//------------------------------// // In the Cyber-Ship: Part 1 // Story: Doctor Whooves and the Rise of the Cybermares // by Xern //------------------------------// After Lyra painted everyone (including herself), she walked over to a box and brought out six pairs of rounded sunglasses. “I saw these and thought that they looked like the Cybermares’ ‘eyes,’” Lyra said. She gave the other four the glasses out they all put on their accessories. Once they all had their wings, glasses, horn and paint, they looked at each other. “This is never gonna work,” Bon Bon said. “It’ll be fine Bon Bon,” Lyra said. “Yeah,” Derpy cheered. “Alright everypony,” the Doctor started, “it’s time we go.” The Doctor slowly walked to the door, imitating how the Cybermares walked. When he opened the door, all five of the painted ponies walked in a way similar to the Cybermares. Even Derpy (who preferred flying) was walking on the ground. With all five on the sales floor, they could see all of the Cybermares outside. None of the Cybermares were looking at the store. The Doctor led the way out of the and opened the door as quickly as possible. However, when he opened the door, he didn’t notice the bell that was hanging on the door, so when he opened it, a distinct jingle was heard. The other Cybermares all looked to find the source of the bell. The Doctor thought for a moment. A dead giveaway that they weren’t Cybermares would be to act like they were being suspicious or show any emotion at all. The Doctor decided to just continue walking forward like the Cybermares were still looking the other way. He hoped that the others would pick up his hint and go along with it. Luckily, his hope paid off. The others followed him out like the bell hadn’t rung. They just walked like a Cybermare. Seeing nothing of interest, the patrolling Cybermares went back to what they were doing before. The Doctor and the others walked into the giant building. The doors were automatic and opened when the ponies got close to them. The inside, like the outside, was made of metal. The other doors in the ship looked similar to the entrance door with opening automatically. There were two hallways they could go down. One led to what looked like a factory. The other was several different rooms that looked like storage rooms. The Doctor looked over to Moon Dancer and whispered, “We’ll go down there and look for a way to turn this place off.” He pointed to the hall with storage rooms. “You all go through the factory and save anypony that hasn’t been converted yet. Stay together, and if you see a big purple box, let me know.” Under his breath, he mumbled, “This would be so much easier with my Sonic Screwdriver.” Moon Dancer nodded and motioned for Lyra and Bon Bon to follow her as she marched down the hallway. The Doctor motioned for Derpy to follow him as they walked down the hall. ***** The Doctor and Derpy walked for five minutes down the hall. The Time Lord was looking back and forth from room to room trying to find anything that looked like it could be like a library or archive room. While the two of them were walking, they could see a Cybermare walking on the other side of the hall coming towards them. The two tried to play their parts and didn’t try to look suspicious. As they walked past, the Cybermare looked back at them, but then kept going forward. After only another minute, the Doctor walked into a room with what looked to be several books. “This must be it!” The Doctor whispered. He went up to grab a book, but it only moved out a bit. When it did, a translucent Cybermare appeared. Derpy was about to scream out, but the Doctor put a hoof to her mouth before she could. The translucent Cybermare said, “Our current plan: refuel the Cyber-Ship, move it out of the forest and to a local city, assimilate everypony there and assimilate the rest of the population of this planet before moving on.” The Doctor looked at Derpy. “Instead of books, they keep things called ‘holograms’ that record them,” the Doctor explained. “It’s been so long I’ve nearly forgotten that. Well, I suppose a few years in Ponyville and even more since I’ve been on one of these will do that.” He then turned his attention to the “holographic” Cybermare. “So that’s their plan. Business as usual it seems.” “But we can stop them, right?!” Derpy asked determined. “Of course we can!” the Doctor replied. “But first, we need to find if one of these shows how to deactivate the ship.” The Earth pony looked around the room then to the “book” he had pulled out. “This could only have been ‘recorded’ recently. They must be in some type of chronological order.” Derpy went up to one of the books and studied it before seeing what looked to be a small Cybermare moving on what would be the spine. “Hey Doc,” Derpy said. “Look at this.” The Doctor went over to look at what the pegasi had pointed out. “Hmm,” he thought. “I didn’t notice that. That might be useful.” After looking, he went back to what would be chronologically the furthest point back the holograms could be recorded. When the Doctor pulled it out, it was a Cybermare with a very different design to the ones Derpy had seen. She looked back at the more resent ones. On the spines were all Cybermares, they all looked the same. Except for a few a little back. On it was a purple mare. She seemed to be a unicorn. She had a darker purple mane with a red streak. When Derpy saw this, she only said one thing. “Twilight?” ***** Moon Dancer and the others were walking down the hall into the factory. There looked to be a conveyor belt that moved automatically that carried pieces of metal. The metal was taken to different parts of the factory that the three couldn’t see. The only thing that they could see was where a piece of metal was bended and shaped by a mechanical arm to look like a horn before being taken to another part of the factory. Besides the Cybermares themselves, this was the most futuristic thing that any of the ponies had ever seen. The Cybermare look alikes continued to walk down the factory seeing more and more pieces of armor being molded. As they were walking, Moon Dancer looked to her side and saw a large room. It had a large blue box and the words “Police Public Call Box” on it. She pointed the room out to the other mares. As low as she could speak, she said, “That must be the ‘Tardis’ the Doctor was talking about! I’ll go in and try to find that ‘Sonic Screwdriver’ he was mumbling about. You two go on, I’ll catch up with you.” The two mares nodded as Moon Dancer walked into Tardis hoping that what she was looking for actually looked like a screwdriver. Meanwhile, Lyra and Bon Bon continued walking down the hall looking for the anypony that hadn’t been turned into a Cybermare yet. They passed the end of the factory. The armor pieces were being funneled into separate rooms. It wasn’t much further until they made it to the assimilation room. The room looked just like any other. Mostly grey from metal. It was a bit bigger than the other rooms though not by much. On the wall at the very end of the room was a line of restraints. Only four of them were in use. The four all had ponies in varying amounts of Cybermare armor on them. There was also a small door next to the last restraint. On the ceiling was a robotic arm, not unlike the ones in factory. Next to it, on the ceiling, was an opening in the wall that a conveyor belt (seemingly from the factory) was going through. The arm seemed to be picking up the armor pieces off the conveyor belt and putting them on the ponies. The pony with the least amount of armor was a red coated male pegasi. This seemed to be the same stallion that Bon Bon and Lyra had previously seen getting dragged into the ship. The next white coated unicorn mare. Her legs seemed to be the only thing that had any metal on them and there was something on her horn that looked similar to a tennis ball. Beside her was a yellow Earth pony mare. She had a bit more armor than the unicorn though not much. The very last seemed to be a unicorn. Seemed to at least. She was almost entirely covered in metal. The only thing that showed there was a pony under all of it was the hole in the head of the armor that showed the side of a lilac mare’s face and horn. For all Lyra and Bon Bon knew, she was an alicorn since they couldn’t see if she had wings or not, but they (correctly) assumed she was just a unicorn. While all the others looked nervous, angry, or at least showed some emotion, she showed almost no emotion whatsoever other than slight annoyance. After a second of the two imposter Cybermares staring at the victims in their restraints, the victims took notice of the two. “Stay away from us!” the pegasi shouted out in panic. His voice seemed very high, especially for a stallion. “Yeah dude,” the yellow mare started, “this is so not tubular.” Her voice seemed more laid back (though still clearly upset) like a hipster stereo type. “Quite!” The lilac unicorn yelled, almost being able to see an artery. She then took a deep breath and he face returned to a mostly emotionless expression. “Yeah,” the white unicorn piped up. “I mean, those aren’t even Cybermares.” She rolled her eyes. “No need to worry.” The ponies in restraints all looked at Lyra and Bon Bon. While most would need to be looking for it, there were some lines of sweat that was slowly, but surely, undoing Lyra’s painting on their coats. The ponies saw that the white unicorn was, in fact, telling the truth. “Who are you?” the red pegasi asked. “Yeah man,” the yellow mare added. “We’re here to get you out of this place,” Lyra quietly responded, signaling for them to do the same. “I’m Lyra and this is Bon Bon.” “And we’ve got some friends that know how to take down the Cybermares. Hope filled the closest three ponies. The, almost entirely armored, unicorn rolled an eye. “Please,” she said, a bit louder than Lyra seemed to have wanted. Do you really think that anypony could take down the Cybermares?!” She almost laughed when she finished the sentence but caught herself and went back to her emotionless expression. Bon Bon simply nodded as an answer. Seeing this, the unicorn rolled her eyes. “Well, leave me here. I’d rather not die in whatever game you are playing.” “Sorry, but we can’t do that,” Lyra interjected. “We’ve gotta save you after all.” “Don’t mind her,” the yellow earth pony said. “She’s been saying all this zippy zap about the Cybermares ever since I got here. It’s really been bumming me out.” “Well,” Bon Bon started, not wanting to start a loud fight and alert the Cybermares, “let’s get you all down here.” “What was that?” a robotic voice asked. Rounding the corner, a Cybermare saw Bon Bon and Lyra standing adjacent from the restrained ponies. “What are you two doing here?” The Cybermare asked.