Podbeing
"[@Akamia":](/images/2377367#comment_9143577
")
[@T72B":](/images/2377367#comment_9166106
)
A little more. I'm having to write this around work. No idea when I'll come back to it, but hopefully soon.
Let me know what you think.
***
"You really weren't joking, were you?"
Try as she might, Twilight couldn't quite see the walls or ceiling of the huge chamber outside the lift, nor could she clearly make out the distant hulking shapes in the gloom. "It looks like you could fit Canterlot Castle in there. With room to spare."
They had descended for what felt like hours, from an elevator hidden beneath a storage chamber beneath the lowest level in the castle--she had been able to measure the distance by observing the speed by which the lift platform had descended, and by her estimate, they were at least five miles beneath Canterlot proper. At this depth, the air actually felt warm--Mount Canterlot was actually located atop one of the thickest and most geologically stable regions of the planet, ancient continental crust laid down when the world was young, but at this depth, it was beginning to carry a bit of the deep heat of the world. She could feel the thrum of woven nets of magic around her, and knew that it was the reason the tunnel, and the chamber beyond the dense crystal doors of the lift carriage, wasn't completely uninhabitable. A working this colossal should have been detectable by any being with even the weakest ability to sense thaumic potentials.
That it apparently hadn't, ever, was...troubling.
"You can." Princess Celestia sounded grimly amused. "I helped build it. But, if you think that's impressive..."
The crystal doors slid aside, and they stepped out onto a metal walkway. After a moment, the echo of relays throwing filled the space, deafening in the silence. Rank after rank of panels sprang into glowing, humming life. And in the sun-bright flood of light, she saw them for the first time.
She'd seen humans. She'd BEEN human, even, in another world both close at hand and a universe away. In its most basic form, it was like a human, but on a colossal scale, all blocks and angles and gleaming gold and white enamel. Two enormous, house-sized feet, surmounted by treetrunk legs led into a thick, barrel shaped torso, bulging with cannons and ports, two garganguan arms dangling straight down from massive, rounded shoulder pauldrons to either side, each ending in a fist that looked big enough to pick up and crush a locomotive. And above those huge shoulders, a head like something out of a nightmare, a skull-like visage that looked as if it were snarling. Or grinning sardonically. Behind it was another, nearly as huge, but stumpy and cylindrical, two stubby, boxy attachments to either side, in shades of midnight blue and violet. A third, very vaguely resembling a crab on digitigrade legs, bulked to the side, two club-shaped arms beneath its stubby torso and a massive cannon on a mount above it, in shades of crimson and black. Twilight's human counterpart had a fondness for animated television featuring heroic characters and fanciful mecha, but these were almost nothing like the graceful, stylized forms of those machines. These were boxy, almost crude by comparison, but something about them told her that these machines were meant for practical use, with aesthetics as a complete afterthought, yet somehow that made them so much more **real** than those elegant craft ever could be.
She glanced back at the titanic lead machine. Was it her imagination, or had its stance changed very slightly? And that nightmarish, demonic visage seemed...softer? No...no, it couldn't be, she decided.
"Hello, old friend," called Celestia. "It's been a while, hasn't it? Too long, I think. This is my student...and my friend. She'd like to meet you."
"That's...just a machine. Isn't it?" said Twilight.
"Well, I suppose she is." Her mentor stood next to one of its feet, looking up, one wing stroking the metal almost reverently. "The Star League wrought very, very well. Even a few millenia standing around in a bunker isn't enough to do any harm to--no, no, sorry! I'm not making fun of your age, old girl," she said, chuckling and patting the foot. "I promise you're as beautiful as the day you came to this world. And Twilight," she said, glancing over her back at her, "I promise you they're MUCH more graceful than they look. Especially in the right hooves. or hands. As for her being JUST a machine...well, when things exist for this long, the lines between 'nonliving machine' and 'living being' get a little...blurry."
"Now I know you HAVE to be kidding me." Nope, it wasn't her imagination. The 'mech definitely looked--amused? No, it couldn't be. And yet...
"Alex wanted, as he said, 'A 'Mech as powerful as possible, as impenetrable as possible, and as ugly and foreboding as conceivable, so that fear itself will be our ally,'" she said, as if Twilight hadn't spoken. "But during the First Calamity, this became a symbol of salvation. Have you ever wondered, Twilight, why in the earliest texts of so many races of this world, the hieroglyphic symbol for 'freedom' and 'hope' was a stylized skull?" She touched the metal leg reverently. "This is the reason. There were other justifications, but it all comes back to this."
She turned back to face Twilight. "I think she'd like to show off a little--she doesn't get a lot of opportunity these days. Want to take a trip with me?"
There was a flash of light and a twisting of space, and when her surroundings stabilized, Twilight found herself in a metal chamber, sitting beside a seat that looked more like a throne than it had any right to. Celestia was sitting in it, and while it should have looked awkward and absurd, she looked as if she was completely at home where she sat. The interior smelled slightly musty, with undertones of metal and ozone, but the air was fresh. With a thrum of magic, she pulled an odd-looking helmet over her head, apparently modified to allow the horn of an Alicorn to pass, and fastened it down. "When I fire this baby up," said her mentor, grinning like a schoolfilly, "You're gonna see some serious shit."
Switches threw, and suddenly the machine began to vibrate, a stentorian hum filling it from beneath. And in her mage's sight, Twilight could SEE the ancient machine lighting up, suddenly blazing with color and life like a Hearth's Warming tree, electricity and magic and the power of the sun itself capering beneath them both, like a happy puppy. Or an avenging angel.
And beneath it all, the pure, rainbow blaze of Harmony, enveloping her mentor and friend like a bridal gown.
"Reactor online. Sensors online. Weapons online," said a dulcet voice that came from all around them. "All systems nominal."
She felt, rather than heard, the machine's amused greeting. **Welcome back, Mistress. Where are we going?*
*
And she realized she HAD been wrong. Whatever it might have been once, now, it was alive. Somehow. She could feel it around them, warm and happy and confident. She shivered in awe.
"This is incredible," she breathed.
Celestia grinned. "You should try sitting where I am. I promise you haven't seen ANYTHING yet." The screens, dark until a moment ago, now displayed a panoramic view around them. Levers moved, and suddenly the machine began to move forward smoothly, and in seconds it had progressed into a smooth, effortless lope down the tunnel. "It'll take us a while to get where we're going. Which will give us plenty of time to talk. I can tell you about a part of Equestria's history long lost. And how your princesses became a MechWarrior."
"
[@T72B
A little more. I'm having to write this around work. No idea when I'll come back to it, but hopefully soon.
***
"You really weren't joking, were you?"
Try as she might, Twilight couldn't quite see the walls or ceiling of the huge chamber outside the lift, nor could she clearly make out the distant hulking shapes in the gloom. "It looks like you could fit Canterlot Castle in there. With room to spare."
They had descended for what felt like hours, from an elevator hidden beneath a storage chamber beneath the lowest level in the castle--she had been able to measure the distance by observing the speed by which the lift platform had descended, and by her estimate, they were at least five miles beneath Canterlot proper. At this depth, the air actually felt warm--Mount Canterlot was actually located atop one of the thickest and most geologically stable regions of the planet, ancient continental crust laid down when the world was young, but at this depth, it was beginning to carry a bit of the deep heat of the world. She could feel the thrum of woven nets of magic around her, and knew that it was the reason the tunnel, and the chamber beyond the dense crystal doors of the lift carriage, wasn't completely uninhabitable. A working this colossal should have been detectable by any being with even the weakest ability to sense thaumic potentials.
That it apparently hadn't, ever, was...troubling.
"You can." Princess Celestia sounded grimly amused. "I helped build it. But, if you think that's impressive..."
The crystal doors slid aside, and they stepped out onto a metal walkway. After a moment, the echo of relays throwing filled the space, deafening in the silence. Rank after rank of panels sprang into glowing, humming life. And in the sun-bright flood of light, she saw them for the first time.
She'd seen humans. She'd BEEN human, even, in another world both close at hand and a universe away. In its most basic form, it was like a human, but on a colossal scale, all blocks and angles and gleaming gold and white enamel. Two enormous, house-sized feet, surmounted by treetrunk legs led into a thick, barrel shaped torso, bulging with cannons and ports, two garganguan arms dangling straight down from massive, rounded shoulder pauldrons to either side, each ending in a fist that looked big enough to pick up and crush a locomotive. And above those huge shoulders, a head like something out of a nightmare, a skull-like visage that looked as if it were snarling. Or grinning sardonically. Behind it was another, nearly as huge, but stumpy and cylindrical, two stubby, boxy attachments to either side, in shades of midnight blue and violet. A third, very vaguely resembling a crab on digitigrade legs, bulked to the side, two club-shaped arms beneath its stubby torso and a massive cannon on a mount above it, in shades of crimson and black. Twilight's human counterpart had a fondness for animated television featuring heroic characters and fanciful mecha, but these were almost nothing like the graceful, stylized forms of those machines. These were boxy, almost crude by comparison, but something about them told her that these machines were meant for practical use, with aesthetics as a complete afterthought, yet somehow that made them so much more **real** than those elegant craft ever could be.
She glanced back at the titanic lead machine. Was it her imagination, or had its stance changed very slightly? And that nightmarish, demonic visage seemed...softer? No...no, it couldn't be, she decided.
"Hello, old friend," called Celestia. "It's been a while, hasn't it? Too long, I think. This is my student...and my friend. She'd like to meet you."
"That's...just a machine. Isn't it?" said Twilight.
"Well, I suppose she is." Her mentor stood next to one of its feet, looking up, one wing stroking the metal almost reverently. "The Star League wrought very, very well. Even a few millenia standing around in a bunker isn't enough to do any harm to--no, no, sorry! I'm not making fun of your age, old girl," she said, chuckling and patting the foot. "I promise you're as beautiful as the day you came to this world. And Twilight," she said, glancing over her back at her, "I promise you they're MUCH more graceful than they look. Especially in the right hooves. or hands. As for her being JUST a machine...well, when things exist for this long, the lines between 'nonliving machine' and 'living being' get a little...blurry."
"Now I know you HAVE to be kidding me." Nope, it wasn't her imagination. The 'mech definitely looked--amused? No, it couldn't be. And yet...
"Alex wanted, as he said, 'A 'Mech as powerful as possible, as impenetrable as possible, and as ugly and foreboding as conceivable, so that fear itself will be our ally,'" she said, as if Twilight hadn't spoken. "But during the First Calamity, this became a symbol of salvation. Have you ever wondered, Twilight, why in the earliest texts of so many races of this world, the hieroglyphic symbol for 'freedom' and 'hope' was a stylized skull?" She touched the metal leg reverently. "This is the reason. There were other justifications, but it all comes back to this."
She turned back to face Twilight. "I think she'd like to show off a little--she doesn't get a lot of opportunity these days. Want to take a trip with me?"
There was a flash of light and a twisting of space, and when her surroundings stabilized, Twilight found herself in a metal chamber, sitting beside a seat that looked more like a throne than it had any right to. Celestia was sitting in it, and while it should have looked awkward and absurd, she looked as if she was completely at home where she sat. The interior smelled slightly musty, with undertones of metal and ozone, but the air was fresh. With a thrum of magic, she pulled an odd-looking helmet over her head, apparently modified to allow the horn of an Alicorn to pass, and fastened it down. "When I fire this baby up," said her mentor, grinning like a schoolfilly, "You're gonna see some serious shit."
Switches threw, and suddenly the machine began to vibrate, a stentorian hum filling it from beneath. And in her mage's sight, Twilight could SEE the ancient machine lighting up, suddenly blazing with color and life like a Hearth's Warming tree, electricity and magic and the power of the sun itself capering beneath them both, like a happy puppy. Or an avenging angel.
And beneath it all, the pure, rainbow blaze of Harmony, enveloping her mentor and friend like a bridal gown.
"Reactor online. Sensors online. Weapons online," said a dulcet voice that came from all around them. "All systems nominal."
She felt, rather than heard, the machine's amused greeting. **Welcome back, Mistress. Where are we going?*
And she realized she HAD been wrong. Whatever it might have been once, now, it was alive. Somehow. She could feel it around them, warm and happy and confident. She shivered in awe.
"This is incredible," she breathed.
Celestia grinned. "You should try sitting where I am. I promise you haven't seen ANYTHING yet." The screens, dark until a moment ago, now displayed a panoramic view around them. Levers moved, and suddenly the machine began to move forward smoothly, and in seconds it had progressed into a smooth, effortless lope down the tunnel. "It'll take us a while to get where we're going. Which will give us plenty of time to talk. I can tell you about a part of Equestria's history long lost. And how your princesses became a MechWarrior."