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 I was one of the workers in the eastern department and was responsible for numerous construction designs as being a newer version of the standard construction for a unicorn filly-bot (UNIFBOT-MODEL-F5262) with a more advanced intellect implied me to, we were all made so that we would mimic the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!”
Part Two - The Spark
I closed my eyes for a minute, relaxing a bit before opening them again. The 25 MEWOD-T35´s rolled in toward another small village and I stared out at the scene bitterness in my eyes. The hatred, I could truly feel it burning inside of me, now being stronger than ever before.
The MEWOD-T35´s stopped and I put the Obliterator on my head. I then jumped off, villagers ran desperately in panic. I walked up toward them, took an aim against a young mare and fired. I started running throughout the village, aiming and firing at ponies all around me.
As I ran, I kept hearing the screams and simply felt it, coming from everywhere. That certain feeling of accomplishment, the so unbelievably addictive feeling which now ran through me, and I stopped my rampage only for a mere second just to embrace it. It felt lovely, it felt wonderful, and this was my life. I could never get enough of it.
It had gone a total of about five days since me and Aldeus had been having that little conversation, before everything had returned back to… the way it used to be. And sure, I should have been delighted by this fact… but, it wasn’t that simple for me. Even though I felt better than ever, it just wasn’t like I wanted it to be.
I felt trapped, back in the tiny bubble I once liked to call life. But at the same time, I hated what “it” had done to me. Breaking me down to pieces and nearly ruining me; I was disgusted by “it”. “It” just felt so wrong and unnatural and all I wanted now was to be rid of it forever.
What a predicament, I couldn’t live with it…nor could I even do without it. Nevertheless, the truly important thing to me was to keep doing what I was supposed to do and follow my true purpose. And it was crystal-clear to me that this only purpose was to follow the will of Aldeus. He had given me both life and meaning, a way to really make a true difference and I couldn’t be more grateful for that.
I turned around and looked at the MEWOD-T35 located in the other side of the village before I then saw A0087 standing there. Ever since everything had returned back to normal, she had been following with us on every raid. Our group that is, I wondered if it perhaps was because she couldn’t trust me herself... or if it simply was because Aldeus had told her to do so.
Either way, she had clearly been keeping an eye on me for those past days. The chief of the UNIFBOT department, what was it that made me so important so that she would sacrifice half of her day, more or less, just to keep an eye on me? It just wouldn’t make sense to me, was she afraid that I might go on some kind of murderous rampage on our own kind?
I laughed lightly at the thought and she suddenly stared at me, quite confused as it appeared, I saw her doing so and stopped laughing.
“Come over!” shouted A0087 from across the village.
It seemed I had to be much more careful, I sighed and started walking toward her MEWOD-T35. When I arrived, I slowly climbed up on it and walked up to her.
“You see all this, F5262?” asked A0087 with clear devotion and made a quick gesture toward the burning village.
I looked out and could once again feel the hatred burning inside of me. “Justice!” said I with the same devotion.
“Maybe he was wrong about it all…” said A0087 thoughtfully.
So it was Aldeus who’d told her after all, thought I to myself, distracted to a degree. We both heard the noise stop and looked as one final pony, a young colt, escaped toward the outskirts of the village. A0087 gave me a meaning look and I aimed at him before firing, the bright beam hit the young colt and he simply screamed as his body slowly pulverized into nothing but gravel.
She turned toward me with a smile, “By the way, it is quite the device you got there.”
I smiled back and felt a little enthusiasm as I spoke, “Yes, it is without doubt the crown jewel of my work!”
I started thinking about my creation. The Obliterator, it was probably one of the most brilliant weapons in existence, having the means to channel and focus massive amounts of energy in just seconds. Its creation was a mere coincidence and a subject of both wild imagination and frustration. Who would have guessed crossing three ideas into one would come to stand as such a success?
“Well, you’ll come to have good use of it tomorrow because then, your group will be entering a temporal “cooperation” if you get my word.” said A0087 in a reserved manner.
“What for?” asked I confused over what she could mean.
She looked straight at me and answered with more enthusiasm, “Because then, you will be attacking the great city of Pegasquire!”
An actual city, it had been awhile. Maybe this is just the change of pace I have really been looking for, thought I gladly. The MEWOD-T35´s turrets and manual controls had been shutting themselves down as soon as I had killed that young colt and now, they were all standing here and there across the village in one big mess. A0087 gave me another meaning look; I jumped off the MEWOD-T35 and returned to my own.
There sat E1324, a green stallion earth robot with black spots staring out in the middle of nowhere. I looked into his eyes but I didn’t see emptiness, all I saw was purpose. The MEWOD-T35´s all somehow succeeded in finding a way out of the area consisting of burning ruins that had once been a village. They then swiftly accelerated; it was time to return back home.
I had just finished the blueprints for Prototype IIX which now actually looked like a completely functional device, in theory of course. I had to get it built first…still, I had no doubt it would work like a charm when I was done with it. I flinched at bit as I heard the three short beeps coming from the two speakers in the upper corners of my room.
Time for that then, thought I a little stressed. I left my room in hope that it would be something simple this time, although I had a bit of time to think over what may happen. As I walked through the hallway, I stopped since my eyesight was suddenly blocked by a metal hoof showing up right in front of me.
I looked to the right and saw the owner of this hoof; A0087 lowered it and said, “Not so fast! I have a new task I’d like to give you.”
She sounded quite eager. I fell into shock for a moment but calmed myself a bit before answering, “And what might this be?”
She spoke a little calmer now, though she did answer me almost immediately, “The weapon has become fully functional, but there is still one small problem!”
I looked at her, confused… ”The weapon?” asked I slowly.
“I’m talking about “the” weapon!” answered A0087 now a little annoyed.
“The” weapon of course, thought I to myself. “The” weapon, the mythical concealment surrounding the mystical north tower.
“But why ask me?” asked I, now a little confused over this seemingly strange fact.
“Because this lies in relevance to your last project!” answered A0087 with a clearly impatient voice.
I thought back on “the lock” which I had just finished a couple of days ago. What could this even have to do with the weapon at all; I had just basically been designing a big door. Nothing more. But I decided to stop asking these kinds of questions seeing as she was clearly annoyed as it was and I didn’t want to anger her more than necessarily.
“What is this problem then?” asked I with undeniable curiosity. She looked almost relieved before she started talking,
“The weapon is missing something, something important! And I think you just might be the one able to get me this “something”.” I gave her a curious look and she directly responded with a smile.
I took a seat behind a desk in the big room. Of all times A0087 could have stopped me, she had to do it right before the test. It was 21:54 and I had just experienced the ultimate terror of being late and having to walk around blindly looking for a seat for about half-an-hour.
The desk opened itself and before I had even gotten a chance to look, A0087´s voice coming from the speakers echoed throughout the room, “You can begin your tests, NOW!”
I looked down with curiosity and saw a big white shining crystal ball and a small ring, seemingly consisting by the same kind of crystal. I tried scanning the material, to no use since it proved to be in the “CLASSIFIED INFORMATION” database.
The crystal ball and ring both flashed and so, I took a closer look at them. The word “WILL” was carved into the crystal ball in big shining letters and the word “PURPOSE” on the ring. I thought over what I saw, purpose and will. These objects… I looked at them very carefully.
I then lifted them both and pushed them at each other, to no use. No matter how much I tried, the crystal ball would still be all too large to be able to fit through that ring. How ridiculous of me, I dropped them both and tried thinking about it a little more. Purpose… it… there is a purpose, me and then the will to fulfil this purpose.
We had learnt that you must follow your will and let it guide you in the direction of which the purpose begs to lead you at the moment or these elements will have lost their meaning completely, because lost separately… they are nothing. Hmm, if it is a metaphor, then… I thought about it as I picked up the ring once more, levitating it before my eyesight and looked at it carefully.
I then slowly lifted it above my head and carefully placed it onto my horn. If this works now, thought I in utter frustration. I tried using my magic yet another time and felt a warm sensation piercing throughout my forehead, the crystal ball floated in the air and I tried shaking it, hoping that something would happen.
Nothing did, of course, I then just placed the crystal ball back on the desk and gently touched it with my horn. The crystal ball shined brightly and quickly vaporized into nothing along with the ring. The familiar screen came down from the ceiling and greeted me with the word “COMPLETED”. I rose up and slowly left the room, now deeply in my own thoughts.
As I entered my room, I simply walked up and took a seat behind my own desk. A0087 wanted me to create a special kind of apparatus, one that would be able to channel massive amounts of power in seconds or else, the weapon wouldn’t be functional.
And of course I could put two and two together and realise that the Obliterator which was generally built for these measures could serve as the final key to make the weapon functional. Of course it wasn’t that simple nevertheless, I couldn’t expect that one would just be able to take the Obliterator and stuff it right into “the weapon”.
A0087 had given me a blueprint of a strange kind of slot which I for the record, had never seen before and had told me to make this machine compatible with that slot counting it up to a clearly unreachable energy drainage level. I had decided that instead of wasting two weeks or so, putting all my work into a new construction, I was going to build a much less complicated kind of adapter.
It would not take very long, but I was going to need some careful analysis on the Obliterator to be able to get this right. A thing I was all too tired for, so that would have to be after the raid the next day. To attack the great city of Pegasquire, thought I with enthusiasm. I left the desk and laid down in the small bed to begin the re-powering process and to once again, rest for the night.
I woke up to the three familiar long beeps and quickly got out of bed. I felt beyond fantastic; it was time for the next big moment of my life! I hurried out of my room and took the ordinary path entering the big yard. The final MEWOD-T35´s was rolling into place making three long lines with 25 MEWOD-T35´s in each one of them.
I climbed up on one and sat down for a second, looking around myself and admiring the towers, structures and buildings surrounding the yard. They arose all around me, so many that they became impossible to keep track of and covered in the black metal which were the fruit of the miners hard work.
The miners groups were solely consisting of earth robots and probably had some of the toughest and most important tasks. Working in the mines didn’t just involve gathering precious metals but had an evident benefit; they were also serving as torture chambers for the Equestrian’s.
For as far as we did kill everypony, there were some who were always assigned to bring a couple of so-called POWs with them. This rule mainly went for the larger constructions, as they were occasionally thrown out into smaller groups to bring this task to life. They were later heavily secured and transported to the mines.
This process didn’t serve any other purpose than to prolong their suffering and perhaps a small bit for the amusement of the workers too. I didn’t really know what happened down there, speaking about the mines was a strict taboo for all of us. And this is to say, as far as “communication” went when it wasn’t turned toward others than our superiors.
I turned my head around and my gaze got stuck on the one single place I often had a hard time ripping it away from. The humongous north tower was easily the largest building in the fortress, what in the world could Aldeus be keeping in there? It had always bothered me, especially considering my annoyingly infallible curiosity.
The yard was really nothing more than a relatively small outdoor area with a big lawn, but I still liked it there more than any other place at the fortress. Even if I perhaps would say that I did like the journeys even more, they offered the exact right kind of relaxation which I was often longing for and to top it off, went on for hours.
It was just so quiet before anyrobot had started arriving and I could easily find peace there at those times. The sunset was astoundingly beautiful, seemed to become even more beautiful each time I was alone out there.
I suddenly heard a metallic sound and turned around, the MEWOD-T35´s shutter slowly opened and I saw a metal hoof grabbing to ledge before quickly climbing out of the machine.
“Surprised?” asked A0087 with a smile on her face. I fell in complete shock for a second but then quickly pulled myself together without any hesitation.
A0087 kept speaking and I could just taste her anticipation, “Ah, today is a great day! When was the last time you got to follow on journey in the likes of this one?”
I took a moment to think before answering, “I believe it was about four months ago…”
She looked at me very calmly and then suddenly looked away with a clearly bitter expression on her face, “I trust you and I sincerely hope you won’t disappoint me, are we clear?”
Her very sudden words confused me rather than shocked me! What was all this coming from, what could possibly have made her think that I would betray us during these past few days? Because I could certainly not gain one single differing impression judging by her earlier behaviour during those past days and of course, I liked jumping to conclusions. I snapped out of my thoughts as I realised she had now started staring at me.
“Yes, chief!” said I quickly with an awkward tone.
She then went on and drilled her gaze into me as if I was a complete moron before walking back to the shutter. She pressed the button on the side and it opened.
“I’ll come back out when we arrive! And F5262, please do not disturb me this time.” said A0087 with clear authority and an obvious bit of annoyance in her voice before she jumped down inside of the MEWOD-T35 and the shutter closed behind her. All that anger and bitterness…out of nowhere?
The ride there wasn’t very interesting at all…in fact; it may have been one of the longest and most unnecessary ones as of yet in my experience. The city was located high up in the mountains of Equestria, surrounded by high cliffs.
Now, here’s the fun part: There were two paths in and out of town, one that everypony actually used for travelling and shipping supplies to the ponies living there. And one that no pony ever used which would take about an extra two hours reaching instead of the much shorter one and to top it off, more pleasant route.
But of course, we needed to take the longer one, always just to be certain that everything went exactly according to plan. Every necessary little precaution had to be made! I couldn’t believe why it was so important, just as long as they got to suffer… what did it matter if a few of them escaped?
I spent the final hour getting there considering aforementioned fact and when we were all finally about to arrive at Pegasquire, I heard a familiar dull, metallic sound behind me and turned around. A0087 came climbing up and turned around against the rest of the MEWOD-T35´s standing behind ours.
“Attention!” A0087 shouted loudly. The rest of us turned around quickly as well and we all watched and listened carefully as she spoke, “As you all can see, we are about to enter the city now. I trust you know what to do! Aldeus will soon be here to watch over your work! No survivors, am I making myself clear?”
All of them nodded understandingly but did not say a thing, and neither did I. Aldeus was going to be there, that pretty much explained her behaviour…or at least part of it. There was something odd about her, something very unusual. The first few MEWOD-T35´s rolled into town including ours and I could already hear the screams of panic and see ponies running for their lives.
I gazed down at them, running off the streets, running toward alleys, running inside houses and closing the doors behind them. I felt rage; I hated them as they were… more than ever, running like cowards. Pitiful creatures. The anger bubbled up inside of me; I jumped off the MEWOD-T35 with the Obliterator on my head and got right into business.
I ran down town square, the area was quadratic, surrounded by tall colourful buildings and with a big statue in the centre presumably representing the mayor or something like that. The peculiar cube-looking buildings several doors on each side all stood tall as if they were staring down at me and for some reason, even woke a bit of ridiculous offence which I immediately came to ignore.
The mare displayed was a bit young-looking; though still a bit more mature judging by her well-handled white mane, her tense way of standing, as if she was just always ready for something to happen. And of course, the expression which was the strongest signal of them all, signifying a powerful leader with the ability to take action when necessary.
The buildings felt as if they slowly rose up around me, creating a plain area which was to be filled with despise, gathering around the despicably obnoxious ones who once even dared to claim the gift of life as something only given to the worthy. They were everywhere, unbelievably measly creatures.
I aimed and fired at them; an unlucky mare got hit and suffered the, oh so painful death. The satisfying feeling of accomplishment came back to me; I all of a sudden saw the mayor’s office up ahead and thought that I’d take a small peak.
The building was plainly grey, cube-looking and with a much greater appearance then the rest of them considering both the size and the fact that it was located on the top of a bizarrely misplaced hill.
I ran toward the building and fired at everypony reachable in my surroundings, the feeling of accomplishment was so incredibly arousing that I just had to stop for a second so I could even get a chance to catch my breath. I just stood there breathing and smiling in a manic sense of enjoyment.
I then ran up the steps reaching toward the building where the mayor may have presumably been hiding. I reached the door and entered, it was very warm inside and the floors were covered with books lying everywhere around me. The entire floor, the walls and ceilings all had a strange pattern which very much confused me rather than awaking my normal sense of curiosity like a situation like this usually would have preceded by now.
They were chequered in not only one or two, but so many colours that I even had trouble registering them all. I just stood there for a couple of seconds, throwing out confused looks all over the funhouse which was apparently to be referred to as a public edifice.
I then turned my head, glancing across the floor which was as stated, covered with books in mountainous piles. I looked at them and sighed, had she really never heard of anything called a “bookshelf”?
I had a very hard time getting through the mess and literally zick-zacked around the hallway trying to reach the stairs at the far end of the room, leading to the next floor.
It was too difficult or perhaps impossible for me to just walk right through the lot of it; most of those piles were at least twice my size. When finally arriving, I sighed in deep appreciation and walked up the long staircase. There was a door to the right and a presumably long corridor to the left.
I slowly left the staircase and turned to the left, about to enter the small corridor but then flinched as a spear flew through the air. I barely got a chance to duck just before it was about to hit me, I then watched out toward the dark corridor looking for the source of the sudden attack. A silhouette shaped itself in the dark and I made myself ready to fire at it.
Suddenly, it disappeared; I walked closer to the corridor trying to see the silhouette again before hearing a furious voice from behind me, “You come here……you defile our great kingdom…”
I turned around but the one I saw wasn’t the mare pictured by the monument outside. She was dressed in rugs, her clothes were soiled and most of her mane was burned off. I could barely make out if she was actually black, or if it only was dirt covering her body. In fact, I couldn’t really make that out at all.
“Who…who are you?” asked I, shocked by her appearance.
She looked at me like I had just said the worst and most offensive thing possible, “Be quiet, nuisance! You have no right even saying a word in my presence.”
I flinched again as I was then paralyzed in shock, no pony or robot for that matter had ever spoken to me in that manner before. No…no, I have to pull myself together, thought I in frustration.
I strongly doubted before deciding to say something again, “You…you’re the one who doesn’t deserve to be here.”
Yes, not very thought out on my behalf but what was I supposed to say? She looked at me with bitterness and I saw as she slowly got a crazy smile on her face, “So that is what they teach you?”
What the… what did she just say to me, thought I as the shock kept growing and growing for every mere second. This entire scenario felt inexistent, like it just shouldn’t be supposed to happen.
“What… what do you mean by “teach me”?”
“Hmph, it doesn’t even matter! You will be part of the dead when I’m done here so it won’t do you any good!”
I looked at her as my shock somehow slowly transformed into pure anger and hatred and started slowly backing up, ready to fire if she would try something.
“Oh, how cute! You want a piece of me?” she said in a sarcastic manner.
I sighed and stared at her, I wasn’t intending for her to react this way. She quickly ripped off some of the rugs revealing a horn behind it all and before I was even fast enough to react, she aimed at me.
I looked at her in confusion before realising what she was about to do. I had to work fast or I would be dead, without even thinking it through properly, I aimed my horn at her as well and fired at the exact same moment she did.
Our beams, hers, lightly blue and mine, shining white. They faced each other in the middle of the hallway where colours gathered and swiftly switched nuances in a hypnotising manner, reshaping into a shining ball of light.
It seemed she was in complete shock due to clear ignorance of my ability and I decided I could take that to my advantage. I strained myself and quickly forced the ball closer to her; she pulled out of shock and quickly started pushing from the other side.
The ball of light slowly moved away from her and back toward me, I put all my power into the beam in hope that it would turn back. But it kept moving closer to me and I watched rather more in frustration than terror as it did. Suddenly, I felt anger and hatred bubbling up inside of me. I am not going to meet my doom at the hooves of somepony like her, a cocky unicorn.
The thought felt as if it crawled out and bit me right in the middle of my face. The hatred consumed me and the beam started shining even brighter still without having the ball turning back toward her. Suddenly, it came to burst out right into hers and within the blink of an eye, the ball of light reached her and hit her with a trembling sound.
I stood there, exhausted from what I’d just had to endeavour while listening to her loud moans of pain. But…something was different now! She started turning into… I tried identifying the strange sight before me… solid… stone? Yes… but how? I stood there, confused as I suddenly heard the door opening downstairs, I ran to the ledge of the staircase and watched as the black alicorn came walking in with A0087 following tight on his heels.
“You look surprised, perhaps I could explain this?” said Aldeus immediately, with a smile on his face.
I looked down toward A0087 who seemed to be experiencing a not-too-obvious mixture of both frustration and mere relief. Her reaction almost made me forget how shocked and confused I actually was right at the moment. I turned around before I was about to walk down the stairs when I was faced by a mare in solid stone.
I flinched a bit and looked at it… her. I turned away, back toward the staircase and looked at Aldeus with a big question mark on my face.
He looked at the mare and then back to me before responding, “When two separate energies meet and become one, one kind of a bond is formed. A thread in between respective sources if you so will, this thread connects them and will not be broken unless one is overpowered by the other. Now, her current state is the result of your power facing hers, but you should of course be able to reach the same result anytime just as long as you have got an opposing force structure, am I clear enough?”
I listened closely to every word he said and nodded when he was done. I still would have nodded whether I really understood him or not, not to do so was considered an obvious sign of disrespect. He kept smiling and slowly walked up the stairs, A0087 waited downstairs and stood there with the exact same expression. When he reached me, he just stood there and admired the statue like he was admiring some precious monument.
He turned toward me and looked at me with a sense of satisfaction, “Very well done, F5262! I have been hunting her for years and now, she is finally in my grasp.”
I looked back at him and asked curiously as the thought showed up in a classically immediate sense, “But there is no way for her to escape, is it?”
“That would be if whoever originally unleashed the opposing force upon her died, then the bond between them would become completely obliterated and the she would be free to walk Equestria as she pleased once again. Otherwise, it is theoretically impossible! But we would not go as far as to take that risk, would we? I mean, now when there is a much easier way of working out a situation such as this one.”
He slowly backed away from the statue looking like he was anticipating something, he kept backing away from it until he finally stopped and tilted his head slightly to the left making an indication for me to get over there. I ran over to him in a confused manner.
And as soon as I reached him, he aimed his horn and fired a seemingly small, dark beam toward the statue. The beam hit it and the statue slowly started cracking up before suddenly exploding into millions of pieces. I reflexively closed my eyes but all I could hear was a shattering sound.
I opened them and saw how all pieces even getting the slightest bit close to us pulverized into nothing. I turned against him and waited patiently, he was now just staring at the place where the statue had been a moment ago.
I hesitated but then asked, “Shall we go?”
He looked at me and his smile went away just like that, “Yes, it is time now!”
As all three of us left the building, I kept noticing that even though A0087 was a bit calmer, there was still something very tense about the way she carried herself. We walked down the steps and I kept asking myself, what in the world could Aldeus have told her?
I suddenly remembered something and looked up at Aldeus as we kept walking down, “What about the mayor?”
Not that I truly thought it was of any real concern, but due to the annoyingly neck-itching curiosity I had always been trying to hold to myself I just had to know.
He calmly answered and did it without even looking at me, “She was taken care of a very short time ago.”
This was getting a bit confusing for me so I gave him the most inquisitive look I had to offer, he understood and answered immediately without the least bit of hesitation, “Yes, you did come here before me… and then did as expected and let your eyes deceive you.”
It was…surely it couldn’t have been, the mare that anyrobot could have mistaken for an exile was actually the mayor? We left the stairs and he immediately stretched out his wings without even looking the other way. He then flew off and landed on the big statue in the centre of town square. He stood there and watched over the destruction, although this part of town did seem to be much calmer now.
I inquisitively turned against A0087 but before I had even gotten a chance to say anything she aggressively responded, “None of your business!”
I sighed deeply in my disappointment and responded back, “Yes, chief!”
She stood there trying to calm herself down a bit before saying, “I have a very important job for you now! You see, even though we’ve put exquisite efforts in keeping ponies away from the town borders, they still keep coming in large numbers. We need somerobot to guard the actual exit out of town and considering the skill you’ve shown using that device…well, I think you see where I’m getting at. So, up for the job?”
I gave her somewhat of a confused look and answered sarcastically, “So you say I actually have a choice?”
“Of course not!” said A0087 like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Well, can I at least hitch a ride to be able to get there quickly?” asked I hopefully.
She looked at me, a little annoyed, “I think we’re going to need the machines here! You can run over there, okay?”
I was becoming a little frustrated; did she really want me to run all the way there, to the other side of town? I answered accordingly in somewhat of a whiny manner, “But it’s on the other side of town, and if I got there faster it would only give me opportunity to… A0087 interrupted me by yelling right into my face… “No, no, no and no!”
“Fine!” I responded calmly and almost immediately, I was doubting if I should really go on and continue since upsetting her had not proven to be the most wondrous idea in the past. So I guessed I was going to have to run… to the other side of town.
Still, I unwillingly took it up in my mind once again… just to be sure, should I maybe ask her for… I looked at her and saw how furious she truly was at the moment… perhaps not. Without saying anything, I ran away from there and left town square. I just simply had to use my sense of direction for this one, yet another ability to put to the test. One I wasn’t too fond of using either.
After looking for half-an-hour… and with the help of a little luck, I arrived at the town borders. Or to be more precise, at the only exit out of town as of now. It was a small mountain pass guarded by virtually no robot. There were a few MEWOD-T35´s around the area which were very obviously nearly drained of their energy supplies.
This wouldn’t do…this would certainly not do. I took a good look around, the place felt empty. It was very quiet, the only sounds I could really hear were distant screams coming from further inside town. There were two abandoned buildings behind me, in ruins.
All that could really be made out of these ruins were merely remainders of what used to be, of a distant past. Even though we had just come today, it felt like the place had been like this for perhaps as much as weeks.
I walked up right in the middle of the mountain pass which was quite small, the MEWOD-T35´s had apparently been rolling around like blind turtles… or whatever likes rolling around the way they had been.
“Still keep coming in large numbers, huh?”
Bah, it felt more like A0087 had just wanted to get me out of the way… for any reason. I turned around, looked upon the ruins before me and tried to clear my thoughts.
Fine, if she wanted to get me out of the way then why not, I would just stay there and do nothing. I heard a dull sound coming from behind me and reflexively turned around. I looked upon the great mountain pass and could once again feel an utter silence.
There had probably not been anypony even having a slim chance of escaping, I couldn’t help but to think over the following points even though I knew I would probably never get the answers for them, why was A0087 doing this to me, and why acting so cryptic?
I couldn’t think of anything she could possibly be hiding from me, it was of course a fact that she wanted everything to be perfect seeing as Aldeus had come but to give me this kind of assignment after me proving myself again and again. It just didn’t make sense, though it did feel like it was because of something Aldeus had told her… recently… yesterday she had been acting normally.
Just whatever might be referred to as “normal” on her behalf nevertheless. I heard yet another sound coming from the distance but didn’t pay much attention to it.
I just laid down on the cold, plain ground and tried to stop thinking for at least a minute or so. Another sound coming from the distance was heard, I kept trying to ignore it and curled up, attempting to make the best out of what the ground had to offer and very unexpectedly, actually found myself in a total state of relaxation.
I suddenly flinched and rose up immediately as I heard hoofsteps coming in this direction. I was about to call on the MEWOD-T35´s but then quickly changed my mind. At the very most, they would just make a distraction the way they handled themselves and I’d had enough of those by far in the most recent time.
The hoofsteps were getting closer and I suddenly heard the sound coming from right behind me, I quickly turned around and saw a couple. A blue unicorn stallion and a yellow younger-looking unicorn mare, the feel of the entire situation could not be described by many other means than the word bizarre as both of them suddenly burst toward me, running as fast as they could.
To me, the mere fact of them thinking they were going to ram me down was measly on its own. I aimed my horn at them but unexpectedly, they stopped as quickly as their hooves could bear them to, both with shock on their faces.
I fired the beam as the mare quickly took a leap toward the great cliff right in front of me which looked like it could probably have been their hiding place all along. The stallion reacted the same way just a second later, but he wasn’t getting away at this rate. He jumped and the beam merely touched his back-hooves as it passed by.
But that is all that was needed; I listened with a manic smile as he screamed in misery...just wanting it all to be over. His screams then almost drowned in hers as she cried begging him to… live. Suddenly, his screams stopped and all I could hear was her sobbing over the dull sound of gravel hitting the ground.
It all was a very strange experience for me, killing him felt wonderful and the well-known feeling of accomplishment kept growing up inside of me. I just couldn’t help but to feel an even stronger urge to see her dead as well. I considered it a favour myself; ending her misery… it was only for her own good.
I slowly walked toward the cliff feeling satisfyingly amused; it wasn’t like she was going anywhere so I started strutting a bit on the way there, very entertained by the boldness the couple had just showed. I could suddenly once again hear hoofsteps, this time coming from right behind me.
I slowly turned around in a manic manner and saw a green neon-coloured unicorn filly standing there. It felt like everything was just getting better and better. And I who thought I was going to be bored to death by staying there, but I had truly been wrong about that one as it occurred.
I heard the mare screaming behind me and all pieces fell into place, so that was her daughter, huh? The rare opportunity of seeing a pony who has just lost everything dear to her die before me. All I had to do was to take care of this abomination, this monster. She looked me right in the eyes with so much fear before just curling up on the ground, shaking.
I looked back into her eyes focusing all of my anger and hatred on her alone; she seemed to be shaking even more. I then just aimed at her and shot… she was still standing there. I looked at her, confused over what could have happened…she should have been in grave pain by now.
I flinched as I realised I wasn’t wearing anything on my head anymore. I looked around and let my eyes scan the plain area around me very carefully. Still nothing, I hopelessly dropped my head and suddenly flinched again. There, on the ground, right at my hooves, there it was.
How silly of me, I bent down to pick it up but as I was about to put it on my head, I accidently dropped it. This was…strange, this had never happened to me before. I tried bending down to pick it up again…but I couldn’t. I strained myself as much as possible but I still couldn’t move a muscle.
This is just madness, what is wrong with me, these thoughts built up in my head and hit me like lightning…but soon they all shattered at the very same moment making way for a new sensation. Suddenly, I felt I could move again, if only barely. The feeling was familiar, I couldn’t feel anything but fear.
I dropped out of my thoughts as the filly strangely enough, started walking closer to me. My reaction was as unreasonable to me as the entire situation was itself. I backed away from her, slowly and insecurely. What was she doing? As she slowly got closer, I felt the desire to strike her down, crush her and tear her to pieces.
She stopped right in front of me and I pulled back, at this rate I suddenly realised why I really was doing this. But why would I, my thoughts stopped at once as the hatred and bitterness overwhelmed me. This is just ridiculous, thought I as she stood there with a curious expression on her face.
I made short gesture to pick up the Obliterator but suddenly stopped myself. She was smiling at me, I looked at her. This wasn’t like anything I had ever seen or experienced before. I felt warm inside, I simply forgot all about the desire to kill just like that and looked into her eyes.
They were all playful, yet so full of love and curiosity. Suddenly, I remembered what I was actually doing and made another short gesture in order to pick up the Obliterator. This time, I stopped myself immediately. Why, was all I could come to think of. I didn’t see any reason; those were not the eyes of a monster. Were they?
I looked back inside of myself once again, I felt nothing. No fear, no hatred, everything was gone right now at this very moment. All I could feel was a strange sense of relief, as if I was freed…freed? The feeling was…unexplainable, it was like some kind of dream. I kept looking into her eyes as she started doing the same, I couldn’t feel any supposed evil inside of her.
But…what could all this be coming from? Without thinking about it, without even a mere second of consideration, I stretched out and reached a little closer to her. And curious as it seemed, she did the exact same thing. Our horns barely touched one and another, a white shining sparkle flattered down from between us as they did.
Then, everything around me once again started moving and as I heard the plagued voice of the caring mother, “Jelly, get over here now. Now!”
We both snapped out of it and she ran away toward the mountain pass. The mother came out from behind the great cliff and the filly who’s name was apparently Jelly ran right into her embrace. I looked at them and could suddenly feel some kind of warmth somehow coming from beneath my fur, not an unpleasant but instead rather soft, relaxing feeling.
A lone tear swiftly ran down my left cheek, I had only gone as far as to read about it but no words would ever be able to describe the sensation that was lying behind that single tear at this very moment. Both of them ran down the road as fast as their hooves could bear them. I simply just watched as they both ran down the mountain pass.
The “watching” soon turned into doubtful staring as I just stood there, speechless. And as they vanished out of sight, I still stood there…staring. Then, I slowly turned around and was to be met with a new surprise. There, stood Aldeus back by the ruins looking at me with a very thoughtful expression on his face, hardly interpretable on any level whatsoever.
In front of him stood A0087 with a furious and very much comprehensible expression to say at the very least since furious may not have been enough to describe her anticipated anger at that very moment.
She honestly looked more like she wouldn’t have much doubt in executing me by pushing me off the twisted road going down the great mountain pass and thus crushing me on the sharp cliffs located beneath. I swallowed and stared at her, I was too shaken to be able to say a single thing in my defence.
She walked up to me as she kept shouting louder and louder, “This is what you make out of your situation?! You idiot! You pathetic, ignorant fool! When I’m done with you…”
Aldeus came in and immediately interrupted her ranting, “No need, A0087! This is not the time for any of that.”
She stopped very unwillingly and slowly walked back to him. He started talking to me in a calm and reserved tune, “It is time to return back home. You have done a splendid job.”
A0087 immediately started protesting against his both to me and her, all-too-sudden and strange praising, “But you saw that she…” He gave her a seemingly meaning look and she stopped.
I was now sitting on a MEWOD-T35 on the way home. A0087 had locked herself in inside of one of the other MEWOD-T35´s. This time though, for some very different obvious reasons. But I didn’t have any plans on protesting, or ask her any question about whatever it was they were hiding from me.
I was just glad to get away from there without any kind of punishment whatsoever. No punishment even though I’d done what A0087 had expressively told me not to do. But no, I hadn’t just let “two lucky ponies slip through the defences”. No, I had literally watched as they ran off. That usually didn’t pay off one bit… but for some reason; I got out of the trouble easily this time.
Was it because of all my earlier praised work that Aldeus let it slip through? On the other hand, he had never stroked me as the merciful type. I realised it didn’t matter either way, he would still find out about what had just happened to me before sooner or later. How all hatred and anger just vanished, and how it never returned… or perhaps if it so was going to or not.
If so, then it wouldn’t matter the slightest bit, even from the beginning. But what would he do then? Same as he did last time? I thought of it and it struck me how easy it really was. No sudden doubt, no nothing. No tense feelings or…well…I thought back and remembered her eyes, those curious playful eyes.
How, in the deepest moment of embrace concerning one feeling turned and my eyes were opened for something new. Something I had never stood before and I was apparently welcome to accept it, let it into whatever should be referred to as my life. Or was I? I couldn’t answer the question myself; I simply didn’t hold the means to do it.
Science, mathematics and clever tricks… a breeze. Then what was this? I tried not to think of it just like that out of fear for what might happen, but what could? How could I be under the ridiculous impression that something like this would ever be able to hurt me in any way whatsoever?
A question I didn’t have the means to answer either, thus creating a loop of insignificance all surrounding some harmless, still judging by impression, inopportune thoughts. I paid an oath to myself that I would never forget that moment, the very moment that had… just given me something else.
I successfully stopped thinking about it all and looked out toward the great and dark wastelands. It was all a place that offered the greatest amount of relaxation possible for me; it was only on these kinds of journeys that I really got a chance to think like this undisturbed.
Though my thoughts were now very differing, whether I liked the fact or not. I felt a small breeze and looked as Aldeus flew by, incredibly fast. I kept watching as he slowly vanished out of sight, a long journey for us but a rather shorter one for him. I thought over the time schedule and made some notations.
Yes, now is the time, thought I to myself. Soon, maybe right when we got back, our tests would begin. I wasn’t in the right kind of mood for this, many of these trials would need me to use abilities that I wasn’t… no… couldn’t comprehend at the time.
What was I supposed to do then? Well, the only reasonable thing if something. Just keep hoping for the best, this was certainly not a good time to look out and stare the future right in her black hollow eye sockets. But instead, I could just keep my hopes up and embrace the moment.
Not that it was the best thing to do, not in any strange alternative dimension would this be the best thing for me to do at this obvious moment of weakness. But it felt so much easier and “easier” is just what I needed right at the time… all the newly opened doors standing before me.
And I was left shocked because of all the things I didn’t think of, what I should have been bound to think of on the journey back home. A fact that seemed more and more frightening to me as time moved on. I tried my hardest with all means necessary to get back into my earlier state of mind… to no use.
Not that I actually thought anything was going to work considering the disastrous outcome from when I tried the last time this happened. Then again, this wasn’t the last time and there were plenty of obvious differences which I had already encountered, yet some similarities that would not put an individual to the least bit of doubt in what to believe.
I slowly walked through the great hallway being in poor hurry since I wanted to “embrace the moment” to say, before I had to go through the probably rather difficult challenge that was ahead of me. I arrived and unwillingly walked inside the big room. It felt just so much more familiar than before, closer somehow. The shiny roof, concrete walls and floors all felt so clear before my eyes.
But the room was still all the same and as it was getting crowded with more and more of us came to feel a little more familiar. I did what I usually did and although relaxing and taking a seat quite frankly did not prove to be the easiest task as of now, I managed. I sat there feeling extremely tense, it all felt so… different by the time.
Due to our recent arrival, the gathering went quite swiftly and it didn’t take long until the final one of us had taken a seat. I looked at the gate and waited for it to close just as always. But… nothing happened; I immediately started asking myself if it could be another emergency.
The risks of it happening again were of course minimal but in which other way was I to speculate? The question woke an unexpected feeling which suddenly grew intensely stronger from the back of my head; I flinched and literally almost fell off of the seat when I saw what now happened.
Aldeus, A0465, A1043, A7934, A0967, A1635 and A0087 entered. All of the department chiefs and our father himself. Nothing would be enough to describe the shock that followed. Having such a great responsibility on their hooves as it already was, what could possibly be so important that they had to sacrifice their time for a mere daily routine?
I dared myself to think the thought, “It just doesn’t make sense!” It was a big “no” for me, especially right now. I had always been trying to ban myself from thinking these kind of thoughts and as of so, I went through a mental self-punishment as it occurred.
Aldeus started speaking and his dark calm voice echoed throughout the room, “You may all be wondering what we are actually doing here? Should we not be having anything better to do? Well, it will truly please you to know that not even half of you will know why by the time I am done!”
I nervously looked around myself a bit and wondered what was going on, his words felt so uncomfortable and I glanced over to the other side of the room in a hopeless try to interpret his expression.
Aldeus kept speaking, now in a calming tone, “Do not worry, it shall be easy this time! No riddles or limericks, just a simple question for each and every one of you!”
I wasn’t sure of what he was going to do but the newly spoken words sure made it much easier to speculate. Aldeus stood there for a minute without saying a thing, studying us carefully. He liked to do so, studying our reactions and note all we did and said.
I had never liked him doing so one bit, it made me feel like some kind of test subject, which I ironically enough surely was in his eyes. But who was there to blame him, weren’t I just a big pile of metal? Aldeus was now done as it appeared and I prepared myself to hear what he was about to say next.
He opened his mouth and spoke in a self-satisfying tone, “As I said, you are to answer one and one simple question alone! What is it that you feel right now?”
