The Tired Automaton

by Partycannon_

Chapter 4: Running

-::Battery Low: 8%::-

“Come on! We have to hurry.” I was outside of the boutique but my friends weren’t with me. I move my hooves impatiently, none of this will matter if we can’t leave now.

-::Rerouting Power: Sense: Taste: Powering Down::-

Finally the door opened and my two defeated friends fell through. Both of them appearing to have gone through quite an earful.

“COME ON! WE HAVE TO GO!” I yelled and they both quickly popped up. I turned to the street and began a sprint, after a quick face plant I mastered running out of pure necessity.

“H-Hold on, why are we running?” Apple Bloom asked between breaths.

“We are running out of time. We have to-” Maybe I shouldn’t tell them. No, it won’t matter if I can’t obtain power even if they grow suspicious, it’s better than the alternative.

“We have to make something that will create power.”

“Sweetie Belle, you owe us big time. I haven’t had an adult, no, anypony-”

“That doesn’t matter right now.” I turned back to my friends that had less than flowery expressions.

“Look, I’m sorry. We can talk after, we just need power right now”

“Wait power? Like electricity? There isn’t any in Ponyville, Miss Cheerilee talked about it in class today.” Apple Bloom said in thought.

“Yeah, it was, um… Something about something taking more power then what we get or… something?” Scootaloo responded.

“I know but we have to get some.”

“There might be a train leaving to Canterlot soon.” AB suggested.

“No I- it will take too long to get there, even by train.”

“Didn’t Cheerilee mention that someone was fixing the problem?” Scootaloo blurted.

“Who was it again? Maybe somepony who fixes everything?”

…

“TWILIGHT!” The three of us yelled in unison. I turned at the next alley, sprinting in a new direction.

“You do know that you are going to tell us everything after we get you power right?” Scootaloo stated with a tone of seriousness.

“You owe us that much.” Apple Bloom backed up.

I bit my lip in response, there isn’t anything I could say that would make them happy. I’ll find out how to solve this issue later, right now I have to focus.

---

-::Battery Low: 6%::-

“Finally.” Apple Bloom said with a sigh. We both looked up to the tree.

“Next time, I need, my scooter.” Our winged friend spit out through exhausted breaths.

“Ah’m surprised you kept up with me Sweetie, actually, you look in better shape then-”

“Let’s go.” I frowned while pushing open the door.

“Me…”

My mind instantly scattered at the chaotic mess and took a few seconds to update. More than half of the books lay in piles across the room while some still sat in their rightful place. Spike looked up quickly from his book and raced over to us in a panic.

“Do not touch anything. Just stay outside, I can get you whatever book you need. If you move a single book Twilight will flip.” Spike said, attempting to wave us out.

“Woah, that’s a huge mess.” Scootaloo said as she caught up.

“It’s been a rough couple days.” Spike said with a tired tone.

“Spike, I need to talk with Twilight.” I stated sternly. The baby dragon looked back with a frown.

“I don’t know, it has to be really important-”

-::Battery Low: 5%::-

-::Rerouting Power: Sense: Hearing: Powering Down::-

“WAIT! NO! AAHHHHGG!” THIS IS EXCATLY WHAT I DIDN’T WANT TO HAPPEN. I looked down to Spike and he seemed very shocked by my sudden outburst, then he started speaking. I bit my lip as I pushed him aside.

“Sorry Spike.” I entered the room. Where would she be, more importantly where is the power she is working on. I tried not stepping on any of the books but it was rather difficult. I’m hoping she is in the basement, I trotted to the door and opened it.

I looked back to my friends to find Spike yelling something in worry, Apple Bloom something in anger, and Scootaloo stared at me with a disapproving frown. I really am sorry but this is far more important. I turn back to the set of stairs going down below the earth. Then I started the decent, flickering lights telling me this is probably the right place.

Finally reaching the ground I found the place scarcely lit by candlelight. Exposed wires, broken circuits, and metallic sheets lay scattered. In the middle of the room was a strange metal box holding a sphere of pure lightning above it. I approached the weird sight as the ball pulsated.

My nose feels funny, a strange warmth filled my face.

-::Battery 100%::-

-::Rerouting Power: Senses: Power On::-

“What?”

BANG

---

Author's Note:

I was about to miss my schedule of a new chapter every week minus one day but I somehow managed. I wish my heart was in this story more. On the bright side I am slowly working on a small little game and it's even stranger still that my heart isn't into that either. I do think it's a good thing that I am managing to create these things without "heart" carrying the torch but I do wish I could master guiding the heart instead. I think I worry about things too much.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter. See you next time

Comments

[DarkSnowGaming]

Interesting.....

-::Battery 100%::-

Sorry but I have no theories on what could have made this happen.

I believe there's some kind of explosion? Maybe a some type of explosion involving electricity? If that's true than most of her skin probably has been revealed, but if Twilight was down there then she should be dead, unless she used a shield, and I doubt Twilight would just die so maybe it wasn't an explosion. Now I'm getting myself more and more confused, I'm gonna have to look this up.

Wait did Sweetie Belle explode due to overload of power? I mean if a batter can go from 5% to 100% in less than a second than.....WAIT I KNOW WHAT CAUSED IT, there was lightning wasn't there? Either that or Sweetie stepped on an exposed wire that was drawing to much power.

-::Rerouting Power: Sense: Hearing: Powering Down::-

This should have been one of the last things to be rerouted, her voice box should have been rerouted before her hearing, what's the point in talking if you can't hear, whoever designed Sweetie Belle to lose her hearing at 5% battery is stupid.

Anyways great chapter, but a cliffhanger? Really? Next chapter better arrive soon, now you got me wanting more than ever, your gonna make me go crazy!

[Partycannon_]

11803154
Eyup, you got it. She got struck by the exposed ball of lightning. Thus it knocked her out and charged her to max, maybe a little bit unrealistic but we are talking about a consciousness inside a robot, the most unrealistic thing to ever exist. The future is going to be wild.

I am first obligated to say that speech is not a sense but if we are ruling out one first over the other then I would have to go with hearing but it will go based on perspective and the situation. Imagine a robot on low batteries, would you prefer the robot to ask for assistance or being able to hear where to get more batteries. Both are viable but still rely on others for help, the difference is that the person couldn't tell the robot where to get more batteries if the person doesn't know that is what the robot needs. It's giving information over receiving information. There are situations were one works over another, in this story it is used to create a bigger rush and more drama.

Glad to hear it. I chose to end here so I didn't have to end the chapter in the middle of important dialog to fulfill my completely arbitrary deadline. Not done out of malice, sorry. Next chapter will be out within a week. Thank you for the comments!

[DarkSnowGaming]

11803192
No problem, I can't wait!

[Pony_01]

Apparently I missed the notification for this one.
This chapter is really fast paced, although the rapidly draining battery justifies it I suppose. Sweetie's battery drains alarmingly fast though.
The explosion in the end was so sudden and out of nowhere that I can't help but laugh at it in hindsight
However in the moment it is indeed a "What?" At least the battery is full.

I don't have any advice on the "heart" thing, but just letting you know that I for one don't mind if you decide to not work on the story anymore, that or delays happen. It can be tedious and tiring to work on something you don't have any drive for, I know that for certain.
Whichever decision you make just know I support it, unless that decision is murder.

Maybe you worry too much, maybe you don't, fanfiction in its nature is very lenient on writing standards. No one here is expecting a world class book, but what you learn here can help into writing said book. We're all just here to write, learn, read, and have fun after all.
I suppose its my turn to apologize for a werid motivational speech thingy. I just try to be as friendly and welcoming as within reason, the world (and the internet especially), is so prone to drama and I just think sometimes we need to step back and be more supporting and/or understanding.

Anyway bleh mushy stuff aside , let's hope Sweetie can mitigate the oncoming consequences

[Partycannon_]

11804560
Yeah, I meant to tweak the numbers slightly before uploading it but I felt it was okay because we didn't exactly know how long it took for them to travel to Twilight's. I quite enjoyed writing the ending too, on first writing I felt like it needed more but on second re-reading I quite enjoyed the 1 to 100.

I am going to continue the story but I will probably take your advice and not worry much about the upload schedule. I want to get into a good habit of writing daily which I have mostly succeeded in this month, only failing one day so far. Thankfully writing isn't tedious although it does require me going a bit out of my way to do.

You are right, which makes it odd that I always hold myself to a high standard even though I really haven't spent that much time writing. It's a struggle for me to put myself or ideas out there and when I don't think they are up to par, I either don't release it or apologize before others can read it. In the end that is why I am making this story, to push past the feeling of the story not being good enough, to release stories with very lite editing to practice. I just can't help but to beat myself up chapter after chapter, knowing I could do better.

I always enjoy your messages and I don't find them to be any more weird then any messages I post, if at all. So, thank you!

Gosh, I sure hope so as well.

[Oreng Pingvin]

It seems to me that now the crusaders will not check on her