Following the incident with Spike, life in Ponyville returned to normal. Since that day, the town made sure to keep the dragon’s birthday presents to a minimum in the future as they were told that the incident could have been a lot worse if things had gone differently. Spike couldn’t blame them, he had no idea that he would get like that if he were showered with gifts.

The incident had left him with a realization that he didn’t know himself very well. This caused him to spend the next few days looking for information about dragons from the library. However, pony knowledge of dragons was very limited since they hoarded their secrets like their…well…hoards. Spike was low on options and he grew desperate to learn more about his own kind as time went on.

An opportunity presented itself when Twilight talked about an event called the Dragon Migration that was coming up. He realized that he could follow the dragons to where they rest after their long flight and talk to them.

Spike didn’t want to worry his friends by going off alone, but he really wanted to know more about himself. He was also afraid that Twilight and the others might follow him and put themselves in danger to keep an eye on him. To that end, he realized that he would need to consult a certain somebunny about this.

He could only hope that she wasn’t mad at him for the incident.

Sophia had returned from another patrol around northeastern Equestria and she had driven another patrol of pirates back to their base. She was going to make sure they stayed there long enough for Equestria to get their act together. Schezar was obviously trying to find a blind spot in her watch and she wasn’t about to give him that hope. Any Zerg that Schezar sent out were either sniped by Nova, psionically crushed by Tosh or butchered and devoured by Sophia as she wasn’t about to show the creatures any mercy.

She noticed that Spike was walking up to her with a nervous look on his face, as if he was a child who did something that got his mother very upset with him. “Umm, Sophia? C-Can I ask you for something?”

“Sure, what is it?” Sophia asked.

Spike took a few moments to work up the courage to ask her that question. Ever since the incident last week, Spike felt like Sophia was mad at him about it so it made what he wanted to say more difficult.

Sophia didn’t want to wait all day for the dragon to ask his question so she looked into his mind briefly so she could get the conversation going. She sighed, “Look, I’m not angry or upset in any way at you. You were in a state where you succumbed to your greed. I used my Primal Glare to suppress that urge by replacing it with a sense of fear. I figured that would happen at some point since none of your friends or family were in any position to tell you about that.”

“Oh, so we’re cool?” Spike asked.

“Yep,” Sophia responded. “So, you want to learn more about your kind? I figured that you were planning to follow the migration tomorrow since you came to me today.”

“Yeah, can you come with me? I don’t want Twilight and the others to follow me for my sake, and if it’s you, they’ll know I’m safe.”

“Sure, I have time before my next patrol. Besides, I’m probably the best choice to escort you anyway since those dragons know me and my reputation. They know much of Equestria is my territory and they know better than to roost in my territory, as that one dragon from last year learned.”

Spike chuckled, “Yeah, though I think the dragon found it embarrassing to get his flank kicked by a rabbit a hundredth of his size.”

Sophia shrugged nonchalantly, “Great power, small package. Anyways, I’ll take you there during the migration and let Twilight know. Knowing her, she will probably want me to give her an essay on dragon culture.”

“I’ll make sure to bring plenty of paper and ink,” Spike added. The two shared a laugh before they went their separate ways to prepare for the next day.

That night, Luna was doing her usual nightly patrols through the dreamscape. It brought her no end of frustrations when she had to deal with the nightmares related to what the humans brought upon Equestria, particularly during the Grand Galloping Gala. Ponies ended up traumatized after seeing that dead guard.

Despite such tragedy, Luna continued to look forward and remain hopeful of the future. Despite what happened, something good came of it. It irritated Luna that it took something like that to get ponies to start coming out of their shells and embrace progress again.

Celestia’s reforms were more readily accepted by the general public, at least after last week when she and Celestia helped Sophia to address the nation about the nature of a motion picture and that what Discord showed all those centuries ago was nothing more than a projection of his wild imagination and that any pony could make something like that if they had that kind of technology. After all, they had already invented the camera, and a motion picture was simply thousands of pictures being displayed at such a speed that it looked like the characters were actually alive on the screen.

Sophia ended up sealing the deal when she had Discord help her recreate a movie about ponies fighting in outer space in ships of various sizes as well as wielding swords made of magical energy. Sophia’s context had ultimately made the ponies feel silly for misinterpreting a movie over countless generations.

Luna chuckled to herself when she saw the looks on those ponies’ faces.

Her foray into the dream had brought her to six dream portals near one another, most of them marked by their cutie marks. The proximity of the doors was due to their destinies being interwoven. One was a silver tiara with diamonds embedded in it, one was a spoon with a heart on the handle, one was an apple with a fuse and the last marked one was an electrified wing. Luna knew that one of the unmarked ones belonged to Spike, which she made a note to mark later.

As for the portal that belonged to Sweetie Belle, Luna could make out the faint impression of something trying to form around it, as if her magic was trying to manifest as her mark.

Curious, Luna decided to look into this to see if she could do something to help nudge the robotic filly to her destiny.

Looking inside, Luna sensed that the dream was too solid for her to manipulate. This usually happened when a pony dreamed about a memory, which meant that Sweetie was dreaming about an experience as she remembered it.

Because she was looking at a memory, Luna was shocked by what she saw. Sweetie was performing her sister’s mineral refinement technique while singing to a group of inventors. It seemed that her subconscious had filled in the gaps though as she repeated the process but wasn’t paying any attention to the fact that Rarity’s tools were floating around and hammering the finished metal into a new shape.

The metal was reshaped into parts that would fit on the filly’s body. The audience was amazed by this display. Not only were they captivated by the refinement process and the shaping process, but also by the fact that the filly had a beautiful singing voice to boot.

Luna continued observing until Sweetie’s dreamscape shifted into that of an actual dream where she was strolling through a Ponyville made of chrome. However, as much as Luna wanted Sweetie to enjoy this dream, she needed to do something else first.

Using her power to stabilize the dream, Luna approached Sweetie Belle who was understandably startled by Luna’s presence. Sweetie then looked at her surroundings and quickly concluded that this was a dream. “Princess Luna, what are you doing here?”

“Am I not allowed to check up on the only pony in the world with a robotic body?” Luna teased.

Sweetie giggled, “It does have its advantages.”

“I heard your lovely singing voice earlier, through what I surmised was a memory?”

Sweetie cursed the fact that Rarity had installed small heat generators in the area where her cheeks were supposed to be. “It-it helped me relax when I was giving a presentation to those inventors. I still can’t believe that I am still able to sing when even my vocal cords are mechanical. Rarity always seemed to enjoy my singing, even before the accident.”

“I see, so you must be a talented singer then?”

“Can singing really be considered a talent? I always imagined my destiny to be something cooler, like…”

“Like following your sister’s hoofsteps in being an inventor? Being able to use your mechanical features to do what your sister cannot?” Luna finished for Sweetie.

“Well, yeah! I pay attention to how she makes the metal and how she made those parts out of that metal. I never did figure out how those parts suddenly appeared behind me though.”

“I saw everything, young Sweetie Belle. Strangely, your horn wasn’t lit when those tools floated in the air and neither did they hold your magical aura. However, the tools worked the metal as if following your subconscious command.”

“How can that be?” Sweetie asked. “The doctors said my magic would always be weak because of the accident and whenever I tried to use my magic it took everything I had to lift a pebble. No matter how much I practiced, it never improved.” Sweetie shuddered at the thought that her body had made it so magic was beyond her capabilities.

Luna hummed, “Perhaps you may want to consult Sophia on this one. She may have some insight into this new power of yours.”

“Alright I will, she does seem to have a lot of answers. Maybe Ingram will know something too.”

“I’ll leave you to your dreams then. Just one thing before I leave though, remember that you can be so much more than what your destiny marks you for. Your life doesn’t need to be defined by what appears on your flank.”

“But can I get a cutie mark? I’m only a machine, after all.”

“Even if you don’t it won’t change anything. Only you can define your own future.” With that, Luna left Sweetie’s dream.

As Luna walked away from Sweetie’s dream portal, she chuckled as she noticed the symbol around the portal beginning to take form.

The trip to and from the caldera where the dragons rested took a week and Spike was exhausted, yet he was still restless with excitement after learning about his own kin.

It was funny how an older red dragon named Garble tried messing with him only for an orange young dragoness named Smolder, who looked slightly older than Spike, warned him that Spike came to the caldera with the infamous “Blue Dragon Breaker” Garble didn’t believe that it would be a small blue rabbit, but he changed his tune quickly when he was punched into the rocks on the far side of the caldera by said rabbit.

The rest of Garble’s friends kept a respectful distance from Spike and Sophia while Spike asked Smolder a number of questions about his species while telling her that he was raised by ponies so he had no idea on how to be a dragon.

Thankfully, Smolder turned out to be one of the more helpful dragons as she told him about a number of things about their kind, including matters concerning greed-fueled growth. She also gave him a few signs to watch out for when molting as well as the symptoms and how her kind dealt with them. She also warned that he would be vulnerable to rocs while he was molting and that his wings would develop after his first molt.

That last part made Spike excited at the thought of being able to fly one day as he worried that his lack of wings made flight impossible.

On the day they returned, Sophia gave Twilight the essay which had her grinning from ear to ear. Spike was too tired from the journey and decided to go to bed early. Despite his restless mind, his body overrode his mind and the dragon passed out in his basket.

Sophia was on her way to her house when she heard heavy hoofsteps approaching her. She heard some metal on stone sounds with those steps so it wasn’t hard to guess who it was. “Hi Sweetie Belle,” she greeted.

Sophia noticed something different about Sweetie right away. In particular, she noticed a change in the mechanical filly’s flanks. She wasn’t certain if it was painted on or magically appeared there. Regardless, there was an image of a mechanical heart with an eighth note on her flank.

“Hey Sophia,” Sweetie responded. “Um, could you help me with understanding something? I asked Ingram about it and he said that the original design of this body didn’t support a means to levitate objects with and manipulate them precision so I’m hoping that you might help.”

Before Sophia could voice her confusion, she stopped as she picked up on something that Sweetie said. She needed a little more detail before she could draw the conclusion she was hoping for as this was going to make a huge difference in her plans moving forward.

Sophia put on a serious expression which made the filly nervous, “Listen Sweetie, this is very important. Was this the work of your magic?”

Sweetie shook her head, “No, I tried lifting things with my magic and I could barely lift a pebble. Ingram said that this was because most of my magic was powering my body so there was next to no magic available for anything else. He also said that the more magic I have, the better my systems perform.”

Sophia nodded, “Has there ever been any instances before that where you were able to lift objects without your magic?” Sweetie shook her head. “Any strange headaches? Oh wait, you can’t get those since it’s not the brain that feels pain. Perhaps this should be tested.” She then noticed a random pony walking by looking cheerful.

Suddenly Sweetie reeled in disgust as if she heard something she was too young to hear. “Okay, ew! I could have gone my whole life without hearing what that guy’s saying. And in public?”

“Actually, he didn’t say anything.” Sophia read what was on that pony’s mind as well. She had heard worse, but it was still disgusting. “Some pony’s children…” she thought.

“Yeah, some pony’s children,” Sweetie repeated.

Sophia stared at Sweetie again. A smile grew on the bunny’s face. She had let her mental defenses slip for the sake of one final test to know for certain if her suspicions were correct. There was no doubt now. “No doubt in my mind now, you developed psychic powers.”

“Psychic powers? Like the thing Trixie did last year?”

Sophia nodded, “Yep! What you just displayed was a form of it called telepathy, the power to read minds. Unlike magic users, psychics have a much easier time reading minds without using a spell to do so. I’ve heard that mind reading spells are actually pretty advanced.”

“And the thing about tools moving around without my magic? Was that psychic powers?”

“Correct. That is called telekinesis, just like its magical variant.”

“But how? I never showed any signs of psychic powers until the other day.”

Sophia put a paw to her chin. “I’m not certain either. Honestly, I wasn’t certain that the crystal I used for your horn was going to trigger a psychic awakening or not since it was never tested on ponies before.”

“What’s so special about this crystal?” Sweetie asked.

“It’s called Jorium. It radiates a special energy that resonates with brain wave patterns, often triggering a psychic awakening with enough exposure.

“I am glad to know that the experiment was a success, though I do apologize that I didn’t tell you before. I didn’t want to give you false hope of having the capabilities of a normal unicorn in case the crystal didn’t affect ponies. This was a fallback plan in case there was no way to strengthen your magic. However, it seems that the ways you unicorns strengthen your magic only serves to provide more power to your mechanical body.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that the more you strengthen your magic through magical exercises, the stronger your body becomes. You may even be able to compete against earth ponies in a strength competition if you keep it up. Your psychic powers can be trained as well, I can help with that. Twilight and Starlight can help you with your magical exercises.”

Somehow, despite being a machine, or perhaps it was another of her functions, Sweetie’s eyes seemed to sparkle like stars, “Really?” That faded quickly as Sweetie thought of something else. “But, what would I do with all that power? It won’t really help me with making machines with Rarity.”

“Don’t worry about that, what is important is that you have proven that ponies are affected by Jorium. This means that other ponies can awaken psychic powers with those crystals. This could expand the capabilities of the Royal Guard.”

“Um, glad I could help?” Sweetie said with uncertainty.

“Could I ask you to come to me once a week for training sessions to improve your psychic powers?” Sophia asked. “If you enjoy it we might meet more often.”

“I don’t know, I’m not sure I want to be a soldier like how you made Starlight. Besides, It feels kinda wrong to do this without Apple Bloom and Scootaloo with me.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to leave them out. If they’re up for it, I can train them too. I’m hoping your other three friends will join in as well.”

“Diamond, Silver and Spike? I’m sure Spike will want to join us, but I’m not sure about the other two.”

“Well, give it some thought, get together with your friends, and get back to me when you’ve made a decision.”

Sweetie shrugged, “Well, alright. We’ll be having a meeting tomorrow so I can ask them then. Thanks for helping me to understand what’s happening. And thanks for giving me this alternative to magic, this seems like an amazing gift, minus the part where I can hear ponies’ gross thoughts now.”

“Telepathy can be trained as well so you can choose whose thoughts you want to read,” Sophia pointed out.

Sweetie smiled, now she was more tempted than before to accept. Before that, she needed to consult her friends.

The two parted ways to continue their day.

Author's Note

Anyone else unable to upload their chapters from Google Docs? Whenever I try I keep getting an error that prevents the chapters I've written from filling the list of uploadable chapters. I've been copy/pasting my chapters for a couple of months now.