//------------------------------// // Food for thought // Story: IRM: Integrated Robotic Mechanoid // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// The two creatures stared at the metal monstrosity as it easily held the two gigantic boulders above its head. As they began to cower, the being gestured towards them, imitating a possible throwing movement. They quickly scampered away, making strange sounds in the process. As it watched them cower, the metal giant chuckled and threw the immense rocks several feet away towards the beetle creatures. While the two objects rolled around a bit, the IRM looked down to see the tiny "queen" staring at him with wide eyes, but soon return to her haughty self. Said tiny changeling stood back up, adjusting her appearance to look more "regal", in a way. Her tiny black legs had a few holes in them, but not many. This still baffled the machine as it wondered how such a thing was possible. Sure, there were creatures on its planet who possessed similar traits, but those turned out to be auditory receptors. Whatever this strange creature was, it seemed to be a combination of mammal and insect, what with the chitin on its body and the strange , turquoise colored, transparent wings. Her eyes bulged of a color just a few shades lighter than turquoise, and both what could be considered a mane and tail, although it looked more like kelp, slopped downwards until they curved towards the sides. The tail possessed this feature even more than its neckly counter-part. The strangest feature was her crooked horn seemingly growing out of her forehead like an unwanted protuberance With her high-pitched voice, the...thing...spoke: "Thank you for freeing me from those beasts, although, being the queen of changelings, I could have easily fended them off." the queen put a hoof to her chest in pride and looked upwards in an elegant manner, but seemed irritated when the giant metal creature did not react."Hey! You are being addressed by a queen! You should feel glad enough that I'm actually addressing you in pony! WHY WON'T YO--" The queen smashed herself to the ground as her eyes widened in pure shock. What scared her so much? The fact that the metal being slammed its open hand over her and literally managed to plow its fingers into the ground. This was all a ploy to gently pick up the tiny queen and flip her over in a position that revealed her "tummy". "H-hey! I'll have your head for this! I'll kill you for this. I'm powerful. You'll regret it!" her voice began to reach an even higher pitch as the queen began to threaten the being in desperation. She was only brought up to its face to be looked at more closely by the creature. "...You are on the verge of death." it spoke with a more natural voice. "No I'm not! I am doing quite fine. Now unless you want me to feast upon you I suggest you release me at once." "Haha! I'm not holding you hostage, and you ARE dying. Your internal nutrition reserves are dwindling immensely fast. How can you not feel this? Every creature suffers during the final stages of autophagy. How can you resist such a thing?" "I...Because I'm a changeling. We are used to such hardships." The metal biped threw its head back in confusion and its eyes seemed to "blink" as it looked around, stuttering, trying to make sense of what it heard. Suddenly, its dark eyes flashed green, then pink, then orange, then purple, then back to their normal color. "Hm. It seems your species has grown an evolutionary resistance to hunger. A great adaptation, but a fatal one as well. I'm also interested in your species. I never saw things like you before." "WHAT?!" Cocoon screamed at the top of her lungs. Suddenly, she began to spin her eyes and tilt in the metal biped's hand. "I don't feel so good." she said with a tone of sickness. "I know. Let's see...nourishment inconclusive?! Find a bypass! Something as a replacement for her main diet. Mhmm...Mhmm...Sugar?" "We don't...eat sugar. We eat l...l-l-l...looo--" "Shush now." the mechanoid put its finger on Cocoon's mouth and looked at her with its best face of concern...despite it not having a face."There is a...small village north-north-east of here. Hmmm. Seems to be fairly large for a village. I've got seventy-three minutes before she's gone..." the IRM looked down at the tiny changeling starting to suffer from her side effects and twisted its feet into the ground."Guess I have to go by times one jet." its feet somehow 'exploded', and it took off towards the village its scanners detected. As it skid across the somewhat flat plains under an increasingly dark sky with some menacing clouds indicating Gaia's future rage, the mechanoid thought to itself: "It's a good thing I'm adaptive. I really want to see what these changelings are like, but I'll have to see their society first to come to a social and general pattern of thought. If this 'queen' was unprotected, I wonder if there are any other sentient creatures here?" Off in the distance, several guards pulling wagons filled with researchers and equipment began to roll towards the crater in hopes that the scientists could determine whatever the Abyss that creature was and how it killed the tumbledogs. Walking straight in front of the caravan were some strange ponies covered in dark purple robes with their heads covered by hoods casting a shadow upon their unsmiling mouths. On said cloths were several images of the moon and the various appearances it could take in the sky. Two, in particular, stood up front. These mages gave off a very chilling filling to those around them. In fact, the majority of the free guards stayed away from them as best they could. The two standing in the front held night blue canes with a half moon for the tip, showing that each mage still needs each other to complete anything and everything. Their powers were known throughout Equestria, and it showed, as any creature crossing these two would scamper away in pure fear, no matter how big they were. With great joy did the guards let go of their cargo and slump onto the dusty ground, faces of relief washing over each and every one of them. The scientists exited their transports and began to unpack everything. Many who grabbed their tools directly out of the strapped luggage revealed their true professions. Most were chemists, while a few more were archeologists, and lastly, there were the few Moon Mages who appeared to be Magilosiphers. If there was any magic involved, they would detect it. Not only were they rare, but these particular mages seemed to have weird tubes coming from their bodies, and many pieces of them seemed artificial, such as the enormous bulging eye of one, and the extra forelegs of another. As everypony sat down to do their appointed tasks, the two mages holding staffs stood in front of the soon-to-be camp, ever still and ever silent, slowly rotating their heads around to intervene in-case some creature foolish enough to come would get close to the site. Watching them from afar, a young trainee looked at them with utter curiosity. His custard coat with his brushed vanilla mane seemed rather unusual for a guardspony. "What are you looking at?" a more seasoned guard asked. "Them." he pointed. "The elite mages? Don't talk to them. They're very strange. I've heard rumors." "You're around your forties and you fear rumors?" the custard stallion lowered his head and crocked an eyebrow as a smile formed along his face. "I...uh...FINE! Your problem, kid." "Oh no. I'm going to talk to them. I'm doooooomed." "Ha. Ha." The stallion giddily bounced towards said targets, both whom payed no attention to him when he arrived. "Hi. I'm Custard Swaily. I'm new in the royal guards. I thought it would be a good idea if we became more acquainted, seeing as we're both on the same team and all." "Hm. Nopony ever comes to talk to us." a rawky voiced mare spoke. "So so. They thing of us as 'monsters' because of the sacrifices we duh to our bodies for bettering the lives of everyponeh else." a rather deep and rawky voiced stallion added. "Well then. We should introduce ourselves for this special occasion." Both turned around and removed their hoods, revealing some rather shocking facial displays. The first was a lavender colored unicorn with a bluish mane possessing two streaks of pink and purple going down vertically across her mane. Although it seemed well kempt, there was a long diagonal line going through her mane and across her face. It looked like a terrible wound that was poorly stitched up seeing the way the skin had "collapsed" along the fault line of the wound. Her left eye was normal enough, what with the simple purple iris, but the other's pupil had grown enormously, consuming its own iris. While some would think that this could grant some form of "super vision", the mare was blind in this eye. The second had a yellowish coat mixed with some bright turquoise to give a weird tone reminiscent of medication. The skin covering his mouth was gone, making it seem as though he was constantly baring his teeth. Luckily for him, he still had a portion of skin over the right side of his mouth, but it was insignificant. It was still easy to see through his cloak that he had some weird tubes coming out of his legs. Whatever purpose they served would remain unknown to anypony outside of the Moon Mages. His vibrant thunder-orange eyes sent shivers down Custard's spine, but he cloaked them with a wide smile. "I am Twilight Sparkle, and this is my colleague, Sharpshire Willow." spoke the lavender pony. "Pleased to meet you. I know this is sudden and, perhaps, completely uncalled for, but...what happened to your bodies? I apologize in advance if I have offended you." "Not at all! We--" Twilight was pushed back by Sharpshire as he put a foreleg in front of her. "Weh have ways of ding things. It's our weh of work. We cannot tlk about it to you, I'm afraid. Thr is only one way to learn about the resons, but theh are painful." "Okay then. I won't bother you on that subject anymore." Custard sneaked a question to Twilight Sparkle by gesturing her to get closer to him and asked: "Why does he talk like that?" "That is a side-effect from what we do. Don't worry. It hasn't made us crazy...yet." Twilight gave a nervous chuckle. "Aha. Um. Why HAVE you come here? I mean, the guards are here. It's not like this thing could actually harm us with so many." "That's where you're mistaken. It probably came from space, meaning that it's an alien. This can also indicate that it utilizes a great technology if it can resist both an entry into our atmosphere AND a collision with the surface." "So...couldn't it also have some sort of resistant exoskeleton?" "Dat culd be possible." Sharpshire pointed out as he began to push the sand from the crater around. "Even so, it's highly unlikely that such an evolved creature could have survived in the vacuum of space. As we all know, there is practically no heat, depending on where you are, there's no oxygen, and no atmosphere to place pressure on your atoms. Therefore, you'll practically die within moments of exposing yourself to that cold void." "Then why are you so interested in something that sounds so evil?" "Because we--" Everypony stopped their actions when they heard some type of loud explosion, followed by a weird creature jetting out of the nearby forest and jumping seemingly several hundreds of meters with only one jump, and crossing impossible lengths with said jumps too. It was heading towards a city located further away atop a hill. The ponies began to mumble about what that thing was. Twilight and Sharpshire smirked. "We found our target. Custard, tell yor companiuns that Twilight and I 're going on a little tripe." "Yes sir." The mechanoid was cradling the tiny changeling in his arms, listening to her mumblings about threats and whatnot. She was shaking way too much, and based on the scannings of her anatomy and current stamina, her remaining strength was going away faster than hoped for, and this was detrimental to the biped's morale. "Grovash. I'm an IRM. I should be able to reach that village fast enough. I may not know this thing, but my top priority is saving innocent creatures and beings. She is no exception. Just a few more, and I'll be in range of that city. Hopefully, I'll be able to stop in time to observe their culture. I wonder how changelings live." With that thought of curiosity deep in mind, the biped hopped several times on the steepening hill, only to clamp its right hand into the wall of a house and swing himself upon the roof, making sure not to stress the changeling. It carefully crawled on the rooftop of red tiles and "gasped" at what it saw. The creatures were not changelings, but colorful equidae. "What? I thought...It seems that this planet has a multi-sentient stage of existence, and with minor differences to each too. Let's see. There's a...hmm...pony? Yes. Pony. There's a pony with colorful fur, then there's one up there with wings. Reminds me of the mythological Kukos. Then there are those with horns. Huh? What purpose could those serve?" One of the horned ponies began to levitate an object from a merchant's stall towards itself, both its horn and the object in question wrapped around in a colorful aura. It seemed to have a rather smooth muzzle and, if the IRM remembered anything about female anatomy, and judging by the non-equine appearance in facial structure, this was a female, especially with the high tone of voice it had. As the mechanoid continued to observe the surroundings and this strange civilization, Cocooon coughed a bit, a strange green substance starting to leak from her mouth. "Her stomach fluids. I forgot about her. Hmmm. Let's see. Scanners, identify sweetened substances in the local vicinity. Preferably with as much sugar as possible." Its eyes each became yellow with strange graphical interfaces imprinted upon them. As he looked around, all three locked onto a shop not too far from his current location. The house he was on seemed to have actually belonged to a row of quaint cottages on the exterior district of the city. It also seemed like a merchant street, judging by all the stands and carpets covered with various objects and foods. However, the shop the mechanoid's eyes locked onto was swarming with customers. If it didn't hurry up, there'd be nothing left. It had no choice. It'd need to get directly in the spotlight...or did it? Many bundles of hay, crates, carts, and other big objects were just enough for it to hide in plain sight. "Here goes nothing. Now stay here in this bush. You should be safe here. ROOF SLIDE!" Despite a few turned heads, the IRM fell into a cart full of hay, and waited there for a bit, watching the surroundings carefully. It then jumped out and rolled behind a few crates, then back flipped onto another roof in order to crawl quickly to the targeted location. Finally above it, the mechanoid wiped its forehead, forgetting it was a being of metal. Everything was going well, until a pegasus spotted it. "Oh my Equestria! What is that thing?!" "Ahhhh, shiosh." the IRM cursed."No time to waste anymore." Everypony turned to see the being swing itself off the rooftop and twist its body to land directly in front of a large cake covered with pink icing and green flowers. The same colored mare at the stand was staring at this giant, unaware of its intentions...before it grabbed the caked and began to run off with it. "H-hey! Come back here! Help! A thief! Somepony!" Without a care, the IRM continued its path through the streets, ignoring everything in front of it, until two security personnel intervened...for about a second. As it hands were full, the IRM jumped up and kicked the two ponies hard in the heads, and knocked them into some nearby stands, tossing food and broken pieces of wood and glass everywhere. It finally skid behind a spice seller and smashed its right foot into the pots, created a painful smokescreen. It was just enough for the IRM to jump back behind the building, grab Cocoon, and hop further away behind another hill. It carefully set the black creature on the floor and took out a rough piece of cake. "Here. Eat this." it said, presenting the pastry to the tiny queen, who pushed it away with a face of disgust. "No...changelings...don't eat...sugar." "..." "OW! Groomf!" The IRM had paused for a moment, then gave a tiny finger jab into Cocoon's stomach to make her open her mouth. It took advantage of this opportunity to jam the piece of cake into her mouth. It was...too big, and much of the cream slid to the sides, covering the tiny one's mouth with icing. The mechanoid then forced her mouth to chew on the cake, and moved her mouth and throat in a way that made her swallow automatically. After that, the biped stood up and turned around to see if anything was following them. Cocoon was choking on some of her "delicately fed" pastry. "Blech! That was awful! Why would...you...I can...I can move?" "Your anatomy suggest that a secondary source of nourishment for your kind is sugar. You must have some terrible adaptations to cavities to survive that." "I heard from my mother that our people had a secondary source of nourishment, but that we forgot it a long time ago. We've been starving ever since." "How? There are these...pony things everywhere and tons of food from what I've seen. Can't you interact with them?" "We feed on love! Those ponies' are simply our prey. That's it. Nothing more to say." "So for sentient beings that-Wait what? You FEED on love? That is illogical." "No it isn't." "Yes it is. Love is an emotion. You can't feed on emotions." "Yes we can!" "..." Cocoon was staring at the biped with a growl."Like a thing like you could understand." "Hey!" the IRM stuck a finger at the little queen."I'm not a 'thing'. Okay? I'm a 'he'. Or at least, I was." "Huh?" "Nothing. Just don't call me 'thing' anymore. At least call me IRM." "Whatever." "Why is a 'queen' so far from her people?" "Because my stupid brothers overthrew me." Cocoon turned her back to IRM and began to eat the cake again. "Oh really? Why? To have the throne? You know they're eventually going to turn on each other, right?" "Wrong." "Politics and power are never wrong." "Nomf. They seem to want different things, although they've never told me. All they've done was hurt me when my mother's back was turned." she continued to eat her cake as she spoke. "I seeeeeeeee...What are their names?" "Psydon and Abdon." "...Wow. Changelings have a bad imagination." "Shut up." "And bad mouths to boot. Listen tiny queen, I'll help you get your throne back, but first, we need to find my AWM." "Your what?" "My weapon. It fell somewhere near that immense mountain to your left." "Immense...How did I not notice that?" True to its calculations, IRM's scanner found that his AWM was somewhere in the jagged and rocky heights of an immense gray mountain overlooking the city near its base. There wasn't much to say besides "WOAH! That thing is huge!" "Yup. Either you begin to wander about by yourself and eventually get attacked again, or you come with me." Cocoon had finished her cake and turned to look a IRM's face, showing one of concern for herself. When she finally wiped the icing off her mouth, she looked down in frustration and kicked a pebble. "Fine, but, as I am queen, you must do what I say." "No." "What?" "This'll teach you some manners. Your 'rank' does not depict your true position in society. If you want me to obey you, then you have to earn my respect. Until then, you will obey me." "I--" "No back talking. Let's go. There are sweet fruits at two-thousand meters of altitude. We'll be able to make stocks and get you prepared." Walking along a bridge was a rather scrawny pony. His four legs were painfully carrying him to the mountain further away. His once regal appearance gone, his powers nearly destroyed, the old king of the Crystal Kingdom was down on his luck. He may have been destroyed by the Moon Mages, but his horn was still intact, allowing him to regrow his body and a segment of his powers. His once shadowy mane was now a ruffled mess. His crown was no more, and his armor was recreated using the bits and pieces that he found spread everywhere in the arctic. His body was very thin, but only by pure rage did Fallen King Sombra persevere in his quest. After all, last night, he did see something enormous slam into the planet, and, while that was enough to pique his interest, there was a blue glow that fell into the mountain. If it was separated, it's possible that it could be something of great value. This was just a simple guess, but if he could retrieve his once great power and get the kingdom back from Prince Brine, then it would all be worth it. So, as he continued to frown and looked at the high stack of stone, he thought to himself: "I must climb this. I'll destroy them all afterwards. My kingdom shall return to my grasp, and soon, I'll have complete control over everything. My family shall finally have something to be proud of...not that I care about them to begin with."