“You boneheaded twit, you took Rainbow Dash into danger!”

Sideralis stood at attention, or tried to, as Captain Blossomforth gave him a good dressing down. A few feet away, Rainbow Dash was trying to pull off her pads, her helmet, and her goggles. This was not what he expected upon his return.

“Hey!” Rainbow shouted as she kicked her hind leg, trying to free herself of some pads. “You leave him alone! I was never in any danger up there! You shot me with those high pressure cannons you have! Those hurt!”

“Rainbow, don’t even… you’re not in the best health and you don’t need to be going into low oxygen environments! What Sideralis did was risky.” Blossomforth’s face contorted into a furious scowl.

“How about you shut up!” Rainbow gave a hard kick and the pads around her leg flew off, hit the tarmac, and bounced. “I am one of the greatest fliers ever. I used to fly up there at that altitude! I was one of the few ponies that could! I was never in any danger up there with Sid! I saved my breath and all that happened to me was that I got relaxed and a little sleepy! You, you’re just pissed off because he shot some of your best fliers and then outsmarted you!”

Chewing her lip, Blossomforth glared at Rainbow Dash for several long moments, and then her scowl softened a bit. “He’s not terrible for a pony that flies like a cargo wagon tossed off a cliff.”

Rainbow, who could change moods as fast as she used to change directions, laughed. “Say, that’s quite a compliment, considering the source. You never have anything nice to say about anypony, Blossomforth.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Blossomforth asked.

“I’m fine… it was relaxing. I missed being up there,” Rainbow replied. She looked skywards, her eyes narrowing as she squinted into the bright light, and then turned to look at Sideralis. “You fly like Tank did.” Rainbow Dash’s whiplash mood changed again and she sniffled. “I miss him. So many ponies and others that I miss.”

“Sideralis… you and I are going up there again tomorrow I think. And I’m gonna work you over until you drop out of the sky. I’m gonna push you to the very bleeding edge until I find out what you’re made of, and then I’m gonna see if I can break it.” Blossomforth whipped out her wing and saluted Sideralis. “For right now though, get outta my sight, escort Rainbow Dash back to Fluttershy, and have yourself a nice little break. You have a fitting in a few hours.”

“Fitting?” Sideralis asked.

“You’ll see,” Blossomforth replied.

“Blossomforth used to be such a nice pony,” Rainbow Dash said as she got comfortable in her chair. “She’s changed so much. Everypony has. A lot of my old friends are no longer the ponies I remember. Especially Twilight.”

Rainbow Dash and Sideralis both were sitting in Cyclops Science and Research Center’s cafeteria, having a cold, refreshing drink together while they waited upon Fluttershy and Stout. Rainbow Dash was sipping fruit punch out of a large plastic cup, which was filled with ice and had a straw sticking out of it. Sideralis was working on a super-giant-megasize fruit smoothie made with a dozen kinds of fruit, yogurt, and nutritional supplements. On the side of Sideralis’ drink, the words “The 128 Ounce Destroyer” were written in bright red zigzag letters.

“It’s funny… I can talk to you. We understand each other.” Rainbow Dash looked over at Sideralis. “We both were asleep for so long. We just sort of woke up and here we are. The world is a strange place for the both of us.” Rainbow shook her head. “I just wish it wasn’t so weird though. I woke up and most of the ponies I know are strangers. The only pony that really hasn’t changed all that much is Fluttershy. Twilight? She’s hard now… colder. She’s also harder to understand. Scootaloo… she’s different. She’s so kind… even when she was real sick, she somehow managed to look after others. She’s grown up and become the pony that I always hoped she would be.” Rainbow Dash reached up and rubbed the side of her face with her fetlock.

Rainbow looked around the cafeteria, watching the other ponies as they went about their day, her eyes lingering on those living out their lives around her. She felt a bit of a headache coming on and she rubbed her head again, just below her ear.

“Scootaloo took after Fluttershy I guess after I was gone. I guess Flutters was the last pegasus around that Scoots really knew. I dunno what happened, I’m still trying to put the pieces together.” Rainbow Dash leaned up against the table and hugged her drink closer to her. Her lips hovered over her straw and there was a pensive expression upon her face.

Sideralis had faint memories of Scootaloo hobbling around on leg braces, trying to brighten up the lives of other ponies. And then there was that horrible day of the attack. He felt a twinge of sadness and anger.

“Here comes General Thunderclap,” Rainbow said as she lifted up her hoof and pointed at a silvery white pegasus. “Lord Protector of the city of Maredina.”

Sideralis turned around and saw a familiar looking pegasus that he had only met a few times. He found that he was quite happy to see Thunderclap. Sideralis smiled as the pegasus approached, and he could see that Thunderclap was smiling.

The silvery white pegasus stopped a few feet away from the table and bowed his head. “Prince Sideralis… how do you do?” Thunderclap lifted his head and his smile became a grin. “Somepony pissed in Captain Blossomforth’s cornflakes and left her in quite a bad state. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Sideralis shook his head and he heard Rainbow Dash laughing.

“How have you been? You look good. They fixed you up… I’ve been worried… to be honest, I’ve been beside myself.” Thunderclap, without an invitation, came to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. “Miss Dash.” The silvery white pegasus gave Rainbow a casual salute with his wing.

“What brings you here to Cyclops?” Rainbow asked.

Thunderclap let out a grunt as he made himself comfortable, he settled into his chair, flexed his wings, and cracked his neck to the left, then to the right, producing a series of satisfying crackle-pops. “No formal reason…” Thunderclap looked over at Sideralis. “I just wanted to check up on things that are important.”

In the distance, somepony dropped a piece of silverware and it clattered on the floor, startling Rainbow Dash, whose feathers ruffled. The little blue pegasus fluffed out, snorted, and shot an irritated stare in the direction of the sound.

“Twilight Sparkle plans to leave as soon as equinely possible.” Thunderclap cleared his throat. “I wanted to say goodbye and to tell you good luck. Sideralis, be careful. You might be a machine now, but you can still be hurt… or worse. Make no mistake, you can die. Just… don’t do anything foolish.”

“I’ll do my best,” Sideralis replied in a sincere voice.

“Son…” Thunderclap’s voice sounded strained as he spoke. “It’s a real bad thing if a city goes dark. Now, I’m not trying to scare you, but I am trying to warn you. If a city goes dark, that is never a good sign. Especially when enemy changelings are involved. Keep your wits about you, stay close to Stout and Mustang, try to stay behind Mjölna.” Thunderclap’s eyes narrowed. “I mean that… you stay behind Mjölna and you watch what she does. She has lived through some stuff that you wouldn’t believe, and she has a lot that she can teach you.”

“I’ll do my best to stay out of trouble, but I make no promises… I was made to fight.”

“And you will fight… I’m just saying, try to learn from Mjölna first. Don’t go rushing in and do anything stupid. I’m old… I can’t fight worth a lick no more… all I have is experience and advice.” The silvery white pegasus let out a weary sigh and looked at Rainbow Dash. “That’s about all the two of us can do, isn’t it?”

Rainbow nodded, her head bobbing with enthusiasm. “Yep.”

“Isla Colibaba is a nice place. They grow olives. It’s a little chain of islands out in the middle of the ocean in the middle of some ancient caldera that forms a natural protected harbour around the islands. The islands have volcanic soil. They grow… well, they grew the best olives in the world. It’s a beautiful place. Or it was. Luna and I went there together once. She was there as a diplomat and I was there as her bodyguard. We had a lovely time.” The pegasus let out a wistful sigh.

The scent of vegetable casserole surprise wafted out into the dining area as the kitchen began cooking up a fresh batch. More savoury scents could also be smelled; tater tots, stuffed baked potato skins, corn fritters, apple fritters, and the sweet scent of other desserts. The kitchen was gearing up for the late afternoon lunch crowd.

“Miss Dash?” Thunderclap looked at the younger pegasus beside him.

“Yeah?” Rainbow’s rose coloured eyes focused on Thunderclap, studying him.

“As an old pony, I trust in advice and experience. I have to stay here and protect Maredina. Look after Sideralis for me… and keep him in line. Can you do that for me?” Thunderclap’s eyes narrowed and his bushy eyebrows furrowed.

“Aye aye, sir!” Rainbow’s wing folded out and she raised it in salute. “Always happy to tell another pony what to do.”

Thunderclap chuckled and most of the worry drained from his face. He cast his gaze upon Sideralis. “Learn from those around you. Now, I ain’t saying you can’t trust in the information that was dumped into your head, but I am saying that you can learn from practical stuff from ponies like Rainbow Dash here if you pay attention.”

Sideralis, thinking about the loop maneuver and how he had dropped down on his enemies, nodded. The information was one thing, the experience to use it was another.

“Go off and make your mother proud. When you come back, Maredina will be waiting for you, and I’ll keep it safe and secure. Also… both of you… I have a mission for you.” Thunderclap gave both Rainbow Dash and Sideralis a sly look.

“A mission?” Sideralis’ ears perked forwards.

“I think Twilight is under a lot of pressure. She needs somepony to cheer her up. Can the two of you do that?” Thunderclap asked.

Sideralis glanced over at Rainbow Dash. There were issues between Rainbow and Twilight. Things were strained. He glanced back at Thunderclap, who was waiting for some kind of reply. Sideralis gave the silver white pegasus a slow nod. “We can keep an eye on Twilight and try to cheer her up.”

Rainbow let out a little groan, squirmed, and then nodded as well. “Anything for a friend, right?”

Queen Chrysalis had a peculiar bounce in her step. Sideralis, unable to help himself, grinned as the changeling queen pranced around the laboratory. She was in a fantastic mood it seemed, and he knew why. As Chrysalis went around the lab and looked at things, Doctor Gizmo Gears was pulling pieces of equipment off of a rack.

This was exciting. He was being fitted with his extreme high altitude gear. Already, his wings had been extended and were now folded against his sides. The extended ends stuck out past his hindquarters now.

The lab was filled with doohickeys, doodads, thingamajigs, and other bits and bobs that Sideralis had no clue as to what they were, but everything was exciting.

“We’ve been analysing your flight telemetry. Our initial estimates about your weight capacity were underestimated. Instead of carrying a single bomb under each wing, Chrysalis and I both think that you should be able to take two under each wing, or maybe even three.” Gizmo glanced at a panel that flashed and beeped, then looked back at Sideralis. “Today, when you were training, you achieved negative G-forces and pulled a maneuver where you hit a surprising eight Gs. We were even more surprised that Rainbow Dash was okay with it. Nopony expected you to fly like that so soon after waking up. We underestimated a lot about you.”

“It’s the love, Gizmo—”

“That isn’t something that is so easy to measure,” Gizmo said, cutting the changeling queen off. He shook his head. “We make safe estimates based on the hard numbers that we can know and deduce.”

“The love is supercharging him. Making him stronger, faster, better. Stout’s love…” Queen Chrysalis paused and licked her lips while letting out a lewd sounding hiss, “and the love of others has made you far more capable than we had previously thought possible.”

Doctor Gizmo lifted up what appeared to be a mask and held it in front of Sideralis’ face. “This might be a little uncomfortable. Just try to hold still and don’t fight it. Everything will be fine.”

Sideralis nodded and braced himself. The mask was held up in front of his face. It was more like a helmet, but looked almost… insectoid. He gasped as it was placed over his face and the piece of armor became alive.

He could feel tugging on his eyes. He knew his eyes were no longer regular eyeballs, but armored for protection. The sensation he was feeling wasn’t exactly painful, but it was uncomfortable. He could feel his face being tugged on as the armor slid down into place, securing itself against him. Were magnets at work? There was a slurping feeling on his nose and two tubes snaked their way up his nostrils. He tried to whinny, but couldn’t. He felt claustrophobic almost, and the pressure on his head increased. A hiss of strange tasting air puffed into his mouth as something rubbery pushed its way past his lips.

His head was full of pressure, so much so that he was sure that it was going to pop. He tried yawning, but couldn’t move his jaw. He felt something slithering down his ears, the pressure kept rising, and Sideralis stomped his hooves a few times as he tried to bear the uncomfortable sensation.

There was a loud pop from between his ears and then he was okay. Some techno garble flashed before his eyes. He took a deep breath and could taste the metallic air upon his tongue. He looked around and felt something being strapped to his back. Turning his head around, he saw several tanks being secured. He could feel something wiggling around deep in his nostrils, almost into his sinuses. The helmet is a living thing, Sideralis thought to himself.

More pieces were being snapped into place now. Heavy plates were put around his neck and he felt them give him quite a squeeze. A few words flashed in front of his eyes, mentioning that a pressure regulation system was being initialised to optimise blood flow to his brain. The pressure around his neck became a soothing massage. He relaxed.

His ears were swallowed up inside of the intimidating black helmet and when he looked into a mirror held up by Doctor Gizmo, he saw that his head was now sleek, streamlined, and he was bug-eyed. His horn was covered by a protective sheath. On each side of his head, two streamlined beam projectors were mounted on either side of his eyes. More weapons, these ones head mounted. Already, his targeting systems were calibrating the new weapons.

More plates were being added to his legs, and he saw messages telling him that the pressure regulation system was being updated. He could feel pressure on his legs that became a soothing massage, just like his neck. The plates buzzed and hummed around his body.

“He looks…” Doctor Gizmo’s words trailed off and the little unicorn shook his head.

“Like something out of Tartarus,” Queen Chrysalis finished. “Let our enemies tremble.”

Author's Notes:

Mr. Blue you did it right,
But soon comes Mr. Night,
Creepin' over, now his
Hand is on your shoulder,
Never mind I'll remember you this way.