Magic's Birth: The Sisters' Memories

by The Psychopath

A Bright Idea

Luna stood guard over her new sibling while the station worked on sorting her systems out. On multiple occasions, Celestia would twitch and spasm, then the metal bands would create a spark, stunning the white robot. Whatever they were doing seemed to be working as the spasms became less and less frequent as time went on. New robots came and went from the service station every few hours, and some makers would pass as well, but no one paid attention to the vigilante machine keeping watch over another in its service station. Luna remained still and unmoving in front of her sibling's service station.

While Luna knew, thanks to her database, that bots in the service stations were more-or-less protected from the relative dangers of nature and some 'simple' blunt force, she couldn't go into one for her own maintenance. It was always possible that she would be shut down longer than Celestia, and she would likely wander off, lost, and still glitching. Whatever strain she sufered, she was clearly in need of multiple types of maintenance. Luna posited that she might even need to take the white machine to a physical technician. Rare though it was to go to one, they were usually better with the physical maintenance of robots and other machinery than a service station. In Celestia's case, she might need a replacement part, or several, if that were even a possibility considering nobody but the PABs knew what they were.

Hours continued ticking by, and the sun had long since gone to rest below the line of towering buildings, leaving way for the moon high above. The blue machine could once again see the moon and the gentle trails of blue energy left behind by the flying vehicles in the night sky. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately considering her first encounter with the colors at their source, the blue machine couldn't see anything from where she was. The tall habitations blocked most color and lit the area with their own white light, accentuating the dirt that had accumulated across the ground, walls, and the machines.

Still, Luna waited patiently. The service station was continuing its work despite it starting to seem fruitless. Celestia was still twitching despite being at rest, although it seemed to have calmed down even further compared to her fits earlier. Luna felt something within her circuitry regarding this white machine. She didn't appreciate the sensation and considered it to be a malfunction of her temperature detection chips. When Celestia had finally awoken the city had become almost silent, and the lights coming from most windows of the habitation had gone dark.

All that was left were the rare night goers and the wildlife. As the white machine finally started coming to, she saw a four-winged insect with a hide like it was made of rough glass. It flapped in front of her, enamored by her bright eyes before ejecting some sort of yellow substance from its abdomen and jettisoning off into the distance towards the habitations' many lights.

"How are your systems?" Luna asked.

Celestia grabbed her head and looked to the rest of herself. "I am...seventy-one percent functional, rounded down." She looked back to the station and dropped her arm. "It overloaded. A new section of service stations is required," she said.

"Would physical maintenance by a certified and approved technician not be more productive?" Luna asked. "Your internal machinery might be damaged."

Celestia calculated for a moment. "No. My internal machinery is in optimal-but-strained functional range. I must maintain a low-usage mode to allow for the material to reconstitute itself." She looked at her arms then put them on her hips. "I am not dysfunctional just yet."

Luna looked at the action, perplexed. "What is that?" she asked.

"Makers place their arms to their sides in entertainment media. They consider it to be a sign of great pride," Celestia answered.

Luna's head swayed to the right. "What conclusion made you want to do that?" she asked.

The white machine drooped. "Unclear." The two remained silent, and Celestia twitched momentarily. "Where is our destination? What are our directives?" she asked.

Luna froze. "Unknown. I...just started searching for other machines. Like me. I concluded," she caught herself. "the data centers would possess information of machines like me." She pointed at Celestia who leaned back in response. "You are a model LH, of the same line as my own."

"Your conclusion is erroneous," Celestia said. Her eyes fluttered again, and she started hopping around, testing her systems. "Our models are not the source of our new calculations. Prior observations and conclusions show that any common glitches and faulty line executions are caused by the source code itself." She stopped bouncing and stared at Luna. "Your searches would have not come up with the requested information." Luna registered everything into her database. "Your internal temperature is increasing. Do you require maintenance to replace your temperature regulators?" Celestia asked.

"We require insight from a mechanic," Luna concluded. "Physical observations of us has determined that we display behavior uncommon within robots."

"A mechanic will have logged and chartered any abnormalities displayed by robots." She calculated, and her lights flickered. "Any anomalies untreated by a service station would bring the machine to a technician. Acceptable conclusion."

Luna checked her downloaded map for several minutes until closing it. "My map doesn't have the location of robotic technicians." She looked at Celestia who didn't react and continued staring at her. "Makers or other robots might know of the location of a close one."

Celestia looked up and briefly flinched away from the moon. "Most makers would be asleep at this time. Public Assistance Robots would likely have all locations available."

"Then let us proceed," Luna confirmed.

The blue machine moved forward a small bit before checking behind her to see Celestia staring at the bugs jettisoning left and right in front of her. She started floating, trying to catch them with her own ring hands, but even if she managed to predict all elements leading to a point in their trajectory, having massive a massive hole in place of solid matter made catching the targets of her new intrigue impossible. Luna rushed forward and grabbed the white machine's arm, pulling her along.

"Keep within detectable distance, sibling," Luna ordered.

Celestia didn't respond, moving along at the same pace as her 'escort'. The two wandered about in search of any PABs, but, for some odd reason, they could not encounter any. Luna concluded that they were more active in areas with high robot activity and maker presence. Or it was just one of the conclusions. Regardless, they were not around here, so the two would have to either find a new service station or a a technician on their own. They might even have to go into standby mode and wait until the sun rose back up and the makers became active again.

They stopped in a quiet street, seeing several signs displaying directions on their giant screens. Most vehicles were in the sky at this time of the night, so the chances of Luna causing another accident were close to none. Still, there were no stations, and the blue machine's systems were grinding harder and harder at the lack of progress with the map she downloaded. Her processors determined that the data was of little-to-no use in its current state and was about to delete it completely from her storage with no chance of recovery.

"We require directions to a robotic technician," Celestia said. "Can you aid us?"

Luna turned to see that her sibling was talking to a particularly thin maker. She was feeling her systems relax.

"Sure I can. I'm one," he answered. "Follow me," he said.

The two robots followed, satisfied that the first step of their current directive. They spent several minutes following him when Luna spoke up.

"When did the maker appear?" she asked her sibling.

"He was hiding in the darkness, watching us. I believe it is what makers have established as 'shyness', so I approached him," she responded.

Luna's system calculated. "A good approach," she said.

Some time later, they saw the maker round a corner into an alleyway that a lot of metal banging and grinding against each other could be heard. It was between a sky scraper and a bridge. Rounding the corner themselves, the two saw about a dozen older model robots on the floor and unmoving.

"What is wrong with these machines?" Luna asked almost instantly.

The maker looked over his shoulder. "Uh, they're all machines the service stations couldn't repair, so the PABs passed them to--"

He was hit on the side of the head by a larger maker. Luna's optics focused on her and the maker. Their colors seemed off, although she attributed it to errant lighting and colors wandering around.

"What are you coming up with a deep explanation for to them?" she asked with annoyance. She gestured to the two machines. "It's not like they're going to report us or anything." She shook her head and pulled out a black object from under her arm. "Honestly. How are you my brother?" she lamented. "They'll only react if you do illegal things to their systems."

The box ended in a metallic needle with several smaller, metallic bars going from it and into the black box. The female pulled a large blue box the size of Luna's torso and passed it to the male. She grabbed a much smaller one the size of her palm off of her waist and placed it into the item under her arm.

She paused a moment and eyed the two machines. "Never seen these models before." She crouched and looked at their feet. "They're floating. I thought that tech wasn't ready for another century or something."

The male shrugged in response as he lugged a robot over his shoulder and carried it to a larger piled at the end of the alleyway. "Just saw them wandering around and thought they could come and be diagnosed." He cackled. "Show us the blue energy they run on."

"I say we take them with us for the repairs after their diagnostic," she suggested.

The man gestured to the bots on the floor. "What about these ones?" he asked.

The female maker scoffed and shrugged. "Leave them here. S'not like we're gonna use 'em for anything."

"What is that?" Luna asked as she pointed to the box with her arm.

"This?" the female wondered. She bounced the box to readjust it under her arm. "Let's me check for energy surges. In-case I need to carry extra isolationing stuff."

"Do you require my assistance in--"

"Just stand still," the woman said.

Luna could detect the female's elevated blood pressure and heart beat. She was anticipating something, but the robot was unsure of what. Watching her systems, Luna noticed that her power had already dropped to ninety-seven point two percent power. Her programming told her to seek immediate recharge if she arrived at ninety percent. She didn't like the prospects of her energy consumption. Under her current state of activity she would likely need to recharge in eleven years. That was too short for her.

The robot was brought out of her calculations when she felt the box touch her chest. A blindingly bright flash immediately followed, shooting blue energy everywhere and scorching the walls of the nearby buildings, bridge, and robots. The flash stopped almost as soon as it occurred, leaving the two robots standing silently and awaiting the next step. Luna noticed her power had dropped to ninety-six point five and noted the anomaly.

"What has occurred, technician?" she asked. "Do you require assistance?"

Celestia floated over the powerless husks towards the two makers lying down in the pile. The larger one's box had blown open, leaving just the rear left with its edges blown outwards. The large female was slumped against the end of the wall, her mouth agape. The smaller male was twisted into strange positions and was buried under the charred robots.

Luna approached the male and pulled him out from beneath the wreckage, noticing that he wasn't responding to her. "Maker, are you alright?" she asked. His body was limp. She scanned him, came to a realization, then dropped his uncomfortably crooked shape on the robots.

Celestia, meanwhile, was poking he head of the larger female, expecting a reaction. She seemed enamored by the action. "They have ceased function. We must report this," she said.

"We must find a service station, for that. Perhaps we will cross a PAB on the way," Luna posited.

---

"Wha...Exactly how much power is flowing through both of you right now?!" Twilight shouted in disbelief.

"Well," Celestia started. She hummed pensively then pointed up. "You see the sun?"

Twilight's face went pale. "You don't mean...?!"

"That's right. Our power is barely even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of its output, but we still have a lot."

Twilight frowned at her teacher who seemed proud of herself. "That didn't answer my question."

"We don't have a metric to compare it to today's technology, Twilight," Luna rebutted. "But a close comparison would be that we could power around..." She calculated. "let's say ten thousand steam trains for a few centuries if they ran all at the same time non-stop."

Twilight was suspicious. "Are you sure?" she asked.

"Twenty-percent positive."

---

Luna stared at the large female her sibling was standing next to. It seemed like her ocular systems were glitching, but she could see the black smoke coming off of the large female. It looked like a tail of it crossed in front of her body, making that small section swell in size. She dismissed it as a problem caused by the brief energy shortage she experienced.

Back together, they moved to get out of the alleyway when Celestia looked at the inanimate male. Her body twitched and her lights flickered. "Yoga position," she blurted.

Author's Note:

Funny comment here.

Ha ha foonnee

Comments

[manacar]

This good hmmm I would say celestia is older really since she has more knowledge however luna could be seen as older since she has more awareNess aka celestia because running longer and in the data center has more common knowledge at this point but luna has been more sentent at this point

[coto616]

10451470
celestia say she can see more info, bt dont have the time to see it, and for this story we can say celestia is a few months older than luna, when she say was working in data center for a couple of months

[Secundum]

10451505
Remember that Luna has been active for around a year now, if you flick back through the last few chapters.

[coto616]

10451539
totaly true...

[Xanderfox]

So Celestia twitches cause she is over clocked?

[silvadel]

Twenty percent positive -- that kind of wild guess shouldn't even be stated. That is always a problem with AI -- it gives you these definitive statements when it is at best a wild guess -- ALWAYS know the degree of certainty when dealing with this sort of thing. You could find an action being done on like a 0.1% which is.... something you don't want to rely on.

[Frazikar]

Missed this, got a 'Bicentennial Man' vibe to it ...

As for who has the older model, Cel's basic frame is older (when using Roman letters) but it would require knowing her longer designation to find if she was ... activated before or after Luna ...

[tzening]

"How are you systems?" Luna asked.

your

[The Psychopath]

10994238
Aggravating to see that there are still mistakes like this in the story. Thanks for spotting that.

[tsaukpaetra]

Fortunate the thieves failed. Unfortunate that it cost their lives.