Hornless

Chapters

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven

Chapter One

The man wrapped his makeshift cloak and muffler around himself tighter, hoping to shutout a bit more of the persistent wind that kept trying to rob him of precious body heat. Glancing around while rubbing his arms and stamping his feet, he took in the sight of the day’s work area prior to leaving before dark; making sure that he wasn’t forgetting any tools or leaving overtly obvious signs of his passing. Once finished with his quick examination, he let out a deep sigh and began the trek back to the cabin he had fashioned from the local lumber. He hadn’t been here long, but he’d accomplished an impressive amount of labor; funny what surviving can drive a man to do. Dragging a large pine branch behind him to help disguise his tracks, his mind wandered to days past; days when he was warm, and safe, but mostly when he was sheltered and naïve.

Lost in his memories, he almost didn’t hear the persistent banging on wood that preceded a female voice begging for help. Stopping dead in his tracks, he strained his ears to listen and picked up the words that drifted between the trees.

“Please! We need help, somepony, anypony! Snowy is b-b-bleeding here, and I c-can’t drag her any farther! Please…” the woman begged, her voice cracking at the end in despair.

The man moved up behind a tree to see that yes, it was the front door of his cabin that was being pounded on but that no, it wasn’t a woman at all. It was some kind of colorful, teal-furred, green maned, winged, horse…pony...thing. Another such creature was lying on a crude sled next to her, seemingly unconscious, although this one was white coated with blue hair; its wound bleeding sullenly.

“Pegasus?” he whispered. “Or, I guess pegasuses…pegasi? Whatever, either way… I suppose letting them die out here would bother me for the rest of my days… Damn.” Releasing another deep sigh, the man trudged forward in resigned defeat, hoping that tiny horses didn’t trample him to death for not being a tiny horse himself.

Emerald Breeze had always thought of herself as a tough pony. By Tartarus, she was an elite member of the Mobile Weather Squad! Trusted to fly out to remote areas and deal with the harshest conditions a pegasus could expect; making weather, without fancy factory assistance or unicorn magic. ‘Old school’ as her instructor would say, just a pony manipulating the atmosphere with guts and pegasi know-how. She and Snowy Skies had just finished helping out a drought-riddled Appleloosa (in record time if anyone was counting) and they were returning to Canterlot when they got cocky and decided to take a shortcut over the Everfree rather than skirt around it. You know, like smart ponies would do?

Sure as the sun rises in the morning, they found trouble. A flock of four harpies spotted the pair and the resulting aerial combat left Snowy with a serious laceration along her barrel, Emerald with missing primaries, and four lightning-blasted harpies. Emerald didn’t know if the beasts lived or not, and right now she had bigger problems. Unable to fly and her partner bleeding out, she managed to throw together a rough sled of twigs and branches and started marching to what she hoped was the edge of the damnable forest.

Although she didn’t find the forest’s edge after a hour and was beginning to lose hope (she wasn’t crying, Celestia-dammit!) she stumbled across a log cabin, built out here in the middle of the woods, the newly-cut ends obvious even to a city pony like her. Feeling as if hope hadn’t abandoned her just yet, she banged on the door and screamed for help, but after a few minutes of activity she figured that the occupant was either out, gone, or had no intention of helping her. She plopped down on her haunches ready to finally break down and cry like a filly, when she heard footsteps behind her in the crunchy snow. Whirling around with her wings spread in a threatening manner, she was prepared to make whatever it was work for its meal when the sight before her left her stunned.

Standing on two legs and covered from head to hoof, the beast was huge; at least twice as tall as a pony. Its head was covered by a dark hood, its muzzle wrapped up in a white scarf, and its eyes shielded by dark lenses. Its face was completely a mystery. A bundle of wood was carried on one shoulder by a mitten covered hoof…no, hand. That’s what they were called. Its other mitten was casually gripping a wood axe as it hung at its side.

The only thing her mind could produce was that this was a minotaur, albeit an oddly dressed and strangely hornless minotaur but there was nothing else it could be as far as Emerald knew. She’d been all over Equestria in her line of work and no other race made any sense. She didn’t relax her stance however, as minotaurs ranged from friendly simpletons to warmongering brutes and she was hoping this one wanted to talk rather than ‘smash the pony’. The expressionless black goggles that covered its eyes looked her over in silence and she began to feel herself tense up as if facing off against a deadly predator when it broke the silence in a far more eloquent (for a minotaur) speech than she was expecting.

“Move away from the door and I’ll open it. Maybe we can still save your friend if we hurry,” the great biped said calmly.

Emerald couldn’t help but flinch at the reasonable request that came from the cloth covered muzzle of the brute…no, not a brute after all.

A gentlebull minotaur?

Now she really had seen everything.

She nodded dumbly and stepped aside, gingerly folding her damaged wings and watched the minotaur to see what it would do. The bull walked up to the door, set the axe down against the cabin wall, and used his free hand to move a couple hidden bolts, then swung the door open before stepping into the house.

After listening to him stomp around the place for a bit, Emerald grabbed the fibrous tether she’d fashioned for the sled and pulled her friend’s unconscious form into the huge cabin, hoping against hope that she hadn’t doomed both of them by trusting the strange minotaur.

Author's Note

Sometimes you get an idea in your head and you just gotta write it. Sorry about that, but I gotta do what I gotta do.

I'm not quitting my other story or anything, but sometimes ya gotta strike white the iron is hot.

We'll see where this idea goes. Hope it's enjoyable.

Chapter Two

After dragging her friend into the cabin and setting her down in the middle of what probably passed as a ‘living room’, Emerald watched the great being quickly tend the dying fire by stoking the low coals and applying fresh lumber. If she was being completely honest, it was a little fascinating to watch the bull move so gracefully around the room on only two legs, but she figured she was getting a little delirious and chalked it up to an acceptable bit of personal weirdness to find something so interesting. She noticed that he never did remove his coverings though, and the unnerving silence coupled with her exhaustion caused her to open her trademark bigmouth.

“What happened to your horns?” As soon as the words left her mouth, she felt as if her brain began to look for possible exits from her skull, maybe even planning to live the rest of its days in the cabin while mourning its ex-host.

The bull turned to her and cocked its roundish head, his soulless black lenses pinning her in place. “Horns…” It didn’t seem to be a question, but Emerald was terrified she had just bucked a great big storm cloud by accident and was too busy trying to backpedal to notice any strangeness.

“Oh my sweet Cel- I mean, I didn’t mean anything by that!” The mare was waving both hooves in front of her as if chasing off a bad dream. “I know how minotaurs get, I mean how some minotaurs- I know horns are… Please don’t kill me!” she squeaked at the end, her hooves covering her head while she trembled next to Snowy.

When she didn’t die after a few moments, she peeked up from under her hooves to see the bull facing away from her and moving a large metal table while occasional mutterings could be heard, the table’s craftsmanship beyond anything she had ever seen before and its composition was nothing she could name offhoof. With that unusual grace she had noticed before, he brought it over to a large…looming shape. It was hunched over in the corner of the room covered by a large white sheet. She almost yelped when he finally spoke in that mellow baritone.

“Yes. Well, some…minotaurs…are probably rather…prideful of their horns? As for me, don’t worry about it,” he said, waving a mitten about casually. “I myself am not offended by your question. Let’s just say… The reason I’m all wrapped up like this is partially related.” The bull turned to her and nodded. “You would find looking at my exposed form rather…unpleasant I wager, so I’ll just stay like this for…courtesy’s sake.”

Emerald winced at the implications. Apparently the poor bull was horribly disfigured, and had lost his horns in the process, leaving him a shunned outcast. He was obviously forced into living all alone out here in the woods because of his deformities, cast out from his herd. She felt just terrible for reminding him of the ordeal, especially after he offered to help them so easily. It was a real tragedy she thought, being how super smart he was for a minotaur, that he was ostracized for being all…scarred up and gross. At least that’s what her imagination kept picturing.

“I’m terribly sorry ah…,” she paused as if just realizing something important. “Um, I don’t even know your name… Oh gosh, how rude am I? My name is Emerald Breeze and she is Snowy Skies,” the mare said while placing a hoof to her chest while her wide eyes belied she was still a mite frightened. “I apologize for not introducing myself, er us earlier. I was so scared she was going to… I didn’t even remember to ask your name, I’m sorry,” she finished while looking at the floor in dejection.

“It’s quite all right,” the bull commented as he continued to move items around the cabin’s large space. “Extenuating circumstances can forgive a lapse in manners I think. You can call me…” The bull paused a moment and cocked his head before releasing an amused chuckle. “Hornless. You may call me Hornless; a new name for a new life, I suppose.” He whispered something inaudible to himself while he moved over toward Snowy’s unmoving form and began to look her over while Emerald struggled not to cry.

“H-Hornless... I- Are you, *gulp* sure?” Her ears were flat against her skull and she looked like she wanted to leave the cabin and bury herself in the snow forever. “I really didn’t mean to- Are you sure that name is what you want to be called?” The mare’s eyes were simmering with unshed tears as the stress of today’s events began to mix with her emotional high of seeing hope when she least expected it and her physical exhaustion. She was a good pony and here she had just carelessly breached a huge, personal issue with the only being in the Everfree that was willing to help them.

The bull paused a moment to look over at the pegasus. “Now-now, let’s have none of that. I'm pretty sure you had no ill intent when you asked and I’ve taken no offense. We have more important things to worry about anyway, like saving your friend and getting both of you out of this forest safely.” His gentle but firm tone showed her he really wasn’t mad and Emerald wiped her eyes with a fetlock in relief.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

The biped chuckled warmly. “You're quite welcome,” and in one motion he gently lifted Snowy Skies and moved her to the strange metal table, laying her on a blanket Emerald has missed him placing earlier. “I’m afraid I have to admit that I’m an engineer, not a doctor,” the bull nodded at Emerald to show he was saying something important. “However, I believe I have some things here that I can use to stabilize her before we let the Mark three work its magic.”

Emerald tilted her head in confusion. “Who’s ‘Mark’, and what kind of magic are you talking about?”

Author's Note

A few more morsels of information.

Who is this guy? Why is he in the woods? What happened to the last bagel I had saved?

Some of these will be answered in future content!

Chapter Three

After a moment of silence, the minotaur chuckled. “Sorry, I was referring to the Auto-Doc, Mk. III,” he waved a mitten at the sheet covered object in the corner. “And by ‘magic’, I was referring to…an event or outcome that might defy casual explanation. I didn’t mean to infer actual uh…sorcery?”

Emerald managed to relax enough to giggle a bit. “Oh, so this, thing under the sheet is a…uh, healing…shrine?” She was peering at the hidden shape with renewed interest.

The biped nodded with a hum. “Yes and no. He’s not a shrine but a…” he paused as if to search for the word he wanted. “Automaton, I suppose? I just call him ‘Doc’. Most of these didn’t have personalities or even a voice, but I tinkered with this one using some old data I dug out of the archives a while back.” One could hear the pride evident in his voice. “He’s gotta pretty good bedside manner, for a machine.”

The mare suddenly gasped in surprise. “Whoa! Is this…an honest to goodness Golem of Minos? And it can talk!?” The pegasus was almost dancing from hoof to hoof in disbelief. “But, I thought minotaurs lost this kind of magic a long, long time ago! This is so awesome!” The pegasus was beginning to actually let go of all the day’s misfortune and take an honest interest in this new line of discussion.

The bull chuckled at her childlike glee, causing the mare to blush. “I see. Well, indeed he does talk but first things first. Let’s make sure uh, Snowy is stabilized and ready for Doc to fix her up. Now then, let’s see what I have available…” He began sorting through a large white bag sporting the familiar red cross of hospitals and clinics around the continent when he continued talking. “Now, normally I’d just use some stimpaks to speed along recovery. However, I don’t know if stims are compatible with…uh, ponies? The last thing I want to do is make things worse… Ah ha!” Hornless exclaimed and pulled out a shiny bag of red liquid.

“What is that?” The pegasus asked, while trying to figure out what the bag was made of.

The great being held up the bag in triumph. “This, my friend, is a rather rare commodity even back home. This is a protoplasmic soup full of amino acids, proteins, and breakthrough compounds that can recreate blood type and composition with just a small sample of the original. It’s called a Sanguine Rescue Pack but the marketing teams of the time decided that Blood Bank was catchier, I assume.” He turned his head towards her to see a look of lost confusion on the pony’s face.

“What?”

The bull sighed a little. “It’s a medicine that will help replace her lost blood.”

“Oh! Yeah, that’s what I uh, thought you said,” the mare replied, while coughing into her hoof.

One could almost hear the grin under that muffler. “Of course it was little one,” earning him a mock glare. “At any rate, this particular medicine will be copying her blood, so there shouldn’t be any issues with compatibility. Doc will be able to know for sure.” The bull sighed dejectedly and looked away at nothing specific, lost in some thought. “I’d heard that once upon a time, hundreds of thousands of individuals volunteered to donate blood for just such emergencies, but even then it wasn’t always enough.” Hornless turned to the mare. “I’m glad I had this on hand though.”

Emerald would almost swear the minotaur was actually warming up to her a bit. The thought made her rather happy. “Me too,” was all she could say in response.

“Right then, let’s set this aside for a moment and find the other thing I wanted,” and Hornless dove back into the bag to search. After a few moments of looking he gave a whispered, “Yes!” and pulled out a device that Emerald would have called ‘large oil can’ or ‘weird spray bottle’.

“What’s this one do?” The mare asked while trying to get a better look.

He held the bottle up for inspection. “Liquid bandage; it contains antiseptics, painkillers, and a compound that will both seal the wound and slowly pull it closed.”

She grinned up at the bull. “Neat.”

“So, now we’re going to have to trust the Doc here with our recovered materials and let him fix up your friend here,” and with that he pulled the sheet off of the shape to reveal another strange metallic object. It was shaped somewhat like the fancy heart monitors found in Canterlot’s best hospitals, but this was made of another strange metal and sporting a few limbs that ended in rather frightening devices if Emerald was being honest. The monitor screen usually reserved for heartbeats was instead glowing an eerie green and covered in strange text.

The mare was staring in wide-eyed fascination. “I saw one of these golems once, well it was a lot less…impressive than this one, “ she waved a hoof towards Doc. “In the Canterlot Museum of History where they had the Ancient Golem of Minos, popularly considered to be an art that was lost forever." She smiled at something as if recalling a silly story. "I used to imagine going into a ruined crypt and helping find something like this. Maybe aid in recovering the lost art of rune smithing…” She trailed off, lost in some fantasy.

“Is that right?” Hornless asked with some interest.

The mare chuckled nervously as she realized she had just suffered an egghead moment with a stranger. “I guess it being a lost art isn't the case then? So you’re an honest to goodness Runemaster?” When the biped just looked at her quietly with a tilted head, she wilted a bit. “Sorry about that. I…grew up reading stories about the Stormdancers; elite rune knights of the Divine. The special forces of the pegasi,” she rubbed her hoof in small circles while looking away abashedly. “I always dreamed of joining their ranks, being a hero to ponies everywhere, and doing something grand in life, ya know? Kicking flank in service of the kingdom, seeing exotic places, maybe even becoming as famous as the Wonderbolts..." The mare sighed and looked down at the ground, her good mood evaporating. "It's silly, sorry to bring it up.”

Hornless knelt down in front of the mare and gently placed a mitten on her head. “I’m sorry to say, I’m not a…runemaster, or anything like that. I didn’t build old Doc here; I just fixed him up and did some tinkering. He’s at least two-hundred years old, built by folks a lot smarter than me.” When he noticed her look of disappointment he stroked her head a little. “However, there’s a chance…if I could get my hands on one of these, ‘golems’ that I could try to reverse-engineer it, and maybe figure out how it works. I can’t make any promises, but we’ll never know unless we try, right?”

Emerald sniffed up at the bull with a dewy expression. “Really? You’d, do something like that just because of my stupid dream?”

Hornless laughed warmly. “I never said I’d go spelunking into dangerous ruins and solve ancient mysteries or anything; just that I’d take something apart and see how it works if I got the chance. Okay?” He rubbed her head firmly but affectionately until she backed out from under his hand laughing.

“Hey! It’s rude to mess up a lady’s manestyle buster!” she said, while still chuckling and pointing a hoof in accusation. “And, thanks H-Hornless,” she added not shyly by the way, thank you very much.

“Right. Now then, let’s get this show started, shall we?” He stood up, walked over to the golem, and pressed a large red button on its console.

Author's Note

I think most of us know what this is a crossover with (*hint Fallout Universe), but he's no hero, at least...not any of the kind we know about already. :pinkiehappy:

Stay tuned for more developments.

Chapter Four

The device in the corner started to make a combination of both clicking sounds and a series of hums. Emerald was nearly quivering in anticipation, but she was struggling to keep her façade of cool and not weird out the minotaur next to her with a ‘geek-out’. She was startled out of her introspection by a new sound coming from the fancy golem.

“Aaaaahhhmmmm~,” the device seemed to yawn, as if waking from a long sleep. This was followed by what Emerald swore was the smacking of lips and a distinctly male grunt. “*cough* Well-well, didn’t expect a visit so soon from you tough guy,” the golem said in the deep voice of a stallion, the accent from someplace like Appleoosa or the Great Plains. “Hold on…” it hesitated, as if just noticing something and one of the smaller arms with a tiny lens swung around to examine the now stunned pegasus. “Uh, maybe my diagnostics are fried or somethin’, but…everything I’m getting’ says…we ain’t in Kansas anymore Toto. That ‘bout right pard?” The golem seemed to turn its attention back towards the minotaur. Emerald was so impressed that she struggled to figure out what was going on in her shocked state and a second line of thought wondered where on Equus ‘Kansas’ might be.

Hornless seemed to just shrug helplessly at the golem. “We can talk about the details later, but all I can say for now is,” he glanced over at the green pegasus for a moment before continuing. “It seems to have something to do with…Project Delta.” The golem’s arms seemed to recoil in surprise at the mention of Project Delta and it let out a low whistle. Emerald Breeze noticed that the minotaur was rather emotional when mentioning the project and filed that away for later. Despite her being absorbed in the amazing intricacies of the metal creature, she could tell her bipedal companion was rather angry about something. Hornless continued speaking with the golem, “I’ll have some questions of my own later, but right now we have a genuine medical emergency to worry about.”

“Ah’ see… Well now, medicine first and we can jaw later ah’ suppose. So,” the machine said and swung the arm towards Emerald while another appendage began to move over Snowy Skies’ still form and bathe it in strange light. “While I take a look at the little one here, you goin’ to introduce me to your friend there?” Doc asked amiably but with a heaping of humor, as if the idea was preposterous.

Emerald Breeze decided this was a chance to make a good impression and gave her best smile. “I’m Emerald Breeze, and my hurt friend there is Snowy Skies. It’s a pleasure to meet you Doc!” The little arm recoiled again, even more abruptly than before and she noticed out of the corner of her eye that Hornless had covered his masked face and was slightly shaking his shoulders as he turned away.

“Ah’…see…. Well, it’s… It’s a pleasure to meet you too…ma’am?” The golem replied. The little happy trotting in place the mare did seemed to prove that Doc’s response was correct. The little lens swung around to look at Hornless, who was failing miserably at looking innocent. The golem then looked at his patient stretched out on the table and gave a hum of thought. “You know pard, I’m not…that kind of d-“

Hornless cut him off. “You can still access the local archives, right? Try, EE649-V. You know, under the…’other lifeforms’ files?”

After a short pause, Doc seemed to understand with a chuckle. “Ah, that’s right. Guess I’m…getting’ too old and forgetful after all.” Emerald just tilted her head at the exchange and because she couldn’t read the strange text on Doc’s screen, she failed to notice a slew of veterinary folders opened in rapid succession as the data was downloaded into Doc’s core.

Hornless turned to her and said, “Doc’s never worked on a pony before but I’m sure the knowledge is in there. No worries.” Emerald smiled and shook her head at the notion that a minotaur bull of all things, was trying to reassure her. It seemed her entire world was upside-down today.

“Oh, I t-trust you, H-Hornless,” she said slightly embarrassed to say the words out loud that sounded just fine in her head a moment ago. Hornless just nodded once and Emerald managed to fight off a serious blush at just how dorky she felt her image was becoming.

“Hmm, hmmm… Okay folks, ah’ think ah’ got the gist. However lil’ lady, I’d like to get a close look at you so ah’ have a baseline to use for yer friend here. Just a quick scan and maybe a small blood sample; if that’s alright?” Doc said as a number of appendages moved in her direction and stilled, waiting for her response.

Now Emerald Breeze was no chicken, but she really, really didn’t like needles. “A…a needle? For b-blood?” She shuddered a little and squeezed her eyes shut.

It’s for Snowy, it’s for Snowy! Buck up mare, your friend is dying! You chicken-livered-!

Just as she was about to continue berating herself into tears, she felt a warm mitten rest on her withers. When she opened her eyes in surprise, she saw that Hornless was crouched down close enough for her to see her own reflection in the shiny black goggles he wore over his eyes. Instead of feeling fear however, this time looking at the dark portals helped relax her a bit and she started to imagine what his eyes looked like under those lenses when he suddenly spoke in a soft tone.

“Doc’s real gentle Emerald and he only needs a little bit to help your friend. I’ll tell you a secret; I don’t like needles either, but I found that a little distraction is usually all it takes. What do you say my friend? Does Doc get the go ahead?” His warm voice was quite soothing and Emerald was almost completely relaxed when she gave a firm nod. Hornless gave her a quick rub with his mitten and she was pretty sure she saw his muzzle form a smile under the cloth covering his face. “There we go, all done Emerald, good job.”

“Huh?” she asked. She turned to find that all but one of the numerous limbs Doc had were already hovering over Snowy again and the only one left was just bathing her in that strange light again. “B-B-But, I didn’t even feel it!” she said in amazement. Twisting her forelimbs and hind legs to look for a wound, her head swiveled around in disbelief.

Doc chuckled from his corner. “Ol’ Doc’s been doin’ this for a long time sugar; don’t you fret none. I’d give ya a lollipop but my dispenser is plum empty at the moment. Now then, let the old sawbones here analyze all this here data and we’ll fix yer friend up, right as rain. Looks like ol’ hoss already found the Blood Bank and sealant, so that will speed things along nicely. Good to see he ain’t completely useless.” Doc began to laugh when Hornless turned and raised a single mitten towards the golem, with the back facing it and the middle pronounced as a peak, in what the mare assumed was some kind of weird salute.

She just shrugged and laughed along with the golem as the thought that 'you didn’t have to always understand your friends for them to come through in a pinch' bubbled up to the top of her thoughts.

Author's Note

It continues!

Chapter Five

Deep and endless darkness surrounded her. At first, she didn’t feel anything; no warmth, no chill, no breeze, not even gravity. She wondered if maybe she should feel scared or perhaps lonely. Maybe even something deeper, like melancholy? In the end though, she felt nothing, not even impatience.

How did she get here? She couldn’t remember. It seemed like ages since she’d been floating here in the void. Was she waiting for something? Time didn’t seem to have much meaning anymore.

Then, something changed. A pulse surging through the void and sending ripples across her being. It caused her thinking to jumpstart forward and seek answers to all these questions.

She was pretty sure was a…

A what? It was on the tip of her consciousness…

Pony

Yes, that’s right she was a…a pony.

A pony. A…

Pegasus

Weather

Elite

Oh, now there were more pieces of something and they came faster this time. She started to remember who and what she was.

Harpies

Forest

Ah, and then recent events began to come to her.

Surprise

Excitement

Terror

And now she started to remember feelings.

Snowy Skies

Yes, that was her name. She was a weather pony. She was going home…when…

EMERALD BREEZE

And now she felt something again. She swallowed intense fear and then sadness for her friend. Did she live? What happened? Were they hurt? Lost? Dying?

She needed to wake up, and find out what happened.

Light began to rush at her from beyond the void, and she moved towards it while dreading what she might find.

She willed her eyes to open.

And so they did.

Snowy Skies opened her eyes for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Luckily for her, the only light in the room seemed to be from a pair of gently burning candles, so her eyes were spared any harsh treatment. Even with that, she had to blink them several times while her brain struggled to finish waking up and actually start doing something useful. The second thing she noticed after the dim lighting was how warm she felt. A quick glance down told her both why and where Emerald Breeze was; seeing as how her wing was spread over Snowy while Breezie slept and left a trail of drool on the pillow they were both sharing.

Snowy couldn’t help but give a weak grin at seeing her friend’s goofy smile as she soaked the corner of her pillow in spittle, while sawing some serious logs. They had known each other for years and had been close friends since almost foalhood, but Emerald Breeze (or ‘Breezie’ as she called her) often confounded her. The mare would strut around like a badflank one second as if to challenge the world, then squeal like a filly over some article about archaeology or ancient magic the next and deny the second event ever occurred.

Her musings were interrupted by a yawn as the pull of sleep tried to drag her back down into the mattress. She wanted to wonder where they were and whose cabin they were in, who saved them, and how they even got here, but she was dead tired and decided that was a problem for tomorrow’s Snowy Skies and lay back down. Instead of a cold void this time however, she was pulled into the healing sleep of the living and began to dream.

The man, now calling himself ‘Hornless’ waited until the pegasus’ breathing leveled out into the rhythm of sleep before he moved. He’d been sitting in the corner of the room, keeping an eye on the pair as they slept to make sure there were no complications following the work Doc had been forced to do to save Snowy Skies from death. Once the mare had woken up, glanced around, and looked at her friend for a second, she’d fallen back to sleep and he was able to relax again. Apparently she hadn’t even noticed him sitting in the shadows, but that was fine. He needed to go and ready himself for a trip through the deadly forest and some time alone to think was exactly what he needed at the moment. Rising from the roughly crafted chair, he moved silently out of the bedroom of the cabin and past the Auto Doc to the front door. Taking one last look around the living room, he opened the door and stepped out into the cold night.

The pitch black forest seemed to swallow him along with the last vestiges of light that had spilled out the front door during his exit. He softy marched his boots in place a few times while he let his eyes adjust to the night, then pulled out a small penlight and clicked the end, bringing forth a small and shallow pool of light that looked as out of place here as he felt in this strange world. Concentrating now on remembering every step, ‘Hornless’ began the relatively short trip through the woods to where it all began.

Soon enough, he found himself in a small and sheltered clearing, even more camouflaged than natural from the outside observer thanks to his efforts with branches and leaves. Recessed a bit into the ground was a hatch composed of a titanium alloy the likes of which had probably never been seen on this world before. Crouching down, Hornless ran his mitten over the hatch a few times to clear away the snow and debris that had collected over the last couple of days and revealed both a handle and some script etched into the material: SEC 7 VAULT Δ. Below him lie one of twelve sections of the vault the man had been born in, Vault Δ or Vault Delta as it was known to those who lived there.

Only two months before he found himself in this strange world, the massive vault doors that had kept them all safe opened for the first time in two hundred years and allowed its citizens the freedom to go topside and leave the vault forever, if one chose to. Only two weeks after this event, the vault was almost entirely empty of personnel; the call of Outside too strong for most to ignore excepting only the elderly and the infirm. Truthfully, even ‘Hornless’ had wanted to leave the vault and see the world. The man calling himself Hornless had not chosen to go however. To be fair, he couldn’t have chosen to just leave because there was someone counting on his continued presence there and he had no intention of abandoning her; this person was his mother.

For almost nine months now, the man had been struggling to keep his mother alive by constantly doing maintenance on the last Mk. II Asclepius Pod the vault had left. The pod’s capabilities were unmatched by anything else in their possession when it came to treating illness and injury, but its prototype build and lack of spare parts had left it on its last legs after almost two hundred years of use and abuse. It was waging a losing battle against both time and the aggressive cancer than threatened to leave the man bereft of all family.

He kept toiling as much as possible, cannibalizing parts from whatever tech had broken down or been proven useless over the years. He kept working long hours at his assigned duty only to follow it with hours of time spent keeping the pod from shutting down for good. He kept breaking things down and building them up again, because he was hoping against hope that maybe eventually, the machine would win and his mother would be cured. He tried to ignore the signs of her failing health, the sad smile she always wore these days, and the look of resignation that seemed to have settled into her eyes. He knew, deep down knew that there was no happy ending in sight, but he couldn’t make himself give up and he suspected his mother couldn’t bring herself to crush what little hope her son had nourished for so long, thus the cycle repeated while they both continued to wear down under the strain of it all.

One day he had been rummaging around Section 7 for spare parts and tools when the whole vault seemed to come alive, with hidden pumps and engines roaring to life and the usually dull and glassy sections of the tunnels blazing with blue and purple light-arcs racing from end to end in a brilliant light show. The vault speakers blared a short alarm and followed that with an announcement stating “Project Delta has been ENGAGED! All personnel report to your sections!” and that was shortly followed by “Vault Tech is proud of your pioneering spirit in the face of nuclear eradication. Humanity will always remember you as the first to find our new home. God speed and may He have mercy on us all. Amen.” The last thing the man remembered before passing out in a blinding explosion of light was screaming for his mother.

Author's Note

Some history on our hornless hero.

Chapter Six

The man calling himself ‘Hornless’ shook his head in an effort to ward off the impending spiral of feelings that usually followed a flashback like that. He didn’t want to become too distracted from his current task; namely arming himself for a dangerous trek through alien territory with two wounded natives. Honestly, if anyone had told him a year ago that he would be helping mythological creatures (things usually found only in old holotapes and bedtime stories), escape a deadly forest in the middle of winter; he would have had them sent to the Psychology department for Vault Madness.

‘Hornless’ had been born Kai Donovan, only son of Zara and Isaac Donovan inside Vault Δ roughly twenty-two years ago. His father had been a Lead Engineer, one of the few privileged enough to wear a Pip-Boy Wrist Computer, something reserved for only the Supervisors and Leaders of Vault Δ. Kai had always been proud of his father’s importance and dependability during times of crisis; it was this pride that led him to pursue a career as an engineer himself when he came of age.

Naturally it was a devastating blow to his family when his father was killed in a power plant mishap when Kai was only eleven. The Overseer had taken good care of Isaac’s widow and son due to his selfless act of preventing a chain reaction that would have resulted in unimaginable damage to the rest of the vault without his sacrifice, but while Kai could be proud of his father’s courage he also always wondered, “Why not someone else’s dad?”.

His mother never fully recovered from her husband’s death, despite the brave front she tried to maintain. Kai, now a young man, was finally convinced that there was no real ‘God’ when she was later diagnosed with terminal cancer and that he would soon be all alone. The ideas that had been drilled into him about rebuilding the ‘American Ideal’ that once ruled the free world with the help of ‘God and Baseball’ then only sounded hollow to him as he struggled to save his mother’s life.

Apparently, the joke was on them; here he was, stranded on an alien world, most likely the last and only man on...whatever this planet was called.

It was obvious from his initial inventory of Section 7 that it had been outfitted for a small platoon of thirty to forty men and women to aggressively assert dominance over a section of the newly discovered territory and begin rebuilding humanity while using advanced technology to protect the settlement and establish possible negotiations with any neighbors for information and trade.

Manifest Destiny the history logs called it; only this time, on an interplanetary scale. Maybe even interdimensional now that he considered his new guests. It was too tragic to laugh about and too logical to dismiss as crazy. Vault Tech and the people in charge had really planned to ‘save’ Humanity by seeding new planets with people and telling them to be ‘be fruitful and multiply’. He wasn’t sure what went wrong, but he was almost positive that Project Delta was supposed to have triggered a long time ago, maybe even soon after the Vault closed.

So much for saving Humanity; a simple mistake, malfunction, or miscalculation and all the future got was one depressed engineer.

They were bitter, but this did produce a few chuckles after all.

Lifting the hidden panel, Kai entered the entry code on the newly revealed keypad and turned the handgrip with a muffled ‘thunk’. The hiss of pressurized air as the latch lifted was followed by the corridor lights inside the now buried bunker, to switch on. The smell of sterilized air seemed both fresh and stale compared to the winter-brisk atmosphere of the forest he had been living in. He had lived in a Vault for most of his life, but truth be told he preferred living under the sun and stars; even if the world out here was far more dangerous.

It didn’t take long for Kai to figure out that he was no longer the top of the food chain when it came to this new world. He had managed to survive due to some lucky breaks and quick reflexes in the beginning, but soon enough he was carrying a Gaston Glock 86 Plasma Defender with some custom modifications he added after studying the manual front to back.

Before leaving the Vault, Kai had never killed anything besides the occasional giant roach with a large wrench or mop handle. Here though, he had used the energy weapon with rather disturbing consequences; namely the few creatures that proved too feisty to scare off without hurting were summarily reduced to piles of green, glowing goo when struck with the hissing bolts of bright energy.

After his initial shock wore off Kai had a newfound respect for his chosen sidearm, and then buried the creepy remains in a shallow grave. He just hoped that the stuff wasn’t too toxic to the environment, or that the friends and family of his victims would come looking for them.

Despite the dependability of his Defender, Kai was sure it wouldn’t do much against some of the bigger things never seen but easily heard out there in the forest, their footsteps felt from some distance away as they charged though the woods or simply strolled without a care from one place to another and always leaving Kai breathless with anxiety. At first he thought of dinosaurs or prehistoric goliaths perhaps but with the advent of pegasi other, more terrifying options also became possible.

Kai was going to bring some real firepower on this trip and hope the ponies didn’t ask too many awkward questions. He hated lying to the sweet and dorky Emerald Breeze, but he was pretty sure he was an honest to goodness alien species and the ramifications were just too risky to contemplate discovery. Sure, they might not dissect him, but they also just might. He figured that a story about lost magical artifacts might work in the short-term, just long enough to see them off home and then skulk home without much fanfare.

It took Kai a moment but he realized he was just standing in the armory, spaced out and not having realized he had already arrived. Sighing, he began removing the bulky clothing that had kept him warm outside, including his goggles and mask. The feel of air hitting his skin was heavenly after pretending to be an ugly minotaur all day. With a quick sniff and a grimace, he decided a shower would also be an indulgence he would have to manage.

The water tanks were still plenty full and he found that snow was easy to feed into the reverse-osmosis filter intake, but without a main waterline or nearby river, he was forced to ration it carefully since nothing was ever certain.

After a luxurious ten minute shower, Kai found a black colored suit of futuristic-looking combat armor emblazoned with the Δ symbol on the shoulders in one of the supply lockers. Luckily, a full-face helmet complete with infrared night vision and breathing apparatus was included, so he could continue to cover his face.

While waiting to finish drying off though, Kai went over to one of the many shelves in the armory and reverently removed a smallish black trunk from its many contents and brought it over to the table in the center of the room. Opening the lid, he gazed upon a custom designed Pip-Boy, reinforced with polymers, weather sealing, and colored a foreboding black; the Δ symbol in stark white located in the top right corner of the faceplate. Kai had always dreamed of achieving enough status to become an owner of a Pip-Boy, but he never imagined he would be getting one this way. Setting the computer to the side, he pulled the manual out and began to go over the details once again.

He had read it before, but didn’t see the need to actually wear it while living off the land; it just seemed like a way to damage the device. Now though, he was sure it would be handy and allow him to remain in contact with the mainframe computer located in the bunker. He would of course be lacking any satellite support, but by extending the ELF-Com Uplink Dish, he should have a range of a hundred miles or so. Considering the use of extremely low frequencies, even mountains would prove no obstacle as long as he remained within the range of the device. It would auto-update topography and map information as he traveled, although it didn’t specify exactly how.

Finally setting the manual down, Kai picked up the device and strapped it to his arm, locking the anchors in place. Letting out a deep breath, he pressed the power button on the device, and watched it run through the boot sequence. When it finally finished, Kai was treated to all kinds of information being superimposed upon his field of vision. The effect was jarring at first, but he figured he would become accustomed to it soon enough.

With that, he slipped into a sleek insulated jumper and began putting on the intimidating suit of combat armor. Once finished, he looked at himself in the mirror and decided that he might be a little too scary for the ponies as-is. After a moment of contemplation, he decided to use a thick, white bed sheet and turn it into an impromptu mantle. The fabric would conceal most of his armor and give him a hood to cover the top of his helmet, but honestly, he looked more and more like a super villain from Astoundingly Awesome Tales.

“As long as I tell them it’s me, it should be enough, right?” he asked the empty room.

Shrugging his shoulders helplessly, he walked over and grabbed two fragmentation grenades and two plasma grenades. As an afterthought, he grabbed an EMP grenade for curiosities’ sake. Next he walked over to the rack of larger weapons and grabbed something he’d been tinkering with out of boredom over the last few days.

Cradled in his arms was a long barreled energy weapon, the YK42B Pulse Rifle. The prototype weapon was extremely powerful but suffered from some serious drawbacks such as energy consumption and range. Since Kai had nothing but free time on his hands most days, he had modified the rifle and managed what he assumed the final form of the weapon might have been, given more time before the war. Now the range was almost doubled and the ammo burn was reduced a fair amount. As compensation, the power was slightly reduced, but Kai felt the final result was overall an improvement.

After filling his pouches with ammo and a few field devices including stimpaks, Kai looked at himself in the mirror again and let out a whistle, oddly modified by the helmet’s VOX speakers.

“I’m looking pretty badass if I do say so myself,” he said in a fit of unusual excitement for the first time in quite a while.

Anything that messed with them was going to be sorry, Kai was almost sure of it.

Author's Note

I hope you enjoy.

Chapter Seven

Emerald Breeze slowly shook off the shackles of sleep, which was REALLY hard, considering just how comfy she was. The insidious morning light which had penetrated both the Everfree forest and the window of the cabin bedroom began knocking not-so-gently against the eyelids of the sleeping mare. Her stubborn nature wanted to refuse its call, but something was niggling in the depths of her mind. Wait, why was she so comfy again?

“Snowy!” the mare exclaimed softly as she popped her head up to look around the bed. There, looking rather rumpled after her stint as a bed cozy was Snowy Skies; her gaze which blended exasperation with affection in a way that only close friends seem to be able to formulate boring into Emerald Breeze.

Giving an embarrassed chuckle while rubbing a hoof through her mane, the teal pegasus looked appropriately abashed and said quietly, “Thank Celestia you’re alright…”

“Yeah, I was almost smothered by some blanket hog in the night. Any leads?” Snowy Skies said with a deadpan tone while smirking.

“Uh…ninjas?” Breezie said while looking around the room intently.

With an exasperated sigh and a hard eyeroll, Snowy Skies gently pushed the other mare off the bed which resulted in a squawk followed by a tangle of limbs and blankets thudding softly onto the floor.

“Hey! Is this how you treat your savior? You know how long I dragged your flank through the Everfree marefriend?” came the muffled protest from Breezie while she struggled to free herself from the pony-burrito of blankets on the floor.

“That’s right,” Snowy said as if the thought just occurred to her. “Where are we? What happened after…I passed out?”

A mildly irate pony popped her head up to look over the edge of the mattress and glared for a second at her friend before she sighed and began to recite the tale of their adventures yesterday.

“You’re kidding! A…minotaur, out here in the Everfree. Not only, one that didn’t play croquet with your noggin, but a hornless one that somehow healed me with a machine,” the incredulity increasing as she continued to speak. “How much damage did you take in that fight girl?” Snowy Skies asked in a concerned tone while gently caressing her friend's skull as if it were a fragile vase.

Emerald Breeze snorted and batted her friend’s foreleg away in irritation. “I’m not crazy or delusional. You’ll meet him soon enough, considering this is his place. Also, you better thank him for being kind enough to save your flank! You were…” at this point, the mare stumbled over the words and began to choke up, tears forming in her eyes as the stresses finally came pouring out of the corners of her mind and heart where they had been crammed since yesterday.

“Okay, okay…shhhh, it’s fine, I’m fine…We’ll be okay and I’ll even kiss this minotaur’s hooves if that’s what it takes, okay?” Snowy Skies said in soothing tones while running a hoof gently through her friend’s mane slowly.

“Don’t…Don’t be s-stupid… He’s-He’s not a meanie. He won’t make you k-kiss anything…” Breezie said though some gasping breaths while trying to reign herself in.

“Hey, do you smell that?” Snowy Skies said after a moment of consoling her friend.

Emerald Breeze sniffled a moment and then gulped before smelling the air intently. “Hmm? Yeah, that’s…coffee!” Emerald Breeze said with some excitement. “This guy has coffee, out here in the woods? He’s so mysterious!” she added, small stars sparkling in her eyes.

Snowy Skies chuckled and began to gingerly maneuver herself off the bed. “Gee marefriend, sounds like somepony’s got a crush~” she teased in singsong.

Breezie’s gasp of shock and blushing muzzle were priceless. “What!? That’s…CRAZY! I, I barely know him!” Her stammered denials were not helping her case and caused her friend to start laughing.

“Calm down girl, I’m just teasing. Besides, you said he’s all covered up so you don’t even know what he looks like, right?” Snowy Skies laughed and she slowly lowered herself to the floor to find the floorboards surprisingly warm for being the middle of winter.

“Yeah,” the teal mare responded with a sigh. “It’s too bad, I’m guessing he’s all burned or scarred or something, which must be why he covers himself. He’s smart as a whip and really nice too. I didn’t even know minotaurs could be so…not…minotaur-like?” She seemed surprised at her own words. “That’s, really racist, isn’t it?” she finished with a despondent look.

“Eh…hey, no sweat. I know what you mean. It’s not like they have done much image building over the centuries.
Isolated, arrogant, brutish… That’s the image most ponies have of them, so it’s not surprising you might say something that seems insensitive at first, but we both know you didn’t mean it that way,” Snowy said comfortingly. “Even I’m amazed, because if this guy is a minotaur then he’s the first I’ve ever heard of that settled down in a cabin, built with his own hands and helping random ponies in the middle of winter. No matter how we look at it, it’s strange, yeah?”

Emerald Breeze shrugged in both response and to throw off any lingering feelings of guilt. “Maybe, but I don’t know what else he could be. He walks upright, has hands, and even has a golem! That talks! Besides that, he literally saved both of our flanks and…He. Has. Coffee!”

Snowy Skies chuckled, “Okay, you’ve made your case counselor. At ease.”

This comment was met with a rather moist raspberry before Breezie moved beside her friend and offered support.
“Let’s go greet our host, huh?” she said, the excitement poorly hidden in her face and voice.

Snowy Skies leaned against her friend while exiting the bedroom while also eyeing every corner, wall, and ceiling and soaking in the details; she was a detail oriented pony after all. This was the main reason the head office paired the two of them together on long range missions.

Snowy’s attention to detail and calm demeanor were there to balance Emerald Breeze’s headstrong and impulsive nature. The two were quite the dynamic duo. Even though they had been in plenty of scrapes, yesterday had been the closest call they had ever been in.

Flying over the Everfree? Just what in Tartarus was she thinking? She could only chalk it up to feeling flushed from the success of Appleoosa after a difficult run and overestimating their abilities while underestimating the danger. Now with both of them injured, they still had to make it through Celestia-knows how many miles of deadly forest to make it back to Canterlot. Things were looking a little grim.

Of course, counting the fortuitous encounter with the supposed minotaur, Snowy recalled Breezie mentioning that their host offered to help get them home. She wasn’t trying to be pessimistic but the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.
She’d believe it as soon as they were on the road again, heading to the capital.

The cabin was surprisingly clean and warm. A cheery fire was cracking in the fireplace built into one of the walls. A door leading to what she assumed was outside had sunlight seeping in from underneath. The aroma of coffee was much stronger as well as the smell of some sort of cooking. Snowy Skies swore that if this minotaur offered her a half-burned squirrel or something, she would toss her cookies all over his nice clean floors. In protest.

The voice that greeted the two of them was strange. It was like listening to one of those Canterlot disk jockeys over a magic crystal radio; tinny, manufactured, and a little cold. It didn’t exactly scare her but it was a little…unnerving.

“Good morning you two,” the strange voice said. “I hope you like coffee, although I have water if you don’t. I also made pancakes. Now, before either of you freak out, just know I’ve donned my armor prior to our trip and I might look a little scary. Sorry in advance,” the smooth but artificial baritone voice drifted out of the kitchen area before they spotted their mysterious host.

“Oh, hey H-Hornless. Good morning! Uh, it’s fine I know you won’t hurt us, no matter how creepy your armor is,” Emerald Breeze responded with awkward shyness, causing Snowy to look at her sideways with a little surprise. Maybe the mare really did have a thing for this bull. How interesting.

The sound of heavy footsteps broke Snowy out of her musings as they approached from beyond the cloth curtain separating the living space from the kitchen. They caused feelings of minor distress within Snowy’s heart; the cadence was wrong as she was used to a four-legged creature’s rhythm and these steps sounded massive and final. Her imagination was really starting to run wild.

From beyond the curtain emerged a tall, foreboding figure dressed in a bulky black material. From the ends of its hooves going up the legs and reaching its chest, the black armor covered every single bit of the creature. Most of this was covered by a white mantle that hung open from the shoulders and draped around its back like a superhero cape.

Its head was fully enclosed in a terrifying helmet and facemask, the mouth and nose covered by something like a breathing apparatus used in high-end hospitals, with tubes flowing back into the depths of the mantle. The eyes were the most frightening though; both were behind some kind of opaque red glass that seemed to penetrate a pony down to her core and uncover all its secrets. This was a passing fancy however, because after a few moments Snowy realized that she felt no bloodlust or malice in that brief gaze, before the tall beast passed both the ponies and emptied its hands of two plates piled high with fresh pancakes.

Emerald Breeze’s response was markedly different.

“Wow! That’s so cool! You look freaking scary! I about ran away from fright there!” the mare spouted through suppressed giggles. The creature’s return chuckles eased Snowy’s fears even more and she sighed in a bone-weary kind of exhaustion.

“This day is going to be sooooo long, I can just feel it,” she thought as she carefully maneuvered her way to the dining table for some remarkably enticing breakfast.

Author's Note

Breakfast!