Mass Core 3: Thebe Paridigm

One component remained in the box. Scootaloo picked up the final segment of her armor, the mask. It was surprisingly light, as was the rest of the suit. She turned it over in her hooves, noticing both how thin it was and how it appeared to be completely transparent from its rear side.

Six had been right. It all fit perfectly. Almost as if it was meant for her. Scootaloo had no idea it would feel so good to have the hard polymer-ceramic substance covering her body. It felt so secure, as if she were invulnerable to the world outside. Somehow, she hated that she loved it so much.

She became aware that there was a pony standing beside her. Scootaloo turned to see Seven watching her.

“Seven,” she said. She looked at her friend, and then down at the mask. “You designed this, didn’t you?”

Seven slowly nodded.

“You were the only other one that met her. Xyuka. That was her name. She hurt you. Bad. She’s the one that took your magic. I’m sorry. I should have been able to protect you.” Scootaloo paused for a moment. “No, it isn’t your job to protect me. Not anymore.” She looked down at the mask. “I’m not her. I won’t ever be her. But…I can’t stay me either.”

She lifted the mask to her face and set it into the rest of the helmet. The world around her seemed to darken for a moment, and she opened her omnitool. She paused, taking a breath, and initialized the system.

The effect was almost immediate. The suit seemed to hum to life around her, integrating to her nervous system through the omnitool. It was not exactly painful, but it was severely uncomfortable. Scootaloo groaned as the suit systems connected to her mind and body, initializing its various support systems. The inside of her helmet flashed to life, and a HUD appeared: a pair of bars on the lower portion that indicated her vital signs and shield capacity, as well as several smaller translucent windows listing various tactically significant metrics.

“Oh buck,” she said, looking around the room. She focused on Seven, and felt her view shift. The internal sensors of the suit augmented her image, and Scootaloo realized that she could see inside Seven. There were muscles, bones, implants, the scars from old surgeries to rebuild her spine.

“Crap,” she said. “That is going to take a LOT of getting used to.”

Scootaloo focused, attempting to use the suit’s systems. Walking was surprisingly easy despite the power assist. Seeing, though, was hard. She could feel everything. Every grain of dust on the walls, every violet hair on Seven’s body, every minor sound running throughout the ship. It was as though she had suddenly gained the capacity to become omnipresent, and doing so would cause her to have a severe and agonizing case of sensory overload.

One of the things she noticed, though, was the presence of another ship outside her own. The computer system in the suit automatically identified it as a nearly derelict Cerberus vessel. From its condition, Scootaloo was surprised that it even still ran.

“I know,” she said to Seven. “Bob’s friends.”

Suddenly, there was something else. A distant surge of energy. Something else had just mass-jumped into their system. The signature was consistent with an Alliance vessel, but something about it was wrong. Scootaloo knew that ship.

“She’s here,” she said. “Starlight is here.”

“Starlight, I’m detecting two ships.”

Starlight looked up from putting on her armor. “Two?”

“Yes,” said Jurneu. “One is Pink’s, as anticipated. The other is Scootaloo’s.”

“Go it. Thank you.” Starlight took a deep, involuntary breath. Somehow, she had expected this. Everything was coming together, and all of it seemed to be beyond her control.

Zedok sat down next to Starlight. “Star,” she said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I do,” said Starlight. Then she told the truth. “No. No I don’t want to. I just…I just want to sleep. I’ve gone on for too long.” She stood up. “It’s almost over, though. Almost over.”

She walked past Armchair, who was poking at his face in a mirror.

“I don’t like it,” he said. “Why do they always give them such pale skin? I want to be blue.”

“It is pretty sweet,” said Zedok, finishing putting on her own armor. She looked Armchair over. “Are you sure you don’t want a set? I bought some extra plate.”

“No thank you. This body does not require it. I highly doubt anything we encounter could be very damaging to a synth chassis.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Starlight, darkly. “We’re going to be dealing with Pink and Scootaloo. This is not going to go well, for any of us. So if you want to back out now- -”

“Why are you even asking? I haven’t backed out yet.” Zedok picked up a singularity rifle and one of Beri’s spare swords. “I’m not going to back out now. Fenok didn’t raise a coward.”

“And I’m just a program copy,” said Armchair. “If I die, it does not affect Armchair as a whole very much. So I’m okay with this suicide mission.”

The Cerberus vessel had moved out of their way as Starlight’s ship approached. The whole time, Starlight had been anticipating an attack. None came, though- -but at the same time, there was no response to Jurneu’s hails. Scootaloo’s ship was silent, as though it was waiting.

Starlight watched it approach through the circular window that surrounded the airlock port. Zedok stood on one side of her, and Armchair on the other. She was not sure where Chrysalis was, and she knew that Sbaya was upstairs with Jurneu where she would be safe.

As the docking cycle began, though, Starlight heard soft hoofsteps beside her. She turned and saw Quatre weakly approaching them.

“Whoa,” said Zedok, moving to stop her. “You shouldn’t be her. You shouldn’t even be standing.”

“I shouldn’t be alive. But that hasn’t stopped me yet.” Quatre eyed Starlight. “They’re here.”

“Who?”

“My sisters. They are waiting for me. I have to go with them. Unless you want to keep me here as your prisoner.”

“That was never my intention,” said Starlight. “Of course. If you think it would help you, you can go. But stay back. Zedok will cover you. I don’t want you getting caught in the crossfire.”

There was a loud clank from the dock. The light over the airlock became green, and Starlight knew that it was time to go to work. If she could avoid it, this would not be a battle. It would take all her diplomacy and experience, but she knew that there was a slim chance that this would not need to end in violence- -or deaths.

“I can’t believe we’re this close,” said Zedok, hefting her rifle. “If they were to shoot at us at this range…”

“We would be vaporized,” said Starlight. “And the explosion would take off half their ship. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen. Open it.”

At Jurneu’s command, the airlock twisted, revolving as it opened. Starlight braced herself and stepped through.

The first thing she immediately found herself facing was the end of a rifle.

“Move and die,” said a familiar voice. Starlight looked up to see the owner of the weapon: a tall, heavily armored Twilight clone suspending the device in her magic. On her right was another clone, this one taller but thinner. Her eyes were covered with a tech visor, and her pointed teeth were long to the point where she was likely unable to close her mouth. Her body was coated in tech armor, and she seemed to be eyeing Zedok suspiciously. The two of them were joined by a third, smaller clone who teleported next to the central one.

“Crap,” said Zedok. “She wasn’t lying.”

“Of course I wasn’t,” said Four, stepping past her.

The central alicorn appeared greatly surprised. “Four?”

“Nine.” She turned to the tech-coated alicorn, and then the smaller one in civilian clothing. “Seven. Eight.”

“Four?” A different voice called from behind the alicorns. It was not Twilight’s voice, but it had a French accent identical to the one that the clones possessed. Starlight saw something bipedial in armor move quickly through the group. When she saw woman’s face, there was a slight sense of recognition- -followed by an immediate realization of who she was.

“YOU!” cried Starlight and Zedok at the same time.

Bob ignored them. Instead, she knelt down beside Quatre, putting her hands on both sides of her frail body. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, actually sounding concerned. “Where is Marc Antony? That bastard, he didn’t leave you, did he? Because if he did…” She looked up at Starlight, her verticle pupils narrowing. “You did this,” she said. “Four, did she hurt you? Tell me the truth?”

Quatre did not say anything. She just averted her eyes.

Bob sighed. “Great,” she said, standing up. “I was having such a great day, too. It was all going too well.” She shrugged and stared at Starlight. “And then I learn you hurt my daughter. So now I’m going to have to rape a filly. To death.”

Without further warning, she leapt toward Starlight- -only to be winged by a singularity round to one of her shoulders. She screamed, falling sideways onto the ground and scrambling back. Nine immediately raised her weapon and opened fire. Starlight ducked, preparing to feel the bullets tearing through her exposed face, but a deep violet tech-barrier appeared between her and Nine, stopping the bullets.

“Zedok!” cried Starlight.

“It wasn’t me!”

Starlight looked over her shoulder. Far on the other side of the airlock, she saw Sbaya on one knee, her rifle leveled at Bob.

“My arm!” cried Bob. “It’s- -is it still attached? It didn’t come off again?” She lifted it up and flexed her fingers. “Oh fuck,” she said, breathing a long sigh of relief. “I thought it came off again!”

“Please don’t make a mess on my ship.”

Starlight looked up, peering through the distortion of the tech barrier. That voice did not belong to one of the Twilights, and even though it was heavily distorted it still sounded familiar. As she watched, the barrier collapsed and the alicorns parted. Two ponies stepped between them. One was a Twilight clone so large that Starlight initially suspected that she was a stallion. The other was much smaller and covered completely in strange armor. The smaller pony’s mask contained a single luminescent white circle which moved across the otherwise featureless surface, like an eye focusing on Starlight.

“Scoot…Scootaloo?”

Scootaloo continued to stare at Starlight. “Why are you here, Starlight? Answer very carefully. I’m not going to save your life again.”

“Because I know the truth now. She isn’t Twilight.”

“No, she isn’t,” said Scootaloo. “But that doesn’t answer the question. Why are you here?”

“I came here looking for Pink.”

“That is an answer. But not a good one.”

“Something is happening. You’re working with Thebe.”

The alicorns turned toward Scootaloo, somewhat surprised by this revelation.

“I might be,” said Scootaloo.

“Why?”

“Why? I have no idea. I assure you, it isn’t voluntary.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Scootaloo. Something is going on here- -”

“I’m the idiot now?” said Scootaloo, stepping forward. “I see. Because I figured out that she was a false god in five years and you didn’t notice for three hundred years. Because I came back even after she tried to kill me.”

“I never claimed I wasn’t also an idiot. She tricked us both. Me for a lot longer.” Starlight stared into Scootaloo’s mask, knowing that her face was behind it. “And so what? Are you going to try to stop her now?”

“If I have to. But right now, I don’t really have any stake in Equestria. I have no objections to letting One burn it to the ground.”

“Don’t talk like that, Scootaloo,” said the largest clone, who Starlight assumed was named Six.

“It’s true. All the friends I have left are here, now.”

“I was your friend, once,” said Starlight.

“Yes. And you tried to kill me.”

“Only because of what Twilight told me.”

“She’s not Twilight. And don’t lie to me. I killed Trixie. And that’s something I’m going to have to live with. Possibly for a very, very long time. I would want to kill me too. I cannot say that I blame you.”

Something was wrong with Scootaloo. Starlight had not talked to her in several centuries, but she distantly remembered the way she had been. This Scootaloo was different. The way she spoke and the way she seemed to care little about the world around her was out of place and somewhat unnerving.

“Something is happening,” said Starlight. “I’m not sure what. But Thebe knows you. They’ve been helping YOU. For some reason, they want you. I don’t know why.”

“The Goddess is rising,” said Bob. Starlight and Scootaloo both looked at her. “Yes I’m still here,” she said. “That’s what Pink said. I’ve been dealing with Thebe for, what, a century? They’re building something. And it’s almost done.”

“What is it?” asked Starlight.

Bob just shrugged. “No idea. Not even Pink knows. Or he knows, and he can’t figure out how to say it. At least in any way I can understand.” She stood up. “So how about a suggestion?”

“What kind of suggestion?”

“The helpful kind. How about we go and see what they’re up to?

“That’s impossible,” said Four. “Nobody knows where Thebe is based except Thebe.”

“But Pink has access to the Paradighm,” said Starlight. “He knows, doesn’t he?”

“He does. And he says that Scootaloo needs to be there.”

“Why me?” said Scootaloo. “And why didn’t you tell me this?”

“Why didn’t I tell you? Scoots, do you have any idea how many things I’m not telling you? It’s part of the game. You know that. To make sure I always win.”

Scootaloo and Starlight began to walk off, with their various associates gripping their weapons tightly but in a kind of tenuous truce. Bob, though, stayed back for a moment before she turned to the dark of the airlock and stared for a moment into the blackness.

“Hey, pretty boy,” she said. “Are you going to come out here or not?” There was no response, and Bob laughed. “You can’t hide in the dark. Not from me. The eyes my father gave me may be hideous, but they see very well in the dark.” She motioned for the hiding asari to exit. “Come on.”

Sbaya hesitated, but eventually stepped out of the shadows.

“Would you look at that?” said Bob, her slit-pupiled eyes scanning over Sbaya’s body. “Now why would you want to go and hide a body like that?”

“You’re…you’re a human,” said Sbaya, almost unable to believe her eyes.

“I am,” said Bob. “The last of my kind. Well, the last that’s not a mindless cannibal. I’m not mindless at all, as you can see.”

“But I thought you were all extinct.”

“We are. Believe me. The turians paid me quite a lot to make sure that that was the case.”

“Are you…are you a girl human, or a boy human?”

“Do you want to check?”

Sbaya blushed.

“My name is Bob,” said Bob. “And you?”

“S- -Sbayadvlag,” said Sbaya.

“Such a pretty name for such a nice boy,” said Bob, lifting her hand and gently stroking the lateral line of one of Sbaya’s head crests. Sbaya involuntarily moaned and shivered, and Bob grinned, drooling slightly. “You’re not a pureblood. Yahg, I think. But you look positively delicious…”

“Hey! Get your hands off her!”

Zedok shoved Bob hard from the side, and then lifted her hand to strike her. Despite her heavy armor, though, Bob was quick and dodged easily. As she did, a look of recognition came over her face. “Hey! I know you!”

“You’re damn right you do!”

Sbaya looked at both her mother and the human, confused. “You two have met prior?”

“Do you remember what my face used to look like?” said Zedok angrily, pointing at the remnants of the severe scarring that had once covered her face and the pair of cybernetic eyes that had replaced the ones that she could not ever regrow. “Yeah. SHE did that to me.”

“That isn’t exactly how I recall it. I told you not to pull the trigger. You did anyway. Kind of amazed you survived, though. Asari are super fragile. I mean, if a bullet even goes NEAR your heart, you get dead real fast.”

“At least we’re not galactic cockroaches!” Zedok pointed at the scar around Bob’s neck. “Look at you! Shouldn’t you be about eight inches shorter?”

Bob smiled. “Oh please. Shepard when sky-diving from orbit. Without a parachute. And Cerberus still managed to glue what was left back together into a thing that still thought of itself as him. I only got my head sliced off. Very easy to find an excentric doctor who was willing to sew it back on. All I had to do was let him have his way with the body.” Bob stopped and considered for a moment. “Although with the taste I woke up with in my mouth, I think he had his way with my head too. Did you even know that a man can die of gonorrhea? I didn’t. It’s messy.”

“What is ‘gonorrhea’?” asked Sbaya.

“Why don’t you take off those frumpy clothes and I can show you?”

“In front of me now? That’s it, I- -”

Bob grinned at Zedok, and then took a step forward, pivoting and sweeping Sbaya off her feet. Sbaya squeaked, but any sound she produced was immediately cut off as Bob pushed her lips against hers and kissed her deeply. Zedok stood watching, now completely flabbergasted.

“You- -you didn’t- -you- -”

At the time, Eight and Four were approaching, haven broke from the rest of the group to retrieve Bob.

“Mom,” said Eight. “Scootaloo is wondering where you went, and Eloth- -AAAHK!”

“HA!” said Zedok, closing her hand around Eight’s horn. “How do YOU like it?!”

“Oh my!” squealed Eight, her voice wavering as her eyes closed in pleasure. “I’m being molested! In front of my own mother and against my will! And I didn’t even need to pay for it this time! (Put your hand a little higher, you whore, yeah do it, DO IT)” The last part of the sentence was a whisper, but Zedok still heard it. She had always assumed that the horn was a sexual organ, and holding it suddenly felt supremely unpleasant. Still, for the sake of her principles, she did not let go.

“Wait just a minute,” said Bob, lifting Sbaya from her dip. “You can’t do that!”

“Can’t I? Are you going to come over here and stop me?” She began to move her hand back and forth, stroking Eight’s horn. Eight cried out, and her knees began to shake.

“Let go of- -” Bob closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. “Alright,” she said, “you’ve made your point. Damn you to asari-hell.”

“For what?”

“For trying to teach me empathy. Could you please take your hand off my daughter’s organ before I take your hand off of your arm?”

“Oh yeah…don’t stop,” muttered Eight, followed by whine of disappointment as Zedok released her and then wiped her hand against her armor.

“Eew,” she said.

“I get what you mean, though,” said Bob. She looked down at Four, who was standing beside Eight but breathing hard simply from the exertion of standing. Bob reached down and gently lifted the pale pony into her arms, cradling her with ease. “My daugters are the most important thing to me in the world. I guess your son is the same way to you.”

“Daughter. And yes.” Zedok shivered. “Damn it. Does this mean I actually have something in common with you?”

“Motherhood is a powerful thing,” said Bob, shrugging as she walked with Four in her arms and Eight beside her. “But let’s call a truce for now. I leave your daughter alone, and you let mine be.”

“And we deal with our problems ourselves.”

“Sure.” Bob paused. “But I’m not going to flirt with you, though. I’m not into girls.”

“Not even me?” said Four, joking weakly.

“Aww,” said Bob, stroking Four’s cheek. “You know it doesn’t count when it’s with family members.” Zedok winced, but Bob hardly seemed to notice. “Now let’s get back to Scoots before someone tries to kill her.”

Zedok paused for a moment, and then followed, wondering if Scootaloo was really the one in danger here. Sbaya fell in step beside her, picking at her coat.

“It’s not that frumpy,” she said to herself, sounding dejected. “Lordraia says I looked cute.”