Fallout: Equestria, Project Horizons

Chapter 40: Recovery

Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons
By Somber
Chapter 40: Recovery

"Nice work, Rainbow Dash!"

Ponies are thoughtful, compassionate, reasonable creatures. We might sometimes be driven to violence, but most ponies most of the time are simply trying to do the best that they can. However, now and then, ponies can go a bit... off. I don't think that Twilight would have left Discord in that place if she hadn't been obsessed with finding a final solution to the war. I think that, in better times, she would have demanded that Luna and Goldenblood stop tormenting and using him. Likewise, in certain circumstances, I take defeat particularly hard, far more than my usual screwups. These sorts of things happen.
Like right now.
"Clippers," Glory muttered, holding out her hoof.
I pulled the electric clippers off the shelf. Apparently this was a heavy-duty model for preparing patients for surgery. "Glory. Are you sure you need to do this now?"
"Clippers!"
I sighed and set them in her hoof. She tapped the button, and the blades started to buzz. Without another word, a shower of rainbow mane cascaded around her shoulders, ending up in a gloopy mess in the dye on the floor as she shaved away with a wide grin on her face. "Heh... you won't change color, huh? Well then, that means I'm just gonna have to get rid of you!"
Okay, this was getting just a little bit scary. I put a hoof on her shoulder. "Glory."
"Just a minute, Blackjack!" she hissed as she moved the clippers along her mane. Finally, she set them down and stood, staring at Rainbow Dash's reflection in the mirror. She pointed her hoof at it. "Ha! Can't be Rainbow Dash without the rainbow, can you?" the bald blue pony shouted.
"Glory..." I groaned, covering what was left of my face with my hoof. I knew that somewhere, if it still existed, there was a little blue weed that was laughing its roots off. "Scotch... my face...?"
But she wasn't listening. "Let me just get my tail and..." She paused and closed her eyes, rubbing her nostrils. "Ah... ah... chooo!" she sneezed, and at once her entire mane popped back into existence on top of her head. She stared, her pupils pinpricks, then she screamed and threw the clippers with all her strength at the mirror. "Goddesses damn it! Why won't you go away?" she cried as the clippers broke and the mirror shattered, pieces tumbling into the sink basin. Her forehooves seized one of the larger shards of broken mirror. "I'll cut you away!"
That's it. It was fun while it lasted. My metal hoof smacked the broken shard out of her grasp, and I scooped her away as she started thrashing. "No! No! I can't look like this. I can't! Being a Dashite was better than being a Dash!" she screamed, and I had to admit that Rainbow sure was a fighter. But I had cyberlimbs. I tossed her onto her back and pinned her. "I have to get my face back! I have to be me! I could take it as long as I'm me!"
I could relate. I wanted my face back too, and I could imagine what she was feeling right now. It would be like me waking up and finding myself Deus, or P-21 turning into the Overmare. Granted, I didn't see why being Rainbow Dash was so bad, but clearly it wasn't a good thing. "You are still you!" I said as I stared down into her tear-streaked face. "All your memories and things are still yours, right? Do you have memories of living in Ponyville?" If the answer was yes... well... hopefully Lacunae could do something!
"I..." She sniffed and closed her eyes. "I... last night... I... I dreamed I was in Cloudsdale. I... it was the second time she'd done the sonic rainboom! I dreamed it! I'm turning into Rainbow Dash. I just know it! That damned weed might as well have killed me outright!" She sobbed as she pressed her face into the unmangled side of my neck. Well, it looked like I would need to have a chat with our resident mystic alicorn for some answers.
I sighed and held her tight. Okay... if I started dreaming I was somepony else, I'd be freaked out too. ...Of course, that had actually already happened to me... but by that point I'd been a lot more used to the whole freaky wasteland thing. "You're Morning Glory. Not Rainbow Dash. Morning Glory is a doctor, a smart pony, and the mare I love. Okay?" I said quietly as I looked into her terrified and upset eyes. "Right now, there're two ponies who need Morning Glory's help. Not Rainbow Dash's."
For some reason, my words didn't seem to comfort her. "I don't want to fade away," she sniffed. "I don't even know if it's safe for me to use the auto-doc any more. Not now. Not when I don't know what's me and what isn't."
"You have to. Please," I said softly, stroking her rainbow mane and looking down into a stranger's eyes. "You need to prove you're Morning Glory... to yourself. I don't know what that stupid weed did, but I know that Morning Glory is tough enough to overcome it."
She sniffed, not looking convinced at all as I moved off her. She sat up slowly. "I know... it's just... it's waking up and finding you've turned into the most hated pony in the skies." She curled her wings around her. "I haven't even been able to fly since we got here. I was resigned to being on the ground. Happy, even... as long as I was with you. But now I'm scared to death that if I do fly somewhere, I'll be more Rainbow Dash and less Morning Glory."
"I didn't think you hated her. I thought pegasi thought she was a hero," I replied as I sat next to her.
She shook her head. "It's much more complicated than that. Yes, Rainbow Dash was one of the greatest pegasi in history. She's right up there with Commander Hurricane: nigh-mythic status. But pegasi... well... some of us have a way of tearing down our heroes, too. Rainbow Dash might have been awesome, but she also got tens of thousands of pegasi killed. Some Enclave speculate that the first strike at Cloudsdale was an attempt to kill her personally, not just a strike to destroy our capital. Then there was her turning her back on the Enclave to help the surface. As a historical figure, yeah, you can tolerate her. But as a person..." She trembled and sniffed. "Look at me. First thing I did was call her an idiot!"
I sighed and shook my head. "I'm sorry. I had no idea. At Tenpony, they were just mildly curious if I was related to Twilight or not. I can't imagine what they might have done if I magically became Twilight Sparkle."
"Thunderhead is a little better than most about her. We were completely tied in with the Ministry of Awesome, and so in a way she made us awesome too. But if Thunderhead found out about me... I don't know what they'd do." She shuddered. "And the rest of the Enclave... Neighvarro especially... it would be ugly. They tried Rainbow Dash in absentia a century ago and found her guilty of crimes against the pegasus race. They disintegrated her in effigy."
"Well, good thing you're not Rainbow Dash," I replied firmly, staring into her eyes and daring her to disagree. Maybe not the best way to handle an identity crisis, but she didn't argue. I smiled. "Now... can you transplant lungs and reconstruct faces, Morning Glory?" I felt a little cheesy trying to channel Mom's 'buck up' speech, but she was head of security and had to be able to get through to people.
She gave a little smile. "Yeah... I think so. It should be easy with the auto-doc and compatible organs... but where did you get them? Did you have Sanguine grow them for you?" she asked as she shook off bits of rainbow mane that clung to her.
I looked away. "Something like that. Doesn't matter now, though. It's gone and buried."
"Too bad," she sighed. "That kind of technology would have been incredibly useful. A pity it had to be under the control of that monster."
I thought of the Flux being sucked out of Discord. "There were other drawbacks to it, too. Suffice to say that it's better to not think about it." Hopefully she'd leave it at that. She looked curiously at Boo, who was curled up on the hospital room bed and watching with her quiet, dull expression. "This is... well, I'm calling her Boo. She was living in the tunnels under Hippocratic Research."
"She doesn't have a cutie mark," Glory said as she peeked at the white pony's flank. "I've heard of late bloomers, but she's our age, Blackjack. And I thought I took forever getting mine." Then she glanced at the rainbow lightning bolt and sighed. I wondered if it was an illusion... or a sign that something deeper had changed in Glory.
"I don't think you ever told me how you got yours," I said as Boo crawled off the bed and shook herself. Together we walked towards the operating room.
She smiled awkwardly. "It's silly... I was studying for my graduation finals; I had to get a top score for advanced placement at Thunderhead's medical program. Everypony expected me to get a perfect grade, but it was just... not happening. I was making mistakes, getting things mixed up in my head. I was tired and exhausted trying to study."
"Being a smart pony sounds hard," I said with a smirk, and she smiled along with me. I was glad to see that some attempt had been made to clean up the blood. As freaky as the neatness was, it belonged in this place. Still, I wouldn't have minded a little litter... maybe some water-stained tiles...
"Maybe, but we also tend to get shot up less, too, so there's a plus side," she said with a smile. "I was at the end of my limits, about to just quit and go into the basic courses. It would have meant three, maybe four more years of study before I got into medical school. But then I realized that I didn't have to memorize three hundred isolated facts. If I started with the heart... I'd memorize the facts of the heart... then the blood vessels it was connected to... what organ systems were connected in which order... It was like a sunrise that drove out all the confusing darkness, and suddenly I could see everything." She flushed a little, hanging her head. "I guess you'd have to see one to really know."
"Eh, I've seen the sun." Granted, it was in memories and the like rather than with my own eyes. "But I guess I can understand that. It explains you."
"Better than this thing does..." she muttered, looking at the lightning bolt.
"Isn't it similar, though? I mean, you were confused, and then... BAM! You figured it out." My shout made Boo jump behind Glory. The blue pegasus smiled sympathetically, and we paused long enough for the pale mare to relax. "So your epiphany came like a bolt out of the blue. And you're good at connections, so the rainbow color is how that's all related. I mean, I just shoot things, but you know all about repairing and medicine and energy weapons and stuff."
"I think you're stretching it now," she murmured, but looked a little more at ease. She might not like her body or the cutie mark she was borrowing, but she didn't have to hate it. "So, tell me everything that happened after Lacunae teleported us away."
I started to talk, but then I closed my mouth again and reconsidered. The Goddess needed to know as well. I owed her. "I'd like Lacunae to hear it too. And Scotch as well. Why don't you tell me what I missed here?"
"A very frantic five minutes," Glory replied. "Scotch had stopped breathing, her eyes were terribly damaged, and she was going into shock. We were lucky; when we arrived, Archibald was in the room trying to determine how to get the pods moved to Elysium for his father. They had one all wired up and everything. They started to argue, but Lacunae was very persuasive."
"Shouted telepathic insults can have that effect," came her smooth voice in my mind. Then she asked, in a more formal, imperious tone, "What did you learn at Hippocratic Research? Was Chimera intact?"
Hello, Goddess. "The facility was a wreck. We got enough of it to work to make some spare parts for myself and Scotch. Unfortunately, the security systems were attacking us. I had to destroy what was left to get away."
"Hmmmph," the purple alicorn snorted. "Very well. I expect the other will be in Canterlot soon if she's finished mucking about with Rangers. Hopefully she'll have better results." She started to turn away.
"I freed Discord."
That made her freeze in her tracks. Then she slowly turned to look at me in shock. "You. Did. What?!"
"I freed him," I replied firmly as I trotted up towards her. "It was the least I could do after Twilight left him there, trapped in that starmetal coffin." Her shock gave way to anger, but I didn't let up. "You knew what was being done to him. You knew! But all you cared about was figuring out how to make alicorns."
"Don't you presume to lecture me; you don't know what he did to me, my friends, and the kingdom!" I looked right into the eyes of Twilight Sparkle.
"Really? Did he turn any of you into stone? Did he drill holes in your body? Did he torture any of you? Suck out your blood for his magic?" I asked as I advanced. I pointed a hoof at her. "Two hundred years in agony. I don't care what he did, Twilight, no one deserves that!"
"Discord was a monster that fed on misery and strife!" Lacunae shouted.
"And how was what ponies did to him any less monstrous?" I said, not giving an inch. "What if it'd been done to another pony? The fact that it was Discord doesn't change how wrong it was!"
"That... I... that was... I meant to speak to Luna. I forced a recall of the Flux, once I knew how dangerous it was. Discord... it was a very busy time, Blackjack!" she stammered, then shuddered. The alicorn swayed, then whimpered as she curled up. "I'm sorry..."
"Twilight?" I asked as I knelt. She looked up at me with teary eyes, and I hissed softly, "I'm sorry, Lacunae."
"So is Twilight... please... understand she is sorry. She just... forgot..." She closed her purple eyes once more and shivered, and I reached down to stroke her mane. "The Goddess put her shame in me. Her guilt. She was ashamed of so much... so sorry for what she had done. Please, believe that. Please..." She pressed her face into my chest and whimpered softly, "Pinkie..."
"I... I do. I do, Lacunae," I said quietly. "I'm sorry. I just... that place was really messed up. You know what happened there. Copies. Fusion. Flux. Discord."
"You know that you doomed us all by setting him loose," Lacunae sniffed. "His power is... immeasurable."
I sighed. "Yeah. And if I have to, I'll deal with him later. But he's chaos, right?" The purple alicorn looked at me with a troubled frown, then nodded once. "So if everypony expects him to act one way... then the chaotic thing is if he does the opposite. Right?" I asked with a hopeful smile.
"Unless doing what is unexpected is expected so he does the expected to be unexpected," Glory offered. "Or he might unexpectedly be unexpected by doing the expected... I'm not exactly sure how the math works out. Do two unexpecteds become expected?"
"No, I'm pretty sure they're squared," Lacunae replied. She wiped her eyes and even gave a thankful little smile to my rainbow-maned love.
I clapped my hooves over my ears. "Ahhh! Stop! All this egghead talk is starting to educate me!"
The pair just looked at each other, then launched into a discussion of theoretical Discord unexpectosity states. I felt a migraine coming on. Evil ponies... Evil smart ponies...
But at least I gave them both a reason to smile.