Flesh and Blood
Darkness. Everything is darkness. Black as far as the eye can see. Black. No light. No hope. Is this how I will live the rest of my existence? In the dark? Swallowed whole by the shadows that surround me? But then, a sound. Like an angel crying out, it filtered in through the darkness and into my ear pieces. I listened to it's every word.
"Star Dusk! Dusky!"
It's the filly. She has come.
"Star Dusk! Come on! We've got to go!"
"Just give me a minute,"
It was another voice. One all to familiar to me. Because this voice, breaking through the darkness around me, is my voice. When it changes. That is my voice.
"But you promised that you would go to the park with us!"
"I know, I know, Sun rays. But give a blind pony a minute to actually find the door."
Then, no sound. They have left me.
But then, a sensation overcame my body. I felt like tiny waves of water were lapping at my metal covering. No, my skin. Yes. It feels like I have a skin. Flesh. But is this a strange illusion or a memory, being pulled up from the deep reaches of my processor?
No, not a processor. A mind. A brain. I reach with my hoof and feel my body. It too, has changed. And I am no longer cold. I am warm.
I am flesh and blood. I am a pony.
I reach up and feel the top of my head. A horn. I have a horn. I am a unicorn. And a mane. I have a mane. But I cannot see it. Though I can feel as the thin strands of hair touch my face, tickling my muzzle.
A breeze blew. And with it came more sounds.
"Sometimes I feel like I have nothing. Nothing to give, no purpose," A mare said.
"And why is that?" It was my voice again.
"Because it's true. I am nothing but a pathetic pegasus who probably shouldn't have even existed."
"Mockingbird! Don't say that. It is not true!"
"How do you do it?"
"Do what?"
"How do you not let it bother you? How do you sit there and take their hurtful words, their insults, without giving them so much as a single reaction? How?"
"Because even some pony who is blind can see the world for what it truly is. A living, breathing creature that we are all a part of. And if some pony does not that see that no matter how different some other pony is, that we are all a part of the same thing, then it is their problem."
"Why are you so wise, Star Dusk?"
And then it was gone. A fleeting moment of happiness. I had had it, and now it has disappeared. And I might never be able to get it back.
Then, like a bolt out of the blue, I felt something new. I felt like I did not belong, like I was not supposed to be something that I am. That I was not who I thought I was, that I was misplaced. But what? What am I not supposed to be?
Whispers filled my brain. It told me the answer. Everything that I had been trying to figure out over the past month, about why I am so different, about why I can feel things that the other Robot Units cannot. About why I have these memories. And all of the truth came out in two simple words:
Robot Unit.
I was once not a Robot Unit at all. I was a pony. I was a unicorn stallion named Star Dusk who was blind. I lived in Equestria. I lived in Unit Area 123. A place where the moon never sets.
And I was taken. I know of this for sure. I was taken by the government and put into a cruel experiment. Because I have memories of it.
What happens if a pony brain is put into a mechanical body? What will happen to a pony brain if it was trained to think like a Robot Unit? What will happen if it has no memories from its life prior? That was the experiment.
And I, Star Dusk, who is now a Robot Unit in Unit Area 4 named Broken, was their test subject.
******************
The events that followed from Broken's out of control rage went like this:
After Pole fell backwards and collided with the four ponies who brought us down here, and they shut the door and locked us in, again. I pressed my ear to the door, and I could hear them trying to calm Pole down while he tried to tell them what happened.
I had turned to look at Broken to ask him what in Equestria was he was thinking, but he just kept staring at the same spot that Pole had fallen.
I waved my hoof in front of his face but he did not even flinch, did not move a piston. But then the weapons that he had brought out moved back within him. His eyes went dark, the glowing redness gone, and he toppled over, crashing to the ground.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Robot Units do not topple over like that, even if they power down. If they do it while standing up, they stay standing up. Their gears and pistons lock together. But no. Never before had I seen a Robot Unit power down and then topple over.
Yes. Something was very, very wrong.
"Broken?" I asked, shaking him. "Broken?" Nothing. No response. "BROKEN!!" I screamed in his face. The door slammed open and the five ponies walked through, Pole cowering behind a mare. I turned around to face them. "He won't wake up!" I screamed at them. "He won't wake up!"
"Whoa calm down!" One pony said.
"NO!" I screamed in their faces. "I will NOT calm down! First you and your little friends trap us and bring us down into this cave, locking us up like animals! Then you lock us up in this room, with a rude pony making death threats at me!"
"Hey!" Pole shouted.
"You shut up! Tell me to close my mouth and listen, fine. Tell me to answer questions, fine. But tell me to calm down, after all you have done to me? Well, horse apples! And I don't even care if I cuss! Because I left my little sister at home. My mother is probably worrying about where I am at. And the only friend that I have left may have just died! I. Will not. Calm down. You hear me? I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!!!"
I started to cry. All of the events in my life, all of the things that I had ever learned, they were just one big lie. Robot Units are lifeless automatons with no feelings. That is not true. The revolution does not exist, that it is just a rumor. That is not true. Everything will eventually get better. That is not true. And now, I no longer have even a scrap left of the feeling called happiness left within me. The world has changed me. And it took me losing everything in order to see that.
I collapsed, sobbing into the floor, mumbling, "It's all a lie. My life has just been one big lie. And I want it to stop."
I could almost taste the despair in the room. All of the ponies, looking down at me as I cried and cried about my pathetic life, they were still. I heard a mare sniffle.
And I layed like that, on the cave floor, crying until I had no more tears left. At some point I heard the sound of hoof steps leaving the room. I had been abandoned.
I felt a hoof go under my chin and lift my head up. I opened my eyes and found myself face-to-face with the cyan unicorn mare River.
"Shh..." She whispered. "It's okay." I pulled my head away from her hoof looked away, head hung low.
"Please, just go away," I whispered. "What more could you do to me? I'm already miserable."
"Blossom Wing," She said. I glanced up at her. "I know what it is like to be afraid. I know what it is like to feel abandoned, to feel hatred. But I also know that those feelings can corrupt some pony if they never set them free."
I glanced at the jagged scar on her left eye. She had a story to tell, too.
"Maybe we should talk about it. Come on. We can talk privately in my quarters. And I can fix Broken, too."
"You, you can?" I asked, my voice hoarse.
"Yes. We stole a recharge compartment once from the Robot Unit station, and I think it still works." She stuck out her hoof to help me up. "But you have to trust me."
I took her hoof and she pulled up off the ground. River glanced over at Broken and closed her eyes, her horn glowing in a blue aura. I saw that she was trying to lift Broken, but was having some difficulties. Then he rose up, and River let out air that she had been holding.
"Follow me," She whispered.
**********************
It was like my whole entire world came crashing in on me. Nothing felt safe. I didn't even take comfort in the voices around me, of ponies that I once knew. What had happened to them? Do they know of my fate? Do they know what happened to me? All I could do was scream and scream.
The voices kept chanting tales from my past. A whole life that was taken away from me. Why? Why?! WHY!?!?
"NO!" I screamed. I took in a deep breath. Yes. I was breathing. But I did not take comfort in even that.
Warm tears fell down my face. "No, no, NO!" Please! Take these voices away! Go away! PLEASE!
I opened my eyes, and the world came into focus. Red, then clear, just like it always had when I woke up. No, not always. There was once a time when I would wake up and see nothing. There was a time when I was not metal.
I glanced around. I am in a compartment. A recharge compartment. I looked behind me. I was hooked up. I suddenly hated that thing with all of my metal heart. I lifted my back leg and kicked it with all my might. The recharge device sparked and shuttered, and then fell to the ground. And I felt pain. It hurt. I had felt pain.
The hatch on the compartment opened, and I lept out. I was in another cave. Much smaller than the jail cell me and Blossom where locked in. But this one still had a door with bars on it. And I suddenly hated bars.
I saw a pony standing outside the cave, gun at ready, pointing it down the tunnel. He whipped around when he heard the hatch open. He nearly jumped out of his own skin. And I nearly powered down again.
"You're out," He said with disgust.
"Where is she, Tornado?" I said, realizing that my voice still had not changed back. Not that I would want it to now. Tornado jumped back with surprise, also. He cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure.
"She's with Sunrise Rivers. River requested that once your recharge process was complete, that you be brought to her."
"What, is River like the leader of the revolution?"
"No, but she is high ranking. Just, just come out of here you hunk of metal." He opened up the door and I stepped out, not even glancing at him. He walked forward, and I followed him. After a long stretch of angry silence between us, he said,
"I know you can talk Robot Unit. Say something."
"I have nothing to say to you."
"Whoa, angry much?"
"Blossom is my friend too, you know. Her feelings actually mean something to me." He stopped short and whipped around.
"Listen here, Robot Unit. I have a gun, and I am not afraid to use it!"
"Yeah, and I have guns and knifes. And I'm not afraid to use those either." His eyes grew wide, but then he shook his head, and continued to walk on. I followed him, but I didn't want to.
*************************
River leaned back in the chair. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I can't imagine that a dad would kill himself like that."
I shifted uncomfortably in my own chair. "It's, it's okay. It was a long time ago."
"Yeah, but the scars of the past never go away, do they." She wasn't asking a question. She was making a statement.
"My parents and my older brother both died in an explosion when I was just a filly." He eyes went dark. "And I relive that day every single night in my dreams."
"Oh my Equestria, I'm so sorry." She shrugged. I felt like she wasn't telling the whole truth.
"Like you said, it was a long time ago and it's okay."
An awkward silence stretched between us. But it was broken by a sound of a door opening. Both River and I looked up and saw the Earth pony standing there. I frowned. But River smiled.
"So the recharge process is complete, then?" She asked him a fake, cheery tone, because she knows what he did to me. I had just told her my life story, after all.
Tornado nodded. "Here's the little junk pile." He moved out of the way and I saw Broken step into the room. I almost cried. I ran up to him and wrapped my hooves around his body. I heard the door close. Tornado was gone. Finally.
"I thought you died," I whispered.
"I didn't die," He said back. I gasped when I noticed that his voice still had not changed back to monotone yet. "But a part of me did."
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Now I'm not one to resort to crude violence, but please for the love of god kill off Tornado. .
.please?
Sorry that I do not know how to link an image that I made into a comment...
but please look at this!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wNn3guV6xZzuZrCLGS3rD7YEhuuyVNyEedgukLfOdiM/edit
4527709
Uh...
I'M A TROLL.
Noooooo nooooooooooooooooooo, y u trollin'???
All my theorriiiiessssssssssssssssssss!!! 
Pfft, oh well, guess I'll have to wait...
Still, this is making me just wanna scream "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Wait I just did, sorry!
4530994
Yeah. This story had pretty much revealed that I am, in fact, a Troll.
4531069
Pffft. Oh well then. I still like the story too much to ragequit...wait, can you even ragequit on a story? idk
Anyways, keep up the good work! Can't wait for the next chapter despite the fact that I must!
4531087
Oh, and, don't hate me, but did you see the picture I drew? The link is in the comment 6 below this one.
AND DON'T HATE ME!!
4531140 Nah dude I don't hate you.
Pfff...yes the shipping! lol
(I hope you don't mind, but I sorta refrain from shipping sometimes, plzdon'thatemetoo! )
4531208
I usually don't ship either, but I knew that it would start some day. Why not now?
4528499 GASP!
I don't have any clue what's going to happen anymore!
My theories are all invalid now!