Fallout Equestria Broken Steel

Chapter 13: Regret

Fallout Equestria

Broken Steel

Chapter 13: Regret

200 Years ago in an unknown location.

"I can't believe it, I'm a free mare when the war's over" Short Circuit cried out in happiness as she left her living quarters. That morning she had received a letter which told her that for her services and dedication to her work on the Combat Model Crusader Mainframe and the Krogoth her life sentence for hacking into the military network of Equestria had been pardoned.

Short Circuit was a young mare, not even twenty years old. She like many teenagers had a rebellious streak and to show off to her friends she showed her talent in hacking computers for fun, never for anything more. Her friends made a harmless joke by saying "I bet you could hack the military network" to her. They weren't serious about it either as if they were; Pinkie Pie and likely the entire M.o.M would have been on them like a parasprite in a supermarket. At home Short Circuit couldn't get what her friends had said out of her head and she made the bad decision to do it for the only purpose to see if she could. After several hours she finally cracked the code and entered the network but for only a brief moment before she exited. She was satisfied that she could do it and didn't think anything about it until the next morning when Pinkie Pie had her arrested and later sentenced to life imprisonment in a maximum security prison. She was lucky she got a life sentence as in most cases like hers it often was given the death penalty in a time of war.

Short Circuit was one of a few ponies in the prison who willingly volunteered for the mysterious construction effort for Applejack. She had promised to reward ponies who joined by having their sentences shortened or pardoned depending on the crime. As Short Circuit joined the team Applejack was surprised that such a young mare had been given such a long sentence even after learning of her crime. Feeling sorry for the young mare Applejack got to know her better and learned the real reason for her hacking attempt and saw that it was just a young mare proving herself. She could see that Short Circuit didn't have a bad bone in her and wouldn't do anything to hurt anyone else. Applejack did her best to convince the ponies in the M.o.M and Pinkie Pie to pardon her as she was just a young filly who didn't mean any harm and she was only in the system for a brief second. She had no intention of causing anything bad.

Now, she was a free mare when the war ended. The young mare had a skip in her step as she walked out into the massive, cavernous expanse of the main hanger with the giant mechanoid standing in its place surrounded by scaffolding and platforms. The machine at this point was bare of armour and had numerous ponies working on the inside. Short Circuit saw her destination in the machine's chest, a massive black steel sphere which sat inside its chest; this was one of two huge spheres. The second and larger was behind the smaller in the middle. These spheres were the extremely reinforced armoured chambers that housed the machine's Crusader Mainframe and Stable-Tec Spark Reactor.

Short Circuit usually hated climbing all the ladders to get to the C.M Chamber but today nothing could dampen her mood. She used her access code to enter the chamber and began to check the mainframe. She checked her checklist which was written by Twilight Sparkle and found that she had one last thing to do before the combat model Crusader was finished and that was to test the mind transfer module.

"I'm so happy today Kroggy, I've been pardoned" She said happily as she activated the crusader. The chambers internal cameras focused immediately on the dark blue mare as she began going through the mind transfer pre-test checklist.

At this point the crusader already had its mission programmed into its system and it already had a plan of action. Internally the machine began examining Short Circuit.