The three were left in the silence and the dark when the cargo bay door closed. A few tremors shook through the bay when the vessel began to move. Whether the knocked out maker was extracted or not was unknown to Luna, but she was going somewhere everyone had frowned upon, and she wasn't sure why. If it was so disliked, why were there still craft going to the place her makers condemned? Even Celestia hadn't yet recompiled enough information to determine what the concerns were. Even as the vessel increased exceedingly and applied further weight to her body, the calculations and theories wouldn't end.
She watched Galah cheer during the lift off, still confused at what that expression of sound was meant to convey. Ideas started to form in Luna's mind as she tried to comprehend the potential danger of the place she was going to. Things that weren't located in her database. Random sounds and imagery popping up not truly based on anything she had seen yet. A few minutes had already gone by that the three heard something heavy banging against the chassis of the vessel. A disturbing and uncomfortable sound, she found, but it didn't seem to assuage the large craft from continuing its course. Galah broke out of his bonds, jovially moving about the craft whilst trying to maintain his balance.
"What are you doing, Galah?" Celestia asked. "You must return to the safety position and reequip the security straps to your chassis."
The prototype simulated blowing raspberries at the white machine. He broke the paneling next to the cargo bay door and ripped out several wires. The door dropped open, fluttering in the wind. The loud noise of fluttering was deafening, but some filtering allowed the sisters to hear him well enough.
"We're nice and high, but not too high. I can see the ground below! That's our destination."
He hopped off, prompting the sisters to quickly removed their constraints and rush out of the craft after him.
"Our flight systems were not designed to fly at this altitude," Celestia said.
Luna's systems 'clenched' on the energy coursing through them. "I know. We must slow our descent with gradual bursts one we have reacquired Galah."
The two had never expected to see the world from this height. Unfortunately, they could not spare the attention to details, instead going straight for the plummeting machine. They finally managed to catch him just before he disappeared in a cloud below, buffeting the three with icy cold water and air. Finally, they could take a moment to 'breathe', as it were, gradually slowing their descent with bursts of energy.
"The land looks...abnormal," Luna said.
There was a semi-transparent black screen floating in the sky when the two had broken through the white screen. Below them were tremendously vast forests growing on the feet of tall mountains in the distance. Two parts further in the forest shone with an insidious light but were otherwise impossible to distinguish amongst the foliage, regardless of the height they were at. Some cities were dotted about the landscape as well as an almost as-impressively massive cultivated field of unknown food stuffs.
"We must go over there," Celestia said. "The fields of plant life there will be a safer landing area than the forest."
"How do you know?" Galah asked.
"They are vegetables that are grown by the makers." She looked at him. "It will be softer than the bark of trees."
Luna's eyes focused more and more on the area as they approached the ground. They had been slowing their descent gradually, that is, until they hit the strange, immobile black screen. Their systems went haywire, causing them to wildly change course and fly in various random directions until the velocity and jerking every which way caused the black stuff to break off of their chassis. Instead of landing softly in the field, the three crashed next to it and created a deep divot in a large mound. The two sisters performed a diagnostic then broke out of the ground, dirt and small rocks rolling off of them.
"It seems Galah took the brunt of the impact," Luna said.
"Where is he?" Celestia asked as she looked around.
Her ocular sensors recalibrated themselves on multiple occasions then performed a full diagnostic. The land was...wrong. She couldn't see it properly because of the angling and what she believed was just a result of light filtering through the weird black cloud, but everything was various shades of black and gray. She reached her ring hand down and passed it through the grass several times in an attempt to cleanse them. They remained black, but an identically colored dust flew off of the leaves. Frustrated, Luna looked around and noticed the sky was a dreary gray with streams of black floating within it like filth on the surface of the ocean.
"The black energy?" Luna thought aloud.
The trees were tall, twisted, and gnarled, but they had plenty of healthy black leaves and several flowers in shades of fluorescent blue and green laid at their feet. Some tree leaves were very long and drooped again the ground, tired and weary as though they had been forced to grow in this manner against their own wishes. Celestia flinched when she saw a giant eye accompanied by two vertically placed eyes in the shade of the trees.
"That life form is not within my recompiled database," the white machine said.
"It is possible that you simply haven't reached that part of your stored data," Luna posited.
Celestia nodded. "Then we should avoid any large areas inhabited by wildlife until we have acquired more information," she suggested.
"Then let's get going," Galah shouted. "It's best we get moving now before something weird comes our way."
The sisters noticed that a black 'snow' was falling from the sky, tainting their hulls temporarily. Whatever they had been made with didn't let the black substances cling to them for long. Galah, on the other hand, was much different. His chassis was turning almost completely black in the 'snow', although he seemed to be completely oblivious to this fact. Even though it would take a bit of floating to reach them, Celestia could already see the main crops. In the little bit of lukewarm wind present, she could see some golden tint beneath the patches of black from the sky.
She stopped near them and ripped out a chunk to better analyze it. The insides were filled with thick, black veins, and a transparent syrup was oozing out of it. Without an ability to analyze the components, Celestia had no way of knowing what it was.
"What a bizarre plant," Galah said. "I've never seen the like where we came from." He looked to the sky then towards the mountains. "Are they just made to grow in this region?" he wondered aloud.
"It seems to hold a syrup substance within it," Celestia noted. "It's possible that it could used as a treat by the makers?"
"Or an important ingredient for other substances," Luna said.
"Uh huh..." the prototype responded apathetically. "What else is there?!" he shouted.
"That sounds completely off from what we have now!" Twilight shouted. She started pacing around the room, thinking. "I don't understand. What is that black stuff?" she asked the princesses.
"Recall that I mentioned waste of the blue energy," Celestia said.
Twilight nodded. "Of course." She paused a moment, a sense of shock gradually overtaking her face. "Are you saying that--"
"Yes," Luna interjected. "That is what happens with the waste of the black energy."
The lavender alicorn shook her head in disgust. "Then, obviously the blue energy was superior!" she proclaimed with a smile. The sisters laughed in response. Twilight's gaze darted between the two of them. "What? What's so funny?" she asked.
"Twilight, just because the city we were in looked so 'great' didn't mean it wasn't being affected by the blue energy," Celestia said.
"Well, of course! I know that." Twilight took a deep breath. "But that doesn't mean it was affected in a bad way."
"Not that we told you," Celestia said. She turned away from Twilight and a hand to her muzzle. "There's many things in our lives before Equestria that we remember that we haven't told you about." She leaned in uncomfortably close to her former student's face. "Certainly you know that Equestria isn't a golden seat of purity. There are dirty specks here and there that nothing can be done about."
Twilight shook her head. "You can't say that, princess! You've done a great job!"
"And yet here we stand," Luna said. She looked down. "Or float, in this case. There isn't much that can be done about it. A massive population is hard to keep watch over. Nothing is perfect regardless of how it looks," the lunar princess lamented.
Disheartened, Twilight looked down to the ground. The princesses waited for a while for Twilight to be receptive to the rest of their tale, something that seemed to cause more distress to Twilight as time went on. This didn't go unnoticed.
The moment Galah touched the stalks that far surpassed the height of the trio by a foot, a massive creature, easily as big as one of the vehicles from the city, flew overhead and towards the forest. Its body was large and it possessed six blade-like limbs and a body pocked with holes. It broke a few trees when it landed, throwing black dust and leaves everywhere. Angry, it scampered to its clawed limbs and lunged forward, hissing at whatever had thrown it. Its face was insect-like, but it was covered in a random number of variously-shaped eyes. Its mouth was comprised of two mandible, both covered in sharp teeth, and several crooked and misshapen horns covered its forehead.
A bright light erupted from above the crops and illuminated the creature, causing it to flinch and cover its face with a leg. A light screeching noise accompanied by what Luna believed to be explosive noises filled her auditory sensors. The noise become louder as it 'revved up', until eventually the creature started to back away. Thumping noises started to come at the same volume as the explosive sounds and the light bobbed up and down, scaring the creature even further. It retracted away, somehow shrinking and compressing in size. Its bladed limbs split apart, giving it 'toes' that it used to quickly scamper away into the forest as fast as it could.
The source of all the noise and light came into view before the trio, its light still shining into the forest. Its body was immense, the size easily reaching that of the machines Luna had seen at the port. It was built similarly to the giant robot of the technician's, but its body displayed hollow areas where many pistons and frames were exposed to the air. They hissed steam and black energy. On their backs were two tremendous exhausts that could devour the sisters, and then some. They were shaking and burning red and orange. Black smoke billowed out of their backs, angrily toppling its own layers. The black behemoth twisted around to return to wherever it came from when it spotted the trio.
Luna could better see it now. A gigantic, cubic torso covered in different layers of metallic plating, each sporting a different amount of 'black'. Its hands possessed three digits each, and its legs were, quite possible, just as thick as the technician's gigantic construct. The blue machine felt a strange discomfort when she gaze upon it and the face it had. Angry, glowing orange eyes behind an armored helmet of sorts. Round and tainted by the black snow from above. The white robot put a hand on Luna's shoulder, somehow causing her systems to calm down.
"What're these bots doin' here? Di'n't ask fer no help!" it bellowed angrily. The head twisted left and right, observing the three. "Y'all're pretty small ta be robots, ain't ya?" The light beneath its neck shone brightly once more, illuminating the three, and the machine's systems roared loudly in anger. "Hey, y'all ain't from here. Y'all're from the blue!" it bellowed with pure rage and hatred. "Think yer better'n us, huh?" It raised a tremendously heavy arm into the air with a clenched fist. "Reckon' a might be o' crushin'd serve you a bit of humility!"