Twilight yelps backward as Starlight summons a shield on the two of them. Starlight stares down the machine, glaring into it’s vibrant Yellow lens. Twilight soon regains her composure standing up and charging her magic in turn with a powerful spell, thinking of how she could've let this happen all the while. “The ROM needs to boot off was completely unresponsive to any voltage I had supplied to it!! How is it even up?! Perhaps I missed a-”

Starlight stops twilight in her tracks. “Twi! We know nothing about this thing! There’s nothing like this in the human world from what I know and you expect it to work in the same way??”

As the two continue to argue the machine quietly taps the shield gently in curiosity. Feeling magic arc into it’s finger. It records the unique energy readings it is giving off, unlike anything in its pre-existing albeit small library. It notes this fact down in it’s new database as an Unknown Cyan colored Energy alongside its use case of protecting animals.

It lays its attention on said animals, which seem to be bickering in human-like speech, Although there a certain words that seem to not be English at all. V1 runs a algorithm to fully pinpoint the sentence structure and the words spoken. Still tapping away at the magic shield expecting it to change.

Twilight turns to look at the machine at the midst of their argument. Confused at its lack of hostility. “Hold on for a minute. Why is it just poking the shield?”

Starlight turns to look at the machine to see it simply poking at her magic shield. “Why is it doing that...?”

Twilight turns smug using the opportunity to win the argument beforehand. “Maybe it’s grateful I repaired it, unlike a certain other unicorn...”

Starlight glares back at twilight before reluctantly putting her shield down. “Touché...”

As Starlight’s barrier goes down, so does the only one that stopped the machine’s finger. Which now go through the surface-less air and onto Starlight’s muzzle.

Twilight snickers as Starlight looks down at the metal finger with mild surprise, then hate. Starlight’s eyes twitch as anger fill her eyes, looking up at the machine. “YOU RUSTED BUCKET OF-”

White. Pale white was the best description for the snow swept lands of the Northern lands. A lone Pegasus bound carriage slows down by a long railway that stands out amongst the whitened sand. The two Alicorns in the carriage instruct the guards to stay behind as they trek the rest of the way. Celestia steps out in the cold wasteland, snow crunching under her foot as she does so. They are a few kilometers from the crystal empire but with the winter fog up ahead, they can see no more than a few meters. Celestia is soon joined by Luna who brought along a Yellow and striped scarf, fashioning plain black scarf around her neck herself. “Take it sister, It wouldn’t do to have you freeze on our flight there.”

Celestia smiles and accepts it. “Thank you, sister. We should set off now. No time to waste.” They set off in flight together, following the railroad to the Empire.

Luna speaks up while they fly. “Sister... Why not have our guards accompany us to the empire instead of leaving them behind? Wouldn’t it be dangerous?”

Celestia turns her head to look at her sister and shakes it. “No. We lost many good Royal Guards in Manehatten. I won’t risk anymore when the two of us will do just fine”

Luna raises an eyebrow at this. “Then what do you think happened to the Empire? None of our letters were given a response. And the recent train we sent came bearing that beast.”

Celestia contemplated this “But what? The few remaining changelings after their reformation? No, they are simply too weak.”

Luna adds “What of Grogar? Perhaps he sent that abomination molded with dark magic to us.”

Celestia shakes her head “No he was sealed away. We both made sure he could never come back, not without tearing the skies at least. But... There’s one other possibility”.

Luna’s interest is piqued by this. “Pray tell, what is your theory?”

Celestia recollects from her ancient memory. “The crystal mirror. There was more than one. A few failed attempts. All of them were sent to the crystal empire when Cadence started her rule. It could be possible that one of those “Defective
Ones” had let in something. Be it that creature or it’s creator.”

Luna was surprised at this but any question she had would remain unanswered as they finally arrive at the empire. The two land before it’s borders. The air around is quiet, Snow from the blizzard having leaked in. They could both feel the weak crystal heart’s magic from deeper within. Luna is the first to break the quiet. “This is... Worrying. I cannot hear a single pony from this bustling kingdom.”

Celestia hardens her will. “Come... We must investigate why it is this way.”

The pair disappear into the winter fog as the crunching of snow fades away.

Starlight sits in the corner, fuming in anger as twilight pats her back. “There, there. The robot didn’t mean to humiliate you or anything.”

Starlight glares back up at Twilight. “It booped me as if I was a dog! I’m never gonna recover from this...”

Meanwhile, the machine is confused on whether it’s action had done any damage. It’s analysis shows psychological damage but no physical damage. Considering it effective, V1 reserves it for non-lethal engagement.

By the time the machine is done writing an essay on the pros, cons and strategies on how to use booping in the future, Starlight and Twilight approach the machine again. Twilight whispers to Starlight and gives her a thumbs up. Starlight gets close to the machine and reluctantly speaks “Okay.. Look. I’m sorry for calling you all those nasty things back there but... NEVER boop me again either! ... Can we just put this behind us?” She raises a hoof to shake. The machine grasps her hoof and just sits there. Starlight tries shake its hand but it’s rock solid. “Uh...”

Starlight tries pull her hoof but the machine is too curious figuring out how her hoof was able to tug on its metal despite appendages. “Twi?? A lil help over here!”

Twilight joins in to help pull Starlight’s hoof with her. It still doesn’t budge. Twilight tries another method by trying to teach the machine how to shake a hoof after she was able to catch its attention. Using magic constructs as an example. “Look! First..” Twilight makes a mechanical hand grab a hoof. “You take starlight's... Hoof and your paw” She makes them shake each other before letting go. “Then you just shake it and let it go... Like that!”

The machine looks at it for a moment. Photographing the states between and proceeding to apply the tech. Starlight almost yelps as her hoof is nearly taken off by the machine’s violent shaking before it lets her go, “Ow... That hurt-” She grasps her hoof in pain "-A lot... Maybe go lighter?"

The machine then goes to grasp Twilight’s hoof. Twilight’s eyes open wide as she shakes her head. “WAIT! NO-NO-NO! STOP! PLEASE! I NEED MY HOOF!” The machine very softly shakes her hoof and lets it go. Twilight looks at her hoof before wiping the sweat off her brow. “Oh.... Thank Celestia that my hoof wasn’t shattered...”

Starlight mutters under her breath. “Lucky...”

Twilight turns to her with confusion in her eyes. “What did you say?”

Starlight shakes her head before testing her hoof and then replying. “Nothing important.”

Twilight was going to comment but was interrupted by Trixie falling flat on her face on the Lab’s floor. She lets out a yelp. “Trixie?? How did you find my super duper, triple warded, anti-occlusion based, vision deflecting Lab?!”

Starlight turns to Twilight slowly as Trixie gets her bearings. “The WHAT now?”

Trixie cuts off Twilight before she could go on an hour long rant on her top of the line Lab. “Pft! The great and powerful Trixie cannot be fooled by simple Illusions! She used her great and powerful magic to bypass your pathetic illusions!” However, in Trixie’s mind is a much different story. I can’t believe I found Twilight’s Lab by tripping in! Fate must have guided her path to greatness! And she will use this moment to put the spotlight on her!

Meanwhile, Twilight is a lost for words and Starlight smiles inward knowingly. Heh... She can have this one...

After Trixie’s high finally fades away she notices the Mechanical monster that chased her down Manehattan staring at her. She remains silent for a little while before jumping behind Starlight with quivering hooves. “WHY IS THAT THING BACK?! I THOUGHT WE KILLED IT!”

Starlight rolls her eyes at how scared Trixie is while Twilight gets in a good chuckle at Trixie’s expense. “Come' on Trixie, Get up. I don’t like it either but it’s no longer trying to kill us.”

Trixie is still shaking, but she stands up and gets a bit closer to the machine, trying to put up a brave face. “The great and”- She gulps.-”powerful Trixie i-isn’t afraid of you! S-so... You should apologize for almost hurting me and my assistant.” She pauses before adding, “Not that you could’ve hurt me anyway!”

The machine stands there for a bit before giving it it’s hand like it had done previously for the other two. Trixie looks down at it for a bit before looking surprised. “Oh.” She shakes its hand with a bit of reluctance. “That wasn’t so bad. Your very polite for an aggressive hunk of metal. But Trixie does have a question...” Trixie leaned in with squinted eyes before exploding into excitement. “You HAVE to show Trixie how you did that big fog of smoke!”

V1 blinks its metallic lenses in mild confusion. It had been able to correlate that the language of these equine like animals to that of Common English. There were some differences but none it couldn’t adapt to, and no matter how much it looks into the English word for smoke it couldn’t possibly interpret this equine’s prompt without the following two assumptions. Either this event had been stored in the corrupt drive or this equine is on the edge of insanity. It decided on the former.
All of its thoughts were calculated and formed in a mere microsecond, nothing a processor meant to handle real-time combat data in massive scale couldn’t do. V1 simply tilts it head slightly. As a way to ask what she meant.

Trixie raises an eyebrow on it as Twilight decides to resolve her confusion. “Oh yeah. You and Starlight hit it so hard, I think the Hard Drive got all corrupted.”

Trixie only seems more confused. Starlight sighs. “What Twilight meant is... You hit it hard, it lost its memories.”

Trixie nods in understanding. “The great and powerful Trixie understands now, thanks to her helpful friend, Starlight! BUT... She still believes she can make it do all those amazing acrobats! Maybe it could even join us! Just imagine...” she clears up her voice as she speaks in a dramatic tone. “The Triple Mages! The great and powerful Trixie, Her slightly less great and powerful assistant, and our sidekick The Mechanical Ballet Dancer!”

Twilight grabs her mouth with a hoof as she wheezes from Trixie’s suggestion when she imagines the tall and lanky robot in a pink tutu dress, while Starlight looks utterly dumbfounded. “I... I’m not even gonna ask anymore...”

And with that Trixie started trying to teach it ballet. Despite being a very precise machine, getting its feet articulated right and trying to follow Trixie’s horrible instructions was a challenge to say the least. At least while some of its processing goes to that. It can background process what it has learned so far.

///ULTRA.OS, Database In Edit Mode///

Equines

Equines, are as intelligent as Humans. They have a similar size to a large dog, but they are shaped more akin to a horse, though the horn they have makes them resemble the old myth of unicorns. They also seem to have an unknown energy flowing through their bodies and more prominently amongst their horn. The Equines speak a similar language to humans with minor differences that refer to Slavic, Latin or archaic dialects. Until more subjects can be found this is what it will conclude on their species.

V1 stands on one leg as Trixie instructed.

Subject 1

Type: Equine, Unicorn and Pegasus Hybrid.

Subject one is a lavender female equine with dark blue mane with streaks of magenta and purple. Oddly their unique energy essence is detected across several systems of its own frame, which suggests those systems have been tempered with, this explains why it recovered despite its last fatal boot attempt. Other than that. The subject is referred to as Twi or Twilight. Behavioral patterns show, smugness and curiosity. Note, unlike the other two Subjects, Subject 1 has wings alongside her horn. Merging the myth of Unicorn and Pegasus. This suggests various types of pony beyond unicorns may exist. Further research must be done to confirm this suspicion.

Note, Subject 1's magic is abnormally strong compared to the other two subjects.

V1 spins after seeing Trixie mimic the form of a circle with her hoof but V1 almost slips. It catches itself from falling as It adjusts its foot to counteract the motion accordingly.

Subject 2

Type: Equine, Unicorn.

Subject two is similar to Subject one albeit differences are there. Subject Two is also a female equine and shares the lavender coat but has a dark purple mane with cyan streaks, it is also far more styled. Minor energy traces are visible on the chassis. But they are negligible. The subject was referred to as Starlight and their behavior shows mild paranoia, sassiness and becomes exhausted when faced with stupidity.

Note, Very good grasp on swears and their uses in tandem with each other

V1 spins around as instructed originally with one foot before resting its second on the ground.

Subject 3

Type: Equine, Unicorn

Subject Three is much more unique than from the two. Subject three is a female equine who has a blue coat with lighter almost gray blue hair with streaks of white though it seems to not be a sign of aging. Subject Three is also the only one to wear clothes which reassemble a purple cape and hat with colored stars spotted across it. The subject refers to herself as Trixie multiple times. Her behavior shows arrogance, pride and excitement.

It is of note that she speaks exclusively in third per-

///Blunt force Imminent. Quitting Editing Mode. Auto Saving///

Before the machine could finish it’s last thought it was tackled by Trixie at Mach Ten.

V1 Grumbles inwardly as much as its software allows it to. Trixie however seems much more excited at the prospect of having taught it to dance in mere seconds. Even though it was the machine who interpreted her impossible instructions. “Yes! The great and powerful Trixie, is also a great and wonderful Teacher!”

V1 decides it should use it now and proceeds to calmly boop Trixie on the nose. She goes cross-eyed by looking at its finger “What is this? Trixie can do it better!” And much to the machine’s surprise it is then counter booped by Trixie in retaliation, in much to its horror.

Snow crunches beneath four sets of hooves as they walk across the ghastly city of the crystal empire. The blizzard howls through the alleys as the two sisters look for any sign of life. As they walk something hard yet brittle and cold crunches under Luna's boots. Luna raises an eyebrow as Celestia turns to her sister in equal confusion. Luna was the first to speak. “What is that?” Luna swipes her hoof across the floor to uncover the snow. Her eyes widen bigger than saucers as she lays her eyes on what’s poking through the snow. A small fillies head, their eye pulled out of their head like a loose yoyo through their caved in skull, the frozen blood that she had stepped on having now let out more blood that seemed to ooze like they were made of molasses.

Luna stumbled backward in a daze of fear. She had seen many things, the most terrifying things the world of dreams had to offer, the war of between ponies and griffons and the fact she had simply been more in tune to the dark arts then most ponies in Equestria. But this? This was a real pony. A completely innocent filly, now a gruesome corpse on the floor. Not something that was fake or an illusion.

Celestia glanced at the sight below her though she was able to hold back the fear she felt on looking at it. with an imperceptible gulp, she spun her magic around her horn like silk as she let loose a spell to melt the snow blanketing the crystal empire. And the sight was horrifying. Countless bodies streaked the floor and walls, like crimson strokes of a maddened artist, specks of white and pink flesh and bone splayed across each stain. “This thing... One shudders to imagine the inhuman thoughts that lie behind their creator... What dreams of chronic and sustained cruelty?”

Luna couldn't look at the bodies, she turned her head to look away, but it was all around her. “I would not wish to explore the dreams of such a being. What shall we do of this sister? if news gets around about this... everyone will panic. And it's a question of when not if.”

Celestia sighs but nods with Luna. “Your correct, many ponies travel to the crystal empire daily. I can only keep the routes closed for so long without questions arising. Or some pony checking it out their selves. This.... horrendous vile creation, even if we locate it's whereabouts and destroy it... how could we possibly expect our ponies to live knowing such a massacre happened right before our noses without our knowledge?”

Celestia frowns. “Even if the chances of survivors are unlikely we should check. Can you handle checking the streets Luna, while I check the castle?” Luna doesn't seem to even want to walk amongst the bodies but understands the importance, Luna simply nods as the sisters part ways.

Celestia walks up to the doors of the castle and pushes it open. In Front of her laid a series of bloody footprints and drops of blood. Her eyes followed the trail of blood and up to Cadence's body laid bare in the center. Unlike the surprisingly un-rotten bodies outside, Cadence's corpse wasn't so lucky. Her eyes were sunken in and blackened, coat withering away as bugs crawled over her hide, wings skinny and torn as cockroaches infested her ear. Celestia visibly cringed at the scene. “What have they done to you... My niece...”

Celestia's eyes were sullen as she looked at cadence. If it weren't for twilight, she would've been her greatest achievement. Celestia took a shaky breath, letting her emotions flow a bit more than she let it around others, even around her own sister. Pulling her composure together. Celestia lit her magic again, this time a fiery glow surrounded her horn. “You won't die like this... I will put you back together... so we can bury you a proper grave...” The corpse was pulled into a pocket dimension into Celestia's magic just as Luna trotted next to Celestia.

Luna assumed Celestia had incinerated the body, even she could smell the stench as soon as Celestia opened the door. “I presume... that's taken care of? I know this might be the bleakest and darkest day of our long lives but I do have good news.”

Celestia's eyes lit up, though they were hidden behind a mask of intrigue, she needed something to pull her mind away from the corpse of her niece. “Pray tell, what have you found?”

Luna lets a small smile of hope appear on her face. “There was a guard still breathing in the postal office. Weak but he was holding on. perhaps we may know more information on our foe if they survive the tundra. We should hurry back at once.”

V1 stares, in utter confusion. It hadn't expected the tables to turn so quickly. Not only did it have its own strategy used against it, The crazed mare in front of him is now turning paper and other objects into a teacup with seemingly zero effort.

V1 takes a pencil. Inspecting the Lignin and Carbon Lead tip before giving it to Trixie. Trixie casts a spell to transform it into a teacup. V1 snatches the cup and vigorously tests it. Electron charge tests show a slight static energy, magic signatures of Trixie are marked all over it. but the structure is entirely different. Instead of Carbon and Lignin they are suddenly 50% Silicates and 20% Nitrogen, with trace amounts of other substances like Carbides, Aluminum and various Oxides making up the rest.

Trixie pridefully flaps her coat as V1 is utterly baffled by this illogical change of matter that violated every code regarding physics. Twilight watches on while snickering, enjoying the sight of its confusion. That's when starlight taps twilight's shoulder. “Hey, Psst. i need to talk with you real quick.” She pulls away twilight to a bit more secluded spot in the lab. “Okay, I know you and now Trixie wanna keep that monstrosity. But how are we exactly gonna feed it the lifeblood of ponies regularly?!”

Twilight raises and eyebrow. “Oh you think I haven't thought of this ahead of time?”

Starlight is a little taken aback. “You.. Did?”

Twilight smiles valiantly. “Yup! Since our school actually brings in a lot of blood for a bunch of species for their care just in case of an accident. I can take out some of the almost expired ones to give to our machine buddy over there.”

Starlight honestly didn't expect twilight to think this through. “Hmm, good idea. But if it were that easy you would have just done it by now...”

Twilight sighs as a tired look comes over her. “Ugh... The E.E.A. association and I, are gonna have to do some finessing with paperwork to get that blood out without suspicion. While I do that, maybe you could show the bot around our friends, I'm sure they would like to make new friends.”

Starlight immediately tries to protest as twilight shoves babysitting the machine to her. “Hey you can't just make me... “ Starlight's words trail off as twilight teleports off. “Ugh...” Starlight turns towards the two that's still doing their own thing. “How am i gonna do this..?”

Author's Note

There... this chonker is finally done. Some of you might not like this style of doing back and forths between two intertwining stories, I just didn't want to keep one chapter all gloomy and the other filled with funny moments. so I like flipping between them for a mixed experience. but it might also be ruining the mood i'm building. i honestly don't know.

Alongside this, i've been experimenting with Internal thoughts. they vary in how they're implemented from story to story but i've used italic to show this. I see these mostly in first person stories. but i wanted to test it out here and see how it fits here.

That being said, as i went back to the crystal empire i realised what a mistake it was to kill off practically everyone, well i hope you didn't like sunburst because i didn't even think of him once while writing that genocide. like seriously. my OG plan was to get the ponies V1 has surrounded himself with to empathise with it... and... i really find that difficult with how it is going. i will have to do something corny or clever. i have a few ideas but we'll see which one works.