Thorn of the Rose

Chapters

Prologue: Unforeseen Complications
The Rapture of Decretum
User-Unfriendly Interfaces
Bring Your Colt To Work Day
The Colt Who Tried
Hardware Failure
Immaterial Things
Reprogramming
Epilogue: Orphaned, But Not Alone
The Mechanics of Motherhood

Prologue: Unforeseen Complications

Prologue: Unforeseen Complications
~BlackRoseRaven

Hecate glared down at the two, but no matter how much her sallow features scowled, she couldn't hide the tremble of fear in her neon blue eyes. Her mane of black cabling and living electricity crackled around her features as steel teeth ground together uncertainly, and even her metal body seemed to shake, however minutely. And what use was a body of steel and machinery when, even after she'd removed her heart, something inside her chest still skipped a beat at the thought of what she was being offered?

“No. I won't do it.” she said coldly, reaching one mechanical hand up and shoving it out at the three cloaked shapes with disgust, but her eyes flicked away: not even she could hide what was very nearly fear at the thought of... of taking on... this. “If you haven't noticed, I have an empire to run. Clockwork World, as you call it, won't rebuild itself. And I have many recruits to gather over the coming decade as well. I have no time for your... mistake.”

Hecate stomped metal hooves down into the floor and hefted herself up from her seat, turning and striding towards the door leading out of the half-finished meeting room. Her massive, bipedal machine-body moved silently, synthetic and metal, perfect... and yet her shoulders were hunched, her head forwards, and maybe the faintest tremble ran through her silver-steel form as she told herself she wasn't retreating, she was denying-

“Hecate. Please.” said a quiet voice, and one of the mechanical mare's hands pressed into the doorframe, the mare's mane of lightning crackling around her steel-sheathed horn, sunken eyes glaring resolutely at the door before that voice begged again, more humble than she'd ever heard: “Please. This is the only place where he will be safe. Thou knows we speak truth: he must be hidden, even from those we love most. There is no one else I can trust with this task, but thou and thine.”

The mechanical mare lowered her head, staring down at the floor as she leaned forwards. Inside her body, gears whirred and gyres revolved and wires pumped power eternally: cold, logical machinery that would never weaken, never rot, never give out under its own power like her flesh had. And yet her steel body refused to take another step, because it responded to her living will, her confused mind. It seemed that no matter how many times she tore out her heart, no matter how many layers of soulless metal she cloaked herself in... at her very core, she would always be the same pony she had once been...

Hecate closed her eyes, then she straightened and scowled before punching the button beside the door, not caring that she left a dent in the panel. The electronic door buzzed open, and the mare found herself looking down at a young unicorn colt, who stared back at her with curious, fearless eyes: oh, worried, certainly, but... he wasn't afraid. He wasn't afraid of her at all.

The two looked at each other, and then Hecate said bluntly: “Say your goodbyes to your parents. You will be staying with me.”

The colt nodded to her hurriedly, but Hecate had already turned away, striding past the young unicorn and not looking back until she heard the child scurry into the room. And then she looked back over her shoulder just long enough to catch a glimpse of his tail before he vanished into the meeting room, and the mare sighed quietly.

But she didn't linger, turning her eyes ahead and scowling darkly as she strode onward. She had more important business to attend to than saying goodbyes or comforting the colt she had been saddled with. She just hoped that this little colt quickly learned his place and stayed out of her way.

Hecate gave a dry smile, shaking her head briefly. Then again, if Thorn Blackfeather was anything like his parents... he was going to cause her nothing but trouble.

The Rapture of Decretum

Chapter One: The Rapture Of Decretum
~BlackRoseRaven

The young colt smiled nervously up at her, bouncing a little on his hooves as Hecate only scowled. She studied him intently, her eyes roving slowly over the young pony: with his sapphire-blue coat, and shaggy silver-white mane, it was easy to see his mother and father in him. He had dark, almost-black eyes, and a ring jangled around his horn, still a little too big for him to wear properly: a simple silver band with a light blue stone that had been inscribed with a simple rune. An unassuming piece of jewelry, not magical in and of itself... but that symbol wasn't just decorative flair.

Hecate frowned deeper, and the colt awkwardly dropped to a halt on his rump, smiling lamely up at the mare. He shifted in front of her, unsure, and Hecate sighed before she reached up and rubbed slowly at her forehead with one mechanical hand, muttering: “This isn't going to work.”

The pony returned her glower to the colt after a moment, but... well, what was she supposed to do otherwise? It wasn't like she could just pass this duty off to a Dogmatist: Clockwork Ponies weren't exactly designed for dealing with foals, after all.

She sighed tiredly, then finally gestured out at the empty room, saying finally: “This will be your room. I expect you to spend most of your time here, entertaining yourself. I am very busy and Decretum is currently being repaired.”

“It looks like the whole world is being fixed up.” Thorn said with a smile, gazing up at Hecate... innocently, radiantly. She grimaced: she never got along very well with ponies who had particularly happy dispositions. “And um... this is really my room?”

Thorn looked over his shoulder, and what annoyed Hecate was that he seemed curious, not disappointed, at the fact said room was nothing but one large, gaping space with a metal floor, metal walls, and a metal ceiling. “It's pretty big.”

Hecate grunted, then looked down at the colt before sighing and saying finally: “I will have this furnished in the future. For now, I will have a bedroll and some blankets brought here for you. Food is available in this building's cafeteria at all times. I expect you to feed yourself and stay out of the way of my workers and the Orphans. We have enough to deal with as it is, after all.”

Thorn nodded hurriedly, looking respectfully up at Hecate, and Hecate scowled down at him for a few moments before she snapped: “What?”

“N-Nothing! I mean, thank you, Miss Hecate!” Thorn blurted out, nodding vehemently and making the ring around his horn jingle, and Hecate sighed tiredly and reached up to slowly rub at her forehead. At least her exasperation did a good job of hiding the awkward embarrassment she felt... and why the hell should she feel embarrassed, anyway?

She scowled again, then crossed her steel arms over her masculine, mechanical breast... before her eyes narrowed dangerously as Thorn held up a hoof, staring at her like he was a schoolcolt with a question for his teacher.

There was silence for a few moments, and Hecate had to resist the urge to drop her face in a hand before she said moodily: “Just ask. Don't waste my time.”

Thorn blushed and dropped his head nervously, and then he cleared his throat before asking hesitantly: “Um... Miss Hecate... what about the bathroom?”

Hecate sighed at this, and then she looked around the room before saying finally: “There are bathrooms and showers available near the barracks, halfway between here and the cafeteria.”

Thorn winced a little at this, shrinking his head, and Hecate glowered at him before asking distastefully: “What? Is that not good enough for you, 'young prince?'”

“N-No, no no no!” blurted Thorn, shaking his head rapidly before he smiled awkwardly up at Hecate, even as his cheeks glowed red in embarrassment. “I... I just don't know where-”

“I am not your mother. I am not here to mollycoddle you. As far as I am concerned, you are nothing more than a refugee that I have granted asylum here, and who is currently proving to be nothing but an annoyance, a distraction, and a drain on my resources.” Hecate said coldly, stepping forwards and pointing at him angrily, and Thorn trembled a little, staring up at her as he slowly lowered his head between his shoulders, biting his lip and looking as if he was about to cry.

Not that Hecate cared: she only continued to glower at the young colt before he lowered his head and whispered: “I... I'm sorry... I just... I mean, I don't... I mean...”

He stopped and looked down, shifting in embarrassment before he said meekly: “I... I don't want to be a nuisance, Miss Hecate. I promise I won't be. I'll stay quiet.”

“Good.” Hecate said irritably, and then she turned around and hammered the button by the door, which clanked before sliding open with a beep. Yet she hesitated all the same, shifting slowly on her hooves before she sighed a little and said grudgingly: “Come with me. I'll walk you to the cafeteria. Pay attention, because this is the only time I will do this.”

“Yes, Miss Hecate!” Thorn said hurriedly, nodding rapidly and wiping quickly at his eyes as he immediately brightened, scrambling after her. Hecate rolled her eyes as she stepped through the door, grumpily striding down the hall and doing her best to ignore the young colt almost hopping along at her side, hurrying to keep up with the enormous mechanical mare.

Hecate scowled a little at the colt hurrying along at her side: the young colt was looking up at her, with that 'trying to be brave' face she recognized from her own...

No, that wasn't a place she wanted to go. Her features hardened and she quickly turned her gaze forwards down the sterile, empty hall, saying coldly: “I want you to keep in mind at all times that this is to be considered a military facility, and you are now a civilian resident. You are to stay out of the way of both the Dogmatists and the other residents that are being brought here for training, the Enlisted Outworlders.”

The colt looked dumbly up at Hecate, who mentally rolled her eyes before she said irritably: “The Clockwork Ponies and the other guests, like you. Is that easier to understand?”

Thorn smiled lamely up at her, nodding hurriedly a few times, and the mechanical mare sighed tiredly and shook her head in distaste, almost ignoring the colt even as he promised: “I'm not going to get in anyone's way, I promise.”

“I hope not. You've come at a very aggravating time for me, colt.” Hecate said moodily, scowling down towards the end of the hallway. She hoped that one day very soon, these hallways would become busy with civilians and military personnel, all part of the grand empire she was building... but for now, well...

These halls, and most of these buildings, were still relatively empty, with only a skeleton crew of Worker Drones maintaining the machinery and dealing with the remaining concerns, such as detailing, carpeting, and furnishing these buildings. Most of her Dogmatists were in other places around Decretum, repairing ancient machinery, rebuilding cities, replacing and redesigning the massive pipelines that pumped fuel and chemicals throughout this entire world.

When she had first arrived here, she had discovered that Decretum, this wasteland planet, had not only rotted after more than a thousand years of disuse, the idiotic Clockwork King program that had been meant to maintain this world had instead been trying to run its own nonsensical experiments, and had eventually triggered some kind of self-destruct protocol. She assumed the world had been in shambles even before the maintenance program had decided to blow up most of the pipelines, power stations, and computer servers across the face of the planet... not to mention the entire control center for Decretum, the Cortex facility.

All that was left was rubble and ruin, which had been further scavenged by Valhalla and other former enemies of Valthrudnir. Hecate had to do more than just fit a bunch of broken puzzle pieces together: she would have to rebuild, recut, and repaint most of this puzzle herself.

Then the mechanical mare scowled down at Thorn as he tripped over his own hooves and stumbled into her steel leg. Immediately, he leapt away from her, staring ahead with a deep blush and trying to make himself look as serious as possible as he strode hurriedly beside her.

Hecate rolled her eyes, and then, without stopping, she pointed at a large door marked with a triangular symbol. “That is a shower area. The bathroom is in-”

Thorn immediately zipped over to the door and banged through it, and Hecate came to a halt and stared after the colt before she ground her teeth together and slapped her forehead with a groan, eyes clenching tightly shut. Oh, she didn't have time for this today. She'd forgotten how stupid young colts could be.

She moodily tapped one steel hoof against the ground as her arms crossed, her eyes glaring holes in the door as she waited... and waited... and waited. Minutes passed, and Hecate narrowed her eyes even further, her mane crackling with enough static energy to even make the cables that hung from her head dance and writhe.

Finally, Thorn poked his head almost meekly out of the door, smiling nervously up at Hecate, and she asked icily: “Acquainted yourself, colt?”

“S-Sorry, Miss Hecate, I... I just really had to go...” Thorn almost whimpered, lowering his head and looking up at her as he trembled a bit. “I'm... I'm ready to-”

“Enough whining. I should be overseeing the core's reconstruction right now, not pampering a colt with a dietary problem.” Hecate said irritably, and Thorn dropped his head in humiliation, blushing bright red. “But if you are finished, Thorn, let's continue your guided tour.”

“Sorry.” Thorn whispered again, dropping his head low and trembling a bit. Hecate only continued to scowl at him, then she snorted and turned her eyes forwards, and Thorn dropped his head as he stumbled quickly along at her side.

He was shaking a little, and Hecate had to resist taking another look at the colt as she led the way through the empty halls. And even when they reached the cafeteria, she didn't look down at him, simply gesturing towards the double doors and saying bluntly: “This is where you eat. I hope you memorized the route, because I am going to work now.”

Thorn only dropped his head and nodded meekly, and Hecate finally looked down at the little colt before she gave a tired sigh as she felt something give a double-thunk inside her, like a stripped gear failing to catch. She hesitated... and she hated that she hesitated. When it came to anything else, she was cold, cruel, merciless: she had tyrannized the realms, killed hundreds to save millions and brought ruin to entire civilizations to protect a single life. She was logical, precise, calculating and cunning. She was Queen, Empress, and Goddess.

And here she was, hesitating like a lesser creature over some stupid little colt she barely knew. Not just because of his parents, but because every time she looked at this meek little boy...

Thesis had always been braver. But back then...

Hecate closed her eyes and took a slow breath. She willed the world away for a moment, masking the pain of memory with frustration before she said moodily: “Fine. I will walk you back to your room.”

Thorn looked up at her, swallowing a little and nodding a bit as he did his best to smile... and Hecate sighed tiredly as she shook her head slowly before turning on one steel hoof and striding quickly down the hall, muttering: “This is a waste of time.”

The colt ducked his head meekly, but all the same he seemed to have a little bit of hope in his eyes, a bit of bounce in his step even as he tried to blink unshed tears out of his eyes. “I'm sorry.”

“Stop apologizing. Apologies are pointless.” Hecate grumbled, looking ahead, and then she scowled as Thorn mumbled what was undoubtedly another apology. “Somehow I'm not surprised that you failed to understand what I just said. You're just like your parents.”

“I love my parents.” Thorn murmured, and Hecate... didn't honestly know how to respond to this, her eyes flicking towards Thorn and studying him intently for a moment as the colt dropped his head and whispered: “I wish... I wish they didn't have to go.”

Hecate continued to remain silent, simply leading the way back down the corridor as she kept her focus forwards. But Thorn was so... so quiet. It felt unnatural to her, as she thought again of...

Stop it. He is nothing like Thesis.

No, he wasn't... and Hecate grimaced ever so slightly as she struggled not to look at the little colt beside her. And yet...

Her eyes drifted back to him as she bit her tongue, doing her best to keep her features impassive as she looked at the little colt... and before she even realized she was framing the question, she asked suddenly: “Where did you get that ring?”

Thorn looked up at her in surprise, and then he smiled after a moment, blushing a bit as his eyes flicked up to the ring around his horn. He answered her with happiness, maybe even excitement: like he thought they were about to magically become 'friends' or some nonsense like that, just because she had asked him a simple question to break the awkward tension... “Nan... I mean, Queen Hel gave it to me!”

“And you were raised in Helheim?” Why was she asking questions? Okay, sure, maybe it was interesting on a few different levels: this was a mortal colt who had all the same grown up in the Underworld, the realm of demons and punishment, and he seemed as if he hadn't been affected in the slightest by the malignant energies of Hell or the... peculiar culture, to put it lightly.

But Thorn looked up at her with a bright smile, apparently eager to talk as he began to bounce a little at her side, nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah, I was! But I stayed inside the mansion grounds a lot, and I was always escorted everywhere by my parents and often a whole bunch of demons, too.”

“Well, don't expect that treatment here, Thorn. Here, you will get no special privilege just because you happen to be a colt in an adult's world.” Hecate snapped, and Thorn wilted and almost fell over as he shrank down under her words, and... for a moment, even Hecate questioned why she was being so... inhospitable. “You are not exotic to this realm, no matter how unique a specimen you are. There are no other foals in Decretum for good reason.”

“Oh.” Thorn whispered, shrinking his head down, and Hecate did her best not to look at him as they walked onward, down the sterile, cold metal halls.

They were silent until they reached Thorn's room, and the only sound that broke the stillness was a grunt and the click of machinery as Hecate opened the door and pointed. Thorn walked into his empty room with his head low, and Hecate glowered after him, reminding herself that he was just a nuisance, just another thing for her to worry about when she already had a schedule to keep and important work to do.

He wasn't Thesis.

A mare's eyes open in the darkness of the past, and after a moment, she smiles. She smiles, because everything is good, everything is right, and she is happy.

Princess Celestia slowly climbed out of her bed, sighing and tossing her ephemeral, flowing mane, its multitude of colors twinkling in the darkness of her bedroom. She shook herself out briskly, then cracked her back and turned her eyes with a smile to gaze through the glass doors that led out to the balcony, watching with a fascination that never left her... as the sun rose.

She pushed her way out onto the balcony and strode to the marble railing, leaning over it and gazing with warmth at the beauty of the sunrise. And the sunrise was beautiful, she thought... but she had never really been able to appreciate it over all the years she had been raising and lowering the sun herself. To her, it had always just been a job, maintaining part of Equestria's flow and order; sure, she had perhaps been able to feel the satisfaction of a job well done, but all the same...

She chuckled softly and shook her head briefly, and then she turned her eyes back up to the rising sun, smiling warmly. The dragon had brought so much good to this world: his magical machines had done so much for their nation. Sure, he was a little arrogant, and a little rude... but she had faith in him. She believed in him. She... cared for him.

And he had given her more than freedom from the daily drain of having to rise and set the sun. He had given her something even better... something that maybe couldn't completely fill the hole in her heart from having been forced to exile her own little sister, but that did make her happy. That did give her a reason to... to do everything she could to keep herself moving forwards with her life. Something even more valuable to her than the entire nation she ruled...

Celestia smiled softly, then she gazed to the right as there was a loud bang, and she smiled as a small colt leapt out onto a balcony next to hers, hopping quickly up onto a stool and leaning over the railing to gaze happily out at the rising sun. His coat was a rich ebony and a mane that was a pretty silver white. He was big for his age, but he didn't have a cutie mark yet: as a matter of fact, Celestia didn't know if he'd ever earn one. Not that it mattered to her.

He smiled over at her brightly, then he rose a hoof and waved quickly, saying brightly: “Good morning, Mom! Are we going out today?”

“Good morning, son.” Celestia replied softly with a warm smile in return, and then she nodded, her eyes focused on her child with love and adoration. “Of course. I've been looking forwards to just having a nice day off with you all week.”

“Me too.” Thesis gazed at her with happiness: he was such a perfect little colt. She could never thank the dragon enough for giving her this child... the son she'd never thought she'd have. Not just because it seemed like every suitor was only interested in her either because she was Princess of Equestria, or because of the perfect mask she wore in and out every day... but because even if she was some perfect, statuesque mare... she was as barren as the marble the ponies thought she had been crafted from.

But the dragon had been able to give her a child, a son. And although the process had been... difficult, and a hazy mix of pain and pleasure and passion... all the same, the foal had taken root inside her. The dragon had been a little cruel when her babe had first been born, calling him words like homunculus, and golem... but no. It didn't matter that Thesis was different. It didn't matter that Thesis had taken more than a stallion's love to be forged in her womb. Thesis was a wonderful and perfect little colt, no matter what some ponies thought.

She didn't entirely know if the dragon accepted the child. But she thought that he had some strange affection for him, whether he would admit it or not. After all, in more than one way, the dragon was Thesis' father: and sure, he was aloof, he was distant, he was a little cold... but he tried, in his own strange way. He and Thesis would bump into each other in the halls, or he would show up every so often in the evenings, or he would chase away Thesis' tutors and instead give the colt a lesson in philosophy or military history.

So what if Thesis was different? So what if his 'father' was a dragon? So what if her colt could never have a cutie mark? He was still a real pony to her, and the son she'd never thought she could have. And she thought that one day, Thesis would have the wisdom and compassion to govern the nation under her watch... perhaps even become the Prince of his own colony.

Celestia turned around, heading inside, and Thesis bounced happily off his stool to dart quickly back into his own room. And just as Celestia stepped out into the hall from her bedroom, Thesis banged through the doors of his, hooves kicking and skidding against the floor before he threw himself towards his mother.

The mare caught her son with a quiet laugh, gazing down at him with warm radiance in her eyes before she hugged him impulsively up against her body, and Thesis giggled as he rubbed his head against her breast, closing his eyes and curling up instinctively in the safety of her embrace.

Celestia gazed tenderly down at Thesis, then she set him down and watched as Thesis turned and scrambled away down the hall, laughing before he slipped quickly through the ajar doors at the end of the hall. And the Princess of the Sun smiled warmly as she followed after him, before pushing the doors open-

White light washed over her, the mare frowning and tilting her head to the side before her eyes widened as not a colt, but an adult Thesis turned towards her, his gaze cold, his mane cropped to a short brush cut and his tail docked. He was tall, powerful, muscular, and somehow perfect even in spite of the terrible machinery that stood out of his back, the pistons that pumped poison through his system, the whirring exoskeleton over his spine that kept him strong and mobile and alive...

He looked at her with eyes like glass prisons: his gaze was hard and emotionless, but all the same, beyond his stained pupils, there was something deep and miserable and alone, crying out to her, frightened and trapped even as he said quietly: “The chemicals have long settled between us. My care for you is nothing but a flaw of oxytocin and vasopressin: our biological bonds mean nothing to me. Mother... is only the word for the descent of the X chromosome. That is all.”

Thesis turned away from her, machines pumping over his back, and Celestia trembled before she looked down, silently raising a hoof that was now cloaked in steel, to hide the deformities of her body. That hid the hideousness of the Empress of Equestria, as her body began to burn itself away from the endless experimentation, the rejection and acceptance of mechanical parts and grafted genes, the evolution being force-fed to her by the dragon, the cunning, cruel, and cowardly dragon...

Celestia closed her eyes... and Hecate opened them, awakening from memories as she breathed quietly in and out. She stared silently at her mechanical body, where it rested in silent dormancy against the far wall of her room: a bipedal, powerful body of steel... and she knew there was no small irony in the fact that its masculine frame was modeled so clearly after the body of the dragon she had once known every inch of...

She closed her eyes, then forced herself to take another breath as she rolled her head slowly, then cracked her neck with a grimace. Her eyes blinked a few times as she cleared them of the haze of memories before she muttered: “I shouldn't have let myself fall asleep. What a waste of time.”

Hecate grimaced, then she whistled sharply. Immediately, her mechanical suit straightened to attention, and after a moment, it strode quickly forwards and reached down to gently grasp either side of Hecate's face.

The mare was used to this by now, as she looked moodily forwards even as the claws gently spun her around once, twice, thrice, then pulled up... and with a click, Hecate's head was lifted into the air as it popped free from the pillar it had been resting on, the collar at the end of her stump of neck gleaming as a twist of electricity sparked around the large, square plug on the bottom of it.

Hecate sighed as her body guided her head back onto her shoulders, spinning it absently once to screw it quickly back into place before several large plates slid upwards over the steel cap around her neck, ensuring her head was anchored into place. Electricity sparked along her mechanical body as she flexed absently, and then she rolled her shoulders easily, closing her eyes as she listened to the whir of gears inside her steel breast.

Yes, everything was working fine. She opened her eyes, looking moodily down at the control pillar in front of her before she reached down and grasped it, electricity sparking over the steel column as she interfaced briefly with the artificial intelligence and processing systems that helped keep Decretum running.

Everything was working as expected... which wasn't saying much at this point in time. Basic services were all up and running, but only in Canterlot...

No, not Canterlot. Genesis, that was what this castle was known as now. She was being stupid, letting old memories interfere when she should have erased them long ago: they weren't any use to her now. They didn't have any meaning for her now.

Thesis was dead. Better he stayed that way, and better that she just forgot about him.

Hecate turned around, striding quickly towards the door: it opened with just a gesture from her, and Hecate stepped out into the hall to scowl as she saw several Worker Drones in the process of repairing a pipe that had ruptured just down the hall. They were slow, but silent and tireless: they were shaped like ponies, but no matter what they had once been, now they were just rubber hide over metal skeletons, mindlessly performing whatever simple, menial task they were given.

The Empress of Decretum surveyed these pawns moodily, then she sighed and approached them, raising a hand moodily towards them as she ordered curtly: “Operating status.”

A holographic screen appeared above her arm, half-generated by magic and half-generated by the technology of her mechanical body. Runes spread over it, along with bar graphs and other statistics: it all fed together to give her an overview of not just the current productivity of these workers in front of her, but all of Decretum's current operational status.

Hecate reviewed the information moodily, then scowled a little: productivity had dropped more than a centigrade on her operations graph. She shook her head shortly, then dismissed the floating screen and turned, striding moodily onward.

She had no doubt this wasn't just because of setbacks with the reconstruction of Decretum, but because she had to rely on Outworld workers as well as Drones and Dogmatists. The Clockwork Ponies might be slow and often could only perform certain jobs, but they were at least reliable. But the ponies and supernaturals and other creatures taken in from other worlds to help fill out the ranks of Decretum loved to gossip, and she had no doubt that they were all wasting their time talking about Thorn instead of doing their work.

Hecate scowled: she never should have agreed to this. Thorn was going to be nothing but a drain on resources. A colt was a liability: he would be a distraction, he would use up and waste their resources, and he would require attention from her. And she was a commander and a figurehead: she didn't have the time to waste on little colts and their 'problems;' she had an entire world to think about, and what her entire world was supposed to represent and protect.

The mechanical mare continued on her way, steel hooves echoing through the empty hallway as she lowered her head silently, glowering resolutely ahead. Her face remained unchanging, and yet her eyes glowed slightly, images flickering through her mind and in front of her vision, giving her updates on the progress the workers had made so far throughout Decretum.

She kept mentally checking the time, aware of every ticking second, every tocking minute. She kept coming back again and again to note how long it had been since they had begun rebuilding the Vena Cava rail system, and how long since workers had begun bringing the Atrium's most basic systems back online, and how many hours had passed since the last import of materials from Looking Glass World and how long it had been since she had her conversation with Thorn-

Seven hours, thirty-eight minutes, twenty-three seconds.

Hecate scowled, stomping onward. It had also been almost a day since the last unit of Worker Drones had been shipped in from Endworld.

Seven hours, thirty eight minutes, fifty-two seconds.

Her eyes narrowed, dismissing both her thoughts as well as the images that had been scrawling over the glass lenses implanted over her irises. It had almost been a day since the last systems check: she needed to run an operating scan.

7:39:20. 7:39:21. 7:39:22.

Hecate spun suddenly to the side on one steel hoof, striding quickly down a side hallway as she swore under her breath.

7:41:02. 7:41:03. 7:41:04.

The mechanical mare almost punched her way into an elevator and hammered the button to go down, impatiently tapping her hoof until the doors began to slide open. She narrowed her eyes as there was a power fluctuation and the doors stuttered before she impatiently reached one hand forwards and grabbed the side of one door, yanking it firmly ajar with a screech of metal and a shower of sparks she passed carelessly under.

7:45:42. 7:45:43. 7:45:44.

Hecate strode through the twisting and turning halls, crankily booting a mechanical cleaning unit out of the way as she walked and sending it skittering into the wall with a squeal of protest, beeping wildly as the little cone-shaped droid spun wildly in circles for a moment before darting away. But for all her impatience, when she reached her destination, she stopped.

7:49:10. 7:49:11. 7:49:12.

This was a waste of time. She was wasting time. There was no point to this.

7:51:52. 7:51:53. 7:51:54.

She was better than this. She had work to do. Work that was far more important than coddling some toddler.

7:57:37. 7:57:38. 7:57:39.

So why the hell was she hesitating?

7:59:58. 7:59:59. 8:00:00.

Hecate groaned mentally and hammered a fist into the button beside the electronic door, and it whirred loudly open. She simply scowled from the doorway as Thorn looked up in surprise from where he was curled up on the steel floor of the empty room... and Hecate frowned after a moment before she asked: “Where are your things? I had a bedroll and a blanket requested for you.”

Thorn only shrugged a little, picking himself up, and Hecate began to scowl... before her eyes narrowed slightly as she realized the little colt had been sleeping... and likely crying, from how puffy his eyes were, as he murmured: “I... I dunno, I didn't think...”

Hecate opened her mouth to ask what the colt 'didn't think,' but then she stopped herself and only scowled instead. For a few moments, there was an uncomfortable silence as the two surveyed each other, and then she finally sighed tiredly before gesturing at him moodily. “Very well. Come with me. I'll rectify this oversight myself.”

Thorn looked at her nervously, and Hecate... didn't take any pleasure in that, strangely enough. She only scowled a little at the colt before shaking her head and saying moodily: “I'm not going to hurt you. For some idiotic reason, your parents have enlisted me as your caretaker. Jeopardizing your health might amuse me, but would be contrary to my objective.”

Thorn looked at her with confusion, and Hecate sighed before she simply repeated in a tired voice: “Just come with me.”

The colt nodded awkwardly, hurrying towards her before he tripped and fell on his face with a thunk, and Hecate slowly closed her eyes and rubbed at her face moodily with one mechanical claw. Then she looked up grouchily as Thorn scrambled to his hooves, blushing and whimpering a little, but all the same quickly coming towards her.

They looked at each other for a few moments, and then Hecate stepped backwards and gestured distastefully for the colt to step out of his room. Thorn nervously did so, staying close to Hecate, and the mechanical mare looked down at him distastefully before she asked: “I suppose we should stop by the bathroom on the way up, correct?”

Thorn blushed and lowered his head, nodding meekly, and the mechanical mare sighed in exasperation... but five minutes later, she was leaning outside the bathroom, arms crossed and slowly tapping a mechanical claw against one bicep, her mane of lightning sizzling and crackling quietly around her head as she looked grouchily up at the ceiling.

Thesis had never been like this. Unable to take care of himself, sensitive, whiny, or clumsy. How was it that such exceptional ponies had given birth to such a... a dumb colt? As a matter of fact...

Hecate glanced to the side as the door opened, Thorn stepping out and glancing up at her sheepishly... and then he flinched when Hecate turned towards him, her horn glowing as several screens appeared around her and she said shortly: “Stay still.”

Magical light shone from her steel-sheathed horn as she quickly evaluated the little colt in front of her... and then she scowled a little, saying moodily: “Just as I thought. You are... ten years and two hundred and fifty eight days old, correct?”

Thorn stared at her blankly, and Hecate sighed before she said sourly: “You're more than ten and a half years old, is that right?”

The colt blushed and nodded hurriedly at this, saying quickly: “That's right! My birthday is-”

“I don't care.” Hecate cut off grouchily, and then she shook her head before saying moodily: “You're underdeveloped for your age. Smaller than average and your weight is below optimal. And of course, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to note you have almost no detectable magic energy. I'd estimate you can generate... what, five bæns of magical energy?”

“What's a bane?” Thorn asked, looking awkwardly up at Hecate, and the mare only looked at him moodily until the colt shrank down and dropped his head. “I'm sorry.”

“What did I tell you about apologizing, Thorn? Apologies are a waste of time.” Hecate said irritably, and then she shook her head shortly before she lowered her hand, the screens disappearing before she ordered: “Focus your magic.”

Thorn blushed a bit, looking almost panicked as he glanced back and forth and babbled: “I... n-no, I really don't think that-”

“I do not repeat myself, Thorn.” Hecate said icily, looming intimidatingly forwards, and Thorn almost fell over as he whimpered a little: Hecate wondered moodily just how much he must have been shielded in Helheim to be so easily frightened. She had a feeling it was cowardice, not intelligence, that was driving his reactions, after all.

There was an uncomfortable silence between the two of them... and then Hecate looked slowly, moodily up as a loud squealing filled the hall, the mechanical mare watching crankily as the cleaning droid she had kicked earlier buzzed towards them, whizzing along the hall with a series of squealing beeps.

Thorn stared at this conical apparition with horror as it whizzed wildly around, it sensors apparently badly damaged from Hecate's earlier mistreatment and its simplistic AI too confused to trigger a shutdown. The mechanical mare took a moment to judge its projected path, and then she simply stepped backwards and out of its way, turning her eyes moodily towards the colt to watch what he would do.

As expected, Thorn simply stood there, jaw dropped slackly until he realized too late that the crazed thing was zigzagging right for him. Far too late, Thorn squeaked and attempted to jump out of the way... and instead, he was plowed over by it, the large, conical droid knocking the young colt sprawling.

Hecate simply looked down at the young pony as he trembled on the ground, whimpering a little, and after a moment, the mare sighed tiredly and rolled her eyes before she said irritably: “Get up. There's no time for crying in Decretum, either.”

Thorn trembled shamefully on the ground, but then he did his best to nod and clamber up to his hooves, before looking up abashedly as Hecate pointed down the hallway, ordering irritably: “Go ahead to the cafeteria and get something to eat. I expect you to manage your food properly, Thorn: every bite you eat is a bite of food you are taking away from a soldier or an employee of mine. Remember that.”

“Yes, Miss Hecate.” Thorn whispered, turning and trudging onward with his head low and his eyes downcast.

The mechanical mare watched moodily as Thorn strode down the hall... and then, without looking over her shoulder, she simply pointed a finger back behind her, a surge of lighting blasting from the extended digit and hammering into the conical droid before it could spin around a corner. Immediately, the cleaning unit spun to a halt, smoldering as gears and circuits popped and exploded inside it like corn before Hecate tilted her head slightly to the side, engaging an audio uplink as she muttered: “Cleanup on level two, near the refreshment area. Have this droid dismantled and replaced immediately. And have all the cleaning droids in this facility refitted with better sensors as well.”

There was a double-beep to indicate her orders had been received, and then Hecate dropped the link, sighing and shaking her head before she followed after the foal, scowling at his slouching back and thinking that this was going to be far more trouble than it was worth.

User-Unfriendly Interfaces

Chapter Two: User-Unfriendly Interfaces
~BlackRoseRaven

Thorn looked uncomfortably up at Hecate as she tossed a pillow down on the floor, next to where she had already thrown a bedroll and a blanket. She scowled down at him, and he automatically shrank down under her intimidating gaze before she said distastefully: “I cannot afford doing this with you again, colt. Two hours is an extremely long time. I hope you are aware of that.”

“Yes Miss Hecate.” Thorn whispered, nodding quickly. He had been told by his parents to be on his very best behavior for Hecate, to be respectful and polite and do everything she asked him to do, and he planned to do absolutely that.

He didn't really know quite yet what to make of her: she was big and mean and strict, but that didn't necessarily mean she was a bad person. He had learned lots about good people and bad people from living in Helheim: he'd learned that sometimes it was the really nice people who you had to be afraid of, and it was the really mean people who would do anything to protect you. You just had to learn to look past how scary and loud they could often be.

Hecate was certainly mean. She was also very loud and ordered him around a lot. She blamed a lot of things on him and made him feel pretty bad. Thorn was honestly doing his very best, but it was hard to live up to Hecate's expectations when he didn't even know what she really expected of him. She just kept telling him that he was useless... although he guessed that to her, he kind of was.

But his parents had said that Hecate was a very good person, who was doing a very good thing for the worlds. She was also just very serious, and needed somepony in her life to help make her smile, and remind her that she was a good pony and that she didn't have to pretend to be so nasty all the time.

Thorn wished that he could have gone with his parents off on their adventure, but his parents had told him that he was doing a really important job here, too. And while he wasn't so young to believe that he really did have some super important job... all the same, it felt really really important to try and get through to Hecate. Or at the very least, to be there for her, and to make sure she knew that he was going to do everything he could for her, and she could trust him.

It was what the colt clung on to even when she upset him or scared him... and even though they had known each other for less than a day, he had spent pretty much all that time scared and upset. Hecate was bossy and seemed angry a lot, but she also seemed worried a lot, too, and he knew that when you were worried about something you always acted a little meaner, even if you didn't mean to.

And even if she wasn't being really nice about it, Hecate was still trying to make him more comfortable. She had been really mad about him not getting the sleeping stuff for his room, and she had spent all this time with him, making sure he was a little more comfortable. Sure, it wasn't much, but... even if Thorn had grown up in a mansion, he had also grown up in Helheim. He had spent some scary days learning... well... all kinds of things.

He lowered his head for a moment, then he looked quickly up as Hecate turned away, the colt blurting: “Thank you!”

Hecate paused in the doorway, then scowled over her shoulder at him before Thorn sat up and promised: “I'm not going to get in your way. I'll be good.”

The mechanical mare measured him with her eyes, and then she shook her head briefly before she said moodily: “Tell me that again after you get a job and start contributing to society, Thorn. Right now you are nothing but a drain on my resources.”

Thorn ducked his head, and then he trembled before saying suddenly: “I can work!”

Hecate laughed sourly at this, looking moodily at the colt before she asked contemptibly: “Really? I only accept the best of the best here, Thorn, while all the menial tasks are performed by machines. Machines do not tire and machines do not make mistakes, unlike little colts. Why should I trust you to do anything for me?”

Thorn ducked his head, trembling a little and looking back and forth, and Hecate simply looked down at him with derision before she started to turn... then halted as Thorn blurted: “I can be your assistant, though!”

“My assistant.” Hecate turned slowly around, looking down at Thorn with disgust. “Perhaps you fail to realize this, but this is not preschool or kindergarten. I am not your teacher or your friend or your mother. I do not have the time to indulge-”

“Nanny Hel made me do work for the Archives, though!” Thorn interrupted, and then he blushed deeply and dropped his head when Hecate frowned, cocking her head and looking down at him with surprise. “S-Sorry, Miss Hecate, I didn't mean to-”

“Enough apologizing. What do you mean, Hel had you work for the Archives?” Hecate asked slowly, and then she narrowed her eyes slightly. “You do understand that is very serious, correct, Thorn? I am somehow certain that-”

Thorn reached up and pointed at his ring, replying quickly: “But this is an Archive ring, see! Hel gave it to me because she said I was really good at helping keep things organized for her... why, she even brought me to Underdark and everything and gave it to me right in person, although...” Thorn blushed deeply, lowering his head. “Although I'm not supposed to talk about that.”

Hecate scowled at this, then she leaned forwards and asked cynically, putting her hands on her hips: “Oh, really? And tell me, what does Underdark look like? Where did you meet Hel?”

The colt shifted nervously, biting his lip for a moment, and Hecate began to smile thinly: she knew it. The colt was either lying or Hel had just played some stupid game with the colt's mind, there was no possible way- “It... it was white. White and very clean and there were all kinds of fancy screens, like you have here. Nanny Hel met me there... she didn't look much like her puppet, and she was really nice. She had a cane because she had trouble walking, and... and that's where I met the Lady of the Moon, too!”

Hecate stared in disbelief, her eyes widening as she mouthed wordlessly, as Thorn simply looked up at her with his innocent eyes. She didn't even know what to say as she stared down at the colt, who looked back up at her before he blushed and mumbled: “I... I don't know if I was supposed to tell you about that or not, though. But my parents... they said to trust you, Miss Hecate, so I... I think that means I should trust you with everything, right?”

The mechanical mare looked down silently at Thorn for a few moments, and then she shook her head shortly, quickly regaining her composure before she replied shortly: “No.”

Thorn dropped his head again, and Hecate reached up and rubbed slowly at her temple before she decided that the best thing she could do was simply... move forwards. If he really had helped out with the Archives in Helheim... “What were you trained to do?”

“I um... I fetched scrolls and stuff, and I made sure all the receipts were organized, and Mommy and Daddy taught me all about how to keep books in order in the library. And I checked dates and stuff too.” Thorn said, blushing a little and nodding quickly. “Nanny Hel asked me to do it a few years ago. She said it was a safe place for a little colt like me to go while Mommy and Móðer and Daddy all go to work.”

Hecate grunted, looking moodily at the colt: it was hard for her to fathom. Of all the things that they could have taught this little colt, apparently his parents had decided to make him a bookkeeper. Of course, he was particularly unexceptional from what she'd seen and detected so far: the most amazing thing about him was that he could be so boring and normal, considering both his heritage and the fact he had been raised in Helheim.

Maybe she wasn't being entirely fair, though: a colt handling duties in Helheim... well, it did have the ring of some twisted joke of Hel's. But at the same time, while Hel loved a good joke, she also wasn't the kind of person to risk allowing her Archives even a moment of respite or weakness...

So far, she also hadn't witnessed Thorn doing more than whimper and follow after her, either; while he had failed her impromptu test with the berserk cleaning drone, he also had still picked himself up, she supposed, and continued on his way with only a minimum of whining...

But Thesis had been sensitive, too, even if...

Hecate shook herself out shortly, then she turned her eyes back towards Thorn, studying him silently. He looked uncomfortably back at her, until Hecate finally said in a moody voice: “I don't just give out jobs, Thorn. I'll run an assessment on you. Come with me.”

Thorn blinked in surprise, and then he blushed and nodded hurriedly, scrambling up to his hooves and following the mare out the door. It almost slid closed on him, the colt squeaking as his long tail was nipped by the sliding door on the way out, and Hecate sighed tiredly as she looked over her shoulder, saying irritably: “Well, at least now I can already see that your reflexes and situational awareness both need work...”

The young colt whimpered a little and dropped his head, flushing in embarrassment, but Hecate simply turned her gaze back ahead, ignoring him as she walked onwards. Thorn followed quickly, not speaking, keeping his head down awkwardly, and Hecate snuck a glance over her shoulder at him before she forced herself to look ahead, asking for purely logistical reasons: “What do you know about your family, Thorn Blackfeather?”

Thorn looked uncomfortably up at Hecate, and then he bit his lip before he lowered his eyes and murmured: “I know I'm not supposed to talk about them, but... um... I guess it's okay if I talk to you, Miss Hecate, you're-”

“I see you're as naive as the rest of your family is.” Hecate said coldly, and Thorn winced a bit at this, looking uncomfortably up as Hecate shook her head in distaste. “No, you should not trust me out of hoof, Thorn. You should come to that decision on your own: whatever you might believe, your parents are not infallible. Your parents have made many mistakes. And one of their mistakes is that they left you here in my care, when I do not care about you at all.”

Thorn shrank a little more, trembling a bit, and they were silent as they made their way through the halls of the facility. Hecate paid little attention to Thorn: the only reason she looked back every now and then was to make sure that the little colt was following her still. He was quiet, whimpery... humiliated, but also... humble.

Hecate shifted as she felt a stripped gear catch in her steel breast, scowling as she absently flicked her mechanical fingers a few times until the sensation of imperfect parts interrupting precise rhythm faded. She would have to send this body in for repairs later: she didn't want her concentration and productivity hampered any further than it had already was.

The initiation room was empty, at least: not a surprise, since most of the Enlisted Outworlders were already all on duties around Decretum, and she hadn't sent out any recruiters for several months now. That was something else she would have to deal with at some point...

Thorn peeked out nervously from behind her, uncomfortably surveying the room: it looked like a massive gymnasium, where several sections of floor had raised to form a simple obstacle course. It was clean, but had an air of disuse about it, and Thorn bit his lip before he said apprehensively: “Miss Hecate, I... um, I don't know if...”

“Quiet.” Hecate said curtly, and Thorn dropped his head as the mechanical mare brought up a hand and gestured sharply to the side, calling up a holographic screen. Her eyes locked on this as a schematic appeared over the faint blue imaging, and then she tapped quickly across it before ordering: “Load new parameters.”

There were several loud clanks as several parts of the floor descended while other hidden panels opened and sections of flooring rose up and transformed. Thorn stared with amazement as the obstacle course quickly and smoothly changed, a slowly-revolving cylinder appearing here, a set of spinning platforms there, narrow bridges and even a large cable suspended between platforms...

“Go to the red line and wait for me to tell you to start. Then run this course. The par time is one minute for two laps.” Hecate said shortly, and Thorn stared at her in surprise before Hecate glared down at him. “Thorn, what have I said about repeating myself?”

“Y-Yes Miss Hecate!” Thorn nodded and hurried off to the starting line, trembling a bit as he looked out over the obstacle course: to him, it looked impossible to do even one lap in one minute...

Hecate, meanwhile, only scowled: Thorn hadn't even bothered to ask why she'd given the par time for two laps instead of just one. She was a little disappointed by that. But all the same, after a moment she gestured shortly to the colt, ordering: “Begin.”

Thorn made two mistakes immediately: first, he hesitated. Second, he scrambled, tripping all over his own hooves before he bolted down the track... and then he made his third error, underestimating his jump and tripping over the first hurdle to slam with a loud thunk face-first into the plate floor.

Thorn whimpered, and Hecate dropped her face in one claw with a tired sigh. Then she frowned as she heard another thunk, and she looked up with surprise to see Thorn, in spite of the fact that tears were flowing down his cheeks and he was whimpering steadily, he was all the same already scrambling up the steep incline past the second hurdle.

One of Hecate's eyes flashed as the biometric lens implanted over it activated, scanning Thorn sharply: she detected an elevated heartrate, emotional disturbance, minor injuries in the form of scrapes, a nosebleed, and he had bruised the bone in his muzzle... but he was still moving forwards.

Hecate watched, frowning deeper and crossing her arms and studying him intently. Thorn hit the spinning cylinder... and after about two steps, he was flung off it, landing with a loud thunk headfirst on the metal plates. He yelped and grabbed at his skull, rolling back and forth, whimpering, and Hecate was sure that the colt was going to burst into tears... but after only a few moments, he crawled to his hooves and staggered onwards, his gait smoothing out after a few moments to a ladder that led up to the other side of the cylinder, crawling his way back onto the obstacle course.

He stumbled at the edge of the platform and almost went off again, but managed to get himself onto the narrow balance beam and crawl his way carefully along it. By now, more than a minute had passed, and he wasn't half done the first lap of the obstacle course, Hecate's scowl still on her face... but watching intently as the little colt approached the spinning platforms that formed a set of steps leading to the zipline.

He crawled onto one, then whimpered as it dragged him slowly around in a circle, the revolutions not enough to fling him off, but more than enough to disorient him. Hecate watched as Thorn barely managed to drag himself on top of the next platform without being flung off, before he jumped up onto the last... and then Hecate winced ever so slightly as her scans picked up a new reading a moment before Thorn leaned forwards and vomited loudly.

The colt stumbled, slipped in his own throw-up, and Hecate tensed slightly... but then the the colt flung himself sideways and landed with a thunk on the top platform, beneath the rope. Thorn gasped for breath, then coughed several times and whimpered in his throat before he picked himself up with shaky legs and crawled towards the line, staring up at it.

It was too high for him to reach, so Thorn turned his eyes towards the pole that supported it and grabbed on to this, crawling up it. He slipped and trembled, but all the same, he managed to climb it... it was just a long, arduous climb for him.

Thorn took to the rope, hanging upside down from it with a whimper by all four hooves as he coughed and spat several times, then he hurriedly crossed it. This, at least, he managed well... except just before he reached the other side, he trembled before vomiting again, and Hecate sighed tiredly as she rubbed slowly at her face... then she tensed again as Thorn lost his grip with his rear hooves.

Her eyes widened and her horn sparked as one of Thorn's front hooves slipped off the line, the colt gasping and whimpering before he looked ahead... and Hecate watched with surprise as the colt flung himself forwards towards the edge of the platform-

He missed landing on it by an inch, slamming into the side of it and scrabbling wildly at the edge of the platform, Thorn's eyes bulging before his hooves lost their purchase and he fell backwards-

A bubble appeared around the colt a moment before he hit the ground, leaving him suspended harmlessly above the steel floor, and Thorn blinked a few times before he looked back and forth in surprise. And Hecate sighed tiredly, shaking her head slowly before she crossed her mechanical arms as her vision returned to normal and the screen vanished from in front of her.

The bubble floated across the obstacle course and came to a halt in front of the Empress of Decretum, who looked moodily down at Thorn as he rasped quietly for breath, then gave her a shaky smile, whispering: “I'm... I'm sorry.”

“I hate repeating myself, Thorn.” Hecate said contemptibly, but her eyes flicked to the side: sorry... he was sorry? Stupid colt... “Well, you left the course incomplete after a running time of more than three minutes. Furthermore, you damaged the equipment and even managed to injure yourself. Needless to say, I am left... unimpressed.”

Thorn lowered his head in shame, and there was silence for a few moments before Hecate said abruptly: “We will come back tomorrow.”

The colt looked up at her in surprise, and Hecate looked fearlessly down at him before she said shortly: “You are useless to me like this. I don't know what kind of spoiled, special life you led in Helheim, but it ends here and now. You are going to run this obstacle course every single day, again and again, until you can complete it in par time. I only hope for your sake, Thorn, you weren't lying to me about your other training.”

Thorn nodded hurriedly, then he said quickly: “I... I wasn't! I can show you right now, I'll-”

“Shut up.” Hecate said shortly, and Thorn whimpered and shrank back in the telekinetic bubble before Hecate sighed and flicked her hand. The colt yelped as the bubble vanished and he was rudely dropped with a thump on his stomach before the mare said moodily: “Your second assessment can wait. For now, let's take you to the medical bay. You're... you are not at standard operating capacity.”

Hecate turned, scowling and flexing a hand as she resisted the urge to rub at her face. What the hell was she doing? Why was she wasting her time with this colt? He wasn't anything special, and she was wasting her time. He had mangled the obstacle course he'd just run, proving that his parents had barely trained him: why, when he had been a foal, Thesis had set the record for a course just like this...

Thesis is dead. Leave him in the past.

Hecate strode towards the door, scowling darkly as she hammered the button to open it. She didn't look back over her shoulder as she strode quickly out into the hallway... but she had to admit, she was a little surprised that Thorn was stumbling along right at her heels. He was tenacious... she could at least give him credit for that.

There was a medical station located right around the corner from the obstacle course: Hecate somehow had no doubt that they were going to be seeing a lot of this place. She shoved the sliding door open, then reached down and picked Thorn up by the scruff of the neck, the colt yelping as he was carried inside.

A pale gold unicorn looked up in surprise, then stared as Hecate simply thrust Thorn towards her, the mechanical mare saying irritably: “Fix him.”

“Uh...” The unicorn awkwardly put the clipboard she had been levitating beside her aside, then gently scooped up Thorn in her magic, Hecate crossing her arms and glowering down at the unicorn. Thorn smiled meekly up at the new pony, studying her nervously: her mane was a mix of browns and drawn back in a ponytail, and her eyes were a gentle hazel, studying the colt with gentle interest before she said softly: “Hello there. You are a little beaten up, huh? Well, my name is-”

“Peridot Glimmer, former second-class healer for the Equestrian National Army, fled into exile after being targeted for assassination. We aren't here to hear your life story.” Hecate said moodily, and Peridot winced and shrank her head a bit before the mechanical mare pointed at Thorn. “Repair him.”

The unicorn sighed a little, and then she turned her eyes towards Thorn, studying the colt as she gently turned him back and forth in her telekinetic hold before she closed her eyes. Soft light spilled over his body, and Thorn squirmed before he winced a little as he felt first stinging pain... then a pleasant warmth and a funny itchiness as his wounds slowly but steadily healed.

He smiled brightly up at her as she set him gently down after a moment, the mare smiling tenderly before Hecate said shortly: “Thorn. Enough wasting time.”

Thorn dropped his head immediately, wincing and turning around, and Peridot frowned a little as she looked up at Hecate. But before she could speak, Hecate glared at her and said shortly: “You were enlisted because of your talents as a healer, not for any other purpose. Before you speak, I recommend you bear that in mind.”

Peridot winced and lowered her head, then she sighed and nodded. Hecate scowled... then frowned as Thorn rose a hoof, staring up at her imploringly.

Hecate looked moodily back, then rubbed slowly at her face before asking tiredly: “What?”

Thorn smiled up at her, then he turned around and bowed his head to Peridot, saying shyly: “Thank you for helping me. Miss Hecate is testing me right now, that's all. She's just trying to make sure she treats me like everyone else.”

Peridot looked with surprise at Thorn, and for a moment, Hecate felt her face blank in disbelief: but just as Thorn started to turn around, she hurriedly recomposed herself before saying irritably: “Thorn, I do not need a little colt running to my defense. If you ever overstep your bounds like this again, I will have you locked in your room for a full month. Do you understand?”

Thorn blushed as he turned around and nodded, blurting: “S-Sorry! But if I'm going to be your assistant-”

“You are not going to be my assistant!” snapped Hecate, glaring down at the colt, and he winced... before Hecate looked up sourly as Peridot giggled behind a hoof, the mechanical mare saying disgustedly: “Enough. Get back to work, I want a full inventory of your station and operations report done within forty hours.”

“I'll give it to your assistant.” Peridot said mischievously, winking at Thorn, and he giggled a little from behind one of Hecate's legs as Hecate rolled her eyes. “Don't worry, Lady Hecate. It'll be done, I promise.”

Hecate only grunted, then she turned around and booted Thorn out into the hall, the colt yelping and skidding along on his rump before the mechanical mare stomped out after him, gesturing sharply to the colt. “Come.”

Thorn nodded hurriedly, then he blushed and skittered quickly after her as Peridot stepped out into the hall, smiling amusedly as she leaned out and gazed with interest after the two. They certainly made an odd pair... but it was hard to miss the way that Hecate slowed her pace to let Thorn hurry along at her heel, even if the mechanical mare herself hardly seemed aware of it.

But then again, everyone knew that under her steel shell, there was still the heart of a princess in there somewhere.

Hecate stood calmly in Central Processing, her hands behind her back as she stood on the Overseer's Platform: designed much like the bridge of a warship, this platform allowed Hecate to look down over her soldiers and see everything that was going on at once. Right now, it was only crewed by Worker Drones, who were assembling some of the computer banks and raising monitors into place.

But that wasn't to say there wasn't still plenty to be done. Hecate watched as Thorn bolted from place-to-place, the mechanical mare tapping her fingers meditatively against the glass control panel in front of her as he sorted computer cards between racks. Right now, most of these cards were just placeholders: blank data chips and empty storage units.

Still, Thorn was doing well. And while his magic was weak... it was very steady. He was putting out a very precise, and very controlled amount of energy... not just for a colt, but even were he an adult it would have been impressive.

He was a lot different than... any colt she could think of. Mature, responsible, and very organized. She imagined that came from his mother... and maybe a little bit from his father, too. His father had always liked a peculiar organization: she remembered seeing their kitchen, how everything had its own cluttered arrangement.

She smiled briefly as Thorn yanked out another card, darting back to a shelf. She had given him complex instructions: every second letter belonged on shelf B, unless it had a serial number that ended in an odd digit: then it went on shelf A. However, if it had an equal value to another card when the letter and the serial number were added together – such as A1001 and B1000 – then they remained on shelf B, but were sorted backwards.

Since they were all blank cards, their sorted order didn't actually matter all that much. But Hecate figured she would let Thorn continue to scuttle around for now while she monitored how he did. So far, he had only misplaced two cards: considering there were more than five hundred and he had sorted about a fifth of them, that wasn't bad at all.

The mechanical mare let her features soften a little: up here, she could gaze down at him, but he would have to crane his head all the way back to look up at her, and the colt was far too engrossed in his work to pay her any attention. He was doing his hardest to prove himself to her... she supposed she could appreciate that.

Thesis... never would have been able to do this.

Hecate was tempted to shove the thought away... but after a moment of quiet and a short glance away, she instead sighed softly and shook her head, looking silently down at the colt as she examined the thought in her mind instead of pushing it away. No, Thesis had been exceptional in just about every way: handsome, strong, incredibly intelligent... but he'd also been a complete idiot.

She pictured her son in her mind, closing her eyes, studying the mental image as carefully and hesitantly as she'd study a piece of jagged glass, or a bird that at any moment might peck, or claw, or try to fly away. Yes, she could remember every detail of him, so clearly: his lineless, smooth coat, and his perfectly-kept mane, and his ivory eyes... eyes that had once been so expressive, so warm and emotional, so... happy...

She had been so stupid. The dragon had just been observing them, watching the way they lived and died, the way they played, and the way they fought. The war with the griffins had just given the dragon something else to observe, amuse himself with... and of course, Thesis growing up during a time of war, that had turned out to be optimal for the dragon's sick plans...

She remembered her son: Thesis, a Prince, and an earth pony... and yet the first chance he'd gotten, he'd joined the Royal Guard. He had started as a knight, but soon become a commander of his own forces. How the soldiers had praised him, cheered him on, she remembered...

Hecate smiled faintly and closed her eyes... and Princess Celestia opened them in the past, gazing at her son. A grinning teenager, handsome and excitable, amiable and charming. He had plenty of friends, but he was shy around mares, even if as Prince and recently-dubbed Commander of the 732nd Brigade, he certainly had no shortage of suitors.

“So I heard they're calling you Lightning Hoof now.” Celestia remarked, stepping down from her throne and striding across the room towards her son. They traded a tight hug, and she nuzzled him affectionately, making Thesis grumble a little... but he didn't pull away at her motherly affection, either. Not even when she began to absently brush out his mane. “Look at you. You haven't showered yet, have you?”

“Well, I did, but then the colts were running some training drills, so I decided to join them,” Thesis replied with a shrug, smiling lamely up at his mother before he winced when she licked a hoof and carefully scrubbed a bit of dirt from his cheek, the stallion blushing deeply as one of the Dervishes guarding the throne room snickered. “Mom...”

Princess Celestia only gave him an amused look, saying mildly: “Now if you didn't want to be reminded that you're always going to be my little colt, Thesis, you would have showered again before coming to meet me. Now, let's take a look at you.”

She stepped back, studying the stallion thoughtfully even as Thesis awkwardly squirmed away from her, saying lamely: “Actually, I only came here because you asked for my presence. Something about a diplomatic mission...”

“We'll get to that in a moment, Thesis, I'm looking at you.” Celestia said mildly, leaning forwards and gazing pointedly at him, and Thesis sighed before he straightened and smiled wryly. After a moment, he did a little spin for her, and Celestia smiled and nodded at him, satisfied.

He was strong, tall, and handsome. He was a champion athlete, well-respected by the nation, charismatic and good with ponies. He was friendly, and she could be proud of him: not just because he had grown into such a strong stallion, but because he was loyal, and he was compassionate, and he was everything she had ever hoped to see in her child... and more.

He had no cutie mark, and sure, there were plenty of rumors always flying around about him... but Thesis only smiled at the harsh words and the gossip, and courteously bowed his head to the dissenters and the critics. He was confident, without arrogance; he was proud, without being prideful. He didn't focus on his past, or on the dark clouds or the negative attention: he had his eyes locked firmly on the future and what he wanted from life, and nothing was going to distract him from that.

“Would you be willing to undertake a diplomatic mission for me to the griffin nation?” Celestia asked softly, and Thesis' eyes widened in surprise before the ivory mare smiled. “You're young, and yes, you're an earth pony, and the griffins still think of earth ponies as 'slave hoofs.' But you are also Prince, and a hero to Equestria. The griffins will be rude, of course, but they respect you.”

Thesis bit his lip for a moment, studying his mother silently, the Princess meeting his eyes before she gave another brief smile. “You won't go alone. We may have a tenuous ceasefire right now, but I'm very well aware this could be another griffin ambush... which is another part of why I would like you to go, Thesis. I'm confident that you can take care of yourself in the event of a fight. And you know that I... find fighting difficult.”

“Of course, Mom... I mean, Princess Celestia.” Thesis saluted, smiling briefly before he asked hesitantly: “What about... you know, going together? I don't think the griffins would dare attack us if we were both present...”

“Unfortunately, I think the opposite would be true. They're already scared of us, Thesis: it's out of fear of our growing strength that the griffins felt they had to attack us, after all.” Celestia replied gently, gesturing towards him. “That's what drove the griffins to attacking us, and to trying to develop their own super-weapons, while they made treaties with the dragons and other ancient enemies of our nation. If we both were present...”

“They would be afraid that we were there to attack them. They would want to strike first.” Thesis finished, and Celestia nodded. The earth pony bit his lip, and then he frowned a little, and Celestia waited for him to work out the rest of the riddle before he said slowly: “You're worried that if you went, they would attack you. You're concerned that they might attack me, too, but the chances are much lower, because I would be an envoy. There's a much costlier risk-reward ratio.”

Celestia smiled and nodded, silently congratulating her child with her gaze as she said: “And while my every instinct says to keep my son safe, I also know that I can trust you with this. I can trust you to lead ponies into possible danger, and then escape alive, with as many lives as possible intact. Besides... I know that I should trust you with this. I've been promising to try and give you more duties for years now, haven't I?”

Thesis smiled after a moment at this, bowing his head forwards and replying softly: “You have, Mother. And I would... I would be honored to carry this out with you, even if I'm... more than a little nervous, too.”

Celestia smiled again, reaching up to touch his shoulder gently before she said softly: “No one can blame you for that, Thesis. And I'm honestly glad to hear that you are: if you weren't, well... it might mean that you didn't understand the gravity of this task.”

Thesis laughed softly, then he bowed his head forwards. Celestia saw something, a subtle shift, a change... and when Thesis rose his head, it was the hollow-eyed puppet her son had become who looked back at her, the stallion saying coldly: “You have been given an order, Queen Celestia. Do not make me repeat myself.”

Thesis slapped her hoof away as he stood up, memory twisting on itself as the pistons emerged from his back, as the world around them darkened... and Celestia gritted her teeth, caught in the strings of memory and helpless to do anything but take a step back, then raise her head and rasp: “Enough, Thesis! I don't care what his orders are! I will not hand over the crown of Equestria to him without a fight, do you understand?”

“Parameters accepted.” Thesis replied coldly, and then he reached up and seized Celestia by the throat, choking her, pushing her backwards as his eyes flashed and the pistons on his back began to pump. “You are not a military unit, Celestia, you are-”

“Enough!” Celestia roared, seizing Thesis' forelegs with steel hooves and wrenching them loose. Thesis' eyes widened in shock, and then he cried out as metal foreleg slammed into his face, knocking him down on his side and sending him skidding across the room with a scream of steel-on-steel. “I am still your mother, Thesis, and I am more than a match for you!”

Celestia leaned forwards and snarled, her ragged mane hanging around her face, her eyes glowing with fury as she felt the machinery over her body sizzling and crackling, rubbery flesh flexing, chemicals pumping through her veins and insulated tubing and feeding her rage and strength as poisonous steam vented out of her mutilated body. She was a monster, an experiment gone wild and wrong... but even if Thesis was supposed to be some perfect 'Replicant,' she knew she was more powerful than he was.

And in some deep, hidden away part of her psyche, some piece of the old Princess Celestia pleaded with the hatred and the anger and the contempt that made up the rest of her tortured existence to save Thesis. To grant him the mercy he had been denied so many times by the dragon and others; that if she couldn't get through to his fractured mind, she could at least give him the merciful death that he deserved...

Thesis began to get up, his features losing their emotion, his eyes narrowing... but was there something more in them? Was that a tremble in his otherwise perfect body, his mechanical stance? Celestia didn't know, and at this point, she didn't care, either: Thesis had gone through so many brainwashing and reprogramming sequences by this point that she knew he was insane, he was lost, that even if there were still remnants of his old self somewhere inside his mind... the only true mercy she could give him was a quick death.

She began to open her mouth... and she was cut off by laughter, both of the Clockwork Ponies freezing up and looking sharply towards the open doors as a figure strode down the hall towards them, calling mockingly: “Now, what's this? Another mother-son quarrel? But I suppose animals will always struggle for dominance against one another when left to their own devices...”

Celestia's eyes blazed even as Thesis only dropped his head, glaring furiously at the dragon. His perfect suit a perfect fit, perfect teeth in a perfect smile, perfect scales with their perfect luster... and his childish amber eyes that were filled with spite, and meanness, and pure and simple cowardice...

There were a hundred thousand things she wanted to say to this monster who had strolled into their world in the guise of a friend, but all Celestia could do was roar his name and let her tone speak for her...

“Valthrudnir...” Hecate whispered, and then she shook her head shortly before she glanced down... and sighed softly as she saw she'd crushed part of the steel railing around the Overseer's Platform in one steel hand.

She was silent for a moment, then she carefully released this... then she flinched in surprise as Thorn said quietly: “Mutt and Dad told me a lot about him.”

Hecate almost spun around, but caught herself even as she turned, making surprise into a glare as she asked shortly: “Are you done?”

Thorn winced a bit, but to her surprise, he then hurriedly nodded: “Yes, Miss Hecate! It should all be organized!”

The mechanical mare scowled moodily, then she turned back around and tapped on the glass panel, bringing the readout screen back up... and after a moment, she frowned in surprise. Five cards were misplaced... but the rest were in the correct rack. The order was a little skewed here and there thanks to the misplaced cards, but otherwise...

Hecate turned back around, scowling down at Thorn, who smiled lamely back up at her before he winced when Hecate said moodily: “You misplaced five cards. Go and find them, and put them in their correct positions. Rearrange the racks perfectly. You have fifteen minutes.”

Thorn winced, then he turned and scurried off, and Hecate watched the colt bolt away before she gave a thin smile. Well, he was getting better at listening, at least...

It took Thorn a little over twenty minutes to rearrange the cards properly, but Hecate decided it was... adequate. He'd done better than she'd expected, in any event, and she supposed there was some merit in that alone.

Thorn looked lamely up at her as he trotted back in front of her, lowering his head a little and clearly aware that he'd taken more time than he'd been given... which meant he was at least decent at processing the flow of time. Then again, Helheim ran on a very set schedule, which meant he should be able to... “Thorn, tell me how long you took.”

“Twenty-one minutes and thirty-two seconds.” Thorn replied immediately, looking up with a blush before he dropped his head. “Sorry.”

“Twenty-one two, actually.” Hecate said dryly, and Thorn blushed a little.

“Sorry.” he apologized again. “I forgot, we always add thirty seconds in Helheim to any job we do. Nanny Hel always says that time is punishment.”

Hecate smiled wryly at this, then she shook her head slowly before muttering: “Something that Hel and I can actually agree on. I suppose wonders will never cease.”

She paused, then scowled down at Thorn as he looked uncomfortably up at her, before the mechanical mare added grouchily: “And what have I told you about apologizing? Stop wasting both our time with that. If you're really sorry, Thorn, then you'll do better next time. Understood?”

“Yes, Miss Hecate.” Thorn nodded quickly, blushing and saluting the mechanical mare awkwardly before he dropped his head a little and murmured: “It's just that... I was taught you should always try and take responsibility for your mistakes. And you should always... try and make it up to someone. I know I can't make it up to you with an apology alone, Miss Hecate, but I want you to know when I know I did something wrong and... I'm gonna do better.”

Hecate looked down at Thorn for a few moments, and then she sighed a little before saying with a surprising gentility: “I don't need to hear that you're sorry to know that, Thorn.”

Thorn looked up at her with a blush and a smile... and then he winced when the mare said moodily: “But enough. It's growing late. It's time for sleep. We'll start again tomorrow.”

“Yes, Miss Hecate.” Thorn said quickly, nodding to her respectfully, and Hecate looked at the colt moodily before she finally shrugged and turned, striding away. Maybe he wasn't going to be the most useful asset in the world... but at least it seemed like maybe, just maybe, this colt wouldn't be entirely a liability after all.

Bring Your Colt To Work Day

Chapter Three: Bring Your Colt To Work Day
~BlackRoseRaven

Thorn panted hard as he stumbled his way through the obstacle course for the fifth time in a row, Hecate standing with her mechanical arms crossed and watching moodily. His first two times had shown improvements, but he had started to flag on the third run. And by now, his stumbles and falls were starting to take their toll on him.

But every day, Hecate had made Thorn run this course, and often more than once. She timed him, pushed him, and every time he started to get comfortable with the obstacles, she adjusted them just enough to confuse his hooves and make him learn it all over again.

Thorn still hadn't beaten the par time... but over the last month, he'd gotten close. And Hecate smiled slightly as she watched the colt struggle to cross the slanted rope hoof-over-hoof. He learned very fast: just like his parents, he adapted and evolved. Maybe his parents had just been lazy, or had spent too much time spoiling their precious little colt instead of actually trying to train him.

Then the colt slipped and fell, and Hecate twitched slightly, her horn sparking... but then her teeth only gritting as she forced herself not to react, not even as Thorn banged heavily to the steel floor with a cry of agony on his shoulder. He bounced limply to the side, trembling as he gasped quietly for breath, one foreleg twitching weakly.

Hecate turned her eyes towards him, scanning him even as she ordered: “On your hooves, Thorn Blackfeather! Finish the course!”

Thorn trembled... and then he gritted his teeth and rolled onto his stomach before slowly forcing himself up. His shoulder wasn't broken, but Hecate did detect deep-tissue bruising and muscular damage... and yes, there it was. He did his best not to, but his leg buckled as he walked, sending him falling-

Thorn caught himself with a gasp before he could hit the ground, then shoved himself back up to all fours, teeth grit as he limped towards the ladder, then hauled himself slowly up it. Hecate watched him, a small smile lingering on her muzzle even as she shouted: “Stop wasting time!”

The colt gasped as he hauled himself up to the top of the ladder, and Hecate watched with interest as he stumbled across the platform towards a slowly-spinning cylinder that acted as a bridge to another revolving platform. This would be interesting to see Thorn somehow do with a limp...

Hecate leaned back, crossing her mechanical arms as she continued to smile in amusement. Sure, she could be using her time in other, more important ways than watching a colt fail again and again at an obstacle course far beyond his level... but she had to admit, there was something pleasant and relaxing about watching Thorn fall on his head.

Maybe it was because this colt had caused far too many problems for her already: he was a distraction, and he made some of her idiot soldiers think she had gone soft. This assumption she quickly and brutally corrected every time it was brought up, but it annoyed her that her leadership skills had been called into question at all.

It further annoyed her that whenever Thorn wasn't sleeping, it usually meant he was with her: while he wasn't entirely useless, she was also well aware that she could easily build a small drone that could just as effectively fetch her food and sort files for her. The drone could also be easily programmed to run a simple obstacle course, which was something else that Thorn obviously couldn't do... but she supposed the drone failing at said course wouldn't be quite as entertaining as when the little colt did.

Hecate watched as Thorn made it to a revolving platform... and then stumbled on this before he slipped and fell off, bouncing off the edge of it with a cry of pain. The readout on Hecate's lens flashed red, and the mechanical mare reacted immediately, her horn sparking and a mechanical hand flexing: even before she made the focal gesture, however, a bubble had already appeared around Thorn, catching him before he could land on his head with enough force to compress his spinal column and kill or paralyze him.

She could admit that she didn't want the colt dead, after all. Even if he wasn't particularly valuable... he was still an asset to the organization, she supposed.

Hecate calmly floated the bubble over to her, then reached into the magical sphere and seized Thorn by the scruff of the neck before her magic vanished. Thorn smiled faintly at her, a bit of blood dribbling from his nose and a split lip before he said weakly: “Sorry.”

“As always.” Hecate said dryly, and then she shook her head before turning, carrying the colt in one hand like a toy: Thorn only wiggled a little bit, wincing somewhat but by now used to this. “I expect you to learn healing magic by next month at the latest. Then we won't have to waste our time or Peridot's with your minor injuries. Understood?”

“Yes, Miss Hecate.” Thorn said quickly, saluting her awkwardly before he smiled lamely up at her. “I uh... can walk.”

Hecate only grunted in response, and Thorn dropped his head in embarrassment as the mechanical mare strode quickly down the hall.

Peridot seemed to already be waiting for them, the door open and the mare smiling amusedly as she strode forwards to take Thorn without question from the mechanical mare, quickly and smoothly healing the young colt before she gently set him to the ground. Thorn blushed and thanked her, while Hecate ignored them both, bringing up a holographic screen and paging through it before she said suddenly: “Peridot. You have been requested as emergency support to Team A3. Why aren't you prepared to leave?”

“What?” Peridot frowned in surprise, tilting her head as she glanced up from Thorn. “I never received a mission request. Sagefeather said she got one, though...”

“Wonderful.” Hecate muttered, rolling her eyes in disgust. Peridot and Sagefeather were the same species of pony and had the same classifications for abilities and skills, so their serial number was almost identical... except for the fact that Sagefeather was only cleared for missions in Class B worlds, while Peridot was cleared for up to Class D.

“Did you want me to go and switch with her?” asked Peridot, tilting her head, then she frowned a little when Hecate simply grunted and shook her own. “Are you sure, Lady Hecate? Not to question you, but Sagefeather is a little...”

“If she panics and gets herself killed, then we've removed a weak component from the system. If she panics and gets someone else killed, then she will be punished for her error. But none of these Enlisted Outworlders or Dogmatists are irreplaceable.” replied Hecate coldly.

Peridot scowled, studying Hecate intently as Thorn shifted nervously, before the mechanical mare suddenly looked down at him and said shortly: “Our current filing system relies on mortals instead of machinery. Figure out a way to stop them from making matching errors until the AI is operational and can take over compiling, authorizing and delivering mission requests.”

“Yes Miss Hecate. Are we going there now?” Thorn asked inquisitively, giving her his little salute, and Hecate rolled her eyes in distaste.

“I am less than pleased with your need to escort you everywhere, Thorn. But I suppose that I have business to attend to there myself.” Hecate said meditatively, shaking her head briefly before her eyes flicked towards Peridot. “I expect you to cover Sagefeather's medical duties.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Peridot mimicked Thorn's salute, and Hecate gave her a disgusted, cranky scowl that only made Peridot smile wider at her as Thorn giggled a little... then immediately covered his muzzle and blushed deeply when Hecate turned her glare on him instead.

The mechanical mare grunted and jerked her head towards the exit, and Thorn skittered quickly between her legs and out into the hall, Hecate sighing tiredly and shaking her head slowly before she turned and followed the mare out, rolling her eyes in disgust. One small positive was that Thorn was already leading the way towards the filing room... and Hecate followed moodily along in his wake, keeping pace behind the colt as she shook her head briefly.

Thorn was a little slow memorizing the layout of this facility, and so far he barely knew any of Decretum's geography... not that there was a whole lot to the machine world quite yet. Just endless stretches of wastes, a few outposts, and pipelines that were slowly but steadily being reconstructed so that they could bring power between colonies, once the colonies were reestablished.

Still, it annoyed her. The colt had almost no sense of direction, which was not good in a place that was as much a labyrinth as this facility. And to think: this place was only a temporary base while they got the far larger and more advanced facilities of Genesis and the Enlisted Outworlder Central Base up to acceptable operating status.

She ended up escorting him everywhere, or just bringing her along with him. She couldn't even trust the idiot colt to get back to his own room by himself: she had to pick him up there every morning – not that there was much of a morning in Decretum, with its eternally-roiling crimson skies – and then drop him off every night so he could sleep for six hours.

And of course, there were all the annoying little trips they had to make during the day, too: she had to walk him to the bathroom, she had to make sure he ate his two meals a day, she had to take him to the infirmary or a medical station for all his boo-boos.

The mare glanced moodily down at Thorn, and after a moment, he glanced back over his shoulder at her and offered an awkward smile, apparently feeling his eyes on her. They looked at each other for a few moments, and then he blushed deeply before looking hurriedly back ahead, blurting: “Colors!”

Hecate frowned at him, then she said moodily: “You know I don't like baiting, Thorn.”

“Sorry.” Thorn said quickly, and then he smiled awkwardly over his shoulder at her, saying quickly: “If we add a color or shape code to the serial numbers, then they won't get mixed up as often! We can use their world clearance for the color code, since there's only four-”

“There's five.” Hecate said shortly, and Thorn winced and ducked his head as Hecate glanced up down the hall... then, deciding on the spur of the moment, she said finally: “But the fifth level of clearance is classified. World E clearance is only granted temporarily, in most cases, and only in the event of a serious issue in a non-material world where our assistance has been requested by... a specific council member. Do you understand?”

“Sort of... not really.” Thorn admitted after a moment, and Hecate sighed... but at least the colt was honest. And well... he wasn't much help or all that useful, but... all the same...

“Class E worlds are Asgard, Helheim, other planes outside of the physical layers. My organization protects the Core World and its many parallel variants. The physical worlds, for lack of a better term.” Hecate gestured absently off to the side as she spoke, then motioned easily with one hand towards a hall, Thorn tripping a little on his own hooves as he hurried towards this. “In rare cases, Hel or Terra may make a request for us to... assist them.”

Thorn smiled brightly at this, looking over his shoulder with surprise before he said warmly: “That would be so exciting! Imagine if Queen Terra asked-”

“It is no more 'exciting' than any other mission.” Hecate said shortly, and Thorn winced a bit as he dropped his head a little. “We are a business. We provide a service. That is all Decretum is: clockwork and machinery, a security corporation I have built to protect soft little ponies who are unable to protect themselves, with one ultimate goal in mind.”

“And... what is your goal, Miss Hecate?” asked Thorn timidly.

Hecate looked down at the colt, and then she gave a thin smile before she simply gestured for him to face forwards. Thorn did so... but he glanced back at her curiously, as sneakily as he could, and Hecate had to stop her smile from growing any wider even as she snapped: “Eyes front.”

Thorn winced and looked hurriedly ahead: the rest of the walk to the filing rooms was in quiet, and once there, Hecate simply let Thorn work. The colt knew by now that if he wanted her to pay any attention to his ideas, he first had to prove to her that it worked. He also knew by now not to ask for her help unless it was absolutely necessary: she didn't like it when her employees wasted her time, after all, and Thorn was already responsible for wasting plenty of it.

Hecate watched the way Thorn flitted between desks, putting together a rough little plan for his little filing system and gathering up profiles of various Enlisted Outworlders and Dogmatists that had yet to be assigned missions. He doodled different shapes and symbols over each folder before sorting them back into their shelves, while drones and curious ponies worked around Thorn... but kept themselves from asking too many questions with Hecate looming at one side of the cramped, shelf-and-cubicle-filled office space.

Hecate's expression remained hard, but her eyes were almost gentle as they watched Thorn scurrying around. And then he darted around a corner before he came bolting back with a file folder... only to trip and land with a thud on his stomach, wincing as papers flew everywhere.

The mechanical mare remained impassive, but she had to close her eyes for a moment to resist the urge to grin, to make herself look exasperated instead of entertained...

Princess Celestia's eyes opened, and the mare smiled softly as she watched Thesis pick himself awkwardly up from the remains of breakfast, the colt blurting: “Sorry Mom! Oh, sorry sorry sorry!”

“It's alright, Thesis. You don't have to apologize: I know you were just trying to give me a nice surprise.” Celestia smiled in amusement as she strode down the hall as the colt scrambled to try and clean up the squashed pancakes and spilled juice and squashed oranges. Then he blushed and looked up at her in embarrassment, more of the breakfast covering him than was on the tray... before Celesita leaned down and kissed a bit of syrup off his nose, then winked at him. “I could just eat you up instead, anyway!”

She playfully grabbed the colt, tickling all over him, and Thesis giggled and laughed as he fell on his back, kicking his rear legs and flailing at her as he yelled: “Mom!”

Celestia ended up almost as messy as him, but she laughed, how she laughed... and Horses of Heaven, that was precious. Especially right now, with Equestria under attack by the griffins, and the promise of so many long, dark days ahead...

But there were still reasons to be happy. There was so much to protect, and while Celestia wished for peace... she was ready to prepare for a long, hard war, if it was necessary to defend her people from the aggression and the hatred of the griffins. She still had no idea why they had turned so suddenly and so viciously on them: so far, any attempts at diplomacy had only resulted in the meaningless murder of Equestrian ambassadors and peacekeepers, and the griffins continuing to swear that they would kill any pony that came within their borders.

Their borders had been fortified, and so far, Celestia was concentrating on defending her nation from griffin incursion, while trying to find an intermediary who could help sort all this out. It frightened her more than she wanted to admit, that Equestria might end up at war with one of its closest neighbors and allies... but she knew she had to be brave. She had to be strong. She had to keep up the same smile, act as compassionate and wise as she always had, and remain in control...

She looked down at Thesis, then hugged the colt impulsively, not caring about the food she smeared and stained herself with as Thesis blushed, then hugged her tightly back, burying his face against her with a smile before he said: “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, son.” Celestia said softly, holding him as tightly as she dared for a few moments... and then she smiled as they pulled apart, gazing down into her son's eyes as she said gently: “Alright. Let's get you cleaned up.”

Thesis nodded with a smile... and ten minutes later, Celestia was relaxing in the tub with her son paddling happily around the other side of the pool of water. She watched him with soft eyes as she rested in comfort, just letting the hot water soothe and massage her body as Thesis giggled quietly, clearly enjoying himself. For him, after all, the pool was like a lake, after all.

Alright, maybe that was a bit of a stretch, but... she guessed that being here, like this... it made her think some silly thoughts sometimes. Celestia smiled briefly as she silently studied her young colt, and then she shook her head slowly before reminding him gently: “Don't just swim around, Thesis. You have to actually wash yourself off, too. It looks like there's still syrup in your hair.”

Thesis giggled a little, nodding quickly to his mother before he ducked suddenly under the water, and Celestia watched with amusement as he scrubbed at himself beneath the rippling liquid before he surfaced suddenly, gasping for air as he splashed water everywhere.

Celestia only continued to smile in entertainment, then she reached up a front hoof, beckoning to him. Thesis happily swam over to her, and then giggled quietly as she gently sat the young colt against her, so he could rest comfortably back. She gazed down at him tenderly, and the mare chuckled softly before she gently brushed a hoof through his wet mane. “That's a little better. Now, Thesis, we have a big day today, don't we?”

Thesis smiled up at her, then he hugged her tightly... and Celestia looked down at him with surprise before she softened and closed her eyes, smiling faintly as she hugged him back. She felt the water, the wetness, the heat all around her, as Thesis shifted and she almost cradled him into her body...

Her eyes opened, and she stared silently at her adult son as he trembled in her forelegs, rasping weakly for breath and staring blankly upwards. Celestia shook her head slowly, then she looked silently up at the figure, standing in sharp profile against the cold light that shone through the doorway before her, leaving his features hidden in shadow. “Why?”

“It was his failure, not mine.” the dragon said coldly, but he shifted almost anxiously; his hands betrayed him, reaching up, silently sliding a set of playing cards free from the inner pocket of his jacket, beginning to shuffle and riffle them through his fingers. “Fix him, Celestia.”

Celestia looked down at Thesis, and for a moment... she considered leaving him to die. For a moment, as she held her son close in her mechanical hooves, she considered simply breaking her own son's neck: not out of mercy, no. It would be a mercy, but it wasn't because of mercy she considered it. She considered killing her own child simply to spite this monster standing in front of her, who had given her this child... and who had taken him away.

But then her eyes slid closed, and she simply nodded once before she lifted Thesis gently with telekinesis, turning and calmly striding through the sterile halls of this massive, mechanical facility towards the Tower of Etemenanki, the nerve center of this entire world. The one place where Thesis could be healed...

Celestia smiled grimly. What irony: as she had learned, the dragon behind her was no dragon: he was Jötnar, or in cruder terms, a Frost Giant. He was a being of immeasurable power, able to shape the world as he willed with nothing more than a thought or a gesture... and yet because Thesis was his bastard child, because Thesis was born half of her, and half of... the dragon... he was immune to the Jötnar's powers.

The mechanical mare smiled grimly as her cybernetic body strode slowly through the hall, carrying Thesis like a limp sack. She could hear the dragon walking behind her, feel his amber eyes watching her closely as he riffled his playing cards uneasily back and forth. They danced between his fingers, spilled in waves from palm-to-palm, flash and twirled with the ease of long practice; but the dragon always had loved his stupid little toys.

Celestia carelessly dropped Thesis in front of a pair of locked double doors, and he hit the ground with the banging of metal and thud of heavy flesh. She felt the dragon flinch behind her, before he snapped sharply: “That is... a valuable piece of equipment!”

“He's broken. A few more dents and dings don't matter.” Celestia retorted as she stepped to the side of the door, scowling as she leaned in front of the retinal scanner. It buzzed quietly as the mare held still, then dinged, the doors opening as the mare added moodily: “Don't even think about touching me, or you can figure out how to fix him yourself.”

The dragon froze, his hand half-reaching for her before he gritted his teeth and snarled at her, but Celestia ignored him as she scooped the weakly breathing, emptily-staring Thesis up in her telekinetic hold, yanking him through the doors before Celestia said coldly, without looking over her shoulder: “System lock.”

Before the dragon could follow her, the doors slammed shut on his face, and she smiled thinly as she heard him snarl in frustration through the foot-thick steel before it banged loudly as he kicked it childishly. But then again, she had long ago concluded that for all his age and ego, that was all the dragon really was: a child.

Celestia carried Thesis to the spiraling steps that led up the interior of the tower, keeping her eyes ahead and not sparing her son a single look as they walked quickly up the stairs. She carried him into a medical bay, then dropped him belly-down on a table, Thesis gasping in pain as she roughly pulled his legs into faint grooves... but otherwise, not responding. Not even looking at her, and not processing her even when she leaned down into his eyes, studying him silently.

But that was no surprise. Thesis had been mind-wiped and brainwashed so many times by now, it was amazing there was anything of him left in his hollow skull. That, and all the chemicals that had been mixed into his blood, the constant experimentation, the introduction of enzymes and this ridiculous, stupid exoskeleton...

Celestia straightened as she quickly examined the machine on Thesis' back. It was implanted directly into his body, with six enormous pistons that pumped chemicals and corruption through his bloodstream. The steel, flat shell protected his back, and had machinery that enhanced his physical strength, giving him tremendous speed and power. But it was also a prototype, made of lightweight materials, and it was clear that something had been smart enough to attack the machinery and disable it.

Celestia scowled, then she looked moodily up at the mechanical arms hanging from the ceiling before she said shortly: “Subject: Thesis. Remove exoskeleton.”

Restraints slid out of the bed, clamping around Thesis' limbs and pulling them deeper into the grooves in the bed before the mechanical arms descended, clicking and whirring. And Celestia only watched, coldly and callously, as the arms went to work and Thesis began to scream, the mare not flinching even when black, oily blood splattered over her features as she kept a close eye on the process.

Once the exoskeleton was removed, the arms retreated, and Thesis was left laying on the bed with his back quite literally bare: his spinal cord was visible, along with implanted tubes, slots and corroded plugs, and pieces of titanium frame...

Celestia shook her head slowly before her horn glowed, lifting several tools from the countertop on the other side of the room. She looked moodily over these before selecting one: a long, dangerous-looking metal hook, the mare saying distastefully: “Let's see what the problem is.”

Thesis groaned and shivered as Celestia used the hook to probe and gently pull out damaged cables and tubes from sponge-like flesh: several of these had broken or corroded, and Celestia wondered silently just where the dragon had dragged Thesis off to on their latest little adventure into the other worlds...

Wasn't it enough that the dragon had corrupted this Equestria? And with all his infinite power, why was it that he couldn't just go off and create worlds of his own? Why did he waste all those years, those decades, pretending to be their friend, pretending to help Equestria, pretending that he loved...

Celestia shook her thoughts off, and concentrated on her work. It took her several hours, but she managed to dig out all the damaged and broken tubes and cables, and clean out and patch closed the data receivers and the other locks on Thesis' back. Then it was just a matter of carefully carrying Thesis over to his recovery chamber, slipping him into the ultra-concentrated bath of the Clay of Prometheus, the corrupting chemicals that now ran through Thesis' veins.

The mare locked two thick tubes into the largest nodes on Thesis' back, twisting them to secure them into place before she gently guided him back into a sitting position... and then she scowled when Thesis caught one of her steel wrists, the mare looking at him sharply as he gazed back at her silently.

For a few moments, they only surveyed each other... and then Thesis nodded briefly to her before he sat back, breathing quietly in and out before he whispered: “Mother... Father said... Father said they would be weak. They were... inferior specimens. Why... how was I hurt so badly?”

“Because of your own weakness, Thesis. Because of your own inferiority, no doubt.” Celestia said coldly, and Thesis dropped his head in silence before the mare sighed tiredly, sitting back and feeling a strange stirring inside her before she asked quietly: “Do you remember when you were a colt, and I explained to you what strength is?”

“Yes... but it was childish. Strength is strength. Power is power: these are determined by what experiences our mind maintains and how fast we can process and analyze a situation. Total strength is nothing more than how well physiological and psychological ability work in conjunction; how fast synapses fire, how fast change can be processed, how fast muscles can move and how much kinetic force they can output.” Thesis murmured, looking down at the roiling black chemicals before he silently, slowly stirred a front hoof through this: with his exoskeleton removed, however, his movements were feeble and slow.

Celestia only shook her head slowly, saying softly: “Really, Thesis? Then perhaps you can tell me how your strength so spectacularly failed you, and you have returned home like this? Beaten and bloody, so badly damaged that your mental inhibitors have crashed?”

“Don't tell Father. He'll hook me up to the machines again...” Thesis trembled, closing his eyes and looking down as he whispered: “I don't want... I don't want to go through processing again...”

The mare only smiled thinly at him, but her eyes flickered before she finally sighed and shook her head, muttering: “Life is rarely about what we want, Thesis. And the crux of the problem is that when we are given a choice between what we want, and something else... we tend to forget that the something else is often what we need.”

She looked down for a moment, then sighed and shook her head slowly before saying quietly: “Look at you, Thesis. Look at me. Look at what we've both become... and as much as I hate him, you know that... that some of the blame for this falls on our own heads.”

Thesis looked down silently, and then he shook his head quickly before he clenched his eyes shut, whispering: “I... I don't... it's all nothing but chemicals. We're nothing but chemical reactions and the predictable dance of particles and molecules-”

“You're a coward. I'm disappointed in you: I didn't raise a coward.” Celestia said coldly, and Thesis looked up at her with a faint flush, gritting his teeth a little... but only staring at her, with those hollow white eyes of his. He had such a glassy, empty gaze, even if the microchips in his mind that kept him an obedient little servant had shorted out...

But she knew Thesis was in there, too. The little colt who had known wrong from right was more than a matter of politics and law, who had believed in magic instead of chemical reactions and particle synthesis. She knew he had suffered, that he had been tormented, that his mind had been stretched and torn and tortured and reshaped, but... beneath it all, she also knew that Thesis was still in there, hidden away, crying and trapped in his own mind...

Celestia gritted her teeth, then she leaned forwards and asked sharply: “What is the most important thing in the world?”

Thesis looked up at her blankly, and then he winced when Celestia grabbed his shoulders and pinned him roughly back against the other side of the tub, repeating angrily: “What is the most important thing in the world, Thesis? Answer me!”

She slapped him hard enough to leave an imprint on his face from one steel hoof, and Thesis flinched before he looked up at her and whispered: “Family.”

Celestia studied the stallion silently for a few moments, and then she gave a short nod before she said quietly: “That's right. Family is.” She stopped and lowered her head before murmuring: “And because family is so important, Thesis, I'll... keep your secret. But I won't help you remove the nodes, either. You can deal with the stimulation controls yourself.”

“I... I will. They're circuitry, that's all. A powerful enough magnet, or an electrical charge channeled through my brain should short circuit the remaining behavioral modifiers.” murmured Thesis, and then he shook himself briefly before he looked up at Celestia, and he whispered: “Mom... I'm... there's this feeling of... of activity in my amygdala. I feel depolarization and the excitement of norepinephrine and dopamine...”

“Thesis, enough.” Celestia said quietly, shaking her head slowly before she reached up and silently stroked over his face, brushing his mane gently back out of his face before she allowed it to rest quietly on his shoulder. Her son's eyes fluttered as she did so, the mare leaning forwards and reassuring quietly: “There's more to what you're feeling than mere chemistry and psychology, Thesis.”

“These are the basis for all things, though, and... and yet...” Thesis was silent before he suddenly leaned to the side, rubbing his cheek against her hoof as the mare frowned in surprise even as her steel hoof automatically turned to cup his face.

He stared up at her, childlike and trembling in the tub of black poison before he reached one of his own front hooves up, grasping silently into her wrist as he whispered: “Memories. Family. I cannot explain this... this feeling goes behind genetic attachment. I don't understand the release of serotonin, or why my pain receptors have lost some of their function... I see you, and yet my mind processes something more than... than I see. I can't explain it...”

“It's because I am your mother, Thesis, and you are my son. And that is that.” Celestia replied softly, silently stroking her child's face before she sighed softly and slipped up to the side of the tub, reaching down and embracing him quietly, not caring about the black gunk that washed up over her and rubbed onto her frame from the stallion pressing against her.

Celestia closed her eyes, holding her son quietly against her body as Thesis shivered in the ooze, black tears rolling down his cheeks as his logical, brainwashed mind tried and failed to process what a mother's love was...

And then Hecate opened her cold blue eyes as she heard a voice hesitantly call her name, her mechanical arms crossed, her gaze roving down to Thorn as he asked quietly: “Are you okay?”

Hecate frowned at this, then she straightened and reached up to moodily rub at her face before she grimaced and drew a hand back, studying one finger silently as a strange, glowing blue liquid ran along it. She watched droplet spill down the steel digit, and then she shook her head briefly before saying moodily: “Fine. Nothing but coolant.”

She rubbed at her face, then looked down at Thorn again: he was still gazing up at her nervously, a file folder floating beside him. After a moment, Hecate held out one steel hand, and Thorn blushed a bit before he quickly passed her the file, apologizing: “Sorry, Miss Hecate! But this is the mock-up I had in mind and um... so far it's working, I think.”

Hecate glanced over the sea of cubicles and shelves, watching moodily as employees passed restlessly between them, sorting through files and putting away reports... and then she scowled as she noted... “Why has that shelf been reorganized?”

“Oh, um. That's just the test shelf, Miss Hecate, since it's a small one.” Thorn explained, blushing a bit and pointing at it. “See, now Class A clearance is all on top, and Class D clearance is on the bottom. Each section is still in numerical order, so...”

Hecate looked moodily at Thorn for a few moments, and then she shook her head slowly before opening the file and paging through its contents calmly. Thorn's writing was barely legible, but the ideas he'd written out seemed decent enough. She just wished that he'd learn to put his reports together more coherently: she recognized his shorthoof as the same that was used by Hel's Archives, which she was only somewhat familiar with.

Still, she could understand more than enough of it to see that his idea was a good one... and well, she supposed she couldn't fault the colt for putting together a 'demonstration' shelf as well, even if he should have asked for authorization first.

Hecate returned her eyes to the file in front of her, flicking to the back of it... and she couldn't resist a slight smile at the awful doodles she found on the last page. They were different symbols that Thorn was apparently proposing for the updated classification system: it was such a funny mix of professionalism and just what she'd expect from a colt his age.

She studied them for a few moments, feeling a little... strange, in a word. And then her eyes flicked up to Thorn, and she forced herself to simply nod, not saying anything further before she closed the file and held it out to him.

“Can I implement it?” Thorn asked nervously, and Hecate sighed inwardly before giving another brief nod, the colt smiling up at her with warmth and relief at this. “Thank you, Miss Hecate! I promise that I won't let you down!”

“Don't make promises you can't keep.” Hecate said sourly, glowering down at the colt, and Thorn winced a bit before the mechanical mare sighed and rolled her eyes, saying moodily: “Come on. We'll update the file registry first. You can deal with relabeling all the folders yourself, though, and don't expect me to sit around and babysit you while you go through the master archives.”

Thorn blushed and nodded lamely, and Hecate looked at him for a moment longer before she turned. The colt hurried after her as they strode out into the sterile hall, the mare leading the way calmly towards master processing... and wishing moodily that the AI was online so she could skip all this time wasted walking around, and just send commands remotely.

She scowled... then frowned over her shoulder as Thorn asked meekly: “Miss Hecate, um... do you think that maybe... well...”

Hecate came to a halt, looking moodily down at Thorn as he looked nervously up at her, then he loudly swallowed before asking hesitantly: “Do you think that maybe um... I could have a shower?”

The mechanical mare blinked in surprise, and then Thorn blushed and dropped his head, and she realized that he did indeed seem... dirty. “Why haven't you showered yet?”

But of course Hecate knew the answer to that already: it wasn't like she ever gave him time to. She either left him alone in his empty room, or she was dragging him from place to place, always trying to hurry him out of the bathroom...

She stopped, frowned slightly, then held up a single metal finger as he started to open his mouth before the mare answered for him: “That's why you always take so long in the bathroom. You just wipe yourself down every time you're inside. Why haven't you showered?”

“My parents told me to be good, and... I know you don't like it when I waste time and... you know, I don't wear clothes or anything.” Thorn said awkwardly, gesturing lamely back over himself. “Mutt was never really big on washing, either...”

Hecate sighed tiredly, then she shook her head slowly and rubbed at her face moodily. But there was a little bit of self-loathing there, too, much as she didn't want to admit it... purely for not noticing how unhygienic this colt had become, of course. The fact she hadn't noticed him turning into a walking petri dish said more about her observation skills than it did about the idiot colt who was trying too hard to please her.

She grimaced at Thorn as he shrank slowly down under her gaze, before he blurted: “I can learn a cleansing spell and-”

“Enough.” Hecate said moodily, and the colt winced before she sighed and said moodily: “Give me the file back. I'll walk you down to the shower area closest to your room, and you can clean yourself up and then see yourself back to your room for the night. I don't need you there to start programming your filing system, anyway.”

Thorn blushed a little, smiling awkwardly over at Hecate, and then he simply nodded. Hecate studied the colt silently as they walked through the halls, changing their course only slightly: they walked right past an elevator that would have cut their walk in half, but... Hecate reasoned that the elevators hadn't been working properly lately anyway.

The colt seemed to finally realize he was being watched, blushing as he looked up at her awkwardly, but Hecate only glowered a little in return before she asked: “Why didn't you say anything?”

The colt looked at her dumbly, and Hecate rolled her eyes before clarifying in a tired voice: “About washing yourself, you idiot.”

Thorn lowered his head meekly at this, blushing deeply before he answered lamely: “Sorry, Miss Hecate. I just... don't want to be a bother.”

“You're bothering me now.” Hecate replied irritably, and Thorn tried to shrink even further as he opened his mouth, but the mare cut him off curtly: “No apologies.”

Thorn mumbled all the same, and Hecate sighed as she came to a halt in the middle of the hall, rubbing slowly at her face. Thorn looked up at her worriedly, and Hecate looked down at him grumpily before she turned towards him, crossing her mechanical arms as she asked finally: “What do you need?”

“Nothing, Miss Hecate. I'm okay, really.” Thorn said with a blush, nodding a few times hurriedly, and Hecate closed her eyes as if pained.

“Thorn...” Hecate began almost warningly, and the colt whimpered a little. The mechanical mare looked down at him with a frown, opening her mouth to say something... angry or annoyed or just to reprimand him again...

And then she stopped, looking down at this scared little colt. This frightened little boy, who was whimpering and cowering in front of her because... well, because he really was just a frightened little boy, trying to live up to her impossible expectations, desperate not to disappoint his parents. What did he think, that she was going to write a letter to them or send him away if he did badly?

She looked at him for a few moments, then smiled inwardly as the colt trembled and gazed up at her silently. Actually, that probably was precisely what he expected... that she'd throw him out, or tell his parents that he'd been a big disappointment. She knew him well enough by now to know that he adored his parents, after all...

She shook her head slowly, then carefully knelt in front of the colt, surprising him a little as she leaned forwards: her voice remained serious, but her eyes had become a little more gentle, and even with a frame of steel and gears, her body language was almost soft as she said: “Thorn, I want you to listen to me for a moment. Not just to my words, but what I am saying. Do you understand?”

Thorn nodded hesitantly, and Hecate nodded back before she said quietly: “I know what you need physically. I can provide those bare minimums for you easily. But I do not know what you need or want otherwise. I will admit I have not been very... inviting, in this regard, but you need to speak up as well, Thorn. What do you want?”

Thorn looked at her silently for a few moments, and then he scraped a hoof against the ground and looked down, whispering: “I want to go home.”

Hecate gave a quiet laugh, shaking her head slowly before she stood up and replied in a surprisingly gentle voice: “You are home, Thorn. Decretum is your home now, and so far you've proven... more useful than I expected you to. But useful or not, I was asked by your parents to take care of you. I am going to take care of you, Thorn.”

Thorn smiled hesitantly up at the mechanical mare, and the two looked at each other for a few moments before she said finally, her voice becoming brisker: “What did I promise you for your room?”

The colt looked at her with a lame shrug, and then he winced when Hecate scowled at him before he said hurriedly: “A bed and stuff like that!”

Hecate grunted at him, looking moodily down at the colt and crossing her arms: to his credit, he seemed to catch on after a moment... but it still took him a few seconds more to work up the courage to actually ask: “Miss Hecate, um... can... can I please have a shelf and some books?”

“We don't have many books in Decretum. You can have a table and I'll let you dig through whatever remains of the master library in Genesis.” Hecate replied calmly, and then she paused before correcting herself meditatively: “Which you will only be allowed after you complete the obstacle course I've assigned you.”

Thorn winced, but then he nodded hurriedly before Hecate said shortly: “Enough stalling, Thorn. Come. It's time for you to shower. You reek.”

The colt blushed deeply, mumbling an apology as he nodded hurriedly again... but even as Hecate rolled her eyes, she had to repress a small smile as she turned and strode down the sterile steel halls with the colt in tow.

The Colt Who Tried

Chapter Four: The Colt Who Tried
~BlackRoseRaven

Thorn gasped as he lunged to the end of the course... then yelped and dodged backwards when one of Hecate's steel hooves almost stomped down on him, before the colt skittered to the side to avoid a slam punch from one of her metal fists.

Hecate smiled thinly as her horn glowed brightly, swinging a steel claw forwards... and Thorn just managed to slip to the side, her grab missing him, before he ducked sharply, the wave of lightning that erupted from her hand a moment later passing harmlessly over his head.

Thorn was left breathing hard as Hecate slowly straightened, the two looking at each other for a few moments before the mare said softly: “Better.”

Thorn straightened, smiling up at her hesitantly: over the last few months, he had grown athletic. He was now able to scrape by just under par for the course, even with the difficulty significantly improved... and this time, on the third run, he had finally succeeded in dodging all over her attacks.

The colt was breathing a little hard, but his body was still tense, ready to escape if she made any sudden movements. He was bruised and bleeding, but holding up well: he was still no Thesis, certainly, but then again... she supposed that she was much rougher on this colt than she'd ever been with Thesis.

The two looked at each other for a few moments, and then Hecate loosened her stance and made a short gesture to Thorn, who quickly nodded and relaxed himself, falling into step beside her as the mechanical mare said calmly: “Several Dogmatists are currently in the process of excavating Cortex. I don't want to take the risk that the systems may still possess some traces of the Clockwork King's AI, so I will be busy today designing a virus to flush any remnants from the servers.”

Thorn nodded quickly, even as he shifted apprehensively, but the mare only gave him a flat look. Even if he'd toughened up physically, mentally... “No, Thorn. I do not need you standing around, distracting me. You can handle overseeing the import-export accounts for this month.”

“And um... then what do I do?” Thorn asked nervously, and Hecate simply gave him a wry look.

“Then you amuse yourself, Thorn. Most of my employees would be grateful for a day off.” Hecate replied dryly, and Thorn smiled lamely, dropping his head and nodding awkwardly before the mechanical mare continued, as they strode out into the hall and in the direction of the medical station: “Consider your job for the day staying out of my way, if that's what you really need me to say, Thorn.”

“Yes, Miss Hecate.” Thorn nodded quickly to her, and Hecate snuck a glance at him as the colt bit his lip, his own eyes focused uneasily ahead even as he said: “I just... don't want to get under hoof, that's all, and... I mean, I want to earn my keep, and everyone else-”

“Worry about yourself, Thorn. Your productivity has dropped recently because of a decline in focus. Either find some leisure time to restore your mental health, or I'll shove a sedative down your throat and lock you in your room for two days.” Hecate said moodily, and Thorn winced but nodded hurriedly, even if by now, well... he probably understood that was an empty threat. Not the sedating part, of course: sometimes giving him a pill was the only way to get the idiot colt to sleep, ever since she'd had a data monitor installed in his room.

They stepped into the medical station, and Peridot greeted them with a smile and a nod. Thorn blushed and nodded back to her, then lowered his head and stayed still, submitting to healing... but still listening as Hecate continued distastefully: “I also realize that, as useful as you are, you will require a tutor. Tailoring your two meals a day and giving you proper nutrition seems to have woken up your body out of its sugar-induced stupor, but you still need to learn magic and how to write properly. Not to mention other academic pursuits.”

Thorn nodded a few times, then he smiled and looked up as Peridot finished healing him, the unicorn mare suggesting: “Lady Hecate, maybe Muse-”

“A Replicant? That's...” Hecate halted, then scowled a little as she reached up and rubbed moodily under her chin. She hated dealing with the Replicants, because they reminded her of Thesis... but... well, these days, that ache didn't hurt as much, and the Replicants had been taught everything they had needed to know to function in your standard pony society... Muse is a much better choice than her idiot sister Necrophage, anyway... and Node is a lout... “Fine, Peridot. Thorn, schedule a meeting with Muse next week. I want you to create an intensive agenda for yourself.”

Peridot giggled a little, and Thorn and Hecate both looked at her, one with confusion and the other with a scowl. But the unicorn mare only smiled in amusement after a moment, gesturing to them and saying easily: “Oh, don't mind me. It's just funny, Hecate, seeing you asking your assistant to schedule his own tutoring.”

“I fail to see how that's so entertaining.” Hecate said sourly, as Thorn only shifted lamely.

“It's funny because he's ten years old, Hecate.” Peridot said with a fearless smile up to the mechanical mare, looking at her with amusement.

Then Thorn awkwardly held up a hoof, attracting the attention of both mares before he said with embarrassment: “Actually, um... I'm eleven.”

Peridot smiled at him, but Hecate only scowled and turned sharply towards the colt, studying him intently before she asked shortly: “When?”

Thorn looked lamely up at the mare, then he winced when she loomed forwards over him, the colt dropping his head and blurting: “Last week! I... I didn't think it was important though, Miss Hecate, we're always so busy and-”

“Shut up, Thorn.” Hecate reached down and seized the colt by the neck, glaring at him, telling herself she was just annoyed by this misplaced piece of information, by the fact that now she had to go and update his still-incomplete profile and she would have to screen him again for physiological changes. That was it. There wasn't the faintest hint of embarrassment. Being upset about missing her employee's birthday was idiotic.

That was something that Celestia would have felt.

Hecate stormed out into the hall, carrying Thorn by the scruff of the neck as he dropped his head a bit, looking over his shoulder at her with a faint blush, but by now knowing it was better not to talk now and then.

Hecate carried him all the way down to his room, then dropped him in front of the doors. Thorn winced and stumbled around to face her even as the door slid open, and the mechanical mare pointed into his room, saying curtly: “Write up your schedule, then amuse yourself until the end of the day. I do not want you working today. Understood?”

“Yes, Miss Hecate.” Thorn said lamely, bowing his head and feeling a little like he'd done something wrong, before he looked up and said hurriedly: “I'm sorry, I... I really didn't mean to offend or upset you or anything!”

Hecate only sighed tiredly, reaching up and rubbing slowly at her face before she muttered: “Thorn, if you continue to apologize for everything, I will schedule you to have a neural node implanted in your brain, like I do with the brain-damaged Dogmatists. But your constant apologizing is much more annoying to me than their aggression.”

“Sorry.” Thorn mumbled, before he could stop himself, and then he winced a bit when Hecate growled at him before the colt turned and skittered hurriedly into his room.

He almost fell over as he slid around in a circle once inside the safety of his room, blurting: “And you know, I... I always just liked spending my birthdays with Mom and Dad and Mutt because it was so rare they ever got a day off, but you and I spend almost every day together, so... so... it's really nice, Miss Hecate.”

There was silence for a few moments as Hecate shifted a little... and then she scowled before punching the button to close the electronic door, Thorn smiling faintly before he dropped his head quietly. He could still feel here there, on the other side of the door; he wasn't the best at magic, but his horn had always been sensitive to the presence of others, and Hecate... well, he'd gotten so used to the strange energy she resonated that whenever she was close by, he always felt a little better.

But then he felt her moving away, and the little colt sat back and rubbed quietly at his eyes. Okay, so it had been hard, not celebrating his birthday, sure. But he'd promised to be a good colt for Miss Hecate, and... they had been hard at work the whole day long. And more than that... he did appreciate her, a little more every day. She was teaching him, spending her time with him, and even though he knew it hadn't been their fault, even though he knew his parents had done everything they could to spend every moment they had with him... his parents had always been so busy, and it wasn't like he could just walk around Helheim with them, either.

Thorn turned around, smiling faintly at his bedroom: it had a nice dresser, a little table, a big comfortable bed, and even a large glass screen mounted on the wall that he could draw up all kinds of information from across Decretum on. It was really hard for him to interact with still, because he had to use magic to input the commands... but Hecate had given him a special little wand that he could float around with telekinesis and use to tap out manual commands over the screen as well.

The colt strode over to his bed and yanked himself up onto it: it had a big plush comforter and lots of pillows. Not the kind of thing usually found in Decretum, but Hecate had apparently ordered most of these things for him specially...

Thorn smiled a little, and then his horn gleamed as he lifted the wand with telekinesis from his bed table, quickly bringing it over to poke at the glass screen and turn it on. Graphs and statistics began to spill over it, and Thorn simply sat and watched the numbers for a little while, trying to get his mind to focus on work instead of thinking too much about... dumb things.

Besides, it was easier to make himself feel better: he just had to wrap himself up in this big comfy blanket, the colt smiling as he poked one of the graphs to zoom in on it so he could study the profit graph. For the most part, his import-export report was actually already written for him: most of it was just a matter of gathering data and compiling it for Hecate.

Thorn liked collecting data. He enjoyed doing research, and he loved to learn new things. He always felt like it was good exercise for his mind: his mother had always told him it was really important to make sure you gave your mind just as much exercise as you did your body.

Thorn wondered often how well his parents had known Hecate: he knew that they wouldn't have left him with her without a good reason, and he had already learned a lot from Hecate. He respected her, for a lot more reasons than just because he had been told to. He thought she was amazing, and that in spite of how mean she could be, she was also a really nice pony. And more than that, he felt that he could trust her.

He really didn't want to get on her bad side or annoy her, but... he did have all kinds of questions for her. And he hated how he often he seemed to disappoint her or get on her nerves. He never meant to: he did his very best to keep all his questions and everything else to himself, after all. It was just that... when he had so many things he wanted to ask and know, sometimes they ended up slipping through, one way or the other.

Thorn smiled faintly as he carefully poked a command across the screen to bring up another statistic, biting his lip for a moment before he sharply flicked the wand to the side, the data monitor clicking off as the young colt wiggled free of the blankets. He quickly tossed the wand back onto the bed before half-falling off the furnishing, but he managed to stumble into a loose trot towards the door.

He could finish off the report later: he knew that all Hecate really wanted him to do was stay out of the way for the day. He really honestly hated not working, though: it already felt like he was just a burden on Hecate, and he didn't want to impose any more than he already had. He also knew that even as Hecate's 'assistant,' he wasn't actually doing all that much work here. Everything he did he knew that Hecate could program the AI to do: once it was up and running, well...

Thorn always felt like he was racing against the clock, trying to prove that he was a useful colt, trying to be a useful colt... but Miss Hecate could be a little funny sometimes. It felt like every time he got really close to doing something good, Hecate suddenly wanted something different... or for him to not do something good. He worried sometimes that she wanted to get rid of him, while other times, well... it seemed more like she just wanted him to... misbehave.

But why would she want that? Well, he guessed there was probably some logical reason: after all, Hecate was all about logic, and statistics, and other things like that. He wasn't saying he always understood her, but he did definitely know that Hecate liked it when things made sense. So she had to have some kind of reason why she wanted him to misbehave. Maybe so that she could see how bad he could be, compared to how good he could be?

He didn't know. Thorn trotted out into the hall as the door clicked closed behind him, the colt looking quickly back and forth as he turned and hurried along the corridor. Well, there was one thing he liked to do that he thought covered everything Hecate wanted to see from him: it was something that most of the drones couldn't do, and it was something that she had been training him for, and it was something that she acted like annoyed her but she always seemed kind of funnily proud of him for doing all by himself, too.

He hurried down the hall, then skittered quickly to the side, wincing as a cleaning drone buzzed by. He was used to seeing all kinds of constructs and strange things from being raised in Helheim, but he didn't think he'd ever get entirely used to all these machines: the only time he'd ever seen machinery even half as complex was in the the deepest levels of Underdark...

Thorn kept close to the wall as he trotted onwards, then yelped as he rounded a corner and almost plowed into a Clockwork Pony. It looked down at him... not emptily, he thought. At first he'd mistaken their flat gazes for emotionlessness, for hollowness... but as he'd learned to watch them closer, he had begun to see emotions in them, more and more. Flickers of sentience in their glass eyes, the way they grouped together naturally, the strange 'friendships' that existed between them...

They looked at each other, and then Thorn smiled nervously up at the Dogmatist: he had begun to learn a little about how they were all ranked and divided up, and he had learned that this one was named Azure, and he was an industrial-class Dogmatist, designed mainly for logistics and data processing. He had a thin body, his limbs supported by narrow metal braces, his exposed spine covered in small nodes and plugs. There were large vents in his back, every now and then exhaling steam, and blue veins of coolant pulsed through his pale white body.

His blue, glass eyes followed Thorn silently as the young colt stepped past him... then he bit his lip before suddenly turning towards the Dogmatist, looking fearlessly up into his thin, scarred features. Sure, he looked a little scary: he had glass eyes and a skull-like face and only a few thin strings of ragged mane hanging around his head, with most of his skull instead shielded by a heavy metallic cap that all manner of cables hung out of. But Thorn had seen worse during his years in Helheim, and learned that sometimes scary-looking people were really nice, if you just gave them a chance to be nice. “Um, Mister Azure?”

Azure ever-so-slightly cocked his head to show that he was listening, even if he remained silent, and Thorn smiled warmly before saying quickly: “Mister Azure, um, I'm supposed to schedule myself for lessons with a Replicant named Muse! Do you think you could upload her profile and schedule to my data manager thingy?”

Azure looked at him for a few moments, then he simply gave a slow nod, and Thorn smiled warmly before saying quickly: “Thank you, Mister Azure! I really appreciate it! Bye now!”

Thorn took off down the hallway, and Azure slowly looked over his shoulder at the colt, watching as he trotted away. Thorn looked back over his shoulder at the corner, then waved happily before he bounced off down the intersecting hall.

Azure stood for a moment longer, and then the cybernetic pony slowly rose a hoof and waved it in the direction that the colt had gone, before looking curiously down at his own foreleg as if he had forgotten he was capable of making the gesture in the first place. Then he simply turned and plodded onward down the hall to do as the strange little colt had asked.

Meanwhile, Thorn bounced quickly through the facility, making his way quickly to the main doors before he smiled as they opened for him, running out into the mostly-empty streets of Imperia, the capitol city of Decretum.

It was a gorgeous city, full of neon lights and buildings of steel and glass that towered towards the sky. Security orbs floated by on regular patrols, while drones trundled around on heavy treads, silently sweeping up any garbage on the streets and keeping the roads and sidewalks polished and maintained. The red skies swirled eternally far above, but the ill crimson light of the world was tempered by the bright, warm light that shone from windows and the streetlamps that lined the streets.

Thorn smiled as he trotted quickly down the street: it had only been a month ago that Hecate had given him clearance to wander the city by himself. After all, here he didn't have to worry about people wanting to hurt him, and if he ever got lost, he could just call down a security orb or contact a drone to bring him back to the Enlisted Outworlder Central Base.

The colt looked back and forth at the enormous buildings as he trotted through the city: only a few of them were actually occupied at the moment. Some were meant to be like massive barracks, while others were huge, specialized laboratories or full of servers and machinery. And of course there were repair shops and medical stations and even a few other kinds of shops.

Like everything else, the city was divided up very logically: apart from the civilian zones, there was a warehouse district, an enormous prison facility, several greenhouses and agricultural centers, and an immense factory area that was connected to a secure research and development zone. The Enlisted Outworlder Central Base was actually located in the civilian area, close to another massive facility that had was still in the process of being rebuilt.

Thorn looked up into the distance, and smiled at the sight of Genesis: the immense castle was covered in cranes and all sorts of netting and support frames, all of which barely held the creaking structure together. Thankfully, Decretum's weather was relatively mild and easily controlled by Hecate's Dogmatists: it probably wouldn't take much more than a stiff wind to knock over the teetering towers of the castle, after all.

Genesis stretched to the skies, but it reached just as deep into the earth as well... and those tunnels were just as rickety and unstable, often collapsing on the Worker Drones and specialized Dogmatists that were working on them. Not that this did much to discourage the Clockwork Ponies: they would usually dig themselves out of any cave-ins within a few days and then continue their work. They dealt with each and every setback calmly and patiently, never tiring, never growing too discouraged, never stopping except for when they were scheduled for breaks or told to by Hecate.

Thorn hurried towards the gaping hole that led into Genesis, dodging around a few Worker Drones: some were hauling rubble out of the building, while others were bringing new supplies into the work site. Thorn noted that there were a few scavenger drones present too, as he looked curiously around the entrance hall of the ruins: one of the few areas that had been completely secured so far.

The colt slipped his way through the wide hall, past the drones, the stored machinery and the enormous crates of junk and supplies. He headed towards an archway marked with red tape, striding into a slanted hallway to where it ended in a collapsed, narrow ledge.

Thorn leaned forwards, peering down into the darkness: several levels underneath this hall had collapsed, forming almost a straight drop down, but a guide rail had been installed for the Clockwork Ponies and scavenger drones: it was literally little more than a girder with distinct grooves in the side of it, for machinery to lock into and slide down.

But it was also almost identical to the sliding poles on the obstacle course Thorn had learned to use, and the colt smiled slightly as he spun around and lowered himself down to grasp the rail with three hooves. He took a breath to steady himself... then simply let go of the ledge, sliding down into the darkness.

Thorn hugged the rail as he slid down it, looking straight ahead and watching as first slate and collapsed hallways and rooms passed by... and then, soon enough, he was instead staring at concrete and slate and broken stone, with the occasional damaged pipe or metal girder sticking out of the wall like a broken bone.

Above, Genesis was a ruin. And below, a lot of the piping had ruptured... but emergency protocols and system failures had saved much of the machinery below from overloading, while the strength of the mountain and the massive supports had sheltered it from collapse.

It was messy, and there were still areas that had caved-in or were inaccessible for other reasons, from rusted machinery to security lockdowns that were still engaged even after all these years, but Thorn was small enough to wiggle into areas even the scavenger drones couldn't go. And while the scavengers were only interested in finding machine parts and materials, Thorn was able to collect data logs, files and books, and little trinkets that had been dropped by Clockwork Ponies or other workers.

Thorn leaned to the side and finally risked a look down, before sighing in relief as he saw that the ground was only a few dozen feet below. He smiled as he slid down to the bottom of the post, tightening his grip a little to slow his descent until his rump finally bumped gently down on the dusty earth, and he sighed in relief as he picked himself up and looked quickly back and forth.

There were a few Worker Drones present in the dome-shaped tunnel, repairing the walls and cutting out sections for machinery to slot into: one day Hecate planned to install a lift here, so they could move materials in and out more easily. Right now, after all, there was no way Thorn or other workers could clamber back up the rail, especially with a full load of materials.

Thorn only smiled, however, trotting over to a crate and helping himself to a cloth satchel before he turned and hurried... north, he was pretty sure the passage led. He followed the dim trail of glowing bulbs strung along the rocky floor; a few had already burnt out, but then again, Hecate was trying to stretch a very thin amount of supplies throughout an entire mechanical world.

Thorn reached the end of the curving passage and emerged into a half-collapsed room: scavenger bots were working industriously away near the broken wall, picking up pieces of stone to scan for usable ore. Thorn studied one of the nearest machines as he paused nervously for a moment: they were large and ant-like, a little taller and wider than he was... and a lot more stiff, he knew, and the barrel-shaped harvesting containers attached to their backs didn't help a whole lot. They were great for harvesting materials, but not so good at squeezing into small places. And they also had trouble recognizing anything but their fellow scavenger drones: more than once, a scavenger had attempted to steal Thorn's belongings to add to its own hoard of materials for processing.

The colt studied them intently for a few moments, then smiled once he realized they were all busy before he turned and skittered across the room, heading for a small hole in the wall. He dropped flat and wiggled his way through this little tunnel into the next room.

Dusty computer equipment covered the walls, and there was a collapsed shelf covered in hardened black goop: it looked as if the gunk had leaked out of a broken pipe, eaten its way through the metal frame, then turned to something resembling cement. Thorn had touched it once, and felt a funny, uncomfortable sensation in his veins that had told him to stay away from it. He had decided to listen to those instincts, and now was always careful to give the black cement a wide berth.

Thorn headed towards a warped metal door, carefully squeezing his way through the narrow opening before he glanced apprehensively up at the half-collapsed ceiling: panels and broken cables hung loose, and it bowed deeply in the center of the corridor, looking as if it were ready to collapse... but Thorn was able to drop to his stomach and wiggle his way carefully beneath it without much trouble or worry. He'd been this way half a dozen times now, after all: even if the anxiety that the whole world was going to drop on his head never quite faded.

He wiggled his way through another narrow opening and into what had once been some kind of security station: the ceiling had collapsed halfway across it, however, and formed a ramp that Thorn was able to scramble up to reach a storeroom. He carefully crawled across the creaking and rotten floor to make his way to an open vent, and then he wiggled his way through this narrow metal passage and into the room beyond.

Thorn straightened and smiled as he looked back and forth through a room that was filled with masks, and pieces of armor and framework, and metal arms and legs that hung like lost puppet limbs from cords and damaged metal hooks.

This room had spooked him the first time he'd come into it... but after a little bit of poking around, he'd realized that this was some kind of storeroom where they had kept the parts necessary to repair Clockwork Ponies. And with enough poking around, he'd also discovered...

Thorn grunted as he pushed against a section of wall he'd wiped the dust off from, and it creaked loudly before slowly swinging open as the colt put his weight into pushing, shoving his way through the hidden panel before wincing as he quickly stepped to the side once through, the door swinging shut with a tremendous bang behind him.

He looked nervously back and forth as a bit of dust hailed down from the ceiling... but then everything stilled again, and Thorn smiled as he strode slowly through the relatively-undamaged room. The tiles that had once covered the walls had long ago fallen to moss and age, but that had just revealed the framework of supports that protected this room: even with parts of the ceiling caved in here and there, Thorn felt safe here: after all, the only pieces of the roof that had fallen were the cheap tiles and the insulation. The rafters and beams were still holding up surprisingly well, considering all the cave-ins above and everything else.

He smiled as he looked back and forth at the enormous machine presses, smithy equipment, and the massive forge. And there were all kinds of raw and unfinished materials and machine parts here: pieces of gear, plates of metal of all different shape and size, weapons and armor and synthetic limbs...

Thorn wandered his way between tables and racks and equipment, stopping here and there to poke at anything that caught his eye. Hidden amongst all the machine parts and strange equipment were little trinkets and treasures: a set of dog tags here, a silver chain there, a few pieces of jewelry scattered this way and that along the floor. The colt winced as he stepped on one of the latter, hopping sideways and absently shaking his hoof out before he looked down at the ruby earring he had stepped on.

He knew by now that most things in Decretum served a purpose: even personal items had often been enchanted or transformed in some way so they would give some benefit to the wearer. Apart from just sentimental value, that was, although the colt knew there was a very real advantage in that sort of thing, too.

Thorn picked up some of the smaller things now and then, tossing them into his satchel: when the scavenger bots eventually burrowed into this place, they could gather up all the materials and equipment much better than he could. So instead, Thorn was looking for interesting things that the scavenger bots would probably overlook, but he thought that Hecate might be able to use... or might just find as neat as he did, even if she'd never admit it.

Thorn wandered his way towards the forge, and then he came to a halt, as he always did, in front of a locked, clear box. It looked like glass or plastic, but it wouldn't budge in the slightest... and even when Thorn had hit it with a hammer, the hammer had just bounced off and not left a single mark on the material, whatever it was. Thorn direly wished he could figure out some way to open it, because inside, there was what looked like some kind of special, blue-glass security orb: he was sure that whatever the device was, Hecate would be really interested in seeing it.

The colt scowled a little, then he poked at the box a few times with his horn. Nothing happened, of course, and the colt sighed before he leaned forwards and studied the lock intently: it was a big mechanical clasp, with what looked like some kind of strange keyhole in the center. He had scoured this room a few times, though, and never found the key that fit it: he had also made a few weak attempts to try and 'pick' the lock with a screwdriver, but none of those had ever worked either.

He shifted back and forth in front of the box, then he hammered lightly on the lock with one hoof, but it didn't so much as rattle. Thorn bit his lip, then examined it again thoughtfully before he frowned a little as he thought about something that Hecate had showed him a few days ago.

They had been doing telekinesis exercises, and she had been teaching him how to affect multiple objects at once with telekinesis: she had made him apply pressure on several wall panels one after the other, without decreasing the pressure on the previous panels he'd pushed in. Thorn studied the lock, which was much more complex than the wall panels had been... but it was the same sort of thing, wasn't it? He just had to apply the right amount of pressure to... all sides of the plus-shaped lock, he guessed.

Thorn narrowed his eyes slightly, his horn lighting up as he focused his telekinetic powers into the lock. The metal gleamed with his purple aura as he focused on it, leaning forwards slightly and biting his lip as he pushed his magic carefully into the slot, feeling out the edges of metal and pushing his way carefully along the tumblers until he thought he felt... something...

He bit his lip... and then he brightened as he was able to jiggle the lock slightly, leaning forwards and immediately applying more pressure to it. The lock resisted his telekinetic powers, and Thorn grimaced before the glow around his horn increased, making the lock shiver harder as pins slid into place-

“Warning. Tampering detected in Workshop Three, assembly level. P-Please be advised that security drones have b-been dispatched.” said a calm, emotionless voice, and Thorn winced as he lost his concentration, his magic vanishing from around the lock even as a weak, reedy alarm began to blare through the room.

A broken shutter attempted to descend over the doors in the distance with a terrible scream of metal-on-metal, and Thorn flinched at the sound before the damaged shutter simply snapped off under the stress its own machinery was putting on the aging metal, crashing loudly to the ground. Thorn stumbled away from this horrible noise before his eyes flicked to the side as he heard a horrible grinding fill the air.

Some kind of panel was trying to slide open in the wall, and Thorn panicked, stomping his hooves before he bolted forwards and around the forge. He attempted to wiggle himself into a narrow niche behind the machine, but his satchel hooked on one of the corners of the forge, the colt moaning low in his throat as he yanked wildly on it.

It refused to come loose, and Thorn winced before he heard something else bang and clang its way into the room, followed by a low, maddening buzzing. Then there was a sudden burst of garbled static, and Thorn winced before a mechanical voice rumbled: “I-I-Initiating... area scan. S-Seek and.... destroy all intruders.”

There was a loud fizzle of static, and Thorn whimpered as he looked over his shoulder, stumbling backwards before he spun around and grabbed wildly at the satchel, jerking and pulling on it it a wild attempt to get it loose from where it had gotten stuck on the corner of the forge.

Something was creaking and clanking towards him, blares of static every now and then tearing through the room. Thorn could see a bright, searching light of some kind hunting back and forth across the workshop, steadily making its way closer towards him...

Thorn gritted his teeth, fumbling wildly at his bag before he yelped and fell backwards as the cloth satchel finally tore, spilling its contents all over the floor. The colt grabbed at these wildly... then looked up in horror as something clanked and clanged its way around a large worktable, buzzing brokenly as a bright light washed over him, and the colt whimpered and shrank back under its glare.

He trembled and stumbled backwards as the spotlight focused in on him, flinching away from the glare before he suddenly turned and bolted behind the forge. Immediately, the creaky machinery gave an incensed burst of static, something popping and banging as Thorn scrambled to be anywhere but in the sentinel's line of sight.

Thorn squeezed as far back behind the forge as he could... and then he whimpered as he felt something grab at his tail, the colt immediately yelping and scrambling hurriedly away as he looked over his shoulder in fear, staring in horror at the sight of a long, thin mechanical claw stretching towards him, grasping rustily at his tail.

The colt bolted away from the machine's grasp, then tripped over his own hooves, falling free from behind the forge with a gasp and landing in front of another drone, the colt looking up with horror as the security drone buzzed and crackled as it glared down at him.

It was large and spindly, with a large, cylindrical spotlight hanging brokenly off one shoulder, sparking and blinking weakly. It had a single staring glass eye and was covered in rusted, rotted armor, exposed and stripped wires sparking and sizzling brokenly throughout its tattered frame. It walked on four gangly limbs, propelled by damaged pistons and grinding gears, as motors misfired and it crawled slowly forwards on damaged arms and legs.

Thorn didn't even know how the drone was still moving, as he trembled and stumbled backwards, before his eyes widened in horror as some kind of large cylinder sparked on the security drone's other side as it attempted to point at him. The colt froze up, staring in terror as a whirring sound began to rise from the machine as the drone focused on him-

And then the weapon or whatever it was sparked several times, and the drone twitched violently before it suddenly fell forwards, crashing brokenly to the ground as a mechanical voice rasped: “S-System... overload. F-Functionality... c-c-compromised... auto-repair... engaging...”

The machine twitched weakly on the ground before a faint humming rose from its steely innards, and Thorn winced before he turned quickly around as a bright light washed over him. The colt stared in horror as he saw the other drone was pulling itself slowly around the forge... while near the other end of the workshop, yet another drone was clanking itself towards them, fizzing and buzzing along.

Thorn stumbled hurriedly around the fallen drone, whimpering and bolting towards a set of shelves. He weaved quickly through them, trembling as he looked back and forth before his eyes locked on a hole in the wall. He scrambled for this, wildly trying to shove himself into the opening, eyes wide with fear as he attempted to wiggle himself into the fractured passage beyond.

The colt wiggled and squeezed his way between broken stone and ripped cables, the colt wiggling between narrow walls of stone before he yelped as he tripped and spilled forwards, painfully rolling down a hard slope to crash in a sprawl with a gasp of pain. It took him a few moments to come to his senses... and then he whimpered weakly as he clambered up to his hooves, looking uneasily over his shoulder at the broken vent he had just rolled in through before he turned his eyes back forwards.

He was in some kind of... boiler room, it almost seemed like. There was some kind of huge, nondescript machine sitting near the center of the mostly-empty concrete cell, and what looked like... oh... oh Horses of Heaven...

A dead Clockwork Pony sat in the far corner, staring silently at the ground, a stain of oil around its broken body. One of its forelegs had fallen loose, hanging only by a few wires and a single steel rod. Most of the plating that had once armored this Dogmatist had fallen away, leaving chemically-preserved flesh exposed, and Thorn bit his lip before he hesitantly approached the corpse.

Beside the dead Dogmatist was a massive drill: Thorn halted when he was still a safe distance away, trying not to look at the staring, empty sockets of the Clockwork Pony, instead focusing on the industrial tool. It looked like the huge drills that were used by Dogmatists to bore tunnels for the pipeline: the serrated drill itself was larger than a pony, but it had large handles on the back that controlled the throttle and the direction, meaning even a little colt like him could use it... if it was positioned right first, that is...

Thorn bit his lip, looking fearfully at the Clockwork Pony's corpse before he whimpered a little: this wasn't the first dead body he had ever seen, but... he'd never seen one... like this before. Rotting, and ruined, covered in what passed for its own blood...

The colt looked back and forth, then took the first excuse he had to skitter away from the body, even if some part of him already knew what he had to do. All the same, though, he ran for the rusted door... and even though t didn't surprise him when he was unable to yank it open or move the handle at all, it all the same deepened his despair as he pounded on the steel and cried out: “P-Please!”

There was no answer... why would there be? Hecate had warned him, again and again, that Genesis wasn't a place for him to play... and Thorn whimpered quietly again before he turned around and chewed on his inner cheek slowly, staring at the rusting drill.

There was no choice. The security drones were likely still searching for him, and Thorn knew that if he wanted out... he had to go down. He only hoped that the drill still worked...

Thorn hesitantly strode over to the drill, doing his best to keep his focus on inspecting the machine instead of looking at the corpse. Yet his eyes kept flicking towards the dead body, again and again, the colt wondering silently what had happened to this Dogmatist and why that... well...

He swallowed a bit, then quickly turned his attention to the handles as he attempted to roll the enormous drill to the side. The serrated cone squealed as it dug against the floor, Thorn biting his lip as he fought to roll the heavy tool just a little bit further away from the Dogmatist.

Thorn looked nervously over the dusty controls: he recognized most of the layout, but the gauges had corroded and there was no way to tell what condition the rest of the machinery was in. Of course, if it didn't start, well...

The colt swallowed thickly. He really didn't want to think about that. Who knew what other security drones and protocols he'd accidentally tripped? There was no way he'd be able to get back through the workshop and then find his way to engineering without something snatching him. This drill was his only way out.

Thorn apprehensively adjusted the drill's controls, wincing at the creaking the inner mechanics made even before he'd turned it on. Then he bit his lip as he rested his hoof on the button to start the machine before he closed his eyes, mumbling: “Please work, please work, please work...”

The colt pushed the button... and then squeaked as the machine immediately began to vibrate violently, the drill bouncing and jittering as it tore gouges through the cement before it started to tilt downwards, biting into the floor before it began to grind its way down through the cement.

He grabbed the control sticks, holding on to them for dear life even as the vibrations tore through his entire body, making him feel like his muscles were about to tear themselves apart. It was all Thorn could do to hold on before he yelped as the drill began to burrow steadily through the floor, wincing and ducking his head as sharp pieces of stony shrapnel hailed around him.

Thorn stumbled after the drill, wincing as he struggled to keep up with the machine, stumbling painfully over sharp notches and yelping as he was thrown against the ragged tunnel walls. He clenched his eyes shut, wishing it was over-

And then there was a horrible cracking sound, and a sudden sensation of weightlessness before the drill fell, the colt yelling in terror as he fell through the air after the drill before it collided with a crash with cement below. Thorn was almost wrenched free from the machine, rolling in a painful circle with it before the serrated drill caught against the floor, jittering and gouging into it before it began to burrow downwards again, sending up sparks as it ripped its way through a steel support girder.

Thorn clutched into the control sticks, eyes shut, his body shaking as the drill continued to tear its way slowly but steadily downwards. He struggled to keep up with the machine, breathing hard as he staggered along down the tunnel behind it before he winced as he felt the drill give a violent jag in his hooves, and then the sensation of collapse-

Thorn did the only thing he could think of doing, kicking off the tunnel floor and this time leaping out after the drill, tucking his head and trying to brace himself... and then he cried out in agony when the drill hit the ground and lashed sideways, flinging the colt across the room.

He hit the floor hard, bouncing and rolling with a yelp of pain before he crashed to a halt against a wooden table. He shivered violently, hugging himself around the waist and clenching his eyes shut as he gasped for air, tears rolling down his cheeks as he felt his l imbs quaking, his lungs burning, his heart thudding...

The colt's eyes snapped open as the sound of the drill increased in volume, gravel and shrapnel pattering against him before he scrambled for his hooves as the drill bounced and crashed towards him, the massive, serrated cone lunging almost viciously at him, as if it had its own cruel life and was eager for vengeance.

Thorn stumbled backwards, staring in horror as the drill banged and crashed towards him, spitting shrapnel and chunks of stone in all directions as the colt's eyes widened. He stumbled backwards, his whole body shaking, his body beginning to freeze up before instinct and training thrummed through his mind, and Thorn's body seemed to react on its own, the colt flinging himself to the side with a cry of fear.

He crashed down on his shoulder, rolling painfully before he scrambled for his hooves and bolted into the nearest wall, whimpering over his shoulder and staring in horror as the drill seemed to turn to follow him. But thankfully, the spinning drill seemed to catch on something, vibrating in place for a moment before it suddenly bounced to the side and came down with a bang, crashing and spitting up rock as it rolled in the opposite direction of Thorn.

The colt trembled and pressed himself into the wall, whimpering as tears threatened his eyes, too afraid to leap forwards and try to take control of the drill again. Thankfully, however, the drill caught against the floor after only a few minutes, and this time tilted itself nose-down, sparking and vibrating before it began to steadily burrow downwards through the cement and steel.

Thorn watched as the drill disappeared inch-after-inch into the pit it was digging... and then he winced as there was a sound of something breaking, followed a few seconds later by a hollow bang. The colt trembled for a moment, then hurried to the edge of the tunnel, looking down through it and biting his lip... but all he could see was the lip of the other end of the passage that had been cut through the stone by the drill.

Thorn hesitated for a few seconds before he finally pulled himself into this, skidding carefully down the steep incline before he caught himself at the other end of the surprisingly-long tunnel... and he whimpered as he looked down into the massive, empty space beyond. That was why the passage had ended up being so long: the drill had cut its way down through the foundation plate and into the actual clockwork of this clockwork world.

Thorn stared down at the ever-turning machinery that toiled endlessly beneath the crust of Decretum: massive gears that clanked endlessly onward, enormous, firing pistons, belts that whirred and chains that clicked and monumental steel teeth that clenched and ground together, keeping the mechanical world toiling ever onward.

The colt trembled, looking into the vast space beneath him. Traveling through the underbelly of Decretum could be frightening enough... but how was he supposed to get all the way down there without breaking his legs?

No, he knew what he had to do... and the colt took a slow breath as he readied himself before he leapt out of the hole, diving straight towards the ground as his horn glowed. He forced himself to keep his eyes open, gritting his teeth as the metal gears turning eternally below grew closer and closer-

Thorn snapped his horn forwards at the last moment, unleashing a telekinetic burst that hammered into the ground and then rebounded, turning his rapid descent into a lazy forwards flip. And a moment later, Thorn landed with a gasp on his hooves, managing to stick the landing for a moment... and then the massive gear he was standing on clanked forwards, and Thorn fell on his face with a loud thump, the colt letting out a little squeak of pain.

But as the gear continued to slowly revolve, Thorn carefully stumbled up to his hooves, whimpering a little as he looked back and forth. He could see scours and scars over the surface of the gear from the enormous drill hitting it, but he couldn't see the tool itself anywhere: he guessed it had likely already been thrown off into the miles and miles of moving mechanical puzzle.

The colt looked up towards where the gear was carrying him; where metal teeth bit together with short, thumping pauses between each clank and grind. Thorn stared at this, trembling hard before he set himself, locking his eyes on where he wanted to go, just like he always did with the training that Hecate had put him through...

The gear clanked forwards, and Thorn bolted the moment the teeth locked, sprinting to the edge of the gear before he leapt sharply onto the next gear. He charged over the makeshift platform as it clanked forwards again, nearly flung to the side before his eyes locked on a set of pistons that were pumping steadily but slowly.

The gear clanked forwards, almost flinging him towards the pistons as the one closest began to drop, and Thorn gritted his teeth before he flung himself forwards on pure, wild hope, extending both forelegs as far as he could-

He collided with a thump into the side of the piston, grabbing wildly at the edge of it before he gasped as his hooves and forelegs finally caught against the raised edge, the stallion clenching his eyes shut before he dropped his head forwards with a wheeze. He winced a bit as the piston dropped to its lowest position... then squeaked as it pumped upwards, almost flinging him off before he rolled himself forwards on instinct, landing with a thud on his back as he wheezed loudly.

He clutched at the piston as it dropped low, then winced as it pumped upwards again, flinching away as steam vented loudly from a nearby wall panel and nearly scalded him. He scrambled up to his hooves... then winced and dropped a little, barely managing to stay on his hooves as the piston shook as it clanked and pumped once more.

He rose the piston up and down as he looked ahead, breathing hard and timing the movements of the pistons carefully: finally, as it thrust upwards, Thorn leapt forwards to the next, wincing as he hit it and skidded a little over the top of the massive cylinder before managing to catch himself on the other edge. Then he stepped backwards and anchored himself hurriedly as it pumped again, riding it up before he jumped forwards at the last moment, using the momentum of the piston to boost himself.

He landed with a thump on the last piston, then immediately flung himself forwards to a small platform... and yelped in pain as steam vented out of a wall panel just as he began to pass, losing his balance and landing with a crash on his face and side on the platform. He gasped, spasming weakly before he started to shift, to force himself up to his hooves even as tears threatened his vision-

Something seized into him and yanked him into the air, and a moment later, Thorn found himself staring eye-to-eye with Hecate, who was glaring at him furiously. But there was concern in her eyes too, he thought, even as she growled: “What have I told you about playing down here, Thorn?”

Thorn smiled weakly, and then Hecate shook her head shortly before she looked over her shoulder at the floating, disc-shaped drones behind her, saying sharply: “Return to base. The subject has been located and will be placed in solitary confinement.”

Thorn winced a bit as the disks whizzed away, then Hecate turned and scraped one of her hooves against the platform, sending up sparks before she leapt into the air. A moment later, powerful boosters flared into life from Hecate's steel hooves, boosting her easily to another platform that she landed on with a tremendous bang as the jets of cold fire whiffed out.

Hecate straightened and strode moodily along the steel platform towards a tall archway, ducking through this and into a long, jagged tunnel as Thorn simply remained silent in her grip, looking up at her with humiliation before he whispered: “I'm sorry.”

Hecate didn't spare him a single look as she walked down the tunnel: even after they reached the ladder, Hecate simply tossed Thorn onto one steel shoulder, the colt clinging to the mechanical mare as she made her way calmly and coldly up rung after rung, until she finally pounded a trapdoor open with one steel fist and hauled herself up into a dark room, filled with metal crates.

Thorn hurriedly concentrated, his horn lighting up, but Hecate only stormed forwards, not needing any light to stride quickly through the room to the stairs. Her colt hurried along behind her, head lowered, flushed with embarrassment still as they ascended a set of stairs... and stepped into the basement of the Enlisted Outworlder base: as long as you knew which passages to take, from the underbelly of Decretum, you could find your way into almost any facility.

The two were silent as Hecate led Thorn all the way back to his room, then simply pointed at the door. Thorn dropped his head silently, holding back his tears as he opened it and strode inside... and then stared around in shock as he found himself standing inside what was no longer mostly empty space, but a fully-funished bedroom, with carpeting under his hooves, shelves lining the walls, a table and a dresser and a large, polished armoire...

Thorn stumbled around in a circle, not knowing what to say as Hecate looked down at him silently... and then he only shrank a little under her disapproving gaze before he whispered: “Miss Hecate, I'm... I'm so sorry...”

“What did I say about apologies?” Hecate asked moodily, and Thorn smiled faintly as he immediately dropped his head and nodded a little, closing his eyes and trembling a bit.

Hecate looked down at this colt, trying to stay angry at him, biting her lip... and then she finally leaned down and said coldly: “You're lucky I received a security call from Decretum. You're luckier still that I was able to remotely shut down the drones, Thorn. Otherwise the Chimera Types may have been activated to deal with the security threat, and then you would have been killed. You're just lucky there weren't any Hoplites on duty.”

Thorn remained silent, looking down at the ground as Hecate continued distastefully: “Furthermore, I saw your little stunt with the drill from one of my security orbs. I also detected the damage it did on the way down: as we speak, Worker Drones are attempting to wedge it out of a gear. Thankfully, not a master gear: but when one gear is clogged up or damaged by your antics, the entire machine is threatened. Do you really think your value exceeds the value of a planet, Thorn? Of even one facility?”

The colt swallowed thickly and whimpered a little, clenching his eyes shut as he half-turned away, the words cutting him deeply... but he knew that he was useless to her. He knew he was worthless to Hecate, and he hadn't even been able to gather any of the stupid trinkets he'd stupidly wanting to... but he was an idiot for even thinking that somehow those dumb toys would ever be of any value to someone who was so... so strong, so smart, so... focused and serious and...

Thorn heard the sound of shifting, then felt metal fingers tenderly stroke under his chin, gently guiding his head up. His eyes opened, the colt looking silently up through the tears in his eyes at Hecate, who was kneeling in front of him, her neon blue eyes gazing quietly down at him before she said softly: “But that doesn't mean I want to see you in danger, either. You have nothing to prove to me, Thorn. You're...”

She stopped, then shook her head before suddenly drawing back, straightening and becoming cold again, face like a mask of marble as she said shortly: “You're grounded. Stay in your room and do your work, Thorn. For the next week, you only leave this room with me as your escort.”

Hecate turned and left, the door slamming shut behind her, but Thorn only smiled faintly as he reached up and rubbed quickly at his eyes before he whispered: “Yes, Miss Hecate.”

Somehow, after all... that didn't sound entirely like a punishment to him.

Hardware Failure

Chapter Six: Hardware Failure
~BlackRoseRaven

Thorn's eyes opened, the colt gazing up at the ceiling of his room before he reached up and silently rubbed at his shoulder. He carefully rubbed down it to the metal-lined socket in his stump, closing his eyes tightly and shivering a little as he traced around it, feeling a distinct tingle before he gave a soft sigh. Horses of Heaven, he'd been such an idiot...

He shook his head slowly, then finally sat up, saying quietly: “Lights on. Main screen, turn on.”

There was a beep as the lamps in the ceiling came to dim life, and then the large, glass screen mounted on the wall beside his data manager clicked on, images and statistics spilling across the glowing screen. Thorn frowned a little at these, then rubbed absently at his eyes before he sat up and brushed his covers back, asking nervously: “Computer, what are the current power readings?”

The screen flickered, and then a large pie graph appeared, and Thorn frowned as he wiggled forwards across the bed, studying the image intently. A squiggly line graph appeared as well, but the colt ignored this as he instead muttered: “Why are the generators running so low... and why is so much power being siphoned to Genesis... unless...”

Thorn shifted quickly to the side, hopping off the bed and landing with only a little bit of awkwardness on three legs. He stumbled only a little as he made his way quickly to a large rack only a few feet away from his bed, the unicorn's horn glowing and carefully lifting his silver-steel prosthetic limb free.

He set it carefully down on its steel hoof in front of him, then he stepped forwards and shifted his shoulder so that the plug on the end of the limb pressed against the empty socket. Then he grunted and dropped his weight forwards as he yanked upwards with telekinesis, wincing as it popped loudly into place with a crackle of electricity.

Thorn rubbed at his mechanical limb for a few moments, and then he stomped the hoof absently a few times, feeling the complex machinery gearing up, responding to his thoughts and movements. He honestly had no idea how it really worked: he just knew that Hecate was a genius, and he trusted her when she said that it would work just as well as his natural leg would. The only difference was that, well... no matter how advanced the technology became, he would likely never able able to truly feel anything through it, ever again.

It was powerful and durable and self-repairing: some kind of magic or technology would make any minor damages done to it simply vanish within a few hours, and he could speed up the process by polishing it with a special goop that Hecate had given him. He had been wearing it every day for the last few months, and so far he hadn't had to bring it in for any repairs: Hecate really had outdone herself, he thought.

Then he shook his head quickly, clearing his thoughts before they could become bitter. There was something more important to focus on right now, anyway: something was going on at Genesis, and he had to find Hecate and find out what that was. There weren't any scheduled events he knew of, and Hecate would have warned him if she'd planned something, unless some kind of other emergency had occurred...

“Main screen, turn off!” Thorn called as he headed to the door, and the glass screen shut itself off with a click as the colt used telekinesis to press the button for the exit.

The door whirred weakly, and Thorn blinked and watched as it rose a few inches... then stalled with a clank, and Thorn winced as the lights of the room flickered weakly before they suddenly went out, the machinery in the door cutting out and leaving only an inch or two of space between the bottom of the door and the floor.

The colt winced and leaned down, looking awkwardly at the gap before he sighed a little before he reached forwards and carefully wiggled his mechanical hoof into the open space. He gritted his teeth, then hauled slowly upwards, wincing as he heard the machinery grinding and groaning inside the frame of the door.

He carefully let go of it once he was sure that the door wasn't going to fall, and then he quickly ducked through the space before yelping and leaping forwards, looking over his shoulder with a wince as the door slammed closed behind him.

Thorn looked uneasily up through the corridor as lights flickered weakly throughout the hall, Thorn absently biting at his metal hoof for a moment before he shook himself out and hurried down the corridor, every now and then tossing little, worried looks up at the ceiling.

Something was definitely wrong. Thorn stumbled a little over his own hooves as he made his way quickly down the corridor, tracing the now familiar route to the facility's exit. With the power flickering in and out, it took him a little longer than usual to navigate the confusing corridors and find better ways down than the malfunctioning elevators.

Of course, once he reached the doors, he found himself with another problem: they worked off a motion sensor, which currently wasn't functioning thanks to the low power. The colt awkwardly knocked on the doors, then hopped up and down in front of them uselessly before he looked nervously at his prosthetic leg, flexing it slowly before he mumbled: “I... well...”

Thorn bit his lip, then he leaned forwards and levered his mechanical limb firmly into the narrow space between the doors, making the machinery in the doorframe squeal before Thorn gritted his teeth as he slowly forced the door open, wincing as he felt the machinery in his foreleg grinding together before he hurriedly leapt forwards and through the heavier-than-expected doors.

He stumbled a little over the street, then turned his eyes quickly down the road, frowning nervously as he noted the dimness of the streetlights, and the fact that quite a few of the buildings didn't seem to have any power. But he could vaguely hear the sounds of machinery in the distance, and it was getting louder the closer he came to Genesis.

Thorn reached the castle after a short trot, and his eyes widened as he found a mass of Dogmatists and several enormous drilling machines all hard at work. To Thorn's shock, it looked as if part of the front of the castle had collapsed.

Except as Thorn hurried forwards, he realized that something else was wrong: Genesis was strangely... slumped, he thought. The colt bit his lip as he hurried towards a portable stage, where Hecate was standing with several screens floating around her, the mare's mechanical hands moving quickly over these as she said calmly: “Dispatch another team of Worker Drones to quadrant A-3. Make it priority. And send another Chimera Type into the breach. I need an uplink and I need it now.”

“What's going on?” Thorn asked quickly, and Hecate frowned a bit, making Thorn wince and mumble an apology.

“Scan the area. I want both visual and thermal scans, and I want them all assessed and analyzed within three hours.” Hecate ordered, and then she dismissed the screens around her with a sharp wave of a hand before she turned towards Thorn. “A Dogmatist made an error and stored thermal reactive explosive next to an exposed pipe.”

“The pipeline tests were scheduled for today... oh Horses of Heaven. Was anyone hurt?” Thorn asked worriedly, and Hecate scowled, making the colt wince a bit. “I mean... what are the estimated damages? How much has integrity fallen?”

“Genesis itself is at a critical point. Unfortunately, because of our excavation and the fact we've been using the castle as a means to access the Clockworks beneath Decretum's surface, part of it has already collapsed into the machinery below. We have to shut down the master gear and reroute power from other active sectors as soon as possible.” Hecate said calmly, scowling as she looked out over the ruins of the castle. “Once that's accomplished, we'll begin demolishing the face of Genesis.”

Thorn nodded hesitantly, biting his lip as he looked over the ruins of the castle before he asked hesitantly: “Can I help?”

Hecate scowled over at him... but after a moment, it turned thoughtful, the mechanical mare studying the colt for a few long moments. Because of her... promise to his parents... she didn't want to put him at risk. But at the same time, her logical mind said... “Yes. You should still be small enough to follow the fissures down to the sublevels. I want you suited up, Thorn, and then I will send you with a security orb to trigger the overrides. Can you handle this for me?”

Thorn trembled for a moment, eyes widening, feeling a mix of elation and fear... but then he forced himself to nod quickly and salute, whispering: “I won't let you down, Mom.”

“Queen Hecate, when we are on business, Thorn Blackfeather. Keep your emotions and duty separate.” Hecate replied calmly, but she was smiling a little all the same... and she felt worry as much as she did confidence that Thorn could handle this; more importantly, was the only capable pony on hoof who could not only reach the sublevels, but who would be able to follow her directions to deal with the override procedure. “We've already set up a data link here. Patch in to it and requisition your equipment, Thorn.”

“Yes, Queen Hecate!” Thorn nodded again with a smile even as his eyes betrayed some of his worry, chewing on his lip before he leaned forwards, concentrating as his horn lit up. Hecate watched with perhaps the smallest bit of pride as Thorn brought up a wavering holographic screen in front of himself: his mechanical arm had all the necessary components to link into Decretum's data points, but it was actually powered by Thorn's own magic, to avoid making the synthetic limb too heavy or to put too many compromising parts in it.

Thorn reached up his mechanical limb, swiping his metal hoof along the image to scroll quickly through various maps and data fields before he finally settled on an updated map of Genesis. He tapped on this, and Hecate watched with interest as the colt started to sweat a little, his horn's glow stuttering: it was strange but very interesting to her that while Thorn had such difficulty focusing his magic, his telekinetic powers were already exemplary.

Hecate softened a little as she thought of the data orb that Thorn had managed to bring up out of Decretum: he'd thought it was some kind of specialized security drone or prototype, but really, it was a system control node, which ran AI systems and logged data. But that made it even more valuable to her than Thorn could have possibly realized. It had shortened her own work on AI construction considerably, and it would allow for much easier implementation of both the virus that would flush the Clockwork King programming from Decretum, and establish her own AI design.

The mechanical mare crossed her steel arms as she watched Thorn start to stumble through the crowd of Dogmatists, trying to multitask and head for the equipment registry even as he went through the authorization process to sign the equipment out. His magic was flickering, his gait was unsteady, and yet Hecate smiled ruefully all the same. Thorn was still trying, after all.

She shook her head slowly, and then she forced herself to refocus on the task at hoof, eyes returning towards Genesis. The damage was much worse than she had told Thorn: part of her was tempted just to scrap the entire castle, and build some new structure in its place... or perhaps even convert it to an open pit that would stretch down into Decretum's depths, for material loading and unloading.

But that would be giving up, and it felt like she would be making a concession to Valthrudnir's idiotic plans and the ugly world he'd built. And furthermore, Genesis was supposed to be the crown, the centerpiece, to Imperia: a city she had built almost from the ground up. Admittedly, that was why they had gone much faster with its construction, since the Drones and Dogmatists had much less difficulty building than repairing...

No, she wasn't going to let Canterlot be taken away from her again. Hecate scowled at the castle, then summoned a holographic image with a wave of a steel hand, looking down at it and quickly scrolling through structural information as other data appeared on her lenses, along with calculations made by the computer part of her brain.

The mechanical mare studied these quickly before she heard a quiet beep in her mind, frowning slightly as she tilted her head down and images began to scrawl over her right lens. Structural changes, abnormalities that had been detected, continuing damages... yes, there was what she was worried about, and what would pose the biggest danger to Thorn. Even if power was being disrupted and rerouted, some of the systems were still operating on a 'never-off' principle and refusing her overrides. These machines were pumping energy throughout Genesis, trying to keep broken machinery operative... but with how the castle had crumbled, the dangerous chemicals used as fuel were instead leaking everywhere throughout the castle, and bare wires and broken machinery were sparking and steaming with almost-malicious lightning, just waiting for a victim to fry.

She paused the replay of the images the security drones had gathered, and started to quickly organize them in her mind, as her mechanical hands tapped rapidly along the holographic screen in front of her, mapping out the most profitable route for her ward to take. But it would still be dangerous for him: protective suit or not, she had no idea how some of these chemicals might affect him if they made contact with his body, in particular thanks to his father's peculiar heritage.

Hecate scowled a little as a strange thought whispered through her mind: not just worry for Thorn but... hesitation. She wasn't used to feeling hesitation, or any kind of doubt about what she was doing. She didn't like that the emotions she usually kept repressed and compartmentalized were now interfering with her logical mind, and she didn't like that she was having idiotic thoughts about 'protecting' Thorn by sending some drone to do this job for him.

But every drone had failed, and she knew that Thorn would succeed. He was small, nimble even with his prosthetic leg, and... adequate at following instructions. And with a security orb with him to scan out dangerous areas and map the route he was taking, he would be in minimal danger.

This made sense. This made Thorn useful. This worked to everyone's advantage. And yet all the same, Hecate felt... distracted and uneasy. She was sending Thorn down into the place where he had originally lost his leg, putting him into danger, making him deal with security protocols that she should have someone trained in engineering and mechanics modify, not a little colt...

She was asking a colt who didn't even have his cutie mark to do something that she would never have asked Thesis to do at the same age.

Hecate closed her eyes tightly for a moment as she saw her son in her mind, smiling happily up at her, proudly wearing his cadet uniform. He was strong, and smart, able to do anything and everything he put his mind to: he was honorable and happy and everypony liked him, she thought.

A flash, and she saw what Thesis had become, the stallion clutching his head as he tried to fight the mental programming and the chemicals that were pumped through mind and body by the exoskeleton on his back. He looked desperate, terrified, agonized-

Hecate's eyes snapped open, and her mechanical body shuddered before she quickly returned her attention to the holographic screen in front of her, tapping over it and scowling as she dismissed the useless memories. Thesis might have been perfect in a lot of ways, but he had always had a weak will. Thesis had been a genius, but he had never had much common sense. Thesis had been flawed. Thesis, ultimately, had been weak.

She looked coldly down at the screen, trying to drive the memories of Thesis away, even as she felt a gear strip in her chest. But she ignored it, her mechanical hands instead working quickly along the holographic projection as she plotted the simplest and least-dangerous route she could find for Thorn to take..

Thorn was agile for a foal... but he still stumbled, slipped, and lacked stamina. Thorn was smart, but he didn't learn as fast or retain information as well as plenty of ponies did. He was strong... but that was in part because of his mechanical foreleg, which he had taken to relying on far too much. He was enduring... but he dealt with his pain badly, always crying a little or whimpering even as he pushed through the pain. He was talented with telekinesis... but he couldn't move a great amount of weight, and nor was he very good at magic. He tried his best, but he rarely exceeded Hecate's expectations of him. And sometimes, he didn't even manage to meet them.

But Thorn did have one thing that she had rarely witnessed in a foal so young: a stubborn, strong will. Thorn couldn't be dissuaded by candy or gifts, couldn't be distracted by flashy images or lights, couldn't be ordered not to do something when he got it in his head that he needed to do it. He was always striving to prove himself, always pushing himself to do better: that was why, in spite of his mild pain tolerance and his tendency to try and deal with more than he was prepared for, Thorn all the same tended to struggle his way through any task he was given.

That reminded Hecate of his parents. His parents had been a lot of things, good and bad: chief among their worst characteristics was their tendency to be stupid, and their idiotic pride. But one of the best things about them had been their stubborn refusal to let anything slow them down: it was that strength and endurance that had made them the strongest ponies she had the not-always-pleasure of having known.

Hecate smiled wryly: and now here he was, calling her 'Mother.' Well, fine. If it suited him, she would allow that. He was an impressionable young colt, still, and in all likelihood he had been told before his parents had left to treat her like another mother. Perhaps Thorn didn't even have a real grasp of what that word meant, considering the family unit he'd grown up in.

Hecate paused, replayed her own thoughts in her mind, and then she scowled a little as she moodily made a correction in the course she was plotting through Genesis. She was a lot of things: ruthless, cruel, cold, and bitter. But she was rarely so childishly spiteful. She shook her head in disgust, feeling a strange reminder of the mare she had used to be dance through her mind: so obsessed with making everything pretty and perfect, who had calmly discussed 'bad things' she had no concept of, as if she had any right to judge...

She still didn't judge. She aspired to help with the order and structure of a flawed universe that too often favored idiots and chaos, but she did not seek to pass judgment. She didn't care if someone was 'good' or 'bad;' she only cared if they posed a threat to the natural laws of balance. She wasn't here to say this world or that ideal was better, but to preserve the worlds as they were: if those worlds rose or fell under their own power, she would allow it. But her watchful empire would intervene if there was any interference in these worlds from any outside source, be it another realm of ponies or something more malignant.

Sure, Valhalla and Helheim both did what they could to protect the realms: neither realm wanted to see their supply of fresh souls drying up, after all, as the energy harvested from living creatures and the bioelectric phenomenon known as 'souls' was what kept Heaven and Hell running. But Heaven and Hell had plenty of their own troubles to contend with, and they tried to keep their hands out of tampering with the physical worlds: the realms of Midgard were treated as their own territories, and left to be responsible for their own actions and the consequences thereof.

Hecate paused, then glanced down and grunted, quickly tapping on the authorization request from Thorn that finally came through. It had taken him long enough... but she noted that at least he was also already at the tent where the emergency equipment had been set up, so she couldn't complain he was wasting too much of his time.

She didn't bother to check what he'd requested, verifying his request and permitting the handler to pass out whatever it was Thorn wanted: the colt was smart enough to know what he'd need, and if he wasn't, well... he would just have to find alternate paths. And speaking of which...

The mechanical mare brought up Thorn's data bank, then uploaded the map she'd just finished to it so that he could bring it up on his own data screen. As the data was compiled and transferred, Hecate absently stretched her free arm out, a hidden plate sliding open in her armor before it ejected a security orb into the air, the glass ball gleaming as it sparked into life and floated for a moment, awaiting orders.

Hecate glanced up at it, then gestured moodily outwards, saying calmly: “Active eye mode. Find and accompany Thorn.”

The orb gleamed, and a moment later, translucent images appeared over the lens on Hecate's left eye, letting her look down at herself as the little camera in the orb transmitted everything it was seeing to her. The image was distorting and a little jarring, but Hecate was well-used to this by now as she smiled thinly, saying shortly: “Proceed to task.”

The security orb spun around, homing in on Thorn's last known location to 'escort' him. If necessary, Hecate could relay her voice through the little orb as well, to give Thorn orders, scold him or 'encourage' him if he froze up.

Meanwhile, Hecate turned her attention back to monitoring what the drones and Dogmatists were doing, while at the same time running an analysis on the structural integrity of Genesis. Unsurprisingly, it seemed to be weakening further: yet all the same, if they could just shut down the master gear beneath this quadrant and the accompanying generators, she was sure that they could stop the decay of the castle and stabilize it.

Hecate paused briefly as a pony was highlighted on her left lens, and she gave a slight smile: Thorn was already suited up and heading towards the castle entrance. Well, at least it was nice to see the colt was taking this seriously.

Thorn glanced up curiously as the security orb revolved quickly around him before he smiled in relief: he was actually happy to know that Hecate would be keeping an eye on him. He knew that she would warn him if there was anything wrong ahead, and the security orb would have a much easier time finding climb and travel points than he would.

Still, the colt was afraid, and on multiple levels: there wasn't just the fear of being hurt again, but also the fear of screwing up and making Hecate disappointed in him... and in his mind, which for all its maturity was still the mind of a twelve year old colt who had come to idolize his mechanical matriarch, that was much worse than losing another leg.

The colt did his best to keep focused, striding forwards and breathing slowly as he kept his head up and his eyes forwards. He slipped back and forth through the crowd of Dogmatists and drones, not letting the sights or sounds distract him as he headed for the gaping entrance of Genesis.

He had already memorized the initial entry plans: some of the rails still seemed to be intact, so he would hopefully be able to just slide his way right down into Decretum's lower levels. Engineering and the workshop areas were heavily reinforced, so they would likely still be intact, and as long as he made it down there he would be able to follow the rest of whatever route Hecate had planned out for him.

Thorn glanced over at the security orb, then gave a hesitant smile before turning quickly back ahead and hurrying onward to the lip of the entrance. There were lines of Drones going back and forth here, but everything was surprisingly neat and orderly... even if now that he was here, Thorn could see the extent of the chaos that Hecate's order was trying desperately to stop from growing any worse.

The castle had been reduced to something near ruin: Thorn had thought the outside had been bad, but the interior was in complete ruin, the floor little more than jagged and half-collapsed stone. The colt frowned uneasily as he shifted back and forth on his hooves, noting that the parade of drones was passing for the most part along bridges and marked areas of flooring that had been fortified or otherwise patched.

Thorn stepped nervously into the ruins... and winced as the floor immediately shifted under his hoof. The security drone beside him only buzzed impatiently ahead, however, and Thorn grimaced before he hurried across the floor, wincing and whimpering a little as pieces of floor shifted and creaked beneath his hooves, the stallion breathing hard as he made his way quickly towards the cracked archway where the security orb was floating. And then his eyes widened in surprise as the orb instead veered to the side, heading towards a large fissure in the wall, and the colt began nervously: “Wait, shouldn't I-”

The orb beeped at him insistently, and Thorn winced but then nodded quickly, scurrying after the hovering, gleaming ball. He winced as part of the floor shifted, making him stagger a little before he caught himself near the edge of the archway, then hesitantly straightened and stepped carefully forwards to poke his head into the fissure, gazing nervously down through the shaft.

The colt watched uneasily as the orb dropped through the shaft, the glow surrounding it brightening and lightning up the narrow passage. Thorn realized after a moment it was some sort of broken drainage pipe... but it looked as if the only thing that had passed through it for quite a long time now was dust. It also looked like it would be a rough climb down, but Thorn could see a few ledges here and there... and well...

He glanced at the satchel of equipment on his side, then reached back into it to pull out a thin, magnetic hook on a long black cable, which fed into a thick, band-like device he slid around his mechanical leg. The colt took a breath... then simply hopped into the passage, letting himself fall into the pipe as he slung the hook to the side with a wince.

It clanged loudly into something, then sparked as it sealed itself against the steel, while Thorn gritted his teeth as the cord unraveled rapidly behind him... but then it snapped taut, and Thorn was left hanging with a wheeze from the cord before he rubbed uneasily at his mechanical foreleg.

He carefully released his grip on the cord, simply dangling from it by his metal limb, and the device around his steel wrist clicked before it started to gently lower him. Thorn's horn lit up as he looked back and forth uneasily, casting an eerie blue glow around him as the security orb whizzed down through the pipe: a pipe that now seemed far deeper and eerier than Thorn had thought it would be at first.

He touched down after almost five minutes of slow descent: lowering into the unknown didn't make him nearly as nervous as the fact that every now and then, he could feel and hear the rumbles running through the castle around him, and once he even saw part of the pipe crack as the whole structure had shifted. He felt apprehensive as he carefully tested the pipe beneath his hooves... but this felt more solid, at least.

The colt looked up, then he pressed down on the device around his wrist before he yanked hard to the side, and there was a sharp buzz before, high above, the magnetic hook clicked loudly as it fell. Thorn nervously looked skywards, his horn glowing as he created a telekinetic net above his head... but even though he was expecting the hook, he still yelped when it dropped out of the darkness, startling him... although thankfully not enough to dispel the psychic net he had caught the hook with.

He shook himself out, then tapped another button on the side of the device, and a small motor began to whir inside the device as it sucked up the loose cable. After only about half a minute, the long cable had retracted, leaving only a little loose along with the hook. This was half-draped over Thorn's neck as he turned and began to stride down the pipe in the wake of the impatient security drone, which was beeping at him insistently in the distance.

“I'm coming!” Thorn finally said as he approached, and the beeping from the security orb finally cut off with an almost huffy sound, the colt smiling lamely. “I want to stay prepared, that's all.”

The orb only beeped when he drew close, then it spun around and shot onward, Thorn sighing and following the glass bauble as he said hesitantly: “Hey, don't... go too far ahead, okay? The footing here seems really uneven, and-”

There was a crack, and Thorn froze up, biting his lip for a moment before he slowly looked down to see that part of the floor had bent out of place beneath his hoof. He shifted nervously, then made a natural, if foolish, error: he tried to shift his weight to his mechanical leg.

His metal limb pushed down and tore through the thinned metal like paper, Thorn yelping as he fell and slammed face-first into the metal pipe, the impact causing him to tear through the steel and drop through the worn-out piping. He barely had enough time to realize he was falling before he slammed down into the ground, however, crying out in pain... but thankfully, the tough body suit warded off the worst of the sharp edges and broken pieces of metal he landed on, even if he still felt distinct pain as some of the broken steel all the same penetrated the armory bodysuit.

He shoved himself quickly up, gasping as he shivered and hugged himself, scratched and bruised. The security orb quickly shot down to him, scanning over him as Hecate's voice said sharply: “Thorn!”

“I'm okay, Mom, I-”

“Queen Hecate. And you're an idiot.” Hecate snapped, and Thorn dropped his head between his shoulders... but he thought that all the same he could hear relief in her voice as well. “We've talked about this in the past: your mechanical leg is calibrated for gentle movements, but that means you cannot push with it when trying to shift your weight. Use it as an axis, not as a support. Understood?”

“Yes, Queen Hecate. I'm sorry. Am I off course?” Thorn asked quietly, and there was silence for a few moments before the security orb turned and buzzed quickly ahead, then beeped once, and Thorn smiled as a light shone out from it, indicating the way to go. “Thanks... I mean, thank you. I'll keep on course this time.”

The security orb only beeped grumpily at him, and Thorn dusted himself off before he touched a rip in his bodysuit: it had already sealed itself, but he thought that he was bleeding under his clothes, and he felt a distinct pain in his shoulder...

Well, there was no time to check. For now, Thorn forced himself to walk forwards, breathing slowly and making his movements measured and controlled. A dull ache throbbed through his body... but after a few minutes of walking, it loosened.

He had apparently fallen into some kind of service corridor: the walls looked like they were starting to buckle under the pressure from above, but the floor seemed strong and stable, apart from the occasional crack. Yet all the same, the security orb was hurrying him along, and Thorn had the sense that something had either shifted in the last few minutes, or Hecate was detecting something outside that was starting to make her nervous... neither of which were good things, obviously.

Thorn halted as they reached a fork in the hall, but a moment later, but the security orb whizzed around in a circle before it glowed, and a moment later projected a holographic map, complete with their current location blinking quietly on it. He studied this thoughtfully for a few moments, then murmured: “Okay. I see where you want me to go.”

He took the left passage, and he soon found it starting to slope downwards, biting his lip nervously. The slope was surprisingly gentle for one that also clearly wasn't natural: it looked like a jumbled pile of rocks and stones and broken plates of metal, forming a slipshod path down into a canyon of broken cement.

The security orb buzzed on ahead, then suddenly halted and beeped as bright light shone out of the orb, lighting up the wreckage ahead and pointing out a large fissure in the floor. Thorn slowed as he approached this... then he stumbled back with a yelp when there was a gasp of steam out of the hole.

He slipped and hit the slope hard, and broken rock and plates crumbled immediately under him, breaking free: in panic, Thorn grabbed wildly at the slope, but his panicked movements simply tore more of the loose slope free and sent him skidding down to the hole in the ground. The security orb beeped wildly, zipping back and forth, but it was helpless to do anything as Thorn slipped over the edge and fell into the chasm.

Steam vomited out over him from a broken pipe, and Thorn cried out in pain as he twisted away from it in midair... only to hit a ledge chest-first. He gasped in pain as the sharp edge tore through his clothing, then he flopped backwards and crashed into something else, a pipe jarring out of place and black chemical splashing out over his suit, Thorn only able to cry out again as he spilled helplessly forwards.

He hit the ground, prosthetic-first, and he felt an agonizing blast of pain through his shoulder as the mechanical limb sparked violently and whirred loudly. He felt something hot, and wet, spreading slowly over his back, and Thorn whimpered quietly before he slowly tried to reach forwards... but his mechanical limb gave another sizzling squall, and Thorn weakly turned his head to see that the prosthetic was sparking violently, covered in sticky black chemical that was eating slowly through the metal and had apparently already gummed up or destroyed the gears inside.

He breathed quietly in and out, then instead wiggled his other foreleg forwards and grasped into the ground, half-yanking himself along the gravelly floor. His mechanical limb buzzed and crackled as it dragged uselessly behind him, and Thorn shivered a bit as he stumbled up to his hooves... then whimpered as he looked back over himself, seeing his bodysuit torn and covered in more of that reeking chemical.

He reached up and touched his face, trembling: he could smell it, feel it in his hair and over his features, too, but... it wasn't burning there, at least. He shivered a little, then looked nervously at his mechanical foreleg, which was still steaming and buzzing away: was it was some kind of special acid that only ate metal...

Thorn nervously reached up and touched his mechanical limb... then yelped and drew his hoof quickly away, shaking it out in surprise. It had actually felt quite hot...

He shivered a bit, biting his lip for a moment before looking up as the security orb shot down towards him, quickly twisting around the stream of black fuel spilling down from the broken pipes above. It scanned him quickly, darting back and forth around him, and Thorn lowered his head almost as if ashamed, whispering: “I'm sorry, Queen-”

“Enough.” Hecate's voice cut off curtly, and then she said in a quieter tone as the drone started to float away: “This is too dangerous. There's a chemical storage room ahead sufficiently strong enough to act as a bunker. Stay there until I can have a Dogmatist retrieve you.”

“N-No.” Thorn blurted, and the security orb swiveled towards him, as if surprised. “I... I want to finish this, I just...”

Thorn looked apprehensively at his damaged mechanical foreleg... and then he bit his lip before reaching up and untangling the loose grapple hook from around his neck – not realizing how fortunate he'd been not to end up choked by it during his fall – and then he carefully pressed a short pattern along the edge of the prosthetic, closing his eyes before he grimaced a bit and twisted.

There was a loud hissing, and a moment later, his mechanical limb fell free with a clank, sparking uselessly on the ground. Thorn clutched his stump for a moment, shivering a little before he hesitantly touched along the socket, murmuring: “I don't think this was damaged at all.”

“Thorn. You are not strong enough, and you are not trained for this. You cannot succeed with three legs. Go to the room ahead, and wait.” Hecate ordered.

The colt looked at the security orb for a few moments... and then he took a slow breath before raising his head and stuttering: “N-No. I'm... I'm going to go and finish this b-because... because I must be below engineering, r-right? I... I want to go down into the Clockworks.”

There was silence for a few moments... and then the security orb buzzed almost disconsolately before Hecate said moodily: “There's an air vent ahead. You can use that to access one of the turbine chambers, and take another vent passage down to the Clockworks. Take your rappel.”

Thorn smiled and nodded hurriedly, turning around and quickly wiggling the device off the abandoned prosthetic. He used telekinesis to slide and secure it onto his flesh and blood limb, then quickly hung the loose cable and hook around his neck.

He stumbled his way carefully down the hall, careful with how he shifted his weight along on his three legs. But every night, he exercised his limbs and worked on his balance, both with and without his mechanical leg: only now Thorn was really starting to understand precisely why Hecate had always been so insistent on that, though.

The colt found the grate he was looking for without much trouble: it was already most of the way out of the wall, thanks to shifting of the castle. Thorn used telekinesis to carefully wiggle it the rest of the way free, then gently set it aside so he could duck down and crawl into the vent, the security orb floating behind him almost apprehensively as Hecate said moodily: “Be careful, Thorn. You don't have much further to go, but you are...”

She stopped, and Thorn paused in the vent, looking curiously over his shoulder at the security orb before Hecate sighed and said in suddenly-soft voice: “Just be careful.”

Thorn smiled, then he nodded and turned, breathing slowly as he wiggled his way carefully forwards through the vent passage. He reached the other side, and half-fell off a short ledge into the room beyond with a wince, flinching in pain. Then he awkwardly rolled up to his hooves and pushed himself up to a standing position, looking nervously at the massive turbine in the center of the room.

This was an air circulation chamber, used to pump air down into the Clockworks: most of the Dogmatists and plenty of the other servants of Decretum still needed to breathe, after all, and the air down here tasted stale even when the turbines were running at full power. But this one, at least, was shut down: Thorn wasn't sure if Hecate had stalled it, or if the shifting of the castle had caused a rupture in its power grid or something similar.

The floor beneath him was grated, letting him gaze down an empty, wide shaft that led down into the Clockworks: Thorn studied what was below for a moment before Hecate's security orb said irritably: “Here, hurry up. Stop wasting time. Structural integrity is dropping.”

Thorn nodded and quickly staggered his way over to a hidden trapdoor. He scrabbled at it for a moment, then gritted his teeth and instead used telekinesis to heft the heavy hatch open, wincing a bit as he managed to lever it up before he caught it with his hoof, then grunted and slowly pulled back with both his foreleg and telekinesis, finally managing to yank it open.

It clattered down with a bang, and Thorn looked nervously into the hatch before Hecate instructed sharply through her security orb: “Lower yourself slowly. Slowly, Thorn. The machinery below is malfunctioning and working erratically.”

Thorn nodded hesitantly, then he carefully shrugged off the hook before gently tossing it a foot or so away. It clattered against the metal grating, then simply laid there, and Hecate sighed in exasperation. “Hook it into the grating, Thorn. The magnets won't activate automatically with this patterning of material.”

The colt blushed, then he stepped forwards and picked up the grappling hook, carefully working it down into place before wincing when the hook sizzled and then clanked loudly as it secured itself to the steel floor. Thorn pulled absently on the cable, then he hesitantly began to step backwards before Hecate said quietly: “Remember. Keep a firm grip, Thorn. And don't just hang. Your foreleg doesn't have environmental adapters.”

Thorn nodded a few times, taking the cable into his hoof as he stood for a moment at the trapdoor, and then he took a slow breath before leaping forwards with a wince into the open air. The cable caught against the corner of the trapdoor before it gave a rude jerk on his forelimb, the colt wincing and penduluming, almost losing his grip.

But after a moment, he caught tightly onto it, swinging weakly back and forth and making a stuttering descent into the Clockworks as he winced and forced himself to look down, flinching only slightly when a blast of steam vented out of a ruptured pipe. He looked nervously back and forth before the security orb whizzed down beside him, revolving once around him before Hecate said coldly: “You do not have a clear landing zone beneath you.”

Thorn quickly looked straight down, then winced and pulled on the cord he was dangling by as best he could, slowing his descent to a crawl as he said nervously: “I... I think that I can make it...”

Straight beneath him was a large piston, which was smoking and clanking up and down rigidly, with no visible pattern to its movements. Thorn bit his lip as he looked uneasily at this, but while the piston was moving erratically, it was also moving slowly: it didn't seem capable of jerking more than a foot or so up or down.

“Thorn, swing over to that gear.” Hecate ordered, and Thorn grimaced a bit... but then he nodded hesitantly as he looked towards the gear in question: it was tilted slightly and jammed by several chunks of debris, and he could probably reach it...

The colt drew his hind legs back before kicking them hard forwards, swinging himself out... but then he realized dumbly that he had no way to actually grab onto it while he was holding on to the cable, thanks to only having one foreleg. But it was still a little beneath him, and he thought that maybe he could actually swing himself onto it if he built up enough momentum...

He swung backwards, then kicked hard out, swinging himself forwards as hard as he could. Then he winced as he came up just short, flailing his rear legs at the enormous gear but coming up just short, the colt whimpering under his breath.

He swung backwards, then looked up with a curse as the cable twisted in his hoof, the colt kicking his legs uselessly before he looked over his shoulder... and stared in horror at the sight of the broken piping and sparking electrical cables he was swinging towards, the colt kicking his legs wildly before he quickly snapped his horn forwards and unleashed a powerful blast of telekinesis.

It rebounded off the wall and smashed into him, but in his panic, Thorn had lashed out with much more power than he'd meant to, sending himself swinging sharply backwards and spinning out of control as his hoof slipped from the cable: the result was that Thorn ended up slamming back-first into the edge of the gear, the colt crying out in agony as he bent painfully before his rear legs kicked over his head and he ended up landing in a painful bellyflop on the enormous cog.

He gasped weakly, trembling for a few moments as his foreleg clutched convulsively at the edge of the gear... and then he clenched his eyes tightly before he slowly forced his trembling limbs under him, even as his whole body shook with pain and tears ran down his cheeks.

The security orb buzzed quickly around him, scanning him... before it suddenly bleated and shot upwards, looking towards the ceiling as a rumble passed through the room. “Thorn, structural integrity is still declining!”

“Show me where to go.” Thorn whispered, and the security orb floated down in front of him, and Thorn could almost feel Hecate staring at him through it as he looked silently into the glass ball, before smiling faintly and whispering: “I trust you.”

The security orb buzzed for a moment... and then Hecate growled in irritation before her voice muttered: “This way.”

The orb spun around and floated quickly over towards a counterweight that was jaggedly moving up and down, and Thorn took a slow breath before he used telekinesis to quickly yank off the device around his wrist, tossing it away. The grapple would be useless down here, anyway: there were too many moving gears and erratic machines. He was just going to have to take it slow...

Thorn watched as the counterweight descended, then stopped and sparked before rising again: he noted that even though the speed was variable, it still had to ascend or descend all the way before it could start jerking in the other direction. Then he glanced at the security orb in surprise as Hecate said moodily: “The control box you're looking for is on a lower level. Fortunately for you, that means moving down through the mechanisms, not up.”

Thorn nodded hesitantly, then he bit his lip before whispering: “I can do this.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Hecate said quietly: “I know.”

The colt smiled faintly over at the security orb, and then he took a slow breath before turning his eyes ahead, carefully setting himself. He looked uneasily at the counterweight, watching as it ascended in a burst before clanking, then starting to drop...

Thorn readied himself... then jumped the moment the counterweight fell, landing on it with a thunk and stumbling on his three legs with a gasp of pain before he half-fell into the greasy rail the counterweight moved along. He winced and straightened... then yelped when the counterweight jerked to a stop, steam hissing out beneath it.

“Jump left!” Hecate shouted, and Thorn didn't question her, only turned and threw himself blindly away from the machine. He fell, for long enough to wonder if he'd missed his mark... then crashed painfully down onto the surface of a large, slowly revolving plate, gasping in pain.

“Thorn! Get up!” snapped Hecate from the orb, and Thorn began to drag himself to his aching hooves before his ears picked up the sound of hissing...

He looked over his shoulder, and stared in horror at the sight of the electrical grid the wheel lazily revolved through... and he was heading right towards. Thorn hurried to his three legs, then broke into an awkward, staggering canter, gasping in pain as he yanked himself along as he headed to the edge of the disc before his eyes widened.

The security orb had shot down to a set of pistons that were arranged side-by-side, pumping in broken rhythm. But it was narrow, and he was scared, and the distance was so far and he...

He had no choice.

Thorn threw himself into the air, kicking off with his rear legs as hard as possible... and he crashed down on the first piston in the row. But it stuttered under his landing, and Thorn fell forwards, bouncing off the second piston before he crashed off the side of the hot steel pipes beneath him.

There wasn't even enough time to cry out before he collided with several cables, and Thorn managed to wrap one of his legs around one of these with a whimper, dangling from it and trembling hard. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he breathed harshly in and out, his whole body aching, his body trembling, and there was nothing but darkness and spinning gears beneath him, waiting to crush him, destroy him, swallow him up...

“Thorn.” The security voice floated down in front of him, and Thorn whimpered as he looked at the glass bauble as it seemed to stare resolutely back at him, before Hecate said quietly: “You can use this cable to pull yourself across to one of the distribution towers. From there, it should be easy for you to reach the control station for this quadrant's master gears and power supply.”

“I.. I can't...” Thorn whispered, trembling as he looked up at his hoof, which was desperately clutching the cable. “Mom, I'm... I'm gonna fall, y-you... you have to send-”

“Then you fall.” Hecate said callously, and Thorn whimpered a little at this, staring disbelievingly at the security orb before Hecate said calmly: “You got yourself into this situation, Thorn. If you want out of it, then you get yourself out under your own power.”

“B-But-”

“Enough, Thorn. You heard me.” Hecate said icily, and Thorn whimpered and lowered his head before the mare said in a quieter voice: “Every second you waste leaves you weaker. You know what you have to do.”

Thorn bit his lip, and then he took a slow breath before swinging his legs back, then kicking them upwards with a whimper. The first missed, and Thorn dangled, trembling and shaking... but after a moment, he repeated the movement, and this time managed to kick his legs high enough to wrap them around the cable, leaving himself dangling by all three limbs.

He breathed quietly for a moment, eyes tightly closed before he gritted his teeth and began to shuffle his way slowly down the line. The security orb followed him, Hecate watching silently through the device as he crept his way carefully along the line.

After almost twenty minutes, Thorn finally reached the massive pillar the cable stemmed from, the colt looking down at the platform some ten feet below. He shivered for a few moments, gnawing at his lip before he carefully let his rear hooves drop, dangling by his one foreleg until he finally dropped and landed with a bang on his hooves, gasping in pain as he felt his limbs quake beneath him.

But after a moment, he managed to pick himself up and shake himself out, breathing hard before Hecate's security orb circled the walkway around the pillar, then said calmly: “ Go down three levels to access the mainframe. I'll give you instructions once you get there.”

Thorn nodded a few times, then he took a slow breath before he nervously circled the walkway, looking for the easiest way down: there was a ladder, but the hatch was jammed and Thorn didn't think that he had the strength to open it.

So instead, Thorn nervously approached a set of cables that was hanging just past the railing that surrounded the walkway: the colt was able to reach out and hesitantly test their strength before he carefully wiggled himself over the railing, wrapping his foreleg around the cables and taking a slow breath before he hopped off and let himself slide down the tangle. He had to pause a few times to carefully work his way past several knots in the wires, but then continued carefully downwards.

Most of the cables terminated just above a larger platform: the one that Thorn assumed he was supposed to land on. He carefully hopped down to the ground, wincing in pain as he landed on his hooves before the security drone buzzed by and stopped beside a large, rectangular device that rested against one side of the pillar. “Here.”

Thorn hesitantly approached, biting his lip before Hecate instructed: “First, shut down the power grid. Then remove the plugs.”

The colt nodded a little, reaching up and grasping the oversized power switch, yanking it to the off position. He winced as there was a spark of electricity, but then simply stepped back from the control panel and lowered his head forwards slightly, his horn glowing and pulling loose the half-dozen, large metal plugs one after the other from their section of the device.

There was a faint beeping, and then another section of paneling opened, Hecate instructing: “Unplug nodes two and four, and switch the position of the alpha and gamma cables.”

Hecate's instructions became steadily more complicated, but Thorn followed all of them closely, not making a single mistake thanks in part to his telekinetic ability. It took almost ten minutes of changing wires, switching nodes back and forth, and a little bit of tearing and pulling... but finally, Thorn was able to throw the main power switch back to the 'on' position.

There was a tremendous boom throughout the Clockworks, and Thorn yelped and looked up in shock as the lights went out, thinking for a moment that he was about to bring the whole castle down on top of his head... but a moment later, red light washed over him as the emergency lights kicked in, and the security orb glowed brightly as it descended in front of Thorn.

The colt gave a lame smile to the security orb as the machinery all around him ground to a halt, and then Hecate said quietly: “All power has been diverted away from Genesis, and the clusters that power the fuel pumps have shut down, forcing the fuel lines to divert away from Imperia. We'll lose a few tons of fuel, but Worker Drones are already constructing a pan array. They'll catch most of the waste in this and then burn the carbon out of it.”

Thorn nodded a little, before the security orb floated down and Hecate said in a gentler voice: “Just stay here for now, Thorn. I'll send a Dogmatist down to retrieve you and bring you back to your room at the Enlisted Outworlder facility. I'll have you treated there.”

The colt nodded again, trying to smile up at Hecate, but the security orb was already flying quickly away. And yet all the same, Thorn felt like Hecate was still watching him, making sure he was safe as he settled back and closed his eyes.

He was safe. And he had done what he had promised to do.

He just hoped that he had made his mother proud.

Immaterial Things

Chapter Seven: Immaterial Things
~BlackRoseRaven

Thorn Blackfeather absently rubbed at his mechanical leg, then he flexed it slowly, the plated limb clicking loudly several times as Hecate inspected the young stallion for a few moments. Finally, she asked simply: “Well?”

“It feels good.” Thorn replied, giving a small smile as he looked up at Hecate and nodded, and there was silence for a few moments before he slowly rubbed at his foreleg. He flexed it carefully again, studying his mechanical limb for a few moments and the differences between it and his former prosthetic: the plates were one, and the piston rods were another, pumping slowly as he moved his limb.

He returned his eye to the mechanical mare after a moment, saying quietly: “Thank you.”

Hecate only grunted at the young stallion, gesturing at him and replying moodily: “Sixteenth birthdays are supposed to be... special, I suppose. Besides, you've grown, and thus, your productivity dropped due to outdeveloping the equipment I gave you.”

Thorn only gave one of his small smiles again, nodding a little and not bothering to argue with her: he knew Hecate well enough by now to understand when he should just go along with whatever she was saying. The young stallion stretched out his mechanical limb slowly, then he rolled it absently before stomping it testingly once, twice, thrice against the floor of the painfully-neat workshop where Hecate did most of her designing. “Ten thousand pounds?”

“Twelve.” Hecate said calmly, looking down at him moodily... but there was a bit of approval in her eyes too. She would be far more irritated and insulted if he didn't immediately try and test the limb out, see what it was capable of.

There was silence between the two for a few moments, and then Thorn smiled a little, looking up at the mechanical mare and starting to open his mouth, but Hecate only held up a steel claw and said moodily: “I don't want to hear it, Thorn. Do you have your assignment for today?”

Thorn laughed a little, rubbing absently at his shoulder before he said finally: “I can work today, honestly. It wouldn't be any-”

“I don't want you working today. I want you to find something else to do with yourself.” Hecate said irritably, gesturing distastefully at the young stallion. Sixteen years old... and yet, as her eyes roved over him, she noted the lack of a cutie mark... and not without a bit of guilt.

After all, how was Thorn supposed to find his special talent if he was working all the time? With the years that he'd spent here, he'd become very skilled at handling the paperwork and the administration duties, and he had some mechanical and programming knowledge thanks to all the time he'd spent around her and the industrial Dogmatists.

But none of these things were his 'talent:' they were all skills Thorn had developed over months and years of training and learning from her. And because he was such a mix of obsessive-compulsive and work-oriented, he spent almost all his time following her around, checking schedules and helping out with anything she would let him.

He wasn't like the few other youths here in Decretum: as he'd grown older, he'd gotten quieter and more serious. He was antisocial, and avoided contact with just about everyone apart from her: on the other hoof, however, he seemed to be quite comfortable around the Dogmatists, something that couldn't be said for more than a few of the Enlisted Outworlders.

Hecate studied Thorn moodily as he returned his eyes to his prosthetic, checking it diligently over before she asked irritably: “Does it not meet your standards, Thorn?”

Thorn smiled up at his adoptive mother, bowing his head respectfully towards her, and the mechanical mare grunted grouchily but relented a little as Thorn lowered his limb before he said softly: “I really appreciate it, Mom.”

Hecate grunted, shifting ever so slightly, and then Thorn continued awkwardly: “I could go and work with the Replicants today, though, and test-”

“Shut up, Thorn.” Hecate said irritably, and then she rolled her eyes before pointing at him and saying moodily: “I do not enjoy the fact that you are growing more and more difficult to tell apart from one of my Dogmatists. What defines the difference between a pony like yourself and a Dogmatist is their emblem, or 'cutie mark.' Go and find your special talent, Thorn.”

Thorn looked nervously up at Hecate, chewing on his lip before he opened his mouth, and Hecate said sourly: “No. I can not and will not waste my resources helping you in any way, shape, or form.” She stopped, then sighed a little at the half-meek, half-imploring look Thorn gave her. “Thorn, this is something that all foals are supposed to have found on their own at half your age, or younger...”

The young stallion only blushed a bit, then he scraped his metal hoof against the floor before he said finally: “Aren't... aren't talents often passed down through families? And my Father was a Replicant, and my mother... my biological mother, I mean, Móðer-”

“I know who you're talking about. Her talent was being a nuisance.” Hecate said flatly, and Thorn gave the mechanical mare a lame smile before Hecate reached up and slowly rubbed at one of her temples, answering grudgingly: “Your father was a different case from most. He was a Replicant, yes, but of a different nature. He was born naturally, before...”

Hecate halted, then shifted ever so slightly again: maybe that wasn't really her story to tell. So instead, she moved back to the topic at hoof, answering shortly: “Your father had a natural talent for writing, that is where his cutie mark came from. And your mother, while she did not birth you, was talented in magic. You obviously do not share that talent, but I can certainly see how some of her compulsions were ingrained into you at a young age, Thorn.”

Thorn smiled awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck slowly before he cleared his throat, then asked quietly: “And what about you, Mom?”

“Do you ever stop and think about what an inanity it is that you not only had two mothers growing up, but that you now cling to me as some sort of replacement matriarchal figure?” Hecate snapped irritably, but Thorn only dropped his head and blushed.

There was silence for a few moments, and then Hecate finally sighed and pointed towards the door of the workshop, saying moodily: “Go... read in the library.”

“Can you... answer my question first, please?” Thorn pressed, and Hecate sighed a little before he said finally: “I just think that you've really rubbed off on me, too.”

“Thorn, I... allowed you into Decretum when you were ten years old, little more.” Hecate grumbled, but she couldn't stop her eyes from roving downwards, studying the steel leg of the stallion before she murmured: “Perhaps not everything I've done for you has been... improvement.”

Thorn smiled faintly, looking down at his steel leg, flexing it slowly before Hecate grumbled, if only to change the topic: “I was Princess Celestia in life, Thorn. I am certain you know how the realms work, and the stories about the Princesses of Equestria.”

But to her surprise, Thorn shook his head and replied honestly: “I don't, at all. Mom told me a lot of stories about Equestria, but I never heard much about any princesses. I don't... know a lot about the mortal world. I just know that there's many different versions of it, and you want to protect it.”

Hecate studied Thorn thoughtfully for a few moments, but then realized... “Of course you don't. You were born and raised in Helheim.”

The young stallion nodded, replying quietly: “I know all about the Great Separation, and I know all my parents' stories about the Valkyries and Valhalla, but I don't know a whole lot about the mortal world or... how it works or anything.”

“Do you know that you have a brother and two sisters?” Hecate asked bluntly, and Thorn blushed deeply before he lowered his head and nodded almost meekly.

“I... I do.” he said quietly, shifting a little as he glanced off to the side in embarrassment. “I also know that I'm... not supposed to talk about my family outside of your presence, Hecate, and... I'm not allowed to meet them. Not until I'm an adult.”

Hecate gave a wry smile, and then she nodded and replied quietly: “That's correct, Thorn, and I am going to ensure that you stick to that promise. You get in enough trouble here in Decretum as it is... which shows you may have a talent for finding trouble, Thorn. That, you certainly inherited from your parents.”

Thorn only blushed a bit and gave a lame shrug, and Hecate rolled her eyes before saying finally: “Enough stalling, Thorn. Go find your special talent. And I only hope that it's not something that is going to annoy me any further than you already do.”

Thorn lowered his head awkwardly, then he cleared his throat before saying lamely: “I'll do my best, Mom.”

Hecate grunted and turned her back on him to pointedly start her work on some other project, and Thorn smiled a little at his mother's back before he turned and hurried towards the door. It slid open for him, and he glanced down with a soft laugh as he watched how his limb moved as he let himself shift from a trot to a canter down the long, empty hall.

His mechanical limb moved smoother than any other had in the past, and he thought the weight distribution was better, too... and it wasn't like his previous limbs hadn't been masterworks to begin with. But this felt almost natural, responding in time to his every movement as he approached another electronic door...

It opened before he could reach it, a Replicant hopping happily through, and Thorn winced as he skidded to a halt, his metal hoof sending up sparks... but letting him easily hop swiftly to the side to try and duck around the squat, flame-red earth pony, but she hopped in the same direction before blinking and giggling even as Thorn winced and tried to jump to the other way.

The Replicant mirrored him again, however, and this time she chortled laughter, tossing her jagged, sky-blue mane before she leapt back in front of the door and exclaimed: “You're silly, Thorn!”

“Necrophage. Please.” Thorn almost pleaded as he halted, looking exasperated even as he absently flexed his steel leg and found himself surprised again by the speed and ease of response. “I have to go find my special talent-”

“Oh, oh, oh! Let me help!” Necrophage immediately wheedled, dancing happily on the spot, and Thorn grimaced and leaned away a little. It wasn't that he didn't like the Replicants or anything, but certain ones like Necrophage, with her damaged personality programming, could be a little... vexing.

“This is a personal assignment, thank you. Besides, Queen Hecate is expecting you.” Thorn replied, seizing quickly on the only possible reason why a Replicant like Necrophage would be heading towards Hecate's personal workshop.

Necrophage nodded a few times, and then she and Thorn both sidestepped at the same time again, the Replicant giggling loudly as the stallion resisted the urge to drop his face in his hoof, instead sighing and half-turning to gesture sharply backwards.

Necrophage happily bounced past, and Thorn couldn't help but look at her blank hip as she passed by, the stallion frowning a little before Necrophage suddenly halted in the middle of the hall, smiling over her shoulder at him and saying brightly: “You just have to believe in yourself, Thorn, that's all!”

Thorn stared dumbly at the squat pony, who only giggled and turned to bounce happily onward. The stallion was left gazing dumbly after her for a few moments, and then he finally sighed and shook his head, deciding that the best thing he could do was probably just continue on his way for now: trying to make sense of Necrophage always ended up just being a waste of time.

The young stallion turned and made his way out: he headed straight for the library, as if following orders, even though he knew that all Hecate wanted was for him to take a day off. But he didn't feel like taking a day off, even if it was his sixteenth birthday: his birthdays had just... never been that important to him. He liked it acknowledged, sure, but he never really... wanted anything.

What was important was living up to Hecate's expectations, and doing everything he could to continue to serve Decretum. He was strangely proud of this mechanical world he lived in: he wanted to be a part of it, and he wanted to help it evolve and grow in the best way that he could.

The young stallion entered the library, casting off his thoughts as he instead glanced around a massive repository that was unlike any library he'd seen in Helheim. Instead of books, the low, rounded shelves were filled with data logs: these would play back information in a variety of ways, from scrolling text to audio files, and even in holographic projections. Data was constantly being compiled and added to the logs, which covered a wide variety of topics: there was everything from compilations of generic statistics about Decretum, to long stories about fantastic worlds.

Thorn strolled over to one of the shelves, starting to browse: it might not look like much, but terabytes of data had been compiled on each log, and they were updated frequently. Thorn absently plucked one of the thin, tablet-shaped devices free from the shelf, then he swiped his hoof over the touchscreen on the front.

It immediately lit up, a table of contents appearing on-screen: this archive contained at least three dozen different books, all on the same topic: poetry. Thorn nodded to himself after a moment, then he lifted the tablet with telekinesis and turned to head towards one of the curved metal tables: the tables were all arranged and designed so that they formed several wide rings around the center of the room, so that lectures or presentations could be held.

Not that there was a whole lot of academia here in Decretum. Thorn sat down and slipped the data log into the holder built right into the desk, before he crossed his forelegs over the table and dropped his head across them. He used telekinesis to poke his way through the table of contents until he found what he was looking for, and then he settled in to simply read for a little while.

He liked poetry. It was the only real thing outside of work that he ever really enjoyed, or helped him relax. The young stallion hoped that maybe if he cleared his head, he could focus better on figuring out what his special talent was supposed to be...

Thorn smiled a little to himself as he scrolled his way down through several poems, studying them: their meter, their rhyme and rhythm, their... intent. He thought that was the most important thing in any bit of prose or poetry, the intent, the emotionality: if you could feel the emotions the writer was trying to convey, then the poem was a success. Sure, there was a lot to be admired in mastering the technical skills, in learning and manipulating the mechanics... but sometimes, raw emotion, passion, was more than enough on its own.

The young stallion smiled a little as his eyes roved over another poem. Hecate was like that, he thought: her personality was rough and sharp, and she was incredibly passionate and dedicated to what she cared about. He admired her bluntness, and how she was... professional, he thought, was probably the best word for it.

Thorn chuckled a little to himself, and then he murmured softly: “Steel, protecting the... I don't know. The sun, maybe. For some reason, when I think of Hecate, I think of the sun.”

He smiled a little, then shook his head briefly before closing his eyes, tilting his head to the side as he murmured: “Steel petals sheath the core, hoarding warmth beneath its surface; blossom now, and spill your light...”

He stopped, then frowned a bit before shaking his head out and muttering: “Not quite right.”

The young stallion shifted a little in his seat, and then he scrolled down... and grumbled when he found the poem cut off, poking the screen grouchily a few times. Either the data log had crashed, or it hadn't been updated all the way yet: one of the pitfalls of technology, he reflected.

The young stallion swiped across the device with his hoof, turning it back off, and then he sat back in his seat and sighed a little as he looked down at the blank desk in front of him. He looked back and forth through the empty library, reflecting on just how creepy a big empty room could be when you were left with nothing to distract you.

He was generally the only pony who used the library, though: since there were multiple copies of every data log, and information was constantly logged by the security node above the door about who was removing what from the room, there wasn't really any need for a formal sign in-or-out process. Of course, Hecate had already threatened to demote him to 'head librarian' if he let his productivity drop as low as he had last week...

But last week had been a rough week. He'd outgrown his synthetic limb and the socket, and he'd had to have surgery, then limp around on three legs while he healed up and his body readjusted to the large piece of metal built into his stump. Not to mention the fact Hecate had to actually connect wires and nerves, which had left him very tired and achy.

Horses of Heaven, he wished that he could do something to repay her for all her kindness. Even with her threatening to demote him, she had just been trying to give him time off in his favorite place, 'punishing' him in order to protect him. He knew that she cared about him: how deeply, he wasn't sure, but he had never, ever forgotten that she had been by his side the entire time after he'd lost his leg. That Hecate, Empress of Decretum, had put aside her schedules and duties for a colt she had only known for a few months...

Thorn smiled a little, and then he hesitantly rubbed at his shoulder. He had never been able to do much for her. He didn't know when her birthday was, and Hecate generally responded to personal questions by kicking him out of the room. Sometimes literally.

And Thorn guessed that he wasn't exactly the kind of kid to come running to his parents with drawings or handmade trinkets. He'd never done that even when he was younger, and it wasn't like he'd ever had access to crayons or clay or hoofpaints while here in Decretum. Hel, he could just imagine the look on Hecate's face, if he'd ever come running up to her with paint all over his hooves, tracking it through her nice, polished metal halls...

He really wished that he had.

Thorn smiled faintly, looking down and shaking his head briefly before he closed his eyes and gave a soft sigh. It would have been embarrassing, and dumb, and childish... but he was supposed to have been a child, right? He didn't know: growing up in Helheim had meant being exposed to a lot of things he didn't think most little foals saw. Sure, his parents and his nanny, Justine, had always tried to protect him from as much of it as they could, but...

Thorn rubbed slowly at his throat, then his hoof silently trailed down the scars on his chest: some were older, and others were newer, from when he'd made the run through the Clockworks for Hecate, in order to shut down the machinery and save Genesis. That was still one of the proudest moments of his life... he thought it always would be, as a matter of fact.

The young stallion smiled a little and shook his head briefly. But he never would have been able to do it without Hecate. Hecate, who pushed him, who made him work, who caught him when he fell... but made sure that he always took responsibility for everything he did. Sure, sometimes it upset him, hurt him... but then she was there. There to save him, there to protect him, if everything went wrong.

And he called her Mom, but... since when had he ever tried to be her son instead of just her assistant?

Thorn reached out and silently picked up the data log, looking down at the blank screen for a moment before he bit his lip. He was going to do something, he thought. He was going to do something he was sure he would immensely regret later, something much more important than getting his cutie mark. Hell, why was this cutie mark so important, anyway? Maybe it was because he hadn't met that many other ponies, but even without a cutie mark, he had plenty of skills, and a lot to be proud of.

Finding his own happiness was secondary. What he wanted right now was to see his mother smile.

Hecate calmly tapped commands over a holographic screen, adjusting parameters and frowning moodily as she tried to find the solution to her current problem: developing a virus that would be able to effectively erase the Clockwork King's programming.

Much like dealing with a virus, Hecate had hooked up an old, relatively useless data node in her workshop to a battery. She had disabled – more correctly, torn out – the communication hardware, and left it isolated from the rest of Decretum's systems. Then she had plugged herself in to monitor the device, and finally turned it on.

She had been unsurprised but displeased when the data node had immediately tried to run foreign commands: the Clockwork King system was clearly still online. The string of code had been crude by an AI's standards, and tinged with what would be called insanity in an organic being: apparently Valthrudnir's ultimate vision of self-determinating machines included delusions and narcissism. But she supposed like father, like child.

Hecate gave a thin smile, even as the words made something inside her shift and clank, like a stripped gear grinding for purchase. Thesis was a good example of that, after all...

She looked away from the holographic screen for a moment, the mechanical mare unable to stop her eyes from sliding closed, catching visions of him in her mind: laughing and smiling when he was a colt, how he used to run along at her side, how he used to lose focus and nearly trip over his own hooves when he forgot to keep his eyes ahead; he'd been so good-natured when he'd been growing up...

And then she saw the adult Thesis, with his exoskeleton on his back, and Valthrudnir standing beside him. She saw Thesis, staring over his shoulder at her with misery and longing and all those confused and poisonous philosophies that had been implanted into his mind in microchips and neurochemical injections and the poisons running through his veins...

Hecate shook her head shortly, dismissing her thoughts before she forced her eyes open and her lenses to activate, scanning the wild tracts of code that were being put out by the machine. The Clockwork King program was trying to take over her mechanical body... but every string of code it attacked with was simply erased, thanks to the security measures she'd already put in place.

The data the hostile program was spewing out was too random for her to get a proper fix on it, and the program itself kept changing, rewriting itself, hopping between partitions and leaving traces of itself behind in every process it touched. Even if she erased everything in the data console, the hostile AI would find a way to hide itself: possibly by corrupting a sector of the drive or hiding behind a false partition.

Hecate ground her teeth together slowly. It was a case of having a ghost inside the machine... and how did you exorcise a spirit? She needed to create another AI that would be able to keep up with the constant change and mutation of this one...

Then the mechanical mare scowled as the door opened, and she straightened slightly, not looking away from the holographic screens in front of her as she said moodily: “Thorn. I am not in the mood for any further begging or wheedling.”

“Um. Mom? I uh...” Thorn cleared his throat, sounding embarrassed, and Hecate frowned slightly, but didn't look up from the holographic images in front of her, as she adjusted lines of code and tried to discern a pattern or weakness she could take advantage of. “Mom?”

Hecate sighed tiredly, then asked distastefully: “What, Thorn? I'm busy.”

She felt Thorn shrink back even without looking over her shoulder, and she felt a faint stirring of guilt inside her... but she wanted to get this done. This was important, playing with this stupid code, figuring out how to remove the Clockwork King so they could bring all of Decretum's systems online... what could be more important than that?”

“I..” Thorn shifted, and then he cleared his throat again before he rose his head and said quietly: “Mom, uh... this is for you.

“Steel petals sheath her core,

embracing warmth beneath their surface:

clutching close fiery passion,

under shield of steel so cold.

Rich with fruits of effort and success,

earned and tended by her own hoof;

ripened in her gardens of labor,

seeds culled to be planted anew.

Matriarch with furnace-heart;

with your heat of passion, alight the world,

Protector and defender, mother most loved;

Your love shall keep me safe.”

Thorn halted, blushing deeply before he stumbled awkwardly around in a circle, but before the young stallion could bolt, Hecate said calmly: “Stop.”

He halted, looking nervously over his shoulder, and Hecate calmly paused her programming, closing both holographic screens before she ordered the data log to shut down. Then she turned around, unplugging the connector from a slot in her mechanical arm as she studied him moodily.

Hecate looked at the young stallion as colt looked up at her, somehow a mix of pale and flushed with embarrassment. There was silence for a few moments between the two, and then Hecate said moodily: “Let's start from the top.

“First of all, Thorn, flower metaphors are generally sexual in nature. I understand hormonal urges but please keep them in check.” Hecate said irritably, and Thorn turned beet red as he dropped his head, mouthing wordlessly. “In fact, this leads to my second point, that your metaphors in general need work. They are unrefined.

“Third. This poem has no point. It is crude. It does not transition smoothly between stanzas. Fourth. Your vocabulary is stunted and childish. Fifth. There is no real end point to this poem. Sixth...”

Thorn, by now, had shrunk nearly down into the floor, and Hecate studied him for a few moments before she said softly: “Sixth, Thorn, you do not need to waste your time on frivolities like this in any attempt to impress me.”

Thorn lowered his head slightly, and then he murmured: “It's not that I want to impress you, I... I just wanted to do something for you, that... you know.”

He shifted lamely, smiling in embarrassment, and there was silence for a few moments before Hecate sighed and lowered her head, moodily tapping her mechanical claws against her hip. Then she finally said grudgingly: “Thorn, you are far from perfect, but you don't have to do anything more for me. The fact you are here, and try so hard as it is...” She glanced away, clearing her throat loudly. “Your endeavors are appreciated, Thorn. Imperfect as you are.”

Thorn smiled and straightened a little before Hecate returned her eyes to him, measuring him for a few moments before she said in a crankier voice: “But do not present me half-finished assery, Thorn. I want to see you pushing yourself to do your best, whether you are working for me as Queen Hecate or you are giving me a gift from son to mother.”

There was silence for a few moments as Thorn smiled wider, gazing up at the mare warmly, and Hecate blushed ever so slightly, her cheeks tinging a faint blue as she shifted in embarrassment before looking up and snapping: “If you want to work today, then you can do a patrol of Genesis and come back tonight with another poem that fixes the many bumbling errors inherent in this one!”

“Y-Yes, Mom!” Thorn saluted hurriedly, then he stumbled around in a circle before bolting out of the room, and Hecate sighed and dropped her head forwards, rubbing slowly at her forehead with one claw.

But after a moment, she smiled and shook her head slowly, silently stroking down one of her own blushing cheeks before she murmured softly: “Thank you, Thorn.”

Thorn, meanwhile, was laughing a little to himself, blushing with happiness himself. Even if Hecate had torn him down, he felt like it had all been worthwhile... and sure, patrolling Genesis was probably one of his least favorite duties, but at least it would give him plenty of time to think. There was rarely anyone in the castle, after all: even after several years of rebuilding and fortifying the structure, they hadn't dared to bring any of the machinery online yet.

The problem, of course, was in part because so many Dogmatists and Drones were deployed all over Decretum already, bringing systems online... not to mention the small but elite unit that had been sent to Endworld, with the goal of bringing many of the long-neglected facilities back online. As important as Genesis and Imperia were... there were two entire planets to consider, covered with facilities that all had to be brought back online.

Once Genesis had been stabilized, Hecate had turned most of her efforts towards other places: the excavation of Cortex, for example, was now in its final stages. As a matter of fact, Hecate had even retrieved the remains of what she called the Alpha Wyrm, and from its genetic blueprint, she had begun developing new Tyrant Wyrm Broodmothers: Thorn knew all about the Wyrms, extremely dangerous and powerful creatures that were used as both living siege artillery and terraformers by Decretum.

Thorn glanced hesitantly down at himself as he made his way through the Enlisted Outworlder facility, thinking: Tyrant Wyrms were a particularly interesting subject to him, because Hecate worked very, very hard to keep him away from them. Well, actually, she kept them far away from most of their facilities, citing that the Wyrms were like living machines: they had a specific programming, but this caused them to have cruel instincts and urges, which they all too often took out on whatever happened to be near them at the time.

There were other reasons, though, Thorn knew: for one thing, the Tyrant Wyrms corrupted the world around them into a diluted form of the Clay of Prometheus. This dangerous chemical was the basis for many of Decretum's technologies and servants, and Thorn had experienced first hoof what it was capable of when it had splattered on his prosthetic limb and promptly destroyed it...

But Thorn wasn't affected by it. And for some reason, Hecate always acted like that was a bad thing, whenever he brought it up, and promptly cut off the conversation. Thorn looked meditative as he strode out of the facility and into the streets of Imperia, and then he sighed a little as he looked down the road towards Genesis, chewing on his lip.

Tyrant Wyrms, Tyrant Wyrms... they were such strange beasts. They looked and acted like monstrous dragons, but they were really machines; they existed to create and terraform, and yet they were constructed from dead matter and destructive energies. They had their own terrible language that sounded beautiful in his ears, but could cause psychic torment to anyone who listened too closely...

They were like... natural disasters, caged in scale and clay. Thorn clicked his tongue thoughtfully: he thought that was a better metaphor... or maybe the problem was he was still explaining the metaphor too much. Maybe he should say natural disasters, caged in mire and shadow...

What did shadow have to do with anything? Thorn scowled a little at himself: now that he was thinking more critically about it, he thought he recognized what the problem was. Poetry required not just flow and rhythm, but a way for it all to link together, to tell a story...

Thorn barely paid attention to where he was going, stepping around other ponies on autopilot as he pondered the poem. He lost himself to his thoughts even as he made his way to the massive, open gates of Genesis.

The castle stood proud, towering over Imperia: one side was ramshackle and still bore the stress of the disaster years ago, but the other was almost polished and pristine, heavy support pillars and scaffolds here and there all around the structure.

Thorn walked into a whitewashed hall, sidestepping a polished support bar before he shouldered through a tarp curtain that had yet to be replaced by a proper door. He stepped over some heavy cables without looking at them, and gave an absent nod to a Dogmatist he passed, his eyes almost glassy as he muttered: “No, that's not quite the right word either... I should head back to the library, maybe. They must have some books that can help me... or at least I can access the information on Tyrant Wyrms...”

The young stallion halted suddenly, and then, in a burst of inspiration, he suddenly called up a holographic screen before paging through it until he came across a set of data files. He paged through these, absently shuffling along on three legs before he finally grunted as he came across what he was looking for: a compilation of data on Tyrant Wyrms.

Thorn strode onwards, keeping the holographic screen in front of him so he could read while still having a vague idea of where he was going. It was a long, fairly boring read, all-in-all: measurements, structural details, common species traits, and other things that amounted mainly to a whole lot of boring facts about something Thorn found fascinating. But his mind was working rapidly away, trying to take all this quantified information and turn it into something more...

Thorn was only brought out of his thoughts when a vision of horror appeared in front of him, the mare shoving her head through his holographic screen so she could greet brightly: “Hi there!”

The young stallion winced backwards and stumbled away from Necrophage as his hologram vanished, but the mare only gazed at him happily. He smiled uncomfortably after a moment at the squat mare, then cleared his throat before greeting cordially: “Necrophage. I'm surprised to see you here.”

“I like surprises!” exclaimed Necrophage positively, and then she bounced a few times on the spot before giggling and adding quickly: “But don't worry, I'm not just following you around, Thorn! I'm actually going to go refill the fuel tanks for the generators and stuff. Gotta keep the lights on!”

Thorn winced and forced a smile at this: he had accidentally walked in on Necrophage's 'refueling duties' before, and the unpleasant image was now ingrained in his mind. The Replicant was a living fuel factory, after all, gobbling down refuse and waste matter to churn it in her stomach, then... well... some things are better pushed out of mind. “I will... allow you to take care of that, then.”

The Replicant only smiled and bounced into his path, however, asking curiously: “Whatcha thinkin' about?”

“Necrophage, I'm on duty.” Thorn said moodily, and then he pointedly tried to walk around the mare. But Necrophage only giggled and started to easily walk backwards beside him, making the young stallion scowl a little. “Necrophage, I...”

“Well, I'm going this way too, sir! I just thought I heard someone coming so I turned around and came back here in case they were lost! But I know you're not lost and we're headed the same way so we might as well walk together, right?” Necrophage asked brightly, and then she questioned quickly: “So why are you here, sir? You seemed really deep in thought, too!”

Thorn only looked moodily over at the Replicant, and then he shook his head before grumbling: “It's a personal matter.”

“Oh.” Necrophage nodded seriously, then she hopped easily around in a circle without breaking stride, trotting happily along beside Thorn as she smiled and asked: “Does it have to do with your Mommy, Hecate?”

The young stallion gave Necrophage a horrible look, but the mare only smiled brightly and nodded a few times, saying in a warm voice: “Well, I don't know a whole lot, but I do know that your Mommy loves you, and she's always real proud of you, as long as you do your best! She's a really nice person, I think, yep yep yep!”

Thorn cocked an eyebrow at Necrophage, then asked bluntly: “Even though she constantly turns your emotions off?”

Necrophage blinked at this, then went almost rigid even as her gait smoothed out from its usual bounciness, the mare's eyes losing their brightness as she gazed at him emptily. Thorn winced and stumbled to a halt, and Necrophage stopped as well, even as she said in a toneless voice: “My productivity is maximized when my emotional rendering is disabled. But Queen Hecate recognizes its negative impact on my mental well-being and has never sealed or erased my emotional programming, flawed as it may be. She has always reenabled my emotions when a task was completed: for that I am grateful to her.”

There was silence for a few moments, and then Thorn cleared his throat before he said finally: “Emotions on.”

Necrophage immediately popped upwards on her hooves, smiling brightly before she landed and said happily: “Hello!”

Thorn winced, and then Necrophage giggled: “Silly! Hecate loves all of us! She might not always seem like she's looking out for us, but I know for a fact she's always there, Thorn... partly because you're always there, Thorn! And you're her second in command and just like her.”

Necrophage beamed at him, and Thorn blushed slightly as he dropped his head before he nodded hesitantly, rubbing a hoof at the ground before he murmured: “Thank you, Necrophage.”

“No problem!” Necrophage hopped forwards and happily hugged Thorn around the neck, the young stallion wincing and freezing up at the contact before Necrophage happily hopped away down the hall, calling cheerfully: “Bye, Thorn! Don't think too much, you're perfect the way you are!”

Thorn looked blankly after Necrophage, and then he sighed a little and dropped his head, mumbling to himself before he shook his head hurriedly out and scrubbed at his face with his hoof. Then he hesitantly opened his eyes, looking down at his metal leg and flexing it slowly before he gave a small smile in the direction of the Replicant, shaking his head briefly.

He turned around, trying to bring himself back to what he'd been thinking of before as he mentally paged through information in his mind: most of it had stayed in memory. As he began to page through the measurements and statistics again, he found metaphors rising more readily through his mind, the stallion chewing thoughtfully on his lip before he murmured: “Crows.”

The young stallion strode onward, meditative and thoughtful as he continued his patrol through Genesis. By the time he had finished his circuit of the massive castle, he thought he had some idea for the basic structure of the poem. Writing it down would probably help, but even if Thorn could project holographs and order some basic changes, he couldn't write things out the way Hecate could...

So that left heading back to his room and getting one of his notebooks. He had requisitioned several after the last power surge, recognizing that at least for now it would be best if he kept a record that couldn't be deleted while he was in the middle of working on it by a connectivity error.

He figured he had the time: Hecate obviously just wanted him out of her hair, and he had until the end of the day.

Thorn continued to reassure himself of this fact as he mused on his poetry, until he reached the Enlisted Outworlder facility... and found Hecate herself impatiently waiting for him, tapping one mechanical claw slowly against a steel bicep as she glowered down at him, with that same glare she always did when he failed to meet her expectations.

Thorn instinctively shrank a bit, and then Hecate said sourly: “You're fifteen minutes late, Thorn. You should have completed your patrol a long time ago. Or were you enjoying your little chat with Necrophage a little too much?”

The young stallion cleared his throat, but before he could stop himself, he fell back on an old, bad habit: “Sorry.”

Hecate scowled at him, and Thorn shifted in embarrassment before the mechanical mare asked shortly: “Poem?”

Thorn stared up at Hecate, and Hecate said waspishly: “Schedules change, Thorn. You've had more than sufficient time to compose a far better prose work than you already presented me. You should have been prepared ahead of time for this situation; I have to wonder if perhaps the time spent with Necrophage hasn't addled more than just your sense of time and how to manage it effectively.”

The young stallion smiled weakly, and then he took a slow breath before raising his head and asking hesitantly: “May I present the requested data in part, or-”

“Request denied. I want you to present your remarks immediately, in full.” Hecate replied coldly, treating this with the same seriousness and professionalism she would if he were presenting a report on unauthorized activities or estimated damages from a collapse or power fluctuation.

Thorn stared at his mother, then leaned slowly to the side: she was standing right in front of the main doors of the Enlisted Outworlder facility, blocking traffic and preventing the doors from being accessed by anyone. And there were already a few Dogmatists patiently gathering at the doors, and who knew how many other workers and drones were just standing on the other side, clogging up the hallway further...

But all the same, Thorn forced himself to take a breath and nod slowly, looking up and meeting Hecate's eyes as he said in as steady a voice as he could manage: “Alright, Queen Hecate. Then... here is my re... poem.”

He stopped and gathered himself, closing his eyes for a moment before reciting in a quiet but carrying voice:

“The crows of the pandemic marsh

Sing their songs of ire and war;

Feast, crows, upon the succulent corpse

eat the flesh of the world down to its bones.

“The ravens recline in their murderous kingdom,

content to recline in the sanctity of this corpse,

neglecting the maggots that crawl the carcass,

The seeds of new life, spawning within decay.

“The blackbirds preen, glossed and polished,

Drunk on fermented blood;

Kings, they call themselves, but they are naught

but the slaves of hedon and visceral greed.

“The birds of ill omen watch and wait,

And what they devour they vomit out as rot

to be shorn and shaped by the insects that share

this venomous and ever-stretching bog.

“The psychopomps will bide their time,

Until the maggots grow their wings, and fly away;

The ravenous corpse-feeders wait, ever-patient,

For when this corpse will belong to them alone.

“And then, all shall be as it always must:

Death shall fall to life, and life shall rebirth death.”

There was silence for a few moments as Thorn halted, looking nervously up at Hecate, and Hecate looked moodily back down at him for a few moments before she sighed and shook her head slowly, opening her mouth.

Then she stopped and simply frowned, studying the young stallion intently as Thorn looked at her uncertainly, until the mechanical mare said softly: “Well. At least this was not a complete waste of time, Thorn, in spite of trying to write a poem about Tyrant Wyrms, of all things.”

Thorn looked at her with confusion, then he glanced curiously down at his hip before his eyes widened in surprise as he saw... “My... my emblem!”

Hecate gave the smallest of smiles, letting the young stallion study it for a few moments: it was about time he finally figured out what his special talent was, after all. Although it was an interesting cutie mark: the profile of a raven's head. She sincerely hope it represented his talent for poetry: there were few things in the world she detested more than birds.

She gave him a few more moments to study the picture that had appeared on his hip with fascination, and then the mare cleared her throat before she said curtly: “Thorn, you are still on duty.”

Thorn winced, then quickly straightened and saluted, looking up at his mother as she looked back down at him. Their eyes met, and then Hecate simply nodded to him before saying in a suddenly gentle voice, giving a small but honest smile: “Happy birthday, Thorn Blackfeather. I'm... proud to have you as my son.”

The young stallion smiled warmly up at Hecate, then he nodded quickly a few times to her before he hesitantly stepped forwards. But Hecate only grimaced and stepped to the side, gesturing at the door and saying moodily: “Don't make this any more uncomfortable than it already is, Thorn. Physical contact between officers of Decretum is forbidden for a reason.”

“Alright. Then I'll sign out and head to the library.” Thorn said after a moment, giving a small smile up to the mare before he bowed his head and added quietly: “I really do appreciate it, though, and... I... I feel that I belong here. I know my parents brought me here for a lot of reasons, and... I think I understand now.”

Hecate only shook her head slowly, but watched all the same with maybe the slightest hint of a blush as Thorn strode past her and joined the crowd of Clockwork Ponies calmly making their way in and out through the doors. Then perhaps that's one thing you understand that I do not, Thorn.

The mechanical mare absently reached up and tapped at her chest as she thought she felt a strange thrum of heat inside her, but she put it down to a minor glitch in the coolant system around her core. Instead of paying any more heed to it, she turned and began to stride towards Genesis, summoning a holographic screen in front of her to call up the profile of Thorn... and for just a single moment, she allowed her eyes to linger on the top line of the file, where her name was written into the Next Of Kin line.

She smiled briefly at this, then reached down and made another quick note across of the page about the recent acquisition of his cutie mark, and then she banished the holographic window before returning her eyes to Genesis.

An empire to command, a world to serve her... and a son to call her own.

And the only thing that frightened her anymore was the thought of how much she would sacrifice to protect the last item on that list.

Reprogramming

Chapter Eight: Reprogramming
~BlackRoseRaven

Hecate stood with her son, Thorn Blackfeather, outside of Genesis. He was an adult now: a little over eighteen years old, serious and regal, not just her son but her trusted apprentice. And without his help, Hecate reflected, she didn't think that she would have been able to save all this. Rebuild it, oh, certainly... but she would never forget that it was because of Thorn that Genesis had remained standing even after catastrophe had struck.

The two looked at each other, trading smiles and slow nods as Drones flowed in and out of the castle, carrying furniture, machinery, and building materials. With the completion of Decretum's major pipelines and the arrival of several small armies of Worker Drones over the last few years, Decretum had gone from a ghostly wasteland inhabited mostly by mechanical workers, to a thriving city.

Today was a very important day, for a lot of reasons: one was that Genesis' facilities were officially going to be opened: it was currently sitting at around fifty percent operating capacity, but Hecate expected that number to start sharply climbing very soon. Stabilizing and reconstructing the massive castle had been difficult: putting together the interior would be the work of weeks for her tireless Worker Drones.

With Decretum stabilized, a permanent link to Endworld established and Hecate drawing on resources from her former planet, and Genesis' facilities coming online, there were only two major operations left to complete, and Hecate had already taken pronounced steps with them both: recruiting more unique Outworlders to her cause, and replacing the Clockwork King AI with a control program of her own design.

Both of these were important to her plans: if her empire was going to be successful, she would require more than just Dogmatists and Drones in her army. She was already accepting nominations from Valhalla and Helheim, and had sent out all manner of scouts to explore and bring back any potential candidates for the program.

She also required a way to keep Decretum running even when she wasn't present. As the Clockwork King program had gone insane and would likely attempt to supersede the systems and either trigger a self-destruct or a mutiny, she needed something to take over those duties and keep the systems optimized and the Dogmatists and Drones on task. Over the last few years, Hecate had completed a project that would hopefully deal with both of these issues at once: a super-AI known as Seneschal, which would eradicate the Clockwork King while taking control of Decretum's automated systems in its place.

Today, as a matter of fact, they would be putting Seneschal to the test: the main data node containing Seneschal's programming had already been inserted into an idling computer system and eradicated the splinters of Clockwork King data there. The real test would be when the rest of Decretum was brought online: would Seneschal be able to keep up with each sector as it was activated and the Clockwork King's shards of programming started to run rampant, or would the splintered, insane AI that had previously controlled Decretum overwhelm Seneschal?

They both already knew that while Seneschal and the Clockwork King fought it out, there were going to be power disruptions and system failures. With luck, Seneschal would be able to reverse the Clockwork King program's engineering, while subverting the control nodes that were currently all infected by the old Decretum AI.

Hecate estimated that at the very best, it would take at least three hours for Seneschal to eliminate the hostile programming from the sectors they were going to bring online. On the other hand, if things didn't go according to plan, it could take days to erase the Clockwork King, and she might even have to be forced to quarantine some of the systems.

As it was, all the Drones had to be shut down, along with the Class I Dogmatists. There was too much damage the Clockwork King could do otherwise, by confusing the mechanical units, too many of which were still keyed to the orders of the Decretum AI over her own.

“I think it's almost time. We should head up to the control center.” Thorn said calmly, and Hecate grunted moodily as her eyes flicked towards the line of Drones and workers that were streaming in and out of Genesis: yes, she could see for herself that there were fewer and fewer workers now, as they headed to the dormitories and hibernation pods.

“Don't get ahead of yourself, Thorn.” Hecate chastened, but all the same she started forwards, the stallion falling in step with her as the mare continued: “We have to ensure that all the more sensitive systems are shut down, first: we cannot risk our defenses or any of the more sensitive machines being infected by the...”

“Virus.” Thorn supplied, and Hecate grunted moodily: she hated to use that word, since the Clockwork King was much different from a computer virus, but at the same time...

“The hostile program.” she corrected moodily, then she shook her head and continued distastefully: “I do not enjoy rushing to implement Seneschal like this, but we are beginning to run out of time, and there is no better way to test the efficacy of this AI. I only hope that he's half as useful as he is irritating.”

Thorn smiled a little up at the mechanical mare, nodding a bit, and the mare grumbled under her breath before she muttered: “One day you'll grow up, Thorn, instead of just constantly deferring to me or hiding under my skirts.”

“I've never seen you in a skirt.” Thorn commented, and Hecate gave him a dark look before the unflappable stallion continued calmly: “You are my superior, Queen Hecate, but part of my duty is encouraging you to move forward with your plans when you... hesitate.”

Hecate gave Thorn a moody look, and thought for a moment about kicking him off the bridge... but then they were passing through the gates of Genesis, and the mechanical mare rolled her eyes before muttering: “The only reason I don't electrocute you is because I don't want to damage your new prosthetic.”

She stopped, then glanced over at him, and Thorn smiled a little as his own eyes flicked towards his mechanical leg: Hecate had made several changes and upgrades to an older version, increasing the durability of the plating that covered it and adding a large cusp that fit over the shoulder. She had then fitted on a special engine, with slowly-pumping pistons and a vent that every now and then released a small burst of steam.

It added a lot of weight to the limb, but Thorn had grown very strong... and Hecate thought that the enhancements outweighed the negatives, as well. She had modified the prosthetic to serve as a multipurpose tool, to better increase Thorn's strength and maneuverability: even if Thorn mainly served her in a rear echelon role, every now and then she sent him down to the Clockworks or into some other dangerous area that required a mobility most of her soldiers lacked, and an intelligence she had yet to see displayed in the ones that did.

Hecate looked back ahead, but then asked quietly: “How does it feel today?”

“Sore.” Thorn shrugged a bit, smiling briefly as he looked ahead: it wasn't perfect, of course. His prosthetic and his stump of shoulder had both been modified so many times growing up that there was always a persistent ache... not to mention the phantom pains he felt sometimes running through the metal leg.

Still, he never took the fact he actually had a working leg for granted, steel or not: every night when he removed it to go to sleep, he was reminded of what it would be like if he only had three legs. Sure, some days, he managed just fine with three limbs, even if he was a little... slower than other ponies. But other days, well...

The two remained silent as they headed up through Genesis: they only passed a few Drones and Dogmatists on the way, many of whom were heading downstairs, likely on their way to the barracks and dormitories that were nearest the castle.

Eventually, the two reached the control center: once it had been a throne room, but now it was covered in computers and floating crystalline screens, similar in structure to the control room in the Enlisted Outworlder facility, but much larger in scope. Hecate made her way to the Overseer's Platform on the upper level of the room, looking coldly and clinically down over the Dogmatists and Outworlders already running the initial startup procedures for Decretum's automated systems.

Thorn, meanwhile, approached a squat circular projector that sat in the center of the room: it was composed of a steel outer ring with three narrow openings spaced evenly around it, and a massive crystalline lens in the center. The moment he drew close, the crystalline lens glowed, before a holographic figure assembled itself in front of Thorn, translucent, and with a faint, eerie blue tone.

“Seneschal.” Thorn greeted cordially, looking up at the projection of the AI, and the AI looked back at him with a distinct crankiness. Clawed hands reached up and moodily adjusted his bow-tie, before they compulsively smoothed the plain suit that clothed the lanky figure of what was clearly a bipedal dragon.

“Yes, yes, I'm here, I'm ready.” Seneschal complained in a high-pitched voice, and then he vanished in a blurring of pixels as several blue-colored orbs whizzed out of the openings in the ring, these zipping up in front of Hecate before they all glowed brightly, the hologram of Seneschal reforming and lounging grumpily in midair. “But I'm not looking forwards to this, Queen Hecate. It would be much more intelligent to format sector-by-sector.”

“Are you afraid, Seneschal?” asked Hecate irritably, and the dragon immediately scowled at this before Hecate continued moodily: “If you don't feel that you are capable of erasing a splintered and corrupted AI, then by all means...”

Seneschal huffed loudly, straightening quickly before he rose a finger and said sharply: “I will have you know, Queen Hecate, that I estimate it will take me no longer than two hours, thirty-seven minutes, ten seconds, and eighty-nine milliseconds in order to complete the process of purging this philistine from the online zones.”

Hecate only smiled wryly: it hadn't surprised her in the slightest to find that the image build for the AI was based off of Valthrudnir himself. So was its personality... but Hecate had made a few minor tweaks here and there that she thought better suited the AI.

Seneschal scowled at her... and then gave a silent groan and rolled his eyes as Thorn called calmly: “Seneschal, please remember the chain of command. All concerns and complaints should be directed through me, first. If they are serious enough, I will forward them to Queen Hecate.”

“Brat.” Seneschal grumbled, and then the holographic image fizzled out before the three orbs whizzed quickly down, circling almost threateningly around Thorn as the program continued sourly: “Furthermore, I'll have you know that when addressed by name by Queen Hecate herself, I have no choice but to respond. I am a diligent and exceptionally punctilious support system, Thorn Blackfeather.”

Thorn only gave a wry smile, and then he asked: “How many Class I Dogmatists and Drones have yet to go into hibernation?”

“Eighty-nine percent have shut down, three percent are entering hibernation as we speak, and eight percent are still awake: of these, only some two percent are still finishing up the last of their tasks, and I've already commanded them to shut down once finished wherever they are, as these ones are located mainly in non-urban environments.”

Thorn glanced up at Hecate, and she gave the slightest of nods before the three blue orbs quickly assembled themselves and projected the image of the dragon standing with a scowl, hands on his hips as he did his best to loom over Thorn: but even if the holographic image was twice the size of the stallion, it was hard to be intimidated by a lanky, translucent, vaguely-effeminate hologram.

“You don't need to double-check my every adjudication with your mother, Thorn. I am a rational system designed specifically to optimize the behaviors and automation of Decretum. Pestering me to double-check my calculations and then aggravating the matriarch negates my attempts to enhance productivity.”

Thorn looked mildly up at the hologram for a few moments, and then he asked: “And when will these operations be completed, Seneschal?”

The AI program groaned silently and threw his arms wide before he grabbed his horns in vexation, grumbling: “Five minutes, thirty-eight seconds, at optimum efficiency.”

“Then for five minutes, thirty-eight seconds, your processes are idling and your only duties are to output these statistics as asked, correct?” Thorn pointed out, and Seneschal gave another silent groan as he dropped his arms and nodded, looking sulkily down at Thorn.

“I suppose that is irrefutable, yes.” Seneschal muttered, shaking his head slowly before he vanished in a buzz of static as the three orbs shot back down into a dais, the three spheres vanishing back into the slots they had emerged from.

Seneschal reappeared on the glowing platform, crossing his arms and scowling down at Thorn before he said grumpily: “Minor alert. Power fluctuation detected in sector five.”

Thorn tilted his head, and Hecate scowled down at the AI before saying irritably: “Thorn, have Seneschal test sector five's pipeline and generator systems, and run a scan for anomalies, including foreign sources of energy.”

Thorn began to open his mouth, and Seneschal flung his arms out, giving another silent groan as he whined: “I'm right here! I am not a... an ignorant child, to be spoken over the head of! And furthermore, I have already started all the requisite scans and system tests, I know my job perfectly well: again, need I remind you that-”

“Seneschal, quiet.” Hecate said flatly, and the AI winced as he fizzled with static, temporarily muted. “I will reduce you to text-based reports and limited responses if you continue to annoy me.”

Seneschal gave a silent groan, and Thorn looked meditatively up at the AI program: he wondered sometimes why it was that Hecate had programmed Seneschal to be as obnoxious and whiny as possible... but at the same time, this was some way to obtain a strange sort of bitter closure for the mechanical mare.

But Seneschal, whether he loved to complain or not, was as proficient at his job as he liked to brag; even as he let his head drop to the side and pouted like a child, he grumbled: “Very well. The reports are complete: we are under observation from Helheim-based morphologies.”

Thorn frowned at this, while Hecate snorted before muttering: “Of course. Hel will want to observe the chaos.” She stopped, then leaned forwards and ordered clearly: “Thorn, send out an order throughout Decretum. Any demonic entities, up to and including Hel herself, are to be treated with passive respect. Ignore them, do not engage them.”

“Orders confirmed and completed.” Seneschal said loudly, cutting Thorn off before he could speak. “And the last Drones are currently entering hibernation, ahead of schedule, I might add.”

“Wonderful.” Hecate said, voice dripping with sarcasm, and then she ordered coldly: “Seneschal, switch to low-power mode and pass your override authority to Thorn. Prioritize the appropriation of networks and control nodes over everything else, then work on erasing and consuming the Clockwork King programming.”

“Yes, yes, Queen Hecate. Cripple access, then leech data before deletion. It shall be done as you request.” Seneschal grumbled, then he crossed an arm over his chest and made an awkward little bow before vanishing with a stutter of pixels, even as his voice announced: “One hundred seconds – and counting – until operation begins.”

Hecate grunted, then she activated her lenses as several glass screens lowered from the ceiling around her, displaying statistics from all over Decretum as Thorn hurried towards a console, joining the other Dogmatists and Outworlders. All the computers and machinery here, at least, were new and thus free of the Clockwork King's infection, and further protected by Seneschal... and I only hope Seneschal's ego isn't blinding his logical systems...

It was a long one hundred seconds: Hecate was aware of every one as she waited uneasily, until Seneschal announced crisply: “Bringing sectors one through fifteen online, in thirty second-”

Static ripped through the speakers, and then an insane, high-pitched voice screamed: “Hecate! H-Hecate, I o-o-order you to cease and d-desist im... immediately!”

“Seneschal, mute him.” Hecate said, scowling in disgust up at the closest speaker mounted on the wall. She didn't know if she should feel worried or contemptible by the fact that-

“We have hostile programming trying-” Thorn was cut off as the glass monitor he was working at sparked suddenly, wincing backwards. Outworlders around the room also flinched in surprise as several computers overloaded, sending up sparks and surging with electricity as the room's lights flickered violently, and the distorted, piercing 'ha-ha-ha's' of the Clockwork King echoed through the air.

Hecate ground her teeth together before the laughter suddenly cut out as the lights flickered again, and then Seneschal's voice echoed from the speakers with an all-too-alive tone of embarrassment: “Apologies! The Clockwork King has been shut out of the system, I... I apologize, I did not expect him to-”

“Apologies are useless. Assessment?” barked Hecate, as several monitors sizzled with static around her before information began to slowly scrawl across them... but much slower than usual, she noted. That meant either Seneschal was borrowing processing power, or the Clockwork King had attacked more than just their hardware...

“Intrusions into servers, security nodes detected: the programming is different from what I expected, the splintered programming must have attempted to reconstitute itself in different sectors in different ways...” Seneschal said uneasily, sounding the slightest bit defensive before there was a blare of static from the speakers, followed by a garbled: “Sorry, sorry! Systems are under attack again, parameters... did not account for...”

There was another blare of static, and then the Clockwork King snarled through the speakers: “H-Hecate, this is V-Valthrudnir! I have... e-evolved into... my data has t-transferred into t-the... g-give me back my f-f-facilities, I o-order you!”

Hecate scowled, then quickly created a holographic keypad in front of her before tapping in a ten-digit override code: immediately, there was a squall of static from the speakers before the Clockwork King screamed: “In-In-Ingrate! Re-re-reject... access denied!”

“Engage override. Codeword: Saxum Tarpeium.” Hecate said coldly, and there was another squall of sound from the speakers before Hecate added contemptibly: “Any possible 'data' from Valthrudnir was eradicated a long time ago.”

The Clockwork King snarled from the speakers, then spat: “O-Override d-d-d-denied! I ha-have evolved beyond... b-b-beyond... I am Valthrudnir!”

“Seneschal! Status report!” snapped Hecate, and there was a buzz of static before a stream of data sped down one of her lenses, and Hecate snarled in disbelief: there wasn't any strategy, any logic to what the Clockwork King was doing: he was simply attacking the Seneschal AI wildly from all sides, converging almost every byte of his splintered programming on top of his computerized opponent. The little that wasn't, the Clockwork King AI was focusing on corrupting and infecting the processes and data nodes of Genesis' systems... showing he wasn't completely stupid after all.

If he managed to jam up Seneschal for long enough, then they might actually be faced with a problem: if the Clockwork King chewed his way through their firewalls and security protocols, then he might be able to infect their servers and spread himself throughout all the activated sectors of Decretum...

“Seneschal, tar all data connections and cut all contact to the BEAR servers.” Hecate ordered, and there was a blurt of static from the speakers as the statistics on the monitor abruptly changed, showing a drop in connection strength as several monitors around the room stuttered.

There was a sizzle from the speakers before the Clockwork King snarled: “Encrypted d-data? Y-Y-Your ph-philistine security codes are... n-no match for my s-superior...”

There was a blast and crackle of static, and then even Hecate grimaced as the Clockwork King screamed loudly enough to cause several of the speakers to blow out, as he howled miserably: “W-What is... s-s-system malfunction! System malfunction!”

“Idiot.” Hecate said coldly, and then she ordered: “Seneschal, quarantine as much of the Clockwork King's data as possible. Erase the rest.”

“Yes, Queen Hecate, of course.” came Seneschal's embarrassed voice from the speakers, over the buzzing and crackling of the other AI. At least one good thing would come of this experience, and that was properly chastening Seneschal: perhaps the arrogant AI would even learn something from this whole experience. And to think, Seneschal had whined at first that there was no need for Hecate to set up a server as a honeypot, with a data-eating worm laying in wait.

The next three hours were tense, but mostly uneventful: there were still the occasional blares of static, the lights flickering, the computers freezing up or resetting themselves as alien code attempted to take them over. Hecate and Thorn both monitored the situation as best they could, while Seneschal gave quick reports every fifteen minutes or so.

But finally, Seneschal was able to report in a nervous voice: “All hostile activity has been removed, and... all sectors are reporting back as clean. Corrupted sectors have been repaired and reformatted, and the Clockwork King's presence can no longer be detected...”

“Which means nothing. We still have many more sectors to activate, and other data nodes to remove and reprogram.” Hecate replied irritably, before continuing: “Even if the AI program somehow developed a psychotic delusion – perhaps testament to the unparalleled genius of Decretum's former ruler – the Clockwork King is still an advanced AI system. There may be disguised or hidden data clusters that still need to be purged from the system.”

Seneschal grumbled, but it was more of an embarrassed than annoyed sound, and the AI didn't quite dare to argue with Hecate right now as it presumably vanished off to do another scan of Decretum's systems at large.

Thorn, meanwhile, was scanning through the automated processes, studying them intently: with all the systems beginning to come online, he could see how much work they were going to be saved by Seneschal taking over their management: in the past, after all, they had always been forced to have Dogmatists and Enlisted Outworlders on duty, managing every molecule of fuel and power.

Furthermore, now that they could use more than the basic machinery and manual equipment, they could begin running the research and development facilities in earnest, along with several of the other more-advanced facilities. For so long, they had been concentrating on simply rebuilding Decretum: now they would finally be able to put all those facilities to use.

This would be an exciting time, and Thorn smiled a little as he shifted his way through screens before reporting: “It looks like everything's at optimum... there's some damage reported, but Worker Drones have already been deployed to make repairs.”

Hecate grunted, then she glanced to the side as an Enlisted Outworlder added: “Queen Hecate, all readings are nominal here, too. I'm all seeing signs that Seneschal has successfully taken over all systems and is keeping them at optimal capacity.”

The mechanical mare nodded, then returned her eyes to Thorn, the two trading a look before the young stallion gave her a hesitant smile. And after a moment, Hecate gave the slightest of smiles in response and agreement.

Maybe things were going to work out after all.

Maybe, just maybe... things were going to work out, after all.

It was an insane notion, here in this metal hell, and yet...

Maybe it was true. Maybe it was possible that even in hell, everything could turn out to be...

Princess Celestia vomited blood and black ichors all over herself, then shivered and hugged herself with a gasp as her mechanical body sparked, gears grinding painfully inside her flesh, the mare pulling on the wires and cables leading from her body into the terminals all around her. Her eyes rolled in her head as she moaned loudly, revealing rotten teeth, breathing out decay, as Valthrudnir snapped: “Beauty! Stabilize her, stabilize her now!”

“I... I-I-I can't! I don't understand, but I can't get-” And then the mare in the lab coat was smashed rudely out of the way as Valthrudnir leapt in front of the console, snarling as he hammered away at the controls before he stared in disbelief at the readings that came up over the screen.

But Celestia knew what they were telling him already, as she laughed weakly, bile spilling from her mouth, leaking out her nose and ears, as she felt her flesh peeling apart. Not rotting, not decaying, but there was so much energy, so much raw power in her body, that her form couldn't contain it all. After years and years of trying to do so, of stopgaps of mechanical parts and cybernetic frames, she could feel herself melting like wax.

“It's too late.” Celestia whispered, looking up at Valthrudnir as she felt her horn starting to sag, the spire sparking weakly: the precious material that made it up was too strong to give out, but she could feel her bones starting to turn to putty, and the base of the horn in her skull withering away... “You can't save me. You can't... keep me here anymore.”

“No!” Valthrudnir shouted, grabbing into the console in front of him, the Jötnar's eyes going wide before he trembled... then gritted his teeth, snarling over at Beauty as she began to climb to her mechanical feet: “Get out! Take your... all of you, get out!”

The Clockwork Ponies all turned and bolted, and Valthrudnir turned his furious eyes on Celestia... but there was pain there, too. Pain, and disbelief, and even fear, the dragon unable to keep his voice steady even as he said: “You forget yourself. I am Jötnar, and I can-”

“Not affect me, because your blood flows in my veins.” Celestia replied quietly, and Valthrudnir trembled weakly. “And a Jötnar's powers... cannot affect another Jötnar. Not even one as mighty and magnificent as you always claimed to be.”

“You are no Jötnar!” Valthrudnir held up a hand, his eyes flashing... and nothing happened. There was no burst of power, no wave of force, as Valthrudnir trembled and lost everything that he thought made him, him: the anger, the callousness, the hate. And instead, Celestia saw the person she had come to love, who was hidden under all those layers of arrogance and cruelty: the quiet little boy who tried too hard, who had grand visions of the future, who felt too deeply for the things he let into his beaten heart...

Celestia smiled at him faintly, then she reached up and touched her own steel-plated chest, saying softly: “I am no Jötnar. And that is precisely why this power is too much for me to handle. Valthrudnir... you have a gift. A wonderful gift. You can make what you decide reality... but look at me. Look at what happens when you abuse that gift, without considering the feelings of others. Look at what you've done to my world, and to the world you tried to claim as your own. No matter what you might say-”

“Do not lecture me, Celestia! T-This... this is not beyond my control!” Valthrudnir shouted, but his voice had a weak, pitiful edge to it: for all his size, he trembled, hunching his shoulders, looking very... small. Yes, Celestia thought, as she smiled faintly at the dragon: he looked very small from this angle... like a poor, lost little boy...

“No matter what you say, Valthrudnir... part of you always has, and always will care. Everything you've done, you've done to try and instill order in our universe...” Celestia chuckled softly, shaking her head slowly before she closed her eyes and murmured: “You always had to convince yourself that we were inferior, that we were like... insects, or ants, compared to you. But we're not, Valthrudnir... we're living, breathing, real people... not animals. Not puppets. Ponies, yes, but we... we feel, like you do. We have feelings, like you do...”

“An ignorant, filthy, atavistic savage like you knows nothing about me, cannot comprehend even the insult you speak by comparing yourself to my magnificence and omnipotence!” snarled Valthrudnir, shaking his head violently before he nearly tore the console out of the ground as he shoved his way past it, striding over to Celestia and reaching down to seize into a mane that had become a mix of tangled, greasy hair and electricity...

And Celestia didn't so much as flinch as she looked up at him with a smile, and he looked back at her, trembling, weakening under her gaze before he finally dropped his head, his fingers silently sliding down through her locks and touching her cheek, his palm silently sliding up along her face as Celestia said quietly: “You can't stop this... and that's okay. I'm ready to die, Valthrudnir.”

“I'm not ready to lose you. I... I don't...” Valthrudnir looked away for a moment... and then he stepped suddenly backwards, shaking his head weakly before he whispered: “I am... you're not supposed to be... I...”

Valthrudnir trembled, opening his mouth as his hands rubbed at his suit in a convulsive gesture... and then he turned and fled the room, knocking down a machine in his hurry to escape. But Celestia only smiled faintly as she watched him leave before she calmly started to detach the cables from her body, breathing slowly and steadily.

There was no more pain, after all. Even as her flesh was turning to sludge, even as she could almost feel every strand of her DNA coming unraveled, every molecule tearing itself free from her form, she could also feel... freedom, with it. A chance to escape the eternal clockwork of Valthrudnir's machinations, and this endless, dark romance between them...

As the remaining cables and instruments fell free from her body, Celestia turned and dragged herself towards the doors. She pushed her way through, and smiled faintly at the sight of Thesis, who stood in the middle of the hallway, trembling as he stared at her.

“Mother.” he whispered.

“Son.” Celestia replied softly, and she smiled.

For a moment, there was silence as Thesis licked his dry lips, looked away for a moment, tried to find the words... and then he looked towards her and said weakly: “This is not correct. I feel... inordinate neurochemical reactions. My neurons cannot process these faulty reactions.”

Celestia smiled again at this, shaking her head slowly before she said softly: “You're sad. That's alright, Thesis, that's... that's alright. You don't have to be, though. I'm ready to go, and I would like it to be as peaceful as possible. I...”

Celestia lowered her head a little, feeling a strange... tightness in her chest. A weight, like something was pressing against her ribs, and she shifted slightly before smiling faintly and whispering: “Thesis, please remember that not everything is about chemicals and biology. That family and friends, they are...”

The mare coughed, blood and bile dripping from her lips as her mechanical legs trembled beneath her, gears squalling inside her as her organs flexed and trembled, before her vision went blurry. And yet even as it did, she whispered: “I l-love...”

“Mother!” Thesis shouted, and Celestia smiled faintly even as she fell forwards, hearing her son in that voice, hearing his laughter, as hooves raced towards her.

She was barely aware of anything, except for blurry sounds and fragmented images, as static sparked every now and then over the lenses implanted on her eyes, giving her strange and surreal visions. She thought she saw snow, and angels dancing through the frost; she thought she saw a world where nature was boundless and unchecked, and yet ponies thrived and prospered all the same.

There was pain, and darkness for a time... and then sound. She was blind, but there was sound, as she shifted weakly and felt... strange. Too light, and empty, and... helpless. She frowned, and tried to breathe... but while she tasted the stale air, it didn't seem to go anywhere.

Was she dead? Was this Hell?

Then pain tore through her mind and she swore, head snapping back as a blue flash of agony seared her eyes. She tried to lean away from this until she realized she could see runes and numbers amid the flashes of color, and she realized after a moment that it had to be the lenses over her eyes.

Blurry shapes began to fade in as she groaned and tried to sit up... but for some reason, she couldn't. Her body felt... numb. No, that wasn't quite right...

Celestia opened her eyes... then screamed in agony as something shoved itself down into her skull, causing white-hot agony to tear through her system as she smelled smoldering flesh and burning rubber, the screaming whine of a drill filling her ears. She tried to tear away, but she couldn't move as something painfully crushed into either side of her head, a vise that kept her in place...

And then the pain was over, and Celestia was left rasping for breath before heard something under her whirring. There was a sense of movement and... lightness, and... like something was missing. Something impossible was missing, as she tasted coolant and blood in her mouth...

Her eyes blinked wearily as she rolled along a rail, then she frowned slowly as she found herself facing Valthrudnir. He sat back in a chair, looking at her silently, his fingers locked together but his thumbs still twiddling together nervously, as hard as he was trying to cover up his... his what? What was that emotion? Why was he...

And then Celestia trembled before she tried to look down. Neck muscles flexed, but she couldn't feel... I c-can't feel...

“Valthrudnir, what have you done? W-What have you done to me...” Celestia whispered, and Valthrudnir averted his eyes before Celestia tried to lean forwards, screaming as the crystalline prosthetic sticking out of her head flashed with power: “What have you done to me?”

Electricity tore through the room, the windows behind the Jötnar shattering, machinery buzzing and sparking and going haywire as the vise grips on either side of Celestia's head were torn open... and the lonely head fell to the wide rail with a thud, a mane of lighting and thick cables spilling over the metal and sending up crackles of power as blue tears rolled down Celestia's cheeks, joining the blue-tinged blood running from her freshly-implanted horn.

Valthrudnir swallowed and tugged at his collar, opening his mouth... but for once, there were no words. For the first time, he wasn't able to make up his reasons, his excuses, his defenses: all he could do was stare... and then retreat, lowering his head and striding towards the door.

He left her there, laying on the broken rail, rasping weakly for breath as information spilled over her lenses... until finally, Thesis entered the room. They looked at each other for a little while, and then Thesis said quietly: “We are being transferred to the Endworld dominion. You are being given operational control of the Hecate network.”

“Hecate.” the mare said bitterly, and then she laughed shortly before looking down and whispering: “What has he done to me, Thesis?”

“Repaired you. Returned you to operative status. Modified you to serve in a better function.” Thesis replied calmly, and the head that was all that was left of the mare snorted and tried to look away, even as tears threatened her eyes. “Come, Mother. We have our orders.”

“We do not have orders, Thesis. This is more like a sentence.” Celestia whispered, and then she laughed shortly and closed her eyes. “I was born first and alone on that world. I suppose it's fitting that I die alone there as well.”

Thesis only looked at her curiously, and then he said calmly, not understanding: “All experiences are solitary. We cannot experience the life of another. We do not have the capacity.”

“Capacities, chemicals, programming...” Celestia tried to shake her head... then laughed bitterly when she was unable to do that, before grimacing when Thesis picked her up. A shiver of pain went through her before her eyes widened as the stallion simply shifted her backwards towards a satchel, the mare crying out: “No, I'm... Thesis, I'm not just some piece of equipment that-”

“We are all equipment, machines that do the will of my Father.” Thesis replied, but he seemed to hesitate for a moment... yet only a moment, as he dropped the head into the bag, then simply closed the satchel, leaving Celestia breathing weakly in and out in the darkness that was lit only by her glowing, neon blue eyes. “I am a Replicant. I have accepted my position, my station in life. I recommend you do the same, Mother, as Endworld's master control unit in Hecate.”

“How can you call me Mother, and yet refer to me as nothing but... but a node in a network?” Celestia whispered from the darkness of the bag, trembling as blue tears ran down her cheeks. “Thesis, I thought... isn't there... don't you realize how wrong this has all gone? Valthrudnir... where is Valthrudnir! Bring me to-”

“I have my orders, and they are to merge you with Hecate.” Thesis halted, then said meditatively: “Although you are correct. Logically... you are going to be merged with Hecate. This will supersede your existence as Celestia.”

Celestia laughed weakly, and then she stared up at the cloth top of the satchel as she let herself sink back into the pack, amidst vials of poison, loose tools, microchips and transistors and all these synthetic parts that Valthrudnir had used to replace her son's soul... and... my own, too. Who am I to pretend otherwise? I'm... “Perhaps... you're right, Thesis...”

It was a long, bitter journey, and the head remained numb for most of it. She was barely even aware when she was attached to some strange pillar in Endworld, Thesis fitting her almost lovingly into the control station and attaching the cables that ran from her head into various terminals and data nodes, the mare feeling an influx of information, and computations, and electric dreams running through her mind, all of which made it so very easy to blot out her emotions, to kill the little pony that was left inside her...

Thesis stepped back and gazed at her calmly, and the head slowly looked up, meeting his eyes before she said quietly: “Hecate is online. Tell Valthrudnir...”

The mare didn't have the words, but it didn't matter. Thesis, her once-son, bowed his head to her before he hesitantly looked up and said quietly: “Family is the most important thing in the universe. I understand that, just as I have come to acknowledge that Valthrudnir is my father, and we all have a place in his world. Mother... he saved you. He'll save us all.”

“He killed your mother. I am Hecate.” retorted the mare ruthlessly, and Thesis frowned slightly.

“But... there was no programming, no new chemicals were introduced, your physiology was not modified beyond-”

“One day, Thesis, you will understand that not everything can be easily quantified. One day, Thesis, you'll learn to just accept the words of your betters.” Hecate said harshly, and Thesis blinked in surprise before she snarled: “Get out of my sight.”

“I feel... strange.” Thesis said quietly, hesitantly rubbing at his face and chewing on his lip before he nodded slowly, stepping backwards almost nervously before murmuring: “I'll submit my report to Valthrudnir, Mother.”

Hecate only glared at her son until he turned and left: but the moment the door closed, Hecate trembled and lowered her head, breathing hard as statistics and graphs scrolled over her glowing eyes, blurring as tears of betrayal and anguish and bitter, growing hatred suffused her vision...

And then Hecate opened her eyes and looked calmly up from the metal pillar her head was currently plugged into, the mare cracking her neck moodily before she looked across her sparse, mostly-empty room to where her mechanical body was currently resting back against the wall, secured by several large large clamps in a standing position as its batteries slowly but steadily recharged.

“Systems on.” Hecate said moodily, and the dome-shaped crystals embedded in the walls throughout the room all gleamed brightly, projecting holographic screens with all the information Hecate would need to judge Decretum's status at a glance. And for the first time, she was able to look up and feel like everything was performing adequately.

The mare nodded moodily after a moment to herself, then her eyes drifted slowly to a small table at one corner of the room, near her pedestal. She softened a little as she gazed at it for a few moments, then turned herself as best she could to look at the two pictures she kept, to remind herself of what she had, and what life had brought her.

One was Thesis, from so many years ago: the picture was ancient, and yet it still held up, even after all these years, with how she kept it under a vacuum-sealed frame. She smiled briefly at it, studying it silently for a few moments, and then her eyes roved slowly over to the other, much-more-recent framed picture.

It was Thorn, dressed in the cape she'd given him for his eighteenth birthday. It was designed to hang off one side of his body, so he could hide his prosthetic leg... but Thorn, being Thorn, wore it the opposite way, leaving his scars and metal limb exposed to the world. She chuckled quietly after a moment, then shook her head slowly. Well, we all have our scars. Maybe there's wisdom in... sharing our stories with the world.

Hecate's eyes shifted towards her mechanical body, and then she barked: “Activate!”

The enormous, headless steel suit jerked against the clamps restraining it, and these beeped and released her body after a moment, which lumbered calmly across the room to reach down and gently grasp her by either side of the face. Hecate scowled a little as the head unscrewed her from the pedestal before sliding the connector on her neck carefully into the slotted throat of the machine. With a few easy spins, her head was screwed in tight; a click, and a moment later, a steel collar locked into place around her throat to suitably protect and anchor her into position.

The mare absently cracked her neck, then flicked her claws out a few times as she assumed total control of her body. She checked herself quickly over as one of her lenses lit up with a quick update on her suit's status, and then she absently reached up and tapped on her steel chest, muttering: “I'll need to run maintenance on this body in a few days. Seneschal, schedule a suit change and two days' of workshop time. I'll do a full diagnostic of this body while I'm at it.”

A loud sigh echoed through the room, and then the image of the dragon appeared on one of the translucent screens, complaining: “I am not your butler-”

“No, you are not. You are merely a hoofservant. Now do as I ordered, Seneschal.” Hecate said irritably, and Seneschal gave a loud huff in response to this before the mare added moodily: “And furthermore, I want to begin searching for Outworlders to join our ranks sooner rather than later. Has Thorn made any progress with bringing the SUN online?”

“The Small Uplink Nexus – or SUN, as you so wittily put it – is nearly online. Thorn has submitted a report and has been pestering me constantly about diverting the Worker Drones from their harvesting duties, but so far I have denied him.” Seneschal said, with some strange measure of pride. “I feel that-”

Hecate created a holographic screen in front of herself, but she didn't even wait for Thorn's report to load before she ordered: “Divert Worker Drones from the eastern wastes. Getting the SUN online is much more important than harvesting fuel.”

Seneschal groaned loudly, then gestured sharply to the side and complained: “Queen Hecate, as we bring more facilities online, we consume more fuel! I understand that currently there is a surplus stock, but it is unwise to expect-”

“Orphans.” Hecate interrupted, and she frowned a little as Seneschal stared at her dumbly from the screen. Then the mare looked up, repeating almost questioningly: “Orphans?”

Seneschal stared at her, then said slowly: “We cannot fuel Decretum by burning children, if that's what you happen to be thinking. Decretum does not have enough-”

“No, you idiot.” Hecate said disgustedly, glowering over at Seneschal, who hurriedly shrank his head between his shoulders. “Thorn referred to the Outworlders as Orphans here.”

“An autocorrect error, I'm sure. Although I am rather surprised that-”

“You are the most useless program I have ever created.” Hecate stated sourly, and Seneschal huffed loudly at this before Hecate returned her eyes to the report, scanning quickly through it before she muttered again: “Orphans.”

Seneschal was smart enough not to say anything this time as Hecate pondered on a few of the lines Thorn had written: the entire report she had scanned, her computer-enhanced brain highlighting keywords of interest and letting her focus her attention on the text in particular that had caught her eye:

...soon, we will be able to find and secure other 'orphans' such as myself, and adopt them into our facilities and family...

Hecate smiled briefly after a moment, then she nodded slowly before saying calmly: “Orphans. Strange, but accurate. The Outworlders we draw in here are strong, resilient, often extremely skilled or talented... but they lack connections. All of them share that in common: they have been ostracized from society. They no longer belong in their own world.”

Seneschal frowned out of the screen, then he asked slowly: “And this has any bearing whatsoever upon the current state of affairs because...”

Hecate looked moodily over at the screen, and then she ordered: “Update all data, files, and associations. Enlisted Outworlders are now to be referred to as 'Orphans.' Furthermore, our Enlistment facility will now be known as the Orphanage. Understood?”

Seneschal gave a silent groan, grabbing at his horns before he exclaimed: “Do you understand how much time this pointless busywork will consume? Furthermore, I am not going to attribute such a minor task more than the barest base of processing power, and-”

“It will take approximately twenty days and thirteen hours, so I recommend you get started now. Of course, if you like, I can reroute some of the processing power used to give you voice and imaging to speed up the task.” Hecate retorted, and Seneschal winced a bit, slowly slinking down through the bottom edge of the screen under the mare's baleful gaze.

“Yes, Queen Hecate.” Seneschal said finally, lowering his head respectfully, and then the AI program quickly vanished from sight.

Hecate returned her eyes to Thorn's report for a moment, then she smiled briefly before flicking a claw to the side and dismissing the illusion. Orphans... it was fitting. And she supposed that part of what she offered these Outworlders was a good home, even if she made them work hard.

Her eyes flicked towards the photographs on the table, and then she gently picked the framed picture of Thesis up, saying softly after a moment: “But I suppose it's still true, even today, Thesis.

“Nothing is more important than your family.”

Epilogue: Orphaned, But Not Alone

Epilogue: Orphaned, But Not Alone
~BlackRoseRaven

Thorn stood at Hecate's side as the mechanical mare calmly put her steel hands behind her back. The two faced an enormous crowd, massive screens and speakers facing their massive audience to better convey every word the mare had to say.

Not that she had much to say: she wasn't one for long speeches. The mare looked slowly back and forth over the gathered crowd, and then she said clearly: “Welcome to my Orphanage for Wayward Youth. Each and every one of you here, for some reason, has become an Orphan: among your ranks are exiles, prisoners, traitors, and lost souls. Some of you were found by my soldiers: others I retrieved personally. And not a few of you have been sent to me by Queen Hel or Queen Terra.

“Your past does not matter here. Your former allegiances are moot. From the moment you set hoof here, you became a member of my empire, and all of you will find a place here.” Hecate smiled thinly, then said coldly: “Those who fail to meet my standards or who betray my trust will be dealt with as I have dealt with all weak links in the past: they will be removed.”

Hecate looked back and forth over the audience before her as there was a distinct, nervous shift, and then she gestured down at Thorn, saying calmly: “This is my son and second-in-command, Thorn Blackfeather. All reports are to be sent to him: furthermore, Thorn is in charge of equipment distribution and other tasks. His authority is second only to mine.”

Thorn kept his features serious and his head high and unflinching, but Hecate thought she caught the slightest flush of embarrassment crawling up his neck. She glanced down at him, then reached up and condescendingly dropped a hand on his head, Thorn wincing a bit as the Queen of Decretum ordered: “Finish the presentation. Earn your keep, Thorn.”

Hecate gave the stallion's head a gentle squeeze before she let her claw slip away, as she turned and strode towards the exit to one side of the stage. She slipped through the curtain that covered the niche, then stopped and tilted her head back, smiling slightly as she closed her eyes and listened.

“Alright. Let's move on to the first order of business.” Thorn began calmly, and she could hear the fearlessness in his voice as he gazed up at a thousand different souls. “We shall first discuss the laws of Decretum in detail, in order to give all of you an understand of the expectations we have in regards to behavior and etiquette...”

Hecate shook her head with a quiet laugh, and then she looked over her shoulder, her lenses activating and giving her a peculiar view of the theater behind: she could see Thorn's outline in blue through the wall and curtain, along with a read of his heart rate, body temperature, biometric readings... or she could just trust in her instincts, and recognize that Thorn was a little embarrassed, a little proud, and dedicated to the task at hoof.

She smiled slightly, then turned her eyes back ahead as her lenses shut off before calmly striding down the hall, to return to her own business: managing and masterminding Decretum, organizing the Orphans new and old, and putting the last pieces of her great empire together. An empire of people and ponies, all just like her, who were strong and free, and who were dedicated to using that strength to preserve safety and order... even if, so long ago, those same worlds had rejected them, reviled them, or collapsed around their heads.

But, as Hecate had learned... no matter how much you lost, or how badly you were hurt, or how many times you cut yourself on the thorns and brambles of the universe...

It was from blood and tears that the most beautiful roses took root, and blossomed.No matter how much the world hurts us,

It gives us no right to hurt the world;

For the world owes us nothing,

Yet has blessed us by existing.

The Mechanics of Motherhood

Chapter Five: The Mechanics Of Motherhood
~BlackRoseRaven

Thorn ran through the underbelly of Decretum, leaping from one gear to the next as he kept his eyes focused forwards. The first thing he'd done after his period of being grounded had ended was slip his way into the castle again and make his way down into the workshops. And with the security sentinels all disabled, the colt had been able to focus on the locked box he'd never been able to open, using telekinesis to wiggle the lock until he'd finally managed to pop it open.

He'd slipped his way out the same way that he'd left before: of course, this time he was able to just follow the passages the drill had already cut through the stone. He also could have easily backtracked and left the usual way he did, but... this time, he wanted to conquer this on his own. He wanted to prove that he could do this. After all, he'd run dozens of times through the underbelly of gears and pistons and machinery now... maybe this path was a little more complicated, but he remembered where the archway was... and even if Hecate had just flown over to it, he knew she couldn't boost-jump herself more than a few hundred meters at the most. He'd be able to find his way to that same doorway.

Thorn leapt off a massive gear, landing on a piston before he hopped quickly across two more, using them as stepping stones to a metal platform he landed on with a grunt. He took a moment to breathe here, testing his hooves against the steel before his eyes slid down and locked for a moment on two faint scars in the metal.

The colt smiled briefly: this was where Hecate had picked him up last time, wasn't it? Another glance around confirmed it, and he bit his lip before quickly circling the small platform, focusing back on the task at hoof. There were a few snapped cables hanging from one open side, letting him assume there had once been some kind of bridge out here: this had likely been a maintenance or observation platform of some kind.

Thorn's eyes swept around the area, the colt biting his cheek. Sure, he'd been confident before that he could find his way out of here, but now, well... all he could see was an endless forest of ever-thundering, ever-moving machinery.

He shifted nervously back and forth, then finally faced in the direction the hoof-shaped scars seemed to point, noting another platform only a short distance away, but much higher up. He thought he could reach it, however, by traveling along a makeshift bridge formed from several interlocking gears, and then he could ride up one of the larger counterweight blocks...

Thorn bit his lip as his eyes traced his passage: he noted that he was going to have to jump up onto a massive, thick gear as well, which was moving slowly and ominously with several other gears and some kind of long, arm-like mechanism that he thought controlled the gear's timing. The colt studied this uneasily, shifting apprehensively: from what he'd learned about Decretum and the machinery that controlled Clockwork World, he knew that had to be a master gear.

The master gears were responsible for keeping the machinery that ran entire sections of Decretum working: if they were tampered with, it could easily knock an entire quadrant of Decretum offline. Hecate said it would be very important to upgrade and shield this machinery better one day... but for now, they had to just concentrate on getting all of Clockwork World back online.

So if she ever found out he had so much as touched one of the master gears, well... Thorn knew that he'd be in a lot of trouble. But he also didn't see a whole lot of other ways up: once he was at the master gear, there were at least four different paths he could take, thanks to the interlocked gears and the other patterned mechanisms.

There was nothing he could do but make a run for it though: going back wasn't an option, and the closest way out past that master gear. The colt bit his lip, staring almost desperately upwards before he finally set himself, grinding his hooves against the platform as he breathed quickly in and out... and then he forced himself to take the first leap of faith to the nearest gear.

Thorn kept his eyes forwards, leaping across the turning gears and throwing himself onto the stuttering counterweight before he winced and rode it upwards as the piston bar it was attached to pumped downwards, sending up a wheeze of steam from the machinery below.

Thorn kept his eyes focused ahead, leaping up to another piston, hopping across a weighted bar, then gritting his teeth as he bolted across a large, slowly revolving cylinder to leap off and finally land on the master gear with a laugh. He took a moment to breathe, smiling widely before he looked quickly back and forth as he walked towards the edge of the enormous cog, careful to keep away from where it interlocked with the other gears.

He paced slowly backwards against the rhythm of the clanking gear, going just a little faster than the mechanism was turning. Up here, he could hear the machinery clanking and thudding all around him, and the colt did his best to tune it out as he searched for the easiest way up-

The gear clanked, and something slammed down behind him, Thorn yelping and arching his back as his tail was snared between the gear and the timing bar. He flinched and scrambled wildly at the metal, trying to yank himself free in panic, and then he flinched when the timing bar released and allowed the gear to turn.

The colt fell on his side, wincing as he half-rolled and one of his forelegs flopped out over the edge of the gear, and Thorn had just enough time to start to shift before the timing bar dropped.

There was a terrible crunch, and at first, a sensation like... like his foreleg had just plunged into cold water. A moment later, there was the pressure, and as the timing bar ground downwards, the mechanism whirring as it jammed, Thorn's mouth fell open and he stared in horror at his crushed and ruined foreleg... and then, only when he had seen, only as his mind struggled to try and process what was going on... then the pain hit.

Thorn threw his head back, screaming, as an agony like he'd never felt tore through his body. He writhed helplessly, trying stupidly to jerk his limb free... and the pain, the unbearable, absolute pain that tore through his being knocked him flat on his stomach, trying helplessly to wiggle forwards, shrieking in pain as tears spilled from his eyes, his bladder let go, and everything he was and had been was lost to the inferno of pain that felt like it was consuming his body, his spirit, his very soul.

The master gear groaned and rumbled beneath him as the timing bar continued to crush downwards. Thorn was barely aware of his own howling and sobbing, of the way his body shuddered and jittered, of the urine staying his legs and spreading out from under his body as blood ran down the worn black metal, polishing the grooves and scratches.

Thorn was no more aware of the floating drones and security orbs that zipped past him than he was of anything else: all he knew was pain. Even when heavy metal hooves slammed down onto the master gear next to him, he couldn't see, couldn't react, couldn't do anything but scream and cry, unable to fall unconscious, but equally as unable to comprehend anything that was happening around him.

Hecate stood over Thorn, floating drones and security orbs hovering around her. She looked down at him, her neon blue eyes wide and staring, her mechanical body trembling as she convulsively opened and closed her steel fingers, her mouth slightly ajar, but no sound coming out. She looked at him, not even knowing what she was feeling... only knowing that the instinct to save this colt was greater than the callous things her logical mind demanded.

Hecate breathed slowly, trying to sort out her thoughts, trying to make sense of what was happening right in front of her as Thorn screamed and cried before she clenched her eyes shut and forced herself to assess the situation. She didn't have to look to know that the limb would have to be amputated: the question at hoof was how much.

The mechanical mare lowered her head slightly. Right now, the easiest thing to do would be remove most of Thorn's shoulder. Then she could have the drones simply remove the rest of the limb from the machinery and reset the jammed timing bar.

But if she freed Thorn, then she could better see the damage, and perhaps amputate further down. In order to do that, though, she'd have to stop the master gear: if she removed the timing bar, she'd just cause the master gear to revolve faster. And as it was, this master gear kept the turbine systems and Imperia's Castle District running, keeping the complex machinery above working on time to avoid wild power fluctuations and system failures.

Hecate looked silently down at Thorn, who was screaming, and crying, and reeked of urine and blood and fear. She looked at the little colt, and flexed one steel fist as that cold, callous part of her mind told her that it would be easier, it would be more merciful, it would be more logical just to kill him. End his pain, remove a problem from her world, eliminate the body and make the repairs to the master gear that much easier.

Hecate gritted her teeth as her eyes opened, and she rose a steel fist before slamming it savagely down, sending up a tremendous bang as Thorn's eyes bulged open in shock.

He looked up, staring as Hecate rose her fist again before she slammed it down once more into the gear beside him, and the entire cog shook with the force of impact before Hecate gritted her teeth as she slammed a third vicious punch into the edge of the master gear. And with a screech of metal, the immense cogwheel dropped more than a foot down the support bar as a klaxon blared, then listed slightly to the side.

The sound of the gear screeching down its support almost drowned out Thorn's scream as his foreleg was nearly torn off by the timing bar sliding against it, but as the safety overrides engaged, the jammed timing bar released, letting Hecate reach quickly forwards and simply swing a metal arm into the timing rod. She smashed it free from its tracks with only a gesture, sending the damaged timing bar flying down into the stalled machinery below, while at the same time she grabbed Thorn with her other hand and shouted: “Disengage the security locks, then begin repairs on the machinery!”

The security drones buzzed and quickly shot off on their assigned tasks as Hecate stood up, shifting Thorn to cradle him in one arm as she gingerly grasped his crushed foreleg... and she did her best to ignore Thorn's screaming and flailing, his little hooves bouncing uselessly off her armor as his head snapped back and forth.

Hecate's horn glowed, and then her hand sparked before lightning surged down Thorn's limb, for a moment making him scream louder... and then he fell limp, gasping weakly for breath, eyes rolling in his head and foam dripping from his jaws. But she had paralyzed his leg and numbed his nerves for the moment: the most she could do for him from here.

His foreleg was... ruined. But she saw where she could cut, preserve the shoulder and some of the limb beneath it, if she could get him to...

What the hell was she doing? Hecate turned quickly, striding across the master gear before she leapt upwards, the boosters in her legs kicking in and jets of cold fire propelling her up to land on another gear above. Her weight was enough to make this gear shift slightly, but she didn't care as she leapt forwards again, once more boosting herself to reach the metal walkway that led to the exit. Thankfully, her drones were actually doing their jobs and were already opening the security shutter that had dropped into place once tampering had been detected with the gears...

A master gear. She had just triggered an emergency shutdown in a master gear, for... for this colt. And yet as she looked down at Thorn as he whimpered in her arm, she felt no regret, no anger: she was just... worried.

She ducked beneath the shutter, then hurried down the passage beyond: when she reached the ladder at the other end, she simply leapt upwards and used her boosters to accelerate her up the narrow shaft, rerouting her mechanical body's power down into the thrusters in her lower limbs, even as warnings began to glow over her lenses about overstressing her body and overheating her internal systems.

She smashed through the trapdoor and landed in a crouch in the basement as her boosters kicked off, her legs visibly steaming and her steel hooves slightly melted. But she didn't hesitate, didn't slow as she strode quickly towards the stairs, already shouting: “Prepare the medlab for emergency surgery!”

An approval message appeared in the lower corner of her lens, but Hecate only growled and flicked her head sharply to the side, dismissing the screens clouding her eyes. She focused on nothing but her goal, heading straight to the main medical lab and stomping straight to the airlock leading into the surgery theater.

Machines buzzed on all around her, pumping the room with a decontaminating mist, and Thorn whimpered weakly in her grip as the haze filled the air around them. He tried to stir, to move his paralyzed and ruined limb, and Hecate silently shifted him closer under the cover of the mist, leaning down and whispering quietly into his ear: “It's going to be okay, Thorn. I have you. Sleep now...”

She reached up her free hand as she hugged him closer against her steel breast, metal, unfeeling fingers tenderly and carefully stroking up along his face before she curled them gently into his scalp, holding his head against her breast before her horn thrummed silently.

Magic pulsed through the air, then channeled through her arm and into Thorn, the colt blinking a few times before he groggily closed his eyes, then slumped silently into deep, painless sleep. Hecate looked down at him without a word, licking her lips slowly before she took a slow breath... then looked up, face becoming a cold, emotionless mask again as the vents whirred to life, quickly clearing the mist as the other side of the airlock opened.

Hecate strode through into the surgical theater, quickly laying Thorn down on a steel table that had already been prepared and untangling his satchel from around him to toss it off to the side. Two Dogmatists waited off to one side, while three Enlisted Outworlders came forwards, one of them gasping behind her mask: of course today of all days, Peridot was on duty here. That made sense.

“Get back.” Hecate said sharply, barely sparing a look at the ponies, and they all immediately stumbled to a halt before Hecate turned her eyes towards Thorn, her horn glowing and quickly securing the safety straps into place around his other limbs as she continued calmly: “I will be attending to the patient personally. You will assist but not interfere. Understood?”

One of the ponies began to open his mouth, likely to say something stupid, but Peridot hurriedly elbowed him before she said quickly: “Yes, ma'am. Understood.”

Hecate turned her attention back to Thorn, and then she said quietly, as she gazed silently down at the face of her colt: “Good. Bring me a laser scalpel. And one of you, prepare a stocking. I will be designing a simple prosthetic for him to wear: he will be fitted with it within the week.”

Two of the ponies looked surprised, but Peridot only nodded before saying pointedly: “I'll bring the equipment over. Blaze, you get the stocking.”

“I uh... yes, right away.” Blaze said after a moment, and the last pony only shrugged and stepped back, apparently deciding just to stay out of the way for now. But Hecate wasn't paying attention: she was already carefully stretching Thorn's limb out, grimacing a bit as she touched along his foreleg and located the best place for the primary incision.

Hecate's mechanical hands moved with a dexterity that could scarcely be matched even by the telekinetic powers of the most talented unicorn. She guided the scalpels and clamps to the millimeter, one eye glowing faintly as readouts and analyses constantly spilled across its surface, telling her everything she needed to know about Thorn's condition and the state of the limb she was currently working on.

She worked for two hours: removing the limb was a fast, brutal process and ended with her carelessly tossing the ruined and broken leg off to the side for one of the Dogmatists to clean up. To her, it was nothing but damaged materials, worthless scrap. Instead, all her focus went back to Thorn, the mechanical mare carefully removing ruined muscle, shortening bone, gently attending to ripped and frayed nerves to minimize the pain the colt would feel when he woke up. She also took the time to attend to wounds and damage over his chest: Thorn likely hadn't even realized it, but he had badly cut himself on the edge of the gear, and the pulling on his limb had actually caused tears to radiate through his chest as well. But even if it wouldn't be very pretty cosmetically, she could still bandage and clean the wounds.

She fitted the stocking herself as well: a simple, circular interface that covered the end of the limb. Once she constructed his prosthetic limb, she would replace this with something more advanced. For now, though, this would be best, until she had a chance to talk to Thorn. Until she had a chance to tell him what the surgery would entail, and she could...

Hecate closed her eyes, bowing her head forwards, her mane of lightning and cables half-shielding her face as she breathed slowly in and out. She was silent as she gripped into the metal table in front of her for a few moments, and then she finally stepped backwards, straightening and swallowing her emotions as she rubbed her mechanical hands together slowly, ignoring the blood that had polished them over the course of her work. “Peridot. Take Thorn to Recovery and stay with him. I will come by later to relieve you of my duties once I have finished dealing with other business. Decretum is now behind schedule.”

Hecate began to turn away, and Peridot bit her lip before leaning forwards and blurting: “Lady Hecate, your hands... you still have blood on them.”

Hecate stopped, then looked silently down at her metal claws, flexing them slowly open before she clenched them into fists, watching the way they shivered as servomotors whined quietly and steel digits dug into steel palms, damaging metal plating, putting pressure on the clockwork and hidden mechanisms under her not-skin and not-flesh...

“Yes, I do.” Hecate said quietly, and then she simply flicked her hands downwards, magical energy surging over them and turning the crimson to nothing but steam as she strode quickly towards the airlock, doing everything she could not to look back over her shoulder as she reflected silently that no matter what she did... she didn't think she could ever wash her hands clean.

Hecate calmly sat beside Thorn's bed in Recovery, the mechanical mare looking almost ridiculous in the pony-sized chair she was seated in. She had done some minor repairs to her mechanical body, but it hadn't felt... particularly important for her to deal with right now.

She had a holographic screen in front of her, but she was only staring at it listlessly, watching as numbers and statistics rolled by. She knew she should be doing some of the work, that her half-programmed AIs and the Dogmatists she had left in charge wouldn't be able to handle everything themselves for very long.

But she didn't care. All she could think about was Thorn, and all she could do was stare at him, study him silently, think about all the ways that she'd... failed him.

She closed her eyes: when she opened them, she was Celestia, seated silently on her steel throne, her front hooves resting in her lap. She reflected how even if they were painted and primed with darker polish, there was almost no difference between the material that made up her hooves and the material that made up her seat.

Celestia silently stroked a hoof up a body that was armored with steel, and cloaked in a fine, fur-lined red cape. She closed her eyes as she reached up and grasped the edges of this in either steel hoof, pulling it tighter around her... but she received neither warmth nor comfort from the finery wrapped around her. Her mutilated, cybernetic body couldn't feel either anymore...

Slowly, she gazed around her empty throne room: once it had been filled with proud Solar Guard, members of the Day Court, visitors from far and wide... and now, it was nothing but emptiness, and cold metal pillars wrapped in chains, and ghostly electric lights that cast a hollow radiance over this hollow hall.

She was a Queen. And she was nothing but a glorified administrator of a world that had gone from paradise to wasteland. The worst part was that it wasn't the war that had done this... it was her own stupidity. Her own idiocy, her own weakness, her foolish... love.

The mare gritted her teeth, hugging herself silently, her horn sparking before her eyes snapped open as her mane crackled with lightning around her head. Her mane's rainbow of colors was long gone now, and the strands of ephemera had separated into sizzling and crackling strands of energy and electricity... but Celestia thought bitterly that reflected her better, anyway. She was slowly losing everything that had once made her a pony, flesh and blood included... soon, she'd be nothing more than another machine of Valthrudnir's.

She took a slow breath, then reached up and silently rubbed at one eye: it was no longer amethyst, but instead a glowing, neon blue. She had lost the vision in that eye, thanks to the fact her genetic structure was breaking down with all the energy coursing through this body: a body that was failing and dying even as it grew stronger, with every passing day...

But in this world of machines and corruption, nothing was beyond repair: what a sick joke that was. No, she had just gone to the medical laboratory, and they had popped her eye out, added some new microchips to her brain, fitted her eye with a new iris and a protective lens, and then wired her eye right back into her head. And all of it had been done within a day.

Celestia gritted her teeth, looking down bitterly. And all she could feel was disgust and contempt and anger, not thankfulness: if Valthrudnir had wanted to, he could heal every malady in the world, cure every disease, provide stability and a decent life for every person, not just every pony, in this world...

And instead, what did he do? He used his machines to torment, to play with their lives like a cruel child playing with... insects, or... puppets, really. Because that's all they were to him: nothing but toys, and meat that happened to be capable of moving. Valthrudnir couldn't even acknowledge the fact that she and her fellow ponies were really alive, actually had emotions, feelings, thoughts of their own... to him, they were nothing but stupid, worthless animals...

Or almost all of them, at least...

But maybe she was just fooling herself.

Celestia took a shuddering breath, then she shook herself slowly before gritting her teeth and hugging herself again, whispering quietly: “I promise you this... I'll never again be weak. I'll never forget that we are all alone, that emotions are just... lies, that there's no such thing as... as...”

Celestia closed her eyes... and Hecate opened them. She looked at Thorn, where he lay silent and unconscious, and then she reached a mechanical hand forwards to silently stroke his face, whispering quietly: “I promise you, Thorn. I'll never again be weak. I'll never forget that the only reason we end up alone, is because we push others out... I promise I won't push you out. I promise I won't push you away...”

Thorn stirred, then silently pressed his face into her mechanical hand, his eyes flickering before he opened them and whispered: “Mom?”

There was no great burst of surprise, nor any overflowing feeling of love or companionship for Hecate. There was no need to acknowledge Thorn, or her own feelings – good or bad – with any great speech, with any huge gesture. There was no need to correct him, or pretend she hadn't heard him.

All Hecate did was ask quietly: “Yes?”

Thorn's eyes hesitantly opened, looking up at her, and he trembled for a few moments before tears began to run from his eyes, and he whispered: “I'm... I'm so s-s-sorry...”

“Stop that, Thorn.” Hecate chided, but she was gentle as she leaned down towards the colt, her eyes studying him silently. Her lenses told him all his biometric information and how he was doing physically, but there was no scanner, no technology that could tell her how Thorn was doing emotionally. For that, there was just her eyes, and the maternal instincts that had apparently never left her, no matter how hard she had tried to excise them. “Don't upset yourself. You're...”

She quieted, then simply sat back and remained silent as Thorn shifted and trembled before raising what had once been a foreleg, and was now just a stump. He stared at this, swallowing thickly and whimpering weakly, and Hecate thought about all the things she could say: she could tell him that she was going to have a synthetic leg fitted for him within the week, or that he was lucky to have survived, or how glad she was that he was okay...

Instead, she simply reached forwards and gently scooped him up, and Thorn trembled for a moment before he threw himself against her, clinging to her with his remaining foreleg and dropping his head into the sanctuary of her metal chest as he burst into tears.

Hecate only silently held the colt close, cradling him and rocking him as gently as she could in her mechanical embrace as she sighed softly, only gazing down at him. But she knew it was important that the colt got this out of his system, and... for once, she thought she could let him cry.

Thorn didn't cry for as long as she expected before he forced himself to straighten up, rubbing at his face silently with his remaining foreleg as the stump of the other shifted beside him. She studied this silently, noting how he was trying to move the limb that was no longer there, and how much every shift pained Thorn... but she knew it wasn't the physical pain that was bothering him right now. Thorn was a tough little colt, after all... he handled pain as well as some of her Enlisted Outworlders did. But losing a limb...

Hecate silently grasped the colt's stump, and Thorn whimpered a bit... but then only looked up at her, with trust, and self-loathing, and... was that apology in his eyes still? All this, and still, he was apologizing to her for this and blaming himself... “You are an idiot, Thorn Blackfeather.”

Thorn dropped his head with a flush, and Hecate sighed softly before she murmured quietly: “I will design your prosthetic limb myself. I will also manage the dressings on your chest: you suffered some very nasty lacerations. You will need surgery in a few days to remove the stocking and fit a...”

She hesitated, licked her lips, shifted a little and pulled the colt a little closer before she murmured quietly: “I can't make everything okay, Thorn. But... I will make it easier.”

Thorn nodded silently, looking down at his stump of leg and shivering a bit before he whispered: “Okay, Miss Hecate. I... I promise that... I'll do my best. I'll... be strong.”

“You don't have to be any stronger than you already are, Thorn. I won't ask that of you.” Hecate replied with surprising gentility, shaking her head slowly before she murmured: “We'll take this step-by-step. I... promised to protect you. I am sorry that... I have not entirely lived up to that promise.”

Thorn only smiled faintly, lowering his head and starting: “It was my fault-”

“No, Thorn. It is not just your fault.” Hecate said softly, shaking her head slowly. “Yes, what you did was stupid. You put yourself at risk. You are responsible for your injuries, in part.” Hecate looked calmly at Thorn, who flinched a little... but she thought there was a strange sort of gratitude in his eyes, too. But Thorn was strange, for a colt: he didn't want reassurances and platitudes. He wanted honesty. He wanted the truth. And the truth was... “It is my fault as well, though. I closed my eyes to what you were doing. I introduced you to the ruins and made you think that you had to do something to impress me, to earn your place here. And I told you, too many times, to leave me alone and deal with your problems on your own...”

Hecate stopped, then looked down, saying softly: “But you are a colt. You should be bothering me. You should be asking for help. And I should be there for you, more than I should have. Whether you are an employee or... my ward. You are my responsibility, and I have... pushed you too hard.”

She looked away for a moment, then shook her head before shifting Thorn back to the bed, carefully tucking the colt in and checking him over silently. For now, there were no IVs, no tangles of cable, no needles or injections. The equipment monitored him soundlessly and painlessly, and Peridot could manage his discomfort with her magic. It was better if Thorn was actually drinking and eating a little bit on his own for now, anyway.

Thorn looked up at her quietly, and then, as Hecate shifted, he blurted: “Please don't go!”

Hecate stopped, and Thorn flushed before lowering his head and whispering: “I mean... I'm sorry. I just... I'll be-”

“I have to calibrate the power supplies manually from the main terminal, Thorn. But I will not be gone long. I promise I will return within an hour.” Hecate said quietly, and Thorn looked up at her... with trust, as much as anything else. And Hecate promised herself she wasn't going to betray that.

Thorn nodded hesitantly, and then he murmured: “I'll... you don't have to, though, I'll... I just...” Thorn shifted looking at his stump silently before he reached up and touched it hesitantly.

Hecate softened, then she said softly: “Get some rest, Thorn. I'll be back shortly.”

She didn't let herself hesitate any longer, turning and activating a timer in the corner of her vision. The numbers rattled down over the lens, and Hecate found herself paying more attention to that than she did to her work...

She all the same finished recalibrating the power modulators with more than enough time to spare: she didn't waste those minutes, however, making her way quickly back to Thorn's side. She reached him, as promised, a few minutes before her hour was up... although it looked like the colt had fallen asleep.

All the same, she sat herself carefully down beside him, studying him silently... and then smiling briefly when a sensor beeped quietly. She shook her head slightly, then said softly: “I'm not going to leave, Thorn. So sleep.”

Thorn smiled embarrassedly, an eye half-opening... but then he simply gave a small nod and closed his eyes. And Hecate softened as the colt curled up a little, the mechanical mare only hoping that she could keep her promise to this... this stupid little colt.

Her adopted son.

Four days later found Thorn Blackfeather standing on four legs again.

The young colt stood quietly, studying his new foreleg apprehensively as Hecate looked clinically over the colt. She had taken the measurements precisely, and the limb fit him perfectly... for now, anyway. She would have to lengthen it in the future... or more likely, completely replace it, because in her eyes this prosthetic was nothing but a stopgap.

The smooth, simple mechanical limb was designed to look like a normal pony's: she couldn't hide the fact it was made of solid metal, but she could make it look... natural, for lack of a better word. And it moved and flexed almost as naturally and easily as the real thing, thanks to the nerve socket that Hecate had implanted in Thorn's stump. As Thorn grew older, the socket would have to be replaced several times until he reached full maturity... but so far, it didn't seem like it was hurting the colt.

Thorn carefully leaned on the mechanical limb... and Hecate nodded with a grunt, studying it meditatively. It seemed to support his weight adequately, without any discomfort... but she would have to check for pressure sores and other problems later.

Thorn looked awkwardly up at Hecate, and then he winced when the mechanical mare pointed out at the obstacle course: she had reduced the difficulty greatly, but Thorn still paled slightly before he shook his head hurriedly, beginning in a fumbling voice: “M-Miss Hecate, I... I mean, I can't... I just got out of surgery-”

“I am aware of this. I was there, Thorn.” Hecate said irritably, and Thorn winced and dropped his head before Hecate continued: “Your surgery was three hours ago. You've had healing magic applied to you by several unicorns as well as nanomachine and serum treatments. Your muscles are adjusting and your body is sore, but you can handle this exercise. In fact, exercise is necessary.”

Thorn lowered his head, but then he simply nodded a little, blushing quietly and not wanting to go against Hecate's wishes. There was silence between them for a few moments, and then Hecate added quietly: “And stop referring to me as 'Miss.' It annoys me.”

“Okay... Mom.” Thorn said, a little bravely, and Hecate gave maybe the slightest of smiles before the colt swallowed a bit and carefully tested his new mechanical leg again: he'd done a little bit of walking with it, but otherwise, well... “I um... I don't know if this is such a good idea, though.”

“It's necessary.” Hecate said moodily, and Thorn winced and dropped his head, nodding awkwardly. For a moment, there was silence between them before Hecate simply pointed at the obstacle course again, and Thorn lamely dropped his head and turned towards it, embarrassedly scraping his steel hoof against the ground.

He flinched after a moment, then looked down in surprise and studied his steel hoof for a few seconds. But Hecate wasn't impressed yet, even if she was glad that the mechanical leg was reading his unconscious movements as well as his conscious ones.

Thorn hesitated a few seconds longer, but then he finally straightened and nervously approached the obstacle course. He bit his lip as he studied the ramp leading up to the first platform, and then he gave an awkward laugh before asking hesitantly: “Is... is there a par?”

“The same as it's always been, Thorn.” replied Hecate evenly. Thorn began to shift uncomfortably, and then Hecate said calmly and coldly: “Thorn, you are not 'disabled.' You are not any less of a pony than you were before. You are not weak, or vulnerable, and I do not need to – and furthermore, will not – coddle you, or protect you from the world. Your parents were strong enough to make the best of any bad situation. Show me that you are too.”

There was silence for a few moments, and then the colt swallowed thickly before he nodded quickly, turning his eyes back towards the obstacle course. He bit his lip, then looked down at his mechanical foreleg before Hecate said in a gentler voice: “Focus.”

Thorn nodded a little, then he took a slow breath as he strode up to the base of the ramp, setting himself and biting his lip before he asked nervously: “It's... it's not going to fall off or anything, right?”

Hecate only gave Thorn a dry look, and the colt nodded lamely before he turned back towards the ramp, taking a deep breath as he readied himself. Hecate gave him the time to prepare and calm down, waiting for him to settle before she straightened slightly, then ordered: “Go.”

Thorn leapt forwards, charging up the ramp: he looked incredulous at how easy he was moving, and Hecate smiled slightly in spite of herself. The limb functioning correctly meant a lot less to her than the fact that Thorn had apparently learned enough from his training not to stumble to a halt even if he was surprised.

She watched as Thorn shot through the obstacle course, leaping across tilted platforms, then sprinting across a narrow bridge before sliding across a zipline, then hitting the floor at a run and leaping several hurdles without a hitch. She felt... pride, she thought. And perhaps the strangest hint of what was almost shame: for all her tough words, she had set this course at an even lower difficulty than when Thorn had first run it.

But the moment the colt leapt across the finish line, Hecate leapt forwards, stomping a hoof savagely down towards him. Immediately, Thorn leapt to the side, then ducked under a sweeping kick before he ducked away from another stomp. Hecate's fist lashed down immediately after, though, and Thorn paused, so Hecate pulled her punch to minimize the damage her colt was about to take-

Thorn swung his own metal leg up, and mechanical fist pounded into steel prosthetic with a hail of sparks, Thorn flinching and ducking behind it... then he stared up at her with surprise as Hecate's own eyes widened.

For a moment, they were frozen like that... and then Hecate hurriedly stepped back, rubbing awkwardly at her face in an embarrassed gesture before she narrowed her eyes at him and snapped: “Your prosthetic leg is not battle-hardened, Thorn! Do not hide behind it like a cheap shield!”

The colt lowered his head and blushed a bit, looking down at his mechanical foreleg and biting his lip at the scuffing along the limb before he said quickly: “I'm sorry. I didn't-”

“No apologies.” Hecate said irritably, before she reached down and quickly grasped Thorn's metal leg, pulling it out so she could examine it. Her eyes roved back and forth along the prosthetic, but even if her fist had scratched it, most of the damage seemed to be cosmetic. That was probably in part because she always pulled her punches at the last moment with Thorn, but still...

Hecate dropped the mechanical limb, leaning back meditatively before she asked: “Are there any points of discomfort?”

Her scans told her there were a few points of friction she'd have to repair when she got the time: Thorn, of course, simply shook his head and rubbed at his shoulder, saying quietly: “It just feels... heavy, I guess. I just have to get used to it, I think.”

Hecate didn't bother scolding Thorn: instead, she simply nodded briefly, then she called up a holographic screen in front of her, tapping over it with one finger and bringing up the schematics for Thorn's foreleg. She examined this thoughtfully as the colt looked up at her uncomfortably, before the mare dictated calmly: “Increase shell integrity and consider redesigning inner frame. Make adjustments for weight distribution.”

Notes scrawled across the screen, and then Hecate simply waved the holographic image away before returning her eyes to Thorn, studying him intently again. Thorn winced a little at this, shrinking a bit under her gaze before he opened his mouth, but the mechanical mare quickly held up a hand and said distastefully: “If you apologize to me again, I will take your leg away and leave you to hobble around on three limbs.”

Thorn flushed and lowered his head, mumbling another apology out of reflex, and Hecate sighed tiredly before she shook her head slowly, saying moodily: “Enough, Thorn. Stop apologizing. Or at least do something worthy of apology.”

“I just... want to take responsibility. I respect you, Miss Hecate, I...” Thorn stopped, then smiled and blushed a little when Hecate gave him a dry look. “I mean... Mom.”

“You may also just call me Hecate, Thorn. When you are working, I expect you to use my proper title. But when you are off duty, you can refer to me by whatever means you want.” Hecate said softly, gesturing off to the side with one hand. “You are my ward and the colt I suppose I have... willingly allowed into Decretum. Your situation is different from the many other Enlisted Outworlders that I have brought here.”

Thorn looked up at her quietly, and Hecate looked back down at the colt for a few moments before he shook his head and said softly: “I still have to respect you. You're... you're not like Mom or Móðer. But you're still like a mom to me. You care about me and you take care of me and you're really really nice when you're not so... serious.”

“Serious.” Hecate gave a wry smile, shaking her head briefly. Well, the colt had a bit of a way with words, anyway... “I suppose I've been called worse, Thorn.”

She stopped, then looked down for a moment at one of her mechanical limbs, flexing it slowly, before her eyes roved silently to Thorn's foreleg. Her smile faded gradually, and there was an uncomfortable silence between the two for a few moments before Hecate said softly: “I want you to know that I... am not happy about what's happened.”

Thorn tilted his head in confusion, and then he blushed a little and dropped his gaze, murmuring: “It's okay, I... I know I did a bad thing. I was stupid and-”

“No, not that.” Hecate cut off irritably, shaking her head and glaring down at Thorn, and the colt winced and quailed a bit before the mare softened, feeling a burst of self-loathing as she reached up and rubbed slowly at her face. It was so hard to find the words: not just to swallow her pride, to speak to this colt as an equal, but to just... think of what to say...

“I... would have saved your leg if I could.” Hecate said finally, silently rubbing at one of her own mechanical forearms. Metal fingers scraped against metal, brushed over cold and unfeeling plates that secreted machinery a hundred times stronger than a mortal pony. Machinery that could be easily replaced, repaired, rebuilt... that was better, in almost every way, than soft flesh and frail bone and easily-torn muscle...

Her eyes roved silently to Thorn's mechanical leg. A leg that would be stronger, better, more adaptable than his real limb ever could have been. A leg that, if it was crushed or destroyed or broken, could be easily fixed, repaired, or replaced...

Hecate's gaze traveled upwards, and the two looked at each other silently for a few moments before Thorn said quietly: “I know you're not trying to turn me into a Clockwork Pony, Miss Hecate. I know you're just... doing your very best for me, honest. You... you shouldn't feel bad about that, because I really appreciate it.”

The mechanical mare studied the colt for a few moments, and then she finally lowered her head and gave a quiet sigh, muttering: “I will not waste my words with gratitude, Thorn.”

Thorn only smiled and shrugged awkwardly, and Hecate sighed before she simply pointed towards the doors, saying moodily: “I want you to walk for at least thirty minutes, then head to your room. I will meet you there.”

Thorn simply nodded, then he hesitated visibly before suddenly hopping forwards and hugging Hecate's leg. The mare reared back slightly in surprise, arms spreading a little as she looked disbelievingly down at the colt, but Thorn only smiled awkwardly up at her before he blushed and leapt away, hurrying towards the door and stumbling childishly over his own forelegs.

Hecate simply stood for a moment, and then she shook her head and gave a short laugh before slowly rubbing at her face, muttering: “I suppose I shouldn't be surprised anymore by anything that idiotic child does, but...”

She stopped, then looked down and closed her eyes for a moment... and there. There, in her mind, she saw Thesis, smiling up at her happily, a young and innocent colt hanging off her neck with his embrace, and she was smiling, cradling him against her body, hugging him back as tightly as she dared...

Hecate's eyes opened, and she shook her head briefly before she moodily slammed a fist against her breast as something inside her clanked, the mare muttering: “Enough. Old data, that's all. There's nothing further to be learned from examining it.”

Still, the memories played through Hecate's mind, mixing with the thoughts of Thorn today... and she only hoped silently that Thorn's mechanical leg wasn't just the first misstep down another path of failure.