Detrot: Become Equine

by Andromidus

2.2 - UNRAVEL/UAA

“Girls! What are you doing here!? Didn’t I say to lead them out the back entrance, Sweetie Belle!?” Rarity admonished, lifting their hiding spots away. They tried to scramble away, only to get scooped up by the equdroid’s array.

“Aw, that’s just cheatin’.”

Rarity clicked her tongue. “Do you know how much danger you all could’ve been in? What if he used you three against me? What if my plan didn’t work and I was the one knocked unconscious? I am not invincible. Today may as very well have been my last.” Her gaze softened. “I’m just trying to look out for all of you, darlings. Your parents have put a lot of trust in me and I don’t want to abuse that.”

The three fillies looked down in shame. “We’re sorry, Rarity!”

Sweetie looked the most distraught out of all of them. “And I’m super sorry, Rarity! I got worried, and my friends convinced me to go back, a-and you scared me with your warning, and, and—!” She sniffled. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay…”

The equdroid gently let her down right next to her and gave her a tight squeeze on the hoof. “Oh, Sweetie Belle… it’s perfectly fine for you to want to look out for me, believe me, I understand. I fret for you every day you go to school or simply leave the house. However, you should all know better.”

She sighed and shook her head. “I suppose all I can do is hope you heed my warnings.”

“What I did today was incredibly foalish and very, very risky. Anything could’ve gone wrong.” She let go of her sister. “What I’m trying to say to you three is to never do what I did unless you know for certain there is no other option. It is… hypocritical, that I am aware of… to be preaching about this since I myself am… guilty of doing it, but for the sake of your friends and family… do not follow in my hoofsteps. It may look ‘cool’ or ‘awesome’, but I assure you, it was anything but.” She rolled her shoulders. “There is a reason why we have ponies who protect us. It is their job.”

Scootaloo raised a hoof. “But Miss Rarity! What if the policeponies can’t get to us in time? What are we supposed to do?”

A genuine question. “Well… you’re all still quite young for it, but it would never hurt to get some self-defense training in. A lady must always know how to defend herself, after all!” Except I’m lying and haven’t even taken a single course… and I still call myself a lady after all these lies. Hmph.

“Oh, I could ask Applejack about that! She’s always hawkin’ on me ‘bout it ‘cuz she says something about our family bein’ important,” she said, with a frustrated look on her face. “I, ah, can’t remember what she was sayin’ but it was important!”

Rarity let all of them back down onto the floor. “Look, girls, I suppose since everything worked out in the end, I won’t press. But please, for my sake, don’t ever do something like that again.” She glanced at the kitchen entrance, a decadent air of baked goods wafting up. “Your snacks should be done. I trust you all know how to take it out safely?”

Scootaloo and Applebloom nodded vigorously, clearly excited to get started on consuming Rarity’s cooking. Together, they raced off for the food that awaited below, bumping at each other in good fun. Soon enough, the only ones left in the room now were Rarity, Sweetie Belle, and the unconscious stallion.

“Did you need something, Sweetie Belle? I need to secure him just in case, along with freshening up before the police arrive to take him away.” She started rifling through the cabinets and the drawers in the search for a belt or fabric strong enough to hold a fully-grown pony down. “You can go ahead and join your friends, I’m not going to ground you or anything, though I probably should just to get that—”

“I just wanted to apologize again… before I went back down,” she murmured. “I felt really terrified for you when I saw the stallion holding the gun to your head… I didn't want to lose you… you're the only sister I've ever had and ever known.”

“And you're the only sister I've ever had. Believe me, I… share the same feelings.” She managed to find two belts of reasonable length. “So let's not dwell on this, go and join your friends, enjoy every moment.” As you could lose them at any moment. Perhaps I've gained something from this experience. And reaffirmed my fear of death.

“O-Okay. I'll see you later, sis.” As she turned around to leave the room, she noticed the gash that had been on her older sister’s side. “R-Rarity! You're bleeding!” She pointed to her right shoulder.

I am? She touched the spot and felt the slick sensation of fluid. “O-Oh my, I am!” Our tussle must've breached the covering layer and punctured a blood packet… “W-Well, this isn't something new to me. I'll simply patch it up with a bit of gauze!”

“I-I can help… if you want, that is…”

“Ah, I can accomplish this on my own, I insist. Please, just go join your friends before they’ve consumed everything.” She quickly flicked her vision to the kitchen camera. “It sounds like they're almost done~”

The filly had an obvious look of conflict warring on her face. It was clear to her that she wanted to help her sister, especially to make up for the guilt of disobedience… but her sister’s cooking was an irresistible temptation. It was certainly leagues better than her own and she bet her sister could seriously run her own restaurant if she so wished! Eventually, with heavy hooves, she left to join her friends.

Rarity sighed in relief as she began securing the belts to the fore and rear legs of her once-assailant. Content with her work, she left him with a cloth gag in the case he would attempt to chew through belts.

All she had to do now was head into her bathroom and fix her little leaking problem. She could most likely just remove the plating on her shoulder and utilize the mender on the damaged layer, considering it was mostly superficial. The blood packet itself probably hadn’t lost all too much of its contents… so with a bit of sealant applied, it would become reusable. She just had to make sure to avoid getting hit in that spot before the mend could settle.

She pressed a hoof into a hidden panel. A hidden door with a near seamless divide hissed open and revealed a simple workshop and washroom. A muffled clatter of falling objects originated from inside, causing Rarity to rush in to snatch it before it hit the ground. A small box hovered inches above the floor, wrapped in a magical glow.

The equdroid slowly rotated her head to see where it had come from. The shelf on the right looked to be the culprit, as several of the items on it had been knocked over. She wondered why it had fallen down in the first place as she reorganized and stacked them back together. Pleased, she turned her attention to why she came here in the first place.

Plucking a maintenance tool from a drawer, she held it close to her shoulder, business end first. It hummed as it sluggishly unlocked several anchors adhering it to her frame. With all of them disabled, all she needed to do now was detach the plate. Pressing the tool into a glowing blue notch, she tugged.

It jerked a tad bit but remained firmly in place. “It appears I need to apply some more force. Strange… usually, it shouldn't be all that much.”

Another pull, another fail. Huffing in annoyance, she laid her forehoof on the side of the wall for support. It looked like she had to do it this way. Upping the power input for her array, she began—

“Rarity, we don't have any more of the spicy sauce!” A white unicorn filly called out from the door.

The mare screamed from the sudden outburst. Her reflex reaction flooded the array with even more power. Already having been ready to pull, her action defaulted to lobbing whatever was in her grasp away from herself.

Unfortunately, said object happened to be a maintenance tool in the process of detaching equdroid frame plating. The violent removal of the covering tore into the soft plastic membrane of the leaking blood packet. Microhooks invisible to the naked eye ruptured several key points on the bag. With the intense speed and momentum from both her body lurching forward and the uppermost portion of the bag, the packet exploded. It showered the room with a spray of fake blood.

Sweetie Belle didn’t know that. Her eyes widened and she stuck out a trembling hoof at the grotesque sight. Perhaps if she was in the right mind, she would’ve realized the cybernetics glowing in the crevice of her sister’s appendage didn’t belong. Or how a normal pony couldn’t have that much blood running in their system suddenly pop out. If it was all to be looked at from another perspective, one may even have called it a ridiculous notion to seeing all the gore happening at once.

But the filly just watched the event happen to somepony important in her life. She shrieked as she watched her sister’s “blood” splatter along the interior walls. And so, like a normal pony, she screamed.

The cry was loud enough to mask the sound of the doorbell ringing.