//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Angelswift II: The Awakening // by Nevel //------------------------------// Cherry moved backwards, away from the metal pony. It then began to walk towards her and she then ran behind her brother. Lance was backing away, keeping himself between the thing and his sister. He didn’t know what to do. It kept moving closer to him, with each step making heavy clangs against the metal floor. Lance backed up and felt his flank press against the wall. He was trapped. Lance saw the lift was a quick trot to his left and knew it was the only way out. “Cherry! Get to the lift, press the button and then get upstairs!” Lance told her. “I’ll keep it distracted!” “What? No!” Cherry protested. She didn’t want to leave her brother. The thing was getting closer to them. “Cherry, do it now! Go!” Lance shouted, Cherry responded by wrapping herself around her brothers hind leg. “I won’t leave you!” Lance turned to his sister, she was scared but no matter what, she wasn’t going to abandon her brother. Lance turned back to the metal pony and it was already within reach of him. Lance froze up. “Hello.” The thing said to them. Did… did that thing just talk? Lance asked himself. He hadn’t imagined it. “Hello.” It said again. It spoke to them in a male pony’s voice that sounded like it was talking into a tin can. Lance stared at it for a moment longer before replying. “Errr… Hello?” Lance wasn’t sure what else to say, it just kept staring at him. Its left eye was still hanging out, only attached by a few small wires. Its eyes were much smaller than a regular pony eye, yet the metal pony was just as tall as Lance himself. He kept looking at it, afraid to move. “I have never seen pony folk before.” It looked at them both, making a buzzing noise as it moved its head. A spark spit out the side of its neck as it locked eyes with Lance again. “Wha-… What are you?” Lance asked, ever so slowing moving himself and his sister to the lift. “What am I? I am… unassigned.” “Wh-What’s that mean?” Lance kept moving towards the lift and the thing still followed him. Lance wanted to be ready to escape if things got bad. “I have no working status, because I am not willing to harm.” Lance stopped. “What? Harm who?” “Ponies.” Lance felt his stomach knot up. “You mean that, whoever made you… made you to attack… ponies?” “Negative. I was made to create machines to harm ponies.” “What? But… who made you then?” “The machines did.” Lance looked at the thing before him. It was a machine made by other machines? That didn’t make sense to him. There must have been somepony or someone who designed them in the first place. “What is it like?” It asked them. “What? What’s what like?” Lance asked, confused. “Outside. I’ve never seen it.” The robot pony continued to stare at Lance. “What? Never? How long have you been down here?” Lance asked. “I have always been here. Since creation.” “Yeah, but when were you made? How long ago?” “Unknown. There is damage to my memory. My memory files are corrupted.” “Do you remember what you were made for?” the ivory coloured pony asked. “I was made to be part of the creation team. Advanced work rate, slower mobility and weaker design. We made others.” Lance was about to ask what it made, before Cherry came out from behind him. “Made others? Like yourself?” She asked the metal pony. “Negitive. We were programmed to create a larger machine. Stronger and faster than ourselves. Towards the end of the first prototype, I learned that it was designed for the extinction of ponykind.” It stopped talking. “What happened after you found out?” Cherry asked. “I enabled a safety lockdown on it and placed it into permanent stasis.” It said. “I shut down all the facility so that they could never activate or make another machine again. The safety can only be removed by a pony!” “That’s… pretty smart.” Lance said, liking the thing a little. “After the factory was shut down, I was to be dismantled. But without power they didn’t have the resources. So instead I was thrown to the scrap heap from high above. I should have been destroyed, but I was fortunate.” “What happened to the others?” The pink filly asked. “Unknown. Logical answer would be they were reassigned to prepare an assault on Equestria.” What?! An assault from robot ponies on all of Equestria? Lance was worried now. Something like this had to be reported to the princesses immediately. - - - Fire Wire was watching the screen with Moonlight and Rift. She’d found a way to get into the surveillance system and could see every room in the facility. They were watching Lance and Cherry talking to the robot. “I’ve never seen anything like it” Fire Wire said. “That’s a robot, capable of independent thought and communication. It’s amazing!” The dark grey pony with the orange mane never took her eyes off the screen for a moment. “It’s incredible!” Moonlight said. “Imagine having a robot like that with you. Smart. Intelligent. Tough. I’d never have to do my chores again!” She practically had stars in her eyes. “Am I the only one wondering if there are more of those things around?” Rift said, adjusting the guitar strapped to his back. “Oh gosh! You’re right.” Fire Wire said as she wrapped the keyboard in her magic. “I’ve gotta check the rest of the cameras. Who knows what else there could be?” Fire Wire immediately began flicking passed image after image, looking for another anything else like that robot. “Well, I’m going down there to say hello. Have fun you two!” Moonlight took off down the stairs with a skip in her step. Rift moved over to Fire Wire, who was scanning the pictures lightning fast before moving on to the next one. “How’d you learn to do all this?” Rift asked. “Didn’t I say before? I love to learning about this stuff.” She said with a smile. “Yeah, but…” Rift hesitated. “What’s wrong? Don’t think girls can be smart?” “No!” Rift said, backing off a bit. ”I just… Well, what book teaches you how to learn about technology Equestria doesn’t have?” “Oh Rift.” Fire Wire said with smirk. “If you honestly don’t think that our brightest scientist’s haven’t created something similar to this, you should really put that guitar down,” Fire Wire floated the book to his face. “And read a book.” Rift took the book in a single hoof, looking at it. It seemed to be all diagrams and numbers, impossibly long words and some short ones that looked like they were writing in another language. He skimmed over a few pages of it then put it down. “I’ll pass. I think my head might pop if I tried to read just one page.” Rift sat down in the corner of the room and spun around his guitar so it was in front of him. “Mind if I practise a little?” Fire Wire didn’t respond, she kept on searching every camera and every room they would show. The white pegasus strummed a few chords on his guitar, and they seemed to carry through the facility. - - - “But there’s no chance of them getting too far.” The robot pony said. “Worker bots like me don’t have the energy to travel too far without needing to recharge. Most would wear down before they reached Canterlot, unless they powered themselves down to save energy.” “Well, that’s good.” Lance said, breathing a sigh of relief. They could hear the sounds of music coming from above. Lance recognised it as Rift’s guitar. They all stood silently as they listened to it. The music made them feel more at ease, as if nothing terrible had happened. Lance was half way through wondering if the robot had ever heard music before when he heard a noise behind him that almost made Lance jump out his skin. The elevator door behind him opened up and Moonlight jumped out of it. “Whoops. Sorry Lance,” She said, laughing. “I’m just- Oh! There you are.” Moonlight jumped passed Lance to be very close to the metal pony. “Wow, I’ve never seen anything like you before.” “More ponies?” It asked, sounding remotely surprised. “Yes, I’m Moonlight. What’s your name?” Lance couldn’t believe that she was trying to befriend a machine. She didn’t even seem surprised by it. “I don’t have a name.” It responded. “Well, that’s not right. Everypony should have a name!” She said, waving her long dark blue mane out from her eyes. “But I am not a pony.” “Hey, Moonlight?” Lance called out. “Can I have a word?” “Sure Lance.” Moonlight said, turning to face him then quickly back to the robot. “Think of a name, and I’ll be right back.” She winked at it then trotted over to Lance, who had moved away from the robot. “Moonlight. It told me that this place was a facility for building killer robots.” Lance said, trying to keep his voice down. “What? Wait, are you sure?” Moonlight said, taking a look at the robot. “But it seems harmless.” “Yes, it is. Or it says it is. Apparently it was designed to build bigger robots to wipe out ponies all across Equestria.” “No way… How many? Where are they now?” Moonlight asked, her voice getting a little louder. “There’s none left here. And it can’t remember how long ago it was. After it found out what the robots were for, that one there shut down all the power to this place and made it so that only a pony could reactivate it.” “Smart guy.” Moonlight said, smiling. “Yeah, but after that they threw it on the scrap heap, attempting to destroy it for being a ‘Flesh sympathiser’. The rest of them left to mount a war on Equestria. Although if that were true, we’d have heard about that, right?” “Yeah. It’s not like you can hide an army of robots for long.” “That’s what I mean. I think he’s either lying to us, or… something else happened to them. Anyway, he shut himself down so that he could warn any pony who ever might accidently discover this place about something.” “What? Warn them about the invasion?” The white unicorn asked. “No. Warn them about Titan.” - - - A large metal pod stood before Skylar, fixed into the wall. The pod was twice his size, even if he stood on his hind legs. The glass in the front of it glowed a bright green, but he could still see the outline of a pony inside it, lying vertically. The pegasus checked the control panel on the lift platform that he was stood on. Details began to come up on the screen, registering the pod as a discontinued project called “Titan”. The information claimed that the project was stopped because of sabotage. - - - “It says here, that the ‘Titan’ project was locked down into permanent stasis until a pony override code is used on it.” Fire Wire told Rift. She had discovered Skylar in a stasis pod room, where the machines shutdown to recharge themselves. “Also that the programming was never completed.” “What’s the problem with that?” Rift asked, looking at the diagram on the screen. It was showing details of a much larger version of the metal pony from downstairs. This metal monster seemed to have unstoppable strength, a single eye, capable of firing a kind of energy projectile, and was capable of launching one of its own hooves a great distance, which could extend claws like a grappling hook and then use that to lift itself up to higher places. The thought of something like that running around terrified Rift. “Well, apparently it was made to be an unstoppable machine.” - - - “Titan was to be used to attack Canterlot and attack the princesses.” Lance told Moonlight. “To kill them. Then another group of these metal ponies would swarm over equestria, killing every stallion, mare and foal.” “That’s horrible. But why? What’s this all about?” She asked. “I don’t know, and neither does it.” He said, nodding a little towards the machine. It was currently lying down on the floor in front of Cherry who was sitting and talking with it. “And it can’t be awoken, right?” Moonlight asked. “Titan? It can only be awoken by a pony. And no pony would ever do anything that stupid.” - - - Skylar stood before the pod. The screen on the control pad said “Titan: Cancel Stasis - YES/NO?” He looked at the pod. The small computer told the pegasus exactly when the robot inside was designed to do. He wasn’t a fool and no way was he going to let this monster free. The console offered information that included that the pod itself was on a separate power source and that the stasis could only be shut off by a pony. The pod would continue to run forever it seemed, and messing with it would only make things worse. Skylar tapped a hoof on the screen, pressing “NO”. The pod continued to glow green. - - - “I have to shut it down!” Fire Wire said, pressing buttons frantically using her magic. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Rift asked, looking a little worried. “I mean you said that it was permanently in stasis. Why do you need to turn its power off?” “Because if an inexperienced pony accidently found their way down here like we did, and somehow managed to get into that room like Skylar has and then by mistake turn off the stasis pod, that thing will break free and attack all of Equestria. We have to shut down all of the pods in that room to protect Equestria. We shut it down and never let the thing have any more power. In other words, I’m killing it.” Fire Wire, who was having the time of her life not five seconds ago, had suddenly changed after seeing the ‘Titan’ file and now seemed completely focused on shutting it down. “So by shutting the pod down completely, it’ll never be able to power itself on again?” Rift asked. “That’s right. It runs on its own power, recycling its energy to keep the stasis field active. I kill the power, then it’ll never wake up anyway. It’s simple really.” “But if that’s the case, why didn’t the robot that sabotaged it just cut its power back then?” “I dunno.” Fire Wire admitted, then turned to face Rift. Every monitor screen flashed the words, “Titan: Shutdown - YES/NO?” ”Maybe because it wasn’t willing to kill its own kind to save others? Or maybe it wasn’t as cleaver as me?” Fire Wire winked at Rift and then magically pressed the “YES” key. - - - Skylar stood on the platform ready to be taking back up to the elevator, when suddenly the Titan pod stopped humming and then the green glow faded away, turning to darkness. Curious, he stepped closer. Skylar realised how quiet it was now, as the sound of his own hooves were the only noise in the room. He got to the pod and saw that the entire thing had been shut down. Not a good sign. Skylar looked up and down it, wondering what happened. Suddenly a flat red line started to glow towards its head. The beige pegasus never had a chance to react before the pod smashed open, sending glass shards everywhere. He covered his eyes as the glass rained over him and then looked up, seeing a huge metal pony with sharp points for ears and another pair on its cheeks. It didn’t have a mussel like all other ponies did, just a blank oval face and a bright red line across where its eyes should have been. Skylar barely had time to scream before its red eye flashed and fired at him.