Maximum Overdrive

        The Genesis Project is what started this mess; though if you wanted to get particular, then one would suppose that the start of the First Great War, originally named the War on Terror, was what started everything.

        Regardless it was the Equestrians who originally found and exhumed the alien artifacts from the arctic ice and it was originally the Equestrians who started experimenting with them, bringing to light Nano-technology; superpony capabilities usually thought of in comic books and folk-lore.

        At least that was originally the plan for the Genesis prototypes; turned out that the nano material used in the suits still held connection to the original alien artifacts, which in turn drove the suit users to either insanity or just outright killed them.

        The scientists involved decided to instead lower the dopamine levels in the users in hopes of reducing the effect that, what the brains called, hive mind would have on the subjects.

        The unfortunate thing is that those tests never really got a chance to see fruition, as the Griffonian Army decided at that point to roll in and either “retrieve” or destroy the research data that they could get their claws on.

        No one in the attacking company noticed, however, that a single subject code named Exodus, had managed to successfully arm the active camouflage and sneak out. Exodus had officially become the sole survivor of the second project, aptly labelled Project Exodus.

~*~*~

        There it was. The end of another school year. No, the last school year of Canterlot High.

Well, for Twilight anyway. The hallways were a flutter, students squealing in excitement as they all emptied their lockers and ran for the doors, happy to be free for the summer. The weather was warm, a bright, sunny hint of what awaited them in the coming months but Twilight didn't care.

        She was on a mission. Well, a few. Mission one: find all the best teachers that she would miss for the rest of her mare-life and wish them well, mission two: track down her friends and the most important of all, to drag said friends down to the local cafe for lunch. She was starving and she couldn't be too long.

        See, it was a big day for Twilight. She finally graduated magic high-school and it just so happened to be some lucky girl's birthday as well. The big one-eight, the landmark, the hook, line and sinker of all birthdays. She finally turned eighteen and the big plan tonight was for her friends to drag her around to every bar, pub and club in Canterlot; not by her choice but purely because her friends wanted to.

        It didn't take too long for Twilight to find her fellows. In a nice school like this, they kind of stood out. Flash Sentry was a tall, athletic pegasus boy with a bright blue head of hair that came down to his shoulders and tiny wings with a matching tail coming down towards his backwards knees and hooves. He had this power of always having a guitar and an amp tied into a mixer on him at all times.

        Sunset was a slightly smaller unicorn girl with red and yellow hair and matching tail, no taller than 5'5, but she had the attitude to match a 6'6 wrestler. Twilight found them in their usual spot: tucked away in the corner of the cafeteria chattering between themselves, undoubtedly talking about all the weird cocktails they had been trying to get Twilight to try for the last two weeks.

        "Finally, there you are," Twilight huffed, slouching her shoulders and furrowing her brow as she walked up to her friends. "Been looking everywhere for you guys."

        "Hi, buddy." Sunset glanced at her and smiled that evil smile that always made Twilight feel a little endangered, but Flash soon stole Sunset's attention away from her again.

        "I think she should have a Cowboy's Blowjob," Flash said, shifting the weight of his abnormally large backpack on his shoulders.

        Sunset cackled, clapping her hands together. "Or a ‘Brain Hemorrhage’!"

        "Oh, goddesses. Imagine her face!"

         Twilight sighed, listening to her friends laugh as they imagined whatever unattractive face she would pull.

        "Can we go get food yet?" Twilight asked impatiently after a few more minutes of Flash and Sunset's babbling. "I'm starving and if you expect me to go out tonight without any food first, you're Derpy."

        "Oh, you're gonna go alright." Flash chimed.

        "Yeah, miss 'I don't go to parties because I'm lame.'"

        Twilight smiled and rolled her eyes, feeling the peeks of her eyelashes brush against her glasses in the over exaggerated movement. "’Kay, well, I'm leaving. Goodbye!"

        She turned and walked out of the cafeteria, soon hearing the pattering steps of Flash and Sunset following her closely behind.

~~~

        It turned out clubs were a lot louder than Twilight had ever expected.

        The crew had gotten themselves a nice little spot to sit at the bar; Sunset had already managed to drag her out onto the dance floor and naturally she'd already downed a shot or two on her own and was sipping a nicely colored margarita. Even still the club was full of sweaty bodies being pushed against others; screaming women and pounding music and to be quite honest, Twilight had just about had enough of it.

        But sure enough, as soon as Twilight had done what all was said, it still wasn't enough for Sunset.

        "Hey, Twilight, I think you got a fan," The bacon-haired girl nudged her friend in the side, gesturing off to the corner of the club. "Some bouncer's been looking over at ‘chu, gurl,"

        Twilight scoffed. "Sunset, we have red, yellow, blue and purple hair. A lot of people have strange hair colours, so how do you know he's looking at me specifically? There's a lot of people here."

        "No, no," Twilight was spun around in her chair, her face clutched tightly between Sunset's hands, her gaze met with two big teal eyes. "Tonight is your night and you gotta go see if you are at least curious about what he's putting down."

        "Sunset, I really don't want t-"

        "Come on, man. It's the last thing we'll ask you to do tonight," Flash chimed in, leaning forward in his own chair to put a supportive arm around Twilight's shoulders.

        Twilight knew she had lost. It was over the second Sunset noticed. "Fine, but then we go home."

        Sunset squealed and patted her friend's face, then spun her chair back around to the bouncer's direction. "Go, my dear. This could be true love!"

        Twilight laughed and shook her head, but didn't bother arguing. Taking a deep breath, she wandered into the crowd to start weaving her way through knowing that if she didn't at least try, that was all she was going to hear about until Hearth’s Warming.

        Finally, she reached the lone security guard with almost shining silver hair and a tail wrapped up into a neat package with black self-adhesive fabric and swallowed her pride before mustering up the courage to go and talk to him.

        "Hi there," She said, sheepishly, smiling nervously. What if she wasn't loud enough over the music? Oh, goddesses. "What's uh... What's up?" Oh goddess! This wasn't going well. She could feel her face heating up. Why did the awkward people always have to do this kind of thing? Damn Sunset right to Tartarus...

        Figuring she had nothing else to lose, the blue and purple haired/tailed girl sighed and tried again. "Sorry, this is probably really weird. My friend put me up to this. She does this kind of shit all the time," She laughed, glancing back at the bar just to get a positive thumbs up from Flash and Sunset. If only it was socially acceptable to give someone the finger in public...

***

        Malachi had noticed the girl with the purple tail a few minutes earlier and the first thought going through his mind was, Is she legal?

        Having watched her intermittently for a few minutes, noticing that the bar would usually serve the two beside her but not the girl in particular, Malachi decided the semi direct approach would work best. Standing just off the side from the rest of the bouncing, wriggling bodies; Malachi directed his gaze right at the friend with the red and yellow hair, motioning for her friend to come here then turned his gaze upon the purple haired girl and waited.

        Barely only able to hear what she had to say her first round of speech, the second round was more audible over the musical sound waves and dropping bass lines.

        “I’d just like to see some I.D, I’ve noticed that the bar hasn’t been serving you directly, only your friends.” After being shown what looked like valid government identification, Malachi eased up a bit, taking a bit more personable stance from his usual stiff-as-a-rock stand-at-attention.

        It was at that moment that a rather inebriated pegasi couple, drink glasses in hand, happened to walk by behind the purple haired girl, Twilight Sparkle apparently, and ran into her spilling their drinks on themselves and pushing Twilight towards and into Malachi’s chest suddenly.

        “Oi, you bi*hick*tch, you made us *hick* shpill our dicks on *hick* ourselves!” The rather large, burly stallion called out grabbing Twilight by the shoulder and spun her around suddenly, making her whip Malachi’s torso with her tail in the process. The amount of terror on her face as she was first knocked into Malachi and then as she was spun around, one could mistake her for being cast in an X-rated horror film or similar.

        Whispering Maximum Strength, a quick red shimmer ran over his body and Malachi took a firm and unrelenting grasp of the man’s arm whose hand was still on the small woman’s shoulder -enough to nearly fracture the bones though not quite- and told the couple, “First, you said dicks, I believe you mean drinks. Second, you’ve had enough to drink, so consider yourself cut off. Third, your partner ran into her, so get mad at her instead. Fourth, you will remove your hand before I break it and throw you out for assault.”

        The face of the female companion screwed up into that of drunken disgust as Malachi placed the blame on her for spilling the drinks, then raised up her rather large glass and brought it down towards Malachi’s head; giving him just enough time to whisper Maximum Armour and a brief blue shimmer swept over him. Something like that would be more likely to go unseen in a club with flashing colourful lights.

         The glass crashed down over Malachi’s protected head, shattering but leaving his hair and face unscathed. Malachi’s hand shot out and took the woman’s arm still in the air, the red shimmer still visible on his own, and lifted both man and woman slightly into the air.

        Adding just enough pressure to crush both bones in their arms, he then proceeded to drag them to a side door and not so gently tossed them out, slamming the door as he turned back in.

        Malachi returned to the club floor, the shimmering on his body having ceased, and began sweeping the crowd for Twilight. Eventually he found her right where she started -at the bar between her two companions- so began making his way through the club towards her. Eventually he got to her after tossing a few rowdy members around, and tapped on her shoulder then asked, “Are you alright?”

***

        Now Twilight was used to weird situations. Being a person like her, she got a lot of attention whether she wanted it or not and tonight was no different.

        After she had cleared up the I.D issue with the bouncer (which was weird the way Sunset was talking; he wouldn’t stop staring at her, ”sex eyes” Sunset liked to call them), she was bumped into and thrown against the bouncer, literally.

        She’d made a small squeak of surprise as she hit the wall of human flesh suddenly, before she was thrown around again, this time to face the cause of her disorientation the first time.

        Twilight had seen a few big people, but boy, was this guy big. His hand on her shoulder felt like a thousand pounds and Twilight was petrified. These two obviously had way too much to drink.

        Finding it difficult to do much else, Twilight stared at the two as they hiccuped and burped their way through telling her what she had done. But as she tried apologizing, apparently her bouncer buddy had a different idea on how this was going down. She watched the scene continued to slowly unfurl into a disaster, never moving until the bouncer eventually had both of the drunken messes and was dragging them towards the door.

        She had stood there, confused bewildered and slightly terrified for a few moments before she started making her way back to the bar, preparing for the thousand questions she was gonna hear.

        “Sooo, how was it? Is he nice?” Sunset asked eagerly, her elbows on the bar in front of her and her face in her hands as she beamed at her friend.

        “Yeah, he was pretty nice. Asked for my I.D, then decided to pick two people up by the wrist. No biggie.” Twilight scoffed, taking her seat at the bar again and pulled her tail around her waist to let it rest on her lap; out of the way of other patrons. Her head was spinning with all kinds of questions herself, and Sunset was only adding to them.

        Flash and Sunset exchanged a few amazed looks, then Flash started in on it too. “Whoa, what happened?”

        Twilight shook her head then ordered another small drink, nothing too heavy. Halfway through explaining everything, her shoulder was tapped. She sighed lightly.

        “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t want any- Oh. Hi.” Her eyebrows arched as she turned and looked at the bouncer behind her, pleasant surprise written on her face. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for that back there,”

        Sunset and Flash both spun in their seats to look at the man too, exchanging glances in a language only they seemed to know. Then Twilight was stabbed in the side by her friend’s elbow and when she shot them a dirty look, Sunset ignored it entirely.

        “See? He’s obviously interested. Small talk!” The bacon-haired girl whispered in her ear and again Twilight sighed defeated. “Maybe ask him to hang out or something! It’s the first cute, sober guy that’s looked at you in the glorious world of being legal. Go on.”

        The purple haired girl chuckled a bit awkwardly, then looked back at the bouncer. “I never did catch your name,” She managed to say, but Sunset deemed it wasn’t enough and leaned over.

        “Hey, when do you get off work? You seem like a cool dude, maybe we could hang or something. Meet’cha out front. Ya know?”

***

        Malachi, despite doing his best to seem oblivious to the bacon-haired girl’s conversations and suggestions, managed to overhear a decent portion of their conversation, not quite sure what to do with what they were suggesting. Upon receiving the red and yellow hair’s question, Malachi checked his watch and found in surprise that he’d actually went off duty about an hour ago; he’ll have to make sure to punch out before he attempted anything.

        “Malachi. Turns out I went off duty an hour ago and I'm free now. Dare I ask what you guys have in mind for activities?” Malachi was nearly in dread about what bacon hair and the stallion had for ideas and began rubbing the back of his neck unconsciously as the ears on the top of his head laid back flat against his scalp.

***

         Sunset grinned down at Twilight, and again Twilight felt the heavy weight of Sunset’s decisions. “Twilight’s place isn’t too far from here. What about… Video games, chips and whatever else?” Flash chimed in, and Sunset decided to continue.

        “Or we could keep bar hopping. That’s always a great time,”

        Twilight, caught in the middle, shook her head and looked up at the newly introduced Malachi pitifully. “They’re always like this, sorry.” She smiled nervously, barely listening as Sunset and Flash continued listing ideas.

        “Beer pong at Twilight’s, drinking games, movie night,” Sunset had said.

        “Movie night is lame. This guy’s new; gotta show him what we’re all about.” Flash answered.

        “Ahhh, you’re right. Who does movie night?” Sunset giggled. “Okay, no movie night. Uh….”

        “Why don’t we just let Malachi decide?” Twilight piped up, looking over at Sunset.

        “That’s not that bad of an idea.” Sunset rubbed her chin thoughtfully, then looked up at Malachi, flashing her brightest smile. “So, what’s your thoughts, big guy?”

***

        “Well,” Malachi continued to rub the back of his neck, only now realizing it and dropping his hand. “I have an acquaintance who happens to own Sub-Zero. Could try and see if I can get you guys in if you’d like?”

        Malachi was really horrible at hosting people, so tried as he could to find rescue in his surroundings, i.e, the club, i.e Sub-Zero. He could feel his black shirt sticking to his chest, despite that it had only started doing so a few hours ago and he only just noticed it, so pulled at a bit of his shirt trying to air himself off. His tail was in no better shape and was starting to cramp. “I’d just have to call ahead, let the owner know we’re coming so he can fit us into his VIP lists… Should I make the call?”

***

        Flash and Sunset’s face lit up at the mention of the club Sub-Zero. They’d both been eighteen for months and Twilight had heard countless stories of how many bars, clubs and pubs they had gone to, but they never managed to get into Sub-Zero. If Malachi wanted to be good friends with the group, this was definitely one way to do it. It was a way Twilight personally didn’t like much, but hey. They were her best friends.

        “Yeah, you should!” Sunset said, her face bright with a wide smile, then she turned to Flash immediately and the two were chatting about it.

        Twilight chuckled lightly, picking up her drink from the bar before looking up at Malachi again. “You really shouldn’t have done that. They’re gonna be all over you now,”

        “Honey, like flies on coffee.” Sunset chimed and Twilight laughed again as Sunset didn’t even look over at the two, just immediately went back to talking full force with Flash.

***

        With his offer accepted and quick official introductions, Malachi excused himself to go and make the call, unwrap his tail and let it air out as well as to punch out his time card; telling everyone to go meet up at the front doors. Already an hour and a bit later than expected.

        Sooner than later he began to make his way around the crowd, doing his best not to bump anyone and cause yet another scene, and managed to work himself outside to find himself standing on the sidewalk. It only took him a few seconds for his eyes to catch the unique hair colours, and directed them to follow him to his truck.

        About fifteen minutes later, Malachi slowed up in front of the doors to one of the most popular, as well as exclusive, clubs in Equestria. Doing this allowed everyone to notice all the security, the classes of people getting in, the classes of people trying to get in, as well as the classes of people being thrown back out by hair and tail for sneaking in when they couldn’t afford the substantial entrance fee.

        “Always knew that Sub-Zero was difficult to get into, now I see why with all the security there. How exactly do you know the owner of this place?” Flash asked from the back passenger side seat, leaning forward between both front seats making sure he was heard.

        “I used to work for the guy as security here; he hired me on because of my,” Malachi had to choose his words carefully here. “Special talent so to speak. I eventually left because of the specific clientele that tends to show up here.”

        Malachi turned into the enormous multi-level parking garage, hoping to be able to park in his old favourite spot down at the bottom-most layer of the structure. Malachi’s hopes continued to rise as the lower they went, the fewer vehicles were parked, eventually to the point where there would be one or two at most.

        Turning a few corners, Malachi backed the truck into his old spot -kicking up a bit of dust and dirt that had settled there in his absence- killed the engine and hopped out. Once everyone had disembarked, Malachi locked the doors, arming the anti-theft devices in the process.

        A few minutes later, the group with Malachi in lead, exited the personnel elevator with the plans to approach the front doors and security on duty but were abruptly halted as the muzzle of what looked to be an Berretta M9 appeared pressed against the side of Malachi’s head.

        “Alright, you all know the drill; pockets out, phones down, no magic and you,” the male voice was now directed at Malachi. “Keys as well. Otherwise this guy gets a bullet through his head.”

        It was at this point that the aggressor made his appearance known; green hoodie with hood up over the man’s face, black jeans ripped at the knees, just as a thud sounded behind Malachi.

        Turning a bit to look from his peripherals he saw Sunset fainted on the ground with Flash down at her side and more concerned over her situation than Malachi’s, which to be honest, suited him just fine. “Oi, didn’t you hear me? See, in this situation you're my bitch. You’ll lick my fat hairy asshole just so I don’t pop you in the head.” It was at this point in time where Malachi pressed his forehead directly to the barrel of the gun, staring at the attacker directly down the barrel into his eyes.

        It wasn’t anything like a “fire in his eyes” type of thing that caused the mugger to tremble a bit when his eyes matched those of Malachi’s, it was the absolute calm he saw; the kind of eyes that said he was prepared to rip the man’s throat from his neck without so much of a stutter of morals.

        “I feel it necessary to inform you that in the current situation, you’re my bitch. You’ll lick my tight, firm ass just so I don’t rip out your throat and feed it back to you through a tube shoved up your fat, hairy ass.” Malachi threw the gunman’s words back at him, granted with a bit of paraphrasing.

        The man stumbled back a bit, gun rattling in his hands; Malachi reached up with his right hand and whispered Maximum Armour, grasped the barrel of the gun and without even redirecting the direction of the gun, pulled it towards himself, the hammer falling at the same time. Malachi’s head didn’t even snap back from the force of the bullet at point blank, but the face of the mugger was one of pure terror now as the man looked down past the smoking barrel of the weapon in his hand and towards the forehead that the bullet had simply crushed upon; waves of blue light rippling over Malachi’s body emanating from the impact zone.

        As soon as the mushroomed bullet clinked to the asphalt, the blue ripples turned red and the gun in Malachi’s hand began to crumple and distort before being literally ripped from the man’s trembling hand, taking the trigger finger with it; clattering to the ground as Malachi’s second hand shot up in a tight fist and embedded itself in the man’s torso, effectively and severely damaging his spleen, liver, kidneys, and so on.

        Once the poor bastard was down on the ground unconscious, all shimmering ceased and Malachi turned his attention to the task of tending to Sunset, kneeling down at her side then pulling Sunset’s body onto her side; recovery position.

***

        Well, this had taken a turn for the worst. One minute, they had pulled into the huge parking lot, followed a stallion that they had just met to another club, and the next, that very stallion had a gun pointed at his head.

        Everything was happening so fast. The stallion was threatening everybody, Sunset had fainted and if it wasn’t for Flash tending to Sunset on the floor, Twilight would’ve been hiding behind him. But instead it was just her and Malachi.

        She had frozen. The man yelled at them to empty their pockets, take off jewelry, etc, but she found herself unable to even move. She just stared at the scene in front of her, a gun pointed at a man’s head and her friends on the floor. She felt threatened, out in the open with nothing to run to or hide behind.

        She kind of wished Flash had stayed standing, but Sunset was definitely more important. She always had been easily spooked.

        Everything moved slowly, but quickly at the same time. The man’s voice was deep, angry, in slow-motion almost, but everything else moved too quickly. She hadn’t even heard what Malachi had said; the only thing that registered in her mind was the gunshot that echoed through the parking lot.

        Flash had thrown himself over Sunset in an attempt to keep her safe and Twilight screamed, stepping back until she was standing behind Flash and Sunset, a good few feet from Malachi.

        Then it was Malachi’s turn and it wasn’t long before the mugger was laying on the floor with a hole in his stomach and minus one finger, then Malachi was down beside Sunset as well wiping off his hand on the attacker's sweater, but Twilight just kept staring at him.

        He had… Shimmered? Twilight wasn’t quite sure what she had seen, but she could’ve sworn…

        On the ground, Sunset moved slightly, her teal eyes opening slowly and lifting her head. “What happened?”

        “Hey, hey, chill out a bit. Ya fainted,” Flash said, stopping her attempt to sit up by a hand on the shoulder. “Just lay down for a few minutes and you’ll be okay.”

        Twilight tried to blink herself out of her confused trance and it kind of worked, but only half-heartedly. She’d have to get to the bottom of this, one way or another.

        They gave Sunset a few minutes to recover before Flash had insisted they call the police to come pick the guy up, but they left into the club before the cops could get there. Sunset didn’t wait to stick around for the guy to wake up again, Flash didn’t really want to have Sunset faint again and Twilight couldn’t bring herself to argue. Her mind was swirling with questions. What was with this new guy again, this Malachi? First the drunk two in the bar, and now this? And she could have sworn that she saw the bullet hit…

        It didn’t take long for Sunset to get back to her old self and before long the four were in the club, bypassing the lines with no issue whatsoever. It was gorgeous on the inside, as though the very Goddesses themselves had been the architects. Everything that Twilight had thought it would’ve been.

        DJ-Pon3's music was deafening, almost loud enough for her to feel it pounding alongside her heartbeat and the ceiling sparkled like the night sky, stars and constellations, as though designed by the goddesses themselves. The strobe-lights danced with the beat and waitresses moved gracefully throughout the crowd, carrying dark blue trays topped with silver lined glasses with blue liquids.

        It was a crowded night, but not rowdy. The dance floor was crowded, but tables were filled and other little groups stood talking and laughing, too drowned out by the music for Twilight to hear.

        The group moved towards the bar, Flash and Sunset giggled back and forth, daring each other to try and figure out if the constellations on the roof were fake or real. The bar staff stood in the middle of a huge circle counter that looked as if it were cut from glass with dark blue fading upwards from the floor to the pale white at the top. Silver snowflakes sparkled in the flashy lights, matching the silver ties on the bartenders.

        They all sat down, ordered their drinks and chatted for a little while, but before long, Flash and Sunset decided they were ready to experience the dance floor.

        “Come on, guys! Just the bar is a gorgeous experience! Imagine that dance floor!” Sunset shouted, grinning as she picked up Twilight’s hand and tugged on it impatiently.

        “No, I’m gonna stay here.” Twilight laughed, pulling back on her own limb lightly.

        “Gonna keep Malachi company?” Flash joined in and he winked at the purple haired girl playfully.

        “Well, you guys are ditching. Someone has to do it.” She shot back and Flash shook his head and laughed before grabbing Sunset by the arm and tugging her away to be consumed by the crowd.

        Twilight laughed and shook her head, then turned back to look at Malachi. “Listen… Thanks for all of that back there. If you weren’t there, I don’t really know what would’ve happened to us.” She chuckled and moved her glass around, watching the blue alcohol move around the glass as her tail slowly swayed behind her.

        “But I don’t know, I think I saw something weird back there,” She sighed and put her elbow on the see-through bar top, placing her jaw in her hand. “Maybe it was just my eyes playing a trick on me, but I think I saw you like… Glow or something. Like a filly covered in white glitter who walked into a black light room.” She laughed. “But there’s something weird about you. I can’t put my finger on it.”

***

        Malachi nearly choked on his drink when Twilight told her he saw him using his abilities, he had hoped that she’d gone down to help Sunset as well and wouldn’t have noticed but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. Downing the last of his drink in one, Malachi swivelled in his chair to face the woman directly.

        “What you saw was classified information, and cannot be discussed in public.” Malachi told her. “However, due to the circumstances and that fact that no one would be able to hear us over the music, I suppose a few answers wouldn’t hurt.

        “First, what you saw was, for lack of a better description, the light energy waste effects that my abilities give off. It’d be like exhaust on a vehicle. Secondly, while it may seem like it’s just me doing it because I'm a unicorn sub-type, it’s not; I am wearing advanced military technology that the Griffonian Army destroyed years ago.” Malchi explained, lifting his silver hair from his forehead to show a lack of horn. Granted, there was a spell that had been designed to effectively hid the horn and wings if either sub-species so desired, but they didn't come cheap.

        It was at this point that Malachi’s right arm shimmered a light blue and then changed its appearance to that of black muscle tissue outlined in a silvery metal casing.

        “This technology, this nano-suit, covers my entire body minus my head for which I have removable equipment. It offers me 100x physical power, head-to-hoof bullet proof armour; I've taken fire from an HMG before and those suckers have huge-ass shells believe me.

        “Finally it gives me near perfect active cloaking, which I use to hide the suit itself. Keeping up with me so far?” Malachi’s suited arm shimmered away, giving the appearance of a bare arm once more. Twilight just stared at Malachi with her head half-tilted to the side, evidence that she either wasn’t hearing anything that was said, or wasn’t able to comprehend it.

        “Alright, then how about I show you everything instead of trying to talk about it over the rest of the club?” Twilight simply nodded her head slowly in bare acceptance.

        Malachi stood up, dropped a couple notes on the bar for their drinks then led Twilight gently by the elbow towards the front doors convinced that Sunset and Flash were likely watching and cheering on their friend in whatever endeavours they’d thought up.

        Sooner than later, after receiving a stamp from the security to allow them back in, Malachi lead the purple-haired woman around to a side alley then stood her against a wall before stepping back a couple steps.

        “First up, let's show the full armour shall we?” Malachi cracked his neck a couple of times before a full body shimmer enveloped him. Twilight watched partially in awe as well as shock as Malachi’s exo-dermis layers began to almost dissolve as the same black and silver muscle tissue-looking suit appeared in waves under Malachi’s clothing.

        Once his entire body and tail was covered, the suit almost seemed to crawl up from his collar over his neck and stopped just at his jaw and hairlines. Malachi reached behind him and pulled two pieces of a mask from seemingly nowhere, clicking one piece over his mouth and nose and the other, what looked like a pair of red tinted ski goggles, over the rest of his face.

        Malachi’s now suited body shimmered red as he quite literally ripped the clothing off his back and tossed it into a nearby dumpster before lifting said dumpster with one hand and tossed it up into the air.

        Just before it crashed down, Malachi gave it a rather powerful roundhouse, sending it flying deeper into the alley with a loud crash. Taking Twilight by the waist in one arm, Malachi crouched down as the shimmering gathered into his legs and hooves and then launched the two of them three stories up onto the side of the adjacent brick building, then kicked off the wall and vaulted the two of them up and over the lip of Sub-Zero’s roof.

        Setting the girl down, Malachi pulled the goggles of his mask up leaving them to sit on his forehead and told her, “By the way, Malachi is not really my name. To be specific I have no legal name; I am the only survivor of Project Genesis, so I call myself Exodus.

        “Having no legal name has its benefits: I can get away with murder because in order to be convicted, the accused must have a legal name. Technically I don’t even exist; no name, birth certificate, death certificate, no family, no friends, nothing to tie me to anyone or anywhere.”

***

        Everything Malachi was saying flew by Twilight like a certain prismatic tailed pegasus flying past her at school. On one hand: she didn’t know if she quite believed everything he was saying, but as soon as he had lead her outside -which Flash and Sunset had caused quite a ruckus over by the way, hooting and cheering her on from the dance floor while trying to get her to swing her tail suggestively- and showed the suit’s true colors, she wasn’t sure if she could even call bullshit anymore. The suit was beautiful, looked like something thrown at her from some sci-fi movie, and it’s capabilities were even more impressive if he truly wasn’t a unicorn sub-type.

        She looked down over the lip of the roof of Sub-Zero, the music pounding through even the roof and bright lights casting shadows on the people below. Even as things still flew through her mind at a thousand miles per hour, Malachi still had some explaining to do. He explained he had no real name, no evidence that he actually even existed. No family or friends? Twilight couldn’t imagine a life like that, void of everything she grew up holding so dear to her.

        “Has it always been like that?” She asked, purple eyes flicking up to meet with his. “Do you even remember the life you used to have?”

        She’d heard stories of children being taken away; drafted into the military forces, stolen to become nothing but a weapon and the thought had always sounded so inhumane, nothing like what the people of this day and age were capable of. She’d thought those times had long since passed, but maybe not after all.

She closed her arms around herself, the long sleeves of her black dress doing little to keep the shiver from running down her spine. A life with no friends or family. She shook her head slowly, then looked away. Did he even know what he was missing out on?

        Friends and family brought beauty, color, into an otherwise cold world. She could remember countless times where if it wasn’t for Flash and Sunset, she might not have made it through quite a lot.

        Then again, Twilight’s life hadn’t exactly been the easiest. Her father was long gone by the time she had come around, and her mother was a helpless potion addict, too far into trouble to get herself out. Much of Twilight’s childhood was plagued with her mother jumping from stallion to stallion, often leaving Twilight on the sidelines of her concern or with her private magic school.

        Flash and Sunset were the only reasons she hadn’t skipped town years ago, went off hitchhiking until she found somewhere that she could finally be happy with herself and where she had come from. She couldn’t imagine what might have happened to her if they weren’t there.

        She cleared her throat quietly, then adjusted the small skirt on her dress that had ridden up in the jump up here and decided to look at the man again. “What happened?” She asked, her eyebrows furrowing slightly. “I doubt they would just let a man of your calibre with a suit like that just out in the open. Did you escape? Did you… Kill them to get away?”

***

        “Answer number one: yes, it’s always been like this. Two, I can’t miss a life I never had. I was always in the Project since birth. Three, what happened was the Griffonian Army decided that they were better off with the technology, but the scientists working on Project Genesis decided that no one would have it and explosively sealed the entire complex.

        “I only escaped because I was in the middle of testing the suit and had used Maximum Armour to escape the blast. To give you a better idea of what happened, think of Little Horn.” Chernobyl.

        It was at this point that Malachi began to notice red and blue flashing lights, not the usual colour palette for Sub Zero, and cautiously looked over the edge to find at least eight black and whites as well as numerous Armoured Personnel Carriers whose carried soldiers all had their weapons aimed directly at him, their laser pointers indicating the truth of the matter.

        Turning back to Twilight whilst replacing his mask, he was about to grab her by the waist once more and jump away, however soldiers had already ascended the maintenance ladders and surrounded the two.

        Instead of activating the Maximum Strength module, Malachi began to shimmer blue and pulled Twilight down, covering her with his body as best as he could just as bullets began to fly, bouncing harmlessly off his bullet-proof body.

        The gunfire all of a sudden stopped and just as Malachi looked up, his suit notified him of a small suit puncture at the back of his neck and that a bio-computer virus had been injected into the suits deep layer tissues, and would paralyse him in less than ten seconds. The last two things Malachi saw as his suit began shutting down was a bag placed over Twilight’s head and a soldier approach him directly, then smacked him out with the butt of his gun.