Aftersound

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Written by: Oneimare & Geka

Preread and edited by: Jay Tarrant, IAmApe, Damajics, QU4DZILLA, FairySlayer

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Prologue

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“Entry log number 52-47/5 from April 5, 8th year of the Fifth Era.

Twilight Sparkle, Chief Scientist of the Royal Canterlot Research Centre.

Today I’m going to supervise a test of automated combat body armour with Rainbow Dash, Captain of the Special Air Forces as the test pilot. But first, I need to perform a double-check of the prototype and the testing program—”

A mighty yawn contorted my muzzle and I completely lost my train of thought as a result.

How long had I slept last night? Three hours? Four at the most?

Proceeding without a cup of coffee was out of order.

The slightly sputtering glow of my horn deactivated the crystal’s recording enchantment and I winced as the gem all but fell on the table. Rising from my chair to face my tiny office, I glared at the mess it had become in all these months of relentless work. The origins of this chaos actually baffled me, considering the fact that the only thing I did in this room was getting a few hours of sleep every now and then.

My joints popped and creaked as I stretched my numb limbs, a groan escaping my mouth—the sleeping cot did me no favours. Starting as a temporary solution, it had eventually become the only place I slept every day aside from tables and chairs in the labs.

My eyes lazily returned to the dropped recording. The abandoned crystal commemorating the day our efforts paid off only added to the disorder of my dwelling; it gave me an inkling of how it gained Discord’s touch.

I couldn’t help but sigh when my magic picked the gem up to place into a box to rest amongst its brethren. My reliance on them hadn’t really been a choice for the last couple of years. Not since Spike left for the front line.

Those enchanted crystals held countless hours of my rambling tired voice, brimming with my magic. Even now, as I shut the lid of the ornate casket, it filtered through, rendering the twilight of my office purple.

A piercing draft sent shivers down my skin—the Royal Canterlot Research Centre had been built in the foothills of the mountain in a hurry, thus the central heating system malfunctioned all days ending with ‘y’. The war demanding every bucket of coal hadn’t been helping the situation either.

One more reason to hurry up with a pilgrimage to the coffee machine.

Ragged saddlebags landed on my wrinkled and dingy lab coat; feeding them the gem cassette, I snatched my trusty coffee-stained ‘Egghead #1’ mug—Moon Dancer’s gift—and embarked on a journey.

The cold corridors of the RCRC greeted me with the quiet solitude of an early morning. On any other day, they would already be teeming with life, but after putting the finishing touches on the prototype last night most of the team had tried to finally catch up on some sleep.

And then there was I—craving for a blessing from our Savior, the holy fountain of the black and bittersweet drink. Rarity probably had no idea that in convincing the nobles to finally establish trade routes with Zebrica she had also saved the RCRC.

When was the last time I saw her?

I had to abruptly stop myself when I realized that months wasn’t the correct answer.

At least today I had the opportunity to spend some time with Rainbow Dash. It was hard to say if she volunteered because of genuine fascination with the concept of flying cyber armour or the desperate hope for an advantage that would put an end to the war.

Finally, the familiar door with a slightly discoloured wooden plaque reading ‘Cybernetics Lab’ appeared before me. My magic fumbled with a dozen crystal keycards—enchanted gems were in use everywhere these days.

Whilst it was one of the oldest arcane crafting practices with numerous applications, learning from Crystal Empire refugees how to grow specialized gemstones allowed us to raise that technology to another level. The desperate needs of the front also acted as a rather compelling motivation.

The bright pink and cyan card slid into the lock with a practised motion, and the door opened with a quiet click followed by another—the light switch being flicked.

The groggily winking light flooded a vast room cluttered with equipment, gems and spare parts of various sizes, along with assorted stationeries and blueprints. The mess claimed every surface of the room but one—a small podium in the middle presenting the final product born from sleepless nights and countless days of hard work.

The Automated Armoured Full Body Combat Suit.

The pinnacle of arcane and mechanical technological progress, a creation surpassing anything before in its complexity. Plates of hardened steel alloy imbued with arcanium runes supposed to withstand the most vicious of spells from Sombra’s warlocks or even a direct strike from a crystal blade. Underneath them lay an intricate network of hydraulic circuits able to significantly enhance the raw physical strength and speed of the pony inside that armour. And the last part, which Dash liked the most—betwixt two folded steel wings rested the reaction turbine fueled by a huge gem.

The laboratory’s dim lighting rendered the armour intimidating and foreboding with its long conical helmet, reminiscent of a dragon’s head, and large plates of darkened steel shimmering with arcane writings.

Usually, a sight reflecting in me with pride and hope, in moments like this, it made me wonder if, perhaps, we had gone too far in our despair to finish the war.

Maybe a sip of coffee would bring some positivity to my thoughts.

A flicker of my horn powered up a gem in the heart of the coffee machine and I leaned on the nearest table as the elixir of happiness was brewed, tickling my nose with its enchanting aroma.

Pegasi were already the most important part of the Equestrian Army, something that Sombra didn’t have even with all his warlocks, spells and griffon mercenaries. If the prototype passed the trials today, that advantage would be turned into a deciding factor.

The coffee machine announced the conclusion of its toils with a resounding chime.

However, as I put the steaming mug to my lips, a loud knocking echoed through the lab. Refusing to greet the visitor in favour of satisfying my thirst for caffeine, I yelled:

“Yes? Who is it? Come on in, didn’t you know that the door’s open?”

The door opened halfway, and an unfamiliar unicorn in a lab coat shoved himself through—probably a fresh lab assistant from some other department; it was impossible to keep track of all the ponies in the facility growing rapidly in scale with each year the war lasted.

“Captain Rainbow Dash has arrived and is already waiting for you on the testing grounds,” the lab-coated pony droned through the half-open door.

I almost spit my precious drink.

Pouring the rest of the coffee down my throat and hissing as I belatedly realised my mistake, I all but bolted out of the room past the confused assistant.

A few shooting ranges for ballistic weapons and magic spells, and a few more open flat grounds for other various tests constituted the RCRC testing grounds. There was a recent addition to them—a flight strip with a viewing stand constructed for our project. The area around it was already swarming with my research team preparing for the trial.

The weather couldn’t be more perfect for aerial testing. With enough clouds to shroud Her Sun, it was still bright enough to see clearly as far as the horizon. Only the faintest of breezes disturbed the dust on the tarmac, carrying no promise of rain.

When a litany of golden rays punctured the silver canvas of clouds to momentarily blind me I came to a shocking realisation—this was my first time outside in at least two months.

The sky ablaze meant Princess Luna was still out there, dutifully raising both celestial bodies. The last time I had heard about her was from Rarity. Luna had just replenished her supplies to continue her crusade in search of Queen Chrysalis.

I glanced at Her Sun one more time and brushed tears away.

It wasn’t hard to find Rainbow.

Sitting on the furthest edge of the airstrip, she was still an explosion of colour, even in a military uniform and with her mane cut short. Though I practically galloped, she didn’t seem to notice me. Nearing her, I slowed down and watched my friend carefully.

She was hunching awkwardly, trying not to put any weight on her bandaged hind leg. Her slightly red eyes adorned with deep dark blue circles burned with determination, aimed over the mountains to the north. Suddenly, Rainbow turned her head.

“Twi,” she rasped unexpectedly jovially.

“Hi, Rainbow,” I answered, smiling.

Upon seeing my expression, she responded with a grin of her own and leaned in to give me a hug, which I returned without hesitation.

“Pinkie says hi,” Dash whispered in my ear.

Reluctantly breaking the embrace I sat beside her.

“How’s she doing? How are you all doing?”

One of Rainbow’s eyebrows went up as she shot me a surprised look.

“I thought you’d have read the reports.”

“Of course I’ve read them, and I get my share of information from Shining’s and Spike’s letters. But you are on the front line. It’s different.”

“Yeah. It totally is.” With that Rainbow looked over her shoulder to the north once again. Her already grim expression darkened even more. “We can’t wage this war forever, Twi. If we don’t win this year, Sombra is going to start pushing back, and we don’t have the strength left to stop him.”

“That’s exactly what Shining was saying.” I shuddered. “But I wanted to know how the ponies themselves are doing. And Pinkie? Spike?”

“Tired. Some of them haven’t been home for years.”

A pang of shame pierced my heart—I had been complaining about being confined to my safe lab for just a couple of months, an hour away from my home.

“Pinkie, Spike and I are all from different divisions, we don’t see each other often. Pinkie is with her sisters, though. They’re still alive,” Rainbow continued. However, there was no joy on her face. “Not everyone has such luck.”

We sat in silence for a while.

In the distance, mechanics were bringing out the prototype and more and more ponies in lab coats kept spilling out of the building.

“We should get started.” Rising to my hooves, I headed for the stand. “My team will finish the preparations any moment.”

“I didn’t expect the final model to be so big and bulky,” Rainbow muttered, her coat already hidden by the thick net of intertwining tubes and wires converging on the finely cut gemstones and joints of her metal-clad limbs.

Mechanics had just started to attach metal plates to their designated mountings on the suit base, securing them with stout bolts.

She continued to complain, “The models I helped you to test before weren’t so large.”

“Yes, but the hydraulics and crystals are fragile so we decided to reinforce it,” I patiently explained. “Also, we decided to make it impermeable after reports about some of Sombra’s spells.”

“Yeah, that’s nasty stuff.” The armour rattled as Rainbow shook. “So, you mentioned something about that mouth com-thingy in your testing program, but I didn’t understand anything. It had too many egghead words.”

“Moon and I created a special spell, it’s called a ‘communication enchantment’.” I glared at her, then continued enthusiastically, “It’s basically a simple arcane voice imprinting enchantment, Vox Vestigium, combined with a sound recording enchantment, Sonus Minuat, of a very short duration and made to continuously jump with a modification of localized Salio Arcanis between a pair of linked crystals via natural magical ley lines and—”

“Uhhh. In case you forgot, I’m not a unicorn, Twi.”

“Fine!” I groaned. “You just need to start talking and we’ll hear you at the stand.”

“Alright,” Rainbow replied as if nothing had happened.

The quietly snickering mechanics finished assembling the body sections of the armour before moving to her head, preparing the oblong conical helmet.

Scrunching her nose and futilely trying to shy away from it, Rainbow asked, “What do I need this breather for?”

“It’s an oxygen mask. You’ll need it to breathe in the suit. It’s tightly sealed, remember?”

“Okaaay,” came Rainbow’s unsure answer, and she let the mask be put over her muzzle without any complaints.

“I’m going to the stand to check out the recording machinery and the communication crystals.” My hoof stretched to Rainbow’s shoulder for an encouraging bump, but she shot her hoof up and we ended with an awkward hoof-bump. “Erm, good luck.”

Near the stand stood a pony I didn’t expect to see today—our very own Leading Scientist of the Cybernetics Division.

“Moon, I thought you were going to sleep through everything,” I called approaching the hastily constructed observation platform.

I wasn’t trying to accuse her of being a sleepyhead (which she was), but last night was the third in a row without even a wink of sleep for her.

“Pfft, are you kidding? I didn’t spend the last few months working my horn off only to miss the main event.”

“Cheerful as always,” I retorted with a smirk. “Well, I’m going to test out our communication crystals. Do you want to join?”

“You mean the ‘coms’? Nah, they work just fine. The guys from my team tested them yesterday. I better go and check-in with the photographers, though. They need to know that your friend is going to be faster than anything they’ve seen before.”

With that, she departed to a group of ponies with cameras further away, behind the stand.

“Coms? Huh, that’s actually not nearly as much of a mouthful,” I muttered under my breath whilst putting the communica... ‘com’ on the stand’s pedestal.

Rainbow Dash was still in her armour, waiting for the crystals inside to power up. A flicker of my magic cast a voice amplifying spell on me.

“Turn the enchantments on and leave the flight strip. I repeat, everypony, leave the flight strip after the last enchantment is activated. We are starting.”

Dozens of ponies in lab coats hurried away from Rainbow, leaving her to stand forlornly, like a metal statue, in the middle of the flight strip. My horn flared up and the voice enhancement was dispelled.

First things first—everything had to be recorded.

“Entry log number 12-31/6 from April 5, 8th year of the Fifth Era.

By Twilight Sparkle, Chief Scientist of the Royal Canterlot Research Centre.

We are starting the trial of the Automated Armored Full Body Combat Suit, with Captain of the Special Air Forces Rainbow Dash.”

The crystal went to the casket and another exertion of my arcane ability activated the ‘com’. The sound of breathing permeated my ears—Rainbow’s ‘com’ had fired up too.

“Rainbow, can you hear me?”

“Yeah. A little bit too loud and there’s a strange crackle.”

Covering the ‘com’ with one hoof, I shouted in Moon’s direction, “Moonie, Rainbow says her receiver crystal’s output volume is too high and it has some intrusive noises.”

“It’s supposed to be loud, we discovered yesterday that the enchantment loses its power over a distance so we cranked up the volume; we’ll fix it next time. And the sound was clear, I dunno what’s wrong with it now—maybe some overlap,” she yelled back at me, then added in a cranky voice, “And don’t call me that in public!”

Returning my attention to the stand, I checked for anything that was out of place that could cause interference, but everything looked fine.

“Rainbow, Moon says it’ll become quieter after you take off, and the crackle could be overlapping magic fields.” Mostly to myself, I continued, “I don’t think this will affect the cyber suit—its enchantments are protected by arcanium runes after all.”

“So, if everything is fine, can I take off then? I’m tired of standing in one place already!”

“On the count of ten.”

Even though Rainbow’s solitude remained uncontested, I still announced, “Everypony must immediately leave the flight strip, we are starting the test on the count of ten! I repeat, everypony leave the flight strip!”

I took a deep breath—this was it.

“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Fi—”

Rainbow rocketed up into the sky in a cloud of dust, the turbine’s roar washing over me, messing up my mane.

“Sorry, boss,” she chuckled, “couldn’t hold on any longer.”

“Ugh.” I slapped my hoof against my forehead in frustration, groaning. “Is everything all right at least?”

“All’s fine, your voice is not so loud anymore, but, uh, the crackling is a bit louder now.”

Where could this crackling be coming from? It didn’t seem to be a serious problem, maybe something was off with the ‘com’, indeed. With the ambition of our prototype, the perfect sound quality was the least of our worries.

Casting my gaze to the sky, I searched for the silhouette zipping across it.

Rainbow had gained a lot of altitude already—soaring just under the clouds, she executed the aerial manoeuvres we had included in the testing program at her insistence. She claimed they were some basic moves her squad used all the time; but it seemed she chose them to show off, like old times.

As I watched her pirouetting, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen next.

When this nightmare was finally over.

I still had a life to live, even if everything in Equestria tried to make me forget it.

After the Crystal Empire was finally liberated, I would probably retire and move on to something more theoretical; leave the forges of the RCRC to somepony who wasn’t ashamed of the things they brought to Equestria.

Moon Dancer had already been showing incredible talent working with biomechanics for a while—her prototypes and concepts were astounding and brimmed with endless potential; though she did lack proficiency in writing new runes...

“Hey, Twi,” Rainbow’s concerned voice interrupted my thoughts. “The crackling has gotten louder, I think it’s coming from the turbine.”

“What!? Are you sure?” I gasped, clutching the stand with my hooves, squinting at her distant outline, too far away to see any important details.

“It’s sure becoming louder, and it’s not from the ‘com’. It’s coming from somewhere behind my helmet.”

I pulled out a pair of binoculars from the stand and aimed them at her.

To my horror, the massive power gem of the turbine sparkled and faintly smoked.

“No, no, no, no, no, no!”

I frantically looked around, half-expecting somepony to tell me it was all part of the trial—just another thing to work out. But everypony glanced at others in confusion, deeply worried, if not as terrified as I was. Moon had been already galloping to the stand, yelling.

“Rainbow, listen to me!”

She was rapidly losing altitude, plummeting towards the flight strip. Binoculars weren’t necessary anymore—a trail of thick smoke followed her.

“Rainbow, something is wrong. You need to land right now! Can you hear me? You need to—”

The turbine exploded in a brilliant wave of magic.

Author's Note

Special thanks to Jay Tarrant.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this story.

If you notice any mistakes sneaked in through the editing, let me know.

Stay awesome.