a short about a Shadow

by ProjectRabbid

Rating: teen
Tags: Random, Crossover, Alternate Universe
Length: 3263

Sombra respawns.

Sombra respawns in his safe house.

Crossover with the Lukianenko-verse

[nothing much; probably grammatically incorrect ^^]

Enjoy~~

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2015-09-21 20:20:02 UTC

the only one.

I fell out the circle in a heap of pain after I was blasted to million pieces. I looked around and recognized the Cave I have let carved between the griffon and  Equestrian border, the slaves were all dead. No witnesses. The risk was too high that they would tell anybody about the 'horrors' I kept in that cave. The ceiling was ten feet high and had seen better days than before. The many podiums were broken and few only dust. Of course, I should have used crystal for them, not metal.

The rust has eaten many parts of the devices in here away over the thousand and so or so years.

I turned around, the silver circle I stepped out was filled with silver dust while the ground around was covered with darker dust. That was a normal phenomenon that was called, 'burned cells'. The idea behind that was that due to my connection to the 'respawn'-point my old dead bodys' cells were teleported to that one and after the circle recreated my body again, that these cells burned away and turned into dust.

With a connection like this was suicide just another way to clean myself up.

I need to clean this place...

I licked my lips, my body was full, I won't be hungry for the next 24 hours. A great extra in customization the respawn-circle.

I started moving towards a set of monitors and sat on a leather chair in front of them. I pushed the 'on'-button of the PC and prayed that the computer was still working. The windows-start up-screen came to life and I waited until my Windows 7 warmed up. My 'father' told me once that computers would break if not used once in a month or so, the reason behind that was unexplained so far, because there was no magic in these devices.

There was actually no magic in the devices I had in that cave. Risk of magical scans would reveal me and good old hydrogen-generator were so far the best solution I had here.

The OS warmed up and I saw the cyan screen with the bird in the background, the white text said, 'Windows start-up…please wait…Update one from two thousand is installing'.

I stared at the screen for two minutes. How? I didn't had an Internet connection since I abandoned this place.

I looked under the table, the Ethernet-cable was still plugged in and I remembered that I had the PC in 'Sleep-mode' the whole time. The PC must have crashed sometime and rebooted again.

Huh.

I looked back to the main-screen and decided to take a shower until the PC was updated.

I got up and trotted towards the living-area of this place. The door that connected the two areas - I was in the lab - needed a scan of my face. I blew the dust away from the  camera and stood in front of it. A small green lamp came to life and than it beeped a wonderful sound. The great metal door opened and I saw an empty, dark living room in front of me.

I entered the room and the door/bookcase closed behind me. My concerns proved to be true, the room needed a cleaning too. I can only hope that I don't have any diseases in my shower and the pipes.

I went into the next room, the kitchen, and opened the fridge. It was empty, there must have been some rats or other critters that ate the stuff away. How did they come in?

I closed the empty fridge and went to the next room.

The hallway was  three meters wide, two to two and a half meters high and five meters long. The kitchen/living room was behind me and I entered the room at my side. The next room was my old 'office', there was a flat-screen on a side and an old PS3 on the ground. The desk was on the other side and had a little Macbook on it. I used a special server for my files to work with. The server had two terabytes and labeled, 'Equestria-stuff', I have to turn the thing on, if I wanted to edit my files. The server was in the 'basement', I guess.

Ignoring my previous idea of a shower I turned the Macbook on. I only bought it due to some office-software functions that 'Word' or 'Photoshop' didn't had.  The OS of the Macbook was damaged and I turned it off again.

I could forget my Macbook now.

Back in the hallway, I entered the main room of my idea. The Bathroom. It was, for the fact that I was in a sort of bunker right now, actually very fancy.

The bathtub was set in the ground and deep enough for drowning and big enough for three ponies of my size.

I held my breath as I opened the faucet and breathed out again as no water came out. The pump was off, apparently.

I sighed and entered the hallway again to enter the door to the basement. Or more precise, the machine-room of my little bunker.

There were two sets of stairs down there, all of them with fourteen steps. I walked down casually and glanced at the number on the wall for a brief second, '34'.

Maybe I won't EVER find out why the slaves put that number there. The stairwell was illuminated for a good measure with halogen lamps lined up on the walls, which reminded me that I have to turn on the main-energy. So far I walked through the hallways with a little red light on the ceiling.

The doors to the basement was a normal wooden one and I pushed it open. The light turned on and I saw that there was no dust. Of course, the rooms' walls were made out of metal and there was no way that the sources of dust - whatever they are- flew in.

I entered said room without hesitation and looked around for the control-panel. I found it where it should be and opened the glass-lid to press a few buttons. The panel wanted a password, I gave one and the generator came back to life with a power-efficiency of 120 percent. No idea, how this was possible but so far it didn't blew up in any faces so it was safe…I hope.

I checked the data on a few monitors with bad graphics and  nodded to myself.

My bunker was with full power again.

Back in the shower I opened the shower faucet and showered for five minutes. I used shampoo for my mane, tail and body.

I looked in the mirror after closing the faucet and drying myself up. I saw a pony I haven't seen for a good while now. A younger pony. A younger myself.

The exact mechanics of the respawn-circles were not hundred percent clear to me nor was it my goal to find out how they worked. But because of them, there was no possible death for me anymore. Yes, ethics can say what they want about the conscious or the soul but so far I know I would never find out, if I was still the same me or not. The few functions I knew of the circles was that they were like a plant. If you destroy the ground were one was, the circle would just regrow, just like a plant, and still exist like nothing ever happened. Another fact I knew was that I used the second type of circles in my bunker. A custom circle, which was my personal one. Connected to me, it teleported me from any point of the galaxy to this safe house. I can deactivate the function with my neurological 'part' and let the random circles teleport me to whatever my psyche needed. For example, if I died in a war and had my neurological 'part' on 'normal' and not 'safe-house' then these circles would teleport me to a planet where piece reigned for a little break.

That is a way to test true love, many creatures that wanted a new life on another planet stepped in these circles and were teleported to the same place would know that they shared the same plans for their future. But in some cases the galaxy would spit them on two different planets and they wouldn't find each other EVER again. Even when the one partner would go wherever the other wanted, the galaxy sees through it, into their psyche and read their smallest wishes of another version of a 'good' life.

This web of 'normal' circles was called shadow. It is the shadow in us and the shadow of the universe that sucks slowly every planet in.  The origin was a secret and not even the oldest beings can remember on which planet the idea started.

But in the second I saw my younger face, I knew that the circles reset the body of the subject into the form it had connected with them.

I sighed in annoyance. There won't be a stop in my life. I would always re-spawn somewhere and even if I destroyed every circle, they would just regrow. I know that because others tried that. Pirates, Republicans, Fascists, racists, Christians. nearly every version of government and religion.

My last body was the longest I maintained so far including the thousands of years in ice. A great thing to breathe through and sleep a near death.

In the end is death nothing else but a dreamless sleep that goes forever and ever without a break.

I threw the towel away again and trotted back into the lab, wondering how I started to think about my destiny after seeing my new face. I am growing older… too old.

The Updates were halfway done, so I started to look around the cave for something I could entertain myself in the meantime. I already turned the server downstairs on so I can  edit the files later.

I walked to a faraway corner of my little cave where I had a few machines stored. There was another panel and I wrote my Password in it again.

The cave wall opened without much noise and I saw metal hallways of weapons. Weapons - too many- to kill.

I walked in the hallway of the surprisingly colorful weapons, after I purchased a weapon-editor I connected it to a robot-drill, which got the resources to make the weapons. I let the machine work once for a full week and the robot build this hallway to store all the Borderlands two replicas.

There was one thing that bordered me so far.

"Test? Test!" I shouted at the walls and heard my younger voice of a 20 year old again. I sighed and was glad to hear that my voice wasn't higher.

I walked further in the hallway to see how my weapons were faring.

After I ignored all the unimportant Rifles, RPGs and SMGs I came to another door. this one was far bigger than any other. Behind that one was my 'special' armor and my Tank based on the Batmobile.

Yes, I know who Batman is, I played the games and the car is the best.

The way opened for me and I went into the next room. That one was by any means the biggest. The portion of the bunker I was in right now was built - or carved- into the mountain between the two borders.

Anyways, I looked around and saw a few giant bean-shaped glass-structures with a cyan hue. The shape behind them was the Batmobile-replica and on the other one was my version of the Arkham Knight suit for the pony. As I would have loved to try them out again I only checked them for any damage. The bean-shaped glass was poured over them in a form of protection against earthquakes and dust.

I walked back into the lab and checked the PC again, the updates were to seventy-five percent done. I smiled.

I turned and entered another portion of my lab, where I placed my robots. There was no control-panel for a password, because the robots would kill the one who woke them up if it wasn't me or anyone who got the 'scan' at my front door.

Back to the robot-thing. I stood in front of very much scrap and frowned at how my servants looked like.  I couldn't scan them with my magic to decide what was wrong with them, because - I said before- there was no magic in technology. For the fact that you can't turn Aether-energy into ones and zeros. It just doesn't work. It doesn't want to work for a matter. Magic is in that case a creature from another dimension, which despises the PCs. I could understand Macbooks but PCs? Maybe the magic shrieked away from technology as it saw IOS6?

I laughed at my ridiculous racism against Apple and walked to a scrap of metal. It was a plate like object and had technological stuff inside; maybe the head?

I walked to the corner were the most metal was lying around. I grabbed a piece of metal and looked at it from every side. There were the words 'George' on a side with a few scraps and rust on another.

I tried to remember who George was but couldn't.

Anyway, there are a few possibilities why my servants are 'dead' now. One was that something came in here and destroyed them but then my other stuff would be missing too, which wasn't the case. There was no way to 'hack' my safe house' circle and teleported here. So a no go.

Another possibility was mass-suicide but this were robots with no feelings of anything and magic - not even dark magic - could hack them. They all had McAffe installed and a cool Firewall designed by Telecom so no viruses.

The third possibility and most likely was time. They just run out of time and rusted, deceased and fell apart.

I nodded at my detective-sense and felt 20 percent more Batman. The reason why I won't ever feel like that guy was that I loved to murder. Maybe I would be an awesome Arkham Knight? My Batmobile-replica for one had three additional -deadly- Gatlings and a flamethrower.

I sat down on the cold metal ground with the scrap of metal, still in my hooves, and leaned back to look up at the ground.

What would Sunbutt and mooncunt do?

'Peace' told me my subconscious mind and I laughed at their supposed idiocy. There was one thing that never existed in the universe nor wherever…it was called 'peace'. Of course there were peaceful planets but only because they didn't had a proper government. The creatures on those planets were normal farmers, or whatever you can call a farmer in times of high end technology.

I set the scrap of metal back down on the ground and went to the PC again, the many monitors turned blue and I saw my Profile-picture of a soccer-ball. I clicked it and entered my password of four letters and waited for my background to launch. After ten seconds I heard the windows-sound and saw my old background picture. It was a picture of me in my Batmobile-replica in front of the sunset. I loved that photo and whoever shot it (a robot) more. The moment was very epic for me back then.

Anyways, I used my awesome keyboard-skills to press Windows-button and E, then I opened the Galactic Wide Web to search in my World-browser for the financial-news.

I logged myself in the website and waited as the page was loaded.

What was the pink pony princess doing?

The thought nagged at me and I opened a new tab and went to a website in the deep web. A special site for satellites. I changed back to the previous tab and looked my finances up...

Perfect…my money was in the green area and I had still a few billion units of any currency in the galaxy.

For your information I have five monitors here. Three on the desk and two over them. each of them was showing a different desktop.

I shuffled in the desk for a notepad and hoped it was still there, I grinned as I found it. the thing had my many IDs and passwords in it. I flipped the paper to a certain place and read my Passwords of my financial account.

I turned to the website for satellites and purchased a drone. One made by a certain company for maps...

I commanded with the command software for that satellite to come to the orbit of this planet, which name I didn't knew…I decided to call the planet I was on now 'Jessica'.

I saw the live stream from the satellite, how it flew to a certain point in galaxy, then how the stars stretched and in the end my planet...

I backed a bit away from the screen to breathe through and place my hooves on my face.

My mind wandered to my home planet, where I was created. Yes, created, not born.

I looked at my flank and saw the serial number, 'U43'. The U stands for unicorn; I was the 43th unicorn they created- from scratch.

What was so special about my home-planet? It was not a planet per se, but a force field. A giant force-field in the size of two Jessica. In that force-field were seven different-sized rings floating around in a mysterious - or random - pattern. The rings were giant cities of nearly everything that a country needed to survive. There wasn't a 'mayor' but a  'Governor', who managed said ring. All governors were in some way or another part of the 'royal' family. The main figures - or simply king and queen - of the royal family lived in the biggest castle available - a mechanical sun/moon - in the center of the force-field.

Back then, I woke simply up to the sounds of birds-chirping, in a bed with an IV. They have put fake memories of an education in my brain and saved it up in the Spine.

I never had a proper youth but my 'aunt' would always drink alcohol with me on weekends. So I had the main part of youth behind me: anti-socializing.

I looked back at my screen and saw that the satellite waited for proper commands.

I got into the settings and turned the software from 'ed.' to 'act.', I could use the arrow-keys now and did so too.

The satellite was moved over the frozen north and I zoomed to the crystal Empire.

The bird-view I got showed me that my slaves and the new princess were celebrating. Despite all logic I couldn't bring myself to frown but smile.

I smiled, not like a psycho nor like a feeling less monster. I smiled as I watched my subjects in their freedom, I saw them as younger beings that made something that made myself proud. Deep within, my heart was still meat, juicy red meat and not black. And I watched in father like-pride as my lesser members of society celebrated my murder. Somehow, my thoughts didn't turn  cloudy nor dark. I was honestly glad that they…succeeded.

I noticed how couples were starting to dance and sing and drink.

I turned the software off.

What now?

What epic quest should I undergo now?

Where to go?

I turned back to my bunker and pondered the question.

What should I do now?