Chapter 1: Hi, My Name is Scootaloo!
You know, I never even saw most of the war! Yeah, before they started using megaspells to destroy each other, there was a zebra attack! Heh, the truth is, I never even saw that clock tower about to fall on me either!
Anyway, that was only the beginning of my story…
My name is Scootaloo… Or uh, it was! I haven’t heard that name in centuries! Or uh, I may have? A lot of things are unclear to me by now... Usually though, they scream at me now! Uh, I’m kinda scary to look at! You see, I’m not a normal pony…
The scariest thing about me is probably my right eye? I have a purple Mohawk mane-style and that doesn’t get in the way of the metal plate covering that area, but it’s only maybe a quarter of my face? The eye itself is now just a red glow behind a black panel… Other than that though, most of my face is still there! It’s burnt orange, by the way! Should probably mention that? The one eye that’s still there is purple... My body is a bit different too. I have a metal carapace over my pony frame! Well, that’s what the doctor called it. My legs are now purely mechanical and they’re made of a metal alloy. I gotta say, it’s pretty great not getting tired, anyway! I barely sleep anymore! I have metal wings at my sides with hinges that allow them to expand and contract into my body and these work together with the jet engine that now hums away as it expels more and more energy outward…
But all this isn’t nearly as strange as my new brain… My brain was damaged severely in the accident and now, there’s a small computer in my head, tracking down my thought processes and keeping a log… This is different… My mind is now abuzz with these strange algorithms and decision-making trees… Everything is now logical and methodical… This is not the same as before… The fusion reactor in my core works just fine off the rocks and assorted trash I feed it and the biological portions of my body no longer need food, since the reactor itself is what now pumps blood and sustains it… My new systems don’t really need anything… Or anypony…
I observed the sensor readings on my HUD as I cruised over the desert, when suddenly, I got something I hadn’t received in a very long time… A distress signal!
I looked at the readout popping up on the bottom right side of my overlay, “Whoa! I haven’t gotten one of these in a long time! Uh, at least twenty years! I think? Um…” I began reading the information displayed and determine that the signal must be coming from inside somewhere! “Well, it’s kinda hard to triangulate with only one detection point! I should just follow the signal and see where it gets really strong!” before adjusting my course in the air to fly further northeast at 37 degrees with my internal compass…
I got a lot of sensors now! I should tell you more about that too! Uh, later!
And so I adjusted my flight path slightly right over the barren desert as I looked down and saw lots of rocks and debris on the sandy surface of the scorched wasteland…
Suddenly, I hear the signal grow louder in my non-existent electronic hearing… I say to myself, “Well, it’s definitely closer now!” as I fly over the landscape…
Suddenly, something catches my eyes to the slight left! I see what looks like a hole in the ground and I can’t help but notice that the signal seems really strong here! I decide to investigate the hole after my mind computes that that is a likely spot… I sigh when I realize that like always, the machines in my head are probably right… 87% it says… And so, I began cruising down towards the obvious opening in the surface and the counter gets down to about 177 meters as I skid to a stop… Uh, make that 162 meters!
Anyway, I begin trotting towards it while listening to the signal in my mind’s hearing… It seems so loud and I briefly wonder if that would deafen me if I actually heard it? I decide to turn the signal down in my HUD and call out to the hole, “Is anypony there?”
I hear a feminine voice I haven’t heard in some time call back, “Uh, yeah! I’m trapped! Could you help me please? I promise I’m not a raider!”
As I continue to trot towards the hole, currently at 103 meters, “Oh, I’m not worried about that!”
The same voice I could swear I’ve heard before shouts back, “Oh? You must be loaded for bear then, right? That’s no problem ma’am! You’ll get no fight from me!”
From 61 meters away, I say back, “Well, I came here to check out a distress signal… I haven’t gotten one of those in about sixty years, or maybe longer? You must be pretty old!”
The voice is silent for a moment and as I approach the 43-meter mark, it says, “Well, I’ve been around for a while! Hey, you must have been too to be able to receive a signal like that! What did you say your name was?”
“I never said my name!” I say from 29 meters away.
“Well, what is it?”
I stop and widen my one eye when the thought finally crosses my mind, “Uh, I can’t remember? I know I have a name!”
“Well, look! I’m Twilight Sparkle! I’ll try to help you out as best I can, okay? We can be uh, friends, alright?”
I continue trotting towards it and at 22 meters away, I think to myself that I know that name from somewhere? I say back, “Well uh, alright!
“Okay, good! I know you’re getting really close now! I can hear you!” She says from a mere 12 meters away and I now see the large hole in the earth…
I finally reach the side of it and look down… I see a purple alicorn there, trapped! She is about twice my size and a boulder seems to have fallen onto both her hind legs and it looked like she was trying to crawl out with her mechanical wings, painted a brilliant purple color, undoubtedly to match her purple hide. She had metal portions built into her shoulders and I could tell that her legs were not exactly normal. She had on what resembled a steel tiara that didn’t jut out the top of her head and her purple eyes glowed with a magenta light behind them…
She widens her glowing eyes as she stares at me above her in the opening as I gazed down, “Scootaloo?”
I widen my eyes again, “Uh, oh hey! Yeah! That’s my name! My name is Scootaloo! Yes!”
“Sweet Celestia, Scootaloo!” She raises her head and says in an official sounding voice, “New rule: nopony I knew in the past gets to be rebuilt as cyborgs! Uh,” she affixes her gaze back to me. “Except you obviously! What the hay Scoots?How are you still alive?”
“Uh, maybe I should rescue you first, Twilight?” I reply as I’m still not exactly sure where I know this pony from?”
She frowns, “Oh uh, right! Uh, how are you gonna do that?”
I smirk, “Well, if you give me four or five seconds, I can charge the capacitor and blast it with an energy bolt from my eye? Little upgrade they installed after the bombs fell! They said since the world was ending, I should be able to defend myself!”
“Oh, wow! They really took care of you!”
As the energy begins to fill the cell inside my back, I say, “Well, I was a Crusader, but they still didn’t let me into a stable? They said my armor and weapons would protect me and that place was best reserved for somepony else...”
She frowns again, “That sucks!”
“Okay! Hold on and don’t move!” I say to her as I lock onto the rock currently crushing her left hind leg. I then send a red energy bolt at it as the laser fires at its target…
The boulder explodes as she (cutely) shrieks! “AAH!”
I smile when I remember that same adorable scream from somewhere and say, “You’re cute when you scream!”
She stares at me and shakes her head, “Well, yeah! Anyway, so uh, how are you alive again? I thought you died in a zebra attack early in the war?”
I widen my eyes at her, “Oh uh, well they cryogenically froze me!”
She frowns, “Okay uh, that still doesn’t explain the metal legs or the laser cannon?”
I smile, “Well, they unfroze me when it became apparent that the world was about to end! And then, they began to rebuild me underground! Yeah, the bunker only lasted maybe two years because it wasn’t a proper stable, but what can I say? The new me is built to last! Uh,” I squint my eyes at her. “I keep thinking I know you from somewhere?”
Her plastic lenses enlarge, “You don’t recognize me? I’m Twilight Sparkle! I was Celestia’s prized pupil and about to become Princess of Equestria when the bombs dropped!”
“Oh, man! Think I’d remember something like that?”
She stares at me intently in her mechanical gaze, “Uh, exactly how much of you has been rebuilt, Scootaloo?”
I shake my head, “I really didn’t see that coming until later?”
She starts, “What?”
“Well, I meant talking about my brain… It’s improbable that you would discover that part of my brain is a computer this early…”
She stares at me intently, “Improbable? Uh, Scootaloo! You really don’t remember me?”
I frown, “No… I-I’m sorry, but I lost so much and while the name rings a bell, I can’t quite place you?”
That’s when she did something that hadn’t been done to me in a very long time… She trotted up to me and gave me a hug!” I can almost feel her warmth underneath my armor… It feels nice…
(To be continued…)
