Steamlord, wiping his head with a tissue, sighed in relief, relaxation plastered onto his face...that is, until he spotted the griffins. To this new encounter he walked up to Twilight Sparkle whom he slapped on the back of her as discreetly as possible. Her yelp wasn't helping.
"And who are you people?" the man asked with a direct questioning.
He had not seen any griffins within Equestria, and, so far, considered them to be beasts just like a manticore or other creature within the forest.
"We'ze be griffins. What are you? Some kinda hairless monkeh?" the dreadlock griffin answered as the others laughed behind him.
"Aha. Very funny. No. Really. I am crying tears." the man answered with no emotion.
"Heeeey! Tis just a joke. No need ta frumple yer feathers. You'z crashed inta our village."
"And what is it called?" Sunrise asked.
The griffin looked at her and scratched his head. Her body shape was bizarre and confusing.
"I...I dunno watcha are, but you crashed in FishLake. It's where me pals and neighbors live. We are actually one of the richest communities in the Griffin Empire."
"Really, now?" Steamlord was intrigued. "Well, as for introductions, I am Steamlord. This tall dragon is Sunrise, and this pony here is Twilight Sparkle, WHO SHOULDN'T HAVE STOWED AWAY IN THE FIRST PLACE!" Steamlord closened himself to the pony's face, making her shrink in fear.
"Woah! No need ta get angry at her. Curiousity is what meks us what we are. We'ze always learnin', and dat emotion helps with it."
"That isn't an excuse. This mission we were tasked with doesn't involve frail little ponies to serve as cannon fodder!"
"WHAT?! I'm not a frail little pony!" Twilight shouted as she teleported in front of Steamlord.
Before Twilight could speak, however, Teutonic grabbed her by the horn and tossed her away ever-so "gently" into Sunrise's arms.
"TEUTONIC!" the dragoness scolded.
The griffins started mumbling and backing as they saw the three robots appear. Their appearance seemed to have a strange effect on the inhabitants, and this interested Steamlord.
"I didn't get your name, dreadlocks." he smiled.
"Uhhh." the griffin was sweating rather profusively."It's Red Pepper. My brudda works as a chef at Canterlot."
"I wouldn't know. I rarely ever went into the castle."
"Even though you live in the yard?" Twilight raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah. We get out a bit too much." Sunrise looked shamefully to the side.
"Where did ya find dem tings? Dey'z from dat inky guy who went 'n stole our mines from us?"
"What? No! They're my creations and faithful companions and my closest friends as well. We've seen everything together, and they protect me and help me with my projects. Speaking of-" Steamlord turned around and pointed to Templar,"-Templar. I need you to check on the energy fluctuations and bracers. Make sure the joints can deal with more than fifteen tons of recoil or impact."
The machine nodded and hurried away back into the ship. While the newcomers wanted to continue their conversation with the locals, there was the sound of something loud and screeching coming from behind the wall of stone, itself, behind Steamlord's ship. The tall mound of minerals did not withstand the tremors caused, and, with one movement, the whole group became covered in dust and debris. From the surprise, some yelling was heard until a cloud of dust rested in the air, allowing the gigantic, rusted being to appear directly in front of the whole group.
Steamlord was oddly shocked as he looked at this abomination. It reminded him so much of the events preceding the Ash Fall, but he faced that ghost a long time ago, and his wounds were still healing. Looking closer at it, this thing was easily fifteen meters tall and five meters wide. It had the same structure as the birds, what with the pipes, cogs, and rusted chassis, although this one's face was...incomplete? One side of the face looked like a dome and had a single red optical camera, while the right barely had anything but free wires and pipes. It had two extremely bulky legs with black armor plating, although, like the rest, it was rusted. Its left hand was actually an immense cannon that seemed to be an old model from the early years of humanity. While there was a main cannon, there seemed to be two stabilizers fixated into its top, and it seemed to have been recently used. The right seemed non-functional, judging by the sparks it was shooting and the steam it was belching.
"Run! It's back!" Red Pepper shouted.
"Where are you going?" Steamlord yelled.
"We can't destroy that tin! It's too powerful!"
The whole group of griffins scampered away like frightened mice, leaving a huge puff of smoke behind.
"Sunrise. Take Twilight and get in the shi--"
"NO! I've had it with you minimizing us ponies! Just because we're smaller than you doesn't mean we're weaker! I'll show you what a unicorn can do, so stop mocking us!"
Twilight, after yelling directly in Steamlord's face via levitation, stood firmly in front of the metal titan, who promptly aimed its cannon at her. The mare's eyes glew brightly as her horn sparked. A violent, ear-shattering explosion was heard, and the explosion echoed into the distance with another explosion. Twilight had slid back some. The titan had fired an immense shell at her, and the unicorn raised a shield to reflect the projectile, but not without consequence. The pure kinetic force was enough to destabilize her. She wasn't expecting something this strong. Science was not a play thing, and neither were mechanics.
"Fine. If you want to help, try and make it fall down so Sunrise can deactivate it."
"What? Why don't you have the knights destroy it?" Twilight winced.
"Because I want to analyze this thing. There's no time to talk about it. Drop it!"
"Okay. I'll try."
"I'm ready whenever she is, dad." Sunrise exclaimed with joy.
One more shimmer shone from Twilight, which engulfed the titans legs. As it tried to move forward to break the grasp, it found itself wailing its arms everywhere to regain its balance, only to fall flat on its face, allowing the dragon to hop on its back and slice the exposed wires, shutting it down for good with one final exhale of steam.
The lavender mare was hunched over and gasping for air. She was extremely tired and sweaty after this ordeal, but Steamlord patted her on the back and walked closer to the titan while Sunrise went through its body.
"Hey, dad. It works on coal."
"Coal?"
"Yeah. See?" the dragoness held a black rock in her hand.
"What a piece of junk. This downed my ship? Well, any weapon from any era can still kill you..."
"Ya did it! Ya killed dat ting! Oh! Ya must be dat Steamlord da dignitary told us about." Red Pepper had returned.
"Yah. I am."
"Den come with us. We needz ta talk to yas."
"Fine. Sunrise, could you and Twilight survey the landscape? Hospitaller and Teutonic will come with me. You still have Templar, so don't worry about anything."
"Psch. Like I would be disturbed by anything." Sunrise smirked.
"Says the dragon who was scared of her own shadow at one point."
"DAAAAAAD!"
The human smirked as he left with the griffin and his two robots, leaving the two alone once more. The situation was kind of awkward, as Twilight didn't really know how to study the machine nor how to ask the questions pertaining to its domain of study. She hadn't really though this whole escapade through. She didn't have any quills, paper, or anything to note things down.
"Sunrise." she asked while looking towards the grame.
"What?"
"Do you have any quills and paper?"
"We don't have quills. We have pens and paper, though. Steamlord says that he prefers old pens and papers to the digitized versions and 'burn-in' variants."
"Burn-in?"
"He told me that it was like giving paper a tatoo, only it goes extremely fast. It was cost efficient because no ink was used, only focused light."
"A laser?"
"Yes."
"Great! I can't wait to start taking notes on how you do things together."
"Then let's get started!"
Twilight's face was adorned with a smile as she walked towards the damaged ship, slowly stopping as noticed something standing atop the still intact, mountain barrier. She only caught a glimpse, but there was a strange figure that was spying on them, and as it bolted away, it left a thin trail of a lingering black mist that had the appearance of ink mixed into water.
"What was that?" she wondered aloud.
Templar, within the bowels of the ship, observed several monitors built into the walls. This room was very small and no doors separated it from the main energy conduit outside which glowed a golden hue and created an extremely loud noise as it moved back and forth and transferred energy throughout the ship, although the hue seemed to turn the surrounding areas into a fine, copper color. It was directly linked to the generator at the top floor. Something that was still as dangerous before as it is now.
Finally checking off the joint analysis, the screen indicated an increased effectiveness of thirteen percent over the original calculations. Most likely SS's doing.
"Templar, can you adjust the visual interface? I wish to upgrade it and give a zooming option of about one-hundred times." SS asked.
The robot nodded and went to work on what was placed into the hold within the wall between the monitors
" A few adjustments to propose to Steamlord, and we can complete it. Project SPQR is well underway."