Chapter 41. The Emo-Room.
The approaching machine frightened almost every creature it met. It was a Dalek, an alien warrior race that kills or exterminates everything it meets. There are very few things that could kill it, but an easy way of shortly impairing them was covering their eye stalk.
Luna dodged the first few beams that were shot at her head by simply moving it. The Dalek yelled exterminate again as it shot another few beams at Luna. This one hit her mane, leaving a sizzling hole right in her ethereal mane.
She literally turned tail as she tried to flee the attacking machine, but she, as hard as she tried, couldn’t find any grip on the floor. She fell down on the floor; the smack rattling her brain.
The monster swiftly approached her and aimed all three stalks, the beam part, the eye part and the plunger part, at her. She heard a soft crackling as the weapon started charging up for another shot.
Just as the Dalek was going to release the shot Luna closed her eyes, waiting for the coup de grace.
One that never came. She heard three taps, sounding like something hard on metal.
Luna slowly opened one eye and looked at the metal creature. It had backed down and was standing next to Martin.
“M-Martin? What are you doing here?” Luna asked as she quickly jumped up and rushed to Martin.
“Me? I’m not Martin, well not technically anyway. I’m his memory keeper. I make sure that his mind and memories stay in one piece. I usually don’t show myself, but when my pet Dalek triggered the alarm I had to come.” He said as he petted the Dalek.
“Why would you have a monster like that as a pet?”
“He makes very good tea and he keeps it nice and clean in here. I usually am too busy indexing and sorting through his short term memory.” He said as the Dalek rode off and went through a door that wasn’t there a minute ago.
“Could you tell me what the real Martin feels for me?” Luna asked, hoping for a simple answer instead of another journey through Martin’s mind.
“I can’t help you with that, but the emotions department could. I’ll give you a map if you want?” He said as he handed Luna a map, which appeared out of nowhere.
“Thank you. I think that I should be on my way.” Luna said as she took a look at the map, taking in the maze like structure of Martin’s mind.
“Wouldn’t you like some tea before you go?” He asked as his pet Dalek rolled up behind him, with a platter balancing on his stalks. The platter was covered in two teacups, a teapot and a plate of biscuits.
“I’ll take one on the go, if you don’t mind.” Luna asked as she looked around the room for the door marked on the map. She soon found it; it was on the ceiling.
Martin grabbed a cup and filled it with tea. He thanked the Dalek after he filled another cup and grabbed two biscuits. He handed one to Luna and gave her a biscuit. “Here you go. Say hi to the emotions guy for me.”
Luna flapped her wings and opened the door with her magic. She said a last goodbye to him as she flew through the open door and ended up in a long corridor. As soon as she moved fully though the door she felt the gravity shift and she stopped flying. Her hooved dropped to the floor as she heard the door shut behind her.
She ended up in a long grey corridor lined with all sorts of doors, none of them marked. She took another glance at the map, but noticed that it had completely changed. She vaguely saw the old map beneath it. The map she currently held showed the corridor and all the rooms, but the rooms were so long that they ran off the end of the map. At the end of her current corridor there was a small room, marked Emo-Room.
She started walking toward that room, since it was the only one that had a marking and it started with Emo. She wanted to speed the walking part up a bit but the corridor seemed to be just too small to fly in. So she walked on, becoming a bit depressed at the greyness of it all. There was nothing happy about this place. Even though she had seen some hardship in her life it was a bit contrast to the general happiness of Equestria.
When she ended up at the door she was a bit hesitant to open it. After standing in front of the door for a few minutes she finally opened it.
This room had walls that shifted color every so often, according to Martin’s emotions. She saw one man sitting in front of a large switchboard and a single screen, filled with shifting bars and graphs.
“Uhm… Hello?” Luna asked quietly.
The large chair in which the person was residing swiveled around. Martin was sitting in it, or a version of him anyway. This version had his hair sticking everyway and a mad grin on his face.
“So you must be Luna. The one the owner is so sweet about, somehow.” He said with a slightly off voice.
“What do you mean with somehow? Explain!” Luna yelled, worried that Martin’s affection wasn’t genuine.
“Yea, this guy. He wasn’t even attracted to ponies before and still isn’t. He doesn’t look at any other pony and not because he’s loyal, he literally cares only for you. He also got as thick as a wall, can’t even pick up on simple signs or take a hint.” He stood up and grabbed at the wall, pulling out a drawer and grabbing a dossier out of it. “These records show that there was a lot of meddling in his brainpan some time ago. I think it was around the time that he arrived here in Equestria.”
Luna was a bit fazed with the fact that there was something wrong with her loved one. “Can you maybe check who has done this?”
“Sure, lemme check the records.” He said as he started flipping through the pages of the dossier. “Ah,” He exclaimed as he pointed with his finger. “The changes were done by someone or something named Discord, whoever that may be.”
Luna’s pupils shrank. “WHAT?!” She screamed so loud that the walls of the chamber rippled. She heard a crash and the walls fell down. The crazy-haired Martin disappeared. She was standing in nothing. Then she felt herself being pulled back.
After one very strong pulling feeling she found herself back in the artifact room, sweating a lot. She threw open the doors with magic and rushed towards Celestia with fear in her eyes.
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Martin woke up, but he noticed that he wasn’t on the couch in the library anymore. He was floating in space. He saw a planet beneath him and concluded that it was the planet that Equestria resided on. He turned around and saw only a yodeling sausage pass by. He heard a voice behind him. “Hello. I thought it was time we finally met.” Martin turned around and saw a draqonuus standing there. It was Discord.