Chapters
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Bit barely noticed the time pass. She scoured the vault, drained its reservoirs of reactants and catalysts, and brought them all back to the Wizard's lab. What had been his lab, anyway. The place that would become his lab again. She dredged out her transcriptions of the old notes, reviewing them with painstaking attention to detail. The process used to create her, the same one that she would now be forced to undertake, had stakes no lower than the translation process that had saved Pathfinder's life.…-
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Bit watched the polisher count down from just beside it. The sand had stopped several minutes ago, with only the water-pump still circulating. It was the wash at the end of a cycle, when all that was left was dislodging residue before the automaton within was released. She'd always found it to be the most refreshing part of the cycle, though in retrospect the water was incredibly cold and got into all parts of her body. Someone who used to be organic would probably not enjoy the process much.I hope you're…
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"Your delay will not bring rescue. The royal guard all perished.""Against my wishes," he grumbled. "I ordered them to surrender to you. But they haven't listened to me since Equestria..." He sighed, straightening in bed. "I offer you an exchange. I will disable the defenses of this tower for twenty minutes. You will let the apprentices and slaves leave. I will remain in this bed, and employ none of my magic to defend myself. You may come and execute me, and nopony else needs to die."There was a little…
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Bit returned to her tower a little over an hour later, with Keen in tow. He had been entirely subdued during their trip, asking no questions about what she had discussed with Sombra or what her future would be. He said very little until they returned to the tower steps. "If it doesn't interfere with what the secretary has required of you, I would still like to bring you on a tour of the factory plant," he said. "When will you have time?"Tomorrow, technically. But she still didn't know what was waiting in…
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Bit went with Keen up into "Revolution Square." But of all the old parts of the city, she'd never been inside the subway station, so she didn't know what had changed. The crystal dome ceiling looked intact, though she doubted the old one had so many red banners. Zircon's city colors had been silver and blue before, and she couldn't see those anywhere.Just through the doors waited soldiers in black armor, the kind made of complex interlocking metal rings. All painted black, though the cloth underneath was…
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It didn't matter that Bit's entire world had changed. It didn't matter that she was no longer the only member of her species, and that she'd confirmed beyond any doubt that she was alive. What mattered was that she had a report to file, and that was exactly what she did.Bit gathered every observation she'd made over the course of Pathfinder's treatment. Most of them were about her own experience trying to follow the crystal production process, and the difficulties she'd encountered as a result. She wasn't…
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Pathfinder took a slow, exaggerated breath. Of course it no longer served the same purpose, since they didn't require respiration. That cavity worked only to allow them to speak. Which was what Pathfinder did. "You are going to tell me... what you did to me," he said. "And how we reverse it."Bit didn't look away, even as he advanced on her. Though maybe she shouldn't expect entirely rational behavior—he had only just been created. In some ways, he was also the first of his kind. A pony of crystal created…
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By the time Bit made it back to the tower, the sun was low on the horizon, stretching all the shadows into the reaching talons of an angry mob. But the threat was nowhere to be seen—there was no mob, no soldiers storming the building and tossing equipment from the windows. The tower's lights still shone from the upper floors.Sorry to keep you waiting, Pathfinder. I hope you didn't wake up yet. There were a pair of soldiers waiting at the gate, wearing the same gear symbols that Keen Ardor had worn. They…
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Secretary Keen Ardor stared openly at her reply, unblinking. Finally he levitated something from a pocket—a tiny pad of paper and a pencil. It was no thaumic recorder, but it seemed effective enough at the same purpose. "How much of that is euphemism?" he asked. "The cold bit first. You don't require warmth?" He shivered as he said it, brushing a few faint wisps of snow from his mane."I barely feel it," she said. "I can be harmed by temperatures, but only in the swift transition between great cold and…
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Bit watched as the crystal seed spread through Pathfinder. She had positioned him atop a plastic liner, body raised so that he would let no crystal feelers grow into the rest of the lab. In crystalcraft, such growth was normally performed within isolated chambers, kept electrically charged to prevent outgrowth. Bit had to make do with the resources she could get her hooves on.Pathfinder had been so borderline that he might not have even survived transport down to the basement crystal chambers.Then again,…
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