A Man and his Machine

by Nuclear Grenade

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Alternate Universe
Length: 4341

Meet Dark, 4'8", IQ 632, Inter-dimensional Traveler and his partner ARMD, 12'6", IQ 3, The walking robotic arsenal. Welcome to Equestria!

Dark and ARMD work for the United Research Association or the URA and although neither of them are human nor ponies nor have they even ever heard of one, that all changes when they take part in a dimensional travel experiment that could ultimately result in the destruction of Equestria. (This takes place mid season 3 with events after episode 7 having never occurred.)

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-04-02 01:13:26 UTC

Chapter 1 - There are no Accidents

Dark woke with a start smacking his head into the bunk above him, the start to another normal day in URA Nevada.

"It's good to know I’ll never have to set an alarm clock with you to wake me up." The scientist above him chuckled as he jumped down from his bunk and went to get ready for the day. Since it was too early for Dark, he ignored this, and jumped down as well then walked out the door.

He walked down the  bland hallway exchanging hellos with the scientists and security personnel he passed. Eventually he made his way to the cafeteria where he grabbed a coffee and sat down next to two scientists arguing about the effects of gravity in their experiment.

“Damn it, John, listen to me!” One of them yelled slamming their fist into the table annoyed with his friend's obnoxious behavior.

“No, Mark, gravity won’t matter because the mass of the object is so small.” John retorted putting his feet up on the table and closing his eyes.

“But you’re not factoring in speed.“ Mark screamed throwing his hand in the air out of frustration.

“Both of you shut up! Gravity will take affect because you’re forgetting that wind resistance will slow the object down.” Dark said clearly annoyed.

“Shouldn't you be in the test lab?” John replied with a quizzical look on his face.

Dark looked at the clock 10:36. “Shit.” Dark chugged the coffee spilling a little on his black fur and  then sprinted down the hall. He started moving faster and faster picking up more speed as he went; until he smacked face first into the steel blast doors and fell on his back.

"Dark, your supposed to wait for me to open the door before you go through it." The guard on duty said with a chuckle before he punched in the code that opened the door.

Larsin was calibrating the central portal array when a black blur practically flew into the room. “Damn, Dark that was fast but more importantly, you’re here.“

“Yah well, you humans are too slow for me.” Dark said stretching his back.

"Judging by your stature i'd say your a close relative to humans on the evolutionary chain." Larsin pointed out; still focused on his work.

"Aren't you supposed to be a physicist?" Dark grumbled looking at a read out panel.

“Well- Ah good your partner is here. You should get acquainted before we start.” Larsin announced looking down at dark for a brief moment.

“Partner?” Dark trailed off as he noticed the pounding of heavy metal footsteps behind him. He spun around to come face to knee with a giant robot.

“I am armed!” it exclaimed in its thick Austrian accent as it towered over him.

“Yah, I noticed. Speaking of which please get your minigun out of my face?” Dark said backing up slowly; as not to get crushed if it moved.

“Oh, Ok tiny man. Oh by the way my name is ‘A’ ‘R’ ‘M’ ‘D’ not armed, although I am both.” ARMD exclaimed proudly crossing his arms.

“Yes he has a vast arsenal of guns and other weapons, but he’s not that bright.” Larsin pointing out as he climbed down from the ladder and tossed dark a rolled up piece of paper.

Dark examined the paper before putting it in his small pack.

“Man who built me say I have IQ of 3.” ARMD said proudly not really knowing what it meant.

Only Dark’s good sense, and lack of wanting a missile in his face kept him from laughing. “Yah, well mine is 632.” Dark proudly responded visibly suppressing a laugh.

“Oh tiny man thinks he’s so smart. Well how about you outsmart bullet?” ARMD yelled angrily as his left hand retracted into his arm and was replaced by a minigun.

“Ready!” - Larsin Announced excitedly cutting them off. - “Dimensional portal is a ‘go’ and is ready to be activated."

“So where are we headed doc?” Dark asked turning around to face his co-worker.

“Well in all honesty we have a coordinates for a billion different dimensions but we don’t know where any of them lead, so we picked at random.” Larsin informed them as he was entering some information into a control panel.

“So you have no idea?” Dark asked with the you have got to be kidding me expression on his face.

“Well no but-” Larisn half finished while giving a shrug.

“Smart men talk too much! Doctor Start machine!” ARMD instructed and with that Larsin pressed a button on his console causing the central laser started to rotate faster and faster. Larsin retreated behind a set of closing blast doors as the laser fired and walked up to the main control room.

“Testing. Um, Testing. Okay listen don’t run into the portal until I give the ‘go’ and once I do you have 30 seconds to enter before the room is filled with deadly radiation.” Larsin informed them from a room adjacent from this one separated only by seven feet of bulletproof lead lined glass.

“Larsin you’re sure you calibrated the focusing beams correctly?” Dark asked nervously glancing over his shoulder at the laser as the focusing beams moved into position.

“Yes. Yes.” Larsin said rather annoyed at his co-worker's distrust when the four focusing laser came online. “Go!” he announced.

“Wait what about-“ Dark said in an futile effort to stop them from having to go through the dimensional hole.

“Shut up tiny man. Let’s go!” ARMD grabbed Dark and held him protectively in front of his chest as the rocket motors in his back came to life and propelled them towards the portal.

“I'll have you know my name is Dark!” his voice trailing off as they entered it.

Twilight woke with a start. "Good morning Spike." She said to a rather annoyed dragon. "Don't worry you can sleep in today, me and my friends are going on a picnic." Twilight walked down the stairs and ran through her morning check list before leaving. "Wait that's right, applejack asked me to bring the blanket." Twilight reminded herself as she walked into the kitchen and grabbed a checkered blanket out of one of the cabinets.

As she was walking down one of ponyvile's many roads to their favorite hill she met up with a happily bouncing Pinkie Pie carrying a cake.

"Hiiiii Twilight." Pinkie said without breaking stride.

"Hay Pinkie." Twilight responded walking happily along side her.

"Hay is for horses silly." Pinkie said in the same tone as before.

"Pinkie you do realize-" Twilight began raising an eyebrow.

"Yep." Pinkie replied cutting her off.

Twilight and Pinkie arrived at the rather steep hill where they greeted their friends who were peacefully relaxing at the top.

"Hi guys!" Twilight said smiling as she walked up the hill.

"Hello Twilight." Rarity responded as she took a sip of her tea.

Twilight spread out the blanket with her magic and Applejack placed her picnic basket on it squarely along with Pinkie's cake.

"Where are Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash? Twilight asked looking around.

"Fluttershy is over by that there tree with her bird and Rainbow Dash is-" Applejack half finished looking up in surprise.

"IN-COMING!" Rainbow Dash yelled as she crashed into the tree.

"Oh no, I'm sorry little guy Rainbow Dash didn't mean to hit your tree and scare you." Fluttershy reassured the bird who was more upset than scarred.

"Are you okay Dash? Pinkie asked the still dizzy Rainbow Dash.

"Yah I'm fine, I just didn't have enough altitude."  Dash responded shaking her head to clear her mind.

"I'm sure you will do better next time." Rarity chimed-in looking over at them.

They ate freshly some freshly bucked apples and sandwiches as they talked about various things such as how Applejack's farm was going and Twilight's study of magic.

"-as a matter of fact I learned a new spell last night." Twilight announced smiling knowing she would get to show it off.

"What does it do?" Fluttershy asked while feeding an acorn to a near by squirrel. With that Twilight concentrated as she aimed her horn at a rock and with a flash of her horn, the rock changed into a flower.

"It's positively lovely." Rarity exclaimed as she picked the flower admiring it.

"Okay, my turn." Rainbow Dash said as she took flight. She flew higher and higher until she dove straight down into a corkscrew then pulled up into a loop when she and her friends all heard a sonic boom.

Rainbow Dash stopped and followed her friends' gaze to a large metallic object falling at speeds apparently faster than sound. It flew or rather fell past her and crashed into the ground at the base of the hill causing an even bigger 'boom'.

"What in tarnation was that? Applejack asked looking at her friends.

"Let's find out come on everypony." Twilight gestured towards the crater the object had created.

Chapter 2 - A Good Start

"Ugh, my head." - Dark said painfully wondering where he was. - "You could have fired your rockets to slow our descent you know."

"Warning system integrity compromised!" ARMD informed Dark as he lay on the ground.

"Oh no! Preform emergency restart!" Dark quickly instructed starring at his friend.

ARMD starred at his readout and its array of text.

ARMD:> Warning: System Compromised

ARMD:> Commence Vocal Alert: 'Warning system integrity compromised!'

ARMD:> User Input: 'Preform emergency restart."

ARMD:> System Restarting...

With that ARMD's blue eyes dimmed until they completely turned off.

"Well great, he'll be out for the next five minutes and i still don't know where I am." Dark reminded himself as he looked around in front of him.

"Um, hello?" A voice behind him asked. He spun around to see six four legged creatures starring at him with the same fascination he had with them.

"Hello,... who or um what are you?" Dark responded studying them.

"Well,... um our species is called 'Ponies' and is divided into three sub-species called 'Earth-Ponies', 'Pegasi', and 'Unicorns'. What about you?" The purple one said also studying him.

"Well my species has no name because as far as I know I am it's only surviving member." - Dark hesitated before continuing. - "You can call me, Dark, what're your names?"

"Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Flutt- Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash." Each one of them announced.

"Say, are you all right you took quite the fall their?" Applejack asked starring at him and ARMD.

"Yah, I'll be fine."  Dark replied stretching his back.

"What about your metal friend their?" Applejack asked again pointing at ARMD.

"He'll probably be fine he just needs time to restart." Dark answered stretching his entire body now.

"'Re-start', um what?" Applejack wondered as to what the word meant.

"Ah I see, you must not have robots yet, Okay, a robot is a machine that can walk and talk and even think like an actual living thing." Dark explained also gesturing to ARMD.

"Oh you simply must be joking." Rarity said thinking the idea was absurd.

"Give it about 3 or so minutes, anyway we both have a lot of questions, given the fact I know nothing about this place and have a lot more than you, why don't you ask first." Dark stated folding his arms.

"Very well. Where do you come from?" Twilight asked deciding she was probably the one who should be asking.

"Another dimension." Dark responded.

"Why are you here?" She asked as she started pacing.

"I was sent here as an explorer, tasked with gathering information about this dimension." Dark answered.

"So why this dimension?" Twilight wondered aloud as she turned around to retrace her steps.

"No reason what-so-ever. We picked a dimension completely at random and jumped to it."  - Dark informed them with a defensive look on his face. - "Actually hang on a second and let me sit down, that fall took a lot out of me." Dark said as he sat down on ARMD's chest as he lay their restarting.

"Here have some water." Twilight offered as she used her magic to levitate a bottle over to him.

"Okay, my turn. First of all, how did you do that?" Dark asked as he inserted a chemical strip into the glass to make sure he was in fact drinking water.

"What levitate the glass? Oh, that was my magic." Twilight answered; not understanding he had never heard of this before.

"Magic? Excuse me?" Dark responded while examining the strip.

"Well, I'm a unicorn, unicorns can use magic to cast spells and preform other feats. Rainbow Dash is a Pegasus, which means she can fly." - Twilight continued to explain as Rainbow Dash Lifted off the ground to prove the point.  -"Pinkie Pie and Applejack are Earth-Ponies which means they're naturally stronger than everypony else."

"That's incredible!" Dark said as he drank the now confirmed water.

"How were you 'sent' here if you are the last of your species?" Rarity asked deciding it was her turn.

"Good question. Well yes I am the last of my species, but there is another species called 'humans' and they are the ones who sent me here." Dark responded.

ARMD:> BIOS Loaded.

ARMD:> Reboot Complete.

ARMD:> All Systems Restored.

Dark fell on his face a ARMD stood up. "ARMD is back!" ARMD informed the world. Twilight's friends who had previously been standing there allowing Twilight to do the talking jumped in surprise.

"Hay ARMD." Dark groaned as he stood up.

"Hi ARMD. Say, do they call you ARMD because you have two arms?" Pinkie asked.

"What? Who said that?" ARMD said as he looked around to find the source of the noise.

"Down here silly." Pinkie said smiling.

"Dark,... What is that?" ARMD queried clearly confused.

"That my dear, ARMD, is a pony." Dark answered brushing dirt off his fur.

"Um Right... Well you are smart man so okay." ARMD said not wanting to dive any deeper into the matter.

"Your writing this down correct?" Dark asked suddenly looking at ARMD.

"No, writing down is smart man's mission." ARMD returned the look.

"Wait then what's your mission?" Dark asked honestly intrigued.

"My mission is to crush anything that crushes you." ARMD replied happily causing  the six ponies all looked at each other with concern.

"And how do you plan to do that?" Rainbow Dash asked quizzically half curious half worried.

"Simple. With these." ARMD said as he mentally smiled; not having a mouth.

ARMD:> Deploy All Weapons.

ARMD:> Error: In-sufficient Permissions.

ARMD:> Track Source: Last Error.

ARMD:> Weapon Deployment Requires Clearance from URA agent: 1137 - Dark

"Dark!" ARMD yelled when his weapons failed to deploy shooting him Dark look of hate.

"What!?" Dark responded in surprise to the rather loud remark.

"Why do I need permission to use guns?" ARMD asked in an extremely annoyed tone.

"Because they don't trust you. And yes, I do know why. And no I wont give you permission." Dark informed ARMD starring him down.

"Sorry about that." Dark said to the still stunned ponies turning to face them.

"Can you give us a second?" Twilight asked.

"Sure." Dark said.

Twilight and her friends huddled together in a circle and whispered so that Dark couldn't over-hear them.

"So what do you make of them?" Twilight asked looking at each of her friends.

"Sounds like trouble to me." Applejack answered as she looked at Twilight

"We should tell the princess." Rarity voiced to everyone.

"I don't know the big one sounds so violent to me." Fluttershy added softly.

"Either way I'll send a letter to the princess." Twilight concluded and with that they broke.

When the 6 ponies started conversing Dark asked ARMD "You can hear what their saying can't you?"

"Affirmative." ARMD responded watching the ponies intently.

"Well?" Dark asked again.

"They do not trust us." ARMD responded quietly so that the ponies would not realize he was aware of what they were saying.

This isn't good, Dark thought, I can't get on their bad side. Where did we go wrong? Dark thought recalling their reaction when ARMD told them he was going to 'crush' anything that got in their way. So that's it eh? "ARMD please refrain from discussing any violent topics while in the presence of ponies without my prior approval."

"But why?" ARMD whined

"Because I am smart man. ARMD Confirm instructions." Dark said smiling.

"Confirmed." ARMD grumbled as he created a subroutine that would filter his speech.

"We've made up our minds." Applejack said with a stern look on her face.

"We're going to send a letter to our princess and see what she thinks." Rarity finished.

"Very well. That would be your government's top official. correct?" Dark asked entering 'monarchy' into his wrist computer.

"Yes." Twilight answered before she took off towards her library.

Twilight burst through the door of the library and began darting around looking for a quill which Spike grabbed off the table and handed to her.

"To the princess?" Spike asked as Twilight was frantically writing the day's events.

"Yes and send it quickly Spike." She said as she handed the paper to spike who quickly read it before he sent it.

"Inter-dimensional travelers huh. Well that's new." Spike said as they waited for a response.

"Oh, Spike I don't know what to do, I mean they haven't done anything wrong but something about them just feels wrong to me." Twilight sighed looking at Spike.

"Maybe you should give them the benefit of the doubt." Spike encouraged as he burped a letter. Twilight grabbed it with her magic and read it then bolted out the door without another word.

Chapter 3 - A Meeting with the Princess

Twilight ran up to her friends clutching the letter in her mouth. They all looked at her including ARMD who was somehow petting a squirrel siting on the back of his hand without crushing it.

"Oh, ARMD please stop petting the squirrel your scaring him." Fluttershy said softly as she hovered next to ARMD.

"Okay Fluttershy I put down squirrel." ARMD replied as he let the squirrel hop off his hand.

"Th- thank you." Fluttershy said quietly as she lowered herself to the ground.

"What's the letter say Twi. Applejack asked Twilight as she walked along side.

"Here I'll read it." Twilight anounced as she stopped and pulled out the letter.

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

I felt the travelers enter our realm with my magic and am happy to know that you were the first ones they met. I'm sorry this letter had to be so short but I had to take a recess from an important meeting to write this. I would like you to take Dark and ARMD to my castle in canterlot as fast as possible; there is a lot we need to talk about.

Princess Celestia

"A meeting? That rather sudden." Rarity commented as she walked over to view the letter herself.

"So were are we headed?" Dark asked.

"See that castle on the side of the mountain there?" Rainbow Dash  said flying behind him and pointing to the castle in the distance.

"That's quite a ways away. ARMD activate flight systems." Dark instructed ARMD.

ARMD:> User Input: Activate Flight systems.

ARMD:> Executing Flight Procedures.

ARMD:> Extending Aft Rocket Motors

"Wait. He can fly!?" Rainbow Dash said examining the rockets on his back.

"Affirmative." ARMD replied.

"Well she did sound pretty urgent so we should get there as fast as possible." Twilight recommended.

"I can ride on ARMD and it looks like Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash can fly there but ARMD can only handle me. What about you then?" Dark asked rubbing his chin.

"I think I can teleport Pinkie, Applejack, and Rarity but defiantly not all 6 of us." Twilight pondered as well.

"Well that settles it. Me ARMD Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy will go by air and the rest of you can teleport your way there." Dark said as he entered 'Teleportation' into his wrist computer. With that Dark climbed onto ARMD's shoulder and the set off.

Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Dark, and ARMD were minutes away from the outskirts of canterlot when Twilight and the rest of her friends completed the final teleport and appeared at the edge of the city.

"ARMD I know what your thinking... don't do it. Just don't." He said when he noticed his partner eyeing the ground pondering whether or not he could create an earthquake if he crashed into it from this height.

"I would ask but I'm not aloud to talk about certain things." ARMD retorted.

"Just land. Softly." Dark replied. ARMD descended to the ground making sure to fire his rockets to make for a soft landing. Dark hopped off as Rainbow Dash, who was assisting Fluttershy in her flying, landed. They joined up with Twilight and walked through the main gate past a set of extremely shocked and nervous looking guards hoping to Celestia that ARMD didn't try something. Twilight led them down side streets as to not attract to much attention; if that's even possible with a giant robot who's footsteps resemble the noise of a car accident. Eventualy they arrived at the castle where a stallion informed them they had to wait if they until the princess finished her meeting.

"An hour has passed since we arrived. Time for status update." ARMD informed Dark around fifteen minutes into their waiting.

"Wait. How are we supposed to do status updates... from another dimension?" Dark asked confused.

"With my interdimensional fax machine." ARMD replied gesturing to the large round blue light in his lower chest area.

Dark broke out into laughter. "We have the technology to travel between dimensions but we have to use a fax machine as communication. Oh that too good." - Dark stopped wiping a tear from his eye. - "Sorry here you go ARMD." He finished as he ejected the data stick from his wrist computer and handed it to ARMD who inserted it into the Interdimensional Fax Machine. The stick glowed a bright yellow than dissolved into nothing as it headed back to the URA.

"What was that?" Twilight asked having nothing better to be doing.

"That was all the information I gathered about Equestria so far and I just sent it back to the dimension I came from." Dark explained.

"So there are a bunch of ponies,... well 'people' I suppose, on the other side of the portal ARMD just created who are reading everything you wrote down." Twilight said.

"About sums it up." Dark concluded.

Larsin sat anxiously in the control room waiting to receive the first update from Dark. He was joined by about twenty other scientists and researchers waiting to decipher the importance of the information. The team included everything from zoologists to historians. An indicator flashed on his control panel indicating the ARMD unit was sending him something, so he engaged the automatic starting sequence for the portal array. Everyone in the control room was sitting on the edge of their seat as a small black data stick the size of an eraser clattered to the floor in the laboratory at the base of the portal array. A worker in a radiation shielding suit walked up and retrieved the stick after the portal closed; then he brought it up to the control room where everyone was so excited they might have cheered as the worker inserted it into the computer.

"Well, what's on it?" One of them asked breaking the silence.

"This is the personal notes of URA agent 1137, aka Dark, plus the video and audio feeds from the ARMD unit. Unfortunately it appears as if the jump crashed the ARMD unit's operating system and he didn't start recording until five-and-a-half minutes after the jump." Larsin explained as he started the footage from the ARMD unit. For the next hour the scientists watched intently looking away only briefly to study Dark's personal notes. At the end of the footage the room burst into conversation about everything from the biological composition of the world to the level of technology the ponies had achieved; which continued for the rest of the day.

"The princess will see you now." Jolted Dark awake. He looked around and saw the stallion standing next to him talking to Twilight.

"Very well. I know the way follow me everypony." Twilight informed her friends as she set off towards the castles' front entrance. They all followed Twilight through the maze of hallways and corridors; even ARMD managed to follow thank's to the castle's excessively large doors. Eventually they came to the throne room where Princess Celestia was waiting.

"Twilight Sparkle and your friends its a pleasure to see you again. And these must be the travelers." The princess said as everyone respectfully bowed; except ARMD who would fall on his face if he tried.

"Indeed. I have to say crossing through dimensions and consequently falling to the planet's surface from the upper atmosphere is quite the experience." Dark responded smiling.

"I must say I'm surprised you would still come knowing the damage it would cause." The princess continued as she got up from her throne and walked towards them.

"Pardon?" Dark asked dropping into a serious tone.

"For a people who have the knowledge and means to create artificial intelligence I would believe you would be aware of the repercussions of your travels." The princess responded reaching the bottom of the steps.

"Well actually this is the first time we tried something like this." Dark said, embarrassed, as he scratched the back of his neck.

"Then you are unaware of the void you created by coming here?" Celestia asked as she approached him.

"Void? As in a black hole?" Dark asked in response.

"That would be a fitting description. To the point; in five days the void will grow to engulf the entire planet and eventually the entire dimension." Celestia finished with anger in her voice.