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Within a darkened laboratory, surrounded by metal debris and sparking wires, a pair of stasis pods lay still upon cracked and fractured ceramic flooring.
For time immemorial has this once hallowed place been frozen in time, cut off from the hustle and bustle of a world just outside of its reach. The capsules themselves appeared ordinary, the only distinguishing factor between them being painted cogs colored Red and Blue respectively.
Within the pods themselves however, lie a power beyond the threshold of the imagination cultivated in the world beyond these fractured halls. It was at this moment however that whatever was held within the capsule of the red gear began to stir from its slumber, an error reading shouting at no one and everyone.
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Rubble and debris was forcefully torn from its resting state, a pair of green claws rending through stone as a knife would paper.
“Emerald! Be careful, whatever’s giving off that signal could be fragile!” The purple unicorn chastised as she followed her partner's assistant closely.
The dragon sighed before throwing the debris at a slower pace.
“Calm down, Twilight,” her fire headed friend said, rolling her eyes as Emerald tore through the rubble. “Whatever it is, it's crazy strong. I doubt even Emerald can properly harm it.”
Hiding her worry as best she could, Twilight simply turned her attention to the device in her hand. “Well… the good news is we’re getting closer.” She replied absentmindedly, casually poking at the radar screen.
“What's the bad news?” Spike asked, also staring at the screen.
“Everything around the point of origin seems dead… electronics, thaumic signatures… Even biological life seems nonexistent.”
As she spoke, more and more debris had been shoveled away, leading the four to a massive set of rusted double doors.
Emerald simply shrugged before she grabbed one of the doors and ripped it open. While dusting her hands, she said, “If that's the case, why are we here? Can't be anything useful here.”
Twilight flinched at the show of force before taking lead. “Because the point of origin is giving off readings I’ve never seen before…” Not watching where it was she was going, Twilight very narrowly walked into a sharpened piece of loose metal, with Spike quickly pulling the piece back.
This process seemed to repeat itself until the aloof scientist finally looked up. “Here.”
Before her were a much larger set of double doors, reinforced, and in prime condition… almost as if untouched by time.
Gulping, Twilight gave a nod to Spike, the two looking about the wall and door for any sort of activation console.
“Twi! I got it!” Spike had called out, his hand having split apart as several cables and appendages began to integrate and type into a keyboard. “Almooost…”
The screen before him began to flash red however, several warning signs cascading within his vision. “Uh oh…” The console had erupted, pushing the dragon back as the massive door had begun to slowly inch open.
“SPIKE!” Twilight shouted as she ran to her assistant, staring in horror at the sparkling stump of his arm.
“Heh… fourth one this month huh?” He joked.
“And you say I'm reckless,” Emerald said, crossing her arms.
“You really need to work on that Twi,” Sunset commented.
Shrinking in on herself with an embarrassed blush, Twilight composes herself as she helps her dragon to his feet. The gate opened before them, the four stood before a near empty and disheveled room. The only thing of note was a pair of stasis pods adorned with gears, one already opened.
“Spike?” Twilight called, getting the dragon to nod and take point as he walked to the open pod. With his one good hand, Spike lit up the inside of the pod as Twilight began to examine it's interior.
“This is truly outrageous… beside the fact that this old world tech is leagues beyond our own…” She pulled back and looked at the others. “It was recently in use.”
Shuffling footsteps could be heard echoing in the room proper… Flinching, Spike began shining his light around the room, catching a glimpse of a metal red boot.
“Who’s there!?” He shouted, now slightly worried and frantic.
Emerald facepalmed due to Spike's attitude. “Would you just calm down?” she asked, not focusing in the figure that just showed up.
“Sorry, I’m just a litt-” From the door, the sound of something crashing onto the floor and cursing caught his attention. Quickly turning back, Spike shined his light upon a gray bodied figure with crimson arms, legs, and helmet. A black pair of sunglasses obscured his eyes and a yellow scarf was tied around his neck.
“Crap.” The figure said, trying desperately to dislodge his massively wide leg from a hole in the ground.
Emerald crouched down and glared at the figure, ready to fight at a moment's notice. Sunset nodded to Emerald, then looked at the figure before saying, “What are you?”
The figure looked to Emerald, then to Sunset. “You’re Sunset…” He gasped out.
Sunset blinked. “You know about me? Strange. By the looks of this tech, it's older than all of us by at least a few decades.”
“Here, lets get you loose!” Twilight called out as she made her way to the figure.
“Where am I? Why are you here? Why am I here?” He started asking as Twilight freed him from his predicament.
“How should we know?” Emerald asked, relaxing. “You're the one who was here.”
He tsked, finally free and checking his leg. “Kinda hoping you had the answers... “ He took a quick look outside the door before returning and placing a hand on the closed pod. “He’s just… Lying there…”
Sunset walked to the the pod and saw a symbol with a blue gear. Looking inside, she saw a figure with a slightly pale face and a blue helmet and matching outfit. “Friend of yours?” She asked.
“My brother,” He replied, curling his hand into a fist. “Why… why am I out here… why…” Though much of his expression was obscured, it was simple to note the pain and anger in his voice.
“N-not to sound rude,” The figure looked back to Twilight, shocking her. “Um… but m-may we ask your name?” She asked, hiding behind her bulky radar.
Sunset chuckled. “What's wrong Twi, you afraid he might grow fangs and attack you or something?”
“It's Nathan…” He responded coldly.
“Take it you're a bot too?” Emerald asked him.
Nathan tsked, running his left hand over his right shoulder. “Guess so, haven't eaten in days… the lack of sunlight isn't killing me…” He looked back to the open stasis pod, kicking it rather forcefully. “And everytime I lay down on this thing, it's the most relaxing thing on the planet…”
“So who's your creator?” Sunset asked.
“My mom, who's yours?” Nathan replied.
“Was that sarcasm?” Spike asked, his hand on his hip.
Twilight, now over her shock, went up to Nathan and began an intimate examination. “You don't look like a comedian model… do you have a designation, what are your specs, is this a titanium outer shell?”
“Is she checking me out?” He asked, watching as she began raising and lowering his right arm.
“Self lubricating ball joints…” She whispered almost breathlessly.
“Okay Twi, that can be seen as extremely explicit if he has no idea what you're talking about,” Sunset said as she literally pulled the purple unicorn away. She then cleared her throat and looked at Nate and said, “Not gonna lie, it's pretty rare at the moment for a bot to see their creator as an actual parent.”
“Yeah, I was actually born, thank you very much…” He replied as he looked at the crazed Twilight.
“NOO! I need to get inside him!” Twilight cried as she flailed about.
“What do you mean you were “born”?” Spike asked as he took charge of restraining Twilight.
“Well, ya see, when a man and a woman drink way too much alcohol…” Nate said, his tone of voice low and monotone.
Sunset shook her head. “No. No no. No. We aren't having any of that. And Twilight, you are just getting creepy. Very creepy.” After a deep breath, Sunset opened her eyes and looked at Nate. “You are just adding more questions instead of the other way around.”
“Not my fault you’re asking the wrong questions.” Nate replied as he crossed his arms together. “Would you believe me if I told you I wasn't always made of iron and wires?”
“Only if you were a cyborg,” Emerald asked, circling him herself to examine him, but keeping her distance. “Though I don't have any records of something with your appearance anywhere. Spike, you got anything?”
The drake’s eyes were shining blue, several lines of text cascading across his vision. “Nothing… he’s an entirely new model.”
“You're not gonna find me in your search history,” Nathan replied as he started to lean on the empty capsule. “Not unless you play video games from another world.”
“Okay, this is getting us nowhere,” Emerald said, glaring at Nathan. “Either you start making sense, or I'll personally rip you apart and let Twilight figure out how you work that way.”
“Hostile much?” He replies. “Fine, she gets to put her hands on me, but only because I know just about as much as you do,” He then brought up a finger. “One condition.”
“Anything!” Twilight shouted, actually getting grabby.
“You take everything I tell you at face value. If I tell you I was a little boy with a childhood, you believe me.” This was apparently alright with Twilight as she started vigorously nodding her head.
Emerald looked at Sunset for orders, to which the orange unicorn shrugged and said, “Sure. Seems simple enough.”
Sighing, Nathan slowly got up and started walking to the entrance of the chamber, looking back at the group. “You coming?”
Sunset shrugged again and followed him with Emerald close behind.
Nathan continued on his way, but stopped as he looked at a fork in the path. He looked back and seemed… nervous perhaps? “Uh… could one of you lead the way? I was kinda stuck in that room after waking up.”
Twilight beamed and happily pulled at Nathan's arm, “This way! Let me just say I am… SO excited to meet you and I can't wait to see what makes you tick!” The scientist said, stars in her eyes.
“So you're a psychologist?” Nathan asked, his voice still carrying overtones of sarcasm.
“What? Oh! More sarcasm… sorry, humor isn't really my strong suit.” Twilight replied sheepishly as she rubbed the back of her head.
“Dude!” Spike shouted as he waved his stump arm at Nathan, “We're getting you out of this junk heap and we're being nice! What's your deal?”
Nathan stared at Spike for a moment, facial expression giving none of his thoughts away, “My deal, is that I have been awake for a WEEK, and the only contact I've had with anyone save a smiley face I carved into a wall included a giant dragon looking at me like I was their next meal, a pretty pony princess whose name I shouldn't even remember, another pony princess,” Nathan shook the arm Twilight was holding onto, “Is constantly staring at me like a piece of mechanical meat, no offense princess,”
“None taken,” Twilight replied, “and I'm not a princess.”
“And then you start waving your junk in my face,” Nathan added as he motioned to Spike's stump arm which actually got the dragon to hug said stump in embarrassment. “So if it looks and sounds like I'm more than a little disoriented, it's probably because I really… REALLY want to yell at something that isn't either an inanimate object, or being somewhat nice to me.” He relented as he looked away.
Sunset blinked. “Sheesh. And you never even tried to leave during that time?”
Nathan shrugged as he turned to look at Sunset, “Sure, Johnson, that's the smiley I carved, wasn't much for conversation, but punching a steel wall only gets a man so far in life…”
“You named the smiley face?” Spike asked, incredibly weirded out by this fact, “Huh, maybe you do need a shrink.”
“So does that mean Twilight has to check your programming to make sure there are no bugs?” Emerald asked. “Not a good thing for a bot to go so bored they start talking to a wall.”
“Imagine it…” Twilight said dreamily, “The first robot in recorded history suffering post traumatic stress from an existential crises~” She thusly squee'd like a giddy school girl. Unbeknownst to Twilight however, Nathan took to hiding an amused grin within his scarf.
“Is that really a good thing?” Emerald asked.
Twilight feverishly began nodding her head. “If robots can exhibit traits equal to organic sapient life, it would mean a breakthrough in the field! So many new questions to explore… can a programmed machine develop emotion without software updates? Can wires and circuits mourn the losses of others? Do robots dream of electric sheep!?”
“Isn't that last one a book?” Emerald asked, stepping away from Twilight.
“Oh, that book exists here?” Nathan asked, “And I tend to dream about ice cream and yams if anything.”
Sunset blinked. “Why yams of all things?”
Nathan stopped, Twilight nearly tripping from the abrupt halt. Looking at him, Twilight actually began to worry if maybe Nathan DID need malware scan.
“I… I just really like yams…” Was all Nathan said as he hid his face with his scarf. In an effort to quell the awkwardness, Nathan decided to pull Twilight along who in no way fought against the silent bot.
Thankfully, Nathan didn't have to worry about getting lost as the entrance was marked by the shining light of the outside world.