//------------------------------// // 1: Twilight Time // Story: Contagious // by Bookish Delight //------------------------------// A kneeling Twilight Sparkle pored over the mess of tangled wires, broken circuits, cracked alloys and mangled toaster heating elements in front of her. Under normal circumstances, she would be over the moon about having the opportunity to examine these components. They had, after all, once been combined to form a complicated piece of technology: an honest-to-goodness automaton with above-average-functioning artificial intelligence. However, given that she was examining these components in front of the school athletics field, with the rubble of one of Canterlot High School wall's not too far from her? Right now, Twilight was... less than enthused. Oh, and she would now officially also have to call the AI a complete and utter failure.  In other words, back to the drawing board, across the board. Twilight Sparkle was a woman of much patience—as a scientist, it was in her contract—but right now, she had reasons to cast it aside. Reasons very close to her.  She huffed through closed lips and eyes as she heard the soft crunch of grass behind herself. "I know you're behind me, Micro Chips," she said, in a voice laced with syrup and arsenic. "By all means, come over here." A boy with similar complexion and glasses to Twilight's—but wearing a far gaudier yellow shirt and suspenders which sent Twilight into nostalgic fits whenever she saw them—gingerly and obliviously stepped closer to Twilight's side with a pensive expression. "Do... do you think they can be saved?" Micro Chips asked. Twilight didn't answer, instead standing up and adjusting her glasses. She still didn't look at him. "Chips, when you originally confided in me your planned upgrades to Project JVJ-24601, what was the very first thing I said?" Micro Chips paused in thought, fingers to chin, before replying, "You said that I should work on fixing the mood swings first. Maybe look into the yeast ratio of the bread I was feeding them." Twilight nodded. "Mm-hmm. And do you remember the second thing I said?" "You said that..." Micro Chips darted his eyes back and forth. "Bigger wasn't always better. If I needed more and larger limbs and motors, there should be a purpose to them before installation." "So far, so good," Twilight said, the syrup's poison intensifying her voice to near-satirical levels. "Now, for all the marbles in the multiverse: what was the final thing I recommended?" Micro Chips tugged at his collar. "To, uh, not to change so much at once? To go slow, make one modification, test it out before making the others—" Twilight whirled around.  "So then why would you do exactly the opposite?" Mere minutes ago, the robot that Twilight and Micro Chips were referring to had gone uncontrollably berserk across Canterlot High. Now, it was Twilight's turn as she clutched the sides of her head. "This is what happens when people don't listen to me!" she yelled, pointing at the pile of parts. "It endangers my friends! It endangers the people I love! The one thing I hate more than people not listening to me, is when not doing so. Hurts. My. Friends."  The next thing Micro Chips knew, Twilight had raised a violet, glowing, clawed hand in the air, and he was being airlifted, dozens of feet skyward via Twilight's telekinetic powers, as the latter's voice boomed across the suddenly very pink and non-descript landscape around them.  "Now," Twilight said, her eyebrows slanted and her grin Cheshire as she drank in Micro Chips's peril and pleas for mercy, "What. Have. We. Learned?" Back in the real world, Sunset Shimmer watched Twilight tittering and softly cackling by her lonesome, as she knelt over the pile of smashed robot parts, hugging a piece of metal to her chest. Sunset's first impulse was, as usual, to back away—she'd seen this exact lucid dream playing out before during one of their sleepovers, and it had resulted in one of the best supervillain speeches Sunset had ever heard, straight out of some of Princess Twilight's two-way journal entries where she talked about some of the more major threats to Equestria. Honestly, if Sunset hadn't witnessed Midnight Sparkle being vaporized with her own eyes...  Still, if Sunset left Twilight alone, who knew how far Twilight's frustrated fantasy might play out—plus it would delay Twilight's assessment of the situation, and of how the robot went haywire in the first place. For the sake of the school, Sunset took a deep breath, stepped forward, and tapped Twilight on the shoulder. "And another thing—" Twilight said between cackles, before jolting back to reality at Sunset's touch. "Whoa, wha, who goes there?" she said, dropping the piece of metal and darting her head around before seeing Sunset. Instantly, her frustration melted. "Oh gosh, you are okay!" she said, leaping to her feet and throwing her arms around her girlfriend.  "I mean, you were there," Sunset said. "You know I'm fine. I'm glad you were concerned, though." "Of course I'd be concerned!" Twilight said, looking away. "You already know I wouldn't know what to do without you..." "Something tells me you'd make sure no one ever made a wayward robot again, even if it meant taking over the entire school to enforce your decrees." Sunset smirked. "Please stop me from hurting Micro Chips," Twilight said, in a hissing whisper that only Sunset could hear. "I want to soooooo bad right now. He almost hurt you! The other girls! The other students! If a few of them hadn't been there to help..." Sunset sighed and chuckled, running her fingers through Twilight's hair. "He didn't do it on purpose, though." "But I warned him!" Twilight pouted. "I warned him what would happen with the upgrades, I-I..." "And I understand your frustration, I promise," Sunset said. "Tell you what: if you can hold in your anger and not hurt him for now, you can come to my house tonight, and vent to me all you want about it tonight, using all of the technobabble you want. Also, I'll cook dinner." Twilight gasped, snapping upright. "Four-layer salad?" she asked in a tone much like a child being promised ice cream later if they behaved. "Five layers," Sunset said. "Extra dried fruit." "Deal!" Twilight squealed, before looking back over the parts. "I guess in the end, it couldn't do much to hurt us or the other girls."  Sunset nodded. "But it's still a really good thing that it didn't hurt our helpers too much either. Especially..." Sunset looked around for a certain someone who had been close by moments ago, but was now nowhere to be found. Wait a minute. The crowd of boys on the other side of the field. Among them, a blue-haired, bright-complexioned boy who was looking around himself—looking for someone. It wasn't long before his and Sunset's confused gazes met. Sunset stood, uncharacteristically frozen, her normal leadership attitude escaping her.  Fortunately, Twilight was there to pick up the slack. "Go over to him," she said, nudging Sunset. Sunset looked away, nursing an imaginary wound on her arm. "But..." "He deserves it. I mean, heck, what would your reaction be if I'd sung the song he sang ten minutes ago?" "That... that's cheating," Sunset balked. "That is the worst kind of cheating and you know it, I'm not even sure if that's even legal—" Twilight giggled. "I know. So, go already. I'll uh, be somewhere that's not over there." Sunset looked back across the field, took one more deep breath, once more stepped forward... and kept doing so until she closed the distance to the boys.  Micro Chips was the first non-blue-haired boy to notice Sunset, mere steps before she reached their crowd proper. He instantly tensed and jumped back. "Gah! Sunset!" he squeaked, clutching his robot's remote control close to his chest. "I really, really, really am sorry about all of this, I checked everything three times including the yeast levels, it should have worked, I—" "It's fine," Sunset shrugged, nodding towards the hole in the school wall. "I've demolished some CHS property in my day. You might want to watch out for Twilight, though." After a beat of realization, added, "Also, probably Principal Celestia, since she handles the school budget." Micro Chips slumped with a long, defeated sigh. Lament your life later, buddy," a heavy-set green-haired boy said as he grabbed Micro Chips's arm, dragging him away. "Flash, we'll be..." Sandalwood looked around. "Uh, somewhere that's not here." The miniature crowd dispersed, leaving Sunset and one other boy in relative silence... until Flash Sentry finally broke it. "So, uh. Mission Control to Shimmer and Sentry? Anyone out there?" Sunset chuckled. It was something she often did around him, she remembered. "Oh, right. Sorry, kind of... froze for a second." She looked toward the rear of the campus. "Uh..." She hesitated for a long time before saying her next words. "Walking Time?" Flash raised his eyebrows. "You... you sure?" Sunset nodded. Flash did as well, with a grin. "All right, let's go."