//------------------------------//
// Field Testing 
// Story: Gear in the Machine 
// by SFaccountant 
//------------------------------//

Gear in the Machine


Chapter 6
Field Testing


****


Ferrous Dominus sector 4
Mechanicus dorms


“Doo doo-doo, lah dah dee dah…”
Gear Works strolled through the gloomy halls of his home complex, a noticeable spring in his step. Striker floated along just a few feet behind him, a dataslate hanging from a dangling cable. The servo skull would swing back and forth in the air every few seconds, as if it was celebrating along with its owner.
“GOOD EVENING… DARK ACOLYTE… GEAR WORKS,” announced a cleaning servitor stomping by the stallion. It’s vocalizer stuttered with the effort to offer a basic greeting, and Gears paused at the feet of the cyborg.
“Good evening, Unit W-91353-9! How are you functioning tonight?”
The servitor lurched to a halt, turning its head sharply and then slowly tilting it forward to gaze upon the pony. “ANALYZING… SYSTEMS… SUB-NOMINAL. STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY… AT NINETY-TWO… PERCENT.”
“Well, that won’t do, will it? Engage maintenance standby mode, authorization key KSHT!”
The blast of static included at the end of his command caused the servitor to jolt, and then lean forward. Its eyes, normally pale and unnervingly focused, finally relaxed. Several panels on its back and one augmetic leg opened, and then a blast of pressurized gases shot out of a nozzle in the small of its back.
Gear Works jumped behind the cyborg, and the arch of green lights beneath his hood glared more brightly. Hundreds of points of data were downloaded, analyzed, and then reconfigured within his internal micro-cogitators. A second later, a section of the servitor’s pneumatic piping flashed red in his view.
“It looks like this valve took a hit, somehow. No wonder your system pressure is off!” He grabbed the offending piece with his servo arm. “Striker, seal this point, would you?”
The servo skull swung around the servitor’s back, and then dropped down next to its master. Then the welding laser underneath the skull’s jaw flickered over the pressure valve, sealing the ruptured piping between Gear’s pincer.
“There! System integrity restored! You may re-activate, Unit W-91353-9.”
Gear Works stepped back as the servitor shuddered. It slowly shifted upright, and then stiffly turned its head to look down at the pony.
“SYSTEM INTEGRITY… RESTORED. MOBILITY FUNCTIONS… OPTIMAL.”
“Splendid!” Gears chirped. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
The servitor swiveled its head away briefly, then jerked its gaze back down toward Gear Works.
“CAN YOU… TEACH THIS UNIT… TO DREAM AGAIN?”
Gears stared up at the cyborg for several seconds. “… No, I don’t think I have access to that neural wetware. Sorry.”
The servitor turned away and walked away without another word.


“The servitors have been acting a little odd, lately. I think all the Friendship may be getting to them.” Gear Works mused aloud to Striker while he approached his room.
Striker buzzed at him in response, floating in a wide circular orbit around his head.
“No, I guess not… the engram codices ARE protected against emotional stimuli. It’s a rather silly theory. But still, the Dark Techpriests have noticed them being unusually… friendly, lately. Which is weird, because I was under the impression that they’re usually more prone to psychotic rampages than pleasantries.”
Gears stopped in front of his room and activated the door.
“Gears! There you are! I’ve been waiting for over an hour!” said Dusk Blade.
Several of the optics lights under Gear’s hood flickered off and on again in imitation of blinking. Dusk was lying down on the dorm’s bed with a dataslate resting on the pillow.
“I really need to get your vox frequency, Gears. I hate just waiting for you at home like this,” Dusk explained. “Like I said, this place is claustrophobic even for me.”
“Lieutenant, what are you doing here?” Gear Works asked calmly. He hadn’t seen the thestral since they had attended the dinner hosted by the Merchant Corp. The last contact he’d had with Dusk was the spin-kick to his face before the Lunar soldier fled the event.
“What? You don’t remember? I need your help to make friends with the Elements of Boring Mares Who Aren’t Twilight Sparkle.”
“First of all, Lieutenant, I recommend you tone down the snark when referring to Princess Sparkle’s beloved friends,” Gears begin, “but that aside, are we just going to pretend the event last week never happened?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dusk replied.
The Dark Acolyte paused, slightly surprised. “… Really? You just want to let it go?”
“That’s not it. I literally don’t know what you’re talking about.” After a few seconds of awkward silence, Dusk continued. “I remember that we were planning on doing a thing with the annoying white unicorn Element the other day, but then I woke up the next night with a hangover and no memory. I’m guessing it didn’t go well, because the pict of her I had printed out was all torn up.” He paused again. “Also, the pict I have of you was pinned to the wall by a throwing blade. Had to clean it up a little bit. But anyway, I don’t remember what happened and don’t care what happened. Time to move on.”
Gears supposed he should have felt nervous about that, but he was honestly a little touched. “You have a pict of me?”
“Yes. I’m glad I took it, too, since every week there seems to be less of you left.” Dusk Blade chuckled at his own joke briefly. “But enough about that, let’s talk about mares!”


Striker hovered into the room, dropping the dataslates on Gear’s desk. Gear Works himself stepped inside and sat down on the floor before the door closed and locked behind him.
“While I’m not inclined to describe the… incident with the Element of Generosity if you don’t want to talk about it, there are some related issues,” the Dark Acolyte began. “First, I feel inclined to point out that my presence generally hasn’t been at all helpful to you in making friends. Second, thanks to the successful pitch of the Strider combat suit, my free time is in short supply. Trademaster Delgan has set a strict timetable for development of our functional prototypes, and I’m still on call to maintain the wargear and facilities of our equine forces.”
“Okay, so… here’s the thing,” Dusk said, chuckling a bit, “this time I actually did go ahead and try to kiss up to one of them without you. The pink one.”
“Miss Pinkie Pie,” Gears interjected.
“Pinkie? Seriously? Her name is her fur color?” Dusk asked, perplexed. “Huh. I was just calling her ‘Pinks’ all night. Lucky that sounded like a cute nickname.”
“Why can’t you be bothered to learn these mares’ names? You come up with fairly elaborate plans to meet and converse with them in a longer-term plan to establish romantic relations with Princess Sparkle, and you can’t spend the time to internalize their names?” Gears asked.
“I have a hard time focusing on tedious ponies, okay?” Dusk said defensively. “And this mare was the WORST, lemme tell you! Hyper, clueless, and… uh…”
Dusk Blade winced, and his ears pinned back. Gear Works tilted his head to the side.
“Lieutenant? What’s wrong? What’s the third trait?”
“Okay, wait. We got a little side-tracked,” Dusk admitted, waving a hoof. “As I was saying, I couldn’t think of a reason to bring you along, so last night I went out to meet her on my own. There was a party in sector 20.”
“The Nightmare Night Black Tower Bash. I recall seeing the adverts. How was it?”
“Eh. It was okay. Parties aren’t really my thing, but I had a decent vampony costume. Unoriginal, I know, but it stood out anyway since half the ponies dress like space pirates and daemons now.” Dusk’s wings shifted on his back as he paused. Gears got the feeling that whatever this was about, the thestral warrior found it extremely embarrassing. “So anyway, I found Pinks right away and started chatting her up. It went pretty well. I mean, as far as giving her a good impression of me; she’s a complete airhead and I hate having to listen to her stupid voice. But I made good progress on the Friendship thing. But then… she suddenly asked if I was just trying to get to know her to get close to Twilight Sparkle.”
“Tch! Busted,” Gear Works said. “For a so-called ‘airhead’ she caught on to you quickly.”
“Yeah, well, I denied it,” Dusk continued, shaking his head. “I told her that Sparkle clearly didn’t like me and that I had given up on her.”
“You know, it’s a problem that your first instinct in these situations is to lie your tail off,” Gears sighed.
“Well… yeah. It was a problem.”
“I thought so. She saw through your little fib?”
“No. She believed me completely. And then decided that the only other reason I might be talking to her is if I was flirting with her, instead,” Dusk Blade admitted with a sigh. “I’m not particularly proud of this, but she seemed pretty into me. I had to bargain my way out of it.”
“Why? Just tell her that you’re not interested in her, either.”
“You’re a total dork, so I’m sure you don’t know this, but you can’t be so straightforward with mares. You have to be subtle and feel your way through the conversation,” Dusk explained. “For example, I went with lying some more. Suggested I actually was flirting with her, but didn’t want a cheap fling or something like that. Long story short, I have a date tonight, and I need your help.”
“Why would you need my help with a date?”
“I need you to create a huge robot uprising to distract everypony so I don’t have to attend,” Dusk said with absolute seriousness.
Numerous optical sensors in Gear’s face rolled about. “I can’t do that.”
The Lunar Lieutenant clicked his tongue. “Darn. Well, how about faking my death, then? Change my status to KIA!”
“I actually could do that, but we’d never get away with it,” Gears replied.
“Why not? People die all the time on combat missions. There’s no way Command cares enough to check on all the reports.”
“HUMANS die all the time on combat missions, Lieutenant. I can be sure the first KIA report of a pony will be aggressively investigated.”
Dusk Blade mulled that over for several seconds, scratching at his chin with a hoof.
“We really haven’t had a single pony die before?” the thestral asked.
“Not die in combat, no. An older stallion did get sick and died when he wouldn’t convert to Nurgle, though. The humans seemed honestly surprised, too. They may have thought we were all actually immortal or something.”
“That’s weird.”
“I would characterize it as ‘astoundingly lucky’ myself.”
“Lucky nothing! There goes plan B!” Dusk Blade griped. “Now what am I supposed to do with no cybernetic riots or death notice?”
“You could try a less dramatic means of avoiding Miss Pie,” Gears suggested, “or, alternatively, you could actually go out with her and just try to have a good time. Maybe you’ll find her more agreeable in an intimate setting.”
“What? No! I’m not going to cheat on Twilight!” Dusk snapped.
“Lieutenant, you CAN’T cheat on Princess Sparkle. You aren’t a couple.”
“The concept is the same! My heart belongs to Sparkle!” the batpony insisted. “Besides, I’m trying to ingratiate myself with her friends in order to seduce her! What’s the point if I convince those friends that I’ve given up on her?”
“You probably should have considered this before you lied and told Miss Pie exactly that,” Gears pointed out, “and then, apparently, agreed to go out with her.”
“Okay, true. But now that we’ve reached this point we need to find a way out of it.”
“By lying some more?”
“Ideally, yes.”


Gear Works walked to the back of his tiny dorm, thinking quietly. Striker hovered into a tiny alcove in the wall, inserting into a charging socket and entering rest mode.
“Well, this shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll just engineer a scheduling conflict,” Gear Works said. He turned toward a thin holo-screen over his desk, and his opticals flickered. “let’s see, here… there’s a show by Miss Trixie. Sounds about right.”
“Oh? What kind of show? The usual illusionist routine? I hope not, I’ve already been to a few.”
“Apparently it’s a comedy stand-up night. Though it’s not as if we actually have to go,” Gear Works reasoned. The holo-screen flickered on, and a series of interface screens appeared in a rapid, moving cascade. “I’ll just reserve the seats so there’s a record, and you just need to offer up your excuse to Miss Pie.”
“Well, as long as you’re reserving the seats we may as well go,” Dusk reasoned, dropping down next to the cyborg. “I mean, even though I’m your only friend, we hardly do anything together. Let’s give this a shot!”
“You’re not my only friend. And the last time I agreed to join you in any kind of recreational activity, you beat me up and robbed me.”
“Yeah, yeah, fine. I won’t do that this time, I promise.” The batpony rolled his eyes. “Just make the reservations so I can call up Pinks and ditch her for good.”


Gear Works zoomed in on the relevant tile on the screen, and then confirmed the appointment. “There. If we actually are going to see the show, then we should get ready to leave now. It begins in… hm?”
Gears trailed off when a corner of the holo-screen started blinking. A second later a new screen appeared, and the stallions recoiled when they saw Pinkie Pie’s face grinning at them.
“Dusk! Hi! I just saw that you booked a space on Trixie’s show tonight! That’s great! I love shows!” the mare announced. Her head bounced up and down in the image screen.
Gears pointed at the holo-screen with his servo arm. “Wait, wait, wait! How did you manage to-“
“Ease up, buddy,” Dusk Blade interrupted, patting the Dark Acolyte on the shoulder, “I got this.” Then he cleared his throat. “Hey, Pinks! Listen, I have some bad news. This is my friend, Gear Works, and-“
The mare gasped and pressed her face up to the screen. “You have a friend?! That’s so exciting! Way to go, Dusk! I knew you could do it!”
Dusk’s eyebrow twitched. “What? Of course I have a friend. Why would you think-“
“Is he a slave-owner too?” The holo-screen suddenly tilted sharply so that Pinkie was facing Gears directly. The Acolyte recoiled in surprise, as the unit projector wasn’t supposed to be able to do that. “Ooh! You’re all metal and stuff! Cool!”
“Hey! Pinks!” Dusk snapped. “This is important! It’s about our date!”
The holo-screen tilted the other way so that Pinkie was facing the Lunar soldier. “Oh, right! Hey, should we go commando – as in naked – formal – as in mostly naked – or Commando – as in fully armed and armored – for the show? I might need to do some shopping first! Or drop by the armory!”
“You won’t be needing to do that,” Dusk assured her blandly. “Pinks, listen: the reservations aren’t for you and me, they’re for me and Gears.”
“Yes, I know!” Pinkie said brightly.
There was a brief pause.
“Uh… okay. And that’s… not a problem? I can’t cancel on Gears, we’ve been planning this for weeks!” Dusk lied.
“Nopey-dopey! Not a problem!” Pinkie assured him. “I wouldn’t expect you to cancel your night out with your only friend!”
Dusk clenched his teeth. “He’s not my only-“
“Besides, this worked out perfectly! Dashie’s armor is being repaired again, so she can’t go on patrol tonight! We’ll make it a double date!”
Both stallions recoiled in shock as Pinkie Pie started bouncing again.
“Whoa, wait, what, why?” Gears demanded, reaching over to the holo-screen to try to push it to face him. His servo arm, unsurprisingly, went right through the screen without effect.
“This way you guys don’t have to cancel, we still get our date, and Dashie gets a little action too!” she winked at Dusk Blade.
“Hold on, you’re seriously setting your friend up on a blind date? With HIM?” the Lieutenant asked incredulously, pointing a hoof at Gears.
“Yuppers! If he’s your friend he must be a really cool colt, right?” Pinkie asked.
Dusk Blade laughed. Pinkie Pie laughed with him. Gear Works continued observing the holo-screen projector for any sign of malfunction, ignoring them.
“Hee hee hee! Well, I’ll see you at the show!” Pinkie Pie said suddenly.
Dusk’s laughter cut off into coughing, and then he suddenly recalled that he was trying to avoid this exact outcome. “N-No, wait! You don’t want to set your friend up with him! He’s a total nerd!”
“Aw, it’s fine! I’m sure Dashie will love him! We’ll meet you in sector 6 outside the club, okay? Smooches!”
The holo-screen suddenly bounced forward toward Dusk’s face, untethered to its projector, and he flinched as he felt Pinkie kiss his nose. Then the screen snapped back into its original position, and the communications link blinked away.


“Oh… kay… That did not go well,” Dusk Blade mumbled while rubbing at the spot Pinkie had kissed.
“How did she do that? The projector can’t bend like that!” Gears complained, peering closer at the device. “Maybe a base refraction of the particulate screen? But how would a cascade possibly-“
“Hey, Gears! Nerd out about your thing later!” Dusk barked. “What are we going to do? I don’t want to have to sit through a show with bubble-gum-brains slobbering all over me! Plus some other random pony she’s dragging along for this farce!”
Gear Works sighed and pushed himself away from the projector. “I believe Miss Pie was referring to Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty. She’s not ‘some other random pony.’”
Dusk frowned, his forehead creasing.
“The blue one.”
“Oh, hay, not HER,” the batpony cursed, slapping a hoof to his face. “And now I can’t even stand Pinks up without annoying two of Twilight’s friends at once! This was a terrible idea!”
“It really, really was,” Gears mumbled.
Dusk Blade groaned, and then hung his head. “Well, whatever. Nothing for it now. Go get your lame magnet bow-tie on so we can go.”
“Wh-What? No! Why should I have to go along with this?” Gears protested.
“Because you didn’t object when Pinks said she wanted to go on a double date,” Dusk reasoned, “if you back out now, then Rainbow Run is a third wheel and everypony ends up having a lousy time. That would reflect badly upon me, wouldn’t it?”
“But… I mean… I’m supposed to-“
“Who knows? Maybe you’ll even hit it off! Wouldn’t that be crazy?” Dusk laughed and hit the button on the dormitory door. “C’mon!”
Gear Works wilted and reluctantly followed the other stallion. “You realize, of course, that maintaining this dishonest ploy will make it progressively harder and more painful to back off before things come completely unglued.”
“Turn your drama circuits off, buddy. It’s just one dinner. We’ll survive.”
“Your first idea for handling this one dinner was a covertly triggered machine rebellion.”
“Yeah, but there’s no need to go crazy. Suck it up, dude.”


****


Sector 6 – Red Nebulae Bar and Grill


“This is actually a really nice place. I should bring Twilight here sometime if this date doesn’t ultimately ruin my chances with her forever.”
Dusk Blade looked over the interior of the restaurant approvingly. Much of the interior furnishing was black iron, with large torches hanging from the ceiling by heavy chains. The décor otherwise straddled the line between Gothic and macabre, with daemonic statues and arcane fetishes without the skulls or other corpse remnants that one could find elsewhere in Ferrous Dominus.
One end of the dining room opened up into a stage, which presumably held the night’s entertainment. Many ponies and humans were already seated and sipping drinks, and Gear Works was immediately reminded of the restaurants in Canterlot. As was the norm with the pony-run establishments, one could barely reconcile the relatively normal, cheerful interiors with the industrial blight just outside.
Gears should have found the setting comforting, he supposed, but he didn’t. His spike-tipped tail twitched with regular nerve-spasms. His body shifted constantly, as if he was having difficulty aligning his biological legs with his augmetic ones. Most grating of all to the other ponies nearby, however, was the way his servo arm kept shifting. The articulated claw wasn’t being moved to any particular purpose, but the appendage had no definitive resting state. It twitched up and down and made minute and needless motions back and forth, each one generating a loud whirring noise from the grinding servos.
Dusk tolerated a solid two minutes of the Acolyte’s fidgeting before he spoke up. “Gears, why are you so nervous?”
The Dark Acolyte jerked his head up, and his ears twitched. “Wh-What? You can tell?”
“YES. They may have taken your face, but apparently the DarkMech found a dozen other ways to let everypony know that you’re freaking out. Seriously, alarm lights would be more subtle. What’s the matter?”
Gears leaned in to the other stallion. “Can’t you tell what’s the matter? We’re about to meet Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash! Elements of Harmony! Two of the most famous and renowned mares in Equestrian history!”
Dusk Blade looked perplexed. “Yeah… so? You didn’t get all worked up about meeting the other Elements. And didn’t you do some work for Princess Luna one time?”
“Those occasions were completely different!” Gears snapped at the thestral. “I wasn’t on a DATE with any of them!”
Dusk arched a brow. “Seriously? That suddenly makes this a big deal?”
“That suddenly makes this a HUGE deal!” Gears said, his ears flipping down. “In nearly any other context I’m somepony worthy of… well, maybe not respect, per se, but I’m at least a useful member of our Company! I would be judged according to my accomplishments, actions, and decisions as is proper and logical!” The cyborg pony’s knees started shaking. “But a date? A DATE?! I’m supposed to entertain a mare in a romantic context and be judged as a potential sexual partner? This is ludicrous! You cannot comprehend how deficient I am for this sort of interaction! You may as well have tossed me in an arena pit and told me to duel a Berserker!”
Dusk was about to make another snarky comments about Gear Works being melodramatic, but the words died on his tongue. He hadn’t known the Dark Acolyte for very long, but this was easily the most emotional and terrified he’d ever seen the cyborg pony. And considering that he had openly threatened Gear’s life at one point, that impressed him. For whatever reason, going on a date scared him in ways that being savagely beaten and stuffed in a locker didn’t.
The stallion felt a sudden sense of pity for his best (and some would say only) friend, and mentally discarded the scathing mockery he had prepared. Instead he threw a foreleg over Gear’s withers and sighed.
“Gears, listen: I lie a lot. But right now, I’m speaking from the heart. There’s no reason to freak out. It’s all going to be okay.”
A sucking sound came from the Acolyte’s mask as his respirator engine cycled more air to him. “You… You really think… she’ll like me?”
“No. No, I don’t think that at all,” Dusk admitted. “We’re talking about the dumbest, most superficial, and most hopelessly self-absorbed mare among Twilight Sparkle’s friends. She’s going to HATE you.”
Gear’s tail fell slack, and he cringed.
“You’re a nerd, a cultist, and a cyborg, and you don’t even wear any of it very well. She’ll take one look at your creepy, faceless, half-metal body and probably spend the rest of the evening disappointed and angry, and she’ll almost certainly take it out on you. She may even assume – with no basis at all! – that your junk is metal, or that it was cut off, or something awful like that.”
Gear Works whimpered, turning his head away.
Then Dusk pulled the other stallion closer, forcing his gaze back. “But you know what, Gears? That’s HER problem. When you wake up tomorrow, you’ll still be a Dark Acolyte, the first pony ever to join the Mechanicus! You’ll spend every day sifting through ancient knowledge and learning to build things that defy imagination! Spectrum Sprinter or whoever will be stuffed back into her power armor and sent after more Orks like the half-witted attack dog she is. This date is going to be a complete and utter emotional piledriver for you because you abandoned vanity for utility. But don’t think for a second that it was the wrong decision because some featherbrained crony of Sparkle’s thinks you’re a gross nerd. You’re BETTER than her, you get me?”
Gear Works didn’t speak immediately, completely overwhelmed. “You… You mean it? I’m… better than an Element of Harmony?”
“By a mile, buddy,” the thestral said, grinning and slapping Gear’s back with a wing. “Especially the blue one! She’s Loyalty, right? That’s barely even a virtue. It literally means she sticks with people when it isn’t a good idea. I mean, hay, the changelings are as loyal as can be, right? Does that make them good?”
“Wow, I never thought of it that way! I’m glad I got Laughter!” chirped a voice behind them.


Dusk froze for several seconds, and then slowly twisted his head around. Just as he expected, Pinkie Pie was standing behind him, grinning. Also as he expected, but hoped wasn’t the case, Rainbow Dash was next to her. The pegasus was scowling, and her wings ruffled in irritation while she glared at him.
“Ah. You’re here. Good!” Dusk plastered an utterly fake smile on his face, and then stepped away from Gear Works. “I got us a table already! The show will start in about ten minutes.”
“What were you saying about loyalty?” Rainbow Dash growled.
“I was saying how great it is to see you again! I think the last time we met was right before you left to destroy the Ork Gargant! That was an incredible mission! I’m still amazed you survived!” Dusk gushed.
Rainbow Dash wavered, surprised by how brazenly the batpony was lying to her. “Well, sure, but what you said about-“
“I’m not sure you’ve been introduced to your date yet! This is Gear Works!” Dusk Blade swept a wing out to gesture toward Gears, who still hadn’t turned around. The Acolyte had fallen absolutely still since the mares announced their presence.
Any remaining thoughts of pressing the Lieutenant on his ideas about Loyalty vanished when Rainbow glanced at her date. “Wait, WHAT? Pinkie, you set me up with a servitor?”
Gear Works flinched, and a strangled, gurgling noise came from his respirator. Dusk sucked in a breath through his teeth, and even Pinkie Pie cringed.
“That’s gotta hurt,” Pinkie mumbled under her breath, looking away.
“Yeah, I think I called this one right. Hope that pep talk holds,” Dusk sighed. Then he started walking toward the dining room, gesturing with a wing for Pinkie to follow him. “We’ll go on ahead and let you two get acquainted. Join us whenever.”


“Wait, hold up! Did you seriously set me up with a servitor? What is this thing?” Rainbow demanded while Dusk and Pinkie scurried away. “Pinkie, this is NOT cool!”
Gear Works slowly turned around, his limbs creaking as if their joint gears had rusted over. “Miss Rainbow Dash, it’s lovely to see you. I will be your escort for the evening,” the Acolyte said.
“I can’t believe she did that! She actually set me up on a date with a dumb robot! What a lame prank!” Rainbow griped, turning toward the cyborg. She gagged visibly when she got a look at Gear’s face. “Ugh, and it’s an extra-creepy one, too. What are those supposed to be, spider eyes? Gross.”
Gears felt his processor engine double its core temperature out of sheer embarrassment. “Miss Dash, I am not a servitor. I am a Dark Acolyte of the Company’s Mechanicus detachment.”
The pegasus blinked in surprise, backing up slightly. “Wait… seriously? You’re a Techpriest, like Gaela?”
“I am a Dark Acolyte, which is a rank that Techpriest Gaela achieved and then surpassed,” Gears clarified. He gulped, which created a strange, grotesque slurping noise within his respirator mask. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Rainbow Dash’s expression shifted from surprise to revulsion. She cringed away and stuck out her tongue. “Then this ISN’T a prank? You’re seriously my date? This is even worse!”
Gears intended to reply with some witty, self-deprecating humor in order to ease the Element of Loyalty into the idea that she might actually enjoy his company for the evening. But for some reason the crushing shame that he was experiencing made it difficult to compile a response. Data scrolling across his optical array stuttered and then fell apart into useless, broken code, and he could swear that his bionic knees were trying to unlock and fold up against his will.
“I’m sorry...” the Dark Acolyte whimpered. His voice made Fluttershy sound bold by comparison.
Rainbow grimaced, realizing the effect her disgust was having on the stallion. It wasn’t that easy to tell, given that Gear Works didn’t have much of a face, but the little arch of optic lights kept flickering on and off at random, and she could see his biological legs were quivering. That wasn’t right. She was disappointed, annoyed, and more than a little grossed out by her date, but he didn’t deserve to be insulted.
“No, no, you don’t have to apologize. This is… fine, I guess.” Rainbow’s tone and grimacing features made it clear this was not fine, but at least she was trying. “What was your name, again?”
“I am… I am Dark Acolyte Gear Works,” Gears managed to croak, “although my friends call me Gears. It… It’s an honor to meet you, Miss Dash.”
He was expecting Rainbow Dash to express some surprise or start questioning him about ponies joining the Dark Mechanicus. That was nearly everyone’s response to meeting him for the first time, and the most common recognition of his achievement. Thus he was surprised and embarrassed even further when the pegasus nodded blandly and turned around.
“Sure it is. Let’s just get this over with, okay?” Rainbow trudged onto the dining floor, her ears pressed down against her head. Gear Works meekly followed after her, looking just as defeated.


Up on the stage in front of the dining hall, a human woman wearing light robes nervously walked up to the vox receiver.
“H-Hello everyone, and thank you for attending the Great and Powerful Trixie’s Magical Comedy Hour. My name is Suuna, and I’ll be introducing the star of tonight’s show. Please note that medicae personnel are standing by to assist for busted guts and overtaxed funny bones.”
She paused, glancing around the room. Nobody laughed, and a few men near the front coughed.
“Okay, hold on. I have something for this…” Suuna fished around in her robes, and then withdrew a slip of paper. She unfolded it and then leaned in toward the receiver. “How many Techpriests does it take to install a lumen orb?”
“Installation of a single lumen unit would require a negligible level of physical and intellectual resources from any given member of the Cult Mechanicus,” interjected a Dark Techpriest seated to the left of the stage. “I calculate that it would require no more than 0.12 of a Dark Techpriest. However, the obviously impractical nature of requisitioning a fraction of an individual for a single, discrete task necessitates rounding up to a whole digit. As such, the only logical answer is one.”
Suuna stared at the cyborg for a few seconds, and then looked down at her notes. “Uh… no? I mean, you make a pretty compelling point, honestly, but the joke-“
“Start the bloody show!” shouted a mercenary near the back.
“We want Trixie!” demanded another human, slamming a pistol on the table.
Suuna flinched back at the shouts, and then tossed her notes away. “Right! Yes! Everyone, please put your various types of extremities together for the Great and Powerful Trixie!”


Raucous applause filled the dining room as flares of colored light shot out from the stage. The fireballs hovered in the air and spun into wild, multi-colored loops, and they spilled sparks on the floor of the dining hall until they withered away into smoke.
Suuna backed up and Trixie stepped out from behind the curtain, grinning happily. She was wearing her power armor and cape, oddly enough, although she left her helmet off.
“Welcome, welcome! Hello everypony, everyhuman, and the rest of you freaks that we let in here for deadly manual labor!” The vox receiver was wrapped in a pink glow, and then it flipped onto its side, floating about a foot off the floor with the head next to the magician. “Let’s give a big round of applause to Suuna for lowering your expectations for tonight, and for the Red Nebulae for having such elastic fire codes!”
The audience laughed and cheered, and several ponies banged their hooves on the floor in applause. 
Trixie’s smile fell. “Really though, Trixie apologizes for the Mechanicus jokes. We know that you don’t have a sense of humor, and that you take not having a sense of humor very seriously. Trixie doesn’t mean to disrespect that.”
Most of the audience laughed louder, but the Dark Techpriest who had interrupted Suuna nodded his head. “Affirmative. It is commandment 7 in our standardized behavioral codex.”
Turning away from the cyborg, Trixie addressed the crowd. “How are you doing, Ferrous Dominus? The weather wasn’t too harsh tonight?” She paused for a wave of murmurs to roll through the crowd. “Granted, we don’t get much variety of weather in Ferry D. Usually our forecasts just read ‘poisonous,’ with the occasional ‘poisonous and wet.’” She shrugged, rolling the heavy shoulder pads of her power armor. “Better than when it rains xenos, though. They’re still cleaning bits of Ork off the buildings in some sectors!” Chuckles rolled through the restaurant. “Oh! And speaking of Orks…”


“I’ll have the daisy salad with brie, the stuffed portabellas, and a glass of chilled nectar!” Pinkie Pie said while running her hoof across her menu.
“Confirmed,” bleated the wait-servitor, recording the order with the autoscribe attached to its left wrist. “Next.”
“Wow, this stuff is pretty high end for Ferry D fare. Pricey, too,” Rainbow Dash noted while looking over the menu.
“We have a good flow of trade with the surrounding settlements by now. Most of it actually comes in on the train shipments. Keeping a stock of decent food isn’t challenging anymore,” Dusk Blade explained. “Seriously, sometimes I wonder why the humans still eat their gruel most of the time.” Then he closed his own menu. “I’ll have some fried cicadas and hot tea, please.”
Pinkie winced, and Rainbow gagged in disgust.
“Cicadas? Like… the bug?” the pegasus asked.
“Confirmed,” the servitor said in its buzzing monotone. It swiveled sharply, and the glimmering green lights focused on Rainbow Dash. “Designate beverage choice.”
“Wait, what? No! I don’t want any bugs!” Rainbow yelped.
“Noted. Beverages without insect base ingredients include ice water, chilled nectar, chilled cider, synthehol, agrim-“
“No! That’s not what I meant!” Rainbow shouted. “I don’t want bugs!”
“Previously noted. Change in vocalization pitch suggests rising stress levels. Customer has been registered as unusually belligerent,” the servitor droned. “Designate beverage choice. The beverages without insect base ingredients-“
“No! Stop talking, you useless rust-bucket!” Rainbow growled.
Dusk coughed lightly into his hoof. “Kinda proving his point, there…”
“Oh, shut up!”
“Customer disruption approaching security threshold,” buzzed the servitor. “Note that further aggression will result in an armed response.”
“I’m just trying to order my food! What’s wrong with you?!”
A blast of static suddenly came from the other corner of the table, startling Rainbow Dash.
The servitor’s optics blinked. Then its autoscribe scratched down several new lines. “Confirmed. Second order of fried cicadas canceled. Order set: Grilled peppers and hay fries. Beverage set: ice water. Order set: nutrient ration. Order complete.”


The servitor turned sharply, tearing a ribbon of paper from its autoscribe to submit to the kitchen. Dusk snickered, while the two mares blinked at Gear Works.
The Dark Acolyte lowered his head, hiding his sensors under the hood of his cloak. “The servitors are ill-suited to a service environment. They have difficulty interpreting context. Binary is much easier for them to process.”
“You speak that weird static language?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“I am fluent in basic Binaric Cant and machine code up to base four cogimetrics,” Gears explained. “I do not yet have a hexamathic conversion key, nor have I learned any of the exotic-“
“Okay, okay. You could have just said ‘yes,’” Rainbow interrupted with a groan. “Also, I kind of wanted the chilled cider, not just water.”
“My apologies, Miss Rainbow Dash,” Gear Works mumbled, still hanging his head.
“He’s in for a tough night,” Dusk Blade mumbled.
Pinkie laughed and slapped a hoof on the table. “I think that’s really neato! Can you talk to the machine souls too?”
“Machine spirits,” Gear Works corrected. “A soul is completely different in its endiographic constru-“
“You can just say ‘no!’” Rainbow interrupted hotly.
“But… I was correcting her premise… because… the question…” Gears floundered and fell silent under the gaze of the other ponies.
“When that servitor comes back with our drinks, I’m ordering some synthehol,” Rainbow Dash grumbled.


“If all of your previous addresses are on lifeless balls of scorched rock, then you might be a heretic!”
Trixie paused as the laughter spread through the dining room, a grin plastered over her face.
“If you contract terminal cancer and your get-well card says ‘congratulations,’ you might be a heretic!”
The Dark Techpriest seated nearby released a discordant buzzing. “It is gratifying because it is accurate.”
“If all the street signs in your sector are USELESS because they point in eight directions at once… you just might be a heretic!”
Howling laughter came from the crowd, and one especially exuberant mercenary started firing his lasgun up into the ceiling.


“So, how did you two meet, anyway?” Pinkie Pie asked Dusk Blade between bites of her salad. “I didn’t think you’d be palling around with the Dark Mechies!”
“Which is only fair, because you don’t know me very well,” the batpony replied. He paused and bit the head off one of his deep-fried cicadas, ignoring the wince it caused from Rainbow Dash. “I have the greatest respect and admiration for our cybernetic colleagues.”
“Uh, but you-“ Gears started to object, but Dusk kept on speaking.
“As it so happens, I was lucky enough to catch Aspirant Gear Works after he was finishing up with a job. Most of his jobs involve being threatened by angry ponies who want him to fix stuff, incidentally. We started chatting, and I could tell right away that Gears here was headed toward great things!” He beckoned across the table at the Dark Acolyte.
“But Lieutenant-“ Gears tried again, only for Rainbow to interrupt him this time.
“Great things? Like what?” the pegasus asked. She looked rather bored between chewing on bunches of hay fries and resting her cheek against her hoof, but Dusk considered it a good sign that she hadn’t actually ordered any synthehol as she had threatened.
“Well, for starters, he achieved Dark Acolyte rank in record time!” Dusk pointed out.
“Only because YOU-“
“Oh, wow! That’s amazing! Maybe I’m dating the wrong stallion!” Pinkie Pie gushed, winking at Gear Works even as she talked over him.
“What’s the big deal? Isn’t that like the second-lowest rank there is?” Rainbow asked.
“Well, technically-“
“I mean, it’s not nothing. Good for you,” the pegasus continued, gesturing to her date, “but c’mon. Me and Pinkie are Equinought Squadron. AND Elements of Harmony. Probably.” She stopped and frowned. “Does that still count now that the actual Elements are destroyed? I feel like it should count.”
“It’s not a contest, Dashie!” Pinkie laughed.
“Although if it WAS a contest,” Dusk interjected, jabbing a hoof at the pegasus, “I’d say Gears could give you a run for your money. Yes, Acolyte is the second-lowest rank. But, unlike luckier ponies, Gears had to start at the bottom! Making Acolyte in less than a year is unheard of!”
Rainbow just rolled her eyes. This caused Gear Works to sink a little lower in his chair, and incensed Dusk Blade even more.
“What, you think that’s worth less than head-butting a plane?” the batpony challenged. “I’m not dumping on combat duty – that’s my job too, obviously – but Gears builds the sort of things that make our job possible. Where would we be without the Dark Techpriests? No ships, no armor, no guns.” He drew a hoof across his neck, and then flipped a cicada into his mouth.
Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes at Gear Works. The Dark Acolyte twitched and stared straight forward while slowly sucking the gruel from his nutrient tin. He didn’t know why Dusk was trying to defend his achievements as being equal to his date’s, but he really wished the thestral Lieutenant would stop.
“So what do you build that’s so great, then?” Rainbow demanded. “Can you make power armor? Solon can make power armor.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly build a power armor suit on my own,” Gears admitted immediately. “Especially not anything that compares to the Warsmith’s creations! The power plant technology and micro-motor fabrication processes are currently beyond me, to say nothing of the more exotic technologies that the Warsmith has access to.”
Rainbow Dash turned away and went back to eating.
“I suppose the closest thing would be the Strider battlesuits. Although those are still in prototype at the moment.”
This seemed to startle the other ponies at the table.
“Wait. Battlesuit? What’s a Strider battlesuit? Is that like a Tau armored unit? I’ve never heard of those,” Rainbow asked suspiciously.
“Well, yes. They’re only in prototype phase, like I said,” Gears explained. “And while they do incorporate Tau technology and design philosophy, they’re actually made for ponies.”
“Seriously? Wow! I didn’t know you were working on something like that!” Dusk exclaimed.
“You were there when I… ugh, right, never mind,” Gear Works grumbled.
“That’s amazing! Way to go, Gears!” Pinkie cheered, clapping her hooves together. “Ooh! Ooh! Idea! Let’s go try them out after dinner!”
Gear Works recoiled in surprise. “Try them out? What? The suits aren’t in production yet!”
“You said there were prototypes, though,” Dusk Blade pointed out.
“Well… yes, but-“
Rainbow drained her glass and then slammed it down on the table. “All right, I’m game. Let’s see if these things actually work.”
“Whoa, wait, hold on,” Gear Works said, his servo arm wagging at the others. “These are prototypes! They were literally finished yesterday! They might not be safe!”
“So you need somepony to test them, right?” Dusk slammed back his nectar, and then licked his lips. “Sounds like a pretty good way to top off the evening to me!”
“B-But-“
“Oh, would you relax?” Rainbow Dash asked, patting Gears on the shoulder. “We’re just taking your machines for a little drive. They can’t possibly be less safe than blasting through an Ork war camp. Which I do all the time, you know?”
“That’s not really-“
“Ooh! Ooh! I call shotgun!” Pinkie shouted, waving a leg in the air above her.
“Do these suits have passenger seats?” Rainbow asked.
“No, I mean, if there’s a shotgun weapon mount, I want to use that.”
“Eh, I doubt these things have weapons on them. They’re just test models,” Dusk pointed out.
“Oh, no, they have weapons,” Gears admitted. “That’s actually why I object to this, really. The level of firepower available to a Strider battlesuit is too great to be treated so lightly, and any complications in the power relays and converters could be fatal without extended test cycles!”
The other ponies stared at him. Far from looking solemn, frightened, or even remotely serious, every one of them looked excited.
“Okay, I take it all back,” Rainbow Dash said with a grin, “this date isn’t going so bad after all!”


“… but of course, you really can’t trust Tzeentch for anything. Seriously. Nothing! Trixie knows from experience! Use a daemonic messenger to do your laundry, and you end up with a dozen mismatched socks. Trixie doesn’t even own socks! There’s some household in Canterlot right now with half of Trixie’s linens and at least one minor Warp gateway in its closet.”
Trixie spun the vox receiver around in the air in front of her while the crowd laughed. Eventually she stopped it, and it hung upside-down in front of her while wrapped in her pink aura.
“But if Trixie is being honest, Nurgle is the worst. Yes, Trixie sees you, Poison. Put down the boltgun and shut your venom-hole.”
Poison Kiss glared from her table, her bolter hovering in the air next to her head. After a few seconds she let it fall onto the table surface, and then she and the rest of Phage Squadron settled down unhappily to wait out the joke.
“No other God gets so much credit for so little,” Trixie continued, shaking her head. “Trixie doesn’t even know how Nurgle worship is supposed to help. Magical blood fury of Khorne is one thing. Tzeentch has his goofy magic to help. Slaanesh has…” Trixie paused, and then shrugged. “Well, Trixie actually has no idea what Slaanesh is about. There’s not a lot of material on it around here.”
More chuckles came from the audience.
“That wasn’t a joke, but for some reason it always gets a laugh,” the unicorn mumbled. “Anyway, Nurgle just gives his worshipers injuries and gets dirt everywhere. Trixie isn’t exactly a tactician or a religious scholar, but it can’t be helpful in combat having your gun gummed up with phlegm while you’re tripping on your own guts.”
She paused, sticking out her tongue, and then arched an eyebrow. ”But that’s not all Nurgle’s about, no! He’s also the Chaos God of love! LOVE! He’s even less helpful for that than for fighting! Because Trixie can assure you, no Nurgle worshipers are EVER getting any!”
A gunshot came from Phage Squadron’s table, and Trixie flinched back as a bolt round hit the edge of the stage. “That’s all the time we have for tonight, folks! You have a lovely evening!” Another bolt round took the head off the vox receiver, and Trixie beat a hasty retreat while the sundered metal rod dropped onto the stage behind her.


****


Sector 4 – Artificer Temple Demerus


“This is a terrible idea, and could lead to all of us being hurt for no reason,” Gear Works mentioned while he stood in front of the doors of the repair bay.
It was the sixth such warning the Dark Acolyte had offered since they had left the Red Nebulae. Gear Works had considered that multiple warnings might impress upon the others that they were taking absurd and unnecessary risks.
It did not. “Oh, man, this is going to be so cool!” Dusk Blade gushed, shaking out his wings. “A pony battlesuit would put equine soldiers on par with the Tau! This is incredible!”
“Even better than the Tau, really,” Rainbow Dash chuckled. “At least we know how to kick things when they get close.”
“Ooh, do they have jet packs? I hope they have jet packs!” Pinkie was bouncing up and down in place, as she had been doing since they left the restaurant.
Gear Works groaned and stepped up to the access panel. “Access codex 49319, initiate. Designate authority signum tertius-beta.”
The panel crackled. “Confirmed. Access granted. System lockdown disengaged. Welcome, Acolyte Gear Works.”
The doors started grinding open, and Gears suddenly found himself staring at Dusk’s backside as the batpony landed in front of him.
“Sweet! This is the best!” the Lieutenant gushed.


Rows of raised docking alcoves were built into the far wall, and in three of them stood the prototype Striders. Standing as tall as a Space Marine, each of the walkers was an equine-shaped mechanical suit with a thickly armored torso, four long, piston-powered legs, and a head that immediately reminded the ponies of the Tau Crisis Suits. Each head was an angular mass of sensors and plate armor with an energy weapon bolted onto one side: a lascannon, a plasma cannon, and a multilaser.
“Yay! There’s one for each of us!” Pinkie noted, clapping her front hooves together.
“But there’s only three,” Gears pointed out.
“Each of us except you,” Dusk corrected. “I mean, c’mon. You can ride in your prototypes any old time.”
“But I DON’T, and there’s a reason-“
“I’ll take the multilaser model!” Rainbow Dash said, taking to the air and hovering above one such device. “No jet packs, though? The Tau suits have jet packs.”
“No, the Striders do not have jet packs,” Gears sighed. “The additional engineering complications and expenses required to-“
“Dude, seriously. Yes or no is fine,” the pegasus interrupted, landing on the back of one such walker. “How do we get in?”
Gears hesitated. “… Before I initiate loading procedures, let’s set a few ground rules.”
“Nah,” Dusk jumped atop the Strider with the lascannon. “C’mon, open up!” he shouted, banging his hoof on the top.
Pinkie jumped onto the loading bay and then onto the Strider with the plasma cannon. “I’ve used one of these before! They keep the cockpit nice and toasty!”
“Ugh…” Gear Works sighed and hung his head. “Initiate deployment cycle for bays 6 through 8,” he grumbled, sending his access codes in a brief blast of static.
Each Strider was secured to the repair bay by heavy servo arms and coils of cabling, and the restraints released blasts of pressurized gas before opening their pincers and retreating from the walkers. Then they reached behind the units and unplugged the cabling, detaching the Striders from the tethers of the local power grid.
“Unit S-001, reactor online. Unit S-002, reactor online. Unit S-003, reactor online,” chimed the logic engine vox. A gentle rumble came from the scout walkers, and the exhaust pipes mounted on the rear of each walker vomited puffs of dark smoke. The lights in the sensor heads started winking on one by one. “Pilot access codex required.”
“Override,” Gears said sharply.
“Confirmed,” chimed the cogitator. A click came from each Strider in turn, and a panel on the top plate of armor opened up.
Dusk eagerly looked down into the cockpit. There was a slightly curved bed in the middle of it, surrounded by a veritable web of pistons, cables, and hinged metal bars. “Wow… there’s a lot of, uh… moving parts in here. How do we do this, exactly?”
“The interior features a resting bed and leg suspension braces. Those would be the gaps in-between the main motivator servos. Insert your legs into the braces, and they’ll be locked in to them. Once the unit is fully initialized, any movement you make in the cockpit will be mimicked by the walker,” Gear Works explained. “In this way we’ve avoided the need for complex neural uplinks or conventional driving controls, and taken maximum advantage of our natural physiology.”
“I don’t know what any of that means!” Pinkie Pie chirped. Then she dove into the cockpit.
The others started squeezing inside their respective units, and Gear Works turned his head to the side. +Seal main access doors. Engage lab security cycle Gamma. Disable vox confirmation.+
The heavy blast doors leading to the hallway rumbled closed, and then a gentle hum came from the magnetic locks securing themselves.


“Okay, this isn’t exactly power armor, but it’s not bad,” Rainbow Dash mumbled while lowering her forelegs into the braces. “Very cramped, though. You guys should make a little room in here for wings!”
Her legs finally hung loose within the gaps, such that her weight was completely supported by the cushion under her belly. “So, what do I do now? I can’t-“
“Securing pilot,” barked an internal vox, nearly causing the pegasus to jump. The numerous bands of metal that surrounded her legs slowly tightened, gripping them in a steel cage and pressing up against her hooves. It made Rainbow suddenly and jarringly claustrophobic. As some more machinery in front of her started to shift, she finally considered that maybe Gear Works had been right about this being too dangerous. A vid-screen shifted in front of her, and two manipulator arms lowered around her head.
“H-Hey! Gears! Can you use your machine prayer or whatever to get this thing to back off a little?” Rainbow yelped.
“No, I cannot. Please remain calm while you’re secured within the cockpit. You are probably in no serious danger,” the Dark Acolyte said blandly.
Rainbow gulped as metal clamps closed around the sides of her head. The pressure wasn’t painful, but it increased just gently enough to remind her that the mechanisms could probably crack her skull very easily if they tried. “Why does it need to keep me from moving my head?!”
“It doesn’t. It needs to track your head’s movements to mimic your motions. Relax. The servo locks will open after a brief calibration period,” Gear explained.
The whine of motors and servos swam about Rainbow while she nervously waited for the machine to stop. The vid-screen locked into place just inches from Rainbow’s face, and it started booting up a moment later. It was similar to the visor screen of her power armor, but slightly worse in just about every possible way. Activation runes dotted the edges of the vid-screen, and then a projection of the room appeared after a blast of static.
“Unit activation complete. Mobility locks disengaged.”


All three Striders held position for a moment. Then Pinkie’s unit turned its head to the side. “Oooooh… it works! Nifty!”
Dusk lifted a leg, and then put it down. Then he took several steps forward out of the repair bay. “Huh. Okay. Feels a little… sluggish, but I think this thing is functional!”
“The fine-motion calibration engrams haven’t been loaded yet. Most of the combat and sensory data-sets are minimal. You don’t have vox uplinks, either,” Gears said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a prototype. It was never intended to leave-“
The hum of a laser capacitor had Gear’s ears perking up immediately, and then he yelped when a volley of laser bolts shot over him and cut into the wall.
“Oh, so that’s how you shoot,” Rainbow Dash remarked while smoke curled from her multilaser. Her Strider walked out of the repair bay, swinging its head from side to side to take in the room. “Not bad! This thing has some punch!”
“How is it, Dashie?” Pinkie asked.
“Eh, the long legs are kind of awkward. Also, it should fly. No pegasus would be caught dead in one of these things until you install a flight pack.”
Gear Works grumbled something in Binaric Cant while the three Striders marched around the room. “I’ll… keep that in mind, Miss Rainbow Dash.”
“Would you cut out the ‘Miss Rainbow Dash’ stuff?” Rainbow asked, swinging her Strider’s head down to face the Acolyte. “We’re on a date, dude!”
“It’s… hard to tell, honestly,” the cyborg mumbled.
Dusk Blade approached the entrance to the chamber, moving into a slow trot to test the walker’s stability. “Hey, this isn’t bad at all! Let’s take these guys outside!”
“Ooh, yeah! Let’s have a street race!” Rainbow suddenly burst forward into a gallop, and Gear Works recoiled just quickly enough to avoid getting kicked. She passed by Dusk, charging straight toward the doors.
Like most residents of Ferrous Dominus, she was used to doors opening automatically by proximity. Rainbow gave little more than a brief glance at most doors nowadays to check their security runes before diving right toward them, confident that the barriers would slide open ahead of her.
Needless to say, that didn’t happen this time.
“GAH!” Rainbow crashed hard against the blast doors, and her Strider’s head snapped upward after bashing its face into the magnetically sealed wall. She stumbled backward, and Gear Works was honestly impressed that her walker didn’t fall over.
“Huh. Compensator gyros are exceeding design specifications. Fennin will be glad to hear that…”
Rainbow growled as her screen flickered and slowly reset. On the plus side, she wasn’t physically disturbed by the impact aside from a slight jolt from suddenly stopping. On the minus side, having the sensors impaired even briefly immediately brought back her previous sense of being trapped in a tiny metal cell.
“What the hay?! What’s wrong with the door?” the pegasus demanded. She raised a Strider leg and kicked the offending barrier, but predictably it had no effect. “Why isn’t it opening?”
“This room is on lockdown,” Gears explained calmly, “please refrain from crashing into the walls or doors, as the prototypes have not been safety-rated yet against impacts.”
Rainbow Dash turned and trudged away, but Dusk continued to stare at the door. “So we can’t leave this room? Why is it locked down?”
“It’s standard procedure when testing prototypes, particularly those with functional weapons systems,” the cyborg scoffed. “Think about the sort of dangerous creatures and devices that they create in this place! Security is very important!”
“That sucks! This room is too small to race in!” Rainbow Dash complained.
“Tragic, but that’s how it is,” Gears drawled. “So if you’re done with… uh…” He trailed off when he heard a high pitched hum coming from the side.
“I’ll get us out!” Pinkie Pie said. Electric arcs ran over the flex coiling of her plasma cannon, and the fuel cells in the back started quivering. “Get clear, everypony!”
“No! NO, STOP THAT!!” Gears shouted as the energy readings jumped. “You can’t just-“


Pinkie’s Strider fired, and a quivering blue sphere flew between the other walkers toward the door. Gear Works flung himself to the side, managing to escape the blast radius before the plasma bolt splashed into the security seals and reduced them to slag and vapor.
“Nice! That should be big enough!” Dusk said, approaching the exit.
“What is WRONG with you ponies?!” Gears demanded while Dusk Blade crouched his walker and carefully stepped through the hole in the doors.
“Gears, would you stop being such a raincloud?” Rainbow snipped while she followed the batpony. “We’re just taking your suits out for a walk. RELAX. We’re not going to go shoot up the fortress or anything.”
“But, you-“
“Although if we DID shoot up the place, that would be a pretty good test of your new battlesuit, huh?” Pinkie Pie mused before her Strider hopped through the hole in the door.


Gear Works whimpered.
The other ponies couldn’t tell, because he had disabled the system vox, but there was now a full security alert active in the temple. The logic engine had detected the weapon discharges and door breach, and was deploying countermeasures to subdue the rogue experiments. Once the alert was triggered, Gears himself couldn’t shut it off; only a Dark Techpriest with proper security protocols could deactivate an active alarm. The Striders would be targeted and destroyed with extreme prejudice.
On the other hoof, Pinkie was totally right about the testing thing.


Rainbow Dash trotted happily down the hall, finding her mood easing now that she had more room to walk. The walker was still far and away a less impressive piece of wargear than her power armor, but that in itself was fun and interesting. Trying out the sort of weapons used by Sentinel drivers and Crisis Suit pilots made her appreciate Solon’s artificer work all the more.
A loud grinding noise came from ahead. Rainbow froze, still wary after running into the last door, and then she groaned as the main blast doors to the temple slammed shut and sealed off the exit.
“Oh, NOW what?” the pegasus griped. “Pinkie, there’s another door! Can you-“
A secondary blast shield slammed down over the doors, presenting the Striders with a thick wall of sheer metal. A moment later a field of flickering blue power appeared over it, emitting a constant humming noise.
“Huh… you know, I can’t really get any good readings because of the lame auger engrams, but that looks like a force shield,” Dusk pointed out. “That might take a few blasts to burn through.”
Numerous clicking and whirring sounds came from down the hall.
One by one, the Striders turned to look. The main entry hall was long and wide, passing by several laboratoriums on the way to an open lobby. The area was littered with metal crates, parts, and the odd inactive robot, but none of the ponies could see anything moving.
“Do you guys hear that, or is the aural network in this thing buggy?” Dusk Blade asked.
“No, I definitely hear something,” Rainbow mumbled.
“Maybe Gears started up a bunch of other machines for us to play with and use as target practice?” Pinkie guessed, jumping her Strider in place.
“No. No, I didn’t,” Gear Works admitted, poking his head out.
More whirring and clicking noises came from down the hall, along with the sound of metal feet approaching.
“You have triggered a security breach. The automated defenses have become active and will attempt to destroy you now,” the Dark Acolyte said weakly.
“What? Why would they do that?” Rainbow asked, slightly alarmed.
“Because you’re all idiots,” Gear explained with a sigh.
A servitor stepped around the bend. It swiveled its head – and then its shoulder-mounted heavy bolter – around to face the walkers. “TARGET ACQUIRED. NEUTRALIZING.”


Rainbow Dash was the first to move before the first volley, given that she had the quickest reflexes. Unfortunately, those reflexes were trained toward getting in the air and mobile as fast as possible, and didn’t translate well to being in a large, grounded, stilt-legged walker. She immediately jumped up and then landed on Pinkie Pie, and both Striders collapsed into a heap just before the first burst of shells sailed over them.
“HOLY HAY!!” Dusk shouted, bracketing the servitor with his targeting auspex. His Strider fired its lascannon, instantly burning a hole six inches wide through its abdomen. The cyborg wobbled back and forth for a moment, and then collapsed in a heap.
More metallic footsteps came from the chamber, and the Lunar Lieutenant shifted over behind a metal armor frame. “There’s more coming! How many are there?!”
“Uh… I detect thirty combat servitors activating in total,” Gears mumbled.
“THIRTY?!” Rainbow shouted as she staggered upright. “Are you serious?”
“Well, okay, technically it’s twenty-nine now, since-“
He was cut off by another burst of heavy bolter fire, followed by a return volley of laser bolts. Gears ducked further back into the laboratorium, shielding himself from the shrapnel.
“This is crazy! I can’t take on that many without my armor! These Striders suck!” Rainbow Dash shouted. Her multilaser cut a stitch of burning red across the width of the hall, scorching armor plates and melting through augmented flesh before the weaponized cyborgs could take a proper firing position.
“Dashie! That’s rude! Gears is right here!” Pinkie retorted. She jumped behind a crate, trying her best to hide the frame of the Strider with the meager cover.
Her plasma cannon started powering up, but a string of heavy bolter rounds ripped into the crate, tearing it in half and striking the scout walker in the side. Pinkie stumbled, trying to find her footing while bits of polyceramic shielding fell to the floor.
“Okay, so we know these suits can handle a little heavy bolter fire! That’s good!” she said.
“MULTIMELTA!!” Rainbow screeched, lurching back from a new servitor stepping around the corner.
The spear of superheated gas was aimed at Rainbow, but the pegasus managed to dodge this time without running into anything. Pinkie was not so lucky, and her Strider’s head – and its attached weapon, as well as a significant portion of its chest - vanished into a puff of smoke. The walker promptly locked up, and then slowly lowered itself to the floor as its limbs lost function.
“You know, I’m starting to think I’m not really cut out for this piloting thing,” Pinkie remarked as her restraints unlocked. “Is it too late to try artillery? I’ll bet I’d be GREAT at artillery!”


Dusk Blade speared the multimelta servitor with a lascannon blast, and then immediately ducked back down while his weapon’s capacitors charged up again. Heavy bolter shells hammered his cover and blasted gouges into the wall, and he could hear the constant scraping of shrapnel against his Strider’s armor. “You know, Gears, this looks an awful lot like that robot uprising I asked for!”
“Well, it’s not! This is just an aggravated security response!” the Dark Acolyte shouted back.
“It would have done the job, Gears!” Dusk growled before leaning out of cover and blasting another servitor.
“What are you guys even talking about?” Rainbow Dash demanded between multilaser bursts.
“It’s complicated!” said Gear Works.
“Then it can wait! Help us out with this, will you?”
“By doing what? I can’t override the security alert!”
“Then do something else! Don’t just stand there!” Rainbow growled.


Gear Works ducked back into the laboratorium and looked around. There were numerous weapons available, but he could hardly contemplate charging into the fray with the other ponies. The engagement protocols during a security breach were relaxed considerably, and his IFF signum wouldn’t protect him after the first couple shots. It would take exactly one hit from the servitors’ heavy weapons to turn him into a smear on the floor.
“Maybe… Maybe attack the servitors in another way?” he mumbled to himself, approaching a cogitator bank. The logic engines were in a frenzy, their machine spirits sputtering machine code at a furious rate, and most of the functions were locked down to tech-clergy of his rank. However, there were still uplinks between the cogitators and the servitors themselves; in lieu of a Dark Techpriest to command them directly, the combat servitors relied on the temple’s systems to locate and identify targets.
Gear Works stabbed his tail dataspike into an inload socket, and his optical sensor flickered. “Okay, I have an idea! I should be able to shut down the servitors in a few minutes!”
“Great! Perfect! Hurry!” Dusk Blade shouted back.
“I’m inloading an update to the noosphere node web so that it generate false positives at a rate beyond what their cogitator cores can process. After that, I’ll have to modify the prioritus engram. It will take-“
“We DON’T CARE! Just do it!” Dusk snapped, turning his Strider’s head toward the doorway.
In that moment of inattention, another combat servitor lined up its heavy bolter volley. A pair of the fist-sized shells cracked against the walker’s head, first pitching it away and then blasting apart the neck assembly. The Strider’s head segment was sent flying across the hall, and Dusk Blade’s vid-screen went dark.
“Gears! My Strider is damaged! Help!” Dusk shouted in a panic.
“Stop letting them destroy my prototypes!” the Dark Acolyte shouted back while he tapped at a hololith.
“Forget your prototypes! You can always build a new Strider! You can’t build a new friend!”
Gear Works paused, glancing up in thought. “… Actually, I can build friends. Why don’t I do that?”
“GEARS!!”


Dusk Blade’s walker staggered about in the hallway, panicked and blind while bolt shells exploded all around it. Rainbow Dash was crouched behind a heavy crate, and had done a good job in cutting down the servitors before they could properly brace their weapons. This tactic was foiled when Dusk’s decapitated Strider stumbled blindly into her line of fire.
“Whoa! Hey! Are you trying to get yourself killed?!” the pegasus shouted.
“I can’t see! I can’t see at all! My echolocation doesn’t work in this thing! Help!” Dusk Blade screeched in a panic.
A heavy bolter salvo cut into the Strider’s side, causing Dusk to stumble. A second volley from another servitor set up in firing position went low, stitching a line of shots across the walker’s legs and crippling them. Dusk’s Strider fell onto its side, inoperable, while increasingly panicked shouting came from the cockpit.
Rainbow Dash fired as soon as the damaged battlesuit was out of her way, cutting across both servitors in a single volley. Her capacitors released a burst of sparks, and then she speared another of the slave-cyborgs that had just turned the corner.
“Get me out! Get me out! Where’s the emergency exit lever?!” Dusk screamed.
“The what?” Gears mumbled. “Oh. Right. That’s a good idea. We should put those in the final models. Thanks.”
“THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, GEARS!!”


Rainbow Dash stepped over Dusk’s fallen walker, shielding it while he tried to deactivate the harness locks. She couldn’t see any more servitors in the hall, although the directional sensors were picking up more heavy footsteps.
Along with another sound that she couldn’t place immediately. Slightly squeaky, with a gentle rumble like an engine. A moment later a heavy battle servitor rumbled around the corner, being carried on a set of miniature tank treads and boasting a crackling arc rifle where its right arm should have been.
“Come and get some, zombie cyborg freak!” Rainbow crowed, firing her multilaser into the servitor’s side. Spears of brilliant crimson punched into the flank plates over the tread engine and body, throwing bursts of sparks onto the numerous servitor corpses cooling on the floor.
After the salvo, however, the armor held, and the servitor swiveled on its chassis. A run of lightning slithered down the glowing receptor coiling of its arc rifle, and a bright flash came from the weapon barrel.
Rainbow Dash reared up, and the lightning blast barely nicked her leg. Then her Strider jumped to the side to avoid a second shot, its servos squealing from the intensity.
“C’mon, c’mon!” Rainbow stabilized herself, then fired off another burst of lasers. Most of her salvo went wide, cutting molten gouges into the wall, but one managed to hit the servitor’s torso plate without ill effect.
Another shot from the defender’s arc rifle struck home, and Rainbow yelped when her vid-screen immediately went crazy. Stuttering bursts of static and scrolling strings of numbers rushed across it, each equally unhelpful to the mare still in mortal danger.
“I’m hit! I can’t see! That gun did something to the systems!” Rainbow shouted.
“Well, whatever you do, don’t start shooting forward blind-never mind, what else would you do?”
“RAAAAAAAAAUGH!!” Amazingly, Rainbow Dash found an even more reckless tactic, and she charged forward down the hall. Inside the cockpit the pegasus galloped in place, her legs pumping the harness servos and tilting her walker into a full sprint. Cracking noises came from the exterior and electric arcs spat from the sensor board, but the enraged mare didn’t stop.
Then, suddenly, the Strider tripped and lurched forward, as one tends to do when running blindly through a room full of debris and dead bodies.
Rainbow grunted painfully as her walker landed on its side, the floor screeching against her armor plating. After a second she came to a complete stop, and her vid-screen finally went completely dark.
“Hmmrggglphmmmzzzzzzz…” some mechanism within the Strider spat an unintelligible string of distorted static at her, and then the braces unlocked around her legs and head, allowing her to get free.
“Ugh, great. How am I going to take on the big guy without any armor or weapons?” Rainbow grunted in annoyance. Maybe distract it while Dusk Blade got in behind?
Any strategy for fighting the servitor bare-hoofed would have to wait until she got out, however. While the harness locking her in place had disengaged, the cockpit hatch was still closed.
“Dusk is right. This thing needs an emergency exit button or something,” the mare grumbled. “Meh. At least I’m pretty safe in here. That lightning gun can’t break through the frame armor.”
A heavy clunking sound came from the Strider’s hull, and then cockpit suddenly shifted. Rainbow’s eyes went wide, although there wasn’t much room to be jostled around when the battlesuit moved.
“Hey! What is this?! What’s going on?!” Rainbow shouted.
“I don’t know! I’m still stuck!” Dusk replied.
A cracking noise came from outside, and the Strider jolted again. Now there was a scraping noise and a constant vibration, as if the walker’s shattered body was being dragged across the floor.
“Gears! What’s happening?!” Rainbow Dash demanded.
“It looks like the Kataphron Battle Servitor is disposing of the prototype! Most likely in the incineration crucible!” Gears shouted.
Rainbow could barely hear him given the distance, the armor, and the noise, but she managed to make out the words “disposing” and “incineration.”
“Aren’t you done yet?! Save me, already!” she screamed.
“You think I’m not trying? I don’t want the prototypes damaged any more than they already are!” Gear Works shot back.


Rainbow Dash didn’t find his assurances very assuring, and the pegasus grunted and fought to twist around in the cockpit so that she was lying on her back.
“I sure hope this armor is flimsier from the inside than the outside…” She pulled back her legs as best she could, and then slammed her hooves into the hatch above.
“… Ow…” Rainbow felt a tear crawl down her cheek, but she pulled back her legs and then kicked the hatch again. And again. And again.
Each impact sent jolts of pain running up her legs, but the pegasus grit her teeth and kept on pounding. The clank of metal got louder each time, and soon little pieces of the locking mechanisms started breaking free and falling down around her.
“Coming… loose! Just… a bit… more!”
Rainbow gasped when the entry hatch finally snapped open, letting the slightly brighter lighting of the Mechanicus temple bleed into the darkened Strider cockpit. She jolted up toward the opening, squeezing her head out and then trying to pull through her shoulders to escape.
The Strider jolted again as it was suddenly dropped to the floor. Rainbow Dash yelped, then looked up to see where she was.
She was in the middle of a large, circular room. She couldn’t make out many more details than that, because she was more interested in the half-dozen combat servitors surrounding her and aiming heavy weapons at her face.
“Meep.” The cyan mare  closed her eyes, hoping against hope that merely getting along with Chaos didn’t automatically land one in the nasty Warp afterlife where daemons ate your soul.
A second passed. Then another. Rainbow heard the sound of moving servo motors. Several more seconds passed with no explosive death or weapon discharge. She finally cracked an eye open.


The servitors were no longer staring at her. They turned away and searched the room, sweeping over every nook with the glittering lights of their optics. The heavy servitor rolled away, apparently no longer interested in the scout prototype. It was as if the cyborgs no longer realized or cared that she existed.
Rainbow cautiously squeezed herself out of the cockpit hatch, and then finally stretched her wings wide and took to the air. She almost shed another tear from the sensation of basic flight again, but kept her composure and swooped back into the hallway where the others were. Pinkie Pie was out of her Strider and sitting on top of its headless hull, while Gear Works was busy unlocking Dusk’s cockpit with his servo arm.


“It worked! Gears! You turned off the alarm! Nice going!” Rainbow cheered, stopping over the cyborg stallion in a hover.
“No, I didn’t. The alarm is still active,” Gears replied while the Strider’s access hatch clicked open. “I had to re-write the servitor engagement engrams and update their combat wetware. By modifying-“
“Gears,” Pinkie interrupted, “stop. Really, it’s okay. You can just say you turned off the alarm.”
“THANK YOU!” Dusk Blade shouted as he climbed out of his damaged walker.
“You’re welcome, Lieutenant,” said Gears.
“Not you. Her,” Dusk retorted, jabbing a hoof toward Pinkie. “Seriously stallion, you have to stop trying to cram irrelevant details into every conversation you have. It’s tedious.”
“It’s… not really irrelevant,” Gear Works grumbled. “For starters, since the alarm is still active, the temple is still locked down. We’re stuck in here.”
“No problemo! Dusky is famous for getting past impossibly secure barriers!” Pinkie noted.
All eyes turned to the batpony, who spent a few seconds chewing his lip. “I AM famous for that, yeah. But I kind of want to keep that method on the down-low, so Gears can take a crack at this first.”
The cyborg equine groaned, but nonetheless turned toward the blast doors shielding the main entrance and trotted up to them. Then he turned toward a panel on wall, and fixed his servo armed into an access lever to open it.


“Well, I have to say, I haven’t had this much fun on a date in FOREVER!” Pinkie Pie gushed, a grin stretched across her face. “Dinner, a show, and then a deadly firefight! Which kind of lost its novelty a little bit since that’s what we’ve done every day for months now, but doing it in a completely new, untested, and probably extremely valuable machine was cool!”
Gear Works pulled the maintenance access panel out of the wall, and then stuck his servo arm inside. +Out of all the biological functions I lost with my progression toward mechanical perfection, I never imagined I’d miss the ability to cry,+ he blurted in Binaric Cant.
Dusk grimaced and sat down next to Pinkie. “Well, I’m… glad you enjoyed yourself,” the Lieutenant mumbled unconvincingly, “but listen… I think it’s best if we don’t date anymore.”
Dusk Blade braced himself. Pinkie Pie turned to face him.
“Okay! Thanks!”
The batpony spent a moment in silence, searching the mare’s eyes. He really had no idea what to expect from rejecting the nutty pink pony, but he thought she’d at least be a LITTLE disappointed.
“So… that’s it? You’re good? You don’t want to know why?” he asked cautiously.
“Oh, well, it’s really no big deal. I didn’t think this would go anywhere anyway! You’re really not my type at all!” Pinkie admitted, still grinning.
“Then… why did you ask me out?”
“I felt kind of sorry for you, honestly,” Pinkie said with a chuckle, patting the batpony on the withers. “I mean, you’re obviously still obsessed with Twilight, and she hates your guts! Not only that, but it’s super sad that you don’t have friends.”
“I do TOO have friends!” Dusk protested angrily.
“Friends? As in more than one?”
“Yes! Of course I have friends other than Gears!”
Gears pulled his head out of the maintenance panel. “For the record, I have seen no evidence of this.” He went back to work immediately.
Pinkie giggled while Dusk fumed. “Anyway, I just thought I could help! I’m glad you didn’t want to take this any further, though! It would never work out!”
A moment’s silence hung in the air between the ponies, filled only by the clanking noise from Gear’s work.
Dusk looked up. “Is it the-“
“It’s the slavery, yeah.”


Gears grunted in annoyance as he disconnected a capacitor in the maintenance hatch.
“Well, that will take down the force shielding. I don’t know how I’m going to get the blast doors open without physically cutting through the lock mechanisms, though. This security protocol was designed specifically to thwart lower-order Dark Mechanicus like me from escaping and accidentally letting rogue experiments run loose.”
He heard the sound of someone clearing their throat behind him, and he tilted his head slightly. The optics sensor in the furthest corner of his hood sighted Rainbow Dash standing behind him.
“If you want me to hurry up, I don’t know what to tell you. Well, except for ‘I told you so’ I suppose.”
“It’s not that,” Rainbow assured him. “I just wanted to say… uhm… thanks.”
Gears paused briefly, and then turned back toward the panel. “It was nothing. Honestly, this is my fault as much as anypony’s for enabling the security protocols. I desperately overestimated your sense of restraint, and for that I apologize.”
“Don’t be like that, dude,” Rainbow chided, slapping the Acolyte’s hip. Her hoof struck metal, bouncing off with a ringing clang. “Now that I’ve gotten to know you, you’re actually pretty cool! Sure, you’re uglier than a yak, impossible to have a conversation with, and a total weirdo in general, but your gear is really neat! Plus, you’re actually useful in a pinch! Lemme tell you, not every stallion can say that much!”
“That doesn’t quite balance out to a compliment,” Gear mumbled.
Rainbow Dash ignored him. “So I wanted to say thanks. Not just for saving my life, but for actually showing me a pretty good time! I had fun tonight!”
Gears worked in silence for a few seconds. “… You’re welcome, Miss Rainbow Dash.”
“Geez, are you still calling me that? Fine, have it your way!” the pegasus slapped his bionic leg again, and then stepped closer to whisper to him. “I don’t think we could really be a couple, though. I mean, I’m just not into the metal legs and creepy eyes and stuff.”
“I understand, Miss Rainbow Dash.”
“Also, it’s not like I checked or anything, but I’m guessing you’re not packing anything pleasant under those robes. I mean, what with the-“
“THANK YOU, Miss Rainbow Dash, you’ve made your point.”
Rainbow quickly backed away again. “Cool! Great. So, I’m not interested in anymore dates, but if you want to hang out and have me test some more of your weapons, I could do that!”
“I hardly think this qualified as a-“


A heavy clunking noise interrupted him, and Gear Works almost jumped in shock. The central locking mechanism in the middle of the blast doors had started turning, and the creak of heavy cogs turning echoed through the temple.
“All right! You did it, Gears!” Dusk Blade cheered, jumping up right in front of the entrance. “We are OUTTA here!”
“Uhm… no… I didn’t do that,” the Dark Acolyte said, his voice squeaking fearfully.
“What? What do you mean?” Rainbow asked. “If you didn’t open the doors, who did?”


The blast doors cracked open, revealing not an unobstructed path to the streets of Ferrous Dominus, but rather the dark, hulking, spine-covered body of a Black Praetor cyborg. The doors opened further, eventually revealing two more Praetors, two squads of Scavurel, and a pair of Dark Techpriests in heavy combat gear.
The ponies stared up at the cyborgs. They stared back down. The hum of magnetic chambers, the whine of laser capacitors, and the electric crackle of taser weaponry came from the Mechanicus soldiers.
“… Well, okay, this is kind of a downer to end the night, but still. Seven out of ten,” Pinkie Pie said with a shrug.
Gear Works sighed as Mechanicus security descended on them.