Science was an incredible field of work to get into. You were directly responsible for shaping the future of the world itself, your ideas could change the very course of pony history or save thousands of lives.
To the mare known as Mercury Shine there was no better field she could have gone into. The pale yellow unicorn had started out as as an alchemist in Ponyville, then progressed into the field of chemistry after getting a job with a large science company. She loved her new job, mixing and titrating chemicals, creating new materials and working to test them in exciting ways. Just last week she had created a type of explosive reactive armour. Sure, she had been attempting to create a material for raincoats, and technically it was set off with oxygen instead of explosives, but given a few months she could make explosive raincoats.
If she was being honest, things weren't going completely to plan. But she was trying really hard... There were a lot of exciting chemicals to be messed with however, and she wanted to make something to really help ponies, not just keep the rain off them.
Still, as she watched her small meal rotate in the humming device known as a microwave, she felt an overwhelming wave of sadness come over her. This had been her dream job, but now she was here, it was... Disappointing somehow. She'd never admit it out loud of course, and in her heart she knew that she needed to start at the bottom if she wanted to get to the top, but still she had expected more.
Her emerald green eyes peered down at the vaguely edible mush in a plastic tray she dared to call lunch from behind a pair of rectangular glasses set upon her snout. It was a kind of nutrient paste provided by the company as another one of their research sectors focused on nutrition. Well, they claimed to focus on food, but the gray mush tasted like chalk and had the vague texture of cement, gritty and warm as she used the horn atop her head to manipulate a spoon into feeding her the gray mush.
The green glow of her magic surrounding the fork only seemed to worsen the colour of the food, to the point it looked like it was trying to imitate the colour of the two tone gray mane atop her head.
That thought did put a little bit of a smile on her face. Mercury Shine flavoured nutrient slop, now with 20% more gray! The mental image of her face plastered onto every box, a fake grin plastered on her face as she pretended to enjoy the product.
But no, it didn't matter how good for her the gray slop was. She was going to bring in a hamburger or a sandwich next week. Climbing to her hooves, she used her magic to condemn the small plastic tray that was still half filled with warm paste to the bin where it belonged.
The other workers in the break room were all lost in their own little worlds as she moved back into the changing room and began to put on her clean room gear. White gloves, a onesie, safety goggles, face mask and a mane and tail net. All of the items went on her one by one with practiced ease, before stepping out onto the metal catwalk that spanned over several large vats of their latest product.
It was a thick black goop today, mixed by a large metal paddle that span around, but what really caught her attention was the mare walking around on the ground below, also dressed in a clean room suit, but having an unmistakable blue mane and round framed glasses that couldn't belong to anyone else besides her friend Logical Leap!
Logical Leap had won what was basically a golden ticket to the chemical factory. It had been a pretty good day for her, all things considered. Some might say that her friend had put in a good word for her, and she had in fact paid to go on the tour, which made it not all that special.
She didn't like to think like that however. She was a special m,are and she deserved to be in the chemical factory because she was good with chemicals and science stuff, just like her friend! She had read at least twenty books on chemical compounds and other stuff, so she was basically a scientist at this point.
As she stared up at the huge vat of chemicals before her, Logical Leap was slowly disaccoiating into the background. The boring stallion behind her hadn't said a single word she cared about beyond the word chemicals and the word science, both of which her brain picked out. It was quite incredible that her brain had a built in filter for when stallions were waffling on a bit much.
"Chemicals.... Vat.... Science.. Dangerous," She had no idea that one stallion could have so much to say about chemicals without saying a single thing that was actually intreating to her. Thankfully she was saved from the bordom that came with stallions trying to stallionsplain boring science stuff to her by her friend, who happened to be on the catwalk above.
"Oh hey! Mercury! Down here!" She said, cheerfully sauntering her way over to the vat and twisting a big red valve, "Look, I'm doing science too!" She laughed. Mercury Shine gave a tired smile, the stallion screamed and the vat gave an ominous sounding creaking noise that didn't sound good.
Logical Leap was pretty sure that it was fine. These vats were built to withstand a lot worse things then her simply turning a massive red valve that said "Emergency Pressure Vent"... OK. Logical Leap might have been in a tiny bit of trouble. Just a little bit of trouble.
The stallion was desperately yelling some nerd stuff that she didn't really pay as much attention to as she should have. She could fix this. She just had to turn the valve back the other way and everything would be fine.
The stallion seemed to have had the same idea, as he was desperately attempting to turn the valve the other way. From behind her round spectacles, the mare was starting to panic just a little bit.
The massive vat gave a loud groan. Honestly this didn't even make any sense to her. How was something with mixer at the top so heavily pressurised? How did the science behind that work, and could she figure it out in time?
The stallion was suddenly launched backwards as the valve popped off, thick black goop leaking from the new hole that had been made in the tank, flooding the factory floor as the tank shook violently.
The mixer ground to a halt, Mercury Shine had rushed down the stairs and was screaming at her. It was at this point she realized that this might be a panic attack. That would explain why the light yellow mare could barely feel her hooves.
Even though stallions were pretty mediocre even at the best of times, she hoped that the stallion who had just been launched across the room was OK. Hopefully he hadn't broken anything with the force that he had been launched at.
It was at this point that everything seemed to go wrong all at once for her. The metal of the vat suddenly sheared itself apart and the black substance began to violently spill forth from out of it. Mercury Shine turned and attempted to run, and all at once she seemed to get her senses back as well.
Run. She needed to run. She needed to get her hooves under her and move away from the dangerous flood of chemicals that was rushing towards her. The black goo almost looked like it was alive as it flowed and spilled from out the tank, spreading across the floor and rushing towards her almost in slow motion.
There was no point in running now. The flow of chemicals was too fast, but her body felt like a vat of chemicals itself, and in a flash of brilliance she suddenly found herself surrounded by a giant green shield, summoned from her own horn! It was like in one of the comics she loved so much.
This was her magical mare moment. She was going to transform and save her friend and-
The shield exploded inward the moment the goo touched it, smacking her square in the chest. It tingled, almost burned, it drove the air from her lungs and knocked her from her hooves in an instant. It coated her clothing, began to rapidly eat through it, she could feel her protective gear melting around her, being stripped away by the material almost as fast as paper melting in the rain, and it burned lightly at her flesh too!
Oh no. Oh No. This wasn’t like one of her comics at all. Falling into vats of chemicals was meant to give you super powers, not horrible chemical burns. She was in a panic, groping around and desperately trying to make an escape before the goo began to eat into her as well.
Mercury Shine meanwhile, was having problems all of her own. She had been hoping to help her friend, and now she was being melted by chemicals. The health and safety inspector wasn’t going to be happy in the slightest. The vats hadn’t been built to withstand the weight or substance of a material so dense.
The only one who had managed to make it out of the room was the stallion, who must have set off the fire alarm or something, because now there was an alarm blaring through the entire facility. Mercury Shine was trying to make it over to her friend. Her protective gear seemed completely useless against whatever this material was, it was eating into it and likely her flesh with equal ease, but for the moment she didn’t see any blood or feel any searing pain from her flesh being melted off her bones.
“Leap! Leap! Over here, let’s head for the door!” Mercury Shine called. She was calm, this was far from the first chemical spill or accident that she had been a part of. The important thing was to stay calm. Provided they didn’t panic everything would be OK. They needed to get out of here and make straight for the chemical showers.
Logical Leap seemed to have been blinded, as the mare was desperately shielding her eyes with one hoof and stumbling forward with the others. This was far from the smartest idea however, as the chemicals were thick like mud beneath her hooves, and she soon tumbled head first into them, her hind legs desperately kicking as her rump stuck out of the black goo, the only reminder that it was her friend at all the bright blue tail and the cutie mark of a vase in the middle of exploding.
Her yellow fur was stained, she was struggling wildly, and this was enough to focus Mercury Shine into incredible feats of strength. Adrenaline rushed through her body and she pushed forward, grabbing onto the flank of her friend and…
Logical Leap’s flank gave away just like melting toffee. Mercury Shine finally had the amount of “Oh fuck” she could deal with reach its upper limit, and she let out a shrill scream as she attempted to pull away, but the goo was stuck firmly to her hooves, and as she tumbled backwards, she realized that this was the end for her.
It didn’t hurt as much as she had thought. Everything was black and warm and comforting. Was she dead? Was this the afterlife? Was she some kind of spooky ghost now? She didn’t know.
By Celestia that stallion sure had a stupid face. She didn’t know why that thought was coming into her mind, but it was true, and she found herself agreeing with it on some level. She was a scientist after all, and it was pretty much proven that stallions were pretty stupid if they didn’t at least make an attempt to save a mare in trouble.
Her thoughts seemed to be behind a thick hazy fog at this point, lost. She was trying to gather them up, but she was certain a lot of these thoughts weren’t her own. Leap? Leap? Mercury! Wait, those weren’t her thoughts, were they? For a moment it seemed like she had been happy to see herself. But that was stupid. Was she getting some kind of super-power now? Becoming some kind of cool magical mare?
She couldn’t tell. But she hoped that was the case and she wouldn’t have to sign her soul away to some stupid magical cat. At the moment she seemed to know a lot more about potions then she had known previously. And a lot more about comics. But that was silly, of course she loved potions and comics and mares. Stallions were pretty stinky. Mares were pretty nice.
Hey. She didn’t think she was dead. Or, if she was dead, she was pretty bad at it. Dead people didn’t normally do all this thinking about how much they loved potion making, comics and mares right? She didn’t know, she’d never been dead before. But she was quite sure that this wasn’t it.
Was she simply asleep? Maybe she needed to try and move her body again. Drawing her focus inwards she realized that she had totally forgotten what it was she looked like. She was a pony, right? Ponies had about four hooves, a head, a body and a tail. What colour had she been again? Ah.. Light yellow.
Light yellow sounded about right. Then their mane… Storm cloud gray like when the sky got super angry, but with a little bit more blue mixed in there. And her eyes? Emerald green. Oh, oh, and she totally had a pair of… Goggles, for doing science! And a bright purple flower behind her left ear. She loved that flower.
Oh. She had forgotten her name too. Well that was OK. She didn’t really need a name… What about a talent? Well, she liked comics, and learning, and potions and… Bah, they could worry about that later. Right now they needed to pull themselves together.
She… They? Them? What pronouns were they going with. No, no. They were more important then silly pronouns. They were the Mercury Leap. No. That was stupid. Logical Shine. No. Ariel Glyn Microphalus. This was dumb. That last word wasn’t even spelled correctly. They were just… It. They didn’t need a name. Right, or if they were going to come up with one, they needed more time to do so.
Slowly, they began to climb out of the slop. Normally when someone said they identified as a them, there was a long winded debate about the fact that a single entity couldn’t identify as multiple things, because ponies didn’t have anything better to do then argue philosophy with each other when they weren’t even good at it.
In this case however, it seemed that they had somehow made a mistake in reforming themselves. It was very weird, they pulled themselves together and slowly climbed out of the goop, only to find themselves looking at an exact copy, which also happened to be them. It was just as confusing as it sounded.
They were perfect, light yellow rubber with a storm cloud gray mane and tail made out of the same squeaky substance as their protective suit. Their eyes were a deep emerald green, and seemed to glow from behind a set of protective lenses. It looked like they were wearing a hazmat suit, but the hazmat suit was them. No more dangerous chemical spills for them!
“Weh.” The two creatures that were one said in union. Wow. It was so cool, it was like they had two bodies that they could control in an instant. How long had they been out for? Neither of them knew, but the goo had hardened into a protective rubber at this point and they were able to easily move over it.
There was still an alarm blaring loudly as they made their way down a long hallway, together! It was good that they had a friend that was just as smart and pretty as they were. At some point, a stallion that was also wearing a hazmat suit stood before them, a large tank filled with chemical containment foam on his back, making him look like some weird futuristic warrior.
“What in the actual fuck!” The stallion hissed, before spraying a white foam directly at them. Normally the foam would have broken down any rubber or material that it came into contact with, but both of them simply stood there, watching the fire in the stallion’s eyes slowly die out as he realized the chemical spray was doing basically nothing against the two identical rubber drones that were sharing a mind with each other. The stallion looked really angry and unhappy, and his suit wasn’t even sealed properly.
Stallions were pretty icky anyway. One of the two of them, it didn’t matter which, rushed forward and dived directly into the stallion, letting their form go limp as they helped educate him on proper site safety. He hadn’t taken the time to get the joints in his suit properly sealed up, and as soon as they got inside his suit, they came to a sudden realization.
They wanted to help this stallion, and what better way to help him then to make him just as happy as they were. They could get rid of all the icky stallion stuff in his head and replace it with knowledge on comic books and science and all those other things.
Quickly, his suit was filled up with the goo, flowing into his mouth, his nose, his ears, and… Ewww, stallion parts. The moment the goo touched against his private parts, it practically recoiled. Those were soon sealed away behind so many layer of rubber while the part of them that was still solid and just kind of stood there did a silly little grossed out dance.
His head was filled with all kinds of junk about bills that they emptied out, and then they filled his head back up and changed him so that he was just as perfect as they were. And then it was like they had always been a part of them, three identical friends filled with knowledge on security protocols and science and comics and magical mares. Did they count as magical mares at this point, was this something that magical mares did?
Did this count as some kind of super power? Getting chemicals poured on them had actually given them super powers! That was pretty great. This was like that gray goo scenario everyone was always freaking out about. But this time it was hot. Wow, when they had like three brains between them, even if one was an icky stallion brain… Wait, which one of them had been a stallion again?
Oh, never mind. It was impossible to tell which one of them had been a stallion because they were all identical and using the same mind.
-
Meanwhile, in the security office, the security officer had gotten halfway through his first box of doughnuts and almost all the way through his first pot of coffee. He was busy discussing with his colleague about which actress was hotter when he noticed the three identical looking mares in hazmat suits marching down the hallway, their glowing eyes giving a terrifying appearance to them on the low resolution black and white monitor.
“What the fuck…” He whispered under his breath. The other stallion in the office with him worked faster, hitting one of the red buttons on the console. The alarm in that sector had been going off for over half an hour, but then the security system had always been a little faulty and they had figured it was just another chemical spill.
Leaning over to the microphone, his voice boomed through the speakers of the security station, trying to keep his voice level so as to appear composed and cool.
“Hello, we have a security breech in the R and D department, just outside of the mixing room. I have isolated the intruders, but you’re going to need to get down there and deal with it. Likely just some punk kids, but take all your equipment just in case they try to start something.”
The alarm was somewhat annoying, neither of the three of them were really enjoying it. They wanted to head home so they could get back to mixing up potions and reading comics. Unfortunately there was a massive, six inch thick security door that had accidentally closed in their path.
Several ponies in matching uniforms swarmed out of doors to either side of the end of the corridor, pointing various devices at them. They were trying to wear matching uniforms too! It was pretty cute. The one at the front, the mare with a scar over her eye and one side of her face permanently paralysed.
She was pretty in her own way. A tear gas canister smacked squarely into the face of one of her bodies, which could have really hurt, but thankfully rubber was also impact resistant. A thick cloud of tear gas swirled around them, which didn’t do anything because they were wearing protective gear rated to stop far more severe threats then just tear gas.
The mare with the scar on her eye glared back at the stallion who had accidentally launched the canister. Slowly, they began to move towards the mare, she looked sad too. She’d be much happier if she was part of their friend group.
Almost instantly the hallway filled with the roar of rubber bullets, which bounced harmlessly off them, even when once smacked straight into their eye lenses. It wasn’t very nice, and it was actually enough to drive them back a little bit. This was very sad. They just wanted to make ponies happy!
A sudden thought flashed through their mind. Magical mares. What did they do when things got really bad? All that reading of comics was really coming in handy now. It was time to do a magical mare power up!
She could practically hear some kind of cheesy music sounding up as they performed their MAGICAL MARE FUSION, STAGE 1! It was the coolest thing ever, now instead of being lots of little pieces all thinking apart from one another, they were one big piece that combined all the pretty parts of them into one giant and even more perfect form.
They were so pretty and perfect, and no amount of rubber bullets could stop them now.
-
Back in the security office, the security officer was busy staring in absolute terror at the eight foot tall rubber monstrosity. Thick rubber tendrils spilled from its back and waved around wildly as if the creature was in immense agony, a large purple flower sprouted from the head of the creature and gave off a small amount of purple gas. Each of its hooves was almost as thick as a tree trunk, and the creature seemed to shift and warp with each step it took.
Each of its limbs bent and wobbled unnaturally, in a way that simply couldn’t support bones, and the thick light pink hazmat suit seemed to be boiling!
The massive creature straightened up as it was bombarded with live rounds at this point, even the copper cased bullets deployed by the on-site security seemed to do nothing but piss it off, and then the creature leaned back, the thick gas mask that was permanently sealed to its face shifting, the single filter in the middle of the mask leaking a small amount of purple gas.
“WEH.” The creature, the monster, the whatever the fuck this thing was, roared defiantly, the camera died.
As they finished their battle cry, a thick stream of purple gas filled the hallway, and the poor security guards weren’t wearing any protective gear. The moment they breathed in the gas, they were overtaken with a burning, mind numbing arousal. Nobody could have handled the massive amount of arousal that tore through them.
They watched all the naughty ponies starting to desperately make-out with each other. It was gross because there were boy bits! Boy bits getting all up in the mares she wanted to smooch. They reached the end of the hallway and stared down at one of the stallions beneath them, so overcome with arousal that he was desperately trying to stroke himself off.
Well they weren’t going to have that. Who was the glasses wearing nerd now? Get squeaked on! With that, they dropped their massive bulge directly onto the stallion, who sank into it with a soft cry, instantly beginning to have his mind stripped down as he was made part of them.
Their massive mask pressed down against the mare with the scar over her eye, their massive filter pinning them down against the ground as they exhaled more of their pink breath attack. The mare screamed, then was added into their mass even as the intense arousal began to tear her mind apart all on its own.
With this, their tentacles lashed out. More and more stallions were added into the wonders of their mind, the mares too, nobody could escape the writhing tendrils. Now they were even bigger and stronger, so strong that they simply smash through the security gate.
With that, they were outside. The rain was coming down from above, splattering lightly against their rubber suit before sliding off and down it. They raised their head to the gray clouds, starting to exhale once again, a torrent of purple gas spilling up into the sky and swirling around, joining with the clouds as the rain kept coming down.
And that rain was now purple.
