Bender's Equestrian Adventuresby Snake StaffChaptersTouring PonyvilleMeeting TwilightParty NightArrivalOn the RoadTouring PonyvilleArmed with his trusty generic disguise, Bender strode confidently into Ponyville square. Everything was looking up. These clueless equine aliens hadn’t the slightest idea of what they were in for. They were obviously far too primitive and stupid to see through the best disguise his impossibly powerful robotic brain had conceived. Everywhere he looked he saw hoofed creatures carrying gold coins. Booze money carrying even more booze money! What could be better? Derpy had even ceased her efforts to break free from his compartment! “Yessiree, this is gonna be perfect.” Bender said as he rubbed his hands together in malicious glee and cackled. He threw his head back and raised his arms to the sky, laughing maniacally. So happy was he that he failed to notice that everypony in the square had stopped what they were doing and were staring at this strange, metallic, bipedal creature in a stupid outfit that was making so much racket. “HEY THERE!” came a loud voice in Bender’s ear, interrupting his revere. “Wha?” the robot stumbled back, looking for the source of the sound. His head twirled wildly. “Down here, silly.” Bender looked down to his feet. A bright pink pony with a mane resembling cotton candy stood looking up at him with a stupid smile on her face. She had balloons tattooed on her ass. Now that Bender looked carefully, he realized that almost all of the ponies had something or the other tattooed on themselves. “Must be some kinda primitive ritual,” he decided. “Hi there, Mr. Shiny! Is it ok if I call you Shiny? I’m Pinkie Pie! You look like fun, and I love a pony who loves to laugh!” Bender frowned. He grabbed Pinkie Pie and lifted her to eye level. “Now listen here you little piece of crap, I’m not a pony, I’m-” Bender paused as his processor finally caught up with his mouth. His frown suddenly turned to a shifty-eyed smile. He set Pinkie down gently, then patted her on the head. “Why yes, little girl or boy, I am absolutely a fellow pony. Yep, totally ordinary in every way, that’s good ol’ Bender!” “Bender?” the little pony repeated, scratching her chin and frowning. Bender watched nervously as she paused for a minute, then suddenly leapt into the air. “That’s a great name! Can I call you Bendy? I don’t know what you meant by ‘girl or boy’, I’m a mare! But that’s not important! What is important is that I take you to meet all my friends, and then we have a party to celebrate your first day in Ponyville!” “A party, huh?” Bender didn’t have to think long. Parties meant booze, and a tour would help him identify the best places to rob in this stupid hick town. “Count me in!” “YAY!!!” Pinkie Pie jumped for joy. Bender rubbed his hands together with malicious glee. … “And this is Fluttershy’s house! I don’t think she’s here now, but I’m sure all her animal friends are! We can go say hi, and maybe play a game of catch! Ooo, or tag! Or Frisbee! Or catch the frisbie while playing tag, yay!” Pinkie shouted, bouncing ahead of the robot. Bender followed her up the small hill to what was obviously a hippy domicile. “Eh, hippies aren’t any fun to rob. Poor, full of crap about peace and love, and they smell! I wouldn’t even bother if it weren’t for all the drugs they have.” Bender thought as Pinkie knocked on the door, waited a moment, then somehow opened it from the inside. “Come on in! There are lots of little animal friends for you to meet! Like Angel Bunny!” Pinkie held out a sour-looking white rabbit at Bender, who took the little guy as he followed her inside. He threw the bunny into the nearest wall the moment she wasn’t looking. Pinkie continued rattling off the names of all of this “Fluttershy’s” animal friends, but Bender wasn’t listening. He was too busy scanning the place for the drugs and booze he knew had to be in here somewhere. “Come on, come on, Bender needs him some booze.” Bender muttered to himself as he carelessly tossed aside Fluttershy’s furniture after checking it for drugs. For her part, Pinkie continued happily listing off all the animals Fluttershy was caring for, somehow dragging them to meet him, then yanking them away again after she had introduced them. Bender felt a little kick on his leg. He looked down and saw Angel attacking him savagely. Savagely for a rabbit, that is. He kicked Bender and gnawed on his foot with his little bunny teeth. Bender looked down and growled his annoyance. Angel looked right back up and hissed menacingly. Bender noticed a picture of the same white bunny being hugged by a yellow pony framed on the bookshelf. He picked it up and studied it while Angel continued trying to attack the one defiling his owner’s house. “So, this is Fluttershy.,.” Bender observed, digitally filing the picture away in his processor. “Yep!” came a voice from right behind his head. “Aaaaahhh!” Bender jumped, and the picture went flying. It smashed into the wall, flinging broken glass everywhere. “Well come on, silly! That’s all of Fluttershy’s friends and we don’t have all day! Well, I guess we do, but it wouldn’t be nearly as fun I we had to postpone you party would it?” Pinkie Pie was already halfway out the door, motioning for Bender to follow her. He raised his hand and looked down shiftily. “Eh, just a second, Bluey.” “Pinkie!” He waved dismissively. “Whatever. I got one thing I gotta do before we leave,” “Ok, but make it quick! We’ve got lots of other places to go before I can go get your party ready!” “Sure thing!” Bender replied, cheerily. He closed the door, leaving Pinkie to ramble about… whatever she was rambling about. He looked down at the white rabbit still trying to attack the wrecker of his home. “Well well well, what have we here?” Bender reached down and picked up Angel by the ears, lifting him to eye level. The bunny continued to thrash and squirm and growl as best he could. “A little hero, huh? Bravly defending the fair damsel’s home? Well, time for old Bender to show you what happens to heroes.” He stuck his ass in the bunny’s face. “They can bite my shiny metal ass!” Bender causally walked out the back door of the house, facing towards the dangerous-looking forest, that Pinkie had identified as Everfree. “Bon voyage, Angel! Ahhahahahahahaha!” With that, he let the bunny drop, then kicked him as hard as his robotic legs could manage. Angel went flying into the distance, screaming his little rabbity scream. Bender watched gleefully as he crashed into the depths of the Everfree forest, disappearing from even his most enhanced vision. Laughing happily, Bender strolled back to Pinkie Pie. … “And that’s Cloudsdale, where Rainbow Dash lives! We can’t go up there right now, but you really need to meet her when you get the chance! She’s so awesome!” Pinkie squealed with delight. “And that,” she said, pointing to the farm Bender had noticed earlier, “Is Sweet Apple Acres, where Applejack and her family live! Come on, I think they’re home!” Pinkie rushed on ahead, Bender in hot pursuit. “Hiiiii Applejack! Hi Applebloom! Hi Big Mac! Hi Granny Smith!” Pinkie waved to four ponies Bender could see at work on various tasks. The orange female and red male appeared to be kicking trees to shake apples into bucket. The smaller yellow female with a bow was pestering the older green female in a rocking chair about something. “Heya Pinkie!” Applejack turned from her work to wave back to her friend. Then she noticed the robot in a cheesy disguise following in her wake. “Uh, who’s your friend?” “This is Bender!” Pinkie pulled him closer to herself as the three younger ponies gathered round, leaving a half-asleep Granny Smith in her rocker. “He’s new in town, so I’m showing him around! Then we’ll all have a big party to welcome him to Ponyville!” “Well I’ll be, I ain’t never seen a critter like him before.” Applejack said, scratching her head in confusion. “Have any a y’all?” “Nope.” Big Mac shook his head. Applebloom just stared at Bender. Then she bolted, heading for the clubhouse Bender could see in the distance. She seemed more excited than scared, smiling and giggling to herself along the way. “Well now that’s just plum rude.” Applejack said with a frown. “I thought she had better manners than that! Beggin’ yer pardon, Mr. Bender,” she somehow managed to grab his hand in her hoof and she shook it. “I’m Applejack. That there is my brother Big Macintosh” “Eyup,” said the larger red stallion. “That’s Granny Smith on the porch, and if y’all will excuse her rudeness, that was our sister Applebloom. This here is Sweet Apple Acres, the best apple orchard this side of Canterlot!” she said proudly. “Oh, and welcome to Ponyville.” “Uh huh, great.” Bender said with a profound lack of interest in the lives of these no doubt inbred hicks. He was about to start casing whatever house they had for anything more valuable than apples, when he suddenly vaguely remembered something about hicks and moonshine production. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have any booze, would you?” “Booze?” Applejack scratched her head in confusion. “You know, alcohol?” “You mean the cleaning stuff?” “No, I mean the stuff you drink!” “Why would ya drink cleaning fluid?” Bender barely resisted the urge to grab this stupid pony and shake her. “I mean…” he thought back to what he knew of booze production. “Apple cider?” he asked tentatively, remembering that it was alcoholic in most places. “Oh, why didn’t y’all just say so? Of course we have some cider! And I don’t think someone new in Ponyville could complete any tour without tastin’ a sample of the Apple family’s world famous apple cider. Come on in!” she started walking towards the house. “Apple family. That grows apples. These hicks must be even more inbred than I thought.” Bender concluded as he was led inside, a happy Pinkie following him in. She was congratulating him on making friends with Applejack or something, but he couldn’t be bothered to give a crap. Not when compared with the sweet, sweet prospect of booze. He sat down at the table he was directed to, rubbing his hands in anticipation. Applejack sat a wooden mug filled with golden cider down in front of the eager robot. “Now, I recommend y’all take it nice and slow, to really savor the flavor of that nice-” Bender chugged the whole mug in one swallow. He had to restrain himself from vomiting. “Non-alcoholic cider!” he mentally ranted, “What the hell is this crap! These stupid, worthless bums! They couldn’t even get booze right! Damn them all to hell!” With what little self-control he had, Bender sat the mug down without strangling the worthless hick that was staring at his face with such a stupid look. “Don’t make a scene. I need to remain incognito until I get the lay of the land. Besides, I can always torch their stupid farm tonight on my crime spree.” He folded his fingers. “Applejack, dear. Your cider is excellent, but…” She looked vaguely creeped out by his calm tone. “But?” “Do you know what could make your cider even better?” “Shoot.” “Try fermenting it for several months before serving. I guarantee everybody will love it even more.” “Ya think so?” “Trust me, that’s what they do where I’m from, and everybody drinks it all the time.” “Well, that’s definitely given me somethin’ to think about. Thanks for the tip, Mr. Bender.” Pinkie yanked at his arm. “Come on Bendy, we’ve still got so many places to see! I haven’t even shown you Twilight and Rarity’s places yet!” “Whoa!” Bender was dragged along by the monstrously strong pink pony. Applejack waved as he was carried out of her house. “Y’all come back now, ya here!” “Sure thing!” yelled Bender as the farm faded in the distance, cackling to himself. “Sure thing…” Though he could barely make it out, Bender could’ve sworn he heard three distant voices on the wind. “CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS CREATURE CATALOGERS YAY!!!” … “And this is the Carousel Boutique, where Rarity does her thing! Ooo, I can’t wait for you to meet her! She’s so much fun, and such a nice pony. Come on, I’ll show you!” Pinkie yanked Bender onwards. “Hmmm… now this looks interesting…” Bender muttered as he saw the opulent exterior of Rarity’s business. Pinkie burst in the door. “HEEEEY RARITY!!!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. There was a loud shriek from upstairs, followed by a thud, then several softer thuds. After a few moments, while Bender was eyeing up the clothing on display with all the obviously fake gems and wondering how much it would sell for, a door opened. A frazzled-looking white unicorn stepped out. A pair of glasses adorned her face. “Pinkie,” Rarity said, “You cannot simply burst in on a girl unannounced when she’s working, it’s positively-” her eyes caught Bender. “Hello, who’s this?” Before Bender could introduce himself, Pinkie Pie was all over it. “Hey Rarity, this is Bendy, he’s my new friend, yay! I’m showing him around town ‘cause he’s new here and all and I just knew you’d love to meet him!” Rarity sized up the robot, and in particular his trenchcoat and hat. “Oh, darling, you should have brought him to me sooner!” she dashed over to Bender and began running her hooves over his coat. Her horn glowed blue, and Bender’s hat floated down to rotate in front of her face. “Oh Mr. Bender, where on Celestia’s green earth did you get these… these… abominations to fashion?!” She looked over his trenchcoat again, from every angle. “Oh no no no! These simply will not do! I don’t know who sold you these, my good sir, but you were cheated!” Actually, Bender had stolen them from some guy he’d mugged, but he decided against mentioning that. “I mean, a brown coat with a plain black hat and sunglasses?! Unacceptable, simply unacceptable! Oh, you must let me make you some new clothes at once!” “Hey now,” Bender said, snatching his hat back. “Let’s not get hasty here. I happen to like what I’m wearing.” “Oh, but Mr. Bender, you simply cannot continue to allow yourself to be seen in such clothing! What would the others think? I can make you something so fashionable that it’ll blow your brains out in just a handful of hours!” “Well I ain’t exactly rich, Ms. Rarity. I’m not gonna-” “Oh it’s money that makes you object?!” Rarity waved her hoof dismissively. “Any friend of Pinkie’s is a friend of mine. Tell you what: as a welcoming present from me to you, I’ll fix you up a new outfit, today. No charge.” “No charge?!” said Bender, incredulously. “No charge.” Rarity nodded with a triumphant smirk. “Well, ok then!” Bender nodded. He realized this would give him the perfect excuse to really case this upscale joint. And maybe get away from that insufferable pink menace for a time. “Now Pinkie Pie,” said Rarity, “I’ll need you to leave for a few hours while I work with Mr. Bender here. No offense, dear, but you can be a tad… disruptive to my work.” “That’s ok!” said Pinkie’s voice from up above. Bender and Rarity both jumped as they saw her hanging on the ceiling. “I needed some time to get the party ready anyway! See you in a couple of hours Bendy!” she jumped down and managed to grab the doorway and swing out before ever touching ground. The unicorn and robot stared in stunned silence for a minute. Rarity finally coughed awkwardly. “Well now, Mr. Bender, I suppose we should get started.” … Sometime later, Bender was pacing the Carousel Boutique, bored out of his robotic skull. He’d made a good job of casing Rarity’s place while the unicorn was busy sewing away. Nothing that valuable in this dump. Some gold coins, which he had of course already dumped in his compartment, but that was about it. All the fake gems about him taunted the robot with their realism, but he knew they had to be fake. “If she had access to so many real gems, the unicorn would be so rich that there’s no way she’d be living in this hick town and making a living sewing.” Bender continued pacing, wondering if this had been a good idea after all. Sure, free stuff was great, but he was wasting time when he could have been planning his grand crime spree throughout Ponyville. And then, of course, there was that Canterlot place Pinkie had mentioned, with plenty of upper class chumps and even two princesses to pillage. Bender cackled yet again at the very thought of it. “Oh, Mr. Bender!” Bender sighed. This had to have been the millionth time the fussy unicorn had called him in for another measurement or his opinion on a certain method of stitching or some other inane crap he didn’t care about. “What is it?” he asked dully as he marched upstairs to her sewing room. “Your outfit is ready!” Rarity exclaimed delightedly. She held it in the air with her magic. “What do you think?” she asked, more nervously. Bender circled the floating display, taking in his new trenchcoat. It was black, with slight streaks of grey and what looked like actual silver threat running through it in strategic areas to make it appear to flow more when moved. It was longer than the old one too, and fit his form more snugly than the stolen coat. His new fedora was also black, with a silvery-grey band wrapped around the lower part of it, and what looked to be dark rubies embedded tastefully on a few areas. Bender nodded in genuine approval. “I like it.” Rarity breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, I’m so glad! You see, I had just the hardest time picturing everything in your dimensions, seeing as I’ve never met another of your kind, and it was such a difficult choice as to…” She continued describing the challenges she had overcome to make the outfit, but Bender wasn’t really listening. He slipped the coat and hat on before posing in front of a mirror. “Oh, yeah, lookin’ good.” “You certainly are, Mr. Bender. I’m glad to have helped you bring out your inner potential.” Bender wanted to roll his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. I like what you did with the black and the fake gems though. Makes me look all dark and mysterious.” Rarity gasped in horror. “Oh, no no no no no no NO! Mr. Bender! I would never stoop to using fakes! Every gem in this shop is the real thing! I’ve seen to it myself!” If Bender had a jaw, it would have dropped. “You mean… all the jewels in this shop are real? The emeralds, the sapphires, the rubies, the diamonds?” “That’s what I said, isn’t it? A true artist takes pride in using only the best ingredients.” Rarity didn’t even have time to blink before Bender whipped out a stolen nightstick. He bashed her over the head, knocking her out cold in a single blow. He tossed her unconscious form into a closet, slamming the door behind her. He bent the knob, making it virtually impossible to open the door without the brute strength to knock it down. Laughing like a little schoolchild, Bender proceeded to rob Carousel Boutique of every single jewel he could spot. Hundreds of gems were thrown into his compartment, crushing poor Derpy Hooves even more. He also grabbed a sack, stuffing it with all the rest of the gems he could find. Bender whipped out his glue stick, waving it in the same manner he had before. After a bit, he reopened the portal, leaving Carousel Boutique an utter ruin in his wake. Back in Farnsworth’s lab, he hurried to the locker room, cramming thousands of beautifully cut jewels and one very confused and pained pegasus into his locker before slamming it shut. He laughed in glee as he reopened the portal. He had plenty more left to steal. … “Hiya Bendy! How’s Rarity been?” asked Pinkie as she trotted up, hours later. The sun was finally starting to set. Bender panicked. He hadn’t even considered that someone would care about how their friend was doing. “Uh, she’s… sleeping! Yeah, that’s right, sleeping! She, uh, told me to tell you that she was too tired from all her sewing and stuff to attend the party, and that it should go on without her.” “Reeeeally?” Pinkie Pie asked, narrowing her eyes. “Uh, yeah, really,” replied Bender. If he could sweat, he would have been. “Well, okey-dokey-lokey then! If she wants to miss out then that’s her choice! Come on, I’ve gotta show you Twilight!” Pinkie Pie bounced on ahead, a relieved Bender hot on her tail. Meeting TwilightPinkie cheerfully bounced along the streets of Ponyville, leading her new robotic “friend” to meet her purple unicorn friend. Bender noticed along the way that the ponies of Ponyville had stopped staring at him and now mostly went about their evening business as usual. “Must be my brilliant disguise,” he thought smugly to himself. In truth, after years of creatures like Nightmare Moon, Discord, Cerberus, Ursa Minors, super-powered Trixie, and many others showing up at their door, a single bipedal metallic being honestly wasn’t so weird to the inhabitants of Ponyville. He didn’t seem that threatening, and besides, he was with Pinkie Pie. Everypony knew that things just got weird when she was around. Pinkie led Bender to what looked to be an enormous living tree somehow carved out into a house. She pounded on the door. “Oh great, another stupid hippy dump. Bet it doesn’t even have any drugs!” Bender grumbled to himself. “HEEEEEY TWILIGHT!!!” Pinkie shouted, pounding very loudly on the door. Bender covered his ears and shut his eyes. When he opened them again, Pinkie was gone and a purple alicorn was opening the door. “Pinkie, what-” “Hey Twilight!” said Pinkie from directly behind her. Both she and Bender jumped. Twilight just sat there for a moment with a stupefied expression. “But I… Wha… How?!” “Hi Twilight, I want you to meet Bendy, my new friend! He’s great and I’m gonna throw a party for him! Well I gotta go get ready so you two have a nice chat while I’m gone okaythanksbye!” and Pinkie was gone in a flash. Alicorn and robot were once again united in staring dumbly after her. Bender recovered first. “Is she… always like that?” Twilight shut her eyes and massaged her temples. “Yes. How she can do all of that is one of the greatest scientific mysteries of-” Twilight cut herself off as she opened her eyes and got her first good look at Bender. Her eyes went wide and jaw dropped, before transforming into a grin that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a schoolyard filly. “Omygosh omygosh omygosh! I’ve never seen anything like you before! I’ve never even read about anything like you before! Do you know how much I read? What am I talking about, of course you don’t! How could you? We’ve never even met before and I have so much I need to ask you and why weren’t you here sooner and…” Twilight stopped herself, took a deep breath, then looked Bender in the eye. She gave a small bow. “Mr. Bendy,” “It’s Bender.” “Er, right. Mr. Bender. On behalf of all the ponies of Equestria, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to Ponyville.” “You’re a little late, horsy. I’ve been all over this place for hours.” Bender said, wishing he had a cigar. Twilight looked enraged. “What?! And nopony thought to tell me?! A visitor from an entirely new species shows up here and nopony tells the scientific princess about it?” She sighed, facehoofing. “Typical, just typical.” Bender’s eyes had practically turned to dollar signs. “You’re a princess?” he asked, suddenly much more polite. If she was royalty, there had to be some good stuff in her house even if she lived in this backwater craphole. Twilight looked back up at him. “Oh, yeah, I am. I don’t like to show it off, though. I’m not even sure why I mentioned it.” Bender wanted to club her on the spot. “Don’t like to show it off? What the hell is the point of being loaded if you don’t rub everyone’s face in it?!” “Anyway, I’d like to formally invite you into my home. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions. Maybe even do a few measurements? Some tests?” Twilight rubbed her hoofs together, clearly excited by the prospects. “What’s in it for me?” Bender replied, coolly looking at where his fingernails would have been if he had any. Twilight looked puzzled. “Uhhh…” she looked around. “What do you want?” “Booze,” said Bender without hesitation. “If anyone in this worthless craphole has booze, it’s gotta be the royalty.” Twilight looked just as puzzled as Applejack had been. “Booze?” Bender sighed. He should’ve known better than to expect intelligence from such obvious primitive morons. “You know,” he said, hesitating, “Alcohol?” Twilight’s eyes lit up. “Oh, alcohol! I have lots of that!” Bender could have drooled. “You do?” Twilight smiled and nodded. “Sure. If you’ll just consent to letting me conduct a few tests and answer some of my questions I’ll give you all the alcohol you want.” “Ok, let’s get this over with!” Bender grabbed the alicron and threw her inside, immediately following himself. He slammed the door behind him. Twilight was picking herself up from where she had impacted on a bookshelf, rubbing her head. Dozens of books littered the floor around her, but she didn’t seem mad. On the contrary, she looked more curious than ever. “Extreme strength,” she muttered, running to examine Bender’s arms, “But no indications of large musculature. In fact,” she ran her hoof up and down the metal tube. “No indications of musculature of any kind. Or skin, for that matter.” She felt Bender’s wrist. “And no pulse. Fascinating.” She hurried over to some sort of desk and began scribbling on a piece of paper with a quill held in a purple aura matching her horn’s glow. Bender was already bored with her. “Well duh. What do you think I am, some kinda meatbag?” “Meatbag?” Bender rolled his eyes. “Organic lifeform.” Twilight gasped, then gave another excited grin. “So what you’re saying is that you aren’t a living thing?” “I’m a robot, baby.” “R-o-b-o-t,” Twilight recited as she wrote this down. “And where do you come from?” “Mexico.” Twilight scratched her head. “And… where’s that?” “On Earth.” “Earth?” “You know, the stupid little blue-green planet full of jerks and suckers.” “You come from another planet?!” Bender nodded. “Yeah, so?” “So? So? This changes everything! Everything we ponies know about our place in the universe will have to be rethought! There’s so much to do, so much to learn! I need to tell Princess Celestia about this right away!” she rushed to the stairs and called up. “SPIIIIKE!” “Celestia?” “Our ruler.” Twilight said, absentmindedly. “Well, she and Luna.” “Aren’t you a princess?” “Well yeah, but I’m not as important as them!” Twilight looked back up. “Spike, I know you’re sick today, but this is really really really important! Can you take a letter?” “Uuggghh…” a small, fat purple lizard slowly worked its way down the stairs. It didn’t look at all happy to be out of bed, and Twilight appeared embarresed. “I’m so sorry to ask you to do this, but I’ve found something that could change so much! So, please?” she made puppy dog eyes. “Fiiiine…” the dragon said, his voice obviously messed up by congestion. “Great!” Twilight smiled. Neither noticed Bender carefully picking through the library, jamming more than one valuable-looking book in his compartment. Twilight began dictating as the obviously down dragon wrote on a scroll. “Dear Princess Celestia, today I found something that could revolutionize our society! It seems we aren’t as alone as we all thought. I have with me a visitor from another planet, a robot called Bender. He says he’s from someplace called Mexico on a planet called Earth. He does not appear hostile. He conforms to no known Equestrian species, and I hope to learn much more in the times ahead. Please contact me as soon as you are able. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.” Bender happened upon a picture of Twilight and several of the ponies he had met wearing some kind of matching jewelry. Most were necklaces, but one was a tiara. “Ooo, that looks valuable.” Author's Note Comments are appreciated. Party Night“Hey, Nightlight!” Bender yelled as he looked at the photograph. “What are these thingies?” Twilight, who had been assisting Spike in getting back into his bed, looked down at the robot. “It’s Twilight!” “Whatever.” Twilight trotted back down the stairs. “Show me what you’ve got there.” Bender held the photo up to her face. “Oh, those are my best friends! There’s Rarity, and Rainbow Dash, and you’ve already met Pinkie Pie, and-” “Not them! I’m talking about the bling you’re wearing!” “Bling?” Twilight raised an eyebrow. Bender rolled his eyes again. “The jewelry.” Twilight immediately brightened. “Oh, those? Those are the Elements of Harmony, the most priceless treasures in Equestria! Gaining their power from the magic of friendship, they represent honesty, loyalty, generosity, laughter, kindness, and magic! Together they comprise the most powerful magic in all the known world, capable of performing feats otherwise impossible, like the defeat of Nightmare Moon, Discord…” Twilight continued on, but Bender had stopped listening after “priceless treasures”. “Weird, if this Rarity had one, why didn’t I see it when I robbed her place?” he wondered. After deciding he’d figure it out later, he clamped a hand over Twilight’s mouth to shut her up. “Yeah yeah, sounds great and all. You mind letting me take a little peak at that tiara one you were wearing?” Twilight didn’t know Bender well enough to recognize the look in his eyes or tone of his voice. All she saw was a curious alien creature she wanted to befriend. She looked a little down. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. Princess Celestia is holding them in her Canterlot vault for safekeeping. I’d be happy to tell you all about them if you want though.” “She is, is she?” Bender rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Yep! I bet you’d love to meet her, she’s the best!” “Maybe I would. Maybe I would… heheheheh.” Twilight simply smiled. … Later that day, after the sun had finally finished setting, Bender sat in Sugarcube Corner, bored out of his metallic skull. This had to be the worst party in the history of parties. Sure, it was well-attended, but there weren’t even the basic amenities to make this a festive night. No booze, no floozies to take home, not even a single stripper to oogle. Instead, he got pin the tail on the pony, bobbing for apples, and cake. Not to mention the DJ, DJ Pon3, was absolutely terrible. The songs weren’t even explicit, for crying out loud! “This is more like a six year-old meatbag’s birthday party,” he thought, wistfully imagining himself chugging booze with a prostitute in each arm back home. “Maybe this wasn’t my best idea ever.” “Hey Bendy!” Pinkie Pie yelled from the head of an emerging conga line, “Come join us! It’s your party!” “While all these chumps are here, I think it’s time for my crime spree.” Bender grinned. Aloud, he replied. “Just a second, I need to go… uh… iron myself.” Pinkie blinked. She had learned from her experience with Cranky Doodle that some ponies needed some privacy sometimes, and for all she knew Bendy was no different. “Well, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. But be sure to be back here for the cake!” “Can do, Purple!” Bender feigned a salute. “Pinkie!” “Whatever!” “You Pinkie promise?” “Yeah yeah.” Bender was already out the door. … Wandering the streets of Ponyville on his own, with most of the residents indoors, Bender confidently carried a massive brown burlap sack full of crap. He’d already been through the town hall and quite a few houses. The next place to hit up was owned by some guy called Filthy Rich. With a name like that, Bender figured he must be loaded. Breaking in was easier than any job he’d pulled on Earth. These ponies were so primitive that they didn’t even have alarms for their windows! So, naturally, Bender kicked the door down and stormed in. “Gotta get me some a that.” Bender muttered as he emptied out a display cabinet full of valuable silver dishes. “That too,” he added as he plucked pictures of a brown stallion, a pink mare, and a pink filly from valuable-looking frames and tossed them aside, throwing the frames in his big bag o’ loot. He whistled while he “worked”. “Doo dee doo doo doo,” he hummed as he made his way up the stairs after clearing out the kitchen. Still no booze to be found. “What the hell kind of crappy-ass planet is this? No booze, no floozies, no cigars, no nothing! How do these worthless jerks even get up in the morning?” “Hey, we’re not worthless!” came a little voice. Bender started, then looked around. The voice had come from a small pink filly with a tiara on her head, standing just outside an open door. If Bender had given a crap, he would have recognized the filly from the photographs, but he didn’t, and so had no idea who this was. “Well I happen to disagree! What’re you gonna do about it, huh?” Bender towered over Diamond Tiara, but she was nothing if not spirited. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna tell my daddy on you! When he finds out you’ve been breaking into our house you’re gonna be in so much trouble!” Bender knelt down to her eye level. “And what makes you think I’m gonna let you do that, little lady?” “Because I’m Diamond Tiara! You can’t touch me! I always get what I want in the end! You’re just a stupid blank-flank!” “Oooh, shiny. Don’t mind if I do!” Bender reached down and grabbed the filly’s favorite tiara right off her head, not even bothering to acknowledge her pitiful efforts to reclaim it. “How dare you steal from me?! How dare you ignore me?! Do you know who I am?” Bender’s eyes narrowed as he examined his prize. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re obnoxious?” “What?! How dare you! Apologize this instant or else - aaaah!” Bender seized Diamond Tiara by one of her back hooves and dangled her upside down. “Put me down this instant, you brute, or I’ll see you banished, then put in a dungeon in the place you were banished to.” “You can bite my shiny metal ass, kid.” “Uncouth as well as criminal. I should have known not to expect any better from a blank-” *crash* “flaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh….” Diamond Tiara’s insult was became a scream of terror as Bender hurled her out the nearest window and she flew across the town. Laughing, Bender went on to pillage her room for anything that looked valuable before checking another house off his list. “Welp, that just about cover this little craphole. Time to hit the road to this Banterlob or whatever.” … Pinkie Pie was worried. Not that she let it show, of course. She had to keep everypony else at the party cheerful. “But still, Bendy’s been gone for a long time. And I don’t think he was having any fun. Does he not want cake?” Pinkie Pie could hardly imagine a pony that didn’t want cake, but then again, Bendy wasn’t a pony, Twilight had said he was a robby or something like that. “That’s it!” Pinkie thought, “Twilight’s really smart! She’ll know where he went!” Her sadness banished by this cheerful thought, Pinkie hopped all over the crowded building in search of her friend. Eventually, she located Twilight by the punch bowl. To her great disappointment, Twilight was also asking around about Bender. Twilight turned when she noticed the pink earth pony from the corner of her eye. “Pinkie,” she said with a worried expression on her face, “have you seen Bender? I haven’t spotted him in here for more than an hour, and I’m getting worried.” Pinkie shook her head. “No, he said he had to go iron himself, but he Pinkie promised not to miss the cake! He’s gotta be back sometime soon!” “Iron himself… Pinkie, you realize that doesn’t make any sense, right?” Before Pinkie could respond, the door of Sugarcube Corner flew open. Standing in the portal was an exhausted, enraged white unicorn. Her normally beautiful mane had come to pieces, losing cohesion and even developing split ends. An enormous red welt stood out on her now-dirtied coat. “Where is that brute?!” Rarity screamed, “Where. Is. Bender!” ArrivalBender Bending Rodríguez walked down the streets of New New York early on Saturday morning, head low, feeling weak. He’d only had three six-packs of beer last night, and now he was completely out of booze money. He looked at his empty, stolen wallet sadly. The old lady he’d robbed hadn’t helped – she’d only had three bucks, a picture of her seven adorable grandkids, and an utterly irreplaceable note containing the secret to ending poverty, war, and disease forever. “Useless crap!” Bender shouted as he flung the wallet into the windshield of a passing ambulance. He was so depressed that he didn’t even noticed as it careened off the road and smashed straight through the local Toys for Tots office before exploding. He hung his head and marched onwards, back towards the Planet Express building. … Bender sighed as he sat down on his usual comfy spot on the couch, wishing he had some booze. No luck: the fridge was empty, and Farnsworth had changed the combination on his safe. He needed some money fast, but there wasn’t anyone in the room to mug. Bender didn’t really feel like looking anywhere else at the moment, so he decided to flick on the television. All My Circuits reruns should be on in a few minutes. When he hit the button, Bender saw instead the two late-night tv hosts, Linda and Morbo. “Hey, what gives! Your boring asses aren’t supposed to be sucking up tv time until after dark!” The two shared a laugh. Linda straightened her papers. “In other news, we’re here to bring you all a very special announcement: due to a sudden worldwide epidemic of kindergarteners with art projects, Earth is now critically low on all types of glue.” “Another weakness of your puny human society!” Morbo interjected. “Yes, yes it is.” The two laughed again. “As a result, the price of glue worldwide has now shot up by an impressive 20000%. If you or anyone you know owns stock in glue or glue-related products, now’s the time to sell. And, in other news-” Bender hit the power button again. He scratched his metallic chin. “Hmmm… glue, eh?” He rubbed his hands together and giggled manically. … Five minutes later, Bender was in Farnsworth’s lab. Drawers containing all sorts of bizarre and nonsensical experiments were all over the floor, cabinet doors were torn off their hinges, and delicate chemistry sets were smashed as Bender overturned the place looking for the treasure. “No,” Bender tossed the hedgehog aside. “No,” he threw the beaker of bubbling acid over his head. “No,” he hurled a picture of Abraham Lincoln out the window. Bender sat back on the floor, crushing more of the Professor’s stuff as her did. He put his head in his hands and sighed, his antenna drooping. “It’s no use. I’ll never find any glue. I’ll never be drunk again!” Bender sobbed. “It’s not fair! I’ll be sober forever! What’d I ever do to deserve this besides all the things I did to deserve this!” Bender cried some more, only to interrupt himself when he caught sight of a little something he’d missed. “Hey, a glue stick! Come to papa!” he reached out with his extend-arm and grabbed the small, pink, girly-looking glue stick from a pile of junk he’d randomly tossed across the room. “I’m rich! I’ll never be sober again! Wahoo!” he did a dance on the spot, carelessly crushing yet more of Farnsworth’s valuables. “No, I’m afraid not,” came a voice from the door. Bender gasped and turned around just in time to see Farnsworth enter the room. Curiously (or maybe not), the old man didn’t seem to realize that the robot had torn through his lab like a hurricane. “For you see, that’s no glue stick.” “It’s not?” Bender extended his eyes, looking over the small thing carefully. “Sure looks like one.” “Yes, that was the cover story. Unfortunately, it’s yet another of my failed inventions.” “So what’s it do?” Bender asked, now somewhat curious. “It’s actually a long-distance teleportation device, capable of transporting you to almost any world in the known universe, and several beyond. I meant it to allow my army of mutant radioactive zombie lizards to strike anywhere I pleased in my campaign of universal domination.” “What’s wrong with it?” “Oh, nothing. It works perfectly. I just never got that army off the ground. Too busy being dead and all.” “Why would you disguise it as a glue stick?” All Bender got back was snoring. Farnsworth had reached his chair, still oblivious to the havoc wreaked on his laboratory, and promptly fallen asleep again. “Other worlds, huh?” Bender rubbed his hands together and cackled with glee as a new plan formed in his head. “I’ll go there! Maybe they’ll have cheap glue. Or better yet, cheap booze in easily robbed stores! Or even better, both!” Laughing, Bender unscrewed the cap. The stick on the inside was just as pink and sparkly as the outside. Bender randomly adjusted the length of the stick, waving it around in the air. “So how does this stupid thing work again?” Bender smacked the glue stick. “Hurry up and take me to another world or I’ll-” Bender was interrupted as the stick suddenly tore a massive, pink hole in the fabric of space and time. The robot screamed as he was sucked in, dozens of objects from around the room following as the howling vortex sought to consume all within sight before just as suddenly cracking out of existence as it had appeared. Professor Farnsworth continued to snore. … “Aaaaaaahhhh!” Bender screamed as he was hurled through the unimaginable depths of the universe, his every atom threatening to come apart and cease existing. He saw sights that no mortal was meant to see, gained knowledge deeper and more fundamental to existence than that of any creature that had ever lived. If only he had been paying a damn bit of attention to any of it. “Aaaaaaahhhh!” Bender was unceremoniously dumped from another portal, falling face first into a grassy field. He smacked down hard, making an impression into the dirt. He just managed to look up before being immediately crushed beneath an anvil. Next came a full-sized cabinet. Then a tyrannosaurus head. Then a massive cruise liner. Bender moaned in pain as he crawled his way out from underneath the pile. “Uuuuuuugggghhhh, it feels like a day without any booze.” The memory of sweet, sweet liquor pulled him out of the daze he was in. “Booze, I need booze! Gotta see if I can find some on wherever this craphole is, and maybe some innocents to rob.” Bender stretched his legs as high as they would go, extending his eyes like a pair of binoculars. He rotated slowly, scanning in all directions for any signs of chumps to exploit. One way he saw a big, tangled forest that just radiated danger. Another direction saw him looking at a mountain range, and what looked like a fairy princess castle or somesuch crap built into the side of it. Bender noted that down as a good place to go if he couldn’t find anywhere else closer. He scanned around some more, finally locating what appeared to be some kind of orchard not far from him, and a smaller village close to that. “Perfect! I’m sure that anyplace that grows fruit will have booze, and I don’t even have to go very far. This is great!” Bender laughed evilly. “Heheheheh- Whoa!” Something crashed into Bender’s backside and he toppled, smashing face first into the ground yet again. “Oh come on, what the hell is this, Hurt Bender Day? When I get my hands on whoever did this I’m gonna…” Bender’s voice trailed off as he noticed who had crashed into him. A grey horse about up to Bender’s chest was picking herself up off the ground. She had a blond mane and a bunch of bubbles apparently tattooed around her ass. Her yellow-green eyes were crossed and mismatched, adding to the weird look she had going. Two wings were folded in over her sides, and she wore a pair of mail bags. Letters and packages were scattered throughout the surrounding area at random, adding another touch of the bizarre to the formerly plain grassland. “Oh,” she said, timidly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. My name’s Derpy Hooves, and, well,” she leaned in close as if revealing some great secret, “I don’t see so well.” Bender wasn’t paying her the slightest bit of attention. Instead, he was looking down at her hooves. “Horse hooves make glue…” he whispered to himself. “Don’t be silly, I’m not a horse, I’m a ponaaaaah!” Derpy screamed as Bender shot out his extend-arms, wrapping around the pegasus and drawing her towards him. He threw her in his storage compartment and slammed the door behind her. She struggled and shouted in the confined space, but Bender had long since had himself soundproofed. Never knew when a good kidnapping victim might come along, after all. Bender patted the compartment gently. “Now don’t you worry, old uncle Bender’s just gonna have you taken apart and rendered down into a high-priced commodity so he can get booze money.” He laughed, then scratched his chin again. “Hmmm, should I go back now? I’ve already got, what, 100,000 bucks worth in here? Enough booze for at least a week.” He thought some more. “Nah, I got plenty of room left. Time to see what I can get from yonder backwards hick village. Although…” Bender narrowed his eyes and looked around shiftily. “If I wanna remain unnoticed, I’ll need a cunning disguise.” Ten minutes later, a robot wearing a trench coat, fedora, and sunglasses strode boldly into Ponyville. On the Road“Where is that brute?!” Rarity screamed, “Where. Is. Bender!” “Rarity!” Twilight cried, a look of concern on her face as she galloped over to her friend. “What happened?” She looked at the swollen lump on Rarity’s head. “Who did this?!” Rarity’s jaw was clenched so tight that Twilight was seriously worried she’d crack her teeth. She glared around the room, then back at Twilight. “Weren’t you listening? I said: Bender! Bender did this to me! Then he robbed me blind and wrecked my store! After all I did for him too!” “Bendy did this?! No way!” Pinkie declared firmly. “He seemed so nice!” “Pinkie,” Twilight sighed, thinking back to her studies of the robot and his bad attitude. He’d even complained when she’d given him all the rubbing alcohol she had, just like she promised. Then she thought he was just nervous and defensive, what with being on an entirely new world and all. “He seemed a lot of things, but I’m not sure nice was one of them.” Rarity’s expression softened. “Pinkie, dear, who do you trust more: me, or Bender?” “You, of course! You’re one of my best friends!” Pinkie hugged the white unicorn. “And I say that Bender attacked me without provocation, then stole everything! I’m ruined! My life is over!” Rarity started sobbing, hooves over her eyes. The other ponies started to back away, muttering, as she dramatically fell backwards onto the couch she’d somehow pulled out of nowhere. “Rarity, can you please just tell us what he did,” said Twilight, trying her best to keep her tone neutral. “I told you, he attacked me! He thought my gems were fake, so I told him they were the real deal. Then he bashed me over the head with something lickity split. I didn’t see what it was. I woke up trapped inside my own closet a couple of hours later with a huge bump and a pounding headache. I had to break down my own door just to get out! And what do I find? Everything was gone! Gone! My money, my gems, my designs, my fabrics – all gone! My boutique is ruined! I’m ruined!” Rarity sobbed. “That no-good varmint!” Applejack spat. Twilight frowned and thought for a minute. Then she turned to the others. “Everypony! Your attention please!” Nopony heard her, or stopped talking if they did. “QUIET!!!” That did it. Twilight cleared her throat. “My friends and I can handle this situation. Please continue with your regularly scheduled partying.” The citizens of Ponyville, so used to precisely that occurring, hardly needed any persuasion to leave the issue to Twilight and her friends. “Come on girls, we’ve gotta go get to the bottom of this!” … Getting to the bottom of it turned out to be quiet easy. The town was full of broken doors and smashed windows. Everywhere the ponies looked, houses had been ransacked. The burglary was unprecedented. As was the squealing pinky filly hanging upside down through a hole in a roof. “Oh thank you thank you thank you!” Diamond Tiara cried as Twilight telekinetically yanked her out. “I was stuck there for almost an hour! And…” her grateful expression faded as her natural personality reasserted itself. “And that’s way too long! What were you doing all that time I was screaming for help?!” “Don’t be rude,” Rarity chided. Ignoring the stuck-up filly’s ingratitude, Twilight said, “Diamond Tiara, this is very serious. I need you to tell me who did this to you.” “It was that stupid metal blank-flank! Blender or whatever! He robbed our house, stole my favorite tiara, and tossed me out the window!” Twilight’s expression dropped, even though she had suspected as much. She had had such high hopes for first contact with an alien species. But all he seemed to want to do was to steal from ponies and endanger children. She patted Diamond Tiara on the back. “Are you hurt anywhere? Do you need medical attention?” “Are you kidding me? I’m emotionally traumatized for life! I’ll need years of therapy to get over all this! And all because of that worthless tin can you brought here!” Twilight blinked, “I didn’t-” “You and your friends or those stupid blank flanks always bring the problems here! Just like the parasprites! You just wait, I’ll-” Twilight was unamused. Her horn glowed, and Diamond Tiara vanished back to her home. Pinkie Pie sniffed. “Bendy, why? Why would you do this to us?” Applejack patted her on the back. “Now, now, I know it’s a lot ta take in, but y’all still got us.” Pinkie Pie didn’t seem to hear what she was saying. Her expression went from sad to thoughtful. Then, just as suddenly, something clicked. She jumped into the air angrily. “This means Bendy won’t be coming back to the party!” “You just now figured that out?” thought Twilight. “That means he broke a Pinkie Promise!” The others gasped. … Bender was cheerfully chugging his way down the train track. With his bag o’ loot safely buried outside of town for later, he’d made straight for the station. Using the same ability he’d once used to help Fry and Leela travel through old New York, he rolled right down the tracks much faster than he could walk. Soon he’d be at Canterlot, where the real money was. “And hopefully the real booze too,” he thought, rubbing his chin, “Though I’m beginning to suspect they don’t even know what that is here.” If Bender had spent more time thinking about it, he would have realized that he could have just used his teleporter to get to Canterlot immediately. But he hadn’t, and so he didn’t. “BENDY!” “Aaaaaaah!” Bender jumped, falling off the tracks and plunging face-first into the mud. He rolled over, looking around and shivering. “W-who’s there? Show y-yourself!” At that very moment, his compartment broke open like he had a chestburster in there again. A very angry-looking pink pony stuck her head out. “Bendy, how could you?! We were friends!” “AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” Bender screamed, waving his hands in the air and running around in circles. “You broke your Pinkie Promise! You hurt other ponies!” “AAAAAAHHHHH-” Bender paused mid-scream. “Wait, what the hell am I yelling about?” He looked down at the pony still sticking out of his chest. “And what the hell are you doing in there?” “Answer the question, Bendy!” “Get the hell out of me, Greeny!” Bender grabbed Pinkie by her mane, twirling her around to build speed before hurling her as far as he could. “It’s Pinkiiiiiieeeeee….” she cried and she flew. “Bite my shiny metal ass!” Bender laughed as he watched her go. A moment later, he clapped his hands together and slammed his compartment shut. “Welp, that’s that!” He whistled a jaunty tune as he climbed back on the tracks and started off again. “And just where do you think you’re going?!” “AAAAAHHHHH!” Bender only just managed to avoid plunging off the tracks again. Pinkie popped right back out of his compartment. “We’re not finished yet, buster. Not until you give those ponies their stuff back and apologize!” “How the hell do you do that?” Bender demanded angrily. “Stop trying to change the subject! You hurt innocent ponies and- Hey!” Bender grabbed her mane once again and tossed her as far as he could in the opposite direction. “We aren’t done herrrrreeeeeee…” Pinkie shouted as she flew. Bender had barely gotten ten feet before she popped right back out again. “You think you can just hurt ponies and take their stuff and get away with it?!” “Yes, absolutely.” “Well I got news for you: you can’t! I don’t know what they do where you’re from, but- mmph!” Bender slapped his hand over her mouth. “Shut the hell up!” Pinkie pulled the hand away. “No! I’m not just gonna go and not speak up when you’re- gah!” Bender shoved Pinkie headfirst into the mud, then stomped up and down on her wiggling body until the whole thing was buried. He laughed heartily as he jumped right back on the track and took off with maximum speed. “And bite my shiny metal ass!” he roared triumphantly as he sped towards Canterlot. “Heh heh heh heh heh heh! A ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” He was laughing so hard he failed to notice the oncoming train. “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!”
Touring PonyvilleArmed with his trusty generic disguise, Bender strode confidently into Ponyville square. Everything was looking up. These clueless equine aliens hadn’t the slightest idea of what they were in for. They were obviously far too primitive and stupid to see through the best disguise his impossibly powerful robotic brain had conceived. Everywhere he looked he saw hoofed creatures carrying gold coins. Booze money carrying even more booze money! What could be better? Derpy had even ceased her efforts to break free from his compartment! “Yessiree, this is gonna be perfect.” Bender said as he rubbed his hands together in malicious glee and cackled. He threw his head back and raised his arms to the sky, laughing maniacally. So happy was he that he failed to notice that everypony in the square had stopped what they were doing and were staring at this strange, metallic, bipedal creature in a stupid outfit that was making so much racket. “HEY THERE!” came a loud voice in Bender’s ear, interrupting his revere. “Wha?” the robot stumbled back, looking for the source of the sound. His head twirled wildly. “Down here, silly.” Bender looked down to his feet. A bright pink pony with a mane resembling cotton candy stood looking up at him with a stupid smile on her face. She had balloons tattooed on her ass. Now that Bender looked carefully, he realized that almost all of the ponies had something or the other tattooed on themselves. “Must be some kinda primitive ritual,” he decided. “Hi there, Mr. Shiny! Is it ok if I call you Shiny? I’m Pinkie Pie! You look like fun, and I love a pony who loves to laugh!” Bender frowned. He grabbed Pinkie Pie and lifted her to eye level. “Now listen here you little piece of crap, I’m not a pony, I’m-” Bender paused as his processor finally caught up with his mouth. His frown suddenly turned to a shifty-eyed smile. He set Pinkie down gently, then patted her on the head. “Why yes, little girl or boy, I am absolutely a fellow pony. Yep, totally ordinary in every way, that’s good ol’ Bender!” “Bender?” the little pony repeated, scratching her chin and frowning. Bender watched nervously as she paused for a minute, then suddenly leapt into the air. “That’s a great name! Can I call you Bendy? I don’t know what you meant by ‘girl or boy’, I’m a mare! But that’s not important! What is important is that I take you to meet all my friends, and then we have a party to celebrate your first day in Ponyville!” “A party, huh?” Bender didn’t have to think long. Parties meant booze, and a tour would help him identify the best places to rob in this stupid hick town. “Count me in!” “YAY!!!” Pinkie Pie jumped for joy. Bender rubbed his hands together with malicious glee. … “And this is Fluttershy’s house! I don’t think she’s here now, but I’m sure all her animal friends are! We can go say hi, and maybe play a game of catch! Ooo, or tag! Or Frisbee! Or catch the frisbie while playing tag, yay!” Pinkie shouted, bouncing ahead of the robot. Bender followed her up the small hill to what was obviously a hippy domicile. “Eh, hippies aren’t any fun to rob. Poor, full of crap about peace and love, and they smell! I wouldn’t even bother if it weren’t for all the drugs they have.” Bender thought as Pinkie knocked on the door, waited a moment, then somehow opened it from the inside. “Come on in! There are lots of little animal friends for you to meet! Like Angel Bunny!” Pinkie held out a sour-looking white rabbit at Bender, who took the little guy as he followed her inside. He threw the bunny into the nearest wall the moment she wasn’t looking. Pinkie continued rattling off the names of all of this “Fluttershy’s” animal friends, but Bender wasn’t listening. He was too busy scanning the place for the drugs and booze he knew had to be in here somewhere. “Come on, come on, Bender needs him some booze.” Bender muttered to himself as he carelessly tossed aside Fluttershy’s furniture after checking it for drugs. For her part, Pinkie continued happily listing off all the animals Fluttershy was caring for, somehow dragging them to meet him, then yanking them away again after she had introduced them. Bender felt a little kick on his leg. He looked down and saw Angel attacking him savagely. Savagely for a rabbit, that is. He kicked Bender and gnawed on his foot with his little bunny teeth. Bender looked down and growled his annoyance. Angel looked right back up and hissed menacingly. Bender noticed a picture of the same white bunny being hugged by a yellow pony framed on the bookshelf. He picked it up and studied it while Angel continued trying to attack the one defiling his owner’s house. “So, this is Fluttershy.,.” Bender observed, digitally filing the picture away in his processor. “Yep!” came a voice from right behind his head. “Aaaaahhh!” Bender jumped, and the picture went flying. It smashed into the wall, flinging broken glass everywhere. “Well come on, silly! That’s all of Fluttershy’s friends and we don’t have all day! Well, I guess we do, but it wouldn’t be nearly as fun I we had to postpone you party would it?” Pinkie Pie was already halfway out the door, motioning for Bender to follow her. He raised his hand and looked down shiftily. “Eh, just a second, Bluey.” “Pinkie!” He waved dismissively. “Whatever. I got one thing I gotta do before we leave,” “Ok, but make it quick! We’ve got lots of other places to go before I can go get your party ready!” “Sure thing!” Bender replied, cheerily. He closed the door, leaving Pinkie to ramble about… whatever she was rambling about. He looked down at the white rabbit still trying to attack the wrecker of his home. “Well well well, what have we here?” Bender reached down and picked up Angel by the ears, lifting him to eye level. The bunny continued to thrash and squirm and growl as best he could. “A little hero, huh? Bravly defending the fair damsel’s home? Well, time for old Bender to show you what happens to heroes.” He stuck his ass in the bunny’s face. “They can bite my shiny metal ass!” Bender causally walked out the back door of the house, facing towards the dangerous-looking forest, that Pinkie had identified as Everfree. “Bon voyage, Angel! Ahhahahahahahaha!” With that, he let the bunny drop, then kicked him as hard as his robotic legs could manage. Angel went flying into the distance, screaming his little rabbity scream. Bender watched gleefully as he crashed into the depths of the Everfree forest, disappearing from even his most enhanced vision. Laughing happily, Bender strolled back to Pinkie Pie. … “And that’s Cloudsdale, where Rainbow Dash lives! We can’t go up there right now, but you really need to meet her when you get the chance! She’s so awesome!” Pinkie squealed with delight. “And that,” she said, pointing to the farm Bender had noticed earlier, “Is Sweet Apple Acres, where Applejack and her family live! Come on, I think they’re home!” Pinkie rushed on ahead, Bender in hot pursuit. “Hiiiii Applejack! Hi Applebloom! Hi Big Mac! Hi Granny Smith!” Pinkie waved to four ponies Bender could see at work on various tasks. The orange female and red male appeared to be kicking trees to shake apples into bucket. The smaller yellow female with a bow was pestering the older green female in a rocking chair about something. “Heya Pinkie!” Applejack turned from her work to wave back to her friend. Then she noticed the robot in a cheesy disguise following in her wake. “Uh, who’s your friend?” “This is Bender!” Pinkie pulled him closer to herself as the three younger ponies gathered round, leaving a half-asleep Granny Smith in her rocker. “He’s new in town, so I’m showing him around! Then we’ll all have a big party to welcome him to Ponyville!” “Well I’ll be, I ain’t never seen a critter like him before.” Applejack said, scratching her head in confusion. “Have any a y’all?” “Nope.” Big Mac shook his head. Applebloom just stared at Bender. Then she bolted, heading for the clubhouse Bender could see in the distance. She seemed more excited than scared, smiling and giggling to herself along the way. “Well now that’s just plum rude.” Applejack said with a frown. “I thought she had better manners than that! Beggin’ yer pardon, Mr. Bender,” she somehow managed to grab his hand in her hoof and she shook it. “I’m Applejack. That there is my brother Big Macintosh” “Eyup,” said the larger red stallion. “That’s Granny Smith on the porch, and if y’all will excuse her rudeness, that was our sister Applebloom. This here is Sweet Apple Acres, the best apple orchard this side of Canterlot!” she said proudly. “Oh, and welcome to Ponyville.” “Uh huh, great.” Bender said with a profound lack of interest in the lives of these no doubt inbred hicks. He was about to start casing whatever house they had for anything more valuable than apples, when he suddenly vaguely remembered something about hicks and moonshine production. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have any booze, would you?” “Booze?” Applejack scratched her head in confusion. “You know, alcohol?” “You mean the cleaning stuff?” “No, I mean the stuff you drink!” “Why would ya drink cleaning fluid?” Bender barely resisted the urge to grab this stupid pony and shake her. “I mean…” he thought back to what he knew of booze production. “Apple cider?” he asked tentatively, remembering that it was alcoholic in most places. “Oh, why didn’t y’all just say so? Of course we have some cider! And I don’t think someone new in Ponyville could complete any tour without tastin’ a sample of the Apple family’s world famous apple cider. Come on in!” she started walking towards the house. “Apple family. That grows apples. These hicks must be even more inbred than I thought.” Bender concluded as he was led inside, a happy Pinkie following him in. She was congratulating him on making friends with Applejack or something, but he couldn’t be bothered to give a crap. Not when compared with the sweet, sweet prospect of booze. He sat down at the table he was directed to, rubbing his hands in anticipation. Applejack sat a wooden mug filled with golden cider down in front of the eager robot. “Now, I recommend y’all take it nice and slow, to really savor the flavor of that nice-” Bender chugged the whole mug in one swallow. He had to restrain himself from vomiting. “Non-alcoholic cider!” he mentally ranted, “What the hell is this crap! These stupid, worthless bums! They couldn’t even get booze right! Damn them all to hell!” With what little self-control he had, Bender sat the mug down without strangling the worthless hick that was staring at his face with such a stupid look. “Don’t make a scene. I need to remain incognito until I get the lay of the land. Besides, I can always torch their stupid farm tonight on my crime spree.” He folded his fingers. “Applejack, dear. Your cider is excellent, but…” She looked vaguely creeped out by his calm tone. “But?” “Do you know what could make your cider even better?” “Shoot.” “Try fermenting it for several months before serving. I guarantee everybody will love it even more.” “Ya think so?” “Trust me, that’s what they do where I’m from, and everybody drinks it all the time.” “Well, that’s definitely given me somethin’ to think about. Thanks for the tip, Mr. Bender.” Pinkie yanked at his arm. “Come on Bendy, we’ve still got so many places to see! I haven’t even shown you Twilight and Rarity’s places yet!” “Whoa!” Bender was dragged along by the monstrously strong pink pony. Applejack waved as he was carried out of her house. “Y’all come back now, ya here!” “Sure thing!” yelled Bender as the farm faded in the distance, cackling to himself. “Sure thing…” Though he could barely make it out, Bender could’ve sworn he heard three distant voices on the wind. “CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS CREATURE CATALOGERS YAY!!!” … “And this is the Carousel Boutique, where Rarity does her thing! Ooo, I can’t wait for you to meet her! She’s so much fun, and such a nice pony. Come on, I’ll show you!” Pinkie yanked Bender onwards. “Hmmm… now this looks interesting…” Bender muttered as he saw the opulent exterior of Rarity’s business. Pinkie burst in the door. “HEEEEY RARITY!!!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. There was a loud shriek from upstairs, followed by a thud, then several softer thuds. After a few moments, while Bender was eyeing up the clothing on display with all the obviously fake gems and wondering how much it would sell for, a door opened. A frazzled-looking white unicorn stepped out. A pair of glasses adorned her face. “Pinkie,” Rarity said, “You cannot simply burst in on a girl unannounced when she’s working, it’s positively-” her eyes caught Bender. “Hello, who’s this?” Before Bender could introduce himself, Pinkie Pie was all over it. “Hey Rarity, this is Bendy, he’s my new friend, yay! I’m showing him around town ‘cause he’s new here and all and I just knew you’d love to meet him!” Rarity sized up the robot, and in particular his trenchcoat and hat. “Oh, darling, you should have brought him to me sooner!” she dashed over to Bender and began running her hooves over his coat. Her horn glowed blue, and Bender’s hat floated down to rotate in front of her face. “Oh Mr. Bender, where on Celestia’s green earth did you get these… these… abominations to fashion?!” She looked over his trenchcoat again, from every angle. “Oh no no no! These simply will not do! I don’t know who sold you these, my good sir, but you were cheated!” Actually, Bender had stolen them from some guy he’d mugged, but he decided against mentioning that. “I mean, a brown coat with a plain black hat and sunglasses?! Unacceptable, simply unacceptable! Oh, you must let me make you some new clothes at once!” “Hey now,” Bender said, snatching his hat back. “Let’s not get hasty here. I happen to like what I’m wearing.” “Oh, but Mr. Bender, you simply cannot continue to allow yourself to be seen in such clothing! What would the others think? I can make you something so fashionable that it’ll blow your brains out in just a handful of hours!” “Well I ain’t exactly rich, Ms. Rarity. I’m not gonna-” “Oh it’s money that makes you object?!” Rarity waved her hoof dismissively. “Any friend of Pinkie’s is a friend of mine. Tell you what: as a welcoming present from me to you, I’ll fix you up a new outfit, today. No charge.” “No charge?!” said Bender, incredulously. “No charge.” Rarity nodded with a triumphant smirk. “Well, ok then!” Bender nodded. He realized this would give him the perfect excuse to really case this upscale joint. And maybe get away from that insufferable pink menace for a time. “Now Pinkie Pie,” said Rarity, “I’ll need you to leave for a few hours while I work with Mr. Bender here. No offense, dear, but you can be a tad… disruptive to my work.” “That’s ok!” said Pinkie’s voice from up above. Bender and Rarity both jumped as they saw her hanging on the ceiling. “I needed some time to get the party ready anyway! See you in a couple of hours Bendy!” she jumped down and managed to grab the doorway and swing out before ever touching ground. The unicorn and robot stared in stunned silence for a minute. Rarity finally coughed awkwardly. “Well now, Mr. Bender, I suppose we should get started.” … Sometime later, Bender was pacing the Carousel Boutique, bored out of his robotic skull. He’d made a good job of casing Rarity’s place while the unicorn was busy sewing away. Nothing that valuable in this dump. Some gold coins, which he had of course already dumped in his compartment, but that was about it. All the fake gems about him taunted the robot with their realism, but he knew they had to be fake. “If she had access to so many real gems, the unicorn would be so rich that there’s no way she’d be living in this hick town and making a living sewing.” Bender continued pacing, wondering if this had been a good idea after all. Sure, free stuff was great, but he was wasting time when he could have been planning his grand crime spree throughout Ponyville. And then, of course, there was that Canterlot place Pinkie had mentioned, with plenty of upper class chumps and even two princesses to pillage. Bender cackled yet again at the very thought of it. “Oh, Mr. Bender!” Bender sighed. This had to have been the millionth time the fussy unicorn had called him in for another measurement or his opinion on a certain method of stitching or some other inane crap he didn’t care about. “What is it?” he asked dully as he marched upstairs to her sewing room. “Your outfit is ready!” Rarity exclaimed delightedly. She held it in the air with her magic. “What do you think?” she asked, more nervously. Bender circled the floating display, taking in his new trenchcoat. It was black, with slight streaks of grey and what looked like actual silver threat running through it in strategic areas to make it appear to flow more when moved. It was longer than the old one too, and fit his form more snugly than the stolen coat. His new fedora was also black, with a silvery-grey band wrapped around the lower part of it, and what looked to be dark rubies embedded tastefully on a few areas. Bender nodded in genuine approval. “I like it.” Rarity breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, I’m so glad! You see, I had just the hardest time picturing everything in your dimensions, seeing as I’ve never met another of your kind, and it was such a difficult choice as to…” She continued describing the challenges she had overcome to make the outfit, but Bender wasn’t really listening. He slipped the coat and hat on before posing in front of a mirror. “Oh, yeah, lookin’ good.” “You certainly are, Mr. Bender. I’m glad to have helped you bring out your inner potential.” Bender wanted to roll his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. I like what you did with the black and the fake gems though. Makes me look all dark and mysterious.” Rarity gasped in horror. “Oh, no no no no no no NO! Mr. Bender! I would never stoop to using fakes! Every gem in this shop is the real thing! I’ve seen to it myself!” If Bender had a jaw, it would have dropped. “You mean… all the jewels in this shop are real? The emeralds, the sapphires, the rubies, the diamonds?” “That’s what I said, isn’t it? A true artist takes pride in using only the best ingredients.” Rarity didn’t even have time to blink before Bender whipped out a stolen nightstick. He bashed her over the head, knocking her out cold in a single blow. He tossed her unconscious form into a closet, slamming the door behind her. He bent the knob, making it virtually impossible to open the door without the brute strength to knock it down. Laughing like a little schoolchild, Bender proceeded to rob Carousel Boutique of every single jewel he could spot. Hundreds of gems were thrown into his compartment, crushing poor Derpy Hooves even more. He also grabbed a sack, stuffing it with all the rest of the gems he could find. Bender whipped out his glue stick, waving it in the same manner he had before. After a bit, he reopened the portal, leaving Carousel Boutique an utter ruin in his wake. Back in Farnsworth’s lab, he hurried to the locker room, cramming thousands of beautifully cut jewels and one very confused and pained pegasus into his locker before slamming it shut. He laughed in glee as he reopened the portal. He had plenty more left to steal. … “Hiya Bendy! How’s Rarity been?” asked Pinkie as she trotted up, hours later. The sun was finally starting to set. Bender panicked. He hadn’t even considered that someone would care about how their friend was doing. “Uh, she’s… sleeping! Yeah, that’s right, sleeping! She, uh, told me to tell you that she was too tired from all her sewing and stuff to attend the party, and that it should go on without her.” “Reeeeally?” Pinkie Pie asked, narrowing her eyes. “Uh, yeah, really,” replied Bender. If he could sweat, he would have been. “Well, okey-dokey-lokey then! If she wants to miss out then that’s her choice! Come on, I’ve gotta show you Twilight!” Pinkie Pie bounced on ahead, a relieved Bender hot on her tail.
Meeting TwilightPinkie cheerfully bounced along the streets of Ponyville, leading her new robotic “friend” to meet her purple unicorn friend. Bender noticed along the way that the ponies of Ponyville had stopped staring at him and now mostly went about their evening business as usual. “Must be my brilliant disguise,” he thought smugly to himself. In truth, after years of creatures like Nightmare Moon, Discord, Cerberus, Ursa Minors, super-powered Trixie, and many others showing up at their door, a single bipedal metallic being honestly wasn’t so weird to the inhabitants of Ponyville. He didn’t seem that threatening, and besides, he was with Pinkie Pie. Everypony knew that things just got weird when she was around. Pinkie led Bender to what looked to be an enormous living tree somehow carved out into a house. She pounded on the door. “Oh great, another stupid hippy dump. Bet it doesn’t even have any drugs!” Bender grumbled to himself. “HEEEEEY TWILIGHT!!!” Pinkie shouted, pounding very loudly on the door. Bender covered his ears and shut his eyes. When he opened them again, Pinkie was gone and a purple alicorn was opening the door. “Pinkie, what-” “Hey Twilight!” said Pinkie from directly behind her. Both she and Bender jumped. Twilight just sat there for a moment with a stupefied expression. “But I… Wha… How?!” “Hi Twilight, I want you to meet Bendy, my new friend! He’s great and I’m gonna throw a party for him! Well I gotta go get ready so you two have a nice chat while I’m gone okaythanksbye!” and Pinkie was gone in a flash. Alicorn and robot were once again united in staring dumbly after her. Bender recovered first. “Is she… always like that?” Twilight shut her eyes and massaged her temples. “Yes. How she can do all of that is one of the greatest scientific mysteries of-” Twilight cut herself off as she opened her eyes and got her first good look at Bender. Her eyes went wide and jaw dropped, before transforming into a grin that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a schoolyard filly. “Omygosh omygosh omygosh! I’ve never seen anything like you before! I’ve never even read about anything like you before! Do you know how much I read? What am I talking about, of course you don’t! How could you? We’ve never even met before and I have so much I need to ask you and why weren’t you here sooner and…” Twilight stopped herself, took a deep breath, then looked Bender in the eye. She gave a small bow. “Mr. Bendy,” “It’s Bender.” “Er, right. Mr. Bender. On behalf of all the ponies of Equestria, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to Ponyville.” “You’re a little late, horsy. I’ve been all over this place for hours.” Bender said, wishing he had a cigar. Twilight looked enraged. “What?! And nopony thought to tell me?! A visitor from an entirely new species shows up here and nopony tells the scientific princess about it?” She sighed, facehoofing. “Typical, just typical.” Bender’s eyes had practically turned to dollar signs. “You’re a princess?” he asked, suddenly much more polite. If she was royalty, there had to be some good stuff in her house even if she lived in this backwater craphole. Twilight looked back up at him. “Oh, yeah, I am. I don’t like to show it off, though. I’m not even sure why I mentioned it.” Bender wanted to club her on the spot. “Don’t like to show it off? What the hell is the point of being loaded if you don’t rub everyone’s face in it?!” “Anyway, I’d like to formally invite you into my home. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions. Maybe even do a few measurements? Some tests?” Twilight rubbed her hoofs together, clearly excited by the prospects. “What’s in it for me?” Bender replied, coolly looking at where his fingernails would have been if he had any. Twilight looked puzzled. “Uhhh…” she looked around. “What do you want?” “Booze,” said Bender without hesitation. “If anyone in this worthless craphole has booze, it’s gotta be the royalty.” Twilight looked just as puzzled as Applejack had been. “Booze?” Bender sighed. He should’ve known better than to expect intelligence from such obvious primitive morons. “You know,” he said, hesitating, “Alcohol?” Twilight’s eyes lit up. “Oh, alcohol! I have lots of that!” Bender could have drooled. “You do?” Twilight smiled and nodded. “Sure. If you’ll just consent to letting me conduct a few tests and answer some of my questions I’ll give you all the alcohol you want.” “Ok, let’s get this over with!” Bender grabbed the alicron and threw her inside, immediately following himself. He slammed the door behind him. Twilight was picking herself up from where she had impacted on a bookshelf, rubbing her head. Dozens of books littered the floor around her, but she didn’t seem mad. On the contrary, she looked more curious than ever. “Extreme strength,” she muttered, running to examine Bender’s arms, “But no indications of large musculature. In fact,” she ran her hoof up and down the metal tube. “No indications of musculature of any kind. Or skin, for that matter.” She felt Bender’s wrist. “And no pulse. Fascinating.” She hurried over to some sort of desk and began scribbling on a piece of paper with a quill held in a purple aura matching her horn’s glow. Bender was already bored with her. “Well duh. What do you think I am, some kinda meatbag?” “Meatbag?” Bender rolled his eyes. “Organic lifeform.” Twilight gasped, then gave another excited grin. “So what you’re saying is that you aren’t a living thing?” “I’m a robot, baby.” “R-o-b-o-t,” Twilight recited as she wrote this down. “And where do you come from?” “Mexico.” Twilight scratched her head. “And… where’s that?” “On Earth.” “Earth?” “You know, the stupid little blue-green planet full of jerks and suckers.” “You come from another planet?!” Bender nodded. “Yeah, so?” “So? So? This changes everything! Everything we ponies know about our place in the universe will have to be rethought! There’s so much to do, so much to learn! I need to tell Princess Celestia about this right away!” she rushed to the stairs and called up. “SPIIIIKE!” “Celestia?” “Our ruler.” Twilight said, absentmindedly. “Well, she and Luna.” “Aren’t you a princess?” “Well yeah, but I’m not as important as them!” Twilight looked back up. “Spike, I know you’re sick today, but this is really really really important! Can you take a letter?” “Uuggghh…” a small, fat purple lizard slowly worked its way down the stairs. It didn’t look at all happy to be out of bed, and Twilight appeared embarresed. “I’m so sorry to ask you to do this, but I’ve found something that could change so much! So, please?” she made puppy dog eyes. “Fiiiine…” the dragon said, his voice obviously messed up by congestion. “Great!” Twilight smiled. Neither noticed Bender carefully picking through the library, jamming more than one valuable-looking book in his compartment. Twilight began dictating as the obviously down dragon wrote on a scroll. “Dear Princess Celestia, today I found something that could revolutionize our society! It seems we aren’t as alone as we all thought. I have with me a visitor from another planet, a robot called Bender. He says he’s from someplace called Mexico on a planet called Earth. He does not appear hostile. He conforms to no known Equestrian species, and I hope to learn much more in the times ahead. Please contact me as soon as you are able. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.” Bender happened upon a picture of Twilight and several of the ponies he had met wearing some kind of matching jewelry. Most were necklaces, but one was a tiara. “Ooo, that looks valuable.” Author's Note Comments are appreciated.
Party Night“Hey, Nightlight!” Bender yelled as he looked at the photograph. “What are these thingies?” Twilight, who had been assisting Spike in getting back into his bed, looked down at the robot. “It’s Twilight!” “Whatever.” Twilight trotted back down the stairs. “Show me what you’ve got there.” Bender held the photo up to her face. “Oh, those are my best friends! There’s Rarity, and Rainbow Dash, and you’ve already met Pinkie Pie, and-” “Not them! I’m talking about the bling you’re wearing!” “Bling?” Twilight raised an eyebrow. Bender rolled his eyes again. “The jewelry.” Twilight immediately brightened. “Oh, those? Those are the Elements of Harmony, the most priceless treasures in Equestria! Gaining their power from the magic of friendship, they represent honesty, loyalty, generosity, laughter, kindness, and magic! Together they comprise the most powerful magic in all the known world, capable of performing feats otherwise impossible, like the defeat of Nightmare Moon, Discord…” Twilight continued on, but Bender had stopped listening after “priceless treasures”. “Weird, if this Rarity had one, why didn’t I see it when I robbed her place?” he wondered. After deciding he’d figure it out later, he clamped a hand over Twilight’s mouth to shut her up. “Yeah yeah, sounds great and all. You mind letting me take a little peak at that tiara one you were wearing?” Twilight didn’t know Bender well enough to recognize the look in his eyes or tone of his voice. All she saw was a curious alien creature she wanted to befriend. She looked a little down. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. Princess Celestia is holding them in her Canterlot vault for safekeeping. I’d be happy to tell you all about them if you want though.” “She is, is she?” Bender rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Yep! I bet you’d love to meet her, she’s the best!” “Maybe I would. Maybe I would… heheheheh.” Twilight simply smiled. … Later that day, after the sun had finally finished setting, Bender sat in Sugarcube Corner, bored out of his metallic skull. This had to be the worst party in the history of parties. Sure, it was well-attended, but there weren’t even the basic amenities to make this a festive night. No booze, no floozies to take home, not even a single stripper to oogle. Instead, he got pin the tail on the pony, bobbing for apples, and cake. Not to mention the DJ, DJ Pon3, was absolutely terrible. The songs weren’t even explicit, for crying out loud! “This is more like a six year-old meatbag’s birthday party,” he thought, wistfully imagining himself chugging booze with a prostitute in each arm back home. “Maybe this wasn’t my best idea ever.” “Hey Bendy!” Pinkie Pie yelled from the head of an emerging conga line, “Come join us! It’s your party!” “While all these chumps are here, I think it’s time for my crime spree.” Bender grinned. Aloud, he replied. “Just a second, I need to go… uh… iron myself.” Pinkie blinked. She had learned from her experience with Cranky Doodle that some ponies needed some privacy sometimes, and for all she knew Bendy was no different. “Well, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. But be sure to be back here for the cake!” “Can do, Purple!” Bender feigned a salute. “Pinkie!” “Whatever!” “You Pinkie promise?” “Yeah yeah.” Bender was already out the door. … Wandering the streets of Ponyville on his own, with most of the residents indoors, Bender confidently carried a massive brown burlap sack full of crap. He’d already been through the town hall and quite a few houses. The next place to hit up was owned by some guy called Filthy Rich. With a name like that, Bender figured he must be loaded. Breaking in was easier than any job he’d pulled on Earth. These ponies were so primitive that they didn’t even have alarms for their windows! So, naturally, Bender kicked the door down and stormed in. “Gotta get me some a that.” Bender muttered as he emptied out a display cabinet full of valuable silver dishes. “That too,” he added as he plucked pictures of a brown stallion, a pink mare, and a pink filly from valuable-looking frames and tossed them aside, throwing the frames in his big bag o’ loot. He whistled while he “worked”. “Doo dee doo doo doo,” he hummed as he made his way up the stairs after clearing out the kitchen. Still no booze to be found. “What the hell kind of crappy-ass planet is this? No booze, no floozies, no cigars, no nothing! How do these worthless jerks even get up in the morning?” “Hey, we’re not worthless!” came a little voice. Bender started, then looked around. The voice had come from a small pink filly with a tiara on her head, standing just outside an open door. If Bender had given a crap, he would have recognized the filly from the photographs, but he didn’t, and so had no idea who this was. “Well I happen to disagree! What’re you gonna do about it, huh?” Bender towered over Diamond Tiara, but she was nothing if not spirited. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna tell my daddy on you! When he finds out you’ve been breaking into our house you’re gonna be in so much trouble!” Bender knelt down to her eye level. “And what makes you think I’m gonna let you do that, little lady?” “Because I’m Diamond Tiara! You can’t touch me! I always get what I want in the end! You’re just a stupid blank-flank!” “Oooh, shiny. Don’t mind if I do!” Bender reached down and grabbed the filly’s favorite tiara right off her head, not even bothering to acknowledge her pitiful efforts to reclaim it. “How dare you steal from me?! How dare you ignore me?! Do you know who I am?” Bender’s eyes narrowed as he examined his prize. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re obnoxious?” “What?! How dare you! Apologize this instant or else - aaaah!” Bender seized Diamond Tiara by one of her back hooves and dangled her upside down. “Put me down this instant, you brute, or I’ll see you banished, then put in a dungeon in the place you were banished to.” “You can bite my shiny metal ass, kid.” “Uncouth as well as criminal. I should have known not to expect any better from a blank-” *crash* “flaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh….” Diamond Tiara’s insult was became a scream of terror as Bender hurled her out the nearest window and she flew across the town. Laughing, Bender went on to pillage her room for anything that looked valuable before checking another house off his list. “Welp, that just about cover this little craphole. Time to hit the road to this Banterlob or whatever.” … Pinkie Pie was worried. Not that she let it show, of course. She had to keep everypony else at the party cheerful. “But still, Bendy’s been gone for a long time. And I don’t think he was having any fun. Does he not want cake?” Pinkie Pie could hardly imagine a pony that didn’t want cake, but then again, Bendy wasn’t a pony, Twilight had said he was a robby or something like that. “That’s it!” Pinkie thought, “Twilight’s really smart! She’ll know where he went!” Her sadness banished by this cheerful thought, Pinkie hopped all over the crowded building in search of her friend. Eventually, she located Twilight by the punch bowl. To her great disappointment, Twilight was also asking around about Bender. Twilight turned when she noticed the pink earth pony from the corner of her eye. “Pinkie,” she said with a worried expression on her face, “have you seen Bender? I haven’t spotted him in here for more than an hour, and I’m getting worried.” Pinkie shook her head. “No, he said he had to go iron himself, but he Pinkie promised not to miss the cake! He’s gotta be back sometime soon!” “Iron himself… Pinkie, you realize that doesn’t make any sense, right?” Before Pinkie could respond, the door of Sugarcube Corner flew open. Standing in the portal was an exhausted, enraged white unicorn. Her normally beautiful mane had come to pieces, losing cohesion and even developing split ends. An enormous red welt stood out on her now-dirtied coat. “Where is that brute?!” Rarity screamed, “Where. Is. Bender!”
ArrivalBender Bending Rodríguez walked down the streets of New New York early on Saturday morning, head low, feeling weak. He’d only had three six-packs of beer last night, and now he was completely out of booze money. He looked at his empty, stolen wallet sadly. The old lady he’d robbed hadn’t helped – she’d only had three bucks, a picture of her seven adorable grandkids, and an utterly irreplaceable note containing the secret to ending poverty, war, and disease forever. “Useless crap!” Bender shouted as he flung the wallet into the windshield of a passing ambulance. He was so depressed that he didn’t even noticed as it careened off the road and smashed straight through the local Toys for Tots office before exploding. He hung his head and marched onwards, back towards the Planet Express building. … Bender sighed as he sat down on his usual comfy spot on the couch, wishing he had some booze. No luck: the fridge was empty, and Farnsworth had changed the combination on his safe. He needed some money fast, but there wasn’t anyone in the room to mug. Bender didn’t really feel like looking anywhere else at the moment, so he decided to flick on the television. All My Circuits reruns should be on in a few minutes. When he hit the button, Bender saw instead the two late-night tv hosts, Linda and Morbo. “Hey, what gives! Your boring asses aren’t supposed to be sucking up tv time until after dark!” The two shared a laugh. Linda straightened her papers. “In other news, we’re here to bring you all a very special announcement: due to a sudden worldwide epidemic of kindergarteners with art projects, Earth is now critically low on all types of glue.” “Another weakness of your puny human society!” Morbo interjected. “Yes, yes it is.” The two laughed again. “As a result, the price of glue worldwide has now shot up by an impressive 20000%. If you or anyone you know owns stock in glue or glue-related products, now’s the time to sell. And, in other news-” Bender hit the power button again. He scratched his metallic chin. “Hmmm… glue, eh?” He rubbed his hands together and giggled manically. … Five minutes later, Bender was in Farnsworth’s lab. Drawers containing all sorts of bizarre and nonsensical experiments were all over the floor, cabinet doors were torn off their hinges, and delicate chemistry sets were smashed as Bender overturned the place looking for the treasure. “No,” Bender tossed the hedgehog aside. “No,” he threw the beaker of bubbling acid over his head. “No,” he hurled a picture of Abraham Lincoln out the window. Bender sat back on the floor, crushing more of the Professor’s stuff as her did. He put his head in his hands and sighed, his antenna drooping. “It’s no use. I’ll never find any glue. I’ll never be drunk again!” Bender sobbed. “It’s not fair! I’ll be sober forever! What’d I ever do to deserve this besides all the things I did to deserve this!” Bender cried some more, only to interrupt himself when he caught sight of a little something he’d missed. “Hey, a glue stick! Come to papa!” he reached out with his extend-arm and grabbed the small, pink, girly-looking glue stick from a pile of junk he’d randomly tossed across the room. “I’m rich! I’ll never be sober again! Wahoo!” he did a dance on the spot, carelessly crushing yet more of Farnsworth’s valuables. “No, I’m afraid not,” came a voice from the door. Bender gasped and turned around just in time to see Farnsworth enter the room. Curiously (or maybe not), the old man didn’t seem to realize that the robot had torn through his lab like a hurricane. “For you see, that’s no glue stick.” “It’s not?” Bender extended his eyes, looking over the small thing carefully. “Sure looks like one.” “Yes, that was the cover story. Unfortunately, it’s yet another of my failed inventions.” “So what’s it do?” Bender asked, now somewhat curious. “It’s actually a long-distance teleportation device, capable of transporting you to almost any world in the known universe, and several beyond. I meant it to allow my army of mutant radioactive zombie lizards to strike anywhere I pleased in my campaign of universal domination.” “What’s wrong with it?” “Oh, nothing. It works perfectly. I just never got that army off the ground. Too busy being dead and all.” “Why would you disguise it as a glue stick?” All Bender got back was snoring. Farnsworth had reached his chair, still oblivious to the havoc wreaked on his laboratory, and promptly fallen asleep again. “Other worlds, huh?” Bender rubbed his hands together and cackled with glee as a new plan formed in his head. “I’ll go there! Maybe they’ll have cheap glue. Or better yet, cheap booze in easily robbed stores! Or even better, both!” Laughing, Bender unscrewed the cap. The stick on the inside was just as pink and sparkly as the outside. Bender randomly adjusted the length of the stick, waving it around in the air. “So how does this stupid thing work again?” Bender smacked the glue stick. “Hurry up and take me to another world or I’ll-” Bender was interrupted as the stick suddenly tore a massive, pink hole in the fabric of space and time. The robot screamed as he was sucked in, dozens of objects from around the room following as the howling vortex sought to consume all within sight before just as suddenly cracking out of existence as it had appeared. Professor Farnsworth continued to snore. … “Aaaaaaahhhh!” Bender screamed as he was hurled through the unimaginable depths of the universe, his every atom threatening to come apart and cease existing. He saw sights that no mortal was meant to see, gained knowledge deeper and more fundamental to existence than that of any creature that had ever lived. If only he had been paying a damn bit of attention to any of it. “Aaaaaaahhhh!” Bender was unceremoniously dumped from another portal, falling face first into a grassy field. He smacked down hard, making an impression into the dirt. He just managed to look up before being immediately crushed beneath an anvil. Next came a full-sized cabinet. Then a tyrannosaurus head. Then a massive cruise liner. Bender moaned in pain as he crawled his way out from underneath the pile. “Uuuuuuugggghhhh, it feels like a day without any booze.” The memory of sweet, sweet liquor pulled him out of the daze he was in. “Booze, I need booze! Gotta see if I can find some on wherever this craphole is, and maybe some innocents to rob.” Bender stretched his legs as high as they would go, extending his eyes like a pair of binoculars. He rotated slowly, scanning in all directions for any signs of chumps to exploit. One way he saw a big, tangled forest that just radiated danger. Another direction saw him looking at a mountain range, and what looked like a fairy princess castle or somesuch crap built into the side of it. Bender noted that down as a good place to go if he couldn’t find anywhere else closer. He scanned around some more, finally locating what appeared to be some kind of orchard not far from him, and a smaller village close to that. “Perfect! I’m sure that anyplace that grows fruit will have booze, and I don’t even have to go very far. This is great!” Bender laughed evilly. “Heheheheh- Whoa!” Something crashed into Bender’s backside and he toppled, smashing face first into the ground yet again. “Oh come on, what the hell is this, Hurt Bender Day? When I get my hands on whoever did this I’m gonna…” Bender’s voice trailed off as he noticed who had crashed into him. A grey horse about up to Bender’s chest was picking herself up off the ground. She had a blond mane and a bunch of bubbles apparently tattooed around her ass. Her yellow-green eyes were crossed and mismatched, adding to the weird look she had going. Two wings were folded in over her sides, and she wore a pair of mail bags. Letters and packages were scattered throughout the surrounding area at random, adding another touch of the bizarre to the formerly plain grassland. “Oh,” she said, timidly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. My name’s Derpy Hooves, and, well,” she leaned in close as if revealing some great secret, “I don’t see so well.” Bender wasn’t paying her the slightest bit of attention. Instead, he was looking down at her hooves. “Horse hooves make glue…” he whispered to himself. “Don’t be silly, I’m not a horse, I’m a ponaaaaah!” Derpy screamed as Bender shot out his extend-arms, wrapping around the pegasus and drawing her towards him. He threw her in his storage compartment and slammed the door behind her. She struggled and shouted in the confined space, but Bender had long since had himself soundproofed. Never knew when a good kidnapping victim might come along, after all. Bender patted the compartment gently. “Now don’t you worry, old uncle Bender’s just gonna have you taken apart and rendered down into a high-priced commodity so he can get booze money.” He laughed, then scratched his chin again. “Hmmm, should I go back now? I’ve already got, what, 100,000 bucks worth in here? Enough booze for at least a week.” He thought some more. “Nah, I got plenty of room left. Time to see what I can get from yonder backwards hick village. Although…” Bender narrowed his eyes and looked around shiftily. “If I wanna remain unnoticed, I’ll need a cunning disguise.” Ten minutes later, a robot wearing a trench coat, fedora, and sunglasses strode boldly into Ponyville.
On the Road“Where is that brute?!” Rarity screamed, “Where. Is. Bender!” “Rarity!” Twilight cried, a look of concern on her face as she galloped over to her friend. “What happened?” She looked at the swollen lump on Rarity’s head. “Who did this?!” Rarity’s jaw was clenched so tight that Twilight was seriously worried she’d crack her teeth. She glared around the room, then back at Twilight. “Weren’t you listening? I said: Bender! Bender did this to me! Then he robbed me blind and wrecked my store! After all I did for him too!” “Bendy did this?! No way!” Pinkie declared firmly. “He seemed so nice!” “Pinkie,” Twilight sighed, thinking back to her studies of the robot and his bad attitude. He’d even complained when she’d given him all the rubbing alcohol she had, just like she promised. Then she thought he was just nervous and defensive, what with being on an entirely new world and all. “He seemed a lot of things, but I’m not sure nice was one of them.” Rarity’s expression softened. “Pinkie, dear, who do you trust more: me, or Bender?” “You, of course! You’re one of my best friends!” Pinkie hugged the white unicorn. “And I say that Bender attacked me without provocation, then stole everything! I’m ruined! My life is over!” Rarity started sobbing, hooves over her eyes. The other ponies started to back away, muttering, as she dramatically fell backwards onto the couch she’d somehow pulled out of nowhere. “Rarity, can you please just tell us what he did,” said Twilight, trying her best to keep her tone neutral. “I told you, he attacked me! He thought my gems were fake, so I told him they were the real deal. Then he bashed me over the head with something lickity split. I didn’t see what it was. I woke up trapped inside my own closet a couple of hours later with a huge bump and a pounding headache. I had to break down my own door just to get out! And what do I find? Everything was gone! Gone! My money, my gems, my designs, my fabrics – all gone! My boutique is ruined! I’m ruined!” Rarity sobbed. “That no-good varmint!” Applejack spat. Twilight frowned and thought for a minute. Then she turned to the others. “Everypony! Your attention please!” Nopony heard her, or stopped talking if they did. “QUIET!!!” That did it. Twilight cleared her throat. “My friends and I can handle this situation. Please continue with your regularly scheduled partying.” The citizens of Ponyville, so used to precisely that occurring, hardly needed any persuasion to leave the issue to Twilight and her friends. “Come on girls, we’ve gotta go get to the bottom of this!” … Getting to the bottom of it turned out to be quiet easy. The town was full of broken doors and smashed windows. Everywhere the ponies looked, houses had been ransacked. The burglary was unprecedented. As was the squealing pinky filly hanging upside down through a hole in a roof. “Oh thank you thank you thank you!” Diamond Tiara cried as Twilight telekinetically yanked her out. “I was stuck there for almost an hour! And…” her grateful expression faded as her natural personality reasserted itself. “And that’s way too long! What were you doing all that time I was screaming for help?!” “Don’t be rude,” Rarity chided. Ignoring the stuck-up filly’s ingratitude, Twilight said, “Diamond Tiara, this is very serious. I need you to tell me who did this to you.” “It was that stupid metal blank-flank! Blender or whatever! He robbed our house, stole my favorite tiara, and tossed me out the window!” Twilight’s expression dropped, even though she had suspected as much. She had had such high hopes for first contact with an alien species. But all he seemed to want to do was to steal from ponies and endanger children. She patted Diamond Tiara on the back. “Are you hurt anywhere? Do you need medical attention?” “Are you kidding me? I’m emotionally traumatized for life! I’ll need years of therapy to get over all this! And all because of that worthless tin can you brought here!” Twilight blinked, “I didn’t-” “You and your friends or those stupid blank flanks always bring the problems here! Just like the parasprites! You just wait, I’ll-” Twilight was unamused. Her horn glowed, and Diamond Tiara vanished back to her home. Pinkie Pie sniffed. “Bendy, why? Why would you do this to us?” Applejack patted her on the back. “Now, now, I know it’s a lot ta take in, but y’all still got us.” Pinkie Pie didn’t seem to hear what she was saying. Her expression went from sad to thoughtful. Then, just as suddenly, something clicked. She jumped into the air angrily. “This means Bendy won’t be coming back to the party!” “You just now figured that out?” thought Twilight. “That means he broke a Pinkie Promise!” The others gasped. … Bender was cheerfully chugging his way down the train track. With his bag o’ loot safely buried outside of town for later, he’d made straight for the station. Using the same ability he’d once used to help Fry and Leela travel through old New York, he rolled right down the tracks much faster than he could walk. Soon he’d be at Canterlot, where the real money was. “And hopefully the real booze too,” he thought, rubbing his chin, “Though I’m beginning to suspect they don’t even know what that is here.” If Bender had spent more time thinking about it, he would have realized that he could have just used his teleporter to get to Canterlot immediately. But he hadn’t, and so he didn’t. “BENDY!” “Aaaaaaah!” Bender jumped, falling off the tracks and plunging face-first into the mud. He rolled over, looking around and shivering. “W-who’s there? Show y-yourself!” At that very moment, his compartment broke open like he had a chestburster in there again. A very angry-looking pink pony stuck her head out. “Bendy, how could you?! We were friends!” “AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” Bender screamed, waving his hands in the air and running around in circles. “You broke your Pinkie Promise! You hurt other ponies!” “AAAAAAHHHHH-” Bender paused mid-scream. “Wait, what the hell am I yelling about?” He looked down at the pony still sticking out of his chest. “And what the hell are you doing in there?” “Answer the question, Bendy!” “Get the hell out of me, Greeny!” Bender grabbed Pinkie by her mane, twirling her around to build speed before hurling her as far as he could. “It’s Pinkiiiiiieeeeee….” she cried and she flew. “Bite my shiny metal ass!” Bender laughed as he watched her go. A moment later, he clapped his hands together and slammed his compartment shut. “Welp, that’s that!” He whistled a jaunty tune as he climbed back on the tracks and started off again. “And just where do you think you’re going?!” “AAAAAHHHHH!” Bender only just managed to avoid plunging off the tracks again. Pinkie popped right back out of his compartment. “We’re not finished yet, buster. Not until you give those ponies their stuff back and apologize!” “How the hell do you do that?” Bender demanded angrily. “Stop trying to change the subject! You hurt innocent ponies and- Hey!” Bender grabbed her mane once again and tossed her as far as he could in the opposite direction. “We aren’t done herrrrreeeeeee…” Pinkie shouted as she flew. Bender had barely gotten ten feet before she popped right back out again. “You think you can just hurt ponies and take their stuff and get away with it?!” “Yes, absolutely.” “Well I got news for you: you can’t! I don’t know what they do where you’re from, but- mmph!” Bender slapped his hand over her mouth. “Shut the hell up!” Pinkie pulled the hand away. “No! I’m not just gonna go and not speak up when you’re- gah!” Bender shoved Pinkie headfirst into the mud, then stomped up and down on her wiggling body until the whole thing was buried. He laughed heartily as he jumped right back on the track and took off with maximum speed. “And bite my shiny metal ass!” he roared triumphantly as he sped towards Canterlot. “Heh heh heh heh heh heh! A ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” He was laughing so hard he failed to notice the oncoming train. “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!”
