Sunlight blasted everyone's tired eyes, and they slowly woke up to look around. Redmint was the first to groan in pain and put a hoof to his pounding head. He looked at his mechanical hoof briefly...then he trembled. It was a fully formed hoof with rounded stretches along his mechanical leg. He immediately got up and ignored Starburst imitating him and follow him as quickly. Redmint's reflection in the mirror was now much more organic. His eyes seemed to be slowly becoming real eyes, and his mane was now fully formed. Large patches of red fur could be seen all over his body the more he inspected it. Looking over to Starburst, he noticed that she too shared similar features, and her metallic bones were becoming real and covered with muscles and nerves. Licorice's horn was much sturdier and could actually be felt through nerves of some kind. As for Louis, well, there wasn't much changed. Just a bit more fur, and bits of her now transparent mane had started to hold bits of hair.
Sour Raspberry, on the other hand, was developing organic patches of skin on her legs, and a few empty vein were visible through the back of her neck. She had yet to start producing blood for obvious reasons. Louis rubbed his face as best as he could and took a deep breath, despite not needing air for the moment.
"Guys, wake up," the pegasus said.
"Why?" Licorice asked.
"We somehow fell asleep."
Raspberry and Redmint both bolted upright after hearing that and looked at themselves.
"Yay! I'm more organic!" Raspberry cheered.
"Yeah..." The big pony looked at Starburst and her ever 'dead' eyes. "But she still hasn't slept at all."
"How can you tell?" Raspberry asked.
The stallion looked at her with an annoyed expression as a response, and the mare chuckled.
"Oh. Right..."
Louis, on the other hand, looked at himself worryingly. "I'm losing time," he stated. "We need to get to that coastal city as fast as we can."
Licorice scratched his head and frowned. "I suggest we take a moment to recover from this 'news' in our own way by getting outside."
The others followed suite. Redmint took Starburst outside, and Raspberry joyously hopped outside, excited at the new things she was going to discover. The black unicorn approached Louis cautiously and cleared his throat before talking.
"You going to be alright?"
"Not really..." Louis lamented. "Knowing that every second you have is a second closer to losing your real body permanently is...an extreme, honestly." She looked at her mechanical hooves and rotated the ankles. "I won't die, but I won't be me anymore."
Licorice blinked several times. "You're taking this rather well, I find."
"It's probably because the 'date' is so far away and that I'm not going to die anyways."
"Maybe."
"Why don't we...go outside, too. We might not be able to sense things yet, but we can at least have some new light to enjoy."
The pegasus nodded. "Sure. Why not."
The lands around them were slightly hilly and covered with numerous patches of grass, gradually becoming full grasslands further down the miles. It was still relatively early in the morning, but the sun had already illuminated the local area and beyond. Looking around, Louis saw Redmint trying to get Starburst interested in some glittering bugs and rocks he found. He had such a hopeful expression, but Starburst remained apathetic to everything around. Raspberry, on the other hand, was rolling around like a dog, vocally expressing how she always wanted to know how it felt to do that.
"They're having fun at least," Louis noted.
"Yup. We just chose to live like this, so it's really nothing special that WE would like this kind of thing, especially the process!" Licorice shouted with glee. "But you don't want that, and we don't want to force that upon you. Still...you could at least try to get used to it since you'll be in it for a while."
Louis huffed and turned away. "Yeah thanks for reminding me."
"Hey, look at that!" Sour Raspberry shouted and pointed.
Everyone turned to see a large amount of armored policing vehicles, some carrying old neurobot riot-control models in armored belts on their sides. They were rushing down the street to the city the neuroponies had escaped from.
"Well," Redmint started. "Looks like it was a good idea to rush out of there."
Licorice frowned and pointed at him. "I still want to know how the hell you managed to slip this thing past the military and HOW you found people who could completely remodel the entire thing without compromising its structural quirks and base programming."
Redmint rolled his eyes. "Are you still on about that?!" he shouted.
Louis face-palm...hoofed. "Maybe Licorice is right. I should get used to being in this body as it seems that I'm not going to be getting back to my original anytime soon."
In a metropolis of the same region, several people of importance, notably a mayor, military leaders, and state secretaries, had gathered at one of the highest floors of a metallurgical company's HQ. The meeting room was fitted with an elongated, oval table in a small room with chairs surrounding it. Aside from the many holographic projection containers built along the walls, there was no real decoration to be had.
"Hm." The mayor passed his thin hand through the hologram. "You'd think we'd get holograms like in the science-fiction movies, but instead we get these case-thingies that just self-contain a reflected image. We made robots with quantum neural pathways we can put our brains into!" he shouted. "How do we NOT have them yet?!"
"Focus, Mayor," one of the officers shouted.
"Right, right. I'm sorry." He cleared his throat and sat at the table with the others. "Now, explain to me again as to WHY you needed to use my city to set up your little..." He twitched his fingers. "Playdate here?"
An old woman, a one-star general, smashed her fist onto the table. "It's not a playdate you moron! And it's not a game. These are massively unstable times!"
"Easy there, Darla. No need to let your blood boil yet," a secretary explained. He turned to the mayor. "This region is one of the few where the most of these 'anomalies' have appeared. Others have seen proportional increases to these outbreaks and we've sent advisors there as well."
"Why just these areas?" the mayor asked.
"Our secret services have done their research and concluded that they're related to these things."
The secretary pulled up a briefcase and dropped it onto the desk, eventually presenting the mayor with many documents he was clearly confused with.
"So...robot cartoon pones caused all this?" He laughed. "You can't be serious. I mean, I KNOW there have been a few riots here and there, but that's just because of--"
"No. it isn't," Darla interjected. "This is creating panic and terror across the board. This is something that defies all knows laws of physics and no science can explain the reasoning for its occurrence."
"And because nobody knows what's going on, baser 'herd' instincts have been popping up," the secretary explained.
"Wh-wh-what do you mean? Herd instincts?" the mayor queried.
"Yes. Because they don't understand, they're afraid. Because they're afraid, they think it's something that's going to kill them. Death makes them ostracize or outright kill those who are trapped in these mechanical bodies turning organic."
"And since they can't return to their original bodies," another general interjected.
There was a long moment of silence broken by the mayor.
"Why haven't you discussed this with our country's leaders?"
"We have. They all came to this solution, and so we're asking you to allow us to use your city as the headquarters for our operations in the city," the secretary explained.
"What kind of operations? You're not going 'zombie apocalypse' on us are you?"
"What?!" Darla jolted.
"No! We're going to try to contain the fear of the regular populace and escort the victims of this unusual 'malfunction'," the secretary emphasized with quotation fingers. "somewhere safer where they'll be studied and taken care of." The mayor was about to speak, but the secretary added something quickly. "ONLY the willing ones, of course."
"Ah. Fair enough, but why haven't you been looking for the ones responsible for these machines?"
"We haven't found where they are. They've been using several different ports and trade routes to mix up and criss-cross their locations to random locations," Darla explained.
"I see..." The mayor slumped against the table and rubbed his temples. "I'm giving you permission to set up operations here so long as you don't go zombie-hunting. ADDITIONALLY, try to prevent any 'factions' from gaining traction. We don't need that kind of scenario popping up either."
"Factions?" everyone repeated.
The mayor looked at them in disbelief, his eyes hopping to each person. "Yes, 'factions'. Are you stupid? With this ostracizing, there's bound to be people clumping together into moss colonies. Who knows how long it'll take until violent groups start to form, if they haven't formed already!"