Part One - Affection

         It all started a little over 11 years ago, in a place far outside of Equestria, in the dark and mysterious wastelands. There, was the mechanical fortress, the metal palace, which was my home. I was one of the workers in the eastern department and was responsible for numerous construction designs as being a newer version of the standard construction for a unicorn filly-bot (UNIFBOT-MODEL-F5262) with a more advanced intellect implied me to, we were all made so that we would mimic the performance of the biological set-up as far as it got.

There were millions of us and we were all created to serve one and one purpose alone, to completely and utterly destroy the land of Equestria. Everything we did at the fortress was directly or indirectly connected to the destruction of the great kingdom. We just had to fulfil this purpose at all costs, why? Because we hated them.

Why did we hate them? Did we hate their world? Or just their way of living? No. We were just simply filled with hatred and despise for the earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasí, all of them. We didn’t know why we hated them, we had absolutely no idea why we were so filled with despise and the will to see them all dead but we were. Each and every one of us. And that was all we needed really, that was all we lived for and all we had ever known.

I was made during the beginning of a new project all started because of a recent series of accidents among the colt, foal and filly-bots, it basically involved giving them a greater intellect and making them stay at the fortress and attend to more scientific matters as the mare and stallion-robots would be the ones going out on raids. This is to say, there were a few exceptions. Some of the further developed colt and filly-bots actually did have potential to kill and could also do what they were originally intended to when the re-development was finished. And I was one of those exceptions.

We then consisted in numerous small groups with 50 of us in each one as well as having specifically planned times and locations for every raid. And even though all groups did have their specific time set for when they had to go out on a raid, it was always on a very different location.

Furthermore, the raids mostly involved attacking small villages and to be more specific, burning them down to the ground and killing each and everypony living there. Sure, it happened now and then that somepony actually escaped, but we would usually get as many as was necessary in order for us to carry our values with pride.

My story, or well… the interesting part started a late evening in the fortress, I was sitting at my desk, furiously changing the blueprints on Prototype IIX which never seemed to be wanting to work when I suddenly heard a familiar tune coming from the speakers located in the upper corners of my small quadratic room. It was 21:00, a very special time each and every day. It was time for the test.

All six different main construction models in the six secluded departments (the unibots, the earth robots, the pegabots, the unicorn colt, foal and filly-bots, the pegasus colt, foal and filly-bots and the earth pony colt, foal and filly-bots) were divided into separate gargantuan groups, each group would receive a different test and each one of us would have to complete our tests individually.

The tests could almost be anything; it could be as small as a simple riddle/question or as big as a series of puzzles and/or riddles. Now, here is the holy rule: “You must always complete your test or you are to face the dire consequences!” If you failed to complete your test, if you somehow cheated doing it, if you refused to do what you were supposed to, if you completed it the wrong way, you would get punished.

The punishment could also be very different depending on which kind of attendant importance the test withheld at the moment; it could be as small as a mere reprogramming and as terrible as an immediate shutdown. But there weren’t many of us who failed completing a test, only a couple of hundred each day and if you consider that we were about 500.000 of the unicorn colt and filly-bot model performing the test every day, I liked the statistics.

I rose up and left the room, entering the big and very long hallway with many doors located on left and right sides. I moved almost mechanically and looked as countless others did it with the same kind of slow, somewhat reserved movements. We then all walked in the same direction, as I walked I took a deep breath and felt the wondrous metallic oily scent I could never get enough of.

Finally, the great round hallway stopped, there were two gates and we all went toward the big one to the right. When I had entered, a very familiar sight unveiled itself vefore my eyes, the gigantic room was filled with desks, one for each one of the unicorn colt and filly-bots.

The long promenade continued inside of the room and I took a seat behind a desk in the far back. After that, it took about another ten minutes for the rest to find a place to sit. Not a lot of time really, there had been seperate occations when I’d had to wait for hours just because of somerobot getting lost in the middle of the room walking around there in circle until finally finding a suiting place to sit, the tests wouldn’t begin until everyrobot had taken a seat.

But I didn’t blame them, the room was gigantic after all. One final filly-bot took a seat and the gate which was the only way out, closed! The desk opened up automatically and something very unusual revealed itself before my eyes. It was a puzzle, a thousand-bit puzzle to be specific.

The voice of a unicorn filly-bot was heard, coming from the great speakers in the rear end of the room. “You can begin your tests, NOW!” said the voice very loudly. The voice belonged to the chief of our department with there being were six chiefs, one for each department.

The chief of ours, UNIFBOT-MODEL-A0087 was developed from one of the earlier designs, therefore missing the features that made a robot look realistic. The artificial mane was replaced by black metal which was one of the most rare minerals, the artificial fur wasn’t there at all, nor was the skin and so, the outside of her body was solid metal.

The data on earlier constructions was highly classified so I couldn’t restrain the first fact about her, it was a public fact though that the leaders of each department carried out the will of our father. I took a second to glance over all of the jigsaw pieces before then taking a look around, seeing that others had already began and so, I got right to it myself.

I used my magic abilities (which was taking an essential part in our way of carrying out our work as well as one of the more cleverly succeeded attempts in matching the biological set-up) to levitate and sort the different pieces and concentrated to indentify all the varying colours before me.

I sat there moving pieces into place and had patiently worked for hours. There wasn’t any threatening time limit, just as long as you got it done by 06:00 in the morning it was alright. Now, there were just a few jigsaw pieces left. I went on and smiled tiredly as the green field of magic gathered around the final pieces and they fell into place.

I took a good look at the finished puzzle and flinched as I felt utter fear and terror gather inside of me in an oblivious manner. I shook the feelings off of me and looked at it again to see if I wasn’t just imagining things, but there it was. It wasn’t the motif of three fallen Equestrians, one unicorn, one earth pony and one pegasus stained in blood on a great field covered wild growing flowers that frightened me, but something else.

I looked at the puzzle a third time but it was still all the same, three jigsaw pieces were missing. One of the pieces in the top right corner, one in the top left and one in the lower centre. I was almost panicking but then tried to calm myself down a bit.

There must be something wrong. Yes, that’s right…there must be some kind of…I took a good look around and saw how others around me seemed just as clueless. I got a hold of myself and turned back to the puzzle. What in the world is this supposed be? This has to mean something; it can not just be a coincidence.

I now stared at the puzzle, almost manically. Hmm, three pieces missing?... This is impossible, unthinkable, this test can not be completed. But what was I supposed to do? Give up? Suddenly a new thought popped up, maybe that is the test. But if not…I could barely even imagine the consequences standing before me, like giant harrowing walls of disaster in its purest form, ripping off of the mere essence of my consciousness until it finally reached the soon perishable inside of it all which was…me.

But all I had to do was to give the signal. I closed my eyes and fell into my thoughts for a minute before slowly opening them again. I had reached my decision. I opened my mouth as I slowly said it, “Uncompleted!” The others around me stared in shock, I looked back at them…calmly…the desk opened up for a second time, the pieces fell down and I looked back shakily as they did.

The desk closed itself and this time, I saw something much more familiar. The ceiling opened up above me and a screen followed by a long metal arm lowering it down to my eye sight showed itself. I patiently stared at the screen and was almost expecting to see the word “UNSUCCESSFUL” in big red letters, but instead the screen lit up showing the word “SUCCESSFUL” in big green letters just as always.

I was so relieved, it was simply unexplainable. Then, I flinched as the desk opened up again for a second time and a reasonably big grey box stood there. I didn’t even bother to look at the box before coming into focus and seeing a green field shape itself around the cap, it fell to the side and I instantly lost interest as I saw the contents the box withheld. It was the terrifying old puzzle.

I turned my gaze upwards and saw that the screen was gone now. I then looked back at the puzzle and it felt almost like it was staring right back at me, the jigsaw pieces now out of order since before. I lifted the cap, put it back on and took the box with me. The unnecessarily long walk to the gate suddenly felt quite short, I stopped at the gate and it opened up automatically, just as usual.

As I walked down the hallway with the grey rectangular box hovering beside me, I still couldn’t make sense of today’s test. It usually felt like every test had a meaning, like it was supposed to tell you something one way or another but this was different.

Was it my trust that was tested, was it to see if I would really lay down such devotement into finding an answer and to see how far I would go before I gave up? Possibly, if so; I don’t think being the first one out truly counted as a full success. But on the other hand, could it really be that simple. I fell out of my thoughts as I heard the gate opening again behind me and noticed others come walking out; they had followed my example, of course.

When I reached my room, I turned toward the door and opened it. As I was about to walk inside, I heard a sound and I looked to the right only to be met with the sight of a grey box which had just hit the wall beside me. I focused on the box and levitated it inside of my room before I slowly entered myself. I placed the box on my desk and turned toward the small bed deciding to curl up on it and then in less than ten minutes, I was fast asleep.

The sound of three long beeps coming from the speakers woke me up the next morning. I got up, left the room and entered the big hallway. This signal basically meant that my group was up next for a raid. I reached the end of the hallway but this time, entering the smaller gate to the left.

As I had once entered, I came into a corridor filled with others walking around, all on their way somewhere. Now, there was another corridor on the right and one a little further on to the left. I paid close attention to my surroundings, this place was like a maze and if you got lost, you could end up wandering around for who knows how long.

I kept on going a bit and quickly entered the fourth staircase to the right. As I walked up the stairs, I saw PEGAFSUS-MODEL-F7461 passing by, I turned around and looked with apparent interest as she was walking down. It was time for her group to travel in less than 14 minutes. I was hit with a large bit of confusion and my curiosity did the rest.

What could she be doing, does she want to get herself killed? Well, it doesn’t matter anyway; whatever F7461 does, she knows the consequences of her actions.

Everyrobot cared for themselves here, there was no chatting or sociality. Such behaviour was strictly prohibited and would come to be punished, another rule I never fully understood the meaning of. But as always, I didn’t have to.

I now finally reached my destination and came out on the great yard where 25 MEWOD-T35´s, a kind of mechanical wagons which also worked as tanks, stood ready. I climbed up on one of them and now, the only thing left for me to do was to wait for the rest of the group.

If you came at least an hour late without a (very) decent explanation, you would get punished. Such were the rules. As I waited, the colourful morning sky turned blue and I watched as another unicorn filly-bot climbed up at the back of my MEWOD-T35.

There was to be two of us on each MEWOD-T35, seeing as the appealing number of 25 opposed by the 50 ones of us which gathered here every day could simply not end up by different measures. I stared impatiently as the final one, (a lazy pegabot from what I could tell) flew up and landed on the MEWOD-T35 behind me.

All of them started moving immediately and the humongous gate separating the fortress from the world outside slowly started opening; it was time to take a trip to Equestria.

I looked up to the right, there high above us. On the great pedestal stood our creator, out father. Aldeus, the great alicorn. His dark black colour stood out against the blue sky, his black tail and mane moved magically in the air as he watched over us with his strangely red-glowing eyes. His pupils and irises had a darker red; a little hard to see in the sunlight but very obvious once you got closer to him.

I kept looking and suddenly he stretched out his wings and left the pedestal. He flew down in circles around it before leaving for the great tower in the northern parts of the fortress. I felt a small breeze as he flew by and took a second to close my eyes and appreciate it, I then turned back toward the gate and waited. As the MEWOD-T35´s slowly left the yard, I glared out at the wastelands which we were about to pass through.

We had started passing through the green landscapes of Equestria. The colours and smells left me completely untouched as I oppositely started ignoring them instead, just as always. We now passed by a small set of hills. This is apparently the best way of reaching there undiscovered, thought I to myself in an ironic sense.

We reached the village and the vehicles navigation systems switched to manual, I was glad to be teaming up with the only other filly-bot in the group. She opened the shutter by pressing the button on the side of it and entered the inside of the MEWOD-T35, she then simply activated the turret and started steering it throughout the village.

I stayed outside and gladly watched as the word on the turret’s monitor switched from “INACTIVE” to “ACTIVE”. I simply walked up behind the turret and started. Firstly becoming a little more conscious of my surroundings and watching as screaming victims started fleeing for their lives when their homes were being burned down and blown to pieces.

I turned the turret against them and felt the hatred burning inside of me. The hatred gave me power, the hatred gave me strength, the hatred was above anything else. It meant the world to me, it is what guided me and helped me in my moments of need. I fired and watched as the ponies fell in torment…I then smiled and feeling the familiar sense of accomplishment as always when I murdered.

The feeling was intoxicating, it was like a drug. I just had to get more of it. I fired again, this time against one of their houses. The ones living there came out screaming and I felt the same wondrous feeling yet another time.

These ponies, the ponies of this world…Equestria…they were monsters. Terrible, horrible creatures, ones that were not deserving the gift of life. I didn’t know why but I just felt it deep inside of me, all the way to very the depths of my soul. The feeling was so unbelievably convincing that I didn’t even take a second to ask myself why. I just simply knew, that is all that was to it.

The village had now been completely destroyed, I watched as some final survivors tried to escape, took an aim for them and shot in an almost mechanically reflexive manner. The shutter opened and the one other filly-bot came climbing up. She looked a bit new judging by model design, with the bright colours and such. Green, red…a tad bit of magenta, what were they thinking? I didn’t bother scanning her for registration, I was tired and could not see any point in doing so.

Mission accomplished, the village being destroyed and with no survivors too for that matter. Suddenly, I saw somerobot walking in this direction coming from the nearest MEWOD-T35, it only took me a second to realise who it was. A0087 had been following with us…this was extremely unusual, what business could she possibly be having to attend to out here because I sure knew she wasn’t going to kill anypony.

She was not a warrior at all, especially not since the time colt and filly-bots were forbidden from doing this. After the new rule was placed by Aldeus, it seemed like not even A0087 was permitted to do so. She carefully climbed up on the MEWOD-T35 and walked up to me.

“Excellent work today, F5262. I am very pleased by your efforts as of now.” said she calmly but with a sense of determination in her voice.

“Thank you for you kind words!” answered I veritably and politely.

“I expect great things from you in the future!” said A0087 then gladly with a smile.

She jumped off of the MEWOD-T35 and returned to her own. The entire squadron of MEWOD-T35´s manual controls shut themselves off immediately as they all turned around and slowly started heading back home.

As I entered my room, I got right back to work. I had been given a very important task and did not have any plans to fail on it whatsoever. This was the honour of being the one designing “the lock”. “The lock” that I worked on wasn’t actually a lock at all but more of a giant door with three big key holes in it.

The locks were to be specifically designed so that you would need all three keys to open it and without the keys, no one could enter. The door was to be impenetrable, created using a particular mix made from several rare metals and a special kind of crystal.

And the keys, they were to be hidden on the three most unreachable locations in all of Equestria. Whichever those places can be, thought I curiously. Aldeus already knew about my plan and apparently it was very important for them to be hidden inside the region of Equestria, whatever that was supposed to mean.

I didn’t see the importance of this but as long as I finished my task, it wouldn’t matter. I wasn’t sure of what kind of locations this could be either, but he was sure not picking an apple farm considering what was to be hidden behind that door. A weapon, not just any weapon but the greatest and most powerful weapon of mass destruction that would ever come to be. It was common knowledge among us; it is what was hidden in the mystical northern tower.

Even though the security measures the fortress was withholding had been placed at the very edge of flawless, this weapon was so important that every necessary precaution had to be made to prevent anything from happening to it, hence this door. Not that I had ever seen this weapon, no one had. As far as I was concerned, Aldeus was the only one who had even gotten near to it and he was the only one knowing what it was and how it looked like.

Hours later, I still sat there working on the blueprints for “the lock”. I had much work left before I was done and decided to get back to my own little project, Prototype IIX. I didn’t know if I would ever get it done, it just felt unreachable. Then on the other hand, that’s how science works, you should never use words such as impossible or unreachable and I knew that very well.

So I went on, changing the blueprints as carefully as I could in my calm, focused manner. In theory, the machine worked well but I needed to find a way of upholding a steady power flow. Neither magic, nor electricity would do the trick so I figured if I would just scrap this entire project.

It would basically come to look like a small crystal ball, that being on the outside but on the inside however, there was going to be very sensitive wiring and so, I had to be careful and I couldn’t allow anything happening to it.

It was an unnecessarily sensitive construction design but on the other hand…if I could get it to work properly, I would be able to make actual phase transitions on objects in the vicinity using only a very low amount of energy; it would be perfect for…whatever situation in which you need to change the shape of nearby objects from being solid to floating and from being floating to plain gas form.

Hmm, nah…I would figure out some good way to make use of it…later. I folded all the blueprints scattered across the desk and closed it before looking up and glaring at the two speakers which were soon about to give the signal…and just a second later, they did. Three short beeps, it was time for the next daily test.

I took a seat behind one of the desks in the gigantic room and prepared myself for whatever was about to get thrown at me. The gate closed and the desk opened up, everything happening in the ordinary frequent manner.

“You can begin your tests, NOW!” A0087´s voice echoed through the room.

I looked curiously and saw what seemed like several blueprints inside, but I had been deceived before. I took a closer look and smiled at the sight. Yes, that was definitely three blueprints, all on a machine that was entitled “The Obliterator”. I looked back at the blueprints and saw incompletion, then recognizing these blueprints as my own from two months ago.

It was to be a kind of a helmet that would use ones inner force and focus it but at the same time raising the power levels exceptionally creating a powerful beam of light. It had tons and tons of bugs and so, I never thought it would truly come to be so I scrapped the project…but here it was, staring at me.

I took a curious look around and found that others had received different blueprints. Hmm, so these were apparently all of our own cancelled projects and our tests would be to finish the blueprints we had once began with. But I wasn’t really worried, being sure I could come up with something in 9 hours seeing as having dealt with this kind of pressure before.

8 hours and 43 minutes later, the room was nearly empty as an assumption, mainly done to push myself closer and closer to the edge. I was panicking, I needed to come up with something and fast. There was only one big problem left, I needed a core. Something that would be able to focus the magic power properly, but I didn’t know about any kind of compatible apparatus for a machine that wasn’t even invented yet.

I looked at the big clock on the wall in the rear end of the room and sighed. Wait. What if I already had a core…or at least a decent template…What if I could use the basic design for the polarity converter but instead of the prototypic POCO-7, I would use a smaller version of the basic FEUPHO-H87 device and put inside of the small crystal ball-like shell. And to add it all up, making it nearly indestructible using the substance for the “the lock”-project.

Yes, it was theoretically possible…why didn’t I think of this before? I knew the risks in doing what I was about to do, using an untested substance on such a sensitive material and to top it off, proclaiming that I could convert a device with very unstable energy control capability as it was, into a smaller prototype.

But I didn’t have time to act reasonable at a moment like this so I went for it, making the changes in a little under 10 minutes and after that, just giving the signal: “Completed!”. The screen came down as quickly as if it had nearly been expecting me to call for it. This time, a slot opened up on the back of it and a scanner came out. I watched as its red glow passed over my blueprints, was it really going to approve of this as a functional design?

The scanner, which didn’t look much more interesting than a stick, returned back and the slot closed. The screen lit up and the familiar word “SUCCESSFUL” showed itself in big green letters. I took a deep breath and relaxed, it worked. Functional or not, these blueprints were at least enough to fool a high security scanner and that was more or less all I needed to hear.

The desk was still open, so I quickly snatched them before it closed. It wouldn’t matter anyway, just as long as I actually completed the test and I did. As I entered my room, I immediately opened the desk, put all the old blueprints aside and got to work. It was time to put my skills to the test.

Three long beeps came from the speakers shortly before sunrise, not that I needed them to wake me up. I sat there with my goggles on, welding the final protective layer together when I heard the signal. Now I would get to see if my insane design actually worked.

When I reached the MEWOD-T35´s wearing the Obliterator, I noticed I wasn’t the last one up. That’s odd, it had gone a total of 57 minutes since the signal was heard. I started counting the other robots. 46…47…48…49…Wait a minute…the other…the only other filly-bot placed in this group was gone…could she have failed her test from yesterday? No, then somerobot would probably have replaced her by now. So, what could it be?

Suddenly the MEWOD-T35´s started going through the regular automatic procedure, which meant that the time was up and she was in big trouble. You must never be late for the pre-planned raids despite the nature they withheld or you would get punished, and when it comes to these matters, immediate shutdown was almost guaranteed. I shivered at the thought of it.

As the MEWOD-T35´s rolled through the wastelands, I was feeling kind of down. Not for the sake of that other filly-bot but because of the actual fact that I now was the only other one in this group.

I was also feeling a little…scared because of what had just happened. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with her yesterday, why didn’t she show up? And whatever could have happened to her, was I up next? I decided that I shouldn’t be thinking like this; it wouldn’t really make me feel better either way. Instead, I tried focusing on my newest invention. If it worked, it could just make my work so much easier.

It took quite some time to reach our destination, much longer than expected. It was afternoon when we arrived and I impatiently ran to the front as the unibot I shared MEWOD-T35 with just sat there waiting for us to arrive. We entered the village; I opened the shutter, jumped down activating the turret before then climbing back up.

The unibot, whom now himself looked a little impatient, quickly walked up to the turret. As he passed me, I saw the hatred in his eyes and felt it inside of me as well, burning…I jumped off the MEWOD-T35 and he looked after me curiously as I went off running.

All around me, there were ponies screaming and panicking. I charged up my magic and felt a slightly strained feeling inside of me. The Obliterator started humming quietly, come on now…a loud noice was heard followed by a luminous beam of light. The beam hit a panicked villager, a young colt who immediately pulverized into what looked like gravel.

Yes, that was gravel alright…an interesting result…either way, it was better than I ever could have imagined. So I fired again, and again, and again, and again. The divine feeling of accomplishment was…overwhelming. I calmly walked through the village, killing maybe a dozen earth ponies, unicorns, pegasí, it didn’t matter to me at all. They were all scum in my eyes so why even bother?

I saw a young colt hiding in a corner, terrified. What did he think was going to come out of his situation; hiding would only drag out his misery. I lowered my head, aimed at him and fired. I then watched as he slowly pulverized into gravel, an incredibly painful death as it appeared. A seemingly younger filly came running, seeing him suffer his last breath.

She turned toward me. “You monster!!!” shouted the filly furiously.

I turned against her and started staring at her calmly but very confused. I…a monster? That was just…hysterical. How could she even say that. She was the only monster here, she deserved to die and I was the one who was going to make that happen. She had to die…she…I could barely even think anymore, I just aimed at her and shot. She suffered the same painful death, as the young foal had just been experiencing.

Over her screams, I could feel the sense of accomplishment coming back, bubbling up inside of me…but I also felt…something else…something different. Suddenly, I could feel it even more, it burned inside of me. I could barely even identify what I felt right at the moment, the feeling vanished as fast as it had come and I just stood there, clueless.

Then, I slowly walked back to the MEWOD-T35 and when I got there, took a seat and simply stayed… clueless…waiting for the raid to be over.

And soon enough, it was. There had been two ponies getting away from the village this time, not that I cared about insignificant statistics at the moment. I wasn’t caring about anything…I just sat there, even when the MEWOD-T35´s automatic navigation system started taking us back home, I was still left sitting there completely still.

The day´s test started right when I got back to the fortress and I hurried in my attempt of collecting myself a bit before heading toward the big room.

I sat there behind a desk, this time getting one closer to the gate. The desk opened and a peculiar screen was hidden inside this time, the word “HATRED?” lit up on it in great blue letters.

It took me only a minute before realising what I was supposed to do. “Power!” said I confidently. The word went away and something new lit up on the screen: “POWER?”. Hmm…”Strength!” said I with a little less confidence. The word on the screen changed once more: “STRENGTH?”. Wait, was this…hmm…”Hatred!” said I then, now calmly. The word on the screen in front of me changed yet another time: “HATRED!”.

The desk then closed, a screen came down from the ceiling and the word “COMPLETED” lit up with the same green letters I had always been used to. I stood up and walked to the gate silently, calmly and with a tense feeling running through my forehead.

The next morning, everything went just as usual. Well, not exactly everything…I was lying there, waiting for the three long beeps. And when they came, I hurried out of my room toward the gate to the left, hurried toward the fourth staircase but when I got to the yard, I realised I was the first one there. I walked out on the plain lawn which was the main feature of this “yard”, laid down and waited.

The sun slowly went up and I closed my eyes trying to find some peace and just to relax. I had avoided all thoughts of those frightening feelings from yesterday simply by thinking as little as possible. I didn’t want to know of it, I wanted to forget that this bizarre moment had ever occurred.

Suddenly, the feeling of the warming sunshine went away. I looked up and saw a dark, grey silhouette standing in front of me, blocking off the sun. It was A0087; I stood up, a bit shocked.

“You’re early!” said she with a suspicious voice.

“So?” answered I as blamelessly as I could.

“So! Then I guess you must be done with “the lock” if you can lie here and do nothing all morning. The very important task I gave you, remember?” said A0087 with bitter sarcasm in her voice.

“The blueprints on “the lock” are nearly completed so I figured I would finish them when I get back this afternoon, that isn’t a problem, is it?” said I confidently, that ought to shut her mouth.

“Hmm, well then!” said A0087, still sounding a bit suspicious before she jumped off of the MEWOD-T35 and walked off of the great yard.

The true reason why I hurried so much getting here was because as long as I kept doing something, I would be distracted from thinking about yesterday, then of course I couldn’t tell her that. Still, this entire thing being one kind of a hopeless plan seeing as I would have to go through the long trip to Equestria but the longer I could avoid all of these thoughts, the better it would be.

Others had now started arriving and soon enough, the MEWOD-T35´s started rolling and I was just fast enough to climb up on one of them before they went off. Now to try and find something to distract me for three to six hours, I heard the sound of the enormous gate closing behind me…this was going to be a long journey.

We arrived approximately 4 hours and 37 later. This was just a normal small village, no guards, no defence, no anything. Not that this was something usual, quite the opposite actually. There had been a long time since I had seen a normal guard on a place like this. Something told me there had to be a good reason, but perhaps that was just my infallible capability of questioning things.

I was bringing the Obliterator with me but when we arrived, I was suddenly terrified. Now being afraid that the horrible feelings would come back, even though I had just felt it for a mere second, it was all I could think of, it was my whole world, the feeling…was stronger than…hatred?

Wait a minute. How did I even dare to think it, hatred was the meaning of life. Hatred is what had always guided me and given me strength and I now pushed all of it aside of me just because of some idiotic unfamiliar sensation which had only lasted for about 5 seconds or maybe less. Ridiculous, I wouldn’t allow this to happen.

I levitated the Obliterator, put it on my head and made myself ready to jump off of the MEWOD-T35 but then…I saw the earth robot beside me walking up to the turret, everything went on so fast as he was burning their homes down to the ground and blowing all who tried to escape into pieces, I felt disgusted by the scene.

How could I even…this didn’t make sense. What was happening to me? They were monsters, they deserved their misery. It was a clear fact. But…why…why? Did they really, truly deserve this? I immediately banned myself for asking these kinds of questions, all this didn’t even matter. What mattered is that I did what I was supposed to, that was it.

But…why was I “supposed” to do this, murdering these ponies, designing weapons and tools that aided in the murdering of more ponies. Of course, it was the right thing…it felt like the right thing…No, no, no, no, no! I commanded myself to stop thinking about it; my mind was in complete rebellion against my own thoughts. It was like I was fighting a war of my own; in the end, I finally dropped all of my thoughts and just laid down on the floor of the MEWOD-T35, still wearing the Obliterator on my head.

I needed to rest…the raid was soon to be over, the automatic navigation system took its course, the turret shut itself down and the MEWOD-T35´s started turning back home. The earth robot sat down right beside me and stared right out in nowhere like a ghost.

Psh, she didn’t even notice that I hadn’t been participating throughout the raid. I looked into her eyes, they were so…empty…so…full of hatred. Was my eyes like that as well? Could it really be? My mind immediately started protesting and once again, I dropped all of my thoughts.

I came back to my room in good time to finish the blueprints on “the lock”, finally something to distract me with. I enthusiastically opened the desk and got to work, this was going to be good, perhaps the best thing I had ever designed as of yet…next to the Obliterator of course. The Obliterator was a…I immediately dropped the thought as soon as I realised what I was about to think of, I then just sighed before I got back to work.

My work went on as I made some quick final changes and looked at the blueprints. “The lock” was done; I gloated as I now stared at the blueprints. It was beyond perfect, Aldeus would be so pleased.

I left the desk opened and turned around toward the small bed behind me figuring that if I didn’t have anything better to do, I could just go to bed, there; my terrifying thoughts wouldn’t distract me. And it worked alright, all the tiresome efforts I had put in keeping myself away from it all had made me very tired.

But, I woke up in frustration just an hour later to the sound of three short beeps coming from the speakers. I wasn’t in the mood for dealing with one of those crazy tests, was it just me or had they been becoming more and more difficult lately. Meh, thinking like that wouldn’t make my situation any better.

I slowly crawled up from the bed and hurried out in the mighty hallway. At least I was getting a good seat this time, that was for sure. I hurried through the hallway as other robots kept giving me confused looks. Confused, still their eyes were as empty as always…why hadn’t I noticed that before until just as recently as yesterday?

I waited impatiently in front of the enormous gate, it was crowded with robots all around me and soon, it opened for everyrobot to step in. I ran in and snatched one of the desks closest to the gate and relaxed for a short moment. Phew, I had never been so fast getting here before ever.

I saw how the robots passing by looking for seats kept giving me the same confused looks, it made me a little uncomfortable but I simply tried calming myself down a bit. I just wanted to hurry so I could get this done and return to the safety of my small comfortable room. Soon, the desk opened up just as usual…but it was empty…I tried taking a closer look, the desk closed itself.

I kept staring at it confused and the desk opened itself again, still empty. The desk closed itself yet another time…suddenly the gate opened and the sound of an ear-piercing alarm spread through the entire room. Me and everyrobot else left their seats immediately and hurried down toward the corridor on the left, this alarm meant that somepony had actually found the fortress and if this somepony got away knowing where to find us, the consequences would be catastrophic.

They all had to remain clueless of our origins. Something like this had only happened once in my lifetime, I sharpened my mind. Remember, seventh staircase to the right, then run past the second corridor on floor 67 and enter a high-speed elevator.

I was among the first 200 to reach the elevators; as there were being about a 100 of them, so I had to wait in line. I stood there frustrated, waiting for my turn as we entered one at a time. Then, I finally went inside one of the elevators, it scanned my energy signature to ensure I was authorised (which pretty much everyrobot was in a situation like this) and went off.

The elevator stopped three seconds later and its heavy metal door opened in its frequent manner, I hurried on out. I was now on the outside in front of the fortress, the elevators was a clever way of making sure no intruder could enter as we were leaving the base, hence the scanning  of our energy signatures. But for safety measures, barely any robot had authorisation to enter when we weren’t in a situation like this, me included.

There were thousands of MEWOD-T35´s rolling out coming from the yard. As they kept coming, they stopped and parked in lines as countless other robots came running and took control of them. In this situation, I dropped all doubt and just ran toward one before climbing up. Almost before I had even gotten a chance to react, a pegabot flew up, pressed the button on the side to open the shutter and jumped inside, the shutter then closed.

Oh, don’t you all just looove steering, thought I sarcastically. At the same moment, the turret got activated and the MEWOD-T35 went off into the rocky landscapes of the wasteland at incredible speed. It was heading toward a huge boulder but then quickly turned to the left, there were a series of high rocky cliffs in front of us but now it immediately turned to the right at the moment we were about to crash into them.

I had never experienced such talented manoeuvring at this speed, I felt a sting of envy inside of me but quickly pushed the feeling aside. There was no time for that, steering wasn’t really my department either way. I ran up toward the turret and took a comfortable look at the controls I had always been so used to.

The wasteland flattened out a bit and I saw a big white wagon in the distance, far off shooting range. Hmm, royal guardians huh, thought I bitterly. It was the same kind that had found us the first time I experienced this. Though, it seemed like this time; they had clearly planned their escape for such an occasion as this one.

The hunt went on for hours; there were hundreds and hundreds of MEWOD-T35´s on each side of the one I was riding on. And perhaps over a million behind us; I didn’t bother looking back either way because we were now closing in on the white wagon.

Suddenly I saw grass and trees surrounding the area, we had just entered the region of Equestria so it was now or never. It seemed like my kind driver agreed as he sped up to the point of which could barely keep my hooves on the MEWOD-T35. We closed in on the white wagon and were now right behind it.

I aimed the turret and was about to fire before I suddenly flinched for a second as I felt something…something…the sudden feeling now burned inside of me. It were two voices in my head, one telling me to fire and one telling me not to. Both two voices fought and struggled, it felt like I was going to explode. At the same time, the white wagon sped up and got off shooting range.

It started going so fast I could barely believe what I witnessed, it was all too far ahead of us. That is it, the location of the fortress is as good as revealed, thought I hopelessly. But then, I heard a deafening sound and suddenly a dark beam pierced through the air from behind me, it hit the wagon and the sound of the explosion was ear-splitting, there were only pieces of what used to be a white wagon and several red marks left on the ground.

All of the MEWOD-T35´s stopped and their turrets deactivated; all at once. I turned around and looked as the black figure responsible for this flew down and landed right in front of me. I shakily left the turret and backed up toward the edge of the MEWOD-T35.

“I would expect a little more enthusiasm.” said Aldeus with a smile on his face.

“What…do you mean?” answered I calmly but likewise shakily.

He gave me a meaning look and I came to think of something. I couldn’t believe I was going to ask him something like this but it was now or never so I walked up to him, looked him in the eyes and said it: “Is this the right way? Does Equestria truly deserve all this?”

He didn’t seem shocked by my questions at all. “Come, let us take a walk!” said Aldeus with a calm and persuasive voice.

“Okay then!” answered I, insecure on what was going to come out of this “walk”.

He stepped off the MEWOD-T35´s and I followed, seeing a glimpse of concentration in his eyes for a brief second, right before the MEWOD-T35´s all turned back. I then also saw the shock on the others faces, still sitting behind their deactivated turrets. The MEWOD-T35´s all slowly turned around and rolled away from there, soon being completely out of sight. Aldeus patiently waited as I watched them rolling away. I then finally turned back toward him.

“Shall we go?” asked Aldeus a bit too politely.

“Yes!” answered I shortly.

He walked out on the green field; I ran after and walked up beside him.

“Equestria, a place of peace and silence...I clearly noticed the way he put emphasis on the words "peace" and "silence"... That is, up until ten years ago when my plan ran into action. Did you wonder why I did what I did?” said Aldeus, he spoke calmly but now his smile was now gone.

I answered almost mechanically, “Hatred?”.

“Earth ponies, unicorns and pegasí! Loathsome creatures, all of them! The actions of their ancestors were never to be forgotten, they have had this coming for thousands of years. Believe me! In a sense, I’m simply just cleansing this world.” said Aldeus as calmly as before but with a little more persuasion in his voice.

For thousands of years. I repeated it to myself in my head.

“You have been feeling different lately, haven’t you?” asked Aldeus.

I felt shocked…I didn’t know what I was going to say. “An…unfamiliar feeling, am I right?” said Aldeus now while looking at me with sense of patience in his eyes.

“Yes!” answered I quickly without looking at him.

He turned his gaze away from me and we kept walking across the green field.

“Well, what if I could make the feeling go away, would you approve of that?” asked Aldeus with a sense of curiosity in his voice.

I wasn’t stupid enough not to get that this question did have a right answer and a wrong one. If I answered no, I would have to be shut down, he couldn’t have a doubter walking around among the rest of us. And if I answered yes, everything would return back to normal and I wouldn’t have to deal with these thoughts and feelings ever again.

“Yes!” said I calmly, but also a little louder this time.

He smiled and stopped walking and so, I stopped as well.

“Excellent!” said Aldeus calmly with a happy tune.

He turned toward me and looked me in the eyes.

“And trust me, when we are done, Equestria will be a better place…” I almost flinched as I looked right into his red glowing eyes. So empty, so full of hatred! He kept smiling as he nearly whispered the final words. “…for all of us!”