• Published 30th Jul 2013
  • 3,323 Views, 158 Comments

Up and Automaton - Zap Apple Smash



A friend of Cheerilee from detrot comes to Ponyville with a new invention that unfortunately goes haywire. Lunaverse story

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And boom goes the Lulamoon.

In hindsight, Raindrops would rank picking a fight with a big metal minotaur only slightly above the time she licked a thundercloud for a bet.

As badass as stopping an incoming fist is, it stops being quite as impressive when you remember that the monster has a second fist. A fact that the pegasus only remembered in time to barely dodge that second fist.

Picking herself back up, Raindrops entered one of her well practised attack stances. "Alright ugly, get ready for a taste of Iron Hoof."

The Automaton, neither knowing nor caring what the pegasus was talking about, came in with another punch. Raindrops deflected the blow slightly, twisting as she rolled along the outstretched arm before delivering a vicious elbow to the 'gut' of the creature. Swallowing the pain, Raindrops ducked down to avoid being grabbed by the monster before trying to leg sweep it. The Automaton actually seemed to wobble for moment as it was put off balance. It then righted itself, causing the weather pony to roll out of the way as the Automaton tried to stomp her.

Once out of the way, Raindrops took to the air in a combination of jumping and flying. She leapt over the Automaton and, using her wings to slow her descent, started to spin as she delivered a series of devastating roundhouse kicks Clang! to the back of the head Clang! to the back of the neck Clang! between where the shoulder blades would be Clang! to the small of the back Clang! finishing with a kick to where the tail joined the body.

After completing her furious barrage she jumped back to assess the damage. She was justifiably shocked when she realised her attacks hadn't even phased it.

Raindrops stared at the minotaur, then down at her own hooves in dismay. "Why call the style 'Iron Hoof' if it doesn't work on iron?"

"Maybe it's supposed to be a metaphor." Snails offered. He then shrugged when Raindrops stared at him. "We're learning about 'literary devices' in school."

"Snails." Raindrops said in dismay. "I told you to run."

"No you didn't." Snails argued.

Raindrops was about to argue when realisation struck. "You're right I didn’t." She was about to tell her brother to run but then noticed that while she had been distracted the Automaton had turned around and was facing her. The pegasus growled as she entered another fighting stance.

"Alright tin can. You may be bigger than me, stronger than me, impervious to all my attacks and surprisingly agile for a giant metal monster...." Raindrops paused. "I'm not sure where I was going with this."

"No-one messes with your brother?" Snails suggested.

"Yeah, what he said." Raindrops then dodged an incoming fist.

What followed next was a series of hit and run tactics from Raindrops as she tried to avoid being pummelled while trying to miraculously find some weak point.

It was this scene that Cheerilee, Gears and Trixie simultaneously ran in on. Despite the seriousness of the situation they still did a double take when they saw each other.

"What happened to going back to town and getting help?" Trixie demanded.

"What happened to finding that thing before it hurt somepony else." Cheerilee shot back.

"Point taken." Trixie conceded as she pulled out a bottle of bourbon that she had hidden in her cape with her magic. After moment of concentration the contents of the bottle developed a strange greenish glow. "Get Raindrops clear and be ready to run."

"What are you..."

"JUST DO IT!!"

Deciding not to argue, Cheerilee leapt to action, literally tackling Raindrops to get her out of the way. Before the Automaton could respond the bottle of bourbon collided with the side of its head, covering the creature in the faintly glowing liquid.

The Automaton turned to the source of the bottle. As it noticed Trixie, the mare hit it with a spark of magic. The metallic creation then burst into flames.

Trixie took a brief moment to look on smugly at her handy work. "Speed of lightning, roar of thunder."

She then used her magic to pick up Snails. "And now we run. AAAHHHHHH!"

She let out a scream as she ran for her life with Snails in tow. Her friends took the hint and followed as they left the Automaton to process the newly discovered sensation of being on fire.

The ponies kept on running until they were satisfied with the amount of distance they had put between them and the flaming monster.

"Wow, how'd you set that thing on fire?" Snails asked in amazement when Trixie finally let go of him.

"Two part... ignition spell." Trixie explained between gasping for breath. "First part hyper charges the flammability of the alcohol. The second part makes the boom."

"And you waited until now to try that because...?" Cheerilee asked.

Trixie glared briefly at the school teacher. "That move cost me an almost full bottle of bourbon. And it's not going to stop it." She explained. "Even hyper charged, alcohol doesn't burn hot enough to melt metal. At best I've bought us a little time before the fire burns out."

The representative turned her attention towards Raindrops. "So why were you fighting that thing?"

"It called Snails 'hostile' and tried to crush him." Raindrops explained. "I think that more or less explains it."

At that moment Gears finally caught up to them, gasping for breath. "Must... exercise... more..."

Gears' ear was suddenly wrapped in magic and twisted painfully. He then noticed Trixie's glare and glowing horn.

"Your creation just deemed my friend's younger brother 'hostile." The blue mare said before pointing to Snails. "Care to explain why it would deem Snails, a colt that quite literally wouldn't hurt a fly, 'hostile'?"

In hopes of alleviating the pain, Gears scrambled to find an answer. "Well he's wearing a red scarf. Maybe that fight with the stallion earlier has meant that it now associates the colour red with hostility."

"Wait," Raindrops said. "You mean you built the thing that tried to squash my brother."

Not knowing the danger he was putting himself in, Gears decided to take credit for his creation. "I certainly didn't intend for it to squash anypony, but yes I did build it."

Raindrops let out a growl as she started to close the distance, only to have Cheerilee put herself between Gears and the seething pegasus.

"Raindrops, Snails is watching." The teacher reminded Raindrops. "I know you're mad but take a breath and count to ten."

The pegasus, still angry but not wanting to be a bad influence, followed Cheerilee's advice, took a deep breath and started the ten count.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."

Having visibly calmed down, Raindrops then seem to notice something nearby. "Hey look, a snow beetle."

"Where?" Snails asked excitedly.

As soon the young colt turned to look where Raindrops had been looking, the pegasus promptly socked the inventor in the face, Trixie barely letting go of his ear in time to avoid it being ripped off.

Raindrops dusted her hooves off as she turned back to the teacher. "Now I'm good."

Cheerilee was about to scold Raindrops when noticed Snails still staring in the direction he had been directed towards. On closer inspection she realised that there was in fact a blue and white beetle using its hind legs to push a snowball.

The teacher gaped at Raindrops who simply raised an eyebrow. "What? I wouldn't lie to him about a snow beetle. He's been waiting most of the year to see one."

"Whoa that is cool."

The three elements then noticed Pinkie Pie had joined Snails in admiring the snow beetle. "Why is it pushing that snowball?"

"Pinkie?" Cheerilee asked in dismay. "What are you doing here? No way you managed to get Big Mac to the hospital so fast."

"No need." Lumos explained as he approached the group. "On the way there we ran across some rescue pegasi that were on their way back from a false alarm..."


"For the last time, lady, that puddle's barely fetlock deep." the pegasus said in frustration. "You don't need rescuing."

"But it’s soooo icky!"


"...as soon as we left them with the crimson wonder, Pinkie picked up your trail and lead us here."

"It's a gift." Pinkie said with a shrug.

"Alright fun time is over." Trixie said. "I'm officially declaring this a state of emergency. We need to evacuate the town and send a request for military support."

"Military support?" Gears asked in dismay as he picked himself up. "Isn't that a little drastic?"

Trixie stopped and stared at Gears. All was quiet for moment but then Trixie seemed to finally snap.

"Drastic?! DRASTIC?!" Trixie then stopped herself. "Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix."

When she started speaking again, she was a lot calmer, almost disturbingly so. "Drastic was using a full bottle of bourbon as a stalling tactic. We've officially left drastic behind us and have moved into full blown crisis. The fact that you have to ask that shows just how out of touch with this situation you really are."

"Okay," Gears said. "I will admit that things might have gotten a bit out of hoof but I..." he was silenced by Trixie sticking her hoof in his mouth.

"No talking, let me paint you a picture." Trixie said. "You have built and unleashed a machine capable of mass destruction upon a civilian populace. And what's worse is that you haven't done a thing to help stop it. The last time a pony unintentionally let loose a threat like this on the town she at least had the decency to help fix the problem. So far Pinkie has done more to help than you and she has no reason for being here!"

"True," the party pony admitted. "It's still fun though."

"Trixie," Cheerilee began. "I think he gets the point."

Trixie seemed to ignore the teacher. "Now we need to evacuate a town, call in the military, explain to my mentor why, yet again, Ponyville is in unspeakable danger and then pray that nopony gets hurt. All because you didn't take the time to ask yourself 'did the world actually need a metallic minotaur?'"

Trixie, seemingly frustrated at the mere sight of Gears, turned away slightly.

"You know, I'm not going to call you the worst thing that train has brought to town, because frankly that's like asking fate to send something worse. But you've definitely up there, somewhere between the Manehatten mobsters and that mare from Hoofington who was convinced she was carrying Raindrops' baby!"

Genuinely confused by that, Pinkie turned the weather pony, who simply replied with a "Don't ask."

"Whoa whoa hold up." Lumos, really not liking where this conversation was going, decided to speak up in his defence. "Look I know this isn't a great turn of events but if we get branded as enemies of the state, our wives are gonna kill us."

Cheerilee looked at Gears in shock. "YOU'RE MARRIED?!"

"NO!" Trixie interjected. "No more shock reveals, no more wacky hijinks, no more goofy distractions and definitely no wah wah waaaaah!"

Pinkie let out a huff as she put away her trombone. "Well excuse me for wanting to lighten the mood."

"The point is that this has stopped being some silly experiment that has gone comically awry. This is now a situation where soon we could have a death on our hooves. We probably would already have one if the Apple family didn't build their stallions big. I am not letting Ponyville get a chapter in the third edition of 'Golem related tragedies of history'."

Despite Trixie having removed her hoof, Gears seemed to be at a loss for words. "I can... we can... fix this." He finally managed out.

"And how do we do that?" Trixie asked. "Magic? That just makes it stronger. Brute force? It shrugged off Cheerilee, Raindrops, Big Mac and a boulder. I don't think throwing more ponies at it is going to help matters."

"Wait," Cheerilee interjected. "Wouldn't requesting military aid technically count as 'throwing more ponies at it'?"

"The point being that we are out of our depth and we need help."

"But you're The Great and Powerful Trixie."

Trixie turned and saw Snails looking up at her in confusion. Trixie sighed, she hated to disappoint her fan but she felt an obligation to be honest with him. "I'm also the Representative of Ponyville. I have a duty to protect the town and its residents. Part of that duty is knowing when a problem is too big for us to handle and to ask for help before anypony gets seriously hurt."

"Wait hold up." Raindrops interjected. "As much as I don't like inflating that ego of yours, since you moved to Ponyville and helped form the band of merry mares we have dealt with threats including, but not limited to, centuries old evil, corrupt nobles, dragons, salamanders, a phoenix, a magic wielding Zebra, an Ursa Minor and a world conquering Alicorn. And yet this is where you throw in the towel? Sorry but I gotta call hog wash."

"Those times were different." Trixie countered. "We had no choice but to handle them ourselves and even then we were sometimes lucky just to get out with our lives."

"And yet despite that, when the chips were down you still managed to pull a win out of your hat." Cheerilee said. "With a lot of help from the rest of us of course but it was still a win."

Trixie stared at her two friends.

"Okay, what's going on here?" Trixie asked in dismay. "I'm trying to do the responsible thing as representative and you two are trying to talk me out of it. What happened to avoiding unnecessary conflict and protecting students?"

"It could take hours for the military to get here." The teacher replied. "Meaning that even if we got the town evacuated the Automaton would still be free to cause major damage. And, in case you've forgotten, the school is a big RED building."

"I just want to see that thing destroyed. I don't really care who does it." Raindrops explained with a shrug. "I'm just amazed you'd give up the chance to once again save the day."

Trixie paused, her friends had delivered some very compelling arguments, causing her desire to act like a responsible representative to do battle with her desire to personally help take the Automaton down.Adding to this was the hope filled expression Snails was giving her.

Trixie forced herself to keep an even tone. "Even if we were to try taking it on again, we would need some weakness that we could exploit."

"We aim for the head or the heart." Everypony turned back to Gears, who seemed to have regained his voice. "The word on its forehead is the source the source of its autonomy. The key to the mechanism that gives it its ability to siphon and retain magic is a hoof sized crystal inside the upper body. If we remove that crystal it will run out of power before anypony else gets hurt."

Trixie, somewhat taken aback by Gears actually offering suggestions, was rather tame in her reply. "I like the input but I doubt it will stand still long enough for us to tear its chest open."

"What about when Big Mac tore its limbs off?" Cheerilee suggested. "It just stood there and focused entirely on repairing itself. If we can separate one of its arms again and keep it separated maybe it will buy us enough time. "

"It would also give us access to the weakest point of the upper body." Gears explained. "I built the front and the back separately and then combined them around the internal components so the sides are the least enforced."

"So we rip its arm off, a feat we may not be able to replicate, keep the arm separated whilst we wrench it open from the side and pull out a crystal. All the while probably using magic which we know makes it stronger." Trixie paraphrased. "This is the sort of plan I'd come up with and those who know me know that isn't necessarily a good thing."

"So you're saying no?" Cheerilee asked.

Despite herself Trixie smirked as she straightened her hat. "Like I said, it's the sort of plan I'd come up with. Besides, there's no guarantee we'd get the town evacuated in time. Plus it's not like I have anything better to do today." She turned to Raindrops. "You in?"

Raindrop paused for moment, seemingly weighing up the alternatives, before speaking. "Well, this plan is crazy, borderline suicidal and Trixie's spearheading it. How can it fail?" Cheerilee couldn't tell if the weatherpony was joking or being serious. "Besides, I have a theme song to live up to."

Cheerilee did a double take. "Theme song?"

At that the four rams appeared out of nowhere.

Raindrops!
Raindrops!
Raindrops!
Raindrops!

She flies across the nation
A pegasus of skill
She's here to save the day
Just bet your flank she will

She loves to buck the bad guys
And many fit the bill
A tyrant sun, some diamond dogs
That hydra from the froggy bog

Raindrops!
Raindrops!
Raindrops!
Raindrops!

The Elements of Harmony
Are watching, so beware
The villains will feel pain
Cause she's a Mighty Mare

So if you're planning evil
It's your last mistake we swear

She's fit to win
She doesn't stop
She is our hero
She's Raindrops!

Cheerilee stared at the rams and then back at Raindrops who merely shrugged. "Mom thought my confidence needed a boost so she got me a coupon."

Trixie looked genuinely shocked. She turned to the rams.

“You didn't tell me you took coupons.”

“You didn’t ask.” Woolliam replied.

Author's Note:

Catharsius Hibernis - More commonly known as the Snow Beetle, is a strange beetle only found during the winter months in Equestria recognised by its' blue and white colouring and habit of using it hind legs to form and roll snow balls. Though there is speculation over this behaviour, scientist have yet to find a definitive answer. Capable of pushing roughly 1000 times its own weight, it is considered a symbol of strength even in the harshness of winter.

Believed by some to be good luck to have snow beetle cross your path with its' ball, folklore tells of how the first snow ball fight was actually started by foal picking up a snow beetles ball and throwing it at one his friends. About 800 years there were allegedly a group of ponies that believed the moon was pushed across the night sky by a giant snow beetle. Princess Luna has yet to comment on this belief or the fact that the same group also thought she wasn't an Alicorn but in fact the body parts of two ponies stitched together and brought to life by said snow beetle.

---

I have to say that this chapter was surprisingly hard to get to a level that I was satisfied with. I'd like to say thanks again to my two greats editors Lemielan and Wolfstorm56, for all their help.