Ears perking, Sideralis listened to a machine nearby beeping. His muscles quivered as something cold was squirted onto his back. Something large, heavy, and mechanical was pressed up against his spine. It vibrated and made a humming sound that he could feel resonating through his insides.

Queen Chrysalis peered into a projection screen that appeared above a console and Doctor Gizmo stood beside her, his eyes narrowed as he too, studied the readout. Sideralis wondered what it was they were studying, but he didn’t ask. The last time he had asked, he had received a stream of gobbledygook so thick that it could have been cut with a knife. Something about piezoelectric recovery systems laced through his guts that took the motion of his body, his digestion, his heartbeat, all of the movement of his insides, and a long winded explanation on how all of this was turned into electricity that aided some of his systems. It was all he could do to nod his head and pretend that he understood what was going on.

The door opened and Sideralis saw a familiar face. Twilight Sparkle entered the room and she did not look happy, not at all. Sideralis knew right away that something was wrong. He watched as Twilight came to a halt and she looked up at him. She was different now, she had two eyes. He saw her take a deep breath and he waited for her to say something.

“Sideralis… it is so good to see you up… I was going to have a party thrown for you, but something has come up.” Twilight’s ears drooped and the smaller alicorn closed her eyes for a moment, looking weary. When she opened her eyes once more, she had a grim look of resolve upon her face.

“Twilight, what is going on?” Chrysalis asked as she stepped out from behind the console and towards Twilight. The tall changeling queen moved with an easy, fluid grace, her strange black hooves clicking on the stainless steel floor.

“Isla Colibaba has gone dark,” Twilight replied.

“What?” Chrysalis blinked a few times, trying to take in what Twilight had said, and then she repeated herself. “What?”

“When the Celestia Defiant flew over the islands, there was no communication, no sign of ponies on the island, there was nothing. The captain of the Celestia Defiant sent a squad of pegasi to do a flyover and there were no signs of life.”

“What the actual fuck?” Chrysalis’ face contorted. “That place was well protected even though it was tiny. It’s a thousand miles of ocean between it and Equestria. You don’t think Mariposa hit it, do you?”

“I don’t know.” Twilight closed her eyes again and an expression of pain crossed her face. “The report said that the place looked as though it was untouched. No sign of battle. No buildings damaged, nothing burnt down, there was nothing to see from the air but the scouts did not put hooves down on the ground.” Twilight’s eyes opened and she looked up at Chrysalis.

“We need to go and investigate what has happened.” Chrysalis turned and looked at Sideralis, her face full of concern and anger. “Twilight, I don’t know if we can stick to the schedule.”

“But he’s untested and we’re still diagnosing Scootaloo… you can’t be serious!” Twilight backed away from Chrysalis, her nostrils flaring, and her wings fluttering at her sides. “You are serious. You really do think we should just pack them up on The Ouroboros and head off… Chrysalis, they are untested and untried.”

“We need to do something… we can’t just have our friends and allies disappearing,” Chrysalis replied, “and for all we know, this place might be empty now, cleaned out and the occupants shipped off to Equestria. If not, we get to do some real combat testing with Sid.”

“The, um, gun pods are finished and ready to go,” Doctor Gizmo said in a low, hesitant voice, not wanting to get involved in the budding argument that seemed to be brewing. “Sideralis’ weapon mounts can be tested at any time.”

“Twilight, we all knew that it would come to this sooner or later. We can’t always follow a schedule or a plan. We made Sideralis and the others for battle… not lazing about in the city and occasionally doing construction work.” Chrysalis lowered her head until she was eye to eye with Twilight. “Isla Colibaba was a major port of call for us. A place where we resupplied. They were our friends. We owe them and we need to find out what happened.”

“I’m ready to go at any time,” Sideralis said, trying to be helpful. His ears pinned back against his head and he looked at Twilight and gave her a hopeful smile. “I feel fine, really.”

“If we go there and something waits for us, Sideralis and Scootaloo both are untested in combat. Apple Bloom only has the barest combat training, and most it is implanted experience taken from Mjölna, Mustang, and Stout.” Twilight’s ears perked forwards and the smaller alicorn looked thoughtful.

“Sideralis has had multiple info dumps pumped into him.” Chrysalis’ eyes narrowed and she grinned a cunning grin. “He’s bigger and stronger than all of the rest of them put together. Whatever he lacks in actual combat experience he’ll make up with brute strength. Twilight, this is a much better test… if something happens. But that is a big if. We might get there and find the place is empty.”

“And then what?” Twilight asked. “What comes after?”

“We decide if we want to keep going and maybe test Mariposa’s defenses or if we want to come back home,” Chrysalis replied. She lifted her head and looked down on Twilight. “We need to do something. We have to do something. The ponies of Maredina need to know that we are still fighting. Watching The Ouroboros leave the harbour would be great for morale.”

“You’re right,” Twilight admitted in a small voice as she stared down at her own front hooves. She lifted her head, looking angry and defiant. She looked over at Sideralis. “I’m sorry, Sideralis, I wanted to go about this the right way, but life it seems has other plans. I wanted to give you time to adjust, to get used to your new body, and for you to have some training. Instead, it looks as though you’re going to have to learn about everything the hard way.”

“Okay.” Sideralis grinned, feeling brave, and he looked Twilight in the eye.

Looking at the doctor, Twilight’s brows furrowed as she took on a commanding pose. “Doctor Gizmo, let’s see if those weapon pods fit properly. Can we do a test fitting right now?”

“Sure thing, they’re in the ballistics laboratory. I was making some adjustments and improvements on them. We can go and do a fitting right this second.” Doctor Gizmo stepped out from behind the console, looking excited and happy. “Oh, I’ve been waiting for this for quite some time now.”

The ballistics laboratory was full of strange devices and Sideralis stood gawking at all of the stuff around him. Stout had joined them, Sideralis suspected that she had been called to reassure him if he needed it, and even though he would never admit it, Sideralis was overwhelmed by everything.

“Welcome to ballistics… we actually have more than just projectile weapons here, we’re researching a whole bunch of energy weapons at the moment. Telekinetic pulses, like those that Stout can fire from the projectors on her front hooves, can be amplified a great deal to strike with a lot more force. We’re making beam weapons, energy weapons, and experimenting with modifications to the basic telekinesis projector design.” Doctor Gizmo stood in the middle of the room, looking proud.

“What’s that?” Sideralis asked as he stared at a strange boxy looking device that was mounted to a plastic pony statue. A long collection of tubes and wires ran down the neck and connected to a box mounted on the back.

“That is a head mounted beam projector. Anything a pony looks at the beam will focus on. We’ve mounted a few prototypes on pegasi already, they’re fliers with good eyes and a knack for targeting. The beam projector focuses a beam of energy the size of a pinpoint with thousands of pounds of force behind it. When applied to a target, it will burn through steel with some time, the continual application of force creates friction, which creates heat, which in turn melts steel, sets stuff on fire, and generally causes mayhem on the battlefield. Right now, we’re working on mounting a giant beam projector to The Ouroboros, but power consumption is an issue.”

Sideralis stood with his mouth agape.

“Weaponised telekinesis is only the beginning. The beam weaponry shows a lot of progress. We’re working on armor too… not useless metal armor, but modern armor that will actually protect our troops. Marigold was making progress into this area and the stuff we found in her vault gave us new directions, new ideas, we’ve been trying new things. With fully armored shock troops armed with powerful beam weapons, we can take the fight to the enemy. Mariposa might have numbers, but we have brilliant minds and technology.” Queen Chrysalis strode through the room, heading for a large display stand filled with strange looking devices.

“We also have the spine batons and digester guns that launch acid so powerful that it causes explosions when it breaks down molecular bonds.” Doctor Gizmo waved his hoof at a wall covered with fantastical looking items. “But for you, I’ve been working on something special.”

“Initialise weapons platform,” Queen Chrysalis said to Sideralis.

Something buzzed in Sideralis’ wings. He turned his head to look and as he watched, his wing extended. Both of them did. After unfolding, the illusion dropped away from his wings, revealing black metal struts, strange tubes, hydraulics, and metal blades that mimicked feathers. Sideralis watched as his wing transformed, getting longer, changing shape, several long struts extended and the metal clanked as it locked into place. When everything was done, his wings were several feet longer.

“We’ve put weapons mounts on your wings, near your body, and we designed them in such a way that you can use them flying or on the ground. When flying, the pods will be beneath your wings, near your ribs, tucked close to your body. You will have a variety of weapons to use on your foes. When on the ground, the weapon pods will rotate to the top of your wings as your wings fold in against your sides, and the weapon pods will extend outwards from your wings, still mounted against your sides. You will become an efficient ground based weapons platform.” Twilight looked grim as she approached Sideralis. “You were the only one big enough, powerful enough, and had the right body for this design. We’ve done the same with Scootaloo, but we couldn’t fit two big heavy weapons pods to her wings. We’ve fitted her with twin beam projectors, both of them small and light. For you, each weapons pod will have a digester cannon and mounted to the digester cannon will be two spine batons and two beam projectors. They’re big and they’re heavy and they will allow you to rain down destruction upon your enemies as you fly overhead.”

“That’s kinda cool,” Sideralis whispered, not knowing what else to say.

“The pods will have an interface that will connect to your targeting systems. You will be able to unleash devastating assaults upon your foes with pinpoint accuracy.” Doctor Gizmo almost appeared to be vibrating as he struggled to stand in one place. The unicorn made a gesture at a cabinet and it opened, revealing two large black devices.

The weapon pods were big, much larger than Sideralis expected for them to be. There was one central tube in the middle, which he assumed was the digester cannon. Mounted to the cannon were two smaller tubes, which he guessed were the spine batons, and two black boxes that had bright blue crystals mounted on the front, which Sideralis guessed were the telekinetic beam projectors.

As Sideralis stood watching, the pods were levitated from the cabinet, carried across the room, and then, with a few satisfying metallic clicks, were mounted beneath his wings. He could feel their weight. Something beeped in his ear and then a stream of garble flashed before his eyes, thousands of lines of words and numbers all moving in his vision far too fast to read.

He felt his wings fold up against his sides, the pods rotated with them, flipping to the top of his wings and then swivelling around so the weapons could face forwards. His wing tips, now longer, extended out past his backside a bit when folded against his sides.

“We can also use your pod mounts for high yield ordnance. We can outfit you with two bombs, each weighing about a hundred pounds or so. You’ll be able to fly with them and drop them from high altitude with little to no risk to yourself from ground defenses. The bombs are something special that Queen Acherontia has been cooking up, each bomb explodes with the equivalent force of about one thousand pounds or so of dynamite. The test explosions had to be seen to be believed.” Queen Chrysalis reached out and poked Sideralis with her hoof and peered at the weapons pods to make certain they were mounted the right way.

“Sideralis, we’ve been very, very busy while you were asleep. I didn’t want to dump all of this on you all at once, this was all supposed to be gradual so you’d have time to adjust to it. I hope you don’t feel overwhelmed,” Twilight said to Sideralis.

“Are you kidding? This is great… this is like in the movies or in the comic books… I can’t wait to try this out!” Sideralis replied, his whole body trembling with enthusiasm. “I can’t wait to blow something up. This is gonna be great!”

“Um, well, that was not the reaction I expected.” Twilight stepped away, looking a little disturbed. “Well then, this is a good thing I guess… I didn’t expect for you to be so happy about this. Most ponies take a while to adjust to the idea that they’re weapons.”

“Mustang took to it like a duck takes to water,” Stout said to Twilight. “Some ponies just ain’t like the rest of us. Looks like Sid and Sally will have something in common. Hopefully, those two don’t blow the rest of us up by accident.”

“Doctor Gizmo, Chrysalis, I want Sideralis proficient in the use of his weapons pods by the end of the day. I plan to disembark as soon as possible. Make the final adjustments to Scootaloo’s armaments as well. We have a lot to do before we go.” Twilight looked at Doctor Gizmo, then at Chrysalis. Then, pursing her lips, she looked up at Sideralis. “Thank you, Sideralis.”

“Think nothing of it,” Sideralis replied, looking down at Twilight.

Author's Notes:

Soon, very soon, Sideralis shows Stout his cannon.