//------------------------------// // Part 1, Chapter 4: Beginning // Story: The Chronicle of Relic // by SkeIePone //------------------------------// No tearful goodbyes. No farewell parties or blessings. Nopony so much as noticed us leaving, and I doubt they would have cared. They were concerned about the state of their homes and wares, and of the already festering remains of the stallions who tried their best and succeeded in saving everypony from harm. From what Mica had said, her relatively small family had been outcasts in the Sweet Apple community ever since an accident that had occurred years before she was born. And I myself was nothing more than a synth to those of the Ruins, and when the ponies of this small trading-post became aware that it was I who allowed Money Bag to die, there would be hell to pay. Money Bag may have been greatly disliked by mares; but he was close friends with practically every stallion and customer in the Ruins. I didn’t necessarily want to induce a mob of angry ponies to disassemble me and put me out of commission. My remaining charges, Garter and Lionheart, were a long ways away and both completely unaware of everything that had happened, I was sure. Garter would probably want to leave the Ruins as well after Money Bag’s death and Lionheart himself would be infuriated by my sudden departure. So nopony left in the Ruins would be terribly upset at the departure of a lunatic and an equally crazed synthetic. No pony, I should emphasize. Unfortunately for me, Kitten the FF-5b noticed us packing up our things and decided to see what we were up to. “Hiya, Relic! Haven’t talked to you in a while!” She chirped in a voice was was more feminine and electronic than my own. “Whatcha doin’? Who’s your friend?” “She is not my friend. Merely an acquaintance.” I corrected. “And we are leaving, Kitten.” “Leaving the market? No surprise there.” Kitten whispered with a visible shudder. “So many dead ponies… It’s tragic, isn’t it?” “Yes it is. But no, not the market. We are leaving the Ruins.” Kitten gasped, her eyes widening. I restrained the urge to roll my own at her over-exaggerated expressions. “You’re leaving! Why?! It’s a dangerous world out there for a little synth like you or me. There’s monsters out there! And theives! And poisonous plants and evil spirits and-” “And there’s more to life than just serving ponies, Kitten.” I sighed as Kitten looked incredulous. “Of course, you wouldn’t know that. You’ve pleasured ponies for your entire life. Let me put it this way: I have something important to do. Something important that requires me to leave the Ruins and possibly never return. I have to find out more about something. You understand this?” Kitten nodded. “So you’re on a quest!” “Sure. A quest.” I replied, with a roll of my eyes. “Let’s call it that.” “And… You’re not coming back?” “Possibly.” I replied, placing my amulet carefully in its own steel box that would join the several spare parts in my saddle bags. I felt a little spark on my cheek, and turned my head to see that Kitten had just nuzzled me, like how a pony would kiss another on the cheek. I raised an eyebrow expectantly. I’d never been shown any sign of love nor had I ever given any; especially to a prostitute synth like Kitten. “What was that for?” “That was for luck. Please do come back when you can. I’d miss you if you got yourself destroyed, Relic. Everypony here pretends to like me, but they never really talk to me as an equal. They just chat with me so they can rut me afterwards. It’d get pretty lonely without you around… Please come back as soon as you can.” We slipped away sometime during noon, carrying all the supplies that we could without attracting the wrong sort of attention. I do not wish to say that we stole our supplies, but we stole our supplies. I carried a large saddlebag holding my amulet and a few meager spare parts that I could take from our supplies at the wagon. I wasn’t going to haul the wagon along with me. Besides, when Garter and Lionheart became aware of my absence, they would need it. I did nab several cans of oil and other lubricants, in case I developed a rust problem. Beyond normal wear and tear, rust was like a disease to synthetics. A synth with rust could easily end up being decommissioned. My new pony companion, Mica, carried several bags of food for herself along with the pre-existing assortment of clutter stuffed inside her enormous mane of pink curls. I still had no perfect explanation as to how she kept balloons, a fully-loaded cannon, supplies of all kinds, and more in her poofy mane and matching tail. She claimed that everypony in her family had been able to do so, but I had serious doubts that breaking the laws of physics was hereditary. The trail to her family’s home would be long; a little over a day. Which would mean a lot of walking as well as a certain about of time devoted to letting Mica sleep, whereas I could (with the help of my amulet) remain fully functional for the entirety of the trip. Mica Pie and I had been walking for well over four hours when we suddenly encountered our first obstacle. That obstacle was not a Manticore, it wasn’t a band of thieves, it wasn’t poisonous plants nor was it an evil spirit. Rather, it was a small brown beetle with a shining carapace and silvery wings. Several of the insects had made themselves comfortable on my armor, but I took nothing of it. They were simply resting themselves on my warm exterior, they too emitting some sort of harmless tingling sensation. Or so I believed.   “Hey, Relic.” Mica said. I was momentarily shocked; for the first time since I met her, she sounded genuinely concerned about something. “Yes?”   “You realize that those are bore beetles, right?” She said, pointing a hoof at the bugs covering my back. “They’re not just any Ruin bugs.” “Bore beetles?” “Yeah. They… Um… Ya see... They eat metal. They melt it down with their spit and then slurp it up like soup. A whole buncha them ate one of Granny Pie’s wheelbarrows. Just bored it full of holes until it fell apart. I also heard a story that they once ate a pony’s metal house while he was sleeping. He woke up to find scraps instead of walls.” It took several moments for that to sink in. Beetles that eat metal? I was about to panic, until I realized who I was speaking to. Mica Pie had an amulet that filled her with perpetual happiness. So why should I assume that this is not just some prank? I decided to prove her wrong, swivelling around my head to face my rear, ready to tell her off. “Forgive me, miss, but I don’t think that these beetles are-” A beetle on my back made a retching sound and spat a green liquid onto my brazen loin. The liquid sizzled a bit as I felt the same tingling sensation that I had been feeling for the past half an hour. I watched in horror as the beetle dipped its head back into the melting brass drank greedily. Beetles that eat metal. They could have eaten anything else: ponies, other beetles, magic. But they just had to eat metal, of which was about ninety percent of my composition. “Relic! Don’t panic! Just calm down and think rationally. I gotta try remember how to get rid of those things.” I squeaked in fear, frozen in place as the disgusting little creatures continued to spit onto me. Just then, a beetle finished boring a large hole into my exterior and was now dripping its acidic saliva on my circuitry. Every time the deadly elixir touched the delicate energy reservoirs, a jolt of pain would arch up and down my back. The feeling reminded me of when a repair pony had used a soldering iron on me when I hadn’t yet shut down yet. I realized that if the beetles did any further damage, I could end up crippled. Or worse. “GET THEM OFF!” I shouted, throwing myself to the ground. Alarms began to flash across my visor, alerting me to the damage the insects were doing to my structural systems. Apparently, the spine of my skeletal structure was already at half integrity. I could literally split in half at any moment. Mica shook her head, standing over me. “Relic, ya gotta listen to me.” Mica said. “Just this once. Mmkay?” I allowed myself to calm down, despite the rapidly declining integrity of my chassis. Mica inspected the various cavities in my armor and the small brown beetles milling about said holes. Finally reaching some sort of conclusion, she let out a soft nicker of amusement. “Alrighty. So whatcha gotta do is play some music.” “Music?” I asked as panic once again consumed me. “What in Equestria is music going to do about these things that are eating me?!” “Just do it!” I was about to abandon all hope then and there. I had only been on my little escapade for little over four hours and already I was about to start falling apart. I realized that I didn’t really have anything to lose at this point, that I was a dead stallion walking either way. I turned on the radio located in the barrel of my torso. It had been years since I used it last and it still worked just as well as before. Which is to say, terribly. Among the static and crackling, one could barely make out the rhythm of whatever song was playing on whatever station on the other side. “I think that’ll work. We just need noise! Turn up the volume.” I complied and immediately the pain attacking my insides halted. The static from the radio was loud enough that I could barely hear anything that was occurring within me; I couldn’t hear the hissing or spitting of the beetles and I couldn’t hear the sizzling of their corrosive mucus. I did, however, hear the victorious cries of Mica, who was now dancing haphazardly to the rhythm of the staticky music. “Relic! It’s working!” Relief and gratitude flowed through me, easing the pain of the holes that the bore beetles had punctured on my back. Not only could I see the various alarms and warnings flashing across my HUD, but I could actually feel the spine on my chassis splitting into two. Mica stopped dancing as soon as I shut off the radio and gazed down at my fallen form. “Relic? Ya okay?” “I need help getting up.” I admitted. She complied, hoisting me carefully back onto my hooves. “The beetles have damaged me. I’m going to have to walk carefully for now. Otherwise, I could cause the damage to be permanent.” “Aye aye, cap’n Relic! So what do you need me to do?” “Nothing. Please.” “Mmkay!” Mica chirped, sounding suspiciously like Kitten. Perhaps the two knew each other. It would make sense, considering how simple-minded the two of them were. But I had to admit, without Mica’s idea of scaring off the beetles with my radio, I would not be operational. I spotted one of the many culprits skittering along the ground, and I smashed it angrily with my hoof. “Where are we?” I asked in a sudden bout of curiosity. “Still in the Ruins, silly. We got another hour’s walking before we actually get outta here.” “No. I meant, where are we in comparison to everything else?” I said, as we continued on our way. “There can’t just be Sweet Apple, the Ruins, and then wasteland. I want to know more about the outside world.” “Well… Uh… There’s the Boneyard, that’s just east of Sweet Apple Acres. There’s the Old Castle, up north. Ummmm… I haven’t exactly done any exploring. Y’know? It’s just stories.” “I would still like to know. Maybe one day I will visit these places, if I can manage to not be eaten by a horde of disgusting insects.” “Oh. Okay! Well, I know the Boneyard sounds like it has bones all over it, right? But it doesn’t! It’s actually a really, really, reeeeeaaaally big dump. They call it the Boneyard because everypony who goes in there never comes back. Granny used to tell me that all the time whenever I started going too far east.” Mica babbled. I half-listened, filtering out the nonsense and remembering the important information. So far, stay away from the Boneyard was high on my list of things to do in the desolate wastes. “And nopony really knows what’s in the Old Castle. Whenever anypony goes up there, it’s locked up and they can’t get inside. Lots of ponies say there’s TREASURE in there!” “What else do they say?” “Well, my Granny just thinks that it’s just empty and ponies shouldn’t get their hopes up.” “What do you think, Mica?” “Hmmmmm… I think it might be empty. Or it might have treasure. Or… maybe it’s where ponies go when they bite the dust. I mean, that’s just what I think. You never know what’s on the other side, right, Relic?” “What are you referring to?” “The other side! Don’t you know? Heaven? Tartarus? Any of that?” “Synths do not have souls.” I explained. “So we don’t go to such places.” “Not have souls?!” Mica looked flabbergasted. “How could you think that? You feel pain! You get angry, you get scared, you feel sad…” “... All just part of my programming. Mica, I can tell you haven’t known many synths.” She shook her head, confirming my suspicions. “Mica, I can tell you right now that synths are just robots. WE are just robots. I am just a robot. Nothing can ever possibly change the fact that I am a nonliving things built by ponies to serve ponies. Even now, as a free synth, I slip up and accidentally call others ‘sir’ or ‘miss’. So remember that I am nothing more than a machine without an owner.” “But-”         “No buts, please. Let’s keep walking. We have a long ways ahead of us, according to you.” Night fell swiftly, the skies darkening further that the dull grey of daylight. Stars twinkled up above, barely illuminating the ground below, where Mica and I had set up a disposable campsite. She needed the sleep more than I did. Despite her claims that she too could run forever on the magic from her amulet, I doubted that any pony could manage a full day without sleep. So now she slept in a makeshift tent, simply a blanket propped up on a pair of flimsy twigs. I promised to the hyperactive mare that I would keep watch over her while she slept, and I was also forced to promise that I would not abandon her in the night. Now I remained standing, too afraid to sit or lay down for fear that my chassis would collapse on itself. Instead, I gazed up at the stars, memorizing the individual constellations. It was another gift from Garter; a special program she picked up cheap that would enable me to pinpoint the location of various stars in the night sky. I could see Taurus… Scorpio… Orion… Dashie… Libra... Wait a minute. Dashie? My eyes furrowed as I focused on the quickly approaching streak of rainbow color. They quickly widened as I realized that it was indeed the dream pegasus zooming towards me. I gave in to fear and ducked, letting the pegasus mare soar right over my head. I felt a strong breeze kick in as Dashie came to a stop, striking a proud pose not too far away from where I stood. Carefully, I approached what I had taken as my imaginary friend. Did synthetics have imaginary friends? I was not one to think that synths could hallucinate either. But here I was staring expectantly at a mare that I had seen several times before in my dreams. “What’s up, guy?” “Relic.” “Whatever.” She said, rolling her eyes, and tossing herself onto a pile of rocks. She stretched out ,pulled a pair of sunglasses out from nowhere, and put them on despite the fact that it was almost midnight. “Is this a hallucination?” I asked. She tipped the sunglasses down her muzzle, exposing a pair of bright magenta irises. Dashie shrugged and laid back down once more. “I dunno. Is it? I can never tell. Anyways, how’s the Element holdin’ up?” “Element?” “The shiny red rock, dolt. It’s called an Element. The Element of Loyalty, if you wanna get technical. Which I’m sure you do.” I blinked at her for several minutes before she let out an aggravated groan and sat up, glaring at me. “Of all the ponies to be Loyalty, it just had to be you. You don’t even respond to any of my insults! How am I supposed to have fun with this bullhonky if all you do is stare at me like you’re some sort of pony who got their head dropped as a foal?” “I am not a pony, miss. I am an FF-7 synthetic worker’s unit-” “Oh yeah, how could I possibly forget?,” she interrupted, throwing her forelegs into the air in exasperation, “You’re not even a pony. Just a dumb robot. How am I supposed to do this Obi-Wan Force Ghost stuff if you can’t even understand half the things I tell you?” “Obi-What?” Dashie face-hoofed. “Yeah. Okay. You’re hopeless.” “Please,” I begged, “I need information. What is my amulet? What is Mica’s amulet? What do we do with them?” “First of all, you gotta start buddying up with that Pinkie Pie clone. You’re gonna be stuck with her for a while. And all that stuff about the Element? Isn’t that why you’re going to her grandma’s for?” Dashie asked, gesturing towards the small ten a few yards away. “Why waste your time going exploring then? Nah, I think you should keep going on your little vaycay. Meanwhile, I’m always at your service. Funny thing, too. Since you’re the one supposed to be serving me.” I stood up straight and dead into her eyes. “I serve nopony.” “Yeah, keep tellin’ yourself that, bub. Anymore questions, smart one?” “As a matter of fact, yes. Who are you?” “I told ya that already.” She squinted at me through her shades. “You got that short of a memory? I mean, I thought those new robots the Flim-Flam brothers made were dim-witted, but by Celestia’s flank, you’re definitely not the brightest.” “You only said your name was Dashie. I want to know more. What is your full name? Where do you come from? Are you programming built into the amulet or are you some sort of magical entity?”          “Alright, one. I’m flattered you’d call me a magical entity. Two, my name is Rainbow Dash, and I was the best, most awesome, coolest flier, and wickedest pony in all of Equestria. And honorary member of none other than the Wonderbolts themselves. Three, I come from Cloudsdale. Don’t you know all that? I’m sure at whatever time you live in you’ve all heard plenty of awesome stories about all the awesome things that I’ve done. Which were awesome.” I shook my head. “I’ve never heard of you, Rainbow Dash.” She visibly wilted, then immediately went stony and apathetic. “Yeah. The future is for eggheads anyways. Have fun going to grandma’s. Make sure to ask for milk and cookies.” And with that, she vanished. Just wasn’t there anymore. I looked around, expecting to see her pop into view again. Seeing that she had truly left, I quietly approached the small tent. Inside, Mica was snoring softly, hugging the pink gem closely to her chest. It reminded me a lot of the many times I watched Garter sleep. I remembered what Rainbow Dash said to me, about befriending her. To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t even tried to get to know Mica. I’d only asked about our surroundings, about Equestria, and about the dangers of the wastes. Maybe I was coming off as rude because of this. I promised myself then and there that I would try my best to get to know this rather ridiculous pony. I gently sat on my haunches and removed my saddlebags. Digging around in the scraps for a bit, I pulled out my own sparkling gemstone. This ‘Element of Loyalty’ as my hallucination had called it. I turned it over, and just then began to mourn the loss of the little note that had been on the back. It probably wasn’t important anyways. But then I froze. R.D. Rainbow Dash. Dashie was related to R.D. She had signed the note on the back of the amulet, which means that she had been a real pony. She wasn’t some holographic projection and she wasn’t a hallucination triggered by whatever magical energy was stored in the amulet. Rainbow Dash had been a real pony. This realization was sudden and incredible, but it was soon enshrouded in yet another mystery.         If Rainbow Dash was R.D., then who was T.S.?