The orange Unicorn from Trixie's nightmare sits in a dark room. Her Cutie Mark is a golden, eight-spoked wheel and she's manipulating an identical wheel. All but one of the spokes seemed composed of a different colored crystal, one lavender, one orange, one deep purple, one pink, one blue, one red, and one green. The final, middle one was composed of a blue crystal of some sort.
She spreads a Tarot deck out on the floor and the wheel shines a rainbow beam on three of them. She flips them up to reveal The Devil, The Tower, and Death.
As Trixie sits there staring at her hooves in shock, the Mane Six debate on what to do. Rainbow Dash insists that regardless of whether or not Trixie is a robot, she needs help, while Rarity suggests that the real Trixie might have been kidnapped. Twilight starts freaking out because as far as she knows, building a robot so lifelike shouldn't even be possible even with magic. Spike cuts her rant short by splashing her with water. Fluttershy speaks up and points out how sad and scared Trixie is. It doesn't matter what Trixie is; she shares the same feelings they have.
Pinkie Pie gives Trixie a hug, telling her she looks upset. Trixie roars of course she's upset, she's just found out she's a robot. To everypony's shock, she starts crying and shedding tears. Fluttershy tells her that if she has feelings, then she has a soul. Twilight asks Spike to retrieve a certain book as the Mane Six starts hugging and comforting Trixie.
Spike returns with a book titled "How to Tell If Your Creation Is Sapient for Dummies". Twilight asks Trixie why she considers them her friends. When she answers that they make her feel warm, happy, and safe, Twilight says that proves she is sapient, as a construct with no free will would not have been able to give an emotional answer. Trixie says that means in a sense, she is real, but she's not sure if she really is Trixie. Twilight offers to examine her, promising not to cut her open. Twilight tries a simple scanning spell, but Trixie registers like a regular pony. Twilight then does a deeper scan, along with X-Ray Vision, then creates a screen to project what she is seeing. Underneath Trixie's skin is a mechanical skeleton that resembles a pony's, but much bulkier. She has the same optics that Lightning Dust had.
Trixie's muscles are hydraulic in nature. Her brain is made of wires, chips, and circuit boards, and her horn is made out of a magic wand. She has a core in her chest that glows a bright blue and seems to be connected to everything. Twilight says nothing in her body is organic, but her magic signature seems to be identical to the Trixie they know. Some components in her brain seem to be dead. Trixie seems to run on a mana engine that is self-sustaining, while as far as Twilight knows, mana engines need to be regularly recharged by a Unicorn. Trixie's body is made of a mithril alloy. Mithril is extremely strong and light, and very rare and expensive. "I've only seen a few guards with armor and weapons made of it, and normally those are elites who EARNED it." Trixie's stomach works, most likely to emulate the living by being able to digest food. Twilight speculates on the nature of the parts of Trixie's brain that seem to be burned out.
Lightning Dust sneaks into Rainbow Dash's house. Dash's pet tortoise Tank wakes up and follows her, but gets scared by her appearance and hides in his shell. Lightning searches the house, and when she finds some Wonderbolts posters, her face briefly turns angry before reverting to emotionless. While searching, she pauses to get a drink of water. She removes the curtain from her face and instead hides her damaged face by donning a pair of sunglasses. Then she looks out the window and sees Twilight's castle.
When Twilight talks about how advanced the technology that composes Trixie's body is, Trixie blushes. She asks how that is possible, and Twilight finds she has light projectors in her cheeks. Twilight scans the burned out parts and finds they are saturated in the magic of the Alicorn Amulet. This means that the Trixie who used the Alicorn Amulet and was eventually redeemed was her. They are all relieved about this, though Trixie wonders if there was an original, flesh and blood Trixie. Twilight deduces that wielding the amulet flooded her with magic that overloaded and burned these parts out. Trixie guesses this was the reason why Gear Shift and Cover Story's paper didn't affect her.
Suddenly, Lightning Dust kicks the door to the throne room down and charges at Trixie, but Applejack kicks her away. Twilight has an idea and tells the others to hold her at bay while she and Trixie get ready. Pinkie blasts Lightning with her party cannon, then Rarity tries to tie her up with the curtains, but Lightning slashes through them with the Wing Blade spell. Rainbow Dash duels her with her own Wing Blades, then gets shocked and asks how Lightning knows how to do it, since she was kicked out of Wonderbolts Academy before they taught it. Rainbow gets a headache trying to think about it. Applejack darts in and kicks her in the face, knocking her into the ceiling and destroying her sunglasses. Fluttershy tries to incapacitate her with the Stare, but Lightning's face becomes one of pleading suffering before her body starts forcing her to move and attack them.
Meanwhile, Filthy Rich receives a letter from a private boarding school signed by Headmaster Masquerade inviting his daughter Diamond Tiara to attend, and he discusses it with his wife Spoiled Rich. Filthy is uncertain about this, while Spoiled supports it and points out Diamond's best friend Silver Spoon was also invited. A maid says two ponies asked to see Spoiled, so she goes to meet them in the living room. Inside are Gear Shift and Cover Story, who show her a piece of paper with "1 7 5 14 20" on it. Spoiled orders the maid to leave, then pulls out a spray bottle and sprays the paper, causing the numbers to change to letters and read "AGENT". Spoiled asks if they are here to take "it" away, but they say they are not here to take away G4T03. Annoyed, Spoiled says she wants to enjoy her retirement, and get rid of their fake child so that they can get a real one. They say they are looking for G4T01 and G4T08. Spoiled says she retired long before the Generation Four Marionettes were created, so they show her photos of Trixie and Lightning Dust. Spoiled says she saw Lightning Dust flying towards Princess Twilight Sparkle's castle earlier. Alarmed, they thank her and promise to send somepony to pick up G4T03. As they leave, Spoiled notices Diamond Tiara poking her head out of her room. Spoiled asks how much she heard, and she says nothing. Spoiled is confident that the little robot cannot lie to her when directly questioned. Diamond asks who those two were. Spoiled sees that Diamond seems frightened and it disturbs her that she seems so lifelike. Spoiled says they were old co-workers of hers.
Gear Shift and Cover Story are worried and ponder their next move. They don't know much about Twilight's castle because its magic fries their surveillance equipment whenever they try to plant it. They have to get in and retrieve the two Marionettes before the Mane Six discovers their true nature. They run into Bon Bon, who recognizes Gear Shift and greets him as an old friend. Gear Shift recognizes her as Sweetie Drops but Bon Bon explains that she changed her name after she retired. After promising to catch up later, they start walking away, but Bon Bon asks why they are still wearing their suits when their agency closed a long time ago. Gear Shift claims he got a new job that requires a suit. Bon Bon starts to get suspicious, but gets a headache.
Twilight finds the book she was looking for and asks Trixie to think about the time she wielded the Alicorn Amulet. Trixie is reluctant, but Twilight insists it will help them save Lightning Dust. Trixie starts thinking about the sense of power, the sense of freedom, like all inhibitions are gone. Twilight starts charging a spell.
As the others continue to fight off Lightning Dust, Applejack burns her arm on the exposed metal on her face. Twilight and Trixie burst in and together, the group restrains Lightning Dust. Twilight presses a horn to her head and apologizes before applying a spell. Lightning's emotionless facade cracks and she starts panicking. They release her and she sees her reflection and screams, asking how she became a robot. Rainbow grabs her and asks her to please calm down and explain what happened to her. Lightning says the two agents confronted her on the train and showed her a paper with numbers on it. Then she couldn't move on her own and they called her G4T08 and ordered her to retrieve G4T01, pointing at Trixie. She vividly describes everything she did up to this point and that she couldn't control her body, leaving everypony horrified that she was aware of everything the whole time. She asks how they freed her, so Twilight explains that the burned out parts of Trixie's brain were the failsafes that allowed her to be controlled, so she copied the Alicorn Amulet's magic and burned out those same parts in Lightning Dust.
Trixie confides that she's a robot too. Lightning asks how this happened to them and Twilight says they don't know. Lightning sadly kicks a wall, lamenting that first she was kicked out of the Wonderbolts and now she's a robot. Spike gets their attention. Gear Shift and Cover Story are approaching the front door.
