Princess Luna turned toward her sister when she heard her call. She turned back to the ponies. “Perhaps you would like to accompany me,” she asked them.

“Iffn’ you don’t mind,” Applejack answered.

“Yes, please,” Rarity said giving Applejack a slight frown. “We’d like to make sure Twilight is fine.”

Princess Luna nodded and led the group closer to Twilight. As they got closer, they could see something strange was going on with the lavender unicorn. Her ears, eyes, muscles, and various portions of her skin were all twitching.

“Why is she twitching like that,” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Systems test,” Princess Celestia answered.

“She really is Robomare,” squealed Rainbow Dash.

“Hush,” Rarity hissed at Rainbow. “Twilight does not need to hear that when she wakes up.”

Rainbow opened her mouth to reply but was silenced when two . . . things ripped out of Twilight’s barrel in a spray of blood. There was one on each side of Twilight. They were suspended from a frame protruding from inside Twilight. The rear part was bigger around than Princess Celestia’s upper foreleg and had cables running back into the lavender unicorn. Extending from that was a series of seven tubes arranged in a circle. There was no way they could have fit into Twilight. But everypony present could see that they had come out of the mare.

Before anypony could do anything, the tubes started spinning. Once they were up to speed, lavender beams shot out of the tubes and blew holes through the stone wall in front of Twilight. Jaws gaping, the group could only stare.

“That was so awesome,” squealed Rainbow Dash.

Applejack slapped the blue pegasus on the back of her head. “Ya darn idiot,” she said. “Jus’ think whut would have happen’ if’n that was you instead of the wall.”

“Um, that would have been bad,” Rainbow admitted.

“Ya darn right!”

“What were those things,” Rarity asked the princess as the strange devices withdrew into Twilight’s body.

“They were very scary,” Fluttershy said from behind Rarity.

“I don’t’ know,” Princess Luna said. “She has never displayed such an ability before. Celestia, you know more about Twilight than I do. Do you have any idea what that was?”

“I’m still working on how they fit in her,” a wide-eyed Celestia said. “There wasn’t any sign of spatial folding inside Twilight! I’m not even sure that can be done inside a living being!”

“No spatial folding,” Luna asked her sister.

Princess Celestia shook her head.

“Pocket dimension?”

Head shake.

“Portals?”

Head shake.

“Shrinking spell?”

Head shake.

“Internal saddlebags of holding,” Luna asked desperately.

Celestia gave the dark pony a look. “Now you’re just being silly.”

“Well, Star Swirl swore it was only a matter of time before he would get those to work,” Luna said sullenly.

“You know the last time he tried that spell; the saddlebags sucked the pony they were in inside themselves,” Celestia pointed out.

“Item Tester was never the same again,” Luna sadly said.

“He never did trust saddlebags after that,” Celestia said. Both princesses gave a sigh. The watching ponies gave them worried, and slightly confused looks. Except for Rarity. She gave the sisters a slightly frightened look. She had heard rumors of about some of Star Swirl the Bearded’s experiments. She had always thought the internal saddlebags of holding were a joke. If those were real, what other of his experiments were real? That was something she didn’t want to know.

~ * ~

Twilight stared impatiently at the blue field. In every direction, all she could see was blue. Blue with text scrolling up. Normally, she didn’t mind the blue field. She always learned something new about herself when it appeared. Right now, she was in a hurry. The last thing she remembered was fighting Nightmare Moon. Then she was here. She knew this was a system reboot. She had been through a few of those before. Always after something had gone wrong. This time, though, she feared the worst.

She feared that her and her newfound friends lost to Nightmare Moon.

Twilight wanted to pace. But that was impossible. She didn’t have a body to pace with. She would have growled in frustration, but she knew from experience that there wouldn’t be any noise. The only thing she could do was wait. That and read the text. With an inaudible sigh, Twilight started reading the text. It was the only thing she could do to distract herself from the wait.

It didn’t take her long to discover there was more text than usual. There was a perfectly good reason for it too. Before, most of the entries had either ‘Error’ or ‘Not Found’ written beside them. Now, there were entire pages of text. Some of the entries led to more text. If it weren’t for her situation, Twilight would have spent hours days just reading. It looked like everything she wanted to know about what happened to her was here. All she had to do was read. She had no problem reading.

The more Twilight read, the more excited she became. The answers she wanted were here. The devices inside of her kept a log of everything they did to her since she was a filly. That was one of the answers she wanted. She saw that her skeleton was now comprised entirely of metal. There was more metal in her nervous system as well. While the system didn’t recognize the two metals, from the properties listed, Twilight could guess which they were. She still was going to confirm it as soon as she could. Professors Loose Screw and Spring Loaded were going to be so excited.

Twilight saw something that made her pause. She was surprised when the text stopped scrolling. That had never happened before. Usually, the text kept moving despite her wishes. Putting the question of the text aside, Twilight went back to her objective.

“I have defensive and offensive systems,” Twilight asked in shock. With her big brother, Shining Armor, being the captain of the Solar Guard, she knew what ‘defensive’ and ‘offensive’ meant. ‘Systems,’ as she was coming to understand it, meant the devices inside her. Even though she had had them inside her for years, Twilight worried about the things inside her. Now she had more reasons to worry. She never expected to have devices of war inside her. She doubted anypony did.

Twilight tried to puzzle out what some of the things meant. Under defensive systems, she found armor, power armor, and armor plating. There was also anti-personnel anti-vehicle ordinance. “Okay,” Twilight told herself. “I know what armor is and that lets me guess at armor plating. But what the hay was power armor?”

Even with what she learned studying herself, Twilight couldn’t figure it out. She knew about enchanted armor. Everypony knew that enchanting armor made it stronger and more resistant to wear and tear. And it made the armor more comfortable to wear. Something which the guards much appreciated. If the enchanter was particularly good, they could add some special enhancements like fire or ice resistance. With a mental shrug, Twilight decided to wait until she could talk to the princesses and moved on. She didn’t move far. The next thing she looked at was the offensive systems list.

Twilight’s eyes would have widened if they could, there were so many entries. She didn’t know where to start. She saw things called particle cannons, ion cannons, and mortars. She saw missile launcher, rocket launchers, and something called a S.A.M. Torpedoes, railguns, grenade launchers, and miniguns. Her mind was whirling with all the names. The only thing she knew about these things was that they were weapons of some sort. Not all the same type of weapon either. She knew this because some of them, like the S.A.M., had notes beside them. The note said that the weapon was only useable in battle mode.

With her curiosity driving her, Twilight mentally reached out to one of the weapons. She chose the thaumic enhanced miniguns. She knew the word ‘mini’ meant small, so whatever a gun was, it had to be small. And she knew that ‘thaumic’ meant magic. Whatever these miniguns were, they were enhanced with magic. The file for the miniguns opened. Inside, Twilight found schematics for a device more complicated than any she had ever seen. It was almost as complicated as some of the more advanced magic formulas she had studied. As she studied the schematics, Twilight started wondering what this minigun did. Shortly after that, she received an alert.

“Weapons test: thaumic enhanced minigun,” the alert read. “Beginning test. Deploying miniguns.”

“Weapons test?” Twilight said. “The miniguns are weapons?”

“Miniguns successfully deployed. Firing miniguns.”

“What? No, no, no, no. Stop!”

“Test firing complete. Securing weapons.”

Twilight didn’t know what to do. She triggered a weapons test and she didn’t even know what the weapons were. Or what they did. Hopefully, nopony was standing in front of her. She didn’t want to hurt anypony. Worried about who she may have hurt, Twilight decided to wait until she was back with the professors and doctors before she tried to figure out what the rest of these things were.

Of course, that didn’t stop her from reading. Nor did it stop her from making mental notes of things to come back to.

Some time later, Twilight was never sure how long, the blue field flickered and Twilight found herself blinking. When her vision cleared, she was looking at the princesses. “Welcome back,” Princess Celestia said.

“Nightmare Moon,” Twilight asked.

“Unfortunately, she did not survive your encounter,” Princess Luna said.

Suddenly a blue Pegasus with a rainbow mane filled Twilight’s sight. “Forget that,” she said. “You’re Robomare!”

Before Twilight could make a reply, an orange hoof grabbed the mare. “Get over here, ya idjiot,” the owner cried. “She just woke up! Give her some space.”

Twilight turned to follow the voice and found her new friends standing with the princesses. “Girls! You’re alright! I was worried about you.”

“We’re fine, darling,” Rarity said.

“You were all ‘You won’t hurt my friends’ then we got all glowy,” Pinkie said. “Then these things popped out of your sides and you made Black Snooty taste the rainbow!”

“Yeah! Wait. What?” Rainbow Dash said. “She did not taste me!” Her cheeks were flushed pink. Everypony stared awkwardly at the pink and blue mares.

Rarity cleared her throat. “Darling, if you would be so kind, could you tell us just what came out of the sides of your barrel and how they got in there?”

“And are you okay,” Fluttershy quietly asked. “They looked like they hurt.”

“Ooh, how much of you is machine,” Rainbow excitedly asked.

Twilight looked at her new friends for a moment. Then turned to look at the princesses. They each gave her a small nod. “I’ll tell you more later,” Twilight said. “But for now, there are machines in every part of me except my mane, tail, and horn.”

Everypony’s jaw dropped. Even the jaws of the two princesses. “W-what,” Princess Celestia asked.

“But most of that is new,” Twilight continued. “The machines inside of me tell me that new stuff was install. New ‘hardware’ and ‘software’, whatever they are.” She looked at the confused look on her new friends faces.

“Now let me get this straight,” Applejack said. “Ya say ya have machines inside ya. Actual machines, like the Friendship Express?”

“Yes.”

“But the pony express is huge,” shouted Pinkie. “How can something so big fit into a pony? But what if she isn’t a pony?” She gasped. “What if she’s a space alien come to take over?”

“Oh no,” Fluttershy moaned from behind a surprised Princess Luna. Luna turned confused eyes toward her sister. Celestia just shrugged. She didn’t know what the pink mare was doing either.

“Pinkie don’t be ridiculous,” Applejack said. “Of course, she’s a pony. Whut Ah’d like to know is how those things got inta her in the first place.”

“Um,” Twilight said. “They were built there.”

“What,” they all chorused.

“According to the machine’s records,” Twilight said. “They been inside me, slowly growing ever since I was a filly. I’m not sure if I’m reading the time correctly, but it looks like they first showed up about a month before I took my examination.”

“That mysterious illness you had for a week,” Princess Celestia said. “The doctor never did fine a cause for that.”

Twilight nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. We can talk about how they got in me later, when the professors and doctors are with us.”

“Of course,” Princess Celestia agreed. “In that case, we should start back. I’m sure the captain of the Solar Guard and the captain of the Lunar Guard are worried about us. We haven’t contacted them yet.”

Princess Luna walked to the puddle of black goo that was all that was left of Nightmare Moon. After staring for a moment, she lit her horn and pulled the armor out. With a sigh she returned to the others.

Twilight looked up at Princess Luna. “I’m sorry, Princess,” she said. “I couldn’t save her.”

“Do not worry, Twilight,” Luna answered. “My sister and I discussed this outcome. We were not sure she could have been saved. We do thank you for trying though. It shows that you are a good pony.”

“I still wish I could have saved her,” Twilight said as she lowered her head.

“I know, Twilight,” Princess Celestia said as she put a wing over Twilight. “We wish that you could have as well. But even the Elements have their limits.”

“Begging your pardon,” Rarity said. “But who was Nightmare Moon?”

“She was my shadow,” Princess Luna quietly said.

Author's Note

And here's chapter 2! Thank you for waiting. Hopefully I continue to entertain you. Chapter 3 will be along eventually.