Stop Turning Into Your Sister!

Stop Turning Into Your Sister!
Chapter One

Based on Friendship is Magic, created by Lauren Faust
And My Little Pony, created by Bonnie Zacherle
Render Unto Hasbro That Which Is Hasbro’s...

213 Anno Filia Reginae

Tara was having a bad day.

Her hands desperately clawed at the grenade strap around her torso, still full of live grenades. She ripped it off and dropped it. Velcro screeched as her camo top followed it. A tree raced out of the jungle foliage at forty miles per hour. She swerved to avoid it, while the largest animal she had ever seen howled in rage as it chased her.

Tara was having a very bad day.

Her micro-gun jumped up in her hands as she ejected the magazine. 6mm bullets wouldn’t do her any good here. She swerved around another tree while desperately feeling through her backpack; identifying items by touch.

Magazine? Useless. She dropped it.

Flare? Useless. Discard.

Torch? Useless. Discard.

Medkit? Save. Move on.

Autopilot? Useless. Discard.

The monster continued to chase her, as piece by piece her battle-rattle was dropped to the jungle floor. All of it abandoned in her desperate search for the one thing in her possession, that might possibly be useful, against a living creature the size of a naval corvette.

Trees? Wait, where did the trees go?

Why exactly is the horizon so close?

Uh oh.

She skidded dangerously close to the cliff edge as she turned right. Far below she caught the glimpse of a river, and heard the faint sound of a waterfall.

Damnit! This is taking too long!

She breathed out, tightening her micro-gun’s strap around her torso, tight enough to prevent breathing, but also to stop it slipping off, and tripped the switch in her mind which put her body into zombie mode. Alarms flashed in her vision about core body temperature and low reserves. She ignored them, as the last of her chemically stored oxygen was dumped into her veins, and zombie-valves were closed to confine the fresh blood to vital tissues.

Reaching behind her, now with both hands, she pushed under the pack, and ripped open the main buckle holding it in place. With the first hand she hauled the half empty pack around while doing the same to the secondary buckle between her front legs.

Taking one last look, she locked the landscape in active memory, and then stuck her face and one arm into the open bag to find it. Twenty seconds of blind-sight cliffside navigation later, she dropped everything else she had left, save for her micro-gun, and demolition clip.

The five round straight-line clip felt tiny in the gap normally filled with a hundred round C-mag, but it clicked in place, and the action cycled correctly. More cautions flashed into place, letting her know she had loaded torpium microdots, and advising a minimum safe distance of 150m between herself and her target.

She didn’t ignore these warnings. She grinned at them, as she skidded to a stop, loosened her micro-gun, took her first breath in two minutes, and started back the way she had come.

Over the pounding of her own feet, the rush of the rapids below, and the howl of the monster, she heard heavy wing beats to her left. Bitch was back.

“What are you doing Tara?”

She ignored Bitch. Possibly not a terribly clever thing to do, given Bitch’s temper, past behaviour, and strange abilities (abilities that Tara still refused to label as ‘magic’) but Tara had bigger problems. Bitch merely wanted to humiliate her. The thing chasing her wanted to kill her.

And there it was. Or at least that was where a leg was; a leg as wide as a wind-farm mast atop a clawed foot the size of a tank. The rest was hidden from view. But that was fine with Tara. She had five shots. That should be enough to at least cripple it.

Then she could take Bitch down a peg or two. Who knows? Maybe after escaping the first monster, she’d have a thimble of sunshine left over for the other one…

Tara ducked into the forest, crouched down low behind a tree, and took aim at her target - at one-third the recommended minimum safe distance. Her finger moved once. The micro-gun was not stupid. Silent alarms flashed. Lockouts were engaged.

Overrides were issued. Lockouts were removed.

Her finger twitched a second time and the leg disappeared.

Along with everything else as the expanding shockwave threw dust, earth, gravel, bits of tree, and presumably bits of monster-bear in all directions. Tara’s body reported thirty eight different impacts; fifteen to her face and hands. No deep penetrating injuries were reported. Firewalls in major nerve fibres had already flipped automatically to block the pain. Damage reports filled a corner of her vision, along with a caution that she had just exceeded her maximum daily radiation dosage under HSE regulations, and operational guidelines from BAE Systems. She was advised to seek immediate help from the nearest known NATO trauma centre; currently marked on her navigation menu.

Nearest known NATO trauma centre?! The hell is that noise?!

Oh. Right. Her med kit. The location of which was in fact marked on her navigation menu.

Whatever.

She stood and popped her ears, before systematically testing and inspecting every part of her body. Biggest problem she could find was some slight impairment of her left fingers. Nothing serious. She was still combat effective. And the thick smoke was beginning to settle, turned into some sort of light mist. She tried not to breath too deeply. The mist was probably carcinogenic.

She also still had four bullets left. And that thing was still screaming.

Time to fix that.

And suddenly there was silence. Well, relative silence. Animals were starting to screech again. Rapids could still be heard at the bottom of the cliffs, but there was no more bellowing from lungs the size of blue-whales. She advanced cautiously, past blasted and splintered tree stumps, and over, under, and around the blasted remains of every other part of a tree. Terrible ghastly noises were part of Tara’s bread and butter. Terrible ghastly silences were not.

By the time she got to the site of the detonation the sun was visible, and she could see clouds above her, along with the edge of the hole that the explosion had bitten out of the forest. Huh. Bigger than she expected. Apparently these trees weren’t quite as tough as the Terran varieties. Or at least the 21st century varieties she knew.

There was a thump of displaced air behind her, and then a crunch as something heavy landed on the broken timber that littered the ground. Tara didn’t move. Or more precisely, couldn’t move. As the crunching moved to her left, she realised that she could still track it with her ears, and could blink and move her eyes, and breath, but everything else was locked up. She checked her hearts and they were both working. On a whim she tried activating her emergency mechanical heart. No response. Zombie valves were stuck as well. She couldn’t even change focus on her micro-rifle’s optics. But she could in her own eyes, and they worked on exactly the same principles. So what was up with that?

Then Bitch came into view. Bitch was six foot tall by her horn, and five foot long by her hooves. She was eighteen inches wide by her shoulders, but twelve feet wide by her wingspan, and also apparently furious by her expression.

Not that Tara cared. She was still alive. She had endured the worst that Bitch could think to throw at her. And it was not like it was the first time she had seen a talking horse with wings and/or horn. Even if she was slowly coming around to the fact that Bitch was not, in fact, some kind of lab-built pet for the rich and stupid.

The fact that the wings were somehow fully functional, and that the horn might also be fully functional, was a little bit unsettling. But Tara simply refused to focus on such details. As a matter of pride she just would not be intimidated by any creature that had that shade of bubblegum pink for her hair and tail.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

Tara suddenly found that her jaw would move again. She spent a moment pondering how best to answer the question.

“Well, see, I’m not quite sure. Kinda hard to tell what effect I had with all that smoke and dust in the way.”

Bitch screamed and arched her wings. Her eyes turned bright white again.

Could still be bioluminescence, Tara told herself. And this could still be the future.

They had standing orders about that. Time travel, at least in one direction, was not an entirely impossible prospect for Foxtrots like herself. Her body was engineered to survive, amongst other things, cryogenic temperatures. Humans had written books about synthetics that get buried in ice and woke up in the far future, where space travel was cheap, biotechnology was almost unknown, and ray guns really did fire brightly coloured laser beams that moved slowly enough for a human eye to track.

Bitch might simply have been built with non-organic science incorporated into her body; just like Tara was, but with more advanced technology. But jump drive? Antigravity? Tractor beams? It was still possible, she supposed. Barely...

Pulsating yellow light began to surround Bitch’s horn. Frozen in place, Tara was unable to back away from something that looked disturbingly like wrong-coloured Cherenkov radiation. Nor was she able to react when her fingers were forced open, and the micro-gun was pulled away from her, surrounded by the same throbbing off-colour yellow.

“Be very careful with that,” Tara warned.

Suddenly Bitch had Tara’s complete and undivided attention. The torpium bullets were still loaded, and the electrical fuses were still live. Even if they hadn’t been, Tara knew that certain types of strong radiation could easily set one off. Which was another Very Good Reason why they came with a minimum recommended safe distance!

The pulsing change slightly, and the gun started to tear apart. Nuts, bolts and restraining pins flew from their housing. Once enough of them were removed the major assemblies began to come apart, until eventually the gun was completely field-stripped. But it didn’t stop there. Tiny flashes of light sparkled along the length of the feed mechanism, as Bitch started using her strange abilities to take apart things that had not been supposed to be taken apart. Things that were never designed to be taken apart!

Tara watched as the weapon that had carried her through fifteen years of wars and campaigns became so much metal and composite confetti in front of her. Then Bitch turned her attention to one of the two powercells, and Tara felt one of her rare moments of genuine horror.

“No! Wait! Don’t!”

There was another miniature strobe, and Tara breathed out as hard as she could, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. It didn’t help that much. Brilliant white light still burned brightly through fur and skin to highlight the blood vessels in her eyelids, but surprisingly she was not blown off her feet. She slowly cracked open one eye to see (barely) Bitch holding her head insanely close to a white hot ball of liquid metal. Tara closed her Mk VI eyeball again. She could not see anything more through the glare and didn’t want to risk damage to her optics any more than she needed to.

“Do not for any reason try that trick again with the other power cell! And especially do not do it with the clip or the bullets inside it!”

In the blink of an eye the bright light vanished. Cautiously opening her eyes, Tara saw a two-inch wide ball of unimpressive metal, surrounded by rather singed pieces of the power cell outer casing. Bitch was ignoring it though, focusing instead on the demolition clip.

“Don’t! I’m being very serious! Do not mess around with that thing. You have no idea how dangerous it…” The glow around Bitch’s horn blossomed outwards as it turned from merely worrisome yellow to a raging brilliance that Tara could no longer look at.

The unofficial prayer, mantra, and self-administered non-denominational last-right of His Majesty’s British Army immediately rang through her mind, and she threw herself to the ground.

Ohfuckshitfuckshitfuckshitfuckshitfuckshitfuckshitfuckshit

She didn’t bother forcing all air out of her lungs. At this range it wouldn’t make any difference at all. Nor would throwing herself to the ground. But, you know. Bad habits…

Then the glow disappeared and Tara was somehow not dead - and on the ground.

Wait, she could move again?

Her head snapped up and her eyes snapped open to see a large red crystal floating in front of Bitch’s nose. Around the horse’s head the remains of the gun began to disappear and reappear in a explosion of light and sparkles, as Bitch changed them into something else. Meanwhile she was completely ignoring Tara, with an expression of smug superiority that the soldier did not like one bit. Though she wasn’t above taking advantage of it. She leapt for the crystal.

Which promptly flew up out of her reach, then further up when she tried again. On the third attempt Tara ignored the crystal and aimed for Bitch’s back instead, intending to use it as a launching pad, only to be thrown across the clearing for her troubles. She landed badly, and felt something hard shove through her stomach. She looked down to see a splinter of wood the size of her forearm sticking out of her side.

Well that’s just great!

Tara gritted her teeth and reached underneath her body to see if she splinter was still attached to anything, and how firmly. She reviewed her internal damage sensors at the same time. Punched through her left abdominal sub-dermal armour, glancing off her small intestine’s at the 30cm, 45cm, 62cm, 98cm, 103cm, and 152cm locations, then straight through the right abdominal armour. No significant abdominal bleeding. Some minor intestinal bleeding. No intestinal perforations. Good. Internals had done their job. It was fresh wood, still covered in sap, so chances of infection were minimal.

Yep. That was definitely going to leave a scar. Wait...

Bugger!

And it was still firmly attached to the tree stump. And bitch was coming over.

Bugger!

The foxtrot went limp, and stopped her hearts.

“Well Miss Tara, as entertaining as this was, I really need... Tara!”

Tara couldn’t turn to see what happened next, that would defeat the purpose of playing dead, but she was pretty sure Bitch flew over.

“Don’t move! Lie still! You’re going to be all right!”

Yes, thank you. I realise that. It’s not the first time I’ve been stabbed you know.

“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Why do you keep doing this? Think! Think! Abdominal wounds! How did this go again?”

I know you are but what am I?

Wait, Bitch was actually concerned about her? Wait again, she was actually about to attempt first aid on a synthetic life form she’d never seen before? Wow. Tara was almost impressed. And almost touched. Almost.

Now just a little bit closer...

Shadow fell over her and she felt something wide and soft poke her belly.

Good enough!

Tara ripped her kunai from her harness, pulled back, and then swung her arm and upper torso towards Bitch. She turned her head just in time to see the sharp black tip hit a burst of yellow, a quarter inch short of Bitch’s neck, and bounce off.

So... Jump drive, antigravity, tractor beams - and forcefields. Well that’s just peachy isn’t it?

She suddenly noticed Bitch’s head was less than six inches from her own, and that the horse-thing was apparently frozen in shock. Never one to waste an opportunity, Tara gamely swung her kunai a second time, with roughly the same result.

That time Bitch scrambled back out of reach. She was still obviously in shock, so Tara flipped the kunai around and threw it at Bitch’s chest, wondering if perhaps ‘third time’s the charm’. It wasn’t. The kunai stopped halfway there, surrounded by more of that disturbing not-cherenkov light, as Bitch’s face turned thunderous.

“You tried to stab me!”

Tara grabbed the slightly bloody shaft of jagged wood she was still impaled on.

“You did stab me!”

“That was an accident!”

“And dumping me in front of the great huge blue monster bear, with the pointy teeth bigger than you are? That was an accident was it? Miss ‘I’m the most powerful being on this planet, and you should learn respect for your betters’. Or should that be Miss ‘I don’t believe you killed that snap dragon. You’re far too small.’ You really going to claim that was an accident, are you?”

“That was...” Bitch stopped and changed the subject. “How can you be talking? That must hurt! How can you not be screaming?!”

“That level of pain wouldn’t be useful. So my body blocks it. Or my mind does. One or the other. You’d have to read the service manual to find out. I never bothered.”

“But you bleed! Even if your heart stopped I can hear it now! You must be a living creature!”

Tara couldn’t help but roll her eyes at that. Oh come on! Even Catholics have figured that one out by now! Living tissue does not equate living creature; no matter how organised it is. Double especially for a heavily cyberneticised factory-product like a foxtrot; assuming you considered the organic parts as even alive.

Damn horse will start going on about souls next.

“But if that’s true why can’t I feel your mind?!”

Oh you have got to be kidding me!

“WHAT ARE YOU?!”

Tara looked at Bitch with contempt. Wherever and/or whenever she was, she was clearly not talking to the smartest tool in the box.

“Well, apparently, as far as you’re concerned, I’m an Out Of Context Prob...” Tara trailed off as she suddenly noticed what the horse had around her neck. “What Did You Do To My Gun?!”

Bitch cringed. She actually cringed, leaning back, with a foreleg raised in defence against Tara - who was still currently pinned in place, and helpless.

A child. That’s what Tara was dealing with. For all her power and abilities, she was dealing with a child. Or at least something with the emotional maturity of one. Hence why she had taken the various bits and pieces of her micro-gun and bent them into a necklace that was currently holding a large red gem; which was also somehow four torpium bullets.

Much like a human child would do with daises.

“Look, is there an adult or something around here I can speak to? Someone in charge? Possibly smarter than you? By preference also a doctor? I mean I know I’ve got a computer chip in my skull, but what’s your excuse for not having any brains?!”