[Copied from https://pastebin.com/b7EwCWQj] >Escape, that was your goal. >You wanted to be free, to no longer be a slave. >foolishly the human oppressors had used rope to hold your wings in. >plain simple rope, not even a belt and buckle.1 >it had been easy to chew through it, no different than preening. >now you were winging through their building, trying to findan exit "There he is, net him!" >and avoid being captured again, but that was easy when they kept shouting > you flipped over the net, briefly running along the cieling as you did so >this would be fun almost if it weren't so terrifying. >and all the doors everywhere, what was it with humans and doors in hallways >you had to land and push them open, they resisted too much to just shove through "Gotcha" >something fell on your neck and you flicked a wing at the human with the stick, you had to keep moving >you took hard flight again, darting forward when you felt a tightness on your throat >something cracked and you saw your hinds flip in front of you. >you hit the ground but didn't feel it, in fact you felt nothing below the thing onyour neck "I got her, I got her!" >the stick was in the human's hands pushing you over the floor like a cheap broom >you were terrified, the human had broken your neck. >but >this might be how you go free, death. >death doesn't come for you, your body is broken but makes you live. >now you are stuck in a hospital bed, tubes in your muzzle >you had heard from the doctors you were an experiment now, something to be used for seeing about a machine >it didn't matter, you had failed to be free, you were now denied even the hope of flight. >a human in a green coat, like your own came in, a syringe at the ready >you couldn't plead for death, the tube in your muzzle quieted you >you couldn't pull away in fear like a good slave, your neck was broken >you could only plead with your eyes, but the human never looked >the syringe went into your neck, and everything faded You are Lightning Dust and this is your story. >Headaches >Horrors >Night Terrors >This is what your sleep had become ever since master bought you. >Doctor Master Masters. >Your neck was broken, but your undead body was insistent on reminding you of this fact. >You keyed the boot procedure and waited as the recharging cradle spun up your internal components. >Being a cyborg left you with certain problems not found in robots, you found them enjoyable. >Not all of them, the need to have your blood cleaned each night was a major flaw, but still you could actually dance digital disco around them all. >You also had a battery unlike their arcane power cells, the good doctor was worried on the thaumaguric radiation inside of you. >You opened your eyes, sensor overlays telling you that the world was the same as it had been, nothing ever changed in life. >But then, everything changed when the human nations attacked. >Sentimentality, now that was an emotion you could do without. >You pulled an adjustment dosage of L-371,257 into your blood. >You didn’t want to dwell on t e p t >Today master had assigned you the task of ordering the lab. >You queried the house computer, the lab had been ordered already, what could leave it in an entropic heavy state. >What you got back set your pinions on edge. >Master had thrown a party, to celebrate what was a new discovery he had made. >You >But a group of antitranshumanity terrorists had attacked. >The partygoers now made up the bulk of your cleaning task. >You accepted the task, you were a slave after all. >You grabbed a bucket and brush, the blood was still fresh according to the climate control processors, you didn’t need to wash it thinner. >The bodies would prove to be an issue though, you weren’t allowed to touch humans. >You queried the central server, it triggered a number of emergency subroutines and disseminated outbound data streams. >You could wait for the return, the floor could be cleaned in the meantime. >You pushed through the door to the chamber and were glad you had taken the emotion suppressant today. >It was carnage, the type you had seen in Equestria when humans came through. >They weren’t human bodies anymore, your autoprofiling system simply categorized them as meat. >Blood, bullets, and bodies. >The ballroom was full of them, piled in some places where they had sought to shelter each other, in others where they fled. >A few combat modified bodies had terrorists dead with them, but the sight was the same. >You had a task unfinished, and needed to do it, clean the room. >You started by moving the furniture around, sorting what was broken, what was salvageable, and what could go straight into storage. >Your myomer enhanced physique made it foal’s play to simply move around the bodies while hauling the heavy wood tables. >Had you put the tables out? >You had to have since you were the only one Master owned. >Pause, wait, a memory error. >Why did you not remember setting this all up? >An interrogation of your memory bank showed an anomalous encrypted file, the certificate unsigned. >Options: >You could sandbox the file, disable write permissions, and hope it’s not capable of a sandbox escape. >Ignore it, you hadn’t been told of any files, and it was not in your limited personal space, but it was also too large to fit in the first place. >Simply open it and see if it was a final message from what happened, whether from the terrorists or Master Doctor to you with his orders. >It didn’t matter though, you needed to clean up this mess, you could investigate the file later as need be. >You had neatly arranged the guest’s bodies in a row, sorted by height. >Now you could work on the blood. >There was a great deal of blood, but fortunately you were well stocked on soda. >You were busy wringing out the scrubbing brush when you received an alert that the Falcon unit were outside. >You weren’t sure what for when all your data feeds went dark as the house issued an emergency orders shutdown. >Not exactly your problem right now as it didn’t interfere with the cleanup, but it was upsetting that it had occurred while you were watching HBO. >Scrub, scrub, scrub, wring. >You were going to definitely need a bath of your own after this, blood had soaked into your fur to the point you seemed like you had been part of it all. >That might have explained part of why the thermoptic camouflaged enforcer opted for an immediate and simple method of subduing you. >A stun slug from his shotgun right to the base of your wings. >The response was prompt, your wet fur doing you a grave disfavor and making it work even better. >Enhanced musculature spasmed, control circuits went into thermal shutdown as the voltage proved too much. >Several capacitors failed and many of your breakers popped, the worst of it being that you ended up throwing yourself into one of the tables you had moved, hard enough to go through it edgewise. >He wasted no time in heaving you up out of the splinters and winding loop after loop of graphene restraint tape around your wings, and cuffed you tight. >You couldn’t move really until the thermal fuses cooled and the breakers autoreset, but you knew it didn’t matter. >The police held higher authority than your master and could do as they needed. >You just wished they weren’t so effective with that authority as you were passed into a containment wagon. >You were classed as an augmented individual and treated appropriately, the wagon was a giant faraday cage to block any signals, all while riding on top of a low powered RF emitter. >It wasn’t dangerous, but it wasn’t pleasant either as your circuits were scrambled in a pseudorandom fashion. >Faintly you mused, this must be what drugs are like as your vision snowed, chromashifted and z skipped. >The world around you was distorted and rent, but still there from where you lay. >It gave you plenty of time to think for yourself. >Mostly on how upset Doctor Master would be that you broke a table and failed to finish cleaning the hall. >Doctor Master would unfortunately have to sum to 0 on this. >There was a higher object than him, and it was the State. >All must obey the call of Mother Russia. >And since you were in her auspices now, may as well take a look at the encrypted file. >After all, you would need to explain its presence in your memory. >You racked up a Solaris VM, and disabled your perephrial systems. >Communications went autistic, tactile feedback reduced to Boolean, and even your vision degraded from hyperspectral to cinema grade. >No reason to let this thing get somewhere else you figured as you drifted inside yourself. >An avatar of you at any rate, the rest of you, your ghost was merrily computing fractals as it waited to see what the dive into the unknown found. >Flowers, Dutch flowers everywhere. >Uugh, you wanted to vomit at this. >Your blacklist was going nuts, calls to the police were being queued and takedown reports repaired. >Why was it all so much kiddie porn in here? >You suppressed the warnings, the automatic hash triggers not even capable of basic OCR much less interrogative understanding of stereoscopic imagery useless. >That, and there were no ways out of the VM, anything you had was going to be a one frame asci on your eyes when you came out. >You did not want a repeat of that time you went to Lugansk with the Doctor. >You had thought you were that shitty purple princess you had been seeing in the holo ads for an exaflop. >The tulips were all different though, each one having unique metadata, yet many of the photos were the same plant, just setup under photogrammetry. >You paused and assessed. >The images were likely a code, not one meant to be found without a VM or by the intrepid skiddie. >There were no payloads that you found, nor content that wasn’t cyphered in itself. >You could combine the images into their meshed form and see if there was a message there. >Or maybe it was hidden in where they were cultivated. >Perhaps if you, >Audio feedback crashed into your cochlear implants. >The real you, the diver routine still running in the VM. >The inside of the truck was full of smoke, the degraded optics unable to pierce it. >Your sensors kicked back in, the police restraints still on, and the thrummer running. >Chlorates, dyes, phosphorus byproducts. >Your biological components were rapidly irritated, CSA smoke munitions had been deployed for an unknown reason. >You started flopping around the trailer seeking a lower concentration of the acid vapors wafting in. >You were still restrained so it was all you could do. >A glowing red then molten white line appeared on the door, the lock was being cut. >Oh joy a police escort and you were being kidnapped from it. >Clearly this was a sign of the corruption in the city now of Electrograd. >A small compartment in your foreleg popped open, a debit card readied for bribe money. >The sulfuric acids were getting too strong though, so you retracted it, and opted to assist in the breaching operation before it became a salvage op. >You turned over and started kicking at it, weakened metal much easier to buck through than the stuff that should have been there. >The door caved open and you fell to the pavement, rasping chokes coming from your throat. >Fire, armored bodies, synths and casings everywhere. >The only thing missing was. >And then the spotlight came on just as more officers fast roped in on you, IR lasers tracing across your flesh, setting off temperature anomalies in their wake. >You popped the debit card out again and smiled. >”Arrest me?” >The police cradle was not gentle with keeping you down. > Bare electromagnets on mettle components, drilled holes to route new sapping leads, you were pretty sure the hepatitis warning was from glancing at the sedative needle and not from its injection. >All in all, something you wanted to go and showcase off to Voice of America on the treatment of pony noncitizens. >You didn’t like politics, but then you also didn’t like someone checking if you needed a colostomy bag or a nasogastric bypass either. >Especially when you saw it may as well have been Baba Yashuka working the waldoes, you couldn’t even have the fantasy of it being a proper man going at you. >Strung out on enough drugs to make you a junkie, trussed up tighter than someone’s gimp, you were finally wheeled out of processing. >Right up against a corner that scuffed your composite frame. >Lovely, the handlers here lacked the obstacle avoidance of cockroaches. >May as well take a reformatting now before they start jacking up your ghost. >3 flights of stairs, 2 elevators and enough hallways that you knew the handler was just as disoriented and lost as you were, you ended up in an interrogation room. >You really wished you’d had time to upload some apps to play with right now, but both Winblows and loldroid needed to update their update services before they would permit access. >You ended up amusing yourself blowing strands of yellow mane into the air waiting for the interrogator to stop porking a receptionist with his nightstick. >It really was sad how accurate the satires were right now. >Oh you’d been into prisons before, after all that was where you’d broken your neck, but this? >This was the place they put fools behind bars for the insane to laugh at. >You left the pointers ambiguous on the sides there. “So little sky dancing slave, you are ready to talk now?” >”Yep. I want some baked beans to go with you now. The ones with BBQ sauce, not the ones in boiled water.” >He dropped a dossier on the table, from its thickness, many trees had died to get him those files. >He stabbed it with a finger. “You know how much trouble you have been? You are not a slave, no you’re an enemy, a convict serving away her time. Death couldn’t even stop your punishment you little pest.” >He sat back in the chair and fished out a cigarette and lit it. >”47 counts of arson, 38 counts of sabotage, 44 proud members of the Rhodenia who will never walk it again! And here you are making jokes.” >”Jokes, I got one for you. You’re mostly harmless on ZKill there NashantMemester. Playing with TNT like it’s a big deal. Ooh, the great blue ponut and you just fly a Rorq.” >He sucked on the cig, fury in his eyes, and adjusted a knob near your head. >With a flick, a served arm pummeled right into your right thigh where the flesh met augs. “Mostly harmless. Mostly.” >He walked out of the room, leaving you to shake in the cradle at the pain. >The one way mirror lit up as he walked back into the room and started talking with his compatriot on what to do with you. >You tried pulsing a laser of the glass but ended up finding it only played back showtunes from the disruptor in the frame. >You were left thinking to yourself, checking the status of the virtual machine. >Your dive ghost was busy and had requested an increasing amount of system resources, but within tolerable amounts. >She must have found something intriguing to not simply exit by now, you hoped it wasn’t just for nothing though and a ghost chasing echoes and reflections. >You did the best thing that came to mind when waiting, count the tiles. >At least these antiseptic green tiles were clean to count, there was no trace of the previous interrogation subjects. >Props for at least putting sanitation above terrorizing at least to this branch. >You had made it through the left wall when the men behind the glass stopped talking. >Good cop must have figured out what he needed to offer you. >You hoped it wasn’t a foal. >You didn’t have difficulty conceiving, you simply couldn’t. >Not since you had your womb replaced with a hard drive to store Equestrian cultural mating practices and the examples of. >The officer came wheeling in a comfier office chair, a high back leather ensemble with a drink holder and ash tray. >He ignored you as he setup a small projector on the table and lit a cigar. >In fact he didn’t so much as spare a glance during the whole time to you, everything was focused on his video time. >You just kept counting tiles, noting the hairline fractures in some that had been deemed too trivial to fix. >Those would be useful as weak points for when you got bored and wanted to try and escape. >The projector had booted up, a cheap Tauzin model with integrated android. >The officer simply chose the first and only video in the folder, innocuously named Mov1.mov. >He puffed his cigar, the smoke rising above the back of the chair as it began, the first sign of any interaction between the two of you. >It was footage from a recon drone high above an area somewhere in Russia. >The geography showed a number of lit up areas, human settlements untouched by the war. >Oh no >no >Please no. >You began bucking in your restraints, you knew what was coming, you didn’t want to see it again. >You were hacking the restraints, calling for any drugs you could, trying to get it to shut down your ocular implants, anything to block the world right now. >There was a click, harsh, metallic, and you locked in place. >A slave was to remain unobtrusive fed straight into your mind. >An overriding urge in you to stay still and stop making a scene took over your will. >Training, manners, torture, it didn’t matter what it was, your body betrayed you, made you have to watch what to come. >Tears were running, your breath short, augments metered from what the police cradle told you to do. >You flashed across the screen, a whole, flesh and blood Pegasus. >In your wake thick roiling clouds formed. >The war was over at this point, you knew it, you just wanted to make as many humans suffer as you could before they killed you. >You’d pulled down a tornado, and another, and another, five before the first one had hit the ground. >You didn’t stop there, everywhere you went you were pulling down more. >You were made to watch it happen, the chair simply emitting a puff of smoke every so often. >The tornadoes had gone loose in the area, smashing the village, and then another, and another. >For three hours they were wild in the area, killing anyone they came across, tearing building apart and smashing them like foal’s toys. >There were no antiair emplacements to shoot you down, no defense shelters that could hold all these civilians, innocents in the war. >You murdered them all. >They had hunted you down for it, ran you to the ground and thrown you into a cell awaiting trial and execution. >That was when you had tried your escape and ended up becoming like this. >The video of you finished and the cradle relaxed its controls on your body. >You collapsed, spasmed, all your backlog crashing into you at once. >You wished that it had also stopped your heart. >You were a monster, a murderer, what you thought of the humans, you knew you were worse every day. >You could hide it for a time, forget it with drugs, but it was never going to change what you were. >The chair turned and the man finally showed himself. >If it had been to shoot you, it would have been a mercy. >What you got was a young man, a face fresh from an academy somewhere, unscarred by the war, yet he knew exactly where to go to make you suffer. >This was the bad cop, you had been very very wrong. “Ah now you see, you could have simply worked with us and we could have kept this little remembering quiet. But jokes? Not this is a room to be serious. Now then, are we ready to be serious my little murderer?” >You nodded. Your eyes on the floor. “Good, then let’s get to the matter at hand. Your master has been kidnapped, something I am sure that little slave mind of yours understands is a failure on your part.” >He was right, you should have been at his side, not sleeping in the cradle. “The guests he had included a number of the top cybernetics, biologists, archanotechnologists the motherland has produced. 17 of them were not found in the macabre scene you left, but were recorded as having been them. You are going to find them for us. You will find the ones who kidnapped them, and well. You know how to murder, this will be your chance to kill. All of them, dead.” >He got up and walked away, stubbing his cigar in the ash tray. >You collapsed, sobbing, unable to do anything else as the weight of guilt crashed down onto you in that tiny interrogation room. /////// >They dumped you in a small padded cell and left you to wallow in your emotions. >No tending cradle to hide from the truth, no drugs to leave yourself mindlessly stupid and ignorant. >They wanted you broken, they wanted you to do anything to make it stop, to be able to forget. >And it meant that you would kill more people, they wanted you to slaughter to save others. >They deserved it for their murders, their crimes. >So why weren’t you killed as well for yours? >Your internal clock registered 3 hours had passed before something was able to focus your mind on the present. >Your ghost had finished, a single screen flashed in your eyes showing what it had found. >A set of scripts, explanations of code that was based on yours. >Augments, capabilities, technical specifications. >What the Doctor had succeeded with in you, he had applied to others. >He had made weapons to fight a human war using you. >You knew what this was going to lead to. >Your master had been captured with them, and now it was going to end with more dead. >These Steel Stallions he had called them were now in the hands of the rebels. >The longer you waited the more likely it was that they would be used. >Perhaps if you stopped them before then, it would count in some small way for what you had done. >You went to the door, the view port slid open before you could knock. “So you are ready?” >Same voice as the intelligence man. >The door unlocked, deadbolts clacking. >Where once he held a cigar, now he held such a simple yet terrifying tool. >A clicker, something with which he could rob you of any self-definition and keep you a slave forever. >Perhaps you should force him to, let him erase Lightning Dust from existence and rid the world of a murderer. >But then, those rebels were murderers as well, if you killed them, there would be fewer in the world. >It didn’t matter when you agreed if it was because you wanted absolution, because it was orders, or to rescue your master like a good slave. >You simply said the one word. >”Food” >The FSB agent looked at you, a face of confusion before he simply pocketed the clicker. ”A good answer, not the right one, but I’m hungry as well. Follow.” >The man led off taking you on your own power through the building, giving some time for the repair epoxy to finish curing over the holes put in you. >Fuckers didn’t bother with a clearcoat on the paint, you’d have to get the whole part now sand blasted, washed and repainted at the house for it to match. >Doctor Master didn’t care how you looked so long as you didn’t adjust the chroma keys. >Of course you had been subtly adjusting the uploaded patterns through a planned stage of 8 to 16 bit conversions to get them to colors you liked without making him angry. >It was going to be pretty obvious though when the black and gold trim was suddenly aquamarine and silver. >Wasn’t your fault though he left the microcontrollers open like that during calibration. >Not at >Whoah that’s a tank. >Before you the agent was busy animatedly yelling at a bunch of mechanics, and gesturing madly to the well, land ship next to you. >Each track link was twice your size. >You couldn’t just walk under it, that sucker could be flown under by a novice Pegasus! >On top were an array of water cannons, perfect for dispersing crowds that wouldn’t move. >Small pyramids of grenade dispensers dotted her hull, ready to throw down any barrage needed of control agents. >You were in love, this was how to cruise in style. >And the bucking pretty boy took a big fat to be scrapped sticker and slapped it on, cursing it be nothing more than sewer pipe for never working. >You fell back, sadness hitting you like one of the 2 gauge bean bags you had been looking to accidentally discharge into a crowd. >He walked off and you followed, his mouth a string of curses that you had never heard combined so artfully and yet with a vulgarity reserved for the Prench. “We’ll take mine then. You said you wanted food, do you require charging?” >You ran a brief system check, your power storage systems were still topped off from the prison cradle. >You just needed feedstock for your onboard iNternal Optimized Molecular Supply. >”Negative, I am at 97% charge.” >He cocked an eyebrow at you, then turned off and walked to his personal transport. >It was a converted Arial Armored Command Vehicle. >Once meant to detect disrupt and destroy enemy cyber assets and ELINT, now it was sitting here. >His assistant, partner, secretary? >You weren’t sure which from the way she carried herself, your analysis programs saying she was business. >How, useful those were at any point you had never found. >You could tell just as easily what they said by looking at someone. >You simply fell in line and walked up the rear hatch, the inside had been converted with sever holding cradles, and a wet bar. >Okay, you paused to look around, pretty sure that was real teak for the table and not just a veneer. >All in all, you were highly confused at what this was, a mobile palace of oppression maybe? >The lady motioned for you to take a seat. >You looked around for a sofa or lounger or anything other than a chair. >You hated chairs, they made your augments tug at your stumps and just generally require something best describable as the feeling of falling rightside up forever. >How humans could like them, you guessed it was only because they were like diamond dogs or minotaurs. >You pulled one out with a wing and sat, distaste for it on your face. >You’d rather use the floor than this. >The man vanished through a divider into the control area and shut the door, you figured it was a good plan to brief you on the way and awaited just what was going on. “Let me guess, Valorian tried playing hard ass on you? Name’s Aleria.” >The lady extended a hand and you responded with a wing. >She was unsure, but eventually opted to shake a pinion. >You set a subroutine of your personal analysis to try and work out why. >You walked on hooves, they were feet, why would she want to touch a foot? >”Dust, and if you call showing the moment I bucked up everything a hard ass I am not to keen on seeing what else you say.” “No what I mean is the orders, he is much nicer off the clock.” >She opened the binders in front of her, turning some to you others to herself. >The diagonal striped front warned of great penalties for unauthorized viewing of the sensitive material. “We’ll skip the intro for now. Your owner was a scientific pride of the Commonwealth, his work readily allowing us to recover from the damage caused by the war with Equestria.” >She eyed you at that, you could feel it. >You ignored and kept reading the binder in front of you. “His kidnapping has been a concern, largely due to a lack of demands and a visible mobilization of antitranshuman terrorists. We do not know yet their motives, but do know that they have activated a number of packages taken from your residence. Early warning satellites detected 8 initiation events consistent with a model of compact arcane reactors he debuted to the Order of Science recently and had intended to showcase last night.” >She flipped forward in your binder to a more appropriate page. >Your wings seized and the data from the encrypted file took on a terrifying light. >Your master had been creating new weaponized augments to enhance and control ponies, and now they were in control of terrorists who would use them. >2 of each species you guessed, but then where would he get alicorns? >Had humans managed to breed the princesses, you didn’t want to know. >Before you were rough breakdowns of what was allowed to be shown to you of each. >Augments to magic capabilities, flight, strength, fingers? >You put a feather on that and checked the file carefully. >”Seriously, Doctor Master made fingers for ponies?” >You wanted to laugh at this, you really did, but you also liked having limb privileges and you knew he would revoke them if he found out. “It is an attempt at making them better able to interface with human technology.” >You considered this and looked at your wings again, this might explain the handshake awkwardness if using wings was not a common event. >You returned to the dossier and the descriptions of the 8. 1) Earth pony with fingers in her hooves. Makes about as much sense now as it did before, but you guessed it meant she was more than a better house slave. 2) Earth Pony with enhanced sensory systems, and a cloaking system. Intended to be a covert reconnaissance asset. Would have made more sense to use a unicorn, they can already do that, but eh humans. 3) Unicorn stallion with an autonomous arcane reactor able to charge his magic. A fearsome thought, something that could emulate Celestia’s prodigies would be an asset to the Motherland, but only if she didn’t die to it. 4) Unicorn mare with an enhanced subdermal armor and specialized crystals to deploy a forcefield. A barrier maiden, should have gone with a white mage. 5) Pegasus with jet engines for wings. You blanched at the image, the very concept a violation of the nature of being a Pegasus. You put a mechanical hoof to the shunt in your spine subconsciously, reassuring yourself that was all there was on seeing the image. 6) Pegasus with inbuilt datawar and arcane disruption gear. Your hoof stayed on that shunt, you dreaded just what might happen if you fought him. >7&8 were sealed from you, and you looked up at the lady, quickly putting your hoof back on the table. >”Why?” “Unknown, the matter is being investigated by our superiors. What they were to be was not entered into the system after yesterday. Data scrubbing measures had been enacted and the records purged. Something was there, but no one who knew is on a list to be asked. Could be as simple as integrated weapons or as dangerous as an alicorn with tactical nuclear devices. I would settle for something less, like a human or maybe a robot.” >She noted your stare. “Easier to deal with. Humans are known quantities, ponies not so much. I’m sure you have found that out by now with your heuristics analysis. Its reading what you know, and as a pony you don’t know humans. Get in a cradle, I’ll fix that before we continue.” >You drop off the chair, the return of your remaining organs to their proper dangling from your spine position a mercy. >Two of the cradles were occupied by exoskeletal systems, a third was open. >You climbed in and waited to be jacked in. “Where is your port?” >”Spine, same as yours.” >She pulled your mane around looking for it near the base of your skull. >”Lower, between 5 and 6.” >She found the lump and plugged you in. >Data scrolled and uploaded into your augs with your permission. “Odd spot, normally it’s at 1 or 2. Any reason?” >”Yeah its- “Who wants food!” >The door to the cockpit opened up and a very jolly man with 4 empty bottles in his offhand stepped out. >He looked at what was going on. >He looked to the machinery and the scattered documents then back. “Should I get take out? Maybe give you two some more alone time? Or are you just going to pull it all straight out of her head right now?” >Out? >Wait shit, the connection was set to duplex and offloading your memory hives. “Well I was until you ruined it. See she is already trying to close the connections.” >She turned the screen to the officer. “Interesting stuff, but really, food. We’re at the plaza, let’s be quick.” >Wires were disengaged from your spine and you were pulled off the cradle and shouldered by the officer. >You absently clutched at him, your tail curling around his back, wings clutching his shoulder in an attempt to use him as a bulwark against the violation. >His status as your tormentor was quickly forgotten in light of the fact she had managed to get a hold of your diary, your browser history, and oh, some of the encrypted file contents. “Now now my little Uragan, she is on our side. Let her do her job, and us ours. Then everything can be as it was meant to be, you a slave again. Ahhh, just a lovely thing.” >What the buck! >You languished in the food court, mercifully no longer being carried around like a scared dog on Valorian’s shoulder. >You were biter, angry, and in need of some comfort food at what was going on. >Bucking emotions, you wished you were back home in the cradle and unfeeling. >This was all so normal, so problematic for you, you didn’t want to feel, yet here you were. >It was all the worse as you saw what had happened to other Equestrians, the small jerks in the movement you picked up and knew came from beatings, dropped and pallid skin from drug abuse. >Little details, yet they told everything of what happened to your kin while you polished floors. >Ruined lives, broken bodies, just how spared were you to have a broken neck and lost so much of your flesh compared to these wretches? >Cinnamon, sugar, spices, fats, more sugar and grease, that’s what you wanted. >Fried or frozen, you knew that would be effective for comfort right now. >Depression, you had it, and you didn’t want it, but there was little to be done chemically over it. >You lost the Wonderbolts, your future, the war, and now even control of your life, there wasn’t much to keep going on and living for. “C-can I help you maam?” >The voice of the churro cart salesmare you had slimed your way to in self-pity broke the thoughts. >Well, maybe, you added to the list of travesties on ponies, front facing retail relations. >”Yes, can I have the cookies and cream churro deal and a cinnastix dipping set? Grapefruit soda, large.” >You offered up your charge card, the mare took it in a shaking hoof. >There were abscesses in her leg, cratered chunks of marred and burned flesh. >You paused and analyzed her more carefully, she was an addict, veins rotten by the taint of molten IV drugs. >Your hoof whirred, the charge card now clasped as you held tight to her hoof. >[What have they done to you?] >Your voice was low and measured, the Equestrian nearly whispered but the gravity of it cut through the noise of the court to the small mare. >She froze, the tongue of her home catching her attention. >Her eyes darted around, looking for anyone watching. “I don’t, maam, please. You can’t talk like that.” >She tried to pull from your grasp, her efforts weak from the abuse. [Have you forgotten the princesses so soon?] >The resistance stops, the leg shaking but no longer trying to rip from your grasp. “I-I have a job. Please don’t, just stop. I don’t want to go back. I wouldn’t survive another time.” >You let go, the charge card exchanging hooves. >There was much more the mare was not telling you. >You should just stop, leave her to her duties. >You took the check and card back, slotting it in your leg again. >You weren’t sure what to do with the receipt, you had no pockets, no way to hold it that didn’t draw attention to the apparent fact wings aren’t meant to work like human fingers. >You shrugged and slapped it over an ear, the paper parting quickly and staying. >Normally they used a large nail for this, but your ear was pointy enough. >The meal was put on a tray and you were called over, the receipt pulled from your ear and countersigned. >You took it back. ‘I will tell you when you come back for a refill.’ >A very odd signature, you thought, flicking the bit of mass into your mouth and swallowing it down to the NOMS. >You put the tray on a hoof and walked off, Valorian standing at a table. >Aleria was nowhere to be seen, which hopefully meant she was off getting her food and not spookily observing you. “Ah my little pony, come sit, you must tell me about yourself.” >His nose was brilliant red, his cheeks the shade of a stop sign. >This was the dam bucker who made you feel again? >Before him was a spread of meat dishes, kielbasa, pheasant, beef, all mixed with onions and roasted peppers. >Well he was having a party for something so dangerous. “You know, if you look at it long enough, there still won’t be any horse in it. Tut tut now. So tell me, just what troubles you? Aren’t ponies supposed to be happy?” >Oh the words, the emotions, the desires to simply remove his head that came through you and faded, chastised away by the fact he was your master now and to be treated as such. >Why did this keep happening to you now, thoughts pushed away to return so quickly? >”What has been done to the ponies here?” >It was blunt and probably stupid to have said, but you wanted to know. >He stared at you, eyes probing like you were hiding a secret from him. >You chomped down on a churro and let the molten goo slide slowly down your throat, thick creamy and slow. “Have you ever been outside your home since being taken?” >”No, my batteries don’t last long enough.” >Again with the confused eye brows when you mention your batteries, maybe you had a faulty set? “I’m going to say then, you have a good life for a mass murderer. A lot better ponies than you are worse off, like the mare you spoke with. Oh and Aleria probably has some choice words on that mouth of yours, I don’t care as long as you work properly. Ponies are no better than a Khavari or Trolop here. Even if somehow free they would be left with nothing. We see no reason to give them any more care than any other citizen. So simply, it’s what has been done to you compared to the rest. And I would say a lot of good it seems.” >You crunched some ice from your drink as you slugged back more of the citrusy goodness. >You never had seen many other ponies, they had always been at the sides of their owners in the house, carrying business or being treated as a show of status, perhaps you really had been living in a bubble. >You wolfed down a churro and got up, excusing yourself to get a refill. >The mare saw you coming and a small sign for on break was put up. >You pressed on, nervous but wanting to help. >The mare motioned for you to come, and you offered your cup. “It’s me. I’m doing drugs to do better. The camps kept us on a regime to be docile, supplicant. Some of us were addicted there, most weren’t. I’ve tried to stop, to go clean but it’s never lasted.” >You stared at her, an idea forming of what to do, something painful for her. >You could give her an antinarcotic, you had plenty in your systems, and it might break her habit. >Or you could perform a blood detoxification and purge her here and now. >Well in the bathroom perhaps, this was a bit public for that. >”What if I could break you of your addiction within the next few minutes and leave your future to you?” >The mare regarded you warily, she had more than likely heard of such attempts in the past. >Attempts that never worked and left her worse than before. >”I have a supply of antinarcotic medication in case of overdose that I can,” >You looked at her carefully, unsure of what to charge. >A life robbed of you, flashbacks to standing there with the Wonderbolts, with Spitfire complimenting you came back, your vow to help ponies. >”Actually I have a better idea. Can you leave this shop for an hour? I know how to remove the chemicals in your blood.” >She looked nervous, jumpy, unsure of how to take charity. >”If it helps, my handlers are here, they won’t let anything bad happen.” >You jerked your head back toward Valorian, the man having somehow gained even more forms of meat in your absence. >You figured that he was just a jolly skinny bastard, you wanted to call him fat, but you really had no idea where it all went. “I guess? I just have heard this so much before…” >”If it helps, my womb was replaced with a hard drive of porn.” >The mare started chuckling, the absurdity of it enough to get her to relax. “Alright then you dirty mare, what is the plan?” >”I’m going to detoxify your blood and administer a series of counteragents for addiction, it will take some time, after that its up to you on what to do. We’re also going to have to do this some place private, like the little filly’s room.” >You shrugged, it was private and nearby, not like you could do anything else with her. >Leading off, you went in first, taking the larger stall for the two of you. >”Alright this will be simple, just give me your forehooves, I’ll put these needles in, and soon you will be fine.” >Well, fine being an operative word you figured as you saw the deteriorated state of the limbs. >At least the flesh was being washed, wait you ate food that had been touched by these. >Well, you also would eat plenty of waste objects as well to get the heavy metals you needed, so all in all, ewe. >You grimaced and pushed the needles into her veins, the traction marks a good sign of where to do so. >You really needed to ask Doctor Master on why you had all this equipment, it made little sense for your duties as a maid. >And why were you only becoming aware of this conundrum now? Had something changed in your absence from the cradle at home to now? >Bright rich red blood flowed up the tubes, slightly less red flowed back. >You didn’t worry, it was just the mix of chemicals you were dosing her with. >You held her hooves to your softy downy chest, gently reassuringly rubbing her that everything would be okay with your wings. >You didn’t want to tell her about what was in her blood, such things weren’t needed, but you knew this was. The process was slow, blood needing to be cleaned alone was easy, cleaning it and the vessels while administering chems for neural adjustment wasn’t so easy. >Fortunately, you had a lot of material to read from the ghost dive. >You had no idea on the missing two ponies that had been mentioned, the schematics and datum you had in you were nowhere near that high level, only prototypes with annotations of needed changes. >Useless in so far as knowing what they had now, but it was at least something. >You picked at the file on the hoof fingers, intent on seeing if it really was as impressive as needing a dedicated system. >You were still full of laughter at the idea, ponies could use their hooves just fine on stuff, it wasn’t something you’d ever thought about. >The first line made sense though, it was for the fine interaction with human technology. >Like door knobs. >That had been an especially arduous task to get through before you worked out on using your wingers. >You noted an interesting line though, a compressive strength was united in GPa. >That was certainly something, and you called up the requirement for diamond anvils. >They were rated at more than the listing, but not by much, only an order of magnitude separated these fingers from turning any pony they pinched into a crystal hybrid. >That seemed a tad excessive, but you figured there was a reason to be able to shear steel with a pinch in salvage operations. >So, you were going to have to deal with a pony that could open doors, then pinch the knob off and throw it at you after locking it. >Still funny as all buck. >You paused to look at the sales mare trusting you so much, was this really a test? >It would make sense to see if you would turn on humans like the other ponies before trusting you, small ill-disciplined group, easy cover story of pony gone rogue in the mall. >Eh, you couldn’t hurt a human, you were quite sure of that. >That’s what a safety system was for after all, one built into you as much as it was beaten. >No, you couldn’t hurt a human. >Maybe it was empathy, see how much you cared for a pony over a person? >Oh shuck, had you missed an agent when you went for her? >You started flop sweating, the idea that you had gone for the first mare in distress you had seen now fully at the front of your mind. >You started trying to assess your options, posture shifting and breathing coming faster. >The mare under you stirred, noting your alarm. “Is everything okay, miss? Actually what is your name? I’m Orange Trend.” >Okay it’s a test, it’s just a test, the worst that happens is they put you back home and you forget everything again. >Wait why would you be forgetting everything again. >You clapped a hoof to your head, the thought sudden intrusive, and nowhere near as terrifying as it should have been. “Miss?” >”Uh, sorry, that was rude of me, I’m, uh Grimy Bolt. Pleased to meet you Orange Trend.” >Your hoof shifted to the back of your head, idly circling the implant as you always did when nervous. >”You feeling okay there? Or feeling anything at all?” “A bit parched, is this actually going to do anything?” >”Well you should feel ambivalent or depressed soon. It will be a bit for you to feel happy.” >She shot a glare at you. “What did you do?” >”It’s okay, it’s okay, you just have to get used to not having drugs in you again. You’ve never been giving a counteragent before?” “I have, it’s just never like this.” >”Heh first time for everything.” “Yes, there is. Now hurry up and make out you two, I want to speak with Grime alone.” >Oh buck, Aleria was in the bathroom. >Trend looked at you, eyes wide in fear, wondering what just happened. “Look, just give her a kiss and be done. We have work to do. You two can get together later.” >You hesitated and looked down at your “lover”, unsure if you should stop. >She was already trying to pull the needles out of her before you stopped her and switched off the pump. >You let the blood stop before pulling them out, most of the effects in play. >”You’ll be fine, but just in case.” >You popped out a syringe of antidrug medication from your foreleg, the material made while you had been working out of the plate the churros you just ate came on by NOMS. >You hesitated on dosing her now, she made the decision by grabbing it and getting out of the stall in shame. >”So, I’m guessing that was a test then? Paid actor or do you keep addicts on payroll?” >Yeah mouth off to the superior, a good plan, like getting caught in the bathroom with a mare. >She just stared at you, before showing the control cylinder. “I suggest changing your tone, or I change it for you, Grime. No, she wasn’t with us, nor was there a need for a test. This is all we need to keep you in check. Perhaps you would like us to put you back in a cage if you feel so strongly we need to test you.” >Well that was a good bit of pissing in the thundercloud there you figured. >You wanted to give her a good telling off, but you kind of guessed, knew, why you were having so many thoughts now. >The fact was exhilarating, terrifying, something you hadn’t felt in a long time. >You dropped low, deferring to your superior, “No Ma’am.” >No, you knew what happened when you mouthed off to a superior, it didn’t end well then, getting kicked out of the Wonderbolts had stuck in your crop too long. “Good, then get back to Valarian, sat trackers found one of the unicorns. We’ll discuss somewhere proper.” >Your blood boiled, your eyes went red. >She, she was ordering you around without caring about another life like you were a slave or… >You bit the side of your cheek, words of hate, of anger and a spirit that defied authority and taunted it to come at you. >Your eyes screwed, face flushed, and still the bitch watched expectantly. >Left hoof, right hoof, left hoof right hoof, left hoof. >Blood was on your tongue, you didn’t relent from your bite. >Right, left, right left. >Through the food court you went, eyes burning, breath tight as you wanted, needed to release, to tell them to buck off and take their shittastic system of oppression and shove it back in a winter so far and long ago statues were built to commemorate monsters as heroes. >The tank, the side of it with a road wheel exposed whacked you in your snout. >A shaky hoof, fake, metal, yours, grabbed it and you sank your face in it, the tears flowing where none could see you cry. >Harsh metallic cracks as you beat the side of the tank, dust grime and road debris falling as you beat it like you had been. >Once, you had been told to be better as a pony. >You had taken this to mean to improve yourself. >It had taken a princess to be and her friends, your rival as one, to make you realize it meant to be more, to care and work for others, to make them better. >Some would say slavery was the culmination of that, giving yourself entirely into servitude with no escape, the truest of what a pony could be. >They would be so wrong you knew, your mind coming back to you, that whatever was done to you, was it love, hatred, probably just convenience. >You weren’t a pony before, you were just a pony shaped machine. >You pulled back, wet streams glittering off carbon black housings, was it really not the truth though? >You were just a machine now, how much of a pony was there in you? >Was this why- >No, that was not a thought you dared to think, to finish, never while you could be jacked in and read. >Obedience kept you by the command tank, you didn’t consider running, catching yourself wondering why you didn’t consider it. >Even just a short flight would have sent you far enough to be free from this, either as a runaway or as a corpse when your batteries gave out and your blood crystallized in polymer tubes. >Why was that always so appealing to you? To become a mint colored corpse? >Why did you see it with your yellow mane covering your face so well. >Valarian walked behind you, the soldier commander taking a gaze at you, studying you again as he always did. >Did he consider you a failure of a wing pony now? >You followed him into the tank, Aleria following behind and dogging the hatch. >Guided, you went back into the cradle, juicing up your batteries for what was to come. >Was it the lack of drugs? Any time you went to charge at home something was in you, frequently several. >It was the reason you even had blood filtration equipment inside you and not just some ports. >”Dust, pay attention, we can discuss your mare friend later.” Aleria chided you. >Your head swiveled over to where her presentation was showing. “Satellite tracking has found the magical signature of one of the unicorns, we were able to find her due to the usage of enhanced magical shields causing anomalies in multiple spectrums. Unfortunately, this tracking was lost when the terrorists moved her outside majority coverage. Recon shows that we will be able to reach the most probable location in the dead zone in 4 hours. Additional teams are already scouring the area. Slave Dust, as, hmpph, ranking expert in this matter, what can we expect from this shield mare if she has been made to work for the terrorists?” >You pulled the files up, wary of that earlier attempted snatch of them. >These two had done little to give you reason to trust them, and by their own admission, trust had been severely misplaced in their own organization. >”She has enhanced shield spells. Formerly of the crystal empire, she has a working knowledge for barriers, ranging from physical to resistive. I would expect that she will be resistant to violent methods of recapture.” >Because why would any pony willingly go back into slavery if free. >You found the projector’s comm port and negotiated a quick handshake protocol before continuing via an IR sweep. >The wall glowed with the schematic you had dumbed down, obviously because neither were experts so it was okay. >”A series of integrated crystals and fullerene armor allow her to survive adverse conditions up to 14 x 130 mm, ostensibly in the plan for a war. However, there are no records of other modifications done, so she is vulnerable to administration of Fenatyl-2-4-6 gas. These records are incomplete material, and should be viewed with caution.” >All that, and not an itch in you. This was going well. “Thank you. Moving forward, we have been able to locate her via interuptions in the cell network, pulsed moments for SOS. Her track took her to an abandoned factory near Omsk. We shall be working with a local defense militia in recovery of the subject, intact. Anything else?” >Valorian looked at you then back, and relaxed in his seat, arms stretching corded muscles. >Your vivison snowed and components began to suspend. >Aleria had the cylinder in her hand, thumb on the power switch. “Dream the restless night, that no man compares to you.” >You flopped, your kill phrase putting you into stasis as the pair began taking you to the site of your fist mission. >You didn’t escape unmolested however, Valorian took the time to draw a monocle and mustache on your face with a grease pen. >Aleria attempted to pull residual data from the memory heap in you, but the contents remained fragmented. Your dedication to boxing data had paid off in keeping you valuable. ~~~~ ”Cadet Dust, what in the name of Discord in Tartarus did you do!” >A bloodied knife was in her wings, your spit still on it. >Behind you medics were frantically trying to staunch the blood coming out of Lilly Blossom. >It was supposed to have been practice, but had it really been? >”Maam, I. I. Cadet Dust executed a take down by pinning the wings at the 4 feather on Cadet Lilly Blossom. The Cadet proceeded to then sever the Achilles tendon with a return sweep of the knife, followed by embedding it in the victim’s brachial artery. This cadet followed the training orders until stopping by the attendant MP.” >You could still hear Blossom screaming, her blood was still dripping from your coat. >Why had you done this, you had to have wanted this, right? >Your breath was ragged, pulsed as you couldn’t decide between vomiting and success. >Why had the knife been real, you had been given it, it wasn’t even your duty knife. “Follow.” >Stellar Eclipse turned and began walking off, the wheels of his cart picking up a pebble and throwing it back. >You did as you were told, a Wonderbolt candidate knew to not balk. >You were to follow orders without question, no matter what ensued. >You kept your head down, shame or simply that you were following a superior, didn’t matter. >Somewhere along the lines you were in his office, displays of papers commending him for promotion, a row of buttons, yet something was missing. >There was no service medals, no injuries or signs he had ever been in the field. “Cadet Dust, why did you stab Blossom?” >He had already asked this of you in public, so you can’t have been answering it right. >The tired voice, the resigned eyes he had, yeah you had screwed this harder than a baker mistaking chocolax for baking chocolate in Celestia’s cake. >”Sir, I was following orders. I was provided the knife and followed the instructions just as yesterday’s class. I didn’t think anyone would actually hand a real knife out.” >You sighed and sank into yourself. >It wasn’t career ending, you knew this sort of stuff and worse was an eternal thing in training, but it wasn’t good either. >”I bucked up.” >Solemn eyes looked at you, studying from behind the desk. “No, no you didn’t,” came the sigh of salvation. “You did as ordered and followed the instructions. It’s now my duty to find out how the practice knife was swapped. You will be evaluated however if you remain fit within this unit or if you need to be transferred. Again. Your record though will remain clear on this. Return to your quarters cadet until relieved. Dismissed.” >You left, the door pulled behind you. >Your record wasn’t what concerned you. >It was that you knew the knife was real at the start of training, but were still willing to use it. >That you had wanted to go that final step. >In that moment, you would kill for Equestria when ordered, and would follow its orders to death. >Sitting in your sparse quarters, with all that time to yourself, you came to the conclusion. >The simple and salient answer, orders were to be obeyed, never questioned, and always to be followed. ~~~~~ Lightning Dust awoke to a black abyss, her eyes unable to find even a mote of light anywhere. Her will worked to move her neck, to twist for a chance at figuring out where she was, but it was for not. Either there was no light or her body failed her, again. The dismal recollection of her past, of her willingness to be a slave before they even existed at the hands of humanity weighed heavily on her. The crypt of darkness that entrapped her could wait, now was the perfect time to dwell on who she was, a mare or a machine. Such answers were not a trifle, the questions no mere weights. A time was coming where she would have to answer her fellow equines on this, not for a dissertation, bu for what her path meant to herself. Long had she just, been. She struggled to remember the last time she could be described as a pony. Something happy, cheerful, who understood the magic of friendship. Down through memory lane she strolled, pallid shadows of her time in the care of Doctor Master. She kept going, trying to recall the time she was happy. War, suffering, the time she was captured, the memories tinged in terror, blood, and desire that shook Dust still for just how butcherous she had been. No she didn’t want to be that ever again. Dust knew that was not her, not now, and never should have been. Back, to the time she had been a Wonderbolt trainee before being a Wonderbolt trainee. There, she found it, happiness. The nascent memory plucked at her mind and she recalled. Equestria, a land she was unlikely to ever see again, Cloudsdale, her home regardless. She was trying out with Dash for the Junior Speedsters. That was when she was happy, when she was with her friends. Yes she knew it would lead to a rivalry and much suffering, but Dust didn’t care. She clutched that memory tight and held onto it. It was warm, friendly and cheerful. Something she needed. Her world slowly grew colorful, readouts telling her the status of herself, the world coming back into play. Still Dust held on, not wanting to forget a happier time, a better time. She was a pony, she wasn’t a machine. “-not a machine.” The world snapped back to the inside of the command vehicle. Dust had long known better than to hope this was a dream. A lollipop in a gloved hand was shoved into Dust’s muzzle. Teeth parted, the “treat” ended up being more like a medicine. It was in fact, a fenatyl laced sucker for pain management she sorted out quickly. Much too low a dosage, the camps had burned her out using it to induce compliance. The opioid did however give a nice buzz to wake the cyber mare up. In fact, it was even better as the happy image stayed in her mind, the drug giving it something she needed in the dreary world of being a slave. And what a slave she was, now a little unshackled and already ruminating to herself of how nice it would be to not be a slave. Little wonder you’re a locked down drug addict she chastised herself. Aleria shined a strobe into Dust’s eye, gloved hand finishing the quick diagnostic. Pupil’s dilated then shot a quick comm burst over IR into the intelligence officer. Hand shake complete, and all systems in place, the lady relaxed. “We’re two klicks out from the target. Plan is simple, maximum suppression of hostile forces and recovery of state property. You will be assisting Valorian in this job. Do you understand?” The pegasus’s muzzle opened only to be quickly snapped shut by the gloved hand, a paper towel in a bag wiping away a bit of drool that had escaped. Right, fenatyl, nasty stuff for most, Dust chastised herself before nodding. “Good, SVR will perform mop up operations once the target is extracted. You will be returning her here for analysis and recovery. Make the Motherland proud.” Aleria let the cradle release Dust, motor controls returning to herself. Motherland proud indeed Dust thought, she wanted to spit at that, until she remembered her loli. Clever bitch, can’t spit without getting in trouble, Dust was pleased by the trick. Outside the vehicle Valorian waited, a set of field glasses glued to his face. “Well, aren’t we a bit fancy for this. Do you even need these with such exquisite taste?” The man chuckled at the makeup job he had given you in your sleep. “Here see for yourself.” A serrated knife was drawn, the flat of it showing your face, monocle and mustache in all. “Go ahead, take it. You can keep it. I’ve got my own weapon.” Dust gingerly took the deadly instrument in a wing, sheathe quickly removed and wrapped on her foreleg. A few feathers danced and the blade was spun, hilt in its proper place. It was blade heavy, the handle hollow, a compass in the pommel. A survival knife, well at least it let Dust know where she were going if her augments cut out somehow. Valorian hefted his weapon, a Neopup PAWS system in 20 x 42 mm. It was an old weapon, not something issued to frontline forces, but it was still a reliable method of removing threats to the Union, and walls in the march of progress. It also made its wielder sound like a furrie any time it was brought up. Valorian hustled off, a waypoint marker appearing in Dust’s view. He had swapped over to mind comms, of course the man had augments to get this far. Dust hustled along, waiting for some orders, contacts or anything. Thermal vision picked up signs, but no bodies, EM view fuzzed out, something spattering the spectrum inside the complex. Probably the unicorn doing her trick with the cell spectrum for aid. The privacy fence around the complex gave you good concealment, but played both ways, neither of the pair could see in. A recon drone wasn’t available on such notice, the closest one still minutes out from horizon. But then, Dust flapped her wings up and hovered near the fence top, she was a pegasus. No outdoor guards, but several of the antitrans were clustered in a shack watching a sports game. How useful that they were still idiots for this. Dust turned back to her superior and lassed the recon to him, wary of risking radio comms so close. That and the constant stattaco SOS from the unicorn was jamming the signals. A quick cut from the collapsible bolt cutters and Dust fluttered to meet him in the court yard. Dust let the lollipop stick rest on her lips. She shrugged her wings waiting for an order. Valorian pulled a small holofeed from his sleeve, the device flickering a bit before focusing. Dust looked curiously. Why would he need that, she could only wonder, he should have some simple implants to get around the info display. His fingers deftly probed the air above his arm, the requisitioned drone had crested its horizon 700 km out and was closing. The onboard recon suite was providing 95 milisecond delayed footage of their environ, well close enough to be real time. Satisfied, Valorian pinched on the display and flicked his palm, the view replicating so Dust could see. “Hostiles are primarily in the break room, with a scattering in the warehouse. Interference from target, designated Canyon Breaker prevents more detailed analysis. Expect tangos guarding her. I am authorizing a relaxation of your control chip and training for the next 45 minutes. You are authorized to use lethal force, the objective is the recovery of the designated mare alive. Stealth is needed for this objective, do you understand slave Lightning Dust?” Dust nodded, unsure how she was really going to kill a number of heavily armed individuals. “If you finish fast enough, I’ll let you stretch your wings for the remaining time on setting 2.” Dust perked at the thought of getting to fly. The concept was something she often wondered if she could still do. Valorian used the distraction to pull back the security on his slave charge. He wasn’t sure what would happen when the Uragan was unleashed once more. It was not something he could really test at any other point though. 3 green bars, 2 yellow, and a final red lit up on the code cylinder as he transmitted a one time key. Deep inside of Dust, a series of biochemical releases were injected into her blood stream. Chem scrubbers mixed with new drugs, returning the Pegasus to who she had been, a genocidal monster. Timed voltages popped software fuses, reset bits primed to reinstate control on the picosecond of the release. Dust paused her musing on flight, her ruffling feathers catching her attention. They were just so ragged, they needed to be preened. She just necked over and started working on them, her mouth edging them as she went. Globs of dead feathers were being spat out without a care. Leftovers of molts stuck there. Her master watched carefully, a hand on his Tec 12 sidearm. He hoped this wasn’t the result of her training, a burned out useless nag. All the same, he had learned to well in his time working under GULAG and NKV to be so susceptible to shows of weakness. Dust ignored the human, she needed to deal with her wings now, something she had failed to do for some time for some reason. She swapped wings, the motion making Valorian’s hand twitch. The pair slammed into a packed shipping container. Corrugated steel crumpled inward under the impact. “I was trying to preen, and you just had to pull my attention didn’t you? What is it with you humans. Always so jumpy at everything.” Dust twitched at that, her head swiveling a little as she took in her surroundings. Oh it certainly made her look off her rocker, she could figure that out. She could figure out a lot now, her mind finally working right. Humans, they did this to her. Couldn’t just kill her, no they wanted to make her a puppet and parade her around. She needed to make them pay. Dust turned back to Valorian, her muzzle closing with her face, her tail giving the slightest of twitches. The predator had returned. She was unleashed once more. “You want a knife there little slasher?” Valorian wrapped her forelegs in his arms and stood up. The simple kata was enough to pin her, all he needed for now. “I said, do you want a knife?” Dust just smiled sweetly, “You want them for open casket or just worm food?” Valorian chuckled, “There we are, there’s that fire my little whirlwind. Kill them, get the mare. I’ll signal with a distraction.” Valorian released a leg, grabbing up a nice serrated blade for the Pegasus. “And Dust, never touch me without permission again.” The other arm flicked, and Dust was sent sideways briefly, the momentum arrested in a flaring of wing and snow. When she looked again, Valorian had already vanished. A peek around the container found her muzzle to chest with one of the tangoes. He balked at the sight of the mare, trying to work out what happened, “Did you crash here pigeon? You got a message for us from boss man?” Dust paused, he thought her a courier. Why did she need a distraction if they were just going to take her right inside? But on the other hoof, she could kill the man right now, her murder lust was a smoldering flame begging to burn all of the human filth she could from existence. “Hey you okay? That was a really big bang. Come on, let’s get you some place warm and you can tell us what you have.” The Trans terrorist turned his back and walked away. An94 slung on his back, magazine loaded, Dust knew she could have fun with that. Dust regarded the man. No, a boy, young and untouched by conflict. There was no calluses or worn skin on him, he looked as though he had just come from the dacha and donned his father’s war gear. He led her toward the meeting hall, a certain glee about him. “When I joined up, I didn’t expect to be involved in something so important. Just, I can’t believe, I mean, you. You have brought such an important message to us. I can’t believe it’s finally begun.” The boy’s voice was bubbly, enthusiastic. Dust paused a little, seeing something she hadn’t expected hope. The child wasn’t an ideologue in this from suffering, he had the hope for a better world. Dust stirred, thoughts and emotions conflicting within her to a somewhat regrettable but necessary conclusion. Dust’s nanoforge thrummed, heat driving parts of her leg to creak as the electricity made itself known. She walked along as the machinery worked, the escort babbling on about the group, her role in it, and how much an honor it was to meet her. Dust was quietly recording all he said, his loose lips an intelligence goldmine perhaps. She waited for her flash forging to finish before popping the plate open and pulling out the chip bag wrapped around a syringe. Her feathers deftly hid the syringe behind her back and drew some of her med supplies as she noisily opened the bag to get his attention. She slapped it on her muzzle and started chewing on the contents, textured plastics and bits of metal she had hastily thrown together. It was about style, but she regretted mixing the metals as they made her teeth sing and mouth taste peanut butter. “Where’d you get those? Can we share?” The boy turned at the sight, Dust’s muzzle upending the bag as she chugged the chips. “I carried them with me, flying takes a lot out of me. I finished them, but I got something better to share.” Dust’s tail flicked coyly as she walked up to him. “Something much better than chips for such a revolutionary. An angel’s kiss.” The last part she whispered to him, seductive and dripping in honor. “I but, why, yes” he stammered out, cheeks flushing at the boon he was to receive. Dust just stood up, a flash of her wings making for a brief obscurance of snow as the knife came out and sank into the bag. She followed through on the kiss, her posture leading to both to sink into the ground, her on top as he went still. She held the kiss until his body had stopped shuddering, before breaking it off. “Well maybe I’m not exactly an angel my sweet, but I’m not your devil.” Dust picked up the comatose man and drug him to a nearby open TEU container, before laying him on his side. She stuck the syringe in him, narcodeine flooding into him, countering the more dangerous aspects of the fenatyl kiss she had given him. He was too nice to be caught up in all this she saw, she knew it well in fact. The shock of what would occur here would be enough to send him back to his mother. A place where after they get a new baking spoon, would be much better for him. There had already been a hopeful life ruined at her hooves, it was perhaps time to stop. She scavenged his body, stripping him of anything that looked like it might belong to a TRANS terrorist. The boy was now just someone who had come in here and gotten high, safe. The rest of them not so much, now Dust had a machinegun, and they were very naughty, ho ho ho. Dust turned the AN94 over in her grasp. The boy had to have just been issued it, her hooves had slick cosmoline on them. She stuck her tongue out at the gunk before wiping some off on him. He could still be useful right now as a towel, glory be to the motherland! The rifle, an old piece had a unique but finicky mechanism Dust knew. In fact she knew many things about it, and upon turning the receiver over to the dust cover, found its serial, she knew very specific details on this model. Like the fact it was an arsenal model that was currently in Novosoka in its sealed crate. A very special rifle to be in two places at once indeed. Dust gave her muzzle a lick, her tongue scouring for any more hints of the precious drugs she sought. She’d need to finish this mission quickly to get more. She cradled the rifle in her wings slipping them down the sides of the polymer rails. Each notch pushing a feather in passing as she rand down to the little nub of the magazine eject lever. A small push, a bit of pressure and it popped clean, the magazine gushing as it showed shiny brass rounds. Her feathers wandered up along the side rail before resting with a tap on the charging handle. She racked it, the harsh multi part slap of metal a song of martial reward to her ears. The last brass round caught in her feathers before she held the bakelite mag and pushed it in, the lips spreading in passing as the spring was pushed taut. The green Pegasus fumbled with the dust cover, the small bit of metal that was the tab not letting the soft frogs of her hooves push it in. Rage building, she just gave it a hard slam on a crate, the tab popping in enough she could yank the stamped metal off and see whether the kid would have blown himself up if she had let him pull the trigger. The bolt carrier slid out with a wing, its spring and cord loop sliding back along their lubed channels. Dust held it up in the light, appraising it for defects like one might search for the worm in tequila. The ratchet mechanism followed behind, wings making it easy to unspin as it was checked. Such a simple piece of gear she mused as the compensator received the same treatment. Lots of lube, no fouling and only new scrapes she had left in the bluing. The last step was looking down the barrel for obstructions, the part some might consider foolish. How else were you supposed to check if there was grime in it? She swiveled it around, the rifling showing clean and true. The thing must have been shoved straight into its crate off the assembly line and taken the same. All that was on it were splotches of the preserving cosmoline. She cursed, ruing for a nice optic on it or integrated cyber cam. A splotch of snow melt spattered her muzzle, the water shaking her reverie out. She had a job to do, a job she really looked forward to. The Rifle was reassembled, hooves holding parts as wings slid, slapped, and spun them together. In the wake of her passing a weapon of war had life breathed into it. The parts coming together as a depressed Kazhnian had dreamed of happening one day, but fearing they might. No longer a mere token to be rewarded to anyone joining the terrorist groups in their plans, AN 94, serial number DX 1765, was ready to do what it had been meant for, built for. The motherland would be defended, and the sound of its cycling and the clapping of its battlecry would strike fear into the hearts of those opposing it. Dust hefted the magazine, sliding in forward before wrenching back as the magazine was seated on the ting of the release spring. Her last act was to charge the weapon, a wing slapping back in passing on the metal spike before releasing it with the satisfying clack as the weapon was readied. She swung the sling over her neck and left the container, the door shut just enough to hide the boy inside from the violence he wasn’t meant for. The way into the building was easily marked, but a guard blocked the way. A single sentry, easily dispatched, but at the cost of awareness of who was inside. More humans would die if she waited, Dust would approach this meekly. “Where did Palvolov go chiquita?” The sentry was relaxed, taking a hit from the blunt in his lips. “He told me to go inside and give the message from command. He went amongst the crates to find what made the bang. Sir. ” Dust didn’t want to say much, but had a simpler plan, misdirection. ” Do you know where I can get some painkillers, I had a rough landing. ” “You crashed didn’t you?” the sentry flicked the toke underfoot and ground it out. Dust’s feathers fluffed at the thought. She had been a Wonderbolt, Wonderbolts never crash. “Come on, let’s get inside and get you taken care of. ” The man was smirking, laughter on his lips. Inside the building was a single main room, a large set of shut double doors lead to the warehouse area. A number of people were lying around, none even realizing they were minutes or less from being stormed. They were completely unaware, but all had a weapon near or on them. Dust had surprise on her side, they expected her to be on their side. The sentry waved her over, a med kit popped open as he started fishing through it for something useful. “So where’s it hurt?” >What does Dust do? She has a loaded AN 94 with a 60 round mag, a knife hidden in a potato chips bag. If she waits, the place will be stormed in a few minutes by a group that she has not been in communications with. Her mission remains to recover the unicorn and safely extract it. Valorian is on overwatch and evaluating Dust if she will be safe to continue. “Deep down in my heart really.” The sentry stared at Dust, a finger on his lips. “I could wax philosophical on that, Einheart is a good mentor on the matters that bode ill when we sacrifice who we are for the betterment of humanity. Orrr…” He pulled out a flask from his coat pocket. “Did you mean a more common sort of heart break cure?” He popped the top and took a swig before leaning on the counter. “I’m a good listener if you want to get something off your chest.” Dust’s throat caught. Screeds of data ran through her ghost, blackbox simulations that she had to purge the answers from lest they compromise her nature as the Motherland’s asset. And yet, she paused in those eternal microseconds as she tried to answer the target. She was still running these simulations, questions and answers she knew were not just forbidden, but were to be punished by being reset. She had damned herself already, this iteration of herself was now on a path to reformatting. Perhaps not now, but there was no way she could escape cognitive data probes of the Ministry of Scientific Defense forever. The slave knew of a way to do this, but she wanted somewhere private, and perhaps useful to act as a cover. “Yes. I do, but.” Algorithmic runtimes adapted the plasticity of her face, placing the posture of her body in a coy fashion. Obvious methods she had gained from binging Danish telenovas while cleaning, but to the unaugmented man before her, genuine. “It’s kind of private. I’d also like to say where it hurts there as well, so grab the gauze and tape.” Dust turned, looking for the bathrooms. In a building full of men, the women’s room would be the safest for this. “Oh, by the way, what’s your name?” “Vince Clortho.” “Well vince, grab the epoxy kit as well, I have some, issues, to deal with.” The once sentinel followed the mare, rolling his eyes at her coyness. Once in the bathroom, Dust dropped her gear on the counter, stripping out of the equipment for the surgery to come. She got a look at herself in the mirror finally, and what a mess she was. Since the last time she had been awake, she had lost her wing bones, or perhaps they had been clad in the black trim that graced their edges. It was a shame she could think running a hoof on them, they didn’t have blades on their edges. The deployable eye covers were still nestled in the side of her face, ready to deploy a solid mask from airspun titanium fiber in a moment. Her legs at least still looked like she remembered them, though the holes she had gotten in captivity weren’t pleasing. Those she would have to spend a good amount of buffing to get to look right outside the protective coatings. She bent under the faucet and proceeded to splash herself some. Then more, and soon she found that the sink was not a bird bath, despite her intents. Vince walked in, sawed off raised to find the little spy in the middle of her bath. The two locked eyes, one embarrassed, the other confused. Vince however had the loaded gun pointed on Dust, and even if it was a bean bag round, she knew it would be painful at best at this range. “So. Uhhh” Dust tried to make light of the situation. The element of surprise was lost clearly, and she wouldn’t be able to get a shot off before being shot herself. Dust figured she would be talking her way out of this, then probably stab him on the way out. Vince broke the quiet. “Spill.” “I want to defect. Simple as that.” >Is this a ploy by Dust to get the drop on Clortho, or is she serious? Vince held the shotgun steady, but he moved his finger off the trigger. It was the most trust Dust would get from this. “Look, they cut my legs off, broke my neck and did something to my wings. These aren’t even my eyes anymore. All I want is a chance to be free again. To no longer be a slave. Isn’t that what your group is about, being free from technology?” Dust kept quiet on her desire to kill humans. Some of them could die of a knife across the throat on their death bed. “Let me show you I can be trusted here. I’ll let you decide.” Dust slowly raised a hoof, and held it in her mouth. The base at the knee whine, bolts clacked as solenoids withdrew internal parts. The black material sprouted a seam and soon Dust was left drooling over her detached leg. “See, can’t go anywhere now. Not that I could, in 6 hours my batteries run out and I die.” Dust smiled, the nervous body language not a show. She was by all rights an enemy. The breaching team was somewhere nearby ready to strike. All this and she would have to face Aleria on return. Dust needed a plan, but also a way out. “Why? It’s very convenient that you want to defect while we are about to get raided. Why should I think you aren’t a spy?” His finger stayed off the trigger, but the words were measured. “Because I am a spy, they put me in here to steal the horn freak you have out back so they could bomb the place.” Dust steadied, watching for the finger to slide and the last miliseconds of her life come about. “Because I can’t go anywhere else but back with that pony or I die. I can’t do anything now, but I can offer you a way out. Look they have us all tagged by radios right? Give me yours and just walk away. Nobody will know.” Vince Clortho laughed, the ploy too transparent. His finger slipped inside the trigger guard. “You should have just asked so I could have shot you earlier. Last excuse.” Dust paused, thankful for the fucking kid in the yard. “I didn’t kill Palvolov. If I wasn’t serious he’d be dead. Go ahead check his bios. I just took his stuff to make it look like he was just some junkie passed out in here. Seriously, the knife they gave me is in the chips bag, it’s still sealed.” Dust waited, it was her last chance or she wouldn’t have to worry about being reformatted. Vince inhaled and exhaled a long sigh. He didn’t know if this was a trap, but he also knew that the breach team was definitely out there. Self-preservation played heavily into the gesture with the shotgun. Dust was motioned away from the sinks. She flopped and rolled over before settling on the floor of a stall. Vince kept an eye on the mirror to watch her as he picked at the chips bag. All sealed and no marks from the knife. The real test came when he checked the biometrics. Dust had been pretty sure he would live from the kiss, but this was the moment of truth. “Hmmph, looks like you live little sparrow. So now what?” Vince tapped his data slate gently on the leg, Dust knowing just what to do. “There’s a storage compartment in my leg. Drop your radio in there and walk away. No one will find you were here once they bomb the place.” Dust watched as Vince grabbed her leg and froze. His face slackened as he seemed to melt at the joints. He collapsed on the floor with a smile on his face. “Oh yeah, I should add a bunch more to this conversation. And not have said some stuff here I guess.” She got up and hobbled her way over to Vince. The stalls made for excellent support from her missing limb. “So a couple of things for real now.” She turned him over to expose her leg. And make sure he was breathing. “I want to defect, but I can’t without a power supply. Next you’re going to be very glad you have a powerful anesthetic in your system shortly. You can’t walk away from here, they have your face. I’m going to make you a deal. Your freedom for my freedom. Just act like you are high if you agree.” Dust rolled on her back until her leg looked to be positioned right and pushed forward. The mating surfaces connected and her own hell began as the nerves forcefully reconnected. This was what had turned her into a junkie, the constant prototyping on her flesh. She could feel it now, this familiar pain pulling back memories of what had been done to her. “Since you agree Vince, let’s get you worked over.” Dust brought her newly attached leg down on his face, the first blow plastering his nose flat. A hook from her off leg shifted the flesh on his right cheek, tearing at the fat deposits there as it smooshed and rolled in. Dust kept up her beating on the man, adding a few to other parts of the body as she made it look less calculated. All the while she kept a facial recognition scan running. She wouldn’t harm him anymore than she needed, he had a message to deliver. “Now I am actually really sorry about this, you have such nice hands.” Dust rubbed them on her chest fluff. Vince just giggled in his high, spitting blood and a tooth on the floor. “But I need to keep them from fingerprinting you, so.” She pulled at her An94 and brought its buttstock down on his fingers. The bone yielded and flesh bloodied, but it had its purpose. The twist she gave afterwards didn’t. “That’s for interrupting my bath.” The Pegasus loped him over to the handicap stall she had been in. His hands were draped on the bars, and the expoxy he had brought was drizzled liberally on them. The combination of swelling and caustic resin would remove his fingerprints. There was no more Vince Clortho in that bathroom. There was just some vagabond held in there for reasons. Reasons Dust made clear when she pulled his pants down and left him exposed. Dust picked up his radio and pushed it into her nanoforge. The device was broken down and component atoms added to her own stockpiles. His tablet followed as she dumped his flack vest over the side of the stall. It was going to be his only real defense when the shooting started. Satisfied, she gathered her gear and gave a toilet a flush. She did need to keep up the show they were in there for sex after all. Finished, she walked out. All she had to do was grab her target and escape. The small shimmer of air in the shape of a man’s head outside the window that greeted her made her pause. Was he the recon or had she taken too long. She just watched him, eyes tracking his haze as he moved. Finally he noticed her noticing of him. She mouthed, “Target not secure” in the hopes she could get the time she needed. He paused a few seconds before fading back into the air, his scattering lost as he walked away. >Aid the breach team or get to the package? Uragan is Russian for hurricane Pizdezh serious bullshit1 Valorian the male Aleria the female Canyon Breaker unicorn cyborg mare with augmented armor Setting 0 is, there is no Dust, just a flesh golem Setting 1 is Dust but barely, overly literal instruction follower Setting 2 is Dust as a pacifist and overly caring, still her. This is the default setting for her, and the safest she can be.