"You've got to be kidding me, this..."
I was shocked. To think that one of my own creations, one of the Weapons of Light could have done this...
It hurt.
I stared at the heavily damaged machine. It would take months, maybe years to repair, and more resources than I could easily tap from my stashes and hideaways.
"Your creation ran rampant in the hands of an enemy of Equestria. Applejack is still in the hospital. Ponies were hurt. Worse may have befallen those who were, had I not been there to stop this weapons platform." she said simply. There was no anger in her words, nor was there disappointment. The emotion in her voice was bland acceptance.
'If it wasn't this, then it would have been something else,' her tone seemed to say. A feeling so far beyond anger or disappointment towards this latest mistake of mine. Expectation.
"It wasn't meant to do this. It was meant to do good," I said, not meeting Celestia's gaze as she presented the machine to me, and I meekly disconnected parts of it, to prevent it being reactivated, even in its damaged state.
Celestia shrugged helplessly. "Have we not done this dance before? You've been robbed before, to similar ends. Or do you forget why you created the original Weapons in the first place?"
I hadn't forgotten. I swore not to let something like this happen again, and yet, here we are. It was shameful to know that my best intentions had once again caused something like this.
"What now, Weiss? Something must be done with it," she asked.
I thought about that. This Weapon of Light was "mine", and, if nothing else, it was stolen from my care, and so, it was up to me what was to be done with it now. My responsibility.
If it could be stolen, even from the most secure areas I could create, and suborned, even by the most advanced identification I could build into it with the magic and science of my time, then there wasn't anything I could do to prevent it from being stolen again. I didn't have time to try and lure the Element Bearers into claiming it through a series of trials and tribulations.
I would have to skip the dramatics, for once.
I sighed. "Give it to Rainbow Dash. It was always meant for her, and, once I repair it, and shore up the security flaws, it will be a valuable tool in the defense of Equestria," I finally say, turning away. It was bitter, I had such plans! Such glorious plans!
I was going to force Rainbow Dash to have one final race against her metallic doppelganger, force her to realize just how difficult it was to defeat enemies who had cold metal as their strength. Then, with the Great Sacred Treasure, she would win, and destroy the golem once and for all!
Explosions! Fire! Excitement and a flight to the finish! Everything a good hero's journey needed.
I shook my head as Celestia lifted it up in her telekinesis and silently walked away with it to who-knows-where. I'd find out later. It was no threat now, as damaged as it was, and for good measure, I had made sure to disconnect various components to prevent it activating until I could figure out exactly how a Wannabeetle and some illusion magic was enough to trick it.
I was thankful that the princess had nothing else to say before leaving. I couldn't stand to look at the machine for another second, considering what a failure it had turned out to be.
"Well, Eclipse, now that that's done, I suppose it's your decision what we do today," I said, turning to her for her opinion. She seemed stunned when the princess brought the Great Sacred Treasure to Star Road, and saddened to hear what had happened to it. Subverted by a Wannabeetle. It must have been a familiar problem for her, if I recall correctly.
"Well, the first thing we should do is work out a plan. If that Golden Apple guy really is performing evil deeds, then we can use that. You need to learn what justice and law are again, before we can move on to more ephemeral things like your social and moral well-being," she explains, a hologram fizzing out from her armor displaying a running wall of text that she glances across quickly.
Documents on Equestrian Law, scanned from every lawbook in Twilight's library, courtesy of the librarian herself.
I felt sweat uncomfortably arriving as a herald of what's to come.
"Eclipse, come on... I don't think that's necessary, I haven't obeyed a law since..."
I paused, trying to recall the last time I intentionally kept from doing something due to it being against some law or other.
Eclipse waited for me to answer, before sighing in a way that sounds distinctly impatient to me. "Wow, alright, there's a lot to unpack there."
I blinked. What's that supposed to mean?!
Rainbow Dash looked apathetic at the hunk of junk. "Sorry Applejack, but I literally didn't have room for this thing at my house. I mean look at it, it's bigger than a cart!" she said gratefully, gesturing to the damaged Great Sacred Treasure, currently being hauled around behind one of Sweet Apple Acre's barns by several Royal Guards.
"It ain't nothing, Dash. It's not like you ain't done me favors before," Applejack retorted. She smiled as best she could, but her voice was a bit strained, and a thick brace was clamped around her waist and back.
While being thrown through a wall by the mechanical menace thankfully hadn't killed her, it had certainly put her in the hospital, and even after getting out, it would take time and rest for her back to heal properly.
'Things are going to be rough,' Applejack thought to herself. Being down a pony in Cider Season ensured that things would be rough indeed.
Rainbow Dash looked at Applejack and frowned, shaking her head. "I don't know why they're giving me this stupid thing, it got you hurt, if I had a say in it, I'd say we should just dump it in the junkyard and call it a day," she grumbled.
Applejack laughed a bit. "I agree. I might be a bit biased, but danged if I don't think it's more trouble than it's worth," she responded. It was hard to wrap the idea around the idea, that Celestia, (and that dirtbag, Weiss,) had decided to give Rainbow Dash of all ponies ownership of the war machine.
Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Well, outta sight, outta mind, am I right? They said they made it so it wouldn't work anymore, so it isn't like I can even use it. Not that I'd want to," she clarified.
Applejack nodded.
As Rainbow Dash made to leave for home, Applejack waved, before wincing at a tingling pain in her back that made her put her hoof back down. Granny Smith, as if psychic, seemed to come out at just the right time with a bag of ice, and a shoulder for her granddaughter to lean on as she led the pony back to her own home.
Out of sight, out of mind. The fate of the Great Sacred Treasure, and all the wonderful plans it could have been a part of. The machine sat in the middle of the grassy patch behind the barn, torn plating and frayed wires sitting idly by. It could have repaired itself, it was built for Rainbow Dash, after all, and she was hardly a mechanic, but the machine's creator had disconnected that functionality. Removed it entirely, in fact, by detaching the Timeshift Crystal that was once buried deep inside its core.
Without it, the relic was simply that, a dusty old artifact, in dire need of repair, one whose jets and wings were held in silent repose, awaiting a pilot that would never come.
Flim groaned, laying his head on the mercifully cool table at one Sugarcube Corner, while his brother had his own face pressed flat into it. The two of them had singed horns with blackened tips, and a miserable new outlook on hard work.
"It's awful, brother, who would have thought hard work could be so... Well, I just said it!" he complained, as his brother nodded quietly.
"Magical overexertion, to think we'd end up overworking ourselves, us!" he said, blinking as a pair of ice cold smoothies were placed in front of them.
"Oh, thank you," he said gratefully, before pressing the ice cold glass to his head with a groan of relief. The milkshake sizzled comically.
"It's that darn mare! I'm afraid we've been conned, dear brother," Flam said, drinking his milkshake instead of turning it into slush with his overheated horn.
"Conned? How so?" Flim asked, drinking his own melted milkshake.
Flam straightened out his frazzled mustache. "Simple, brother, we agreed to this job expecting our lovely machine to do most of the work, and unfortunately, it appears we've signed up with a mare who looks at ponies instead of profits to decide when a job is done."
He slammed a hoof into the palm of his hoof. "I daresay lemonaid and apple fritters would have kept coming out of that darn house until midnight if she thought it would get a few more hours out of us!" he admitted.
'Not that it wasn't delicious', The two of them privately mused for a moment. Granny Smith's strategy of keeping them fed and watered inbetween hours of magical labor operating and improving upon their Super Speedy Cider Squeezy, coupled with devilishly encouraging words whenever they were ready to call it quits had turned out to be quite the effective grift...
"It's insidious! All this agony and work, and for what?!" Flim lamented.
Flam thought about it. He really did, and finally shrugged at his elder brother. "Money."
"Oh right, money," Flim realized. By Celestia's sweet tooth the money.
He shook his head. "Money aside, we need to find a solution, I'm a unicorn, not a candlestick!" As if to enunciate his point, the tip of his horn caught fire, and he hastily plunged it into his drink.
Flam frowned. "Well, I don't see where there's one to be had, brother, other than simply waiting for our magic to grow stronger over time. At the end of the day, enchanting new parts is simply difficult work for two unicorns alone, and there's a lot to do before that workhorse will be satisfied with our machine's quality control."
He chuckled lightly. "I mean, it isn't as though the Apples have a giant pile of magitech parts laying around for us to use,"
"Brother, remind me to have you make more ironic statements to our benefit in the future," Flim said dryly, eyes as wide as can be as he stared at the truly massive machine before them. It was a monolith of orichalcum, even deactivated and scuffed up, it still glowed with enchantment and magic.
The Great Sacred Treasure sat there, glowing under the attention of the two ponies, but even as it did, it sagged under its own weight. Here was a machine cast down in its very first flight, by a pilot that saw it as nothing but an expendable resource in a dark plot.
Flam swallowed. "It's incredible... This thing looks like it belongs in a museum, I mean, look at the craftsponyship, it's stunning!" He walked around the sides of the mech, noting the hellfire engines, the numerous sapphire golem cores, and of course, the massive enchanted gun jutting from one of its two main limbs.
"You might very well be right, look at this," Flim said, poking and prodding at one of the sides of the Great Sacred Treasure, until a hatch opened up on it, and a holographic display shone out of it, a simplistic magical computer reading out various status indicators, and, in the corner, a date for when the magical computer was first enchanted.
"Dear Celestia, it's... It's ancient!" Flam gasped. The hologram sputtered.
Anypony could tell you that enchanted items hadn't used holograms for hundreds of years, ever since direct control and intuition broadcasting were invented by Equestrian enchanters. This floating image of illusory dots was a relic, by the Flim Flam Brothers' standards.
"Parts of it are, but something about the magic, I think this may have been assembled recently. It was certainly damaged recently, see here, around the armor plating? The magic is still leaking out..."
The ragged edges of melted and torn orichalcum seemed to pulse to his diagnostic spells in a raw way that indicated fresh, unrepaired damage. He could practically hear the screech of metal from whatever caused this piece of work to be totaled in this way.
"Quite a mystery... Where on earth did the Apple family get this? I dare say, it would be an insult to the craftspony to use it for parts, we'd be better off scrapping our own machine to get the parts for this one!" Flam stroked his mustache thoughtfully.
Flim shook his head. "Well, no matter what, we should leave it alone until we can convince whoever owns this to let us have a look at it. I daresay, I see opportunity where the owner clearly did not, wouldn't you agree?" the stallion asked.
Flam nodded. "Absolutely, dear brother. It would be a travesty to let this poor machine sit out here rusting for no good reason."
As Flim pushed to examine an engine, The Great Sacred Treasure leaned forward, gears creaking as parts shifted under their own weight.
They promptly went to Granny Smith, who was forcing Applejack into bed with a bowl of applesauce.
"Yer after that old thing? Well, Princess Celestia had the darn thing drug over here. It nearly killed me, so I ain't exactly pleased with havin' it around, I gotta admit, but apparently Rainbow Dash owns it now, so I did her a favor. You'd have to ask her if you want to mess around with that thing." Applejack said uncomfortably.
Flim glanced at his brother. "I see. Well, we're certainly sorry to bother you about it, then. Do get well, ma'am, until next time," he said with a nod.
As the two brothers left, Applejack and Granny looked at one another. "What do you think, Granny?"
Granny Smith let out a huff. "Well, those two haven't done us wrong yet, so I'm inclined to give em the benefit of the doubt. It might be a might nasty of me to say, but if they fix the darn thing up, then that Weiss won't have reason to come over to do it."
Applejack hadn't considered that angle, and her back twinged painfully as she tried to lay back further on the bed.
Granny frowned. "Now, it ain't that I'm ungrateful or nothin'. I wouldn't be as spry as I am without that tonic or whatever it was, but he's got a way about him that don't sit right with me. I can't help but hope that he don't come over here any time soon."
Applejack shook her head. "No, granny, I know what you mean, he's..."
"Go on then. Run home. I've no more need of you," he offered with a smile.
She could tell, he was drinking in their fear. It was why he crushed that Rainbow Dash robot. He wanted to see what they would do. Would they stay and fight? Run and hide?
Applejack knew that he was hoping to see them turn on each other over the offer. His gaze wasn't merciful, it was anticipatory. Waiting for the show to come.
She blinked the memory away. "He scares me. That's the honest truth. I think we're all a bit scared, Granny."