Chapters Chapter I: The Unicorn Without A Horn
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.
Chapter II: Wake up at Midnight
Suit rebooting.
…
Reboot successful.
Analysing virus.
…
Completed.
Comparing to known databases.
…
No matches found.
Analysing breakdown of virus in deep tissue layers.
…
Completed.
Synthesising antidote.
…
Completed. Administering vaccination.
Wake up Exodus!
Malachi woke with a jump, only to find a couple of things in his present situation: He was restrained but since his suit had completely rebooted, he wouldn’t have issues escaping again; but what stopped him was Twi’s figure, still in dress, also restrained directly across from him. The next thing was that he noticed they appeared to be in one of the old Project Genesis labs, which he knew was impossible since the area should still be brimming with radiation.
Engaging the night vision built directly into his eyes, Malachi took a look around, trying to find anything that would indicate their where-abouts. Finding nothing but a suit cradle, a rolling cart with a laptop connected to said cradle, and a couple of miscellaneous pressurized canisters beside the large double doors, Malachi turned his attention back to Twilight.
“Twi. Wake up.” Malachi heard some grumbling and groaning, but eventually Malachi watched Twi’s head lift and shake out her drug induced sleep. “Are you alright?” Twi answered with more groaning. “Before you try and ask, I think we’re at a hidden Project Genesis lab. I don’t know why but the police must’ve called the army when they saw the hole in the mugger’s gut I put in him when he attacked us. I don’t know what they’re going to want but it’s very likely they’ll try to skin me and chemically wipe your memories.” Some more groans, albeit more anxious in tone, were the only other sounds heard for at least fifteen minutes.
Soon enough the room the two of them were in became awash in blinding medical lights, forcing Malachi to switch off his night vision before his retinas burned out. Two lab techs walked in; one pushing a cart of rather large surgical knives, knives he’d become accustomed to back in the day, approaching Twi and the other approaching Malachi, no, Exodus with a rather bulky manilla folder. Not many features could be noticed since both techs, likely pegasi stallions by their body size and wings, were both head to hoof in surgical attire, masks and everything.
“So Exodus, or should I call you Malachi? That is what you call yourself now isn’t it?” The male asked with a cocky voice.
“It’s Exodus. Malachi is a name I chose in order to survive as a civilian. It means nothing to me.” Exodus replied in a low, almost threatening voice.
“Ohh, scary voices, I like it. Means you’ve still got the killer intent that was imprinted into you in your early years. So if Malachi is a name you have no care for, does that mean you have no cares about anything as always?”
“Yes.” Exodus replied flatly.
“Oh good. Then that means you don’t care what we do to that girl over there?” The man asked, his jaw suggesting a cruel smile, teeth and everything.
Exodus looked over the tech’s shoulder and saw that the other one was looking at him with a large scalpel pressed against Twi’s throat; Exodus’ glowing red arm shot out at that moment, gripping the closer tech’s throat in his own hand.
“So you do care; how sweet. How about you let me go and my friend won’t sever her jugular and let her bleed out?” The man suggested, still continuing with that cocky voice of his. Exodus thought about it for a second then slowly released his grasp on the man’s trachea. “Good man. Now how about we ensure your compliance?” Exodus looked back over the tech’s shoulder just as Twi got stabbed in the neck with a needle and injected with a murky red liquid.
“What did you do to her?” Exodus asked as calm as ever, yet he could feel his killer instincts rising up behind his eyes for the first time in years.
“Relax,” The tech placed his hand on Exodus’ shoulder in a mock attempt of reassurance. “We’re not going to molest her or anything. No, no no no. That would be wrong. It was only a small explosive device.” Exodus could almost literally swim in the sarcasm dripping off this man’s lips as the man looked away for a second, placing his free hand on his chest, but not removing his hand from Exodus’ shoulder; feigning insult before turning back suddenly and whispering into Exodus’ ear, “You’ll do that for us.
“You see, the people I work for decided to resurrect the Project Genesis, although since we’re officially starting with you, it’ll be the Exodus Project again. So no, we’re not gonna skin you, we’re gonna suit her instead. And you get to put her in the Deep Tissue Layers suit.”
“And why would I do that?” Exodus asked, teeth starting to grate, fist ready to strike out and snap the man’s neck.
“Because if you don't, we’ll detonate the tiny charge that is in her neck. It’s only a blast cap, but it’ll do the trick. Quite messy really.” Both men looked down at the strengthened hand pointed directly at the tech’s stomach, then watched as Exodus lowered his hand again.
“Fine.” was the single syllable answer that seemed to make the two men happy, plus whoever else was likely watching.
***
Twi watched on in horror, barely able to keep up to what the men were talking about. The little spot in her neck where the needle was inserted ached; a gentle throbbing pain that kept her mind slightly fuzzy. She wished she could rub at it, do anything to get at the least the pain to stop, but the more she tugged on her bindings, the more it felt like they were tightening and given the tech standing beside her, she thought that was probably for the better to stay still.
She knew she’d missed part of the deal when Malachi had responded with a low “fine,” and they seemed to drop whatever it was they were talking about, but what it was she had missed, her mind could only race to try and find an answer that would fit.
Were they going to kill her? Strip her of her memories and identity, then dump her somewhere, forgotten and alone? Tears began forming and she tried to focus her attention on Malachi, something in the blinding white of the room to keep her head from spinning.
“Malachi? What’s going on?” She asked, her voice shaking. Her stomach was doing flips now, going faster and faster the more she panicked. Whatever happened to that fancy suit of Malachi’s? Why was it not working? She didn’t know for sure, but she figured he could’ve broken out, could’ve done something by now.
He did say he cared for nothing, and although that wasn’t a comfort for her, she was alright with it. This was wrong in every sense of the word.
She was going to lose everything. Her friends, her family… If these people really were who they said they were, she doubted she was going to get out of this completely fine. Something horrible was bound to happen to her.
Dammit, out of all the people, why the fuck did Sunset have to pick him!? Her breathing grew shallow, and the tears started rolling slowly, but she kept her stare on Malachi, not having the courage to look the other men in the eye. She didn’t care about them. Their faces were not ones that she wanted to know, especially if this was one of her last moments.
“Dammit, tell me what’s going on!” She shouted, feeling ignored, like she didn’t even matter to them. She didn’t know what their intentions were, but she was not just something in the background, something to be talked about but never talked to. “You owe me that much! I never asked to be part of this!”
***
Rather than answer the distressed woman, Exodus was simply released and handed a briefcase-like box. At that point both technicians and their tools vacated the vicinity and the door locked shut. The cocky man from earlier came on over the intercoms, “Exodus, would you kindly release the restraints on the poor girl and have her put on the skin suit?”
Exodus begrudgingly complied, breaking himself out of his own restraints and made his way to Twi, before removing the straps binding her.
“Sorry for putting you through this, but I need you to strip down and put this on.” Exodus handed the terrified girl the box and stepped back. Turning around, Exodus waited patiently, knowing what to come would be much worse than what she was experiencing now.
***
She was ignored once more, the techs doing nothing more than giving Malachi a box before they left, and her heart sank once more as she heard the door slam shut, then the lock fall into place.
She shook her head, forcing the tears to stop and sniffled lightly, feeling like she was nothing more but a pawn in some evil plan. The techs weren’t gone for long, and she only listened half-heartedly to whatever they were saying over the intercom. It didn’t matter anyways, whether she listened or didn’t.
They weren’t going to listen to her. Her opinion didn’t matter. They weren’t going to explain to her why this was happening, they were just going to do it anyway and if she was upset about it, then she was going to be upset about it.
However, her eyes remained on Malachi, watching as he broke out of his bindings, then headed over to do the same for her. “Oh, now you break out.” She spit, venom dripping off her words as she turned away, wiping her face dry. What a fucking awful night.
First day of freedom and she finds herself a guy who seems nice, but is actually an experiment broken out and then boom, next thing she knows, she’s on the roof and then all tied up. Seemed a lot like the hostel movies if you had to ask her, except instead of the men being lured it was her.
Then Malachi spoke again, and she could have sworn that her heart stopped. He needed her to… Strip? Her eyes grew wide, her eyebrows furrowed together, and her head snapped over to look back at the man. “You want me to what?” For a brief second, a reminder flashed in her mind about the charge sitting in her neck, ready to blow at the slightest sign, but she didn’t care. She would rather die here then bend to these freaks’ wishes.
“You must be out of your fucking mind if you think for a second that I’m doing that,” She said, laughing bitterly. Her hooves clicked angrily as she walked around to face Malachi again, only to shove the box back at him, not caring if he grabbed it or let it fall. “Go find another chick to lure in here. Kill me if you have to, but I am not fucking doing that.”
***
“And here we thought this would be easy. Well then miss…” Papers flipping in the background. “Twilight Sparkle, I think there's a couple of people here who’d like to say something.” The next sounds that came over the intercom were the sounds of Sunset crying and Flash freaking out. “Now, if you don’t want anything to happen to your little friends, I suggest you do what you're told. If you still don’t feel like it, then we can always go… ‘ask’ your parents their opinions.” the intercom cut out again, leaving Exodus with the box in his hands in the middle of the room.
***
She looked around the room, glaring at the direction the voices were coming from. These people had obviously lost it if they thought she was doing this, but as stubborn as the young girl was, everything changed when she heard Sunset and Flash come over the intercom. Not only did they know her name, they knew her friends too. Was anything safe from these freaks?!
Twi looked at Malachi once more, then down at the box in his hands. God knew what was in there, what was going to happen to her even. Was she going to turn into what Malachi was, a person stripped of everything but basic personality, likes and dislikes, but with power beyond any unicorn? Or was she just expected to go along with it until they found she was unfit for the program and got rid of her? Whatever was in there…. Was better than Flash and Sunset going through anything even close to this.
“If I do this… You’ll let them go, right?” She asked, her eyes tearing up as she looked around the room again.
“No! Twi, you can’t!” Flash shouted from the other side of the intercom, and Sunset’s sobbing only got louder, and her heart sank again.
“Let them free, and I’ll stay.” She dropped her gaze to Malachi once more time, her shoulders falling in defeat. “Promise me.”
***
“Very well. You do what we say, your friends go free. We’re waiting. Patiently I might add.” a bit of background chatter was heard over the intercom before it cut off again, Exodus now opening the box himself, keeping it turned towards her.
***
The last noise Twi heard before the intercom cut off again was Sunset crying, but she couldn’t focus on that right now. At least she had gotten them to safety. Yeah, Twi was aware she might never see the light of day again, but if she could tell herself at night that Flash and Sunset were safe, that just might be enough to get her through whatever the hell they were going to do to her.
She sighed slowly and all out of options, she took out the contents of the box. The contents were chilly to the touch, almost like gelatine that had been left in the fridge and with her nose scrunched, she pulled the material out of the box. A plastic looking leotard-type thing unfolded itself, black in color, but it shone dark grey-silver if the light hit it right.
She frowned slightly, but sighed, knowing her bounds and what she had to do. “You look, and I won’t be the only woman in this room,” She glared at Malachi, then walked to the other side of the room, taking only a small comfort in Malachi’s back aimed to her. At least that was one less pair of eyes watching her. “Goddesses, Twi, what have you gotten yourself into?” She asked herself sadly, then shaking her head, begun to undress.
The leotard was as cold to wear as it had been to touch, and with the rest of her clothing discarded into a pile on the floor, she wrapped her arms around herself, containing any shivers that managed to seep out. Hopefully the suit would heat up soon, adjust to the temperature of her own body, but that was probably the least of her concerns right now. Turning back to face Malachi, she gritted her teeth. “There. Now what?”
***
“Please have a seat in the cradle there. The worst part comes next, then after that it gets easier.” Exodus indicated the cradle in question, the back half of the full body suit already in place, ready to receive its new driver as the insides of it pulsed with light every few seconds, seemingly like a heartbeat.
***
Twi stiffened slightly, knowing that whatever happened in that chair would not be pleasant. She didn’t quite know what would happen but she wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to ask for the details before it happened, so instead of waiting and getting anxious, the woman carefully walked over to the chair and slowly took a seat. It looked like the back half of whatever Malachi had been wearing, looked a bit like a can that been cut directly down the middle with the first half nowhere in sight.
Eventually, she got the courage to lie back and it rolled her back slowly, and her heart took off at a thousand beats a minute. Whatever was going to happen was going to fucking suck, but at this point, she kind of had to. If it kept Flash and Sunset safe, then everything was going to be worth it.
She may never see them again, and she understood that well. After all, Malachi didn’t even have a family, a birth date.
The machine whirred, and slowly then all at once, the robotic arms unfolded themselves, towering above Twi’s head like monsters and she was nothing but an ant. She sighed nervously, finding the entire situation uncomfortable and nerve-wrecking. The waiting was the worst, but if she had even the slightest idea of what was going to happen to her next, the waiting probably would’ve been just fine with her.
The pain shot through her at a thousand miles an hour. Her spine was on fire, pinched and pinned in places she didn’t think would matter as the robotic arms worked overtop of her, placing pieces of goddesses-knows-what and lasing them in place.
Pain came from everywhere; burning, pinching, pulling… Everything happened all at once and she cried in pain, the tears rolling down the sides of her face. Fortunately, no sooner had it began, that the pain eventually dulled down into a sharp stabbing sensation, then slowly into a more relaxed pins and needles in her spine.
The final event of the process was when the mask itself descended down upon Twi, soon enveloping her head entirely, her purple hair the only sign of a human being having been in that space just moments before.
New driver detected.
Analyzing DNA signature…
…
Complete.
Compiling baseline medical statistics.
…
Complete.
Connecting to Crynet for immuno-boosters and stimulants.
Connecting…
…
Connected.
Administering immuno-boosters and stimulants to regulate biofunctions.
…
…
Completed.
Driver baseline medical statistics updated.
Begin suit/driver interface runtimes.
Running.
It was at this point that the suit began to forcibly interface with Twi’s body structure: her spinal cord, her cardiac systems, blood systems, her lungs, by injecting tiny nanite tendrils into said systems, until her system began to become co-dependant on the suit’s functions. It wasn’t the most painful experience Twi had been succumbed to, but it was pretty high up on her list.
Interface runtimes completed, preparing to enter standby mode.
Notice, training simulations are recommended for first time nano-suit driver's. Please see technician for training and reassignment.
***
Exodus approached Twi again till he was standing at her left, almost within arm's reach, watching her and waiting for something to happen. Eventually, something did happen, the cradle sat Twi back up and Exodus offered a hand to help stand her up.
Leaning in close, Exodus whispered, “Next steps will be the following. You’ll be taken to a training room to learn the functions of the suit and how to best use them, then to weapons training where you’ll choose your primary, secondary, and if you’d like, light-weight tertiary weapons and then you’ll be taken back to this cradle to fine tune your suit; get it set for immediate duty.
Once that is all completed, then Twilight Sparkle as you know her will be pronounced dead, and you’ll be given a new name. If you have a preference for a new title, tell me now and I'll see if I can persuade them to use it. After that, it will be likely that they’ll try to brand and leash us, then send us off to battle in the name of peace, glory, or whatever bullshit they try to sell us. I have other plans for that however.”
Before Exodus could pull his head away, Twi turned her head towards Exodus, whispering a single word before the two of them stood and faced the large double doors again. In stepped a single technician, the one who’d been talking to Exodus beforehand, and stood before the two of them.
“Well well, this has been an eventful afternoon hasn’t it? I’ll presume Exodus has given you a rundown on what happens next, so we’ll skip the pleasantries. Exodus.” Exodus snapped to attention. “You will oversee all of the new units training personally. We’ll be watching rather closely, see if you have what it takes to lead the suit’s side of the new project.
“And remember, we still have our finger on her trigger, so don’t fuck around.” Exodus responded with a salute, remaining silent despite military protocol demanding otherwise. No sooner that the technician left the room, the doors staying open this time, that Exodus once more leaned in quickly to tell Twi, “Don't worry about that explosive. The suit will have disarmed it during the medical statistics part of the boot-up. Just act like it’s still armed and you're afraid for your life.”
“I am afraid for my life!” Twi hissed back as the two began to make their way to the first training room, Exodus in the lead.
Exodus, without looking back replied, “That’s the spirit.”
***
A short number of hours later, Exodus had fully trained the new driver, helped her pick out her weapons and was waiting for her to undergo the final stages of “initiation”, the death of Twilight Sparkle.
As the technician had suggested, Exodus was on the opposite side of the training programs the entire time, and now was the one on the opposite side of the keyboard from the now “deceased” Twi.
A few questions later, mainly how did she want to have “died”, where, when, etc, the final input boxes remained, “Codename”, and “Commanding Officer.” Having been notified of her preferred name, Exodus entered it in before moving on to the final box.
Now, Exodus knew well the name he was supposed to enter, but instead entered in only two words: Exodus Prime. Pressing enter before the technicians who were undoubtedly key logging him could respond, the new driver profile uploaded to the suit, finalizing everything. Both suits standing up, Exodus faced the new driver head on.
“Welcome to the Exodus Project, Subject Midnight.”
“So, how are you adapting to everything, Midnight?” Exodus asked the new driver from across the mess hall table while polishing the heavy titanium barrel of his custom belt fed HMG, the pack of which was sat on a large cloth on the table to his right.
***
The last few hours had been hell for Twilight. The suit bonding process had sucked, the training sucked even harder and she had a funny feeling that tomorrow was going to suck as well. Her body still ached dully, but overall she felt stronger than she ever had been.
Her knees were achy and weak, but refused to give out and her head swam with thoughts of the past, but she’d kept quiet for the last few hours.
The only things that she had really even talked much about was her preferred style of combat. They had explained that her suit was lighter and much slimmer than Exodus’s, fit for moving quickly and silently and to go hand in hand with that, she had chosen a Japanese straight sword for her primary and sub machines guns as her secondary.
The techs had explained that since her weapons were light, she’d also be trained in throwing weapons. She had to admit; that part was a little cool, but it just wasn’t her. Then again, she didn’t exist anymore. Twilight Sparkle had died in a train accident, derailed and she had fallen into the river, her body never to be found.
She was now Subject Midnight, nothing but a soldier in a plan. It was heart-breaking in a way, but the day had been too overwhelming for her to care. Her head was swimming with everything going on and she felt numb as all hell, everything going by her in double time and just passing her by.
She felt left behind in the dust, but nothing mattered now. She had no friends, no family. She would never see her mother again, Flash or Sunset… Every time she thought about it, the tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked it away, unwilling to cry in front of these people again. They might have broken her for now, but if she turned out anything like Exodus did, they would damn the day that they picked her for this damn program.
Before long, the day was over and the purple haired woman had been lead to the mess hall. The room was blank, white walls and tile floor, with metal tables bolted to the ground. The kitchen was connected to the back half of the room, cooks working silently behind the counter.
She followed Exodus, watching the process of getting plates of food from the cooks and placing them on trays, and then sat down across the table from him. The food looked decent; she guessed it was chicken, what looked like mashed potatoes and vegetables, but she didn’t want to spend time actually thinking about what it was. If high school taught her anything, it was that any kind of food served in a mess hall were questionable at best.
She glanced up at Exodus at the question, then shrugged a shoulder, using her fork to mix her veggies and potatoes together. “Fine, I guess,” She said, looking away. “As well as can be expected. You know, I’m dead now and I’m never going to see my friends, family or home again. Oh, and I’m sore everywhere. Been a great day.” She continued, scooping up a fork full of her food.
Her emotions were all in flux; one second she was numb, the next she was angry and the next sad. Even though she tried her best to blame everything that happened to her on Exodus, something close to her that she could take her rage out on, she knew he hadn’t tried to do this to her. It wasn’t anybody’s fault but the techs and this stupid program, but she highly doubted she’d be in a good situation to yell at the techs. She couldn’t even refuse to do something with Flash and Sunset’s safety being used against her, either by the techs or in her own head. It was always a threat.
***
"Fair enough, was just making sure that you hadn't mentally snapped. Wouldn't have been good for my plan of escape." Exodus told her in an attempt to pique her interest. Exodus then returned to oiling the firing mechanism of his weapon, making sure that it would be ready for intense action.
***
Midnight’s fork hit the plate in a quiet clatter, her eyes slowly rolling back up at meet Exodus. Escape? Her eyebrows furrowed together, trying to figure out how such a plan would even work. In the last seven hours, she hadn’t gone anywhere alone or even without the supervision of cameras. There just might be some kind of way; from what she understood, they were the perfect humans, stronger, faster and tougher than they could ever be, but she’d seen them subdue Exodus on top of the club in mere minutes.
“Excuse me?” She asked, maybe thinking she heard him wrong or something. Maybe he was talking about simply overthrowing them, or blowing up the entire place, or something along those lines. That could be possible.
She laughed nervously, then leaned over the table slightly, resting on her elbows. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I can’t sneeze here without everyone pulling a gun.”
***
“Which is why my plan is to have all the attention drawn to me while you get the necessary items for this plan to unfold. Namely, security cards.
Now because of your suit build, you’ll be better to sneak into the main security office, program two new cards under our name, adding high enough security clearance to our names in the process, and then we literally walk out the front door.
“Don't worry about the distraction, you don't have enough firepower anyway.” Exodus told her while loading a 42 gramme round into the weapon, a loud clicking as the weapon loaded, with more rounds sitting in the belt; shining brass in the fluorescent lighting. “All you need to do is wait for the signal. We’ll start as soon as the sirens go off. Till then, wait in your room and get prepped.”
Exodus stood up slinging the heavy ammunition pack onto his back, his suit automatically switching on the Maximum Strength module to atone for the heavy weight. Hanging the gun itself off the holster of the pack, Exodus nodded towards Midnight before turning away and walking off, off to prepare for the coming escape.
On the way to Exodus’ dorm, he passed by the lounge room which, normally, would be empty however as Exodus happened past the door looking into the room, he noticed two black figures sitting together at a table chatting quietly to each other. Nudging open the door he only caught the word escaping as the two became quiet and turned their head as one to look at the new body.
“Who are you two? When did you get here?” Exodus asked them, lifting his visor up to only reveal his eyes. The two looked at each other then back at him before one, presumably a colt from his voice, answered, “We’ve been here longer than you have, Exodus.”
“The only difference is that you’ve been suited for much longer than we have. We’ve only been at this facility for a few years now, before that we have no recollection of our pasts.” the other, filly from her voice, explained. Exodus noticed that both, foals for lack of a better word, would have only been at most fifteen, maybe sixteen.
“Right, and what was this I was hearing of escaping?” Exodus asked, closing the doors and leaning back on it, preventing anyone ever being able to push him out of the way to open it again.
“We we’re just discussing ways we were going to try and get out of here.” the male answered.
“Our biggest concern was creating a distraction long enough to get us both out.” The female continued her brothers thought.
“Well, as it so happens, I’ve already got an escape plan in the works. If you want out, don’t get in my way. I’m the distraction, and I have another person in suit getting security to ‘work with us’.
“If you want to join us meet us at the front door, cause some chaos while you're at it, just don't kill all the techs here. We’ll need at least a few co-operative with our cause. You’ll know when we start; get suited and get prepped.” Exodus turned towards the door, exiting part way before turning back and asking, “By the way, what do I call you?”
“Call us Gemini.” both siblings answered at the same time. Exodus nodded in response before clicking the door shut again, snapping the neck of the tech who had been listening in.
***
Twi’s mind was racing. Escape? Exodus had to be crazy. No, wait, she knew he was crazy. Everybody in this damn place was out of their minds, but she never thought he would be this crazy! She hadn’t been “suited” for long, her legs still feeling weak but steady, her back sore but straight, and he expected her to know perfectly what to do to be able to sneak around this place? He was losing it. Or maybe she was. Maybe she could do this, get back out to her friends, her family…
She sighed, her pacing stopping for just a moment. She looked around the room she had been given, her purple/gray eyes scanning the room carefully. She had to trust Exodus with this. She had little to no choice but to trust him. Otherwise she ran the risk of never getting out and being nothing more than a lab rat, and she would rather be killed in an escape attempt than left here to die.
Her train of thought came to a crashing halt as the alarms went off. Footsteps sounded from outside her room as men went flying down the corridors, shouting orders at each other as they went. It was time.
She looked over the weapons laying on her bedside one more time, then one by one, put them all on. A thin sword was slid carefully onto the sheath on her back, two submachine guns fitted into their holsters on her thighs and small throwing knives were tucked away in every pocket she could find. She pulled her ponytail tight, prepared herself one more time, then threw herself out of the door and took off down a hallway.
***
Lex and Terra had spent the afternoon in their quarters, weapon parts spread out over a large towel on their beds as they worked at cleaning, maintaining, sharpening, sighting in. Lex was right in the process of reassembling the firing mechanism of his Vector Submachine gun when the alarms began blaring, a facility wide alert that Exodus had gone rogue with his HMG in the mess hall.
Lex looked at his unicorn sister, then speed assembled his weapons both by hand and by magic, slinging them across his back, Terra doing the same. Both standing up once ready, Lex addressed his sister while clicking his knives into their sheaths,
“You go find this Midnight, give her a hand. I’ll go find Exodus and see what he needs me to do.” Terra nodded, kicking the cast iron door open with a glowing red leg, taking off to the left down the corridors as Lex took off to the right.
The way Lex had it figured as he sprinted down the hall fully cloaked; the quickest way to disable security measures would be to just cut the power and lock it that way, which is why he was presently headed towards the reactor facilities. Pressing a finger to his ear, he activated his earpiece, selecting the channel with the suit’s interface.
“Exodus Prime, do you copy? Over.” Lex kept running down the increasingly darkening corridors, waiting for an answer. After a minute of radio silence Lex tried again, “Exodus Prime, this is Gemini Lex: do you copy, over?” Lex slid to a stop, his cloak shimmering as he did so, eventually stabilizing again. A few moments later his radio crackled to life, “Exodus Prime here, you’ve called at one of the worst possible times. Status update.” Gunfire as well as the sound of Exodus’ cannon filled the background audio came with Exodus’ order.
“Sir, Terra and I have split up, Terra is going to assist Midnight Prime, I’m on my way to the reactors to shut them down, disable security that way.” Lex replied, resuming his sprint once more.
“Copy that, wait for my signal to deactivate the reactors, Midnight is getting us security clearance that we’ll need later on. Over.”
“Copy. I’ll add a timer virus to the deactivation sequence, delay it long enough for us to get out. Over and out.” Lex rounded yet another corner, this time activating his Nano vision due to lack of any light in the hallway what so ever.
As soon as he saw the tiny heat signatures, Lex froze as soon as his foot hit the floor, ducking and keeping close to the wall, attempting to mask his own tiny heat signature with the walls. Getting down as low as he could on only his hands and feet, Lex began to creep towards the heat signatures as carefully as he could; considering he’d just stumbled upon two security team members who’d been suited up in an ancient model, probably two of the last original Genesis suits, hive mind and all: watching the hallway the same way Lex had been, in cloak and with nano vision enabled.
Their biggest drawback for their suits however, was that they operated off an exterior power source, no doubt the reactors in the room behind them. This meant that the guards had to remain exactly where they were, likely using firearms of some kind that would disable a nano suit, if not temporarily.
Pulling the pin on a chaff grenade, Lex tossed it down the hall as he deactivated his own Nano-vision before he blinded himself, then immediately pulled his Vector from his thigh, taking aim at the general direction of the first guard. As soon as the chaff grenade went off, both guards found that their suits had been electrically disrupted and their cloak disabled; which meant that Lex could double tap both guards silently, dropping both of them.
Approaching slowly, muzzle on the guards as he approached, he quickly knelt down next to both of them one after another, looking for a pulse but finding none: Lex reached up and unplugged the suits industrial sized plugs from the walls, before tossing both bodies into a black corner.
Reactivating his nano-vision, Lex stepped before the large sliding doors, placing a cryptographer on the faceplate of the biosignature scanner, setting it to decrypt the locking sequence and unlock the doors.
Once inside, Lex took a moment to take in the grandeur of the reactor itself, or rather, the little bit of the reactor he could see. Stepping up to the guard rail, Lex peered over the edge, gazing far down in the seemingly endless black pit that the reactor hung in, held in place by enormous radioactively shielded arms that must’ve anchored deep into the walls every five or six stories.
I knew this place consumed a fuck-tonne of energy, but damn, this is ridiculous! Lex thought to himself. Following the ledge he was on, Lex eventually found what he was looking for: the Reactor Control room, or rather, the huge bay windows of the Control Room.
Taking off into a sprint towards the glass, Lex vaulted up and through the glass having engaged his Maximum Strength module, leaving the suit to protect him from the shattered glass by itself. Standing up and brushing himself off, Lex stepped toward the controls, noticing a distinct lack of anyone around to try and stop him, and began typing a few dozen lines of code into the computers making sure to add a ten minute delay to the activation.
Having compiled and saved the code, Lex reactivated his comms and requested a link to Exodus while hopping out through the broken window he’d smashed through earlier, retracing his steps out of the reactor chamber, headed towards the hangar.
“Exodus, reactor is on a ten minute delayed shutdown sequence, no sign of anyone around. Will proceed to hangar for extraction.” Lex left Exodus a quick message before silencing his radio once again, engaging his cloak and taking off down the blackened hallway.
***
Terra snuck around another corner, eyes scanning from behind her expressionless mask as she scanned the hallways. So far, no sign of this “Midnight”. Either she was a god at this already, or just got incredibly lucky, but whichever it was, Terra was getting annoyed. Why was she put on babysitting duty? They could be helping Exodus a lot more if the twins were together; that’s when they were strongest after all, but no, she got to run around like a puppy looking for its master.
The alarms blared over her head, the hallways flashing red as panic lights went off, circling like little lighthouses tucked into the corners of the corridors. The small girl paid it no mind, simply slipping quickly down the hallways with ease.
This wasn’t the first freak-out the facility had had in her time here. The only difference is last time, she was on their side and she would never be on it again if this went according to plan, but it couldn’t go according to plan if she didn’t find this stupid Midnight!
As if on a whim a group of stallions took the corner at the end of the hallway, causing Terra to panic but leaving her just enough time to dive into a dark doorway. The men charged past without even a second glance in her direction, panicked radio chatter following them as they went; obviously a lot about the tank causing a lot of problems. The young girl peeled herself off of the wall and quickly went in the other direction, looking behind her to make sure that she wasn’t being followed.
A noobie’s mistake. As soon as she turned the next corner, her body collided with something solid and fast. She fell to the floor, dazed and looked around for whatever it was she ran into only to see nothing. She rubbed her head slowly, and the air in front of her flashed once, twice, then she heard a groan before a purple haired mare appeared literally out of thin air. The other woman looked at her and gave an awkward chuckle. “You can see me… Can’t you?”
Terra stared at her for a moment, then she laughed and gave her a smile. “Yeah, cloaking systems don’t really work that well if you run into people.” Terra said, and the other woman chuckled a little more. “You must be Midnight,”
The embarrassed expression on the woman’s face changed to one of confusion. “Who are you?”
Terra grinned, “I’m backup.”
***
It was the wait that nearly drove Exodus to start early, but after doing a bit of digging through the internet and the Project’s own database, Exodus had finally acquired the bit of information he’d been looking for.
Downloading the data to his suit, Exodus shouldered his monster of a weapon, and headed out the door. Having reached the main staff offices and with many looks from the staff at to what he was doing there fully armed, Exodus calmly reached back, took hold of his [GAU]http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Ffiles.harrispublications.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252Fsites%252F8%252F2012%252F03%252F19bbest.jpg%26h%3D3AQH9qfEu&sa=D&ust=1452577973310000&usg=AFQjCNGaETLtibho5By6WNub-LnX2aWHIQ]GAU](https://www.google.com/url?q=[url=http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Ffiles.harrispublications.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252Fsites%252F8%252F2012%252F03%252F19bbest.jpg%26h%3D3AQH9qfEu&sa=D&ust=1452577973310000&usg=AFQjCNGaETLtibho5By6WNub-LnX2aWHIQ) 19/B[/url], injecting a single [.50]https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.ca%252Fsearch%253Fq%253D.50%252BBMG%2526source%253Dlnms%2526tbm%253Disch%2526sa%253DX%2526ei%253DW3fqVLHHJIulgwSC74GoBg%2526ved%253D0CAgQ\_AUoAQ%2526biw%253D1680%2526bih%253D954%2523imgdii%253D\_%2526imgrc%253D-eQT\_iJ8bj2nWM%2525253A%25253Bsu7BeF\_Fg3euJM%25253Bhttp%2525253A%2525252F%2525252Fwww.freedommunitions.com%2525252Fv%2525252Fvspfiles%2525252Fassets%2525252Fimages%2525252F50%2525252520cal%2525252520ammo.jpg%25253Bhttp%2525253A%2525252F%2525252Fwww.freedommunitions.com%2525252Fcategory-s%2525252F1855.htm%25253B674%25253B471%26h%3DpAQEIVbUp&sa=D&ust=1452577973311000&usg=AFQjCNEB6HY295CqriyAlx5E\_8J\_slOy9w].50](https://www.google.com/url?q=[url=https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.ca%252Fsearch%253Fq%253D.50%252BBMG%2526source%253Dlnms%2526tbm%253Disch%2526sa%253DX%2526ei%253DW3fqVLHHJIulgwSC74GoBg%2526ved%253D0CAgQ_AUoAQ%2526biw%253D1680%2526bih%253D954%2523imgdii%253D_%2526imgrc%253D-eQT_iJ8bj2nWM%2525253A%25253Bsu7BeF_Fg3euJM%25253Bhttp%2525253A%2525252F%2525252Fwww.freedommunitions.com%2525252Fv%2525252Fvspfiles%2525252Fassets%2525252Fimages%2525252F50%2525252520cal%2525252520ammo.jpg%25253Bhttp%2525253A%2525252F%2525252Fwww.freedommunitions.com%2525252Fcategory-s%2525252F1855.htm%25253B674%25253B471%26h%3DpAQEIVbUp&sa=D&ust=1452577973311000&usg=AFQjCNEB6HY295CqriyAlx5E_8J_slOy9w) BMG round[/url] into the first chamber, and took a second to look over the crowd of men and women.
Once the six barrels started spinning up, Exodus activated his MA (Maximum Armour) module, and gave one line to the panicking masses: “Anyone who doesn’t want to die and will work for me, lie face down on the floor or you will be shredded.” As soon as a decent number of staff were face down, Exodus opened fire, instantly shredding anyone or anything who tried to escape or attack him.
As soon as the room was cleared, Exodus began ripping tables up from the floor, using them as a barricade for the staff members who quickly caught on, some vaulting over into safe hiding. Exodus picked one of the staff member up forcefully by the arm with a bout of resistance. Standing her up, he pushed her towards the big red panic button on the wall; she instead fell on it, the small of her back compressing it and activating the facility wide alarm.
As soon as she collapsed to the ground again, she scurried back behind cover as the first guards, weapons drawn rounded the corner and were promptly shredded before the next line wised up and remained behind cover.
“Exodus, stand down, this is a direct order!” One guard yelled from around the corner, narrowly avoiding another quick volley of bullets flying at 6,000 rpm. Another guard raised a walkie to his face, “Command, this is Whiskey Tango Foxtrot four, we need you to activate the suit shutdown command on subject Exodus immediately.”
“Copy that WTF4, stand by for deactivation.” was the lone reply. A minute and four bursts later, the same guard called back, “Command, this is Whiskey Tango Foxtrot four, what’s the ETA on that deactivation, over?” the comms remained silent however, as two guards closest to the door peeked around, then looked up at Exodus’ looming figure before literally jumping back, becoming riddled with bullets. Exodus turned back into the room, standing post still in the middle of the room, occasionally popping a few bursts into a few guards, who eventually turned into riot guards, and then a few guards in full bomb suits.
A few minutes of silence had Exodus slightly uneasy just as a single figure strolled into the doorway, arms folded behind their nano-suited back.
“Well well, Subject Exodus Prime right? I’ve heard so much about you!” the form grinned, as if it could grin beneath the full face black glassed mask. Trailing from his back was the power cord powering his suit, likely connected to an external power source just down the hallway.
Even it’s voice was so inhuman that it didn’t even have a gender attached to it, if that was even possible.
“And you are?” Exodus asked, keeping his finger on the trigger for the slightest provocation but held short of actually opening fire. Who knows, this one may be of use to Exodus’s grand scheme.
“If you are Exodus, then you may call me Genesis.” Genesis replied with a gentlemanly flourish and a bow. At least now Exodus had a gender to put to the lack of bodily identification.
“Genesis. Either you were given a Genesis suit and the hive mind has corrupted you into making you crazy to think that you’re a Genesis driver who survived the explosive sealing those years ago, or you’re actually a Genesis driver who somehow survived all these years and has still been mentally consumed by the hive.” Exodus remarked, still holding short of firing. Frankly, his instincts were screaming at him to pull the trigger and sever the power cord before Genesis could do anything, but Exodus was genuinely curious.
“I’ll let you think about that while you’re looking up at me from the flat of your back with my hoof in your gut.” Genesis replied, his imaginary face dead-set with killing intent.
“Yeah, how about not?” Exodus suggested instead, pulling the trigger as Genesis dodged to the side, out of the way of protecting his lifeline. “You must be someone from after Project Genesis or you’d have activated MA and protected your power line.” Exodus grinned as the cable lay in two and the suit now a worthless leotard with slightly effective plating.
“Ahh, yes. Forgot about that bit.” Genesis replied, having lost all his vigor as he stared looking at his severed power connection. “Well, I fear I must go report to my superiors my failure to subdue you.” Genesis looked up from the cord to Exodus again. “Fair-well good sir! I look forward to combatting you at a later date!” Genesis bowed to his opposition once more before impossibly shimmering away and making his exit.
“Uhm, who was that?” Gemini Exodus asked, stepping into the room just as Genesis had made his leave.
“Someone I foresee giving us issues in the future.” Exodus replied calmly, holstering his weapon and removed the backpack. If GemEx was freely walking around in the hallways, it would be relatively safe to assume that no one else would be attacking. “Where’s your sister and Midnight?”
“Probably with Midnight dealing with security. Regardless they’ve got about four minutes to get what you need and get to the hangar before the Reactor shuts down.” GemEx shrugged, now noticing the remaining staff behind the overturned tables.
“Don’t even think about it.” Exodus warned as GemEx’s Vector came up and took aim. “They work for me now.”
“I thought we were causing havoc, escaping?” GemEx lowered his weapon again in confusion.
“And we have. We are no longer captives of some weak humans. We rule this complex now and I have plans.” Exodus explained while pulling his goggles off as he and his charge exited the room, aiming for the hangar.
***
“So, how did you end up here anyways?” the female Gemini inquired as the two young mares casually strolled through the hallways. It seemed that Exodus’s diversion had a greater effect than anticipated as there was absolutely no security roaming these halls.
“Well, I met Ma- Exodus Prime at a club on my eighteenth birthday with my friends. Some stuff happened, Exodus stuck his fist into an attacker’s gut before revealing the suit to me on the roof of Sub-Zero.” Midnight replied, looking back over recent events with a sigh.
“What’s Sub-Zero?” Terra held up short of a T-intersection with Midnight against the wall next to her.
“It’s a nightclub that is so exclusive that you apparently have to pay a ridiculous amount of money months in advance to even stand in line to pay for the even more ridiculous entry fee.” Of course, this is all information that Twilight/Midnight had heard about from her friends some time ago.
“Never heard of it.” Terra admitted with a shrug, stepping around the corner to have the security office at the very end of the hallway. “Are you thinking that this is too easy?”
“Oh come on, why’d you have to say that?” Midnight complained as the hallway went dark and tiny emitters activated laserbeams while twin miniguns descended from the ceiling at the far end.
“Yeah, in hind-sight that probably wasn’t very smart. At least the lasers aren’t moving...” Terra added with a sheepish grin. Midnight glared at the smaller girl as the lasers began sweeping the area in seemingly random patterns. “I’ll just remain quiet now.”
“Good plan.” Midnight sighed and examined the hallway before her. “How are your acrobatics?”
“Used to be a five time national gymnastics champion in a past life.” Terra grinned before the grin morphed into a look of shock. “You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you?”
“Is your suit outfitted for taking heavy fire from those guns?” Midnight offered, motioning to the guns blindly looking for targets. “Mine isn’t.”
“Damn, I figured you’d say that.” Terra cursed both the situation that she’d gotten both women into and her own foolishness. “You wouldn’t happen to have any good music stored in your suit’s memory would you?”
“You can do that?” Midnight gasped with a hopeful grin. If this was possible then she had quite the list of music to upload.
“Unfortunately not…” Terra admitted in the process of stretching herself out. “Not that I’m aware of anyways.”
“That sucks.” Midnight sighed as she too limbered up for the task ahead. “Shall we?”
“We shall.” Terra grinned back as the two women took turns performing their acrobatics; flipping, weaving, crawling their way through the hallway as the lasers passed mere millimeters away from them till they stood backs against the door to the security office. “Well that was fun.” Terra announced through heavy breaths.
“Yep. Didn’t even break a sweat!” Midnight agreed, also breathing heavily. “Let’s just get into the security office and get what we came for.”
“Agreed.” Terra turned as engaged her Maximum Strength module to gradually peel the steel door back from it’s frame with Midnight covering the new entrance.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Midnight announced as she entered into the room with her weapons trained on the occupants. “You.”
“Who?” Terra asked for clarification of her confusion as she entered in with her own submachine gun drawn.
“Oh shit.” one of the techs cursed his luck. “I was hoping it wasn’t you.”
“Well, you’ve got some shitty luck then.” Midnight growled at the tech who’d orchestrated her revival into Midnight. “Tell me, how many times have you tried detonating that little explosive charge in the back of my neck?”
“I’m still hitting the button.” the tech replied, showing his hand still on a detonator furiously tapping away at the button. His voice had dropped all the cockiness that he’d shown back when both Exodus and she were restrained.
“What does Exodus Prime want to do with these ones?” Terra looked at her superior inquisitively.
“Probably keep them if they’ll behave and agree to work for him.” Midnight confessed, eyeing over the terrified security officers and the lone tech still trying to kill her. “But i’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we killed that one.” Midnight lowered her firearm and drew a throwing knife, holding it aimed at the technician’s head.
“Eh, heh heh heh. I don’t suppose we could grovel on our knees and plead for my survival, could we?” the tech requested nervously as he dropped the detonator.
“Nope.” Midnight glared at the man through her visor and gave her wrist a strengthened flick. The next instant the technician had a slit right through his throat with the knife sticking out of the steel behind him; his spine cleanly severed and he dropped instantly to the floor.
“Right. As you all can see, my superior is in a fairly bad mood.” Terra began, holstering her weapon to begin rooting through the remaining officers for their own weapons. “So if you’d all co-operate and join Project Exodus freely, we’d really appreciate that.”
“Yeah, hey no problems here!” A guard replied shakily. “Whatever you need!”
“Good. Get into the security database and put Exodus Prime at the top of the command chain. Put me one level below him and the Gemini Twins below me.” Midnight ordered and everyone instantly flew to their chairs to begin work.
“Anything else, ma’am?” a security guard anxiously asked, handing out the new ID cards to Terra who pocketed them in her suit for the time being.
“Let me call Exodus Prime and find out.” Midnight replied before activating her comms. “Hey, Exodus? You there?”
“Go ahead, Midnight.” Exodus replied, sounding like he was stood next to a helicopter or something. “How’s it going with security?”
“We’ve got the cards, you’re at the top of the chain of command with me and the twins under you and we need to know if there’s anything else you need done here before we join you.” Midnight explained, surveying the consoles around her as the screens above flickered around till she could see Exodus standing on the ramp of a blacked out VTOL airship.
“Nope, that’s it. What of the security officers?” Exodus turned to face the camera staring at him from a ways away. Even with a camera and who knows how much space between them, Exodus still looked intimidating with his full mask on.
“Complacent. What do you want me to do with them?”
“Nothing. Bring Gemini Midnight with you and get here to the hangar for extraction. You have four minutes until the reactors shut down.” Exodus ordered before hanging up on the line.
“Alright then. You’re all free to remain here in the base while Gemini Midnight and I take our leave. I feel I should inform you that the reactors are due to shut down in four minutes though, just sayin’.” Midnight shrugged as the two mares sprinted from the room through the deactivated hallway security measures.
“So where are we going?” Terra inquired as the two continued their effortless sprint.
“Hangar for extraction.” Midnight replied as she followed the lines on the walls and floor marked “Hangars”.
“We’re finally getting outta here? Yes!” Terra cheered and front flipped in exuberance while keeping stride with the pace. “Where do you think we’re going?”
“No idea. I figure we’ll leave that up to Exodus.” Midnight replied calmly, entering into the final hallway which opened up into an expansive underground cavern. At the very center of the room sat the black VTOL the two had seen Exodus standing on and turned their aim towards it.
With all the space available to them they cut loose and crossed the half kilometer distance in seconds before skidding to a halt at the ramp to have Exodus and Lex already on board.
“Glad you could make it. Cards?” Exodus demanded as Terra extracted said items and passed them to their new respective owners. “Thank you. Strap in, we’ve got quite a journey ahead of us.”
“Where’re we going?” Midnight requested as the girls and Exodus strapped themselves into the net seats.
“Dracona.” Germany.
Chapter IV: New Friends, Old Friends
“What are we doing in Dracona and why does it have to be in the middle of winter?” Midnight demanded as she wrapped herself in a black parka.
“I happen to have a friend who lives here who I'm sure will be more than happy to get back into service.” Exodus explained as he stood a ways away from the loading ramp of the VTOL, the jet engines’ low rumbling blowing snow around more than the blizzard already was.
The trip had taken just over three and a half hours and now the quad of superhumans stood in the middle of the Draconian tundra simply trying to see through all the snow. Even the nano-vision with it’s advanced imaging didn’t help all that much.
“And they live in Dracona of all places?” GemMid shuttered, huddling up with her brother. “Why are they so important that they can’t come to us?”
“Simple, she doesn’t know how to get to us. Regardless, she has information that will be vital to a future operation.” Exodus explained as he looked over his maps. “Alright everyone, we’re aiming for a town under strict martial law. The airspace is locked down tighter than… well, use your imagination.
“We’re going to go in, find the operative and extract her. If you find her, and you’ll know her when you see her, tell her you’re there to rescue her.” Exodus instructed and entered into the VTOL again for a minute before coming out with a modified SCAR-H hooked to his suit and hanging in front of his chest.
“Not taking the autocannon, Sir?” GemEx grinned as he patted his own firearm to ensure it was still there.
“Nope. We shouldn’t need that level of firepower.” Exodus shook his head and took off. As soon as the others all caught up, the four operatives engaged their Maximum Strength module and took off even faster, all following behind Exodus since he knew where he was going. Apparently.
~~~
“And you don’t want us to go in cloaked, why?” Midnight had to agree with GemMid’s question. The four of them were aimed towards entering into nothing less than a military fortress.
“They won’t have anything large enough to threaten us.” Exodus replied as he examined the walls with his ACOG scope. “Provided that we don’t otherwise interfere with their operations. We’re here for Veto and that’s it.”
“You make it sound so easy.” GemEx muttered as the four anthros gradually approached the gates.
“Halt! Was wollt ihr?” One of the dragon/human hybrid gate guards demanded as he was joined by five of his friends all clad in large overcoats.
“Die Rückholung eines bestimmten Gefangenen ” Exodus shouted back, standing still with his gun lowered. “Wir sind hier wegen Veto!”
“What’s going on?” Midnight leaned in and whispered to GemEx.
“Basically they asked what our business is, Exodus told them to mind their own business and that we’re here for Veto.”
“Ahh, Veto you say? The Führer will be glad to be rid of her.” the guard grinned to his friends before turning back to the group of super soldiers. “What business have you with the Miststück?”
“My business with her is between us and does not concern you. Let us pass and there will be no trouble.” Exodus demanded calmly while two of three behind him began to get eager for a proper firefight. Midnight was completely content with remaining pacifistic.
“Trouble, huh? You think the four of you with your kleinen Waffen can hope to defeat the entire city of Drachenstadt? Ihr seid wohl verrückt!” the guard shouted as every guard around and above him took positions with their weapons aimed at the quad of soldiers.
“Das ist ein Kampf, den ihr nicht gewinnen könnt...” Exodus announced sombrely before turning his head slightly to address those behind him. “Midnight, GemMid, please silently dispose of the five before us.”
“Yes sir!” Gemini Midnight saluted before shimmering away. Midnight was hesitant but she too vanished. A minute later, three of the five officers suddenly had holes explode from their chests one after the other, with the other two trying to find the attackers without success.
“Höllenengel! Höllenengel!” the remaining two guards shouted hysterically as they ran back into the city, leaving the entrance wide for anyone to enter.
“Regroup.” Exodus ordered calmly and both young mares appeared obediently behind him again, as though they hadn’t even moved. “Let’s go.”
As the four entered, Midnight took the opportunity to re-evaluate the remaining guards as they watched in fear as the group entered into their city.
“Why aren’t they attacking us?” Midnight quickened her pace to walk alongside Exodus. “They’ve certainly got more arms than us.”
“‘Höllenengel’ means hell angel. They’re probably already familiar with what we are and are too afraid of incurring our wrath.” Exodus explained in calm dulcets as he lead everyone towards the center of the city. Even he was noticing that wherever the Guards had run off too screaming Höllenengel likely had the remaining residents hole up in their homes and holes.
“Not that I don’t mind a free pass into the city...” Gemini Exodus put himself into the conversation as he continued to keep eyes on the surrounding civilians. “You do know where we’re going, right?”
“Yes. We’re here.” Exodus announced as he held up short of a public square with what looked like some sort of medieval gallows at the center. “Talk about out of date.”
“No kidding. It even smells old!” Gemini Midnight exclaimed with disdain. “So what, they’re trying to publicly execute Veto? Are we going to get to shoot a rope just as she falls to her death, thereby saving her in the last possible second?” she asked eagerly as her brother merely stared at her in bored disbelief.
“You’ve been playing too many video games.” he noted, shaking his head as Exodus began walking towards the gallows with purpose.
“So what does this Veto look like, anyways?” Midnight inquired as she tried to look past the glaring or gazing heads of the Drake citizenry.
“That.” Exodus replied, pointing at a figure cloaked in black on the stage, standing next to a womanly figure impossibly clad in a nano-suit.
“She’s already suited? How?” Midnight inquired in confusion as the crowd split and let the soldiers approach the executioner as his prisoner.
“The project may have my name but that doesn’t mean that it had started with me. I took a chance to look through the Project files back at base when you were training, looking for something specific, looking for operatives who’d already been suited and were liable to join us.” Exodus explained quietly before he alone stepped onto the crudely built wooden stage.
“Halt! Du hast keine Macht über uns, Dämon!” The executioner exclaimed, readying his axe towards Exodus as he did his best to look intimidating.
“What?” Midnight leaned over to the twins as Lex rolled his eyes behind his mask.
“‘Stop, you have no authority over us, demon.’” he translated in boredom.
“Ich bin wegen den Gefangenen hier. Übergib sie mir und wir werden friedlich gehen.” Exodus replied, remaining still before the tip of the comically large axe.
“‘I come for the prisoner. Turn her over to me and we’ll leave in peace.’” GemEx translated again for those who didn’t speak Draconic.
“Wirklich? Das ist alles weswegen sie hier waren?” the executioner asked incredulously, lowering his guard as the crowd began to murmur.
“Now what’s going on?” Midnight ordered, not very content that she’d been left out on the language lessons.
“They’re surprised.” GemMid explained even though she herself didn’t speak Draconic. Her brother was the one who’d taken and mastered the Draconic and Zebran languages while she had taken the Basilese and Harpic language courses.
“Well no shit. Why are they surprised?” Midnight placed her fist on her hip insulted, turning to face her younger directly.
“They probably weren’t expecting us to be peaceful Dämonen.” Lex explained as he watched with arms crossed over his chest. Despite the blizzard, it seemed like the city itself generated enough heat to naturally warm the entire city to a comfortable level even with the snow still sitting on the ground.
“Von mir aus, nimm sie und verschwinde von hier!” the executioner set down his axe and unlocked the chains that bound the captive before Exodus lifted her to her feet and dusted her off.
Getting in close, the two seemed to exchange words before Veto nodded and the two stepped down from the stage with the crowd remaining as close as they dared.
“Let’s go.” Exodus ordered and took off at a sprint from the city with Veto hot on his hooves. The remaining three shared a glance before taking off after the pair, quickly catching up at the VTOL.
“So that’s it? No heated firefight or other battle?” GemEx looked disappointed as he pulled his mask off in the safety of the cargo hold of the enclosed VTOL.
“That’s it. We can head back to base and get ourselves properly established.” Exodus shrugged off his weapon and hung his mask from a hook on his hip. The look of utter disappointment on Lex’s face was as though he’d been denied being able to cuddle his pet dog or something.
“Question. We just escaped that place, why are we going back?” Terra demanded as she worked a brush through her hair as Midnight worked on drying her own.
“Because our operations require maintaining the suits and that base is the only location in the world with the proper equipment.” Exodus replied firmly as he entered into the cockpit and took off.
“Then why did you have me shut down the reactors?” Lex shouted up over the sound of the roaring engines as they took to the skies. “What was the point!”
“There was no point. I simply didn’t have anything for you to do and you gave yourself the job!” Exodus explained over the intercom. “The staff have probably already fixed everything and are working to prepare for our arrival as it is.”
“Was soll denn das Geschrei?” Veto calmly asked of Midnight in confusion. Midnight simply looked at the woman in silence before replying.
“I have no idea what you just said.” Midnight shook her head as Veto lifted her’s in comprehension before pulling her own mask off. The first thing Midnight noticed were the rows and rows of sharp teeth in her mouth, the kind of teeth that looked like they’d rend flesh from bone without too much difficulty or bite through steel without so much as a chipped tooth.
“Weißt du, du bist sehr hübsch für eine menschliche Stute. Bist du aktuell in einer Beziehung?” Lex burst into laughter from across the bay but otherwise remained silent before whispering the translation to his sister who equally burst into laughter.
“Du wärst überrascht was ich mit einer Drachenzunge machen kann, verstehst du? Ich kann neue Orte erreichen, die du nie für möglich gehalten hättest.” And with this Lex and Terra collapsed on the floor, clutching their stomachs in raucous laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Midnight demanded in confusion as she quickly found Veto’s hand on her leg. “What- what’re you doing?” she demanded as she stood and hopped away from the Dragon woman.
“She- she likes you, Midnight Prime! She want’s to show you a whole new world with her tongue!” Lex explained breathlessly as Midnight’s face went crimson.
“I- I- I- What!” Midnight stammered before reeling backwards into the opposite wall from Veto, near to where Lex and Terra were still laughing.
“Es sei denn du bist nicht an weiblichen Drachen interessiert; in dem Fall entschuldige ich mich für mein Verhalten, mein Anführer.” Veto suddenly looked apologetic and held her hands up in surrender, though she remained where she was. Midnight looked down at Lex for a translation as he continued to laugh with his sister.
“What did she say?” Midnight demanded expectantly. Exodus gave her the response.
“She said, ‘Unless you’re not into female drakes; in which I apologize, my leader.’”
“No! I’m most certainly not into females! Of any species!” Midnight declared, still red as a bell pepper. “Not that I haven’t thought about it… But, no!” Midnight admitted openly before exploding with protest once again.
“Du klingst zwiegespalten, kann ich helfen? Willst du darüber reden?” Veto offered innocently, although Midnight seemed to take it as more offers and cowered behind her knees on the bench.
“‘You sound conflicted. Can I help? Do you want to talk about it?’” Exodus translated as Lex and Terra collected themselves and returned to their net seating, still chuckling.
“I- no. I’m fine, thanks.” Midnight mumbled, still hiding behind her legs with her arms wrapped around them. Veto nodded compliance before stepping up to the cockpit and shut the door. She knew at least one person who would appreciate her tongue.
“I can’t believe she was so direct with you!” the female Gemini remarked with a grin. “That can’t have been comfortable, could it?”
“Not even remotely.” Midnight mumbled back. Her mind went back to what she’d said, about thinking about experimenting with such frivolous activities. In truth, there was only one she’d ever even considered would be… safe enough to try such things with and now… Now she thought that Twilight was dead.
“I noted that you said you had thought about trying loving another female…” Lex poked at Midnight’s side in jest with his elbow before continuing. “Have you ever-”
“No. Never.” Midnight admitted. Truthfully, she’d never even been with a male so trying out lesbianism was so far beyond her scope of things to try that it would take ages to find it on a list. “Question though, did it seem like Veto and Exodus knew each other more than Exodus let on?”
“You know, it kind of did now that you mention it.” Terra admitted with a thought. “I wonder what their relationship actually is…”
~~~
I’m not translating this since bit it’s not directly influencing the plot of the story.
“Verdammt du machst es schwer dieses Ding zu fliegen, wenn du das tust.” Exodus groaned as Veto worked him over. “Gut zu wissen, dass du immernoch erstaunlich hierin bist nach all der Zeit. Midnight weiß deine spezifischen genetischen Talente vielleicht nicht zu schätzen, aber verdammt. Ich habe das vermisst.”
“Hey, ich bin froh dass du dich überhaupt an mich erinnerst. Ich war nachts immer so allein ohne dich. Ein Drache kann nunmal nur so viel mit ihren eigenen Klauen machen.” Veto grinned back past her snaking, curling tongue.
~~~
“Yeah, something tells me we don’t want to find out.” Terra shuttered at the mere idea of the two older soldiers. Together. “Anyways, we’ve got some time to kill, tell us about you? Who were you before you were suited?”
“My name was Twilight Sparkle.” Midnight began with a sigh, still looking gloomy as her face pressed into her knees. “I had just finished high school with my friends when we went out drinking for my eighteenth birthday.”
“Really? Happy belated then.” Lex announced with a friendly pat on the back. Midnight had to give at least a small smile at this before continuing.
“Sunset and Flash had both taken me out to this club that Exodus was working security for at the time. Granted back then he introduced himself as Malachi. Malachi had been staring at me, wondering if I was legal to be in the club since I wasn’t drinking as much as my friends were so had Sunset get my attention and go over to meet him. Of course, Sunset had ulterior motives the entire night but that’s not important.”
“Later on, we get attacked as we’re heading towards Sub-Zero,” Midnight continued though GemMid interrupted briefly.
“The super-exclusive club right?” Midnight nodded to her question.
“And I see Malachi using his suit powers. Now, I'm obviously a unicorn so I figured he was the same with a spell to hide his horn. They do exist but they’re very expensive.” Midnight continued as the night played out through her mind over again. “But no, I see him shimmering and take a bullet to the forehead at point blank range.”
“And no shield spell can do that, right?” Lex inquired as his sister sat against him listening intently.
“No,” Midnight shook her head firmly. “Even a level four shield spell would break at point-blank impact. There was no physical or magical way that he should have survived that gunshot. But that’s not where it ends. Malachi’s hand glows red before plunging into the attacker’s stomach to severely injure him.”
“Also not possible?” Terra asked, tilting her head to the side to let her brother watch.
“Well, with certain scientific requirements on top of magical assistance it is. But since his hand was glowing with the same hex-pattern as when he was shot that idea was thrown out the door.” Midnight sighed and looked up at the opposite wall.
The entire craft suddenly nosedived for a minute before being recovered with the spray of water just outside the windows.
“Sorry about that everyone, had to avoid a small craft.” Exodus explained breathlessly over the comms. In the background a female voice was panting equally as heavily but sounded like she was trying not to be heard before the comms went silent again.
“Right, small craft.” Terra glared at the locked cockpit door. “They’re totally fucking in there right now.”
“Yep, total orgy.” Lex agreed as Midnight simply shook her head. Whoever Exodus was with was none of her concern. “So anyways?”
“Anyways, we call the police and leave the scene. We get inside and Flash and Sunset have already had some drinks when they decide to go dance, leaving me with Malachi. That’s when I tell him what I saw.” Midnight sighed again but rested her cheek on her crossed arms, looking at the Gemini twins.
“How’d that go over?” Terra smirked as Lex worked at brushing her hair while listening himself.
“As well as you can expect. He took me outside and revealed the suit in all it’s brilliance before taking me up to the roof to explain everything. That’s when the Project showed up and kidnapped us. Next I know I'm waking up in the suiting chamber with a tech injecting an explosive into the back of my neck.”
“Is it still there?” Terra asked in shock. Midnight shrugged in casual reply.
“No idea. Exodus told me that the suit had disabled it during the initialization but I have no idea what that means. As far as I’m concerned, I still have a blasting cap in my spine.”
“You seem quite content with that, given the circumstances.” Lex noted, setting the brush aside to begin braiding the mint green hair of his twin, leaving out the single strand of pure white to hang in front of Terra’s face.
“If Exodus says it’s been disarmed, then it’s been disarmed.” Midnight retorted adamantly, almost glaringly looking at the twins. “So far it may seem like he’s the one responsible for getting me into all this, but I choose to look at it like he’s the one keeping me alive and sane.”
“Except that you technically died. Twilight Sparkle is dead.” Lex said pointedly as he continued to work his sister’s hair into a single thick braid.
“Only in name. As you can see I'm alive and well.” Midnight protested, indicating to her body. “I will be the first to admit that I do miss being able to feel my own skin or wear proper clothing…”
“I honestly don’t remember either of those myself.” Terra admitted, mumbling under her breath. “Lex and I have been in suit for so long as it is, we practically grew up in the deep layers suits.”
“Yeah how does that work, by the way? Does the suit just grow with you or do you have to get it re-fitted every so often?” Midnight looked at her friends inquisitively.
“The nano-particles automatically take some of the nutrients we get from eating and use it to alter the suit. The Nanosuit becomes your body and works in a similar fashion.” Terra explained. Midnight shrugged back in response but otherwise remained quiet.
~~~
“How long are those two going to be at it, they’ve been in there for the last three hours! ” Terra exclaimed, looking at the cockpit door. Suddenly the lock disengaged and the door swung open with Veto poking her scaly aquamarine head out to look directly at Midnight.
“Exodus Prime will, dass du dir etwas ansiehst.” she announced before taking a second to try and translate herself. “Prime… Need you. Follow.” Midnight stood and glanced at the twins before joining Veto in the cockpit.
“Please don’t add me to your orgy.” Midnight muttered as Veto took her seat next to Exodus with thousands of buttons and switches that did things Midnight could only guess at. Veto chuckled at the comment as Exodus looked over his shoulder.
“Come here.” He ordered as Midnight stood directly over his shoulder. “We’re just over the highway leading out of Canterlot.” he explained as they all hovered over, as Exodus had said, the main highway some kilometers away from the city.
Below was pure chaos in the form of a five car accident, with two cars upside down and one completely torn in half as it was buried under a semi-trailer.
“Why are you showing me this? What’s so important?” Midnight demanded, looking over the scene from on high. Exodus gave Veto a nod and the drake hit a switch, activating some kind of satellite imaging of a very recognizable car upside down and burning. “That looks like…” she mumbled before her world came crashing down a second time. “Please don’t tell me that’s who I think it is.”
“Two bodies, one heat signature.” Exodus informed of Midnight. “I’ve got Veto tapped into the police broadband and she says that the two occupants match the descriptions of Flash and Sunset. Flash was the driver and is severely injured. He is not expected to live if rescue teams try to recover him. Sunset…” Exodus droned off as the craft began to lower to the ground in a nearby field.
“Don’t say it.” Midnight’s eyes began to water as she nearly jumped out of the craft altogether if it wasn’t for the Gemini twins holding her down in the cockpit.
“Sunset has been pronounced dead at the scene.” Exodus announced and Midnight, no, Twilight burst into tears. “We can save Flash but you won’t like how.”
“You have to suit him, right?” she asked through sobs. Veto nodded sombrely.
“Not only that but we’d have to rebuild most of his body and replace the bits that are unfixable. The nanosuit is good but it can’t completely restructure the shattered legs or destroyed eyes and wings. They’ll be replaced during surgery.” Exodus announced as the twins let go of Twilight and immediately began to grab all the necessary items for the rescue as Veto joined them.
“And this is his only chance at surviving?” Twilight sniffed as Veto and the twins sprinted from the craft with bags shouldered. As they sprinted over the fence between the road and the field, crews and civilians looked on in disbelief as Lex physically ripped the car in half down the middle with his Maximum Strength to let Veto and Terra in to work.
“Yes. Unfortunately nothing can be done about Sunset Shimmer. I’m sorry.” Exodus replied as Flash was lifted onto a stretcher while Terra covered his injured body in a cementing bio-foam.
“Fine. But when he survives, and he will survive, he takes my name.” Twilight announced forcefully. Exodus nodded acceptance as the rescuers loaded up and Veto returned to the co-pilot seat. Midnight bolted from the cockpit and slid to her knees at Flash’s side, his legs covered in the white almost-concrete like foam as was his face from his eyes to his burned hairline.
“Ugh, what…” Flash muttered incoherently as he writhed on the stretcher.
“Flash, I'm here.” Twilight took the boy’s hand in her own and held it close.
“Sunset?” Flash mumbled as he fought to look around. “What’s happening? Why can’t I see and what’s on my face?”
“Sorry Flash. Sunset…” Twilight drifted off as the twins remained silently working on Flash to stabilize him during take-off. “Sunset died in the accident. You’re legs are completely destroyed beneath the knees, your eyes are gone and your wings have been severely damaged. You likely won’t fly ever again.” Twilight explained through new tears.
“Twilight? But, I thought you were dead? A train accident or something. Shit, I'm dead too… Never thought limbo would be so dark.” Flash muttered in defeat, falling limp. “Well, just take me to my fate now, please.”
“No, you’re not dead. You’re still alive. Like I said, your eyes are gone and you’ve got some kind of foam over your face and legs.” Twilight reported, looking over the rest of the body before her.
“It’s a nano bio-foam designed to stabilize any and all injuries a victim may suffer, short of a heart attack or death.” Lex explained as he stuck a third IV needle into Flash’s arm to begin the blood circulating to clean it out.
“Who’re you?” Flash asked, turning his blind eyes towards the new voice.
“My name is Lex, code name Gemini Exodus. I rescued you with my sister Terra, code name Gemini Midnight and a new addition named Veto Exodus.” Lex explained as he started up the centrifuge.
“Why do you all have the same last name?” Flash chuckled before groaning in pain. “Ow…” he hissed as he clutched at his chest. “I think something in my ribs are broken. Can you use more of that foam?”
“Sorry, we have limited amounts of it and we’re already drastically short on it after using it on you. You’ll be fixed right up when we get you into surgery at base.” Terra remarked from her seated position against the wall of the craft. “As for the last names, that’s how we identify ourselves. We take the first names of our superior as our last name. When you get suited you’ll probably have Midnight’s name as your last.”
“When I’m what?” Flash sat up suddenly to have Lex and Midnight push him back down. “Uh-uh, no way am I going through all that! I was there for Twilight’s suiting, I heard everything they did to her before they supposedly killed her! Fuck that noise!” he proclaimed, trying to free himself of Lex’s super strength.
“Flash, this is your only chance at surviving and it’s quickly declining the more you move around! It’s either you get suited or you die!” Midnight shouted, trying to get Flash to remain still.
“Then I’ll die! There is no way in Tartarus that I'm going to go work for those bastards who took you away from us!” Flash continued to struggle until Terra and Lex both took a side and firmly planted her arms onto his body with MS (Maximum Strength) activated, holding him down completely.
“Flash! Sunset Shimmer is dead! Do you think she’d want us to just give up and die, or would she want us to go kick some ass?” Midnight screamed, her grip on Flash’s hand tightening as all resistance ceased.
“She’d want us to get drunk and kick some ass…” Flash finally admitted with a forlorn sigh. “Fine. But what makes you think that i’ll even be able to survive the process as I am?”
“You’ll be heavily sedated during the surgery. We’ll suit you up as soon as that’s done so you shouldn’t feel too much.” Terra explained as she and her brother let go of the stallion and sat back on their haunches.
“Fine. But could I get some morphine or something right now? This pain is going to give me a heart attack as it is.” Flash requested to have Midnight stick his neck with a needle. “I suppose I should say, ‘Hi, new friends’.”
