A fierce burning in her chest woke Rarity from a fitful sleep. Painful coughs wracked her body and left her gasping for air. Her hooves instinctively reached for her muzzle, only to stop short. Forcing herself to stop breathing to cease the coughs if even only for a moment, the burning in her chest intensified. No longer caught in a series of spasms, Rarity found a breathing mask around her muzzle. It was just like the one on Sweetie. It all came back to her along with another fit of agonizing coughs. Sweetie Belle, the fall, that horrid equoid, the fire…
“You’re awake.”
The sound of that voice turned her crushing anguish to a searing fury. “Short Circuit!” Rarity managed to choke out as she struggled to quell her coughing. She turned to find the stallion, again looking ten years older than last time. Instead of dragging around a single IV, he had at least four on a rack running tubes down to his forelegs.
“I know it must be difficult, but try not to make a ruckus,” he said, his voice low and quiet, but not at all apologetic. “Princess Twilight Sparkle’s been here every hour and I’m sure the nurses will let her know the moment they find out you’re awake. She knows you’re responsible for Sweetie Belle’s disappearance.”
Rarity growled despite the fire it drew in her throat. “Where do you get off?” She sat up in her hospital bed, sputtering out a few more coughs. “Because of you, Sweetie… Sweetie she…”
“She’s waiting for us,” he replied.
Gasping, Rarity fell into another coughing fit. “Wha-what do you mean by that?” Despite her lungs crying for more air, Rarity tempered her breaths to prevent another series of coughs.
“I tried to tell you before not to worry,” he replied, sympathy finally seeping into his tone. “Those chambers are air-tight and triple layered. Neither the heat or smoke should penetrate them.”
Rarity’s heart lurched in her chest. “She’s alive?”
Short Circuit nodded. “Should be. We just need to go activate her.” His ears perked up as he stepped away from the door. “Somepony’s coming!” he hissed. Rushing over, he shoved Rarity back into a supine position before throwing the blanket over her.
Just then, the door opened to reveal a nurse followed by the Princess of Friendship herself. “Short Circuit? What are you doing out of bed?” Nurse Redheart asked in an accusatory tone. “You’re in no condition to be up and about!”
Short Circuit put on a convincing smile. “You know I can’t stand to just lay there all day.”
“Why are you in here?” Twilight asked as she stepped in front of the nurse. “This room is supposed to be off-limits.”
“Well that’s… er…”
“I’m so sorry, Princess,” Redheart apologized as she tried to not-so-subtly usher the wayward stallion out of the room. “Short Circuit is always wandering around and getting into trouble.” After seeing Short Circuit out, she hurried back over to Rarity’s bedside.
“How is she?” Twilight asked, craning her neck to observe for herself the readouts on the equipment.
After scribbling a few notes into the chart, Nurse Redheart turned back to Twilight. “Her vitals have really improved. I’m sure she will come around any time now.”
“She’ll make a full recovery?” Twilight pressed.
The nurse turned her gaze away as she ran a hoof through her mane. “Er… the doctor seemed hopeful, but it’s still too early to tell.”
Twilight stared at Rarity’s still form for several seconds before letting out a long sigh. “Let me know as soon as she wakes up, okay?”
“Of course, Princess.”
The nurse led Twilight out of the room. As soon as she waved to Twilight, she noticed that the interloper hadn’t gone far. In fact, Short Circuit sat just outside the door, leaning his back against the wall. “Are you alright? Do I need to get a wheelchair for you to get back to your room?”
Short Circuit put on a convincing smile. “You don’t need to worry about this old geezer. A minute or two of rest and I’ll be good as new.”
Redheart raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure?”
Nodding, Short Circuit hummed an affirmative. “I’m already feeling better.”
After lingering another moment, the nurse turned to follow after Twilight. “If you need anything, just shout, okay?”
“Oh, I need lots of things,” Circuit replied, winking after the nurse. The nurse’s scoff got a bit of a chuckle out of Short Circuit. He made sure to linger until the nurse was out of sight. Then, he darted back into Rarity’s room.
“It’s clear,” he said in a hushed tone as he closed the door behind him.
No sooner did the words leave Circuit’s lips did Rarity shoot up, coughing. It took her nearly a minute to quell the fit and catch her breath. “What… what do we do now?”
“Well, I can’t say I’m much of the refined type, but even I know not to keep a little lady waiting,” Short Circuit said. “If you can sneak out, I’ll meet you back at my place. Deal?”
Rarity gave a firm nod to spare her burning throat the effort of speaking.
Sneaking out proved to be a rather simple task. A bit of magic turned her bed sheets into a dreadfully plain, but still passable, cloak. A few times she had to stifle her incessant desire to cough to avoid suspicion, but she made it out without being noticed. She even managed to stop for a long drink of water to soothe her burning throat.
By the time she reached the burned out husk that was once Short Circuit’s home, Rarity found him waiting for her. He sat outside a rather large gap in the wall where the fireponies had stormed in. It still surprised her to see that once vivacious stallion looking like a heap leaning on Death’s door, especially considering that only a couple of days had passed.
“I was starting to worry that you wouldn't make it,” Short Circuit said as Rarity approached. Straining, he rose to his hooves. “Let’s go. She’s waiting.”
A firm nod and Rarity followed Circuit into the ruins of his house. The interior wasn’t quite what Rarity had imagined a house after a fire might be. It wasn’t dry and smoky, even if it was covered in a thick layer of grey-black soot. Every inch of everything dripped with moisture from the water used to douse the flames. Even the floor itself squished under her hooves. “How horrible,” she said, the words drawing a couple of painful coughs from her lungs.
Short Circuit didn’t even seem to notice. Without spending so much as a moment lamenting the loss of his house and everything within, he marched straight for the basement. Rarity knew she’d be devastated if anything had happened to the boutique. How could he possibly not care that his home was in ruins?
The water at the bottom of the stairs scattered Rarity’s thoughts. The few rays of light that shone through the ruined floor above revealed a sea of black, still water. Short Circuit didn’t even hesitate. Stepping into the black muck, he marched forward even as the water rose to his barrel.
Rarity stood at the last stair above water, gazing out over the darkened room. The sparse beams of light shining down caught the dust and soot, creating dazzling beams that outshone the black depths. The lighting left the chambers holding Sweetie and the equoid completely shrouded by the darkness. The thoughts of her little sister reminded her just why she was here and banished her trepidation. Following Short Circuit’s lead, Rarity waded into the freezing, black water.
It took quite some time of fumbling around in the chest-high water for the duo to make their way to the back of the basement. There, both tubes still stood intact, though a thick layer of soot prevented seeing inside. Rarity lifted a hoof to wipe away the soot, but the tainted water just made a greasy smear every bit as opaque as before.
“I didn’t think this through enough,” Short Circuit muttered as he banged a hoof on the glass. “We’ll have to break them open.”
Rarity didn’t hesitate. Spinning around, she planted her forehooves as solidly on the submerged floor as she could before bucking the tube with all her might. Her wet hooves slid harmlessly off the curved glass and sent Rarity floundering into the murky water. Shooting back out instantly, Rarity sputtered and did her best to purge the nasty water from her face and mane.
“Aha!”
Rarity turned to find Short Circuit using his magic to pull something free from one of the large, boxy machines. She recognized it as a rather well-cut sapphire. Floating over to one of the tubes, the sapphire pressed against the glass before making a clean streak across at an angle. Circuit brought it again to the glass to etch an X into the tube. He then drew the sapphire back before smashing it against the glass. It shattered with an awful roar.
“Get back!” Short Circuit warned as the glass fell. Not just around where he smashed it. The glass towering into the ceiling fell in waves, sending shards flying in all directions.
After the sounds of glass shards landing on the pedestal and plopping into the water faded, Rarity dared to remove her hooves from around her head. Then she saw it, the equoid that was supposed to be housing Sweetie Belle. It stood there, unmoving, covered in soot. A single cable dangled from the ceiling attached to the back of its head.
“Is… is she really in there?” Rarity asked, daring to take a step toward it. Her throat tightened as she heard her heart in her ears. “Is she okay?”
Short Circuit grunted. “The seal must’ve melted in the heat. This thing was supposed to be airtight.”
Those muttered words made Rarity’s heart drop. “Is she okay!” she repeated, this time her voice exuding desperation.
“I don’t think the heat did any damage. Nothing is distorted or melted,” he said as he checked the equoid over. “Let’s see if everything’s working.” Hopping down, he fired up his horn and wrapped his aura around the cable in the back of the equoid’s head. A good yank and it came free. The moment it did, a small whirring echoed from within the equiod.
“Where… what?” a small voice echoed from the equoid. A voice hauntingly similar to Sweetie’s, though it trembled with an artificial buzz.
“Sweetie!”
“Rarity! Rarity where are you?” Sweetie asked though the equoid made no move. The mouth didn’t even budge as the voice continued to echo from within. “I’m scared. I can’t see. I can’t move!”
“Oh no!” Short Circuit said. “Activate command protocol: it was you who broke my Neighsen plate!” The whirring died. “I think the soot might’ve compromised some of her systems. I’ll have to take her apart for repairs, but after that, she should be fine.”
“Don’t say that in front of her!” Rarity shrieked. Rushing over despite the large shards of glass, some even so big as to jut up from beneath the murk, Rarity hopped up on the pedestal. “It’ll be okay, Sweetie. I promise.”
No reply came.
“Sweetie? Sweetie Belle!” Rarity turned to Short Circuit with a look of abject despair. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I shut her down. Think of it as sleeping,” Short Circuit replied, though his focus seemed to be entirely on Sweetie. “We’re going to have to get her out of here so I can do repairs.”
“Why would you do that?”
Breathing an annoyed sigh, Circuit finally tore his gaze away from Sweetie. “If her systems have been compromised by the soot, continued operations may cause further damage. It’s for her own good that she stay suspended until I can make the proper repairs.”
He sounded so much like Twilight that it made Rarity see red. “How long!” she barked.
“Hopefully, just a few hours, but first we’ve got to get her out of here and someplace clean. I’ll need my tools, too.”
Rarity seethed, although her panting seemed to calm her, at least a little. “She’ll be okay? You’re sure?”
“Let me see,” he replied, urging Rarity to help him up onto the pedestal. Though she pulled him up with all the tenderness of a rabid timber wolf, she still stepped off to let him examine Sweetie.
His horn flashed, casting a light onto the back of Sweetie’s head. There wasn’t a hole there where the cable hooked in. It was sealed up, tight as a drum. The only hint that the cable had been attached was a clear line that showed the outline of the attachment. “Good, it looks like the repository was uncompromised.”
Choking out a few coughs, Rarity shook her head. “I can’t even begin to imagine what that means.”
He cast a smile down at Rarity. “It means her mind is safe; it’s just the body that’s faulty. It should be an easy enough fix. She will be just fine. I give you my word.”
Rarity breathed a slow, ragged breath in and out. What little relief his reassurance offered ebbed away as Rarity glanced over to the other glass tube. Her vision was soon filled with blue. Short Circuit didn’t need to say anything. Taking the gem in her aura, Rarity stepped over to the glass monolith holding Sweetie Belle’s body.
This was her burden. Her decision led to this horrific moment. Behind that glass was what remained of Sweetie Belle. An unpretty corpse abandoned for a full night. Sweetie deserved better.
Choking down the bile rising from the truth of her actions drew, Rarity raised the gem to the glass. Two sweeps of magic and one thrust shattered the holding chamber. Instead of the tube crashing down, a section shattered, sending cracks throughout the structure. Rarity hesitated, but not out of fear that the glass column might fall down on her. The dread of seeing Sweetie Belle—her corpse—paralyzed Rarity.
The sound of straining glass and the high pitched peal of cracks spreading urged Rarity to get Sweetie before a shower of glass crashed down on her. Her horn bathing the darkness in a blue hue, Rarity dared to peer into the fractured tube. What she found were four, tiny legs. Four still legs.
A sharp, ominous creak from above urged Rarity to push her trepidation aside. Wrapping the darkened bundle in her magic, she drew back and clear of the tube. A searing crash above forced Rarity to instinctively spin around and clutch the bundle tight, protecting it from the shower of glass. Though Rarity expected to feel a thousand daggers tear into her back, not one came.
Above her, a lens of yellow sparks and arcs fizzled out. “Are you alright?” Short Circuit asked, panting as the last glow of yellow left his horn. Rarity didn’t answer. She just stood there clutching the corpse, burying her face against the ashen bundle. “It’s all right,” Circuit reminded her as he motioned to his magnificent equoid. “She’s still here with us.” Despite his reassurance, Rarity just shook her head.
Short Circuit sighed. It was clear that he didn’t have the words to console her or the ability to make her see the folly of her grief. Circuit instead turned his attention back to the equoid and his dilemma. The soot compromised her systems, and though the solution demanded very little, it was impossible to fix her here. Between the black muck numbing his legs and the soot permeating every surface of everything, cleaning the components would be impossible here. A clean environment was needed for the repairs, and the hospital wasn’t an option. He could only hope that this stricken mare had a suitable place.
That was a solution that could be worked out later. For now, there were but two pressing matters. While getting the equoid out and through town presented a great challenge, the first thing he needed to address was gathering the tools needed to clean and assess her systems and make necessary repairs. Everything here in the workshop was ruined, submerged under a black soup of ashes. Anything upstairs would be every bit as contaminated as the equoid itself.
So then where? Where to find a set of quality tools? All of his old tools arrived from specialty shops all around Equestria. Surely all the tools needed would not be so easily found in Ponyville. Wait. Yes! The shed! The tools there might be a bit outdated and worn, but they would at least get the job done—barring any catastrophic failures.
“I’m going to go get a few things ready,” he announced to an audience he knew was deaf to his voice. “We will have her good as new in no time.”