Luna and Celestia shared their tale with the guidance of Galah and Biddy in preventing an excessive amount of unneeded details. The station owner held his lower jaw as it hung open.
"Huh, so there's more like you, then," he commented. "How're you going to get any recharge when you're here without anyone knowing? There's no blue energy stations here." He cleared his throat. "Not like we didn't try to get that here." A loud thump shook the station and loosened dust from the ceiling. "And that parade is getting really annoying!" he yelled angrily towards the entrance.
"I'm curious," Luna started as she floated and looked around the station. "This building looks archaic. The floor is made out of an old stone, the shelves which house your amenities are rusted." She leaned forward and scratched them with her fingers. "And they're crudely painted on."
"And the light fixtures in the ceiling are no longer produced," Celestia added.
"What is this building?"
The station owner nodded in surprise respect. "You have a good eye, something I didn't expect from a machine other than Biddy and her angry sister." He took in a deep breath and looked around. "It's a historical site to remember a past long, long gone, when we used blood and bones to power our machinery."
Celestia looked to him then to the rest of the building suspiciously. "But you're still selling black energy?"
The caretaker nodded. "Like I said: This is mostly a front and also for the amusement of both me and the locals. We sold energy in the past and we're still doing it now." He stretched himself and leaned back against his chair. "I just like to stay here because almost no one comes by here to order anything. Mostly just farm folk like Biddy's family."
"I see," she said with a lower tone of voice.
After a moment of awkward silence, the caretaker spoke up. "So how is it possible that you three even became 'aware'? I thought it was tampering by that old engineer at the farm Biddy comes from."
"I looked at lights," Luna stated calmly.
Celestia jumped forward and floated diagonally in the air with a raised arm. "I looked at a big light!"
Biddy and the caretaker stared at her, baffled by the sudden emotional outburst, leaving everyone stare at Galah who stared blankly into nothing.
"And you?" the caretaker asked.
"Unknown," Galah answered mechanically. "Data corrupted."
"That only that part of his data is corrupted is a surprise," Luna said. "I would have assumed that a prototype wouldn't be designed for long-term functioning."
"I wasn't," Galah explained after coming out of his stupor. "One of my makers replaced several of my parts, saying that they didn't want me to disappear." He punched his stomach several times. "Now I can come back with a more powerful, rechargeable battery."
"Well, more powerful for the time," Celestia sneered.
The shop owner shook his head. "How do you even find others 'like' you?" he asked. "I'm shocked you even managed to find any in the black. How did you do it?" He narrowed his eyes. "Did someone tell you of them? Are there others like her?"
Celestia and Galah backed away from Luna as she dug into her memory banks. Biddy and the caretaker seemed slightly distressed by their actions.
"I...am not sure," Luna slurred. She lowered her head and put a ring hand on her forehead. "I remember seeing figures calling to me when I am connected to a station for maintenance and recharging, but I only saw the vague essence of the black energy."
"Well, there's no stations here." The male sighed after another moment of awkward silence. "Do you still have to hang around my store? I don't need the authorities coming by and thinking I'm housing machines of the blue of all things."
Biddy looked over her shoulder to the three. "No. We're leaving." She tapped her arm as she tried to remember everything she was meant to do.
"Is it farm related?" Luna asked.
"Food for the livestock? Or the family?" Celestia asked quickly.
Biddy's head sparked. "Yes! Of course. Thanks for reminding me."
The four moved to leave when the shopkeeper suddenly remembered something and almost fell over. "If you're looking for robots like you, there might be one at the Neon Feather near the second skyscraper district."
Biddy put her hands on her hips. "I know how to get there, I think, but I've never gone towards the inner parts of the city."
The caretaker shook his head. "Know how to get there. Sure you do."
He gave her instructions on the quickest way to reach the Neon Feather, but a warning was shared as well:
"With that parade out there, they might be lurking around. They know you and Rahllup well enough, but they're still wary of you in general, and if they spot those three...Well, the absent-minded one could still be passed off as a recovery, but the two that levitate? You'll be stuck past the deep end."
Biddy mulled over the warning as she followed the instructions. As was usual, those who didn't go to see the parade were awestruck, yelling and gasping when they saw the sisters, but the closer they got to the Neon Feather, the more outlandish the scenery became. The roads went from a consistent graying-red to a golden tint that lazily altered to others colors by way of lighting underneath. It only changed twice to a purple-red hue that contrasted with the greens of the surrounding buildings and architecture. There were passages leading deep below ground, the archways sparking with holographic electrical arcs dancing across the metal. The passage itself looked like a dark tube. Whatever it was, Luna would never know.
Two buildings had an obnoxious mascot that Galah and Celestia hated with a passion. One looked like a happy, yellow lengthy creature with the insides of its multiple-mandible mouth colored blue. It had big eyes and was carrying pastries all over its head. The other was an eight-legged creature standing on only three with the other five covered in various colored fabrics and strings. It only had one giant, piercing eye used to illuminate the sign of the store. Both places were obnoxiously colored so as to stand out as much as possible. In fact, there was another pastry store across a large bridge standing over a deep chasm holding the remains of a river that was built to look like a giant, multilayered cake with icing oozing off its walls.
Twilight stared at the images with a slack-jawed expression.
"Something wrong, Twilight?" Celestia asked.
"Yeah. All these things of the black? They seem...familiar..." she stated with discomfort.
The two machines looked back at the images.
"Do you want to elaborate on that?" Luna asked.
"Well..." She pointed at the various buildings. "They all have unique and distinct architecture, and they even have weird looking designs for everything." She scratched her head. "Us ponies also tend to do that a lot, even when it's inconvenient." She looked back at the princesses. "Does that mean anything? Are we related in any way?"
Luna shook her head. "I doubt it. Nothing was left over when we awoke, so I honestly doubt the ponies we met were influenced by anything here."
"I don't see any influence from the blue, though," Twilight mulled aloud.
Celestia put her 'arm' to her lower maw. "Now you have me questioning this. I'm wondering if we actually do understand the power of the blue and black energies," she said worryingly.
"I think that's the Neon Feather," Biddy croaked with clear disgust.
It was a very tall building, easily ten stories tall, with several different roofs. Three spires of different heights rose from around it at different points, and the center mass was comprised of at least three different near-flat, octogonal, pyramids. The front had multiple different balconies, each receding from the one beneath it, and the higher they went, the more luxurious the furniture. From something made of the stained trees outside to more illustrious and polished stones to shining and embezzled metals and cloth. Around the building were multiple different single elevations upon which trees with leaves spiraling down their trunks like stairs stood tall and were still untainted by the black that clung to the air like a thick poison sludge.
"This place is very...eye catching," Galah said. "Never saw this in the blue, although they've always been more about practicality," he shrugged.
Biddydee leaned to the side and 'hrrmd'. "How are we supposed to find any robot in there with a potential personality? Most there are just servants and assistants for the performers."
"And judging by the dimensions alone, it will be a very long time before we can even identify them," Celestia noted.
The triangular machine looked towards Luna. "Why are you looking for machines with personalities in the first place?"
The blue robot stared silently ahead, no sound coming from her. She felt the directive trying to show itself to her but only arriving as broken packets. Luna twitched before answering.
"I...just need to," she said. "Others like me...It's...important."
Biddy would have rolled her eyes if she had any, but instead shook her head and grunted in annoyance.
"I'm-going on a break!" a loud voice shouted.
The group turned to face the source of the commotion and met with a machine forcing the swinging doors back in a failed attempt at slamming it. It was a bizarre sight, to be sure, but still too far away to be able to discern appropriately. It noticed the four standing and, after, some bizarre poses, rushed over to them.
"What kind of bizarre robots would you be? I've never seen your like here before." It put a finger to its 'mouth' and leaned back. "What are your owners using you for? Or are you here for a job of some kind?"
Its body was...odd for the sisters, to say the least. Even Galah seemed ever so slightly perturbed, but not by much. It's body was long and lithe, but with a pronounced inward curve at the waist line. Its legs ended in four sharp protrusions and were slightly wider at the knees than the upper-leg, creating an impression of a high-reaching boot, albeit one with weird feet. Its upper legs followed the same pattern, although they widened exponentially at the joints linked to the pelvic area. Its arms did the same thing as its legs, but its hands ended in six, thin, quadruple jointed digits that wormed and swayed in the air with every one of the robot's movements. It looked like it was wearing a sleeved coat on its forearms, ending in a very wide and pronounced opening at what would be the elbow.
Surrounding its chest and back was a large protrusion of what appeared to be fur or feathers. The group had a hard time telling what it was made from. More eye-catching to the average watcher was its head: Its cranium was rounded and smooth with two horns growing in a backwards-facing arc. Its elongated 'muzzle' was drawn into a permanent toothy smile, with teeth resembling discs that interwoven between each other and displayed an image upon them. It resembled steam leaving the side of a head. Luna was baffled. In front of it all, at the very tip, was a single fang with no other purpose than the obvious added decorum. Its eyes were mechanical in nature, protected behind glass windows and topped with mechanical eyebrows that slid up, down, to the sides, as well as bent and twisted with anything the machine was trying to do.
The blue robot found that its singular, pure white contrasted with the obviously eye-catching appearance its design was meant to cause.
"This is the one?" Biddybee asked in disbelief.
The machine leaned in, its head to the side in a mimicry of wanting to hear better. "One what? A performer?" It placed a hand to its chest, making its fingers sink into the fluff. "I am indeed a performer? The most esteemed!"
The triangular machine crossed her arms and stared at the dramatic robot before her. "Dhaa, this is the one," she grunted. "Ruined my mood, and I was feeling a bit better being in the city rather than the farm, too."
The 'teeth' of the machine spun to display a crude drawing of a maker getting sick. "Ew. A farmer," it spat in disgust as it backed away. It patted its chest. "I don't want your farmer dirt on my chest fluff. It's my selling point."
"His emotions are wild," Luna noted.
"Its physical character portend more to a female," Celestia argued.
The teeth spun around once more to display a face radiating elation. "I'm whatever the audience wants me to be!" it declared in a melodic tone.
Galah rubbed his chin pensively. "I'm wondering if it isn't convenience that is uniting us all now..."