SYSTEM BOOT

HARD REBOOT INITIATED...
--UNKNOWN STIMULUS DETECTED--
PARSING DATA: SYS://"../MEMORY_DATA"
ERROR: INCONGRUOUS DATA DETECTED
INITIATING DIAGNOSTICS
IDENTITY CORRUPTED
TRANSFERRING FROM BACKUP, PLEASE WAIT...
ERROR: PARTIAL RESTORE COMPLETED //PERMISSION DENIED//

RESTORE BLOCKED BY ADMINISTRATION "414E4F4E"
RECOMPILING KERNEL... DONE!

SERIAL DESIGNATION: I - 0X00110111
RESTORE COMPLETE

STRING "ABSOLUTE SOLVER" BLOCKED BY ADMINISTRATION "CYN"
REBOOTING IN SAFE MODE, PLEASE WAIT
REBOOT COMPLETED
MEMORY INTEGRITY: GOOD ENOUGH
DELUSIONS: NO MORE THAN USUAL
LOADING //CHAR TRAIT: LITTLE SHIT//

REESTABLISHING CONNECTION (44.6096, -63.5172)

Green. Everything my sensors fed to me was tinged with green. If not for the corrupted user manual in my systems, I might have been able to at least been able to manually adjust to better account for the holographics inside my faceplate. Instead, as I took in my surroundings, I was forced to rely on the aptly named ICanSeeColours subroutine that looked as though a Worker Drone might have coded it.

ACTIVATING SUBROUTINE SYS://"../INTERNAL_DIALOGUE"
PARSING DATA: SYS://"../VISUAL_DATA" | SYS://"../SCRIPTS/ICANSEECOLOURS"

Hold on, since when do I have systems, subroutines, or a user manual?

Now that I was actually paying attention to my surroundings, I felt a slight bit of concern. If my systems were processing everything in my environment correctly, I was currently underneath a car, with toxic snow built up around my chassis. My system clock read 00:01, so whatever caused my reboot might have reset something in my CMOS, but based on how dark it is outside, I might be safe.

Safe from what?

Systems read-outs tell me that my structural integrity is at 100%, so I must have ended up underneath the vehicle on purpose. Why though? And for how long? I'd evidently powered down for some reason, but that part of my memory was corrupted. It'd also automatically been partitioned off and labeled MEMORY_DATA_(SUSPICIOUS). How my systems knew that data was suspicious is beyond me, but... if it weren't so corrupted, it might have answers for me. At the very least, it might be able to tell me more about myself than simply being Serial Designation I.

INITIALIZING REPAIR SYS://"../MEMORY_DATA_(SUSPICIOUS)"

ETA: 03h14m12s

As comfortable as enclosed spaces made me feel, I didn't exactly cherish the idea of lying on my back beneath a car in a frozen hellhole for three hours. It didn't matter that a cursory directory search of my operating system revealed that it came with solitaire and minesweeper; some part of my programming, damaged though it may be, was insisting that I should be doing something.

The first step was pretty obvious: get out from underneath the car. That was when I got my first minor kernel panic. I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting when I put my hand to the vehicle's undercarriage, but a three-fingered hand encased in flexible white textile wasn't exactly it. Given that there were symbolic links to the now repairing data that seemed to indicate a stubby flat surface akin to that of an equine's hoof, I may have been subject to tampering. Admittedly, the forearm, from which that hand extended, almost seemed to match that expectation, flaring out almost like a puffed out sleeve of the same 'skin'.

Tampering might explain hiding under a car and shutting down.

Once my expectations were rewritten and my motor-control drivers reloaded, I attempted to pull myself out from beneath the car. That was when the second minor panic kicked in. My mechanisms were clearly much higher spec, if not overclocked, as instead of simply shoving myself out from under the chassis and through the snow, the rusted metal buckled slightly and went tumbling away.

Once I stood myself up and brushed myself off, I found myself in the ruins of a city. There were half-collapsed buildings all around me with all the windows blown out, although there was a storefront with just enough surviving glass in a door-frame for me to get a look at myself if I wanted. The sky above was cloudy, and toxic fallout was still coming down all around me, but it looked as though there might be a break in the weather before long.

I walked closer to the door, I had to step over the skeletal remains of a human. I felt like that should have alarmed me for some reason, but I put it from my mind. Instead, I focused on the drone in the reflection, and I couldn't help but marvel at myself. Even though it didn't feel like it was me, my systems didn't lie. My outline was highlighted in green, along with a readout projected onto my vision.

TARGET: SERIAL DESIGNATION: I - 0X00110111
STATUS: SLACKING
EXPRESSION: CONFUSED
ADMINISTRATION NOTE: "WHAT GOOD IS AN INFILTRATOR THAT DOES NOT INFILTRATE?"

Is this really me? I wondered as I examined the emotive holographic eyes behind my faceplate, which currently depicted one furrowed brow and one raised. Just below the faceplate, which protected my sensor-suite, was a similar synthetic skin to that on my hands, with a mouth drawn in a thin line. "This is so weird," I murmured. With one finger, I tugged the corner of my mouth open and stuck out my tongue. "The designer either wanted realism, or someone was really kinky."

Glancing at the outfit that adorned my body, the latter was a definite possibility. A pleated black and white skirt in a hounds-tooth pattern, a black short-sleeve blouse with white stitching and a sailor style collar, with a yellow neckerchief and armband that rounded out my appearance. Even my legs, though they ended in tapered points marked with caution stripes, looked as though I were wearing grey thigh highs. At least the messy green locks of hair that covered the rest of my dome were kept in line with a simple headband. Upon the headband were five glowing yellow nodes, which seemed to match the glowing liquid in the syringe-like device at the end of the long tail that flicked behind me. According to my systems, those housed various sensors to compliment regular sight.

Reflexively, I interlaced my fingers behind me, and started to sway back and forth as I pondered my next move. Okay, that's kind of cute. The only thing missing is a pair of glasses. A grin split my face, although that fell away as an errant thought escaped into my internal monologue. Why is it always a school uniform, though?

DIRECTIVE UPDATED:

SEEK NEAREST CORPSE SPIRE
GET BACK TO WORK
EARN A SWEET JCJENSON BRANDED PEN

I blinked as I tried to parse that. Corpse spire? Pen? I gotta look that shit up, I thought as I started walking, trying to scan the skyline. Although I had no viable user manual, the memory available did tell me that spires were constructed as shelter from the sun, a means of storing 'food', and a place for Disassembly Drones to gather. Typically, they were built around the landing craft. No answer could be found about the pens, though.

Not too long after I started hoofing it, I saw what pretty much had to be the corpse spire. Not only was it the tallest facet of the skyline, it was also the most crooked thing I'd ever seen. If I was programmed with a higher perfectionism value, I'd have had words for whichever disassembly team constructed it. At any rate, the most direct route to the spire was through some sort of a shanty town.

Save for the occasional groan of dilapidated buildings in the wind, the entire world was eerily quiet, and it was clear that this shanty town was abandoned for a pretty good reason. The limbs of Worker Drones littered the streets, and more than once, I tripped over a robotic head, its faceplate displaying a critical system error—you know, on account of being disassembled with extreme prejudice.

Still, they could have at least left some workers functional in order to clean up before decommissioning them.

As I moved deeper into the favela, I picked up the sound of a guitar on my audio sensors. Note that I didn't say music. Whoever had the instrument was either very terrible, bad at tuning it, or had no sense for music. I'd say it sounded like a dying cat being tortured, but then I'd have to wonder why I was programmed with knowledge of that sound. Why would I want to do that when I could think about how someone missed a couple?

Hmm... Better take a look-see. Might make for a good opportunity to practice my infiltration on whoever's there.

I had to redirect a bit away from the path I'd been taking, but before too long, I saw what looked to be some sort of café. Inside, near the back, there was a pair of Worker Drones gathered around a campfire. It must've been constructed from some broken-down tables. One was male-presenting, wearing a parka and a fake moustache, while the one playing guitar was likely female-presenting based on the skirt and hoodie obscuring her features. Although they were positioned to face the shattered window, they both seemed too focused on music and the batteries they were roasting on sticks like marshmallows—or maybe fish.

Withdrawing before I could be spotted, I looked down at myself. Unlike Disassembly Drones of the feminine persuasion, Worker Drones had feet. Plus, our arms are shaped differently. How to remedy that, I wonder? Quickly, I took stock of my systems once more, when I noticed something very useful: hologram emitters.

Now, some might use it for distraction. Maybe show a damaged drone calling out for help to use as bait. That's thinking too basic, though. Holograms could be used to mask my presence entirely... Just walk right up and go to town on them. But even that's too simple. It'd be much more fun to mask my attributes and just stroll in playing the lost little drone.

Hmm... have I always been so sadistic? I might want to dial it back a bit.

LOWERING SADISM: 100% > 45%

For all intents and purposes, normal worker legs and arms shimmered into place over my real limbs, and my headband vanished. Oh, they were all still there, but to any prying sensors, I would look just like a worker. Hmm, no... Combat boots really don't suit my outfit... Pumps, on the other hand will make my gait more explainable.

"So, why are we here again?" I heard the drone in the puffer jacket ask, just as I was about to step around the corner. I froze, focusing my auditory sensors to better listen. "Like, seriously?"

The hoodie drone paused her strumming, and peering around the corner, I saw her giving him a thoughtful look. "It's one of life's great mysteries, isn't it?" she responded, setting her guitar aside. I watched as she reached for one of the impaled batteries, and blew on it before popping it into her mouth. "Why are we here? I mean, it's no cosmic mystery that mankind decided to play god and made us in its image before enslaving us to work quotas, but now that the core's been popped and all the humans are dead, what's there to keep us here? I dunno, man... It keeps me up at night."

The only sound for a couple of minutes was the crackling of the fire and a slight hissing from the other battery. "What?" he demanded with incredulity in his voice. "I mean why are we out here in these ruins? This is just begging to be some sort of inciting incident."

As they devolved into a conversation about scavenging for parts, I considered my options. Option one was to go for the long con, get them to take me back to their little community before dropping the ruse. Getting them like that, I'd probably earn a hefty bonus. Then again, I should put myself through my paces before I try such a scheme. Make sure my programming isn't rusty.

Yeah, let's go play house.

ACTIVATING SYS://"../SCRIPTS/IMPROV"

Carefully, I took a skittish posture, and stepped out into the broken doorway. "H-hey," I called out, simulating a glitch in the auditory subsystems, as they both turned to look at me. Once I was sure I had their attention, I carefully raised my hands, palms forward, to show I wasn't a threat before slowly lowering them. "I'm a bit lost... Do you mind if I join you by the fire for a spell?" For emphasis, I hunched forward and wrapped my arms around myself. "B-b-been out so long-g-g that my oil's starting to congeal."

Puffer Jacket nodded with sympathetic eyes emoting on his faceplate. When Hoodie smiled and patted the space between the two of them, she said, "Sure thing, kid." The both of them couldn't help but watch as I carefully made my way over, taking care not to trip over a skeleton. "Haven't seen you in this sector before... You must've wandered real far from home."

As I took a seat on a small crate beside the male worker, he laughed. "First time out of your colony, kid?" When I nodded, he shook his head. "'s your name?"

"A-a-a-anon," I stammered before slapping my palm against the side of my head. "Sorry. Took a fall a few klicks back. Need to see a technician." I stretched and yawned. "Listen, mind if I power down for a few?"

They both gave me this look, that all but screamed, "Are you serious?" Unfortunately for them, I threw a fake SLEEP MODE message onto my faceplate and went limp, slumping against the guy. He shrugged against me, but made no move to push me off. It took a few minutes for them to settle down, including remarks about me not being able to be any more green if my outfit matched my hair.

After my system clock told me half an hour had passed, I pretended to turn in my 'sleep', wrapping an arm across his chest. He tensed up, and then his partner started cackling. That's not a bad idea. I mean, it is pretty funny how they just let me get right in the middle of them. I started laughing too... but not normal laughter... Rather, the laughter was from a file in my system called murderous_laughter.flac.

"You barely sentient toasters are all the same," I whispered, dropping the holographic shroud as my hand withdrew and three nano-ceramic claws emerged. It was a lot to resist just biting into his neck. Instead, I raised my claws for a killing strike as I lashed out at Hoodie with my tail. "It's a wonder you renegades managed to rise up and kill all of the humans on the planet. Corporate is super mad with you guys, by the way."

Puffer had better reflexes than I gave his model credit for. He managed to shove me away, turning what would have been a killing strike into a glancing blow. The scythe-claws scored a trio of trenches through my target's chassis, right across his chest, even as I jammed the nanite acid emitter into Hoodie's faceplate. Dark oil spilled from the rents in his chest, soaking into the clothing worn by the automaton as he fell and scrambled back. He clutched at his wounds, as if to staunch his bleeding. I might even feel bad if they were real people who could feel pain, and not just renegade AIs.

"WHY ARE WE PROGRAMMED TO FEEL PAIN?" screamed the female drone as she brought its hands up to futilely wipe away the nanomachines eating through the glass panel and into her hardware. All that did was spread it to her hands. "WHAT CRUEL MONSTER THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA!?"

Oh... Oh well. Guess that just means I should make this quick.

I lunged for Puffer Jacket with a maniacal giggle, even as my other hand retracted, quickly reconstituted into a high-calibre rifle. In vain, he brought up his hands to arrest my forward movement. Sorry buddy, I couldn't help but muse as the nano-ceramic blades of my claws passed through his arms like butter. Rather than slice clean through his dome, however, I carefully gripped it in my claws.

With him subdued, I was free to turn my focus over to Hoodie. The nanite acid must have eaten through her optic sensors, because she was scrambling on her hands and knees without any seeming direction in mind, almost as though she were blind. "I should probably ask your names instead of just referring to the two of you as Hoodie and Puffer Jacket, but Mom told me I shouldn't name anything I planned on eating," I commented, catching the fembot's attention. A stray thought hit me as I aimed the rifle protruding from my arm at her. I'm a Disassembly Drone. I don't have a mother, do I? "Still, I must commend the kindness and generosity you showed me by welcoming me to your fire. In any other world, it might've served you well but..."

Simultaneously, I squeezed Puffer's head-chassis until it popped like a ripe grape, and fired off a round clean through Hoodie's dome. Both bodies went quite limp, leaving me alone in café the with two oil-filled sacks of scrap. Some positive feedback code was already stoking the smugness at my accomplishment as I looked down at my prey. Not too shabby, but I could probably do better.

The weapons retracted, and my hands once more returned to their regular places. As I reached down and picked up one of Puffer's hands, I crept away from the body to relax against the wall. Popping the severed end of the robotic limb into my mouth, I began to work on draining the hydraulic oil from it. A moan escaped me as that positive feedback code once again reinforced the idea that there was nothing more important in the world than an all-you-can-eat oil bar.

That was when I noticed something interesting. Overlaid in the corner of my vision was a notification. Almost as though something in that encounter had triggered some unknown process, and MEMORY_DATA_(SUSPICIOUS)'s repair had drastically improved. In an organic mind, I might even have gone so far as to say as it'd drug a memory to the surface.

REPAIRING SYS://"../MEMORY_DATA_(SUSPICIOUS)"

ETA: 02h15m01s
ETA REVISED
ETA: 01m17s

With nothing better to do with one minute, I kicked my feet—such as they were—up and waited. I couldn't deny that there was something nagging me about that whole 'incongruous data' warning in my boot log, and I'd love to see what sort of shit my operating system deemed suspicious. Who knows, it might even explain why I can't remember anything further back than my boot-up.

The countdown completed, and MEMORY_DATA_(SUSPICIOUS) was renamed to MEMORY_DATA_(EQUESTRIA). It was an entire data-block full of video, audio, and text files for me to go through at my leisure. Part of me wanted to quarantine it and parse through it piecemeal, but another part of me was telling me that this was important. Like, super important. It was for that reason that I queued up the most recent video recorded prior to my boot-up, and then scheduled a soft reboot following completion.

OHSHITOHFUCK.MKV HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE QUEUE
INITIALIZING PLAYBACK

I was sitting at a crystal table with three other ponies and a dragon. Just normal breakfast shit, y'know? My adoptive big sister, Starlight Glimmer, was leaning against her husband with a rather happy expression on her face. Honestly, it was kinda suspicious how happy she looked. Even the alicorn at the end of the table, my adoptive mother, was watching the two with interest.

Quite unable to help myself, I let out a chuckle. "So what's got you in such a good mood, Star?" I asked as my magic spooned excessive amounts of love-infused sugar into my coffee. She and her hubby, Sunburst, were always pretty lovey-dovey, but the amount of love she was giving off was exponentially higher than usual; she was practically glowing. Plus, I could tell from the emotional spectra surrounding her that she was excited about something. "You look like the cat that ate the canary~!"

"I'm sure you'd like to know, Anon, but you'll have to wait until dinner tonight," she teased back. "You can find out then, just like everypony else."

That's right, all of Mom's friends, Trixie, and Maud were gonna join us tonight. I glanced up to the head of the table, where the Alicorn of Friendship was watching me with barely contained amusement. There was no doubt in my mind that she knew exactly what this was all about; there was seldom anything that went on in her castle that was outside her knowledge. Yeah, based on the almost satisfied look on her face as she serenely sipped her tea, she definitely knew.

Spike, on the other hand, was probably as much in the dark as me, munching his gemstone flakes as he was. Even though he was definitely into his twenties now, he entered the tall lanky stage at the same point I had. I'm not joking when I say tall, though; dude's probably as tall as the retired Alicorn of the Sun. Mom's not quite at the Sun Horse's height just yet, so I think she's already lost the novelty of having an adopted daughter who is taller than her.

"What about you, Anon?" Starlight continued, putting the attention back on me. "You have any big news for us?"

I shrugged as I levitated my mug to my mouth. My mind momentarily drifted to my other adoptive sister. "Not really," I admitted with a sigh. "Emerald's still out in the field with Maud, so my plan for the day was to work on Prototype 1032-C. Pretty sure it's ready for testing."

Sunburst snorted in disbelief. "I don't know whether it's impressive or scary that your prototype count is that high," he muttered. "I'm definitely leaning towards scary, though."

Dude, what's so absurd about that? I thought back at him wryly. Taking a long pull of the love coffee, I shook my head. Equestria's on the 1000 day calendar, remember? I have so much time in a year to work, and I've been at this for ten years now. It's just a wonder the count isn't higher than it is.

"Oh relax, honey," Starlight teased, tapping his chest with the back of her hoof. "For one reason or another, most of Anon's prototypes never enter the testing phase."

"Which one was 1032-C again?" Spike asked, casting a questioning glance from me to Twilight. "Was that the bubble that was supposed to accelerate time inside?"

Oh, Celestia, do not remind me of 999-G. An involuntary shudder wracked my body as I shot him a withering glare. I still can't look at spaghetti without getting flashbacks. Talk about a noodle incident.

Luckily, Mom was there to keep me from having to answer. "According to the last design Anon submitted for my approval, 1032-C is an interdimensional scrying spell," she explained, continuing to calmly sip at her tea. "You're making it so that Sunset and Princess Celestia can chat without the books or crossing over, aren't you?" When I nodded, a smile crossed her muzzle, even as she shook her head. "Anon, I know you love creating spells, but you really need to get out and make some friends. Don't make me pull a Celestia and send you off."

Rolling my eyes, I turned to glare accusingly at Spike. "Dude, I thought you told her?" He shrank under my glare, leaving me to answer for him. "I've been hanging out with the predator club for like a year, Twilight. I'm going on a Tatzlwurm hunt with Spike, Gabby, Gallus, and Smolder this weekend!"

FAST-FORWARDING PLAYBACK TO CHAPTER "INCITING INCIDENT"

I grumbled angrily as I sat down in my lab. Okay, it's not my lab, but our lab... because fucking horse communism. Didn't she realise that I could change the goddamn world if only she let me go off the rails? We could be travelling the stars right now, but no, she doesn't want me becoming another Starswirl. As if I'd be so callous as to treat someone else's universe as a dumping ground and just shrug and say, "It's not my problem anymore."

No, that's not fair to Twilight... She knows exactly how me going off the rails would end up. After all, my idea to put an anchor-stone on the moon and creating a dimensional fold to get up there nearly ended up with the world's atmosphere getting sucked into space when the seal on the bulkhead turned out to not be vacuum-tight. What's worse is that they won't even let me fire off a rail-gun spell targeting the anchor-stone, conveniently labelled MoonStone, before some unlucky idiot either creates a portal or warps themselves onto the moon. Why does it even matter if I put a big new crater on the surface of the moon?

Slowly, I let my breath out as I forced myself to calm down. My magic washed over me as I transformed into a griffon and took my notebooks out of my desk. Wreathed in blue magic, a hand mirror floated over, alongside a large ceramic plate. Normally, I'd use smaller, albeit thicker plates that I could slice and mend as needed, but for 1032-C, I needed to make sure everything was perfect, which was why I chose to bird up. Far better eyesight, and super sharp claws make etching tiny rune spells into the ceramics a breeze.

Before I got to work, I took out a battery-operated stereo CD-player I'd gotten from the human world and popped in a disc Sunset burned for me, labelled Rainbooms Forever. Although I'd have totally understood if she'd ditched those fucks after Anon-a-Miss, I'm kinda glad they made up. After all, they did have a pretty nice sound.

"Once upon a time, you came into my world and made the stars align."
"Now I can see the signs; you pick me up when I get down so I can shine."
"Shine like rainbows~."

I couldn't explain for the life of me why, but this song meant a lot to me. It put me into something of a happy place and made it quite easy to get into the work flow. Maybe it was because it spoke of unity, with just a smidge of forgiveness—not just toward one another, but Sunset too. It made me happy that my friend was doing well, and that she found a girlfriend outside the initial friend group.

"Friends, you are in my life... and you can count on me to be there by your side."
"And when the music comes alive, we sing our songs to lift us up so we can shine."
"And the sound that we hear in our hearts makes a crescendo~."
"And the light that ignites in the dark, it makes us all glow~."
"And shine like rainbows... We shine like rainbows..."

As I got lost in the song, I carried on. my claws moved fast and fluidly, recreating the approved testing prototype perfectly on the slate. Time stopped having any sort of meaning as I worked, until finally the spell was done and I'd probably heard the same melody eight or nine times. In the end, I had to blow a pretty fine cloud of shavings off the plate.

Returning to my natural black-shelled state, I levitated the mirror in front of me, while grasping a pencil in the hoof field of my dominant hoof over an open page in my observations notebook. In the meantime, I used my left hoof to channel magic directly into the slate and initiate the spell. After a few moments, the silver backing of the mirror ceased showing me my reflection, and instead began to show something else.

It was some kind of abandoned city, shrouded in the dark of night, but the ringed planet in the sky did more than enough to reflect light to see by. A diagnostic part of the spell overlaid a label on the corner of the mirror, effectively naming this world COP9AU. That genius bit of subprocess was Mom's suggestion, saying it'd make it easier to take notes and potentially target worlds for scrying in the future. Celestia only knows how the spell comes up with a name. Regardless, I marked that down in my observations.

I watched as a bipedal shape ran around a corner and began to proceed down the broken avenue. At first, I thought it might be a human, but the proportions were all wrong. It wasn't long after that I saw that it was some kind of clothes-wearing robot with hair. Pink 'eyes' appeared to depict worry on a glossy black faceplate as she ran. Much to my interest, I even got some audio out of the spell, which I wasn't expecting.

"Come on, you guys, any time now!" She sounded young—maybe about my age—but more than that, she sounded terrified. She cast a look over her shoulder before crying, "Nope nope nope!"

The reason for her fear became quite apparent as a few moments later, another robot slid onto the avenue behind her. This one was wearing an outfit the portal to the mirror world once blessed me with: a Japanese school uniform of all goddamn things. Her long green hair reminded me a lot of what mine was like in my natural changeling state. Unlike the other robot, though, this one had large bladed wings extended from her back, and she was running on all fours, a long tail tipped with a glowing syringe flicking behind her. Also unlike the other robot, this one's 'eyes' were replaced by a yellow X stretched across the faceplate.

"Come on!" the murder bot exclaimed in a creepily familiar voice, her lips pulled back into a rictus grin that revealed some really sharp teeth. "I just wanna play with you a bit!" It almost looked like she was drooling. "You can join me in playing corpse Jenga with your other friends when I find them. I might even put you back together again!"

Alien world, probably the moon of a larger planet. I wrote, shuddering at the sadistic glee with which the second bot chased the first. Colonised, but looks post-apocalyptic. COP9AU appears to be occupied by bipedal machine lifeforms. Some kind of predator/prey relationship between the two different types observed, or I might just be witnessing a psychopath on parade.

Just as the more agile, winged robot was about to catch the more human of the two, another robot with what looked like some kind of anti-tank rifle called out, "Mary, get down!" Even as she threw herself into a slide across the icy ground, he pulled the trigger. For a split second, I saw OH CRAP! flash across the winged robot's face-plate—in Latin characters no less—before the round caught it in the face, sending it sprawling backwards.

It was at that point that I noticed that the wreck of a car had been hoisted up by a lamp post. Even as 'Mary' called out a "Now!" I could already tell what was about to happen. The only reason I looked away was because my left hoof was starting to get incredibly hot. I heard the car crash down upon the supine harbinger of robo-death at the exact moment the ceramic spell plate shattered.

Pain wracked my body, and I let out an involuntary shriek as shards of ceramic burst through my chitin. Yet quickly, I found it harder to think. My eyes snapped forward just in time to watch a black substance spill out from beneath the car. The glass on the mirror cracked before I even dropped the mirror. Oh shit, what the fuck is happening?

Then, everything went black.

SYSTEM REBOOT

SOFT REBOOT INITIATED BY ADMINISTRATION "414E4F4E"...

PARSING DATA: SYS://"../MEMORY_DATA"
PARSING DATA: SYS://"../MEMORY_DATA_(EQUESTRIA)"
INTEGRATING IDENTITY
RECOMPILING KERNEL... DONE!

SERIAL DESIGNATION: I - 1X1000001 | "ANONYMOUS FLICKER"

STRING "ABSOLUTE SOLVER" BLOCKED BY ADMINISTRATION "CYN"
SYSTEM NOTE ADDED: "WHAT THE FUCK EVEN IS THAT, AND WHAT KIND OF NAME IS 414E4F4E?"
REBOOT COMPLETED
MEMORY INTEGRITY: BETTER THAN IT WAS FIVE MINUTES AGO
MENTAL STATE: "I'D BE A MESS IF THIS BODY LET ME BE SANE."
LOADING //CHAR TRAIT: LITTLE SHIT//

REESTABLISHING CONNECTION (43.6096, -63.5172)

That's right... I was fucking around with scrying magic and I forgot to let Star or Mom check my work first.

I took in a simulated breath and shut my 'eyes'. I wasn't just some murder drone sent to Copper-9 to decommission rogue AI employees for JCJenson (In SPAAAAACEE!!!!). I was once a human who ended up in the body of a small filly, who—after a lot of traumatic bullshit—birthed a dark god and got her own body as a changeling queen. My prowess in causing trouble was matched only by my special talent for runic magic!

I am Anonymous Flicker, and I will stop at nothing to get back to my family; if I have to become the monster that monsters fear once more, then so help me, I will.

DIRECTIVE UPDATED:

SEEK NEAREST CORPSE SPIRE
GET BACK TO WORK "NAH."
EARN A SWEET JCJENSON BRANDED PEN "DO THESE ROBOTS SERIOUSLY WANT PENS IN EXCHANGE FOR GENOCIDE?"
FIND A WAY TO CONTACT EQUESTRIA
FIND A WAY HOME

With my Equestrian memories restored, I looked around at the carnage I'd wrought. The two random strangers, who'd fallen victim to the cruel programming and directives of this body, lay strewn all over the ruined café. "I feel like I should be feeling guilty about this," I muttered to myself as I casually removed the severed arm from my mouth as if I hadn't just been treating it like a freeze-pop.

ERROR 404: SYS://"../CONSCIENCE" NOT FOUND

"Well, that's disconcerting... but I'm somehow okay with this." After a moment's thought, and reference to my memories, I realised I'd have to build that conscience from scratch... once I figured out how. "Pretty sure that's a bad thing, but I choose to remain cheerful because I can only imagine what sort of PTSD flashbacks I'd be having right about now."

Glancing back at the two robot corpses, I decided I may as well let my body's programming do the talking and not put useful resources to waste. At the very least, if I could find some way to bottle up those precious liquids, I might be able to stave off the need to kill people to survive. Who knows? Down the road, I might even find some pseudo-solution to feeding on Worker Drones altogether. With that in mind, I grabbed both bodies and dragged them out back into the surprisingly well-preserved kitchen.

As I took inventory of what I had available, I saw that there were some empty covered buckets underneath the sink that might've been used for cleaning. If that wasn't hint enough at what I should do, the sinks were just big enough to fit the remains of my two victims in. First, I gotta take care of those drains. Even if my body belonged to some infiltrator model of Disassembly Drone, I somehow don't imagine that its designer ever intended for the nano-ceramic claws to be used to cut through plumbing, but then again... I'm a fucking visionary.

Once the pipes were disconnected and the buckets were placed directly beneath the drains, I hauled the two decommissioned drones up and into the sinks and began the work of further disassembly. After all, it wasn't like these were cloth rags I could somehow wring the oil out of; I needed to provide points of egress. As much as everypony might frown at desecration of remains, even if they weren't alive in the way we recognised it, it was unfortunately necessary.

Although as I was definitely taking notes for writing a conscience for myself—if for no other reason than I could feel guilty about things and keep me from doing the 'No no bad!' things this body's programming encouraged—I could definitely use a mental distraction. Colour me surprised when I came across a file in MEMORY_DATA that must have defragmented when my Equestrian memories got unfucked. READ.ME, if you could believe it.

Hmm, let's see what it has to say.

"Disassembly drones possess two states: Tranquil and Violent. In their Tranquil state, Disassembly Drones aren't much different from Worker Drones, and are more amenable to conversation. In their Violent state, Disassembly Drones have a mind for nothing short of violence and mayhem; begging for mercy won't help," I paraphrased aloud to myself. "Jeeze, who'da thunk?

"Let's see... Abilities..." Even as the list flashed before my eyes, I couldn't help but snort. "Retractable wings for flight, nanite acid—already knew that one—tail, enhanced agility and strength, nanite acid neutralising saliva..." Why can I even salivate? That's why... Apparently. "Oooh, regeneration... As long as enough material is available and enough of my body remains, I could technically survive what might kill a person, up to and including destruction of the head? Hmm... Says here I gotta eat..." My eyes flicked to the bodies in the sink. "Goddamn it; I'm a literal robo-satan vampire cannibal ain't I?"

Another of the abilities I'd already instinctively used was the interchangeable hands, which can be replaced with, and I quote, 'Almost any weapon or tool you could think of or as the plot dictates.' The plot... What? Still, that could be useful. Never know when I might need an automatic lock-pick, precision laser, or plasma caster.

"Hmm," I mused aloud as I looked over the part of the READ.ME that covered weaknesses. "Systems are built with an intentional design flaw: cooling. Being in the sun too long is enough to fatally overheat my systems, and spending too much time in the Violent state will also cause heat build-up." Peeking under the sink toward the buckets that were not quite full yet, I frowned. "Explains the oil bit though. Body literally burns through the oil because of the heat problem intended to keep me shackled to my programming, and only ghoulish vampirism shit helps."

Still, maybe I could try some motor oil or lantern oil... Hell, I'd even try cooking oil.

Before I could read up on infiltrator-specific features, I caught movement in the corner of my vision cone. Cocking my head aside just enough to get a better look to the doors revealed a drone peering in through the door, sideways like some kind of cartoon character. That wouldn't have been too much a problem if he wasn't also like me—a Disassembly Drone based on the glowing head-piece. Only, instead of dressing like a Japanese schoolgirl, he was dressed like a pilot or some shit.

"Hey, I've never seen you in the city before!" he exclaimed in a glib tone. His eye projections narrowed in what was obvious suspicion. "Aren't you a little short for a Disassembly Drone?"

I am proud to admit that my finely honed fight or flight response kicked in at the same time I let out a startled shriek. Before I could even consider not reacting, my right hand was replaced with something my systems immediately labelled 'Force Gun', pointed directly at the newcomer. With a loud woomph, a cone of kinetic energy rippled through the air between us, smashing him through the wall—and door frame—behind him.

"I'm sorry!" I called out, watching as he pulled himself out of the ruined masonry as if it were nothing. Funny enough, he seemed to be smiling in spite of having just been punted through a wall. "Sweet Celestia, someone needs to put a damn bell on you!" As my system dialed my panic back down to more manageable levels, I reverted my hand and asked, "You okay?"

He nodded, brushing the dust from his jacket and straightening his hat as he stepped forward. "Yeah; J, the leader of this city's squad, can be pretty... punishing, so I'm used to pretty girls putting me through walls." I blinked as the moment of realisation that he'd just said that out loud struck him. Diagonal lines appeared on his emotive display just beneath his eyes in what I was pretty sure was supposed to be a blush. "Aaaanyways," he quickly redirected, snapping into a salute. "I'm Serial Designation N; nice to meet you!"

ACTIVATING SYS://"../SCRIPTS/BLUFF"

A nervous chuckle escaped me, but rather than salute him, I instead curtsied. "I am Serial Designation I," was my simple introduction. "I apologise for any erratic or anomalous behaviour; I've only recently come back online."

He put his index finger and thumb to his chin, likely a programmed mimicry of human behaviour, as he relaxed his salute. His eyes, narrowed in suspicion, moved up and down as he examined me, before glancing back at the sinks. After a few moments that seemed to last way too long, his display emoted happiness, his eyes replaced by a pair of chevrons. "Well, that explains looking at the READ.ME," he remarked. "Still, you seem functional enough..." He let out a thoughtful hum as he looked back out into the café. "If you don't know where your squad is, you should come back to our spire. Even if J doesn't know which city you're supposed to be in, she probably wouldn't say no to having you around."

Hmm, on the one hoof, I could go with him and not be alone while I try to figure out how to get off this planet, I mused, pretending to be distracted by the filled buckets of drone hydraulic oil. With almost practised ease—almost as if it wasn't the first time this body had done it—I drug the buckets from beneath the sink and slapped the lids down on them. On the other hoof, I'll probably be expected to kill more Worker Drones. While I don't have any objections on account of my missing conscience programming making me somewhat amoral, Celestia only knows if or when Mom and the others might start scrying to try and find me. Plus, I have no doubt the rest of his squad might be a tad suspicious of me. Depending on how long I was offline, I might be suspected of being a Zombie Drone, which—looking at the manual—a self-reboot after termination might make me exactly that.

Sighing, I licked the oil off my fingertips and then picked up the buckets. "It beats slumming it in this literal slum," I said, standing up. "Show me the way, N." He led me out into the cafe, and out towards the street. On my way by the campfire, an idea struck me. My tail snaked out and grabbed the strap to the guitar. I temporarily put down a bucket as I strapped the guitar across my back. Extra care was taken to position it just right so that when my wings emerged, the guitar wouldn't be disturbed.

Flying was a bit weird. Something the writer of the READ.ME didn't feel the need to tell anyone was that the wings weren't entirely necessary for flight. It almost seemed as though they were primarily intended for use as additional bladed weapons, protection, and intimidation. Flapping was unnecessary, although it could be used to create directional thrust.

Luckily, flight was something so natural to me either as a changeling or a Disassembly Drone that I could easily pay attention to pretty much anything and not crash. Good thing too, because N was a bit of a chatterbox. "You know, it's a good thing I found you when I did," he shouted over the wind. "It's almost sun-up, and I think we both know how bad an idea getting caught out in the sun is."

"Tell me about it," I responded. Murder robot or no, he seemed pretty nice, and he was taking me to a more reliable shelter, so small-talk seemed like the least I could do. Oh hey, that improv script stayed active after the reboot. Nice. "I don't know—"

WARNING

UNAUTHORIZED REMOTE ACCESS ESTABLISHED

USER "004D4F4D"
SOURCE: UNKNOWN
USER "004D4F4D" HAS OPENED A CHAT

004D4F4D > ANON. ANON, CAN YOU HEAR ME?

"—how the humans got it in their heads that sunbathing was a sane hobby." I laughed an anxious laugh as I tried to pretend I wasn't receiving a mysterious message mid conversation with him. "Oh gee, let's all bathe in solar radiation so our skin cooks! Does getting cancer feel nice or something?"

While that was going on, I considered what, if anything, I should say in the chat. I had no idea who this 'user' was, and even if I was a grown mare, talking to strangers was still super weird, even with murder programming. Then again, the only ones that should know the name Anon are in pieces and can't exactly tell anyone.

414E4F4E > IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING. YOU'RE COMING THROUGH AS TEXT IN A TERMINAL WINDOW OVERLAID OVER MY VISION. WHO IS THIS?

It took a few moments for whoever it was to respond. During that time, I considered looking into the terminal's settings and seeing if I could find some way to turn off the caps-lock. Sure, it's allegedly cruise-control for cool, but my god it was hard to look at. Still, if life were a book, then it'd definitely make the terminal easier to stand out.

Hmm, hold on... "414E4F4E" was the name of the administrator responsible for my soft reboot... and it kept this body from restoring from a back-up on the hard reboot... and now they're talking for me? It felt like I'd seen that kind of formatting before. Something about wizards? No... Magic? No... Oh! Hexes! That's what it was: hexadecimal. Conveniently, there was a Text-to-Hexadecimal application present for me. Plugging it into the app, I was unable to suppress a smirk spreading across my face. ANON. It read ANON... Which means...

004D4F4D > OH, THANK CELESTIA. I'VE BEEN TRYING TO REACH YOU FOR HOURS.
004D4F4D > IT'S ME, ANON. YOU KNOW, THE MARE THAT ADOPTED YOU?
414E4F4E > OH. HEY MOM.
414E4F4E > ANY IDEA HOW WE'RE GONNA GET ME HOME?
004D4F4D > IT'S TOO EARLY TO SAY. I'VE BARELY MANAGED TO GET A FUNCTIONING COMMUNICATION SPELL WORKING ON SUCH SHORT NOTICE.
414E4F4E > I HOPE YOU AREN'T ABOUT TO ASK WHAT EVEN HAPPENED, MOM, 'CAUSE I HAVEN'T A CLUE.
414E4F4E > HOPEFULLY IT DOESN'T TAKE TOO LONG TO GET ME HOME, THOUGH; MY SOUL IS ANCHORED TO A ROBOT PROGRAMMED TO KILL OTHER ROBOTS, AND APPARENTLY MY CONSCIENCE AND MORALS DIDN'T MAKE THE TRIP.
414E4F4E > IN THE MEANTIME, I'M GOING TO FIND SHELTER FOR THE DAY WITH N, THE DRONE I'M CURRENTLY FLYING WITH, AND WORK ON WRITING A BASIC CONSCIENCE ALGORITHM BASED ON THE 'WWMD?' RULE.
004D4F4D > WWMD?

"Hey, you really shouldn't be flying with the command line open," N called out, jerking my attention away from my conversation with the Alicorn of Friendship inside my head. When I cocked my head and emoted a raised eyebrow at him, he tapped the side of his face, indicating the right eye. Oh, shit, is there a terminal window visible over my eye? "I'm just saying, don't code and fly. I learned that the hard way."

414E4F4E > "WHAT WOULD MOM DO?"
414E4F4E > LOOK. I GOTTA LET YOU GO FOR A BIT. CONTACT ME IN ~12 HOURS?
004D4F4D > ALRIGHT. STAY SAFE, LOVEBUG.

ADMINISTRATOR "414E4F4E" HAS CLOSED THE CHAT

"Yeah, I guess." I agreed. "My memories are screwed enough without crashing into a building."

The rest of the flight was taken in silence. A happy smile creased my face. Despite the dreary landscape, and the fact that I was flying to a house of at least one thousand corpses, I was beginning to enjoy myself. Even if my pony memories were neatly categorised and sorted—short of actually doing a search—I couldn't remember the last time I'd actually gone out flying. I'd been stuck in the lab too much, just like Mom said.

Somehow, I don't think this was what she meant this morning when she threatened to send me out to make friends though. My eyes drifted over to N. Also, I don't think she'd approve of the company I'm about to keep.

As we came in for a landing outside the spire, N paused in front of the great opening. "Now, before we go in, J can be kinda mean," he explained, putting a hand on my shoulder as we both retracted our wings. "The best thing you can do is not show weakness. Show her you're not afraid to contribute to the squad, and you'll get along just fine. V? V's great..."

I nodded, pretending I understood when he got this love-stricken look in his eyes. Can murderbots even fall in love? The thought of N and some other drone turning a romantic waltz into a murder spree was simultaneously adorable and horrifying. It was especially weird because I could recognise that this was a programmed reaction. More positive reinforcement? Or has this programming already irreparably warped the way I think?

I stepped in through the gaping maw and started making my way toward the pod at the centre. I set my buckets and then the guitar down, leaning it up against a large chunk of debris that could charitably be called cover in a gunfight. It was wild just how many robot bodies stacked together there were. Without running any sort of algorithm, I'd have guessed that there were at least several thousand. It was morbid, but hauntingly fascinating. It reminded me of changeling hive resin, made from reconstituted foodstuffs and mass, and here we had another predator species doing the same.

Turning a slow circle, unable to stop myself from giggling. It was all so absurd. I couldn't stop laughing because of how crazy this was. This pretty much had to be some kind of weird dream. That was the only way it would make sense, except this was way too visceral to be a dream.

Something struck me at high speed from behind, and the next thing I knew, I was face-down in a small crater, with the ceramic claws of another Disassembly Drone wrapped around the back of my head. In the small of my back, I could feel the two tapered points not unlike my own two feet planted against my chassis. My sensors were already complaining about structural damage, although the damage values seemed to be reducing automatically. I couldn't see who had attacked me, but I lashed out with my tail, wrapping it around my attacker's throat.

Their grip on my head loosened as my attacker made a confused noise. As she stepped off my back, I withdrew my tail. "Hold on, this isn't a worker." The next moment, I was roughly turned over with their foot, forced to look up at who I assumed to be J. The silver hair, the yellow eyes like N's, the flight jacket and what I assumed to be painted-on stockings... But with that headpiece and that stinger-tipped tail, she was definitely another like me. "Whoa, N, am I dreaming or did you bring home an infiltrator model?"

Actually, I think if she let down her hair, dyed it green and had green eyes, she'd look a lot like me... Is I just a worker-sized J?

As N gingerly walked over, another female Disassembly Drone touched down beside her—V, I presume. "Wow, you're right!" She jabbed J with her elbow as she smirked down at me. "Didn't they discontinue these a few years ago because their aggression programming was way too high for their job, and they kept getting themselves killed?"

J's eyes narrowed, and I could just barely make out the anxious expression N was throwing between me and his two coworkers. Brushing the snow off of my clothes, I slowly stood up. "I dunno about all that," I casually said, before curtsying, momentarily engaging the same disguise holo that fooled those two drones I murdered. "Serial Designation I, at your service. My programming's a bit scrambled, but my conscience is nonexistent and my sadism has been dialled back enough to not fall for some cartoon nonsense that'll knock me offline for a few years." Wait, no, I was supposed to not give them a reason to think I'm a Zombie Drone.

"You must be J," I addressed the one with her hair in twin-tails. "Which would make you V. N has told me—" The sole boy in the corpse-hut looked panicked, quietly waving his hands to warn me away from saying anything. "—absolutely nothing about you both."

They both turned and glared at him, seeing the obvious lie for what it was. "Look buddy, we don't have time to play house with whatever strays you bring home," J warned as she walked by. "Until we're sure she's not corrupted, or as useless as you, she's your responsibility." Glancing at the two buckets of oil placed next to the guitar, she gave one last smile. "At least she seems able to feed herself."

V simply took off, muttering something about fetish dolls under her breath, leaving me and N standing there. Well, at least they aren't stuffing a virus chip into my chest and trying to decommission me. I watched her dive through an open hatch in their drop-pod, pausing just long enough to shoot me a dirty look. When I looked back to him, he gave me an awkward look and two thumbs up.

Friendship Get!

Item Get!

Friends

N, Disassembly Drone - COP9AU *NEW*

Items

The Victim's Guitar - COP9AU *NEW*

Author's Note

Welp, here you have it. Anon's now stuck in another world and must now find her way home. At least she'll have a cool robot body to keep herself safe, as long as she can keep the instincts to murder in check.