Mass Core

The internal lights had been dimmed. It was night, and Trixie walked quickly through the halls of the RENS Rainbow Dash. Moving through the darkened passages felt strange to her, as moving freely always did. She not only knew the layout of the vessel; she WAS the vessel. Walking inside it was somewhat dizzying, as if she had been given the opportunity to walk through herself.

With this knowledge, Trixie was able to quickly find the captain’s quarters. When she reached the door, she straightened what little there was of her mane and her docked tail. Then she knocked on the door.

At first there was no response, but then she heard souond from the other side. The door cracked open, and Scootaloo looked up at her.

“Captain,” said Trixie. “I heard you wanted to…what the hay are you wearing?”

Scootaloo looked down at herself. For some reason, she was wearing the undergarments of her landing suit: four sheer socks, panties, and a small tight vest.

“Do you like it?” she said.

“Um…sure, I guess.” Trixie herself had not bothered to wear her normal hat or cape. She trusted captain Scootaloo, and didn’t feel a need to cover up her modifications.

“Come in,” said Scootaloo, opening the door completely. Trixie smiled and entered. The room was much larger than she had expected, and lit with soft light.

“Having trouble sleeping, captain.”

“You can just call me Scootaloo, Trixie. You know that.”

“Oh. Right, Scootaloo.”

“And a little bit, I guess. Just nervous. What about you?”

“I don’t sleep. I don’t think Cores have to, as long as we spend time in...well…the core.”

“Hey, do you want something to drink?”

“It’s not that ryncol stuff, is it? Because I’m not that kind of engine.”

Scootaloo chuckled. She crossed the room and opened a cabinet, pulling out a bottle and a pair of glasses. She poured out the liquid into them; it was a bright amber color, and even from across the room Trixie could smell that it was cider.

“Here,” said Scootaloo, picking up one glass on her hoof and holding it out.

Trixie hesitated. “I don’t know. I mean…isn’t it kind of a waste for me to have it?”

“It’s not a waste,” said Scootaloo, firmly. “If it wasn’t for you, we never would have gotten this far. I just wish I could give you more than a glass of cider.”

Trixie smiled and took the glass in her magic, pulling it over to her. She put her hoof against her neck, plugging the input holes in her esophagus so that nothing would leak out when she swallowed, and then took a sip.

“Wow,” she said. “It’s so sweet!”

Scootaloo nodded, and then took a sip from her own glass.

“Aren’t you a little young for that?” said Trixie.

“I’m a captain in the navy,” said Scootaloo, downing most of the glass and wiping her mouth on her stocking. “I don’t think anypony cares at this point.”

Scootaloo paused for a long moment, and then looked up at Trixie. “Trixie…can I ask you a favor?”

“Of course,” said Trixie. “Um…what is it?”

Scootaloo smiled nervously and pulled something out of a wardrobe. “Can you put these on?”

“Um…”

Scootaloo gave the items to Trixie. There were two of them: a rainbow wig, and a set of long rainbow tail extensions.

“Sure,” said Trixie. She was not sure why Scootaloo wanted her to wear these things, but she liked dressing up. So she put on the wig and the tail. They fit oddly well, and the covered some of the parts of her body that she was ashamed of, even if they looked silly.

For comical effect, Trixie assumed an overly confident pose. “Look! I’m Fleet Commander Rainbow Dash!” She raised her hoof, as if pointing out over one of the horizons she only distantly recalled from her youth. “The fastest pony in all of Equestria!” Trixie’s eyes widened. “Oops…that didn’t come out right.”

“Hey,” said Scootaloo, shrugging. “It’s not untrue.”

“Oh.”

Scootaloo started laughing, and then so did Trixie. For Trixie, it was one of only a few times in her life where she ever had since they had made her the way she was.

When they finally calmed down, Scootaloo walked across the room and opened a small command interface. She tapped at it with her hoof, and a light tune started to come out.

“Music?” said Trixie.

Scootaloo approached Trixie and held out her hoof. At her range, Trixie realized that Scootaloo was wearing some kind of perfume. It smelled like a flower that Trixie could not quite recall.

“Do you want to dance?”

“Dance? Really?”

“Do you want to or not?”

“Well, sure. Why not?” Trixie reached out and took Scootaloo’s hoof. The pair of them stepped into the center of the room and faced each other. The song was slow, so Trixie assumed it was some kind of slow dance. She and Scootaloo immediately began taking the prescribed steps for such a song, stepping from side to side in a swaying circle.

“I’m kind of surprised you can dance,” said Trixie, putting her hoof against Scootaloo’s and turning in a bouncing circle to the beat of the music. “You don’t seem like the type.”

“Me? How do you even know how? You’re a Core!”

“Back when I was a filly, my dad taught me,” said Trixie, disengaging from Scootaloo as they both turned in tight circles and faced each other again. “I wonder if he’s still alive…”

“I’m sure he is, somewhere,” said Scootaloo. “And he’d be proud of you.”

Trixie smiled, even though she felt so sad. She did not know why. She took several more steps in the dance, but then Scootaloo seemed to misstep, pushing Trixie off balance. She fell backward, but fortunately landed on Scootaloo’s bed.

“Oop!” she said, smiling. “Scootaloo, you have to be more careful.”

“Oh, I will be,” said Scootaloo, climbing onto the bed.

“Um…Scootaloo,” said Trixie, still smiling but suddenly feeling nervous. “What are we going to do on the bed?”

“You’ll see.” Scootaloo leaned forward, and before Trixie knew what was happening, Scootaloo was on top of her, pressing their mouths together. Trixie felt Scootaloo’s tongue shoved into her throat and tried to cry out in fear, surprise, and confusion. She tried to pull away, but Scootaloo had already put her foreleg being her head, holding her in place.

Scootaloo, meanwhile, was trying to focus, trying to imagine away Trixie’s horn and to imagine that there were a pair of soft but oh so strong wings on the larger mare’s back instead of exposed metal vertebral implants.

This was not something Scootaloo had ever done before, and her heart was beating so fast that she thought it hurt. For some reason, her tiny, flightless wings were standing on end, painfully erect, and she felt her hips moving almost involuntarily. It should have felt good, but for some reason, it just felt wrong.

There was no way it could be wrong, though. Rainbow Dash had told her that Trixie was just property, a piece of equipment. She was not really a pony, so this was okay. It had to be okay, because Rainbow Dash was always right. Doing this was the only way for Scootaloo to prove that to herself, and in the process to get what she had always wanted from Rainbow Dash. In some strange, illogical part of her filly mind, she perhaps even thought that if she practiced on an inanimate machine like Trixie, Rainbow Dash might finally see her as worthy of the relationship that Scootaloo truly wanted.

“Scoot…scootaloo,” said Trixie, her body freezing as Scootaloo pulled her lips away from Trixie’s and moved onto her neck. “I don’t…I don’t want to do this…”

“Shut it, Core,” said Scootaloo. “Just be quiet and don’t move.” Scootaloo reached between Trixie’s legs, and Trixie’s eyes widened in fear.

“No!” she cried, pushing Scootaloo away. Scootaloo, being much smaller than Trixie, was easily thrown onto the floor with a loud thud. Trixie, shaking, pulled herself out of the bed. Her wig and false tail fell away as she ran to the door.

“Stop right there!” cried Scootaloo, standing. “You get back in that bed RIGHT NOW! Do you think you can just refuse? You’re part of my ship, MY property! I can do whatever I want to you!”

Trixie’s eyes widened and filled with tears. “Why…why would you say something like that?”

The pain in her voice instantly neutralized Scootaloo’s anger, and Scootaloo realized that she had made a horrible mistake.

Trixie, still shaking and weak from fear, looked Scootaloo in the eye. “I thought…I thought you were my friend! My only friend! You…you…”

“Trixie,” said Scootaloo, feeling tears welling in her own eyes.

Trixie’s expression hardened. Though she was still crying, she now glared at Scootaloo. “And I really cared about you! I gave you everything I had! Do you have any idea how many times I thought about ending it? About walking out the airlock, or drowning myself in the hydroponics bay, just so I wouldn’t have to go back, back to that pain and darkness...but I never did! Do you have any idea why?”

“Trixie, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean- -”

“I did it FOR YOU! All the pain, all the fear, all of it- -I kept going back for YOU! Because you were my friend, the only pony who ever treated me like I was a pony too! You let me out, to walk around, to breathe real air, eat real food, to talk to you and Roseluck and the others- -do you have any idea how happy I was when I opened my eyes for the first time in eighteen years and SAW?” She stepped back to the door as Scootaloo took another step closer. “But I should have known,” she said. “I should have known…I wasn’t your friend. You were just going to use me, like they all did. I was just some Rainbow Dash surrogate for your fetish.”

“It isn’t like that!”

“Isn’t it? I’m just property to you! You’re just like the rest of them! I don’t know why I ever trusted you!”

By this time, they were both crying. Scootaloo dropped to her knees.

“Please, Trixie, I’m sorry- -”

“Save your breath,” said Trixie. The tone in her voice scared Scootaloo even more now. Trixie no longer sounded angry, or sad. Just tired. She pushed open the door. “I can’t…I can’t do this anymore. All I ever wanted was…no. Nevermind. I can’t have that. Not as a Core.” She looked away from Scootaloo. “I’m just a piece of disposable machinery. So I’m going back. I’m going to go back to being what I’m supposed to.” She looked down at Scootaloo. “I don’t ever want to see you again. Any of you. Never use the emergency release again. Just let me be what I was made to be. I can’t ever be a pony. Stop torturing me. And, captain.” She looked down at Scootaloo one last time. “I hope you never find that Core. So that she never has to go through…this.”

Then Scootaloo watched her go, heading back to the engine room. Scootaloo knew that this was the last time she would ever see Trixie, at least as a pony instead of as a part of the ship’s engine. She could always pull the release, for Trixie back- -but after what she had just done, there was no way she could ever bring herself to.

“Trixie,” said Scootaloo, barely in a whisper. “You were my friend…please come back.” She lowered her head against the floor and began crying silently. “What have I done?” She let out a low growl of anguish. “Why would I do that? What is WRONG with me?”

There was no response, of course. Not even the hum of the ship’s engines. Just the silence of an empty room. Once again, as she had been so many times in her short life, Scootaloo was alone.