And so, Silver set to work. The UnderWorld guardspony was determined to save Fluttershy, and that meant learning how to interact with Twilight's computers. Thankfully, the purple mare had notes taped all over the place, little reminders on what settings to use and in what order to do things. As he read through the late princess's notes, Silver continued to talk to Fluttershy. The two ponies were already friends, and the more they distracted themselves with conversation, the easier it became to ignore how dire their situation really was.
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Polaris and Tinker both let out a sigh, at pretty much the same moment. Things were looking beyond hopeless on the SS Twilight. The royal scientists had tried to figure something out, Canterlot's best spellcasters had tried to figure something out, and that just left a group of random ponies who didn't have anything else to do. Polaris' memories of what Twilight had done with the battery were coming up blank, and even though Tinker had been highly focused on the massive ship ever since its construction was announced, the gray-nosed dragonpony couldn't help much either.
"Well, it's been floating here for two centuries, surely it can hold on for another day or so" Polaris muttered, getting a chuckle out of the others. "Crazy to think she went missing so long ago, huh"
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"Now we wait" Said Northern, a frown on his face as he sat down on the roof of a threetown house. Finally, the cavern had been cleared of everypony except for some guards, spellcasters to keep the rocks from falling, and of all ponies, Celestia. "You know-" Northern began to say, looking towards the white mare, but she shushed him with just a look. "I am going nowhere, they might need me" She said, and her voice had such determination in it that Northern didn't even want to try arguing.
Having heard about the phone call though, he couldn't shake the pit in his stomach that said Silver had likely gotten squashed. He hoped it wasn't so, but from what he was told, it didn't sound good.
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"Hey, I found the sign!" Barked a stallion, as he picked up a chunk of wood out of the rubble. The rescue party had just now managed to claw their way all the way across the main hall to the entrance of the closer lab hall- the one where Silver was. So, they set to work again, this time focusing on getting down to an un-collapsed portion of that hallway.
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"Oh, shut it you, I don't care how blocky it is, it's cute" Silver said. He couldn't help but grin as he saw the digital fluttershy start blushing, and he turned back to the computer he was reading over. Silver was almost there. Twilight had everything figured out from the start, and she simply hadn't been there to finish the job. After Fluttershy was transported into the machine, Twilight had planned to perform another transformation, but this time from machine to machine. Fluttershy was going to be placed inside of the power cell! And the cell was going to be able to be placed inside of the robotic body in Lab 9!
The wires attached to the body had turned out to be merely for testing, which is something that had thrown Silver off. But once he realized what was meant to happen, it was much easier to get his way to the solution. "Well, fine, I don't want you acting like you're not just as cute" The mare huffed, and Silver found himself turning even redder than she just had. "W-Well....!" he said, turning to the camera. He waited until he turned away to let the big grin take over his snout, cause she was right, he wasn't going to argue it. "Yeah, that's right" She said, before she began to giggle a little about it.
"Well, guess what?" Silver asked. She was about to ask, but then he kept going, saying, "I've figured it out, and it's actually easier than I thought!" "Oh, that's wonderful, Silver... what do we have to do now, then?" She asked, her body floating over to his side of the screen as if it would help her see better. Silver pointed to the machine holding the power core, and then he pointed to the machines she was currently held inside. "Okay, so when I push these three buttons here, the machines are gonna move you from where you are now to this little thing, the thing that powers the SS Twilight" he said. "Then, I just stick this inside of that body in the other room, and you oughta be able to use it"
"That sounds easy enough, should we do it now, then?" She asked softrly. Shift smiled up at her, filled with both excitement and a healthy dose of anxiety. "Y-You ready?" He asked, answering her with a question. "Y-Yeah, let's do it" She said, smiling back at him. And then, Silver turned to the machine, pressing the buttons just like Twilight's notes had mentioned. At first, nothing happened. Then, the screen went blank. Silver began to feel a lot more worried, but then the machines began to hum in unison, and a progress bar came onto the screen that belonged to the power core machine. Silver sighed with relief, and he smiled down at it.
Well, until the ground began to rumble again.
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The rescue team's progress was slow. They had just made it to Lab 5, which interestingly, hadn't collapsed like labs 2, 3, and 4. Lab 1 hadn't collapsed, but that was only thanks to the tables filling the room. When they began to set to work on reaching Lab 6, the ground began to rumble. "OUT! GET OUT!" barked the leader, and all five ponies scurried back out into the larger cavern that they had entered from. They didn't want to be in there if more collapsed, so they planned to wait it out in the bigger space where they had more chances of avoiding a cave-in.
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Silver's anxiety spiked to new levels as the ground began to shake harder. His training snapped into his head, and in record time, the guardspony put on all of his armor, something he had been taught while in training. It gave him a better chance in a cave-in, since all the armor was treated to withstand ridiculous amounts of pressure. This Earthquake didn't seem like it would be as bad as the others, but he would prefer none at all. Above him, he heard a sound that made his heart jump in a panic, right when he put on his helmet. And then, the ceiling came down. The rear half of the room caved in, and Silver barely managed to avoid getting hit. The machine near the door got crushed, but Silver didn't even know what it did.
So far, Fluttershy was safe. 70% on the progress meter. As the pile began to settle behind him, a section of the ceiling that had ended up on its side began to tilt towards Silver, and in the span of seconds, he realized that it would flatten the machine holding Fluttershy if he didn't stop it. Silver nearly collapsed when the wall hit him, but he met its weight with an angry growl, armor scraping against it as he just barely managed to keep it from contacting the machine. He had managed to keep it from smashing into it, but he had only been holding it for a moment and he was already losing strength. Silver hadn't eaten since breakfast on the day he got left behind, so he was just about out on energy. 87%.
Still, his body had a few tricks. Adrenaline boosted his weary muscles as he let out another growl of effort, managing to heft the rock away from the console and get a bit of a better angle on it. 91%. Still, it wasn't going to last long. Silver was already panting hard, and he could feel the sweat run down his head. 94%. His thoughts went to Fluttershy out of desperation, and he shuddered as he thought of losing her. If she died now, he wouldn't get even the chance to tell the mare that he loved her. And he did! 97%. He took a glance to the progress bar, and he saw how close it was.
Silver could feel blackness seeping into his vision. He looked to the screen. 99%. Of course it was. He let out one last desperate whimper as he put what was left of his strengtrh into holding on. Somehow, the power hadn't gone. The lights flickered, some of them fell out, but the power stayed strong, thanks to the HydroElectric generator that was just as determined as Silver himself. The machine made some sort of beep, and Silver tried to look at it.
Instead, he collapsed. Everything went black, and his armor clanked off of the floor as the stone ceiling crunched into the computers next to him.
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"You feel that?" Whispered Celestia. "Of course I do" Muttered Northern. He could hear it too. Celestia leaned against the stallion, and he didn't even try to stop her. Truth be told, he felt exactly like she did, he was just better at hiding it.
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All Silver could feel was pain. The quake had stopped, and the computer next to him was dead, and he wasn't even trapped under the rubble! But one of his hind legs had gotten caught under the bricks at the wrong angle as they came down, and his bone lost that particular fight. He was also exhausted... but he summoned the strength to look up at the screen in front of him, and a big grin took over his face. It was a simple screen, displaying "100%" with "Transfer finished" underneath it. But to him, that meant Flutters was safe. Now he just had to move her. Silver pulled himself closer to the machine, and he bonked the eject button with one hoof. The core hissed, and it slowly emerged from the machine, glowing even brighter when it was exposed to the cool air. Silver managed to grab onto it, and he slowly pulled himself towards the entrance. Thankfully, it hadn't been blocked off when the room collapsed. It was difficult to fit himself between the rubble and the door, but he managed. He could have stood up on his three remaining legs, but it was much easier to push himself forwards a bit, then drag the core closer, and repeat.
Silver nearly passed out a few times from both the pain in his leg and the exhaustion that inhabited every part of his body, but giving up was not, and would not be an option. he dragged his way into Lab 9, and he muttered plenty of curses as he unplugged all of the cables from the robotic mare. Once he finally managed to get all of them out of the way, he opened the door on the side, and he smiled wearily. "Here you go, honey..." he said softly, as he pulled the cell close to him, gave it a tired kiss, then shoved it up into the robot. Silver barely managed to get the door closed before he went limp, stubbornly holding onto consciousness even though his body wouldn't bother to respond to his attempts to control it anymore.
The silver body began to glow, yellow lights sprouting from the joints in its body. The fleshy, synthetic portions of the body also lit up, glowing a soft yellow. Her flanks even had her cutie marks on them, a detail that made it clear who the body was meant for. The hair turned out to be somewhat fiber-optic, considering the way the strands all lit up pink. Silver was barely aware of it though, and he didn't see the mare's eyes open either. "Silver?" She asked, finding her tongue almost right away. The machine Fluttershy had been in was a mess to comprehend, but this body was easy to figure out. Not long after she spoke his name, Fluttershy got a weak grunt from him, and she gasped as she turned to look at his body. "S-Silver!" She said, noticing something that he hadn't- the trail of blood that followed him from Lab 10 to Lab 9.
Silver attempted to alleviate her worries, but what came out of his mouth sounded more like a grunt than "I'm fine". Fluttershy calmed herself, and she set to work on helping him. With the life she lived, helping animals, fixing a broken bone was almost nothing to Fluttershy. She could tell that Silver's bone was more than just snapped, but it was a simple matter for her to gather the materials to bandage him, wrap his leg up so he couldn't move it and make the damage worse, and finally, once it was done, give him a tight hug while sitting on the floor with him. Silver had regained a bit of strength by then, and he managed to look up at the mare, saying, "Can't believe I pulled it off... ceiling fell on it, and I had to keep it from hitting the machine until you were safe"
"That's what hurt you...?" She asked, the robot's eyes doing a fine job of expressing her worry as she gazed down into his own weary face. "Yeah" he said, closing his eyes again. "Ugh, I really wore myself out... I'll uh, I'll figure this out once I'm okay again" He said. Fluttershy frowned, and she stood up while holding him. Then, she picked him up, placing him on her back. Twilight hadn't been able to make the components for Fluttershy's body small enough to resemble a normal pony, so she was just slightly smaller than Luna. Even if Silver was perfectly fine and full of energy, he would have a hard time disobeying the protective mare's orders. And then, she gave them- "You are done doing all the work, I'm getting us out of here now" she said. Before she left the room, her eyes made their way to Twilight's body. A lot of different emotions ran through the pegasus, but she settled on... sadness. She wished that Twilight hadn't taken the deaths of their friends so hard, but on some level, she could understand it.
After all, a pony's lifespan was much longer than that of most animals. Fluttershy was sadly used to the concept of outliving her friends, and try as she might, she couldn't help Twilight with it. But there was no saving her now. Silver, however, she could save. Somepony depending on her, that was one of the few things that brought out the yellow mare's determined, commanding nature. Still, she couldn't wait to be out of that awful bunker. Fluttershy noticed something on a table, a book that stood out among the others. She could tell what it was from just a glance, and she smiled a little. It was one of Twilight's diaries, and it must have been the most recent one. She figured it would be a good record of what exactly happened two centuries ago, so she decided to stuff it in Silver's armor pocket. With Silver resting on her back, Fluttershy walked to the cave-in that was blocking off Lab 8, and she decided to see what her body was capable of now. She placed her hoof on a large chunk of stone, and rather effortlessly, she heaved it aside, watching as it rolled backwards into the hall and bonked into a forgotten chair.
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When she looked back into the tunnel, she met the squinting eyes of two very surprised looking stallions. One of them couldn't think of what to say, but one of the others looked to her back, saying, "I-Is that Silver?" "Yes, do you have medical supplies? He needs help" Fluttershy said, and the stallion smacked his friend, saying, "Go get the others, we're going!" He turned back to Fluttershy, saying, "What about the-" before she cut him off. "Yes, the core is me" She said. He hesitated, but he decided to trust her. He knew about as much as Silver did when he first walked in, after all. Once Fluttershy had crawled out of the bunker with the rescue team, she gently but firmly made sure to keep their focus on Silver, and she helped them as they fixed up his leg with some better bandages, gave him some water, made him finally eat something, and lastly, gave him some painkillers.
Once Silver was in a more stable condition, Fluttershy finally opened up for questions as they headed for Centria once again. "So, you're actually Fluttershy?" Asked the stallion who was nearest to her, the one who seemed to be leading. She smiled a little bit, but there was a lot of sadness behind the expression. "Yes, Twilight managed to transfer me into a machine, and Silver here managed to finish the project and put me into this body" she said. "She didn't make it, though" She murmured, in a softer voice. The next question was more lighthearted, thankfully. "What's it like bein' a robot?" Asked another one. "Well, it's weird" She said. "Everything feels the same as it did when I was in my body, but it's also completely different at the same time".
"So you're like, two hundred years old now..." Murmured one of the ponies, as they emerged from the Embassy into Centria. Fluttershy didn't know if it was a question or not, but she shrugged slightly, saying, "Yeah, but a lot of it was being aleep". "Man, I sure feel like I could sleep for two damn centuries" Muttered one of the stallions, one who hadn't talked before. The others all laughed, and one of em gave his shoulder a bump, saying, "You said it!"
"So, are we using that to get out of here?" Fluttershy asked, looking at the train sitting on the rails ahead of them. They had reversed it into the cavern slowly, allowing for a more hasty escape. "Yeah, go get it fired up for us" One of the ponies said, bumping into one of their friends. And with that, the batpony he mentioned took off into the skies, flying over to the engine to get its fire started.