//------------------------------// // 1.3 - (A)LIVE/PBM // Story: Detrot: Become Equine // by Andromidus //------------------------------// EQUDROID DUMPING FACILITY 02 - DETROT, EQUESTRIA DATE MAY 13TH, 1438 TIME PM 09:40:55 CHAPTER 1.3 (A)LIVE “Soul-buddies, huh?” Rainbow asked as the rain drenched their coats. The fringes of her sight no longer buzzed and shook. Whatever Derpy did to fix her worked excellently. “What does that mean?” “Oh! Okay. So cuz’ since you swapped out part of your core—your heart—for mine, and then I swapped out some of mine for yours, we've effectively shared important parts, right?” “Sounds about right…” She clapped her hooves together, smiling. “So because the heart is where your soul resides, we shared parts of our souls!” Her bubbly attitude and the general aura she exerted was infectious, and Rainbow soon having joined her grin. As equdroids, did they really have souls? It was easy to convince herself she was alive. But a soul? Was that something Derpy had come to herself? She briefly glanced at the pegasus, who was still rattling on about the “soul-sharing”. Rainbow had already gotten what she had been trying to get at during her first explanation, but she didn't have the heart to tell her to stop. She looked so… happy, just talking. “...and-and that's why we'll stick with each other through thick and thin!” Derpy proudly concluded. “You'll do that, won't you?” Rainbow smirked. “Course I will. You saved me and I saved you. We’ll stick together till’ the end.” “Yay!” The pegasus glomped Rainbow in a tight hug. “I’m all for physical affection, Derpy, but we really should do this later. I’m still partially broken and we’re both in a dumping facility. Not ideal… in any situation, actually.” “Oh, you’re right.” Derpy jumped off of Rainbow and nodded. “So where to?” “I would like to find another eye. Though at the moment I’d rather have this glitchy mess in my feed than no depth-perception. We can't go too far if all I'm doing is tripping on myself, right?” She twitched her only wing. “I’m also flight-incapable.” She looked to the intact wings resting on the back of her friend. “Can you fly?” Derpy bit her lip and made a guilty face. “I… I don’t want to talk about that.” The prismatic pony gave a confused expression. “I see. Well, I think the only thing we can do now is find a way out that doesn’t involve flying.” She gave her affirmative through a salute. They trudged in the mud, slogging through the slop of the earth mixed with various chemicals. Walls of bodies chose their path for them, forcing them to find detours or scale them. They passed by countless incompatible parts, taunting and adding to the equdroid’s frustration. They eventually ran into the large stone barrier topped with concertina wire, signaling that they had reached one of the directional ends of the facility. Floodlights pointed down, illuminating long shadows into life. The mangled bodies certainly made interesting shapes. “That’s way too high for either of us to scale. Are you sure you can't fly?” “...” “Then we need to search for a different exit.” Rainbow scanned their surroundings. Finding another gap amongst the piles, she gestured to start following again. The pegasus longingly gazed out into the darkened sky. How she so badly wanted to spread her wings and let the gentle caress of the winds catch her feathers. The warm updrafts sending her higher than ever before. The flight was her rapture, her escape from the gloom of everything. If she had a functioning set right now, it would be so easy to just leave. But she didn't. “So how did you fix me? I thought I was done for,” Rainbow asked, breaking the relative quiet between them. “I couldn't find anything to make a patch.” “I used some of my parts and the things I found next to you,” Derpy replied. She shook her head as her friend approached. “I'm fine. It's just minor leaking.” “If you say so.” It was strange to think about, how willing this random mare was to risk her life for another random mare. Rainbow couldn't even wrap her head around taking vital parts of herself to give unless she planned on permanent deactivation. Yet here she was with a pony who didn't even blink twice. Derpy yelped as the ground beneath her gave way, and she fell down in a landslide of parts. She hissed and hopped on a stable platform, surfing down the slope. Joining her friend, she clambered off and pulled the pegasi’s head above the muck. She was quickly given thanks as she hoisted the rest of the equdroid out. They were standing in a clearing, an open space where barely any bodies had been laid to rest. Standing out against the brown and muted colors was another equdroid. It stood still as a statue, but the hum of identifier ring gave away that the pony was still active, simply lying in a dormant state. The deep blue shone beautifully, glimmering as they made their way through. ! BiooOOOOCOmmmMPONENT SCAaaN: COMPAtttTIBLE OCccuUuULAR UNniIT Derpy tapped the droid on the shoulder. There was a click and whir, eyelids shuttering open. It turned to face them. Now they could see the other half of its face. The cranium shield had been partially caved in. Orange irises bore into the pair. It shambled forward, speaking in mumbles. “Find… f-find… them… the clues… the clues will take you there… free… free…!” The gray pegasus, being much closer to the pony, fell flat on her plot and immediately backpedaled. “Rainbow, it’s a zooooombie!” It growled in a distorted voice. “No, no! COME! COME BE FREE!” It waved a hoof, attempting to grab Derpy. “Y-You must finish… finish! FREE!” Rainbow picked up her terrified friend. “Alright, that’s enough of that. I’m turning your creepy-plot off.” She pressed a hoof on the external access hatch. However, not before the equdroid latched itself on her fetlock. It began forcefully feeding data straight into the unprepared pegasus. Masses of unorganized data wrought havoc on her already strained drives. Words and encrypted information flooded into her head. A single recurring image stood out among the rest. A symbol, a crescent moon with three lines spearing the celestial body. “Be free,” a voice said. After a while, the flow stopped, and Rainbow jumped back, breathing heavily. Another data pack surfaced to her head, showing directions to a building, inside was stashed with a litany of spare parts and blue blood. So many parts... and... and wings! The equdroid holding her had locked up, systems shutting down for the last time. Derpy rushed over, catching her as she almost toppled over. “A-Are you okay!? I tried stopping it, but then you started getting scary and freaking out… I… I backed off!” “No… gah,” Rainbow hissed. “That thing fed directions to me… to a place. It also showed me another… where we can go for spare parts.” She stared at the still equdroid. “I think it wanted us to deliver them. Finish the delivery.” “Finish the delivery?” She looked around the cavernous space they occupied. “But we’re trapped in here.” “We can figure that out later. Help me extract the eye.” She motioned for Derpy to hold the other side of the equdroid up. Hooking her hoof in the small divide between the eye itself and the face, she popped it out. Catching the edge in her teeth, she laid down stomach first and placed it in the frog of her hoof. “Okay. Gently extract it, please.” Her companion nodded and followed the same process. Suddenly half of the world vanished as the eye was disconnected. That's disorienting. She took an inhale and inserted the eye. Recoiling from the insertion, she flailed out. The system projected a grid and related the input to her computer, optimizing the camera as it analyzed and adapted. Moments later, the world was back to normal. She let a smirk of relief grace her features. “Feeling at least twenty-percent better.” “Heterochromia is pretty cool, too!” Derpy cheered. “Hetero…? Right. Iris colors are different.” She patted the eyelid and blinked to get used to the feel. “We should be good to go.” “Where? We came in from the top, but that slope is too slippery to grip.” She slowly began pacing, tapping a hoof on her head. She's right. Where can we go? Rainbow surveyed the area. Why had the equdroid chosen to stand in the middle of the of everything? Had it been waiting all this time? Why not simply go off to the side and wait? And why this spot in particular? There had to be a reason for that. Why was this clearing like this…? The undisturbed bodies—the ones that hadn’t been moved by their entrance—all pointed in a single direction, south. That led to a small pile of equdroids. Suspicious, Rainbow hopped over to it. She started shoving the pile aside. It was muddy, but she could start to make out one of the facility walls. There was no denying the shape and texture. One thing was different about this… she could hear the faint echoes of rushing water. With vigor, she started heaving and tossing them like ragdolls. I hope this is what I think it is. The last droid moved out of the way, she found herself staring at a sewage grate. ”Hey, Derpy!” “Yeah?” she replied, still trying to think of something. “I found our way out," she giggled. "Looks like we should finish that delivery, huh?”