• Published 10th Dec 2014
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Sweetie Bot - A Heart's Warming Tale - Grimweird



Sweetie Belle discovers she's a robot - and runs away from home.

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Chapter 13. Ashes to Ashes

Twilight had always appreciated when the pegasus kept their weather schedule. This was not one of those times.

Their journey continued taking them further and further out west, Deeper and deeper into White Tail woods. In the same direction as the last autumn rain was scheduled. As such, they were literally traveling with the constant downpour that would by now have passed over Ponyville.

At least now they were protected from the rain by the carriage, at least gotten the chance to dry out their raincoats, and a chance to rest.
Not that they were making much use of that chance.

Twilight nodded in and out of consciousness to the wobbling of the wagon. Unable to stay asleep despite not having gotten a good nights sleep in days.

She looked over at Rarity. The poor mare looked like she had not slept at all.
Her normally so curly mane and tail was becoming a straightening uncombed mess. Only by some miracle did they maintain some semblance of their big curls (A testament to how well she kept her hair.) Eyeshadow that she had not bothered to wipe of her face has dried on her cheeks making it look like she was constantly crying black sticky tears. (which she no doubt would if she could.)

Big black spots had taken the eyeshadows place around her eyes. Her unwashed fur was loosing its luster and she smelled in a way that only Applejack would be comfortable with.

Twilight had never in her life seen the mare who cared so much about her beautiful appearance allow herself to decay like this. Had not been for Rarity's natural beauty, she would have looked like an utter wreck by now.

Twilight probably did not look or smell to good herself. She wrinkled her nose to the foul odor that had started to fill the crammed carriage.

Rarity had kept herself busy by reconstructing the mattress clad walls of the asylum wagon into something more resembling a traveling carriage. Complete with some really soft cushions.

Twilight had also taken the liberty of magically giving the wagon some big proper windows. Windows that were currently being outfitted with curtains made of mattress fabric. The whole aesthetic thing made the wagon feel a little less like a transportation for mad ponies. Which, sadly - in a way - it still was.

A wagon probably conscripted by the good Dr Cardiac under the intention of transporting two runaway inmates back into his care.
Twilight did not know if that was actually his plan. But it made Twilight worry that Sweetie Belle had ended up in such a place to begin with. And, given everything Dr Cardiac said and knew about Sweetie, It made Twilight worry for the little mare's psyche. And it was not the only psyche she was worried about.

She looked back at Rarity, who had just finished dressing up the window on one side of the wagon, and moved on to make curtains for the other.

Twilight did not say anything. As long as it kept Rarity's mind on something other than the tragedy.

Twilight herself was about to fall to sleep again, but was woken up as the carriage bumped from hitting another large root.

They had been going off road into the forest for hours. The ground might be flat and without any undergrowth. But it was a far fetch from the well kept country routes. The forest were just sparse enough to drive a wagon through. But the wagon constantly bumped as it ran over rocks and roots. Branches scraped against the sides and the constant rain was hammering on the roof.

Beside Twilight, the nurse named Sully was sleeping like a rock. Snoring and drooling over her seat. Twilight envied her ability to sleep in these circumstances.

Outside, the two stallions, a caretaker and the doctor himself, pulled the wagon through this rough terrain, bad weather, and darkness. The dual lanterns on the front of the wagon just barely pierced the darkness far ahead for them to not run into anything. And at the very edge of that light ran a crazy mare, who, apart from her appearance, had more in common with a canine than a pony. The other "missing patient" who the doctor had said they were suppose to "catch", But who actually guided them through the forest.

Twilight wondered what the mare was following. Was she really able to track by scent? Or was it perhaps some form of earth pony magic behind that mares ability to sense where Sweetie had gone? Either way she was their only lead towards Sweetie. And tilight was glad that they had her.

Twilight was about to nod off again when the wagon suddenly stopped, almost sending all passengers flying into the front mattress clad wall.

Twilight poked her head out the window to see what was wrong.

Screwloose had stopped, and she was frantically looking around, her eyes wide and her ears peaked, listening for something.

All twilight could hear was the rain.

“What is it girl” Dr cardiac asked.

"Please don't tell us you saw a rabbit." The caretaker named Brick muttered.

"Actually, Rabbits starts to hibernate at this time of year." Twilight said, feeling her instinctive need to correct something.

Cardiac undid himself from the towing harness, And walked up to comfort the seemingly nervous mare. Suddenly Screwloose lowered her head and started growling. Like a dog ready to pounce something. Not at Cardiac. But at something out there in the darkness.

Twilight's head instantly cleared from drowsiness to the possibility of danger. But before she could consider what might lurk in the deep shadows, Screwloose took of again, and disappeared ahead of them

That's when the sound of an explosion hit their ears. It came rolling out from between the trees like thunder striking the ground. It was distant. But for them all to be able to hear it so clearly, it must have been massive. Perhaps large enough to level a building.
And Screwloose was heading right towards the sound. Twilight realized Screwloose must have heard it long before they did. Perhaps the mares ears were more sensitive than theirs as well.

Cardiac quickly strapped himself back into the harness, and they all hurried of in the direction of the sound.


***


As they left the trees. Twilight almost thought they had gone in one big circle and ended up back where they had started.

They found a big glade of scorched earth and debris smoldering in the rain. The only difference was that there were no firefighters. No emergency camp and no sirens. It was just them and them, and a big square of aches next to a country side road.

Screwloose was sniffing around in the gray mass of destruction by the time the others arrived. They parked their wagon on a driveway that led up from the road next to the site, and went on to survey the area.

Rarity immediately ran into the trees. Calling out Sweeties name and letting the light of her horn sweep through the woods as she looked for her sister. She purposely avoided the disaster zone. No wanting to believe that the trail ended here. Twilight didn't want to believe it either. But this was where Screwloose had led them. Were she even following Sweeties tracks anymore? Or had they all simply moved of the track to investigate the sound of the explosion? she did not want to believe that the two things could be connected. It was disbelieving enough that she got to visit two disaster sights in such short time.

“What happened here?” Said Twilight, as she, Cardiac, Brick and a dazed nurse Sully, spread out amongst the derbies. “Furthermore, what was here? Why would there be something the size of a barn in the middle of nowhere?"

“Its probably one of the Roadhouses .” Said Cardiac "There used to be one round these parts. Something tells me this is it.”

“A Roadhouse?” Twilight asked.

Cardiac explained:

“These woods are sparsely populated. You have to travel far to get anywhere. That's why somepony thought it a great idea to set up shop in the middle of the road. As a sort of resting places where travelers could get a break from their journey. Sleep, eat, restock and repair their wagons if they have one. In short they are a little bit of everything. A diner, a motel, a shop and workshop in one.”

That sounded like a pretty big building. Twilight thought. The diameter of the ashes confirmed it.

"What could have reduced one to ash in a heartbeat?" she asked.

“I don't know. Maybe a propane leakage. Many of these old places use propane stoves. If there kitchen goes unused for a time, when there is no customers around, a leakage could go undetected and unchecked. Then the gas can fill the entire kitchen. Then all it takes if for somepony to ignite the stove and ..."

“In other words, somepony just lit up their last barbecue.” Brick said sarcastically.

“Brick. You really are a prick!” Sully shouted.

Brick grunted in reply and the two of them walked to separate ends of the ashes.

“Is there any other way this could have happened?” Twilight asked. No doubt sounding a bit naive.

Apparently, so did Cardiac, as he raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“I don't know. Why?”

“I just hope nopony was in here. I don't think anypony could have survived that explo..."

“... WE GOT ONE OVER HERE!” Yelled Sully.

“Oh no...”

Cardiac and Twilight ran over to where Sully was standing. Twilight half expected to see some badly burned remains of an unlucky somepony. Or even worse - the remains of some unlucky filly.

What she saw was thankfully no filly. It was a piece of badly burned armor. A full body suit, made entirely of metal, laid half buried in the ashes.

“What is this?” Cardiac asked.

Twilight looked closer. She used her magic to remove fully uncover the figure from the derbies. The metal had been badly scored. But the suit looked intact.

“It looks like some sort of armor." She said "But its not standardized Equestrian military, That's for sure”

“How do you know?” Asked Sully.

“Lets just say that my brother is in the army.” Twilight answered.

She bent down and tried to talk to the pony. She even tapped the helmet a few times, but got no response.

Still, the heavy armor might have protected the wearer it from the explosion. Whoever was inside might still be alive, unconscious, and in need of medical attention. It was lucky they had brought a nurse with them, she thought.

Twilight tried to removed the helmet, but found no seal by which to release it from the neck of the harness. But as she let her mind slide over the surface of the armor she eventually found some nuts and bolts. Strange. Had this armor rely been attached using screws? Even the helmet had been attached to the plates of the neck using screws. That was sure not common practice.

The helmet was usually its own piece of armor, worn on the head like a hat. And the rest of the armor was also usually worn in individual pieces - secured to the body with buckles.

While screwing together the pieces of armor might increase its effective coverage, it would also be impossible for the wearer to get in and out of the armor without outside help. Twilight wondered how anypony would feel being trapped in such a tin can.

Knowing that armor tended to be spell protected she could not just magic the armor away. Instead she magically summoned a screwdriver and started working on the attachments. When all screws were loose she grabbed the brim of the the helmet to pry it off. Jet this proved surprisingly difficult as the helmet still refused to budge. Something was still holding it in place.

When her hooves failed, she reached out with her telekinesis to grab hold of the stubborn metal. Even this proved difficult as her magic kept sliding off the armor like a greasy hoofball would slide out of her hoofs. But her will proved stronger than the metal. Something groaned in protest as she bent the metal outward to free the neck of the pony inside, and finally the seal broke and the helmet came off.

There was no head underneath.

“OH MY CELESTIA! YOU PULLED HIS HEAD OFF!” Screamed Sully.

At first Twilight was shocked. For a second she was afraid that she had overdone it and magically relieved somepony of their skull. But then she say that there was no flesh or bone inside the neck, but a nightmarish set of cogs, springs and wires.

She flipped the helmet around and saw it too was filled with gears and wires, and (thankfully) not a head.

“That's definitely not standardized Equestrian military!” She said out loud.

"What isn't?" Said Rarity, Who had come out of the trees and ended up behind them. "who's head are we talking ab..."

The light of her horn swept over the headless armor. Rarity stared down into the broken neck, and she let out a blood shilling scream. the light of her horn went out, her eyeballs rolled back into her head and she looked like she was about to faint.

Dr Cardiac grabbed her and steadied her with a hug. “Its not her.” he whispered in Rarity's ear. “Its not her. Its not her. Its not her.”

He repeated the phrase over over and over as he lead her away from the sight.

Twilight looked at the head. So may questions swirled in her head. What was a mechanized suit of armor doing here? Was this really a mechanized suit of armor? How did it work? How did it operate? Curiosity caused her to shove her hoof into the helmet and start to pull the gears out. But her thought were haltered by another shout.

“You better come and take a look at this” yelled Brick

They turned around to see that Screwloose had started digging in the rubble.

“It better not be another dead body Brick!” Sully yelled , still recovering from her own shock. "Or any more dead armored machines”

“Well ... Technically it wasn't a body ... Or dead." Twilight said with a nervous smile. "If its mechanized, can it relay be called dead?”

“I don't think this is the right time to have that discussion” said Cardiac, who had suddenly appeared beside her. He nodded at Rarity, who was still catching her breath over by the side.

Twilight swallowed her words, and any philosophical questions she might have had. She found herself still holding on to the mechanized helmet with more venerate than she had expected. Unwilling to throw it away like a piece of trash as she walked too see what Screwloose was digging up.

As they approached they saw that it was not another body, but a door. A big steel door. A hatch buried in the ground.

Screwloose had already uncovered most of the framework. The rest of the ponies all helped to scoop away the last dirt and aches from the door, and Twilight's magic was good at moving aside any larger debris.

Once they where finished they had revealed a big metal square. Large enough to drive a wagon through.
More surprising was how thick the doors looked. Sturdy enough to fit on a bunker.

There had to be something underneath. Maybe somepony had hidden down there when the fire started.

Twilight was thinking that maybe she could force the doors open if she put her might into it. It was an inelegant solution. But she was tired. And the drumming of the rain on the thick metal was giving her a headache.

She magically grabbed hold of the framework. Ready to tear the whole thing out of the ground if he had to.
But Dr Cardiac stopped her. He scraped his hoof alongside the edges of the door and found a small panel. It was outfitted with a round token with a life sized hoof mark.

“It's a hoof dial.” He explained. “Its like the dial to a safe. You twist it to unlock the door. But unfortunately I don't know the combination. And even if I did, there are no digits surrounding the button, so I cant see what I'm typing in.” He sighed “Its designed so only the one who knows the correct pattern can get in.”

He stepped away.

“Miss Twilight. If you wouldn't mind removing the dial from its socket”

Twilight did not understand how that was gonna get them any further. But she did as he said. It was easier to pry of a small panel then it would have been attempting to force open the doors.

With the panel out of the way a series of wires and electronics became exposed.

Wasting no time, Cardiac went to work on the wires. He asked nurse Sully for a pair of scissors she had brought in her medical bag. He then cut every single wire apart, and completely tore up the wirework. He then fetched Screwloose. And placed her over the broken panel.

Twilight's head became filled with questions. But it looked like the doctor knew what he was doing and decided not to ask.

At first nothing happened. But then Screwloose sat down and started to work on the panel. With the skill of an electrician she twisted the wires together. Finally she took a needle that sully was chewing on and jammed it into the circuitry.

There was a spark from the console, followed by a loud hissing from underneath the steel doors. Like a big amount of steam had been released. Then, with a low rumble. The doors sided open... to reveal another metal door.

"Great work." Muttered Brick.

Twilight found herself silently wishing for him to stop being such a prick. It was unbelievable enough that the mad mare had accomplished this much.

Screwloose continued to tinker a bit. There was another spark, and what they had thought was a second door to started to move. Not sliding aside - but disappearing down into the darkness. Some more tinkering brought it back up.

“All aboard the elevator I guess.” Brick said with a nervous smile.

Screwloose stuck out her tongue at the stallion.

"What? It was a compliment."


***


The rain followed them down, and continued to fall upon them as their elevator hit the bottom. There was flicker in the darkness as some sparse lamps in the roof tried to start up, but unfortunately never got passed the flickering state. Still the lackluster light revealed that
It really was a bunker here down below. Twilight had no other way of describing it.

The Steel clad walls that were revealed in the flickering lights made the whole dark scene look like something out of that horror movie about killing robots that every foal in Ponyville was talking about. Twilight hadn't seen the move herself. But this was what she would imagine a secret base of killer robots to look like.

Twilight lit her horn like a flashlight. The beam of light swept over the wall to reveal a long row of metal cubicles. A few of them still hosting their occupants - Fully steel clad mechanical stallions, similar to the one they had found up there. Rarity's horn-beam lit up the opposing wall, revealing even more cubicles and robots. Both rows disappeared further into the darkness than their light cones could reach.

“Looks like the greeting committee is broken.” Mumbled Brick. Twilight could not tell from his sour tone if he was trying to be funny.

“Are you being a prick again Brick?” Asked Sully.

He let out a heavy sigh.

“The light were probably suppose to greet our arrival. But I guess something got damaged from the explosion on top”

“Your point?”

He let out another sigh and gestured to the flicking lights.

”Since the lights are trying to greet us. And the door and elevator is working. They must have their own generator down here.”

Sully sighed. "You're right." She mumbled. Clearly not wanting to say those words to him.

Rarity swept her horn beam away from the machine stallions. And lit up a door in the wall next behind the elevator. Several cables out from the room and up to the rows of non functional fluorescent lamps in the sealing. (There was also a a buzzing coming from that room. Like a big turbine was spinning.)

"That looks like a good place to start." Said Cardiac.

He pulled Screwloose along.

"Come on girl. Lets see if you can work your magic again."

Brick. Cardiac, Screwloose and Rarity left to search that black room for a potential power source.

That left Twilight herself, and Sully standing on the platform looking out into the ill lit darkness. Contemplating the size of this underground bunker. Her magical beam could not even reach the other end of this place. An extra magical push and she might have been able to light up the whole compound. But the ache in her tired head argued against it. Tired and hungry as she was, she did not feel like straining herself with an illumination spell.

There was a spark from the other room and the light came back on properly. Twilight almost wished it hadn't. For the light revealed another horror. The signs of recent battle. the walls were filled with black holes, and dozens upon dozens of armored robots littered the floor – some of them blown apart - some of them still moving!

Sully was so shocked by the sight that she dropped the needle from her mouth.

“What is all this?” she asked.

“Illegal.” Said Twilight as she walked of the elevator. Her eyes fixed on the long metallic lances that were strapped to the sides of the stallions. Some of them sparkled with energy. "Whoever lived here has been conducting illegal weapon manufacturing."

She magically picked up a loose lance that had come of from one of the destroyed stallions. Several broken wires hung from the socket that had once connected it to its mechanical wielder.

The thing seemed to hum with energy. She reckoned it must have its own power source. Her eyes traced the many black holes that had been blown in the mechanical ponies and the walls.

She tinkered with the cables at the socket of the lance. Suddenly the whole thing gave out a crack like the thunder of lightning, and a beam shot out of the tip of the lance and added a new black hole to the wall.

“Very illegal.” She said as she carefully put the lance down.

Everypony spread out to search the big hall. Careful not to touch any of the fallen robots. Twilight swore some of them tried to grab her fetlocks as she moved past them.

But the real scary part was that most of the cubicles were empty. There were stations for more than double the amount of robots that laid scrambled here before them.

The elevator had been in top position. That meant that whoever used it last went up. Possibly taking a number of these machine stallions along with them.

More rooms and hallways dotted the walls further down the hall. Screwloose quickly disappeared down them and the rest of them decided to split up and search the place. There was also a staircase. But that was completely caved in.

Finally Twilight managed to cross the mechanical minefield, and reached the end of the great metal hall.

There was some sort of workstation and a suspension claw hanging open. Something must have been released recently. Next to it was the disturbing sight of a little filly manikin, made entirely of barbed wire.

“What do you think of this?” Sully asked.

There was a row of manikins next to the workbench. Rows of armor that looked like prototypes of the robots now littering the floor. And more surprisingly a set of what was supposed to be an officer's uniform and some sort of battle dress that might have been worn by a private. The only thing missing was the helmet.

Not that these dresses had ever seen actual combat. They belonged more in a stage play than the Equestiran military. Not a single medal on the dress was a genuine Equestrian code of arms. They were all but cheap fakes.

On the workbench laid the pieces of a helmet, similar to the ones who donned the robots, except way smaller. In fact it looked made to fit a filly's head. Twilight didn't see any robots that small. Only the barbwire manikin. Why make a robot, or more specifically, a piece of armor that small?

“ICH!” Said Rarity, in her ladylike manner of disgust. “Such cheap fabrics!”

Twilight almost jumped out of her raincoat at the sound of Rarity's voice. Apparently she had traversed the room full of downed robots without hindrance. She had, however, not gone to look over Twilight shoulder, but was rather drawn to the dresses on the manikins.

"I can tell an amateur when I see one.”

“Amateur Indeed. Whoever built this place must have had some serious power fantasies.” Twilight said, hoping to keep Rarity focused on the fabric as she pulled the raincoats hood down over her horn to hide its magical glow.

She magically shoved the barbed wire filly out of sight, and swept away the filly sized pieces of a robot head. She did not want Rarity to see them. For they - along with the fact that the naked manikin was the smallest in a set of armored ones, the weapons and the missing thing from the suspension claws - were all beginning to paint a nasty picture in her mind.

A picture that part of her was still not ready to accept. Even with the whole Belle family, and the Cmc, and Cheerilee and now Dr Cardiac rambling about the same thing, she could just not believe Sweetie Belle to be a robot. Let alone that she had been one this whole time. Her doubts had been founded in the lack of proof that technology like that existed.

But now she was standing in the middle of a room filled with evidence to the contrary.

This was getting surreal. And for all that Twilight had been through, that was saying something.

Well – If there was something she did not understand. She got an almost sickly desire to figure it out. And right now that desire prompt her curiosity about how the mechanical stallions worked.

She magically grabbed a set of tools from the workstation, and walked up to the half finished - half fallen apart stallions, and started examine it.

Like a surgeon she began to dissect the metal stallion. Removing all its armor and taking apart its framework limb for limb. The insides were covered with wires, and pulling them apart was disturbingly like pulling the muscle tissue on an operating patient aside for an organ transplant.

Needless to say the thing in front of her didn't have any organs, it had a large spinning turbine in its chest and rear which seemed to power the hydraulic pistons powering the legs and enable automatic recharge with limb movement. the hydraulic system that gave the armor movement was nothing short of ingenious and really would enable the machine mobility similar to a pony's.

But she could not understand what kind of power that drove the machine. Her expertise was magic. Computers were something that help calculate and analyze during lab tests. Big hulking things with lots of lights and dials. Not something that moved on its own. Even if one programmed an input for every possible movement the pony body could preform, it would take a massive amount of processing power to handle that information. Each and every one of these things would have to be their own walking computer. How did one fit that kind of power inside these things?

Twilight dug deeper into the bowls of the barrel like torso and pulled out a motherboard from its center.

It was a octagon shaped, flat blue disc. When she looked closely she could see several layers of thin lines running inside it. It looked almost crystallized in nature jet looked nothing like any crystal or gem she had seen before.

“That looks like something we pulled out of one of my patients. Except bigger“ said Cardiac.

Twilight almost jumped out of her raincoat again. She had been so deep in thought that she had not heard him sneaking up on him. She turned around to see he was standing right over her shoulder.

“What do you mean by “pulled out of your patient?” She asked.

Cardiac reached into his pocket and picked up a similar crystal disc, except smaller, and with a couple of wires hanging from the end.

Twilight winced when she saw the hardened brain matter on the thing.

Cardiac briefly told her about where they had gotten it, and about Sweetie's reactions to it. He also told her not to bother using magic. Their doctors had already tried.

Twilight held up the two disks towards the light. Trying to compare them. There was something similar about how the threads of brain-matter and mix of copper thread had formed in Cardiacs disc compared to the lines inside the other disc from the machine stallion.
But she could not even begin to guess what that could mean.

Another thing that bothered her was that that, despite its larger size, the motherboard had a far, far simpler linework. Its patterns looked crude and hoof made compared to the naturally formed spiders web in Screwloose's disk. It was like comparing the masterful crafted pattern of a moonspider's web to a foals drawing of said web. It was also milky translucent. The Screwloose disk might be rougher around its blood stained edges. But it was still far more transparent.

Twilight made a face. All these thoughts were beginning to put a strain on her tired mind.

“Does it hurt to think about?” Cardiac asked.

“I just cant wrap my head around all this." Twilight said as she massaged her temple. "I just know for a fact that Sweetie Belle is magical. Its a long story, but I once enchanted a doll to appear more … appealing ... in the eyes of her and her friends. Unfortunately the spell was a little to powerful and everypony ended up going crazy over that doll. Including Sweetie Belle.”

“So?...” Said Cardiac.

“So that means that whatever Sweetie Belle is made of can absorb magic energy.”

Cardiac shook his head.

"You seem to be a little to hung up on magical energy." he said "Its understandable to think that Sweetie absorbed something from the crystal. I do not deny that something happened to her. She definitely got visions. I can not say how. But if there was magic energy on that disc, then my unicorn doctors should have been able to sense something. Which they didn't. You are not able to sense anything yourself, are you?”

Twilight waved the disc around. No she wasn't.

“But that's impossible.” She groaned in frustration” Because there is something on this.” She waved Screwloose's disk. “Memories! You said it yourself. Sweetie experienced the memories of Screwloose. Memories that were stored on this.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“I have no idea.” she said in frustration “I do know there are ways of magically storing memories in crystals and other objects. The harpies and dream thieves do it all the time. But every magical item always radiates some form of magical energy....” She rambled as she thought out loud.

But the crystal in front of her were completely dead to her. Like it was empty. If a memory had been magically stored here, she should be able to sense something.

She was snapped out of her thoughts by the sound of a loud barking.

Twilight and Cardiac went to see what was the matter. Following the sound of the barking mare they found their way into a separate section of the underground facility that seemed to house an entire living quarter. Complete with a few bedrooms, a gym, a toilet and a kitchen.

There they found that Screwloose had raided the fridge. Pulling out all manner of Pre-stocked food onto the floor and was now going threw the content with the same graze of a dog pulling over a garbage can. Once she saw Twilight and Cardiac she happily waged her tail. Proud of her finding. She walked up to Twilight with a biscuit in her mouth and waved it in front of Twilight.

“She wants you to have it” Said Cardiac.

Twilight took the biscuit in her magic.

“Thanks. But I rather not have something you have just had in your mouth.”

Screwloose whined and wave her head in the direction on the fridge. Twilight's belly gave out a loud rumble at the sight of all the food. Only now did she notice how hungry she was.

“But you are right. We all could use a snack right about now.”

Screwloose barked happily and started to pull all manner of food over to the oven.

“I actually think she might be smarter than she seems.” Twilight said to Cardiac.

“I agree.”


***


It was not long before every pony was gathered in the kitchen to prepare a big and well needed meal.
Sully and Brick almost immediately got into an argument about what to cook and Rarity joined in, complaining that hospital rations were no way to prepare a proper meal. And Screwloose tried to eat the ingredients raw.

Twilight quickly found herself superfluous to the kitchen, and decided to take the time to try and use the bathroom and laundry room. Hoping there would be something edible upon her return. (The more chefs , the worse the soup – or so the saying goes.)

However she found the laundry room occupied by Dr Cardiac. He had removed his rain stained doctors coat, and for the first time Twilight got a good look at his mark.

It was a silhouette of a pony head with a heart in it.

“Did something catch your eye?” He asked while he wrung out his coat over the sink. Causing Twilight to blush.

“I'm just thinking about the anatomically incorrectness of your mark.”

“How so?”

“Every-pony knows that the heart is not in the head but the chest.”

“Physically no. But mentally...” He made a break as he shook his coat dry. “Everyone like to say that we feel emotions in our hearts. But all emotions actually comes from the head. The brain. Its true that the heart beats faster when you see someone you love. But that's just the physical response to excitement. The real trigger is in the brain”

Something else had caught Twilight's eye. Or rather her ear. It was the way he phrasing his sentences with “Everyone” and “Someone” instead of the regular “Everypony” or “Somepony.”

When she asked why he said it was an old habit. He had more than ponies as mental patients.

"Other species has feelings and mental structure similar to our own. And can develop the same mental conditions. Its a way of saying that more than just ponies has feelings and thoughts, My phrasing was a way to never leave anything or anyone out of the mental equation."

“I see” Said twilight. “When dealing with a multi-species group one should not use a selective phrasing.” She got out her quill and paper from her saddlebags.

“Why are you writing this down?”

Twilight blushed again.

“Old habit. Whenever I learn something new I have a habit of writing it down. You never know when you might need it.”

She put the last dot to the paper and put it away again.

“Now. Can you please excuse me while I dry up my clothes”

“Of course.”

As Cardiac stepped out of the laundry he wondered why Twilight would be shy to get out of her raincoat in front of him since all ponies had fur - and clothes where an optional choice of accessorizing or an occupational necessity. Personally he liked his coat simply for its many pockets. Still he respected her privacy, Assuming mares did not like when stallion saw them when they where not at their finest. Especially not when they where rain soaked.


***


Later. Everypony got to enjoy a big, yet simple meal.

The table was set for all, yet Screwloose pulled her plate of the table and ate from the floor.

Rarity had not even taken her rain coat off. Insisting that they get ready to leave as soon an possible. Twilight, not wanting to appear any less, had put her coat back on.

Nopony spoke except Cardiac, who tried to entertain everypony with tales of his high school hoof ball career - of which no pony other than Brick was interested.

Twilight wasn't really listening. There was just something about the steel clad, windowless walls that made her uncomfortable. Her thoughts kept running back to the stories and movies that colts and fillies today enjoyed - about killer robots and ponies being forced to live in underground bunkers.

She wondered if this might be pony-kind's future. That when the war came, the last remnants of pony-kind would be forced to live in claustrophobic underground facilities like this one. Those had been nothing but fantasies a few days ago. But with recent reveals, she wasn't so sure any more.

Her thoughts returned to a more recent matter. As she levitated the fork to her mouth she also spun both crystal disks in her magic under the table. As if focusing on them long enough would somehow make them reveal their secrets to her.

How could Sweetie have read it? And what was a similar devise doing inside a mechanical monster?

As she tried to connect the dots she realized she could not continue her line of thought without more facts.
Rarity, and her parents, had been very vague when describing sweetie beyond that she was a robot.
She had to ask Rarity If she knew anything more. If she knew something about the disk.

Twilight put down her fork and levitated both devises up from under the table.

“Rarity. Have you seen anything like this before?”

Rarity's eyes, that had been half closed and distant, Shot wide open in an instant. She stared at the disks as if they where sucking her eyes out of their skulls. Her pupils shrank and started to roll back into her head.

Twilight knew what was coming She had already seen this reaction one to many times. She grabbed her friend and started to shake her. Hoping to snap her out of it before it began.

“Rarity! Do not faint now! We need some answers!”


***


“I,m sorry. But her brainwaves remain at an almost zero. And she shows no signs of further neroulogical development”
The doctor. A yellow pegasus with a sleek brown mane. Tapped his head to simplify.

“The brain is not developing. ”

Little Rarity's heart sank as the doctor delivered the news.

She had been in coming and going to and from the hospital for weeks. Always hoping that the next trip would be her last. that the doctors would find a cure and make her little sister better. That was what doctors were suppose to do. Make ponies better. But for some reason these doctors must be really, really bad at their jobs, for her sister did not get better. She remains sleeping, always sleeping, in that protective incubator they had her in. Never opening her eyes.

They said that all they could do was wait. And waiting was what she did.

Rarity had sat by that bed. Waiting for hours for her sister to open her eyes. She had brought cake, juice, and every get-well-soon balloon she could afford. And dresses. Rarity had made lots of dresses for her sister. Even though she wasn't allowed to open the incubator and measure her sister with tape, she had good eye for dimensions and had made a new dress every day. The hospital room had become decorated like a birthday party, with balloons cake and presents (all dresses). The staff eventually had to tell her to stop bringing more things to the hospital as they were getting in the way of the doctors work.

The two sisters had become the talk of the entire hospital. The devoted little mare who waited endlessly by the incubator, listening to the sound of the life support systems that kept her newborn sister alive. It was a story that became a little sadder every day.

Little Rarity wasn't deaf to that talk. There had been talk that her sister was never going to open her eyes. That the chance for it decreased every day. There had even been talk about shutting down the machines that kept her sister alive. Rarity had heard, but not listened. What kind of mean spirited pony would even consider doing such a thing.

But now, Even this pegasus, who had been on their side from the beginning, was saying the same thing. That her little sister wasn't going to get any better, and that there was nothing they could do.

Mom cried. Like she always did when she came here. Dad tried to remain steady as he supported his wife. but he failed to hold back the tears.

“I'm sorry.” Said the stupid Doctor “I'll go and tell the chief of medicine.”

He put the diagnosis board under his wing, like he always did, and turned to leave.

“But..." Little Rarity began in protest. "If you turn of the machines... then wont she....”

Her parent slowly hung their heads. Mom, with tears still streaming down her face, walked up and put her hoof on Rarity's shoulder.

“Little Rarity....” She said in that way parents comfort their child before giving them the bad news.

No. This was wrong. Parent where not suppose to act this way. They couldn't. They just couldn't!

“No.. NO!"

She tore herself from her mother and jumped up on the incubator. She laid flat on the transparent glass, as if trying to hug her little sister inside. Even now it looked like she was sleeping. Her tiny chest rising and falling in tune to the airpump that was connected by the tubes to her mouth and nostrils.

They told her to get off, but Rarity squeezed her tiny hooves around the glass. Tying to use her tiny body to protect her little sister from all the worlds evil!

"Rarity PLEASE! Don't make this harder than it already is!"

"NO! SHE IS MY LITTLE SISTER! I WONT LET YOU TAKE HER!”

Her father tried to use his magic to pull Rarity of the incubator. But her tiny hooves proves stronger. Her mother tried to pry her hooves of the incubator. All the while little Rarity screamed in protest as tears and snot flowed down her face.

“EXCUSE ME!” Shouted a mare. “I THINK I CAN HELP YOU!”

They all turned around to see a mare stepping through the door, she wore the biggest roundest glasses Rarity had ever seen.

“I'm sorry." She said "I heard what you where talking about. And I think there might be a way.”

What followed was a long conversation about a risky procedure that used a lot of grown up words that little Rarity did not understand.

Mom and dad were skeptical to the strangers promises. But to Rarity, there was only one thing that mattered.

“Are you going to give my sister a brain?... a brain that works?” She asked the mare.

“Yes” Said the mare.

“Then... What are we waiting for!”

Her conviction was all the convincing her parents needed.


***


“… and then she pulled this little stone out from her pocket. She said it was going to help strengthen the brainwaves and make sweeties mind develop. But it needed to be implanted directly into her brain. She said it was safe. She said she had tested it.”

Rarity panted heavily. She was lying in one of the bunker beds, where the others had taken her.

Cardiac had almost immediately pushed Twilight out of the way and taken charge. With Bricks and Sully's help the had – just barely – managed to keep Rarity from crashing.

Rarity took another sip of the water Sully held forth to her.

“After that was when the experiments began. They implanted a crystal that looked just like that into her head. It was supposed to increase brain activity. Make her able to think... to … come alive."

Another deep sigh.

"And it worked... at first...”

Rarity took a deep long breath. Her lips quivered. Twilight waited for her to continue. But she did not. Twilight wanted to ask more questions. She needed to know more. But Cardiac put a hoof on her shoulder and stopped her. He shook his head and led her out in the corridor.

He looked like he wanted nothing more than to cry himself, when he removed his glasses to scratch his tired brown eyes.

“So that's what they where doing to Screwloose." He said "Trying to make her smarter!”

Twilight magically levitated the older disk with the broken wired between them.

“But how can something like that be in Sweetie?" She asked "And doesn't that mean it worked. I mean, Sweetie seemed perfectly normal to me.”

"I know" Cardiac said.

"So... Why would they have need to make a robot out of Sweetie?"

"I don't know. But I do know that you should not pressure your friend for any more information. I’m concerned about her mental condition. to let you ask her anything else."

"Why is that doctor? what is wrong with her?"

Cardiac wiped his eyes once again.

"She seems to be going into relapse.”

“Relapse?”

“Its when she is forced to face something she had denied for a very long time. It can be quite similar to when a drug addict falls into addiction again after denying herself the drug for too long, or getting a taste for it again.”

“Hold on. Are you saying Rarity is in denial?”

Cardiac gave Twilight a hard look.

"She is, and has been for a very long time.
Its not surprising really. The mind can develop barriers that block out traumatic memories. Its a form of defensive mechanism.
The mind has many ways of protecting itself from traumatizing experiences. One of them is to take all the bad memories and lock them away. As if they never happened. But certain things can force those locks to break, and make her remember again. And every one of those memories are like an old wound that is being reopened."

He wiped his glasses on his newly dried coat, and continued.

"She believes that only she, and only she, can be the one who finds Sweetie, who fixes all this. She is no doubt riddled with guilt over how she "failed" to help her sister earlier. A failure that lead to all these tragic events. As such she had become obsessed with fixing her mistakes. She believes that she is the only one who can fix them. That she is the only one that should be allowed to fix them, in order to make up for her mistakes. This is a problem she wants to – Needs to - handle on her own.”

He pointed a hoof, almost accusingly, at Twilight.

“You are the only one she volentarely involved in this. And you are one too many.It's not surprising she won't tell you more, She probably want to keep you, and everyone else, as distant from this as possible. In situations like this its not unusual for the subject to create lies in order to make others stay away."

"Wait. Are you saying Rarity would lie?"

“Think about it. You said yourself that the whole town probably knows about Sweetie's secret by now. Yet Rarity specifically asks that no one else should get involved in the search. That they shouldn’t even be informed. Because she is afraid of what they might do. or of what Sweetie might do to them. Am I right?”

Twilight remembered the story Rarity had told her.

“She told me that Sweetie could shoot lasers out of her eyes” She said “She said she was acting all crazy... that she might even kill somepony”

"And you believed her?"

Twilight hung her head in shame.

“I don't know what to believe anymore” She said. “I didn't even know such technology existed, until just now” She waved a hoof out at the hall. “I had trouble believe that anything they said about Sweetie was true... until now.”

Worry filled her soul. The combined evidence of a missing armor in filly size - illegal weapons mounted on robot ponies, and the signs of battle did not paint a pretty picture in her mind.

"Tell me, doctor. Do you really think Sweetie might kill somepony?"

Cardiac sighed.

“No... That little mare does not have it in her to kill. But I am worried about her mental condition. She is going through so many things right now. She it out there somewhere, lost and alone. She is sad, confused and going through the mother of all existential crises … but kill?"

Cardiac shook his head. Twilight hoped that he was right. But she could not get the words of the Belle's out of her mind. Of Sweetie's emotions running on a battery that needed recharging. What might happens if Sweetie's emotions did run out? What would an emotionless machine do?

Cardiac's face hardened.

“I’m also concerned about your condition.”

Twilight's ears peaked.

“Me?”

“You have been scribbling down notes like crazy since this chase began. You dissect machines to study them when all you should be thinking about is finding Sweetie. You ask questions that have nothing to do with the chase. You try to learn as much as you can about what makes that little filly tick, both outside and in.”

His eyes narrowed.

“This fascinates you, doesn’t it? You have a chance to learn about something you never thought possible. The little stunt you pulled at the dinner table was reckless, and completely disregarding for your friends mental health. Even more so since you said that you have seen this reaction before."

His glare was now so cold that Twilight thought his glasses would frost.

“Are you doing this to help a friend, or are you doing it because you are curious? I’m sure its both. But which one is it most?"

Twilight gritted her teeth. Her horn glowed and suddenly Dr Cardiac found his lips transformed into a zipper which was quickly zipped shut.

The spell vanished a second later, but the message was clear.
Cardiac wiped his mouth to make sure it was still there. jet it was not long before he continued.

“They say that when you run out of things to say you start talking with your hooves. He sighed “You may have used magic instead of bare hooves but the meaning stays the same.”

Twilight’s own glare hardened.

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“Truth to be told I just want to make sure you are one of us. And not one of the others.”

“Others?”

“Look around you!” He gestured out to the destruction of the main hall “Someone is chasing her. You saw evidence of that in Ponyville. Them my hospital burns down while she is visiting. Immediately afterwards one of my patients disappears with non existent siblings. And now this! You saw that there were far more empty booths in the hall than there where robots on the floor. Something obviously went down here and someone obviously left in a hurry, and went to extreme measures to hide this place.
I doubt those someones have good intentions.”

Twilight once again turned her eyes out towards the basement hall. What kind of paranoia would cause somepony to rig up their own roadhouse with explosives?

Someone, or somepony who does not want to be found out. Somepony who carries out unauthorized production of militarized hardware. somepony who turns armor into mechanical warriors carrying illegal and very deadly weapons.

The whole mystery surrounding Sweetie seemed to become darker by the day.
just what manner of ill founded research surrounded that little filly?

Twilight could not deny she was curious. And Cardiac had called her out on it. His words had stung. Perhaps because there was truth to them. But she would be damned if she let anypony accuse her of not caring for her friend.

Now it was her turn.

“Allow me to accuse you of something!" She said "How come you know so much about those hoof dials things?"

Cardiac answered very patiently.

"As I've said. I spent a short time in the secret lab where they made the little miss. I saw them using these things quite frequently."

"Precisely! You were connected to the ponies that made Sweetie, do you really expect me to believe you know nothing about her?
Are you claiming you don't know that a device you have pulled out of your own patient's head is similar to what Sweetie might have inside her?”

She magically waved the disk she had pulled out of the steel stallion in front of her.

“How do I know you are not the one here who wants to find her for morally ambiguous reasons?”

Cardiac kept a calm face. But she could see anger brewing in his eyes.

“It seems we both have trust issues to work on. As I explained, I only got contacted by those ponies after Sweetie was already complete. For psychological evaluation. I never saw what components might make up her inner workings, except on an X ray. And those things are blocked by metal. If she indeed had blue disc's inside of her, I did not see it. Furthermore - I have no idea where their secret laboratory is hidden."

He added that last statement just to wave off any further questions from Twilight.

" ...Now if you excuse me. I think its best if be both keep away from each other until we have calmed down.”

He turned and walked away in a calm and collected manner. Twilight stared after him as he disappeared down the corridor. Almost as soon as he was gone the door to the bunker bedrooms opened. Sully came out and closed the door behind her.

“How is she?” Twilight asked.

Sully raised a hoof to her mouth in a gesture to be quiet.

“Better.” She said in a low voice “But not good. I slipped some sleeping pills into her water. She will be out for a while. Poor mare really needs the rest.”

Twilight nodded. She did not think Rarity had slept since they left Ponyville. And neither had Twilight. She felt like passing out for a few ours herself. But worry for her friend kept her awake.

“Is there nothing you can do for Rarity?”

“There are spells.” Sully said with a shrug ”But the doctor has forbidden it. Its dangerous to tamper with the mind.”

Mind tampering spells. Twilight had read about them but never studied any of them. And yes. They were dangerous. It would have been convenient if one could just magic the mental problem away. But the pony's mind was more complex than that.

But what Rarity was hiding, was locked deep down in her mind. Hurtful memories of a time rather forgotten. Twilight wished she could help her make them surface. She wished she could help her in any way possible.

She asked Sully about if there was any way one could enter a pony's mind to find things that the pony had forgotten. Mind reading would not work, since Rarity had blocked out these things from her mind. Mind reading was like putting your ear to a locked door – you only heard the surface thoughts, of what the pony was thinking about at the time.

“There is one called the mind delve." Sully explained. "Let's you dive deeper into a pony's mind.”

“Can you teach me?” Asked Twilight.

Sully Raised an eyebrow and rolled the needle over her lips.

“Why?”

“Because she is my friend. And I want to help her. Besides. As her friend, It might be easier for me to enter her mind, since she trusts me. Please teach me, just in case” She pleaded

“Its not an easy spell."

“Believe me. I have a thing for spells.”

“And I'm no spell-teacher.” Sully persisted.

“You don't have to teach me. You just think of the spell as if you were going to cast it. And I will copy it.”

Sully raised an eyebrow.

“You can do that?”

Twilight put her horn on Sully's.

“I told you I have a thing for spells.”

The needle passed over Sully's lips again. But she closed her eyes, and energy stared coursing through her horn. In turn, Twilight lit up hers and focused on the other unicorns magical aura. The auras started to mix until they where a single sullied color of purple. An aura that disappeared down into Twilight’s horn.

Sully opened her eyes again. A bit startled.

“Did you just?..”

“No. I just copied your magic. I did not just steal it.”

Sully shook her head. she looked like she had just been dipped in a bucket of ice water.

“Wow. I didn't know there was magic like that.” She said with a relaxing sigh. “With all your talking about Harpies and thieves earlier I almost thought that the only way to take someponys magic was to take it... away.

She scratched the back of her head.

"Yea, I'm not good with words."

She levitated the needle out of her mouth, just to see that she still could, and put it back in again.

Twilight giggled nervously.

“You do not have to be a Harpy or a thief to store memories. Anypony who knows the spell could do it. And you did not have to remove it to store it. Simply copy it, if it is something you need or want to remember.”

"The reason the spell is obscure is because there are many other, simpler ways to store your thoughts. I prefer the written word myself. And these days there are all sorts of recording devices and..."

A spark lit up in her mind.

She lifted the blue disc. Recordings. Of course. Why had she not thought of that immediately?

Amazing what difference a hot meal in your belly can do.


***


Twilight found Cardiac out in the main hall. She briefly apologized for the things she had accused him of before magically shoving the disks in his face and verbally showering him with her thoughts.

“You were right. I have been thinking about this the wrong way.” She said “What if its not magical but electronic? I realize I have been to hung up on magic. I assumed that the energy was magically since they were stored in these crystal like disks. I thought this was like a memory vessel. But what if there was no magic involved? What if it is like a recording?”

Cardiac gently pushed the disks away from his face.

“Are you saying some pony recorded her memories onto that? I thought your friend just told us that its meant to strengthen brainwaves.”

“Yes – But we also know it has the ability to store memories. Less Sweetie would not have been able to experience anything.”

Twilight was getting worked up as her mind was exploring new possibility.

“Electronic devices use electricity to function. In this case I believe they run on brain-frequencies. Memories are like energy in the brain after all. Out thoughts are made up of thousands of electrical signals between the synapses.”

Twilight stopped short of explaining science to somepony who was already an expert on the field.

“Now, if they were performing some sort of hing voltage experiment...”

“What Sweetie described sounded like shock therapy” said Cardiac. “She not only saw it. She experienced it”

“Yes. And what that poor mare experienced in that moment must have gotten stuck on this! Imagine the trauma. The brain must have been hyperactive. And if this thing was in her head. Right in the midst of all those brainwaves. All those signals must have passed through this.”

Dr Cardiac nodded “And gotten stuck on it. I see. So you are saying that it is a device able to copy, or maybe even absorb, brain patterns.”

Twilight looked down on the blue disk again. The solidified brain-matter and thin red nerve endings inside the crystal was giving her the shivers. Even more so with her recent trail of thought about it being able to absorb brains.

If they really had replaced parts of Sweetie's brain with these. What had gone wrong?

Absorbing brains.

Were these devices really able to do that? And were they then able to function like a brain? An artificial brain with hundreds of thousands of electrical signals running inside it. Sweetie Belle ran through Twilight's mind. The little mare had been so energetic, curious and full of life.
if these blue disks really could store memories, maybe they could store as much as an entire personality. But what did that mean for Sweetie? Had they taken the memories of a dead, stillborn foal, and put it in a machine. Was such a thing even possible?
Were these things also able to create thoughts? Generate emotions? Become sentient? Self aware? And where they really able to do it without magic?

She looked over at the Steel stallions she had dismantled. Suddenly afraid that it would at any moment would come to life. Or would have, if she had not taken its...

She held up the other blue disk. the motherboard from the stallion. This time looking closer at the similarities between the lines on both.

To think that there was technology in Equestria that could do such things. It was almost too much for her to bear.

“Miss Twilight!”

Cardiac snapped her out of her thoughts. She realized sweat had started to form on her brow.

She shook her head hoping to clear it. One thing at a time, she told herself. All these things were just hypotheses by now. She needed to prove her first thought to begin with.

“As I was saying. If these things can record memories then maybe we could play them up. Provided we have the right equipment. Every recording needs a device to play on. Like a record needs a gramophone."

She looked around the hall. And to her joy there was a computer terminal, similar in look to the hardware Twilight was familiar with. A big lumpy thing with lots of wires and lights. The only thing missing from it was a big helmet like the one she had used when she tried to read Pinkie Pie's brainwaves, that one time when she tried to figure out her pinkie sense. She hoped that this mystery would not give her as much of a headache. (At least this time, no clumsy pegasus delivery service had dropped all their cargo on her head.)

This computer had a pair of hoof dials like the one at the entrance. Unlike that one these actually had letters and digits surrounding them. Unfortunately they seemed to be the only way to operate the machine. Since Cardiac was clearly more experienced with this type of technology she let him use it. He explained a bit about how the machine worked. Basically you typed in the command of what you wanted it to do. And the data would then be displayed on the screen.

Twilight realized that for all her knowledge about magic she was way behind on the technological side. Her own computers and measuring equipment still used charts printed on long streams of paper. And they used to have way more clearly labeled buttons.

Cardiac recognized the look on her face, and joked about having been through something similar all those years ago.

"Back in that secret lab, there was this guy that said “Why have a single button for each function, when you can have a single button for everything?“

Twilight had to agree on that it did seem more efficient. This technology was revolutionary. And more than a little scary in its own right. She wasn't entirely sure about the idea of having all your data stored inside a machine over having to open a book – it seemed like it would risk making ponies lazy.

As Cardiac placed his hooves on the dials to try and boot up the computer terminal, Twilight picked up a big broken cable with a torn end, that was sticking out of the machine. Twilight took Screwloose's blue disk and noticed that the wires still attached to that blue disc were identical to the wires sticking out of the torn, thick cord. Already did some of her wildest theories seem that much more possible. Was this machine perhaps in some way meant to interface with these blue disks in some way?

She magically twisted the torn wires into each other, finding a match tor each, until the devise was connected to the mainframe. She wondered how quickly Screwloose might have been able to do this with just her bare hooves. It was quite extraordinary that the mad mare was capable of such jury rigging.

When she asked Cardiac about it, he laughed.

“She might not look it. But that mare has a nack for putting things together. Put a broken toy or piece of equipment in front of her - and she will put it back together, brand as new. She once even built a whole doghouse using the framework of her own bed.”

A question popped into his mind.

“Speaking of electrons, miss Twilight. Doesn't this blue disc being a electronic device contradicts your theory about it being able to absorb magic?”

“No”. She said “I still haven't been able to examine Sweetie."

Admittedly, It still didn't make sense how an electronic device could absorb magic without leaving traces of it. But one step at a time.

Cardiac shot her a narrowing glare.

Twilight realized how what she said must have sounded, and gave him a narrowing look of her own, as if trying to say: “I'm not like that.”

Cardiac sighed and put his hooves on the dials. He twisted and clicked the dials for a while. The screen in front of him lit up but not much else.

“Hm... that,s odd.” He said. “It seems to be empty.”

“That's impossible.” Said Twilight. Holding the wired up disk up in her magic. “There IS a memory here.”

“No. I mean this computer console is empty. It doesn't know how to do anything. Its like every ounce of data on this console has disappeared. Where did it go?”

"Perhaps whoever was down here destroyed all information before they left." Twilight suggested.

"That is most certainly a possibility"

Twilight looked closer on the screen. Cardiac had typed in a few commands (a few Run this, a few Exe that) But they all got the same response.

Error - File not found.

He picked up some tools from the cubicles and started to pull a side panel of the computer. He Pulled out some wires and eventually pulled out – Much to his own and Twilight surprise - another blue disk. It had been encased in some sort of metal component, and surrounded by a spiderweb of wires and cords. It was roughly the size of Screwlooses disc, with the exception that this one was far more well-shaped, and had more lines running inside it than both the other disks put together.

“It seems like these things are used for more things then we thought.” Cardiac said. “It looks like they used this thing as their central processor.”

Twilight looked back at Screwloose's disc, that hung from the end of the thick cable.

As they turned the power back onto the computer there was a visible light coming from the discs. Looking close she could see that some of the lines inside the disc had started to glow, like the filament of a light-bulb. And small electrical sparks were jumping back and forth between the lines. And, as the power increased, the sparks began to jump out of the device.

Twilight magically held it away from her. Not daring to have that thing anywhere close to her head.
She and Cardiac turned their heads back to the screen. Where now something had begun to be displayed.

What appeared on the screen was like something out of a horror movie. Through the bloodshot, blurry screen they could see some mare strapped to a chair. It was from the angle of the mares head, like the film was being filmed directly through her eyes.

Twilight was thankful that the computer terminal didn't have any speakers. The whole mute experience looked horrifying enough. And if it had been a movie. There would always be some blood chilling, startling scream.

“Perhaps your theories are proving true after all, miss Sparkle.”

Whatever thought that might have begun to brew in Twilight brain where canceled out as a mares high pitched shriek filling the hall.
It made very straw on Twilight's body shuddered. Beside her, Cardiac's glasses nearly jumped of muzzle.

The two startled pony's looked at each other as they realized that the scream had not come from the terminal.

“Rarity!”

Worry renewed as they ran through the corridors, back to the bedchamber. They found Brick and Sully standing outside the empty room.

“Weren't you standing guard you big prick!?” Sully yelled in Bricks face.

“I got thirsty, and you let her get all the water!" Brick yelled back. "Beside I thought you gave her sedatives!”

“I did! That dose should have knocked out a mare longer than this!”

“Then where is she!” Twilight and Cardiac yelled simultaneously.

Before either could answer Screwloose started barking from the end of the corridor. (Gesturing with her whole body for them to follow her)

They all rounded a corner into previously unnoticed dark side corridor and almost ran straight into the missing mare.

Rarity was walking towards them on tree hooves. The fourth hoof was filled in front of her. Filled to the brim with tiny blue fragments. Every step some more falling from the pile out of her hoof. Her pupils where shrunken and staring out into nothingness.
As she walked she mumbled in a low monochrome voice.

“Sweetie.... snack time Sweetie....Sweetie? … I've made this just for you...”

Twilight tried to get in contact with her. But it proved useless. She did not respond to either hoof waves or shouts. She just kept calling Sweeties name even as she walked right into Twilight's open forelegs.

“Whats wrong with her!?”

“She is sleep walking.” Said Cardiac. “Sort of. She thinks she is somewhere else entirely. Likely she is reliving a past event. Something sent her into relapse.”

“Was that what that screaming was about!?” Asked Brick.

Twilight handed her friend over Brick and Sully, who where told to try and wake her up and went with Cardiac. They Followed the trail of blue fragments that rarity had dropped, leading them further into the dark corridor. Twilight noticed it had become a lot colder. She lit up her horn to reveal that the corridor ended in a room that looked like a cross between a laboratory and an mine.

The room had been excavated directly into the ground and the cold was sipping in from the moistly walls. The walls themselves where filled with blue stones of varying size and quality. At first glance they could be mistaken for crystals, except none of the stones shimmered like a crystal should.

The room itself was filled with several tables. One holding a series of chemical bottles from which tubes led a strange blue liquid straight into the walls.

There was a big hamster-wheel that slowly spun rock samples around with the help of a small engine. A big thing that looked like a cider press, except it was clearly from pressing rocks. And finally a small table with mining tools and crafting gear.

Twilight picked up one of the disks, only for it to immediately crumble to ashes. She cast a analysis spell over the ashes and confirmed that it was roughly the same material as the blue disks.

That answered the unasked question where whoever made those steel stallions got those crystal like thingies. They made them themselves.

Among the tools laid several samples of blue disks. Along with a recently used hammer and a lot of blue fragments. Had Rarity just smashed some of these to pieces. Why?

Behind them, Sully called out. “Doctor I think she is coming to it.”

Twilight and Cardiac went back to find Rarity was now struggling in Bricks tight grip. Sully levitated a Needle and looked at Cardiac for perdition to use it. Screwloose was lying on the floor, ears flat to her head and whimpering loudly in a tone of pity.

“I have to feed her! She has to eat!" Rarity yelled as she trashed about. "Sweetie! Where are you!”

Twilight grabbed her face in her hooves.

“Rarity look at me! You're here! With me! Sweeties not here. We are looking for her. Remember.”

Rarity stopped trashing. But the panic in her eyes would not go away.”

“Twilight”? She whispered. “We have to find her. Now!”

“We will Rarity. Just calm down...”

“NO! You don't understand. We have to leave now! We have to find her now! I have to get this to her” She tried to scrape the blue fragments of the ground. “She doesn't know... But she had to eat...”

Twilight noticed she was crying. It hurt so bad to see her friend like this.

“Rarity.” she said. Trying to remain calm herself “Those are Crystals. Ponies don't eat... ”

“No, no! You don't understand. She has to be fed crystals. I have to give her these soon. Or she... she will....”

Rarity could not bring herself to finish the sentence. But her eyes told Twilight that it ended with a word far worse than "starve".