prologue

Time… we never get enough of it.

We have all sacrificed something to get that little bit more of it, but sometimes it can come with a consequence, and now it’s starting to take its toll for the ponies of stable 97 and the secret it has been holding for so many years now is almost ready to be revealed.

Here’s the rundown of things.

It has been two hundred years since the Great War between the ponies of Equestria and the zebras of Zebrica. The war was bitter, cruel and painful. And when it ended, all that was left was the hellhole that it is today. When the mega spells began to fall, hundreds of thousands of ponies were rushed into underground bunkers commonly known as ‘Stables’.

Stable 97 was one of the lucky ones to have made it through the fires of hell and radiation, and this stable is one of those special stables. It holds a secret that has been lying dormant for two hundred years.

No pony knows about it except the over mare and all the previous over mares.

They know there is a secret in there but even they don’t fully understand what it is. Except just that it’s there, that something was a legend in the old world now it is a myth that is rarely spoke of.

What lies deep in the bowels on Stable 97 lies a creature that no pony has seen in 200 years, that creature is……a human…... a creature that walked on two legs and had claw like appendages at the end of its forelegs.

Most Ponies said that humans were just and old ponies’ tale and didn’t exist but they were proved wrong one day. It was said a human came to Equestria in a giant metal bird, and that he was about to die on his own world but the sun goddess gave him a second chance and he took it.

He then made friends with the ponies of Equestria and lived among them as if he was one of them.  Then when the war came to Equestria they made him into a machine of war, ready to die for others and the kingdom he called home.

Then the bombs fell.

No pony knew what happened to him…

Did he die and become one with the goddesses or did he live?

No pony knows except the Over mare of Stable 97.

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Stable 97, Lower Tunnels

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Three young ponies, two of them brothers and both unicorns, and one best friend that was an earth pony where walking down the lower levels of stable 97. Bored out of their minds, they had nothing to do so they had decided to go explore the lower levels out of curiosity and hopes of countering their ever growing boredom.

Batter up was younger than his brother Circuitry, who was 12, whilst he was 11.

He had a dark green coat and a black mane and tail with light blue eyes, his cutie mark was a baseball bat, the same one which he owned and always kept with him holstered at his side. He could swing it and hit the ball almost every time.

His brother sported a yellow coat with a blue mane with green highlights and blue eyes the same as his brother. His cutie mark was a circuit board. He found his talent one day when the terminal for the sewage systems broke down, so he quickly repaired it with some spare cable that he found lying around.

When the it came back to life, he restored the terminal back to functionality and that’s when he got his cutie mark, his special talent, both had pick buck’s on their forelegs from when they got their cutie marks and had gotten jobs.

They both took care of each other in their own apartment since their mother died a few hours after giving birth to Batter Up; and their father raised them until a year ago when he died in an accident while at work.

Little Twist followed close behind, looking around at the dull walls of the tunnels they were walking down. She had a burgundy coat with a light purple mane and tail. She had dark brown eyes but no cutie mark yet she was the same age as Batty (the Stable’s pet name for Batter Up) but she tried everything to find her talent.

She lived with her parents but they never really cared for her very much so she lived the majority of the time with the brothers. They felt more like family to her than her own parents but that didn’t mean they didn’t drive her up the wall half the time they were together.

As they were walking along the tunnel Twist gave out a load groan:

“Uuurrrrrrgghhh, goddesses this is so boring,” she said looking at the floor.

“I know, I know. I’m bored as anything too but if we keep looking, hopefully we might find something. You never know,” Batty said as he let a small chuckle.

Circuitry then spoke up.

“Come on, let’s try this way,” he said, pointing to the right at a T-junction.

“Ok Cables, we’re following you since you seem to know where you’re going,” said Batty sarcastically.

“Ha-ha very bucking funny Batty and how many times have I told you not to call me by that name?” Circuitry replied.

“What? Cables?” asked Batty.

Cables was his nickname for his brother and to be honest he knew that every time he called him that, it really pissed him off.

“Yes! For the millionth time, just stop-” WHACK!

Circuitry stopped mid-sentence as he had walked into a wall in front of him.

“Great! A dead end!” Twist yelled out loud, as she turned her head and head butted the nearest wall with a loud thud.

When she moved her head away from the wall, there was a loud clunking noise coming directly from where her head had just been. Next, a piece of metal that had been expertly disguised as part of the wall, swung open and behind the panel was what looked like a control panel of sorts.

“Hey guys, look what I found,” she turned her head towards her two friends who in turn walked up to what she had found. Circuitry walked up to the control then spoke up:

“This looks like a control panel for something, let me work my magic,” but before he could his hoofs on it he was stopped by Twist.

“Whoa whoa whoa, what are you doing? You have no idea what this thing does and I know you’re a nerd and everything, but it doesn’t mean you have to go looking at every single thing that has a keyboard,” she did have a way with words but he was now anxious to find out what it does.

“Come on Twist, don’t you want to see what it does? I know you do,” he was right, she did but at the same time she didn’t. However, she was overruled as Batty had taken his brother’s side on this one.

“Fine. Go ahead, but if we get in trouble, I’m blaming it all on you,” she said with a huff.

“Ooooooo watch out, we’ve got a bad flank over here!” Batty teased.

“And you can shut your mouth as well, Batty,” said Twist was losing her temper.

“Okay okay jeeze, some ponies,” replied Batty in a slightly defeated tone.

They stood there for a couple of minutes as they waited impatiently for circuitry to work the panel.

“Come on! What taking so long?” groaned Twist.

She was getting even more impatient by the minute. Batty was just sitting in the corner swinging his bat back and forth with his magic, taking practice shots.

“I’m going as fast as I bucking can, but this bucking thing has a really annoying password that is really starting to piss me off!” Replied cables, as he was now franticly tapping the keyboard and was growing more inpatient.

Then he heard a satisfying beeping noise, and then a rush of air came past them from the wall directly behind were Batty was sitting. He quickly moved forward, then turned around with his bat at the ready.

Twist quickly moved behind batty while his brother flanked him to his left as they looked at the wall. Suddenly steam shot out from the corners of the wall and a small red light began flashing and a spoken warning began:

“Warning! Warning! Cryo chamber door now opening. Please stand back. Repeat, cryo chamber door now opening. Please stand back,” Then the robotic voice was cut off as the wall hissed loudly and then started to slowly roll downwards.

the Over mares office.

The Over mare was sitting at her desk, going through her daily routines of being the over mare, and in charge of a stable housing over a thousand ponies. She was busy typing some notes onto her personal terminal, then she turned her head away from the computer to take a quick sip of her drink next to her.

The room was fairly quiet except for the music that was being played quietly over the radio speaker throughout the Stable. Then suddenly a new sound filled the air. Her ears quickly perked up as she looked back the monitor where a notice flashing on it that read:

*Warning! Warning! Cryo chamber door now opening. Warning! Warning! Cryo chamber door now opening*

“Oh shit,” she said out loud, almost knocking her drink onto the floor as she quickly scrambled over to where the microphone was. She pressed the button and began speaking into it:

“This is the Over mare, I need all security to report to my office ASAP! Repeat, this is the Over mare I need all security to report to my office now!” she moved away from the microphone and began frantically moving about her office thinking to herself.

“This is bad this is bad but wait the only way the chamber could be opened is from my office or-”

She ran back over to the monitor and began scrolling through the security videos feeds. She then came across what she was looking for… three young ponies were standing in a dead end corridor and she saw the wall at the back move downwards.

“This isn’t good,” she said out loud, worry now hung in her voice.

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Stable Lower levels

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The three young ponies’ eyes were as wide as saucers as they just saw the wall in front of them move, revealing another room behind it. Cables lifted up his pip buck leg and quickly brought up the map of where they currently were in the Stable, only to see that the room in front of them didn’t appear on the map.

“What the hay? This room doesn’t even appear on my pip bucks map, it shouldn’t exist!” he exclaimed.

“Well it’s right in front of us, clear as anything,” replied Batty as he began to move forward through the wall of mist that had formed in the doorway, with Twist practically hugging his leg.

Cables gulped then followed behind his brother.

Inside, the floor was covered in white tiles that twinkled when the light reflected of them. The walls were white as well and there were a few desks here and there, with equipment that looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. Everything was covered in frost and now the trio were starting to shiver a bit as they could see their own breath.

“w-w-why I-i-is i-i-it s-s-so cold i-i-in h-here?” asked Twist, who was now beginning to shiver uncontrollably.

“I-i-i d-d-don’t k-k-k-now,” replied Batty, still holding his bat in front of him.

They rounded a corner and what they saw made their mouths drop open. Along the wall there were three big, long tubes jutting out from the wall diagonally. The front part of the tubes were made of glass but you could barely see through because of the amount of frost on them.

At the end of each tube, there was a monitor all making beeping noises like a pulse monitor in the medical wings. They walked up to the first tube. Cables wiped the frost off the monitor with his hoof before getting to work on it.  He came across a file so he opened it and read out loud:

“Sean ‘Silver’ Silverstein” he scrolled down through the file and came across a picture of a unicorn with a brown coat, brown mane and Brown eyes.  He then read underneath it.

“Current cryo stasis, normal,” he moved up to the tube and peered in and he saw what looked like the pony he had seen on the monitor.

He and others moved away from the first tube, and onto the next one. Cable started typing on its monitor. The screen kept saying:

*No unauthorized personnel  on this file please contact admin*

He looked away from the monitor and they all peered into the tube.

They could just make out the shapes of not one but two ponies. They looked surprisingly young and they could just make out that one was a colt, and the other was a filly.

They then moved to the final tube, but this one was a lot bigger than the rest.

Cables moved up to its monitor with the other two behind him. He opened the file with a

lot more ease than the others and it was labeled ‘Project Human’.

“Where have I heard of that word ‘human’ before?” he thought to himself as he continued scrolling down until he came across a video file. He opened it and waited for it to load while the others just watched the screen. Then the video began playing but appeared on the video shocked them.

It was a creature that looked nothing like a pony. It had a very pale skin, short muzzle and was very short with dark brown mane, and blue eyes. On its front left foreleg it wore a pip buck, but not one they’ve ever seen. This one was very high-tech and advanced. Then the creature began to speak into the camera:

“Hello there. My name is Matrix. I don’t know how long it will be before any pony finds this video but if you do just listen. If you’re wondering what I am, I’m a human. Yeah, you think your eyes must be deceiving you, but they’re not. I’m real as I ever would be. Right now I’m cryo sleep and have no idea when I’m gonna wake up. I have fought in the war between the ponies and zebras we thought we had won this war, but we were wrong…because today no pony won. Me and Silver just managed to get every pony into the Stable before the mega spells hit. We consider ourselves lucky on that one. I just hope that every pony else made it….I hope-”

the thing that called itself ‘Matrix’ was interrupted by two foals leaping onto his lap.

“Daddy,” the filly said.

“When are you gonna put us to bed?” she said as she put on an irresistible cute

face no pony could reject.

“In a minute sweetie. Just go get into bed, both of you. I will only be a second,” said the creature, putting a smile on his face as the two foals leapt off his lap.

He then looked back towards the camera and put its serious face back on.

“I hope that some pony comes to find us some day. I don’t want to be in cryo stasis for the rest of my life……and I hope that rainbow dash got to the facility ok….I really hope she did…”

The creature looked like it was about to cry, but then a brown hoof touched its shoulder. The pony spoke:

“Matrix, come on. we need to go now,” said the new voice and then trailed off.

“I’m coming. One sec,” he looked to the camera again.

“If some pony finds this video, please wake us up……..this is Matrix, signing off,” the video abruptly ended.