Best Friends Forever: Between Life and Machine

by DemonBrightSpirit

Deal with the Devil

Applejack hurried through the front door into a house that seemed long-abandoned. A thick layer of dust covered everything, and a musty smell hung in the air. “Yah sure this is the right place?” Applejack asked as she helped Rarity get Sweetie through the door.

“Yes,” Rarity replied as she motioned with her head to an open door on the right. “He said the equipment was in the basement.”

As the duo worked to carry and breathe for Sweetie, it became apparent that a soft glow irradiated from the basement. “I got a bad feelin’ about this,” Applejack muttered.

Rarity was the first to step into the relatively well-lit basement. It reminded her of Twilight’s basement, only creepier and far more claustrophobic. Stacks of dusty books climbed toward the ceiling in between benches still covered with unidentifiable liquids, colorful powders, and bizarre glassware on either side of the narrow passage leading deeper into the basement. Said passage was lined on either side with huge, box-like machines covered in multicolored lights, various switches and dials, rubber and glass tubes, and frayed crisscrossing wires. Dozens stood side-by-side, offering a path just big enough for the two mares to carry the dying filly through to where a single stallion stood before a pair of giant, glass tubes that stretched from the floor to the ceiling.

“Rarity!” Short Circuit said, stepping away from the tubes. Though he seemed excited, he was covered in sweat and his eyes looked sunken. “I was starting to worry.”

“We don’t have time for chit-chat,” Rarity replied. “How do we save Sweetie?”

After pressing a few buttons on the nearest machine, Short Circuit pulled a lever next to the glass tubes. A low rumble accompanied the slow, steady rise of the glass to reveal a pair of platforms. One was empty aside from a few wires dangling from the ceiling. But on the other platform stood what Rarity could only describe as a perverted mannequin. It clearly modeled itself after a filly, having roughly the same size and shape, though it had no mane or tail. Most of it was white and so smooth that it caught and reflected the light, but unlike a mannequin, it bore a rubbery, black band at each joint. Rarity assumed they were flexible bands for the doll to be posed. All of that struck Rarity as minor details. The big thing that Rarity couldn’t shake was just how much this doll looked like Sweetie Belle.

“What… what is this?” Rarity found herself saying.

“I call it an equoid,” Short Circuit said as he helped Applejack to get Sweetie onto the adjacent platform. “It can move, walk, talk, hear, see—everything, just like a real pony.”

“This… this is your solution to save Sweetie!” Rarity shouted as she thrust a hoof at the offending doll.

Unfazed by the outburst, Short Circuit hooked up some sort of helmet to the wires. “Her body is dying,” he said quite plainly. “Nopony can restore her health, but with this — ” he placed the helmet on Sweetie’s head “ — I can put her mind, her soul, her very essence into the equoid so she may still live on.”

“You can’t do this,” Applejack said, staring hard at Rarity. “This is wrong.”

Rarity gnawed on her lip as she looked at Sweetie’s still form. Her voice was begging as she spoke, “There must be another way.”

“She dies here,” Circuit replied. “The only thing we have a choice about now is whether or not her mind continues on.” He stared hard at Rarity. “It’s the only choice you have.”

Closing her eyes, Rarity stood still for a long moment. With a sigh, she nodded. “Do it.”

“Rare! You can’t!” Applejack protested.

Rarity turned a heated glare to Applejack. “I can’t just let her die! I have… I have to do this.”

After looking over at the so-called equoid and back to Rarity, Applejack stamped a hoof. “This is beyond the pale! Yer talkin’ about a sin against nature itself!”

Rarity stepped to the side, placing herself between Sweetie Belle and Applejack. “I won’t let you stop us,” she said, her voice low and even.

Shaking her head, Applejack took a step back. “It ain’t my place to try and stop you,” she said, turning her back to Rarity. “But I can’t be a part of this.”

Rarity expected Applejack to put up more of a fuss than that. Instead, Applejack just started walking back toward the stairs. As she walked away, she made no move to sabotage the equipment or further argue against it. She just marched away and up the stairs, never once glancing back.

As a terrible loneliness seized Rarity’s heart, an insistent hoof prodded her from behind. “We haven’t much time,” Short Circuit said. “Take over breathing for her and I’ll do the last of the adjustments. It’ll be just a minute.”

Rarity stepped to Sweetie’s side and took over squeezing the bulb still attached to the filly's mouth. Rarity’s hoof stroked the sweat-soaked, feverish coat as her eyes stayed fixated on the doll. “Why do you even have this?” she found herself asking.

“When my daughter fell into a coma, the doctors couldn’t help her, so I decided to ply my own talents to find a way to save her,” he explained as he stepped from machine to machine, flipping switches, pressing buttons, and turning dials. “A year wasn’t long enough to get it to work. The decade since, though, turned out to be enough to get the basic functions going, at least.”

“You kept working on it, even after she was gone?”

Rarity heard him chuckle from down the corridor. “What else did I have to do with my life? All I had left was my work. Then, I got sick, and I just wrote it all off as an old stallion’s folly, but when I saw your sister… she really does look just like her. I thought, maybe this is what all this has been for. Maybe it wasn’t all for naught.” He turned, catching Rarity’s eye. “Let’s make it count.”

Rarity nodded in turn. “What do I need to do?”

“When you’re ready, pull that lever by you,” Short Circuit instructed.

A long glance at Sweetie and a short, spiteful glare to the dreadful equoid, and Rarity turned her gaze to the lever. She clenched her jaw as Applejack’s words haunted her.

This is beyond the pale!

...a sin against nature itself!

Reaching a hoof out, she grabbed the lever even as the very thought of Sweetie Belle being trapped in that mannequin-esque thing turned her stomach. She’d come this far, there was no way she could back out now. Sweetie had seconds now, not minutes or hours, and it was her fault. She had to try to save her, even if it meant doing something this horrible.

What would Sweetie Belle want?

Wouldn’t you want for somepony to stop her?

Soundless words passed her lips, “Stop me, please.” Her words found no ears. Squeezing her eyes shut, she yanked the lever.

Instead of something fantastic, nothing seemed to happen. Rarity glanced about before finding just what that lever did. The glass tubes were slowly descending from the ceiling. At first, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal, but as the tubes came down to the pedestals, she realized she wouldn’t be able to pump the bulb for Sweetie’s breathing once it dropped all the way.

“Come to me, quickly now,” Short Circuit called out from the opposite end of the basement.

Rarity took off in a gallop, closing the gap in no time. “She’ll suffocate!” she screeched.

Circuit pointed to a large, Y-shaped switch on the side of one of the giant, boxy machines. “This will start the process. It’s only right that you have the honors.”

This time, Rarity bore no trepidation. Not with Sweetie suffocating. She took the lever in hoof and yanked. As it met the contacts, a shower of yellow sparks shot out. Above, the bright lights flickered and fell into darkness, leaving only the blinking lights on the machines and the occasional electric arc bathing the darkened basement in an eerie glow. The machines roared to life as the electricity passed through. A great rumbling shook the floor and even made the whole room seem to shift and spin with the asynchronous lights.

“Do me a favor? Hit the second, third, and fifth switches from the left on the unit behind you.” Short Circuit called out. “Then, hit the yellow button.”

Rarity could just make out his form in the flashes of light as he raced between the mammoth machines, hitting buttons, flipping switches, and rotating dials. It took a moment for her to realize that she needed to help. She spun around to the towering machine. Squinting, she could just make out a series of little switches. After hitting the three, she looked for a yellow button. The blinking colors flashed one after another until one flashed a brilliant saffron. She quickly pressed the button before looking back.

“Good!” Circuit said. He continued to work the machines as he spoke, “That… just about… does it!”

“Is it… done?” Rarity asked as Short Circuit approached.

Through the dim, blinking lights, appeared the silhouette of Circuit smiling and nodding. “Just flip that first switch again and it’ll finish.”

Rarity turned back to find the switch. With little hesitation, she took it in her aura and gave it a good tug. The next thing she knew, a deafening crash filled her ears as she flew off her hooves and crashed into the machine behind her.

“Ugh, the feedback was a bit nastier than usual,” Short Circuit said as he sat up, rubbing his head.

Scrambling to her hooves, Rarity found the basement again bathed in the bright, fluorescent lights. Her eyes were drawn back toward the tubes housing Sweetie and the equoid. She couldn't see them. One of the towering, box-like machines had fallen into the middle of the corridor and a plume of thick, black smoke spewed from it. The acrid odor reached Rarity’s nose, searing it with a caustic burn.

Coughing, Short Circuit covered his nose. “The mainframe’s caught fire! Don’t breathe it in. It’s toxic!” he shouted a warning. Trotting toward the exit, he urged Rarity to follow, “We have to go!”

“Not without Sweetie!” Rarity refused, marching into the rolling, black smoke.

“It’s fine! Let’s go!”

Short Circuit’s protests fell on deaf ears. Rarity kept pushing against the choking air. Not only did it burn her nose and lungs, it stung her eyes. Between her watery eyes and the thick smoke, she couldn’t see anything at all. But still, she pressed on, determined to somehow save her baby sister. Despite her conviction, she just couldn’t press forward against the wall of heat that threatened to sear her. Turning, she only found more invisible flames, drawing ever nearer to consume her. Even the smoke closed in on her, suffocating her.

Just as she collapsed, she could’ve sworn she felt a strong pair of hooves catch her.

Comments

[i_am_the_jam]

"She's alive!!! SHE'S ALIVE!!! A HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!"

[Texus]

I kind of hope it takes a good ending for them, I mean not that all of Equestria and Twilight Sparklebutt and her princess club are going to go all out on rarity with everyone and the whole world being against her.

[JazzyWaffles]

“Yer talkin’ about a sin against nature itself!”

*the world's smallest violin is forced to retire when an even smaller violin is invented specifically for this statement*

There is no such thing as a "sin against nature", nor has there ever been. It's just shorthand for "this makes me uncomfortable so I'm using its unnatural status as an excuse to dislike it".