Author's Notes:

Unfortunately at the time of this being published, we lack electricity due to Tropical Storm Matthew. Pray for those whom have been battered by the storm in Florida and Georgia.

In Transit to Canterlot City - Airship Eternal Skies

Johnny Alexis groaned, her dark amethyst eyes fluttering as she sat up, disoriented in the bunk. She found herself wearing a pale cyan blouse over baggy dark tan pants; she was barefoot. She swung her legs over the side of the bunk, dizzy as she coughed before clearing her throat. Her gaze slid around the rather plain bunk room, seeing only a small writing desk and the bunk which hung from dark olive green and copper ropes. Her eyes widened slightly at the polished silver of a mirror reflecting her form.

“What in the fuck?!?!” she barked, startled. She cocked her head in confusion before sighing, looking away out of the window. “It would be just my luck to end up as a genderbent Zero…. though they never really specified in the series whether Zero was originally male or female. It is just generally assumed he was male,” she muttered, grimacing.

She groaned as she tilted her head, soft pops of tense tendons the only sign of anything really bothering her. She ran her hands through messy dark golden auburn hair. She suspected that the case holding the Biometals was somewhere else, though that would require her exploring this place. From the hum, she assumed it was a plane, which would be simple to explore if it was a cargo plane. Unless it wasn’t, in which case it might be a bit harder. She shot a look outside, trying to see what sort of transport it was. The rolling land and trees were pleasant and appeared quite free, though her eyes spotted something interesting…. an airship much like that of the Hindenburg. She exhaled softly, as that gave her a hint of what sort of transport she was in, though she had never ridden in an airship, therefore she had little knowledge of how the interior was designed. She did know one very critical fact: never light a match within the balloon of one nor puncture it as from what she recalled, hydrogen was highly explosive.

However, there was one thing she wasn’t certain of in this particular case: was it actually hydrogen within the balloon for this particular airship? It could have been helium, which fortunately was an inert gas when it came to explosions. She giggled at that thought if a leak happened in here whilst the balloon was filled with helium.

“That would be funny… hearing everyone speaking with squeaky voices,” she snickered. She paused at a thought. “Wait a second… unicorns… airships… I can’t shake the feeling there’s something I’m missing,” she muttered, tapping her chin in thought. There was something nagging at the former male’s thoughts, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was.

“Apparently, at least part of my mind has some cyber enhancements, which if corrupted, would explain why my memories are fragmented. The question is, what sorts of enhancements do I have?” she murmured, unaware of the ability she could already access.

She exhaled softly, her eyes half closed as she concentrated, not noticing silvery scales much like those of a snake or dragon forming over her skin as the nanites reacted within her body, forming a shell of armor over her hands, forearms, and wrists. She could feel her skin tingling as she opened her eyes, blinking as she saw the change. A smirk crossed her face at the change.

“Could be useful in hand to hand combat, I suppose, though…. huh,” she said softly, noticing what appeared to be a small rounded trigger underneath her wrist. She tilted her wrist in a snapping motion, a streamer of pale golden slime hardening into thin tendrils not unlike arachnid webbing that clung to the wall.

“I have a feeling this will be fun,” she murmured with a smirk. She tilted her head as the silvery scales smoothed out into a bodysuit before it spread over her arms and upper torso, failing to notice that it effectively shredded the likely used outfit in the process. She felt the mild tingling sensation over her back and sides before it enclosed her upper body before sliding down her hips and down over her legs. A smirk crossed her face as she knew this would be useful. “Hmmm, what to call me like this… maybe Therapho? I mean, these nanites seem to allow me to manipulate them freely, so a secondary form could be quite useful,” she murmured. She looked closely, noticing that there were miniscule barbs, likely no more than a few millimeters, upon the tips and pads of her fingers. She tilted her head, her gaze scanning down the bodysuit, noticing the light hood over her shoulders before she rolled her shoulders.

(For reference, it looks similar to the Black Sacrament Armor, Female - Winter. For the individual parts of the armor... Look Here.)

A small smirk crossed her face as she noticed the amber-gold tone to her sight, unaware her gaze was shielded by a dull nonreflective amber-silver covering her face and temples with pale golden amber eyes. The mask melded with the mask covering her face forming slightly curving upper fangs while most of the suit was a dull gray with amber undertones.

She tilted her head, noticing that the mask seemed to have scanning capabilities, noting that the window slid down before she did just that, sliding the window down, a gust of air almost pushing her back for a few seconds before she grinned, rolling her shoulders before she pushed off, vaulting through the window in a fluid motion, tilting her head slightly so she could see before she flicked her wrists, the webbing firing out before clinging to the edges of the window as she tugged herself to the side of the airship, clinging to the wood and metal easily. “This is fun!!! I can see why a certain Spider enjoys moving around with it!!” she giggled as she tilted her head, hearing a barely audible click before a gasp followed. She guessed someone had come to check on her, so she crawled military style upward before she slid into a vent, fortunately cutting off the worst of the winds.

She smirked as she crawled stealthily, noticing that few in the hallways of the airship thought to look upward; she suspected her suit had dampening properties to make it more difficult for unicorns to sense her. She did notice one that was armored lightly with a light gray coat and a moderate sapphire blue mane streaked with dark pthalo blue and moderate cerulean. He looked nervous and unsure.

She hummed softly, thinking about what the readout had said. “Curious that the scanners cannot identify them, though it does make sense… they aren’t Human nor are they Reploids. That isn’t to say that some, potentially dangerous…. Mavericks… don’t exist, however,” she thought. She blinked, noticing a city that seemed unstable to her, clinging to the side of a mountain, however, there were many other airships that seemed to fly and land there.

That data had her cautious as she wasn’t sure how to react. She quickly made her way along the ceiling, noticing a wheel she recognized as a ship’s wheel, guessing it signaled the bridge, which was the most likely location of the case holding the Biometals. She slipped quietly and carefully along the ceiling before noticing the case in question on a desk near the ship’s wheel, which made her grin. “Just what we’re looking for,” she thought as she crawled close to the case before snagging it with a web before reeling it in and touching it to the small of her back where it attached itself as if glued.

“Where’s the case at? Who took it?” a gruff militaristic pony snapped.

“Hmmm, I don’t know where it could be… maybe with the only one who can most likely use it?” she quipped nonchalantly, amused as everyone abruptly panicked, obviously startled by the unexpected voice. She did notice that several of the unicorns aimed barely visible tendrils of light she deduced were almost like laser pointers at her, however, obviously wary. “Thought you could take what doesn’t belong to you? I mean, really. If they don’t react to you, you ain’t gonna be able to use them,” she deadpanned, crouching nonchalantly on the ceiling as if it were the floor. Almost the same moment, the pony she’d caught a glimpse of skidded in, panting hard before staring at her with confusion.

“Wh-what is that?” he stuttered.

“What’s what? I mean, I wake up here… nobody asks me how I feel, nobody checks on me… though I’m kinda starving, frankly,” came her dry, amused reply. The mask retracted, revealing the deep emerald-aquamarine irises and lightly tanned skin as well as the messy dark auburn hair falling in wild, untamed waves.

“Ugh… still getting used to that. It was why I always held my hair back…. though I can’t quite remember why,” she sighed, blowing a lock of hair out of her eyes. She shifted her weight, somersaulting to land in a crouch as her hair fell down to the middle of her back. She didn’t miss that they had slowed and was slowly drifting lower. She noticed, out of the corner of her eye as ropes were cast downward.

She glanced at the unicorn pony with the light gray coat and moderate sapphire blue mane streaked with dark pthalo blue and moderate cerulean. She cocked her head with a small smile, amused as he blushed. She tilted her head, noticing the dark sapphire blue shield with a magenta starburst topped by a trio of small cerulean stars on his flank beneath what seemed to be copper or bronze armor. She hummed in thought, thinking. “If that’s either bronze or copper, the former would be better defensively, but I see many gaps that would leave him incapacitated, underneath his legs, just beneath the rib cage and what would pass for his lower back, I suppose. Not to mention his abdomen which is completely exposed,” she mused. “Could layer it with fabric and a layer of ceramic to increase defense, maybe fine mesh,” she thought. Her father had been military while her mother had been a seamstress. It meant more than a little of what knowledge she had been passed from them to her.