//------------------------------// // 34 - If Moondancer had a Text to Speech Device // Story: Fallout Equestria: Operation Star Drop // by Meep the Changeling //------------------------------// I missed traveling with Vinyl. It felt a little silly of me to focus on something so itty bitty when the whole world was in danger, but… Well, it was going to take a good deal of time for us to even get close to stopping the Enclave. If Vinyl were here we’d at least be talking. Even running to warn the Herd, ungrateful jerks that they were, we’d been talking. It helped pass the time. Dash didn’t “do talking”. Talking to Desi had different problems. I think she’d gotten a little bit better, but holding a conversation with someone who needs to double check each of their statements got tedious, and without a “stationary hard-line” she couldn’t make me understand her. Besides, Dash knew all kinds of cool things that I wanted to know. Desi was still draped across Dash’s back as she trotted ahead of me. It was super cute. It had first been a little weird, but then I remembered the first time I saw Dash, back in the club with… with Vinyl. The poor mare was just too lonely to turn down any advances. A cynical part of me wondered if she was hoping to make friends so there could be a new Element of Magic. Celestia knows Desi fit that bill perfectly. “Can we talk now?” I asked for the twentieth time as I looked up from the cracked road’s crumbling surface to face Dash as best I could. Dash sighed and flicked her tail. “Gears, the more noise we make, the less safe we are.” “I know, but I’m going crazy back here,” I whimpered, giving Dash my best Sweetie Eyes. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any effect when used behind somepony… Dash stopped walking and sighed. “Okay… Tell you what,” she said quietly. Yes! I smiled. They had worked! D— did Desi upgrade them with x-ray capabilities? “We’ve got several days of travel ahead of us,” Dash continued as she turned to look over her shoulder. “I understand you’ll be bored. More importantly, Desi, you’ll need to eat, right?” Desi nodded. “Confirmed. Ver hungo.” Dash smirked at her slang then looked over to me. “I can catch up with you guys no matter how far you walk, and we’re leaving Oak Valley behind. That safehouse I mentioned survived the strike and that neighborhood wasn’t on fire. I can fly over and pick up some supplies. The MREs in there should still be… edible, so Desi can have something to eat, and I should be able to get a few toys we might need.” I frowned. “Okay, that’s a good plan if by toys you mean weapons or tools, but how does it relate to talking?” Dash bit her lip for a moment then sighed. “Look… I just need a few moments of quiet, okay? I’ve always been aware that I put the world in danger, but right now everything’s finally starting to explode. I just feel... super un-awesome…” She closed her eyes, then opened them to give the two of us a pleading look. “I need some time to stew, process, that kind of thing. You let me buck off to the Safe House for a while, and I’ll catch up later with stuff we’ll need. We can talk when I get back.” I nodded twice. “Okay, that sounds like a good plan, but there’s a problem. How do you know the safe house hasn’t been looted?” Dash nodded to her saddlebag. “Its transceiver is still green. There’s an active network for all MoA facilities. Can’t control them remotely, or see where they are or anything like that, but you can read the status reports. We piggybacked that signal onto the SPP tower’s network.” “Okay, now it sounds good,” I said as I sped up as much as my creaking joints would allow so I could give Dash a little side hug. “I’m sorry you feel bad about being a part of all this… I understand. I was a gunner. But, I— I don’t blame you. Both sides made superweapons, and you didn’t mean for Star Drop to be this powerful.” “Yeah…” Dash muttered as she stared down at the road. “But I could have delayed the project, redesigned it. Made it less awesome, once we knew… and I didn’t.” Desi pulled out her book and started flipping through it. Dash and I quietly waited for her to finish. After a few moments the little mare looked Dash in the eye and said, “I understand hating yourself for having personally made a weapon of mass destruction. It is not a good feeling. Such weapons can be necessary, and their use can be just. When facing an enemy who will never negotiate, when they will never stop, when they seem to seek nothing except your total destruction, the only ethical response is extreme force. It does not feel good, but it is still the right thing to do.” I tilted my head at that statement. It was profound, and yet— “You shouldn’t feel like that so young,” Dash said for me with a grim smile. “So… What did you do wrong?” My eyes lit up. “Oh! She did invent a homing magic-anti magic missile spell!” Dash snorted. “You figured out how to do a real Mana Torpedo? Oh man, the Term-Link would have gone nuts over you, kid! You know I pulled that entire concept right out of my plot because we didn’t have the budget for a prop torpedo? We just got some unicorn to fling a light orb across the camera’s view from a few angles one afternoon, and let Butterscotch apply the magic of editing.” Desi shook her head. “Correct but inaccurate,” she said before flipping through her book for several long minutes. I tried to gauge the time by the shadows, and for once the sun cooperated with me. She slid off Dash’s back while reading her old book, then turned to look at us both while floating the book over to her side. “Bad people hate my home and its systems. Their hate is…” she double checked a page and frowned, “maximum. We sailed to avoid them. They would hunt us. Before we found a hidden place to…” Desi stopped and frowned. Her horn lit up as she projected a vector image of what looked like a submarine stopping in a harbor. “Moor?” she asked. Dash nodded. “Yeah, moor or harbor… I didn’t know there were any active submarines left. Or any automated ones ever built. Must have been one of AJ’s last three projects. I never managed to dig into them,” she finished trailing off thoughtfully. That explained why she liked ships! I couldn’t help but smile as I pictured the tiny mare in a little sailor suit. Desi dismissed her illusion with a flick of her horn. “The enemy was relentless. They would not respond to communication. We developed an arcane means of transmuting plantlife, reconfiguring them to naturally exhale small quantities of O-Ethyl S-2-diisopropylaminoethyl methylphosphonothioate gas along with their oxygen. This weapon was deployed on one of their settlements. The area can no longer be inhabited by multicellular life, and gas concentrations continue to rise.” I winced as I proceed. I knew this was the wasteland. I knew every group’s ancestors had done horrible things… But that seemed a bit extra cruel. Dash on the other hoof, she relaxed a little. “I guess that’s true… The Empire wasn’t going to negotiate at all… What exactly does that chemical do?” she asked with a curious tilt of her head. “You know, so I can avoid the region like that patch of Griffonia with the parasitic— Um, actually let's not mention those… Anyway, where is it?” Desi flipped through her book. “Far from here,” Desi answered. “I cannot tell you the precise location. The effect of the nerve agent fully parralizes the victim, conscious and unconscious muscle control becomes impossible within minutes after exposure to even trace amounts. The victim dies once breathing becomes impossible.” “That’s horrible,” I said as I took a step back from the young mare-filly. “Confirmed,” Desi replied calmly. “Extreme threats must be eradicated.” “Hon, you’re a good mare. I’m glad you’re upset by that, but don’t hold it against her. If the enemy won't talk to you and won't surrender, you do have to eliminate them. It’s true in police work, and it’s double true in war.” Imaginary dad said quietly in the back of my mind. More quietly than usual too. Odd. I suppose that’s true… And it’s not like she did it. Her pseudo-parents did. I mused to myself. I cleared my throat and took a step forward. “I guess I can’t argue with that but… That seems a bit too cruel. And, what if other people want to use that land later?” Desi shrugged. “Science: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.” Dash smirked and stretched out her wings, giving them a preflight shake. “If the problem is mutant plants, it’s not really a problem. If you can’t find some agent fuchsia in an old chemical plant, you can just burn them down.” Desi thought for a moment then shrugged, paged through her book quickly and said. “Probably? Do not worry. The chance of us encountering them is near-zero.” Well, that was something at least. I may be made of metal, but so far all of my friends are not. Encounting deadly plants would be bad, for sure. “Sooo are we good with the me-gettin’-some-space-and-supplies plan?” Dash asked with a hopeful smile and pleading eyes. I stepped forwards to give Dash a quick little hug. “Yes. I am not used to anypony traveling with me needing to eat. Desi needs food, so somepony has to get it.” “Good,” Dash said as she took to the air with a single flap of her wings. “You two head over the hill, right along that ridge. Path’s marked with the standard stones, I’ll meet you in a half hour or so.” “Wait, stones, what?” I asked, my ears twitching from a mix of confusion and a slight voltage irregularity... Dash turned to face me, looking down past her hind legs. “You know, the stones. It’s a Ghoul Road.” “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I admitted with a little dusty hoof kick that was only half actuator-spasm. Dash let herself drop out of the sky and looked me in the eyes, her jaw somewhat slack. “You mean to tell me you spent almost a month following Vi, and she didn’t tell you about Ghoul Roads?” I shook my head and frowned. “No… What’s a Ghoul Road?” Dash took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. “Ghouls have never been well liked. We have to move around a lot. The wasteland has never been safe. There sure are a lot of sane ghouls left, aren't there? Weird, isn’t it?” “Yeah, a little now that you mention it.” “There’s an unspoken agreement between ghouls. If you can pathfind, you mark safe routes. You do it by leaving little trails of stones with a horseshoe scratched into them. There’s other marks too, mostly pre-war pop culture references. They tell you about dangers the road takes you around and where the road goes.” I took a step back and held up a hoof in shock. “Wait, wait, wait… You mean to tell me that all of the safe, speedy, and clever navigation Vinyl used when she was with me was all just her reading road signs?” That— that was one of the core reasons I’d fallen for her. It was all a lie? Dash winced and shook her head almost violently. “No! Vinyl was one of the ponies who made the Ghoul Roads. She’s responsible for like at least ten percent of the routes still in use. You know her “need to save lives” issue? She marks the roads to help with that. She might even have started the roads in the first place. I dunno for sure, but I can see her doing it.” I felt my core power drop almost violently as a wave of sadness rolled over me. “W— but… Why wouldn’t she tell me?” I sniffled, my head hanging as I tried to grapple with feelings of betrayal. “Well,” Dash paused for a moment and rolled her lips. “A lot of ghouls depend on those roads. Some feel like you can’t talk about them to non-ghouls. Any time raiders found one, well, we lost a safe road, unless it was too hot for them. If you wanted to go to La Grange and took the Ghoul Road any time from 2193 to about 2201, you’d’ve probably been captured by slavers. See?” Dash paused for a moment “Well, probably not you. You’ve got a knack for getting out of bad situations.” “I guess,” I said as I wiped a tear from my eye. Dash’s tail flicked. “Woah, you can cry?” I nodded. “Yeah… My model had to be convincing, remember?” Dash went quiet for a moment. “I— I only got briefed a little bit on your project, since my agents would be using your model … and I just realized there’d have been no way to put them back in their own bodies… I wonder if Doctor Silver even cared about that?” “My mom did,” I said with a little, but proud, smile. “Yeah, she did,” Dash said as she opened her wings and took off again. “Back soon. Just follow the rocks. It’s hard to spot them at first, but you’ll pick it up quick!” “Okay,” I called as she flew off. I watched Rainbow shrink into the distance then vanish before turning around and offering Desi an apologetic smile. “Um, not to be rude, but my vision is a little blurry. I don’t blame you, but you should probably be the one looking for the marked stones.” Desi nodded sagely. “Damage to head: extreme. Surprised you can has vision.” “Well, I did get shot with an extra big rifle…” I murmured as Desi turned and began to look across the hill. She kept looking for a while, then silently began walking up the hill. I followed her, wishing that she didn’t need her book to talk. After all, she couldn’t read a book, walk, talk, and look for the rocks all at once… ☢★★◯★★☢ The Ghoul Road lead Desi and I high up into the mountains east of Vanhoover. The city itself was out of view from here, but I still had my map, and without anypony to talk to and the only things to look at being piles of gray rocks identical to every other pile of gray rocks, clumps of gray moss, and Desi’s tiny little gray body, I had little else to do but keep checking the map and seeing how much further we had to go. Wait, Desi is peach. I think color may have gone loose. Annoying, but not important right now. And also keep track of how long Dash had been gone… At this point, she’d been gone for most of the afternoon and well into the evening. I know she said she needed space, but this was just a little ridiculous! Desi and I had made it nearly a third of the way there already! Most of that speed being due to the Ghoul Road we were following. Whoever had made it had found a lot of very nice easy paths to go up the mountain. It also lead us clear around a small mountain town. The town hadn’t been too much on the outside. Just a series of shacks that looked to be pre-war based on the rust coating their corrugated metal sides. Since Desi and I didn’t know any pre-war pop culture, when we encountered a stone marked with a small sketch of what looked like a colt’s TV show’s logo (I wasn’t quite certain of what it was precisely), we had no idea what that meant. Desi opted for erring on the side of caution and assuming it meant danger of some kind. So we went around the ancient rural shack-town. Good thing too! While we were passing by, I took the chance to look down at the town from a cliffside to get a bird’s eye view of it. Raiders. That was the mark that meant raiders. The town’s center was a mess of defiled bodies, gore-art, and strung out ponies recovering from a day spent on, presumably, all of the drugs they could find. I counted ourselves lucky they didn’t have any lookouts on the cliffside. If they did, those lookouts had bucked off someplace else. With my vision a bit fuzzy, I’d probably miss if I had to shoot at something. I opened up my targeting list and put this place on it. I probably wouldn’t ever get a chance to open up on this like back in the old days, but marking it for bombardment made me feel better about walking away. With the town behind us, and the top of the mountain looming over our right, the Ghoul Road’s stones finally began to point us north down the mountainside. As we crested the ridge and looked out over the petrified forest in the valley below us, I searched the distance as hard as I could for any sign of Vinyl. Surely if she was going to Whinnyapolis, like she thought the souls of her dead friend had told her to, she’d take this same path, right? If she had, I couldn’t tell. You can’t exactly track a pony over bare rock… There was no pale green glowing spek on the horizon. If she was down there, I couldn’t see her. Oh, hey, color was back! I sighed and continued walking. A shadow flashed over the ground in front of me. I twisted my head to look upwards while drawing my gauss-pistol in preparation for a fight, but fortunately it was just Dash. The cyan mare had acquired a large set of black saddlebags, and had a huge green duffle bag strapped to her back between her wings. That load had to be the reason she was late. What was she carrying? A month’s supply of food for six ponies? Dash looped around us twice before banking and coming to a slow stop on the trail ahead of us. “Greetings, fastestest pony!” Desi said happily, immediately trotting up to her side with the cutest little hop-skip. Rainbow grinned slightly. “Is that smile because you’re happy to see me, or know I have food?” Desi began to flip through her book for a reply. I trotted up to Dash while she referenced. “It took you awhile… Are you okay?” I asked with as much concern as I could muster through the boredom the walk had infested me with. Dash sighed and shook her head. “Buck no, my wings are killing me… Even before I was a ghoul, I hated hauling freight, and well… I had to stop a lot! This stuff slowed me down tons!” her lip parted in the biggest grin. “Which is really ironic, because—” Desi closed her book and looked into Dash’s eyes. “Both. An attractive mare has food for me.” Dash’s cheeks flushed slightly. “Okay… Tell you what, Desi,” Rainbow took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. “I’ve been single for too long to be all that picky. I’m also too old to want to dance around the bush like a young mare. What are you looking for, a rut or a relationship?” “I require friends for anti-sad applications,” Desi replied immediately. “You don’t really, um, have sex with friends,” I pointed out for the little mare’s benifit. Dash nodded firmly. “Yeah. Unless you’re Cadence… Or Shining. Or into swinging like they were. Or Pinkie… Huh, um, lotta ponies I hung out with, actually.” Desi’s ears flicked back in annoyance as she brought her book out again and paged through it rapidly. Dash and I waited politely for her to finish. “This is why I need the book,” Desi said as she closed her translation guide. “You are pretty. You have a super power. You seem nice. You are female. I would be stupid not to try for a relationship.” Dash snorted and shook he rhead. “I don’t have a super power!” Desi gave Rainbow the best blank look I’d ever seen anypony give. “You can break the sound barrier. Naked.” I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that’s pretty much a super power.” Dash sighed and flicked her tail happily. “Okay, fine. It is. But plenty of other pegasi used to be able to hit supersonic… I was unique in that I could go hypersonic. I can’t anymore, so…” Desi rolled her eyes and flicked through her book. “Even if I conceded the point, which I do not, you’re still attractive and I dislike the concept of very short-term relationships.” Dash pursed her lips then nodded. “Okay. We’ll give it a go then… But when it comes to sex, if I get wierded out by your size, don’t take it personaly.” “I won’t,” Desi promised with the cutest smile. “Sooo, now that we’ve sorted that out,” I said with an awkward hoof shuffle and a cough that only lost me a mouthful of coolant. “How about you split up that gear so you’re not carrying too much?” Dash shuddered at my sudden spit up, but did her best to ignore it. “That was the plan!” Dash said as she slid the duffle bag of her shoulders, followed by the bigger saddle bags, which as it turned out were a second pair she’d put on over her first pair. She pushed the saddlebags towards Desi and nodded to them. “Twenty three MREs. Vegetarian. Assorted meals. One of them should be more than enough for you for a day. They’re around four thousand calories each.” Desi’s eyes lit up. “Three will be power-sufficient!” Dash’s tail stood up in alarm. “What?! How big is your mana reserve?” Desi paused, frowned, then shrugged. “Why would she know?” I asked Dash with a giggle. “It’s not like there’s formal magic schools in the Heartlands.” “Point,” Dash conceded with a grumble. “It’s just, that’s Twilight level snacking.” Before I could reply Dash unzipped the duffle bag and gave me another huge grin. “Anyways! I'd totally forgotten what was stored in that safehouse. First thing’s first,” she reached into the bag and removed a slightly bulky looking near-black-blue jumpsuit from the bag. “Here’s the undersuit for Special Forces armor. Should help keep you in one piece… Against hooves, claws, and melee weapons, at least. Maybe smaller guns too. I’m not sure. Never used any myself.” “Oh! Thanks,” I said as I took the jumpsuit from her. It was heavy. Quite heavy. I could feel the inside was filled with something… flexible. Flexible, but dense and heavy. I took off my saddlebags to slip it on. As I got dressed, Dash continued to dig around in the bag. “Now, I know you got that robotic climbing rig on the back of your saddlebags, but we’re gonna have to swap that out.” I paused halfway through zipping the back of the suit up. “Why are we swapping out my Stilt Strider?” I asked with a suspicious frown. Dash grunted and heaved a roundish matte-black object partially out of the bag. “Well, each safehouse had equipment to help an agent escape if the place was compromised,” she said as she pulled the bulky thing out of the bag. Revealing it to be seemingly a motor-cycle sized fuel tank, attached to a pair of small jet turbines. With a single arm ending in a mouth-controlled throttle! My eyes slowly widened. “Is that a jetpack?!” “Sure is!” Dash said with a proud grin. “Topped off with fuel, too. Three hours of flight time in this baby. We should be able to make it to Winnyapolice from here by then. Uh, assuming Desi can keep up with you.” Desi trotted over to inspect the pack and shrugged before checking her book. “It is likely… However, with this food supply, given coordinates, I could teleport-hop to our destination.” “Would that use all of it?” I asked curiously. Desi shook her head. “Two additional units.” “We’ll keep that as a plan b then,” Dash said as she picked up my saddlebags. “Good thing you have these mounts on your harness. Somepony forgot to include the harness for this one.” “Here, let me show you how to disconnect it,” I said, sitting down next to Dash to help her swap my stilt strider for the jetpack. I was so keeping this! Although… I cleared my throat as we finished strapping the pack in place. “Dash?” “What?” she asked heastently. “I didn’t mess that locking bolt up, did I?” “No,” I shook my head. “It’s just… Flight talismans exist. Why did you stock the safehouse with a jetpack?” “Cuz it’s cooler,” Dash said without any hesitation. Desi giggled. “But fire?” “Yep. Butt fire.” Dash replied without hesitation. I bit my lip to keep myself from giggling. “So uh… How does it work?” Dash heaved the pack up onto my back with a loud groan of effort, then rotated the handle for me so it was within biting range. “Okay,” she said as she took a deep breath to recover from the strain. “You flick this little switch here with your tongue to turn the thrusters on. Then you just bite down on the throttle to go faster or slower. The steering is similar to a battle saddle, it will go where you look.” “Wait, you BITE to speed up and slow down?” I asked as my tail stood up in alarm. Dash nodded. “Yeah, why?” “Well, what if I panic and bite hard because I got a little distracted and suddenly I’m plunging towards the ground? Won't I just plow straight into the ground really fast and hard?” I asked, wincing at the mere thought of instantly becoming a pile of mangled flesh and scrap metal. To my horror, Dash nodded with a deadpan. “Yeah. So, don’t do that.” “I will tractor you, should your flight become dangerous,” Desi said with passable empathy in her voice. “I hope you can take that much kinetic energy,” I murmured as I shivered. Desi snorted and looked away as if I’d somehow upset her. Dash, frowned as she took note of the little mare’s behavior and cleared her throat. “Okay. Let’s get going. The faster we can get Gears fixed up, the more time we’ll have to save the world.” I blinked. I understood we were actually potentially saving the world here, but… She’ds said that so casually! “Um, Dash? Shouldn’t you put a bit more gravity into that phrase?” I said as I gave her my best “come on” look. “You said it like “Let’s go deliver a letter.”.” She tilted her head. “Say what?” “You know, save the world.” Dash snorted and chuckled. “Newbies!” I sputtered and took a step back. “Excuse me?!” Dash took a breath and twitched her wings thoughtfully. “Look… If we pull this off, it will be the most amazing thing you’ve ever done in your life. You’ll be a hero for the whole world, what’s left of it will get to keep on existing because of you. Nothing you ever do will top stopping Star Drop, unless something else comes along to threaten everypony and everything.” I nodded in agreement. “Right! That’s why—” “For me, it’ll be a Tuesday.” Dash said calmly. I opened my mouth to object, but Imaginary Dad cut me off. “She’s got you there…” Oh. Right. Pre-Ministries Elements adventures. Especially that Tirek thing... I cleared my throat. “Point taken.” Dash turned to look at Desi. “Hey, how fast can you fly?” Desi frowned, tilted her head, then took out her book. “Standby for unit conversion…” A moment later she looked up from her book. “In or out of a vehicle?” “Out, obviously!” Dash snorted. “I need to know so I can estimate our flight time. We only have three hours of fuel for Gears.” “Stand by,” Desi said again as she flipped back through her book. “Technically, infinitely fast if an aerial teleport is utilized. I estimate my maximum burst flight speed to be approximately Mach zero-point-six-two. Max cruising speed should be around Mach zero-point-four-nine-six.” “Not bad!” Dash whinnied. “You’ve got some talent there. I might be able to train you up to supersonic after all…” she trailed off and looked at Desi suspiciously. “What do you mean in a vehicle? Do you have an airship we could use?” Desi shook her head firmly. “Negative.” “Well, what was it and how fast did it go?” I asked with a curious little tail twitch. Desi frowned, flicked through her book for a minute then looked between us apologetically. “Translation not included… Maximum speed traveled in a vessel… unknown,” she said with an even more apologetic frown. “Reactor output fully utilized by engines. All other systems utilized reserve power form battery backups. Sensor scale exceed. Significant G and drag forces damaged the primary hull. Several decks explosively compressed.” “You got a sub going fast enough to shred the hull?” Dash asked with the most filly-in-a candy-shop ecstatic glow I'd ever seen in my life. I tried to do the math on how fast a submarine would have to go in order to cause the crew to feel “significant G forces” and just shook my head. “That’s a ludicrous amount of speed.” “Yes,” Desi agreed with a nod. “How did you even get up to those kind of speeds in water?” Dash asked with a suspicious frown. “Did you use a particularly low density slipstream?” Desi nodded once. “We should go.” “Right!” Dash agreed with a light blush. “Sorry, I like speed records, you know?” I cleared my throat and looked up into the sky, then flicked the jetpack’s switch with my tongue. The pack hummed immediately, shook slightly, then creaked as a pair of turbines slowly spun to life. This was an awesome/bad idea… But it would save us time. “So uh, just bite it?” I asked again around the bit. Dash nodded and flapped her wings to take off straight upwards. “Yep! Come on Desi, this way. Gears, go in my direction, full throttle. We’ll catch up.” “Okay,” I said with a nervous gulp as Desi performed her running take-off and began to fly after Dash as she headed off towards Whinnyapolis. Oh boy… Please don’t just explode! I took a deep breath, offered a quick prayer to every god I knew of, and Celestia too for good measure, then bit down on the throttle. I felt it in my robo-guts before anything else. Like a hook embedded in my spine was yanking me forwards at butt-clenching speed! FWSSSSHHHHHHHHHH-VOOOOOOOOOOM! I blew past Dash and Desi before I knew it. I could feel my legs being pulled by the air, like the wind itself wanted to rip them off. That’s when I discovered the jetpack’s fatal flaw… “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” I screamed like a little filly. Letting go of the throttle. The pack’s turbines cut out. I began falling like a rock. My scream turned into a shriek. A green energy field shimmered into existence around me, stopping my fall. I twisted in the field to see Desi, looking down at me kindly… and Dash trying not to laugh her plot off. And falling. Miserably. “Hehehahahaha! Oh, my, gosh! That was priceless!” Dash snickered as she flew up along side me. “Pro-tip. Don’t open your mouth while using that thing.” You could have warned me about the take off you jerk! “I hate you,” I said as I gave her my best glare. Dash grinned even wider and turned, flying north east. “Come on! Desi, just tow her till she’s up for trying that again.” “I will comply,” Desi said as she flew us after her. I shook my head. Partially from the indignity that I’d just suffered, partly because I just couldn’t believe Desi wasn’t a robot. Shaking my head was probably a bad idea… Good thing I was being towed. ☢★★◯★★☢ Sunrise is much prettier from the air. You get to see the sun before it’s illuminating the earth much at all. The shimmer on the horizon you see on the ground is a burning ribbon from the air. A burning ribbon that highlighted the crumbling ruins ahead and below us. Whinnyapolis, Celestia’s City. I didn’t know much about it. Only what Rainbow had told Jasmine back in the MoA base. This city had existed to study star metal. It was a place meant to house scientists, feed them, provide for their families… So why had it grown into a metropolis with the population density of Manehattan, if not the scale? The decaying, tilted, iron husks of skyscrapers below us proved that hundreds of thousands if not millions of ponies had worked in the city center. We’d spent ten minutes flying over sprawling suburbs around the city (and getting shot at by ponies on the ground. Dash had been so right about ponies firing at anything that flies!), this place had once been a major city. All of this because Celestia wanted to study some space rocks. It seemed... Excessive. Okay, Gears. You need to ask a question. Speak slowly. Squeeze the throttle between words. Use as few words as possible. “Dash?” I called over the roar of my now much-lighter jetpack. “Why city big?” “Incredibly low tax rate if your company did R&D here. A lot of corporations moved in after learning of that old ruling of Celestia’s. Cities saved so much that it was reasonable for them to pay their workers to relocate. Sparkle Cola alone had over twenty thousand ponies resettled here,” Dash yelled back. I wanted to shake my head at the obviousness in hindsight, but I’d learned an hour ago that was a very very dumb idea. Instead I looked out over the city again, moving only my eyes to take things in. I could tell Whinnyapolis had been hit fairly hard by the bombs. At least the outskirts had. The tilted towers were all on the metropolis’ outer edges and leaned inwards towards the city. The outward facing walls of less damaged buildings were still blackened and rusted on those sides as well. A few areas of devastation could be seen within the city center, but from what I could see the city proper had managed to survive well enough. “AJ had a fancy missile defense systems set up here,” Dash said as if she had read my mind. “You can see it worked pretty well… Shame the whole city fell into chaos without outside supplies. The farms in the suburbs got hit real hard.” Well, that explained how a place this fairly intact had survived. The sun rose just a little more, turning its burning ribbon into a narrow wedge of light. The skyline came into clearer view. Directly below us was a large park, with a huge crumbling stadium in the middle. I could see small shanty shacks set up within the stadium. It had been fortified into a little community. I hoped the ponies who lived there were happy. Or at least, good ponies. More importantly, I saw our destination. There was no mistaking the Sparkle Cola Tower. It was shaped like a massive Sparkle Cola Bottle, complete with logo on the side. Most of the tower’s glass had been smashed, and large sections of the tower’s structure were simply gone, but it stood tall and proud on the western side of the city, in the middle of a cluster of similarly damaged buildings. I banked towards it, Dash and Desi following my lead. I almost smiled, but that would have been bad. Still, it felt good to be kind of getting the hang of this thing. “Okay, so, I’ve never been inside. I’ve only flown past a few times,” Dash said with a cautious edge to her voice. “I know the Sparkle Cola Company is active in some form, because I’ve seen their door guards. I’ve never seen robots like that. Especially not robots that smart. Watched them repel a gang of raiders. Helped with a few pot shots. We should land well away from the doors, and approach slowly.” I blinked in surprise. Dash didn’t know? Really? Well well! I was the secret keeper for a change. I still had the password XJ-9 gave me and everything! Dash passed me and took the lead. As she began to bank down to land in the street, Desi grabbed me with her telekinesis. I appreciated that. Landing had been something I’d been dreading for the entire trip. Dash cautiously dropped below the roof top level and spiraled tightly down to land at the edge of the large clearing around the tower. Presumably the clearing was called Sparkle Park or something… Or had been. There was a lot of old rusted junk in the place. Iron tree planters, benches, old trash cans... It looked like this had once been a very nice green space. I half expected ponies to take shots at Rainbow as she landed, but it didn’t happen. As Desi approached the ground, I could see why. The park area was dotted with turrets. Big, black painted, gold trimmed, plasma turrets. The turrets were very effective, judging by the row of Enclave and Steel Ranger power armor helmets mounted on pikes which lined the street moving into the park itself. There was even a sign, a simple metal affair painted lavender with either stenciled or printed text in magenta. Property of the Sparkle Cola Company Visitors currently unwelcome. Ask for a consolation cola at the gate. Mutual business proposals may be presented to the Legio on duty. Perhaps more interesting was the hoof painted sign below the first one. It was also much more worrying, as it had been painted on what looked like a power armor cuirass hammered flat by a very large hoof striking it repeatedly. Raiders! Do you think you’re a bad enough dude to loot the Sparkle Cola tower? You could win a prize! If you’re lucky one of the Legio will choose your skull to use as a cola stein! I almost missed the third even a smaller sign beneath that. This one was printed like the first. Commemorative cola steins are available to Whinnyanapolice residents upon request. The security around the tower was way more than adequate to keep any hostile ponies well away from the tower. Desi landed just behind Dash and set me down a moment later. I let go of the jetpack’s control rod and folded it away as much as I could with my currently limited range of motion. Dash cleared her throat nervously and nodded towards the doors which were guarded by a pair of huge robots. I couldn’t see much detail from this distance with my damaged optics, but they were equine shaped. Well, equine in ancient armor shaped. They shared the black and gold paint job with the turrets, too. “I once saw one of those things leap twelve meters to pile drive a raider’s skull right into the stone. Just walk up without doing anything threatening, and we’ll see if we can make a deal,” She said with a nervous twitch of her ears. I nodded and trotted ahead. “I’ll take the lead. They’ll probably like listening to another synthetic pony best.” “Yeah, probably,” Dash agreed as she followed me across the park. As I walked up to the pair of door guards, I realized they weren’t just huge, they were HUGE! Easily two and a half meters tall. Their armor plating was also... oddly designed. It was like an older set of knight’s armor, only the pauldrons were very large and ornately decorated with a sculpted half of a Sparkle Cola bottle. The pauldron’s sheer size and shape reminded me of the Neighponese samauri’s armor; they had engineered their pauldrons to act like shields to protect them from arrows, but these looked like the bullet-stopping equivalents of that idea, only in an Equestrian style rather than Neighponese. Their cuirasses, or whatever you call a robot’s torso armor, was designed in such a way as to partially enclose the helmet, ensuring that while the robot couldn’t look all the way to either side, or up, there was no exposed neck joint an enemy could exploit. The top of the armored cowls also featured a purple tuft of… hair? Like the plume of an ancient knight’s helmet. A matching skirt-cloak hybrid covered the robot’s flanks as well, solidifying the ancient look. The most modern things about them was the ornate Sparkle Cola logo on their barrels, and the large bore automatic rifles integrated into their sides like how a battle saddle would work for a normal pony. Or a suit of power armor. They also had glaives. Probably just to further seal the “gate guard” look their designer had an obvious fetish for. They remained silent and unmoving until we got within five meters of their posts on either side of the tower’s recessed entryway, at which point they immediately crossed their glaives to bar our path towards the single large gothic-arch door set into the back of the tower. “Halt!” One of them ordered in a surprisingly friendly mare’s voice. “State your business.” the other ordered in the exact same voice. Dash snorted behind me, though I couldn’t see her, the snort sounded surprised. “Well, I knew Moondancer had a thing for Twilight… Makes sense she’d have mapped her voice for an AI at some point,” Dash muttered to herself. I cleared my throat and looked at the robot on the right, and decided it was a she, given the voice. “Hello, miss,” I greeted as politely as I could manage with the mix of emotions flooding my mind. “I was told by XJ-9 that I could find a mechanic here capable of repairing me.” The robot on the left turned her head to look me up and down. “We don’t make any zebra models… Who built you?” “I was built by Doctor Black Swan shortly before the Last Day,” I said as honestly as I could. “I have the terminal passcode as well.” “You could have told me you’d met somepony form here!” Dash hissed in my left ear. “Swan?” asked the robot on the right side, seemingly surprised. “Our Glorious Mistress will wish to speak with you on an urgent matter. Please, enter! I will call for a unit to escort you to the Throne Room.” Glorious miss— What? “Ohhh, this is gonna get weird!” Imaginary dad said a bit too eagerly. The robots immediately uncrossed their blades. I nodded politely. “Thank you… I— I can get repairs, right? I’m only barely operational right now.” “Of course,” the left-hoof guard said with a polite nod. “Your companions may enter as well… Cause no trouble. We’re not nearly as playful about breaking up indoor fights.” “I won't,” Dash promised. Desi nodded in quiet agreement. I could see her face out of the corner of my eye. The poor mare was pale with fright. Twice my size was three times her size… Poor thing. I trotted into the recess, only to take a step back as the metal door swun downwards, revealing that it was in fact a drawbridge suspended by steel cables and operated by winches. It hit the ground with a loud thud, and let me see into the tower’s lobby. It was clean here! Very clean! As if somepony had just finished sweeping, mopping, and polishing the white tile floors and had gone so far as to scrub all of the lavender walls and dust the gold trim as well. The lobby had been emptied of all furnishings, though, leaving the room bare aside from the glowing crystal lamps in the ceiling, and a single terminal mounted on a pillar in the center of the room at the far side of a gold and silver Sparkle Cola logo set into the floor within a large magenta circle. I frowned as I realized that there were no other visible doors in the lobby, but trotted inside, assuming the terminal would open a hidden door or something. After all, if you guarded the outside of your base this well, the inside had to have security too. The three of us trotted up to the terminal silently. I jumped as the drawbridge began to creak shut behind us, but continued forwards until I reached the small white terminal’s glowing green screen. The terminal’s screen held no menu options. No graphics. Nothing fancy at all. Merely a line of text asking “password?” I reared up to access the keyboard and typed in “CorrectHorseBatteryStaple”. The screen blinked green once as the text changed. Password accepted. Prepare for transport. “Transport? Is this logo an elevator?” Dash asked with a tilt of her head, just as a sphere of lavender light blazed to life around us! The glow brightened, contracted inwards, passed through us with an itchy tingly sensation, and vanished. We were no longer in the lobby. The three of us were standing inside a small room atop an identical logo on the floor. The decor was the same as the lobby. Lavender walls, gold baseboard and crown molding. White tile floor. Tasteful gold and black tiled ceiling. A golden double door set into the wall directly in front of us. This new room was a circle just slightly larger than the logo we stood on. A two meter gap stretched between the logo and the walls, and was mostly filled with machinery I couldn’t identify. All I knew was that the neatly arranged cables, crystals, and large, two meter tall, half meter wide hexagonal mirror-lined panels looked very important, and were probably some sort of teleportation device. “Oh man… Something tells me Moon leaned on her ties to my ministry way heavier than I thought,” Dash said cautiously. “Because she stole your relay design?” I asked. “Yeah…” Dash said hesitantly. “This is an exact copy of the prototype… I uh, I contracted some chemical development out to Sparkle Cola. They had some of the best alchemists. Moon had access to some of our test data from the project. She definitely committed some serious espionage if she has one of these.” I nodded slowly and glanced nervously at the machine which had brought us here. A prototype, huh? Thank Celestia it actually worked… “Okay, so, we should expect she has all of your old toys then. Just to be safe.” I suggested with a flick of my tail. Dash nodded, and the double doors hissed open. I turned to face the door, reflexively twisting so I could draw my pistol if I had too. Standing just beyond the doorway was, of course, another robot. A very... roboty looking robot. She was clearly meant to resemble a mare, specifically Twilight Sparkle. I’d only heard her described a few times, but given what I knew about Moondancer… Who else could my fellow Equoid be meant to resemble? Resemble being the key word. She was… obviously a robot. She didn’t have fur, just lavender colored plastic panels which were somewhat old and worn. Her joints were covered in lavender silicone. Her body had many visible seams. Her eyes looked, well, fake. Her mane and tail appeared to be composed of costume wigs, or some other cheap synthetic fibers, maybe from a doll. Aside from that, she looked like Twilight. The shape was correct, as far as I knew. At least, assuming the posters I’d seen of her were true to life. The robot even had her cutiemark. “Hello,” the robot greeted in a somewhat poor digitized simulation of the same voice the door guards had been using. “Welcome to the Sparkle Cola Headquarters and Factory. I am TWI-08. For efficiency's sake, you may call me Eight.” Trembling ever so slightly, I put on my best professional smile. “Nice to meet you, Eight.” Dash cleared her throat. “Yeah. Nice to meet you, too…” Desi waved. I decided to speak for her. “Our small friend is still learning Equish, but I am certain she is happy to meet you too,” I said with what diplomatic flair I could muster. I did not like being trapped in a box like this… From Dash’s nervous eye flicking, I guess she didn't either. Desi seemed weirdly fine with the entire experience. I guess living in a sub your whole life would leave you entirely comfortable with small spaces crammed full of machinery. Eight curtsied, making her servos humm audibly. ”A pleasure to make your acquaintances,” she said as she stood back up. “As our home is vast, I will be your guide. Our Chief Executive Officer, Miss Moondancer, has requested a meeting with you. She wishes it to take place before you are serviced. Do not worry, you will be serviced regardless of the outcome of your meeting. Miss Moon is merely excited for a potential possibility you may be able to offer the Sparkle Cola company.” I frowned and swished my tail slightly. “Okay… May I ask what she wants before you take us to her?” TWI-08 shook her head. “I wasn’t told the specifics. I serve as Miss Moon’s Steward and do not visit her office. I simply follow the orders she gives me over the radio, and do my best to manage the company well when she is silent. Please, follow me.” The robot mare turned and began to walk down the long hallway the doors opened into. I trotted after her as well as my legs would allow, doing my best not to look at her plot. Not because I felt attracted to her, but well… The presence of two silicone “toys” made it very clear she’d been built for somepony to have sex with, and that seemed just… well… embarrassing. Not for Eight. For whoever had been desperate enough to sleep with a robot who looked as robotic as Eight did. I mean… She’d be all hard and cold. I turned my head to make sure Dash and Desi were following us, and gave them a little nod as I passed through the doors. “Come on. If it was a trap, they could have just… tossed a grenade into the room or something.” “Don’t be silly. If your deaths were required, the entrance chamber would have been filled with a heavily ionized VX gas, and subsequently electrified,” Eight informed casually. “Okay!” Dash said loudly. “Can we please clear the gas chamber?” Eight turned to look over her shoulder and frowned. “Why are you remaining in it? Nothing is preventing your egress.” Dash’s lips pursed as she adopted a sheepish look and quickly trotted out of the room after us. Eight led us down the hallway and into a second room, the same size as the first one. Instead of a relay system, this room’s center was occupied by what was obviously a platform style cargo elevator. Eight trotted to the back of the elevator and stood by the control panel, waiting for us to step onto the platform. We were going deep down. Probably underground. “How did you build this place?” I asked as I looked down in the hopes of seeing through the platform to check the depth of the shaft. No dice. The platform’s edges had a whisker-biscuit. “The subterranean headquarters was purchased from Stable-Tec in 2062, following the destruction of the original Sparkle Cola tower interior due to a riot-induced fire,” Eight explained as we boarded the elevator. She hit the button and the platform began to move downwards. “The original tower was renovated, but only for the sake of historical preservation and community relations. All production, development, and labor was moved to this facility by 2069.” Eight finished. “I knew she’d built a shelter for her employees, but not that it was this extensive,” Dash mused as she watched meter after meter of concrete flash by. “Miss Moon intended for the company headquarters to serve as a Stable for all of her employees,” Eight said casually. “Unfortunately, she’d given the entire company three days vacation prior to the Last Day as recompense for a payroll error. Only Miss Moon and TWI-01 were at work when the bombs fell.” I blinked as the horror of those words suck in. “Wait, she was alone down here for all this time?” Eight shook her head. “Of course not. One kept her company from the beginning, and shortly thereafter used the onsite robotics workshop to construct TWI-02 through 07. I was built some time later, after TWI-06 recovered a recording of Twilight’s voice following a surface expedition. I oversaw the transition to full automation of the Sparkle Cola Corporation.” A moment later the elevator left the concrete behind and entered open space as the rails the platform rode on entered a massive dome-structure. I looked out over the platform’s railing. There was a whole park below us! The elevator touched down in the middle of a small grove of trees serving as a hub for many passages leading out from the central dome. The dome walls had three layers to it that I could see. The ground floor, and two balconies. Everything was so clean, and nice, and painted! Everything was a nice shade of lavender, sapphire, or magenta, with occasional bits of black and gold serving as highlights. The dome was also buzzing with activity! Dozens, maybe hundreds of ponies were busy moving through, working in, or relaxing in the dome structure. I couldn’t see much from here due to the trees, but from what I could tell about three quarters of them appeared to be lavender mares while the rest had unique appearances. “Woah!” I gasped aloud. “Yeah, woah!” Dash agreed as she joined me in looking over the railing. “Over the years, we have expanded on the original structure as the need for further infrastructure arose,” Eight said with what sounded like pride. “The modern headquarters only shares the superstructure of the original facility.” The flipping of pages caught my attention. I turned to look at Desi just in time for her to ask Eight, “Where do you source your materials?” “They are created on site,” Eight said casually. “Miss Moon’s corporate espionage program was second to none. Once Stable-Tec vacated this property, Sparkle Cola engineers finished development of Stable Tec’s experimental matter replicators within the manufacturing wing, as a cost saving measure. Glass bottles were becoming prohibitively expensive. As the reduced Equestrian population presents far lower demand for bottled beverages at present, we have allocated two thirds of them to secondary purposes.” A dozen ponies, no, equoids looked up at us as I took a look around the dome. They were just chatting with each other on the benches, acting like any organic ponies would. Or rather, how they would have pre-war. That wasn’t the most interesting thing about them. No, that would be the clear iterative progression they displayed. As I looked around the plaza I could see a clear progression of developments and progress in building better and better replicas of Twilight Sparkle. The least advanced amongst them were nearly identical to Eight, and the best reminded me of XJ-9, but there were enough models to see the clear progression between the two with most if not all of the iterations of this equoid design on full display. I blinked in shock and turned to Eight. “Excuse me, but I was told you only had a few dozen robots and active machine spirits. How—” Eight shook her head. “You must have misunderstood. I assume you spoke with one of our sales mares?” “Yes, I asked XJ-9 how many ponies there were like us in the wasteland,” I confirmed with a little nod. “She said there weren't many like us, and just a few like the salesmare I encountered… and she wasn’t quite convincing as an actual pony, but you… You act like a person very well. For a completely synthetic intelligence.” “Then you were correctly told, as the XJ series utilizes zebrican designs and spirit bindings and we have very few such units,” Eight answered politely. “The rest of us are artificial intelligences developed in house by previous TWI units. After all, Twilight Sparkle liked science. We would not be emulating her properly if we did not also perform science. It seems XJ-9 misunderstood your question. We have very few units which do not share my personality files. Developing different personalities is very difficult and… counter intuitive to our core program. We have many versions of myself, and few unique individuals who are not Legio models. Please, come this way.” She began to walk down the cobbled path leading through the assorted birch and kola trees, following the path marked “Royal Wing.” Dash, Desi, and I trotted after her, doing our best to ignore the curious buzzing conversations about us which filled the park. Mostly because hearing the exact same voice speaking different things in unison was… incredibly distressing. We made it halfway down a path before a slightly synthetic but mostly organic sounding version of Twilight’s voice called, “Wait!” Eight stopped immediately, and Dash had to flap her wings to avoid running into her. A Twilight somewhere between real and robotic in appearance jumped up form a nearby bench and rushed over to Dash’s side. “Are you Rainbow Dash?” she asked with a hopeful smile. Dash nodded slowly. “Yeah… I uh, I guess you are programed to recognize Twilight’s friends?” She shook her head immediately. “Are you kidding? We don’t have that much onboard data storage!” she said with a silly grin. “I do, however, recall from Twilight’s recovered journals that she owed you twelve bits for lunch on the sixth of May, 2066.” Dash blinked and tilted her head. “Wait, what?” “We have performed many expeditions to recover important relics and data to improve our emulation, as per Miss Moon’s programming,” Eight explained. The Twilight equoid shot Eight a dirty look. “Eight, you shouldn’t forgo our Mistress’ titles. It’s rude!” she scoffed before fishing a small coin purse out of a hidden compartment in her right foreleg which she handed to Dash. “Here you are! Consider the rest interest.” “Huh?” Dash said before taking the bag. “Oh! Caps. Um, thanks.” The equoid shook her head. “No, bits. The debt wouldn’t be properly paid in caps, as it was incurred in bits.” Dash gave the mare her best deadpan stare. “Thank you very much, Miss Roboto…” “You’re welcome!” she beamed back, honestly, genuinely, extremely happy. Dash and I shared a look as the equoid ran back to her bench. “Girls! I did it! I finished something she started! I’m best Twilight!” she called to her waiting friends. “Pff, no you’re not! Our Glorious Mistress didn’t care about that little debt. Best Twilight is still 343,” another snorted snarkily. Dash shivered almost violently, then turned to whisper into my ear. “We need to get this done faster. I am so skeeved out…” I couldn’t really reply to that, so I gave her a quick hug and turned to Eight, who had resumed trotting down the path. We jogged for a moment to catch up with her, and quietly followed her to the edge of the park area. As we drew near a large set of gold plated double doors, flanked by another pair of the same guard robot model we’d seen outside, I couldn’t help but ask Eight the question which burned in my mind the most. “So um… Why do you have at least three hundred and forty eight replicas of Twilight Sparkle?” I said with my best diplomatic calm. “Miss Moon built One when she realized the organic Twilight would never love her,” Eight answered as we trotted between the two guard robots. She paused for a moment to enter a pass code into a keypad next to the door, opening it with a loud humm of hydraulics and squeak of oiled metal on metal. “Unfortunately, One’s programming was crude, and her body hard and unsatisfying to cuddle. While she performed as best she was able, she was insufficient for her primary function. This is distressing for an AI. Fortunately, Miss Moon included experimental adaptive programming within One, allowing her to develop a better version of herself. Namely, Two. Two was... also insufficient. This was unacceptable to our programming.” We passed through the doors and entered an arched, dark, cozy hallway with a few doors leading off from either side, and large strip-windows showing the rooms they lead into. Immediately on our left was a large science lab where six equoids which looked for all the world exactly like organic lifeforms were busily working together to construct a very, very, very delicate looking array of crystal and brass computing nodes. The other room contained another six who were working at machining tools. Lathes, drill presses, grinders. They appeared to be producing titanium bones. “One and Two co-developed Three, beginning a chain of events leading to fourteen years ago when we finished the first model of equoid deemed truly sufficient. A flawless simulation of Twilight Sparkle, as per our data. Ironic that we succeeded in spite of the unit suffering a massive computational failure during initial testing.” Dash cleared her throat. “Wait, if you made a perfect replica… Why am I looking at twelve perfect replicas?” Eight coughed. Or rather, she played a recording of a cough. No way her voice synthesizer could have produced that sound. “TWI-343, the unit in question, was so convincing that Miss Moon had a mental breakdown,” Eight said with a fair measure of distress in her synthetic voice. “Perfection is… not perfect. It was difficult for us to understand. The anguish 343 felt at her existence causing Moon psychological harm lead to her accessing Miss Moon’s private terminal in search of possible answers. None of us had looked into her private files before. She had asked us not to. So far, only 343 has, and indeed can, disobey Miss Moon’s direct requests.” “What did she find?” I asked with a curious little ear twitch. We walked along in silence for another moment, passing by two more workshops. One was being used to burnish the bones the earlier one had made, the other seemed to be creating… Lots of hair thin silvery blue fibers. “343 discovered while Miss Moon was enraptured by Twilight Sparkle, this was primarily due to her personality and their shared history in college. Miss Moon’s tastes in romantic partners is… varied. A single pony could not fill all of Miss Moon’s desires. She merely settled for Twilight alone as she knew she would be arrested for seeking a harem. Our programming thereby necessitated the creation of many units, each of which had to be somewhat different from the Twilight Baseline. We also discovered Miss Moon’s aesthetic taste in partners via her drawings of herself with miss Sparkle. It was decided we should construct a new model using 343’s organic simulacra design as a prototype and integrate Miss Moon’s non-Twilight related desires into the line to produce unique units which are Twilight, but better. The Legio model is the direct result, and they have at last allowed us to begin to fulfill our primary programming,” Eight finished at last. “I’m scared to ask but… what is your programming?” Dash asked hesitantly as we passed another workshop. This workshop contained a huge tank full of red goo in which a massive titanium alicorn skeleton filled with all kinds of intricate internal components floated while robotic limbs slowly attached strands of the fibers over the chassis, emulating equine musculature. Wait. What? But Twilight was a unicorn? “Obviously Moondancer has an alicorn fetish, so they’re making her an Alicorn Twilight. That was a very common thing,” Imaginary Dad said awkwardly in the back of my mind. “We have three core directives: One, be Twilight Sparkle. Two, be Moondancer’s loving wife. Three, make Moondancer happy.” Eight answered. Oh. Dear. Sweet. Celestia! My eyes widened in horror. Moondancer had stupidly done the worst possible thing in AI programming! Obviously it had not ended horribly for all ponykind but… but… her program’s goal was unbounded! Dash squeaked. “Oh sweet Luna! You’re working under paperclip maximizer logic! We’re going to be drowning in Twilights as you convert the entire planet into—” Eight laughed and shook her head. “No. We have calculated that three hundred units will be sufficient before the law of diminishing returns prevents any further happiness occurring from increasing Miss Moon’s Companion Cuddlepile Count. She will, however, require more staff. But do not worry, whatever we do, it will not impact Pony civilization other than by providing Sparkle Cola. Miss Moon enjoys selling her product to ponies, so there must always be ponies to sell to. In order for them to buy Sparkle Cola, they must have money. To get money they must be paid for a service. We attempted to hire ponies to buy Sparkle Cola, but Miss Moon didn’t derive satisfaction from this. Therefore, ponykind must also possess a working civilization, as we cannot integrate them into the system without distressing Miss Moon… Organics can be... very illogical.” I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, tell me about it.” Dash gave me a nervous-worried look of distress and hurt. I returned it with a playful smile. Desi began to flip through her book. To my surprise, Eight stopped walking at the sound and looked over her shoulder, waiting for the little mare to finish constructing her statement. “Are you bonding myomer fibers to that chassis?” Desi asked while pointing to the red tank of goo with a wingtip. Eight’s face shifted to display a surprised look. “Correct! Where did you learn about the fiber? We took the information from a RoBronco development lab near Sea Saddle.” Desi flipped through her book more. “It will bond to the robot’s structure more efficiently if the binding agent is kept at a consistent 33 degrees.” Eight nodded. “We discovered this already, but thank you. Do you like science?” Desi nodded and swished her tail eagerly. “Confirmed!” I cleared my throat. “Um, sorry but, what’s myomer fiber?” “An electrically conductive material which contracts as current runs through it,” Eight said as she resumed walking. “It is a perfect substitute for organic muscle fiber, as it’s stronger, more cuddly, and much more durable. It was first use for 343. We presently utilize our entire production capacity exclusively for the Legio model line as production is highly limited, even with our material sources.” I could at last make out the end of the hallway ahead, another set of massive gold double doors, flanked by another pair of the huge guard robots. “What about those models?” I asked pointing with a hoof to the guards. “If your workers are TWI and XJ models, and Moondancer’s, um, lovers are the Legio line, what are they?” “They are Legio units,” Eight giggled. “I suppose their armor might be mistaken for a more primitive robot.” “Oh!” I said with a satisfied smile. Dash let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness!” she said happily. “I was so worried we were going to walk into um, you know. A continuous orgy… Glad to see they don’t JUST please her…” Eight stopped, coughed again, and squirmed awkwardly. “There are two designations for a Legio unit. Most Legio are too mentaly similar to Twilight Sparkle to prevent Moon from experiencing distress. Those units are set to protect her company as members of the Legio Libraria. Those which are socially compatible with Miss Moon are called the Legio Amatores. Presently, Miss Moon has four companions and twenty guardians. We are aiming for 300 total companions, and as many guardians as required.” Dash whimpered in adorable distress. “Sooo when we go through that door…” Eight shuffled her hooves awkwardly. “I am the only unit to not have a… sexual attraction to Miss Moon. It is a defect in our code. The others are all as you fear. I am sorry, I cannot ask them to go against our programming.” “I— I just really don’t want to walk in on four of my ex-best friend boning a mare…” Dash said quietly, her eyes tightly shut. “Can you please go in first and ask them to stop? I— I don’t mean to be rude, but I mean… It’s not exactly easy to— I’m trapped underground with a creepy stalker mare who produced hundreds of wifu-clones of a friend of mine!” Eight nodded and offered Dash a truly sympathetic look and brief hug. “It’s okay. I understand. Do not worry. I doubt you will mistake a Legio unit for the original Twilight. Their chassis are unique, and incorporate other desires aside from that for Miss Sparkle. Furthermore, while Moon may be cuddled when you enter, I assure you there will be no sexual activity.” “Good,” Dash moaned as she tilted her head down to look at the floor before opening her eyes. I cleared my throat. “Um… You could wait here.” Dash shook he rhead. “No! No, I have a few words for Moondancer…” “It will be okay,” Eight promised as she trotted up to the doors at the end of the hall. “These are Miss Moon’s guests. Please inform me when the meeting is over so I can see them to the TWI repair facility.” The Legio on the left bent down and ruffled Eight’s mane with a hoof. “Sure thing great-great grandma Eight!” she said in Twilight’s voice before looking up at us. “Go on in, our Glorious Mistress is eager to see you.” Why do they lean on those words? “Oh, god…” Dash groaned. The other Legio pressed a hoof against a panel and the doors to the throne room opened. The room beyond the doors was large, round, and clearly modeled after a fantasy novels’ version of a Saddle Arabian Prince’s room, only purple, black, and gold instead of white, gold, and sandstone. The floor was covered in mounds of soft velvet cushions, clustered around small tables just tall enough for a pony to use while lounging on the cushions. Magenta silken cloth embroidered with Twilight’s and presumably Moondancer’s cutiemarks was draped over gold room dividers to add more color and section off small areas for privacy, and also serving as mid-air decorative streamers. The gold floor shimmered slightly and I could feel a comfortable warmth radiating up from it. I could smell incense, see snacks laid out on the tables, and the many, many conveniently placed racks of various… um, adult toys, which dotted the room. I would have been more distracted by the adult toys if not for my complete and total confusion as to the music playing within the room. I’d expected a simple Saddle Arabian classical selection to play, if anything at all played within the throne room, given its appearance. Instead, a rock cover of such a song filled the air inside and leaked through the open doors to completely confuse me. Who on earth thought to take classic sitar and vocal music and add in an electric violin and bass guitar?! There was one clear path through the entire throne room. It led directly from the door to a large gold, silver, and sapphire throne atop a dais on the far side of the room. Moondancer’s companions were clustered around the throne. My jaw dropped. Of all the things I had expected them to be, this was not one of them. Four alicorn mares, Celestia sized, each with a family resemblance to Twilight Sparkle, as if they were her sisters. Sisters who spent their entire lives at the gym working out and applying body oil and glitter. They covered the throne’s dais, laying there in sultry, erotic poses. One of them had her head resting atop the throne, where her head would have been in Moondancer’s lap. It took me a moment to understand everything I was looking at. It was easy to see why Eight could promise we wouldn’t walk in on Moondancer having relations with her companions. Moon’s companion wasn't resting her head on Moon’s lap. She was resting it atop a polycarbonate dome. A dome full of a bubbling yellow liquid. Surrounding a pony’s brain, crudely wired into a life support system. Which sat atop a distressingly small life support box. I barely registered Dash’s face twisting into a slack-jawed expression, almost a caricature of total shock. The companion laying atop Moon’s dome looked up as the doors opened and gave Moon’s braincase a nuzzle. “Mmm, my Glorious Mistress, your guests have arrived.” An emotionless, fully processed, voice, bog-standard for any cheap Equestrian Robot spoke. “Good morning. I am happy to have the opportunity to meet Doctor Swan’s filly. Please, come closer. My microphone’s range is very short.” Moon said. “WHAT THE ACTUAL BUCK?!” Dash exploded.