Laserbeak was watching them from a tree branch. He was hidden, never heard and never found. Their laughter, their voices, every word they spoke was recorded and placed into his tapes for later viewing. His master would be proud. He aimed to please every time. Every time.
The Cybertronian bird allowed his camera to focus more on Optimus Prime after just receiving orders from his master. He could hear his master speak to him, praising him. He aimed to please every time. Every time.
His final orders were given: one last close up of Optimus Prime, the Autobot leader. The foolish Autobot didn’t even know he was there, watching him, stalking him. After his camera zoomed in closer to Optimus, he could hear his master typing away at all the information he was gathering. Laserbeak didn’t know what it was his master was typing, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that his master was happy with this information. Laserbeak silently screeched. He aimed to please every time. Every-
“….aaaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!”
Not even Laserbeak was fast enough to dodge the purple bullet smacking into his backside.
I knew I should’ve taken the train! I knew my wing wasn’t fully healed! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Twilight screamed inside her mind. She knew she wasn’t really stupid, but why did she continuously make stupid decisions like this? Flying right into a tree? Seriously?
Her mind was reeling even after she hit something that felt anything but bark and leaves. This surprised the Alicorn, but she never had time at that short moment to see what she hit. Twilight Sparkle hit the dirt of Sweet Apple Acres with a tremendous crash following her.
All eyes, optics, and whatever Pinkie was holding in front of her eyesight turned to witness the Princess of Friendship lying in a crash suitable of a meteorite. They were surprised, sure, but that’s not what fully captivated them. No, the Decepticon bird landing right on top of the Alicorn did.
Laserbeak landed with a hard thud right on top of the princess, creating a powerful yelp to escape from the Alicorn beneath him. He shook his head to be rid of any dirt that got lodged into his hearing processors.
He stopped moving.
He brought his head forward.
His beak dropped.
A band of Autobots all stared at the Decepticon with great confusion, including Optimus Prime. With them, the six ponies as well as a young dragon remained from making the slightest bit of movement, their eyes glued onto the Decepticon. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to be discovered.
The rainbow-haired one started to grow a terrifying glare.
Laserbeak let out an ear-piercing screech, causing each pony to flinch back in surprise. Doing so gave Laserbeak that chance he needed. He flapped his wings, his boosters pushing him up and off the ground. His purple stream of light energy was seen taking off from Sweet Apple Acres.
This evoked a certain Pegasus quite easily.
"Hey!" Rainbow Dash screamed at the top of her lungs, her wings flaring. “Get back here!”
Her rainbow trail was seen blasting off, but it didn’t go too far.
“Wait!”
Rainbow suddenly felt a heavy pinch on her behind, suddenly bringing the Pegasus down to the earth with a hard thud. She shouted in surprise, rubbing her tail and turning back to see that Twilight was the one that grabbed her. Her teeth were still latched onto the mare’s rainbow-shaded tail.
Wow.
After some slight confusion, Twilight spit out Rainbow’s tail, a bit of drool trailing the tip. Rainbow Dash grimaced and wiped her tail in the grass, standing back up to look down at the Alicorn.
“Don’t go flying away, Rainbow,” Twilight told her just as the tail was removed from her muzzle. “It’s not safe! None of us are safe now!”
“Hold up jus’ one second there, sugercube,” Applejack interjected, stepping forward to her Alicorn friend and helping her up. “Ah don’t know if ya saw or not…but ya practically got crushed by that tin-foiled turkey Laserbeak! An’ what do ya mean by ‘none of us are safe’?”
Taking some time to wipe the dirt off her tongue from her crash earlier, Twilight spit out what remained to the side, her violet eyes turning to face Applejack. It wasn’t just Applejack she was forced to confront the cold, hard truth to.
Optimus Prime stood behind her like a giant shadow refusing to fade away. The other Autobots such as Ironhide, Jetfire, Jazz, Bumblebee, and Cliffjumper all followed right behind their leader, each of their expressions just as concerned as the next. Twilight then noticed how ragged each of them appeared, minus Optimus.
The rust had accumulated most of their bodies, their true colors almost completely fading away. They were so out of place, so out of touch with this world that it nearly caused Twilight’s spirit to fade. These new Autobots would definitely need a new touch of paint, a job for Rarity perhaps.
The rest of her friends were there, too. Eyes all worried, bodies all shaken, minds all reeling. They were concerned for their friend, Twilight could see that. She gulped. This next part was not going to be easy. Spike was there chewing his claws.
If only she had claws to chew on right now…
Tell them this threat, prepare them for the inevitable, and for my sake…please be safe.
“Right,” Twilight whispered to herself, not a sound heard from any of her friends or the Autobots. The Alicorn readied herself, a large breath taken, and her hooves set perfectly apart. Time for the truth…
Oh, Celestia.
She quickly wiped the sweat building from her forehead, both acquired from her trip back to Ponyville by flight and this new weight slowly falling onto her shoulders. Why was it so difficult to tell them the truth? Just spit it out!
But she hesitated…and Twilight knew why.
It was coming back. The nightmares, the evils, the great war looming over her head, it was all coming back. A year ago, Twilight didn’t know if she would even survive the battle for her species’ survival, she thought she would just become part of the fallen, the ponies who died during the invasion. She was lucky, thanks to the Autobots. They saved her world. They saved ponykind. She didn’t.
That’s why it was so terrifying for her to admit the truth, not only to her friends…but to herself. Twilight didn’t want to deal with another war for the fate of her home. The Decepticons were back, nothing could change that. No matter how much or how hard she tried to deny it, they were still there waiting, looming, haunting. The Decepticons were bound to strike at any given moment, and she wasted those precious seconds not telling her friends about it.
The Autobots…
What can they do now? With the state each of them is in…there wasn’t any clear hope for Twilight to see. They can’t fight against the Decepticons now, not with their memories lost! It would be sending in a victim to the slaughter.
What can they do?
What can she do?
Twilight only knew one thing.
“Girls…Autobots…Spike,” Twilight began, making sure to mention everyone around her. All eyes widened and all ears opened for the next words spilling out of her mouth. Each one was like a punch to the stomach to the five mares, Spike included.
“I…I don’t know how to make this anymore simple and horrible than it already is,” she added in, her chest heaving in and out when Celestia’s words pierced her heart once more.
Fillydelphia.
Vanhoover.
Decepticon.
Twilight bit her lip, her eyes shutting tight to block the tears forcing themselves to escape her clutches. It was barely contained, and the princess was already becoming hysterical by the time she continued speaking.
“I was just at Canterlot…and Princess Celestia…oh, gosh…she just told me that there was another attack…an attack in Vanhoover!”
Each pony let out a surprised gasp. Rainbow flew over to stand next to her friends in order to get a better look at Twilight’s face whenever she spoke. The Autobots, though not as surprised, were instantly concerned.
“What do you mean by an attack?” Jetfire asked, pushing himself forward to stand next to Prime, though Optimus’ height made Jetfire shrink back.
Twilight was hesitant to answer, but she did anyway. “All Princess Celestia told me was that there was an attack in Vanhoover. I don’t know how it’s even possible…but Vanhoover was taken in a matter of minutes. As of now, the entire city is under control by…by…” the Alicorn’s head began to fall.
“By who?!” Rainbow Dash shouted.
The Pegasus instantly shut her mouth when Twilight looked back up, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“The Decepticons,” she breathed out, more tears falling.
The gasps from before was nothing compared to the shrieks of terror from Rarity. Everyone covered their ears from the unicorn’s screams, though it didn’t last as long as anyone thought it would. Rarity was close to fainting overdramatically again, but she was caught by a gentle hand holding her up, keeping her awake.
Cliffjumper held his hand out so Rarity didn’t fall. He didn’t speak, he simply couldn’t. All Cliffjumper could really do was listen in for whatever else these ponies were saying. From Rarity’s performance…it clearly meant some bad trouble.
Applejack took a moment to compose herself, the rest of her friends practically losing their minds. She wouldn’t. Applejack needed to remain calm despite this.
“Sugercube,” the western mare drawled, catching Twilight’s attention. Her emerald eyes bore anything but calm intentions despite what her body was trying to show. That meant nothing to Applejack as she continued to speak.
“Are you talkin’ about...the Decepticons? The same Decepticons that came here an’ tried ta take over Equestria? The same Decepticons, an’ not jus’ those little varmints that stole the Crystal Heart, that can take on these fellers right behind me with jus’ the same amount of strength as they have? Those Decepticons?”
Twilight nodded grimly.
Applejack closed her eyes, her hind leg kicking the dirt hard.
“Buck!” she shouted, angry eyes facing nowhere. “Ah thought we were finished with them monsters! How did they all come back?!”
“I don’t know…”
“Forget that! We need to send those guys packing right now! If they attacked Vanhoover then we need to take it straight to ‘em! I say we use the Rainbow Power and show these Decepti-creeps just what happens when you mess with us!” Rainbow Dash suggested, her body already levitating off the ground for departure.
“We can’t do that…”
“What about Megatron?! Did we all just forget about that meany?! Now that he’s back in Equestria we can really show him that ponies are a lot stronger than he thinks!” Pinkie suggested, pulling out a large chest from behind her. As she dug inside, her hooves flinging sharp objects and weapons to and fro, she brought out a massive weapon suitable to her needs, but impossible to fit inside the chest.
“I call the hammer! Fluttershy, what do you want?” Pinkie asked, turning to face the quivering Pegasus with the gigantic hammer a monster from Tartarus would use hanging over her head. Fluttershy merely shook her head back and forth, her body becoming smaller by the second.
“Girls, calm down.”
“What are we gonna do?! What are we gonna do?! We’re doomed!" Spike added in, emphasizing his words by falling onto his knees and screaming to the heavens. His mouth instantly zipped shut by an aura of purple energy, specifically from Twilight Sparkle.
The Alicorn, no longer sad but frustrated, silenced all those around her by screaming, “Will you let me talk?!"
It was so silent that Twilight could hear the wind whistling past the grass blades. Each and every one of her friends was surprised at her outburst, but they couldn’t deny her feelings at the moment, some of them feeling slightly guilty for not letting Twilight speak.
When she was certain that nopony else was going to interrupt her, Twilight began to speak again, her body and eyes relaxing.
“The last thing we need right now is straight up panic. What we need to do is get them,” she pointed her hoof to the Autobots, though nopony knew it was mainly directed at Optimus, “ready for anything that might come our way. Princess Celestia informed me that since the Decepticons are back they will most likely go after the Autobots first.”
“Why would they want to do that?” Fluttershy asked, only one of her eyes hidden behind her light pink mane.
Twilight responded to the Pegasus almost instantly. “If they eliminate the Autobots then there won’t be any power on this planet that can hope to stand up against them.”
Fluttershy looked like she had just witnessed a ghost go in and out of Twilight. “Oh,” she muttered, her tiny whimpers hardly making a sound to catch anypony’s attention.
“Alrighty,” Applejack said, catching Twilight’s attention, “we can try our hardest ta get the Autobots ready fer anything the Decepticons have ta throw at us. That might take a while, so what do ya suggest we do as of now, Twi?”
Twilight turned her focus on the Autobots, each one of them staring at her with either a look of confusion or a look of fear. She didn’t blame them. They don’t know what’s happening; they don’t know why they’re being targeted. All they know right now is that someone besides a bunch of ponies wants them dead, and that’s terrifying. Twilight completely understood why Bumblebee looked afraid.
“We need to tell Mayor Mare this news right away,” Twilight announced loudly, each one of her friends nodding in agreement. She brought her eyes down to meet her friends’ concerned stares. “She can tell the ponies in Ponyville that we have this situation under control, that we’ll do everything in our power to protect the Autobots from any outside forces that wish to harm them or the town.”
“Right!” each mare said in unison, Spike included after just recently pulling off the zipper from his mouth.
Princess Twilight looked back at the deeply worried faces of the Autobots. All except for Optimus, whose tone was not of worry but of understanding…and anger?
That was something that surprised the princess. She would definitely keep that in mind.
Trying to ignore Prime’s facial features, Twilight brought her calming gaze onto the other five Autobots, offering them a little smile. “None of you have to worry about a thing,” she told them, “as long as we’re here…I promise that nothing will ever-”
Her voice instantly died when the earth erupted.
The feeling was unlike anything they’ve felt in the longest time. The earth was literally shaking beneath their hooves, the crusts of the earth groaning below. Pinkie and Fluttershy both fell flat on their bellies, their hooves unable to support themselves from the massive tremor. Rainbow was already hovering above ground, so she couldn’t feel the effects of the earthquake. She could see them. Applejack was able to steady herself from the quake. As for Rarity…no one was there to catch her this time.
Cliffjumper, as well as the other five Autobots were staring in uncontainable horror past Sweet Apple Acres and towards the only town visible for miles. Twilight witnessed and noted down each of their looks, but found Optimus’ to be the worst.
His blue optics were as wide as possible. Even after the tremor ended, Optimus was still standing battle-ready, his fists clenched and his faceplate falling as a jaw would drop.
That only meant one thing to Twilight…
He was staring at Ponyville. Oh, Celestia. She didn’t even want to imagine what was coming.
The explosion came later, even stronger than anypony could have felt.
With each mare spinning around, their faces morphing in total shock, Spike was the only one there who seemed to gasp. Everypony else had to have lost their breath at just the sight of it all. He didn’t blame them. The fireball in the middle of Ponyville wasn’t hard to miss.