Archimedes
Chapter II - Unexpected Guest.
The tower was silent, save for the occasional drop of water coming from an unknown source. The tower had seen better days, its outer structure slowly crumbling away as the Everfree slowly reclaimed what was it once possessed, the insides slowly falling in on themselves now played host to a variety of animals who took the ruined tower as their home. Many of these creatures were fast asleep, enjoying the warmth the old tower still radiated in the cold evenings.
However, it was short lived.
Suddenly, the entire tower began to shake, causing some bricks to crumble and fall to the ground. Several animals awoke with a start, birds flying out of the holes they called their home and fly into the sky, causing other birds resting in nearby trees to do the same. A low rumble came from beneath a large trap like door that lead into what seemed to be a basement of sorts, untouched by the wildlife outside.
In the darkened basement, old tables and workbenches rumbled. The dirty and ancient looking beakers and tubes resting on their surfaces rattled, and some shattered not used to such force. The room was suddenly engulfed in a bright, swirling blue light before a large metal contraption, covered in rust shot out of it, crashing into the floor, sending tables, chairs and anything that was unfortunate enough not to be nailed down flying about. The light vanished quickly just as it appeared, and once again, silence engulfed the tower.
As it seemed all was normal again, the metal contraption suddenly groaned loudly and slowly rose from the floor to an upright position, sitting on its backside. A metal appendage reached up to the top of it and rubbed softly. It slowly rose to its feet with a whirring sound as the large device strapped to its back began to splutter and cough out, steam rising from its twin exhaust pipes that stuck in the air.
The machine slowly rose to its feet, the few bulbs adorning its body flickering a dim light, two yellow eyes shone out from its metal body and squinted in the darkness. It blinked, and the two eyes produced twin beams of light that coned out and covered a good distance ahead of it, illuminating the room.
It scratched its head, as if it was trying to remember something. The machine then noticed that its body was covered in rust, further confusing it as to what had happened.
Looking up from its body, it studied its location, scrunching its eyes in concentration. It seemed to only get more confused as the surroundings seemed familiar to it. It took a few steps forwards, its metal feet booming with each stomp as a hissing sound escaped its joints. The metal machine ignored the crunching of glass beneath its feet as it looked left and right, curiously examining each section of the room it was in.
It came to a large workbench and it grunted as it held its head. On the workbench was a very old book, opened up and covered in dust. It picked it up carefully, the book seemingly smaller than normal in its hands and examined it. Something about the book was… familiar. With a shrug, it placed it back on the workbench and spotted some stairs. With a blink of its eyes, it started to head towards it.
As it was walking to it, it noticed a framed painting that still hung on the wall. It walked over to it with a glint of curiosity and recognition in its eyes as it pulled it off the wall and studied it.
In the frame was a white unicorn with a large beard, wearing a rather bizarre outfit that had bells on it. The unicorn was familiar to the machine, but he couldn’t place his finger on who it could be. Smoke started to escape its joints as it concentrated and tried to figure out just who this unicorn was.
A small pop and a spark came from his head as he wobbled and whined, holding his head in pain and shook himself. Then, he saw the other being in the painting and his eyes went wide. It was a pure white alicorn, with a beautiful flowing mane that was standing beside the unicorn with a smile on her face. She too, was familiar to the machine.
As its gears ground inside its head and smoke once again escaped it as it concentrated, it let out a loud, raspy gasp as it suddenly realised who the alicorn was.
“Ce… les… tia…” it rasped in a metallic voice, clearly having difficulty to speak.
It gave a gruff cough into its clenched hand as it focused on the painting again. Why did she seem familiar?
As it concentrated, it let out another raspy gasp and slowly lowered the painting in remembrance.
How could it have forgotten so easily?
It hugged the painting fondly before re-hanging it on the wall and turned its attention back to the stairs and quickly made its way over to them, not caring for what was in its path as tables and chairs got booted across the room with a crash.
It knew what it had to do.
It heaved itself up the stairs and came to the large door that kept the room in darkness and with one swift punch, it broke the lock and the door swung open.
The machine slowly stepped into the lower section of the ruined tower and looked around. Again, it squinted its eyes as it tried to remember something about the place, but couldn’t. Letting out a defeated sigh, the machine started to walk towards the door.
It grabbed the old looking handle of the door, only for it to snap off and the old door fall forwards with a thud. It blinked and shrugged, crouching down under the door frame and took several steps into the surrounding area before walking down a random path, each footstep making a soft hiss and clomp as it connected with the ground.
The ponies all cheered as Celestia’s carriage slowly touched down on the ground and came to a stop. Twilight beamed proudly as the princess’ and much to her surprise, the prince, stepped off to greet her.
“Hello, Princess Twilight,” Celestia smiled as she and the lavender alicorn shared a tender nuzzle. “How are you?”
“I’m fine thank you, Princess. I’m just glad you made it okay, but…” she leant in to whisper. “Why is the Prince here? I thought he didn’t much care for these types of things?”
Celestia smiled, “He’s trying to be more responsible, plus, he’s come to apologise to Rarity for the Gala incident.”
Twilight nervously smiled, the events still somewhat fresh in her mind. The princess simply giggled as Mayor Mare approached her.
“Your highness, it is a great honor to have you here again. I trust the flight over was pleasant?”
“Indeed it was, Mayor. And I thank you for such a warm welcoming,” Celestia replied, looking around at the decorations. “Might I add that you have outdone yourselves on the decorations!”
Mayor Mare smiled up at the alicorn as the crowd stomped their hooves again in applause. As Celestia, Luna and Blueblood made their way to the podium. The Mayor quickly walked over to Twilight.
“Have you seen Zecora yet, Princess Twilight?” she asked. “I would’ve thought she’d arrived by now.”
“As did I, Mayor. I’ll admit I’m a little worried… but Zecora is one of the bravest ponies, or in her case, zebras I know. I doubt she would have any trouble with the Everfree, given how long she’s been living in there. She must be running late, that’s all.”
The mayor nodded, “Alright, I’ll take your word for it, your highness.”
With a smile, she turned and headed for the podium. Twilight re-joined her friends were Rarity, who was wearing a beautiful white dress adorned with red emeralds, was being chatted away to by Spike.
“Ya really outdid yourself this time, Twi,” Applejack said with a grin. “So far, nothing’s gone wrong unlike last time.”
“Stop saying that,” Dash grumbled. “The more you say it, the higher the chance you’ll jinx it!”
“Oh come now, Rainbow,” Rarity tittered. “Surely you don’t believe in such things?”
“Well no, but this is Ponyville, weird stuff always happens! I just don’t think we should take any chances,” Rainbow replied.
“Sheesh, Rainbow. You sound like Twilight,” Spike snickered.
As the others giggled, the pegasus and alicorn gave the dragon a glare. Fluttershy fiddled with her mane softly as she coughed gently.
“S-so Twilight, where’s Zecora? Has she arrived yet?” she asked quietly.
“Not yet, Fluttershy,” Twilight replied with a sigh. “If she doesn’t get here soon, she’s going to miss the raising of the sun.”
“Want me to fly over to her house and see where she’s at?” Rainbow offered, flexing her wings.
Twilight shook her head, “Not yet, I think she might be running late. After all—”
“Ssh!” Spike interrupted. “It’s starting.”
The group looked up to the podium to see Celestia standing and smiling to Luna. By now, the horizon had a soft, orange glow that clashed with the still dark sky. Celestia then slowly flew into the air and her horn shone brightly as the sun appeared over the horizon behind her and started to rise. The sun was slightly larger than normal and the orange glow bathed the town in a warming light. As it peaked halfway, Celestia spread open her wings and the suns rays shone through her feathers, creating a large shadow of her image on the floor below. The ponies began to applaud and cheer as the sun slowly rose in the sky, the princess’ horn dimmed and she returned to the ground below.
As the festivities started, the girls found a fairly large table at which they could eat their food at and sat down, still talking about the Celestia’s display.
“Amazing, simply amazing,” Rarity said with a smile.
“Got that right,” Applejack agreed.
“It’s a shame that Zecora wasn’t here…” Fluttershy said softly.
“Yeah, maybe we should—”
Rainbow was interrupted as Pinkie started to twitch again and make random noises.
“Wowzers that was a doozy…” she giggled.
“What did that one mean?” Twilight asked, a little nervous.
“Well, it means—”
Pinkie stopped mid-sentence as Zecora suddenly appeared from the edge of the forest, her mane ragged and chest panting as she ran over to them.
“Zecora!” Twilight gasped, rushing over to the zebra. “What happened?”
Zecora panted softly as she tried to catch her breath before she finally spoke.
“Forgive me for how I am, for you see, I was frightened and running from a tree.”
The girls looked at each other as the zebra continued.
“But this was no tree, it was creature I have never seen before... of metal and steam, that frightened me.”
Twilight bit her lip nervously, “Are… are you sure?”
Zecora nodded, but before she could continue, the girls gasped when they heard a faint hissing sound coming from the forest before a thunderous crash filled their ears
Then, they saw it stumble out of the forest, and Rarity screamed.
“WHAT IN THE NAME OF CELESTIA IS THAT?!”
The machine hummed thoughtfully as it kept its slow pace through the forest. Every now and again it would come across a fallen tree or root sticking up, but it didn’t hinder it too much. It noticed that the animals who were nearby were keeping a wary distance of it, seemingly sizing and judging the machine to determine if it was a threat.
It paid no attention to them, naturally. It had one thing it needed to get done and that was what was important, the animals didn’t matter that much to him. As it kept walking, he spotted something moving out of the corner of its eyes and stopped where it was.
It squinted its eyes as the beams of light that came from them scanned the darkened forest for signs of movement. However, it didn’t see any and shrugged its heavy shoulders. The machine groaned as it started again, walking in its straight line until it reached a small clearing. From here, it could see the moon in the sky again, albeit it seemed to have lower slightly.
As it studied the sky, trying to get some form of grasp on what the time was. It felt something lean against it’s leg and looked down to see a strange, pony like creature with stripes. As it poked at its leg, and before it could speak to the pony creature, it heard a growl nearby and looked up slowly to see something he despised.
A timberwolf.
The timberwolf noticed it was being watched by the machine and growled aggressively at it. It didn’t take the machine long to figure out the timberwolf was after the pony creature and something clicked in its mind. Almost immediately, its eyes shone an aggressive red and it surged forward, just as the wolf pounced for it.
The machine grabbed the timberwolf as the beast tried to use its momentum from the pounce to flatten the machine on its back before delivering a blow to the beasts stomach. The wolf howled in pain and pushed against the machine’s grip in a vain attempt to break free. But the machine was having none of it.
It swung its heavy fist again and again into the stomach of the beast as it did its best to prevent the beast from getting the pony creature. Eventually, the wolf broke free and pounced again, aiming for its arm. The beast’s teeth crunched against the metal framework of the machine, making the machine roar in anger. It grabbed the head of the timberwolf with its free hand and ripped it off his other, before slamming the wolf into the ground. Hard.
The beast whimpered in pain as the machine repeatedly slammed it into the ground before slowly grabbing the end of the wolf and hoisting it over its head. Then, with a quick movement, it brought the wolf down hard, right over its knee. The sound of wood snapping echoed around it as it dropped the now limp form of the wolf onto the floor and rested its hands on its hips.
It turned around, ready to ask if the pony creature was okay only to see it running away in apparent fear. The machine’s eyes returned to their normal yellow and it scratched its head in confusion, then, it looked down to the body of the timberwolf and hissed as if it was inhaling sharply and cringed. Realising the display against the wolf might have scared the pony creature.
Deciding the best course of action was to apologise to the pony creature then carry on his task, the machine slowly stomped off after the pony creature, leaving the splintered remains of the timberwolf behind it.
After what seemed like several minutes, the machine was beginning to wonder if the pony creature might have veered off the straight path it was on. It decided that it must have and sighed dejectedly. It grumbled and gave a nearby rock a hefty kick into the bushes as it sighed heavily again and carried on walking, figuring that it should keep going just in case there was a possibility the pony creature had indeed carried on going straight.
As it was walking, it didn’t notice the color of the sky change slightly and suddenly gasped when the sun started to emerge from above the trees. Its eyes sparkled as it held a hand to its chest and sighed happily, a knowing feeling filled its body.
Looking forwards, it quickened its pace as it saw light coming from the distance, signaling it was at the edge of the forest. the machine stomped loudly as it approached the edge, excitement running through its circuits and it crashed through the trees and saw a group of ponies in the distance at a table, as well as the pony creature. Before the machine could do anything, the white unicorn screamed loudly.
“WHAT IN CELESTIA’S NAME IS THAT?!” and pointed a hoof at it.
The machine looked behind it in confusion, thinking that the unicorn was pointing behind it. It shrugged and continued to walk, giving a wave to the ponies. The machine became more confused as the ponies shrieked seeing its arm move. Suddenly, it was surrounded by the familiar sight of solar guards ponies, armed with spears pointing in its direction. It also spotted some odder looking guardsman wearing darker armor and appeared to have bat like feature.
“HALT! CREATURE!” a booming voice cried.
The machine looked up to see a dark blue alicorn glaring at him. It scratched its head, now completely confused.
Why was there another alicorn? Wasn’t… wasn’t Celestia the only one?
The machine took a step back in surprise as the dark blue alicorn was joined by a lavender one. How many alicorns are there?!
As it looked down and tried to process what was going on, it heard it.
“Creature, stand down. And I promise you no harm shall come to you.”
The machine slowly looked up to see a sight that was so familiar to it, so perfect in every format. The one whom he had been seeking, the one whom he had foolishly forgotten meant to him.
Princess Celestia.
It started to chuckle softly before throwing its arms up into the air and roaring with laughter, the metallic sound shocking and confusing the ponies present. Before they had time to react, the machine ran towards Celestia, its heavy feet making the ground rumble slightly and picked the startled alicorn up in a tight hug, twirling her around joyfully.
“MY BELOVED!” the machine cried in its raspy, metallic voice. “I’VE FOUND YOU AT LAST!”
The ponies stared in disbelief at the machine as it gently strokes Celestia’s mane. The solar princess; eyes were wide and her pupils were like pinpricks. The only word that came out of her lips came out as a quiet whisper.
“... What?”