Catalyst 2.0: The Tower (pt. 1 complete)

>You laid back into the bed, still damp, still cooling from the heat of the water.  The room's lighting had been shifted to an alternate scheme, a low-lit cloak of amber instead of the hearty, sharp white you had been used to.  Your hide, though thick, felt the delicious sensation of silken sheets.  Your head sunk into the pillow, the pain having drained from the running water.
>Not once had that collar come off.  Twilight was thorough in her designs.  It had been stoically sealed against liquid.
>Still, no word.  No news was the best sort, wasn't it?
>You watched the ceiling, your body still buzzing.  At Rarity's request, you'd done more than help her bathe.  At her request, too, you were laying back while she finished actually cleaning up.
>Your head was so clear it was thoughtless.  Just the heat of the collar, the chill of the evaporating water on your flesh.  You realized what the unfamiliar miasma was-  you were relaxed.
>How out of place, you felt, with all that was burrowing about in the skin of the world around you.
>When she re-entered the bedroom, it was in a way you rarely saw her.  Her mane was still wet, and rolling along her neck.  She was wearing the webbing to her muscle suit; thin lines of black that stuck to her as if adhered, wrapping her joints in thin padding.  When you'd first spoken your mind about it appearing like some sort of high-tech lingerie, she'd merely given you a smirk.
>Her steps were delicate as she approached.  The web didn't offer the support her legs needed for intense movement; her walk was weak, though stable.  She approached your end of the bed, and took to crawling atop you.

>She put her front legs to either side of your neck. A sleepy, sapphire gaze glimmered above a smile.  Then, she dragged her lips across the side of your face, framing you in shimmering, damp violet hair.
>Her mouth rested near your ear.  You were so close, naturally, that you didn't even need to hold her.  You could breathe her in, a supple, pleasing odor.
“What is that?”
>”Hm?” she replied in cashmere tone.
“the perfume...”
>”It's called Amaryllis.” she said.
>You searched definition files stored in the collar's databank.  You smiled at the resulting entry.  Gentle, unspoken flattery... Yes, she was still that mare you'd been willing to take more than a bullet for.
>she sighed into your neck.  A velvety light grew from your side, and the room darkened completely.  Then, light began to speckle the air.
>suddenly, the room was full of stars.  They melted into existence, then dimmed.  They floated about the room as tiny, drifting bubbles.
>You had seen this before.  Not, however, while outside the system.
>A momentary flutter of panic arrived.  Were you linked again? Was your view overlapping? Rarity picked up upon it instantly; a hoof at your chest, she'd been holding your heart the entire time.
>She kissed your neck.  The glow faded, yet, the stars remained.  “Is something wrong, darling?”
“... It's full of stars.”
>”Indeed it is.”
>You reached upward with a hoof.  The barely-there star popped, and reformed into a dim pinprick in the dark.  A hologram.
>You sighed, relieved.
>Maybe she was right.  You only needed to breathe a little more.  You only needed rest, with another flesh and blood creature, that wasn't trying to kill you.
>You only need recline, for a time, with a spirit that loved you.
>Why, then, did you feel such was undeserved?

>As you laid amidst the starry room, your thoughts resonated.
>In scientific terms, you were only the copy. The precision engineered replacement.
>There, and then, you were what he had been meant to.  Through his actions, his words.  At least, to the mare you held.
>A singular idea arrived.
>You had his thoughts.  His processes.  Everything you had done, had been birthed from the exact replica of his excuse for a mind.
>Even with the gap of experiences you'd had since being copied by Vinyl, even with your friends being unawares, you *were* still him.
>What he would think in your place, would be the same. What he would do, would be the same. Everything had become natural- the capacity, the passion.  The entire life.
>Whatever tomorrow brought, you then knew.  You could trust yourself in thinking it.  No matter what came, how difficult it was- you would relish any suffering, rather than forfeit the opportunity to be near her.
>Isolated within the collar, you had never felt more connected to flesh and precious blood.  It didn't matter what you were, otherwise.  You were completely yourself, still a good enough creature to be loved.  You were digital, implanted, copied. Yet, alive.
>You considered things you'd done.  Shunting.  Integrating with a bio-construct.  Finishing the Purge. Death.  With all of it, you had never respected the simple idea that you had a soul.  Moreover, the fact that others had done so without question, and from afar the entire time.

>deep in a cloud of stars, you felt yourself drifting toward sleep.  Rarity was breathing quietly on your neck, the both of you amidst a pool of soft, violet, subtly sweet hair.  A fresh appreciation for the white mare arrived.
“Don't you ever forget that I love you.”
>though you words are whispered, in the hope she was asleep, she replies.  “I saw you die twice now.” she murmured.  “Not once did I doubt that, darling.”
>Goddamnit, Rarity.
>You lean back into the pillow, letting her nudge below your chin.  Her nose whistled gently after she fell asleep.  You followed her shortly after, hoping to see her even there.
>Hell, though, had a way of hunting.  It was not so predictable as to be on the heels of your tomorrow. It was in the place you submitted yourself to, time and time again.
>It was in your dreams.
–
Shimmering violet crystal.  Perfect angles, untouched by creative thought and carved through unmanned means.  Not even the spectating “engineers” of it's construction remained; ghostly figures roamed, unable to interact with the forsaken tools of it's construction.

You stood before it upon hard, reflective ground.  It's apex pierced the sky at such a fine edge, it could wound the sky in grace, and leave it unknowing of the fresh and oozing gash.  The skin of the sky remained dull, dark, and thick, the tower blackened by color of it's surrounding, empty existence.

A flare of knowledge. You knew what was inside.  Eye's whose gaze meant skittering, spewing death.  Invisible beasts, craving the murder of you and your once living fellows, whom could only be seen when heard or dead themselves.

That place was gone.  Beauty, terrible and strong, was but the sensation of noxious air, violence, and consecutive, brutal concussions.  You had felt the speed, tasted the explosions in your chest from great and expanding distance as you ran from it's tumbling parts.

Yet there it stood.  Evil, wicked countenance pervaded the very world in which you dreamed, the sound of it's fatal cracks echoing within the visage what you had destroyed.  Here, the Crystal Tower was strong.  Here, it was still sharp and perfect and alive, placid creatures and machines coasting through it's cavities like parasites.

What then, had you been inside it?  Every step traversed the world in amplified shock, your walk a heartbeat, your weight a leaden travesty directed toward it.  Luscious urges of it's destruction sealed inside your throat, clinging to your breath as you swallowed it, and gave a black flavor to the air.

Your eyes burned.  Even here, you felt pain.  Rivulets poured down, searing your eyes and face.  You craved the tower's doom, and knew a fading pride- for here, it stood again, no matter what you had done once and would do again.

You knew it's brain.  The creature within deserved every death you could announce. Through violence, through acted hate, through terror redirected and focused.  A pinprick of loathing, brought by wounds mental and physical, was so dense it formed a hole to which you were drawn.

You floated through it's walls.  Substance compressed around you, your frame moving through like burning, living liquid constrained to form.  Within, you watched the movements of dead, abandoned beings.

It's time had passed.  Their time, had passed.  Why then, was it still here?

A dark gleam of pride, of accomplishment and expanding joy, hovered deep in the Tower's soul.  A powerful sense of rage, one you reserved for your own sufferings, frothed to escape your choking lungs.  With a single scream, a single sense of abolishing will pushing toward that horrifying place, a crack sounding of thunder lit your world.

You fell.  Through walls and floors and quickly tumbling ruins, the material was nothing more than thick air.  The ground hurt, truly stung, as the sight of the screaming denizens branded upon your ever-open eyes.

You looked back.  The tower shattered at it's base, it's top half sliding away.  Impossibly bright flares lit within it, tearing great, knife-edged holes as it careened toward the ground.

Bomb sharpened shards wailed through the air.  They embedded into the ground.  They pinned the abandoned tools and their ghosts to ground that turned bloody.  Some were eclipsed, simply disappearing in crimson eruptions.  In moments, the only facts left of the surrounding creatures existence were spattered pools that tinted the cracked, smooth, crystalline earth.

It was dead.  In it's place, you were standing.  Shivering, terrified, and cold.  Within, you were symbiotically enraged, a sharing of enmity.

It had been dead.  It's vision had lived on, bruising your mind with it's purpose.  Arrogant, strong, and altogether wrathful, it had chosen that moment as it's reminder.

You had a barely unique knowledge of your existence.  Through it, you had the understanding that only it could also know.  The shell did not matter.  It's anima, therefore, had retained.

It knew of curving action through whispered thought.  Sweet to the ears and eyes and body, it had perfected the bending of souls to a permanent warping.  It had spoken to you when you had annihilated it's prison, not in voice, but in mind.  Gorgeous and vibrant, your biological urges bid you listen.

“Of all the things you may accomplish, I am capable of taking for my own.  In trying to destroy me, you only disperse what you have made.  It amuses me so.”

Yet there was one more thing that feminine void spoke.  One that you did not recall.  Fresh and altogether remorseless, she swooned in your ears from far away.

“I fear nothing of what you can accomplish, for soon, it will be mine.”
--
>You awoke to a squeak.  The room was still full of stars, a light from your side causing the floating pinpricks to bleed beams of light away from the source.  You tilted a drunken gaze to the side, and found you could not move otherwise.
>Sweet Heart was there, eyes closed, horn glowing.  Your collar felt hot again, but no worse than your throat.  When she opened her eyes, the paralysis faded.  She also noticed you were awake.
>Ducking like a spotted feline, her big eyes peered over the edge of the bed. Full of fear and building tears, you saw the little yellow toy placed carefully beside her head.
>You gave a ragged, thirsty smile.  You then reached down to put a hoof gently down in a pat.  She had to throw both forelegs along the edge, her size granting her little advantage.
>It was then that you leaned over to kiss Rarity beside her horn.  You nuzzled into her hair, taking in that sweet, crisp scent.  You woke her without words, and used gesture to send her dreamy eyes to your trembling daughter.
>Rarity gave her a knowing, and placating smile.  Sweet Heart hopped up, picking up the yellow doll with her mouth.  She walked over you, her form surprisingly heavy, and nestled down between you and Rarity.
>Then, she simply gave a blank stare forward, swallowing apparently bitter breath.
>Instantly more concerned, Rarity slung a foreleg over her.  She started to roll a hoof along her hair.  “Sweetie, are they getting worse?”
>She shook her head. “Nuh-uh.”
>”You're positively shaking, dear.  What did you see that was so wrong?”
>”Nuffin.” She replied.  “It's the same dream.”
>”Then why are you so scared?”
>”Cause I was able to give all the scary stuff to daddy, too.”
>Rarity looked between the two of you, and your lips tightened.  “Why would you do that?” she asked Sweet Heart.
“Because I said I would.”
>”I don't want daddy bein scared like me.” She said.  “But it won't go away, and it's scares me so much.”  She nuzzled down into her toy, and closed her eyes tightly.
>Rarity eyed you pensively, before nudging at Sweet Heart's ear.  She looks at you from the corner of one eye.  You only mouth out the words:
>”It was a file.”
>Rarity's eye goes wide, swapping between the two of you.
“I need to go see Twilight.”
>Rarity closed her eyes, then nodded.  She slung a foreleg over Sweet Heart, cradling her close, and began whispered conversation.
>as you slid away, you couldn't help but have a realization.
>You really were a copy. Complete, whole, and missing only chunks of experiences.  You had not just retained the abilities, the thoughts, and morals.
>You'd preserved the defects.
--