Pain.

That was all #0032541 felt. Pure, unclouded pain. It’s accelerometers told it it was falling, but that didn’t matter. It felt like every atom of it’s body was burning in nuclear fire. Perhaps they were. It couldn’t tell. Slowly, the pain started to fade, and it could start to think straight. It had been on an invasion force to an odd planet. The planet was a geocentric one, with a small star orbiting around the ball of rock itself, rather than the opposite. Dalek scanners had displayed that the planet was inhabited, so they had set out to exterminate whatever lived there. But when they had arrived, the small sun had fired a solar flare at them, burning the Dalek saucer out of the sky. Apparently, #0032541 had somehow survived. And it was now falling towards the planet’s surface. With this realized, #0032541 did the logical thing.

It screamed.

It screamed and screamed and screamed, as loud as it possibly could. Only to be cut off, with an impact. And the dalek lay silent.

“What do you think it could have been?” Rarity asked, as she and her friends walked. All of Ponyville had seen it: the shooting star in broad daylight, and all had heard the screaming. The terrible screaming, that sounded like whoever it was was burning and drowning both at once. The great crash, as whatever it was slammed into the ground. The fires that had burst to life around the crash site, the same fires the Main 6 were currently walking towards.
“I don’t know, but whoever it was, we have to help them!” Twilight replied. She was leading the group, having been the only one to somewhat accurately tell where the thing had landed, having been watching the skies through her telescope. Suddenly, they reached the top of the small hill they had been climbing, and they saw it. A great wound in the earth, fires all around it, and in the centre, what they had been searching for.
It had the appearance of a large, bronze, metal cylinder, just big enough to fit a small pony inside. About half was covered in small domes, golden in color. The other end had another dome covering the top, with lights sticking out like ears. On the midsection were two appendages, which had the appearance of… A toilet plunger and an egg whisk? On the dome with lights, there was another jutting stick, this one with a blue light on the end. The entire contraption was lying on what they assumed to be it’s side, the three appendages hanging limp.
Rainbow Dash took a step forwards.
The stick with the blue light suddenly swivelled to look at her, like an eye, the entire dome it was attached to moving with it. The ponies jumped, Rainbow moving back into a defensive stance. The small, egg whisk like arm twitched, a second passed, and then it spoke. The lights on top lit up, and the same gargling, almost mechanical voice they had heard screaming earlier emitted from the device.

“Who… Are… You…?”

0032541 was confused. It wasn’t dead? How was that possible? It must have fallen from orbit! A sound caught it’s attention, and it tried to swivel it’s eyestalk to see. To it’s delight, it succeeded.

Wait. Delight? Daleks were only supposed to delight in extermination. How could it gain one of the only two emotions it could feel from such a simple task? It decided to file this away for later, as in it’s vision it saw six very interesting beings in it’s vision. It questioned why it found them interesting, as again that was not a dalek emotion, but no matter. It would exterminate them, as they were obviously inferior, repair itself, and then cleanse this world of the filth that dotted it’s surface. #0032541 tried to move it’s gunstick to fire at the beings… And failed. Something was holding it back. It tried again, in vain. It was starting to feel scared now. Scared? What were these emotions? They were non-dalek! What was going on?

0032541 firmly buried those thoughts, to figure out later. It decided that if it’s gunstick was damaged, it could at least talk to these beings and keep them here while it restored it’s weapon. And so, it croaked out a query.

“Who… Are… You…?”
The purple alien blinked, with it’s impossibly large eyes (Surely it couldn’t have space for a brain?), before it replied. “What?”
Ah, so they were sapient. Good. It would make their extermination more fun.
“I… asked a… question. Who… are you?” #0032541 asked again.
“Well…” The pink one stepped forward. #0032541 swivelled it’s eyestalk to look at it, then immediately regretted it as half it’s scanners produced error messages. It moved it’s scanners to cover the group as a whole. They were all emanating with an odd energy, that the scanners identified as a kind of harmless radiation. It decided to further the scan afterwards, as the pink one had continued talking.
“I’m Pinkie Pie, that’s Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, and Fluttershy!” She described, gesturing to each one as she said their names. If #0032541 could snort, it would have. Such un-dalek names!
But of course they’d be un-dalek. These weren’t daleks. Why would it have expected otherwise? It turned it’s attention back to the aliens.
“And what’s yer name?” ‘Applejack’ asked, stepping forwards away from the others. She leant down to stare #0032541 in the eyestalk.
“I am Dalek Zero-zero-three-two-five-four-one.” The dalek responded, the auto-repair function having managed to heal the voice modulator back to normal levels. Pinkie Pie started muttering, as the others gained confused expressions.
“Darling, that’s a number, not a name!” Rarity exclaimed. She looked as though she was going to say more, before #0032541 cut her off.
“Daleks have no need of names.”
Twilight Sparkle looked at #0032541 curiously. “So, you have designations, not names… Are you automatrons? Or is there some kind of creature inside that thing?”
"I am a cyborg." #0032541 replied. Twilight Sparkle seemed visibly excited by this.
"A cyborg? So there is something organic in there... Are you able to open the device, or is it fused?" She inquired.
Now #0032541 was seriously confused. It wanted to open it’s casing, and ask for help from these beings (Which it’s databanks showed bore a strong resemblance to Earth ‘ponies’). But no dalek would ever do that, even in a case of life or death! What was wrong with it? But even as it thought this, it’s psychic connections activated on their own. “I will open my casing. I will need your help to move the panels. First, you will need to lift me upright.” #0032541 was screaming at itself, shrieking that even suicide would be better than this. These new emotions, however, beat that side down using… a lollipop? The dalek dismissed the mental image as suddenly it’s scanners went haywire. Twilight Sparkle’s horn-like appendage was glowing with a purple light, and the scanners indicated this area of her skull was currently overflowing with the mysterious radiation. A purple glow enveloped #0032541’s vision. It’s altimeters informed it that it was levitating into the air, despite the gravity repulsors being completely offline. It was set down, upright as asked for, and spoke after a moment.
“What was that?”
Twilight Sparkle blinked at it again, the glow fading from her horn, and replied with a slow “Magic.”
“Daleks have no concept of magic. I repeat, what was that?” #0032541 was utterly astounded at this ability being displayed, but refused to show it.
“Magic.” Twilight Sparkle repeated. “I’m sorry if you have no concept of magic, but that’s what it was. I’m sure we can talk about it later, but didn’t you say you were going to open your casing?”

0032541 dismissed the topic of ‘magic’, agreeing that getting fully operational was indeed the priority. It activated the opening mechanism.

The group was startled, as a loud hissing of steam was heard. The dalek’s front side shifted, revealing several visible seams. Remembering that it had said it would require their assistance, Twilight took one of the panels in her magic and shifted it to the side, all the others moving aside with it. The being inside, however, was not what they were expecting. A loud “Urk!” was heard from behind, as Rarity fought back the urge to vomit, and a squeak came from Fluttershy as she tried to turn herself into a singularity by sheer will.
Within the casing of the dalek was a small fleshy mass. It had the vague appearance of a brain with tentacles and a single eye, and had wires and tubing piercing into it's body, connecting it to it’s shell. The only pony interested was Twilight, as Pinkie was still muttering to herself. Twilight looked at the being sitting in the opened chamber, blinked, and asked “Where’s your mouth?”
“I do not have one. The psychic connectors relay the thoughts I wish to vocalize.” It gestured to a pair of wires leading up into the ‘head’ with one of it’s tentacles, as the wires lit up in correspondence with the voice, much like the earlights had. Twilight seemed satisfied by this, sat back on her haunches, and bluntly stated “I have so many questions, but now’s not the time. Let’s help you out.”

0032541 was feeling ecstatic. These ponies had foolishly helped repair and heal it, and now it was ready to continue it’s mission. The extermination of all inferior lifeforms. It raised it’s gunstick at the ponies, began diverting power to the device… And failed again. What? It had been completely and utterly repaired! Nothing could prevent the device from firing aside from a physical blockade or a disconnection, and neither of those were present. It tried to use the manipulator arm to latch onto Twilight Sparkle’s skull and crush it, but that refused to extend as well. What was going on? #0032541 ran a full systems check while the ponies watched, afraid. The check came up negative. Nothing was wrong. The dalek did it again. And again. And again. All had the same result. Now, #0032541 was scared. It was more than scared, it was terrified. Why weren’t it’s weapons functioning? It ran the check again and again and again, before finally screaming “Why are my weapons non-functional?!”

The ponies stopped. There was silence, aside from Pinkie’s mutterings. Finally, Fluttershy spoke for the first time.

“W-w-weapons?”