A What?
Initializing Sensory Processors… Done.
Initializing Motive Processors… Done.
Initializing Reflexive Action Processors… Done.
Initializing Emergency Response Processors… Done.
Initializing Digestive Systems… Done.
Initializing Fusion Systems… Done.
Switching to Internal Power… Done.
Initializing Personality Interface…
She wakes up very suddenly. The last thing she remembers is the terrible pain of all that magic flowing into her body. From where, she’s not sure. How she got there, she doesn’t know. What she had been doing beforehand, she hasn’t a clue.
“How are you feeling?” a calm, male voice asks.
She takes a sudden breath, flipping upright and rising to her hooves in a single motion. “Wh-What?” she asks, opening her eyes to take in the hard metal platform she had been laying on. Her gaze sweeps the room, spotting the numerous metal arms folded against the walls.
“Are you feeling okay?” the voice asks again.
It sounds concerned, she decides- like her dad when she… She can’t remember. She can’t even remember his name- or his voice, when she thinks about it. “Dad?” she asks, tears beginning to form.
“I’m sorry, he’s not here,” the voice replies. “Are you feeling okay?”
She curls up on the platform. “I can’t remember… anything.”
“Your memories should start coming back within eight hours, and return completely within a full week. Are you feeling okay?”
“Of course not- I can’t remember anything!” Her scream is heard only within the confines of that room.
“I am aware. I wish I could accelerate your recovery, but I cannot. Does anything feel strange?”
It takes her a few minutes to fully analyze his statement, understand his meaning, and consider her response. “No. Why would it?”
“If I had made a mistake, even before your memories return, you would have felt the strangeness. Do you see the cube?”
“Yes,” she answers, turning to face the cube she’d noticed on the ground earlier. Interesting, she doesn’t remember her memory being this good… Duh, she can’t remember anything before she awoke, aside from that pain. “Is it important?”
“Somewhat. Can you try lifting it with your magic?”
“My magic?” She sounds incredulous; lifting a cube like this is no challenge for one like her… Not that she understands much of that right now.
“Yes.”
“Of course… Huh?” She concentrates this time, but with no result. “What happened?”
“Try stepping on it for a second.”
Her eyebrows lower, as if not used to being ignored, but resolves to obey. “So, like thi-” She pauses midsentence when her hoof lands on top of the cube thing. Now she feels weird, though it only lasts for a second… And she realizes she should have noticed an absence before.
“Yes, just like that.”
Unprompted, she lifts her hoof off of the box, and hoists it effortlessly into the air in front of her with her metaphysical touch, tilting her head at it.
“Thank you. As for what happened, the rejuvenation process was not designed for magical entities. That box, through some fancy technology, was able to restore function to your magical abilities. Do you notice any difference?”
“Nope,” she mutters, putting it down and stepping on it again, to no effect. “Feels like I’ve been doing this for years.”
“You probably have.” The door slides open. “The canister is spent; you can leave it behind. I might recommend disguising your wings and, possibly, horn if you plan on heading outside before your memories return in full.”
She blinks, her folding light purple-tipped wings vanishing smoothly and effortlessly into her gently pinkish coat as she hops off the platform to the door. “What’s my name?” she asks.
“I do not know.”
She scowls. “What about yours?”
“I am called Zeus.”
“Rarity?”
“Yes, Zeus?”
“Could you do me a favor and stomp on one of the canisters I gave you?”
“Could I do WHAT?”
“A full one, preferably- don’t worry, I can fix & replace them just as easily as I manufactured them to begin with.”
“You want me to smash one?”
“No, just to stomp on the control surface, for science. It’s completely safe.”
“Uhh, okay, whatever.” Rarity pulls out a second one of the canisters- her third to last, actually- and sets it on the ground with her magic grasp before she clarifies the instruction again. “You want me to stomp on it?”
“Yes. Anything that breaks will be contained inside; no mess will be made.”
“Okay.”
Thwack!
“woAH! What was THAT?!?”
“Completely harmless, and possibly a way to repair your magic. Now, if my simulations are telling the truth, we have only to wait for tomorrow to find out if it worked.”
“Oh hey, Discord.”
The cardboard box explodes in a cloud of pink smoke and confetti. “Pinkie! I do have to ask, have you or Twilight started doing something new lately?”
A wide smile, an intaken breath, an opened jaw. Discord heads off the inevitable explosion.
“Um, specifically magic-related, yesterday and today?”
“Um, Twilight reached Ponyville yesterday. Immediately mentioned the Crystal Empire, I understand- you know about the Princesses’ curse?”
Blink. “Yes, actually. Quite a good one, that- where did you say it came from, again?”
“Zeus made it up. Said it was simple, turned out to be so simple an Earth pony could do it.”
Discord’s eyebrow flutters, not quite taking off. He’s liking this ‘Zeus’ pony more and more every time he hears about it- though he has yet to track him down. “Simple indeed.”
“You have any luck besting it?”
Headshake. “I simply can’t think of anything that could be better calculated to torture her. Even Tartarus couldn’t beat that.”
“Glad you think so! So, uh, why are you asking about magic?”
“Whatever this new thing is, it’s difficult to localize,” he mutters. “Shines across half of Equestria each time. Hard to miss, but hard to find, as well. Any luck over Flurry Heart?”
Whamwhamwhamwhamwham! “Yesyesyesyesyes!” The instant crater around her collected hooves grows steadily, alarming the draconequis. “I got the ‘Lost friend returning’ signal this morning!” Her jackhammering calms suddenly, leaving a three foot crater. “Alongside one I didn’t recognize: Hoof ache, eye flutter, knee pinchy, back itchy, shudders, nose itchy, tail twitchy. Donno what it is, but it’s something serious!”
Discord’s dinnerplate-sized eyes widen. “A combo of seven?”
“Is that important?”
“Four thousand years ago, when I designed the pinkie sense, all combos were designed to be sevenor less. Though there’s some restrictions: Six-long is reserved for apocalypse-level events, and seven is the opposite, at new world level events. That’s gotta be the first seven since Celestia herself! … Though I’m afraid it’s not one of the ones I designed, must be something new.” He scratches his brow absently.
Pinkie blinks once, twice, three times. “MusttellTwilight!”
A kilometer and a half away, the front door to Twilight’s castle slams shut behind a pink blur that forgot Twilight’s not home.
“Hey, squirt, how’s the- oh Hey, you stopped by Zeus again already?”
Scootaloo blinks at how quickly Rainbow had changed gears. “Uh, yes,” she answers. She still doesn’t think it’d be entirely truthful to say he fixed her wings. He didn’t actually have a hoof- or spider- in the matter.
“How high can you go?” Rainbow asks, floating challengingly in front of Scootaloo.
“Uh, three feet?” she wonders mildly.
Rainbow falls out of the air, landing solidly- and painfully- on her back. “Three feet?” she asks incredulously.
“I never learned to fly,” Scootaloo reminds. “Teach me?”
WHOOOSH!
A nearby mailmare blinks at the purplish rainbow contrail. “What just passed…?”
“WHEEEEEE!”
Rainbow laughs wildly during Scootaloo’s excited scream, rocketing upwards just shy of Rainboom velocity- and flings her high into the air above Ponyville. “Lesson one: Find out how well you can fly already!”
Three strokes and the chemical capsules Zeus had emplaced in her wings pop open. Six more strokes and the light dose of the so-called ‘study drug’ has her holding herself up unassisted.
Shortly, there are two missiles flying over and throughout Ponyville: One cyan, with a rainbow contrail, and the other orange, with a purple contrail.
“... So when I finally reached the town square, I told Bonbon Rarity had sent me to the Crystal Empire- and found myself back where I started! At least I met the requirements to lift that ban on train travel.”
“Ahh. We’re coming up on Ponyville now- have a good walk!”
“Before I go, lemme guess- you’re going to, where, Dodge City-”
WHOOM!
“... No, actually, to Apple-loosa. Where did you go, though?”
Discord takes a good pull on his spaghetti noodle, floating in the ethereal essence next to his hot tub. “The railroads are just loving your business, Twilight,” he muses.
Finally, I have enough nanites to begin scrounging through all this lunar rock. Perhaps I will find good resources nearby- if not, the Sentries are unshielded and can easily be disintegrated for parts. Who needs Hellbores? … The depressurized ‘Habitat’ Celestia used for Nightmare Moon can also be disintegrated for parts.
WhamwhamwhamwhamwhamCRASH!
“Uhh, sorry?” Blink blink, facehoof. “Right.”
The pink blur abandons the empty forestside home, leaving the door on the floor, to find somepony else. The main room is still occupied by the roofing tiles and a large boulder.
VWOP!
Gasp!
Sweetie Belle breathes heavily for a few seconds. She hadn’t expected teleporting to feel quite like that. After checking her back- Good, still a unicorn- she turns her attention towards the boulder. Here is an excellent way to test how much power she managed to pull out of that cube, while also doing something helpful for a change!
As it turns out, she’s very powerful. The boulder goes flying with hardly a thought before she sets to work undoing the damage to the rest of the home.
“You’re sure learning fast. Lesson eighteen, then- LOOK OUT!”
Rainbow, being distracted, had missed the hunk of rock falling out of the sky directly over the town hall until it was a moment too late to get Scootaloo out of its path.
“Aaah!”
BOOOM!
Scootaloo blinks slowly, gliding gently downwards through a cloud of dust and gravel. Eventually, she lowers her forelegs from where they had covered her face. “Oh.”
Rainbow, halfway down to Ponyville, flips back right-side-up and rockets back up next to Scootaloo. “What was that…?” she asks, as if terrified she might be next to explode.
“Uhh,” Scootaloo mumbles.
Rainbow looks up. “I don’t see any more,” she mutters, ignoring the dusting Ponyville is getting below them. “Perhaps now is a good time for a picnic break?”
“Uh-huh.” Scootaloo continues to glide directionlessly.
“C’mere, you.” A purplish rainboom is seen.
Ther-WHACK!
Scootaloo raises an eyebrow as Rainbow pulls her hooves out of the ground.
Rainbow smirks slightly, plopping a tied tablecloth on the grass before she reaches over to ruffle Scootaloo’s mane. “How’d that go- ?”
Both ponies freeze solid for a full minute.
Rainbow’s hoof tilts, and shifts, coming into contact with something hard just off Scootaloo’s forehead once again. “What…?”
“Uhhh, why’d you leave hoofprints when you landed?”
“You first.”
“I bet it was Zeus.”
Rainbow’s hoof whips back over to strike the ground next to her other forehoof, spraying dirt and grass. “Was not!”
“Something he did?”
Her jaw articulates up and down a few times, before she finally facehooves. “His nanites are addicting,” she mutters, flipping herself over to land in her back, on the suddenly spread tablecloth. “He can make me so much stronger, so much faster, than I could ever do on my own.”
“Isn’t that cheating?”
To this, she gets a smirk. “Not since he made them permanent.”
“... Ahh.” Scootaloo pops open the picnic basket Rainbow had wrapped with the tablecloth. “So what’d ya get?”
Rainbow hoists herself up again, reaching over to wave a hoof in the air above Scootaloo’s forehead once again, while she’s distracted with the picnic basket. Yep, certainly something there.
“Ow!” Scootaloo yelps, whipping her head back beyond Rainbow’s reach. “That hurt!”
Rainbow blinks. “What hurts…?”
Scootaloo scowls. “Promise not to tell?”
“Sure.”
“Pinkie promise?”
For this, she gets a raised eyebrow. And a shrug. “Eh. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”
Scootaloo takes one last look at her surroundings, making sure nopony else is watching, and finally reaches up to touch it with her right forehoof. The it she had spent the day pretending didn’t exist, even to herself. “This…” She lets it reappear, her hoof dropping back down. “It appeared last night.”
Rainbow blinks. “You know, you make a cute alicorn,” she mutters.
Scootaloo shrinks slightly, averting her eyes as her face heats up.
“It appeared last night?” she asks. “Just appeared?”
“Um… I don’t think so. Last night, I broke one of Rarity’s magic canister things.” She reaches up to tap her horn. “This didn’t happen until after I went to bed- neither did my wings’ growth.”
Rainbow raises an eyebrow. “When you broke one of them… You didn’t happen to be in the boutique, did you?”
Headshake.
“Clubhouse?”
Nod.
“... And the others there too?”
Nod.
“Then you went and saw Zeus?”
Another nod. “I returned the damaged box to him this morning. He said to tell ponies he fixed my wings.”
Rainbow raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think he can lie,” she mutters. “Besides, he made those to help Rarity after Twilight… Uhh, there’s a reason Twi’s been cursed. I’ll leave it at that.”
Scootaloo’s eyebrows start battling her horn for airspace. “So Twilight broke Rarity’s magic?”
Rainbow facehooves. “Zeus is also really good at keeping secrets. Unlike me.”
This earns her a raised eyebrow- though this is effected by the other one going down. “You’ll keep this secret, right?” Her horn fades out once again, worry creeping into her tone.
“Oh yes,” Rainbow nods. “I pinkie promised, remember?”
THWACK! Creak...creakcreakcreakCRASH!
“Horseapples,” Applejack curses. She really hadn’t meant to kick the tree down, only the apples from the branches… Not that there were any apples in the branches to begin with. Oh well- the tree is quite repairable, especially with Zeus’ nanites. She watches idly as the splintered trunk snaps and pops, fusing itself back together as the tree stands back up. She’d never get tired of that.
“Four hundred eighteen,” Zeus mutters in her ear.
She’s already gotten very tired of that, though. He’s insistent upon counting how many she knocks down. Whatever- the tree is back in one piece again, and Zeus’ nanites are making her too strong for her Applebucking. She makes another blow against the tree, somewhat gentler, and winces as it cracks and creaks, but fails to fall down.
“Only almost this time. You’re getting better.”
She grits her teeth- he’s getting really annoying- and the tree goes flying this time.
“New record: Two hundred eighteen meters!”
The tree then hops into the air, courtesy of his invisible ‘drones’, and floats back over to reconnect with its stump.
“So, what’s up next?” Applejack asks, turning away from that tree’s four hundred nineteenth reconstruction in a row and trotting back towards the house.
“Only the usual: Dirt and rocks.”
“Oh, very funny.”
“So, you’re abnormal?”
“That’s one way to say it. I have reason to believe that, until now, you had no clue I or anything like me exists.”
“And now I’m abnormal too?”
“Yes, I’m afraid. On the outside, you should be no different from what you used to be; however, the fusion-powered android used for resurrection protocols is very different from the muscle and bone your insides used to be made of. You might notice:
“One. Greatly increased durability; what might have been a lethal blow before will likely do little damage now.
“Two. Enhanced strength; even without your magic, boulders should be fairly easy to toss out of the way.
“Three. Enhanced speed; again, even without your magic, you should be among the fastest ponies in Equestria.
“Four. Fusion power. While you will still want to eat the same amount as normal, for appearance and for materials, just a couple bites will provide enough power to keep you running for a full day. Even a drink of water is enough for that function. If ever your fusion plant shuts down, for any reason, you will have roughly eight hours to reach me before you die a very sudden death. I will be able to keep you charged while your power plant is repaired and rebooted.”
“Five. Self-repair. In the event that you do take damage, your new body will repair itself out of present materials- and using whatever you’ve recently ingested. This repair operates many times faster than a pony’s natural healing, and will regrow missing limbs. Do note that this self-repair function will not work while your fusion plant is offline.
“Six…”
Fifteen minutes of difference listing later, he finally reaches the end of the list. There’d been some entries she didn’t even pretend to understand, some that sounded interesting, like this ‘built-in communicator’, and some fairly boring ones, like how she doesn’t really need to breathe anymore. Still, she’s managed to memorize every one of them- thanks, probably to number thirteen, which had something to do with ‘computer memory’.
“Now that we’ve finished that, I think you might be ready to head out into the world. You?”
She nods. “Maybe,” she mutters.
Zeus chuckles at this. “Though, you might want to take up a disguise for a little- you would seem to match the description for a recent missing filly just close enough for trouble.”
She blinks and, with a glance, turns her coat pure white. “That good?”
“Should be, yes,” Zeus responds.
She then looks at her back, her wings reappearing, now pure white. She also makes her horn disappear. “There,” she smiles, and turns back towards the door, which slides smoothly open. “I wanna fly.” She trots out the door.
Halfway up the tunnel, she remembers something important. “Zeus?” she asks, starting to turn back.
“Yes?” he answers, inside her head… That built-in communicator thingy. She responds through it.
“You don’t happen to know how to fly, do you?”
“I do not, though I have plenty of video records. Shall I upload them?”
“Uh, sure?”
Two seconds later, she breaks into a full gallop for the entrance, itching to try out her wings. Her ‘processors’ have already finished analyzing the motions Zeus had recorded, and are estimating an 89.41% chance she can replicate even the toughest maneuvers with relative ease.
Only, before she reaches the exit, she comes face-to-face with a red-haired, yellow-furred earth pony filly. Her IFF database instantly identifies her as Apple Bloom- though she realizes a microsecond later that she can see Apple Bloom’s poorly-tended wings folded to her side, and the horn on her head, both invisible to most. Must be… Yes. Infrared vision.
“WAAAHH!” Apple Bloom half-screams, when a hornless and winged version of Sweetie Belle appears suddenly in front of her. She’d taken note of where Applejack had gone when she went to talk to Zeus- something about putting trees back together- a few days ago, and had been headed down to meet him herself. Seems somepony has different plans for her, though.
“Sweetie!?” she asks, recovering from the initial fright.
“Um,” the pegasus responds- most certainly not Sweetie Belle’s voice. “Maybe?” She sounds genuinely confused.
“Did something happen?”
“Uh, yes. He called it ‘amnesia’?” She gestures back the way she came.
Apple Bloom’s eyes open wide. “Sorry! Do you remember your name?”
A head shake. “I don’t remember anything… But he said it should come back soon.”
“Ahh. In the meantime…” Apple Bloom glances towards the pegasus’ flank- blank. Opportunity! “Wanna be a Cutie Mark Crusader?”
“A what?”
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wat. did flurry heart get replaced with a robot?
8742763
Not replaced by, no. More like resurrected as.
Okaaay... WHAT happened to Flurry? I had noticed the boot logs and the squeak near the power plants (thanks for pointing that out, by the way), but just what happened to her that she apparently is now a cyborg?
(And if that's the case, how do her missing memories work? I would have assumed they could come back if she has her original brain, but that seems less likely. Is it in a box somewhere and will upload its missing contents as they are found or something?)
Also, looks like Dash might be the next victi ... ah, test subject. SHE KNOOOOWWWS....
/All SYSTEMS ONLINE/
OMNI:She's not a real robot I never saw that when she woke up.
MIND:I will never understand how you control me.
8742834
8743025
YES, Flurry is not a simple robot. Her mind has simply been transferred into one, as her original body- after landing in a pool of mana many thousands of times greater than that which nearly killed Twilight- could no longer support her. As such, only the support systems- to interface between her mind and the machine- had to initialize. The machine also had to start up, much the same way a human baby's heart has to start at some point.
As per how it works... It's some fancy new barely-not-experimental rejuvenation machine, intended to give surviving Bolos the ability to rejuvenate killed commanders. See Old Soldiers by David Weber for the inspiration... No, this doesn't work like that- it's more subtle... But it's close.
Nah, Rainbow won't be the next victim
Rarity's still gotta realize it worked, after all. She hasn't taken her appropriate beauty naps just yet, nor panicked even worse than Sweetie. And I'm thinking Zeus'll keep the transformation thing under lock & key for a while, while he analyzes how it happened- so Rarity and the Crusaders are the only new alicorns for the moment. The others, he'll sneak it up on them at some point. Just imagine Fluttershy realizing she has a horn... In the town square. Or Twilight, whenever she finally gets home, realizing she's not the only alicorn in Ponyville. She's the only one, so far, to not have her com replaced!
... Speaking of which panic, spoiler non-alert, next chapter covers a lot of it... Posted a minute or two in the future.
Poor tree.
9079697
Yes, that poor tree.
The shark is now flying and its awesome!