Catalyst 2.0: Story

>The night sky had clouded.  Weather ponies, tiny and dark, were barely visible as they huddled black clouds close together in a blanket over the sky.  On the balcony, watching them was akin to observing a painter.  Bit by bit, the storm had come into being.  They had not begun the rain; they were not yet fully prepared.
>The moon above was bright and full. The lights on the city streets below would never have mattered on a night like this.  It was the sort a being could spend with another being, getting mildly lost,  speaking of nothing in particular, and return home feeling fulfilled no matter how drab the conversation.
>Though, the natural beauty was restrained, nowadays.  LunaCorp. Had expanded so quietly in the dark void that strips of synthetic light, dotted and random, could be seen on the silvery surface.  Sure, the moon was still that brilliant, bright ball in the night.  It simply had a hundred thousand ponies living on it.
>As the weather ponies blanketed the sky in their dark, waterproof suits, Rarity watched the scene unfold.  She sat there on the balcony, her expression inarticulate.  She'd pulled up an old song file, and had it running through her AR earpieces.
>Twanging guitar, a sound of crickets floating along the night breeze occupying it. Somber and mellow, it was probably the only thing keeping her world in check.  Her heartbeat, her thoughts, her unfounded imagination.
>Sometimes, she hated being so capable of creativity.  Even in her mourning, which she knew was self indulgent, she was capable of escalating such a thing not just inside herself.  In some ways, she hated herself for that.
>Being both capable and magical... It could ruin a lot of things.  Yet, even in her wildest of nightmares, seeing him melt had never been in her capacity.  She never would have feared such a thing, for to her, such a thing was so unreasonable even her worst and most vile thoughts had not brought such a concept to bear.
>Now, though, it was in her. Splashing blood, the smell of chemically burning pseudo-flesh.  The sad, accepting smile.
>Why did it have to happen, of all ponies, to him?
>She didn't bother to extend the balcony roof when it began to rain.  She simply closed the glass door, peering down over the ridge of the balcony and watching empty, LED lit streets below.  As the rain formed glistening, distorting sheets of water, she simply shook her head while her mane dampened.
>She recalled the hospital beds.  Looking up at him from one, quietly accepting the numbness in her old legs while they talked during her waking moments.  Looking down at him, thinking of liquid metals in his veins and puncture wounds.
>She remembered seeing him in pain.  Seeing his blood, seeing wounds on him. Tubes in his chest and throat.  She'd virtually felt them on her own figure, wishing she could have taken them from him herself.  She had wanted to take ever ounce of those experiences from him.
>She'd only wanted to see him alive, happy, and at peace.  She would have even settled to see him bored.
>Now, irrevocably, she could add watching his flesh bubble and burst to the list of atrocities visited upon him.  What had truly left her beleaguered, was that he'd had a chance at something mundane.  He'd been right there, more than willing to finally sit down and rest after two years of being away from the world.
>Yet, whomever it was that had provided him that life, had put that vicious cycle inside him.  Secured it so deep that before he could have even said he still cared about her, he had brutally and uncerimoniously died yet again.  All for trying to return to where he'd started.
>What was it about every other pony that caused him to endure such things?
>Was he really so deserving?  Even with what he had done, and what they thought he was, had he EVER been?
>She stuck out her bottom lip, her eyelids tightly shutting.  She tried to hold it back.
>It was just the rain soaking her face, she kept telling herself.
>Her eyes were sore from a hard day, she kept telling herself.
>It was meager comfort to know he really was still alive.  After all, he'd been submitted to two deaths already. The thought that they were only the ones she had even seen made her tremble.
>The interim, he'd said.  What horrid things had been exercised in that time?
>All she wanted was for him to be home. To be placid, and happy.  To see him smile, honestly so, once more.  Was that... Selfish?
>Rarity put her forehooves on the railing. She rested her head atop them, and began to appreciate the way the rain hid what she was doing.  A lady had to have standards.  No matter how much they hurt.
>There was a tap.  She turned back, her long violet mane working like slotted blinds as it hung grungily over the side of her face.  Past the glass door, she saw pink.
>She sniffled, feeling greasy and cold.  She stood, feeling her way through the focused pressure of the muscular and structual enhancements at her back legs.  Always a reminder...
>She sniffled, brushing off her face and shaking off the hoof.  She did her best to act the part- a soaked diva, concerned with the integrity of her hemlines and mascara.  Though, this was Pinkie.  She had a way with reading minds.
>”Yes, dear?” Rarity asked, after sliding open the glass balcony door. The rain bent inward, pattering the rug.  She didn't care.
>Pinkie, for the first time in her life, didn't say a word.  She just gave one of her broad, almost clueless smiles, and joined Rarity outside.
>They sat, wordlessly, for a long time.  The silence was not awkward; Pinkie, Rarity knew, had a way of choosing her moments.  So, she waited. Thinking.
>She imagined victorious arguments, rebuttals.  She thought of ways to keep Pinkie at bay, allowing her to languish just enough to release the tension pent up in her gullet and stomach.  She should have known better.
>”I've never seen you this sad.” Pinkie said.
>”You most certainly have, dear.  You know you have.”
>”No.  Not really.” Pinkie just looked around, at the buildings around them.  Very few could match the height of Twilight's tower, so very few were there to look at. “Whenever I see a sad pony, it always makes me the same way.  I don't really know why, you know?  But I can always feel it.”
>”Nonsense.  I'm simply trying to get my bearings in all of this.”
>Pinkie smiled.  “Oh c'mon Rarity.  Don't be like that.  Applejack wouldn't want that, right?”
>Rarity let out a gasp at her curt little comment.  She harumphed, sticking her nose up.  She inhaled sharply, not replying for a good while.
>”You're the different kind of sad.  You're so sad everyone else is getting the same frown.”
>”Pinkie, dear, whatever do you mean?”
>”Twilight hasn't even tried to sleep yet.  She's all in her computers and stuff.  She's got so many big colorful screens, I thought she was playing a game or something to get her mind off of you being so down in the dumps.”
>Rarity sighed.  She kept her head and gaze low, watching water roll off the balcony for a time.
>”oh, don't be such a grump! She's doing it to help you.  Don't you want that?”
>”I... Of course, Pinkie.  But she shouldn't have to even do that.”
>”I know. She's doin' it anyway though.  You and me both know she's really super good at it too. So why are you so frumpy!”
>”Pinkie, darling, do you even know what happened?”
>”Yup-a-roony.”
>”How  can you be so cheerful with such... hideous things going on around you?”
>”That's silly. Just cause it looks or feels horrible doesn't mean it is.”
>”Tch! How is what happened to him NOT simply and positively atrocious?!”
>”Well, you said that HE said he knew something bad was going to happen to him when the guards showed up, right? That's what Twilight told me.”
>Rarity sighed. “Yes, Twilight always one for getting such... Precise details.”
>”So if he knew something so super extra bad was gonna happen, then why did he do it anyway?”
>The white pony let the question digest momentarily.  “I... I don't know.”
>”He did it anyway though!  He knew it was gonna happen, and he wasn't afraid of it.  And he was doing it just to try and see you again!”
>Rarity was left still, and wordless.
>”If he's so totally unafraid of it happening, what's gonna stop him from doing it again? I bet he's trying to figure something out right now so he can stay.”  Pinkie grinned. “And you can bet your tail Twilight can make it happen! She didn't get to the top of this big tower for nothing.”
>Still speechless, Rarity brought her head up to watch the rain tumble from the clouds.  The moon still managed to peek in some of the holes through the clouds, causing subtle, silver shafts to pour through the fog the humidity had generated.
>”You're all sad when HE'S already trying to come back, and one of your bestest best friends is already trying to help you out. Well, it was two of your best friends, but I don't know anything about those alternating alakhazams.”
>”... Algorithms?”
>”Those too.”
>Rarity let out a half hearted laugh.  “As much as I loathe to admit it... No, I'm not.  I'm happy to admit in this case, Pinkie, that you are indeed right.”
>Rarity turned to reenter her penthouse room.  She felt an instant chill the moment she stepped into the clearer, filtered air, and looked at her own dripping form.  Her prosthetic suit had prevented the water from getting inside, but the heat had made her sweat... She didn't even want to think about her mane.
>Pinkie shook off like a damp canine, with a silly “Brr!”
>”Thank you, Pinkie.”
>”No problem!  I mean, it's been so long and you were so frowny and had stuff to do tonight- what kind of friend would I be?”
>”things to do? Tonight?” Rarity stopped.  “Well, I suppose after I dry off I could go and see if Twilight needed any help-”
>”Nope! You have more important stuff to do.”
>Rarity stared at Pinkie.  Then, she felt a tug at her suit.  She looked down to see Sweet Heart, wide eyed and ever so happy.  She held a large, flat plastic screen, the outside covered in a pink, fuzzy lining.  It was her storybook tablet. “Darling, what are you doing still awake? It's hours past your bedtime!”
>She spoke through her teeth, clenched around  the little holding strap. “But you NEVER miss story time!”
>Pinkie sat back on the couch, tapping her front hooves together as she gave a guilty smile. “I kinda sorta promised to read her a story. But, she only wanted you to read it. So I guess I sorta kinda promised you'd read her a story. Is that bad?”
>Rarity returned the smirk.  It was not forced. “Now that I think about it, no. Not 'bad' in the slightest.”  Sweet Heart started to jump in place, her little legs carrying her quite high.  “Just let me dry off, and we can-”
>”You don't need to dry off mommy! It's story time! Come one come all, story time is for everyp0ny!” She bounced over to the couch, hopping atop the cushions. She ran without moving, still clutching the tablet in her teeth. “No matter what ails you, story time can make it go away!”
>Rarity laughed as she trotted to the couch.  She sat between her daughter and Pinkie, both of them ready to listen.  She plucked at the tablet with her magic, a screen showing a table of contents that would give way to interactive holograms.
>She decided to pick one of the longer tales, despite how late it was.  What her daughter had said was true- she could use the time to dry off, and a nice, long story would do the trick without even a towel.
–
>The skeleton hung limply, grinning.  Carefully strung up at it's hooves, joints, and skull, it was hermetically contained within the cylinder. A pair of rings spun and bobbed over what could be called a corpse, still-wet flesh dropping from it like clumping ash.
>Ceramic bone, plated and grooved, then sealed within a flesh-like, hypoallergenic gel.  Marrow filled with a matrix of micro-sensors, nanoscopic vents for the distribution of blood from a bio-monitor within the cerebral cortex.
>Yet, they were only the initial scans.
>Twilight glowered at it.  She shifted screens.  Layered them.  Filters on filters, removing one and changing to another. Some she did not understand fully; the separate screens changed with each long, manual breath.
>Guards stood at the door to the otherwise black metal room. Her scientific aids watched with worry and focus.  The only reasonable amount of light came from that of the cylinder, the spotlights from above and below the gray, greasy bone. The rest, inconsequential, came from the hard drive indicators on her console, tiny and mutable.
>Sound was taboo.  The only acceptance was the whir and slick grind of the analyzing rings, and the audio queues of her screens.  Arguments against her were lost to silence and doomed to private monologue. Both through fear of her reaction, and mortification at their own reservations.
>Reaching the bones in the parking lot, she'd elevated it from the ground to protect against contaminants.  The hazmat team arrived, spraying it down with a temporary protective coating that had since evaporated three minutes ago.  A gravity unit had suspended it within space, keeping it sealed and drifting in a metal coffin.
>Whomever had created this body, they had made sure to relieve it of footprints. It bore no insignias, no company markings, nor did it bear the design specifications of any particular model contracted by any specific company.  They had implanted a ruinous set of dissolution distributors, their violent effect leaving one of her best friends coated in gore and crushing recollection.  They did not, however, take into account one simple fact.
>Twilight had created it's beta.
>She had known this creature. Body, and soul.
>There was no way in tartarus she would be forgetting that.  There was no way in heaven, either, that she would forgive it's abuse.
>Twilight sat back from the console, shifting large, holographic screens from her view. She looked upon the dead, rotting thing before her, splayed apart like a wingless angel in flight. Already the protective gel over it's bones had deep cavities, it's accelerated decay slowed only by the airless containment capsule it now rested within.
>She stared into it's sockets.  Glimmering with color refracted from the scanners and spotlights, fiber-optic “nerves” peered back at her.
>”Leave.” she said.  “All of you.”
>Watching her for a time, her ensemble disappeared.  The light from outside was severed as the door hissed closed, and she was left in that otherwise empty, black place.  A void, perfect and pure, in which the only focus could be those glistening bones.
>She walked to one wall.  She closed her eyes and forced a link, private, but not secure.  She connected to the outer cameras, blipping through them until she found a suitable angle.  She hacked her own AR vision and hearing for a full sensory display.
>She repeated the exercise on each wall, each one taking on a new angle from a new camera.  North, south, east and west.  She linked the inputs and blended the borders.
>Rain permeated the room.  The skyline threatened to puncture the sky above, but instead, merely lit the underside of night-blackened, weeping clouds.  It was a vision only she would be able to see, as the link to those cameras was perfectly individual thanks to whimsey.
>Twilight had gotten everything she had required within the first few minutes.  She knew she would be completely unable to track it's origins precisely.  Not from it's physical make.
>She had other methods, though.  She paced around the cylinder, looking out to the sky.  She listened, for a time, letting her focus melt.
>Despite how subtle the words, these bones had a story to tell.
>Whomever it had been that had installed the self-destruct, this contingency had been made for her.  If she wanted to find them, find him, she could not think like herself.  She would have to think like somep0ny else.
>Twilight immediately suspected Luna.  The files she had found through her searches had been accurate and thorough; she had no reason to doubt them.  Luna, however, would not have placed a physically fatal restraint upon him without reason.
>Yet, to her, he would have been no more than a resource.
>For what?  How could she prove it? How could she secure it, in her own belief, to gain the conviction to assail one of her leaders and friends?
>She returned to the console to reinvigorate her theory.  She operated screens with slick, mechanical precision.  Feeling nearly robotic as she moved, no ministration went without purpose.  When without reason, she did not move.  She processed.
>Magnification.  Focus.  Angle swaps.
>She found scars.  Knicks that had been repaired unconsciously by the redundant biological systems, their activity focused on the gel that had been damaged.  This, was a combat model.
>It had seen violence.  More importantly, it had seen survival of it.  She searched further, finding microscopic compression from constant, unforgiving movement and impact.  Bullet wounds that had shredded flesh left distortions in the form of wide discolorations.
>They had put him through such a thing.  And this version of him had survived.
>Why?
>He had never been a combatant. Not in the strictest sense. He had barely been capable.
>Putting him through training would have ruined him.  He never would have accepted it; he was too kind, and perhaps, she admitted, cowardly to engage in open war.  He had never handled weapons.
>The dimples at the shoulder blades spoke of prolonged use of a harness, though.  Not a light one, either.  He had been armed to an extreme, especially for a pony of his size and disposition, for very long stretches.
>She searched for weapons that could have caused such a blemish on his bones.  She had to take into account his structure, his make.  His weight and the assumed strength of his musculature to move comfortably with them.
>Models numbers and statistics returned, filled with possibilities.  A cryogenic weapon, capable of flash freezing brain matter upon targets, through their flesh and bone, within twenty meters.  A rocket pod, calibrated to an auto-tracker capable of precision delivery through local, dynamic pings and lasers.  A number of heavy automatic weapons.
>She searched for more.  Finding strain on his forehooves and legs, she plunged further into those instruments that horrified her.  Superheated discs that exposed themselves from an electronically activated sheath.  They could cut bone literally like butter, incinerating matter they touched along it's heated edge.
>Then, she found more.
>Deeper, rugged scars.  Under magnified vision, there were glittering trails that appeared to be field-repaired gashes.  When she placed a holographic reconstruction of his flesh over the skeleton, visually highlighting how the wounds would have appeared with red light, she was again forced to listen to the rain.  She squinted.
>They were in trios.  Patterned slices that lit up his front in small knicks.  A heavy, deeper set ignited his side.  Then, along his back, there was a single dragging set that went from the base of his neck, to the top of his tail.
>The final wound was symbolic.  Tribal, and ritualistic.  It did not take long to find from where they stemmed, and the shape of the wounds was already familiar.
>Griffon war talons.
>They had scarred him, purposely.  To her well-read dismay, she knew that the final wound, he would have accepted willingly.  It was the mark of a warrior; to survive that wound, was to indicate the will and ability to persevere.  He had been part of their unit.
>Out of the weapons she had discovered, she knew he was incapable of using them. Not without full training.
>Out of the things this body had apparently survived, she knew he was incapable of withstanding them.  Not without drive and old, forbidden medical aid.
>Out of what those wounds said, she knew he never would have accepted. Not without reason.
>Yet, there it all was.
>There was one more venue that should could attempt to explore.  The last piece, and in taking it from those bones, she would desecrate the hermetic seal.  She had to know what he had been thinking.
>His brain, the solid-state drive that could sustain the feverish pace of his personality code, had been destroyed.  His uplink, however, had not.  It had merely been damaged.  It would have logs in it's considerable on-board memory.
>The containment broke with a brutal whine.  Air poured in, and his body began to drool as the chemicals that had been left from the dissolution devices resumed their “processing” in the presence of oxygen.  The gel turned to thin ooze on the floor, pooling at her hooves, while the bones began to grow white and powdery.
>Twilight clenched her teeth when she stepped on his skull.  She applied pressure, and it split, then erupted into pieces that skittered across the sterile metal floor.  She felt around, and located the tiny, digital ellipse.
>She pawed the rest of the now worthless bones out of the chamber.  Re-suspending the ellipse, she sealed the tube and let it float.  She returned to her console, and initiated the scan.
>It took time.  The logs were extracted wirelessly, and run through personality filters she'd had retained due to law and personal inquiry. While they were given tactile life, visual and audio, she watched the rain.
>Why, of all days, had he tried to return THEN?  Was there some poetry left in that old program?
>It was days after the anniversary of his death.  Had he even been aware of it?
>The report returned.
>Software partitions?
>No... That couldn't be right.
>At least, she didn't believe it, until she found the base OS code.
>They had separated his thinking mind, from the one capable of combat.
>They KNEW he wasn't able, or willing.  His actions were dictated by an advanced tactical suite, one that his thoughts had to filter through before his body acted.  It's speed and calculations were all dictated from his thought input and impromptu assumption, and acted accordingly.
>It was full of statistics.  Weapon diagnostics, capabilities, their capacity to withstand stress with   algebraic variables based on his sensory input.  It's calculation speed was on the level of nanoseconds, and was still clocked slower than what he was apparently capable of while running on the processors implanted inside... and judging from some of the residue that hadn't been fully metabolized, his biological reactions were enhanced with the use of stimulants.
>He hadn't been fused with the body. He'd been piloting it.
>They'd turned him into a goddamn war machine, in both the literal and figurative sense.  They had also used him to that end.
>It still presented the question: Why?
>Why him?
>They could have done that with any p0ny.  Yes, their reaction speed would have been slower.
>He was a program. He could be copied.  Were there more like him? The same personality, trotting through an unspoken war zone?  Expendable and destructive?
>She realized, no.  There could not be.  This single one would have been prohibitively expensive in it's own right.  He had measures to prevent knowledge of his existence, and thus his return, to civilian life.  He had been specifically made to fight and die while remaining unsung.  Having more of him would have increased the risk of exposure.
>A slithering horror began. It crawled up her throat, making her crave release of vomit.
>There was no other pony, no other program, like him.  He could move through digital space like a fish in water. He could manipulate their technology and it's files through thought.  In that space, he had “killed” another, more vile thing that had been just, like, him.
>This body hadn't been made for war.  It was standard combat, issue, certainly. Yet it had been made to keep his mind alive against the physical destruction. Just like vehicles, it was the driver that was important.  It was the delivery system, moving him to something that contained another creature like him, deep within a very hostile place.
>With the self-destructs in place, it also meant nop0ny was supposed to know such a thing was even happening.  Since he was a program, he could... eject, leaving nothing behind.
>Lists of possible locations ran off in her head.  Places, drives, satellites and even robust house-hold objects.
>Then, the log files pinged as complete.  Fragmentation warnings lit up her screen.  The first was labeled nearly a year prior.  He had been doing this for a year?
>Twilight took up the largest file, something far more recent.  She assumed it would be something vivid, with so much saved data.  Something he had wanted to keep with him.
>When it opened, she saw the sky. It was overcast, filled with dirty black clouds that tinted green against the sun.  The ground was dark, and hard. It glistened like glass.
>It was the Changeling Fields, after the scorching.
>A brilliant, piercing shriek came.  It crackled and warped in the failing audio filters, the sound of the Griffon war scream causing his view to shift to the sky.  The silhouette of a winged beast, clad in scouting armor and a glittering PDA, fell upon him.
>The helmet was ornamented, atop prefabricated parts.  It was triangular, the tip cresting at where she assumed there would be a beak.  The tip split, and he was looking up toward the soldier as the helmet unfolded and it's lights deactivated.
>Twilight knew that face.  Gilda.
>”Do you think I'd just let it pass?” She screamed.  “Do you think I wouldn't find out what you did?”
>His voice came.
“Nothing escapes this place Gilda.  You agreed to that just as much as I did. You know what will happen if it does.”
>”I'm not talking about the contract!” she yelped.  He lifted from the ground, and from where her arm was positioned, it appeared as if she was hefting him by his throat. “This is where SHE died. This is where SHE should be resting.” She squinted. “I can't think of a better place to leave you.”
>Her helmet sealed.  The fight came.  Twilight rested on her haunches, her hooves to her mouth, while it played out. Distorted and confusing, she could not bear witness to it's details.  The screen tore in places, making the visual pieces barely comprehensible.  The audio cut out for several seconds at a time. Part of her wondered if she even wanted to understand it, between the flurry of claws, gunfire, and smoke.
>When the fragmentation cleared, he was breathing hard.  Gilda was upon the ground, under his hoof.  The glow of the super-heated disc at his other hoof was there, raised to strike, and there were innumerable gashes on both her armor, and what Twilight could see of his.
“She never could have done this to you.  Somep0ny should have.”
>The visuals were warping again.  This time, however, it was because he was crying.
>Gilda was looking at him from below. “I've seen things.  Things you wouldn't goddamn believe.”  The visual distorted again.  It cut several seconds away, muggy, blurred images passing over the file.  Was his imagination interfering with the recording?
“It won't be stopped.  We'll just be fueling it.”
>The hoof with the disc moved back.  As he cried out, it began to fall in a swift, intentional strike.  The image went dark before it met it's mark.
>Twilight looked to the rain outside.  She swallowed snot, sniffling the rest into her nose.  Her heartbeat monitor was sending a yellow ping to her AR vision, requesting input for the sake of dissuading a potential emergency.
>It hadn't just been the largest file. It had been the most complete, most recent one.  It had happened no more than a week prior.  Whatever was going on, it was still in play.  HE, was still in play.  She was barely any closer, and that third, data-garbled partition had the destroyed morsels she needed.
>As she calmed, she tried to blink away the gloss in her eyes.  Fear and resentment lingered in her head, making the world around her seem to ache.
>If there was one thing she hated, it was an unfinished story.