One in a Trillion: Chronicles of the Traveler: Vol. 1

“Got a new job.”

“Good. What kind of job?”

“We’re taking on that crew from the other side of the city. They’ve got a package we want.”

“Finally. Rules of engagement?”

“They’re expendable, Eight. You could kill half the people in this fuckin’ city and nobody’d give a damn.”

“And what about her?”

“Who, Queeny? Bitch probably has the package on her person. Don’t know what it is, just know it’s worth a lot.”

“How much is she worth?”

“Like two or three mil. You figure out if she was your sister or not?”

“Doesn’t matter anymore. I’ll kill ‘em all.”

…

“Casa-del-Scotchy” Ponyville
D3-08 “Blue Moon”
997.05.26 6:45 AM

I stared up at the ceiling. It’d been the third time I’d woken up, and now there was just no point in trying to get any more sleep. I sat up in the bed and rubbed my eyes gently. I was in Butterscotch’s guest room, which she had been using as storage prior to my arrival. I had tried to assure her that the couch would’ve been fine but she insisted, and once she’d moved all the junk out of the room and made it ready for use, I couldn’t really refuse. Now the room was near empty aside from the bed, and a single small wardrobe which held my meager collection of apparel. There had been a mirror in the room but I’d removed it. I didn’t like seeing my own reflection, wasn’t quite used to seeing myself as a pony yet.

I thought back to my dream. It was the same one I had most nights, a repeat of my final moments back home. I didn’t like how often it came to my mind, replaying over and over. I’d been so complacent, so uncaring. At that point I was beyond caring, I simply wanted an escape. I guess I got one.

I’d mostly accepted being trapped in Equestria by this point, so I chose to focus on the here-and-now rather the there-and-then. I slowly got out of bed and made my way to the bathroom, which was just outside the guest bedroom. Butterscotch had a nice home, with three bedrooms and two baths, although one of the bedrooms had been made into an office of sorts.

Despite my dislike of looking at my own reflection, I had to make sure I was at least semi-presentable before work. It was Monday, and I had to get ready. Looking at myself through the mirror, I studied my disheveled mane, the way my coat looked matted on one side where I’d laid on it, how my eyes appeared sunken. I looked tired. I felt tired, I hadn’t slept right. It didn’t matter. Picking up a nearby brush with my magic, I began the tedious work of taming my mane and smoothing my coat. As I worked, I studied my body, as I usually did. I was smaller than the average pony, at around eighty centimeters tall. Most ponies stood three or four centimeters taller than me.

I had a curious mark on my flank, I couldn’t quite identify it. It looked like maybe a reticle for an optic. Apparently all ponies had these, and it was a magical marking that represented some core part of who you were as a pony. I had no idea what mine represented. I smoothed my coat over, feeling the way the bristles of the brush coaxed each small hair into place. I liked how it felt, it almost made me feel relaxed.

My mind drifted to thoughts about Butterscotch. I’d inquired on several occasions as to why she was being so kind to me, so caring. Each time she simply shrugged and gave an answer to the tune of “It’s the right thing to do.” I was sure there’d been an ulterior motive, but after two weeks she’d done so much for me I couldn’t imagine what she could gain in return to make up for it all. She’d provided shelter for me, allowed me to confide in her, even bought me clothes. It was comforting to know I had someone I could rely on. No, not someone, somepony.

My ears twitched as I heard motion outside the bathroom. Butterscotch was up, I guessed. I continued grooming. I wasn’t sure what I would do about the tired look in my eyes, maybe it’d go away after some time?

“Oh hey Blue-“ Butterscotch said as she came up to the open door of the bathroom. “Sorry! Sorry, didn’t know you were uh, not wearing… anything. Why didn’t ya shut the door?”

“Sorry, guess it slipped my mind.” She was facing away from me. “Did you need something?”

“Uh, yeah,” she replied. I could hear the embarrassment on her voice. Apparently nudity was a major taboo in Equestria. “Out of shampoo. Should be some in the shower over there…”

I floated the bottle of shampoo over to her. “I’ll try not to disturb you with my unclothedness anymore,” I said teasingly. She took the bottle and trotted away.

“Yeah it’s fine, just shut the door if you’re y’know… busy or whatever, yeah?” She said from another section of the house. Ponies were so temperamental sometimes.

…

Plott’s Sporting Goods Store, Ponyville
d3-08 “Blue Moon”
997.05.26

The weekend had gone well. After having slept under the stars at the party Friday night, I spent my Saturday moving large wooden crates in and out of a truck. Sunday, we finished up the last of the job and got paid. I then spent the rest of the day with Butterscotch. I found I enjoyed spending time with her, it always made me feel happy just to be around her.

Today was Monday. I’d gathered that it was standard operation to loathe Monday, but I saw it as just another day. I had work, sure, but that was a good thing. I was lucky to have this job. As the day went on, I discovered Buckeye hadn’t showed up for work, but thought little of it. Maybe he was out sick or something. Things were fairly uneventful, made a few sales, enjoyed lunch with Lilac and Walnut. Ash visited the store, bought some ammunition for a rifle of his, and said hello to his son before leaving. By the end of my shift I felt good. Maybe not completely energized, but certainly not as tired as I’d felt when I woke up in the morning.

I did my usual routine of re-stocking the shelves and cleaning up, and by around five thirty I was ready to leave. Lilac and Walnut had already left, so the breakroom was empty. I was taking off my employee badge, and was thinking about what I was going to do when I got home, when a horribly loud noise startled me out of my reverie. It sounded like an alarm, not unlike the missile lock warning in my cruiser. I panicked, and dove for cover, expecting an impact. I wasn’t sure how I’d managed it, but I found myself underneath a table. The alarm was so loud it hurt my ears. I covered them with my hooves and made myself small.

As I lay there on the floor, my heart racing, hooves pressed against my ears, I wondered when the impact would come. Surely it was a warning for some sort of an attack? But nothing came. The alarm just wailed on and on and on. I had no idea how long I lay there, but it felt like an eternity. I curled myself up tighter and hoped I’d be okay. On and on it went, the unbearable ringing of that alarm. Then I noticed a haze creeping into the room. It was dark, almost black. Was it smoke? I couldn’t tell, and simply hid my face between my knees. I didn’t know what to do beyond hide there in the break room.

Some time passed, and the air became unpleasant to breathe. It smelled a lot like the campfires we’d had set up at the party Friday night. My eyes burned as I looked around the room. It was noticeably darker, the smoke so thick I could just barely make out the doorway now. It looked like there was something glowing out in the storage area? I couldn’t tell, and simply returned to hiding my face.

I stared at the floor, wondering what was going on. I couldn’t tell how long I’d been there, it felt like an eternity, and no time at all. Then the alarm shut off and the lights went out. I raised my head to look around, and inhaled thick smoke. I coughed violently, and buried my face to the floor. Looking towards where I thought the doorway was, I could see that glowing again. It was bright orange, and I could feel an intense heat radiating from that direction. Had I not noticed when a missile hit? Was it a missile? What had happened?

Every breath I took filled my lungs with searing, toxic air, and sent me gagging and coughing. My eyes felt like they were going to melt from their sockets, and my skin itched terribly beneath my coat. As my ears recovered from the abuse they’d suffered from that alarm, I noticed a faint popping sound coming from outside the break room. Then it picked up in volume, and I knew instantly what it was. Gunfire. Thousands of rounds seemed to be going off all at once, like I was listening to an intense firefight. Maybe the J.C.S. had come after me? Were they slaughtering everypony they saw? The sheer volume of gunfire sent my mind reeling and my ears ringing again. As my panic redoubled, I began trying to back away from the doorway. Then the ground shook beneath me, and I felt the air in the room shift as the sound of rending metal joined the cacophony of gun battle. As the noise increased, I noticed more light flooding in through the doorway. This light looked brighter than the orange glow that’d been there before.

Then, silence again, spare for an inconsistent crackle in the distance and the ringing in my ears. I was now in the corner of the room on the far side from the doorway, again cowering with my head in my knees. I could breathe slightly easier, but there was still a lot of smoke in the air. I lay there, terrified as I coughed and wheezed. My eyes burned terribly. I didn’t dare move, didn’t dare make a sound. I had no idea what had just happened, or what was going on at all. Was I even in the same place anymore? I couldn’t tell.

I stayed like that in the corner for so long I was sure I’d be safe to maybe move, but as I raised my head to look around, I breathed in more of the smoke flooding the room and began coughing violently. Then I heard a voice from somewhere far off. I couldn’t make out what it said, but I knew I had to stay as silent as possible. But I couldn’t stop coughing! I struggled to stop myself, but each time I tried to hold my breath it just brought on more coughs as my lungs burned furiously.

“It’s coming from over here!” A voice said in the distance. It sounded muffled. “Hurry, there’s somepony in here!” I finally got my breathing under control as I buried my face back in between my knees, and tried to stay as still as possible. I hoped whoever it was would just look right over me and go on. Surely they were looking for survivors or something? Come to take me back after I’d sided against the J.C.S. so they could question me and then kill me.

Why was I like this? I’d never behaved like this before! I had to get myself under control and assess the situation properly. But as I tried to look up again, the smoke caught me and I was thrown back into a coughing fit. “There! Hear that! Don’t worry, were coming to get you out of here!” The voice shouted. It was much closer now. As I watched through tortured eyes, a figure passed by the doorway, then came back to stand in it directly. I fought as hard as I could to control myself, but could do nothing more than cough and wheeze as my body was starved for oxygen. I felt numb as I thrashed on the floor in the corner, desperately trying to get away from the figure as it approached me. I bashed my hoof against something and fell on my side. “Easy, easy, I’m gonna get you out of here. Are you hurt?” The figure said to me. I stared at it. It was a pony in a bright orange and yellow suit, with a strange hat and mask. I just lay there wheezing and staring. “Here,” the figure said, and took its mask off.

It was a stallion, with light blue fur and green eyes. He looked down at me, worry in his eyes as he pressed his mask against my face. It felt like a cool breeze was blowing across my muzzle, and as I inhaled I filled my lungs with clean air. On his back the stallion had a metal tank with a tube which fed to the mask. I looked at it, followed the tube to where it met the mask, then went cross-eyed again. Refocusing, I looked at the stallion, who stood holding his breath. I pushed the mask off and towards him, and he took it and put it back on. “Ready? We need to get out of here.” I nodded. I was still scared, but I didn’t feel threatened by this pony. “I’m going to carry you out of here, the way through isn’t safe,” he said and readied himself for something. “On three I’m going to lift you onto my back, okay?” I nodded again. “One, two,” he put his muzzle beneath my middle, then mumbled, “three!”

In a surprising display of strength, he lifted me with his head, and set me on his back, just behind the tank. I leaned forward and wrapped my hooves around him to steady myself as I began hacking and coughing again. There was so much smoke…

Then we were moving. It wasn’t terribly fast, but it was faster than I could’ve managed in this mess. We went out the door of the break room and into absolute chaos. All around us was smoke and fire, and the heat was indescribable. I curled my tail closely to my body and buried my face in the back of the stallion’s suit collar. The air was simply unbreathable. I took occasional glances at what we were doing. It looked like the entire back of the store was on fire. The racks that held extra stock had collapsed, and the ceiling had collapsed on top of those, but I couldn’t see the sky. There was just smoke. The stallion I was riding took a hard right turn and I nearly fell off, but he caught me as he moved and kept me stable. We left the back room and entered the sales floor, where the smoke and fire was less intense. Several of the shelves were burning, and I could see where there had been boxes of ammunition that’d cooked off.

Then we were outside, and as I was set down in the parking lot away from the building, I was greeted by more ponies in brightly colored uniforms. I was barely able to keep up with what was happening. One was looking at me, staring into one eye then the other. Another one was cuffing something around my forehoof. Another still stood nearby talking on a radio. I simply lay there, dazed. I looked around and then finally saw it. The store was on fire. From behind the store rose a great pillar of smoke and flame, and I could see through the front windows where the fire was spreading to more sections of the sales floor. Several bright red trucks with red lights and loud sirens were parked nearby, and hoses ran from them to more uniformed ponies. These ponies were spraying water up and over the building, where it then fell back down onto the fire.

I lay my head back and just breathed. My lungs felt like they were full of hot coals, but I didn’t care. Every breath was agony, but I just didn’t care. I had no idea what had just happened. I looked at one of the ponies nearby, who looked back at me. She was a young mare, but there was age showing on her face already. She looked back to what she was doing a moment later.

“Ma’am. Ma’am?” A voice said from above me. It took me a moment to focus on where it was coming from. Then a pony pressed another mask against my face and oxygen filled my lungs. I looked at the pony who’d administered the oxygen mask. It was the same pony that’d pulled me out of the building. “Can you speak?” He asked me.

Once he’d pulled the mask away, I tried to speak but just ended up coughing again. Once I was done coughing, he offered me the mask again but I waved it off. “I-I’m… yeah. Yeah I can talk,” I replied. My voice sounded wrong. Several kinds of wrong. It was nearly a whisper, and as I spoke it felt like my throat was tearing apart.

“Do you know if anypony else was in there with you?” He asked me. He looked at the burning building.

“There was the second shift crew. They’d just clocked in,” I answered while trying to rub my throat. The apparatus on my forehoof stopped me though. “I was alone in the breakroom though.”

“Everypony from the second shift is accounted for, they’re all safe. You don’t know if there’s anypony else that might’ve been in there?” The other ponies that were looking at me started taking their instruments off me and packing them away.

I shook my head. “I don’t understand, what happened?” I asked him. But before I got an answer, an electric blue blur filled my vision and I was being squeezed.

“Blue! Oh Blue! Thank Celestia you’re okay! I was terrified when I’d heard what happened and flew back here. Are you okay? Anything hurt? Any burns? Oh, Blue!” Lilac was looking me all over as she spoke so fast I was struggling to understand what she was saying. The stallion that’d saved my life put his equipment back on and began walking back towards the burning building.

“Lilac? What are you doing here?” I asked her. “What happened?”

She looked at one of the ponies in a uniform. “Did you check her? Is she okay?” She asked in a harsh tone. She patted my shoulder. “It’s okay, Blue, you’re gonna be okay. Oh I swear I’m never letting you work over again!”

“What? Lilac I’m fine, just… a little shook up I guess.” I sat on the pavement and looked at the fire. It was getting worse. “What happened, though?”

Lilac sat next to me and put her wing around me. “I don’t know, Blue. I just got a call from the second shift manager saying there’d been a fire, and I pulled right over to the side of the road and flew back. Didn’t even bother with the truck, traffic is so bad right now. It’s probably been towed by now. What happened to you though? You look… rough. You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

I looked at my rear left hoof. It looked okay, but it did hurt. “I think I hit my hoof on something. I don’t know. I was in the break room when an alarm went off and I… panicked, I guess…” I looked down at my hooves. “I just hid under the table.”

“That was the fire alarm, Blue. Don’t you remember me telling you about that?” She had done, in my orientation for the job. But I hadn’t realized what it would sound like. “Don’t worry about it, you’re okay, and that’s all that matters. Which hoof is it? You, paramedic! Come here please?” She waved over one of the uniformed ponies. It was the same young mare with the tired eyes. “Blue said she hurt her hoof. Can you check to see if it’s sprained or anything?”

The paramedic pony asked me to show her which hoof was hurt, and as I moved it I winced. She looked at it, touching it carefully, which also hurt. She went to a large vehicle nearby and got out what looked like a boot of some kind. “Here, looks like you just bruised it. Put this on and don’t put too much weight on it for a couple days and you’ll be okay.” She helped me put the boot over the leg. It kept me from moving my hoof, which I guessed was to keep me from injuring it further. “Anything else?” She asked me. I shook my head.

“Thank you, miss,” I said to her. She just nodded and went back to the vehicle.

…

We sat there for a short while longer, Lilac continuing to poke and prod me over everything that happened, asking repetitively if I was okay even after I’d told her I was fine several times. Then Butterscotch’s car pulled up to the parking lot but was stopped by one of the uniformed ponies. “That’s Scotch,” I said to lilac, pointing towards her vehicle. “Looks like they don’t want to let her in. Can you do something? Let them know she’s okay to come in?” Lilac went to stand up, but before she left, Butterscotch pulled past the uniformed ponies and drove around the parking lot and towards us.

“Guess she didn’t like what they told her,” Lilac said, and waved at Butterscotch.

Butterscotch pulled up and got out of her car, rushing over to me as I sat there with my injured hoof stuck out awkwardly. I couldn’t exactly stand up at the moment, so she got down to my level and threw her hooves around me. She was shaking. “Blue, you’re okay, thank Celestia you’re okay,” she whimpered. “I saw the fire as I was driving in to pick you up and I didn’t know what was going on. Are you hurt? What’s wrong with your leg?”

“I’m okay, really. I just hurt my leg, hit it on something. One of the medics said I’d just bruised it.” I twisted my leg back and forth, showing off the boot. “She gave me this fancy thing. I think it makes me look kinda cool,” I tried for some levity.

“Lilac?” Somepony said from behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw an older stallion approaching. He was wearing a tee shirt and jeans, but from how Lilac looked at him I guessed he was important. “What the hay is happening?”

“I have no idea, I just got here a minute ago. Blue was trapped in there, but I think everypony else got out okay.” Lilac looked towards the fire as she spoke to the buck. “I don’t know what caused this, it had to have been something bad though if the suppression system failed.”

Suppression system? Wait… “Hey, I think the ammunition was cooking off in there. It sounded like one hell of a firefight from where I was,” I said from where I sat nearby. “Could have prevented the fire from getting doused completely.”

The buck came up to me and looked me over. “Don’t think we’ve met. I’m the store manager, Toro. Your name’s Blue?” He noticed my hoof in the boot. “You were trapped in there? Was anypony else with you?”

“No sir,” I answered politely. “I was in the break room and got scared when the alarm went off, so I hid. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? What for? I’m just glad you’re alive. Did you get checked out by the paramedics?” He gestured to the boot. “What happened to your hoof?”

“Not sure, the medic said it was just bruised and I should keep my weight off of it for a while.” I felt tired of all the questions, but figured it was in my best interest to answer anything he asked me. He was my boss, after all, even if this was the first time I’d ever met him. “I’m still kind of confused about what happened, but somepony came in and saved me. He was wearing a bright orange suit.”

“Firefighter,” he replied. “That’s their job. I’m glad you got out okay. And you’re sure nopony else was in there with you?”

“Certain,” I replied. “I was just about to leave for the day. Nopony else was in the back.”

“Okay. Okay. Well, I’m going to go check on everypony else. Damn what a mess. I’ll call you about what the verdict is once I have a clue, Lilac. Get this mare someplace away from all this, yeah?” He said to Lilac before heading towards another part of the parking lot where there was another big vehicle.

“Mind giving us a lift, Scotchy?” Lilac asked.

…

“Casa-del-Scotchy” Ponyville
D3-08 “Blue Moon”
997.05.26 6:30 PM

We arrived at Butterscotch’s condo and went inside. I was exhausted, so laid down on the couch in the den. Butterscotch brought me a glass of water as Lilac sat down nearby.

On the car ride over I’d explained everything I could. Butterscotch was convinced I’d had a bad reaction to hearing the alarm, and I had to agree. Looking at her now, she had that same concerned look on her face that I never liked to see. “Thanks. I’m okay, I promise, Scotch. I’ll be fine.”

“I know you’ll be fine, because I’m gonna make sure of it,” she replied, sitting in a chair next to Lilac. “You’ve been through hell these past few weeks, and now you got caught in a fire like that. It ain’t fair.” She was always so concerned for me, it really boggled my mind. What was I to her? It wasn’t like I meant anything to her. If anything, I was just a burden.

“What’s wrong, Blue?” Lilac asked me.

I looked up at both of them. I’d buried my face in my hooves without realizing. “I just… I’m just a little shook up, that’s all.” I forced myself to relax. “I guess I’ll need to see if Ash has any more work for me to do. I probably won’t be back to work at Plott’s for a while, huh?”

“Yeah, that’s gonna take a pretty long time to repair,” Lilac said. “Don’t suppose you could get me on with you? Ash always has some work available. Me and you would make one hell of a team.”

I was grateful they agreed to change the topic. Or at least Lilac had. “You hungry, Blue? Have you had anything to eat today?” Butterscotch asked.

“I’m definitely not hungry, no.” She seemed determined to make sure everything was absolutely perfect with me. It almost irritated me, but I couldn’t be mad at her for it. “I’m kind of tired, though.”

“You wanna go to bed? I’d say a night’s sleep would do you a lot of good,” Butterscotch said, getting up from her seat. “Here, I’ll help you.”

“Scotch, please. You’ve already done so much. You do too much, it’s kind of weird actually,” I said teasingly. “I should probably shower before I get in bed, though. I’m pretty filthy. And I won’t need your help with that, either. Unless you really want to.” And with that, I’d won.

…

After a warm shower I found I really did feel a lot better, and my hoof didn’t hurt nearly so bad. I dried myself off then went to bed. Lilac had left after I’d gone to my shower, stating she needed to find out where her truck was. Butterscotch was watching her television. She liked to watch police shows, which I guessed made sense, because she worked in corrections. Being a prison guard, she enjoyed militaria similarly to how Lilac and I did, but not to the same degree. She didn’t know much about tactics beyond how to stop somepony from moving, and how to track, but she was very knowledgeable about firearms, which I liked.

Thinking about Butterscotch would always make me feel somewhat odd. It was as if being around her was simultaneously exciting and terrifying. Why was that? And why did I think about her so often? She always did so much for me, cared so much. It reminded me in a way of Alpha Thirteen. Thirteen had been my superior in the Service, but she’d never really done a lot for me, not like Butterscotch was doing. Come to think of it, the only time anyone ever cared for me to nearly the same degree was…

…

“We’re bingo fuel, Chief.”

“Yeah, I’m guns dry. Anybody left on the ground?”

“Nope, we’re out here on our own.”

“Can we RTB?”

“They’re between us and home, Chief. Can’t get high enough with them there.”

“Get around them then?”

“Trying to. Hold on. Missile lock. Missile lock… Missile lock. They’re sending their entire payload at us looks like.”

“Go evasive. Get away from the salvo.”

“We have no countermeasures left. Winchester all. Twenty seconds. You gotta get out of here, Chief.”

“No, not without you.”

“You’re too important, Chief. You gotta go.”

“Not without you. You’re all I have left. I can’t be the last one standing.”

“Don’t worry, I have a plan. I’ll see you on the other side, Chief. It’s been an honor. Delta Three, Zero Two out.”

>Gunner Compartment One jettisoned.
>Master Caution: Engine fire.
>Critical failure.
>Impact imminent.

…

I woke screaming at the top of my lungs for Number Two. I flung myself from my bed and into the floor, hitting my injured hoof against the bedframe. I’d dreamt of when I’d lost my cruiser, along with the last remaining member of my team.

As I lay there on the floor, shaking and crying, Butterscotch came rushing in. “Blue! Blue, it’s okay. I’m here. What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” She picked me up and helped me back to the bed, where I sat down.

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked her.

“Did you have a nightmare?” She asked in reply. I took a moment to collect myself, then tried to explain what I’d dreamt. It was difficult to explain.

“The fire alarm sounded a lot like that missile lock alarm. I guess that made me dream about… that.” I stayed quiet for a moment, and Butterscotch put her hoof around my shoulder. She was usually uncomfortable about my nudity, but apparently she didn’t care at the moment.

“You’re okay, Blue. You’re safe now. I’m sorry, I can’t imagine what that was like, losing him like that.” She pulled me into a sideways hug. “This is why I care about you, Blue. It’s just like I said. You’ve been through hell, and I want to help.”

I leaned into the hug, and let my emotions flow. I hated it. How out of control I felt, how easily I fell apart. But I was glad to have her. She made things easier. “What time is it?” I asked after I’d calmed down a bit.

“About two in the morning, I think,” she answered. “You want anything?”

“I don’t want to be alone right now,” I said shakily. “I’m sorry I’m such a burden.”

“You ain’t a burden. You’re important, whether you believe it or not.” She got up from where she sat next to me. “Come on, let’s go sit in the living room.” She helped me to my hooves. I winced when I put weight on my injured hoof, so she helped me hobble along until we got to the couch, where she helped me sit down, before sitting next to me.

We sat like that for a while, in the quiet and the dark. Then she put her hoof around me again, and I leaned into her embrace.

“I’m glad you care,” I said. “I just wish I knew why.”

She stayed quiet for a moment, then explained, “I care because I understand what you’re going through. Maybe not completely, but I do get it a little bit. Me and my dad left Saddle Arabia when I was very little. We had to leave behind everything, and flee the country. When we got to Equestria, I felt scared, and alone. I needed somepony I could trust, somepony to rely on, and that had been my dad.

“He taught me right from wrong, taught me to be good and true, to never hurt another pony that didn’t deserve it. And what you’ve gone through reminds me of that, somehow. So I wanna be there for you.” She looked at me. “You’re an interesting mare, but just because you’re different doesn’t mean you have to go it alone. If you won’t let me care for you for your sake, at least let me do it for my own.”

I considered what she said, and relaxed into her embrace further, laying my head on her shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Sure thing, Blue.”

…

Ponyville General Hospital
D3-08 “Blue Moon”
997.05.27 9:30 AM

We’d stayed together for the rest of the night like that, with me eventually falling asleep in Butterscotch’s hooves there on the couch. I slept dreamlessly, which was what I needed.

Now we were visiting Doctor Clarity, as I’d had an appointment today anyway. I’d explained what had happened the day prior. “One crisis after another, it would seem,” he said after I’d finished. “The alarm really bothered you, and that makes sense. It reminded you of a traumatic experience, and triggered your fight-or-flight response.”

Butterscotch was in the waiting room outside the doctor’s office, which I didn’t like. I’d wanted her in here with me, but that wasn’t an option. I’d become slightly less untrusting of Doctor Clarity, but he still creeped me out a little. “It sounded exactly like the missile lock alarm in my cruiser. So I thought I was in my cruiser, about to be hit by a missile salvo. I even had a nightmare about it last night.” He wrote that down on the paper in front of him.

“I’m glad you made it out of that fire relatively unscathed. Your hoof really is okay?” He asked. “We can have it looked at by someone with a little more professional expertise than an overworked paramedic, if you like.”

“I’ll be okay. As long as I don’t touch it or move it or do anything to it at all, it doesn’t hurt.” I looked at the hoof in question, in its goofy boot that made walking less painful, if a little awkward.

“If you insist,” the doctor replied. “I also have something else I’d like to do today, if you don’t mind.” He pulled a framed paper off the wall and set it on the desk in front of me. “This is my medical license. Without it, I’d have nothing.” I looked at it, and then at him, curious where he was going with all this. “Legally, if I disclose anything we discuss here, not only would I lose that license, I’d also likely get many, many years behind bars.” He paused for a beat, then continued, “I know you’re afraid to trust me, Miss Blue, but please, if you won’t take my word for it, at least know that there’s genuinely no way I could disclose anything you tell me here without putting everything I hold dear into jeopardy.”

Then he pulled something out of a box in the corner. “If you’re willing, I’d like to get a better look at your memories. This device works similarly to that spell you cast on me when we met. It simply projects anything you think of.” It was a helmet with a wire feeding from it to a device with a lens on it. “It should help me better understand your past. Would you like to try it?”

I considered the strange device for a moment. He was desperate, I could tell. He wanted more information on what all I’d gone through, but if I told him, I feared he’d turn me in to the government, or something. But he had said all that about the laws… An idea. “Before we do, I’d like to ask Butterscotch to confirm what you just said, about your license and all that.”

“Sure, that’ll be fine.” He got up and brought Scotch in.

I asked scotch about what the doctor had said. “Uh, yeah, that’s majorly illegal. He could wind up with decades on his sentence. Patient confidentiality is taken very seriously,” Butterscotch explained. “If he’s willing to sacrifice all that just to show you off, you’re really something special, Blue,” she teased.

“See? I’m not the enemy, Miss Blue,” Doctor Clarity said.

“Okay. Thanks, Scotch.” She nodded and left the room again. “So, under threat of a fate worse than death, you’re bound to secrecy. I guess I’ll wear your weird device.”

The doctor chuckled softly. “Yes, a fate worse than death. That’s putting it mildly.” He floated the helmet apparatus onto my head. It was a little loose. He then plugged the other device into a socket in the wall. “Okay. How this works is, it casts a very simple spell that’s not unlike the spell you cast, like I said. It’s going to project anything you want it to. Think about your past, and anything that might have been traumatic, if you can. If at any point you feel uncomfortable, just let me know, or take the helmet off.”

I nodded my head. “Ready.” He nodded as well, and flicked a switch on the projector with his hoof. On the wall the projector faced appeared exactly what I saw at present. Then it doubled, and doubled again, and I closed my eyes.

“Okay, it tends to do that. Just keep your eyes shut if you like. That may help.” I thought about what he wanted me to think about. He wanted me to remember traumatic experiences. I thought about the fire, and how that made me feel. That reminded me of my dream, and so I thought about that.

…

The Revenant flew silently over the city, its engines pushing it low to the ground. “Entering the merge,” the captain said over her Uplink. “Looks like a heavy, maybe a Sixer or something. Hold on. Something else is coming in. Eleven-oh-clock, high. Angels eighty-five, looks like seventy miles out, feet wet.”

“Tally. Bring her ‘round, Chief,” the gunner said. He and the captain were the only two on board, the rest of the crew having been ordered off the ship. “Okay, eyes on. Firing on target one.” The gunner fired, and six thirty-millimeter cannons spun up and began sending thousands of rounds at the fighter. It was shredded.

“Good hits, target destroyed. Got another coming in, same as number two. Hold. Got another contact, directly above us.” The radar showed solid red. “It’s bigger than us. Can’t get a read on what it is or where it’s at.”

“I see it,” the gunner said in reply. “That’s a siege ship, Chief. They’re going to glass the city. Looks like a yankee ship. Got anything new on target two?”

“Negative, holding position. Definitely another sixer. Probably called in our coordinates for the big guy. We got anything to scare him off?” The captain began piloting the cruiser higher into the air to get a closer look at the giant ship overhead. It was larger than most mountains, and cast a shadow over the entire city below.

“Not really. Could do some gun runs on it, maybe piss it off. We’re outgunned here for sure.”

“Okay. Let me switch with you.”

“Affirmative.” The gunner and captain switched places.

“I’m going to need you to orbit at thirty, maybe thirty five. I’ll be calling for inversions on occasion, can you do that?”

“Yeah.”

…

I opened my eyes. I looked at Doctor Clarity. “Was that your ship again? The Revenant?” He asked me.

“Yeah, and the other person was Caveman, or Delta-Three-dash-Zero-Two. He was the second-to-last member of my team to die.” I made the conscious decision not to look at the projection. “I was the last.”

“You certainly don’t look dead,” he said to me.

“Death doesn’t really apply to me the same as it did to him, or to you. You can copy a program and put it somewhere else, then delete that copy. The original still remains. So then it can never die, and neither can I. Surely they won’t be making any new copies of me though, so I am effectively dead.” I looked at the pictures of his family, and he watched the projection.

“It’s fascinating to see what you saw, though. Was that really how you saw things? Everything, all at once?” He asked me.

“When I was connected to the Revenant, yeah. The ship had its own surveillance system, so I could just watch everything through that and piece together a cohesive image from what I saw.”

“And that person piloting the ship, that was you? Before you switched, I mean?” He was writing something else down now.

“In a way, I guess it was. To use the computer analogy again, that was the storage media I was stored on at the time.” I thought about how the tether worked. “Imagine your consciousness being transmitted from one place to another, so that you can be somewhere without actually being there.”

“A very… alien concept, but I think I follow. Mostly,” he replied. The doctor put his notepad down and looked at me. “Was that the traumatic experience you were reminded of when you heard the fire alarm?”

“No. The… trauma came after.”

…

The Revenant was soaring straight up through the clouds, towards the massive siege machine that hovered above.

“We’re bingo fuel, Chief,” the man said to the captain, whom was currently occupying the gunner seat.

“Yeah, I’m guns dry,” she replied, scanning the ground through her gunner scope. “Anybody left on the ground?”

“Nope, we’re out here on our own.” The two of them were indeed alone. There was only the siege machine above.

“Can we RTB?” She asked, turning her scope towards the south.

“They’re between us and home, Chief.” The man turned the ship hard to the side, and the vast ship above them reacted with agility far too quick for its size, moving to keep them trapped beneath. “Can’t get high enough with them there.”

“Go around?” She asked him.

“Trying, hold on.” A loud ringing alarm sounded throughout the cabin. “Missile lock.” The alarm doubled, then tripled in a near-deafening cacophony of chaotic sound. “Missile lock. Missile lock… They’re sending their entire payload at us, looks like.”

“Go evasive,” she said in reply, watching missile after missile leave the giant ship overhead. “Get away from the salvo.”

“We have no countermeasures left. Winchester all,” he said in a resigned tone. Then he smiled. “Twenty seconds. You gotta get out of here, Chief.”

“No, not without you,” she said, turning away from her display to look at him.

“You’re too important, Chief.” He took a small chain out of his pocket and handed it to her. On it was a thin plastic disc. “You gotta go.”

“Not without you,” She begged as she held his hand to her chest. “You’re all I have left. I can’t be the last one standing.”

“Don’t worry, I have a plan.” He looked at her, with his easy-going smile. “I’ll see you on the other side, chief.” He freed his hand from hers and placed it on the eject switch for the gunner position. “It’s been an honor. Delta Three, Zero Two, out.” He flipped the switch, and the woman, along with the entire gunner position, was jettisoned out of the cruiser and into the empty air below.

She watched as she fell. Above, the Revenant soared higher and higher, its engines roaring to full power. It quickly gained incredible speed. As it neared the giant siege machine, it banked hard to the right, and maneuvered towards the front of the ship. It then soared past the nose of the thing, before the engines shut off.

She struck the ground with such force that her vision failed. She saw the readouts from the ship in her Uplink feed.

>Gunner Compartment One jettisoned.
>Master Caution: Engine fire.
>Critical failure.
>Impact imminent.

…

“I see. That missile lock alarm sounded identical to the fire alarm.” Doctor Clarity looked solemnly at me. “Was that how you lost your friend?”

“He did something we called the suicide feint.” I shook my head. “Caveman… we always joked with him for being kind of slow, but I always knew he was smarter than he lead others to believe. To pull off a suicide maneuver one has to get above the target, then cut power and let their ship fall to the planet below. Then, as the enemy reacts, you watch for when they enter the merge and begin rotation lock, and gun them down. It’s called the suicide feint because if you mess up, you’ll fall to the ground and die.”

“Sounds complex. Caveman was your friend, then?”

“More than a friend. When you spend years with someone, fighting by their side, protecting one another, keeping each other safe, you become more than friends. I don’t know what you could call it. I called him my brother.” I felt myself begin to shake again.

“Okay, Miss Blue. I think that’s told me a fair bit. Let’s take a break for now.” He sighed, and removed the apparatus from my head. His hooves wiped tears from my face. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It’s bittersweet,” I said after I calmed a bit. “I know where he is now. I don’t know how it works here, but back home, after a living thing like a person dies, they awake in a paradise.”

“A paradise?” He asked.

“Yes. I’ve been there myself, it’s a real place. Can visit the gates themselves. But somebody like me can never go inside, because I haven’t got a soul.” Heaven was where they all were now, and even though I knew I’d never be able to get inside, I still wished to see them all again. “There’s a saying we had in the Service, called the Melancholy. Try as you might, you can never stop circling the flame. And someday, it’ll burn you up.”

“You’re the last one left, then?” He was speaking softly, gently. He’d stopped doing anything but speaking to me.

“A Juggernaut never dies. That’s just a fact. My teammates were the first to ever actually die, in the entire history of the J.C.S. One by one we were killed off. The first two were freak accidents, really. But after that... well. I won’t go all conspiracy theorist on you. Suffice to say, it is no small shame to be the last of your team left standing. It’s… unheard of.”

“Juggernauts, then? That’s what you were called?”

“In the service, yes. We each retired, after learning a little too much. Then we were picked off, one by one. That siege ship was there for me. Caveman wasn’t the target. Caveman could’ve survived.” I began crying again. “Stupid idiot. Just had to leave me behind like that…”

“Hush now. Here, let’s get you calmed down, and then you can have a nice restful day with Butterscotch.” He offered me a bottled water. I accepted it, thanking him.

I’d need a lot more than some water to calm my nerves.