Beast Wars: Friendship is Magic

It wasn’t easy being a changeling.

Ever since their failed invasion of Canterlot, to say the changeling horde had been weakened would be putting it lightly.  Humiliated is more like it; especially for Queen Chrysalis.  All of that planning was for naught.  Victory had been so close, only to be yanked away at the last moment.  She felt only one thing for them.

Hate.

If the word ‘hate’ were engraved on every centimeter of the land of Equestria, it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate she felt for the ponies who foiled her plight.  Hate.  Hate.

“Where did I go wrong?” the changeling queen hissed to herself for the hundredth time that day.  “My plan was brilliant!  Flawless!  Capture the Princess of Love, manipulate the prince into marrying me, take control of Canterlot, and then all of Equestria!  But no, I had to be foiled by that purple unicorn, her stupid friends, and the very power of love itself!  Love!  I literally feed off of it and that’s what ultimately defeats me?!  What kind of sick, ironic joke is that?!”

Chrysalis let out a frustrated sigh as she had finished venting for the moment.  She couldn’t spend forever dwelling on her mistakes.  She had to focus on the now and the future.  Her subjects were going to starve because of those Ponies and it would all be on her.  She wouldn’t stand for it.

She only had one desire now.

Revenge.

Unfortunately, revenge would have to wait.  Her subjects’ strength had depleted and her advisers had suggested to gather their numbers for the time being.  It would be months, perhaps years before they may be able to attempt another assault.

Until then, Chrysalis would wait, burning with hatred, fueled by her desire for vengeance.  One day, she would make them all pay.

She would not be denied.

Scorn and Fang had been through plenty of hardships in their lives as soldiers for their queen.  They’d endured their defeat at Canterlot, they’d been loyal guards for the weakened changeling hive and would gladly battle any creature to the death for the sake of the hive.  Whether it be earth pony, or unicorn, or pegasus.

This was none of those things.

In fact, they didn’t even know what to call the capsule-shaped object in front of them.  To think one patrol would lead to a find such as this would be boggling to any creature; a changeling was no exception.

“So… what do you think it is?” Scorn glanced over at his partner, who ran his hole-riddled hoof across the surface of the object.

“To put it bluntly; Tartarus if I know,” Fang shrugged. “Though, the queen may be interested in hearing about this.”

“Organic life has been detected.  Beginning scanning process.” echoed a voice from the object, causing Fang to lurch back.

“What did you do?!” Scorn accused.

“I hardly did anything!” Fang defended.

Their bickering was interrupted by a hatch on the pod sliding open and a rod-shaped object shooting out.  A purple, transparent film was dispatched around a good portion of the land, hovering over the two changelings before retracting back into the rod, which returned to the hatch from whence it emerged.

“Scanning process complete.  Opening pod.” the voice concluded before the lid popped up with a cloud of smoke flooding from the breach and beating against the two soldiers’ faces.  They slowly backed away as a shape stirred within the mist.  The duo lowered themselves into a stance, preparing to engage the being, though they were soon hit with confusion as the cloud cleared to reveal… another changeling?

But not just any changeling.  This new changeling was… different.  For one, his outer carapace wasn’t the traditional black color of most changelings, rather it was more of a reddish hue.  The eyes were also a shade of grey as opposed to the blue of common changelings.  He was noticeably taller than them, as well.  Maybe by a few feet, at least.  This was probably the first unique changeling these two had seen, aside from Chrysalis and her elite armored guards.

“What’re you two looking at?” the third changeling shot a glare at the two guards.

“Well, you, obviously.” Fang retorted.

Is that supposed to be funny?  Because I’m not laughing,” the changeling furrowed his brow.  “In fact, I’m irritated.”

“You?” Scorn scoffed. “Put yourself in our shoes!  We find some weird object on patrol, it opens and then you walk out!  Forgive us if that leaves us a little flabbergasted.”

The changeling looked into his reflection on the pod.  He gave himself a good self-inspection before he seemed to gain a look of satisfaction on his face.

“Huh, I don’t look that bad," he raised one of his hooves, studying it more closely. “I could use a lot less holes, but it’ll do.  The wings look pretty stylish and edgy, though.”

Scorn and Fang looked at each other.

“This guy’s acting like he doesn’t even know what he is,” Scorn whispered, hoping to be out of earshot of the changeling, who was still busy surveying his body.  “The queen will definitely need to know about this.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Fang replied in the same hushed tone.

“I can hear you both,” the third changeling’s voice broke their conversation and made them both freeze up.  “And just so you know, your queen’s not going to know anything.”

“What do you mean?” Scorn raised an eyebrow.

“I mean I’m going to kill you as practice for my new form.” the Changeling gained an ominous smile, his tone growing more malevolent.

Scorn looked at Fang, a look of unease coming across his face.

“... Huh?” was all he could utter.

“‘New Form’?  What ‘new form’?” Fang took a step back.

“I’ll simply show you,” the changeling was smiling ear to ear now. “**Razorwing, Terrorize!"

The changeling stood on its hind hooves as a pair of feet took place beneath the hooves.  Claws surfaced from the bottom of the front hooves while the changeling’s head split in two, each half resting on the shoulders of both arms to act as pauldrons.  The wings stretched outward, flapping rapidly to lift the body off the ground.  A head finally appeared, covered in a dark-red helmet with a light grey face.  The red optics flashed as he grinned at the two changeling guards, whose jaws had hit the floor by this point.

“W-Wha…?” Scorn whimpered.

*BLAM!*

Fang’s head was struck by a bolt of hot plasma, painting the trees, grass and his partner with warm blood and brain matter before the vile changeling’s body collapsed into a twitching heap on the floor.  Scorn let out a yelp as he stared wide-eyed at the corpse.

“Please feel free to take to the skies,” Razorwing boasted as he wielded a sleek, red blaster, the barrel oozing smoke as it cooled down. “And flee for your miserable, little life!”

Scorn immediately bolted upward, his wings beating as fast they could.  Razorwing rocketed into the sky after him, all while laughing maniacally as he took pleasure in tormenting this organic local.  He loved it when the scared ones ran.  He took aim and fired.

Before Scorn knew it, his left wing was scorching, sending him out of the air and careening back to land, his landing being broken by a tree.  Scorn groaned in pain as he struggled to stand, but felt several ribs burning hot with pain.  He was sure some of them were broken.  He had no time to swim in his pain as the thud of metal hitting grass snapped his attention to the Predacon that loomed over him.

“Looks to me that you won’t make it much farther.  Don’t worry about the pain, though; I won’t feel a thing,” Razorwing chuckled darkly as he knelt down, getting to eye level with the changeling, who was quivering as his body was wracked with pain. “But don’t worry, I’ll send you back to your ‘queen’,” he assured the soldier as two blades rose from his wrist and started spinning at a rapid pace, quickly becoming a blur.  “... in pieces!”

Scorn’s screams were silenced within seconds.

The cockatrice had a record for turning any creature it gazed at into stone.  Unfortunately, things were never really the same after his encounter with a yellow pegasus, who’d put a massive blemish on his reputation.  He would no longer be known as the cockatrice that turned all into stone, he would now be seen as the cockatrice who caved into the demands of a soft-spoken pegasus and backed down like a wimp.

It wasn’t a fond memory of his and it would ultimately stick with him as the other cockatrices would hardly take him seriously anymore.  It’s not like they’d ever met a stare quite like hers!  Still, he couldn’t believe that such a pegasus, despite slowly being turned into stone, was the first thing he’d encountered that wasn’t completely petrified in terror.  The world was full of surprises.

*Thunk!*

The cockatrice squawked as he nursed his ailing beak.  His gaze had been so fixated on the ground and preoccupied with his own thoughts that he’d failed to notice that he was walking in the direction of a capsule-shaped object embedded in the ground.

The world was full of surprises, indeed.

“Organic life detected.  Scanning systems activated.” droned a voice from the pod as a rod extended, shooting out a purple film that passed over the cockatrice, then retreated back within the rod as quickly as it emerged.  Its function completed, the rod returned to the depths of the pod, as well.

The cockatrice backed up a few feet, unsure of what to make of this marvel.

“Scanning process complete.  Opening pod.”

The pod jolted open, and the sun immediately assaulted the optics of the Predacon within, who raised his arm to block out the sun’s rays, but found a scaly wing in place of his arm.

"Eh?” the Predacon’s eyebrow cocked upward in confusion.  He looked down at his body to see that his entire robots form had been covered in scales, aside from his feet, which resembled that of a rooster.  The Predacon’s optics adjusted the sun’s beams and he jumped out of the pod, landing on the grass.  Why did he look like some amalgamation of a dragon cross-bred with a rooster?  Why couldn’t he get something cooler, like a wasp, or something threatening?  This form was just ridiculous!  He let out a sigh of disappointment.  He felt that the universe itself had robbed him out of a beast mode that would have been feared by many!  He wanted fame!  He wanted power!  He wanted glory!

And this is what he gets?

If he was going to have a stupid body, he might as well come up with a decent name to go by.

Chickenator?

No, too obvious and bland.

Cockinator?

Okay, that was just wrong.

Wyvernator?

Actually, he liked the sound of that one.  Wyvern tended to match the whole idea of his dragon form.  It was genius!  He could actually get behind his beast mode with that name!  He now had a name to use for his activation code.

“Wyvernator, Terrorize!”

The wings locked in place on the Predacon’s back while two mechanical arms took their place.  The face of the beast mode slid down to become a chest plate, making way for a robotic head with two purple optics and a mouth.  His larger legs stemmed from his alternate mode’s legs, increasing exponentially in size to accommodate his new form.  He looked down at himself and felt a smile cross his face.

A rather stupid-looking beast mode, yet a slick robot mode with a cool name?  Now he didn’t care what he was!

The cockatrice couldn’t help but be partially amazed at this new sight; this cockatrice was a lot bigger than him.  Maybe it was a special type of cockatrice?  He was unsure.  But perhaps he’d be able to gain some respect by returning to the cockatrice brood with a new trophy in tow; this thing.

The squawk of the wild cockatrice broke the Predacon’s state of self-bravado.  He whirled around to find himself standing tall over the small creature by at least several feet.  The smaller creature looked almost exactly like him, except… smaller.  It appeared to be giving him a pretty cold glare.  It sent a chill up his exhaust pipe.

“Why chicken-bot stare at Wyvernator?” he tilted his head to the side.  He felt his legs start to grow stiff.  Like, really stiff.  Wyvernator looked downward and saw his legs encased in a sheet of stone!  Panic quickly took hold of the Predacon as he noticed the stone slowly crawling up to his waist at a steady rate.

“Wyvernator under attack!” he shouted as he thrashed his wings in desperation, but had no real luck.  He looked at the cockatrice, its cold gaze never leaving his own.  Wyvernator may not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even he was capable of putting together what was happening.  He charged up his optic’s internal laser beams and discharged a blast, striking the cockatrice in the chest.

The animal shrieked as it was flung right into a tree, knocking it over, and skidding across the floor of the forest where it lay in a pile of tree bark, seeing the birds dance about its head.  After shaking the cobwebs loose, a large lump grew on the cockatrice’s head, leaving it to stagger about aimlessly.

It didn’t need to see straight to know that this prey wasn’t really something to mess with, especially with how far he just shot him.  He figured that swallowing his pride and retreating for another day would be wise.  It fled into the brush, leaving the stone to slowly recede from Wyvernator’s body and dissipate.

Wyvernator couldn’t believe it!

He’d won!

“Wyvernator is… alive!” he laughed gratefully at having scored one over fate that day.  Now, it was time to see what flight capabilities his robot mode possessed.  He jumped off the ground, his wings catching his weight and, with one mighty flap, graced his body upward.

He was brought to a halt as his head struck the bottom of a massive tree branch, sending him back to the floor.

“Ohhhhh, Wyvernator going to feel that in the morning…” he groaned as he massaged his head and took off once again, this time a few feet away from the tree.  Wyvernator couldn’t wait to show off his new robot mode to his crewmates!  He bet that he had the best form out of them all!

A loud shriek of pain echoed across the valley, but was quickly silenced.  Puzzled, Wyvernator traced the source of the cry, looking to find out what may have caused such a ruckus.

Razorwing chuckled with sheer, sadistic, glee as he admired his work.  Oh, how he had strewn the body parts of the changeling’s corpse all over the area.  Scorn’s head lied on the floor, at the bottom of the tree he crashed into, his wings were clipped with small strips of flesh still attached to them, his hooves all severed separately, his torso was sliced open, allowing his entrails to litter the floor in blood, gore and viscera.

“It’s great to be a Predacon.” he sighed happily.

“Wyvernator thinks he’s going to be sick!” came a voice from above.

Razorwing turned, cocking his head upward to spot his fellow flyer, and partner-in-crime, hovering above with a hand over his mouth, quite disgusted at the scene.  He may have been a Predacon, but that didn’t mean that he had the strongest of stomachs.  Razorwing didn’t need to ask him to identify himself; he could easily recognize that voice and he was the only person who referred to himself in third-person.

“Wyvernator?  That’s what you’re calling yourself?” Razorwing tilted his head, zooming his optics in for a better look, taking note of the rooster parts of his beast mode.  He grinned deviously.  “Roosternator seems more like it!” he laughed.

"Wyvernator not want to be called Roosternator!” Wyvernator asserted with a scowl.  “Roosternator sounds dumb!  Wyvernator not sound dumb!  Wyvernator cool and stylish!”

"Whatever you say, lugnut,” Razorwing waved his partner’s self-defense off.  “Get down here.”

Wyvernator prepared to make a landing, but his body was suddenly wracked with pain and short-circuited, leading him to crash violently.

Once again, fate catches up to him.

“Wyvernator… cannot… move…” he groaned.

Razorwing just laughed at his partner’s predicament.

“Oh, that was a good one!  If our time here doesn’t kill me, your stupidity surely will!” he chortled jovially.

Unfortunately, his robot mode began to sort-circuit as well and he joined Wyvernator’s side on the floor.  It suddenly stopped being funny now that it was happening to him.

“Agh, what the heck is happening?!” he screeched.  Computer, give a diagnostic, at once!”

“Energon build up, as a result of over-abundance of Energon on the planet.  Transform back into beast mode immediately or risk permanent damage to robot mode.  Long-ranged communications have also been severely reduced to a range of 100 meters.” analyzed the Predacons’ internal computers.

The two changed back into their beast forms and the pain faded within seconds, allowing their full range of motion to return.

“Guess we’ll have to use our robot modes sparingly… and we can’t even contact the others,” Razorwing looked at his partner.  “But we don’t need our robot modes to fly and I’ll bet things will be easier to see from above.  After all, you’d have to be a complete mudflap to miss a bunch of pods from the sky.”

“Wyvernator hate chicken body…” the dim-witted Predacon muttered.

Both Predacons beat their wings against the air and were soon airborne.  The two Predacon flyers then began their search for their comrades and leader.

Though, Razorwing had a small hope that Megatron’s pod may have gone haywire and he didn’t make it.  Or if he was still in a pod, it would be a real shame if the pod suddenly failed; on a world infested with so much Energon that it would actually be detrimental to their robot modes, ‘accidents’ were bound to happen.

It would pave the way for a new leader of the Predacons; someone like him.

The night was quiet and calm. The moon hung in the air, illuminating everything in the dark. The forest was all but silent. However, that soon changed when there was a great flash of light. When the light faded in its place was a small group of Royal Guards. Behind them were two taller looking ponies wearing royal attire.  These were none other than the co-rulers of Equestria themselves; Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.

"Search the surrounding area and move forward from there. Come back when thou has uncovered anything unusual." Luna commanded.

"Yes, your highness!" The guards said in unison, they quickly bowed before taking off into the forest, leaving the two princesses to discuss the matter further.

"Are you sure this is the right location, Luna?" Celestia asked.

"Absolutely, sister. Twilight's letter was very detailed, through her description I was able to pinpoint where one of these unknown objects would have landed." Luna explained.

"Your highness," The sisters’ attention was brought to a guard who bowed before he continued. "We've found something."

"What has thou discovered?" Luna inquired.

"Well, you see, that's just it," the guard scratched the back of his head with his hoof. "We don't know what it is."

"Take us there, captain."

"As you wish."

The Princesses followed the guard beyond the trees and the sight they were granted was... indescribable, to say the least. Trees were dislodged, snapped at the branches, along with a trail of kicked up dirt leading to a crater in the ground. At least two other guards were standing sentry on either side while another personally investigated the device within, scoping out any potential dangers.

"Anything?" the captain asked the snooping guard. His answer was the shake of a head.

"We have no clue what this thing is. My best guess is that this object was holding something, given the amount of room inside it. Something big," the guard gestured to the pod's breached door. "To add to it, whatever was inside got out."

The sisters personally inspected the object more closely. The material it was made out of was completely alien to them. No mineral or resource they knew of would even come close to whatever comprised of this object. The thought of a potential threat to their kingdom and their subjects unnerved both of them greatly. They didn't know if whatever was in this capsule, of some sort, was hostile or not. Either way, they weren't going to take a chance.

"Send word to Twilight Sparkle," Celestia ordered, her expression stern. "We may have a problem."