The Everycraftery

by Liquid Truth

Indecision-Making

Sweetie Belle hummed lazily as she put a gun on the window shelf.

A gun. No catch. A .357 S&W Magnum that Lucy had bought for no other purpose than to be placed on the window display. She even told her that it was not for sale.

In a store full of impossibly impossible impossibilities, Lucy had given her a perfectly normal gun to showcase. There was a metaphor there, somewhere, but Sweetie couldn't put a hoof on it.

No matter, Sweetie thought. Sunny would be back tomorrow, and then she could tell her what Lucy might have wanted to achieve through the medium of displaying a firearm on the window display. Sunny knew a lot of things. Quite possibly anything, in fact. She could tell her anything she ever wanted to know.

Or maybe she'd ask Lucy herself, which will return at midnight, which was three hours away. Or Einstein, which will return in two days, in case the other two somehow couldn't answer her question. She doubted that, though.

Sweetie turned around and looked at one of the corners of the store. There was something there covered with a white sheet that looked a lot like an ATM, and Lucy had told her not to touch it. Naturally, Sweetie had touched it. Nothing had happened.

Sweetie trotted closer and pulled the sheet away, revealing, to her surprise, and actual ATM. The blue screen told her so:

Automatic Telling Machine v1.0

ask and I'll tell

"An ATM machine?"

Sweetie jumped back as she heard a sudden whirling of gizmos. A few seconds of it, then a white paper came out with a ding.

Sweetie raised an eyebrow as she read the paper. It read, 'No, it's not an ATM machine, it's an ATM.'

Sweetie oohed and coughed. She took a breath and said, carefully, "Who am I?"

As another ding came, Sweetie took the paper and read, 'Sweetie Belle."

Sweetie giggled. "Which is better, coffee or tea?"

Ding. Sweetie took the paper. Sweetie frowned and gave the ATM a half-lidded stare. "Seriously?"

Ding. 'Yes, seriously.'

Sweetie read the previous paper again to confirm that, indeed, it says, 'For Sweetie Belle, tea. Especially Earl Grey.'

Sweetie sighed. "Alright, then." Sweetie looked back at the gun and smiled conspiratorially. She turned toward the ATM and whispered, "Why did Lucy want me to put a gun on the window display?"

Instead of the ding that Sweetie expected, a BOOM! came, along with the destruction of the machine and her much-needed answer.

Sweetie coughed and sucker-punched the floor, prompting it to suck and settle the lingering dust into a neat, 1:1000000000 miniature of a settlement made of said dust. Looking back, Sweetie found the one responsible for the destruction of the ATM: a human Sweetie Belle.

Well, she looked like a human Sweetie Belle, but Sweetie (the janitor) doubted it. There was the matter of her eyes glowing red that Sweetie was quite sure shouldn't be the case in humans.

"Hey, what was that for!?"

The other Sweetie responded by opening her shoulder. Sweetie was also pretty sure that humans couldn't open their shoulders, which made Sweetie more confident that whoever that . . . thing is wasn't a human.

"Target acquired."

And that synthetic voice made Sweetie sure that the Sweetie was a robot, which wasn't a human. And so, Sweetie drew the conclusion that the Sweetie Bot standing in front of her wasn't a human, but rather a robot, and was trying to kill her. With the conclusion drawn and set up in front of her, Sweetie ducked behind the conclusion as the storm of bullets showered before concluding their trajectories at the aforementioned conclusion.

Sweetie jumped toward an aisle just as her brilliant conclusion shattered because no one can outsmart bullets. Luckily, Sweetie was always prepared, and so she took out an umbrella and kept the storm of bullets at bay.

Sweetie staggered as the umbrella pressed hard against her shoulders. Thinking quickly, she took out a piece of cloth from her hat and wiped the shoulder-mounted machine gun out of existence.

"Can we talk about this!? Peacefully?"

"You lied to me!" She raised her hand and opened her palm.

Sweetie jumped aside as a plasma bolt hit the ground she had been standing upon. "It's not my fault you run on iOS!"

"It's not my fault either that you didn't tell me it's not compatible!" She shot another bolt.

Sweetie wiped the bolt out of existence. As she did, the cloth burned into ashes, and she tsked and said, "Look, we can fix this, alright? Just wait until Lucy comes back!"

Bot smirked. "So, she's not here, isn't she?" She opened her other shoulder, from which came out a photon gun.

Now, while a photon gun was completely harmless in most cases, this particular photon gun was made without the engineer's understanding of what the word meant, and so was instead really, really deadly, because what it does is shoot continuous super-heated lead at 1200km/h muzzle velocity through jet propulsion.

"Prepare to die."

Sweetie tripped on her hooves as the incorrectly-named photon gun began its rotation. Yelping, she scrambled and doubled over and jumped behind the counter (thankfully made indestructible by Einstein). As the counter began furiously counting the number of almost-molten lead pelting it, Sweetie took a pair of contact lenses from a drawer and contacted Lucy.

An electronic crackle came and, without waiting for Lucy's voice, Sweetie screamed, "Lucy, Help! There's a Sweetie Bot trying to—"

A loud Thump came from above her, and Sweetie gulped as Bot's figure loomed above her, obstructing the ceiling lamp and casting a shadow over Sweetie. From her point of view, Sweetie Bot looked like a well-defined silhouette of her upcoming well-defined death.

Her chest-plate opened, revealing a miniature Death Ray Cannon.

Bot grinned, and the cannon began humming.

Sweetie pulled out a cube from her hat and put it between her and Imminent Death. As the Death Ray Cannon shot with a really loud high-pitched ringing, Sweetie blocked it.

Everything went white.

Sweetie blinked as the light receded. Looking around, she found that the counter had been toppled over, none of the racks were standing anymore, and Bot nowhere to be found.

Until she looked to her right, that is, at which point she was met with Bot's phaser, nozzle-to-muzzle.

Before Sweetie could react, there was a loud ZAP! and a Crackle and a Clank!

Sweetie opened her eyes to find that, no, she wasn't dead, and Bot was sprawled on the ground in front of her with a noticeable portion of her arm missing. Turning her head toward the store's entrance, she found, "Lucy!"

Lucy galloped and, reaching Bot, quickly lit her horn and ripped apart the regulator from her abdomen.

Sweetie Bot let out a scream of agony.

Sweetie knocked Lucy's horn just in time before she let loose all the wrath of a Double-Omnicidal Drunken Shimmer upon the artificial sapient lifeform.

Lucy glared.

Sweetie glared back. "No need to kill a helpless being!"

Lucy scoffed. "And what, Sweetie? Let her go? She'll just return another day and try to kill you again."

"No, she wouldn't!"

Lucy took out a nametag that read 'CASHIER' with the logo of the Truth establishment and put it on Sweetie Bot, making her a teller of Truth. Lucy looked at her in the eyes and asked, "If I let you go, will you come back and try to kill Sweetie again?"

"Yes."

Lucy lit her horn.

"Wait!"

Lucy snapped her head at her.

Sweetie stepped back as Lucy's look of pure, unadulterated Hatred—previously directed at Bot—fell upon her.

"What!?"

"Y-you c-can't kill her!"

Lucy took the gun from the window display and shoved it to Sweetie's hoof. Then, with a cold, emotionless tone, she said, "You do it, then."

"B-but I—"

Lucy cocked the revolver and directed it at Bot, who was looking at Sweetie with pleading eyes, the light behind them flickering as her internal components started failing. Sweetie caught a glint from the barrel, watching as the Smith & Wesson inscription got rewritten into Chekov's.

"Do it."

Sweetie's hoof began trembling. "I . . . I-I can't kill her."

"Why?"

"You told it yourself," Sweetie answered, slowly, her voice began steadying, "Friendship is Magic."

Lucy casually leaned on Sweetie, staggering her a little. "Hm. That's right." She steadied Sweetie's grip and placed the gun on Bot's forehead. Then, with a firmer tone, "Then do it."

"B-but—"

"Sunny told you not to kill anyone, didn't she?"

Sweetie nodded.

"But what did I tell you, Sweetie?'

Sweetie opened her mouth a couple of times before closing it shut.

Lucy sighed. "Pacifism is overrated. It's ineffective and time-consuming. Look at me, Sweetie. I stand on the paradigm that Friendship is Magic, but I'm not a pacifist. Look at what that did."

"Hundreds died."

"And tens of thousands of others got reformed." Lucy glared at Sweetie Bot. "Sometimes, you have to accept when someone is a lost cause. Nothing more than a machine wanting to ruin everyone's lives." She kicked Bot's leg. There was no response. "There's a way to reform them, sure, but it won't be worth it. Sacrifices must be made. There might be hundreds of others that can be reformed if you just give up on the impossible ones."

Sweetie lowered her gun and said, "But isn't that your job?"

Lucy stood straight and looked at Sweetie likewise.

"You do the impossible, don't you? It's what you pride yourself in."

Lucy smiled and chuckled. "Yes, yes it is." She grabbed Sweetie's hoof and pointed the gun back at Bot. "But that's me. What about you, Sweetie? Who are you?

"Are you an effective machine, doing what is right and knowing its boundaries so as to not hinder that effectiveness, completing such impossible quantities of task with such quality that left God himself gaping in amazement, ultimately fulfilling its destiny in the universe and dying with a smile?

"Or are you an ineffective, slow, irrational and emotional, yet a determined machine that goes to lengths to ensure that no task is left unfinished, working thoroughly with such perseverance that left God himself gaping in amazement, ultimately fulfilling its destiny in the universe and dying with a smile?"

Sweetie opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Lucy frowned. "You have to choose, Sweetie."

Sweetie closed her eyes. "I-I can't."

Lucy glared. "Choose, Sweetie!"

"I can't!"

"Who are you, Sweetie!?"

"I don't know!"

Lucy took the gun and shot Sweetie Bot's head off.

Sweetie stared as the wires on Bot's neck crackled before stopping, the various motors and gizmos turning off with an audible hum and the lights from between the joints sputtered into lifelessness.

Twilight threw the gun away and, with her hoof, grabbed Sweetie by the chin and violently dragged her face upward where their gazes met, Twilight's boring into Sweetie's like hot iron into Chinese calligraphy paper.

Sweetie sniffled. "I-I'm sorry—"

"You are not forgiven," Twilight said sternly. "Your indecision tonight will be the biggest regret in your life, Sweetie, because tonight will be the last time I'll be there to guide you through it. There will be a next time, oh, there will, but I won't be there. Not me, not Sunset, not even Albert. You'll have to choose eventually, and when the day comes, you will regret not having made the decision right here, right then." Twilight pulled Sweetie further up, their muzzles and horns touching one another. "I am disappointed, Sweetie."

Sweetie bit back a sob.

Twilight let go of Sweetie and sat back, blowing out a long sigh. She opened her wings and gestured to Sweetie, saying, softly, "I'm sorry, Sweetie."

Sweetie leaned in and cried as Twilight's wings wrapped around her. She said between her sobs, "I-I know, Lucy. It's for my own good you did that."

Twilight pulled her closer. "It's still no excuse to be harsh on you like that."

"But you do have an excuse, don't you?"

Twilight chuckled weakly and patted her head. "You know me too well, Sweetie."

"No more than you do me, I bet."

"You bet right."

Author's Note:

Toby didn't make Undertale as a mirror of reality. It's an ideal reality that he has in his mind and wants to share with the world to make it come true. To an extent, of course.

I've been constantly crippled with indecision lately. Indecision of what kind of person I want to be, of who I should be. I don't know whether I want to be an idealistic person striving to make a better world or a pragmatic person knowing that it was all a dream while still completing the tasks needed to reach it. I can't comprehend the notion that some people can just . . . fall into one of these categories as they grow up. "I just am," they will say, and leave me flipping my cranial to understand how they come to that. I've listed the pros and cons of what will come if I either have a big dream or a rational vision, and I'm still left with indecision because all of that lead to the ultimate question of "What do you want in life?", which is the very reason I'm trying to choose a standing in life. I find myself trapped in a continuous neverending cycle of caffeine-induced brainless activities and hours upon hours of crystal-clear desirelessness. I don't know what I truly want in life, and I sure as hell would give it not finding it anywhere. All my actions are just . . . primal needs: eat, drink, social interaction, sleep, ponies, repeat. There are no purpose in my life; all I've ever wanted is to not die and live in happiness. The first one's easy; the second, impossible.

TL;DR I'm sorry for the sudden change in tone. This one's written more for myself.

Comments

[Venerable Ro]

Well it was an impressive fight, that's for sure. You know, in a way I feel that Lucy is a victim of her own genius, in her quest for power and certainty she's lost the capacity to hope, to have faith in something. The world must be a very bleak place for her, made of naught but calculations and wheels.

As to the post-script, well, that's the big question isn't it? "who am I?" Do you want to talk about it?

[FanOfMostEverything]

Sweetie jumped toward an aisle just as her brilliant conclusion shattered because no one can outsmart bullets. Luckily, Sweetie was always prepared, and so she took out an umbrella and kept the storm of bullets at bay.

I missed this story.

As for the ending... I thought we were shading into Rick & Morty territory, but then I read the author's note. Obviously, I can't give you the answer you seek, but I do hope you find what you're looking for, preferably soon.

[ValNitak Choas]

I love lucy twilight,

[Reese]

Ah, I'm sorry you've been having such difficulties; good luck, one way or another.