//------------------------------// // Data File 02: Location Confirmed // Story: Air Superiority // by TcogArchitect //------------------------------// As the colt finally looked around again, his eyes went wide upon seeing the clothes in the river. "No!" He spread a pair of wings I hadn't seen before, and glided down to a hat that had gotten stuck on the beach. He was a lanky little thing, with a feather for a cutie mark. I was fully prepared to do what I could for him, when he said something that nearly broke my brain. "All of my stuff!" What. "And after Zecora went through all that trouble to make red hair dye, too." Hair dye? "Um, not that it's your fault, Mister, uh, Soundwave." It was hair dye? "I uh, I should really be getting home now, so, uh... thanks for saving me. Bye!" IT WAS HAIR DYE?! And with that, the little pegasus galloped off towards the town. I didn't move, not until Laserbeak hovered next to me. Sir? I grabbed him by the wings, and shook him like a mad man. It was HAIR DYE! HAIR! DYE! I thought that colt had just become an orphan, for crying out loud! I thought there were dead ponies, here!! Laserbeak had a surprising amount of ease in answering as I shook him, which I later reflected wasn't that surprising, considering we could speak telepathically. Sir, while I understand the cause of your frustration, breaking my chassis will not make anything better. I froze, and Laserbeak stretched himself in my grip to undo the superficial damage I had caused. You're right. What we need right now is a way to find out who the bastard that sent us here was, and how to get back home. We are, however, in the magical land of Equestria, so I don't think finding a dimensional travel spell should be a problem. The hard part will be getting one of the ponies to cast it for us. I agree, sir. I tossed him in the air, and he flipped to right himself and hover in front of me. Well, then, it's time to start acting like a communications officer, and intercept some information. POV Shift, Third Person Twilight trotted through town, humming happily to herself. The day had been going great so far. No imminent peril, no catastrophic world-changing events, and she had just had a fantastic breakfast with her friends. In fact, it was going a little too well. She stopped, suddenly suspicious of everything around her. Ponyville was never this peaceful for long, which meant that something would be happening any second- "LOOK OUT!!" -ah, there it is. WHAM! Twilight found herself sprawled across the ground as a little red wagon, a scooter, and three fillies plowed her over into a tangle of limbs and metal. She shook her head to clear it, and found the Cutie Mark Crusaders laying on top of her. She sighed. "Alright, you three, what were you trying this time?" Scootalo smiled almost drunkenly. "Bobsledding!" Apple Bloom nodded. "Yeah! But we didn't have a bobsled, so we just had Scootaloo go really really fast, and then tried to steer without her." Twilight gave them all a deadpan stare, even as Sweetie Belle still attempted to get the stars to fade. "You are aware, of course, that bobsledding only happens on icy hills, right?" Apple Bloom socked Scootaloo in the shoulder. "Ah told ya we were doin' it wrong!" "Hey, how was I supposed to know? It's not like it's called 'ice-sledding' or something." "Girls!" All three turned their attention to the lavender unicorn. "Instead of tearing through the town, how about you try something safe today? Like, say, sewing? Or maybe painting?" Scootaloo made a gagging sound. "No way! That stuff is boring! When I get my cutie mark, I want it to be something really awesome!" Twilight sighed. "Fine, then. Could you at least get off of me, then." All three fillies suddenly realized that they were still laying on top of her, and grinned sheepishly before scrambling off, taking the wagon and scooter off as well. "Thank you. Now-" "Guys! Guys, guys, guys!" Twilight was cut off as a high-pitched male voice shouted at them. They all turned toward the voice to see Featherweight galloping toward them at full speed. Apple Bloom tilted her head as he came to a halt, panting, in front of them. "Featherweight? What's got your britches all in a bundle?" He caught his breath, and looked up at them with a huge grin. "You'll never believe what I just saw!" POV Shift, Soundwave I moved as quietly as I could through the trees, skirting around the edge of the fields of apple trees I had come to. The barn was finally in sight, now all I had to do was find my target.... There she is. Moving along one of the many trails, an orange pony with yellow hair and a stetson walked through the trees, hauling a wagon filled with baskets of apples behind her. As she neared the barn, I could see a red stallion walking from the house to meet her. Applejack and Big Macintosh. I should be able to get some good sound bites from these two. Or Applejack, anyway. I activated my audio spy dish, and aimed it toward the siblings. "Hiya, Big Mac! You done with the dishes, already?" "Eeyup." "Well, Ah suppose we oughta get moving at full steam, then. C'mon, help me unload these apples." "Eeyup." The two of them went into the barn and although I could still hear their voices, the acoustics of the building muffled and echoed their voices too much for me to make anything out. Finally, they came back out and I could hear their conversation again. "...way, didja hear about the ambassadors comin'? Twilight's gonna put on a show when they get here, looks like. Somethin' to do with Fluttershy's critters. Whole thing is supposed to be real fancy and impressive. Ah suppose we'll see, though. Not sure what's so great about a raccoon bein' floated in a circle." "Maybe 'cause the ambassadors ain't seen magic 'fore?" "Maybe, but Ah don't think that's likely. 'Sides, Twilight can do way more impressive things than levitate a bunch of animals. I just hope Fluttershy doesn't faint right away. Poor thing is gonna be terrified the whole time, Ah'm sure." "Ya think anything's gonna go wrong, Applejack?" "Somethin' always goes wrong. Ah jest hope it ain't Rainbow Dash makin' trouble, this time. Be embarrassin' for everypony if she just started showin' off in the middle of Twilight's show." "Eeyup." "Well, we best quit chattin', and start workin'. Let's go." "Eeyup." The two of them wandered off, and I played back the entire recording in my head. Yeah, this should be sufficient, at least for now. I do not understand why you do not reveal yourself, sir. Because I want to at least have some stock audio to play back at them. They don't need to know everything about me or my body, so I'd just as soon not have them know. Not yet, at any rate. I began chopping the audio up into usable files, and returned to the shadows of the forest. POV Shift, Third Person Twilight blinked in amazement at the tale Featherweight had just told her and the Cutie Mark Crusaders about a metal biped, with a metal bird, that was capable of beating a cragadile into submission. "Um, Featherweight? Are you sure you didn't just imagine this, or something?" Featherweight snorted in indignation. "Of course I saw it! It was this really tall thing, at least as tall as Princess Celestia, with spikes on its body, and big, flat arms that looked like shields!" Twilight chuckled nervously, unsure what to make of all this. "Well, you also said it didn't have a face." "It didn't! It was just this, like, black, shiny glass where its face should have been. And when it talked, it sounded really weird, like dubstep." Twilight resisted the urge to groan at the analogy. Dubstep hadn't been around for long, but as far as she was concerned, it never should have come into being. It was nothing but synthetic noise, put to a beat. There was barely anything about the genre that was even remotely musical. "Alright, so what did it say? Did it tell you anything?" "Not really. It just said, 'Crocodile inferior, Soundwave superior.' I think it was talking about itself." Twilight pondered this for a moment. Suddenly, this seemed familiar. She was sure she had heard of a being sometime in history referring to itself in the third person, but she couldn't remember where. She shook it off for the moment. Whatever he had seen, it obviously wasn't hostile, but that didn't mean it couldn't be. She sighed. "Alright. For now, don't tell anypony else about this. We don't need a panic on our hooves, so until I know what we're dealing with, this stays a secret, alright?" Featherweight and the Crusaders let out groans of disappointment. "Don't give me that. If this is true, and whatever it was isn't hostile, then you'll be able to talk about it all you want later. For now, though, I need to find the girls and do some investigating. You all go play. I'm sure once I figure out what's going on, this will turn out to be nothing really exciting." The Crusaders loaded back up into their wagon, and Featherweight flew off, leaving Twilight to gather her friends. Time to figure this out. POV Shift, Soundwave Time to figure this out. I widened my stance, and began moving every part of my new body that I could command purposefully, searching for the one piece I wanted more than any other. It was all to no avail, though. For whatever reason, I wasn't able to activate my T-cog. Laserbeak hovered nearby, watching silently as I tried again, with identical results. I gave up, and leaned my back against a nearby tree. Sir, I believe you are doing something wrong. Obviously, Laserbeak. I'm trying to figure out what. I had been there for almost ten minutes at that point, trying to transform. I had yet to get even a single plate to move beyond my normal human limitations. I didn't have any more time to think about it, though, as my audio receptors picked up the sounds of voices coming through the forest. I made my way carefully towards them, and found the six ponies I currently didn't need hassling me. The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Great. I used my newly-thinned body to my advantage, and hid behind one of the straighter trees. Why were most of them all gnarled and ugly, anyway? Poking my head up between some of the branches, I could use both my spy dish and my optic zoom to watch them and listen to their conversation. "But seriously," Rainbow Dash said, hovering above and in front of the group, "a six-foot-tall metal monster? Come on, Twilight, even I could have told you it wasn't real! Things like that are cool to think about, but what are the actual chances, huh? I'm sure you could tell me that right now, right?" Twilight nodded as the path bent to their left, keeping them in my sight. "The chances are extremely low, yes, but it's still a non-zero positive integer." Rainbow stopped in mid-air to stare at her purple friend. "Twilight, there are times you are more of an egghead than I can really believe." Twilight turned her head to say something, then froze. I couldn't tell what was happening, though, until the rest of her friends stopped as well, and pointed their noses up slightly. It didn't take a wildlife expert to understand that they just smelled something that scared them. The only question was, what? I didn't have to wait long as the plants around them started to move on their own, forming into large, wolf-like creatures. Oh, that's not good.