The dance was over all too soon. I quite enjoyed my time on my feet with Pinkie. And now, we were sitting together, sharing a laugh, and catching our breath.
“That was super fun, Acey!” She said. “I really liked the part where you tossed me in the air!”
I laughed. “Did I do that? I don’t remember, I was just enjoying the moment.”
A confused smile looked at me. “What do you mean, you don’t remember?”
“The whole time I was just thinking about how wonderful it is to be here.” I explained.
She managed to glomp me, but I remained seated. “Aww! That must mean you really ARE happy, now!”
I wrapped my arm around her, laughing. “You mean you were trying to cheer me up this entire time?”
She nodded. “I had to be sure you wouldn’t start moping again after. I knew you’d want a friend, and I wanted to be the bestest friend that I possibly could. So I asked you if you wanted to dance! You’re a great dancer, by the way!”
I gave a small laugh. “Well, thanks.” I then looked skyward as she hugged me again, and whistled up at my BIRD.
“I’m glad you like coming to my parties.” She told me, as I extended my fingers out, so that my BIRD could land.
“They’re wonderful. I wouldn’t miss ‘em for the world.” I replied, sliding back a door on the back of my BIRD, and revealing a USB slot. Pinkie began paying attention to what I was doing, looking at my bot strangely. “How ya doin’, Paul?” I asked, recognizing the specific BIRD I sent out. I rolled up my sleeve, revealing a PDA attached to my arm, and plugged cable in the USB slot on Paul’s back.
“Oooh, is that one of these BIRDs you keep talking about?” She asked, her voice chipper.
I looked over, surprised. “Yes, it is. It’s amazing; you’re the first one to get the pronunciation right.”
Pinkie rolled her eyes. “Well, duh! It’s not like its spelled ‘Bird’ or ‘bird.’ It’s spelled ‘BIRD.’ It’s not that hard!”
I nodded. “I know, right? Somehow, people always seem to get it wrong!”
I hugged her, and she looked over to my BIRD. “So, this one’s name is Paul, right? Like Pauly? Does he want a cracker?”
“I’m pretty sure he would if he had a digestive system.” I said, tapping a few keys on my PDA. “Alright, Paul. Let’s see what you’ve got for me.” I forgot to mention this earlier, but whenever my BIRDs have a flashing red light, it means they’ve identified danger. Most of the time, these ‘dangers’ are nothing more than bugs landing on the lenses, and the BIRDs mislabeling the ‘danger’ as an unusually large creature. If they had a higher thought process, their precise reaction would be “OH GOD A GIANT BUG!” If not a giant bug, then it’s usually some other tomfoolery trick of the lens. It’s why I didn’t bother to check it earlier.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t a giant bug, and I ended up kicking myself for not checking Paul’s data earlier.
Pinkie and I, sharing a pair of earphones, listened and watched a video that Paul had recorded. In it, there was a strange creature with iron armor and a spear. The spear was one piece construction, likely forged, and also made of iron. The creature itself looked like a cross between a mole and a dog. Judging by the scenery, and the music that was playing in the background, this creature was here, at the party. And judging by its need to stay out of sight, it was likely spying on the party. If it was spying on the party, I thought, then it’s either not welcome here, or it has something nefarious planned. But I had to be sure.
“Pinks…” I said. “What is this creature?”
She looked very confused, and not happy at all. “It’s a Diamond Dog. They usually stick to rocky areas and plateaus.”
“Are Diamond Dogs welcome here?” I asked.
“Generally, anyone who’s friendly, pony or not, is welcome in Ponyville. A Diamond Dog would be welcome as long as he wasn’t here to cause trouble.” She reasoned.
“What kind of trouble?”
“Around a year ago, a buncha Diamond Dogs ponynapped Rarity. They wanted to for her to work in their mines, but she ended up rescuing herself.” Pinkie recounted.
“That’s it, then. This guy’s planning on crashing the party.” I deduced, standing up.
Pinkie gasped, then suddenly looked angry. “What?” She huffed. “No one crashes my parties! No! One!”
“Go get Shining Armor, Pinks.” I told her. “He’s a royal guard. He’ll be able to do something about this.”
“Okey dokey…” I heard her say ominously, as she glared at the image on my PDA, before leaving. After she left to get Shining Armor, I minimized the video of the Diamond Dog, and began recalibrating Paul. I have multiple settings for all of my bots, which means they have multiple uses. Tiny could be used for construction, demolition, security, or in the case of this party, entertainment. My BIRDs can be used as recording devices, alarms, and right now, as a tracking beacon or a taser. I set Paul up to track the origin of his recording, and programmed him to turn into a taser as soon as we got there. As I had just wrapped up the programming, Shining Armor, two other Guard ponies, and Twilight showed up, following Pinkie.
“I got here as soon as I made sense of what Pinkie was telling me.” Shining Armor said. “Where’s the Diamond Dog?”
“Right here.” I showed him the video of my PDA.
He looked up at me strangely. “A movie’s nice, but it’s not an actual Diamond Dog.” He told me. “I thought there was an actual emergency.”
“You don’t understand, Chief.” I responded. “This video was recorded about ten minutes ago, through the use of one of my BIRDs.”
“Birds using cameras?” He said skeptically. “Seriously?”
I looked over at Twilight, who knew what I was talking about. “Not that kind of bird, bro!” She said. “He means the flying recording devices that he uses to survey an area! Geo was telling me about them!”
“Oh.” Shining Armor nodded. “Well, why didn’t you say what they were?” He asked me.
“I did!” I replied. “They’re called BIR-Y’know what, forget it. This is more important!”
“Yeah!” Pinkie spoke. “That Diamond Dog’s gonna crash the party!”
“I can take you to where this footage was shot. The Diamond Dog will be in that area.”
Shining Armor nodded. “Lead the way.”
I held Paul up in the air, and he began beeping, and flashing a blue light. The beep was slow and steady, but as I tracked the location of the Diamond Dog, the beeping started getting faster. I went toward the location that the beeping was getting more rapid in, the ponies following me. The tracking beacon led us out in between the trees of the farm, and grew more and more rapid. As it did, I crouched down. “Stay alert.” I whispered, as I continued to follow the beacon. I pressed forward, slowly going where Paul took me until he suddenly engaged his taser mode.
“Holy Moley!” Pinkie exclaimed, as the others turned to me for an explanation as to why we’ve stopped.
The only reason I could think of was the most logical. “We’re here.” I told them. “There was a Diamond Dog in this location not ten minutes ago.”
“Diamond Dogs? On mah farm?” We all turned to see that we had gathered a huge crowd of ponies that started to follow us, curious as to what we were doing. Applejack looked steamed at the thought of Diamond Dogs on her farm, as a hushed murmur went through the crowd.
“Everypony, please!” Shining Armor spoke. “The situation is under control. Please, return to the festivities, and let the Royal Guard do its duty.”
Everypony save for the Apples and Rainbow Dash quickly dismissed back to the party.
Applejack, speaking for Applebloom and Big Mac, looked at Shining Armor. “If those varmints are on the Apple Family’s land, then it’s our duty to protect th’ farm!”
“I never leave my friends hanging!” Rainbow Dash added. “ And if my friends are going, so am I!”
Notice I said everyPONY. Geo and John were here, as well. Geo wanted to protect Twilight, and John had a stake in the farm.
“We don’t have time to convince you guys otherwise.” Shining Armor sighed. “Alright, let’s look around, and try to find the Diamond Dog.
The whole time, Twilight was giving me the evil eye. I looked at her, wondering what her problem was, and she spoke. “You wanna tell me why you suddenly have a gun, Doctor?”
I looked at Paul. “This is my BIRD.” I responded.
“Then do you wanna tell me why he’s suddenly a gun?” She said, still giving me an accusing look.
“He’s not a gun, he’s a taser.” I explained. “He may look and operate like a gun, but he’s completely nonlethal.”
“And why do you have a robot that can turn into a taser, anyway?” She asked.
“Because-“ I began. However, I saw an oddly shaped limb standing right behind Geo. “Geo, get down!” I shouted, causing Geo to hit the deck, as I took aim, and fired. A bolt of lightning lanced out from Paul, and collided with the steel helmet of a Diamond Dog. The Diamond Dog howled out in pain, as seizures took hold of his body, causing him to drop his spear, and collapse. It was over in seconds, and the Diamond Dog wobbly raised his head, to find the Royal Guards standing over him.
“That’s why, Twilight.”