Author's Note

Thank you all for sticking around, if you made it this far; please leave a comment to let me know you made it this far and are still here.

Remind the story is being converted into a Novel Series and the 3rd Novel will be out soon; let me just get the parts of Act VI out which is oddly the shortest Act of them yet.

If there are typos or issues please let me know so I can fix them.

Chapter 54: The Dead Tree Protocol

“The journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back and all turns to silver glass, then you see it. White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.”
-Gandalf The White, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

I stared at the screen. I did not have a body but I felt like looking between the various versions of me highlighted them for selection. A grayed out version of my face was on the far left. A white one with a red mare, exactly as I was before I woke up in that pool, was in the center. My current form, the green coat with red and white mane, to my left. Pink? Are you here? Hello?

There was silence for a few moments and then Pink called to me. Her voice was distant, like someone yelling across a canyon. “Oh! Look who finally got killed. I mean, it took going completely insane and your own mother to do it, but I guess she brought you into this world and she could take you out of it. Only temporary, though.”

Temporary, What!? Pink help me out here, what is this? Where am I? I looked around, away from the interface but it followed my vision and refused to get out of the center of my view. Pink?

“Okay, this is gonna be a lot to take in. Welcome to your box! It’s a guardian class, so unlike Buddy—who turned into Quick Stitch or one of your other box friends if they died—you don’t get a random pony back. You come back. There is a third type, which is the refined version of yours. You’re kinda a prototype; the production model is in your mom… probably.” My head was spinning from her speaking. At least if I had a head it felt like it was. I wasn’t entirely sure about how my body worked presently in relation to all this.

So is this an out of body experience, what is this place and how does it work? Why are these boxes so strange?

“Okay, so, in front of you right now are three options. The problem is that you can have your pre-war colors but… the Sunrise that is you, the one Nyota loves? She will die when you fuse with Seventeen. See, that is the thing that has been fighting you for control, the thing we’ve been keeping in the cage. It’s gonna be a lot harder to keep it caged now.” I felt like I was holding up a hoof to stop Pink but she kept going and I couldn’t talk to interrupt her, not without her thoughts overflowing through me. She did slow down a bit but not much.

“Now for the fun part! The gray one, that is called Bland Mode. Basically, it has no memories, no personality, nothing. It works upon pure logic without any emotions. Mostly represents how you and Seventeen cancel each other out. You and Seventeen both get locked away in separate cages and a programmable robot takes over your shell till it dies, we end up back here, and then the programmable robot picks who's next. Yeah, you did that once; you lost six lives while that was in charge till it finally picked someone else.” I wanted to scream! I wanted to tell her to stop but I couldn’t, it was all just coming at me. It was like a river flowing and I was trying to damn it with a paddle that had holes in it.

“Okay, bit too much? Right, your choice: you can fuse with Seventeen and let that monster out or you can pick what you and I both know is the right answer, get a bit of a memory dump, and we move on when you wake up.” I flinched, expecting more from her, but nothing came. I could sense her waiting as I looked at the images. I felt the need to sigh and selected the green mane face.

Somewhere in the blackness I heard a scream, “NO! Not fair! No, not back in the cage!” It was my voice, but twisted, with some sense of evil underlying in it. Something about it made my non-existent skin crawl all the way up my spine. The screen shifted to something else.

The text read: “Beginning reconstruction and soul integration. Uploading previously locked memories.”

“Oh right, she shattered the wall we made. Oh boy. This won’t hurt at all.” Pink paused and I recoiled as I could see her now. “Okay maybe it will hurt a bit, like a pinch.” The text began to rapidly read 1’s and 0’s across my vision. I couldn't keep up with it. All as numbers started to form words in a never ending scrolling spam of text and numbers blended together. “Oh boy, leet speak. Ya know, nevermind, I lied. Bite the pillow!”

Pain was what I felt when mom shot me. Pain was what I felt when I woke up from surgery in Silver Fang. Pain was what I felt when I dove on that grenade or when that bullet hit my marebits. This, this made all of that look like a day old papercut. My very soul felt a form of agony that I doubted even beyond the Gates of the Damned in Tartarus could ever muster. All of me was shattered, put back together wrong, and then shattered again. Over and over until suddenly I was in a memory. I wasn’t sure when it happened or how. An eternity of torment blending slowly into a memory that I wasn’t even sure was wholly mine.

ooOOoo

50 Years After Megaspells - Spring

“Dammit, Bootstrap, where did you fire those missiles?” I demanded—no, Seventeen demanded. My body had a white coat. I was holding a unicorn by the throat; he had a dark green coat and a sunburst yellow mane. He was laughing and shaking his head.

“You don’t get it, Seventeen; you never will,” The unicorn levitated a gun up. A gun that I had been unaware he had within reach. We were on a catwalk and the earth was shaking underneath us. The gun was a shotgun, my shotgun! There was no doubt about that. I felt a pain of surprise as if caught completely off guard. The gun rang out and I let go of this unicorn.

I staggered to the ground, stunned as my chest heaved for air. Pain rippled through me with every inhale. Part of my chest and right shoulder completely blown apart by the buckshot. Two more shots echoed around over the noise and rumbling that shook the ground and catwalk under us. The unicorn’s head exploded and his neck was shredded by the rounds from somewhere to my left.

There were hoofsteps behind me but I couldn’t move for some reason. I felt like I was trying to but my body wasn’t responding. “Fuck fuck fuck! Get those deputized rangers in here! Tell them the Agent is down! Figure out how to stop those missiles or at least where they are headed! Go go go!”

I was being cradled by someone. My body was lifted up before my head was turned, I saw Chifundo. He was speaking without rhymes, he was directing several ponies I couldn’t see. “Stay with me, Seventeen. Do not go into regen mode, we need you here and now.” It was so strange hearing Chifundo without rhyming. It did not feel like it was him. It felt wrong on everything I knew about to have him not rhyming.

“Chi...Chifu…” The world faded to black again, gone completely and into another memory.

ooOOoo

50 Years After Megaspells - Summer

I ran through the field of fire. Machine guns ripples across a barren no-pony’s land. The bunker was my target. The hardened square and angular concrete was foreboding. I knew the flat platform on top contained a rocket, tipped with a zebra balefire warhead. “Stupid madmare, needs to be put down.” I wasn’t in control here, no this was the white version of me, except my coat was still green.

My confusion over witnessing this memory was escalating. Who is this? Why do they look like me? I think this is me but different?

“Oh, just now waking up to reality? Poor little innocent Sunrise, doesn’t wanna know what happened to her and now she is dealing with it. This is too juicy, I’m gonna enjoy tormenting you as you relive every single detail.” I felt my mind recoil at this voice, everything about it was unnatural.

My body slid to a halt as a couple of the bullets from the bunker slammed into the armor on my side. It wasn’t like my armor now, it was ablative, it just fell off when it was struck as it became useless. Wait, hold on, what are you? We’re here; I’m not exactly going anywhere, can’t we just... talk?

“What am I?” My body moved and threw grenades into the bunker slit, blowing apart the ponies manning the machine guns. My hoof reached up and clipped off the extra armor till I was down to just a flak vest and my saddlebags. My body crawling into the bunker slit, squeezing between the shrapnel blasted and charred concrete in order to crawl into the bunker.

“Me? Oh, that is going to be a long explanation for you. Remember how you were experimented on in Stable 43?” I mentally nodded as my body kept going deeper into the bunker. Just as I opened the door to the basement, a mare with a mad look upon her face appeared at the doorway. I did not even have time to recognize anything about her features before an explosion consumed everything around my body, including me. The world went black after a bright flash of white.

“Fuck! That hurts…. Stupid coward. Yeah, so, they did some reprogramming on your head.”

ooOOoo

50 Years After the Megaspells - Autumn?

My vision materialized on a pile of bodies. At least a dozen power armored ponies were torn apart. I was inside a bunker, not like a Stable but more a military facility. Steel catwalks, featureless and unpainted, ran around the room. It was gray steel with gray steel beds and gray concrete walls, all illuminated with fluorescent lighting and powered by spell-matrix gemstone generators running a magical fusion reactor.

Several dozen ponies in red robes were scattered around, nervously trying to hide their faces. The emblem of the Steel Rangers were upon the robes: a set of pegasi wings half-encompassing a circle with a sword dividing the wings. The wings were holding up a series of three interlocked gears each with a magic symbol inside them against the green apple background. The sword cut one of the gears off but it appeared to be layered on top of it rather than cutting the gear apart.They were nervously working on a dozen computers as I held up a list of mathematical problems, ones I did not understand. “Yeah, keep working or we’re going to need to talk about a few things.”

Reprogramming, what are you talking about? What are you doing to these scribes?

“Long explanation short, you’re supposed to be a weapon; reprogrammed for ministry use. Now to get into the long train ride that led to you caging me!” It was angry and shouting at me, raising its voice with a word. The presence in my mind was getting louder and more upset by the second.

ooOOoo

51 Years After Megaspells - Spring?

My fur coat was white still, and I was in a hotel room... no, wait. I was wearing something, weird, a—! Oh my… this is a—

“A whore house and some lacey underwear. Yes, but there are some advantages. Let’s see how you like this.” Inside here, I spent months, almost a full year. I experienced what it was like to... bed with a stranger. But the thing that was apparently worth it to this version of me was the infinite amount of drugs, the soap and mane conditioner; the feeling of being clean—even if inside and out I wanted to vomit. I did not have the control of my body to experience the physical sensations of vomiting but mentally I was at a loss for words.

I felt so dirty through all of it still, I felt just wrong. I begged for the near year of this to stop and Seventeen just laughed at my begging. It was drinking in my pain and enjoying it all.

I also strangely got time for Coffee Stain. She was running the operation, but now she was that strange half-ghoul mutated eternal scout version of herself. We… we made love several times. It wasn’t the love I had known; it was a raw physical sensation with little love actually between us. She could sense the change in me, she knew I wasn’t me. Yet, this is how an entire year played out.

I woke up in a hole, in the dead of winter. Coffee Stain and her scouts had murdered me the same night I was with her. I knew this by the fact that they were all gone; their entire operation, even the building they had been using was packed up and gone. I had been discarded into a ditch.

“Yeah, she figured out a while ago that you… I was not you. She just couldn’t bring herself to kill someone that looked like you. She swore I was a changeling. Too bad for her, I never was.”

You were going to kill her, weren’t you?

“I mean, yeah, that was my mission technically.”

But you took an entire year to not do it?

“That is a long story but let’s just say... her tongue was really nice and you felt it all; all the reasons why I simply didn’t wanna kill her yet.”

I thought about it. I was starting to understand that this creature only liked what served to make it feel good. Are you a—

“There are many advantages to being a sociopath; makes you a better soldier, for one. Makes it a whole lot easier to survive in The Wasteland, too—well, most of the time it works.”

ooOOoo

52 Years after Megaspells to 58 years after Megaspells

A flash of the next five years were very simple. I was farming, helping others farm. I had regenerated as gray. The gray version of me couldn’t feel emotions at all. It could only sense things by logic. It worked under cold logic. I experienced all these ponies for five years, until a swarming plague of rad-insects, including the bloodwings and rad-roaches, slaughtered them all. I got to watch a pony have all of the blood and fluids sucked out of it by three bloodwings within a few seconds. From alive and well to a putrid shrivelled husk in only a matter of moments.

I got to experience what it was like to try to get somewhere to survive, only to slowly starve to death. I awoke this time as green. I ran into a large group of Legions of Caesar. Zebras who set out to enslave ponies and continue the way against Equestria. The battle was horrific. I discovered that my brainwashing including tons of training I had no idea I had.

My body moved in ways that I didn’t even believe Nyota could. The only thoughts I felt during all of this was, rush forward, smash, shoot, grenade, block, block, and kill. That is exactly what happened. These trained zebras did not stand a chance against a pony who had 50 years more experience on them, advanced pieces of armor recovered from the Steel Ranger bunker, and did not have any sense of self-preservation if it meant their death.

I kept trying to pull against the weight of the memory, trying to make the blows less lethal or at least not me from delivering killing blows to helpless zebras. “Cute but worthless, this is a memory and you can’t change the past. Even I can’t do that.”

I have to try! Something has to be done to make amends or help them.

“You can’t do anything and you won’t get it will you? Just give in; this is what you really are, a weapon.”

When it was all said and done, three pregnant mares in chains remained. Blank removed their chains and the memories of traveling with them were pleasant, but tense. Apple Pie, Flower Remedy, and Ripper Hoof. I could tell Ripper Hoof was once a raider.

Then all of it ended when they attacked me one after the other. I did not understand why they were trying to shiv me. I had rescued them. I had helped them clean up. Yet they lost their minds and one after the other, tried to kill me. Seventeen effortlessly slaughtered them.

“Stupid slaves, so damaged they did not understand I was saving them. I actually gave a shit because I could trade their lives for good will and get a night in a hotel. Now I just have three bodies. Taught me not to help fucking slaves.”

Hey! That is just wrong! You didn’t have to kill them!

“You aren’t getting it. Everything you would spare and try to rehabilitate, I was sent out to just eliminate.” I was starting to realize that I could never allow Seventeen to have control, ever again. “And if I don’t Bland only sees stuff in black and white. And if you are in the black, you should be punished, permanently.”

This isn't’t who I am! I refuse to accept it! I tumbled into the next memory and wanted to slam my eyes shut but I had no eyelids to pull shut to stop it.

ooOOoo

This Bit is Going to Overload You, Prepare for Black Out.

Memories kept coming. I was a slaver for over a year; that ended with bombing the bosses and letting all the slaves go. The few that tried to kill me died in a hail of gunfire. I stayed with a mare while she bled out, the last one. Once all that was done, I shot myself in the head and rebooted from gray to white.

I experienced returning to Stable 43, and this was the thing that really stuck with me. They probed me while keeping me alive. Testing my box inside for any irregularities. They were gathering all the data. It was incredibly painful to be conscious and cut open, yet Seventeen acted like the pain was non-existent. I was surrounded by three separate Stable-Tec scientists filling out forms for all my activities for the last ten years. I finished and left, without orders and without direction. I visited the tank. Yes, Daddy’s Halo in that mechanic’s shop. The tank was in the busted, rusted state I found it in. Seventeen took out a beer and toasted the tank before drinking it. I did not understand or comprehend why.

Seventeen simply laid against it and was looking at photos, not of my parents but of my friends. Wait! That’s Alguacil? And that’s Chifundo? Nyota? What? But this is clearly in the past.

“Yeah, and they all have one of those little black boxes, don’t they?” I shuddered as it started to dawn on me. This was not our friends’ first time together. The reason we worked so well together was because this had happened before. “Nah, none of this ‘it has happened before and will happen again’. Just good old fashioned necromancy mixed with unicorn and zebra magic to create, well, resurrection boxes.”

ooOOoo

Everything else was a blur of strangeness. Frustration at no real orders from the Ministries. Some freaky antler mutated earth ponies that had turned into a cult. They were fighting the Enclave, somehow shooting lightning from their antlers. Seventeen cursed radiation and taint. In the end, she crucified their leader. It was garish and beyond cruel, she took the time to torture him while he was dying.

There was a long period of farming again, until finally a unicorn stallion wouldn’t take the hint about her not wanting to start a family. He tried to force her! The sight of him sprawled out dying as she gelded him was not something I wanted. Please make this stop! I don’t need any of this!

“Too late, you died; the pandora’s box is open! Get ready for every memory note we ever made, all at once.” I swore I could hear Seventeen munching popcorn and the sound of her laughter filled my ears.

Death by radiation poisoning in the far flung north, repeatedly. I had to experience dying in the snow from overdosing on rads four separate times. The feeling of missing trains and the Crystal Empire Rail Service echoed inside my head.

I met that alicorn. The one from the trenches. Somehow I knew her, Barista Foam. She was Coffee Stain’s mom and now she is a strange green alicorn that towered over me. When Breakfast Blend showed up, the friendly reunion turned into a shoot out that faded away as we yelled names at each other from across the room. Both of us were dying from bleeding to death. When I woke up, she was gone and Seventeen was healed again.

I was working for the Enclave now. It was so strange, I was their bounty hunter. They sent me looking for Dashites, they called them. Pegasi who followed the way of Rainbow Dash and were somehow traitors to the Enclave. I did this for years. Almost three years before one of them holed up in a manticore nest. Somehow they had tamed the creatures and that ended that life.

Seventeen was lost now. I could hear it… no her. Seventeen wasn’t just a killing machine, she was having feelings. I could see her trying to build a farm again. She was using the loads of money from the Enclave, bottlecaps, pre-war bits, gold bars, whatever she could get to fund herself. She was building a settlement.

It worked for a time, almost sixteen years. Seventeen was running a settlement. Everything that could go wrong did. Ponies breeding too fast to keep pace with food. Youngsters scaring away caravans or trampling crops by accident. Refugees refusing to live in the lodging hall and demanding their own separate house. There was a list of things that Seventeen could complain about. Then finally after sixteen years, raiders showed up while she was away.

Seventeen came back and I got to experience the true horror of just how Nyota fought. She tore them apart, but not cleanly or quickly. Each raider died in agony. She broke bones until they passed out or died of shock. She tortured them all to death in some crazed bid for vengeance. Not for the ponies they had killed, no, her happiness was gone. She felt all her work was dead. Everyone in her settlement was dead, the crops would die in the fields before they could be harvested. The buildings were destroyed or damaged beyond saving. She was more interested in the property than the creatures.

Explain yourself!

“Explain what? You still have that little foal mind, don’t ya? Creatures come and go, but your damn work is impossible to rebuild.”

Then why are you burying them all and making a proper memorial for them?

“You cunt! You wouldn’t understand a damn word of it. Leave me alone!”

Then get out of my head.

“Our head…” Those words shut me up. I realized I was stuck here with Seventeen, no matter what I wanted. She was stuck with me too.

How… do we come to an understanding?

“We don’t either you give into me or you keep me caged. In Between is Bland and both of us are caged then.”

How many times have we had this argument?

“Ask Pink, I don’t keep count.” I sensed that was a lie but I couldn’t press Seventeen to get the real answer.

Seventeen took weeks to get back to any town and got lost in the process. The towns were few and far between but they always had clean water and lights now. They were not just primitives living off the land. She was making her way to Breakfast Blend’s new place. By winter of that year, though, she was starving to death.

I did not need to know that pony tasted good.

“Yeah, well, neither did I!”

Why would you even… you regenerate right? Why would you…

“Because I gotta fight you for control every single time! Not to mention, dying hurts. I also haven’t had a check up in over 100 years now. I don’t know if this damn box will keep working or short out and the next time, we stay dead.”

It must be horrific. I was actually feeling sorry for Seventeen. This monstrous creature that had suggested I kill ponies instead of giving them mercy. This thing that had done so many awful deeds.

“What?...” Seventeen had this feeling of being stunned. It is always so strange, being able to feel the emotions of one you are arguing with. Knowing that these feelings are theirs while you have your own separately and they can feel them back. I felt genuine empathy towards her.

I’m not calling you an it anymore, for one. I get it. We were not meant to be immortal, yet we are. It has taken a toll on you, hasn’t it? I was going to try to show her some kindness. It might be the only way to ensure I woke up as me. This route might also help us understand each other instead of fighting each other.

“Yeah, look, I locked away these memories and Pink helped, but I didn’t expect to be put in the cage with them. Since you’ve been up roaming around with your stupid stallionfriend and making little zonies, I’ve been cooped up in here and screaming to be let out. Never gonna trust that stupid pink fluff ball again!”

You know that Pink is really Pinkie Pie, right?

“I’m sorry what? It’s a formless cloud of Pink spirit shit, not a pony.”

No, actually, once she started trusting me and I trusted her, she revealed who she really was. You mean you don’t actually remember that? Back in Silver Fang while I was undergoing surgery?

There was a sigh of resignation, I felt the growing presence of fear turn to being small and afraid. It was like Seventeen didn’t want to admit something. “When I’m locked in the cage, I only get glimpses of what is going on. So no, I did not know that, but it explains why she betrayed me. Probably getting her kicks from watching my head explode a few times.”

I looked back at the memories, she was in the process of beating herself with rocks and drank some vile green liquid. She crawled up to a settlement begging for help. They took her in, which Seventeen found to be strange.

End Data Transmission at: May 11th 121 Post Megaspell Day

Dates: May 12th 121 PMD to October 23rd 183 PMD Obscured due to security reasons.

The Following Reasons have been provided:
Founding of The Army of The Angel - May 12th 121 PMD

Dead Tree Protocol Activation - October 22nd 183 PMD

Army of The Angel? Dead Tree Protocol Activation. Wait! I Isn’t that the day before—

“Yeah, the day before you woke up in the pool with your friends. No I’m not gonna explain either of those things. Not till you let me have the body back!”

I thought about it and then firmly shook my head towards Seventeen once. No, I have friends and a family counting on me. I cannot let them find some… sociopathic demon running me. I have to return to them.

“Oh, there is a hole in this cage now! I can’t get out completely, but little by little I’ll find a way out! You hear me? I’ll get out of here and when I do, you’re gonna pay!”

I could feel the resurgence of hatred and raw terror pushing into me. It was so strange. I stumbled back and suddenly, with a bright white flash of light, I was awake again.

ooOOoo

A heart monitor was flatlining with a loud drone until I took my first breath. I had had a near death experience before. At least, I remembered having it, but this was all new. When you almost die and this waking up from death were identical. The first thing you feel is your lungs inflate. Not because you tell them to but because your body demands oxygen. It will let your brain die if the lungs can be made to keep working.

The next is the pounding in your chest. It feels like your heart is a sledgehammer and your chest plate is an anvil. It is incredibly painful at first. The heart monitor reflecting this with a warning klaxon as my heart rate skyrocketed to over 200 for several seconds. Your eyes do not see at first, they just don’t. Instead you see nothing but white as your photoreceptors don’t have any oxygen yet and can’t regulate themselves to anything but maximum open.

This is your body fighting itself to become alive. Your ears rush for some sensory input, your brain demands it as soon as you have conscious thought. Every intake of air feels less and less like a raging fire inside your chest, until the feeling is normalized and forgotten about. It isn’t that it stops burning; it is that you simply ignore it over other things. Your mouth comes next, you taste stale air leaving you and fresh air going in, all tarnished with the iron taste of your own blood.

Your mouth is so very dry, there is no saliva, not yet. Not for nearly a full minute, until you can start to feel dampness against your teeth again. I want you to imagine the most thirsty you have ever been, then I want you to imagine throwing sand in your mouth and swallowing it. It was like eating a dozen dry biscuits all at once and being told to swallow or die.

After all of this, after this near full minute of chaotic, horrific feelings as you realize your body is kept alive by breathing fire fuel and drinking in water that tastes of blood; your eyes finally start to adjust to the light. Eyes are so fragile, so delicate, that they are the last part your body tries to regulate when it’s coming back from the brink. Too much blood will pop a vessel and damage the eye. Too little and it won’t adjust the photoreceptor and blind itself with light overload.

I could see the heart monitor now. My heartrate was lowering down, 150…133… 127...111...101...92...80...75...74...60... 57...55...55...55. The burning in my chest did not stop, the pounding didn’t stop either. I just got used to them. “So painful every time. You really don’t realize your body is powered by a gas that could explode, a substance that should stop you from breathing, and tons of carbon, till you wake up from death; do you?”

It was Pink, she was talking as I slowly relaxed my breathing. I was on a hospital bed, in a room alone. I was strapped down. I turned to Pink, my mouth still dry. I noticed a pegasus mare next to my bed finally. She was wearing white hospital scrubs with a large blue E on them. The E had six stars next to it and a pair of pegasus wings holding it up. She was a kind of sunburst orange in color with a few white spots, like a painted breed. Her mane was just as spotted as her body. It was a dark purple but spotted with splashes of white. I swore the spots shifted on her body as she moved around.

My body demanded water, something to help my mouth along, I pushed my lips together and tried to force the word as my forehoof reached up and tried to grab at her, catching her wing despite the straps and pulling out a feather. She yelped in pain and backed away from me like she was staring at a ghost that had tried to possess her.

“Sorry…” I strained my lips looking at her, ignoring my need for water for a bit. “Water, please.” The nursemare hesitated and looked around as if looking for somepony to ask for permission to act. She slowly reached under the heart monitor and pulled out a carton with a straw. The carton was labelled ‘Water’ but the E on it was changed to be E on her nurse outfit. She took out the metal straw attached and poked a hole in it.

“Here ya go, just umm… do not throw it away. Recycling is mandatory in the Enclave.” I took the water and found that the leather straps were too tight for me to even get the straw to my lips. The nurse had to loosen it just enough. “Just till you finish, then I have to tighten it again.”

I gave her a nod of understanding while greedily sucking the small 250ml carton of water until I was sucking air. My lips and throat no longer a desert, I passed the carton to the nurse and she moved my leg into position to tighten the strap again. Even my tail was strapped down separately and braided to make it one whole piece. “Right, I need to go inform the superintendent that you are awa… alive. Anything else I can do for you?” She had a nervous yet friendly smile. The kind of smile you gave a raging chimera that couldn’t reach you.

I took a while to take stock. I am imprisoned in a room alone. I am strapped to a bed. Pink, are you here?

“Yeppers!” Pink was wearing a lion tamer outfit, complete with whip and wooden chair, while pushing the white version of me—Seventeen—back into a cage. “Glad you came back, I was worried that box had finally given out.”

I nodded with a groan and then a sudden extreme realization, “My children, where are they? Can I see them?” It isn’t just your life on the line anymore. We have to find a way out of here, a way to survive this and get them out of here, unharmed.

The nurse frowned and her entire demeanor dropped from nervous relief to total depression. shook her head, “Not until the Superintendent says so. I hate to keep a mother away from her children, especially with how they had to be birthed.” She was starting to move away and I reacted quickly.

“Wait, what do you mean how were they birthed? I was unconscious.” I hoped for some answers. That maybe I could excite some explanation for everything. The reason I was being denied the right to be a mother, a second time, was at the top of the list.

“Right, we had to be certain your womb was viable for the Superintendents project to work. We did not know you were pregnant. Some of our unicorns used a bit of growth and time magic to accelerate their growth to a survivable state and then we pulled them out. The Superintendent believes you would be more cooperative if they were unharmed, healthy, and alive. They are incredibly tiny, though they do not require pre-mature birthing care. They are healthy and, for the moment, unhappy.” The nursemare quickly covered her mouth with her wings like she had spoken out of turn. She winced and slowly lower her wings down to her chin, “I’m not supposed to have said that, sorry, they have just been especially whiny; more so than any foals we’ve ever had in the nursery.” She was speaking in a very low, squeaky voice and looking at me with a fear of something more painful than death in her eyes.

“It’s just, they don’t have their mother and they know it.” She yelped and squeaked out the last bit before quickly dashing out of the room. I sighed and hung my head, which was also restrained by a heavy thick leather strap and so it only moved a centimeter or two forward until the strap refused to budge.

The door was still opened and remained so for quite some time. Pink, where are we?

Pink jumped up next to the door and pointed at a sign next ot the door. It read ‘Isolation Room’ in small white letters against a red background. Above that in gray letters on a white background and much larger letters read ‘E.S.S. Vulture’. “Well if I had to hazard a guess, a medical isolation room on the Enclave Soaring Ship Vulture.”

Ship? What do you mean ship? We aren’t at sea, that doesn’t make any sense, Pink. I was bewildered trying to analyze what was just said. I had only encountered the Enclave once or twice. They were some sort of boogie-ponies of the Wasteland. I knew they were pegasi but a ship was the strangest part of all of this.

“Soaring Ship, silly! We’re on a raptor or a thunderhead, probably a raptor. Ya know, a medium sized aerial assault ship.” I had to process what she just said.

I’m on a raptor? A raptor, as in the ships that get in groups of three to five and hunt dragons?

Pink nodded with a gulp, “Yeah, not exactly a pie in the sky for you and Nyota. How did you think no one went after the Enclave? They live in the sky, remember?” I nodded at Pink, looking around the room seeing the rivets on the bulkheads. There were signs that posters had once been in places around the room; those impressions were still there against the gray steel. “So, start with the planning.”

Not till I hear them out and have my foals. I’m not gonna plan anything till I have them in my hooves. I glared at Pink and she started back. No matter who comes through that door, we have to agree; we aren’t leaving without them.

Pink frowned and hung her head, “Ya know, there was a time where I would have told you, ‘screw it, you can make more’.” I glared at Pink like I could kill her with my stare. “But after all we’ve been through, if you didn’t try to turn the Enclave to be better and save your foals at the same time, I wouldn’t own you as my friend anymore. Right, no matter what comes through that door.”

I felt like we were not really saying something we should have been addressed when I heard a familiar voice that made my skin crawl. “You told her what?” Another mare was trying to speak in a hush tone when a hard tsk cut her off. “No, I will not have this. I am going to explain this situation to her and that is that. Get out of here before I declare you a Dashite; stupid inbred pegasus idiot. Going to ruin this entire project and hurt our chances of getting her to cooperate.”

Out of the door, stepped my mother. “Hello, Seventeen. I am Superintendent Shadow Window, how has my daughter been?”

My body ran cold. The dead chill feeling that the previous incident had not been a bad dream. My mother had shot and killed me. I might have gotten better but there was no promise that would happen. There she was, standing before me waiting for an answer. “Come now, I know the cat does not have your tongue. Has your restoration process worked Seventeen?”

I cleared my throat and suddenly felt I needed a whole liter of water all at once. Pink popped me in the back of the head, not that my mother would have noticed since it just barely moved my head against the straps. I rolled my tongue around and did my best to shake my head. “Not Seventeen,” I managed then took a breath and tried to lick my dry lips. “I never was. Hi, mom.”

Now it was Shadow Window’s turn to be taken back and shocked. She stumbled a couple of hoofsteps back at this revelation. She had believed I was not Sunrise but Seventeen. Then again, she had talked to Pink and not me earlier with my foals. After a few moments she cleared her throat and stood back up straight, she was staring down over her nose at me. “You would do much to explain yourself, young lady, but that will come later. Do you understand the circumstances you are in?”

I wanted to shake my head but the strap was really just grinding my skin and not allowing me to move. “No, not really. I know I have been captured and have none of my friends or gear.”

Mom stamped her hoof against the hard metal floor in a way to make it echo in the room around us. “You are on board the Enclave raptor, Vulture. You are our prisoner so long as you resist. As soon as you prove cooperative, then you will be given access to your children under supervision. You are a warm blooded pre-war mare who is not contaminated with radiation or taint; why you are green escapes me and that will be a conversation for later. But your genes are what is important. Which means you can either be made to breed against your will or you can select and start dating stallions here on the ship. Do I make myself clear?”

Did my other mother just say that…

“She wants you as a brood-mare. Yes, Sunrise, she just said that.” The room grew very quiet and even the air itself had a pregnant pause. My emotions were conflicting and screaming so many things while trying to make sense of any of this. Pink bapped me on the nose this time to get my attention. “Yo! Stay with me, keep your sanity here. I know this is a ton dumped on you but you need to hold yourself together long enough to figure out a plan. The deeper you fall into the emotional hole this is gonna make, the harder it is for me to keep Seventeen in her cage. Got it?”

Right, Pink. I will—

“Sunrise, answer me. Right now, young lady.” She stamped her hoof again. I looked at my mother, studying her features from hoof to head. She was wearing an unmodified Stable 43 jumpsuit. Her hair was done up in a heavy bun. Her eyes were piercing but soulless; there was no longer any motherliness or love there anymore. Just cold, calculating precision. It was like she was looking at a mindless farm animal and not a living, breathing, sentient pony.

“I understand. No escape attempts, no running, and find a stallion I like on board the ship. If I do not cooperate, you punish my foals, not me.” I looked at the door, away from my mother and over her shoulder instead in order to ignore her icy death stare.

“Good, you can start by answering a few questions. Why in bloody Tartarus did you date a zebra of all creatures?” I felt a chill run down my spine. Something about the way she asked that, she might not hold her end of the promise about my foals.

I contemplated her question, rolled it over. Something about how she asked drove me to carefully consider my answer. I chewed my lip and thought of my foal then stared at my mother. I shook my head at her, “I do not believe we are prepared to answer those sorts of questions yet. At least not without you meeting him and talking to him first.”

My mother blew her mane out of her face and pulled the errant strand into her bun. She grimaced at me. It was like she was expecting me to change my answer and when I remained silently sizing her up, she looked surprised. I was calling her bluff; at least until I could sort out things like why my mother had killed me. It did not matter if I regenerated, what if I didn’t? My box wasn’t working right, that much was clear. Even Pink seemed worried that it was going to break down or go inert.

When I looked at Pink with that last thought, she looked around nervously from side to side and was sweating bullets. I held my breath as we waited to see what my mother would do. Finally Shadow Window stomped her hoof. “No matter, I will come back when you are more apt to talk. I understand you may have considered what happened a traumatic experience. Perhaps after you have some time to digest you can answer my questions. But I assure you, I will not meet him. His inferior Zebrican presence would be a complete soiling of the Enclave’s values.” She turned to leave and stopped at the door. “Get some rest, we will address your situation tomorrow."

With that, she was gone, and I was alone to figure out where I stood in this situation and take stock of what I could do about it.