The Attack of The Robot Lyra!
Robot-Lyra-Attack!
The Only Chapter: The Attack of The Robot Lyra!
Lyra chuckled to herself. This would be the greatest accomplishment of her life. She turned from the delicate control panel towards the waiting press. “Today, my little ponies, we witness the dawn of a new era of technomagical progress. With this new Melodic Generator, we will tap into the power of Harmony itself and provide limitless magic for everypony in Equestria. Before we start, do any of you have any questions?”
A reporter from the Trottingham Herald raised a hoof. “This is a fascinating setup, but I frankly don’t get it. Why the harps?”
Lyra allowed herself a small smile. She turned to the Harmonic Array, gesturing. “The heart of the Melodic Generator lies in the paired frequencies of the two counterposed lyres you see here.” The larger than life instruments were arranged next to each other, with a forty-five degree angle between them. They were fixed to the rest of the structure by heavy steel suspension. “When played at the proper pitch and speed, in perfect antiphony, they generate an immense amount of harmonic potential between them. A single spark of unicorn magic can then be used to begin a self-sustaining magical singularity, providing absolutely unlimited energy.”
The lone alicorn in attendance frowned. “Don’t that seem a mite dangerous? Ah mean, unlimited energy? The more energy ya got in one place, the more it starts lookin’ like a bomb and the less it looks like progress ta me.”
Lyra laughed lightly, oh what a simpleton this new alicorn was. “Ah, Applejack, I can see why you might be concerned, but don’t worry. I shall be playing the instruments myself so that I can control the frequencies in real time should anything start to go wrong.”
“An’ how’re ya gonna do that? Magic? Y’all are way too small ta play that setup.”
“Hah! I hoped somepony would ask that. One of my other inventions will help with this. Bon Bon! Prepare the Heavy Augment Natural Digit Suit!” Bon Bon sauntered over to a closet and began pulling out a comically large pair of robotic claws hooked to a thin steel skeleton and a pair of horseshoes. On each claw were three long digits and a fourth, shorter one set at an angle. Bon Bon bustled about the strange setup, adjusting knobs and tightening bolts. “This suit, called H.A.N.D.S. for short, will allow me unprecedented dexterity in manipulating the lyres. The tempo necessary for Melodic Generation is beyond the skill of any mortal mare. These babies work automagically in direct communication with my brain to control the melody. The skeleton augments my strength and balance so that I can lift them while rearing upright.”
The Trottingham reporter raised his hoof again. “Automagically? As in golem magic? A come-to-life spell?”
“Exactly, a very powerful come-to-life spell in fact. These things actually have an IQ once I get them going. Now, Bon Bon, prepare the interface.” Bon Bon mouthed a small crystal off of a nearby table and inserted it at the neck of the skeletal chassis. “This crystal allows direct interface with my brain, while filtering out feedback from the come-to-life spells.” The entire crowd winced as she stepped into the exoskeleton and a hundred tiny needles pierced her spine. “Connection status, Bon Bon?”
“The meter reads 98% optimum, honey.”
“Rockin’. Alright, love, fire up the mage siphon.”
“You mean the vacuum?”
“I mean the mage siphon.”
“Primed and waiting for your signal, sugar.”
“Let’s do this.”
Lyra stomped up to the small raised platform behind and between the lyres. Raising her H.A.N.D.S., each one as big as herself, she nodded to the audience. This would be the biggest performance of her life.
Twitching her digits experimentally, she ran through a quick toccata once on each lyre separately. Confident now, she cracked her neck and got down to real playing. The Resonance Hymn, as she’d taken to calling it, was immensely difficult. Even on a single, ordinary sized lyre, no mare had any hope of even attempting it without magic and extensive training, and that at a reduced tempo. Lyra had something better than all that. The H.A.N.D.S. allowed her to access chords that most musicians, griffons included, only dreamed of. They moved lightning-fast at her merest thought, anticipating and building on the note progressions she visualized in her head. The twin lyres thrummed with unearthly speed as she played.
As the air between them started to distort and bend under the acoustic pressure, Bon Bon nervously checked a panel of meters. “Lyra, now!” Lyra grinned, this was it. She lowered her horn and fired a carefully focused beam of magic at the center of the distortion. A cool green glow soon formed at the center of the distortion, growing into a sphere of pure magic about five hooves across. Bon Bon turned on the vacuum, er, mage siphon, and started drawing off pure magic.
After another minute, Lyra stepped back from the instruments that were now playing themselves. “And there you have it Ladies and Gentlecolts! The reaction is now self-sustaining.” The press-ponies went absolutely wild with applause. Lyra grinned as she fielded questions from various papers and newsreels from across Equestria.
Only Applejack was suspicious of all this newfangled technology. She didn’t understand it and she didn’t trust it. She stepped up to Bon Bon who was still watching the machine. “So, y’all’re an earth pony, what d’you think a this contraption?”
“Oh, I think it’s wonderful. This will make powerful magic available to everypony, not just the unicorn elite. In fact, it may be the greatest equalizer of our time.” She trailed off, as if wanting to say more.
“Go on,” Applejack prodded.
“Well, it does scare me a bit. I don’t know if I’m the most qualified to be running the regulator matrix either, but I can’t really refuse Lyra when she goes all puppy-eyes at me.”
“Ah see, maybe Ah can help some. Ah do have a bit a magical power. Maybe Ah can take a gander, let ya know if Ah see anythin’ wrong. Sound good?”
“That’d be great, let me know if you find anything.”
Meanwhile, Lyra was chatting with a reporter. “Yeah, there’s absolutely zero chance of a meltdown as long as the magical singularity is kept absolutely on-hue. If there is any mixture of magic of a different photonic signature it could be pretty catastrophic, but that’s easy, don’t let another unicorn near it. That’s why I’m having Bon Bon help.” As soon as the words escaped her mouth, her hackles rose in nameless terror. Turning, she saw Applejack leaning in towards the singularity, her horn already lighting up. The world seemed to slow as Lyra screamed at the moronic alicorn. AJ jerked back, her horn already dimming. A single drop of orange aura was pulled off of her horn and fell into the singularity. Time sped up again. Lyra rushed to the podium as the singularity started to destabilize.
“You fool! With the addition of another frequency, the resonance is spiraling out of control!” Lyra began strumming the instruments wildly, trying to reestablish the melody. It was too late. Random bolts of chaos magic began streaming from the device. One wall of the lab immediately turned into ants while a reporter found herself wearing a fish on her head. “Everypony stand back!” She screamed. The singularity was almost back under control. “Bon Bon! You have to increase suction on the vacuu-I mean the mage siphon!” Bon Bon nodded grimly and turned the vacuum to its highest setting and removed the brush attachment. It was working! The singularity sputtered and coughed as the unicorn struggled to execute a controlled shutdown. As its last gasp, the singularity fired out two last bolts of magic, one at Bon Bon, and the other at Lyra. Bon Bon began flopping about as she was instantly transformed into a sea-pony. Lyra tried blocking herself with her H.A.N.D.S., but the magic arced along them until they hit the interface crystal, shattering it. The unicorn screamed and immediately passed out.
***
Lyra woke up in the hospital, dazed and confused. “I am so unbelievably smart right now.” It was true. Her mind felt massive. Her eyes jerked open as wide as they could go. Turning to the attendant nurse, she asked, “Hey! Can you check something for me? There’s supposed to be a crystal on the back of my neck. Is it gone?”
The nurse frowned. “Sure, but you need to be resting, the doctors aren’t sure what happened to you. We can’t seem to get that machine off of your back. Your assistant couldn’t even get it to deactivate.” The nurse carefully nudged her head up and glanced at the unicorn’s neck. “Nope, no crystal.”
“Huh, the interface is gone, but I’m still jacked in. I always wondered how that’d feel. It actually is kinda neat. I feel like I can see the solution to so many problems. Well, thanks Nurse, I’m off to end world peace.” Lyra hopped from the bed and began walking out on her hind legs.
“Wait! We still need to run tests on you first, to make sure there wasn’t any physical or psychological trauma.”
“I’m fine! Say, I’m craving steak right now. I wonder if that Diamondgolian grill down the street is still open at this hour. See ya!” Lyra proceeded to smash the doorframe on her way out.
***
Lyra’s reign of terror raged across Ponyville. After eating a culturally insensitive and digestively inappropriate meal, she proceeded to steal forty cakes from Sugarcube Corner, including the owners, and tripped Scootaloo while she was attempting to ollie a soda bottle. Finally, while crossing the south bridge, she had a moment of reflection. “With my now vast and augmented intellect I have transcended the traditional definitions of right and wrong, but what goals should I set for myself? What are my own ambitions?” She pondered this for a moment, then turned around to look at Ponyville.
Mr. Cake piped up, “Maybe you could dedicate yourself to defending the town from evildoers to atone for your recent-past crimes?”
Lyra laughed, “And pander to the status-quo? Hah! Not too likely. No, I will use my new Melodic Generator to magically transform Ponyville into a techno-dystopia!”
“You mean utopia, right dearie?” said Mrs. Cake.
“Nope, transcended right and wrong, remember?”
“Oh. Right.”
***
Lyra returned to the lab. It had only been a couple of hours, so nothing much had been moved. Fluttershy was there, tending to Bon Bon’s new fish tank. Lyra waved to Fluttershy as she stepped up to the podium. Casting a spell would be easy with the reactor. All it required was a simple modification of the melody. Wiggling her metal fingers, Lyra prepared to play.
At that moment, AJ burst into the room. “Ah knew if Ah waited around long enough tha situation’d solve itself! Now surrender!”
“Hah! You’ll never stop me now! No mere mortal mare may match my malicious, mutagenic melodies’ magical mess-making might! Mwahahaha!”
“Alliteration. Now ya done it. Ya gone too far!” Applejack then realized why she was there, her whole purpose for existence, the reason she had been endowed with super-equine strength, speed, and magic. “Y’all said no mortal could match ya! Well Ah ain’t no mortal mare! Harmonize this!” With a flash of magic, she summoned her banjo. It was said that the merest note from Applejack’s banjo could raise the dead and lend strength to the weak. It was backed with enchanted ironwood from the deepest jungles of Zebrica and chased with star-forged steel. The strings were woven from the hair of Luna herself, and the instrument had been tuned to the music of the spheres by Celestia. Applejack grinned. “Musical showdown?” Lyra trembled slightly, but stood firm. Her generator would give her music the power to play AJ right off.
She played a tune of wizardry,
Of progress, building, of treachery,
Researching, annealing, digitizing.
Then sudden Applejack there swaying
Played in answer a tune of staying,
Resisting, battling 'lectric power,
Of farm plots kept, strength like a plower,
And dirt clods broken, fertilized landscape;
Of growing and of ripening grape
Of tares weeded, mended slats,
The garden growing, the fancy spats.
Backwards and forwards swayed their tunes.
Reeling and foundering, ever more like loons
The players twanged, Applejack fought,
And the mighty banjo brought
Down on the head of Lyra…
And Lyra fell before the podium.
Applejack’s chest heaved with the exertion of the song and clobbering she had just performed. Just as well she ended it. It had been getting hard to think of appropriate riffs. Lyra groaned from where she had fallen. The banjo had jarred loose all of the connecting pins on the H.A.N.D.S. Applejack helped her up. “There now, how ya feelin’ sugarcube?”
“Ugh, better.” said Lyra.
“That’s right, no need fer all that fancy techno-getup. All’s well that ends well, right?”
“That’s for sure, I’m just glad nothing serious went wrong.”
Meanwhile, Bon Bon glared at Lyra from her fishtank.
Moral: Don’t use your scientifically-untrained significant-other as a lab assistant in dangerous and potentially world-shattering physics experiments.
Apologies: Skywriter, who came up with a kinda-sorta-vaguely similar concept, did it first, did it better, from whom I stole the line “I am so unbelievably smart right now,” and whom I have a massive literary crush on. jotacepece who made the cover art that partially inspired this. Tolkien, oh Celestia I’m sooo sooo sorry Tolkien. The people who made Spiderman 2… Scratch that, I’m not sorry for that one. Finally, my readers, you deserve better. *Runs off weeping.*
If you suffered through all of this and do not yet hate me, check out my other, much better, story: The Assumption of Applejack -or- Appletheosis.
