"D-didnt you see what you did?? You launched some kind of lightning at the raiders and a lot more!" Snow exclaimed
Damien looked back a the town and the dead raiders, then remembering shooting a bolt of rainbow lightning at a raider that sent him flying like a rag doll. "Guess I did..." Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
Meanwhile, Julion and his small group had arrived in New Apploosa. Julion had convinced himself the stallion who killed his last Bloody 2 and almost himself was responsible for the attack on Ponyville and was using it as an excuse to hunt him, something those with him understood, all of whom have been long time Commandos. They began setting about finding him and capturing him to bring back to the Commandos to be executed.
Damien looked back down at the town below him then trotted back down the hill. "Well, might as well set up shop." he said just looked before levitating some trash and throwing it out off the way. The rest of the MOCKINGBIRDS then followed down the hill and helped clean it up, starting by dealing with the recently dead raiders
The corpses of the raiders were taken just outside of town and set alight with fuel to act as a funeral pyre for safety and health reasons. Benedict put his strength to good use and carried multiple bodies at a time.Even the main street was cleaned up About half an hour later, everything was cleaned up and it was safe to enter the town and the building that looked the most relaxing to stay inside was a three story hotel at the end of the mainstreet where a 'T' intersection took place.
Snow came into the town after it was cleaned out, "You know, it's kinda funny...I was a leading weaponry designer back in the War, yet I'm so queasy and such when it comes to the effects of war..." She muttered out loud.
"You were not alone. All of us used to know a Ranger back in our world who despite being a trained killer actually hated the effects that war brought herself. She served because she felt it was right and it was something she believed in. She's a true patriot." Roger replied before looking Snow in the eye. "We miss her..." Upon walking with Snow, Roger noticed that Damien was on the roof of the tallest building in town, a terminal sat on the desk as he searched through it. It appeared to be the Raiders, but something potentially valuable could be found through it.
Snow nodded in response to Rodger before shivering a little bit from her own thoughts and then trotting into the hotel where she closed herself off to think, and to mourn,,,
Damien sat down at the terminal, relaxing himself and his thoughts before searching through multiple historical entries across the terminal. While some were diary entries, others were news reports. While he read them during the rest of the day, he encountered what appeared to be a clue to a location. A second later, there was a hologram of a young that seemed to be a genius, and unbelievably wealthy. "To any survivors of Equestria's last day We've never seen any of this coming, except those who thought outside of the box. Ultimately, this damn war was going to escalate to these unthinkable proportions. But I seen it coming while everybody was blinded by their own patriotism and petty squabbles. We should have stopped before we reached Roam, we should have stopped half way. Before the final moments of our history, I was the pony responsible for the first Artificial Intelligence and the groundbreaking advancements in AI & cybernetics. A few months before the war, I spent years working on the worlds first AI, and I basically done so almost by myself. My work turned me into a very successful pony in terms of economics, and I was admired as a hero in the science industry. I seen the ultimate conclusion of the war ending in such a way, so about five years prior to the destruction of Equestria, I got an underground stable built specifically for me and my favorite Cyber Ponies where I could continue my research and sometime in the future, save Equestria from the previous....derailment. If you survived the war, I have included multiple security systems and the coordinates for my Stable. But as you can tell, I'm not going to let anypony just discover my location. The password is protected by a hoof scanner that only accepts specific ponies. If the password fails, then you would trigger a turret to spring up from the rooftop and persuade you to leave. Simple as that. My name was Comet Chaser, pre-war billionaire and the inventor of the Artificial Intelligence. If you are reading this with peaceful intentions, there might be hope for Equestria after all. " Damien leaned back before noticing something appear from the ground, which happened to be a large laser sentry pop from the ground. He then got up from the chair and went downstairs to fetch Snow.
Snow looked up as Damien entered the room she was in, but she hid her face and the tears that had been streaming down it. The sight of her husband's skeleton on their old bed, and knowing that...in the end...she was the one that killed him and tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of ponies and Zebra. "What is it?" She asked as stable as possible
Damien walked inside of the room and sat down on the bed next to Snow. "I've found something that might be of interest to you on a computer terminal. Security measures are insane and it seems to only allow specific ponies to access the terminal. Somepony named Comet Chaser." He looked down to see Snows sadness and couldn't help but feel guilty to some extent before preparing to get off the bed. "I'm sorry, perhaps this isn't the right time for me to come in.."
"No...don't worry, you can stay.." she said quietly, "And Comet Chaser..." she started before huffing slightly, "What a constallion, brilliant programmer yes, but still a con. Claimed he made a truly intelligent, free thinking ai, but I never saw anything beyond the long developed AI programs already avaliable. Robots can't be truly intelligent, they can't feel, they can't learn truly. They can seem like they are intelligent and such, but behind them is a pony who programmed them, meaning they are limited. They aren't free-thinking..." Snow said quietly, "And if he was still alive...He wouls have had to uploaded himself onto a machine's programmming, something I would not want to meet..." she added, "Why did you bring him up?"
"I found a holographic data entry on a terminal upstairs from him, likely written by him or one of his robots just after the Last Day. From what I've seen and what you have said, he doesn't look very trustworthy." Damien replied. "Thought it might interest you." Damien then looked at Snow again, looking right into her eyes. "And Snow, I want to say thank you for everything that you have done to help us. Without you, we wouldn't see ourselves getting very far in Equestria at all. You looked after my comrades and friends, you comforted me and my essence and you've looked after me when I was on the verge of death. You saved my life Snow, I'll never forget that." Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
Snow nodded in thanks before deciding something, "Thanks for the kind words but.. " She looked up and out the window, "I'm not a good pony. I caused the war because of my own selfish greed. I was trying to buy out unlimited access to the Zebra coal mines, a tactic I could have always done...then acted like in the negotiations I was taken prisoner, hoping that thw Wonderbolts would come and "rescue" me and kill Caesar and his Legatus, opening the door for an installation of a more...business friendly regime...that operation wemt disastrously wrong and caused the war...which was mainly a border dispute until the Massacre...and then I encouraged the war effort, I war profiteered, supplying both sides right up until the immediate aftermath of the Massacre and the installation of the Ministries...one thing lead to another, and I focused myself on supplying my sister's, Dark Light, army, the Commandos, wanting to finish what I had started...then Fluttershy developed the damn megaspells and now look at what happened!" Snow flung her front legs in exasperation at the window looking out to the Wasteland, "Tens of millions, if not hundreds! All died because of my mistakes! And the worst part? We didnt even need the damn coal! Equestria is filled to the brim with oil but I figured the conversation would be much more expensive than to buy the mines!" She then threw herself facedown on the bed and began sobbing uncontrollably, "M-my whole family died because of me..."
Damien placed a hoof onto Snow's shoulder before deciding to speak. "I understand where you are coming from, my mentor was exactly like you before the war. But anyway, you've been burdened by...'ghosts' of your past. Everything went beyond your control and before anything could be done to stop it, you caused the apocalypse. Innocence is the first thing to die in war, after all. But despite everything that has happened, I don't see you as a bad pony. I see a kind and loving mare with good intentions for this world that unfortunately didn’t see what would ultimately happen in the end.” “You can start again, Ms.Mark. As much as we would both like to, we can’t fix the mistakes we have made. We have both lost somepony that meant the world the world to us due to our....’mistakes’, and we both need to atone to the sins we have committed in both of our worlds. I have respect for you Snow, but you need to answer this question to yourself. Where do we go from here?" With that Damien got off the bed and walked to the door, turning back at Snow and have her a smile that seemed to say 'everything will be alright' before the door closed behind him.
Snow sighed and flopped over on her back and began thinking of what Damien had said. He spoke the truth, she couldn't constantly hate herself for what happened, she had to make up for her mistakes and leave this world a better place. She sighed slowly before closing her eyes in meditation.
(I will) After a few days of rest, the MOCKINGBIRDS felt ready to continue onwards on their travels. The town itself however, was actually approached by multiple wastelanders on their journey, including some ex-enclave pegasi who had been marked as outcasts (Can't seem to write the actual term because it's censored for some reason). Pretty soon, the former raider nest was starting to turn into a fully functional town and while the new company was nice, the MOCKINGBIRDS thought that would would attract unwanted attention from Red Eye and other hostiles, but what concerned them the most were the Commandos.
