//------------------------------// // 2/4: Just Another Autumn Night (Luna Eclipsed) // Story: Friendship is Deceptive // by Kris Overstreet //------------------------------// The pegasus, whose armor was just as shiny as Megatron’s guard armor and whose fur coat was pure white instead of Megatron’s metallic gray, extended a scroll from the tip of one wing. “Special message from Princess Luna, sir!” Megatron took the scroll in his magic, unrolling it and reading it through very quickly. “I see,” he said slowly. “Private-“ “Corporal, sir.” Megatron stifled a grumble about the arbitrary nature of rank in formal militaries and how it only became more annoying in militaries where nobody actually wore rank insignia. “Corporal,” he amended himself, “what are you orders regarding a response?” “I am to await your prompt reply, sir,” the royal guardspony answered, saluting smartly as he did so. Megatron didn’t return the salute. “Return here in one hour,” he said. “I shall have my response prepared by then. Until then you are dismissed.” Duty faded from the visiting guard pony’s face, replaced with hope, or possibly hunger. “Really, sir?” he asked. “Because I’m supposed to wait on your reply, but I hear there’s this really good bakery that has these cupcakes that-“ “Perhaps I did not make myself clear,” Megatron said, pouring all the implicit threat into his voice that he could. His horn lit again, and the door to the barracks opened. “I said ‘dismissed.’ That means get out now. Or else.” “Yessir!” Another snappy salute flashed past just barely long enough for Megatron to say he’d seen it, and then a pegasus-shaped cloud of dust hovered briefly in the air before him. The barracks doors boomed shut. With the interloper gone, presumably to stuff his face for an hour, Megatron looked at the letter again, reading it more carefully. It read: To Lord Megatron, commander of the Decepticons, Captain in the Equestrian EUP Royal Guard, and sheriff of Ponyville and its environs, many greetings and felicitations. Whereas We, having regained a measure of Our proper stature and puissant Majesty, have considered the proper Moment in which We shall be reintroduced to Our most loyal and diligent Subjects’ and Whereas, this very day, We have learned for the first time of a Festival most horrid, a mummer’s Play in which We, in our erstwhile Guise of Nightmare Moon, are made the Terror and Bane of the youth of the countryside; and Whereas We have found it proper that Our first public Appearance, with the Aid and Support of Our loyal subject Twilight Sparkle, shall be in Ponyville for this Event, known as Nightmare Night, which is in two days’ time; Therefore, We request and require that you select two of your pegasus Guards, that We may be properly escorted to and from this Appearance in a manner befitting the Honor and Dignity of Equestria; and Further, We charge you to send the names of the Guards selected back with the Courier We have dispatched, so that formal Orders may be issued for their period of Reassignment. The scroll trailed off in a long list of titles and honorifics, but the only one Megatron cared about came first in the list: “Luna.” Megatron suppressed a desire to crumple up the parchment and throw it in the guardroom fireplace. He’d never had any use for formal documents or rituals of any kind. They were things the weak did to reassure themselves they were important. Still, he had to endure the folderol for now, until he either left this insane world or found some solid foundation to build a new empire here- and neither looked ready to happen any time soon. Which meant, unfortunately, obeying this order. “Starscream!” he shouted. “Starscream, where are you??” “He ain’t here, Megatron.” Frenzy looked up from whatever he and Rumble had been doing in the corner. (They’d been quiet and, for a rarity, busy, so Megatron had ignored them until this moment.) “He’s at the library again. Research. Somethin’ about an ‘inter-library exchange,’ I think.” Most people would realize that they couldn’t be angry at someone for faithfully obeying the orders they’d been given. Megatron was not most people. “Curse that unreliable oaf!” he snapped. “Go and… no,” he rumbled, subsiding as he considered how little he wanted to put Starscream in Luna’s vicinity without him. “Go find Thundercracker and Skywarp,” he said. “I have orders for them.” “Yessir,” Frenzy said, standing up from what looked like a pile of boxes. Rumble, paying no mind, was trying to work a pair of scissors with both forehooves. “I just don’t get how they do it!” he muttered to himself. “Cheerilee can do it. Diamond Tiara can do it. Even Snips can do it, and Snips has the processing power of a-“ “And what are you two actually doing?” Megatron asked pointedly. “Besides not rushing out to obey my orders?” Rumble let the scissors fall. “Oh, sorry, Megatron!” he said in a rush of words. “I didn’t know you meant me along with Frenzy! Otherwise I’d have-“ “I asked. A. Question.” Megatron conserved his patience for those people he couldn’t summarily punish. He had none to spare for underlings. “What are you doing?” “It’s costumes,” Rumble said. “Sorta like alt-modes, except you can’t transform into one. You put it on and then take it off.” “I am aware of what a disguise is,” Megatron said dryly. “These ain’t disguises,” Frenzy said. “Not exactly,” Rumble added. “And yeah, it was really confusin’ when we had it explained to us. A costume is sorta like a disguise, but it’s not meant to fool anybody.” “Which seemed dumb to us,” Frenzy said, “until they explained the part about the candy.” “The candy,” Megatron echoed. “What candy would this be?” “Well, there’s this thing called Nightmare Night these ponies have,” Rumble said. “Night after tomorrow night. The little ponies put on the costumes, go around to doors, and get free candy from the big ponies inside.” “I see,” Megatron said. “There’s also games and pranks and stuff,” Frenzy said, “but the kids at school didn’t explain it all that well. And besides, the candy’s the important part, right?” Megatron took a deep breath. As disgusting as the need for air was, it did help with calming down when necessary. “So all the adult ponies give out candy?” he asked. “I presume that means we will have to do so as well?” “Dunno. Probably,” Frenzy shrugged. “I see.” Of course Megatron had no intention of being pestered by greedy juvenile ponies all night. Let Starscream deal with… wait, no, he thought, Starscream would do something stupid like try to deny the ponies their candy. He’d enjoy his moment of petty tyranny and realize all too late that little ponies have big, protective ponies who will seek retribution. And once they were done with the idiot, they would likely begin pestering Megatron. No, let Soundwave do it. He puts up with these two all the time, and he’s the most patient Decepticon I command. I’ll just have to think of some busywork to keep Starscream out of mischief. Not for the first time. “While you’re out finding Skywarp and Thundercracker, send Soundwave to me too,” he said. “Save Soundwave for last. Explain to him all this Nightmare Night nonsense before you send him.” The two ex-cassettes gave sloppy salutes, then bolted, leaving behind their small pile of cardboard boxes. Megatron gave it a quick glance, noticing that one of the smaller boxes had drawn on one side a fairly crude but recognizable image of Rumble’s face. Specifically, his robotic face, from before they’d come here. (It couldn’t be Frenzy’s. It was too calm, and anyway the mouth had been drawn in the closed position.) The rest of the boxes had been, crudely and sloppily, decorated with crayons to vaguely resemble how Rumble and Frenzy had looked, if they had been quadrupeds. He contemplated the project a moment longer, then turned his back on it. This Nightmare Night nonsense had potential for the future, but not on two days’ notice with his very limited resources. For now, he had a reply letter to write and orders to give. Hopefully they would distract him from wondering why his Decepticons found pony insanity so contagious… “Wow! ‘Cracker, Skywarp, you look wicked!” One of the two otherwise identical-looking bat-ponies flinched. “We look like slaggin’ Ratbat,” he said in Skywarp’s voice. “Only darker.” “It’s only temporary,” Thundercracker, the other bat-pony, said. “Celestia uses some sort of magic thing to make her personal guard look all alike during major ceremonies. Luna wanted the same thing. So here we are.” “At least we don’t look as dumb as you two shrimps,” Skywarp sneered. Rumble and Frenzy both glared at him through the ragged, uneven cut-out eye holes in their cardboard-box masks. “Laugh it up, moron,” Frenzy sneered back. “Your costume might look better, but our costumes are gettin’ us all the candy.” “Yeah,” Rumble said, waving a large, mostly-full sack of sweets at the guard. “And what are you gettin’? Sore wings and a thank-you from a pony princess!” Skywarp’s sneer became a scowl. “Watch your back, twerp,” he grumbled. “Missions come and missions go, but I’ll still be there. Think about that while you get a stomachache.” “Eh, leave the walking kernel malfunction, already,” Frenzy said. “We gotta get moving for the second part of-“ Rumble’s hoof stuffed itself into Frenzy’s mouth. “Put it on mute, why don’t you?” he snapped. “What he don’t know, he can’t mess up!” “I’m standin’ right here, shorty,” Skywarp pointed out. “Yeah,” Rumble said. “Which is why we’re gonna stand someplace else.” “Yeah!” Frenzy agreed, as usual far too loudly. “Someplace really else!” Wearing a box on your head, two more boxes on your body, and one box for each of your limbs made quick movement difficult. In fact, before they’d punched their hooves all the way through the bottoms of their boxes, it hadn’t even been possible. But they had, and now Rumble and Frenzy legged it as fast as cardboard scraping on cardboard would allow for the woods near town… … and the plaster statue of Nightmare Moon, where the foals and fillies of Ponyville would leave their tithe of candy so as not to be gobbled. All of that had seemed absolutely stupid to Rumble and Frenzy- stupid even for fleshlings. But it had given them the idea- for which they had done an unusual amount of research, and for which they had slapped together two very unconvincing robot costumes… … and one other, if they did say so themselves, extremely convincing one. “Quiet,” Rumble whispered. Frenzy, when he really wanted to, could keep his mouth shut. And, since he knew exactly what his voice did, he didn’t argue with Rumble at this moment, when stealth- or as much stealth as two ponies clad in boxes crawling through bushes can achieve- was of the highest priority. The rig had been pre-staged earlier, before they’d gone on their candy-begging rounds. It hadn’t actually been made ready, since it would have been immediately spotted in the daytime. The two of them had designed it carefully to be raised, in the dark, with only hooves and teeth, and ready to launch in about three minutes. This they did. There had already been a small pile of candy at the foot of the statue when the two of them arrived, but that wasn’t what they had in mind. They were after the big score, and it came along a couple of minutes later, when a half-dozen little ponies, including Pina Colada and Truffle Shuffle from their class, trotted up with their night’s haul to give a portion to the mascot of the festival. There were two things to pull: a thin string and a thicker rope. The thin string pulled the cover off a lantern. The rope pulled the thing the lantern was attached to. Both of them were in Rumble’s teeth as he watched the other pony kids set down their bags and begin digging out Nightmare Moon’s share. “Three, two, one,” he hissed through his teeth, and then he yanked both cords at once. Frenzy let out a high-pitched, maniacal laugh. (He’d had millions of years being around other Decepticons to get an idea of what really crazy laughs sounded like.) Then, down the guy-line on a pulley, a large, carefully crafted paper cutout of Nightmare Moon, with about three times as many teeth as the original, swooped towards the little ponies below, backlit by a lantern so that it appeared to glow. The little ponies, naturally, freaked. Screaming as with one voice, they turned and ran, leaving all their sacks of candy behind. “Hahaha! Didja see that?” Frenzy giggled. “Yeah, I saw it,” Rumble said, jumping out of the bushes. “Now get the loot while I set the rig up for another go! I bet we can keep this up all night!” “Brother, we’re gonna be candy-rich,” Frenzy said, still giggling. “We might even corner the market on sugar in this town with four or five-“ A darker shadow loomed out of nowhere over the two of them. Yellow eyes glowed out of the night. “And what do you two think you’re doing?” a raspy voice asked. “Nice try, Skywarp,” Frenzy said, picking up a bag in his teeth. “But that doesn’t sound anything like Megatron.” “That ain’t me, geek.” A different pair of yellow eyes, these with vertical-slit pupils, appeared on the opposite side of the clearing. “He was already here when I got here.” The shadowy figure stepped out into the light. Megatron, somehow, had been parted from his reshaped guard helmet. Instead he wore a tall cowboy hat with a wide brim. A silver star shone from the vest he wore in place of his armor, with the Decepticon logo engraved in the center. “The mayor warned me someone would attempt something like this,” he said. “Apparently it happens every year. I had expected it to be Laserbeak, though.” “Nah,” Skywarp said, stepping a little closer to the light. “Some kinda candy makes Laserchicken real sick. Remember he spent three days in the hospital? So he’s more careful what he steals these days.” “So we score some candy off stupid ponies,” Frenzy asked defensively. “Laserbeak steals stuff all the time. Why not us?” Megatron didn’t answer. “Skywarp,” he said, “go bring those juveniles back here. I will explain to them the nature of this little… harmless… prank.” He glared down, unsmiling, on the two cardboard-clad Decepticons. “And to make it up to them, these two will give them their own candy. No hard feelings.” “What??” Rumble had flinched when Frenzy had talked back to Megatron, but now he couldn’t help himself. “That’s our candy! We got it fair and square!” Now Megatron did smile. It was a nasty smile, made all the nastier by the moonlight and the lights from town. “… oh, yeah,” Rumble sighed. “I forgot who I was talking to.” “And don’t either of you forget it again,” Megatron warned. “Now get that thing down from there before I become… upset.” About an hour later, back at the barracks, as Rumble and Frenzy contemplated the meager amount of candy remaining in Soundwave’s bowl, the door slammed open to admit Megatron. “I thought I told you to dismantle that ridiculous contraption!” he shouted. “We did!” Rumble snapped. “It’s right over there!” He pointed to the wall, where the Nightmare Moon cutout, minus lantern, had been hung like a trophy from the wall. “Well, SOMEBODY had it back at that statue five minutes ago!” Megatron roared. “And I demand an explanation!” Soundwave, who had been sitting next to the door reading a magazine, looked up. “rumble and frenzy; accounted for: past thirty-seven minutes,” he said. “involvement with incident: impossible.” Megatron looked from one Decepticon to another to another. Rumble and Frenzy shrugged back, and Soundwave, unruffled, returned to his reading. With a snort, Megatron turned to leave. His horn lit up, and the bowl with the remains of the evening’s candy floated up and began to follow him. “OH, COME ON!” Rumble shouted. Megatron froze, slowly turning to look back at him. “You have something to say?” he snapped. Instincts hard-wired into every Decepticon kicked in, and Rumble stepped backwards and mumbled, “No, Megatron.” Megatron turned again, this time growling, and departed. Later Megatron would get the real story from Princess Luna, and then in more detail from Twilight Sparkle. Of course he never apologized afterwards. Rumble and Frenzy knew better than to expect that. But when large bags of candy appeared in their rooms above Soundwave’s electronic shop two days later, the two cassette warriors assumed it was Megatron’s way of making amends without losing face. Soundwave never saw any reason to disabuse them.