Under My Iron Skin

Spark Mansion, Canterlot Mountian

Twilight bobbed her head back and forth in time with the radio as she worked. Morning like this helped her remember why living was so much fun. She'd caught something like fifty A.I.M soldiers the last night and managed to confiscate brand new technology for the suit.It had proven incredibly simple and she'd finished incorporating the freeze ray in a matter of hours. That gave her more time to work on a faster way to summon the suit when she needed it.

And that was ‘Shoot to Thrill,’ a real blast from the past. In the news, the terrorist organization ‘A.I.M’ has taken credit for last night's attack on a S.H.I.E.L.D research facility located in the Frozen North. Very little is known about what happened, other than the fact that it was thwarted by the Iron Mage.

Twilight looked away from her armor and regarded the radio with interest. She carefully set down her tools and turned it up.

Very little is known about this armored hero, other than her personal vendetta against A.I.M and anypony she believes works with them. She first appeared threatening Twilight Sparkle, C.E.O of Spark Industries. She threatened Ms. Sparkle's life if she were to join the organization and revealed evidence of the company’s misdoings that, while not admissible in court, still led to a huge fallout and allowed Ms. Sparkle to take greater control of her company. It was only later made public that Ms. Sparkle had been fillynapped by A.I.M several weeks prior, and was being threatened by the group if she didn’t cooperate with their demands. The Iron Mage also stole several pieces of advanced technology from the facility and fled.

Twilight snickered. “You never did return those, did you?” She rapped her suit’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, I can cover it.”

Public opinion over Iron Mage is currently split. While quite a few see her as a modern-day Robin Hood, many more question her motives. She constantly removes advanced pieces of technology from her villains before S.H.I.E.L.D can confiscate them and has launched attacks on several companies, including Hammer International. While the good she has done is indisputable, this reporter is more worried about what kind of things she may do in the future. After all, if she’s attacking ponies who haven’t even been convicted in court, then what kind of misdeeds could she—

“Okay.” Twilight’s field flicked the radio off and went out. She sighed, turning back to her suit. She levitated the helmet in front of her, looking at her distorted reflection. Twilight wasn’t wearing any of her make-up spells, so her frazzled face was perfectly visible. She brushed her mane back, looking at one of the scars on her neck. A.I.M terrorizes ponies because they think they’re saving the world. What if I cross the same line they do? Who’ll stop me?

Biting her lip, she placed the helmet back on the suit and took a step back. Her field flowed across the armor, making sure everything was connected and sealed shut. Confident it was, Twilight closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she put a hoof against her Arc Reactor and concentrated on the magic inside. She felt it almost shiver with anticipation, the magic flowing and roiling around inside the small container as if eager to escape.

Twilight unleashed a small part of it, letting it flow across her foreleg and charge the small watch around her hoof. It lit up as power flowed into it and beeped as it connected with the armor.

And now for the hard part. Twilight raised the watch to her mouth and carefully vocalized two words. “Armor up.”

The effect was immediate. The Iron Mage armor was instantly alive with magic, exploding across its surface. It disappeared in a flash of energy, traveling through the space between realities, before appearing again around Twilight’s body.

Twilight squealed. “I did it! It works, it works, it works! Fantastic!” She took another breath as she connected herself to the armor, shifting rapidly through its functions and finding that all of them were undamaged. “I’ve invented machine teleportation and applied it to an amazingly complex suit of battle armor! That’s like, three impossible things at once! I’m the smartest pony ever!”

“Twilight?” a voice called. “Are you here?”

I forgot to lock the door! “Uh, one sec! Hang on!” Lowering her voice, she hissed “Armor: Energize.” The suit broke itself down into magic again, but rather than reforming it was absorbed into the Arc Reactor. Twilight could store it there and transform it back into a suit whenever she wished. Too busy to appreciate her own genius, she began rushing around the room. What can connect me to Iron Mage? There was the freeze ray she’d taken from Blizzard, some of her high-yield explosives... The heat ray was more of a curiosity than anything, but would it be recognizable?

“Twilight, will you please open the door?”

“Just a minute!” Giving up on being subtle, she threw a tarp over the entire table and leaned casually against it. “Okay!”

Her personal assistant and secretary Spike the Dragon walked in, raising an eyebrow at the mess. Twilight smiled disarmingly. “Aaaaayyyy.”

Spike crossed his arms. “Okay, you’re clearly hiding something. Spill.”

Horseapples. “Nothing important. It’s just, ya know, a thing! But not like a bad or dangerous thing, it’s just a supernormal average thing that is no way scary at all!” She smiled wider. “Heh.”

Spike was not reassured. He took a step forwards, and Twilight had to stop herself from taking a step back. She didn’t think Spike noticed, but the drake still looked hurt. “Look, Twi… I get that coming back after everything that happened is hard. I can’t even begin to understand what you’re going through. But I want to, and Sunset and Shining want to just as much as me. Won’t you please tell me what’s going on?”

Twilight felt what was left of her good mood vanish. She turned away from Spike and began putting up her tools. “It’s nothing bad, it’s just that... “

It’s just that the only people who could have betrayed me to A.I.M are my family.

It’s just that I can’t trust anypony anymore.

It’s just that I’m more alone now than when I was held prisoner.

“It’s just something I need to do,” she settled on. “I’ll tell you when I’m ready, I promise..”

Spike was in no way enthused by that (Is he worried about me or trying to use me?) but he reluctantly accepted it. “I brought a list of some stuff that’s been waiting to get done. You said you wanted to start getting back to normal?”

“Right.” Twilight closed her eyes, trying to shake away the sick feeling of fear in her stomach that had persisted since the cave. “Right, sorry. What do you have?”

Spike flourished the papers from the clipboard, which Twilight took with minimal reluctance. “The M.I.T thing is coming up—”

Twilight winced. “Can you push it back to… I don’t know, June? I don’t want to stay away from the house for that long.”

“Oookay… what about that library opening?”

“That’s not super pressing,” Twilight said. She frowned, sorting through the papers to avoid making eye contact. “They can get on fine without me.” Stock meetings, ribbon ceremonies… isn’t there anything important here?

“Come on, Twilight!” Spike tossed the clipboard on a table and took a step forwards. Twilight flinched. Spike froze, caught between an almost parental look of concern and almost parental look of anger. “...Twilight, look. I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do, but this isn’t good for you. You can’t stay locked up in a musty old lab all day!”

“I get out!” Twilight protested.

Spike’s expression officially settled on ‘parental anger.’ “When?”

Iron Mage gasped in pain as the building collapsed around her. Tons of rubble began to shake above has she strained to hold up the weight of the entire building.

“So maybe this isn’t the healthiest lifestyle,” Twilight admitted. “Okay… what about the Spark Expo? Anything low-key?”

Spike bit his lip. “Well, there’s a small presentation of enchanted items? I think one of the schools put it together. Horseshoes with cloudwalking spells on them or something?”

“Perfect!” Twilight exclaimed. “It’s a crowd, but most of those ponies are the kind that pays just to have stuff with my name on it, some interesting technology, good food—”

“I cook better for us than any of those half-rate vendors!” Spike snapped. “Lousy jerks. They just dump grease all over everything and expect ponies to be impressed. I’m a real cook!”

Twilight nodded, only half listening. “I’ll just shower, put on a vest, maybe a tie… how many unused lectures do I have left?”

Spike sighed. “Seven, not counting the ones with keywords swapped out using a thesaurus.”

“Well of course not! Those are just emergancy back-ups, counting them is cheating.” Twilight smiled. “That was a fun afternoon, we should do that again sometime.”

“Wait, you don’t even want to write a new speech?” Spike almost took another step forwards but settled for rocking forwards on his feet. “Twilight, are you sure?”

“Positive! It’ll be a surprise for everyone. Super safe.” Twilight trotted past Spike and headed up the stairs, pausing and waiting for the dragon to follow. She took a second to magically scan the wards protecting the hallway, wishing she had time to adjust the settings. She was supposed to get an alarm every time somepony approached.

With a sigh, Spike turned to follow her. “What time do you want to meet?”

Twilight nearly dropped the lock. “Huh? Oh, I thought you had…” She suddenly realized she had no idea what Spike did right now, “business… things… to do.”

“This is one of my days off.” Spike stared at Twilight with an odd expression. “Besides, you’re my business. I’m your assistant, remember?”

“Yeah, I just…” That kind of emotional honesty wasn’t something Twilight was good at. She wasn’t good at anything that couldn’t be fixed with a wrench. “So… uh… like, six?”

Spike nodded. “Six o’clock it is. Will that be all?”

“Yep, that’s…” Twilight waved her hoof in a way she hoped counted as actual words, “yep.”

//////////
Spark Tower, Central Canterlot

With a morose sigh, Spike walked into Spark Industries. He greeted each of his fellow employees with a smile as he moved through the building, but inside his head, he was barely paying attention. Twilight’s problems put a lot of things into perspective. She’s putting off assignments, avoiding duties, and she turned down a chance to write a brand new speech? What in the world is she working on down there?

She’d had moments that were this bad back at the university, but they’d never lasted this long. Now Twilight had an entire mansion to herself, and she would go days, maybe weeks without Spike seeing her leave. How was he supposed to fix this?

“Spike, hey! I thought this was one of your days off.”

“Hey.” Spike paused. “Oh, Sunset! Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

Sunset Shimmer was sitting in the office next to Twilight’s, eagerly waving him in. While Twilight technically owned the company, Sunset Shimmer was the CEO and did most of the actual work. Spike and her had always gotten along, thanks to a mutual love of home cooking and being the only two people in Twilight's life that weren't somewhat insane. She raised a bag of chips towards him, offering him one. “It’s okay. You look like you have a lot on your mind.”

Spike took the offered bag and sat down across from her. “Just the one.”

Her expression immediately fell. “I thought Twilight agreed to start doing normal things?”

“I mean, she’s getting out of the house but,” he took a bite to give himself time to think, “but she’s not normal. She wanted to put off the M.I.T thing until June.”

Sunset blinked. “But she’s been looking forward to that forever!”

“I know! The best I could do was getting her to go hang out at the Expo later.”

Sunset leaned forwards. “The Spark Expo in Cloudsdale? Today?”

“Yeah!” Spike took another irritable bite of a chip. “We’re meeting at six. She’s just going to give the introduction to the Inventors Corner and then walk around and see all the stuff they brought this year. It’s not even really work! And get this: She’s looking forward to eating the vendor's junk food and she’s never said a word about all the nice stuff I make her.”

Sunset, who had been staring into space with a worried expression, blinked and looked back towards Spike. “Is that really important right now?”

”It’s…” Spike sighed. “No, but I’ve been working my tail off to try and help her. I don’t think she’s even noticed! I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“Mh.” Sunset took her bag of chips back from him and took one. “Twilight tends to get lost inside her own head a lot. Have you tried just being honest with her?”

“How?” Spike asked. “She’s so… I don’t know, sensitive? I don’t want to hurt her.”

Sunset reached out and patted his hand with her hoof. “I know it can be hard living with somepony who’s gone through trauma like this. The most important thing is to be patient. Be sure to give her space. Things will get better, I promise.”

Spike smiled. “Thanks, Sunset.” Reluctantly, he stood up. “I just came by here to grab some of Twilight’s enchanted disguises. We left them in the safe in the office, right?”

“Uh, I think so?” Sunset stood up to follow him. “Listen, are you sure that going to the Expo is the best idea? It’ll be crowded, and I know Twilight doesn’t trust bodyguards anymore…”

“She’ll have me,” Spike said casually. “Besides, this is the first time she’s agreed to leave the house in a week for anything she isn’t legally required to do. If I cancel, she’ll just use this to get out of other stuff later.”

“Yeah, but—” Sunset sighed. “At least promise me you’ll be careful. And get Twilight to check the spells over, okay?”

Spike saluted. “You got it!”

/////
A.I.M Headquarters, Undisclosed.

Taskmaster hated his job. To be fair, the large stallion hated a lot of things, which was one of the reasons he was a mercenary. But it was hard not to hate working for A.I.M in particular when they were stuck with somepony so petty and small-minded as a leader.

The elevator door finally chimed and opened, letting him trot out into the reception area. A sea of grey met his eyes, as everypony worked in an eerie silence. Taskmaster knew better than to try and distract any of them; they wouldn’t be able to hear him anyway. It was the price for having a boss like Hypnotia.

Striving to ignore the creepy slave labor, he stepped up to the reception desk and rang the bell. The pony behind it sat up straight, suddenly aware of his presence. “Hello, Mr. Taskmaster. I believe Lady Hypnotia is in her office waiting for you. Is there anything you need?”

A new employer. “Just her location. Thanks.”

“I live to serve,” the receptionist said cheerfully before her eyes went vacant and she went back to her work. Taskmaster could stab her through the eye and nopony there would even notice. Sighing, he turned and trotted down the hall.

The leader of A.I.M had a surprisingly normal office. It was a little small, but that was just because they were underground. She had a nice mahogany desk, an ornate mirror with glowing mystical runes around the rim, and a very nice bookshelf that disguised a tunnel that led into what was officially called the ‘consent-optional research basement.’ Seeing that the room was empty, Taskmaster reached out and pulled down a copy of ‘Doorbells and You.’ There was a pause as his identity was verified, and then the bookcase slid back to grant entry. Biting back a fair degree of annoyance, Taskmaster trotted down the creepy steps into the creepy dungeon.

To be fair, it was a comfortable creepy dungeon. Most of it was carpeted, it had good lighting, and a working heat regulation system. Most days that made it easy to ignore the chains and what was done to the ponies in them, but Taskmaster wasn’t in a good mood today. He kept his gaze down as he walked up to Hypnotia.

She was— very hard to describe. Taskmaster had worked for the mare for a few months and had been around the mare long enough to know how to protect his mind from her mental magic. But it wasn’t possible to shield his mind from everything. Some things leaked through, like the spirals of red, yellow and orange gently floating up from her hooves and across her body. They kept shifting, making it almost impossible to notice any real details. It had taken him weeks to decide that her fur was grey, and he still couldn’t tell what color her mane was.

Hypnotia spoke, every word containing imperious authority. “Taskmaster, my most loyal servant. Do you have anything to report?”

“Well,” he paused to make sure his contempt for the mare was pushed back as far as it could be, “work is going very well on the M.O.D.O.K golem thanks to our attack on the S.H.I.E.L.D outpost. That's about the only good that came out of that mess. It’s still slated to arrive after your timeframe.”

Hypnotia shrugged casually. It was actually a little odd how casual it was, almost like she was doing it to ensure that everypony knew how unbothered she was. “No reason to worry about that. I just wanted to motivate them. I’ll give them a slap on the hoof when they arrive late and it’ll make myself look stronger.”

Taskmaster tried to remember how much he cared. He failed. “Fine. Your brainwashing sessions have been going smoothly, but anypony under the influence ain’t operating as well as your normal employees.”

Her tail lashed. “Well, I’ll find a better way to control them in the next round. What about our attack on the Spark Expo?”

Finally. “Well now, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about. Word is that Sunset Shimmer is upgrading security at the Expo this evening. No idea why, though I could guess.”

Hypnotia finally looked at him, her green eyes were the only things that stayed still in the mess of spirals. “You think we have a leak?”

“It’s pretty sloppy if it’s a trap,” Taskmaster pointed out. “More likely that there’s been some change that’s worth the extra protection. I’d like to take one of the stealth airships ready, just in case.”

Hypnotia stroked her chin. “Mh, yes. That does seem wise. Very well, I will allow--”

“Okay, just— What are you doing?” Taskmaster finally snapped.

“Sorry?”

“I mean, all… that?” he said, gesturing to all of her. “The posturing, the evil speech; why are you grandstanding? Who are you grandstanding to?”

To his left, Taskmaster heard a stifled giggle. He rolled his eyes. Of course she had me come in while she was trying to brainwash somepony. Have to show the world how much she owns everything. He sighed as he turned to face the whoever it was in the room with them. He hated how Hypnotia screwed with his perceptions, there would be a—

He stared at the figure in chains for a long moment. When he found his voice, it was low and cold. “I believe I’ve made my position on fillynapping clear before today.”

“Oh—” Hypnotia stomped a hoof in exasperation, “It’s not really fillynapping. Her parents were A.I.M scientists that died a while ago. She keeps trying to run away, and I’m simply trying to change the poor filly’s mind.”

Taskmaster blinked. “Trying? Your powers ain’t working on her?”

Hypnotia’s tail lashed in annoyance. “Well, not yet. I just have to make her see that I’m the mare that should be in charge.” She brushed back the filly’s bangs, ignoring how she tried to pull away. A spiral drifted out into the air and hung in front of her eyes for a moment, but it dissipated. “She’ll cave,” Hypnotia continued. “They all do in the end.”

“Twilight Sparkle didn’t.”

Hypnotia spun around and glared at him. “You are never to speak that name in my presence ever again, do you hear me?”

Taskmaster rolled his eyes. “Sorry, your worshipfulness.” He looked back over the filly with a professional eye. “She’s in good physical shape,” he noted. “And based on some of those bruises I’d say that she put up a good fight. You want her to be a soldier?”

“An assassin,” Hypnotia corrected. “She’s incredibly bright and a skilled fighter. Moreover, learning how to… correct certain- impulses will help us show other ponies like her the light in the near future.” She held up a hoof to interrupt his protests. “Any such program is still years away, well after your contract will have expired. If you still want to continue employment with us then, we can talk about it. Right now I have business to attend to.”

“Heh.”

The laugh was so completely out of place that it took both ponies a second to react to it. “Did… did you just laugh at me?” Hypotia asked the filly incredulously.

“No, it was some other pony strapped to a wall.” The pink mare’s eyes were screwed shut, and she was shaking, but she was still talking and that was enough to impress Taskmaster. “You’re ridiculous! You want to break me so I’ll hurt ponies for you. Except that’s a really important job because everypony hates you and you want broken ponies to do it? That’s a terrible idea! What’s wrong with just using him? Actually,” she continued as she hit on a new idea, “That’s what this is, isn’t it? He can think for himself, and you hate that. You don’t want good soldiers. You just want people that tell you how good you—”

Hypnotia slammed a hoof against the wall, right next to the filly’s face. She flinched and stopped talking. “What I’m doing,” Hypnotia sneered, “is far beyond the comprehension of some brat who can’t do as she’s told! Am I clear?”

The pink filly nodded. Taskmaster waited until he was sure Hypnotia was done with her tantrum, then spoke up. “You want me to take her to a cell on my way out?”

“Whatever. I’ll deal with her later.”

Taskmaster unhooked the chains from the wall and helped the filly stand. She was still shaking but turned aside his offer to help. He grabbed one end of the chains and trotted down the hallway.

The quiet rattling of chains was the only sound that disturbed the silence. The pink filly stared at the ground, never once looking at Taskmaster or anything around her. Her eyes might have been shut; he couldn’t see from this angle. “You’re a scrapper, I’ll give you that.”

Her ears twitched, but she didn’t say anything. Fair enough. He continued; “I ain’t a hero, but you’re tough and I can respect that. So let me give you one piece of advice: Know when to pick your fight.”

She still didn’t look up, but her ears were pricked, listening. “You can fight until you break, but you’ll still break and if they’re still standing that means you lost. Find the one thing you can’t live without. Protect that. Give them what they want elsewhere. Don’t give them everything, make ‘em work for it. But be ready to lose if you have to, so you don’t get yourself killed. Dying isn’t winning. Understand?”

A shallow, jerky nod. They reached the cell, and Taskmaster let her walk herself in. “What’s your name, kid?”

A silence, and then…

“Pinkie. Pinkie Pie.”

Taskmaster nodded. “Ms. Pie, good luck.”

“I won’t need it.”

Taskmaster had started to turn away but paused. Looking back at the mare, he could see the ghost of a smirk dancing across her lips. “You know,” he said slowly, “If I was a smart mercenary, I could find that suspicious.”

Her expression fell.

“Especially seeing as you're trained on how things like escaping work. And this place isn’t that secure yet, we’re still rebuilding after Sparkle’s rescue. Unless getting caught was part of some kind of plan?”

Hooves moved forward, ready to plead before remembering what happened to those who plead. Her expression was blank, not desperate, but it didn’t fool him for a second. It wouldn’t fool anypony who knew how ponies thought. He really should turn her in, but...

His magic overrode a lot of his memories. He didn’t even remember his old name anymore, and it was a lot of work to keep his more recent memories functioning properly. But there was… not a face, not even a voice. Just the impression of somepony he needed to help. Somepony who he’d let down. Somepony he was sure was nearly her age and had depended on him. He spent a lot of time trying not to wonder what that filly (was it a filly or a colt?) had meant to him once upon a time...

“Good thing I’m not all that smart,” he said finally. “One last thing; don’t act smug until after you're too far away to die. ‘Don’t laugh at live dragons,’ and everything.”

She nodded, barely repressed joy lighting her face. It wasn’t a big smile, but it was as big a smile as could be managed in a place like this. It made him feel a little better.

He sighed. Time to go back to work. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some theiven’ to do.”