The Filly Within

by Detsella Morningdew

Chapter 10: Assistance

Unfortunately, learning how to talk properly had to wait until the morning, when more ponies were awake. It turned out, it was quite easy to repeat what was said to her, and with a paper handy, it was even easy to know what was being said.

The issue was that she was too good at repeating stuff, and she sounded exactly like Vinyl.

Still, it was great progress, and a lot less frustrating. Vinyl seemed to be excited, even though Sweetie occasionally noticed shivers when she responded back in the older unicorn's voice.

Relearning words was less difficult than she anticipated, fortunately. Her freakishly good memory was really useful. She couldn't blame Vinyl for being creeped out, though. Even she was creeped out by how fast and easy it was.

The strangest part wasn't how fast she was learning, though.

"Vinyl Scratch? Have you seen ponies like me before?"

The voice itself wasn't as unfitting as it should have been, being a series of clips she had strung together. Vinyl had taught her some basics of how to smooth things out, audio-wise. But she could still tell that it made the unicorn slightly uncomfortable.

"Ponies like you?"

"Robot." The plural form of the word had not been mentioned yet, and Sweetie wasn't good enough yet to attempt doing so.

"Robots."

It was easy to tell the differences, and Sweetie filed the information away for comparison later.

"No, why?"

Sweetie frowned, then picked up Vinyl's pencil again to write on the sheet music once more. You didn't react like other ponies. You treated me like I was before.

The unicorn shrugged. "I dunno. Ponyville is plenty weird. You didn't look like the dangerous weird, so uh... why worry, you know?"

Sweetie repeated back some unfamiliar sound clips, and Vinyl scribbled them down on the paper.

"Oh, uh... I probably should ask. Are you actually Sweetie Belle, or a robot copy?"

She was getting quite a lot of new words from this conversation. Most notably her name. Still, she couldn't help but try to convey her incredulity with her limited facial flexibility.

Vinyl seemed to get the point. "Okay, you're the real deal. Just thought I'd ask."

Sweetie put a hoof to her face. "No, why did you help me, if you didn't know?" She felt that she should probably stress some of those words differently due to the original sound clips being rather neutral. She could actually see some differences when Vinyl was asking a question, but there were still so few examples that she didn't dare modify what she was pushing out her mouth speakers.

Vinyl put a hoof on her metal shoulder. With little else to pay attention to, Sweetie noticed that the number that changed was likely due to some sort of touch or pressure sensor. She filed that information away for later.

The older unicorn sat down in front of her, bringing her other forehoof around to give her a hug. "Hey, don't be like that. You didn't look that angry or dangerous to me. Even if you were just Ponyville weirdness, not all Ponyville weirdness has to be dangerous. And if you had to learn to talk..."

Vinyl brought a hoof back to scratch the back of her head. "I dunno. A robot like you is pretty much my fillyhood dream, and now that you're here... Well, I thought all about the cool tech I'd see, but I never thought about the pony side of things. It must be pretty awful in there, huh?"

"..."

Sweetie then spent around half a minute getting the translations for words she didn't understand. Fortunately, the conversation was trivial to reconstruct.

She hugged Vinyl back.

Just like with Rarity, it wasn't nearly what she wanted. She didn't know how strong she was. She couldn't even feel anything. Yet, at least. She wasn't confident in the scale of the numbers she was receiving through her recently-discovered sensors. So she put her arms in position around her and let the other unicorn do most of the actual squeezing.

It seemed Vinyl got the message. But it was frustrating that she couldn't give more than just a message. If she was a robot this whole time, then why were the numbers coming back from her pressure sensors so rudimentary? Why was there only one or two numbers per entire metal plate? Why could she no longer sleep?

She certainly never came across any functions that had anything to deal with food or drinking.

What am I missing here?

---

Spike yawned, blocking out the morning sun with an arm as he rolled out of bed. Well, it was technically a basket with blankets and a rather comfortable pillow, but he had refused multiple times when Twilight suggested that he "upgrade" to a bed like hers. This was far cozier. Also easier to just roll out onto your feet.

He sighed as he looked at Twilight's empty bed. The number of times she was actually up before him could be counted on one claw. Without the claw. This meant one thing. Twilight went on an all-nighter, and would be grumpy all day today.

As it was, he would have a pretty good excuse to just leave her be, and let her sleep until noon, where she would be significantly easier to handle, and he would be far more awake and energetic himself.

Unfortunately, he also knew that Twilight very seldom ate during any of her all-nighters. She probably would have been starving before she went to sleep.

So with a sigh, he showered himself (with fire) and made his way into the kitchen to make some over-easy eggs.

She doesn't deserve pancakes today.

Okay, that was mean.

I'm too tired to make something special when she's too tired to enjoy it.

That's better.

---

Since Spike didn't see her in the library proper, he brought the second plate directly down into the basement. As he suspected, he found Twilight collapsed on a work table with several arcane devices surrounding her, and a healthy number of hoofwritten papers.

He waved the plate in front of her nose, and was rewarded by some sniffing, followed by her eyes fluttering open. She picked up her head from the desk, and rubbed her eyes with both front hooves.

"Spike? Is it morning already?"

"Yeah. I can take care of the library for most of the day, but you need to at least eat something before you go back to sleep."

Twilight quickly stopped rubbing her eyes. "No, you don't have to do that. I can stay up this time!"

Spike did a once-over of his older sister. Her fur was matted, the bags under her eyes had bags underneath them, and her mane could probably be a very useful data point in those chaos studies back in Canterlot.

"No, you aren't doing that. You are going to eat your eggs, drink some water, and go back to bed. Really, taking care of the library isn't all that difficult. Barring a Rainbow Dash incident, that is. But I take care of those, anyway."

Twilight looked down.

Spike cringed at her guilty expression. "Twilight. I joke a lot, but I love being your assistant. Not many ponies other than maybe Princess Celestia appreciate me for the skills I have, rather than the skills I'm supposed to have."

Twilight smiled, and he leaned in for a hug.

A machine bleeped, and her entire body stiffened like a rod. "The results!"

Spike just stepped to the side as she rushed past him in a dash around the table and squinted at the tiny printout of one of the devices he didn't care to find the name of.

The result only seemed to make her more tense, and to Spike's annoyed acceptance, she teleported out of the room.

He sighed, and began to sort papers.

Comments

[Gyro Pony]

Oh buck yes.
Update :-)

Keep it up, dear author.
This is a Sweetie Bot fic with promise.

[FanOfMostEverything]

What am I missing here?

That's the question, isn't it? What bit of simulated verisimilitude got shorted out by the lightning, and how can they turn it back on? Can they, even?

In any case, looking forward to more.

[Devildogg20]

Is she a robot, or a sim unit? Hopefully it’s the prior, because then she at least can be repaired.

[Detsella Morningdew]

10165312
Robot. Though her exact nature is yet to be discovered.

[sadron]

Wouldn’t android (equoid?) be a more appropriate term? Androids usually convey a sense of artificial intelligence rather than a basic automaton.

[Detsella Morningdew]

10167059
Hippoid would be the technically accurate term, but it doesn't sound that good, so I didn't consider using it.

(Also, "robot" is the sort of colloquial term that would be used by ponies. "Android" is a term that we use because, well, we have enough technology to think and make distinctions between mechanical devices of that type. If I remember correctly, "robot" was the first term used in that way.)

[sadron]

10168088
Ah, Hippoid huh? What's the root of that? I know we get android from Andro, (and why some pedants would argue for Gynoid for female androids, etc.)

[Detsella Morningdew]

10168130
Well, the reason I got hippoid is the same reason others like to use gynoid. I noticed the common theme (both are greek roots), and found the greek root for horse. (Think "hippocampus" and it should be fairly obvious.)

If you buck the trend and use latin roots, Eqqoid kinda works, but....

Well, another reason I didn't use it in the context of MLP is that words like "Android" and "Gynoid" assume that humans are the only intelligent life similar to our own.

In the world of MLP, there are a LOT of eqqoid creatures. Changelings, breezies, seaponies, all sorts.

[rikithemonk]

This really is a good and very unique story.

Like what you've done so far and am looking forward to more

The Monk
“A spider’s got to spider.” -Scarheart

[thefroggyninja]

I’d bet that whatever organic stuff that got fried was an interpreter/interface.

[Twisted mind]

Omg, I need this surved up in a smoothie with with extra sugar and pancakes! I love it!

[Teraunce]

Good job so far.

[Detsella Morningdew]

10227827
You are right in some ways, but it's a little more than that.

[Dakuookami]

10145657
Since she's operating on manuals at the moment, I have a feeling there's a sub process which handled movement and the like for her which got switched off or burned out. Hopefully nothing too serious tho...

[KillerJacob04]

This is Amazing

[Chimp]

Where is the Next button, and why can't I click it?

[darklight731]

Man, I love Vinyl. She is such a good person.

[Hannah Nelson]

Great story! Organic stuff makes me worry.

[Basketface123]

Gah this is sooo good! Please update it, I'm dying over here