Applebloom: Transform and Roll Out!

Chapters

Ch1: More than Meets the Eye
Ch2: Robot in Disguise
Ch3: Faster than a Speeding Photon
Ch4: Changing Gears
Ch5: Birth of an Apple
Ch6: Oh, Slag!
Ch7: A Whole World of Pain
Ch8: Well and Truly Desolate
Ch9: Lost...
Ch10: ...Found
Ch11: Decepticons Attack!
Ch12: Turn of the Tide

Ch1: More than Meets the Eye

(A/N: This story takes place after issue 10 of the My Little Pony Comic Book and the Cutie Mark Crusaders Micro Series comic. This story also does not officially recognize any events of Season 3 onward. The story primarily takes place in the Transformers Aligned Continuity Family with certain smaller inspirations taken from the Transformers Animated and G1 continuity families.)

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Applebloom: Transform and Rollout!
by Dusty the Royal Janitor

Chapter 1: More than Meets the Eye

The wagon was on fire.

The three little fillies, scuffed and bruised from their recent fall down the steep hill could only gape. Sure, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were well known around the town of Ponyville for causing trouble. Who could forget the time they accidentally set off twelve crates of fireworks in the middle of the town square? Or the time that they brought a second wave of parasprites upon the town in an attempt to get their cutie marks in supernatural entomology? And Ponyvillians still can’t help but shudder whenever anypony brings up the artichoke incident.

But it was doubtful that one could easily explain the Crusaders’ current predicament. Indeed, the three of them had gone to Whitetail Wood that day in an attempt to not cause trouble. After all, Whitetail Wood was expressly known for being a particularly peaceful spot. Unlike its sister woodland, the Everfree Forest, Whitetail Wood was the picture of serenity. Birds would sing their cheerful tunes, and bunnies would skip and play between the earthy old-growth trees. Squirrels and raccoons would forage for food, storing it for the winter, and the titular White-tailed deer would flit mysteriously from tree to tree. Brooks babbled and leaves rustled calmly in the breeze. Yes, Whitetail was the perfect place to have a picnic, or take a nature hike and appreciate the beauty nature, or let your foals out to play and have a good time with little chance of them running into anything dangerous.

But then the wagon caught on fire.

“How?!” Sweetie Belle shouted, poking her head out from under a pile of twigs and leaves she’d fallen into. “How does this sort of thing always happen to us?”

Applebloom shook her head, trying to orient herself after the tumble. At the first sign of fire, the three of them had panicked and accidentally driven right off of a tall ledge, landing in a deep ditch. Now, the poor wagon was lying in a puddle of mud in a crumpled, twisted heap, still smoldering with flame; its occupants strewn all over the forest floor in front of it.

“Don’t ask me.” Scootaloo shrugged, picking herself up off her scooter, which remained astoundingly unharmed after the fall. “The thing just went up in flames!”

“Things don’t just spontaneously combust, Scootaloo.” Sweetie Belle deadpanned.

“Sponta-what now?” Scootaloo cocked her head.

“It means catch on fire for no reason.”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Whatever, miss dictionary.”

Applebloom approached the tangle of metal that was once her trusty wagon with a sad sigh. Applejack had given her that wagon for her last birthday and it had been through a lot with the three of them. “Maybe we were goin’ too fast?” she suggested.

Scootaloo patted her chest. “Ha! That’s probably it! My super-slick moves were too much for it!”

Sweetie Belle shook her head. “No, that can’t be it. It’s never caught fire when we’ve gone that fast before.”

“Yeah,” Applebloom agreed. “’Sides, the wagon was made of metal! Metal don’t just catch on fire for no reason, ya know.” She quickly turned and started beating out the fire with her tail. Thankfully, the fire had started dying down on its own and she quickly managed to pat it out. Once the fire was out, she sniffed the air, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “Ugh! What’s that smell?!”

“What smell?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Smells a little like paint thinner...” Applebloom mused, sniffing the air. Applebloom looked around for a few minutes before finding the source. She curled her body around and brought her red tail to her face, sniffing it. “Yuck!” She shouted. "Whatever it is, it’s all over my tail!”

Sweetie Belle trotted over to her, inspecting the wagon. She quickly rubbed a white hoof over the wagon’s bent wheel. It came away with a slick, gray, oily substance all over it. Sweetie shook her hoof, trying to throw it off. “Ewwww! What is this stuff?!”

Scootaloo perked up. “Oh that!” She said, trotting over to the others. “Yeah, the wagon was a little squeaky this morning so I oiled the wheels with something I found in Big Macintosh’s shed!” The little pegasus cocked her head. “But that can’t be what set off the wagon.”

“How do ya figure?” Applebloom raised an eyebrow.

The orange filly scratched her chin. “Well, I don’t remember exactly what the stuff was, but I remember that there was a big red word all over it.”

Applebloom’s eyes narrowed. “And that word was...?” she prompted.

“Inflammable!” Scootaloo said proudly with a stamp of her hoof! “That means that it can’t catch fire!” She stuck a tongue out at Sweetie Belle, “See? I can figure out words too!”

Sweetie Belle slapped a hoof to her face. Applebloom grunted and started pacing. Scootaloo blinked.

“What?” Scootaloo asked. “‘In-’ as in ‘not,’ and ‘flammable-’ as in ‘catches fire!’ So it’s something that can’t catch fire, right?”

“No, Scootaloo... just... no” Sweetie Belle groaned, rubbing the bridge of her muzzle.

“Ah can’t believe you!” Applebloom shouted, advancing upon Scootaloo. “Y’all don’t just rub down other ponies’ stuff with things ya randomly find in a shed!” She poked a hoof into the pegasus’ chest for emphasis. “’Y’all probably were going so fast that we made a spark when we went over a rock or something!”

“Applebloom, take it easy!” Scootaloo said, backing up a few paces. “I messed up, okay? I’m sorry!”

The yellow filly grit her teeth for a second and sighed. “I liked that wagon, Scoots.”

Scootaloo frowned, her ears folding back. “Look, I’m sorry, Applebloom. I messed up, yeah, but it’s just a wagon.”

Sweetie Belle stepped in between the two of them. “Hold up, girls. Let’s not start a fight, okay? Crusaders, right?”

“It was a gift from my sister!” Applebloom stamped her hooves on the ground.

That was when the earth gave way.

As if commanded by the stomp of her little hoof, the ledge the three of them were standing beside started to groan and crumble. The three little fillies shrieked and jumped back, just as dirt and rock began tumbling down from the side of the hill. Soil shifted and stone bounced out of the way, as something silver revealed itself embedded in the hillside. The cutie mark crusaders rocketed behind a large boulder laying nearby in an attempt to hide themselves from the newly revealed object, the recent confrontation all but forgotten.

“What in Equestria was that?!” Sweetie Belle stage whispered to the other two.

“Don’t know...” Scootaloo replied. “It looked like a big silver disc suddenly popped out of the ledge when Applebloom stomped her hoof.

Applebloom poked her nose out from behind the boulder. “It didn’t pop out, y’all.” She said, softly. “Darn thing was buried there. The landslide just uncovered it.”

“What do you think it is, Applebloom?” Scootaloo asked.

The little yellow filly shook her head. “Dunno,” she replied. “But it don’t look like it’s moving or nothin’. Let’s go check it out.” She said, tentatively stepping out from behind the large rock. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle tiptoed close behind her, taking care not to disturb the soil around them too much, lest they cause another landslide. The trio quickly made their way up to the newly revealed object.

“Whoa...” Scootaloo mouthed, in awe of the towering silver disc embedded in the hillside. It was at least sixty feet tall, by Applebloom’s best guess, and just as wide. Applebloom trotted over to inspect the soil around it, tapping at the earth lightly with her hoof. The dirt around it was loose and crumbled away with the slightest touch.

“From the state of the earth around it, don’t look like it’s been here long.” Applebloom mused. “Soil’s loose and thin over it. Probably why it slid just from our argument and a little hoof stompin’. Reckon it’s been here a bit over a decade at most.”

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. “How do you know so much about dirt?”

“Ah live on a farm, Scootaloo,” Applebloom said, rolling her eyes. “Iff’n I didn’t know nothing ‘bout dirt, I sure wouldn’t make a good farmer, now would I?”

The orange filly shrugged. “Fair enough.”

“But what is it?” Sweetie Belle insisted, walking up to the silver monolith and placing a hoof against it. “Why would a great big metal thing just be lying under a patch of loose dirt in the middle of Whitetail Wood? And how did nopony notice it until now?”

Scootaloo came up beside her, tapping the metal object with her hoof. “We did end up going way off the trail when the wagon caught fire. We must be in a place ponies just don’t usually explore.” The orange pegasus suddenly did a 180 and gave the metal object a strong buck with her hind hooves.

“Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle and Applebloom both cried, jumping back away from the filly and the mysterious object.

“What?” Scootaloo said dispassionately.

“Why would you just buck something like that? Who knows what could happen?!” Sweetie Belle cried.

“It’s just a lump of metal in the forest.” Scootaloo shrugged. “But listen to this!” Scootaloo stood back up on her front legs, giving another swift buck to the disc. A ringing sound resounded from the impact, causing all three fillies’ ears to twitch. “It’s hollow!” she shouted. “There’s some sort of cave or something under this!”

“A cave?” Applebloom said, cocking her head. “That’s strange. This don’t seem like the place a cave would form. And who would cover one up with a big metal thingy like that?” Applebloom trotted up to the disc alongside Scootaloo, who was still trying (and failing) to buck the object into oblivion.

“Who cares?!” Scootaloo chirped, a great big grin, plastered on her face. “Let’s find out what’s inside!” She said with another buck to the metal disc.

“I don’t know, girls...” Sweetie Belle murmured, shuffling her hooves. “If somepony went to the trouble of rolling a big metal disc in front of a cave, maybe whatever’s inside was meant to stay hidden?”

“Ah, don’t be such a scaredy pony.” Scootaloo said, with another buck. “Whatever’s in there is probably way cool! Remember, the last time we explored a random cave we met Imp!”

“Imp was cool...” Sweetie Belle muttered, tapping her chin.

“Hmmmm...” Applebloom said, tapping her chin. “I reckon we ain’t gonna be able to knock this outta the way, girls.” She said, pressing a hoof to the cold, metal object. “It seems really solid and hea-WHOA!!”

A deafening hiss came from the thing as it suddenly split down the middle. Pressurized gases burst free from the newly made crack running straight and smooth as an arrow down the middle of the disc, creating a huge cloud of steam that knocked Scootaloo right off her hooves and into Sweetie Belle. Applebloom managed to hold her ground, but still ended up being pushed back a few inches, her hooves digging grooves into the ground.

The crack widened with a screech and a squeal, as the space between the two halves of the disc broadened ever so slowly. Ear-splitting grinding noises echoed through the clearing as the three little fillies watched in awe as the disc halves receded into the earth surrounding it. The rumbling vibrations knocked more loose dirt from around the disc, revealing sheets of metal over a hundred feet high embedded in the soil. What they had previously thought to be a metal disc buried in the dirt was now revealed to be a door! Not just a door, but a door that slowly opened for them automatically, with no handles, knobs, or magical auras to propel it. It receded into the metal walls surrounding it with a rusty groan and a mechanical shudder, and with a final creak of submission, the door slid all the way into the metallic walls.

The three little fillies gaped in awe at what they had uncovered. The metal structure, whatever it was, stretched at least a hundred and fifty feet above them. The metal was somewhat rusted and worn in some places, but for the most part was still a sturdy dark gray, like tempered steel or titanium. It had obviously held up for however many years it had spent buried, as there was not a single crack or crevasse running through it. Metal ridges ran horizontally along the metal walls, all of which were inlaid with some sort of blue glass and led to the door that had just opened in front of the stupefied crusaders. A low hum could be heard emanating from inside the dark metal cavern, never ceasing for a moment as the three little fillies stood there, gazing into the pitch blackness of the structure’s interior.

“That’s no cave...” Applebloom whispered under her breath.

Scootaloo turned to look at the little earth filly. “How did you do that?!” she stage whispered, pointing at the gaping maw of the metal structure. “I was sitting there bucking it for like five minutes, but you came over and just tapped it and it opened up!”

“I don’t know.” Applebloom muttered, her gaze locked on the darkness and stepping forward.

“Whoa whoa whoa!” Sweetie Belle yelped, cantering up and blocking off Applebloom’s path. “You’re not actually thinking about going in there are you?” She stood up on her hind legs and held her forelegs out to her sides. “I mean, a cave is one thing, but this is something else entirely, Applebloom! We should get a grown up to come check this out, like Big Mac or Rarity!”

“Are you kidding, Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo scoffed. “If we went and got an adult, they’d just tell us to stay away while they explore it for themselves, telling us it’s ‘too dangerous’ or something like that.” She waved a hoof dismissively. “Besides, if it was buried for ten years, there can’t be anything living in there, right?”

“I don’t know...” Sweetie Belle muttered. “There are some weird things living in Equestria. Dragons can sleep for over a hundred years, after all.”

“If it were a dragon, there’d be smoke coming from the cave,” Scootaloo argued. “Besides, dragons don’t live in caves of metal. Now let’s go! We’re Cutie Mark Crusaders, not namby-pamby pansy flanks!”

“Scootaloo, I really think that we should go get somepony!” Sweetie Belle protested. “It could still be dangerous!” She turned to her other friend. “You’re with me, right, Applebloom? ...Applebloom?”

The yellow filly stood stock still, staring off into the darkness. Her amber eyes were unfocused and her breathing was slow and shallow.

Scootaloo stopped in her tracks and turned back to her farmer friend. “Applebloom? You okay?” she asked, putting a hoof on the yellow filly’s shoulder. This seemed to snap her back to reality.

“Y-yeah...” she stuttered, quickly straightening up. “I’m fine, I just got a little... distracted for a moment.”

“How could you get distracted from the greatest discovery of our lives?!” Scootaloo joked. “C’mon Applebloom, let’s go get our archaemonology cutie marks or whatever! There HAS to be something interesting to find in a place like this!”

“I still think we should go back to Ponyville...” Sweetie Belle said.

“No.”

Applebloom’s voice was neither angry nor loud, nor even directed at anypony in particular. But there was a definite firmness in her statement. “No. We need to check this out.” She said, stepping forward.

“Are you sure, Applebloom?” Sweetie Belle whimpered. “It could be dangerous.”

“It won’t be, Sweetie Belle.”

Sweetie looked at the yellow filly, confused. “How can you tell?”

“Just... a feeling.” Applebloom replied slowly. “It’s safe. I know it.”

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looked at each other and shrugged. “Well, if you’re sure...” Sweetie trailed off, following the little earth pony, Scootaloo not far behind her.

Applebloom looked around the dark metal interior as she crossed the threshold from warm, sun-touched soil to cold, shadowed steel. The moment her hoof touched the floor, though, she couldn’t help but stumble back, as lights started to come alive along the walls. One by one, lights flashed into existence with loud bangs, leading down the hallway into the distance, right up to another door.

“Yikes.” Scootaloo commented, her eyes wide. “This just gets weirder by the minute!”

“Yeah...” Applebloom said, wiping sweat from her brow. “C’mon, let’s go.”

The trio marched forward through the cool metal tunnel. The air was silent between them but for the persistent hum that permeated the area, and the whistling of the wind along the tunnel mouth. The three looked around at the walls and ceiling around them, all made of the same shining metal as the door had been, and all inlaid with the same blue, glasslike substance that had run along the walls outside. The glasslike stuff ran along the walls, connecting to where the lights lit the path, giving the area an eerie blue tinted glow. The ceiling towered at least a hundred feet above them, likely more. The hallway was completely vacant but for the lights along the walls and the second door at the end of the tunnel.

It didn’t take but a few minutes before the trio reached the other door. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle looked at each other for a short moment, shrugging to each other silently. The orange pegasus stepped forward and tapped it like Applebloom had the door outside. Nothing happened. Sweetie Belle tried to do the same, with exactly the same results.

“Applebloom?” Sweetie Belle asked with a little shrug, looking to her earth pony friend. Applebloom gave a little shrug herself and stepped towards the door, tapping it gently with her hoof. The door immediately swished open to let them in, revealing an enormous, spherical room.

“This is getting weirder by the minute,” Applebloom said softly. She stepped forward onto a metal catwalk and gasped as the room lit up into a dim, dull light. Hesitantly, she looked around the gigantic room. Across the catwalk there lay another door, and halfway across the catwalk there was a cross junction, leading to another, circular walkway that wrapped around the perimeter of the room. There also appeared to be an elevator that led down to the base of the room in the very center of the catwalk junction. The walkway led them across an enormous chasm that dipped down like a bowl below them, and above them, was a dome, creating a sphere. But most notably, along the spherical walls, the fillies noticed strange pods decorating the shining chrome of the structure’s interior.

Sweetie and Scootaloo stepped forward into the catwalk that led into the center of the room. The chamber was utterly still. Not a single sound could be heard in the chamber, save for the footsteps of the little fillies who had intruded upon it. Even the persistent hum that permeated the last hallway was gone. It was a rare moment of complete and utter silence.

“Whoa...” The pegasus filly gaped, looking around the gigantic dome, her voice echoing softly around the room. “What is this place?”

“I don’t know,” Sweetie Belle said, softly. “It’s bigger than any room I think I’ve ever been in. Even that time we went to Canterlot Castle for the Royal Wedding!” She looked around the room slowly. “What do you think it is, Applebloom?” She paused. “Applebloom?”

Looking around the room, the unicorn and the pegasus spotted their earth pony friend walking along the catwalk around the perimeter of the room, observing the pods that adorned the walls. The pair of fillies quickly backtracked and ran around the perimeter to meet her. “Applebloom!” Scootaloo snapped. “Don’t run off like that on u- Applebloom? What’s the matter?”

The little yellow earth filly was gazing deeply into one of the pods along the walls, a forlorn look on her face. Her ears were turned down and her eyes watered as she stared into the glass of the capsule, gazing at a pool of silvery liquid settled in the bottom of the tank. It shimmered and shone, like liquid mercury at in a test tube. And as she gazed at the puddle of goo, Applebloom couldn’t stop a tear falling from her eye.

“Applebloom?” Sweetie Belle asked, nudging her friend. “Are you crying?”

Applebloom shook her head, breaking her gaze from the alien sight. “No.” She said, wiping her eyes with a hoof. “No, I’m not crying. This place is just creeping me out is all.” She cleared her throat.

Scootaloo nodded. “Yeah, let’s just keep moving. I’m getting a seriously weird vibe from this place.”

“Me too...” Sweetie Belle murmered. “It feels like walking through a graveyard for some reason.”

Applebloom soldiered on, leading the other two fillies around the catwalk. The trio had gotten about two thirds of the way around the perimeter to the other door when Scootaloo pointed a hoof up towards the ceiling. “Look!” She gasped, causing the other two to gaze up immediately. “One of the tube things is missing!”

Sure enough, about a quarter of the way up the domed wall, there was a hole where a pod should have been. The crusaders all blinked. “What do you suppose could have happened to that capsule?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Not sure,” Applebloom muttered. “But if there’s some alien running around here, we don’t want to be around for it to find, I reckon.”

“Alien?” Scootaloo asked. “You think there’s aliens here?”

Applebloom shrugged as she continued around the walkway towards the other door, the other two crusaders following closely behind. “Well, you tell me where y’all have ever seen anything like this in Equestria. No pony made a place like this, I can tell you that. And I don’t think a griffin, minotaur, or diamond dog could make something like this place either.”

Sweetie Belle tittered. “But aliens, Applebloom? That’s your first assumption?”

The earth filly chuckled. “Well come on, Sweetie Belle, y’all don’t think it’s possible? Applejack has told me lots of stories about aliens swooping down from the sky and nabbing country folk like us.” She lifted a hoof to her cheek and whispered to the other two. “Between you girls and me, I think she’s secretly terrified of aliens.”

“And besides,” Scootaloo continued, “It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing we’ve seen. Living in Ponyville we’ve seen new and strange things nearly every week!”

The three all shared a laugh, their spirits slightly lifted, as they reached the other door. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle nodded to Applebloom, who swallowed a little and then tapped the door again. Like the two before it, this door obediently whooshed open at her command.

“So why do you think the doors open for Applebloom and not us?” Sweetie Belle asked Scootaloo.

The pegasus filly shrugged. “Maybe it has something to do with her being an Earth Pony?”

Sweetie’s nose crinkled. “Why would the doors open for an earth pony but not a unicorn or pegasus?”

“Magic maybe?” Scootaloo said, waving a hoof around nonchalantly. “Maybe this isn’t an alien place as it is some lost, ancient earth pony temple from before Hearth’s Warming with technology lost to time or something, like in the Daring Do books.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Sweetie protested. “There weren’t any ponies in Equestria at all before Hearth’s Warming Eve, were there?”

Applebloom ignored the other two’s bickering as she stepped forward into the next chamber. Once again, the moment her hoof hit the floor, the room sprung to life with light. Immediately, all three crusaders gasped and ducked for cover, any argument that may have been brewing between Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo lost to what they saw.

Oh, the room was only somewhat different from what they had seen in the previous chambers: Sleek metal, with pipes and mechanisms of unknown purpose running across the walls, and a thick pane of glass at the end of the room. Desks covered in unknown buttons and levers ran along the perimeter of the room with another, smaller desk at the center, and bright lights embedded into the ceiling. It was what was in the room that startled the fillies...

A giant. There was no other way to really describe it. It had two legs and arms and hands like a minotaur, but everything else about it was entirely outlandish. First and foremost, the behemoth looked to be made of metal. Most of it looked to be a dull grey or black, but there were patches of dull, tarnished looking gold and what might have once been the purest white here and there. It was facing away from them, sitting in a monstrous, metal chair that would be at least five times too big for any adult pony. Well, perhaps sitting was too generous a term. It was more like it was slouched in it. Perhaps it was asleep?

Cautiously, Applebloom snuck as quietly as she could into the room behind the metal monster. Sweetie Belle tried to hiss out a protest, but Scootaloo slapped a hoof over her mouth before she could make a noise.

Treading as softly as she could, Applebloom approached the thing from behind, getting closer and closer with every step. Looking behind her, she noticed Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo waving their arms in a panic, trying to get her to stop moving closer to the thing. And yet she kept on moving. Turning her gaze back to the giant, she couldn’t help but feel something well up in her breast. A tense, disquieting feeling that made her more uncomfortable than she had been in a long time. It was like a sick combination of the deepest sorrow, frightful loneliness and longing, and perhaps... even a touch of love? And yet, nowhere within her did Applebloom feel afraid. Not once did she feel the need to turn back from the behemoth metal creature.

Despite her friends’ protests, Applebloom soon found herself on the other side of the chair, standing under a gigantic desk of some kind. She looked up from under the desk and tried to catch a glimpse of the thing’s face. There were large, winglike protrusions jutting out from the creature’s shoulders and things that looked like gauntlets just above its hands. It seemed to have a breastplate and was wearing armor of some kind, complete with a helmet that looked similar to things the ancient Japonyse wore. Two golden horns rose from the helmet just above its eyes.

Its eyes...

Its eyes were translucent, as though a light should be shining from them, like a lightbulb or a lamp of some kind. And yet, they were dark. Dark as the most lonely night Applebloom had ever experienced.

She couldn’t begin to tell why, but seeing those eyes made her want to start crying again.

“Applebloom?” Scootaloo whispered from across the room. “Is it safe?”

The little earth filly shook herself out of her reverie, looking over to her friend. “Yeah, it’s safe.” She looked back up at the metal titan. “I think... I think whatever it is, it’s dead...”

The two other fillies scampered across the metal floor over to Applebloom, skidding to a halt under the button-covered desk with her. They both looked up at the creature along with her. “What do you suppose it is... was?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Looks like a giant robot!” Scootaloo said excitedly.

Sweetie Belle made a little “pfft” noise and waved her off. “Giant robots only exist in cheesy sci-fi stories, Scootaloo. How would anypony ever build one?”

“Well,” The pegasus huffed. “I don’t know, maybe it’s an alien giant robot!”

“Okay, now you’re just being ridiculous.”

Applebloom sighed. She wasn’t in the mood for another argument. Still, she found herself troubled. This place was inspiring such strange feelings in her from the very moment they’d uncovered the door outside. And this imposing robotic figure that loomed above them was the strangest of all. She felt almost like she knew him from long, long ago.

The farm filly felt compelled. She needed to get to the bottom of all this. What was this place? What was it doing in the middle of the Whitetail Wood? What was this titanic robot she stood before and why did it and this place inspire all these strange emotions deep in her belly? It was a mystery she’d only just uncovered less than an hour ago, and yet it was driving her batty, like Twilight Sparkle after a week’s worth of study with nothing to show for it.

She had to know more. She had to get to the bottom of it all.

So she decided to climb to the top of the robot.

Applebloom hefted herself onto the robot’s ankle and started climbing up its outstretched leg. The action abruptly stopped whatever the other two crusaders were debating, causing them to call out to Applebloom again.

“What are you doing now?!” Sweetie Belle cried out.

“You’ve been acting really weird since we found this place, Applebloom.” Scootaloo said, suspiciously. “What’s the deal?”

“Sorry, girls.” Applebloom said, as she jumped into the robot’s lap. She looked up at its chest, noticing a horrendous gash in its side, a dull blue liquid having long since congealed along the side of its chassis and a plethora of gears, wires and tubes exposed and hanging out of its midsection. “I know it’s strange and all, but this place and this here robot are making me feel all balled up in the head.”

“Balled up?” Scootaloo muttered.

“It means confused.” Sweetie Belle whispered back.

“I know it seems odd, but I need to get a closer look at this stuff. I wanna know why it’s making me feel this way.”

Scootaloo blinked. “So to find out why you’re feeling all wonky... you’re climbing up a giant robot?”

Applebloom nodded as she carefully scaled the robot’s arm up to its shoulder. “Eeyup. That’s about the size of it.”

The orange pegasus shook her head, looking at Sweetie Belle and making a circular motion with her hoof next to her head. Sweetie Belle nodded in agreement.

The farm filly ignored them, straightening her bow on her head and leaping from the robot’s shoulder to a ledge on the robot’s armor. She made the jump, easily, then quickly managed to pull herself up directly under where the robot’s collarbone would be (if it had bones in the first place).

The other crusaders sighed in relief as Applebloom looked up into the robot’s face. Climbing up onto the collar, just under the robot’s face, she lifted a hoof to poke at it. The surface was cold, and yet oddly pliant, giving to Applebloom’s touch. It was obviously metal of some kind, she could tell that from its texture against her hoof and its temperature ,yet it moved around in her hoof like a layer of moist clay.

Applebloom drew her hoof back. Whatever substance made up the robot’s face, it made her very uncomfortable. She pressed against the face again, harder this time, and found that only about a third of an inch under the layer of more pliant metal, there was a solid, unmoving layer of metal, much more like other metals in the world: Solid and unyielding. Applebloom then tried to pull a piece of the pliant metal from the robot’s face to inspect closer, but found that doing so was impossible. Flexible and elastic or not, whatever the pliant metal was, it was firmly attached to the robot’s face and was not coming off.

Applebloom sighed. The claylike metal that made up the robot’s face was certainly interesting. She was sure that Twilight would love to study a material like it at some point. But it didn’t bring her any closer to understanding why she was feeling so strange in this place. Perhaps she needed a greater look around?

“Come on, Applebloom!” Scootaloo shouted from way down below. “Get down from there! You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“In a bit!” Applebloom shouted from atop the robot’s chest. She waved to the two crusaders, telling them to be patient. She looked around the room a little more, trying to find something that might give her a better answer when she saw something glinting on the desk in front of the robot. Something, for just a split second, shifted on it.

Applebloom blinked. It would be quite a leap to make it all the way to the desk from atop the robot’s chest. She’d have to account for at least a twelve foot drop as well. Nevertheless, she felt she had to know why this place made her feel so funny, and she was honestly getting a touch desperate for answers now.

She could make the jump. She knew she could. She was Applejack’s little sister! Sibling to some of the most athletic ponies in Ponyville, and arguably all of Equestria. She could make this jump easy.

The little filly backed up a bit, getting ready to make a running leap. “Applebloom?” She heard Sweetie Belle call from below. “What are you doing? APPLEBLOOM!” She paid her no heed though as she charged forward and leaped through the air.

She barely made the jump, but only just barely. Her front hooves managed to land on the desk, but her hind hooves dangled off of the edge precariously. She scrabbled for purchase, attempting to pull herself up.

“It’s okay, Applebloom!” Scootaloo shouted from below her. “If you fall, I’ve got you!”

It turned out to be unnecessary though. Applebloom had dealt with more taxing challenges in her life than a pull up or two. She finally managed to get a good grip on a button or something and pulled herself up all the way onto the desk. She heard the other crusaders sigh with relief somewhere below her as she began to explore the vast, oversized desk.

The landscape around her was covered in buttons, levers, and switches. Applebloom understood none of their functions, nor the strange language they were all labeled with. And frankly, she didn’t particularly care. She was transfixed on a sight about a hundred feet away from her. A shimmering pool of liquid metal, much like what seemed to make up the robot’s face and perhaps what made up the stuff in the pods that were in the previous room. She approached the pool of liquid metal quickly, not listening to the protests of the other crusaders below her.

“Applebloom, come on!” Sweetie Belle cried up to her. “This isn’t funny anymore. Come down from there!”

The yellow filly ignored them, instead finding herself at the edge of a pool. The pool was about six foot by six foot wide, about as big as one of the fancy bathtubs in the Ponyville spa. At least two full grown ponies could fit in it comfortably. What was strangest, though, was that the surface of the pool was not smooth, but rather, had a depression in it in the shape of a hand. His hand to be precise. Applebloom looked over towards the dead robot and frowned.

“Applebloom!” Scootaloo shouted.

“Give me a minute!” Applebloom shouted back.

With a huff, Applebloom turned back to the metallic pool, only to find herself astonished. The pool had changed! The depression in the shape of the robot’s hand was no longer there. Instead, the surface of the pool was completely smooth and still, as though it were a perfectly smooth sheet of metal.

Well, almost.

There was one little dip. A small, cylindrical depression in the metal, right at the edge of the pool where Applebloom was standing. It was small enough that at first, Applebloom didn’t even notice it. It was innocent looking enough. Small, and familiar, like a hoof.

...no. Not just like a hoof. Like a filly’s hoof.

‘Like MY hoof...’ she thought...

Applebloom lifted her right hoof slowly. Every rational part of her brain told her to stop. They were in unfamiliar territory, in a ship that could be hostile. She could be stepping right into a trap. She could get sucked into the pool and drown or be trapped in a tube and turned to silver goo or something. There was no way she could know what might happen if she stuck her hoof in that...

...And yet, through all of that, there was a voice that insisted that everything would be alright.

She chose to listen to the voice. Applebloom placed her hoof right into the little slot.

She immediately regretted it.

A horrible crackling noise rung around her as an electric shock burst from the pool, electrocuting the little filly. Applebloom screamed through her teeth as her whole body seized up in alarm and excruciating pain. She faintly heard her friends calling out to her from under the desk, but she couldn’t make out anything they were saying. The crackling noise of the electricity and the ringing in her ears was far too great. The shock of the contact couldn’t have lasted more than ten seconds, but to Applebloom it felt like hours. She shrieked in pain , when suddenly it all stopped... and suddenly got worse.

Something in her body... shifted

There was a clanking, shifting sound, coming from her lower body. It felt like her bones all twisted out of alignment and started spiraling and sliding all over her body. She gasped as she felt her spine extend, her chest suddenly pulling away from her hips and barrel and her legs stretch out like pistons. Her hips flipped backwards ninety degrees, forcing her onto her hind legs and changing her center of gravity. Her front legs stretched out like her back ones did and out of the front, five strange little tubes appeared. Slots and cuts opened all over her body and things that should have been inside her body were suddenly on the outside. Applebloom screamed as she felt her face split right down the middle and slide off her head, coming to rest down at her chest. In all of the pain and panic, she stumbled, losing her balance and falling right off the edge of the desk, hearing her friends screaming in terror below her, she fell to the ground below, her vision dimming and finally going black as she hit the ground.

Author's Note

Welp, guess I let that cat out of the bag!

This is a story that's been rattling around my head for a while. I've wanted to do a crossover with Transformers ever since my best friend started writing his own crossover with Beast Wars which is really good and you should totally go read and pester him to start working on again.

And after finally catching a glimpse of the cover art about, I dunno, a little under a year back, I started coming up with a plot for such a thing. The outline, unfortunately, sat kinda dead in a drawer for a while, though, until another friend of mine, FanOfMostEverything, I believe, posted a blog with that picture in it and got the creative gears whirring again. Sprinkling in a couple extra things from the comics and bam, I had a story.

Or at least one chapter of one.

So far.

It's hard for me to get motivated to write, okay?! You should know that by how dismally long it takes for me to release PonyFall Chapters.

(Speaking of which, more should be coming forthwith if I can ever get motivated to write that again as opposed to these personal projects).

Anyway, how much time I put into this story/whether I continue it at all will all depend upon the reception it gets. If reception is particularly poor, then I may just stop it

I'm glad I could get this out before the start of Season 4, even if it's just barely. Hopefully, somebody will see it before we're all spammed with new content.

Anyway, I largely ignored Season 3 and onwards, not just because I didn't like Season 3 (though that did play a big part), but also largely because Season 3 offered next to nothing to add to the story, or anything really. Season 3 didn't give much of anything interesting to work with at all, save for maybe the Crystal Empire if you're desperate. It would have ultimately been a detriment.

I hope you enjoyed. Feel free to give constructive criticism. I welcome it. Just don't bring up the lack of Season 3 and onward material. Arguments pertaining to that will be ignored with THE GREATEST OF VIGOR.

Ch2: Robot in Disguise

___________________________________________________________________________________

Applebloom: Transform and Rollout!
by Dusty the Royal Janitor

Chapter 2: Robot in Disguise

“Greetings, small one.”

The voice rang out from the blackness and resounded through Applebloom’s brain, as if somepony had just rung the Ponyville Clock Tower’s bell right next to her ear. Applebloom made to hold her head with her hooves, only to notice that she had none. In fact, she had no body whatsoever. She was just an empty consciousness floating in the endless blackness.

Before she could question where she was or why she was there, however, an image appeared before her nonexistent eyes. Slowly it faded into being out of the nothingness, coming to a rest before her, towering overhead. The figure shone a pure, glowing white in the inky blackness that surrounded her, illuminating the immediate area. Though to be fair, all that did was change the vast inky black void into a vast off-white void.

The figure loomed overhead, and Applebloom immediately recognized it as the image of the titanic robot that she had seen in the strange structure she was just in. It was dressed in the same Japonyse style armor and helmet as before, though its midsection was a lot more intact than it had appeared before. It stood, tall and thin, but with a wiry, strong demeanor. And yet, it looked calm and kindly, a gentle smile upon its metallic face. The little disembodied filly couldn’t help but feel somewhat more at ease in its presence. If she had a body, it would have relaxed at the sight of the stranger.

“Who are you?” Applebloom tried to ask. She had no mouth with which to speak, and yet, the words rang out in her voice, echoing around the void. Questions came spilling forth like a flash flood. “What happened back in that place I was just at? What was it? Where am I now? Why did I feel so funny back there? What was that thing I just stuck my hoof-”

“Calm yourself,” The image said, lifting a hand to silence her. “Our time is short, and I can only answer so many questions.”

Applebloom huffed, or would have if she had a body to huff with. “Alright then, partner. How’s about you start by telling me who and what y’all are?” her voice echoed through the void.

The robotic apparition smiled faintly. “Once, long ago, I was known as Yoketron,” the vision announced humbly. “I was a teacher and a warrior in days gone by. Now, though, if you and I are conversing, it would appear that I have passed on.”

“Passed on?” Applebloom asked. “But y’all are here talking to me right now!”

The apparition shook its head. “That is not the case, small one. What you are speaking with right now is but a memory. A fragment of my consciousness saved in the computer files of my spaceship and downloaded into your processor when you interfaced with it.”

Her mind reeled. “Y’all just used at least six words I couldn’t make out. You mean to tell me you’re a ghost from space? You’re a space ghost?!”

The figure chuckled, his deep voice echoing around the void, making the empty space feel just a touch warmer. “Not quite a ghost, small one. However, you are correct in that I am from space.” The ghostly figure held a hand to his chest. “Back on my planet, I was the Commander of the Autobot Cyberstealth Corps.”

“Autobot?” Applebloom asked.

“It’s short for Autonomous Robotic Organism, a faction of my race from the planet Cybertron.” Yoketron replied patiently.

“Okay...” the filly paused. “And is all of this ‘Cybertron’ made up of robots like you? And if y’all are robots then who built y’all?”

Yoketron chuckled. “You are indeed perceptive. Yes, all of the creatures of Cybertron are as mechanical as I. However, we were not ‘built’ in the manner you are thinking. We are as alive as the creatures of this world are.”

Applebloom sighed in the void. Every answer only seemed to raise more questions. Still, there were a lot more things she needed answered. “Alright,” she continued, “why are you here?”

The giant robot frowned a little. “I was sent off my world in an attempt to protect the remaining pre-alpha unit protoforms. You would better equate such life forms with the concept of organic ‘embryos,’ I believe. They are the first stage of life for my race, forged from the life of Cybertron.” Yoketron closed his eyes, his head tilting down a little. “However, I failed in my task when a Decepticon bounty hunter crippled my ship, the Axalon, and I was forced to make an emergency transwarp jump, eventually crash landing upon this planet.”

“Decepticons?” she asked, “What in the hay are those and why did they attack you?”

Yoketron sighed sadly. “The Decepticons, like the Autobots, are a faction of Cybertronians. For millennia, my Autobot brethren and I have fought a civil war over ideals with them, all in an attempt to decide control of the people of Cybertron and its supply of energon; the lifeblood and fuel of all Cybertronian technology.”

If she could have, Applebloom would have given the robot her best piercing glare. “And these Decepticons... they are the bad guys, right?”

The Autobot chucked sadly. “Both sides have their own problems, small one. However, if I were forced to simplify the situation, then yes, the Decepticons are the ‘bad guys.’” He looked upon Applebloom with a pained expression. “To summarize some... complex ideologies... Decepticons believe that only the strongest of Cybertronians should be permitted to survive. Furthermore, they believe that Cybertronians are the superior beings of the universe and that any other species out there in the universe are meant to be enslaved and subjugated, put to work as manual labor in their heinous operations.”

“That’s awful!” The little filly reeled for a moment, but then stopped, thinking the matter through a little more. “But wait a minute! How can I tell yer not lyin? Or that you ain’t one of these Decepti-thingies? And what does all of this have to do with me? Why did your spaceship get all uppity when I was around but it didn’t do a thing for Sweetie Belle or Scootaloo?”

The apparition looked upon her with... was that pride? “How clever you are, small one. Indeed, perhaps it is not wise to simply take everything one says at face value. After all, things in this world and upon many others are often more than meets the eye...” Yoketron said, kneeling down on one knee, and looking Applebloom directly in the nonexistent eyes. “However, I believe if you search deep inside your mind, you’ll find that I am indeed telling the truth.”

“Search inside my mind? What the hay?” Applebloom gawked.

Yoketron chuckled. “I merely ask that you try it, small one.”

Applebloom groaned, but decided to indulge the old robot. Obviously if he were trying to hurt her he’d have done it by now, right? She searched deep through her memories, in what she knew would be a fruitless attempt to remember anything about this Cybertron or the giant robot thing before her.

The search, though, turned out to be anything but fruitless.

As if on command, the moment the little filly tried to think of anything the robot had talked about, memories and information suddenly flooded her brain, crashing to the forefront of her mind in a terrible, sudden wave of data and facts. She knew of Cybertron. She knew of the Autobots and the Decepticons and what they were fighting for. She knew of Yoketron and the Cyberstealth Corps. She knew of the Wreckers, the Constructicons, the Insecticons, the Aerialbots, the Lightning Strike Coalition Force, and the Seekers. She knew of the millennia of fighting and suffering that they had all gone through and that the planet they lived on had gone through. She felt that suffering.

Looking further into her mind, she saw a noble red and blue warrior with a prominent faceplate squaring off with a sinister looking violet and white tyrant with a massive cannon attached to his arm. She felt the courage of the warrior. She felt the rage of the tyrant. And through it all she felt the pain and the cries of the planet itself.

And then, just as all the information came... just as it crashed to the forefront of her mind... the images went away. Like waves on a stormy beach, the information simply was swept back into the recesses of her mind.

Applebloom hurt. An astonishing fact, as she had no body at the moment that could hurt. It was like her very thoughts were in a state of aching, lingering pain from the sudden flood of information she had experienced.

“W-What... What w-was that?!” she managed to stammer out to the being before her.

“I apologize for how that must have felt.” Yoketron sympathized. “Learning information in such a manner is not natural and is often unpleasant. I believe that may be why the data cylinder fell out of fashion back in the golden age...” he mused, tapping his chin with a ghostly robotic finger.

“You ain’t answering my question!” Applebloom snapped, the pain slowly alleviating. “Just what was all of that?!”

“Information, downloaded into your central processing unit.” Yoketron replied, as if it answered everything. “When you interfaced with the Axalon’s computer, you were fed an unabridged history of Cybertron, the ship’s most recent logs, as well as a self-deleting shell program personality meant to be expunged shortly after installation.”

“Don’t come at me with all that hooey fancy talk, pardner. Just tell it to me straight: What did y’all do to me?!”

The apparition seemed to sigh and roll its eyes playfully. “When you touched the silver pool on the Axalon’s console, it downloaded information about Cybertron into your mind, as well as the image of me you see before you.”

Applebloom would have blinked. “...Oh.” She still only had the faintest idea of what all of that could have meant, but she latched onto one thing in particular. “Wait, the image of you?!”

Yoketron smiled sadly. “I’m sure you must have seen me out there in the ship, yes? As I said earlier, I have been offline for over a decacycle.”

Applebloom’s mind spun. “And y’all are talking to me through this ‘self-deleting shell’ thingy?”

“Self-deleting shell program personality.” he answered, nodding. “Indeed. It is but a fragment of my personality saved in the Axalon’s computer for all this time, meant to be passed onto you when you inevitably found this ship. I saved it there so that when you found the ship, I could answer some of the the questions you’d have in a more personable manner than merely flooding your brain module with images, which is quite the painful process as you have no doubt noticed.”

“So now I’m gonna have a voice in my head the rest of my life?” Applebloom yelped.

The old robot chuckled. “No, of course not, small one. That is what I meant by self-deleting. In a few moments, I will be gone completely. I will be fully one with the Allspark and leave you in peace.” The image of the robot flickered. “It appears as though your processor has already begun purging me...”

“What?!” Applebloom shouted. “But... but I just met you! And I have so many more questions!”

The old robot smiled. “You need not worry, small one. All the answers you will ever need are right up here now.” He said, tapping his ghostly head.

“But thinking about all of that stuff hurts! Getting answers from you is far less painful!”

“Be at ease.” Yoketron replied. “That is merely your processor having trouble sorting and filing all the new information. In but a few solar cycles, the information will have been filtered properly for you, fitting to your unique processor and according to what you, as a bot, will personally require. You will have an imperfect knowledge of Cybertron and its inhabitants, but it should suffice for most of your needs.”

“But... but why?!” Applebloom howled at the fading image. “Why’s all of this happening to me? Why did y’all put that stuff in my brain in the first place? Why did the ship respond to me and not the other Crusaders? How is all of this possible? And why do you keep referring talking about my processors and brain models and things like I’m one of you?!”

Yoketron blinked.

“I would have thought it obvious, small one.” He said softly.

“You are one of us.”

Applebloom stopped. All of her panicked thoughts and any frantic questions she may have had simply ceased to be.

“No.” she said softly. “No that can’t be right. I’m Applebloom! I’m a member of the Apple family! Applejack is my sister and Big Macintosh is my big brother and Granny Smith is my Grandmother! I’m a Cutie Mark Crusader! I’m friends with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo and Pipsqueak and Twist and Featherwight and Button Mash and Miss Cheerilee! I’m a Ponyvillian and an Equestrian!”

“All of that you are, small one.” Yoketron nodded. “And you are also a Cybertronian.”

“No I’m not!” Applebloom stamped her nonexistent hoof.

Yoketron shook his head, his image flickering again. “Remember, small one, how I said that I failed in my mission in protecting the pre-alpha unit protoforms from harm?” When Applebloom didn’t respond, Yoketron kept going. “All of the protoforms under my care died. Perhaps it was in the Decepticon attack or perhaps they all expired in the crash landing. I know not. All I do know is that all of the protoforms ceased to function.

“...All but one.”

Yoketron pointed at Applebloom.

Applebloom gasped. “The empty slot.” She whispered, suddenly flashing back to the giant spherical room, one pod missing on the domed wall.

“Indeed,” Yoketron spoke. “That stasis pod was yours.”

“But...” Applebloom stuttered. “But that doesn’t make any sense!” She shouted. “How could I be like you?! I’m a filly! I’m an earth pony like AJ and Big Mac! If I’m a Cybertronian, how come I don’t look like y’all and walk around all robot like?!”

“I know not the answer to that, small one.” Yoketron shook his head. “My shell program was installed in the Axalon’s computer before I could observe the final fate of your protoform. I know not how you came to be what you are.” The image of Yoketron sighed, looking despondent as his image wavered again, this time more harshly. “I had hoped, when I uploaded this shell program and set up the eventual data transfer in the Axalon’s computer, that you would seek out this ship when you were truly ready: That when you discovered this ship, you would have already found out for yourself that you were much different from the other inhabitants of this world. It seems that you have discovered this place much earlier than you were intended to.”

Applebloom sniffled. “We were just playing in the woods. I didn’t mean to find this place. I never asked for all of this to happen and to suddenly find out I was some sort of alien robot.”

“I know, small one.” Yoketron said, a somber edge to his voice.

The two stood in silence for a few seconds, Yoketron’s image flickering again. Eventually, Yoketron broke the stillness.

“Applebloom,” He spoke softly.

Applebloom snapped to attention. “Y-yes, Mister Yoketron?”

“As this shell program is inside your mind, I am capable of seeing what you have experienced over the course of your short life. Out of respect for your privacy, though, I did not do so until just now. I merely assumed that you already knew that you were different from other inhabitants of this world and thrust upon you knowledge that you were not yet ready to behold. That was a mistake. If I had known that you were still so young and had no idea of what you are, I would have had the shell program command the Axalon to withhold the information for a later time. Alas, I have visited upon you a grave injustice this day. I can only beg for your forgiveness.” The giant, flickering robot bent down on one knee, his eyes turned to what would have been the floor were they not still in an empty void.

Applebloom was stunned. The giant robot was bowing to her and begging for her forgiveness?!

Yoketron continued. “While this program was originally intended only to bestow information about Cybertron and your heritage, I wish for you to know something more personal.”

“What is it?” Applebloom asked tentatively.

“While it is true that you are a child of Cybertron in body, you would do well to remember that in your Spark... your soul... you are a child of Equestria. Your adopted homeworld and your adopted family are as much a true family as any band of brothers you may have had on Cybertron. Indeed, it is as you said. Applejack is your sister, Big Macintosh your brother, and Granny Smith your grandmother. Your friends are still your friends and the town of Ponyville is still your home. You have long since departed from the world of Cybertron, and made a new home here. And if you were to ask me, you are much better for it. Even in the coming days, with all that you now know, with all the knowledge that I perhaps should not have bestowed upon you, remember that this is and will always be the place that you truly belong. Cybertron is likely a dead world now, with nothing for you. You need not concern yourself with it.”

“But I’m still-” Applebloom started to protest, but Yoketron cut her off.

“What was it you called yourself? An earth pony?”

“Y-yeah...” Applebloom stuttered.

“Do you still feel like an earth pony, or do you now feel like a Cybertronian at heart? Would you like to get on a spaceship and go out searching for Decepticons to fight, or would you prefer to stay here on the planet you’ve always known as home and live a peaceful life with people who care about you.”

“...no.” Applebloom said softly. “I am an earth pony. My name is Applebloom and I want to stay here with my family. With my friends.”

Yoketron smiled. “Then that is all that you truly need to know, small one.”

“But-” Applebloom tried to argue, only to see Yoketron’s flickering grow evermore intense, his image distorting and stretching for several moments before he came back into focus.

“It appears that our time is up, small one,” the giant robot said softly. “Remember well the wisdom I have imparted. Concern yourself not with a war that is a universe away. Live your life happily here among your real family. That is my final wish for you.”

“But Mister Yoketron, wait! I have a ton more questions!”

“And it pains me that I cannot answer them for you, small one. But my time has come.” The old Autobot raised a hand, as if to wave goodbye.

“...’Til all are one, Applebloom. Farewell.”

The image of the old Autobot flickered one last time and then vanished from sight. The void went white.

* * *

Applebloom awoke to an intense pounding in her head, as if a hundred tiny minotaurs were trying to smash their way out from inside of her skull. With jackhammers. The little filly groaned, a nauseous burp finding its way out from her stomach. Her limbs all felt stiff and weak and she felt a pervasive chill running through her body.

To make a long story short, she felt like horseapples.

“I think it’s waking up!” A familiar, high pitched voice whispered.

Applebloom shook her head. Her body felt peculiar. It felt almost like she’d been put through the rack; as if she’d been stretched out like taffy. Not to mention there was something else hard to describe about how she felt. It felt like she’d had the skin on her face rubbed raw, except without any pain. Her face felt a lot more sensitive, exposed, and a little moist, but it wasn’t exactly an unpleasant feeling. More alien than anything else. Weirdest of all was it felt like she was in a lying-down position, but she could feel from her orientation that she was very plainly standing up. All in all, it was a very perplexing feeling. And yet, it wasn’t entirely disagreeable. While it all certainly felt strange there was a certain comfort to it as well. The best way she could describe it was waking up after a long sleep, throwing off the covers and having a good morning stretch.

“Poke it with the stick again!” Another familiar, scratchier voice suggested.

The little filly suddenly felt a sharp prod against her cheek, causing a bizarre, harsh shiver to go down her spine. Applebloom attempted to tell whoever was poking her to “Knock it off,” but it came out more like “Nnrrrkedderrrfff.” She attempted to move her limbs but found that she couldn’t. They were bound by thick cord. Applebloom’s eyes snapped open, but her vision was too blurry to make anything out.

“It’s awake!” The scratchier voice shouted. “Quick, Sweetie! Knock it out again!”

“EEEEK!” She heard Sweetie Belle scream, moments before feeling a sharp strike against her skull and a loud metalling ‘CLANG’ resounded around the room.

“Aagh! Sweetie Belle, Why’d y’all go and do that!” Applebloom shouted, her vision still blurry and flickering from her groggy awakening and the recent assault on her cranium.

“It’s using its mind zapping powers to get into your brain, Sweetie! Hit it again!”

Again, something struck her skull. “Nyaaagh!” Applebloom grunted. “Cut it out, Sweetie!”

“It’s not working, Scootaloo!” She heard Sweetie Belle shriek.

Applebloom blinked away the pain, shaking her head and bringing her eyes into focus. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were standing before her, their postures defensive. A bent metal pipe was floating in Sweetie Belle’s aquamarine magical aura.

It was strange though. They seemed shorter than they usually were. “You guys, what’s the big idea?!” Applebloom shouted.

“What did you do with Applebloom?!” Scootaloo shouted, taking the metal pipe into her hooves.

“I am Applebloom, ya idjit!”

“Horseapples!” Scootaloo snapped, approaching the earth filly. “You aren’t Applebloom! You’re some sort of... of... Robo-Changeling!”

Applebloom couldn’t help but cock her head. “Robo-Changeling?! What kind of fool idea is that?!”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes and huffed. “Well, I sure don’t know what you are, but I know you can’t be Applebloom, that’s for sure!”

“How can you say that?! We’ve been friends for two years now! We formed the Cutie Mark Crusaders together at Diamond Tiara’s Cuteceñera!”

Scootaloo got a dangerous gleam in her eye. “No. We formed the Cutie Mark Crusaders with Applebloom.” She stamped her little orange hoof. “I don’t know how long you’ve been in Ponyville or how long you’ve been watching us, but I’m not letting my friends be captured by changelings... or whatever it is you are... again!”

Applebloom winced. Those few days where she and her friends had been captured by Queen Chrysalis and taken to her castle hive that she set up in the middle of the cuddle cat civilization were some of the worst she’d ever been through. If she hadn’t had her friends there to help her get through it with lighthearted banter and playful teasing, she might have broken under the pressure of it all. Still, she didn’t have any idea why Scootaloo was going on about that.

“Just why do y’all think I’m a ‘robo-changeling?’” She asked, annoyed.

“You let your disguise drop.” Scootaloo pointed at her.

“Disguise?”

“Sweetie Belle...” Scootaloo prompted. The little unicorn filly nodded, then reached out with her magic, weakly grabbing a shimmering plate of slightly warped metal and held it up for Applebloom to see. Her breath caught at what she saw in the reflection.

Mirrored in the sheet of metal, tied up with cord to a pipe, was a bipedal thing. It was shaped very similar to Yoketron from her dream. It had a round, silvery-blue head without a muzzle to speak of and a simple mouth where one should have been. The light yellow of her coat wrapped around the sides of the head and a lustrous red mane decorated by a familiar pink bow draped down its neck. The neck led down to a slightly curved torso, with a chest that seemed downright eerie, given that it seemed to have a disturbingly familiar face plastered onto it. From the shoulders dangled long arms ending in four silver fingers. And from the hips sprouted long silvery legs ending in familiar stubby hooves. Familiar, save for the wheels sprouting from the ankles. Most striking, though, was the eyes. They were pupil-less, glowing yellow lights. They could barely be called eyes in any traditional sense, they were simply voids of yellow light. The sight was so stunningly outlandish Applebloom found she simply couldn’t breathe. For a moment, her mind simply went blank.

This creature... this thing... was her.

‘This was what Mister Yoketron was talking about.’ Applebloom thought. ‘When he said I was one of them... that I was a Cybertronian...’ She gulped. ‘Is this the real me?’

Applebloom shook her head. She looked at Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. The pegasus was pawing at the ground angrily, like she was ready to attack Applebloom. Sweetie Belle on the other hand looked to be hiding from her, like she could break out of her binds at any time and attack them. It looked like it was taking all of her willpower just to stay there to keep the mirror aloft.

‘I can’t deal with that now,’ She thought to herself. ‘Right now, it’s more important that I keep my friends on my side.’

“Scootaloo...” Applebloom said slowly, using every last bit of her willpower to keep herself from completely freaking out. “...I swear, as a member of the Apple Family, that I am Applebloom.” She took a deep breath. “I promise you that, it’s me. Apparently I’ve always been a robot. I’m only just finding out about it now myself.”

The orange pegasus raised an eyebrow. “You really expect me to believe that?”

The robotic filly squinted her glowing yellow eyes. “What would I have to do to convince you?”

Scootaloo tapped her chin for a second. “Tell me about something that only we would know. Something we did when nopony else was around to see us together. Then maybe I’ll believe you.”

Applebloom racked her brain before coming up with a decent answer. “Hats.”

The orange filly cocked her head, perplexed. “Hats?”

She nodded. “When we first found Imp and discovered she was a mimicker, we brought her back to the clubhouse and made her an honorary crusader. Then we helped her practice her shapeshifting powers to see if she had a favorite form. We started by showing her a bunch of hats. Then toys. Then furniture, then power tools, then musical instruments. After an hour or so, she got tired of shapeshifting and we decided she’d stay with me for that night. And nopony else was around to see us.” Applebloom raised a metallic eyebrow. “And ’less I’m Imp, and I’m pretty sure I ain’t since Imp couldn’t talk Equestrian, there ain’t nopony else I could be but Applebloom.”

Scootaloo’s feathers bristled. “Yeah, well...” she stuttered, trying to come up with a retort.

Sweetie Belle came out from behind her cover, approaching Applebloom cautiously. “She... does have a point, Scootaloo. Maybe it is her?”

The pegasus shook her head. “No way! That wasn’t that long ago! I’ll bet she just replaced Applebloom before we met Imp!”

“It was a three months ago! Applebloom is our best friend. If she’d been replaced by a robo-changeling that long ago, I think we’d have noticed it before now.” She scurried a little closer toward Applebloom and stood beside her. “I... I think it’s actually her, Scootaloo.”

The orange filly crossed her arms. “No. I’m sorry, but I still can’t believe it. It’s like something straight out of a bad comic book. There’s no way Applebloom could actually be a robot.”

“Your mom calls you her little pumpkin-doodlebug.” Applebloom deadpanned.

At that word, Scootaloo’s ears pricked up and her posture went rigid.

Applebloom grinned wickedly. “It sure was a hoot, weren’t it Sweetie Belle? It was our first Cutie Mark Crusader sleepover at Scootaloo’s and the second we walk in the door, her ma’s all fawning over her and fussin’ at her little pumpkin-doodlebug’s mane an-”

“You jerk!” Scootaloo pointed with an accusing hoof. “You promised that you’d never bring that up again!” She slapped her hooves over her mouth just as the words slipped out, looking up to Applebloom with wide eyes.

The filly-bot smirked.

Scootaloo frowned at her. “Alright, Applebloom...” she twirled around at her, “if that IS your real name…” the robotic pony rolled her eyes at Scootaloo’s theatrics. “Maybe you’ve convinced me... or maybe you just stole Applebloom’s memories!”

Both Applebloom and Sweetie Belle rolled their eyes. “Scootaloo...” they both groaned.

“What’s Applebloom’s favorite color?!” Scootaloo shouted into her face.

“Red.” Applebloom deadpanned.

“What’s her favorite food?!” Scootaloo said, turning away from her and pacing around the room like a lawyer from a bad courtroom drama.

“Apple fritters.” She sighed as a pale green glow overtook the cords binding her.

“What’d I get her for her last birthday?”

“Some kinda weird toy rock that changed into an alien of some sort.” The cords fell off as Sweetie Belle tearfully ran up and hugged her, Applebloom wrapped her new, metal arms around the little filly.

“What kind of martial arts does Rainbow Dash and Rarity instruct her in?” Scootaloo said, still not looking towards the farm filly as she drew closer to the pair.

“Tae Pon Do.” Applebloom said, looking up from her hug with Sweetie Belle.

“A-HA!” Scootaloo shouted, only to accidentally bop her nose into Applebloom’s metal shins as she turned. The little orange pegasus fell onto her rump, rubbing her nose. Shaking it off, she glared at Sweetie Belle. “You let her out?!”

Sweetie Belle huffed. “Scootaloo, I really think that it’s Applebloom!”

Scootaloo sputtered. “But... but she got it wrong!”

The robotic filly rolled her eyes. “Actually, Scootaloo,” she said, letting go of Sweetie Belle and standing over her pegasus friend, “Rarity says it’s really called Tae Pon Do. Rainbow Dash just calls it Karate because she ‘parently don’t know its real name.”

Scootaloo’s ears folded down. “But... but...”

“Scoot...” Applebloom said, kneeling down to her level, “It’s me. I swear it.”

There was a moment of tense silence between the two of them, before the orange filly suddenly grabbed ahold of the robotic pony’s waist and squeezed tightly.

“I’m sorry, Applebloom...” Scootaloo cried.

Applebloom hugged her back. “It’s okay Scoots.”

Scootaloo broke the hug. “I thought something terrible had happened to you! I thought a robot had eaten you and stolen your brain and skin or something! Or that you’d turned into one of the Mechaponies from Nebulos like in those Flash Sentry serials!”

Applebloom rolled her eyes. “Naw, Scoots. I’m still me.”

“I mean, how was I supposed to know?” Scootaloo said, shuffling at the ground. “You fell of that giant desk thingy and then suddenly your body got all twisty and you turned into a robot! What were we supposed to think?”

Sweetie Belle nodded. “Yeah, I mean, nothing you’ve done ever made you seem like you were a robot. How were we supposed to know it was you?” She cocked her head. “I mean, have you really been a robot all this time?”

Applebloom rolled her yellow eyes. “It’s fine, gals. I’m not mad or nothing. If the same thing happened to either of you, I’d have probably freaked out myself.” She said, bending her arms and legs a little, testing out the joints, before looking at the little white unicorn. “And yeah, Sweetie. I reckon I always have been a robot.”

Scootaloo stamped a little hoof. “Why didn’t you tell us?!” she whined, before gasping and grabbing her shoulders. “Are you sworn to secrecy by your mad scientist creator? Did Big Macintosh build you?! I always knew that there was more to that big lug than he let on!” Scootaloo scowled. “He was always too quiet.”

Applebloom shook her head, incredulous. “What? No! I weren’t built by nopony!”

“But then how were you made?” Sweetie Belle asked, her head cocked.

“I...” Applebloom started to say, trying to remember how she might have come to be, only to buckle over in pain, clutching at her head. “Raaghh!”

“Applebloom!” Both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo shouted, quickly surrounding her and supporting her upright.

“It hurts... to remember...” Applebloom gasped out. Her mind swirled painfully with an overabundance of information. Images of strange beings made of liquid metal forced themselves into her mind. Living metal, endowed with a fragment of a spark, poured into molds in the heart of a mechanical planet. An enormous, spherical supercomputer giving them true life. Giving them shape and personality. Names, functions, and technical specs...

And then it left, just as it came. The pain faded away and the world oriented itself once more.

“I wasn’t built.” Applebloom mumbled. “I was... poured? Cast from living, molten metal in a high pressure mold, far away... on another planet!”

“Another planet?!” Sweetie Belle squeaked.

“Whoa... So that means...” Scootaloo stamped a hoof and grinned “I knew it!”

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes.

Scootaloo buzzed her little wings. “What was it like? Do you know?”

Applebloom shook her head. “It hurts to remember...”

Sweetie Belle pouted. Scootaloo stamped a hoof. “Well, why didn’t you tell us?!” The pegasus filly whined. “Why couldn’t you tell us you were a robot?!” she cocked a head “Shaped like a troll or a minotaur, no less!”

“’Cuz I just found out today myself, Scootaloo.” Applebloom explained, pointing at the console she fell from. “When I touched that thing, it stuck a whole bunch of information into my head. Too much information,” she grumbled, rubbing her head with a metallic hand. “I can’t keep most of it straight without getting a splittin’ headache.”

“Are you sure it didn’t turn you INTO a robot?” Sweetie Belle asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Not according to Mister Yoketron.” Applebloom explained.

Scootaloo blinked. “Mister who?”

Applebloom pointed at the towering dead robot still sitting in the massive metal chair. “He put his brain in the computer I touched just before he died or something, but he didn’t see how I became, well... me. He explained a lot of things to me when I fainted after I touched the computer but...” she trailed off, her eyes downcast, “he’s gone now...”

The robotic filly went silent, her head beginning to pound again as information about Cybertron swept through her mind, unbidden. She hissed, clutching her head and sending the information away. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looked between each other for a minute before the little unicorn cleared her throat.

“Applebloom? Are you alright?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Applebloom snapped out of her reverie and looked at the little unicorn. “I don’t know, Sweetie. This is way too much to take in in one day.” She took a step forward toward Yoketron, only to stumble over her own two feet and fall to the ground. The other fillies were by her side in a moment, helping her up. “Darn things. How does anybody walk around on two legs?”

“You really didn’t know you were a robot, didja?” Scootaloo chuckled.

Applebloom righted herself and took another step, slower this time. Slowly she crossed the room toward Yoketron, steadily getting the hang of two-legged mobility. As she reached the colossal robot, she looked up into its darkened face. Her eyes trailed down his form somberly, resting on his chest for a moment, taking in the emblem he wore proudly on his chestplate in life. She contemplated the meaning of the shield for a moment, before her eyes continued downward. Sighing, she rested a hand on the dead robot’s upper shin.

“Thanks...” she muttered under her breath, before turning and walking away from the robot. Turning back toward the other two she smiled at them. “I got a lotta thinking to do, girls, but... I think I’ll be alright.”

“You sure?” Scootaloo asked.

Applebloom just nodded.

“I just realized,” Sweetie Belle said, lifting a hoof. “Are you stuck like this now? I think your family is going to be a little shocked to see you come back home a two-legged robot taller than Big Macintosh.”

Applebloom’s eyes lit up. “Oh! I think I can do something! Lemme give it a shot!” Applebloom clenched her eyes shut, curling her new fingers into a fist and scowling as she tried to concentrate. The headache encroached again for just a moment when all of a sudden, her body started shifting and twisting again. Her fingers retracted back into her arm and her old pony face lifted up off of her chest back over her eyes and mouth. Her midsection compressed and her neck slid backwards, shifting her orientation again. Her limbs compressed and her center of gravity shifted again. Her mane lifted back up and oriented itself atop her head again.

“Whooa! WHOA!” Applebloom shouted, stumbling over onto her rump as the transformation finished. Dazed and upside down, though she may have been, Applebloom was back to her pony self.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo stared, jaws dropped for a moment before they squealed and tackled the filly with glee. The three of them tumbled a few feet across the metal floor before coming to a stop.

“You’re back to normal!” Scootaloo shouted, hugging her midsection.

“And you don’t FEEL like metal anymore.” Sweetie Belle said, poking at her face. “Your fur and skin feels just like any other pony. How do you do it?”

Applebloom righted herself out from under the two happy fillies. “I don’t know.” She said with a little shrug. “Not sure I want to think about it too much, though. There’s prolly an explanation, but I don’t want to risk the headache.” She said, rubbing the back of her head with a hoof.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, Applebloom!” Scootaloo shouted. “Look at your flank!”

The yellow filly blinked. “My flank? What’re y’all-” she started to say, only to turn around and gasp. Her flank flashed with a bright light for a second before fading away to reveal a picture.

“Oh my gosh!” Applebloom squealed. “I got it! I finally got my cutie mark!” She squealed, leaping up and hugging the other cutie mark crusaders.

“What is it?” Sweetie Belle asked, cocking her head.

Applebloom spun around in a circle, gazing at the newfound mark. “It looks like an apple mixed with an Autobot symbol!”

“Auto-” Sweetie tried to ask but she was cut off by Applebloom’s rambling.

“What Mister Yoketron said must be right! I’m an Apple as much as I am a robot!” She grinned. “I was worried for a bit, but now I know! This is so amazing I can barely think!”

“But what’s it for?” Scootaloo asked. “What does it mean you can do?”

Applebloom stopped spinning in place for a second, scratching her head. “I dunno, really. It must have something to do with being a robot. There are probably a bunch of things I can do as a robot that I never knew I could, so I guess I’ll just have to figure that out.” She smiled. “Hay, maybe I’m just good at everything a robot can do.”

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. “Almost sounds like you still don’t know what your special talent is.”

That snapped her out of it. The filly frowned, scratching her head again. “I... I dunno. I feel like I’ve figured something out, but you’re right. I don’t really know what my ‘special talent’ is.”

Sweetie Belle tapped her chin. “Rarity told me once that when she got her cutie mark she didn’t really know what to make of it either. She said that she knew she got it for finding gems, but wasn’t really sure what that meant for her until a few weeks later.” She shrugged. “Maybe you have to figure out something similar?”

Applebloom frowned. “But I’m not even sure what I just got it for. I musta done something just now that gave it to me, but I’m not even sure what that is!” She groaned. “Great. I got a cutie mark, but I don’t even know what it’s for, unless it’s just ‘being a robot.’” She scuffed the ground with a hoof. “What kinda talent is ‘being a robot’ supposed to be?”

“Aw, come on, Applebloom.” Sweetie Belle said, wrapping a hoof around her neck. “I mean, I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that you’re a robot, but just ‘being a robot’ can’t be it.”

“Besides,” Scootaloo said, slapping her over the back, “Even if it is just ‘being a robot,’ that’s a cooler talent than you’re making it out to be.”

Applebloom raised an eyebrow. “Ya think?”

Sweetie Belle giggled. “I sure can’t do it!”

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle chuckled a bit as Applebloom’s face lifted into a smile.

“And remember,” Scootaloo said, “We are the cutie mark crusaders! We’ve always tried to help each other find our special talents, and now we’ll help you figure this mystery mark out! You can count on us, Applebloom!”

“Yeah!” Sweetie agreed.

Applebloom grabbed up the other two in a big hug. “Thanks, gals.” She sighed, her mind wandering as she was squeezed by her two best friends in the world. Breaking the hug, she nodded to her two friends. “I think, I want to go home, now.” She looked up at the slumped form of Yoketron. “It’s been... something. But I really need to go home and see my family now.”

“I’m sorry I got you into all this, Bloom.” Scootaloo said, scuffing a hoof.

Applebloom shook her head. “Naw, Scoots. I think I needed to see this. I’d have figured out I was... different sooner or later. Better to get it over with, I suppose.” She shrugged and pointed at her flank, “And hey, I got a cutie mark out of it!”

Scootaloo nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s right.”

The farm filly wiped her brow. “But right now, I need to get home. It’s been enough excitement for one day, ya know?”

“Oh no!” Sweetie Belle squeaked, the two turning to her, shocked. “I just realized, we’ve been here for hours now! It’s probably gotten dark outside!”

“Oh, hay!” Applebloom groaned. “Applejack’s gonna tan my hide! We told her we’d be back before sunset!”

Scootaloo buzzed her tiny wings, galloping out of the massive chamber back into the hallway. “C’mon, girls, we gotta go!”

The three little fillies galloped out of the massive control chamber, the lights dimming and flickering out as they left. Neither Applebloom, nor the others, however, were aware of what was happening right behind them. In the darkened room, sitting upon the console that had transformed little Applebloom, was a blinking red light.

* * *

A massive black and purple starcraft floated in the void of space. Starlight glittered off of its polished hull as it sailed through the sea of stars. It hung like a harbinger of death above a small planet in the Gamma sector of space.

Through the massive, dimly-lit halls of the ship, eerie mechanical beings stalked. Peering emotionlessly at readouts on holographic screens, silently throwing switches and dials, none of them said a word. All of them were identical; chrome and violet with a piercing red eye and a spiked chassis.

The silence was deafening throughout the bridge of the ship. The only sounds to hear were the footsteps of the mechanical monstrosities as they stalked from station to station, keeping the ship running, all of them averting their glowing red eyes from the massive chair that sat in the middle of the room.

A whooshing noise suddenly rang out through the room, causing every red, cycloptic eye to turn to the bridge entry. A distinctive newcomer, red and black in chassis with two orange eyes, large red shoulders, and black ridges running down the top of his head, stood there with a dispassionate look upon his face. He scowled at the Vehicons, waving at them to go about their business, then brushing some dust off of his front as he stepped into the room. His arms crossed over his front as he approached the massive seat in the center of the room, only to stumble back when a growling buzz echoed out from the ceiling.

The red robot looked up to see a massive insectoid mech dropping from above him. The Insecticon hissed at him, his sickly green face opening in an alien, sideways manner as he screeched.

The red Decepticon hardly flinched. “Oh, bug off, Waspinator. I have news for the boss.”

The green, insectoid robot known as Waspinator raised a sickly claw, pointing accusingly at him. “Masssster sssaid he did not wish to being disssssturbed. Dead-bot will sssstaying away.” The bug’s hackles raised, his wings buzzing and claws flexing.

“This news is vital enough to interrupt his pointless daily sulking session.” The red robot said, stepping forward challengingly. The Insecticon took a step back in response, buzzing out a growl. “Now let me through and get back to wallowing in your filth elsewhere.”

Waspinator hissed, his purple compound eye gazing back at the newcomer threateningly, but eventually he relented and buzzed back up to the ceiling, grabbing a hold of it with his claws and crawling along the roof out the entryway.

The newcomer rolled his orange eyes, striding towards the massive seat at the center of the room. His arms still crossed, the robot gazed into the shadows where his master sat, only his massive purple feet visible in the dimly lit room.

“Why do you disturb me, Dead End?” A low, monotone voice spoke out from the shadow.

The one known as Dead End straightened up. “Sir,” he began, “we’ve just picked up a signal on the scanner. An Autobot distress signal.”

The figure in the seat remained motionless. “The Autobots have been encrypting their distress signals since the middle of the war so we could not pick them up. This must be an older one...” the monotone voice trailed off.

“Indeed, sir.” Dead End replied. “The good doctor and his brute were saying that older Autobot ships sometimes carried artifacts from the Iacon Archives or valuable resources they meant to smuggle offworld before the war got too heated.”

“I am aware.” The voice betrayed no emotion.

Dead End continued, “Blitzwing was saying that they may just have the sort of thing you’re looking for to finish your various projects.”

“Where is the signal emanating from?”

“Not far, sir.” Dead End smirked. “A short hop over to Epsilon Sector. A planet logged on Cybertronian star charts as 8090-P.”

“I am familiar.” The voice rumbled. “A cosmological curiosity, as the planet is orbited by a star, despite all logic.”

Dead End cleared his throat. “Your orders, sir?”

There was a moment of silence as Dead End stared into the shadows. Slowly, a single, red-glowing eye peered out of the darkness. The figure leaned forward, looming over the red and black con. A massive cannon lifted out of the darkness in place of his left arm and was brought to rest on the his lap. Dead End gulped as the figure ponderously stood up and gazed down at him.

“...Activate the transwarp drive, Dead End.”

Dead End bowed. “By your command, Shockwave.”

Author's Note

Starring Steve Blum as Waspinator,
Malcolm McDowell as Dead End
David Sobolov as Shockwave
And guest starring George Takei as Yoketron

Sorry! Sorry... This took longer than it should have.

Then again, you can say that about pretty much anything I write. Heck I should make that my motto. "That took longer than it should have."

To be fair, the chapter has been done for almost a week now. It's just taken this long for all the prereaders to get back to me.

Anyway, Here is the second chapter. It's largely exposition, meant to explain the setting and the situation that Applebloom and the Transformers in general are in. I apologize if that puts anybody off. I also apologize if anybody is put off by the massive, MASSIVE number of references that I managed to stick into the story. I know a lot of people aren't big on "reference humor," but I just thought it would be fun for other transformers fans if they saw a few familiar elements show up here and there.

I also apologize for the egregious "lavender unicorn syndrome" that my writing suffers from. >_< I swear I'm trying to get better about stuff like that, but it's really difficult when my writing is so dialogue heavy and every other line begins with "X said" or "she said." It wouldn't be so bad if there was a male character in here, but sadly MLP is, naturally, 90% female.

Also, Flash Sentry is an actor in this continuity. He plays Pony Flash Gordon. He is now immensely cooler than that awful movie made him out to be. But Equestria Girls hasn't happened in this continuity yet and likely will not happen (though he may one day go to the Crystal Empire to do a shoot).

I stand by my choice to make this an Alternate Universe fic, by the way, as I'm HOPING to make a series out of this story. This story takes place before Season 3 and other stories in the series will be alternate, slightly changed (or perhaps massively changed) versions of Season 3. With Robot Applebloom.

Because robots make everything better. Especially ones that transform.

I've linked to a number of terms and characters in this story. This should help explain a lot of information that newcomers might otherwise not know. Remember, this story takes place in the Aligned continuity family. This means that events are more concurrent with the Prime cartoon, the War for/Fall of Cybertron games, and the Exiles/Exodus novels than anything else. However, in some cases, such as the design and attitude of Dead End, for example, were inspired by other continuities (as Dead End doesn't do much in the Aligned continuity other than being a swappable skin for the Decepticon Scout class). In Dead End's case, his character and personality was more inspired by his G1 and Movie continuity counterparts, while Waspinator's character was largely inspired by his Animated appearance. There will be other references to elements from other continuities, but it's important to remember that PRIMARILY, this takes place in the Aligned family.

Anyway, click on the links spread throughout the story to get context on a number of the terms and characters involved if you need it. ;)

Also, see if you can find the secret links to youtube in the story. BD

So, yeah. A lot of exposition, a lot of dialogue, and also the introduction to our villains of our picture. I hope that you all enjoy the dastardly baddies that I've chosen to cause poor Applebloom trouble (and there's still one who has yet to show up on the ship). And if this chapter made you all suddenly hate my story, then, well, I can't really blame you and I'm sorry that I disappointed. ^^;

Anyway, that's all for now. Hopefully I'll get my next chapter out right quicklike.

And look for a new chapter of Super Smash Bros: Disharmony, coming out tomorrow!

Special thanks to Taco Belle, FanOfMostEverything, and my best buddy in the world, Atomic Chinchilla for prereading this chapter!

Ch3: Faster than a Speeding Photon

___________________________________________________________________________________

Applebloom: Transform and Rollout!
by Dusty the Royal Janitor

Chapter 3: Faster than a Speeding Photon

The gigantic metal door embedded into the hill in Whitetail Wood whooshed open as the three little fillies galloped into the failing light. Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo all let out a collective groan of dismay. The sun was already beginning to set on the horizon as Celestia’s day made way for Luna’s night. Sweetie Belle rubbed her forehead with a hoof as the light dimmed.

“Oh great,” she whined. “We were supposed to be back at Sweet Apple Acres before dark! Oh, Rarity’s gonna kill me.” She buried her face in her hooves.

Scootaloo looked up at the sky. “I could get back there on my scooter in time, but it’d be pushing it.” She glanced at the other crusaders. “And there’s not a chance I could get you two there without the wagon.”

Applebloom frowned, trotting over to her beloved wagon. She sighed as she looked at the pile of scrap metal. She had told Applejack that she’d be back before curfew, and knew that she’d be punished if she didn’t keep her word. It was an extra kick in the flank that not only would she probably be grounded for a day or two, but she’d also lost one of her favorite possessions as well.

There was also that teensy discovery about being an alien. Jury was still out on exactly how much that little detail sucked.

“I guess we’d better get moving,” Sweetie Belle sighed. “Scootaloo, why don’t you ride ahead on the scooter and let our sisters know we’re coming at least?”

“Yeah,” Applebloom agreed as she put a hoof to her forehead. “That... nngh...” she grunted as a lance of pain shot through her skull. “That sounds like a good plan.”

Scootaloo blinked as she put on her helmet. “Are you okay, Applebloom? You having another memory headache thingy?”

Applebloom shook her head, clenching her eyes shut. “I don’t know. It feels kinda like somethin’s pushing out from behind my eyes.”

“Are you going to transform again?” Sweetie Belle asked, watching her friend closely.

“Nah, that feels different.” The yellow filly grit her teeth. “It feels more like- GAH!” Applebloom suddenly stumbled, barely regaining her balance before she fell to the ground. Her eyes snapped open, glowing bright green.

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle jumped back in alarm as beams of green light fired out of Applebloom’s eyes, engulfing the remains of the wagon. Applebloom yelped as the eerie light rays moved up and down over the scrap metal, taking in every detail of its make. Applebloom began to twitch, her mouth falling open and foaming a little as the beams receded, though her eyes continued to glow green.

“Applebloom!” Sweetie and Scootaloo both shouted as the two of them rushed over to help their friend. Applebloom didn’t respond as she continued to seize up.

“What’s wrong with her?!” Sweetie Belle shouted, watching as the yellow filly shook. “Scootaloo, go get Applejack!”

Scootaloo nodded and jumped onto her scooter. Before the little pegasus could take off, though, a familiar sound rang out through the clearing.

Applebloom’s back split open and shifted outwards. Her head and tail retracted into her torso and her legs split to reveal small wheels. Her body sunk inwards and compacted into itself, flesh folding inwards to reveal red metal. The process continued as her torso widened outward and got flatter with a large basin in the middle. Her legs shrank and compacted into the rectangular bowl that was once Applebloom’s torso. A handled rod expanded from where her face used to be, and an imprint of her new cutie mark appeared above it. With a resounding clank, the transformation completed.

The two crusaders gasped. Where Applebloom stood before, there was now a small red wagon.

There was silence in the glade for a minute. Only the sounds of wildlife and the wind rustling through the leaves was audible as the two little ponies stared at the brand new red wagon. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looked between one another and the wagon, a look of pure confusion on their faces. Neither was sure, after everything they’d seen that day, whether they should be horrified, astonished, or even excited at this latest change.

“...Applebloom?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Are you okay?”

The wagon was silent for a moment. The two crusaders were just beginning to settle on worried when a voice suddenly sprung from the wagon.

“Scootaloo? Sweetie Belle? Why do I feel all twisty again?” The little cutie mark on the wagon’s front seemed to flash every time it spoke. Applebloom’s voice was emerging from the little transport, even though there was no mouth or face to speak of. The two crusaders jumped back in shock.

“For the love of Celestia, Applebloom!” Scootaloo shouted. “Would you cut it out?!”

“Cut what out?” Applebloom asked, sounding a little dazed. “I’m not really sure what happened. I feel like I’m bein’ squashed between two mattresses or something... wait...” She trailed off, the wagon shuddering. Her voice suddenly exploded from the wagon again, this time sounding panicked. “Why can’t I move my head?! My legs aren’t moving! What’s going on?!” The little symbol on her front flashed brightly as the wagon panicked.

“Applebloom, you just turned into the wagon!” Sweetie Belle shouted.

“I- ...wait what?!” Applebloom yelped, stunned. “Are y’all pullin’ my tail?!” she said skeptically.

Sweetie Belle shook her head. “No seriously, look at yourself!” she said, pointing to the large metal doors.

The wagon shuddered again but didn’t move. “I can’t!” Applebloom shouted.

“You can’t move?” Scootaloo asked, worriedly.

“No! I don’t have any... wait a minute...” The little wagon trailed off. Slowly, the little wheels below her squeaked a bit and the wagon rolled forward under her own power. “Whoa...” she gasped as she continued rolling forward. “I’m moving!”

Sweetie Belle held up a hoof. “Easy, Applebloom,” she said.

Applebloom kept rolling. “I’m moving!” The little wagon squeaked. “This feel really weird. It’s like rolling my wrists, except like a wheel instead of like a wrist should roll.” The handle pulled to the left and the wagon rolled to face Sweetie Belle. “Y’all said I turned into the wagon?”

Sweetie Belle pointed at the large, reflective doors once again. “Go ahead and look for yourself!”

The wagon’s handle pulled to the right as she rolled towards the doors. The small reflection of a bright red wagon appeared in the metal as she approached them. “Whoa...” Applebloom whispered. “What in the name of Celestia is up with me today?!”

“That’s what I’d like to know!” Scootaoo shouted, throwing her hooves up in the air, her little helmet falling off. “You need to stop pulling stuff like this, Applebloom!”

“It’s not like I’m trying to scare y'all!” Applebloom defended herself. “I’m just as surprised about this as you are!”

“I know, it’s just... UGH!” Scootaloo slapped a hoof to her face. “I just don’t know what to expect out of you anymore! What’s next? Are you going to turn into an airship? Shoot lightning out of your flank? Grow wings and a horn and turn into a princess? Suddenly, being around you is more random than being around Pinkie Pie!”

If wagons could wilt, Applebloom would have. “I’m not trying to scare you girls,” she murmured. “I didn’t ask to be a freak...”

“Freak?!” Scootaloo shouted, marching up to the little carriage. “You think you’re a freak?! Applebloom this is awesome!”

Applebloom was stunned. “Wait, what?”

“You can turn into a wagon and still talk and move on your own! You’re also a robot filly from outer space with who knows what up her sleeve!” she said, poking at the cutie mark emblazoned on the wagon’s front. “It’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen, aside from a few of the things Rainbow Dash has done.”

“...Ya really think so?” Applebloom asked, almost speechless.

“Yeah, dummy!” Scootaloo said, slapping at one of her wheels. “But you can’t just keep throwing this stuff at us! At least give us time to adjust before you go turning into a tank and setting the Everfree on fire! You’re going to completely blow our minds at this rate!”

“I... okay,” Applebloom stuttered.

“Scootaloo has a weird way of putting it, but she’s right.” Sweetie Belle chimed in. “I’m okay with this as long as you’re still Applebloom in there, but go easy on us will you? You scared us to death back there when you started foaming at the mouth and twitching!”

“Yeah, we thought you had ragies!” Scootaloo said, nodding in agreement.

Sweetie Belle deadpanned at orange pegasus. “The word is rabies, Scootaloo.”

“Whatever, dictionary.”

“Sorry gals,” Applebloom said softly. “I’m not trying to freak y’all out or blow your minds or nothing. This scared me as much as it did you two.”

Sweetie Belle sidled up to the little wagon. “What was even up with the foaming and twitching?”

“It felt like there were things inside of me moving around,” Applebloom said, her chassis shuddering a little. “Like my guts and bones were getting themselves rearranged or something. I just sorta froze up at the feeling for a while. I’m really sorry I scared you.”

“You can change back, though, right?” Sweetie Belle asked. “I mean, no offense, but it feels kinda weird talking to a wagon.”

“Well...” the little wagon trailed off. “Let me try. Give me a second.”

The two crusaders backed away from the wagon as it started to shake. The metal chassis rattled as the wagon suddenly flipped up, the metal rods attaching the wheels to the wagon expanding and folding outwards into limbs once more and the wheels disappearing into them. The body of the wagon pushed outwards and twisted, reforming into a pony torso, which a tail quickly pushed out from. Applebloom’s head reemerged from where the handle was, the handle flipping backwards into where her spine would be. In moments, the filly stood again where the wagon had been.

Applebloom stumbled a bit. “Oog...” she groaned. “It still makes me dizzy.” She shook her head. “From what I saw in the memories, other robots could transform real easy-like.”

“Maybe you just have to get used to it?” Scootaloo suggested.

“Maybe...” Applebloom trailed off. “Hang on, back up gals. Let me see.”

The fillies backed up even further as Applebloom took a deep breath and clenched her eyes shut. Suddenly she shifted outwards, hands emerging from her limbs and her spine expanding and pulling outward again. In a moment, she fully transformed herself into her Celestia-sized robot mode. She didn’t even stop to let the crusaders speak or open her eyes before shifting back into filly mode, the transformation perfectly reversing itself. Then from filly mode, she flattened herself out and brought her limbs inward turning herself into a wagon again. Then from the wagon she turned back into a filly, filly to robot, and so on and so forth.

After about two minutes of non-stop transforming, Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Applebloom, what do you think you’re doing?!”

The wagon turned back into a filly, her eyes spinning and dizzily dancing back and forth. Applebloom shook herself straight to look at the pegasus. “I’m transforming back and forth to get used to it. Trying to get the dizziness to go away.”

“Well stop it,” Scootaloo said. “We’re wasting time!”

“What now?” Applebloom asked.

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. “Applebloom, we have to get back home!”

Applebloom’s eyes widened. “Oh shoot, y’all are right!”

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle shared a look. “Of course, and now we’ll all be late.” Sweetie Belle muttered.

“Not necessarily...” Scootaloo said with a Cheshire grin. “We might be a little late, but not enough to get in too much trouble.”

Sweetie Belle pointed at the sky. “Scootaloo, it’s already getting dark. The sun’s nearly set as it is.”

“True, but I could get you back if we had the wagon!” Scootaloo chirped as she fastened her helmet to her head. “And now... we have a wagon.” She said, pointing a hoof at Applebloom.

Applebloom blinked. “What, seriously?”

“Totally!” Scootaloo shouted. “Sweetie Belle can ride in you!”

Sweetie scuffed a hoof along the ground. “I don’t know if that’ s such a good idea, Scootaloo.”

“Oh come on!” Scootaloo insisted. “It’ll be great!”

“I think it’s a mite presumptuous that y’all would think that I’d be okay with another filly riding in me,” Applebloom replied, cocking an eyebrow.

“And I’m not sure I’m comfortable riding in one of my best friends,” Sweetie Belle said, looking at Applebloom worriedly.

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Oh don’t be such babies.” She pointed up at the sky. “You two want to get home by dark, right?”

“Well... yeah,” Applebloom said.

“Then come on!” Scootaloo pressed. “It’ll be a slow walk home, otherwise!”

Applebloom looked at Sweetie Belle. “But what if I throw her? I don’t want Sweetie getting hurt! I’m not that good with rollin’ yet!”

“Well then what better time to practice?” Scootaloo asked with a cocky grin. “Come on, Applebloom! Wagon yourself!”

Applebloom huffed, looking between Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle for a minute. Finally, Sweetie shrugged and Applebloom sighed. “Alright. Give me a sec.”

“Awesome!” Scootaloo shouted. “Now hurry up! Time’s wasting!”

Applebloom rolled her eyes and then took a deep breath. Focusing herself, she quickly shifted herself back into her wagon mode once again. Once the transformation was completed, she rolled up to Sweetie Belle and bumped her a little with her handle. “Alright, if we’re going to do this, let’s go now,” she insisted, still sounding hesitant. Sweetie Belle climbed inside her bowl-like body and sat rigidly, unsure about the whole scenario.

The little wagon rolled up to Scootaloo’s scooter, where the orange pegasus was dutifully fixing the clasp of her helmet. “What are you doing?” Scootaloo asked.

“Waitin’ for y’all to hook me up to the scooter?” Applebloom said, as though it should have been obvious.

“Nuh-uh.” The filly grinned. “I’ve never had a friend with proper wheels before. Your wagon was cool, but you couldn’t propel it without my help,” Scootaloo said proudly. “Now you can move around on your own. No, we’re doing this properly.

“You don’t mean-” Sweetie Belle squeaked.

“Scootaloo...” Applebloom trailed off threateningly.

“That’s right!” The orange pegasus buzzed her wings challengingly. “We’re having a race.” She pointed at Applebloom. “You and me! Robo-power versus pega-power!” She grinned mockingly. “Unless you’re too chicken.”

Sweetie Belle patted Applebloom’s chassis. “Don’t take the bait, Applebloom.”

The wagon backed up. “Don’t worry, Sweetie, I’m not.”

“Oh well.” Scootaloo shrugged, still smiling smugly. “I guess it makes sense. I mean, your sister is too chicken to answer most of Rainbow Dash’s challenges anyway.”

The wagon stopped rolling. “What did y’all say?”

“I mean obviously all a chicken can raise is another chicken, am I right?” Scootaloo continued to taunt.

Silence permeated the clearing once more.

“Sweetie Belle,” Applebloom stated. “Hold on tight.”

“What?!” she squeaked.

“Awesome!” Scootaloo cheered simultaneously.

The wagon rattled. “Ain’t nopony calling my sister a chicken and getting away with it!”

“Applebloom!” Sweetie protested, quickly lifting her fallen helmet off of the ground and fastening it to her head. “I really don’t think this is a good idea!”

The wagon rolled up to Scootaloo, bopping her in the chest softly. “What are the terms?”

“First pony that passes the gate at Sweet Apple Acres wins,” Scootaloo said, her hooves crossed.

“Deal!” Applebloom shouted.

“Guyyyyyys!” Sweetie Belle whined.

Scootaloo hopped on her scooter and revved her wings. “Are you ready?”

Applebloom spun a single wheel, kicking up some dirt. “Are you?”

Sweetie Belle gripped the sides of the wagon tightly. “Can we not?!”

“On your mark!” Scootaloo shouted, leaning into the handlebars of her scooter.

“Get set!” Applebloom’s chassis lowered to the ground a little.

“GO!”

Sweetie Belle’s scream could be heard all the way in Canterlot.

* * *

The two of them zipped through the trees of the Whitetail Wood like bullets escaping the barrel of a pistol. Scootaloo and Applebloom rolled along the path out of the wood faster than Pinkie Pie on a sugar rush. The path was bumpy and trees constantly sprung up in their path, but the two of them were agile enough to get around every obstacle, to Applebloom’s surprise.

Scootaloo stuck her tongue out as she beat her wings. The little pegasus pulled ahead slightly, more familiar with her wheels than Applebloom was. Applebloom was giving her a run for her money, though. The wagon was close behind her and keeping pace.

Sweetie Belle had to keep ducking into Applebloom to avoid branches and tree limbs. “Slow down!” She cried.

“No way!” Applebloom shouted, putting on a burst of speed and gaining on the pegasus. “We’re gonna make it to Sweet Apple Acres on time and I’m gonna thrash Scootaloo!”

“As if!” Scootaloo called back at them, swerving around a rock jutting out of the path. “You’re too slow!”

Applebloom growled, her wheels kicking up dirt as she willed herself to move even faster, dodging around the other side of the rock. Applebloom swerved around a tree and rolled up alongside Scootaloo. The pegasus grinned and sped up to a root, kicking off of it and leaping on her scooter through the air over a mud puddle. Applebloom hit the puddle and lurched, causing Sweetie Belle to jerk a little, but quickly made it out of the muck. Scootaloo had a decent lead on her now, though.

The pegasus leaned and skidded as a curve came up in the path. Sparks flew from her wheels as she leaned into the turn, making dirt and pebbles fly everywhere as Scootaloo sped on. Applebloom trailed close behind her, turning into the skid herself, throwing Sweetie Belle around inside her.

“Get back here!” Applebloom shouted, her apple symbol shining like a headlight in the growing twilight.

The orange pegasus chuckled cockily as she glanced back at her opponent. She turned back to look at the path and gasped, noticing that it led directly into a brook.

Scootaloo sputtered and hacked as she sped through the water, slowing down in an attempt to regain control as the water pushed against her.

Applebloom banked left and drove herself up a slope, leaping clean over the brook and speeding in front of Scootaloo.

“Oh, hay no!” Scootaloo shouted, leaping out of the brook, and beat her wings like a bumblebee, drying herself instantly. In a moment, she was back on the path again and on Applebloom’s tail.

Scootaloo tailgated Applebloom all the way through the forest. The two of them exploded out of the trees, kicking up dirt and leaves and scaring away wildlife returning to their dens to rest for the night. As the two of them burst free, Scootaloo leaped over a stump and managed to get a slight burst of speed as she sailed through the air. The two of them were neck and neck as the village of Ponyville came into their sights.

There were still some ponies wandering the streets as the two vehicles burst into the streets. Ponies ducked out of the way as they flew down the dirt and cobblestone paths of the town. Scootaloo and Applebloom giggled mischievously while Sweetie Belle squealed and yelped nervously at all the near misses. Onlooking ponies swore they heard three voices coming from the little monsters but could only see two ponies. By the next morning, though, they would all merely shrug it off as more Crusader antics.

Applebloom and Scootaloo sped through the Ponyville marketplace. Some of the later vendors were still closing up shop and had to leap into their stalls to avoid the oncoming terrors. Scootaloo giggled as she quickly banked left around a still open stall, the stallion running it quickly ducking behind his wares. Applebloom didn’t turn fast enough and ended up slamming into the legs of the stall, knocking the stallion’s vegetables on the ground and causing them to roll all over the place. Sweetie Belle was jostled by the impact and Applebloom was momentarily stunned, but the race still continued.

As the three of them sped off, they heard the voice of the stallion behind them bemoaning the state of his cabbages.

The fillies sped through the town, swerving around the town’s various landmarks. They raced past the Golden Oaks library and Sugarcube corner and into the town square where Mayor Marion M. Mare was locking up Town Hall for the night. She was just stepping down the front stairs when she was almost run over by the three little terrors.

The Mayor’s trademark cravat spun around her neck like a loopty hoop, before finally settling backwards upon her. Huffing indignantly, she rolled her eyes after the Crusaders, but they had already sped over one of the town’s many footbridges and out of sight before she could admonish them properly.

Up ahead, the Ponyville fountain was next.

Scootaloo still had a lead on Applebloom as she ramped up a wooden plank that leaned over a crate, then sailed through the air. She splashed through the fountain, causing water to go everywhere.

Sweetie Belle and Applebloom squealed as water splashed over them, causing Applebloom to spin out, and Sweetie to clutch the sides of the wagon even tighter in terror.

Surprising them both, Applebloom spun out and slammed into a lamp post. Luckily, it seemed she and Sweetie were both unharmed. There wasn’t even a dent in Applebloom’s chassis.

“You okay, Sweetie?” Applebloom asked, her cutie mark symbol flashing.

“I think I’m gonna be sick...” Sweetie Belle replied woozily.

“You’ll be fine!” Applebloom encouraged, and got her wheels spinning again. “Come on!” There was no way she was losing.

The two of them sped down the path, trying to gain on Scootaloo, but the pegasus had too much of a lead now. She leaned into a right turn, causing more sparks to fly from her scooter’s undercarriage, and made a sharp turn down another road around the Quills and Sofas shop.

“Come on!” Applebloom shouted, aiming for an open window. “We’re taking a shortcut!”

“What?! No!” Sweetie Belle yelled, but it was too late. Applebloom flew up the back steps of the store and through the open window, Sweetie Belle screaming the whole way.

They both flew into the building through the showroom, only to bounce off of a very plush loveseat, then past a wall of specialty quills and colored inks.

The proprietor, Davenport, yelped and leaped back in shock as a white and red blur bounced onto the showroom floor and sped through his shop, swerving between couches and comfy chairs. “By Celestia’s rear end!” he screamed.

Ramping up a large beanbag chair, the two Crusaders sped out another open window and back into the street.

Scootaloo squeaked as Applebloom flew out of the shop window, landing right beside her in the street. “No fair going through a store!” she shouted as they screamed through the village streets.

“No fair splashing water on us!” Applebloom retorted back.

The two of them were neck and neck once again as they sped across another cobblestone footbridge and out of Ponyville proper. They were getting ever closer to their endgoal. Applebloom could see the large apple trees of her home orchard rising up out of the distance, and put on as much speed as she could still muster. Scootaloo led by a nose as the fences of Sweet Apple Acres approached. The racers matched speeds perfectly as they rocketed towards the open gates. It looked like the pegasus had the win.

It was just a stick.

That’s all that did it. An apple branch hidden by the tall grass surrounding the farm.

As Scootaloo sped towards the farm entrance, she ended up hitting the stick at just the wrong angle, causing a twig to get jammed in her wheel well. Scootaloo launched off of her ride towards the farm, while the scooter itself flew directly into the path of Applebloom’s wheels, causing her to go flying as well, Sweetie Belle gripping the sides of the wagon with every ounce of her might.

The three crusaders sailed through the air. The world seemed to stop for a second as they hung there above the ground, but gravity would not be denied. The three of them came tumbling down, crashing into the soil right in front of the Sweet Apple Acres front gates.

The three of them lay there groaning and dazed. Applebloom lay overturned, but otherwise unharmed, her wheels spinning fruitlessly in the air and only a couple inches from the open gate. Sweetie Belle lay under her, her tail poking out from beneath the wagon. Scootaloo lay a few yards off to the side, her eyes spinning in her head.

The pegasus filly shook the impact off. “The gate!” She shouted, leaping to her hooves and looking at Applebloom. “Ha! Look at the turtle on its back! Looks like I win!” she said, sprinting off at a gallop towards the finish line.

“Hay no, you ain’t won!” Applebloom said smugly. “I still have a trick up my sleeve!”

Sweetie Belle squeaked as Applebloom transformed atop her, the familiar clanking sound echoing through the trees of the orchard. Scootaloo skidded to a halt as she watched Applebloom take her familiar pony shape, wondering what the earth filly was up to. As the transformation completed itself, Applebloom was lying upon the dazed form of Sweetie Belle with a grin on her face, looking up at Scootaloo.

Applebloom pointed a hoof down her body. “I win.” Applebloom chirped, smugly.

“What?!” Scootaloo shouted indignantly. “No you... didn’t...” She trailed off, looking where Applebloom was pointing. The little filly’s red tail was laying over the gate line.

“Oh that’s not fair at all!” Scootaloo protested.

“It is so!” Applebloom crossed her hooves.

“Is not!”

“Is so!”

“Is not!”

“Is so!”

“Not!”

“So!”

“It is not!” Scootaloo stamped a hoof. She looked at Sweetie Belle, the prone unicorn filly only just beginning to orient herself. “Come on, Sweetie Belle, that’s not fair, is it? She can’t just transform her tail over the line and call that a win!”

“It’s totally fair!” Applebloom said indignantly. “After all, you said the first ‘pony’ that crosses the gate at Sweet Apple Acres wins. Now I’m a pony! It totally counts, right Sweetie?”

“But I can’t do transformations like you can!” Scootaloo whined. “If I could transform, I’d have been a mile ahead of you from the second I said ‘go!’” she looked back at Sweetie Belle, “You agree with me, right?”

“Will the two of you just SHUT UP?!” Sweetie Belle screamed, leaping to her hooves and throwing Applebloom off of her. The two fillies gaped at the angry unicorn as she glared at the both of them in a way that would give Fluttershy’s stare a run for its money. “It doesn’t matter who won! Do you know how many times we could have gotten hurt in that race?!”

“Oh come on, Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo said, her ears folding. “We speed through Ponyville like that all the time!”

“Not on Applebloom!” Sweetie Belle protested. “Not when Applebloom has only just started to learn how to move as a wagon! We could have run straight into a tree or a rock or a building or something! And you!” She rounded on Applebloom, stamping a hoof. “What was with cutting through Quills and Sofas?! Were you trying to get us killed?!”

Applebloom blushed and wilted a little. She chuckled guiltily. “I guess that was a little reckless...” she trailed off.

Sweetie Belle huffed and took a deep breath. “You two are completely mad!”

“Hey, come on now.” Scootaloo said, pointing at the sky. “Sure it was a little crazy, but at least that race got us back on time, right?”

Sweetie looked at the sky. Scootaloo was right. The last sliver of sunlight was just falling below the horizon. “I suppose,” she muttered.

“Besides,” Scootaloo went on. “I knew that Applebloom would get you home safely,” she said, patting Applebloom on the back. “She’s always been a great athlete, and plenty agile. She wouldn’t let you get hurt.”

“Eheheh...” Applebloom chuckled nervously. She hadn’t exactly been sure of that when she’d started.

Sweetie Belle eyed Scootaloo warily, but eventually relented. “Alright, fine. Sorry for snapping at you girls.”

“That’s the spirit!” Scootaloo chirped, grabbing ahold of Sweetie Belle’s hoof. “Now come on, let’s get to the farmhouse. We don’t want everypony getting mad at us. Just remember,” she said, looking pointedly at Applebloom, “That win totally didn’t count and we’re having a rematch this weekend!”

Applebloom giggled and rolled her eyes. “Fine by me! You’re still gonna get whupped though!”

Sweetie Belle chuckled and rolled her eyes. “Just leave me out of the next one, okay?”

The three girls giggled and cantered down the dirt path to the farmhouse.

* * *

“There y’all are!” Applejack snapped as the three little fillies cantered up the path toward the farmhouse. The crusaders wilted under the harshness of the farmer’s voice looking up to see Applejack in the doorway of the house, Rarity standing with a disapproving look on her face close behind her.

“Sorry!” Scootaloo said. “We got kinda... hung up in the Whitetail Wood.”

Rarity sighed. “You girls really must keep better track of time! I was beginning to get worried when I dropped by to pick you up, Sweetie, and you weren’t here.”

“Sorry, Rarity,” Sweetie Belle mumbled.

Applejack raised an eyebrow as Applebloom sheepishly climbed the steps to the front porch. “Your dinner is getting cold, Bloom. What was so important in the woods that y’all ended up staying there so... long...” Applejack’s voice trailed off and her eyes widened as she got a good look at Applebloom’s flank.

Applebloom was about to apologize and protest that they weren’t actually THAT late, when she was suddenly pulled into a massive bear hug. The yellow filly squeaked as she felt her chest squeezed by muscles as strong as corded steel. “Applebloom!” Applejack cheered, all traces of her former anger banished. “Y’all did it! You finally got your cutie mark!”

The two sisters fell over in giggles and cheers as Applejack hugged Applebloom. The filly’s former trepidation at being chewed out by her sister was gone as the two of them shared a rough, but tender sisterly hug.

“Goodness gracious!” Rarity said brightly, “She really did get it, didn’t she?”

“Hay yeah she did!” Scootaloo chirruped. “It was awesome, too!”

Applebloom and Applejack disentangled themselves from each other, stepping into the farmhouse and dusting each other off. Applejack raised a hoof and called into the house towards the kitchen. “Granny Smith! Big Mac! Y’all get out here! Bloom just got her cutie mark!”

There were a few moments of activity from the kitchen as chairs scuffled around and hooves thundered towards the main room. Granny Smith was the first to poke her head around the door. “For real this time, young’n? No magical hoodoo?”

Applebloom nodded proudly. “For real, granny! No potions or freaky plants!”

Granny Smith cackled as she approached the filly, giving her a rough noogie. “Well ain’t that just wilder than a timberwolf in a cuckoo’s nest! Congratulations, young filly!” As Granny Smith showered her sister with praise, the hulking form of Big Macintosh stepped out from the doorway to the kitchen. “Now come on, child! Let your old granny get a look at your brand new cutie mark!”

Applebloom beamed as she turned to show off her flank to her family and friends. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo stood by proudly as well, happy that the Cutie Mark Crusaders had finally found at least one of their cutie marks. Applejack, Rarity, and Granny Smith all ooh-ed and ahh-ed as they took a good long look at Applebloom’s smiling, slightly robotic apple. Big Macintosh merely cocked an eyebrow.

“Always knew y’all were an Apple to the core!” Granny Smith said, proudly.

“How delightful, darling!” Rarity grinned. “Whatever is it for?”

“Yeah, Bloom.” Applejack gave her sister a playful pat on the back. “How’d you get that shiny, beamin’ apple?!”

Applebloom froze. She looked between her family members rapidly. She felt herself start to sweat a little at the question. “It’s uh...” she trailed off. She didn’t want to just drop on them that she was a robot. Her family didn’t know, and it’d definitely freak all of them out. Especially poor Granny Smith. She would probably have a heart attack from the shock. But she had to give them an answer; one that Applejack would believe, especially. Her sister could see through lies like a normal pony could see through a pane of glass.

Before her family could get suspicious, however, Sweetie Belle came to her rescue. “It’s for mechanics!” She shouted, maybe a bit too loudly.

“Mechanics?” Rarity asked curiously.

“Uhh... yeah!” Applebloom confirmed, looking at Applejack and smiling just a touch too widely. “We were out in Whitetail Wood when the wagon crashed and broke! But I managed to... um... make a new one! And when I finished it I got my cutie mark!”

“That’s why we were out so late!” Scootaloo added. “We spent a lot of time in that... scrapyard.”

Applejack blinked. “There’s a scrapyard in Whitetail Wood?”

“A HUGE one!” Scootaloo said, making a big circle over her head for emphasis. “Amazing that nopony has found it yet.

“Somepony should send a team in to clean it up.” Rarity tapped her chin. “A horrid scrapyard dirtying up the Whitetail Wood?” She shrugged. “Still, if it got Applebloom her cutie mark I certainly can’t complain.”

“So she found a big metal... thing,” Scootaloo went on, “messed with it a little, and bing-bang-boom, the rest is history!” Scootaloo grinned.

Well, technically none of them had lied...

“Well where is it?” Applejack asked brightly.

Applebloom blinked. “Where’s what?”

“The wagon y’all built. Where is it?” Applejack asked.

“Oh!” Applebloom stuttered. “It’s... It’s back at the clubhouse!”

“Well come on then!” Applejack said, trotting onto the porch and down the front steps. “Let’s go have a looksee! Dinner can wait!”

Sweat began to form on Applebloom’s brow. “I, uh... I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Really? Why not?” she asked.

The yellow filly stuttered. “Um... because it’s already dark out? You did say you wanted us back before dark and dinner’s going to get cold if we hike all the way out to the clubhouse. And I’m famished!”

Her sister blinked “Well, if you’re really sure.”

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle nodded on either side of Applebloom. “Oh yes, she’s sure.” Scootaloo said positively.

Granny Smith sidled up behind the three Crusaders and wrapped them all in a big hug. “Oh I’m sure it’s just been an eventful day for them, and they’re hungry, Applejack. They need to get some vittles in ‘em! The wagon will keep ‘til morning, don’t you fret.”

Applejack shrugged. “It ain’t like you to not want to show off your achievements, Bloom, but alrighty.”

Granny Smith grinned. “It’s settled then! Now come on, y’all! I have a fresh apple pie in the oven to celebrate with!” the old mare hobbled back into the kitchen, looking back at the collection of ponies. “Rarity, dearie, would you and your sister like to join us?”

“Well that sounds delightful, Mrs. Smith!” Rarity said sunnily. “Sweetie and I weren’t planning on anything special this evening anyway.”

“Can I stay too?” Scootaloo asked.

“Of course, young’n!” Granny Smith nodded. “’Least until yer folks come and getcha.”

The four of them trotted into the kitchen. Applebloom let out a relieved sigh and was about to follow when she felt herself yanked back. The filly yelped as she was lifted off the ground again by Applejack’s powerful hooves and pulled into another great big hug. She felt Applejack muss up her hair as she gave her a sisterly noogie.

“I want y’all to know, sis; I’m real proud of ya,” the mare said with a big grin, a single tear leaking down the side of her face. “I knew you’d get it eventually if you just let things happen.”

Applebloom smiled and nuzzled into her sister’s chest. “Thanks Applejack.”

She laughed. “Guess we’re gonna have to hire Pinkie Pie for a cuteceñera pretty soon, eh sis?” Applejack let her sister down and patted her on the head. “Now y’all get in there, Bloom. Yer dinner’s already gettin’ cold and y’all don’t want to miss out on Granny’s pie, do ya?”

“Hay no!” The filly chirped, scampering off after her friends.

Applejack chuckled, turning to the side to look at her brother. Big Macintosh was standing in the side of the room, a neutral expression on his face. The draft stallion had remained silent throughout the whole ordeal. Applejack grinned at him. “Little Bloom’s finally blossoming ain’t she, Mac?”

Big Macintosh smiled a little. “Eeyup.” He said.

AJ cocked her head. “Y’all been awful quiet, big brother. More so than usual.” She stepped up to the big clydesdale. “Something bothering you?”

Big Macintosh’s eyes narrowed for a moment. The stallion stared at the door to a kitchen for a moment. “Nnnnope,” he said. “Just thought that that cutie mark of hers looked...” The stallion trailed off, not finishing the thought.

“Big Mac?” Applejack raised an eyebrow. “What about her cutie mark?”

Big Macintosh was silent for a moment before sighing. “I’m sure it’s nothing.” He smiled at his sister. “C’mon,” he said, trotting into the kitchen.

Applejack rolled her eyes as she followed him. “I swear, Big Mac, I ain’t never gonna understand what rattles around in your head.”

Big Macintosh said nothing.

Author's Note

This really needs to stop.

TWICE I set a deadline for myself to get this out, and twice I missed it. I really need to get on the ball and cut this crap out.

I don't want to be that guy that only puts a chapter out every month or more. It's always been a problem with me and I need to freaking fix it. Not just for my readers but for myself as well.

If you couldn't guess, this chapter was really difficult in the making. Not only did I end up getting a virus about halfway through making it, but it was just a difficult chapter in general. I find action scenes very difficult to write, and I'd never done a race scene before, so that took some doing.

There are also several scenes that I deleted from the chapter, ranging from an angsty scene where Applebloom frets about being an alien again, to a "wacky" scene where Applejack actually does hike out to the clubhouse and Applebloom has to turn back and forth from filly to wagon and back again to throw off suspicion and then hijinks ensued, to another scene with the decepticons (which will likely show up next chapter).

I also struggled with ending the chapter. As it is, I'm not completely satisfied. It sorta just stops rather than reaching a decent conclusion point.

I hope beyond hope I'll be able to get the next chapter out sooner and that I'm a little more satisfied with it. >_<

For now, I'm going to try and put out a new Disharmony, and then get back to either this or PonyFall.

Hope people find it satisfactory. Thanks to MerlosTheMad for editing :)

EDIT: Also! Thanks to my good buddy, Atomic-Chinchilla (check out his page and buy a commission from him, you fools), I now have a decent visual aide for you all! Behold, Autobloom!

Naturally, the design is still inspired by Inspectornills' work. Of course, there are multiple differences in detailing in an attempt to make it more Prime-like, as well as the color changing from primarily blue and yellow to red and yellow to go with the wagon's paint job.

Big thanks to my buddy and roommate for this awesome piece! 8D

Ch4: Changing Gears

___________________________________________________________________________________

Applebloom: Transform and Rollout!
by Dusty the Royal Janitor

Chapter 4: Changing Gears

The Apple family waved goodbye to the retreating forms of their friends as they vanished from the light of the porch. Sweetie Belle had exhausted herself completely as the evening went on and she was now draped over Rarity’s back as the fashionista trotted through the gates of Sweet Apple Acres. Scootaloo, conversely, had grown more hyperactive as the night encroached and was being led away by her adoptive parents, Lyra and Bonbon, who were doing everything they could (unsuccessfully) to rein their daughter in.

Applebloom couldn’t help but giggle at Scootaloo’s antics as the little orange pegasus accidentally buzzed herself into a rain barrel and had to be pulled out by Lyra’s magic. As her friends crested the horizon, the little filly let out a wide yawn and shut the door, fully ready for some shuteye herself. Just as she was about to ascend the stairs to her room to sleep off the long day, however, she heard angry cursing coming from the kitchen.

“Ruttin’ Horseapples!” she heard her sister shout from a few rooms away.

“Applejack!” she heard Granny Smith shout, followed by the distinctive ‘smack’ of the wizened old mare’s hooves as they made forcible contact with the back of somepony’s head. “Mind your manners! Y’all want me to wash your mouth out with soap?!”

“Sorry granny...” Applejack mumbled, abashed.

“What’s up?” Big Macintosh asked, trotting into the kitchen where the two mares were spatting, Applebloom not far behind him.

Applejack regained her composure and pointed to the kitchen sink. “It’s this darn disposal!” she grumbled. “I can’t get it to work!”

“Oh that old thing?” Granny Smith asked with a wave of her hoof. “That’s always been broken. Ain’t no point in trying to get it to work.”

“I know that Granny,” Applejack began, “but now it’s been clogging up worse’n ever!” she explained. “The sink drains real slowlike and there’s no way to get it to let out the water save for takin’ a plunger to it every time y’all wanna wash your hooves or rinse the dishes.” She huffed. “And without a disposal to clear out the mess, I don’t know how to fix it proper.”

“We can get a plumber to come by sometime this week” Granny Smith shrugged. “It’s no big thing.”

“Or...” Big Macintosh said, clearing his thick throat, “Why not let Applebloom try and fix it?”

Applebloom blinked. “M-me?”

“Hey yeah!” Applejack grinned. “Y’all said yer cutie mark was for mechanics, right?”

“W-well, yeah but-”

“That’ll be put to good use ‘round the farm, I’m sure!” Applejack said with a cheerful nod. “Why not start by givin’ us a demonstration on this here varmint?” she said, mock kicking at the broken appliance.

Applebloom gulped as all the eyes in the kitchen turned on her. She sweated a little at their expectant stares. The little filly desperately wanted to refuse; to come up with some reason why she couldn’t fix the pipes. Her cutie mark was for being a robot, not a plumber. But she couldn’t let her family know that. Who knows how they’d react?

But now she was being called out on her little fib. She couldn’t refuse. If she did, her family would get suspicious and maybe catch her in her lie. But if she took them up on the challenge and she failed at fixing the disposal, they’d know that her cutie mark wasn’t in mechanics. And Celestia only knew what questions would follow after that.

“Applebloom?” Applejack asked, looking at her with a concerned glance, her head tilted. Applebloom snapped out of her reverie with a shake of her head, realizing that she’d gone stock still.

“Um...” The filly stammered, “I guess I can give it a try.” Applebloom trotted up to the cabinet under the sink, dripping with cold sweat.

“That’s my gal!” Applejack cheered, oblivious to the filly’s discomfort.

Applebloom took a deep breath, shivering a little as she slid under the sink to get a good look at the disposal unit.

“Y’all see the problem?” Applejack called from above her.”

“Shh!” The filly snapped, her nerves practically screaming as she looked over the disposal unit. ‘I have no idea what I’m doing’ she repeated in her head over and over again.

“Let her work.” She heard Granny Smith say to Applejack as she lay there, belly up under the sink staring at the faulty disposal.

Applebloom sighed, her mind spinning. ‘They’re gonna find me out and throw me out of the family. I’m gonna end up on the street, or worse yet in a traveling sideshow circus being whipped by ponies callin’ me some sorta foal hunter or somethi- wait a minute...’

The filly frowned as her eyes began to glow. Before her eyes, a green, semi-transparent three-dimensional diagram of the disposal unit appeared before her eyes, spinning around and labeling various components in a language that was both unfamiliar and yet legible to her.

“What.” Applebloom stated flatly.

“Everything okay down there, sis?” Applejack asked.

“Yeah, yeah...” Applebloom said softly. “Just... takin’ the thing in.” she muttered, watching the diagram spin before her. As the diagram spun, one little spot in the diagram was revealed to be red and flashing slightly. “That must be the problem.” Applebloom murmured to herself.

“What’s that, child?” Granny Smith asked. “Y’all found the problem?”

“Maybe...” Applebloom said, reaching an arm around the disposal unit and fumbling around. “Give me a sec.”

Applebloom felt around the disposal unit, looking for the problem, occasionally wiggling herself further under the sink as she searched for the red flashing part in the diagram. After a few minutes of searching, she found it. A loose panel hung off of the disposal unit where a few loose wires had slipped out. “I think I found the problem!” she called out. It was no wonder that her family couldn’t find this little panel. It was in a tiny crevice behind the main s-bend. There was no way an adult pony could fit back here unless they actually called a plumber to remove the pipes altogether.

“There’s a loose panel with a few broken wires back here. Looks like a mouse might’ve chewed them at some point.” Applebloom called out to her family. “I can try to fix it if you like.”

Applejack looked to her family. “Maybe we should call somepony then.” She shook her head. “If it’s a problem with the thing’s wiring we don’t want her getting’ shocked or nothin.’”

Big Macintosh cleared his throat. “The disposal’s turned off, right?” he asked softly.

Applejack blinked. “Uh... yeah?”

“Let her fix it.”

Applejack frowned. “Are you sure Big Mac? I don’t want my sister to get her cutie mark only to be electrocuted the same night.”

Big Mac shook his head. “If’n the thing is turned off there’s no electricity runnin’ through it. She’ll be fine. I want to see her fix the thing.”

Applejack eyed her brother warily. “Are you sure she’ll be okay, Big Mac?”

He nodded. “She’ll be fine. Let her have this.”

AJ sighed, looking back and forth between her brother and the sink. “Alright, Bloom. Go ahead an’ try to fix it.” She shuffled a hoof. “Y’all need us to bring you any tools?”

As Applebloom tapped the broken wires, She jumped as she felt something open in her hoof. “No no, not now!” she squeaked.

“What was that?” Applejack asked.

“Um... n-no thanks! I got it!” Applebloom stammered, now literally dripping with sweat as her hoof started to unfold and shift around. “C’mon stop it!” she whispered sharply at her own limb as it continued to twist and unfold, revealing the metallic fingers she bore in her other form.

Applebloom looked around at the tight space she was in. If she changed here she’d probably break apart the whole kitchen fixture! Applebloom couldn’t help but think of the terrified, angry faces of Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle when she first changed back at the spaceship. The last thing in the world that she wanted was to see that face on Applejack and the rest of her family.

She begged and pleaded internally for the transformation to stop before it got any further. Her limb ignored her pleas as flesh and fur gave way to unforgiving metals Her new fingers splayed apart revealing wires and cogs where her hoof had been.

“Applebloom?” Applejack called from the kitchen. “You okay in there? It sounds like y’all are clankin’ around with the pipes.”

Applebloom’s eye twitched as her other forelimb began to follow her first hoof, fingers revealing themselves and flesh splitting and flipping to reveal metal. “J-just fine, sis!” she stammered.

“Alright, if y’all are sure.” Applejack said, softly.

‘Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Please make it stop.’ Applebloom repeated to herself over and over, her eyes clenched tightly shut.

The filly was in such a panic that she didn’t even notice that her limbs had complied with her.

It took a few moments, but eventually the filly allowed herself to open her eyes. She blinked as she looked herself over in the small space. She was still a pony for the most part; still her diminutive size. The only thing that had changed about her this time was her forelimbs, which looked more like her arms in her other, robotic form.

“Huh.” Applebloom muttered, lifting one of her fingered limbs and wiggling it around in front of her face. She let out the breath she’d been holding. “I didn’t need that,” she said, scooting herself into a sitting position beneath the sink.

“Applebloom?” AJ asked.

“I’m fine. Everything is fine.” Applebloom said, looking at the diagram that was still floating in front of her eyes. The hologram had zoomed out on the rotating, holographic disposal, now showing a display of one of her robotic arms as well. The arm in question was shown moving back and forth, placing the palm on the red, broken component.

“It’s just y’all have been takin’ a while in there.” Applejack said.

“Yeah...” Applebloom said softly, looking at her hand. “I was confused for a little bit, but I think I see what I have to do now.” She said to her sister.

“Okay.”

Applebloom took a deep breath. “Let’s see if this works.” She muttered, lifting one of her robotic arms and placing her palm upon the broken disposal panel. Immediately she felt her palm opening up and something pushing its way down her arm. The whole process felt incredibly awkward as she felt little pistons sliding down and out of her limb, clamps fastening her hand to the unit.

“Whoa whoa whoa!” Applebloom shouted as she felt something pumping out of her into the appliance. Her head spun as her hand seemed to spin and change atop the disposal, repairing wires and broken pieces of casing with tweezers and miniature torches beneath her hand. It was like an entire Swiss army knife was stored beneath her palm, automatically fixing the broken appliance without her having to focus on anything.

At the same time, Applebloom started to feel a little light headed. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw the disposal changing a little bit; like it was getting shiny and new again despite years of disuse beneath the apple family sink. It could have just been the dizziness and shock from her body surprising her yet again that day, but she thought she saw new little gears and pistons and levers and things popping up on various parts of the device. She shook her head, attempting to reorient herself. She was probably imagining things.

And then just as the process started, it abruptly stopped. Applebloom’s hand unfastened itself from the disposal and her hands quickly transformed back into her familiar forelegs. Taking a deep breath, Applebloom craned her neck and observed her handiwork. The panel seemed to be fastened back on properly, and flipping it open, the wires inside seemed to be properly attached and mended.

“I think I got it.” Applebloom said, stunned. “Help me out, wouldja?”

A moment later, Applebloom felt hooves wrapping around her hind hooves and tail, pulling gently upon her and yanking her out from beneath the sink. As she fully emerged from under the fixture, she quickly righted herself and shook her mane out of her eyes.

“Did you fix it, Bloom?” Applejack asked, dusting her sister off.

“I think so.” She said, nodding. “Give it a shot and see.” She nodded to Granny Smith, who held a plate of half-finished fritters courtesy of Scootaloo. Granny Smith scraped the fritters off the plate into the sink and hit the disposal switch. The grinding noise of the disposal’s little blades rung out from the sink as the fritters were ground into a manageable crumble and flushed down the sink.

“Y’all did it, Applebloom!” Applejack said, hugging her sister tightly. “I knew you could!”

“I guess I did,” Appleloom chuckled. “I didn’t know if I could for a bit.” She blushed under AJ’s crushing hug.

“I always said there was more to you than meets the eye, young’n,” Granny Smith said, trotting over and patting the filly on the head.

‘More than meets the eye…’ The words of Yoketron echoed in the filly’s head, causing her to shudder a little, though she did her best to maintain a straight face, her eyes flicking down to her hooves, which not minutes ago had automatically seemed to not just fix, but improve upon the rickety old disposal that had never worked. She chuckled a little, attempting to maintain her composure. “Thanks, Granny.” The wizened old mare gave her a kiss on the forehead in response.

Big Macintosh lumbered up to her, looking down at her with a gentle smile. “Good work.” He said simply.

“Thanks, Big Mac!” Applebloom beamed.

The draft stallion leaned down to her and nuzzled her. Applebloom hugged him around his large neck. Big Mac lingered for a moment next to her ear as she did so. He whispered into her ear.

“We need to have a long talk tomorrow morning.”

Applebloom blinked as her brother pulled his head away. Big Macintosh turned and strode out of the kitchen towards the stairs. The little filly couldn’t help but feel frightfully nervous at his vague comment.

Applejack didn’t notice the exchange at all. “Hoo-wee, Applebloom. Y’all got pretty dusty under that sink there. Why don’t y’all take a shower and hoof it onto bed?” She slapped her sister over the withers, winding the poor filly. “We’ll finish cleaning up down here.”

“S-sure...” Applebloom’s ears folded back. “It’s been a long day. Bed sounds nice.” She said softly beginning to trot towards the stairs.

“And Applebloom,” Applejack said, her voice causing Applebloom to pause. The littly filly turned to look at her. Applejack grinned. “I want y’all to know, I’m real proud of you.”

Applebloom smiled nervously. “Thanks, sis.”

* * *

The battleship Darksyde flew through space like a shark swam through water. The vessel was silent in the vacuum, its spires and spines glittering in the starlight as it approached a small planet. The predator approached its prey stealthily, locking into orbit around its moon without anything below being the wiser.

“Commander Shockwave, sir,” One of the Vehicons on the bridge said to the massive, cycloptic figure in the center of the room. “We have reached 8090-P.”

Shockwave nodded. “Call for Blitzwing and Dead End. I would speak with them.”

“At once, sir!” The Vehicon saluted and turned back to his station, punching a few buttons and dials.

Shockwave stood before the main viewscreen, looking down upon the planet below. It was reasonably similar to many other planets in the galaxy. Comprised mostly of water, continents comprised of sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rock, a volcanic mantle center. Atmosphere roughly 40% Oxygen and 56% Nitrogen with trace amounts of Carbon Dioxide and other gases. Ultimately disappointing. Shockwave had hoped that a planet with such a significant cosmological oddity for a sun would turn out to be at least somewhat different than most life-supporting planets in the galaxy.

Shockwave went over the data he received from the planet a few times until he heard the door to the bridge whoosh open behind him. The monstrous ‘con turned to see Dead End shuffle into the room, followed by Blitzwing who strutted proudly up to him and greeted him with a salute.

“Heil, Shockwave!” Blitzwing announced. “I have been looking over ze transmissions from ze planet for you and I have found somezing qvite interesting.”

“Report, Blitzwing.” Shockwave said, nonplussed.

“It is fascinating.” Blitzwing went on. “Zere is some sort of interference around ze planet, causing any lesser signals from ze planet to become garbled. Ve suspect zat ze only reason ve vere capable of detecting ze distress beacon in ze first place vas because it vas meant to be an interstellar signal. Localized signals, zough, are completely indecipherable. If zere is any trace of energon or Autobot presence on zis planet, ve cannot detect it from orbit.”

“If we land on this planet, Shockwave” Dead End rumbled, his voice as low and empty as ever, “We’re going in blind. There’s no way to know where the Autobots will be or how many of them there are.” He cleared his throat. “This puts us at a tactical disadvantage.”

“Hardly.” Shockwave said, turning to the viewscreen. “We know where at least some of them will be. Obviously it would take an Autobot to send out the distress signal in the first place.”

Blitzwing narrowed his optics. “It seems odd zat se Autobots vould send out an antiqvated and traceable distress signal after all zis time. Perhaps, herr Shockwave, zis is a trap?”

“It could also be an autobot with valuable artifacts only having just woken up after eons in stasis,” Shockwave said coldly. “Or perhaps a group of Autobots managed to keep themselves safe and out of the war for a great deal of time, but have recently found themselves in distress.” The giant robot waved him off. “Nevertheless, the idea of a trap has already been considered. That is why I am not sending you or Brawl down to the planet. A direct approach would end disastrously if this were to turn out to be a trap.” He made a motion for Dead End to step forward. The Decepticon scout did so with a roll of his eyes.

“However,” Shockwave continued, “Dead End and Waspinator are much more capable of stealth and moving about undetected. The two of them will scope the area out and determine if there is any threat at the point of the signal’s origin.”

“If you insist, Lord Shockwave.” Dead End sighed.

The violet cyclops reached out to grab two headsets from the control panel, handing them to the scout. “Take these communication devices.” He bade him.

“How crude.” Dead End sneered, looking at the headsets with distaste.

“Until we can run a proper analysis of the interference that permeates the atmosphere on the surface,” Shockwave explained, “You will have to use these to communicate with the Darksyde. If you were not to wear them, we would have no way of hearing your short-range reports from the surface, nor would we be able to send you a ground bridge if you were to get into trouble. Take it and give the other to Waspinator.”

Dead End sighed. “Very well then.”

Shockwave nodded. “You will groundbridge down to inspect the point of origin in sixty monocycles. Get whatever you need ready. Dismissed.”

Dead End bowed and retreated out of the room, leaving Shockwave and Blitzwing. The Medibot looked up at his giant commander. “And I, herr Shockwave?”

“Get the Medical wing ready, Blitzwing.” Shockwave said. “If nothing else, I am sure that Waspinator will need it.”

Blitzwing bowed. “Jawohl, herr Shockwave. By your command,” he said quickly, ducking out of the room as well.

Shockwave turned back to the viewscreen depicting the slowly rotating planet once again. The featureless face remained a mystery to all the vehicons who spared a look at him, his singular eye locked upon the flashing Autobot signal in the middle of a vast continent of green.

‘The data adds up.’ Shockwave thought to himself, remaining as stony and silent as ever. ‘If the answer lies anywhere in the galaxy, it is here’

* * *

Applebloom sat on her bed gazing at her two front hooves. The two little yellow limbs honestly seemed innocent enough at the moment. They were just hooves. Cylindrical, fleshy, fuzzy hooves. Everypony had them. Every pony, zebra, donkey, mule and hippogriff had them.

And yet, the words of Granny Smith and Yoketron echoed in her head over and over again, reminding her that beneath their innocent surface, something much more astounding lay.

“More than meets the eye.”

Applebloom groaned and fell flat back on her bed, not sure if she wanted to be anything more than what met the eye. Just one day of knowing that she was actually an alien robot in disguise and suddenly everything got a lot harder and more confusing. Now she had a great big secret to hide from her family and friends around town. A secret which she just knew in the back of her head was going to get out sooner or later. No secret was safe for long in a small town like Ponyville, and especially not when you slept under the same roof with a living, breathing lie detector.

And it wasn’t just the fact that she had a secret to hide from her family and the citizens of Ponyville. As scared as she was of them finding out about her secret and ostracizing her, she was frankly even more scared of herself. Applebloom’s perhaps mechanical heart (to be fair, she wasn’t even sure) thudded in her chest as she dampened the bed with her sweat. In just the first few hours after she discovered she was an alien robot she had done so many extraordinary things. She’d transformed into a bipedal, mechanical thing at least as tall as Princess Celestia. She’d scanned and transformed into a wagon. She’d managed to outmaneuver and outrace Scootaloo in a race through Ponyville. And less than an hour and a half ago, she’d fixed the kitchen sink and upgraded it, merely by touching her mechanical hand to it and interfacing with it. On top of all of that, she had knowledge of a world light years away that was at war with itself, but it hurt to actually access any of that knowledge.

Applebloom sat there, gazing up at her limbs as she held them over her head and she wondered, ’what else could I do?’

There was an expression that Granny Smith favored: “...as dangerous as giving a loaded gun to a small foal.” Applebloom had never really considered the saying before. After all, there was no way it could apply to her, since guns, bullets, tanks, and most machines of war had long since fallen out of use since the golden age began back a little over 100 years ago. Since then, Equestria had been able to survive perfectly on little more than spears, swords, and magic (this knowledge all courtesy of Miss Cheerilee’s history lessons).

Now though, she started to see that expression in a different light. The gun wasn’t literal, the bullets not physical. Granny Smith merely spoke of power, and its misuse. The misuse of great power could have terrible, far reaching effects. And the foal in question who held the power wouldn’t misuse it because they were especially malicious, but because they did not comprehend the power they held in their hooves. In the hands of such a foal, who knew what could happen to innocent ponies, or even to themselves, if they wielded such dangerous power.

Applebloom was a foal, and right now, she was holding the mother of all guns.

The filly grunted to herself as she rolled off the edge of the bed and paced over to a mirror up against her door. She looked herself in the eye, tilting her head back and forth. She looked the same. She lifted a hoof and pulled down the skin around her eye to reveal a sliver of the organic-looking pink flesh underneath. Was it really organic, or was it just some sort of freaky machine thing made to look that way? Applebloom had no idea.

She opened her mouth to look down her own throat. Again, it appeared to be organic. Saliva dripped from the roof of her mouth and her tongue wiggled in her lower jaw. Her throat undulated as she swallowed and breathed. Everything seemed to be in place.

And yet she knew, just under the skin, there was little more than cold, hard metal. She’d seen it. She’d felt it. So had Sweetie Belle, who’d sat in her as she raced home. She was a mechanical thing. A monster from another world. A creature with no place here among normal ponies like Applejack or Big Macintosh or Scootaloo or Sweetie Belle. She was a living lie.

Wasn’t she? Was she? Everything she looked at right now told her that she was a pony. Was that just a disguise or was that who she really was?

The thought made her head hurt.

The filly grunted, annoyed at the whole thing. Yoketron had said that she was a ‘child of two worlds’ or something like that. Was that even possible? She didn’t know of any ponies that were capable of transforming into metal minotaur-troll robots. Okay, maybe Changelings could pull that off, but that wasn’t any better. Was that even a thing she could get away with? Being a ‘child of both Cybertron and Equestria?’

Applebloom huffed as she gazed into her own eyes. She could barely tell the truth from the lies anymore. She looked back down at her hooves again, lifting one off of the ground and bringing it in front of her face, slowly touching it to the mirror. She didn’t feel like going out and gallivanting across the stars, fighting a war she didn’t understand. She just wanted to live a life out in Ponyville with her family and friends. But could she do that or would that just be a desperate attempt to live a lie? The anxiety of it all made her head pound. The filly shook her head, trying to ward off the impending headache.

The only way to find the truth would be to strip away the lies.

The little yellow filly took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror once again, steeling herself. She felt herself shift, her orientation suddenly upright on her hind legs, as the familiar clanking sound rang out from her body once again. The transformation was over in mere seconds, as always, and a tall, two-legged robot looked itself in the glowing, pupilless eyes once more.

The robotic filly blinked, looking at herself in the mirror. She hardly felt any different, save for the new center of gravity. There was no massive epiphany or rushing sense of enlightenment. She felt just about the same in this form as she did in her pony form. If anything it only made her more frustrated.

With an irritated growl, the little fem-bot turned on her heel to march back to the bed when she suddenly gasped, her eyes widening.

She wasn’t in her room anymore.

Before her lay a vast expanse of metal, as far as the eye could see. Razor sharp shards of scrap metal littered the flat, steel desert and smoldering craters pocked the landscape. Mortars whistled through the air, causing bursts of fire to blast into existence off in the distance as the silhouettes of thousands of beings, just like Applebloom only much, much bigger, fought in a melee of twisted metal, severed limbs, and spilled energon. Robots the size of skyscrapers stomped through the hordes, the ground shaking and thunder rolling out with each ponderous step. The smaller ones could be seen climbing up their limbs and firing bursts of energy into their faces. Bodies were blown open by cannon fire and explosions, sending metallic organs across the battlefield. Massive war machines rolled through the brawl, firing superheated rounds and blasting through dozens of soldiers, shooting aircraft out of the sky to crash on the fighters below. Far on the horizon, a maginificent city of steel and glass burned, the smoke and ash blotting out the sky.

If the sounds of battle were deafening, though, it was only drowned out by the shrieks of the dead and dying. The acrid smell of burning fuel and scorched metal irritated Applebloom’s senses, and the smoke and ash made the air so thick she could taste it. The robotic filly felt sick at the sight of it all. It felt like she was about to lose the fritters she’d eaten when suddenly a burst of purple energy whizzed past her head. Applebloom yelped, spinning on her heel to see a horrible white figure striding menacingly toward her across the steel battlefield, a razor-toothed grin on his face.

Applebloom took a step back as the monster approached her. Other robots attempted to dash towards him from all around her, only to be blown to pieces by the massive cannon on his arm. An army at his back protected his flank from oncoming attackers. Applebloom backed up further, only to trip and fall over a fallen robot’s head, landing hard on her rump as the monster loomed over her. The tyrant stood five times her height, the evil sneer not leaving his face, until a crashing and crunching sound came from behind him.

A massive vehicle, unlike any Applebloom had ever seen before crashed straight through the army at the tyrant’s back. Robots were sent flying everywhere, their limbs crushed and leaking as the massive war vehicle mowed the dark army down. The monster turned to see the commotion, as the war machine turned into a red and blue robot, a gun held in his massive hand. The champion shot the enormous cannon, firing bursts of plasma into several other soldiers, killing each of them on the spot.

“Prime…” The warlord snarled, his face distorted into a grimace.

The red and blue champion straightened up, glaring at the white tyrant. “One shall stand. One shall fall.”

The white one chuckled humorlessly, lifting his arms out to his sides. “Why throw away your life so recklessly?” he asked mockingly.

The one called Prime narrowed his eyes. “That’s a question you should ask yourself, Megatronus.”

The warlord’s face curled into a furious grimace at his words, his razor teeth grinding against each other. “No!” He snarled, his fists clenching as he ran at the champion. “I’ll crush you with my bare hands!” the monster roared, swinging a hook at the hero’s face, metal clashing against metal.

The two titanic robots faced each other down, every other combatant giving them a wide berth. Robots gathered around them in a wide circle, some of them pumping their fists in the air, shouting a chorus of “Megatron! Megatron!” Some tried to rush to the aid of the one called Prime but were held back by other, older bots, claiming that it was ‘Prime’s fight.’

Prime grabbed a hold of the one called Megatron’s head and slammed it right into his knee. Megatron staggered backwards as Prime grabbed ahold of his shoulders and spun him around, hurling him into a crashed warship. Megatron made a sickening crunch, his body making a deep dent in the side of the craft. Prime advanced on his prey, dashing towards the fallen warlord, when Megatron suddenly stood up and hurled a razor-sharp hunk of metal at his chest.

Prime was blown back as the metal pierced his armor, energon leaking out of the wound in his chest. Megatron leaped towards him, sailing high into the air, ready to come down on Prime with both fists as his enemy was weakened, but Prime surprised him with an uppercut straight to the jaw. As Megatron landed flat on his back in front of Applebloom’s hiding spot, the champion leaped onto Megatron, pinning him down and punching him in the face repeatedly.

The assault didn’t slow Megatron down. He pulled out a plasma knife and slashed at Prime’s wound, forcing him to back off as sparks flew from his damaged chest. Megatron tried to kick Prime’s legs out from under him, only for him to leap over the attack and land several yards back on his feet, still clutching his chest. Rolling back upright, Megatron charged his foe, slamming into him with his shoulder and pinning him against the spaceship. The two of them grappled, testing each other’s strength. Megatron slowly managed to force Optimus into a kneeling position, though, bearing down upon his enemy.

“I’ll rip out your optics!” He cried, his face twisted into a raving snarl.

As Megatron’s hand closed in on his eyes, Optimus suddenly slammed his head forward into Megatron’s gut. The white monster stumbled back as Optimus lept to his feet with another mighty uppercut, launching Megatron clean off the ground.

“Finish him off Prime!” A white and orange medical bot shouted from the sidelines. “Do it now!”

Megatron groaned as Prime limped over to pick up his massive gun. The champion levelled it at the tyrant’s head.
Megatron lifted a hand to his face. “No more, Optimus Prime! Grant me mercy, I beg of you!”

The hero narrowed his eyes into a glare. “You who fought without mercy now plead for it?” he growled. “I thought you were made of sterner stuff.”

Just as he pulled the trigger, though, Megatron rolled to the side, righting himself and firing a shot from the massive cannon on his arm. The blast hit Prime square in the gut, punching a hole through the side of his body.

“NO!” Applebloom shrieked, sweat pouring down her body in waves. The filly panted, gasping for breath as she shook her head in a futile attempt to orient herself. She was back in her room, lying on the floor back in her pony form in front of her mirror. The filly’s heart pounded in her chest as she looked around her room. Same old bed, same old toy chest, same old pictures on her same old bureau… everything was where it should be, save for the puddle of terrified sweat underneath her.

The farm filly took a deep breath, attempting to shake off her massive pounding headache. The pain felt worse than anything back at the ship. Whatever dream she’d just had must have been something from Cybertron’s past, and if what Yoketron said was any indication, not long before he lifted off with the protoforms. Experiencing it in her dreams was painful in more than one way, and the aftershocks were no walk in the park either.

Applebloom moaned, rising shakily to her feet. Her head throbbed and her ears rang as she attempted to stumble back into bed when her stomach suddenly lurched.

“Whoa, Nelly…” Applebloom managed to croak out. “I think those fritters are coming back on me,” she managed to burp, stumbling to her door like a sailor after his first night on shore leave or Rainbow Dash whenever AJ brought out her ‘special’ cider.

The filly opened her door as quietly as she could, but in her state that equated to ‘dozens of decibels louder than normal,’ and attempted to sneak down the hallway to vacate the contents of her stomach. The filly’s vision blurred as she stumbled down the hallway, her head still feeling like it was being used as a drum in a marching band. She knew, though, that if she could just make it to the bathroom, she’d be alright.

She didn’t make it past the stairs.

Just as she passed the stairway on the way to the bathroom, her hooves decided to give out on her. The filly lost her balance and fell head over hooves down the stairway, each thwack against the wooden fixture adding a new layer of pain to the poor little pony. After several knocks to the head on the way down, Applebloom suddenly heard a horrifyingly familiar clanking noise.

Chnk-Chnk-Chinka-Chnk!

Suddenly she felt like she was tumbling in a different manner. The bumps became a more consistent (but no less painful) rolling sensation as gravity continued to have its way with her. The robotic filly tumbled and fell, landing in a heap with a metallic crash at the bottom of the stairs.

The fritters that so disagreed with her were vacated then and there at the bottom of the steps as Applebloom attempted to regain her balance. Her head was spinning and pounding in agony. But none of that compared to what happened next.

“Applebloom? Is that you?” A voice called from the next room. “Y’all okay?”

She gasped, attempting to change back into filly mode, but the pain in her head was making her too dazed. She couldn’t change back quick enough. She could only look on through her spinning vision as her sister rounded the corner

Applejack gaped at the sight staring at her with wide, fearful eyes.

“...Applebloom?”

Author's Note

(Authors notes will be added as soon as I am conscious and not nodding off as I am typing. Thank you for your patience.)

Say it with me, folks...

"THAT TOOK LONGER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE"

I'm sorry guys. I don't know why I can't seem to get on the ball with this. I'd LIKE to put out more chapters more often but it's honestly hard to keep motivated, largely for personal reasons that don't need to be brought up in the here and now.

As far as the chapter goes, I had a little bit of trouble writing the Decepticons' part. That was what made it take so long. I remember I started right after I finished chapter 3, but I got to the bit with the Decepticons and then hit a wall. Instead of trying to force my way through the wall I started working on other fics and, well, I guess I just sorta forgot about it... >_<

I'm back now though. I'm working my way through chapter 5 even now, though this next chapter makes me nervous. Applejack is going to end up doing some things and I'm a little concerned about how people are going to end up interpreting it. HOPEFULLY this next chapter won't take too long, but I might end up redoing it a few times to get it right.

Hope it won't take as long until next time.

Ch5: Birth of an Apple

___________________________________________________________________________________

Applebloom: Transform and Rollout!
by Dusty the Royal Janitor

Chapter 5: Birth of an Apple

The silence was so thick it could be cut with a knife as Applejack stared at the little bipedal robot that lay dazed at the bottom of her staircase. The only sound the ponies could hear was the light rumble of thunder from the surprise storm that had appeared that night. The two stared at each other for moments that felt like millennia as the tension in the room seemed to escalate with every passing second. Applebloom felt her heart hammering in her mechanical chest as she watched Applejack’s eyes take in every detail of her alien form, her shocked expression slowly making its way through a whole spectrum of emotions. She could recognize surprise, then fear, then, as her eyes made their way to her chest, recognition. Disgust and horror, and then despair. Applebloom’s heart sank deeper and deeper as she watched her sister’s face pore over every inch of her body.

It was only when they were interrupted however, that Applejack finally seemed to settle on an emotion.

“Sis?” a voice called out, “What was that racke- ”Big Macintosh lumbered his way around, his eyes widening and the words dying in his throat as his eyes too settled on Applebloom.

Applejack’s face contorted into one of barely constrained, resigned rage, her head lowering so her hat obscured her eyes. She mumbled something incoherent, causing Applebloom to raise her head in a strain to hear her.

“A-Applejack?” she managed to stutter softly.

Her sister’s head snapped up, her fury no longer held back. “I’LL GET YOU FOR THIS!” she screamed, spit flying from her gnashing teeth.

Applebloom screamed, quickly flying to her feet and stumbling out the homestead’s back door. Applejack reared back and began to give chase, only to be tackled by her brother.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” Applejack screamed at him, kicking at his underbelly as he stood over her. “I’ll kill that thing! It was wearing Applebloom!”

“AJ, stop!” Big Mac said, enduring his sister’s kicks with a grunt. “You need to listen to me!”

“Get. Off. Of. ME!” Applejack shrieked, pulling her hind legs back and driving them into her brother’s chest with enough power to send him flying back into the far wall. The draft stallion lay dazed, the impact having made a huge crater in the drywall. Applejack rolled onto her hooves and pawed at the ground, snorting like a raging bull. All sense of reason was lost as she careened out the door into the storm, howling like a madpony as streams of tears trailed behind her from her fiery eyes.

The cold rain pattered against the filly as she attempted to escape the furious mare through the family orchard. There had been no scheduled shower that night so it was probably a rogue storm that had blown in from the neighboring Everfree forest. Applebloom stumbled through the grounds of Sweet Apple Acres, tottering on her two legs as fast as she could make herself go. Despite her wavering balance, her longer stride let her keep up a good clip as she dashed through the orchard, trees darting past her on both sides.

Her eyes were tearing up as she ran through the endless rows of apple trees. Her worst fear had been realized. It had only taken one look from Applejack for her to completely dismiss her as her sister. And not just dismiss her, but outright hate her. Applebloom had no doubts that she was coming after her right now and that if she caught up she would be in real trouble. The filly had no idea just how far Applejack would go if she managed to catch up with her.

So she ran, mechanical lungs working in overdrive as she sprinted through the farm, no real destination in mind. Her feet hammered against the soft soil, mud splashing up onto her wheels as she slammed one foot down in front of the other. The rain sent chills down her metal spine as she looked for a place to hide from her raving sister. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled as she passed the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ clubhouse. The filly couldn’t help but sob a little as she realized that she’d have to leave all that behind if she wanted to get away from her sister’s wrath. Her chest wracked with pain, but she kept moving, the pistons in her legs starting to feel like they were burning, despite the chill of the storm. Coughing and sputtering as she cried and heaved for breath, she suddenly felt herself thrown off balance as her foot caught on a root sticking out of the ground. Applebloom was thrown several feet forward as she landed face down in a mud puddle. hacking some mud out of her mouth with a choking sob, the little bot got to her hands and knees. Standing back up on her trembling legs, Applebloom took a step to start running again when she heard a sound like thunder, only there hadn’t been any lightning to herald it. Applebloom whipped around, her mud-covered hair slapping her in the face as she looked behind her. One of the orchard’s tallest trees was suddenly falling right towards her, a familiar orange mare with murder in her eyes standing at the base, her hind hooves kicked out like she’d just finished a good buck.

Applebloom yelped and kept running barely managing to get out of the way of the tree as it collapsed to the ground where she had been standing only seconds before. She heard an enraged voice shriek out “Get back here!” as she forced herself to keep moving. She whined and sobbed and burned as she ran faster than she had before. Her legs had long since gone numb when she heard the approaching sound of thundering hooves splashing through the mud and muck towards her. No matter how much she pressed herself and how fast she moved, the sound kept getting closer.

Something looped around her neck.

The filly was yanked back with a cry of pain and surprise as the hempen rope was pulled taut. Her sister’s lasso pulled tight around her neck and she was pulled off her feet and into the air as she was swung around by the mare on the other end, spinning her around in a wide circle. The orchard blurred past her in a 360 degree arc as she gasped for breath through the strangling tightness of the rope.

And then she was flying.

The rope was let loose as Applebloom felt herself hurtle through the air. Time seemed to freeze for a moment as she reached the apex of her arc. Everything seemed to go silent for just a split second. For a single, calm moment, Applebloom noticed nothing but her own breathing and the soft patter of rain against her metal skin. And all at once, the noise came crashing back to her. Lightning flashed above her as she fell back towards the earth, gravity having taken hold of her once again, her voice strained in a strangled scream. And then impact.

Applebloom tumbled head over wheels as she somersaulted backwards through the orchard kicking up mud and grass and fallen fruit. The filly grunted in pain as she felt every rock and root clang against her mud-stained, metal body. And with resounding crash, Applebloom came to a sudden halt as she slammed into an apple tree, the bark scratching her as she slid to the ground and came to rest on her flank. She groaned, her hidden ears ringing and her vision blurring, not helped by the battering sheets of rain cascading down from the sky. She could make out, though, an orange shape advancing on her through the rain.

Applejack looked like something out of a horror film. Her mane was matted to her head and tangled wildly around her face, having lost her hairband and hat somewhere in the orchard as she chased the little robot with murderous intent. Her hooves were covered in mud and bits of tree, her tail lashing around furiously. Her pupils were mere pinpricks in a sea of monstrous green and her teeth were grit so hard that it looked like she might crack them. Mist puffed out of her nostrils as she pawed at the ground, bearing down on Applebloom like a vengeful goddess.

“A-Applejack” Applebloom whimpered. “Applejack it’s me!”

“Shut up!” Applejack snapped, her teeth gnashing. “Y’all are gonna pay for my sister!”

“But it is!” She tried desperately to protest. “I’m Applebloom, I’m just different!”

The farmer slammed a hoof into her chest and Applebloom’s breath escaped all at once. The farmer growled as she put all her weight on the little bot’s chest. Applebloom winced in pain as she heard the sound of groaning metal -her metal- under the pressure of her sister’s earth pony strength. “You’re wearing her face!” Applejack roared. “Nopony flays and desecrates my kin and lives to get away with it!”

Applebloom cried out. “AJ, please…” she squeaked.

Applejack didn’t respond, rearing up on her hind legs, ready to stomp the filly and cave her skull in. Applebloom squealed and raised her hands in a vain effort to protect herself.

Big Macintosh came barreling in like a truck.

The draft horse slammed into Applejack’s side, sending her careening into a tree, the bark splintering under the impact. The orange mare didn’t even seem dazed as she started to get up, only to be pinned to the tree by Big Mac, slamming his hooves into her shoulders.

“Get offa me, Macintosh!” Applejack snarled.

Big Mac shook his head. “Not until y’all stop acting like a damn fool!”

Applejack drew her head back and headbutted Big Macintosh just below the forehead, where soft tissue met skull. There was a sickening crack and Macintosh stumbled back clutching his nose with a single hoof. Blood trickled out of Big Mac’s broken nose as he backed up, but just as Applejack was about to charge Applebloom again, he twirled around with a grace that a stallion his size had no right to have and bucked her in the chest with one leg, cratering her against the tree again with another sickly crack. AJ cried out, clutching her side, nursing her ribs. At least one of them was cracked, and possibly broken. AJ fell to the side, gasping for air and making pained grunting noises all the while.

“AJ! Big Mac, stop fighting!” Applebloom wailed, scared to approach her brawling siblings.

“Shut up! Just shut up!” Applejack shouted, her face contorted in a pained grimace.

“No, you shut up, AJ!” Big Mac said with a stamp of his hoof, blood dripping off the bottom of his snout.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Big Macintosh?!” Applejack snarled. “Can’t you see what it did to Applebloom?!” She pointed at the little robot accusingly, “Them things is called Skinwalkers or somethin’! Heard about ‘em from Twilight. They’re like changelings, but worse! Sick things that skin ponies and wear ‘em to blend in!”

Big Macintosh snorted. “Y’all ain’t thinking straight, AJ! Get yourself together!”

Applebloom approached the pair. “Applejack? Big Mac?” her voice wracked with sobs.

Applejack and Big Macintosh looked at her. Big Mac looked concerned but AJ still had an angry fire in her eyes. Applebloom gulped and took a deep breath. She shut her eyes and concentrated, hearing the sound of shifting metal. She got shorter, her arms and legs retracting and her fingers and wheels disappearing. The metal skin was replaced with soft flesh and fur. Her stance shifted back to her familiar quadrupedal one. In seconds, the robot that had been standing there in the orchard was replaced with a familiar little filly.

Applebloom gulped and opened her eyes. The transformation didn’t have the effect that she hoped though. If anything it had made it worse. Applejack was looking at her with even more hatred and disgust than normal, struggling to get up off the ground, her teeth gnashing and frothing at her. It was only thanks to Big Macintosh that her sister hadn’t already gotten up and mauled her. The draft stallion was practically lying atop the orange farmer, pinning her to the ground.

“Get offa me, Mac!” Applejack screamed as she struggled and bucked. “Look at her! It’s like I said! It’s wearin’ Applebloom to blend in, the freak!” Applebloom started tearing up anew at her sister’s words, her head hanging as she started to curl into a ball.

“AJ, just listen!” Big Macintosh pleaded. “I can explain everything!”

Applejack snarled, thrashing and tossing Big Mac around. “I’ll kill it, you hear me! And I’ll kill you if you’re in on it, Big Mac! She was our sister! Our sist-kkkk”

Applejacks screams were cut off as Big Mac looped a foreleg around his sister’s neck and pulled tight. AJ felt the blood to her head get cut off, the world swimming around her as she became incredibly dizzy all at once. The world dimmed and AJ drifted off into unconsciousness, her head slapping dully against the ground.

Big Macintosh released his sister’s neck, carefully stepping off of the limp pony and wheezing as he leaned against a tree for support. Applebloom quickly scampered over to the pair and nuzzled her sister. “Applejack?” she whimpered, looking to Big Mac with tears in her eyes. “What did you just do?”

“Sleeper hold,” Big Mac wheezed, trying to breathe through his broken nose. “She weren’t gonna see reason. Had to get her calm somehow.”

Applebloom blinked. “Where did you learn to do that?” she asked.

Big Mac grinned through the pain. “Ponyville Junior Wrestling. Gold medal on the stallion team three years running.” the stallion suddenly winced, his legs buckling. “‘Course, your sister won the mare’s team five years in a row… ouch…”

Applebloom looked down at the prone form of her sleeping sister. Despite the fact that she seemed to be sleeping peacefully given the situation, tears were still running down her face and her expression was pained. “Will she be alright?” Applebloom asked with a sniffle.

Big Mac nodded, looking at Applejack with a frown. “In about ten minutes. She’ll be dizzy for a while, but she’ll be fine,” the stallion looked at his little sister. “Help get her onto my back, would you?”

The little filly nodded, struggling to try and lift the bigger mare. “Hang on,” Applebloom said nervously. “I can’t lift her like this… do you mind if I…?”

Big Mac nodded. “Go ‘head.”

Applebloom gulped, focusing once more and shifting into her taller, bipedal robot form. She looked nervously to her brother, as if she almost expected him to turn on her like her sister did. She was relieved, and perhaps a little surprised to see him merely shake his head and chuckle.

“Still seems so strange…” Big Mac mumbled to himself.

“Big Mac?” Applebloom asked.

The draft stallion motioned to their still-knocked out sister. “Help her onto my back, would you? I’ll explain everything back at the house.”

Applebloom nodded and lifted the limp form of her sister with her stronger, metallic arms. In this form she felt so light, like lifting a shred of tissue paper. It felt so strange to be so much bigger than her sister in this form. Applejack, who normally towered over her like all adults, was like a foal compared to her in this form. ”I wonder if this is how Princess Celestia feels all the time?” she contemplated. She shuddered at the thought. Princess Celestia was an incredibly powerful pony. Applebloom wasn’t sure she could handle that sort of power. The very thought made her nervous.

“On my back” Big Macintosh repeated. The filly-bot nodded and draped the sleeping Applejack over her brother’s back. Big Mac grunted and seemed to buckle under his younger sister’s weight for a second, but he quickly regained his composure.

“Y’all okay?”

Big Mac nodded. “I’ll be fine. Now come on, let’s get the two of you back to the house and dried off.”

The two began the short trek back to the farmhouse. Applebloom striding alongside her big brother nervously. “So… What’s going on, Big Mac?” She dared to ask.

Her brother’s face was stoic as ever. “I’ll tell y’all when we get back to the house. Ain’t no point in catching a cold while we talk out here in the rain…” He looked curiously at Applebloom, “that’s if y’all can even catch a cold, of course.”

Applebloom thought back on it. Come to think of it, she didn’t remember ever getting all that sick in her life. She’d faked it once or twice and she’d eaten things that hadn’t agreed with her, but she never really remembered getting a virus or infection or anything. She’d broken bones before and there was one time she broke a tooth and had Zecora fix her up, but those were injuries and not illnesses. Before, she’d chalked it up to just the strong, old “Apple Family constitution” but now…

She shook her head, attempting to clear her thoughts. She could think on that later. Now, though, she wanted answers. “Big Mac,” she pleaded, “I need to know what’s going on. I need to know what’s happening to me!”

Big Macintosh sighed. “An’ I promise that you’ll hear it. But Applejack needs to hear it too. An’ I don’t fancy telling the story more than once, and especially not out here in the rain.” He motioned to AJ with a flick of his neck “‘Sides, if we don’t get AJ here secure, we’ll have to deal with her gettin’ all uppity again. And I don’t think neither of us want to deal with that.”

Applebloom cocked her head. “How are we gonna deal with that?”

* * *

Applejack blearily woke up, her vision swimming. The farm pony blinked a few times, trying to chase the unconsciousness away. As she tried to sit up, she suddenly realized that she couldn’t move.

The farmer suddenly snapped into wakefulness. Looking herself over, she saw that she was completely tied up with her own rope, lying down on the old overstuffed sofa. “What in tarnation?!” she snapped.

“Big Mac, she’s awake!” a voice called off to her left. The farmer quickly snapped her head in the direction of the voice to see a large bipedal robot sitting awkwardly in one of the living room easy chairs. Suddenly, the events of mere minutes before came rushing back to her. Her expression darkened and her teeth clenched as her mind turned once more to dark, violent places. “You…” she snarled darkly.

“AJ, please listen.” the thing said.

“I’ll get you for what you did to my sister!” she snapped, her teeth gnashing. The creature seemed to tear up at that. Good. “Mark my words, monster,” she continued, “I’ll tear y’all limb from-”

“That’s enough!” Big Mac shouted, suddenly stepping in from the kitchen. The draft stallion had a bandage over his nose and one wrapped around his barrel. Granny Smith followed close behind him, teacups balanced on a tray on her back.

“Granny! Big Mac!” Applejack snarled, thrashing against her bonds “Don’t tell me, y’all are in on this! What’s going on here?!”

“Hush, child.” Granny said comfortingly, weakly trotting over to her granddaughter and placing the tray on the sidetable next to the sofa. “Big Mac’ll explain everything.”

“Granny?” Applebloom asked. “Y’all knew about this too?”

The old mare smiled softly. “I didn’t know the details, hon. I heard about it from your parents. And they heard about it from Macintosh here.” she said, pointing weakly at him. “I always had a feeling there were something special about you, though, I did.”

“Big Mac.” Applejack growled darkly. “What is going on?” Her expression was pulled into a dark scowl, her face looking ten years older than it should.

Big Macintosh looked between his sisters and sighed. “I should have told y’all a long time ago, AJ. Applebloom ain’t related to us by blood.” he mumbled, his head drooping. “I found her in Whitetail Wood twelve years ago.” Applebloom already knew this, of course, but she couldn’t help but shiver at hearing him say it out loud.

“Horsehockey!” Applejack snarled. “Ma and Pa had her, like she did you and me!”

Big Mac raised an eyebrow. “And do y’all remember the day that Applebloom was born?” he said carefully.

Applejack paused. “No…” she shook her head. “‘Course I don’t! She was born over that month I spent in Manehattan before I got my cutie mark!”

Granny Smith chuckled sadly. “Do y’all really believe that, AJ?” she asked, carefully lifting a hot toddy to her bound granddaughter’s lips. Applejack, despite her foul mood, gratefully accepted the hot drink and slurped it down. “Y’all was eleven years old back then,” Granny continued, “that’s plenty old enough to remember your Ma. Did she ever look like she was getting ready to have a baby? Did she ever say anything to ya?”

Applejack blinked. She hadn’t thought about that time in her life before her cutie mark in ages. She scrunched up her nose, trying to remember those days. “No…” she mumbled. “Ma was fit as ever those days and working the fields with Pa. I always just assumed after Applebloom was born that she just… had a really good pregnancy.” she muttered.

Granny Smith barked a laugh. “Ain’t no such thing, child! A pregnant mare wouldn’t be any more able to work a field as a snake’d be able to win a hoof wrasslin’ contest!”

Applejack looked down at her hooves, abashed. “But then…” she muttered, looking up at Applebloom with just her big, green eyes, “where’d she come from?”

Granny Smith smiled faintly. “That’s for Big Mac to tell. After all, he’s the one that found her.”

There was silence in the Apple family homestead for a few interminable moments as all eyes turned onto the big red stallion. The draft horse was gazing deeply into his hot toddy as the uncomfortable stillness filled the air.

“Big Mac...?” Applebloom finally ventured.

The draft horse sighed. “Alright, y’all. Here’s how it happened…”

* * *

Little Macintosh was sitting sullenly on a rock on the outskirts of Ponyville. The squat red colt was more silent than usual as he traced circles in the dirt with his forehoof. Ma and Pa had sent him out for a day of fun, since he’d proven completely unhelpful in the fields the past few days. He couldn’t really help it though. He couldn’t get his mind off the fact that his only sister was clean across the country from him. He couldn’t get his mind off her words.

“I hate this place and I hate all of you! I ain’t never coming back!” was the last thing she had shouted before she stomped out the door, bindle slung over her back.

The little red colt sighed, tears welling up in his eyes at the memory.

“Mac?” He heard a familiar voice call to him, “You doing alright?

The little colt brought his eyes up to see a mulberry filly with a frizzy two-toned pink mane and, frankly, ridiculous looking clothes gazing at him, concerned.

Mac huffed. “‘Tain’t nothing, Cheer.” he mumbled, turning away from her.

“It doesn’t look like nothing.” Cheerilee said, sidling up beside him. “Come on, what’s eating you?”

“Don’t wanna talk about it.” he muttered.

Cheerilee raised an eyebrow. “I think you do,” she asserted. “Talking about it will make you feel better, you know.”

“Nnnnope.”

Cheerilee snorted. “Well, fine. If you wanna be that way then I guess we’ll just sit here in silence.”

“Eeeeeyup.”

The two of them sat there for several minutes, but for Big Mac, it felt like hours. The colt kept trying not to notice his friend’s presence, but it was like trying not to think about pink elephants. He couldn’t help but keep looking up at his friend, and every time, she was there, staring at him. It was almost downright creepy.

Finally, Mac relented. “I miss my sister.” he said simply.

“Little Applejack?” Cheerilee said, tilting her head. “Ahhhh…” she said understanding. “I heard about that. She up and ran away, I heard.”

Mac shook her head. “We let her go.” he mumbled. “She weren’t happy ‘round the farm and we didn’t want to keep her where she weren’t happy.”

Cheerilee nodded. “I think she was just feeling smothered. She was the baby in the family after all. She’ll be back.”

“I dunno…” Mac said. “She went and said some pretty nasty things.”

Cheerilee smiled softly. “That’s just what kids do.” she said, patting the colt on the back. “Kids are emotional and don’t always think things through. Trust me, I know these things.” she said, passing a glance back at her own flank.

“You think?” Macintosh said, a small spark of hope glimmering in his eyes.

“I’m sure of it.” Cheerilee grinned.

Mac sighed, this time a little more relaxed. “Thanks, Cheer.”

“Hey, no problem.” Cheerilee giggled. “Now come on, how about we get your mind off of your sister. You have the day off, right?”

He nodded

Cheerilee stood up and shook herself. “I heard that Carrot and Snow were gonna explore Whitetail Woods today. A little hike will be good to get your mind off things, huh?”

Little Mac smiled. “Eeeyup.”

Not ten minutes later, the two of them were standing on the path just outside of Whitetail woods. They came upon a couple of other colts, both slightly younger than Macintosh, and both much scrawnier. One was a tall, lanky earth colt with a yellow coat, freckles, and a bright orange, curly mane and a few frosted cakes on his flank. The other was a short, but just as scrawny white pegasus. He had a short, cropped blonde mane and small, underdeveloped wings. Despite his name and unimposing looks, he had a barbell on his flank.

“Carrot, Snowflake, I found him!” Cheerilee called out to the two of them.

The two colts turned to the pair and grinned. “Hey, Cheer! You get him out of his funk?” the yellow one asked.

Macintosh rolled his eyes and huffed. Cheerilee giggled. “For now, anyway, yeah.”

“Sweet!” Carrot Cake said with a grin.

“Yeah!” Snowflake agreed enthusiastically.

Mac looked between the group and the forest. “What’s all this about?”

Carrot grinned mischievously. “We’re going alien hunting!”

the mood of the glade dropped instantly. All three of the other foals looked at Carrot with varying emotions. Cheerilee merely looked incredulous. Snowflake looked confused. Macintosh looked downright exasperated.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously!”

Macintosh rolled his eyes. “Well this has been fun, y’all, but I got some moping to do.”

“Hey, come on now.” Cheerilee said, grabbing him by the tail with her teeth. “At least give him a chance to explain himself”

Carrot Cake grinned. “Okay, so Carrot Top told me that Bon Bon told her that Lyra told Bon Bon that Doc told Lyra that Colgate told Doc that Junebug told Colgate that Derpy told Junebug that Lily, Daisy, and Rose ran screaming out of Whitetail Wood the other day screaming something about aliens!”

All three of the other ponies deadpanned at the lanky colt. “There are so many things wrong with this that I can’t even count them all.” Cheerilee said.

“Yeah!” Snowflake piped up.

“Those three are always overreacting at something. And they almost are never right.” Mac offered.

Cheerilee coughed. “Not to mention, if you’re right, then the rumor’s gone through so many ponies by now, it’s like you’re playing one great big game of telegraph.”

“Aww, come on, guys!” Carrot whined. “This might be my big chance to impress Cup!”

Snowflake and Mac started chuckling. Cheerilee rolled her eyes. “Aaaaaand the truth comes out.” Carrot blushed and kicked around some dust with his forehoof abashedly. “You just want to come back to Cup Cake like some sort of gallant knight, having slain the big bad monster.”

Carrot’s face turned the color of a ripe tomato as his friends all started giggling around him. “That… That’s not why we’re here!” He stamped a hoof and tried to snort threateningly. It really only came off like he had a stuffy nose. “If there’s an alien monster running around in the woods, then somepony has to go in there and stop it! For everypony’s safety!” He punctuated his statement with a lash of his tail.

The rest of his friends all snickered at his antics. “Okay, Carrot,” Cheerilee said, waving at him placatingly, the many bracelets on her hoof jangling. “Whatever you say.”

The scrawny colt huffed and stormed off into the forest. “You foals can stay here if you want. I’m going in there and I’m going to face down an alien and save Ponyville!” Carrot said, turning on a hoof and storming off into the forest.

Mac shook his head. “Colt’s gonna get himself killed someday tryin’ to impress that gal.”

Cheerilee shrugged. “I can’t really blame him. Let’s face it, Cup Cake is, like, just about the hottest filly in school. She could have any colt she wants.” She sniggered and shook her head.

Snowflake’s face seemed to melt into a dreamy expression. “Yeah…”

“Out of his league, I tell you” The mulberry mare said, rolling her eyes.

“Let him dream.” Mac said with a chuckle. “For now we should follow him and make sure he doesn’t trip and break his back.”

“Yeah!” Snowflake said, flapping his tiny wings and charging into the woods after their foolish yellow friend. Cheerilee and Mac looked at each other and laughed for a moment before following after him.

The three of them quickly caught up with Carrot and got to exploring the wood in search of the alleged “aliens.” Carrot told the rest of them that they supposedly looked like giant hairless apes, save for a small patch on their head, with long arms, flat faces, and wearing lots of clothes. The others all found the description ridiculous.

Despite the lack of aliens, though, the four of them had a good time, just randomly exploring the woods. The natural beauty of the woods was enough to relax Mac’s troubled mind and even raise his mood a little. he spent the day with his three best friends, chasing after frogs and rabbits, climbing trees, and munching on wildberries and flowers. Celestia’s sun was just starting to sink below the horizon, though, when something truly extraordinary happened.

The fireflies were just starting to blink into life around them. Snowflake and Cheerilee were busying themselves with trying to catch some while Mac stood off to the side, trying to console a moping Carrot Cake.

“We told you that they probably didn’t exist.” Mac said, putting a hoof on Carrot’s back.

“I know…” Carrot sighed, his head drooping. “I was just hoping that I could do something heroic and brave and awesome to impress…” Carrot suddenly cut himself off and backpedaled. “Um… the town” he finished, not so smoothly, scratching the back of his head.

“Want the town to look at you like some sorta superhero, do y’all?” Mac said with a little laugh.

“Yeah, sure…” Carrot mumbled. “But of course it’d turn out it was just a sick baby bunny” Carrot hung his head. “And not even a killer lagomorph or anything like that. A sick, hairless baby bunny that that one shy filly had already found and taken in herself.”

Mac chuckled. “There’ll be other monsters for you to slay, Carrot. Maybe you can go looking for them in the Everfree.”

Carrot shuddered. “No way. Even I’m not that crazy.”

Mac flicked his ears. “Well, come on now. You want to go looking for a monster, that’s the place you’re gonna find them.”

Carrot blinked and looked at Mac quizzically. “What?”

Mac tilted his head and spoke a little louder. “I said, if you’re looking for a monster, the Everfree is where you’re gonna find them.”

“What?!” The scrawny colt scratched at the inside of his ear with a hoof. “I can’t hear you over that loud buzzing!”

It was only then that Mac had noticed it. An incredibly loud droning noise had filled the clearing. Mac looked around quickly for the noise, not seeing anything that might make such an uproar.

“Mac? MAC!” He suddenly felt his shoulder being shaken. He turned to see Carrot looking up and pointing into the sky. Mac looked up, only to gasp at what he saw.

A massive metal monster, at least that’s what it looked like. It looked almost like a massive fish, but one without any sort of defined head and with much longer fins than any fish he’d ever seen had. The whole thing seemed to be at least quadruple the size of the town hall and looked to be made from some sort of gleaming metal, with blue inlets carved into it. Like a massive roc, swooping down to grab a fully grown dragon as its prey, the monstrosity careened down towards them.

“GET DOWN!” The colts heard her shout, as Cheerilee and Snowflake tackled the both of them, sending the four of them tumbling into the brush. Mere seconds later, there was a resounding CRASH as the metal monster collided with the ground, kicking up dirt and leaves and branches and even full grown trees into the air. The four ponies screamed as they hid under a large, rocky outcropping, debris banging against their emergency shelter as gravity asserted itself upon the detritus.

And then quiet.

It was Mac who finally dared to peek his head out from under the rock. The little red colt looked around the new clearing that the metal abomination had dug out. There was a large crevasse dug into the forest floor. Where trees and bushes once stood, there was nothing but a massive ditch filled with dirt, rocks, and mud. Mac fully stepped out from under the rock and looked towards the very edge of the ditch where the thing lay.

“Are you crazy?” Carrot whispered, alarmed. “Get back under here! Who knows what that monster might do to you!”

Mac paused. “I don’t reckon it was alive, Carrot…” he mumbled. “Looked almost like an airship…”

Cheerilee was out next, followed by Snowflake. “Biggest airship I’ve ever seen.” Cheerilee said, hushed.

Carrot fidgeted as he crawled out from under the rock. “We should go back to town. Get some grown ups down here to investigate.”

Snowflake nodded “Yeah!” he agreed.

Mac said nothing. The red colt stepped forward and slid down into the ditch towards the massive airship-like thing. “Mac!” Carrot hissed. “Get back here!”

“I don’t think it’s dangerous.” Mac said, trotting towards the massive construct. “That looked like a crash landing. We should check and see if anypony is hurt.”

“I agree.” Cheerilee nodded. “If somepony is hurt in there, we don’t have the time to go back to town and get somepony. They need our help now!”

Snowflake scratched his head and then shrugged. “...yyyeeah.”

Carrot sighed, fidgeting and looking around nervously. “But what if it’s something dangerous?”

Cheerilee chuckled, looping a hoof over Mac’s withers. “Then we’ll hold it off while you two gallant monster slayers run back to town! Now come on, time’s-a-wasting!”

The four little ponies trotted warily up to the massive metal monster. What appeared to be big from a distance was absolutely enormous up close. The metal structure was several stories high, and that was when it was half buried in the dirt.
The little red colt trotted up to the metal colossus, his friends all huddled behind him, watching with bated breath as he slowly reached a hoof up to tap the metal surface. “Careful!” he heard Carrot whisper from behind him. Mac gulped and nodded, slowly bringing his hoof up to tap the giant bay door.

The door squealed and fell open with a horrible screech.

Mac stumbled back onto his rump with a yelp, his other friends all backpedalling with a squeal as plumes of smoke poured out of the opening. A deep, hissing sound, punctuated by the sounds of clanging metal and sparking electricity reverberated around the clearing. Flashes of electricity spurted from inside the bowels of the massive vessel and blue fluids seemed to leak from the inner walls. The creaks and groans of twisting, heated metal could be heard echoing from far within its depths.

The four ponies shivered as they all silently debated what to do next. It was Cheerilee that spoke first.

“Well?” she asked the group “Come on!” she trotted forward into the gaping metal cavern.

The three colts all blinked at her reckless daring before Mac shrugged and followed. Snowflake hurried after the little draft horse, with Carrot gingerly trotting behind.

The group trotted in silence through the sparking, smoking halls of the wreckage, stepping carefully to make sure they didn’t set anything off or alert anything that might want to snack on a pony for lunch. The three of them all gasped as they stepped into a truly awe inspiring room. A domed ceiling stretched dozens of meters above them with pods covering the spherical walls. The whole setup reminded Mac of a honeycomb where bees would nurse their young in alcoves in the walls of the hive. As he pondered this, though, he and the rest of the ponies all jumped as a shrieking metallic clanking and whirring roared through the chamber.

“Look there!” Carrot shouted, pointing to the wall of the room. Their eyes were all drawn to a single pod on the wall, which seemed to be lifting away from the side of the cavernous room, rolling along a sparking railway that hadn’t been there earlier. The pod rolled along the railway away from them and towards a hatch on the far end of the room.

“What do you think that is?” Cheerilee asked.

“Dunno,” Mac shrugged. “First thing we’ve seen moving in here, though,” he added.

Cheerilee looked to him. “You think we should follow it?”

“Yeah!” Snowflake said enthusiastically, buzzing his small wings.

Mac shrugged and nodded in agreement. “First lead we got.”

“B-but who knows what could be in that thing!” Carrot shivered. “It could be some sort of horrible alien bug thing that’ll stick to our faces and lay eggs in our chests or something!”

Cheerilee looked around the room. “I dunno, this place seems pretty barren to be a bug hive or anything like that.” She nickered. “It’s the first clue we’ve gotten. We can’t pass this up. Come on!”

She and the others followed the rolling pod to the end of the room, watching as it passed through a hatch high up on the wall. The four of them passed through another door at their level, only to pile up on each other as Cheerilee screeched to a halt with a gasp.

“What is it?” Mac whispered, his head spinning a little, only to see Cheerilee scrabbling to her hooves to retreat out the door. Carrot and Snowflake both looked up and quickly gasped and did the same. Mac shook off the collision and looked up himself to see what had frightened his friends so.

A giant.

A massive, metal, giant creature, shaped something like a minotaur or a troll. It had golden horns and glowing blue eyes that burned with a fierce intensity. Its hands could probably grab a whole tree out of the ground, and could certainly crush a pony between its fingers. It was tall enough to stomp on any cottage in Ponyville and barely notice. Its face was set in a toothy snarl, and had it not been facing away from them, surely it would have seen and started chasing after them by now, ready to grind their bones into bread.

Except…

Mac took a closer look, squinting his eyes. That wasn’t an angry snarl the giant had. It was pained. Looking the creature over, Mac noticed that it was clutching its side with one of its massive metal hands, blue fluids leaking from between its giant fingers. The thing was staggering, hunched over a massive structure that Mac couldn’t recognize and whispering into something that looked kind of like a radio microphone that he’d seen on a trip to Fillydelphia once. Steam and smoke seemed to pour out from his joints, like an overtaxed train, and sparks were coming from several holes in his chest.

As frightened as he was, Mac couldn’t help but feel sorry for the massive creature. It was obvious that he was in a lot of pain, and possibly even dying. His heart went out to it as he considered what it must be like to die alone in a vessel so very far from home. Mac shook his head and started to trot forward.

“Mac!” Cheerilee hissed. “What are you doing?”

Mac ignored her, continuing to move towards the giant creature. It was working with a cord that seemed to be attached from its head to the console it was working at, pushing at buttons with its mighty fingers. Fascinated as he was with what the giant creature was doing, Mac didn’t notice the large piece of shrapnel that lay across the ground.

The little pony stumbled over a fallen girder and fell with an “oof!” The three ponies behind him all gasped at once as the giant, who previously had not seemed to notice them, suddenly went rigid. It lifted its giant metal head and turned to look at them.

Mac gulped as the creatures glowing, pupilless blue eyes bore into him, sure that the monster would stomp him into paste or swat him like a fly. Which was why he was so surprised when he saw the creature… smile?

The creature seemed to relax, slumping into the console a little further, more at ease this time than he previously seemed to be. “Thank the Allspark” the ponies thought they heard it mutter. “I was worried nobody would find us.”

Mac let out a relieved breath at the creature’s actions. The way he spoke and acted was enough to convince him that it wasn’t going to attack him. It seemed to be enough for Cheerilee too, who trotted up behind Mac, though her posture was still a little defensive. The giant chuckled a little, though the laughter was soon accompanied by a cough that sent blue liquid spurting from his mouth.

“There’s no need to be frightened.” The creature coughed. “I’m hardly in a position to hurt even one so small.”

“Who are you?” Mac asked. “Are you alright?”

The giant gave him a pained smile. “I’m afraid not, little one. I don’t have much time left.” He coughed again, more blue fluids leaking from his mouth. “My name is Yoketron,” he spoke. “And I am afraid I must ask you four for a favor.”

“We can get you help.” Cheerilee said, her posture slightly less on edge. “The princess could probably help you get better.”

“Thank you for your kindness.” The creature who called himself Yoketron said, lifting a massive hand. “but it is not my life that needs saving.”

“But you’re hurt!” Cheerilee insisted. “Equestria has hospitals that can help you!”

Yoketron hacked and clutched at his chest. “I’m afraid there is no saving me.” He said sadly. “My spark chamber has been breached and I will soon return to the well from whence I came.” His words confused Mac, but the little draft pony decided to let him speak in his last moments.

“No,” Yoketron continued. “I need you to save another life.” he said, punching a button on the console he was leaning upon.

The four ponies all stumbled as they felt the room around them shake and shudder. “Look!” Carrot said, pointing to the ceiling. The ponies all looked up to see the pod from before lowering into the middle of the room. The ponies followed the pod with their eyes as it lowered on little jets of flame before coming to rest gently on the ground.

The four of them all huddled around the pod. “What are we supposed to do with it?” Cheerilee asked.

“Not it.” Yoketron said with a gasp, hitting another button. “Her.”

There was a whoosh of compressed gas, causing all the ponies to stumble back onto their flanks. A hatch opened in the pod, revealing what looked almost like a baby’s cradle to the four ponies. Nestled within was a small, silver creature, looking almost made of liquid metal, like mercury, and shaped like a minotaur calf save for its flat, featureless face.

Mac looked to Yoketron. The giant creature continued, explaining, “I failed. I was supposed to save all of the protoforms, but I was only able to preserve one when the Decepticons attacked. And I will not even live long enough to care for her myself.” Yoketron slumped back in a giant chair, clutching his chest. “Please, save her life.”

The little draft pony looked back and forth between the little ‘protoform’ and Yoketron. “But… We don’t know how to care for a… protofarm.”

Yoketron chuckled, sounding genuinely amused despite his pain. “You won’t have to,” he said. “Touch her.”

Mac blinked, unsure what Yoketron was getting at. The giant creature made a “go on” motion with his hand. Turning to the protoform, Mac lifted a hoof, reaching out to the little thing. Carrot looked as if he wanted to stop him for a second, but quickly lowered his own hoof.

As Mac’s hoof made contact with the little being, there was suddenly a flash of bright light and a stinging sensation ran through his limb. Mac fell backwards, nursing his tingling hoof. Cheerilee gasped, quickly stepping to support the falling pony and help him to his hooves. “What are you playing at?!” Cheerilee snapped at the smiling Yoketron who merely chukled and pointed at the pod.

“Take a look.” he said simply.

The four ponies all turned and gasped at what they saw. A little yellow foal with tufts of red mane and tail was nestled snugly in the bottom of the pod, suckling gently on her hoof and sleeping peacefully.

“What’s going on?” Cheerilee asked Yoketron.

“His organic nature has merged with her mechanical one, granting her a completed spark.” Yoketron said as though it explained everything.

Carrot cocked his head. “What does that even mean?”

“It means that now she can find a place where she belongs…” Yoketron said, trailing off. “I can only hope this planet treats her better than Cybertron would.” He coughed again, his eyes flickering and dimming.

Mac didn’t even notice. He was too focused on the little foal at the bottom of the pod. Gently, he reached in and nuzzled the little creature, causing the baby to coo and giggle. He couldn’t help but let a smile grow on his face.

“Please,” Yoketron continued, “Take her with you.” His voice was raspy and gasping now. “Don’t let her see battle. Don’t let her grow to see the horror that comes with war.” The flickers of electricity that had previously been sparking from his chest seemed to die down. “I can rest in peace if I know that I brought even one of my kind to live far, far away from such things.”

“Wait, though!” Cheerilee said. “We still don’t understand! What is she? What are you? What happened to you?”

“She’s one of you now.” Yoketron replied. “And that’s all that matters now. Raise her as you would raise one of your own. That is all I ask.”

“But…” Cheerilee protested, only to be cut off by Yoketron.

“I’m afraid my time here is at an end…” Yoketron said softly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t answer more of your questions.”

“Don’t worry.” Mac said, turning to the dying giant. “I’ll take good care of her.”

“Mac!” Cheerilee gasped.

“Seriously?” Shouted Carrot.

“Yeah!”

Yoketron smiled gently. “Thank you… Your size belies the size of your heart, small one.”

Mac nodded, reaching into the pod and gently lifting the sleeping foal out by the scruff of her neck with his teeth. Lifting her around and draping her sleeping form over his withers, he smiled softly at Yoketron and nodded to him.

“‘Til All are One…” Yoketron mumbled.

And with that, the light behind his eyes went out.

The four ponies stood together in silence for a moment. The only sound they could hear was the soft coos from the little foal, still asleep across Mac’s withers.

“Are you serious Mac?” Cheerilee said with a stamp of her hoof. “You can’t take care of that thing!”

“Can and am.” Mac said, hefting the foal and trotting towards the exit.

“But it’s an alien!” Carrot Cake said. “It could suck out your brains and turn you into its mindless zombie slave!”

“Yeah!” Snowflake agreed.

Mac shook his head. “Ain’t an alien no more.” Mac said simply.

“What, just because the giant alien robot monster thing said she was ‘one of us now’ you’re going to take her in?” Carrot said incredulously.

“Eeyup.” Mac replied.

“Mac” Cheerilee said, stopping him with a hoof. “Are you sure about this?”

Mac went to reply, but was cut off by a high pitched yawn. All four ponies turned to see the little yellow pony’s big amber eyes suddenly pop open. The little foal blinked at the gathered group, looking around for a moment. The ponies breath all held.

And then the little foal started giggling.

The gathered ponies all smiled. “I’m sure.” Mac said.

* * *

“...And then?” Applebloom asked.

Mac shrugged. “And then I took y’all home. Granny ‘n Ma n’ Pa all took you in, even after I explained where y’all came from. The family decided it’d be best to keep where you came from a secret, since ponies ain’t always trusting of what they don’t understand. Carrot, Snowflake, and Cheerilee agreed to keep the secret for your sake and eventually came to trust you, and AJ came home a few weeks later to a new sister,” He explained. “Ain’t much more to say.”

The whole room was silent for what seemed like an eternity. Applejack stared into her empty mug, her hooves shaking. Applebloom drummed her new, metal fingers on her knees. Granny was laying back in her rocking chair, her eyes closed, but her flicking ears suggesting she was still awake and alert.

Finally, Applejack broke the silence.

“So… Y’all lied ta me.”

Applebloom shifted uncomfortably. “AJ…” she tried to say, only to be cut off by her sister raising a hoof.

“Y’all kept this a secret from me for twelve years, tellin’ me she was my sister.” AJ growled at Big Mac and Granny Smith. “Y’all didn’t ever think to TELL me that my sister was an alien?!”

“Applejack” Big Macintosh said, pleadingly. “We weren’t even sure she was still an alien. She didn’t ever show any sign of turning into giant or nothin’ like that. ‘Sides, Yoketron said she was ‘one of us’ now, and we took that to mean she were a full pony. None of us expected anything like this.” He sighed. “We didn’t think it was important.”

“Not important?!” Applejack shouted, jumping to her hooves and throwing her mug to the ground, causing it to shatter. “How could y’all think this weren’t important?! She’s an alien! A thing from outer space! And y’all knew and y’all didn’t even think to tell me that she weren’t just not my sister, but not even a pony?!”

“...Applejack…” Applebloom sniffled.

“No, I’m through hearing this!” Applejack said, grabbing her hat off the hat rack and storming out of the living room.

“AJ, where are you going?!” Applebloom shouted.

“I’m going out!”

“But it’s one in the morning!” Applebloom protested. “Please, AJ, come back!”

Applejack said nothing, the slamming of the front door punctuating her exit.

Applebloom slumped back into the overstuffed sofa, her eyes watering.

“Let her go, child.” Granny Smith said gently, her eyes opening as she got up from her rocking chair and stepped gently over to her granddaughter, draping an arm around her shoulders. “She’ll come around, you’ll see. Just give her time.”

Applebloom sniffled. “She hates me, Granny.”

“Oh child,” Granny sighed, shaking her head. “She’s just confused and angry and scared.”

“Of me?” Applebloom asked softly.

“Naw…” the wizened old mare shook her head. “For you.”

Applebloom said nothing.

“You know how she gets, child. More stubborn than a mule with a stubbed hoof.” Granny Smith assured her. “She’ll come around when she sees reason. One o’ them friends of hers’ll knock some sense into her.”

“Applebloom…” Big Mac spoke up. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell y’all about this sooner. We really didn’t know it’d turn inta something like this.”

The little robot sniffed. “It’s alright, Big Mac.”

“‘Tain’t alright.” Big Mac shook his head. “I shouldn’ta kept this from you. Y’all deserved to know. I shoulda told you as soon as I saw your cutie mark.”

“We can talk all night about shoulda coulda wouldas.” Granny Smith said. “They don’t do us any good in the end.” She kissed Applebloom’s forehead. “All we can do now is move forward.”

“But…” Applebloom said. “Where do we go from here?”

Granny Smith patted her granddaughter atop the head. “Well for now, we go to bed, child. It’s been a rough night.”

Applebloom shuffled her feet. “I’m not sure I can get to sleep after all this, Granny.”

Granny Smith winked. “You’ll think different when your head hits the pillow, sweetie. Now git. Y’all ain’t gonna get enough sleep for school tomorrow, else.”

Applebloom sighed and wordlessly trudged up the stairs to her bedroom. She didn’t respond to Big Mac or Granny telling her ‘good night’ and didn’t even bother to stop and comfort Winona when the little dog came up to her, whining and licking at her heels. She was too focused on the endless, swirling chaotic thoughts running through her head. She sat on the end of her bed, even less sure of who she was and her place in the world than she was earlier that night.

Shifting back into her pony form, she slowly crawled under her covers and lay her head against the pillow.

Luckily, Granny Smith was always right.

Author's Note

I'm really really sorry this has taken so long. Both in the sense that it's been forever since the last chapter, and three weeks since I finished it in the stream. There was a lot of miscommunication between me and my editor and eventually my editor basically said he couldn't get to it. After that it ended up sitting for a while, while I debated whether to just edit it myself or find somebody else, and it wasn't until people started to complain that I finally just decided to just do a bare bones spellcheck on it myself and get it out as quickly as possible. I don't like editing things myself because I find I'm too close to the material at hand. Things that might be clear to me, the author, or might come across a specific way to me, the author, might often come across differently to other people.

Which is why I'd like everybody to be extra hard on me if they find something that doesn't sit well/contradicts something/or anything of that nature in this chapter. Let me know and I'll see what I can do to fix it. Call this a MOSTLY final draft. :B

I'm going to be taking this story off of hiatus now. I'm hoping the next chapter won't be too far off, but my life has gotten insane lately. I've basically set aside one day a week for writing, and every other day of the week is dedicated to job hunting, helping my grandmother around the house/get around town, volunteer work at the local community center, and other stuff of that nature. It's been stressful lately but luckily I've actually managed to make some progress lately, so hopefully I can keep that up.

Anyway, hope you all enjoy the chapter. Let me know what you guys think!

Ch6: Oh, Slag!

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Applebloom: Transform and Rollout!
by Dusty the Royal Janitor

Chapter 6: Oh, Slag!

Applebloom awoke to a hoof prodding her shoulder.

The little robot shifted in her bed. “Mmph… Five more minutes,” she grumbled, rolling over and pulling the covers over her face.

“Come on now, child,” came the wizened but firm reply, “We’ve already let y’all sleep later than you should’ve.”

Applebloom groaned, groggily pushing herself up into a sitting position. Blinking, she blearily looked around the room, waiting for her vision to come into focus. “Granny?” she asked, looking out the window, seeing the sun already risen outside, “What time is it?”

“‘Bit past eight,” came Granny Smith’s reply.

Applebloom gasped, only for a spike of pain to rush through her head. Growling a little she shook it off and focused back on Granny Smith again. The old pony seemed shorter than she should have been. Applebloom didn’t really notice though as she continued. “Why’d y’all let me sleep so late?” She protested. “I gotta get my chores done before school!”

“Calm down, young’n,” Granny Smith said, putting a hoof to Applebloom’s chest. “Big Mac an’ I went ‘n took care of them for you.”

“Really?” Applebloom asked, blinking. “Why’d y’all go and do that?”

Granny Smith chuckled. “We figgered you could’a used the rest after last night.” she explained.

Suddenly, the events of the previous evening came rushing back to the little filly. The nightmare, the accidental shifting, the chase, the story, and Applejack’s ultimate rejection of her all filled her mind at once. Applebloom looked herself over to see that at some point during the night, she’d shifted back into her robot form and that her legs were now dangling over the edge of the bed. With a sad sigh, the little robot swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up shakily.

“But Big Mac got hurt… why’d he go an’ do my chores?”

Granny Smith chuckled. “Yer chores ain’t no biggie, sweetums.” she said, waving her off. “He won’t be able to applebuck for a while, but feedin’ Winona, sloppin’ the pigs, an’ lettin’ the sheep out are all easy enough for him.”

“Oh…” she muttered, still pondering the previous night. “Granny?” Applebloom said softly.

“Yes sugarcube?”

“You and Mac…” Applebloom started, motioning to herself, “Y’all are… okay with me like this, right?”

Granny Smith quirked an eyebrow and gave her a wry smile, “I reckon we already let you know that, filly.”

“But…” Applebloom protested, “But it’s so weird!” she exclaimed. “And Applejack-”

“Now don’t y’all worry about Applejack.” Granny Smith said, sternly, reaching a hoof up to tap on Applebloom’s metal chest. “She’ll come ‘round once she stops acting like a bull what got his head caught in a milk pail.”

Applebloom sighed. “But it don’t bother you that all this time I weren’t what you thought I was?”

Granny Smith creakily got onto her hind hooves, putting her forehooves onto the robot’s shoulders. “Now y’all listen here.” she said, sternly. “You’re my granddaughter, and that hasn’t changed. That ain’t never gonna change.”

“But-”

“I said…” the old mare gripped Applebloom tighter around the shoulders “That ain’t never gonna change, filly.”

Applebloom sighed sadly, but embraced the old mare in a hug. “Thanks, Granny.” she mumbled, a tear rolling down her metal cheek.

“Now,” Granny Smith broke the hug and fell back to all fours. “Y’all better come downstairs.” she winked at her granddaughter. “Your two little friends are here!”

“Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo?” Applebloom asked. “What’re they doin’ here so early?”

“They wanted to see you of course!” The old mare laughed. “Now y’all best not keep them waiting. Go on, git!” she said, smacking the little robot’s back and shooing her out of her room. Grabbing her bow on the way out the door and fixing it on her head, Applebloom shifted back into her pony form and started trotting down the stairs.

As Applebloom entered the kitchen, she was suddenly bowled over by two little cannonballs of fur. “Applebloom!” the pair shouted as they dogpiled her, sending the trio tumbling back several paces. Applebloom felt the wind get knocked out of her as she landed roughly on the wooden floor.

“Are you okay?!” Scootaloo asked

“Big Mac told us what happened last night!” Sweetie Belle said, hugging Applebloom around the waist. “We are soooooo sorry!”

“That was totally uncool of Applejack!” Scootaloo said. “I can’t believe she’d say those things!” she snorted, stomping her hoof.

Applebloom shook off the sudden assault. “I’m fine gals. As fine as I can be, anyway.”

Big Mac got up from the kitchen table slowly, clutching his bandaged midsection for a moment, before he trotted over to the trio. “Now come on, y’all. Give her some space.” he drawled.

The two little fillies climbed off of their friend and stood around her, ready to pepper her with questions. Before they could get a word out though, Applebloom held up a hoof “I’m fine girls. I just need some time to adjust is all.”

“Are you sure?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“‘Cuz I can totally knock Applejack for a loop if you want me to!” Scootaloo said, buzzing her wings and punching at the air. “She won’t even see me coming!”

“No!” Applebloom snapped, shocking Scootaloo out of the air and making her land on her rump. Applebloom sighed. “No, Scootaloo. AJ may have hurt me, but that don’t mean I want y’all to try and take her on for me.”

“Aww…” Scootaloo said, scuffing a hoof on the ground. “Alright.”

Granny Smith tottered down the stairs, smiling at the three fillies. “Now then,” she said, happily, “If we’re all done actin’ lower than pill grubs, who here wants some apple pancakes?”

“Ooh ooh!” Sweetie Belle suddenly squeaked, waving her hooves in the air. “I do! I do!”

Scootaloo shrugged. “Yeah, I could eat some more.”

It was at that point that Applebloom realized just how hungry she was. It felt like her guts had shriveled up and wasted away sometime during the night. “Come to think of it, I’m starving, Granny.” she said, looking down at her rumbling stomach.

“Well then, y’all come and get it!” Granny said, leading the group to the table. “They should be ready in just a minute!”

The five ponies sat around the breakfast table together as Granny Smith served them from a large stack of pancakes. Sweetie Belle took a few, picking at them delicately like a lady should. Scootaloo took a more direct approach, grabbing the cakes with her hooves and chomping on them like a sandwich. Big Mac took his usual generous portion and ate slowly and thoughtfully, not saying a word. Granny Smith only took a couple for herself.

But it was Applebloom who stood out. The filly kept asking for seconds, and then thirds and fourths. The little filly shoveled the food down her throat like she hadn’t tasted anything in years. Whole stacks of pancakes disappeared faster than you could say “Whoa Nelly”, vanishing into her seemingly endless gullet.

The rest of the ponies at the table started staring at her around the third stack of pancakes as the little yellow pony stuffed whole cakes in her mouth, swallowing them with barely a chew. “More, please?” Applebloom would ask, prompting Granny Smith to serve her up another stack. Then the process would repeat itself.

“Um, Applebloom?” Sweetie Belle said. “Don’t you think you’re eating a bit fast?”

Applebloom looked at her quizzically, her cheeks stuffed with apple and dough. With a big swallow, she replied, “I dunno… I just felt really hungry for some reason.”

“‘Pparently…” Big Mac said with a slow nod.

“Can I get some more?” Applebloom asked, finishing her plate again, not a minute and a half after her previous plate. “Sorry, I’m just really really famished.”

Granny Smith shrugged. “Ain’t the weirdest thing what’s happened around here lately, child.” she said, serving up the last few pancakes to her granddaughter. “That’s the last of ‘em though.”

“Thanks, Granny,” she said, shoveling the flapjacks into her mouth one after the other.

“Y’all gotta get goin’ to school anyway,” Big Mac said, with a nod at the clock. “Y’all stay much longer and you’ll be late.”

“Oh right!” Scootaloo said. “That was why we came over in the first place!”

Applebloom cocked her head. “Whuzzat?” she asked.

“Well,” Scootaloo said with an awkward grin as she scratched behind her head. “It’s just that you gave Sweetie Belle a ride yesterday and I was wondering if…”

Applebloom raised an eyebrow. “Y’all want me to give you a ride to school?” she asked, her voice flat. “Couldn’t you just get there on your scooter?”

Scootaloo chuckled nervously. “Well… yeah. And I’d totally get there faster than you by the way!” she added quickly. Sweetie Belle chuckled causing the little pegasus to snap her a glare before continuing. “But it looked like fun yesterday when Sweetie Belle was riding in you, and I wanted to try it out.”

“Depends on your definition of ‘fun,’” Sweetie Belle muttered

“Shush!”

Applebloom gave the pegasus a flat stare for a moment before sighing and letting her head droop. “I ain’t sure I’m comfortable with that right now, Scoots.”

“Aw c’mon, Applebloom. Pleeeease?” The little pegasus flopped on the ground and grabbed at the yellow filly’s hoof. “For us?”

Applebloom groaned. “I dunno.”

Big Mac cleared his throat. “Whatever y’all are gonna do, decide quick. Y’all hang out here much longer and y’all are gonna be late.”

“There, see!” Scootaloo said, jumping to her hooves. “If you don’t get us to school fast we’re gonna be late!”

Sweetie Belle gasped. “Are we? I don’t want a tardy on my record! Rarity will be so disappointed!”

Big Mac blinked. “Uh, girls… that ain’t what I-”

“I just ain’t sure I feel comfortable, girls.” Applebloom said. “After what happened last night-”

“After what happened last night, you never want to use any of your super cool robot powers again.” Scootaloo said, dismissively with a wave of her hoof. “I get it. It’s like falling off a scooter. You get hurt and scraped up and you’re scared that it’s gonna happen again, so you don’t want to get back on.” She poked Applebloom in the chest. “But my mom told me that if you don’t get back on right away, you won’t ever get back on. So right now we gotta get you back on the scooter, Bloom!”

Granny Smith leaned over to Big Mac. “Filly’s smarter than she lets on…” she whispered conspiratorially.

Big Mac nodded and whispered back. “When she wants to be, anyway”

“So whaddaya say, Bloom? Wanna give us a ride to school?”

Applebloom hesitated, looking back and forth from Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, both grinning at her encouragingly, to Big Mac and Granny, both nodding at her with big smiles on their faces, and then to the clock, still ticking away. Finally the filly sighed and relented. “Alright, fine.” she said with a little huff.

“Sweet!” Scootaloo pumped her hoof in the air. “Now come on, we gotta hurry!” she said, scrabbling out the door, Sweetie Belle in tow.

Applebloom smiled nervously, looking back at Big Mac and Granny Smith. “I’ll see y’all later then?”

“‘Course, sugarcube.” Granny Smith said, nudging her out the door. “You just be sure to get to school on time, y’hear?”

Applebloom sighed in relief. “Alright. Thanks, y’all.”

“Come on, Applebloom!” Scootaloo said, trotting in place. “We have to go!”

“Keep your horseshoes on!” Applebloom said playfully, trotting between her friends. “Y’all ready?”

“Been ready!” Scootaloo said.

“I guess…” Sweetie Belle said, hesitantly. “Just not as fast as last night, okay?”

“Awww…” Scootaloo whined, huffing a little. “Fiiiiiine.”

Applebloom took a deep breath and let the transformation go. Her body compacted in on itself and her legs retracted as her little wheels split out of her hooves. Her tail was replaced with the little handle which popped out of her spine. In seconds, Applebloom was replaced by the wagon once again.

Rolling under its own power, the wagon scooted up to Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, the two of them hopping in and putting their helmets on. Applebloom waved her handle at Granny Smith and Big Mac, standing in the doorway. “I’ll see y’all later!”

“Bye Sugarcube!” the two of them waved back, smiles on their faces.

Applebloom revved herself up and then shot off through the orchard toward the main road that would take them to the school. Kicking up a huge cloud of dust, the little wagon zoomed off, one of her occupants cheering as she rolled off into the distance and the other screaming and covering her eyes.

Big Mac and Granny Smith continued to wave after them until they were out of sight. With a smile on her face, Granny Smith turned to her grandson. “Big Mac?” she asked.

“Eeyup?”

“Did I just watch my granddaughter turn into a wagon and roll off into the horizon with her two best friends sitting inside her?”

“Eeyup.”

The smile never left Granny’s face as she took a deep breath and let it out. “This whole hootenanny’s gonna turn my coat gray, ain’t it?”

“Eeyup.”

* * *

Twilight Sparkle was having a good morning.

The purple unicorn trotted through Ponyville square with a smile on her face and a spring in her step, saddlebags full of a selection of her favorite physics and practical magic application books, as well as some ink and parchment. Just the previous night she’d had a flash of inspiration for a new alchemical formula and was eager to start drawing up the theory for it over breakfast. This morning she was feeling rather in the mood for a banana nut muffin, and there was only one place in Ponyville to go if you wanted the best muffins and baked goods you’d ever tasted: Sugarcube Corner.

As Twilight approached the bakery styled to look like a giant gingerbread house, though, she noticed something amiss. There was a small crowd gathered around the bakery’s windows, looking in curiously. And as she got closer, she noticed that the sign on the door was still turned to “closed.” Usually the Cakes opened with the sunrise, like most bakeries in Equestria. As Twilight looked around the storefront, she noticed a familiar blue mare with a pink mane shivering at one of the outdoor tables, a few ponies around her consoling her and two little foals burbling at her hooves.

“Mrs. Cake?” Twilight said as she approached.

The portly blue mare snapped to attention, her eyes wide and her pupils pinpricks. The poor mare was clearly on edge. “Oh, Twilight, dearie! Thank goodness it’s you!”

“What’s going on, Mrs. Cake?” Twilight asked, setting her saddlebags on the table as she sat down across from the poor baker.

“Oh Twilight, it’s terrible!” Mrs. Cake said, picking Pound and Pumpkin cake up in her hooves and clutching the two of them to her barrel. “Somepony broke in last night!”

“Really?!” Twilight gasped, horrified. “Was anypony hurt?”

“No…” Mrs. Cake shook her head. “At least… not yet.”

“Not yet?” Twilight asked.

Mrs. Cake nodded, pointing at the house. “He’s still in there!”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Did you call the sheriff and the guards?”

Mrs. Cake sniffled. “We tried, but the phone in Sugarcube Corner has been acting up lately. and we couldn’t get through. Somebody went to get them a few minutes ago, but they haven’t come back yet.”

Twilight looked around. “Where are Pinkie Pie and Mr. Cake?”

Mrs. Cake pointed at the doors. “They’re s-still inside.” she stuttered. “We heard the intruder in the basement, and they stayed inside to keep him penned in.” she said fearfully. “They told me to get outside with the babies… oh I do hope nothing has happened to them…”

Twilight looked at the door to Sugarcube Corner, then back at Mrs. Cake, and then back to the door again. “I’m going to go in and help.” Twilight said.

“Oh dearie, no!” Mrs. Cake said, putting a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Please, don’t risk yourself too!”

Twilight shook her head. “Don’t worry about me, Mrs. Cake. I’m sure Pinkie and I can handle this. You just keep watch for the guards.”

Mrs. Cake gulped. “A-alright dearie. If you’re sure.”

Twilight nodded, leaving her saddlebags with the baker and trotted off towards the doors to Sugarcube Corner. The crowd parted for her as she approached, allowing her to quickly slip in the door and shut it behind her.

The inside of Sugarcube corner was very dim and still.The blinds were all drawn, so no sunlight poured in through the windows, and every light in the building was turned off, muting the normally bright colors of the bakery and casting the room in eerie shadow. The usual hum of the ovens and chatter of the customers was nowhere to be heard, leaving the bakery deathly quiet. Twilight snuck across the restaurant floor, inching her way towards the kitchen. “Hello?” she called out quietly. Nopony answered her.

Twilight looked around the main room for a moment before silently sidling into the back room where the kitchen was. As she turned the corner into the kitchen, she found herself suddenly tackled and pinned against the wall, the wind knocked out of her lungs as she gasped for breath. She brought up her hooves to protect her face with a weak cry.

“Twilight?!” she heard somepony whisper sharply.

Twilight opened her eyes and lowered her hooves to see two bright blue eyes looking into hers. “Pinkie?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, Twilight, it’s just you!” Pinkie said, releasing her friend, causing Twilight to gasp for air. Pinkie may have been, one might say, a little plush looking, but any cushion on the mare’s figure hid a considerable amount of strength and muscle. She was, after all, still an earth pony. “I was worried that the cupcake burglar had gotten out of the basement somehow and was circling around to finish the job!”

Twilight looked over her friend. The pink mare, despite the direness of the situation, was displaying every last bit of her usual exuberance, bouncing in place and rattling her mouth off. Her big, poofy pink mane was concealed by a large metal pan which she was using as a helmet, her body covered by a purple hoofball jersey and pads, while an inner tube was wrapped around her midsection. The pink pony kept rattling on, “I mean, I don’t know how the burglar could have gotten out of the basement without me or Mr. Cake seeing him, since we’ve been keeping an eye on the basement door since we first heard the clatter this morning, but I suppose it’s possible if, like the intruder was a diamond dog or a unicorn that could teleport or a giant mutant gopher or… heeey, wait a minute!” Pinkie narrowed her eyes at Twilight. “YOU can teleport, Twilight! Are you suuuuure that you aren’t the cupcake burglar?” she said, booping Twilight on the horn.

Twilight waved the pink pony off of her. “Of course I’m sure, Pinkie. I just got here three minutes ago and Mrs. Cake explained what was going on to me.”

Pinkie didn’t budge for a moment, her eyes narrowing even further, until she suddenly sprang out in a silly grin again. “Oki Doki Loki!” she said, sticking her tongue out a little. “‘Course, that means we still have to deal with whatever Stealy McStealerson is down there.” she said, pointing into the kitchen where Mr. Cake had fainted dead away next to a trapdoor, a rolling pin hanging loosely out of his mouth.

“Mr. Cake!” Twilight gasped. “Is he alright?”

Pinkie shrugged. “Eh, he’s fine. he gets that way when he’s spooked.”

Mr. Cake made a noise that reminded Twilight of the time Owlowscious caught a bad head cold.

Twilight shook her head. “Well, what are you doing about the intruder, Pinkie?” she asked, looking at the trapdoor leading to the basement.

“Oh, we’ve just been watching the door to make sure he doesn’t get out.” Pinkie explained. “There are no windows or exits out of the basement, so the kitchen is the only way he can escape!” she chirped, reaching into her mane. “And when he tries that…” she pulled a frying pan seemingly out of nowhere, “BAM!” she shouted, swinging the pan to demonstrate.

“I guess that’s a sound enough plan…” Twilight mused, only for the sound of something shattering to suddenly pierce the air from under the floorboards. Twilight winced. “Of course, that does mean that he’s free to break anything he wants while you wait for the guard.”

Pinkie nodded, worry clear on her face. “Yeah, there’s been a lot of banging and thumping and crashing from down there. That’s where the cakes keep most of their stock, and if too much is damaged, they won’t have anything to make goodies from! And the next delivery isn’t for another couple months!”

Twilight tapped her chin. “Well, now that I’m here, maybe the two of us can overpower the intruder?” she suggested, “After all, we’ve all faced a lot worse, right?”

Pinkie gasped. “Twilight! That’s a super ultra amazing wonderfully fantastical idea!” she squealed, grabbing a police hat seemingly out of nowhere and slapping it on Twilight’s head. She giggled, shoving a police baton in Twilight’s mouth. “We can be like buddy cops! I’ll be the grumpy, by the book, jaded cop that’s a week from retirement, and you can be the loose cannon, newbie cop on the edge that don’t take no flank from nopony!”

Twilight blinked for a moment before spitting the baton out and levitating the hat off of her head. “Yeah, sure Pinkie, whatever,” she mumbled, approaching the trapdoor with a roll of her eyes.

“Don’t you sass me, Rookie!” Pinkie growled, an angry snarl on her face, before the act broke and she fell over giggling.

Twilight sighed as she stood over the trapdoor. “Alright, here’s the plan.” she said, looking at the latch to the door. “You whip the door open, and I’ll fire a stunning spell down into the basement. Once the flash goes off, we’ll rush in and I’ll grab the burglar with my magic, while you grab a rope or something we can tie him up with.”

“You’re gonna get us both killed, Rookie!” Pinkie growled.

“Pinkie!” Twilight snapped. “Focus!”

Pinkie giggled. “Oki Doki Loki, Twi! I gotcha!”

Twilight sighed, shaking her head. “On my mark.” She said, staring intensely at the door. “One…”

Pinkie grabbed the latch. Twilight’s horn lit up in a faint glow.

“...Two…”

Pinkie’s surprisingly considerable muscles tensed and coiled. The glow around Twilight’s horn grew brighter.

“THREE!”

The trapdoor was yanked open in one swift motion as Twilight fired a searing hot, white burst of magic down into the basement. Twilight and Pinkie quickly turned their heads away as the room below suddenly lit up in a flash of bright, blinding white light with a massive KA-BLAM!

“Now, Pinkie!!” Twilight shouted, darting into the basement, Pinkie close behind.

“CONSARNIT! WHAT IN THE NAME OF GRAMPY APPLESEED, MY EYES!” Came the shout as Twilight suddenly skidded to a halt, Pinkie tripping over her.

The two ponies tumbled a moment before coming to a halt in front of a writhing orange earth pony, clutching at her eyes and stumbling around the basement. Several large jugs of something were sitting at her hooves, one of them spilling its contents all over the stone floor of the basement. A single sniff told Twilight it was rum.

Twilight picked herself up, looking pointedly at the intruder. Her eyes were wide and staring with deep bags under them, her mane tangled and bedraggled. Her hooves were chipped and her coat was stained and dirty with sweat and grime. Twilight could smell the pungent scent of alcohol all over the mare.

“Applejack?” Twilight asked, stunned.

“WHAT?!”

* * *

Applebloom skidded to a halt in a little copse of trees hidden a few dozen meters from the front of the schoolhouse. It was only a few minutes before the school bell would ring and there was already a large crowd of foals gathered in the front yard of the building, conversing, playing, running around, and just generally acting like colts and fillies should.

“That was awesome!” Scootaloo squealed, flipping out of Applebloom’s basin. “It was like being on my scooter, but with no control over where we went! It was totally like being on a roller coaster!” She said, buzzing her wings and hovering a little.

“Oooooog…” Sweetie Belle groaned, curled up at the bottom of the wagon.

“Sorry, Sweetie” Applebloom muttered, her little emblem flashing faintly as she did. “Didn’t mean for the ride to be so bumpy.”

“You didn’t HAVE to take the shortcut through the construction site.” Sweetie Belle protested. “It was super dangerous and we could have gotten hurt!”

“But it was so cool!” Scootaloo said with a little whine. “And we might have been late if we hadn’t taken it. Now we’re early!”

“You shouldn’t pressure her to do things like that, though!” Sweetie Belle replied to the orange filly. She looked back down at the bottom of the wagon, addressing Applebloom. “Bloom, you only learned about this part of yourself yesterday. You should be more careful. You don’t know everything you can do yet, and you shouldn’t be dragging us through dangerous places when you’ve only had your wheels for half a day!”

Applebloom sighed, the little wagon dipping closer to the ground. “You’re right, Sweetie.” she mumbled. “Sorry.”

“Awww…” Scootaloo said. “Fine… but when she gets better at her wheels, then we can do cooler runs!”

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. “Anyway, you should transform here behind these trees,” she said, climbing out of the wagon and landing on the ground with a soft puff of dust. “You don’t want to transform in front of the whole class and freak everypony out.”

Applebloom sagged a little, but then the familiar sound of shifting metal rang out and where the wagon stood one minute, the little yellow form of a filly stood seconds later.

BONG BONG BONG

The school bell rang out, signaling the beginning of class in five minutes for all the colts and fillies in the schoolyard. The gathering of foals in front of the school quickly dropped what they were doing and filed into line as Miss Cheerilee appeared in the schoolhouse doorway.

“Alright, time for class!” Sweetie chirped. “Come on, girls!”

“I dunno…” Applebloom said, shuffling a hoof on the ground.

“What’s the matter, Bloom?” Scootaloo asked, fastening her saddlebags around her barrel.

“It’s just,” Applebloom murmured, looking away, “Sweetie is right,” she said. “I don’t know diddly-squat there is to know about me. What if I’m sitting in the middle of class and somepony says some kooky magic word like ‘Bah Weep Granah Weep Ninny Bon’ and I suddenly enter ‘Attack Mode’ and start shooting everypony with laser eye beams and buzzsaws?”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes and huffed. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?” Applebloom asked.

“Trying to get off the scooter!” She said, poking Applebloom in the chest. “What, are you just going to shut yourself away for the rest of your life because you’re scared you might hurt somepony? That’s what stupid ponies do in bad comics and radio shows! Are you gonna be a stupid comic book character, Applebloom? Are you?!”

Applebloom blinked. “But-”

“But NOTHING!” Scootaloo stomped her hoof. “You’ve fallen in a vat of alchemical ooze and gotten your superpowers and I’m not going to let you keep them bottled up! Come on, Sweetie!” She said, trotting behind Applebloom and pushing her flank with her head, scooting her along the ground towards the schoolhouse. Moments later, Sweetie Belle moved in next to her and started pushing her as well.

“Wait! Gals!” Applebloom protested.

“Nope!” Scootaloo said. “You’re going to school and you’re gonna get over yourself! Besides, what are the chances somepony will say some sort of killswitch word and you’ll go insane? If it was gonna happen, it’d have happened by now!”

“Scootaloo’s right!” Sweetie Belle said as she pushed Applebloom’s flank. “We’re not going to let you shut yourself in a cellar or a cave or something just because you’re feeling paranoid! We’d be terrible friends if we let you do that!”

“I-” Applebloom stammered as she was pushed out of the copse of trees and into the open. “I dunno what to say,” she mumbled.

“You can thank us later.” Scootaloo said, releasing her flank. “Now come on, Bloom! It’s time to show off your new-”

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF BUCKING CELESTIA?!”

The three little ponies turned to see an absolutely seething little pink pony with a purple and white mane and a tiara on both her head and her flank, gritting her teeth and pointing at the three of them. Standing next to her with a befuddled, wide-eyed look on her face behind her thick glasses was a grey pony with a lighter grey mane. The pink pony snorted air out of her nostrils like a bull ready to charge for a few moments before seeming to take a deep breath and come down from seething rage down to just a deep, angry scowl.

“Hello, Diamond Tiara.” Scootaloo said with a deadpan eyeroll.

“How…” Diamond Tiara snarled, stomping up to them, the earth seeming to shake as her hooves hit the ground. “When and how did YOU get a cutie mark?!” She demanded, shoving her face right into Applebloom’s.

“Last night!” Sweetie Belle squeaked happily. “Guess you don’t have anything to hold over her head now, huh, Diamond?”

“That little ‘Blank Flank’ taunt is kinda meaningless when she has her cutie mark after all,” Scootaloo said snidely. “Guess you’ll have to find some other pony to pick on.”

“Come on, Diamond, let’s go.” Silver Spoon mumbled.

“No!” Diamond hissed. “You’re not getting off that easy, Applebloom!” The farm filly shrunk into herself a little as the pink filly looked the three of them over, her eyes narrowed dangerously before she zeroed in on Applebloom’s mark and she smirked evilly. “What is that even supposed to mean? An apple with a face? How pathetic.” She laughed, forcefully. “Bet you just realized you like shoving apples down your stupid face!”

“It’s for mechanics!” Scootaloo protested. “For your information, she… She built a robot last night!”

Applebloom blinked. “What?!” she whispered to her friend only to have Scootaloo slap a hoof over her mouth.

Diamond raised an eyebrow disbelievingly. “A robot? Seriously? That’s what you’re going with?”

“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle snorted. “She built a robot! Bet that’s more than you’ve ever done, Tiara!”

The pink filly snarled before regaining her composure. “I don’t believe you,” she growled.

“You don’t have to believe us.” Scootaloo said, waving her off. “You just gotta know that whatever it is she did to get her mark, it was definitely a cooler story than whatever you did to get yours!”

Diamond pulled a hoof back, looking like she was ready to sock Scootaloo in the face, only for Silver Spoon to grab her hoof and hold her back. “Diamond, no!” Silver protested. “They aren’t worth it.”

Diamond Tiara took a deep breath, before putting her hoof down and looking at the three of them, emotionlessly. “You know something?” Diamond said, not a trace of feeling in her voice, “I’m not mad.” She chuckled weakly. “I mean, after all, what are you three?” she asked. “A clumsy pegasus with stunted wings that will never fly, a tone deaf unicorn who can’t do magic, and an inbred, mud pony hick with the town bicycle for a sister!”

“That’s enough!” Applebloom roared.

The little yellow filly stomped forward, pushing Diamond Tiara away with surprising strength. The bully stumbled back a few paces before regaining her footing. “Y’all can say whatever you want about me,” Applebloom snarled, her teeth gritted, “but I am sick and tired of you talking about my friends like that!” Her eyes started glowing a fierce yellow. Diamond Tiara started to shrink in on herself, just as Applebloom had before. “And now y’all’re trying to bring my sister into it? I have had ENOUGH OF YOU!” She said, stomping the ground. The ground cracked under her hoof. She leaned into the pink bully’s face, her eyes glowing with such intensity that Diamond’s eyes started to water as she looked into them. “If y’all say ONE MORE thing about my friends or family, I am going to-”

“What’s going on over there?!” came the familiar voice of a certain mulberry teacher from across the schoolyard.

Applebloom’s eyes suddenly stopped glowing as she realized herself. Straightening back up, she looked down at Diamond Tiara, who was now shivering on the ground, plainly trying not to cry. Applebloom took a few steps backwards, taking a few panicked deep breaths as she realized just how close to actually hurting Diamond Tiara she was. At the same time, Tiara took a few deep breaths herself, blinking away the nascent tears and regaining her composure. Silver Spoon quickly scampered up to Diamond and patted her on the back, attempting to calm her down as Cheerilee trotted up to the group. The Mulberry schoolmarm looked over the group. “Well?” she asked. “What’s happening here?”

“I-” Applebloom opened her mouth to respond, only to see Diamond Tiara wave a hoof in front of her neck and speak for herself.

“Nothing, Miss Cheerilee.” Diamond responded, glaring at Applebloom. “Nothing happened here.”

Cheerilee looked over the group before looking down at Silver Spoon. “Is that true?”

Silver Spoon nodded. “Yes, Miss Cheerilee.”

Cheerilee raised an eyebrow, before turning to Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. “Girls, did anything happen?” she asked, pointedly.

Both of the fillies looked between each other for a moment before shaking their heads. “Nothing happened here, Miss Cheerilee” Scootaloo said.

Cheerilee hemmed and hawed for a moment, looking between the group. Diamond Tiara’s face was stony, while Applebloom’s seemed filled with worry, her brow covered in sweat. The other crusaders and Silver Spoon all seemed mildly nervous. Still, none of them had any traces of wounds or bruises and there hadn’t been any physical confrontation that she’d seen or could prove. The teacher eventually sighed. “Alright then,” she said, skeptically, before looking pointedly at Diamond Tiara. “Let’s keep out of trouble. That goes for all of you.”

“Yes, Miss Cheerilee.” They all said together.

Cheerilee nodded towards the schoolhouse. “Now let’s hurry up.” She said “We’re holding up the rest of the class out here.”

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle scampered off towards the schoolhouse at a speedy pace while Diamond and Silver Spoon gave Applebloom one last glare before strutting off towards the open door. Applebloom slowly went to follow them, legs shaking when she felt a hoof on her shoulder. “Just a moment, Applebloom.” she heard Cheerilee speak. Applebloom’s breath caught and she gulped as she turned to look at Cheerilee. To her surprise, though, the schoolteacher was smiling widely.

“I see you finally got your cutie mark!” The teacher said cheerfully, true to her name. “Congratulations!”

Applebloom blinked, looking at her flank and then back to the teacher. “Oh… y-yeah!” she stuttered with a nervous chuckle. “I got it last night!”

“That’s wonderful, Applebloom!” The teacher said with a toothy grin. “What’s it for?”

“Um… mechanics.” Applebloom muttered with a nervous smile.

“Ahhhh…” Cheerilee nodded. “I always knew you were good with your hooves, Applebloom! How’d you get it?”

“I um…” the filly stuttered. “I built a robot?” she said uncertainly with a little squeak.

The smile quickly slipped off of Cheerilee’s face. “A robot you say…?” The teacher’s face looked ponderous for a moment before a knowing smirk reappeared. “How interesting.” The teacher looked a little closer at Applebloom’s mark. “Now that I look at it, your mark looks rather… familiar, Applebloom.”

“Um, yeah…” Applebloom said, shuffling a hoof on the ground before taking a deep breath. “Miss Cheerilee, I can tell you anything, right?”

“Of course, Applebloom.” Cheerilee said with an earnest smile. “But if I’m right, this is going to be a pretty long story, isn’t it?”

“Um… kinda.” Applebloom chuckled nervously.

The teacher patted her on the head. “Then how about we wait until after class is over?” she suggested. “That way, we’ll have all the time in the world and plenty of privacy. That sound good?”

“Y-yeah…” Applebloom let out a relieved breath. “That sounds great.”

“Now come along,” Cheerilee said, beckoning Applebloom to follow, “class is starting.”

Applebloom smiled a little, following her teacher into the classroom. The Ponyville Schoolhouse was a bigger building than most people would expect, containing four classrooms and covering eight grades. A hallway ran around the exterior of the four rooms, lined with lockers and billboards and projects the various students of Ponyville had completed. The fillies and colts of Ponyville would go to school every other day, save for Sunday when all colts and fillies had school off. Grades 1, 3, 5, and 7 had class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, while grades 2, 4, 6, and 8 went to class on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Ponies who graduated from school tended to go into apprenticeships soon after leaving school. Ponies who didn’t yet know what they wanted to do in life, though, sometimes attended high schools, and ponies who wanted more academic jobs in the scientific, alchemical, or magical fields tended to go into universities, but those sorts of schools were mostly only found in bigger cities like Manehattan, Vanhoover, and Canterlot. This was the way things tended to be all across Equestria.

Applebloom slipped into the grade 5 and 6 classroom behind Cheerilee, taught both grades 5 and 6 from her teacher’s desk at the front. The teacher quickly stepped behind the desk, while Applebloom slipped into her desk between Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.

The orange pegasus filly leaned over and whispered into Applebloom’s ear. “What’s up?” she muttered. “You took a while out there.”

“Nothing bad,” Applebloom replied, whispering herself. “I’m going to stay after class to talk to Miss Cheerilee though.” She looked around the room to see Diamond Tiara glaring at her. If looks could kill, Applebloom’s head would have split open at the mouth and spiders would have crawled up her throat and devoured her. She shuddered. “Good thing too. Hopefully I’ll get somepony else who’ll have my back.”

Sweetie Belle nodded. “If the story Big Mac told us this morning is true, she’ll support you.”

“Quiet down, everypony!” Cheerilee called from the front of the room. The three ponies all turned toward the front and stopped talking. “Now today, we’re going to be talking about the digestive system!”

The class let out a collective groan at the topic of choice for the day. Cheerilee chuckled. “I know, I know, you’ve all heard the ‘Magic School Carriage’ radio plays, so you all think you know about the topic.” she winked. “But there might be some things the show passed over, after all. And besides, if you all know it so well it’ll just be that much easier, won’t it?”

The lesson began, Cheerilee drawing a diagram of the pony digestive system on the chalkboard. Cheerilee explained the purpose of the mouth and teeth, the esophagus, the stomach, the small intestines, and the large intestines to a classroom full of bored fillies and colts. As she explained the purpose and function of each part, though, Applebloom found herself paying rapt attention, at least at first. The more Cheerilee went on, the more Applebloom found her mind wandering.

The filly tapped her chin. ‘This is how a pony works, but I’m not actually a pony, am I?’ she thought as she stared at the chalk organs drawn on the board. ‘If I’m a robot, how do I eat? How do I go to the bathroom? What’s going on inside of me? I’ve never actually been to a doctor, come to think of it. Applejack and Granny Smith never really trusted doctors.’ Applebloom lowered her eyes, looking down at her desk. ‘I ain’t never been x-rayed or gotten a shot or had a doctor look in my eyes or down my throat… I don’t know the first thing about what’s going on in my own body!’ her thoughts raced.

Something thumped.

‘How am I eating? Shouldn’t I be chugging, like, oil or something? If I got guts, how do they not get all tangled and mangled when I transform? Do I have a brain? Do I have lungs? I can think and breathe, so I must, but what are they like? Are my bones made of metal? What about my muscles? And if my insides are all roboty, why am I soft and squishy and covered in fur like a pony if I’m metal on the inside? How did nopony notice this before now?

A glass of water on Cheerilee’s desk rippled.

‘If I’m a machine, how do I get tired? How do I feel pain? How do I have feelings at all? Am I really feeling things or am I just feeling some sort of… fake, programmed version of them? Is there even a difference? How can I know? What in the world AM I?!

The windows rattled outside the room.

“Alright, who’s making that fuss?” Cheerilee snapped, cutting off her lesson.

That was when the wall exploded.

Everypony screamed in terror, ducking under desks and hiding behind furnature as debris flew into the room. Burning wood splinters, smouldering books, ruined school projects and cork shards from the destroyed billboards and even metal scraps and glass shards from the lockers and windows in the hallways flew into the room at high speeds, peppering the students and teacher as the lot of them ran and ducked under cover. The explosion knocked a number of the little ponies from their feet, some of them suffering mild burns from the fiery blast. Scootaloo was one who found her primary feathers and mane and tail singed in the burst of flame that flew into the room as quickly as it was gone. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle were knocked over in their desks, scrabbling to crawl out of them as the students around them screamed, Cheerilee calling for all of them to quickly get into single file and follow emergency procedures. Her voice, however, was lost among the din of the screams of pain and terror from the foals and fillies running around the classroom and ducking for cover like panicked chickens.

Everything seemed to slow down for Applebloom as she suddenly felt a massive pain in her skull. She felt dizzy as she pulled herself out from her desk. Everypony around her seemed to be moving in a weird, choppy sort of slow motion, as if she were slowly looking at the pages of a flip book one by one rather than flipping through it as one was meant to. The little filly stumbled and shook her head as she tried to maintain her balance, but that only sent a spike of pain worse than any she’d felt before through her skull. She heard somebody call her name, but turning to look for the source caused another lance of pain to fire through her head and she fell to her knees, staring blankly out the massive hole that had been blown into the wall. She felt something dripping down her face. She reached up to feel it, another shot of pain rushing through her head and down her spine. As she brought away her hoof, she noticed that it was coated blue with some sort of glowing, viscous fluid. Her vision flickered, when she suddenly saw Miss Cheerilee standing over her. The mare bent down and grabbed something in her teeth, quickly pulling it away. It turned out to be a huge shard of twisted metal from a destroyed locker, coated blue with the same fluid. ‘Was that in my head?’ Applebloom thought, drowsily.

“Oh... is this really it?” A booming voice said from outside the hole. The smoke and dust cleared and the ponies laid eyes on their attacker. A massive red and black robot, easily as tall as the schoolhouse itself. Its orange eyes glowed with malice as it stared into the wrecked room before locking on Applebloom in particular. “I was hoping I’d find something more interesting after searching that ship, but of course I’d just find a little nest of screaming organics and an allspark-damned autobot minicon that goes down after a single blow to the head. Just my luck, I suppose.”

Applebloom’s head swam. ‘Minicon?’ her thoughts latched onto lazily.

The giant robot seemed to sigh. “Oh well. I suppose it’s time I eliminated the big, bad ‘Autobot Threat’ Shockwave seems so frightened of,” he said noncomittaly, as he reached into the room towards the prone, blue-bleeding filly. He stuck out a shining, metal tongue that looked like mercury and licked it around two large fangs gleaming menacingly in his mouth. “At least you’ll make a nice snack to tide me over until I can find something decent to eat...”

“Leave her alone!” Cheerilee screamed, planting her hooves to the ground in front of Applebloom and lowering her head, about to charge. The schoolteacher snorted and pawed at the ground, like a rhino ready to gore something. “You will NOT touch my student!”

The massive robot seemed to raise an eyebrow for a second before snorting out a noncommittal chuckle and raising his hand like a minotaur about to knock away a spider. With just a flick of its index finger, the massive robot sent Cheerilee sailing across the room, her back colliding with a large bookshelf. The teacher cried out in pain as a cracking noise rang out through the room, then slumped to the ground, not able to move away in time as the contents of the shelf all spilled out atop her, before the shelf itself lost its balance and fell, burying the mulberry pony alive.

“Now then…” the robot said, as if nothing at all had just happened, “The ‘Autobot Threat.’” He said, reaching into the room and grabbing Applebloom up in his massive hand.

“Applebloom!” Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo both shouted at the same time, leaping for her, but the massive robot pulled his arm away too quickly, and the two of them ended up grabbing nothing but air. The little filly emerged out of the hole in the wall in his massive hand and into the open.

The robot sneered, tightening his grip around Applebloom. Even in her dazed, bleeding state, the filly felt the massive metal hand crushing her insides in the vicegrip of his hand. She screamed through the pain, her every attempt to move futile in his tight, crushing grip.

“This’ll be quick…” he muttered through a small smirk.

Author's Note

Welp! I'm glad I got this out by the end of November. I was hoping to get another chapter out by the end of the month. It necessitated that I skip the editing process though, so if there are any glaring continuity errors or awkward wording or typos or anything, please let me know.

This is mostly a bridging chapter. Everything that happens in it is important to some degree, but ultimately it's just a few scenes getting the characters from one place to another so that everything will be ready when the really BIG stuff happens. Pretty much everything in it is foreshadowing later events though, so keep an eye out and feel free to speculate!

Hope people aren't too bored by this chapter. And again, it hasn't been edited, so if you think anything comes across as awkward, PLEASE let me know so I can go back in and tinker :twilightsheepish:

Hope you all enjoy! I'll be letting people vote on what I work on next in a blog post! :pinkiehappy:

Ch7: A Whole World of Pain

___________________________________________________________________________________

Applebloom: Transform and Rollout!
by Dusty the Royal Janitor

Chapter 7: A Whole World of Pain

The massive hand gripped Applebloom like a vice, causing her chassis to creak under the pressure. Applebloom would have cried out, but she’d become so light headed at this point that she could barely feel the pain. Sparks flew from her joints as the grip got tighter and tighter. A light flashed in the corner of her vision in a language that she had never seen before but was somehow able to read. It read “Danger: Structural Integrity at Risk. Energon Levels less than 5%.” Applebloom recognized the word from the massive amount of information that she’d absorbed, but she was so dizzy and confused she couldn’t remember what it was.

The monstrous face of her attacker looked at her dispassionately as he slowly tightened his grip on her. Were Applebloom a normal pony, surely she would have been turned into a mushy pulp by now. The giant robot’s face turned to a hint of a smirk as he licked his two prominent fangs. “Resilient, aren’t you?” he taunted, suddenly tightening his grip all at once, causing Applebloom to whimper a little. “Not much fight in you, though,” he muttered.

BREEP BREEP BREEP

Suddenly the tightening stopped for a moment. The massive robot stopped for a second to look askance at a large, circular device attached to his shoulder. Pausing for just a moment, he soon snorted and went back to crushing the life out of Applebloom.

BREEP BREEP BREEP

The sound came from the device again. The robot growled impatiently and, to her great relief, released Applebloom, tossing her to the ground. Applebloom bounced, before crumpling face-up in a heap just outside the hole in the schoolhouse wall. As she came to a stop, she felt herself involuntarily shifting. Her spine twisted around and her face split open, signaling the start of her transformation. Faintly she heard the rest of her class, who had all found places to hide somewhere in the ruined classroom, gasp in astonishment. It barely registered, though, she was so light headed. Her limbs extended and her face fell to her chest, more lazily than it ever had before. Her transformation seemed slow and shuddering, her body twitching and spasming as she was left in her bipedal, robotic form in front of her entire class. She lay there, though, too tired to do anything to conceal herself.

“Applebloom!” She heard Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo faintly call, followed by the sound of scampering hooves.

And then a massive foot came down on her chest.

Applebloom hacked out some more blue fluid as the giant robot’s massive foot pinned her to the ground. Her attacker pointed at the two ponies coming to her aid with a horrifying sneer. “Back off, Organics,” he snarled.

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle skidded to a halt, but did not back down. Scootaloo bore down, her singed wings vibrating. Sweetie seemed less battle ready, but her horn took on a faint, flickering glow.

The massive foe didn’t even seem to notice their combative postures; only that they’d stopped in their tracks. That seemed good enough for him, as he reached over to the beeping device on his shoulder and pulled something boxy out of it, attached by a long cord. Were she more conscious, Applebloom would have noticed that it vaguely resembled the boxy, new “telephones” that could be found in various buildings around town. Her giant enemy flicked a switch on the device and spoke into it.

“Dead End reporting,” he droned, rolling his glowing, orange eyes.

A voice, low, grumbling, and sinister, rumbled from the device in response. “Dead End, the troops have reported that you left your assigned squadron. What are you doing?”

The massive robot called Dead End snorted and pressed his foot down on Applebloom’s body a little harder, causing her to whimper again. “I am eliminating the supposed ‘Autobot threat,’ sir,” he replied, snidely.

The device crackled with static for a moment before the reply came again. “I am tracking your position with the comm device. You have crossed into what appears to be a populated area. Did I not tell you to proceed with caution? That this was a stealth mission?” The voice did not get louder or raise its tone, but there was a definite edge of menace in it.

Dead End scoffed. “Populated by worthless organics, maybe,” he said, sounding bored. “Once we got below the layer of radiation causing the interference, we were able to scan for Autobot signals. There is only one on the whole planet, Lord Shockwave.” He looked down at Applebloom. “The threat is negligible.”

“One Autobot signal you can observe, Dead End,” came the reply. “Waspinator reported a massive blind spot where interference is heavy located around a nearby mountain. The troops also reported a significant populated area situated at its apex.” More crackling came from the communication device as Lord Shockwave continued. “You are aware of how Autobots like to mingle with organic life forms. If the Autobots were on this planet, they would naturally be in such an area, and the blind spot suggests a jamming tower is present.”

Dead End sighed, exhaustedly. “The ship that we investigated was small, Lord Shockwave; Merely an antiquated personal transport, hitched up to a protoform nursery,” he grumbled. “Hardly big enough to carry more than a sparse few Autobots.”

“Irrelevant.” Shockwave replied. “You have compromised stealth, Dead End, and put at risk the Decepticon cause.”

Applebloom’s foggy mind managed to latch onto that one word. “Decepticons.”

Shockwave continued. “Incapacitate the Autobot you have currently engaged and bring it aboard. Blitzwing will interrogate it.”

Through the haze of her mind, Applebloom managed to piece together his words. These Decepticons wanted to kidnap her and bring her on board their ship or something! And she had no desire to see what they meant by “interrogate.” She’d read enough of Scootaloo’s comic books to know that that usually meant torture of some kind. Her body finally regaining some fight, she tried to wiggle out from under Dead End’s foot, only for the massive decepticon to push down on her harder.

Dead End looked down at Applebloom, a metallic eyebrow raised. “It’s only a minicon, sir. I’ve scrapped it pretty bad, too.”

Applebloom’s head pounded. She couldn’t move. She could barely breathe. She didn’t know if she had any special powers or anything that could help, and the only power she did know she had had only helped her fix a sink! The little bot closed her eyes and prayed for a miracle.

“Blitzwing shall patch it up if necessary.” Shockwave said. “Only long enough to get as much information about this planet as we can, of course.”

Applebloom felt something deep inside of her. It felt like it was pushing out from behind her eyes, like the time she scanned the wagon, or the time she analyzed the disposal… but there was something different about it this time…

Suddenly a massive swirling green vortex opened up in the middle of thin air.

“I am sending you a small squad of Vehicons, Dead End. You and they will exterminate any organic witnesses in the area, and return with the captured Autobot.”

Three identical, purple Decepticons suddenly stepped through the vortex and into the clearing in front of the schoolhouse, each sporting what looked like glowing cannons on their arms and one big, red, cycloptic eye in the center of their heads. They lumbered through the clearing, before turning to look at the schoolhouse and Applebloom’s classmates in the ruined classroom. The little foals all cowered behind their various covers. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo tried to keep up brave faces, but their knees were perceptibly shaking. Applebloom tried to fight through the fog in her mind, but the world felt like it was spinning around her. The words in the corner of her eye now read that her ‘Energon’ was only at 2% and that she was at risk of total system failure. More of the blue stuff was leaking out of the wound in her head and down her face. The pressure on her chest felt like it would split her in two. Her whole world was pain.

Dead End seemed to wilt a little. “But sir… I’m hungry,” he almost seemed to whine.

“Vehicon ST-3v3 tells us that you have already fed today.” Came the unamused reply.

The pulsing behind Applebloom’s eyes became ever more forceful, but amidst all the other pain, she barely noticed.

“...Shoulda drained that scrapheap dry…” Dead End mumbled, licking his fangs again before sighing again. “Very well, Lord Shockwave. By your command.” The decepticon flicked a switch on the comm device and stuck the speaker back into the main body of the device.

Dead End looked down at Applebloom with a disgusted sneer. The little Autobot struggled fruitlessly, clenching her eyes shut. The pressure in her head felt like it was going to pop her skull.

“Looks like you get to live for now, Autobot,” he sneered, reaching down. “Your little organic friends, are another story, though.” He brought her up to eye level and chuckled. “How’d you like to watch me and my friends blow your little pets to the pit?”

“NO!” Applebloom shrieked, her eyes bursting open. Bright beams of blue light fired from her eyes, engulfing Dead End’s face. The massive Decepticon snarled and tossed Applebloom away, blinded by the flash. Applebloom tumbled tail over teakettle across the ground before coming to a halt, face-up and head spinning on the ground. The pressure in her head had somewhat alleviated and the fog in her mind had started to clear, but the rest of her world was still pain. Applebloom blearily rose to her trembling hands and knees, coughing and hacking. The message in the corner of her vision read that her energon was at 1.5%. As she tried to take stock of the situation, though, she noticed two things.

Firstly, something was sitting in her mouth wrong. Applebloom blinked, and felt around in her mouth with her tongue, only to yelp with surprise when she felt something prick it. Opening her mouth, she felt around in it with a finger.

She had fangs…

And that was when she noticed the second new change. She was hungry.

Applebloom fell over clutching her stomach, she was so hungry. In fact, the word hungry didn’t even seem to come close to describing it. She was positively ravenous. Her body shook with hunger and her senses seemed to dull as her hunger seemed to take her over, but what was strangest was Applebloom could barely understand what she was hungry for.

“You morons, don’t just stand there!” Dead End shouted, clutching his eyes. He pointed at Applebloom. “Get her!”

The three Vehicons looked at each other for a moment before one of them broke off from the group to come at her.

And then it clicked.

Reason left her. Instinct took over. Applebloom shrieked, not in terror, but in rage and hunger. Like a predatory animal, she leaped at the oncoming decepticon, and despite her weakness and injuries managing to leap a good ten feet in the air. The little bot landed on her attacker’s arm, the decepticon too stunned by her actions to react quickly enough. Latching onto his limb with her hands and feet, she scrabbled up his arm to his shoulder. She opened her mouth wide and then bit down, her fangs piercing clean through its metal chassis.

Applebloom’s world seemed to explode into color.

Blue fluid burst in gushing waves from the massive Decepticon’s shoulder, most of it finding its way into Applebloom’s mouth. Suddenly, all the pain and weakness just seemed to wash off of her like dirt off a pony’s coat when they stepped into a hot shower.

The Decepticon thrashed and flailed about, trying to dislodge her, reaching back with his arms, but unable to reach the spot on his shoulder where Applebloom clung. Despite all the shaking, Applebloom held fast, her new hands never once letting their grip give. Applebloom drank deeply of the blue fluid, each gulp making her feel stronger and stronger. It tasted incredible. It was an almost indescribable flavor. Smoky, spicy, and savory all at once, but also somehow unfathomably sweet, with just a hint of bitterness at the end to offset it. The closest thing she could maybe equate it to was a smoked hayburger with cheese and sweet chili sauce, but that was still woefully inadequate to describe the sheer power behind the flavor and the sensations she felt. It felt like somepony had hooked up some sort of magical device to her muscles, causing her to gain the strength of a professional bodybuilder in mere moments, and she felt herself continuing to get stronger and stronger as she drank the fluid. On top of that, she could feel a number of the damages that had been made inside her starting to repair themselves. Her body was fixing itself. Her senses, too, were getting sharper and sharper. She could smell the nectar of a flower a dozen yards away. She could see the tiniest chalk dust motes speckled on Cheerilee’s chalkboard. She could hear the heartbeats of each and every one of her friends and classmates. Whatever it was she was drinking, it was powerful... And it was making her powerful.

And after a few moments… a few short moments… she felt she could drink no more.

With a snarl, she reached into the wound she had made in the Decepticon’s shoulder with a hand and grabbed the first thing she could feel. With all of her might, she pulled back sharply. With an enraged cry, she ripped something free, and leaped off of the Decepticon’s shoulder. The Vehicon screamed and collapsed, falling to his knees and slumping forward onto its good arm.

Applebloom landed with a stumble before finding her balance, as she panted furiously. Blinking, her senses returned but a few moments later. She looked back at the Decepticon she just attacked, struggling to get to his feet.

“My arm!” it cried. “The little vermin maimed my arm!”

Indeed, the Vehicon’s arm hung limply from his torso, unmoving. As he moved and thrashed about, the arm slapped around limply, like a wet noodle. Or at least as much like a wet noodle as a metal, robot arm could. She had managed to paralyze the limb of a robot a good four times bigger than her!

Applebloom blinked, noticing the words in the corner of her vision again. They had turned from red to green and now read “System Repairs Functioning. Energon levels at 187%, Overdrive Activated.”

Her eyes widened ‘So that was energon...’ she thought, before smirking a little. ‘I like it.’

Though the other two Vehicons and Dead End had been momentarily stunned into silence by her vicious display, Dead End soon managed to shake it off. “For the love of the pit, you idiots! Kill the slagging scraplet!”

That was all the Vehicons needed to start firing their massive arm cannons at Applebloom. The little Autobot yelped and jumped back, narrowly avoiding a burst of hot plasma that scorched the ground right where she had just been standing. Two more bursts of white-hot plasma followed, which Applebloom found herself forced to dodge. Thinking quickly, Applebloom shifted into her wagon mode and sped around the trio in a circle.

“You’re cloggin’ my tailpipe!” Dead End growled. “She’s a triple-changer too?! What kind of Minicon is this?!” He snarled in frustration, opening his own arms up and shifting his hands into large cannons of his own. “Forget our orders! Scrap the little oilspill! Turn her to molten slag!” He howled, firing his twin cannons at her.

Applebloom wove between the shots as best she could, a strange little icon having appeared in the side of her vision again, this one showing a yellow dot in the center of a large circle and four red dots situated around her. One was unmoving, likely the downed Vehicon with the crippled limb, still desperately trying to shake its arm awake. The other three were desperately trying to chase her, but her small, swift form was apparently to proving too speedy for them. Every now and then, small blue dots would emerge from the red dots and come sailing towards her. She reasoned that those were their plasma bolts, and the little motion tracker helped her avoid them with relative ease. Still, the sheer number of bolts they were firing was beginning to overwhelm her.

Applebloom skidded to a halt behind a large oak tree. The Decepticon’s volley of fire pelted against it, setting it aflame. She could hear their stomping footsteps approaching as they advanced on her hiding place. Quickly, Applebloom shifted back into her robot form.

‘How do I beat them?!’ Applebloom thought frantically. ‘I can’t go and bite all of them one by one! They’ll shoot me the second I sink my teeth in! I need something to fight them with!’

As if in response to her thoughts, Applebloom felt her back open up as something literally popped out of her and clattered to the ground. Turning, she looked down at the ground to see what had fallen out of her

The wagon handle was sitting on the ground.

Applebloom blinked, then gasped. “Oh no!” she squeaked. “Did those Decepticons shoot my handle o-”

Suddenly, the grip at the end of the wagon handle seemed to expand, opening a gaping hole in what was normally a slot one could barely stick their hoof into. As Applebloom watched, the hole between the gap seemed to fill up with the blue energon she had absorbed, the liquid pouring out of the rod of the handle and into some sort of containment field in the shape of a massive, rectangular prism. The energon spilled out like it was water from a pressurized firehose, filling the field in a matter of moments, so that a massive cube of energon sat at the end of her handle, forming a massive energon hammer. With a flash of heat and light from the grip of her wagon handle, The energon seemed to crystallize and the containment field that surrounded it when it was still liquid disappeared.

Applebloom blinked, hefting her massive energon warhammer. “Yeah, I guess this’ll do…” she said, impressed.

The moment she said that, though, the massive oak she’d been hiding behind exploded in a shower of smoldering wooden shards and burning leaves. Applebloom was knocked to her belly from the blast with a squeak of surprise, clutching the warhammer to her chest. She quickly rolled herself over to see a Vehicon, reaching over the burning stump of the tree and trying to grab at her in its clawed, metallic hand.

Applebloom gasped and quickly somersaulted backwards on the ground out of his reach. Getting to her feet, she hefted the heavy warhammer over her head and brought it down as hard as she could on the massive robot’s hand.

CRUNCH!

The Vehicon screeched in pain as the impact crushed his servos. Bringing the hammer back up, Applebloom saw that she had managed to practically flatten the Vehicon’s hand. Most of the delicate finger joints had been knocked out of alignment and the metal chassis was twisted and dented all over. The Decepticon reeled back and clutched his maimed hand with his good one. Taking the moment, Applebloom hefted the hammer up again and ran at the screaming ‘Con. Lifting the hammer over her shoulder like a baseball bat, she leapt over the burning tree stump and swung a horizontal blow at the Vehicon’s knee. There was another satisfying ‘CRACK!’ and suddenly the Vehicon fell over screaming, one leg bent the wrong way.

Applebloom attempted to run past the screaming Decepticon only for her to be suddenly jerked back. Falling forward, she twisted around to see that the fallen Vehicon had grabbed her leg with its good hand. “You little SKIDMARK!” he gasped out. Applebloom screamed, twisting around and lifting her hammer over her head again, bringing it down on the Vehicon’s head. The Vehicon managed to let out one last shriek before it suddenly cut off, his metal hand releasing Applebloom and his big red eye suddenly dimming.

Applebloom gasped for breath as she realized what she did. “Oh Celestia… I killed it!” She stuttered. She was just about to collapse to her knees when a sudden burst of plasma from behind her knocked her off her feet.

“Scrap, I missed!” came a shout. Applebloom rolled across the ground to see the other two Vehicons advancing on her, the one with a maimed arm aiming his good arm at her.

“Let me do it!” Shouted the other one, bringing up his twin cannons and firing them at her one after the other. Applebloom leapt to her feet and started jumping back and forth from one leg to the other, attempting to run at the advancing Vehicons. The two of them together seemed to be able to keep her mostly pinned down, though.

Leaping nimbly from spot to spot, narrowly avoiding every shot, Applebloom forced herself to come up with a plan on the fly. ‘C’mon, think!’ she mentally kicked herself. Applebloom didn’t have any cannons like the larger robots did. Her only weapon was her hammer and the powerful fangs and jaws that she had somehow copied from Dead End. She was a strictly close-combat fighter in a ranged battle.

Applebloom thought quickly. “Um… Your mother smells like a box of old socks!” she shouted at the two Vehicons.

The two Vehicons looked at each other, but kept their weapons trained on her.

“What are socks?” the crippled one asked.

“What’s a mother?” asked the other

Suddenly the crippled Vehicon felt himself knocked back onto his backside, a hammer buried in his chest. Applebloom had chucked the hammer at him like an olympian, causing the hammer to sail a few dozen feet through the air until it hit the Vehicon in the gut, breaking open a small hole in his armored chassis and sending him flying backwards. The maimed Vehicon tumbled head over heels backwards before coming to rest on his back, the hammer sliding off of him. The ‘Con made a guttural, pained noise as Applebloom rushed up, sprinting right at where he lay. Applebloom leapt through the air, ready to come down right on the prone decepticon.

At the apex of her leap, though, she felt a terrible burning sensation run through her leg. White hot plasma fire seared her limb, sending her sailing off course and overshooting the fallen Vehicon. Applebloom screamed as she fell in a heap next to her would-be victim.

The prone Vehicon coughed, and lifted the hammer, tossing it away. “Nice shooting, T3-X.” he managed to hack out.

The other Vehicon nodded, training his cannon on Applebloom again, but the little bot rolled to the side and managed to hide herself behind the maimed Vehicon, still struggling to get to his feet despite his maimed limb. The healthy Vehicon stopped firing, attempting to get around his comrade to get a bead on her, while the injured one noticed her and raised a hand to swat at her. Without her weapon and disarmed, Applebloom thought fast. Lifting a hand up, she split her arm open and unveiled the strange, whirring mass of gears and cogs and wires under her skin. And just like she did with the disposal under the sink back home, Applebloom plunged her hand into the hole in the Vehicon’s gut that her hammer had made.

The Vehicon screeched bloody murder as Applebloom felt her arm fusing with something inside the Vehicon. The little bot didn’t even know what she was doing. All she knew was that she wanted to mess what was inside up. She wanted to scramble it like an egg. Sparks flew from its chest as it seized up and spasmodically twitched.

The Vehicon collapsed with a resounding crash, Applebloom quickly disengaging her limb and pulling her arm out of its chest. The Vehicon twitched a little, before making a slight gurgling noise and going silent, its red eye flickering, but not going out.

Thinking quickly, Applebloom leapt over the fallen foe and somersaulted on the landing, just narrowly avoiding a plasma burst right where she had been standing a split second earlier. Running as fast as she could, Applebloom slid across the ground to where her Hammer lay in the dirt. Hefting it up, another burst of plasma sailed right in front of her, barely a centimeter away from her face. Turning to face the last Vehicon, she was too slow and ended up taking a plasma burst straight to the core.

Applebloom cried out and sailed backwards, the force of the impact knocking her off her feet, the heat burning at her armor. The little robot hit the ground with a screech of creaking metal, before skidding back and slamming headfirst into a massive apple tree. The blow had frazzled her motion sensor and readout systems and she felt like something had been knocked loose inside of her. Her vision glitching and sometimes bursting with static, the little robot lay on the ground with a groan, still clutching her hammer.

Applebloom heard footsteps approaching. Blinking blearily, she saw the massive Vehicon slowly approaching her, both his weapons still trained on her. Warily, the ‘Con stepped around her, attempting to get a good look at her without stepping in range of her fangs or her hammer. When it looked like she was down for the count, the Vehicon turned his head to address his superior.

“Sir, I think I’ve got her!” he shouted.

Applebloom took the moment. With a mighty swing, she hefted her hammer and plowed it straight into the trunk of the gigantic apple tree she was resting against. Apples flew everywhere. The bark cracked and creaked, before the whole tree finally gave. With an earsplitting CRUNCH, the tree started to tip over, twisting at the base and falling over. The Vehicon barely had time to turn his head back to his victim before the tree toppled over and collapsed atop him. With a cry of alarm and pain, the Vehicon was pinned beneath the trunk of the tree.

“Dammit!” The Vehicon shouted. With alarm, Applebloom noticed that the Vehicon was lifting it off of him. Quickly jumping to her feet, she stumbled up to the prone enemy and opened her mouth wide. “What? NO!” The Vehicon shouted.

Applebloom didn’t heed him. The little robot sank her fangs into the robot’s thigh, biting through layers of armor and chassis and revealing an energon pipe beneath. Greedily, she sucked at it, feeling the pain from the Vehicon’s attack fade away, while her foe felt his strength slowly fading away, until he could no longer lift the tree and he lay on the ground in a sickened daze.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” came a furious shout. Applebloom turned to ready her hammer, but was unprepared for what she saw.

Dead End stood across the grassy field from her, a triumphant smirk on his face. Lined up in front of him, all weeping silently were her classmates, as well as the students and faculty of the other classes in the school. Applebloom froze, unsure of what to do.

“Now you listen to me!” Dead End shouted. “One more move, and I’ll frag the lot of them, understand?!”

Applebloom nodded, her eyes starting to water as she saw Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle among the gathered crowd in front of the ‘Con. “...I-I understand. Just don’t hurt them!” she said.

“Drop your hammer and come towards me,” He said, his cannon arm twitching. “Slowly.”

Applebloom held her hammer out in one hand and tossed it a few yards to her side. Then, slowly, she took a single step forward.

“Don’t do it, Applebloom!” Scootaloo shouted.

“Shut up!” Dead End hollered. “One more outburst and I’ll slag you anyway!” He turned his attention back to Applebloom. “Keep coming, Scraplet.”

Applebloom nodded, slowly walking forwards, fighting to hold back her tears. Despite all the fighting and overpowering three foes quadruple her size, she had still lost. When she got about two thirds of the way across the grassy field, Dead End spoke again.

“Alright, that’s far enough. Stop!”

Applebloom came to a halt. Silence reigned in the ruined, burning schoolyard, but her thoughts raced at a million miles a minute. ‘They’re gonna take me on board their ship and torture me and kill me and they’re gonna kill all my friends and maybe even all of Ponyville and then who knows what they’re gonna do to the rest of Equestria and I’ll never see Applejack or Big Mac or Granny Smith again and wait a minute…” her thoughts came to a halt as she looked past the crowd of ponies and her massive enemy into her ruined classroom. “Didn’t that bookshelf fall on Miss Cheerilee?”

Indeed, the bookshelf that had previously been face down atop her teacher was now resting on its side, and the pile of books below it looked more spread out and askew than previously. And now that she scanned the crowd, Miss Cheerilee was nowhere to be seen.

Before she could fully process the information, though, Dead End spoke again.

“Now get to your knees and put your hands behind your head, Autobot.” Dead End said, commandingly.

Applebloom blinked before obliging, putting her hands behind her head and slowly kneeling down. She looked all around in Cheerilee’s classroom for any sign of her teacher, but all she could see that was out of place was a cabinet that had previously been locked was now hanging open. Before she had any time to process that, though, Dead End spoke again.

“I don’t care what Shockwave says,” he snarled. “You’re way too much trouble to let live.” Dead End trained his cannon on Applebloom’s face, its glow intensifying. “Say goodnight, grease stain.”

“I SAID GET AWAY FROM MY STUDENTS!”

A glass flask sailed through the air and shattered against Dead End’s face.

Dead End screamed, stumbling backwards and collapsing into the schoolhouse, knocking down part of the ceiling before he found his footing. The shrieking Decepticon retracted his cannons and clutched at his face with his hands.

A familiar head of purple hair poked out from behind a bush, a massive chemistry set at her hooves. “Everypony run! To the emergency shelter! Now!”

The three other teachers quickly took charge of the panicking students and led them quickly to a storm door on the other side of the school. Dead End continued to thrash about. “My optics! I can’t see!”

Applebloom took her chance. Leaping to her feet, she made a mad dash at Dead End. She leapt up and grabbed ahold of his chest, opening her mouth wide and sinking her fangs deep into his chest.

Dead End screamed. “GET OFF OF ME!” He howled, quickly grabbing hold of Applebloom in his massive hand and throwing her as hard as he could. The little robot sailed through the air, only to come to a sudden stop as she hit the schoolhouse bell with a resounding BONG! The little Autobot slipped off of the belltower and onto the schoolhouse roof, scrabbling to keep purchase on the steeply-sloped roof.

Dead End stumbled out into the courtyard, grabbing frantically at the comm device on his shoulder. “BLITZWING! I NEED AN IMMEDIATE GROUNDBRIDGE ON MY LOCATION! NOW!”

Applebloom stumbled around as she desperately tried to keep hold of the roof. Watching Dead End stumble around in agony, she suddenly saw another green vortex open in the middle of the ruined schoolyard. Blindly feeling his way towards the whooshing, crackling noise of the vortex called a groundbridge, Dead End stumbled through, followed by the the Vehicon that had shot her before, supporting the maimed one she scrambled with a fireman’s carry. The moment the two of them made it through, the vortex closed.

Applebloom clung to the roof of the schoolhouse, gasping for breath and watching the spot where the Decepticons had vanished, her hackles raised and her body tensed. She only allowed herself a deep sigh, breathing normally again after a good three minutes had passed with no activity. Her heart still pounding in her metal chest, Applebloom slowly scooted herself down the side of the sloped schoolhouse roof, carefully dropping off the side and landing on all fours with a little stumble.

The little robot straightened up for a moment, and then collapsed against the side of the building, slumping back and slouching in exhaustion.

Idly, she moved her tongue around in her mouth, noticing that the two fangs that she copied from Dead End had vanished. The massive Decepticon was gone and her ability had followed him.

“It’s over…” she mumbled with a relieved sigh.

Then her own words hit her. “...it’s over” she whispered again. “Everypony saw me. Everypony’s gonna panic and scream and yell at me. Nopony’s ever gonna want to speak to me again and they’re gonna call the guards on me and I’m gonna be banished from Equestria or dissected or worse…” She started shivering, tears starting to drip from her eyes. “I gotta get away from here…”

Applebloom stumbled to her feet, staggering a little from the exertion. Steeling herself, she strode across the ruined, cratered schoolyard to retrieve her hammer. The field in front of the schoolhouse had previously been a well maintained, picturesque little patch of land where foals would bound around and play before and after school. Now it was a patch of ruined, cratered land, with little but scorched grass, crevasses and potholes where plasma blasts had hit, and fallen trees and debris, with one great big dead robot as the cherry on top of it all.

Reaching for her hammer, Applebloom looked around the destroyed field and sighed. She stood, grabbing her weapon, but as she was ready to leave she suddenly found herself tackled to the ground.

Applebloom panicked, crying out with a little yelp, tensing up, she readied her hammer to lash out at her attackers when she suddenly noticed what her two attackers were saying.

“Applebloom, we were so worried!” Sweetie Belle cried into her chest.

“That was so awesome, you totally took those metal morons to town!” Scootaloo cheered, hugging her around her neck

“Are you hurt?! Can we get you anything? You were so brave to stand up to those big bullies like that!”

“You were incredible! They were like PEW PEW I’MMA GETCHOO and you were like NUH UH CAN’T TOUCH ME IT’S HAMMER TIME!”

“I’m so glad you’re okay!”

“You were awesome!”

“Girls please!” Applebloom said, trying to shake her friends off of her, a panicked look on her face. “I need to get away from here! The other ponies, they’ll-”

“Applebloom?” came a voice from a ways away.

The little robot froze, looking up with dread. Miss Cheerilee was standing about six hoof lengths away, the rest of the students of Ponyville Schoolhouse and other faculty members standing not far behind her.

Applebloom shivered, barely fighting back tears. This was it. She was going to be run out of town. She was going to be strapped to a table and taken apart. She was going to be-

Somepony started stomping.

Applebloom looked up. Miss Cheerilee was smiling widely and stomping her hooves in applause. The little robot blinked as she scanned the rest of the crowd. Their faces had ranged from unsure to wary, but now a great many were starting to look as happy and proud as Cheerilee. Soon, another pony started stomping her hooves. And then another. And another.

In moments, the whole crowd was stomping their hooves. The ground rumbled with the force of their applause.

Applebloom bent down and hugged Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, letting the tears flow freely.

* * * (Meanwhile...) * * *

Applejack sat blearily on a bench outside Sugarcube Corner, desperately clutching at her aching head and blinking her eyes, trying to get the spots from Twilight’s little flashbang spell to go away. Her ears were ringing and it felt like a hundred angry minotaurs were having a free for all inside her skull. The drunken orange mare burped, a little bile landing in her mouth and causing her to grimace. Bending over and clutching her stomach, she let out a pitiful moan.

And then the contents of a rainbarrel were dumped on her.

“Sweet Celestia!” Applejack sputtered, grabbing onto her stained hat. Coughing and sputtering out rainwater, Applejack rounded on the pony responsible. Twilight was gently setting the rainbarrel down next to the building she grabbed it from. “What in the hay was that for, Twilight? Ain’t enough you went and blinded me?”

“Trying to sober you up, Applejack.” Twilight said testily. “And don’t act like I’m at fault here. What in the wide world of Equestria were you doing, breaking into Sugarcube Corner and drinking all of their rum?”

“It’s okay, Twilight.” Pinkie said with a shrug, sidling up next to the purple unicorn with a sigh, a loaf of fresh bread on her back. “We’ll have to take rum cakes off the menu for a while, but aside from a few spilled bags of sugar there’s not much other damage.” Pinkie trotted up to Applejack, setting the loaf of plain bread on the bench next to her, then picked herself up and sat next to the sodden farm mare, patting her on the back. Applejack burped again.

“It’s not the damages, Pinkie, it’s the principle!” Twilight fumed. “What were you thinking, Applejack? If the Cakes hadn’t convinced the guards to back off you could have been arrested for that stunt!”

Applejack merely grumbled something unseemly under her breath.

“What could have possessed you to get so drunk in the first place?” Twilight demanded, sternly. “It isn’t like you!”

“Ah, why don’cha shut your flappin’ gums, Twilight!” Applejack snapped, blinking her eyes some more. “Y’all don’t know horseapples!”

Twilight was taken aback for a moment at Applejack’s language towards her, but quickly pressed on. “Applejack, I’m trying to understand what, even drunk, would make you think that breaking into Sugarcube Corner was a good idea?! What’s wrong with you?!”

“Oh, what’s wrong with me, ya ask?! Says the self-righteous unicorn who can’t let a pony sit n’ have a drink in peace!” Applejack stood up, stumbling around a little before finding her footing. “Y’all don’t know me! Y’all think you know me but’cha don’t!” She said, staggering over to Twilight and poking her in the chest.

Twilight’s nose wrinkled at the smell coming off of her friend. “There’s having a drink and drinking yourself straight into the ground, AJ! And it’s especially bad when you have to break into a friend’s house to do it!”

“Iff’n the Cakes’re such good friends they wouldn’t be lyin’ like snakes behind my back!” Applejack snarled, teetering on her hooves.

“What?!” Twilight asked, her eyes widening.

“Figgered them lyin’ shrews’d have something to drink around the place. Cookin’ wine if nothin’ else. Kitchen’s got that.”

“Applejack, why would you ever want to get so dead drunk?!” Twilight looked at her friend aghast.

“Don’t y’all go and judge me, miss fancy Canterlot unicorn!” Applejack snapped. “Bet’cha you go clopping off to yer books when nopony’s lookin’!”

“Applejack!” Twilight gasped, “What in the world has gotten-”

“Twilight, please be quiet.” Pinkie said. The pink mare had an uncharacteristically serious look on her face. “You’re both going in circles and it isn’t helping.”

The purple unicorn blinked at Pinkie’s seriousness, but quickly nodded and took a few paces back.

“Applejack, can you sit with me please?” Pinkie asked, patting the spot next to her on the bench. “Munch on the bread, it’ll help your tummy.”

Applejack grumbled, but eventually staggered back to the bench and slouched down next to Pinkie Pie. Reluctantly, she lifted up the loaf of bread in her hoof and took a small bite out of it, chewing it with a grimace. After about two minutes of silent chewing, the farmer finally swallowed her morsel.

Twilight went to open her mouth but Pinkie shushed her with a hoof, before turning to Applejack. “AJ, what happened last night?” She asked, gently. “Why did you break into the Cakes’ kitchen?”

Applejack sniffed, burping again before answering. “Tavern threw me out at 3 in the mornin’,” she answered woozily. “Still needed a drink and didn’t wanna go home.”

“Why didn’t you want to go home?” Pinkie asked, rubbing her friend’s back.

Applejack grumbled, burying her muzzle in the bread again, taking a big bite of the bread and chewing it slowly.

Pinkie let her chew for a moment before asking again. “AJ?”

Applejack huffed and swallowed the bread, taking a moment to brush a sodden hair out of her eyes. “Applebloom got her cutie mark last night.”

Pinkie suddenly grinned. “Really?! That’s ama-” the pink mare stopped herself from going any further before shaking her head and composing herself again. “I mean… isn’t that a good thing? She’s been trying to get it for years now.” Pinkie frowned. “Oh dear… it wasn’t a pair of panties with bits shoved in them or a phone and three X’s or anything, was it?”

Applejack chuckled weakly. “Naw, ain’t nothin like that… it’s just…” the farmer rubbed her forehead, “It’s just her cutie mark… it ended up showin’ me that Applebloom an’ the rest of my family… they been lyin’ to me my whole life.”

Pinkie nodded. Twilight silently trotted over and sat down next to the consoling party pony. “What were they lying to you about, Applejack?” Pinkie asked.

Applejack sighed deeply. “Applebloom… she ain’t really my-”

“Ummm, excuse me?” a voice came from off to the side.

The three ponies looked up to see Mr. Cake standing there with a plate on his back carrying a travel cup of coffee. The baker scratched a leg with a hoof nervously. “I was just wondering if maybe you’d like some Coffee, Applejack? To help sober you up?”

The farmpony’s temper suddenly flared again. She leapt to her hooves and snarled, unsteadily stomping up to Mr. Cake. “I don’t want yer damn coffee, you lyin’ rat!” she spat, raising her hoof and knocking the cup off of his back, spilling it all over the ground. Mr. Cake scrabbled backwards out of the way of the angry mare.

“Applejack!” Twilight cried, grabbing her with her telekinesis and dragging her back towards the bench.

The orange mare was practically frothing at the mouth. “Y’all knew! Y’all knew about my sister this whole time and y’all didn’t think to tell me?!”

“Your sister?” Mr. Cake stuttered. “Wait… you mean-”

“Y’all knew what she was the whole time and y’all didn’t think to tell me once!” Applejack roared. “Not once! Not none of the times I went and delivered you apples! Not none of the times I helped y’all with baking contests! Not none of the times I saved yer’ flanks from some monster or other! What kinda friends do you think you are?!”

Pinkie spoke up. “Applejack,” she said, firmly. “Can you come sit back down?”

Applejack fumed for a minute before the fight seemed to go out of her. Hanging her head, Applejack stumbled back to the bench and sat down hard next to Pinkie Pie.

“I… I need to go talk to Cup.” Mr. Cake stammered as he broke out in a nervous sweat, galloping off back into Sugarcube Corner. Applejack glared after him for a little bit, before slumping back against the bench.

“What’s going on with Applebloom, AJ?” Pinkie asked, putting a hoof on Applejack’s shoulder.

Applejack sighed deeply, pulling her hat down over her eyes. “She ain’t an Apple, Pinkie.”

Pinkie Pie cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said!” Applejack snapped, whipping her head around to glare at Pinkie, only for her to clutch her head and groan as a lance of pain shot through it. Applejack continued through gritted teeth. “‘Pparently Big Mac, Cheerilee, Snowflake, and Mr. Cake found her when she was a baby.”

“So that’s why you were so mad at Mr. Cake…” Twilight mused, tapping her chin. It took a moment, but the weight of Applejack’s words hit her. “Wait, you mean she’s adopted?” Twilight asked. Applejack simply replaced the hat over her eyes and nodded. “But that doesn’t make any sense,” Twilight muttered. “There’s so much family resemblance between her and you and Mac-”
Twilight was cut off as Pinkie placed a hoof over her mouth.

“And you didn’t know she was adopted, AJ?” Pinkie asked.

Applejack shook her head. “Ain’t nopony told me,” she sighed, “Everypony in my family knew but me ‘n her. Guess they thought I woulda figured it out for myself since my ma never got pregnant or nothin’. But I’m a silly pony who ain’t got no brains and I jes’ thought she had a good pregnancy or something,” she muttered, sounding annoyed.

Pinkie Pie chuckled. “I have eight younger sisters, and I can pretty much guarantee you, AJ, there’s no such thing as a ‘good pregnancy.’”

“So I’ve heard…” AJ grumbled.

“But, so what?” Pinkie said with a pat on her back. “I mean, adopted or not, she still grew up with you, right? You two still grew up in the same house together for twelve years. You still love each other like sisters.”

Applejack sniffed, her eyes still hidden by her hat. Her mouth seemed to be pressing tighter and tighter, though, and her breathing was getting strained.

“Yeah, it hurts that they kept it a secret from you, but it sounds like she’s a sister to you anyway.”

Applejack let out a shuddering breath. “It ain’t just that though. It’s more complicated than that.”

“What’s complicating it?” Pinkie asked.

“Applebloom… she ain’t a pony…” Applejack whispered.

“What?” Pinkie asked, cocking her head.

“Not a pony?” Twilight blinked. “What are you saying, AJ? Are you trying to say Applebloom’s a changeling or a mimicker or something?”

Applejack’s hoof tensed around the loaf of bread, crushing it. “I wish it were that simple,” she growled. “Naw, turns out Bloom is a-”

“MONSTER ROBOT!”

All heads in the Ponyville Town Square turned to see two little fillies galloping up the main road as fast as their little legs could carry them. One, a steel gray with a lighter gray mane and the other a bright pink with a purple and white mane, both of them were panickedly charging through the streets screaming the same words over and over again.

“MONSTER ROBOT! GIANT MONSTER ROBOT AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE!” Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon screamed.

“What in tarnation?!” Applejack said, sitting up.

A town guard was quickly flagged down and galloped over to the girls who had stopped only a few yards away from the bench the three friends were sitting on. The unicorn cleared his throat and spoke.

“What’s going on here, fillies?” The town guard asked the two of them, eyeing the crowd to make sure the rest of the skittish citizens of Ponyville weren’t being driven into a panic.

“At the schoolhouse!” Diamond Tiara shouted. “We were just starting class when a giant robot smashed through the wall and started attacking!”

“It attacked Miss Cheerilee and hurt her real bad!” Silver Spoon nodded, shaking. “And then three more showed up and started tearing up the schoolyard and attacking Applebloom!”

Applejack leapt up out of the bench and started charging out of town, faster than should have been equinely possible with as much rum as she drank.

“Applejack!” Twilight called after her, before growling and alighting her horn. “Come on, Pinkie, we have to catch her!”

Pinkie didn’t respond to her. She was intently watching as a platoon of guards ran past them in the same direction as Applejack went, still listening to Diamond Tiara still explaining her story to the guard.

“But that’s not the worst part!” Diamond protested. “Applebloom, she’s one of-”

Twilight teleported the two of them before Pinkie could hear the rest of what Diamond Tiara had to say.

The two ponies reappeared on the path to the schoolhouse, right in front of Applejack. The farm pony tried to rear back and stop herself, but she was too off balance from the drinks to dodge and going too fast to just come to a halt. The three ponies all collided in a tangle of limbs, the three of them rolling until they ended up colliding with the side of a building. As the three of them gathered themselves back up, the platoon of guards passed them, charging along almost as fast as Applejack had been.

“What the hay, Twilight?!” Applejack roared. “I need to save Applebloom!”

“AJ, you’re drunk!” Twilight protested as Pinkie desperately tried to keep the farmer pinned. “If you try and go fighting monsters in your condition, you’ll get killed!”

“I’ll take on anything that tries to hurt my sister!” Applejack snarled, trying to push Pinkie off of her.

Pinkie didn’t respond to the farmer’s pushing, but looked askance to Twilight. “Guess that sorts out the family issues, huh?” she said, aside.

Twilight ignored the pink pony. “Applejack stop, you’ll only get the both of you hurt in your condition!” Twilight shook her head. "Look, Pinkie and I can gather the other girls and take care of it, but I'm not going to let you go out there and fight monsters while you're intoxicated!"

"I fought plenty o' monsters!" AJ snapped.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Not after binge drinking half a dozen bottles of rum you haven't." she quipped.

Applejack spat. “That's my kin y'all are keeping me from! Y'all're gonna take too long gettin' the others, and either way, I gotta be the one to save her! Gotta let her know I still care! Now git offa me!” she shouted, kicking out with her hind hoof. The buck connected with Pinkie’s gut, winding her and throwing the party pony off of her. Applejack scrabbled to her feet, just as Twilight lit her horn, casting a levitation spell upon the farm pony. "What the hay?!" Applejack swore, kicking and thrashing about in midair.

"That's enough, Applejack!" Twilight grunted, gritting her teeth. Levitating a pony for an extended period of time was no small feat, especially if that pony didn't want to be levitated. "I'm doing this for your own safety. I'm teleporting you back to the Library."

The farmer snorted, letting out a growl as she rotated in Twilight's magical grasp. "Like Tartarus you are!" Twilight began to cast the teleport spell, but was interrupted as Applejack swung herself around and aimed a solid buck right at Twilight's face. The buck connected with the side of her head with a thundering 'CRACK!' Twilight cried out, spinning on her hooves a few times, before falling to the ground out cold.

“Twilight!” Pinkie Pie gasped, running over to her fallen friend. Applejack took the moment to stumble after the guards, her galloping erratic as she wove from side to side down the street.

Pinkie sighed as she watched Applejack disappear down the path, her mane drooping a little. “It was going so well, too…”

* * *

Four ponies sat in the middle of Cheerilee’s classroom, sitting quietly with a cup of tea each. The rest of the students at Ponyville Schoolhouse had all been sent home and the other faculty members had quickly followed. Applebloom had retrieved her hammer and tucked it away safely inside of her after shrinking it back down to handle size, then changed back into pony form. Now, here she was, sitting nervously in Cheerilee’s classroom with a cup of tea and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo on either side of her. Cheerilee sat in front of her with an enigmatic smile on her face. The four of them all sipped their tea quietly for a little bit before Cheerilee finally spoke.

“So…” she said, cocking an eyebrow. “I take it this was what you wanted to talk about before class, Applebloom? Or did you just want to come up with an excuse for late homework?”

Applebloom looked at her blankly for a second before smirking and chuckling weakly. “No… this is what I wanted to talk to you about, Miss Cheerilee.” She sighed. “I… well I discovered this about myself last night.” She waved her arms at her teacher. “I didn’t know nothin’ about the other robots, though I swear. I had no idea that they were in Equestria.”

“Don’t worry about it, Applebloom.” Cheerilee said, softly putting a hoof on the filly’s shoulder. “Everypony got out okay.”

“But you didn’t!” Applebloom protested, pointing at the various gashes and bruises that covered Cheerilee’s body. “That Dead End guy banged you up somethin’ fierce!”

Cheerilee shook her head. “It’s just a few scratches, Applebloom.” she said. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“But…” Applebloom tried to protest, only for Cheerilee to hold up a hoof.

“I’ll be fine, Applebloom,” she insisted. “I think the more important question is how are you?”

Applebloom went silent for a moment, looking deeply into her empty teacup. “I’m fine, Miss Cheerilee.”

“I don’t think that’s true, Applebloom.” Cheerilee said softly.

“No really,” Applebloom said. “I got a few scratches from the fight, but they seem to be fixin’ themselves okay. I don’t rightly understand how, but somehow my body is managing to repair itself.”

“I’m not talking about your body, Applebloom. I can see that it’s fixing itself.” Cheerilee pointed to Applebloom’s forehead. “You had a massive metal shard lodged in your head just twenty minutes ago. I can barely tell anything happened at all now.”

Applebloom felt her forehead. There was a small patch where she didn’t feel any fur but other than that, the wound had closed up and was no longer leaking energon fluid.

“Weird…” Applebloom muttered.

“Cool!” Scootaloo said with a grin. “She’s got a healing factor! Like Badger from the X-Ponies!”

“Shhh!” Sweetie shushed her with a roll of her eyes. “You read too many comics.”

“I’m talking about how you’re feeling, Applebloom.” Cheerilee said gently. “When I talked to you this morning, you seemed very upset for somepony who just got their cutie mark.”

Applebloom was silent.

“She had a fight with Applejack.” Scootaloo said. “She transformed last night and Applejack freaked out.”

Cheerilee nodded. “I see…”

“She attacked me.” Appleboom mumbled. “She thought I were some kinda monster that went and skinned her ‘real’ sister and was wearin’ her like a dress or somethin.” Applebloom buried her face in her hooves. “And then when we got her calmed down, she still went and said I ain’t her sister after Big Mac told the story of how he found me.”

Cheerilee sighed and leaned back, silent for a moment before speaking again. “Applejack is stubborn and bull-headed. Always has been. When a thought gets lodged in her head, it takes either a long time or a real shock to the system to get it out.”

“Except what if she’s right?” Applebloom whined. “I mean… I’m a robot alien from space! I ain’t her sister… ‘specially not now.” she moaned.

“What do you mean?” Cheerilee asked.

“Well, look at what I did!” Applebloom said sharply. “I went and starting bitin’ those robots and drinkin’ their blood… energon… stuff!” she shouted. “Hay, I killed one of them!” she pointed out the massive hole in the wall at the fallen robot, still lying on the ground motionless where it lay next to a mangled tree stump. “An’ I hurt the others so bad, they might never get better!” She shivered. “Applejack was right. I’m a monster.”

“Applebloom, no.” Cheerilee said sternly. “You are not a monster.”

“But I-”

“Listen to me,” Cheerilee said, putting her hooves on Applebloom’s shoulders. “Those were bad creatures, whatever they were. They wanted to hurt you. Not just hurt you, they wanted to kill you. You and every other pony that was here.”

Applebloom sighed. “I’m not a pony,” she grumbled.

“You’re more pony than you know, Applebloom,” Cheerilee said, releasing the little yellow filly. “Listen, fighting something that wants to hurt you… wants to kill you or your friends… you have to do what you have to do to protect the ones you love.” Cheerilee shook her head. “I wish I didn’t have to tell you, but not everything is always cut and dry. Some things in life are confusing and hard to deal with. I’m not sure what to tell you about family and what you should do or feel about Applejack. I don’t have any family like that…” Cheerilee trailed off before picking up again. “But I can tell you this, Applebloom,” she said firmly. “You are not a monster. And nopony here thinks you are. Taking a life in defense of the ones you love and care about doesn’t make you a monster or an animal or anything like that. If anything, that’s what makes you a pony most of all.”

Applebloom sighed, still looking unconvinced. “Why didn’t you tell me about when you and my brother found me?”

Cheerilee looked pensive for a bit and hummed, sipping at her tea. After a moment, she spoke. “We didn’t think it was important. We thought that, whatever had happened in that ship, it had made you one-hundred-percent pony. You never showed any signs of anything otherwise. Not to mention, Yoketron’s last wish was that you be treated as any other pony and that you be kept safe from fighting.” She took a deep breath. “I guess we failed on that front.”

“I don’t want to fight anymore.” Applebloom said sadly.

“You won’t have to.” Cheerilee said, shaking her head. “If there are any more of these ‘Decepticons,’ and I’m sure there are, then you don’t have to be the one to fight them. The Elements of Harmony, the Guard, the Princesses… I’m sure they can all take care of any more Decepticons that show up.”

“I don’t want to be a monster…” Applebloom mumbled sadly.

Cheerilee put a hoof under Applebloom’s chin and raised her head a little. “You aren’t a monster, Applebloom.”

“But that’s just it, Miss Cheerilee…” Applebloom said, looking away. “What I did… I copied that Dead End guy’s power. There’s something…” she sighed, getting ready to explain. “Yoketron somehow gave me a lot of information on my species. And there’s something that we have that are just called ‘Abilities.’ They give people like me special powers. That Dead End guy had the ability to suck energon… basically robot blood... out of other robots like a vampire.”

“Yes?” Miss Cheerilee urged Applebloom to go on.

Applebloom took a deep, shaking breath. “I think… I think my ability is that I can copy other robots’ powers. Like some sort of mimicker or something. Maybe it has something to do with how I can analyze and fix machines or something, I dunno. But what I mean is… when I copied Dead Ends power…”

There was silence in the schoolhouse for a moment. It was a full thirty seconds before Applebloom spoke again.

“When I copied his power and sucked out that robot’s blood for the first time... it felt good.” she whispered. “Fighting them… I was scared and I was horrified when I killed one of them and it hurt when I got hit but… somehow it felt good too. It made me feel powerful.”

Cheerilee said nothing for a moment. The schoolteacher was just about to open her mouth when there was a clatter of hooves outside the schoolhouse. The ponies inside all turned to see a contingent of guards galloping up to the schoolhouse. Several of the guards broke off from the main group to inspect the fallen robot body still laying in front of the school. Three guards trotted up to the massive hole in the wall of the schoolhouse and addressed the ponies inside.

“Miss Cheerilee,” said an approaching unicorn guard with a crest the color of his jet black mane as opposed to the usual blue crest of an average guard. “Branch Commander Ballista,” he said, levitating a badge out of a hidden compartment in his golden armor. “We got a report that there was a monster attack here. From what we can understand from the reports, they were some sort massive, metal golems?”

Miss Cheerilee motioned to the three fillies to sit tight as she talked to the guard. Turning back to the officer, she nodded. “Yes, there were four of them. One of them fell in the attack, but the other three got away.” She continued, raising a hoof. “Aside from some damage to the schoolhouse and a few minor injuries, nopony was hurt, thank Celestia.”

The branch commander looked back and forth between the ponies and the massive robot the other guards were swarming over. “Given the size of that thing and the amount of damage, I have to ask… how did that one fall? How did you drive the others away?”

Cheerilee chuckled. “Well, I threw hydrofluoric acid at their leader for one thing,” she winked. “There’s a reason teachers lock the chemistry cabinets.”

The commander blinked. “Impressive.” he said, nodding. “But what about the fallen one over there? How did you drive the others away?”

“That was us!” Scootaloo piped up with a grin. “Cutie Mark Crusaders Monster Slayers!”

“What?!” Sweetie Belle and Applebloom yelped at the same time. Cheerilee slapped a hoof to her face.

The commander simply coughed. “Given some of the things you three have done around town, I can almost believe that you three are enough to drive a quartet of steel golems away.” He narrowed his eyes. “Almost.”

Cheerilee sighed. “You see, sir, what really happened is-”

The guard cut her off. “That does bring me to another point of intel we got though,” he said gruffly, looking at Applebloom. “We got a report that young Applebloom here… changed somehow during the commotion.” He looked with a raised eyebrow at Cheerilee. “I’m sure you understand the implications of this claim?”

The schoolteacher cleared her throat. “Sir, I can assure you. Applebloom is not a changeling.”

“You may vouch for her, ma’am, but it’s well known that changelings have the ability to brainwash ponies.” He shook his head. “Somehow I doubt that Applebloom is a changeling. There’s been no word of them since they invaded Ponyville a few months back, and Miss Sparkle reported that she trapped them all in some sort of pocket dimension during the Secretariat event. That said, we have procedures for this. We’re going to have to use a changeling detection spell on her.”

“Wait, what will that do?” Sweetie Belle asked nervously.

The guard commander nodded to the other two unicorns in his company. The two of them trotted into the room, standing horns-ready on the other side of the collected ponies. The guard turned to address Sweetie Belle. “It’s a simple spell meant to disrupt anything that might be generalized as a transformation or illusion,” he explained. “You don’t have to worry about it hurting your friend. The most it should do to a pony is disrupt some cosmetic illusions, if there are any. To a changeling, though, it shatters their spell, revealing them instantly and tending to knock them out.”

“Um…” Applebloom stuttered, sweating a little.

“Mister Ballista, if you would please let me explain something about Applebloom-”

Commander Ballista held up a hoof and smiled disarmingly. “Listen, don’t worry. The two fillies that gave us the intel were hysterical. They said she changed into a robot or something. I’m sure they were just confused from being so frightened. This is merely procedure.”

Cheerilee cleared her throat. “Sir, if you’d just listen.” Cheerilee said, trying to get his attention but the guard shook his head.

“Ma’am, it’s procedure. We could listen all day, but I have to use the spell. I’m going to have to ask you to stand back.”

Cheerilee sighed and stepped back a few paces. The teacher looked at Applebloom and smiled weakly. “Don’t worry, Applebloom. I’m sure you’ll be okay.”

Applebloom shivered, unsure whether her mechanical transformations would be affected by the spell or not. She really didn’t want to find out, but on the other hand, she didn’t want to fight the town guards either. All she could think to do was sit there, looking at the floor.

“Here we go, little filly. Ready?” Commander Ballista asked.

Applebloom said nothing.

“One…” The commander said, alighting his horn.

“Two…” Applebloom flinched.

“Three!”

Applebloom felt a bolt of magic hit her and immediately felt something was wrong. Her whole body seized up and started to tingle violently. She felt her muscles start spasming as the spell shot through her body like a bolt of lightning. ‘No, please not again!’ she thought to herself as she felt her waist twisting, her face splitting open, and her limbs extending like pistons. She felt her body seize up like it was paralyzed as she exploded outward into her robot form and collapsed on the floor twitching, her whole world starting to go dim.

“Mother of Celestia, what is that?!” She heard one of the guards shout.

“It’s some kind of changeling trick!”

“It looks kind of like that golem out there! What do we do?!”

“No!” she heard Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle shout. “Stop!”

“They’ve been brainwashed! Sleep spells!” one of the other guards shouted.

“Leave my students alo-!” Miss Cheerilee was cut off as she too was hit by a guard’s sleep spell.

“EVERYPONY QUIET!” Applebloom heard the commander shout as she finally slipped under. The commander’s face was etched into a deep frown as he looked down at the unconscious filly-turned-robot. He sighed, exhaustedly. “I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t a changeling. Load them up in a prison cart and have her and the others transported to Canterlot for questioning and mental scans.”

“Yes sir!” One of the guards shouted.

The rest of the guards galloped off, each of them with an unconscious pony on their backs. Ballista looked at the unconscious form of Applebloom and groaned. “Why do we always get the weird stuff here in Ponyville?” he said tiredly, dipping his head under her prone form and hefting her onto her back.

“GET AWAY FROM MY SISTER!” came an enraged howl. Ballista turned, only to catch an orange hoof sailing towards his face. He stumbled back, barely dodging the right hook that Applejack had thrown his way.

“Miss Applejack, please calm down!” Commander Ballista shouted as several guards attempted to tackle the orange mare, only for each of them to get thrown off or kicked in the face on their approach. “This isn’t your sister, it’s some sort of golem!”

“That’s my sister, alright! And I ain’t letting you take her!” Applejack shrieked, throwing another hook at Ballista, this one grazing his snout. “Ain’t nopony taking her from me!”

The commander growled. “Applejack, I can smell the drink on you!” Ballista said, getting angry. “Stop this before I have to stop you myself!”

“I’ll stop when y’all drop my sister!” Applejack frothed at the mouth. “Give her to me, ya varmints! I saw you cast that spell on her and her friends!”

“Enough of this!” Ballista shouted, jumping back from another kick. His horn lit up again as he shot a powerful bolt of lightning at Applejack’s chest, singing her fur and stunning the orange mare with a shriek.

“AAAAAAAAAGH!” howled Applejack as her body seized up, shaking and spasming. Applejack suddenly lurched forward and spewed all of the contents of her stomach up, splattering vomit all over Ballista’s chest and armor, before finally collapsing face down and unmoving as the taser spell ended.

Ballista grimaced disgustedly as he kicked Applejack over with a dripping hoof. “Ugh,” he retched. “Damn drunk.”

He pointed to a guard picking himself up after Applejack’s assault. “You, load her into the cart with the rest of them, they’re all going to Canterlot!” he shouted, Applebloom still hanging off of his back.

“Yes sir!” the guard called, sticking his head under the stinking Applejack and lifting the heavy mare onto his back with an ‘oof.’

Commander Ballista sighed. “These reports are going to be Tartarus.” he said as he handed the still unconscious Applebloom off to another guard. The prisoner cart soon rolled into the clearing, and the four unconscious ponies and one robot were all loaded in and secured with hoofcuffs to the rails along the interior. In mere minutes, the cart was on its way to the train station, where it would be loaded onto a train and shipped off to Canterlot.

Applebloom stirred restlessly in her fitful sleep. Nopony noticed as her chestplate opened, revealing a strange, blue-glowing, spherical object buried deep within her. A small shower of sparks burst from her chest and green electricity sparked over her small form. The moving parts on Applebloom’s body shuddered and then went still.

Author's Note

Well, I hope this chapter is sufficient. A lot of readers were worried about this chapter employing a 'Deus ex Machina' to solve the cliffhanger at the end of the last chapter. And while I would argue that there had been some decent foreshadowing on the part of Applebloom getting powers to defend herself with (I did show that she was capable of scanning, immediately understanding, fixing, and upgrading mechanics in a previous chapter), I worry that a lot of readers might feel otherwise and that the mimicry powers and abilities were pulled out of thin air.

I will admit to Dead End's vampiric energon-siphon abilities not being properly foreshadowed. That was a mistake on my part. I do apologize for that one. I tried to hint at them in the previous chapter, but I don't know how well it got across. I plan to go back to a previous chapter and have him demonstrate them while aboard the Darksyde so that new readers will see them in action, but I haven't yet gotten around to that. Because I'm lazy. And an ass.

I've tried to sufficiently explain some of what happened in this chapter in the conversation between Applebloom and Cheerilee, though again, I'll admit that it's a little plot-convenient that Applebloom is capable of merely 'understanding' what's going on when it becomes relevant. Hopefully once we get much further into the story this will stop happening as much.

...maybe I should have taken that one reader's suggestion and made Yoketron just stick around in her brain. Then she would have had a better excuse to know these things than "she remembers things that didn't actually happen to her because she had a massive info-download into her memories in the second chapter." It might be less awkward anyway. possibly. I have no idea.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not ENTIRELY satisfied with this chapter. At least not the expositionary parts of it. That said, this is literally only the second time I think I've ever written an actual fight scene and I think it turned out pretty damn well. As far as the fight itself goes, ignoring potential plot aspects, I'm pretty proud of myself on that front.

I'm also pretty proud of the scene with Applejack, Twi, and Pinkie. I'm actually looking forward to using Pinkie a little more in the story. I was skeptical about using her before, but now that I'm writing her, I'm actually really liking an alternate interpretation of a more responsible Pinkie, who knows when to serious up when the situation calls for it. Maybe she learned something from the Cranky Doodle Donkey debacle?

Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to smooth the plot out a little in coming chapters. I may even go back and edit some things in previous chapters later on to make them flow more smoothly. I'll have to reread the story and think about it.

For now, hope the chapter wasn't too bad and that you had fun! :pinkiehappy:

See you next time!

Ch8: Well and Truly Desolate

___________________________________________________________________________________

Applebloom: Transform and Rollout!
by Dusty the Royal Janitor

Chapter 8: Well and Truly Desolate

“It’s a monster!” one pony screamed galloping down the streets of Ponyville.

“It’ll destroy us all!” Another shrieked, leaping in through a window of a nearby building.

“Somepony save us! Save the foals!” A mother yelled, pulling her child indoors.

“Wait, no!” Applebloom pleaded, trying to raise her hands placatingly, only for the tiny ponies in the streets to gasp and take fearful steps away from her, some galloping away as fast as their hooves could carry them. Applebloom looked down on the crowd as she towered over the buildings in Ponyville, her shoulders level with most of the town’s rooftops. “Please! I’m still me!” she begged of them.

“Get away from our town!” One pony shouted, throwing a brick at her. The tiny projectile futilely bounced off of Applebloom’s giant metal face, not even leaving a scratch, but hurting nonetheless. “Monsters like you aren’t welcome here!” he continued.

The rest of the crowd of tiny ponies cheered. Some of them were suddenly holding torches and pitchforks and other improvised weaponry.

“I don’t want to hurt anypony, I swear!” Applebloom cried, tears welling up in her giant eyes as she stumbled clumsily around Ponyville, trying to shield herself from the ponies throwing things at her. She felt a market stall crunch under her massive, metal foot. She reached out to grab something to keep her balance and ended up tearing a thatched roof off of a cottage. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!” she shouted.

“Liar!” One of the ponies in the crowd shouted. “How can you say that when you’re destroying our town!”

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Applebloom repeated, only for her to get blown back as a bolt of magic struck her in the chest.

“Everypony back!” came a voice Applebloom recognized as Commander Ballista. His horn was glowing and his face was set in a stony frown. “We’ll handle this monster!” The crowd cheered.

“No, please!” Applebloom shrieked, holding up her massive metal hands to try and shield her face as she felt dozens of magical bolts start striking her body. Suddenly, a readout in front of her vision appeared reading ‘self-defense protocols activated.”

Something shifted in her. Applebloom gasped as her hands split open to reveal massive cannons like the ones the Vehicons had been using. “No, I don’t want to!” Applebloom shouted. “Everypony run! I don’t want to hurt you!” she said as she felt her body stand up to its full, twenty-foot height.

“Hold your ground!” she heard Ballista call. “We can take her, stallions!”

Her body moving on its own accord, she took aim at Commander Ballista. She felt a fiery energy build up deep in her arm, the pressure building to immense levels as her arm grew hot and uncomfortable. And all at once, the pressure released, firing a hot bolt of plasma right into the middle of the guards. The ponies were disintegrated immediately.

“No! NO!” Applebloom cried, tears flowing freely. “I’m sorry! I can’t control it!”

“Stop her! She’ll destroy the town!” The angry mob charged towards her, improvised weapons raised. They didn’t stand a chance. Just a few meager shots from her arm cannons and the mob was vaporized.

“No! This isn’t me I swear!” Applebloom howled, feeling like she was going to throw up.

“Liar!” A pony called from inside a house. Applebloom turned and fired a bolt into his cottage, setting it aflame.

“Monster!” Another called. Her house shared the same fate.

“Stop it! Everypony stop!” Applebloom wailed as she clutched her head in the middle of the burning town. “Just get away from me!”

“Y’all are the one what gotta be stopped!” came a voice. Applebloom started to turn only for a long rope to loop around her throat. A sharp tug on the lasso and the loop suddenly tightened around her neck and pulled her backwards, sending her tumbling and crashing to the ground, destroying more buildings as she impacted with Ponyville’s dirt roads. Her vision went dark for a moment only for her to open her eyes and see Applejack standing over her.

“Applejack!” She shouted. “Please run! Get away from me!”

“Y’all took my sister from me,” Applejack snarled, her eyes cold and full of murderous hate. “I ain’t running,” she said through grit teeth.

“Applejack, no!” she protested through her sobs. “It’s me! It’s Applebloom!”

Suddenly Applejack was holding a bottle of something in her hoof and had a sickening grin on her face. “Cheerilee said this stuff worked on that other robot,” she said, with a sick sort of glee. “Betcha it’ll work on you too…”

Her hoof tipped. The bottle’s contents came spilling out.

“No! NO!”

* * *

“NO!” Applebloom cried, her eyes snapping open as she sat up suddenly in her bed. Her mane was slick with sweat and her breaths were shuddering and shaky. Her long, metal limbs trembled as she came back to her senses.

The little robot looked around. She was in a large, stone room. It was dimly lit and shadows danced in the light of a torch on the wall, but aside from the gray, stone brick walls and lack of lighting, it was actually a cozily decorated room. There was a brightly colored rug on the ground, a small writing desk with a comfy-looking armchair next to it, a small lowered corner where there appeared to be some sort of combination shower and toilet stall, and a table with a large platter on it with all sorts of foods on it. And ‘all sorts’ was right. Among fruits and vegetables, flowers, pastries, pastas, and hay, she could also spy things like gems, slabs of meat - both cooked and uncooked, tree bark, mushrooms, and bowls full of bugs.

Applebloom shifted in the bed, sitting up and swinging her legs off the side. It was plush and well stuffed, covered with colorful blankets. It creaked as she shifted, though, like the springs had rusted some, and it smelled kinda musty. It had seemingly not been used in a long time.

The whole place would have seemed somewhat homey… were it not for the fact that one whole wall was made of iron bars, guarded by two white pegasus stallions wearing golden armor. They glared at her, expressions never faltering from their stern, angry glare as they stood stock still.

Applebloom pieced the puzzle together pretty quickly, a sad frown overtaking her face.

She was in the Canterlot dungeons.

* * *

The Captain of the Guard’s office was a spartan sort of place. A simple blue rug with gold trim sat on the floor beneath two medium-sized leather chairs in front of a large, mahogany desk. The desk was neat and orderly, a small stack of papers on one side and a few quills and an inkpot on the other. The rest of the desk was clear, save for a couple photographs of the captain. One of them depicted him hugging a small, purple mare with an indigo mane and a pink stripe in her hair. The other was one of him and his wife, Princess Cadance sharing a kiss at the Coliseum in Roam on their honeymoon.

The walls were a stark white and the room was lit with electric lamps set in the back two corners of the room. A single guard recruitment poster, tattered and worn with age, was hung on the wall behind the Captain’s desk. Aside from that, there was no other decor in the room.

Shining Armor looked impassively over his desk at the branch commander before him. His hooves were steepled and his ears were turned backwards. His practiced face betrayed no emotion, but inside he was fuming.

“So let me see if I’ve got this right,” The captain-slash-prince said, slowly. “You got a hysterical report from two fillies that miss ‘Applebloom’ had turned into a monster of some kind.”

“That’s correct, sir.” Branch Commander Ballista said.

“So you rushed over to the schoolhouse to investigate the claims.” Shining Armor continued. “When you got there, you discovered that the schoolhouse had been attacked by, as you say, ‘metal golems,’ one of which was lying broken in a grove of trees nearby.”

“Yes, sir.” Ballista nodded.

Shining Armor grunted, closing his eyes. “So ‘following procedure,’ you went to cast the Changeling detection spell,” he continued. “The schoolteacher, Miss Cheerilee, and Applebloom’s two friends tried to dissuade you from using the spell, attempting to ‘explain something,’ but you dismissed them.”

Ballista gulped a little but nodded again. “Yes sir.”

“Upon casting the spell,” Shining Armor growled lightly, “You say that Applebloom turned into a metal golem herself. Smaller than the broken one, but obviously the same shape. Upon the change, you say that the stallions under your command became frightened and attempted to use excessive force on Applebloom.”

Ballista held up a hoof. “I said they attempted to subdue her, sir.”

Shining Armor raised an eyebrow. “Was Applebloom acting out or threatening them in any way, Commander?”

Ballista began to sweat. “Well… no, sir. She was still just sitting there. She actually seemed to grow faint after the spell was cast.”

“So you had a suspect who was just sitting there and was seemingly either ill or injured…” the captain said dangerously softly, “And your subordinates attempted to ‘subdue’ her. A creature that was not acting in any way threatening to you, your ponies, or the present civilians.”

“Well you see-”

Shining Armor held up a hoof sharply, cutting him off. “Commander Ballista, this is what we call ‘use of excessive force,’” he snapped.

“Well… I suppose.”

“From there,” Shining Armor continued, “Upon seeing their friend under attack, the civilians, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Miss Cheerilee, attempted to try and stop your soldiers from hurting her. Your troops immediately turned upon them, declaring them brainwashed and hitting them with sleep spells.”

Ballista was silent as he fidgeted in the seat.

“You ‘defused the tension’ and then decided that ‘the situation was above you.’ You had Applebloom and the civilians loaded into a prison cart and sent here for further questioning. However, before you could send the cart off, you were attacked by Miss Applejack.”

“Miss Applejack was drunk and in hysterics, sir.” Ballista said. “I was defending myself.”

“And why do you think she was in ‘hysterics,’ Commander?” Shining Armor growled. “I can certainly tell you that I would not be happy to stumble on a scene like that.”

Ballista’s mane was slick with sweat. “Nevertheless, she attacked an officer of the law.”

“Yes. Yes, she did.” Shining Armor said with a sigh. “But maybe… just maybe... if the situation had been handled with any sense or reason, she WOULDN’T have, Commander.” Shining Armor snarled, placing a certain amount of angry emphasis on the last word.

“What would you have me do, sir?” Ballista protested. “I mean, it’s well known that Changelings are capable of brainwashing ponies. Of course Changelings will have ponies trying to vouch for them. That’s why it’s mandatory to cast the spell, even when ponies try and vouch for them.”

“Yes, Commander.” Shining Armor massaged his temples. “It’s mandatory to cast the spell. But you didn’t even let them try to explain the situation.”

“Why would I?” Ballista said “I mean, yes, it could have been avoided. But how was I supposed to know that they’d try and tell me something so ridiculous as ‘She’s not a Changeling but she’s actually something else entirely that looks like that metal golem out there.’ We anticipated the civilians would merely say she wasn’t a Changeling over and over again, and we could have been there for hours trying to explain that the spell was mandatory. It’s not like that doesn’t happen with some frequency elsewhere in Equestria, wasting guards’ time and diverting ponypower. And when it does happen, more often than not, there’s a changeling involved!”

Shining Armor sighed. It was a long suffering, exasperated sigh. “Are you really so thick, Commander?”

“Sir?” Ballista said, taken aback.

“You do realize that there are other shapeshifting species in this world besides changelings, right?” Shining Armor snapped, his impassive mask shattered. “Mimickers, Seaponies, Kirin, Kitsunes… Even normal unicorn ponies can learn and master shapeshifting magic! Not to mention the sheer number of hexes, magical afflictions, and enchantments that involve shapeshifting and the changing of one’s body!” The captain shouted, his scowl growing deeper with every passing moment.

“Well… I mean…” Ballista stuttered, his armor growing very hot.

“So, what, Commander? You just assumed that we were dealing with a changeling when they didn’t immediately agree to the spell? You just assumed that they were brainwashed and would just try and dissuade you by saying she wasn’t a changeling over and over again?” He snapped. “You didn’t even give them a chance to explain that maybe there may be other circumstances to take into account? You didn’t give them a chance to share information that may have been vital to their safety and yours? We give them a chance to explain so that the exceptions can tell us what’s going on and we can judge the situation and react accordingly!”

“It’s procedure, though!” Ballista sputtered. “I mean, we had to cast the spell either way, right?”

“Just because you had to cast the spell doesn’t mean you should just barge into places and start casting spells on ponies without giving them a chance to talk!” Shining Armor shouted. “There’s holding to the letter of the law and holding to the spirit of it, Commander! Our job is not just to keep ponies safe, but to make sure they feel safe, Commander. Ponies need to feel safe and comfortable around us so that they can come to us with their problems and we can work to help them!” Shining Armor stood up on his hind legs, slamming his forehooves down on the desk and leaning over it, glaring madly at Ballista. “How can we expect ponies to feel safe and comfortable around us when we aren’t letting them get a word in edgewise? What kind of picture does it send when we start barging into schoolhouses, casting spells willy-nilly, and then carting off schoolfillies and teachers to the Canterlot dungeons because we’re apparently too lazy to handle it in house?! How are we supposed to protect them when that obviously sends the message that we are more dangerous than the criminals and the monsters?! How are we supposed to protect ponies when the skittish, hysterical actions of our privates clearly show ponies that we’re a bunch of incompetent, cowardly rookies that can’t handle a sick manticore cub?!”

Ballista was speechless. He felt an inch tall before the captain’s furious, fiery glare. He tried to stutter something out, but before he could say anything, the captain slumped back into his chair and massaged his forehead.

“It’s not just the rash, ignorant, and self important way you acted, Commander. It’s the way your soldiers reacted that bothers me. One little unexpected hiccup and they get sent into a panic. Have they even been trained?” Shining Armor’s horn glowed and a bottle suddenly was pulled from a drawer and placed on the desk. “Suddenly it’s all starting to make sense why my sister and her friends are the ones that have to take care of monsters and villain attacks in Ponyville. Hay, the skittish, panicky attitude of the whole TOWN makes sense. How can they feel safe in a crisis when their guard is made up of a bunch of rookies that don’t know which end of the spear goes in the monster?” Shining Armor sighed deeply. “I blame myself…”

“Sir?” Ballista practically squeaked.

“Twiley told me that the state of the guard in Ponyville was pretty pathetic, but I thought she was just talking about the small size compared to Canterlot. I told her that the guard in a small town would naturally be smaller and more lax than the guard in a big city like Canterlot. I never imagined it could be this bad, though…” Shining Armor grumbled.

The captain was quiet for a minute. The whole room was cast in an oppressive silence. The air was thick and heavy and Ballista felt like he would melt in the heat of his armor… that his nervous sweat would drown him. Finally, Shining Armor spoke up.

“I’m ordering a full-scale investigation into the Ponyville Town Guard.” Shining Armor growled, levitating a form out of one of his desk drawers and signing it with a quill and ink. “This has gone on too long, Commander. You’re being placed on unpaid leave for the next month while the investigation carries out.” He spat, yanking the Branch Commander’s badge away from him with a burst of telekinesis. “Stow your armor and go home, Ballista. You’ll know my final decision in time.”

Ballista hung his head glumly. “Yes sir,” the shamed guard mumbled as he trudged out of his office.

Shining Armor groaned, grabbing the bottle in his telekinesis and taking a swig from it before replacing it in the drawer. The captain sighed and slumped back in his chair. “What a mess…” he mumbled.

“Indeed” came a voice from a shadowy corner of the room. Shining jumped to his hooves as a swirling cloud of purple and blue smoke started to pour out of a dim corner of his office. The clouds swirled into a vortex of sparkling blue dust before coalescing into the shape of a tall, dark blue alicorn pony. “‘Tis nasty business, is it not?”

Shining Armor bowed respectfully. “Princess Luna,” he greeted.

“Arise, Captain. Be at ease.” Luna said with a small smile. “Thou art kin, now, upon thy marriage to my niece. Thou need not bow to me. Please, call me Luna.”

Shining Armor grinned slightly. “Of course, Luna. It’s just a bit hard to break habit.”

“We had come,” Luna said, “To ask thee what sort of creature was having such horrid nightmares in our dungeons. We sensed the mind was young and afeared, and yet it was somehow alien to us. We observed the most terrible dreams, but knowing not what the creature was or what it did to land itself in the dungeons, we deigned not to interfere.” She cocked her head. “Now, though, we hear that this creature is, in fact, young Applebloom? Sister to fair Applejack?”

“From what we can tell, it’s either that or some sort of golem creature that has replaced her. We have no reason to assume either at the moment. Especially since everypony who might explain what the hay is going on is unconscious” Shining growled. “All we have is Ballista’s report, and given his recent performance, I’m not sure how much in it we can believe.”

“Well, the creature that may or may not be Applebloom has since awoken, Captain.” Luna said. “Mayhaps, we should depart your office and attempt to ascertain exactly what has occurred in fair Ponyville?”

Shining Armor nodded. “If she’s up, I think that’d be best, yes. The sooner we can clear up what happened to Applebloom and what happened at the schoolhouse, the more informed a decision we can make.”

Luna nodded with a smile. “Then let us-”

“SHINY!” called a voice from outside the room.

The two ponies stopped, turning to see a bedraggled purple unicorn with a mussed up indigo and pink mane gallop into the room, before stumbling to a halt. The exhausted pony slumped, eyes screwed shut and panting heavily.

“Twiley?” Shining Armor asked.

“Shiny… *hahh* ...you’ve gotta… *hahh* let Applejack… *hahh* go…” She panted, her chest heaving with every breath. Twilight opened her eyes to see a pair of slender, indigo legs right in front of her face. Looking up, she found herself staring directly into the teal-green eyes of the Princess. Twilight squeaked, jumping backwards and dipping into a bow, all in one motion. “P-Princess Luna! I’m so sorry for the intrusion!”

“Worry not, Twilight Sparkle.” Luna said, covering her mouth with a hoof to stifle a princessly giggle. “But methinks thou should consider exercising more if the run through the castle has put you in such a state.”

“What’s going on, Twiley?” Shining Armor asked.

“Shiny” Twilight said, turning to her brother. “You’ve got to let Applejack out. She wasn’t in her right mind and she was just worried about her sister after a whole lot of family trouble.”

“Trouble between sisters, I wager?” Luna mused, her lips pursed in a pensive frown, her ears turned back sadly.

“Y-yes…” Twilight stuttered. “She’s been having trouble with Applebloom recently, apparently. I didn’t get the full story. She ran off to try and save Applebloom before I could.”

“We’ll sort this out, Twiley, don’t worry.” Shining Armor said, grabbing a piece of paper out of his desk and a quill. Writing out a quick note, he levitated it over to Twilight, who took it in her own magic. “Give this to the guards guarding her cell in block E.” he said. “They’ll let her out and we can start putting the pieces of this puzzle together.”

“Oh, good.” Twilight said, relief washing over her, before her head perked back up. “But wait, why do I have to give this to them? Aren’t you coming?”

Shining Armor shook his head. “Princess Luna and I are going to head over to block C to speak with Applebloom,” he said. “We’re going to figure this out straight from the horse’s mouth before anything else can come of this mess,” he explained.

Twilight huffed. “Alright. I just hope I can get over to the cells before-”

A gray-coated unicorn guard suddenly stumbled into the room. “Shining Armor, sir!” he saluted, “We’ve got a situation in Cell block E!”

The three ponies all groaned.

“Alright,” grumbled Shining Armor, “new plan.”

* * *

Dead End grumbled to himself as he lay on the cold hard medical table, the right side of his face having long since stopped burning, instead settling on a tingling numbness. He could barely feel much of anything when Blitzwing prodded at it with his medical tools. His left optic had been repaired relatively quickly, but, if Blitzwing was correct, his right one would have to be replaced. The mad doctor was currently away from the medical ward, presumably searching through part storage for a compatible optic, leaving Dead End in the med ward with two unconscious vehicons and one VERY conscious vehicon.

Dead End turned his head to look at Vehicon ST-3v3, who was gazing at him with his unblinking cycloptic eye. Of course, it was impossible to tell what ST-3v3 was thinking from his face, given that Vehicons weren’t manufactured with emoting faces. But if the trembling limbs and overreacting fuel pump monitor were any indication, he wasn’t exactly keen on having to stay in the bed next to Dead End.

The sight brought a wicked smile to Dead End’s half-melted face. “Boo,” he whispered, flashing the Vehicon a toothy, fanged grin. ST-3v3 quickly turned away from him rolling onto his other side with an audible yelp. Dead End let out an uncharacteristic chuckle. ST-3v3 had been particularly tasty for some reason.

Turning back to stare at the ceiling again, Dead End grunted as he heard the automatic door to the medbay whoosh open. “About time,” he snapped. “Did you find the optic BliaaAAACK!”

The figure that had grabbed his throat and tightened was not Blitzwing, but instead the massive, cycloptic form of Lord Shockwave. His massive hand clamped around Dead End’s exhaust pipes, the scout sputtered as his leader leaned in closely.

“What happened?” Shockwave said. His voice was perfectly neutral as he strangled his scout’s circulation systems.

“Gkkkkkkk...” Dead End sputtered, his voice box and airways inoperable under the pressure. Shockwave released the scout’s throat, allowing Dead End to let out an invisible cloud of exhaust. He coughed and choked a little, trying to regain his bearings for a moment before speaking.

“Lord Shockwave…” Dead End coughed, attempting to explain, “I apologize deeply”

“I care not for your apology, Dead End,” Shockwave said levelly, pacing around his bed. “I want to know why you came back without the Autobot Minicon, and why you are in such a state.”

Dead End hissed, rubbing at his throat, trying to relieve the pain. Dead End locked his working left eye with Shockwave’s singular one. “We… underestimated our foe.”

Shockwave did not move as he replied. “Your foe was a mere Minicon,” he said, still no evident tone in his voice. “One that you claimed to have already damaged. Explain how you could have been overpowered by something so insignificant.”

“There wasn’t anything ‘mere’ about this Minicon, sir!” Dead End protested. “She was… well… it was downright crazy how powerful she was!” he sputtered.

“Elaborate.” Shockwave said sharply.

Dead End gulped. “She… well… she was stronger than any Minicon I’ve ever seen. She was incredibly fast and strong enough to actually damage a chassis, which I’ve only ever seen a handful of Minicons ever do. Laserbeak, Ravage, Ratbat, Rumble and Frenzy are the only Minicons I can think of that were actually combat capable, and she was stronger than any of them.”

“Even Soundwave’s minions would not be capable of standing up to three Vehicons and a Decepticon Commander on their own, Dead End.” Shockwave retorted. “Even the most physically strong Minicon would not have been able to overpower you. This still does not explain your loss.”

“I’m trying to tell you, she was more powerful than them, sir!” Dead End said, holding up his hands in a futile attempt to placate his leader. “She has one of the most absurd abilities I’ve ever seen!”

Shockwave loomed. “Minicons have the ability to bond with, repair, and strengthen other Cybertronians,” he said. “Any other abilities they might have, such as Rumble’s pistons or Laserbeak’s cannon, are the result of manual upgrading. Your natural energon siphon should have easily been able to counter such a thing.”

“This wasn’t some upgrade, Lord Shockwave.” Dead End said, gravely. “She had the ability to copy my siphoning ability.”

Shockwave was silent. His single, unblinking eye gazed at Dead End, but his body was still as a statue. Dead End took that as cue to continue.

“She was weak as a wounded turbofox when I first encountered her, but then a light flashed out of her optics, like she was scanning for a new Alt-mode, but different. Next thing I knew, she was draining our bots dry.” Dead End clenched his fists and growled as he went on. “And if that weren’t ridiculous enough, she went and pulled an Amplified Energon warhammer out of her aft and turned out to be a slagging triple changer!” He snarled. “I swear to you, sir, she was a damned point-one-percenter!”

“There has only ever been one Minicon in history who was a point-one-percenter, Dead End, and he was returned to the Allspark long before you or I came online.” Shockwave said impassively.

“Sir, I’m telling the truth!” Dead End protested.

“I am aware.” Shockwave said. “Your vitals indicate that you are not lying, and your injuries line up with your story, save for the wounds on your face.”

Dead End snarled, pressing a hand to his scarred face and blinded eye. “The Minicon didn’t do this to my face, sir. It was an Allspark-damned organic. One of them threw some kind of acid at my face when I finally got the slagging Minicon where I wanted her.”

“That supports suspicions that the Autobots have formed an alliance with the organics.” Shockwave said.

“Well, that, and we were threatening to kill them.” Dead End coughed. “At least three of them seemed to recognize the Minicon in her robot mode, though, so it doesn’t seem like the Autobots are laying low and pulling their whole ‘robots in disguise’ trick this time. They probably are in league with the fleshbags, assuming there are any more of them on this planet.”

Shockwave turned his chilling gaze back upon Dead End. “You are already aware of the situation, Dead End.” Shockwave said, his cold voice somehow making Dead End shake more than any time he’d been yelled at by the likes of Starscream or Dreadwing. “Just as the atmospheric effects of this planet disrupt short-range signals, there is a substantial blind spot around a mountain nearby the crash site you were sent to investigate. As I stated to you before your failure, it is logical that it is a jamming tower meant to disrupt cybertronian signals.”

Dead End grumbled.

“Your intel is valuable, Dead End,” Shockwave said, before levelling his massive arm cannon at the scout’s face. The tip of the barrel began to glow with a dangerous green, crackling energy. Dead End yelped, attempting to back away but his limbs were still weak from the fight with the little Energon sapper and he merely shuffled limply. “But you still disobeyed orders and alerted the autobots to our presence on this planet. Three Vehicons were damaged and one put offline by your actions. You left Waspinator and your squadron to scout out the area in search of cheap thrills. I will not tolerate this kind of insubordination. It is hardly logical, but Waspinator somehow managed to perform more optimally than you did.”

“L-Lord Shockwave, please!” Dead End stuttered. “We’re up against a point-one-percenter and an unknown number of autobots. Surely we need all the botpower we can have. K-killing me would do no good, right?”

Shockwave stood still for a moment, considering his words. The cannon did not lower, but the green glow suddenly died down, the charged shot dissipating. Shockwave remained silent, his chilly gaze still locked onto Dead End’s working eye.

Dead End let out a long breath of relief.

Shockwave pulled the cannon back and then swung it forward, slamming it straight into the side of Dead End’s skull, causing the scout to cry out in surprise and pain, “This does not excuse your insubordination and your poor performance. Point-one-percenter or not, a minicon is a minicon. By nature they are less powerful than the average cybertronian. Empowering them with a green spark should merely put them on level with an average warrior, and you are capable of handling such a bot. You have still failed me, Dead End, and I will tolerate no more failures or disobedience. Is that understood?”

“Y-yes Lord Shockwave.” Dead End coughed, spitting out a small blob of Energon.

The door to the med wing whooshed open to reveal Blitzwing’s slender frame as he sauntered into the room. “You’ll never guess vhat I found in storage, Dead End!” he said, holding up a bright orange optic in his hand. “A perfect duplicate of your damaged opt- Herr Shockwave!” he said, suddenly noticing the massive cyclops looming over his patient and dipping into a bow. “I-I vas not avare you vould be here. I vas just about to replace dear Dead End’s optic and repair ze damage to his face.” He sputtered.

“Replace his optic, Doctor.” Shockwave said, stepping back from the patient bed and turning to the door. “But do not repair the damage to his face.”

“What?!” Dead End shouted. “But, Lord Shockwave-” he protested, only for Shockwave to cut him off, continuing to speak with Blitzwing.

“If you repair his face, Blitzwing, you will be taken offline. Is that clear?”

Blitzwing gulped. “Y-yes, Herr Shockwave.”

“I must speak with Waspinator.” Shockwave rumbled. “After you are finished with Dead End’s surgery, Blitzwing, you will meet me on the bridge with Brawl.”

“Of course, Herr Shockwave.” Blitzwing said, bowing.

Shockwave stepped out of the room, his massive footsteps echoing as he stalked down the hallway before the door whooshed closed once more.

“My vord!” Blitzwing chuckled nervously. “You must have really screwed ze turbofox on zis last vun, Dead End!”

“Shut up and give me a mirror, Blitzwing.” Dead End snarled.

Blitzwing shrugged. “Eh. I vasn’t going to show you, since ze surgery vould have cleared it up, but as long as you’re keeping it.” Blitzwing reached out to a desk and picked up a large hand mirror. “Zough, frankly, now zat I zink about it, it’s very you.”

Dead End held the mirror in his hand, shaking with both rage and fear at what he would see. Holding the mirror up to his gaze he snarled and threw it across the room at what he saw.

The formless metal that made up the soft parts of the right side of his face was completely gone. Where once there was a handsome face (at least by Cybertronian standards), there was a metal skull peeking through. Whirring cogs and sparking bolts squeaked and groaned as he moved his face without the fleshy metal to muffle and lubricate it, locking the right half of his face in a perpetual, deathlike grin.

“Well, at least ve’ll be fixing your optic, Ja?” Blitzwing chuckled.

Dead End fumed. “When I’m done with her, there won’t be anything left of that Minicon.”

* * *

Cell Block E was in an uproar.

Well, ‘uproar’ was probably a bit of a generous way to put it. An uproar would suggest that there had been some massive prison break that threatened the integrity of the prison and potentially the safety of Canterlot Castle as a whole. That was hardly the case since there were only four ‘prisoners’ and three out of four of them were still unconscious, and the last one was too hungover to even try breaking out. A better way to describe it was more like a noisy racket, since there was only one pony causing the disturbance and she wasn’t even a prisoner.

“What do you mean we can’t see her?!” Rainbow Dash snapped as Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie desperately held onto her to keep her from attacking the guards at the doors of the block. “Do you know who you’re talking to?! We’re the bucking Elements of Harmony!”

“We’re well aware of who you are,” said a batpony guard exasperatedly, her wings drooping with exhaustion at the rainbow-maned mare’s antics. “And we’re going to let you in! We just need to wait for your friend to get back with permission from Captain Shining Armor!”

“We can assure you, your friend is fine!” Another batpony said. “You’ll get to see her in just a moment if you’ll only calm down!”

“This is horseapples!” Rainbow Dash spat. “AJ, Scoots, and Sweetie didn’t do anything wrong! This is wrongful imprisonment and I have half a mind to sue the royal guards!” she snarled. “I know I still have Silver Tongue’s number somewhere from the hurricane incident.”

“Rainbow Dash, please be reasonable.” Rarity said, holding onto her friend’s tail with her magic. “I’m just as upset as you are that they have my Sweetie Belle locked up, but you’re not going to make anything better by attacking the royal guard and breaking them out of the dungeons.”

Rainbow harrumphed and finally stopped putting up a fight, landing on her rump on the ground and crossing her forehooves. “This is all that gutless mule Ballista’s fault,” she snarled. “Lazy featherbrain could never do his job right.”

“You’re hardly one to talk about being lazy,” Rarity said, cocking an eyebrow.

“At least I get my job done!” Rainbow gnashed her teeth. “When have the town guards ever helped worth a buck when some monster attacks the town or when changelings invade or when gremlins decide to steal everypony’s left horseshoe?!” She snorted. “The royal guards are a joke and maybe they should just step aside and let the real heroes get on with their lives!” she snapped, giving the evil eye to the two batpony guards.

“Rainbow, that isn’t very nice.” Fluttershy protested. “I mean… well… yeah… there was that one time Archie the boa constrictor got out of his cage and slithered into town and when I went to them to help find him, the Guards responded by declaring martial law and then hiding in the station…” She frowned. “He didn’t even attack anypony. He just wanted some fresh air.”

Rarity cleared her throat. “And… they did start panicking with everypony else when Cerberus showed up in town.”

Pinkie Pie chimed in with a grin. “I’m pretty sure that when Discord got out, he literally turned them all into big chickens!”

“Exactly my point!” Rainbow snarled, glaring pointedly at the female batpony. “The Royal Guard is a joke and should just-”

“Should just what, Rainbow Dash?” came a voice from behind her. Rainbow wheeled around, only to bump noses with a very unamused-looking Shining Armor. The tall, white unicorn looked down at her with a raised eyebrow and his mouth set in a straight line.

“Erm…” Rainbow stuttered for a moment, only to take a deep breath and regain her composure. Her face regained its look of righteous indignation and she tried to continue. “No offense to you, Shining, but the royal guard is a bunch of-”

“A bunch of what?” came another voice from behind Shining Armor. Rainbow looked up to see Princess Luna looming over her. “Pray tell, fair Rainbow Dash. What wert thou to say of our personal guard?”

Rainbow’s wings drooped and her ears folded back. “I… you… personal guard?” she sputtered, feeling sweat beginning to form on the back of her neck. “I… eh-heh… I wasn’t going to say anything about your personal guards, Princess Luna,” Rainbow said, smiling weakly.

Pinkie scratched her head. “Are you sure, Dashie?” she said, confused. “I coulda sworn you were saying just a moment ago that the Royal guard was a bunch of pansy candy-flanks who couldn’t save a town from an angry baby bunny, even if they had a whole fleet of tanks and airships.”

“Pinkie!” Rainbow snapped, zipping over and clamping her hooves around her pink friend’s mouth, before turning to the two royals and chuckling nervously. “I didn’t say anything like that, really!”

The male batpony spoke up. “You also called us know-nothing horses who wouldn’t know how to handle a crime if we had a flow chart, totalitarian police-state thugs that lock up innocent ponies, and you accused my partner here of bedwetting.”

The female batpony fumed a little.

“I… well… I mean, yeah, I might have said those things but… Well I…” Rainbow stammered.

Shining Armor sighed. “Nopony’s mad at you, Rainbow.”

“We’re not?” the female batpony asked.

“Hush, Sunstorm.” Luna said, prompting Shining Armor to go on while the guard known as Sunstorm huffed and stood back at attention.

Shining Armor continued. “It’s come to my attention that the Ponyville branch of the Royal Guard is in need of something of an overhaul.”

Rarity sniffed. “That… might be something of an understatement.”

“Unfortunately, when we grant specific town guards the autonomy they need to operate efficiently,” Shining explained, “sometimes problems slip through the cracks.”

“Sometimes big problems, apparently.” Rainbow grumbled.

“I’m going to be launching an investigation into Ponyville’s town guard within the next few days,” Shining went on. “I can guarantee you things will be changing around town for you. But I’d ask that you don’t judge the royal guard as a whole, and especially not the Princesses’ personal guards, based on your experience with Ponyville’s town guard. I can assure you that that’s a bad example.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “I’m still not convinced.” she muttered. “After all, it’s not like you guys were much help when Discord showed up and when the Changelings invaded.”

“One was a reality warping demigod and the other was an invasion of a bunch of strength sapping, brainwashing shapeshifters that had been in our presence for weeks whittling away at everypony.” Shining Armor raised an eyebrow. “I’d hope we can count those as exceptions.

Rainbow grumbled.

“Now if we are quite finished,” Luna said, clearing her throat, “I believe that we were here to speak with Applejack and shed light upon the curious events that led to her imprisonment.” She waved a hoof at her two guards. “Dirge? Sunstorm? If you would, please?”

The two guards bowed, parting from in front of the door and pulling the massive handles, opening the dungeon door and granting the six ponies entry into the cell block.

Cell block E, like Cell block C, was actually relatively well furnished and maintained. It was a section of the canterlot dungeons that was meant to hold low risk ponies who hadn’t actually done much wrong. Ponies who partied to hardy and ended up getting drunk and disorderly on the castle grounds or mischievous colts and fillies who tried to sneak into restricted sections of the castle were normally the ones that ended up housed here, and rarely for very long. Usually just until they sobered up or their parents came around to give them a good scolding. More recently, though, it had been occupied by ponies who had found themselves under the mental sway of Changelings and needed to have their minds put back in order, but again, those ponies never stayed longer than it took to undo any of the Changelings’ mind-meddling.

As a result, the cells were all relatively cozy, but not particularly extravagant. Each cell had a simple, clean bed, and an armchair opposite. Rugs on the floor softened the solid stone bricks that made up the cells, and each cell had a water cooler in the corner should the prisoners get thirsty.

The six ponies trotted past three cells, two of which contained sleeping fillies and one of which contained a slumbering schoolteacher. Rarity let out a concerned whimper and Rainbow Dash an annoyed grunt as they passed the cells on their way to cell E-4.

The cell in question was occupied by a groaning orange mare, curled up under the covers of her bed, her head stuffed under her pillow.

“AJ!” Rainbow shouted. “Hey AJ!”

The lump under the covers shifted and squirmed, an orange hoof poking out and swinging in her direction. “G’way!” Came Applejack’s muffled reply. “Don’t wanna talk.”

Rainbow flew up and banged on the bars of the cell, making a loud clanging sound. “Not happening, AJ!” she snapped, banging her forehooves against the bars. “You owe us an explanation! What the hay is going on with you?!”

Her response was a pillow thrown against the bars, right where she was hammering.

“I said git!” Applejack snapped back, sitting up in bed, her eyes bloodshot and her mane drenched with sweat.

“Dashie, stop,” Pinkie said, grabbing Rainbow’s tail in her teeth and pulling her away from the bars, “She’s had a rough day.”

Rainbow huffed, crossing her arms and sitting on the floor. “She still owes us an explanation.”

“I agree.” Shining Armor said. “Applejack, please, tell us what happened. We’re going to have to keep you locked up, maybe even for a long time, if we don’t figure out what’s going on.”

Applejack scowled, turning her furious gaze upon Shining Armor. Her glare spoke of fire and bloodshed, though her half-drunken swaying and sweat-drenched mane rather lessened the effect. “I ain’t got nothin’ to say to the likes of y’all. Not after what yer guards went and did,” she snarled.

Shining Armor massaged his temple with a hoof. “Here we go again,” he muttered. “Look, Applejack-” he began, only for a midnight-blue hoof to shoot out in front of him and cut him off.

“Then speak not to Shining Armor, fair Applejack, and speaketh to me,” Princess Luna said, a firm but gentle tone permeating her voice. “Thou art a friend of ours and we wish to see thy problems solved, but if thou do not work with us to solve them, then there will be no choice to lay more troubles upon thee. And nopony here wishes such a thing.”

Applejack sat still for a moment, looking at the Princess. After a minute though, she shook her head, retreating back under the covers. “Ain’t no solvin’ what I gone and done.”

There was silence in Cell Block E for a moment, before Rarity spoke up.

“That’s it?” Rarity huffed. “That’s all you’re going to offer us, is it Applejack?” She sniffed and held her nose in the air. “And they say I’m a drama queen.”

Applejack turned over in the bed to look at her, an angry eyebrow raised. “Beg yer pardon?”

“Oh puh-lease!” Rarity huffed. “You go and make one mistake and suddenly you can’t bear to face the reality of what you’ve done!” she said, dramatically sweeping a leg up and holding it against her forehead. “Oh woe is Applejack! She went and got drunk one day and ended up doing something foolish! Now she simply can’t face the world anymore! Her honor is besmirched and she can’t even bring herself to speak to the ponies that care about her, so great is her shame!” the fashionista scoffed. “I would appreciate it if you’d stop doing a poor impression of me for half a minute and actually act like yourself.”

“Back off, Rarity.” Applejack snorted. “Y’all don’t know what’s been goin’ on.”

“Obviously more than mere drunken shenanigans.” Rarity huffed. “You can’t possibly think us so poor at perception. But then again, we can’t know or help with whatever the problem is if we don’t know what the problem is”

“An’ I’m tellin y’all the problem can’t be fixed. Not that it’s any of yer business, anyway.” Applejack retorted. “So why don’t y’all just leave and quit botherin’.”

“Because we’re sick of seeing you beating yourself up in there!” Rainbow shouted, flying up to the bars again. “Hell, even if whatever it is you did is ‘so bad it can’t be fixed’ then you gotta tell us so we can help you keep it from getting any worse!”

“I can’t think of how it could get worse.” Applejack grumbled, slithering back under the covers. “Just go.”

Rainbow fumed for a moment before trotting away. “Come on, girls. If she wants to be a crybaby then we’ll let her.”

“What?” Fluttershy squeaked, finally speaking up. “But, we can’t just leave her in there!”

“If she doesn’t want to talk to us and just wants to wallow in her own self-pity, then there’s nothing we can do, dears. Let her be.”

Pinkie Pie’s hair drooped a little as she looked upon the orange farmer, lying sullenly in the prison bed turned away from her. With a sigh, she too turned and started walking away. “We’ll give you some time, AJ. We’ll be back, though.”

Shining Armor sighed as well. “Applejack, I’m sorry to say this, but if you aren’t going to cooperate then we’re going to need to keep you in there for now.”

“Yeah, yeah.” she replied. “Ain’t like I deserve nothin’ less.”

Shining Armor trotted to join the others. Luna looked into the cell without a trace of emotion on her face. Reaching up to touch the bars gently, she spoke.

“When thou wishes to act like the mare who helped save me from myself, we will be here to talk.” She said softly, before she dissipated into a blue mist and disappeared through the cracks in the ceiling.

“ Yo, Sunstamp! Digdug!” Rainbow called out to the two lunar guards and nodding her head sharply at the other three ponies in the cells. “You gonna let these three out or what?”

The two guards glared at Dash for a moment before turning to look at Shining Armor. The captain nodded, motioning for them to go ahead. Saluting, the two of them quickly pulled keys out from their suits of armor and unlocked the three cells containing Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Cheerilee. With the two fillies draped over Rarity and Rainbow Dash’s backs respectively, and Cheerilee supported by Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, the ponies all filed out of Cell Block E, leaving Applejack alone in the dungeon, with nothing but her traitorous thoughts to keep her company.

* * * (Meanwhile…) * * *

Applebloom sat on the edge of her bed, her head in her hands. Part of her felt like crying, but she couldn’t bring herself to tears. Another part of her felt like screaming, but she couldn’t muster up the energy. She was tired and confused and as frustrated as she’d ever been in her life, but she couldn’t even bring herself to feel anything at that moment. After the past couple days, she found herself just so confused by everything around her since her entire worldview had been shattered, that she felt like a mess of conflicting, roiling emotions that could never be compromised.

On the one hand, she couldn’t help but be enthralled by her new abilities. The potential within her seemed limitless. She could turn into a wagon, fix machines with a touch, fight better than she ever could have imagined, copy other robots’ abilities, and more. The ideas of what she could do with such powers thrilled her, and she’d already had such fun with them before in that brief moment she and the others had racing across Ponyville.

But they came with such a cost. Her sister hated her, ponies feared her and locked her up, and she was bringing danger down upon her friends simply by existing. If that was the price of her powers she wasn’t sure she wanted them.

Applebloom sighed. ‘What was it Yoketron said?’ she thought, thinking about the giant robot that she knew so briefly, yet spoke with such familiarity to her. ‘I’m a child of two worlds? That I’m a pony if I really feel like one deep down?’ she shook her head. ‘I guess he was wrong. If it were so easy I wouldn’t be scaring everypony and putting them in danger. An’ I don’t even know what I feel like anymore.’

She looked down at her hips. “Who knew getting a cutie mark would be so complicated?”

“Eh?” came a voice from somewhere in the cell. “What po-nee say?”

Applebloom jumped up, looking around her cell. “What?! Who said that?” she asked, startled.

“Over here!” came a hoarse but feminine voice from behind her. Wheeling around to look at her bed, Applebloom saw that a brick had been removed in the wall her bed sat against. Applebloom clambered atop her bed, looking closely at the new gap, peering closely into the next room, which, from what she could see, looked to be a mirror image of hers. There was nopony to be seen in the cell, though, until a canine face suddenly sprang up, startling the little robot and causing her to squeal and stumble back.

The dog let out a throaty, scratchy laugh. “Heh heh. Don’t be scared by Lassie, po-nee. Lassie likes po-nees.”

Applebloom sat up, looking at the creature in the next cell. It was a diamond dog. A she-dog if her voice was any indication. Her face was shaped somewhat like a collie’s, though with the spiky, toothy underbite that was characteristic of diamond dogs. Her fur was bleach white and she looked to be an albino if her pink eyes were any indication. A few tufts of fur poked out at the top of her head and down her neck a little, making it look like she had a sort of false mane atop her head. Further down, she wore a yellow collar that looked to be studded with purple gems and a purple vest, which appeared to cover small mammary glands on her chest. Her handpaws were thick, clumsy, and clawed, like most diamond dogs and her hindlegs were muscular and powerful. Her tail was covered in the characteristic, mace-like spikes of your average diamond dog, but they were slightly hidden by her slightly shaggy, bushy fur on her tail. In fact, her whole body was slightly more shaggy than the other diamond dogs Rarity had spoken of. It reminded her of Winona’s fur, now that she thought about it.

“W-who are you?” Applebloom stammered.

The diamond dog cocked her head. “Already told po-nee. Lassie is who I am! Who is po-nee?” Her voice sounded strikingly similar, as though Applebloom had heard it somewhere before. And yet, for the life of her, she couldn’t place it. She could swear that she knew who it belonged to, but the name just wasn’t coming to her.

Applebloom blinked for a moment before sighing. “Applebloom.” she said sadly. “At least I think so. I don’t really know. I know I’m sure as hay not a pony, though.”

Lassie blinked before sniffing at the air. “Applebloom smell like po-nee.”

The little robot frowned a little then shrugged. “Yeah, I guess… but look at me!”

Lassie nodded sagely. “Do look strange for po-nee, yes. But all ponies look strange to dogs.” She said in her oddly familiar voice.

Applebloom rolled her eyes and huffed. “Yeah, well diamond dogs look funny to ponies too.”

Lassie suddenly barked out a scratchy, yipping laugh, before nodding again. “Suppose true.” she said with a toothy, canine grin. The dog then pointed through the hole in the wall at the platter of food left for Applebloom. “Applebloom gonna eat that?”

Applebloom blinked, looking at the platter of food. “Um… no.” she said, “I’m not hungry.”

“Lassie can have your bugs then?” she said with a wide, doggy grin.

Applebloom grimaced and stuck her tongue out, but handed her the bowl of bugs through the hole in the wall nonetheless. Lassie yipped with excitement and quickly dug in, shoving beetles and crickets down her throat. The bugs made crunchy, smacking noises as she chewed, causing Applebloom to turn a little green as the diamond dog chowed down. The little robot turned away from the hole in the wall and sat silently as her next door neighbor began to speak with her mouth full.

“Sho…” Lassie began with a gulp. “How did little Apple po-nee end up looking like metal Minnytaur?” she asked. “And how did little Apple po-nee end up here?”

Applebloom sighed, her shoulders slumping. “It’s… it’s a long story.” she mumbled.

Lassie gulped down another pawful of bugs. “Lassie got time. Nothing but time down here in dungeon.”

The little filly-bot remained silent, her shoulders drooping.

Lassie frowned before finishing off her bugs and tossing the wooden bowl to the side of the room. “Here, po-nee. Lassie tell you how Lassie got here, then you tell Lassie. Okay?” asked the familiar-voiced dog.

Applebloom said nothing, but turned back to the dog, a slight spark of interest in her eyes.

Lassie grinned. “Lassie was with diamond dog ambassador as bodyguard yesterday when dogs come to discuss borders with po-nees,” she nodded. “Talk go good. Afterward there was banquet. Lassie no like fancy food, though, so she went to castle pub with guards. Drink lots. Lassie danced on a table and tried to go on date with painting,” the diamond dog winked. “Po-nees have good drink.”

Applebloom giggled a little, nodding for Lassie to go on.

“So, Lassie coming back to room from castle pub, when she get lost in all the twisty-turny halls of palace!” Lassie said, making little wavy motions with her paws to demonstrate. “Dog tunnels are twisty, but po-nee halls are madness.” she grumbled. “Anyway, Lassie finally think she finds her room, and opens door, super tired. Crawls into bed.”

“What’s so wrong with that though?” Applebloom asked, sitting cross legged on the bed and leaning her chin on a fist.

Lassie laughed. “Not Lassie’s room!” the dog barked. “Lassie turn over in bed and come muzzle to muzzle with Po-nee Princess Cadance!”

Applebloom gasped, but couldn’t hold back a giggle. Lassie laughed too. “Po-nee Princess Cadance scream like ‘EEEEK’ and Lassie yell like ‘BARK BARK!’ and suddenly Po-nee Princess husband, Shiny Armoire come charging out of bathroom and snag Lassie in force field.” Lassie laughed. “All really funny. Talk to Po-nee princess later in dungeon and clear things up. They say let me go when talks are done.”

Applebloom laughed. “That’s pretty funny, Lassie.”

Lassie nodded. “Now you tell me story, Apple po-nee.”

The filly-bot’s face fell. “It’s… I don’t want to talk about it.”

The diamond dog cocked her head. “Lassie tell you. Why you no tell Lassie?”

Applebloom's voice was barely a whisper. “My story isn’t as funny as yours is, Lassie.”

Lassie frowned, then nodded sagely. “Maybe you need tell story more, then, Apple po-nee.”

The little pony-bot was silent for a moment as she considered Lassie’s words. Granny had always told her that talking about her problems would make her feel better and sometimes give good perspective on how to solve them. She was still skeptical, though, as every time she tried to come to terms with her powers, something new would happen to shake her world up again.

Applebloom thought it over, looking into Lassie’s expectant eyes. Finally, she relented with another sigh and spoke up. “Y’all promise to hear me out before ya go thinking anything ‘bout me?”

The diamond dog held up one paw, crossing the other over her chest. “Dog’s honor.”

Applebloom nodded, looking back and forth between Lassie and the two guards that were still standing watch over her cell. Despite the conversation with the diamond dog, they hadn’t made a single move and continued to stand still as statues. Applebloom spoke low and soft into the hole in the wall.

“I’m an alien robot from outer space,” she whispered to the diamond dog.

Lassie quirked her head. “For reals?”

“Eeyup,” Applebloom nodded again.

“Whoa.” The dog looked stunned.

“Apparently”, Applebloom began, “I’m something called a ‘Mini-con’ from a planet called Cybertron. And when I was just a foal I landed here and took on the form of a pony. Cybertronians can change shape, ya see?”

“Really?” Lassie asked, “Can I see?”

Applebloom nodded, stepping into the middle of the room. Taking a deep breath, a familiar clanking sound rang out through the cell block. In mere moments, a bright red wagon sat in the middle of the cell.

Lassie yipped out a little gasp, leaning into the hole in fascination. “Hail Underdog, is amazing, po-nee!”

Applebloom shifted back into her robot mode and clambered back onto the bed. “Thanks, but not everypony seems to think so,” she said, sadly.

Lassie cocked her head once more. “What you mean, Apple po-nee?”

Applebloom turned and slumped against the stone wall, her back to Lassie’s cell. Her arms akimbo as she slumped, she stared at the darkened dungeon ceiling and recounted her tale. “It was kinda neat when I first got them. I got to show off to my friends a little, and we had fun… but there was always this feeling deep down that… I dunno… something was wrong with me,” she pouted. “I didn’t know what to make of myself. There was… somebody I trusted who told me that I was a ‘child of two worlds,’ being cybertronian in body, but pony in spark or spirit or something, having spent my whole life here and having friends and family here.”

“Sound like wise po-nee. Who said that?” Lassie asked from out of view.

Applebloom shook her head, a tear dripping down her face, her voice remaining neutral. “It don’t matter now,” she mumbled. “Anyway, even though I was worried, I still had fun with the powers for a little while, but…” her head drooped. “Then it all went wrong.”

Lassie whined. “Wrong how?”

“My sister…” Applebloom said, curling her legs up and letting her knees meet her facelike chest. “She found out about it. An’ she was mad. At first she thought I was some kinda monster who ate her real sister or somethin, on accounta my pony face bein’ stuck on my chest and all.” she mumbled, poking experimentally at her pony eye, currently appearing as nothing but an orb of glass on her chest. It was weird that it felt nothing like poking herself in the eye in this position. She went on. “She got real mad an’ nearly attacked me, but my brother stopped her. She said that I basically been lyin’ to her my whole life and that I weren’t her sister.”

Lassie was silent for a moment. “That no good,” she finally said.

“And I don’t know if she’s right or not.” Applebloom started to sob. “I mean… I thought Yok-... the “Two Worlds” fella… I thought he was right for a while, but then I started goin’ and tearin’ my family apart just by bein’ what I am.”

She sniffled. “And then, just when I thought things might get better, somehow I led some really BAD robots from Cybertron right to my friends. I don’t even know how they found me, but they attacked my school and almost really hurt my teacher and my friends.” Her breath was shuddering as she continued her story. “And somehow… somehow I actually managed to fight them off. I beat them… but I beat them bad. I even…” Applebloom gulped, going quiet. “I even…”

The cell block was silent for a full minute before Lassie finally spoke.

“Applebloom?”

Applebloom took a shuddering breath, continuing. “And the worst part is, I liked it. Fighting them felt… exciting. I don’t even know why. And I can’t stand that I felt that way!”

The two of them shared a silence for a little bit before she went on. “After that, I tried to talk with my teacher and friends about it, but the town guard came by and cast a freaky spell on me that made me shift out of my pony form. I ended up turning into a robot in front of everypony and they said I was a monster and arrested me… and maybe they’re right.”

Lassie was silent as Applebloom continued her story. “I mean… I don’t even know anymore. Apparently the evil robots… Decepticons they’re called… apparently, they can track me wherever I go. And if they can do that, then ponies are in danger when I’m around. Especially since I seem to like fightin’ so much. Who knows when I’ll just snap and go all ‘crush, kill, destroy’ on everypony?” Applebloom wept a little and lay down on her bed. “Maybe it’s safer if I just stay here. Everypony will be safe from the trouble I attract and will be safe… from me.”

The cell block was silent for several minutes as Applebloom sniffled and cried. Eventually, though, her tears came to a stop and she noticed the deafening silence that the cell had been cast into. The diamond dog that had been so chatty and friendly before had said nothing for a good ten minutes at this point.

“L-Lassie?” Applebloom sniffled, only to turn over and see that the stone brick in the wall had been replaced. Turning back over and closing her eyes, she was alone with her thoughts again. ‘She must hate me too. Must think I’m a monster… I should have known. Ain’t nopony or nodog who can trust me after what I brought on everypony… after what I done’

“I’ve heard enough.” Came a refined, but strikingly similar voice to Lassie’s from the other side of the bars. Applebloom’s eyes shot wide open. She figured out where she recognized the voice from.

Hopping off the bed and wheeling around so fast she almost lost her balance, Applebloom came face to face with Lassie, standing on the other side of the bars. Suddenly, Lassie’s eyes began to glow yellow and her form seemed to stretch and distort. The two guards that had been standing watch suddenly vanished in a puff of yellow magic as Lassies stance became a quadrupedal one, the digits on her paws melding together and becoming hooves. Her tail exploded out in a burst of colorful, rainbow colored hair and the tufts of manelike fur she had quickly followed suit, creating a flowing, chromatic mane. A horn sprouted from her head and spiraled out over a foot and a half long, and her canine muzzle quickly shrank into an equine one. Wings burst from her back and her golden collar with purple studs suddenly shifted into a necklace, as well as a set of slippers and a crown, which arranged themselves neatly in the appropriate places on her body. In mere moments, standing before Applebloom was not the diamond dog Lassie, but none other than Princess Celestia herself.

“Wait what?!” Applebloom started, blinking dumbfoundedly. “But… WHAT?!”

Princess Celestia lifted a gold shod hoof to her mouth and giggled. “You aren’t the only pony who can change what she looks like, Applebloom.”

“But… why?” Applebloom boggled. “Why would you disguise yourself like that?”

Princess Celestia’s expression turned into a somber smile. “You’d be surprised at how hard it is for ponies to open up to me when I look like myself.” she said with a shrug. “You didn’t need a Princess. You needed a friend.” Her horn glowed a shimmering gold and the door to Applebloom’s cell unlocked. “Now then, shall we get out of this dank hole? We have more comfy places to talk upstairs.”

Appleboom started to protest, only for Celestia to hold up a hoof. “Ah ah ah. I don’t want to hear another word about this ‘monster’ nonsense. As far as I am concerned, you are as much one of my little ponies as anypony else.”

“But…” Applebloom stuttered. “The other robots! The fighting!”

“We’ll discuss that in time, Applebloom.” Celestia said, a motherly smile on her face. “For now, how about you tell me what kind of tea you like?”

Applebloom blinked, screwing up her face. She had just gone and told Princess Celestia that she was a violent, fight-loving robot that attracted evil robots straight to her, and the Princess was just letting her out of the cell?! It didn’t make any sense!

The Princess raised an eyebrow. “I don’t like that look, Applebloom. That’s a look that says you’re thinking far too much about what kind of tea you like.”

“I… but…” Applebloom stammered, looking down at her feet. “I wasn’t”

“Shhhhhh…” Princess Celestia said, placing a hoof under Applebloom’s chin and raising her eyes to look at hers. It felt so strange to Applebloom, being almost exactly eye level with the Princess of Equestria. The only thing that made her any taller was her horn. Applebloom was stunned further as Celestia slung the hoof around her back and drew her in for a friendly hug. The closeness of the hug made her almost completely freeze up. She had never seen the Princess get this close with anypony except her own sister and Twilight.

Still, Applebloom couldn’t help but relax in the Princess’ embrace. She felt safe and secure as the Princess’ hoof patted her on the back. All too soon, the Princess broke the hug and stepped back a little. “I’ll do everything in my power to clear everything up, Applebloom. For you. For your family. With the school and the town and the guard. But that will all come in time.” She patted her Applebloom’s shoulder with a large, angelic wing. “For now, though, you need to relax, and calm yourself, and trust that everything is going to be alright.” She smiled gently, “So please, I would be delighted if you would join me for tea.

Applebloom sniffled, a tear leaking out of her eye. It wasn’t a sad tear though. Her wide smile gave that away. Finally, she had a glimmer of hope. A chance for everything to turn out okay. Applebloom sniffed and gave the Princess a big smile.

“I like Cinnamon Apple Spice.”

The princess smiled and nodded. “Good choice,” she said, opening the dungeon doors and leading the little filly bot up the stairs. “Now come along. We have much we need to clear up.”

Applebloom followed the Princess out of the dungeon and up into the brightly lit halls of Canterlot Castle. Things were finally looking up.

* * *

...ten minutes later, a lavender unicorn trotted down the dungeon steps.

Twilight Sparkle looked around mutely.

“Applebloom?”

Author's Note

Well, there have been a few missteps here and there. I ended up getting stuck on Smash Bros and attempted to start up a (frankly failed) Christmas story that didn't really make it off the ground so well, and I've been super busy with trying to get hired for a job...

...but here we are again folks! Hopefully it won't be another month before the next chapter.

...actually, come to think of it, it might be. I'm going to be doing "Finish February," which is when you take the time to finish all the old projects that are still hanging over your head. In this case, I'm planning to finish PonyFall in February, as well as another thing that needs to be brought about to a conclusion. Hopefully I'll be able to get it done quickly and get back into this story.

But beyond that, I have a new way of maybe keeping myself focused. It's a method called 'don't break the chain' that I recently heard discussed in an episode of Game Grumps (Fire Red episode 94 I believe), and it sounds like it might work. I'll still be streaming on Sundays (and hopefully Wednesdays as well, though, I must say that it's going to start getting difficult since more and more pressure is being put on me to find a real job every day), but I'm hoping that really getting into the habit of doing something every day will help me to get more out faster.

So, a lot of people have been talking about how the story is starting to get really serious and heavy and... they're right. This really isn't the fun comedy romp that I had in mind when I first started it. It's actually become much more of a story about finding and coming to terms with one's self. A sort of coming of age story mixed with adventure and action. I wonder, perhaps if I should remove the comedy tag and if maybe I should replace it with something else. This is about the last part that's going to be particularly heavy and sad and mopey, though, and it's going to be evening out in future chapters so... I really don't know.

I'm finding that writing this story is like getting through the origin story of a superhero in a comic book movie. I have much MUCH more fun ideas for things that can happen in the two sequels I have planned, but we can't get there until this one is done. Phooey.

Also, sometime in the near future, I'm hoping to create an anthology of side stories called "Applebloom: Mixed Nuts and Bolts," which will collect scenarios from Applebloom just living her life as a transformer among ponies. Something that a lot of people have been in demand for. I don't know exactly when this will happen, but it hopefully won't be long.

In the meantime, though, I have another story on the way. It's called "The Shadow in the Hollow" and it's a spoopy tale of spoopyness. It's a Lovecraft inspired horror story, so if you're into that then check it out! Hopefully it'll be published by the time you read this chapter but if not, the password is Azathoth

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I hope the next one shall be forthcoming. Until next time!

Oh, and as always, please feel free to point out any inconsistencies or mistakes I've made :twilightsmile:

Ch9: Lost...

___________________________________________________________________________________

Applebloom: Transform and Rollout!
by Dusty the Royal Janitor

Chapter 9: Lost...

Shockwave stood still as the grave, gazing out the window with his calculating, emotionless stare at the planet below. The Decepticon leader stood alone on the Darksyde’s dim, eerie bridge, the rest of the crew having vacated since achieving stable orbit. Silent as death, the massive robot pondered the recent developments in his quest for the secrets of Ancient Cybertron.

The Ancients of Cybertron had access to technology that present day Cybertronians could only dream of. Bridges that could span all of space in an instant, as opposed to short range ones, forced to bow to the whim of conventional physics. The ability to control and travel through time and scatter one’s self throughout the eons, learning all the secrets of the universe. Artifacts of untold power and weapons that could rend the very fabric of reality itself.

The secrets of the Ancients had all been lost to the ages. Now, Cybertronians fought an endless and pointless war, one that had ravaged their planet and destroyed the very spark of Cybertron itself.

The Autobots and the Decepticons were evenly matched. So evenly matched, that they had nearly eliminated each other entirely. Both sides had been reduced to such sparse numbers that it could hardly be called a war anymore. Now, it was hardly more than isolated skirmishes whenever one faction happened upon another by chance in the depths of space as the species wandered aimlessly, looking for someplace to settle and perhaps revive themselves.

Indeed, there could only be a couple thousand Cybertronians left in the universe. And that number continued to shrink steadily as each side continued to slowly but surely destroy one another.

The only thing that kept the Decepticons’ numbers up was the discovery of one of these ancient artifacts: a device called the Matrix Flame. It seemed to be some sort of conduit to the Allspark, serving as something of a portable Well of All Sparks. It had been used to facilitate the mass production of their Vehicon soldiers, granting each of them something of a spark. Alas, without the Allspark burning in Cybertron’s center, it seemed to be running out of power, like a battery that could no longer be charged. Only occasionally, and seemingly by chance, did it manage to create soldiers with what could be described as a full spark. Most vehicon sparks were weaker and less ‘whole’ than normal, with effects manifesting in various ways. Vehicons suffered any of multiple issues ranging from lowered intelligence, lack of personality, lack of sanity, lack of strength or fighting prowess, lack of courage or willpower, to multiple other issues. And none of them had any of the mysterious ‘abilities’ that other Cybertronians had. The few Vehicons that were, through chance, granted a full spark, often would climb through the ranks and be given body mods and true names, rather than designations, to distinguish themselves among their peers. The ascended Vehicon known as ‘Breakdown’ was one such Decepticon.

Unfortunately, the Matrix Flame, after many years of being used to swell the ranks of the Decepticons, had started to go out. Shockwave predicted that it would go out in a mere three or four stellar cycles. Alas, Megatron had refused Shockwave’s requests to take the Matrix Flame apart and see what made it work despite all logic. Even when Shockwave said that understanding such an artifact could lead to a greater understanding of the Ancients’ secrets and perhaps even allow the Decepticons to harness their power and create weapons and tools powerful enough to destroy the Autobots entirely. Alas, Megatron had said that the continued replenishment of their ranks with half-witted, weakened cannon fodder was more important.

Megatron had offered him the Matrix Flame if Shockwave could create a suitable alternative to Vehicon soldiers. Unfortunately… those experiments had ended in failure, and the flame remained out of his grip.

Shockwave was not deterred from his course, though. The Matrix Flame had inspired him to search the cosmos for other clues into the powers and technologies of the ancients.

This planet… 8090-P, with its strange and unusual stellar system, strange interferences and odd lifeforms… Shockwave was becoming more and more convinced that his answers lay here.

The massive cycloptic Decepticon was broken from his reflections by the sound of the bridge door whooshing open. Shockwave turned to see Waspinator scuttle in, hunched over and making guttural hissing and clicking noises. If Shockwave had a face, he would have sneered. Loyal as Waspinator was, he was rarely useful beyond the occasional scouting mission and as a messenger. Occasionally he aided with the massive robot’s experiments, but it was risky, as the green and black Insecticon was distressingly clumsy.

The shambling green insecticon skittered up to him and dipped into a bow. “Masssssterrrr…” Waspinator hissed reverently, his head down low. “Wassspinator has come to give report and to deliver ssssssample.”

“Report,” Shockwave demanded.

“Wassspinator ground-bridged onto planet with Dead-Bot and troops at site of Autobot crash.” Waspinator hissed and clicked. “Investigate for short time. Dead-Bot say nothing there but ssscrap dead for ssstellar cycles. Sssay not worth time, but detected Autobot signal in town nearby. Wassspinator tell Dead-Bot not to go. Sssay orders were ssstay sssneaky. Dead-Bot get angry and bite Vehicon, then leave,” he explained

“I am aware of what happened at the Autobot Ship, Waspinator,” Shockwave said, waving the Insecticon off. “Dead End’s transgressions are well known to me.”

“Yesss, Masssssster…” Waspinator hissed happily, his mandibles clicking and shuddering. “But it’ssss what happened after that is interesssting.”

Shockwave remained still as Waspinator reached behind his back and pulled out a lockbox slung around his waist. “Massssster…” he hissed, punching a few buttons with his claw, “thisss planet is ssseeded.”

Shockwave shifted his stance a little as the Insecticon slid a panel open on the lockbox, revealing hundreds upon hundreds of tiny, multicolored shards of crystal.

“Energon…” Shockwave said slowly.

Waspinator dipped a claw into the lockbox and pulled out a pile of the tiny Energon, letting it slip through his servos and fall back into the box with little tinkling, clinking noises. “Energon is sssmall on planet, but there is much,” he said, handing the lockbox to his master.

“Where did you find this, Waspinator?” Shockwave asked, taking the box.

Waspinator pointed out the window of the bridge at the rough location of the crash site, far away on the planet below. “Vehiconsss ssscanning area at crash sssite and pick up ssstrange readingsss all over area. Sssay whole area is littered with Energon. Think was missstake, but Wassspinator decide to dig hole to sssee. Find Energon shards everywhere!” Waspinator clicked his mandibles. “We follow sssignals to nearby cave in woodsss. Find ssstrange, green creature sssleeping on pile. Dragon-Bot in cave hoard energon. We sssteal!”

“The find is commendable, but your mission was stealth, Waspinator,” Shockwave said dangerously.

Waspinator laughed. It was a strange, hissing, croaking sound. “Masssster no need worry. Dragon-Bot tell nobody.”

Shockwave nodded, understanding. “You covered your tracks then,” he said, looking into the lockbox. “How much energon did you manage to acquire?”

The Insecticon clicked his mandibles excitedly. “Dragon-Bot have much much energon. Vehicons loading many crates with energon shards. Still sending them up.”

“Excellent…” Shockwave said, looking into the lockbox intently. “These Energon samples are highly irregular,” he pondered as he pulled out several gems, balancing the lockbox on his cannon arm. “Their hues range throughout the visible spectrum. There are samples in red, green, and purple, and yet I cannot pick up any of the signatures or characteristic properties of traditional Red Energon, Tox-En, or Dark Energon.”

“They really tingly to touch though,” Waspinator commented.

“Indeed,” Shockwave said, rolling the samples through his fingers and dropping them back into the box. “They carry a signature all their own, similar to the ambient energies that surround the planet. This requires further study.” Shockwave looked at the Insecticon. “For once, you have done well, Waspinator.”

“Wassspinator do better!” Waspinator clicked and hissed in glee at his master’s praise, bowing deeply. “Wassspinator track even bigger sssignal of energon!”

Shockwave turned, looking out the bridge window again. “Where was this signal?”

The Insecticon stood astride the massive cyclops and pointed out the window at a very particular mountain. Waspinator hissed and grinned.

“Under big mountain, masssster…”

Shockwave nodded, placing the open lockbox on the control dashboard. “Your work is commendable, Waspinator. You are dismissed.”

Waspinator hissed gleefully, bowing out of the room.

“The puzzle continues to come together then.”

* * *

Applebloom walked through the halls of Canterlot Castle, following the princess through the massive and ancient maze of corridors and hallways. As they exited the dungeon, Princess Celestia had stopped to speak with a group of nine guards, who had seemingly been waiting just outside the cellblock while Applebloom spoke with the princess, before dismissing them. She hadn’t caught what the Princess had told them to do, though, but her mind was still a little too occupied to care. She just assumed that she’d told them to spread word around the castle to make sure that nopony panicked at the sight of Applebloom’s alien body.

Indeed, as the two of them trod through the halls of the palace, there was no panic. Although, Applebloom couldn’t help but shrink in on herself as she felt every eye in the ancient castle on her. While they didn’t panic, maids and staff and butlers visibly slowed down and turned their heads as they passed, bowing to the princess but keeping their eyes locked firmly upon Applebloom’s robotic body. It was unsettling, being stared at from every angle with suspicion. Still, she walked on, following the princess’ oddly springy step.

That was another thing that made the situation so bizarre. Princess Celestia didn’t seem to be her usual, serene self. Applebloom had only seen the princess a sparse few times in her life, and only twice had she actually even spoken to her, but each time she’d seemed so calm and collected. She wore that trademark, gently enigmatic smile on her face and held a firm but reassuring stance. It was seemingly a constant... at least it was until just then.

Now, as she walked just behind the princess, she’d catch the ancient alicorn casting furtive, excited glances back at her, only to look away when they locked eyes. Her smooth, gliding stride had been replaced by a more springy, bouncy step, while her ears twitched and her ethereal tail whipped back and forth, sending waves through her glowing, pastel rainbow locks. Her horn flashed with little yellow bursts of magic occasionally, generally followed by what Applebloom could only assume was princessly giggling, and her smile seemed more natural and less practiced than normal.

Princess Celestia was acting like some sort of slightly calmer version of Pinkie Pie. The effect was downright surreal.

Finally, the two of them made it to a set of smaller double doors. Not the massive, ornate double doors of the throne room or the foreboding stone ones of the dungeon, but a simple set of hardwood ones.

Princess Celestia’s horn alit and the doors swung open out into the hallway. “Here we are, Applebloom,” Princess Celestia said with a barely hidden grin. “My personal tea room.”

The doors opened to reveal two maids just finishing setting up a cozy looking room. It was relatively spacious, though certainly not as much as Applebloom would have expected; large enough to comfortably seat perhaps a baker’s dozen, depending on how it was arranged. The walls were a simple lavender, with gold trim around the floor moldings. A small fireplace crackled on the left wall, a portrait of the two princesses sitting above it on the mantelpiece, and two shelves on either side of the fireplace holding fine china dishes and teacups. The far wall was a large bay window, looking over the Canterlot gardens, and on the right wall sat a number of extra plush easy chairs. At the moment, only two, plush, royal purple chairs sat in the middle of the room across from one another, flowering potted plants next to them and a low table between them, covered in teaware. Applebloom could spy several pots of hot water and a large, flowery teapot, a bowl full of tea leaves and spices sitting next to them. Little infusers, spoons, and dippers were arranged around the trays, and garnishes like lemons, honey, cream, and sugar lumps were set around the table. A platter of cookies, miniature sandwiches, and fruits sat next to the tea trays, and atop a raised plate sat a small yellow cake decorated with strawberries.

Applebloom blinked. The little filly had always just had a cup of tea whenever her stomach felt upset or something. She’d never realized that tea time could be so… fancy.

The two maids quickly bowed out of the room. “Thank you, Creaming Down, Orange Pekoe,” Princess Celestia said, nodding pleasantly to the two maids as they left.

Celestia then turned to Applebloom with a wide smile. “Well, Applebloom,” she said, grinning, “have a seat. We have much to discuss.”

* * *

Shining Armor nodded as he finished talking with a giant of a unicorn; one easily as big as Big Macintosh and just as muscled, decked out in white-gold armor and wearing a royal purple crest. The massive grey unicorn saluted and trotted off to deliver the message to another section of the castle.

Shining turned back to the rest of the Elements of Harmony and Princess Luna, who were all scattered around one of the palace’s many sitting rooms. Rainbow Dash slouched in an easy chair, whilst Rarity and Fluttershy sat daintily on a plush sofa, nibbling on tea cakes and sipping glasses of lemon water. Princess Luna and Pinkie Pie stood in a corner of the room, whispering about something to each other. Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Cheerilee were all sleeping on a sofa in the back of the room, still under the sleeping spell’s effects.

“Well?” Rainbow Dash asked. “What was that about?”

Shining Armor cleared his throat. “That was Ramhorn, one of Celestia’s personal guards. He came to say that Princess Celestia has taken matters with Applebloom into her own hooves.”

“Bah,” Princess Luna scoffed. “Of course she would without consulting me first or telling anypony what she was doing,” she grumbled. “What has Our sister done this time?”

Shining Armor shrugged. “Apparently she had her entire regiment of personal guards wait outside while she ‘interrogated’ the creature that claimed it was Applebloom. She came out about two hours later with the creature in tow, explaining that she was, in fact, Applebloom, and then sent her guard around to let everypony know that she was taking her to the Royal Tea room to continue their talk.”

“And what of Twilight?” Luna asked. “We sent her to Block C to gather Applebloom and bring her here to Block E.”

Shining Armor shrugged. “I’m sure word will get around to her. In any case,” he continued, “we now have confirmation that no ‘creature’ has replaced Applebloom.”

Rainbow Dash raised a hoof in the air.

Shining Armor rolled his eyes and pointed at the chromatic mare. “Yes, Rainbow Dash?”

“What in the hay is all this about Applebloom being some sort of creature?!” she snapped. “I have literally no idea what the flying feather is going on around here!”

“Rainbow Dash’s choice of words aside, darling,” Rarity said, lowering the lemon water from her lips, “I’m afraid I must agree. What is going on that has Applejack so distraught, and has forced little Applebloom into such a mess?”

“From what Princess Celestia gathered while ‘interrogating’ her,” Shining Armor began, making visible air quotes with his hooves, “Applebloom actually doesn’t appear to be a pony at all. Never was.”

“N-not a pony?” Fluttershy asked, stuttering. “Then what is she? A changeling? A Kitsune?”

“Apparently...” Shining Armor said, slumping into an easy chair and massaging his head with his hooves, “...apparently Applebloom is a space alien.”

The room was silent for a good minute before Rarity cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry, Shining Armor, darling,” she tittered incredulously. “I could have sworn you just said that little Applebloom was a space alien.”

Shining Armor shrugged. “Yep. That’s what I said.”

Rarity and Fluttershy looked at each other, dumbfounded, before the alabaster mare spoke up again. “You’re not serious?”

“Completely serious,” Shining Armor said, nodding.

Rainbow Dash leaped out of her chair. “Okay, that’s enough!” she shouted, stomping towards Shining Armor. “I like pranks as much as the next pony, but this isn’t the time, dude!”

“This is what Princess Celestia told Ramhorn, Rainbow Dash.” Shining Armor snorted. “I’m not pulling your legs.”

“It’s true,” came a voice from the back of the room. “Applebloom is an alien.”

The ponies in the room all turned to see a groggy Miss Cheerilee, staggering to her hooves and swaying back and forth.

“Cheerilee,” Rarity said slowly, “do you know something about Applebloom?”

Cheerilee nodded guiltily, shambling over to another easy chair and settling into it. “I can tell you all about Applebloom.” She looked around the room and sighed. “I can tell you all everything.”

* * *

Twilight Sparkle burst out of Block C, throwing the large dungeon double doors wide and actually managing to startle the two guards stationed there before they settled back into their usual neutral stance. Her eyes were wide and her mane was frazzled as she called futilely out into the depths of the castle.

“Applebloom?! Applebloom?!” She called several times before trotting frantically in place. “Oh, dear, where could she be? How did she get out? Did she escape? Was she fillynapped?” she asked herself, muttering dozens of questions under her breath as she frantically tried to organize her thoughts.

One of the guards stationed at the door to Block C cleared his throat. “Miss Sparkle,” he began, only for the lavender mare to whirl on him, her eyes wide and panicked. Before the guard could say anymore, she grabbed him by the shoulders and started shaking him.

“I lost Applebloom!” she shrieked. “I mean, I guess I wasn’t there to lose her maybe but I should have gotten here sooner to stop… whatever it was that happened to her!”

“M-m-miss S-Sparkle, please!” the guard tried to stammer out. His partner stood on the other side of the hallway, getting ready to intervene, when they were suddenly interrupted.

“Twilight Sparkle!” came a shout from the end of the hall.

Twilight turned, dropping the hapless guard to see a female unicorn soldier dressed in white gold and purple trim. Her middle-aged face was set in a neutral frown, wrinkles just barely starting to creep into her mulberry coat around her bubblegum pink eyes. The guardsmare trotted forward, her disappointed frown quickly morphing into an exasperated smile as she shook her head. “Still panicking whenever a quill is out of place, I see,” she said.

Twilight’s panicked expression changed to an excited grin. “Flipsides!” she squealed, cantering up to the guardsmare and wrapping her hooves around the guard’s neck.

The guard known as Flipsides chuckled, patting Twilight on her back. “Good to see you, Twilight. Even after all that heroism and adventuring you’re still the same filly Celestia had me guard all these years, aren’t you?”

Twilight backed away a pace, her worried expression returned. “It’s not just a missing quill this time, Flipsides,” she explained, pointing a hoof at the cell block behind her. “Princess Luna sent me to collect Applebloom from her cell but she’s not there! She’s just gone! We need to start sending out a search party or—” she started to say, only to be stopped as Flipsides placed a hoof over her mouth.

“Easy, Twilight, easy,” Flipsides said reassuringly. “You’re wound too tight again. Deep breath now.”

Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out through her mouth. Her stance visibly relaxed and her mane seemed to fall back into place a little.

“Princess Celestia expected you’d be coming down this way,” Flipsides explained with another chuckle as Twilight continued to breathe deeply. “She always seems to know what’s going on in the castle somehow. She told me to wait here and see if you came around. I don’t know how you got past me. You’ve gotten sneakier since the days you used to try and make the trek to the kitchen to raid the royal cookie jar.”

“Applebloom, Flipsides,” Twilight insisted, opening her eyes. “Do you know where Applebloom is?”

Flipsides nodded. “Princess Celestia took Applebloom to the royal tea room. She had some questions for the filly that needed to be sorted out.” The guardsmare straightened up and patted Twilight’s shoulder with an armored hoof. “She wanted you to join them as soon as possible, actually. She said you’d be fascinated by what she’s found.” She raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Frankly, given what the rest of her honor guard and I saw when she came out of the dungeons, I’m inclined to agree.”

Twilight let out a long, relieved breath. “Oh good. That’s a major relief. Thank you, Flipsides.”

“Now I believe you have somepony to apologize to?” Flipsides said, nodding behind Twilight.

Twilight tilted her head in confusion before she realized what she was talking about, her mouth quickly turning into a small ‘o’ shape. Sheepishly, she turned around and blushed as she looked at the guard she’d shaken and thrashed around, still picking himself up off the ground. “Eheh… Sorry about that…” she peeped to the guard.

The still-dizzy guard shook his head. “No problem ma’am.”

“Now then,” Flipsides said, sidling next to Twilight. “Shall we make our way to the tea room? I’m sure we have plenty to catch up on.”

Twilight nodded, grinning a little as the two of them left the dungeons, chatting about Twilight’s recent adventures.

The two guards stationed at the doors to the cell block shook their heads.

“Crazy mare,” one of them commented.

“Yeah,” the other concurred. “Word in the mess hall is that Celestia is planning on making her into an alicorn princess,” he said with a chortle.

“Pfft, yeah right,” the first one said. “Everypony knows the only reason Princess Celestia made her her student in the first place was to make sure that her crazy power levels were kept under control. There’d be no way she’d risk adding to that power.”

“Just saying what I heard,” the second guard snorted.

“You can’t believe everything you hear, pal,” the first guard chuckled. “Or do you believe the rumor that she’s planning on reforming Discord too?”

“Ha! Yeah, I guess you’re right. That’s complete bunk.”

* * *

Applebloom sat silently, her hands on her knees as she watched the Princess pour two cups of apple cinnamon spice tea into the ornate china teacups. The earthy smell of the tea and the sight of all the various snacks and cakes decorating the table made the little bot’s mouth water. Moments later, the Princess levitated the steaming cup into Applebloom’s awaiting hands. Applebloom muttered a sheepish thanks and drank deeply.

“So…” Celestia began, “I’m sure we both have plenty of questions for one another,” she said with a nod. “Would you care to begin, Applebloom?”

Applebloom smacked her lips a little, savoring the flavor of the tea, before fixing Celestia with a perplexed stare. “What do y’all mean, Princess?”

“I’m sure you must have questions for me,” Celestia said with a dainty wave of her hoof. “If you wish to ask them then please do.”

Applebloom looked into her cup of tea for a moment before cocking her head and looking at the princess with an eyebrow raised. “Did y’all really eat them bugs just now?”

The Princess blinked, then burst out laughing. It was a sound like tinkling silver bells or wind chimes in a summer breeze. “Well, that wasn’t the question I was expecting, but yes.” She grinned mischievously. “Yes I did.”

Applebloom grimaced and stuck her tongue out. “Why would y’all go and eat bugs just to try and talk to me?” she asked, disgusted.

Celestia shrugged. “You’d be surprised at the sorts of regional dishes you have to grin and bear when you’re visiting other nations, Applebloom,” she explained. “Believe me, compared to some things I’ve had to eat to keep the peace between nations, bugs are downright appetizing.” The princess took a sip of her tea. “I’ve actually grown something of a taste for toasted beetles, though my kitchen staff doesn’t generally like to serve me such things. They only ever touch anything of the sort when ambassadors of other species’ nations come to negotiate with me.”

“Speakin’ a’which,” Applebloom said, narrowing her eyes at Celestia, “why’d ya’ll go and trick me like that, goin’ and pretendin’ to be a Diamond Dog? Why didn’t y’all just talk to me if y’all wanted to know if I was me?”

“When you were brought in, we weren’t sure what you were,” Celestia explained, taking a miniature sandwich from the platter and levitating it to her mouth. With a dainty swallow, she continued. “We couldn’t be sure if you were a spy of some sort, some kind of undiscovered creature imitating Applejack’s sister to get close to the Elements of Harmony, or if you were actually yourself,” she said, taking a sip of tea. “So I employed a little trick that I used to use back in less peaceful eras. Prisoners are generally more willing to open up about any nefarious schemes they might have in store to other prisoners than they are their captors. By disguising myself as a Diamond Dog prisoner and observing the way you acted, I could determine whether you were actually a filly in over her head, or something more sinister.”

Applebloom was silent for a moment before finally muttering, “I guess that makes sense.”

“Furthermore,” Celestia continued, “as I said back in the dungeons, you needed to be put at ease if you turned out to be the real Applebloom. A trapped filly in such a stressful situation doesn’t need a Princess bearing down on her. She needs somebody she can talk to on her own level. I only revealed myself when you not only proved who you were, but started to blame yourself for what’s been happening to you.”

The little robot looked down at her half-empty teacup silently.

“And that’s why I brought you up here,” Celestia went on. “I figured you deserved a nicer setting as we tried to clear the air a little and maybe figure out where to go from here,” she said. “We have a lot to discuss and the dungeon is no place to work this sort of thing out.”

“What’s there to talk about?” Applebloom muttered. “Y’all shoulda left me down there.”

“Oh?” Celestia asked curiously.

Applebloom continued to gaze into her tea and sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m mighty thankful that y’all invited me up for tea, but I’m dangerous to be ‘round. If I don’t bring them Decepticon varmints right down on our heads, who knows when I might snap and start hurtin’ ponies m’self?”

Princess Celestia sipped her tea calmly, humming a little in thought. After several moments, though, she set her teacup down and fixed Applebloom with a stare. “Tell me,” she began. “Is there anypony out there that gets you really angry, Applebloom? Anypony that just makes your blood boil?”

Applebloom blinked at the question. She frowned worriedly as she stuttered out an answer. “Well, uh… I-I guess there’s Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Even after I got my cutie mark, they just won’t leave me alone and keep finding new ways to tease me an’ my friends. And I guess that Ballista guard who wouldn’t let me an’ my friends explain nothin’ back in Ponyville.”

Celestia nodded. “And what would you do, Applebloom, say, if you could get them alone in a room with you? What if you could get them in a room where you could do anything you want to them? No matter what you do in that room, there’d be no repercussions when you leave. What would you do?”

“I—” Applebloom stammered. “I don’t understand, Princess.”

The princess fixed her with a stare that was suddenly much harder than the gentle gaze she had been giving off just moments before. “What would you do, Applebloom? Would you use your new power to hurt them? Would you break their bodies with your superior size and strength? Would you crush them beneath your heel and make them beg you to stop? Would you make them bleed and shatter their bones?”

“No!” Applebloom gasped, covering her mouth. “I mean, I’m mighty angry at them an’ all, but… I don’t want to hurt anypony.”

Princess Celestia’s gaze softened and her smile returned. “Then that tells me all I need to know.”

Applebloom blinked. “But just ‘cuz I don’t feel like hurting ponies now don’t mean I ain’t gonna. And what about the way the fighting made me feel… excited?” she asked.

The alicorn shook her head. “Applebloom, do you panic about earthquakes much?”

Applebloom blinked, caught off guard again. “I… I ain’t sure what y’all mean, Princess.”

“Ponies have managed to harness the forces of nature down to almost a tee,” Celestia explained. “We no longer have to worry about rogue storms or twisters, save in wild locations like the Everfree. Hurricanes are routed before they ever get to shore. Pegasi can channel the wind to blow avalanches off course and break tidal waves long before they hit. Ponies have managed to get to a point where they control the weather and the earth around them so well that they can rout most natural disasters before they ever reach a single pony’s home,” Celestia said proudly before finishing. “That is, except for earthquakes. Despite our best efforts, there is nothing we can do about earthquakes.”

“I don’t follow, Princess,” Applebloom said with a raised eyebrow.

“Earthquakes usually happen on the coast,” the princess continued to explain, “but, though incredibly uncommon, they can happen anywhere in Equestria. And when they happen, the only thing we can do is pick up after them as best we can,” she said solemnly. “Now tell me Applebloom,” she went on, “knowing that an earthquake could happen anywhere, at any time, even if it seems unlikely, and there’s no way to stop it… do you spend your days worrying about an earthquake striking?”

“‘Course not,” Applebloom said. “I mean, Granny Smith’s got insurance on the farm in case it does, but it ain’t something likely to happen and it ain’t worth frettin’ over.”

“So,” the princess said, eyeing the little filly-bot, “if that’s the case, then why is it worth worrying about the incredibly unlikely event that you’ll ‘go crazy and start attacking ponies,’ when clearly you don’t wish to harm even the ponies you like least? Especially when, unlike earthquakes, that’s something in your power to stop?”

Applebloom was silent.

“Of course,” Celestia said, “we still know very little about you. I’ll be quite open with you and say that I will be taking out an ‘insurance policy’ just in case something does happen and you become a danger to other ponies, but at this point I find that so unlikely it isn’t worth worrying about.”

Applebloom gulped but decided not to press what sort of ‘insurance policy’ Celestia would be taking. “But what about the fighting?” She insisted instead. “I told y’all that… that I liked the fighting! It was downright fun! It made me excited!” Applebloom clenched a fist. “A normal pony don’t feel like that! Only dangerous ponies like to fight.”

“Is that so?” Princess Celestia said. “Then I suppose I should lock myself up too.”

The statement felt like a brick colliding with Applebloom’s face. “Princess?” she gasped.

“Oh, and Luna too. Definitely. That girl revels in a good fight.” Princess Celestia chuckled. “And then there’s ponies like the Wonderbolts. I know Captain Spitfire at the very least likes a good scrap. Oh, and we mustn’t forget Rainbow Dash. And Shining Armor. In fact, I’d say most of the guard should be locked up.” She tapped her chin with a gilded hoof. “Who am I forgetting? I know my friend Fancy Pants likes to fence. And Rarity practices martial arts. I’m sure they deserve a hefty fine at least.”

“Princess…” Applebloom gaped. “Y’all mean to tell me that y’all like fighting too?”

Princess Celestia chuckled serenely, refilling her teacup. “I haven’t had much reason to fight in a long time, Applebloom,” she said as she took a deep whiff of the apple cinnamon tea. “That said, in my youth I was something of a warrior. I’m well acquainted with battle, Applebloom, and I’m well acquainted with just how exciting getting into a real, proper fight can be.”

Her eyes grew distant as she continued. “The world slows down and your heart beats faster, your breath quickening as adrenaline courses through your veins, knowing that one wrong step will mean it’s your last. You take a blow and pain rushes through you, reminding you that in that moment, you’re alive. Your senses are heightened and your limbs feel lighter, almost twitchy with anticipation as you dodge attack after attack, then a rush of excitement through your core as you land a blow of your own.”

Applebloom was silent, staring dumbfounded as the princess shared with her the same feelings that she’d felt not hours before.

Celestia seemed to return to the tea room, looking down at Applebloom and smiling again. “I think you’ll find that many ponies who have gotten into a proper fight felt the same way. Of course, there will also be many that won’t, but enough will that you’d find it isn’t entirely abnormal.” She chuckled. “Luna certainly feels this way. You should see the way she works out. She challenges entire regiments of guards to sparring sessions, for fun.”

“I don’t understand,” Applebloom said glumly.

“The fact is, Applebloom,” Celestia explained, “saying that you got excited, and maybe even enjoyed yourself a little during a fight tells me nothing. That just tells me that you’re brave, active, and like a little risk and uncertainty in your life when you get right down to it.” She shook her head. “You seek thrills. It’s like ponies who like to bungee jump or skydive. It isn’t a crime. That’s not the real issue. The question isn’t whether you fight or whether you like fighting. The question is why do you fight?”

Applebloom blinked as Celestia continued. “Fighting in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. There are good reasons, many in fact, to take up a fight. Just the same, there are many terrible reasons to fight. The act of fighting isn’t in and of itself a bad thing; the reason behind it is what is important.” Celestia eyed Applebloom, refilling her teacup. “So tell me, Applebloom, why do you fight?”

The filly narrowed her eyes in thought a little before replying. “They were threatening my friends,” she murmured. “I had to do something.”

Celestia grinned. “And that’s perhaps the best reason there is to fight, Applebloom.”

Applebloom was silent again. She looked down into her empty teacup at the muddled mess of tea leaves in the bottom. She tried to digest Celestia’s words but still couldn’t reconcile how she felt. How could anypony enjoy being in such danger? A friendly spar was one thing but a fight where it was kill or be killed? How could anypony actually get excited by one of those? Even if the princess said it wasn’t too abnormal, she still couldn’t help but feel like a freak for having enjoyed getting into a fight where not only had she nearly died, but she had killed another living creature.

Suddenly she felt a hoof on her shoulder. She looked up to see Celestia leaning over the small table and looking calmingly into her eyes. Applebloom sighed and tried to slip away from her grip but Celestia held firm.

“Applebloom,” she said. “I know things feel strange and confusing now. You’ve hit a time in your life when things are confusing for all little ponies. Where ponies feel things they don’t understand, and it scares and frustrates them. And it’s going to be even harder for you given your unique situation,” she explained. “But sooner than you think, things will make sense again. Trust me, you’ll see.”

Applebloom let out a long breath, finally slipping away from Celestia’s grip. She slumped back in her plush chair and brought a hand to her head.

“I thought getting a cutie mark was supposed to make everything make sense,” Applebloom muttered. She was surprised to hear Celestia laugh heartily from across the table. The filly opened her eyes to see the princess chuckling and shaking her head.

“I’m sorry,” Celestia tittered. “It’s just such a common misconception among children.” She smiled warmly as she poured Applebloom another cup of tea. “No Applebloom. Getting a cutie mark doesn’t automatically mean that everything suddenly makes sense. The clouds don’t part and shine some sort of heavenly light on you where you suddenly know everything about yourself and the path you need to take. A cutie mark tells you what your special talent is and nothing more. It doesn’t tell us what we should do with that special talent or what kind of pony we are. It doesn’t show us some sort of ultimate destiny or lead us down a specific path. That’s up to us.”

Celestia turned a little to show Applebloom the sun marked on her flank. “It’s up to us as ponies to decide what the cutie mark means for us. It’s up to us to decide what to do with that special talent and how to make it work with who we are. It’s up to us to decide if we even want to do anything with our special talents. You’d be surprised by the number of ponies who find jobs and lifestyles doing things that have nothing to do with their special talents and are perfectly happy with their lives.” Celestia shook her head. “The cutie mark doesn’t make the pony, Applebloom. The pony makes the cutie mark. Getting your mark is the beginning of your journey, not the destination.”

Applebloom slumped. “I dunno if I can ever figure out just who I am, princess…” she moaned. “Everything’s so confusing.”

“It always seems that way,” Celestia said with a nod. “But I believe in you, Applebloom. You’re a remarkable filly, and don’t ever believe otherwise.”

Applebloom still felt utterly confused and a little horrified at herself for everything she’d done and been through, but her heart couldn’t help but lift a little as Celestia said that. The two sat in silence for a few moments. The silence wasn’t perhaps as comfortable as it could be, but it was definitely more relaxed than when Applebloom had first sat down.

“Now then,” Celestia began after a minute of sipping at her tea, “if necessary we can pick up this little conversation another time. I have some questions for you now, Applebloom,” she said with a small smile.

The filly-bot straightened up in her seat. “Um… alright princess. What do you want to know?”

Princess Celestia smiled a little wider. “Well, Applebloom,” she said, “I’m sure you know I’ve been around for a long time.” Applebloom nodded as the princess continued. “I wouldn’t say it gets truly boring, being immortal. There is no end to what ponies can accomplish and the things that can be learned. It is a blessing to be able to experience it all. Still…” she trailed off, “it has been... a long time since something so earth shattering... something that revolutionizes everything we thought we knew, has come around. You must understand, as much as I dread the thought of an invasion, I can’t help but be excited about everything we could learn from these events.” Celestia smiled. “To put it plainly, Applebloom, I’d like to know about you. I’d like to know about your planet, your abilities, your biology… I want to know everything.”

Applebloom blinked at Celestia’s bluntness. Her earlier glumness started to fade away under a wash of nervousness. “I reckon that’s a tall order, Princess,” she said. “I honestly don’t know a whole lot about that stuff myself. ‘Lotta things got beamed into my head when I found the ship and transformed for the first time, but it’s all muddy n’ hard to figure out.”

“That’s alright,” Celestia said with a nod. “I don’t expect to learn everything now, of course. What I’d like to do, Applebloom, is work with you to find out everything we can. It will take a great deal of time, I’m certain, but I think it will be well worth it. Not only will it surely benefit the ponies of Equestria, but perhaps it will help you in figuring out who you are.” She straightened up with a grin that almost seemed to border on manic. “Applebloom, I’d like to study you,” she said simply.

Applebloom gulped. “Y’all don’t mean you wanna…” Her hands trembled as her voice hitched and fell to a whisper. “...dissect me?” she finished with a squeak.

Celestia’s burst out laughing in a manner most un-princessly as she set her teacup down on its saucer. She bellowed heartily for a good minute before her laughter died down and she fixed Applebloom with a gentle gaze. “No, Applebloom. I have no intention of dissecting you. This isn’t some silly film or comic book. There’s plenty to learn without cutting you open,” she said. Applebloom relaxed a little before Celestia leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “Besides, we’ve already got a specimen to dissect.”

Applebloom started at that but quickly calmed down. “You mean...?”

Celestia nodded. “Yes, the foe you felled outside the Ponyville schoolhouse. We plan on investigating its remains soon enough.” She raised an eyebrow as she noticed Applebloom starting to look simultaneously glum and sick at the prospect. “But perhaps that isn’t a topic you wish to hear about,” she said, clearing her throat and directing the filly’s thoughts back to the matter at hoof. “Most of what I’d like to ask of you, Applebloom, is if you’d be willing to do some tests for us. Nothing dangerous,” Celestia quickly added when Applebloom’s eyes widened with trepidation at the thought of running through some sort of deadly, laser-ridden obstacle course ‘for science.’ Celestia shook her head and continued. “Just simple things like strength and speed tests, demonstrations of your abilities, maybe getting a few samples to analyze…”

Applebloom mulled over Celestia’s words. On the one hoof, she wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of being treated like one big science project. She wasn’t keen on the idea of being poked and prodded with needles, hooked up to machines, and playing monkey for a bunch of scientists. On the other hoof, though, she wanted to know as much about her new self as she possibly could. The information that had been beamed into her head was woefully scrambled and incomplete and still hurt to try and recall, though not as much as when it had first been granted to her.

It wasn’t like she would get any answers about herself any other way.

After a few minutes of thought, Applebloom finally sighed and nodded. “Alright, Princess,” she said with a little dip of her head. “I guess playin’ lab rat’ll be okay.”

Celestia grinned widely, looking almost like she wanted to burst into cheers, but managed to maintain her composure and simply give Applebloom a graceful nod. “Thank you, Applebloom,” she said, a slight tinge of giddiness leaking into her normally measured voice. “I assure you, though, you’ll be treated far better than a lab rat. I’ll be sure to try and make everything as comfortable as possible for you, down to choosing who will be in charge of the experiments.”

A knock came from the door.

Celestia smiled even wider. “And it sounds like the pony I have in mind has arrived.” She turned to the door. “Come in!” she said, cheerfully.

The door opened to reveal an unfamiliar mulberry mare dressed in purple and white gold armor. Applebloom frowned at the sight of the stranger for a second, unsure if she wanted to submit to testing by a strange guard, only to watch as the guardsmare stood aside and saluted, a second pony trotting in.

“Twilight!” Applebloom said, breaking out into a grin.

Twilight grinned and turned to greet the filly, only for the smile to be wiped from her face, her eyes widening. Applebloom blinked before remembering that she was still in her robot form, which must have looked incredibly strange to the lavender librarian.

The two just stared at each other for a minute before Applebloom finally decided to break the silence. She raised a hand and waved it awkwardly at her sister’s friend. “Uhh, hey,” she said sheepishly.

Twilight didn’t move at all. She just stared unblinkingly at Applebloom’s alien form, stock still.

Celestia cleared her throat. “My faithful student, are you well?”

Twilight remained unresponsive. Finally, the mulberry guardsmare stepped away from the edge of the room and trotted up to the frozen unicorn. Lifting a hoof, she gently prodded the stiff student.

Twilight fell over like a plank of wood.

Celestia shrugged. “She’ll come around.”

Author's Note

I'm exceedingly sorry for the wait. I have been having real trouble bringing myself to write much recently, even with the aid of the streams. It doesn't help that there's not really much happening in these bridge chapters at the moment and it's a little bit boring to write compared to more active chapters.

This chapter is, sadly, not the last bridge chapter we have to get through. I could have combined this with the next chapter, but it would have taken even longer to get out and might have clocked in at upwards of 15000 words. Quite possibly even more.

The next chapter should be the last bridge chapter before we officially enter the second half of the story (HOW long have I been writing this story again? Goddammit. >_<) and things REALLY pick up. We're talking NONSTOP POWERHOUSE EXCITEMENT... probably. It can be hard to tell from an outline.

Anyway, the next chapter will get all the players up to speed and onto the same page. From there, the story can actually advance forward. Until then, I just have to keep shoveling more 'coming of age confusion' on Applebloom's part, though. :\

Anyway, I hope none of you found it too boring or awkward. This is maybe my least favorite chapter so far (I keep saying that >_>) on account of how awkward it comes across to me. It was EXCEEDINGLY hard juggling all the various characters and scenes in this chapter but I hope it didn't crash and burn too terribly.

Hope you all enjoyed it at least somewhat. The next chapter should hopefully be a bit more engaging. There will be SCIENCE!!!

Ch10: ...Found

___________________________________________________________________________________

Applebloom: Transform and Rollout!
by Dusty the Royal Janitor

Chapter 10: ...Found

Cheerilee rested on a plush love seat in the sitting room where four of the Elements of Harmony, Princess Luna, and Shining Armor had gathered. She nursed a glass of lemon water in her hooves as she swayed back and forth in the seat. The effects of the sleeping spell hadn’t fully worn off and the schoolteacher was left drowsy and disoriented as she sipped on her drink, trying not to nod back off while telling her story to the gathered ponies. Over the course of her tale, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle had reawoken, though the little bundles of energy didn’t seem to be nearly as affected by any lingering effects of the spell. The two of them nestled up with Rainbow Dash and Rarity respectively, adding in their own brand of commentary as Cheerilee told everypony the tale of how Applebloom came to be.

“...and then Yoketron said that ‘Big Mac’s organic nature had merged with her mechanical one, granting her a complete spark.’ I’m still not sure what that means exactly, but he said that it meant she could find a place where she belongs here on this planet.” She shuffled in her seat and sighed wistfully. “Then he begged us to take her with us. The rest of us were hesitant but Big Mac said he’d take care of her. Yoketron didn’t have the time to say anything else before he died.”

Sweetie Belle cocked her head. “So wait, was Yoketron Applebloom’s dad, then?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Scootaloo said with a roll of her eyes. “Big Mac’s her dad. He’s the one who stuck his hoof in the goo and made a baby.”

Sweetie’s face scrunched up. “But that’s so weeeird!” She shook her head. “Besides, Big Mac is her brother!”

“Girls,” Rarity said sternly. “Let Miss Cheerilee finish,” she chided.

The two little fillies crossed their arms and pouted, but still went silent as Cheerilee continued with a shrug. “There isn’t much else to say,” she said. “Big Mac took her home and told his parents what had happened. They took her in and we all eventually decided she was just a normal foal, despite her origins. When Applejack came back from Manehattan, nopony told her about Applebloom’s origins. I guess they just didn’t want to confuse her or make her scared of her new baby sister or anything. Though, given what’s happened now, that probably wasn’t the best decision.”

The ponies all looked between each other in various states of disbelief and skepticism. Rainbow Dash still looked dubious but seemed like she was beginning to come around when she determined the prank had gotten too elaborate to be a mere joke. Rarity had gone completely silent, looking down at the ground, her brow furrowed as she went over everything she’d ever done with the little yellow filly, trying to remember anything out of the ordinary. Fluttershy seemed to be caught in an odd mix of fascination at the thought of working with a new creature, fear of the threat of aliens potentially attacking, and concern for Applebloom and Applejack. Shining Armor had taken the whole story in with a stoic, stone-faced look, his head resting on his hoof as he silently considered all the facts he’d been given. Pinkie Pie and Luna, on the other hand, were whispering between each other in a corner of the room, though one of Luna’s ears was very obviously twisted towards the greater conversation, letting everypony know she was still listening.

“That is…” Rarity finally spoke, clearing her throat, “...quite a tale, Cheerilee.”

Cheerilee nodded. “I understand it must be hard to believe.”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow and snorted. “Things have gotten so weird now, I can believe almost anything.”

“But I don’t understand,” Fluttershy spoke up. “Why is everything changing now? And how did Applejack get locked up in the dungeon? Why is she so depressed? What about that mysterious monster attack outside the schoolhouse?”

“Ooh ooh ooh!” Sweetie Belle chirped, raising a hoof and waving it around slightly.

Scootaloo rolled her eyes again. “This isn’t a classroom, Sweetie.”

“We found the ship!” Sweetie Belle said. “We were crusading for our cutie marks in Whitetail Wood and we found the ship buried in the dirt! We went in and Applebloom poked something funny and she turned into a robot!”

“Then she turned into her wagon and raced us across Ponyville!” Scootaloo added.

“Turned into… a wagon?” Rarity sputtered, taken aback.

“Yeah!” Sweetie said. “Robots like Applebloom can transform into stuff! That’s how she turns from pony to robot and back too!”

Rarity swooned a little, dabbing sweat from her forehead with a handkerchief. “This is too much to take in.”

“Yeah,” Scootaloo said, her eyes narrowing. “It was too much for Applejack too,” she snorted.

“What do you mean, Scootaloo?” Fluttershy asked, cocking her head.

Cheerilee cleared her throat again. “Apparently, Applebloom transformed into her robot form last night and Applejack, well…” Cheerilee paused, trying to find a diplomatic way to put it. “...she jumped to conclusions.”

Rainbow Dash frowned. “What conclusions?”

The teacher sighed. “She… attacked Applebloom.”

“What?!” everypony cried.

Cheerilee raised her hooves in an attempt to placate everypony. “When Applebloom transforms into a robot, parts of her face and body are still visible,” she explained, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo confirming it with nods of their heads. “So… Applejack jumped to the conclusion that Applebloom was a monster who had…” she winced “skinned her sister and was wearing her face.”

A wash of horror fell over the room at the very thought of such a thing. Luna and Shining Armor were the only ones who seemed to remain composed at the thought. “She thought she was a skinwalker,” Shining Armor said with a nod.

“Foolishness,” Luna said, finally speaking up, turning away from her conversation with Pinkie to address the group at large. “Skinwalkers have not existed for millennia. We made sure of that,” she said grimly.

“Doesn’t stop them from showing up in scary stories around campfires,” Shining Armor stated. “There are so many dangerous magical creatures in Equestria’s wildlands that sometimes it’s hard for the average pony to know what does and doesn’t actually exist.”

Cheerilee continued. “In any event, Applejack attacked Applebloom. Apparently rather viciously.” She sighed and shook her head. “I can't imagine how guilty she must feel after that.”

Rarity looked down at Sweetie Belle, pausing. “I… believe I can understand. If I thought something had hurt poor Sweetie Belle here, nothing in Equestria would stop me from tearing it to pieces.”

Rainbow Dash crossed her arms. “Except she ended up attacking Applebloom.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “As if you wouldn’t jump to conclusions in a similar situation, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow Dash raised a hoof to retort, only to stop and consider her words for a moment. The cyan pegasus huffed and crossed her forelegs again.

“Just because it’s understandable doesn’t change the fact that she attacked Applebloom,” Fluttershy said. “Applejack must feel horrible.”

Finally Pinkie Pie spoke up, breaking away from her whispered conversation with Luna. “That and she got super drunk last night!” she added. “I bet the hangover makes it way worse!”

Cheerilee nodded. “When Applejack finally got calmed down last night, Big Mac told her everything I just told you. She… didn’t take it well. She said that her family had been lying to her her whole life, that Applebloom wasn’t her sister, and stormed out.”

“Then she broke into Sugarcube Corner and drank all our rum!” Pinkie chirped, “It was a lot of rum, too.”

“We see then,” Luna said. “Fair Applejack regrets these actions most deeply, but does not believe she can be forgiven…” she trailed off. “We can sympathize.”

Rainbow Dash’s wings twitched. “Well what do we do?” she asked, seeming slightly annoyed. “I mean, putting aside just how insane everything about this is, what can we do about it? Do we let her stew until she feels better or do we do something?”

Luna shook her head. “It is probable that all of us showing up and trying to force her to relent would only meet with resistance,” she said, standing up. “That said, it would not be of any benefit to let her dark thoughts linger further without intervention.” The princess looked grim as she flattened her lips in thought. “They will only bring her pain.”

“What do you want us to do, Princess?” Fluttershy asked.

Luna looked over the room. “I wish for all of you to go visit Applebloom. She is surely in just as much pain as Applejack is, and I shan’t let either sister suffer any longer.” She turned to look at Pinkie Pie. “All of you, save fair Pinkie. I would have her visit Applejack again in the dungeons now that she’s been brought up to speed.” Luna winked, smiling slightly. “I feel Applejack needs a little laughter at the moment.”

“Roger dodger, Princess!” Pinkie said, saluting.

Luna closed her eyes and lit her horn. After a few moments of silence, her horn went out and she reopened her eyes. “Celestia is on her way to the castle laboratories. I would assume that Applebloom is with her.” She nodded to Shining Armor. “If you would lead everypony there, Shining Armor?”

“Of course,” Shining Armor said with a nod. “And where will you go, Princess?”

“I shall meet up with Pinkie Pie shortly,” Luna said. “I have an errand to run before I can assist her in bringing fair Applejack around.” She opened the ornate sitting room door with a flash of magic, allowing Pinkie Pie out. “I shall see you all shortly!” she announced, and with a crack of magic from her horn, the Princess vanished.

The remaining ponies all sighed, getting to their hooves. Cheerilee swayed a little bit, still dizzy from the sleeping spell. Shining Armor quickly trotted over to support her.

“I guess it’s off to the laboratory then?” Rarity said. “This day keeps getting ever stranger does it not?”

“Ooh!” Sweetie Belle said. “Wait ‘till you see what Applebloom looks like as a robot! It’s so cool!”

“Yeah!” Scootaloo said, buzzing her wings. “She’s as tall as Princess Celestia and she’s got metal hands and walks on two legs and it’s awesome!”

“I bet squirt,” Rainbow said, ruffling the little pegasus foal’s mane, though she couldn’t quite hide the apprehension away from her eyes.

“Ladies,” Shining Armor said, trotting to the door. “If you would follow me to the laboratories, let’s go meet up with our wayward robot.”

* * *

Shockwave sat motionless in his massive command chair, the silence on the bridge oppressive and stifling. He gazed out the viewscreen at the planet below and pondered his next move as the ship’s computers scanned the properties of the anomalous energon.

Once they understood the strange energies that the energon carried, they would theoretically be able to cut through the strange interferences that surrounded the planet and more fully scan the whole surface without any obstruction. And that was only the beginning. If Shockwave was right, this energon might just be the key to unlocking all the secrets of the ancient Cybertronians. Space bridges, ultimate weapons, and untold knowledge could be a mere stone’s throw away if he could understand this energon. Perhaps, with enough time and research, even a way to bring life back to Cybertron would be available.

Since arriving at 8090-P, Shockwave had sent out scouts and spies all over the planet to observe its occupants and they had come back with fascinating tales. The inhabitants of the planet, though small and insignificant meatbags, were capable of utterly impossible things. The winged ones had been observed manipulating clouds and weather in a way that was previously unfathomable; handling it not with machinery or technology, but with their own hooves and wings. The ground-bound ones were seen carrying loads that should have been impossible given their size and presumed weight, and one had been observed taking a blow to the head that would have brained any other organic life form, only to get back up and walk it off. It was the horned ones that were the most fascinating though. They had been observed doing such a wide range of things that it had been nearly impossible for his scouts to count. Everything from manipulating objects with nothing but their minds to transmuting matter to creating illusions to teleportation. Naturally, most of these things were possible for Cybertronians, but only with the aid of advanced technology. These creatures, insignificant as they were, were capable of accomplishing these feats with naught but their own biology.

And those were just the most common creatures. There were dozens of other sapient species living upon the planet, something unseen in any other inhabited biosphere across the galaxy. Planets tended to have a maximum of two or three native sapient species, and usually they would perpetually be vying for dominance. Somehow this planet had managed to nurture dozens of sapient races, and reports were ever coming in of more and more, each with their own special abilities that defied reason. From shapeshifting without T-Cogs to breaking the sound barrier unaided, to turning invisible… every species upon this planet seemed to be capable of great deeds that defied reason.

But at the end of the solar cycle, they were all still meat.

Shockwave could only theorize why these creatures were so numerous and why they had such abilities, but if he were given a reason to make a guess, he would posit that it had something to do with the field of unknown energy surrounding the planet. The same energy that he too would be able to harness if he could uncover the secrets of the ‘Chromatic Energon’ as he had taken to calling it.

Unfortunately, the scouts could not stay on the planet for very long without being discovered. Most likely thanks to the creatures’ abilities supplying their everyday needs, the planet was very low in technology. This meant that their natural alt-modes stuck out like a sore servo and there was little that they could scan in terms of new alt-modes to keep disguised. They were mostly forced to skulk in wooded areas and in the back alleys of cities and towns, which were woefully small for bots of their size. Nearly every scout had had a close call and had been forced to retreat before being discovered. As a result, there was little they could offer in terms of answers as to just how these strange abilities and energies worked. Hence why he had put almost all his scientific staff and systems on understanding its properties.

His computers and staff were currently running scans, simulations, and tests of the energon back in his laboratory. However, until the computers came up with something that required his input, all he could do was wait.

Shockwave was very patient.

However, he could not sit idly by. Thanks to Dead End’s bumbling encounter with the Autobot Minicon, any Autobot presence on the world had been alerted to their activities. Shockwave clenched a fist but remained silent. He could not let the Autobots interfere. Not when he was so close to the answer he had been searching for for millennia. Surely they would be scanning for Decepticon signatures, now that they had been revealed. Their efforts would no longer go unimpeded.

The Autobots would have to be dealt with.

Given the state of technology on the planet, it couldn’t have too large an installation. The Autobots were all too willing to share their technological secrets with lesser races. There was obviously no medical engineer or scientist among their company. Perhaps a couple scouts or infiltrators, but nobody intelligent or powerful enough to make all that much of a contribution.

Taking care of them would be a simple matter, and from there they would be unimpeded.

The doors to the bridge whooshed open and three sets of footsteps walked in. One was a skittering, clicking shuffle, one a proper, practiced saunter, and the last, a lumbering, thumping gait. Moments later, out of the oppressive darkness, Waspinator, Blitzwing, and Brawl stepped forward towards his command chair.

“Wassspinator has brought Blitz-bot and Brawl-bot, sssir…” Waspinator said with a deep bow.

Shockwave ignored the insecticon and turned to face his medic and heavyweight fighter. He acknowledged them with a nod and began to explain the mission ahead.

“Blitzwing and Brawl,” he said, the two bots in question bowing before him. “Thanks to Dead End’s lack of judgment, our activities have undoubtedly been reported to the Autobot presence on this planet. Given the newfound extent of our mission on this planet, this is unacceptable. We cannot have even a small squad of Autobots interfering with our activities.” Shockwave stood up, looming over his commanders. “Your mission, Blitzwing and Brawl, is to eliminate all Autobots on the planet.”

Blitzwing cleared his throat. “Not that this vill be a problem for us, Herr Shockwave, but how are ve to find the Autobots? Our scanners are still ineffective vhen in orbit, and only good vithin a small radius vhen planetbound. It vas by sheer chance that Dead End and Vaspinator vere able to find vhat they did so close to the crash site, and none of our other Vehicon scouts have been able to find any other trace of Autobot presence.” He shook his head. “If there’s any Autobot force on the planet, ve have no vay of knowing vhere it might be.”

“The key, Blitzwing,” Shockwave said, “is not to look for what’s there, but to look for what isn’t there.” The massive cyclops of a Decepticon strode past the three of them and up to the computer console at the front of the bridge. Turning a few dials on the computer, the main window was replaced by a viewscreen, displaying a large mountain with a shining city atop it.

“Our signal scanners are less than fully operational, even on the planet’s surface. However, there is one spot that we cannot get any read of, even when within the scanning radius.” He motioned with his one hand to the viewscreen. “This mountain,” he finished.

Brawl grinned. “Y’all think there’s a jamming tower thereabouts,” he grumbled in his usual, grating drawl.

“It would stand to reason,” Shockwave said. “An attempt to conceal an Autobot base. It becomes even more clear when you understand that there is a massive deposit of Energon beneath the mountain, and one of the planet’s largest population centers at its peak.”

Waspinator beamed. “Wassspinator find with upgraded energon scanners!”

“The energon scanners are a separate system from the signature scanners and cannot detect Cybertronian signatures. Only energon,” Blitzwing mused. “There’s no vay of knoving how many Autobots are in that city, if any at all.”

Shockwave spoke again. “One can draw the conclusion that there is some sort of Autobot mining operation down there. Beyond that, you are correct. There is no way to tell how many Autobots are down there. It would be illogical, however, to assume that there are enough that they would pose any particular threat. The crashed ship was too small to contain any significant population. Furthermore, the city atop the mountain is obviously built for the local organisms and is, in general, too small to house any significant number of Cybertronians.”

“And even if the City does not house the Autobots,” Shockwave continued, “it is apparent that the local population is at least aware of their presence and in contact with them if Dead End’s confrontation with the Minicon is any indication. If the city comes under attack, the native organisms will surely contact the Autobots, who will come running to their aid.”

“So basically,” Brawl said, “y’all want us to stir up a whole lick’a trouble and get the Autobots to come a’running.” The massive, forest green Decepticon punched a fist into his open palm. “Then scrap the lot of them.”

“Correct,” Shockwave said. “In addition, you will be assigned a small squad of vehicons to help you in the task.”

“Pfft, we don’t need any a’ them stinking skidmarks,” Brawl said, hooking an arm around Blitzwing. The doctor chuckled in his embrace as Brawl continued. “The two of us can handle a few Autobot miners and scouts. We ain’t gonna be taken off guard like Dead End was.”

“Nevertheless, it is illogical to go into a fight without reinforcements,” Shockwave said. “A small squad will accompany you. There will be no further argument,” he commanded dangerously.

Brawl grumbled, letting Blitzwing go. The mad doctor gave him a pat on the back, then turned to Shockwave. “Vhen do ve depart, Herr Shockwave?”

“You have three hours to prepare for departure, Blitzwing. Make good use of them.” He loomed over the two ‘Cons under his command. “I expect nothing less than complete success.” He looked back and forth between the two of them before nodding. “You are dismissed.”

The two decepticons bowed deeply before quickly striding out of the room. “Come, mein freund!” Blitzwing said as he and Brawl exited the room. “I have just the thing for you for this mission…” he trailed off as the door whooshed shut behind them.

Waspinator made to follow them, only for Shockwave to clear his throat. “Waspinator, a moment.”

The insecticon turned and bowed deeply again. “Wassspinator is at your command, Lord Shockwave.”

Shockwave gazed at Waspinator unreadably with his single eye for several moments before speaking. “Your performance as of late has been startlingly commendable, Waspinator. Your find of the Chromatic Energon was most valuable to our cause.”

“Wassspinator lives to ssserve,” Waspinator said gleefully, continuing to bow.

Shockwave continued. “I would normally reserve this mission for Dead End, but his performance of late has been less than favorable, and with him currently resting in the sickbay, I am incapable of giving him a chance to turn his performance around. Therefore, I must entrust this latest mission to you.”

“Anything, my Lord,” Waspinator said.

Shockwave stepped up to the insecticon and put his single hand on the insecticon’s shoulder. “While Brawl and Blitzwing are taking care of the city, there is something very important that you must do...”

* * *

“Twilight?”

The purple unicorn still lay motionless, eyes wide and unblinking as she lay on the sterile, tiled floor of Celestia’s private laboratory. The princess had carried her the whole way through the castle hallways draped over her back as she and Applebloom made their way to the labs. Now that they had arrived, Celestia and Applebloom had been trying to wake Twilight from her stupor, and had met with little success.

“Twilight, c’mon, wake up!” Applebloom said, shaking the unconscious unicorn. It was still surreal to loom so tall over somepony who had been a head taller than her just the day before.

Applebloom looked up at Celestia with a pleading expression. “Are you sure she’s gonna be okay, Princess?”

Princess Celestia smiled and chuckled lightly. “Let me give it a try, Applebloom,” she said softly.

Applebloom nodded and backed away from Twilight’s prone form. Celestia stepped up next to her and leaned down, whispering into her student’s ear.

“Twilight, that paper you owe me is two days late.”

Twilight Sparkle sprang up from the floor and started trotting in place panickedly, her head darting around and her eyes even wider than before. “Ohmigosh, Princess I’m so sorry! I didn’t even know I had a paper due! I’ll get right on it and have it in for you by the end of the day! No wait! That’s too long! I’ll have it ready for you in an hour! I just need to know what it’s about first and then I can run down to the library and--”

Twilight was cut off by a princessly giggle. She suddenly came to her senses as she realized where she was and what was going on. Her face scrunched up and she turned on the chuckling Princess with an embarrassed blush. “I overreacted again, didn’t I, Princess?” she asked sheepishly.

“Just a little, Twilight,” Celestia said, patting her on the head with a hoof. “No harm done.”

Twilight gasped again, looking around the room. “Applebloom!” she suddenly exclaimed. “Princess, I went to the tea room and I thought I saw--”

“Er… Over here, Twilight,” came a voice from behind her. Twilight wheeled around.

Then she looked up.

Applebloom chuckled nervously, her pupilless yellow eyes narrowing embarrassedly and her mouth cocking into a nervous grin. The robot waved sheepishly down at the purple unicorn, who stared up at her, mouth agape.

“Hey…” Applebloom said weakly.

Twilight stared, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. A faint squeaking noise escaped her lips and she wobbled on her hooves.

“Ah ah ah,” Celestia tutted, placing a hoof gently on Twilight’s withers. “Easy, Twilight. It wouldn’t do to pass out again.”

Twilight shook her head, trying to reorient herself. “A-Applebloom?” she stammered.

Applebloom chuckled weakly. “Eeyup.”

“This is…” Twilight’s mind threatened to shut down again as she took in the alien robot in front of her. “You’re a…” she stammered, trying to settle on something to say.

The filly-bot chuckled. “Erm… surprise?” she said, awkwardly holding her arms out to her sides.

Twilight shook herself again, steadying herself and then trotting around Applebloom, getting a look at her from every angle. Applebloom gulped nervously as Twilight took in every inch of her. After a good few minutes of silence as Twilight circled the uncomfortable bot, she finally spoke again. “This is…” she stammered, looking for her words.

Applebloom felt a nervous quiver in her gut as she wondered what Twilight was about to say.

“This is incredible!” Twilight shouted, her voice a mixture of shock, excitement, and nervousness. She leaped forward and embraced Applebloom in a tight hug around her waist. The robot felt relief and warmth wash over her, when Twilight spoke again. “I don’t know how you built this, Applebloom, but it’s really amazing! I mean, successfully building a robot is downright astounding on its own for a filly of your age, but full remote control over it including vocal telecommunications? It was always plain to see you were smart, Applebloom, but this is simply extraordinary!”

Applebloom felt her previous relief waver as Twilight continued to ramble on. “And such an articulate design too! Look at all these joints!” Twilight leapt up and grabbed Applebloom’s hand, playing with her fingers. “They have such a range of motion and work so smoothly! And this face!” she shouted, grabbing Applebloom’s face, the robot letting out a startled squeak as she continued to rant. “What is this even made out of?” Twilight asked, poking and prodding at the fleshy, semisolid metal that her face was made out of. “Did you actually develop an entirely new material just so your robot could emote?! Applebloom, you’re a downright prodigy!”

“Um… Twilight,” Applebloom stammered. Princess Celestia merely stood off to the side, desperately trying to stifle her giggles with a hoof.

Twilight tapped at Applebloom’s chest. “It’s a little strange putting your face on the robot like this, but it does add a definite personal touch. What’s the power source? What does it run on? Ooh, so many questions! You’re sure to win a Clover Award for this, Applebloom! The advancements we can make with these in construction, security, and daily life are almost limitless!”

“Twilight...” Applebloom deadpanned, her eyes narrowing.

Twilight looked around the room. “Where are you controlling it from, Applebloom? Is it strictly short range or are you elsewhere in the castle entirely? Either way it’s impressive but I can’t see you anywhere in the lab here.”

“Twilight!” Applebloom shouted, causing the purple unicorn to stumble back onto her rump.

Twilight shook herself and blinked. “Sorry,” she squeaked, clearing her throat. “I might’ve gotten carried away.”

“A little,” Applebloom muttered, crossing her arms. She opened her mouth to speak again only for Twilight to cut her off and continue.

“But it’s truly one of the most phenomenal things I’ve ever seen!” Twilight said giddily, clapping her hooves together. “A filly your age building something so advanced… Everypony always knew you were a clever engineer but this is breathtaking! You could get into the Manehattan Institute of Technology or ColTech in a heartbeat with something like this!”

“Twilight, y’all don’t understand!” Applebloom said, putting her hands on her hips. “I didn’t build a robot. I AM a robot!” She motioned up and down her body with her hands. “This is me; Applebloom!”

Twilight blinked for a second, her mind trying to catch up with what Applebloom said.

Then she burst out laughing.

Applebloom’s face scrunched into a deep frown. The filly-bot stamped her foot in protest. “Twilight, I’m serious!”

Twilight wiped her eyes as her laughter died down. “That’s a funny prank, Applebloom, but that’s impossible. Ponies don’t just spontaneously turn into robots.”

“Unless, my faithful student,” Celestia said, stepping up next to Twilight, “they were never actually ponies in the first place.”

Twilight blinked. “Princess Celestia…?”

Celestia nodded. “Applebloom is not playing a prank on you, Twilight. She’s telling the truth.” She pointed at Applebloom as Twilight’s face went from giddy laughter and excitement to confusion and anxiety. “This is Applebloom. Not a robot she’s using as a mouthpiece. The real, genuine article.”

Twilight blinked. “No, that’s impossible,” she protested. “I’ve known Applebloom for three years now. There’s no way she’s secretly been a robot all this time… is there?” She shook her head. “No, that’s ridiculous.”

Celestia chuckled and shook her head. “Twilight, I’ve lived for thousands of years and seen what was thought to be the impossible or the absurd come true more times than I can count. Fantasy is not always so removed from reality as we tend to think it is. The sooner you come to accept that the world we live in is, itself, ridiculous, the better.” She pointed at Applebloom. “But if you still doubt, then why not try scanning for Applebloom’s magical signature?”

Twilight looked back and forth between Applebloom and Celestia. “Princess?”

Celestia shrugged. “If it is truly just a robot, it won’t have any magical signature at all. But Applebloom, same as any pony in Equestria, has a magical signature all her own.” She nodded. “Scan for it. See for yourself.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow and looked at Applebloom who stood there fidgeting with her fingers. Twilight shrugged and lit her horn, closing her eyes and focusing upon the magical wells of power in the room with her.

Immediately she sensed her own signature and well of magic, deep and vast, thrumming with inner power and glowing a bright violet in her mind’s eye. Right next to her she felt the immense and nigh-infinite magical well of Princess Celestia, burning bright as the sun and white as flame.

It was the third signature in the room that made her take a step back and gasp.

There, standing in front of her was a third well of magic, unlike any that Twilight had sensed before. The power was paradoxical, in that it was both familiar and alien at the same time. Part of it burned an earthy yellow and, the more she focused on it, the more it felt like the well she sensed in Applejack every time the six of them used the Elements of Harmony. At the same time, part of the well glowed a bright green, twisting around and blending with the yellow flame, feeling otherworldly and foreign to her in every way. The well of magic was vast and crackled with power that rivaled or perhaps even surpassed her own. There was no doubting it; this was not just an ordinary robot.

Twilight’s eyes snapped open and she gasped deeply as she stumbled and fell backwards onto her back.

“Twilight!” Applebloom shouted, standing over the prone purple mare. The robot looked down at her, concerned. “Are y’all okay?”

Twilight stared at her in a mixture of horror, fascination, and bewilderment. “A-Applebloom?”

“Eeyup.” Applebloom smiled nervously. “That’s me.”

* * *

Applejack lay unmoving on the cot in her cell. The only sound present was her own breathing as she lay almost perfectly still. The orange farmpony sniffled a little as she clenched her eyes shut, trying to ease the headache that still pounded in her brain to no avail. Closing her eyes did little to shut out the light in the cell, which shone through Applejack’s eyelids and turned her world red. It didn’t help that every time she closed her eyes, she saw the terrified face of Applebloom as she bore down on her in the orchard.

The farmer twitched, letting out a shuddering breath as she rolled over in the bed, trying desperately to go to sleep. As she shifted though, something tickled the end of her muzzle, disturbing her even further. Snorting a little, Applejack opened her eyes only to gaze into a lock of curly mane dangling in her face and two wide, blue eyes.

“Hey, Applejack!” The pink pony in bed with her chirped.

“GYAAH!” Applejack yelped, twisting around and falling off the cot onto the rug with a thump. Applejack groaned as she lay on her back on the ground, gazing up at the ceiling as Pinkie Pie poked her head out from off the bed and looked down at her.

“Pinkie Pie!” Applejack snapped, getting to her hooves. “What in the hay are y’all doin here?!” The farmer jabbed a hoof at the cell door. “Get out!” she barked.

Pinkie giggled and snorted a little. “Applejack, I can’t get out! We’re locked in here!”

Applejack raised an eyebrow, looking back and forth between the pink pony and the cell door. The farmer stepped over to the door and gave it an experimental push. It didn’t budge. She turned back to the pink party pony with a boggled expression. “How did y’all…”

Pinkie just looked at her with a big grin, her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth.

AJ blinked. “Right. Whatever. Don’t care how y’all got in, just leave the same way.”

Pinkie Pie shook her head and slid off the bed. “No can do, sister!” she said cheerfully, trotting up to her friend and placing her hooves on Applejack’s cheeks, pushing them upward and twisting her mouth into a forced smile. “Not until I turn that frowny upside-downy.”

The farmer swatted Pinkie Pie off of her. “Ain’t gonna happen, Pinkie,” Applejack huffed, sidling back up to the bed and sitting down on it. “This ain’t something anypony can just fix with a hug and a party.”

“I know,” Pinkie said solemnly, sitting up on the bed next to her and draping an arm around Applejack’s shoulders. “Cheerilee told me and the girls what was up.”

Applejack sneered at the mention of the schoolteacher, but her face quickly fell again. “Right, so y’all know what I did then,” she muttered.

“I know that you jumped to conclusions and attacked Applebloom when you saw her all robotty for the first time,” Pinkie said, patting Applejack on the shoulder. “And that after you found out who she was you were so frazzled that you projected the anger onto your family and friends who kept the secret from you in an attempt to spare yourself from your own wrath.” Pinkie shook her head. “But even with all the rum in the Cakes’ basement, you couldn’t lie to yourself for long.”

Applejack snorted at her, turning away. “Quit it with the fancy shrink talk, Pinkie. I weren’t lyin’ to myself,” she grumbled, kicking at the air gently. “I mean, I’m still mighty pissed off at them for not tellin’ me nothing. All’a this could’a been avoided iff’n they’d just told me, and maybe I’d a’ been prepared when it… happened.” She sighed. “But y’all are right about one thing. I hate myself for what I gone and almost did to Applebloom.” Applejack fell backwards and slumped into the bed. “Alien robot thing not even countin’ for nothin’, how can I call her my sister after what I done?”

Pinkie pursed her lips, pondering her words for a moment. “Well…” she began slowly, “why did you attack her in the first place?” she asked.

Applejack raised an eyebrow again, looking askance at her pink friend. “Y’all already know that. I done thought she was a monster walkin’ around in Applebloom’s skin.”

“So you didn’t think you were attacking Applebloom then,” Pinkie said, pointing at Applejack. “You thought you were attacking something that had, well, killed her.” Pinkie shook her head. “I dunno, AJ. If anything that tells me how much you care about her.”

“‘Course I care about her!” Applejack snapped. “She’s my sister, blood or no.” The farmpony’s head drooped and her eyes narrowed. “Still don’t change the fact that I did what I did. Don’t matter the reason behind it, I still chased her halfway across the orchard and tried to…” she trailed off, her chest heaving. “It don’t matter is what I’m sayin’.”

Pinkie patted the farmer on the back. “I think it does. The fact that you’d go after something that hurt Applebloom so fiercely shows just how much you care about her; just how much you’d be devastated if something actually happened to her.”

“Something I almost caused myself,” Applejack muttered.

Pinkie nodded. “You jumped to conclusions. You didn’t let her get a word in, and when she did try to explain, you didn’t believe her. You had to be tied up just so that your family could get a word in edgewise.” Pinkie shrugged. “That’s all on you, sister.”

Applejack hung her head as Pinkie continued. “You’re stubborn, AJ. When you decide on something there’s no getting you off track, even if you decide on an idea or action that turns out to be harmful.” Pinkie stood up off the bed, pacing back and forth in front of her. “On top of that, you don’t exactly have a short fuse like Rainbow Dash, and you’re actually normally pretty cool-headed. But once you get burning, you burn hotter and longer than anypony I’ve ever met.” Pinkie stopped pacing and looked into Applejack’s eyes. “You need to work on that, AJ. You don’t get angry often, but one of these days it’s going to happen again, and you’re going to get so mad you’ll do something you can’t take back.”

The farmpony huffed. “Y’all speak like that ain’t what just happened.”

Pinkie shook her head. “You’re not listening to me, AJ!” she insisted. “I’m saying that everypony understands why you went and attacked Applebloom. Everypony gets that you did what you did because you care about her so much! You just made a mistake. A big mistake maybe, but we can forgive those! It’s not like you just woke up one morning and said ‘I’m gonna drop a tree on my sister today for horseapples and hee-haws.’ We understand.” Pinkie crossed her hooves. “And it’s kinda insulting to Applebloom to assume that she won’t understand too!”

Applejack was silent for a minute. Finally she sighed and shook her head. “I just can’t, Pinkie. I can’t face her.”

Pinkie scowled. “Why not?”

“‘Cause she’s a plum selfish coward, that’s why!” came a low, drawling voice from outside the cell.

The two little ponies turned to see a big red stallion standing at the cell door. A scowl was etched on his face and his cropped, orange tail was swishing in irritation.

“Big Mac?” Applejack asked, slipping off the bed. “How did y’all get here?”

“That would be our doing,” came a voice from just beyond the view of the cell. A moment later, Princess Luna stepped into view. The mistress of the night nodded to Pinkie Pie. “Hello again, Pinkamena. We hath returned from our errand,” she said, motioning to Big Macintosh.

The stallion in question glowered at his sister, continuing. “She’s a self-servin’ coward who can’t face problems that she went an’ caused herself.”

Applejack shrunk back. “Big Mac…” she whined softly.

The draft stallion held up a hoof, cutting her off. “Now you listen here, AJ,” he said. “Y’all went an’ tried ta hurt our sister. Y’all chucked trees at her and tried to buck her into paste.” Applejack shrank further and further with each word. “Y’all were a darned fool and jumped to conclusions without lettin’ anypony explain ‘cuz once y’all stick to somethin, y’all stick harder than tree sap to a filly’s mane.”

“...I know…” Applejack sniffed.

“And y’all know what else?” Big Mac said. “I forgive y’all for that.”

Applejack blinked, looking back up at her brother. “You do?”

Big Mac rolled his eyes, still frowning. “A’course I do. All of us do! Y’all flew off the handle but we understand and forgive you.” He jabbed a hoof at her. “What I can’t forgive, at least not yet, is what y’all went and said after that!”

Applejack shrunk in on herself again, looking smaller than a mouse at the mercy of an angry cat.

“Y’all went and told Applebloom she weren’t your sister in front of the entire family! Y’all went and drank yourself into a stupor, crowin’ it to yer friends later. Y’all abandoned her, even after what you went and did, y’all were too stubborn to admit you were wrong and slunk off into the night like a coward! Y’all blamed it on us instead and took it out on poor ‘Bloom! An’ that’s just sick, little sis!”

Applejack’s eyes started to water again as Big Mac went on. “Now maybe we were in the wrong, me an’ Cheerilee an’ Snowflake an’ Carrot an’ Ma an’ Pa an’ Granny. Maybe we were all in the wrong keepin’ this from you. But that don’t change the fact that y’all didn’t own up to yer horseapples when it counted and y’all still took it out on Applebloom, even after what y’all put her through! Y’all should be ashamed of yerself!”

“I am, Big Mac!” Applejack snapped, tears freely flowing from her eyes now. “Y’all don’t think I look ashamed?! Y’all don’t think what I done ain’t eatin’ me alive?!”

Big Mac snorted, stamping a hoof and cracking the bricks beneath. “Iff’n y’all are so ashamed then DO somethin’ about it!” He pointed behind him with a hoof and continued. “Right now, somewhere in this castle is a filly who done thinks her sister hates her. She’s confused an’ probably blamin’ herself for something that ain’t even her fault. She’s been through a lot these past two days and she needs somethin’ stable in her life right now; somethin’ to let her know that things are gonna turn out okay! But she can’t even count on the love of her own kin, the one thing she should always be able to count on, ‘cause her sister is too busy selfishly wallowin’ in her pity, more worried about how she can’t forgive herself than what’s goin’ on in her sister’s head, and too cowardly to face her sister an’ apologize like a proper pony!”

Applejack sputtered tearfully. “B-Big Mac…” she stammered.

Big Macintosh turned on a hoof and stomped away from the cell. He turned to Princess Luna. “I’m takin’ one of yer guards, Princess. I’m goin’ ta see my sister.”

Princess Luna nodded. “Very well, Sir Macintosh. Speak to Dirge. He’s the stallion guarding the entrance to the cell block. Tell him I’ve given the order to take you to Celestia’s laboratory.”

Big Macintosh nodded and stomped out of the cell block, the door to the prison creaking behind him as he left.

Princess Luna turned back to the cell. Applejack was practically curled into a ball in the middle of the floor, weeping. Pinkie Pie sat next to her, stroking her mane and shushing her gently. Luna sighed and lit her horn, unlocking the cell and stepping inside. Steadily, she sat down on the bed across from the weeping farmpony and spoke softly. “I apologize, Applejack. I knew not that he would be so harsh in his message.”

Applejack sniffled. “S’all right…” she managed to croak out. “I deserved it.”

“Harshness aside,” Luna continued, “you do know he was correct, yes?”

The farmpony nodded, sobbing. “I know…”

Pinkie Pie snuck a hoof beneath Applejack’s chin and gently lifted her head up. “Then are you ready to apologize to Applebloom?” she asked softly

Applejack hiccupped. “I don’t know if I’m ready…” she muttered softly, letting silence reign for a moment before she climbed to her hooves. “But y’all are right. Somewhere in this castle, my sister is scared and confused and she needs me. It don’t matter how I feel about it... s’gotta be done.”

Princess Luna nodded and lit her horn. “If thou wishes it, we can teleport you to her now.”

Applejack shook her head, wiping her eyes. “Iff’n it’s all the same to you, I’d rather walk,” she muttered. “I need time to think of just what I can say to Applebloom to make it right.” She chuckled, wiping tears from her puffy red eyes. “An’ frankly, I don’t want her to see me like this.”

Princess Luna nodded. “Very well then,” she said, alighting her horn. The cell door glowed for a second before it unlocked and swung open. “If you’d follow me then,” she said with a nod and turned towards the main door to the cell block.

Applejack took a deep breath and turned to look at Pinkie Pie. The pink pony grinned and gave her an enthusiastic nod. Steeling herself, Applejack followed Luna out towards the door, Pinkie pronking along in her wake.

The trio reached the large doors to the cell block in but a minute and with a wave of Luna’s horn, the massive doors swung open. As they exited the block, Applejack was surprised to see her brother waiting in the hallway.

“...Big Mac,” Applejack started to say, only for the draft stallion to hold up a hoof and smile gently.

“Let’s just go see Applebloom,” Big Mac said softly.

Applejack nodded, the four of them and Luna’s two guards ascending the stairs into the castle.

* * *

Applebloom, Twilight, and Princess Celestia had all taken a seat around a conjured metal table in the center of the lab in an attempt to clear the air. The lab was strangely void of the sort of equipment Applebloom had expected to see. She was expecting massive whirring computers and mystery machines; pylons, tesla coils, and those funky plasma balls that had weird strings of energy radiating out from the center. Instead, the lab was mostly an empty room. The walls were lined with countertops which did hold some equipment. Applebloom could spy microscopes and glassware like flasks, beakers, and test tubes, but it seemed like if there was any particularly interesting equipment most of it must have been stowed away in the cabinets set into the counters. Other than the countertops lining the walls, though, the room was completely empty save for the conjured table they now sat at. The floor was a tough, white ceramic tile, sterilized and slightly reflective, giving the large chamber an eerie, void-like appearance. About the only thing that looked at all unorthodox, though, was a series of strange spotlights set into the ceiling over their heads, along with a large tank covered in odd valves.

Twilight was busy breathing in and out of a paper bag and intermittently sipping on some chamomile tea that Princess Celestia had had delivered for her. She had nearly fainted once again upon discovering that the robot she had been speaking to was, in fact, Applebloom, so overwhelmed was she with excitement, worry, shock, and a mix of other emotions too numerous to count. The shock had been so much that she’d lost all coherent sense and was still yet to regain it, despite attempting several relaxation techniques all at once.

Celestia sat next to her student, a comforting wing draped over her shoulders. Meanwhile, as she continued to observe the strange laboratory around her, Applebloom had been retelling the story of her origin and how she came to discover her nature again in an attempt to fill the time and hopefully get Twilight up to speed. The vacant look in Twilight’s eyes gave her pause though. Applebloom looked up at the princess with a brow raised. “Are y’all sure she’s listening Princess?”

Celestia patted her student’s back and Twilight gave a slow nod, despite still gasping for breath in the paper bag. The purple pony coughed a little and looked down at the table. “Yes, I’m still listening,” she croaked weakly, lowering the sack. “It’s just so much to take in at once.”

“Alright,” Applebloom nodded, continuing with her story. “Anyway, the next day I went to school, hopin’ things might get at least somewhat back to normal. ‘Course, then we were attacked by Decepticons; those guys that Yoketron said was the bad robots. I used some sorta… copy ability and managed to turn into a vampire robot or somethin’ and sucked their energon out.” She paused. “Energon is their fuel by the way. It’s basically their blood.

“Anyway, I found out that I had some sorta hammer weapon and used that an’ the vampire ability I copied from the leader to fight them off,” she explained. “I managed to help save the school, but Miss Cheerilee is the one that actually managed to end the fight when she threw acid on the leader’s face. During the fight, though… I ended up killin’ one of the Decepticons.”

The little filly-bot sighed. “An’ the rest is history. That Ballista guard went and put some kinda spell on me and my friends and the next thing I knew, I was in the dungeons talkin’ to Princess Celestia. ‘Course she was a dog at first.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at that and turned to look at her teacher. Celestia however, only smirked and took a sip of tea. The studious purple pony eventually turned back to look at Applebloom with a bewildered expression. “That’s…” she gulped, taking a deep breath. “That’s quite a tale, Applebloom.”

Applebloom shrunk back a bit. “Y’all don’t believe me?” she whimpered.

Twilight shook her head. “No, no! It’s not that!” she said quickly. “It’s hard not to believe you given… well…” She motioned at Applebloom’s body with her hooves. “...you being what you are,” she finished weakly.

Applebloom hung her head. “I understand iff’n y’all don’t want nothin’ to do with me anymore.”

Twilight gasped. “No, Applebloom, it’s not that either!” she protested. “It’s just… there’s so much to take in from all this.”

Twilight took a few more deep breaths and went on. “Applebloom, you’re our answer to whether or not the people of our planet are alone in the universe. Our planet has always had an abundance of sapient species on it, but one of our biggest questions has always been whether there was life on other worlds. You’ve given us that answer, and that life is more fascinating than anything we could ever imagine!” Twilight motioned to the little bot. “Living machines! If I hadn’t sensed your magic with my own horn I’d have never believed it! I don’t even know how something mechanical in the way you are can be alive, but you’re living proof that it can happen!”

Applebloom would have blushed if she could. She looked away shyly as Twilight continued.

“Even ignoring the nature of your physiology, there’s the implication of the sort of technology that the rest of your species holds. Ships that can warp through space faster than light, for example. Imagine what we could learn from such technology!” Twilight gushed. “The things we can learn from this will occupy scientists for decades if not centuries!”

“Exactly, Twilight,” Celestia said with a nod. “Which is why I want you to be the first to study young Applebloom.”

If Twilight had regained any of her composure, she instantly lost almost all of it once again. “M-m-me?!” she stammered. “Princess, you can’t be serious! Surely there are ponies more qualified to investigate Applebloom and the ship.”

“The ship and the Decepticon body will be investigated by a team of ponies at a later date,” Celestia explained. “You can choose to be a part of the team that investigates them later if you wish. For now, Applebloom needs not only a scientific mind, but a friend. I can think of no pony better qualified to help Applebloom better understand her own nature, and take our first step into this new world.”

Twilight’s face split into an excited, if nervous, grin. “Princess… I’m honored.” She dipped into a bow.

Celestia chuckled. “None of that, please, Twilight. After all, this is as much helping a friend out as it is giving you an opportunity.” Celestia turned to look at Applebloom. “I hope that this will help you better understand who you are, my little pony.”

Applebloom sighed. “I hope so too.”

“APPLEBLOOM!” came a sudden cry from the doorway to the lab.

The three of them turned to the source of the cry, only for Applebloom to be tackled to the floor by white and orange blurs. Applebloom’s head spun for a second as she reoriented herself, only to hear the babbling voices of her friends.

“...so glad you’re okay!” Sweetie Belle rambled, burying her face in Applebloom’s chest. “We were so worried that you’d been carried off to some prison somewhere where you’d be experimented on and taken apart or something and it’s just so good to see you!”

“...thought that the town guard had been replaced by a bunch of those Deceptifreaks and they’d taken you to their mothership where you’d have to fight a million guards but by the time you got free you’d be out in space on another planet or something!” Scootaloo went on at the same time.

Flipsides trotted into the room after the two fillies, looking exasperated and abashed. “Your majesty, I deeply apologize. I was guarding the door as you ordered when these two blindsided me.” She cast an annoyed look at the fillies. “They practically trampled me to get in here. Should I remove them and have them sent back to their families?”

Celestia tittered. “I don’t think that will be necessary, Flipsides. Their families should be here shortly. Thank you, though.” Flipsides bowed and returned to guarding the door of the lab.

Applebloom smiled weakly and propped herself up on her elbows, chuckling lightly. “I’m fine girls,” she said, interrupting the two of them mid-ramble. “I was thrown in a dungeon for a bit, but Princess Celestia came and got me out.”

The two little fillies only just then seemed to notice the presence of the princess at the table smiling down at them. Sweetie Belle squeaked and dipped into a bow, practically smushing her face into the floor. Scootaloo on the other hoof, just gave the princess a wave. “‘Sup Princess?”

Both Sweetie Belle and Twilight Sparkle gasped and stared at Scootaloo’s casual nature but before they could say anything the Princess laughed and nodded at the little orange filly. “Scootaloo,” she greeted.

“Sweetie Belle! Scootaloo!” came a chastising voice from outside the room. “How many times must we tell you not to run off?!” A moment later, Shining Armor and the Bearers of Harmony, sans Pinkie Pie and Applejack, turned the corner and trotted into the room, Rarity leading the group. Rarity gave the two fillies a disapproving look before turning and bowing to Princess Celestia, along with the rest of their company. “I apologize, princess. They’ve been very excited since they woke up.”

Celestia nodded again and gave her a smile. “Understandable,” she said serenely. “It’s not every day a little filly finds herself in the castle, though I suspect that they were more excited to be reunited with their friend,” she said with a wink and a sideways nod towards the floor where the fillies sat.

It was only then that Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy got a look at the robot currently getting to her feet and looming over them with her impressive six-foot height. Rarity and Fluttershy both gasped, the latter seeming to freeze in place, while Rainbow Dash’s wings flared instinctively. Shining Armor’s eyes widened a little but the captain managed to mostly keep his composure as he looked upon the filly-turned-alien-robot that had caused all the trouble of late. Moments later, the three mares managed to shake themselves of their shock as well and they started to take Applebloom’s new form in with less shock and fear and more curiosity.

Applebloom shuffled a foot and waved to the newcomers weakly. “Uhh… hey,” she managed to mutter out.

Rarity managed to regain her composure when the filly-bot spoke. “Applebloom?” she asked, still seeming slightly stunned. “I take it… that’s you?”

Applebloom sighed. “I guess there’s a lot to explain again…” she started to say, only to be stopped by a final voice.

“You don’t need to worry about that, Applebloom,” Cheerilee said, turning the corner into the lab. “I already told them everything.”

“Miss Cheerilee!” Applebloom said, crossing the room in only three strides, the ponies all scattering out of her way as she approached the teacher. “Are y’all okay? Last I saw the guards was knockin’ y’all out and you’d already taken a beating from that Decepticon and--” Applebloom was stopped as Cheerilee reached up and gently placed a hoof on the little robot’s midsection.

“I’m fine, Applebloom,” she said with a tired smile. “I’m more worried about how you’re doing.”

Applebloom looked around the room at all the ponies surrounding her; from the serene face of Princess Celestia to the excited faces of her friends, to Twilight’s anticipation, and to the fascination of everypony else. After a moment, Applebloom smiled as well, and turned back to the teacher. “I think I’m doing a mite better now, Miss Cheerilee.”

Cheerilee nodded. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Suddenly a sharp, yanking pain in the back of her head snapped Applebloom out of her calm. “OW!” she yelped, reaching back with a metal hand and clutching at the back of her head, whipping around to see Rainbow Dash hovering there with a strand of bright red hair in her hoof.

“Rainbow Dash!” both Rarity and Twilight chastised.

“What?” Rainbow asked, raising an eyebrow, holding up the strand of hair for all to see. “I just wanted to know what the hair was made of!” She brought it up to her muzzle and sniffed at it. “I think it’s just hair. What kind of robot has hair?”

“I do!” Applebloom grumbled with an angry pout.

Twilight rolled her eyes, getting up from the table. “Of all the various mysteries Applebloom presents… you wonder why she has hair.”

Celestia tittered. “I’m sure that that, among many other things, will be answered when we begin testing.”

Fluttershy gasped. “T-Testing?” she stammered. “Are you going to… experiment on her?!” The room seemed to grow cold as the various ponies turned to look at the princess.

Celestia shook her head. “You could put it that way, but not in any way you might be thinking, my little ponies,” she said with a reassuring smile. “There won’t be any dissections.”

“Well, not on Applebloom, at least…” Twilight mumbled under her breath, looking askance.

Celestia cleared her throat, diverting everypony’s attention from her student. “We just want to measure her capabilities, take some samples, and spend some time observing her to try to understand a bit better how she works. It’s as much for her benefit as our own.”

“I… I have to know what I am,” Applebloom agreed. “I need to know how I work. Maybe then things’ll make sense,” she sighed.

Fluttershy trotted up to Applebloom’s side and placed a hoof on her leg. “Oh, you poor thing,” she cooed. “This must be so confusing for you.”

Applebloom nodded, reaching out and grabbing her chair from the table and taking a seat. “It’s been a tough couple of days,” she agreed with a weak chuckle.

“Well, we won’t begin the testing right away, then,” Princess Celestia said, standing from her chair and trotting into the middle of the room with the rest of the ponies. “I’m sure everypony is exhausted after such a long day. You’re all welcome to take rooms here at the castle for the night.”

“It is getting rather late in the evening isn’t it?” Rarity agreed, looking out a nearby window to see the sun hanging low in the sky.

Celestia stepped over to Applebloom. “Come, my little pony,” she said, draping a wing over the robotic filly’s shoulder. Applebloom instinctively started to look up before correcting herself, still having trouble getting over the fact that she was at eye level with the princess as the wing fell over her. “Let’s get you and your friends set up in a room and perhaps order you some room service. The testing will keep until later.”

Applebloom smiled weakly and nodded. “Thanks, Princess.”

The two of them stepped towards the doorway, only for the robot to turn the corner and nearly collide with a familiar orange face.

The filly looked down at her older sister, the two of them staring at each other for what seemed like an interminable moment. Pinkie Pie, Big Macintosh, Princess Luna, and two lunar guards stood a few paces behind her.

A tense silence fell over the room as everypony collectively held their breaths. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Applejack finally managed to speak.

“...Applebloom?”

Applebloom backed up a few paces, her face going through a series of emotions as she looked at her sister. Finally, her eyes broke away and her gaze fell to the floor as she mumbled an answer. “Hey, Applejack.”

The gathered cluster of ponies all fell silent as the two sisters awkwardly stood in the hall outside the lab and said nothing, both opting to look anywhere but in the other’s eyes. Flipsides and Shining Armor both tensed slightly, keeping an eye on the Apple sisters. After a minute, Princess Celestia spoke. “Perhaps,” she began, “we should make our way to the living quarters while Applebloom and Applejack work things out?”

“No.” Applebloom’s voice was not loud, but it was forceful. “Please don’t go,” she bade them.

Celestia raised an eyebrow, noticing Applejack wincing as if somepony had spat in her face. Nevertheless, the princess nodded, merely backing up a few paces. The other ponies all followed her lead, save for Big Macintosh. The draft horse stepped up towards Applejack instead, clearing his throat.

Applejack slumped a little, looking bereft. “Right,” she muttered, lifting her head and looking at Applebloom. The filly-bot was still avoiding her gaze as she spoke. “Applebloom,” she began, “I’m… I’m mighty sorry ‘bout what I gone and done, attackin’ you like some kinda crazed animal,” she said, hanging her head again. “‘Tain’t right what I did.”

“It ain’t that you attacked me,” Applebloom began firmly. “I got that part. Y’all thought I was a monster or somethin’ right then. That part ain’t even the bit that bothers me,” she explained, taking a deep breath before continuing. “Y’all said I weren’t your sister.” Applebloom mumbled as she continued to look anywhere but at her sister, her voice surprisingly steady and neutral. “That I was just some thing from outer space.”

“I know…” Applejack admitted with a long breath. “I was wrong. I weren’t thinking when I said that. I was angry and confused and scared and proud and I… I was a mess, Applebloom. I am a mess.” She shook her head, fighting a grimace and a sniffle as she continued. “And it took too long for me to see just how much of a plum fool I was bein’.”

Applebloom chuckled humorlessly. “‘Tain’t even been a day.”

“Fact I had to even take time to see it at all means it went and took too long,” Applejack said, before continuing. “But when I heard that the schoolhouse had been attacked and when I saw y’all bein ponyhandled by them town guards, all I could think was ‘My sister’s in trouble.’” Applejack trailed off and went silent for a moment. Finally, she took a deep breath and kept on. “Y’all’re my sister, Applebloom, and I couldn’t bear the thought of losin’ ya.” The farmpony looked away. “‘Course, after what I done, I understand iff’n y’all don’t want to talk to me again,” she mumbled, her voice going silent.

Applebloom let loose a long, shuddering sigh and finally looked at Applejack out of her eye’s corner, still not turning her head. “I thought y’all hated me. That y’all’d never see me as a sister again.”

“Sugarcube…” Applejack said, looking back at her, “what I gone and said… I dunno if I can ever make up for it, but none of it were true.” She shut her eyes and chuckled. “Were all me lettin’ trash spill from my mouth. Some element of honesty I am…” she trailed off.

Applebloom was silent but finally turned her head to look at her sister, a tear dripping down from her eye. “Why’d you say it at all then?”

Applejack felt a knot tighten in her throat as she opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again. Then she opened it again, only to close it once more. Finally, she answered. “I don’t even know myself, Applebloom. Standin’ here now, I don’t know how I could’ve felt like that or said those things. Maybe it was me comin’ off the rush where I thought y’all was dead and I was still scared and angry and confused and I took it out on you. Maybe I felt I gone and made a fool of myself there and I was tryin’ to save face, only to make a bigger fool of myself. Maybe the thought that I’d been lied to for twelve years made me so mad and hurt me so much that I felt I had to strike back, even though it weren’t y’all who did the lyin’ in the first place. Maybe it was all three. Whatever the reason, the point is it weren’t true and I’m an idjit for thinkin’ and sayin’ it. And I’m sorry, Applebloom. I’m so sorry.”

Applejack took a deep breath and continued. “What I’m tryin’ to say, Applebloom, is I gone and done you wrong. I done you wrong as any sister can do. Not just that I went and attacked you, but that I went and hurt you. I went and hurt y’all in the lowest way I could, sayin’ that you weren’t my kin. And that’s just a lie. When I thought I lost you, when the school was attacked and the guard swooped in and took you, I felt the world collapsin’ in around me. I couldn’t bear to lose you, Applebloom. I can’t lose you.”

Applejack hung her head, tears dripping down onto the floor. “I’m sorry, Applebloom,” she croaked. “I’m so sorry.”

There was silence in the hallway for a moment as Applejack just stood there, sniffling. The once proud farmer looked a sight as she stood there, her body shuddering as she was wracked with sobs. Her mane and tail fell in stringy, limp tangles around her and her ears were flat and downturned.

Finally, Applejack felt something embrace her. It was both foreign and familiar. Hard as steel and yet soft as a pony’s coat. Applejack opened her eyes to see that Applebloom had knelt down next to her and had her arms gently draped around her neck. The filly-bot nuzzled into Applejack’s shoulder and sniffled, tears wetting Applejack’s already sweat-dampened coat. Applejack took a deep, relieved breath and wrapped a hoof around her robot sister and gently rubbed her back. At her sister’s touch, Applebloom hugged her sister a little tighter and managed to murmur into her ear.

“I forgive you.”

Applejack clutched her sister tighter, tears flowing freely as she finally managed to smile.

The two sisters stood there undisturbed for a few minutes as the tension in the hallway disappeared. Eventually, though, the two of them noticed something amiss and opened their eyes to see that a third pony had joined them in their sisterly hug. A wildly grinning Pinkie Pie had embraced the two sisters and was cuddling up to the two of them.

“Uh… Pinkie?” Applejack said awkwardly.

Pinkie bounced back from the hug without missing a beat. “So now that that’s all cleared up, how about that cuteceñera-slash-‘Surprise, you’re an alien robot!’ party?” She squealed with a chipper grin, flipping her mane and pulling a day planner from it. “I’m thinking Thursday!”

And with that, any tension that might have remained as the hallway descended into a fit of giggles. Even the Princesses couldn’t help but let out relieved chuckles as the party pony’s antics signaled a return to normalcy. Or at least the closest thing to normalcy the group could ever expect.

Finally, Princess Celestia cleared her throat once again. “Well,” she began, “it’s certainly been a very eventful day. Perhaps it’s time we got out of this cramped hallway and made our way to the living quarters? I’m sure we’ll have more to discuss when we get there, but I’m sure some of you would like to get some re--”

Suddenly a door slammed open in the hallway and three guards came rushing onto the scene.

“Princesses! Captain Armor! Lieutenant Flipsides!” came the ragged pants of a unicorn corporal as he wearily saluted them, the two privates behind him looking even more worse for wear than he.

Captain Armor immediately snapped to attention, saluting the corporal in turn. “At ease, Corporal Ethereal!” he said, looking over the three weary guards. “What’s the matter?”

“Monster attack, sir!” Corporal Ethereal managed to blurt out between his ragged panting. “Down in the Theater District! At least a dozen of them and they look…” he pointed at Applebloom, “well, they look like her, but bigger! They’re tearing apart the city, and they’re shrugging off the guard like it’s nothing!”

Applebloom blanched, stumbling back as she broke out into a cold sweat. “No…” she gasped softly.

“They’re demanding for something called an Autobot,” the corporal said, horror in his eyes. “And they say if they don’t get it, they’ll tear Canterlot to the ground!”

Author's Note

>>>> RELEVANT BLOG POST <<<<

Alright! Finally getting around to posting this!

This chapter is largely just finishing up all the interpersonal character conflicts that have arisen in the past couple of chapters. It also does the job of bringing all the disparate groups together so I can FINALLY stop juggling three or four simultaneous scenes and actually write something coherent for once. Hopefully that'll make the story flow better in the future.

I hope people don't find this chapter too grating or too much of a grind to get through. I know there hasn't been much forward motion in this story lately (see the blog post I linked for an explanation on that), but just know that the next chapter (to be posted immediately) is 100% PULSE POUNDING ACTION™!!!

Hope I haven't lost too many of you with the mire that has been the last few chapters. Tune in to the next chapter, where the story will finally (hopefully) hit its speed! It's all smooth sailing from here, folks!

Ch11: Decepticons Attack!

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Applebloom: Transform and Rollout!
by Dusty the Royal Janitor

Chapter 11: Decepticons Attack!

The sun was beginning to dip low in the sky when they appeared. Ponies all over the city were just beginning to close up shop and head home for the day to enjoy a nice meal and maybe do some light reading before turning in for the night. Life in the bustling city of Canterlot rarely left many ponies with much in the way of energy late in the evening. In fact, there was only one section of the city where this seemed to be untrue: the Arts and Theater district.

Indeed, if anything the Arts and Theater district came alive with the setting of the sun. The district in question had just about everything that anypony could ask for, no matter what walk of life they came from. From the loudest, raunchiest, and wildest nightclubs, to the snootiest, stuffiest art gallery openings, and everything in between, there was something for everypony in the Arts and Theater district.

The district ran through Eastern Canterlot like a waterfall. Stretching from the topmost point of the city, just below Canterlot Castle itself, down the sloped, terraced city, further stretching into every section of the metropolis, from the rich upper terraces, to the poorer lower levels. The fancy opera houses, orchestras, galleries, and high class theaters could be found closer to the castle. Movie theaters, comedy clubs, jazz clubs, coffee shops hosting poetry slams, and other more common fare dominated the middle steps of the city, and the lower sections were dominated by nightclubs and bars of a more ‘primal’ intent.

It was at Golden Masque’s “Théâtre de Nuit Étoilée” that it happened. The theater, despite the fancy sounding name, was a relatively new establishment, having only been founded in the last three years, and situated in the middle terraces. Despite this, it was quickly becoming a very popular spot for ponies of a more ‘upper class’ persuasion to congregate, as the owner, the aforementioned Golden Masque, had a brilliant strategy for bringing in patrons. Get a single pony who was already a big name in the theater circuits to star in whatever play they were putting on that week to get ponies to take a first look, and fill the rest of the cast with fresh, but no-less talented unknowns.

Unknown or not, only the best ponies got to star in Golden Masque’s plays, and when ponies talked about the quality of the performances, many ponies who otherwise would have found themselves bussing tables suddenly found their careers taking off. In the few years it had been running, Golden Masque’s Theatre had put on hundreds of highly acclaimed performances, launched the careers of dozens of young ponies, and brought in hundreds of thousands of bits, stimulating the economy of the community around it and gradually becoming a big name in Canterlot’s thespian community.

The interior of the theatre was a sight to behold. The massive thrust-style stage was lined with massive, red velvet curtains with golden lining and tassels, lit by enormous spotlights and smaller lights on the end of the stage. It sat amphitheater-style at the bottom of an incline, rows upon rows of more red, velvet seats leading up to the arched marble doorways that led to the lobby. Hanging above the rows of seats were dozens of private balconies for the particularly rich and famous. There was even one designated as a royal balcony, though as of yet, only Princess Cadance had graced the theatre with her presence. Hanging over the seating area, a gigantic crystal and golden chandelier hung, and above even that, the ceiling was painted with murals of famous scenes from some of the most well recognized plays of Equestrian history, including, but not limited to: the Fires of Friendship from “The Story of Hearth’s Warming Eve,” the Binding of Discord from the “Tale of Chaos’ Reign”, and the Balcony Scene from Shaken Spear’s classic “Roaming Glow and Jeweled Barrette.”

It was all levelled in minutes.

The current troupe of actors had congregated for the night to begin practicing the next play that would open that weekend. The actors were all busy reading over their scripts for the first time when an ungodly shrieking noise resounded through the theatre. Out of nowhere, a tear formed in space right in the middle of the room, opening a hole in time and space in a hypnotic, swirling blast of green light. The actors looked on in fascination and terror as out of the swirling vortex stepped a platoon of terrifying metal monsters, all sharp edges and deadly claws, their cycloptic, red, glowing eyes boring into the eyes of the collected ponies. The actors found themselves frozen in shock as the creatures filed two by two out of the hole in space, expensive velvet chairs crunching under their massive, metallic feet. The monsters quickly surrounded the stage, staring at the frozen ponies wordlessly as more and more of their number filed out of the portal, until two dozen of them surrounded the shivering actors. Finally, out of the portal came two, more unique metal creatures.

The first was a creature shorter than the rest of the platoon, though not by much. It still towered a good five yards above the ponies, however, reaching a final height of about eighteen feet. Where the other creatures were primarily purple and black, this one was mostly white with purple accents. Further separating him from the other creatures was the fact that this one had a face as opposed to merely a cycloptic eye. That said, his face was entirely alien to the ponies, silvery and smooth as a sheet of metal, with a wide mouth curled into a dangerous smirk. His expression was made even more dangerous by his eyes, one of which was slitted dangerously while the other was held open wide by some kind of circular brace, giving the impression that he was wearing a monocle. The rest of his head was white and sculpted to look like a helmet of some sort, draping down the sides and back of his head. His torso was lithe and purple, but broad at his white shoulders, which both jutted upwards until they were level with the top of his head, like massively oversized shoulder pads. The shoulders also seemed to contain hatches, behind which, the ponies could only guess what lay. His arms were long and silvery, ending in nasty-looking claws with a strange tube attached to his right wrist. Off of his back sprouted enormous purple wings, though they were unlike any wings the ponies had ever seen; stiff, metal, and rigid as opposed to feathered or leathery. Also off his back were two more tubes that rose up above his head, distinctly resembling cannons of some kind. His upper legs were purple, but his lower legs seemed to be made up of some kind of tread-like rubber material, and ended in black and purple feet that resembled boots.

The creature walked through the portal with a casual, controlled strut, his arms folded behind his back and a smirk on his face that might have seemed otherwise friendly, were it not for the menacing, piercing gaze of his mismatched eyes. As frightening as he was, though, the ponies present all gasped when they saw the creature that followed him. It was another metal biped, bigger than the rest, standing at least twenty-two feet tall. Forest green in color, his face was closer to the legion of other creatures that had stepped through first. His eyes, if there were any, were obscured by a yellow visor of some sort and the lower part of his face was covered by a faceplate. The top of his head was squared off, with ridges going down the sides. He didn’t seem to have much of a neck, as his head nestled into his massive torso, which put the other creatures’ bodies to shame. His bulk was considerable, looking like a bodybuilder next to a legion of lithe, limber swimmers. His shoulders were even more massive than the previous creature’s, stretching far over his head and seeming to be made of a similar tread-like material to the previous creature’s legs. His arms were long and bulky, looking something like a gorilla’s, and ending in massive, three-fingered, club-like hands. On his back rested a single cannon to the previous creature’s two, though the size of this one certainly made up for it, as the cannon in question was at least three times the bulk of one of the first unique creature’s. His legs were also treaded along the sides, though most of them were forest green and bulky, as wide around as tree trunks. They ended in massive, two-toed metal feet.

The ponies all stood frozen in fear on the stage, their heads darting around furtively as the creatures surrounded them. When the two unique creatures finally stepped through, the actors could only gulp in fear, knees shaking as they approached the stage. Finally, Golden Masque himself mustered up the courage to step forward and address the intruders. Clearing his throat, the theater director steeled himself and addressed the invaders.

“M-my name is Golden Masque,” he said, trying to keep his head held firm. “W-what is the meaning of this intrusion?”

The purple and white creature’s smirk seemed to widen in amusement as he reached the edge of the stage, leaning over the little pony. “Ah, meine Freunde!” he began cheerfully, “perhaps you could be of help to us. My comrades and I are looking for ze Autobots. You vouldn’t happen to know vhere ve could find zem, vould you?”

Golden Masque blinked at the request. The fact that it was coherent and that these creatures spoke Equuish was surprising enough, but their request was even stranger. “Autobots?” Golden Masque parroted, confused, looking around his troupe to see the other ponies just as befuddled by the request beneath their terror. Eventually he turned back to the giant metal creature. “I’m afraid I’ve never heard of them.”

The creature frowned, pursing his metallic lips. The expression quickly reverted back into a smile as he shrugged his large shoulders. “Ah vell… So it goes.”

For a split second, Golden Masque began to relax.

“Seems ve vill have to bring zem to us,” he continued, reaching up to place a hand on the forest-green monster’s shoulder. “Brawl, mein Freund! Let’s make some noise, shall ve?”

Behind his faceplate, the creature known as Brawl grinned maliciously. “Y’all spoil me rotten, Doc.”

Brawl cackled as he raised his hands, his six fingers folding backwards, turning the ends of his arms into massive, bulbous bludgeons, square red buttons popping out of hatches in what were once the palms of his hands. “You heard the Doc, boys!” He yelled out to the collected platoon. “Let’s give this planet a proper, down home, Decepticon how-do-you-do!” The Decepticon howled with maddened laughter as he charged at the stage, scattering the little ponies backstage just as he slammed his club-fist into it.

Ponies on the street outside were suddenly bowled over as the windows of the Théâtre de Nuit Étoilée all exploded outwards, sending shards of glass flying everywhere as a shockwave radiated out through the district. A dust cloud went up around the building, obscuring vision as the wind from the wave blew leaves off trees and hats off heads. The massive, gothic building that was the Théâtre trembled and shook as bricks and stones came loose and columns shuddered, gargoyles falling from the upper buttresses. The elegant building finally stopped putting up a fight and succumbed to gravity, archways and walls crumbling under their own weight and toppling to the ground, sending ponies running and screaming in terror as more clouds of choking dust were sent up. As ponies scattered, crying and shrieking, two massive figures emerged out of the dusty haze, flanked by a force of two dozen.

“Exquisite blow, mein Freund!” one said, brushing dust and rubble off of his chassis.

Brawl turned to Blitzwing, grinning behind his mask. “They don’t make ‘em like they used to! Place couldn’t even take a little poke!”

“Vell zen,” Blitzwing said with a nod, “ve’ll just have to see if ze rest of ze city proves a bit more stimulating.”

“You read my mind, Blitz,” Brawl said with a cackle as he charged off through the streets, reeling an arm back and thrusting it into another building, the red button on his club-fist making contact with its outer wall. There was a sound akin to a thunderclap and the wall was blown apart, debris scattering everywhere as another shockwave tore through the streets.

Blitzwing shook his head with a smile. “Such shoddy workmanship,” he tutted. “Zen again, it vas made by fleshbags. Vhat can you expect?” He turned to the rest of his forces. “Vell? Vhat are you all vaiting for? Go and have some fun, boys!”

The two dozen Vehicons saluted briskly, then transformed into their alt-modes, twelve of them cars and the other twelve jets, and scattered down the streets and through the air. In minutes, pandemonium had descended upon Canterlot.

* * *

Sixteen sets of hooves and one pair of clanking metal legs stampeded down the castle hallway. Maids and servants were forced to duck out of the way, leaping into adjacent rooms, just to keep from being trampled underhoof by the charging collection of ponies.

At the front of the charge was the Royal Guard, led by Shining Armor and followed closely by Flipsides, Sunstorm, and Dirge, with Corporal Ethereal Vision just behind those three. The guards all wore masks of calm, grim determination as they led the stampede through the twisting halls of Canterlot Castle towards the Grand Balcony.

Coming up right behind the guards were the Princesses themselves. The two royal alicorns had reacted vastly differently to the announcement that Canterlot was once again under attack. Princess Luna had erupted in fury, her face twisted into an angry snarl as she charged after her lunar guards. Meanwhile, Celestia had descended into a grim calm, a stable, stony frown set upon her face. Impressively keeping pace with the two of them was Big Macintosh. The massive farmer was barrelling through the hallways like a cannonball or torpedo.

Directly behind them were five of the Elements of Harmony. That number was quickly reduced to three, though, as Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash both silently asked themselves what in the world they were doing running. Rainbow quickly flapped her wings and took off, dashing ahead of the procession. Twilight, meanwhile, lit her horn and teleported off into the distance ahead. This left Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack to continue their charge as they followed the Princesses to wherever they were leading them.

And finally, right behind them was the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo struggled to keep up with the adults, though Applebloom had no trouble as she sprinted forward on her two long legs. Her stride was long enough to keep pace with her sister as she charged through the halls. And finally, taking up the rear was Cheerilee, still shaking off the last of her dizziness, and Fluttershy, who was supporting the unstable schoolteacher with a wing as they jogged behind the rest of the group.

Applebloom looked back at her struggling teacher and her friends just barely keeping pace with the rest of the group and frowned. “Hang on!” she called back to the three of them, before closing her eyes in concentration. The familiar shifting feeling washed over her again and with a clanking, crunching noise of shifting metal, she seamlessly went from running on her two long legs to rolling along the ground on four wheels. In wagon form, she rolled to a stop in front of the other crusaders and the schoolteacher. “Hop in!” she shouted to the three of them as Fluttershy took off to join the rest of the Elements of Harmony. Wordlessly, Cheerilee and her two students clambered into Applebloom’s open top and the little wagon took off, quickly catching back up with the rest of the group.

The massive double doors that separated the interior of the castle from the Grand Balcony crashed open violently, nearly flying off their hinges as the stampede emerged into the open dusk air. The guards, Princesses, and remaining Elements quickly ran past the ornate patio furniture, knocking over chairs and tables, coming to rest alongside Twilight and Rainbow Dash at the marble balcony. The Crusaders and Cheerilee quickly bailed out of Applebloom, who shifted back into her robot form to get a better look at the city below.

She could only gasp at the sight.

At least a quarter of the city seemed to be crumbling before her eyes. Even from halfway up Canterlot Castle, she could see buildings collapsing and falling to rubble in the city below. Ponies ran and screamed in panic as their homes and businesses crumbled to dust or were set aflame. Choking columns of dust and smoke wafted into the air over the ruined theater district. Pegasi were flying to and fro, trying to put out the fires and redirect the air so the dust wasn’t so debilitating, but they were constantly forced to scatter and retreat as blinding flashes of light burst out of the dust towards them. Applebloom watched as a blast of light grazed a pony’s wing and the limb was practically vaporized, leaving behind only a blackened husk where there had once been feathers and flesh. The unfortunate pegasus careened out of the sky, only to crash through the window of a half-wrecked building below.

In the midst of all the carnage were the same sorts of metal monsters that Applebloom had fought in the schoolyard. Purple, cycloptic Decepticons fired their plasma blasters into the windows and doors of businesses and homes all over the city. The structures that didn’t immediately explode or collapse were set aflame. Some of the Decepticons took a more physical approach to the destruction, punching and kicking at building walls until they crumbled beneath the assault. Other Decepticons weren’t as focused on causing destruction to the city as much as they were intent on harming the citizens below. They grabbed and shot their blasters at the ponies screaming and scattering around their feet. Thankfully, they seemed to be more interested in toying with the ponies than outright killing them, at least at the moment, but that didn’t stop ponies from having limbs and tails scorched by the blasters or from being picked up in their metallic claws and chucked like baseballs across the city.

The guards had long since mobilized, white and gray ponies dressed in gilded armor charging towards the Decepticons as opposed to away from them. Unfortunately, they seemed to be doing little to stop the Cons. At best they seemed to be irritating them. Magic blasts seemed to stun them temporarily, but not enough to knock them over or incapacitate them. And once the monsters had shrugged it off, they would turn on the guards, trying to stomp them flat or swiping at them with their claws or firing at them with their own blasters. This caused the guards to quickly end up scattered and unable to resume formation as the Cons tried to destroy them.

Pegasi and Earth ponies fared no better. Any attempt to gather clouds and create a storm was disrupted whenever the Decepticons noticed what they were doing. A single shot from a blaster would cause the budding stormcloud to dissipate and force the guards to scatter to the winds. The Earth ponies fared perhaps the worst of the lot. Though their increased strength seemed capable of denting and actually causing the metal chassis of the attacking robots to crumple and bend, the damage was ultimately insignificant. Worst of all, they were forced to get in close to the attackers to attempt attacking at all, and that proved painful at best for most of the intrepid guardsponies.

And yet, the guards certainly seemed to be slowing the advance of the Decepticons as they desperately tried to keep them from doing any further damage, but it was obviously not enough. Their numbers were dwindling and reinforcements were not coming in fast enough. Furthermore, most of the ranks had their hooves full with getting civilians to safety and were struggling with having to choose between either saving lives or trying to take down the ones that were threatening them. Officers in the field were barking orders and trying to rally the troops, but the situation was so chaotic and violent and escalating so quickly that it was hard to even get a bead on what was going on around them, let alone come up with a winning strategy. The attack had just come too quickly and unexpectedly, and had escalated far too fast that they were very quickly becoming overwhelmed.

It only took moments for Applebloom to take the picture in from the safety of the balcony but the horror of the scene before her made those moments feel like hours. The little robot fell to her knees as she watched a building not too far from the castle gates explode into pieces, ponies being tossed out of the structure like rag dolls.

“I did this…” Applebloom repeatedly whispered to herself. “I did this...”

Princess Luna wasted no time in leaping over the edge of the balcony, a blue mist encircling her and coalescing into shimmering onyx armor. A familiar helmet formed around her head and a shimmering breastplate sprung into existence around her chest and underbelly. A black sword appeared in the air beside her as she rocketed off into the fray.

“Luna, wait!” Celestia called, but it was too late. Luna had already engaged with one of the purple decepticons hundreds of feet below. Celestia exhaled evenly, gazing upon the city below. Quickly she turned to the guards alongside her. “Flipsides,” she said, addressing the mulberry guardsmare, who snapped to salute at her name being called. “Rally my guard. Do whatever you can to stop this carnage.” She turned to the two batpony guards. “Dirge, Sunstorm… I know it isn’t my place to give you orders, but your commanding officer seems to have charged on ahead.” The two guards bowed to her as she continued to speak. “Rally the rest of the lunar guard. I want you to work with my personal guard to help repel these invaders. Go now!”

Flipsides, Dirge, and Sunstorm all saluted before retreating into the castle. Celestia turned her attention to Shining Armor. “Captain Armor,” she ordered, the unicorn snapping to attention, “I want you to rally the guard in the castle. Raid the armory of all the weaponry you can and revive what’s left of our cavalry. We need to strike back against these monsters with everything we have.” She cocked her head towards the city. “I also need you to send a message to the guards out in the field. Tell them reinforcements are coming, better equipped to deal with the creatures. Tell them to hold the line until they arrive, and once they do, focus on getting civilians to safety.” Shining Armor nodded and ran off behind Flipsides, Dirge, and Sunstorm.

“What about us, Princess?” Twilight spoke up. “What can we do to help?”

Celestia looked at her student with a sad smile. “I can’t ask you to fight in this battle, my little ponies. You’ve already done so much for this realm.”

“Like hay!” Rainbow Dash shouted, throwing her hooves up in the air. “We’re not going to let Canterlot get trashed when we can do something to stop it!”

“Quite right!” Rarity agreed. “We’ve gone up against Nightmare Moon, Discord, and twice against Queen Chrysalis. We can handle ourselves in a fight, Princess.”

Princess Celestia looked between the six ponies and smiled faintly. “Very well, my little ponies. You all make me very proud” The princess lit her horn and conjured a white rod inlaid with a spiraling, golden band. She floated it over to Fluttershy, who took it in her hooves.

“What is this, your majesty?” Fluttershy asked, clutching it gently.

Celestia nodded at the yellow pegasus. “That key will open the door to the Element Vault,” she explained. “I want you and Pinkie Pie to go and collect the Elements of Harmony for me. When you have them, run to the courtyard and ring this.” She lit her horn again and conjured a silver flute, which floated over to Pinkie Pie. “That will summon me, and I shall gather the six of you.”

“You can count on us, Princess!” Pinkie Pie said with an exaggerated salute, before lowering her head and pushing her muzzle under Fluttershy’s undercarriage. “Come on, Flutters!” she squealed, flipping the yellow pegasus up and onto her back before charging into the castle.

“The rest of you, come with me,” Celestia said, addressing Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash. “We will help hold the line until the Elements can be gathered.”

“What about me, Princess?”

All eyes turned to the speaker. Applebloom looked over the edge of the balcony, her mouth set in a flat, grim line. She didn’t look at any of them as she continued to stare down at the carnage below.

Celestia shook her head. “Applebloom, no,” she replied. “I’m not going to ask you to fight this battle. You’ve fought enough for a while.”

Applejack stomped a hoof and continued where the princess left off. “And there ain’t no way I’m letting you down in that fight there with us!” she exclaimed. “Not when I just got you back, Bloom.”

“But this is my fault!” Applebloom shrieked, wheeling around on the ponies and pointing down at the chaos in the streets below. “I did this! If it hadn’t been for me, they would never have come here! They can track me!” she wailed, gripping the marble railing hard enough that it began to crack between her fingers.

“Applebloom, listen to me,” Celestia said, stepping up to her, her eyes firm but her voice gentle. “You had no part in any of this. You are not responsible for what these monsters have done. You had no control over whatever they used to track you, and nopony here blames you for this.”

“No pony, maybe…” Applebloom muttered darkly.

Celestia frowned sadly and opened her mouth to say something, only to be cut off by a particularly close explosion from the city below. The princess turned, only to watch another three pegasus guards get shot out of the air by blasts of energy. The princess sighed sadly and turned back to Applebloom, looking her in the eyes. “Applebloom, I have to go, but we’ll talk more about this later.” She laid a hoof on her shoulder. “I promise.”

Applebloom averted her gaze.

Celestia turned to Cheerilee and Big Macintosh. “How about you two take the fillies to the kitchens. I think they’ve earned something good after a long day.” She then turned to Corporal Ethereal, who saluted when he noticed his princess’ gaze upon him. “Corporal, please escort the five of them.”

The schoolteacher looked out at the carnage anxiously, then turned back to Celestia and the three fillies and nodded. “Alright, your majesty. Come along, girls.” She motioned to the fillies, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle following her towards the door.

Celestia nodded in return and then gathered her magic in her horn. In moments, a golden helm appeared upon her head, replacing her crown. The helm curved down her muzzle, stopping at the end of her snout, and curved down the back and sides of her head, giving her protection all the way down her long, slender neck. Her necklace had been replaced with a shimmering, gold-plated breastplate which curved around the contours of her body, covering her undercarriage and back. Her mane and tail were tied with golden bands, and her slippers got replaced by metal combat boots. Alongside her, a golden, glowing halberd appeared, held within her magical field at the ready. The princess then turned to the four remaining Elements of Harmony and lit her horn again, surrounding each of them in a golden glow. In an instant, each of the remaining Elements was wearing a set of armor similar to hers, though color coded to each of their tastes.

Rarity gasped as she looked over the sapphire blue armor she was now wearing. “Oh my, I’m not normally one for armor, but this is exquisite!”

With a mighty flap of her wings, Celestia was airborne. The princess gathered her magic once more and the Elements of Harmony found themselves floating in the air alongside her, held aloft in clouds of magic. Celestia turned back to Applebloom one last time. “We will talk, Applebloom,” she said, a distinct note of sadness permeating her voice.

Applebloom nodded slowly, but otherwise said nothing.

With that, Celestia turned back to the battle, three of the four ponies she held with her turning towards the city as well. Only Applejack continued to stare back at the balcony. “I’ll be right back, li’l sis! I swear!” she called to Applebloom. “Everything’s going to be–”

There was a flash of light and suddenly the five ponies were careening off into the distance, the four Elements of Harmony trailing behind Celestia in their golden glows, leaving a shimmering trail in the princess’ wake.

Applebloom sighed and turned to her two friends and teacher standing by the door, looking at her worriedly. Finally, Big Macintosh stepped up to her and placed a hoof on her side. “Come on Applebloom, let’s find a safe place to rest.”

Applebloom nodded, and followed her brother, her teacher and friends off the balcony and into the castle. Her eyes never once left the battle until they were inside and out of sight.

* * *

Celestia and the four Elements of Harmony careened out into the flaming city, fast enough that the resulting sonic boom could be heard even through the screams and explosions of the carnage. The destruction was already vast and was still spreading quickly across Canterlot. The Theater District was almost completely gone by this point, with only the most upper crust areas close to the castle having been spared. The carnage had otherwise spread to the very edge of the city.

“Where are we headed, Princess?” Twilight managed to call over both the destruction below and the rushing of wind in her ears as she hurtled alongside the princess, held aloft in her magic field.

Celestia pointed to the edge of Canterlot where the city hung over open air off the mountain. “We’re headed to where the most damage is currently being done. I have a feeling we’ll find the main culprits of this atrocity there.”

As if to punctuate her statement, a massive fiery explosion erupted at the end of the city, catching several buildings in its infernal embrace. The princess was about to say something else when she felt one of the magic fields holding the ponies burst. Whipping her head around, she spied Rainbow Dash banking off course towards a Vehicon, menacing a family of ponies in a ruined square down below. “Rainbow Dash, wait!” the princess called.

“Plum fool’s gonna get herself killed!” Applejack said, turning to the princess. “Put me down there!”

“And me!” Rarity called over the noise. “I don’t know how much I can do, but I can’t watch and let families get slaughtered!”

“But girls!” Twilight protested, only to be stopped as Celestia lowered the unicorn and earth pony to the ground below.

Celestia frowned as she spoke, but did her best to sound encouraging. “Harmony be with you, Applejack and Rarity.”

Applejack saluted clumsily as she was quickly lowered to the ground below in Celestia’s magic field. Rarity tried to bow, but found herself flipping head over hooves in the air before righting herself. The moment the two of them touched down, the magical aura winked out and Celestia and Twilight disappeared from the air above them, rocketing off towards the edge of the city.

All around them, buildings burned and structures crumbled. Applejack and Rarity looked around for their impulsive friend, only to catch a glimpse of the crimson blur of her armor with a rainbow contrail speeding behind it as it crashed at full speed into the back of a Vehicon’s head. The massive metal monster, who had been menacing a family of four, stumbled slightly before righting itself.

Rainbow Dash hammered the giant robot with her armored hooves as best she could, zipping around it and hitting it from all angles, though her blows had little effect. While the metal creature seemed to flinch briefly every time she landed a hit, there was no visible damage done to its body. Rainbow Dash paused her assault for a moment to turn to the family, still frozen and cowering in the square below. “Get out of here! Go!” she shouted to the ponies, which finally seemed to snap them out of their frozen state. The family sprinted down an adjacent street as Rainbow turned back to her foe.

The lull in her assault had given the Con time to get its bearings back, though. Just as Rainbow turned to face the massive robot again, a metal hand swiped through the air, crashing into her side and swatting her out of the air. Rainbow immediately lost all control and found herself careening into a pile of garbage cans at the base of a building.

“Rainbow!” Applejack shouted, sprinting over to the crashed pegasus’ side as she struggled to climb out of the garbage pile.

Rainbow Dash grunted as she righted herself. “I’m alright…” she groaned.

Applejack suddenly gasped, grabbing Rainbow and pulling her to the side. “Look out!” she shouted, managing to yank her out of the way just as a massive metal foot crashed against the ground where Rainbow had been a split second earlier. The two ponies fell atop each other in a tangle of limbs as they stumbled back away from the Vehicon’s towering form. The massive robot loomed above them, casting a vast shadow over the ponies in the twilight. Its red eye flashed, illuminating the street below it as it raised its cannon arm and took aim at the ponies. Applejack raised a hoof to cover her eyes.

Out of nowhere, a massive chunk of concrete collided with the side of the Vehicon’s face. The robot stumbled, thrown off balance by the attack, falling backwards and colliding with the buildings on the side of the street, windows shattering beneath its bulk and bricks falling from the walls.

“Take that, you ruffian!” Rarity shouted from the other side of the street, huffing and panting.

The robot seemed sufficiently dazed. Its thin, cycloptic eye flickered a little, though it didn’t go out, and the side of its face seemed thoroughly dented and damaged. Sparks flew from the side of its silvery face, showering the rest of its black and purple chassis. It transformed its cannon arm back into its three-clawed hand and tried to pull itself up, but it was too dazed and ended up slumping to the ground.

Rainbow Dash tried to leap into the air, fully intent on resuming her beatdown, only to be yanked to a halt as Applejack clamped her teeth around her tail. “Whoa, gal! Hold yer horses!” she shouted. “Goin’ off half cocked like that almost got you killed just now!”

“He’s down!” Rainbow shouted. “Let me finish him!”

“We don’t even know if you can finish him, sugarcube! Iff’n y’all haven’t noticed, they’re made of metal!” Applejack stomped an armored hoof. “We need to hole up n’ make a plan!”

“In here!” Rarity said, ushering the two of them to the other side of the street, gesturing to a mostly-intact corner cafe, before ducking inside herself. Applejack and Rainbow Dash looked at each other briefly before following after her. The three of them shut the door and locked it, for all the good they knew it would do them.

The first thing the three of them noticed was a large number of ponies whimpering at the back of the store, hiding behind the counter and in the kitchen area. Applejack looked over the lot sympathetically and was about to open her mouth to say something when Rainbow Dash piped up.

“Don’t worry, everypony!” she shouted into the cafe with a flap of her wings, stumbling a little before righting herself. “Rainbow Dash has you covered!”

“Really?” Applejack snorted, raising an eyebrow. “‘Cause y’all are swayin’ on yer hooves there after gettin’ smacked by that robot. ‘Sides, it was Rares over here who went n’took that bugger out.” She nodded aside at Rarity, who was checking out the front window of the cafe, keeping a watch out.

Rainbow grumbled and crossed her hooves.

“Unfortunately,” Rarity said, turning away from the window and trotting into the store, “I’m afraid there’s no way I can keep that sort of thing up.” The fashionista removed her helmet and wiped a hoof across her brow. Her violet hair was already matted and slick with sweat. “I’m not particularly skilled at heavy lifting and lobbing boulders at our foes is going to tire me out very quickly.”

“Well great,” Rainbow Dash grumbled. “We’ve taken out one robot. There’s at least twenty more out there, scattered around the city. I can’t seem to leave a dent in them, and Rarity’s already wussing out!”

“Excuse me?!” Rarity snapped. “I’ll have you know I am not ‘wussing out,’ Rainbow Dash. I am merely saying that I don’t have the magic to continue lobbing boulders around like some sort of common brute. My magic is far better suited to fine manipulation and precise action,” she explained, giving Dash a death glare the whole time.

“Right, because sewing the invading alien robots fancy dresses is going to do us so much good!” Rainbow snarked.

Applejack stamped a hoof. “Enough!” she shouted at the both of them before turning to Rarity. “I need you to find a way to use that precise magic of yours, Rares. We can’t have you keelin’ over in the middle of a fight, but we can’t have you sitting out either. Y’all get me?”

Rarity fumed for a minute, then took a deep breath and visibly settled down, replacing her helmet upon her head. “Alright…” she began, “I think… if you could find some sort of weak point on our foes, I might be able to exploit that. I can pinpoint it and hit it from afar.”

“Like a sniper bowpony?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Rarity shrugged. “More like threading a very large needle through a very rough, uneven sheath of fabric and then pushing it through very hard. I can’t promise anything more than I will give it my all, though.”

“We’ll take what we can get,” Applejack grunted, readjusting her emerald armor. “Rainbow and I will try and pin down a weak point that y’all can attack for massive damage. In the meantime, y’all stay clear an–”

Suddenly the wall crashed inward. The ponies in the back of the cafe all screamed in terror as the Vehicon the three of them had thought they’d downed crashed through the outside wall and into the middle of the cafe. Rubble fell from the walls and ceiling, pelting the ponies with bricks and plaster. The civilians in the cafe panicked, tripping over each other in a mad dash to try and flee the cafe as fast as possible. The ponies clustered around Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity, knocking them off balance as they tried to escape. The Vehicon seemed to relish in the chaos, swiping into the crowd with its clawlike hands, knocking ponies into walls and tables.

Rainbow quickly leaped into the air, attempting to resume her assault from earlier, only to be blindsided by a swipe from the Vehicon’s cannon arm. The massive limb swiped through the air, catching Rainbow in the belly before coming to a sudden, crashing halt against the wall, pinning the unfortunate pegasus.

“Rainbow!” Applejack and Rarity both cried. Rarity tried to alight her horn, only to be blindsided by a panicking stallion who crashed into her on his mad dash to the exit, throwing off her concentration as she tumbled to the ground. Applejack made a beeline for the Vehicon, leaping into the air and twisting in a desperate attempt to buck him in the chest. The earth pony found herself yanked to the side as the Vehicon caught her in midair and clutched her in his massive metal claw.

Applejack struggled, desperately attempting to free herself from the robot’s vice-like grip. The farmpony thrashed and twisted, powerful muscles straining against the Con’s iron clutches, making small amounts of headway only for the hand to shift and be thrust back to square one. AJ swore she heard the Vehicon chuckle sinisterly as the grip continued to tighten around her.

SHHHRRNNK!!

The grip suddenly released. Applejack fell to the floor, landing on her back with an ‘oof!’ as the impact winded her. Rainbow was released moments later as the robot’s cannon fell away from the wall, the chromatic pegasus falling to her belly on the cafe floor. Quickly getting her bearings and climbing to her hooves, Applejack looked up at her foe.

An onyx blade protruded from the robot’s neck. Sparks showered everywhere and a blue, glowing fluid leaked from a gaping hole that had been carved in its throat.

The robot sputtered and made a gurgling noise as its slit-like, cycloptic red eye flickered and finally went out. The Vehicon fell to its knees and finally slumped forward, crashing to the tiled floor of the cafe inches from the three ponies.

Four onyx-clad hooves landed atop the slain Vehicon’s back as a deep blue magical field surrounded the hilt of the sword, pulling it free from the dead robot’s neck. Princess Luna sniffed disdainfully at the deceased invader, before turning to Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow, giving them all a wry smirk. “Greetings, friends! We thanketh thee for the excellent distraction!”

The three of them all let out a sigh of relief. Rainbow Dash grunted and rolled her eyes. “Right. Distraction.”

Applejack let out a long breath. “Thanks, Princess. Y’all really saved our hides.”

“Think nothing of it, fair Applejack!” Luna said, lighting her horn and levitating the three ponies in her magical field. “Now come! The hunt is just beginning!”

* * *

Blitzwing stood at the edge of the hanging city of Canterlot, smiling genuinely to himself as he took in the city that the fleshbags had constructed. Not the buildings or streets or monuments, of course. Those were far less impressive than anything built on Cybertron during its heyday. No, what interested Blitzwing was the way the city was built into the side of the mountain.

“Truly remarkable,” Blitzwing commented as he looked out over the edge at the dizzying, several thousand foot drop below him, a waterfall nearby having turned a disgusting brownish gray from all of the ash and rubble in the city. “The meat have managed to construct a city suspended over nothing! The city must veigh thousands of tons, and yet it holds firm to the side of the mountain vith no pillars or foundations to support it! Their architectural engineering must be qvite advanced.”

A building exploded behind him, dust and rubble clearing to reveal Brawl, dusting himself off casually. “You serious?” he chuckled. “These buildings are falling over like they’re held together with nothing but gummed up oil and happy thoughts!”

“Hmmm, quite right,” Blitzwing conceded. “Such lazy and slipshod work cannot be tolerated upon such a marvel of engineering. We shall simply have to eliminate the whole city.”

“YOU SHALL DO NO SUCH THING!”

An earsplitting voice erupted through the air, sending Blitzwing’s audio sensors on the fritz momentarily as a blinding flash of light illuminated the edge of the damaged metropolis. Brawl and Blitzwing both were forced to shield their optics as a glowing form bright enough to render a bot sightless descended from the sky. Blitzwing was just able to make out a second glow at the very tip of the form before being forced to leap away as a superheated blast of energy was fired right where he was standing. Brawl leapt out of the way of a second blast not a second later.

The glow descended to the street and faded to reveal a magnificent white, winged unicorn clad in gold armor and levitating a halberd at her side. The pony was larger than any of the other meatbags they’d seen so far, but still barely managed to come up to Blitzwing’s thigh. Nevertheless, her demonstration of power immediately received a level of attention from the two Cons.

The pony slammed the butt of the halberd against the ground, creating a small shockwave. She turned her fiery glare upon Blitzwing, speaking loud enough to send lesser bots running and hiding, despite her size. “I AM PRINCESS CELESTIA SOL INVICTUS OF EQUESTRIA! DAUGHTER OF GALAXION THE GREAT AND FAUST THE GIVER! GODDESS OF THE SUN AND SHE WHO BRINGS LIGHT TO THE EARTH! I DEMAND YOUR IMMEDIATE SU–”

Princess Celestia Sol Invictus suddenly found herself bowled over and pinned under a giant block of concrete.

Blitzwing turned to his compatriot, who was clutching another massive lump of rubble. Somewhere over the carnage he faintly heard something cry “Princess Celestia!” but he ignored it, trying to shake off the ringing in his audio sensors.

Brawl dropped the concrete and scratched at the side of his head. “That was annoying,” he grumbled.

Suddenly the concrete boulder that had crushed the pony began to glow and smoke, heat rippling through the air around it. A resounding ‘CRACK’ was heard and the dripping, half-molten rubble fell apart, revealing a slightly scratched and frazzled Princess Celestia. The pony twisted her head, popping her neck, then fixed the two Cons with a dry, humorless smirk. “Few creatures have ever had the stones to attack me while I was speaking,” she commented.

Blitzwing raised what passed for an eyebrow. “Few of you fleshsacks have bothered to stand up to us. Even fewer have gotten back up when we’ve dropped a boulder on them.”

“I am no ordinary pony,” Celestia growled, her smirk disappearing.

“Is that what you meatwads call yourselves?” Blitzwing shrugged. “No matter,” he said, turning to his friend. “Brawl, vould you like to take this?”

Brawl grinned behind his faceplate. “Not if you want it, buddy.”

“No no, I insist!” Blitzwing said, gesturing toward the winged unicorn.

Brawl punched the palm of his hand. “Alrighty, then! Hit me!”

Blitzwing raised a hand and aimed the cannon on his arm at Brawl’s chest. A purple beam of light erupted from the barrel and struck Brawl dead on. Celestia was taken aback at the suddenness of the smaller one’s turning on the large one, only to shift back into a battle stance as she saw that he didn’t seem to be injured as a result. In fact, the massive robot was now enclosed in a glowing purple field, swirling over his form like liquid and reflecting the firelight burning in the city.

Celestia lit her horn again, building up another charge of solar energy at its tip. The newly supercharged Brawl took the moment to charge, making a beeline for the princess, head lowered and arms swinging. Celestia blasted a stream of condensed, superheated plasma at the charging robot. The blast knocked him off balance, causing him to stumble, but did no visible damage.

Brawl tripped, crashing into the ground directly in front of Celestia, still glowing purple with energy. Celestia took a split second to size her opponent up. The concussive force of her blast had knocked him off balance, though it hadn’t done any significant damage. What surprised the princess was that none of the heat of her solar flare had gotten through to him. No scorching, melting, or glowing metal could be seen on the robot’s chassis.

Brawl suddenly kicked out, catching Princess Celestia in the jaw and sending her skittering back along the pavement. She tumbled tail over teakettle, before righting herself and skidding to a halt on her hooves.

“A forcefield then,” Celestia muttered as Brawl clambered to his feet. “One that repels all forms of energy save for kinetic. Kinetic is weakened. Very well.” The princess lit her horn, summoning her halberd to her side. “It seems we will do this the old-fashioned way.”

Brawl took a fighting stance, his hands transforming into clubs once again, large red buttons glowing at their tips. “Come on, pretty pony princess,” he chuckled, sneering beneath his faceplate. “Let’s see what you got.”

“If you insist,” Celestia said, twirling her weapon before howling a battle cry and barrelling straight at Brawl. The enormous Decepticon took a swing at the princess in the air but Celestia ducked beneath it and struck a glancing blow across Brawl’s belly with the blade of her halberd.

Blitzwing watched the scuffle with amusement. The pony was putting up more of a fight than he would have expected. Perhaps this planet would offer something interesting beyond a passing architectural curiosity and impossible solar arrangement. He settled back, leaning against a mostly-intact tenement house, his wings scraping against the windows and causing them to shatter. Blitzwing watched as the princess swooped between Brawl’s legs, coming up the other side and striking him in the back of the head with her weapon. Brawl stumbled, but didn’t go over, instead shifting his balance so that he swung around, the back of his arm leading the swing and catching the princess in the side. Celestia hurtled through the air briefly before righting herself with her massive wings.

Blitzwing yawned. He hoped that when Brawl was done with the pony princess there’d be enough of her to bring back to the Darksyde. Unlike the other disgusting blobs of bone and gristle on this planet, she seemed capable of taking severe punishment and getting up not much worse for wear. He’d love to cut her open and see what made the pony princess tick.

His eyelids drooped a little as he thought about that though. Shockwave would probably take first crack at her, unfortunately. He wouldn’t be the one to get to do the dissection, not when Shockwave was such an enthusiast of such things. Not that you could really call Shockwave ‘enthusiastic’ about anything. He smiled dreamily as he continued to think, settling into the melody that surrounded him. Shockwave was busy with his chromatic energon and trying to reverse engineer their properties and make them compatible with Cybertronian tech. He probably wouldn’t have time to spare for a dissection like the one he was planning. The world seemed to dim around him as he started to drift off into–

Wait.

His optics snapped open as he was startled from his stupor. Pushing away from the wall, he strained his audio sensors. A melody, haunting and somehow dizzying, was clouding his mind. Shaking his head, Blitzwing scanned the street for the source of the tranquilizing music. It didn’t take long to pinpoint the source.

On a nearby rooftop, a small, purple unicorn pony was staring at him aghast, her horn lit up in a lavender glow.

Blitzwing grinned evilly. “So the princess brought a little friend vith her, did she?” He waggled a finger at the pony, as if scolding a naughty puppy. “That vas a clever trick, trying to knock me out.” The cannons on his back seemed to shift and twist, moving from aiming straight up at the sky to aiming in front of him at the purple pony on the rooftop. Blitzwing sneered. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that.”

Blitzwing opened fire. Short, rapid, staccato bursts exploded from the barrels of his cannons, pelting the upper levels of the building Twilight stood upon. She quickly lit her horn and teleported away from the onslaught of energy blasts, leaving Blitzwing to fire at empty air.

The Decepticon frowned, retracting his cannons. “Running Avay? How pathetic. Predictable for your kind, though. It seems only your leader has the ball bearings to–”

The Decepticon was cut off as a blast of purple energy collided with the back of his head. Blitzwing growled and wheeled around to see Twilight Sparkle smirking at him.

Blitzwing snarled. “Oh good. I vas hoping to fight a smaller, meatier version of Skywarp today.” The Con shifted his form. A piercing clanking noise rang through the street as Blitzwing’s head retracted into his body, his torso bulking up and his legs shifting beneath him, while his wings folded over the main mass of his body. In moments, Blitzwing had been replaced by a massive, metal tank with two mounted guns and wing-shaped armor plating. He trained his twin guns on Twilight’s position and opened fire once again, only for her to teleport out of the way once more.

Blitzwing’s sensors suddenly pinged as a shadow descended over him. Swiveling around, he caught sight of the purple unicorn’s horn aglow once more, causing a large storm cloud to coalesce above him. Before he could fire on the pony once again, a lightning bolt suddenly burst forth from the black, puffy mass. The lightning struck true, futzing with his sensors briefly, but doing no significant damage. The brief interference in his sensors threw off his ability to track the unicorn’s location, however, and he suddenly felt two massive impacts against his side, sending him tumbling through the street before coming to rest on his side.

The Decepticon transformed back into robot mode as his vision cleared. He noticed two massive chunks of rubble, not unlike the boulder Brawl had chucked at Princess Celestia sitting not far from him. Righting himself, he just barely managed to step out of the way of a third as it sailed past him down the street, crashing into a lamppost and crumpling the metal beneath it. Swiveling around, Blitzwing caught sight of the purple unicorn, her face twisted in concentration as she levitated three more enormous hunks of concrete.

Blitzwing quickly shifted back into his armored tank mode. The defense the form provided would keep him safe from the impacts, but he’d have to make sure not to get knocked over again. He couldn’t right himself without shifting back into robot mode, which would leave him vulnerable. He was pretty certain the unicorn had figured this out.

“Clever meat,” he said, impressed. “Observing your foe and extrapolating potential veaknesses, then exploiting them. Much more than I vould have given you credit for.”

“You underestimate us,” Twilight growled, hurling another block of concrete at him. Blitzwing swivelled his turret around, allowing the armored section to go broadside and take the brunt of the blow, keeping him stable.

“How could I not?” Blitzwing snickered. “Most of your kind ran and hid at the first sign of us. You and your princess are the first to put up any meaningful sort of fight.” Blitzwing punctuated his statement with another burst of rapid fire from his guns. Twilight barely managed to teleport away in time, the rubble she was levitating falling to the ground where she stood.

Blitzwing heard the crack of teleportation immediately behind him. The massive tank swiveled his turret around to face the unicorn, only to see her smirking. Her horn aglow, Blitzwing suddenly felt two impacts against his back as Twilight pulled the two hunks of rubble she’d dropped towards her rapidly, crashing them into Blitzwing’s rear.

Blitzwing lurched forward at the impact, his rear mildly dented and scuffed, but neither went down nor lost his balance. Twilight’s smirk immediately vanished as Blitzwing trained his guns on her. She could hear the smugness in his voice when he spoke.

“Ouch.”

Blitzwing opened fire.

Meanwhile, Celestia was busy going hoof-to-servo with Brawl. Unlike Twilight, who’d taken to guerilla tactics and long ranged magical strikes, Celestia was forced to get up close and personal with the gigantic bruiser, thanks to the force field Blitzwing placed around him reflecting most of her magical attacks. It muffled most of her physical blows as well, though at least those seemed to register to the robot. Celestia was at an extreme disadvantage, forced to use her smaller size to get in too close for Brawl to effectively hit. It also helped that she was still capable of using force fields of her own to counter his attacks.

Celestia beat her wings in Brawl’s face, throwing the Decepticon off and swiping a glancing blow across the top of his head with her halberd. The enchanted weapon would normally render such a foe asunder, but the force field caused it to glance off, merely giving the robot a minor blow to the head. Brawl swiped at her with one of his club-limbs, barely missing the tips of her hooves as Celestia vaulted over it. Celestia followed up her leap by crashing back down into his chest. Again, there was no visible damage, but the momentum of the blow sent the Decepticon staggering back. Brawl lost his footing, toppling backwards into another tenement house, causing the front wall of the building to cave in beneath him.

Brawl moved to get up, pushing his considerable bulk up from the ground, only to be knocked back down when Celestia rocketed into his face, hoof outstretched. Brawl’s head impacted the pavement hard enough to make it crack beneath him, but he was still undamaged as ever.

The Decepticon shook his head, shaking off the dizzying, if fruitless blow, when he suddenly found the blade of Celestia’s halberd at his throat.

Celestia’s eyes spoke of fire and pain as she bore her death glare down upon the Decepticon. She descended from the air to stand on the robot’s impressive chest as she continued to stare him down. “Why are you here, monster? Why did you attack my little ponies?”

Brawl’s faceplate and visor kept him from displaying any emotion, but the cackling laughter and the way his body shook beneath her told Celestia very clearly what he thought of her question.

Celestia scowled, raising her halberd and smacking him in the face with it, causing his head to smash against the pavement once more. “Answer me, cretin!” she shouted, her teeth grit.

Brawl raised his head ever so slightly to look at the princess. Were she able to see his wicked grin beneath his faceplate, she might have known to leap away. As Celestia stood atop him, Brawl’s chestplate suddenly opened up, revealing the mechanical organs and parts beneath. Celestia stumbled as her footing disappeared beneath her, her left hind leg falling slightly into Brawl’s chest. Just as she was about to recover, though, Brawl snapped his chestplate back closed, catching Celestia’s leg in between the retractable plates.

Celestia cried out in agony as a sickening crack rang out. Brawl cackled once more as her bones snapped between the shifting metal. Reining in her scream, Celestia grit her teeth, bit back the pain, and desperately shoved her Halberd into the gap between the metal plates where her leg was being crushed. Using her telekinetic strength and the enchanted weapon as a crowbar, she agonizingly pried the plates apart, just enough to free her mangled leg and lift off the robot and into the air.

Freed from Celestia’s pin, Brawl leapt to his feet, the massive cannon on his back reorienting itself on his back and lowering to aim at the pony princess as she struggled to stay aloft. Distracted by the pain and the difficulty flying, Celestia barely noticed the deadly weapon in time to throw a hasty force field up. A massive burst of plasma exploded from the tip of the barrel and crashed into her shield, sending her rocketing backward. Celestia tried to take the blow by planting her hooves against the ground and skidding to a halt, but the damage to her hind leg sent a lance of pain up her side as she tried to put weight on it. Her leg fell out from under her and she was sent tumbling.

“Y’all wanna know why we attacked you?” Brawl chuckled darkly as he casually paced towards the fallen princess. “Ain’t nothing personal against you and your kin, little missy. We’re just trying to draw out the Autobots. Once we take them out, we’ll leave you and your pretty little ponies alone. Probably.” He shrugged. “‘Til then, we get to have our fun, though.”

Celestia managed to partially lift herself with her forelegs, shooting Brawl a deadly glare as he approached. “The slaughter of innocents, the destruction of homes and the displacement of thousands… is fun to you?”

Brawl cocked his head, raising a hand and holding a finger and his thumb a small distance apart.

Celestia’s eyes narrowed. “Well I’m afraid I must disappoint you, fiend,” she growled dangerously. “There are no ‘Autobots’ on this planet.”

“Oilslick,” Brawl said. “We already got a report about an Autobot kicking Dead End’s aft. There’s at least one here, and the boss reckons there’s more.”

“Your leader is mistaken,” Celestia grunted as she struggled to her hooves, favoring her hind leg. “There are no Cybertronians living upon this planet. All of my people are born of Equis.”

Brawl shook his head. “See, just the fact you know what Cybertron is tells me you’re lying.”

“Believe what you want, but your leader is going to be disappointed,” Celestia said, her horn alighting.

Brawl shrugged once again as he loomed over the princess. “Maybe. No paint off my faceplate. I’m having enough fun just making you vermin scatter.”

“I suppose you get your kicks out of crushing your foes,” Celestia sneered.

“Ain’t nothing I like more,” Brawl chuckled, raising a massive foot. “Now hold still.”

A crack rang out as Brawl brought his foot crashing down into the pavement, causing it to shatter around him and creating a small crater in the middle of the street. He frowned, lifting his foot to see no crushed, pulpy mess beneath him. Not even a drop of blood or anything to indicate the princess had been crushed beneath him.

A whistle brought him out of his confusion. He turned his head to see Celestia hovering in the air a few yards down the street.

“Here’s the thing,” Celestia said with a wry smile. “Sometimes I like to get my kicks the same way.”

A massive shadow suddenly loomed over Brawl’s head. The Decepticon looked up to see an entire building hovering in Celestia’s familiar golden glow. Brawl grimaced behind his faceplate.

“Ah, slag.”

The building dropped.

Meanwhile, Twilight’s fight with Blitzwing had proven little more than a stalemate. Twilight continued to teleport out of the way of the Decepticon’s attacks, and she continued to cast spells at him. Some of them, like a modified version of a fireworks spell or normal concussive blasts affected him, albeit minorly, but other spells she had thought to use had little to no effect. Twilight had thought to use a Want-It-Need-It spell on a random brick of rubble to distract him, but he wasn’t affected in the least. Perhaps something to do with the lack of actual eyes in his tank form? He was obviously using some other means to sense the world around him in that form and the Want-It-Need-It spell required visual contact to work.

Twilight shook her head, barely managing to teleport in time before a plasma shot hit right where she’d been standing. This was no time to theorize about things like that. She had to focus on the fight.

Her attacks were doing some small damage to Blitzwing, but even without the force field he’d put upon his comrade, his defense was incredibly high. He was, after all, made of metal.

Given time, Twilight would almost certainly be able to wear him down. Assuming, of course, that she didn’t run out of mana first. It was a war of attrition as the two of them slowly wore each other down. The whole thing could take hours, or even days at this rate. Twilight frowned. That was unacceptable. This required a shift in strategy.

Twilight teleported once again to the top of a building and ducked behind a ventilation fan as she tried desperately to think of a new strategy. The purple pony racked her brain about how to defeat the massive robot.

The Want-It-Need-It spell didn’t work, so obviously the robot couldn’t see. So how did it always know where she was, she wondered. She bounced a few quick theories around her head before coming to one that seemed plausible. ‘Echolocation, perhaps,’ she thought to herself. ‘He detects soundwaves bouncing around with sonar, like a bat or a dolphin.’

Twilight frowned. There was no way to be sure just from speculation, of course. She needed to test the theory. Something quick and dirty and on the fly. Luckily, she knew a spell that would work.

Alighting her horn and closing her eyes, Twilight cast a “Quiet-As-A-Mouse” spell upon herself. She felt something shift within her as the spell took effect.

She stood and walked across the rooftop, her hooves making no noise whatsoever as they clopped against the tiles and to the edge of the roof. Blitzwing, still in tank form, was swivelling his turret around as if searching for her.

“Come on out, little pony,” the Decepticon sneered. “I know you haven’t run avay. If you think I’m going to shift forms so you can attack me, though, you have another thing coming.”

Twilight watched as the turret swiveled around completely several times. A few times, his guns even passed right over where she was standing at the edge of the roof. She laughed to herself, her voice making no sound. To make sure, she leaped in the air, waving and flailing her arms a few times, each time falling back to the roof completely silently. No reaction from the Decepticon whatsoever.

Twilight grinned. So he does use sonar to detect the world around him in his tank mode. With a plan in mind, Twilight soundlessly teleported back down to the street below and trotted into the middle of the street undetected.

The plan was simple enough. She would charge up a massive burst of magic and, as the Decepticon turned around to look for her, she would let it fire right into the space between his armor plating when he aimed away from her. With a triumphant grin, she lit her horn once again, a massive ball of energy forming at the tip. The magic swelled into a ball two… three… four times her own size. The whole time, the Decepticon called for her to stop hiding and face him. The turret was turning… turning… the shot was almost lined up.

‘Ready…’ she thought to herself.

‘Aim…’ the magic soundlessly pulsed at the end of her horn, almost enough to give her a headache.

Suddenly, just as she was about to let the shot loose, Blitzwing twisted around and changed back into his robot form. In one swift motion, the robot pivoted on one foot, lowering a cannon on his shoulder to aim at Twilight’s position, and firing a crackling ball of purple plasma straight at her. Twilight saw the whole thing in what seemed to be slow motion. She would have teleported, but with the amount of energy she’d put into her current spell she couldn’t just dispel it or channel it into a new one. Desperately she tried to leap aside.

The plasma blast exploded into the ground right at Twilight’s hooves, sending her reeling. The shock of the blast not only sent the little unicorn skittering down the street, but it also caused her to lose focus upon the spell, making it backfire. The massive ball of light winked out, causing Twilight to cry out, her silence spell shattering as the feedback from the backfired spell broke the effects of the magic and stunned her into a daze. She skidded down the street until finally crashing into the wall of a building.

Eyes spinning in her head and her vision blurry, Twilight just started to shake off the effects of the backfire and the plasma blast when she felt a massive metal hand close around her tightly. The little pony cried out as the vice-like grip squeezed her tightly, straining her ribs and organs beneath her armor.

Blitzwing sneered smugly at the little unicorn. “Nice try, but ve use both Sonar and Lidar vhen in vehicle mode.”

Twilight’s ears drooped. The Decepticon had tricked her.

“Now…” Blitzwing continued, smiling far too widely. “Ve can’t have you distracting us anymore. Vhat to do vith you… vhat to do…” He grinned evilly. “Ah, I’ve got it.”

Blitzwing suddenly chucked Twilight up into the air. She screamed and tried to use her magic to teleport, but her magic was still on the fritz after her spell backfired. She heard the Decepticon shifting below her, but was more focused on the fact that she had reached the apex of her ascent and was starting to fall back to the earth, easily sixty feet up in the air. Just as she started to descend, though, her fall was broken and she fell on something soft.

Dazed and confused, she looked around. She was sitting on a chair of some sort, though it took her a moment to understand where exactly it came from. She looked around, noticing she was sitting in some kind of purple metal bird or something. Twilight connected the dots quickly enough and gasped.

‘He has three forms!’ she realized with horror.

Twilight quickly tried to get to her hooves and bail out of the jet cockpit she had fallen into, but was trapped as a glass roof suddenly descended and trapped her inside.

“Ah ah ah, little pony,” Blitzwing taunted, his voice ringing around inside the cockpit and making Twilight wince. “You aren’t going anyvhere until I say so!”

Twilight screamed and banged on the glass to no avail as Blitzwing flew away from the city and over the mountainside. The ground quickly got further and further away as they left the city behind and soared over steeper and steeper parts of the mountain.

“Vell, it’s been a gas, little pony,” Blitzwing said as they soared over open air. “But I’m afraid this is vhere you get off. Gute Nacht, fraulein!”

Twilight desperately tried to clutch to the seat she’d fallen upon as Blitzwing suddenly twisted, flipping around rapidly in midair as he performed an aileron roll. The glass of the cockpit popped open, the wind hitting Twilight like a train and loosening her grip enough for the purple unicorn to slip free. Twilight shrieked as she sailed out of the cockpit and into open sky, limbs flailing and horn sputtering as the plane sped off into the distance without her.

Twilight fell.

______________________________

Celestia panted heavily, favoring her leg and leaning against her halberd beside the pile of rubble that she’d buried Brawl under moments before. Leaning to the side, Celestia spat out a wad of blood and shook her head, trying to regain her bearings after the exhausting fight with Brawl. The princess glared at her broken leg, quickly lighting her horn and conjuring a splint and gauze to set the bone. Her alicorn constitution would heal the bone quickly within a few days, but she’d have to watch that it didn’t get any more damaged for the rest of the fight.

Just as she was about finished attending her injury and was ready to return to the fight, though, she heard a faint voice crying out above the noise of the carnage. A voice she was intimately familiar with, screaming in terror. Her hair flying wildly behind her, she turned to the edge of the city, just in time to see a purple shape plummet past the city’s railing and fall out of sight. Celestia’s heart dropped like a stone as she gasped.

“Twilight!” she cried, lifting off into the air.

A crashing noise resounded through the street and Celestia found herself suddenly yanked back before stumbling and falling flat on the ground. The alicorn craned her neck to see Brawl, intact and alive, emerging from the pile of rubble. The force field had dissipated and there were a number of ugly looking dings and dents in his chassis, but he was otherwise none the worse for wear. The only thing that seemed to be truly damaged was his faceplate, which had fallen off, revealing a twisted grin beneath.

And the Decepticon had wrapped his gigantic hand around Celestia’s tail.

Celestia alit her horn and prepared to cast another solar blast, only to find herself lifted into the air by her tail. She arced over the Decepticon’s head before slamming back into the ground on his other side, flat on her back. Then back the way she came, cracking the pavement beneath her. Again and again and again, she was slammed back and forth, her armor creaking under the assault and her bones fracturing as she formed two craters in the pavement.

Finally Brawl let her go, slamming her one last time into the street, lying in a crater of rubble, dotted with her own blood. Dazed and concussed, Celestia blinked blearily as she slowly made out Brawl looming over her. She coughed up another wad of blood, her eyes beginning to focus as she caught sight of Brawl’s hand shifting into its club form again, the bright red button at the end blinking angrily at her.

Brawl sneered at the fallen form of the princess.

“Puny Goddess.”

His fist came down. The button drove into her chest.

An explosion rocked the south side of Canterlot.

______________________________

Blitzwing flew back over the city, transforming back into robot mode in midair and touching down with a perfect three-point landing. Straightening up, the purple and white Decepticon brushed off some errant dust and ash on his shoulder and walked casually through the street. “Brawl mein freund?!” he called out. “Are you there?!”

“Over here, Blitzy,” Brawl said, emerging from a side street, rotating his shoulder in its socket and grinning madly. “Just got done killing a Goddess. How slagging awesome is that?!”

“Beachtlich…” Blitzwing said, quirking a metallic eyebrow. “I see she managed to hit you through ze force field.”

“Dropped a building on me,” Brawl said with a shrug. “I walked it off.”

Blitzwing nodded, humming. “This presents an issue though,” he muttered. “It seems these meatsacks are somevhat more capable than ve first anticipated. If ve come upon too many more varriors of their kind, ve might actually find ourselves hindered in our search for the Autobots.”

“Ah, we can take ‘em,” Brawl scoffed. “Besides, how many more can there be?”

Blitzwing shook his head. “Nein. Ve must not make the same mistake Dead End did and underestimate our opponents. Getting cocky is vhat led to him losing half his face.”

Brawl grunted. “What do you want to do, then?”

“Simple enough,” Blitzwing said, pulling a communication device off of his leg. “Ve call for reinforcements.”

Brawl grumbled, casually leaning back against another tenement house and shattering its windows while crossing his arms. Blitzwing stepped over to the edge of the city and turned a dial on the comm device, speaking into it. “Blitzving to Herr Shockvave. Can you hear me, Lord?”

“Report, Blitzwing,” came the monotone reply.

“Ve have successfully made noise in the city. So far, no sign of the Autobots,” Blitzwing spoke.

The reply was immediate. “Keep drawing attention to yourselves, then. Do not contact me until the Autobots have been terminated.”

Blitzwing steeled himself. “Vith all due respect, Herr Shockvave, ve’ve run into a snag.” The comm device was silent, though a small light on its side plainly showed it was still active. Blitzwing took the silence as prompt to continue. “Ve have encountered a number of the native species that vere capable of taking us on. Ve have since dispatched them, but ve do not vish to underestimate ze native forces any further. Ve do not vant to make the same mistakes Dead End made.”

“You require reinforcements,” came Shockwave’s reply.

“It vould be preferable, Ja,” Blitzwing confirmed.

There was silence for a few tense moments. Blitzwing gulped quietly as Shockwave mulled over his request. Finally their leader replied.

“It is done.”

Blitzwing grinned. “Excellent! Danke, Herr Shockvave. How many sqvads did you send?”

“Zero,” he said, simply.

Blitzwing blinked. “I don’t understand, Herr Shockvave.”

If Blitzwing hadn’t known his commander, he might have suspected a note of smugness and satisfaction to Shockwave’s reply. “I have sent you something much more effective than squads, Doctor. Call again only when your mission is complete.”

The comm went dead in Blitzwing’s hand. Brawl lumbered over to him, a curious look upon his face. “What do y’all suppose he meant by ‘more effective?’”

Blitzwing opened his mouth to reply, when he was suddenly cut off by a massive green hole ripping open in the sky further into the city, a twisted, gnarled mass of metal tumbling out of the GroundBridge and crashing into the town below. A cloud of dust burst up from the ground and dissipated into the air, carrying a howling, ear-rending shriek.

* * *

Princess Luna, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity were in the middle of the theater district, fighting for their lives against a quartet of vehicons. The giant purple footsoldiers bore down on the ponies as they desperately tried to find a weak point in their impenetrable metal hides.

Princess Luna was having the most luck. The night alicorn flew hither and fro between the invaders, slashing her sword across their chassis, sparks flying every time blade met armor. Though the princess was able to score shallow cuts, they were not enough to fell the beasts. And any time she managed to line up what could be a killing blow, she would be forced onto the defensive by her foes, who quickly pegged her as the most dangerous of the attacking ponies and saw fit to gang up upon her.

Applejack and Rainbow were having little luck trying to pin down a weak point for Rarity or Luna to potentially exploit. Applejack did her best on the ground, kicking wildly at the robots’ legs. She barely managed to avoid their stomping, crushing feet as she tested their knees and shins against her kicks. She found herself capable of throwing them briefly off balance and landing minor dents in their armor, but nothing she did seemed to have any lasting effect.

Rainbow, meanwhile, was ricocheting between the robots like an out-of-control pinball. The cyan mare pumped her wings fast enough that they blurred as she bounced between the footsoldiers at speeds unattainable by any other pony, only for her blows to glance off. At best, she caused small dents in the armor, same as Applejack. Despite aiming for armpits, elbows, and necks, her attacks were barely stunning them. Her hooves ached from the repeated attempts to kick and punch the attacking robots. She was seriously beginning to get worried that, even with her awesome armor, she was doing more damage to herself than to the robots.

Rarity, meanwhile, was staying out of the fray as much as she could, instead deigning to aid with the evacuation of the townsfolk. The alabaster unicorn ran ahead of the fight as it rampaged down the street, directing civilians as best she could away from the melee. Occasionally, she would come across a wounded civilian and pull them aside to dress their wounds with whatever she had at hoof. This generally meant tearing up curtains in nearby shops to use as bandages and breaking off table and chair legs to use for splints. Beyond quick and dirty patch jobs and crowd control, though, Rarity was useless in the fight, at least until a weak point could be identified.

Salvation came, though, ironically at the hands — or rather, hand — of one of the attacking Decepticons.

Rainbow Dash continued to rocket between the various attackers, slamming against their solid bodies to little effect. As she barreled towards a vehicon currently engaging Princess Luna, however, her would-be victim suddenly swiped at her with his massive clawed hand. Without enough time to stop or change course, Rainbow took the full brunt of the swipe and was sent hurtling away. Her vision swam and her senses reeled as she spun through the air, only to come to a sudden stop against something hard, her foreleg smashing straight through a pane of glass. Rainbow groaned, assuming she’d been thrown into the side of a building. Until she realized…

...buildings don’t scream.

Rainbow shook her head and opened her eyes, to see that she had been swatted right into the face of another Vehicon. The Con in question was thrashing around, trying to dislodge the rainbow pegasus, but was having trouble.

The reason quickly became obvious to Rainbow Dash. Her foreleg was lodged deep in the Vehicon’s eye socket. The thin, glowing red visor had been shattered and Rainbow’s right foreleg was lodged knee-deep in the attacking robot’s face. The Vehicon shrieked and howled in agony as Rainbow panicked, struggling to free her leg from the Con’s eye socket. She wiggled her leg around desperately, trying to free herself, feeling her hoof crash and clank against gears and mechanisms inside the robot’s head. With a final howl of pain, the Vehicon fell over, twitching violently. Rainbow barely managed to pull herself free before the Con crushed her beneath its weight.

Rainbow panted as she ascended back into the air. “Holy horseapples, that was close!” she muttered to herself, before realizing the situation at hoof.

“Wait, that’s it!” she called out, turning back to the battle. “Everypony! It’s the eye! Their weak point is their eyes!” she cried out to her allies over the din.

“What?!” Applejack snarled, desperately avoiding a Decepticon’s foot as she rolled to the side of the road. “That weren’t the first place y’all tried to hit?!”

“Cut me some slack!” Rainbow said, swooping down and snatching up Applejack, just before another Decepticon tried to crush her beneath its heel. Rainbow flew across the street and let the earth pony down. “These guys aren’t exactly keen on letting me near their faces! Anytime I tried to get near them, they’d swipe at me!”

“Whatever!” Applejack grunted as she jumped back into the fray, kicking at another Con’s knees. “Just find Rarity and get her into position!”

Rainbow nodded, rocketing down the street to where Rarity had just finished bandaging a filly’s broken leg and sending her on her way down a side street. The fashionista barely had time to yelp as she was swept off her hooves by Rainbow, who lifted her into the air and onto a nearby rooftop. “Find a weak point, did we?” she gasped as she found her footing again.

“Their eyes!” Rainbow said, pointing at the nearest Decepticon’s face as it tried to fire a burst of plasma at Princess Luna, who had just taken a chunk out of its comrade’s shoulder.

Rarity nodded, alighting her horn and summoning three long javelins Princess Luna had conjured for her earlier. “Very well then. Distract them while I make the shots.”

Rainbow saluted, darting back into the middle of the brawl, continuing her ricochet between the remaining three Vehicons.

Rarity took a deep breath, levitating the first of her javelins and aiming at the nearest Decepticon. The massive brute was currently engaged, trying to stomp Applejack into the pavement. The earth pony was deftly dodging the Decepticon’s strikes, but the sweat pouring down her face told Rarity her friend was quickly getting exhausted. Focusing back on the Vehicon’s face, the unicorn let her breath go, shutting out everything except her target.

‘Needle and thread…’ she thought to herself, charging her horn and imbuing the javelin with energy. Rarity hummed a small tune to herself to focus her thoughts. Moments later, she let the spear fly.

The javelin sailed through the air, barreling through the air at a speed that would make Rainbow Dash blush were she not currently occupied.

The weapon struck true, lodging itself deep in the invader’s eye socket. The Con screamed and fell backwards, crashing into a building and causing it to partially collapse beneath its weight. The Vehicon went limp moments later, the life ebbing from its body.

“WA-HA-HAA!” Rarity cheered. “I did it! I got him!” she shouted, only to notice that the noise of the fight had suddenly died down. Blinking, the unicorn turned to see the two remaining vehicons staring right at her.

“Uh-oh…” Rarity managed to squeak.

The two Vehicons charged towards her, raising their plasma cannons and training their sights directly upon her. Yelping in panic, Rarity quickly focused her energy upon a second javelin and let it loose. Like the first one, it sailed through the air at an utterly obscene speed. This time, one of the Vehicons actively tried to block the spear’s path but the weapon was too swift, crashing through the Con’s visor and sending him slumping to the ground.

Unfortunately, by the time she had the third Javelin ready, the final Con was looming over her, raising his cannon arm to her face. The purple glow intensified, Rarity fruitlessly trying to throw up a hasty shield and–

SCHLINK!!!

The glow went out, leaving Rarity blinking and trying to regain her vision. When the spots finally cleared from her eyes, she saw Princess Luna standing in front of her, her sword lodged deep in the Decepticon’s eye.

Rarity felt herself let out a long breath of relief. “Thank you, Princess,” she muttered weakly.

Luna withdrew her sword from her foe’s eye, the massive robot slumping to the street below. “Think nothing of it, fair Rarity.”

Moments later, Rainbow and Applejack crested the edge of the building, the prismatic pegasus dropping the farmer atop the roof alongside Rarity. Luna turned to the three of them, giving them all a grin. “Our guards have managed to rout several of the attackers. We have managed to fell about a third of their forces already, and the cavalry and main guard platoon still has yet to mobilize.” Luna nodded at the three of them. “The reinforcements shall arrive momentarily, and we have found a new strategy to fell these creatures! Though the fight is not yet over, should the battle continue as it is, we are sure to be victorious!”

The four ponies all shared a brief cheer with each other, but were immediately cut off from their revelry as a massive green vortex opened in the sky over a nearby city block. The tear in the sky twisted and undulated, green sparks flying everywhere as a shrieking sound like twisted metal or a hoof upon a chalkboard resounded through the streets. The ponies all clutched their ears and gasped as a massive shape, black as pitch, fell through the portal. The form was all twisted limbs and jagged metal plates and spires. Time seemed to slow down as it fell to the city below, crushing buildings, trees, and roads beneath its massive bulk as it slowly unfurled itself. Eight massive, insectoid legs curled out from the main body, each of them covered in spikes and whirring blades. A pair of massive pincers appeared in the front, snapping at buildings and crushing them in their vice-like, bladed grips. Its mandibled face somehow seemed to sneer and chuckle, its voice a throaty, gasping noise, like a death rattle raised by a hundred decibels. Finally, a long, segmented tail, at least as long as the rest of the creature’s body unfurled itself from the rest of it, clanking and clicking as the metal all settled into place, revealing both a massive bayonet and a gigantic cannon at its tip, arched dangerously and threateningly over its insectoid head. It was plain for all the ponies to see what form the massive monstrosity of a robot had taken as it crushed the city beneath its feet. A giant, robotic scorpion.

“Whoa nelly…” Applejack said, marvelling in horror at the towering creature.

Luna frowned to herself. “This changes things…”

* * *

Blitzwing grinned as he heard the ponies scream from halfway across the city. The mad doctor chuckled to himself, before bursting out into a full blown cackle.

“Velcome to the fight, Scorponok.”

Author's Note

>>>> RELEVANT BLOG POST <<<<

Like I said. PULSE POUNDING ACTION™

I noticed a lot of people were expecting the Princesses to go full god-mode on the Decepticons. Hopefully people aren't too disappointed that that isn't the case. You have to understand, as satisfying as it is to watch a Big Good character smite their foes effortlessly, it doesn't exactly make for good storytelling given the context that's built up and how much there is left to show. There's a narrative reason that Celestia didn't win against Chrysalis.

(The bigger problem with that episode was HOW she lost against her, but I digress.)

Anyway, my point is that I hope that doesn't put too many people off. just remember the old saying, though, that things are darkest before the dawn.

You'll also notice a distinct lack of Applebloom fighting in this chapter. Rest assured, she's going to be joining in soon enough. This chapter was meant to illustrate that the ponies, by themselves, are outmatched. They're going to need help to turn the tide.

Also, in case you're wondering what Brawl's special ability/attack is, let me introduce you to the P.O.K.E.

Anyway, I'm hoping my new writing schedule/practices will allow me to get the next chapter out in about two or three weeks. Things will be a lot faster now, I guarantee. No more two-month-plus waits between chapters. I'm going to finish this story if it kills me.

Hope you enjoyed. Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion to this fight scene!

Ch12: Turn of the Tide

___________________________________________________________________________________

Applebloom: Transform and Rollout!
by Dusty the Royal Janitor

Chapter 12: Turn of the Tide

The kitchens in Canterlot Palace were a sight to behold. When Applebloom thought of a kitchen, she tended to think of the old, rustic kitchen at the Apple Family homestead with wooden cabinets and countertops, old-style ovens and stoves, and the scent of apples ingrained into the very walls. The kitchens in the palace put her little kitchen to shame. The room was vast, probably larger than the whole bottom floor of her house, with rows of long counters covered in stoves and ovens and cabinets running from end to end. Large vents opened over the stoves, hanging down from the ceiling, covered in dials and with brass cooking tools hooked onto them. In the back of the room, a massive door that looked like it belonged on a bank vault opened into the enormous walk-in refrigerator, and another door led into an even bigger pantry. One could only wonder what the place was like when it was busy with dozens upon dozens of ponies bustling around to make enough food to feed an army.

Applebloom wasn’t impressed by any of it right now.

The little robot looked around the kitchen dejectedly, watching disinterestedly as Cheerilee helped her brother fry up some apple fritters. Her teacher fumbled around with the ingredients and utensils, making something of a mess thanks to her lack of experience. Luckily her brother had enough skill for the both of them and seemed to be making up for it.

Her friends were sitting next to her upon barstools at a large white counter in the center of the impressive kitchens, chattering animatedly. Applebloom wasn’t sure what they were talking about. She wasn’t really listening. She was too focused upon what she saw upon the balcony and how much she had to answer for, to the Princesses, her family, and all the citizens of Canterlot. Applebloom leaned forward and buried her face in her hands, trying to shut the world out, when she suddenly felt a small hoof prodding into her side.

“Applebloom?” came Sweetie Belle’s voice, “Applebloom! Are you even listening?!”

Applebloom looked up from her hands to see that both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were watching her expectantly. Sweetie Belle appeared concerned, but if anything Scootaloo looked a little bit annoyed. Applebloom sighed. “Sorry, girls. What’s up?”

“We’ve been trying to talk to you for ten minutes!” Scootaloo snapped. “You just kept drifting off into the sparkly land of lollipops and gumdrops on us!”

Applebloom wilted. “Sorry, I was just thinking about what we saw on the balcony,” she said weakly.

“That’s what we were talking about!” Scootaloo snapped, throwing her hooves up in the air. “We were trying to tell you that this wasn’t your fault! None of that stuff we saw was because of you!”

Applebloom shot a glare at Scootaloo. “How can you say that?” she asked harshly. “I’m the reason they came!” Applebloom slammed a fist down on the counter, cracking the marble surface slightly and making a bunch of plates stacked upon it rattle as she continued to rant. “You heard them! They said they were looking for an ‘Autobot!’ That’s me!” The energy suddenly left her as she leaned forward, resting her head on the edge of the counter. “If I hadn’t ever transformed into this they wouldn’t have come,” she mumbled dejectedly.

“You can’t know that,” Sweetie Belle protested. “We don’t know how they found Equestria.”

“Well it sure can’t be a coincidence that they found it the day after I turned into this, now can it?” she grumbled, motioning to herself with one hand.

“Probably not,” Scootaloo said, still frowning. “But you didn’t call them here. You didn’t want them to show up and attack. They came on their own because they’re big fat jerks who can only get their kicks by making ponies miserable.”

Sweetie Belle nodded. “Like Diamond Tiara, but bigger.” She frowned, tilting her head. “And metal. And alien. And more violent. And they can shoot lasers. And―”

Scootaloo reached over and placed a hoof over her friend’s muzzle. “Yes, Sweetie Belle, we get it.”

Sweetie knocked the hoof away and smacked her lips, before turning back to Applebloom and continuing. “What we’re saying is, this whole thing is their fault. Not yours.” She reached over and tried to place a hoof on Applebloom’s shoulder, though she couldn’t quite reach that high up. “You don’t blame yourself for when Diamond Tiara bullies you and you can’t blame yourself for this.”

“It’s different this time though, girls!” Applebloom cried, looking away from the two of them. “They’re hurting other ponies! Diamond Tiara at least sets her sights on us and she doesn’t hurt other ponies trying to get to us. These Decepticons are out there hurting… even killing ponies right now!” Applebloom seemed to crumple in on herself as she took a deep breath. “And I’m just sitting in here, lettin’ my brother make me fritters. I should be out there stopping them. It’s my fault they’re here in the first place.”

The three fillies were all silent for a moment. Applebloom sat on the verge of tears as she stared anywhere but at her friends. Sweetie Belle was looking at her concerned, while Scootaloo looked away from her, seething quietly.

A low voice clearing its throat caught their attention. The three of them turned to see Big Macintosh with Cheerilee standing by his side, nodding at them. “Fritters’ll be done in about five minutes,” he said with a sad smile.

Applebloom returned her brother’s nod, but said nothing

Just as she was about to bury her head back into her hands and shut out the world again, Applebloom felt a hoof pat her on the back. She turned to see Cheerilee, standing behind her with a tentative smile.

“Why don’t you change back into your pony form, Applebloom?” Cheerilee asked, patting her back lightly. “You’ve been in your robot form for hours now. Maybe changing back will help you calm down. Besides,” she chuckled weakly, “we’re not even sure that your current form can eat.”

Applebloom blinked, momentarily stunned out of her depression. She looked down at her hand and flexed her servos, as if only just realizing that she’d spent the whole time at the castle in her robot mode, with only brief transformations into her wagon mode. “Huh…” she muttered. “I’d... almost forgotten.”

“Yeah, maybe being a pony again will calm you down!” Scootaloo said with a wide smile, standing up on her barstool and lifting herself unsteadily onto her hind legs. “Maybe walking around like a gangly minotaur is doing stuff to your brains. You don’t know!”

Applebloom chuckled weakly at her friends antics before sighing. “Alright,” she said, closing her eyes and―

CHUNKA-KSSSSHHHHTZZZTT

“AAGH!”

Applebloom fell over backwards, clutching her head with her hands as a lance of pain spiked through it, more intense than the ones she felt when her forced memories ran through her mind. Applebloom faintly heard her friends and brother calling out to her as her head spiked in agony. She felt something strange happening in her chest as she tried to get her bearings, slowly opening her eyes.

“Applebloom!” Sweetie Belle cried, standing next to her.

“Are you alright?” asked Scootaloo, hovering over her on buzzing wings.

“What happened?” Cheerilee asked, cradling her head in the crook of her foreleg.

Applebloom sputtered, her eyes focusing not on the ponies that huddled around her but on something else. Her chest had opened up, splitting down the middle and revealing her inner workings. One thing in particular stood out.

In the middle of her chest there sat a very strange component. It looked vaguely like somepony had taken a vegetable steamer and stretched it out into a more conical shape. .

‘My T-Cog...’ Applebloom somehow knew instinctively. ‘The part of me that lets me transform.’

Just as the thought ran through her head, a shower of green sparks erupted from the tip of her T-Cog, making the room flash with green light and forcing the ponies surrounding Applebloom to step back and shield themselves from the hot sparks. Applebloom, too, shielded her eyes from the flash of sparks. When they died down, though, she managed to finally get a good look at the part of her that made her a transformer.

Her T-Cog was damaged.

One of the metal rods that made up the conical section was singed black with heat, as was the cylindrical base where it met that rod. A nearby slat that should have been glowing green had been completely melted by heat and had rehardened, fused to the base in an awkward position.

Before Applebloom could make out anymore, though, her chest closed back up and locked into place. Just as she was about to try and open it up again, though, the alien script started scrolling in front of her eyes again.

Blinking, Applebloom forced her eyes to focus on the readouts running down through her vision. She managed to catch a schematic of what appeared to be herself, with a red, flashing light hovering over her chest where her T-Cog was. A red line branched off the flashing light, leading to a word that Applebloom quickly translated to mean “T-Cog Failure.” The readout continued to scroll in front of her eyes before settling on what appeared to be a silhouette of her pony form, surrounded by a red ring. A line of text appeared next to the image. Applebloom locked up at what the text translated into.

ALT-MODE 1 - DATA CORRUPTED AT 09:32:44:76 /// T-COG: DAMAGED ///
CORRUPTED DATA PRESENTS RISK TO FOLLOWING SYSTEMS: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11...
CORRUPTED DATA UNRECOVERABLE
DATA LOST

The silhouetted image of her pony form suddenly vanished. The rest of the readout followed suit not a moment later.

Applebloom simply sat there in stunned silence as she slowly realized what had happened.

Her T-Cog had been damaged...

...And she’d lost the data for her pony form.

She couldn’t become a pony anymore.

* * *

The gargantuan Decepticon rained fire and destruction down upon the city. The five-story tall robot opened hundreds of hatches upon its every surface, revealing cannons akin to the ones the footsoldiers had been using. They had the effect of making it look like the robot had grown spines on its carapace; spines that shot blasts of hot plasma down into the city it stood over. Upon its tail was an even larger cannon, though the robot did not yet use it, instead slinging the long, corded limb around like a torturer’s lash upon the city. The tail was thick as an ancient tree trunk and knocked buildings and structures over with the barest of effort. Flames licked at its grinning, fanged, mandibled mouth, and its massive purple compound eyes spoke only of hatred and malice. Fifty feet tall and at least thrice that in length, the robot had not yet even moved, and already a crater of destruction had formed around him.

Scorponok had come to Canterlot.

Princess Luna leapt into action, bounding off of the rooftop and barrelling towards the monolithic mechanical monster.

“Princess Luna, wait!” Applejack shouted, reaching after her futilely as she looked on at the massive robot in horror.

Rarity watched the princess vanish into the distance, worriedly wringing her hooves. “She’s going to get herself killed trying to fight that thing!”

“No way!” Rainbow Dash shouted, shooting a glare down at the two of them. “It’s the feathering Princess!” she snapped. “No way she’s going to let some overgrown bug take her down. C’MON!” She yelled, rocketing off after Princess Luna.

“Rainbow, wait!” Rarity cried, but Rainbow had already vanished, a puff of dust the only thing to note that she’d been standing beside them.

“That crazy featherbrain!” Applejack snarled, stamping a hoof. She growled, looking down at her hooves before turning to Rarity. “We need to get after them!”

“Quite right.” Rarity said, her face a mask of grim determination. “First, though, we must find a way off of this rooft― Applejack look out!”

Applejack suddenly felt herself tackled to the side by Rarity as a massive clawed hand crashed down upon the roof, right where she’d been standing. The two of them tumbled across the rooftop before slamming into a chimney in a daze. Shaking off the blow, they looked to see one of the Vehicons from before, a javelin lodged in its sparking, sputtering eye, flailing at the edge of the rooftop and smashing its fists down upon it in a mad, blinded attempt to crush the two ponies.

Applejack stood up as silently as she could, leading Rarity to cover around the other side of the chimney. Placing her back to it, she looked around the cover at the enraged robot. “Looks like y’all missed the brains, Rares.” Applejack muttered.

Rarity sniffed haughtily. “Well, obviously It’s not easy to hit a target that small, Applejack.”

AJ blinked. Rarity too seemed to stop and come to realize what she’d just said. Applejack snorted lightly. “Did you just…”

Rarity tittered, despite the chaos around them. “Yes, I believe I did. Pinkie Pie must be rubbing off on me.”

The two of them chuckled grimly for a moment before the tension came swiftly rushing back as the chimney exploded behind them. Yelping and bracing themselves amid the explosion of brick and mortar, Applejack caught sight of the blinded Vehicon aiming his blaster at them. “Horseapples, he can hear us!” She snarled. “Rarity, run!”

“Where?!” she cried, motioning around at the rooftop they’d been stranded on.

The Vehicon levelled his cannon at the two of them, a purple glow forming at the tip. Applejack and Rarity clutched each other, bracing themselves.

A cacophonous “Kra-Koom!” echoed through the street.

Applejack winced, expecting to feel a searing pain or a blistering heat. She felt Rarity tense up in her grip, only for the two of them to relax a moment later when they realized that nothing had happened. Blinking, the two of them looked to the Vehicon that had cornered them, only to see that his face was planted firmly in the rooftop, his arms flung out wildly. Absently, the two of them noticed that there was a massive, sparking dent in the back of his head. Slowly, the vehicon extricated himself from the rooftop, rubble and shingles falling off his face as he tried to get his bearings.

“Fire two!”

Another cannon shot rang out

Applejack watched as a cannonball slammed into the side of the Vehicon’s head, destroying half of the robot’s skull in an explosion of sparks, fire, and ruined shards of metal and parts. What was left of the blinded robot slowly slumped, crashing to the ground below.

AJ and Rarity boggled, just getting up to look over the roof at what had come to their rescues when a voice spoke from behind them.

“Need a hoof?”

The two of them turned to see three batponies alighting down upon the roof dressed in full night guard armor. Applejack and Rarity recognized Sunstorm and Dirge instantly, but the third newcomer was a mystery to them. She was shorter and leaner than most of the other soldiers they’d seen, and unlike most of the batponies they’d met whose colors had leaned towards cooler colors, her wings and mane were a deep, dark red. Her voice was high pitched and, one might almost say squeaky. Nevertheless, something about her stance and the way she carried herself commanded attention as she approached the two of them, saluting sharply.

“Major Screaming Star, commander of the Lunar Guard at your service!” She broke salute and held out a hoof to the two ponies. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Applejack and Rarity.”

Applejack blinked for a second before taking the hoof in hers. The farmer winced as she felt a fierce grip crush her hoof. “Pleasure to meetcha.” She spoke through the bone-shattering hoofshake.

“Likewise.” Rarity said, taking Screaming Star’s hoof after Applejack, wincing at the small mare’s vicegrip.

“Yo, Screamy!” came a familiar voice shouting from over the side of the roof. “They alright up there?”

Screaming Star lifted off, peering over the side of the roof at the voice. “They’re fine. Shaken up but intact”

“Thank Celestia,” the voice said as Applejack and Rarity trotted over to the edge of the roof to see the speaker. In the street below stood Shining Armor, standing atop a massive octagonal wooden vehicle with eight cannons spaced around its sides and a huge turret resting atop it. Shining Armor stood atop the rotating turret, his eyes shifting to look at Applejack and Rarity. “Twiley would never forgive me if I let her friends get blown to bits,” he said with a confident smile.

“Shining Armor!” Rarity said with a wide grin. “If you weren’t a married stallion, I’d kiss you!”

Shining Armor looked between the two of them. “Where are Princess Luna and Rainbow Dash?” he asked.

“Plum fools ran off to fight that giant bug thing what just dropped out of the sky!” Applejack grumbled.

Another batpony guard landed on the roof and stepped forward, grumbling. “That sounds like our princess, yes.” the new arrival said.

“Silence, Thundercracker!” Screaming Star said, shooting him a scalding glare. “Our princess is more than capable of handling herself against such a lowly creature!”

“If we could get back on track?” Rarity asked, interrupting the nascent argument before it could begin. “We need to get to that creature and help our friends!” she said, pointing at the giant scorpion robot.

“Right!” Screaming Star said, snapping back to attention. Leaning over the side of the building, she shouted down at Shining Armor. “Royal Guards! Can your tanks handle the enemy footsoldiers?”

Shining Armor waved at the Major and nodded. “These things might not have seen action in a while, but they can take those chumps. Count on us, Screamy!”

“Go for the eyes!” Rarity shouted down at him. “They’re hard to hit, but they’re the only weak point they have!”

“Gotcha! Thanks for the intel, Rarity!” Shining Armor slapped the hull of the tank he was sitting in and pointed down a side street. “Attention Tank Corps! Move out!”

As the tanks in the street below rumbled down the street and into various side streets and alleys towards the remaining Vehicon forces, Screaming Star turned back to Rarity and Applejack. “Sunstorm and Dirge will transport you to the creature. The Lunar and Solar guards will be launching an all-out coordinated assault on the beast. Hold the thing off until we get there!” she ordered.

“We’ll do what we can but we’re only four ponies.” Applejack said, wiping beads of sweat out of her face.

“True, but one of those ponies is Princess Luna.” Screaming Star said. “If anypony can defeat that thing, it’d be the Sword of Equestria.” The major nodded and Applejack and Rarity felt two strong pairs of hooves wrap under their arms and lift them up. Dirge and Sunstorm flapped their bat wings heavily, nodding at their commander. “Now go!” Screaming Star ordered. “Give us five minutes! The cavalry is on the way!”

Applejack and Rarity both gulped as they found themselves rapidly approaching the monstrous, fifty-foot scorpion creature.

* * *

Princess Luna buffeted the massive scorpion creature with spells that would have turned most creatures to dust. The very air around Luna grew cold, water particles in the air freezing as a flurry of powdery snow seemed to drift off of her wings. With every blast into the metal scorpion’s thorny, metal hide, shafts of glacial ice would form upon his chassis. Alas, though it seemed to slow him down ever so slightly, there was little to be done about the hundreds upon hundreds of cannons lining his entire body, each of them firing bursts of fiery plasma down upon the city, and into the air, staving off all attacks. Luna was forced to duck and dodge and weave around innumerable bursts of energy, incapable of charging up any one spell enough that it would cause significant damage, and incapable of getting in close to attack physically. The most she could do was annoy him.

That was the bad news. The good news was that she was annoying him.

Her efforts were, if nothing else, proving a sufficient distraction to the creature. Indeed, if Luna were to ascribe such emotions to a monster like this, she would say he was surprised that anything was capable of affecting him in even the most minor capacity. This had the effect of drawing most of his fire away from the city and onto her.

She just wasn’t sure how much longer she could dodge his attacks.

Luna’s armor had a passive defense spell woven into it, but it had already been strained to the breaking point fighting against the Vehicon footsoldiers she’d taken out beforehand. It was doubtful that it would continue to hold against too many of this creature’s powerful blasts. Still, Rainbow Dash had said she had a plan, and if she could just hold out until she got back―

―ah, there was Rainbow Dash now…

...rocketing straight down towards the monster’s head, a mach cone forming around her hooves.

Luna gasped as she realized what Rainbow Dash’s plan was. “Accursed fool!” she shouted, breaking off her attack on Scorponok and changing course towards Rainbow Dash. Luna could see the mach cone around Dash thinning as she moved to intercept, the cannonfire from the creature’s guns exploding behind her as she approached her friend. Finally, just a split-second before Dash’s cone would have broken and she would have rocketed forward into a Sonic Rainboom, Luna tackled rainbow to the side, sending the two of them hurtling into an evacuated part of the city, crashing through a window and into what appeared to be an office of some sort, glass scattering around them as they tumbled into a desk, splintering it to pieces.

Luna coughed as she tried to get her wind back, only to feel a hoof impact with the side of her head, her helmet thankfully softening the blow.

“What the heck, Princess?!” Rainbow shouted. “I had him!”

Luna snapped angrily towards Rainbow Dash, fixing her with a cowing glare. “What wert thou thinking, Rainbow Dash?!”

Dash shook off the princess’ stare and fixed Luna with a glare of her own. “I was gonna Sonic Rainboom straight through his head! There’s no way he coulda lived through something like that! Now that you stopped me he’ll see it coming next time!”

“Thou art a fool!” Luna said, stamping her hoof. “Thou knowest that thou wouldst not live through a collision at such speeds, do ye not?!”

“Well… yeah!” Rainbow faltered, before hardening her gaze again. “But somepony had to do something and if that was what it took…” she trailed off, looking anywhere but at Luna’s face.

Luna’s glare softened. She put a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder and looked her in the eyes. “Fair Rainbow Dash…” she began “We are truly touched by thine bravery and willingness to sacrifice thyself for thy fellow pony. Truly thou art a hero to thy very core,” she frowned, gripping her shoulder harder as she continued. “But thou knowest not what thine enemy is capable of. ‘Tis possible he could resist thy attack. Then where wouldst we be? Down a hero and still with a monster on the loose. We… I cannot afford to lose a friend to such a foolish kamikaze attack, especially when it is not known if it will even work.”

Rainbow snorted frustratedly, stomping a hoof and scowling at the princess. “Well we have to come up with something quick! If we let that monster stick around much longer there won’t be a city left to save!”

“Agreed. Perhaps if we―” Luna’s ears suddenly perked up, her head snapping to look at the castle, a startled look on her face quickly morphing into a look of confusion.

“...Princess?” Dash asked, cocking her head. “What is it?”

“...’Tis the Pony Pokey.” Luna said blankly.

Rainbow Dash blinked. It was a moment before she could speak again after the odd non-sequitur. “Say what?”

“Rainbow,” Luna turned to look at her. “Did Celestia grant thee or thy friends a silver flute?”

Dash nodded. “Yeah. She gave one to Pinkie and Fluttershy when she sent the two of them to grab the elements of Harmony!”

“A-HA!” Luna stomped a hoof triumphantly. “Then there lies our plan!” she exclaimed. “Come, Dame Rainbow Dash! We shall reconvene with thy friends and unleash the Elements’ judgment upon them!” Luna leapt into the air and rocketed out of the hole in the building towards the castle in the distance, avoiding bursts from Scorponok’s cannon fire as she and Dash raced through the battlefield.

Not too far away, a pair of batponies and their charges noticed the two blue blurs racing across the sky towards the palace.

“Is that…?” Applejack asked, calling over the noise of the battle and wriggling in Sunstorm’s hooves.

“Princess Luna and Rainbow Dash!” Dirge announced, gripping Rarity tightly, looking down at the two of them. “They’re breaking away from the fight towards the castle, Ma’ams. Do you still wish to engage the monster or should we follow?”

Rarity gasped. “If they’re headed back towards the castle then Pinkie and Fluttershy must have gathered the Elements! We need to go and collect them!”

Dirge and Sunstorm nodded. “As you wish, ladies.” Dirge said, nodding to Sunstorm and banking right towards the castle, flapping their wings as fast as they could.

It was not long before Rarity and Applejack found themselves on solid ground alongside Princess Luna and Rainbow Dash. The ponies gathered in the castle courtyard, which felt eerily still given everything that was happening out in the city. Galloping towards them were Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. Pinkie held a silver flute in her mouth, her cheeks puffed out as she blew into it, though neither Rarity nor Applejack could hear any noise coming from it. Fluttershy, meanwhile, carried a familiar, jeweled chest on her back.

“The Elements of Harmony!” Luna announced with a grin. “Prithee, give them here, fair Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy hastily cantered over to Princess Luna, who lifted the chest from her back in her magic and opened it. Quickly, she distributed the elements amongst the ponies present. The five of them quickly fastened their elements around their necks, Pinkie still tooting on the seemingly silent flute and dancing a little jig.

Princess Luna winced. “Yes, Pinkie Pie, We are here,” she said, lighting her horn and snatching the flute from Pinkie’s mouth with her magic, leaving Pinkie to make a sound like a deflated balloon with her lips as they found themselves devoid of an instrument.

Pinkie pouted. “Yeah, you’re here, but where are Princess Celestia and Twilight?”

Luna frowned. “‘Tis true. Sister should be able to hear that flute from anywhere in the world.” Her horn lit once again as she closed her eyes. “A moment if you will.”

The five ponies stood in tense silence as they watched the Princess reach out with her magic, the navy glow around her horn expanding and pulsating as Luna’s face twisted into an even deeper scowl. After several tense moments, Luna’s eyes suddenly snapped open as she gasped for air, tears suddenly welling up at the corners of her eyes.

“Celestia…” Luna stuttered, horrified. “She has fallen.”

“What?!” all five ponies shouted at once.

“She’s dead?!” Rainbow Dash shouted, her wings flaring outward.

Luna quickly shook her head. “Nay, she yet lives, but she has been grievously wounded.” Luna looked grim, her expression fighting between an enraged snarl and a tearful breakdown. “I fear if she is not seen to immediately...” she trailed off, her composure cracking.

“What about Twilight?!” Rarity asked desperately. “She was with Celestia. Is she okay?”

Luna stood quietly, her face finally choosing to land on a tearful breakdown as she desperately tried to maintain composure. Tears ran down the sides of her face as she did everything she could to hold her face in a neutral mask. She looked away, turning her head to gaze anywhere but at the five friends, closing her eyes and fighting to hold back a sob.

“No…” Fluttershy whimpered, tears playing at the corners of her eyes.

“Princess?” Rarity asked, tears threatening to take her over as well.

“...I cannot sense her magic.” Luna said simply. “Either she’s so far away that I cannot detect it, or she’s…” she trailed off, refusing to finish her own sentence.

The five ponies all said nothing as they all broke down. Rarity and Fluttershy started openly weeping, sobs racking their bodies as the weight of it hit them. Pinkie remained silent, but her mane had become decidedly un-poofy and her vibrant coat looked dull as she gazed into the distance with a thousand-yard stare. Applejack shook her head and muttered to herself words like ‘not again. I can’t lose somepony again. Please.’

Rainbow Dash took it entirely differently.

“I’LL KILL THEM! she screeched, rocketing into the air and out of the courtyard. “I’LL KILL THEM ALL!” her voice rang out as she disappeared over the castle walls.

“Rainbow, wait!” Fluttershy called after her, but the rainbow pegasus clearly didn’t hear her. She turned to Luna tearfully. “Princess, you have to go after her! Please! She’ll get herself killed!”

Luna stuttered. “I…” she struggled to say, looking back and forth between the city in flames and Fluttershy’s pleading face. Luna winced as she looked back and forth indecisively. She growled and stamped her hooves in frustration, before turning to Fluttershy. “I must save Celestia.” She said apologetically, tears flowing freely now. “If she were to pass I fear a greater catastrophe would fall Equestria.”

Fluttershy sobbed, her eyes welling up. “B-But…”

Luna shook her head. “I shall make haste. I will try to save Rainbow, but I must retrieve Celestia first!” She lifted off, beating her mighty wings. “I am so sorry, fair Fluttershy,” she said weakly, rocketing off in the direction she sensed her sister.

Fluttershy choked back a sob as she watched Luna fly off into the distance. A whine escaped her lips, but then suddenly cut off as she steeled herself, taking a deep breath. She clenched her eyes shut and set her mouth in a determined frown. Fluttershy flapped her wings and took off.

“Fluttershy, what are you doing?!” Rarity gasped through her crying.

Fluttershy turned to her friends, keeping her face set in a steely frown. “I’m going to go save Rainbow!” she announced, trying her best to keep any emotion off her face.

“Fluttershy, no!” Pinkie protested. “You can’t!”

“This ain’t the time to suddenly grow stones!” Applejack stomped her hoof.

“Rainbow is going to get herself killed out there!” Fluttershy shouted, pointing out to the smouldering city. “I need to help her!”

“Fluttershy, be reasonable!” Rarity pleaded. “You aren’t even wearing armor! If you go out there, you’ll only be putting yourself at risk!”

Fluttershy growled. “Rainbow would do the same for me,” she rumbled.

Applejack looked at her with an equally intense scowl. “No offense, Flutters, but Rainbow is faster, stronger, and better trained than you. Not to mention, she ain’t exactly the best at making smart decisions.”

“Well I can’t just sit here with my feathers up my flank!” Fluttershy shouted, glaring daggers at Applejack. “We need to do something!”

Suddenly a window above them burst open, showering the four of them with shattered glass. The ponies all shrieked, startled as tiny, jagged shards rained down upon them, shielding themselves as best they could.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAA~!!” Came a constant, enraged scream from above them, getting louder by the second. Applejack spared a glance upward at what or who was making the noise, only to see a yellow, redheaded robot filly descending rapidly towards the ground.

“Applebloom?”

* * *

____________
Five Minutes Earlier
____________

“Let me go!” Applebloom shrieked as she struggled, pinned to the wall by Big Macintosh’s mighty hooves.

“Not until y’all calm down!” Big Mac snorted.

“Applebloom please!” Sweetie protested, tears welling up in her eyes.

“You’re being crazy about this!” Scootaloo yelled.

“Let’s just talk about this like mature ponies,” Cheerilee insisted.

The little robot had thrashed and flailed, barely kept in check by Big Macintosh’s immense strength as he desperately tried to calm his sister. Her teeth gnashed and tears flowed as she wailed, doing everything she could to free herself.

“I ain’t a pony no more! I never was!” Applebloom thrashed, making Big Mac grunt as she nearly broke free. “I’m a monster from outer space! I ain’t good for nothing but fighting and killing! Let me go!”

“Applebloom that’s not true! You’re more than that!” Cheerilee pleaded.

“I ain’t and I never was! I only got my cutie mark when I became a robot!” She cried, the fight finally leaving her as she slumped against the wall. Big Mac kept his hooves on her, just in case. Tears fell from her eyes like twin waterfalls as she screwed her eyes shut, her body racking with sobs.

“That’s what it means.” Applebloom whimpered. “I got my mark when my real self was revealed. I’m a robot from outer space. Good for nothing but wreckin’ stuff. Wreckin’ people.”

Cheerilee trotted up to her, attempting a smile. “Applebloom, just because you can’t turn into a pony on the outside doesn’t mean you’re not still a pony on the inside,” she said as encouragingly as she could.

Applebloom glared at her teacher. “Didn’t y’all see?” she growled weakly. “I ain’t a pony on the inside either. I’m nothin’ but gears and cogs.”

“That’s not what she meant and you know it, dummy.” Scootaloo snorted, rolling her eyes.

“Scootaloo, please!” Cheerilee snapped at her.

“Then what does this mean?” Applebloom asked, nodding to the cutie mark, still emblazoned on her hip. “It showed up when I turned inta one of these alien robots! My special talent is being one of these things!” she yelled.

Sweetie Belle interjected. “But didn’t you say there were two groups of them?” she asked, trying her best to talk her down. “Good guys and bad guys? Isn’t that what Yoketron said to you?”

“What does it matter?!” Applebloom howled, slamming her head back against the wall, cracking the marble behind her. “They all fight! They all fought each other for millions and millions of years! They killed their own planet and they just kept fighting! That’s all any of them’re good for is fighting and breaking stuff and hurting anyone that gets in the way!”

Applebloom turned a glare on her brother. “And if I ain’t a pony… if all I’m ever gonna be good for is fighting… then I might as well fight the people that need t’be fought.”

“Applebloom, no!” Cheerilee protested as Big Mac tightened his grip on his sister once again.

“Now get… OFF!” Applebloom screeched, leaning back and jumping off the ground, bringing her knees up and driving her feet into Big Mac’s belly. The draft horse flew off of his sister, falling backwards several feet as Applebloom took off running, charging headlong for the door.

“Wait!” Sweetie Belle cried out. “Applebloom!”

“Get away!” she shouted. The little robot tackled the doors, causing them to bust open and catching Corporal Ethereal, who had been guarding the door, in the rump, sending him sprawling. She turned into her wagon mode and barreled down the hall, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle giving chase as Cheerilee helped Big Macintosh to his hooves.

Applebloom raced down the hallway faster than anypony could gallop, navigating the winding halls as best she could. It wasn’t long until she spotted a large, bay window overlooking the courtyard. Screeching to a stop, she transformed back into her robot mode, popping her hammer out of its slot upon her back and switching it on, the energon contained within quickly forming the warhammer’s faces. Applebloom hefted the mighty weapon over her shoulder, readying a swing when she heard the ponies calling behind her.

“Applebloom, don’t!” Sweetie Belle shouted.

“Don’t be stupid!” Scootaloo yelled.

Applebloom’s angry snarl quickly morphed into a sad frown. She looked at her friends… ex-friends, she supposed, and sighed sadly.

“Go back to Ponyville, girls.”

She turned back to the window and set her face back in its snarl. With a bellowing war cry, she swung at the glass, shattering it into thousands of pieces. Still yelling, she leapt from the window into the courtyard below.

* * *

The little robot landed unharmed about a dozen feet away from the ponies and immediately took off at a run towards the courtyard gates.

“Applebloom!” Applejack called, reaching out a hoof for her.

Applebloom skidded to a halt just as she was about to vault over the gate. She turned to look at her sister, looking at her pleadingly from across the courtyard. Applebloom opened her mouth, almost ready to say something, before closing her eyes and turning back around. Wordlessly, she leapt towards a wall and kicked off of it, leaping over the ten-foot fence separating the courtyard from the city streets below.

“Applebloom, wait!” Applejack cried, galloping towards the gate, only to be grabbed by Pinkie Pie. She struggled in her grasp. “Let me go!” she screamed. “I’m not going to lose her again!”

Fluttershy frowned, crossing her hooves and raising an eyebrow but she didn’t say anything.

“Applejack, be reasonable!” Rarity pleaded. “We could barely take down a few of their footsoldiers, and that was with Princess Luna at our side! Twilight and Celestia couldn’t handle them!”

“Fluttershy was right, though!” Applejack snarled. “We can’t just sit here and do nothing! What if it was Sweetie Belle out there?” she growled, turning to Pinkie Pie. “Or the cake twins?”

Pinkie and Rarity looked between one another for a moment, conflicted. Finally, Rarity relented. “Very well, Applejack, Fluttershy. You’re both right.”

Applejack looked like she was going to take off once again when Rarity held up a hoof.

“But!” Rarity said sharply. “We’re not going to be much help to them if we don’t go in there without a proper plan. We need something that can take down those brutes swiftly and efficiently. Otherwise, we’ll just be putting ourselves in danger and possibly even making it harder to get our friends and family to safety.”

Applejack snorted, stomping a hoof. “This ain’t the time for sitting around, planning and gabbin’ our yaps! They’re in danger now!”

“I might have a plan…” Pinkie Pie said with an angry growl, her long, straight hair hiding half of her face.

The others turned to her as she looked out over the burning city.

“We’re going to blow them into scrap metal.” Pinkie growled.

* * *

Applebloom raced through the city, which thankfully by now seemed to have been evacuated. One could never be too certain though. There were always stubborn ponies that wouldn’t leave their homes, or ponies who were convinced that they could ride the disaster out. Caution still had to be taken as she fought the Decepticons.

Applebloom kept her sights firmly fixated on the monolithic monster in the background. The giant, monstrous scorpion loomed over the city like a spectre of death, casting its shadow over the streets in the dying sunlight. With every rumbling step it took, buildings shuddered and windows shook and a wave of dust would flow through the streets.

Her wheels were blisteringly hot as she sped through the abandoned streets, though for whatever reason she didn’t find it uncomfortable. She decided a few moments later it must have had something to do with being a robot. As all-consuming as her recent revelation was, though, she didn’t have time to focus on it at that moment.

Applebloom turned a corner and nearly ended up with her front end sheared off by a powerful magic blast. She braked to a halt, her wheels squealing as she spun out briefly, spinning right into the lines between a Royal Guard Tank and a pair of Vehicons. Shifting out of her wagon form and back into robot mode, she staggered, trying to get her bearings.

“Another one!” she heard a pony call from behind her. “Port guns, get ready to--”

“Hold your fire!” Another, sharper voice rang out. “That’s Applebloom! The one everypony’s been talking about around the castle! She’s on our side!”

Applebloom turned to look at the tank. Three unicorn ponies were peeking out of slats in the base, where a ring of guns were set around each of its eight, octagonal sides, looking at her with trepidation and suspicion. Atop the vehicle, though, sat a familiar face.

“Shining Armor?” Applebloom asked dizzily.

Before anypony could reply, though, the two Vehicons trained their guns upon the little robot, one of them shouting at the other. “It’s an Autobot! Get her!” he yelled.

Applebloom ducked backwards just as their plasma blasts exploded into the ground where she had been standing moments before. Frowning, she composed herself as best she could, shaking off the dizziness and retrieving her hammer from the slot in her back. Engaging the weapon, she charged forward towards the Vehicons. The two of them fired their guns at her, but Applebloom ducked and weaved between the shots as she dashed closer and closer. Ducking into a slide, Applebloom skidded along the pavement between one of the Vehicon’s legs. She swiped her hammer, catching the robot in the back of the knee and knocking him off balance. She skidded out the other side of the ‘Con’s legs and rolled to the side as the Vehicon toppled backwards, crashing into the pavement in a heap. Applebloom hefted her energon warhammer over her head with a rage-fueled battle cry and brought it crashing down upon the Vehicon’s chest, the metal cratering and denting as she rattled the mechanical organs and components beneath.

Applebloom was about to go in for another swing when a plasma shot fired just barely off to her left, grazing her hair. She stumbled back, trying to get out of the line of fire as the second Vehicon approached her, gun trained squarely upon her middle. Applebloom was about to duck under the struggling, fallen Vehicon for cover when suddenly a magical blast caught the Vehicon in the shoulder, causing him to stagger and stumble.

“Main gun! Again! Fire!” Shining Armor shouted.

A second magical burst exploded through the air, impacting with the back of the Vehicon’s head and sending it toppling to the ground, unmoving.

Applebloom blinked, before noticing that the Vehicon she had taken out before was struggling to get up. Acting quickly, she hefted her hammer over her shoulder again and brought it down into the side of her fallen foe’s head. The Con stopped moving after that. Dead or unconscious, she didn’t know. Nor did she think she cared.

Shining Armor leapt out of the cockpit at the top of the tank and slid down the side of it, landing gracefully at the base of the vehicle. He walked the short distance over to Applebloom.

“I thought Princess Celestia told you to stay put,” he said to Applebloom, narrowing his eyes.

Applebloom frowned, averting her eyes. “I had to do something,” she grumbled, before looking back at him pointedly. “And I ain’t going back. Not until we’ve won.”

Shining Armor pursed his lips, looking at her with a raised eyebrow. The two were silent for a moment before he nodded.

“I can respect that,” he said.

Applebloom binked, startled. “Wait, really?”

Shining Armor smiled faintly. “When I told my parents I was joining the royal guard as a colt, they did everything they could to try and get me to reconsider. They didn’t want me putting myself in danger or getting into fights. But sometimes…” Shining Armor trailed off, turning and showing off the purple shield on his flank. “...Sometimes you’re just meant for something bigger. My purpose is to protect ponies. Keep them safe from bullies and monsters like these Decepticons.” He nodded to the mark on Applebloom’s hips. “If that’s what you think your purpose is too, then there’s nothing I can possibly do to stop you. And frankly, I don’t want to.”

Applebloom looked away. “I… I don’t know what my purpose is.” She said, looking down at her strange hands, flexing the fingers. “But… whatever kind of monster I am, I’m good at fighting.” She clenched her fist and shut her eyes. “And I can’t just sit around while these Decepticons are tearing the place up.”

Shining Armor nodded. “Well, the good news is that the Tank Corps has pretty much taken care of all the footsoldiers by now.” He nodded towards Scorponok, still rampaging off in the distance. “The bigger threat now is that thing. The Solar and Lunar guard is currently trying to hold it off, and last we heard, the Elements of Harmony and Princess Luna had withdrawn from the position. Reasons unknown, but I doubt they’ve just up and deserted.” He shook his head. “Can’t say it seems like the Solars and Lunars are being all that effective from here, though. If we can’t take that thing down, all of Canterlot will be destroyed.”

Applebloom looked at the tank and then back to Shining Armor. “You say that the Tank corps was able to take out the Vehicon troopers?” she asked.

He nodded once again. “The side cannons don’t seem to do much more than annoy them if they aren’t already damaged, but the main cannons seem to pack enough of a punch that they go down in a few hits.”

Applebloom frowned. “Maybe we can use that.” she said, pointing to Shining Armor. “Regroup with the rest of the tanks and send ‘em all at the big bug. If all of you aim the main cannons at the same spot, maybe it’ll be enough to punch through!” Applebloom leaned in and whispered into Shining Armor’s ear.

Shining Armor smiled. “That might actually work!” he said, saluting Applebloom. “I’ll get the tanks together as fast as possible!”

She nodded. “I’ll keep him busy and try to get it all ready. You get as many tanks as you can!” She transformed back into her wagon mode, her wheels squealing as she sped off in a cloud of dust towards the mammoth robotic scorpion in the distance.

One of the guards poked his head out of the view slot as Shining Armor clambered back towards the tank. “...Sir?” he ventured. “Did you just take orders from a filly?”

Shining Armor chuckled.

* * *

The Solar and Lunar guards were getting their flanks handed to them.

They were the elite of the elite, hoof chosen by Celestia and Luna themselves. They had backgrounds in such prestigious corps as the Violet Suns, the Navy MANTAs, the Wonderbolts, and the New Moons. They had all been trained to take out any number of seemingly undefeatable foes, from Dragons and Rocs, to Krakens and Megalodons. From Demons and Nightmares, to Hydras and Mountain Lions.

And they were getting their flanks kicked by a scorpion.

To be fair, the scorpion was fifty feet tall, three times that long, made of metal, and covered in cannons that fired deadly plasma, with serrated pincers, fire breath, and an even bigger cannon that fired who-knows-what on the end of its tail. It was a testament to their training and resilience that only half their number was already out of the fight, and had only received grievous injuries as opposed to being outright slaughtered.

That said, they had barely even made a dent in the creature’s hide.

“Attack the eyes!” Screaming Star shouted, her voice carrying throughout the whole battlefield. “The Elements of Harmony have confirmed that those are the weak points!”

“Maybe for the small ones, but not this thing!” shouted Rewind, leader of the Solar guards. “I’ve tried going after the eyes and lost count of how many times I’ve died by now! They’re too well defended, and even if you do get past the fire breath and cannons, spells don’t do jack against this thing!”

Flipsides grunted, sweat pouring down her face as her horn lit up in a blazing corona before she slumped to the ground with exertion. “My gravity spells don’t affect it! It’s just too big and powerful! I can chuck stuff at him, but that doesn’t do anything either!”

“Great! So our big guns are out of the question too!” grumbled Slipstream. The batpony danced and weaved, low to the creature’s surface as she slipped through the rows upon rows of cannons as though she were gliding on oil. She kicked at each of the cannons as she passed, trying to disable them, but was having little luck.

“Pray tell, my friends, for I must ask,” said the enigmatic Stripes of the Solar guard, mixing potions on the fly behind cover as she spoke in the traditional rhyme befitting her zebra heritage. “How then shall we complete this task?”

“Punch it until it breaks!” Shouted the enraged Rainbow Dash, who had joined the battle only a few minutes ago. She was flying around like a mare possessed, tackling the creature at high speeds, taking any chance she could to land a blow. Not that it was doing much.

“As much as I like your style, miss Dash,” came the cultured voice of the burly and massive Ramhorn, his horn aglow. “I’m afraid that not even I am capable of hitting this creature quite that hard,” he said as he desperately pounded at one of the creature’s joints, trying to knock it over. His blows did little more than make the leg twitch, though, despite his ability to break through most materials known to ponykind.

“Sonics don’t seem to be working.” Thundercracker croaked softly as he massaged his throat, only audible to the rest thanks to the magical efforts of the Solar guard Decibel, currently hiding behind cover alongside Stripes. “I’ve been screaming at every frequency I can think of at a couple hundred D’s, and the most I can do is make him rattle. Whatever that thing is, it’s damn well put together.”

An incredibly androgynous, tall purple alicorn suddenly slammed face first into the pavement next to Decibel and Stripes, groaning audibly and bleeding from the nose. Weakly, he pushed herself up from the ground, spitting out a wad of blood as she wobbled on his hooves. “I’ve managed to freeze a few of the guns on its left side, but beyond taking a few of the weapons out, I haven’t been able to hurt it much.” His face twitched, like a pang of pain had just lanced through the side of her head. “Plus the fusion spell is wearing off. I think at least half of me is going to be out of it for a while.”

“Get to cover, Slamdance.” Rewind said over Decibel’s communication spell. “Get help for whichever one of you is hurt. You two are no good to us dead.”

Slamdance nodded. “Thank you sir…” she said, a white glow encasing his body. The alicorn’s body lit up like a star, then suddenly shrank and split like an amoeba, forming into two distinct ponies. As the glow faded, they were revealed to be a bright red unicorn with a mane only slightly darker than his coat, and a royal blue pegasus mare with an indigo mane. The red unicorn quickly fell to the pavement, bleeding from the nose and mouth, his violet eyes unfocused. The pegasus stumbled, shaking her head, but eventually managed to regain her footing and grabbed hold of her brother, fluttering him off towards the castle.

A bearded, slate gray pegasus desperately tried to wrangle the beast’s tail, chewing on the beast’s hide like a beaver trying to chew through a particularly stubborn tree. Spitting out a mouthful of metal, he grumbled, speaking over the spell. “So Flipsides is useless, Grand Slam and Raindance are too injured to do their silly fusion dance again, Ramhorn can’t punch the giant bug, and the bats’ silly shrieking isn’t doing squat. At least half of us have been carted off to medical already! Does ANYPONY have a plan, or am I actually going to have to try and eat this thing?”

Decibel cleared his throat, ducking as a plasma blast exploded next to the wall he was hiding behind. “I have Playback attempting to contact Princesses Celestia and Luna, but beyond that I’m afraid I have very little intel to give, Steeljaw.”

“So your rookie brother’s off calling for help. Wonderful.” Steeljaw grumbled, leaning in for another bite of the creature’s tail, holding on tightly as it thrashed back and forth.

“We might not have a choice but to try and distract this thing until they get here,” said Dirge, still resting his voice after his attempts at hypnotic singing failed, dodging plasma fire as he flew through the air.

“We’re supposed to be the best of the best!” Steeljaw snarled through a mouthful of metal and wire. Spitting it out, he snarled down to the rest of them. “We can take down dragons, hydras, and krakens and you’re telling me that we can’t stop the one thing that’s actually managed to get into the city?! That we’re just supposed to wait until the Princesses get here?!”

Decibel suddenly shot up where he was sitting. “Princess Celestia is down!” he shouted over the communication spell. “The news just came in from Playback! Princess Luna is taking her back to the castle to recuperate!”

“I could have told you that!” Rainbow Dash snarled, kicking desperately at a cannon, barely managing to dent it.

“Well why didn’t you?!” Roared Steeljaw.

“This is distressing, I will admit.” Stripes said harshly as she continued to mix, a scowl on her face. “But this is no time to throw a fit!”

Steeljaw snarled. “Well what are we supposed to do?!” he demanded. “Keep banging our heads against a wall, hoping that somepony comes right the hell out of nowhere to save our hides?!”

Suddenly, right the hell out of nowhere, a little red wagon darted around a corner, driving at full speed towards one of the monster’s legs. Transforming quickly into her bipedal robot form, she hefted her hammer over one shoulder and, still sliding across the pavement, slammed it into the base of its leg. The leg buckled under the monster’s body, throwing the beast off balance and sending it toppling forward, smashing his face into the ground just as Applebloom emerged from underneath its other side.

“Convenient,” muttered Thundercracker.

Applebloom hefted her hammer over her shoulder, leaping back as the giant scorpion got back to its feet, turning its head to look at her and training its many cannons upon her. She leapt back to avoid a burst of plasma fire, ducking behind a brick wall when all of a sudden a voice rang out in her head.

“Connection established!” Came a calm, deep voice in her head.

“What?!” Applebloom looked around, her head darting from side to side as she looked for whoever it was that just spoke.

“Applebloom,” said a different voice, this one female and high pitched. “You are Applebloom, yes?”

Applebloom nodded, still ducking behind cover as plasma blasts exploded around her. “Uh… yes?”

The voice continued. “This is Major Screaming Star of the Lunar guard. You’ve been added to our communication link spell, courtesy of Decibel. What are you doing out here?” she demanded.

Applebloom frowned. “I had to fight. I couldn’t just sit around. It’s… what I’m meant to do. Maybe.”

“What?!” Rainbow Dash shouted over the spell as she bucked another cannon, denting it. “Applebloom, stop talking crazy! Get back to the castle!”

“No!” Applebloom snapped. “I need to fight these things! If I go back, I’m just going to keep putting everypony in danger!”

“Enough!” shouted Rewind, stomping a hoof as he looked out over the battlefield from atop a roof, ducking to the side to avoid a burst of plasma. “Nobody wants a filly on the battlefield, but did you see that just now?!” he asked the rest of the guards. “That was the first blow the monster couldn’t just shrug off! Look at its leg!”

Those few guards that were in a position to looked at the left-front leg that Applebloom had struck. The beast was very plainly favoring it, putting less weight upon it than its other legs. Rewind continued. “If she’s capable of dishing out that sort of damage where none of us could, maybe it’s in our best interest if she stays.”

“She’s just a filly!” Steeljaw protested before a particularly violent thrash dislodged him from the scorpion’s tail. He flapped his wings wildly, barely managing to regain control before he would have crashed into a building. Shaking it off, he continued. “We can’t be looking out for a little filly in the middle of all of this!”

“I don’t like it either, but what choice do we have?!” Rewind asked. “The Elements of Harmony are out if what Miss Dash has been yelling about Miss Sparkle is true, and the Princesses are down!”

“How much help can a filly be?!” Steeljaw snarled.

“This thing is called a Headmaster.” Applebloom said, closing her eyes and slipping into a neutral, textbook style of speech as she did her best to concentrate on the fading information that Yoketron had implanted into her. Her head panged with pain, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as when she previously accessed her implanted memories. “It falls under the Guardian-class of Cybertronian scale along with a fully-formed Combiner. They’re way bigger and tougher than your average Basic-class Cybertronian or Leader-class Cybertronian but not as big or strong as a Supreme or City-class bot. This one is on the large side… Scorponok. Reaper of Nebulos.”

“Well that title doesn’t sound particularly pleasant.” Ramhorn grunted, leaping from his perch on the beast’s leg and grabbing hold of a cannon with his forelegs.

Applebloom ignored him and continued. “Scorponok is responsible for the genocide of half the population of the planet Nebulos back in the early days of the Great War… oh Celestia…” A tear fell from her eye as she played back the information that had been implanted within her in her head. She steeled herself as best she could. “He needs to be stopped! He needs to be stopped as quickly as possible or he’ll try to do the same to our planet!”

“We’re working on it!” Slipstream shouted, desperately trying to beat at the top of the monster’s head with the help of her silent partner, Acid Storm. Scorponok reached up with a massive pincer and tried to slice at them, barely catching their manes as they ducked under it. “Not really getting much of anywhere, though.”

Applebloom turned her head, not that there was anypony there to speak to directly. “Y’all said that I was the first one to hurt it physically?”

Rewind confirmed, dodging plasma fire as he ran around under the beast, looking for any sort of weak point. “We’ve sent our heaviest hitters after it, but the most we’ve been able to do with physical attacks is dent it. Even Ramhorn can’t seem to punch through, and when he’s fully charged he can punch through solid titanium.”

Applebloom frowned. “And other attacks?”

Screaming Star spoke up. “Sonics are out, which makes most of my team pretty useless beyond simply annoying him. It’s taken up to two hundred decibels and barely been rattled, on every frequency and wavelength we can hit. And if Dirge’s efforts are any indication, mental attacks don’t work well either.”

“It’s too big for my gravity spells to work, and pegasus lightning hasn’t done anything but annoy it.” Flipsides said, ducking under several bursts of plasma as she galloped alongside the beast, weaving between its legs and hurling debris and detritus at its chassis. “The only thing we can do is try to bend or break the cannons lining its hide, but that won’t stop it in the long run and it’s a lot of effort for little reward. There must be hundreds of cannons lining that thing’s body!”

“The only one of us that can seem to damage it at all is Steeljaw, and he attacks things by biting them.” Thundercracker croaked as he nursed his strained vocal cords behind cover.

“Oi! Rack off, bat.” Steeljaw snarled, chewing on a mouthful of metal. “At least I’m doing something.”

“And nopony else was able to do anything?” Applebloom asked, desperately.

“If I will remind you all…” Stripes said calmly from behind cover, “Slamdance managed to freeze its hull. The guns on its left no longer do fire. Perhaps that’s the key to make it expire.”

“Dammit!” Steeljaw grumbled. “Why’d Slamdance have to go and get knocked out?!”

Applebloom slapped a fist into her open palm. “Y’all, I think I have a plan, but we’re gonna need something that can make fire, or at least a lot of heat. And more ice iff’n y’all can find a way to make that happen.”

Stripes spoke up. “If what you seek is ice and fire, then I may provide what you desire. Many potions I have primed and set, to be altered now to any effect.”

“That rhymin’,” Applebloom muttered. “Y’all a zebra?”

“Indeed, I hope that’s not a gripe. I have no name, they call me Stripes.” replied the Zebra guard.

“Hey!” Steeljaw groused through a mouthful of steel. “Can we get to the part where you explain your plan? My jaw is getting tired!”

“Right, right.” Applebloom said. “Stripes, y’all can make freezing and fire potions?”

“A simple working of my art.” Stripes confirmed. “I’ve already the base from which to start.”

“Here’s the plan then.” Applebloom said, peeking over the small wall she had hidden behind at the mammoth, looming scorpion. “I was the only one that could hurt it, an’ even then, I didn’t hurt it much. Varmint has no weak spots.”

“Not exactly filling us with confidence, Applebloom.” Rainbow Dash grunted as she tried to wrestle one of the creature’s robotic antennae to little effect.

“If the thing ain’t got no weak points, then we’ve gotta make one!” Applebloom said, watching as the guards buzzed around it and climbed all over it, desperately trying to affect the massive creature in any way. “Right now, y’all ain’t doing much to it, but y’all are keeping it from getting anywhere. Y’all’re bamboozling it! Just keep doing that. Keep holding out, but whatever y’all do, keep its attention off’a me an’ Stripes.”

Applebloom continued, addressing Stripes this time. “Stripes, I’m gonna need you to make ‘least one ice potion, and iff’n you can, two fire potions.”

Stripes nodded. “For me a truly simple task,” she said calmly as ever. “What is your intent, if I may ask?”

“Y’all said its left side was frozen, yeah?” she didn’t wait for an answer before continuing. “We’re gonna chuck a fire potion at the frozen bits. Then an ice potion, and then another fire one.”

“I get it!” Rewind said, stomping a hoof. “If your plan works, it’ll weaken its metal hull enough that we might be able to break through!”

“Once it’s been frozen and thawed a couple times,” Applebloom continued, “I’mma get up there and hit it as hard as I can. Hopefully, the hull will break and expose all its inner workings. Then, once we’ve exposed the insides, we follow Rainbow Dash’s plan.” She punched a fist into her open palm. “Hit it until it breaks.”

Dash snorted as she continued to wrestle the beast’s antenna. “I like this plan!”

“I shall finish up these basic brews, until they have effects we choose.” Stripes said, pulling components out of the various pouches that dangled around her barrel. “To your post, begin your climb. Fixing these shall take some time.”

“Got it!” Applebloom said, transforming into a wagon and wheeling out of cover, barely dodging plasma fire as she sped over towards the beast’s other side, ducking under the creature’s massive head. “Everypony else, work on distracting it! It seems to be focusing more on the flyers so all pegasi and batponies, keep its attention as far away from me as y’all can!”

“You heard her!” Screaming Star snapped. “Get to work, fools!”

Applebloom skidded across the pavement beneath the creature’s head, barely dodging the flames licking from its mandibles as she tried to maneuver her way towards the creature’s frozen side. The beast took notice of her briefly, leaning down and attempting to snatch her up in its flaming jaws, when Rainbow Dash suddenly flew by at high speed, catching it in the eye with her hoof.

“Hey! Over here, ugly!” Rainbow snapped, barely zipping out of the way of its fiery mandibles as the creature attempted to snap her up. Her foe sufficiently distracted, Applebloom merely had to weave between the trails of molten metal dripping from the creature’s mandibled mouth as it drooled constantly. Skidding out from beneath the creature’s head, Applebloom made a sharp left as she passed the beast’s giant, skittering legs.

Shifting out of her wagon form, Applebloom took in the towering monster before her from this new vantage point.

The beast was distracted by the dozen-and-a-half fliers spinning and twirling around its face, barely paying attention to the few that were crawling around its back like fleas, such as Ramhorn, still futilely trying to find any decent place to attack. Applebloom nodded. If he could climb around on the beast’s back and go unnoticed, then hopefully she wouldn’t be immediately targeted when she began to make her climb.

She took in more of the monster, finally spotting the frozen section she was looking for. A segment of the creature’s side had been covered by what looked like a winter’s morning frost, a patch of the cannons and gears having been turned white with icy chill. Though most of the creature’s cannons were engaged, the ones caught in the frosty patch were noticeably immobile and inactive.

Most of the cannons were pointed away from Applebloom as she took off towards Scorponok’s leg, instead aiming at the pegasi and batponies that buzzed about his face. Perfect.

Applebloom leapt into the air, grabbing onto a jutting shaft of metal about ten feet off the ground, and taking her first step to scaling the great beast. Scorponok roared, its voice something more akin to a cross between a hiss and a Diamond Dog scraping its claws along a chalkboard than anything else. What few windows there were in the vicinity that were still undamaged shattered at the thunderous noise. Applebloom winced, holding on as tightly as she could as the beast thrashed, its legs skittering and shifting as it changed position. Gripping the small ledge with all her might, Applebloom hastily pulled herself up, grabbing onto the base of a cannon and lifting herself further up the metal beast’s leg.

The leg shook and shuddered as the creature continued to thrash about, resisting the new assault from the fliers that swarmed about his face. Rainbow Dash made herself particularly irritating by throwing herself against the sides of the monster’s head repeatedly. Like a moth throwing itself against a light bulb or a bee bumping against a window as it tried to escape a room, Rainbow’s blows had little effect against the monster, but she was certainly making herself known.

Meanwhile, the other fliers had taken to flying in loops and barrel rolls around the creature’s face. With their focuses taken away from trying to attack the creature and put more towards simply distracting it, they could concentrate more upon flying, allowing them to better dodge the creature’s cannon fire and flaming breath. Of more danger was the bursts from Scorponok’s stinger, which burned through buildings like a match flame through tissue paper. Whatever was being fired from that stinger would cause great swathes of whatever matter it hit to disintegrate, as all the matter surrounding the impact shriveled and burned and blackened, clouds of dust and ash and ember bursting up from the impact sites. The only saving graces were that the cannon at the end of its stinger took a long time to charge up, creating a distinct whining noise as it came close to firing, and that Steeljaw was currently working on disabling it, if he could just get through the outer hull enough to sabotage its internal components. He hadn’t had much of an effect yet, but he was getting closer.

Applebloom leapt from handhold to handhold, gripping the ledges set into the massive, metal creature’s body and gripping them with all her might as she scrabbled for purchase. After several frantic minutes of climbing and leaping, she managed to reach the giant scorpion’s first joint. Hefting herself up, she was allowed a brief respite as she managed to scramble onto a ledge between the two major sections of leg, though she still had another 25 feet to climb before she managed to reach level ground. Taking a deep breath, she hefted herself up and leapt towards another ledge as she continued her ascent.

The cannons jutted out of the creature’s body like hairs would out of a normal scorpion’s. They twitched and shifted as Applebloom grabbed hold of them, lifting herself higher and higher. Occasionally, one would fire, which Applebloom would have to quickly lean away from as she climbed, though for the most part they weren’t aimed specifically at her, as the beast’s attention was focused firmly upon the fliers, buzzing about its face.

As Applebloom began the second leg of her climb, though, she found herself directly below a cannon, glowing purple and ready to fire.

With a squeak of panic, Applebloom leapt to the side and into open air as the cannon fired right behind her, singing her hair slightly. Falling out and away from the creature’s leg, Applebloom was forced to think fast. Grabbing her Hammer from its slot, she quickly engaged it as she fell. Swinging it towards the robot scorpion’s leg, she managed to use it like a makeshift climber’s hook, hooking it over another cannon and stopping her fall.

She lurched, perilously swinging back and forth, her arms screaming in their sockets as she held onto the hammer. Dangling a good thirty feet off the ground, Applebloom kicked and swung, desperately trying to get back to the leg and continue her climb. After a few moments of swaying and swinging, She managed to loop her foot around another shaft of metal sticking out of the creature’s hide. Using the foothold to pull herself closer to the beast’s leg, she managed to regain purchase, though she had lost a bit of ground from her fall. Retracting her hammer and placing it back in its slot, she continued climbing the leg, eventually reaching the top of the second joint.

The ground levelled out here as the leg bent at roughly a 90 degree angle. The ground was still uneven and covered in ledges and grooves and little shafts and spines of metal, as well as the larger cannons and the rotating, shifting turrets they rested on. That said, Applebloom was now level with the beast’s back, as the creature’s legs, naturally, bent like those of a scorpion’s. Not counting the one she stood upon, there were two sections of leg remaining between her and the main body, sloping downward like a bell curve that had been skewed away from its abdomen.

The cannons were all turned away from her, instead pointing towards the beast’s head and actively firing at the fliers zipping about the creature’s face.

As Scorponok struggled and shuffled about in place, the leg Applebloom stood upon shook and shuddered, forcing her to get low and hold onto the peaks and valleys of metal beneath her. Holding fast to the creature’s spiny carapace, Applebloom realized that the beast was struggling too violently and its chassis was too uneven to roll across in wagon mode. She’d have to run across it in robot mode.

Carefully making her way along the creature’s leg, she ducked under a firing cannon, the heat from its blasts singing her mane even further and crisping the edges of the bow set into it. Ducking into a roll, she cleared the cannon and avoided its fire, though the rough surface of the leg beneath her scratched her surface up a little. Applebloom attempted to gain speed as she ran across the leg, though it was akin to running across a footbridge in the middle of an earthquake.

Reaching the end of the leg’s section, Applebloom resolved to leap directly to the creature’s body from where she stood. Gearing up for a running start, the little bot hurled herself into the air, putting every ounce of strength she had into her legs. Hurtling through the air, Applebloom gasped as the creature suddenly shifted again, moving away from her and causing her to fall short. With a cry of alarm, Applebloom bounced off the side of the beast’s body and fell between the section of leg she’d just leapt off of and the main body, landing roughly in the joint where the leg met the underside of its abdomen.

Applebloom squealed as the joint shifted and contracted around her. What could charitably be described as one of the beast’s ‘hip joints’ expanded and contracted as Scorponok scuttled around the clearing it had made itself. Wasting no time, Applebloom rolled onto her belly and lifted herself up with her arms and legs and leapt out onto the beast’s last section of leg, barely avoiding being crushed in the beast’s joints. Taking a deep breath, she leapt towards the side of the body, proceeding to scale it like she had the first two sections of leg.

“Applebloom, are you alright?” Came Stripes’ perpetually calm voice over the magical communication. “Your fall there gave us quite the fright!”

“Fine!” Applebloom replied as she scaled the beast’s metal hide. “Misjudged the jump is all. I’ve reached the main body and I’m making my way up now!” Grabbing ahold of a vent of some kind, she addressed the zebra. “How are those potions coming?”

“The fire flasks have been completed.” Stripes replied, peeking out of cover and looking towards the beast. Applebloom turned her head and saw a flash of gold, black, and white, waving quickly at the shape before turning back to her climb. “I can throw it now if it is needed.” Stripes finished.

“Sooner the better!” Applebloom grunted as she looped an arm around another cannon. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Watch the blast, robotic friend! To brace yourself, I’d recommend!” Stripes shouted as she rolled out of cover. Leaning up onto her hind legs, she pulled back with a foreleg and, with surprising strength, chucked a glass flask corked with a flaming rag at the beast’s side. The zebra must have had the strength of an olympic javelin thrower behind her, as the flask sailed a good hundred feet through the air and fifty feet up before shattering against the icy patch near the creature’s head. An oily, foul smelling substance spattered against the beast’s hide and quickly lit up in a flash of superheated fire, causing the beast to screech and thrash as Applebloom held tight to the cannon she’d wrapped her arm around. The beast flailed and floundered, whipping around and smashing into several more buildings, knocking them asunder beneath its struggling, metal body.

The flames seared the beast’s side, blackening much of it with soot and licking at the side of the beast’s face. Applebloom felt a wave of heat wash over her as she crouched behind the cannon, her arm getting the worst of it as it was looped around the cannon, searing the small layer of fur and skin that still covered her metal limbs. The blue and yellow flames caused some patches of the beast’s carapace to glow red with heat and other parts to turn black with soot, as the initial burst of flame quickly turned to a blue glow as the flames shrank to nothing but a fiery coating over a section of its body, and then just as quickly went out, leaving only the blackened metal with a few glowing patches. Despite the size and heat of the blast, though, the fire hadn’t seemed to have caused it any damage, despite all the screaming and thrashing. The ice that had disabled the beast’s cannon’s beforehand had been sublimated into vapor and the patches that were glowing with heat seemed to be disabled still, but the parts of its hide that had been freed from the ice and were now simply blackened with soot and ash seemed instead to be working again, several more cannons now firing wildly into the air.

The lack of damage and the revival of several of the beast’s cannons wasn’t the worst part, though. It no longer seemed to be focusing upon the fliers.

“I think we made it mad, Stripes!” Applebloom cried, clutching to the cannon as best she could, her legs flailing wildly as she was dragged about by the beast’s twisting and flailing. “It’s lookin’ for whatever done thrown that flask!”

“I need some time to find new cover.” Stripes grunted, picking herself and her potions up from where she was hiding and galloping along a wall. “If you could distract him so he doesn’t recover?” She suggested to Applebloom.

Applebloom grunted affirmatively and finally managed to plant her feet on a ledge as the beast thrashed. The perilous climb made even more so by the creature’s enraged flailing, Applebloom steadily made her way to the top of the creature’s carapace. Steadying herself on all fours, Applebloom made a mad dash for where the creature’s head met its body. The effect was like trying to run a marathon in an earthquake. Applebloom teetered and wobbled as she tried to run, tripping occasionally on the grooves and spires jutting from the beast’s back.

Reaching the ‘neck,’ Applebloom grabbed hold of a cannon and shielded herself. The cannons were aimed haphazardly now, firing in every direction instead of being aimed at the fliers still buzzing around the beast’s head. The distraction was proving to no longer be effective as Scorponok angrily rampaged around the clearing he’d formed, searching for whatever had thrown the firebomb at him.

Applebloom needed to give Stripes a reprieve. Quickly scoping out a particular pegasus, she threw together a plan on the fly.

“Rainbow Dash!” Applebloom shouted over the comm spell as the speedster dashed by. She barely managed to catch the pegasus’ attention in time for her to chuck her hammer at her. “Catch!” she shouted.

Rainbow swooped beneath the massive warhammer, clumsily catching it with her forehooves. Without saying anything, Rainbow darted back toward the beast’s head, gripping the hammer tightly. “I’m going to need it back!” Applebloom barely managed to shout before another thrash knocked her on her back.

Rainbow let out a shrill war cry as she rocketed into the back of Scorponok’s head, hefting the hammer over her shoulder and driving it down into its cranium. The impact knocked the creature’s head down a little, damaging the chassis with a small dent and discharging a burst of blue energy across its exoskeleton. The beast hissed, thrashing backwards and catching Rainbow in the jaw, sending her tumbling back a little but not letting go of the warhammer.

“It worked,” Applebloom shouted as she tried to regain her footing. “He noticed the hammer! Rainbow, you need to distract him while Stripes and I finish making the weak point!”

“If I don’t finish him off first!” Rainbow snarled, rolling to her hooves, cradling the hammer over her shoulder as she lifted off again.

“Just be sure to give it back when the second flame potion goes off!” Applebloom shouted after her as she banked under the monster’s head and drove the hammer into what served as the beast’s chin.

Applebloom shakily made her way back towards the beast’s edge where the firebomb had burst. Stripes’ voice suddenly came over the comm spell as she approached. “The potion of cold has been prepared! Find some cover if you wish to be spared!”

Applebloom barely caught sight of a faintly glowing blue flask sailing through the air towards her. With a squeal of alarm, Applebloom turned on one foot and leapt away from the incoming freeze bomb. She heard glass shatter behind her and a crackling noise like ice on a lake cracking underhoof. Applebloom lurched in the air as she felt something catch her foot and she found herself suddenly brought to a halt as her face smacked into the beast’s back. Scorponok thrashed and screeched once again, attention temporarily diverted from Rainbow swinging the hammer into its eye, only to return to her after a few quick blows.

With a groan, she looked over her shoulder to see that Scorponok’s side was covered in ice. Large spires of frozen water jutted from the beast’s side and back, disabling any cannons and systems caught beneath it. What alarmed her, though, was that her foot had been caught in a crystal of ice.

Her foot pinned in the ice, Applebloom could only struggle fruitlessly as she tried to free herself. Stripes’ voice came over the comm spell once again. “Applebloom, have you been hit? You approached the site just as I threw it”

Applebloom grumbled. “I’m alright. Sorta. My foot’s caught in the ice.”

“Is there a way you can get free?” Stripes asked seriously. “We musn’t delay on potion three!”

“I’ll try.” Applebloom grunted, pulling on her leg as hard as she could. Her leg was stuck fast. “I think Rainbow’s got you covered, but change position so he don’t spot you anyway. If I ain’t free by the time you’re ready, throw the potion anyway! I can… probably shrug it off...”

“I do not wish to make that gamble.” Stripes replied. “Free yourself and do not amble!”

Applebloom found herself in an odd position, stuck face down and unable to right herself without twisting her ankle in the ice painfully. She couldn’t bend properly to try and hit the ice with her fists, so she was forced to settle for kicking at the cold crystal with her other foot. She heard bits of it chip off beneath her, but she was obviously accomplishing very little as her foot was still stuck fast.

Scorponok thrashed and shook beneath her as Rainbow attacked its face, but for once, she wasn’t being tossed about thanks to the ice. If she didn’t free herself soon, though, she’d be a fried apple.

Suddenly, a high pitched whine rang through the battlefield. Applebloom looked up to see a purple glow forming at the end of Scorponok’s tail. A moment later, a bright purple beam launched from its end and blasted into a building in the streets below. Moments later, there was a cry of agony and alarm over the comm spell, before the spell suddenly started crackling and squealing with static.

Applebloom grunted, shaking her head to clear it of the noise. Still futilelyfutiley trying to free her foot, she called out over the comm spell. “Rainbow, I could use a hoof!”

She was answered with silence. Or as close to silence as one could get in an active battlefield, anyway.

“Rainbow?!” She called again.

A voice suddenly rang out through the battlefield. “Decibel is down! The communication spell is offline!” Screaming Star yelled at the top of her lungs.

Applebloom’s heart caught in her throat. There was no way to call out to Rainbow and get her to break her out of the ice. Furthermore, there was no way to know when Stripes would throw the last fire potion. If she didn’t get out of the ice fast, she was going to be burned to a crisp! The little bot pulled with all her might, but only succeeded in twisting her ankle painfully.

“C’mon…” Applebloom grunted as she struggled, only succeeding in exhausting herself.

“Need help?” a voice asked as a massive hoof stomped down next to her. Applebloom looked up to see a giant gray armored unicorn looking down upon her. He had to be at least as big as her brother, though he looked a little older. “I may not be able to hurt this monster, but I think I can take care of a chunk of ice.”

Applebloom heaved a sigh of relief. “Thanks… uh?”

“Major Ramhorn at your service, ma’am” he bowed, a hint of a Trottingham accent slipping into his voice. “It’s a pleasure to make your proper acquaintance. You’ve been the talk of the castle all day.”

“So I been told.” Applebloom grunted, still struggling. “Could y’all maybe…?”

“One moment.” Ramhorn said, his horn alighting with a faint orange glow. Strangely, though, no spell seemed to be cast upon the ice. Instead, the glow started to encompass his whole body. Ramhorn’s muscles seemed to bulge beneath his armor and his body started radiating an electrifying sort of heat. Stomping his hoof and snorting, Ramhorn pawed at the ground and backed up, lowering his head for a charge.

Suddenly, Screaming Star’s voice rang out through the battlefield.

“Bombs away!”

Ramhorn took off in a charge towards the ice that pinned Applebloom. Applebloom struggled, trying to get herself free. “Ramhorn, stop!” she shouted.

The guard ignored her, lowering his glowing horn towards the ice and crashing into it in a mighty headbutt. The ice shattered, sending Applebloom skidding across the beast’s uneven, jagged hide. She twisted around as she landed trying to see whether Ramhorn was safe.

Ramhorn stood, still glowing and shaking himself off as he emerged from the icy debris.

A glass flask burst about three feet away from his feet, splashing foul-smelling oil everywhere.

Everything went up in flames.

“Ramhorn!” Applebloom shouted, leaping to her feet, ready to sprint towards the blaze. Just as she took a step, though, a flaming, charging pony emerged from the wall of fire, desperately rolling around on the uneven surface. Gasping, Applebloom dashed over to the flaming guard, slapping at the flames with nothing but her hands.

“I gotcha!” Applebloom shouted, though she wasn’t having much of an effect on the fire. “I’ll put you out!”

“Get clear!” came a voice from above her. Applebloom looked up and quickly ducked to the side as Rainbow Dash swooped in with a small raincloud she’d gathered, bucking it over Ramhorn and dousing his flames with rainwater. The fire quickly drowned away, leaving a shivering, grunting Ramhorn on the ground.

Applebloom gasped. Her stomach lurched and a dizzy spell washed over her as she looked at what the flames had done to her rescuer. Half his body was burned, patched with black and red where his skin had been charred. He coughed and hacked weakly, spitting out a wad of blood and ash.

Rainbow swooped down, holding Applebloom’s warhammer in her teeth. She spat it out onto the ground at her feet. “What happened?!” she demanded.

Applebloom looked down at Ramhorn, horrified. “He… he was trying to save me and…” she trailed off, shaking her head, a tear dripping from her eye. “This is all my-”

“Hey!” Rainbow said, grabbing Applebloom’s shoulder. “Not the time to have a pity party! You have a job to do, remember?” She inched her nose under Ramhorn, flipping him onto her back with a pained grunt from the both of them.

“But―-” Applebloom tried to protest, only for Ramhorn to cough and fix her a gaze with his good eye.

“I’ll be fine, love.” Ramhorn croaked out. “You just do your part, right?”

“I’ll get him to Stripes.” Rainbow said. “She’s gotta have something for this. You just focus on what you gotta do.”

Applebloom nodded mutely, picking up her warhammer and getting to her feet. Rainbow Dash beat her wings and lifted off, rocketing towards the building the flask had been thrown from.

Applebloom stood there, gripping the hammer weakly as time seemed to slow. Another pony had just gotten hurt because of her. All he had tried to do was help her and because she was too clumsy and too careless and too weak to get out of the way of danger herself, he’d had half his body burned to a crisp. She opened her eyes and looked out over the city, the moment frozen in time before her. Canterlot was burning and it was her fault. She was the reason these invaders had come. She was the reason ponies were out there hurt or dying. It was her.

“No more of this.” Applebloom whispered, her grip around the hammer tightening. She grit her teeth as tears ran down her cheeks. Time sped back up again as she took off at a sprint for the burned, blackened, glowing patch of metal on Scorponok’s back, her hammer trailing behind her in her grasp. She howled out a war cry as she swung the hammer above her head, the glowing blue head shining like a star as it crested the apex of its arc, then, with the force of Applebloom’s rage and despair behind it, crashed down into the glowing, heated, weakened metal.

Scorponok’s hull buckled, a creaking, groaning noise resounding through the clearing as the hammerhead impacted the beast’s carapace. A shockwave burst from the impact point, releasing a thunderous boom as she hit her mark. And with a final groan of protest, Scorponok’s hull shattered beneath her.

The metal beneath Applebloom’s feet spiderwebbed with cracks as chunks of heated, blackened armor fell from the beast’s hide. Like earth split by a quake, a great fissure opened in the beast’s hide, pistons, gears, nuts and bolts, and even a whole cannon raining down upon the streets below as a flood of energon gushed from the wound.

Scorponok screeched and howled, rearing back on two of its hind legs, thrashing about more violently than ever before. The great monster slammed into buildings, knocking them over as it swung from side to side in pain and panic. Its massive claws snapped at the air wildly, occasionally catching a building in their grasp and splitting them open, but the erratic panicked nature of its thrashing was easy enough for the remaining guards to avoid. It tried to fire its cannon, but Steeljaw had apparently done enough of a number on its tail that its main stinger cannon was finally disabled, no longer free to do widespread damage upon the city. Its smaller cannons fired wildly, doing little more damage than it had already done.

Applebloom was thrown off of the creature as it thrashed and flailed. She lost her grip on her hammer, the weapon flying away from her as she was thrown into a brick wall, the wind knocked out of her as she slid down the masonry into a heap on the ground. Her head swam and her vision spun as she tried to regain her bearings from the impact.

Scorponok shrieked, snapping Applebloom back to reality. She shook her head and looked up at the beast, looming over her like a monstrous spectre of death, its animalistic, insectoid eyes focused squarely upon her. Applebloom’s breath hitched in her throat as the beast glared down at her.

And then, its legs buckled. The creature screeched once before finally coming down in a heap, collapsing into the middle of the street like a wet rag, its body going limp and motionless.

Applebloom let out a relieved breath as she felt hooves landing around her.

“Applebloom, are you alright?” Screaming Star asked as several other guards landed around her. “Any injuries?”

Applebloom groaned, flexing all her limbs a little. “Nothing I can’t walk off.” she grunted. “How’s Ramhorn?”

Screaming Star’s ears twitched. “Ramhorn’s with Stripes. He, Decibel, and the other injured guards are being transported to medical as we speak,” she reported.

Applebloom nodded. “Good… that’s good.”

Rewind slipped off of Screaming Star’s back, trotting up to her and placing a hoof on her forehead. “That was a hell of a blow you gave him at the end there. Nice work, filly.” Rewind said

Applebloom shook her head. “No… No it isn’t.” She muttered. “It was me. It’s my fault that this happened in the first--”

Metal creaked and groaned, sending a resounding screeching noise rumbling through the clearing.

The guards all turned around and quickly lowered themselves into a battle stance. Applebloom looked up and gasped.

Scorponok was getting to its feet. Slowly but surely, the massive scorpion creature stood, its legs trembling but gaining strength with every moment. Its massive claws snapped and clapped, serrated, bladed edges creating sparks every time they closed. Its piercing glare was levelled firmly upon Applebloom and the guards as it rose higher and higher. Its tail swung back and forth threateningly as the cannons scattered around its carapace levelled at them.

And then, a familiar clanking noise resounded through the clearing.

The beast’s six legs slid down his body mechanically, fusing together as Scorponok reared up on two new hind legs, clawed feet emerging from their ends as his body rose into the air. His tail retracted, sliding in the opposite direction up his body as the stinger end twisted and spun, settling into a position over his newly acquired shoulders as his clawed arms altered where they met the body, reorienting themselves as they became more suited for its new, bipedal stance. Cannons rearranged themselves, forming sections of armor that appeared similar to shoulder pads, shinguards, and thigh guards, as well as many other pieces of armor. Looming ever higher and higher, the beast’s head split open and slid down until the monstrous, insectoid face rested in the middle of his chest. The wound Applebloom inflicted remained open, seeping energon out of its side, but Scorponok rearranged the cannons around it to form a makeshift bandage, slowing the leak though not completely stopping it. Finally, a head emerged from the top of its shoulders, shaped similar to Appleblooms but with an entirely different visage. No mouth or nose to speak of, but four orange eyes glowing behind what looked to be a pair of yellowish goggles set into a black helmet covering the whole head and tipped with wicked-looking orange horns.

The newly-transformed robot stood a hundred feet tall. A titan looming over the city, dwarfing every structure save for the castle itself. Had the citizens of Canterlot not already been ushered into emergency shelters and onto evacuating airships, surely they would have collapsed at the sight of such a monster.

Scorponok glared down at Applebloom and the guards, pointing a claw down at them.

“No…” Applebloom whispered as the guards all took off around her. “No no no…”

“FIRE!”

A massive purple burst of energy suddenly exploded from a side street, impacting the massive titan in the chest, burning through the cannons that had blocked off the energon leak in the wound Applebloom had made. The massive robot staggered back, clutching at the wound with one of his claws.

Applebloom and Scorponok both turned. Emerging from the side street was a line of octagonal tanks, their main cannons all aimed at the wound in Scorponok’s side. The massive robot growled, the stinger cannon set in his shoulder glowing for a second before sputtering out thanks to Steeljaw’s sabotage. As Scorponok aimed his smaller cannons at the tanks, though, Shining Armor popped out of the top of one of them, pointing at the beast.

“FIRE TWO!” he shouted.

As one, the main cannons atop the tanks all glowed purple with destructive magic, firing just moments before Scorponok’s cannons could and exploding into the wound Applebloom had created, burning at the robots inner workings, and causing it to shriek and howl in pain as it collapsed forward, barely catching itself with a claw. The wound was leaking freely now, bright blue energon pouring onto the ground like a waterfall from its chest.

With the last of its strength, the beast fixed a glare upon Applebloom. Looking at the little bot, still slumped at the base of a building, it opened the mouth on its chest, fire and molten metal glowing within as it charged up one last attack.

“FIRE THREE!”

One final blast impacted with Scorponok’s side, sending the massive robot crashing to the ground, a cloud of dust and smoke rising from where it fell. The robot’s eyes continued to glare at Applebloom as it craned its neck to look at her, the four eyes flickering and turning a dull gray as they slowly went out.

Applebloom let out a long, relieved breath as she stood up from the base of the building. The Solar and Lunar guards in the air all landed as guardsponies throughout the clearing clapped their hooves against the ground, whooping and cheering that the beast had been felled. Shining Armor leapt out of the tank and trotted towards her.

“Applebloom!” Shining Armor called. “Are you alright?”

Applebloom nodded as she stepped away from the building towards Shining. She nodded weakly. “Yeah… I think I’ll be okay.”

Shining Armor smiled, reaching up and patting her on the shoulder. “I think you’ve seen enough for one day, Applebloom. Let’s get you back to the castle.”

“Why don’t you allow us?” Came a voice from above the clearing. Everypony turned and looked up to see two last robots standing atop a building, grinning evilly down at the crowd. One tall, bulky and forest green in color and the other, and the other slim, purple, and white. The slim one leapt into the air and transformed with a familiar clanking noise into a metal form that looked like a massive, sleek, mechanical bird while the big green one leapt off the building and crashed into the ground aside Applebloom, cratering the ground beneath him. “I guarantee we’ll get her zere faster zan you will.”

The guards all leapt into action but were forced to scatter as Blitzwing fired down upon them as he hovered in the air. Applebloom instinctively reached for her hammer, only to remember too late that she’d lost it when falling off Scorponok’s back. Left open, she let out a sharp scream of surprise as she felt Brawl’s massive hand close around her leg and she was hefted into the air.

Brawl’s other arm twisted and shifted into a cannon as he fired a few quick bursts at the guards, dodging tank fire as he shot blasts of plasma at the infantry. “Time to go, Blitz!” he shouted up at the plane.

“I could not agree more!” Blitzwing said, lowering a little closer to the ground. “Grab on!”

Brawl charged through the guards as they desperately tried to give chase. Leaving the ponies in the dust, Brawl leapt into the air, a struggling Applebloom writhing in his hand as he grabbed onto the base of Blitzwing’s plane form just above his tailfin.

Blitzwing rocketed into the air, Brawl holding onto him tight and dragging Applebloom below them as the three of them rocketed towards the only notable structure in the city still undamaged:

Canterlot Castle.

* * *

The cavern was deep, dank, and dark. Though it was miles and miles away from the fighting, the rumbles of battle could still be heard. Shudders vibrated through the green crystals set into the walls of the cave, creating a resonating hum as the ground trembled.

Moisture dripped from stalactites set into the high ceiling, drops of water trickling to the pointy bottoms of the rock structures and falling the several dozen feet to the ground below, dripping noisily into puddles of more water.

Or at least they would, were they not interrupted, splashing instead into a prone, purple form that appeared several minutes ago in a flash of magenta light.

The purple creature stirred but did not wake.

Author's Note

Little later than I wanted to get it out. I'm still sorry I didn't get this out in November. Like I said in the blog, it was not a good month for me. And while it's still the 2nd of December where I am, it's later than I hoped this would get out. I spent most of the day decorating the house for Christmas.

Anyway, I hope this chapter doesn't get too dark or too contrived for anybody. Writing action scenes is definitely not my forte (probably should have thought of that before making a TRANSFORMERS story), and I've been fretting over this chapter and its quality for a while now. Hopefully it isn't too terribly awful or shark jumping or what have you. I also hope people can follow it well enough. It covers a lot of ground, that's for sure.

Let's see if I can get out another chapter or two before the end of the year.

Also, I apologize for linking to an image when describing the T-Cog. I know that's often seen as cheap or lazy and honestly I agree. That said... cut me some slack. :twilightsheepish: I mean come on, look at that damn thing and you try to describe it in prose that doesn't end up running on for twelve sentences or being woefully inadequate.

(incidentally, if you CAN describe it elegantly in less than, like, four sentences I might just steal your description and replace that text :raritywink: )

Special thanks to Merlos the Mad for proofing this chapter. Thanks again, buddy!