thank you, thank you all!” Dr Sine was barely able to hide his happiness “I’ll begin design revision immediately”

Celestia beamed brightly, shook his hoof and then the three left the room. Sine sat down to work on his laptop. 500,000 bits! He could expand the whole facility, and add all the aesthetics and extras he had wanted. He mailed all of the other staff to give them the green light for production, and sat down to get started. “Hang in there father” he muttered quietly.

1 Month and 2 weeks later

Dr Sine looked through the window of the space shuttle as he and Luna visited the completed Equestria Laboratories facility.

“Hopefully this will not be necessary soon, if our work on Portal technology is a success” He told her

“Quiet so. It would make the trip far more efficient” she agreed. It always surprised Sine how clever and well-spoken Luna was, considering in Alicorn terms she was only a teenager.

The small shuttle lowered onto an aperture in the roof, which opened revealing a sliver mesh landing pad bellow. The small ship descended into the facility. The interior of the facility matched with that of Equestria Labs back on the planet, white washed panels and square tiled floors. The two of them walked through the expanse of corridors, surveying everything for Celestia back home. When they were satisfied that the facility was operating correctly, they returned to the ship.

“We’re ready for the first batch of patients and scientists to come up now” said Sine opening the door of the shuttle for Luna. She sighed.

“The moon is so beautiful. I wish I never had to go back to Equestria”

Chapter 4

The Story of Dr Sine: 4

4 Months later

Dr Sine walked into the central AI chamber. Many technicians in lab coats were looking at the prone form of 3.0, the new AI system that they had been testing. She was based on the same pony that 1.0 and 2.0 had been, Evangeline, and was basically an improved version of their software. Dr Sine was not surprised to hear that many attempted activations had already failed. The same had been the case for 1.0 and 2.0, with the flood of data their minds received on activation, they often went rampant immediately. Dr Sine was going to observe from the one way glass as Sky Nova tested her verbally for rampancy. On all the other tests, she had been fine for a few minutes, then when a few trigger phrases were used, she showed her true colours at last. Blaze, his robot companion stood behind the glass window with him, watching. Blaze had never been rampant upon activation, because he wasn’t based on a real pony. He was truly artificially intelligent. He started as a blank slate, and from prolonged interaction with Dr Sine and his co-workers, he had developed his personality. The other scientists were a little wary of Blaze at first, but he had grown to be accepted and now nobody even gave him a second thought. He had even been a huge aid when they had worked on sentry turrets. Celestia had been aware of the rise in militant groups throughout Equestria and had commissioned Equestria Labs to design non-lethal sentry guns, as a deterrent to guard key locations around her castle. The work had gone slowly, because their AI couldn’t distinguish between friends or foes quick enough and was easily disabled. The redesign into filly or colt sized bodies for easy storage made it easier to have a younger AI, so they took a copy of Blaze’s programing and used that. Since then, Equestria Laboratories Stationary Sentry Turret, or EQLSST’s had performed exceptionally well, and Celestia had personally congratulated them after the turrets fended off an attack from the Children of the Nightmare. Naturally, Dr Sine had argued with his elderly father about this, as the two didn’t share the same views. Sine’s father called him a fool, and a servant of the tyrant, and Sine argued that he wasn’t responsible for the failure, but his father’s poor leadership. The truth was that he was warming to Celestia, she had showed him kindness, and helped support him on the facility, and he was grateful. He was beginning to see that his father had been wrong to hate the princess, and that he had been wrong to believe him.

Dr Sine was broken from his memories by a cheer from his fellow scientists. 3.0 had finally responded to the trigger phrases with irritation, but were prepared to give Sky a chance rather than using violence. She was now correctly configured, and was ready to aid the facility in its operation. Dr Sine smiled. It was another achievement under his belt, and he was quite the veteran scientist now. He put his arm round Blaze, and the robot followed suit.

Chapter 5

The Story of Dr Sine: 5

5 years later

A grey haired Dr Sine was sitting in his lab, he head in his hooves. He just couldn’t believe what had just happened. Luna was always such a kind pony, and she had always been fiercely loyal. However, in the early hours of the morning, she had refused to lower the moon. She had changed into a huge pony with a jet black body and a purple mane and declared that she was now the sole ruler of Equestria. Celestia had banished her to the moon. He hated Celestia. His father was right all along. He smashed his hoof down on the lab bench before him, knocking a rack of glass vials to the floor, which shattered. She had obviously faked it, there was no way that Luna was evil, she was the nicest pony that Dr Sine knew. Celestia had banished her so she could be the sole ruler, and her first decree?

She banned Science.

“SHE BANNED SCIENCE!” Sine smashed his hoof on the bench again. She had used an excuse, claimed that she thought that Equestria Labs portal experiments might have caused Luna’s corruption, but Sine thought otherwise. He thought that Celestia had always hated science, and now she had her tyranny secured, she had made it illegal.

Sky Nova hurried into the room. Sine didn’t even acknowledge him.

“Sir, you have to come quickly. Celestia has given us an hour to leave the facility. Pack your things, we have to go!”

“No” said Sine standing up “This is my life. I will not let Celestia remove me from my home”

“The royal guards are coming; they’ll arrest you if you stay. She’s giving us a chance to get away, don’t waste it”

Dr Sine slowly stood. As much as he resented it, he had to leave, and not just for himself. He looked at the charging socket on the wall, where Blaze was connected. He was prepared to throw down his own life, but not the life of his only friend. He unplugged Blaze from the charger, and led him to the doorway.

“Are you coming” asked Sky Nova

“Science isn’t worth dying for” replied Sine as he and Blaze ran out of the room. He was impressed by Blaze’s speed; the new robotics he had just added had really increased his mobility. The trio stopped at the intersection of two corridors. One led to the surface, and the streets of Canterlot, the other to 3.0’s control room.

“Sine, you and Blaze head on out. I’ll go and ask 3.0 to shut down” said Sky Nova, and hurried towards her control room. Dr Sine and Blaze stepped out into the street, and made for Sine’s Canterlot apartment without looking back.

A week had passed since Equestria Labs had shut down, and Sine didn’t know what to do with himself. He couldn’t go out and get another job because science had been outlawed. He was sitting on a large amount of money, greater than most ponies in Equestria, but he was bored. He just stayed at home, he had already read hundreds of books in his library, and had just about exhausted all of Equestria’s literacy. More importantly, Blaze was becoming slow and sluggish. His battery level was severely depleted, and without access to Equestria Laboratories, Sine couldn’t charge him up. To add to his emotional trauma, his father, who had spent the last three years living in the Equestria Labs Moon Branch, had died of a heart attack upon receiving news from the ground that Celestia had taken solo rule of Equestria. With his last breath he had demanded that Sine must destroy Celestia, and at this moment in time, Dr Sine didn’t feel like arguing. After all he had done for the Princess, she had just betrayed him, and her sister, and all of Equestria.

Blaze suddenly wobbled and his eyes flickered, losing their usual green glow. One of his wings slumped on his back, completely drained. Dr Sine made up his mind. Though science wasn’t worth dying for, friendship was.

In the dead of night, beneath the new pattern of the mare in the moon, a constant reminder of Celestia’s betrayal, Dr Sine and Blaze sneaked out to Equestria Laboratories front door. It was boarded up, so Blaze used his super strong hydraulic legs to break away the wooden boards, and Sine slowly opened the door, ushered Blaze inside, then closed the door after them. Inside the facility it was dark, and only the dim light from Blaze’s robotic eyes lit the way to Sine’s Lab. Suddenly all the lights flashed on, Dr Sine and Blaze panicked, expecting a royal guard ambush. Instead, there was a loud message from the speakers of 3.0’s voice.

“Burglars. You know, I thought it would take you longer to try and steal from me. It has only been a week. Anyway, neurotoxin never goes stale, so it doesn’t matter either way”

There was a hiss as she filled the room with the deadly gas.

“No, wait, I’m a scientist, Dr Sine!” He called desperately

The neurotoxin was quickly sucked away and the speaker replied

“Very well, I’m glad you came to your senses. Come to my control room, and we’ll talk business.”

Once the two had entered 3.0’s control chamber, she turned to face them

“I’m glad it was you two. You were always my favourites”

“What happened to Sky Nova shutting you down?”

“He met with a terrible fate”

Sine realised that 3.0 was thoroughly corrupt. However, this meant that she was probably going to be game for some rule breaking, and that suited Dr Sine just fine. He outlined his needs to 3.0, and she agreed to let him come into the facility and perform whatever research he wanted. She would assist in every way she possibly could. The arrangement suited both of them, though Sine wasn’t sure how far he could trust 3.0.

For months the three continued work, but as 3.0 watched, she noticed that Sine seemed to be unnaturally attached to Blaze. He was only happy when his faithful companion was by his side, and Dr Sine became irritated and snappy when Blaze was shut down for charging. Partially to help Sine get on with his life further than Blaze, and partially for her own amusement, 3.0 designed a lab accident. Whilst Blaze was helping to build one of the new test chambers she had commissioned, she crushed him with a huge spike plate. Blaze’s robot body was destroyed beyond repair, but Dr Sine managed to salvage his memory and personality chip intact. His genetic engineering experiments had recently come to fruition, so he made the choice to advance Blaze’s development once again. He took the memory chip to his lab and looked at the recently installed tank is the wall. It was glass, and filled with a clear orange fluid. The liquid was thick, like treacle, and inside was a half formed pony. This was Dr Sine’s dream realised, Blaze as a real life pony, in flesh and blood. Using a scalpel and laser, he cut an incision on the back of its head, and fused the chip to the memory centre of the brain. He then deposited the slimy mass of embryonic pony back in its fluid.

When the final checks were completed, Sine ran a huge amount of power through the tank, the electricity activating the advanced muscle composites he had made Blaze from. The lights in the facility when out, and the only light was from the blue flashes of electricity that arced through the tank. A few bolts shot out of the glass and shattered equipment on the benches, but finally it stopped. After a few seconds of stillness, the lights flickered back on. Dr Sine looked at the form in the tank, now the same size as a normal pony, slightly bigger than Sine. He had modified the molecular structure that Blaze was made from to be overcharged by electricity, explaining the rapid development from an embryo to a full size pony. After a moment, the tank was crisscrossed with a pattern of cracks as Blaze’s greater mass tried to occupy the same area, unsuccessfully. The glass shattered. Blaze’s form tumbled out into the lab. Sine stepped forward to catch his prone body. Blaze opened his cool green eyes and focused on Dr Sine.

All the fears Dr Sine had about his friends new body dissipated. Blaze looked at him with recognition, albeit some sleepiness, not surprising considering the stresses his body had just been through.

“Hello Blaze, quick cognitive test, what was the first book we ever read together?”

“As if I’d forget that Lucius. We read the third Daring Doo book, on release date.”

Blaze was exactly how Sine had wanted him, and the two lived happily for a year or so afterwards, breaking into the lab every night and with 3.0’s help, conducting genetics experiments. Dr Sine had come to the conclusion that all the strife in Equestria was caused by the differences between ponies, and that this was a genetic factor, a throwback from the reign of Discord. He couldn’t find a specific gene to target, so he chose a much more ambitious course of action. He was going to use Blaze as his template, and genetically engineer a new race from scratch. He wasn’t sure how, as the technology he’d used for Blaze was a prototype, and had been destroyed by his creation, but that was going to be his next move, somehow.

As fate would have it, things were about to start moving very rapidly indeed.