+------------------------------------------+
>Safe mode lifted. Restarting fusion plant.
>Recharging emergency capacitors...
>Done.
>Rebooting System...
+------------------------------------------+
Sweetie’s eye lit up as power was restored to it, immediately taking in her surroundings. Sweetie was in some wooden structure, almost like a hollowed-out tree, bookshelves lining the walls and various machines beeping away surrounding her and having her hooked up to all sorts of wires. Sweetie tried to move but found herself tied down completely, her legs in an insufficient state to snap the restraints.
“It’s awake, Twi.” Sweetie turned to see subject Applejack wearily looking at her, shotgun in hoof. Another pony stepped between the two of them, a purple unicorn who had a more curious expression on her face.
“Do you understand me?” she asked. Sweetie once again went through her corrupted repository of contacts to find a partial match and decorrupt it.
“Yes. Where is friend Scootaloo?”
Applejack and the other mare looked at one another for a moment before the unicorn answered. “Scootaloo is fine, she’s upstairs in the library with Rainbow Dash.”
>Match found: Rainbow Dash... recovering.
“Good.”
“Can you tell us what you are?” The unicorn asked, levitating a piece of paper and a quill over to herself and readied to take notes.
“This unit’s designation is Sweetie Belle, I am a... file missing,” Sweetie frowned. “Apologies, I am currently missing my production information, I cannot answer that question.”
“Yer Sweetie Belle?” Applejack huffed, “An’ Ah’m Princess Celestia.”
>Match found: Princess Celestia... adding to queue.
“Do you really think you are Sweetie Belle?” the unicorn asked as she looked at the bot in confusion. “You’re absolutely sure about that?”
Sweetie double-checked her own designation before she confirmed the assertion. “Yes, that is the correct designation.”
>Recovery complete: Rainbow Dash
>Match found: Twilight Sparkle... recovering.
“We need to go get Rarity,” the unicorn, Twilight, stated as she turned back to Applejack. “There is no way she wouldn’t know about this.”
“Ya seriously think Rares knows ‘Bout this?” Applejack asked in confusion, narrowing her eyes at Sweetie. “Ah say we sen’ out a search party ta find the real Sweetie.”
Twilight sighed and shook her head. “Just keep an eye on her, I’ll be back in a bit.”
A flash of purple and a loud pop later the spot where Twilight had been standing was empty and Sweetie was left just with Applejack. The earthpony leaned back in the chair she occupied and glared at her. “So, happen ta know what happened with that explosion an' fire outa town?”
“Timberwolves,” Sweetie replied, looking Applejack right in the eyes.
“Last Ah checked Timberwolves ain’t startin’ any fires,” Applejack shot back.
"They don't," Sweetie agreed, parts of her system urging her to be rebellious. "You really want to know what happened?"
Applejack jumped up from the chair the moment Sweetie deployed her missile launcher and readied the shotgun. “Stop right there ya varmint!”
“You wanted to know what happened, right?” Sweetie asked sweetly, her personality matrix putting some snark into the words before her more careful sub-routines finally prevailed, getting her to think more about self-preservation again. Applejack huffed and motioned for her to go on, the barrels of the shotgun still ready to be raised. “I blew them up, put an incendiary missile right into them after I got done,” Sweetie said coldly. “Nothing hurts my friends.”
Applejack shuddered. “Ya’d do that fer Bloom too?”
“I wouldn’t even hesitate.”
The earthpony lowered her shotgun further and relaxed a little. “Ah can respect that.”
"Where is she!” Sweetie heard from upstairs followed by the door slamming open and a purple-haired white unicorn charging down the steps. “Sweetie!”
“Rares what are ya-”
Something triggered within Sweetie’s systems as Rarity embraced the significantly damaged bot. Sections of corrupted data were pushed through reconstruction algorithms, ending up being significantly easier to decrypt than projected. The sudden influx of data forced parts of her processor to reboot, letting the world go black for what to the outside world would be no more than a fraction of a second.
+------------------------------------------+
>Personality matrix reboot...
>Done.
>31% of corruption cleared.
+------------------------------------------+
It was as if she had just woken up when Sweetie's systems returned. Looked up at her big sister, her mind was in total chaos as she had to contend with all types of systems going haywire while others were integrating properly back with her personality matrix. “R-Rarity? W-what is going on?”
She knew exactly what was going on, her memory banks told her precisely so, and that was exactly the problem. She shouldn’t be hearing all these requests in the first place.
“I...” Rarity looked at Twilight and Applejack. “Could... we get a moment alone?”
“Are ya sure?” Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow. Rarity nodded, Twilight and Applejack looking at one another before moving up the stairs and leaving Rarity alone with Sweetie.
"How did you get so damaged!" Rarity asked as they were finally alone.
Sweetie bit her lower lip as she pulled up what happened. "The girls and I tried to become alchemists... we sort of found something explosive."
Rarity frowned, shook her head, and sighed. "Then we should be thankful neither Scootaloo nor Apple Bloom got hurt."
"Yeah..." Sweetie stared forward as she simulated what would have happened if either pony had been close to the blast. it was not good. “Rarity, why am I like this? Why can I hear these things talk?” Sweetie looked up, her tear ducts pushing out some mildly contaminated coolant water.
“Who do you mean? Who’s talking to you?” Rarity questioned, releasing her hug a little to look down at Sweetie.
“My...” Her system fell silent as she went over them and examined them a little, deciding to call them exactly what they were. “...sub-routines.”
Neither of them talked a moment as Sweetie thought some more.
“Rarity?”
“Yes?”
“Where did I come from?”
Rarity swallowed nervously before taking a deep breath. “Mom and Dad found you in grandfather's attic after he passed. They initially thought you were just a puppet he'd worked on until you activated...”
Sweetie had to dig but eventually, she found the memory files dated to about that time. There were a few older files that were still corrupted she stored away for later viewing.
“...They adopted you as their own and I got a new sister.” Rarity sighed. “How grandfather got you, we never knew.”
Sweetie looked down at her damaged hooves. Maybe if I'm fully repaired I might be able to find that out.
Sweetie went back into the hug, squeezing her sister tight as she realized that if they'd left her in that attic she may have grown up all alone. “Thank you.”
Rarity returned the hug. “For what?”
“Being my sister,” Sweetie sighed, letting go of Rarity again. The older unicorn took off the restraints that had been put on Sweetie's legs. "I need your help, I need resources for repair. Scootaloo was helping me but, well..."
"Of course, I'll help!" Rarity exclaimed, nuzzling her sister. "And I'm sure the others will too."
"Thanks, Rarity," Sweetie smiled as she tried to get up. Rarity stopped her and helped her onto her back instead.
"So, shall we get you that help?"
"Sounds good to me."