Prince Blueblood followed us into the city. He kept trying to levitate Rosy back to him. It was funny the first three times I shattered his magical field with a small tug on her body. After the fifth time I got annoyed and lightly pinned Rosy to my chest with my left arm, after that every time he tried the field was immediately shattered when I took my next step. We where halfway to headquarters when we ran into Sunny Smiles and a dozen members of The Marshalls. Accompanying them were two ponies I recognized as members of the fabrication department. They were both wearing what I would later learn was the final model of the M240 battle saddle.
“Oh, hey Sunny it’s nice to see somepony who can help us with this little legal matter.”
It took her a few seconds to realize who I was “Inaba…what legal matter?”
“Blueblood lost a duel to me and is refusing to uphold the agreed upon terms for his loss.”
“I see…” she nodded to The Marshalls who moved to surround Blueblood “in that case we now have additional charges on which to arrest him. We already have breaking and entering, harassment, foalnapping, attempted foalnapping, and now we have breach of contract.”
“I can act as a witness for the attempted foalnapping. He has already made more than a dozen additional attempts since he lost the duel.”
“Get away from me you commoners! I am a noble! No, not just a noble a direct blood relative of the Princesses them-”
Before I realized what I had done my arm had swung down and I had smashed the obnoxious bastard under my hand. I lifted it slowly he would be severely injured but he would recover and it was so worth it.
“Don’t talk to me about being royalty. I am Inaba of the House of Stuart, Duchess of Inverness, daughter of Princess Catherine, granddaughter of the Queen Mother of Scotland and tenth in line for the throne. So what if you’re descended from the Princesses, because your line started over a thousand years ago the relationship is so distant it wouldn’t even be worth calculating let alone boasting about.”
Well that might be stretching the truth…okay it was mostly an outright lie; but Charles Edward Stuart was like my several times great second cousin. I was way closer to being royalty than he was to the Princesses.
Sunny was beaming “And now we have assaulting a foreign dignitary. Take him in, the two of you go with them, if the culprit tries to flee…well you know what to do.”
“You can’t do this!”
“Your status as a noble means nothing in Trottingham. We have our own legal system and unlike the courts in Canterlot we don’t give preferential treatment to anypony.”
“What of her?!” he pointed at me “She assaulted an Equestrian noble!”
Sunny looked rather smug “She is apparently a foreign dignitary and as such has diplomatic immunity.”
The Marshalls snapped a bronze colored ring around Blueblood’s horn as he struggled to get away. He didn’t make it very far before the thunderous crack of a 7.62 millimeter round being fired. He screamed and staggered as the round passed through the lower part of his right hind leg. The ground ahead of him exploded as the round buried itself into it. It was clean and through shot and both entry and exit wounds were small due to the close range. One of The Marshalls came forward and bandaged the wound before heaving the injured noble onto his back. With a curt nod the law enforcement group left for their main headquarters.
I looked at the pony that shot “You’re cleaning that weapon when we get back and don’t leave that casing behind either.”
“So, when are you royalty?” Sunny asked
I started walking “I’ll explain when we get to HQ. I want to do something that might be extremely stupid. I’m going to talk to the Scyphozoa.”
“What?!” She squeaked as she kept up “I thought you said it was used to brainwash people and because its master is dead you didn’t know what it would or even could do.”
“I did and I don’t. But, I have the Key so that significantly improves my chance to succeed in making it work for us. It was probably the most intelligent monster XANA ever created. I think Kolossus might be close to it in durability but he WAS able to be killed, something that was never achieved with the Scyphozoa.”
“I think Blueblood’s actions may have made you a bit unhinged.”
“No, but shooting him in the leg has me shook up. The guns are only to be used to defend the city and its people from attack. Obnoxious nobles stealing your granddaughter don’t count. Now if the noble was leading a group of ponies in an attack to steal her with no regard for who and what they destroyed along the way then the use of guns would be okay to subdue but not to kill. On the other hand, if they were just attacking the city then shoot to kill would be acceptable but not preferable.”
I took note of the massive emerald sitting in the middle of town square and filed it away under ‘later investigation’.
“They weren’t actually supposed to hit him. Just shoot near him. Blitz and Luger are the most precise shooters we right now but even they miss sometimes.”
I sighed “I’ll give you that point. Even the best shooters don’t always hit their mark.”
“I assume you have a plan.”
“If you want to call it that, I’m gonna use the Key so everyone can understand it. Then I’m going to try and convince it of the truth and get it to work for us. If it doesn’t believe me about the truth then I’ll use the Key so it knows I’m not lying.”
“Why not use the Key to make it obey you?”
“Several reasons but mostly because it’s wrong. Secondly it might impair its reasoning skills. The last reason I’m going to list is that it would make its usefulness very limited if I’m the only one it will listen to.”
She nodded “You have a Plan B right?”
“Yes, I’ll give you the details after I change back.”
A flash of light, a short elevator ride, and several explanations later had me in Lopmon form riding on Sunny’s back. She perused the information I had written down while in Ponyville. We gathered a large group as we made our way to the organism storage area. We split them into smaller groups as we made it to the Scyphozoa itself. I made sure that strong ropes were distributed amongst the smaller groups. The ropes where gently tied around its tentacles and three were wrapped around its body. As it thawed the ropes were slowly tightened to keep it from attacking us. I stood directly in front of it and with a touch of the Key made it possible for everyone to understand it.
As it thawed completely it began thrashing “Where am I? What is going on?!”
I held up my paws in a placating gesture “Just calm down, I’ll explain everything.”
It didn’t work the Scyphozoa kept thrashing, the groups were starting to struggle and I was lost my patience I barked a simple command “STOP!”
When I shouted the Scyphozoa went limp, the ponies holding the ropes dropped them, and everyone else who was working in the area slumped into a sitting position. It was weird but effective. Hopefully I could figure out how to do that without shouting…or affecting everyone in a room.
“You are on a different in planet, in another dimension. XANA has been destroyed. The Lyoko Warrior’s have won and your side has lost. Do you understand what that means?” He gave a bob which I took to mean yes “Good, now you have a few options open to you. One, you can help us willingly. Two, I can force you to help us…well let’s call that option three instead. So, old option three that’s now option two you can choose to fight us and we’ll just refreeze you and let you rot down here for the rest of eternity.”
“I see…I cannot feel the presence of XANA. You are telling me the truth. I shall join you in your endeavors. What would you have me do?”
I blinked “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
I scratched the back of my head “Huh…honestly I didn’t expect you to agree so easily. Um…okay let’s get those ropes off you and…um…Sunny how soon can you get ponies started on Plan B?”
“It’ll take about a day or so to get the proper paperwork filed and then The Mason’s will get to work excavating the edges of the wall. As to the question of how old the walls are they were here before the city was founded. In fact the city was built here BECAUSE of the walls.”
I turned back the Scyphazoa “ Scyphozoa is a bit of a mouthful to say, can I just call you Scipio instead?”
“Scipio…that name is acceptable.”
“Okay Scipio my plan is riding on the assumption that you know how to construct or program the creation of a one of XANA’s Towers.”
“I can do you one better than simply answering your question.” He moved swiftly wrapping two of his tentacles around my waist. I gestured for everyone to remain still. He lifted me slowly and put one on either side of my head and against my horns. My head was encased in a green aura and suddenly I saw the Library in my mind and a special shelf was created with anything and everything I ever wanted to know about the Towers. It filled quickly as Scipio copied the data from his own mind. It was over in a few seconds. He removed his limbs and gently set my down.
I waved away my concerned friends “I’m fine. Just…just give me a minute. Woo. That…that felt weird one second nothing and then the next…just wow.” I took a deep breath “Okay, next step, we need item 12X from shelf…37A, aisle Roanoke. I would like for it to be brought to the center HQ.”
“We could never figure out how to make it work. Whatever its power supply was we couldn’t find it.”
“I remembered what it is and I think I know how to turn it on. But before I turn it on we need to clear out some space.”
Once we got there it took about twenty minutes to clear everything out of the way so the Tower would have enough space to sit. The ceiling here was higher and the tower would have about five feet of height clearance, plenty of space for maintenance to go up and change light bulbs. After that we waited half an hour for the item to arrive I had it set up right at the edge of the cleared space. It was a large burgundy box about five feet tall, two feet wide, and two feet long it had a screen on one side which was facing into the aisle. After several minutes of examining it I popped a hatch off the side and re-inserted its power core which had come loose. I spent the next hour working through its programming and entering the data it would need to digistruct a Tower.
Programming finished I stepped away from it “This is what’s known as a Catch-a-Ride Station. I didn’t recognize it before because this is a newer model and it was turned off. What it does is somehow reconstruct an object or in some cases person through a method that’s has never been explained but works perfectly fine. It’s been assumed to be some sort of hard light. The process is called digistruct and that’s how I’m going to build a Tower.” I pushed the activation key.
The machine projected a light blue hologram of the Tower appeared, complete with the knobby base. It quickly solidified and filled in with color. Most of the Tower became the familiar light tan. The base became mostly dark brown and the large wires took on their grey color. With its form completed a white aura enveloped the top and the light from the machine vanished. We now stood facing a solid and very real Tower.
“You never explained why you were doing this.” Sunny said
“A few reasons but the important one is a low occupancy long range rapid transit. In order for that to work I need to digistruct a second Tower.”
“The coast is just a few hours from the West Gate. When you get there head north along the beach there’s a cave who’s entrance is blocked at high tide there’s enough space inside for the Tower.”
I gripped the Catch-a-ride and digivolved “I’m a little big now can somepony open one of those large external hatches for me?”
Twenty minutes of walking later and we stood in front of a section of floor that gently sloped upward. A team of six worked a system of levers and the ceiling over it slowly lifted. I had to crouch a bit to get out from under it as I stepped into the evening sunlight. I was given directions to both the West Gate and the quickest route to the coast and its special hidden cave. I made it to the beach in about fifteen minutes, I would’ve been faster but I had to walk through town. It took awhile to find the cave entrance because the tide was still going out. I sat on the beach watching the sun set over the ocean as I waited for the flooded entrance to be accessible.
The entrance was large enough that I only had to duck my head to avoid scrapping it on the ceiling. A minute or so of walking and I stepped out into a massive circular cavern. It was easily fifty feet in diameter and the ceiling was twenty feet above my head putting it around forty feet high. There were patches of luminescent lichen growing all across the walls, floor and even the ceiling. It provided a dim and almost calming light to the large cavern giving it a comforting feel.
I stood at about twenty feet, digivolved into Lopmon and digistructed the new Tower. I stepped back changed, put my hands on the machine and changed again. With transporting the machine a non-issue I walked up to the Tower. I lightly put my paw on it and found it was cool and unyielding to the touch. I pushed a little harder and the surface yielded with a low note releasing a series of white ripples. I passed through the wall and into the tower, it felt like walking through a sheet of ice water and coming out completely dry.
The inside of the Tower was beautiful. The single circular wall was comprised of hundreds and hundreds of transparent bluish screens over which coding streamed. The inside of the Tower was perfectly cool; it was a sharp contrast to the warm humid cave outside it. XANA’s symbol lit up with a pinging noise, ring by ring as I stepped forward, I’d have to program that out before I digistructed anymore. Oh well, no rest for the wicked. I walked to the edge of the platform, closed my eyes, held my arms out and took a deep breath before letting myself fall.
After A few seconds I felt like I was traveling up and then I felt my feet touchdown on a platform as it pinged. I opened my eyes, I had no way of knowing if I was in the same tower or not. Everything looked the same blue screens streaming code made up the walls. The temperature was just as pleasant as before. I walked over to the wall and blinked as I passed through it. I stumbled and would have fallen on my face if Scipio hadn’t caught me.
“Thank you.”
“I would be failing in my duties if you became injured when I could have prevented it.”
I smiled sheepishly “The only thing that would have been hurt is my pride.”
“It seems that the Way Towers are functioning properly.”
“You didn’t know if it would work?” Sunny asked
“No, not really. What you have to understand is there were two types of Tower I could have programmed. There are the regular Towers which take you to another tower in the same sector. But what I programmed were the Way Towers which are used for traveling between sectors. But the Towers originally served as a terminal of sorts to allow someone to draw on the power of a quantum computer, the Towers themselves where in a virtual world inside the computer itself. Without them being in the virtual world there was no way of knowing if they would do anything at all.”
“Oh…so what now?”
“Before we erect anymore Towers I want to make a minor cosmetic change to the platforms inside them. But before that, I…I want to go home.”
Sorry it took so long to get out. My new job is full time but they're letting me leave early on the days I have class.None the less I still have free little free time as a result. On the plus side during some of my down time I was able to rough out the major details of the next three chapters so that might help cut down on time. Also Halo 4 comes out in 12 days and once its out I'll be busy with that for a while.