"Y'all 're gon' go through the fields now. Best ya keep up with me or you'll get lost," Rahllup said.
Luna stared at the partly golden stalks. "Are you certain this is a wise idea? Your crops will be damaged."
The orange machine waved at Luna's complaint and huffed at the notion. "Them crops is sturdy, 'n they get smushed before bein' collected anyhow." She put her hands on her hips. "Reckon this just makes mah job easier."
"Then let's get going!" Galah said.
He strained himself against Rahllup's hand pushing against his chest, but it didn't stop him very well. She realized this and used both arms to hold him back, straining her systems.
"What kinda bots 're you blues even makin' over there?" the orange machine grunted.
"He is a prototype," Celestia explained. "His components and systems are not up to the standard of regular machinery."
"Unfortunately, she's right," Galah explained as he tried to push against the large robot's arms. "I was never designed to be functioning for a long time or even doing anything special." He didn't take his eyes off the crops. He and Rahllup were starting to create divets in the ground.
"Kinda makes sense, but y'all need to follow me," she specified. "Ah just told you that."
The prototype stopped, causing the orange machine to almost faceplant into him. "You did? I didn't register it." He walked back to the sisters. "Okay, let's follow."
Rahllup looked at the two sisters with a completely befuddled expression. The only response was a shrug from Celestia. The orange machine shook her head and walked through the crops, flattening everything before her. After several minutes of walking, the group happened upon a large assembly of different buildings with rounded roofs from which the 'snow' rolled off of. Several smaller robots that Rahllup with more human shapes were walking around the premises, carrying crates, cartons, barrels, and bags of foodstuffs everywhere. Luna couldn't see what they were bringing it all to, but she could see a bunch of broken down machinery and parts of others strewn about. All of the robots emitted the same orange light that Rahllup produced, and Celestia commented on their age.
"Two hundred generations old," the white machine said.
Luna slowly turned to her. "Such machinery should no longer be functional in the current time period," she said.
"Yet they walk around the premises, toiling away." Celestia hummed. "They are either still produced in this area or are yet another iteration of the robots that function on black energy."
"Only two match with my database," Luna said. "How many different iterations have those of the black been using?"
"Plenty," Rahllup said. "The caretakers'll still try tah make new machines when they can. I and the other like me are like that. Entirely new machines built in great times of need." She looked at Luna from the corner of her 'eye'. "Though we're still based off of preexistin' models."
"Such an act is forbidden in the lands of the blue," Luna explained. "Why do you not enforce such rules?" she asked.
The orange machine looked at her fully and laughed. "Stay here 'n ah'll get mah caretakers. They'll decide on what ta do with ya." She slammed a part of her neck, causing black ash to flow out from under her chest plating. "Reckon y'all best be put ta work if'n yer fixin' on findin' us. Y'all invaded, after all."
She marched towards the large house in the distance. It had been made with reinforced wood and possessed a small porch and overhead roof for it. There were several windows on all three floors from which a pale yellow light shone through. Didn't take long for the three to hear something, and against Rahllup's orders, they moved in front of the house, watching the wooden doorway intently. Finally, it opened with a loud creak.
"I'll have to oil up the door again," a deep female voice complained. "I hate it when it snows. Always creaks the joints of these stupid doors." The floorboards creaked as a large foot stepped upon them. "Now who are these new robots you wanted to show me?" she asked.
A giant arm passed just below the top of the doorway and pointed at the trio. The one who stepped out, the 'caretaker' as Rahllup put it, was a rather large woman. She was likely strengthened from her toil it her farm, but Luna felt something was...off. This was a maker, but rather than being wrapped in blue energy and it flowing out of her in a calm stream, her bulky body was wrapped in black. It was billowing angrily off of her, though she didn't seem to reflect the same anger the black energy had.
"They're quite small," she said to Rahllup. "And you just found them here?"
The giant ducked under the door frame and stood next to the large caretaker. "They're bots from the blue. Consarn'd idiots jumped out of a craft to land here!" the orange machine yelled angrily.
"What kind of stupid action is that? That doesn't mesh with anything robots are programmed to do!" Her anger subsided briefly. "You know, apart from you and..." she mumbled at Rahllup.
Luna floated forward, stunning the caretaker. "We were looking for other machines like us. I felt there were some in the black and wanted to see for myself," she explained.
She was eyed up and down by the bulky women. "Well I'll be. I thought you were just standing. You float." She scoffed. "Reckon you don't have much time left to run on."
"I still have ninety-two percent of power left," Luna said.
"I have ninety-two point eight," Celestia answered.
The caretaker's eyes bulged. "But you jumped out of a plane," she said in disbelief. She wanted to yell but her voice only came out as a quiet hush. "You flew here, judging by your floating. How is that possible?" She looked to Galah. "And what about you? What, are you at one hundred and ten percent?!"
"I'm at ninety eight. I didn't do much since getting recharged," he said with a shrug.
"We did everything," Celestia complained.
The caretaker grabbed the bridge if her nose and turned to Rahllup. "And what exactly is it that they want again? Find others like them? What does that mean. There's no blue energy here. If they dry out they're stuck."
"They mean robots like us," the orange machine specified. "They aren't following programs and command lines anymore."
The caretaker stared at the orange machine in shock then slowly turned to face the trio before her. "That's...shocking. I thought you two were unique."
"So did I," Rahllup sighed.
"And what's your gain in all of this?" she asked. She pointed to the three. "What is it you hope to do with finding other machines like you? Hm? What are you going to do afterwards?"
Luna stared at her while Celestia and Galah looked to her. She couldn't come up with an answer. Nothing was going through her circuitry. The invisible directive was silent. For the first time ever, she didn't know of an answer nor could she compute a possible workaround.
"I don't know," she answered. "I was...just looking for others."
The caretaker scrutinized at her silently then spat on the ground. "Yeah, that sounds just like Rahllup." She threw an arm in the air. "Fine. Go look for the other one. She should be in the hilly space over next to the barn. There's some predators again. She's taking careof them," the caretaker groaned.
The orange machine did the same and dropped her arms to her side. "Ah keep tellin' her to get rid of 'em. She simply has ta get rid of 'em."
Luna floated next to the giant women, a question burning through her circuitry. "Why do you speak in such a manner yet Rahllup speaks in such an outlandish manner?" she asked. The orange machine shouted that her speech mannerisms weren't outlandish in the distance.
The caretaker shrugged. "Figured I would give them strange accents if I could. Livens up the place, now get going before I'm likely to something nasty involving something from the blue," she threatened.
"Thank you for the answer."
The trio joined up with Rahllup who had already crossed quite some distance. Eventually, they went over another hill to see another gigantic beast of a machine holding several things in its arms.
"Consarn it!" Rahllup cursed. "Biddledee! Ya crush 'em and throw 'em back into the forest! Y'ain't supposed ta hug 'em!"
A booming voice, much like the on of Rahllup in her 'true' body echoed off the hills. "But they just need a hug and then they'll go away!"
"I told you that you need to crush 'em in a hug to make them go away! They're predators! Unless ya kill 'em or find a way to feed and domesticate them, they'll never go away! Nip 'em at the roots."
The machine creaked when it looked back to the struggling creatures in its arm then back to the group still a ways away.
"Her voice is quite powerful," Galah whispered to Celestia. "I'm gonna go see them up close."
"But I don't want to!"
"Why not?! You were doing it just fine years ago!" Rahllup complained.
Galah had already snuck off into the distance under everyone's proverbial noses. Even Luna hadn't noticed since she was too fixated on the creatures that Biddledee was holding. It went on for quite some time while the giant constantly readjusted herself to prevent the creatures from falling out and escaping.
"Wh-Yer clingin' onta them!" Rahllup called out.
"Am not!"
"If ah have ta get over there-!" the orange machine threatened.
An immense amount of smoke billowed out from the exhausts of the giant's back in response. "Fine! I'll throw them back into the woods!"
"No, yer s'posed ta cr--BIDDY!"
The giant twisted its torso and pulled its arms back, then it flung to the right and threw the creatures into the air, far far away. "There. They're far away now!"
Rahllup's anger subsided and she accepted the event reluctantly. "Well, that's one way to kill 'em, but ah don't fancy long 'bouts of torment."
"She doesn't seem to have done it on purpose," Celestia noticed.
The orange machine shrugged. "Don't matter none ta me. They're dead now." She shook her head as she started moving forward. "Decades old and she still behaves the same way. At least it comes in handy at times."
"Galah is standing next to her," Celestia noted casually.
"What?!" Rahllup screamed.
Galah was standing next to the large feet of the giant machine. "Hello!" he greeted.
The machine looked down at him then twisted itself around. "Who are you?" it asked.
"My name is Galah. I'm a prototype!" he announced enthusiastically.
"Oh!" Biddledee yeeped. "I didn't know we had new machines coming in."
Galah chuckled and pointed to the sky. "Came in from above. Freefall!"
There was a moment of silence. "What?"
"Jumped from a craft." He tapped the legs of the giant. "Can we see what you look like inside?" he asked.
"We?" she repeated. She looked over and saw Rahllup coming along with two other machines. "Oh. 'We'."
"Get out of yer body. Ah gotta talk to ya," the orange machine told Biddydee.
The torso opened up, much like the other system, but out of it came a bizarrely angular robot. Much like Luna and Celestia, it shared a design that no other machine seemed to replicate. It was still, however, as large as Rahllup. Its 'hands' ended at sharp points that opened up into three thick, powerful fingers. Her legs were the same, although they seemed to alternate from thorns burrowing into the ground and flat 'toes'. Her head was also very triangular. Two eyes made of several white-yellow lights combined together to create a simulacrum of a single light behind a glass circle adorned her face. Her 'muzzle' opened up to reveal the same bizarre white plates of metal that Rahllup had, but unlike her, Biddydee's lower jaw slowly lowered before she began to talk. It looked inefficient to the sisters. Atop her head was a long glop of foam metal that jutted in front of her into large, upward curls. It dripped down the back of her head, creating an impression of long 'hair', but the globs had solidified on her chassis and shoulders. She was colored white and orange in solid colors on each facing of her triangular body.
She turned to Galah after raising a finger to Rahllup. "I am also something of a prototype, although my model came into production a bit before being cancelled for price costs."
"Ah told you to stop coddlin' the animals!" the orange machine chastized.
Biddy crossed her arms. "And I told you I don't like hurting animals. I like them. They're interesting."
Twilight glared at the sisters. "Just a coincidence, huh?"