Neo-Equestria Evangelionby Jersey LightningChaptersAs allies, we find ourselves, at the end of the worldRise, young foal, to the heavens, and become legendAngel with(out) a sense of mercyYou will (never) be forgottenSins of YesterdayInto DarknessVintage MiseryOracleAs allies, we find ourselves, at the end of the worldNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter One: 'As allies, we find ourselves, at the end of the world' "When did you first realize that it was going to be different from all of the other times, that you were in trouble you might not get out of?" "How did I know we were in trouble? Discord wasn't laughing anymore." Lightning and thunder flashed and crackled through the sky, arcing between unnatural black clouds and the Giant of Light. The Giant of Light, Adam: an otherworldly being, taller than a full grown dragon, bipedal but with proportions unknown to ponykind. The beast, if it could be called such, as it showed intelligence, was enraged, casting beams of energy from its form, cross shaped explosions burst forth from the ground wherever they struck. Six ponies stood at the behemoth's feet, looking up at it in awe and fear, their bodies adorned with jeweled necklaces, with the exception of the one, a purple unicorn who wore a jeweled tiara. Beneath the fear and the shock was a grim determination; they would not leave without victory. There was too much at stake to fail, the entire world could end if this creature was allowed to run unchecked. The noise, the...scream. Haunting, alien, it seemed to permeate the very souls of those who witnessed it, penetrate into the deepest layers of the mind, it felt wrong, angry. Agony. The giant's arm flew up and to the side, a blast issued forth from the palm of its appendage; the beam of coherent energy lanced into a distortion in the air and dissipated in another cross shaped explosion. "Can they really do it?" the draconequus asked, standing back from the brewing calamity, he was pouring everything he had into holding back the tide of destruction, keeping whatever was building from spreading to the rest of Equestria, the irony not lost on him. "We must have hope, Discord. If you had told me a month ago that I would be standing beside you as an ally, I would have thought you mad. If anypony can do this, they can." The white alicorn replied, her own face hopeful as she watched the rainbow-hued energy beam of the Elements of Harmony streak towards the barely contained giant. "I wouldn't need hope if I'd recognized this for what it was, anything that would have woken me up..." Discord tailed off, the rest not needing said, she would know what he meant. He watched with rising panic as the rainbow-energy enveloped the giant, it was... wrong. "It's not working..." Discord watched in morbid fascination as the energy cone broke up, rebounded back into the six ponies that had created it. The impact knocked them apart like bowling pins: purple, cyan, white, orange, pink, yellow, all scattered by the blast. Celestia took a few steps towards her ponies, her face twisting from her hopeful smile into rage, "If that doesn't work... I'll have to resort to-" "No." Discord said, as he grabbed onto her with his right hand, "You can't. I'm changing the laws of physics around him to interfere with what he's doing and it's not even slowing him down. You don't stand a chance against that kind of power... You have to trust the ponies to figure it out... and it looks like they are." Twilight was on her hooves again, the other five close behind, she was advancing, casting a spell into the element of magic, adding her own energy to this next attack, this last chance to stop the rampaging giant. Celestia gasped as she read the runes hovering around her star pupil. "Discord, we have to stop her, she's putting too much of herself into that spell, it will kill her if she casts it." It wasn't a complex spell, with that much power behind it there couldn't be much control. Twilight poured her essence into a wall of force that would blast its way through anything that tried to stop it, unmake it from existence. As she worked she was dimly aware of Celestia mouthing something, but it was far away, unimportant in the face of the task before her. Gathering the last fragments of her power, every last scrap of energy she could summon forth, she formed it into a torrent of raw magic and loosed it into the framework of the spell. There was a blinding light-- Celestia gritted her teeth as she frantically worked a counterspell, drawing on millenia of knowledge to safely disassemble the complex layers of runes constructed before her. Every second she could feel the surge of power building, could see Twilight weakening as she poured her very life into the spell. In a tremendous surge of will, she sent forth a dozen streams of magic, searching for Twilight's essence amongst the roiling waves of raw magical energy. There was a blinding light-- Discord watched the neat, precise march of runes, painful in their orderliness, studying the chaos that invaded them, the tiny infinitesimal flaws which would cause them to catastrophically crack and fail under the raw power of the spell within them. And then he reached out and did something so foreign, so utterly alien to his nature that he barely comprehended the concept of it. Smoothing the fabric of reality, he pulled the chaos away from the most dangerous failures, channeled it away harmlessly. Beneath his feet, tiles cracked and ruptured under the onslaught of raw chaos. There was a blinding light-- ~~ Twenty years later... "All lines are currently busy, please hang up and try again later. All lines are curre-" The orange pegasus pressed her hoof onto the phone switch and disconnected the call. She'd been sent to New Canterlot by her mother and yet hadn't been told why. 'It's important... That's what matters.' she thought to herself as she stood at the edge of the empty city. Shops and vending stalls littered the roadsides, and not a pony in sight. It was as if everypony had simply walked away from what they were doing, meals were still on tables, coins still on counter-tops. Her only companion was the cadence in the distance. Tump-Tump. Tump-Thump. 'Wait, what?' she thought in confusion, 'That wasn't there bef-' "Oh my." she finished aloud. Standing over a hill just outside of town, just at the end of the road she was standing on, was a monster the likes of which she had never imagined. Four hundred hooves tall, if not more, almost avian, almost draconic. It stood tall on two legs, with two spindly arms covered in boney plates coming from shoulders set far too broadly. The entire creature looked wrong, disproportionate and yet... terrifying. It's eyeless face covered in a mask of bone, a sharp beak adorned it, less the beak of a bird and more like a needle... And it was staring directly at her. Rise, young foal, to the heavens, and become legendNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Two: 'Rise, young foal, to the heavens, and become legend.' "I could have stopped it, killed it before it started... but where's the fun in that?" The spindly arm came up, those eyeless sockets locked onto her... Dozens of smoke trails appeared in an instant before explosions ripped across the surface of the monster's sickly flesh. The creature stumbled backwards under the onslaught. The roar of engines filled the air and the pegasus turned her head skyward. Pie Industries Aerofighters, she'd seen them in a magazine but never in real life, never thought she would have the chance to. Yet, there they were, shooting rockets at this monster, fighting it off, or trying to. A dull thrumming soon revealed itself overhead, some kind of military airship, she watched in stunned fascination as it opened fire on the behemoth. The logo emblazoned on the pure white hull was one she was unfamiliar with. 'HERD?' she thought to herself as it fired a second volley. The monster let out a scream that seemed to penetrate into the deepest layers of the orange pony's mind as it's spindly arm came up again and a blast of energy fired from the palm of its hand. The sickly green energy lanced through the airship and exploded in the distance. The pegasus was frozen in place as the airship began to lazily descend towards her, trailing fire and smoke as vital lift gas vented from the gaping hole in the envelope. The cannons kept firing even as it started to angle down towards her, still under power. A new sound pierced her awareness, a loud raspy whine, rapidly approaching. She finally tore her gaze away from the falling airship, this new sound enough to break her trance. She locked eyes with a cyan pegasus atop a... 'What is that thing called?' she thought, the two wheeled machine stood, idling before her. "Sorry I'm late, kid, hop on." The mare said to her, her voice betraying an intensity, an... almost smug quality, though her bearing conveyed that she just might be able to back it up. The orange pegasus shook the thoughts out of her head and awkwardly climbed onto the contraption behind the mare driving it. "Just, put your forelegs around me and hold on." The cyan pegasus said from under he helmet a second before she twisted the throttle and the machine took off, leaving behind a thin black trail of rubber as the engine let out its raspy whine. She had a hard time holding onto the older mare as the acceleration and wind kept trying to push her off the back of the... 'Motorcycle, that's what it's called.' she thought with some satisfaction. The orange pony chanced a look behind her and watched as the airship finally crashed into the ground, ponies of all color and size poured out of the crushed gondola as they abandoned the destroyed craft even as the engines burned. She let out a breath she hadn't been holding, she'd made it, and so had they. "Scoots, give me a direct route to the cages, have the doctor meet us there. I've got the package, condition green. Storm is brewing." The driver of the motorcycle yelled from under her helmet as the bike surged forward in another burst of acceleration. "Whisper, right?" She yelled over her shoulder at the younger pony. "Y-yes... Um... yes ma'am" she mumbled into the other pony's back, her eyes hidden under her red mane. "Just like your mom then..." The rider muttered, "Name's Rainbow Dash, I'm sure your mother told you all about me and how awesome I am. She wasn't wrong!" She yelled back as the leaned the bike almost onto its side as she turned a corner and blasted through a wooden crossing gate. ~~ Elsewhere, deep under the streets in an armored bunker, a figure picked up a phone. "She's on her way then? Good. Tell Vinyl to get Unit One ready for activation. Have Sunset on standby in case the spare proves useless." The cradle clacked as the receiver settled into it. "Was it really necessary to be that harsh?" "Let it be. Familiarity brings loss, I've lost enough already. Don't you have preparations to be making?" A long sigh, and an even longer pause. "When this is all over, if we still have any time left..." ~~ "Alright, we're on it!" the white unicorn yelled before shutting off the intercom. She turned to face her assembled staff, "Alright, it's show time everypony, we're launching Unit One in five minutes, drain all coolant tanks, bring the entry plug online, and start unbolting the restraints. This is it!" she yelled out. Behind the mare, dozens upon dozens of bolts unscrewed into the room from the holding cage beyond, bright pink coolant flowed through troughs under the steel grid flooring. The walls creaked and groaned as thousands of tons of pressure were slowly released. Monitors lit up, the soft glow reflecting off her tinted glasses as telemetry and statistics filled up the displays in neatly ordered lists. She tapped a forehoof on her head in concentration as she studied a schematic display of Unit One. "Lookin good... Now to go see if Sunset can be ready as a backup..." She muttered to herself as she pushed herself away from her desk. She let out a sigh as she stood up from her chair and turned to the door, "Okay Sunset, let's see how creepy you can be today..." ~~ "Are we... lost?" Whisper asked softly as she followed Rainbow Dash down what must have been the fiftieth hallway since they had arrived. Dash turned around, her slightly faded mane trailed behind her as she rotated in place. "What? No, of course we're not lost... This is just the scenic route" she said hastily as her eyes scanned the placards on the walls, trying to find out where she-- "Lost again huh?" a new voice asked. "Applejack! I'm was just--" Dash started. "Gettin lost again? C'mon, it's this way." Applejack started as she lead the other two in the correct direction. She looked over at the younger pony, the one who was the same color as herself, if with a different mane, "Whisper? I ain't seen you in ages, didn't know you were the one they sent for..." Dash eyed the young pony and then looked back to her old friend, 'There's a definite similarity here...' "Hey AJ, if you've met her before does that mean that--" "Aunt Applejack, yes. No, I didn't think it would ever happen either. Yes, there's a reason I didn't tell you. Yes, this conversation is that reason." Applejack rapid-fired, interrupting Dash's question and cutting off future conversation on the topic in one fell swoop. "Aunt?" Whisper asked hesitantly, "I don't really remember you..." She continued as she followed along, continuing to hide her face behind her mane. 'She looks kind of like the pictures though...' she thought in reflection. "Oh... You weren't but a year old back then, still I'd recognize ya anywhere." Applejack explained as she slapped her hoof on a door release, "Didn't expect the new recruit to be you though..." she trailed off. "It can't be us." Dash interjected, "Not now." "Um... What am I here for, exactly?" Whisper asked, breaking into the exchange between the two older mares as they crossed the threshold into the darkened room beyond. "You're here to pilot Evangelion. You're here to protect Equestria from the greatest threat it's ever known. You are here to serve" came her answer, the voice masculine, older, but not much. She turned her head up, she recognized the dragon. He was older than the picture, had grown more, but those colors, that he was a dragon, there was only one that he could be. "S-spike?" she asked hesitantly, peeking out from under her mane with one eye. "Correct." He said tersely. With a snap of his claw the lights came up and the room was bathed in illumination. Whisper looked around the room as she blinked away her sudden flash blindness, and then she saw it. The massive purple armored face, staring at her, staring into her soul. She shivered as she felt a chill rush through her. "I... I can't..." she sputtered in fear. 'Pilot this? I've never seen anything like it before in my life, and they expect me to...' "Disappointing." He spat as he turned and pressed a claw to the intercom, "Send in Sunset, she'll have to do it again. This pilot is useless." Whisper fell to her knees, her eyes locked onto the floor as she heard his words. 'So... they didn't need me anyway... I'm... I'm just useless...' she thought to herself as the tears pooled at her hooves. She could hear the other ponies on the catwalk moving around, but she couldn't hear what they were saying, her own quiet whimpering drowning them out. A new noise pierced her consciousness, caster wheels rolling on metal grating. She looked up, blinked away her tears, and saw a hospital bed rolling out, being pushed by nurse-ponies. 'They can't be...' she thought incredulously. An explosion shook the catwalk, the bed tipped, the purple pony laying on it started to fall... Whisper pumped her wings and kicked off of the catwalk. Crossing the distance in an instant, she caught the falling pony. She didn't look any older than herself, a lavender colored unicorn, heavily bandaged. And bleeding, she noticed, as she stood there, holding the other pony in her forelegs. 'This is Sunset? This is the... she can't do this... she'll...' she thought with rising anger. The pony in her arms was bleeding, bandaged, whimpering in pain. The unicorn's un-bandaged eye opened and looked up at her, an almost pleading sadness radiated from her face. Whisper took a deep breath and turned her head to look up at Spike, her eyes locked with his, her face twisted in anger and determination, "Spike! I'll do it, I'll pilot this thing... Just don't make her do it!" ~~ "Listen, kid, that was really brave of you, even if nopony else ever tells you this, you did a really good thing." Dash said quietly into the radio. Whisper looked at the video screen on the wall of the plug. She was sitting in the control seat of the purple mecha, two clips in her mane, her hooves on the control plates. She nodded to the video feed. "I just... couldn't let her do this... being so hurt." she answered softly. "Alright, Whisper is it? I'm Vinyl Scratch, I'm going to be running you through a few start-up checks while we fill the plug. I need you to just sit there and relax as best you can alright?" A new, white unicorn asked. Whisper almost laughed, the electric blue mane and tinted glasses didn't exactly scream professionalism, and the tone of voice betrayed somepony who'd be more at home partying than working on giant robots. "Okay, looks like you've got a good neural link... we're going to fill the plug with LCL now, just breathe it in, you won't drown. I promise." Vinyl announced as a sticky orange liquid began to pour into the plug from all sides, rapidly filling it up to her neck... and then over her head completely. Whisper held her breathe despite the assurances the unicorn had given her. She'd never liked swimming, and now they wanted her to breathe in this... stuff? She struggled for a few more seconds before finally giving in to her lungs demand to breathe. 'It tastes like blood...' was her first stunned thought as she choked the fluid into her lungs. She expected to drown but the burning never came, in fact, it was the exact opposite, her lungs felt perfectly fine. Her stomach was twisting itself in knots, however. "I feel sick." "That'll pass. You're looking good Whisper, sync is... seventy eight percent. We can do this!" Vinyl yelled as she turned away from the camera. "Alright. This is it. Whisper, we'll get through this together, I promise. Eva launch!" Dash yelled and in an instant Whisper felt as though her head was going to get pushed through her torso as the acceleration slammed her down into the seat. Moments later, after what felt like an eternity, the Eva stopped on its launch rails, Whisper looked through the view screens surrounding her and took in the sight of the streets of New Canterlot. The same streets she'd been on not even hours ago. She felt the weight hit her shoulders as the locking clamps released, she felt... like she was wearing armor. "Okay, Eva operates on your thoughts, you pilot with your mind. I want you to think about walking, just concentrate on walking right now okay?" Vinyl said through the radio, audio only. Whisper nodded her head and then concentrated. The Eva took a single step foward out of the launch elevator. 'Just one hoof in front of the other...' she thought as she pushed the Eva forward. The monster was standing in front of her, eying her curiously. She glanced at it and her concentration slipped. The Eva's front hoof caught on a street light and she tripped. Whisper held onto the controls tightly as the ground rushed up to meet her face. She hit, her own face hurt with the impact, she felt like she'd been knocked senseless as the ground started to shake. She looked up to see the monster standing over her, saw its hand coming down, grabbing onto the Eva's face. She heard dash and Vinyl screaming over the radio, heard the alarm buzzers filling the cockpit. She was frozen in terror as the monster's palm lit up. Crack. A spike shot out of the monster's palm and slammed into the face armor of the Eva. Crack, a second blow, the display was showing the cracks in the armor, she felt a pounding in her head. Crack, the spike shot through the armor and went completely through Eva's head. Whisper screamed in pain, the monster kicked the Eva backwards into a building. Whisper's head slammed into the back of her seat and she blacked out. Red fluid started to pour from the wound in the mecha's head. ~~ "Pulses are flowing backwards, Eva is rejecting the connection!" Yelled a young white unicorn. "Massive damage to the cranial nerve cluster, we cannot maintain activation! Unit will be offline in eight seconds!" Yelled a yellow earth pony. "Oh no... Shut down the A-10 connections, bring life support up to maximum. Applebloom, send the ejection signal and recover the pilot!" Vinyl yelled, as she stepped forward to an unoccupied console, her hooves dancing across the controls as she tried to do something, anything to recover the situation. "Negative, it's rejecting the signal!" Applebloom yelled as she frantically tried to over-ride the built in safeties. "What have we done..." Dash said under her breath as her eyes remained locked on the video feed, the disabled Eva still rested against the building. "W-wait! I've got something!" The young white unicorn yelled, her eyes wide with shock. "Sweetie Belle? what is it?" Vinyl yelled to her over the blaring of alarms. "Eva is... it's reactivating!" Angel with(out) a sense of mercyNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Three: 'Angel with(out) a sense of mercy.' "She's gone, Applejack. She's not coming back, I can't be happy anymore... but I can still help." The ground rumbled beneath the pounding of a behemoth's hooves, buildings shook on their foundations, the night was pierced by a bestial roar of fury. Eva was awakened. The purple armored construct charged towards the very creature that had just run it though, its remaining eye shone bright red like a beacon in the night. The Evangelion launched itself off of the ground, folded backwards onto itself in an unsettling caricature of an acrobat, joints moved and twisted in ways never intended, and landed hooves first on the avian monster. The pavement split under the force of the impact, the monster was driven backwards and down, into the broken street. The Evangelion let forth a cry of pure enraged agony that pierced to the bone. The monster reached its arms up to defend itself as the mechapony pounded at it with its forehooves, the metal shod extremities pistoned into the red orb in the center of the avian horror's chest, cracks formed as the creature screamed. Evangelion's primal rage would not be denied, no quarter given, the rain of hoofstrikes continued without remorse. The skull-masked horror seemed to sense there would be no reprieve, no chance of victory, even when the initial skirmish had ended so favorably. It made the only decision it could, given the circumstances, the tables had turned, the battle could not be won. But, that did not mean it had to be lost; as the cracks spread through the creatures core, the leathery skin pulled in all at once, and the creatures form shifted, it wrapped around and encased the head and upper torso of the Evangelion, one last final scream into the night, one last refusal to submit to a greater strength: the creature detonated. The flash turned the night into day, blinded the cameras feeding the HERD control room. The shockwave followed, trees were ripped from the ground, cars, motorcycles, and buses were tossed about like leaves in a storm, windows were shattered, houses were ripped from their foundations. Slowly, one by one, the cameras came back up, the control room was silent. The high resolution displays cleared, and slowly the cameras went into focus, the picture cleared. Unit-01, the purple Evangelion, piloted by a meek young mare named Whisper, was standing passively in the center of the destruction, gazing towards the bridge crew as if it was actually staring at them, and not just a trick of the camera angle. "What... have we created?" Vinyl whispered softly to herself as she stared slack-jawed at the fruits of her labor, her engine of destruction. "Life signs... are positive, the pilot is alive." Sweetie Belle announced as her monitors lit back up with telemetry from the unit. "A-10 connections offline... plug monitors eight through nineteen are down... She's unconscious" the unicorn finished finally. "Alright, looks like we live to see tomorrow. All teams, work on recovering the pilot, keep me updated." Rainbow Dash ordered before turning away from the massive overhead displays, away from the technicians logging data and writing up damage reports. Away from the travesty she'd been forced to be a part of. "But that's the price of survival isn't it, our souls" she muttered under her breath as she walked into the lift. She leaned against the wall when the doors closed, her eyes closed in thought as the stress of the day caught up with her. "Damn it Twi... why did you have to leave..." ~~ Whisper's eyes opened with a sharp intake of breath, the world slowly drifted into focus. She was mentally and physically exhausted and without a reason easily within her grasp. Her eyes drifted into focus on the off-white ceiling tiles. "Unfamiliar ceiling, again..." she said softly as she remembered waking up each morning in a bed not her own, a room in a building not her home, as she made her journey to New Canterlot. Her body felt sore, but nothing she couldn't deal with, nothing she should have been in a hospital for, and yet that's where she found herself. She sighed and sat up in the bed and pushed the sheets down off of her. The room was small, efficient, modern. 'I wasn't really expecting any of this...' she thought with a quiet humorless laugh. Leaving her home, her parents, being expected to fight a war. She was just a filly, if only just; that time in a mare's life when she's between childhood and adulthood, a time for making friends, growing as a pony... "But here I am." she said softly, her eyes staring down at her forehooves. Memories of the battle swam through her mind, foggy, fuzzy, but there. 'Was all of that by my hooves?' she thought as she rolled her hoof back and forth on her fetlock. She heard the door latch click open and turned her head hurriedly to the side, the pegasus from before was standing there, smile on her face that seemed hollow, her lying lips betrayed by eyes of sadness. "I remember last time I was in a hospital. Years ago, crashed while flying, broke a wing. One of my best friends gave me a new appreciation for the written word that week." She said as her face shifted, the smile less dishonest as she remembered. "Mom told me that story... I think." Whisper said, her unease slipping as she breathed in the filtered hospital air, "It... seemed like she was happier then." "I think we all were. Let's get you out of bed huh?" the technicolor pegasus said, changing the subject as she stepped closer, "I've got a car waiting, I want to show you something important." ~~ The car tires crunched the gravel as Rainbow Dash turned the car off the mountain road onto the berm. Beyond was the guardrail and the cliff, after which was New Canterlot in all her splendor. Late afternoon sun reflected off of glass and steel and stone. "I wanted to show you this. I could stand here and give you some speech or something, but... I think just seeing it will mean a lot more to you." Dash explained as she opened the gull-wing door of the blue car. The gentle wind rustled her hair as she climbed out, and for a moment she let herself remember better days. The younger pegasus climbed out of the other side of the car after managing to work the door latch, her own unfamiliarity with the machines slowing her egress. She trotted over to the cyan mare and stood next to her, both overlooking the city bathed in the warm glow of sunset. "I wanted to show you what you're fighting for" Dash said simply and gestured her forehoof towards the city, "because you were brave enough to make that first step, it's still standing, and all the ponies in it can keep going." "I... I'm not brave... I was scared, so scared... but I couldn't let that other pony go, she was hurt... so I had to." Whisper deflected the praise, feeling undeserving of it. 'Who am I to be called brave... just a scared little-' Dash chuckled lightly under her breath, for once her mirth wasn't a lie, "Courage isn't being without fear, it's pushing forward for something that matters in spite of your fear. I think you are very brave, Whisper. Just like somepony else I used to know." Whisper turned her head over and up to look at Dash, her questioning eyes open wide, "Who?" Dash turned and smiled a genuine smile and put a hoof on the smaller orange pegasus's shoulder, "I think you might have met her; butter yellow coat, pink mane, my age, goes by the name Fluttershy." Whisper blinked and then blushed, turning her head down "I.. I think I might know who you're talking about," she said as she giggled quietly despite herself. 'So she thinks I'm like mom...' Dash rubbed her hoof in the adolescent's mane and turned back to the car, still grinning as she thought happily on better times, "Come on then, let's get you home." "Home?" "My place." You will (never) be forgottenNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Four: 'You will (never) be forgotten' "Fine, then do it for revenge." "Why did you come here? If you've come for revenge I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint. I may not be what I once was, but I've still got one good fight left in me," he called out into the darkness as the door to his sanctuary clicked open. The cold mountain air stung even through his thick gray fur, his eyes remained closed. 'If this is to be it...' "Some of us do remember what you tried to do all those years ago, and fewer still remember what you did after. I'm proud to count myself among the latter," the refined voice spoke into the dull stale air of the thatch hut. His eyes slid open in surprise and he let out a low chuckle as he turned to face the mare in his doorway. "Rarity, it's been years, I'm afraid they were not as kind to me as they were to you," he said with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, "I don't know what you expect from me though, I'm no more powerful than a Unicorn anymore, if that." "We failed, on the plateau. New Canterlot was attacked last night. It's another one," she explained, "You helped us once before, in spite of everything... please help us again." "I did that as a favor to Celestia..." he started before sighing, "No, that was just my excuse; I have still my pride you know. I did it because I had to, anything that could have woken me up so casually, it had to be dangerous. I should have killed it when I had the chance..." he trailed off, lost in the memory. "Discord?" Rarity said softly as she placed a hoof on his shoulder, her snow white fur contrasted sharply with the mottled gray of the draconequus. He snapped out of his trance. "Yes, I'll help. I still owe her that much." ~~ "Ma'am?" "That will be all. Thanks," she said simply, waving the assistant off with a flick of her hoof. She flipped through the papers on her desk. Damage reports, combat suitability reports. Her eyes stuck to one folder in particular: Aerofighter/Airship Mixed Unit After Action Report ...[REDACTED] was unable to be damaged or even significantly delayed by Aerofighter intervention, Airship cannons were only marginally more effective. The only positive thing to report is that the crash survival systems appear to have worked better than expected... Pink hooves flipped through the pages, eyes scanned back and forth as the words poured into the mare's mind. A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. The flight-crews had survived, as always, her primary concern in the design of her creations. ...in conclusion, it is the primary determination of this council that all future engagements with [REDACTED] be commanded and executed by the [REDACTED] organization, future involvement with Pie Industries will be at their sole discretion. The mare frowned as a tremor crept up her foreleg, she took a sip from the flask on her desk and sighed, 'Of course, that would still work even when every thing else is broken...' She closed the file and leaned back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling. "I tried Twilight. I tried to find a way around it... but I couldn't. Twenty years with this twitching leg, Pinkie Sense telling me that something was coming." The pink pony sighed again and took another swig from the flask, "...and this is the only thing that makes it stop. It falls to those foals now... but..." she leaned forward and cleared off a patch of desk and flipped open her notebook, "That doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying." A pink hoof slapped down on the intercom switch, the soft buzz of static came from the speaker box, "Trix, send the twins up to my office, tell them I have a project for you guys." "Yes Ma'am," the mare's tinny voice replied. The intercom clicked off, the call disconnected. The mare suppressed a giggle as designs flowed from the tip of her pen onto the paper in front of her, "If at first you don't succeed... try, try again!" ~~ "I haven't been here in years, and it hasn't changed since the day she left," Spike said as he surveyed the dusty old library, books sat on sagging shelves, dust and cobwebs covered the spines, the old floor creaked under each step. "After what happened that day, I never came back, never found the courage to. When they abandoned ponyville it seemed like a waste to even try." "But we're here now," Luna answered as she picked up an old spell book, the soft blue glow of magic enveloped it as she flipped through the pages nonchalantly. "I guess I was feeling nostalgic," he admitted as he picked up an old 'Daring Do' novel and brushed the dust off the cover, "I wonder what she'd think of us now, if she'd approve of what we've done to survive, what we sacrificed." "I think we both know the answer to that," Luna added as she set the book back down, disturbing a pile of dirt and creating a small puff of dust. "If she was still here, I wonder if she would have changed the way we did..." He laughed bitterly, "Or if she'd still condemn me for the worst things that I've done." "Or those we're still doing, expecting Whisper to fight for us..." "There's no-one else who can, not right now. Fluttershy knew this when she sent her to us." He explained as he walked towards the still open front door. "I still feel guilty." "That's why you abdicated control to me, Luna. I can do the things that you can't or won't, I can go far enough to do the things that need to be done, the things that would give you nightmares, because I have to," he paused at the doorway, turned his head back to the midnight blue mare, "because I'll tear down the heavens just to see her again." As the dragon left the dilapidated library, a tear fell from the night princess's eye and splashed into the dust on the floor. "No..." she whispered into the silence, "It's because I wouldn't stop once I started..." The library door closed behind her as she too exited the old tree, the monument to the world they lost, the memorial to the ones they lost... Luna wiped her eye with the back of her fetlock and offered silent prayer to anyone who was listening, 'Please... give them back to us...' The prayer, like so many others before, would go unanswered, though not unheard. ~~ The lavender unicorn stood silently in her hospital room, staring out through the window into the massive underground cavern. Sunlight filtered into the artificial forest through massive skylights built into the roof. The city of New Canterlot sat atop the armored dome, hiding the fortress from even the most dedicated observer. Sunset sighed as thoughts drifted through her consciousness, it had happened before and it would happen again, but this time was different. She was naturally inquisitive, she was a reader, a thinker, a learner, but she was not social; her thoughts and studies were more likely to be on the subject of nuclear fusion than friendship or banter. Her thoughts rarely drifted to other ponies, and even then as a passing idle curiosity. This was different. This pony she had never met, who couldn't have known her or anything about her, had taken her place in the Eva, ridden the construct into battle. Out of kindness, as socially inept as she was, she recognized kindness. She was hurt, the other pony couldn't let her hurt herself further, and took on the responsibility to fight, despite her fear. The concern in her eyes, for that moment, chipped away at the cold loneliness that permeated her life. There was something familiar in those kind eyes, something she couldn't place, couldn't... know. But she was going to find out, going to, for the first time, try to understand that kindness, try to understand that pony. She looked down at her forehooves, her bandaged legs, fetlocks. She turned back to the hospital bed and her expression slipped into one of determination, just for an instant. She had to get out of this hospital, there was research to be done, important, critical research. Sins of YesterdayNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Five: 'Sins of Yesterday' "Of course they abandoned us! After what we did they couldn't do anything else!" "Target in the center... pull the switch..." Whisper repeated quietly to herself as she sat in the entry plug; her fur and mane floated away from her skin in the thick, breathable fluid. She curled her fetlock around the paddle and the heavy multi-barreled auto-cannon sprung to life. She felt the recoil as if the cannon was sitting on her own back as the string of tracers shot towards the target and impacted. The targeting computer had compensated for her inexperience and the target fell over as the first rounds of the burst struck the metal plate. "Very good, you're getting the hang of this!" Vinyl congratulated over a video link. "Remember, just point your head at the target, and line up the crosshairs, the targeting computers will take care of the rest, the gun will follow your line of sight." Whisper nodded at the window and reset the heads-up display as her target stood back up. She rolled her shoulders unconsciously as the weight continued to press down on her back through the sympathetic nerve connection to the eva. She pulled the switch a second time as the target came into her reticule. The flash from the muzzle reflected off her eyes as another target fell. ~~ "She's taking to this rather well don't you think?" Vinyl asked as she turned to look at Dash, "Sync is up to seventy already and she's doing pretty good in the shooting drills." "I guess..." Dash answered half halfheartedly as she watched another target fall over. She rubbed her forehead with her forehoof and leaned against a control panel. She shook her head and stared at the floor. "Something bothering you, Dash?" Vinyl probed. The ex-DJ put a hoof on the pegasus's shoulder in a slightly awkward comforting gesture. "It feels like she's just doing what she's asked, with no personal feelings about it... it makes me a little uncomfortable," Dash admitted as she met the white mare's eyes. "Remind ya a little a somepony else a few years back though don't it?" a new, accented, voice cut in. Rainbow Dash looked up and saw that Applejack had walked onto the observation deck. "'Shy was never quite... that bad. I guess I can see your point though. We need to get Whisper to open up." "Bit of an understatement, 'Shy had all of us but... Whisper's the only one her age here 'cept for Sunset and that filly is..." Applejack trailed off, leaving the implication unspoken. "Yeah, she is that. Kite should be here in a few months, maybe they'll hit it off?" Vinyl offered. "I'm not sure, he's pretty... intense. I don't know how she'd react to that." Dash explained as she settled back down onto her hooves. "Sounds like somepony else I used to know!" Applejack joked and prodded the pegasus with her hoof, "But you and 'Shy got on just fine. She'll be fine, I'm sure of it." A target exploded in the testing chamber and Vinyl turned around. The Eva's cannon was smoking, down range the target was burning slowly. "Well, maybe she's not the one you need to worry about," the white mare joked. She looked again at the burning target and facehoofed, "...and would whoever decided to put incendiary in the rotary cannon please speak up? You're on waste pump duty for a month." The unicorn stared at the fire for a few more moments before she turned to a pony standing off to the side, "Mirage... make sure there's no more to this than a simple mistake. If somepony planned for an 'accident'..." she trailed off, letting the implication hang. "Understood, Ma'am," the cream colored pony answered and trotted briskly through a side passage. Vinyl stared after the mare for a moment before turning back to the technicians, "And would somepony get that fire put out?" ~~ "She did rather well." Luna commented as the previous week's battle played back on the bright cathode ray tube. The screen froze on the purple behemoth in mid air. "I wouldn't have thought she'd have that kind of fire in her." "You would be surprised what you're capable of when you're pressed," Spike commented offhand as he resumed the playback, "you of all ponies should know that." Luna shot the dragon a glare, "You would do well to leave old wounds closed, commander." Spike smirked and shut off the display, "On occasion... I would remind you why I was the one left in charge, less some ponies might forget." "There may yet come a day when that changes... For now, though," The alicorn started, turning her glare away from the dragon, "we should take action to ensure that future... conflicts are not left to chance. She can't do it alone. Not forever." "We have Sunset and we have the other," the dragon offered in dismissal of Luna's concerns. "You mean my niece's child. I don't approve... though that makes me a hypocrite at this point, doesn't it?" she commented dryly. 'What would you think of me now, sister?' "You know as well as I do why it had to be him. Why it has to be Whisper, why it had to be Sunset. The bearers can no longer command the power needed, not since that day, not the bearers who lived..." he trailed off, a tear formed in the corner of his eye, a rare show of emotion. Luna snorted, "Yes, Sunset. You're a fool if you think I don't know exactly what she is, and why she exists." Spike turned and glared daggers at the alicorn, "And knowing that, do you think I would send her out to fight if there was another choice?!" She met his glare with one of her own, she stepped towards, him, put her hoof on his shoulder. Her gaze softened. "No... No I imagine you wouldn't have," she said softly, "Well, we should prepare. The council will want an update and the next..." she trailed off, searching for a suitable euphemism, "event is due soon." "Well, let's go prostrate ourselves in front of the 'Elders' then," the dragon said with a humorless smirk. ~~ Mirage ducked behind a support beam, her target was perhaps thirty paces ahead in the poorly lit under-level. The target was a male gryphon, a new transfer from HERD-04 in the gryphon highlands, he was not authorized to be in the under-level. He also wasn't authorized to manipulate the ammunition load-outs, but that hadn't stopped him. Mirage ducked out from behind the beam and sprinted silently through the darkness to another beam, a mere ten paces behind the gryphon. "Yes... Yes... I've retrieved the data... Yes I know. Bye," he hissed before closing the vox device in his left claw. He caught movement in the corner of his eye as Mirage struck. He dropped the vox and grabbed her by the forehoof, swung the earth pony into a support beam and let her drop to the ground. "An earth pony? That's what they sent? The Elder council over-estimated you," he spat as he smirked evilly at the mare. "Well, no witnesses, I guess I'll eat well tonight." Mirage grunted and pushed herself back onto her hooves, her eyes flashed and she laughed darkly, "No... I imagine an earth pony wouldn't be much of a match for you. However..." she grinned, her mouth almost impossibly wide. The world flashed green for a moment and in the mare's place stood a black equiform creature, coat hard and shiny, as far removed from a pony's fur as could be, horn sharp and jagged, wings almost insectoid in nature. The gryphon paled; Mirage laughed. She advanced on him, a sickly green glow emanated from her horn, "A changeling might be a little too much for you to handle, don't you think? So... let's have a nice long talk, and you can tell me everything I want to know." Into DarknessNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Six: 'Into Darkness' "Twilight, what are you doing!?" "I'm going to save us." "What have you got for me?" Pinkie asked as she walked briskly down the bright hallway. The building was humming with activity. The sunlight filtered in through the windows along the side of the wall, playing off the pink pony's coat and grey-striped mane. "We've figured out how to power it, finally. Give us six months, eight max, we'll have the prototype online and combat ready." The light yellow unicorn said as she hovered the clipboard in front of her, "but that's not the most exciting part, the advances we've made in power generation will scale down as well, so fixed defenses and local power grid generation can be supplemented inside of a week for phase one." "That's... That's great!" Pinkie almost shouted, "Great work Pumpkin." She stopped in front of her office and hoofed the door switch, "Pound, are you still working on the other thing?" The light brown pegasus nodded his head, "If the power grid upgrades go online within Pumpkin's time-frame we should have the cannon ready to go before the end of the month. Our projections give us... Well, to put it simply, it could overpower Nightmare Moon at the peak of her power... five times over." Pinkie blinked and rolled the information around in her head. 'That means it might actually work... but...' She turned to the pegasus and gave him a severe look, "share this with nopony. Keep only the ponies you trust the most on this project, and keep all of your designs in secured storage." "Yes Ma'am." The twins chorused before continuing on down the hallway. Pinkie made it half way to her desk before the door automatically closed itself behind her. Made it three quarters of the way to her desk before a full body spasm threw her to the floor. She crawled the rest of the way to her desk and pulled open a drawer, took the glass bottle of amber liquid and pulled the cork. She held it in her forehooves and drank it all, the burn as it went down her throat a welcome distraction from the most recent episode of her 'Pinkie Sense.' She knew what this one meant, and she knew she didn't want to be sober for it. She threw the bottle into the corner of the room, it shattered on impact. She pulled herself into her chair and dialed a number she knew well on the vox built into her desk. Three rings and the line picked up. "Another one is coming," she said simply. The line disconnected and Pinkie slumped down into her chair, staring up at the ceiling as the alcohol entered her system, "Soon... Soon they won't have to do it anymore, I'm still trying Twilight... If I'm right... we can do this without hurting them any more." The red crushed velvet carpeting hid the tears well as they fell from her face. ~~ The pile of books grew by one as the young lavender unicorn finished reading and discarded another tome of knowledge. "It's not in there..." she muttered to herself as she dug into the neat stack opposite the pile and dug into the many pages. Her eyes flicked back and forth rapidly as she turned each page, her brain soaked up the knowledge contained as she poured through the tome. "Not this one either..." She tossed the book onto the pile and sat back on her haunches. "Why can't I find anything in the books?" she asked herself. "They've never failed me before..." She let out a sigh as her thoughts turned to the timid orange and red pegasus, the one who'd shown her kindness, the one who'd sparked this new-found interest in her, this drive to understand. She'd always had a yearning for learning, this was different, this wasn't academic, quantifiable, something about her, a familiarity... only not. It ignited unfamiliar feelings, feelings she didn't know how to understand, how to deal with, but a single word rose above all of that. Friendship. And so she poured herself into studying it, learning what it meant, what it was, but no dictionary definition, no clinical analysis could satisfy her curiosity, fulfill her need. She thought about those kind blue eyes looking at her as she gasped in pain on the catwalk. Kindness. She had another word to research, and so she dove back into her pile of books. ~~ The mare found some humor in the fact that she, of all ponies, would have gone down this path. She watched the red-maned pegasus standing out on the balcony of the apartment across the street. She'd been following the adolescent for days, logging her movements, her habits. She turned her head sharply as a noise caught her attention. Her cloak and body suit masked her identity, but she couldn't have anyone knowing she had the suspected pilot under surveillance. She saw a cat prowling on the edge of the roof she was perched on. 'So it was nothing...' She turned her head back towards the orange filly and sighed, "If she is the pilot, I feel sorry for her. She should be out with her friends at that age not... this." Another noise distracted her and she turned again, expecting the cat again. She was met by black hooves rushing towards her. She gave no thought to it, she ducked and rolled away from the edge of the roof. She caught her gaze locked onto the green eyes of a pitch black stallion. He lowered his head to charge. The mare planted her feet and closed her eyes, "I'm sorry." Her magic lashed out, simple TK, despite the relatively damaged nature of equestria's magic, she was still powerful enough for the basics. The stallion looked surprised, and the look stayed on his face as a loud snap echoed across the rooftop and the black pony fell down and lay still. The mare wiped a tear from her eye and looked at the pony she'd ended, her sadness turned to shock as his coat burned away in green fire to reveal the changeling it had been. "This just got complicated." ~~ Whisper jerked her head to the side and looked up, her ears pivoted towards the nearby rooftop. 'What was that?' she thought, she'd heard... something, but she couldn't see what it was. Her ears fell and she turned and walked back into the apartment. "Um, Miss Dash?" She asked as she pressed further into the apartment, "I heard something outside, it sounded like somepony might be in trouble..." She moved deeper into the shared apartment, turned down the hall and advanced on Rainbow's room. "Miss Dash..?" The young mare crept down the hall, she heard a muffled voice from Dash's room. Her face twisted up in frustration, she didn't want to eavesdrop but at the same time... She stuck her ear against the door and listened in. "-ost contact? How? You know what, It doesn't matter. It's been detected? I'll bring her in," she heard Dash say on the other side of the door. She sounded stressed, a change from the way the older mare usually acted around her. "Thanks AJ, just make sure Vinyl has it ready to go." The young mare heard hoofclops in the room approaching the door. She took a step back and chewed on her lip nervously, 'She's going to know... she's going to be mad, she-' Her thoughts were cut short as the door opened and her handler stepped out, "Oh, hey there kid, we've got to head into HERD, they think we might have another attack on the way." Whisper paled and her mind started to race, "Another one? So soon? I don't know if I can even..." she sputtered as she started to backpedal away from the elder pegasus. Dash placed her forehoof on the filly's shoulder and smiled, "Don't worry about a thing kid, you'll do great, trust me." She mentally facehoofed as the younger mare smiled, 'I'm telling her she's going to 'do great' at piloting a war machine. I am a bad pony.' Dash watched as the young pegasus nodded and forced a determined look onto her features, the change, though slightly out of character, looked right on her somehow. "Then, I'll... just have to do my best." Dash smiled and nodded as she inwardly cursed herself, 'She's just like her mom... I am the worst pony.' The elder mare sighed, "Alright then, let's go." Author's Note This was a long time coming wasn't it? I swear, i totally didn't forget about this fic and stop writing it. Vintage MiseryNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Seven: 'Vintage Misery' The draconequus's eyes were glued to the airship's window, they stared in mute horror at the devastation below. "Even in my worst nightmares, I could never have imagined..." he said, trailing off as the ship sped along. "It's the first time you've seen it since it happened, isn't it?" Rarity asked as she turned away from the glass, "We never were sure how we survived, I had always thought it was you but... It wasn't was it?" Discord shook his head, "With all of that chaos going on, I had never been more powerful, and yet... I did try, to protect you, to stop Twilight from finishing that spell," he started to explain, looking away from the ruins below, "I put up a shield, everything I had left, to try to save the five of you. Whatever it is Twilight did to that monster, it popped the shield like a soap bubble; it left me a shell of my former power. I did try to save you, but I'm not the one who did. "If I had to guess... It was Celestia. I was still conscious after the blast, if only just. I saw the princess just... standing over Twilight's tiara, the Element of Magic, and then they both disappeared. I had just enough left to get the five of you that were left out of there before everything collapsed in..." he finished, rubbing his face, "and look at me, getting all sentimental, oh how the mighty have fallen!" "You never told us that before," Rarity said, the shock written across her face, "in all these years, you never mentioned a thing..." "Hope," He answered simply. "I don't understand." "Hope," he said again, "You still had hope, hope that Twilight was still alive somewhere, hope that Celestia hadn't abandoned you..." He laughed bitterly, "But how foolish I was back then to believe any differently from you! Celestia was never without a plan; for every bit I was chaos she was deliberate and methodical, so maybe she wasn't running at all, and maybe she had a plan. That's what I choose to believe right now," he finished with a smile, a fragment of his old personality shined through. "What makes you say that?" The white mare pressed, leaning closer. "I've seen not hide nor hair of that wonderful mare in two decades," he said, his smile growing as he laughed an honest joyous laugh. "Well, go on!" Rarity pressed, growing disturbed by this change in the previously depressed draconequus. "I haven't seen her in twenty years... and right now you are absolutely covered in her magic." ~~ The thunder of massive steps echoed through the deserted city. Tremors reverberated through the ground and traveled up the thick armored legs of Evangelion Unit-01, Whisper's mount. The adolescent's expression was soft, passive, if not content than simply not troubled. "I don't see it," she said softly as her eyes scanned the horizon. "Whisper, it's right on top of you, stay alert!" Dash yelled over the radio link. It was that that moment that the young pegasus had decided to look up in time to watch a shadow block out the sun. Thousands of years of evolution and instinct kicked in and she spun the war machine around and let fly with both hind legs. The unit's hooves struck the armored shell of the monster with a sharp crack; Whisper could feel the impact in her bones. Her face twisted into a snarl as she continued her spin and lined up her sights on the stunned abomination, her hoof pressed into the firing stud, and her rotary cannon roared to life. Dozens of large caliber cannon rounds poured downrange and into Whisper's target, kicking up dust and smoke. As her ammo counter clicked lower and lower, her snarl grew wider, she was only vaguely aware of the voices on the radio. And then her cannon stopped, empty, and she once again heard. "Whisper move now!" Dash ordered. She pushed her controls and willed her mount to dive out of the way, explosive bolts fired and separated the cannon from her back as glowing tendrils slashed through the space she'd just been occupying. She heard the alarms blaring in the entry plug as external power was disconnected. A second attack lashed out and she had no time to react, she took the whip across the face and was knocked through one of the buildings that hadn't retracted, she went slack in the control seat; dazed from the feedback of the blow. "You're off main power, retreat and we'll give it another shot later!" The voice was Vinyl this time, her voice urgent, panicked. Whisper shook her head, tasted the blood in her mouth, and opened her eyes. She'd crashed head first into the top level of a shelter, there were ponies recoiling in fear, trying to escape into deeper rooms of the facility. 'If I run away... no!' Her mind was set, she grit her teeth against the pain and pulled her controls back, pulling herself out of the rubble and back onto her hooves, she turned to face her foe. She felt a sense of comfort washing over her, a sense of... power. She lowered her head and charged, off like a shot as chunks of the roadway yielded to her powerful launch. She felt the wind on her face, felt as if she was becoming the machine. She watched as the distance closed, it would be over soon. She felt the burn as she was run through, the beast was not content to simply be slain, and lashed out again, this time driving its tendrils through the Eva's body. Whisper screamed and her snarl returned, she jumped the final stretch and stabbed the unit's horn through the red core in the center of the monster's chest. The abomination gave a mighty quake as the life was ripped from it, convulsing before falling silent and slumping over the back of its killer, its energy tendrils faded away. As the chaos finally died down, as the power in the Evangelion failed, and the fluid pumps slowed, and stopped, silence fell and Whisper wept. ~~ "So what did you think?" Rarity asked as the airship circled the city on it's final approach, having been cleared after the battle ended. Smoke still rose into the afternoon sky as fires burned, the damage crews not yet having gotten to those parts of the city. Discord frowned, unable to articulate his disappointment. It wasn't that he could fault Whisper's performance, more that he was faulting the descent of ponykind that allowed it to take place at all. "It's worse than anything I could have imagined," he said, "even if we win it will never be like it once was." Rarity nodded slowly, after all she'd seen and done, she could hardly disagree with his assessment. She turned her head back to the window, "Did you feel her again?" He nodded, his lips curled into a wistful smile, "She feels near and far, all at once. She always did play her cards close to her chest; I can't help but wonder if she's hiding from me or if it's something else entirely. But..." "But?" she probed as she looked into his eyes, "something else?" "I can't help but think she had some part in what we just saw. There was too much pain and anger in that fighting, that was the gambit of a pony with nothing left to lose and nothing to live for. I think she had to have had a hand in motivating that," he explained, then frowned. "If that's not the case..." "Then what?" "Then everything any of us has ever stood for, in the best of times, in our most noble hours, meant nothing at all. If we've pinned our hopes on a child that this world has ruined so, than I don't have the hope that we'll ever recover, we may not die in this war, she and the other two could very well win this for us, but..." He hesitated, his anger was surfacing, hate for himself and the situation he couldn't prevent, the ponies he couldn't save. In his worst of times he was never a killer, he'd done bad but nothing like this. "But we'll have died twenty years ago, our bodies having continued on, oblivious to that fact." Rarity finished, guessing at what Discord really meant. She paused, then smiled and put her hoof on the draconequus's shoulder, "I disagree. Twilight so loved this world, so loved her friends, had so much faith in us... I take strength from that, strength from what she did back then. As long as we're still alive, we can make it better, we can fix the wrongs, and rebuild our lives. It's what Twilight believed, and she was always able to make that happen. "And so, we will make that happen, for her. That's what friends do for each other." Author's Note This happened again. OracleNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Eight: 'Oracle' "Your spy failed you. He was caught and disposed of by one of our agents," Spike said with a cold fury in his voice. The monoliths hovered around him in the cold dark chamber. "Do not think that I am incompetent and do not presume to think I am without power. I field two Evangelion units, within the month it shall be a third as well!" The green dragon paced back and forth, slowly, deliberately. He stopped at each monolith and looked up towards it, his face firm. "Each of you were brought into this because of your value to the project, and I would urge all of you not to forget the value I bring to this project! I will suffer not cowards or traitors--do not forget that without me you would all still be in your small, insignificant countries, fighting over the scraps of a dying world!" "Do not lecture us on loyalty! You are not without sin, as we know quite well! Our agent was... acting perhaps a bit out of his purview; still, his objective was to ensure your honesty with us and we have found that his report was... Acceptable," the monolith representing the Griffon Kingdom--number two--replied, tone neutral. "We have the right to inspect our investments. We have a lot riding on this project, I'm sure you understand," The Zebrican monolith, number six added. "We can do so through official channels, not through backroom deals and espionage. What would the civilian governments think if they knew what was really going on? Do you trust a spy so much to trust he won't sell his information to the highest bidder? This is risky behavior that jeopardizes the scenario," a masked voice answered, one of the few monoliths that had refused to identify even a geographical region. Monolith four. "Agreed. This committee is not above the mutual agreement of its members. This kind of behavior is unacceptable," another monolith answered, this one number three. Spike turned and walked back to his desk at the far end of the chamber, "I care not for your platitudes, I ask only your loyalty. If not for our mutual goal, then simply because I still hold Oracle. The entire project hinges on what lies beneath New Canterlot, as I'm certain you are all aware." He paused for a moment as he sat at his desk--the terminal on it flashed several times before he was satisfied. "I trust the arrangements for the transfer of the production model and the pilot will not be affected by this... incident?" he finally asked. "Not as much as your own insubordination problem would jeopardize it," Number Two snipped. "That is an internal matter. This meeting is adjourned," Spike snapped as he disconnected the terminal. He stared at the oak desk as he tapped his claws rhythmically along the surface. 'So, even with that one dead, they still knew about Whisper's incident.' He leaned back in his faux-leather chair and allowed himself a sigh. It was just as well. She was learning the penalty for her actions, and any future insubordination would be dealt with quickly to dissuade future misbehavior. Then again, no reason to let a mole burrow. He reached for his desk phone, a number already in mind. He had to wait only two rings before the telltale click of a phone being answered on the other end, "Mirage, there's another one. You know what to do." ~~ Whisper kicked at a her plate, knocking the tin tableware into the wall on the opposite side of her cell. She allowed herself a rare moment of anger. 'I save the city and they throw me in a cell? To heck with 'orders', I was doing what they put me out there to do!' she seethed. She kicked the plate again, pinging it off another wall as she leaned back on the bench. "Thanks for saving us, here, have some holding cell," she muttered sarcastically under her breath. At least there was light, she reasoned. They could have stuck her in a dark pit, not that there was any justice in it either way. No, justice would be if she made them fend for themselves, made them climb into the megaton war machines and fight for their lives. Make them kill those giant monsters while riding around in a coffin that smells like blood. Her imagination ran wild with creative ways to get back at them for putting her into this position in the first place, but each one brought her less and less comfort. Vengeance just wasn't in her nature, as much as she would have liked it to be so, as much as it would make it easier. Just turn off her feelings and hate...but she couldn't. That wasn't who she was, wasn't who her mother and father raised her to be. She had to be there, she had to bear that pain so that others wouldn't have to. She could fight, she could protect ponies who couldn't protect themselves. Her thoughts drifted to Sunset, that injured pony she'd protected on that first day, the one she'd been trying to make friends with, even as strange as she was. Sunset wouldn't be alive if she hadn't been there to fight instead. She closed her eyes and leaned back. Maybe some sleep would do her good, and at the very least it would pass the time. She started to drift off when she heard yelling outside of her cell. "I told you, I don't care if Celestia herself gave the order, you either open this door or I'm going to put your head through it," the muffled voice said angrily--it sounded feminine. Whisper perked up a little and turned towards the plate-steel door. "Ma'am, I told you--" the guard said, his voice cutting off with a pained groan before the young pegasus heard the key turn in the lock. The bright lights from the corridor cut into the dimmer confines of her cell around the edge of the door, her eyes took a moment to adjust to the change, temporarily blinding her to the figure on the other side. "C'mon Kid, we're getting you out of here. They can take it up with me if they don't like it," the mare in the doorway said. Whisper blinked her eyes a few times as her eyes cleared. "Rainbow Dash?" She asked. She should have known, there wasn't another pony who had the courage to do that, and it certainly wasn't unappreciated. "The very same," The cocky mare replied. She flicked her head down the hall, "C'mon, my car's waiting. Got a warm meal and a shower waiting for ya." Whisper nodded hesitantly and walked towards the door, shielding her eyes with her wing as the bright fluorescent lighting hit her in full force. Her eyes wandered to the side, she saw the cell guard nursing a black eye and glaring at the pair of them. She turned her head to Dash and raised an eyebrow as she slightly inclined her head towards the guard. A slight blush crossed the older mare's face but she said nothing and turned down the hall, following the navigation arrows on the wall that indicated 'parking'. They walked in a pleasant silence, Whisper taking stride immediately alongside Rainbow Dash as the detention area was left behind. It was a few minutes into the leisurely walk that Dash finally broke the silence, she turned her head towards the younger pegasus, "I probably won't be able to do that again, so I'd really appreciate it in the future if you could... well, try harder to listen when they tell you to do something when you're in Eva. I know you're young and you get impulses, always think you're right... well I was like that anyway..." Dash took a breath and held it for a second before she continued, "What I'm saying is, I let you get into all this, and I will try to look out for you, but you've gotta help me help you, you know?" Whisper nodded, "I just... thought I could do it. And I did do it..." Dash turned and gave her a stern look, she looked like she was about to say something but then held back and cracked a smile, "That you did. Remind me never to make you that mad at me." Dash draped her wing over the younger pegasus, the daughter of her best friend, and let herself enjoy the moment. 'We're putting these kids through something they shouldn't have ever had to do... The last thing I'm gonna do is let anyone punish them for actually being kids.' Whisper followed along, her thoughts drifted to the other pilot she'd met, the one she'd been thinking about in the cell. The one she was going to fight alongside soon, the one she'd protected on that first day. She turned to Dash, "So... could tell me about Sunset?" ~~ The injured guard dropped all pretense of injury after the two pegasi had left earshot. The earth pony was enveloped in a green glow for a moment, as it shifted back into the changeling it truly was. Mirage shook her head--she never did like form-shifting into males. Too many bad memories. It was fortunate that Rainbow Dash had showed up when she did, as it gave Mirage the freedom she needed to abandon her post and follow up on an important lead: she knew who the spy was... or at least what she looked like. To the spy's credit, they were a talented mage; one would have to be to pull off even a moderate-level spell in this day and age, and the cloaking spell was certainly on the higher end of what even the Princess could pull off. The changeling stalked down the side-hallway, one leading towards the HVAC maintenance tunnels. In a facility the size of HERD-HQ the environmental control systems were massive, spanning several acres if added all together. It was an ideal place to shake a tail, but it was also an ideal place to covertly capture an enemy agent, were they to try hiding there. For all the talent the spy had shown in her magic, she still wasn't perfect. The tuft of cornflower blue mane that had shown through the veil had been valuable information--far more than she'd had when she started. Putting the pilot in confinement had borne fruit after all. Controlling the location of the focus of the spying had drawn the spy in. She hoofed open the access hatch, which showed signs of recent use. That was a good thing, as her instincts had been right, and the spy had fled into the tunnels. She owed them: for making her department look bad, for making her look bad. For her dead agent. Something bothered her, something that was familiar but eluded her. A scent on the wind, something about the color of that mane. She should have known what it was, but it was a memory long past, buried deep and forgotten with the rest of her kind. She was picking up some emotions, but they felt masked, hidden. 'They would be, she's killed one of us... so she'd have to know she's up against changelings...' the mare thought as she stalked deeper. Even if the spy was shielding her emotions, they were still there, still enough to get a direction. She paused as a sound reached her ears, soft, almost like a voice. She couldn't make out the words but they came from a different direction than the source of the feelings she was sensing. This unicorn was talented after all, projecting false emotions. She'd prepared for this. "--transmitted my report. I'm coming up for air now, I've done all I can. I'm being tailed." The voice said as it came closer. Mirage jumped out from her cover and into the hallway, turning to face the voice. She caught sight of a blue unicorn with the same mane she'd seen before wearing an expression of... smugness? A small black object flew at her and she instinctively caught it in her telekinetic grip, she recognized it as a vox device. The unicorn smirked, "Well, guess you found me after all huh?" A flash of magic stunned Mirage for a moment and she watched the pony stab a syringe into her own flank, watched the pale pink contents leave the syringe as the plunge depressed. She saw the unicorn's eyes turn white for an instant before a loud whip-crack pierced the relative calm of the tunnels. And then, the unicorn was gone. Mirage turned, dropped the vox device, and ran. She wasn't used to feeling fear, but for the moment that was all she could feel. Teleportation was high level magic, something that had been theoretically impossible for twenty years. Anything that had that kind of power was too much for her to handle. Spike needed to know of this. At least, that's how she justified her panicked exit.
As allies, we find ourselves, at the end of the worldNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter One: 'As allies, we find ourselves, at the end of the world' "When did you first realize that it was going to be different from all of the other times, that you were in trouble you might not get out of?" "How did I know we were in trouble? Discord wasn't laughing anymore." Lightning and thunder flashed and crackled through the sky, arcing between unnatural black clouds and the Giant of Light. The Giant of Light, Adam: an otherworldly being, taller than a full grown dragon, bipedal but with proportions unknown to ponykind. The beast, if it could be called such, as it showed intelligence, was enraged, casting beams of energy from its form, cross shaped explosions burst forth from the ground wherever they struck. Six ponies stood at the behemoth's feet, looking up at it in awe and fear, their bodies adorned with jeweled necklaces, with the exception of the one, a purple unicorn who wore a jeweled tiara. Beneath the fear and the shock was a grim determination; they would not leave without victory. There was too much at stake to fail, the entire world could end if this creature was allowed to run unchecked. The noise, the...scream. Haunting, alien, it seemed to permeate the very souls of those who witnessed it, penetrate into the deepest layers of the mind, it felt wrong, angry. Agony. The giant's arm flew up and to the side, a blast issued forth from the palm of its appendage; the beam of coherent energy lanced into a distortion in the air and dissipated in another cross shaped explosion. "Can they really do it?" the draconequus asked, standing back from the brewing calamity, he was pouring everything he had into holding back the tide of destruction, keeping whatever was building from spreading to the rest of Equestria, the irony not lost on him. "We must have hope, Discord. If you had told me a month ago that I would be standing beside you as an ally, I would have thought you mad. If anypony can do this, they can." The white alicorn replied, her own face hopeful as she watched the rainbow-hued energy beam of the Elements of Harmony streak towards the barely contained giant. "I wouldn't need hope if I'd recognized this for what it was, anything that would have woken me up..." Discord tailed off, the rest not needing said, she would know what he meant. He watched with rising panic as the rainbow-energy enveloped the giant, it was... wrong. "It's not working..." Discord watched in morbid fascination as the energy cone broke up, rebounded back into the six ponies that had created it. The impact knocked them apart like bowling pins: purple, cyan, white, orange, pink, yellow, all scattered by the blast. Celestia took a few steps towards her ponies, her face twisting from her hopeful smile into rage, "If that doesn't work... I'll have to resort to-" "No." Discord said, as he grabbed onto her with his right hand, "You can't. I'm changing the laws of physics around him to interfere with what he's doing and it's not even slowing him down. You don't stand a chance against that kind of power... You have to trust the ponies to figure it out... and it looks like they are." Twilight was on her hooves again, the other five close behind, she was advancing, casting a spell into the element of magic, adding her own energy to this next attack, this last chance to stop the rampaging giant. Celestia gasped as she read the runes hovering around her star pupil. "Discord, we have to stop her, she's putting too much of herself into that spell, it will kill her if she casts it." It wasn't a complex spell, with that much power behind it there couldn't be much control. Twilight poured her essence into a wall of force that would blast its way through anything that tried to stop it, unmake it from existence. As she worked she was dimly aware of Celestia mouthing something, but it was far away, unimportant in the face of the task before her. Gathering the last fragments of her power, every last scrap of energy she could summon forth, she formed it into a torrent of raw magic and loosed it into the framework of the spell. There was a blinding light-- Celestia gritted her teeth as she frantically worked a counterspell, drawing on millenia of knowledge to safely disassemble the complex layers of runes constructed before her. Every second she could feel the surge of power building, could see Twilight weakening as she poured her very life into the spell. In a tremendous surge of will, she sent forth a dozen streams of magic, searching for Twilight's essence amongst the roiling waves of raw magical energy. There was a blinding light-- Discord watched the neat, precise march of runes, painful in their orderliness, studying the chaos that invaded them, the tiny infinitesimal flaws which would cause them to catastrophically crack and fail under the raw power of the spell within them. And then he reached out and did something so foreign, so utterly alien to his nature that he barely comprehended the concept of it. Smoothing the fabric of reality, he pulled the chaos away from the most dangerous failures, channeled it away harmlessly. Beneath his feet, tiles cracked and ruptured under the onslaught of raw chaos. There was a blinding light-- ~~ Twenty years later... "All lines are currently busy, please hang up and try again later. All lines are curre-" The orange pegasus pressed her hoof onto the phone switch and disconnected the call. She'd been sent to New Canterlot by her mother and yet hadn't been told why. 'It's important... That's what matters.' she thought to herself as she stood at the edge of the empty city. Shops and vending stalls littered the roadsides, and not a pony in sight. It was as if everypony had simply walked away from what they were doing, meals were still on tables, coins still on counter-tops. Her only companion was the cadence in the distance. Tump-Tump. Tump-Thump. 'Wait, what?' she thought in confusion, 'That wasn't there bef-' "Oh my." she finished aloud. Standing over a hill just outside of town, just at the end of the road she was standing on, was a monster the likes of which she had never imagined. Four hundred hooves tall, if not more, almost avian, almost draconic. It stood tall on two legs, with two spindly arms covered in boney plates coming from shoulders set far too broadly. The entire creature looked wrong, disproportionate and yet... terrifying. It's eyeless face covered in a mask of bone, a sharp beak adorned it, less the beak of a bird and more like a needle... And it was staring directly at her.
Rise, young foal, to the heavens, and become legendNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Two: 'Rise, young foal, to the heavens, and become legend.' "I could have stopped it, killed it before it started... but where's the fun in that?" The spindly arm came up, those eyeless sockets locked onto her... Dozens of smoke trails appeared in an instant before explosions ripped across the surface of the monster's sickly flesh. The creature stumbled backwards under the onslaught. The roar of engines filled the air and the pegasus turned her head skyward. Pie Industries Aerofighters, she'd seen them in a magazine but never in real life, never thought she would have the chance to. Yet, there they were, shooting rockets at this monster, fighting it off, or trying to. A dull thrumming soon revealed itself overhead, some kind of military airship, she watched in stunned fascination as it opened fire on the behemoth. The logo emblazoned on the pure white hull was one she was unfamiliar with. 'HERD?' she thought to herself as it fired a second volley. The monster let out a scream that seemed to penetrate into the deepest layers of the orange pony's mind as it's spindly arm came up again and a blast of energy fired from the palm of its hand. The sickly green energy lanced through the airship and exploded in the distance. The pegasus was frozen in place as the airship began to lazily descend towards her, trailing fire and smoke as vital lift gas vented from the gaping hole in the envelope. The cannons kept firing even as it started to angle down towards her, still under power. A new sound pierced her awareness, a loud raspy whine, rapidly approaching. She finally tore her gaze away from the falling airship, this new sound enough to break her trance. She locked eyes with a cyan pegasus atop a... 'What is that thing called?' she thought, the two wheeled machine stood, idling before her. "Sorry I'm late, kid, hop on." The mare said to her, her voice betraying an intensity, an... almost smug quality, though her bearing conveyed that she just might be able to back it up. The orange pegasus shook the thoughts out of her head and awkwardly climbed onto the contraption behind the mare driving it. "Just, put your forelegs around me and hold on." The cyan pegasus said from under he helmet a second before she twisted the throttle and the machine took off, leaving behind a thin black trail of rubber as the engine let out its raspy whine. She had a hard time holding onto the older mare as the acceleration and wind kept trying to push her off the back of the... 'Motorcycle, that's what it's called.' she thought with some satisfaction. The orange pony chanced a look behind her and watched as the airship finally crashed into the ground, ponies of all color and size poured out of the crushed gondola as they abandoned the destroyed craft even as the engines burned. She let out a breath she hadn't been holding, she'd made it, and so had they. "Scoots, give me a direct route to the cages, have the doctor meet us there. I've got the package, condition green. Storm is brewing." The driver of the motorcycle yelled from under her helmet as the bike surged forward in another burst of acceleration. "Whisper, right?" She yelled over her shoulder at the younger pony. "Y-yes... Um... yes ma'am" she mumbled into the other pony's back, her eyes hidden under her red mane. "Just like your mom then..." The rider muttered, "Name's Rainbow Dash, I'm sure your mother told you all about me and how awesome I am. She wasn't wrong!" She yelled back as the leaned the bike almost onto its side as she turned a corner and blasted through a wooden crossing gate. ~~ Elsewhere, deep under the streets in an armored bunker, a figure picked up a phone. "She's on her way then? Good. Tell Vinyl to get Unit One ready for activation. Have Sunset on standby in case the spare proves useless." The cradle clacked as the receiver settled into it. "Was it really necessary to be that harsh?" "Let it be. Familiarity brings loss, I've lost enough already. Don't you have preparations to be making?" A long sigh, and an even longer pause. "When this is all over, if we still have any time left..." ~~ "Alright, we're on it!" the white unicorn yelled before shutting off the intercom. She turned to face her assembled staff, "Alright, it's show time everypony, we're launching Unit One in five minutes, drain all coolant tanks, bring the entry plug online, and start unbolting the restraints. This is it!" she yelled out. Behind the mare, dozens upon dozens of bolts unscrewed into the room from the holding cage beyond, bright pink coolant flowed through troughs under the steel grid flooring. The walls creaked and groaned as thousands of tons of pressure were slowly released. Monitors lit up, the soft glow reflecting off her tinted glasses as telemetry and statistics filled up the displays in neatly ordered lists. She tapped a forehoof on her head in concentration as she studied a schematic display of Unit One. "Lookin good... Now to go see if Sunset can be ready as a backup..." She muttered to herself as she pushed herself away from her desk. She let out a sigh as she stood up from her chair and turned to the door, "Okay Sunset, let's see how creepy you can be today..." ~~ "Are we... lost?" Whisper asked softly as she followed Rainbow Dash down what must have been the fiftieth hallway since they had arrived. Dash turned around, her slightly faded mane trailed behind her as she rotated in place. "What? No, of course we're not lost... This is just the scenic route" she said hastily as her eyes scanned the placards on the walls, trying to find out where she-- "Lost again huh?" a new voice asked. "Applejack! I'm was just--" Dash started. "Gettin lost again? C'mon, it's this way." Applejack started as she lead the other two in the correct direction. She looked over at the younger pony, the one who was the same color as herself, if with a different mane, "Whisper? I ain't seen you in ages, didn't know you were the one they sent for..." Dash eyed the young pony and then looked back to her old friend, 'There's a definite similarity here...' "Hey AJ, if you've met her before does that mean that--" "Aunt Applejack, yes. No, I didn't think it would ever happen either. Yes, there's a reason I didn't tell you. Yes, this conversation is that reason." Applejack rapid-fired, interrupting Dash's question and cutting off future conversation on the topic in one fell swoop. "Aunt?" Whisper asked hesitantly, "I don't really remember you..." She continued as she followed along, continuing to hide her face behind her mane. 'She looks kind of like the pictures though...' she thought in reflection. "Oh... You weren't but a year old back then, still I'd recognize ya anywhere." Applejack explained as she slapped her hoof on a door release, "Didn't expect the new recruit to be you though..." she trailed off. "It can't be us." Dash interjected, "Not now." "Um... What am I here for, exactly?" Whisper asked, breaking into the exchange between the two older mares as they crossed the threshold into the darkened room beyond. "You're here to pilot Evangelion. You're here to protect Equestria from the greatest threat it's ever known. You are here to serve" came her answer, the voice masculine, older, but not much. She turned her head up, she recognized the dragon. He was older than the picture, had grown more, but those colors, that he was a dragon, there was only one that he could be. "S-spike?" she asked hesitantly, peeking out from under her mane with one eye. "Correct." He said tersely. With a snap of his claw the lights came up and the room was bathed in illumination. Whisper looked around the room as she blinked away her sudden flash blindness, and then she saw it. The massive purple armored face, staring at her, staring into her soul. She shivered as she felt a chill rush through her. "I... I can't..." she sputtered in fear. 'Pilot this? I've never seen anything like it before in my life, and they expect me to...' "Disappointing." He spat as he turned and pressed a claw to the intercom, "Send in Sunset, she'll have to do it again. This pilot is useless." Whisper fell to her knees, her eyes locked onto the floor as she heard his words. 'So... they didn't need me anyway... I'm... I'm just useless...' she thought to herself as the tears pooled at her hooves. She could hear the other ponies on the catwalk moving around, but she couldn't hear what they were saying, her own quiet whimpering drowning them out. A new noise pierced her consciousness, caster wheels rolling on metal grating. She looked up, blinked away her tears, and saw a hospital bed rolling out, being pushed by nurse-ponies. 'They can't be...' she thought incredulously. An explosion shook the catwalk, the bed tipped, the purple pony laying on it started to fall... Whisper pumped her wings and kicked off of the catwalk. Crossing the distance in an instant, she caught the falling pony. She didn't look any older than herself, a lavender colored unicorn, heavily bandaged. And bleeding, she noticed, as she stood there, holding the other pony in her forelegs. 'This is Sunset? This is the... she can't do this... she'll...' she thought with rising anger. The pony in her arms was bleeding, bandaged, whimpering in pain. The unicorn's un-bandaged eye opened and looked up at her, an almost pleading sadness radiated from her face. Whisper took a deep breath and turned her head to look up at Spike, her eyes locked with his, her face twisted in anger and determination, "Spike! I'll do it, I'll pilot this thing... Just don't make her do it!" ~~ "Listen, kid, that was really brave of you, even if nopony else ever tells you this, you did a really good thing." Dash said quietly into the radio. Whisper looked at the video screen on the wall of the plug. She was sitting in the control seat of the purple mecha, two clips in her mane, her hooves on the control plates. She nodded to the video feed. "I just... couldn't let her do this... being so hurt." she answered softly. "Alright, Whisper is it? I'm Vinyl Scratch, I'm going to be running you through a few start-up checks while we fill the plug. I need you to just sit there and relax as best you can alright?" A new, white unicorn asked. Whisper almost laughed, the electric blue mane and tinted glasses didn't exactly scream professionalism, and the tone of voice betrayed somepony who'd be more at home partying than working on giant robots. "Okay, looks like you've got a good neural link... we're going to fill the plug with LCL now, just breathe it in, you won't drown. I promise." Vinyl announced as a sticky orange liquid began to pour into the plug from all sides, rapidly filling it up to her neck... and then over her head completely. Whisper held her breathe despite the assurances the unicorn had given her. She'd never liked swimming, and now they wanted her to breathe in this... stuff? She struggled for a few more seconds before finally giving in to her lungs demand to breathe. 'It tastes like blood...' was her first stunned thought as she choked the fluid into her lungs. She expected to drown but the burning never came, in fact, it was the exact opposite, her lungs felt perfectly fine. Her stomach was twisting itself in knots, however. "I feel sick." "That'll pass. You're looking good Whisper, sync is... seventy eight percent. We can do this!" Vinyl yelled as she turned away from the camera. "Alright. This is it. Whisper, we'll get through this together, I promise. Eva launch!" Dash yelled and in an instant Whisper felt as though her head was going to get pushed through her torso as the acceleration slammed her down into the seat. Moments later, after what felt like an eternity, the Eva stopped on its launch rails, Whisper looked through the view screens surrounding her and took in the sight of the streets of New Canterlot. The same streets she'd been on not even hours ago. She felt the weight hit her shoulders as the locking clamps released, she felt... like she was wearing armor. "Okay, Eva operates on your thoughts, you pilot with your mind. I want you to think about walking, just concentrate on walking right now okay?" Vinyl said through the radio, audio only. Whisper nodded her head and then concentrated. The Eva took a single step foward out of the launch elevator. 'Just one hoof in front of the other...' she thought as she pushed the Eva forward. The monster was standing in front of her, eying her curiously. She glanced at it and her concentration slipped. The Eva's front hoof caught on a street light and she tripped. Whisper held onto the controls tightly as the ground rushed up to meet her face. She hit, her own face hurt with the impact, she felt like she'd been knocked senseless as the ground started to shake. She looked up to see the monster standing over her, saw its hand coming down, grabbing onto the Eva's face. She heard dash and Vinyl screaming over the radio, heard the alarm buzzers filling the cockpit. She was frozen in terror as the monster's palm lit up. Crack. A spike shot out of the monster's palm and slammed into the face armor of the Eva. Crack, a second blow, the display was showing the cracks in the armor, she felt a pounding in her head. Crack, the spike shot through the armor and went completely through Eva's head. Whisper screamed in pain, the monster kicked the Eva backwards into a building. Whisper's head slammed into the back of her seat and she blacked out. Red fluid started to pour from the wound in the mecha's head. ~~ "Pulses are flowing backwards, Eva is rejecting the connection!" Yelled a young white unicorn. "Massive damage to the cranial nerve cluster, we cannot maintain activation! Unit will be offline in eight seconds!" Yelled a yellow earth pony. "Oh no... Shut down the A-10 connections, bring life support up to maximum. Applebloom, send the ejection signal and recover the pilot!" Vinyl yelled, as she stepped forward to an unoccupied console, her hooves dancing across the controls as she tried to do something, anything to recover the situation. "Negative, it's rejecting the signal!" Applebloom yelled as she frantically tried to over-ride the built in safeties. "What have we done..." Dash said under her breath as her eyes remained locked on the video feed, the disabled Eva still rested against the building. "W-wait! I've got something!" The young white unicorn yelled, her eyes wide with shock. "Sweetie Belle? what is it?" Vinyl yelled to her over the blaring of alarms. "Eva is... it's reactivating!"
Angel with(out) a sense of mercyNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Three: 'Angel with(out) a sense of mercy.' "She's gone, Applejack. She's not coming back, I can't be happy anymore... but I can still help." The ground rumbled beneath the pounding of a behemoth's hooves, buildings shook on their foundations, the night was pierced by a bestial roar of fury. Eva was awakened. The purple armored construct charged towards the very creature that had just run it though, its remaining eye shone bright red like a beacon in the night. The Evangelion launched itself off of the ground, folded backwards onto itself in an unsettling caricature of an acrobat, joints moved and twisted in ways never intended, and landed hooves first on the avian monster. The pavement split under the force of the impact, the monster was driven backwards and down, into the broken street. The Evangelion let forth a cry of pure enraged agony that pierced to the bone. The monster reached its arms up to defend itself as the mechapony pounded at it with its forehooves, the metal shod extremities pistoned into the red orb in the center of the avian horror's chest, cracks formed as the creature screamed. Evangelion's primal rage would not be denied, no quarter given, the rain of hoofstrikes continued without remorse. The skull-masked horror seemed to sense there would be no reprieve, no chance of victory, even when the initial skirmish had ended so favorably. It made the only decision it could, given the circumstances, the tables had turned, the battle could not be won. But, that did not mean it had to be lost; as the cracks spread through the creatures core, the leathery skin pulled in all at once, and the creatures form shifted, it wrapped around and encased the head and upper torso of the Evangelion, one last final scream into the night, one last refusal to submit to a greater strength: the creature detonated. The flash turned the night into day, blinded the cameras feeding the HERD control room. The shockwave followed, trees were ripped from the ground, cars, motorcycles, and buses were tossed about like leaves in a storm, windows were shattered, houses were ripped from their foundations. Slowly, one by one, the cameras came back up, the control room was silent. The high resolution displays cleared, and slowly the cameras went into focus, the picture cleared. Unit-01, the purple Evangelion, piloted by a meek young mare named Whisper, was standing passively in the center of the destruction, gazing towards the bridge crew as if it was actually staring at them, and not just a trick of the camera angle. "What... have we created?" Vinyl whispered softly to herself as she stared slack-jawed at the fruits of her labor, her engine of destruction. "Life signs... are positive, the pilot is alive." Sweetie Belle announced as her monitors lit back up with telemetry from the unit. "A-10 connections offline... plug monitors eight through nineteen are down... She's unconscious" the unicorn finished finally. "Alright, looks like we live to see tomorrow. All teams, work on recovering the pilot, keep me updated." Rainbow Dash ordered before turning away from the massive overhead displays, away from the technicians logging data and writing up damage reports. Away from the travesty she'd been forced to be a part of. "But that's the price of survival isn't it, our souls" she muttered under her breath as she walked into the lift. She leaned against the wall when the doors closed, her eyes closed in thought as the stress of the day caught up with her. "Damn it Twi... why did you have to leave..." ~~ Whisper's eyes opened with a sharp intake of breath, the world slowly drifted into focus. She was mentally and physically exhausted and without a reason easily within her grasp. Her eyes drifted into focus on the off-white ceiling tiles. "Unfamiliar ceiling, again..." she said softly as she remembered waking up each morning in a bed not her own, a room in a building not her home, as she made her journey to New Canterlot. Her body felt sore, but nothing she couldn't deal with, nothing she should have been in a hospital for, and yet that's where she found herself. She sighed and sat up in the bed and pushed the sheets down off of her. The room was small, efficient, modern. 'I wasn't really expecting any of this...' she thought with a quiet humorless laugh. Leaving her home, her parents, being expected to fight a war. She was just a filly, if only just; that time in a mare's life when she's between childhood and adulthood, a time for making friends, growing as a pony... "But here I am." she said softly, her eyes staring down at her forehooves. Memories of the battle swam through her mind, foggy, fuzzy, but there. 'Was all of that by my hooves?' she thought as she rolled her hoof back and forth on her fetlock. She heard the door latch click open and turned her head hurriedly to the side, the pegasus from before was standing there, smile on her face that seemed hollow, her lying lips betrayed by eyes of sadness. "I remember last time I was in a hospital. Years ago, crashed while flying, broke a wing. One of my best friends gave me a new appreciation for the written word that week." She said as her face shifted, the smile less dishonest as she remembered. "Mom told me that story... I think." Whisper said, her unease slipping as she breathed in the filtered hospital air, "It... seemed like she was happier then." "I think we all were. Let's get you out of bed huh?" the technicolor pegasus said, changing the subject as she stepped closer, "I've got a car waiting, I want to show you something important." ~~ The car tires crunched the gravel as Rainbow Dash turned the car off the mountain road onto the berm. Beyond was the guardrail and the cliff, after which was New Canterlot in all her splendor. Late afternoon sun reflected off of glass and steel and stone. "I wanted to show you this. I could stand here and give you some speech or something, but... I think just seeing it will mean a lot more to you." Dash explained as she opened the gull-wing door of the blue car. The gentle wind rustled her hair as she climbed out, and for a moment she let herself remember better days. The younger pegasus climbed out of the other side of the car after managing to work the door latch, her own unfamiliarity with the machines slowing her egress. She trotted over to the cyan mare and stood next to her, both overlooking the city bathed in the warm glow of sunset. "I wanted to show you what you're fighting for" Dash said simply and gestured her forehoof towards the city, "because you were brave enough to make that first step, it's still standing, and all the ponies in it can keep going." "I... I'm not brave... I was scared, so scared... but I couldn't let that other pony go, she was hurt... so I had to." Whisper deflected the praise, feeling undeserving of it. 'Who am I to be called brave... just a scared little-' Dash chuckled lightly under her breath, for once her mirth wasn't a lie, "Courage isn't being without fear, it's pushing forward for something that matters in spite of your fear. I think you are very brave, Whisper. Just like somepony else I used to know." Whisper turned her head over and up to look at Dash, her questioning eyes open wide, "Who?" Dash turned and smiled a genuine smile and put a hoof on the smaller orange pegasus's shoulder, "I think you might have met her; butter yellow coat, pink mane, my age, goes by the name Fluttershy." Whisper blinked and then blushed, turning her head down "I.. I think I might know who you're talking about," she said as she giggled quietly despite herself. 'So she thinks I'm like mom...' Dash rubbed her hoof in the adolescent's mane and turned back to the car, still grinning as she thought happily on better times, "Come on then, let's get you home." "Home?" "My place."
You will (never) be forgottenNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Four: 'You will (never) be forgotten' "Fine, then do it for revenge." "Why did you come here? If you've come for revenge I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint. I may not be what I once was, but I've still got one good fight left in me," he called out into the darkness as the door to his sanctuary clicked open. The cold mountain air stung even through his thick gray fur, his eyes remained closed. 'If this is to be it...' "Some of us do remember what you tried to do all those years ago, and fewer still remember what you did after. I'm proud to count myself among the latter," the refined voice spoke into the dull stale air of the thatch hut. His eyes slid open in surprise and he let out a low chuckle as he turned to face the mare in his doorway. "Rarity, it's been years, I'm afraid they were not as kind to me as they were to you," he said with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, "I don't know what you expect from me though, I'm no more powerful than a Unicorn anymore, if that." "We failed, on the plateau. New Canterlot was attacked last night. It's another one," she explained, "You helped us once before, in spite of everything... please help us again." "I did that as a favor to Celestia..." he started before sighing, "No, that was just my excuse; I have still my pride you know. I did it because I had to, anything that could have woken me up so casually, it had to be dangerous. I should have killed it when I had the chance..." he trailed off, lost in the memory. "Discord?" Rarity said softly as she placed a hoof on his shoulder, her snow white fur contrasted sharply with the mottled gray of the draconequus. He snapped out of his trance. "Yes, I'll help. I still owe her that much." ~~ "Ma'am?" "That will be all. Thanks," she said simply, waving the assistant off with a flick of her hoof. She flipped through the papers on her desk. Damage reports, combat suitability reports. Her eyes stuck to one folder in particular: Aerofighter/Airship Mixed Unit After Action Report ...[REDACTED] was unable to be damaged or even significantly delayed by Aerofighter intervention, Airship cannons were only marginally more effective. The only positive thing to report is that the crash survival systems appear to have worked better than expected... Pink hooves flipped through the pages, eyes scanned back and forth as the words poured into the mare's mind. A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. The flight-crews had survived, as always, her primary concern in the design of her creations. ...in conclusion, it is the primary determination of this council that all future engagements with [REDACTED] be commanded and executed by the [REDACTED] organization, future involvement with Pie Industries will be at their sole discretion. The mare frowned as a tremor crept up her foreleg, she took a sip from the flask on her desk and sighed, 'Of course, that would still work even when every thing else is broken...' She closed the file and leaned back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling. "I tried Twilight. I tried to find a way around it... but I couldn't. Twenty years with this twitching leg, Pinkie Sense telling me that something was coming." The pink pony sighed again and took another swig from the flask, "...and this is the only thing that makes it stop. It falls to those foals now... but..." she leaned forward and cleared off a patch of desk and flipped open her notebook, "That doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying." A pink hoof slapped down on the intercom switch, the soft buzz of static came from the speaker box, "Trix, send the twins up to my office, tell them I have a project for you guys." "Yes Ma'am," the mare's tinny voice replied. The intercom clicked off, the call disconnected. The mare suppressed a giggle as designs flowed from the tip of her pen onto the paper in front of her, "If at first you don't succeed... try, try again!" ~~ "I haven't been here in years, and it hasn't changed since the day she left," Spike said as he surveyed the dusty old library, books sat on sagging shelves, dust and cobwebs covered the spines, the old floor creaked under each step. "After what happened that day, I never came back, never found the courage to. When they abandoned ponyville it seemed like a waste to even try." "But we're here now," Luna answered as she picked up an old spell book, the soft blue glow of magic enveloped it as she flipped through the pages nonchalantly. "I guess I was feeling nostalgic," he admitted as he picked up an old 'Daring Do' novel and brushed the dust off the cover, "I wonder what she'd think of us now, if she'd approve of what we've done to survive, what we sacrificed." "I think we both know the answer to that," Luna added as she set the book back down, disturbing a pile of dirt and creating a small puff of dust. "If she was still here, I wonder if she would have changed the way we did..." He laughed bitterly, "Or if she'd still condemn me for the worst things that I've done." "Or those we're still doing, expecting Whisper to fight for us..." "There's no-one else who can, not right now. Fluttershy knew this when she sent her to us." He explained as he walked towards the still open front door. "I still feel guilty." "That's why you abdicated control to me, Luna. I can do the things that you can't or won't, I can go far enough to do the things that need to be done, the things that would give you nightmares, because I have to," he paused at the doorway, turned his head back to the midnight blue mare, "because I'll tear down the heavens just to see her again." As the dragon left the dilapidated library, a tear fell from the night princess's eye and splashed into the dust on the floor. "No..." she whispered into the silence, "It's because I wouldn't stop once I started..." The library door closed behind her as she too exited the old tree, the monument to the world they lost, the memorial to the ones they lost... Luna wiped her eye with the back of her fetlock and offered silent prayer to anyone who was listening, 'Please... give them back to us...' The prayer, like so many others before, would go unanswered, though not unheard. ~~ The lavender unicorn stood silently in her hospital room, staring out through the window into the massive underground cavern. Sunlight filtered into the artificial forest through massive skylights built into the roof. The city of New Canterlot sat atop the armored dome, hiding the fortress from even the most dedicated observer. Sunset sighed as thoughts drifted through her consciousness, it had happened before and it would happen again, but this time was different. She was naturally inquisitive, she was a reader, a thinker, a learner, but she was not social; her thoughts and studies were more likely to be on the subject of nuclear fusion than friendship or banter. Her thoughts rarely drifted to other ponies, and even then as a passing idle curiosity. This was different. This pony she had never met, who couldn't have known her or anything about her, had taken her place in the Eva, ridden the construct into battle. Out of kindness, as socially inept as she was, she recognized kindness. She was hurt, the other pony couldn't let her hurt herself further, and took on the responsibility to fight, despite her fear. The concern in her eyes, for that moment, chipped away at the cold loneliness that permeated her life. There was something familiar in those kind eyes, something she couldn't place, couldn't... know. But she was going to find out, going to, for the first time, try to understand that kindness, try to understand that pony. She looked down at her forehooves, her bandaged legs, fetlocks. She turned back to the hospital bed and her expression slipped into one of determination, just for an instant. She had to get out of this hospital, there was research to be done, important, critical research.
Sins of YesterdayNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Five: 'Sins of Yesterday' "Of course they abandoned us! After what we did they couldn't do anything else!" "Target in the center... pull the switch..." Whisper repeated quietly to herself as she sat in the entry plug; her fur and mane floated away from her skin in the thick, breathable fluid. She curled her fetlock around the paddle and the heavy multi-barreled auto-cannon sprung to life. She felt the recoil as if the cannon was sitting on her own back as the string of tracers shot towards the target and impacted. The targeting computer had compensated for her inexperience and the target fell over as the first rounds of the burst struck the metal plate. "Very good, you're getting the hang of this!" Vinyl congratulated over a video link. "Remember, just point your head at the target, and line up the crosshairs, the targeting computers will take care of the rest, the gun will follow your line of sight." Whisper nodded at the window and reset the heads-up display as her target stood back up. She rolled her shoulders unconsciously as the weight continued to press down on her back through the sympathetic nerve connection to the eva. She pulled the switch a second time as the target came into her reticule. The flash from the muzzle reflected off her eyes as another target fell. ~~ "She's taking to this rather well don't you think?" Vinyl asked as she turned to look at Dash, "Sync is up to seventy already and she's doing pretty good in the shooting drills." "I guess..." Dash answered half halfheartedly as she watched another target fall over. She rubbed her forehead with her forehoof and leaned against a control panel. She shook her head and stared at the floor. "Something bothering you, Dash?" Vinyl probed. The ex-DJ put a hoof on the pegasus's shoulder in a slightly awkward comforting gesture. "It feels like she's just doing what she's asked, with no personal feelings about it... it makes me a little uncomfortable," Dash admitted as she met the white mare's eyes. "Remind ya a little a somepony else a few years back though don't it?" a new, accented, voice cut in. Rainbow Dash looked up and saw that Applejack had walked onto the observation deck. "'Shy was never quite... that bad. I guess I can see your point though. We need to get Whisper to open up." "Bit of an understatement, 'Shy had all of us but... Whisper's the only one her age here 'cept for Sunset and that filly is..." Applejack trailed off, leaving the implication unspoken. "Yeah, she is that. Kite should be here in a few months, maybe they'll hit it off?" Vinyl offered. "I'm not sure, he's pretty... intense. I don't know how she'd react to that." Dash explained as she settled back down onto her hooves. "Sounds like somepony else I used to know!" Applejack joked and prodded the pegasus with her hoof, "But you and 'Shy got on just fine. She'll be fine, I'm sure of it." A target exploded in the testing chamber and Vinyl turned around. The Eva's cannon was smoking, down range the target was burning slowly. "Well, maybe she's not the one you need to worry about," the white mare joked. She looked again at the burning target and facehoofed, "...and would whoever decided to put incendiary in the rotary cannon please speak up? You're on waste pump duty for a month." The unicorn stared at the fire for a few more moments before she turned to a pony standing off to the side, "Mirage... make sure there's no more to this than a simple mistake. If somepony planned for an 'accident'..." she trailed off, letting the implication hang. "Understood, Ma'am," the cream colored pony answered and trotted briskly through a side passage. Vinyl stared after the mare for a moment before turning back to the technicians, "And would somepony get that fire put out?" ~~ "She did rather well." Luna commented as the previous week's battle played back on the bright cathode ray tube. The screen froze on the purple behemoth in mid air. "I wouldn't have thought she'd have that kind of fire in her." "You would be surprised what you're capable of when you're pressed," Spike commented offhand as he resumed the playback, "you of all ponies should know that." Luna shot the dragon a glare, "You would do well to leave old wounds closed, commander." Spike smirked and shut off the display, "On occasion... I would remind you why I was the one left in charge, less some ponies might forget." "There may yet come a day when that changes... For now, though," The alicorn started, turning her glare away from the dragon, "we should take action to ensure that future... conflicts are not left to chance. She can't do it alone. Not forever." "We have Sunset and we have the other," the dragon offered in dismissal of Luna's concerns. "You mean my niece's child. I don't approve... though that makes me a hypocrite at this point, doesn't it?" she commented dryly. 'What would you think of me now, sister?' "You know as well as I do why it had to be him. Why it has to be Whisper, why it had to be Sunset. The bearers can no longer command the power needed, not since that day, not the bearers who lived..." he trailed off, a tear formed in the corner of his eye, a rare show of emotion. Luna snorted, "Yes, Sunset. You're a fool if you think I don't know exactly what she is, and why she exists." Spike turned and glared daggers at the alicorn, "And knowing that, do you think I would send her out to fight if there was another choice?!" She met his glare with one of her own, she stepped towards, him, put her hoof on his shoulder. Her gaze softened. "No... No I imagine you wouldn't have," she said softly, "Well, we should prepare. The council will want an update and the next..." she trailed off, searching for a suitable euphemism, "event is due soon." "Well, let's go prostrate ourselves in front of the 'Elders' then," the dragon said with a humorless smirk. ~~ Mirage ducked behind a support beam, her target was perhaps thirty paces ahead in the poorly lit under-level. The target was a male gryphon, a new transfer from HERD-04 in the gryphon highlands, he was not authorized to be in the under-level. He also wasn't authorized to manipulate the ammunition load-outs, but that hadn't stopped him. Mirage ducked out from behind the beam and sprinted silently through the darkness to another beam, a mere ten paces behind the gryphon. "Yes... Yes... I've retrieved the data... Yes I know. Bye," he hissed before closing the vox device in his left claw. He caught movement in the corner of his eye as Mirage struck. He dropped the vox and grabbed her by the forehoof, swung the earth pony into a support beam and let her drop to the ground. "An earth pony? That's what they sent? The Elder council over-estimated you," he spat as he smirked evilly at the mare. "Well, no witnesses, I guess I'll eat well tonight." Mirage grunted and pushed herself back onto her hooves, her eyes flashed and she laughed darkly, "No... I imagine an earth pony wouldn't be much of a match for you. However..." she grinned, her mouth almost impossibly wide. The world flashed green for a moment and in the mare's place stood a black equiform creature, coat hard and shiny, as far removed from a pony's fur as could be, horn sharp and jagged, wings almost insectoid in nature. The gryphon paled; Mirage laughed. She advanced on him, a sickly green glow emanated from her horn, "A changeling might be a little too much for you to handle, don't you think? So... let's have a nice long talk, and you can tell me everything I want to know."
Into DarknessNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Six: 'Into Darkness' "Twilight, what are you doing!?" "I'm going to save us." "What have you got for me?" Pinkie asked as she walked briskly down the bright hallway. The building was humming with activity. The sunlight filtered in through the windows along the side of the wall, playing off the pink pony's coat and grey-striped mane. "We've figured out how to power it, finally. Give us six months, eight max, we'll have the prototype online and combat ready." The light yellow unicorn said as she hovered the clipboard in front of her, "but that's not the most exciting part, the advances we've made in power generation will scale down as well, so fixed defenses and local power grid generation can be supplemented inside of a week for phase one." "That's... That's great!" Pinkie almost shouted, "Great work Pumpkin." She stopped in front of her office and hoofed the door switch, "Pound, are you still working on the other thing?" The light brown pegasus nodded his head, "If the power grid upgrades go online within Pumpkin's time-frame we should have the cannon ready to go before the end of the month. Our projections give us... Well, to put it simply, it could overpower Nightmare Moon at the peak of her power... five times over." Pinkie blinked and rolled the information around in her head. 'That means it might actually work... but...' She turned to the pegasus and gave him a severe look, "share this with nopony. Keep only the ponies you trust the most on this project, and keep all of your designs in secured storage." "Yes Ma'am." The twins chorused before continuing on down the hallway. Pinkie made it half way to her desk before the door automatically closed itself behind her. Made it three quarters of the way to her desk before a full body spasm threw her to the floor. She crawled the rest of the way to her desk and pulled open a drawer, took the glass bottle of amber liquid and pulled the cork. She held it in her forehooves and drank it all, the burn as it went down her throat a welcome distraction from the most recent episode of her 'Pinkie Sense.' She knew what this one meant, and she knew she didn't want to be sober for it. She threw the bottle into the corner of the room, it shattered on impact. She pulled herself into her chair and dialed a number she knew well on the vox built into her desk. Three rings and the line picked up. "Another one is coming," she said simply. The line disconnected and Pinkie slumped down into her chair, staring up at the ceiling as the alcohol entered her system, "Soon... Soon they won't have to do it anymore, I'm still trying Twilight... If I'm right... we can do this without hurting them any more." The red crushed velvet carpeting hid the tears well as they fell from her face. ~~ The pile of books grew by one as the young lavender unicorn finished reading and discarded another tome of knowledge. "It's not in there..." she muttered to herself as she dug into the neat stack opposite the pile and dug into the many pages. Her eyes flicked back and forth rapidly as she turned each page, her brain soaked up the knowledge contained as she poured through the tome. "Not this one either..." She tossed the book onto the pile and sat back on her haunches. "Why can't I find anything in the books?" she asked herself. "They've never failed me before..." She let out a sigh as her thoughts turned to the timid orange and red pegasus, the one who'd shown her kindness, the one who'd sparked this new-found interest in her, this drive to understand. She'd always had a yearning for learning, this was different, this wasn't academic, quantifiable, something about her, a familiarity... only not. It ignited unfamiliar feelings, feelings she didn't know how to understand, how to deal with, but a single word rose above all of that. Friendship. And so she poured herself into studying it, learning what it meant, what it was, but no dictionary definition, no clinical analysis could satisfy her curiosity, fulfill her need. She thought about those kind blue eyes looking at her as she gasped in pain on the catwalk. Kindness. She had another word to research, and so she dove back into her pile of books. ~~ The mare found some humor in the fact that she, of all ponies, would have gone down this path. She watched the red-maned pegasus standing out on the balcony of the apartment across the street. She'd been following the adolescent for days, logging her movements, her habits. She turned her head sharply as a noise caught her attention. Her cloak and body suit masked her identity, but she couldn't have anyone knowing she had the suspected pilot under surveillance. She saw a cat prowling on the edge of the roof she was perched on. 'So it was nothing...' She turned her head back towards the orange filly and sighed, "If she is the pilot, I feel sorry for her. She should be out with her friends at that age not... this." Another noise distracted her and she turned again, expecting the cat again. She was met by black hooves rushing towards her. She gave no thought to it, she ducked and rolled away from the edge of the roof. She caught her gaze locked onto the green eyes of a pitch black stallion. He lowered his head to charge. The mare planted her feet and closed her eyes, "I'm sorry." Her magic lashed out, simple TK, despite the relatively damaged nature of equestria's magic, she was still powerful enough for the basics. The stallion looked surprised, and the look stayed on his face as a loud snap echoed across the rooftop and the black pony fell down and lay still. The mare wiped a tear from her eye and looked at the pony she'd ended, her sadness turned to shock as his coat burned away in green fire to reveal the changeling it had been. "This just got complicated." ~~ Whisper jerked her head to the side and looked up, her ears pivoted towards the nearby rooftop. 'What was that?' she thought, she'd heard... something, but she couldn't see what it was. Her ears fell and she turned and walked back into the apartment. "Um, Miss Dash?" She asked as she pressed further into the apartment, "I heard something outside, it sounded like somepony might be in trouble..." She moved deeper into the shared apartment, turned down the hall and advanced on Rainbow's room. "Miss Dash..?" The young mare crept down the hall, she heard a muffled voice from Dash's room. Her face twisted up in frustration, she didn't want to eavesdrop but at the same time... She stuck her ear against the door and listened in. "-ost contact? How? You know what, It doesn't matter. It's been detected? I'll bring her in," she heard Dash say on the other side of the door. She sounded stressed, a change from the way the older mare usually acted around her. "Thanks AJ, just make sure Vinyl has it ready to go." The young mare heard hoofclops in the room approaching the door. She took a step back and chewed on her lip nervously, 'She's going to know... she's going to be mad, she-' Her thoughts were cut short as the door opened and her handler stepped out, "Oh, hey there kid, we've got to head into HERD, they think we might have another attack on the way." Whisper paled and her mind started to race, "Another one? So soon? I don't know if I can even..." she sputtered as she started to backpedal away from the elder pegasus. Dash placed her forehoof on the filly's shoulder and smiled, "Don't worry about a thing kid, you'll do great, trust me." She mentally facehoofed as the younger mare smiled, 'I'm telling her she's going to 'do great' at piloting a war machine. I am a bad pony.' Dash watched as the young pegasus nodded and forced a determined look onto her features, the change, though slightly out of character, looked right on her somehow. "Then, I'll... just have to do my best." Dash smiled and nodded as she inwardly cursed herself, 'She's just like her mom... I am the worst pony.' The elder mare sighed, "Alright then, let's go." Author's Note This was a long time coming wasn't it? I swear, i totally didn't forget about this fic and stop writing it.
Vintage MiseryNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Seven: 'Vintage Misery' The draconequus's eyes were glued to the airship's window, they stared in mute horror at the devastation below. "Even in my worst nightmares, I could never have imagined..." he said, trailing off as the ship sped along. "It's the first time you've seen it since it happened, isn't it?" Rarity asked as she turned away from the glass, "We never were sure how we survived, I had always thought it was you but... It wasn't was it?" Discord shook his head, "With all of that chaos going on, I had never been more powerful, and yet... I did try, to protect you, to stop Twilight from finishing that spell," he started to explain, looking away from the ruins below, "I put up a shield, everything I had left, to try to save the five of you. Whatever it is Twilight did to that monster, it popped the shield like a soap bubble; it left me a shell of my former power. I did try to save you, but I'm not the one who did. "If I had to guess... It was Celestia. I was still conscious after the blast, if only just. I saw the princess just... standing over Twilight's tiara, the Element of Magic, and then they both disappeared. I had just enough left to get the five of you that were left out of there before everything collapsed in..." he finished, rubbing his face, "and look at me, getting all sentimental, oh how the mighty have fallen!" "You never told us that before," Rarity said, the shock written across her face, "in all these years, you never mentioned a thing..." "Hope," He answered simply. "I don't understand." "Hope," he said again, "You still had hope, hope that Twilight was still alive somewhere, hope that Celestia hadn't abandoned you..." He laughed bitterly, "But how foolish I was back then to believe any differently from you! Celestia was never without a plan; for every bit I was chaos she was deliberate and methodical, so maybe she wasn't running at all, and maybe she had a plan. That's what I choose to believe right now," he finished with a smile, a fragment of his old personality shined through. "What makes you say that?" The white mare pressed, leaning closer. "I've seen not hide nor hair of that wonderful mare in two decades," he said, his smile growing as he laughed an honest joyous laugh. "Well, go on!" Rarity pressed, growing disturbed by this change in the previously depressed draconequus. "I haven't seen her in twenty years... and right now you are absolutely covered in her magic." ~~ The thunder of massive steps echoed through the deserted city. Tremors reverberated through the ground and traveled up the thick armored legs of Evangelion Unit-01, Whisper's mount. The adolescent's expression was soft, passive, if not content than simply not troubled. "I don't see it," she said softly as her eyes scanned the horizon. "Whisper, it's right on top of you, stay alert!" Dash yelled over the radio link. It was that that moment that the young pegasus had decided to look up in time to watch a shadow block out the sun. Thousands of years of evolution and instinct kicked in and she spun the war machine around and let fly with both hind legs. The unit's hooves struck the armored shell of the monster with a sharp crack; Whisper could feel the impact in her bones. Her face twisted into a snarl as she continued her spin and lined up her sights on the stunned abomination, her hoof pressed into the firing stud, and her rotary cannon roared to life. Dozens of large caliber cannon rounds poured downrange and into Whisper's target, kicking up dust and smoke. As her ammo counter clicked lower and lower, her snarl grew wider, she was only vaguely aware of the voices on the radio. And then her cannon stopped, empty, and she once again heard. "Whisper move now!" Dash ordered. She pushed her controls and willed her mount to dive out of the way, explosive bolts fired and separated the cannon from her back as glowing tendrils slashed through the space she'd just been occupying. She heard the alarms blaring in the entry plug as external power was disconnected. A second attack lashed out and she had no time to react, she took the whip across the face and was knocked through one of the buildings that hadn't retracted, she went slack in the control seat; dazed from the feedback of the blow. "You're off main power, retreat and we'll give it another shot later!" The voice was Vinyl this time, her voice urgent, panicked. Whisper shook her head, tasted the blood in her mouth, and opened her eyes. She'd crashed head first into the top level of a shelter, there were ponies recoiling in fear, trying to escape into deeper rooms of the facility. 'If I run away... no!' Her mind was set, she grit her teeth against the pain and pulled her controls back, pulling herself out of the rubble and back onto her hooves, she turned to face her foe. She felt a sense of comfort washing over her, a sense of... power. She lowered her head and charged, off like a shot as chunks of the roadway yielded to her powerful launch. She felt the wind on her face, felt as if she was becoming the machine. She watched as the distance closed, it would be over soon. She felt the burn as she was run through, the beast was not content to simply be slain, and lashed out again, this time driving its tendrils through the Eva's body. Whisper screamed and her snarl returned, she jumped the final stretch and stabbed the unit's horn through the red core in the center of the monster's chest. The abomination gave a mighty quake as the life was ripped from it, convulsing before falling silent and slumping over the back of its killer, its energy tendrils faded away. As the chaos finally died down, as the power in the Evangelion failed, and the fluid pumps slowed, and stopped, silence fell and Whisper wept. ~~ "So what did you think?" Rarity asked as the airship circled the city on it's final approach, having been cleared after the battle ended. Smoke still rose into the afternoon sky as fires burned, the damage crews not yet having gotten to those parts of the city. Discord frowned, unable to articulate his disappointment. It wasn't that he could fault Whisper's performance, more that he was faulting the descent of ponykind that allowed it to take place at all. "It's worse than anything I could have imagined," he said, "even if we win it will never be like it once was." Rarity nodded slowly, after all she'd seen and done, she could hardly disagree with his assessment. She turned her head back to the window, "Did you feel her again?" He nodded, his lips curled into a wistful smile, "She feels near and far, all at once. She always did play her cards close to her chest; I can't help but wonder if she's hiding from me or if it's something else entirely. But..." "But?" she probed as she looked into his eyes, "something else?" "I can't help but think she had some part in what we just saw. There was too much pain and anger in that fighting, that was the gambit of a pony with nothing left to lose and nothing to live for. I think she had to have had a hand in motivating that," he explained, then frowned. "If that's not the case..." "Then what?" "Then everything any of us has ever stood for, in the best of times, in our most noble hours, meant nothing at all. If we've pinned our hopes on a child that this world has ruined so, than I don't have the hope that we'll ever recover, we may not die in this war, she and the other two could very well win this for us, but..." He hesitated, his anger was surfacing, hate for himself and the situation he couldn't prevent, the ponies he couldn't save. In his worst of times he was never a killer, he'd done bad but nothing like this. "But we'll have died twenty years ago, our bodies having continued on, oblivious to that fact." Rarity finished, guessing at what Discord really meant. She paused, then smiled and put her hoof on the draconequus's shoulder, "I disagree. Twilight so loved this world, so loved her friends, had so much faith in us... I take strength from that, strength from what she did back then. As long as we're still alive, we can make it better, we can fix the wrongs, and rebuild our lives. It's what Twilight believed, and she was always able to make that happen. "And so, we will make that happen, for her. That's what friends do for each other." Author's Note This happened again.
OracleNeo-Equestria Evangelion Chapter Eight: 'Oracle' "Your spy failed you. He was caught and disposed of by one of our agents," Spike said with a cold fury in his voice. The monoliths hovered around him in the cold dark chamber. "Do not think that I am incompetent and do not presume to think I am without power. I field two Evangelion units, within the month it shall be a third as well!" The green dragon paced back and forth, slowly, deliberately. He stopped at each monolith and looked up towards it, his face firm. "Each of you were brought into this because of your value to the project, and I would urge all of you not to forget the value I bring to this project! I will suffer not cowards or traitors--do not forget that without me you would all still be in your small, insignificant countries, fighting over the scraps of a dying world!" "Do not lecture us on loyalty! You are not without sin, as we know quite well! Our agent was... acting perhaps a bit out of his purview; still, his objective was to ensure your honesty with us and we have found that his report was... Acceptable," the monolith representing the Griffon Kingdom--number two--replied, tone neutral. "We have the right to inspect our investments. We have a lot riding on this project, I'm sure you understand," The Zebrican monolith, number six added. "We can do so through official channels, not through backroom deals and espionage. What would the civilian governments think if they knew what was really going on? Do you trust a spy so much to trust he won't sell his information to the highest bidder? This is risky behavior that jeopardizes the scenario," a masked voice answered, one of the few monoliths that had refused to identify even a geographical region. Monolith four. "Agreed. This committee is not above the mutual agreement of its members. This kind of behavior is unacceptable," another monolith answered, this one number three. Spike turned and walked back to his desk at the far end of the chamber, "I care not for your platitudes, I ask only your loyalty. If not for our mutual goal, then simply because I still hold Oracle. The entire project hinges on what lies beneath New Canterlot, as I'm certain you are all aware." He paused for a moment as he sat at his desk--the terminal on it flashed several times before he was satisfied. "I trust the arrangements for the transfer of the production model and the pilot will not be affected by this... incident?" he finally asked. "Not as much as your own insubordination problem would jeopardize it," Number Two snipped. "That is an internal matter. This meeting is adjourned," Spike snapped as he disconnected the terminal. He stared at the oak desk as he tapped his claws rhythmically along the surface. 'So, even with that one dead, they still knew about Whisper's incident.' He leaned back in his faux-leather chair and allowed himself a sigh. It was just as well. She was learning the penalty for her actions, and any future insubordination would be dealt with quickly to dissuade future misbehavior. Then again, no reason to let a mole burrow. He reached for his desk phone, a number already in mind. He had to wait only two rings before the telltale click of a phone being answered on the other end, "Mirage, there's another one. You know what to do." ~~ Whisper kicked at a her plate, knocking the tin tableware into the wall on the opposite side of her cell. She allowed herself a rare moment of anger. 'I save the city and they throw me in a cell? To heck with 'orders', I was doing what they put me out there to do!' she seethed. She kicked the plate again, pinging it off another wall as she leaned back on the bench. "Thanks for saving us, here, have some holding cell," she muttered sarcastically under her breath. At least there was light, she reasoned. They could have stuck her in a dark pit, not that there was any justice in it either way. No, justice would be if she made them fend for themselves, made them climb into the megaton war machines and fight for their lives. Make them kill those giant monsters while riding around in a coffin that smells like blood. Her imagination ran wild with creative ways to get back at them for putting her into this position in the first place, but each one brought her less and less comfort. Vengeance just wasn't in her nature, as much as she would have liked it to be so, as much as it would make it easier. Just turn off her feelings and hate...but she couldn't. That wasn't who she was, wasn't who her mother and father raised her to be. She had to be there, she had to bear that pain so that others wouldn't have to. She could fight, she could protect ponies who couldn't protect themselves. Her thoughts drifted to Sunset, that injured pony she'd protected on that first day, the one she'd been trying to make friends with, even as strange as she was. Sunset wouldn't be alive if she hadn't been there to fight instead. She closed her eyes and leaned back. Maybe some sleep would do her good, and at the very least it would pass the time. She started to drift off when she heard yelling outside of her cell. "I told you, I don't care if Celestia herself gave the order, you either open this door or I'm going to put your head through it," the muffled voice said angrily--it sounded feminine. Whisper perked up a little and turned towards the plate-steel door. "Ma'am, I told you--" the guard said, his voice cutting off with a pained groan before the young pegasus heard the key turn in the lock. The bright lights from the corridor cut into the dimmer confines of her cell around the edge of the door, her eyes took a moment to adjust to the change, temporarily blinding her to the figure on the other side. "C'mon Kid, we're getting you out of here. They can take it up with me if they don't like it," the mare in the doorway said. Whisper blinked her eyes a few times as her eyes cleared. "Rainbow Dash?" She asked. She should have known, there wasn't another pony who had the courage to do that, and it certainly wasn't unappreciated. "The very same," The cocky mare replied. She flicked her head down the hall, "C'mon, my car's waiting. Got a warm meal and a shower waiting for ya." Whisper nodded hesitantly and walked towards the door, shielding her eyes with her wing as the bright fluorescent lighting hit her in full force. Her eyes wandered to the side, she saw the cell guard nursing a black eye and glaring at the pair of them. She turned her head to Dash and raised an eyebrow as she slightly inclined her head towards the guard. A slight blush crossed the older mare's face but she said nothing and turned down the hall, following the navigation arrows on the wall that indicated 'parking'. They walked in a pleasant silence, Whisper taking stride immediately alongside Rainbow Dash as the detention area was left behind. It was a few minutes into the leisurely walk that Dash finally broke the silence, she turned her head towards the younger pegasus, "I probably won't be able to do that again, so I'd really appreciate it in the future if you could... well, try harder to listen when they tell you to do something when you're in Eva. I know you're young and you get impulses, always think you're right... well I was like that anyway..." Dash took a breath and held it for a second before she continued, "What I'm saying is, I let you get into all this, and I will try to look out for you, but you've gotta help me help you, you know?" Whisper nodded, "I just... thought I could do it. And I did do it..." Dash turned and gave her a stern look, she looked like she was about to say something but then held back and cracked a smile, "That you did. Remind me never to make you that mad at me." Dash draped her wing over the younger pegasus, the daughter of her best friend, and let herself enjoy the moment. 'We're putting these kids through something they shouldn't have ever had to do... The last thing I'm gonna do is let anyone punish them for actually being kids.' Whisper followed along, her thoughts drifted to the other pilot she'd met, the one she'd been thinking about in the cell. The one she was going to fight alongside soon, the one she'd protected on that first day. She turned to Dash, "So... could tell me about Sunset?" ~~ The injured guard dropped all pretense of injury after the two pegasi had left earshot. The earth pony was enveloped in a green glow for a moment, as it shifted back into the changeling it truly was. Mirage shook her head--she never did like form-shifting into males. Too many bad memories. It was fortunate that Rainbow Dash had showed up when she did, as it gave Mirage the freedom she needed to abandon her post and follow up on an important lead: she knew who the spy was... or at least what she looked like. To the spy's credit, they were a talented mage; one would have to be to pull off even a moderate-level spell in this day and age, and the cloaking spell was certainly on the higher end of what even the Princess could pull off. The changeling stalked down the side-hallway, one leading towards the HVAC maintenance tunnels. In a facility the size of HERD-HQ the environmental control systems were massive, spanning several acres if added all together. It was an ideal place to shake a tail, but it was also an ideal place to covertly capture an enemy agent, were they to try hiding there. For all the talent the spy had shown in her magic, she still wasn't perfect. The tuft of cornflower blue mane that had shown through the veil had been valuable information--far more than she'd had when she started. Putting the pilot in confinement had borne fruit after all. Controlling the location of the focus of the spying had drawn the spy in. She hoofed open the access hatch, which showed signs of recent use. That was a good thing, as her instincts had been right, and the spy had fled into the tunnels. She owed them: for making her department look bad, for making her look bad. For her dead agent. Something bothered her, something that was familiar but eluded her. A scent on the wind, something about the color of that mane. She should have known what it was, but it was a memory long past, buried deep and forgotten with the rest of her kind. She was picking up some emotions, but they felt masked, hidden. 'They would be, she's killed one of us... so she'd have to know she's up against changelings...' the mare thought as she stalked deeper. Even if the spy was shielding her emotions, they were still there, still enough to get a direction. She paused as a sound reached her ears, soft, almost like a voice. She couldn't make out the words but they came from a different direction than the source of the feelings she was sensing. This unicorn was talented after all, projecting false emotions. She'd prepared for this. "--transmitted my report. I'm coming up for air now, I've done all I can. I'm being tailed." The voice said as it came closer. Mirage jumped out from her cover and into the hallway, turning to face the voice. She caught sight of a blue unicorn with the same mane she'd seen before wearing an expression of... smugness? A small black object flew at her and she instinctively caught it in her telekinetic grip, she recognized it as a vox device. The unicorn smirked, "Well, guess you found me after all huh?" A flash of magic stunned Mirage for a moment and she watched the pony stab a syringe into her own flank, watched the pale pink contents leave the syringe as the plunge depressed. She saw the unicorn's eyes turn white for an instant before a loud whip-crack pierced the relative calm of the tunnels. And then, the unicorn was gone. Mirage turned, dropped the vox device, and ran. She wasn't used to feeling fear, but for the moment that was all she could feel. Teleportation was high level magic, something that had been theoretically impossible for twenty years. Anything that had that kind of power was too much for her to handle. Spike needed to know of this. At least, that's how she justified her panicked exit.
