Catalyst ch 12: Monarch (complete)

>Flowers of red blossomed from impact points. Charred, glistening black extended from the still-glowing centers of detonation epicenters; burnt bone without flesh smoldered.
>The smell of ozone, cordite, and toasted metal.  Bits of sheared tissue clung to whatever it had landed on, leaving wine-colored trails.
>She could see it all in her mind's eye. She always one for detail, no matter how truthfully gruesome it was.
>Her tower.
>Her home.
>Pings echoed in her viewports.  Surprise melting to terror, all in monitored text messages so numerous upon her screen it had to scroll when rooms were breached. Violet dots shredded into black pools as red blips made their merry way along.
>The rec area first. It was what visitors had to pass through after the lobby.
>Filled with off-duty guards and reclining, relaxing ponies, the arcade and cafeteria had exploded into a violence Twilight could only imagine.  And what an imagination it was.
>She was calm.  She had to be.  Her ego screamed, her Id wept and frantically vied for control.
>yet she was calm.
>She had to be.
>Nothing would survive otherwise.
>She shuffled screens, gently tossing them. She couldn't overshoot them, causing them to close; she might need them moments later.
>As she went through the deck, she placed a breach ping on every level.  Warnings sounded off.
>Some of them didn't enable.  Her locks remain visibly sealed on her own local area, mocking her.
>Somep0ny else was in the system.
>The magnitude of the thought had her momentarily winded.
>They could track her back to the system in the hotel at this rate, if they were able to crack the tower defenses. Do Celestia knew what. She had to re-acquire system dominance, secure her anonymity...
>...
>Fuck it.  She didn't have to explain her previous actions to Celestia, of all people.
>And this wouldn't be the first time she ruined a quality security system.
>Entry points, alternative access routes.
>How? How to cut them off?
>A band of the red dots scrambled through the main central hall.  Gray-Green dots littered either side, slumped on walls and tables.
> She enabled a fire lockdown.  The air vented instantly into a vacuum.  The dots went dull and collapsed.
>Twilight knew the viciousness of such a sudden exposure.  Boiled blood. Rupturing veins and eyes. They would be alive to realize and feel it.
>She allowed herself a brief smirk before shuffling on to the next layer. That wouldn't hold them for long, but it would add a safety lockdown to the elevator and deny control of it.
>And, she wanted more.
>She enabled a panic klaxon.  She hadn't had time to access the doors; she sent local pings as employees dropped their belongings, and ran to bomb-proof enclosures.
>The red dots filed in, pausing.
>Attack acknowledgements sounded off. Lines indicating bullet trajectories glowed orange.
>They pierced the blueprint doors, bounced off walls.  Wails and screams entered her ears through headphones, and abruptly silenced.
>Jacketed bounce-rounds, shearing off a layer as it pierced armored walls.
>Three green dots survived.
>She didn't cause a second fire lockdown.  The panic rooms were punctured, the survivors would be exposed.
>She inhaled sharply and took the loss with the exhalation.
>”Think Twilight. It's what you're good at right?”
>Second layer- concussion weapons research? Non lethal research?
>No. nothing was non-lethal.
>The red dots languidly made their way across the room. She enabled a bypass, praying her bandwidth would be enough to manage it in time.
>She entered system.  She had to trade CPU-Cycles to distribute the signal... Find the individual names in a list of projects.  It took her, as she calculated, seven seconds.  Adrenaline was a hell of a drug.
>The local weapons armed themselves, one by one. She sent a single alarm ping to the lights. The red dots stopped, and she activated them simultaneously.
>The glass of the blueprint exploded inward against the hallway.  Thick panes impaled and shredded, annihilating the lead dot so badly his dot simply ceased.
>What had been the yield? She couldn't remember. She did recall many had been enough to crack helmets, and detonate eardrums inside skulls.
>Two red dots survived. The rest limped or fell.
>One victory at a time, Twilight...
>Nop0ny was on the next layer.  She enabled a security ping focusing upon the gimped elevator, and a breach warning. Violet dots eventually entered, focusing their sight cones upon it.
>Another group of red down. Four more violets. Two remained.  She pinged them away while enabling another breach warning, locking down the empty panic rooms while the two security ponies remained behind the opposing entryway.
>Red dots appeared in the middle of the rooms. She shuffled up a layer, and found them disappearing into the walls.
>Goddamn fucking air vents.
>Moniker: Wait. Wait at the door. Don't look inside.
>TwiSec 357: Explain. Who are you?
>Moniker: Your only chance.
>Moniker: Obey.
>Moniker: Die.
>Moniker: Pick one.
>She watched orange lines puncture the empty panic rooms, ricocheting harmlessly within.  A subroutine counted rounds fired.
>Moniker: Surpress fire, three round burst, hide again.
>She sent a grouped ping, having blipped the screen on each red dot.
>Moniker: Round counter reads them empty. Fire at the pings.
>Her violet dots followed standard protocol swimmingly.  One shot even connected from 357, and from the looks of it, “surpressed” one of the red dot's skulls.
>The reds ran to local walls. They attempted to fire through with their special equipment, but the thick blast doors had been retracted. They, and the walls surrounding them, had the orange lines stopping halfway.
>357 and 308 had no idea that keeping that lockdown out of effect had saved their flanks.
>Moniker: Run. Next layer.
>Did they know her terminology? Twilight wasn't sure. But they did as they were told, and ran offscreen, away from the remaining red dots.
>Twilight had two ponies to her pseudonym.  Three floors of a building ruined, dozens of ponies already dead or dying.
>But it was something, at least.
>Of course, no good deed could ever go unpunished. It was then the system crasher showed himself.
>Her console locked. Her horn connection went numb.
>Dark and cold, Twilight's horn uplink received something impossible. An actual, palpable sensation. An almost familiar, rippling chill, the moment he managed a direct connection.
>It shocked her, like a tazer to the chest.  Twilight had to physically push back up into her chair, the rush of synthetically delivered, personally focused spite having pierced her heart, dissolving into a horror she had not tasted in decades.
>Whomever this hacker was, he had managed to turn emotion into the equivalent of a file. One that Twilight had opened when she hit the following layer.
>Twilight could feel his hate through the system before he even communicated.
>Nothing compared. Not since the distortion of her friends by Discord, nor the feel of watching the shattering of the Elements by Night Mare Moon.
>This.  This was pure, unrivaled, long-awaited rage. Something tempered by time, stewing for more than years could measure.
>Monarch: oh really? This is how you expect it to act out, “Moniker?”
>Monarch: Playing a video game with lives diluted to purple and red. Screams filtered to text.
>Monarch: Oh no, “Moniker.” You're not going to sit at such distance.
>Monarch: You're going to experience it. See it for EVERYTHING it's worth.
>Monarch: All those helpless little ponies.  Broken and in pieces, scorched and squirming. Still living, wishing to die.
>Monarch: I promise.  The consequence of your accomplishments will only truly greet you, when you get home.
>Monarch: Just like it did with ME.
>Monarch: but you know, I'm going to give you something. Something I never had.
>Monarch: The opportunity to watch and intervene.
>Monarch: Your failure will be delightful.
>The console unlocked.  In the instant he had appeared, he'd done nothing. Merely delivered a message.
>She felt mocked, vulnerable, and simultaneously scorned.
>Her ego fumed. Her Id screamed, begged her to curl up and cower.
>TwiSec 357: Moniker?  Please respond.  Units closing. Situation unknown.  You are the only unit that has attempted aid in any command respect.
>TwiSec 308: Please tell me you're on our side.
>Twilight inhaled sharply through her nostrils.
>She reconnected her horn uplink.
>She had to be calm.
>She had to.
>But just like with Discord, just like with the Shattering. Just like those moments of gorgeous emotion she had before watching those foes crumble under the power of those now “obsolete” elements...
>She failed.
>She lifted her hooves to the console, entered the layer on which they had descended.  She did a blink search, closing her eyes momentarily, letting the image burn into her mind a moment in order to comprehend it.  Nothing of danger. Yet.
>Moniker: Listen carefully.
>Moniker: Jump when I say. Don't question, don't flinch.
>Moniker: Act with me, and I will help you ruin ever mother-bucker that crosses your path.
>She spoke to herself. “And maybe we can piss him off enough to show himself.”
–
>You ache.
>No, ache was too soft a word.
>You writhe without movement, quivering in your bed.  You can barely breath, your chest seething at you while a machine lets you inhale.
>Rarity pulls you away from it, holding your head with her hooves while she looks you in the eyes.
>”You're okay! You're okay! Just calm down.”
>You tried to tell her what you saw.  What you felt.  Whatever the hell it had been.
>Tubes between your ribs, and a mask on your face.  Speaking was hardly in your capacity like this.
>She didn't know, did she?
>You knew it was important. You had to say it.  You try to mouth out the words, but the visibility of the mask makes it impossible for her to make out.
>”Calm down, darling!” she pleads. “The wounds, they are severe, but you'll live if you just calm down!”
>Nurses are rustling for sedatives.  Panic sets in- if you were asleep again, you might be shunted to wherever you had been before.
>It might be too hard to resist staying there.
>You pry off the mask.  Your body wants you to scream, tensing on every single syllable. It destroys your vocabulary, preventing all but the most base words from escaping your lips.
”Wasn't here. Wasn't alive. Personality core.”
>She pauses.  She gestures with a hoof to push the doctors away, and it keeps them at bay. “Slowly, darling.” she whispers.
“Wasn't in my own head.”
>You breathe in.  Your body trembles in pain.
“Couldn't see. No eyes.”
>She puts a hoof to the top of your head, tracing down a cheek. She looks over you, barely breathing herself. Whatever that place was, it had struck a chord with her.
“Something inside with me.  Evil.  Starving.”
>Rarity turns her eyes away, her eyes unfocused, but moving back and forth as if reading.  It seems familiar to her.
“Parts of me left.  Can't remember them anymore.  Know they were there.”
>You inhale again, the hiss and feel of air filling your pain-wracked chest giving you a creeping, thinking dread.
“Human times. Lots gone.”
>She looks to you pressing her nose to yours. All you can see are her eyes, staring back into yours.
“Rarity. First date.  Can't remember. Know it was there.”
>She rubs her nose to yours, sighing a cool, shuddering breath.
“Something ate it.”
>She gasps ever so slightly. She stands up straighter, one hoof still to your head, the other held aloft to her chest.
“Dark. Evil thing.  Ate an old me.”
>“What? Y-you're sure?  Where was this?”
“Don't know. Something told my head. Personality Core 1.”
>Her eyes narrow. Her shoulders rise a little, and she snorts while taking a lower stance.
“Something inside it. Dark.  Starving.”
>She squints at you.
“Evil.  Ate everything.”
>”Something... IN the core?”
>You nod.
>She closes her eyes and pulls your head close again. You see her horn glow, and a warm, soothing tingle runs down your body.  Your body melts into comfort, twinges of dull pain still echoing throughout your system.
>You regulate your breathing, willfully, thanks to the lack of pain. You swallow hard, tasting antiseptic, filtered air.
>”How much Panacea do you have?” She turned away and blatantly, accusingly turned to a nurse.
>”Very little, Ma'am.  It's so rare here on the station it would be ludicrously expensive to-”
>”I don't care.  I want two vials, one for each wound.”
>”But your company would need at least a week to even legally authorize it on... Him.”
>She jammed a front hoof into his chest. She didn't skimp on the strength in her suit, surprising him, and sending him staggering back several steps.
>Rarity calms herself, looking to the floor and grunting in anger. “Two vials and a patch.  I'll pay double what they're worth, and you can personally distribute the surplus of DigiBits however you see fit.”
>”But, we can't, it's not-”
>”Personally, redistribute, whatever price you're putting on it.  I'll call it a donation.  Right now, I... We need him up and talking. Do you understand?”
>The nurses look to each other, unsure of how to respond.  After a long silence, they look back to Rarity, whom has not moved an inch, nor her expression changed.
>”I... I'll go get it.”
>She stands straight again, closing her eyes and sticking her nose up.  She snorts, mostly to herself, before reapproaching the bed.
>She looks upon you with far softer eyes. “Don't sleep.  You can't go back there if... If it's what I think it is.”
“No plans to.”
>She leans in to rub noses once more.  “I have to go.  Right now.  I want to stay, but this is so very important.”
>The stirring of your heart at the statement causes a heavier set of beeps from the monitor.
“Where?”
>She takes a long moment, not wanting to say. You were at least able to think well enough to comprehend the familiarity of that look in her eyes.
>She smiles that weak, enshrouding smile.”Darling... I think Twilight has something to say to me.”
--

>Twilight's mind was still glittering with numb pinpricks, her right eye involuntarily twitching. Cold had thawed to pain, and the inside of her head felt split in twain.
>Two dozen red dots down and not a single clue as to what the hell they were truly doing.
>357 and 308 were doing a hell of a job.  She'd already established a bond with them, however sterile her screens and digits had made them.
>They were good.  Not simply respectable, but superb; each one had new kill listings in double digits, not a wound between them.
>But it wouldn't last.  She could tell by their monitors, they were tiring.  They'd already had to scrounge ammunition, and had little more than a grenade left between them.
>Moniker: Next layer.
>As she scrolled to it, she gasped and reared from the screen.  She barely got the warning pings in time.
>Moniker: Don't move.
>Was this a joke? Some kind of IFF copier, or another signal hijack?
>It was the lab lobby.  Security halls on either side, leading in a squared y-shape from the door. It encompassed the lobby.
>She did a mental layout, a perfect recall of the because of her frequency there.  A glass wall opposing the entry, looking out over the landscape. several security alcoves with separate stop points and thick blast doors.  The holoprojector in the center, displaying censored, public friendly data.
>The red dots, the violet dots.  So many, crammed into that central area.
>How the hell was she going to pull this off? It was chaos.  Colors mingled in her view.
>Moniker: Hold. Friendlies.
>308 peeked out for an instant from below the hem of the security window.
>TwiSec 308: Buck me.
>Moniker: what are they doing? Too much interference.
>TwiSec 308: beating on them.
>Twilight's horn flared as she pushed past the pain in her head. She compressed the rage into a burst of light, and flashed the room around her to disperse the ache, if temporary.
>Calm, Twilight. Calm.
>Her door opened.  She acknowledged it, but had to keep herself focused.
>Rarity called for her, and she remained silent.  Again, and she stayed locked to her screen.
>”*There* you are.” Rarity tilted her head and spoke from the doorway.  “Are you sincerely so wrapped up in your screens you can't stop by for just a moment?”
>”Rarity, I need to focus. Go back to the infirmary.”
>”No, Twilight. You need to hear this.” She trotted inside, incessantly growling into Twilight's ear. “And I need to hear the truth about him.”
>The dots were shifting. Dispersing to the walls, while 357 and 308 held their positions behind the insulated walls.  It was still so jumbled, clean shots were still impossible.  She had the window triggers prepared.
>”He said he was in Personality Core 1 while he was asleep.”
>She hesitated.  Her mind was split.  “Impossible. That would mean a distance connection.”
>”Precisely. he did it before at the convention, but not on that scale.”
>The dots continued to shuffle. “Rarity, this needs to wait if for nothing more than ten minutes-”
>”NO, Twilight. He saw his old self die.”
>”... What?”
>”Something in the core... 'ate' is old self. Now, what does that sound like to you, hm?”
>”A... deletion daemon? In the CORE?”
>While Rarity was busy trying to lambaste Twilight's reactions, or perceived lies, she ignored them. She shuffled in ten-layers, keeping her current layer with the other hoof.
> She barely had access to the floor plan.  Sure enough, the room was empty save for a single, dull violet dot.
>Rarity stopped when she saw what Twilight was doing. She had, after all, made the visuals of the OS for her, even with her claims of simplicity.  It started to dawn on her.
>”They... Killed him?” Twilight asked.
>”Twilight- what is that?”
>She shuffled back to the layer above. 357 and 308 were remaining still, awaiting orders.
>The violet dots were clustered against the glass wall. The red dots were in a firing line.
>Rarity saw this on Twilight's screen, and her knowledge of the OS let her understand at least the immediate situation.
>But she didn't know the reality of it.
>The Ebon Pegasi weren't trying to steal the information. They were trying to destroy it.  This was cleaning duty.  Had they really gotten so far, as to try to manifest a monopoly in this way?
>Orange lines lit up through dulling violet.  She saw several purple dots tumble out of the window and completely fade, falling out of her scan range in pieces.
>Rarity gasped.  “Twilight- w-what's going on? Is that-”
>”Rarity. Get out.”
>She stuck her nose to the side a moment, grunted.  Rarity shook her head and took a place behind Twilight, watching.
>She dragged a hoof along the line of red dots, and sent a ping.
>Moniker: Not one of them lives, you understand?
>She blipped the windows, and they opened.  Perfect lines of orange lit up as 357 and 308 hosed down her pings with ammunition.
>They were faster to react than Twilight had expected.  357 signal darkened, and only half of his dot remained.
>308 dragged along the wall, as Twilight feverishly tried to find a suitable ping point.  308, however, had other ideas.
>308 fired from around the corner near the shattered glass, simultaneously dragging a body with him.
>Moniker: Run, you have clear path to previous level. Make a kill zone.
>TwiSec 308: Can't. Wounded leg.  Bleeding out, mercury setting in, can barely see.
>His dot intermingled with the dull red one, as the last two red dots in the room made their way to where he was.  A fat, orange dot appeared, several grenade timers ticking down..
>after most of the entire floor was shown as demolished and smoldering, she screamed and slammed a hoof on the desk next to her.  Rarity jumped slightly.
>”Twilight, calm down-”
>”No! Not this time! They've been ten steps ahead of us this whole time, and even in our tower... We just can't let this die here- and it *will* if they get out alive!”
>”This doesn't sound like you, Twilight. Not at all.  What about OUR ponies?”
>She paused.
>”If it's bad enough to put you into this state, how will we ever salvage anything?”
>Twilight sighed.  Why, lately, was everyone but herself always right?
>She started a new daemon. A head count.  She started to shuffle through layers, letting the progress bar jump on each one.  She did the math in her head.
>Fifty seven security and two hundred civilians remained.
>Seventy UNKNOWN remained.
>How? How to send building wide evac order without full control?
>The fire alarms were restricted by level, bomb scares were obviously offline with the myriad of explosions.  Chaos had erupted, keeping everyone inside but her off-balance, and she didn't have a single ounce of control past doors, windows, and the two now-dead guards.
>She retreated to the lobby. She had to make a focused plan, something that organized them and skirted the nebulous, mobile death.
>But that was step two.  Step one...
>The headcount bounced. Seventy seven UNKNOWN.  Fresh reds in the lobby.
>She started to list expletives.  Reinforcements? As if they hadn't had enough for this already?
>When would she get a break?
>A voice monitor blipped into existence.  They had access to her private channels.
>Fine. Neat. Fuck.
>The ponies started to discuss things between each other.  They had a southern drawl, light and focused. They were utterly calm, pausing at bodies.
>AppleSec 2: “Ho-lee-hay.  This ain't the place to be now, is it?”
>AppleSec 5: “Late to the party again? We can't ever get a break. I was lookin' forward to this.”
>Applejack's team.  They'd arrived.  She hurredly pinged them, repeatedly, until they realized and opened a direct link.
>This wasn't over yet. And maybe she could satisfy her newly found murderous urge.
>Seventy Eight unknown.  The biggest red dot she'd seen entered the lobby, the others making room for his stroll inside.
>AppleSec 7: “Who is this?”
>She spoke into the microphone embedded in her screen. “Twilight Sparkle- I've been trying to handle the bleeding but can't at this distance. Things are bad, I don't have system access. You have to cause a full reset.”
>AppleSec 7: “Well ma'am, how can we help? We weren't suited for engineerin'.”
>”You have artificial telepathy nodes in your bio armor, correct? Replacements for the armor control chips?”
>AppleSec 7: “Yes ma'am.”
>”Bomb the local power governer with a telepathy test. The tower is running off incompatible magi-tech batteries, and is set with crystal drives that will reboot everything and kick out users. I'll reconnect under my name after the lockout they've started is deactivated.”
>Moments passed.  Her console froze, connection terminated by gateway.
>She hastily reconnected. Her monitors blazed to life, information she'd not had access to originally coming up in dozens of new, minimized bars and long lists.
>She sent a bomb warning. All users would be locked out save for authorized security; whatever the Ebon Pegasi had done, they'd need to do it again. And under the emergency protocols, external comms besides her own rotating-encryption signal would be completely disconnected..
>Doors closed. Dedicated pathways opened, bottlenecking everyp0ny involved.  She sent layout plans for each floor, accessed on a whim, to the seven ponies in the lobby.
>She'd murdered at least thirty of them with two two dedicated ponies and a gimped system.
>Now she had full control and a co-ordinated, a fresh security team, and according to he readouts, at least one of those was a Hardsuit pilot.
>That one big dot alone was the closest a pony could get to becoming a tank.
>Her voice went through the microphone.  “There is a rough count of seventy hostiles. The only areas with free access are the bomb-hardened hallways- use discretion only when I send a civilian ping.  The bastards will need to move through the halls, so it'll be a meatgrinder.”
>She heard audio backwash from the big dot, AppleSec 1.  It was the sound of motors whirring, something Twilight recognized. AP-60 engines, made for gatling weapons, and judging by the whine, there were two of them.  Twilight had only made them at special request for a certain pony close to Applejack.
>She only knew one pony big enough to lift two of the things, let alone wield them.
>Upon hearing that distinctive, shrill wind up, Twilight almost let herself smile. But now wasn't the time.
>She growled through the microphone.  "Besides civilians, there isn't a leash here. Kill em all, you hear me?”
>AppleSec 1: “Eeeeeyup.”
–
>Big Mac had been walking all the while.  The gear, the ammunition, the bullets bouncing off his exoskeleton.  It barely felt like actual weight or impact, with all the old work he'd been used too.
>He saw another yellow ping come up on his AR.  It was different feel than what he'd trained with first; the signals were in his head, some kind of nerve cluster that simulated telepathy. How it translated to such high-def illusion spells on his end, he never really cared to learn.
>It worked, so. Yup. Might as well use it.
>He waited at the door.
>Ponies of every hue, clad in purple, piled out.  Security officers and civilians alike looked up at him as they passed.  This was the third floor he'd cleared out like this, while his affectionately named “ammo mares” piled in more rounds.
>He did admit, things were lighter after he had fired for a few seconds.
>Didn't stop them from being darn scary, apparently, with the expressions he was getting.
>He heard yells echo down the hallway, the stamping of hooves.
>Yup. Might as well use em.
>He pinged his mares to finish up.  The slapped the belts tight into the loaders, and he was off again. Stomping with that buzzing thump to his step, he rounded the corner.
>He could see the look on their helmets, even through the heavy gear.
>Fear, terror. Some of them stood up from their well-trained positions, realization dawning.  Yup.  Might as well end it. Ain't no loss for what they did to his friends, anyway.
>He leisurely leaned into a bracing position, aiming down the hall. As his guns spun up he cracked his jaw.
>Some of them tried to get to cover. Not that there was any in the hallway.  The door on the opposite end hissed shut.
>Moniker: They aren't learning.
>Moniker: How about you? Getting tired yet?
>”Nnnnnope.”
>The lead pony had tried to rush him down before the wind up finished.  The bullets kicked him backwards, and his corpse flew into wet tatters as the volley of rounds pushed him along and finally finished blending him into a mist.
>He kept the weapons tracking upwards, to the center of the hall. Twelve little ponies, all in a bunch.
>Splintered body parts and agonized screams were all that were left after about three seconds and five hundred rounds, give or take.
>That, and a primed grenade.
>He didn't move. Why bother? The concussion compressed in the hallway, flying out the door, and knocking his third wheel companions on their flanks. As they entered to check on him, still smoking and his armor riddled with glittering shrapnel, he shook it off like a wet dog.
>The self-healing chitin had taken another hit like this earlier.  Not that it mattered.  He waited and focused on the telepathy cluster, the chitin spitting out the tiny bits of serrated metal and gently healing into fresh, discolored pockmarks.
>His lieutenant lifted a hoof, laughing as he skipped it off the ground. “Ha ha! Damn boss, they might be able to jam out a riff on their guns, but they can't hold a candle to the notes them things can sing!”
>”Nnnnnope.”
>The door opened, an Ebon Pegasi corpse that had slung against it thumping to the floor.
>Moniker: Only two more occupied floors left. Civilian evac is complete, and I have full data control.
>Moniker: 20 left, give or take one.
>He had been walking along all the while, the pile of black-armored, bloody garbage revealing one that was trying to drag himself along with his only functioning leg, outside the door.
>He looked upwards as Big Mac saw him. Big Mac looked back through the hardened, scarred bio-helm.  With the weight of those guns, his equipment, and his own body, he simply stepped on the ponies head.
>It flattened with a wet crunch, forming a sticky puddle under his armored hoof.
>You don't fuck with the Apple family's friends. Nope.
--