Data File 01: Location Unknown
I fell, metal clanging and tree branches snapping as I plummeted through a forest canopy, to land flat on my back, my vision flickering incessantly like a bad video connection. I struggled to my feet, stumbling as my legs sent feedback to my brain that felt like my lower limbs had gained an extra joint somewhere. I lifted a hand up, and touched my face to take off the helmet I had made for my costume, blinking wearily from my fall. My hand grabbed one of the ridges I had put in the back for emergency removal, and I tugged. Instead of my helmet coming off, however, I instead jerked my head forward uselessly. I shook myself, still not fully registering the light clang and gentle scrape of metal on metal as I moved. I put both hands to either side of my head, and tried to pull my helmet off. Instead, it felt like I was pulling my own ears off. I stopped, and finally caught a glimpse of my hands as they fell to my sides. I lifted them back up, and stared.
Four, not five, slender little digits waggled back at me. I touched the tips to one another, feeling the sensation of pressure against them as if they were my own, instead of gloved like they had been. I then followed my fingers up my arms, noting the long, flat panelling that now made up my upper limbs, and the decidedly metallic sheen and perfectly-depicted Decepticon emblem on my upper arms, barely noticeable from my perspective, but still not what I had put there. Mine was never that nice. I then looked down the rest of my body, noting the sharp pointy bits making up my chest, and the fact that my legs did, in fact, have a new joint in them. I tested one out by standing on one leg and bending it around, getting used to how the new piece moved. I then looked around at the forest.
It was decidedly not a forest that I had seen anywhere near the convention center. Pasadena definitely didn't have trees like this when I was wandering around lost, that's for sure. Which meant that I was no longer in Pasadena. Which also meant that the abyssal hole that had opened underneath my feet during Botcon's second day had been real. I decided it was a good time to freak out, and allowed my body to fall to the ground, shuddered, convulsing, and rattling in fear.
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, holy SHIT!! Where the hell am I? What even happened?! I need to find out. Now. Shivering on the ground in a body that isn't even yours isn't how you fix a problem.
Shall I add that to the database, sir?
Who the fuck said that, and how did you get into my head?!?
I believe the designation you have assigned me is 'Laserbeak,' sir.
That didn't just happen. I did not just find out that the prop I bought from some random dude at Botcon is actually a living sentient thing. Which is currently strapped to my chest....
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, YOU'RE STRAPPED TO MY CHEST! GET OFF! GET OFF!!!
I tried to pry the thing off, but it came off on its own, flipping in the air to transform, and floating just in front of me, an identical copy of the one in the show.
Is that preferable, sir?
And yet, it was still in my head. Fortunately, that meant I didn't have to talk out loud and attract even more attention than I undoubtably already had. I took a step back.
It's... a start. Alright, then... Laserbeak. Where the hell are we?
I do not know. I was not alive before a few moments ago. I have no information beyond our abilities, and what I have collected since we appeared in this realm.
Great, I have to deal with a voice in my head, and he doesn't even know anything about my world. Great.
Your silence and stance indicate frustration. Logic determines the source to be my lack of prior information. It is possible for me to create a new data library for myself from your memories, sir.
I jabbed a spindly digit at him.
Hell no! I'm not having some brand-new UAV that I don't know anything about digging through my brain and making copies of everything! I'm not even comfortable with the thought-speak yet!
Yet you appear to have mastered it already, sir.
That's because I'm used to talking to imaginary people in my head! You are not imaginary! You could do any number of things to me!
Actually, sir, I am a fragment of your mind and personality. I am, for all intents and purposes, the physical form of one of your imaginary voices. I am under your control as much as they are, sir.
I stared for a minute. Despite how utterly creepy that sounded, it made sense. How would something become alive without something already living to grow off of?
Alright, fine, I'll accept that for the moment, but you're still not going through my memories. We'll talk about that later. Right now, I have more important things to worry about, like where the hell we landed.
Would you like me to go above the trees and find the shortest route out, sir?
Best idea you've had yet.
The little metal bird gained altitude, and the sound of his wings brushing against leaves on the way up reached my ears.
Actually, that reminds me.
I reached up to my face again, and felt around my head. Yep, no ears. No actual face, either. Just a visor. With a HUD. Oh, here comes another freak out. Yep, back on the ground, shuddering uncontrollably as I realize that I have, in fact, body-snatched Soundwave. I recovered from this one more quickly, though, as I forced myself to think about the positives.
Let's see.... I am now made of metal! Which means it's going to be much harder to get killed, that's good. I'm Soundwave, so I should be able to record and play back anything I hear, so I'm sure I can put that to good use. What else... Oh, I can't believe I almost forgot that. How do I forget, while cosplaying a Transformer, that my character can transform?! Even if it is for only a short time?!
Perhaps something to do with the shock factor, sir?
I physically jumped at the voice, still unaccustomed to having someone else answer my thoughts. I unintentionally took out the slight anger at being taken off-guard so easily on him in my response.
Do you have something to report yet?
Yes, sir. I have located a small village to your northwest. Shall I continue onward?
No, not yet. No point shocking anyone more than we really have to. Better to show up all at once, I think, so they don't start thinking there's an entire army in the trees.
Sound logic, sir.
Don't compliment me if you don't really mean it, Laserbeak.
I attempted to focus my body in an attempt to find my T-cog, which would allow me to transform, but to no avail. Apparently, I was going to need practice. Not too much trouble, though. For now, I would just have to run. Of course, a regular run would never do for a character like Soundwave. No, his design lent itself perfectly to a much more unnatural mode of locomotion: the Ninja Run. I angled my arms back and leant forward, then charged ahead at top speed, which was surprisingly fast. Apparently that extra joint in my legs was for more than just appearance.
I covered the short distance between me and Laserbeak quickly, and looked out at the town, deciding to figure out how to zoom my optics sooner, rather than later. I eventually managed to make my vision telescope, pulling the faraway buildings much closer in my sight. I scanned the town, not yet seeing anything living out and about. I zoomed back out as Laserbeak floated down to hover next to my head. I instinctively leaned away slightly, but he didn't seem to mind.
A new idea suddenly occurred to me, and I looked at the sun, gauging its current height and checking the plant life around me. The sun itself was still touching the horizon, and the flowers nearby were closed.
It's dawn. Whoever lives here, it looks like they haven't gotten up yet. It won't be long now, though. All we have to do is wait, and not be seen immediately.
A sound plan, sir.
Knock it off with that pun.
I stepped back into the shadows of the trees, and Laserbeak flew to a low branch to conserve energy. Eventually, the sound of doors being opened and closed, and the faint sound of voices calling morning greetings were carried by the breeze to my audio receptors. I returned my attention to the town, and zoomed my optics again. What I saw would have made my jaw drop, if I had one.
Moving away from the town, out into what appeared to be an orchard, were two quadrupeds, one green and one yellow. Using a spy dish to catch the sound, I could easily make out that they were talking to each other, though I didn't bother recording any of the conversation. I was too busy trying to make my brain work again. Finally, I managed to think a full sentence again.
I am in Equestria. As Soundwave. Crap.
I do not see why this is detrimental to us.
Because, while they talk about peace and harmony and whatnot, they tend to freak out at things that don't fit in. And right now, I fit in here about as well as an octopus in a bird museum. So obviously, they're going to freak out as soon as they spot me.
That would hinder any actions we attempt to take in this realm.
Yeah. So what we need is a problem to solve. Something that they normally couldn't handle on their own, or would at least have trouble with. Then I can deal with it for them, and they won't be quite so worried about me hurting them.
Wouldn't they be more terrified of you if you can defeat an enemy they have difficulty beating with ease? You would show that they would have no ability to defeat you, and therefore no defense if you were to turn on them.
I'm hoping the system shock will keep them from thinking along those lines and more in the neighborhood of 'it saved us, it must be nice.'
I still find this plan to be unstable, at best.
I didn't really care at that point. I had just picked up a sound that was most certainly not made by any pony, and I took off in the direction of the disturbance. Laserbeak swiftly followed me, and I could soon make out the source of the noise: A massive crocodilian, with what appeared to be boulders making up its back, was snapping and thrashing at the base of a tree, the water around it stained red, and pieces of what used to be clothing floating lazily down the slow-moving river. It didn't take a genius to figure out what happened here, especially with the colt hanging onto a high branch of the tree the crocodile was attacking. I decided to deal with this in-character, and did what Soundwave does: I recorded the sound of the creature thrashing, then played it back at a little more than full volume. It got the croc's attention fast enough, and I sent a mental instruction to Laserbeak to attack at every available safe opportunity. I didn't want my new companion to go offline just yet, no matter how uncomfortable he made me.
The croc surged toward me, and I hopped up onto its back, my heavy metal body bashing a dent into the rocks on its back where I landed. The creature roared impotently at me, and rolled over, just as I had hoped it would. I hopped again, this time landing on its soft belly. As I came down, I extended my legs as forcefully as possible, and heard a couple of bones break as a reward. The croc rolled over again, and I jumped off. It hissed at me, trying to intimidate me into making a mistake, but it was failing miserably. I already knew that normal crocodilians could be disabled by holding their mouth closed on land, where they can't put you underwater, and now I had a body made of far sturdier stuff. More importantly, though, I had backup.
Laserbeak descended from the branches behind the beast, and zapped it with a quick laser blast. The creature roared, and spun to face the new threat, which quickly disappeared once more into the leaves. That didn't really matter, though, as I again jumped on the croc, this time landing on his head. It tried to shake me off for a moment, but I was already prepared to finish this. I called up the recording of the croc hissing, changed the pitch slightly, and placed my palm against the beast's head, near where its ear should have been. Then, I pumped the beast's own hiss of anger into its head. It went still, then slumped as blood seeped from the earhole. It was still breathing, though, so I got off of it and strode to the tree the colt had remained in during the fight. He was obviously still scared, and I knew I needed to say something, quickly. I had a flash of inspiration, and tried to speak for the first time since gaining my new body. It came out deep, gravelly, and distorted by electronic re-layering.
"Crocodile inferior, Soundwave superior."
The colt's eyes went wide in amazement, and I knew I had just gotten him out of panic mode, at least.
Yeah, I thought, now that's a catchphrase for the ages.
Data File 02: Location Confirmed
As the colt finally looked around again, his eyes went wide upon seeing the clothes in the river.
"No!"
He spread a pair of wings I hadn't seen before, and glided down to a hat that had gotten stuck on the beach. He was a lanky little thing, with a feather for a cutie mark. I was fully prepared to do what I could for him, when he said something that nearly broke my brain.
"All of my stuff!"
What.
"And after Zecora went through all that trouble to make red hair dye, too."
Hair dye?
"Um, not that it's your fault, Mister, uh, Soundwave."
It was hair dye?
"I uh, I should really be getting home now, so, uh... thanks for saving me. Bye!"
IT WAS HAIR DYE?!
And with that, the little pegasus galloped off towards the town. I didn't move, not until Laserbeak hovered next to me.
Sir?
I grabbed him by the wings, and shook him like a mad man.
It was HAIR DYE! HAIR! DYE! I thought that colt had just become an orphan, for crying out loud! I thought there were dead ponies, here!!
Laserbeak had a surprising amount of ease in answering as I shook him, which I later reflected wasn't that surprising, considering we could speak telepathically.
Sir, while I understand the cause of your frustration, breaking my chassis will not make anything better.
I froze, and Laserbeak stretched himself in my grip to undo the superficial damage I had caused.
You're right. What we need right now is a way to find out who the bastard that sent us here was, and how to get back home. We are, however, in the magical land of Equestria, so I don't think finding a dimensional travel spell should be a problem. The hard part will be getting one of the ponies to cast it for us.
I agree, sir.
I tossed him in the air, and he flipped to right himself and hover in front of me.
Well, then, it's time to start acting like a communications officer, and intercept some information.
POV Shift, Third Person
Twilight trotted through town, humming happily to herself. The day had been going great so far. No imminent peril, no catastrophic world-changing events, and she had just had a fantastic breakfast with her friends. In fact, it was going a little too well. She stopped, suddenly suspicious of everything around her. Ponyville was never this peaceful for long, which meant that something would be happening any second-
"LOOK OUT!!"
-ah, there it is.
WHAM!
Twilight found herself sprawled across the ground as a little red wagon, a scooter, and three fillies plowed her over into a tangle of limbs and metal. She shook her head to clear it, and found the Cutie Mark Crusaders laying on top of her. She sighed.
"Alright, you three, what were you trying this time?"
Scootalo smiled almost drunkenly.
"Bobsledding!"
Apple Bloom nodded.
"Yeah! But we didn't have a bobsled, so we just had Scootaloo go really really fast, and then tried to steer without her."
Twilight gave them all a deadpan stare, even as Sweetie Belle still attempted to get the stars to fade.
"You are aware, of course, that bobsledding only happens on icy hills, right?"
Apple Bloom socked Scootaloo in the shoulder.
"Ah told ya we were doin' it wrong!"
"Hey, how was I supposed to know? It's not like it's called 'ice-sledding' or something."
"Girls!"
All three turned their attention to the lavender unicorn.
"Instead of tearing through the town, how about you try something safe today? Like, say, sewing? Or maybe painting?"
Scootaloo made a gagging sound.
"No way! That stuff is boring! When I get my cutie mark, I want it to be something really awesome!"
Twilight sighed.
"Fine, then. Could you at least get off of me, then."
All three fillies suddenly realized that they were still laying on top of her, and grinned sheepishly before scrambling off, taking the wagon and scooter off as well.
"Thank you. Now-"
"Guys! Guys, guys, guys!"
Twilight was cut off as a high-pitched male voice shouted at them. They all turned toward the voice to see Featherweight galloping toward them at full speed. Apple Bloom tilted her head as he came to a halt, panting, in front of them.
"Featherweight? What's got your britches all in a bundle?"
He caught his breath, and looked up at them with a huge grin.
"You'll never believe what I just saw!"
POV Shift, Soundwave
I moved as quietly as I could through the trees, skirting around the edge of the fields of apple trees I had come to. The barn was finally in sight, now all I had to do was find my target....
There she is.
Moving along one of the many trails, an orange pony with yellow hair and a stetson walked through the trees, hauling a wagon filled with baskets of apples behind her. As she neared the barn, I could see a red stallion walking from the house to meet her.
Applejack and Big Macintosh. I should be able to get some good sound bites from these two. Or Applejack, anyway.
I activated my audio spy dish, and aimed it toward the siblings.
"Hiya, Big Mac! You done with the dishes, already?"
"Eeyup."
"Well, Ah suppose we oughta get moving at full steam, then. C'mon, help me unload these apples."
"Eeyup."
The two of them went into the barn and although I could still hear their voices, the acoustics of the building muffled and echoed their voices too much for me to make anything out. Finally, they came back out and I could hear their conversation again.
"...way, didja hear about the ambassadors comin'? Twilight's gonna put on a show when they get here, looks like. Somethin' to do with Fluttershy's critters. Whole thing is supposed to be real fancy and impressive. Ah suppose we'll see, though. Not sure what's so great about a raccoon bein' floated in a circle."
"Maybe 'cause the ambassadors ain't seen magic 'fore?"
"Maybe, but Ah don't think that's likely. 'Sides, Twilight can do way more impressive things than levitate a bunch of animals. I just hope Fluttershy doesn't faint right away. Poor thing is gonna be terrified the whole time, Ah'm sure."
"Ya think anything's gonna go wrong, Applejack?"
"Somethin' always goes wrong. Ah jest hope it ain't Rainbow Dash makin' trouble, this time. Be embarrassin' for everypony if she just started showin' off in the middle of Twilight's show."
"Eeyup."
"Well, we best quit chattin', and start workin'. Let's go."
"Eeyup."
The two of them wandered off, and I played back the entire recording in my head.
Yeah, this should be sufficient, at least for now.
I do not understand why you do not reveal yourself, sir.
Because I want to at least have some stock audio to play back at them. They don't need to know everything about me or my body, so I'd just as soon not have them know. Not yet, at any rate.
I began chopping the audio up into usable files, and returned to the shadows of the forest.
POV Shift, Third Person
Twilight blinked in amazement at the tale Featherweight had just told her and the Cutie Mark Crusaders about a metal biped, with a metal bird, that was capable of beating a cragadile into submission.
"Um, Featherweight? Are you sure you didn't just imagine this, or something?"
Featherweight snorted in indignation.
"Of course I saw it! It was this really tall thing, at least as tall as Princess Celestia, with spikes on its body, and big, flat arms that looked like shields!"
Twilight chuckled nervously, unsure what to make of all this.
"Well, you also said it didn't have a face."
"It didn't! It was just this, like, black, shiny glass where its face should have been. And when it talked, it sounded really weird, like dubstep."
Twilight resisted the urge to groan at the analogy. Dubstep hadn't been around for long, but as far as she was concerned, it never should have come into being. It was nothing but synthetic noise, put to a beat. There was barely anything about the genre that was even remotely musical.
"Alright, so what did it say? Did it tell you anything?"
"Not really. It just said, 'Crocodile inferior, Soundwave superior.' I think it was talking about itself."
Twilight pondered this for a moment. Suddenly, this seemed familiar. She was sure she had heard of a being sometime in history referring to itself in the third person, but she couldn't remember where. She shook it off for the moment. Whatever he had seen, it obviously wasn't hostile, but that didn't mean it couldn't be. She sighed.
"Alright. For now, don't tell anypony else about this. We don't need a panic on our hooves, so until I know what we're dealing with, this stays a secret, alright?"
Featherweight and the Crusaders let out groans of disappointment.
"Don't give me that. If this is true, and whatever it was isn't hostile, then you'll be able to talk about it all you want later. For now, though, I need to find the girls and do some investigating. You all go play. I'm sure once I figure out what's going on, this will turn out to be nothing really exciting."
The Crusaders loaded back up into their wagon, and Featherweight flew off, leaving Twilight to gather her friends.
Time to figure this out.
POV Shift, Soundwave
Time to figure this out.
I widened my stance, and began moving every part of my new body that I could command purposefully, searching for the one piece I wanted more than any other.
It was all to no avail, though. For whatever reason, I wasn't able to activate my T-cog. Laserbeak hovered nearby, watching silently as I tried again, with identical results. I gave up, and leaned my back against a nearby tree.
Sir, I believe you are doing something wrong.
Obviously, Laserbeak. I'm trying to figure out what.
I had been there for almost ten minutes at that point, trying to transform. I had yet to get even a single plate to move beyond my normal human limitations. I didn't have any more time to think about it, though, as my audio receptors picked up the sounds of voices coming through the forest. I made my way carefully towards them, and found the six ponies I currently didn't need hassling me.
The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Great.
I used my newly-thinned body to my advantage, and hid behind one of the straighter trees. Why were most of them all gnarled and ugly, anyway?
Poking my head up between some of the branches, I could use both my spy dish and my optic zoom to watch them and listen to their conversation.
"But seriously," Rainbow Dash said, hovering above and in front of the group, "a six-foot-tall metal monster? Come on, Twilight, even I could have told you it wasn't real! Things like that are cool to think about, but what are the actual chances, huh? I'm sure you could tell me that right now, right?"
Twilight nodded as the path bent to their left, keeping them in my sight.
"The chances are extremely low, yes, but it's still a non-zero positive integer."
Rainbow stopped in mid-air to stare at her purple friend.
"Twilight, there are times you are more of an egghead than I can really believe."
Twilight turned her head to say something, then froze. I couldn't tell what was happening, though, until the rest of her friends stopped as well, and pointed their noses up slightly. It didn't take a wildlife expert to understand that they just smelled something that scared them. The only question was, what? I didn't have to wait long as the plants around them started to move on their own, forming into large, wolf-like creatures.
Oh, that's not good.
