In camp, Rarity received Sweetie's text, trying to ignore the maligned Flash's attempts to make small talk.
"So I says-I say-I says" he says, "that she looked purple!"
"Flash, darling, I was there." Rarity reminds him as her ringtone rang. "Oh thank goodness!" She says aloud, taking it out and texting Sweetie Belle back.
"Who's goodness?" Flash asked himself before turning his attention to Applejack, who was busy with her powers, making lunch for the rest of them. She was chopping up vegetables with her second pair of hands while trying to open some ramen noodle packets with a pair of scissors using her others. "Hey Alvin!" He greets, Applejack wincing at his voice.
"It's Applejack, Flash. I'd appreciate you not talking to me while I do this." She said, trying to pay attention to the dangerous jobs.
"What a-a-ARE you doing anyways?" She flinched as he seemed to get louder.
"I'm trying to make dinner so we don't go to bed hungry again." She said, grabbing another carrot and sweeping the chopped up one into a bowl.
"I've never been. What's Hungary like?" She carefully began chopping into the carrot, trying not to mess up.
"You've been hungry before, Flash, you probably just don't remember it because of what the aliens did to you."
"Then tell me-tell me-tell me-tell me!" Flash stammered, Applejack growing annoyed as the knife grew closer and closer to her hand.
"It's when you get a great pai-AH!" She looked at her hand, the knife having stopped inches from it. She looked at her other hands and found that the scissors had nipped her finger. Taking off the mask, the hand vanished, although the pain didn't.
"Look what you made me do, go bother Pinkie or something!" She shook her head and tried to figure out why she still hurt.
"Pi-pi-Pinhead!" He greeted Pinkie, who was doing whatever it was she did up in a tree. "You're flying!"
"Hey Flash!" she greeted, climbing down and smiling. "What's up?"
"The sky." Flash answered. Pinkie groaned, having walked right into that one.
"No, I meant how are you doing?"
"Well, it seems to be fairly easy given you're doing it too."
"I'm starting to miss the depressed Flash." Pinkie confessed, "Maybe few pictures will jog your memory! I mean, I know Sunset says you're not Flash, but I can tell by that twinkle in your eye that you're the same boy you always were." Flash blinked as Pinkie began digging through her phone, the boy trying to get rid of the twinkle. "Oh here! Here's a picture of us back at junior prom!" She showed him a photo of her trying to eat a cake whole wearing a fancy pink dress. Flash was barely in the shot, and partially obscured by some kid who leaned in to give Pinkie the thumbs up.
"Or this one!" She took out a photo of one of her Halloween parties. She was dressed as a professional cheerleader and was working on downing an entire bowl of punch, Flash was in the crowd, hidden, wearing fake glasses, a red and white beanie and a large sweater of the same colors.
"Neither of those see-see-seem familiar, maybe because I don't remember looking that good in a dress."
Pinkie snickers. "I have one more, you'll love it!" She took out a photo of him dancing with Twilight Sparkle at the Fall Formal, with the both of them in an awkward dance position, he having the smile of a man who's humiliating himself for a chance at the purple girl while Twilight wore the face of obliviousness. Also, pony ears and long hair that made it look like she had a tail. "Doesn't that bring back so many good memories?"
"Th-th-thankfully no." He pushed Pinkie's phone away and began heading back to the rest of the group, Pinkie popping up in front of him and giving him a big hug. "How did... wait, you... you don't make sense." He shoved her away, Pinkie backing up, confused.
"I don't get it!" she said to herself. "Usually that hug fixes everything! Well, maybe not everything, it didn't help Dash with her broken ribs."
Twilight and Fluttershy exited the archives, empty-handed. "I don't get it." Twilight confessed while they looked through the ship, searching for those elusive blueprints. "We've been here for all of an hour and nobody's noticed that we've broken in."
Fluttershy shrugged. "Maybe we're lucky? O-oh no, now that I've said it our luck's gonna be gone. I'm sorry..."
"Fluttershy, don't be ridiculous, even if we're so lucky that we've been ignored, it would have run out by now." Twilight explained. "Obviously something else is happening..." As the two discussed the Gambler's Fallacy, little did Twilight know she was correct. Flash was with one of the bots and explaining the situation.
"Now, listen. Inapan made me her first mate, right?" The robot stared at him. "That means I outrank Tested, right? So when she says attack the girls I say that we should stay AWAY from the girls! Don't hurt them, alright?" The robot didn't respond, much to his annoyance. "Stupid robots..." He mumbled, unaware his commands were being followed. His command was sent through the robot's systems, the idea plain and clear to leave the intruders be, to avoid them at all cost. The ship's many bots' routes and subroutines worked violently to make sure that this command was followed, using the security cameras and footage to make absolutely sure they would not interfere with the girls.
The seemingly empty ship disturbed Twilight and Fluttershy, their footsteps the only noises they heard as they continued looking for the lab. Finally, after what felt like hours of looking (it was really only half-an-hour), the girls approached a mysterious section of the ship, where machines and computers worked on their own.
"Look!" Twilight shouted, pointing to a machine building a replication of her locket.
"Oh dear..." Fluttershy mumbled, approaching the machine as it finished. The machine was massive and resembled an industrial oil drill, a large piston on the top of it went up and down as a computer at the base displayed lines of text and showed images of her blueprint. As the machine finished, coming to a screeching halt, a large drawer pushed itself out at a height that would be considered waist high to the alien sisters (or whatever they called their waists). In the drawer was a freshly built version of Twilight's locket. When Twilight took it, the machine's drawer closed instantly and returned to work making another.
"Stand back Fluttershy." Twilight warned, putting on her mask and destroying the glowing device with her bare hand. "This will not be pretty."
Twilight dropped what remained of the locket, approaching the mighty ton of metal. This wasn't like her, admittedly, but she'd rather lose her temper than be the reason her new friends suffered again. She approached the monitor, staring at the alien language being given to her. The response to the nonsensical (to her) symbols was short and sweet; she rammed her fist through it, into the circuits behind the screen and began tearing whatever looked important out, onto the floor. As a seemingly endless stream of metals and plastics generally unknown fell to the floor in heaps, Twilight eventually just tore of the monitor itself and smashed it upon the metal floor. Despite this, the machine still seemed to work, much to her unhappiness. Climbing atop the mighty counterweight that flowed and pumped the materials the materials to the rest of the machine, she stomped down, pulling the other side of the weight upwards, causing the pulling mechanism to snap and fall apart. The rest of the machine strained as Twilight proceeded to pull out the drawer, as well as the mechanisms that would have pulled it back in. The machine sparked and wirred as it fruitlessly tried to continue its work, Twilight taking off her mask and taking a deep breath.
"There." She said to an astounded Fluttershy. "No more lockets. Come on, let's get out of here." She began leading Fluttershy back to the teleportation pods, smiling brightly.
"But... what if they build another locket by hand?"
"Pah!" Twilight laughed. "It took me months to build that thing, imagine how hard it'll be for them to do with no knowledge of our metals and plastics. The blueprints may as well be cocktail napkins to them!"
"Twilight, I think you're having a power trip..." She said, worried.
"I... yeah, you're right. Sorry Fluttershy, still not quite to the um... sorry." She passed Fluttershy the mask and began working on the teleporter.