Catalyst 2.0: Reunion (Complete)

>There were so many things you didn't know what to make of.
>First, and foremost, was the talk with Rarity.  It had been happy, and welcoming, for the both of you.  Only until later did you realize, you had been more distant than intended.
>You had been gone for two years, and you did not know why.  Certainly, you understood your own “death.”  What had happened between then and your current state of mind was a flurry of inconsistent blurs, the same violent events playing in unclear repetition.
>It had confused you, later, because you did not know why they had been unaware of what you'd been doing.  More specifically, why you had let knowledge of your existence stagnate, without allowing your friends awareness of the ordeals you had apparently been involved in.  Why had you not returned earlier?  Why had the protocols to prevent you from doing so even been enabled?
>Pinkie Pie, whom you hadn't even seen in the since your first integration, took to avoiding you.  Why, you didn't know.  She had taken one look at you, and unlike her usual self, took to making up excuses to spend time with other ponies.  It was a shame, you thought, since it would have made the transition to what normalcy you could achieve that much easier.
>Twilight, after a rather stoic reunion, took to playing digital doctor.  She said she had many things to set up, to help you clear your head.  A defrag routine, to reorganize your mind into something you could make sense of.  She locked herself away to work upon it, having managed to analyze your code while you'd been on the drive.
>Rarity, the only one with a mind to treat you like a living being, had other things in mind.  Playing catch-up, mostly.  Having not been in attendance to your own life for two years, you had expected something more... Intensely overwhelming.  Yet, luckily, it mostly involved Rarity playing the part of a busy, loving, single mother.
>Guilt.  That was the second thing you'd felt.
>When you saw your daughter, the sense that she was not yours came first.  Denial, perhaps.  You silently crept up to her, in her field of vision as Rarity introduced the two of you to one another.
>Sweet Heart, you'd learned her name was.  You'd had no say in the matter, of course, and ponies did have such odd naming conventions.  When you saw her, really, honestly saw her, it was like looking in a peculiar mirror.
>Pure white.  Dimples in her body, where attachment bolts would have kept your own flesh together.  Yet, they were naturally occurring, you'd learned.  They were birth marks, deeply written in the genetic code according to Twilight.
>Bright, sapphire eyes.  She'd inherited your green color in her curly little mane, much to Rarity's original dismay, she admitted.  She hated green hair.
>Sweet Reart seemed to reflect every reservation you had of her.  She was quiet at first.  Just watching you.  She was so tiny, too.  You laid down upon the rug of Rarity's suite, and even then, still had to look down.  She was like a miniscule dog, with big, bright, trusting eyes.
>All you could say was a simple hello.  Here was this filly, whom you'd had never seen in two years. She had no idea whom you actually were, only stories of who you'd been and the things you'd done during your lapse.
>Getting down to her physical level, though, made her giggle.  So you talked for a little while like that.
>There was not much to say.  You finished sentences for one another.  You agreed on things, and she talked in such an intelligent, vocabulary-stunted manner that her unintentional perceptiveness had been utterly adorable and surprising.  Half the time, you had to figure out what the hell she'd just said.  When you did, you realized- she was not normal.
>Sweet Heart had all the capacity you'd had.  You didn't vocalize it, but you knew, merely from words, that she was so much like you.  She was far too smart, far too able to calculate and recite details of computer hard and software, and knowing what they were by perceived tactile senses.  Yet, in her youth, it was with complete, uncorrupted innocence, going forward and inspecting, ignorant to the moral or physical consequence.  Not knowing a softer description for her, you would have called her “bleeding edge efficient.”
>The more you played with her, verbally, the more you understood.  When you probed Rarity about it later, as she both expected and feared, it was a bizarre answer.  Sweet Hearts brain had been scanned by Twilight on several occasions, in an attempt to understand what you too had been.
>The creases in her gray matter were not curves.  Many were straight, like circuitry, and the nerves were organized akin to wires instead of clusters.  She was, as much as they were afraid and interested to admit, a naturally born, biological computer.
>What was more so, was that she was not unique.  There were three hundred and twenty seven more just like her, mental construction inherented from the father.  All from varying, pseudo-pony males that had no initial personality, and had been used for... Recreational means.  In a strange case according to what you could access of pony biology, those bastard children had taken on, almost exclusively, traits of their mothers in every physical respect.  You were the first father with an emotional thought process to ever actually return.
>But, she was real.  She had withheld emotions, unlike the others, that were easily identified because she was so bad at hiding them.  Weather or not they were simulations of such things would merely be a point of inquiry; she'd already gotten Rarity atwitter on a cute little tantrum over a video game, defying the idea that a program would defect to logic.  You'd made the mistake of remarking that she'd gotten that squeaky piece of temperament from her mother's genes, to which you belatedly realized you would never, ever live down.  Especially, because Sweet Heart knew exactly what you were talking about and had already started to team up with her mother to make fun of you about it.
>Despite it all, you had found it entirely pleasant.  It was a life you never knew you had, something you could live out comfortably.
>Now, though.  Now you were standing alone, on Twilight's insistence.  This other pony, after all, had provided the material to create your current body, and had deserved thanks. She was one very large reminder, of exactly what you were.
>It was a massive holographic screen.  The room was large, devoid of defining features.  You stood at a podium, which was a crescent of metal and hovering monitors arching in front of you.
>Before you, her head in her hooves and a smoldering cigarette between her lips, was Applejack.  What was worse, neither of you could bring yourself to speak.
>Had you ever? Had you even cared to say more than two words to her, even before you had died?
>She still recognized you.  Twilight had not told her, and when the visuals on the screens came to life, it had put her in that disheveled, spiteful state.  One she obviously did not want to be in.
>She was not a program, though. She couldn't filter it.  No matter how honest, emotions, pure and rejecting of your current existence, were controlling her.
>It had been a long time without speech.  Silent, save for the breathing the microphone picked up upon her end since the “conversation” had started.  Her cigarette was half ash, clinging together by virtue of luck.  The moment she'd seen you, her eyes had unfocused.  She'd been sitting their, hiding her face in her hooves, for the better part of ten minutes.
>She hadn't even returned your bleary, nervous “Hello.”
>When Applejack finally leaned back, the bags below her eyes were apparent.  She blinked slowly, those oculars  appearing as if made from poorly forged glass. She didn't meet your eyes.
>The first words out of her mouth were humbling ones.
>”Y'all know about Fluttershy.” She said.
“Yeah. Twilight told me.”
>You looked to the side of the room.
>”Nop0ny else does.” she replied.
“What do you mean?”
>She laughed.  It was filled with a gently nourished hatred.  “Her name ain't even in any files.” she said.  “After what she did-”  She had meant to go on.  Instead, she shook her head while staring into the distance.
“That's not my fault.”
>”Course not.”  She was giving a fake smile, watching something off screen that obviously did not exist.  “Never was, was it?”
>You frown.
“That's unfair.  We know about what she'd done. She never would have intentionally-”
>”That's mah point.” She said, her voice strengthening.  “Lots of ponies 'never would have.'  Not till you came along.”  She reached up, putting a hoof to her head.  “None of what happened ever would have.”
“Wait just one goddamn minute. I never would have-”
>”Never would have.  Never, ever.  But it started when y'all came around, didn't it?”  She clapped the hoof onto the table. It shook loose the ash, haphazardly.  It was the first time she looked you straight on.
>”Y'all inspired so many horrible things, yah know that?” Her drawl thickened as she held back tears.  She did well, merely breathing with rough, surpressed anger.  “Nothin was wrong till you woke up like you did. Nothin' at all.”
>You lower your gaze to glare at her.  There was still some of that software filtering; Twilight hadn't fully removed it, so you didn't know how Applejack would react to what you said.  The filtering made you simply dulled how you cared.
>God, you hoped she would be able to deactivate that.  For times like these, at least, it proved to keep you sane.
“It was happening anyway, weather or not I was there.  Don't blame me for things other ponies did.”
>”I ain't blamin you for that. You're the thing- the ONLY thing- that caused it to get so damned violent.” She slouched again, head down, smoke curling from her nostrils to spill upon the table. “There weren't any attacks on the scale of what started happenin'.  The convention center, the club.”
>The volume at which she spoke escalated.  It took you by surprise, but your body did not allow itself to show it.  “Y'know why Twilight never had kids? Because she CAN'T. Panacea couldn't ever fix that, it could only copy what had already been there in the first place.”
“How does that even-”
>”She was treatin' YOU like one the entire time!  The moment you came around it was all about you!  Didn't you even see how she was so tunnel visioned with you? How much she lost cause she was so focused on YOU?!”
“It... It was for her own sake. She was doing it because I was a project to her. She was just trying to understand why things were happening like they were.”
>At that, Applejack let out a menacing laugh. “Yeah, and we all saw how that turned out.  All those heroic things, thanks to you, right?” She fell back into her chair, looking at the ceiling.
>”Mah brother was near killed by one of mah closest friends, whom everp0ny thought was peacfully dead, keeping your flank safe cause you couldn't do it yourself.  Even Rainbow's name got something evil attached to it. Of all ponies, Rainbow!”
>”An Fluttershy.  The way she died...” she laughed again. “She thought she had everything contained.  She thought she knew just how to solve things her own way, all cause of what was goin' on, with YOU.”
>She softly pointed toward you, out from the screen.  “Now, even talkin' about her get's looks so dirty you may as well be askin' a pony if they want to be shot.”
>”An Rarity,”
>Don't, you think.  Leave me with some respect for you, Applejack.  Don't go there.
>She continues.
>”The bullets that darn near tore her in half,”
>Stop.
>”They were meant for your sorry hide.  But there she is, wrapped up in little wires and with half-workin' legs that  FLUTTERSHY had to make,” She held out her forelegs, wide open as if bracing for something to fall from the sky. She let them drift back down, as if easing the invisible weight to you.  “Cause the bastards that did it were after YOU.”
>”Why in the seven rings of tartarus should YOU be walkin' around, when all the got when they helped you was a bullet or an epitaph?  It's cause you're so selfish it's your way of life.  You don't even realize it.  You're just here on everyp0ny else's good graces, and now I get to findin' out I helped bring you back?”
>You try to remain calm.  You try to take every ounce of it with as much grace or acceptance or even apathy that you can muster.  The program, however, was not suited for the level you were currently at.
“I don't care who you're friends with, Ms. Applejack. I don't care what it does to them to hear it, but I'm going to tell them exactly what you and I just exchanged here. Especially what I'm about to say.”
>She laughs once more. “You go right ahead. Maybe it'll give 'em some honest perspective on what you really stand for.”
“That's the idea.  That way, they'll know why I did the things that I did to you.”
>”Oh yeah? And what was that?”
“Nothing.  Yet.  But if I ever see you in person,”
>You place both your front hooves on the podium. You lean inward, the details of her face blurring from your proximity to the hologram.
“You will have your throat torn out before your guards realize they're dead.”
>”Colt, yer awfully small.” She looks away to finally dust off her cigarette.  She blows smoke toward her camera, and it permeates the room around you as the hologram represents it flowing outward.
“Maybe, but the melted hole in the ground near your tower is pretty goddamn big, isn't it?  The memorials take up a nice bit of space don't they? The eye witness accounts on the things that happened are some of the largest files in your recent history, aren't they?  And going on what you just said, I caused all that without even knowing how, or meaning, to use weapons designed by ponies, while in a body I never had a hoof in making.”
>The anger melts into your bones, and you can feel the local uplinks, simultaneously, all around you.  They feed on the sensation of rage, distorting the hologram, causing it to pixelate and tear.  You didn't mean to send it, but the garbled emotional data extends over the uplink, visibly causing a malfunction in the digital systems she was using as they tried to adapt.  The lights on her end flicker.  The connection snags, despite being reinforced with innumerable security measures, ones that Twilight herself designed for the safety and privacy of her friends.
“Now imagine with what I could do with some intent.”
>You lower yourself back to the ground, standing upright while the systems return to normal.  Like a passing earthquake, the visual and system anomalies fade as you force yourself to cool down.
“I, never, would have wished what happened.  I would have loved to live out whatever days I had, even alone.  This place is beautiful, and I'd do anything just to stay five more seconds and watch it shine.  But no.  According to you, it's my fault for even existing, and every other creature here taking some perverse interest in me. So extreme, in fact, that they'd be more than willing to destroy it while citing me as inspiration.”
>She holds the cigarette between her lips. It bobs as she swallows, her narrow green eyes burning with a hatred you hadn't even seen in the eyes of anything that had previously tried to murder you.  After all, they'd all been practically faceless, most of them behind helmets.
>This, though.  This entire exchange was honest and visual.  It suited her.
“I spent two years doing things not even the heartless processors could accept enough to let me recall.  Just think- all of what those processors learned, if I let them go and lose myself again, could be trained right on whatever it is in your body I decide I want to remove. Piece, by ignorant, bloody piece. And there wouldn't be a damned thing you could do to stop me, because again by your own admission, I just can't seem to give up and die.  Just remember that if I ever see you, Miss Applejack, while you're looking up at me:”
“I am not a 'thing.'  I am alive.  And with all the programs that other ponies stabbed into my brain that allow me to cause all the terrible things you just said?
“I would have settled for being ignored.”
--
>The office was silent as the replay cut away.  You opened your eyes after one long, intentional hesitation. You had not wanted to look them in the eyes.  You hadn't even wanted to admit what had transpired.
>Doing the right thing.  God, how you'd hated it.  The sickly sensation of it, bubbling in your stomach and lungs, while the words and sights played out to them from the files on your cores.
>Twilight met your eyes once, and looked away.  “I knew Applejack was a purist, but...”
>Pinkie hadn't even watched it fully.  The moment Applejack had started to chisel into you, she'd taken to the window to listen instead of watch.
>Rarity was aghast.  She had to close her trembling jaw, her eyes upon you with fear so deep it made her apprehensive to your presence.
>The entire time, the shame of your reaction had taken hold.  You had stiffened considerably, and you wobbled when you stepped to stretch.  You merely shifted weight from one side to another, resigning yourself to whatever would next be said.
>You had already prepared your decisions.  There were options available to you, after all.  Were these ponies in front of you to reject you, as you planned on them doing, well- perhaps you could still be considered LunaCorp. Property.  In submitting yourself back to the company, under the terms that the current events be deleted...
>Hell, that would have probably been better for your spirit.  Maybe you could ask someone else to do it, like Vinyl.
>Why did you ever even consider the idea you could have ever returned to something normal?  The shadows of what you'd done were so very long, even without whatever violence you'd committed in the fragmented lapse.  You only hoped that some how, at least your friends here could have appreciated it.
>There wasn't a way to turn back to this existence, you'd kept telling yourself.  All during elevator ride, all during the walk to the office.  Here they were, having gone on with their lives.  There you were, with a mind stuck in a time two years earlier and not wanting to acknowledge it.
>Not until you'd had a nice, clear view at yourself from someone else's distance.  Not until now.
>”How?  How could you say such things?” Rarity asked.  As you started to open your mouth to respond, realizing you had nothing to actually retort with, she continued.
“I just-”
>“Of all ponies, to each other?”
>You hadn't expected that.  Your body weakened, and you slouched.  It didn't let you take your eyes off of hers, but her inquiry had pressed you to the ground with it's weight.
“Rarity.  Ever since I got back the first time, I've been nothing but an object.  The only creature I know of that treated me without some underlying plan or monetary value so far, is you.”
>She closed her eyes before turning away, then took to staring at the metal floor.  It wasn't entirely true.  Applejack, of course, had seen fit to label you as an individual that deserved her spite.  That was recognition enough.
>”It's irrelevant.” Twilight said.  Her tone was flat.  “SHE'S irrelevant, at this point.”
>Rarity gasped. “Twilight, not you too!”
>”I agree with Applejack on a lot of those points, Rarity. But I also know he wasn't even capable of really doing any of it without being pushed.  He didn't even know he could until it happened.  Even then, he barely did.”
>Rarity snorted.
“Look.  Me being back here, it's just a lot of... God, I don't even think there's a word for it.”
>You close your eyes and tilt your head back to the ceiling.
“The other ponies out there don't even know about me yet.  They all think I'm dead and gone. How will they react?”
>”Darling, don't think like that.  You're a hero.”
“No, Rarity. I'm a martyr.  A living one.  To all the others out there, they see me like Applejack does. They dumped off the responsibility of all their own horrors of what happened onto me, so they could bury it in a grave.  What will they say when they find out something like that is still breathing?”
>”He's right.” Twilight said. “He's a symbol.  A bad one, at that.”
>”He is NOT... I mean, how could either of you even-” she closed her eyes as her voice started to quiver.  She couldn't manage to stammer out anything comprehensible.  She narrowed her eyes at you, and trotted toward you.
>Face to face with her, barely an inch away, you stared at each other.  She pushed next to you, rubbing her cheek against yours. She kept herself pressed to you like that for a long time.
>”Out of all the things you beat, even death, you can't even accept that one good thing came from you?”
>you bit your lower lip.  You curl tightly to her, sitting on your haunches.  “You've all done so much without me around, Rarity.  This is all a step back.”
>”That's a lie and you know it!” Pinkie turned from the window.  You look toward her with the other two mares, her outburst shocking you in unison.  “Sure, we all did some really nifty stuff without you. We never would have had the chance though!  Things would have been a LOT different without you.”
“yeah, they probably would-”
>”Have been better off, blah blah blah.” she bounced a forehoof in the air, as if it were a talking puppet. “You know how many times I've heard that? It's just plain silly.  You don't know if things would have been better or worse cause they didn't happen, and they happened the way they did because you were there in the first place.”
>She threw her forehoofs up and stood on her hind legs.  “The good part of it is that you ARE part of it.  You don't have to accept a darn thing you don't like, even if you have to work harder than Twilight to try and get it the way you want it.”
“Pinkie, that's so simple it's-”
>”then again, maybe you just don't like being happy about that little part of life.”
>”Don't you start in on him too!” Rarity declared.
>Pinkie utterly ignored her.  “Listen to me, mister.  You can't just up and leave life.  That doesn't even make sense.  You're here at this party weather or not you wanna be, and you're changing things regardless of what you do.  And now you're saying it's not even worth it to try and make things better, now that you have a second chance?”
>There was one thing you could not do with Pinkie, and that was take her too seriously.
“Pinkie, look, I-”
>”No.  You can sit here and talk all sad about yourself, but I,” she put a hoof to her chest. “Uh.  Just remembered that I have a foal to sit.”
>Rarity perked up.  “Oh my goodness... How long have we been here? How long has she been unsupervised?”
>”About two hours.” Twilight said.  “She's guarded Rarity, relax-”
>A distinctive twitch went off in Rarity's eye.  “Pinkie, what are you still doing here?”
>”Frowning is contagious! I was gonna go back cause this was only supposed to take like ten minutes but then all this happened and everyone started getting all sad over nothing and besides, I showed her how to item dupe in Everfree Quest, and she's probably-”
>”unimportant!” Rarity yelled. “Did you hide the crayons and markers?”
>”Nope.”
>Rarity twitched again.  She looked at you, your upper lip curled and brow raised in a confused glance at the pink embodiment of chaos.  “We will continue this later.” Rarity said, patting your shoulder with a hoof before she left.  She excused herself with a full on sprint for the door.
>You held up a hoof from where you sat, the physical equivalent of “What the hell, man?”
“What the hell, Pinkie?”
>She waited until Rarity was out of the room.  “I knew that would get her out of here.”
“WHY?”
>”Because if she's not around, you talk normal. Now maybe everybody can say what they really wanted to.”
“I... that...  you...”
>Your thoughts had gone from wondering how to smooth things over to Rarity, to an angry, if clean thought process in a little less than five seconds.  Now, Rarity's reactions to whatever was said in the room were completely irrelevant until they caught up with her. By then, whatever you'd said would be over with, and you could deal with in private.
>Fucking Pinkie Pie.
>”No- no, this is good.  All of this is, weather or not I agree with it.”  Twilight turned back around, placing a hoof below her chin.  She started to scan through holograms that were flatly produced on her desk top.
“I don't like it when you say that, Twilight.”
>”I know.  It's gotten to the point I don't either, but I'm not about to let this sit around.” she looks up toward you. “The reason I had you even talk to Applejack was... Well, to show you who gave you the new body.”
“I kind of had it figured out when she popped on screen.”
>”I thought you would have thanked her.  She IS responsible for you, after all.  Even the first time. I think that's what's weighing down on her.”
“... I didn't think of it like that.  She's not really in a good place for any of this, is she?”
>”No.  She gets to look outside every day and see the crater.” Twilight sighed.  “I think Pinkie should talk to her next, if anyone.”
“Yeah.  I... I didn't mean to say what I did. Not in the way I did, anyway.”
>”It's a good thing.”
“How the hell is threatening one of your closest friends something positive?”
>”It means you still have emotions.” She replied. “It also means you cared about her opinion enough to let it get to you.  If you didn't at least respect her at first, would you have even listened?”
“Not in the least.”
>You bring yourself to a morbid smile.  So does Twilight.  “She's stubborn,” Pinkie said. “But she always does the right thing when you corner her about it.  Wait.  That wasn't really... What I meant to say was-”
>”We get it Pinkie.” Twilight looks back to you. “Maybe you should go and try to talk to AJ, huh?  Tell her he's sorry?”
>The cotton candy pony saluted with a stiff stance, and bounced off.  When the door finally closed, Twilight looked back toward you, twirling a fat stylus in the air with magic.  Why did she even keep that old thing around?
>”Right.  Now, for the real reason.”
>You groan, putting a hoof to your head.
“I knew it. I goddamn knew it.”
>”I want to put you into a defrag routine.” Twilight said.
“I've TRIED that.  I've had time to fidget around with some of them on Rarity's system- it just doesn't work.”
>”Of course it wouldn't. Not when you were wired to unit like hers.  Certainly not before removing the partitions.”
“What are you suggesting.”
>”You can't have your combat filters online with it- they work both ways. The code monitors your output and restrains it based on limitations hard-wired in the code.  The input going back to you has the same defect.”
“What do you mean?”
>”We need to remove the code.”
“Twilight, it's the only thing that's kept me even close to maintaining my existence.  If it gets yanked out...”
>”the body you have now doesn't have the capacity to run the code.  You might be a multi-core beast now, but that's with memory.  The code takes up too much processing power for your current framework, so it's operating at a very low priority. It can be bypassed by outbursts.”
>You peer at your hoof.  You tap at the flesh of your flank.  Indeed, everything feels like how you remembered it... Sensitive.  Well, not really.  Actually capable of sensation, was a better term.  That had been one thing the code filtered out, for the sake of pain.
>“If you let met hook you up the old crystal drive, you can shunt, and I can defrag the files in your core to figure out what happened while combat suite is inactive. I think they're the reason why you've gotten so... aggressive.  You've got PTSD, and you fragmented the code to try and get rid of the things you didn't like seeing.”
“Great, so I'm a computer with a mental condition.”
>”If you were computer, I'd call it a malfunction. This is psychology, adapted for digital application.” She pushed back in her chair. “We can fix... Get rid of it, or at least help you understand why it kicked in.  The only difference is we can actually apply a physical treatment to your mental facilities.”
>You take a deep breath.  Exhaling slowly through your lips, you close your eyes and shrug.
“Alright.  I think I can deal with that.”
>”There's a problem though.  You're back to your old self.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
>”Did you EVER know how to fight without those code filters?”
>You blink.  No, no you hadn't.  Hell, you still didn't really understand how you'd pulled the triggers without using magic.  You'd merely given commands to the code, which responded in kind.
>”You can't defend yourself without the code.  You can just connect to a new suitable node, but you could really easily get lost in the system.”
>... You realized.  You hadn't told her about the second encounter with Vinyl.
>one thing at a time...
>”The point you're at, you need it.” She said.  “I want to give you the chance to at least fight for yourself.”
“H-How would you do that? Training takes an awfully long time, Twilight.  Ponies would notice, too. I don't think Rarity would like that, either.”
>”No.  There are multiple references in your code and the clear memory snippets to “chassis.”  They were a nickname for old prototyped pseudo-pony bodies that were combat ready.”  Her horn flared momentarily.  A schematic came up, showing a mug shot of a featureless pony.  Various scanner shots came up, showing skeletal, vascular, and cybernetic subsystems.  “I have eight of them, modified after the tower attack.  I was going to use them for remote defense, but...”
“Twilight, that is a really bad idea.  I don't want bodyguards- I mean, I heard about what happened to your brother.”
>”Please. He's fine, just using cybernetics.”  she replied.   “Besides, these things have brains the size of a pill bottle.  No personality, instinct, anything- it's more of a squishy firmware interface for all the processing power in their heads to transfer instruction to their bodies. “They do, however, have the capacity to run the combat suite.”
>You look over at the floating body.  She blips something, and it displays the creature, fully clothed and natural.  It was wearing something akin to what was left of your human thoughts as a trenchcoat.  It was dark violet and thick, glistening with tell-tale signs of a unique weave.  Statistics listed kevlar, non-newtownian impact dispersal fluids, stimulant injectors, adapted hems to hide unfolding weapon harnesses and extra magazines.
>It also listed a single thin point on the “cloth,” allowing for a remote connection.
“Whoa.  Whoa, stop- No, I am NOT-”
>”Listen to me.  You can safely connect to these things. They aren't alive. Not really.  They just LOOK natural- You'll be able to-”
“I know what I could do with them! God.”
>She remains quiet.
“This idea is even worse. I'm not stable.  What if I fly off the handle again?”
>”Already thought about that.” she taps her hoof on the desk.  “I was going to remove the firewalling and authorization keys so you would have instant access.  With what we've established about your... Mood, though, I think I'll keep them online.  If something happens, you'll have to send it through me for approval.  It'll take some time to implement with your remote access, but...” She looks at you again.  “Would you trust me with that?”
“I... I don't know Twilight.”
>”They'd only do exactly what they were instructed.” She rubs at her chin. “I suppose the better question would be, do you trust yourself with them?”
>You look back at it, as the schematic for it rotates to a vertical view.  The eyes are listless, and grey.
>”It's up to you.”
>You put your hooves to your eyes, and shake your head.  You growl and look back up at the ceiling.
“Fine.  Just... Just let me try one out.”