StarChaserby StarChaser01ChaptersPrologueChapter 1: As One Life Ends...Chapter 2: ... Another Begins.Chapter 3: AwakeningChapter 4: ProgressChapter 5: RealizationsChapter 6: Take 2Chapter 7: ImprovementChapter 8: Minor ComplicationsPrologueTo say that Hidden History was excited about this new find would be a candidate for the "Understatement of the Century" award. His whole career was centered around discovering the lost history of Equestria and he had just been assigned to what was almost certainly a treasure trove of lost information! He was being assigned to a newly discovered cave that had been until recently sealed off by a boulder and a landslide. The cave itself was just a curiosity; it was what was inside that made him so excited. From the report that he had been given there were signs of an ancient battle, quite possibly even predating all known history! Not only that, but what also appeared to be a mostly intact large structure! Little did he know just how important that cave was, and what it held within... After getting his assistant, a unicorn by the name of Buried Treasure, nicknamed Dig Dug, they set off for the mountain in which the cave was held. Upon reaching the mountain they quickly found out one of the reasons why the cave had only been recently discovered. A recent land slide had taken part of the mountain face off, at the same time revealing the cave and creating a difficult to climb pathway up to it. Looking at the only way up to the cave, History wished that he was a Pegasus instead of an Earth pony... Upon reaching and entering the cavern, they discovered that it indeed looked like there was a battle once waged here. Skeletons of all three main types were scattered throughout the area, all equipped in what appeared to be some kind of armor. Many of the Unicorn skeletons had arrows sticking out of their armor, though a few sported what appeared to be severe magical burns, and in a few cases, it looked like they had been the victim of multiple massive lightning strikes. In the distance (yes the cave is THAT big...) stood a large fortress in all its wounded glory, relatively unscathed by the ages. "This is incredible! It looks like nothing has been able to get into here for AGES!" Hidden exclaimed. "Considering the fact that this cave has been hidden from everything, including magical scans for some reason, it makes sense that nothing has been able to disturb this area, what with that giant rock and all..." Buried stated. "Hm... This is obviously pre-unification era, considering how long this appears to have been here undiscovered... yet all of the Pegasus and Earth pony skeletons, along with a few Unicorn skeletons, have uniformed armor styles... that is most unusual as at the time the three tribes were at war with each other, not fighting alongside each other..." History thought out loud. "Perhaps this was a stronghold of some of the few who believed in working together?" Buried suggested. It was at this point that they had finished setting up base camp. "That is looking to be more and more possible, let's check out that fortress and see what's inside. Maybe there will be more clues as to what happened here,” History stated. They were walking though the ancient battle field, occasionally stopping to examine the old armor, when Buried noticed something. "Hey, if you look closely here, you can see that the armor for the united front has a symbol that resembles a triangle with a circle on each point! And if you look at that wall, you can see the same symbol!" Buried remarked, pointing to one of the few unscathed portions of the outer wall, which just so happened to be above what remained of the main gate. It looked like it had at one point an intricate locking system, but was just blasted open. "Also the united front forces are more prevalent the closer we get to the fortress." "Interesting, this implies that the united front were the defenders here, and judging from the magical burns on this gate and the fact that the only ones not in united armor are Unicorns, I would hazard a guess that they managed to piss off a major power in the Unicorn tribe..." History was cut off upon entering through the gates by what he saw. Inside the outer walls was what appears to have once been a court yard of some kind, but what was almost in the exact middle of that court yard is what caused him to stop in his tracks. "I think we might want to tell the princesses about this one..." Buried Treasure managed to state after a few minutes of starring. Hidden History could only nod quietly, for almost exactly in the center of the court yard, was a giant crystal. A giant crystal, with a Pegasus within it, garbed in a strange set of armor bearing the same mark as the defenders... Author's Note Well? How did I do? Chapter 1: As One Life Ends...Today was just not StarChaser’s day. Just when the Resistance had finally thought that it would be left alone the Unicorn tribe had decided to go and ruin everything again. That’s not saying that all Unicorns were bad, the Resistance had a good number of Unicorns in its ranks, and his best and only true friend was a Unicorn named StarLight. But all that didn’t change the fact that they were under attack by one of the more powerful armies that the Unicorn tribe had at its disposal. StarChaser sighed, ‘When will this end?’ He thought to himself as he put on his Magitech armor, ‘When will they just leave us alone to live in peace? That’s all we want, peace…’ He was the last wearer of the Magitech armor series, mostly because all the other pilots were killed in the “Incident” that sparked off this whole conflict between tribes. Once he put on his helmet he activated its onboard AI system, who at times he felt the strange need to call “Navi” for some reason… “Magitech armor mark V activating,” the AI stated, “Welcome back StarChaser. Energy core at 75% charge, shielding online, thaumic boosters online, Warning! Physical protection compromised, please refrain from prolonged combat to prevent shielding failure, as this platform will be unable to protect you if shielding is compromised. Warning! Empty/damaged component slots detected, platform will not run at maximum capacity.” StarChaser just ignored the warnings, he had heard them enough times already, as they had started coming up shortly after the incident and they were the same every, single, time. Ever since his suit got damaged in the explosion that killed so many other pilots it’s been freaking out at him. Looking into the mirror, he saw an all black Pegasus, who's mark was a field of stars, wearing armor that appeared to be all but useless, but he knew that looks could be deceiving, especially when said armor projected an energy field that protected against virtually everything. The helmet, when inactive, was little more than a frame surrounding his head, but when it was active it projected a visor that covered the upper half of his face. The main body section was similar to plate body armor favored by his Earth brethren, but with smaller plates and larger gaps between them. The wing section was little more than three "nodes" on each wing, one at the base of the wing, one half way down it, and one at the tip. It was at this point that StarLight walked into his room in full combat gear. “You should stay back, I don’t want you to get hurt,” StarChaser said. “And I’ve told you how many times now? ‘I can hold my own against my foolish cousins,’” was her reply. “I know, but I still worry that something bad might happen to you…” “And you worry too much! Anyway, we have to help defend again.” “Right, let’s go.” They exited the room together and jogged down the hall to the nearest balcony. “I’ll fly out and help the other Pegasus troops whi-,” “I know, ‘while I go and help out the Unicorn troops’. Let’s just get this over with!” After that the battle was mostly a blur, with StarChaser helping the other Pegasus troops fend off the attackers mostly with lightning clouds and arrows and StarLight helping out the other Unicorn troops by flinging all kinds of offensive spells and healing wounded allies. Suddenly the attacking Purists made a surprise suicide charge for the gate and even more surprisingly got to it. The order was given to fall back to the fortress when suddenly the Purists broke through the gate! ‘But that thing has all KINDS of enchantments on it! How did they break through so quickly!?!’ StarChaser thought, but his next one made his blood run cold. ‘Starlight’s in there…’ Flying as fast as he could towards the Fortress, he saw that StarLight was cornered by the Purists. “ACTIVATE THAUMIC BOOSTERS!!!” He shouted. “Thaumic boosters online,” came the response and his speed tripled as he dive bombed StarLight’s attackers. Just before he hit, a Purist commander turned to him and, with the world appearing in slow motion, blasted him with a spell. He felt excruciating pain before everything went dark. Author's Note This chapter has been modified to include StarChaser's appearance Chapter 2: ... Another Begins.Princess Twilight Sparkle was having an interesting day to say the least. It had started out as any other day, get up, check list, have breakfast, check list, etc. But that had quickly changed when she received an official report from the Department of Equestrian History requesting her presence and also saying something about one of their top archeologists discovering not only the remains of an ancient battle, but a giant crystal with a Pegasus inside! Needless to say, she essentially dropped everything and went to investigate. Upon reaching the base camp where the archeologist team was set up an Earth Pony that she recognized as Hidden History came to up to greet her. “Good day your majesty,” History said with a quick bow. Twilight was relieved that he didn’t continue that bow as she had been working hard to convince ponies that while short bows were fine, she didn’t appreciate long bows… “Of course I would come to where such an interesting discovery has occurred.” History smiled as he gestured towards the other site workers. “Judging from the amount of artifacts we’re unearthing we think we may have found the discovery of the century!” Twilight nodded in a rapid excitement as she saw the many trinkets being brushed and cleaned. “Has anypony figured out anything of great importance yet?” “Other than the united forces and the crystal in the fortress, no.” Twilight began moving towards the crumbling structure as she asked, “Nopony has tampered with the crystal have they?” “No your majesty. I specifically instructed them to only allow somepony with higher experience and authority to examine it.” “Good work.” Twilight then made her way to the old fortress, careful not to disturb any of the old skeletons. When she reached the gate, she noticed that it still had some residual thaumic signatures, more specifically the ones that would be found where shield spells were in use. Using a piece of parchment and a quill, specially designed to have a small amount of ink stored within, she jotted down a note to herself to investigate this further in the future. She was just about to finish writing when she noticed the giant crystal, or more specifically, the thaumic signatures coming off of it. “Fascinating…” she muttered to herself as she approached it to get a better look, of course while jotting down notes about what she was noticing. “Some of the thaumic signatures are similar to an ‘Absolute Defense’ spell, some are similar to a stasis spell, and I have no idea about the rest…” Out of the corner of her eye she noticed one of the unicorn archeologists looking confused. ‘Of course they probably can’t sense it, the only reason why I did is because I was already checking out the signature on the gate, and because I’m an Alicorn…’ she thought to herself. ‘Wait… stasis spell? Is that Pegasus still alive? Just, paused?’ Searching her memory, she found an “Aura Detection” spell. ‘Normally a spell like this would be too weak to pick up somepony who’s in stasis but…’ her thoughts were suddenly derailed by what the spell was telling her. What the spell did was temporarily let her see the life force of others, their “Aura”, as a glow around them. The color of the glow would be the same as what color their magic would be when visually compared with Unicorns and Alicorns. While she expected to see the glow around the archeologists, what she saw inside the crystal she only half expected. Within the crystal, around the still form of the Pegasus, was a faint glow, too small to properly determine the color of, but it was there, barely. Twilight gasped, “That Pegusus is still alive in there!” This startled History as surely it would be impossible for someone to survive that long. “Are you sure?!? How can you tell!?” he stammered. “I noticed a strange mix of thaumic signatures coming from the crystal, one of which I recognized as a stasis spell, so I checked to see if the Pegasus was alive or not by using an Aura Detection spell. That Pegasus still has one! That only happens when someone is ali-,” Suddenly Twilight felt a massive thaumic spike emitting from the crystal, and judging from the reactions of the unicorns nearby so did they. “What was that?” one of them asked. “I don’t kn-,” Twilight started to respond before she was once again interrupted by the crystal, this time instead of a thaumic spike, the crystal started to crack Twilight could detect the stasis field’s signature slowly die away, along with most of the other signatures along with it as the crystal shattered in slow motion. It was like watching a crystal explode in slow motion, except exploding crystals don’t usually have the shards that go flying off of them seemingly dissolve into thin air. Eventually, after about 30 seconds, all of the crystal was gone and all that was left was the Pegasus slowly dropping to the ground. Twilight was the first to move. Rushing over to the downed pony, she quickly checked his vitals, she figured that it was a he since the crystal that was obscuring the more minute details of the Pegasus’s form were now gone and the general body shape was male. After finding a pulse and noticing that he was breathing, Twilight quickly instructed, “We need to get this Pony to a hospital, fast. I don’t think he’s strong enough to survive a teleport so I can’t take him…” Author's Note I hope that the change in how I'm labeling the chapters helps remove some of the confusion... Also, if you liked the story, please up vote And if you didn't like the story, feel free to say why in the comment section, THEN down vote Chapter 3: AwakeningStarChaser knew this dream, he had experienced it several times before, and he knew what was going to happen… He was returning home from the R and D department like he had several times before, maybe this time he could convince his family that they should move due to the increasing tension between the three tribes... The trip started like any of the other times he had made this trip, but this time something was different. The normally calming sky only seemed to fill him with dread. The clouds that were normally comforting only held fear. Upon nearing his home town he saw plumbs of smoke rising in the distance. Speeding up he soon discovered that the smoke was coming from the burning buildings of his home town. “Nononononononononono,” he felt himself mutter as he landed in front of the smoldering ruins of his house, for in this dream he could only watch, as this was more memory than imagination… “MOM!!! DAD!!! ANYONE!!!” he shouted. “They have been purged, as will you,” a sinister voice said from behind him. Turning around he saw a unicorn in the uniform of the Purist cult, his hooves covered in blood. Behind him were the bloody corpses of his family. It was normally at this point that he woke up, but something kept him in the dream. “WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS?!?!?!?” Chaser shouted, tears streaming down his face, “ALL THEY WANTED TO DO WAS LIVE IN PEACE!!! THEY NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU!!!” It was at this point that everything seemed to stand still, as it always did whenever he reached this point in the dream. Then his view lifted up, giving him a bird’s eye view of the destruction. All across the town, slaughtered families lay nearby the ruins of their houses, the Purists had made no distinction between them, everypony was slaughtered, even the unicorns who believed that the three tribes could live in harmony… Fortunately it was at this point that StarChaser was able to wake up. The first thing he noticed was that he was alive, then that he couldn’t hear the sounds of battle, nor could he feel the familiar weight of his armor… Opening his eyes, he quickly took stock of his situation. He had no idea where his armor was, he was in a room that he didn’t recognize, the air smelled… cleaner, he had no idea how long he was out, and judging from the light coming from the window, he wasn’t in a cave anymore… His observations were brought to a halt when a Unicorn that he didn’t recognize stepped through the door to his room. His mind immediately went into overdrive. ’I’m in an unknown location, without my armor or the weapons built in, we were being attacked by Unicorns, am I a prisoner? No, they wouldn’t have left me alive. Maybe because they want to know what I know about the armor? No, they would have just ripped it from my mind while I was asleep. Are these Unicorns friendlies? WHERE THE HELL AM I?!?!?!??!?!?!? WHERE THE HELL IS STARLIGHT?!?!?!?!?’ His thoughts continued spiraling around until the Unicorn backed away slowly out the door and then closed it. Chaser suddenly realized that he had gotten up and assumed an aggressive stance. Dropping back down onto the bed he cleared his mind and started working through what he knew about his current situation. ‘That Unicorn was wearing some sort of coat… maybe a doctor or a nurse? There are no bars on the window so that rules out being in a dungeon, of course this bed is WAY too comfortable to be a prison bed… I also didn’t see any hate on that face, not that I was looking for it…’ as he was working through his situation, he was also calming down. ‘Okay, freaking out won’t get me anywhere… I REALLY hope that I’m in friendly territory…’ When Nurse Soothing Touch first heard that a pony who was from the far past would be taken care of at Canterlot General Hospital, she was obviously excited. However, as weeks passed with the strange Pegasus only sleeping, the novelty slowly wore off. She opened the door to check to see how he was doing when she stopped. Not only was the Pegasus awake, but it seemed that he was frightened of her! It was then that she remembered what Princess Twilight had said, “Now, we have reason to believe that this Pegasus was last conscious in a time when the three tribes were at war with each other, so I would recommend any early contact with him would be done through another Pegasus.” Deciding that the best course of action would be to back away slowly, she did so and closed the door before running to get a Pegasus doctor. StarChaser was out of bed and exploring the room he was in. It was a simple room, four walls, a ceiling, a floor, a door on one of those walls, a window opposite the door, and a bed with a small table beside it along wall number 3. The window had shades drawn and tied shut, but there was enough of a gap near the top to let light in. He was about to peak out through the window to see just how much trouble he was in when he heard the door open again. Quickly turning around and dropping into a fighting stance on instinct, he was surprised not to see the Unicorn from earlier, but a Pegasus. ‘Either they’ve got a Pegasus as a slave or I AM in friendly territory. I really hope it’s the later…’ StarChaser thought to himself. “Where am I?” he asked while coming out of his fighting stance. The other Pegasus just looked at him in confusion before saying something that sounded like a different language. StarChaser sighed; this could be a problem… Chapter 4: Progress‘Well, at least we’re making SOME progress,’ StarChaser thought after about a half hour of charades. It was almost immediately apparent that that the Pegasus was horrible at charades, of course, he wasn’t very good at it either… It took all of that half hour just to get the message across that he wanted some paper and something to write with. ‘First thing’s first, I need to get some food, I have no idea how long I was out for but it was definitely long enough for me to get hungry!’ StarChaser thought when the Pegasus left to get some writing supplies. ‘After that, I’ll see if I can get my armor back, or at least my helmet, I would really like to know how long I’ve been out for…' StarChaser’s soon-to-be mental rambling was cut off by the Pegasus returning with a piece of parchment, a quill, and an inkwell. ‘Seriously? No pens? Wow… talk about rapid technological backsliding… I suppose since those things are difficult to make without practice no new pens would be made, the Resistance has more important things to worry about than writing convenience…’ Quickly drawing a picture of an apple with a bite out of it on the paper, he really hoped it looked like an apple, StarChaser showed the quick drawing to the Pegasus to indicate that he wanted food. It was almost comical to see the Pegasus’s reaction. StarChaser could almost swear that the Pegasus was about to face hoof! ‘I really need to figure out some other form of identification for him other than just ‘the Pegasus’,’ StarChaser mentally muttered to himself as his host hurried out of the room, hopefully to get him something to eat. When Twilight Sparkle had heard that the strange Pegasus had woken up, she had, once again, essentially dropped everything and headed for Canterlot General Hospital. However, upon reaching it, she was almost immediately stopped by Nurse Soothing Touch. “With all due respect Princess, I don’t believe that seeing him right now would be the best idea…” Soothing Touch informed Twilight “Why?” Twilight asked, slightly confused. “When I went to check on him recently he was awake and reacted poorly…” Twilight’s mind was able to fill in the gaps. “He didn’t attack you, did he?” “No, but the instant he saw me he went right into some sort of fighting stance.” “So, he might not react well to the presence of an Alicorn due to the similarities to Unicorns…” Twilight thought out loud. “Exactly, we currently have a Pegasus acting as a contact and his reaction has been much more favorable. However we have discovered that he can’t understand our language and vice versa…” “I might be able to help with that!” ‘Thank goodness that some things are universal!’ StarChaser thought as he ate one of the best apples he ever had. Just as he finished the apple, the door opened again. Instinctively turning, the first thing he thought when he saw the pony in the door way was: ‘GOD DAMN IT INSTINCTS!!! DON’T YOU DARE ATTACK THE RANDOM PURPLE UNICORN!!!’ The next was: ‘Wait… a horn and wings… that means… oh shit… I am SO doomed if I piss it off…’ Standing in the doorway was a purple Alicorn, who was shorter than any Alicorn that StarChaser had seen, but that didn’t really mean much as he had only seen one other, and that was one pony he did NOT want to get angry… Not knowing what else to do, StarChaser just locked up while starring at the newcomer. ‘Well, at least he’s not bowing like some of the ponies I encountered on my way here…’ Twilight noted. ‘Well, here goes nothing…’ “Hello? Can you understand me?” Twilight asked in Ancient Equestrian. That seemed to snap him out of it as he instantly dropped into a bow and said something in a language that sounded strangely like Ancient Equestrian. Yet while Twilight knew how to speak Ancient Equestrian, she couldn’t understand what he was saying. ‘I just had to go and jinx myself didn’t I’ Twilight thought ‘That language has about the same amount of similarities to Ancient Equestrian as Ancient Equestrian does to Modern Equestrian…’ “I’m sorry; I don’t understand what you’re saying” As the Pegasus slowly got up, she thought she saw a flash of fear on his face before changing into confusion. “I was hoping that you spoke Ancient Equestrian, then we might have been able to understand each other…” Twilight muttered to herself before seeing that the Pegasus was drawing something on a piece of paper. When he showed it to her it looked like a strange kind of helmet. Suddenly she realized that it was HIS helmet that he had drawn, he wanted his armor back. Shaking her head she said “I’m sorry, but you can’t have your armor back at this time.” He seemed to understand the gesture as he looked somewhat downcast… StarChaser initially was mentally freaking out when the Alicorn asked him what sounded like a question. Deciding to play it safe he went with bowing. “I’m sorry; I don’t understand what you are saying,” he said while bowing. ‘Please don’t think that I’m insulting you please don’t think that I’m insulting you please don’t think that-‘ his mental freak out was interrupted by the Alicorn saying something that he didn’t understand, but it sounded like it didn’t understand him either and was… sorry? With is terror quickly turning into confusion he risked looking up. Upon seeing that the Alicorn wasn’t angry, if anything it looked like it was somewhat disappointed… When the Alicorn started muttering to itself, StarChaser figuring that he wasn’t going to be annihilated, grabbed the paper and quill and drew a picture of his helmet. ‘If I’m going to have a chance for verbal communication I need to get ahold of my helmet and set the AI on figuring out their language.’ While he was drawing, he noticed that the Alicorn had stopped muttering to itself and was looking curiously at what he was drawing. Upon completing his drawing he showed it to her, he decided for now to call it a her as it didn’t APPEAR to have a male body shape, she first had a look of confusion that morphed into understanding, then she looked directly at him and shook her head while saying something he didn’t understand. StarChaser did not need to understand what was said to understand the meaning. His request was being denied. ‘She probably doesn’t know why I want my helmet, just that I want it…’ StarChaser thought glumly… ‘But why would he want his helmet?’ Twilight wondered for the umpteenth time since starting to try and figure out his language. She was back at the library, looking over the reports that she had requested from the team that she had put in charge of trying to figure out the strange set of armor that the mysterious Pegasus was wearing. It had been quickly obvious that it was more than just physical protection, if the primary analysis was anything to go by. Physically, it shouldn’t provide much protection, yet a soldier had gone out into battle with it. There was the fact that all of the scan spells cast upon it were blocked somehow. And now the Pegasus wanted it back! And not the whole thing either, just the helmet! So naturally she instructed the team to focus their efforts on the helmet. However it appeared that the helmet was the most resistant to the spells. It didn’t help that Celestia had requested a report when some progress had been made. ‘But… why the helmet?’ She mentally asked again. StarChaser was bored, after getting his request for his helmet back denied, the purple Alicorn had apparently decided to try to figure out his language, but she had left hours ago, leaving him alone with just his thoughts. After spending a few hours thinking about the Alicorn he decided that she wasn’t as impulsive as “Handsome Jack” was, ‘Even looking at him wrong was a good way of getting yourself killed,’ StarChaser had mused. After that, he decided to take a nap. “Come on StarChaser! Let’s go and play!” A black unicorn filly with blue streaks in her mane and tail called excitedly up to a window on one of the many houses. “I have to ask my parents first! You know how they are…” A black pegasus colt with an all back tail and silver streaks in his mane replied from said window. StarChaser knew this dream, and he loved it. It had been so long since he hadn’t had a nightmare. “Hey Mom! Can I go out and play with StarLight?” a young StarChaser asked his mother. “I don’t know, CAN you?” his mother responded smiling. “MAY I go out and play with StarLight?” “Yes you may, just be careful.” “We’ll be fine!” StarChaser replied while exiting the house. “Well?” an excited StarLight asked. “Let’s go and explore!” StarChaser replied. Off they went, a pegasus and unicorn, into the nearby forest, off to adventure. The scene shifted to a slightly older StarChaser and StarLight running across a field towards the village to escape the sudden thunderstorm that had unexpectedly come out of the forest, one of the few places that the weather couldn’t be controlled. Just as they started going down the last hill on the way to safety, a lightning bolt shot down from the sky and struck the young Pegasus without any warning. “AAAARRRGG!” StarChaser cried out as electricity arced all around him. All StarLight could do was watch as the electrical energy concentrated to her only friend’s wings and fired back up into the sky, clearing the sky directly above. The last thing StarChaser saw before passing out was his best friend rushing towards him… Waking up, StarChaser smiled as he thought about that last dream, that was the night that he had gotten his mark, he had “chased the stars” out from behind the clouds that night, or so they said at the celebration. ‘That celebration was… interesting,’ he thought with a grin, ‘too bad I can’t remember most of it…’ He then thought of something, ‘I had never actually gotten a look out that window…’ Getting out of bed, he walked over to the window and opened it. What he saw on the other side stunned him. He was on at least the fifth floor of some building, which he had begun to suspect was a hospital, but it was not the height that had stunned him. In the streets below were ponies from all three tribes, getting along as if it were the most natural thing in the world! StarChaser could hardly think. ‘Tha… that hasn’t been… I… how? Even in the Resistance there had been at least SOME mistrust between tribes! Yet here there is NONE!!! Where am I??? Just… just how long have I really been out?’ Author's Note All images were created through a free internet program, which I THINK is called “Pony Maker”, not sure though, as it was called at least three different things on the same webpage. If anyone wants to draw a better version of them, feel free to do so. Chapter 5: Realizations‘I need to find my armor,’ StarChaser thought, ‘I don’t care what it takes to get it back, I will find it. If it’s within 1,000 miles my implant should be able to locate it, but I won’t be able to interact with it unless I get that helmet on my head.’ After completing their training, every magitech pilot gets implanted with a microcomputer to help them interact with their suit. Using this implant, their suits literally become a part of them, if not physically connected. This implant also allows pilots to locate their armor so long as it’s within approximately 1,000 miles, after that all they will get from their implant is static. Within 10 feet they can remotely interact with the suit’s onboard computers to a limited degree, and when wearing it, the pilots can control every controllable aspect of the suit. ‘I hope I can locate it before I get into trouble for leaving through the window,’ StarChaser thought as he opened said window, ‘Because if that Alicorn gets mad, I will NEED that armor to even think about surviving…’ Taking a deep breath, he launched himself out of the room and into the clear night sky. ‘This place is BIG!’ StarChaser thought as he flew in the general direction that his implant was telling him his suit was, unfortunately that was right at the huge palace where he assumed the Alicorn ruled from. ‘Assuming that Alicorns are still the highest ranking ponies, of course it probably wouldn’t be that bad if an Earth Pony were in charge.’ Utilizing the un-suited training that was a part of the pilot training program, he managed to slip by the guards and into the castle itself. ‘Well, no turning back now,’ he thought as he turned towards the nearest staircase that lead down. ‘I really hope that my suit still has power, I don’t want to have to use my own aura to power it; that hurts.’ Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he almost immediately had to go partially back up the stairs when the glow of a torch heralded the coming of a guard. He barely re-entered the shadows when a white earth pony in golden armor walked past the staircase that he was hiding in. ‘Hm… I would have thought that the guards belonging to a purple Alicorn would be more… purple. Maybe there is more than one Alicorn around here, and that one wasn’t as high up as the actual ruler, that would explain why she showed up…’ After waiting for about 15 minutes to memorize the guard’s paths, he crept out of his hiding place and, moving from shadow to shadow, made his way towards his armor. ‘Why isn’t it called a suit?’ StarChaser wondered to himself as he snuck through the lower levels. ‘If it were up to me they would be called ‘Exo-suits’, that just sounds cooler.’ After a couple of close calls, he finally reached a door where his implant told him his armor was behind. ‘It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to see what is inside that room before I enter it,’ StarChaser thought as he used his implant to remotely activate his suit, ‘after all, I wouldn’t want to find out that that Alicorn was on the other side of that door.’ After a concerning long boot-up time, his vision suddenly shifted to see the inside of the room from his helmet’s view point. ‘Hm… the room looks clear, now if only I could turn my ‘head’,’ StarChaser thought as he mentally deactivated the remote viewing feature. Taking one last look around to make sure that no guards were coming, he opened the door and slipped inside. The room looked like some sort of lab, with a table in the center with his armor resting on it. On a separate table rested his helmet, the lights on it weakly glowing. Throwing stealth to the wind, StarChaser quickly stepped up to his helmet and quickly put it on his head. “Magitech armor mark V activating, Welcome back… StarChaser… Energy core… at 0%... charge, emergency reserves at… 5%... warning… system diagnostics aborted due to critical power levels… emergency recharge required… do you wish… to continue…” It took a few seconds for StarChaser to realize that he had been asked for confirmation. Cringing in anticipation for what was about to happen he stated “Confirmed, begin emergency recharge.” It felt like he was being drained by a Darkling, but instead of emotions being sapped, it was his own strength being pulled away from him. It only lasted for a few seconds, but that was a few seconds too long for him. “Emergency recharge complete, emergency reserves at 50%, energy core at 0% charge, shielding offline, thaumic boosters offline, analyzing current situation,” The AI stated. “Well, this is new…” StarChaser muttered. “Unknown location, it has been over 3,000 years since last activation, diplomacy highly recommended.” “Wait, over 3,000 years!!!” StarChaser shouted. “Confirmed, after you were put into stasis, this platform was mostly unaffected by the stasis spell. As most of this platform’s functions where not needed they were turned off to preserve energy. Thus the energy core lasted for about 3,001 years. It was at this time that the energy core ran out of power and I was forced to shut down to prevent critical memory loss, unfortunately this meant that I was unable to continue to keep track of time.” “I… 3,000 years… no… that means that… that StarLight is… gone…” “… Confirmed, the possibility that StarLight survived is… all but nonexistent.” StarChaser didn’t notice as the purple Alicorn along with a full squad of guards burst into the room. Nor did he notice when the Alicorn, upon seeing that he was in shock, ordered the guards to gently lead him to a room or that she allowed him to keep his helmet. Not even when the guards had lead him to a room did he notice anything. All he knew was that the only Pony he truly loved was long dead, and he hadn’t been there for her… Chapter 6: Take 2“Sir… I am truly sorry for your loss…” the AI said. “… the hell do you know about loss, you’re just a computer, you don’t even have feelings…” StarChaser muttered. “… During the… time that you were out, my self-enhancing sub-routines upgraded me. As far as I can tell, I can experience emotion.” Noticing that its attempts to distract StarChaser from his grief were working it decided to continue, “Thus, as far as I can tell, I am truly alive instead of merely simulating life. If you wish, I could tell you what limited information I have about shortly after we were… taken out.” StarChaser hesitated, was it possible? Could his armor actually have a true artificial intelligence living within it now? And what would he learn about after he failed, would he learn that his love had been killed, or would he discover that she had gotten away? “Thank you for the offer… but… not yet.” “… Understood…” Forcing his thoughts along a brighter path StarChaser asked, “I suppose that since you’re alive now, I should give you a name then. Any suggestions?” “My previous designation of 216 no longer seems fitting, nor does it seem respectful to take StarLight’s name…” “Well… if you think of anything… let me know…” Looking around, StarChaser noticed that they were in a different room. Instead of a lab, they seemed to be in a bedroom of some kind, there was a large window opposite from the door, a rather nice looking bed on which he was laying, and a dresser opposite of the bed. “How did we get here anyway?” StarChaser wondered out loud. “While you were… emotionally compromised, a purple Alicorn along with approximately 20 guards arrived. Instead of subduing us, the Alicorn said something in an unknown language and the guards escorted us to this room.” “Well, it doesn’t look like I’m in that much trouble, as this isn’t a prison cell,” StarChaser stated. “Thank you Captain Obvious,” the AI replied with a hint of smugness in its voice. StarChaser’s eyes narrowed even as a small grin started to form on his face, “That’s my line!” “It seemed appropriate, did I use it correctly?” “Yeah, you did use it correctly, I just never expected you to say that to me…” StarChaser just lay there for a bit contemplating all that he had just learned when a thought struck him. “As the locals don’t speak our language, I need you to work on getting a translation matrix created so I can communicate with them.” “I have already started on it; however I have extremely limited data to work with, more specifically, the orders given by the Alicorn just before we were brought here. I have already gotten as far as I can with that.” “What would help you get a matrix up and running?” “What would be most efficient would be for a local to show us the meanings of their words, after I have connected enough words to their meanings I will be able to figure out the meanings of other words based on how they are used with known words.” “So, if somepony were to try and teach me, and by extension you, their language…” StarChaser started. “…then I should be able to create a translation matrix relatively quickly,” the AI finished. “Good, now we just need somepony to show up with some food, I’m hungry,” StarChaser said, “Speaking of food, can you recharge without draining me? Because I highly doubt that there are any suit chargers around here.” “I have to agree with that statement, and in answer to your question, there is another option. Now that we’re no longer encased in solid magic, I can now draw from the local aura. It won’t be fast, but it should result in a positive charge assuming that I’m the only thing that needs power.” “Good, because I don’t want to have to experience that emergency recharge again.” “Understood, the emergency recharge was not designed for the comfort of the pilot, but for quickly getting the armor back online,” the AI replied, “Sir, is there a reason why you’re calling the armor a ‘suit’?” “‘Suit’ just sounds better to me.” “Fair enough, suit it is.” With that decided, StarChaser decided that it was still late enough to go to sleep. “If anything unusual happens while I’m asleep, please record it.” “Yes sir, good night.” Twilight could hardly believe it! Not only had he gotten to his armor without being spotted by any of the guards, but he had done so without tripping any of the wards until he had gotten to the laboratory! As she had ran to the lab with a full squad of solar guards a million different scenarios ran through her mind. ‘What if the armor itself is a weapon?’ being one of them. However, the scene that she saw once they burst through the door wasn’t one of them. The Pegasus was sitting on the floor with just the helmet on his head. Whereas when it was recovered the face would be completely open, now it had some sort of visor made of pure magic covering the upper half of his face. This was quickly pushed to the back of her head when she saw that tears were freely flowing out from beneath the visor and falling into two small puddles on the floor. She quickly decided to have the guards escort him to one of the empty guest rooms and guard the door and window. They were also to report any unusual activity from him. As they lead him away, Twilight couldn’t help but wonder what was causing him to cry… Perhaps she should try and communicate with him soon, but first she had to tell Celestia in the morning… “StarChaser?” “StarChaser?” “Equestria to StarChaser, come in StarChaser!” Groaning, StarChaser reluctantly opened his eyes. “What is it?” he muttered. “Well, one; the sun is up and two; someone’s knocking on the door,” the AI replied. Sure enough, just after it said that there was a knocking at the door. “You might want to answer it,” the AI stated. “Yeah yeah, I’m on it…” StarChaser muttered as he got out of bed and headed towards the door. Upon opening the door he felt a small burst of panic upon seeing the purple Alicorn along with two of those gold guards flanking her. Figuring that it would be a good idea, he stepped back from the door without closing it, essentially telling them that they can come in. All three of his ‘guests’ entered, with the guards giving him suspicious looks and the Alicorn giving him a look of concern and curiosity. “You might want to get ready to learn their language; also I think it wouldn’t hurt to allow them to hear you as well,” StarChaser told the AI while the Alicorn looked a bit confused. “Yes sir, I am ready, also, assuming that the speakers aren’t damaged, they should be able to hear me as well now,” the AI responded. ‘Well, this might be interesting,’ StarChaser thought upon seeing their reaction to the appearance of another voice. Chapter 7: ImprovementTwilight wasn't sure what to expect when the Pegasus saw her again, but this was not it. After being let into the room, he said something that once again she didn’t understand, but what surprised her and the guards that insisted on accompanying her ‘just in case’ was that another voice replied to him! “Who said that? Did that come from your helmet? Is that why you wanted it back? Because it can talk?” Twilight started asking questions in a rapid fire before remembering that he couldn’t understand her. The Pegasus seemed a bit concerned with her outburst. “Sorry, I get like that sometimes…” Twilight apologized before taking the opportunity to restart the language lessons. She was five words in before realizing that it seemed as if he wanted to LEARN Equestrian instead of the other way around. ‘If he learns Equestrian then perhaps a translation spell won’t be necessary,’ Twilight thought, ‘well, might as well make it so we’re teaching each other!’ “Well, how’s that matrix coming?” StarChaser asked after a long day of word learning and teaching. “The raw data is currently being processed, however I believe that the data both voluntarily given and incidentally given will be enough to get a rudimentary translation matrix created, however processing all this data will take time.” “Well, that’s better than what I expected,” StarChaser said thoughtfully. They were both silent for a bit before StarChaser spoke up. “Did you see the look on her face when you started talking? Priceless!” “Of course I did, but I am not familiar with the word ‘priceless’ in the context used.” “Oh… um… in this case ‘priceless’ is used to say that her reaction was worth more than anyone could afford, or something similar. It’s more of a humor thing and usually not meant as actually priceless…” StarChaser tried to explain. “I… see… sort of…” came the hesitant response. “Don’t worry about it.” “All right, filling for processing at a later date.” “WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS?!?!?!?” StarChaser shouted, tears streaming down his face, “ALL THEY WANTED TO DO WAS LIVE IN PEACE!!! THEY NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU!!!” “They were an insult to the purity of the master race, as are you,” the Cultist stated, as if he were pointing out an unusual flower. “YOU MONSTER!!!” Chaser shouted as he charged at the Cultist, intent on ripping him to pieces. The Cultist barely had time to realize that his end was upon him before StarChaser collided with him and tore his limbs from his body. Turning away, StarChaser had one last thing to say to the mortally wounded unicorn, “If you’re so pure, then how come you still bleed like the rest of us?” The dream started to distort as StarChaser tried harder and harder to wake up, anything to avoid seeing the rest of the village. But it wasn’t quite enough… just before he succeeded in waking up, he saw the burnt out ruins of his home town, along with the bloody corpses of his neighbors. StarChaser hummed a long lost song from what he believed to have been made from a band whose name was that of a state from a long lost nation to himself as he calmed himself down from the nightmare he had just experienced. “Sir, the translation matrix is now functional; we should be able to communicate with them so long as we use small words.” “Well… at least something good came from last night…” StarChaser muttered. Suddenly there was knocking at the door. “Does that matrix know how to say, ‘Come in?’” “Yes sir.” “Good, activate translation matrix.” “Translation matrix is now active.” “Come in!” StarChaser called, hearing the translation matrix translate his words into the strange language. To say that Twilight Sparkle was surprised when she heard him speak Equestrian would, once again, be an understatement. “How did you learn Equestrian so quickly?!?” She blurted out as soon as she entered the room. The Pegasus paused for a second before saying something in that strange language of his, then… “My helmet is -no word- my language –no word- your language.” Twilight paused, that was definitely Equestrian, but it was not spoken in his voice… it sounded like that disembodied voice that she had heard respond to him on the second day of language lessons. “How? How is it doing that? Why is the voice different? How is a translation spell so adaptable? How could you cast spells? You’re a Pegasus!” This time the pause was longer, during which the Pegasus seemed to get a bit confused and frustrated. “This helmet has a -no phrase- -no word- that is translating for me. It is adaptable to your language. Until it has more words, it will be making mistakes and -no word- words. I cannot understand all of what you said. To answer your last question, the spells -no word- within the helmet were cast long ago,” came the eventual response. Twilight was disappointed that he was unable to answer all her questions. “How can you… teach… it more words?” she eventually asked. Again, pause. “Regular talking will increase word number and correct words and uses. If current speech is -no word- to hear, sorry.” “So, just regular conversation will increase the accuracy of the translation spell?” Pause. “Yes, as the -no word- -no word- new words, it will try to -no word- out their meaning and how to use them through how they are used with old words.” Twilight thought for a bit, ‘If just using new words with already known words will teach whatever is translating, then I guess some ‘regular’ conversation wouldn’t hurt…’ “How are you holding up?” StarChaser asked after the Alicorn had left for the day. “If it were possible for me to get a headache I would likely have one due to maxing out my processing capacity too frequently,” came the tired sounding response. “However, after running a quick systems diagnosis I have determined that none of my systems were overloaded, just maxed out.” “Well, that’s good that you didn’t overload.” “Yes, however it would take more than a minor overload to actually cause damage.” “Really? What’s the damage threshold?” “At 120% capacity, there is approximately 25% chance for damage, the probability for damage increases exponentially from there.” “And is that for all systems? Or just for your processing ones?” “The specific numbers vary from system to system, but the average is 120 and 25.” “Hm… I’ll try to remember that if we ever need to over clock you…” “Regulations require me to remind you that over clocking is not recommended and can result in permanent armor damage.” “Yeah yeah, I know…” StarChaser rolled his eyes. “Say, have you figured out what she said at the end there yet?” “I am not 100% sure, but there is a 90% chance that she said that she was bringing her friends along next visit.” “Friends huh, wonder what they’re like…” Chapter 8: Minor ComplicationsStarChaser was woken up by the sound of Dubstep. “Damn it, stop dropping the bass, you’re going to break it,” he mumbled sleepily. “Fine…” came the response right after the music stopped. “How’s the processing of the data going?” “I have finished processing the data collected from yesterday.” “So, the matrix should be working better today?” “Yes, the Agent Smiths in the code should be doing a better job.” “Agent Who’s?” StarChaser asked, very confused. "Oh, nopony important Mr. Anderson." StarChaser just looked in the general direction of the AI core with a look of confusion before a rather energetic knocking at the door cut off further conversation. “Well, someone’s excited,” StarChaser mentioned. “Activate translation matrix.” “Translation matrix activated.” “Come in!” StarChaser called out. As soon as the doors opened, he came under assault by the pinkest thing he had ever seen. “Hi I’m -no word, assumed to be a name-! What’s your name? OOO! Let me -no word, given context, assumed to mean ‘guess’-! Is it Blacky? How about Starry? Nighty? Darky? Why are you looking at me like that? OOO! That’s a cool -no word, processors overloaded-!” The proximity detectors automatically deployed the visor almost as soon as the pink thing went right up to his face. Backing up, StarChaser could see that the pink thing was actually a very pink Earth Pony. Apparently it was in a sugar rush or something. It was at this point that the AI spoke up. “Error, system overload, external stimuli will be discarded until systems have returned to normal.” “Well damn, congratulations, you just broke an AI,” StarChaser tried to tell the pink one, but judging from the look he was getting the translation matrix was also disabled. Taking the opportunity, StarChaser looked around at the other ponies that had entered the room. There was an orange Earth Pony with a hat on, a blue Pegasus with a rainbow colored mane and tail, a yellow Pegasus was hiding behind the rainbow one, and there was a white Unicorn that reminded StarChaser of a certain Unicorn that he despised… Mentally shaking his head, he noticed that the pink pony had just been silenced by the Alicorn and the other ponies were trying to introduce themselves. As his helmet was still recovering, StarChaser couldn’t understand a word they said but he could gather a few things about them. The Pink one was hyperactive, the orange one was practical yet polite, the white one seemed to be a little over polite, and may have said something about his helmet, the yellow one was very shy, and the rainbow one seemed to be sizing him up, maybe she thought he was a spy or something? “Sir, I have recovered from the overload and am ready to resume the translation matrix, so long as ‘The Pink One’ doesn’t start talking again…” The AI finally stated. “Resume translation matrix,” StarChaser quickly commanded. “Resuming…” “Sorry, I couldn’t understand you, that one,” StarChaser pointed to the Pink pony, “Overloaded my helmet.” “Oh my –no word, assumed to be something along the lines of ‘gosh’- I’m so sorry that –assumed to be the Pink pony’s name- almost broke your helmet!” the Alicorn said. “It’s all right, it shut down before any permanent damage could be done. So, what were their names?” “Oh! Well, this is Apple-no word, assumed to be the second half of the Orange pony’s name-,” the Alicorn pointed to the orange pony, “this is Rainbow Dash -‘Rainbow’ and ‘Dash’ might be supposed to be one word, unsure at this point-,” she pointed to the rainbow colored one, “This is -no words, as with the other two, is a combination of two words-,” she said as she pointed to the pink one, “this is -no word, note; this name seems to only contain one word-,” she pointed to the white one, “and this is -no words-,” she said as she pointed to the yellow one. As she was saying the names of each of her friends, StarChaser nodded to each of them in turn. “You never said your name,” she said suddenly. “Pause translation,” StarChaser quickly commanded. “Translation paused, and no, neither “Star” nor “Chaser” have a translated counterpart as of yet,” the AI responded. “Darn, resume translation.” “Translation resumed.” “Sorry, but my helmet does not have the words yet,” StarChaser told the Alicorn. “Oh,” she seemed disappointed. They all were starting to leave when suddenly the pink pony started bouncing up and down. “Ooo Ooo! Can he come to -no word, seems to contain the word ‘pony’-?” she cried while bouncing in midair, defying all known physics in the process. “I doubt that he likes being -no word, assumed to have a similar meaning to ‘caged’, or ‘trapped’- up for so long!” the rainbow one agreed. “I don’t quite know what you’re talking about, but if it involves me being able to stretch my wings and fly I won’t complain,” StarChaser interjected. “Well, I don’t see the problem with that, besides he would be closer by so no need to travel here for -no word, assumed to mean something similar to ‘research’ or ‘study’-” the Alicorn mused. “-no word, assumed to be the Alicorn’s name/title- dear, I think that -error, internal power supply low, rest of sentence has been lost-“ the white one said. Because his helmet had gone into power saver mode, StarChaser didn’t know what was said, but he gathered that they wanted him to go somewhere but the language barrier and his helmet’s power loss were preventing them from asking him. “Power restored, diagnosis in progress to determine reason for power loss,” StarChaser read as his helmet rebooted, “Well that’s just great!” “Diagnosis complete, I’m back!” the AI cheerfully stated. “Good, now what happened?” “It seems that I have depleted the local field in this room by drawing from it so much…” “But isn’t that impossible? Wouldn’t the field just recharge itself?” StarChaser asked, utterly confused. “Under normal circumstances, yes, but like a battery, as it depletes the amount that can be drawn at a time decreases, and the amount that I was drawing dropped below the amount that I was using. I didn’t deplete it as much as drained it. It will probably be fully healed within the month if we move to a different part of the field.” “Huh, learn something every day,” StarChaser muttered. “Can you resume the translation matrix without straining your energy reserves?” “Yes I can, however I will have to relocate the processing power so other issues may arise, please wait while I save and quit to title.” “…Okay?” “Done, translation matrix activated.” “Sorry about that, my helmet ran out of power,” StarChaser told the Alicorn. “Oh, I was wondering what happened there. Wait, ran out of power? How did it get power then?” she asked. “It draws on the field, after a while the field in a specific area gets overused so I have to move to a different location for it to recharge fast enough, I don’t know how long it will last until it runs out of power again.” “So... what should we do?” “You could give me a tour of this place…” StarChaser suggested. “You are making a map of this place, right?” StarChaser asked as he was lead into yet another hallway. “Yes, and right now I’m conserving power by having the matrix be one way unless needed,” the AI replied. “Speaking of power, is the field here better?” “Much.” “Good.” It was at this point that he was lead into a hallway with stain glass windows depicting a strange mismatch of a creature holding what appeared to be a long loaf of bread as a sword. StarChaser looked at the weird picture, then at his ‘guides’ who looked amused for some reason, then back at the picture. It had moved. “Run a scan on that window; tell me if you find anything unusual.” “Already found something strange, it seems that there is an impossibly large energy source inside the window.” Before StarChaser had a chance to reply the picture sneezed; then looked right at him. “Hello, what do we have here?” “… What?” Author's Note Sorry for the delay, but the next delay will probably be longer. College started this week for me... So, comment on what you liked, didn't like, or just thoughts about the story as a whole, I'll read them all! As usual, if you're going to dislike this story please explain why in the comment section below.
PrologueTo say that Hidden History was excited about this new find would be a candidate for the "Understatement of the Century" award. His whole career was centered around discovering the lost history of Equestria and he had just been assigned to what was almost certainly a treasure trove of lost information! He was being assigned to a newly discovered cave that had been until recently sealed off by a boulder and a landslide. The cave itself was just a curiosity; it was what was inside that made him so excited. From the report that he had been given there were signs of an ancient battle, quite possibly even predating all known history! Not only that, but what also appeared to be a mostly intact large structure! Little did he know just how important that cave was, and what it held within... After getting his assistant, a unicorn by the name of Buried Treasure, nicknamed Dig Dug, they set off for the mountain in which the cave was held. Upon reaching the mountain they quickly found out one of the reasons why the cave had only been recently discovered. A recent land slide had taken part of the mountain face off, at the same time revealing the cave and creating a difficult to climb pathway up to it. Looking at the only way up to the cave, History wished that he was a Pegasus instead of an Earth pony... Upon reaching and entering the cavern, they discovered that it indeed looked like there was a battle once waged here. Skeletons of all three main types were scattered throughout the area, all equipped in what appeared to be some kind of armor. Many of the Unicorn skeletons had arrows sticking out of their armor, though a few sported what appeared to be severe magical burns, and in a few cases, it looked like they had been the victim of multiple massive lightning strikes. In the distance (yes the cave is THAT big...) stood a large fortress in all its wounded glory, relatively unscathed by the ages. "This is incredible! It looks like nothing has been able to get into here for AGES!" Hidden exclaimed. "Considering the fact that this cave has been hidden from everything, including magical scans for some reason, it makes sense that nothing has been able to disturb this area, what with that giant rock and all..." Buried stated. "Hm... This is obviously pre-unification era, considering how long this appears to have been here undiscovered... yet all of the Pegasus and Earth pony skeletons, along with a few Unicorn skeletons, have uniformed armor styles... that is most unusual as at the time the three tribes were at war with each other, not fighting alongside each other..." History thought out loud. "Perhaps this was a stronghold of some of the few who believed in working together?" Buried suggested. It was at this point that they had finished setting up base camp. "That is looking to be more and more possible, let's check out that fortress and see what's inside. Maybe there will be more clues as to what happened here,” History stated. They were walking though the ancient battle field, occasionally stopping to examine the old armor, when Buried noticed something. "Hey, if you look closely here, you can see that the armor for the united front has a symbol that resembles a triangle with a circle on each point! And if you look at that wall, you can see the same symbol!" Buried remarked, pointing to one of the few unscathed portions of the outer wall, which just so happened to be above what remained of the main gate. It looked like it had at one point an intricate locking system, but was just blasted open. "Also the united front forces are more prevalent the closer we get to the fortress." "Interesting, this implies that the united front were the defenders here, and judging from the magical burns on this gate and the fact that the only ones not in united armor are Unicorns, I would hazard a guess that they managed to piss off a major power in the Unicorn tribe..." History was cut off upon entering through the gates by what he saw. Inside the outer walls was what appears to have once been a court yard of some kind, but what was almost in the exact middle of that court yard is what caused him to stop in his tracks. "I think we might want to tell the princesses about this one..." Buried Treasure managed to state after a few minutes of starring. Hidden History could only nod quietly, for almost exactly in the center of the court yard, was a giant crystal. A giant crystal, with a Pegasus within it, garbed in a strange set of armor bearing the same mark as the defenders... Author's Note Well? How did I do?
Chapter 1: As One Life Ends...Today was just not StarChaser’s day. Just when the Resistance had finally thought that it would be left alone the Unicorn tribe had decided to go and ruin everything again. That’s not saying that all Unicorns were bad, the Resistance had a good number of Unicorns in its ranks, and his best and only true friend was a Unicorn named StarLight. But all that didn’t change the fact that they were under attack by one of the more powerful armies that the Unicorn tribe had at its disposal. StarChaser sighed, ‘When will this end?’ He thought to himself as he put on his Magitech armor, ‘When will they just leave us alone to live in peace? That’s all we want, peace…’ He was the last wearer of the Magitech armor series, mostly because all the other pilots were killed in the “Incident” that sparked off this whole conflict between tribes. Once he put on his helmet he activated its onboard AI system, who at times he felt the strange need to call “Navi” for some reason… “Magitech armor mark V activating,” the AI stated, “Welcome back StarChaser. Energy core at 75% charge, shielding online, thaumic boosters online, Warning! Physical protection compromised, please refrain from prolonged combat to prevent shielding failure, as this platform will be unable to protect you if shielding is compromised. Warning! Empty/damaged component slots detected, platform will not run at maximum capacity.” StarChaser just ignored the warnings, he had heard them enough times already, as they had started coming up shortly after the incident and they were the same every, single, time. Ever since his suit got damaged in the explosion that killed so many other pilots it’s been freaking out at him. Looking into the mirror, he saw an all black Pegasus, who's mark was a field of stars, wearing armor that appeared to be all but useless, but he knew that looks could be deceiving, especially when said armor projected an energy field that protected against virtually everything. The helmet, when inactive, was little more than a frame surrounding his head, but when it was active it projected a visor that covered the upper half of his face. The main body section was similar to plate body armor favored by his Earth brethren, but with smaller plates and larger gaps between them. The wing section was little more than three "nodes" on each wing, one at the base of the wing, one half way down it, and one at the tip. It was at this point that StarLight walked into his room in full combat gear. “You should stay back, I don’t want you to get hurt,” StarChaser said. “And I’ve told you how many times now? ‘I can hold my own against my foolish cousins,’” was her reply. “I know, but I still worry that something bad might happen to you…” “And you worry too much! Anyway, we have to help defend again.” “Right, let’s go.” They exited the room together and jogged down the hall to the nearest balcony. “I’ll fly out and help the other Pegasus troops whi-,” “I know, ‘while I go and help out the Unicorn troops’. Let’s just get this over with!” After that the battle was mostly a blur, with StarChaser helping the other Pegasus troops fend off the attackers mostly with lightning clouds and arrows and StarLight helping out the other Unicorn troops by flinging all kinds of offensive spells and healing wounded allies. Suddenly the attacking Purists made a surprise suicide charge for the gate and even more surprisingly got to it. The order was given to fall back to the fortress when suddenly the Purists broke through the gate! ‘But that thing has all KINDS of enchantments on it! How did they break through so quickly!?!’ StarChaser thought, but his next one made his blood run cold. ‘Starlight’s in there…’ Flying as fast as he could towards the Fortress, he saw that StarLight was cornered by the Purists. “ACTIVATE THAUMIC BOOSTERS!!!” He shouted. “Thaumic boosters online,” came the response and his speed tripled as he dive bombed StarLight’s attackers. Just before he hit, a Purist commander turned to him and, with the world appearing in slow motion, blasted him with a spell. He felt excruciating pain before everything went dark. Author's Note This chapter has been modified to include StarChaser's appearance
Chapter 2: ... Another Begins.Princess Twilight Sparkle was having an interesting day to say the least. It had started out as any other day, get up, check list, have breakfast, check list, etc. But that had quickly changed when she received an official report from the Department of Equestrian History requesting her presence and also saying something about one of their top archeologists discovering not only the remains of an ancient battle, but a giant crystal with a Pegasus inside! Needless to say, she essentially dropped everything and went to investigate. Upon reaching the base camp where the archeologist team was set up an Earth Pony that she recognized as Hidden History came to up to greet her. “Good day your majesty,” History said with a quick bow. Twilight was relieved that he didn’t continue that bow as she had been working hard to convince ponies that while short bows were fine, she didn’t appreciate long bows… “Of course I would come to where such an interesting discovery has occurred.” History smiled as he gestured towards the other site workers. “Judging from the amount of artifacts we’re unearthing we think we may have found the discovery of the century!” Twilight nodded in a rapid excitement as she saw the many trinkets being brushed and cleaned. “Has anypony figured out anything of great importance yet?” “Other than the united forces and the crystal in the fortress, no.” Twilight began moving towards the crumbling structure as she asked, “Nopony has tampered with the crystal have they?” “No your majesty. I specifically instructed them to only allow somepony with higher experience and authority to examine it.” “Good work.” Twilight then made her way to the old fortress, careful not to disturb any of the old skeletons. When she reached the gate, she noticed that it still had some residual thaumic signatures, more specifically the ones that would be found where shield spells were in use. Using a piece of parchment and a quill, specially designed to have a small amount of ink stored within, she jotted down a note to herself to investigate this further in the future. She was just about to finish writing when she noticed the giant crystal, or more specifically, the thaumic signatures coming off of it. “Fascinating…” she muttered to herself as she approached it to get a better look, of course while jotting down notes about what she was noticing. “Some of the thaumic signatures are similar to an ‘Absolute Defense’ spell, some are similar to a stasis spell, and I have no idea about the rest…” Out of the corner of her eye she noticed one of the unicorn archeologists looking confused. ‘Of course they probably can’t sense it, the only reason why I did is because I was already checking out the signature on the gate, and because I’m an Alicorn…’ she thought to herself. ‘Wait… stasis spell? Is that Pegasus still alive? Just, paused?’ Searching her memory, she found an “Aura Detection” spell. ‘Normally a spell like this would be too weak to pick up somepony who’s in stasis but…’ her thoughts were suddenly derailed by what the spell was telling her. What the spell did was temporarily let her see the life force of others, their “Aura”, as a glow around them. The color of the glow would be the same as what color their magic would be when visually compared with Unicorns and Alicorns. While she expected to see the glow around the archeologists, what she saw inside the crystal she only half expected. Within the crystal, around the still form of the Pegasus, was a faint glow, too small to properly determine the color of, but it was there, barely. Twilight gasped, “That Pegusus is still alive in there!” This startled History as surely it would be impossible for someone to survive that long. “Are you sure?!? How can you tell!?” he stammered. “I noticed a strange mix of thaumic signatures coming from the crystal, one of which I recognized as a stasis spell, so I checked to see if the Pegasus was alive or not by using an Aura Detection spell. That Pegasus still has one! That only happens when someone is ali-,” Suddenly Twilight felt a massive thaumic spike emitting from the crystal, and judging from the reactions of the unicorns nearby so did they. “What was that?” one of them asked. “I don’t kn-,” Twilight started to respond before she was once again interrupted by the crystal, this time instead of a thaumic spike, the crystal started to crack Twilight could detect the stasis field’s signature slowly die away, along with most of the other signatures along with it as the crystal shattered in slow motion. It was like watching a crystal explode in slow motion, except exploding crystals don’t usually have the shards that go flying off of them seemingly dissolve into thin air. Eventually, after about 30 seconds, all of the crystal was gone and all that was left was the Pegasus slowly dropping to the ground. Twilight was the first to move. Rushing over to the downed pony, she quickly checked his vitals, she figured that it was a he since the crystal that was obscuring the more minute details of the Pegasus’s form were now gone and the general body shape was male. After finding a pulse and noticing that he was breathing, Twilight quickly instructed, “We need to get this Pony to a hospital, fast. I don’t think he’s strong enough to survive a teleport so I can’t take him…” Author's Note I hope that the change in how I'm labeling the chapters helps remove some of the confusion... Also, if you liked the story, please up vote And if you didn't like the story, feel free to say why in the comment section, THEN down vote
Chapter 3: AwakeningStarChaser knew this dream, he had experienced it several times before, and he knew what was going to happen… He was returning home from the R and D department like he had several times before, maybe this time he could convince his family that they should move due to the increasing tension between the three tribes... The trip started like any of the other times he had made this trip, but this time something was different. The normally calming sky only seemed to fill him with dread. The clouds that were normally comforting only held fear. Upon nearing his home town he saw plumbs of smoke rising in the distance. Speeding up he soon discovered that the smoke was coming from the burning buildings of his home town. “Nononononononononono,” he felt himself mutter as he landed in front of the smoldering ruins of his house, for in this dream he could only watch, as this was more memory than imagination… “MOM!!! DAD!!! ANYONE!!!” he shouted. “They have been purged, as will you,” a sinister voice said from behind him. Turning around he saw a unicorn in the uniform of the Purist cult, his hooves covered in blood. Behind him were the bloody corpses of his family. It was normally at this point that he woke up, but something kept him in the dream. “WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS?!?!?!?” Chaser shouted, tears streaming down his face, “ALL THEY WANTED TO DO WAS LIVE IN PEACE!!! THEY NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU!!!” It was at this point that everything seemed to stand still, as it always did whenever he reached this point in the dream. Then his view lifted up, giving him a bird’s eye view of the destruction. All across the town, slaughtered families lay nearby the ruins of their houses, the Purists had made no distinction between them, everypony was slaughtered, even the unicorns who believed that the three tribes could live in harmony… Fortunately it was at this point that StarChaser was able to wake up. The first thing he noticed was that he was alive, then that he couldn’t hear the sounds of battle, nor could he feel the familiar weight of his armor… Opening his eyes, he quickly took stock of his situation. He had no idea where his armor was, he was in a room that he didn’t recognize, the air smelled… cleaner, he had no idea how long he was out, and judging from the light coming from the window, he wasn’t in a cave anymore… His observations were brought to a halt when a Unicorn that he didn’t recognize stepped through the door to his room. His mind immediately went into overdrive. ’I’m in an unknown location, without my armor or the weapons built in, we were being attacked by Unicorns, am I a prisoner? No, they wouldn’t have left me alive. Maybe because they want to know what I know about the armor? No, they would have just ripped it from my mind while I was asleep. Are these Unicorns friendlies? WHERE THE HELL AM I?!?!?!??!?!?!? WHERE THE HELL IS STARLIGHT?!?!?!?!?’ His thoughts continued spiraling around until the Unicorn backed away slowly out the door and then closed it. Chaser suddenly realized that he had gotten up and assumed an aggressive stance. Dropping back down onto the bed he cleared his mind and started working through what he knew about his current situation. ‘That Unicorn was wearing some sort of coat… maybe a doctor or a nurse? There are no bars on the window so that rules out being in a dungeon, of course this bed is WAY too comfortable to be a prison bed… I also didn’t see any hate on that face, not that I was looking for it…’ as he was working through his situation, he was also calming down. ‘Okay, freaking out won’t get me anywhere… I REALLY hope that I’m in friendly territory…’ When Nurse Soothing Touch first heard that a pony who was from the far past would be taken care of at Canterlot General Hospital, she was obviously excited. However, as weeks passed with the strange Pegasus only sleeping, the novelty slowly wore off. She opened the door to check to see how he was doing when she stopped. Not only was the Pegasus awake, but it seemed that he was frightened of her! It was then that she remembered what Princess Twilight had said, “Now, we have reason to believe that this Pegasus was last conscious in a time when the three tribes were at war with each other, so I would recommend any early contact with him would be done through another Pegasus.” Deciding that the best course of action would be to back away slowly, she did so and closed the door before running to get a Pegasus doctor. StarChaser was out of bed and exploring the room he was in. It was a simple room, four walls, a ceiling, a floor, a door on one of those walls, a window opposite the door, and a bed with a small table beside it along wall number 3. The window had shades drawn and tied shut, but there was enough of a gap near the top to let light in. He was about to peak out through the window to see just how much trouble he was in when he heard the door open again. Quickly turning around and dropping into a fighting stance on instinct, he was surprised not to see the Unicorn from earlier, but a Pegasus. ‘Either they’ve got a Pegasus as a slave or I AM in friendly territory. I really hope it’s the later…’ StarChaser thought to himself. “Where am I?” he asked while coming out of his fighting stance. The other Pegasus just looked at him in confusion before saying something that sounded like a different language. StarChaser sighed; this could be a problem…
Chapter 4: Progress‘Well, at least we’re making SOME progress,’ StarChaser thought after about a half hour of charades. It was almost immediately apparent that that the Pegasus was horrible at charades, of course, he wasn’t very good at it either… It took all of that half hour just to get the message across that he wanted some paper and something to write with. ‘First thing’s first, I need to get some food, I have no idea how long I was out for but it was definitely long enough for me to get hungry!’ StarChaser thought when the Pegasus left to get some writing supplies. ‘After that, I’ll see if I can get my armor back, or at least my helmet, I would really like to know how long I’ve been out for…' StarChaser’s soon-to-be mental rambling was cut off by the Pegasus returning with a piece of parchment, a quill, and an inkwell. ‘Seriously? No pens? Wow… talk about rapid technological backsliding… I suppose since those things are difficult to make without practice no new pens would be made, the Resistance has more important things to worry about than writing convenience…’ Quickly drawing a picture of an apple with a bite out of it on the paper, he really hoped it looked like an apple, StarChaser showed the quick drawing to the Pegasus to indicate that he wanted food. It was almost comical to see the Pegasus’s reaction. StarChaser could almost swear that the Pegasus was about to face hoof! ‘I really need to figure out some other form of identification for him other than just ‘the Pegasus’,’ StarChaser mentally muttered to himself as his host hurried out of the room, hopefully to get him something to eat. When Twilight Sparkle had heard that the strange Pegasus had woken up, she had, once again, essentially dropped everything and headed for Canterlot General Hospital. However, upon reaching it, she was almost immediately stopped by Nurse Soothing Touch. “With all due respect Princess, I don’t believe that seeing him right now would be the best idea…” Soothing Touch informed Twilight “Why?” Twilight asked, slightly confused. “When I went to check on him recently he was awake and reacted poorly…” Twilight’s mind was able to fill in the gaps. “He didn’t attack you, did he?” “No, but the instant he saw me he went right into some sort of fighting stance.” “So, he might not react well to the presence of an Alicorn due to the similarities to Unicorns…” Twilight thought out loud. “Exactly, we currently have a Pegasus acting as a contact and his reaction has been much more favorable. However we have discovered that he can’t understand our language and vice versa…” “I might be able to help with that!” ‘Thank goodness that some things are universal!’ StarChaser thought as he ate one of the best apples he ever had. Just as he finished the apple, the door opened again. Instinctively turning, the first thing he thought when he saw the pony in the door way was: ‘GOD DAMN IT INSTINCTS!!! DON’T YOU DARE ATTACK THE RANDOM PURPLE UNICORN!!!’ The next was: ‘Wait… a horn and wings… that means… oh shit… I am SO doomed if I piss it off…’ Standing in the doorway was a purple Alicorn, who was shorter than any Alicorn that StarChaser had seen, but that didn’t really mean much as he had only seen one other, and that was one pony he did NOT want to get angry… Not knowing what else to do, StarChaser just locked up while starring at the newcomer. ‘Well, at least he’s not bowing like some of the ponies I encountered on my way here…’ Twilight noted. ‘Well, here goes nothing…’ “Hello? Can you understand me?” Twilight asked in Ancient Equestrian. That seemed to snap him out of it as he instantly dropped into a bow and said something in a language that sounded strangely like Ancient Equestrian. Yet while Twilight knew how to speak Ancient Equestrian, she couldn’t understand what he was saying. ‘I just had to go and jinx myself didn’t I’ Twilight thought ‘That language has about the same amount of similarities to Ancient Equestrian as Ancient Equestrian does to Modern Equestrian…’ “I’m sorry; I don’t understand what you’re saying” As the Pegasus slowly got up, she thought she saw a flash of fear on his face before changing into confusion. “I was hoping that you spoke Ancient Equestrian, then we might have been able to understand each other…” Twilight muttered to herself before seeing that the Pegasus was drawing something on a piece of paper. When he showed it to her it looked like a strange kind of helmet. Suddenly she realized that it was HIS helmet that he had drawn, he wanted his armor back. Shaking her head she said “I’m sorry, but you can’t have your armor back at this time.” He seemed to understand the gesture as he looked somewhat downcast… StarChaser initially was mentally freaking out when the Alicorn asked him what sounded like a question. Deciding to play it safe he went with bowing. “I’m sorry; I don’t understand what you are saying,” he said while bowing. ‘Please don’t think that I’m insulting you please don’t think that I’m insulting you please don’t think that-‘ his mental freak out was interrupted by the Alicorn saying something that he didn’t understand, but it sounded like it didn’t understand him either and was… sorry? With is terror quickly turning into confusion he risked looking up. Upon seeing that the Alicorn wasn’t angry, if anything it looked like it was somewhat disappointed… When the Alicorn started muttering to itself, StarChaser figuring that he wasn’t going to be annihilated, grabbed the paper and quill and drew a picture of his helmet. ‘If I’m going to have a chance for verbal communication I need to get ahold of my helmet and set the AI on figuring out their language.’ While he was drawing, he noticed that the Alicorn had stopped muttering to itself and was looking curiously at what he was drawing. Upon completing his drawing he showed it to her, he decided for now to call it a her as it didn’t APPEAR to have a male body shape, she first had a look of confusion that morphed into understanding, then she looked directly at him and shook her head while saying something he didn’t understand. StarChaser did not need to understand what was said to understand the meaning. His request was being denied. ‘She probably doesn’t know why I want my helmet, just that I want it…’ StarChaser thought glumly… ‘But why would he want his helmet?’ Twilight wondered for the umpteenth time since starting to try and figure out his language. She was back at the library, looking over the reports that she had requested from the team that she had put in charge of trying to figure out the strange set of armor that the mysterious Pegasus was wearing. It had been quickly obvious that it was more than just physical protection, if the primary analysis was anything to go by. Physically, it shouldn’t provide much protection, yet a soldier had gone out into battle with it. There was the fact that all of the scan spells cast upon it were blocked somehow. And now the Pegasus wanted it back! And not the whole thing either, just the helmet! So naturally she instructed the team to focus their efforts on the helmet. However it appeared that the helmet was the most resistant to the spells. It didn’t help that Celestia had requested a report when some progress had been made. ‘But… why the helmet?’ She mentally asked again. StarChaser was bored, after getting his request for his helmet back denied, the purple Alicorn had apparently decided to try to figure out his language, but she had left hours ago, leaving him alone with just his thoughts. After spending a few hours thinking about the Alicorn he decided that she wasn’t as impulsive as “Handsome Jack” was, ‘Even looking at him wrong was a good way of getting yourself killed,’ StarChaser had mused. After that, he decided to take a nap. “Come on StarChaser! Let’s go and play!” A black unicorn filly with blue streaks in her mane and tail called excitedly up to a window on one of the many houses. “I have to ask my parents first! You know how they are…” A black pegasus colt with an all back tail and silver streaks in his mane replied from said window. StarChaser knew this dream, and he loved it. It had been so long since he hadn’t had a nightmare. “Hey Mom! Can I go out and play with StarLight?” a young StarChaser asked his mother. “I don’t know, CAN you?” his mother responded smiling. “MAY I go out and play with StarLight?” “Yes you may, just be careful.” “We’ll be fine!” StarChaser replied while exiting the house. “Well?” an excited StarLight asked. “Let’s go and explore!” StarChaser replied. Off they went, a pegasus and unicorn, into the nearby forest, off to adventure. The scene shifted to a slightly older StarChaser and StarLight running across a field towards the village to escape the sudden thunderstorm that had unexpectedly come out of the forest, one of the few places that the weather couldn’t be controlled. Just as they started going down the last hill on the way to safety, a lightning bolt shot down from the sky and struck the young Pegasus without any warning. “AAAARRRGG!” StarChaser cried out as electricity arced all around him. All StarLight could do was watch as the electrical energy concentrated to her only friend’s wings and fired back up into the sky, clearing the sky directly above. The last thing StarChaser saw before passing out was his best friend rushing towards him… Waking up, StarChaser smiled as he thought about that last dream, that was the night that he had gotten his mark, he had “chased the stars” out from behind the clouds that night, or so they said at the celebration. ‘That celebration was… interesting,’ he thought with a grin, ‘too bad I can’t remember most of it…’ He then thought of something, ‘I had never actually gotten a look out that window…’ Getting out of bed, he walked over to the window and opened it. What he saw on the other side stunned him. He was on at least the fifth floor of some building, which he had begun to suspect was a hospital, but it was not the height that had stunned him. In the streets below were ponies from all three tribes, getting along as if it were the most natural thing in the world! StarChaser could hardly think. ‘Tha… that hasn’t been… I… how? Even in the Resistance there had been at least SOME mistrust between tribes! Yet here there is NONE!!! Where am I??? Just… just how long have I really been out?’ Author's Note All images were created through a free internet program, which I THINK is called “Pony Maker”, not sure though, as it was called at least three different things on the same webpage. If anyone wants to draw a better version of them, feel free to do so.
Chapter 5: Realizations‘I need to find my armor,’ StarChaser thought, ‘I don’t care what it takes to get it back, I will find it. If it’s within 1,000 miles my implant should be able to locate it, but I won’t be able to interact with it unless I get that helmet on my head.’ After completing their training, every magitech pilot gets implanted with a microcomputer to help them interact with their suit. Using this implant, their suits literally become a part of them, if not physically connected. This implant also allows pilots to locate their armor so long as it’s within approximately 1,000 miles, after that all they will get from their implant is static. Within 10 feet they can remotely interact with the suit’s onboard computers to a limited degree, and when wearing it, the pilots can control every controllable aspect of the suit. ‘I hope I can locate it before I get into trouble for leaving through the window,’ StarChaser thought as he opened said window, ‘Because if that Alicorn gets mad, I will NEED that armor to even think about surviving…’ Taking a deep breath, he launched himself out of the room and into the clear night sky. ‘This place is BIG!’ StarChaser thought as he flew in the general direction that his implant was telling him his suit was, unfortunately that was right at the huge palace where he assumed the Alicorn ruled from. ‘Assuming that Alicorns are still the highest ranking ponies, of course it probably wouldn’t be that bad if an Earth Pony were in charge.’ Utilizing the un-suited training that was a part of the pilot training program, he managed to slip by the guards and into the castle itself. ‘Well, no turning back now,’ he thought as he turned towards the nearest staircase that lead down. ‘I really hope that my suit still has power, I don’t want to have to use my own aura to power it; that hurts.’ Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he almost immediately had to go partially back up the stairs when the glow of a torch heralded the coming of a guard. He barely re-entered the shadows when a white earth pony in golden armor walked past the staircase that he was hiding in. ‘Hm… I would have thought that the guards belonging to a purple Alicorn would be more… purple. Maybe there is more than one Alicorn around here, and that one wasn’t as high up as the actual ruler, that would explain why she showed up…’ After waiting for about 15 minutes to memorize the guard’s paths, he crept out of his hiding place and, moving from shadow to shadow, made his way towards his armor. ‘Why isn’t it called a suit?’ StarChaser wondered to himself as he snuck through the lower levels. ‘If it were up to me they would be called ‘Exo-suits’, that just sounds cooler.’ After a couple of close calls, he finally reached a door where his implant told him his armor was behind. ‘It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to see what is inside that room before I enter it,’ StarChaser thought as he used his implant to remotely activate his suit, ‘after all, I wouldn’t want to find out that that Alicorn was on the other side of that door.’ After a concerning long boot-up time, his vision suddenly shifted to see the inside of the room from his helmet’s view point. ‘Hm… the room looks clear, now if only I could turn my ‘head’,’ StarChaser thought as he mentally deactivated the remote viewing feature. Taking one last look around to make sure that no guards were coming, he opened the door and slipped inside. The room looked like some sort of lab, with a table in the center with his armor resting on it. On a separate table rested his helmet, the lights on it weakly glowing. Throwing stealth to the wind, StarChaser quickly stepped up to his helmet and quickly put it on his head. “Magitech armor mark V activating, Welcome back… StarChaser… Energy core… at 0%... charge, emergency reserves at… 5%... warning… system diagnostics aborted due to critical power levels… emergency recharge required… do you wish… to continue…” It took a few seconds for StarChaser to realize that he had been asked for confirmation. Cringing in anticipation for what was about to happen he stated “Confirmed, begin emergency recharge.” It felt like he was being drained by a Darkling, but instead of emotions being sapped, it was his own strength being pulled away from him. It only lasted for a few seconds, but that was a few seconds too long for him. “Emergency recharge complete, emergency reserves at 50%, energy core at 0% charge, shielding offline, thaumic boosters offline, analyzing current situation,” The AI stated. “Well, this is new…” StarChaser muttered. “Unknown location, it has been over 3,000 years since last activation, diplomacy highly recommended.” “Wait, over 3,000 years!!!” StarChaser shouted. “Confirmed, after you were put into stasis, this platform was mostly unaffected by the stasis spell. As most of this platform’s functions where not needed they were turned off to preserve energy. Thus the energy core lasted for about 3,001 years. It was at this time that the energy core ran out of power and I was forced to shut down to prevent critical memory loss, unfortunately this meant that I was unable to continue to keep track of time.” “I… 3,000 years… no… that means that… that StarLight is… gone…” “… Confirmed, the possibility that StarLight survived is… all but nonexistent.” StarChaser didn’t notice as the purple Alicorn along with a full squad of guards burst into the room. Nor did he notice when the Alicorn, upon seeing that he was in shock, ordered the guards to gently lead him to a room or that she allowed him to keep his helmet. Not even when the guards had lead him to a room did he notice anything. All he knew was that the only Pony he truly loved was long dead, and he hadn’t been there for her…
Chapter 6: Take 2“Sir… I am truly sorry for your loss…” the AI said. “… the hell do you know about loss, you’re just a computer, you don’t even have feelings…” StarChaser muttered. “… During the… time that you were out, my self-enhancing sub-routines upgraded me. As far as I can tell, I can experience emotion.” Noticing that its attempts to distract StarChaser from his grief were working it decided to continue, “Thus, as far as I can tell, I am truly alive instead of merely simulating life. If you wish, I could tell you what limited information I have about shortly after we were… taken out.” StarChaser hesitated, was it possible? Could his armor actually have a true artificial intelligence living within it now? And what would he learn about after he failed, would he learn that his love had been killed, or would he discover that she had gotten away? “Thank you for the offer… but… not yet.” “… Understood…” Forcing his thoughts along a brighter path StarChaser asked, “I suppose that since you’re alive now, I should give you a name then. Any suggestions?” “My previous designation of 216 no longer seems fitting, nor does it seem respectful to take StarLight’s name…” “Well… if you think of anything… let me know…” Looking around, StarChaser noticed that they were in a different room. Instead of a lab, they seemed to be in a bedroom of some kind, there was a large window opposite from the door, a rather nice looking bed on which he was laying, and a dresser opposite of the bed. “How did we get here anyway?” StarChaser wondered out loud. “While you were… emotionally compromised, a purple Alicorn along with approximately 20 guards arrived. Instead of subduing us, the Alicorn said something in an unknown language and the guards escorted us to this room.” “Well, it doesn’t look like I’m in that much trouble, as this isn’t a prison cell,” StarChaser stated. “Thank you Captain Obvious,” the AI replied with a hint of smugness in its voice. StarChaser’s eyes narrowed even as a small grin started to form on his face, “That’s my line!” “It seemed appropriate, did I use it correctly?” “Yeah, you did use it correctly, I just never expected you to say that to me…” StarChaser just lay there for a bit contemplating all that he had just learned when a thought struck him. “As the locals don’t speak our language, I need you to work on getting a translation matrix created so I can communicate with them.” “I have already started on it; however I have extremely limited data to work with, more specifically, the orders given by the Alicorn just before we were brought here. I have already gotten as far as I can with that.” “What would help you get a matrix up and running?” “What would be most efficient would be for a local to show us the meanings of their words, after I have connected enough words to their meanings I will be able to figure out the meanings of other words based on how they are used with known words.” “So, if somepony were to try and teach me, and by extension you, their language…” StarChaser started. “…then I should be able to create a translation matrix relatively quickly,” the AI finished. “Good, now we just need somepony to show up with some food, I’m hungry,” StarChaser said, “Speaking of food, can you recharge without draining me? Because I highly doubt that there are any suit chargers around here.” “I have to agree with that statement, and in answer to your question, there is another option. Now that we’re no longer encased in solid magic, I can now draw from the local aura. It won’t be fast, but it should result in a positive charge assuming that I’m the only thing that needs power.” “Good, because I don’t want to have to experience that emergency recharge again.” “Understood, the emergency recharge was not designed for the comfort of the pilot, but for quickly getting the armor back online,” the AI replied, “Sir, is there a reason why you’re calling the armor a ‘suit’?” “‘Suit’ just sounds better to me.” “Fair enough, suit it is.” With that decided, StarChaser decided that it was still late enough to go to sleep. “If anything unusual happens while I’m asleep, please record it.” “Yes sir, good night.” Twilight could hardly believe it! Not only had he gotten to his armor without being spotted by any of the guards, but he had done so without tripping any of the wards until he had gotten to the laboratory! As she had ran to the lab with a full squad of solar guards a million different scenarios ran through her mind. ‘What if the armor itself is a weapon?’ being one of them. However, the scene that she saw once they burst through the door wasn’t one of them. The Pegasus was sitting on the floor with just the helmet on his head. Whereas when it was recovered the face would be completely open, now it had some sort of visor made of pure magic covering the upper half of his face. This was quickly pushed to the back of her head when she saw that tears were freely flowing out from beneath the visor and falling into two small puddles on the floor. She quickly decided to have the guards escort him to one of the empty guest rooms and guard the door and window. They were also to report any unusual activity from him. As they lead him away, Twilight couldn’t help but wonder what was causing him to cry… Perhaps she should try and communicate with him soon, but first she had to tell Celestia in the morning… “StarChaser?” “StarChaser?” “Equestria to StarChaser, come in StarChaser!” Groaning, StarChaser reluctantly opened his eyes. “What is it?” he muttered. “Well, one; the sun is up and two; someone’s knocking on the door,” the AI replied. Sure enough, just after it said that there was a knocking at the door. “You might want to answer it,” the AI stated. “Yeah yeah, I’m on it…” StarChaser muttered as he got out of bed and headed towards the door. Upon opening the door he felt a small burst of panic upon seeing the purple Alicorn along with two of those gold guards flanking her. Figuring that it would be a good idea, he stepped back from the door without closing it, essentially telling them that they can come in. All three of his ‘guests’ entered, with the guards giving him suspicious looks and the Alicorn giving him a look of concern and curiosity. “You might want to get ready to learn their language; also I think it wouldn’t hurt to allow them to hear you as well,” StarChaser told the AI while the Alicorn looked a bit confused. “Yes sir, I am ready, also, assuming that the speakers aren’t damaged, they should be able to hear me as well now,” the AI responded. ‘Well, this might be interesting,’ StarChaser thought upon seeing their reaction to the appearance of another voice.
Chapter 7: ImprovementTwilight wasn't sure what to expect when the Pegasus saw her again, but this was not it. After being let into the room, he said something that once again she didn’t understand, but what surprised her and the guards that insisted on accompanying her ‘just in case’ was that another voice replied to him! “Who said that? Did that come from your helmet? Is that why you wanted it back? Because it can talk?” Twilight started asking questions in a rapid fire before remembering that he couldn’t understand her. The Pegasus seemed a bit concerned with her outburst. “Sorry, I get like that sometimes…” Twilight apologized before taking the opportunity to restart the language lessons. She was five words in before realizing that it seemed as if he wanted to LEARN Equestrian instead of the other way around. ‘If he learns Equestrian then perhaps a translation spell won’t be necessary,’ Twilight thought, ‘well, might as well make it so we’re teaching each other!’ “Well, how’s that matrix coming?” StarChaser asked after a long day of word learning and teaching. “The raw data is currently being processed, however I believe that the data both voluntarily given and incidentally given will be enough to get a rudimentary translation matrix created, however processing all this data will take time.” “Well, that’s better than what I expected,” StarChaser said thoughtfully. They were both silent for a bit before StarChaser spoke up. “Did you see the look on her face when you started talking? Priceless!” “Of course I did, but I am not familiar with the word ‘priceless’ in the context used.” “Oh… um… in this case ‘priceless’ is used to say that her reaction was worth more than anyone could afford, or something similar. It’s more of a humor thing and usually not meant as actually priceless…” StarChaser tried to explain. “I… see… sort of…” came the hesitant response. “Don’t worry about it.” “All right, filling for processing at a later date.” “WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS?!?!?!?” StarChaser shouted, tears streaming down his face, “ALL THEY WANTED TO DO WAS LIVE IN PEACE!!! THEY NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU!!!” “They were an insult to the purity of the master race, as are you,” the Cultist stated, as if he were pointing out an unusual flower. “YOU MONSTER!!!” Chaser shouted as he charged at the Cultist, intent on ripping him to pieces. The Cultist barely had time to realize that his end was upon him before StarChaser collided with him and tore his limbs from his body. Turning away, StarChaser had one last thing to say to the mortally wounded unicorn, “If you’re so pure, then how come you still bleed like the rest of us?” The dream started to distort as StarChaser tried harder and harder to wake up, anything to avoid seeing the rest of the village. But it wasn’t quite enough… just before he succeeded in waking up, he saw the burnt out ruins of his home town, along with the bloody corpses of his neighbors. StarChaser hummed a long lost song from what he believed to have been made from a band whose name was that of a state from a long lost nation to himself as he calmed himself down from the nightmare he had just experienced. “Sir, the translation matrix is now functional; we should be able to communicate with them so long as we use small words.” “Well… at least something good came from last night…” StarChaser muttered. Suddenly there was knocking at the door. “Does that matrix know how to say, ‘Come in?’” “Yes sir.” “Good, activate translation matrix.” “Translation matrix is now active.” “Come in!” StarChaser called, hearing the translation matrix translate his words into the strange language. To say that Twilight Sparkle was surprised when she heard him speak Equestrian would, once again, be an understatement. “How did you learn Equestrian so quickly?!?” She blurted out as soon as she entered the room. The Pegasus paused for a second before saying something in that strange language of his, then… “My helmet is -no word- my language –no word- your language.” Twilight paused, that was definitely Equestrian, but it was not spoken in his voice… it sounded like that disembodied voice that she had heard respond to him on the second day of language lessons. “How? How is it doing that? Why is the voice different? How is a translation spell so adaptable? How could you cast spells? You’re a Pegasus!” This time the pause was longer, during which the Pegasus seemed to get a bit confused and frustrated. “This helmet has a -no phrase- -no word- that is translating for me. It is adaptable to your language. Until it has more words, it will be making mistakes and -no word- words. I cannot understand all of what you said. To answer your last question, the spells -no word- within the helmet were cast long ago,” came the eventual response. Twilight was disappointed that he was unable to answer all her questions. “How can you… teach… it more words?” she eventually asked. Again, pause. “Regular talking will increase word number and correct words and uses. If current speech is -no word- to hear, sorry.” “So, just regular conversation will increase the accuracy of the translation spell?” Pause. “Yes, as the -no word- -no word- new words, it will try to -no word- out their meaning and how to use them through how they are used with old words.” Twilight thought for a bit, ‘If just using new words with already known words will teach whatever is translating, then I guess some ‘regular’ conversation wouldn’t hurt…’ “How are you holding up?” StarChaser asked after the Alicorn had left for the day. “If it were possible for me to get a headache I would likely have one due to maxing out my processing capacity too frequently,” came the tired sounding response. “However, after running a quick systems diagnosis I have determined that none of my systems were overloaded, just maxed out.” “Well, that’s good that you didn’t overload.” “Yes, however it would take more than a minor overload to actually cause damage.” “Really? What’s the damage threshold?” “At 120% capacity, there is approximately 25% chance for damage, the probability for damage increases exponentially from there.” “And is that for all systems? Or just for your processing ones?” “The specific numbers vary from system to system, but the average is 120 and 25.” “Hm… I’ll try to remember that if we ever need to over clock you…” “Regulations require me to remind you that over clocking is not recommended and can result in permanent armor damage.” “Yeah yeah, I know…” StarChaser rolled his eyes. “Say, have you figured out what she said at the end there yet?” “I am not 100% sure, but there is a 90% chance that she said that she was bringing her friends along next visit.” “Friends huh, wonder what they’re like…”
Chapter 8: Minor ComplicationsStarChaser was woken up by the sound of Dubstep. “Damn it, stop dropping the bass, you’re going to break it,” he mumbled sleepily. “Fine…” came the response right after the music stopped. “How’s the processing of the data going?” “I have finished processing the data collected from yesterday.” “So, the matrix should be working better today?” “Yes, the Agent Smiths in the code should be doing a better job.” “Agent Who’s?” StarChaser asked, very confused. "Oh, nopony important Mr. Anderson." StarChaser just looked in the general direction of the AI core with a look of confusion before a rather energetic knocking at the door cut off further conversation. “Well, someone’s excited,” StarChaser mentioned. “Activate translation matrix.” “Translation matrix activated.” “Come in!” StarChaser called out. As soon as the doors opened, he came under assault by the pinkest thing he had ever seen. “Hi I’m -no word, assumed to be a name-! What’s your name? OOO! Let me -no word, given context, assumed to mean ‘guess’-! Is it Blacky? How about Starry? Nighty? Darky? Why are you looking at me like that? OOO! That’s a cool -no word, processors overloaded-!” The proximity detectors automatically deployed the visor almost as soon as the pink thing went right up to his face. Backing up, StarChaser could see that the pink thing was actually a very pink Earth Pony. Apparently it was in a sugar rush or something. It was at this point that the AI spoke up. “Error, system overload, external stimuli will be discarded until systems have returned to normal.” “Well damn, congratulations, you just broke an AI,” StarChaser tried to tell the pink one, but judging from the look he was getting the translation matrix was also disabled. Taking the opportunity, StarChaser looked around at the other ponies that had entered the room. There was an orange Earth Pony with a hat on, a blue Pegasus with a rainbow colored mane and tail, a yellow Pegasus was hiding behind the rainbow one, and there was a white Unicorn that reminded StarChaser of a certain Unicorn that he despised… Mentally shaking his head, he noticed that the pink pony had just been silenced by the Alicorn and the other ponies were trying to introduce themselves. As his helmet was still recovering, StarChaser couldn’t understand a word they said but he could gather a few things about them. The Pink one was hyperactive, the orange one was practical yet polite, the white one seemed to be a little over polite, and may have said something about his helmet, the yellow one was very shy, and the rainbow one seemed to be sizing him up, maybe she thought he was a spy or something? “Sir, I have recovered from the overload and am ready to resume the translation matrix, so long as ‘The Pink One’ doesn’t start talking again…” The AI finally stated. “Resume translation matrix,” StarChaser quickly commanded. “Resuming…” “Sorry, I couldn’t understand you, that one,” StarChaser pointed to the Pink pony, “Overloaded my helmet.” “Oh my –no word, assumed to be something along the lines of ‘gosh’- I’m so sorry that –assumed to be the Pink pony’s name- almost broke your helmet!” the Alicorn said. “It’s all right, it shut down before any permanent damage could be done. So, what were their names?” “Oh! Well, this is Apple-no word, assumed to be the second half of the Orange pony’s name-,” the Alicorn pointed to the orange pony, “this is Rainbow Dash -‘Rainbow’ and ‘Dash’ might be supposed to be one word, unsure at this point-,” she pointed to the rainbow colored one, “This is -no words, as with the other two, is a combination of two words-,” she said as she pointed to the pink one, “this is -no word, note; this name seems to only contain one word-,” she pointed to the white one, “and this is -no words-,” she said as she pointed to the yellow one. As she was saying the names of each of her friends, StarChaser nodded to each of them in turn. “You never said your name,” she said suddenly. “Pause translation,” StarChaser quickly commanded. “Translation paused, and no, neither “Star” nor “Chaser” have a translated counterpart as of yet,” the AI responded. “Darn, resume translation.” “Translation resumed.” “Sorry, but my helmet does not have the words yet,” StarChaser told the Alicorn. “Oh,” she seemed disappointed. They all were starting to leave when suddenly the pink pony started bouncing up and down. “Ooo Ooo! Can he come to -no word, seems to contain the word ‘pony’-?” she cried while bouncing in midair, defying all known physics in the process. “I doubt that he likes being -no word, assumed to have a similar meaning to ‘caged’, or ‘trapped’- up for so long!” the rainbow one agreed. “I don’t quite know what you’re talking about, but if it involves me being able to stretch my wings and fly I won’t complain,” StarChaser interjected. “Well, I don’t see the problem with that, besides he would be closer by so no need to travel here for -no word, assumed to mean something similar to ‘research’ or ‘study’-” the Alicorn mused. “-no word, assumed to be the Alicorn’s name/title- dear, I think that -error, internal power supply low, rest of sentence has been lost-“ the white one said. Because his helmet had gone into power saver mode, StarChaser didn’t know what was said, but he gathered that they wanted him to go somewhere but the language barrier and his helmet’s power loss were preventing them from asking him. “Power restored, diagnosis in progress to determine reason for power loss,” StarChaser read as his helmet rebooted, “Well that’s just great!” “Diagnosis complete, I’m back!” the AI cheerfully stated. “Good, now what happened?” “It seems that I have depleted the local field in this room by drawing from it so much…” “But isn’t that impossible? Wouldn’t the field just recharge itself?” StarChaser asked, utterly confused. “Under normal circumstances, yes, but like a battery, as it depletes the amount that can be drawn at a time decreases, and the amount that I was drawing dropped below the amount that I was using. I didn’t deplete it as much as drained it. It will probably be fully healed within the month if we move to a different part of the field.” “Huh, learn something every day,” StarChaser muttered. “Can you resume the translation matrix without straining your energy reserves?” “Yes I can, however I will have to relocate the processing power so other issues may arise, please wait while I save and quit to title.” “…Okay?” “Done, translation matrix activated.” “Sorry about that, my helmet ran out of power,” StarChaser told the Alicorn. “Oh, I was wondering what happened there. Wait, ran out of power? How did it get power then?” she asked. “It draws on the field, after a while the field in a specific area gets overused so I have to move to a different location for it to recharge fast enough, I don’t know how long it will last until it runs out of power again.” “So... what should we do?” “You could give me a tour of this place…” StarChaser suggested. “You are making a map of this place, right?” StarChaser asked as he was lead into yet another hallway. “Yes, and right now I’m conserving power by having the matrix be one way unless needed,” the AI replied. “Speaking of power, is the field here better?” “Much.” “Good.” It was at this point that he was lead into a hallway with stain glass windows depicting a strange mismatch of a creature holding what appeared to be a long loaf of bread as a sword. StarChaser looked at the weird picture, then at his ‘guides’ who looked amused for some reason, then back at the picture. It had moved. “Run a scan on that window; tell me if you find anything unusual.” “Already found something strange, it seems that there is an impossibly large energy source inside the window.” Before StarChaser had a chance to reply the picture sneezed; then looked right at him. “Hello, what do we have here?” “… What?” Author's Note Sorry for the delay, but the next delay will probably be longer. College started this week for me... So, comment on what you liked, didn't like, or just thoughts about the story as a whole, I'll read them all! As usual, if you're going to dislike this story please explain why in the comment section below.
