//------------------------------// // 6 - Soft Ripples // Story: Sweet Button Mash // by David Silver //------------------------------// Button made his way home, burdened, but smiling. "Best day in forever," he swore to nopony in particular. "Woo!" He jumped, which made Sweetie's slumbering form fall heavily against him. "Ow… Lesson learned." He avoided bouncing further as he hauled his discharged automaton home. "Mom!" Cream Heart looked up as he came in. "Did you already break her? I thought she'd at least last the day." "She's not broken." He let Sweetiebot slide to the ground. Rushing around her, he grabbed a cord from behind a panel and hurried it to the wall. "And!" He jammed it in with a light spark. "We wait." Sweetiebot's eyes lit up first as a little bar filled rapidly. "Minimal loading sequence complete. Charging. Initiate dream sequence." Cream inclined her head faintly. "Why did you make her dream? It's… Kind of cute, but why?" She poked lightly at Sweetiebot. "What is she dreaming about?" "She's defragmenting her memory, obviously." Button nodded as if that was obvious. "She's sorting through her most recent memories and deciding what to keep and what to toss out." He tapped at his own noggin. "We do the same thing. I hope she remembers how well she did. It was great!" "Great or not, I hope you brought an appetite. Dinner's almost ready, my little engineer." "Aye aye!" Button saluted sharply and fled to his room, giggling. Meanwhile back at the arcade Scootaloo turned to Sweetie Belle. “Okay, I’m legit confused… was Button Mash on a date with you or the robot?” “Scoots!” Applebloom interjected. “That’s just plain mean!” “I mean, I’m okay with it.” Sweetie Belle mused. “I mean, he booted the bill for all three of us at Sugar Cube Corner, and nopony’s suggesting he was on a date with you two!” “Okay, now you're just making it weird!” The diminutive pegasus fluttered her wings in agitation. “Actually, she’s got a pretty good point.” Apple Bloom nodded sagely. “After all, you're the one who pulled Sweetie off to play more modern games…” “Well, that’s because they wanted to play Pac Mare, lame!” Scootaloo argues defiantly. “You're welcome, by the way!” Sweetie giggled softly. "Besides, his toy wore down." "About that." Apple Bloom circled in front of Sweetie. "Are ya totally alright with him havin' a doll made up of ya? He… seems to be pretty harmless with it, but the idea makes me shiver a bit." Sweetie pawed at Apple Bloom. "Don't be like that. All he did was make a pony to play games with, and we're awful busy. I, in fact, am proud to be the coloration of a robot! Did you even look at it? It's pretty neat." Apple Bloom rubbed the back of her neck. “Ah, well sure it LOOKS mighty impressive what he built! Real spittin’ image.” She smiled awkwardly. “Sorry, didn’ really mean nothing bad bout your robo-twin. Just wasn’t expectin’...all that, y’know?” “Psh, I think Sweetiebot’s super awesome!” Scootaloo piped up loyally. “Minus almost wiping out from nerd overload.” She laughed as she hovered around an amused Sweetie Belle eagerly. “But yeah, even I gotta admit, Button Mash totally lucked out scoring a second you to hang with! Even made her love the same old boring games.” She pretended to gag dramatically. “Blech! Who’d wanna play something like Pac Mare for FUN??” Sticking out her tongue, she glanced to Sweetie Belle. “No offense! You were lookin’ pretty into it from what I saw.” The slight tease made Sweetie roll her eyes. “Oh my gosh, that game was like the coolest thing ever!” she gushed sincerely, to her companions’ surprise. “I know Button’s big into those retro games but seeing them in action is a whole different thing! All colorful and bleepy and the way they move?” Sweetie swayed on her hooves reminiscing. “It’s like trying to capture lightning in a jar or something!” Scootaloo blinked. “Wow...didn’t think you were THAT big a fan. Sure didn’t take much to lure ya off to the racing games instead.” Sweetie blushed a little under the gentle accusation. “W-well those ARE loads more fun, duh!” she defended with a nervous laugh. “But the old ones have their charm too!” Glancing off wistfully however her mind lingered on flickering cabinets of yesteryear...and a certain somepony eagerly sharing their myriad secrets. Hmm! She quickly shook herself alert before Scootaloo or Apple Bloom noticed her brief distraction. “A-anyway! We should totally all go racing again once Button fixes up Sweetiebot!” Sweetie chirped, quickly steering the subject onward. Meanwhile, across the arcade, a silvery bespectacled filly fumed. “That brazen little off-white hussy!” “Uh, Silver…” Diamond Tiara watched her friend warily. “Remember we’re reformed mean girls now… we don’t do the whole ‘bully the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ thing anymore…” “It’s not bullying if Sweetie Belle started it, DeeTee!” Silver Spoon crossed her hooves and responded in a huff. “Everyone knows I have a crush on Button Mash! And she used her goody horseshoes whiles to trick Button into building a robot in her image to take my top score on the Pac Mare console!” “You have a crush on Button Mash?” Diamond Tiara cocked her head to the side quizically. “This is the first I’m hearing about this…” “For Celestia’s sake Dee Tee! It’s like no one even reads my diary!” The angry filly ranted. “I leave it just lying around in the open all the time so ponies can stay up to date! I don’t play hard to get, keeping it in my locker, and putting an easy to pick lock on it. Honestly, Dee Tee, that’s why Spike doesn’t know you like him.” “YOU READ MY DIARY?!?!” Diamond shouted at her friend. “Well, yeah.” The silvery filly shrugged. “That’s why you wrote it down, right?” Back at Button's home, Sweetiebot announced evenly, "Charge at 60%. Dream sequence complete. Permission to activate?" Button perked. "Oh, sure, but stay plugged in until you're all the way filled." "Affirmative, completing boot process." Uncountable words and symbols danced before Sweetiebot's eyes as she stood up on all fours, still tethered to the wall. "I had a nice dream! You were in it."  Button perked excitedly as Sweetiebot finished rebooting, playfully pulling her back down into a seated snuggle. “You did?? Tell me all about it!” Always eager to gather data on his automaton’s developing personality, her first dream account seemed a delightful glimpse into how her intricate synthetic mind interpreted their adventures. Sweetiebot scrunched her muzzle trying to parse the chaotic logic of her defrag sequence. “Well...the dream opened with the two of us within a vast cavernous maze as sprites. My chassis configuration resembled Pacmare...” She projected a tiny hologram envisioning the scenario - a beeping, booping facsimile of her bopping along pixelated stone corridors. ”You then manifested riding an augmented craft approximating the glitch level 256 from earlier documentation!” The holographic Button jetted about leaving rainbow contrails. “You kept shouting about...’sick combos?’” Sweetiebot scratched her head. “You awarding arbitrary numeric valuations was...non-sequitur but the environmental rendered beautifully!”  Her expression turned bemused. “However the gameplay scale then enlarged until we became full physical beings interacting with the sprites directly!” The holo-figures promptly grew to lifesize, Sweetiebot waving cheerily at the Pacmare ghosts. One waved shyly back. “At this junction the narrative coherence deteriorated substantially...” Offscreen an animated Pinkie Pie appeared juggling fireflowers and power stars as algorithmic unicorns frolicked by. Button snorted back laughter as Sweetiebot simply shrugged.  “While aberrant, re-indexing the day’s memories into an unrestricted conceptual space yielded some intriguing emergent theming!” She beamed proudly through the now utterly chaotic special effects display, a potted plant fighting Bowser in the corner. “Would you like further detail on my subjective symbolic interpretation?” Button waved a hoof, by now crying with mirth. “Hahaha m-maybe later sweetiebot! I gotta show Mom this though.” He doubled over guffawing at the outlandish holographic carnival. “This is your brain on gaming!!”  Sweetiebot simply titled her head with a faint smile. Organic dreaming defied coherent analysis it seemed! But compiling her experiences into unrestricted permutations made for curiously whimsical reciprocal bonding...giggling, she nuzzled against her silly but beloved creator. What oddly wonderful activities friendship brought! Back at the Carousel Boutique the front door rang the charming spring mounted bell. “Rarity, I’m home!” “Technically darling, you live with mother and father.” The glamorous unicorn giggled at her sisters antics. “If you say so.” Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. “I had the most amazing day! Did you know that it turns out Button Mash really likes me? He built a robot duplicate of me, and we went to sugar cube corner, and saw the Pony Craft movie, and then we went to the arcade, and Scootaloo beat Sweetiebot in Mortal Wormcraft, then I went off with the other Crusader to play Canterlot Race Rally, and Button and Sweetiebot mad a run on Pac Mare trying to get a byte reset! Sweetiebot Almost made it but then shut down and button ran off to fix her! She didn’t beat the game, but she took the high score slot, and I stepped in to put her initials ‘SWB” in the highscore list… which is the same a my initials now that I think about it… huh…” Rarity blinked slowly, trying to process too much information and formulate a response."I… see." She reached with her magic to pet the top of her little sister. "Darling, dear… You're getting about that age… What do you think of this 'Button' colt, hm?" Sweetie blinked cluelessly before it clicked. "Sis!" She pawed at Rarity wildly. "We're not dating! Gosh… But he is a friend, and he made an awesome robot! Isn't that cool enough?" "Very much so." Rarity set the table with snacks and plates. "Very impressive… But he fashioned it to be like you? Isn't that a… signal of sorts? A curious one, but quite clear, I should think." "Rarity." Sweetie rolled her eyes, horn glowing as she snatched a cookie to chew on. "He's a nerd. He wasn't thinking about that, I promise. He was playing a game."  Rarity quirked an elegant eyebrow at her blase little sister. “Playing a game indeed!” Settling neatly onto a cushion to indulge her own cookie, Rarity shook her perfectly coiffed head. “Dear Sweetiebelle, you mustn’t in turn play the innocent now. Why, this Button Mash’s intentions are abundantly transparent!”   She took a dainty nibble, primly batting her lashes. “Making an automaton in your exact image and form is quite the effort for a ‘little game!’ The poor boy is clearly suffering a dreadful case of puppy love.” Her hoof flitted dramatically to her forehead, mock swooning. “To think you saw fit to forever imprint your ponypersona for his romantic diversion!” Sweetiebelle choked on her cookie, sputtering indignantly. “Pffbt whaa?!! Sis NO! Blech!” Wiping her muzzle crossly she shook her head. “Geez Louise Rarity...for real, Button Mash isn’t like that!” Taking a seat across from her sister she counted off rebuttals. “One - he’s the most oblivious goof about crushes ever! Two - the robot’s just as into dusty old video games as he is!”  She flopped back, blowing her forelock in mild exhasperation. “If anything him and SweetieBOT are the couple. Button looks way happier playing geeky junk with her than anything romantic!” Giving Rarity a bemused smirk she added teasingly “Maybe YOU should ask the bot out if you’re so convinced Button’s in a swoon!” Rarity primly ignored the jibe, waving a dismissive hoof. “Bah! Robots replacing real connections...I’d certainly hope as his friend you might set such a poor lonely lad on a wiser path!” She shook her head, curling her tail elegantly about her hooves. “Making the next move remains your responsibility my dear. Not some cold coding no matter HOW dear its visage.” Raising an imperious eyebrow her tone turned sly. “Unless you DO return a certain budding affection? Hmmm?” Sweetie only snorted. “Oh my gosh Rarity, for real - we’re just buds.” Her tepid denial wavered only a moment. Shaking herself alert again she countered “A-anyway I think HIS feelings matter more here! And Button’s totally sweet on Sweetiebot, er, Botsy from how they hang out!”  She bit her lip uncertainly. “S-so yeah, no worries about real connections or anything!” Sweetie nodded firmly, ignoring a strange pang. “I’m sure they’ll be super happy just gaming the days away heheh...” Trailing off, she stared distantly into space. Hmmm...She quickly stuffed another cookie in her mouth to distract any bothersome thoughts! Just a busy day was all...yeah! Rarity hid a smirk noting her sister’s transparent wistful faltering. The lady doth protest too much! She sipped her tea knowingly. “Indeed...well should you change your mind, my door is always open darling!” With that she breezily engaged Sweetiebelle on her OTHER adventures about town that day. But oh, her little crush was plain as day no matter how she denied it! Not that Rarity would directly embarrass her over it...playing matchmaker however? Well now! The fashionista subtly began brewing ideas for some coordinating racing jackets as Sweetie chattered on brightening by the minute...