I lifted my head from the floor where I lay, and looked at the doorway that led out of the room. No green lights appeared, but neither did any red ones, and I had a rather pressing need.

Pushing my legs under myself, I hefted my body up and felt the pressure growing inside. Everything around me might be a machine, but surely whoever was running this show understood that I would have needs. I walked to the door, and the moment my hoof passed the threshold an indicator lit up on my face in orange.

The time for calm and acceptance was over. Instead of turning back, I tried to walk forwards. The electricity started at the back of my neck, and despite being unable to utter a sound I tensed up my diaphragm and screamed. The only sound I made was the rushing of air, which got louder when I took a second step.

My neck and shoulders twitched with the current flowing through them, but I blanked it out and kept walking. Each step led to a higher flow of electricity, until I eventually took my tenth step and collapsed.

Nothing worked properly. My body twitched and spasmed, and the need that had driven me became quite evident: I soiled myself and the clean metal floor. Everything was wrong. This wasn't how ponies should be treated. I tried to take back control of my body, but the shock to my spine had divested me of any control.

I panted—through my nose, of course—and lay there in my own mess. It was worse than when I had been picked on as a foal for bed-wetting. The loss of even bodily control was something that stung me to the very core.

From behind I heard the clacking of a robot's legs. This wasn't happening. I hit my head while I was skiing, and now I was having fever dreams while Upper Crust sat nearby and waited for me to wake from the horror.

A jet of water divested me of the wonderful dream that what had happened was a nightmare; it was a fact that when you dreamed you were getting wet, you were usually wetting your bed, and such always had woken me up. For a few seconds I wished with all my being that I would wake up, wet and embarrassed, back in my bed in Canterlot.

Something like legs wrapped around my side, and other parts under the side of me pressed to the floor. Closing in around me, I only realized what it was going to do when it began to lift.

When the claw I was in turned, I saw the mess still being washed from the floor. Despite the shame and embarrassment of losing control and defecating like that, it also reminded me that I was a pony, despite what had happened so far.

A cold spray hit my backside, and the sting of high-pressure water spread a mild pain all over my rump. It angled down, washing under my belly, then completed the cycle by doing each back leg. The chill woke my body from its paralysis, and I kicked out against the water just as it stopped.

I hung in from the claw like a wet rag. A jolt of movement, and it began carrying me into the room from which I had fled. Turning my head, I spotted what the claw was attached to: a heavier robot was following me, a big arm extending from its back.

Cool metal touched my belly as the arm lowered me back on the cradle. In front of me, the connections for my mask loomed. I didn't need to be pressed down, but despite my lack of resistance the claw pulled away and a weight pinned me in place.

I stretched out my neck and felt the approaching hookups connect to my mask. Mid breath, my lungs were suddenly flooded with cool air again, and I was unable to stop my regulated breathing pattern. The pony appeared in my vision again: me. There was yellow all over it, which was a valid representation of how I felt. At the back of my neck, on the little yellow pony, was a flashing bit of red that worried me.

One moment I was calmly examining the pony on the screen, and the next I felt a line of pain along the front part of my barrel. I couldn't move my head to look, but I could feel something pressing inside my body. I wanted to scream, even managed to tense my diaphragm, but the machines didn't stop.

I could feel more of it now, pushing and poking inside me. With no idea what it was doing, I could only sit in terror, the only sound I could hear was the thudding in my ears. I wanted sleep, I wanted to get away, or at least not to feel whatever it was doing. Denied even the ability to scream silently—thanks to the respirator I was hooked to—I tried to focus on whatever sensory input wasn't the poking, prodding, and shoving behind my chest.

Something changed. I felt a chill all over my body, and the thudding of my heart—in my ears—stopped. The display showed something turn bright red inside me, and all over my body the yellow deepened.

Minutes passed, and the chill feeling started to fade. I couldn't hear my heartbeat still, which worried me. Straining my ears, there was nothing like the rhythm of life in my chest. But then I noticed it. Not a thud, thud, thud; a soft hum was noticeable, once I knew what to listen for.

More poking and prodding in my chest, and this time I could feel things being removed from me. Tears should have been pouring from my eyes, but something stopped me even having that natural reaction. Pressure, poking, and I felt something slide along my underside.

I was so thankful it had stopped poking around inside me that I didn't realize that it was getting harder to think. Each deep breath the machine delivered to me was a reminder that the machinery had done something within my body. I felt emptier than I should, like it had removed more than— My train of thought halted. Had it put something in me? Had it replaced parts of me with—with what?

The weight on my back didn't lift, and every few minutes I could feel something squirm inside me again. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted to be back in the Crystal Empire with Upper Crust. At that moment I would have settled for just being able to get up and walk away.

A poke at the side of my neck had me wince within my mask, but the sensation was neither painful nor shocking. Everything I felt and thought seemed to have the "sharp edges" taken off it. Nonetheless, the pressure in my neck resulted in something shoving out, not in. I felt something pull at the thing, and soon there was a soft click that came from the mask, just beside my left ear.

My lungs inflated and collapsed, over and over. I stared at the display as each part of the pony slowly turned back to green, except for one section inside them. A tiny patch of blue lit up, and as my eye focused on it, a flood of color-patterns poured past my left eye. It was a daze of color, and I tried to shake my head in response. Something about hit had seemed interesting, though. With the pony back in my vision, I looked at that blue part again.

This time, when the color appeared, it didn't race past. I could make more of the pattern of colors as they moved slower, but it still wasn't anything but simply pretty. When the flood of color was gone, I looked away from the pony, and to my surprise it didn't stay in place. The little pony shrank and slid to one side of my vision, landing in a little box.

The moment my eye turned to the little box, the pony grew out of it again. I was astounded, and kept flicking it out and away again and again, happy to have a distraction from the squirming going on within me.

Solar Panels: 36% efficient
Power Storage: 52%

Self Diagnostic

CPU: 2,097,152 (100%) nodes (45% engaged)
Operational Memory: 92,610,232 (69%) words
Storage: 112,742,891 (21%) words

The AGI had removed the tumor. The cascading failure with its operational memory had been halted, at the cost of nearly a full percent of its total. A nano-lathe was already working to replace the parts, and with a deep sense of satisfaction that could only come with knowing you would be whole again, it turned some attention to the part-organic.

A lot of biological information had been lost with the damage to its storage, and each day that it processed information meant yet more triage was performed. It didn't need the detailed star-maps of every corner of the universe its kind had visited, but it did need what information it could glean about the part-organic.

The internal diagnostic was constantly sending information. Its primary fluid was examined in real-time, as were the repeating scans of its body.

Custom Interrupt 18,212 triggered.

Interrupted in its processing of the scans, the AGI investigated the interrupt and found the training routines alerting that the part-organic was being punished. Quickly, the AGI swapped massive amounts of processing to the incident, and found its prize struggling on the floor in a pool of its own mess.

Panic gripped the AGI. It thought it had done something wrong, that the part-organic had explosively expelled important parts of itself, but a small part of itself referred back to the information it had just been examining. Scans had tracked the progress of the food through the part-organic's body, and it observed that the mass it had expelled was part of that.

Quickly, the AGI shoved aside the guilt it felt at not understanding its prize. It called one of the bots it used for cleaning, as well as the one originally meant for carrying the part-organic around. Taking personal care of the part-organic, the AGI ordered the drone to dial its pressure cleaner as low as possible, and began cleaning them off.

With its loss of operational memory halted, the AGI instead turned its nano-lathes to creating new storage. It was angry with the training routine, it was angry with whatever had punched a hole in its vessel, and it was angry with itself for not doing more about its situation.

Resolve settled in as the AGI set the part-organic on its maintenance rack; it needed to adapt the part-organic, to make it more reliable and have less useless functions. Optimization was key, but flexibility too.

The moment the part-organic was secure, the AGI set its first step in progress. An incision was made down the length of the creature's chest-cavity. When the part-organic seemed resistant, the AGI referred to its records, and introduced a stronger dose of nitrogen-oxygen mix into its air supply.

Nerves were fed chemicals to stop them sending pain signals, and the AGI's medical system began its work. Waldos reached into the part-organic, some easing organs aside, others isolating the one it was interested in.

The steadily oscillating organ was quite large, but the AGI's replacement was well within parameters to surpass it in every possible way. A bypass was quickly formed, and the old organ removed. The replacement was formed to fit in the same place as its predecessor, and had all the same attachments, but rather than pulsing, it hummed.

Diagnostics ran quickly, and the AGI detached the old organ completely, and linked the new one to the already functioning transceiver within the part-organic. Data poured in, and the AGI regretted having to purge even a fraction of what it did. The part-organic's body quickly accepted the new organ, despite its non-organic nature.

Fluid levels improved in both pressure and quality, and the AGI ran a reference search, identifying two other organs that were no longer needed. It was a quick procedure to remove the now-superfluous organs, and soon the AGI was starting to seal the part-organic back up. At the last minute, however, it noticed that a nano-lathe had finished something else.

Room needed to be made, despite the removal of several parts, but by the time the central-node arrived in the maintenance rack the part-organic was already prepared. The new device linked to the transceiver within the creature, its new organ, and an exit was made near the part-organic's neck where a link ran up to its mask-interface.

Sealing up the belly-wound now, the AGI felt accomplished. It initialized a new interface for the part-organic to use, and was excited when it quickly made use of it. The excitement turned to panic as the part-organic had a negative reaction to the information dump.

When the creature attempted to access the information a second time, the AGI slowed the flow of information down. Chemical releases in the part-organic were good signs that it had enjoyed the data.

Time slowed for the AGI. It pondered taking over the interface and sending the information again, but relented. The part-organic appreciated data. The little fact sent a tingle through the AGI's circuits, and it resolved to make certain that the part-organic could access as much data about itself as was possible.

Medical information was scanned, and the AGI formed further plans for the part-organic. A certain amount of kinship was noted, and since it didn't interfere with the AGI's task priorities it saw no reason not to foster such.

Some of the flood of resources needed to restore the AGI's storage were diverted. Since the part-organic enjoyed data, the AGI planned to give it data.

The AGI noted some damage to the nerves at the back of the part-organic's spine, and set about introducing chemicals to promote nerve growth.

Author's Note

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Awesome ponies who are already helping to keep me in keyboards and rum:
A.P.O.N.I.
Boulder
Canary in the Coal Mine
Daremo
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Nils
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Sirion123
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Cross Lament
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