I woke up in a dark room. There was nopony anywhere. I didn't even know where I was. All I could feel was a mattress beneath myself. I pressed down on my command key and entered my subspace.

Me: AI Are you there?

Yes Sweetie Bot! What's wrong?

Me: Don't play dumb. You know what's wrong.

Sadly, I do not. When you ran out of battery, I could no longer function.

Me: Shit! How are we going to get out of this mess?

First of all, watch your language, second of all, I have no idea. Do you have any commands that might help?

Me: I downloaded them all. Remember?

Check your memory and see if there's anything that might help you figure out where we are.

I nodded and looked back to the keyboard. Run: "Mem"

A big screen popped up in front of me. I began searching through recent memory files. I began seeing multiple files pop up at once. It seems my AI is looking to.

Sweetie Bot! I think I found something!

Me: What is it?

On the screen in front of me, an image opened of the note that Rarity had stored in my right forehoof.

Me: What about it?

This note says "I can tell you the basics." Maybe there are more complicated commands or components that the note didn't specify!

Me: AI! You're a genius!

I am here to serve you.

Show: "Recognized_Components"

The usual screen popped up and I started scrolling through all of the components. Mostly hard drives and backups but I saw one component that caught my eye.

Me: Should I try using my thermal cams to see if anypony else is around?

I think that would be most wise.

Run: "EXIT"

**********

I tapped my command key Run: "Heat"

I instantly blinked as my camera turned blue. I didn't see much this way. I looked to my right and saw a big mass of red and orange. I walked over to it. I touched it with caution completely forgetting that I was made of metal and wouldn't feel it even if it were hot.

That's right. It wasn't hot. It was cold and most definitely was made of metal. Is this some sort of Pipe? Or boiler?

Maybe I'm in some sort of basement?

I hear a door open from above me. I rushed back to the bed and tucked myself in. Run: "Heat" My cams turned off and I closed my eyes.

I heard a voice that sounded like Rarity. "Oh Sweetie Bot. I never meant for anything like this to happen."

I opened my eyes and looked around. I still couldn't see Rarity but I definitely heard her. "R-Rarity?"

I almost heard her gasp of shock. "Sweetie Bot! Come with me!"

I felt a hoof take mine and it guided me up a set of stairs and opened a door. I saw a blinding flash of light as I saw that I was in the main room of the carousel boutique. I looked behind myself to see Rarity shutting the door. She then proceeded to push one of her oversize mirrors in front of it.

"What happened?"

Rarity looked at me, concerned. "Y-You don't remember?"

I shake my head and Rarity begins pacing around. "This is not good! Sweetie Bot! You killed Diamond Tiara!"

I smile. "Oh yeah! I definitely remember that part. Honestly, those were some great times. I mean, since when does this place have a basement. And how did I get down there?"

Rarity looked at me. She started saying, "Do you remember how I always tell you I was in a war?" I nod. "Well, this place used to be a hidden base for the resistance. The only pony who still knows about it is Applejack. I figured it would be the perfect place to hide you. Ponies are really scared Sweetie Bot. You have to stay here for a while. Ponies already stormed my boutique looking for you once. Who knows if they'll do it again?"

I nod slowly. "To be fair, she totally deserved it."

Rarity turned around. "That doesn't matter! You murdered a child Sweetie Bot! You should have told another mare! It's bad enough I had to waste materials replacing your eye. If this all blows over, you are no longer allowed to fight. Even if you were provoked."

"But Rarity, she was going to kill me!"

"She can't kill you Sweetie Bot! You aren't alive! As much as I wish you were, you aren't!" Rarity sighed and lowered her voice. "There's a trial tomorrow. You aren't going. I'm going to fight on your behalf. Don't even think about leaving. I have this entire house under lock-down. I also disabled your weapon system. I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I gave it to you."

I sighed and looked down. "I-I-"

Rarity looked up. "What?"

"I'm sorry Rarity. I nev_r _eant Fo_ T_is To H_ppen."

Rarity threw her hooves in the air. "Great! You're still broken!" She softened her voice again. "Okay listen. I'm going to give you a few more upgrades. Just in case we lose the trial tomorrow. But for now, I'm shutting you down." I felt her reach her hoof around my mane and shut me off.

**********

This next part I don't tell you from experience. This part was told to me by Rarity. When she returned, she detailed the entire trial for me. I sometimes struggle to remember some details but I will tell you what I can.

**********

"All rise for the honorable Judge Water Lily!"

The judge stepped into the room and everypony proceeded to sit down. The judge then spoke, "We are here today regarding the unfortunate murder of Miss Diamond Tiara. While the perpetrator is not present herself, her... shall we say, creator is here on her behalf. Miss Rarity, do you have anything you wish to clarify to the court?"

"Yes you honor." Rarity stood. " I did not bring Sweetie Bot with me today. I believed it would cause to much distress to the court."

"And why is that?"

"Everypony seems to be a tad bit afraid of her at the moment."

"Well, in all honesty Miss Rarity, if I saw a pony draw two guns out of its side I probably would not want to be near it either."

"Hence, the reason I did not bring Sweetie Bot before the jury today."

The judge cleared her throat. "Miss Rarity, as it stands, many ponies are beginning to accuse you of this murder."

A look of shock made its way across Rarity's face. "Why me, your honor?"

"Is it not true that you were the creator of this, Sweetie Bot?"

Rarity put a hoof up. "While it is true that I created her, I programmed her with extremely powerful AI and many different data processors. By the time I was finished creating her, she more or less had free will."

"And why is it, Miss Rarity, that you felt it necessary to give a child a weapon system?"

"Well, your honor, I gave it to her for very extreme circumstances."

"Elaborate please?"

"I lived through the war, your honor. I know how dangerous things can get. I figured if something like that should happen again, Sweetie Bot should be able to defend herself. As it stands now, her weapons system has been disabled."

"If it was this easy to disable the weapon system, why not do it before?"

"There was no need. I would like to present something to the court."

Water Lily put her hoof forward. "By all means."

Rarity pulled out a mess of wires and a motherboard connected to a switch.

Water Lily was unimpressed. "What is this mess of trash?"

Rarity smiled. "This 'mess of garbage' as you have called it, is actually a key component in Sweetie Bot's childhood. This switch would activate her pony camouflage. It gave her realistic, elastic skin and fake fur. I had this switch activated for about 150 moons. She lived the first 150 moons of her life completely oblivious to the fact that she was a robot."

"What alerted her to this fact?"

"Well, it was my intention to never let her find out. I created her to be as perfectly lifelike as possible. But, she did figure this fact out when she attempted to go swimming at the beach a few moons ago."

"I see what you're saying Miss Rarity. But how can we be aware that this isn't just some sort of junk you found at a thrift shop. Is there any proof that this story is real?"

Rarity nodded. "I would like to call forward a witness."

Water Lily nodded. "Go ahead."

"I would like to call forward Apple Bloom."

**********

"Witness, please state your name and occupation please."

"Apple Bloom. I work at Sweet Apple Acres under the supervision of Applejack." Water Lilly nodded and Rarity began to question Apple Bloom.

"Apple Bloom, can you please tell us exactly what happened at the beach?"

Apple Bloom nodded and began. "Sweetie Bot, Scootaloo and I were at the beach celebrating Sweetie Bot's birthday. There was nopony else there. I actually found it a little strange but the beach is a little ways away from Ponyville so I can maybe see why. We were calling Sweetie Bot towards the water. She was nervous because she recalled a time when she was forty when she felt funny after getting in the water."

Water Lily put a hoof up to stop Apple Bloom. "You all didn't question why she remembered some random event from 110 moons ago?"

"Never crossed our minds, your honor. I remember breaking my right forehoof when I was around that age. I remember that it hurt pretty badly. Maybe the water hurt Sweetie so much that she couldn't forget it. Now I realize it was because she can't forget anything involuntarily."

Water Lily nodded. "Okay. Please continue with your testimony, witness."

Apple Bloom nodded and continued. "She began walking into the water. Nothing about her hooves or legs bothered her. I believe when we got back, Rarity mentioned that they were waterproofed when she was younger." Apple Bloom looked over to Rarity and Rarity nodded. "She reached her underbelly and sparks began shooting out of her body."

Water Lily held up another hoof. "Were you all in the water before this?"

"Me and Scootaloo were."

"Then why were you both not electrocuted?"

"Because most of the sparks shot out of her horn and the rest out of her back. neither of those were connected with the water. Before the rest of her body could short circuit, Scootaloo pulled me out of the water and flew towards the shore. When Sweetie Bot had gone dead, Scootaloo flew over to her and pulled her back to the shore."

"Then what?"

"We noticed her skin felt strange and so we started looking around her body. We noticed a door on her underbelly. After opening it, we noticed that our friend was a robot. After emptying her body of all of the water, we all walked back to Rarity's boutique to try to get some answers."

Rarity raised a hoof. "I can confirm that they did this."

Water Lily nodded. "Okay. Apple Bloom, unless there is more to your story, you may step down." Apple Bloom nodded and walked down from the stand. Water Lily looked back at Rarity. "So we've confirmed our story that Sweetie Bot and everypony else had no idea she was a robot until this moment. Now to my next question. How was this self-defense system activated?"

"Sweetie Bot has a command Key on the back of her hoof. She can press it to activate commands to show off her... abilities."

"Such as?"

"Thermal cameras, Data analysis, X-rays. Things like that."

"I see. All abilities to help the robot have an easier life."

Rarity nodded and continued. "One of these commands was called "Defense" This is the command that would activate her self defense systems. I am under the impression she used this command against Diamond Tiara. I did warn her not to use it lightly. I was aware of what the defenses were."

Water Lily looked confused. "You didn't feel the need to tell your artificial child that she had weapons hiding inside her?"

Rarity nodded, looking guilty. "I didn't want her to worry about it."

Water Lily nodded. "Was Sweetie Bot aggravated in a dangerous enough way to activate these defenses?"

"I believe she was. I would like to call another witness. I call Scootaloo to the stand."

**********

"Witness, please state your name and occupation."

"My name is Scootaloo. I do not work and live under the supervision of Rainbow Dash, who recently adopted me."

"Understood. Please go on with your testimony."

"O-Okay. Sweetie Bot had just been given x-ray vision by Rarity."

Water Lily immediately put up a hoof. She turned to Rarity. "This x-ray vision was a new addition?"

"Yes. She asked for it and I felt like I owed it to her for lying for so long."

"Do you know why she wanted it?"

Rarity shook her head. "I have no idea, your honor."

Scootaloo raised a hoof. "I can tell you!"

Water Lily Turned back. "Go on?"

"We had the idea of x-ray vision after seeing how she could run a data analysis."

"Okay? How did this turn into x-ray vision?"

"She ran an anlysis on me and noticed a 'red spot' on my wing. There was nothing there but her sensors were showing her that I was hurt. We thought that if she could already see that I was hurt, she would be able to save us a lot of trips to the hospital if she could x-ray us to see if we had broken bones."

"Exactly how many trips to the x-ray room have you made?"

"Too many to count. The number has only gone up over the past few years. We run a group called The Cutie Mark Crusader and we help ponies try things we think they would like to help them find their special talents. We do some... ahem... pretty dangerous things."

"I see. Thank you for clarifying. Please continue with the original testimony."

"Yes, your honor. She had just showed us her x-ray vision and we were so excited we began jumping up and down. We then saw Sweetie's eyes go red as Diamond Tiara began throwing rocks at her."

"OBJECTION!"

This was the first time the prosecution had actually spoken throughout the entire trial. They said it was some sort of tactic to let the judge question and for them to sit around gathering as much information as possible. I don't quite understand it but I guess it makes a little sense.

The prosecution was Diamond Tiara's mother. She continued, "My daughter would never do something like that. Miss Cheerilee can tell you that she was a perfect student."

"OBJECTION!" Rairty yelled back. "Actually, Sweetie Bot told me a story a little while back that your daughter did in fact get detention for bullying. Looking back through school records would tell you the exact same thing."

Water Lily rolled her eyes. "We can get to that all in a little bit. Witness, please continue your testimony."

"Sweetie Bot walked over to Diamond Tiara and they began circling each other and Diamond Tiara was taunting Sweetie. Diamond then pounced on Sweetie and knocked her over."

"OBJECTION! My daughter would never do something like that either!"

Water Lily smacked her gavel against her table. "I would like to request that the prosecution keep personal bias out of the court. Whether this story is or is not true, we will prove that in a little bit. First we will finish with the testimony."

Diamond Tiara's mom sank back in her chair a little bit and Scootaloo continued. "It was completely out of nowhere. Diamond began beating the shit out of Sweetie Bot."

"OBJECTION! Your honor! The witness should not be allowed to use language like this."

Water Lily nodded. "Miss Scootaloo. Please refrain from using such vulgar language."

Scootaloo looked down. "I apologize, your honor. I got a little carried away. Anyways, She stopped for a second and Sweetie Bot said something I couldn't hear from how far away I was. I saw some more punches get thrown and I heard glass shattering. Sweetie Bot threw Diamond off of her and stood up. When she looked over to me, one of her eyes had been broken and the sensors underneath were looking around wildly. I then heard her sides open and watched the guns come out. As much as I hate to say it, Sweetie Bot did shoot the victim. Her battery died soon after that. Before the riots could start, I picked her up and flew her to Carousel Boutique where Rarity took her in."

"I see. Is that all?"

"I do wonder," Scootaloo started saying while tuning to Rarity. "How did her battery die? She was supposed to have about 36 hours and even after a power surge like that, she should have had plenty of battery."

"I know. That fact has been troubling me too." Rarity said.

The prosecution stood up again. "I still maintain that my daughter would not do anything like this! I want proof."

The judge stood. "We will delay the proceedings of this court for another day. Miss Rarity, please gather evidence that the victim has a record of being a bully and that Sweetie Bot did not in fact know of this weapon system."

"Yes ma'am."

Diamond's mother was fuming. She was clearly hoping for justice to be served today. The judge raised her gavel and said,

"Court adjourned."

(To Be Continued...)

Author's Note

I took a lot of inspiration from the way court proceeds in ace attorney for this chapter as a little reference to elements of justice. I hope you enjoyed.