I've spent my whole life doing nothing but the same shit over and over and over again. I'm sick of it to be completely honest. Day after day it was clock in, work my ass off, clock out, go home/go out with "friends" then go home, sleep, and repeat. I honestly have no idea what I'm still doing here. I've certainly worked up enough money to enter retirement early, what with my consistence work and multiple raises and promotions. I guess I just enjoy having some structure in my life, no matter how boring.
My family? I cut ties with them long ago. Why? They were just horrible people all around, and when I turned eighteen I moved away from them. Obviously there were some golden eggs within the rotten bunch, my little cousin Lea, she was always a joy to be around. Sometimes we would create stories about all sorts of stuff, pirate, fantasy, sci-fi especially. You name it, we've imagined that. I miss those time, but I just couldn't stay around so many bad apples. It's must've been at least fifteen years since then.
Where was I? Oh right, life.
Now here I am, all the way in The Big Apple, working at a fuckin office buildings. What do you do I hear you non existent viewers asking? I work in a cubical. Day after day, and night after night. It was never really for me, but I don't want to waste any money going to a college for something I enjoy.
If I was to go to college though I would probably go into programing. It's such a vast untapped pool of incredible potential that could change the very ways we live our lives. To bad I can't afford to see it for myself.
As I was walking out of the building, I began to take in the concrete jungle around me. The crunching of passing cars going over the asphalt hits my ears like the beat of a drum. Nearby I also hear talking families and friends as they walk along the side walk. It may seem like chaos, but to me, it's peaceful and comfortable.
*BOOM*
The sound of an explosion brought me back from my inner music. Screams and panic quickly filled the area as many people ran from the sound. I wanted to as well, but for some odd reason, I felt attracted to the sound. I couldn't help but go towards the sound, to help anyone who was hurt.
I arrived at the scene, and my god I regret it. There are bodies everywhere, most of them look to be teenagers, at least the ones still intact enough to recognize. I wanted to puke, to leave and never come back, but again, that same pull brought me closer to the space of charred body parts and shattered glass.
As I got to the center of the blast zone, the cement ground was charred and blackened. I looked around to find more bodies, all of them dead. I then heard something that attracted my attention.
"H-Help me. Please."
I quickly turned my head to see a person I recognized instantly.
It was Lea.
She looked awful. Her body had both legs completely blown off, and her left arm was holding on by a thread of skin. Her eye along with the rest of the left side of her face had shrapnel sticking out of it. Once again I ignored the instincts telling me to run away and shakily approached Lea.
"Oh my god! Lea! What happened!?" I shouted, grabbing her one remaining arm, clasping her hand tightly in my own.
"A student brough-t a-a bomb an-and blew himself up." She said weakly. I couldn't believe it, this was beyond cruel. It was inhumane for someone to do this to another living being.
As I held her hand, first responders got to the scene. First Lea was takin to the hospital by the ambulance and the area searched by the police. As soon as they allowed me to leave I took off towards the hospital.
"She didn't make it." I can't believe it. She was already gone. I stood there shocked at what the doctor said.
"How?" I simply asked. I had to know.
"Some of the shrapnel from the blast ended up inside her ribcage and spinal cord, the pieces in her ribcage cut multiple veins and poked small holes in her lungs, causing the blood to enter her lungs and cause severe damage to the inside of her lungs. The shrapnel in her spinal cord caused led from the fragments to disrupt signals coming from the brain to her heart, she was dead before we had the chance to operate." He explained.
"I understand." I don't understand. Why did this happen?! Why did she have to die?! Why are humans such horrible creatures?!
As I left the hospital, I continued to think about what happened. I couldn't understand it! Why would someone do something so cruel!?
As I approached the door of my apartment, I noticed that there were scratches on the nob. Carefully clasping onto the handle, I opened the door to see my apartment completely trashed. I ran across to the entrance to my bedroom, and was instantly met with the barrel of a gun.
Suddenly I was on the ground, a bullet placed in-between my fucking eyes. My vision slowly started fading to black, as I heard voices from what felt like a mile away.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU! YOU'VE JUST MADE THIS TEN TIMES HARDER -"
I couldn't hear the end of her sentence before I faded away completely. Just my fucking luck.
I found myself in an empty space, completely black like an old computer monitor. I don't even know if I'm awake or dead, I only know that I'm aware. I have no body it seems, nor can I hear, see, or smell anything. The whole world is completely empty.
Suddenly, a single, alien letter starts falling down in front of me. It was then followed by another. Slowly, oh so slowly, the foreign text started falling faster and in greater numbers. It continued to increase until it was all I could see.
I've been watching the world around me change for what felt like years, from the falling text to something resembling that scene from Age Of Ultron with everything being blue tinted cubes. Unlike before I could actually see faces and video, and the inhabitants of this place is certainly is a far cry form the humans of home.
From what I've gathered is this. The place I'm in is the physical embodiment of the internet, but not the one I'm used to. This 'Cyberspace' as I like to call it is that of a world filled with cartoony looking anthro ponies called Equestria. These ponies are split into different sub-groups, those being unicorns, pegasai, earth ponies, and alicorns. The final one is simply the combination of all the previous sub-groups, and those who are alicorns are most often royalty.
The next piece of interesting information is the presence of technology and magic. The presence of these to factors has allowed this world to advance into the realm of what humans would call science fiction, with the exception of which is robots like those in series like Mega Man and Astro Boy, it seems that like in Age Of Ultron they had created a machine that was to smart for it's own good, called Harmony, and any machines with sentience was deemed illegal by the worlds leaders. It's nice to see that this worlds leaders care more caring of their subjects.
In fact, this world in general is much nicer and humane than the Earth, but it's far from perfect. There are still things like rape, drugs, slavery, and other things of that matter. It saddens me that this world is so much better off, but still struggles in achieving peace in their time.
The last important piece of information is their first line of defense, The Elements Of Harmony. It's basically a giant fuck you laser for whoever opposes them, which will hopefully never be me.
While being in Cyberspace is a neat time, I don't want to be here just lumbering about. After all, there's only so much knowledge you can get out of a computer. I want to live, I want to see what this world has to offer. I've gotten all I can out of my situation, so it's time for some change.
I need to get into the physical world somehow, but how. It's simple, I just need a robot body to tap into, but then that's where some problems start. Robots with sentience are illegal, so I can't just use one and go around without being suspicious and possibly find myself at the end of the fu laser. Luckily for me, I have a plan.
There is an abandoned robotics facility that is relatively intact, and it's in an abandoned part of town, so it's there for the taking.
Let's get this started. 3, 2, 1, GO!
The old factory lay there, unused for years, the once proud machinery left frozen, as a reminder of their one chief function left unfulfilled. The workers and owners abandoned her and let her rot, no sound, no sight, and no love.
Suddenly, the machinery whirred to life. The conveyer belts turned in mechanical delight, as the parts once left alone for years started to be pushed towards the awaiting assembly machines. The factory slowly churned out bot after bot, as they powered on and started to get to their designated jobs.
The once silenced world of parts and bots was brought back to life.
The first step of my plan for walking the waking world has gone off without a hitch. Through my access to Cyberspace I was able to keep anyone from detecting the factories reactivation, and I fixed the imperfections and problems with the bots the factory happily turned out.
Next was to make the place completely self sufficient. That was a little bit more challenging. I needed uranium, which was something I didn't have, but luckily again, there is someone who does.
The mines in eastern Ponyville (which is a metropolis in this story) finds a lot of uranium, which they disposed of by sending it to a disposal company due to its dangerous nature and the fact that it was simply a burden since they had magic.
I decided that they wouldn't mind if some of their shipments went "missing", and had my bots take some of the uranium for my own use. To be honest it went better than expected, and it probably helps that they "lost" their records of the shipment.
Once I had the uranium it was easy to build the reactor, if easy meant trial and error and containing anything that blew up.
Eventually I was able to get the damn thing built to perfection, with no radiation leaks. I then proceeded to put on at least fifteen protective layers to keep it from leaking, and placed it in an underground basement that my bots built.
Next I "appropriated" some blood samples from hospitals around Equestria. The reason for this is that I need a machine to occupy a body, but I want to live among the ponies without being singled out as a clone or changeling. I didn't take the entirety of any sample, just about a drop of blood each. I also got some stem cells in case I need them.
Next was the final assembly.
It was a bitch to make all the parts to make the inner shell, but the results were worth it. The inner shell is basically an iron man suit. It has hand mounted laser blasters, a molecular rearranger, a shell metal made of fifty present steal and fifty percent celetanium(a metal which is basically if vibranium, adamantium, and anti-metal had a threesome baby, and surprise surprise is may times stronger and lighter than titanium), several terabits worth of hardware, and a reactor powering the whole package.
Now I'm sure you're wondering, why use steel if this super metal exists? Well the downside of pure celetanium is that on it's own it's very unstable, as well as brittle, and it's strengths only shine if mixed with an already powerful metal, and I have tons of steel just laying around, so I used that to get the best result.
The next step of this is to create the second shell. Remember when I took those samples of DNA, well now is the time to use them.
Through about a week of gene splicing and radiation exposure I created the best form of pony I could, with the strength and magic of all the sub-groups, as well as extra strength and magic power. After running tests for another week I synthesized a layer of flesh, bone, and essential organs over the inner shell. I then created a plug that would allow me to insert myself into the body directly. I then went onto the final shell, the skin.
The final shell isn't just skin though. This is a weave mech of skin as well as light traces of steel and celetanium, creating a weave theoretically strong enough to easily tank the blast of several nuclear bombs.
After applying the final shell I used electricity and traces of radioactivity to fuse all of the shells together, and with that, it was ready.
The bots plugged the body into the factories computer network, and I jumped right in.
I had awoken with a start. Sweat trickling down my face onto the factory floor. I pulled myself forward, pulling my plug from the factory computer.
I looked down at my new body, the black coat and mesh weave skin shined in the light of the factory. I slowly looked around at the factory. The state of which was much better than when I found it. I then looked at the whirring robots as they passed me on their duties. Those odd little things follow orders, but simply maintain things otherwise.
I started to walk around, past the conveyer belts and assembly lines, and towards a back room. Inside was what looked to be a locker room, why it was here I will never know. Walking to the other end of the room I saw my new face.
The face staring back was pure black all across, with deep brown eyes that had a certain lifelessness to it, and a long black mane that was wavy and smooth. My frame was thin but muscular, with a face and form that could easily be mistaken for feminine and cute. I saw my long, sharp horn as it practically glowed in the light of the room. My wings were curled up on my back. That was why I didn't include boosters on the inner shell, because I would have a way to fly, even if I did need to keep it a secret. I then looked down at my crotch to find, nothing. I didn't include a willy on this body because it would be inconvenient, also I wouldn't need to really do anything should any of this worlds undesirables accuse me of rape or something, how would I be able to? This is all besides the point so I pressed on.
Turning away from the mirror I found a lost and found box, perfect. I found a set of dark blue pants, a red tank top, and a dark orange leather looking jacket. I put on the clothing, being sure to cover my rather large wings, and made my way out into the lobby.
After leaving into the lobby I jumped up to an open window and leapt out, closing it behind me.
I walked down the road towards the center of town, using my data self to get directions. While I was walking I saw many ponies pass by, all of whom were friendly and waved. Continuing down the road I reached where I wanted to go.
It was an immigration bureau. Obviously it would be much harder to do things if I had no forms of citizenship. Walking inside I saw that it was relatively quiet, with only a few ponies at the reception. Walking forward I saw a white coated mare look up at me.
"Hello and welcome to the Ponyville Immigration Bureau. How can I help you today?" She said kindly.
"I would like to apply for citizenship please." I said. The mare then pulled out paperwork and handed it to me, easily trusting much?
Name. Huh. Haven't thought of one yet. Maybe a band name, no, that's dumb, only a huge nerd would do that. How about something techy? Yeah that could work. I pondered the name for a bit. It took a while for a name to dawn on me.
Andromeda Bender.
Next was my sex. I could choose either or, but I'll stick with male.
Height, easy. An even 6ft'.
Race. Unicorn, don't want people to think I'm royalty.
Town of birth. I can't really put one down, it would give me away. After all, no ponies live outside of Equestria. I put down Unknown and moved on.
After putting down some extra information I gave the papers back to the mare at the reception.
"Now all I need you to do is to have your picture taken. Please, stand in front of the camera." I did as such. A few moments later I was walking out of the building with an ID and multiple forms in my hand, and I went off into the setting sun.
After walking aimlessly for a while, bored because I had no idea what to do now, heard something in the distance. It was the sound of a mare in tears. Following the sound I reached an hidden alley. Looking carefully around the corner I saw something disgusting.
A pinkish purple colored mare with a purple colored mane was in tears as several goons pounded away at her.
"Shut the fuck up you damn bitch. Unless you want us to just kill you." He grunted at her, making her almost cry even more.
I couldn't take the sight for more than a few seconds. I quickly charged my hand blasters and shot two in the back, sending them flying. The third was brought out of his rape euphoria of the mares mouth at the sounds.
"What the fuck!? I'll kill you!" That honestly sounded like something a video game goon would say. He pulled out a gun and tried to shoot me, but ran up to him at lightning speeds, and knocked the firearm away.
I grabbed the stallion by the head and kneed him in the face, several cracking sounds filled the area as he quickly fell unconscious.
The other two stallions got up and pulled out their own firearms. As fast as I had before I zoomed behind them and smashed their heads together, swiftly knocking them out.
I then ripped off some of their sleeves and used it to tie the goons together. After doing so I went up to the most likely mortified mare, who stared at me with fearful eyes.
"Are you ok?" Suddenly, instead of a response, the mare pulled me into a hug as she cried into my neck. I saw a phone on the ground and picked it up. When the mare calmed down a little bit I showed her the phone.
"What's the number for the police?" I asked, she was still terrified but responded.
"000" She said. An easy enough number to remember. I impute the number and called.
"Ponyville Police Department."
"Hello a mare has been raped." I responded
"Where are you located."
"In an alley on Jack street, in-between Apple and Stride street."
"Okay, we are sending police and medics to your location, please remain there." Then I hung up.
Twilight Sparkle was worried. Her student and friend Starlight Glimmer was supposed to be at work hours ago. Now being a princess and a police officer made her worry very easily, especially when her friends are involved.
As she waited, her walkie talkie went off.
"Attention units. There is a reported B-20 going on on Jack street between Apple and Stride street." That was only a few blocks from where she was. Twilight quickly picked up her walkie talkie.
"This is officer Sparkle reporting in, heading to B-20."
Quickly she drove to the scene. When she got out she saw a familiar looking mare.
"Starlight!" She said in surprise.
"Starlight!" The purple police pony shouted as she got out of her car. The now identified Starlight quickly looked up to see her, and silently ran into her arms. When she let go the officer looked to me with narrowed eyes.
"What happened?" She sternly ask while approaching me, a clipboard and pen levitating into her hands as she got closer.
"It started as I was walking down the street and overheard crying. I followed the sounds and found those stallions behind me trying to rape that mare. I shot magic bolts at them before knocking them out before they could do anymore damage." I explained, the purple police officer wrote it all down before looking at the knocked out stallions.
She took off the ripped cloth and replaced it with handcuffs and threw the unconscious ponies into the back of the car and shut the door.
"You're going to need to come down to the station with me, as a witness you'll be needed to testify." Ok that seemed fair enough.
As I was sitting in the station I watched as ponies of all shapes and sizes moved around and went about their lives. I was brought out of it by the purple pony walking up to me.
"Come with me, the chief wants to meet with you." Uh oh, that's not good.
As we walked into the room, I saw the blinds on all of the windows were closed like in those old shows I would watch. The darkness of the room also matched with the stereotype. In the desk in front of me, a large grey and brown stallion sat, looking very upset.
"Sit down please." I did so.
"You were involved in something bigger than you think." Oh shit. "You see, that mare that was being raped was the student of one of Equestrias princesses, and these stallions in particular are in a group of very dangerous gang called The Hoof. Now this shifts to you, you were able to incapacitate three notorious gang members when not even a royal student was able to, and it is because of this I have something to ask you." He said as he stared me right in the eyes.
It has been about 3 days since I was offered a job at the Ponyville Police Department. I of course accepted the job, it's a chance to make sure that no one has to go through what I had to go through, but still allow me to see a little bit more of the world.
Right now I'm walking down the street in my uniform alongside my partner, a young pegasus mare named Quill Ink. She has a light tan fur and chestnut colored mane/tail. She was also quite a bit shorter than me, probably around 5 feet 2 inches. She was walking along side me while reading through some copies of reports from different cases.
The street was pretty empty so we didn't have to worry about bumping into anyone. It was because of this I was using some of my hardware to study up on some detective skills. I might be a simple officer, but that doesn't mean I can't study up on other skills to help my fellow officers.
We were about to cross the street when the holosign turned red. That's an interesting part of Equestrian technology, they have holographic road signs instead of lights and regular signs.
I put my arm in front of her, which she walked into and stopped. I watched as both modern looking and hover cars passed by, which wouldn't be something you would expect from a futuristic world. There seems to be many who decide to have old fashion things despite the better options that are readily available.
Suddenly we heard a loud gunshot, right around the corner, along with some screaming. I started to quickly sprint down the street and around the corner, with Quill struggling to keep up.
We rounded the corner to see a hover car driving away from a dead unicorn at incredible speeds.
"Call for backup! I go after the suspect!" I shouted to Quill, as I was already starting to run, at which Quill sputtered and called out to me before obliging.
I quickly caught up to the speeding hover car as we sped down the streets. I was then shot right in the arm. It didn't hurt, hell it didn't even pierce the skin, thank you celetanium.
I continued to gain on the speeding vehicle, and did a super jump onto the wall of a nearby building. I then wall ran and jumped again onto the roof of the car. I saw a little sun roof of the car open to see, the joker? There were 2 stallions in the car that looked like a pony version of the joker. The on in the passengers seat stared at me for a moment with a blank face. He then slowly closed the sun roof.
I was then hit by several more bullets that came from the drivers seat of the car. Once again they didn't pierce the skin. I then punched both of my hands through the roof and ripped out both the driver and the passenger by their shirts.
Unfortunately the car now had no driver, but that's not much of a problem. Thinking quickly I stomped down on the front of the car, causing the entire front half of the car to collapse onto the street underneath. The car quickly came to a stop as I turned my attention to the jokers in my hands, both looking terrified. Makes sense, I mean they just saw a cop rip metal apart with his bear hands.
I hand cuffed them and dragged their asses back to the station.
I had handed the jokers over to the officers at the station a few minutes ago, and was waiting for Quill to get back. When she did, we were called into the interrogation room (the place behind the glass) where we saw the chief. He looked at me with a proud expression, that your dad would give you after winning a little league baseball game.
"Good job Bender! You showed those clowns who's boss!" He started jovially, before his expression turned much more serious.
"But now we have a bigger problem." He said, causing both me and Quill to raise an eyebrow.
"What's the problem sir." Quill asked, to which the chief turned towards the glass, where one of the jokers sat blabbing his mouth away at the glass.
"Due to budget cuts from the crown we couldn't afford to keep all of our detectives, so we had to cut most of their pay. They didn't like that, so many of them left to start their own private investigators. Right now our detectives are understaffed and underfunded." He said. It was here I decided to ask a question.
"What do you want us to do?" The chief turned back to us.
"I want you to interrogate this clown to find out who he's working for."
As soon as we walked into the clowns room his expression immediately turned from a joking happy look to one of terror. I also heard the putter of urine hitting the floor, nasty.
I sat down across from him, and looked him in the eye. I decided to make this easy on myself. Before I came in I used the Cyberspace to download as much know how as I could on hypnosis and illusion magic , and now it was time to put it to use. I lit my horn for the first time as I began to speak.
"Who are you?" I said, as the spell already started to take place. The stallion quickly relaxed as his face became neutral.
"I am a part of the gang called The Jokerz." Oh yeah with a z because it's the future.
"Did you kill that stallion?"
"Yes."
"Did anyone hire you to do it?"
"Yes. The boss said someone special payed us to do it, but never specified who."
"Thank you for your cooperation."
I then left the room, leaving both Quill and the chief behind the glass in shock. To be honest it, was easier than I thought.
"PLEASE! I'M SORRY! IT WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN! PLEASE DON'T-Bang" The alley behind the station was filled with Jokerz, surrounding their now dead comrade. The one who shot him was wearing a police uniform, holding a silenced pistol.
He handed the gun to a joker near him, his face covered by darkness.
After that little interrogation that went on with those Jokerz I decided to clock out for the day. I had been living at the factory I took over, which I have made some modifications to. What originally has been office spaces and sever rooms I have changed into a variety of different rooms. While most were unimportant for the time being, a few were of immediate interest for me. This includes my workshop, a forensic science lab, and The Hub.
The Hub was created by gathering all of the computers here and fussing them all together to create a super computer, and is where I decided to base my true digital form most of the time. From running tests I have found that The Hub calculates at around 10 novemdecillion calculations per second, for those who aren't paying attention, that's about 60 zeros. Yeah, that's a really good asset. It even can run on a private server and has a hundred layer firewall. Though now is not really the time for exposition.
As I was walking down towards the lobby I heard someone call out to me. As I turned around I saw that pony that had shown up when I saved that mare from being raped. She had a much more jovial and happy tone than that incident. I stopped and watched her approach me, as I got a closer look at her, and I saw wings and a horn, so she's a princess.
"Hey. You're leaving too?"
"Yeah. Why do you ask?" She wants something, I can already tell. She shyly twiddled her fingers together, looking to the side a little.
"Well. Since you saved Starlight, I wanted to know if you'd like to come with us for a night on the town." Oh, well that wasn't what I expected, I really need to stop applying pure human logic to this.
"That sounds fun." Her face somehow lit up even more, as she stopped twiddling her fingers.
"Great! I'll meet you at The Drunken Pearl at 6 tonight. See you there!" She said as she ran off.
Why did that bar name sound like it came straight out of Family Guy?
It's a fuckin Family Guy bar. I can't believe it. It looks like The Drunken Clam except it has a pearl on the sign. I can't believe I agreed to this, not only am I socially inadept, but I just decided to get closer to one of the princesses, and one of the users of the fuck you laser!
Despite the stress and apparent stupidity of this idea, it has its benefits. I mean, where is a safer place from a group than inside that very group. Take Hydra for example, they survived and thrived for decades from within the confines of Shield. So by becoming close friends with that princess (who also seems to be their leader) will be very beneficial for me in the long run.
As I entered the bar I was greeted with a much different vibe than what was on the outside. Hung up across the walls were western style posters and landscapes, and quite a few rodeo pictures. The booths and tables also had carved in western artwork, which admittedly looked very nice. Now that I see this, I'm starting to question the naming.
It was very busy right now, with lots of groups of friends talking about their day and the like. I was then interrupted by a familiar bubbly voice. One that was almost drowned out by the other background noise.
"HEY! BENDER! OVER HERE!" I turned to see that princess (apparently named Twilight Sparkle) waving at me, surrounded by five other mares.
I quickly scanned the mares around her. It was the rest of the f u laser crew. Rainbow Dash was already out of it, flat out drunk. The earth pony Applejack was drunk as well, clearly not aware of anything else. There was Rarity sipping on some wine while having a conversation with Fluttershy, and finally Pinkie Pie was waving at me with a drunken blush, while holding a bottle of whiskey.
I walked over to the group and waved, I looked around a little bit, causing the other alicorn at the table to look at me with curiosity.
"Hey Twilight, where's Starlight?" I said as her expression changed to a more saddened one.
"Well, after what happened, she decided to go to a psychologist in Canterlot to get help." She said as I nodded, it seems like a good course of action. I sat down as Pinkie started throwing tons of questions my way. I ignored them and asked a passing waiter for some sake. As I waited I heard Twilight ask a question I didn't expect.
"Did you hear about the missing logs and shipments of dark matter?" She said as I flinched and tensed. What is dark matter you ask, uranium. She is talking about the uranium I ahem "Appropriated". I turned back to her to see a serious faced princess. I coughed into my hand and opened my mouth to speak.
Then my sake came. I immediately turned and poured the drink into the smaller cup. I drank from it, feeling a slight burn due to this bodies lack of experience. Then turned by to Twilight, who was still waiting for my answer.
"No, but I had heard rumors about something going missing. How much was it?" I just needed to play dumb and keep it cool, but not to dumb. I don't want to do that thing from Spider-verse.
"Over three tons." She replied, which instantly shut up the rest of the table, even Pinkie. The group started listening much more intently, except for Rainbow, who was still unconscious.
"Who would want that much dark matter? And why come to me with this? Shouldn't this be something to bring to the chief?"
"I have not idea who or what would want with that much uranium, and I did go to the chief, but it never went anywhere because he saw it as 'having to deal with less of the stuff.' In truth, you are the only one who would know something about where it could have gone."
"And why would I know anything?"
"Because you have shown to know much more about how crimes happen, and are incredible and finding and getting information on these kinds of things, it's why so many have come to respect you so soon." I'm respected, interesting.
Instead of responding I chugged the rest of the sake and stood up, which got a disgusted sound to come out of Rarity.
"Why I say! No young mare should drink in such a matter!" Then why is Rainbow Dash passed out right next to you? Also I know I look kind of feminine but come on!
"I'm not a mare, I'm a stallion." I said as I walked out.
Tonight has revealed some things I need to be careful of, but luckily Twilight doesn't suspect me.
I found myself laying in a pool of unknown liquid. I couldn't see it but I knew the sensation of liquid on my skin, even if the skin in question is synthetic. The only light present was that of the full moon, but its light fails to illuminate the surrounding area. I didn't see any stars, but I was more concerned about by current predicament to worry about constellations. I sat up slowly, taking in my surroundings, but only seeing a pitch blackness encompassing the entire horizon. The unknown liquid traveling down my back to the rest of its damp brethren. It felt smooth, as if hair wasn't present whatsoever, I looked at my hands to see they were human rather than the synthetics like I first thought they were. I jumped to my feet in shock, noting the lack of sound as I did so, wondering to myself what happened.
I looked back around again, trying to find some sort of defining feature in the darkness. Finally turning around I saw something unexpected, across the marshy pool about a hundred feet away, was a bipedal figure. I couldn't make out any details, its being almost completely faded into the darkness, the moons light was the only reason that it didn't disappear into the dark abyss. Seeing no other option, I slowly crept towards it, the ankle high waters swishing and sloshing as I forced myself through it; finally making noise.
"Hello?" I said when I was about fifty feet away. The figure showed no outwards reaction. I felt a brush of cool midnight air move past me as I continued to approach.
"Hello?" I said again when I was thirty feet away, louder this time. Once more, my question was met with no response. As I got closer, I could make out more of the figures features. It was feminine, and had flowing blue hair that matched the shining of the moon above us. Its skin was as pale as paper, as if the skin never met the rays of the sun. It also seemed to be about a foot taller than me. I wanted to see more, but it was facing away from me while constantly staring up at the moon above.
"Hello? Who are you?" I said one more time now that I was five feet away, hoping to get a response. The figure turned towards me, and I got a full view of its face. It was definitely female, and had a very curved body that was covered by a dark blue dress. Her irises were slits and were a greenish blue in color. Her lips seemed to be covered in a dark blue lipstick matching that of her dress.
Her expression was blank as she stared into my eyes. It was as if I was the only thing that existed to her at this moment. Suddenly she took a few steps towards me and brought her delicate hands and cupped my face. She rubbed her thumb against my cheek, wiping away a wetness I wasn't aware of. I pulled her hands away and stepped back, as I wiped any remaining moisture from my face I asked once more.
"Who are you?" She smiled and pulled me into a hug.
She spoke at last, but it was jumbled, completely unrecognizable. I wasn't able to understand a single word.
She was then cut off as everything flashed white.
I awoke in my bed with a start, most of the dream leaving me in an instant. I looked around the eggshell colored room, the barren walls being the only thing to stare back. I looked back to my hands, to see the black weave I've become so used to, the blank cold metal fibers serving as my skin reminding me of the things I've lost.
"Lea" I felt warm damp tears trailing down my face as I curled up on the bed. I don't think I will ever get over that, it was just not something I thought could happen, especially to someone like her.
It took a few minutes to calm myself down enough to climbed out of my makeshift bed. I made my way towards my custom made kitchen created out of an old break room. Now you may be wondering, 'why do you have a kitchen if you're an A.I'? Well my non-existent viewers, that is because a fusion reactor won't exactly cut it for powering flesh, and I mentioned that I made the second shell out of essential organs and such. Well, those need real organic fuel/food, and can't be substituted with artificial power, no matter how much I would like to otherwise.
I poured water into the kettle and left it on the stove as searched for some Jasmine tea and other goodies from the pantry. I pulled out a packet of this worlds equivalent of a waffle cookie. They're called Jammy Crisps, but they're waffle cookies. (Look them up, they're amazing. They're also called Strupwaffles, and I probably misspelled that, but whatever.)
With my tea made I sat at my coffee table and put the cookie over top of the hot drink. As the insides of the cookie melted my thoughts drifted towards that dream, the woman said something at the end, but what it was keeps escaping my mind. This organic brain has bad memory compared to the cybernetics.
But wait?! How do I have an organic brain if I have an endoskeleton?! Well, I left a hollow cavern in the head of the endoskeleton (which is what I will say when referring to the first layer) for that propose, and completely rewired my organic nervous system to work off of that.
Now then, while on the topic of my body, I've made some upgrades since its creation. Most of them minor, such as my port having both a cord for easier connection as well as a little sliding cover to hide it more easily. There are two though that are a little more major.
The first is a special hacking drive that can reshape to fit into any known port type and contains a special virus that allows me to keep track of any movements or exchanges of data/information involving systems that contain the virus. It can also turn into a wrist mounted shive for close quarters combat, and for cutting ingredients in the kitchen. The second are jet boosters in my palms and feet incase my wings are injured somehow.
Once I finish my tea and cookies, I walk into the old factory changing room to wash any gunk out of by body that I missed. I was able to acquire a high quality mane and body wash for a discount price, which is pretty good due to the fact that pay day is a week away. Which is good cause currently, I have almost no money.
Now that may seem bad, but the fact that I have no means of purchasing food and the likes without borrowing (pickpocketing) money from passerby's means I had to try my hand at farming. And trust me, that was quite the endeavor.
The first attempt went up in flames, the second also went up in flames, the third flooded, and the fourth died from to much light, which slowly burned the chloroplast until it died of starvation, and then it caught on fire... and flooded.
Finally, on my fifth attempt, I finally got it right, or at least the crops are not currently dying. Though I think they might be, at least on the inside.
All of the failed farming aside, things are going pretty great. I've been doing exceptionally well on my duties, and have earned the respect of many of my coworkers for my work ethic, and possibly fear at my rather impressive physical displays. My relationships to the six parts of the fuck shit upper 9000 is improving as well. After helping Starlight I've gained many brownie points with all of them, especially Twilight as the "leader" of the group. The only exception being Rarity, who seems to be a very fashionable person. The only thing she has been able to do since she mistook me for a mare is to simple stare at me curiously, she doesn't even say anything, she just stares.
I was brought out of my thoughts by the sound of an alarm, the type you would hear in a factory during emergencies, but much quieter as to not attract attention to the factory, which currently has all the windows and previous holes covered up to reduce light from leaking out and for sound dampening purposes.
That alarm was a notification that I need to leave for work. As much as I enjoy the advantage of waking up super easily, the stigma of bad mornings has permanently etched itself in my mind.
As I arrived at the station, the first thing I see are green medical curtains set up against the far end of the lobby, with nurses walking back and forth while directing many of the police staff around and into lines. A little ways away from this I saw Twilight speaking with Quill, I walked up to them, calling out to them as I did so. Quill immediately scoffed at me and walked away.
"What the fuck was that about?" I said, watching her walk into one of the closed off areas.
"Bender." She said in a grave tone. "You're suspected of using illegal performance enhancing drugs and spells, and as such are being test for them."
"CALM DOWN!? I BRING IN BLOODY DROVES OF GANG MEMBERS AND CRIMINALS AND I'M REWARDED WITH A FUCKIN' DRUG SEARCH!?! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND!?"
"HEY! That is no way to speak to your superior!" Yelled the chief (of police) as he took a huff of his pipe. He got out of his office chair and made his way past me, as he closed the door behind him. (I don't like where this is going)
"I'm sorry Bender. If I had the option to let you continue police work like you do without all of this malarkey I would, but, ponies talk, and there have been a few cops that have filed reports stating their concerns. I have no other option but to do this, I'm sorry." He said as he looked away in shame. That makes sense, shit.
As much as I know that it makes perfect sense, it still isn't good for me. With this body, there is no doubt they will find out I'm an alicorn, and that's if they don't find out I'm a machine/ai. What do I do!? FUCK!
Oh! Ai! I might be able to scan the laws and do a legal dance to get me out of this. Let's see...… Wow there we go.
"Yes sir, but according to the "Equestrian Common Drug Call Laws" part 4.7 on paragraph 7 of page 19, "A report of a co-worker on a drug related topic does not warrant a search of the individual, but rather the work place and surrounding areas of the work place, and evidence found in a drug search of the person as a direct result of the report is not supported by the state or federal government, and search of a person without a separate warrant from one of the princesses can be considered an abuse of police power." I stated, causing the chief's thoughts to visually to grind to a halt, as he just stared at the ground, processing the information dump I just dropped on him.
Yeah, that's a real Equestrian law. A bullshit one, but for now, a welcome one.
Chief finally came back from his trance, and turned to me with a bit of hesitation, before making his way to his desk and began typing. His expression went to shock the moment he pressed enter, and turned to a smirk as he continued. He got up and held out his hand.
"Sorry about that. With everything going on that must have slipped under the radar." He said. I shook his hand, but then moved away towards the door. If this is the type of things I'm going to have to deal with as a police officer, then fuck it.
Chief was then shocked as my badge landed on his desk. He looked up at me with a look of shocked disappointment.
"I quit." I said with a evil smile on my face, closing the door behind me.
That, was a total shit show, and it could have gone really bad for me. I was honestly lucky to escape with my life, or at least this body. That sounded wrong.
Now onto an equally important matter, at least to me. What kind of reasoning would there be for a law like that, well the answer makes a surprising amount of sense, at least for how stupid it is. The princess who introduced it, a young alicorn named Mi Amo- you know what screw it imma just call her Cadence.
Anyways, the most basic way to put it is that they use the consumers to track the buyers, and then since no one is arresting the buyers, they just move on to a new dealer.
As I continued down the street, I saw the same bar I met Twilight in that night. It seemed like a nice place for my newly unemployed ass.
When I entered it was much emptier than before, with only a few groups here or there, either drinking together or downing their sorrows. I sat down at the bar and started fidgeting with the silverware. It was something I did once in a while when I didn't have anyone to talk to or something better to do. I started flipping the fork between my fingers and twirling it around rapidly, to the point where it was only a blur.
I was then stopped by a waitress, who tapped me on the shoulder to get my order. I ordered some sake and continued my fidgeting. I then started listening to the conversations around me, none of them seemed to interesting, so I went back to my fork.
After I got my sake, I didn't immediately start drinking it. I didn't know why, but something seemed off. I started looking around frantically, for anything out of the ordinary. The only out of place thing I could find was a former fellow cop I saw around, who seemed to be off duty.
I then heard the sound of a mare screaming from outside. Me and the off duty cop immediately dash outside to see the waitress from earlier getting kidnapped.
As she was pulled in I saw that it was another group of Jokerz. The vehicle pulled away as the joker closed the door, but was quickly stopped as I shot the car with a weak electric burst, causing the engine to die. I then smashed in the window and pulled out the waitress, before jumping into the car trough the busted window, and reputedly punching the shit out of the Joker in the back seat.
After I was finished with him, I immediately dodged the spell of a unicorn Joker in the driver seat, who was shouting curses at me while doing so. I then grabbed her head and smashed through the windshield, knocking her out, and likely giving her a concussion.
I then slowly got out of the car and made my way to the off duty cop, who was tending to the waitress.
"I took care of the two criminals in the car, they shouldn't be giving you anymore trouble." I said with a smile, while I didn't like how I was treated by the rest of my former co-workers, that doesn't mean I shouldn't treat them with respect.
The cop returned the smile as he stood up, as he finished examining the would be kidnaped mare.
"Thank you Mr. Bender. I must say I wasn't expecting someone of your skill to be out here so early in the afternoon, I thought you would still be- oh dear where are my manners?" he said as he held out his hand. "I'm Tesla Coil, though you can just call me Spring."
I took a closer look at him while I reached out and shook his hand. He was a thin guy, with dark red fur and a curly cyan mane. He was also shorter than me, but also taller than Twilight. The last major detail I saw was a tattoo of what looked to be a tear drop with an eye inside of it.
"Andromeda Bender, though I guess you already know that. I would love to help you take these guys in, but I just quit today, so I hope you're okay if I just left and gave you the credit."
A figure in a cop uniform sat across from a Joker, who sat there shaking nervously. His eyes darted around the room, as if looking for an escape from the empty room.
"Don't worry my friend, you did good. You can relax." Said the figure.
"I-I-I did what you asked boss, Bender is out of the police force, probably for good." Said the still shaking Joker.
"I know, I know." Continued the boss, his voice an icy chill deep, but yet was in perfect harmony. "I took the liberty of checking, just to be safe, and I must say, while he isn't in prison, you've done an excellent job in making sure he doesn't give us anymore trouble. At least, not with police support." The boss said as he poured a deep green tea into a china cup in front of him, as he inhaled the aroma.
"You certainly did much better than that other one I put in charge of one of these types of things, completely ratted himself out, the damn traitor. He even made me loose my cool." Spoke the boss, as the Joker felt a chill go down his spine. He had been there when that other guy was punished for confessing to Andromeda.
"W-What now boss?"
"Now?" The boss chuckled as he sipped his tea. "We can be a little more forward with our 'business'."
Luna was not one for this new technology that surrounded her, especially since it seemed to create new ways for ponies to hurt each other. Though no matter how much she wished, there would be no going back to that simple time, when she and her sister rules that fledgling town around their castle. The castle walls and foals in its garden, how the light from outside the window would make the halls fell like they were alive. Now, though, they lay in ruins, inhospitable after a millennia of neglect, with not even the combined efforts of her sisters student and her friends able to fully restore it. The only place where the true appearance of her old home, is in her dreams.
As she stood within the dream construct of the castle, it shifted into a star filled sky that filled all the space around her. The empty space directly in front of her was then filled with door after door, all different colors and stamped with a cutie mark. Luna absent mindedly went through the row of doors, checking the dreams that were behind them, and bereding the nightmares she came across. That was another thing that had increased in frequency since she returned.
With so many new things to hurt her subjects, they began having nightmares about them, and she had to take her time to fix as much as she could. The fact that she was in the dark on so much advancement did not help her efforts. She stepped past each door, feeling the emotions of the dreamer as she continued to check, once again, more of them than there used to be.
With so many advances, more children were born, which meant a larger work load for her. It wasn't bad, in fact, that made her happy, the fact they were having more children means that they must feel safer.
As she continued to ramble in her head, she came across door. It wasn't the same as the rest, it was... transparent? The door was a swirl of black and blue, with not cutie mark to be seen. Luna looked a little closer, and she noticed falling green text that moved across its surface.
Perplexed, she grabbed onto its handle, and slowly cracked open the door.
The door then swept past her, dragging her into the space, before disappearing. In front of her, was a massive wall of flames, one that continued upwards for what seemed like a eternity. It was also very thick, and didn't have any visible weak point or change in intensity.
Trying to look past the wall of fire, her eyes were met with... another wall of fire. It was followed by another, then another, and then another for what seemed like forever. Her eyes strained and her eye sockets hurt with how hard she was trying to focus.
Luna decided to try to see if it ended, using her dream powers she moved herself faster than what would physically possible to reach an endpoint, but it never came. She then noticed the wall curved, which meant that it was a ring of fire. She slowed herself to a stop and contemplated what this could mean.
Ponies who dreamed of fire and walls were usually isolated with a hatred for their surroundings in the real world, but this was something she had never seen before. She eventually decided that it was past time for her to try to make her way past the wall.
She sent magic into her horn, and began trying to drill a hole into the wall, so that she could create a gateway into it. As soon as her magic touched the surface of the flames, her magic was sent shooting back at her, which was strange. The sensation was almost as if her magic was...rejected?
Suddenly the fire and areas around her faded into the same falling green text she saw on the door, before a blaring alarm blasted into her ears.
immediately after the falling code mashed together to create strange pony like structures. They looked unisex, and didn't have any wings or horns, they also looked like they were also made out of the falling text. The text mashed together in their arms to form shock batons and guns.
Scared for her safety, Luna blasted the constructs with her magic as soon as they began charging at her. The constructs were stunned for a brief moment, but continued directly after. Luna then used a pulse of magic to blast back the constructs, and quickly summoned the door out.
As she opened the door she was shot at by more constructs, but it was already to late as she ducked out of the door.
Immediately her head sprung up, as she found herself in her bed. She looked around for any more possible dangers. When she saw there was no one around she hugged herself, holding her covers close to her.
A lone figure sat at a desk in a small apartment, he was wearing a police uniform, and was typing away at a computer keyboard, whose clicks echoed throughout the room. He growled in anger and grabbed his hat, which let his curly cyan mane spring out. He put his hat on the desk and propped his arms on it. He looked down as shadows covered his eyes, before growling in rage once again.
He went back onto his computer, and pulled up multiple pictures of the one who had been a nuisance to his progress, Andromeda Bender. One was a picture of him inside of a bar, chugging sake at a table surrounded by the element bearers, and another was him in uniform leaving the station.
"I don't get it! It doesn't make any sense! He has no medical history, no job or family background, or even a god damn bank account! He show up at the station, works, and then just vanishes of the face of Equis! It's like he's a god damn ghost!" He almost silently growled, his fingers breaking the keyboard as he squeezed it.
"It always seems like whenever I have an operation for acquiring test subjects, he's somehow there to stop it! I can't afford to keep loosing these targets, especially with them being put into victim protection programs! GAAHH.... This wouldn't nearly as tedious if we could just grab any drug addict off the street, but with the Discord gene being a requirement to even have a chance of surviving.... guh." He said as he put his head in his hands.
Suddenly he received an alert on the screen, which he then opened up to see a photo of the city from an airborne view, many areas of the city were scribbled out, and one was circled by blue.
The photo was attached to a message.
We found the general location of where he lives, and we might be on our way to discovering his hideout
The figure then gained a smile on his muzzle, as he felt like he was a step closer to achieving his goals.
Twilight was sitting in the same bar that she met with Andromeda that one time, where it was quiet, very quiet. She sat over some newspapers, as well as some evidence from her search for the stolen dark matter. To her, not much didn't really seem to add up. The event could easily be written off as one of the gangs being gangs, a usual occurrence, but that didn't seem right, something about it just didn't add up.
The case was almost non-existent, the only evidence of it ever happening, was a single sheet of paper from five months ago, and one from the next day, where numbers didn't add up. She and the station had searched nearly the entire transport and waste company involved to try to find the dark matter, but with no luck. She didn't know why, but she felt like she was on the cusp of finding out what happened that day.
She sighed as she looked up to the newspaper, on which was the usual. The Jokerz were out and about, doing their thing, some rich shmuck getting off a corruption charges on a technicality, and.... what's this?
Twilight saw a small story, to which there was not much, but it held something interesting. It was about multiple sightings of first generation drones, and strange sightings of android like shadows. It seemed like something out of a folktale, but something seemed to be interesting about it, and she realized why.
She looked back to her evidence, the physical evidence was all that they had, the digital records were wiped clean, in an almost machine like manner. These mysterious machines might be responsible for the missing dark matter, Celestia knew it has happened before, with Harmony being a prime example of their failures.
She pulled a map out of her uniform, and looked at where the area of these sightings were located.
I've been quite busy, with what you may ask? A whole fuckin' lot that's what!
Ever since that intruder alert went off I've been working my ass to the bone trying to get everything in order. Apparently the princess of the night Luna can go into peoples dreams, and my cyberspace also apparently counts as a dream, so yeah, I haven't slept in four days.
Not that sleep is entirely necessary, and honestly? I made some mistakes that I need to rectify.
The biggest one is legal recourses, without support from the police force I can't collect information on the Jokerz or any other crime going on. It's true that I can hack the police servers and get what I need from there, but there are some pieces of information that is kept off computers for the sake of privacy, especially with new cases.
I still haven't figured out how to fix that little problem, but that's the worst one.
I did realize though, that overtime my location would be compromised, especially with all the little bots and machines darting around collecting parts from the surrounding factories.
I decided to go through some major remodeling, with soundproof padding on nearly every wall, and building more separated spaces to focus on different projects.
I also made sure to recall the bots, so that nobody could track me, at least, if they did, they would have a much more difficult time doing so.
I then covered the inside of the windows of the building with basically amounts to super tinted windows, where it was impossible to see any sort of light unless you basically put your face to it.
However, it pales in comparison to what I'm researching right now.
I found that, within certain ponies genes, there is a specific line of proteins that somehow creates all sorts of random crazy effects. It's always beneficial to those who have it, but it varies, anywhere from a godly singing voice, to being highly attuned to a particular school of magic. I can't find any studies of this gene, but I decided to give it the name of the Q gene, named after that one guy from Star Trek played by John de Lancie.
Even with all of that, there's still so much that needs to be done, so I'll just do it.
I don't really know how to really talk about this without being too blunt, but I'm going to just put this information and conclusion out piece by piece. I'm sure everyone has noticed my lack of schedule or consistency when it comes to writing these stories. I used to write multiple chapters (with variations in quality), and then fall off the radar for a large amount of time. Then, when people ask about the status of my stories, I tell them that I'm working on them, but then nothing shows about my progress.
I'm honestly really sorry about that, and there's a few reasons for my lack of activity. One, is that I have been attending college and that has been taking a lot of my time, and two, is that I unfortunately lost passion for things related to FIM, and thus felt no real reason to continue with these stories. The last, and the one that I feel is the one I most often think about, is that I just don't like how my stories have turned out, they're rushed, the story is stunted, and the grammar is atrocious.
I tried to rectify that with stories like Press Start, but none of them worked or felt incomplete. So, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the decision to abandon all of the stories currently posted to my account, and essentially, begin anew. No stories currently posted will have any new chapters added to them, though I will leave them up for your rereading pleasure.
I will be attempting a new story, though it will have my attention split with a story I'm working on in another fandom. I will work on each chapter until I feel it is of the highest quality I can produce, so it will (hopefully) be better than previous stories. This will also include finding an editor, so whether it's me, or someone else, it will at least not have as many grammar mistakes.
Thank you for all of the feedback and the wonderful commentary over the years!
