Roborganics

by The Psychopath

Powder keg (revized)

Author's Note:

BREEZIES! EVERYTHING MUST BECOME BREEZIES! BREEZIES!

(Took Ferret and Samaru's tips, but mostly Ferret because he gave a more detailed response. To a warning of those who saw it, I deleted Ferret's comment to prevent spoilers for future readers)

"I still don't trust him, but what choice do I have? So, where is it that we're going exactly?" Louis asked as the two walked through the city.

"Near the outskirts of the city. Oh, and I had forgotten." he face...hoofed."I am Licorice. Nice to meet you." he said as he extended a hoof.

Louis stopped in his tracks and looked at Licorice's smiling demeanor and extended hoof with suspicion and a tilted head. His smile gradually faded into a sad and awkward expression.

"Um...What?"

"What's your real name?"

"That is my real name."

Louis eyed him up and down. He was disgusted.

"You're already abandoning your humanity? There's a chance for all of us to--"

"Imma stop you right there. Don't get all preachy. You of all people should know that the choices you make are done because you WANTED to make them. My friends and I have all decided to live with what is happening to us, so it's up to you whether you do the same. We're going to help you try and find a way to get back to your real body because of what you did to help our community of neurobot enthusiasts, but don't expect everyone to be kind to you if you act like that."

The neuropony made little circles on the floor with her foreleg.

"S...sorry."

"It's okay. I know you're under a lot a stress, especially with...well...you know."

"Mmm."

"Shall we continue?"

"Sure."

After such a little correction, Louis stayed quiet and slightly embarrassed. A few minutes later, they were met with a large white mobile home currently being painted with stripes of red and pink. There were three other neuroponies there, and each had their own changes applied to their surfaces.

One was a rather bulkier and intimidating looking earth stallion. His body was covered with synthetic reddish-pink fur of a pale variety whilst the film creating his laid back main and straight tale were of a yellow tint. He seemed to be morphing in the same way Louis was, with an eye of emerald green and a patch of fluffy fur having already become organic, although his tail seemed to have already become fully organic. His tail was being combed by a much smaller pegasus mare of pure orange. Even her mane, which was combed to look tall by waving over her head to the right in progressive lengths, was of a brighter orange. Her eyes were a pale, almost sickly looking yellow. She had a neutral demeanor to her facial expressions and seemed to be enjoying the combing. Her organic spots were...almost invisible. It seemed her teeth and a tiny spot of fur on the left of her stomach had changed, but it seemed that the rest remained the same. it was possible that her innards became organic first.

As for the last one, she was an earth pony with green and red curves dyed into her synthetic fur. The film used for her mane and tail had been formed to look like curled balls of fluffy hair. Her eyes had both become organic...but they still somehow reflected different colors at different angles. Sometimes they were green and other times they were red.

"Who are they?"

"My friends. We met soon after the neuroponies went viral. They bought theirs after the official models had been delivered."

"Is this the one who got this whole thing started?" the red and green one shouted.

"Yes." Licorice added.

The neuropony mare walked towards Louis with a devious smile and grabbed his leg with both hooves and raised them to her face.

"I'm Sour Raspberry. Great to meet ya! Our friends there are the big Redmint and tiny Starburst. You've already met Licorice."

Louis looked confused.

"So your new names are based off of food?"

"Well, personally, I wanted to be Swirly Swarm, but we agreed that our little group should have similar names. After all, we are going to be living together until things dumb down."

"Okayyy..."

"And what's your name?"

"Louis..." he answered half-heartedly.

"Louis? That's not a very girly...ohhhhhh. I see." Sour looked at Louis with a condescending nod.

"My mother messed up my order. I was supposed to be in a stallion's body, but your friend convinced me that I should try this neuropony regardless."

"And now you'll become a pegasus mare like us!"

Licorice's face scrunched into shock. He tried to intervene, but it was too late.

"I don't WANT TO BECOME A MARE! I DON'T WANT TO BECOME A PONY! I want to be myself again! It's all because of Licorice that this all happened-LET GO OF ME!"

Louis tore his foreleg from Sour's grip and backed up a bit. Raspberry seemed horrified. She unintentionally someone harm. She wasn't like that. No. She wasn't mean! How could she do something like that?! The green and red mare grabbed her head and started to hyper-ventilate. Luckily, Redmint and Licorice intervened in time. Redmint grabbed Sour and hugged her to help her down whilst Licorice tried to explain the situation. The mare seemed to be in more physical pain than anything.

"I didn't explain it to them yet. Please forgive Sour. She...she hates to be the cause of pain and misfortune to others. She has a...um...mental condition when it happens, shall we say. Please, Louis. Just let me explain to the group."

The neuropony took a deep breath and exhaled, then nodded in agreement.

"Let me apologize to her, first. I'm under extreme stress right now."

"I understand."

Louis haphazardly walked towards Redmint and tugged on his foreleg to get Sour's attention. She had apparently developed tear ducts.

"Look. I apologize. I had a similar outburst with...Licorice...I'm under extreme pressure. There's the chance I won't get back to my body, there's a chance my mother is in danger, there's even a chance that you guys won't help get me to where I want. I don't want to stay as I currently am and just wish to be helped with a solution to this problem. It's not your fault. You didn't cause me harm. I just...let it all out."

Sour let out a couple of sniffs as she answered.

"Okay. I didn't know anything so I just...dove in. I thought you were one of us."

"No. You can live however you see fit. Your choices don't affect my lifestyle, so I needn't think too much about them."

Sour smiled and so did Redmint.

"Okay." Louis said as he smacked his fore hooves together."How do we find Roborganics?"

"We're supposed to find the company?" Redmint said with a bizarrely high pitched voice that caught Louis off-guard.

"Yes. We're going to help this guy find the HQ of Roborganics. Even if you don't want to, I believe we should learn about why this is happening to us, and Louis needs to return to his body."

"YOU'RE A BOY?! Pahahaha!" Redmint exploded in laughter.

"It's. Not. FUNNY! And this coming from someone's whose vocal cords seem to be the source of helium in the world."

Louis began to glare violently at the giant stallion who had fallen onto his back. He had poor balance.

"So, where are we going, Licorice?" Sour asked.

"Well, I've heard that it was somewhere in the Baltimore sea. The problem is that I don't know where, and that sea is rather huge." Licorice scratched the back of his head."Oh, and I know that this is passing through your heads. Louis' mother is taking care of keeping his body from mummifying."

"That doesn't leave us much time." Redmint said."The best thing we can do is go to the next city and ask the Roborganics manager where he or she got the neurobots from."

"Why can't we just ask the one here?" Louis asked as he gestured behind him.

"Maybe it's 'cause they're being assaulted by an angry mob?" Sour said with a told-you-so smile.

"Riiight..."

Even though they were rather far now, it looked like one of the bigger citizens was holding another, smaller angry citizen and both were yelling about who knows what. Some of the people started to go away, but many were too stubborn to understand that the store knew nothing and threatening to tear it down like a stack of cards would solve nothing.

"What is the closest city, then?" Louis wondered.

"It's Calicut. It's three days from here by car. We can stop by some of the towns along the way to get some snacks and stuff." Redmint proposed.

"But we don't eat as neuroponies..." Louis complained.

"Not yet. Heh. I just hope the manager knows where the deliveries come from specifically."

"If not, we can always follow the tracks in hope that the delivery routes eventually centralize somewhere." Licorice said.

"That's pretty vague. I really don't want those 'special bits' before I can get back into my body."

"I told your mother we had, at best, one month to try and find them. We will. Now then, are we ready?"

"Yes." the two others answered.

"Then get in the mobile home. We'll start our path to Calicut."

Redmint and Sour Raspberry hurried to the jeep and got in from the back window somehow. Two things bothered Louis, though. How were they supposed to drive it, and why didn't Starburst utter a single word?

Louis waited until she was in the vehicle before asking:

"Say, why didn't Starburst say anything? She seemed very silent. She didn't even think to come over here."

"Well...I don't know. Redmint brought her with him when this all started and she hasn't said a thing since. He doesn't even want to tell us who she is. We don't know if she's his sister, or girlfriend or is she's in the same predicament as you. Whatever it is, we can trust her. She seems overly attached to Redmint and won't move if he isn't in the vicinity. Hmmm." Licorice put a hoof to his chin.

"What?"

"Nothing.let's get to the mobile home. You'll sit in the back with the others"

"Ugh. Fine."

"Don't complain. This one is mostly bed, and we all actually fit in it."

"W-wait! Before we go, how do you plan on driving the van...or bus...or truck...whatever vehicle a mobile home is classed in."

"You'll see."

Hesitant and with skepticism, Louis nervously followed the neuropony into the mobile home and looked at the modified seat and frowned. The back had been sawed off, showing its foamy interior. Said black seat had even been raised up a bit. In fact, Licorice was lying down on it. There were some weird, wooden contraptions attached to the pedals and were stretched to the back of the seat where they stopped, then raised upwards at a steep angle. They were made for a pony to push on them with their hind legs. Apparently, judging by the cables and pipes, pushing on the pedals in the back would apply pressure to a spring at the bottom which would push forward and apply pressure to the pedals in front. The Wheel had been lifted to look like those placed horizontally in large mail vans, although it had been lowered to make it easier to turn for hooves. Louis was taken aback.

"Ta-da!"

"How--"

"No time. Just go in the back. I'll tell you when we stop at the first town."

Although discontent, Louis did as told and walked to the large bed in the back. This mobile seemed really basic. It had the typical bathroom area with the toilet, and a separate area for the shower. It also had a kitchen and two areas that, normally, humans would sit at and eat on the tables that would slide out from the walls. this one thing didn't seem to be fitted for ponies, unfortunately.

"Louis, come on. Why do you think we're all on the bed?" Sour laughed.

"I don't feel comfortable with the prospect of sharing my bed with someone."

"No choice now!" Licorice said as he started the vehicle.

Louis was thrown from his place near the human-made seats towards the bed thanks to physics. Luckily, Starburst kept him from smashing his head against the metal frame holding it in place and lifted him onto the bed. The bed itself was rather round even thoughthe vehicle itself was as rectangular as any other mobile home. The comfortors were very thick and had a rather floral pattern on them, although it was more reminiscent of a forest than anything due to the random patches of brown and green. Paying more attention to his surroundings after landing, it seemed to Louis that the mobile home was mostly of a wodden style, although everything using the material, such as the cupboards and bathroom door, seemed to be fake wood.

"That was close. Thank you, Starburst."

"..."

"Okay..."

Starburst had plopped herself onto Redmint's back like a ragdoll or a lazy cat after having kept Louis from smashing into the bedframe. She was bizarre to anyone who wasn't Sour Raspberry. Even Redmint seemed weirded out. Sour was on her back and looking at Louis with her synthetic tongue sticking out like piece of candy. If anything, she seemed absent-minded. All she needed now was for her eyes to spread in two different directions. As soon as the student got onto the bed, she jumped up, as if Doctor Frakenstein put his monster into the lightning storm.

"Want to play a game while we wait?" Sour asked almost immediately.

"Ooo! I'd love to play a game! What game?" Redmint excitedly asked.

"Monopoly!"

"I LOVE monopoly, and there's four of us."

The two looked at Louis with begging face to which he could not resist, even if they were neuroponies."

"Fine. I'll take the thimble and let you three fight over the car."

Comments

[The Psychopath]

4068067 They did? The events weren't meant to drag on.

[The Psychopath]

4068158 Mmm. I'll keep that in mind for the future.

[ferret]

4071640

if this is what you truly believe

THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM

[The Psychopath]

4072785 IS IT THIS?!
geekosystem.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/doge.jpg

[ferret]

4072866
i.imgur.com/nufc0fo.jpg

[ferret]

I just wanted to say that that opening picture is such an incredible subversion of the am robot trope. You look at it and you see a pony horrified at being turned into a robotic monstrosity. And then you read the story and you realize that the pony is actually horrified at the organic parts, not the robotic ones...

[dargondarkfire]

I like how the story is picking up. I don't think i have seen a story do something like this before however. brain load in temp robotic bodies, robo pony bodies that turn organic... hmm I would think the shift was mechanical to organic would cause the person to go into a sleep like stasis so they wouldn't die during the transition....