RAC 7

RAC 7

Prologue

It was a beautiful day in Ponyville, the birds were chirping, the pegasi have cleared the sky and everything seemed to be at peace. But it wasn’t going to stay like that for very long, Twilight Sparkle is now a princess and some things have changed, something has come to Ponyville that has changed the mane 6, changed their entire aspect on life. It was Wednesday and Twilight and Spike was walking through Ponyville inspecting it. "Everything seems to be in shape", Twilight said happily.

"So where are you going when Celestia assigns you a place to rule?", Spike asked

"I'm not sure" Twilight added.

Before she could say anything else she noticed that a bunch of ponies were running towards the center of the village, both Twi and Spike were confused. Before Twilight could ask herself what was going on, Rainbow Dash swooped in to tell her the news.

"Twilight, there you are. You gotta come look" Dash said to Twilight.

"What?" Twilight asked worried.

"Some, newcomer, came into Ponyville and is about to perform some show for every pony."

Then Spike asked, "So it’s basically another Trixie?"

"I sure hope not, let’s go look." She added.

They all went to the center of Ponyville by the old statue, where Twilight met the rest of her friends along with the CMC group, and there was a big wooden stage with brown curtains, the stage was much bigger than Trixie’s. The show was about to begin, every pony saw something come out of the curtains. It was a unicorn colt with light brown fur, a thin mustache, and top hat, and a grey coat. His cutiemark was that of a wrench and a drill along with some bolts. He began to speak.

"Greetings Ponyville citizens, I am the amazing Lazarus Keen! I come here to you with a gift!"

And of course Pinkie just had know what present he brought, "Oh boy I love presents! What kind is it? Is it big, is it small, can it fly, can it talk, what is it, what is it???"

"Silence!" he shouted. "For the past year there have been a number of attacks among Equestria. First it was Nightmare Moon, and then it was Discord, and then the Changelings attacked Canterlot, and I don’t even want to mention Sombra. I have seen these events and they were all disastrous. No pony did any real effort to stopping them!"

That comment really bothered Rainbow Dash since she knew that they did put effort and actually stopped those villains. "Hey! I made an effort! I took on that Changeling army all by myself!" Her friends gave her guilty looks seeing that her pride was getting the better of her at the moment. "Uh… I meant WE took down that army!"

"Really? Last I heard it was that new married couple who’s running the crystal empire was the ones who truly defeated them" he said snootily.

"Yeah, well…." Dash tried to make an excuse.

But Twilight calmed her down. "Just let it go".

Dash flew down with a smug looked on her face, she did not like being proven wrong.

"Anyway, the main problem is the guards of Canterlot. Sure they are dependable and strong, but they won’t last forever, and almost anything can overtake them. But not anymore, I give to you the next generation! Come out my brilliant creation".

It was soon quiet, and then they all heard loud clanking sounds. Twilight could not believe her eyes to what she was looking at, to what came out of those curtains. Rarity, AJ, and Fluttershy were shocked as well; Pinkie’s jaw literally dropped to the ground. Spike and Rainbow Dash even were a little surprised to the creation. It appeared to be a robotic mechanical Colt. It stood as tall as Twilight and even looked like the same age as her in appearance. His entire body was made out of metal. It was shining, blue, metal with some silver strips and parts to it. Even its tail was made out of a black thing metal. Its front hooves were a light grey, and looked very tough. It took also looked like an alicorn since he had a sharp horn and huge wings with silver feathers. And its right eye was robotic since it was a bright maroon and had pixels in it and the other eye was a normal pony eye. The only thing showing any pony flesh was its face and parts of his head. His mane was long, spikey, and black; and had a white face since its fur was white. And its cutiemark seemed to be a gear, scratched onto the metal. Every pony gazed at the half pony half machine, while it just stood there with a serious look on his face.

"Behold the Robotic Artificial Colt number 7!" Lazarus shouted proudly.

The mane 6 was surprised by the creation. They were also startled and intrigued by it.  "Oh my…….." Fluteershy shuddered.

"Just what is that, monstrosity?" Rarity was shocked.

"I aint never seen anything like that before." AJ pointed out.

"That looks so….so…." Dash tried to think of a word, but Pinkie found it for her.

"Awesome?" asked Pinkie Pie.

"What? No! Nothing is more Awesome than me." she boasted.

"Right. I for one am stunned by this. Just how did he make that? I’ve never seen magic work like that before." Twilight was puzzled.

"This is the future right here, the next generation to ponykind everywhere! He doesn’t need to eat, sleep, he can’t even feel pain" he stated. one of those details really surprised Pinkie.

"He can’t eat? Then how is he supposed to enjoy delicious cupcakes????" asked Pinkie.

"I’m pretty sure he can eat but doesn’t have to. Still, I wonder how he made that thing", Twilight's question was soon answered.

"Many years ago, he was just a simple guard at Canterlot. Until one day an explosion went off and half of his body was blown off. So I stepped up and helped this poor young colt and gave him this new and improved body" stated Lazarus.

Twilight was shocked to hear that. To think, that that machine was actually a living pony at first just send shivers down her spine. "So, he was a regular colt at first? I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have a new body for a replacement" Twilight said.

"Sure you can what about those wings you got?" Spike informed Twilight.

"That’s not the same thing, Spike. He actually lost his body, and now has to live with THAT" Twilight shouted still in shock.

"The best part is, he can work like a normal Pegasus and unicorn; flying high and performing incredible spells. The only difference is that it’s twice as better." explain Lazarus Most of the ponies in the crowed awed in amusement, including the CMC group. But AJ and RD didn’t like the idea of that at all.

"Just hold up there, partner. Are you saying that, that hunk of metal is better than the actual pony?" she asked.

"Yeah, I think I made myself pretty clear about that" Lazarus said with a cocky tone.

Then Applejack stepped onto the stage to prove him wrong, but she didn’t know that it was going to be a mistake.

"Can your fancy robot do this?" She got out a rope and started to do a bunch of lasso tricks, jumping in and out of the hoop, up and down, even grabbing an apple from a tree and plucking it off and having it land in her mouth.

"Where have I seen this before?" puzzled Spike asked.

After she swallowed the apple she decided to finish off by lassoing the rope around the machines legs making it unable to move. But before she could say I told you so and trip it, the rope suddenly snapped and broke freeing the Machine.

"What?" AJ was indeed surprised.

The machine then brought up his right front hoof only to reveal that there was a 9 inch blade sticking out of the side of his hoof. Applejack then realized that he had used the blade to cut the rope free. The machine then retracted the blade back into his forearm; he then spotted the rope and had an idea.

"My turn." the machine said with  a serious voice.

His horn began to glow a very dark purple, pretty soon the rope was beginning to glow the exact same color. The rope then float in mid-air, and like a snake it wrapped all around Applejack. Once he was done controlling the rope, he let go and AJ fell to the ground humiliated.

"Your skills are rusty" the machine stated

As Applejack began to scoot off the stage, Lazarus Keen began to speak again to the crowd.

"You see? That there is proof that this much better than the actual thing….."

As Lazarus kept on rambling, Applebloom was trying to untie the ropes around her sister while Twilight was slightly amused by what has happened.

"That machine is strong; I’ve never seen anything cut through Applejacks rope before" said Twilight.

"I don’t buy it; he only got out cuz of that blade in his hoof". Dash flew up to the stage next, trying to prove the loudmouth inventor wrong that no machine was better than her.

"So you’re a bit stronger, but that doesn’t mean that you’re faster". Dash flew up in the air and did a bunch of sky flying air tricks. She did corkscrews and loops and tornados, and even flew all around Ponyville. She then landed safely on the stage. "Ha! Just circled around Ponyville, in ten seconds flat"!

Now it was the machines turn. He spread out his silver wings, but something else appeared that Dash wasn’t aware of. Two small jet engines popped out of each side of his body and lifted him up in the air. He was basically hovering on the stage. With a loud BOOM the machine went off, with his engines for speed and his wings to glide with. He did all the tricks and moves that Dash did and even circled around Ponyville, the crowd went wild for his performance. He stopped and hovered in mid-air on the stage and landed next to Dash.

"Circled around Ponyville, in FIVE seconds flat" said the machine.

The crowd gasped in amazement, but Dash was horrified to hear that some pony or something had broken her record. She just stood there paralyzed with defeat; she didn’t know what to do next. Pinkie decided to just run up stage, pick up Dash, and ran right off.

"Wow that was half the time it takes for Dash to fly around. It’s really strange" Twilight stated. But now, even Rarity wanted to prove she was better than the colt.

"Oh, it is on" she exclaimed.Before Twilight could warn her, Rarity has already gone on stage to confront them.

"So your little toy is stronger and faster than the normal pony, but that doesn’t mean that’s the most stylish" said Rarity.

"What are you getting at"? asked Lazarus.

"I mean nothing can top this". Rarity used her magic to make a bunch of old curtains into the stylish dress in Ponyville, the crowd awed at the masterpiece. But Lazarus took no notice and decided to humiliate her anyway, but the machine didn’t respond.

"Number 7, why are you just standing there"? questioned Lazarus.

"I honestly don’t know what to do? I didn’t think that fashion would be a major topic in…….." but Lazarus didn't want to hear about his machines opinion.

"I don’t care! I will not let these fools think you are not better than them" he told him severely. He then took out a small control box with a red button and pressed it. By doing that, it gave the machine pony a shock in the back of his neck. Twilight noticed the little red shocks coming from the machine, she started to wonder why. The colt then dropped its head revealing a smaller cube on the back of his neck with several electricity bolts flaring out. But while she was examining the device, all Spike was doing was staring at Rarity’s dress. The colt then lifted his head back up and it had that serious look again. He turned towards Rarity.

"Please, only a fool would worry about something as meaningless as fashion purposes" he said. Rarity heard that comment and looked sternly at him, she did not look happy about it.

"Excuse me"? asked Rarity.

"You’re making a big deal out of nothing" said the machine sternly.

"Nothing?! Well, I’ll have you know that it is indeed important that you have a great look on where ever you go, and that I’m the most fash……….."Before she could go on, he shot a small purple magic beam at the bottom or Rarity’s dress and instantly caught ablaze. Pretty soon her whole dress was disintegrated. "What have you done? You monster! That was the most stylish dress out of curtains I’ve made, and you just destroyed it"!

"Like I said big deal out of nothing" the colt said. Rarity then stormed off stage and back with her friends with an angry look, Spike went over to comfort her and started to develop a hatred for that machine colt.

"You see, those were some of the very infamous ponies who walk this land, and each one has fallen defeat to my brilliant creation! This IS the next generation to Ponykind". Lazarus was about to go on, but Twilight felt like she had enough of this.

"That’s enough"! she shouted. Everyone cleared the way to reveal to the inventor that it was her, Twilight Sparkle. But Keen was not afraid of her at all, he looked down to her. "I’ve seen this before; another pony just like you named Trixie came to town and showed off just like you. But do you know what happened in the end? We proved that she was no great pony and she ran off in humiliation. And if you don’t stop then the same will happen to you". But Lazarus was not convinced.

"Well! Who do we have here, folks. It’s princess Twilight, Ha! But wait, I don’t see a crown on your head, and I see that you don’t even have a kingdom to run. So that makes you, no pony really".

Spike tried to defend Twilight, "Hey! Twilight is not a nopony! She’s kind and smart and she always pulls through, and she is a real princess and"….

"Number 7"! he shouted. The colt then aimed his horn at Spike and open fired on him; luckily he jumped out of the way before any beams could hit him.

"I hate dragons" he stated.

"Spike, you alright"? Twilight asked worryingly.

"Yeah I’m fine"  said Spike who was nearly shot at.

"Good, now show them all who’s more superior" Lazarus commanded the machine.

"What? I thought our only purpose was to show every pony that I was better" wondered the machine.

"Exactly, now we will show them an example of our power by removing our new powerful leader" this was not the same idea that the machine had at all.

"But isn’t that a little too fa………." but before he could finish, Keen interputed him.

"I said get on with it! Show them who’s superior"!  He then grabbed his control box and zapped the colt again; his head dropped revealing the cube behind his neck again.

"Hey, what’s that cube"? Twilight demanded to know.

"What? Oh this is how I can make him do what I please" he explained.

"But you’re shocking him, and I thought you said he couldn’t feel pain"? said Twilight.

"No, but whenever he wears this controlling cube I can give him enough shocks to electrocute a full sized dragon" said Lazarus. The colt then brought his head up again with his serious look on. He then stared menacingly towards Twilight and her friends.

"Fine……" He then jumped in the air and landed behind the stage in an open area. He just stood there waiting for them. Twilight and the others faced him. The colt then spotted a fruit cart; he levitated it in the air and threw it at them. Luckily Twilight caught it just in time with her magic and set it down gently. He then levitated a bunch of stones on the ground and fired them at her friends. Again, Twilight was lucky enough to find a large bolder to block the stones from hitting them. He then flew into the air and grabbed a gray cloud and he then placed it in front of Twilight and made it shoot lightning at her. She quickly formed a force field around her and her friends, deflecting the attack. Dash finally snapped out of her shocked form and was ready to fight him.

"Let me deal with this" Dash said all confidently.

She then flew full speed at the machine colt with her right front hoof in front of her. And right before she was about to hit him with her hoof, he quickly blocked her attack with his front left hoof; the impact of the block actually left a crater in the ground. The colt was even strong enough to grab a hold of Dash with his other hoof and launch her into a faraway tree. Dash was thrown pretty far; he threw her like a football. "Don’t let your guard down"! Lazarus shouted at his creation.

The inventor gave him another shock, and yet again exposing the cube to Twilight. She knew she had to do something

"Enough"! shouted Twilight.  She shot a magical beam at the machine, and with a direct hit knocked the cube off his neck. The attack was so hard that it even knock the colt onto the ground. As he sat up, he noticed that the small cube from behind his neck was no longer attached and was sitting in front of him smoking. He remained motionless, but Lazarus was stunned.

"What?!?! How is this possible? Get up"!  shouted the inventor. He tried to shock him to make him do what he wanted, but it wasn’t working. He realized that the cube was no longer on. He tried again and again to make sure it wasn’t really off, but it was no use. The others just stared at him, menacingly. Rainbow just flew back to see what happened.

"Ha! Looks like your bucket of bolts isn’t so impressive after all"! Dash gloated.

"You know; you shouldn’t try to replace something with a machine. It won’t be such a good idea, especially if there’s nothing wrong with the original. Robots aren’t always the answers". Twilight tried to reason with him, but had no effect.

"You ruined everything! This isn’t the last you’ve heard of me"! And with that, the inventor vanished with a big flash of his magic, but he also dropped his controller. As soon as he did, every pony left the area except for the mane 6 and Spike.

"Where’d he go? I want to give him a piece of my………"

"Forget Dash, he’s not worth it". said Twilight. Then they all turned at the machine who was on the ground still feeling defeated.

"So what do we do with him"? asked Applejack

"Should we take him apart and use his medal parts to mend things"? wondered Rainbow Dash.

"No", Twilight said with dignity. The others were confused. She then walked up to the machine to see what he would say or do. He looked up at her and was ready to accept his fate, but surprisingly Twilight reached her hoof out to him and helps him up. The colt decided to take it and got up and as soon as he was standing on his four hooves again, he was confused as the others.

"What? Aren’t you going to destroy me"? asked the Machine.

"Of course not. I’m not that kind of pony" said Twilight.

"Aren’t you upset that I humiliated your friends"? asked the defeated colt. Twiilght thought for a moment to think up of an answer.

"No. I saw that device on the back of your neck; you were just following his shocks and commands. Besides, it’s not you wanted to hurt them, right"? asked Twilight.

"No. This has been some kind of routine with us". the colt said with sadness.

"What do you mean"? asked Twilight.

"Ever since I was created, we’ve been traveling to different towns in Equestria. Keen would present me to the public, saying that I was the next generation of pony kind. And any pony who didn’t like the idea and stood up against us, he would make me hurt them. I hated it, many ponies objected that it was a bad idea and many ponies got hurt" he explained sadly.

"So he turned you into a brute"? asked Rarity.

"I guess you could say that. This isn’t why I was built. I actually thought he was great, when he created me. But now he abandoned me. And now, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life". Twilight felt sorry for him.

"I know this may sound strange asking but, don’t you have any friends that you want to see"? she asked curiously. But the colt had no idea what she was talking about.

"Friends? Keen said that I don’t need friends, if I’m like this" he said.

"What? Didn’t he tell you what friendship was"? asked Twilight.

"All he said that, it would get in the way of our goals. That it was pointless" stated the machine.

"What? How can he say that? So you have no idea"? asked the shocked Twilight.

"No, I never learned what friendship was. I think I’ve caused you enough trouble. I’ll be off" he said. As the colt was walking away, Twilight couldn’t help herself but to take him in.

"Hey! Why don’t you join us"? All of her friends gave her a surprised “what?” and the colt turned around to see if she was serious.

"Huh"? stuttered the Machine.

"It’s obvious you got nothing, so why not stay here with us"? Twilight pointed out. The machine was really puzzled. He didn’t think that somepony would actually want him to stay. He then walked back to the group.

"Very well" he said with acceptance. He then levitated the shocking cube and the control box and gave it to Twilight as an offering. "My life is now in your command" he stated.

"Sweet! Our own robot"! Dash was excited, but Twi had other plans.

"That won’t be necessary". Twilight then shot a magic beam, destroying both the controller and the shocker. The colt didn’t understand this.

"Twilight, what are you doing"? Dash asked with some disappointment.

"He may be mostly mechanical parts, but he’s still part pony" she answered. She then turned her attention to the machine colt; some of her friends did the same.

"If I’m going to be mentoring you, I want to treat you like a regular colt" she said.

"Wait, wait, wait. Did I hear you say ‘mentoring’"? Spike asked with a anxious tone.

"Yes. I’ve already learned the magic of friendship, I think it’s time I showed it to some pony else". The others couldn’t believe what they were hearing, including the colt. Twilight was going to teach this strange half robot half colt everything there is about friendship.

"Really"? asked the colt

"Yes. It’s time you know what friendship really is" she answered happily. The colt smiled at her, and the others were on board with this and were about to fully introduce themselves. "Let me properly introduce myself, my name Twilight Sparkle".

And pretty soon it went down the line of friends introducing themselves to one at a time and made peace with him. Now it was his turn.

"I think it’s time I fully introduce myself. I am the Robotic Artificial Colt number 7" he said with pride.

"That’s a little long to say. How about we just call you………RAC for short"? Dash suggested, she liked the name, but wondered if he would.

"RAC? I like it". he said.

"Well RAC, let’s just say that you are about to make a lot of new friends here" informed Twilight.

"Yay a new friend! This calls for a party"! Pinkie said all excited.

And so, this was the start of a new adventure for RAC to learn everything there is to know about friends. But this was only the beginning……….