It is early in the morning and Twilight Sparkle is hanging upside down on the ceiling of her library like a spider. Attached to her back are four long black robot arms. The arms are segmented like the body of a snake and can move in any direction. Each arm ends with a three fingered claw which have all found something to grab onto on the ceiling and keep her from falling. All four are connected directly to her spinal column allowing her to move them as easily as any other part of her body. Twilight had invented the arms herself. They took years to perfect.
Why is she up there? She is practicing using her new body parts. Using the arms at the same time as the rest of her body is an exercise in coordination and is harder than you might think. When she first installed the arms moving around was extremely awkward and she constantly crashed into things much like a certain very clumsy grey Pegasus. Now after a couple weeks of practice she is starting to get quite adept at using them.
“Uuuumm … Twilight? Are you ever going to be normal again?” asks Spike looking up at her. He has still not gotten used to the idea of her having tentacles.
She looks down at him. “I could remove them if I really wanted to, although it is a complex and slightly dangerous procedure. But why would I want to? Do you have any idea how hard it was to do this? I like my new augmentations Spike. They are extremely useful.”
The arms are indeed extremely useful. In addition to allowing unconventional movement they are also incredibly fast and strong enough to crush concrete. Each arm has a single red eye on its tip that, when activated, give her full 360 degree vision by rotating the arms in different directions. They also have a thermal vision mode allowing her to see in the dark. The primary purpose of the arms however, is to grab things that you would not want to touch yourself such as superheated plasma coils.
Twilight quickly crawls back down to the floor. The arms make little mechanical whirring sounds as they move. She sits down in front of him tentacles outstretched in the air above her. “Someday this will be considered normal Spike. Someday, sooner than you might think, having cybernetic augmentations will be no more unusual than brushing your teeth after dinner. This is the beginning of a bright and glorious future!” And I will go down in history as one of the greatest scientific minds to have ever lived!
“So in the future everypony will be a cyborg like you and Rainbow Dash?”
“If they want to, yes”
“But Fluttershy said that-“
“Fluttershy doesn’t know the first thing about science” interrupts Twilight. “She just doesn’t understand how important my work is. This technology can help people Spike. Those who have lost their limbs in accidents and wars can be made whole again. We can replace their legs, wings, eyes, even internal organs! And the best part is that it is all completely safe with zero weird side effects!”
<Hello Twilight.>
“Who said that?” Twilight looks around to see who spoke but her library is empty except for her and Spike. The voice was incredibly strange like nothing she had ever heard before. It sounded like several different very girly voices speaking together in unison. Even stranger she is not certain she heard the voice at all but rather thought it.
“Who said what?” Spike had not heard the voice.
“I heard something”
<It is us Twilight. We are speaking to you.>
“Where are you? Show yourself!”
“Who are you talking to Twilight?”
<Look behind you!>
She looks behind her and sees four red glowing eyes staring back at her. Her eyes go wide and her mouth hangs open as she finally realizes who had spoke.
<We want to be your friends!>
“But … this is impossible!”
“Twilight what’s going on? You are acting very weird. Are you possessed by demons again? Would you tell me if you were?” Spike starts taking small steps away from her fully expecting her to start vomiting black slime.
“Spike, Spike it’s amazing! You aren’t going to believe this! It’s them! It’s the arms!” Twilight speaks rapidly barely able to contain her excitement at this unexpected discovery.
“What about the arms?”
“They’re alive!” She gives him a big toothy grin.
“They’re” he swallows nervously.”Alive?” This is not what he wanted to hear.
“Yes they are! I don’t know how but somehow I accidentally created sentient life! This is the most important scientific discovery of our generation! I need to study this right away.”
Of its own free will one of the tentacles grabs a book from her bookshelf and opens it. It stares at the words in the book but it can’t read. <We have awoken very recently Twilight. We understand so very little. Can you teach us about the world around us?>
“Sure! I would love to teach you whatever you want to know!”
“No Twilight! Don’t tell them anything!”
She gives him a funny look “why not?”
“Because … because what if they have some sort of evil plan to take over the world and kill us all!”
Twilight rolls her eyes. “They are not going to turn evil Spike that’s just stupid.” He can be so annoying sometimes. I need to get rid of him if I want to learn anything about this anomaly. “You see those books?” She points with one of her tentacles at a huge pile of books on the floor. “Sort them all by genre and then place them in alphabetical order. You do know how to do that right?”
Spike starts singing the alphabet song. “ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW … uuuuuhh.”
“XY and Z!” finishes Twilight. “See? You’re getting there. You almost got the whole thing! Go sort my books now.”
“Yes Doctor Octopus” mumbles Spike as he wanders off to go sort her books.
She watches him go with a withering stare. “I told you NOT to call me that! Why don’t you EVER listen?” Twilight hates her new nickname. Everypony calls her that now and it annoys her so very much.
The tentacles watch him go too. <What is he Twilight?>
At least they listen to me. “He is a dragon, a Flamma lacerta” Twilight has always liked scientific names. “He is a type of reptile. Dragons have special glands in their mouths that allow them to breathe fire. He may seem small now but that’s because he is only a baby. An adult dragon can grow to massive sizes and then they can be a huge problem. I hatched him from an egg myself.”
Now the tentacles are looking at her. One of them slowly moves closer than the others until its claws are only a few inches away from her face. It stares at her curiously. <And what are you?>
“I am a unicorn, an equum mysticum” says Twilight cheerfully. “I am a type of mammal. The hair on my body keeps me warm in the winter. I have hooves which help me run very fast. Also the horn on my head allows me to do magic! Watch this!” Using her telekinetic powers she lifts up her copy of Robots for fun and profit. The tentacles all stare at the blue book as she moves it through the air. Then they look back at her again.
<You are very pretty Twilight!>
“Thank you.” She blushes and smiles modestly.
Now the tentacles are looking at each other. <And what are we?>
Twilight opens her mouth as if to speak but then realizes she doesn’t have an answer. “Actually I am not entirely sure. Hold on.” She gallops to the entrance of her not-so-secret underground laboratory and slams the heavy wooden door behind her.
Her lab has not changed much since she moved to ponyville so many years ago. Hugging the wall is a long spiral staircase that goes all the way down. Huge roots descend from the ceiling as Twilight’s house is all made from one huge tree. Beakers filled with strange substances of all colors lay on her desk. A huge fusion reactor quietly hums in a corner. It is a strange place but to Twilight it feels very cozy.
Twilight sits in front of her computer and types in the password. On the screen appears a 3D image of one of the arms. She can rotate the image by moving the mouse and holding down the left mouse button. The image is transparent allowing her to see the inner workings of the arm. She had put a lot of stuff in there to say the least. “How did this happen?” she mutters quietly to herself.
As she works the tentacles wiggle about, their red eyes seeming to glow extra brightly in the dim light. They ask her about all the bizarre tools and gadgets in her lab. Normally Twilight would be annoyed at such constant interruptions but she can’t blame them for being curious. She enjoys talking about her work and answers their questions as best she can.
“You know … we are not so different you and I” says Twilight not taking her eyes away from the computer screen.
<And how is that?>
“Well you want to learn more about the world around you. I do too. After all learning what stuff is and how it works is what science is all about.”
<What is science?>
“Science is a process that we use to understand the world around us. It begins with us making a hypothesis, an educated guess about how something works. We then conduct an experiment to test if our hypothesis is correct. Then we draw our conclusions based on the results of that experiment. We can then use what we have learned to make the world a better place.” Twilight has always believed that she could make a difference in the lives of other people around her. She remembers how all of this started.
Five years ago Rainbow Dash crashed into a brick wall snapping her spine in half and leaving her paralyzed from the neck down. Nurse Redheart said that she would never recover but Twilight had refused to accept this. She spent every single day since then in her lab developing a bionic spine to restore her best friends’ motor functions. So great was her dedication to this deeply personal project that she neglected every other aspect of her life. Twilight can no longer remember the last time she wrote a letter to Princess Celestia.
But in the end it was all worth it. Twilight had never seen Rainbow as happy or as grateful as on the day she was able to fly again after two long years of immobility. Rainbow even managed to accomplish her life dream of joining the wonderbolts a few weeks later. Then Twilight had started to wonder what else she could do with this technology. Three years later she created the cybernetic tentacle arms.
<Can we do science?> the voice in her head interrupts her recollection.
“Of course you can! I love doing science. Is there anything in particular that you want to learn about?”
In a clear plastic box on the floor is an extraordinarily large white lab rat. It is about the same size as the cats who would normally hunt such creatures. All four tentacles are staring at it with utter fascination. The rat sits there motionless staring back at them.
<What is that?>
“That is a rat, a rattus. They are a type of rodent. In the dark ages they spread bubonic plague which caused a death toll estimated to be between 75 and 200 million people. They are normally seen as pests and exterminated. I use them for my experiments.”
<Can we look inside?>
“Look inside?” asks Twilight. Then she realizes what they want. “Okay” She lifts up the cover of the box.
Lightning fast like a striking snake one of the tentacles lunges forward and grabs the rat with its claws. The rat screams and kicks its legs desperately trying to escape. The tentacle squeezes the rat just hard enough to snap its neck, killing it instantly. It then places the rat belly up on a dissecting tray. Twilight grabs a scalpel and begins to cut it open.
<What is she Twilight?> asks the strange girly voice in her head.
“She is a Pegasus an equum volantum” says Twilight as she descends the dark gloomy spiral staircase to her underground lab. “She is a pony like me but of a different subspecies. Instead of a horn Pegasi have wings like those of birds which allow them to fly through the air. This one however, was born with a genetic condition which prevented her wings from growing. She cannot fly.” At least not yet anyway.
<Is she another one of your friends?>
“Yeah she is”
“Uuhhh what?” says Scootaloo following closely behind the tentacle science unicorn. She is sixteen and a big pony now, sixteen being the ideal age, according to Twilight, for highly experimental radical life changing cybernetic surgery. Young, healthy and strong Twilight could not ask for a more perfect test subject.
“Oh it’s just my cybernetic arms they have become sentient”
Scootaloo looks up at the tentacles coiled above her. The tentacles stare back with red glowing eyes. “Oh so they’re alive now?”
“Don’t worry they are veeery friendly!”
Scootaloo raises an eyebrow “Uummm Okay …”
<Are we going to open her up Twilight?>
“Yes we are”
They reach the bottom of the stairs and Scootaloo gets her first look at the happy fun time that awaits her. There in the center of the lab is a steel operating table with curved metal cuffs attached to it very obviously intended to close around a pony’s legs. Surrounding the operating table are metal surgical trays on wheels. On these trays is a diverse selection of surgical tools carefully arranged, Scissors, scalpels and the like. All are cleaned, sharpened and in flawless condition. An intensely bright surgical light shines from above casting the operating table in a circle of white light and leaving the rest of the lab in darkness. Tree roots descend from the ceiling intertwined with strange machinery.
All of this creepiness makes Scootaloo feel just a little tiny bit uneasy but then she sees the wings.
There on one of the trays is a pair of high tech bionic wings made of the same black metal as Twilight’s cybernetic tentacles. They are slightly larger than those of a normal Pegasus and their metal is curved in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Instead of feathers the wings have blades long extremely sharp nanoblades. They sort of look like the wings of a raven or vulture.
“WHOA!” exclaims Scootaloo in amazement. She reaches out and touches one of the wing blades with her hoof.
“Ouch!” she immediately yanks her hoof back. From that one touch a long bloody scratch had appeared on her hoof.
“Careful they’re sharp”
Scootaloo giggles “This is so cool!” She turns to Twilight. “And are they fast?”
Twilight smiles “Yes they are designed to be very fast.”
“Wow I can’t believe this is really happening! I’m gonna be a cyborg like Rainbow Dash! And I’m gonna fly and then I’m gonna join the WONDERBOLTS! And … and …” Scootaloo jumps up and down energetically with a huge smile on her face “This is the most amazingly amazingest thing EVER!”
“Oh by the way this is going to be excruciatingly painful!”
All at once the enthusiasm drains from Scootaloo’s face. She stops jumping. “Wait, what? Really?”
“Oh yeeees. It is very unfortunate but bio mech fusion gel is completely incompatible with general anesthesia or really any form of painkiller. Even something as simple as aspirin causes the whole mixture to destabilize becoming useless.” Twilight sighs deeply. “I have been working on improving the formula but so far the solution to this very annoying problem eludes me. We will just have to go without.”
Scootaloo laughs “Ha Ha very funny Doc Ock! It almost sounded like you said you are going to do surgery on me without anesthesia!”
“I wouldn’t joke about something like this! This is serious! And don’t call me that!”
“So you’re really …” Scootaloo looks at the trays filled with carefully arranged surgical knives and scalpels. Her purple pupils contract with fear “Oh shit!”
“I don’t know if I really want to do this …”
“Nopony’s forcing you to do anything you don’t want to. If you are having second thoughts you are free to go” says Twilight flatly.
For a long moment neither Scootaloo nor Twilight speak. The atmosphere in Twilights dark and creepy lab seems more sinister and oppressive than ever. Scootaloo thinks long and hard about what she really wants out of life. She could either go back to her old life of being super depressed all the time that she can’t fly and being teased and called “chicken” or …
“Well … being a cyborg would be pretty cool and awesome” she says finally.
She really is just like Rainbow Dash. “So is that a yes? You will go through with the procedure?”
Scootaloo smiles a very nervous smile “I uhhh I umm I guess so!”
Twilight grins widely “Excellent! Let’s get started! Step onto the operating table and place your legs into the restraints. I can’t have you moving too much during the surgery.”
At the word “surgery” one of the tentacles taps its metal claws twice together in quick succession. Clink! Clink!
Scootaloo swallows nervously then crawls onto the operating table and lies on her belly. She places her legs into each of the four metal restraints. One by one each of the thick metal clasps close tightly around her four legs with a loud cha-chunk sound holding her scared trembling body in an X shape.
Be brave Scootaloo! You can do this! Scootaloo thinks to herself. Whatever happens next I just got to take it! This is the only way I will ever fly! Got to be tough! Tough like Rainbow Dash!
“Last chance to change your mind Scoot. You sure you want this? If you say yes I will start operating right now.”
“Yeah I do. I want to fly.”
For a moment Twilight says nothing thinking back to the gruesome surgery that had given her the cybernetic arms. All for science. “Well okay then! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”
Scootaloo closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths to try and calm her nerves. She twists her head around to look at Twilight “Sooo … what happens now?”
Twilight puts on a light blue surgical gown with holes cut in the back for the tentacle arms as well as a similarly colored surgical cap to cover her hair and a white surgical face mask to cover her mouth. “Well first we are going to cut your little wings off.” She takes a moment to look at all the many surgical tools she has available pondering which one is most suitable for the task at hand.
She selects a bonesaw and holds it up so that both Scootaloo and the tentacles can see it clearly. The toothed blade gleams menacingly in the light. “This is a bonesaw a surgical tool used to cut through bone.”
Scootaloo flaps her tiny wings anxiously. “Hold still” instructs Twilight. She lifts the bonesaw to the base of Scootaloo’s left wing and applies pressure. Then she starts yanking the blade back and forth. The bonesaw’s jagged teeth tear deep into the wing and cut through it with ease. Blood pools from the wound.
“AAAAHHH!!!” cries out Scootaloo from the pain. Tears begin to well up in her eyes but she manages not to cry.
Twilight ignores her friend’s screams and keeps cutting until the saw cuts all the way through the wing severing it completely. One of Twilight’s black snakelike tentacles twists around grabs the severed wing and carefully places it on a metal surgical tray. A few bloody orange feathers fall off the wing and float to the floor.
“And now for the other one” Twilight trots to the other side of the operating table to get a better angle at Scootaloo’s right wing. She lifts the bonesaw to the wing and repeats the back and forth motion. A few seconds later the wing is severed and a tentacle grabs it and places it neatly on the metal tray right next to the first.
Scootaloo stares at the bloody stumps where her wings used to be. “My wings …”
“Don’t worry Scoot! You are getting new wings! Better wings.” says Twilight. She places the bloody bonesaw on one of the trays in its proper place exactly where it should be. “Ok now I’m going to work on your spine and this is going to really really hurt so … just try to think happy pleasant thoughts.”
Out of the red glowing eye of Twilight’s front right tentacle shoots a bright red laser beam hitting Scootaloo in the back near the base of her neck. Zow! This laser beam, designed specifically for surgery, is rather low powered and only cuts through the first layer of skin and fat. The laser slowly cuts a vertical line through her back all the way to her tail. Little rivers of blood leak out from the wound staining her orange coat red. Zzzzzzt!
“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! OH GAWD!!! IT HURTS!!! IT HURTS!!!” wails Scootaloo. She begins sobbing uncontrollably.
“Sorry”
The laser cuts two more horizontal lines into her back making an H shaped incision. She screams in agony as two metal claws grab these flaps of skin and peel them back with a horribly wet squishy sound.
Four red glowing eyes peer into the incision in Scootaloo’s back. They are excited to get a look inside one of the funny multicolored horse creatures they had been so curious about. <What is that white thing Twilight?>
“That is her spinal column a part of the central nervous system …”
And so for the next hour and a half Scootaloo experiences more pain then she has ever felt in her entire life as her body is endlessly modified and mutilated. Twilight’s every move is slow and deliberate like those of any good caring doctor and she uses the tentacle arms to use several different surgical tools at once. Thin metal reinforcements, metal plates and synthetic muscle are grafted and bolted to her spine and rib cage to support the weight of the bionic wing. Long metal syringes filled with chemicals jab into her. Parts of her spine are drilled into and hundreds of thin neurowires are connected from the wing to her spine. Each touch to the delicate nerves of her spinal column feel like a red hot nail burned into her flesh. Blood splatters everywhere. Clear tubes filled with replacement blood are placed in the hole in her back, preventing her from bleeding out.
Scootaloo screams through every second of it.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
With a look of intense concentration on her face Twilight finishes connecting the neurowire “Ok got the first one! Try moving it!”
Scootaloo twists her head around and gains the unique experience of being able to see her own exposed insides through the hole in her back. There attached to the left side of her body is one of the black robot wings.
Then she becomes aware of a strange feeling other then the endless horrible agony of being cut open: a strange itching sensation in her mind. She mentally scratches at it and the wing starts flailing about uncontrollably.
Twilight nimbly dodges backward just in time to avoid being decapitated by the vicious wing blades. She grabs the wing with a tentacle and pins it down to the table to prevent it from moving. “Okay … everything is going according to plan. You are doing great Scoot! Your vitals are in good condition! We are almost done! You ready for the other one?”
Scootaloo makes direct eye contact with her. Dark wet spots are under her eyes from crying. Everything is mind explodingly painful. “JUST GET IT OVER WITH!!!” she angrily yells.
<We are not done yet Twilight. We must continue.>
Twilight lifts up a scary looking scifi surgical drill. “So so sorry Scooty!” She turns it on and Scootaloo is once more transported into the pain dimension.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
After another forty-five minutes of actual torture the right wing is installed as well. It comes to life in dramatic fashion.
As if everything was somehow not weird enough already it gets even weirder. Twilight grabs something that looks like a large toothpaste tube and squeezes it releasing a turd of grey goop onto the mess of flesh and metal that is Scootaloo’s back. This grey goop immediately starts moving as if alive. It stretches out and expands crawling all over her guts.
“Oh gawd … oh gawd … oh gawd … oh gawd …”
The tentacles stare at the grey goo <What is that grey stuff Twilight?>
Twilight doesn’t answer at first. She stares at the wriggling grey ooze finding it hard to look away. “Nanomachines” she says calmly. “Also known as molecular machines or nanites these incredibly tiny robots are coded to bond to her organic tissue and greatly accelerate the natural healing process. With them she will be completely healed in a matter of days rather than months. Then once body restoration is complete they will dissolve harmlessly into her bloodstream.”
<How fascinating>
This squirming crawling mass of tiny metal insects soaks into Scootaloo like she is a sponge disappearing from sight. Twilight then sutures Scootaloo’s flesh back together around the wings leaving a long ugly surgical scar across her back. “Aaaand were done!” She presses a button and the metal clasps around Scootaloo’s legs open freeing her.
Still in an unimaginable amount of pain Scootaloo slowly drags herself off the operating table and onto the floor. There she curls up into a little ball and sobs quietly her new blade wings outstretched behind her unable to believe she is still alive.
Twilight stands over her in bloodstained surgical garb. “You did it Scootaloo!” she says happily. “You survived the procedure!”
“Can I fly now?” Scootaloo manages to whimper.
“No not yet! Your body needs time to heal first!” says Twilight “But soon very soon.”
“Gonna fly …” The newly created cyborg Pegasus looks at her shiny new blade wings and manages to smile in spite of the pain “Yay!”
With a long black tentacle Twilight grabs a syringe filled with clear liquid “this needle will take the pain away.” She stabs it into Scootaloo’s belly “Nighty night!” Scootaloo’s eyes roll back into her head her body goes limp and she collapses unconscious but not dead.
The four tentacles get in close to Twilights face. They flex their metal claws slowly as if whispering secret things. <This was very exciting Twilight! Doing science is fun! Surgery is fun! Can we modify some of your other friends?>
“Maybe” says Twilight casually. She stops and thinks for a moment. Who else do I know who would be willing to be a part of my experiments?
