Rarity may or may not have actually mined any gems by this point – thankfully it’s not something Twilight needs a lot of – but she’s kept herself busy in her own way. What started as simple gifts (for Rarity’s definition of ‘simple’) has grown into an artistic pursuit, with clothing as her medium and her slightly-bewildered friends as her canvas.

RARITY: It’s a STATEMENT!
TWILIGHT: More like an imperative…

(this joke by delgo, who is way funnier than me)

Steamquestria loves its fancy Victorian clothing, and it’s not long before Rarity’s creations are noticed by the general public. She even begins taking the occasional commission – just one or two here, another there – and before anyone knows it, she’s spending all of her time making hats and gowns and waistcoats. But she’s perfectly fine with that: nothing makes Rarity happier than making someone look as beautiful on the outside as they are on the inside.

a job well done!

Fluttershy, meanwhile, has been sticking to the lab and avoiding the crowded streets and stores…but somehow she still manages to find every abandoned or cast-off little robot, the ones that are some kid’s my-first-AI project or a bored mechanic fiddling around with spare parts. Their AI is too basic for them to be of any real use, but she can’t bear to leave them to the junk heaps they were tossed in.

little does she know how evil this bunny really is…

They’re mostly just trinkets, like wind-up toys for children, or little music boxes that sing on command. But no matter how small they are, there’s a place for them inside Fluttershy’s enormous (figurative) heart.

with a smile and a song~

So the bots are doing pretty well, all things considered! As for Twilight…well.

well indeed.

Twilight’s been pretty annoyed with her bots. Rainbow, Pinkie, and Applejack keep disappearing for hours at a time; Rarity insists on putting her in extremely inefficient ballgowns; Fluttershy is cluttering up the lab with her endless stream of junky strays that she wants Twilight to fix up – honestly, even Spike seems too busy for her these days, more interested in talking to the bots (and mooning over Rarity) than listening to Twilight’s lecture on the potential metamorphic properties of mixed Elements.

TWILIGHT: [clearly wrong] What?! It’s INTERESTING!

If Twilight were being really, truly honest with herself, she’d realize that she’s feeling left out, and maybe a little jealous that her bots are forging their own lives without her. If she stopped to think about it (and really think, not just stew) then she might realize that they’ve become true individuals, shaped by the Elements she gave them, and the experiment she started with has become more than she ever imagined.

But there’s a reason Honesty isn’t her Element. Twilight isn’t great at dealing with people, even when she built those people herself, and she’s even worse at dealing with her own irrational emotions, so she just shoves them down and tries to pretend it doesn’t matter. Surely this won’t come back to bite her later!

Frustrated with the bots (and herself, even if she’s not admitting it right now), Twilight focuses instead on investigating the mysterious liquid they found at the Crystal Empire State Building. Celestia was right about it being an Element: it appears to have been based off of a corrupted batch of Kindness, and Twilight’s been trying to figure out if there are any clues as to where it came from. With the kind of mood she’s in, maybe she made it.

(That’s sort of her idea of a joke; a simple bad mood wouldn’t do this, or else they’d have a lot more industrial-strength acid laying around the island. You need hate to corrupt an Element this badly – hate and rage and all kinds of other nasty feelings that Twilight, even now, doesn’t really want to think too hard about it.)

Somewhere along the way, Twilight’s researching becomes less about finding clues, and more about research for its’ own sake. It’s not every day you get a chance to study such a corrupted Element, and never let it be said that she’s not thorough! While she’s become distracted from her original goal, she has made a few interesting discoveries: adding in other Elements will temporarily destabilize it, though after a few seconds it overtakes and absorbs the un-corrupted Element. If she had the right mixture of Elements, and enough of it, then maybe she could…fix the corruption?

But no matter how hard she tries to focus, experimenting just isn’t the distraction she hoped it would be. She’s not able to forget about how she’s feeling maybe, secretly, just a little bit ignored – and spending all her time around a toxic Element doesn’t seem to be having a positive effect. It’s making her snappy with the bots (even Spike!), who don’t appreciate Twilight’s new perpetual grumpiness, and their reactions are just making Twilight feel even worse. The moments where they all get along are becoming fewer and far between.

…friendship is magic?

Twilight’s been keeping Celestia updated, as promised, and one morning she receives a surprising letter from her mentor. Celestia is delighted to hear of her experiments, even if they aren’t quite what Twilight originally intended, and she’s invited her student to meet with her at the University(!) to discuss her discoveries one-on-one(!!), and also, if Twilight doesn’t mind, to ask for her input on a personal project(!!!).

This is basically a dream come true for Twilight. Celestia has been her idol ever since she was an itty-bitty scientist, and while she’s learned a lot from being personally mentored, Celestia’s approach has always been disappointingly hands-off. The chance to sit down and talk to her about something Twilight herself discovered – not as teacher and student, but one scientist to another – and also get a look at whatever amazing thing Celestia’s working on right now? Because Celestia asked for her input? Oh, gosh.

As Twilight sends off an excited, slightly-scribbly reply, she remembers how much her bots enjoyed the trip the last time (or at least, before the whole ‘getting stuck at the airport’ bit). Her excitement edges out over all the issues they’ve been having – not to mention that the influence of even the most determinedly-evil Element is nothing in the face of sheer fangirling – so, hoping to make amends, she decides to invite them to go along with her to the University.

It…doesn’t go as planned.

The bots haven’t exactly been pleased with Twilight’s behavior lately, and they don’t understand what a big deal this is for her, or that she intends it as a kind of peace offering. And this isn’t like last time, when they pretty much went everywhere with her; they’ve got their own things to do now. Some of them at least try to come up with plausible-sounding excuses (and Fluttershy hid the moment she realized she’d have to make an awkward decision), but their answer is a resounding no. Rainbow isn’t even polite about it.

This tension that’s been slowly building up for the past couple of months comes to a point, and it goes from one semi-rude comment into a full fight. Twilight knows she’s been kind of awful lately, but she’s trying to make it up to them, and she’s hurt that not only will they not let her, but even Spike thinks she’s overreacting. The bots, for their part, just see this as more of her being snippy and stressed and taking it out on them, and don’t realize how upset she really is until it’s too late.

…

It ends with Twilight storming off to go by herself, leaving them all behind (even Spike). If they don’t want to be her friends, then – whatever! She was fine before them, and she’ll be fine now. Maybe if she pretends she doesn’t feel so awful, they won’t be able to tell.

She just hopes that whatever Celestia is working on will distract her…

CELESTIA: Not much longer now…

CELESTIA: We’ll see each other again soon, L…

CELESTIA: …Luna?