2300 AD
Magno Dome
After parting ways with Spitfire, the trio had resumed their journey to the east. While they did reach Magno Dome as planned, they had also encountered an unexpected complication.
“That’s not funny, Twi.”
“It wasn’t a joke, Rainbow,” she said with a frown. “I don’t see a Gate anywhere in this room. Do you?”
“Come on!” Rainbow Dash fell onto her back, flailing her legs in frustration. “We were this close to getting back to a year that had food in it!”
“But I thought there was supposed to be a Gate here. I mean, that’s what the big bright screen in Carrij Dome told us, right?” asked Pinkie Pie.
Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes, nodding solemnly. “Right, and I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the information center’s records. Which means,” she declared while pointing behind herself, “it must be in there!”
She was motioning toward the large silver door that stood predominantly on the back wall of the room. Instinctively, the three friends knew that she must be right, if only by process of elimination. Like the other domes of this era, Magno Dome featured only basic furnishings: an Enertron, a few control panels of unknown use, and copious amounts of scrap and refuse. The large door was unique to all the domes they had visited thus far, which directly implied its importance. It was also locked tight, making it doubly important. It was as if fate itself were taunting the ponies, holding the Gate just out of hoof’s reach.
This didn’t deter them from giving one last futile attempt. Rainbow Dash gripped the door’s latch with her hooves, and flapped her wings with all her strength. “Why does this stupid future have so many locked doors?” she grunted. “First, all those blue glowing ones; now, this big silver one.”
“Oh yeah, those glowy ones with the weird logo? I wonder...” said Pinkie Pie, raising her eyebrows. Her moist tongue slowly emerged from between her lips. Shivering gently, she closed her eyes and leaned forward. Her pink tongue gently caressed the door, running delicately along its steel surface and leaving a light trail of saliva in its wake. She turned back to her friends and beamed. “Nope! I guarantee that this is a different type of door.”
“Pinkie, that’s gross! Cut it out,” chided Rainbow Dash.
“Okay,” she obliged with a disappointed sigh. “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. I mean, we couldn’t get those tastier doors to open, either.”
“So what are we supposed to do? The stupid thing won’t budge,” complained Rainbow Dash. “There’s nopony here who we could ask for help. Twilight, can’t you use your tools, or magic, or whatever? Twi?" She turned to locate her friend. Behind her, Twilight Sparkle was standing motionlessly at the edge of the floor, staring down into the gap that ran along the room’s perimeter.
“Twilight? Twiiilight?" Pinkie Pie bounced across the room. “Whacha looking at over there? Did you find a different way inside? A cake? A pair of trousers? A mid-tonic? A—" She reached the edge and peered down into the gap alongside her friend. She gasped, promptly dropping her train of thought.
“What? What is it, you guys?"
Twilight Sparkle’s horn ignited with a magenta hue. The object that was captivating her attention slowly levitated out of the pit and into the air. She stared upward, transfixed by her discovery. “It’s a pony.”
This was not the first equestrian-shaped automaton that the three ponies had encountered in the future. After all, Rainbow Dash had just won a race against a jet-pony earlier that afternoon. But the robots that they had seen before were simplified and abstract; they only captured the basic essence of a pony. By contrast, the machine in front of them had been meticulously crafted to resemble the race of her creators. At a sufficient distance, one might easily mistake her for a living pegasus.
However, from Twilight Sparkle’s close vantage point, it was easier to spot the robotic elements of the mare. Her wings were molded like normal pegasi wings, but supported with hydraulic pistons and tiny thruster engines. The steel plates that composed her body were lined with rivets at most points, or with hinges at the occasional access hatch. A steam compression tank sat lengthwise on her back between her wings, with an exhaust vent that ran up the back of her head and ended just behind her left ear. Her large eye panels were currently black and empty, confirming that she was inactive. Even her paint job emphasized her derelict state, as her once-vibrant yellow coat and pink mane had become worn and faded with centuries of abandonment.
Twilight Sparkle’s eyes glistened. “This is amazing,” she whispered in a reverent tone. “I had no idea that the ponies of this era could make such a realistic robopony.”
“She sure is something,” Pinkie Pie said. “It looks like she’s broken though.”
Twilight Sparkle gently set the mechanical pegasus down in front of her. She slowly reached out toward its sculpted mane. She nervously pulled back at the last second, before steeling her resolve and resting her hoof on its sculpted pink mane. With a gentle hiss, a section of the mane lifted along its hinges, revealing her internal circuitry. “Sun’s rays, these electronics are advanced,” muttered Twilight Sparkle. “Though I suppose there were bound to be a few innovations in robotics in the past millennium." Puzzled, she stuck her face inside the hatch to examine the futuristic circuitry. “Still, some of these parts are obviously damaged. If we could salvage some replacements from the scrap in this dome—”
“Whoa-whoa-whoa, hold it right there, Doctor Frankenmare,” objected Rainbow Dash, landing beside her friends. “You want to repair a broken-down robot, just so it can go berserk and attack us?”
Twilight Sparkle threw her friend a look. “Right, because all robots are homicidal maniacs. Like your racing pal from earlier today." She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, she’s a machine made by ponies, Rainbow. I can make her incapable of attacking us. It should be completely possible to program her personality to be—” Her voice trailed off as she stared into the robot’s darkened eyes. Her own reflection stared back at her. “Anything we want.”
Her friends’ eyes lit up. “Anything?” gasped Pinkie Pie excitedly.
Rainbow Dash rubbed her chin, grinning broadly. “Aww yeah, now you’re talking. Just think: our very own robot servant! She can do all our chores, cook us food, give us massages—”
“She could be the best play buddy ever,” rambled Pinkie Pie. “Golly, we could program her to play tag, and hide-and-go-seek, and house, and cops and robbers, and doctor, and TV courtroom drama, and,” she added with a squeal, “oh my gosh, the parties! With a party planning assistant, I could throw a party every single day.”
Rainbow Dash playfully jabbed her friend in the ribs. “Hey, look on the bright side, Twilight. If we can really make her do anything, we could even program her to be friends with somepony as lame as you." She snickered, waiting for her friend to lash back with a barb of her own. None came; Twilight Sparkle stared silently at the machine in front of her. Rainbow Dash flinched. “C’mon Twi, you know I was just busting your chops. Like we usually do, y’know? I didn’t really mean it.”
Twilight Sparkle blinked, turning away from the robot. “Hmm? Oh sorry, I zoned out there for a bit. I know you didn’t mean it. Really, it’s fine!" She smiled reassuringly as she pulled out a quill and parchment. “Anyway, you and Pinkie Pie should get comfy. This could take a while.”
Hours rolled by as Twilight Sparkle toiled away on the damaged pegasus. She happened to have packed a reference manual about electronics in her saddlebags, but it quickly proved to be inadequate. The book was written several centuries before this robot had been built, and it didn’t cover any of her futuristic circuitry. Even so, Twilight Sparkle was determined to reverse-engineer the robopony. The floor of the dome quickly became littered with notes, schematics, theories, and checklists.
In the front of the dome, Rainbow Dash was curled up in a corner, peacefully napping. Pinkie Pie contently hopped about the room, humming absentmindedly to herself. They had both offered to help Twilight Sparkle at first. Unfortunately, they were unable to assist with the schematics or theorycrafting; Twilight Sparkle was already struggling in this area, and her friends lacked her level of technical knowledge. Instead, she had sent her friends to scavenge for the replacement parts she needed. This too proved to be counterproductive, as their energetic behaviors resulted in more parts being crushed than rescued. She eventually suggested that the two of them relax for a while, and let her take care of the repair efforts by herself.
Piece by piece, the pegasus was restored to its original condition. The master checklist began to dwindle as each subsystem was tested and confirmed. A few tests failed spectacularly due to a misunderstanding of resistor labels, or soldering a circuit board incorrectly. However, with each mistake came learning. She marched tirelessly toward the correct solution, one hoof at a time.
At long last, Twilight Sparkle wiped her brow with her hoof. She walked toward her waiting friends. “Okay girls, time for the moment of truth.”
“Sweet!” cheered Pinkie Pie. “So you’re ready to flip the switch?” She eyed the robot from across the room.
The mechanical pegasus was laying down on her belly, with her hooves tucked underneath her torso. Her head drooped slightly under its own weight, with a single access panel in her mane still resting open.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Twilight Sparkle sighed. “Besides, if this didn’t work, we’ll find out pretty quickly." Her horn lit up as she prepared to activate the robot from across the room.
“Wait,” interrupted Rainbow Dash, “you remembered to change her personality, right? A maid robot that won’t murder us in our sleep?”
Twilight Sparkle paused, closing her eyes. “No, Rainbow. I’m not programming her to be our servant. I want to be friends with her.”
“Aww, seriously?” whined Rainbow Dash. Her disappointment quickly turned into ambivalence. “Well, okay. Setting her to friendly mode is fine too, I guess.”
Twilight Sparkle shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I want to earn her friendship. I’m not going to alter her personality at all.”
“What? Why not?”
Twilight Sparkle averted her gaze awkwardly. “Well, the truth of the matter is, I’m not that great at making friends—”
Rainbow Dash’s face went pale. “Aww jeez, you’re still stuck on what I said earlier? I was just giving you a hard time. I’m sorry, seriously!”
“It’s true, though,” she replied with a weak smile. “You and I have been best friends since we were little fillies, but with all my inventing and studying, I never really had time to make any other friends. I mean, heck, when I met Frog and Pinkie Pie, you saw how smoothly things went.”
Pinkie Pie smiled and dismissively waived her hoof. “Oh Twilight, don’t even worry about that. You and I are totally peachy now! All that princess stuff is yesterday’s news." She frowned, rolling her eyes upward to think. “Or was it two days ago? It’s tough keeping track of time with these Enertron naps and no sunlight.”
“Thanks, Pinkie. All the same, I want to start things off on the right hoof for once. I’m sorry. I realize that I’m being really selfish,” she lamented, casting a glance at the inactive robot in the distance, “but this means a lot to me. I want to earn her friendship. I... I want to be a better friend.”
Rainbow Dash threw a hoof around her friend’s shoulder. “Aww, stop apologizing already. It’s a sappy reason, but not a bad one. I guess I can live without a robot maid, if it means that much to you. Let’s at least flip that one switch so it doesn’t attack us—”
“Okay! Flipping the power switch,” Twilight Sparkle excitedly replied, activating the robopony with her telekinesis.
“You moron!” groaned Rainbow Dash. She shoved her friend backward, out of harm’s way. She leapt between the robot and her companions with her katana held in a defensive stance, waiting for the robot to make the biggest mistake of her synthetic life.
Seconds ticked by. Nopony moved a muscle, waiting for something to happen. The robotic pegasus laid motionless in front of them. Pinkie Pie coughed quietly.
Scowling, Twilight Sparkle walked up past Rainbow Dash. “Great, just great. False alarm, girls. Something must still be wrong with the circuitry. I bet you ten bits it’s the voltage on the optics circuit. I couldn’t find an exact replacement part so I had to get a little creative." She poked her head into the robot’s access hatch. “This should only take a second.”
“Um.”
“Gyah!” screamed Twilight Sparkle, leaping backwards.
“Eep!” the robotic pegasus meekly exclaimed. She rapidly kicked out with her hooves, scraping her metal body across the ground. A light puff of steam escaped from the vent behind her ear.
Twilight Sparkle held up a hoof against her racing heart. “Oh my goodness, you startled me!” she gasped, looked over at the robot. “I thought you were still deactivated.”
The robot’s eyes, once dark and inactive, were now illuminated with a tiny emerald circle that was rapidly darting back and forth. Her wings rattled rapidly against her flank. “Oh my, I’m sorry,” came her quiet response. A faint, steady trail of steam billowed above her. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Twilight Sparkle frantically waved her hooves. “No, you didn’t, I am! Sorry, I mean. Because I startled you. Because you startled me." She scrunched up her face as she realized just how flustered and nonsensical she was sounding. Taking a deep breath, she offered her hoof to the robot. “Let me start over. My name is Twilight Sparkle.”
“Um, hi—”
“Hiya! I’m Pinkie Pie!” she barked energetically, bouncing up and down in front of Twilight Sparkle. “I’m Twilight and Dashie’s friend, and I’m super-duper delighted to meet you. We’re gonna have loads of fun; I just know it! Wanna play Simon Says?!”
Her emerald eyes shrank to a single pixel. “Okay,” she squeaked submissively.
“I’m Rainbow Dash, leader of this group! It’s a pleasure to meet me,” she announced, puffing out her chest. “I’m happy to inform you that you will have the distinct pleasure of serving as our team’s maid.”
“O-okay,” whimpered the robot pegasus. “W-what would you like me to do for you first, M-Master Dash?”
Rainbow Dash squealed. “Master Dash? Oh, I am liking the sound of that! First thing’s first: you got anything to eat? How about you fix us up some ow-ow-ow!”
Twilight Sparkle tugged roughly on her friend’s ear with magic. “We agreed no maids, remember?” she growled through gritted teeth.
“Oh. Heh, right,” she said with a blush. “Sorry.”
Turning from one pegasus to the other, Twilight Sparkle offered a warm smile. “Rainbow was just teasing you. You’re not going to be our maid. We just want you to be our friend.”
“U-understood,” the robot replied. Shaking lightly, she rose to her hooves. “I shall be your friend. Command acknowledged.”
“Wh—no no. Not a command. I didn’t command anything.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“But we still want to be your friends,” chimed in Pinkie Pie.
“Um, okay.”
“Oh shoot, I’m sorry!” gasped Twilight Sparkle.
“All this apologizing is getting on my nerves,” grumbled Rainbow Dash.
“I completely forgot to ask,” said Twilight Sparkle. “What’s your name?”
“My name?” asked the robot. Her emerald eye lights enlarged slightly and stopped bouncing across their panels. However, her wings continued to shake noisily against her sides. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have one.”
“Whaaat?” said Pinkie Pie. “Don’t be silly! Of course you have a name. We can’t walk around saying ‘Hey you’, or ‘robot’, or ‘yellow pegasus’ all the time, can we? That’d be totally rude of us.”
“Um... Oh, I know. I do have a serial number. You could call me by that, if that’s okay with you. My serial number is T-R33.”
“Ooo, T-R33! I like it!” laughed Pinkie Pie. “It’s so totally sci-fi to call a robot by their serial number!”
“No, no, no,” Twilight Sparkle interrupted sourly. “We’re not doing that. She deserves a real name, just like the rest of us." She squinted, intently studying the robot in front of her. Now let’s see, she thought. She’s incredibly shy. Yellow coat, pink hair... We already have a Pinkie Pie though. Emerald eyes. Super apologetic. Umm, she’s a pegasus. Hard to forget that one; I keep hearing the sound of her wings fluttering against her body. She must still be really scared of us. Hmm. She contemplated for a moment. “How does ‘Fluttershy’ sound?”
“Ooo, that’s even better,” agreed Pinkie Pie with a nod.
Rainbow Dash stretched her forelegs behind her head apathetically. “S’alright.”
“I—That’s my new name?” the robot quietly asked. Her shaking wings came to a peaceful stop, and her eyes finally enlarged to their normal size. “Yes, I think I like it very much. T-thank you, Twilight Sparkle.”
She beamed. “My pleasure!”
“So Fluttershy, tell us about yourself!” Pinkie Pie excitedly bombarded her with questions. “What kind of things do you like? What do you do for fun around here? What’s your favorite food? Wait, do robots even eat food? Ooo, can you rub your tummy and pat your head at the same time?”
“What about the door?” muttered Rainbow Dash.
“Oh my,” gasped Fluttershy. Her eye lights expanded beyond their normal size. “Um, there seems to be a problem. I can’t access a large portion of my personal data.”
It was Twilight Sparkle’s turn to gasp. “Can you access your memory banks? Are they damaged? What about the data transfer cables?”
“Oh, no, thank you Twilight Sparkle,” she sweetly replied. “My memory appears to be undamaged, and the cabling seems fine. However, some of my databases appear to be missing." She paused briefly, as calculations whirred through her circuits. “Ah, one moment please. I can confirm my job another way... by... checking... um..." Fluttershy spun around in place, trying to swing her flank out in front of herself. However, her head, neck, and torso were all rigidly constructed without any joints that could flex in that direction. Thus, it was physically impossible for her to examine her own flank. Not realizing this fact, she continued to spin in futility. “Err... I... wait... one moment...”
As Fluttershy spun around, Twilight Sparkle caught a glimpse of what the pegasus was trying to see. “You have a cutie mark! Gosh, I was so busy working on your circuits that I didn’t even notice. I really should’ve checked that first before naming you, huh?”
Rainbow Dash sighed, rubbing her temples.
“Ah yes, I do have a cutie mark. Although, I didn’t earn it like a pony does. It was just painted on at the factory, to represent the job that was assigned to me." Her eyes twitched. “Um, d-did you say you were... working on my circuits?”
“Totally!” said Pinkie Pie. “When we found you, you were all broken down and in the trash. Twilight here popped you open and swapped out your doodads and got you working again, good as new!”
“I was not functional? And Twilight Sparkle repaired me? And she even gave me a name. Oh my goodness." She bowed as best as her rigid frame would allow. “Miss Twilight Sparkle, I... I am deeply in your debt. Thank you so very, very much.”
Twilight Sparkle bore a grin so wide that it was nearly impossible to see her burning cheeks. “Hey, think nothing of it! I mean, after all, what are good friends for? You’d do the same for me, right?" She laughed giddily.
Rainbow Dash blew her mane out of her eyes. Great, now Twi’s getting an over-inflated ego, she thought. That’s the last thing this team needs.
“Anyway, your cutie mark!” said Twilight Sparkle, getting back to the previous topic. “It’s a set of three butterflies: teal bodies with pink wings. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Butterflies? Hmm." She quietly reflected for a moment, before her eyes lit up in recognition. “Oh, of course! You see, I’ve always held a deep love for all living things. The flowers and trees, the critters big and small—oh, and of course, I love all ponies as well." She flapped her wings. “I’m sure that’s what my cutie mark represents. I must be an animal caretaker, or a veterinarian, or—”
“Urrrggghhh!” Rainbow Dash groaned loudly. “Enough with the namby-pamby introductions already! Can we please ask her about the door? If I don’t get something to eat now, I’ll lose my freaking mind!”
“The door?” echoed Fluttershy. She turned around, looking at the large silver door in the back of the dome. “Do you mean this door, Master Dash?”
“Yes! Please! Thank you! You look nice! Pass the mustard!”
“One moment, please." With a gentle hiss from her hydraulics, she trotted up to the door and lightly tapped it with her hoof. “Hmm." She turned, trotted up to a nearby control panel and tapped it instead. “Um, there does not appear to be any power. I’ll contact my supervisor." She turned around and began looking around the dome. Her eyes slowly shrank as she discovered what the other ponies had already known. “Wait, where is everypony? There used to be several ponies who worked here, and some robots like myself. W-why is there just the four of us?”
“Department-wide vacation. Tropical island. They’ll send you a postcard. So, we just need to turn the power back on?”
“Rainbow Dash, she deserves to know the truth,” scolded Twilight Sparkle.
“It’s a super-long story!” Rainbow Dash whined, throwing her hooves in the air. “We’ve already been talking for forever!”
“Honestly! Just take another nap or something,” Twilight Sparkle snapped. She turned back to Fluttershy. “Sorry about my friend. She can be a little impatient,” she growled. “For her sake, I’ll give you the short version. You see, we’re actually time travelers who arrived here from the year 1000 AD.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Oh sure! You’re allowed to tell everypony that we’re time travelers. I see how it is.”
“Shh. While we were in Carrij Dome, we learned that... something really terrible happened in 1999 AD. A lot of ponies died, and the survivors are struggling to stay alive.”
Fluttershy gasped in alarm. “D-d-died? Oh no! That... that’s just awful!”
“It’s okay, though! We’re gonna travel back in time and stop everything bad from ever happening,” said Pinkie Pie. “Except we’re stuck. The next Gate is locked behind that dumb old door.”
“Oh! I can help with that,” Fluttershy happily replied. “You see, there’s a large factory north of here. It has its own power supply, which should still be working. I could let us inside, and then we could borrow some power to open the door.”
Rainbow Dash stomped her hooves on the ground. “Oh hell yeah! We’re back in action.”
“Language, Rainbow. Fluttershy, that would be a huge help!” Twilight Sparkle said. “Are you sure that’s alright? We wouldn’t want to trouble you.”
“Not at all, Twilight Sparkle! You’ve already done so much for me. I want to help in any way that I can. Although, there is one teeny problem. I won’t be able to redirect the power for very long." She lowered her head meekly. “If it’s not too much to ask, could somepony wait here to open the door?”
Rainbow Dash chuckled smugly. “Sounds like this calls for some decisive leadership. That’s where I come in!" She paced back and forth, eyeing her companions. “Obviously, Fluttershy needs to go so that she can let us inside the factory. That means either Twi or Pinkie needs to stay behind.”
Pinkie Pie turned to Twilight Sparkle, beaming. The latter met her gaze, slightly confused. When the meaning of the smile dawned on her, she eagerly returned a smile of her own.
Rainbow Dash continued her monologue, oblivious to the grin exchange. “Now, Twilight knows a ton about all this future machinery stuff. In a place like a factory, that could really come in handy. Plus, she’s a unicorn, and she’s loaded up with all those inventions of hers. On the other hoof, Pinkie Pie offers better tactical support, with her singing and taunting and hyperactivity. That could really make me more efficient when I’m slicing up all the security. Besides, she’s the wild card, and you should never underestimate the wild card—”
“Thanks, Dashie! We’ll be right back!”
“Huh?" Rainbow Dash snapped back to the present. Everypony else was standing in the dome’s entrance, waving farewell. “What? No. Very much no. You’re not allowed to leave me behind. I’m supposed to be the leader!”
“You are,” Twilight Sparkle assured her with a huge grin, “and that’s why you’re getting the most important job of all. Besides, it’s crucial for a leader to know how to delegate.”
Rainbow Dash slumped over in defeat. “But...”
“Don’t worry, Master Dash,” Fluttershy called out as they left the dome. “We’ll have the power back on before you know it.”
Alone in the dome, Rainbow Dash growled, “Twi, I hate you so much right now." She curled up into a ball, muttering to herself.