Romance and the Fate of Equestria

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Four

Sweetie Belle lounged around in the interior of the Colossus of Talona's torso, checking on the integrity of its structures and taking notes. Apple Bloom was masked, welding some wires together, and Scootaloo was adjusting some of the machine's gears.

"That's so great," Scootaloo marveled, shaking her head in amused disbelief. "You, Spike, finally together. I mean, it feels like you've had, like… a hundred and seventy-five chances at this, and blew them all, and now it's finally happened."

"It was… I did not get a hundred and seventy-five chances at him," said Sweetie Belle, miffed. "It was less than that."

"Not by very much, good buddy," Scootaloo said jovially with a light shove.

"No," Sweetie conceded, smiling. "No, not by very much. And you, you're okay with this?"

"Sweetie… I've always had a crush on Spike, I'll admit, but we were never a thing, okay? Never. The whole thing with him was for me to get him with you. I promise you that."

"So, no regrets?"

"None," said Scootaloo. "You?"

"Oh, I've got plenty of regrets," Sweetie said grimly.

"I guess I get that," Scootaloo admitted. "Well… I suppose I have a regret."

"W-what's that?"

"Yeah, I feel kinda bad that I stole his first kiss," said Scootaloo. "That should have been yours. In fact, here, let me give it back…"

Scootaloo threw herself upon Sweetie Belle and kissed her passionately, open-mouthed and long-tongued, until Sweetie squirmed her way free.

"Yeeeeaaaah," Sweetie Belle said carefully, her eyes wide. "I'm-a go up and make sure everything in her head is okay."

Swiftly, she darted over to the ladder leading to the Colossus' head, and ascended it as quickly as she could, determinedly looking up.

"'I'm-a'?" Scootaloo said in amusement.

Apple Bloom flipped up the welding mask she was wearing, letting her recently re-dyed black hair fall into her eyes. "Did Spike really kiss you like that?" she said curiously.

"Nah, I just wanted to freak her out."

"Good job!" Sweetie Belle grumbled, her voice echoing from above.

Apple Bloom set her tools aside and stepped up to Scootaloo, inspecting her. "Well… I guess you're our last one. You're the last Crusader."

Scootaloo hesitated. "Yeah, I suppose I am. The last blank flank in our grade."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Nah," said Scootaloo. "I'm fine. I'm… at peace. I may be a blank flank, but at least you two are still short and baby-faced."

Apple Bloom snorted. "You can't hold that over us forever, that you're the sexy one or whatever. We're not always gonna be short."

"And I'm not always gonna be a blank flank," Scootaloo said contentedly. "It's gonna happen. I'm just gonna ride it out and enjoy life. And besides, I won the pool, so I have plenty of spending money to tide me over."

"Wait, you were in on the pool?" Apple Bloom said in surprise.

"Er, yeah."

"And won? Why didn't we even know about this?"

"All the spots were taken. I didn't want to bother you."

"And you bet against yourself?"

"I didn't bet against myself," Scootaloo chuckled. "I bet on you, then Sweetie, then me. That just struck me as the most obvious direction things would go. And I was right."

"Well, maybe that was all in your attitude," said Apple Bloom. "How much money did you win?"

Scootaloo scoffed. "Apple Bloom, you don't just ask somepony how much money they have. Where are your manners?"

"Will you split it with us?"

"So you can have your cutie marks and my money? How about no?"

"A'ight, fair enough, you keep the money." Apple Bloom turned away, searching out a hammer. She hefted it in her teeth and looked around for a place to use it. "Um, girls?" she said shakily.

"Yeah?" said Scootaloo.

"Yeah?" Sweetie called.

"I could be totally crazy wrong," said Apple Bloom, "but… I don't think there's anything left for us to do. I think we finished her."

"What?" Scootaloo breathed.

"Fully repaired," Apple Bloom said. "Fully refurbished."

"Oh my gosh," said Scootaloo. "Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh, we've done it! This… this beautiful, living record of history and ancient technology is back!"

"Let's turn her on," Apple Bloom said eagerly. "Sweetie, fire her up."

Sweetie produced a tiny spark of magic at the base of the colossus' gigantic mechanical heart, and it began pumping and whirring, along with all the rest of the machinery.

"Stations, y'all, stations!" Apple Bloom said hurriedly, rushing to the station on the lowest level.

Scootaloo lifted Sweetie Belle up to the highest station, then took her own place in the middle one. Instantly, all of them had their hooves encased in metal shoes, which were the size of a grown pony's hooves but quickly contracted to fit around the smaller hooves of the Crusaders.

Metal spines began to lower themselves down onto the Crusaders' backs.

"Loosen up, girls," Scootaloo advised. "Nothing we haven't done before."

Dozens of needles from the metal spines embedded themselves in the young fillies' spines, hooking them up to the spine running along the ceiling of the Colossus' inner chamber.

A helm, fitted to contain a unicorn horn, lowered itself onto Sweetie Belle's head. Scootaloo extended her wings to allow metal wings to encase them from the side. A long needle began to approach Apple Bloom's heart.

"Oh boy," she said apprehensively. "I've never done the needle-in-the-heart bit, didn't do that while we were testing Mecha, 'cause… 'cause, you know, I'm already an earth pony. It's scary."

"Scarier than a needle into your brain for a unicorn horn?" said Scootaloo.

"Uh… I s'pose not. All right, bring it in."

The needle slowly sank into Apple Bloom's heart. The machinery began to thrum and whir more loudly.

"Here we go, ladies," Apple Bloom whispered, as visors placed themselves over the Crusaders' eyes.

The Colossus slowly stood up, and the visors lit up to show them the forest through the giant automaton's eyes.

"Colossus of Talona is online," the cool feminine voice said. "Kindly state mission objective."

The Crusaders suppressed ecstatic squeals. "It's good to have you online, dear lady!" Apple Bloom whooped. "How are you feeling?"

The Colossus creaked, giving off a distinct sense of unease. "Nopony has ever asked me that before," she muttered.

"Well?" Apple Bloom said brightly.

The Colossus was silent for a moment before slowly asking, "May… I… see myself?"

"Oh, of course!"

Apple Bloom lifted her own hoof, and the Colossus mirrored the motion, her hoof being lifted in front of her glassy optic lenses.

"Fully repaired," the Colossus remarked. "Even enhanced."

Scootaloo flexed a wing, showing the Colossus her golden feathers. "You told us not to forget," Scootaloo said solemnly. "And we didn't."

"Then I address the three small fillies from the museum?" said the Colossus. "The first to ever meet my eye with such… concern. Permit me, if you will, to know who you are."

"Of course," said Apple Bloom. "We call ourselves the Cutie Mark Crusaders. My name's Apple Bloom, I'm plugged into the earth pony part of your controls, that's Sweetie Belle at the unicorn part, and Scootaloo at the pegasus part. We're just a trio of eighth-grade students from Ponyville."

"How is it that I was fixed?"

"We've done a lot of reading on exactly the kind of mechanical and neurological stuff you're made of," Sweetie Belle chimed in. "And… well, nopony else was gonna rebuild you, so… well, we had to, didn't we? We couldn't let you die."

The Colossus was silent for a very long moment, before her voice echoed, quietly, through her interior. "You honor me."

"Is there anything we can do for you?" Apple Bloom said eagerly. "Anything at all?"

"…I would like to take a look around."

As one, the Crusaders turned their heads to the left, then to the right, and the Colossus did so as well.

"What is this place?"

"Everfree Forest. It's a place of wild magic untamed by pony influence even though it's in the middle of Equestria."

"Fascinating. I… I would like to walk. To see more of this land. Er, if, that is, you will permit me."

"Of course, we're on it!" said Apple Bloom. "Didn't even have to ask."

The Crusaders stepped forward in unison, and the Colossus walked with them, moving delicately and gracefully, towering above most of the trees, her huge hoofsteps landing almost silently on the forest floor.

The moment she took her first step, something began shimmering and glowing inside her.

"What's that glowing sound?" said Sweetie Belle.

"Scootaloo?" Apple Bloom said, her uncontrolled grin growing even wider. "Scoot, is that your cutie mark?"

"Oh my gosh, I think it is," said Scootaloo. "I… I can't turn my head far enough while we're in these harnesses. Can either of you see it?"

Apple Bloom's station rolled backward, and at her mental command the visor lifted off her head, giving her a look at Scootaloo's flanks.

"Let me see…" said Apple Bloom. "All right, I can see it. It's heart-shaped… gear-themed… yes, it's a heart-shaped, steampunk stylization of her head."

"Whose head?" said Sweetie Belle, alarmed.

"Talona's," Apple Bloom clarified. "May I call y'all Talona?"

"I?" the Colossus said in alarm. "Well, properly, I am the Colossus of Talona. But… you seek to address me casually? Er, yes, in that case, Talona will do."

"So your special talent is Talona?" Sweetie Belle said blankly.

"Oh, don't be so gosh-darned literal," Scootaloo said dismissively. "It just means I'm a… a gearhead, I guess. I put machines together. Maybe I dabble in transportation."

"Hmm. Maybe," Sweetie said thoughtfully. "All I know is that your story could beat up my story."

"Oh, come on, your cutie mark story is about selflessly saving loved ones' lives from peril," said Scootaloo. "That is freakin' awesome. Any idiot can tune up an old machine… and, it seems, this idiot did. With a whole lot of help from you two, of course. Thanks so much, you guys. It wouldn't be a proper cutie mark story without you in it."

"I approve," Talona warbled.

"Do ya?" said Apple Bloom.

They had ascended a rocky outcropping in the forest, looking out over the dark and murky trees.

"What a magnificent land," said Talona. "What is that at the forest's edge?"

"That's Ponyville," said Apple Bloom.

"A little town?" said Talona. "At the center of the country?"

"Yup. Built around the apple orchards that flourish on the outskirts of the forest."

"Well, that's a…" An emotional quaver crept into Talona's voice. "How quaint and beautiful. I've never seen such a place. I would like to go closer."

"We, uh… we may need to go up ahead and prepare everypony for you," said Sweetie Belle. "Not very many ponies know that we kept you, and nopony knows that we've been fixing you."

"I see," she said. "Another time, then. For now I shall savor the view, and the breeze."

Apple Bloom sniffled. The small twitch in her head was mirrored by both of her companions and the colossus.

"This is so wild," she said. "I had no idea you had so much… you know… free will. I mean, I knew you were more than just a machine when you spoke to us before shuttin' down, and Twilight did say that you and the other colossi were sentient somehow, but nothin' in any of the research material said you had a personality or opinions of your own."

"Free will?" Talona echoed softly. "Yes, I suppose I do. I cannot move on my own, but I can think, and I can feel."

"Why would they do that?" said Sweetie Belle.

"Pardon?"

"Why would the immortals make war machines that need pilots in order to move, but also give them minds and feelings of their own? It seems like just one or the other would have made more sense."

"It was not by design," said Talona. "Science alone could not have created the colossi. If it could, perhaps then we would have been no more than, as you said, war machines. We were amazing feats of engineering, but to function we had to be imbued with magic, and there can be no magic without intellect and emotion. One cannot merely animate a complex machine with magic, one must imbue it with a spark of the very soul of ponykind. And so I have that soul."

The Crusaders mulled that over as the colossus continued to stare out over the forest, contented.

"So… what do we do now?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"You mean like right now-now, or big picture?" said Apple Bloom.

"Either one."

"Well… big picture, I have no flappin' clue. We're the Cutie Mark Crusaders… and we did it. It's done. So, big picture, we got nothin' left to do. But right now? Well, we fixed the colossus. I say we walk around until we find somethin' huge we can beat up."

Talona's inner mechanisms creaked harshly.

"And then totally not beat it up," Apple Bloom amended hastily.

"No, not beat it up at all," Scootaloo added.

"…Are you quite serious?" Talona said softly.

"Yeah, completely," said Apple Bloom. "We won't go beat anything up just because it's there."

"We don't go around picking fights for no reason," Sweetie agreed.

"This is true," Talona said with wonder. "You seek a peaceful existence."

"Well, you're the one hooked up to our brain stems, you tell us," Scootaloo teased.

Talona, as was becoming habit, was silent for a moment before continuing. "I have fought with mighty dragons," she said. "It is what I was built for. My memories do not fade, but the ones that linger with me the most are of the fear in the eyes of my opponents. Warring factions like to cultivate the impression that the other side is enjoying the war and doesn't want it to end. But I was on the front lines, and I can tell you that my side relished the war far more than the dragons did, to an unhealthy degree. Nopony is perfect, I'm sure the immortals were a lovely civilization in their time, but I didn't get to see much of that side of them. Coming across a large creature and not fighting it would be a refreshing change of pace in my life."

"We're gonna give you that life, Talona," Apple Bloom said tenderly. "You deserve it. Freedom, as someone really cool and important once said, is the right of all sentient beings. And now we know that you're one of those, as well as a piece of Equestria's history. We'll give you a good life. We promise."

"Being a part of your lives, I think, would be… all that I require."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Endnotes

Scootaloo's cutie mark was originally going to be a purple skateboard, with the "don't be so literal" bit being about how she doesn't own a skateboard, but it represents a knack for self-propelled transportation. But then the CMC went and got real canonical cutie marks, and I realized they deserved something more extravagant, as good as the CMC shield with the two personal emblems on them that they now actually possess.

Apple Bloom's apple bloom I had already established long ago, but it was sufficiently unique. I considered changing Sweetie Belle's to her longtime fanon mark of a pink heart with a few bars of sheet music on it, nice and elaborate, but ultimately decided to stick with my first idea of the pale green pair of musical notes. Elegant in its simplicity, matches her eyes, I was ultimately satisfied. But Scoot's did need to be more special, and the only thing I could think of was something directly related to the Colossus.

Hmm, I have got to get back to drawing all these things. This fic just seems like it doesn't quite work without the visual aids.