Chapter 1: Prologue + Divergence
She was flying high above the city of Detrot, weightless except for the heavy repeater strapped to her front leg. The convoy was lined up for as far as the eye could see. Which, in this weather, meant a little under twenty yards. Used to, the sky above the clouds was a place of eternal summer. Now, magic weather generators hundreds of kilometers away could dictate the slightest shift in the weather. It also meant that the area above the clouds was subject to the same drifts and flurries that occurred kilometers below.
Everyone but her was dressed in typical winter garb: thick woolen coats, insulated against the driving wind; with half-masks to protect their muzzles and beanies to keep their ears from freezing off. She was wearing a tattered, long-sleeve T-shirt beneath her kevlar, a black patrol cap and a brand new scarf. The scarf was probably the warmest thing on her body, but the cold had never really been a problem before. She used to joke that December was her favorite month to go swimming, but only if the water hadn't froze over. She's a real pegasus's pegasus: fast, agile, and built to last.
She just wished it wasn't so windy.
She was overseeing the loaders when she felt a sharp tap on her shoulder. She turned about, and came face-to-face with a gruff pegasus stallion, with sharp grey eyes that matched his greying mane. There had been a time when they knew each-other, back during the war in the Gulf. It was a brief relationship, a bonding between two ponies that just happened to be there for each-other. That ended with a surprise assault against their base, 'Black Monday'. He ran, but she had stayed. That's why she was still in the Wonderbolts, and he wasn't.
“Dash,” he grumbled, “These trucks are due in Manehattan at twenty-hundred, tonight. I made sure there wouldn't be any trouble with the lanes today. Just keep an ear on the com, and make sure some yuppie-yahoo doesn't crash his private air-yacht into the cargo, alright?”
“Yep.” He nodded, satisfied, and started off. He stopped a few yards away and bellowed at her through the wind.
“I don't want to hear nothing about a delay, Dash! Keep those trucks moving, or we'll both be in hot water!” She gave him a private's salute, and turned back to the trucks.
'He ran,' she thought, 'but somehow he's still my boss.'
They were moving shortly after. The take-off was immensely more disappointing than your traditional air-ship, as the trucks were already air-born. All they needed was a hoof on the accelerator, and off they went. She waited until three of the four trucks were past her, and fell into step with the last. Thankfully, the cargo bay did a good job of keeping the wind off her, and she spent the next ten to fifteen minutes in a contented daze.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a buzzing in her ear: her com device was going off. A swift flick of her head brought the mouthpiece down in front of her muzzle, and opened the line to whomever was unfortunate enough to bother her.
“Yeah? Who is this, and what don't you understand about 'com silence'?” The pony on the other end chuckled humorlessly.
“Is that any way to talk to your squad-mates, Dash?” came Lightning Dust's reply. “Sorry about the whole 'breaking silence' thing. I never got the memo.”
“I'm getting tired of you not knowing anything, Lightning Dust. The next time you conveniently forget something important, I'll drill it in through your ears.”
“Jeez, no need to get so bent out of shape. I know you went to the Gulf, but I had no idea it changed you this much,” there was a pause, and the sound of heavy breathing, “I'm here, you know, if you wanna talk about it.”
“I don't. Really, I don't.” She sighed. A small plume of mist erupted from her scarf, and wafted lazily away on the stiff wind. “I know I'm going to regret this, but why are you calling me?”
“Because I'm bored, I'm tired, and I'm freezing my wings off up here. I'm hitching a ride on the side of one of the trucks right now, but I think I'm going to fall asleep if I don't talk to somepony. Since I really don't know any of these other scrubs too well, I thought I'd talk to you.”
“We'll talk later. In person. Let me do one more sweep, check in with the drivers, and find somepony to take my spot. I'll find you after. From now on, keep the chatter to a minimum. These aren't toys; they're for emergencies. Dash out.”
There wasn't much to see. There were clouds, and the land below them if you were lucky enough to be able to catch a glimpse of it. Everything else was snow, falling in fat flakes that buffeted the truck and her exposed ears. None of the drivers had anything interesting to say about their trip insofar; just the usual complaints about how cold the cabin was and questions regarding the next shift change. A couple minutes later, everypony got a fresh replacement, and Rainbow Dash was free to ride with Lightning Dust. She gave her one-time rival a long, hard look. They'd gone down two very different paths, she knew, and for two very different reasons. Even so, that had never stopped Lightning Dust from wanting to be her friend. Eventually, time had prevailed over dislike, and Rainbow Dash could return that sentiment in full.
They shared a smile, and made a contest out of shooting distant cloud-banks. Lightning Dust drew her magi-tech repeater, and quickly shot down three errant tufts that had taken flight nearby. Dash leveled her arm, aiming at a distant pile of cloudy build-up, and fired once. It exploded like an overripe watermelon, sending shards of ice and solid cloud up into the clear sky. Lightning Dust whistled appreciatively, and gave her a knowing grin.
“I guess you won, huh. Talk about a boom-stick. I know you've got some kind of technique for using that metal monstrosity, but for the life of me I can't figure it out.”
“I've tried to tell you before, but you never paid attention!”
“Yes I did,” insisted Lightning Dust, “Your gun-fu is just better than mine, that's all. Still, in the right scenario, magi-tech is just as potent as ballistics.”
“Maybe if you're trying to melt cheese.”
“At least I don't blow a ten-foot hole in something whenever I pull the trigger.” Rainbow Dash chuckled, and patted the gun affectionately. It was warm to the touch, and pulsed gently in tandem with her heartbeat. Magic explosions that could shoot charged, lead pellets at speeds five times faster than a pony performing the sonic rainboom; it sounded like something out of a science-fiction novel. Now all they needed was magic-wielding, highly-intuitive earth ponies with laser-swords, to justify this new technology.
Lightning Dust's gun was different in many, many ways. It was still strapped around her dominant fore-limb, but it sat on the front face instead of either side. There was no barrel; it didn't need one. Instead of using magic to propel tiny lead pellets, magi-tech guns simply used magic as the projectile. It was essentially an arm-mounted horn for non-unicorns, and could cast a multitude of spells in addition to its default bolt magic. That said, it was severely lacking in its capacity to do harm – not too many unicorns made a study of killing magic – and it ran through magic shards faster than a derby runner on a caffeine high. Lightning Dust seemed to like them though, and it wasn't in Dash to besmirch her new-found friendship with an arms race.
The minutes passed in relative bliss. The wind had shifted, and now they sat on the leeward side of the truck, sheltered from the worst of the weather by the massive vault on wheels. Another staccato came over the intercom system, and Rainbow Dash answered. To her surprise, it was just an automated message. It welcomed her to Ponyville, as they were now within the city limits, and wished them a pleasant afternoon before promptly going silent.
“That was her voice, wasn't it?” asked Lightning Dust. “I might not have known her personally, but that look on your face says it couldn't be anypony else.”
“Honestly, I thought I had gotten over her,” she confessed. That message poked at a hole in her heart that hadn't been filled in over five years, no matter what she'd done to distract herself. “I guess… I guess you never really stop caring, do you? Friendships like that only happen once in a lifetime. I wonder what she'd think of being the greeter for Ponyville.” Lightning Dust shrugged nonchalantly.
“'Dunno. Like I said, I never really met her. Hey!” she turned to face Rainbow Dash. “This is where you grew up, right? It must be cool to know how it looked all those years ago, and to see it now… you wouldn't think this big 'burg started as an apple orchard, would you?” It was true. Ponyville looked nothing like it did when Rainbow Dash had lived there. All the squat little houses had been replaced with giant towers of steel, glass and mortar. A grandiose structure sat where town hall used to be, all plinths and gold-flecked marble. She knew that to be the Golden Oaks Memorial Library. A little ways up the road, she could see the gingerbread house that could only be Sugarcube Corner. If Pinkie was to be believed, her humble inheritance had become a vast, baked goods empire, with stores spanning the length and breadth of Equestria and beyond. Further out, she could see where the Everfree used to be. The marshy terrain had been tamed and turned into a typical suburb. Of Sweet Apple Acres, there was no sign.
It was a bittersweet feeling, seeing Ponyville against after all these years. This was home: even if it didn't look or feel the same as it used to. She put a lot of memories to rest in this town, and not all of them were pleasant. She could feel Lightning Dust's eyes on her, but that didn't stop her from letting a few tears drip from her face.
“Dash?” She felt Lightning dust's hoof on her shoulder, but the clouds were suddenly interesting enough to keep her from looking up. “Dash, I… I love you.”
“Wh- what?” she stammered.
“Paying attention, now? Listen,” she turned Rainbow Dash around to face her, “I don't know what she was to you. Frankly, I don't care to know. I can't say what she would have wanted for you, either, but you can't be sad forever. Nopony would want you to be sad forever, especially not your best friend.” Her tone became more morose as she continued. “I won't tell you to forget about her – Celestia knows you've already tried that, and we both know how well that worked – but you've gotta move on, Dash.”
“I have moved on,” murmured Rainbow Dash, “I got a place in Detrot, and I- I've got Cloudkicker now.”
“That's what you say, but I'm not buying it. I mean, you just told me that you still can't believe she's gone. Remember that letter you sent me, all that time ago? You were in the Gulf. I remember because that's where I wanted to go, but they picked you over me. Anyway, you told me that you'd still wake up sometimes, thinking you were still in the Ponyville you knew. I can still see it now, you were that detailed. You'd wake up, thinking of the best way to skip work to hang out with Pinkie Pie and Applejack. Later, you'd stop by Twilight's to see if she had the latest installment of the Daring Do series, even though you knew it was still months away from hitting the shelves. It was all so clear in the letter… I've got a hard time imagining you've passed it all by after your move to Detrot.” Rainbow Dash said nothing. It was true. She yearned for the simpler days, when it had just been her and her friends that stood between Equestria and disaster. There was an odd sense of reassurance in knowing that, if bad turned even worse, you would go down swinging with your best friends at your side. There was more to it, though; more than Lightning Dust could ever understand.
“I'm the Element of Loyalty,” was all she could say, “I should've been there. I could've saved her that day.”
“I wish I could say the same, Dash. It was a lab accident, and she had insisted on testing… whatever it was… on herself first. If you'd have been there, you wouldn't be here. You would have left your best friend without a loyal element – kind of ironic, that.” She paused for a second, and looked down at Ponyville.
“Life is for the living,” she said, never taking her eyes away from the town, “and you can only live in the present. You live in the present, you dream of the past, and you hope for the future.”
“I didn't know you read Pickens,” deadpanned Rainbow Dash.
“I didn't know you did, either,” replied Lightning Dust. Her face was split in a toothy grin, and Rainbow Dash couldn't help but smile back. They were interrupted by another beep on the com. Rainbow Dash answered, less irritated now than before.
“Dash here.”
“Hello? This is truck four. We've got a bit of a problem back here.”
The inside of the truck was dimly lit, and nearly as chilly as the outside. She'd already ordered the personnel inside to act as if nothing were amiss. Everything was to proceed as planned, more for pragmatism than a battle of schemes. If they stopped to do a full check, there's no way they would make the deadline. That's assuming that the magic in the tank doesn't run out while they're poking around: it takes more magic to keep an object airborne when it's not moving. With something of this weight and size, the truck might actually descend before they can get it moving again, which means big-time consequences for both her and her supervisor. That, and if there was a plot against the convoy, creating a panic and starting a search would be exactly what he – or she – would want to happen. If this mystery-stallion wanted the cargo, it would be easier to lift it before the trucks took off. He or she wanted ponies to know something was amiss. That would make it easier to send the message they wanted to.
A brief inspection revealed that the hull was intact, and many of the visible containers as well. There were a few loose knots and dangling chains in here, but that was to be expected. Detrot was a union city, after all, and the union got first dibs on all the blue-collar work. Even, evidently, when that meant dealing with top-secret, military mumbo-jumbo. It would be like them to be lazy. She took a few minutes to secure the chains and re-tie the knots. She'd never been a scout, but the knots would hold until they reached Manehattan in a few hours. Now it was time to get down to brass tacks. She wanted to search this place floor-to-ceiling, scouring every nook, cranny, and cubbyhole along the way. Maybe she'd even uncover what had spooked the driver, but that seemed unlikely. She had worked with driver four before: a stallion by the name of Chickenwing, he would get startled by traffic lights and jump if you suddenly turned the radio on. Odds were high that the noise he heard was nothing more than the loose chains left by the union crews, and mistaken for a ghost.
She was just getting ready to leave out the side door when she heard a small, ticking noise. For the first time since take-off, she could feel every bit of the winter outside. Her hooves were shaking as she pried open one of the huge, metal crates, then another, and another. Finally, she found what she'd been looking for, tucked neatly away against the left wall of the storage bay. Inside the box, crammed in with the rest of the cargo, was a rudimentary bomb. In truth, it was hardly a bomb: just a few firecrackers hooked up to a timer. Not something you'd call the bomb squad for, but the cargo was extremely volatile. A couple of well-placed firecrackers could feasibly blow up an oil dereck; this would be far worse, if she couldn't diffuse it in time. To make matters worse, there was no real timer; no indication of how much longer she had until it lit everything up.
'Time to get cracking,' she thought. She opened the cover to find the timer full to bursting with wires. Red ones, blue ones, green ones, purple ones; each wire was hooked up to multiple bits, and it all looked important to her. For a second, she thought to just start ripping out wires. It would take a fraction of a second to trigger the bomb; maybe she'd get lucky and pull out the right wire on the first go. The wires seemed to stare back at her, and she quickly canned that idea. She tried to tug it out of the crate, only to find it grafted to the side. Whomever planted it was clever. That, or they knew her personal play-book from cover to cover. Either way, she was stuck with a bomb, and not a great deal of confidence. She paused for a second, letting the timer's slow metronome beat out a rhythm for her mind. She'd have to think outside the box. Suddenly, her eyes lighted on the discarded crate lid, and the first fragments of a plan formed. If she couldn't get rid of the bomb, she'd put it back in its crate – just without the fuel.
She was half-way through putting the lid back on when the timer stopped. For a second, the world stood perfectly still. Then, everything erupted. She never heard the explosion, never felt her skin blistering, popping and re-blistering under the intense heat, or the wind in her mane as she fell below the cloud level. She watched with half-lidded eyes as the truck blew up in slow-motion, with little bits of shrapnel flying ahead of a bright-green blast. Just the one truck, thankfully. She let her eyes close as she fell down, and down, and down…
Hard Reboot
The first thing she noticed was the light, bright and unyielding. If this was heaven, it sure knew how to make an entrance. She waited patiently for the light to dim down so she could catch her first glimpse of the pearly gates and the never-ending, emerald fields beyond. No such luck. The light continued unabated until it felt like her retinas were going to melt away. She squirmed in protest, but found that her head and hooves were bound in a soft, supple material. There were faint noises to be heard over the ringing in her ears, though they were fuzzy and uncertain.
“Mmhmn,” she groaned. Suddenly, the noises came to a stop. She felt something ice-cold touch lightly against her barrel. There were shivers, involuntary, but the…whatever it was stayed put. She heard a low murmur through her ears as the thing repositioned itself over her abdomen, sending another rush up her spine. It wasn't so cold this time, but she wasn't used to ponies touching her– there! There was a flurry of noise, filtered through her ringing ears, and the thing was removed, this time for good. The light was whisked away on squeaking wheels, and she opened her eyes for the first time.
The image was fuzzy beyond comprehension, and streaked with what looked like interference, the kind you'd occasionally get from a holo-set while an airship cruised overhead. It was when the words started popping up that she started getting scared. She stared at the pseudo-terminal that dominated her vision, watching as it filled line after line with code.
B-BIOS V3.1 R8
PROPERTY OF MAGITECH INT. USED WITH PERMISSION. PATENT PENDING.
INITIATING BOOT SEQUENCE…
POWER-ON SELF TEST…
VERIFYING CPU REGISTERS…
VERIFYING BIOS CODE…
VERIFYING BASIC CONTROLLERS…
TIMER…
DIRECT MEMORY ACCESS…
INTERRUPT CONTROLLER…
MEMORY CACHE…
VALID LOCATION: CHECKING SIZE…
100TB TOTAL MEMORY
100GB DEDICATED MEMORY
23TB UNCOMPRESSED MEMORY
CHECKING FOR PLUGINS…
OPTICAL PLUGIN VERIFIED
MAGITECH OPTICAL ENHANCEMENT VER 1.2
AUDITORY PLUGIN VERIFIED
MAGITECH AUDITORY ENHANCEMENT VER 3.1
VERBAL PLUGINS VERIFIED
BONTECH SPEECH SYNTHISIZER VER 1.0
BIOTECH PLUGINS VERIFIED
Her eyes flew open at the last line. 'Biotech,' she gaped, 'am… am I dead?' The monitor superimposed on her eyes kept going, and she had no choice but to keep watching.
REDHEART INST. SYNTHETIC HEART VER 8.4
REDHEART INST. SYNTHETIC LUNG VER 3.3
REDHEART INST. WASTE FILTRATION DEVICE VER 3.2
BIOMEM PLUGINS VERIFIED
TECH UNION BRAINBUCKET® SYNTHETIC BRAIN VER 16.2
MOTOR PLUGINS VERIFIED
REDHEART INST. SYNTHETIC SKELETON VER 2.0
REDHEART INST. SYNTHETIC WING VER 4.4
COMBAT PERIPHERALS PLUGIN DETECTED
ERROR003: UNSUPPORTED HARDWARE. PLEASE CONTACT YOUR HARDWARE MANUFACTUROR FOR FURTHER DETAILS.
PLUGINS VERIFIED. BOOTING AVAILABLE PLUGINS.
Her body seemed to come alive all at once. Arcs of arcane lightning coursed up and down her spine in fitful bursts, causing her body to contort in painful spasms. First, her vision cleared. The fuzziness withdrew to the corners of her eyes, then vanished entirely. She got her first glimpse of the room she was in; white-walled, small, and crammed to the ceiling with monitors and medical equipment. Her body was tightly secured to a surgical table, but she came closer and closer to wrenching free with every spurt of magic. Everything hurt, from the hairs on her head to the tips of her hooves. There was air in her lungs again: pure, clean, and sweet. Not at all like the smog she'd been huffing for the past five years. There was a sharp pain in her chest, followed by soothing warmth. It spread outward, bringing relief and new-found strength to her limbs. She saw, more than felt, her foreleg rip through its leather bindings like a chainsaw through wet tissue paper. One by one, her limbs systematically freed themselves. With one final snap, her head shot up.
Suddenly, the flood of energy slowed to a trickle. Her body felt colder by a few degrees, and her head smacked onto the table with a resounding clang. No matter how deeply she breathed, there never seemed to be enough air in her lungs. She felt spent, but in a good way. Her vision had lost its unusual sharpness, to be replaced with another pseudo-terminal.
POWER-ON SELF TEST COMPLETE. SELECT OPERATING SYSTEM
There was only one option. She chose it, without really know how she did so, and the terminal kept going.
OPERATING SYSTEM SELECTED.
MOUNTING OPERATING SYSTEM…
Despite her better nature, she chuckled at the word “mount”. She was mildly surprised that she understood the context of the word, and all the other bits of IT jargon that flashed across the screen. 'Where did I learn this stuff?'
PREPARING ENVIRONMENT…
VERIFYING HUD CACHE INTEGRITY…
ERROR052: LOCKED SUB-FOLDER “COMBAT HUD”. CANNOT ACCESS FILES.
VERIFYING MISC DATA CACHE INTEGRITY…
CHECKING FOR UPDATES…
ERROR016: WIRELESS PLUGIN NOT FOUND.
ERROR010: CANNOT CONNECT TO SERVER.
UPDATE CANCELLED. PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER.
PARSING MISC DATA…
ENVIRONMENT VERIFIED.
BOOTSTRAP CREATED. NO MORE LONG BOOT SEQUENCES! ;)
That was all. The windows vanished in the blink of an eye, and left her feeling better than she'd ever felt.
She swung her hind legs off the table, and was about to vault to the floor when she heard a crash behind her, to the tune of mild swearing. It took less than a second for her to overturn the surgery table, transforming it into a stopgap barricade, while also finding a discarded syringe to use as a weapon. After a few seconds of silence, she dared to peep over the table. The floor was covered with shards of burnished porcelain, the kind often used to make fancy eatery. Standing in the middle of the disaster was a very distraught unicorn, with bright-red curls in her mane and a coat the color of polished shale. On her flank was a gem-encrusted gavel, superimposed on a set of golden scales. The look she gave Rainbow Dash was a strange mixture of surprise and jubilation, and the smile on her lips didn't quite add up with her shivering body.
“I'm sorry, miss Dash. I–“ she stuttered, ”They told me– You weren't supposed to be awake yet.”
“Wasn't supposed to be awake yet?” murmured Rainbow Dash. The mare nodded dumbly, but otherwise didn't move. “Alright… you, I want some answers. Let's start with who they is, and what you were planning on doing to me before I woke up.”
“Planning? I wasn't planning anything! Nurse Redheart said it would be a few hours before you came to. When I asked if I could just wait in the room, she said fine. I was just getting my lunch from the car.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash eyed the broken china on the floor, “lunch. Unless you were planning on eating glass, I'm not seeing any food.”
“That's because I've got my food in this,” she pulled a large thermos from her saddlebag, and thrust it towards Rainbow Dash, “It's called 'ramen', or 'poor pony's lo mein'. That little mess on the floor was the bowl I was going to put it in. You've got no idea how hard it is to eat ramen out of a thermos, so I asked the hospital for a bowl. And that's what's all over your hospital room floor right now– the bowl, not the ramen.”
“Whatever. You still haven't told me why you're here, anyway. If there's some big secret, I'd like to know about it. Preferably before I clobber you silly, but whatever works, right?”
“You sound like a conspiracy theorist. Nopony's out to get you, Rainbow Dash. There aren't any bogeymen under your bed. I don't know about your closet, though,” she gasped, “maybe that's where the Illuminati is hiding. All joking aside, though, I'm here to help you.” She plodded tentatively across the room, before boldly sticking out her front-right hoof. Rainbow Dash's instincts kicked in, and suddenly the mare found herself pinned to the ground.
“H– Hey!What's the big idea?” A sharp twist of her foreleg made the mare yelp in pain.
“Who are you?” spat Rainbow Dash, “And who do you work for?”
“Ruby! Ruby Mare! I'm yo– ow! I'm your lawyer, okay?”
“Lawyer?” Rainbow Dash pulled her off the ground, and gave her a tiny shove into the hall, “I haven't done anything wrong, so you've probably got the wrong Rainbow Dash. Why don't you try the next room over?” Ruby twirled about and gave an indignant huff.
“I'm serious! Listen, Dash; there are ponies out there that would love to see you p–”
Rainbow Dash kicked the door shut, a little more forcibly than was necessary, and bolted it in place. “Lawyers,” she spat. For the first time, she realized just how bad this room looked with its overturned surgery table and shards of fine china. The table was an easy fix, and she had it back in its usual place in no time. The china was a harder mess to clean up. She gave the room a cursory glance, but found no broom in evidence. The shards themselves were too small to finagle with her hooves, so she had to pick each one up with her teeth, and deposit it into a nearby waste bin. It was a slow process, made even slower by her heavier movement. Every move she made felt ponderous and imprecise. The irony didn't escape her; there was now some kind of machine inside her to help regulate movement, and it was faster and more precise than she'd ever been.
'Like new sights,' she mused. Her biological systems would have to recalibrate themselves to work alongside her new, mechanical systems. Whether this was a good thing or not, she would let time and experience dictate. If she was back here in a week's time, then the change wasn't helpful. If she was in the morgue, the change killed her.
She was reclining on the cold, steel table when the door clicked open. Outside was Ruby Mare, followed by a mare that could only be Nurse Redheart. Redheart looked joyful and furious in turns. Ruby, though, was entirely impassive as she stepped into the room.
“Miss Dash,” started Redheart, “It's nice to see you up and about so soon. Most others in your condition would never have walked again. But here you are, hours after surgery, and you're already throwing ponies out of your room! I hear that you've already acquainted yourself with miss Ruby?”
“I have.”
“Great! I'll leave you two to your business. If you're up and walking, then our work is done. All the diagnostics were performed immediately after surgery, so there's no need to keep you here any longer than you have to. Give me a few minutes to fill out your paperwork, and you'll be free to go!” With that, Redheart bowed out, leaving only Ruby and Rainbow Dash in the room. They stared at one another for a few seconds, before Ruby's cough broke the silence.
“So, where was I? Oh, right. There are a couple ponies out there that want you dead, Dash.”
“Yeah, I kind of noticed. I'm in the hospital, after all.”
“Oh, you delightful snark, you. You're in the hospital because somepony wanted you alive. One Twilight Sparkle, to be specific.” The name hit her like a ton of bricks.
“D– Did you say 'Twilight Sparkle'?”
“Yes. The… erstwhile Element of Magic. I take it you two were close?” Rainbow Dash's smile was grim.
“More than a little.”
“Well…Yes, anyway, she left you a grand sum of cash, to be used in what she deemed 'life-or-death' circumstances. As you might imagine from Redheart's vague aside, yours was the poster-child for such circumstances.”
“How bad was it?”
“Well,” Ruby paused, “let's just say that it could have been worse. You were lucky. A 'wreckage rider', I believe would be the right term. Your descent and eventual 'landing' were slowed drastically by a slab of 5 centimeter-thick steel. Even with the cushy landing afforded by what amounts to tank armor, you had more than a few broken limbs, and most of your internal organs were turned to jelly. Lucky you, too; if your heart had been functioning, you would have bled out through your wing.” Rainbow Dash blanched. If she'd been numb before, it was even worse now.
“M– My wing!?”
“Your left wing. Somehow, it got ripped clean off during your fall. What's even more incredible is that they've managed to get you a new one. Something about your past military service and severance package, or veteran benefits. I wouldn't know; I'm just a civvy.”
The room was silent, save for the dull roar of traffic in the streets below, and the whirring of the computer banks that dotted the wall. Rose offered her a canteen, which she thankfully drained in a few gulps. She passed it back, and pursed her lips in thought.
“So, what are you going to do?”
“Whatever I can,” said Rose. You could hear the resolve in her voice, like steel sheathed in words. “Small pushes can lead to big results and, if we're lucky, we'll figure out who's sitting pretty on the top of the totem-pole. Meanwhile, I expect you to keep yourself alive. I'll see what I can do about getting you around the clock protection.” She dropped her voice to a whisper, and leaned in close.
“Trust no-pony. I know you've got friends here; they're the only exception. Everyone else, just try to avoid. Keep your head down, and the assassins won't know which building you're hunkering in.”
Rose had just finished when there was another knock at the door. Of course, the knock was just a formality; the stallion in the doorway stood a whole head taller than Celestia, and was built like a freight train. When he plodded into the room, Rose did the polite thing and excused herself. She gave him as wide a berth as the room allowed, and slipped quickly out into the hall. Rainbow Dash watched her walk down the hallway for a second before turning her attention to the stallion in front of her. He was dressed in an officer's clothes, heavily adorned with a variety of pins. The most vivid of them was stuck to his collar; a winged cross of white gold, with amethyst inlays, surrounded by a halo of gilded olive branches.
'That explains his mug,' she thought. A jagged scar ran the length of his face, from the tip of his muzzle to his receding hairline. Smack-dab in the middle was a black eye-patch, with a faded “#1” painted on it in white ink. One steel-colored eye regarded her solemnly for a few seconds. She'd never felt so… naked. It was as if he were dredging up all her dirtiest and darkest secrets with only his eye. Suddenly, his eye twinkled, and a big grin split his face.
“Well, some pony's popular today. I would congratulate you, but if PNN is to be believed, you've had a rough day,” A shrill whistle escaped his ruined lips, “Four-thousand meters, with only a slab of steel to break your fall. And all your bones. Helluva ride, I'll bet.” Rainbow Dash tried her best to smile, but only ended up with a lopsided sneer.
“You've got no idea, sir. Frankly, I don't have much of an idea, either. I blacked out for the whole trip.” He nodded appreciatively.
“If that's true, then you just must be terrible at dying. I heard a lot of the same during your time at the Gulf. I don't know if it's skill, strength, or if you're just luckier than you have any right to be, but you seem to have a knack for staying alive.”
“I am partial to living, sir.”
“Haha! I guess that's the truth of it, pure an' simple,” the mirth slid off his face, to be replaced with something more somber. “I'll be frank with you, I've got no idea how you do it. Your buddy gets iced in a freak accident, and from what I've heard, you took it pretty hard. Dying would have been easy, but you just don't do it. Now, I don't want you offing yourself, but I'm just curious: what keeps you going?”
If she told the truth, she would tell him “nothing”. Every day since the accident, she had kicked herself for not being there. She was the Element of Loyalty. If not that, what else did she have? After a few seconds of careful thought, she eventually decided that loyalty was her driving force. To her friends, to her country, and to the memory of her friend. The stallion seemed rather impressed by her little speech, and was quick to offer his sympathies.
“I know how it is, losing a friend. I mean, it's different for everypony, but… I'm just saying, I've been down that road before. Being remembered is a nice feeling, I'd imagine, but no amount of devotion is going to bring her back from the dead.”
'You don't know that,' her eyes lighted upon his winged cross. She watched how the light danced off its polished service, and she wanted to smile. 'For an unfeeling brute, you look pretty devoted yourself.'
“So,” she started, “I heard something about veteran benefits and a severance package. I don't suppose you had anything to do with that, sir?” The smile on his lips never touched his eye. He nodded slightly, and motioned for quiet.
“You and I, we're more alike than you'd suspect,” he whispered, “We've both seen things. Terrible things, and they always happen to good ponies. Now, I'll bet my other eye that you want to keep these bad things from happening, right?” She nodded. He grinned. “Then I think you just might be interested to learn what your severance package is. There's a small apartment building on Eighth and Mane. Go there, and make your way to room four-oh-four. If it's locked, you might want to try using this,” from the breast pocket of his coat, he plucked a rusty key. A casual toss sent it flying straight into Rainbow's waiting hoof. The metal was so pitted and brittle that it would probably break after one use. She gave him an inquisitive glance, and hoisted the key.
“This? I'm not sure there's even a key under all this rust.”
“That's because it isn't a key. At least, not in the traditional sense,” his smile was infuriatingly snide – and, admittedly, a bit handsome. “Now, that apartment, and everything in it, is my gift to you. Use it, sell it, renovate it; heck, you can trash it if you want to. Think of it as your little hideaway. However, if you're serious about what you said, you might want to at least stop in yourself before throwing the key in a dumpster.”
With that, the uniformed stallion let himself out, closing the door quietly as he left. She was alone again, but that didn't help much. She walked over to the window, and tugged on it until it came open. Immediately, a cool, evening breeze wafted into the room, bringing with it the smell of flowers and dew. It reminded her of the nights she'd sneak onto Twilight's balcony and go stargazing. Truth be told, she hadn't really learned anything from those nights, except that the stars were brighter and sharper if you looked at them through a telescope.
It wasn't much longer before Redheart came back, with one elderly doctor at her side. This stallion had seen a fair amount of years, and seemed to have a wealth of experience when it came to medicine and magi-tech. He wrote her a prescription for a magic supplement, to be taken once per month, and had her cleared to leave by the time midnight rolled around. She was wheeled out the front door by Nurse Redheart herself, all while having to listen about her institution.
“…you know? I know I don't look it, but I'm pretty much a doctor in all but title. That's how I got the grant to begin with; they don't just hoof those things out to all comers. You need research, you need facts, but the most important thing you need is a plan. They want to know that their money is going to something big. B-I-G big, and what could be bigger than artificial friggin' life?”
“Not much, I guess,” murmured Rainbow Dash. She'd been silent for most of the trip down, only talking when prompted, and never saying much. Redheart was tsking in annoyance when they finally stepped out into the night.
“That's the difference between you and I, miss Dash. You guess, but I know. Anyway, I guess I've kept you long enough,” Rainbow Dash took to her hooves, and spared a glance up at the hospital. A couple of lights dotted the building's surface, but for the most part, it was dark.
“Thanks for patching me up, Redheart. And… Thanks for putting up with me for as long as you did.” Redheart only smiled, and waved her hoof dismissively.
“Oh, you don't have to thank me. I do this because I want to. It's called a 'hospital' for a reason, after all: what would it be without hospitality?” She had to admit, Redheart's logic was pretty solid. She waved good-bye, and started off down the street. “Don't make me have to do this again, Rainbow Dash! Next time we meet, it'll be over coffee, 'kay?”
It was pouring rain by the time she managed to find the apartment building on Eighth and Mane. Ponyville was definitely not the town she remembered from only a few years ago. The cobble streets had been ripped up and replaced with asphalt long ago, and there was hardly a spot outside the alleyways that was dark. It looked more like a destitute Manehattan than Ponyville. Even so, she could still see the Ponyville she knew. A thatched-roof house here, a tree there, a flowerbed over there. Ponyville was crawling out of the woodworks to stir up her waterworks, and if she wasn't careful, she just might get tears on her new cybernetic limbs.
Not that a few tears would have ruined them. The weather had turned sour just as she turned onto Eighth, and it had only gotten worse as she hunted for its intersection with Mane. Somepony of some insight had thought to arrange the town in a grid pattern, with letters and numbers to mark roads instead of names and places. It made the search go that much faster, but she still felt hampered without the use of her wings. Even though her new wing was designed from the ground-up to be a wing, she just couldn't see past the fact that it was steel and rivets in lieu of feathers and flesh. At least it never needed to be pruned. It was a small enough blessing, but it helped.
She peeked out the door, into the deluge beyond, and wanted nothing more than to walk about the town. She'd seen a lot during her little stroll, but it wasn't enough. How much of Ponyville was still intact, and which parts were sacrificed in the name of progress? She wanted to go to Sugarcube Corner and shoot the breeze with Pinkie Pie. She wanted to head out to the Apple farmhouse, just to see how Applejack was holding up. Maybe they could even compete like they did before. She wanted to see Fluttershy again, and Tank. She even wanted to go to Carousel Boutique.
“But it's storming,” she sighed, “and it's not supposed to let up until Monday.” The doctors said her cybernetics were completely insulated against water and dust, but she didn't want to push the envelope and rust one of her legs. She turned from the door, and started climbing. The building was designed in such a way that, to get to the next floor, you had to pass all the apartments on the floor you were currently on. The yawning doorways and empty flats beyond were a unique kind of desolate. They were surprisingly well-maintained, but their absolute emptiness was unnerving. She didn't linger in the hallways for very long.
After three floors, she finally found what she was looking for. Once upon a time, a few brass emblems would have marked the door to apartment 404. Now, though, only their ghosts welcomed any prospective visitors. She pulled the key from her saddlebag, and tentatively shoved it into the lock. She had to wiggle it a few times, but after a few squeaks of protest, she managed to unlock the door. It swung in on silent hinges, and she could hardly believe her eyes.
It was like finding the lost city of Atlantis in the bottom of your goldfish bowl. Everything in the apartment was ultra-modern and super chic. Rarity would have died happy here. Black-stained hardwood floors, real leather upholstery, and a heap-load of chrome plating.
“So… awesome…” She shrugged out of her semi-dry clothes, and flopped onto the couch. The wall in front of her was entertainment central. She flicked on the television, and went straight to the news. The anchor-mare was a cute little thing, with golden curls and a sing-song voice that would sound even better if it was screaming her name. She was standing in front of a familiar building, and was probably reading her lines off a teleprompter.
“…victim of a tragic mid-air accident has, against all odds, made a full recovery. Twenty-six year old Rainbow Dash was found outside the hospital at six o'clock yesterday evening, when a solid chunk of steel came careening out of the sky to crush an illegally-parked car. Talk about karma. We've talked to the medical professionals that attended to the young flier, but so far, none of them have deigned to comment, claiming that patient privacy is their top concern, and they're not about to let…”
“Maybe now's not a good time,” she said. She turned the TV off, and took a quick look around the house. Behind the couch was a kitchen, fully-stocked with all sorts of yummy greens and bottles of water. Beside that was a guest bedroom – 'I've never had a guest bedroom before!' – furnished much the same as the rest of the house: monochromatic, but still stylish. To the left of the TV was the door to her room, the master bedroom. In it was the biggest bed that she'd ever laid eyes on. There was also a bathroom, connected to both her room and the living room.
She was nearly ready to sleep when she saw another door, tucked away in the shadow of the far corner of her bedroom. She tugged it open, and took a step into the darkened room. She felt along the wall for a switch, and eventually did find one. The light flickered on, and she saw that this was some kind of office. Like the rest of the house, it was all black wood and leather and chrome. Situated on the desk was a computer; a top-of-the-line bit of machinery, too, if she wasn't mistaken. She went to turn it on, only to realize that it was already on. The monitor wasn't though, so that's what she turned on. Blip by blip, the screen revealed a text document. She read it thoroughly, then re-read it, just to make sure she wasn't seeing things.
Rainbow Dash,
I trust you're reading this. If you are, then that means you found your new apartment. Like your digs? I picked them out especially for you. Like I said, we're more alike than you think, and it's more than just our goals and motives.
But maybe I'm presuming too much. Let me start over. You know me as “eye-patch dude”, but my real name is Lightning Storm. You can call me by that, or “Colonel Storm”, if you're still attached to rank and file.
I'll give it to you straight: you deserve that much, I think. Someone out there is against magi-tech development, and they're willing to resort to terrorism to achieve whatever goals they have planned. That's a big no-no on my watch. You're going to help me figure out who's behind it all, and what their angle is.
We know that he or she has influence and power enough to finagle a bomb into a military convoy. They've clearly got connections. That's how we're going to get at them. Follow the trail to the head-honcho, and then, take him or her out.
There's a partition on this computer that will allow you to access the combat peripherals hardware that I had installed. Hook yourself up, and you should be able to find it quickly. Once you have it installed, you'll be able to do a lot more with what you've already got. I'm talking medical feedback to your vision, facial recognition and database access, hip-fire targeting reticule, and so much more. Some of it's locked away behind security walls; don't worry about it. Like that key, you'll figure out how to unlock them when you need them.
In the meantime, do your research. Start asking questions, looking for clues. Do whatever you gotta do, but do it quietly. Maybe your new friend, the lawyer, can help you? She's probably got access to a lot of info. Since we're all on the same team here (she wants to catch those guys too, right?), there's nothing wrong with sharing info.
That said, don't trust her beyond the info she gives you, and you should probably fact-check that, too. You can handle mooks, but an angry lawyer can get you five to life for sneezing the wrong way. Stay on her good side, but don't let her use you. I'll contact you again soon.
Lightning Storm
She stared at the screen for a few minutes, not quite sure what to think. Eventually, she got frustrated with it, and manually powered off the computer. Thinking was hard, she decided, and being tired didn't make it any easier. She slid into the enormous bed, and almost immediately started drifting off.
“I'm…” she yawned, deep and loud, “…I'm so boned.” Her life was a game of blackjack, and she'd been dealt a hard sixteen. If Ruby was to be believed, there would be no shortage of alleyway mooks, hoping to cash in her dead body for a lifetime of easy living. Still, if that were the case, all she'd have to do is what she's good at: fighting. If she only had to keep herself alive, she would gladly let Ruby to all the hoof-work and research for her.
Then there's Colonel Storm, who is practically giving her the power of a hundred ponies to help her do what she wanted to do ever since she woke up. All she has to do is keep him in the loop, and do her own detective work. There is probably a ton of research and development miracles tucked in her left armpit, but it's worthless without the code on the computer. It had crossed her mind that there might be more to it than that. She's part machine now; can she get a virus? If Storm's code could unlock her hidden potential, what might it unlock for him?
“Buck it!” she flung her forelegs into the air, “I'm going to bed. I'll figure out what to do in the morning.”