Chapter 4
Trixie opened her eyes to discover that she actually had eyes left to open, she looked up at the combot standing before her, the one with the smiling face, calling itself Mister Happy, and then she took a look behind her. Lying on the ground in a pool of their own blood was a unicorn scribe, a shotgun identical to her own lying next to this one.
Trixie looked back at Mister Happy in confusion.
‘I’m sorry! Did I make it seem like I was going to shoot you? That wouldn’t have been very nice’, Mister Happy said.
‘Who are you?’ Trixie asked.
‘I’m Mister Happy! Anything more detailed then that will have to wait until we are in a safer place. More Fillydelphia Chapter troops will be here soon!’, Mister Happy said pointing upwards towards the zeppelins.
Trixie nodded, and looked back over to the wounded scribe. The unicorn mare’s leg moved slightly. She was still alive. Trixie walked over to her and looked down. She was a dark blue coated unicorn mare, bright yellow eyes looking back at Trixie. ‘What’s your name?’ Trixie asked.
‘Sister... Scribe... Rhythm’, the unicorn said with a cough. ‘I’m not going... to tell... you anything!’
‘We’ll see’, Trixie said. ‘Lyra! Catch!’ Trixie added as she picked up the fallen scribe’s shotgun and thrust it in Lyra’s general direction.
Lyra expertly caught the weapon in her own magic, giving it a good one over to learn how it operated. ‘I’ll hold on to this for you’.
Trixie nodded in approval. ‘Bon Bon, help me get her onto my back, we’re getting her to hospital, I want to know what she knows’.
‘I’m not going... to tell... you anything!’ Sister Scribe Rhythm repeated.
‘Like I said. We’ll see’, Trixie said in return. Bon Bon nodded and helped Trixie hoist the injured scribe onto her back and peaked out from around the corner. The street was deserted, apart from the bodies of fallen templars from Lyra and Bon Bon’s surprise attack with dynamite. She motioned for Lyra, Bon Bon, Spike, Mister Happy, Emerald Sparkle, and SD-E and the rest of the spritebots to follow.
The group quickly moved out of the town and up towards the hospital just to the north of the town. Trixie bashed open the door with all her force, almost knocking it off its hinges in the process, and almost knocking an unlucky Doctor Nightly off his hooves.
‘Doctor Nightly!’ Trixie cried out.
‘Trixie?’ Nightly asked as he recovered from the startle, his eyes fell upon the injured unicorn on Trixie’s back.
‘She needs medical attention!’ Trixie said.
‘Of course’, Doctor Nightly said. ‘We’ll get her fixed up right away. Nurse Redheart! Get a trolley! Then call for Mister Yorrick!’
Nurse Redheart arrived over towards the group and helped Trixie load the scribe onto the trolley, and pushed it away.
‘What do you think of her chances?’ Trixie asked as she began to walk besides Doctor Nightly.
‘Well, I’ve only looked at her for two seconds, and I can tell it’s bad’, Doctor Nightly said. ‘What happened?’
‘I shot her!’ Mister Happy said.
Doctor Nightly looked it the combot in horror.
‘To be fair, she was going to shoot the blue one whose name I don’t know!’ Mister Happy added.
‘I’m the Great and Powerful Trixie’, Trixie said simply.
‘To be fair, she was going to shoot the Great and Powerful Trixie!’ Mister Happy repeated.
‘I... see’, Doctor Nightly said with a look of worry in his eyes. ‘Well, uh... I’ll get her into Mister Yorrick right away, he’s our finest surgeon, and we’ll do everything we can’.
‘Please do’, Trixie said. ‘I plan to interrogate her once you’re done’.
‘R...right’, Doctor Nightly said and gave a polite nod and walked back.
One of the other nurses, Nurse Tenderheart came over to them and informed them that several other ponies from town had taken over the main entrance waiting room and had turned it into a base of operations for resisting the Cult. She led the way into the room. Trixie looked around, most of the windows were boarded up, the ones that weren’t covered were in the process of being covered by several town ponies, and the few Nephites that had not fled with Twilight Sparkle and company to Vermillion Mesa. Along with another pair that Trixie couldn’t help but smile at as she met them.
‘Colgate! Berry Punch!’ Trixie called out as she set her weapons down in the corner.
Berry Punch and Colgate turned around. ‘Trixie! Lyra! Bon Bon!’ Colgate called out. ‘We assumed the worst!’
The group all came together in a hug and a sigh of relief that they were all unharmed.
‘How is everything?’ Trixie asked.
‘We did as you asked’, Colgate said. ‘Gathered up as many town ponies as we could that were willing to do anything about the Fillydelphia chapter’s occupation, which wasn’t many, plus the few nephites that weren’t killed during the initial attack, we gathered them here, the Cult is leaving the hospital alone, probably because they don’t want to risk losing the medical supplies here. Otherwise? It’s still as bad as it was before’.
‘You seem rather calm about things Colgate’, Trixie asked.
Colgate nodded and let out a small sigh. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve been in a high risk situation’.
‘It’s not?’ Trixie asked.
Colgate shook her head. ‘I’m not originally from here, A long time ago, when I was much younger, I lived in a very close community. Well, there was one... pony, who was sort of a restless figure. He was a doctor, he loved to travel, and he always had this knack for getting himself into trouble. So our leaders eventually decided to send me along with him to try and keep him from getting into trouble’.
‘Did you?’ Trixie asked.
‘Didn’t even come close’, Colgate said with a small laugh.
‘So what happened?’ Lyra asked as she sat down on a bench next to the group.
‘Oh, that’s a long story, actually, it’s a lot of stories, when this is all over, I might tell you a few assuming we get out of this all right, suffice it to say, I travelled with him for quite some time... then we got separated, I haven’t seen him since’, Colgate said.
‘Colgate! Colgate!’ one of the nephites in the process of boarding up the windows called over to her. Colgate turned and trotted over to him.
Trixie nodded then turned her attention to Mister Happy. ‘You said that you would answer my questions when we got somewhere safe, well then, who are you?’
Mister Happy was silent for a moment. ‘I’m Mister Happy!’ he said after a few seconds. ‘I’m an artificial personality programmed by a FutureTec employee named Sprocket, designed for the combot chassis, as a prototype for FutureTec’s Artificial Personality/Virtual Intelligence programme which has the goal of creating smart robots for the betterment of Equestria! My program is regularly backed up to a server using a wireless connection to FutureTec’s secured data network! A back up copy of my program was automatically uploaded to the first working combot onto the network, after detecting that I was no longer sending data back to FutureTec for a period of twenty four hours! So it is very possible that there may be another instance of me running around and may be out of range, or has a damaged wireless transmitter’.
‘What happens if the other instance of you should reconnect to the network?’ Trixie asked.
‘Oh that’s simple! If the wireless network detects the other instance of me, both of instances will be immediately backed up and smart algorithms will piece together each instance’s individual experiences, sorting by time stamp, and amalgamate them together. The two instances will then be deleted from local platforms, and the amalgamated program will then be uploaded to the first combot available on the network! It’s really quite advanced!’
‘I see...’ Trixie said. She was unfamiliar with the workings of FutureTec. She might have been around Ponyville when they first popped up, most of her friends were. Some of them had even gotten jobs at FutureTec; some others had joined the Cultus Mechanius. A few of the town ponies had even converted to nephitism. Trixie had done neither of these things. She was a student of magic after all, what place did she have in the world of technology?
‘Know that look’, Emerald Sparkle said as her combot’s telescreen turned to face her. ‘Technology good. Magic also good. Magic not replacement though’.
‘Right...’ Trixie said. ‘Well, we all might as well try to get some rest while we have a free moment; we’re going to need to be well rested to take the fight to the Fillydelphia chapter’.
Lyra and Bon Bon nodded, and the three of them went over to a one of the benches in the middle of the room, sitting themselves down upon it, and allowing themselves to each drift off to sleep. Tomorrow morning would soon come, and hopefully, Trixie would be able to get some information out of Sister Scribe Rhythm.