Day 35

We had a non-hostile NMC today. I also learned how a good number of my fellow hunters were infected today as well.

[A factual account of the encounter with Lily and a less passionate retelling of Applejacks tale follow]

It’s apparently quite uncommon for anyone fully transformed to retain a piece of themselves, so Miss Valley certainly seems to be fortunate. [...] At least in that sense. I suppose she was pretty unlucky to be infected in the first place. For her sake I hope the positive karma extends to her recovery as well.

I’ll admit the whole thing left me shaken. More than ever expected. Applejack's words afterward helped but I won’t lie and claim that I don't still have some misgivings. Though as I thought at the time: It’s a little late for second thoughts now that I'm so far into it. I’ll just have to do better next time: Pay more attention and hone my instincts over my fear. I won’t miss the signs again. That way I won’t have to hope I’ll miss the shot that follows.

I’ll also have to be sure to look into those NMCs that can apparently still think for themselves yet still want to eat people. That seems like a far more important thing to be prepared for than not knowing how big rats were. If it can think tactically, then I can’t afford to have something like that to surprise me again.

Now as far as the story of the attack on the Apple’s orchard, it was far more traumatic than I had been expecting. It does explain how so many friends, not to mention people with such varying interests, ended up under MIST’s banner though. Still, after my own first experience, I can empathise with the fear they must have felt.

Applejack herself seems to have mostly moved past the trauma, with only some slight signs of latent anger remaining. I personally never had a pet but I do remember crying the first time I saw Philomena “die”, granted I was still just a filly but I suppose I can understand wanting to preserve some kind of memento.

Rainbow Dash on the other hand still holds some of the event’s weight, despite not having been infected herself. Though she seemed more upset about almost losing her friends than the event itself. Going so far as to actually argue with AJ over her casual response to it. Another reason I’d rather not have friends: who wants to always worry like that?

Again though, I can relate to feeling like you’re about to die. What it’s like to almost lose yourself to those monstrosities. To despair at the notion of becoming one of them.

[...]

So no, I won’t judge their reactions to what happened.

Still, for what questions it answered, it brought up even more. Like did the infections from the different types have an effect on the resulting NMH’s branch inclinations? Was there a cause all of them stabilized beyond Fluttershy’s quick thinking or are they just a lucky group? Where did such a large group of mixed NMCs even come from and why did they attack the orchard itself? NMC’s don’t usually care about causing collateral damage.

I’ve still got a lot to learn. Will write more when I do.

Day 40

A lot happened today, despite being fairly ‘uneventful’, relatively speaking that is.

Perhaps the most concerning thing was the first: A strange woman stopped me outside the station and gave me an envelope to deliver to Rupert. While certainly sketchy in it’s own right, it was one of the woman’s final comments that left me worried.

“I do hope you’ve been enjoying your stay on our admittedly less saturated little mudball.”

Now I’ve been trying to convince myself it was just a quirk, an odd sense of humor turning a phrase. But I can’t shake the fear she might know what I am, that she somehow knows about Equestria. I don’t know how she could but the way she said it. [...] Pony folklore does have a few stories about visitors from beyond our world but I never took them seriously. Never read too many either, not seeing the value in such foalish fairy tales.

[...]

Kind of wishing I had now.

Even worse, I have no idea what was in the envelope! Bonnie took it from me when she suspected the woman to be her old partner and delivered it to Rupert herself. It could be everything proving I’m not what they think and could ruin all the work I’ve put into all this.

I do take some comfort in the fact I wasn’t called into Rupert’s office to be interrogated. All he did was briefly stop me in the hall to confirm Bonnie’s relayed account. He seemed upset but not at me directly, so I’m hoping I’m still in the clear. Still hard not to worry though.

On a more encouraging note though, most of the staff returned today! Aya and Rarity are still on an assignment but I did get to meet most of those that were gone, if only briefly. The most interesting though was one of the world’s few Awakened and Aya’s younger sister: Eve.

I was mildly startled at first, almost mistaking the girl for her sister. But she had a completely different aire about her. Admittedly I only consciously experienced Aya’s ‘aire’ for a moment [...], and okay, under rather trying circumstances, but even just their eyes give a significantly different impression. Aya’s were intense and unrelenting. Eve’s were considerably softer, even innocent.

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, though it is a shame she’s chosen not to develop her powers. Regardless of the supposive point of data her lack of ability may give Twilight, to have her level of potential and not want anything to do with it is disappointing. I’m sure we could learn a lot more if she developed her abilities to even half the level of her sister, myself most of all!

Still, she did admit to some ‘bad experiences’ as a cause for her hesitancy. So like Applejack and the rest, while I don’t know her story, I can’t bring myself to begrudge her too much for the choice. The fact she’s quite nice and rather personable doesn’t help much either. There's still always Aya to learn from at least.

But yes, other than finally meeting my absent coworkers and the encounter with “Chrissy” not much actually happened today. I sat through some tests and talked to Miss Bouquet about her somewhat curious if unnecessary bounty point system and the possibility of upgrading my gear soon. It was in fact kind of a boring day. Unfortunate, as I certainly could have used a distraction from how it started.

Day 43

Dash pranked me last night. Got me all prepared to fight a horde before dumping me out of the car for nothing more than babysitting duty.

Dick.

Still, I got her back for the embarrassment, if the bags under eyes when she left were any indication. Serves her right. Still, it wasn’t that bad, so I don’t feel the need for further retribution.

Lucky her.

But yes, I had my first baby sitting duty and it honestly wasn’t quite as bad as I made it out to be in my mind. Boring yes, but at least not life threatening in any way. It let me get more acquainted with Miss Zap as well. She was surprisingly interesting to talk to, if not too stimulating intellectually.

Though I will have to amend a previous claim: Dash is now far from the most crass individual I’ve met now.

Afraid I’ll have to stop there, as I have to get ready to head in myself. While my appointments have been cut back I do still have to regularly go to counseling, with today being one of those days. Dr. Amore seems to be getting a little impatient with me, so while I do still have some time before my shift, I feel it would be better to leave any more writing until later and use the time to prepare for her digging.

Wish me luck.

Day 44

I finally met Aya today!

In fact she showed up in style and saved my ass.

[An objective recounting of the assignment, including Sunset’s own failings, follows]

[...]

So yeah, might be a lot worse off if she didn’t show up when she did. Not that she’s solely to thank for our condition. Rarity played a big role in finding us after Rupert asked them to provide back up when they got back into town.

Still, hell of a way to make an entrance. I can see why she’s touted as the best, and not just because of her powers either. She’s calm, collected, focused and practically projects competence. The only one that doesn’t seem to believe the hype is Aya herself.

[...]

[“Hmmm”]

Now that I think about it, she actually seemed to down play her reputation. I hope that modesty doesn’t interfere with my lessons. I had enough of Celestia’s “humility” excuse against teaching me “before I was ready” to last me a lifetime. But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself and make too many assumptions. Maybe she just doesn’t care for boasting and lets her ability speak for itself.

One assumption that led me astray already was expecting her to be more serious. She was surprisingly easy to talk to actually. While perhaps not so much as her sister, she’s quite personable and open. I stumbled a few times and stupidly killed her mood but thankfully managed to land on a topic to break the ice properly. Turns out Ms. Brea has a love for classic cars, muscle cars in particular.

While I wouldn’t have asked for that to be the first topic she taught me about, I’m glad we were able to have a decent rapport. It hopefully suggests we’ll be able to build an efficient understanding of one another and make my progress smoother. While it may have grown sour in the end, I didn’t fail to notice my closeness with the princess made my lessons with her more effective than those of some of my other tutors, not to mention more enjoyable.

Unfortunately my lessons will have to wait a little longer. As mentioned, Twilight was Very excited about the Chaser corpse and was already well underway with her studies of it before my shift was even over. She however doesn’t want to risk any strong fluctuations of mitochondrial energy possibly schewing the data or worse, triggering the decomposition of the remains. I understand of course, but it’s irritating nonetheless.

Oh well. Not like I wouldn’t have had to wait for Aya’s next shift anyway. Rupert gave her and Rarity their first few days back off to let them settle back in. It’ll give me more time to recover anyway, so maybe it’s for the best.

Still frustrating though.

Day 47

The Chaser melted! I know I shouldn’t be so happy about it but I finally got to train with Aya!

Plus Twilight said they learned a lot and managed to remove the implants properly, which was the only- okay, may have been the reason it melted anyway, so it’s still all good, right? And I did help try to keep it from melting further so it’s not like I’m to blame. I tried to help, so I’m allowed to be happy.

Because yes! I had a lesson with one of the original Awakened themselves! And did it ever make the difference. Not to dismiss the other’s efforts; they did still help me get to where I am, but they weren’t kidding when they said Aya was on a whole different level. We didn’t have a full lesson and I still learned so much!

Bluntly put, I’ve been doing it wrong. While I was certain my magical skill would at least somewhat translate, turns out the whole thing is just a bit simpler than that. Still not a skill for the braindead but it requires a different mindset to do properly, or at least efficiently. I will give myself some credit in deducing that emotions do still play a significant part in the process, though again it’s a bit different than how they affect Equestrian magic.

I’ll write proper analysis when I’ve-

[“Sooooo-”]

[“SWEET CEL-]

Sunset braced against the desk with one hand as the other clutched her chest, feeling the heavy pounding of her heart as she struggled to catch her breath.

“Damn it Dash, you scared the hell out of me…”

“Sorry” the mechanic giggled softly from the doorway, before cocking an eyebrow “You did leave the door open though.”

“Fair enough, I guess” the teen gave as her adrenaline began to wane, leaving the tingling behind.

“So what were you doing?” she gestured to, what was from her perspective, the completely blank journal “Some kind of disappearing ink or something?”

Sunset opened her mouth to respond when a naughty thought crossed her mind. It may have been unintentional, but she felt the need to screw with the prismatically haired woman a little for scaring her.

“It’s magic.” She said smugly “Truth is, I don’t have amnesia. I remember exactly who and what I am.”

“What you are?” Rainbow smiled back incredulously.

“I’m a pony.”

“Wat.”

Sunset resisted the urge to snicker at the mechanic's befuddled look; she hadn’t been expecting that! Instead, she simply let her smile grow that much more smug.

“Yep. A Unicorn pony, from the magical land of Equestria. This journal is a gift from the kingdom’s princess, enchanted so only I can read-”

“Yeah, yeah, alright smartass. You’re just killing the joke now.” Dash interrupted “Look, if you don’t want to tell me-”

“It’s a memory exercise.” Sunset answered in an ironically much more honest tone “I pretend to write out an entire entry and then try to remember it word for word later.”

“Oh, that’s kind of cool” Dash answered, leaning against the doorway “It helping at all?”

“Nah,” the redhead shrugged. “It’s really for helping train your brain to retain new information opposed to recovering old memories. Still, I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

“Eh, You’ll figure it out someday” Dash returned with surprising earnest.

“You don’t know that…” the teen feigned melancholy.

“Yeah, but you’re too smart to not figure it out eventually” she waved off with ease before giving the girl a sly smirk “And too damn stubborn to not want to.”

“Fair enough” the former pony chuckled. A moment of comfortable silence passed. While it may have been unknowingly unnecessary, she couldn’t help appreciate the sentiment “...Thanks.”

“No problem.” the mechanic shrugged again.

“Rainbow, what’s taking you?” Fluttershy’s voice echoed from the kitchen.

“Oh yeah, why I'm here; come on.” Dash jerked a thumb over her shoulder “Dinner’s ready.”

Sunset chuckled again and closed the book, following after her housemate.

Author's Note

Made sure to have a log entry to release with the new chapter, considering the wait and all.

But for now, as always: Thanks for reading and I hope to see you for the next chapter! Have a good one!