The Bold, The Brash, and The Beautiful

by Razalon The Lizardman

Day 3- Part 1

The time was approximately one o'clock in the morning and the robot repair room of the CCC building was busier than ever before. In addition to the usual rattlers, maids, and faulty surveillance crystals, two of the resorts' main villains were now little more than a couple piles of scrap. Sin and Jack O' Bones were laid out on two adjacent operating tables. The technicians at work repairing them growled in frustration at the difficulty of essentially re-assembling two robots from scrap.

Eventually, Bite Back arrived from his meeting with the Princesses and proceeded to evaluate his employees once again. It didn't take him long to notice the absence of Brave Heart among the damaged robots. Remembering the unusual behavior he was exhibiting, Bite Back was anxious to figure out what the trouble had been so the other two villains could be checked for similar faults.

"So, what's the damage?" Bite Back asked the team operating on Jack O' Bones.

"Honestly, boss," one of the techs replied, "I think this one's a lost cause. The CMC has been shattered to pieces, and all the circuits running from it have been shredded by the loose shrapnel."

"Can't you replace the circuits altogether?"

The technician looked to him and sighed. "We could, but the loose pieces are so scattered we'd need to dis-assemble Jacky from head to hoof to retrieve them all. We also suspect the pieces have managed to damage several more circuits throughout his body, which would only prove more troublesome if true. It's just not worth the trouble to repair him, boss."

Bite Back looked at the rest of the team, then to Jacky's mutilated remains, then back to the technician who now had a despondent look in his eyes. Bite Back could tell he felt bad about letting him down, but that he truly believed what he said. He looked once again at the rest of the team clustered around the table to see them now staring back at him with faces showing curiosity, anxiety, and exhaustion. Finally, Bite Back relented.

"So be it," he said. "Toss him in the scrapyard outside, then get a replacement Jacky ready for tomorrow."

Bite Back turned around to check on the team operating on Sin, but stopped when he remembered about Brave Heart. He turned back to the technicians he just talked to.

"By the way, have any of you seen Brave Heart? He was malfunctioning today and I don't see him anywhere in here."

The technicians looked at each other, then back to him and shrugged. Bite Back responded with clear urgency in his voice. "Make sure you find him before tomorrow. We need to know if the faults in his servers exist in all bots of the same model. Am I clear?"

The technicians nodded and proceeded to work at their new tasks. Bite Back, meanwhile, turned back to the team operating on Sin. Looking at the genderless robot, Bite Back was relieved to see that it wasn't in as nearly deplorable condition as Jack O' Bones was. Aside from a dented mask and dislocated limbs, Sin looked to be in good shape.

"What's the consensus?" Bite Back asked the team.

"Physically, it's looking good, boss," the technician closest to him replied. "However, there's something strange going on with the CS."

"Strange? How?" Bite Back looked over the technicians' shoulder at the exposed Command Server in the back of Sin's head.

"In a way, the CS is caught in a suspended state of inactivity." The technician moved so Bite Back could get a better view of the command server. "While this isn't strange in and of itself, the reports indicated that Sin was operating within normal parameters prior to being decommissioned by H.D."

"Could H.D. have done this to Sin?" Bite Back asked, looking closely at Sin's internals.

"Unlikely, sir. While physical trauma is capable of dislodging internal components and creating errors as a result, Sin's CS hasn't sustained any physical damage, meaning the problem most likely occurred before it fought the royals. But that's quite a paradox, since Sin shouldn't have been able to do anything with its CS essentially frozen."

Bite Back retracted from looking at Sin's internals. What the technician had said about Sin's condition didn't quite match up with his observation of Brave Heart's from earlier. Still, the last thing he wanted to do was risk the guests' safety, so he decided to risk that of himself and the technicians instead.

"Let's see if it'll work right now."

The technicians all looked to him in surprise. "Sir?"

Bite Back continued before more could be said. "We need to be sure the fault isn't hereditary to this model type. Besides, it sounds like we'll have better luck with diagnosing the problem if we observe Sin's behavior firsthoof. Now, is it ready to go, boys?"

"Yes, boss," they all hesitantly replied.

Bite Back smiled. "There's no need to worry, everypony. Now, just relax and wake it up. Oh, and make sure you shield everypony else working down here."

The technicians all backed away except for one, who used his horn to re-activate Sin's power circuit before following the others in stepping away from the table.

-----

Unit activated.

Initiate walking protocol . . . *Unknown Error* . . . . . . . . . Error resolved.

Walking protocol initiated . . . . . . walking protocol cancelled.

Incoming transmission . . . transmission received.

Scanning transmission . . . scanning complete.

Transmission type: Unknown

Unknown: Why'd it freeze up suddenly? Is it gonna kill us? It can't. Shut up and watch it.

Scanning for intent clarification . . . scanning complete.

Intent: Negative

Scanning for transmitter/s . . . scanning complete.

Transmitter/s identified: 12

Initiate neutralizing protocol.

Selecting predetermined spell from database.

Selected spell: Mind Crush

Spell activation initiated . . . spell activation complete.

Lock-on protocol initiated . . . lock-on complete.

Attack initiated . . . attack complete.

Scanning targets for damage clarification . . . scanning complete.

Damage dealt: Positive

Walking protocol initiated . . .

---

The DELOS scrapyard was located just behind the CCC building, right next to the corresponding cliff surrounded by a chain link fence. It was here that dead robots awaited the day they were transported by airship to the docks back on the mainland where they were shipped all around the world to be smelted down in foundries or disassembled and their parts recycled.

The scrapyard was connected to two dirt trails used by technicians for retrieving de-commissioned robots to be repaired by the night team. One trail followed the cliff edge along the coast for a ways before it diverted to Magicworld's front gates. The other trail only went straight for a few hundred meters before cutting towards the island's center and up to Dodgeworld. At the head of both trails was a sign indicating which trail led where.

With a megaton of pained effort, technicians Nycto and Redder heaved the irreparable Jack O' Bones onto the pile of junk nearest the scrapyard's entrance. The dead robot landed on the scrap with a sickening crunch and tumbled a little bit before settling in place.

"Well, that takes care of that," Nycto said, stretching to help relieve some of the aches in his back.

"Yep," Redder replied. "Let's go."

The two hadn't taken more than a few steps when they saw movement through the window next to the building's backdoor.

"What was that?" Redder asked.

"I don't know," Nycto replied.

Now slightly unnerved, the two of them cautiously trotted up to the door and opened it. The last thing they saw before falling unconscious was a stream of transparent magic shoot toward them at dazzling speeds. Sin stepped out of the building and scanned the two techs for damage. Once damage was confirmed, Sin used its guidance system to move right and up to the sign indicating which world each trail led to. Sin stared at the sign for a moment, as if deep in thought of deciding which world it should visit. Sin's guidance system eventually made the most logical decision it could find: go to both worlds. Sin's guidance system processed some more variables before deciding to visit Dodgeworld first.

With that, Sin fell into a hard gallop down the trail leading to the island's center.

---

Aching joints. That's what Rainbow Dash woke up to. The cyan pegasus had spent the better part of yesterday and the night resting up from her last joust with Brave Heart. That joust in particular had drained the normally energy buzzing speedster of all her strength, and even after a full night's rest she was still experiencing its after effects. Regardless, Dash was feeling much better now

She got out of bed and flexed her limbs to relieve some of the aches before heading for the bathroom. While showering, Dash reflected on her vacation thus far. She had fulfilled her goal of becoming the queen of Aviworld, and all it took to defeat the robot standing between her and achieving that goal was a little brainpower, something Rainbow would never have admitted to caring about in years' past. Now, however, Rainbow struggled for ideas on what to do with the last day of her vacation, having indulged in almost all of Aviworld's perks and amusements.

She stepped out of the shower and toweled off, then exited her hotel room and began idly strolling around the jousting arena. It wasn't long before Dash noticed that nopony else was present on the cloud walkway. Confused, she took to the air and flew out over the arena. Looking up, she noticed a couple dozen or so guests hovering above the Cloudosseum, appearing to stare out over the scape with panicked expressions. Dash flew up to one of the guests, a lime green stallion with a yellow mane, and tapped his shoulder. He turned to her, the panic clearly present on his face.

"What's going on?" Dash asked.

The stallion's expression changed from panic to incredulity. Before Dash could question him further, he grabbed her body with his hooves and turned her around, removing his hooves straight away afterwards. Rainbow's confusion was swiftly replaced by fear as she immediately saw what had everypony so panicked. All around Aviworld was nothing but blue ocean as far as the eye could see, the DELOS island having disappeared during the night. Although, upon more careful observation, Dash noticed several spots of landmass permeating the horizon that weren't there the previous two days. She felt some of her panic fade away when the realization of what happened struck; DELOS island hadn't disappeared, Aviworld had drifted away during the night. Regardless, the situation at hoof was serious, and being a master of weather-making/control Dash knew she'd be needed to help get Aviworld back to DELOS island.

Without hesitation Dash flew up a bit more so she was facing everypony in the air. Clearing her throat, she began speaking to them over the sounds of everypony's wings' panicked flapping.

"Everypony, listen up!!!"

Two dozen or so panicked faces turned to look at her. A good amount of faces changed from panicked to pleasantly surprised upon seeing their most recent empress in good health after her brutal joust the previous day. Right now, however, Rainbow Dash was more than just a mock empress of a themed resort; she was taking charge and guiding her subjects to solve the crisis much like a real empress would.

"We need to stop this over-sized cloud from drifting any farther out to sea. Once that's done, we can concentrate on figuring out what happened and how we can get back to the resort. I'll need everypony to follow my directions precisely to the letter for this to run smoothly. Am I clear?"

A few ponies murmured to each other, unsure of what to do. Before long, however, everypony reached the conclusion that following Rainbow Dash was the only way to overcome the current crisis. With nods of understanding, everypony flew up in front of Rainbow Dash to await instructions. Rainbow smiled, but replaced it with a frown as she looked out over the surrounding seascape.

I sure hope AJ and Rarity are alright . . .

---

An eerie silence descended upon Dodgeworld as morning dawned on the resort. Whereas on other mornings the street through town would be bustling with at least some activity, not a single soul could be found outside at the present time. Not a single true soul, anyway.

Sin walked down the street back towards the trail it had come into town from. The cybercorn had swept through every single building in Dodgeworld and claimed all the sleeping ponies as victims of its Mind Crush spell. With Dodgeworld purged, Sin set its servers on claiming Magicworld next. Upon sighting the trail Sin broke into a hard gallop once again, its server pre-programmed to save time on traveling whenever possible.

"Magicworld is the past; Sinworld is the future."

Comments

[Boss_Hoss1]

Wait a sec, if I am reading this right. Sin was supposed to have targeted the alicorn bot and not Rarity? Why did nopony pick up on it using lethal-range magic on a VIP guest instead of King H.D.? (shredding drapes and smashing a medieval style thick glass window out does not sound harmless. if it had connected, it might have slammed Rarity through the window. I'm sure Rars thought nothing strange about the magic because none of it hit her, lucky for her...