More than Meets the Ear

by MrAskAPirate

Rating: everyone
Tags: Cutie Mark Crusaders, Other, Equestria Girls, Octavia, Science Fiction, Crossover, DJ P0N-3, Flash Sentry, Transformers
Length: 27900

Vinyl Scratch has a secret that's out of this world...

Why the heck does Vinyl Scratch have a car that can transform into a giant sound system thingy?

Written by request for Bookish Delight because chicks dig giant robots EQG Vinyl needed some more fandom love; continued by request because apparently everyone digs giant robots, :twilightoops:

Published 2015-12-05 20:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-09-09 20:27:13 UTC

Maestro

Author's Note

This chapter contains a music link, but nothing will be lost by not listening to it. Feel free to skip it if music in stories isn't your cup of tea, darlings, :raritywink:

Enjoy! :pinkiehappy:

Maestro

~ Earlier that Evening… ~

“Anyway, please let me know when you get this. Send me a text or… just let me know you’re all right, okay?” Octavia bit her lip, slowly lowering the phone from her ear, only to snap it back up. “And don’t forget to delete this after you’ve heard it. Goodness knows you forget your phone often enough, we don’t need anyone picking it up and getting suspicious.” She hit the end call button and tossed the phone onto her bed before following suit, flopping down onto the plush maroon comforter with a moan.

“You are upset,” a mild tenor voice, one tinged with a light Germane accent and carrying a slightly metallic timbre, spoke from the other side the room.

From where she lay, Octavia needed only to tilt her head slightly to see the speaker. To anyone else her Autobot companion, Maestro, would doubtlessly be a strange sight indeed. Yet seated at Octavia’s desk, the person-sized, brown and gold plated robot looked quite at home; a small device of otherworldly make held gently in his hands as he poked and prodded it with a variety of tools--some of which were integrated with his systems or had been manufactured from his own parts.

Had she been in a better mood, Octavia might have smiled a little at the sight. A year ago the very notion of having some strange robotic alien lifeform living with her in secret would have made her laugh out loud. Well, more realistically she would have just rolled her eyes at whomever had suggested such an outlandish thing, but her disbelief would have been the same. So much had changed since then, and right now she was simply glad that she didn't have to spend this evening alone.

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t be upset?” Octavia sighed, returning her eyes to the taupe ceiling above. “The past few days have been nothing but arguments, accusations and aggression, and up until twenty minutes ago I had absolutely no idea why!”

“It was quite clear to all of us that your behavior was atypical,” Maestro said. “If what young Mister Sentry communicated to you is true, then you were under the influence of these ‘Dazzlings’ creatures just as most of your classmates were. You are not to blame.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that it happened,” she huffed.

A moment of silence passed, but Octavia recognized the gentle whirring of the servos in Maestro’s neck as he shook his head. “Regardless, it would appear that the effects have worn off now that the Dazzlings have been defeated… and with the help of Miss Scratch and Subwoofer, no less.”

“That just makes this whole situation even more infuriating!” Octavia all but shouted. “She’s putting you and the other Autobots--not to mention herself--at risk without even a single thought about the consequences, and I… I can’t even bring myself to be angry with her about it!”

Maestro turned to regard her--or rather, his head did, rotating in place owlishly. The rest of his slender frame barely moved as he regarded Octavia with what might have passed for concern or apprehension on a human face. It was a little hard to tell, what with him having a smooth metal plate where one would normally expect there to be a mouth. The extended, jeweler’s loupe-like lens that served as his right eye whirred briefly as it brought her into focus. “I stand corrected. You are very upset,” he deadpanned. “And perhaps a bit confused.”

“Ugh, you have no idea,” Octavia pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry, Maestro, after how I treated you these past days I’m sure the last thing you want to hear is my complaining. Just ignore me, I’ll let you focus on your...” She turned her head toward him again. “Actually, just what are you working on, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Ah, yes.” Maestro’s head swiveled back to the desk, his hands lifting the small, roughly spherical device higher as Octavia rose from her bed and padded over for a closer look. “This is one of XT-117’s sensor modules. It was damaged the last time she attempted to teleport via spacebridge, but I believe I’ve gotten it working again.” His metal eyebrows knit as a small spark erupted from the device and the faint lights on its surface fluctuated. “... Mostly.”

Octavia stifled a smile. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Hm, as a matter of fact, I believe there is!” Maestro perked up, standing and gesturing for Octavia to follow. “It still requires calibration. If I set it to perform a full-spectrum scan of you, I can use my own scans as a baseline for comparison.”

“Since when do you have scans of me?” Octavia asked as she took her place in the middle of her room, clear of any furniture that might get in the way.

“I have conducted several since you began acting peculiar, though none yielded any useful answers,” he said casually as he probed at the sensor with a small, glowing tool. “I also have a handful on file going as far back as the first day we met.”

Octavia frowned. “I don’t recall you ever scanning me before.”

“I usually do so after you have retired for the evening.”

She blinked. “You mean... while I’m sleeping?”

“Yes. It seemed the most efficient time since the scan requires you to hold still.” He paused, looking up from the sensor when he noticed the blank stare she was giving him. “Is something the matter?”

Octavia clicked her tongue and shook her head slightly. “Let’s just say if it were anyone else besides you, Maestro, I would be very, very creeped out right now.”

“I see,” he said slowly. “I’m… sorry?” At that moment, the sensor module beeped softly, rising into the air of its own accord. A bright, narrow light began sweeping Octavia from head to toe as the sensor began a slow orbit around her. “Ah! There we are!”

“Is there anything special I need to do?” Octavia asked as she watched the metal orb circle in front of her face.

“Just remain still,” he assured as his left hand transformed into a small display screen showing a rough three-dimensional image of her. “The scan should be completed quickly; XT-117’s sensors are more advanced than my own.”

Octavia nodded ever-so slightly. A few minutes passed, the only sounds the delicate hum of the sensor pod as it continued its work, and the occasional beep from Maestro’s display pad as he monitored the results.

Before the relative silence became awkward, Octavia gently cleared her throat. “She has a name, you know.”

“I beg your pardon?” Maestro looked up from his display.

“Sweetie Bot. Her name is Sweetie Bot.”

Maestro sighed, his optics performing a passable interpretation of an eye-roll. “XT-117 may choose to call herself whatever she wishes, but that name has no significance to me.”

“It does to her.” Octavia had to remind herself not to cross her arms. “Sweetie Belle told her she could choose whatever name she wanted. It represents the friendship they’ve formed, and I for one think it’s quite… sweet.” She cringed at her own awkward choice of words.

“Feh,” Maestro waved dismissively. “You sound as if you are beginning to believe the fanciful stories that those six young women tell Mister Sentry.”

“From what Flash just told us, those ‘young women’ just defeated three mind-controlling beings from another dimension with a song,” Octavia said, “so yes, you’ll have to forgive me if I’m starting to believe that there may actually be something to this whole ‘magic of friendship’ business.”

Maestro looked for a moment as if he were about to argue, but instead his metallic brow furrowed again as his eyes drifted down and to the side. “Hm. You make an excellent point, Miss Melody.” He returned to monitoring the scan without another word, and this time it was Octavia’s turn to stare in confusion.

She was well aware that Maestro had quite skillfully navigated their conversation away from talking about Sweetie Bot--it was far from the first time he’d avoided the subject, after all--but this was the first time she had seen him even consider the possibility that the energy coming from Canterlot High was some form of, for lack of a better word, magic. A low-pitched buzz from the sensor forestalled any of Octavia’s further thoughts on the matter.

“Something wrong?”

“Hm, no, nothing a few adjustments won’t fix.” Maestro tapped a few commands into his display and the buzzing ceased. “It would appear that your neurotransmitter levels are in a state of disarray. Considering the emotional and mental manipulation you’ve recently experienced, that is not surprising.”

“I suppose not,” Octavia admitted with a shake of her head. “Though to be honest, I think the main culprit behind any disarray in my neurotransmitters is, as usual, one Vinyl Scratch.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Octavia blinked. “Come again?”

“I asked if you wanted to talk about Miss Scratch, if that’s what is bothering you,” Maestro said, looking her in the eye. “Speaking of one’s difficulties and sharing their burden with others is something that friends do, yes?” He offered a small shrug. “I will listen intently, if you will tell.”

“Are… are you serious?” Octavia’s brow furrowed as she balked at Maestro. “You, the single most emotionless, robotic person I have ever known--pun not intended, mind you; really need to stop doing that--wants me to talk about my feelings?”

Maestro bowed his head and made a sound that came close to a sigh, his display shifting back into an actual hand while the sensor continued its work. “I will be honest. Before my fellow Autobots and I knew that you and your friends’ behavior was being altered by an outside force, the thought occurred that our partnership might well be coming to an end. That thought… did not sit well with me.”

“Maestro,” Octavia had to fight to keep a smile from blooming across her face, “are you suggesting that you actually like spending time with me?”

This brought an even deeper cyber-sigh from the robot as he crossed his arms. “I still stand by my belief that your world has little to offer us aside from the strange energy that radiates from the dimensional disruption at your school,” he said, “but I must admit that you are… far less irritating than most of your species. In fact, yes; I find that I have come to enjoy our rapport.”

This time Octavia could do nothing to hide her grin. “Backhanded compliment notwithstanding, thank you. I enjoy your company as well, Maestro.” She shook her head. “As for Vinyl… part of me wants nothing more than for her to just text and let me know that she’s all right, while the rest of me is absolutely dreading what she might say when she does.”

“Because of the way you acted during the competition,” Maestro said, less a question than an affirmation of his own understanding.

Octavia nodded. “The things I said to her… if she had said them to me, I… I honestly don’t know if I’d ever want to speak to her again. What if… what if she feels the same way?” Her vision blurred as she began tearing up. “Have I really just thrown away our friendship because I was… because I was angry about some stupid band competition?”

Maestro stared at her for a brief moment before reaching out to pluck the hovering sensor from the air as it passed near him, the device powering down automatically. Now free from worrying about disrupting the scan, Octavia raised a hand and tried to wipe the tears from her eyes as Maestro claimed the box of tissues from her nightstand and held it out for her. She mumbled a thank you as she pulled free several plys.

“I do not pretend to know or understand Miss Scratch that well; certainly not as you do,” Maestro said in surprisingly soft tones, “but she does not strike me as the kind of person who would hold such a grudge. Even if she were, she is aware that your recent behavior was beyond your control. She will forgive you.”

Octavia smiled through the last of her tears, and stepped forward to gingerly wrap her arms around Maestro in a quick, awkward hug. “Thank you.”

“You, ah… are welcome, I suppose.” Maestro said. The flustered Autobot was saved from any further discomfort by a sudden sharp ding. Both their heads turned toward the source, Octavia’s phone, just as the notification backlight went dark again.

The color drained from Octavia’s face. “Speak of the Devil and she doth text,” she quipped, and though she continued to stare at the device, she made no move to claim it.

Maestro looked back and forth between the phone and the seemingly paralyzed cellist. “Are you going to see what she has to say?”

Octavia bit her lip, finally tearing her gaze from the phone to look at him with uncertain eyes, and he offered an encouraging nod. After taking a deep breath she strode to the bed and picked up the phone.

Im fine. Kinda tired, gonna eat and crash for the PM. Talk 2 u in the AM? It wasnt ur fault, tavi. Were cool, no worries.

For a moment Octavia just stared at the screen, reading it thrice to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her, before breathing a massive sigh. A smile picked up the corners of her mouth as she turned the phone toward Maestro, who read the message and nodded again.

“There, you see? You were worried for nothing.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘for nothing’,” Octavia sat down heavily on the edge of her bed while her thumbs tapped out a quick response, “but you were right. Good heavens, I feel so stupid.”

Your spelling and punctuation are atrocious. Sleep well, Vinyl.

She hit send and laughed. “You’d think by now that I’d have learnt to trust Vinyl a little more.”

Maestro’s head tilted slightly. “You do not trust her?”

“No, I do!” Octavia said quickly. “That’s not quite what I… I mean, I…” She trailed off, shaking her head as her mouth twisted into a mildly-frustrated grimace. Maestro simply stood at ease for a brief moment until Octavia composed the right words.

“Vinyl and I are... very different. Everything about her; the way she dresses, the food--and I use that term loosely--that she eats, her blatant disregard for anythingeven resembling decorum… it all flies in the face of everything I was raised to believe a proper young woman should strive to be. Despite all that, Vinyl Scratch has never once let me down when I needed her, and... sometimes I forget that.” A wistful smile curled one side of her mouth. “She was my first friend at Canterlot High after I transferred there freshman year... I don’t even want to imagine where I would be without her.”

The phone in her hands dinged again. Octavia glanced down, the warm grin on her face folding into a frown instantly.

u 2

“Oooh, I hate her so much!”

Maestro’s mechanical brow furrowed. “I think you’re getting confused again.”

Octavia opened her mouth to reply, but her blood ran cold at the sound of a sudden, sharp trio of knocks from her door. A muffled, yet chillingly sharp voice came from the other side.

“Octavia? Is everything all right?”

“Uh, j-just a moment, Mother!” Octavia sprang to her feet, tossing her phone back on the bed as Maestro’s head whipped between the sensor pod in his one hand, the box of tissues in the other, and the rest of the room. Octavia cringed as he quickly and quietly strode to her desk, only to nearly drop both items atop it with clatter. “Shh! Hurry!” she whispered.

“I’m coming in,” her mother’s voice came again. Octavia’s heart skipped a beat.

It skipped another when Maestro took a single running step and leaped at her, his body shifting and twisting in midair with a series of relatively soft clicks and metallic hisses. Her eyes went wide and she thrust her arms out just in time to catch the incoming cello sideways across her torso. The instrument made a pleasingly-low ‘thung’ as it impacted, knocking the air from her lungs and forcing her back into a sitting position on her bed, where she nearly lost her grip on it.

“Be careful!” Maestro’s hushed voice rose up to her.

“Sorry, you’re heavy!”

“I beg your pard-!?”

“Shh!”

The door swung open.

“Who are you talking… to?” Octavia’s mother hesitated when she saw her daughter sitting on the edge of her bed, cello upright and ready before her, and wearing a smile that was just ever-so-slightly too wide.

“No one at all,” Octavia lied sweetly. “I was just going over the arrangements I’m planning to practice tonight. I sometimes recite the names just before I begin to help me remember the proper order.”

“Ah, I see,” her mother nodded slowly as she took a pair of steps into the room and crossed her arms. She briefly searched the space with her eyes, as if she expected to spot someone’s shoes peeking out from under a curtain, or an arm not quite hidden beneath the bed. “Well, if you’ll recall, you promised two full hours of rehearsal this evening in exchange for being allowed to attend that modern music festival or whatever it was your school was hosting.” The way she spat the words ‘modern’ and ‘school’ made her opinion on both quite evident. “Don’t think for a moment that just because you decided not to go that it releases you from your commitment; a promise-”

“Is a promise,” Octavia finished with a nod. “Yes, Mother, I haven’t forgotten.”

“Very good,” her mother smiled, taking one last glance around the room as she turned back to the door. “It’s getting late, so you’d best begin…” She trailed off as her eyes narrowed at something on the far side of Octavia’s room. “What is that?”

Octavia had to consciously resist the urge to swallow. “What’s what?”

“That,” her mother intoned, striding across the room to Octavia’s desk, where she beheld the assortment of damaged circuitry, metal shards, and tools Maestro had left behind in his haste to hide.

“Oh! That’s, um… just something I was working on for school. We’re studying the unit on electrical engineering in Mister Turner’s physics class.” Octavia felt herself flush as her mother scrutinized the mess. She suddenly realized that there was something else she’d forgotten; something her mother was sure to notice eventually.

“Bow,” she breathed a quiet whisper to her cello through clenched teeth.

“What?”

“Bow!”

A split second later a small compartment on the side of her instrument clicked open, and with a pressurized hiss the cello’s matching bow shot from within. Octavia made a mad grab, barely snagging the trailing end of the bow as the other struck the lamp on her bedside table, nearly knocking it to the floor and leaving the shade tilted at an awkward angle.

Her mother turned at the sound, but again saw only her smiling daughter, her instrument’s bow swinging back and forth as she flexed and rolled her wrist in preparation for playing. She turned back to the contents of the desk with a huff, picking up a small, round device and eyeing it carefully. “Well, whatever strange projects your teachers have you bringing home with you, make certain that you do not let them interfere with your music instruction. You have a recital in two weeks, and as always I expect your performance to be exemplary.”

“I understand, Mother,” Octavia said as the older woman replaced the sensor on the desk and turned to leave.

“Make certain you move to a chair before you begin. Your posture will be terrible if you play from your bed like that.” She gave her daughter a final, curt nod as she closed the door behind her.

Octavia remained stock still for another few seconds as her ears strained to pick up the soft sound of her mother’s footsteps retreating down the hall. When she finally felt safe, her shoulders sagged as she slumped forward, holding onto Maestro for support and resting her head against him. “That was far, far too close.”

“Indeed,” Maestro said, his tone still quiet. “It is a shame that your parents reacted so poorly when you tried keeping your door locked.”

“It certainly would’ve make this whole arrangement a little less nerve-wracking,” she admitted.

“I regret that I am the source of such anxiety for you, Miss Melody.”

“Oh, you know I didn’t mean it like that!” Octavia lifted her head and scoffed.

Maestro chuckled. “You are right, of course. I should let you begin practicing so that your mother does not become suspicious and return.”

“Um, about that...” Octavia started, her grip on the cello’s neck tightening slightly. “Do you suppose that, maybe I could… practice with you?”

A beat of silence passed.

“You do have an actual cello, do you not?”

“Well, yes,” she eyed the closed instrument case standing in the far corner, “but honestly, the sound you make is so much higher quality than that old thing.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Miss Melody.”

“Please?” she begged before putting on a smirk. Her voice took on an enticing sing-song quality. “I’ll let you choose the first piece.”

Another lengthy pseudo-sigh issued forth from the instrument. “... Very well.”

“Fantastic!” Octavia beamed, standing and straining only a little as she carried Maestro across the room, pulled her desk chair to the center, and sat. “How would you like to begin?”

“Hm,” Maestro mused for a moment. “How about something... inspiring. Something dramatic and uplifting, yes?”

Octavia nodded slowly, setting bow to strings as a smile crept onto her face.

“I know just the thing…”

A little over two hours later, Octavia gently guided her bow to a stop as the dulcet tones of her final composition of the evening faded away. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes with a smile.

“Wonderful, Miss Melody,” Maestro’s voice said. “I am by no means an expert on your world’s music, but I am continually amazed by just how much control you exert over the pitch and volume with such imperceptibly small movements. It’s quite elegant.”

“T-thank you, Maestro,” Octavia laughed and found herself wearing a light blush. “Really though, it’s hard not to throw oneself into the performance when every note comes out so full and robust.” She quirked an eyebrow. “If you ever get tired of the whole ‘fighting for the freedom of the galaxy’ thing, you could always live out your days in the orchestra.” Octavia’s smile died on her lips as a number of seconds passed with no response. “Maestro?”

“Oh, my apologies,” he said quietly. “I just realized that it’s been quite some time since I last thought about the war on Cybertron.”

“That’s where you’re from, isn’t it? Your home?” She leaned forward and rested some of her weight on him. “You’ve never really spoken of it before, at least not in any detail.”

“No, I have not. It is a… sensitive subject for me. The civil war between my people has sown such widespread destruction and suffering that calling it a ‘civil war’ hardly seems fair. So many lives lost; so many other worlds affected...” He let out a soft sigh. “Sometimes I wonder if it is truly worth the cost.”

“Does this have anything to do with Sweetie Bot?”

Suddenly the cello shook and whirred in Octavia’s hands, and she let go as it started to curl away from her, the scroll and tuning pegs coming to rest on the floor. The body of the instrument separated into four roughly-equal pieces with a hydraulic hiss, two sliding along the neck as it also split down the middle to form Maestro’s legs and feet. The two larger pieces that made up the lower bout now lifted into the air and ratcheted apart, making room for Maestro’s head to rise into position from within as his arms unfolded from the sides. As the last details of his body settled into place with a series of soft, metallic clicks, he eyed Octavia and took a step backwards.

“How did you…?”

“I asked Subwoofer,” Octavia said, wincing only a little. “My curiosity got the better of me; I’m sorry.”

“Hnn,” Maestro grumbled and crossed his arms. “I will have to have a word with that dummkopf later.”

“It’s true, then?” Octavia asked, offering him the bow in her hand. “You were the one who… built Sweetie Bot?”

“In simplest terms, yes,” Maestro nodded, taking the bow and holding it against his arm, where it quickly reintegrated itself with his body. “Though I am afraid the truth is more… complicated.” He glanced toward Octavia’s desk and walked to it, staring down at the pieces and parts.

“XT-117 is--was an experiment. Cold-constructed and infused with an artificially-generated spark of life.” He picked up the sensor orb from the table, turning it over in his hands as he spoke. “Made with the most advanced materials and components available, including a variation of our space-folding teleportation technology. She was my crowning achievement… but she was also a failure. The project’s goal was to produce the next generation of soldiers--advanced, living weapons without conscience who would turn the tide of the war.”

“I have a hard time picturing Sweetie Bot as a soldier, of all things,” Octavia shook her head. “She may act like a child sometimes, but she’s incredibly caring and gentle.”

“Precisely,” Maestro said as he turned to face her. “Her personality was unsuitable, and she was deemed another failed prototype. She had been alive for less than six hours before she was scheduled to be… disassembled.”

A weak gasp escaped Octavia’s lips. “That’s… that’s awful!”

Maestro nodded. “I agree. Most of our previous experiments lasted barely a few moments, let alone developed any kind of sentience or personality.” He stared hard at the device in his hands, the soft sound of his neck servos giving away the tiniest shake of his head. “When I saw the light in XT-117’s eyes; the moment when I first heard the innocence in her voice, I knew that she was special. I knew immediately that I would disobey any order to dismantle her… and so I did.”

“She… she isn’t just another experiment to you, is she?” Octavia’s voice wavered. “She’s your daughter.”

Maestro looked up at Octavia, his metallic eyebrows rising. Neither spoke until Maestro’s gaze trailed slowly back to the sensor pod. “I… yes, I suppose in a way, she is.”

With that, Maestro fell silent. Octavia lost track of how many minutes she sat there; her mouth hovering between a smile and a frown, staring at her friend through blurry, moist eyes that couldn’t help but see him in a new light. Slowly, the frown started to win out.

“The Autobots fight to protect sentient life, don’t they?” she asked quietly. “If what you say about Sweetie Bot is true, why in the world would they order you to destroy her?”

Maestro let out a brief, low chuckle. “I said the truth was somewhat complicated, yes? I did not always-!”

The piercing trill and flashing lights of an alarm emanating from the sensor in Maestro’s hand cut him off.

“What is it doing?” Octavia clapped her hands to the sides of her head and had to raise her voice to be heard, but Maestro silenced the device a split-second later.

“It appears that XT-117’s sensor is picking up… an Energon signal?” His hand transformed into a display screen again as it filled with numbers and some kind of pulsating graph.

“I suppose that’s not unexpected,” Octavia said as she gently massaged the space behind her ears. “With everything that happened earlier at the Battle of the Bands I’m surprised it hasn’t been going off all night. Are you sure you’ve got it working properly?”

Maestro shook his head. “No, this is not the energy we have been picking up from your school. This is an actual Energon signature.” He tapped several places on the screen, pulling up a set of different graphs. “It has a clear pattern, but it does not match any I am familiar with,” he continued, the panic rising in his voice as he looked up from the display. “That can only mean one thing.”

Octavia’s eyes went wide as her breath caught in her throat and a chill danced down her spine.

“A Decepticon…”

Sweetie Bot

~Earlier that evening… again…~

“Please?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“No!”

“C’mon…”

“I said no!”

“Is she still upset?” Scootaloo asked as she entered the Crusader’s clubhouse holding an extra-large pack of juice boxes and a plastic grocery bag that looked ready to burst at the seams. Sweetie Belle, her phone held to her ear, turned and answered by way of an exaggerated eyeroll, which the purple-haired tomboy reciprocated. “What, has she been taking lessons from your sister on being overdramatic?”

“I heard that!” a young woman’s voice blared from Sweetie Belle’s phone, making her wince and squint one eye against the sudden volume.

“Good!” Scootaloo set the juice and bag down on a small table before turning back to glare at the phone, hands on her narrow hips. “If you heard then maybe you’ll realize how dumb it sounds!”

“I’m not being dumb! I’m still waiting for you to apologize!”

“We did!” Scootaloo threw her hands in the air. “Like, a bajillion times!”

“Five,” Sweetie Belle piped up.

“Whatever!”

“You said you’re sorry, but you didn’t really mean it!”

“Uh, yeah we did!”

“No, you didn’t!”

“Did!”

“Didn’t!”

“UGH!” Scootaloo groaned, pulling at her hair. “How the heck are we even supposed to convince you that we mean it?!”

There was a spot of silence.

“I’ll… I’ll just know!” the voice finally answered. “I’ll know because it’ll sound like you mean it!”

Scootaloo’s shoulders slumped as Sweetie Belle gave the clubhouse door a curious glance.

“Where’s Apple Bloom?”

“Right here!” the young farmgirl’s distinctive country twang answered from just outside. A moment later she appeared in the doorway, cheeks nearly as red as her hair and chest heaving slightly as she struggled with the added weight of backpacks over both shoulders, rolled sleeping bags under her arms and a third one of each clutched in her hands.

“What took you so long?” Scootaloo asked.

Apple Bloom’s cargo tumbled to the ground in a heap just inside the doorway as she frowned. “Gee, I wonder.”

“Hey, don’t look at me!” Scootaloo put her hands up. “I said I’d grab the food and drinks, and I did!”

“Uh-huh,” Apple Bloom said, crossing her arms.

“It that Apple Bloom?” the voice from Sweetie Belle’s phone asked. “What’s going on? What’re you guys doing?”

“We’re having a super-special Crusader sleepover in the clubhouse,” Sweetie Belle said, her eyes narrowing as she grinned. “You suuuuure you don’t wanna join us?”

“I… n-no! Not until you say you’re sorry! For real!”

“Fer cryin’ out loud; she still mad?” Apple Bloom asked as she started piling the bags in a corner of the room.

“C’mon, girls,” Sweetie Belle pleaded as she placed her hand over the phone’s receiver to muffle it, “you know how she gets when she’s like this. Let’s just try it again, okay?”

“Fine,” Scootaloo growled as she and Apple Bloom trudged over to join Sweetie Belle, who held her phone out in the center of the little triangle they formed and gently cleared her throat.

“We’re very sorry for the way we treated you while we were under the Dazzlings’ spell.”

“Even if it wasn’t really our fault,” Scootaloo mumbled, only to be shushed by Apple Bloom. Sweetie Belle shot them a silencing glare before she continued.

“We acted like jerks, and I didn’t listen to you or the other Autobots’ advice.”

“We got so caught up in wantin’ to win that we sorta started seein’ everybody that tried to talk us down as if they were out to get us,” Apple Bloom rubbed the side of her neck nervously, “but even if that was the Dazzlings’ fault, we really shoulda known better than to think that about you.”

A brief silence arrived, ending when Apple Bloom elbowed Scootaloo in the ribs and tilted her head at the phone meaningfully.

“Ow!” Scootaloo exclaimed, rubbing her side and frowning at the farmgirl. “Okay, okay! Um, We’re sorry for the things we said. You didn’t deserve any of that and…” she trailed off, biting her lip in concentration for a moment. “Oh! And I’m really sorry for calling you a rust bucket.” Her eyes fell to the floor as some of her usual bravado likewise crumbled. “I know you’re sensitive about that kind of thing and I… I said it because I knew it would hurt you. I was acting like a jerk, that was really, really uncool of me. I’m sorry.”

“We’re all really sorry,” Sweetie Belle picked back up, drawing nods from the others. “You’re not just our friend, Sweetie Bot, you’re one of us--a Crusader.” She frowned. “At least, we hope you still wanna be friends with us after this, so... please forgive us?”

Several seconds of silence slipped away as the three girls stared at the phone in Sweetie’s hand, almost too afraid to move or even breathe until they had an answer.

“I… I am,” the voice replied suddenly. “I mean, I do! I forgive you, and of course I’m still your friend!”

The Crusaders exchanged joyous grins. “Thanks, Sweetie Bot,” Apple Bloom said.

“So do you want in on this sleepover now?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Heck yeah! Is the coast clear?”

Applebloom and Scootaloo peeled away from their huddle, the former closing and latching the clubhouse door as the latter zipped around doing the same to all the window shutters. Finished, they nodded to Sweetie Belle. “Ready!”

Sweetie Belle held out her phone and gently tossed it toward the middle of the room. As it spun lazily through the air, a sudden arc of electricity danced across its surface, followed by a dozen more in a sporadic pattern. The space around it seemed to twist and stretch as the phone casing split apart and unfolded, expanding in one impossible instant from a hand-held electronic device into a teenager-sized robot with white plating and light pink accents. It landed awkwardly on one foot, teetering slightly before Sweetie Belle reached out and caught one arm to steady it.

“I swear, that gets cooler every time I see it!” Scootaloo beamed.

Sweetie Bot laughed nervously. “Thanks… still sorta trying to get the hang of the landing part.”

“I still don’t get where you put… well, the rest of you when you shrink down like that,” Apple Bloom shook her head.

“Oh! Maestro explained it to me a while back!” Sweetie Bot’s hand transformed into what resembled a small planetarium projector, and a bevy of hovering holograms flickered into existence. The images slowly spiraled through the space inside the clubhouse as the Crusader’s eyes collectively widened. Pulsing graphs, rapidly-changing equations, and even a full-motion 3D visualization of Sweetie Bot herself surrounded by lines that flexed and stretched in bizarre ways as her image assumed a number of different transformations of varying shapes and sizes.

“See, what he said was that my reconfiguration circuits were designed to be integrated with a prototype on-board spacebridge field generator. This allows for variable mass-density transformations, or VMDTs, by creating a subspace pocket within which can be stored any structure or subsystems not required for the current VMDT configuration.

“Normally the energy required for maintaining a stable subspace pocket of this nature would be beyond what could be produced without massive amounts of Energon, but due to advances in the field of spatial compression combined with a revolutionary energy conversion system that feeds off the electrostatic differential between subspace and normal space, the pocket can be maintained almost indefinitely, and with only a minimal amount electrical discharge through surface conductors when the pocket’s extra-dimensional shape is altered.” Sweetie Bot put her hands on her hips triumphantly as the holograms winked out of existence. “Simple, huh?”

Three sets of glazed eyes gazed back at her. Or at least, in her general direction. Scootaloo’s eyelids were actually starting to droop, flirting with unconsciousness, and Sweetie Belle’s blank stare seemed focused somewhere on the far wall.

“Uh,” Apple Bloom mumbled, coming out of the technobabble-induced stupor before the others, “what does all’o that mean, exactly?”

Sweetie Bot’s optics blinked a couple of times before her shoulders slumped.

“... I have no idea.”

Scootaloo snapped to attention, shaking her head vigorously. “Ugh, who cares about that egghead stuff anyway? All that matters is its super-awesome!” She grabbed one of the grocery bags from the table and pulled out a box of fruit snacks. “Now c’mon, let’s get this party started. I’m starving!”

The others grinned. The girls each took a juicebox and a handful of snacks before they--along with Sweetie Bot--plunked down in a rough circle in the center of the room.

“Okay, tomorrow’s Saturday, so we got all night,” Apple Bloom said as she took a bite of an oatmeal cookie. “What should we try first?” She was met with a trio of thoughtful hums, one of which carried a subtle electronic quality.

“Dressmaking!” Sweetie Belle squeaked suddenly.

“Ugh,” Scootaloo groaned, tossing back another fruit snack. “Booooring. Besides, didn’t we already try that, like, months ago?”

Sweetie Belle pouted. “Well I liked it… besides, the Rainbooms’ outfits at the Battle of the Bands looked really cool; kinda made me want to try again.”

“What did they look like?” Sweetie Bot asked. “Were they like the costumes you made for that music video?”

Sweetie Belle’s face lit up. “Nah, those things don’t hold a candle to Rarity’s designs! Her outfits were so bright and colorful! The leggings were all mismatched so everyone looked unique even though you could tell they were all part of the same band, and the dresses were all customized to suit everyone’s personalities; Applejack had apples, Fluttershy had little butterflies, Pinkie Pie had balloons…” Sweetie Belle shook her head as stars danced in her eyes. “They were just beautiful!”

Scootaloo leaned over to Sweetie Bot and whispered--quite ineffectively--behind her hand. “They looked like a paint store got sick on a tilt-a-whirl and threw up on a fabric store.”

Sweetie Belle crossed her arms and shot Scootaloo a dirty look as Apple Bloom tried not to shoot juice out her nose.

“Well, either way I wish I could’ve seen them,” Sweetie Bot said.

“I’m sorry I didn’t take you with me,” Sweetie Belle said with a frown.

“Yeah,” the Autobot responded, her shoulder plates sagging lower as a weighty silence fell over the clubhouse. It lasted only a moment before Scootaloo leaped to her feet, hands ruffling her own hair in frustration.

“Ugh! Okay you know what? We’re not spending the whole night moping around feeling sorry for ourselves. Forget Crusading for now; let’s do something fun! Something like…” She put a finger to her chin as her eyes swept the clubhouse for ideas--ironically passing right over the corner they’d hung a light bulb in and designated as the ‘idea corner’ without so much as a pause--before circling back to the group and lighting up when they landed on Sweetie Bot.

“I got it!” She said, smacking her fist into an open palm. “Let’s go robo-scooting!”

“That’s a great idea!” Sweetie Belle beamed.

“Sure!” Sweetie Bot nodded enthusiastically.

“No way!” Apple Bloom shouted, crossing her arms in front of her into a giant ‘X’.

“Aw, why not?”

“‘Cause if Applejack finds the grass in the orchard all tore up after y’all’ve slept over again she’ll tan my hide!”

“Pff,” Scootaloo dismissed her with a wave. “We’ll just tell her we saw those Diamond Dog guys creeping around again. They’re always digging for stuff.”

“What kinda stuff?” Sweetie Bot whispered to Sweetie Belle, receiving only a shrug in reply.

“Yeah, ‘cause that excuse’ll work three times in a row,” Apple Bloom crossed her arms.

Scootaloo furrowed her brow. “Well we don’t need to stay on the farm.”

“Uh, yeah we do,” Sweetie Belle piped up. “Sweetie Bot is still a secret, remember? You two aren’t even supposed to know about her.”

“Hel-loooo?” Scootaloo gestured to Sweetie Bot with both hands. “Transforming robot here, emphasis on transforming. It’s not like anyone’s going to recognize her.”

“The other Autobots would, though,” Sweetie Bot said.

“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle seconded. “And if we run into one of them it’ll get back to Maestro, and that means it’ll get back to Miss Octavia, and…” she trailed off and shuddered. “She’s scary when she’s angry!”

The color drained from Scootaloo’s face as Apple Bloom and even Sweetie Bot nodded in agreement. “Uh, good point… nevermind.”

“Oh!” Sweetie Bot suddenly perked up. “Girls, I just had the best idea ever!”

“This’s the worst idea ever!!” Apple Bloom shouted, nearly losing the bow in her hair as they zipped under the low branches of an apple tree at breakneck speed.

“Are you kidding?” Scootaloo laughed. “This is freaking awesome! How come we never thought of this before?”

She wrenched the handlebars, whipping the almost tractionless hover-scooter (and attached hover-wagon) that Sweetie Bot had transformed into around the next tree in a wide, swinging turn that threatened to send both of her passengers tumbling out onto the ground. Somehow, Apple Bloom’s death grip on the side of the cart and Sweetie Belle’s death grip on Apple Bloom’s midsection both managed to hold.

“We won’t mess up the orchard if we don’t actually touch it!” Sweetie Bot’s cheerful voice echoed out of the console at the base of the scooter’s handlebar stem. “We can go all night and Applejack will never suspect a thing!”

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle exchanged terrified looks as Scootaloo deftly maneuvered between a closely-growing pair of trees, her joyous laughter in gnashing contrast to their squeals of fright.

“I… I think I’m gonna be sick,” Sweetie Belle mumbled against Apple Bloom’s back, prompting the farm girl to look back over her shoulder.

“Don’t you dare toss yer cookies on my…” She trailed off as something caught her eye through the trees. “Hey Scoots, slow down!”

“No way!” Scootaloo scoffed. “Just aim Sweetie Belle over the back and-”

“Not that!” Apple Bloom pointed off to the side with a frown. “Slow down and go that way, I think I saw somethin’!”

Scootaloo grumbled but did as instructed, easing off the throttle and navigating in the direction Apple Bloom had indicated. They cleared one last row of trees and Sweetie Bot brought herself to an abrupt halt as a collective gasp rose from their throats. Apple Bloom scrambled to dismount the hover wagon, inadvertantly pulling Sweetie Belle with her as Scootaloo likewise stepped down to the ground. Electricity sparked over the scooter’s surface as Sweetie Bot quickly resumed her humanoid shape, and all four friends stared with wide eyes.

Before them lay a wide swath of destruction; a deep, ragged furrow in the earth that stretched from where they stood off into the distance; exactly how far it went the girls could not tell. All along its path the once bountiful apple trees had been violently forced aside, in some cases uprooted and in others smashed to pieces, their namesake fruit scattered and mashed upon the ground. Small fires--the source of the flickering light that had drawn Apple Bloom’s attention--still burned along the sides of the trench,

Apple Bloom swallowed hard.

“Applejack’s gonna kill me.”

“Why? We didn’t do this!” Scootaloo protested.

“Yeah, like that’s gonna matter.”

“But what did do it?” Sweetie Belle asked with a frown as she picked up a broken branch.

“I…” Sweetie Bot spoke up. “I think-”

“Hey, look at this!” Scootaloo’s sudden shout brought them all to where she was kneeling about a foot from the side of the ditch, examining a large, roughly rectangular depression in the ground. “I bet whatever did all the damage made this too.”

“Made these,” Apple Bloom corrected, pointing to a series of four more depressions that led away from the trench before they were replaced by a set of deep, wide tire treads that continued off into the distance between two rows of apple trees in the general direction of Canterlot city proper.

“Is… is that what I think it is?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Sweetie Bot nodded as a small, spherical sensor ejected from her upper arm and floated over the depressions, scanning them with an intense light. Sweetie Bot’s hand transformed into a projector again, producing some kind of 3D oscillating graph. “An unknown Energon signature. It’s another Cybertronian, alright.”

“Cool!” Scootaloo’s eyes sparkled. “Can I have this one?”

“Really?” Apple Bloom crossed her arms with a frown. “They ain’t pets, y’know.” Her frown twisted upwards into a mischievous grin. “‘Sides, it showed up on Apple family land; this one’s mine!”

“But what if it’s the other kind?” Sweetie Belle asked, inching a little closer to Sweetie Bot’s side. “Maestro said that part of the reason the Autobots are here is because they’re hiding; what if the Decepticons finally found them?”

“Deci-whatnow?” Scootaloo scratched the back of her head.

“Decepticon,” Apple Bloom said. “They’re the bad guys.”

“And if they’re here,” Sweetie Bot continued, eyeing the width of the tire tracks nervously, “then we’ve got a really big problem.”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Okay, so then what’re we waiting for? Let’s go!”

The others focused on her with blank stares until Sweetie Belle squeaked. “You want to go after it?!”

“Well, duh!” Scootaloo grinned. “If it’s really a Deceiveron-”

“Decepticon.”

“... If it’s really a bad guy, we need to stop it, right?”

Sweetie Belle’s face paled--quite a feat for someone with her skintone--while Apple Bloom coughed gently into her hand.

“Maaaaybe we should call the others first an’ let them know what’s goin’ on?” The farmgirl turned to Sweetie Bot, who was shaking her head and pressing a series of small keys on her forearm panel.

“I just tried; something’s wrong with my transmitters.” There was a sharp clang as she smacked the panel and let out an irritated groan. “Ugh! I wish I knew how to fix things like this… I’m still all full of bugs and glitches and stuff.”

“It’s okay, we can just call them,” Sweetie Belle put a comforting hand on her Autobot companion’s shoulder as Apple Bloom pulled out her phone with a frown.

“‘No Signal’? What’s goin’ on here? The orchard usually has great reception.”

“Mine too,” Scootaloo chimed in.

“Huh,” Sweetie Belle furrowed her brow at her normal, non-transforming alien robot phone. “Is this because of the Decepticon?”

Sweetie Bot’s optics widened.

“Oh!” She tapped a few more buttons with renewed vigor. “You’re right! There’s nothing wrong with my transmitters; there’s some kind of crazy strong jamming field that…” She trailed off blinking as she read the display “Oh, wow, I think it’s covering the whole city!”

“Decrepitons can do that?” Scootaloo asked.

“Decepticons,” Apple Bloom sighed.

“Whatever! They can really knock out cell phones and stuff?”

“I don’t know,” Sweetie Bot shrugged. “Subwoofer and Maestro are good with things like that so… probably?”

“I think Miss Octavia lives somewhere on the other side of town, but I have no idea where Vinyl or Flash live,” Sweetie Belle wrung her hands in front of her. “How are we going to warn them?”

A hushed silence fell over the orchard as the four friends turned to face the direction of Canterlot, well marked by the ever-present glow cast into the night sky by the lights of downtown.

Scootaloo took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“We don't.”

"Whaddya mean 'we don't?' Are ya plumb crazy?" Apple Bloom crossed her arms. "Scootaloo, in case you've gone and forgotten, Sweetie Bot ain't exactly the fightin' type. If this really is a Decepticon, how the heck are we supposed to stop it without the other Autobots?"

"Well what choice do we have?" Scootaloo shouted as she turned to face them, her mouth set in a tense line and her eyes sparkling with anger. "Who knows how long ago this thing landed? It could already be in the city by now! People's lives are in danger!"

"Scootaloo..." Sweetie Belle breathed with concern as her irate friend continued.

"By the time we reach the others it might already be too late, and anybody else we try to warn wouldn’t believe us anyway. We're the only ones who have a chance of stopping this thing before people get hurt. Even if that chance is small... are you really okay with just sitting here doing nothing? Is that what our big sisters would do?”

Apple Bloom winced, and Sweetie Belle's gaze fell to the ground as Scootaloo's words ushered in another momentary silence.

"If there were any way she could help at all, Rarity would do it," Sweetie Belle said quietly.

"An' Applejack wouldn't hold back if it meant protectin' somethin' or someone she cared about," Apple Bloom agreed.

The two finally mustered the courage to look at one another, exchanging pointed looks before nodding in tandem. Scootaloo smiled.

“I… I understand what you’re saying, Scootaloo,” Sweetie Bot said, “but I’m… I’m not so sure I can really help.”

“It’ll be okay,” Sweetie Belle said, her fingers intertwining with the Autobot’s as she took her hand. “I’m scared too, but you’re not going out there alone.”

“Darn straight,” Apple Bloom added with a grin, putting her hands on her hips. “Ain’t a good idea fer us to stay here anyway; if that thing circles back this way we’d be in trouble. Safest place is gotta be wherever you are.”

“Yeah! Crusaders stick together!” Scootaloo said. “So what do you say, Sweetie Bot? Ready to kick some Dubstepicon butt?”

“Okay, now you’re just doin’ it on purpose.”

“Am not!” Scootaloo rounded on Apple Bloom. “It’s just a hard word to remember, okay?”

“No it ain’t.”

“Here, try it like this,” Sweetie Belle said as she let go of Sweetie Bot’s hand and stepped forward. “‘Duh’... ‘sep’...”

Sweetie Bot gave a small laugh as Scootaloo, her brow furrowed in concentration, listened intently to her friend’s lecture on proper pronunciation. Her optics refocused on the lighted sky in the distance before lowering to the tire tracks that laid out the path before her.

“... It’s what she would do, too.”

“Hm?” Sweetie Belle and the others all looked to her. “Did you say something Sweetie Bot?”

“I’ll do it,” the Autobot said firmly and stood a little straighter. “Let’s go, we don’t have any time to waste.”

“Ugh, this is gettin’ us nowhere,” Apple Bloom said as she continued scanning the street for anything that seemed out of place. “Since we got into the city an’ lost the trail we could drive right past this thing and never know it.”

“Well, we’re at least in the right general area,” Sweetie Bot said. She had once again transformed into a powered scooter and matching wagon for the girls to ride, albeit this time with actual wheels to avoid attracting any unwanted attention. “This dampening field is keeping me from getting a solid signal, but I’m still picking up trace Energon readings.”

“So it’s here,” Scootaloo frowned at a large van that turned the corner ahead of them before a jacked-up pickup truck parked on the other side of the street caught her eye. “Somewhere, anyway.”

Apple Bloom shook her head and sat back in the wagon. “There’s gotta be some better way to do this. If you were a transforming robot from outer space, where would you go?”

“Um, I am a transforming robot from outer space,” Sweetie Bot offered, “and I would probably come hang out with you girls, but I don’t think that’s going to help.”

Apple Bloom sighed, and as she did she caught sight of Sweetie Belle out of the corner of her eye. Her arms were crossed and her mouth curled into a lopsided frown, while her head was tilted back and to one side as she looked upwards with an absent stare. It was an expression Apple Bloom had seen her friend wear many times.

“What is it, Sweetie Belle? What’s on your mind?”

“Hmm… the Autobots hid here because they thought the weird magic that my sister and her friends have was kinda like the Energon stuff they use for power, right?” Sweetie Belle mused. “I wonder if that’s what this Decepticon thought too?”

Apple Bloom scratched the back of her head. “I guess that makes sense, but how does that help us find-oh!” Her eyes brightened as the truth dawned on her.

“What?” Scootaloo asked, trying to look back over her shoulder and still somehow keep one eye on the road. “What’d you figure out?”

“Take a left up here, Scoots!” Apple Bloom said as she pointed to the next intersection with an excited smirk, “I know where it’s goin’, for sure!”

“Didn’t think we’d be back here so soon,” Sweetie Belle murmured as they slowed to a stop at the entrance to the Starswirl Amphitheater in Canterlot Park.

The outdoor stage loomed before them; dark and foreboding without the multicolored lights that had illuminated it during the Battle of the Bands. Though most of the expensive equipment had been taken away or covered with heavy tarps, remnants of the food and various other thrown items that had sent the Dazzlings running from the stage after their defeat hadn’t yet been cleared away. The bleachers, by comparison, felt empty without a crowd of cheering fans to fill them, and the chilly night breeze that whistled through the space served only to emphasize how alone the girls were as they stepped off their transportation. A flash of light accompanied by a pair of familiar popping sparks heralded Sweetie Bot’s transformation into her humanoid form.

“Are you sure about this, Apple Bloom?” she said as her optics swept over the area.

“Well, there was a huge magic rock concert here a few hours ago,” Apple Bloom smirked and crossed her arms. “If yer lookin’ for weird energy, this here is the place to be.”

Scootaloo shook her head. “I don’t see anything that might be a… ‘Decepticon’?” She turned to Sweetie Belle for confirmation, receiving a wide grin and enthusiastic thumbs-up.

“If ya could tell just by lookin’ it wouldn’t be a very good Decepticon,” Apple Bloom quipped as Sweetie Bot launched her remote sensor. The small sphere zipped up into the air, stopping some twenty or thirty feet above the ground before it began sweeping the amphitheater. Her hand transformed into a display and projected a small-scale 3D map overlay of the stage, bleachers, and surrounding area that pulsed with a rapidly-shifting kaleidoscope of colors.

“Woah,” her optics widened, “you weren’t kidding; the readings are all over the place.”

“Anything that could be another Cybertronian?” Sweetie Belle asked, peeking over the Autobot’s shoulder.

“No,” Sweetie Bot shook her head with a sigh, “there’s way too much background radiation. I can’t even see us on this thing.” She switched off the display and turned to face the girls. “We’re gonna have to do this the hard-!!”

She was silenced by the earthshaking growl of a diesel engine coming to life. The girls jumped and turned as one, staring with wide eyes as a massive dark brown three-axle dump truck rumbled out from behind the bleachers, clipping the corner of the stands and demolishing the steel supports as it swung around to face them. Powerful headlights blinded them before they’d truly had a chance to react.

“Or maybe it’ll find us first!” Scootaloo shouted as the group turned and started to run, but the truck, moving impossibly fast for its size, was practically on top of them already. Sweetie Bot roughly swept the three girls up into her arms, pistons and hydraulics pumping as she shot forward with strides far more powerful than any human legs could produce. Even so, the truck gained on them.

“Hang on!” Sweetie Bot yelled as the air surrounding them began to shimmer and twist.

“Ooh, I hate this part!” Apple Bloom cried out, while Sweetie Belle let loose with an ear-piercing shriek.

Electricity writhed through a roughly cube-shaped space around them as the truck bore down. A bright flash accompanied by a clap of thunder ripped through the night, and the truck barreled through the place they had just been, screeching to a halt as its brakes slammed into action.

Across the amphitheater, near the other side of the stage, a second burst of light unceremoniously deposited the three girls and their Autobot guardian onto the unforgiving pavement with a collective yelp.

“Ugh,” Scootaloo groaned, shoving to try and free herself from a tangle of legs and arms. “You weren’t kidding about the landings, Sweetie Bot.”

“Sorry; it was the only thing I could think of,” Sweetie Bot said as she stood and likewise pulled a dizzy, swaying Sweetie Belle to her feet. “Is everyone okay?”

“Ask me again when the room stops spinnin’,” a visibly green Apple Bloom moaned as she pushed herself up to her hands and knees.

Any response Sweetie Belle might’ve offered was cut off as the truck’s engine revved hard. The girls turned to face it as best they could as the vehicle began to change, metal screeching against metal as large servos and grinding gears began to spin and twist the frame. The dump body broke into sections that either slid along the surface or folded in on themselves as the bed split down the middle to form a pair of boxy arms. The arms levered the rear of the truck up into the air as the cab and engine block likewise rose atop wide, powerful legs that unfolded from beneath. The truck’s grill rotated around the to the new ‘front’ of the machine as the tires spun and locked into position on the knees and upper arms. A head formed from what looked like part of the vehicle’s rear drive shaft assembly ratcheted into place with a shuddering squeal, a dull red light marking the Decepticon’s optics as they flickered on. As the transformation settled down, the head turned to regard the girls with a metallic groan.

“Hmm,” a deep, appropriately gravely voice laden with a thick Stalliongradi accent issued forth from the former dump truck. “Did not expect to see spacebridge technology on backwater rock. Then again…” The massive Decepticon turned and started taking slow, deliberate steps toward them. The stage and bleachers shook as each footfall sent a minor tremor rippling through the ground. “Did not expect to find slag-sucking Autobots here either.”

Sweetie Bot gasped.

“I don’t... I-I’m not…” She planted her hands firmly on her hips with a huff. “That’s rude!”

“What?” Scootaloo whispered. “What does slag-sucking mean?”

“I don’t think we want to know,” Sweetie Belle absently mumbled back, unable to actually pull her gaze from the Decepticon as it towered over them.

“You… your kind isn’t welcome here! Decepticons, I mean!” Sweetie Bot took a pair of bold steps forward. “You need to leave, or… or there’s going to be trouble!”

“Hmph,” he chuckled. “Cute. But I am not in mood to play games, little scrap.” He leaned forward, his shadow eclipsing the girls as he loomed above. “Where is the strange Energon?”

“Uh,” Sweetie Bot hesitated slightly, “w-what strange Energon?”

The Decepticon’s eyes narrowed. His hand whipped across in a terrifyingly swift motion, swatting Sweetie Bot aside effortlessly and sending her crashing straight through the stage and into the storage area beneath it.

The Crusaders gasped.

“SWEETIE BOT!!” Tears welled up in Sweetie Belle’s eyes, but before she could take even a single step the Decepticon’s massive fist slammed into the ground, blocking the path to her fallen friend.

“I ask again,” his voice rumbled over the terrified and defenseless trio as his optics narrowed, “where is Energon?”

Author's Note

Before anyone asks: no, the Decepticon isn't supposed to be Long Haul, or Payload, or anybot like that. For now I'm just calling him 'Gulag'.

Alternatively, we could call him 'Boris the sneaky trucking Russian', :trixieshiftright:

(Bonus points to whoever gets the 'sneaky trucking Russian' reference...)

Blackbolt

~Earlier that evening… (last time; I swear)~

“I’m going out for a drive; see you later, Dad!” Flash Sentry said over his shoulder as he slipped out the front screen door of his home.

“Try not to fall in love with every cute girl you come across,” his father’s offhand response followed him down the steps and off the porch, causing Flash to roll his eyes.

“If I’d known telling you about Twilight was going to lead to months of heckling I never would’ve done it!” Flash shouted back, hearing only a laugh and what sounded like ‘drive safe’ as he rounded the corner of the house. The grin faded from his face as he approached the small separated two-car garage at the back of the driveway. Good natured if somewhat snarky parenting aside, there were actually a few girls preoccupying his thoughts at the moment… just not necessarily the ones his dad thought, or for the reasons he had implied.

Flash stopped in front of the garage’s side door, his hand hovering near the handle as he briefly considered putting this all off until morning. He shook his head and steeled himself with a deep breath as he pushed open the door and stepped inside, letting it close gently behind him before flipping the light switch.

Fluorescent bulbs flickered on with a soft buzz, bathing the garage with a sterile light. Immediately in front of Flash sat what might as well be the sibling he never had: his father’s well-maintained yet seemingly never road-ready 1971 Plymouth Barnacuda. Despite its age, the vibrant lime green paintjob showed nary a scratch; a testament to how rarely it left the protection of the garage.

The vehicle really did feel like part of the family. Flash had known this car his entire life, having grown up watching his old man tinker and toy with her engine, and when he was old enough, helping out himself. He had learned practically everything he knew about classic cars under this very hood. He loved this car just as much as his dad did, and he was pretty sure if it could talk it would say it loved them right back.

The machine occupying the other half of the garage, however, was very unlikely to express the same sentiment… and unfortunately, it could talk.

Flash stepped around the front of the Barnacuda, his gaze settling on the sleek, mirror-sheen polish of a jet-black muscle car that, if one didn’t look too closely, resembled a fifth generation model Chevy Camareo. It was a far cry from the aged, worse-for-wear Camareo he’d been given for his sixteenth birthday, and to be honest Flash was pretty sure his dad didn’t really believe that it was the very same car with a custom body overhaul and a new paintjob. His dad had never pushed the issue though, and for that he was thankful. The mere thought of lying to his father any more than he already had twisted his stomach into almost as many knots as the notion of telling him the truth did.

He stopped in front of the Camareo, hands automatically stuffing themselves into the pockets of his windbreaker jacket as he awkwardly shifted his weight from foot to foot. The gleam of the blue shield and yellow lightning bolt that adorned the car’s hood had not that long ago been one of his favorite sights, but looking down on it now Flash felt only the cold brick of guilt sitting in his gut.

“Um,” he managed somewhere between a mumble and a squeak with a voice made of sandpaper, “H-hey.”

Mental facepalm. An auspicious start, to be sure. He coughed and cleared his throat.

“You, uh… I know I’m probably the last person you want to see right now. Not that you actually see me; I know you said that when you’re like this it’s more like your sensor things pick up my heartbeat and brain activity and stuff... although, haha, after the last time we talked I bet you’re surprised that I have any brain activity at all, right?”

Flash’s half-hearted chuckle at his own expense was met with deafening silence, accentuated by a single flicker from one of the overhead lights. He sighed.

“Okay, look. I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t even begin to cover it, but it’s the truth. I’m not gonna try and blame all of what I said on being messed up by the Dazzlings’ powers, because I think we both know that… that on some level the stuff I said was still me. I do resent getting dragged into this whole mess. I feel like for the past couple of years I have had zero control of anything in my life, and I hate it; I just get so frustrated sometimes and I…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you and the other Autobots. It’s not your fault, and I was wrong and a… a jerk for saying that it was.”

Flash’s gaze fell to the cracked concrete floor, remaining there for a long, unanswered moment. With a sigh he turned to leave, only to freeze in his tracks when a soft, muffled click echoed through the garage. He glanced over his shoulder just as the Camareo’s driver-side door swung open of its own volition.

With a grin, Flash strode over to the car and stepped inside, shutting the door as gently as possible behind him.

“Does, uh, does this mean I’m forgiven?”

“It’s a start,” a deep and robust, yet distinctly feminine voice issued forth from the car’s speakers as the radio flicked on. “I still have half a mind to leave you transportationless for a while to teach you a lesson… but it’s good to see you’re back to your usual self.”

Flash let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding as some of the tension left his shoulders. “Thanks, Blackbolt.”

“Subwoofer transmitted a rundown of what happened at the concert,” she explained. “His version of events seemed a little… embellished. Even for him. Mind filling me in?”

Flash nodded. “I don’t remember all the details clearly, but I’ll do my best. Can we do it on the road, though?” he asked with a sheepish grin. “I kinda told my Dad I was going for a drive.”

“I suppose it’s better than having him come out here wondering if there’s something wrong under my hood again,” the car answered with a short sigh as the engine turned over and revved once. “Any place in particular?”

Flash grinned and reached for the steering wheel and gearshift. “Actually, yes. I was thinking we could head up to-YEOWCH!” He jerked his hands back from the sharp shock he’d received upon touching the wheel. “What was that for?”

“Nice try, kid, but when have I ever let you drive?” Blackbolt chuckled as she remotely triggered the overhead garage door. “Just tell me where we’re headed and put your belt on.”

Flash complied with a low grumble. “Y’know, this is exactly the kinda thing that I’m talking about. Can’t even drive my own car. Just once I’d like to-WHUP!!” The air was forced from his lungs as Blackbolt shot forward--roof narrowly missing the still-rising garage door--and reached the end of the driveway in an instant. She slid into a tire-squealing turn, engine gunning even harder as she sped away down the open road.

Canterlot City was not overly large by most standards, but on a warm, clear spring night like this one it was still a sight to behold. The persistent lights of the city’s suburbs sprawled out across the floor of the shallow valley below, giving gentle way to the less densely populated countryside. In contrast, the taller, glass-surfaced office buildings centered at the heart of the city shimmered brightly even at night, standing as a beacon to hold the darkness at bay.

But even in that darkness, there was yet another kind of light. High above the city, sparkling across a flawless canvas, the stars kept their ever-present vigil; a constant, gentle reminder that even a city like Canterlot--which occasionally played host to magical beings from another dimension, or served as an erstwhile home for a few refugee alien robots--was but one small corner of a much grander universe.

From the top of a large hill just outside the city limits, Flash Sentry took in the entire vista with a sigh.

“What’s wrong?” Blackbolt asked. Her voice, backed by the soft and steady underlying tones of a soulful rock ballad, wafted through the open windows to reach Flash’s ears as he reclined on her hood with his hands folded behind his head. “You’re not doing that ‘wistful angsty teenager’ thing again, are you?”

“Nah,” Flash chuckled. “I was just thinking about how when you’re a little kid people always ask you what you want to be when you grow up, and kids always answer with crazy stuff or whatever they think is cool at the time. I’m pretty sure at least once I said I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to go into space and explore, and go on adventures, and meet aliens…” he trailed off, with a frown. “Now the adventures and the aliens all keep landing in my lap, and half the time I wish they hadn’t.”

“Ah,” Blackbolt said, “so this is an angsty teenager thing.”

Flash rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that, I just… if I went back in time and told five-year-old me that one day he’d meet a magic pony princess from another dimension and have a transforming robot car, five-year-old me would blow gasket thinking about how cool that all sounded.” He sighed again. “What the hell happened?”

“It sounds like you grew up,” Blackbolt said, her voice low. “Reality is rarely as simple as our minds make it out to be when we’re young.”

“Do Cybertronians have young?” Flash asked. “I mean, being robots and everything I just figured you didn’t really grow.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s mostly true--in a physical sense, at least. Our bodies typically don’t change in size over time, but that doesn’t mean we can’t develop mentally or emotionally. Like you, there was a time that I never would’ve imagined that I’d find myself here; hiding on an underdeveloped, unimportant world…”

“Gee, thanks,” Flash deadpanned.

“You’re welcome,” Blackbolt returned with just a touch too much politeness to be taken seriously. “And if you had told the old me that I’d be hiding here in the company of Autobots, I probably would’ve blown a gasket as well. An actual gasket, in my case.”

“That’s not really the same thing, though, is it?” Flash shook his head. “You changed your mind and switched sides, but I don’t get how that relates to me growing up.”

The song playing from her speakers cut out, and Blackbolt sighed.

“Hop off.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Just do it before I catapult you down the hill,” Blackbolt growled, and the vibration of the hood latch releasing beneath him emphasized her point.

He threw his legs out to the side and slid to the ground, turning and backing a few steps away as Blackbolt’s frame began to shift.

A spiderweb of cracks appeared in the normally smooth contours of the Camareo, individual pieces sliding back and forth, some disappearing into the car’s interior and leaving gaps through which the internal servos and motors could be seen and heard as they they began to spin up. Metal squealed and hydraulics hissed; the side doors seemed to fold in on themselves even as they opened, each forming a mechanical arm that immediately pushed the vehicle up on its rear wheels. The wheels in turn folded up into the undercarriage as two feet replaced them on the ground, the trunk splitting into a pair of boxy segments that compressed down to form legs as Blackbolt stood.

The grill, bumper, and hood split and opened; a black-plated mechanical head swinging up and into place before the front of the car twisted about, re-aligning to form an armored chestplate that covered the space where the head had emerged. Jet-black plating, as smooth and reflective as the surface of the car she had once been, formed from innumerable smaller sections over the arms, legs and body, locking into place with something between a hiss and ratcheting click. Blackbolt rolled her shoulders, at first together and then one after the other, flexing the streamlined armor covering most of her form before the last of the segments fused together.

Flash watched the entire process with a grin, only to snap to attention and begin looking about nervously.

“Relax,” Blackbolt’s voice sounded fuller without the intermediary of a speaker system, “there’s no one but us around for miles.” She gave one last creaking stretch before she walked to the edge of the hill with heavy, earth-shaking steps and sat with one leg out straight and the other bent at the knee, resting one arm atop it while using the other to prop herself up.

“This hill isn’t exactly concealing, and you kinda stand out,” Flash settled himself onto the grass next to her. “People could be miles away and still see you.”

“I haven’t stretched my legs for almost a week; a couple of minutes will be fine.” She turned slightly to look down at him. “Besides, it’s easier to talk to you like this.”

Flash furrowed his brow as Blackbolt continued.

“When I first activated--that is to say, when I was born--I already knew that I was a soldier. No one told me, and it wasn’t something that I consciously decided to do… I just felt it, deep in my spark. The problem was that I was so focused on fighting a war that I didn’t care about why I was fighting.”

“That was when you were a Decepticon?” Flash asked, drawing a nod from Blackbolt. “And you never questioned… any of it?”

“I was too busy basking in my own ego. I did whatever I was ordered to, and I did it well. I treated every assignment as if it were the most important task I’d ever undertaken, and my superiors recognized that. They held me up as an example for others to follow, and it… honestly, it felt good.” Blackbolt’s shoulders heaved as she sighed. “The notion that what I was doing was wrong never even crossed my mind.”

“What changed?” Flash asked.

Blackbolt let out a clipped laugh. “I got my afterburner handed to me on a platinum platter, that’s what.” She leaned back, now bracing herself with both arms as she turned her gaze to the starry sky. “I was given an assignment of great importance--supposedly by order of Megatron himself, though I never actually met him. I was instructed to hunt down and destroy the Autobots’ leader, and to bring his broken body back to Cybertron. It took me some time to actually find him, but when I did…” she trailed off with a shake of her head. “Honestly, I didn’t understand what it meant to be a Prime until that day.”

“He was really strong, huh?”

“Overwhelmingly so,” Blackbolt nodded solemnly, “but not just in combat. There was a sort of… nobility about him that I’d never experienced before. The way he carried himself, the weight behind his words… the supreme confidence and trust he inspired in his followers… I’d never met anyone like him before, and I don’t expect that I ever will again. He proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wasn’t nearly as good as I thought I was, but before he finished me off he hesitated.

“Maybe he was simply showing compassion, or maybe being a Prime meant he was able to see something in me that I myself was blind to, but instead of blasting me to scrap, he asked me one question. ‘Why do you serve Megatron?’”

Flash leaned forward intently, folding his arms over his knees. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing,” Blackbolt admitted. “I just… didn’t have an answer. I just sat there, staring up at him like some newborn protoform. After a moment he lowered his weapon and… well, he just left. Turned his back on me without hesitation. At first I thought that was incredibly careless of him, but since then I’ve realized that in that moment... he already knew. He knew that I wouldn’t attack him; that I’d accepted my defeat.” She made a noise somewhere between a laugh and snort. “All it took was one little question that I’d never had the forethought or courage to ask myself.”

“I’m guessing that the Decepticons weren’t happy,” Flash stated.

“No,” Blackbolt shook her head. “After I returned to Cybertron I was yesterday’s scrap… in the Decepticon ranks, you’re only as good as your last mission. It was one of many things I started to notice--little things, at first--that really began to bother me. The lack of genuine respect for one another; the every ‘Con for themselves attitude and the overwhelming tendency to take advantage of anyone else at the first opportunity,” she paused for an almost imperceptible moment, “the casual cruelty displayed toward every other species we encountered... things that I had always accepted as the way things were. I don’t know exactly why, but I started to feel like it was all... wrong. Like there was a better way.

“Needless to say, once I started thinking like that I lost pretty much all motivation to perform my usual duties. I fell even further out of favor with the Decepticon leadership, and I was eventually assigned to the security detail of a very remote research station.”

“Ah,” Flash nodded, “that was the lab where Maestro was working, and when he decided to escape to save Sweetie Bot, you helped,” the young teen furrowed his brow, “but how’d you know he was an undercover Autobot?”

“I didn’t,” Blackbolt shrugged. “I only found that out after. He’d sabotaged the sensor net, leaving false readings over half the base, and in the confusion Subwoofer managed to sneak through with a small shuttle to extract them. I intercepted and subdued them in the airlock, but then I just sort of… well, I just stopped to think, I guess.”

Blackbolt tilted her head back down, regarding the glowing spread of Canterlot City before her.

“I realized that the situation was now reversed… I was the one holding the weapon over a defeated foe, and I found myself curious, so I asked Maestro why he was doing this. He looked down at Sweetie Bot hiding behind him, and then he looked up at me, completely unafraid, and said: ‘Because it is the right thing to do.’”

“Wow,” Flash breathed. “That’s… incredibly lame and I’m straight-up shocked that it worked on you.”

“Shut up,” Blackbolt groused, flicking his shoulder gently with one finger, which was still enough to topple the laughing teenager over on his side.

“Sorry, but it is!”

“See if I ever tell you a story again, kid.”

“Okay, okay,” Flash relented as he sat back up. “Honestly, it might be cheesy but you know what? If I was in that situation, I… I’d like to think that I’d have the guts to say something like that.” Blackbolt responded with an appreciative nod. “So what happened next?”

“Slag if I know. The next thing I remember was providing covering fire while they ran for the shuttle… and then I remember helping pilot it as we escaped the base. The ship took a lot of damage, and while we gave our pursuers the slip, we ended up limping through space for about a week before we picked up a faint Energon signature coming from a nearby system. We knew we wouldn’t make it much farther without repairs and refueling, so we set course for the source of the signal. And now...”

“Here you are,” Flash finished for her.

“Here we are,” Blackbolt nodded solemnly, “not a single mote of actual Energon to be found. Stuck on a rock, hiding right smack in the midst of a bunch of squishy biologics that cause us no end of grief.”

“At your service,” Flash offered his best impression of a flourishing bow while still seated on the grass. “I’d say the feeling’s mutual, but even without you guys here us ‘squishy biologics’ would still have to deal with weirdo magical invasions from another dimension, so, y’know… six of one; half dozen of the other.”

“Heh, fair enough,” Blackbolt laughed as she leaned back and looked up at the sky again. “Anyway, the point of telling you all this was that while my kind might not grow like you do, we can still grow. I was naive for most of my life; I never looked beyond the end of my weapon and I thought I had it all figured out. Then one day I woke up and realized that what I thought I wanted was nothing like I expected it to be.” She glanced down at him. “That kinda sound like you and your dream of going on adventures turning out the way it did?”

“Yeah,” a pensive Flash nodded shallowly. “In a really roundabout, convoluted kind of way, but… yeah, I guess it does.”

Blackbolt returned her gaze to the sky. A long moment passed before Flash once again broke the silence, gesturing to the stars.

“Which one is Cybertron?”

“Hm? Oh,” Blackbolt said, “you can’t see it from here. Wrong hemisphere of the planet.”

Flash nodded slowly. “Do you miss it?”

“A little bit, sometimes,” Blackbolt answered almost immediately, “but I’m not really sure there’s anything worth going back for… not that I’d even be welcome. For better or for worse, I’ve thrown my lot in with the Autobots now.”

“I wonder if that’s how she feels,” Flash mumbled with a frown.

“She who?” Blackbolt perked up. “One of your girlfriends?”

Flash blushed. “She’s not--I mean, she was, but--and I don’t have… ugh, you’re worse than my Dad!”

“You make it too easy!” Blackbolt laughed. “Anyway, who did you mean? The one with the red and yellow hair?”

“Sunset Shimmer,” Flash nodded, tearing up a bit of grass and idly rolling it between his fingers. “Listening to you tell your story, I couldn’t help but think of how it sounded a lot like hers, at least the parts of it that I know. She’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but she was just so… so full of herself. And manipulative. Everything was ‘her way or the highway’, but half the time she’d fool you into thinking that whatever she wanted you to do was your idea in the first place. It took me a long time to figure out just how awful she really was, and by then she had the whole school under her thumb.”

Blackbolt frowned. “I wasn’t trying to force my will on anyone or anything; I was… well, I was satisfied with my position. Happy, even.” She shook her head. “I’m not seeing the connection.”

“I was getting to that; keep your pants on.”

“Not wearing any.”

“... Can I finish the story?”

Blackbolt chuckled and bade him continue with an exaggerated wave of her hand.

Flash cleared his throat. “Twilight showed up out of nowhere and beat Sunset at the Fall Formal--in more ways than one--but then she and the other girls turned around and offered to be Sunset’s friends. They wanted to help her be a better person, and she really did change. It was almost scary how quickly she went from being a raging bitch to the quietest wallflower in the whole school… well, aside from Fluttershy, anyway.

“At first I thought it had to be an act; that she was just playing along and biding her time… just like she did with me… then this whole thing with the Dazzlings came along and I...” Flash shook his head and tossed the strands of grass, letting the gentle breeze carry them away. “Anyway, I’m really glad I was wrong.”

Blackbolt hummed. “So she and I were both blinded by our pride, and then after getting kicked to the curb, we realized that we’d been idiots all along?”

“Kinda?” Flash shrugged. “Not just that, though. She’s from the same place as Twilight; on the other side of that portal thing in the Wondercolt statue. For whatever reason, she hasn’t gone home, and it seems like she’s still trying to make a place for herself at CHS. Twilight’s friends are the only ones that have her back, and I just thought that sounded kinda like what you were saying about not going home to Cybertron and being stuck in a strange world with the rest of the Autobots.”

Blackbolt nodded, her downcast optics glancing about pensively.

“I guess it’s a good thing that she stayed,” Flash continued, “who knows what would’ve happened at the concert if she hadn’t been there. I still don’t really know what the Dazzlings were planning, but Sunset probably saved a lot of lives tonight… including mine.” A wisp of a smile crossed his face. “Guess that’s another thing you two have in common.”

Blackbolt was quiet for a long moment until she let out a light ‘hmph’ and turned to gaze out at the city again.

“That’s it? Just ‘hmph?’”

“I’m thinking.”

This time it was Flash’s turn to ‘hmph’ as he too turned his eyes to Canterlot, though he was hardly paying attention to the view. A thick silence draped over the hilltop, one that Flash knew was his to break. He took a deep, slow breath and released it just as gently.

“I’m sorry for saying that you’re useless and that we… that I’d be better off without you,” he said in as level a tone as he could manage. “My life’s gotten a lot more complicated since you showed up, but it’s not like you or the other Autobots had much choice. You did what you had to do.”

“Did we?” Blackbolt surprised him with the soft tone of her voice. “We landed here out of necessity, sure, but it was my decision that got you involved.” She shook her head. “If I had just waited for Maestro to finish his analysis we would’ve known that you weren’t the source of the Energon readings, and I never would have-”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Flash cut her off. “Okay? I know I crack jokes about it sometimes, but that was a freak accident; if anything it’s my fault for not taking better care of my own car.” He sighed. “Blackbolt, if you hadn’t been following me that night, I’d be dead. Gone; done; game over. As much as I complain about how hard it is to keep you guys hidden, or having to keep tabs on Sunset and Twilight and the girls to try and find out more about this weird power they have, I’d way rather be doing that then pushing up daisies.”

Flash abruptly stood, brushing some dirt and loose grass from his jeans as he turned to face Blackbolt and placed a hand on the cool outer shell of her arm.

“You know what? Even if I didn’t owe you, I’d still help you.”

“Why?” Blackbolt asked.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Flash answered with a smirk that quickly broadened into a full on smile. “Plus, deep down inside, little five-year-old Flash won’t let me forget how awesome it is to be best friends with a giant transforming robot.”

“We’re best friends now, are we?” Blackbolt laughed, a loud guffaw that made Flash glad they were still far out of earshot of anyone else. “I’m not sure how I should feel about that.”

“Well, it’s the truth,” Flash said with a shrug and a warm smile as he slipped his hands into his jacket pockets.

Blackbolt settled down from her outburst and nodded, her voice turning somber once more. “Thanks, Flash.”

“You’re welcome.” Flash responded as another mischievous grin crept into his features. “So… you think maybe your ‘best friend’ could take the wheel for the drive home?”

“Keep dreaming, kid.”

“Aw, c’mon!” Flash laughed even as he threw his hands into the air in protest. “You’ve got me following around the hottest girls in school like I’m some kind of creepy stalker! If I’m not gonna have any control over my rep at CHS, couldn’t you at least let me steer once in awhile?”

“Oh, so you do think the girls are attractive,” Blackbolt sat up and give him a playful nudge that nearly knocked him off his feet. “Which one are you planning on hooking up with next?”

Flash scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Okay, first of all, I haven’t even-” he cut himself off when Blackbolt’s head whipped around toward Canterlot, her mechanical body visibly tensing up. “What? What’s wrong?”

“I thought I heard something.”

Flash shook his head, glancing at their surroundings. “I didn’t-”

“No, not like that,” Blackbolt waved him off as she stood, her full attention now on the city below. “It was just for a microsecond, but I thought I picked up part of a transmission. It almost sounded like…” She put a hand to her ear. “Maestro, come in… Blackbolt calling Maestro; do you copy?” She waited for a moment. “Subwoofer, do you read me, over? Sweetie Bot? Anyone on this frequency at all?” Another brief moment passed before Blackbolt lowered her hand.

“Blackbolt, what’s going on?” Flash asked as he moved to stand beside her.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I can’t reach anyone and I’m not even picking up their transponder signals. It’s almost like there’s a...” She trailed off as her optics widened. “Slag.”

Flash huffed. “Really confused and very concerned here; can I at least get a hint?”

“I’ll explain on the way. We need to get back to the city.”

“Okay, fine,” Flash nodded in agreement, “do your thing and I’ll hop in.”

“No time,” Blackbolt said, reaching down. “C’mon, we’re taking a shortcut.”

“Huh?” Flash blanked as Blackbolt’s massive hands closed around his midsection, lifting him bodily into the air as she took a step toward the edge of the steep hill. “Oh, no! No! Blackbolt don’t you daaaaAAAAHHHH!!”

Flash’s protests devolved into a terrified shout as Blackbolt took a running leap off the hilltop, her human cargo cradled against her chest as she plummeted down the grassy slope. She landed hard, tearing up the earth beneath her feet for only a moment before springing away again to soar even farther. She bounded twice more in similar fashion, the last jump bringing a long stretch of highway into view.

“When I say, try to put your body into a sitting position!” Blackbolt shouted over the wind whipping past.

“What?!” Flash asked in a panic, his eyes fixed on the rapidly approaching pavement.

“NOW!”

Flash yelled wordlessly again and tried to do as he was told just as Blackbolt tucked into a roll, her knees and one arm slamming into the road with enough force to crack the surface. Forward she tumbled, into a somersault, and only then did Flash hear the telltale clanking and whirring of her transformation circuits kicking into overdrive. The world twisted and reshaped into the familiar setting of the inside of a car, the grating scrape of metal on asphalt replaced by the deep growl of a plasma-injected V8 engine as Flash found himself sitting in the driver’s seat.

“You alright?” Blackbolt’s voice spoke urgently from the radio.

“Uh,” Flash gave a nod even as he continued to gasp for breath. “I… I think I’m having a heart attack.”

“Buckle up and hang on,” Blackbolt said, “we’re gonna go for broke!”

Flash scrambled to do as instructed despite still-trembling hands, and no sooner had his belt clicked into place than he was slammed back into the seat. The scenery blurred by in a haze, Blackbolt’s rapid acceleration more befitting a fighter jet than any terrestrial vehicle.

As Canterlot city came back into view, looming in the distance but growing closer by the second, Flash could only wonder what might have elicited such a strong reaction from his Autobot companion.

Every idea he came up with forced his stomach into tighter knots than the last.

Author's Note

I didn't want to stick this in the chapter itself since in this particular instance I felt it would disrupt immersion too much, but in my head I think of this as the song that's playing at the start of the hilltop scene.

One more chapter to go, and it's high time we had ourselves a fight! :rainbowdetermined2:

Rock Out!

“That’s what I love about you, Vinyl! Always flyin’ by the seat of yer pants, yea?” Subwoofer held up one giant hand, curled into a fist, which Vinyl happily bumped with her own as she let out a satisfied sigh.

Oh, yeah… tonight was definitely an awesome night.

It was made slightly less awesome by the sudden, blaring burst of static that erupted from Subwoofer; a screeching cacophony of offensive sounds that forced even Vinyl ‘there’s no such thing as too loud’ Scratch to cover her ears and grimace in pain.

“Woo, that’s just downright embarrassin’’,” the Autobot grinned as he turned the volume down. “Pardon me, musta been somethin’ I downloaded.”

Vinyl shot him an eyebrow and a grimace as the tone of the auditory snow shifted, softening, and while it was now less harsh on the ear, it was still nothing but a garbled mess. She crossed her arms and began tapping her foot as Subwoofer popped open the pulsing display on his chestplate and began fiddling with the circuitry within.

“I’m tryin’! Hold onto yer horses, yeah?” Subwoofer said, never taking his optics from his work. The noise oscillated strangely for a few more seconds. “Hang on a tick, what was that?”

Vinyl perked up as Subwoofer made a series of quick adjustments, and her eyes widened when her ears finally picked out a voice obscured within the static.

“SSSssszzzzofer, do you czzty? Are you ZZZss, SussZZter, can you tzzz me?”

Vinyl looked up at Subwoofer and pantomimed playing a cello, drawing a grin and a nod from the Autobot.

“Yeah, that’s him all right. Maestro, you hear me, mate? You signal’s all naused up.”

“How izzt now?”

“Better,” Subwoofer nodded, closing his chest panel. “What’s with all the interference? You get wet fallin’ in the loo or somethin’?”

“We have no time for your so-called ‘jokes’, Subwoofer!” Maestro’s voice shot back, still marred by static but readily understandable. “In case you have not noticed, there is a dampening field over the entire city!”

“What’re you talkin’ about?” Subwoofer laughed. “Pretty sure I’d’ve noticed if there was a…”

He trailed off, looking towards the sky as his optics swept back and forth without focusing on anything in particular.

“Oh, bugger me; how’d I miss that?”

Vinyl facepalmed as Maestro could be heard sighing.

“You know, for a communications expert, you are somewhat lacking when it comes to expertise.”

“Oi! Stuff it, Strings!” Subwoofer threw up his hands. “I was a bit busy savin’ the bloody world tonight; what were you doin’ aside from playin’ with your screwdrivers?”

“Excuse me,” Octavia’s oh-so-sarcastically-sweet voice suddenly crackled through the transmission, “do you gentlemen think we could skip the testosterone-laden shouting match--which I find myself incredibly confused by, considering that neither of you actually has any testosterone to begin with--and focus on the slightly more pressing matter of the apparent Decepticon in our midst?”

“... Well he started it,” Subwoofer groused, leading Vinyl to smack his leg.

“Miss Melody is correct, of course,” Maestro said. “XT-117’s sensor module detected and confirmed a Decepticon signal, but thanks to this dampening field there is no way to know how long it has been present, nor can we determine the exact location.”

“Ah, you’re patchin’ the subspace transmitters from her sensor through your own commlink to get around the dampening field, yeah?” Subwoofer nodded. “Not bad; not bad at all.”

“Yes,” Maestro confirmed, “but the signal is far from perfect, and I have not been able to raise Blackbolt or XT-117 herself.”

“Probably won’t get more’n a couple of miles out of that setup,” Subwoofer rubbed his chin. “They could be out of range, or…” He trailed off, turning to look at Vinyl with a serious expression. “Or they could be near the source where the field is strongest.”

Vinyl’s blood ran cold at the implications.

“We need to locate them,” Maestro’s firm, urgent voice came through the commlink after a brief silence. “Now.”

“Easier said than done, mate,” Subwoofer shook his head. “We’re not gonna be trackin’ anything with all this interference, so unless you got any bright ideas about where to start--what? What are you on about?”

He stopped and looked down at Vinyl, who had begun slapping the side of his leg frantically. She pointed back and forth between the two of them, then played air guitar, and finally made a vague gesture that looked like something falling from the sky followed by a mushroom cloud.

Subwoofer’s slow nod morphed into a slow shake.

“Call me a peanut, love, but I got no idea what you’re trying to say.”

Vinyl slumped forward and hung her head.

“Wait,” Octavia’s voice said, “you--I mean, the Autobots have been here for months and this is the only Decepticon to show up in all that time... what are the odds of this happening tonight, of all nights?”

“Yes; yes of course!” Maestro agreed. “It must have come here because it picked up the energy from the music competition!”

Vinyl thrust her hands out, palms up, wearing a mock look of surprise that silently screamed ‘no duh.’

“Yeah, yeah,” Subwoofer waved her off. “Right; we’ll head for the park now and meet you there.”

“Agreed,” Maestro said. “Let us just hope that we are not too late.”

“I ask again,” the Decepticon’s voice rumbled over the terrified and defenseless trio as his optics narrowed, “where is Energon?”

Sweetie Belle couldn’t answer. Despite the metal limb blocking her line of sight, all she could do was was stare in the the direction Sweetie Bot had been thrown, her eyes filled with barely-restrained tears.

After a further moment of stunned silence, Apple Bloom swallowed hard.

“Th-there ain’t none!” she stammered. “Honest! Your scanner doohickeys are tellin’ ya that there’s Energon here, but that ain’t what it is!”

The Decepticon grunted. “Whole area is saturated with radiation. If not Energon, then what left signature?”

“Uh…” Apple Bloom blanched. “Would ya believe me if I said it was magic?”

The metal titan stared at her, unblinking.

“Guess that’s a ‘no.’”

“You’d better get out of here while you still can,” Scootaloo chimed in as she planted her hands on her hips, the waver in her voice almost unnoticeable. “The rest of the Autobots are already on their way, and they’re gonna kick your can!”

“If there is no Energon, why is planet crawling with Autobots?”

Scootaloo’s confident smirk faltered as Apple Bloom shot her a disgruntled frown, but before they could come up with anything further, the Decepticon sighed.

“You know? I change mind. We play game, okay?”

Sweetie Belle shrieked as a massive hand closed around her before any of the girls truly registered what was happening.

“Sweetie Belle!” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo exclaimed as one.

“Ugh! Put me down you… rust bucket!” Sweetie strained against her mechanical prison, but its grip was just tight enough that she couldn’t wriggle free.

“Here is game,” the Decepticon said, lazily waving Sweetie in the air just above her friend’s reach. “You tell truth? I let this one go.” His optics narrowed again. “You don’t tell truth…”

A pained gasp escaped from Sweetie Belle’s lips as his slow squeeze compressed her ribcage, forcing the air from her lungs.

“... I don’t let go.”

“Hey!”

The shout drew the attention of the Decepticon and all three girls, who turned almost as one.

Sweetie Bot had extricated herself from the storage room beneath the stage, seemingly none the worse of wear. Her normally passive metallic features were focused into a distinct, angry glower.

“Put. Her. Down.”

“You don’t know when to quit, little scrap,” the Decepticon sighed, turning his focus back to the girl clutched in his hand. “What are you going to do if I don’t?”

Even before he finished speaking, the air around Sweetie Bot rippled, as if something large and unseen moved behind an otherwise invisible curtain. Electricity crackled through the seemingly empty space, and a slow, building vibration coursed through the ground.

Sweetie Bot began to change. Power danced along the circuits, servos, and plating of her right arm as it appeared to unfold from within itself repeatedly, expanding to many times its original size. Her legs quickly followed suit, as did her other arm, torso, and head; her once slender and streamlined chassis reshaping itself into a more angular, blocky shape as it continued to expand.

The Decepticon's wide optics were transfixed on the scene before him. Temporarily forgotten, Sweetie Belle managed to squeeze herself loose from his iron grip, giving a short high-pitched yelp as she tumbled free. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom served as an impromptu landing pad as much as they ‘caught’ their falling friend.

“Sweetie?” Scootaloo panted from the bottom of the three-person pile.

“Ngh, I’m okay,” Sweetie Belle answered with a grimace as she rubbed her arm.

The girls’ attention quickly shifted back to the sound of groaning hydraulics as the Decepticon stood and turned to face Sweetie Bot. Her transformation finally slowed, the last sections of her form clicking and zapping into place as a few lingering arcs of electricity leaped between her armored body and the metal superstructure of the nearby stage.

“Huh,” the Decepticon grunted as he stared at the Autobot that now stood head and shoulders above him and sported a decidedly bulkier frame than his own. “Good answer.”

With a wordless shout, Sweetie Bot surged forward, barreling into the Decepticon with crushing force. Metal squealed and gears ground as the tackle sent both bots tumbling head over heels into the bleachers, which quickly crumpled beneath the sudden tonnage.

“C’mon!” Apple Bloom shouted over the cacophony. She pulled Sweetie Belle to her feet as Scootaloo likewise climbed back to hers, and together the Crusaders made for the far side of the stage.

As the girls dashed for cover, Sweetie Bot and the Decepticon wrestled for control, too entangled with one another and with the ever-flattening bleachers to land any solid blows. Laying on his back, the Decepticon managed to bring one leg up between himself and Sweetie Bot, lashing out with a powerful kick that caught her in the midsection and pushed her more or less upright.

As soon as she had her feet under her, Sweetie Bot dove right back in, but the Decepticon rolled to the side, destroying the last remnants of the stadium seating and causing Sweetie Bot to land flat on her face with a strained grunt and a resounding crash.

The Decepticon pushed himself up to his knees, holding out his right arm as the wide, flat sections that had formed the sides of his dump body rebuilt themselves on his outer forearm, creating a rectangular plate of thick armor almost half as tall as the Decepticon himself.

Sweetie Bot began to rise, just as the narrow edge of the heavy plate collided with the side of her head, triggering a small shower of sparks and sending her crumpling back to the ground. She tucked her head and covered it with her arms, but the Decepticon pushed the advantage, raining blow after blow down on Sweetie Bot’s shoulders and back.

“We gotta help her!” Sweetie Belle shouted, half turning back before Apple Bloom grabbed her arm.

“By doin’ what? Gettin’ squashed underfoot?” She tugged Sweetie Belle behind the side of the stage, where all three girls crouched and looked back toward the battle. No sooner had they done so than the sound of an engine perked up their collective ears.

“What’s that?” Scootaloo asked.

The Decepticon raised his arm, taking careful aim in preparation for a metal-crushing strike, but before he could land it a bolt of vibrant blue energy exploded across his back. He stumbled but remained standing as a second and third blast followed the first.

Growling, the Decepticon spun around to stare at the silver and blue coupe speeding up the service road near the other side of the stage, its hood folded out to the sides and a large cannon thrumming with blue energy sticking up from where the engine should have been. The weapon pulsed brightly and spat forth another blast, releasing an unmistakably deep, audible vibration that swept over the amphitheater. This time the Decepticon hefted the armored plate like a shield, intercepting the blast and scattering it across the surface.

“Subwoofer!” Sweetie Belle cried as the car neared them and slowed.

Vinyl all but leaped from the driver’s seat as Subwoofer swiftly transformed, his full focus trained on the Decepticon as surely as the cannon now extending from his right arm.

“Find a shady spot, love; I got this!” the Autobot bellowed, firing again and again as he advanced. Each shot was blocked by the Decepticon’s shield, but the force of the repeated impacts pushed him back nonetheless.

Vinyl shot her metallic partner a thumbs-up and darted for the edge of the stage where she’d already spotted Sweetie Belle’s head peeking around the corner. As soon as she realized that Sweetie Belle wasn’t alone, however, she screeched to a halt, pulling down her shades and staring over the top of them intently. As blushes grew on the face of each Crusader, Vinyl pointed back and forth between Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, then looked to Sweetie Belle and held up her hands questioningly.

“I know, I know!” Sweetie Belle whined. “Please don’t be mad; I… I can explain!”

Vinyl laughed--or started to, only to be interrupted by a thunderous battlecry as the Decepticon regained his footing and dashed at Subwoofer, his shield leading the way. Subwoofer fired another pair of shots before diving to the side, narrowly missing the barreling charge. As he came up out of his sidelong roll, Subwoofer’s optics zeroed in on the Decepticon’s left arm, now sporting a cannon of its own and pointed straight at him.

The first blast of crimson light skipped off his shoulder, but the second slammed into Subwoofer’s chest, knocking him back as he haphazardly returned fire, his shot going wide. He crashed hard into the side of the hill--the very same hill he had parked atop earlier that night during the Battle of the Bands, and shook his head to try and unscramble his sensors.

The Decepticon redrew his aim, but before he could get off another shot a white-plated fist landed a crushing blow on his jaw, scattering shards of metal and hydraulic fluid to the wind. He staggered, using his shield as a crutch to stay on his feet, as Sweetie Bot bore down on him once more. The cannon vanished from his left arm, replaced by a normal limb, which he promptly slammed together with his other hand behind the shield. Servos whirred as the shield split, sliding into two, each half mounted on the back of separate forearms.

He blocked Sweetie Bot’s next blow with his left, using the momentum to push himself into a spin and bring the sharp edge of his right shield into her side. Before she could recover the left shield came around again in a devastating mirror of the jaw shot she herself had just dealt out.

As Sweetie Bot slumped to the side, Subwoofer was just getting back to his feet and took aim. He fired thrice, all three skillfully intercepted by one of the Decepticon’s twin shields as he charged at the Autobot a second time. Subwoofer stood his ground, transforming his cannon back into a hand.

“C’mon, ya wanker; let’s see what you got! C’mon!”

They came together with a resounding crash, and Subwoofer dug in his feet, tearing up the ground but nevertheless halting the Decepticon’s charge. He latched onto the leading edge of a shield with one hand, straining to force it out to the side and create an opening, only for a heavy metal knee to collide with his stomach. It took two more such blows before he relinquished his grip, stumbling back too slowly to avoid the sweeping edge of the metal shield impacting in his side, and too slowly to avoid the second strike from the other shield that struck him dead center in the upper chest. The world spun, and only after landing face-down did Subwoofer vaguely comprehend that the latter blow had effectively clotheslined him, flipping him head over heels. As the fallen Autobot attempted to manually reset his orientation circuits with a quick slap to the side of his own head, the Decepticon began to circle about him; a predator preparing for the kill.

“Subwoofer!” Sweetie Belle cried out from the edge of the stage. She started forward instinctively, but Vinyl’s firm grip held her at bay. She struggled, turning to demand her release, but stopped as Vinyl glanced down at her and gave a brief shake of her head before refocusing on the battle.

“We’ve gotta help!” Sweetie insisted. “Please, Vinyl!”

“Are you crazy?” Apple Bloom rounded on her. “How in the heck are we supposed to help them?”

“There has to be something we can do!” Scootaloo said with a scowl. “They saved us from the Dazzlings even though we’d been acting like jerks for days! How can we just sit here when they’re in trouble?”

“If we’re ever going to make up for how we treated them,” Sweetie Belle’s voice wavered as tears beaded in the corners of her eyes, “then we’ve got to start right now!”

Vinyl looked down at the Crusaders again and started to shake her head when a mischievous glint came to her eyes, followed by her lips curling up into a grin.

“What?” Apple Bloom tilted her head. “What’re you smilin’ about?”

“I think she’s got an idea,” Scootaloo said, unable to hold back a smirk of her own.

Vinyl nodded and bade them to follow her as she dashed off alongside the stage, slipping through one of the side access doors into the storage area beneath it.

Back in front of the stage, Subwoofer finally made an attempt to stand, only to be mashed back into the concrete as the Decepticon’s foot stomped down between his shoulderblades.

“I swear, all Autobots the same,” his gravelly voice rumbled. “Talk big and make lots of noise, but complete scrap in actual fight.”

He raised a shield to crush Subwoofer’s unprotected head, but suddenly jumped to the side, just in time to dodge another of Sweetie Bot’s sudden charges. He spun as he leaped, striking her solidly in the back of the head and tipping her off-balance to crash head-first into the mangled remains of the bleachers. She strained to push herself up, but quickly collapsed with a soft grunt.

The Decepticon let out a boisterous laugh at the sight as his twin shields collapsed on themselves, integrating back into his body.

“I mean really, look at you!” He gestured at Sweetie Bot. “That one moves slow and clumsy like protoform! And you,” he turned his attention down at Subwoofer, stomping down on his unprotected back a second time, “you are just as bad! Little bit more finesse, maybe, but no guile. What kind of slag-tier combat training do-”

“Hey, you… uh, slag-sucking... junk heap!”

The Decepticon looked up, optics tracing the source of the shout to the stage where he beheld Sweetie Belle standing front and center, her hands on her hips and a deep, disapproving frown on her face.

“You again?” the Decepticon shook his head and growled in growing frustration. “If I had known you would be this annoying I would have crushed you and been done with it!”

“But don’t you wanna know what this is?” Sweetie Belle asked, holding aloft a tiny, ruby red gem shard.

The Decepticon eyed the fragment, his optics whirring as they zoomed in to scan it carefully.

“High residual levels of Energon… but at the same time, not Energon,” he grumbled. “Give it to me,” he demanded as he transformed his hand back into a cannon and pointed it down at Subwoofer, “or this one is scrap.”

“If you want it, come get it,” Sweetie offered the shard up on the palm of her hand.

The Decepticon eyed her for a moment before stepping off Subwoofer’s back, weapon shifting back into a normal hand and taking several cautious steps toward the stage. Despite her trembling legs, Sweetie Belle held her ground as she was eclipsed by his looming shadow.

He bent down, his massive face mere feet from her outstretched hand, and regarded her harshly again while slowly reaching out.

“NOW!” Sweetie Belle shouted at the top of her lungs as she tossed the shard up in the air before turning and bolting backstage.

The Decepticon’s eyes tracked the small fragment for an instant too long, and as a result he failed to notice Scootaloo and Apple Bloom as they ripped the tarps from the massive speakers on either side of the stage, nor was he prepared in the slightest when a booming dubstep beat exploded from them at a ludicrous volume.

“Graagh!!” The Deception howled, both hands flying to the sides of his head in a vain attempt to block the noise from his primary auditory sensors. The thrumming bass vibrated right through the hard metal of his limbs and outer casing, shaking circuits and scrambling electrical impulses that made his vision blur. He staggered back several steps.

“It’s workin’!” Apple Bloom shouted, though she could barely hear herself over the cacophony of sound. Across the way, Scootaloo did her best to keep her teeth from chattering together and instead turned and shot a thumbs up backstage to where Sweetie Belle had joined Vinyl at the sound system’s controls. Sweetie Belle spotted her and returned the gesture with a wide smile, but it quickly became a shocked frown as she pointed back out into the amphitheater.

Scootaloo spun around, eyes widening as she spotted the massive fist heading straight for the speaker she was hiding behind. A quick, instinctive dive was the only thing that kept her from being crushed right along with the equipment. Apple Bloom had seen the Decepticon strike out as well, and had both presence of mind and ample time to get clear of her set of speakers before they too were reduced to a pile of twisted metal and sparking wires.

“You still think this is game?!” The Decepticon bellowed, one fist smashing a hole in the center of the stage for good measure. “I will find you, and I will-!”

He stopped suddenly as another sound reached his still-scrambled sensors; a low growl that was growing louder by the second. The Decepticon turned, noting Subwoofer still on the ground, and Sweetie Bot only just beginning to stir among the wreckage of the bleachers.

He stepped forward, optics scanning the area, and finally zeroed in on the source. His gaze shot up to the hill beyond what used to be the bleachers just as a jet-black car shot over the top at high speed--more than fast enough to launch itself into the air--heading straight for him.

The car transformed in mid-flight, flipping over as Blackbolt descended on the Decepticon with her right foot leading the way.

The Decepticon’s optics shot open, and the shield rebuilt on his right arm just in time to intercept the brunt of Blackbolt’s flying kick. His massive legs braced against the impact, but when Blackbolt hit she coiled her own legs beneath her, kicking off the shield like a springboard and landing lightly near Subwoofer as her foe toppled backwards, his head damaging the front lip of the stage as it cracked against it.

“Woofer, you all right?” Blackbolt asked. “How’s that dirt taste?”

“Ngh, piss off.”

“Yeah, you’re fine.”

Subwoofer grumbled something unintelligible as he attempted to stand, but after a burst of sparks erupted from within one of his arms, he dropped back to the ground in an awkward slump.

“Uh, Blacky… don’t s’pose you’d mind pickin’ up where I left off, wouldja?”

“My pleasure,” Blackbolt smirked as she watched the Deception surge back to his feet with an angry howl. The armor on her outer forearms parted, revealing a pair of long blades that began to smolder with a bright orange heat.

The Decepticon locked optics with Blackbolt, reforming his second shield again, and stalked forward to meet her.

“Blackbolt,” he spat.

“Gulag.”

“What is the meaning of this?” Gulag asked as the pair began to slowly circle one another.

“Haven’t you heard? I jumped ship. Traded purple for red. Started playing for the other team; whatever you want to call it.” Blackbolt tilted her head slightly to one side. “I’m surprised, I’d’ve thought the ‘Con leadership would’ve been all too happy to brand me a traitor. You know how much they love their scapegoats.”

“They did declare you a traitor,” Gulag shook his head, “I just did not believe it was true. Why? Why would you abandon your comrades for this? For them?” he gestured to the two fallen Autobots. “They are pathetic! Would not last two solar cycles as Decepticon warriors!”

“That’s because they’re not warriors," Blackbolt said. "Subwoofer here is a communications expert; a tech. Even so, I’d trust him to watch my back more than I would ever trust your rusted tailpipe… and her?” She nodded in Sweetie Bot’s direction. “This is her first fight. Ever. And yet it looks like she busted you up pretty good, didn’t she?”

Gulag snarled and wiped one hand across his jaw to remove some of the fluid that continued to leak from it. Without warning he darted forward, swinging his right shield across from the left in a backhanded strike.

Blackbolt ducked beneath it, and did the same with the swinging left that followed it. Gulag followed through with the momentum of his second blow, pulling it back into a downward chop that Blackbolt handily sidestepped. He swept the same arm out to the side, knocking her off balance with the flat of the shield as he pursued with yet another wide swing from his right.

Blackbolt fell back outside the striking distance of her much larger opponent, letting his attack whiff by mere inches from her faceplate before springing forward, low and fast. Before he could stop his own momentum and counter, the superheated blades on Blackbolt’s forearms scored a trio of fast cuts on his exposed leg and hip, sparks flying from each strike even as the metal around the wounds melted and fused.

Gulag absolutely roared in pain, but Blackbolt wasn’t finished. She spun around behind, landing another blow against the back of his leg that nearly made it collapse beneath him. At the end of her spin she crouched and sprang up into his back, finding ample footholds as she scaled all the way up to his shoulders. She swung hard at the side of his head, but Gulag raised his shield at just the right moment, and though her blade bit deeply into the armored plate, it was not enough to pierce through.

Blackbolt reared back, but before she could strike again Gulag jerked backward and rolled his shoulders, trying to buck her off. She latched onto a hydraulic strut near his collarbone with one hand, waiting until he pitched forward again before somersaulting to the ground. Her weight combined with his existing momentum was enough to bring him down to his knees, and in the process the strut ripped free in her hand, eliciting another pained groan from him and brief shower of sparks from his left shoulder.

As she came back to her feet and turned to face Gulag, Blackbolt tossed the broken piston to the ground right where he could see it.

“Any preference about what part I rip out next, or do you feel like giving up?”

Gulag grunted as he pushed himself back upright, his left arm’s movements jerky and noticeably slower.

“You… you really have gone soft,” he said with difficulty. “Blackbolt I knew... took no prisoners.”

“Fine,” Blackbolt sighed, “have it your way.”

She crouched again, leaping high into the air and raising one of her glowing armblades for a cleaving blow.

Gulag smiled.

The shield on his right arm collapsed and folded away, revealing the glowing cannon hidden behind it. Gulag raised the weapon and aimed it straight at Blackbolt as she descended, unable to dodge or otherwise avoid what would be a point-blank shot.

A strange sensation overcame him; his vision wavering and blurring similar to how his sensors had been disrupted earlier by the loud music, but this time there was no outside influence he could register. Both his proximity and transwarp sensors screamed out alerts as the effect dissipated, and in the split second that followed he understood.

He tried to turn his head and look behind him just as one of Sweetie Bot’s massive hands closed around his right wrist, forcing his arm and his laser blast to go wide. Her other arm wrapped up from under his left shoulder and pinned the damaged limb. He felt a single solid kick to the back of his already crippled leg, dropping him to his knees once again.

Blackbolt came down hard, her glowing blade slicing clean through Gulag’s upper arm in one lightning-fast stroke, and with a fluid twist brought that same blade back up, scything through servos and struts of Gulag’s neck with a shower of screeching sparks. The Decepticon’s head flew free, thudding into a patch of grassy ground near the stage as the glowing red lights behind his optics flickered and died.

The body went limp in Sweetie Bot’s grasp. A further short burst of sparks shot up from the neck as she released it, the frame teetering for a moment before falling forward with a metallic groan to smash unceremoniously into the ground. The sound echoed through the amphitheater for a brief moment, followed by still, unwavering silence.

Blackbolt sighed as her blades retracted back into her forearms, some of the excess heat venting out the sides in gouts of steam. She looked up to see Sweetie Bot, unmoving and staring hard at the fallen Decepticon, his severed limb still clenched tightly in her grip.

“Hey,” Blackbolt said, but received no response. “Hey, Sweetie Bot.”

Sweetie Bot finally looked at her.

“You okay?”

“Uh,” Sweetie Bot stammered, suddenly aware of what she was holding and hastily tossing it to the ground. “I… yeah, I think so.”

Blackbolt nodded. “Thanks for the save.”

“Sure,” Sweetie Bot answered distantly, her eyes once again drawn to their defeated foe. “Anytime.”

“That… was… AWESOME!!”

Both bots turned to see the Crusaders and Vinyl leaving the relative safety of the mangled stage. Scootaloo dashed over to them ahead of the others bearing a wide, toothy smile.

“Sweetie Bot, you were so cool! When he had Sweetie Belle and you were all like ‘put her down,’ and he was all ‘or what,’ and then you went all ‘jszht-jszht-jszht,’ and then he was all like ‘I’m boned,’ and then-”

“Uh, do we know this one?” Blackbolt asked and pointed down at Scootaloo, who continued her excited recap of the battle unabated.

“Eh, hehe,” Sweetie Bot chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of her head with one hand as Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom joined them. “Sorta, yeah… I can explain, though! You see, the thing is… uh…” She trailed off, but Blackbolt dismissed it with a wave.

“Hold that thought.” She leaned to one side so she could look around Sweetie Bot to where Vinyl had joined Subwoofer, the latter of which had just pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Woofer, how bad is it?”

“Not as bad as that bloke, that’s for bloomin’ sure,” Subwoofer nodded in the direction of Gulag’s body. There was a whirring sound from his arm as he attempted to raise it, followed by a burst of electricity and a few sparks falling from the elbow joint.

Vinyl cringed, making a pained face and tapping her own elbow for emphasis.

“Nah, it’s just a fried servo; happens all the time. Maestro’ll have me fixed up in two wags.” Subwoofer assured her. “Guess that rock concert took a bit more out of me than I thought, yeah?”

Vinyl grinned, shaking her head and offering her partner a fist to bump, which he met with his good arm.

“Miss Blackbolt,” Sweetie Belle said quietly, drawing the attention of the Autobot in question. “Thank you. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, we could’ve…” she trailed off as she teared up.

Sweetie Bot shifted down to her teenager-sized form with a burst of light and quickly embraced the girl.

“You don’t have to thank me, Sweetie Belle,” Blackbolt chuckled as she knelt down. “I’m just glad everyone’s all right.” She smirked. “Besides, if you girls hadn’t distracted Gulag I might not’ve gotten the drop on him so easily.”

“How’d you know where to find us, anyway?” Sweetie Bot asked.

“I figured there had to be a Decepticon somewhere in the city when I realized that there was a jamming field in place,” Blackbolt explained. “It’s a pretty standard tactic for scouting mid-to-low technology worlds. Flash was the one who thought that we should investigate the amphitheater first though, and he was right on the money.”

“Uh,” Apple Bloom glanced around. “Where is Flash, anyway?”

“Here! I’m… I’m right… here…”

The group turned as a whole to see a cherry-faced Flash Sentry jogging haphazardly toward them, panting for breath.

“What took you so long?” Blackbolt chided as Flash stumbled to a stop and bent forward to put his hands on his knees.

“I just… I just ran like a mile!” he managed to get out between gasping breaths. “Couldn’t you’ve dropped me a little closer?”

“The whole point was to keep you out of danger, remember?” Blackbolt crossed her arms. “Besides, you need the exercise; how are you supposed to keep up with all your girlfriends if you’re winded after just a light jog?”

Flash rolled his eyes and somehow managed to turn an even brighter shade of red as the others shared a laugh, though any rebuttal he might’ve had was lost in his need for more oxygen.

“Well,” Subwoofer gave one last chuckle, “I guess that just leaves--oh, wait, here they come. I recognize that bee-in-a-bottle anywhere.”

“Huh?” Scootaloo asked, leading Subwoofer to point off down the service road.

For a moment, nothing happened, but then a tinny buzz wafted to their ears. The source rolled into sight shortly thereafter as someone riding a slender brown moped came into view. The group could practically hear the strain from the machine’s relatively tiny engine as it hurried toward them.

They also heard what sounded like… an old married couple?

“For the last time,” a thin, moderately-distorted voice spoke, “I did not mean to imply that you needed to engage in any sort of sustenance intake control whatsoever!”

“You said that I was too heavy,” the raven-haired rider’s distinct Trottingham accent shot back. “Really, after all this time I would think that you would at least understand the faux pas that lies in even insinuating such a thing to a lady!”

“I did not say anything of the sort!” the first voice said as the moped rolled to a stop just shy of the rest of the group. “I simply stated that I could not achieve maximum speed with this configuration given the additional payload.”

“No!” Octavia corrected as she stepped off the moped, rounding on the vehicle as it transformed into the familiar shape of Maestro. “You didn’t say ‘additional payload,’ you said… you… said...”

Octavia trailed off as she took in the scene before her, wide eyes darting between the demolished bleachers, the damaged stage, the broken ground marred with scorches and furrows, the battle-worn Autobots, the truck-sized metallic corpse, and the group of five exceedingly anxious teenagers that stood at the center of it all.

“H-how… what did… where did they… why is…?” she stammered as she walked closer, stopping just in front of a very nervous-looking Vinyl Scratch who flinched when Octavia’s confused gaze settled on her.

“I was supposed to have a recital here next month!” the cellist tried to shout, but it came out as a half-hysterical, half-whispered declaration of utter shock.

Vinyl nodded solemnly, reaching out to pull her stunned friend into a gentle hug and patting her on the back.

“We’re all fine; thanks for askin’,” Subwoofer chimed in. His voice seemed to snap Maestro from his own state of disbelief.

“XT-117!” he exclaimed, striding over to where she and Sweetie Belle stood side by side, his hand transforming and initiating a scan before he even reached her. “Are you all right? You were not damaged, were you?”

“No, no, I’m okay,” Sweetie Bot put her hands up defensively as Maestro began examining her anyway. “Some of my exterior plating got dinged up when the Decepticon hit me in the face, but everything seems to be working okay now. Subwoofer’s arm-”

“Hit you in the-?!” Maestro interrupted. “What? When? How did this happen?” He rounded on the others. “What happened?”

“Yes,” Octavia chimed in, having regained a little of her composure, “I believe some explanations are most certainly in order.” She glanced at Apple Bloom and Scootaloo before turning a withering glare on Sweetie Belle. “And it seems some of us have a bit more explaining to do than others.”

The three girls frowned and bowed their heads as one, but it was Sweetie Belle who spoke up first.

“Well… earlier, after the Battle of the Bands…”

“Is that the last of him?” Blackbolt asked as she tossed a piece of the former Decepticon onto the back of a large flatbed truck that bore Sweetie Bot’s distinctive white and pink coloration.

“Think so,” Subwoofer nodded. “Might be some little bits left here and there, but they won’t look like nothin’ more than ordinary shards of metal to anyone that don’t already know what they’re gapin’ at.”

“Good. It’s hard enough staying hidden on this world as it is; the last thing we need is to leave proof lying around,” Blackbolt said, crossing her arms. “Still nothing on the police bands?”

Subwoofer put his hand to his ear, the newly-repaired servo in his elbow joint whirring smoothly. “Still lots of chatter about the communications blackout, now that it’s over with. Seems like most people are saying it was a satellite malfunction, or a solar flare, or some other wackadoo noise,” he shook his head, “but naw, nothin’ that sounds like it’s headin’ our way. Which is kinda weird, considerin’ the ruckus we made.”

“Whatever the reason, I’ll take it,” Blackbolt said as she watched Flash approach with a large bundle in his arms. “I’ve never been in the habit of questioning good fortune and I’m not about to start now.”

“Found some big tarps and a bunch of rope stored under the stage,” Flash offered the items up to Blackbolt. “Think it’ll be enough?”

“Yeah, this should work until we can get the body someplace secure,” she replied, unfolding one of the tarps and laying it over a portion of the flatbed. “Thanks, Flash.”

Flash started to smile just as an indistinct shout reached his ears. He turned to look back toward the open area just in front of the stage, where the Crusaders stood facing an irate Octavia with one hand on her hip and the other pointing a finger in the air as she spoke. She looked, for all intents and purposes, like a mother scolding her children, and Flash found that he couldn’t help but chuckle briefly at how true that sentiment actually felt sometimes.

“Crikey, she’s still at it?” Subwoofer said as he took one of the tarps from Blackbolt and spread it over the Cybertronian remains. “Hope she doesn’t go too hard on ‘em.”

“Me too,” Sweetie Bot’s voice wafted out of the truck’s speakers. “It’s my fault for bringing them here… I’m supposed to protect them, but I let them convince me to bring them along, and-”

“I’m sure Maestro will be more than happy to rip you a new tailpipe once he’s done doing… whatever it is he’s doing,” Blackbolt said, eyeing the diminutive scientist as he stood atop the damaged stage alongside Vinyl, in almost exactly the same place he’d been for the past fifteen minutes. She could only imagine what would be so important as to hold his attention for so long under these circumstances.

“Anyway, don’t beat yourself up over it, kid. You did great tonight, especially considering it was your first real battle.” Blackbolt smiled and clapped a hand on the top of the truck’s cab with a sharp metallic bang. “Keep it up and you’ll be busting Decepticon heads with the best of them before you know it!”

“Yeah,” Sweetie Bot said in a flat, quiet tone. “Thanks, Blackbolt.”

Flash, Blackbolt and Subwoofer exchanged concerned glances, but another shout from Octavia drew their attention yet again.

“All right, look… I understand that there were circumstances beyond anyone’s control, and that without being able to contact the rest of us you took the only action you felt you could,” Octavia said sternly, “but be that as it may, I’m still very disappointed in you, Sweetie Belle. It’s bad enough that you put yourself in danger, but you put Apple Bloom and Scootaloo at risk as well! You swore to keep the Autobot’s presence here a secret from everyone. That promise wasn’t just for their protection, it was also for ours.”

“I’m sorry,” Sweetie Belle said as she rubbed one arm and shifted from foot to foot nervously.

“It’s not Sweetie Belle’s fault, though!” Scootaloo exclaimed. “I… I was the one who convinced everyone to go after the Decepticon. I’m the one you should blame.”

“We’re all to blame,” Apple Bloom added. “We wanted to do like our big sisters and Rainbow Dash woulda done. They’ve saved the whole school twice now and we’ve… well, I think we felt like we had to make up for how we acted while the Dazzlings were in control.”

“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo echoed sullenly.

Octavia stared down at the three for a long moment, her scowl slowly softening into a sad frown. Finally, she let out a sigh.

“You three aren’t the only ones who still have things to apologize for,” she said, almost as much to herself as to the Crusaders. She took a deep breath and gently massaged her forehead with one hand.

“Regardless of who is to blame and for what, after how absolutely insane the past few days have been I think I’m more than willing to just be happy that everyone is all right.” She lowered her hand and smiled softly. “Also, for better or for worse Apple Bloom and Scootaloo are now effectively part our… our little troupe, such as it is. We’ll handle proper introductions later, but for now… welcome, you two. I daresay you’ll not meet a more… interesting group of friends than the Autobots.”

Bright smiles blossomed across the girls’ faces as Apple Bloom and Scootaloo shared a high five.

“But just so we’re crystal clear, if any of you even think about running off into a situation that could be even the slightest bit dangerous again without first consulting myself or one of the others, I will personally see to it that the only giant robots you encounter from that day forward will be the ones in cartoon shows! Is that understood?”

“Yes, Miss Octavia!” the three Crusaders, now standing at full straight-backed attention, answered in tandem.

Octavia allowed herself another small smile, until she heard the soft clapping coming from the stage behind her.

“And you, Vinyl Scratch!” Octavia rounded on the DJ. “Just when I thought you couldn’t get any more reckless, instead of getting these girls to safety when you had the chance, you decide to try and distract a thirty-ton murder machine by blasting it with a Countess Coloratura remix? Really?”

Vinyl put up her hands and shrugged.

“Well,” Apple Bloom piped up, “it kinda worked against the Dazzlings, didn’t it?”

Vinyl broke into a smug smile as she gestured at Apple Bloom with an open palm, gave Octavia a firm nod, and then put her hands on her hips to stand triumphantly.

“Wha--don’t defend her!” Octavia sputtered at the Crusaders before turning back to Vinyl and pointing an accusatory finger. “And stop acting like this was all part of some secret master plan of yours! You know full well I hate it when you do that!”

Vinyl tilted her head and looked knowingly at Octavia over the top of her shades. The two held that pose for a moment until a frustrated blush appeared on the cellist’s cheeks. She made a disgusted noise, crossed her arms and turned away, drawing an even bigger smile from Vinyl and a muffled giggle from the Crusaders.

“Blackbolt and Subwoofer are almost done tying down the, uh… the body,” Flash said as he approached, inadvertently sparing Octavia from further embarrassment. “Are we ready to go?”

“Yes, I believe we’re done here,” Octavia nodded before turning to the stage, looking past Vinyl. “Maestro, do you have everything you need?”

“Hmm… yes,” Maestro answered absently even as he strode over to the edge of the platform, his gaze still focused on the tiny red shard in the palm of his metal hand. “Astonishing… the crystalline structure seems ideal for storing energy, and the molecular composition is… well, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” He finally looked up to regard the others. “And you say that these crystals were the source of the Dazzlings’ powers?”

“Something like that?” Sweetie Belle shrugged. “I’m not really sure, but once the pendants got shattered their singing was worse than ours was during the first round of the Battle of the Bands.”

“Hey, we weren’t that bad...” Scootaloo furrowed her brow and frowned.

“Applejack said Sunset and Twilight think that without them necklaces the Dazzlings’re pretty much harmless,” Apple Bloom said.

Vinyl snorted and gave an exaggerated nod, though no one immediately present was quite sure why.

“Anyway, I figured since they had something to do with magic that the little leftover pieces might make good bait for the Decepticon, and it worked!” Sweetie Belle beamed.

“It is indeed saturated with the very same Energon-like… ugh, ‘magic’ that we have been attempting to analyze,” Maestro said. “I would not want to get anyone’s hopes up, but with further study, I might be able to use this shard to engineer a method of converting that power into a form Cybertronians can use.”

“Then… you’re saying you would actually be able to power yourselves off of magic, instead of Energon?” Octavia’s eyes widened. “Even refuel your ship?”

“Possibly,” Maestro admitted with a cautious nod. “As I said, there is no way to know for certain at this point. It is... merely speculation.” A small compartment on the side of his chest plate slid open, and Maestro deposited the shard inside and pushed the compartment closed. “In any event, we should take our leave.”

He hopped down from the stage, followed closely by Vinyl, and together the whole group walked back to where Blackbolt and Subwoofer were just finishing tying down the tarps to Sweetie Bot’s flatbed.

“We should take the body back to the ship for now,” Blackbolt suggested. “Easiest place to hide it where we know no one will stumble across it by accident.”

“Agreed,” Maestro nodded as he noted the wide yawn that Sweetie Belle let out, “though perhaps we should take our human friends home first so that they can get some rest?”

“Aww,” Scootaloo pouted, “I wanted to see their spaceship.”

“Plenty of time for that later, kiddo,” Subwoofer assured her as he knelt down. “Tell you what, me an’ Sweetie Bot’ll come pick all of you up tomorrow and give you the ten cent tour, yeah?”

“Yeah!” the Crusaders and Sweetie Bot all exclaimed together. The door of the flatbed truck’s cab popped open, and the three girls took turns pushing and lifting one another to clamber inside, chattering away the whole time.

“No fair, we’re not that much older than them, how come they have so much energy?” Flash chuckled as he stretched and fought off a yawn of his own. “I feel like I could sleep for a week.”

“You’d better not,” Octavia warned, “you and I have a Calculus test on Monday.”

“Ugh,” Flash groaned and slapped a hand to his face. “You know what, Blackbolt? I take back all the stuff I said earlier: give me magic from another dimension and alien space robots over Mr. Doodle’s class any day.”

Blackbolt shook her head. “Don’t get your hopes up. Gulag was a long-range scout, and they always work alone. Not only that, but standard procedure regarding possible Energon deposits is to not report back to base until the readings have been confirmed.” She smiled down at him. “Decepticons are lazy and don’t like chasing sensor echoes.”

“And since that dampening field was runnin’ right up until that wanker lost his head,” Subwoofer laughed at his own joke, “he never got the chance to pop off a transmission.”

“Won’t someone come looking for him?” Octavia asked. “I assume he’d be expected to report in at some point.”

“Losing contact with a long-range scout isn’t all that unusual,” Blackbolt assured her, “and camraderie isn’t a big thing with Decepticons either.”

“Which is fortunate for us,” Maestro chimed in. “A single Decepticon proved a dangerous adversary for our rag-tag group. I shudder to think what might’ve happened had there been more than one.”

A sobering silence fell over the amphitheater until a shrill whistle pulled their attention to Vinyl Scratch, who stood more or less in the middle of them all.

She slipped her glasses from her face and hooked them on the collar of her shirt before looking and pointing up at Subwoofer. She swept her hand to point at Blackbolt next, then down to Octavia, Maestro, Flash, and even over to the Crusaders and Sweetie Bot, who were still absorbed in their own excited conversation.

Finally, Vinyl pointed to herself, and with a determined look in her eyes, clasped her hands together in front of her firmly. She then put a hand over her heart, bowing her head for just a moment before looking back up with the same steadfast gaze, now coupled with a tiny smirk. She raised one fist into the air and pulled it back down sharply before standing as tall as she could with her arms crossed over her chest.

She was met with a collective wall of blank stares.

“Anybody speak Mime?” Subwoofer asked.

Vinyl shot him a disgruntled frown as Octavia gently cleared her throat.

“I believe what Vinyl is trying to say,” she pursed her lips, choosing her words carefully, “is that all of us, whether we’re Autobot or human, are in this together now… maybe even moreso than before. Regardless of what may come, the important thing is to have faith in ourselves and in each other. So long as we remember that, then we’re as ready as we can be to face whatever the future holds for us.” She turned and put a hand on Vinyl’s shoulder. “Does that about cover it?”

Vinyl, with tears in the corners of her eyes, nodded once.

“You got all that from… that?” Subwoofer gaped.

“I have a lot of practice,” Octavia answered with a smile.

“Holy crap,” Flash said slowly. “Who’d’ve thought Vinyl was even sappier than you, Blackbolt.”

“Says the guy who’s crying,” Blackbolt chided.

“What? No!” Flash hurriedly wiped his face with a sleeve, blinking rapidly. “Shut up!”

The group, including Flash, shared a collective laugh, finally drawing the attention of the Crusaders, who popped their heads out the side of Sweetie Bot’s cab.

“Hey, are we goin’ or what?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Yeah! Let’s roll out!” Scootaloo added alongside Sweetie Belle’s grinning nod as Sweetie Bot gave two brief honks.

“You heard the lady,” Subwoofer laughed. “Let’s go!”

He and Blackbolt transformed side by side, collapsing down amid a whir of servos, the hiss of pistons, and the clank of gears into the familiar forms of Vinyl’s sporty two-door coupe and Flash’s jet-black muscle car as their respective partners climbed aboard.

“Maestro and Octavia, you two hop in,” Blackbolt said as her passenger doors opened. “Unless you don’t mind getting home after dawn.”

“W-what?” Maestro blustered. “I’ll have you know I am perfectly capable of-!”

“Oh, hush!” Octavia laughed as she took the Autobot by his wrist and pulled him into the back seat.

Blackbolt’s doors swung shut as she peeled out, tires squealing when she swerved around Sweetie Bot to take point. Subwoofer and Vinyl brought up the rear with their trademarked pounding bass, and in mere seconds the three vehicle convoy left the amphitheater, which had served as a battlefield twice in one night, far behind.

Author's Note

~~Roll Credits!~~ I mean, Roll Out! :rainbowdetermined2:

Subwoofer

“Thanks again for all your help!”

“Yer a lifesaver, sugarcube!”

“See ya later, music ‘tater!”

“Pinkie, darling, that doesn’t really make any sense.”

“I thought the rhyme was… nice.”

Vinyl Scratch returned the Rainbooms’ waves with a thumbs-up and a smile as the victorious band headed down the hill toward the outdoor amphitheatre with their instruments in tow. The Battle of the Bands was over, the Dazzlings had been defeated, and all was right with Canterlot once again, thanks in no small part to her own efforts. It felt nice to be the hero, even if she hadn’t been the one standing in the spotlight. Evil beings from another dimension and mind-controlling magic aside, it had been a pretty awesome night.

With a satisfied sigh, Vinyl turned back to her car--or rather, the two-seater sport coupe that was currently doubling as her sound system. The light bar readout along the front ‘grill’ pulsed once, and Vinyl smiled all the wider. She strode over and patted the side of her dashboard-turned-turntable, prompting the vehicle to whirr and clank as its parts shifted and rearranged themselves. As the final pieces slid back into place the sleek silver and blue convertible’s engine revved, and Vinyl wasted no time hopping over the driver’s side door and dropping into the comfortable bucket seat.

As she reached down to put the car in reverse, Vinyl hesitated. In a rare moment of seriousness, she removed her trademark purple glasses so she could look over her ride without their rosy tint. Her ruby eyes wandered over the stylish interior, ranging from the sky blue seats to the smooth dash and faux-leather wrapped steering wheel. The coupe’s gauges glowed bright neon, mostly blue but with splashes of green, orange, and the occasional dot of red. The engine purred at a soft idle, so soft that one might’ve mistaken the car for an electric or one of the newer hybrids, but Vinyl knew from experience that her baby had a growl that shook your teeth when she put the pedal to the metal.

Vinyl ran her fingers over the dash again, the soft material cool on her skin. This car had come through for her when she needed it most more than once, and tonight it had done it again. She leaned forward, lightly touching her forehead to the top of the steering wheel, and smiled warmly.

Thanks, buddy.

After a silent moment, she slipped back into her shades with a grin and used her custom stereo’s remote to switch on a booming dubstep track, cranking the volume to a satisfying eleven. She then threw the car in reverse, backed carefully down the grassy hill and into the nearby parking lot before driving off into the night, her head bobbing in time to the beat all the way.

From the treeline on the far side of the lot, three sets of eyes intently followed her every move.

Vinyl parked in the driveway of her small, one-story flat, grabbing her backpack from the seat next to her and slinging it over her shoulder as she stepped out of her coupe. She ran her hand along the door and hood as she stepped away, leaping over the two short steps that led to her front door.

Shutting the door behind her, she dropped her bag in the entryway with an unceremonious ‘thunk’ and took a deep, relaxing breath as she surveyed her living room. Giant flatscreen TV and sweet seven-speaker surround sound system that she’d spent way too much money on?

Check.

Ratty couch that had been all she could afford after spending so much on her electronics?

Check.

Frilly, flower-covered throw blanket that a certain cellist had insisted on giving her to cover said couch because she would otherwise never deign to place her prim and proper derriere on it?

Vinyl smirked and shook her head. Check.

Mostly empty pizza box sitting on the coffee table next to her phone that made Vinyl crinkle her nose, but also made her stomach growl when it reminded her that she’d been so psyched about the Battle of the Bands that she’d forgotten to eat dinner?

Check... aaaand gross. Gonna need to open the window and air this baby out a bit.

Resolving to deal with the day-old pepperoni and anchovy science experiment later, Vinyl headed instead for her kitchen to find something a little less moldy to eat… only to leap back into the room and refocus her eyes on the electric blue smartphone lying next to the pizza box. Her hands reflexively went to her pockets, patting them down as if she expected to find the device in two places at once. Finding that was not the case, she rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh as she walked over to retrieve it. It wasn’t the first time that she’d forgotten the darn thing at home, but ordinarily it didn't take her very long to realize it was missing.

Of course, the last few days had been anything but ordinary.

She swiped the screen and was greeted with the expected bevy of missed text messages… some from her parents from whatever weird, remote location they were vacationing in this time, a couple from kids at school, one from Pinkie Pie inviting her to a victory party at Sugarcube Corner tomorrow night, another from Pinkie Pie asking her to DJ at the victory party tomorrow night, and… fifteen missed messages from Octavia?

Vinyl furrowed her brow as she scrolled through, finding that they were all from the last half hour and ranged from a simple ‘hello?’ to a concerned ‘Vinyl, where are you’, and the almost desperate-sounding ‘please, we need to talk’. She was about to respond when the phone dinged in her hand, indicating a new voicemail from… yup, Octavia. The timestamp placed it about eight minutes ago, just after the last text had been sent. Vinyl tapped play and raised the phone to her ear, only to jerk it away as a distinctive Trottingham accent blared out of the tiny speaker.

“-oodness’ sake, Vinyl, answer your bloody texts already!!”

There was a brief pause in which Vinyl could hear Octavia clear her throat, and she took the opportunity to switch the phone over to speaker mode and hold it at arm’s length. Just in case.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice, I just… it’s been a long, very tiring couple of days, as you can imagine. I’m sorry for what I said the other day; you were right, I wasn’t… myself.”

Vinyl cocked one eyebrow and gave the phone an exaggerated nod. Octavia had been absolutely livid after losing to the Rainbooms in the first round of the qualifiers; so much so that when Vinyl had tried to tell her it was no big deal she’d snapped, screaming that Vinyl would never understand what it meant to fail as a musician since the DJ’s dubstep wasn’t ‘real music’ to begin with. It had hurt to hear that, especially from Octavia, but that outburst had been Vinyl’s first clue about the effect the Dazzlings’ music was having on everyone.

The talking dog that had explained it all later helped too.

“I got a call from Flash earlier, and one from Sweetie Belle as well. They told me what happened at the concert tonight… about what you did.”

Vinyl cringed. She knew what was coming next.

“I just can’t believe you’d do something so… so… utterly reckless! You know how important it is that no one find out the truth, and yet you continue to toe the line so irresponsibly! I don’t care if everyone at the concert was hypnotized, or brainwashed, or whatever; you cannot risk exposing them like this. You know that.”

By now Vinyl was shaking her head, eyes rolling and her free hand making vague ‘yap yap yap’ motions as she heard Octavia sigh on the recording.

“Look, I understand that there were… extenuating circumstances, and honestly, given what appears to have been at stake I’m not even sure I could say that what you did was wrong, I just… I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”

A smile tugged at the corners of Vinyl’s mouth.

“The four of us--or rather the eight of us… we all keep this secret together. We need to look out for one another, and I… well, I suppose I feel guilty that I wasn’t there for you when you needed me. I’m sorry.”

From the way Octavia’s voice had wavered there at the end and the pair of drawn-out sniffs that followed, Vinyl guessed she was doing her best to keep it together. There was a long silence before she spoke again.

“Anyway, please let me know when you get this. Send me a text or… just let me know you’re all right, okay?”

Figuring that was it, Vinyl’s thumb hovered over the end call button.

“And don’t forget to delete this after you’ve heard it. Goodness knows you forget your phone often enough, we don’t need anyone picking it up and getting suspicious.”

Vinyl chuckled as a beep signaled the actual end of the message. She moved her thumb over and hit delete instead before returning to her missed messages.

Im fine. Kinda tired, gonna eat and crash for the PM. Talk 2 u in the AM?

She almost pushed ‘send’, but hesitated, adding a little more.

It wasnt ur fault, tavi. Were cool, no worries.

This time she hit send, pocketing the phone and snatching up the TV remote from the couch. Her mouth twisted in dissatisfaction as she flipped past page after page of wasted airtime on her DVR’s menu, but her eyes shot open when she spotted the on-going Con Mane marathon on ThornTV. Her fist pumped in the air as she switched it on and was greeted with the classic orchestral brass band and robust alto of the intro to Goldhoof, one of her personal favorites. She tossed the remote back to the couch and turned once again for the kitchen when her phone buzzed with Octavia’s expected reply.

Your spelling and punctuation are atrocious. Sleep well, Vinyl.

Vinyl snickered and sent back a lovingly antagonistic ‘u 2’ before finally reaching the kitchen and pulling a pack of microwavable White Barn cheeseburgers from her freezer with a satisfied grin.

This night kept getting better and better.

Vinyl snorted a bit as she woke with a start, empty plate sliding from her stomach and onto the couch beside her. Smacking her lips and straightening her glasses, the first thing she focused on was the rolling credits and typical accompanying ads on her television. She must’ve been more tired than she realized, for she'd somehow managed to fall asleep splayed across her couch with her legs up on the coffee table. The cost of using such an uncomfortable, unorthodox bed--a dull ache coursing through her back muscles--was already apparent.

Just as she started to stretch out, a loud crash from outside made her jump. She sat up, one hand fumbling for the remote and finally hitting mute on the TV just in time for her ears to pick up what sounded like hurried footsteps. She hopped to her feet, adrenaline pumping and helping her forget the crick in her spine, and darted to the window she’d opened earlier to sneak a cautious peek outside.

Everything in her front yard seemed normal. The night had gone quiet again except for the omnipresent sounds of the suburb and the rustling of leaves in the breeze. No unexpected cars in her driveway or parked anywhere within eyesight, no movement she could make out aside from that of shadowed moonlight streaming through the branches of…

Something stirred at the end of her driveway and made a small, grating sound.

Vinyl’s heart skipped a beat as she lifted her shades, peering through the gloom for a better look at… her trash can rolling on its side.

Dumb thing must’ve gotten blown over by the wind. Again.

Sucking in a huge breath to replace the one she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding, Vinyl shook her head and smiled at her own paranoia. Maybe Octavia was starting to rub off on her after all.

As much as she wanted to just return to her marathon and relax, Vinyl trudged dutifully outside to right the fallen receptacle, a simple chore that wouldn’t take her more than a minute.

What she hadn’t expected was for two strong pairs of hands to grab her shoulders just as she started back toward her house and shove her bodily to the ground. She gasped as her chest and face rebounded off the grass of her lawn despite her arms’ best efforts to prevent it, the impact knocking her glasses clean off.

“Well, well,” a familiar voice crooned. “Not so tough without your little friends the Rainbooms around, are you?”

Vinyl’s eyes widened as she struggled back to her feet and turned to face two of the Dazzlings, the one with the giant hairdo that looked like a cheese poof on steroids, and the ditzy one with the toothpaste ponytail. Despite their glaring, unmistakably angry visages, Vinyl couldn’t help but notice that Toothpaste looked like she’d been crying.

“We had it,” Cheese-hair said as the two of them stalked slowly toward her. “We had real, Equestrian magic in our grasp! We were finally going to be able to go home, and then you,” her face twisted into a mask of sheer rage, “you let those pathetic losers out and then helped them destroy our pendants! This is all your fault!”

“We’ve lost everything,” Toothpaste’s voice wavered, angry but on the cusp of breaking. “Our adoring fans, our magic!” She shook her head as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks “We can’t even sing anymore thanks to you!”

Vinyl didn’t have to be a genius to know where this was going. She turned to try and make a run for her house, only to find her way blocked by the remaining Dazzling with the purple and mint green twin-tails. Purplemint didn’t say anything, but the cold fire burning in her eyes sent a chill down Vinyl’s spine nonetheless. She began slowly backing away, trying to keep all three Dazzlings in sight as they circled around her; herding her.

“The Rainbooms are going to pay,” Cheese-hair growled. “If it’s the last thing we do, we’re going to take everything that’s precious to those girls and shatter it, just like they did to us… starting with you.”

One last step caused the DJ to bump into something… something smooth and cool to the touch… something that felt a lot like the side of her coupe.

Vinyl smiled.

Before the Dazzlings could close in on her, she gave the car two quick pats. The engine and lights sprang to life, startling the trio, but that was nothing compared to what was yet to come.

Vinyl stood straight and proud, crossing her arms over her chest as the coupe itself came alive. A ripple appeared to run through its smooth, unblemished surface an instant before it split apart in a hundred places, the glossy metal separating into dozens of distinct plates and revealing a complicated, seemingly endless array of turning gears and whirring servos within. The very shape of the car began to change, accompanied by a cacophony of ratcheting, clanking, hissing noise. Metal ground against squealing metal, and the whole orchestra of sound was permeated by an otherworldly, electronic oscillation that was unlike anything the Dazzlings had ever heard.

The seats and windshield somehow folded themselves into the interior as the hood and trunk split down the middle. Something began to emerge from beneath the car, lifting it almost a foot off the ground as the wheels shifted, sliding to different positions on the surface. As the frame of the vehicle continued to rise, the entire front half suddenly pivoted, spinning about so that the hood now faced the ground. As it did, what could only be described as a massive metallic arm sprouted from the wheel well, slamming into the ground next to the unflinching Vinyl Scratch. The arm was shortly followed by another on the opposite side, and together they levered the machine even higher as the trunk unfolded into a pair of stout legs while the wheels locked into positions on the thing’s sides and back.

Mouths gaping and eyes wide with a mixture of terror and disbelief, the Dazzlings watched as the monstrosity stood upon those legs as any biped would, towering more than double any human’s height. It turned toward them as the hood split further and slid down, revealing the unmistakable shape of a humanoid head that lifted into place between shoulders formed from the car’s bumper and headlights. The head tilted from one side to the other as if cracking its neck as the bevy of noises faded away, the machine’s surface normalizing as the last plates clicked into place.

The metal man stared down at them through eyes that shimmered with an intense blue-white light. The car’s grill had ended up at the center of the being’s chest, and it pulsed with colors as it spoke with a voice that was thunderous, mechanical, and all-too human.

“Glad you gave the signal when you did, Vinyl. ‘Nother second or two and I was gonna come out anyway.” It--he--turned his focus to the bewildered Dazzlings. “Now, for these sheilas… you want I should crush ‘em...” He hefted his right arm, the end quickly transforming from a hand into a gun-like barrel that pulsed and thrummed with a neon-blue energy, which he then leveled at the three girls. “... Or bass ‘em?”

Shaking in their shoes, the Dazzlings struggled to pull their eyes from the unbelievable sight, glancing down at the girl they had just attacked and who now apparently held their very lives in her hands.

The smugly-grinning Vinyl’s only response was to waggle her eyebrows.

Not waiting around to find out exactly what that meant, Cheese-hair grabbed her partners by the shoulders, pulling them away and sprinting off down the street as fast as their legs could carry them.

“And stay out!” the giant machine bellowed after them, chuckling as his canon powered down and reverted to being a hand once again. “You sure that was a good idea, mate? Lettin’ those three go? Could be barney for us later on.”

Vinyl put her hands up and shrugged, drawing a boisterous guffaw from the robot.

“That’s what I love about you, Vinyl! Always flyin’ by the seat of yer pants, yea?” He held up one giant hand, curled into a fist, which Vinyl happily bumped with her own as she let out a satisfied sigh.

Oh, yeah… tonight was definitely an awesome night.

Author's Note

I have no excuse, :moustache:
(Blame Bookish!)

The Epilogue Everyone is Going to Love (but Will Hate Me Forever for Writing)

The sounds of gunning engines and thumping dubstep faded into the distance, leaving behind a still silence that belied the destruction the Starswirl Amphitheater had endured that night. Many moments passed with only a light breeze to disturb the scene.

Then the sound of a high-pitched, barely audible metallic clicking echoed along the bent and twisted superstructure above the stage. Near the apex, a small, four-legged machine emerged from the shadows and skittered along the scaffolding, at times climbing slowly and at others making leaps from strut to strut as it made its way toward the back of the stage, finally emerging onto the exterior wall and beginning a slow, careful trek down the vertical concrete surface.

Near the bottom it let go, falling the last few feet to land, gracefully and gently, on the shoulders of a young woman dressed in a formal school uniform who was leaning against the base of the wall with her eyes closed.

The machine clicked and buzzed, reshaping itself into a set of vibrant pink headphones that nestled over the girl’s ears. She raised one pink hand to gently touch the side of the device, and remained that way for several moments.

A slow smile crept onto her face as she listened.

Finally finished, she pulled the headphones down around her neck, taking a moment to smooth her lime-green hair before pulling out a cell phone and hitting one of the speed dial options.

“Report,” an older woman’s stern voice issued forth from the phone after only a pair of rings.

The smile on Lemon Zest’s face broadened.

“Found ‘em.”

Author's Note