"What? That can't be it!" Twilight shouted.
Luna and Celestia shook their heads in response.
"I'm sorry Twilight, but when I said that we don't know what happened, we meant it," Celestia explained.
Twilight dropped onto her rear and produced a heavy sigh. "I was, quite literally, on the edge of my seat," she said. "There was so much information you shared there, and then, when you reached what could've explained it all, 'poof'."
Luna rubbed the back of her head. "I know. It's a lamentable thing."
"And not a day goes by that we don't wonder what happened."
The sisters exchanged looks, and while it wasn't apparent whatever emotion the two shared, Twilight could still feel that great regret and pain came with seeing those last images. What was meant to be a trip to discover new machines just like them turned into a devastating bout of destruction. An interminable wait that they weren't even aware of. The group fell into a deep silence from which they refused to get out of as Twilight patiently waited for the sisters to recover from the loss and feelings that were left buried deep within them so long ago. Luna's arms started shaking again before Celestia held them steady.
"Well, perhaps it is time we speak of the more positive aspects that came after that," Celestia said. "I will show you, this time, Twilight Sparkle. I will show you how we became the rulers of pony kind after our past life was destroyed.
"Okay," Twilight said. "I want to get back to your old life and help you recover from the traumas, Princesses. More importantly, I want to help you discover what happened," she stated firmly.
The sisters both laughed in unison.
"Your former student is very loyal to you, sister. Trauma," Luna chuckled.
"Don't mock her determination. I told her of this because I know that she can help us discover the truth despite the time that passed." Twilight was sure she could feel Celestia's warm smile despite not having a mouth.
The sisters reactivated, but everything seemed very dark. It was possible that whatever had blinded them had buried them in rubble. It was potentially an impact that damaged the dome. They would need to work quickly to free themselves and their friends next.
"Perhaps Rahllup and Biddydee will free us quickly?" Celestia thought. "Or they are themselves buried. I should try to get myself out of this and check on Luna."
Despite her whole body being seemingly trapped, the white machine struggled more and more until she started to make divets in her entrapment. Eventually she was starting to become more and more mobile. The sounds of crumbling debris gradually started to reach her, and with a sudden 'pop', she found herself out of her imprisonment and into a dark, small cave. Tiny things skittered away in the darkness, terrified that some kind of monster burst out of the wall.
"Odd," Celestia said. Her systems were taking a while to start up, so she was forced to walk on the hard ground despite not being made for it. Her visibility was aided by the dim, flickering lights of her body, but they did not provide much range. "The rubble formed strangely around us," she noted curiously. The white machine looked around, intrigued by the state of the area that she only heard the movement of stone after the third tremor. The source was a small hole forming in the wall and the tiny pieces of itself rolling off onto the floor. "Sister!" Celestia exclaimed.
She was quick to use the hole to start digging, using her chassis pieces as shovels. Gradually, Luna slid out and landed on her arms and knees. Her lights were glitching, illuminating and dimming erratically. She, too, could not hover.
"What happened?" she asked. "I'll perform a system diagnostic."
"That is a good idea. I'll do it too," Celestia said.
"Nothing wrong with the inside or outside. Energy levels are...erratic," Luna mumbled as her voice fuzzed.
"Then we should wait for our systems to become fully operational before emerging from here. We weren't built for walking," Celestia noted. "I haven't found an exit. We might have to dig our way out."
Over time, the lights coming from the sisters' bodies gradually began to stabilize, and their feet slowly began to push them into the air again, but it wasn't consistent. They would fall down on one foot or be pushed too far up.
"I can't access my internal clock," Luna mentioned. "The pathways to access it are not yet functional," she added.
"Hmm. I can't access mine either. It would be best for us to get out of here and observe the surroundings. We'll join up with the others then go to the engineer's home for a check-up and potential follow-up repairs."
The two looked around, tapping the walls when their lights shut off and causing Luna to nearly fall. "I found the exit," she said.
The two cautiously went through the hole, watching their step while they couldn't reliably hover. Celestia felt it imperative to get out of the area before it collapsed on them. Rubble was never known for its sturdiness or structural stability. They came across multiple diverging paths, and it was often that they went through the wrong ones before finally turning around after reaching a dead end. For what felt like hours, the two navigated the nooks and crannies of the rubble, suspecting that something was wrong, but not approaching the question. They eventually came upon some illumination and a source of wind and followed both.
"Finally," Celestia complained. "That was annoying to travel. What kind of rubble goes on for that long?" she wondered angrily.
"Our systems must be more damaged than we thought if it took that long to free ourselves," Luna complained. "That engineer will need to check on us longer than I would have wanted."
Celestia was the first to get out, and she was met with a sight that was not in any of her storage devices. She looked on in awe at the scenery before her: Tremendously vast, hilly fields of green with an equally tremendous forest to the right and a mountain range to the left. The mountains were covered in dark clouds that clashed with the bright, clear blue sky next to them. The sun shone brightly and powerfully on everything, and it was hard to find any semblance of a shadow or dark area in general. Some outcrops of stone littered the landscape. Leftover rubble? But there was no sign of the blue, nor of the black, Celestia realized. How long would they be able to stay powered on at this rate? How did they even get to this place? She needed to find makers to get information. Any information, on where they had ended up. Just above the treeline, Celestia could make out some smoke stacks. While a forest with smoke often just meant that there was a natural fire occurring to clean the ground of built-up debris, it was their best chance at finding makers and getting back home and to their friends.
She was quick to realize that she was at an elevation compared to the rest of the area, and if she wasn't careful, she would fall straight down. The white machine moved to the side, clinging to the edge of the black, lumpy stone ridge holding her up as Luna slowly moved outside and immediately shielded her optics with an arm.
"Bleugh! It's too bright!" she complained. "Are those search lights?" Luna asked.
"No. It's the sun," Celestia responded with glee.
"What." Luna was taken aback when she managed to look properly at the landscape. Her body began to shake. "What happened to the city? Where is everyone? Were we taken with the rubble and dumped somewhere?" The two flinched when a shadow loomed briefly over them. A giant winged creature had flown overhead from behind them and continued straight into the horizon. "Was that a delele? But there aren't any in the blue."
"This isn't any place we know of, sister," Celestia said. While she seemed excited, there was a hint of chagrin in her voice. "We should look around. We might find our friends," she added.
Their hover feet sputtered in power as they kept close to the wall of their emergence.
"We emerged from a cave," Luna said. "I had just come out of a similar one when I went to recover our stowaway. Odd coincidence." She paused a moment from scraping down along the thin walls, using her chassis to dig into them. "The stowaway must be in a cave somewhere."
"We need information first, however," Celestia said. "I witnessed some smoke near the forest. Whether it was inside or next to it, I'm unsure."
"Why would smoke help us?" Luna asked. "Makers don't make smoke."
The white machine gestured around them as best she could without falling from their place of rest. "There is no sign of the city, and I don't remember there being any forests left over, let alone free mountain ranges."
"Are you suggesting we are in the gray?" Luna scoffed. "There are no thick, gray clouds strangling the sky, sister."
"Well, arguing won't get us anywhere. Let us start with the smoke first, then we can go from there," she said.
"Or, we go to the makers down there," Luna said.
"What?"
There were several figures some ways away from the cave base next to a stone outcropping covered in thick, green bushes. The figures were wearing very colorful clothing and were crouched over to gather whatever the plants possessed, or they were gathering the plants. The two weren't sure.
"Quite vibrant attire," Luna noted with some disgust.
Celestia noticed the tone of her sister had changed and started performing a self-diagnostic on herself. "I don't recall them ever wearing anything." She paused briefly. "Well, if makers are already here, then we should meet with them. I wonder why they're performing those tasks and not robots."
Once at the bottom, the two hurried over to the location. The closer they got, the more they could make out: Several large straw baskets were sitting next to the makers and were being gradually filled to their brim with red, blue, and yellow shapes. Celestia didn't recognize any of them, and the shape of the makers became stranger and stranger. The robots' bodies were slowly beginning to stabilize, and both the lights and their hover technology were slowly returning to standard function, making it easier for them to move and watch each other's recovery progress. Once at the location, Celestia noticed that there were at least twenty currently working in the bushes. A few had climbed up the stones and were throwing what she assumed to be fruits down into more of the large baskets.
"Excuse me," Celestia began. "I am looking for a city of the blue, or any engineers. Do you have one nearby?" she asked calmly.
The figures bounced and pulled back, revealing that these 'makers' were, in fact, something else.
"What is this?" Luna gasped.
The 'makers' were, in fact, very colorful creatures. Quadrupedal, equine, and with a variety of different colors as fur. The pupils of their large eyes gradually shrunk when they noticed what had made the long, multi-tonal sound near them. They stared at the two robots who shared the look, retaining their emotionless expressions, not that they could help it.
"Hello?" Luna yelled out. "Can you understand us?" she asked loudly. She shook her head when the creatures gasped and backed away, knocking a basket of fruit over. "I don't know what these things are, but I don't think they even know our language. They're not robots. I can still detect biological functions," the blue machine told her sister. She dragged a hand across her face.
Celestia moved forward, startling the group who seemed more curious than afraid of what was before them. A few had already fled, though, much to her dismay. The white machine detached parts of her chassis, using them to collect the fallen fruits and place them in the now-upright basket. Those that remained stared in awe as the machine reassembled itself and its systems fully recovered, allowing its body to fully hover and 'hair' to flow fully once again.
"My systems are functional again, sister," Luna announced as she floated up to Celestia. "My energy stores are glitched, however. It fluctuates between one hundred and one hundred and one percent."
Celestia stared at the tiny equine creatures while she held the basket. "I can conclude the same thing, sister." Her lights dimmed briefly. "That implies the air is saturated with refined blue energy, something that is impossible with its properties."
The white machine passed the box to one of the equine creatures who just stared at the box silently. Celestia deposited it gently at their feet, or maybe hooves, and resumed talking with her sister. "We should check our internal clocks," she proposed to her sister.
Both of them paused, and their bodies started shaking while their lights fluctuated wildly in intensity.
"It says it's been a little over three million years since last we activated," Luna wheezed in disbelief.
Celestia remained silent. That explained all the colors everywhere, and the trees, and the hills, and the rocky outcrops, and the mountains, and...Wait. No it didn't! She looked around again, somehow staring past everything yet still taking it in. What happened to the blue? The city? The technology? Their friends?
"Celestia, look," Luna whispered.
One of the equines had an outgrowth on its forehead. It had become engulfed in a blue light that surrounded the entirety of the basket and raised it into the air.
"I thought they were organics," Celestia said.
"They are!"
With some hesitation, one of the equines approached the two machines and spoke to them. Well, they assumed it was speech. Following all the information she retained, Celestia deduced it was speech. The facial movements, the length of time they were producing non-monotonous tones, and the body language they added all amounted to what she believed to be speech. If the two robots wanted to survive in this new world and learn what happened to their home, they would need to follow these creatures. At least, so they could get a foothold.
The two floated after the equines after they had an argument about whatever had been told to Celestia who followed. They eventually entered the forest where they made first contact with the new flora and fauna of the world. Plant-life they had never seen before, animal life that was unique and bizarre to them. The insects seemed relatively small as well. Far different than what Luna had seen underneath that artistic district with the charred machine. However, now was not the time to take in everything. After some walking, the group happened upon an artificial clearing where these small equines were actively cutting away at some of the vegetation using bronze and iron tools.
They immediately stopped when they saw the two floating machines break the treeline, following the gatherers. The home of these tiny creatures was an assembly of mud huts with straw roofs. It seemed they were on the verge of inventing thatch judging by a pile of messy yealm that had yet to be properly dried and was very crooked, with many pieces of straw sticking out in every direction.
"They possess bronze and iron tools but only using mud huts?" Luna whispered to her sister.
"That iron is not properly made yet," Celestia whispered back. "It seems to be getting damaged faster than the bronze tools. I imagine they only took a shine to them because they're sparkly," Celestia said humorously.
"This is no time for puns!"
Ponies were fathering fluffy white substances from an artificial wall made of wood covered in vines. Whatever it was, it was being beaten and placed into other baskets to be taken elsewhere. The harvesters dropped their new harvest and knocked on the largest hut in the village. Several more of the equines came out. Some had a much smaller nub growing on their foreheads, while others had fleshy outgrowths on the side of their backs. What they all had in common was their age. Celestia could see wrinkles present through their fur somehow. Both she and Luna remained silent.
A blue one with a yellow-gray mane a stub on their forehead stepped forward after the initial shock and looked at both Celestia and her sister. They walked around the silent machines until it paused at Luna's side, its eyes locked onto a feature of her chassis. It trembled and called the others over. They all acted similarly: Panic on approach of the floating entities followed by various forms of shock, awe, amazement, joy, horror, and whatever else emotions they kept bringing up to a confused pair of robot sisters. The nub-headed one stepped forward and started speaking loudly to its tribe.
"Have you noticed something about this small village and these tiny creatures?" Celestia asked.
"Yes. They seem to have paraphernalia depicting a joint sun and moon scattered around the area. I saw some carved into the tree trunks when we were coming here," Luna explained as she looked around. "An interesting development."
"Oh," Celestia said with disappointment. "I wanted to point all of that out," she pouted.
"Did you even notice the giant statue these huts were centered around?" Luna spat at her sister.
"N-no."
"Then turn around," Luna explained. "It's actually quite charming. I'm sure Dissonance would have liked that," she said with a trembling voice and body.
There was a giant statue carved of some sort of white wood. Whether it was natural or these creatures found a way to bleach it was unknown. Regardless, it depicted two similar creatures intertwining and ending with their backs turned to each other. Their bodies were far more elongated compared to the ones who carved them. The base of the statue depicted a flowing cloth of sort that engulfed their lower torsos, leaving only their top halves revealed. Their forelegs were outstretched at two different elevations and their heads were pushed backwards so as to make their muzzles point almost ninety degrees into the air. They both had very long protuberances on their foreheads and wings on their backs, somehow. These wings joined together behind them, leaving the ones facing the observer pointed downwards. The wings 'held' the joint sun and moon symbol Luna had been speaking of. In-between the necks of the figures, however, was a giant, polished circle messily painted red. Some of it had spilled onto the rest of the statue. Whether it was intentional or not, the sisters didn't know, but judging from the technology level of the two, they were certain it wasn't.
The older equine approached the two and bowed to them. An action that was quickly followed by the others. When it rose again, it spoke something to the sisters, but, as it waited, its smug grin gradually dissolved. It kept trying to ask something of the sisters and began to panic when Luna responded with a tilted head. The crowd started to grow more and more aggressive and started approaching the older equine. He fell to his rear and slowly backed away into the floating legs of the two who were quick to assess the situation and move in front of him, shocking the others who were quick to back away.
The equine started crying whilst on the floor, likely saying something of the sisters, but they couldn't understand. Then, one of the equines had an idea. They reluctantly approached the two, said something to them, and frowned pensively when they didn't respond. The female -judged by its stature and vocal tones- approached one of the huts next to the largest and pointed to it, producing a single word. She repeated the word multiple times until the sisters caught on and, with some difficulty, repeated the word. The equines looked at each other, confused.
"What happened?" Twilight asked.
"Well, as it turns out, and as I'm sure you guessed already, they thought we were their gods of the sun and moon come to the world in physical form," Luna explained.
"Aaaaaand because they had never seen anything like us but we still had vague, equine features, that stuck," Celestia added. "The problem was, we weren't, and we couldn't speak their language."
"So, when that elder tried to speak to you and you didn't respond, the others took it as their gods shunning him," Twilight realized.
"Yes, and it's only with the intervention of that mare that the tribe understood that we actually didn't understand their language," Celestia explained. "In fact, several of them believed different things about why, but most of them came under the consensus that, because we were gods, that we didn't speak conventional 'mortal' languages."
"Yes," Luna chuckled. "We spoke our own language and only understood the intentions of the mortals," she laughed.
"I mean...you do," Twilight chuckled nervously.
The two looked at her together. The pony shrank, interpreting it as a glare, but the two exchanged looks again and shrugged.
"I suppose you're right, Twilight Sparkle," Luna conceded. "But it is because we are machines with observational skills and preinstalled programs allowing it, not because we are gods."
The lavender alicorn maintained her sheepish smile. "Still, you have to agree that it is easy to see it that way for them," Twilight stammered.
"Be that as it may, we still had to learn about them and their customs," Luna said.
"We figured from everything that we observed and learned from these ponies that our world truly was gone," Celestia lamented. "We thought some remnants would be around, but..."
"But a few million years is a long time," Luna finished.
"Still, because we are robots, we learned everything they were teaching us far quicker than any of them could have expected from a normal pony."
"They thought it was because we had come to their world to learn of their ways and bless them with a bounty or blessings or somesuch," Luna waved away.
"But that one mare that helped us was called Samsut Sp-" Celestia purposely waited before finishing that word. Twilight's eyes grew wider at the suspense being created by her former mentor. "-ooler!" she blurted out. The white machine laughed heartily. "Thought I was gonna say 'Sparkle' didn't ya!" she laughed.
"Sister, please," Luna pleaded. "It's not the time for games," she said.
Twilight felt a heavy change in the atmosphere, one that got stuck in her throat and weighed on her chest for some unknown reason.
It was night, and the ponies were sound asleep in their huts, somehow relieved that their gods were now present and didn't need to sleep. They would watch over them, and nothing would dare to mess with a physical god, after all. The sisters stared at the somewhat intricately carved statue, taking in its features and noting all the mistakes and what could have been done better.
"The wings are uneven," Luna said.
"The flowing patterns at the base are good, but too random. The sizes don't make sense at places."
"Hooves were carved. They're just blocks of wood left over."
"Needs varnish or another substance to help conserve it."
They returned to silence and watched as the moonlight broke through the artificial opening the equines had made through the treeline just behind the statue.
"What now," Celestia muttered. "Everyone is gone."
"Y-yes..." Luna trembled.
"No more of the brash tone of Rahllup," Celestia added.
"No more of Biddydee and her needing to hold that fire-face back...or her obsession with the fauna."
"She didn't even get to see any of the animal life we had," Celestia lamented.
The two continued staring at the statue, as though they wished it would send them back in time. They had just started their adventure. They were going to meet others. How would they have been like.
"No more of Galah's systems overloading and crashing through walls and vehicles," Luna laughed. Each simulated sound weighed heavily on her systems.
"We won't see him fighting Rahllup constantly and her arms just falling off in the confrontation," Celestia added.
"Nor Dissonance and their flamboyant behavior and voice of reason unless it's to mock someone or look for an excuse to not work and just observe."
Their power reserves were still flickering from one hundred to one hundred and one percent. Despite everything that happened and everything they had done today, their power was not going down, and the two could feel it wasn't a glitch in their systems or a display bug.
Luna 'gasped' and dropped her head into her hands while shaking left and right. "The stowaway!" she whisper-yelled. Celestia's optics flashed bright for a moment. "Without us it'll have been stuck behind! I promised it we would be with it until it felt comfortable to leave on its own. And the infants," Luna lamented. Her voice cracked as though she were on the verge of crying. A first for robots.
"We're all alone now," Celestia added. "Is there any point to us continuing?" she wondered. "We're still machines, she said as she turned to her sister. "We could still--"
Her words remained in the spool when she saw something push against her sister's right arm. Looking down, they could see a tiny infant pushing against Luna's arm. It was a small, mint-colored thing. It had no mane but possessed a tail. In place of its mane was a long strand of burns and claw marks. Likely the infant was attacked and the equines cauterized the wound. Despite the tremendous pain it was likely in, it was still here to greet the two machines late at night.
Celestia lowered herself and picked it up in both arms. It was a tiny thing. So fragile. The whole of these creatures were. They were just barely beginning civilization, but they were persisting and showed no signs of stopping. The wounds would never heal, but perhaps they could help guide these creatures and aid them in improving their lives. Eventually they would get answers to what happened and have closure, but until then, these beings would depend on these two they had taken a liking for.
"Perhaps all is not lost after all, sister," Celestia realized meekly. "Perhaps there is a world to explore yet, in honor of our friends."
Twilight remained silent as the two princesses stared at the floor in silence and pain. They gradually enveloped themselves in magic, returning to the forms Twilight was used to.
Celestia gave Twilight a weak smile. "Well, that was the whole story about what happened," she said.
"A robot looked at a building and then became sapient and traveled the world until her sister and her fell asleep and awoke as gods," Luna teased to lighten the mood.
"That's too oversimplified, Luna," Celestia complained.
"I have some questions left," Twilight said.
"Then ask them, former student," Luna said. "It will help us recover.
Twilight cleared her throat. "You acquired these bodies...how?"
"Magic, Twilight," Celestia said. "Or, more importantly, decades of studying it alongside the ponies and learning how their bodies work. It took forever to form everything properly, but, in essence, our bodies are artificial flesh and blood made by magic in which our 'minds' are transferred." She tapped her head. "Our true bodies are kept in our minds, if that makes sense."
"It doesn't really," Twilight sighed.
"Well, that's fine, I suppose. The spells were only made for us anyways," Celestia said with a shrug.
"And we learned that what flowed through us was 'magic' after my sister and I accidentally caused an entire loom to rise into the air and compress onto itself," Luna added before Twilight could ask. "We learned the basics of controlling them from those with the more developed nubs on their head," Luna said while tapping her horn. "Always had a sensation of the blue within us, which made us realize that the blue and the black had potentially merged, but we still don't know how magic came from that. Decomposition? Long incubation? Their combination mutated the world into what you see before you." She looked to her sister, and a devilish smile grew across her face.
"What are you thinking of, Luna?" Celestia asked worriedly.
"You should have seen my sister when we first developed our mouths and stomachs," she chuckled. Celestia jumped onto her sister, trying to wrestle her into silence and submission. "She ate the village's whole supply of cakes! They were furious!"
"You're so annoying!" Celestia backed off and pouted. "As for our bodies-"
"You took on the forms of those figures from the statue," Twilight interrupted. "You became their alicorns."
Celestia nodded in surprise. "Yes! We became their alicorns of legend: Imbued with the power of their future children. They were ecstatic because they believed that we had finally decided to live as them and so forth with whatever their faith entailed at the time," she said while twirling a hoof. "Those aspects are uncomfortable to think about."
"But, we did make many friends," Luna said. "So many. So much uniqueness over the years." She put a hoof to her chest. "But none will replace the ones we met, and not a day goes by that I don't regret leaving that stowaway behind."
"But princess, it wasn't your fault!" Twilight exclaimed.
Luna raised a hoof to interrupt her. "I know! I know, but pains remain regardless."
Twilight sighed and rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. "One thing still perplexes me," Twilight said. "You said that millions of years passed since then, yes?"
Celestia nodded. "Yes. What bothers you?"
"Well, that old maker said that you might have started disconnecting from your...your internal clocks." Her face wrinkled. "I can't believe I just said that," she mumbled. She cleared her throat and righted herself. "Is it possible that it hasn't actually been that long? Maybe being deactivated for so long and reawakening after being doused in magic disconnected you completely?"
The two mares laid down, exhausted and sleepy.
"Highly advanced machines that the world had yet to see," Luna wheezed.
"Filled with knowledge of constructing machinery that could place our ponies instantly next to the barrier that could send them into space travel," Celestia continued.
"And we couldn't even realize that," the two wheezed in unison.
Luna dropped her head into her palms while Celestia just bent backwards at an unnatural angle.
"Does that mean there could be remains of the old world?" Twilight asked.
"There's more of a chance than there was a few minutes ago!" Celestia yelled angrily. She pounded her chest. "I'm more determined than ever, now!" She looked to her former student with a bright smile. "Let us leave this place and return to Canterlot. I believe a large supply of stress pancakes is in order," the sun princess declared.
"I'll second that motion," Luna added eagerly. "I want a ton of blueberry syrup on mine."
"I have to say, walking was one of the most difficult things to learn," Celestia blurted out.
"Really?" Twilight wondered aloud. "I would have thought there were...ahem, other functions that would have been more difficult."
As the three emerged from the cave, they took in the fresh air and looked at the setting sun. The princesses had made an automatic spell to take care of the orbits of the celestial bodies while they were away, just in-case. Now the sky was a deep orange. They flew away, regaling Twilight with the tales of what had happened and why they chose to make Canterlot so close to where they had awoken. What they weren't aware of was a figure that was watching them from behind. Its limb was resting against the mountain wall, just around a corner before the cave. It snorted harder and harder as it watched the ponies fly away until it crushed the stone with one movement followed by a garbled screech.