From tearing down a colossal mech one week, to being stranded in a land of technicolor horses the next…
Torbjorn, as reputable of an engineer he was, could not deny that his life spared no expense on excitement and eccentricity. His days in Overwatch had set, in stone, the peculiarity with which his life worked, yet now, his current situation—their current situation—spoke volumes, placing the final nail in the coffin.
It only figured that Torbjorn’s life would take such a metaphysical turn, once he had become reacquainted with Jack Morrison—at least, what remained of the old soldier. The grizzled veteran was a lodestone of the extraordinary. Deep within, Torbjorn Lindholm regretted taking Morrison’s offered hand that fateful day in Boklovo—he thought it better that such distant memories as ‘Overwatch’ remained as such.
“Ooh, what’s this? What’s that? Scoots, take a look at this biggun!”
Now, however, he had to make do with their situation. Such bizarre circumstances all but demanded pragmatic solutions, and Torbjorn had been tasked with repairing the vessels upon which the Remnants had arrived.
The Remnants. A fitting name, for the rag-tag group of sentimentalists and wishful idealists many of them had become.
“That’s fragile! Put that thing down!”
Yet, as it was, the MV-261 Orcas the Remnants had flown on were damaged, some beyond repair. For the past day, Torbjorn had been doing his best to fix the airships, scavenging parts and pieces of the less salvageable ones to patch holes in the others. After all, two working aircraft were much better than none.
Well, in all honesty, the brilliant engineer, recently renown for toppling a “destroyer of worlds,” would have been finished…
If it hadn’t been for a trio of bubbly little girls and a courier who hadn’t yet arrived. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. Three little horrors for the Swedish man.
In truth, they weren’t actually little girls, but Torbjorn did not remember the term for a literal female horse child, nor did he care. His hand—and prosthetic claw—were full with them, and he’d be damned if they weren’t delaying him by a considerable amount of time.
“What’s this?” one of the she-devils asked, bouncing around from part to part like a sugar-crazed child. Torbjorn wouldn’t have been surprised if that were actually the case, yet his eyes widened when the horn upon the little foal’s head began to glow with an ethereal light.
“Don’t touch that!” he shouted, running over. He grabbed an object out of Sweetie Belle’s magical grasp, a sense of urgency about him. “Please, children, let me work in peace.”
The little white foal was joined by her companions, their expressions those of disappointment, yet also undeterred. They had taken rather quickly to the dwarfish engineer, finding his creations—and stature—entertaining, yet Torbjorn wished it hadn’t been.
After all, the entirety of the town of ponies had taken to the Remnants well. It had been a few days ago, when Reinhardt had led the retinue of “heroes,” old and young, to the town he had found. It had truly been an odd sight, finding the cool and relaxed Jesse McCree mingling with the farmponies he had been entrusted to, but the town was peaceful, quaint—the perfect place to rest, and gather their bearings in this new world they had found themselves in.
While Jack Morrison and Ana Amari, the de facto “leaders” of the little entourage, had moved onto a city called ‘Canterlot,’ the rest of their supposed recruits remained in Ponyville. Rest and relaxation, of a most peculiar sort, but Torbjorn preferred not to unwind, lest his creative muse wisp away.
Returning his attention to the object, Torbjorn looked over the small sphere that had taken Sweetie Belle’s interest. He realized that it was not a dangerous, nor central, part of the repairs. It was one of Winston’s creations—a small, personal shield. Winston had managed to fix the little “issue” plaguing the devices, and had created a number of smaller prototypes, passed around to the Remnants.
Torbjorn looked up, gazing over the three little foals’ voracious expressions. He knew that, in all honesty, it was best that they not interfere but… what was the harm, really? The shields were harmless, durable—what was the worst that could happen?
“You know what?” the Swede began, rolling his eyes. “Take it, if you want. Just don’t break it, and give it back once you’re done.” He tossed the sphere towards the ponies, eager to get back to work. Hopefully, it would distract them for a time, and he wouldn’t have to spend any more precious minutes catering to the children.
The ponies’ eyes lit up, and Scootaloo caught the shield generator. “What is it? What does it do?” she asked, inspecting the ball. “Seems really fancy.”
Torbjorn turned away, returning to the Orca he had been attending to. “It’s a shield generator, lass.” He began to hammer away at the airship’s hull. “Protects you and your loved ones.”
Apple Bloom took the sphere from her friend, looking close at it. “Shields? Like, one of ‘em metal ones, or the bubbly things that Twilight’s brother can make?”
Torbjorn wasn’t sure who ‘Twilight’ and her brother were, but he figured that, given what magic he had been shown so far in ‘Equestria,’ a bubble sounded about right. “I think you’d be right in that assumption. Big bubble, doesn’t let the bad things through.”
The girls were quiet for several moments, and Torbjorn relished the relative peace that he had sought after as he worked. The Orca he had been repairing had retained some amount of hull damage, and he had decided to focus on one particular breach first. It was nearly done, yet still required more work to be stable.
He just hoped that the courier would arrive soon. He needed more parts from the other Orcas, and the sooner he finished, the better.
“So why are you so short?” Sweetie Belle’s innocent little voice registered from behind him, and Torbjorn groaned, turning around. “All the other humans were much taller than you.”
Before he could answer, Apple Bloom prodded her friend. “Sweetie Belle! Don’t be so mean,” she admonished Sweetie Belle, shaking her head. “Maybe he’s like Snips! And we know how much Miss Cheerilee tells us not to ask him about that.”
Torbjorn chuckled, although he was rather annoyed within. “It’s alright, lass,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I don’t mind. I have dwarfism—makes me shorter.”
“Dwarfism?” Sweetie tilted her head, her ears pricking forwards. “Isn’t that what Snips has? So he is like Snips!”
The foals began to speak amongst themselves, debating the intrinsic nature of human dwarfism as opposed to that of ponies, but Torbjorn ignored them, rubbing a calloused hand across his face. He returned to his work, but not a moment passed before another question reached his ears.
“So, Mister Torbjorn, why do you have an accent, then?” It was Scootaloo this time, an eager smile stretching across her lips. “I’ve never heard a pony speak like that before.”
Torbjorn resisted the urge to groan, or even shout, in frustration, hiding his annoyance and pretending not to hear the pony’s words. He continued to hammer away at the metal plates of the Orca, nail by old nail. Behind him, the girls continued to argue and debate, their words carrying them farther and farther from the engineer’s workplace.
It had been about a half hour later when the hull had been, for the most part, shored up. It was still not secured, the metal plating unstable and unsound. A simple kick of a football, perhaps by the old Swedish legend Ibrahimovic, could have knocked a hole in the side of the airship again, but that step was further down the list of repairs.
The three little ponies had disappeared, gone off to some den Torbjorn knew nothing about, and would frankly prefer to not know of at all. His work had been, quite thankfully, quiet and peaceful since their departure, and his ears were no longer ringing with the sounds of their arguing and ogling.
Yet, Torbjorn was still a tad bit frustrated—he could not begin the next stage of repairs without the parts taken from the other Orcas, and the courier had not yet arrived. He assumed, simply, that radios and such did not exist in Equestria, and so, he would have no estimate on the parts’ arrivals.
Perhaps some rest was in order—Torbjorn had been working for the past few hours, and sweat had begun to bead upon his flesh like snow upon a Swedish road. He stepped back, taking a seat on a particular box of artifacts, and readied his miniature forge, seeking to take a swig of the near-molten mystery liquid.
A far-off shout, however, interrupted him, and Torbjorn looked into the sky. He shielded his eyes with his hand, the sun bright and zealous, but he could make out a small figure far in the clouds, approaching at a rapid velocity. The shouting, screaming really, became louder by the second, the silhouetted figure growing larger and larger, before Torbjorn realized what was happening.
“Incoming!” the voice cried out, her wings flapping uselessly in the air. With a struggled heave, Torbjorn dove out of the way, covering his head and closing his eyes. A moment later, his ears rang with the sound of screeching metal and a heavy impact. He grunted in pain, feeling a light piece of steel bounce off his armored back, yet he did not move.
Seconds passed before Torbjorn felt he was safe, and he opened his eyes. The air was full of a rust-colored dust, slowly settling down into the earth again, and with a pained grunt, Torbjorn rose to his feet. Turning around, he was greeted by a most ghastly sight.
Torbjorn’s jaw fell open, his body slouching as he took in the sight before him. The hull of the Orca had collapsed, a large breach rendered into the metal plating. A small, grey body sat haphazardly in the hole, its blonde head wavering from side to side.
He rushed over to the Orca, looking over the mess. A mare was inside, her coat grey and her mane blonde. A set of saddlebags were wrapped around her back, and near wreckage, a large bag lay ripped apart, its contents spilling out. Torbjorn quickly looked over the pony, concerned for her health.
“Wha… what happened?” the pony slurred out, her golden eyes swirling, rather cartoonishly, in circles. “Is the package delivered?”
Torbjorn let out a sigh of relief, glad that the mare was, for the most part, alright, but frustration welled up inside him. He balled his fist, clenching the claws of his prosthetic forge together. He could not resist the shout within him, the cries of aggravation rising through his lungs.
“I worked hard on that!”