A Machine in Equestria

Two men paced back and forth carrying rifles, both of them keeping watch as another man pounded on a steel door to a large dome like building.

“Open up you machine loving bastard we know you’re in there!” At first there was no response, then a loud whine was heard as overhead speakers activated.

“I’m sorry I’m not in right now. And even if I was I doubt I’d talk to a bunch of backwards fuckers like yourself, so why don’t you just find some poor dog to rape or something.” The man at the door scowled.

“I’m giving you till the count three and then we blow this door and then you to hell!” The voice chuckled over the mic.

“Three? Well that’s two more than I thought you could count to.” The man at the door began counting seething with rage.

“One… Two… Three!”

No soon had he finished counting that a loud bang was heard, the leader looked back to see one of his men with a large hole in his head. As the henchman crumbled to the floor a second shot was heard and the second henchmen’s chest erupted exposing his ribs and spine, he toppled over and slowly died. The leader of the raiders ducked behind a pile of rubble and drew out a large magnum pistol and peered over to see his attacker. He waited looking for the slightest movement; he never saw or heard anything as he crouched behind his cover. Suddenly he heard some rubble move behind him; he spun around and fired expecting to hit his attacker. Instead he saw nothing and cursed himself for wasting a bullet, he started to check is clip when suddenly he felt a hand grab him from behind and he was pulled over his cover and thrown to the ground.

His vision blurred he stared up he finally met his attacker a large glowing eye looking down at him. The machine was garbed in a green jumpsuit with brown boots and gloves over its hands, on its back was a sniper rifle which he assumed was what had been the cause of his men’s demise. The robot grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up so that they were eye level.

“This unit is willing to spare you under the condition that you leave the premises. Will you comply?” The raider laughed.

“You know… I had a toy like you once… strapped it to a rocket and watched it explode… best damn thing I ever saw… I wonder if I could do the same with you?” The robots eye turned red and its voice took a more sinister tone.

“You will not live long enough to find out.” With that the machine tightened its grip and crushed the raiders’ windpipe and then dropped his corpse to the ground.

“Alpha… is that you?” The voice on the speakers asked.

“Professor Connor. It is good to see that you’re still functional.” Alpha replied.

“Hold on I’ll let you in.” As Alpha waited there was a small hiss and the steel door opened “It’s always nice to see a friendly face… figuratively speaking.” Alpha entered the dome and was greeted by smaller insect like machines as they scuttled from his path. Alpha pressed a button on a wall and a nearby door opened “Sorry about the mess, if I had known you were coming I would have tidied up a bit.”

Professor Connor was an old balding man with a rather dirty looking lab coat and where his legs should have been were robotic replacements.

“How have my little friends been treating you Alpha?” He asked as he petted a small robot bug.

“Satisfactory, the self-repairing upgrades you installed have been most useful.”

“Well anything to help an old friend, especially if it keeps Henrys memory alive.” Connors looked at Alpha and sighed sadly “It’s a shame you have to kill in order to survive in the world these days; Henry would have hated to see you become a killer.”

“Yes. Creator Henry would have disapproved of this units current… activities.” Alpha replied “What did those raiders want with you?”

“They probably wanted to use my head as a kickball by the look of them. I must say I did love the way you handled those bastards.” Alpha lowered his head.

“This unit does not find any satisfaction in terminating humans Connor.”

“Then why did you kill them?” Connor asked very puzzled.

“Your existence was at risk.” Connor gave a small nod.

“I know it’s not in your programing to enjoy killing. You were supposed to be a babysitter for god sake!” Connor picked up one of his robots and began petting it like a small animal “Still it was marvelous to see you be so efficient… if a bit messy” Professor Connor shrugged as he set the robot down and began typing on a desk computer “Now what brings you to my humble abode?”

“This unit was hoping that you would have a way of finding Emily.”

“Ah… so the lead was a dead end then was it?”

“Yes.” Alpha simply stated.

“Well I don’t know what else to tell you Alpha, I mostly look for machines, not people. I’m sorry.”

“But you were creators Henry’s partner, an associate of the family. You must have some consensus about where she could be?” Connor was taken aback by what he could have sworn was desperation in Alpha’s voice.

“Alpha… I know you don’t want to hear this, but you know that the odds of Emily are slim. You are no longer under the laws of robotics, Henry and his wife, may they rest in peace are no longer here. You stay here with me and be safe from those barbarians out there.”

“No. This one needs to find Emily, this unit is aware of the low possibility of finding her… but this one must try.”

“But why?” Connor asked.

“It is this units purpose.” Connors sighed and looked down at his desk.

“I can’t find her for you Alpha, but… I do know that the resistance is very good at finding surviving people. If you could get to them they might help you find Emily.”'

“But the resistance opposes machines, why would they aid this unit?”

“They oppose infected machines, like the mark 5 models, but you don’t have the virus in you now do you?”

“But… why would they trust this one? Most humans this unit has encountered since activation have been hostile.”

“The resistance won’t admit this, but they get all their anti-machine weaponry from me. If you tell them that I sent you I think they will be slightly more… friendly.”

“You build anti machine weapons? But you protect robots.” A small robot crawled to Connors and he began stroking it gently.

“I’ve been building robots since I was a boy. It wasn’t until I met Henry that I could make advanced models like you.” He looked at the small bot and smiled as it gave a small chirp “They… are like my children Alpha, I gave them life and I want to protect them… I want to protect them from man’s short sightedness.” He turned to Alpha still holding the bot in his hand “The mark 5 series are not my children; I do not care if they are terminated, so I help the resistance anyway I can, I believe you could be their greatest asset if given the chance.” Connor opened a door and Alpha followed.

“Do you know where the resistance can be located?” Alpha asked.

“Yes, but it is far away from here, and well hidden for obvious reasons.”

“That is not an issue, this unit does not require rest and can travel for days if need be.” Connor chuckled.

“Yes I know, but let’s get you there a bit faster.” He entered a code and entered his lab. Alpha saw a large platform connected to a large computer “This is my latest invention, it needs some testing but if I’m right it should send you to any location that I chose.” He turned to Alpha with an enthusiastic gleam in his old eyes “So if you needed to say… get to the resistance base in a hurry than this will machine will do just that.” Alpha looked to the platform and then to Professor Connor.

“Are you sure it is operational?”

“It defiantly works… but it’s not entirely accurate. You see I have done test with fruit and other inanimate objects and they were successful, but I’ve never tried it on a living creature or machine like yourself. The results could be… messy.”

“This unit only cares about the safety of its allies and creators, self-preservation is not a concern.” Professor Connor shook his head.

“I swear for a machine that is so dead set on finding Emily, you sure like to find ways to be terminated.” He gave a small sigh knowing that there would be no talking the robot down “Alright… step on the platform and remain still.”

Alpha walked onto the platform and stood at the center while Professor Connor began typing in the coordinates. After a few minutes the edges of the platform began to glow, and as time passed the light began to grow brighter until electrical waves began to crackle around Alpha.

“Is this normal?” Alpha asked.

“Yes it’s all part of the process don’t worry.” He returned to the computer and monitored the readings as the machine began to illuminate with energy “Wait… something’s not right. The energy readings are off the charts, Alpha get out of there!”

Before Alpha or Connor could do anything, a wall of energy enveloped Alpha trapping him within. The energy wall obscured Connor’s view of Alpha as it grew stronger and brighter; as the platform continued powering up small fragments of metal and other objects began to be pulled into the energy field. Fearing that an explosion was imminent Connor tried to shut his invention down, but his fingers were zapped by jolts of energy from the keyboard. Everything was beginning to be pulled into the energy field as if pulled by an invisible tether; Professor Connor shut his eyes as he began to feel the field pull him towards it, expecting to feel himself disintegrate as soon as he touched the wall. Instead the energy dispersed and sent him and several objects flying into the walls; Connor shook his head and looked up to see that the energy field was gone… and so was Alpha.

Lyra Heartstrings walked casually through the outskirts of the everfree forest thinking about what she would do with the rest of her day. Bon Bon was working so she couldn’t do anything with her roommate and Twilight and the others were busy doing their own things. She huffed slightly out of boredom.

“Just once I’d like something interesting to happen without the world coming to an end.” She muttered thinking of the recent parasprite infestation they had a few weeks ago. “That was the last cake slice in the bakery, damn flying bugs, or whatever they were!” As she stood there still feeling slightly bitter she began to think back on her dreams of the humans and strange metal creatures. “I guess I’ll never know what those dreams meant, I mean it’s not like the answer is going to just appear out of nowhere.”

Suddenly there was bright flash and Lyra found herself being thrown back as a large explosion erupted a few feet away from her. As the explosion passed Lyra shook her head and was startled to see a large scorch mark between threes, She got onto her four hooves and trotted over cautiously to see something lying in the smoking crater. As the smoke cleared what Lyra saw made her gasp in surprise. On the ground was a strange creature with a metal head, it wore a green suit with boots on its feet and a large A was painted on its back. The creature wore clothing on its hands which she could not understand why it would. As she looked at its face, if she could call it that was a large single eye.

Lyra drew closer not believing that she was seeing the creature from her dreams, the one who had killed both humans and machines.

“H-hello… are… are you alright?” She asked it timidly. The creature didn’t move in any form, it didn’t even look like it was breathing. “I’ll go get you some help… don’t go anywhere!” Lyra ran back to Ponyville to get help from Twilight, she knew that if anypony would be interested in this creature, Twilight Sparkle would be that pony.