As Inventor was pondering in his makeshift cell, Security System activated some sort of widespread call throughout the ship.
“Hospitaller, it’s time to pick up Sunrise from the Ink Mechanic's embassy.”
The robot kept its vow of silence, but the rhythm of metal feet that echoed across the halls told the imprisoned man that it was quickly making it’s way to said school. Though the man was curious as to who this new being was he knew that Security System probably wasn’t going to be talking to him after the events moments earlier. Deciding to ask Steamlord about it later Inventor fell once again into his undisturbed thoughts.
After half an hour, the sound of a door opening up resonated throughout the hollow interior of the ship. Hospitaller was back, but there was a voice...another, a bit younger yet feminine one, and it didn’t come from Security System. This one felt like it was full of joy and so forth. It also seemed like she was trying to communicate with the bodyguard who picked her up, despite it not responding.
“-and then we ‘accidentally’ tossed Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon into the mud pile while playing tug of war. Of course, they thought that it was cheating seeing as I have hands, but I told them that I’m not that strong just because I’m a dragon. They still complained, and asked for a rematch, which we still won anyways. Those times were fun.”
“Sunrise, we welcome you back. How was your day at school, ignoring your tug-of-war game.”
“It was...fun...” her voice started to fill with nervousness.
“Your pressure is rising, and so is your temperature. You have received a scolding?”
“Umm.”
“A bad grade then.”
“Yes,” it sounded like ‘Sunrise’ was surrendering.
“In what material? Biochemistry? Dimensional manipulation through light bending and energy distortion? Calculus?”
“What?”
The AI gave off a few semi-silent noises, but gave another, more understandable answer for such a young being:
“Have you failed at science, math, english?”
“Math,” the little creature responded with an even lower, almost guilty, tone of voice.
“HA!” A short barking laugh echoed from the ship’s halls, as Inventor found humor in the subject that she had failed.
There was a short amount of silence, until this “Sunrise” seemed to be quite happy for some, unexplained reason.
“Dad’s home?”
“Negative.”
“Then who made that voice?”
“I’m haunting you. OOoooOOOOO,” Inventor was in his insane state, and worst of all... he was bored.
“Yawn. A ghost. Pff. Not scary. I’ve seen worse,” her voice gave the impression of “smugness”.
“You will fear me when I draw your soul out of your body and all you feel from on is the dark endless space of death, but you won’t be dead. You will be living in eternal torment and hoping, praying, that your father will kill you to release you from the prison of your own body.” There was a pause for a moment where Inventor seemed to reconsider what he had just said. “I mean, I’ll take the appearance of your Dad, though it will be slightly askew.”
Sunrise gave out a cute little laugh, but Hospitaller and Templar, who could be heard from somewhere deep within the ship, didn’t seem to find the joke amusing.
“You’re funny. But, I bet you don’t know who my dad is. And you’ll have to guess which one is my real one.”
“Well, I would say that your adoptive father would have to be Steamlord. However the way that the robots are taking care of you I would only have to assume that your actual father is dead, what his name is though, I can only guess.”
There was a long moment of silence, and Sunrise did not speak during this long feeling of agony. She had gotten over that traumatic moment where Steamlord saved her from the cave where her true father had already died in, but whenever she was reminded that her true father was dead, she would cringe and feel a bending pain in her stomach.
“I only now realize that what I just said may not be something you like to be reminded about. Sorry. If it’s any consolation I know how it feels to lose one’s parent.”
“sniff*”
“Do not pertain to that subject any longer, prisoner. That may be the stocking area for the food and liquid sustenance, but there are still things in there that can sew your mouth shut.” Security System gave out a louder tone than usual.
“My apologies, Security System. I did not thoroughly think through my words before I said them. I will now only treat her with the same degree of respect I gave to my own adopted daughter and son.”
“You adopted too? Are they ponies, like you?” Sunrise seemed to have gotten over her little crisis.
“Heh, there is a small problem with your second part of that question but yes, they are ponies. Well Insight is... yea, they’re both ponies.”
“Well, what are you then? A minotaur or a griffon?”
“While I feel this could go on for a bit and distract me from my boredom. I feel it would be better just tell you now that I am human, like Steamlord.”
“Huh? I thought there was noone left there. He doesn’t tell me much about it, but I did hear him when he spoke to Celestia.”
“Different world, long story... kinda complicated without intimate knowledge of travelling across dimensions...”
“Uhhhhh,” she seemed confused, obviously. “SS, could you let him out? He seems like a nice guy.”
“Negative.”
“But Hospitaller is here. It’s not like he can hurt me.”
“Negative.”
“So, I suppose that you wanted Steamlord to stay inside all the time after he came here?”
There was a long pause, but the sound of metallic footsteps could be heard coming from the right side of the door. Templar was there. Finally, the door began to open, revealing that what had that voice was actually a surprising creature to look at.
“Oh, a...bipedal, humanoid dragon. That’s actually very interesting.” Inventor stood from his spot against the wall, His ragged clothes drooping around him as he did so. “Sorry again about earlier, don’t kill me after you gather a bunch of gold aight?” A slight smile danced across his face to indicate that he was joking. “Now, if I were back in my world and Scootaloo was having trouble with her math I would offer to help her understand it, though I’m not sure how Steamlord might feel about me offering you the same option.”
The dragoness had very bright, yellow scales, that seemed almost bleached. Her eyes were of an equally bizarre color, but they seemed full of curiosity and intrigue. On her head, there were green scales that pointed outwards in order to distinguish themselves from the rest of the scales. Not only did they double as a sleek and smooth set of eyebrows, but they reached the little dragon’s neck and cut off to form some sort of “tail neck”. Something Steamlord and Security System affectionately called a “teck”. Strangely, she even had a very humanoid appearance akin to that of human females. She seemed a bit angry and puffed up her face a bit while crossing her arms.
“I forgive you, but I’m not a baby, and I hate gold. As for the math, Security System here can help me with it.”
“Ah, I see. I’ll just chill here then shall I?” Inventor went back to the spot he had been in earlier and sat down once again. “I just hope Luna is okay.”
“What about Luna? Maybe I should tell Celestia.”
“The Luna from my world came here with me but I’m sure she’s a bit out of sorts physically and mentally. No need for you to worry yourself about it though, Steamlord has agreed to help. For which I guess I owe him.”
“Pfff. He always has to go through the council to send something to her. It could take hours. Maybe I can go directly to her?”
“Nah. Though if you are so set on it you can blame it on me, if you get caught by Steamlord or SS gets mad at you or something.” Inventor took a breath and looked towards the roof of the room. “You hear that Security System? My fault!”
“I hear everything that goes on in this vessel. Even your heartbeats, and the sound of the blood rushing through your ocular vessels.” SS spoke in a very creepy manner.
“Then by all means, kill mine off. I wouldn’t want to disturb your silence.” Inventor responded, his voice dark.
“It would be very tempting, but the reasons for your survival are up to Steamlord.” the bodyguards adjusted their stance.”If he orders it, then these two will behead you in a second.”
“Ha, you wish. I only give care of my life to those whose I ended. And Insight, these robots could not end me.”
“So you think. You are gravely mistaken, but, allow my databanks to store more information. Why will these Crusader Knights be insufficient in your destruction?”
“Because I can do this.” Inventor said with a manic smile as an electric pulse shot forth from his arm. The robots then flew and were pinned against the far wall. “A bit of electromagnetism and tadah, they can’t do jack all. But, that’s boring so...” Another pulse from his arm and the robots were released from the wall. “If you want to kill me, you are going to need to do it from behind. Like a coward.”
“Magnetism is a simple concept. Negating it would have been simple. However, your technology seems to be on a rather...low compared to my creator’s. In what year do you come from?”
“One between my birth year and death year, naturally.”
“Your humor is very low.”
“That would probably be because I’m not trying to be funny. I’m answering your questions with as little information as I can give.”
“Then provide more. A date of birth or the date that your technology was created would not allow me to recreate and propagate it, especially due to Steamlord’s strict refusal to give his.”
By this time, Sunrise had already left for her room, boredom on her mind.
“You assume I care about you recreating my tech? I don’t. I don’t care about this planet, or these robots or any other ‘data’ that I might receive. The only thing I care about right now is something that I can’t help, and it’s driving half mad. Hence the aggression to the robots moments ago. And the worst thing is,” Inventor clenched his mechanical fist until the metal began to deform from the pressure. “I’m completely useless to help solve the problem I created. Just like I was before.”
“Your problems don’t concern-”
“DAD!” Sunrise shouted.
In front of the only exit of the ship stood a man hugging his “daughter”. He actually looked happy. He was about to speak to SS when he turned around and saw that the door to the food storage was open, with the two bodyguards readjusting themselves from their previous position on the floor. Steamlord stepped in front of the open door to see Inventor.
“What did you do?”
“And your questions don’t concern me!” Inventor said, looking at the ceiling as he ignored the presence of Steamlord for the moment. After he finished he looked toward the man, a worry spreading across his face. “What’s the news on Luna?”
“What do you mean? She’s sleeping in her room, as far as we know.”
“Don’t give me your crap, Steamlord. How did your meeting with the council go.”
“What’s it to you? They said that you could meet Celestia, IF...”
“If what?”
“If you let me remove your gadgets and be escorted by me, my bodyguards, and a whole of veteran guardsponies.” Steamlord facepalmed.” I hate replacing ‘man’ with ‘pony’.”
“Sure.” Inventor pressed his shoulder with his regular hand. A hiss erupted from the joint and the limb fell from the sleeve, motionless. Then he took the bag from his waist and put it with the arm. “There ya go, all my tech.”
Steamlord crocked an eyebrow.
“You also lost an arm? Any OTHER limbs you’d be willing to share?”
“Though I could say eye just to creep you out, I don’t think I will. Just the arm.”
“Oh. So you only lost an arm and an eye.”
“No, you lost an arm and an eye, I just lost the arm.”
“Oho. I lost far more than just an arm and an eye. The guards are waiting for you outside.”
“Can I come too?” Sunrise asked after being silent for so long.”
“No.”
“But I want to.”
“I said no.”
“I’ll mess around with the Knights afterwards.”
Steamlord made a loud noise of fury, then conceded.
“Fine. Just don’t make any noise.”
“Yes!”
“Your daughter is odd.” Inventor said, mildly distracted as his eyes glazed over. “Not that I mean to insult her of course. Just... different...”
“She’s a dragon with a unique gene and has a teck that she moves like a tail. Plus, she grows, unlike the other dragons that I’ve been told require greed to grow. Seeing as nobody here has thorough knowledge of dragons, she might be a unique specimen. Now are we going or not?”
“By all means, lead the way.” Inventor stood from his seat, falling off balanced to his left. After a second try he managed to stand once again. “Sorry about that, losing an arm kinda messes with weight ratios. Especially when the arm is made of solid metal.”
“Yes. Yes. Just an arm. You don’t have to deal with other parts being torn off. Let’s go.”
Steamlord, accompanied by his bodyguards, surrounded Inventor, and they all left the ship while SS used the ships arms to grab the gadgets and pieces in order to organize them somewhere hidden within the ship. Outside stood several battle-hardened guards. Proof of their veterancy already came from the dentures and cracks in their armor, followed by a variety of physical “decorations”. The entire group left for the royal throne room with the clittering and clanking of metal armor.
Luna stirred, the clouds beneath her cushioning her movements as she did so. That was when she realized, she wasn’t on her bed, but why? Her eyes opened in a panic and several ponies who stood near her backed away in fear. “My apologies. I did not mean to frighten you, my little ponies.” As she spoke she became aware of a dark echo that seemed to haunt her voice.
“What’s... what’s going on?”
“It’s Nightmare Moon! Nightmare Moon has returned!” Came the cry of a pegasus. The resulting panic was to be expected and she was left to watch as the various citizens of Cloudsdale fled her presence. All except for two pegasi who looked very familiar.
“Rainbow Dash? Fluttershy? What’s going on?”