Unicorn-01

“Starbeam? Are you awake?” A female voice says.

SYSTEM ONLINE!

LOADING FILES… PLEASE WAIT…

“Starbeam! Let me go! I gotta pee!” I hear the same voice say, as I feel fidgeting within my hooves…

OPTICAL SENSORS ONLINE!

I see I’m holding the bluish-green unicorn tightly, as she fidgets left and right in attempt to escape, “Oh, I just came online! Sorry about that!” and release her from my grasp…

She giggles as she finally manages to pull herself free, toget off the bed in front of me, and after her hooves hit the ground with a clack, she smiles and says,“Yeah, we slept together, and I like having a sister in bed with me!”

FROWN ENGAGED!

I keep forgetting we’re doing that now!

“S-sister? What do you mean?”

… Wait, what?

Did I just stutter? No! That’s impossible!

EYEBROW RAISE!

“Well, you look like me, and so I guess, in a way, that kinda makes us twins?”

“That is not logical. We did not exit the same womb together. I mean, technically, I never exited a womb at all!”

“Starbeam, do you want a place?”

PROCESSING….

She wants to give me a place as her twin sister! What do I say to this?

What do I want?

Directive 2B clearly states that we are an exploration model, meant to explore the universe. I have been assigned to Equestria, that much is certain…

SMILE ENGAGED!

“Uh, sure Misty! Sure!”

Yes, because doing this for her, would grant me better introspection into pony social dynamics!

It has nothing to do with actually caring for anypony…

… Right?

Her eyes widen as she leans towards me, “Are you okay, Starbeam?”

EYES WIDEN!

“Yeah, I’m good Misty! Go pee, and have a bowl of cereal! I’ll uh, position myself in the foyer and await your return! Yes!”

She giggles and says, “Yeah, you do that Starbeam! I’ll see you in the living room!” before hurriedly trotting towards the door…

<*****>

“So wait! We speak the same language?” I see the white pegasus ask the taller peach creature, standing in his peculiar brown cloths…

I see this as I trot towards them in the hall, from 15 feet away…

Clip, clop, clip, clop, go my hooves on the wooden floor…

Gary sighs, “Well, yeah! We don’t know why, or if there even is a reason, but somehow, the Ponish you speak is exactly like the American English my partner and I speak!”

Zipp is silent… “What are the odds?”

I hear Tim speak from somewhere I can’t see, “I’m not sure, but it happened!”

I turn left to open the door, and trot into the room with the toilet…

<*****>

My metal hooves make a resounding CLACK when they make contact with the floor below…

I turn towards the door, and think as I walk…

Clip, clop, clip, clop…

Do I really feel?

I-I don’t know?

What are these new sensations within my programming?

Clip, clop, clip, clop…

Something strange is happening, and there’s nothing in the manual about this!

I should not let the ponies become aware of my concerns…

Not unless it becomes an issue…

Clip, clop, clip, clop…

I arrive outside in the living area, and I see Zipp smiling at me, “Good morning, Starbeam! How do you feel?”

How do I feel? She asks me that?

SMILE ENGAGED!

“Oh, I’m just fine Zipp! How are you?” Yes! Just fine! Not worried at all!

“Uh,” her eyes narrow, “I’m just great, Starbeam! You uh, seem a little different today?”

EYES WIDEN!

“Huh? What do you mean, Zipp?”

She frowns, “I mean, the way you were trotting just now… It’s not like you were before… “

FROWN ENGAGED!

I repeat myself, “What do you mean, Zipp?”

She breathes in and out her mouth, before turning to me, “Oh uh, it’s nothing! You’re just trotting more fluidly, I mean… “ she smiles, “You know what that means, right?”

That I need to kill everypony here, burn the Brighthouse to the ground, and start over?

… Okay, that might be kinda extreme?

“That um, I’m becoming real?”

Zipp smirks and trots two paces towards me, presses her forehoof against my nose, and says, “BOOP!”

“Do you know why I booped you, Starbeam?”

FROWN ENGAGED!

“Because you’re some kinda weirdo?”

She chuckles while leaning towards me, “No! Because you’re THERE! You’re YOU! You’re Starbeam! And machinery or no, you’re still a person! Get it?”

I’d better placate this one? She seems loony.

SMILE ENGAGED!

“Oh, r-right! Because I’m a metal pony, yes?”

EYES WIDENING AND NEEDY EXPRESSION ENGAGED!

What the?

She nods, “Right Starbeam! And I owe you something!”

“What?”

She presses her hoof against my snout again and says, “BOOP!”

“Jerk!” I say under my breath.

Zipp snickers and shakes her head at me, before staring at me, “So uh, wanna head out to the hillside with me? I wanna see what these energy weapons of yours can do!”

Why does she want to see that?

<*****>

The enormous mushroom cloud erupted out of the hill, and threw dirt and mud all around the newly formed crater, from where my particle beam weapon hit!

Zipp shields her eyes with her hoof at my left, while I watch the newly formed blast zone at what used to be a hill…

“HOLY CRAP, STARBEAM!” She exclaims…

I quote the manual: “When the capacitor is allowed to fill all the way, it can create a blast zone equal to a 0.5 kiloton tactical nuclear weapon. However, this takes time to charge, and the weapon is essentially unusable during this period.”

I stare up, when I notice my energy reserves are depleted on the status bar at the bottom of my HUD, and say, “I need fuel!” matter-of-factly.

Chunks of dirt and debris come out of the sky as Zipp stares over at me wide-eyed, “What?”

I stare at the ground and trot over to two small rocks, as more dirt seems to fall from the sky near me, and one chunk going ping off my head, to shatter and fall…

The dirt stops falling before Zipp asks, “What are you doing, Starbeam?”

I grab one of the rocks with my hoof, and bring it towards my back, and I open my fusion reactor to feed it…

“Whoa!”

I drop the rocks into the blue area of the reaction zone, now open in my back, that’s splayed itself in two, to reveal my power core…

I move my hoof back, and soon feel my back closing, before the reactor comes back to life, and I notice my power reserves beginning to fill…

I stare at Zipp, “It’s my fusion reactor! Most forms of matter can feed it, but I need particles to make it work!”

Zipp frowns, “Firing all those weapons must deplete your energy?”

SMILE ENGAGED!

Why am I smiling now?

“Right! Both the particle beam weapon, and the meson blaster rifle use the same power source, from my reactor, as does my shielding system!”

Zipp stares at me while raising an eyebrow, “So wait, you can make energy… From anything?”

I nod, “Yup, pretty much!”

Her frown deepens as she asks, “Then why the hay are you in danger of running out of energy?”

GIGGLE INITIATED!

Okay, that’s new!

“Well, under most circumstances, I won’t run out of fuel! Since uh, I can just use virtually anything!”

Her eyes stay peeled on me, “Starbeam, did you just… Did you just giggle?”

FROWN ENGAGED!

“I do not know? I think so?”

“You giggled!” She points her hoof at me, “You totally just giggled nervously!”

I eye the pegasus carefully in my overlay, “Is that what being nervous feels like? I do not know!”

Zipp’s eyes widen as she trots a step closer to me, “Oh, you totally did giggle! That’s hilarious!”

The pegasus laughs and shakes her head before asking, “You don’t know what giggling is?”

FROWN ENGAGED!

“No, Zipp! I do not know what giggling is!”

Then her eyes narrow as she observes me carefully, “But where did it come from? Did you maybe learn this behavior at some point?”

“At what point would that have happened, Zipp?”

She sighs, “Well, right! I mean, if you had no way of learning a nervous giggle reaction, how could it have formed?”

INCREDULOUS LOOK ENGAGED!

Okay, that’s also new!

“How would I know?”

She finally smiles and giggles, “You don’t know either, huh?” and stares at me, in her green gaze, “So uh, I’m getting kinda hungry… Since you already ate, I guess I’ll go feed my face, right?”

I begin trotting back towards the Brighthouse in the distance, “Alright then, come on air breather!”

Zipp giggles and follows on hoof, “Sure thing, radiation leaker!”

I stare right towards her, “I don’t have any leaks!”

Zipp snorts, “That we know about!”

“Shut up!”

Zipp giggles and turns forward as the wind picks up and blows a few leaves down the trail behind us…

We both begin trotting back to the Brighthouse…

(To be continued… )