“Lyra, guess what are we going to do today?”
“My guess is: the same thing we do every day, Bon-Bon: you'll go to whatever work you have now and I'll sit here alone and quietly prepare plans for world domination. Am I right?”
Lyra and Bon-Bon were in the basement, taking care of their prisoner. The real Sweetie Belle was in her cage, reading a comic book, while her captors were taking away books she have already read, dirty plates and the potty.
When Bon-Bon heard Lyra's guess, she smiled proudly: “Wrong!”
Lyra sighed and faced her roommate, levitating a stack of old magazines: “Could you enlighten me then?”
“It's simple: we're gonna have to guests today. Guess who!”
While Bon-Bon was standing emptyhoofed, Lyra put the magazines in the corner, on top of a larger stack. “I'll be optimistic: Fluttershy and Rarity. All the cultists at our place.”
The earth mare shook her head: “Wrong again! The first guest is Sweetie Belle.”
“It's hardly any news, she's here every day,” the unicorn replied, obviously having the robotic filly in mind. Calling the real Sweetie Belle a guest would be nonsensical – captives are not considered guests.
“Yes, but now she'll be here almost all day, Rarity asked me to take care for her.”
Lyra raised an eyebrow: “Why are you two such close friends now?”
Bon-Bon dismissed the question with a single hoofwave: “Long story. Anyway, guess who's the second one?”
Lyra sighed: “Let's be pessimistic. You're going to bring that brown-coated police officer here.”
***
Whooves left the town hall with a smile on his face. Earlier in the morning, he got an approval from the mayor to install an hourglass near the forest, which was actually an excuse to spend some time with the beautiful mare living there. He quickly went back home and put on his best tie – which was easy, because he only had two and the other one was still stained with mud after he had to run away from a violent white unicorn.
He combed his mane and looked in a mirror. In the reflection he didn't see a failure of a stallion he was few weeks ago. He saw a decently looking civil servant, who despite few hurdles managed to change his life.
He left his room and trotted downstairs, receiving few confused glances from Roseluck, who immediately started whispering something to her friends. He didn't pay any attention to them – today, he had only one goal: the hut near the forest.
He arrived there in few minutes. He raised his hoof to knock to the door, when he heard a voice.
“Are you sure we need to go?”
It was her! He couldn't mistake the cute pegasus's voice for anypony else's.
“Absolutely, dear leader. Applejack once said she wanted to join our cult, so it's crucial we go and help her. Come, the train is leaving soon.”
Whooves couldn't mistake that other voice either. He quickly turned around and wanted to run away, but the door swung open and the owner of the voice saw him.
“It's you!” yelled Rarity as soon as she saw the stallion. Whooves started to run and the unicorn followed him.
When Fluttershy lost them from sight, she whispered to herself:
“He looks sexy in that tie...”
***
Gallop. Turn left. Carts left in the street. Push away pedestrians. Running. Turn right. Yank a door handle. Locked. See Rarity. Run. Turn right. Narrow backstreet. Town square. Run down the street. Glance back – she's still there. Turn left. Again. She's gone. Pull the handle. Door opens. Jump inside. Close the door. Pant and sweat heavily.
***
“Let's be pessimistic. You're going to bring that brown-coated police officer here.”
Before Bon-Bon could respond, the door opened and a brown stallion wearing a tie jumped inside. He slammed the door shut and leaned on it, breathing heavily, as if he was running for a while. It took him a moment to realize where he arrived.
“Seize him!” Lyra shouted to her henchpony and Bon-Bon obliged.
Before Whooves could react, he was being dragged downstairs by the white mare. They descended to the basement and passed past a room with a cage occupied by a little filly. Lyra followed them and grinned widely. She and Bon-Bon strapped Whooves to a chair. Despite his valiant efforts, he couldn't get free.
“Problem, officer?” asked Lyra, with smile not vanishing from her face. “You thought you could mess with me without consequences?”
“What?”
“You were following me. Even to Cloudsdale.”
Whooves panicked: “But I'm an earth pony!”
“That's what all robot police officers say when confronted with an actual robot!”
Whooves was left speechless.
“Oh, you finished? Well, allow me to retort. What other officers are there in Ponyville now?”
“What?”
“What ain't no pony I ever heard of. Which race and gender is What?”
“What?”
Lyra's horn lit up: “Say ‘what’ again, bloody meatbag, I dare you, I double dare you, say ‘what’ one more damn time...”
Whooves gulped and started talking: “I'm an hourglass operator!”
The unicorn got closer. “Go on,” she prompted.
“Not a police officer!” he continued. “Listen, I've just moved to Ponyville and from the very beginning some crazy mares try to kill me or call a pedophile...”
“A pedophile?”
“He must be that guy Rarity was talking about,” Bon-Bon interjected.
“That's interesting... A police officer and a pedophile...”
“I'm none of that!” the stallion shouted, but the mares ignored him.
“If we only had some incriminating evidence,” Lyra continued, “we could keep him under our control. Blackmail works miracles.”
A loud knock could be heard from above.
“I'll get it!” Bon-Bon said and cantered upstairs. A moment later she shouted: “It's Sweetie Belle!”
“But I'm here!” a protest came from the cage.
“Bring her here!” Lyra commanded.
Bon-Bon went downstairs, followed by the filly. Lyra issued another order:
“Fetch a camera.”
Bon-Bon returned upstairs to look for a camera. Lyra said to Sweetie Belle:
“Assume control.”
Filly's body jerked. She shook her head, made few steps forward and wiggled her tail.
““It works!”” both Lyra and robotic Sweetie Belle said.
Bon-Bon returned, carrying a silver camera in her muzzle. She put it down and asked: “What now?”
The filly said: “Now you'll make some photos of me and Whooves together.”
Bon-Bon protested: “I'm not going to comply with such ridiculous requests from such a small filly!”
“It's me, Lyra!”
“Yeah, right! Now stop your blabbering or I'll shut you up in that blue box!”
Both the small white robot and the big green robot looked at the corner Bon-Bon was pointing her hoof at. They saw nothing.
““Stop it!”” both robots said simultaneously. ““I'm currently controlling both bodies. Do the photos of Sweetie Belle with the stallion!””
“What stallion?”
The robots looked at the chair and saw exactly the same number of stallions they had earlier seen of blue boxes: zero.
Whooves was gone.
“Cede control,” the green unicorn said and sighed. Sweetie Belle wobbled, but managed to regain balance pretty quickly.
“What are we going to do now?” Bon-Bon asked.
“I don't know! I've just fed information to the robot police officer and he managed to get free!”
Bon-Bon pouted her lips: “At least that filly didn't manage to make me take photos of her with him. That would be illegal.”
“Illegal?” Lyra shrieked. “You're helping an enemy spy to overthrow your government and now you care about some indecent materials involving minors? If he tells his superiors about this, we'll get executed!”
“We?”
“Yes, we. Me and you. Executed. Dead. Capital punishment for treason, the very first article of the Equestrian Penal Code.”
“But... I don't want to die!” Bon-Bon panicked. “I never signed up for this! I just wanted to help some poor robot in her mission! I never knew that what I'm doing is illegal!”
“And foalnapping? Assault? Mind manipulation? It's not like we're lawful citizens apart from all that ‘working for the enemy’ part.”
“Excuse me,” Sweetie Belle interjected, “what are you talking about? All I know is that Rarity told me to stay here today.”
“Oh sweet,” Lyra added, “she's still here. Sweetie Belle, go upstairs. We have important things to discuss here.” The filly obliged. “Okay, now since our situation is pretty much 100% bucked, the only thing that could happen to make this situation worse would be if the Princess Celestia herself came here for a visit.”
“Uhm, Lyra,” Bon-Bon began, “I forgot to tell you who–”
Suddenly, a loud knock came from above, followed by a loud male voice: “Her Highness Princess Celestia has arrived!”
“I'll get it!” Sweetie Belle shouted from the ground floor. Lyra bolted in panic upstairs and Bon-Bon followed her. Robotic Sweetie Belle stood next to the door, reaching her hoof to the handle. Lyra quickly slammed the basement door to quiet the voice of the real Sweetie Belle coming from downstairs. The door opened, revealing two armored stallions and a white alicorn. Lyra and Bon-Bon immediately bowed and the robotic Sweetie Belle followed suit shorty afterwards.
The alicorn stepped forward, follower by her guards. “Welcome, my faithful subjects. I came here to spend one day here.”
“What an honor, Your Majesty,” Lyra replied. “What have we done to be bestowed with such privilege?”
“I asked my student, Twilight Sparkle, to show me how an ordinary pony lives. Initially, I wanted the ordinary pony to be Twilight herself, but unfortunately she sent me an urgent letter apologizing for not being able to take care of me personally.” Celestia sighed. “Few hours later I got a letter saying I could spend my day in this meager house.”
“I can explain,” Bon-Bon interjected. “Rarity came to me earlier this morning and asked if I can take care of Your Highness for a day. So I agreed.”
Suddenly, Sweetie Belle exclaimed: “Oh no, I'll be late for class!”
“Oh, that's right, me too!” added Bon-Bon.
“What, did they finally see how dumb you are and send you back to the primary school?”
Bon-Bon ignored Lyra's snide remark and explained:
“I'm a substitute teacher and today is my first day at the job.”
“It's always nice to see an adult trying to pass the light of knowledge to the younger generations,” Celestia said to Bon-Bon with pride. “I hope you'll find your new job enjoyable and fulfilling.”
“I hope so,” the earth mare replied. “So, I need to go. Bye, Princess!”
She rushed outside. The filly followed her, smiling.
Celestia turned her gaze away from the departing ponies and looked at Lyra: “So, my dear... er...”
“Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings.”
“Lyra. Could you now tell me about how a normal pony lives?”
“Sure, my Princess. Please follow me, I'll make some tea.”
Princess smiled and faced the guards: “And you two, assume posts outside next to the entrance.”
“But Your Majesty,” one of them protested, “is it safe to leave you alone with her?”
“Oh, don't worry. She's a...” Celestia paused for a moment, “a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, so there's no reason to distrust her.”
The guards exchanged puzzled looks.
“Yeah, it's not like I'm some evil robot spy or something. Heh heh...” Lyra forced herself to chuckle.
The Princess giggled and added: “You see, nothing to worry here. You two can go outside and leave us to chat in private.”
The stallions left and closed the door behind them.
***
“Good morning, kids! My name is Bon-Bon and I'm going to be your substitute teacher for a while.”
While they say it's important to make a good impression, Bon-Bon couldn't say she achieved that. To make any impression, first you have to be noticed at all and at this moment the classroom was full of foals doing everything but paying attention to the teacher. Dozens of colts and fillies were talking to each other, throwing paper airplanes, and in the back, two colts, one teal and short and another orange and tall were fighting over a piece of bubblegum. Bon-Bon sighed, took a deep breath and shouted:
“Be bucking quiet, you squirmy maggots!”
It worked like unicorn magic. The foals quietly returned to their desks.
“Good morning. I'm Bon-Bon and I'm gonna teach you,” she tried again.
The children responded to that statement with blank stare.
“Okay, so now that the formal introduction is over, I'll start. Let me see, where are you at...”
Bon-Bon opened Cheerilee's notebook with the lesson plans. She found the right entry, dug in the desk for a math textbook, opened it on the correct page, stared at the problems for a while and finally proclaimed:
“You know, I have no idea what all those crosses between numbers mean, let's skip arithmetics for today.”
The mare threw the textbook into a corner and looked again into the notes. Suddenly, her facial expression changed.
“E–... Ethics... Today's subject is... death penalty.”
“Oh, cool, I love Ethics!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed. “It makes us wonder what our conscience is, what makes us pony, why we feel what we fell in our hearts...”
Bon-Bon cleared her throat and tried to suppress the memories of her short conversation with Lyra earlier this morning. She failed. Hesitantly, she asked her class a question:
“Okay, so what arguments do you have for and against death penalty.”
Scootaloo's hoof bolted into air immediately and she said:
“It removes dangerous ponies from the society.”
“But who are those dangerous ponies?” Bon-Bon inquired further.
“Murderers!”
“Traitors!”
“Traitors?” the mare asked, not sure who said that.
“Yeah!” shouted a gray unicorn filly sitting in the back. “For example, ponies who help evil robots to try overthrow Our Glorious Princess!”
““Hail Celestia!”” the class shouted in unison. Bon-Bon looked through her pupils at her pupils and tried to divert the conversation:
“But... but there are other ways, for example life imprisonment...”
“But killing them is, like, cheaper and stuff,” said a pink unicorn filly sitting on the left.
“But if you kill them and later they're found innocent, you can't cancel the sentence.”
“But if we're pretty sure, I think it's okay,” said Scootaloo.
“How sure is pretty sure? Is one chance in a thousand to kill an innocent pony good enough?”
“I think one in a billion is okay,” said Sweetie Belle. “Or in other words, you have to be 99.999999900000006% sure that the pony is guilty to kill them. The mere thought that you might spare such obvious traitors' lives makes my blood boil and my heart ache. We should fight those unnatural metal abominations before they kill all of sentient living organisms.”
Sweetie Belle's words were met with cheers and applauds of other foals.
“But... there's still a chance of irrevocably killing an innocent pony, right?” Bon-Bon said. “And you can never be sure, courts are fallible, right?”
“Ah reckoned from the very beginnin' that it's gonna get to this,” Apple Bloom said. “An ol' epistemological problem of certainty of knowledge. Y'all know that because of empirical nature of our experiences, y'all unable to gain any certain knowledge and therefore it's impossible to move past assignin' probabilities and likelihoods to all contingent facts about our universe, right?”
Almost all ponies went quiet and stared blankly at Apple Bloom, apart from one dark-gray earth filly sitting next to her, who simply rolled her eyes and whispered: “She can pronounce ‘epistemological’ and yet she can't, like, pronounce ‘I’.”
“What she said,” Bon-Bon added. “Now, what do you think about starting the recess a little earlier, for example now, and we'll have a math class next?”
***
Princess Celestia was sitting in an armchair in Lyra's house and sipping tea.
“Nice pieces of art,” she said, putting the teacup on a table, “but I'm not sure what is this one about.” She pointed her hoof at a mangled set of wires and metal in the corner. Lyra immediately recognized in it the remains of her former chassis, which she decided to keep for sentimental reasons, but she also immediately realized that she can't simply tell the truth to the alicorn.
“Oh, that...” she paused for a moment. “It's a gift from my uncle. He's a traveler. I never got a chance to ask him where he got it, but I think it looks nice.”
“Indeed,” Celestia nodded and turned to look at another piece of art. “And what about this picture? It sure looks like a photograph, doesn't it?”
Lyra looked at the picture of princesses Celestia and Molestia being slain by a small orange pegasus filly.
“Oh, that...”
“Yes, it almost makes me think you're a republican.”
“No!” Lyra immediately denied. It's one thing worse that being a robot in Equestria: being a supporter of abolishing of Princesses' rule and replacing it with democratic republic. The last leader of republicans, Cherry Bloom, whose goal was to become a president of Equestria, was publicly executed by pouring honey on her and burying in an anthill. Lyra had no interest in republican movement, so she told the truth behind the picture: “I got this picture for free from some gypsy traveler few months ago. She didn't say anything about it, neither the author nor the technique used to make it. It looks pretty cool though, right?”
Celestia chuckled: “You know, if it was not for me being a victim, I would like this picture.”
“Yeah, it looks nicely done.”
Celestia shifted her gaze to the green unicorn: “And frankly speaking, I personally don't think there's anything bad with republicans.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but I feel trapped. I have to remain a ruler, because if I quit, what would I do? Oh, could you tell me, miss Heartstrings, where is the bathroom?”
Lyra pointed at the corridor in the back of the building: “To the left.”
“Thank you.”
Celestia got up and gracefully walked in the direction Lyra was pointing. When she disappeared and the host heard a loud clank of a bathroom lock, the door to the basement opened, revealing a huge white alicorn. Lyra grinned.
***
“So, Rainmane, how did you like the yesterday's dinner?” asked Duskflare.
“Oh come on, honey, you know you're the best cook in the whole Equestria. You're lucky Princesses don't know about it, or they'd work you to death in their kitchen.”
“Don't think I did this for you! I simply had some leftover ingredients!”
“Hahah, okay. But I still appreciate it. It was very kind of you. Thanks.”
“And look now, you idiot, you made me blush!”
Rainmane laughed, seeing how Duskflare looked away to hide the face expression.
“Er... We have a nice weather today,” the blue-maned pegasus stopped laughing and tried to change the topic to get out from this awkward situation. They usually didn't show their mutual feeling in public, even if there was nopony watching.
Duskflare stopped pouting lips and replied: “You don't have to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Change subject to something– oh no, somepony's coming!”
The guards immediately stopped talking and stiffened up, trying to look as serious as possible. A gray pegasus flew in the distance, not paying any attention to two stallions guarding the entrance to Lyra's house.
“That was close,” whispered Rainmane.
“It's your fault,” burst Duskflare.
“Yeah, maybe. I still love you.”
“Hmph!”
The stallions stood in silence for few minutes, when the door opened and a majestic alicorn stepped out.
“Your Majesty!”
“Yes, yes, it's me, now quiet, you two,” she said. “I'd like to take a look at different aspects of normal pony life. Let's go see the school.”
***
“So, we take two apples.”
“Uh-huh...”
“And two apples. And we put two and two together and we get four. This is what the plus sign means.”
“Er... I still don't get it.”
“Oh come on, miss Bon-Bon!” Scootaloo shouted, throwing her hooves in the air. “It's not that hard!”
“Give up, Scoots,” said Apple Bloom. “We tried different approaches: Ah tried with generalizin' it to arbitrary commutative monoids, Sweetie Belle talked about some registers and opcodes and Celestia knows what else (who taught her that much about processor architecture anyway?), and even havin' the dumbest foal in class–” “Hey!” “–give the most simple, down-to-earth explanation has failed.”
Bon-Bon sat on her haunches, staring hopelessly at the math textbook. All the foals gazed at her, not knowing what to do in this situation. Such a display of incompetence would be unthinkable during Cheerilee's classes. They didn't have much time to ponder over it, because a loud knock and a male voice broke the silence.
“Her Majesty Princess Celestia is here,” said Rainmane, opening the door. He entered, followed by the princess. Duskflare stayed outside.
“Hello, Your Highness, weren't you supposed to stay with Lyra?” Bon-Bon asked.
Celestia chuckled:
“Oh, I gave her a little break and went to see how you are doing. How are the kids?”
“Oh, wonderful! There are making so much progress!” the earth mare exclaimed, wearing a fake smile. The children nodded vigorously.
“That's good. I'll be going then. Guards, let's see the Mayor. They caught a robot in Ponyville today. I wonder if it had accomplices.”
Bon-Bon froze in shock. The only pony to react was Sweetie Belle:
“Yeah, death to the robots! Death to robot supporters!”
The rest of the class joined her enthusiastically. Bon-Bon sat motionlessly, her brain unable to produce any thought. The only feeling left in her soul was despair.
A single tear made its way down her cheek.
***
Lyra sat in an armchair, smiling. Everything was going according to her plan. Well, she didn't have a plan, but as soon as she would think of one, it would be a piece of cake to fulfill. Mere fact of successfully impersonating Celestia was a huge progress. She heard Princess flushing the toilet and soon the alicorn emerged from the bathroom.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Oh, um... I remembered a joke.”
“Oh, I love jokes. Tell me.”
Lyra cleared her throat, while trying to remember any, even the lamest joke.
“Okay. So, why did the cyborg pegasus cross the road?”
“I don't know?”
“To get to the other side!”
Celestia giggled and a second later Lyra joined her. They laughed together for a while, when the princess added:
“I don't get it.”
The laughter died immediately. The alicorn sat in the chair and grabbed her tea cup with magic.
“Did I hear my guards when I was in bathroom?” she asked, while taking a sip. “Did something happen?”
“Guards?” Lyra pretended to not know anything. “Maybe they were talking outside. They didn't come here. Why?”
“It's weird,” Celestia frowned. “They are not supposed to chat while on duty.”
“Maybe they always do, but they don't realize these walls are thinner.”
“I suppose you're right.” The princess took another sip. “Say, what are normal ponies like you doing for living?”
“Various things, I suppose. But sadly, I'm currently unemployed. Bon-Bon takes various casual part-time jobs from time to time, but it's not enough for two ponies.”
“So what are you two living of then?”
Lyra knew she couldn't reveal the real source of their income, which was the budget of intelligence services of the Evil Robot Empire, so she quickly made up another story:
“Savings. I inherited a small fortune and I try to make it last for a while. I think I can pull off another year or two.”
Before Celestia could respond, the door burst open and Bon-Bon bolted inside, with tears running down her cheeks.
“Lyra! Princess Celestia said they're gonna kill me!”
“She did?”
“I did?”
“Yes, you did!” the earth mare confirmed. “At school!”
“When?” Celestia asked, confused.
“Just now!”
“Hold your horses, my subject. I was here all the time and I surely didn't go anywhere.”
Bon-Bon stomped her hoof and said with a serious look on her face:
“I'm sure I've just seen Your Majesty at school!”
Celestia sighed: “This is one of the most ridiculous things I heard lately. But if you insist, fine, I'll ask the guards what they think about it.”
The princess got up and trotted to the door. She took a glance outside and gasped in shock.
“They're gone?”
“Who's gone?” Lyra asked.
“The guards! They were supposed to guard the house!”
The green unicorn suggested with fake concern: “Oh no, we should go look for them, shouldn't we?”
“Immediately. Come with me, my faithful subjects!”
***
Ivory Scroll was sitting at her desk, having nothing to do, so instead of doing any kind of real work, she was drawing various pictures of Whooves and Fluttershy together, of various levels of decency. She noticed that he had still not returned from his date– I mean, job, which meant that he probably succeeded. She was just adding a tiny detail to her last picture, when her assistant entered and announced a visit of Princess Celestia. The mayor immediately hid the pictures to a drawer and told the assistant to let the princess in.
Celestia entered the mayor's office, accompanied by two stallions. She took a look around, smiled and said:
“Greetings, mayor. I just came to say hi.”
“Your Majesty, but what about the robo–mfm...” Rainmane tried to ask, but the princess silenced him with a hoof to muzzle.
“Hi, Your Majesty...” the mayor replied. “How can I help you?”
The alicorn chuckled: “You're doing fine, don't worry. Oh, I'd forget, I just need to inform you about that. The hourglass operator, what's his name...”
“Whooves.”
“Right, Whooves. I heard he's gone totally crazy. We saw him running around and screaming something about how the mayor is an alien and other silly stuff.”
“We did?–mfm...” Duskflare tried to ask, but Celestia stuck her hoof in his muzzle.
“So! We're be going then, you can go back to your, uhm, mayor activities. See ya.”
Not waiting for the response, the princess left, leaving the mayor in state of confusion.
***
“Slow down, my subjects!”
Bon-Bon ran through the streets of Ponyville, followed closely by Lyra. Celestia lagged behind, holding firmly her tiara with magic and breathing heavily.
“We can't stop, Your Majesty, we must find the guards!” Bon-Bon shouted in response.
The pedestrians blurred past them as they zoomed through the town, turning into every street Bon-Bon could think of, looking for the guards. They finally found them leaving the Town Hall.
“There they are!” Bon-Bon shouted. Two pegasi and an alicorn turned around and looked at the pursuers.
“What's going on?” asked Rainmane, looking back and forth at two Celestias.
“I'm not sure,” Duskflare said. “There are two princesses. Does it mean one of them is a fake?”
Rainmane pondered for a while, when Lyra, Bon-Bon and their Celestia caught up to them. The second alicorn asked:
“Why aren't you two at home or at work?”
“Who are you and how dare you impersonate me!” the first Celestia yelled. Both alicorns' horns lit up and rays of magical energy shot from them, clashing midair.
“Duskflare,” Rainmane whispered, “do you know the game of three shells and a pea?”
“I do, what about it?”
“It relies on misdirection. The player thinks there is a pea under one of the shells, but actually there isn't any.”
“So, what does it have to do with this?”
“They're both fakes.”
“What?” Duskflare shouted in shock.
“Real Celestia is trapped somewhere else and the perpetrator sent up two fake Celestias to give us a fake sense of accomplishment when we find out that one of them is fake,” Rainmane explained.
“Wow, you're really smart!”
“Thanks!” Rainmane smiled seductively. The red-maned pegasus averted his gaze and pouted lips.
“Well, I didn't tell it to you to make you happy, I just stated an objective fact!” he said.
“Whatever. I still love you. You get the one on the left, I'll take care of the one on the right.”
The guards jumped forward, tackling the alicorns to the ground. Magic shot wildly in various directions, hitting and destroying a chimney. The alicorns resisted, but none of them was strong enough to escape from powerful guardsponies' grip.
“Take your hooves from me, I'm your ruler!” shouted the princess held by Rainmane.
“No, I am their ruler!” the second one protested.
“Yeah, likely story,” Rainmane remarked, smiling. “Where's the closest doctor?” he asked Bon-Bon and Lyra. Meanwhile, Duskflare managed to cuff himself to one of the Celestias.
“Follow me,” Bon-Bon replied and started walking. Duskflare followed, dragging one princess behind him. Rainmane needed a little more time, but he also managed to put cuffs on princess's foreleg and go in the direction Bon-Bon led them. Lyra walked slowly in the back, so nopony else could hear her utter a single word:
“Shit.”
***
The orange-maned unicorn looked at the six ponies that appeared in his house unexpectedly.
“Okay, so how can I help you?”
Two pegasi wearing armor exchanged nervous looks. One of them cleared his throat and stepped forward.
“We'd like you to perform an medical examination, because we suspect one or both of those alicorns are trying to impersonate Our Glorious Princess Celestia.”
The doctor blinked, not sure is they were serious.
“Shouldn't you take them to the police and compare tongueprints?”
During the awkward silence, Lyra heard a whisper inside of her mind, saying: ‘Battery low.’
‘I did charge it before use, did I?’ she asked herself, but her memories did not contain any data on recharging her alicorn chassis.
She decided to do the best thing to save herself: she made her alicorn body get a seizure-like attack and say “beep-bop-beep.”
“Look, that one is a robot!” the green pony shouted, pointing at the white shape wriggling on the floor.
“Beep-beep!” the shape replied.
Guards stared at the jerking alicorn with confusion. Celestia was shocked to see her lookalike apparently suffer.
Bon-Bon sighed in relief. “So maybe it wasn't a real princess who wanted to kill me, but a robot princess...”
Lyra wrapped her foreleg over her shoulder and reassured her with a smile. “Don't worry, the evil robot Celestia is no more!”
“Okay, that leaves us with only one,” Rainmane said, staring at the standing alicorn.
Duskflare ushered him to the side and whispered:
“How sure are you that both princesses are fake?”
“Well...”
“Would you bet your job– no, your freedom on that?”
“Excuse me, but I've heard everything.”
Duskflare looked up and saw Celestia with an angry look on her face. Her foreleg was cuffed to Duskflare leg, so he dragged the princess behind him. She waved the trapped leg in front of his eyes.
“Uhm, I'm sorry, Princess, precautions...”
“The precautions are no longer necessary,” the alicorn exclaimed sternly.
The guard quickly rummaged his pockets in a search for key and unlocked the hoofcuffs. Celestia freed her leg and massaged the sore place with her other hoof.
“Excuse me, Your Majesty,” the doctor asked, “is there any other way I can help you?”
“No,” Celestia replied, turning around to the exit. “Have a nice day, subject.”
She left, quickly followed by Lyra, Bon-Bon, and the guards. The doctor saw them leave and quickly shouted a question: “But what with the other one?” He pointed his hoof at a liveless white alicorn on the floor, even though they couldn't see him doing it.
“You may keep it,” Duskflare said and those were the last words the orange-maned doctor heard from royal guards today.
However, he still couldn't wrap his mind around when he saw those two mares who accompanied the guards before.
***
“That was simply awful,” Celestia said. “It was the first case of robot attack in Ponyville and it had to be me.”
Bon-Bon froze and took a while to evaluate what the princess said, but when she understood it, she smiled widely. Lyra noticed it and smacked her accomplice in the back of her head.
“Well, it's very unfortunate, Your Majesty,” Lyra replied.
“I commend your courage when you faced that robot,” the princess continued. “I'd like to make you an offer.”
“Yes, Princess?”
“I heard you're unemployed. What would you say about joining forces of the Equestrian Counter-Robot Police?”
Lyra froze speechless.
“You'd work together with the current Ponyville officer,” Celestia continued, “I hope you two will get along.”
Lyra ran a procedure of displaying blush on her face.
“I'm not sure if he–”
“Oh no no,” the princess interrupted her and laughed. “You might not know it, but almost all robot police officers are female. We don't advertise it too much, organizations fighting for stallions' rights would rip us apart.”
The green robot evaluated what she heard and immediately displayed a huge grin. Bon-Bon noticed it and smacked her boss in the back of her head.
“Sure, Your Majesty, I accept!” Lyra replied to her new employer.
“I'm glad you did,” Celestia smiled. “I'll send you your first instructions later. See you again later, my dear... the heck, why not go a little crazy here, you saved me, the Supreme Ruler! Captain! Captain Lyra Heartstrings!”
Lyra saluted and watched her new employee get into her chariot and ride it back to Canterlot. The guards doubled as the chariot's power source. Bon-Bon waved them goodbye as they disappeared in the distance.
“It looks that my plan failed less than I feared,” Lyra said when she could no longer see the point in the sky that was Celestia's chariot. “I can finally find the real robot police officer and infiltrate that organization from inside. I can only wonder who that brown-coated idiot was...”
***
A little earlier that day, in Lyra's basement...
“Now you'll make some photos of me and Whooves together.”
A small white unicorn filly talked to an adult mare standing next to her. Doctor Whooves peeked from inside his time-traveling box and saw his younger self strapped to a chair.
The mare replied angrily: “I'm not going to comply with such ridiculous requests from such a small filly!”
“It's me, Lyra!” the filly protested.
Whooves sneaked behind a table and freed his younger self. Both Whooveses quickly ran back to the box. When they slammed the door shut, they could hear the mare shouting at the filly: “Yeah, right! Now stop your blabbering or I'll shut you up in that blue box!” The box emitted some weird sound and the voices of ponies outside disappeared.
“It's the second time my future self is saving my life,” Engineer Whooves said. “How can I ever repay you?”
“Huh, the fun fact is that it's totally logically impossible,” Doctor Whooves smiled. “I know, I tried to work out the logic few days after I was freed from that basement.”
“Okay, so what are you going to do now?”
“I'll drop you few hours in the future, near the Town Hall.”
“Great!” the engineer smiled viciously. “I'll go straight to the mayor and tell her about the looming danger of robots!”
“Uh, I wouldn't bother, but I know I can't stop you, so... here, we arrived.”
The door of the box opened, revealing a small backstreet near the Town Hall.
“Oh thanks Celestia!”
The younger stallion went outside and cantered away.
“Okay, it's time for me,” Doctor Whooves said to himself and closed the door to his time machine. He turned around to face the control panel.
There was a pink mare there.
“Hey, what does this button do?” she asked.
“Don't! Touch! Anything!” he managed to yell, but she didn't listen. Her hoof slammed a big, red button in the middle of the panel and the blue box was sent on the next journey through time and space.
***
“Mayor! Mayor!” Whooves yelled as he ran into the mayor's office.
The mayor put away her newspaper, in which she was solving a crossword puzzle, and asked: “What happened? Did you arrange an appointment for an hourglass installation near the forest?”
“No, I have more important news!”
“Yes?”
“That green unicorn is a robot! And that white filly too! They kidnapped me and wanted to force me into making lewd photos with the filly!”
“Okay...” the mayor responded slowly, sighing a little. “I think you need a vacation. Two weeks at least.”
“But–”
“No buts! Vacation! Now! Go home!”
“But–”
“Leave!”
Whooves hung his head and gave up. He trotted slowly from the office and headed home.
The mayor waited for him to leave, opened a drawer and took out a small mirror.
“Stupid Whooves,” she said to herself. “He needs to stop that crazy talk. I mean, what happens if he accidentally guesses something right?” She looked at her reflection in the mirror, closely examining her face. “My disguise is in a good shape, I still look like a pony, right?”
***
Field Report 035/1609
Through intensive observation I have pinpointed one pony as suspect of being a robot. The subject has displayed following characteristics:
— she displays no sophisticated emotions
— she performs random acts of violence, mostly focused on a single earth stallion
— during the last Sentient Social, her team (consisting of a subject and a filly) took only one egg from the dispenser that gives out one egg per sentient being
— robot detectors gave high results both near her house and during the Sentient Social
— she belongs to an apocalyptic cult that preaches a doctrine contrary to the doctrine Our Glorious Princess Celestia preaches
— she spends a lot of time in spa, as if trying to flaunt her waterproof chassis
— she has high melee weapon skills
Currently, the suspects goes by name ‘Rarity’. Physical description: white unicorn mare, purple mane, three diamonds cutie mark.
A biotest is requested to ascertain her biologicality. A house search is requested to find any robotic peripherals and other suspicious equipment. A foster family is requested for providing care for the filly (supposedly her sister) during the time of arrest. Finally, an anti-terrorist team of at least eight ponies is requested for assistance in the capture of the suspect.
“Hello, Roseluck, what are you writing?”
Roseluck jumped in shock; a sheet of paper she was writing on flew in the air. She jumped and quickly grabbed it, tugging it to her chest.
“Whooves, you're early!”
“Yeah, I was told to have some vacation or something...” he sighed. “I think it's a good idea. This day was so tiring, I'd need at least a week to recover. So, see you later.”
“Bye,” she replied as Whooves went upstairs to his room. When he disappeared from her sight, she put the paper on the table and did what was left for her to do: signed it.
Sergeant Roseluck