Chapter 3

9-12-13, 7:00 A.M.

As soon as he woke up, Jeremy drove off to the nearest auto shop to get some ethylene glycol to distill. Luna did research on the structures of sorbothane, nanoceramics, and Kevlar. Jeremy got home an hour later, jugs of ethylene glycol in hand, and poured them into the boiling flask. Thankfully, he had a distillation rig that could fit the amount he needed. Luna watched apprehensively as he hooked up the rubber tubing to the sink across from the stove.

"Bit of a... what is the term? 'Nerd'? Yes, that... aren't you?" she asked, a small smile on her face.

Jeremy raised an eyebrow, smiling as well. "Only a bit? Luna, you wound me." She laughed, and Jeremy gave her a grin - were they becoming friends? Carefully, he turned on the heat below the flask, pushing around some of the sand bath to better heat the glycol. That done, he sat back. "And now, we wait."

9-12-13, 9:17 A.M.

“How much hast thou obtained?” Luna asked, reading a bunch of articles on polyurethane and sounding somewhat bored.

“About 100 milliliters of water taken off? Distillation is such a slow process,” Jeremy replied.

Luna looked over. "The green colorant doth not seem to be affected... will that matter?" she asked curiously.

Jeremy shrugged, and shook his head. "Probably not - worst I'll end up with is a green suit," he joked. Luna smirked.

Making sure that the rig could be left alone safely, he studied along with Luna. He had also brought down some various, unwanted articles of clothing and a printout of the chemical structure of Kevlar, so that Luna could alter them at the molecular level to make them Kevlar fabric. By the time she was finished, and satisfied with her results, three more hours had passed. Luna ate lunch, and Jeremy breakfast. When they finished with their meals, the distillation was done, and Jeremy left the flask of newly purified and filtered ethylene glycol to cool.

9-12-13, 1:34 P.M.

Jeremy had since gotten some broken pottery and silica particles, which they were transforming into the final parts of the armor.

“I can’t believe this thing is almost done already,” Jeremy commented. “Guess that’s magic for you – efficient and above all, quick. I wish we could do that on this planet - it'd be nice.” Luna nodded, and then looked over at him.

“Thou dost not have magic in thy world… at all?” Jeremy shook his head.

“All the stuff we have is science,” he said. "Magic's a myth." Luna's horn lit up, and a plate from the table lifted off and bumped him in the shoulder. She smirked at him as he rolled his eyes. "Okay, was a myth."

9-12-13, 3:32 P.M.

They had taken the burlap-like armor out for a test run. So far, it was stabproof, and bulletproof. The tiny lead shells the changelings were presumably using were about as effective as BB pellets. “Now, could we get about a thousand of these for our military?” Luna joked.

“Hey, that’s an unfair advantage. Arms races are supposed to be one step up from each side, not like two or three,” Jeremy just as jokingly replied. Luna chuckled in response. He was finally beginning to loosen up around Luna, treating her as he would a friend. Were they friends? He wasn't sure - she was royalty, after all. He should probably not overstep his bounds, in that case. Finally, Jeremy got to put on the jumpsuit-shaped armor for the first time.

“How does it feel?” Luna asked as he slid into the skintight fabric.

“Like I’m putting on a snorkeling suit. Not heavy at all.” Jeremy replied, pleased. Luna then took out his piece of steel pipe and gave him a quick whack with it, surprising him. Jeremy winced, but then stared at his shoulder.

“There would definitely be a bruise there,” he commented.

“And what did happen?” Luna asked, with clinical curiosity.

“Nothing at all,” he responded enthusiastically.

Luna grinned. “It is ready.”

Jeremy raised a finger. “I still need a helmet, right? If they’re shooting at me, they’ll probably be aiming for the head once they figure out the body's not going to work.”

Luna thought a while, then marched off. She came back with the bag of powdered silica they had made earlier. Using her magic, she melted it, then shaped it into a roughly dome-shaped, transparent helmet, with some holes in the back so he could breathe.

“Quartz helmet. Nice,” Jeremy complimented.

"Thankfully, thou needst not worry about suffocating on our world - our oxygen content is only slightly higher," Luna informed him.

“Sounds good to me - and I’d like to see the bullet that could get through this,” Jeremy commented, appraising the helmet's smooth texture with a gloved hand.

Luna appeared to be deep in thought as she examined his suit. "Something wrong?" Jeremy asked.

"Nay, just wondering... hmm." Luna mused as her horn lit up, the M16 lifting into the air and the magazine glowing brightly. Jeremy watched in fascination, unsure what was going on. Finally, Luna stopped working her magic on the gun, and Jeremy examined it suspiciously.

"So what did that do?" he asked curiously. Luna chuckled.

"We hath enchanted thy bullets to reassemble themselves and teleport back into the magazine every time thou dost 'reload' - essentially, infinite ammunition." Jeremy's eyes went wide.

"That is... wow. That is one hell of a cheat," he remarked half-jokingly. Luna looked at him, amused.

"Tis' not cheating! Tis' merely 'bending the rules', so to speak," she retorted. Jeremy laughed.

"If you say so, Luna..."

He picked up the gun, not seeing or feeling any difference, and shot a stream of bullets at the tree again, being sure to empty the magazine. Once he heard the admittedly satisfying 'click' that indicated it was empty, he popped the magazine out, looking down the bore and seeing no bullets. Shrugging, he put it back in, pointed it at the tree and pressed the trigger. He was almost surprised when it started shooting bullets again - sure, Luna had told him, but that didn't make the effect any less magical. Luna, meanwhile, had been enchanting the SPAS-12 shotgun and the Colt .357 revolver to do the same. Finally, she levitated the newly enchanted weaponry over to him, and Jeremy grunted at the weight. Luna surveyed his difficulty with a hint of amusement.

"Yes, carrying all of these would be a task, wouldn't it?" She mused aloud. The guns lit up again, and then disappeared entirely. Jeremy spun around, looking for them.

"Um... Where'd they go?" he asked. Luna smiled deviously.

"We created a small dimensional void with which to carry them - simply think about the weapon you wish to take out or put away, and it will be done." Jeremy raised an eyebrow, but tried it out, the M16 flashing to the forefront of his mind. It appeared where it would be if he were holding it - however, his hand was not closed, so it slipped and fell to the floor.

"That'll take some getting used to," he muttered, picking it up and stowing it in the odd space Luna had created. Princess Luna giggled in response, and Jeremy noticed she was slightly panting from exhaustion. "You okay?" he asked, and Luna nodded.

"Those spells are quite complex, but we shall be fine," she reassured him, and Jeremy shrugged amicably. He went over and picked up his steel pipe, putting that in the void as well.

After checking over the suit one final time to make sure it was spotless, Jeremy thought of one more thing to do. “How am I going to know which ponies to shoot and which to protect, if the changelings start transforming?” Jeremy asked. Luna frowned.

“It has long been a point of research to try and figure out a means of telling. Unfortunately, the only thing we have discovered is that they are much colder than any pony could be."

Jeremy brightened. “If we can make an infrared camera and attach it to my glasses, I’d be able to see how hot things were.” Luna was confused by this, but looked it up, and quickly made the tiny circuitboard and camera necessary. Jeremy messily hot-glued it onto the left eye of his glasses, where he could already see well enough.

After that, they took the evening off. Jeremy decided to introduce Luna to his favorite bits of pop culture, and Luna happily complied as they made their way through his soundtrack. “Best video game sound track,” Jeremy commented. “Joel Nielsen is amazing.”

Luna nodded, eyes wide and headphones on. “We should put this in the suit somehow,” she remarked.

"Why?" Jeremy asked, as practical as ever.

"It might give thee suitable adrenaline to keep fighting," Luna answered. This made sense to Jeremy, so he went and found a small speaker and amplifier circuit he hadn't used. He tried to determine the best place to put it inside the suit until Luna placed it in the front, just below the helmet.

“That works too,” Jeremy thought aloud. They tested it, and the sound emanated perfectly from the speaker, reverberating in the helmet as well.

After the video game soundtracks, Jeremy moved on to actual mainstream music. As it turned out, Luna had some of the same musical interests he did, but laughed at others. “Art thou quite sure this is popular?” she chuckled.

“It was fifteen years ago,” Jeremy retorted, and gave a slight laugh. From that, they moved back to video games, as Jeremy played through a few more he liked. This continued for most of the night, only stopping for dinner (yet more quesadillas for Jeremy, and the rest of the salad in the fridge for Luna - he would have complained, but it wasn't like he enjoyed the stuff). After a few more hours on the computer, Luna leaned on Jeremy’s shoulder, half asleep and half out of contentment. Jeremy, after a few uncomfortable minutes of his inner shy and antisocial voice screaming at him to do something, decided to allow it.

9-13-13, 9:02 P.M.

Before they went to bed, Jeremy approached Luna curiously - this had been bugging him for quite some time. “Hey… what's up with your hair? Is it real hair, or what?” he asked, then blushed furiously at the nature of his question. Jeremy hated himself for blushing, as normally he was untouchably emotionless unless around friends. Luna blushed as well, but turned her head, evidently intending for him to touch it. Jeremy examined her hair, which at first sight appeared to simply be a cloud of stars. He poked it with a finger, to find that it parted just like normal hair, and was otherwise regular hair – aside from the fact that it floated and blew as if in some unseen breeze, and glowing stars twinkled in its depths. Luna appeared pleased at the attention.

“We use this style to fit our role as the princess of the night – Celestia adopted a similar style upon adulthood. Our original hair was a light blue, as thou may have seen, and hers was a light pink," she explained. Jeremy nodded in interest, and gave her hair one final, gentle tousling before heading to bed.

9-14-13, 5:14 A.M.

Jeremy tossed and turned in bed. Someone was calling his name, but no one was in his dream - he was alone. The loudest scream yet made him bolt upright in bed, hearing a muffled scuffling and continued screaming. “Jeremy! Help! He-“ Luna shouted, but was quickly silenced. He quickly got up and rushed downstairs, only to see that changelings had arrived through a green portal of their own, and were dragging the unconscious Luna through - she hadn't been shot again, but it looked like she had taken a nasty knock to the head. Ignoring him, they finished pulling her through, leaving the portal open for some reason. For a moment, Jeremy panicked - all he could think was oh god it’s happening it’s happening again what do I do, until he snapped himself out of it and ran into the garage, where they had placed his suit after the testing. Staring at the green, crackling hole in space, it occurred to him that in their time, it was the middle of the day - he'd be as visible to them as they were to him. He hurriedly slipped into his armor, stuffing it over his pajamas. Grabbing his armor and all of his weapons, he shouldered his assault rifle and stepped through the green, spheroidal wormhole.

The transmission appeared to be instantaneous for Jeremy. He arrived in the sunlit square of Ponyville, where changelings were still running rampant. Jeremy ducked behind a building, and took stock of his surroundings. Looking down at his body, he was almost surprised to find it wasn't cartoonish - in fact, it looked about the same. Everything else was equally realistic - no cartoon outlines, perfect three-dimensional 'rendering' and 'shading' - as far as those terms went in what Jeremy presumed was a completely real universe. He peeked out into the square again.

Luna, obviously, was long gone – the five minutes it had taken him to haul his ass over here had cost him any chance of immediately recovering her. Well, he did have a job to do anyway. Jeremy shouldered the assault rifle again. The changelings stood out from their surroundings by being a purple color on infrared, whereas the few ponies that were still running for their lives were a much hotter orange color. As he began firing, all Jeremy could feel was outrage and confusion. What the hell? How did they find us? Did they track Luna or something - how is that even possible if she teleported completely randomly? Finding no obvious answers, he continued dispatching every bit of purple he saw. All the while, he kept up a constant inner monologue: Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't panic.

When he was finished, Jeremy was surprised at the ease at which changelings went down. They had fired back at him, but it mildly stung as opposed to being actual bullet wounds. Of course, they might have heavier weaponry, so he’d have to still be careful. All the while, he had begun constructing a sort of coping method that actually worked quite well. Jeremy imagined he was behind a screen, simply playing another video game. It wasn't too hard - the colors here were unrealistically bright, he had a transparent optical surface right in front of his face, and he had infinite ammunition. After a while, he didn't even flinch as changelings went down - just like that, he'd managed to desensitize himself.

So, where would the civilians be? The changelings probably wouldn't have moved them too far if they were amidst a battlefield, so Jeremy scoped out the largest buildings he could find. All were empty save one, which had a lone changeling hiding in the shadowed doorway. Jeremy examined the building's sign, finding that this was the town jail. Makes sense, he thought, and took out the guard changeling with a well-aimed shotgun blast. Jeremy wandered into the front office of the jail, and opened the door to the cells only to find a literal wall of green sludge, somehow firm. Jeremy took out his steel pipe, glad he had remembered to bring it, and gave the gel a good, solid thwack - the pipe went right through. A few more swings, and he had created a hole big enough to slide through. Entering the cell blocks, he began searching the cells for occupants. Finding none, he continued on. The jail was relatively small, perhaps the size of his house. As he came to the back end of the jail, crammed into just 4 cells were perhaps a hundred green, bulging sacks, each containing a pony. Thankfully, the cells were open – evidently the changelings had planned for many more ponies to be ‘stored’ here. Jeremy took out his steel pipe, and began to swing.

The shock of the membrane bursting open woke most ponies, who had been asleep - possibly due to some effect of the fluids inside the viscous green cocoons. The cocoons themselves broke easily, having only thin membranes stretched over a liquid medium. Twilight in particular was fast to wake, stretching her wings and beginning to thank her savior when she noticed who he was. She immediately shrank back to the wall in fear, as Jeremy stared on. When she had confirmed that he wasn’t hostile, she shakily extended a hoof in greeting. Jeremy, meanwhile, could not think of a single opening word to say – just what did you say to the main character of the story? After a second or two of thinking, he decided to remain mute and shook her hoof, gently gripping so as to not cause her any discomfort.

Some changelings picked that moment to burst into the room, guns drawn. Jeremy almost automatically whipped out his own assault rifle and mowed them down before they could fire a single shot, the speed of his movement causing several bullets to miss and hit the walls before he found his targets. Unfortunately, the other ponies winced from the loud noise. Jeremy frowned. He’d have to be careful about using guns indoors – didn’t want anyone to go deaf, after all. He motioned for the ponies to stay where they were, and gave them the guns of the two changelings he had just rendered unconscious. Twilight hesitantly grabbed one, and with that, Jeremy walked out of the room, continuing on towards Canterlot.

9-14-13, 6:02 P.M.

//{Black Mesa OST – Forget About Freeman}

What the hell? His suit was playing music. He hadn't even touched the interface - come to think of it, he didn't think there was a user interface. It just... magically played sounds. Luna must have done something particularly weird. Oh well - he couldn't say he wasn't enjoying it.

A few minutes later, Jeremy was moving through Ponyville, gunning down any changelings he happened upon. Twilight hadn't followed, for whatever reason, so he was once again alone. Despite his innumerable advantages, the numbers of changelings and the wide open spaces were starting to wear him down – another thing he had forgotten to mention was that he was no track runner, although long hours of walking rather than taking buses or driving had rendered him much less easy to tire. In fact, he had had an ingrown toenail before the school incident, right up until Luna healed it somehow, so he was rather enjoying being able to walk and run without having to limp or feeling like his foot was being stabbed every time he took a step. Unfortunately, he wasn't so healed that he could sprint long-distance, and resorted to walking or jogging most of the time, keeping an eye out for any changelings who might try to jump him as he tried to pace himself - Canterlot looked awfully far away...

As he traversed yet more of the dusty pathway towards the Canterlot mountain, changelings seemed to pour out of every house and tree he came across, to the point where he was battling six or seven at once. Why were they all attacking him? Was it because he was seemingly the only one able to fight back? His arms began to ache with the familiar pain of firing a gun for extended periods of time, and his whole body was already stinging irritatingly from the small arms fire they were sending his way - although, to be fair, he much preferred this feeling over the feeling of a bullet actually penetrating skin and flesh. Also, he was hungry - he had gotten up at 5 in the morning and his body thought he wanted breakfast.

Scant minutes later, he stood amidst a spectacularly green bloodbath. Twenty or so had decided to engage him at once, and he had to teach them the hard way that he was not to be messed with. Nineteen lay twitching on the floor, and the last remaining one had dropped his weapon and was backing against the wall. For a fraction of a second, Jeremy felt he should let this one go - it was pretty much defenseless, and looked scared out of its mind. A fraction of a second later, he decided against it and pumped the changeling full of lead until it slumped to the floor, the building behind it pockmarked with bullet holes. No mercy. Not today, not ever. And so it went. On and on, Jeremy shot more and more changelings as the music seemingly fit every shot – another enchantment on Luna’s part, Jeremy supposed. He’d have to thank her assuming he made it to her.

//{end}

9-14-13, 7:08 P.M.*

Finally, he came to a train station at the very edge of town, and the music ended. A few trains were still there, the rest having departed and never returned - probably with evacuating citizens. Jeremy examined the train route – it was pointed directly towards the mountain leading up to Canterlot. But how to get it working? He examined the front compartment. Some changelings were there, but already unconscious and bleeding in multiple places. “Well, you sure don’t look like any bug I’ve seen today,” a gruff and vaguely Texan accent greeted him. He looked up to see an earth pony in a leather apron, crowbar in hoof. Jeremy nodded mutely, and pointed up at Canterlot.

Looking at his finger curiously before following its path, the earth pony gave a short grunt of amusement. “Well, newcomer, I ain’t takin ya. It’s a warzone up there, and while I ain’t no coward, I’m not dumb enough to walk inta that,” the pony explained. “If’n ya want to go yourself, I can start the train up for you, but I ain’t taggin’ along - gotta stay here in case anypony else needs a ride.” Jeremy nodded again in agreement. The pony set about starting up the train, which was coal-powered to Jeremy's dismay. However, when it started, there was no sooty smoke to his surprise – perhaps magic had found a way to make the combustion more efficient. The point was, he was on his way that much faster, and Jeremy smiled and waved at the helpful train conductor. Next Chapter: Chapter 4 Estimated time remaining: 12 Hours, 42 Minutes