A man must cope with his new robotic body when it begins to change and morph and do something that defies logic and reality.
This is an Earth with advanced forms of robotics allowing for amazing feats that were never possible in the past. Neurobots, created by Roborganics, are the source of this, and they have been the source of great praise by all.
Now, Roborganics has come up with a brand new neurobot model: the Neuropony, and it comes in three flavors, and society will break in four after its 'secret' is revealed much to the displeasure of its buyers and investors.
Unfortunately, Louis learns the hard way that such technology comes at a price, an often steep one, and he wants to get a 'refund' before it is too late and his mind is forever trapped within the paradigm of evolving robotics.
It's not all bad, though. He meets quite a few friendly faces in his predicament that are more than willing to help him find a solution to a problem they don't have.
There are some dark elements in this, so don't be discouraged.
"-Earth is a desolate place. It's full of horrid humans destroying the environnement, causing wars, and creating pollution. Wouldn't it be funny if people were stupid enough to generalize like that? Studying history allows one to learn more about the past of humanity outside of the negativity portrayed by the media. Not everything is related to the four horsemen of the apocalypse. In fact, ever since Roborganics came out of nowhere, many battles and personal disputes have been centralized through Neurobots. These robotic bodies are designed with quite a variety of shapes, colors, sizes, and purposes. The first were made for public safety measures, such as those for fire-fighters and the police. Then they started to become public, but public in the sense of construction duty and more dangerous things, like going directly within the confines of a mine collapse. Afterwards, the Neurobots became fully public.
Many events were created specifically for them. These events would include fighting, combat events, extreme sporting events, and so forth. They had even been adapted for the elderly to use, thus, allowing them to move about like in their youth. How these machines worked exactly is still unknown to many. The transfer-capsules in which a person enters creates a vacuum. The air is filtered and nothing else is left within, then the user puts a strange helmet on their head and gets transferred within the neurobot connected to this machine. It has already been established that these things possess a failsafe that prevents anyone from using them without one of the bodies connected directly to them. The prosperity of these creations is sure to continue as the company gains monthly profits from using them for bionic implants and other utilities. Despite the complexity of these machines, many of the younger generation have shown keen interest to be employed by Roborganics as they hope to contribute to the development of newer models and better medical uses for this technology.
And that concludes our documentary for the day. Thank you for watching and we hope to see you next week on the functions of drone asteroid mining."
The documentary was part of a batch of studies that a student was using to study, and it was quite informative. A man, by the name of Louis, sat at his desk, reading a frighteningly huge book about the programming of these machines. The documentary was part of his multi-tasked studying routine, as bizarre as that may seem. His room was something simple for these times. Everything had begun to get 'computerized' by the thirties, so his room had many tactical screens embedded in the white walls. His bed, while small, showed his obsession with Roborganics, mainly by the covers depicting a robot of questionable design throwing its arm up in strength, similar to an old poster from the second world war. Above his bed was a poster showing a group of engineers building a large robotic body. Its internal mechanics were clearly shown as a way to demonstrate the complexity of the machinery. There was one large window covered by thin, transparent drapes of an equally white color. This student was a bit of a neat freak when one put their mind to it, but the colors demonstrated nothing of his personality. As for his appearance, he was of a weaker-than-average build with blond hair and brown eyes.
Sitting behind him were his personal capsule and...destroyed neurobot. He tried to use it in a fighting tournament. He was eliminated in the first few seconds of combat. It was now just a heap of parts slumped onto a stretcher used for studying and analyzing. It would certainly have preferred to be repaired, but it was just a neurobot. They weren't technically alive.
"Yeesh. That's alot of stuff to study. I need a break." the man said.
Louis put a bookmark in his book then swiped it and everything aside onto the floor. Little robotic arms came from the wall and placed them on a wooden shelf right next to the desk that was only at arms reach. Louis slammed his fist onto the desk and a computer monitor flipped up, as did a keyboard. He was ready to check anything new about Roborganics.
"Let's see. There are still the default models in the stores. Nothing really new besides some updated versions. New parts, new updates, stock marketing, price adjustments, new models, company ano-NEW MODELS?!"
One the screen the man could see that these new models were, bizarrely, ponies, but non-usual ponies. These ones had a cartoony build to them, and there were three types: pegasi, unicorns, and basic. They were called 'Neuroponies' as a playful take on the original names. Like all the other models, these could be bought with the default models or have a custom model built for the buyer. Of course, these were always more expensive and took a longer time to deliver due to various addings, coloring, and so forth.
'The unicorn model is capable of lifting any object at least five hundred times the size of the model thanks to magnetization.' "Magnetization? What about wood and other isolating materials?" 'This stretches to any and all materials thanks to an ejection system contained within the horn. Millions of metal flakes coat the desired object, allowing pseudo-magnetization.'
There was a picture of one of the models lifting an enormous metallic sphere in the air in some testing grounds. The object most definitely was at least one-hundred times larger than the small pony. The metallic sphere was floating a few meters above the ground. To some, that wouldn't be impressive, but looking at the model's size was more than convincing enough for aspiring Roborganics engineer.
'The pegasi model. Using micro-propulsion engines functioning through use of super-compressed air particles, this bone-hollow model gives off the impression of flight with its flapping wings. Height limit is forty-thousand feet. Internal heating system will cease to function above thirty-five thousand.'
Just like the unicorn, a picture showed the various pegasi models performing acrobatic feats worthy of several modern jet engine fighters. Nothing too impressive, but the thought of being able to fly and perform so many things envigored Louis adventurous mind.
'The earth pony model. Whilst the most simplistic, these models are built with heavy-lifting in mind. Their joints have been reinforced and shock resistant materials have been implemented as well. Extremely powerful and with enhanced endurance, these models are the tanks of Neuroponies.'
This one was the least impressive to Louis. The man pondered long on which of his two chosen models he would get. On one hand, he could control things with his 'mind'. On the other, he could live in a three-dimensional environnement and perform a wide variety of actions. After yet more thinking, he was decided. He would order a custom pegasi model. It would have a royal purple body with the film comprising the mane and tail being of a bright, lilac yellow. Obviously, it would have a male physique, and the two colors chosen had always been his favorites. He got off his chair and ran to his room door with the paper in hand and yelled:
"Hey, mom!"
"Yeah?"
"I won't be able to order my new robotic model tomorrow on account of me going to university. Could you go to the Roborganics shop and give them this list?"
"Again? You keep destroying them all, and they don't come cheap."
"I have a good income in stock marketing."
"That doesn't excuse anything."
"Could you just do it, please? I'll put on this little table here with the flower pot."
"Fine. You do what you want with your money."
"Thank you. I'm going back to studying."
The site had stated that the models would be out in one month, so Louis would have to wait. Impatiently. Eagerly. Painfully. Waiting ever so uncomfortably at his university, day-dreaming in class. As he thought of this the next morning, his mother took his note and read it aloud to herself:
"Let's see. 'A pegasi neuropony of average build. A body of royal purple with a lilac yellow mane and tail. The eyes are also to be royal purple, but of a deeper shade than the body. The gender must be...' Must be...what did he write? I should have put him in those writing classes when he was younger. Female?"
The mother rubbed her eyes in annoyance and fatigue as she read that.
"Whatever. If he wants to explore new 'features', it's his choice, but I'm starting to question these choices of his AND his tastes."
Following her son's somewhat bizarre order, the mother went to the nearest Roborganics store which was actually at the center of the city. They only ever took the name of the city they were in. This one was called 'Merripol Roborganics'. Like every store brandishing that name, this one had a black exterior with a carved in entrance at the bottom. It was a floor with giant glass panes made to show all the things inside, and the building itself was several floors high. They chose height over width. With a shrug, the mother went to order the new model from the store, slightly skeptical about the gender choice.
After some time, the new, default versions of the pony models came out and were met with harsh skepticism. While the neuroponies were the height in technological marvels, nobody wanted a cartoon pony body. There was also something strange about the distribution of the models. Only a select few cities around the world had been chosen to hold these models, and these cities never had anything special attributed to them. Things weren't looking too well for the company, and this showed on the news as Louis lay slumped on the blue couch in his home. His tv would be considered gigantic by the standards of the past, but nowadays, a twenty-five inch flat screen embedded into the wall was nothing special.
The living room was actually quite small as was the house. It just houses a single couch, a coffee table, and a few pots and plants here and there. The couch itself was leaning against the ledge of the stairs, giving anyone taller than the couch a place to put their head against. Louis' house had a rather large appreciation for the color white as even the walls elsewhere in this home were white. These thoughts put aside, the student was shocked at what he was hearing on the news.
"I recent news, Roborganics has become a laughable company with its recently released 'neuroponies'. While the models are of the newest generation and have been presented with amazing abilities, the thought of having a cartoonish robot pony as a neurobot body is considered a mockery of the consumers by many people. Unlike past unveilings which had millions of defaults bought and thousands of customs ordered, these ones have only had a handful of defaults bought and even smaller custom variants ordered. It has been--"
Louis' concentration was interrupted by a doorbell ringing. He quickly stormed to the door as complete disbelief at people's choices horrified him.
"Yes?" he asked.
"I have your neurobot model here. Please sign here and here." the delivered asked. "Okay. Thank you. I'll bring this in and continue on with my deliveries."
The delivery man pushed in a rather large wooden box into the entry hallway, saluted Luis, then left soon after.
"Hm. That went smoother than usual. I can't wait to see this new model up close. Now I just need to break this open... I'll just go get my crowbar first."
Equipped with his crowbar after a quick trip to his room, the man slammed the end into the box lid and tore it open, stumbling after the sudden opening. Getting his thoughts back to normal, Louis was overfilled with joy. It was a brand new robotic model from his favorite company in the world. It was shiny, colorful, and it only seemed to reach his waist. Being one-meter-eighty certainly had its perks when doing a comparison in size. He pulled the heavy thing out of its resting spot and took a good look at it. The man and tail seemed to be made in a rather thin and transparent yellow film, although this was extremely white and the yellow itself was extremely pale. Although disappointed by this, Louis was expecting it. Early custom models always had difficult problems in developpment. Its body was of a strange construct. Unlike earlier models that always had metal plating on them, this one's 'muscles' were clearly visible. These artificial muscles were tightly clumped together so as to look exactly like those found in living creatures. The joints, such as the kneecaps, ankles, and the hooves were covered by a metal plating that seemed screwed in from the sides. Unfortunately, the 'muscles' were black and only the plating was colored royal purple.
Checking inside the box for an explanation, Louis found a booklet placed in a plastic hold glued to the planks. He read it carefully and learned about the obvious development, functions, and so forth, but also learned that the reason these models hadn't been painted properly was due to a paint shortage. As a due, the prices of the custom models were lowered and the buyers were reimbursed a small percentage of their initial purchase. This was a satisfying explanation...until the student saw:
'-so please enjoy your new, female gendered pegasus neuropony.'
"Female? FEMALE?! MOM!"
"What?" she replied from her own room upstairs.
"Why is my neuropony a female model?"
"That's what you ordered. I saw it on the list."
"I wanted a male gendered, not a female gendered!"
"Oh! I knew there was something wrong with that choice...In my defense, you write very poorly."
"What? Why would I want a female model?"
"...For personal discovery?"
"With an equine robot?!"
"I don't know what kind of envies kids your age have nowadays. You transfer your minds into machines! How would this be any different?"
Louis sighed in irritation and scratched his head.
"Why don't you send it back and get the right version? You can do it yourself this time."
"That only works for default models! My throat hurts from all this yelling. Fine. I'll somehow drag it upstairs, but I'm not using it."
"Fine by me."
After this throat tearing ordeal, Louis brought his new, static neuropony upstairs, letting its legs and head slam and bounce off various surfaces of the stairs and beyond. When he finally got it upstairs, he sat on his bed and exhaled in exhaustion. Those things were always heavy. Looking at the empty shell of a body, he asked it:
"What am I supposed to do with a female neuropony? I refuse to use it, but Roborganics' stocks are plummeting. The only way to keep them for filing for bankruptcy is to show everyone how cool these new models are. I'll think about it and take action tomorrow. This is a lot to take in."
"Oh man. I just can't do it. It's been days! Why can't I decide on whether to use the body or not? It shouldn't be that hard! It's just machinery and gears. Just because they were made to look like a male or female doesn't mean they are a male or female. Grrr. I MUST try it...Mmmm."Louis just couldn't contain his changing facial expressions as he stayed in deep thought.
Everywhere he'd go, the student would see people with their old models continuously going about their business and performing their usual tasks. The streets surrounded by the enormous buildings of the city weren't helping, and Louis felt like the whole world was staring at him when nobody actually cared, but the inner-conflict he was having was more than a simple solitary turmoil. He had to decide soon, or he would explode.
Hands in his pockets, the man walked down the street, a face of concern and stress masked his usual calm and pensive demeanor. That is, until he heard a bizarre voice. It was rather young, but it hinted at an older age, and it was coming from below.
"Hey, you okay?"
Looking down, Louis took a sudden gander at what was in front of him. It was a neuropony, and a unicorn at that! Its mane was frozen upwards and downwards to make a weird, gothic-like appearance with two long films pointing downwards along the face and the rest to point upwards and gradually bend back along the neck. Its eyes had a reddish tint to them, and they seemed to be covered by a protective lens as well, adding to their shininess. Like Louis' own, this one seemed devoid of much coloration besides a turquoise coloring on the joint pads. Many people who walked by would snicker or add a comment in whisper to their friends, but this person didn't seem to even be aware of the surrounding world.
"N-no. I..."
"You got a neuropony and you hesitate to use it? I know how that feels."
"No! It's not that...I asked my mother to help me order my own custom model, but..."
"But?"
"She kinda...messed up the...gender."
"SHE WHAT?! SPEAK UP, MAN! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" the neuropony yelled as he put a hoof to his false ears.
"Not so loud! She messed up the gender I wanted for it."
"Haha! So? That shouldn't stop you. It's only a neurobot, much less one with an actual gender. If you get past the obvious personal modesty problems, you'll find that these things are awesome."
"You think so?" Louis answered as he rubbed his shoulder in uncertainty.
"I know so! Hey, you see those five over there? You see that fountain?"
The neuropony pointed towards a group of five teens standing next to the entrance of a large mall. They were right next to said mall's giant, stone fountain. They were clearly mocking the unicorn.
"Watch this."
The student watched carefully as the neuropony stuck his fake, mechanical tongue out and pointed its horn towards the group. They were oblivious to what he was doing, but they were still laughing at the bot. However, with deep concentration, they began to yell as they were gently lifted several feet off the ground and tossed into the freezing waters of the fountain. The neuropony just laughed at the reaction, his mechanical voice box impeding the laughter in just a slight tone.
"Well, they'll be coming after me now. You do whatever it is you want with that custom neuropony. Just remember that it's just metal and wiring and some other...bits and bobbles...I don't know. See ya!"
The unicorn ran off into the streets whilst the teens began swearing and yelling as they hoisted themselves out of the fountain. Louis gave himself a silent chuckle, then started to think. His home wasn't far from where he was standing, and that was his destination anyways.
"It's decided. I'm transferring into that neuropony and seeing how it works." the student thought to himself.
Louis put his fist in his palm and ran to his house. His mother was currently out looking for some parts for their car, so he would have the whole house, however small it was, to himself. The second he arrived at his house, the student locked the door and ran to his room. He swiped the remain of the previous neurobot off the table and painfully hoisted the heavy neuropony onto it. He then plugged the connection cable into its head by lifting a plate on the back of the neck. With a click, the man opened the door to his capsule, letting the door slide open while mist bellowed from within. The student cracked his neck and climbed within the tight confines and sat on the tilted seat. He placed the neural-transfer helmet on his head and shut the door. He waited patiently for the prompt but heard a voice instead:
"We see that you are new to the neuropony models. Would you like to see the tutorial on how to use the pegasus model?" a robotic female's voice said in freezing tones.
"Sure. Why not."
A small screen folded down from above and turned on right in front of Louis' face. It was showing a variety of freeze-frame pictures and drawings. Instructions on how to walk and how to feel extra appendages, amongst others, were placed in these instructions. It took around fifteen minutes to fully explain the abilities these things possessed and the way to move as quadrupeds. Finally, Louis felt his mind get sucked away into a tight abyss and suddenly, darkness. It was like this every time during a transfer. It's a feeling similar to death, but Louis and many, many others did not mind this. It would scare the unprepared, however. This is why the users detected as being first users would be strapped onto the tables as they exited their 'panic mode'.
Finally, Louis' thoughts returned to him slowly but steadily. He opened his new eyes to see the world from his new perspective. Unsurprisingly, these bionic eyes were perfectly adapted to sight and allowed him to see even better than before with his real eyes. These were clearly upgraded variants from their predecessors. The boy even felt lighter than before...even though it was a bit smaller than previous default models. The legs felt splendidly slim, but it also felt very wrong. After all, this was a female body, and for a man, that felt wrong. Louis had already told himself he would go through the thought no matter what, but he still couldn't get used to this new...shape just yet.
"Oooo. Feeling...uncomfortable...and that's my new voice..." he frowned with an ear droop. "Okay then. Let's see. One foot forw-And I'm falling."
A loud crash resonated through the house, frightening birds from the trees nearby.
"Gonna try that again. It's somewhat good that they put the sensory detectors only at places needed, like the base of the hooves, otherwise that would've really hurt. Alright, let's try again."
Many times Louis' legs wobbled and he stumbled onto the ground before the rotary gears kicked in to ease up his movements. These rotary gears usually were only implemented to serve as temporary replacements were broken primary gears, but sometimes they would automatically kick in as "training wheels". The student was somewhat insulted as he knew full well what these were. Atleast they helped him walk but readjusting his leg positions.
"Well...let's go outside for a walk..." he bowed his head in shame and embarrassment.
After somehow locking the door with his teeth and hiding the keys under some rocks in the nearby shrubbery, the neuropony did as intended and went on for a stroll. Louis was embarrassed to the highest degree. Fortunately, the neurobots could not blush, but they could still show facial expressions.
"Aw. How cute. Look at it. It's a little walking toy." a women mocked.
"Toy?"
"I know, right? I mean, what kind of idiot would have released ponies as a neurobot? I know Roborganics is the creator of all of this, but I think they're slipping. What can measly pony models do?"another said.
"I bet that pony thing is actually some man baby trying to live his childhood dreams of being a horse."
"Hahahahaha!"
These sort of comments were stretched all the way to the city, where Louis finally blew his top. He couldn't deal with this anymore. It was too much. He had to take care of these judgmental pricks the best way he can; By showing off the neuropony's abilities. It the videos on the net were anything to come by, then he was certain he catch them all in awe.
"Alright! I've had it! You think these neurobots suck? You think they're terrible? Yet none of you even bothered to test them! Roborganics has helped us all out since it was created. Now, I don't know where they are now, and I don't rightly care, but I'll show you that when they make something and send it out, it's for a reason!" he shouted.
Thinking hard, Louis found the wings on his back and unfolded them. They stretched open like shining aluminum tubes and stretched widely to give off the illusion of blades protruding at regular, increasing lengths. He could already hear those whose attention he garnered to be commenting on the impossibility of such a heavy thing flying even with the 'air compression' system. Such a thing would require immense quantities of air, but the second the student flapped his wings, he was already several hundred feet in the air and still rising!
"W-woah! How do I steer this thing?! What if I tried to do like this..."
He tried to put a hoof forward like Superman, but this only made him drill forwards at incredible speeds.
"GaHaHahaHAHA! It's a good thing I don't have a stomach or the crowd below would have to use umbrellas. What if I put my legs out like this."
Trying to take better control, the neuropony thrust both forelegs forward. This made it much easier for Louis to control 'her', although he couldn't do it completely. In fact, he was merely trying his best to avoid everything appearing in front of him. He would fly towards buildings and sharp-turn around them, then he would perform deadly slaloming through the crowd and assorted streets objects. This continued for around half an hour before the student finally managing to land, but not without sliding a bit on the concrete and falling on his head.
A bit disconcerted at how the event portrayed itself, he got back up and looked upwards with worry at the whole crowd staring down at him. He was expecting laughter, but, instead, he heard cheering. The neuropony's false ears perked up and the sadness made way for a happy confusion. Many helped him up, and then he started to get questions like:
"That was amazing! How did you pull that off?"
"The pegasus models are really capable of such feats?! What else can they do?"
"What can unicorns do if the pegasuses are that amazingly fast?"
"It's pronounced 'pegasi'."
"Whatever."
These questions were constantly met by 'um's and 'er's as they kept coming too fast. Luckily, other neuropony users were nearby and watched the whole scene. It was a couple of earth ponies and unicorns. One of the bigger ones, an earth pony, said:
"If you want to know what it's like to use one of these neuroponies and want to see what the other two models do, follow us."
The whole crowd did so, increasingly interested in the feats performed by one machine. Surprised by what he did, Louis was certain that he probably saved his favorite company, but the influence of a single person is not enough to change someone's destiny. Happy but also sad, the student walked home at increasing speeds. One hoof in front of the other. That's how it worked. Once back home, he felt a strange tingling in the robopony, but brushed it off as a possible error. He would check it later after he dug out the key.
Even though he wanted to be alone, his mother had gotten back from wherever it was that she went, and nearly screamed when she saw the neuropony come in.
"Gah! Who are you?!"
"Mom, it's me! Louis!"
"O...oh..." she started to gasp as she leaned against a shelf."You tried the new bot?"
"Yeah. It's awesome, and I think people are starting to like it."
"I do hope so. Now please get back in your REAL body before I have a nervous breakdown. I can't deal with seeing this thing in front of me talking with a girly voice."
"Okay, okay."
Obeying his pleading mother's needs, Louis went back into his old body. He felt invigorated as well. To provent atrophy of the muscles, stimulants were frequently applied to bodies in the capsules. Many would be basic, harmless muscle stimulants whilst others would be vibrating cuffs that would wrap around the arms and legs. Uncertain of the effects, Louis went online to see if anything had changed? It may have only been a few minutes, but you never know. And, indeed. Nothing had changed, so Louis set about studying for his future tests. The next morning he saw on his monitor that he and many others had been filmed performing the extraordinary feats offered by the neuroponies. It was so exciting to see himself portrayed like this that he felt all giddy. He was going to use this bot for many fun things. All through the days he could see an impressive change in neuropony sales and so forth. Did it really just take the outburst of a single person to break the chains and drag everyone else out? Whatever the case, more and more people were using the bodies. In fact, new models, that were fully painted, were flown in. These ranged from default models of foals, to teenagers, to young adults, and older. Perhaps to have everyone feel comfortable? Whatever the case, it was a great feel, although something didn't feel right.
Every day the itching felt more powerful, and no matter what he did, Louis couldn't find the source in the suit. It wasn't a malfunction, so what was it? Perhaps because his model was an early version? Nevertheless, three weeks passed and the neuropony 'fad' had become common place around the world. In fact, Merripol and many other of the select few cities were considered the 'Birth place' of neuroponies, and those with the early models were somewhat praised as showing the courage to stand up for what they liked.
One day, Louis couldn't stop scratching his right foreleg and the left part of his face was hurting intensely. He decided to shorten his flight training and hurried back to his house, flying through his bedroom window as he did so. The young adult moaned in pain as he, for some bizarre reason, walked towards the only mirror in his room. He couldn't see right, and he did notice that there was some strange red moss that had a tendency to grow on the metals. Using antifungal cream didn't work, but carving it off did. However, it would grow back the next day.
"My face hurts. Why? The model is defective? I'll have to...send it for repairs...if I could stop swaying from side to side!"
Louis put his fore-hooves on the counter of his furniture then looked up, wiping his bionic eyes in hopes that the sight would restore itself.
Looking at his hooves and face, the neuropony saw that the left eye and the left portion of his face had begun to change...they were becoming...organic? Even his leg!
"Wh-what is this? What's going on? Ow! My eye! My..."
The eye that Louis had poked suddenly began watering and stinging in pain. It was a real eyeball. It was no laughing matter that day, when Louis yelled at the top of his synthetic lungs. Something was happening, and it was happening around the entire world.
"I've gotta get back in my body and figure out what's going on! Quick, back into my body. I should get back into my body once I connect the cord."
Louis clumsily got back onto the table and, just as difficultly, put the cord into the slot on his neck. However, even though this method always worked, no matter how hard he closed his eyes, he felt no transfer. There was no black, no sense of death, no nothing.
"Hm? Did it work?" Louis asked.
He lifted his arm to his face to wipe the blurriness from his eyes, but realized it was still the one covered in the red moss, and it was slowly turning purple as time passed. He began to stress even more, pounding on the table as he tried to force himself back into his body.
"Come on! Oh...crap..."
The student tore the cable out from his neck and jumped to the floor. His only act was to try and bust the door to the capsule down to reach his body by any means necessary. Unfortunately, he slowly gave up and slid down the window of the door, creating a squeek sound as he did so.
"Dangit! My body...There has to be an override button somewhere."
In a last ditch effort to free himself, Louis started to scan the whole capsule in search of this "secret" button. After all, many handheld devices had a hidden hard-to-reach reset button somewhere. Digging behind the contraption, he accidentally slammed a hoof into the back, making a compartment door that was previously unknown very well known. There were no buttons, but it had a list of compatible subjects.
"Why is this here? Why didn't they put this in the manuals? Hmmm. For some reason most of this crap has been hidden by muck and whatnot...Looks like it's part of the filtration system. I wonder if I can distinguish some...words...'Warning: Not compatible with ponies'. What?!"
Louis was completely horrified at seeing this. Did Roborganics plan this from the start? Is that why this part was always hidden in the filtration systems? What purpose would they even have to turn everyone into cartoonish ponies? Granted, they had extremely beneficial powers and abilities, but this was not the way to go! If anything he had to get to the Roborganics store and his mother was the only one who could get him there. He had to endure it, but he felt something heavy weighing on his chest. Was he already growing a heart? No! He couldn't think about that now. Rushing down stairs, the neuropony's 'ears' were assaulted by extremely loud electrical guitars, drums, and what sounded like a very low and gravelly voice.
"What the hell, mom?! This is why she didn't hear me yell, but how did I not hear this? Mom. Mom! MOM!" Louis yelled.
"Woo! Melodic deathmetal Dethklok! What?! Huh?"
Louis' mother turned off the old stereo speakers and looked at the neuropony right before her.
"Why were you listening to heavy metal?"
"Melodic deathmetal. It's different. It was great back in my day. It was the 'bees' knees'!" Louis' mother laughed.
"Bees' knees? What are you talking about? Stop acting like YOU'RE SEVENTY-FIVE!"
"Hey! Don't raise your voice at me!"
"S...sorry."
Louis' ears drooped down, and his mother couldn't help but find that adorable.
"Why are you still in that body? I thought I asked you to get out of it."
"I know...but I can't get back in my body."
"What?!"
"I tried everything I could. I just can't."
"Are you sure you tried everything?"
"YES! This is serious! We have to go to the Roborganics store and get this straightened out."
"Okay. Get in the garage. I'll get the keys."
"Can't we just walk there?" the neuropony begged.
Louis' mother just stared viciously at him, making the little pony shrink down and slowly inch towards the garage door like a hermit crab. The second the closing sound resonated, the neuropony sighed in irritation at seeing the red sports car in the cement-gray garage. It was a red, very sleek and aerodynamic model whose speed was excessively high even by the new-fifty's standards. The student never talked about it because his mother was always so calm outside of the house, but she was a rabid monster who was all about extreme sports and violent activities. This was why the young adult hated cars so much and walked every day. Now he had no choice, so he waited for his mother, stress welling up inside him.
"Oh. Come on. Hurry up. I don't want to stay in this death machine any longer. Ah! There she is. Finally!"
"Hmph. There we go."Louis' mom said as she strapped into her seat."Are you ready?"
"No."
"Put your seatbelt on, and too bad."
"But--"
"YEEHAW!"
The student's mother had activated the garage door to start opening, if ever so slowly, but she couldn't wait. The car was even short enough to run through the tiny gap below the door anyways. And so she slammed her foot on the pedal, letting the engine roar with extreme power and tenacity. The wheels screeched on the street as its driver braked and sharp-turned towards the city. All the while, Louis was clinging against to his seat in a foolish attempt to keep his life intact. His mother really didn't care for the street code. It was no wonder she got her permit removed seventeen times.
"Wait...she got her permit removed seventeen times! I FORGOT ABOUT THAT!STOP THE CAR!"
"Nope. We're stopping at the store and that's final. SHARP CORNER!"
The car had already reached the city in under five minutes. Its speed was unmatched, so it always came to everyone's mind how this crazy women got such a fearsome vehicle. Unfortunately for her need for speed, the drag race was halted by a loud screech and seat bounce.
"What in the world..."the mother said with her mouth agape.
"I thought I was the only one..."
In front of the Roborganics store stood thousands of neuroponies, and each one had a variable amount of the colored, organic moss on them. Many had less of it than others, but these ones looked like recent models. The two got out of the car and walked slowly towards the enormous and enraged crowd. Many of the ponies had collapsed on the ground and were 'crying'. Quite a few people were trying to comfort them, but it wouldn't work. Others seemed to be going crazy while others had suddenly started to have a spasm on the ground.
"Mom...I think this is worse than we could imagine."
"You think?"
A weird static noise was heard from the store loudspeakers. They had turned on and were transmitting a rather frightened voice:
"I...I don't know what's going on. None of us do. Whatever is happening, it's happening across the globe. The whole planet of Eku is affected. This is more than a basic programming error, but rest assured. Roborganics is looking for a way to help you all."
The silence created by the announcement was overshadowed by the uproar from before. It was clear that nobody believed them and wanted answers. Some were even starting to lift dangerous objects in threat of destroying the building. To this the store replied with calling its security task force and more than likely the local law enforment that would arrive much later for certain.
"H-hey! It's you again! Remember me?"
"Huh?"
A black and turquoise unicorn had come running towards Louis and his mother in all due haste, but he seemed strangely out of breath.
"I was the unicorn from several weeks ago...I...Give me a moment." the unicorn seemed to be gasping for air.
"What's wrong with you? We don't have lungs."
"Yeah? Well now I do."
"I don't know what's going on, though."
"No one does, but I think everyone is going to go crazy. Me and a group of others are going to search for the factory of Roborganics and try and get a straight answer."
"But the main headquarters' location has never been found!"
"True, but we have some hints that could help. We think it's somewhere in the Baltimore sea."
"But...that's two months from here. I don't think our bodies will hold out for that long."
"It's okay, Louis. I'll make sure that mummifying effect doesn't happen." the student's mother replied.
"How do you know about that?"
"A mother must know everything for the safety of her child. I even learned methods to lengthen the conservation of your body, so be ready to get back to your home after your trip."
"But...You're okay with this?"
"Louis..."the young adult's mother sighed in irritation and crossed her arms."Just do as I say. The procedure only works for two months. If you delay even one day you know what will happen."
The little pegasus nodded and looked downwards in sadness, its lips trembling. The unicorn had something important to say, though:
"M'am." he said as he stepped forward."I don't know about you, but I suggest finding a way to protect your home, or better yet, to move everything out. My friends and I have accepted what is happening to us and are willing to live with it, if we can. However, even if we live with this, others can't. You might encounter some...horrid things in the future. These sort of events never happened well in the comic books and stories I read, so I doubt they'll end up good here either."
"Hmmm. True. I'll do what I can. Now go."
"Don't worry. We'll take good care of him. Scout's honor!" the unicorn pounded his chest with a hoof.
The unicorn pleaded his sniffling friend to follow him, and after some more words from his mother, the pegasus accepted albeit half-heartedly.
"I hope what you said is wrong."
"Of course it is. This isn't a book. People are smarter than that."
"Then why'd you tell that to my mother?"
"To make sure she protects herself and your body twice as heavily."
"That seems effective, but...I really hope that doesn't happen."
"I would say 'relax', but you don't seem to be capable of such things yet."
The pegasus jolted an angry glare at the fellow neuropony who looked away sheepishly.
"I wish I never even used this model. I wonder if I can trust this guy? He didn't even present himself beyond 'remember me' and 'I'll take him to my friends'. I hope I'm not delving into something bad."
"I still don't trust him, but what choice do I have? So, where is it that we're going exactly?" Louis asked as the two walked through the city.
"Near the outskirts of the city. Oh, and I had forgotten." he face...hoofed."I am Licorice. Nice to meet you." he said as he extended a hoof.
Louis stopped in his tracks and looked at Licorice's smiling demeanor and extended hoof with suspicion and a tilted head. His smile gradually faded into a sad and awkward expression.
"Um...What?"
"What's your real name?"
"That is my real name."
Louis eyed him up and down. He was disgusted.
"You're already abandoning your humanity? There's a chance for all of us to--"
"Imma stop you right there. Don't get all preachy. You of all people should know that the choices you make are done because you WANTED to make them. My friends and I have all decided to live with what is happening to us, so it's up to you whether you do the same. We're going to help you try and find a way to get back to your real body because of what you did to help our community of neurobot enthusiasts, but don't expect everyone to be kind to you if you act like that."
The neuropony made little circles on the floor with her foreleg.
"S...sorry."
"It's okay. I know you're under a lot a stress, especially with...well...you know."
"Mmm."
"Shall we continue?"
"Sure."
After such a little correction, Louis stayed quiet and slightly embarrassed. A few minutes later, they were met with a large white mobile home currently being painted with stripes of red and pink. There were three other neuroponies there, and each had their own changes applied to their surfaces.
One was a rather bulkier and intimidating looking earth stallion. His body was covered with synthetic reddish-pink fur of a pale variety whilst the film creating his laid back main and straight tale were of a yellow tint. He seemed to be morphing in the same way Louis was, with an eye of emerald green and a patch of fluffy fur having already become organic, although his tail seemed to have already become fully organic. His tail was being combed by a much smaller pegasus mare of pure orange. Even her mane, which was combed to look tall by waving over her head to the right in progressive lengths, was of a brighter orange. Her eyes were a pale, almost sickly looking yellow. She had a neutral demeanor to her facial expressions and seemed to be enjoying the combing. Her organic spots were...almost invisible. It seemed her teeth and a tiny spot of fur on the left of her stomach had changed, but it seemed that the rest remained the same. it was possible that her innards became organic first.
As for the last one, she was an earth pony with green and red curves dyed into her synthetic fur. The film used for her mane and tail had been formed to look like curled balls of fluffy hair. Her eyes had both become organic...but they still somehow reflected different colors at different angles. Sometimes they were green and other times they were red.
"Who are they?"
"My friends. We met soon after the neuroponies went viral. They bought theirs after the official models had been delivered."
"Is this the one who got this whole thing started?" the red and green one shouted.
"Yes." Licorice added.
The neuropony mare walked towards Louis with a devious smile and grabbed his leg with both hooves and raised them to her face.
"I'm Sour Raspberry. Great to meet ya! Our friends there are the big Redmint and tiny Starburst. You've already met Licorice."
Louis looked confused.
"So your new names are based off of food?"
"Well, personally, I wanted to be Swirly Swarm, but we agreed that our little group should have similar names. After all, we are going to be living together until things dumb down."
"Okayyy..."
"And what's your name?"
"Louis..." he answered half-heartedly.
"Louis? That's not a very girly...ohhhhhh. I see." Sour looked at Louis with a condescending nod.
"My mother messed up my order. I was supposed to be in a stallion's body, but your friend convinced me that I should try this neuropony regardless."
"And now you'll become a pegasus mare like us!"
Licorice's face scrunched into shock. He tried to intervene, but it was too late.
"I don't WANT TO BECOME A MARE! I DON'T WANT TO BECOME A PONY! I want to be myself again! It's all because of Licorice that this all happened-LET GO OF ME!"
Louis tore his foreleg from Sour's grip and backed up a bit. Raspberry seemed horrified. She unintentionally someone harm. She wasn't like that. No. She wasn't mean! How could she do something like that?! The green and red mare grabbed her head and started to hyper-ventilate. Luckily, Redmint and Licorice intervened in time. Redmint grabbed Sour and hugged her to help her down whilst Licorice tried to explain the situation. The mare seemed to be in more physical pain than anything.
"I didn't explain it to them yet. Please forgive Sour. She...she hates to be the cause of pain and misfortune to others. She has a...um...mental condition when it happens, shall we say. Please, Louis. Just let me explain to the group."
The neuropony took a deep breath and exhaled, then nodded in agreement.
"Let me apologize to her, first. I'm under extreme stress right now."
"I understand."
Louis haphazardly walked towards Redmint and tugged on his foreleg to get Sour's attention. She had apparently developed tear ducts.
"Look. I apologize. I had a similar outburst with...Licorice...I'm under extreme pressure. There's the chance I won't get back to my body, there's a chance my mother is in danger, there's even a chance that you guys won't help get me to where I want. I don't want to stay as I currently am and just wish to be helped with a solution to this problem. It's not your fault. You didn't cause me harm. I just...let it all out."
Sour let out a couple of sniffs as she answered.
"Okay. I didn't know anything so I just...dove in. I thought you were one of us."
"No. You can live however you see fit. Your choices don't affect my lifestyle, so I needn't think too much about them."
Sour smiled and so did Redmint.
"Okay." Louis said as he smacked his fore hooves together."How do we find Roborganics?"
"We're supposed to find the company?" Redmint said with a bizarrely high pitched voice that caught Louis off-guard.
"Yes. We're going to help this guy find the HQ of Roborganics. Even if you don't want to, I believe we should learn about why this is happening to us, and Louis needs to return to his body."
"YOU'RE A BOY?! Pahahaha!" Redmint exploded in laughter.
"It's. Not. FUNNY! And this coming from someone's whose vocal cords seem to be the source of helium in the world."
Louis began to glare violently at the giant stallion who had fallen onto his back. He had poor balance.
"So, where are we going, Licorice?" Sour asked.
"Well, I've heard that it was somewhere in the Baltimore sea. The problem is that I don't know where, and that sea is rather huge." Licorice scratched the back of his head."Oh, and I know that this is passing through your heads. Louis' mother is taking care of keeping his body from mummifying."
"That doesn't leave us much time." Redmint said."The best thing we can do is go to the next city and ask the Roborganics manager where he or she got the neurobots from."
"Why can't we just ask the one here?" Louis asked as he gestured behind him.
"Maybe it's 'cause they're being assaulted by an angry mob?" Sour said with a told-you-so smile.
"Riiight..."
Even though they were rather far now, it looked like one of the bigger citizens was holding another, smaller angry citizen and both were yelling about who knows what. Some of the people started to go away, but many were too stubborn to understand that the store knew nothing and threatening to tear it down like a stack of cards would solve nothing.
"What is the closest city, then?" Louis wondered.
"It's Calicut. It's three days from here by car. We can stop by some of the towns along the way to get some snacks and stuff." Redmint proposed.
"But we don't eat as neuroponies..." Louis complained.
"Not yet. Heh. I just hope the manager knows where the deliveries come from specifically."
"If not, we can always follow the tracks in hope that the delivery routes eventually centralize somewhere." Licorice said.
"That's pretty vague. I really don't want those 'special bits' before I can get back into my body."
"I told your mother we had, at best, one month to try and find them. We will. Now then, are we ready?"
"Yes." the two others answered.
"Then get in the mobile home. We'll start our path to Calicut."
Redmint and Sour Raspberry hurried to the jeep and got in from the back window somehow. Two things bothered Louis, though. How were they supposed to drive it, and why didn't Starburst utter a single word?
Louis waited until she was in the vehicle before asking:
"Say, why didn't Starburst say anything? She seemed very silent. She didn't even think to come over here."
"Well...I don't know. Redmint brought her with him when this all started and she hasn't said a thing since. He doesn't even want to tell us who she is. We don't know if she's his sister, or girlfriend or is she's in the same predicament as you. Whatever it is, we can trust her. She seems overly attached to Redmint and won't move if he isn't in the vicinity. Hmmm." Licorice put a hoof to his chin.
"What?"
"Nothing.let's get to the mobile home. You'll sit in the back with the others"
"Ugh. Fine."
"Don't complain. This one is mostly bed, and we all actually fit in it."
"W-wait! Before we go, how do you plan on driving the van...or bus...or truck...whatever vehicle a mobile home is classed in."
"You'll see."
Hesitant and with skepticism, Louis nervously followed the neuropony into the mobile home and looked at the modified seat and frowned. The back had been sawed off, showing its foamy interior. Said black seat had even been raised up a bit. In fact, Licorice was lying down on it. There were some weird, wooden contraptions attached to the pedals and were stretched to the back of the seat where they stopped, then raised upwards at a steep angle. They were made for a pony to push on them with their hind legs. Apparently, judging by the cables and pipes, pushing on the pedals in the back would apply pressure to a spring at the bottom which would push forward and apply pressure to the pedals in front. The Wheel had been lifted to look like those placed horizontally in large mail vans, although it had been lowered to make it easier to turn for hooves. Louis was taken aback.
"Ta-da!"
"How--"
"No time. Just go in the back. I'll tell you when we stop at the first town."
Although discontent, Louis did as told and walked to the large bed in the back. This mobile seemed really basic. It had the typical bathroom area with the toilet, and a separate area for the shower. It also had a kitchen and two areas that, normally, humans would sit at and eat on the tables that would slide out from the walls. this one thing didn't seem to be fitted for ponies, unfortunately.
"Louis, come on. Why do you think we're all on the bed?" Sour laughed.
"I don't feel comfortable with the prospect of sharing my bed with someone."
"No choice now!" Licorice said as he started the vehicle.
Louis was thrown from his place near the human-made seats towards the bed thanks to physics. Luckily, Starburst kept him from smashing his head against the metal frame holding it in place and lifted him onto the bed. The bed itself was rather round even thoughthe vehicle itself was as rectangular as any other mobile home. The comfortors were very thick and had a rather floral pattern on them, although it was more reminiscent of a forest than anything due to the random patches of brown and green. Paying more attention to his surroundings after landing, it seemed to Louis that the mobile home was mostly of a wodden style, although everything using the material, such as the cupboards and bathroom door, seemed to be fake wood.
"That was close. Thank you, Starburst."
"..."
"Okay..."
Starburst had plopped herself onto Redmint's back like a ragdoll or a lazy cat after having kept Louis from smashing into the bedframe. She was bizarre to anyone who wasn't Sour Raspberry. Even Redmint seemed weirded out. Sour was on her back and looking at Louis with her synthetic tongue sticking out like piece of candy. If anything, she seemed absent-minded. All she needed now was for her eyes to spread in two different directions. As soon as the student got onto the bed, she jumped up, as if Doctor Frakenstein put his monster into the lightning storm.
"Want to play a game while we wait?" Sour asked almost immediately.
"Ooo! I'd love to play a game! What game?" Redmint excitedly asked.
"Monopoly!"
"I LOVE monopoly, and there's four of us."
The two looked at Louis with begging face to which he could not resist, even if they were neuroponies."
"Fine. I'll take the thimble and let you three fight over the car."
The vehicle bumped and bounced a bit on the rocky road leading to Calicut. The surrounding environnement was similar to a cross between great plains and an arid desert which, by consequence, created a painful heat and bright sun. Luckily for the travelers, neurobots did not feel heat, and the sun provided the play group with much needed light to play their game.
"And I got States Avenue, giving me a full monopoly on the violet squares," Sour smiled wickedly.
"Ugh. I hate Monopoly. I never win," Louis whined as he smacked his head on the bed, "So...none of you really introduced yourselves."
"What do you mean?" Redmint asked.
"Well, you told me your names and why you're doing all of this, but you never explained to me what your back stories were."
"Like?"
"Well, I told you mine. I told you why I'm a pegasus mare and what I'm doing, but that's it."
"Then what were you doing before all of this?" Raspberry asked while smoking a fake pipe and rolling through her fake money with a forehoof.
"I was a student studying for robotics because I wanted to work for Roborganics. That's pretty much it."
"Really. Awwww. I am disappoint."
"Wha--"
Before Louis could ask, Raspberry interrupted him by recounting everything she had been doing before being trapped in her new body.
"I was a toy maker. I tested toys in my office as a living and said if they were good or not. Like you can tell, it was a very stress-free working environnement. Did you know that kids love building blocks and army toys? It helps with their destructive tendencies and imagination. Ahahaha! I didn't believe it when I heard it. I thought they preferred to just create. I mean, building blocks of 'life', am I right?"
Raspberry just continued chatting like this without end. Louis just stared at her with his mouth agape. How was she capable of talking for so long on ONE subject?! It was mind boggling. Redmint leaned towards the robo-mare and said:
"She's not going to stop anytime soon. You want to hear of our back story while we wait?"
"But shouldn't we wait until--"
"No. No. You wait and we'll be telling our tale in a week."
Louis looked back to the talking mare and a look of despair crossed along his face. She was talking about a moment in her childhood that involved a stick, a wild boar, and...coffee?
"Okay. Go ahead."
"Well, I was an average man with a rather average job. I heard about the neurobots and wanted one, so I saved up as much as I could and bought one. Starburst here was my quadriplegic sister. I wanted to use mine so much, but I wanted her to feel what it was like to be able to move. She had a neural disease early in her life that destroyed the neural pathways in her spine. It's already a miracle she was alive for so long with those problems. You should've seen her when she was able to move again. Anyways, I entered a contest soon afterwards and won a new neurobot. Then, well, things happened and here we are."
"I thought you two were lovers."
"Ew. No. What's wrong with you?"
"I just assumed that. I mean, that's what Licorice said..."
Redmint just pouted and looked away from the mare. Starburst just remained in her spot on the bed and just looked at Louis with an expression of...actually, she had no expression. She just seemed to stare at the pegasus without any reason, and it was creeping Louis out. He started to move from side to side, hoping she was actually looking past him, but the silent mare just followed the neuropony intently. She seemed to be exactly like a cat. I, fact, the man seemed to be having more and more fun moving about very quickly to watch her follow him like a homing missile.
"Louis, stop that," Licorice scolded.
"Stop what?"
"You think I can't see you?"
Licorice gestured to the rear-view mirror above him. He was glaring.
"Oh. It seems we're running low on gas."
"I thought you filled the tank." Redmint said.
"I thought so too. Hey, is Raspberry still talking?"
"-so I thought it would be great to get a cat, but my mother--"
"Yup," Louis tiredly answered.
Once he saw that Redmint returned to occupying Starburst, Licorice gestured to Louis to get closer. Hesitantly, the neuropony slowly slid off the bed and crawled carefully to the front of the mobile home.
"Don't trust everything that Redmint says. He lies and changes his back story as many times as his heart beats. He isn't bad, but we don't know what or who he is and if Starburst is actually alive like us."
"He did say she was quadriplegic nearly her whole life. Maybe she still thinks she's paralyzed?"
"No. She's done plenty of work when we needed some help and hasn't shown signs of 'regressed paralysis', if that's a term that can be used and makes sense." Licorice shrugged.
"Hey, look. A gas station," Raspberry suddenly said.
The energetic mare had just broken out of her dialogue trans and scared Redmint. While the road they were on was rather empty, the gas station nearby was the type to welcome very few customers but still somehow stay in business. Louis always wondered how they were capable of such things.
"I'd watch out if I were you. In movies, this kind of place always leads to something weird happening," Raspberry said.
She was draped in window curtains and was motioning her hoof as if to imitate the 'wavy fingers' motion. Licorice just shook his head in frustration. Just a few short seconds later, the mobile home parked in front of one of the gas pumps and let its engine quietly purr into a sleep. Licorice got off of his uncomfortable make-shift driver's seat and stretched painfully.
"I hate driving like that. At least I get to lie down while doing it."
"Did you even think on how we're going to explain our...current predicament" Louis gestured to his whole body, "to the station owner?"
"Yes. I did," Licorice answered with certainty and a certain bravado.
"Oh yeah? Let me guess...you know this guy or gal?"
Licorice lowered the window of the driver's seat and called out to a person sleeping on a plastic chair near the store entrance. The person reacted and got up, immediately arousing suspicion in Licorice and Louis...and excitement in Raspberry.
This man was of a rather...'large' build, if only by his beer belly. He wore blue overalls and no shirt underneath. He was balding and had poorly kempt brown hair on the sides of his head. Walking towards the vehicle, the man took a bit of chewing tobacco out of his pocket and chomped into it, shoving the remainder back from whence it came. As he came closer, it was revealed that he seemed to also have a lazy right eye. His chewing of the tobacco in front of Licorice and apparent disregard for body maintenance, coupled with his look of suspicion and all around unfriendliness gave the atmosphere a meek feeling.
"Yeeeessss...I was wondering if you could...um...help us fill the vehicle? We don't really have hands to do it..." Licorice said while Raspberry bounced eagerly in the back to say hello with a waving hoof.
She was annoying Louis who was trying to get her to stop.
"Ah don't know if ah wants ta help some shady folks like yous," the man spat some tobaccy on the floor as he spoke.
"Wha...You're infinitely shadier than we are!"
"Yet ah'm a human. How'd ah know y'all ain't just tryin' to keep yer idzntites a secret wif 'em fancy robot things?"
"What? How would that even work? We don't have hands or fingers. See?" Licorice said as he showed his hooves over the window hold.
The man seemed to squint even more, as if showing some sort of distaste for the neuroponies. He then suddenly burst into laughter and looked back at Licorice with a smiling face.
"I was just messing with you is all. Ah ha. Haven't gotten to laugh like that in awhile. Don't get many folk around here, so I like to leave a lasting impression. I'll fill your tank up, no problem. Ah, provided you have the money," the man said with a lifted eyebrow.
"I have...How much for a full tank?"
"Well, I would say it would probably cost about fifty bills."
"I have that."
"Then I'll fill 'er up. Diesel?"
"Yes."
As the bizarre character took the pump out and plugged the nozzle into the gas receiver, he asked:
"So...why are you neuroponies?"
"You...You know about them?"
"Just 'cause I live in the middle of nowhere don't mean I'm not with the times."
"Well...we're kind of stuck like this. We're becoming...organic..." Licorice trailed off.
"Really? Now that I didn't hear."
"Oh good. Then it was only in our city," Louis whispered to Raspberry.
"Yeah. We were going to the next city because ours was having...erm, some trouble," Licorice explained.
"The city...Calicut? You'll have to be careful, then. The road is rather damaged. Erosion and whatnot."
"That kinda sets things back quite a bit."
"So, tell me. Are you okay with this 'transformation' thing?"
"Yes. We've all learned to accept it."
"I didn't--"
"It's awesome! All the things we'll get to do as ponies! A new way of life! A new lifestyle?" Raspberry gasped, "Maybe even a new finally with tiny ponies and little hoofsies!"
"I DIDN'T WANT IT! I'm trying to figure out how to find a cure and get back to my old body."
The man lift an eyebrow.
"I see. Well, I can get you food and water, if you need them."
"No. We don't eat...yet."
"Okay then."
After a few minutes, Louis and Raspberry returned to their game of Monopoly, with the energetic mare slapping Redmint across the face for stealing some cash from her. Sneaky sneaky. Licorice payed the kind man and drove off, with the apparent owner of the station waving goodbye. Once they were far enough, the station owner wiped his forehead and chuckled to himself as he shook his head and walked towards a telephone attached to the station's wall. He took a key out, placed it in the apparatus, then began to type a number, eager to tell to whomever what was on his mind.
"Yeah? Hey Jame. Guess what. I think the great evolution has started. No. It wasn't rats or dolphins or Jim Carrey. It was the neurobot thingies. Yeah. No. The new series. I couldn't believe it either. They're going to Calicut. Yeah. It'll take them at least a day and a half of constant driving. Three, if they stopped for food 'n whatnot. No. They looked gruesome. Machines with organic materials expanding upon their metallic surface. The great steps to a higher existence are starting! Thank mother nature!"
Surprisingly, the monopoly still wasn't finished despite a day and a half of driving on the road. Louis felt himself getting exhausted, but new that it was only in his head, so he pushed on. This 'battle' was a matter of life and death. For Licorice, however, the respite came in the form of a city rising up from the horizon, its skyscrapers showing themselves off as shiny, silver stop signs.
"Finally! We're almost there."
"We are?!" Redmint shouted in surprise.
"Yes! Look."
Everyone quickly scampered towards the front of the vehicle to look through the large window. Starburst just gradually slid off the bed and calmly followed everyone. At first glance, there seemed to be no real problems with the city, unlike the one the group came from. But, oh, were they ever so wrong. Once they got near the entrance of the city, they witnessed several neuroponies seemed to be fleeing out of the city in a panic, most likely due to what happened to them and their refusal to accept it. Many of them were 'simulating' crying, but without tear ducts or a substitute, nothing appeared. Licorice had to swerve to avoid running over some of them, cursing while he did so. Some people seemed to be chasing after them as if to try and bring them back.
"What's going on?" Louis wondered.
"I guess they're like you. Only, they haven't let others help them out in this situation. They're panicking," Licorice said.
With caution, the little black neuropony began to drive around everyone and across the streets, where he was suddenly stopped by a police barricade and asked to stop on the side of the street, near what looked like some apartments. A knocking on the window led to it lowering and a conversation to begin.
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to stay on the side of the road until...a neuropony? What's wrong with your face?"
"It would be too long to explain. To make it simple, we're looking for the manager of this city's Roborganics shop."
"Oh. Him...He suddenly disappeared after this incident started."
"How do you know?" Raspberry asked.
"Because that shop was the first place we went to to check for. Obviously. If anyone can know where they are, it's the ones working for that company. Now step out of the vehicle. You won't be going anywhere with this problem. We'll keep your vehicle here. No need to worry. As for what to do now...You figure it out."
Licorice just shrugged and told the others to leave the mobile home. As much as he hated the idea, he didn't have much choice. They would have to reach the store by foot...er, hoof. Several people were watching the scenario unfold as they watched family and friends chase after the panicking neuroponies . Seeing the five neuroponies just standing there and watching everyone with surprised faces, save for an always joyful Raspberry, caused many to fear them. Why weren't these ones panicking as well? What was wrong with them? They were clearly also trapped in these machines, and they even had the growths!
"What's wrong with you five?!" a woman yelled.
"What?" Raspberry wondered.
"You're just standing there all happy like! Don't you have any idea what sort of situation you're in?! Why is this so much 'fun' to you?!"
"But...but I didn't..."
Raspberry clutched what she could of her chest and began to topple over. Redmint caught her, and Licorice looked back at his friend with worry, then turned to face and glare at this obnoxious wench:
"How DARE you?!"
"What?"
"You think that we did this by choice? Whereas many of your kind cannot accept change, we accepted it and have accustomed ourselves to our new bodies."
"Ahem."
"Save for our friend there who we are currently trying to restore to his original body. We help this one because it's our choice. The fact that those others cannot cope with this and ran off in a panic suggests that none of you were even ready for such great constructs bestowed upon the human race. Learn to live with it and respect those who have learned to respect their new selves and accept choices that oppose your ideals."
The woman's eyes widened as she seemed to be taken aback by the remark, but quickly leaned forward and gave one of the most frightening smiles Louis had ever seen. She crouched and whispered in Licorice's ear about something, but the pegasi couldn't hear. The woman quickly left after she was done talking, leaving Licorice to turn towards his friends while still looking in her direction with concern.
"Okay. So the initial plan remains. We'll...we'll still go to the neurobot store. It's several blocks away...so..."
"You okay?" Louis asked.
"Y...I think we might have stumbled on something bigger than us. I'm not sure. We'll just have to wait and see. Oh, and is Raspberry alright?"
"I think so."
The two turned around to see the bicolored mare slowly recover from her trauma. Louis started to wonder why she kept doing that when yelled at. It was only two times it happened so far, but it was still a strange coincidence. He preferred not to prod further into the issue unless it occurred a few more times. THEN, and only then, would it warrant a torch-cutting of that metal plate.
Some time had passed since the conversation, and the little group had just started to walk to the store, trying to avoid what social interaction they could. Police were everywhere, many of them blocking roads where crashes had occurred. One such crash saw itself under a bridge. A neuropony had been cut in half by a flipped truck, and a few other of the machines were crunched between several more vehicles, not to mention the wounded people. Everypony but Starburst averted their gaze in disgust. The small mare just stared at the scene with the same vacuous gaze as always. Redmint checked to see if she was following, then galloped to grab her and pull her back into the walk, making her stumble a bit due to the speed and violence with which the stallion pulled her.
"Really. Sometimes you worry me," Redmint told Starburst.
The mare did not react and continued to stare emptily into the void, occasionally stumbling do to the speeds. Some of the neuroponies seemed to be trying to readapt to their bodies, with a strange instance of a tiny colt unicorn galloping around the street. A middle-aged man was running after it, trying to catch the overly happy and excited little thing.
"Huh. The kid must find this awesome," Sour Raspberry noted.
"Get back here, grandpa! We don't what happened to you!" the man shouted.
"I don't care! I'm young again! I'm taking advantage of this extended life and I'm gonna play again just like I did when I was a kid!"
Louis just cleared his throat while the others looked away innocently and awkwardly.
"Well, I guess we know that these neuroponies can do more than just switch your body. It can take away years to your life-" Licorice started.
"Or add them," Redmint realized.
"That's a...frightening thought," Louis pseudo-gulped.
"Let's just keep going to the-Hey!"
"Sorry, mister!" a filly said as she and a couple of other foals ran away.
Looking in the opposite direction, it was clear that these were also elderly folk that became foals and were enjoying it, what with the crowd seemingly sighing or hiding away in embarrassment near the large apartments. Curiously, Raspberry peeked around the corner and noticed the Roborganics store...with a large crowd of people right in front of it. The woman was there as well.
"We finally found the store, but the meanie from earlier is there," she frowned.
Redmint chuckled. "First time I've ever seen you do anything but smile voluntarily."
Louis peeked around the corner to see what the store looked like. To his surprise, it was exactly like the one back home. It had the exact same 'corner store' appearance and glass exterior. The only difference here was that it was still intact and the group of people in front of it weren't rioting. They seemed to be waiting for something and were talking to each other to pass the time.
"Wow," Louis said as he moved away from the corner. "That's...something."
"Then let's go," Licorice insisted.
The neuroponies moved towards the group with reluctance, although they were greeted by open arms and a more-than-friendly crowd.
"I'm so glad you came," the woman from before said. "You can't imagine how...how graced we are by your presence here."
"Graced?" Louis whispered to Redmint.
The woman lift her arms into the air and praised:
"They are the first to accept the gift of evolution! Nature has been kind enough to show us the error of our ways and have used our own technology against us. Now we must heed their word to reach a new form of existence as we help the less fortunate ones. The age of humans is over. Now comes the new age of...of...Huh. We didn't find a name yet," the one said as she fell into deep thought.
"Age of ponies? That's what they are," a man proposed.
"Nah. Gotta find another. That sounds silly."
"But they're ponies!"
"Look! We aren't here to lead you. That's for you to do. We're here to ask the manager if he or she knows where the neurobot shipments come from. We're trying to find the place of origin of these machines."
Another woman cut through the crowd. She was wearing the Roborganics uniform. A deep but light blue cotton shirt with two white stripes going over the shoulders and down to the pants, imitating the holds of overalls. The pants themselves were blue-gray, perfectly complimenting this woman's very pale complexion and thin demeanor. It seemed as though she hadn't eaten for weeks; somehow. She still seemed to maintain her black hair well and kept them in a pony tail, but this was offset by the skeletal face she had.
"A pilgrimage to the place of origin! We were never graced with such knowledge, but the general knowledge of these blessing are known to come from the Baltimore Sea near Entrope."
"The port town?" Licorice wondered.
"Yes. If anything allows you to complete your pilgrimage and share your enlightenment with the rest of us, then it's there."
"Th...then you. We'll be leaving no--"
"Now hold on just a minute. I can understand you taking this sort of thing to heart, but I don't consider this a blessing. I want my old body back."
"Louis..." Licorice sighed.
"I'm not here to be 'praised' or be 'canonized' by some weird occult group. I don't want to be placed in the same group as you," Louis turned and lift his head in the air as though snuffing the people. "There. I said it."
"Louis, you idiot," Licorice facehoofed.
"What?"
The group of people were glaring at the pegasus and the rest with looks of disgust and betrayal. They were moving, but the atmosphere around them was becoming more and more sour.
"Then you are blasphemers who do not accept your gifts. We do not accept it for the greater cause as we must ensure all people evolve properly. If they do not accept, then it must be enforced upon them, for they do not know any better. You must be rehabilitated in the Sanctity Node. Grab them," the ex-manager ordered.
"What? Let go of me!" Louis cried.
The others started to fight back, Licorice kicking away many people and using his 'horn' to lift everyone away. Redmint, with his enlarged form, was slamming into the cultists like a bull. The humans weren't strong enough to stop him from galloping away and repeating the attacks. Raspberry was just hopping about, showing the bizarre flexibility of her neuropony as she began giving wedgies to everyone, even going so far as to pull the dreaded 'atomic wedgie' on a few. Starburst...didn't move. She seemed as vacuous as always, and her expression had the people hesitating to get closer to her. They didn't know what was wrong with this one. As for Louis, 'she' was being held in the arms of one of these people. The pegasus neuropony model did not have the strength to resist this kind of hold.
Several beatings and pummelings into the nearby cars later, the cultists were getting tired of this. A few entered the store and came back out with gigantic guns ending in a cone with what looked like a large needle poking out the end. Licorice was the first to be shot, a distinct 'pfoosh' sound followed by crackling electricity preceding to the sensation of pain he felt. The needle pierced his exterior shell and electrocuted him until it disabled his systems, causing the neuropony to fall down. They fired a few at Raspberry, but only managed to hit her by the twelfth try. Several people were on the ground and jolting about thanks to poor aiming skills. As for Redmint, a few of the bolts did not go deep enough into his armored hide to have any effect until a group of cultists managed to body slam him from atop a car, leaving place for a bolt to be fired at close range. He yelled in pain once it did, leaving Louis to only be able to watch in his confined position. Helpless to stop any of this.
"Don't worry," her captor said. "You'll all soon know the truth."
"Why are you doing this?" Louis cried out.
"For the betterment of humanity. We have been waiting for so long for the next evolution, and it has finally come! You should rejoice!"
"I don't want to rej--"
"COMMANDER IN DANGER! COMMANDER IN DANGER!" a robotic voice began to shout.
"Wh...What is that?" The captor asked.
"The creepy one is doing something weird. She just started to yell and she's...she's...Holy shi--"
The man couldn't finish his sentence until he was seen flying across the road above everyone.
"Commander in danger. Initiating priority defense protocols!"
"What the hell is that thing?"
"Get away from it!"
"Holy shit!"
A car was seen being violently thrown at a whole group of the cultists, tearing cars with it and smacking the crazy people in their faces, causing them to flip backwards and slam painfully on their backs.
"Seven targest-est-targets neutralized. Foll-following protocol until safety-ty-ty of commander is ensured-ensured."
"It's a military combat drone!" one of the cultists shouted.
"A neuropony combat drone?!" the manager gasped in horror.
Starburst had somehow transformed into a frighteningly dangerous being. She was now bipedal, although her legs still retained the general back-knee shape of equines. Her stomach had tightened up to be much more narrow and curved inwards, but widened near the chest area as several blue plates of overlapping armor seemed to cling to each other but exceed the length of the chest somewhat. The legs and fore arms were also covered with the same armor set as on the chest, and these parts looked like a thin layer of segmented green armor. She was slouched over to a high degree, at which point it looked like her back had become a half-circle. The head was the strangest part of all. Her mouth had completely disappeared and was instead replaced by a silver looking plate of metal. The head itself had become very slanted, jutting forward, almost resembling a cone. As for the eyes, they only looked like horizontally placed, iridescent diamonds.
The 'tiny' Starburst was slouched over and was moving ever so slightly, her hands and fingers gently bending and twisting as if ready to pounce. She seemed to twitch every now and then, static even coming from her voice box as she did so. The manager looked at the other members run and stumble to get away from the frightening drone. Coming back to whatever senses were left, the woman pointed to the drone and stuttered:
"Sh-shoot it! Quick! She was still a neuropony. It might have an effect!"
"But--"
"Now!"
The row of cultists fired in an erratic pattern, some of the monstrous darts seemingly curving away from their targets. The combat drone was hit by several of the darts, and electrical impulses surged through its body, but this only served to indicate the direction of a new threat and induce additional system glitches.
Starburst jumped high into the air, the sounds of pumping pistons reverberating through the street. She seemed to be flying through the air, but this did not change the laws of physics. What goes up must come down, and come down she did; Painfully and heavily on a cultist and crushing her under the sheer mass of the metal monstrosity. Those few who had the cannons immediately dropped them and ran away, leaving the manager on her own.
"Wh-wh-what are you going to--"
"Neu-neu-neu-neutralizing," Starburst glitched.
The drone punched its right palm into the woman's thorax, producing an audible crack while she flew through the doors of the store. For some strange reason, the cultist holding Louis had fled without his catch, leaving the pegasus to stare at the bizarre scene with a gaping mouth and widened.
"Woah. Starburst is a military M-9 Reaper Drone!" Raspberry shouted with sparkles in her eyes.
"What?!" Louis shouted.
The drone retracted its arm and righted it stance so that it could turn around and assess the situation.
"New recruit in optimal condition. Raspberry soldier in optimal condition. Commander and engineer in critical condition. Extracting to closest known base."
Without a moment of hesitation, the drone jumped to Redmint and picked him up, but not without more arm twitching. She proceeded to do the same with Licorice and started to run off.
"Quick! Let's follow her!" Raspberry shouted with glee.
She was far too joyous about what was going on, and Louis didn't like it, but he had no choice.
"Why? What are we doing?" Louis panted.
"We're going back to the truck, duh! That's the 'last known base' she talked about."
"I really want an explanation for all of this afterwards."
"I'm sure Redmint will explain afterwards anyways."
The energetic mare simply smiled and continued to hop away, much to Louis' bewilderment. The drone curved around corners with such precision and ferocity that large bits of asphalt were torn off the street and thrown about the floor. Starburst was unbelievably quick, somehow speeding past people with such velocity that they were slightly pulled back by the current. Her constant twitching and jittering gave off the effect of a kidnapping by a crazed maniac, unfortunately.
"How is she not killing them at that speed?!" Louis asked aloud.
"I dunno," Raspberry verbally shrugged.
The drone was too fast, but, luckily for the two followers, she darted straight to the mobile home and entered it. The vehicle rocked from side-to-side as a result of the sudden entrance. The two neuroponies were huffing and puffing when they finally arrived in the vehicle, seeing that Redmint was looking down in shame on the bed and Licorice was staring at him with shock and appall.
"What...was...that?" Licorice struggled to say.
"Yeah. I'd be very curious to know exactly WHY and especially HOW Starburst is a military combat drone!"
"To be specific, she's a decommissioned M-9 Reaper Drone. They are specialized in the extermination of unarmored personnel and the protection of commanding officers," Raspberry said.
She adjusted invisible glasses, spoke with a know-it-all voice, and scrunched her face up to look like a snooty intellectual. Starburst began cracking, twisting, and bending again as she returned to her pony form. Much to the intrigue of the other three ponies, at end of her transformation, she wobbled around a bit, then stepped on the bed and snuggled next to Redmint with her still emotionless expression.
"Well? We asked you a question! What the hell are you doing with a military drone? How did you even acquire one in the first place?!"
"If you want it straight, I stole her. "
Licorice and Louis' eyes narrowed while Raspberry's just continued sparkling with joy.
"Yeah. I stole her. To be specific, I spotted a truck leaving a military compound and, as it didn't seem suspicious in the least and wasn't being escorted, I assumed there might've been some broken junk for me to take apart and cannibalize. What I saw weren't just the corpses of drones and robots, these were complete, intact, fully functional bots. I never saw something like that. I'd rather not explain how I managed to sneak aboard a moving truck. I get bruises whenever I think about it.
Anyways, I inspected one of the bots and accidentally reactivated it. Apparently, whoever drained their power sources didn't do a very good job, and it glomped onto me, making me tumble and fall out of the truck, giving me a few more bruises and a near fracture."
"Near fracture?" Louis said.
"Yeah. I think the bot took the hits for me. It was its fault that I fell, but it didn't let me get hurt, either. I'm guess it was a near fracture. I'm not saying it actually was."
"You didn't go to the doctor?!" Licorice scorned.
"Oh, yes. And tell him how I got these wounds? 'Oh yes, doctor. I snuck onto an undercover military transport, stole one of their robots, and fell out of the still moving vehicle'. That would've sounded off nicely."
"And what about her shape? How come she's a neuropony now?" Raspberry asked.
The mare was poking Starburst's left eye, but the victim was not reacting in the slightest. Her face remained stoic and disinterested.
"Yeah. I didn't have the best connections before, so I took it to a few guys I knew and they agreed to morph the drone into a neuropony just for experimentation. They had to reprogram it and reform several mechanical components of its, but I didn't know they gave it a transformation module."
"It stuttered when talking earlier. You think that's part of its programming when you found it?" Louis asked.
"Oh. That. Yeah. It was the voice module that caused short-circuiting. It was damaged or poorly built. I don't know the specifics. The program was also corrupt and, for some reason, the guys never bothered to at least fix that. Anyways, I got the guys to program it into thinking that I was the 'commanding officer' or something. That's why she follows me around all the time."
Louis looked at Starburst and saw her eyes slowly rise to look at Redmint, then slowly towards him. They were creepy. He couldn't tell if they were actually looking at him or just scanning the environment. Yet, for some reason, he could feel his inexistent heartbeat rise violently and his breathing become erratic and stuffed. The drone was still looking at him. It might have had an expressionless face, but it seemed that, for a moment, the spark of free will twinkled in its eyes.
"Okay. We'll go over this later. We need to get out of this city. Who knows how many more loons like these 'Evolutionists' or whatever they called themselves are left," Licorice sighed.
Licorice stomped on the gas pedal and spun the vehicle around, ignoring the orders given by the alarmed policemen. Many had to jump out of the way of the raging van as it punched through their vehicles, tossing debris everywhere and throwing the metal vehicles through lamp posts and gardens. The unicorn refused to stop for anyone, so he rushed forward through the city until he reached the outskirts. Luckily, no one else was blocking the entrances to the city, so there were no problems. Some stragglers blocked their way as they went through the city, however. They didn't pose much of a threat to the mobile home.
"So...Who exactly are your friends, Redmint?" Louis asked.
"Wh...What do you mean? I already knew them."
Louis narrowed his eyes and started to approach Redmint rather menacingly. This didn't go unnoticed by Starburst who was getting ready to intercept any attacks. "How is it that you knew friends who were so well versed in military technology?"
"W-w-well...I didn't. I just...knew that they knew about technology and brought it to them." The stallion smiled nervously.
Louis shook his...her...their head in disapproval. "Really? So, you JUST SO happened to know a group of people who JUST SO HAPPENED to KNOW how to work on a military-grade, state-of-the-art machine?!" The mare gestured towards Starburst.
"I...I...OKAY FINE! I was in debt with some really bad people. They told me I could get away from it if I just brought them a military combat robot."
The van was just barely a few hundred meters out of the city and into the deserted lands again that it violently screeched to a halt, throwing everyone forward, even Starburst. Redmint quickly scampered to his hooves and, in a panic, grabbed Starburst and righted her up. He even went so far as to dust her off and check her parts.
"You WHAT?!" Licorice bellowed.
"So it didn't fall out of the vehicle. I stole it, then I brought it back to them."
Louis rubbed his temples as best as he could and looked above his hoof as he ran it across his face.
"So how did it end up back in your hands? You stole it again?"
Redmint fumbled with his hooves and sat next to Starburst. He didn't dare to look up as shame started building up inside of him.
"Well...the drones within that truck were clean slates. It means that they had been wiped of all previous commanding officers and all but their operating systems were left on their memory drives. Because I touched one of them, I'm guessing I got my hair or something in it, so when the guys activated it, it only recognized me and would only let me order it. Because of that, I was forced to stay and work with it while they studied it. After a while, they started to pay me for it, but I didn't get much anyways."
"This doesn't explain how you managed to get her into a transformable state. I mean, she's one hell of an advanced piece of hardware," Licorice interjected.
"I kinda tricked them with a taunt." Redmint smiled awkwardly. "I said that if they truly wanted to outperform the military, they would need to learn how to create transformable machines, and since the neuroponies had just come out at the time..."
"So you convinced them to change it into this. Any particular reason you chose a female?"
Licorice reeled his head back in disgust, the emotion clearly spread across his face. "I didn't choose the gender. They chose it because the frame was smoother and was easy to craft...at least, that's what they told me..." Redmint trailed off and put a hoof to his mouth. "But...when they finished, I stole her back and met up with you guys...well, everyone except Louis. You came after."
Louis and Licorice both groaned in irritation. The unicorn went back to his seat and started up the vehicle again while Raspberry just watched them all with a spry and very cute expression. Even if she was still mainly neuropony, her face was still rounded enough her doing the 'sad face' that dogs loved to do would still be considered cute.
In Crinan, a metropolis close to the Baltimore Sea, a battle had begun. There were large blocks of the city that were destroyed. Debris littered the streets, vehicles were stripped of their pieces while others sat in their burnt ashes. The sky-scrapers were still standing but their lower levels were heavily damaged. Neurobots and basic drones were collapsed onto the floor and heavily damaged. Many of them seemed to have been hit by explosives. In this block, there was no silence. The sounds of gunfire and explosions rocked this place without care for those who were caught in the crossfires, and it was due to this that specialized enforcers were deployed to cut off the block from anyone wanting to enter it. Immense barricades of a reinforced structure and openings at their thickened bottoms allowed the police to fire from the protection of their walls while those atop could fire at any incoming threats with machine guns. Armored troop transports stayed in front of them as well, their turrets constantly rotating to be able to engage any potential threat in the vicinity. These armored vehicles did not use riot suppressor rounds. They used live ammo.
At one of the barricades, a group of neuroponies were being escorted into an armored vehicle by a neurobot. It was very much like the others being used by the Enforcers: Bipedal, heavily armored, and its head resembling a helmet with a thin, red visor. It pretty much only resembled the normal police enforcers with body armor covering its whole body, the colors varying from white at the joints to blue for the rest of the body. A golden star with the words 'Crinan Enforcement Squad' surrounding it sat in the middle of the machine's chest. The Neurobot was easily twice as tall as an average human and had a much larger build with wider shoulders. The one escorting the neuroponies was carrying a round, giant, black rifle with no sights atop its rail.
"What the hell is going on with people?" one of the officers said.
She was sitting behind one of the rounded fortifications sitting in front of the wall. The fortification had a heavy grenade launcher sitting atop it while boxes of ammo sat next to the police officer in riot armor.
"I don't know. These weird machines have been preventing everyone from escaping them, so several have gone crazy because of it," spoke an enforcer atop the walls.
"I still don't see how that warrants these...riots."
The other officer slammed his hands on the top of the barricade and looked down. "You mean you don't know?"
"Don't know what?"
"The machines are becoming organic, so no one can leave them and go back into their own bodies."
"What?!"
"Yeah. Ever since then, things have started to degrade."
The woman put her hand in her hair and passed it through as she stuttered while speaking."But...but...That's impossible! That breaks the laws of physics!"
"Oh yeah? Which ones?" the man asked in a do-tell tone.
"Well...Several..."
"Name them."
"Umm...uhhh...the second law of thermodynamics?"
"How is the chaotic state of an enclosed environment relative to machines becoming organic?"
"Well--"
"Yeah. You don't know." The man pushed himself off the wall and went back to the machine gun.
Elsewhere in the block, a group of people wearing an assortment of colorful but thick clothes were hiding behind a collapsed piece of building and shooting through the broken holds for a window frame. They were exchanging rounds at humans and neuroponies hiding behind damaged vehicles.
"Give in to evolution, now! Nature has decreed that we must become the equines that these machines turn us into! You have to accept it for the better!" one of the people behind the vans and cars shouted.
"Never! You are abominations of reality! You are a threat to the human race! The Evolutionaries will fall to the cleansing grip of the Human Revelation!"
An explosion close to both saw the two parties blown away as a construction oriented neurobot collapsed through one of the buildings and fell to the ground in a heap of smoke and fire. Its yellow body and clamp hands fell heavily onto the streets with resounding clanks, cracking the pavement as they did so.
More neuroponies ran over from behind the buildings to charge the position of the humans, but they found themselves blown away by make-shift grenades thrown at them by a higher position above the joint humans and neuroponies. Neither side would give up.
Licorice looked at the sky to see that the Painter of the Sky was coloring it with a fading shade of bright orange, yellow, and receding blue. Looking at it, he started to feel a bit dizzy and his vision was blurring. He tried to shake his head and hit it gently with a hoof, but nothing worked.
"I'm going to pull over. For some reason, I'm starting to feel tired..."
"We're all feeling a bit tired. Ooo! A slumber party!" Raspberry blurted out.
"Are you sure?" Louis asked with a rather drowzy voice. "I feel like...I just walked through a room full of sleeping gas. I really...need to..."
Louis couldn't finish his sentence that he had already collapsed onto the floor and had fallen asleep. After Licorice managed to park the vehicle onto a grassy patch of dirt next to the road, he too fell asleep. In fact, all but Starburst fell asleep, the drone watching over her 'commander' ever vigilantly and with the utmost peak of patience.
Sunlight blasted everyone's tired eyes, and they slowly woke up to look around. Redmint was the first to groan in pain and put a hoof to his pounding head. He looked at his mechanical hoof briefly...then he trembled. It was a fully formed hoof with rounded stretches along his mechanical leg. He immediately got up and ignored Starburst imitating him and follow him as quickly. Redmint's reflection in the mirror was now much more organic. His eyes seemed to be slowly becoming real eyes, and his mane was now fully formed. Large patches of red fur could be seen all over his body the more he inspected it. Looking over to Starburst, he noticed that she too shared similar features, and her metallic bones were becoming real and covered with muscles and nerves. Licorice's horn was much sturdier and could actually be felt through nerves of some kind. As for Louis, well, there wasn't much changed. Just a bit more fur, and bits of her now transparent mane had started to hold bits of hair.
Sour Raspberry, on the other hand, was developing organic patches of skin on her legs, and a few empty vein were visible through the back of her neck. She had yet to start producing blood for obvious reasons. Louis rubbed his face as best as he could and took a deep breath, despite not needing air for the moment.
"Guys, wake up," the pegasus said.
"Why?" Licorice asked.
"We somehow fell asleep."
Raspberry and Redmint both bolted upright after hearing that and looked at themselves.
"Yay! I'm more organic!" Raspberry cheered.
"Yeah..." The big pony looked at Starburst and her ever 'dead' eyes. "But she still hasn't slept at all."
"How can you tell?" Raspberry asked.
The stallion looked at her with an annoyed expression as a response, and the mare chuckled.
"Oh. Right..."
Louis, on the other hand, looked at himself worryingly. "I'm losing time," he stated. "We need to get to that coastal city as fast as we can."
Licorice scratched his head and frowned. "I suggest we take a moment to recover from this 'news' in our own way by getting outside."
The others followed suite. Redmint took Starburst outside, and Raspberry joyously hopped outside, excited at the new things she was going to discover. The black unicorn approached Louis cautiously and cleared his throat before talking.
"You going to be alright?"
"Not really..." Louis lamented. "Knowing that every second you have is a second closer to losing your real body permanently is...an extreme, honestly." She looked at her mechanical hooves and rotated the ankles. "I won't die, but I won't be me anymore."
Licorice blinked several times. "You're taking this rather well, I find."
"It's probably because the 'date' is so far away and that I'm not going to die anyways."
"Maybe."
"Why don't we...go outside, too. We might not be able to sense things yet, but we can at least have some new light to enjoy."
The pegasus nodded. "Sure. Why not."
The lands around them were slightly hilly and covered with numerous patches of grass, gradually becoming full grasslands further down the miles. It was still relatively early in the morning, but the sun had already illuminated the local area and beyond. Looking around, Louis saw Redmint trying to get Starburst interested in some glittering bugs and rocks he found. He had such a hopeful expression, but Starburst remained apathetic to everything around. Raspberry, on the other hand, was rolling around like a dog, vocally expressing how she always wanted to know how it felt to do that.
"They're having fun at least," Louis noted.
"Yup. We just chose to live like this, so it's really nothing special that WE would like this kind of thing, especially the process!" Licorice shouted with glee. "But you don't want that, and we don't want to force that upon you. Still...you could at least try to get used to it since you'll be in it for a while."
Louis huffed and turned away. "Yeah thanks for reminding me."
"Hey, look at that!" Sour Raspberry shouted and pointed.
Everyone turned to see a large amount of armored policing vehicles, some carrying old neurobot riot-control models in armored belts on their sides. They were rushing down the street to the city the neuroponies had escaped from.
"Well," Redmint started. "Looks like it was a good idea to rush out of there."
Licorice frowned and pointed at him. "I still want to know how the hell you managed to slip this thing past the military and HOW you found people who could completely remodel the entire thing without compromising its structural quirks and base programming."
Redmint rolled his eyes. "Are you still on about that?!" he shouted.
Louis face-palm...hoofed. "Maybe Licorice is right. I should get used to being in this body as it seems that I'm not going to be getting back to my original anytime soon."
In a metropolis of the same region, several people of importance, notably a mayor, military leaders, and state secretaries, had gathered at one of the highest floors of a metallurgical company's HQ. The meeting room was fitted with an elongated, oval table in a small room with chairs surrounding it. Aside from the many holographic projection containers built along the walls, there was no real decoration to be had.
"Hm." The mayor passed his thin hand through the hologram. "You'd think we'd get holograms like in the science-fiction movies, but instead we get these case-thingies that just self-contain a reflected image. We made robots with quantum neural pathways we can put our brains into!" he shouted. "How do we NOT have them yet?!"
"Focus, Mayor," one of the officers shouted.
"Right, right. I'm sorry." He cleared his throat and sat at the table with the others. "Now, explain to me again as to WHY you needed to use my city to set up your little..." He twitched his fingers. "Playdate here?"
An old woman, a one-star general, smashed her fist onto the table. "It's not a playdate you moron! And it's not a game. These are massively unstable times!"
"Easy there, Darla. No need to let your blood boil yet," a secretary explained. He turned to the mayor. "This region is one of the few where the most of these 'anomalies' have appeared. Others have seen proportional increases to these outbreaks and we've sent advisors there as well."
"Why just these areas?" the mayor asked.
"Our secret services have done their research and concluded that they're related to these things."
The secretary pulled up a briefcase and dropped it onto the desk, eventually presenting the mayor with many documents he was clearly confused with.
"So...robot cartoon pones caused all this?" He laughed. "You can't be serious. I mean, I KNOW there have been a few riots here and there, but that's just because of--"
"No. it isn't," Darla interjected. "This is creating panic and terror across the board. This is something that defies all knows laws of physics and no science can explain the reasoning for its occurrence."
"And because nobody knows what's going on, baser 'herd' instincts have been popping up," the secretary explained.
"Wh-wh-what do you mean? Herd instincts?" the mayor queried.
"Yes. Because they don't understand, they're afraid. Because they're afraid, they think it's something that's going to kill them. Death makes them ostracize or outright kill those who are trapped in these mechanical bodies turning organic."
"And since they can't return to their original bodies," another general interjected.
There was a long moment of silence broken by the mayor.
"Why haven't you discussed this with our country's leaders?"
"We have. They all came to this solution, and so we're asking you to allow us to use your city as the headquarters for our operations in the city," the secretary explained.
"What kind of operations? You're not going 'zombie apocalypse' on us are you?"
"What?!" Darla jolted.
"No! We're going to try to contain the fear of the regular populace and escort the victims of this unusual 'malfunction'," the secretary emphasized with quotation fingers. "somewhere safer where they'll be studied and taken care of." The mayor was about to speak, but the secretary added something quickly. "ONLY the willing ones, of course."
"Ah. Fair enough, but why haven't you been looking for the ones responsible for these machines?"
"We haven't found where they are. They've been using several different ports and trade routes to mix up and criss-cross their locations to random locations," Darla explained.
"I see..." The mayor slumped against the table and rubbed his temples. "I'm giving you permission to set up operations here so long as you don't go zombie-hunting. ADDITIONALLY, try to prevent any 'factions' from gaining traction. We don't need that kind of scenario popping up either."
"Factions?" everyone repeated.
The mayor looked at them in disbelief, his eyes hopping to each person. "Yes, 'factions'. Are you stupid? With this ostracizing, there's bound to be people clumping together into moss colonies. Who knows how long it'll take until violent groups start to form, if they haven't formed already!"
"Yes," Licorice answered. "We're becoming more organic with each passing day, and so we need to gather what we can."
Louis hopped towards the road and looked across the horizon, hoping to find something of interest to the group.
"But we can't go back to the city. What if they're like those weirdos we met before?" Redmint stressed. "They'll probably try to put us in some kind of quarantine! I'm happy being like this! I don't want them to try and stop that."
"I understand, Redmint, but I don't think we have a choice in the matter.
"Hmmm...There's a camp over there," Louis noted. "It looks like it's pretty large, but I'm not sure. I can't see it very well."
"Really?" Sour shouted with excitement. "Let me check."
"Why can't Louis just fly? He's a pegasus."
Sour pouted and looked at Redmint with puppy eyes. "But I just wanted to climb the van."
Redmint tried to look away but couldn't get himself to do it fully, and Raspberry amused herself in torturing him by jumping in front of the neuropony's face when he closed his eyes.
"AHH! STOP IT! STOP DOING 'the face'!"
Licorice bapped Sour on the back of her head, causing her to yelp in sudden pain. "Stop that."
Louis, meanwhile, tried to work his wings again. Using what he remembered, the neuropony spread his wings out, revealing some fleshy bits and feathers. He pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind and flapped his wings as best as he could, his body gradually taking to the skies.
"You know, I just thought about something," Sour pondered whilst staring at Louis.
"And what's that?" Redmint asked.
"What do we call Louis? He or she?"
Redmint opened his mouth, but a single grunt existed it and he became confused.
"Well," Licorice started. "I imagine it's still 'he' for now despite having a female body. It's not technically fully organic, so the body can't be assigned a sex, I guess?"
Raspberry scratched her head. "That's confusing."
Licorice groaned and clutched his head. "Please stop. You're giving me a headache."
Louis landed next to the group and raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong with you three?"
"N-nothing!" Raspberry blurted out with a sheepish smile.
"Well...I think you should relax. Look at Starburst!" Louis pointed to the apathetic neuropony with a bored expression on her face. "Look at her. She's so calm she looks like she's dead inside!" she joked.
"Heeeeey!" Redmint shouted. "Don't say that about her!" he yelled angrily.
"Well, while you bicker like goats, I can say that there really is a camp on the outskirts of the city." Louis scratched his chin. "I'm not sure, but I think that there's neuroponies there as well."
"Then let's go!" Sour shouted.
Redmint mumbled angrily to himself. "Fine. Okay."
The group took their mobile home and parked next another group of similar vehicles in the large area. Louis looked outside and frowned. "I feel like a hippy..." he groaned.
The camp was quite sizeable, with several hundred people and neuroponies wandering about the area. Several campfires were sizzling in the sunlight, and many tables, chairs, and toys were being set up. Large groups were talking with each other, although none seemed to care about the new arrivals, save for a gray neuropony with transparent black film serving as a mane and tail.
Knocking came upon the door before the pony arrived to it, and Starburst opened it without the input of Redmint. She looked up to see a very tall human with scraggly blonde hair, a red shirt with a faded pattern on it, and black jeans. He fiddled with his fingers whilst giving a nervous grin to the neurobot in front of him.
"H-hello there," he stuttered. "Are you here to join us in our escapades?"
Starburst's only response was blankly staring at the man, unnerving him even more. Louis was going to step forward, but Licorice stopped him. When he was about to ask why, he noticed the black pony muffling his laughter. Seeing the man become more and more befuddled and disturbed the time that Starburst stared at him was amusing to the unicorn.
"So..."
The gray neuropony Louis had spotted earlier pushed the man away, said person protesting against the aggressive treatment.
"Looks like an AI got stuck in one of the bodies," she mused. "Anyone else here?" she asked.
"Yes," Louis answered quickly. He stepped next to Starburst who took several steps to the side. "There's us all." She presented everyone around. "We were just curious about what's going on here and if we could get some supplies for our trip."
"Trip?" the mare repeated. "What kinda trip?" She glared at the mare with a wide, bright eye. "Anything we should know about you?" Her voice became more sinister.
Louis heard the clinking and clanking of weaponry around him and felt his nonexistent heart lock up. "L-l-like what?"
Licorice intervened instantly. "We're not here to cause you any harm. We're just here to find the creators of these neurobots so we can get Louis here back into his original body."
"And you?"
Licorice smiled and straightened himself. "I'm content like this."
The mare neuropony eyed the unicorn up and down, then smiled. "Alrighty then! Welcome to our camp!" Everyone around loosened up from these words. "I am Ankorage, and the nervous nelly you met is my boyfriend: Andrew."
"Ankorage?" Louis repeated. "A strange name."
Everyone stepped out of the vehicle and stretched themselves out a little more. Redmint tried getting Starburst to do the same, but her movements were very slow and static.
"Oh yeah? And what are your friends called?"
Louis pointed to each individual when she called them by name. "Licorice, Sour Raspberry, Starburst, and Redmint."
Ankorage frowned. "Oh. You're the kind who name yourselves after foods." She clicked her tongue. "That's a shame."
Raspberry hopped in front of the 'welcoming' mare with a huge smile on her face. "You're in a relationship with a person? I thought you would've gone to others like us, now."
"Pffff. As if," Ankorage laughed. "When I was stuck in this body, I..."
"S-she said she wanted to leave me," Andrew interjected. "But I refused. I said I would be with her forever, even if it meant something otherworldly and bizarre."
Ankorage looked away and would have blushed, were she capable. "Nerd."
"That's so cuuuuute!" Raspberry squee'd.
"Nnnnn-no it's not!" the gray neuropony stuttered. "Sh-shut up!"
"And she's all flustered, too!"
Andrew held in his laughter at the sight of Ankorage blushing. "I still think she's super cute like this."
The man, despite his scrawny physique, scooped up the neurobot with ease and cradled the increasing furious mare.
"If it's supplies you need, though, then we can help you out. We won't give you a lot, though," the man explained. "It all depends on how much we have." He put his 'girlfriend' on the floor and scratched his chin. "Although you don't look like you need food and water yet."
"Not yet," Licorice said. "We're preparing for it as we're going to the sea. That's supposedly where the creators of these machines reside."
Andrews frowned. "What are they, super villains?"
The unicorn shrugged.
"Fair enough."
"So what was with the aggression earlier?" Louis asked.
Ankorage slapped her cheeks to regain her composure. "It's because of all these weirdos that have been popping up everywhere."
Redmint stepped forward with Starburst close by. "Like the reverse-religious-fanatics?" he asked.
"Y...yes." Ankorage was astonished. "How do you know about that?"
"We had a run-in with them in a city further down the road, opposite this one," Licorice explained. "Bunch of weirdos trying to force us into a dungeon until we're done with our 'evolution'. We ended up getting chased by a military force of some kind. Not sure who they were, really."
"At first we thought they were the police," Louis added. "But cops don't have explosive rockets and stuff."
"We've seen similar weirdos, honestly. It's why we're all here together and heavily armed." Ankorage scratched the back of her neck. "Groups if neuroponies attaching weapons to themselves and using fancy contraptions to still be able to use them, and people who drive around from place-to-place with kitted out vehicles. Like some kind of Mad Max movie."
"What? What do they want?"
"The ponies want everyone to get into the neuropony bodies and abandon their old ones behind."
"And those that don't comply?" Redmint asked.
"Oooo. 'Comply'. Gettin' fancy on us," Starburst teased.
"They kill them, or beat them within an inch of their lives and force them into a neuropony body." Ankorage looked around and pointed to a group of neuroponies sitting in a circle, surrounded by people trying to console them. "They're some of the victims we managed to save."
"What the hell?" Louis mumbled under his breath.
"And the humans?" Redmint continued.
"They just kill us because they think we're a disease that will eventually spread to normal humans. The more 'sane' ones capture neuroponies and shove them into the hands of quarantine officers for study. You aren't imprisoned or treated like a test animal..." The mare looked away and raised an eyebrow. "Hmm...As far as we know."
"These are really bizarre times," Licorice sighed then glared at the neuropony. "And what is it that YOU do?"
"We're the one who just want to live as we chose. Those who want to stay as neurobots, and those who want to stay as people. There's no forcing anyone. And those who become neuroponies, we help so that the transition is easier and they don't have a really hard time trying to use things like they used to as people."
"That's a really good plan. We might just join you after we help Louis," Licorice said happily.
"So..." Louis stepped in. "Do these 'groups' have names yet?"
"No. Not that we know of. They're just starting to pop up, but I imagine that they'll start naming themselves eventually and then you'll have the 'biggest' and 'baddest'," Ankorage spoke in mockery. "that will unite everyone under their respective banners and become proper organisations."
