Self-Bolt

by Crimson Trident

2. Learn-1

Once safely back on the HMS Greyfox -what Sebas called the big ship we were on to start- he brought me to his personal chambers, where I’ll be staying until they figured out why MANTIS took such an interest in me, or until they located Equestria, whichever comes first.

The room wasn’t really big, only about the size of my Cloudominum’s bedroom, which would have been just fine except it was supposed to act like an entire house.

This turned out to be less of a problem than I thought. Sebas told me “Watch this”, pressed a button on a thing by the door, and the whole room shifted around. The rug was sucked into a wall, the bed folded up, and a bathtub rose from the floor. I played off the surprise of this, but I’m a bit out of practice and he saw right through it.

“Let’s get you clean.” He said, chuckling.

I propped myself up on the tub with my front hooves and watched as the tub filled itself with soapy water, then absolutely did not yelp in surprise when Sebas grabbed me around the barrel and lifted me into the tub. A soothing calm washed over me as the warm water soaked through my matted and dirty fur down to my skin.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see him take off his gloves and move around back of me. I let out a satisfied nicker as he massaged his fingers down into my coat, working the sudds deeper until-

“Ah cold!” I shot to my hooves and spun around on him. “Why are you wearing one of your, your hand-shoes!?” I pointed a hoof at the offending hand.

He looked down at his metal-clad hand with slight confusion.

“Oh whoops,” He muttered, getting up and grabbing his gloves from where he discarded them. “That must have come off with the glove again.”

And then he reached into one of his gloves and removed… his hand? It looked limp and empty, and he slipped it onto his hand over his hand-shoe…

“What.”

“Sorry about that, I keep asking the Doktor for a cover that fits better, but he’s always out of synthetic skin for some reason.” He knelt back down next to the tub and showed me both of his hands. “Look.”

Both hands now looked mostly the same, but looking closer there were definite differences. His right was mostly smooth, with large wrinkles around each joint, while on his left the wrinkles were less pronounced, more natural, and had a slight red tint to them.

“My left is real, but the right is a metal prosthetic with a rubber cover.”

“Geeze, how much of you is missing or made of metal?”

He sat back and began untying one of his boots.
“Well, aside from what you’ve already seen and commented on, about 50% of my spine is mechanical, and both feet are as well.” he finished removing the boot, revealing that his leg ended in a sort of metal nub with three thin “prongs” coming off the front. “These were done intentionally -unlike my hand- they’re part of the Neural Bypass I was using to pilot my Skipper, as well as my Arc-Self.”

I stared at his foot for a while, before looking back at his hand. When I first saw him, I never would have imagined that his hand was fake. We had prosthetics back in Equestria, but even the best ones weren’t as good as his. Sure, a fake leg could let you walk just fine, but if you lost a horn, or a wing? The only way you’d be flying ever again would be in a hot air balloon.

“How good is that hand? I know it looks good, but it works right, right?”

“Yup. Good as my old one.” He demonstrated, running through a series of simple motions, before ending by having it spin around completely.

“So, do you think you could maybe, uh…” I gestured towards my sides.

“Well, I don’t think the Doktor’s ever made a pair of wings, but I can ask him the next time I’m in the lab.”

“Thanks.”

“Now,” He got up onto his knees and moved closer to the tub. “Can we finish what we came here for, then?”

We probably got a little carried away, and what was supposed to be a simple cleaning became an impromptu grooming. After what I’m told was oil and grease was washed out of my coat and mane, I was dried and brushed. Then, completely unprompted, he leveled my hooves with a knife and braided my mane.

I have no idea where he learned how to do either of those things, because stallions don’t know how to braid hair, and they certainly don’t know a thing about hoof-care. Great, I’m starting to sound like Rarity.

“Rarity.” I sighed. “Aj, ‘Shy, Twilight, Pinkie…”

“Hm? What’d’ya say?”

“Nothing, just thinking about my friends back home.”

“You want to talk about it?”

I didn’t answer. We sat in silence for a good couple minutes, before Sebas broke the silence again.

“If you don’t that’s fi-”

“N-no. Do you think, they think I’m dead?”

“Well, I’m not going to sugarcoat things. Yes, they probably do. You’ve been away from them for two years by now, after being taken away through what I can only assume were mysterious circumstances. I guess, the best thing to do is hope your friends believe it’s you when we get you back home.” He stood up, brushing off his pants for a bit of flair, and extended a hand towards me. “So, to tie you over until we find your home, why don’t I introduce you to some of my friends?”

I thought about it, then stood and completed the gesture.

“Not exactly keen on the way you worded that, but what the hey.”

Just then, a series of tones rang out through the ship.

“Attention crew, minor MANTIS presence detected on nearby planet. This ship will be landing shortly for resupplying and field testing.” An artificial-sounding voice came, then those same tones again.

“I… almost made that out.” I said.

“It was an announcement saying we’ll be landing. I’ll probably have to go out in my Arc-Self to test whatever contraption the Doktor’s created lately to dispatch MANTIS troops more efficiently.”

“So we’re going outside? Great, I’ll finally be able to stretch my w- legs.”

“Legs?”

“Legs.”

Author's Note:

Shorter chapter than I hoped. Sorry.