Roadside Assistance Ch.2: "C:\\ren *.pony name.pony"
As I stood there – okay, not so much “stood” as “remained chained to giant trees” – wondering just what was going on, I didn’t notice the ponies below me also reacting to my declaration that I was not in fact some kind of horrible monster. I only snapped out of my stupefied state in time to listen in at some point after they had started to converse with themselves.
“-about Iron Will!” said Orange Hat Pony, “he’s got two of those ‘hand’ things, while this guy only has one which looks more like a claw!”
“Applejack, he’s not a minotaur like Iron Will. His leg structure alone is unlike anything anypony has ever seen before. Although where he got the giant hammer to replace his other claw, I don’t know.”
I glanced over at my right arm, hammer still stuck in deployed mode, but a quick internal systems check confirmed my right hand was, in fact, still very much attached as it had been a few hours ago.
Rainbow Pony seemed to be of the same mind, “Yeah, Twi? When I found him earlier, he still had both hands. But then he swung his right arm back and when he brought it forward his claw had become the hammer.”
Lavender Unicorn Pony a.k.a. “Twi” seemed to think about it, and then turned to me as if she actually remembered I’d been there the whole time. “You, mechanical creature-”
“The name is Breakdown,” I snarled, “And if the question you’re going to ask is if I have my other hand – that’s what my manipulators are called, they’re not ‘claws’ - the answer is yes. However, thanks to these chains, I can’t prove this because there’s a chain wrapped around the hammer shaft and thus immobilizing it.” Indeed, one of the chains had been wrapped two or so times around where the shaft joined the two-side headpiece, holding it down and preventing it from being retracted into my arm so I could bring my hand out.
“So, you’re saying that if we unchained you-“ began Twi, before she was cut off by Diamond Butt.
“Are you crazy?! Anytime this beast has been let free, he’s gone and done damage to something! First he arrives like some kind of monster and destroys part of Ponyville, then he ruins one of the Apple Family’s barns and a good bit of the farm itself in his escape until Dash took him down on her own!”
“Whoa whoa whoa, I did what now?” I had to ask. “I did what to Whoville? And then I did something else where?” They had mentioned this stuff before, but it had been drowned out with all the ‘I’m not a filthy monster’ arguing, so now I guess we were getting to revisit this other, fun topic. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you…’ponies’, as you seem to call yourselves; I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about or what you think I did.”
“A likely story!” accused Rainbow Pony, flying up to put herself right in front of my face as if trying to be intimidating (it didn’t quite work considering she was half the size of my head), “You came out of the Everfree Forest-” Where? “-and lit up with purple lights-” What? “-screaming something about ‘Energon’ or something-” Does she even know what that is? “-even though your mouth was some kind of horrific…multi-piece monster-like mouth-” My mouth was what now? “-with some kind of tentacle out of it-” Primusdamn you Knock Out for showing me those human horror films, the ones giving me a disturbing image of what she’s talking about “-Then you stomped through town, wrecking everything in sight, before the girls and I had to put you down!”
I think my mouth was slightly agape as I looked at the hovering pony like she’d just told me Megatron’s favorite song involved the promotion of friendship and kindness.
“Don’t give me that look!” she threatened, although I couldn’t help but make a drawn out “uh” noise simply to irritate her simply for amusement.
I did the noise for a few seconds before I gave a solid response, “Look, Rainbow Horse-“
“It’s Rainbow Dash,” she snapped back.
It’s amazing how easily they are giving me their names, provided I can remember them I thought. Not letting my thoughts show, I continued regardless; “Okay, Rainbow Dash, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The purple unicorn seemed to be getting frustrated at the constant exchange. “This is getting us nowhere!” She trotted up to as close she could get so we could have eye contact, “Mr…Breakdown, is that correct?” I gave her a slight nod, relieved at least one of them got my name right, prompting her to continue, “since you’re obviously somepony-” I’m not a pony, for starters “-much different than my friends and I, it’s possible you don’t see things the same way we do-” And Starscream said I was slow to pick up on things “-Perhaps this is all a big misunderstanding-“
“Twilight, he had a tentacle-like thing coming out of his mouth when we first saw him!” complained Butt Stallion (wait, that wasn’t what I called her earlier…), making her stance clear as to how much she was willing to trust me.
“Do I have a ‘tentacle-like thing’ coming out of me now?” I challenged back, a smug smile on my lips when she couldn’t come up with a quick response.
“Look, we’re getting off track!” interrupted the purple unicorn, “I’m sure you don’t like being chained to that tree, quite frankly none of us want to be out here in the Everfree at all, either, but you kind of didn’t give us a choice when you ran off from the barn. That said, I can’t say I wouldn’t have tried to escape such a situation myself if I were in your position.”
“Believe me, the barn thing was the third time I’d been tied up like that within recent memory, though I’d rather not go into detail about the previous two.”
“Oh, um, okay…” said the unicorn, flustered, “but on the subject of memory, maybe you can at least tell us what you remember before, um, waking up in the barn?”
I just shook my head and chuckled, although there wasn’t much humor. “Well, if you must know, the last thing I remember before the barn was the second time I was bound.”
“Are you sure?” suddenly piped up Pink Pony, “Maybe you are just remembering how we chained you up in the barn and all those other times in the wrong way because, hey, if it happened to you a lot which I hope isn’t the case because I wouldn’t wish that on anypony but between-“
Okay, now I understood what my earlier gut feeling in regards to the pink pony was about. And I was going to have to end it.
“No, I am certain I remember events correctly, and that I have no idea what any of you are talking about with me attacking some town. Because my last memory before waking up in the barn? It was when I died.”
Yep, that got all of them to shut up.
The next morning, I found myself waking up in the exact same barn that I had the previous day. Only difference was that the back wall had several giant holes in it, the front doors were noticeably newer than the rest of the front wall, and I wasn’t waking up to find myself chained to anything for the first time in what felt like forever.
After revealing the circumstances of my situation, namely the whole “I don’t know what you’re talking about with my mouth being a rip off of something from a human horror film” thing, the ponies had become slightly more lenient in the way they treated me. It had been enough for me to negotiate them releasing me from bondage, in return for me promising not to go around stomping around ‘Equestria’, which I had to guess was the name of the continent or, more likely, country I was in. Personally, I thought it was a decent name since it implied the presence of things that were vaguely like horses, much better in comparison to how “United States of America” didn’t at all imply humans were the dominant species, or any other human country for that matter.
Then I deeply sighed as I remembered the other end of the deal I had agreed to. The purple unicorn, whose name I’d learned was “Twilight Sparkle”, had turned out to be effectively a nerd who loved books. In retrospect, her name sounded like something I’d come across in regards to some human book series, only it had generally been panned. Something about shiny, pale humans who sometimes needed to suck blood, I didn’t really care about it then or now as reading hadn’t been one of my strong suits since, well, ever. But the little book horse wanted to know everything I could tell her about the ‘hoo-mahns’ I’d kept talking about along with everything I could tell her of my own origins.
I wondered how she’d take the part where I told her my boss had been the guy who killed our own home planet. Or that I’d directly helped him when he had corrupted its core. Maybe it would be better not to mention those parts, not yet at least.
“Yeah, c’mon, it’s in here!” suddenly came a young voice I’d not yet heard, muffled from the outside of the barn. The orange hat pony, “Applejack”, had insisted that I remain in the barn until something could be decided of my situation, since she apparently hadn’t told the rest of her family which I came to learn consisted of a “Granny Smith” elder figure, her brother unit “Big Macintosh”, and a little sister unit “Applebloom”. Going off of the tone of the voice, I had to assume it was the little sister.
Then I heard two distinctly different voices, both seemingly as young as the first. I had no reason to assume Applejack had been lying when she said she only had a little sister, but at the same time the two others with the presumed Applebloom couldn’t have known of me. Of course, it was obvious Applebloom did know something was in this barn, that something being me, and was going to show it to her friends.
Thinking fast, I dropped to the ground and let my tires take the blow of landing, my chassis bouncing slightly on its suspension. My timing was quick enough that when the doors opened to reveal three tiny pony creatures, all they saw was a giant blue armored vehicle with a large turret on the top.
“Uh, Applebloom?” said one of the mini ponies I did not recognize; it was orange and had wings, although its mane and tail were somewhat similar to that of Rainbow Dash, “what is that?”
“Ah dunno, Scoot,” replied the yellow, regular looking pony with crimson hair and a big bow, presumably the Applebloom of whom I’d been informed of. The voice matched that of the first one I’d heard, anyway, “Mah sister and her friends were hangin’ around this barn late last night with some of the guards, and Ah know it had somethin’ to do with that monster from a little while back.”
Great, so she at least knows the thing I apparently did but don’t remember, I thought, simultaneously reflecting on how “Scoot” was one of the most nonsensical names I’d ever heard.
“Maybe Twilight cast some transmorgifier spell on the monster and turned it into this…thing here?” said the third pony; a pale gray unicorn with a mane of both pink and purple curls, “I mean, it sort of looks like a steam engine, only it doesn’t need rails.”
“Ah can’t say Ah’ve ever seen anythin’ like it…” replied Applebloom, who seemed to be the leader of the trio as they walked closer. I made no move to reveal my true nature. Sure, a “steam engine that doesn’t need rails” wasn’t exactly what my alternate vehicle form was, but if it kept them off of figuring out what I truly was then so be it.
“Is it a parade float?” asked Scoot, coming around on my right side, “It sort of looks like one, only with less wheels and no tender. And is that some kind of party cannon mounted on top of it?” I didn’t know what she was talking about with that “party cannon” business, but whatever it was or did, it couldn’t have been the same as my alt mode’s roof mounted homing-rocket launcher.
“It’s got some weird designs on it, too. Is that supposed to be a bird face made of triangles or something on the doors?” said the as-of-yet unnamed unicorn, although I was now more concerned with what she was talking about. In a vague way, it sounded like she was describing the insignia of the Decepticons, which Megatron had created at the time of when the Great War had begun with inspiration from Soundwave’s general head shape. Then again, Soundwave’s alt mode was some kind of reconnaissance drone thing that sorta looked like a bird, so maybe the unicorn had a point. Still didn’t change the fact I was only now learning I was wearing a Decepticon insignia on my doors, a strange detail I didn’t remember namely because I know I didn’t have insignias on my alt mode doors…of course, I’d also “known” until recently I’d been missing an eye and was also dead.
“How do you even get in this thing?” the orange one said, oddly deciding to try and climb up to the door handle which was too high for even normal humans and required the use of sidebar steps. I resisted the urge to laugh, which would have given my cover away, but humor quickly was replaced with shock when she opened it up after a few tries.
Apparently, in my rush to transform, I’d forgotten to lock my own doors. To force them closed and locked now would certainly be a bad idea, along with possibly hurting the tiny orange pony, which wouldn’t win me any points with the ponies from earlier. But how did she even get the door open? She had hooves, which I’m no expert on but from what I-
Okay. I’m in a place populated with sentient ponies, a third of which can fly and another third make those extrusions on their heads glow like headlights. They can talk. They can do a bunch of other weird things. And I’m getting caught up on a minor fact tied to the primary truth that they are not like regular horses. Get it together, Breakdown, keep your priorities straight!
Of course, that was easier said than done, what with three midget ponies now having gotten inside me and poking and prodding everything in sight. Thankfully, even though my alt. mode had been some advanced design that had push-button ignition (humans had used primitive ‘keys’ to start their vehicles for decades until they invented the obvious), I could feign being an inoperable machine by simply not responding to the button if it was pushed. Or really any of the vehicle controls they tried to use. Heck, I could lock them in now and keep them inside me, completely under my control. But I wasn’t going to do that because just the idea of little organics getting physical with a purely superfluous part of my alt mode disguise annoyed me, the fact they were doing just that annoyed me even more. The Autobots back in human territory had willingly let their human partners ride inside them, how they managed to stand it is beyond me.
“Hey, I think this turns it on!” said one of them, the identity unknown as I was generally trying to ignore them. That quickly became impossible when I felt something hard jab the ignition button. Then again. And again. The period of time between presses instantly disappeared as the button was mashed at ridiculous speed. It didn’t hurt, obviously, rather it was more like an itch. An aggravating, idiotic itch in the one place a ’bot just can’t scratch but the need to scratch it just keeps getting bigger and bigger until a way to meet the need presents itself.
Fortunately, I happened to remember humans also had security devices called “car alarms’” which my alt mode had come with.
Without warning, the three fillies in my cab reacted with shock as the “vehicle” erupted into a chaotic sound generator. My horn blaring in constant rhythm, all the running lights flashing at once, it was a function that served to do the exact opposite of the intention of my alt. mode as it attracted attention, not helped me blend in. It also got the trio screaming in fright, trying to open the doors but failing to grasp the handle. Of course, being the gentlebot that I am, I opened it myself. The three spilled out onto the ground, whereupon I closed the door, silenced the alarm, and then locked the doors so they couldn’t regain entry.
“Wha…what just happened?” asked the unicorn.
“Sweetie Belle…” started Applebloom (great, now I learn the unicorn’s name), “…Ah don’t think it liked the button being pressed too fast.” Truer words had never been spoken.
Just then, Twilight and Applejack came rushing in. Curiously, despite both of them being horses, Twilight seemed to be much more out of breath than Applejack.
“What in tarnation is goin’ on here?” demanded Applejack, probably none too happy to have come across the scene in front of her.
“We were just tryin’ to find out what you and your friends were doin’ in the barn last night and found this large float and then Scootaloo managed to open it so we got inside and started pressin’ buttons and then we all started pressin’ one button really, really hard and it started to make loud noises and then-“ sputtered Applebloom, stopping only to take a deep breath before continuing, “-we got scared and tried to get one of the doors open and we did but we fell out onto the ground and the float stopped makin’ noises and then you showed up.”
Applejack seemed to take a few moments in order to process everything Applebloom had said, then a few more in trying to decide in what to say.
“Alright, let’s get somethin’ straight. Why did you three decide to investigate what was in this barn?”
“Uh…” the three smaller ponies uttered in unison.
“Ah thought so. Y’all know the girls and Ah are ‘specially equipped to deal with ‘special’ cases, plus what with the farm havin’ so many large barns that are just storage these days, we decided to put this broken down-” Was that a pun on my name? “-hunk of junk-” Slag you, too, Applejack “-in here until we could figure out a more permanent place for it.“
“But…what is it?” asked Scoot.
“It’s something that could change everything we know about the universe!” interjected the recovered Twilight, “But…we kind of need to examine it over time, so we’re trying to keep it a secret in here. So, promise you can do that?”
“Yeah!” the three said in unison, before taking the hint they should leave after a brief period of dead silence. Soon, it was just me, Twilight, and Applejack in the barn, closed off from the world when the doors glowed the same way as Twilight’s horn.
“How did you do that? Magnets or something?” I asked. Neither pony jumped, namely because I’d already demonstrated to them my ability to talk in vehicle mode the previous night.
“Um, no, it’s just magic, nothing special,” replied Twilight with a raised eyebrow. Magic? The human legends said unicorns were basically magic mutant horses, but actual, non-scientific, physics-breaking magic?
I’m pretty sure in my situation anybody else would be arguing against the mere idea that magic existed. Me? The idea magic existed actually explained a lot, or at least gave some justification for how some things I’ve witnessed so far, like what Rainbow Dash did to make that color spectrum explosion thing last night. Unfortunately, I immediately realized that by not continuing the conversation, Twilight was going to go on some kind of tirade about why magic was important or something. She had that look on her face, it was similar to the expression Knock Out had when Starscream questioned his choice of alt mode being a snazzy sports coupe one too many times.
Luckily, Applejack had something else on her mind. “Ah reckon we got about a day before those three spill the beans about ya bein’ here, Breakdown.”
“So, should I expect angry mobs with pitchforks and torches?” I joked.
“Wha?”
“It’s something humans did, nothing really important.”
“It shouldn’t be that bad,” said Twilight, “I mean, it will probably blow down much like how the town feared Zecora until my friends and I got the townsfolk to realize she was friendly and not a danger.” I didn’t know who Zecora was, but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t a 20 foot tall mechanical lifeform whose hobbies included smashing things with a hammer and had killed hundreds of its own kind in a planet-wide civil war. “Besides, I’ve already written a letter to Princess Celestia and Luna, who due to their current disposition wish for only the best treatment of you, so long as you don’t try to present any danger. Should you try to attack anypony, though, my friends and I have been given auth-“
“Whoa whoa whoa, back up there. So you’re not going to do the whole ‘take me to your lead-um, nevermind, that’s another human thing.”
“You seem to know a lot of human sayings.”
“Yeah, I don’t actually remember picking up any of them, either, but that’s besides the point. Your illustrious leaders can’t see me right now because…?”
“They’re busy dealing with a state affair involving our dragon neighbors-” great, those exist in this world, too? “-and are indisposed of dealing with you for at least another week.”
“Well, I hope you have a plan of letting me out of here, because I don’t intend to stay cooped up in a barn for the next week.”
“We’re working on it.”
“That’s not good enough for me.” To illustrate my point, I transformed back into my robot form, “Just because I turn into, simply put, a box on wheels, doesn’t mean I am perfectly fine keeping myself in that form.”
“Does it hurt to do that, um, ‘transforming’ thing for long periods?” asked Twilight, apparently having gained more interest and ignoring the actual problem.
“Twilight…” interrupted Applejack, “Ah think he’s talkin’ about just wantin’ to be up and walkin’ around and stuff. Frankly, Ah can’t really blame him, this barn probably feels like some kinda prison.”
“Gee, I wonder why,” I snarked, hooking a thumb over my shoulder to indicate the hastily patched rear wall. The spots where I’d ripped out the chains from the wall the previous day were still very distinct even though they’d been boarded up.
“Oh, yes, that,” replied Twilight, apparently trying to find an answer that worked for me. “The thing is, I don’t know where you could just up and walk, run, or do anything without freaking somepony out, Breakdown.”
“Um, isn’t this a farm we’re on?” I pointed out, “isn’t there some kind of secluded, private part of the farm where I could just to stretches or something?”
“Yeah, there is, Ah’ll show it to you a bit later.”
Within slightly over twenty four hours, I’d managed to get myself from being restrained against my will – twice – to having some degree of freedom on this farm; Sweet Apple Acres or some name involving those ‘apple’ fruits that were growing on the trees. While it certainly wasn’t something as major as a giant military victory or, Primus willing, a way back to rejoining the main Decepticon contingent on the Nemesis, I would take what I could get. Especially since I needed to stay on the good side of these ponies, but I wasn’t too worried for as long as I didn’t reveal the true nature of the Decepticons, I was nothing more than a displaced individual to these ponies. What they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them… right?