This is where it stops being specific moments, and turns into more of a loose outline. I didn’t have a definite timeline, but it covers a period of at least a couple of months — this was meant to be a nice slow character progression, going on in the background of reader-driven plots and stuff I figured I’d come up with as we went.

The main thrust of it was to be showing the bots exploring outside the lab, making connections with other characters and becoming more of their own people. They still live with and assist Twilight, but now they have lives outside of that, and are no longer defined entirely by their relationship to her.

Rainbow’s caught the attention of a couple of the Wonderbolts who saw her flying at the Crystal Empire dock, and were impressed enough to track her down and talk shop with her (seriously, Wonderbolts are really into flying). But they’re not the only ones who followed her: Scootaloo, sick of being yelled at by the dock staff and made fun of by the other bots for not being a good flier, shows up determined to get Rainbow to teach her how to fly so well.

And then she keeps showing up, even when Rainbow is trying her best to look impressive and not dorky in front of the Wonderbolts. Having a little robot chasing after you? That is not awesome. That is the opposite of awesome! It’s…un-awesome.

[bq]SPITFIRE: Aww! You brought a little friend!

RAINBOW: Wha — augh! You again!

SCOOTALOO: I’m Rainbow Dash’s sidekick!

SOARIN’: [probably thinking about pie]

So Rainbow has to juggle hanging out with SUPER COOL people, and being followed around by a starry-eyed kid who’s starting to get a little annoying. There might’ve been a little mini-arc about it; eventually Rainbow sees the parallel between her and Scootaloo, and the way she sees the Wonderbolts, and gets over herself enough that — while she can’t actually teach her much about flying, considering she has big rocket-powered wings and Scoots has a dinky little propeller — she does make an effort to be more patient with Scootaloo, and a better role model. It’s just part of being so amazingly radical, I guess.

RAINBOW: I guess I could always use a wingman…even a tiny one. [hi-five!]

As for Scootaloo…I didn’t have her situation completely figured out; I didn’t want her to be a runaway kid, because that’s a bit too, I don’t know, weirdly dark for this silly pony AU? So I figured she managed to get herself transferred to steam-Ponyville, because she was pretty unhappy where she was, and chasing after Rainbow gave her something to go after. …Yeah, a lot of this part is ‘figure this out later’.

[scoota-shrug] narrative convenience?

Scootaloo is put under the management of Cheerilee, who is the resident supervisor/manager of the smaller worker-bots, and is quickly taken into the fold with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, who are excited to meet a bot as short as they are. Everyone’s just too dang tall here!

As in canon, the Crusaders represent the three major types of people in this world: Apple Bloom is a human, Sweetie Belle is an augment, and Scootaloo is a full robot. Unfortunately this makes coming up with some kind of cutie mark-analogous common goal for them to work towards kind of hard, and I hadn’t thought of any good ideas. :(

CMC: The [insert-cool-thing-here] Crusaders!

Meanwhile, Pinkie has been making regular trips to Sugarcube Corner (let’s pretend I came up with a cute punny gear-related name for it), at first because she still gets Indefinitely Free Cupcakes, and who’s going to turn that down?

PINKIE: Not Pinkie!

Something about Pinkie just seems to fit into Sugarcube Corner. Mr. and Mrs. Cake have grown very fond of her, in a slightly-bewildered-and-somewhat-overwhelmed-by-robots way, and the twins just adore this silly, bouncy creature who’s always up for playtime and doesn’t mind the occasional explosion. There may have been a redux of the Baby Cakes episode, but eventually Pinkie proves to be a surprisingly effective babysitter — partly because her Pinkie Sense gives her an edge over any potential accidents or wacky robot-baby shenanigans, and partly because she thinks it’s funny when Pumpkin tries to eat her face.

PINKIE: Tee hee! That tickles!

POUND: [offscreen, exploding]

Applejack’s going through a similar experience, if less explodey. Most of Twilight’s supplies come from the Apples, and AJ is officially the best at carrying things, so she’s usually the one to pick them up. Somehow, her trips down to the store just keep taking longer and longer…

GRANNY: Would y’all like some fresh-baked apple pie?

APPLEJACK: …maybe one slice…

The Apples are a tight-knit little family, but a welcoming one, and just like with Pinkie and the Cakes, the moment Applejack enters their lives it’s like she was meant to be there all along. (Maybe it’s something in the name.) She gets along with both Big Mac, who never says much, and Apple Bloom, who never seems to stop talking — she’s even willing to sit and listen to Granny Smith go on about Back In Her Day and how Ain’t Bots These Days Somethin’, so it’s no wonder they’ve basically adopted her. If she’s spending more time at the store than at the lab these days…well, Twilight knows where to find her if she needs her.

<ins>applejack use a fork you monster</ins>[/bq]