Ch 24: Answers
FoE: Do Robot Ponies Dream of Electronic Bunnies
Chapter XXIV: Answers
"That which doesn't kill me... better run pretty damn fast." - Origin lost
System Report: 0000000024
Unit Status: Active
Location: Cape Unicorn, Zebrion
Satellite Signal Status: GPS active.
Begin data dump to external off-site memory back-up:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - Done.
Preparing visual report: Done.
Date: --/--/2212, 200PA (+66 days activation)
Time: 1105 Local
A massive hoof smashed through the space I'd been occupying a mere fraction of a second before, destroying from below the catwalk I'd landed on. Night Rose and Zirc fired at the mecha from above, but didn't do much more than scratch the paint. Small arms fire versus what looked like five inch thick uranium armor doesn't usually end well for the little guy. Swiftpaws, unable to do anything else, ran for the exit. I hoped he wasn't just running away in fear, and was going to warn the other group.
I'd landed there (and subsequently moved away from there) right after the massive mecha had begun to move. It's head tracked me everywhere I went, Moonshine's eyes boring into me. And I had no frigging clue why.
"Moonshine, what the hell-" I was cut off as the hoof once again made scrap out of my hiding place, sending me into the air. I caught myself with my thrusters and hovered. "Okay whatever I did, you're clearly over-reacting. How about you calm down and we can talk?"
I have since learned that that was the exact opposite of what I should have said. With a furious yell, she slammed her hooves down on the controls. The chin turrets opened fire at me, I dodged as best I could, and what hits I did take were absorbed by my shield. My own rifles were out and shooting back, trying to disable those turrets.
"Two hundred years," she was yelling, her voice amplified through the speakers. "I've been waiting two hundred years for you!!! Two hundred years of agony! It's your fault!!! All of it!!!"
"What the hell are you talking about?" I finally took out one of the chin turrets, but the other seemed to double its firing rate. On top of that, a hatch opened on the cheek and a heavy missile launcher appeared. Oh fuck me...
All four missiles spat out of the launcher and struck me before I could react. My shields failed on the first impact, I was shoved backward from the second and third. The fourth took me out of the air and I slammed into the busted catwalk. My HUD gave me an overview of my condition and I struggled to rise. My chest had a giant dent in it, most of the skin was gone from my chest, neck and forelegs, and the hair from the area around that had been singed clean off. Internally it was superficial damage. the impacts had taken the air from my lungs. I coughed as I stood. The mecha advanced on me, its head coming down to stare at me angrily. Okay, actually it was the mare at the controls who was angry, but the mecha was pretty damn imposing.
I was angry now, but still woozy. Rounds continued to ping off its armor from above, and I distinctly heard Night Rose swear about the ineffectiveness. So long as the big bot didn't take a shot at her, I was okay with it.
I really don't think I was talking out loud, but the head turned upward and four fresh missiles shot up at my friends. They impacted the catwalk around Night Rose and Zirc, weakening it but not destroying it. Still, I heard a cry of pain come from the lightly armored zebra and another curse from my marefriend.
"Zirc's hit," I heard in my ear. "Shrapnel to the face! I don't have a healing potion!"
I yelled in anger and unloaded my chain gun into the bot's head. The 22mm rounds tore holes in the mecha's hide, exposing the jaw's gear works. I poured more fire from my rifles at those gears, hoping to do some kind of damage, but it turned back at me, taking away my shot. My target reticle swung up to the eyes and I opened fire with everything. I was more than surprised to see the rounds pinging off the glass, leaving only white scratch marks.
"You've gotta be shitting me," I yelled as I dove away from another hoof strike.
"Come back here," Moonshine screamed as I flew over her head.
"Night Rose," I yelled over the cacophony of noise. "Get Zirc out of here!"
"What about-"
"No time, damnit! Go!" She didn't respond, just stared at me. I could feel through that green visor a look of pure anger and hurt. "I don't want you guys caught in this blast!"
Nothing else was said as she caught on to what I was about to do. She scooped Zirc up onto her back like a sack of potatoes and ran for the exit. Below me, the giant pony was beginning to move, turning itself around to aim at me again. I went straight for the ceiling, knowing if my aim was even slightly off, I'd be toast same as Night Rose and Zirc would have been. I'm tough, but not indestructible.
Activating the magnets on my back, I latched myself to the ceiling, careful to make sure I had enough mobility to bring out the big guns. As the bot looked directly up at me, I took aim with the mini-egg launcher. I could see Moonshine magicking the controls. She glared back at me with nothing but hate in her eyes. I had sadness in mine.
I fired a round, then another, then one more. All impacted dead on to the mecha's face. I looked away from the glare of three nukes going off not sixty feet below me. Thank Celestia they're underpowered.
When I opened my eyes again, All I could see was smoke. I strained and enhanced my sight to cut through it, but not even my radar was getting through. So I had little warning when eight missiles barreled out of the cloud and impacted all around me. I took some damage, but not enough to kill me.
The smoke suddenly seemed to heave upward at me, and the next thing I saw was a giant metal fin and forehead poking through, followed by the rest of the head. Fucking underpowered weapon.
"You think a few fireworks is going to stop me," Moonshine yelled with a laugh. "You pathetic, over-engineered trash can!"
Right. Time to leave.
I disengaged from the ceiling and dove for the doorway. I heard a thump as I made it, and was blown partway up the stairwell by a massive explosion. I regained my feet just as another struck the wall below where I was standing, blasting half the stairs away. I looked back briefly and saw Moonshine screaming in frustration. I didn't wait for any more.
"Verse, where are you?"
I'm on my way back out now. Just a few floors to go.
"Be careful. Something's happening up here. The whole building's shaking."
Try and contact Frieda and the others. We need to get out of here.
"I will, but what about that Stitches guy?"
Fuck it, not worth getting us all wasted over it.
"Like it was a piece of cake so far..."
I was rocketing up through the stairwell, taking the steps four and five at a time. The building was shaking, and I hope to hell my idea on why wasn't true. I'd almost made it to the tunnel floor when all hell broke loose. The flight of stairs above me fell as a massive vibration went through the building. I had nowhere to dodge, so I just lowered my head and bashed it aside.
I quickly discovered that the tunnel we'd used was no longer a viable exit, having been blocked by rubble, I didn't have time to excavate, so I went up the remaining floors to the roof. A crashing sound behind me kept me moving. I hit the roof access door and immediately launched into the air, deploying my flight package as quickly as I could. I looked back in time to see two things.
Night Rose was four blocks away, taking cover in a house with Zirc. I could see that the zebra had his eyes closed tightly as blood trickled down his face. I needed to get a potion to him; I had to have one in my inventory somewhere.
The second thing was that the building I was just in collapsed completely, revealing the giant mechapony being lifted on an elevator. And all its large weapons were locking on to me. Fuck.
I bobbed and weaved as rounds shot past me. Rockets homed in on my tail but barely missed, exploding harmlessly several yards away. Moonshine had even decided to fire mortar rounds. They impacted half a mile past me. She either wasn't a very good shot or she was missing on purpose, but considering how hard she'd tried in that basement, I was more inclined to believe the former.
"You son of a bitch," she yelled. "Come back here and face your destruction!"
Okay, this was getting old real quick. I tapped my wireless access and did a search for the frequency the radio on that thing had. Locking into that, I did my magic hack-job I'm so very good at, hooked into the speakers inside the cockpit, and sent a hypersonic sound pulse into the compartment. It worked, and the mecha stopped dead in its tracks. I looked back to see that nearly every monitor had been shattered. Moonshine was on the floor crying and covering her ears. A sickly green good was leaking out of them,
"Moonshine," I said through the speakers as I came about to land on the mecha's nose. "What the hell is going on?" She looked at me through the glass, but didn't seem to hear me. I'd ruptured her eardrums. Not the effect I'd been looking for. I facehoofed, and did a quick scan of the mecha, finding the access hatch immediately.
My creator was curled up underneath the mecha's main control console, covering her head with her forelegs. She was wimpering quietly. She looked up at me and terror filled her eyes. I smiled gently. I didn't want to kill her, I just wanted answers. Motioning for her to come out, I activated of the intact monitors behind me. A quick slice and I had a way to talk to her.
"Why were you trying to kill me and my friends?"
She read the words from where she still lay curled up, and took a moment to answer. "I was... I was upset..."
"About what?"
She bit her lip and looked away before continuing. "After... after Crimson died, I thought... I thought my world was over, and all I had left was that job. But then you went rogue and tried to leave me. So I locked you away so you could never leave. I think I went crazy when I heard that Canterlot was destroyed, but I knew you'd come find me. I waited and I waited. But you never came!" She started crying now, tears falling from her cheek to the deck. I stomped a hoof lightly to get her attention.
"Canterlot wasn't destroyed. It got filled with some kind of pink cloud that killed everypony. Only zombies live there now."
"I'm so sorry," she said, burying her head in her forehooves. "I saw your beacon activate, and I had to bring you here. I was excited at first, but then you took so long getting here. I tried to get you to return, but you didn't. I thought you didn't care anymore! I went mad, and shut myself into this machine! Then you showed up and... I'm so sorry!"
I laid down next to her and gently put a foreleg around her shoulder, being careful not to break anything. I nuzzled her, then pointed toward the monitor.
"I didn't know you were here. I didn't know who you were until my memories started coming back. The only reason I reactivated at all was because a zombie shorted out the pod you put me in. It must have damaged my memory circuits too."
She didn't reply, but pushed her face to my neck and cried harder. I just laid there and let her.
"Verse," I heard in my head. "What's going on? The bot-thing stopped moving."
We're fine, Night Rose. We'll be out in a bit.
"We? Don't tell me you made a new friend..."
I was about to reply when the bot suddenly lit up again. I felt it shudder around me as it started to take a step forward.
"Silly bot," the internal speakers said. "Came running like a loyal puppy."
"What the..."
"Oh no," Moonshine said, glancing around. "He's returning the mecha to him."
"Who?" I turned her head so she could read my lips. "Who is returning it?"
"Stitches!"
"I thought you were Stiches!"
"No! He gave me a way to get you back here!"
"Well we're not going for the ride." I picked her up on my back and galloped for the still-open doorway, leaping out just as it slammed closed. I landed in the cover that Night Rose was using and quickly produced two bottles of Healing Potion. I gave one to Moonshine while helping Zirc drink the other. After a brief explanation to my marefriend, I prepared for a tongue lashing.
"Okay."
"Wait, what?" I was flabbergasted.
"I know how you are by now, so I'm not surprised you turned her to our side." She came nose to nose with me, fire in her eyes. "Just remember who's coltfriend you are around here."
"Like you'd let me..."
"Coltfriend?" We both turned to look at the ghoul pony, hearing now restored. "You mean... you and her..."
"Yep," Night Rose said with a smirk. "He's mine, I'm his, and we're ours."
"Oh. I see..." Moonshine stared at the ground, not wanting to meet our eyes. "I guess I should have seen it coming. It's been two hundred years after all..."
"Moonshine..."
"No time," Moonshine said suddenly. "We need to stop that Mega-Pony. When Stiches sees I'm not inside, he'll set it loose on the rest of the city. There are others living here!"
"Like who," Night Rose asked.
"A tribe of zebra moved here recently from the southwest. I tried to talk them into leaving, but they wouldn't listen."
Night Rose, Zirc and I all looked at each other.
"Could it be..."
"No way..."
"It is possible..."
"Deadly Hawks," we asked in unison.
"Yes," Moonshine said, amazed we knew who they were. "How do you know them?"
"We're kind of the reason they moved here," I replied. In the distance, the Mega-Pony stomped straight through a three story building, causing the rest of it to collapse. "You guys want to find cover."
Without another word, I stepped out into the street. I ignored Moonshine's protesting as Night Rose pulled her deeper into the building, Zirc following them closely, looking back at me as I anchored myself to the ground.
My chest was dented, but it still opened to reveal the focusing crystal of my particle cannon. I sent an ultrasonic pulse through it to make sure it wasn't fractured, then lined up the targeting reticle on the robot in the distance. The range finder noted the distance at three miles and climbing. I had the range, but I worried that I might catch friendlies in the way. I still didn't know where Frieda and her party were, but I didn't have time to find out. Who knew where that thing would stop? At least it was going in a straight line.
Target locked, I read on my display, and began charging the emitter for the cannon. It took all of ten seconds to come to full power. The Mega-Pony was now four miles away. That thing was bookin' it, despite the obstructions. I briefly wondered what it's speed in the open would be, then squashed those thoughts. It wasn't an upgrade, it was a wild card element that needed dealt with.
With a feral "BLARG!" I fired the cannon. Through the brilliant white, I could see the beam pierce the mecha's armored hide just above the left legs. As quickly as it had come, the beam disappeared. I wobbled a bit but used the anchors to keep steady. Ahead of me, the mech had just attempted to take another step when it's rear left leg fell off completely. I zoomed in, wanting to confirm the kill, only to realize my beam hadn't fully penetrated. It had gone deep, but not deep enough to stop it.
"Fuck me," I yelled. "What did you make that out of, Moon?" Without waiting for a reply, I reeled in my ground anchors and shakily took off after it. I had one more shot in me and I had to make it count.
Setting down a mile behind my target, I lined up again, anchored and fired. I was conscious long enough to watch it's head disappear in a fiery explosion. Black was all that followed.
oOoOoOoOoOo
"...the fuck did you do..."
"...stop him...the cost..."
My whole body felt detached and foreign. It was as if I wasn't myself anymore. Oh right. Another memory. I could hear voices at the edge of my consciousness, one sounded southern and angry, the other upset but determined. The dream-me was trying hard to wake up, to open our eyes, but they wouldn't respond. I tried rerouting power to the eyelid motor control, but it was as if I only had enough to think and hear.
"...don't care about...spent too many bits on him to fry his brain like that."
"Applejack, he went rogue... do something."
The voiced were getting clearer, and I felt a little more power come online. I tried my eyes again, but they still wouldn't budge. All I could tell was I was standing upright. I could sort of feel the rest of me, but that was all I could do.
"He didn't go rogue," a third voice chimed in. "He gave himself a mission. Look at the log, right here. He gave himself a target and an objective, and set out to complete it."
Moonshine.
"He only hurt them guards 'cause they was unlucky enough t'be in his path. An' the armory guard just had an unlucky assignment."
"Yes," another voice said, sounding haughty and slightly full of herself. "All his luck went into staying alive long enough to get to the hospital. He'll be even luckier to keep all of his memories."
"Applejack, this was a mistake from the start," another said. How many ponies were in the room? "We should have never gone against the princess."
"Hold on," yet another voice said, sounding arrogant as much as angry. I was getting an idea of who else was there. "This was your idea too, Twilight." Yep. Which meant that was Rainbow Dash. The haughty one was Rarity, most likely.
"I know, Rainbow," Twilight replied, sounding tired and upset, but not about what I'd done. My analyzer caught definite regret for something else..."And I had my reservations back then, too. This incident just confirmed my fears."
"Y'all went into this hooves first," Applejack retorted. "Just like the rest of us."
"And it was a mistake! We should have seen something like this coming when we installed that emotion chip! He's a learning A.I. Of course he was going to discover love eventually."
"Um... maybe we could... remove it... if that would be okay..." Hello Fluttershy.
"Naw, we can't. It's too deeply integrated into his systems. Pullin' it now'd be like pullin teeth from an angry gator."
"Well, what can we do then? Clearly, he's too dangerous to be let loose." Rarity. I wondered where Pinkie Pie was.
"Well, I won't destroy him, if'n that's what yer thinkin." Thanks, Applejack. You'll always be my favorite.
"The only thing we can do," Moonshine said, "is put him in stasis. We shut down his circuitry completely and wipe his memory."
"Oh! That seems a little... mean." It DOES, doesn't it?
"It's the only way to keep him intact. We'll keep him powered down until we can perfect the emotion chip's stability issue."
There was a long silence, then, "Do it."
oOoOoOoOoOo
Footnote: Level Up!
New Perk: Heavy Weapons Pony - You gain +10% critical hit when using large weapons.
Quest Complete: Stompy Must Die! - You gain an extra point in Stamina as a reward.
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The quest perks make me hue
222101 Make you wha?
Nice story, can't wait next chapter
242210 I was tempted, believe me. Was also thinking about being a total dork and naming him Norby.
246992 or andrew from bicentennial man
Wellll, I see this is getting close to an epic conclusion. Can't wait to see what happens to him next.
Can they replace his drained power cell with the balefire egg launcher's ammo?
(Or did he waste all of those?)
277336 It's a must have for the fashionable bot.
330320 Thanks. I never really paid attention to her full name.
330840 Fixed the gender issue, as well as the <>'s. (I swear it is such a bitch to port from Deviant Art to FIMFIC)
Concerning the hostage issue, it's called leverage. They use it against the hero, because the hero doesn't want anyone to die. And anyway, you learn the results in the next chapter anyway.
Homage was trying to talk her out of it. Like you wouldn't have said the same thing.
330935 I'm not a Punny guy (see what I did there??
)
331018 331393 I think at some point, I stopped caring. I'd done so many that they turned invisible. Seriously, why can't everyone use the same word processing formats? It's not like one's uber superior to another.
331679 No Spoilers. And it's not ending soon. I'm just stuck atm.
331549 Only dragons know their ways. Dragon could have some information that no one else had, Spike included.
Comparison, contrast... meh.
this is one of th' better Fo:E spinoffs.
still makes my brain want to catch fire.
"uranium armor"? That sounds... Daft. Or are we talking plates of depleted uranium? Either way. Great story so far!
373058 Yes, gryphons speak German. Problem?
422032 Uhm... thanks?
451989 Yes, depleted uranium. Thanks ^,=.^
524410 don't worry, i forgot what i meant by that myself.
This story still going?
730006 Slowly but... well, slowly. I'm working on it again. Had a bad few months of IRL problems.