//------------------------------// // Totally succeeding at monopolizing Equestrian hat industry: Day 1 // Story: Of Owls and Hats // by Malcolm Merlyn //------------------------------// Buy our hats... Buy our hats... "Is... is that the only thing they say?" Rainbow Dash asked as she looked at the robot which was waving a hat in her face. A crudely constructed metal one that probably wouldn't even fit her head if placed on. "Seems so." Rarity nodded as she turned to the robot that was holding a pile of metallic hats in it's arms. "You know darling... I'd actually be interested if your hats weren't... so... heavy... or looked downright dreadful! No offense." Detecting criticism... processing... Loading...loading...loading persuasion. Our hats are manufactured at maximum possible quality and is indeed fashionable. Their aesthetics are very pleasing to the eye. In addition, they make good shields against the natural phenomenon known as "rain". They are created from lightweight metal which your neck muscles can most likely support. "Well.... hmmm..." Rarity hummed as she looked at the hats over again. They weren't TERRIBLE from the looks, but at the same time... they weren't GREAT either. Was the metal lightweight? It did look awfully heavy... though they did look good in the event of a downpour. Usefulness aside... the aesthetics... "meh". 4/10. Hmmm.... "Okay. How about that hat?" She asked as she pointed over to the metallic top hat which was labeled the "Strontium Stove Pipe". "What do you want for it?" "Give us your offer. We will see if it's acceptable or not." "Hmm... alright.... two bits?" "Calculating value... unacceptable. Loading... haggling... how about ten bits?" "Ten bits? You got to be kidding!" Rainbow Dash commented. "Rarity, this guy... thing... is a total cheapskate if he wants that garbage for ten bits!" "Detecting insult... processing... loading comeback. Your mane is stupid." "You asking for a beating?" Rainbow Dash shot. "Now hold on everyone... let's not be... um... too brash now." Rarity nodded as she began to flutter her eyelashes at the robot. "Alright then... um... how about... 4 bits?" Better. But still below preferred selling price. How about seven? "Five." Seven. "Umm... six?" Calculating... calculating... fine. It is a deal. Enjoy your hat. The white unicorn smiled before grabbing her hat and NOT placing it on her head. She trotted back home at a rather gimpy pace whispering to Rainbow Dash. "This hat... it's so heavy!" "Tell me about it." Rainbow replied as she walked with her friend. "What are you thinking anyways?! I am not a fashion expert, but that hat is hideous! And you just paid good money for it!" "Room for improvement you know? These hats aren't TOO bad... but I feel like if I make a few tweaks... I can get these things to be so good, I might even get invited to that fashion show again in Manehattan! A new wave as us fashion designers call them." "Well... alright then..." Rainbow Dash commented as she looked back. Elsewhere, another robot had sold a metal teddy bear to a filly, who had quite the issue carrying the titanium toy. "Gah. Fine. I'll buy one too. Let's see if this "quality" is any good. Hey clankers! I wanna buy a hat too!" Making profit... making profit... report to supreme overlord... An Engineer robot ordered to a scout robot. The messenger ran from the town while various other of it's mechanic comrades sold their merchandise. All with varying degrees of success. The supreme overlord will be so happy to hear that we made a 1% profit already! "Well I don't bloody believe it." Sniper commented as he looked through his scope. "Those tin-cans are selling their hats! To those bloody showponies! And they're making money!" "Money eh? Why don't just hurry up and bash these bots so we can get paid?" Scout suggested as he twirled his bat around. "No good. We bash these bots, and chances are, we'll never find where the rest of them are." Sniper replied. "That's the thing about hunting. Don't kill one stray buffalo. Wait for it to return to the pack. Then there's going to be all the money and hats we can eat!" "Maybe you shouldn't say that. Soldier took it literally last time when I saw him stuffing money into his bread." "Bloody lunatic that one is." Sniper mumbled as he zoomed in closer to Ponyville. "Another bloody robot just sold another hat! This isn't good!" If he paid perhaps a little bit more attention for a little while longer, he may have realized that those hats were all the robots were going to sell. Four in total. Instead, the Australian and the Bostonian hurried back to the others, where they had some "bad news" to tell. The thing was... if he stayed for a LONG time. There actually would have been bad news. "I finally got mah hat back." Applejack muttered as she knocked on Twilight's door. The alicorn princess let her friend in, who was panting as though she had ran a marathon. "What happened?" "Those metal things stole my hat! Then they took it somewhere that I don't even realize! And after that... they... just gave it back. And all this time I thought those lousy heaps of junk we off to steal my hat!" "If anything, they're selling hats." Twilight commented. "But... they took your hat? And then gave it back? What why?" "I dunno. I chased the dirty varmint into the woods, but then he came back and gave it back. I don't know why." AJ said as she scratched her head with a hoof. "I dun know what's even up with these tin cans." "That's actually... kinda odd... Pinkie Pie mentioned that she was missing one of her party hats earlier... but then she mysteriously found it again when one of those... eh... robots returned it to her." "Huh? What happened then?" "Don't ask." "Okay then... say... where is Pinkie Pie anyways?" Straight on cue... the polka music that heralded one of Pinkie's parties (namely the welcome to Ponyville ones) suddenly began to play. "I think that answers your question..." Applejack commented. "Okay listen. I gotta get going, I need to help out back at the farm. You take care of yourself now. And by the way... chose hats of theirs. They're dreadful!" "Brutally honest?" Twilight sniggered. "I'll take a peek. Take care!" "You too!" AJ said as she left. Now then. Time to see what all this hoopla was about with these robots and their hats. Taking the door, the lavender alicorn got a great view of Pinkie Pie attempting to feed robots cake. Said robots, who didn't pay much attention to the fact a pinkie blur was attempting to force-feed them cake. Since Robots didn't eat anything except for money, they didn't exactly have too much interest in cake. Only interest in attempting to sell Pinkie Pie hats. To which, the purple earth pony hardly paid any attention to. "Pinkie... you should stop that." "Stop what? Trying to let them have a good time? These guys are SOOOOOOOOOOOOO boring!" Pinkie replied as she pulled cupcakes straight out of thin air, attempting to force feed the robots still. "Darn it! EAT THESE CUPCAKES." Error. Cupcakes do not appear within databases of consumable sustenance. Cannot comply. "Pinkie... you really should stop. They can't eat." "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTT?! WHAT CAN'T EAT CUPCAKES?!" "They can't." "AWWWW! BUT NOW THAT MEANS I HAVE TO GIVE THEM SOMETHING ELSE TO THROW A PARTY!" "We do eat money." One of the robots suggested. "Money huh? Like bits?" Pinkie Pie as she tossed one of the robots a bit. Like a dog catching a treat, the robot ate the coin. "You like that don't you." Processing. Entity known as "bit" is highly appreciated and delectable. "GOOD! CAUSE I GOT SOME MORE!" Pinkie Pie nodded as she tossed the robot another coin. Twilight would have objected to Pinkie just randomly throwing money away, until something AWFULLY familiar caught her eye. There was a party hat. That party hat... looked awfully similar to the ones that Pinkie wore when she threw her parties. The thing was... it was metal? And then... AJ's hat... also metal... What was going on here?! The alicorn took more looks around. There were quite a lot of familiar looking apparel worn by the other residents of ponyville, all of which were... made of metal?! A certain pony stopped at a familiar looking hat. The look on his face told Twilight he liked what he saw. Would this be worth reporting to Princess Celestia about? Nah. Nothing wrong with salesmen trying to appeal to their customers. Not like these robots were swindlers or anything. Through the events of some rather annoying salesmen, Twilight didn't exactly notice that right behind her, an earth pony who was considering to purchase a metal hat that looked awfully like his top hat was snatched right in broad daylight by a tall creature dressed in black. Black Bowman looked at his prey, quickly fastening a muzzle upon the hapless pony who whimpered in fear. "Normally, I'd send you to the glue factory. But this time? I got something that pays far better." Oliver Queen grinned wickedly as he carried the pony off.