Transformed

by the flying spaghetti monster

Chapter 15: Hangar Eighteen

Chapter 15 Hangar Eighteen



The girls just stared beyond Ravage, waiting for him to respond, taking in the intricacies of his vessel. As the silence continued, some took a few hoofsteps back, and then a few more steps, fascinated by the clean, sweeping edges, and myriad little ports, vents, and rivets. Hot gases exhausted on the starboard side. Twilight and then Flitter started hovering without even thinking about it, feeling overwhelmed by the monstrous war machine.

Twilight took note of two tubular structures that pointed forward, and presumed them to be huge guns, each having dimensions that could easily fill half the volume of the Ponyville school classroom. The Princess yelped when she realized she was directly in front of one of the chain guns that had caused so much calamity to Canterlot and quickly sped up and out of the way. It was then she noticed just how numerous his weaponry really was. All but two guns were on turrets, and every conceivable angle could be met with Ravage’s considerable firepower. Trepidation crept in, as she realized that Equestria could be fighting this thing if they weren’t careful.

Flitter flew up to what looked like a window, probably to the bridge, and yet it was completely opaque, a dull matted grey. It was then that her worldview was severely challenged. This vessel - this airship - was not an airship. She landed gingerly on the dorsal hull and gave a couple of strong taps with her hoof. “Metal.” she spoke softly. Airships cannot be made of metal. This thing really was technological, just as Twilight indicated.

It was a spaceship.

And Ravage was not a pony. Her heart sank at the thought.

As an admirer of Luna’s night, Flitter had taken on astronomy as one of her hobbies. There were nearly six trillion miles in a light year, she knew. It was widely believed that if there was life on other worlds, it would have developed in distant star systems. This ship travelled countless light years to get to this very spot in the Apple family’s fields, whereas the blighted mare was winded after flying sixty miles to Canterlot.

Flitter collapsed onto her belly, her worldview shattered. Equestria was not the great light she thought it was; it was the light of a firefly, and Decepticon civilization, the light of the Sun. Ponies, for all their mastery of friendship and magic...

... Were insignificant.

Her longtime friend, Cloudchaser, landed beside her. “How are ya doing, Flits?” Flitter continued to stare forward, jaw agape. The sturdy pegasus tapped her friend’s head, taking her out of her stupor.

The still-shocked mare slowly turned her head to her comrade. “He’s not a pony,” she declared.

The Wonderbolt reservist shook her head, “No, he isn’t. Pretty good disguise though.”

“We were going to sleep with him.”

“We sleep with lots of species,” Cloudchaser countered.

“Oh yeah.”

Cloudchaser offered her hoof and helped her friend onto her hooves. “We should get back down, we’ve got a job to do.”

The green-maned pegasus agreed and was about to take off, but she had just one more thing to get off her back. “This guy could have traveled hundreds of light years just to be here. Why?”

Cloudchaser smiled. “Hundreds of light years just to dance with mares and kiss them.”

Flitter was relieved by her friend’s levity, feeling much better about their situation. “Well if it’s for that, we’ve got it covered,” she deduced, getting a laugh out of her friend. “But I’m worried, ya know?” She faux walked on her hooves, testing the durability of the ship’s hull. “Ravage’s people are, how do I put this lightly, advanced. If we piss them off and they declare war on us, we’re done.”

“If they were that testy, we’d be dead already,” Cloudchaser rebutted, knowing full well about the poor treatment of Ravage by Celestia and Cadance.

At the entrance of the mysterious vessel, Ravage said nothing. He turned around and calmly walked back into his ship.

Pearl Bliss spoke shortly after the Decepticon’s swishing tail disappeared from sight. “Do we follow,” she attempted, not finding the words “Follow him into his spaceship?”

“It looks like a spaceship,” Saffron gathered, having been on many airships in her time. Nothing she’d experienced came close to this.

Winter confirmed. “That’s what Twilight said, and Twilight got her information from Luna. What do you think, Fluttershy?”

The meek pegasus stared into what she could of his ship’s interior, a darkly lit mishmash of geometric shapes, and colourful little lights. “He seems upset.”

Pearl sighed. “Okay, let’s take stock. He’s not a real stallion but is a metal panther. He came from another world. He beat up two of our Princesses who tried to use spells that actually hurt him, because they didn’t know any better. We were told what was happening and were asked to escort him, to which we jubilantly agreed. It turns out he really IS a Visitor, one who can kick our tails from here to the Celestial Sea and not break a sweat. And now,” she turned her gaze to Fluttershy, “He’s upset with us.”

Fluttershy maintained her concerned expression. “If a group of ponies you barely knew came to your house demanding entrance, wouldn’t you be upset?”

“Diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy,” Twilight spoke as she and the other pegasi fluttered back down to the group. They all looked to her for guidance. “Never utter threats. Ever, especially with this particular guest. That’s how I want you to think of him: our guest.” The mixed bag of reactions was expected and she probed each one. Acceptance quickly came from most of them. Good. Cloudchaser was pondering. Being a Wonderbolt reservist, she could have been thinking of maneuvers to use if things got violent. The only pony left was the trollop. “Winter, what are you thinking?”

“Good times in the sack make anypony happy.” She could hear Flitter whisper something that was most definitely against that assessment. “Hey, you kissed him! Big time!”

The pink-bowed pegasus did a double take, an almost horrified look written on her face. “If I knew then what I know now,” she rebutted, gesturing to Ravage’s ship, “I would have never condoned inviting him to that party.”

Twilight approached Winter, getting in close, their muzzles nearly touching. “Winter?” Her opponent quieted up. An audible gulp can be heard. “Assuming he wants to stay in Equestria, you will follow procedure.”

“Procedure? There is no procedure to ... Silenced by the Princess’ hoof against her mouth, she stopped trying to talk.

“As long he needs an escort, you are not to approach him. If there is no political fallout, and he ends up living in our nation, and you are still interested in him, then you must ask him on a date first. Are we clear?”

“Sounds like the long game to me.” Her defiance irked Twilight, but the conversation was shut down when hoofsteps were heard coming down from the ship’s entrance.

Ravage spat out a bizarre-looking metal device he was carrying. Disgusted by the sight of his own saliva, he had the foresight to bring a cloth with the device to wipe it down.

Twilight began to walk to him. “On behalf of Sun and the Moon, welcome to ... A flash of light sparked, and she yelped and reeled back, holding her snoot. Her greeting was cut short when she ran into an invisible force field, one with electric current running through it that gave the Friendship Princess a painful zap on her muzzle.

Ravage laughed. “The Sentry Monitor prevents entry into the ship. Only a Decepticon may pass.”

Angry, Twilight took her hoof off her still stinging nose. “Ravage, we cannot escort you if we cannot board your ship.”

“I brought a solution down with me.” He gestured to the instrument he just cleaned off. “But I’ll need to use my hands.”

The ponies were trying to figure out what he meant about appendages he didn’t have, when he suddenly exploded in a whirlwind of shifting body parts. Every part of his being spun and folded to a chorus of whirring and clicking. In the end, Ravage stood on two legs. His multifaceted body sparkled like a diamond, made even more alien by the sprinkle of little lights of varying colours. The Decepticon, newly revealed, had obscure similarities to his ship that the ponies couldn’t quite figure out. They were mesmerized just watching him pick up his tool, held by shiny black hands. His obsidian head was indeed that of a panther, with two angry, glowing coals that made up his eyes. All gathered, including Fluttershy, gazed in awe at the event.

“Twilight Sparkle, summon Scootaloo at once,” he demanded in a voice never before heard. She didn’t react right away, open-jawed and wide-eyed. Ravage walked toward her, leaving the protection of the force field.

Four legs had become two, and the heavier, metal footsteps shook the Princess back to reality. “Scootaloo is being informed of her new job as we speak. She was eating supper.” There was not a smudge on that body of his. Was it armor with the real creature inside? How would it have survived all that folding?

“Estimated time of arrival?”

“She should be here in any minute.” The Princess did a good job controlling her fear. Ravage’s form - his real form - seemed designed to intimidate and terrify. That voice of his didn’t help. He sounded like his pony counterpart, only more authoritarian, a voice that echoed as if he was talking through a fan.

The Decepticon panther held the device in his right hand and turned it on. He walked over by where the pegasi had gathered, an odd smirk on his face.

“It looks like a hair dryer,” Flitter commented. Not a good analogy, she knew. The thing had a handle, and a long part with an opening at the end, but that’s where the similarities ended. Where the hair dryer outlet tube would have been was a complicated jumble of metal wafers and geometry, fasteners, and yet more little vents.

Decepticons really liked their vents.

“In order to be allowed to pass through the Sentry force field, you must be imprinted with Decepticon ID chips. The ship will be fooled into thinking you are Decepticons. And this,” he held up the tracking gun, “Will deliver the identification via capsule. The casing will not agitate your immune systems.”

The girls flinched. Their immune systems? Why bring that up?

The so-called ID chips weren’t ID chips, not for another half-minute. While the girls gawked, Ravage was busy reprogramming each of them. Breaking the encryption took hundreds of milliseconds. After that, illegal registries had to be made for each chip on the ship’s main computer, taking thousands of milliseconds. What used to be tracking devices would become authentic Decepticon identification. “Once you have been imprinted, you are to proceed up the ramp where the medicroids will provide medical attention.”

“Hold on,” Twilight interrupted, “What exactly do you intend to do?”

“It will bleed,” Ravage continued, ignoring Twilight. “So don’t delay. Who’s first?”

The girls looked at each other for guidance, except Fluttershy, who approached with confidence. “Do me first.”

“You have more courage than your counterparts,” Ravage determined. He shot her in the withers with the tracking gun.

The poor pegasus shrieked and shook in pain.

“Go up the ramp, Fluttershy. Now!” Ravage demanded.

She did just that, tears streaming out her eyes, the other ponies looking on in horror. Soon, she was in the darkened space, bleeding and in pain. The interior of Ravage’s ship, with its bulkheads, and countless consoles, monitors, and inscrutable devices actually took her attention away from her painful injection. He was from another world, she knew, but this was his world! At least, it was a small piece of it.

One of the alien devices rolled up to her, emitting a blue ray of light that covered her body from muzzle to tail tip. Then an outline of her appeared on the smallest movie theatre screen she’d ever seen, just to her left. Composed of light blue lines, her figure spun around, the words and phrases of Ravage’s language appearing around it. At the top corner of the monitor appeared an armored face, the same symbol that was in the middle of his chest. The device that rolled up to her talked! “Unit Fluttershy, Decepticon. Tissue trauma, evaluated. Repairs underway.” Its speech was even more alien than the warship’s interior; a semi-garbled monotone, acidic in the way that a pony might sound if she’d just drank a pint of freshly squeezed lemon juice. She was startled when a needle from the talking ‘box thing’ stabbed her shoulder near the entry would, and another probe injected something cool directly into the wound. Yet another implement planted itself onto the wound channel and stitched the skin faster than Rarity stitched clothes! The pain in her withers started to go away.

Winter approached Ravage. “Me next.”

This particular unicorn had accosted Ravage with her romantic advances and suggestiveness, and the stallion bot looked forward to her implantation and the pain it would produce. He shot her in the withers, but instead of crying in pain, she gasped then practically smiled, then calmly trotted up the ramp. This reaction was not expected, and he decided to reevaluate this surprisingly tough mare later. She didn’t even have a military background.

The Decepticon panther smiled and pointed to the ascending pony. “Be like Winter.”

Cloudchaser confidently approached and tried to take the injection as well as Winter had, but still gritted her teeth, groaning in pain. Most of the ponies followed suit, taking their bloody punishments, and hastily scurrying up the ramp into the alien ship.

Twilight Sparkle calmly walked in front of Ravage, expecting the same awful treatment, but nothing happened. He was scanning the horizon, completely ignoring her. “Ahem!”

An orange filly came bombing over the brambles toward their position. “Scootaloo approaches.” The Decepticon looked forward to the data his internal sensors would scoop up once she entered the ship. Before he returned with the tracking gun, he installed a sensor array under the floor at the top of the drawbridge.

Scootaloo got off her scooter early, walking it toward Twilight and... And what is that thing standing beside her? Behind them, scarier than she imagined, loomed the much talked about war vessel. Fighting against her instinct to turn tail and run, the only reason her heart didn’t beat itself out of her chest was Princess Twilight, stoically standing among the bizarre scene, her vivid colours in stark contrast to the black metal. The filly’s hoofsteps became small enough that she could count the blades of grass that grazed her belly. The Princess smiled. The metal beast glared. Ravage requested her advice, where was he?

“It’s okay, Scootaloo,” Twilight soothed. “Fluttershy and the others are already on board.”

“W - where’s Ravage?” the filly inquired. Twilight pointed her hoof at the angry looking panther. “Omigosh! You’re really Ravage?!” Scootaloo didn’t believe the Canterlot functionaries, and was intent on driving up to the ship, turning around and leaving. Ravage was indeed a metal panther!

The panther bot lowered himself onto his knees, still holding the tracking gun. “I am.”

Twilight couldn’t believe what she was seeing. After his terse, no, downright cold interactions with the other ponies, he was suddenly humbling himself? Even his eyes seemed gentler. “Scootaloo, Ravage needs to implant a device inside you so you’ll be allowed on the spaceship. It’s very painful.”

“A spaceship!” the pegasus exclaimed, her little wings gusting air beneath her, giving her brief altitude. She fervently pointed her hoof at the great machine. “That’s a for-real spaceship?!”

Ravage glanced at the Princess, now understanding why she was so keen to get the injection. “Yes, Scootaloo, and I have busy evening ahead so let’s get this done quickly.”

The excited little girl kept looking at the vehicle as she approached Ravage. Were they going into space? That’s never been done in pony history!

The Decepticon spy pointed the tracking gun at her withers, but then paused, pointing the device away. “You’re three times smaller than the adult females, and I used the second lowest setting on them.”

Twilight gasped, knowing what would happen if Ravage conducted business as usual. “Can you fine-adjust the settings?”

It was a great suggestion but, “No. I’ll need a thick bed of muscle for this to work.”

Twilight pondered the problem. None of the filly’s forelegs would work, and he shouldn’t risk any internal organs. Could her shoulder become hobbled?

Scootaloo was practically tap-dancing on her hooves, getting antsy, her sense of adventure driving her to find a way to get the implant so she could see inside the spaceship. “I know!” she proclaimed as an idea materialized. She turned herself around, backside facing Ravage, an expectant look on her face.

“Garrgh!” Ravage recoiled at the unexpected behavior, defensively placing his arms in front of his eyes.

Twilight laughed.

Scootaloo was not impressed. “They’re just flanks, Ravage.”

Recovering from yet another cultural shock, the panther bot adjusted the gun to the lowest setting, brushed aside some of the filly’s considerable tail and shot her in the right glute.

A shrill yell of anguish hurt Twilight’s ears and produced feedback in Ravage’s. Brought to her belly, young Scootaloo’s teeth were gritted as she absently scraped at the ground, the wound feeling like wasps had stung her in the same place ten times. A warm trickle of blood could be felt seeping down her leg.

The child was not going to walk aboard herself. Ravage scooped her up, intent on getting her to the medicroids as soon as possible. Passing the force field, the little filly snuffled and cried as she shivered in pain. He wondered if another tagging method should have been used, one that could have been extended to foals as well as adults.

“Hey!” The Princess of Friendship would not be ignored! She was about to storm onto the ship when she stopped herself, extending a foreleg forward instead. The same painful repulsion forced her hoof back. She was about to teleport, when she stopped herself from doing that as well. This was an advanced civilization she was dealing with, a people that have already been offended by Equestria. Caution was essential! She levitated a hoof-sized granite stone and teleported it well behind where she perceived the force field to be.

Satisfied, she was about to remove the levitation and drop it when she noticed the granite stone was still in front of her. And then she noticed that there were two of them! Two identical stones, both somehow still levitating, confused the Princess.

Both stones faded from black mica and white quartz to a dull grey, hissing and steaming noxious gases, causing Twilight to remove levitation. In their place, two small puffs of silt and dust slowly fell earthward but were picked up by the breeze. In a few short seconds there was nothing left.

Twilight’s good sense may have saved her life, but it would take another couple of minutes for her heart to slow down. She looked toward the town, feeling bad that the Apple family’s farm got turned into an impromptu spaceport. In the distance she saw Applejack getting properly identified by the guards. It looks like she kept patient, but Twilight was definitely getting an earful later.

The drawbridge closed, clanging against the hull in a seamless merger. Booming industrial movements, no doubt locking the titanic hunk of metal in place, heralded Ravage’s ship was closed for business. Twilight started to panic, though only briefly. She quelled her worrying for Scootaloo, as there were several mares that would keep an eye on her.

Her first contact with another civilization’s technology would have to wait. Ravage had kept his part of the bargain, and the Friendship Princess needed to fly back to Canterlot that instant, at least to assure that his metals acquisition was coming along smoothly. But she just couldn’t look away from that ship; she hadn’t even looked at the propulsion systems yet! Frozen with indecision, the insatiably curious alicorn needed to see more of the metal behemoth before she returned to Canterlot. The trouble was how many angles did she need to see it from?

For the first time in Decepticon history, Equestrian ponies stood inside one of their starships. This momentous event would go unnoticed though. The girls were frozen in shock from watching Scootaloo screaming, even as the medicroids administered their magic, and had to hold their hoofs against their ears.

“You’ll be fine in a few minutes,” Ravage advised.

Indeed, the pegasus filly started recovering as soon as the cytoskeletal gel was injected, cool and soothing. She rose to her feet. The pain that was so crippling was subsiding, and she flexed her right hind leg. She then looked to the cause of her pain: Ravage. Her respiration increased, almost to the point of hyperventilation, her teeth gritted and her faced creased in an angry frown. “I HATE YOU!”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Ravage replied calmly. Countless other beings had already told him the same thing, but for some reason, it stung when Scootaloo said it. A byproduct of male pony biology, no doubt. “Let’s get to the bridge,” he said, waving an arm toward the cargo elevator. The cut-out floors he normally used weren’t useful to ponies who weren’t pegasi.

Upon the opening of the doors the mares witnessed the bridge deck, wider, roomier, and brighter. Their host quickly strode to the main computer terminal, which also contained the helm though it was not apparent. The mares, silent and cautious, spread out and studied. The walls contained no voids, every square centimeter occupied by some device or other. The ceiling also possessed various services, but actually had a few small voids. The feeling of metal, cold and unyielding, overwhelmed their senses. At least it had a bluish-grey colour.

Ravage sat down at a single chair at the main terminal and began to operate it, sending complex instructions with those fingers of his. “We’re going for a ride.” At the same time, data on the hooves of his unwelcome visitors was presented as various insets overlaid over his vision. As expected, the mares had normal, healthy hooves, with lamellae generating keratin tubules that went on to produce the familiar extremities.

The filly however, wasn’t lying when she said that she’d injured her hooves. Two of her pedal bones were replaced with dead ceramic in the middle of hardened scar tissue. The other two hooves had degenerated pedal bones. The lamellae of all four hooves was uniform, but it was thin, and backed by the same ceramic material as those two pebbles in the middle of where her pedal bones would have grown. Scar tissue is not a good replacement for bone. Combined with the failing pedal bones of her other two hooves, Scootaloo was on track to develop hoof problems that would continue to get worse as she got bigger.

With all the females in close proximity, Ravage was also gathering data on black matter distribution around their hooves.

Fluttershy wanted to both scold and thank her Decepticon host at the same time and wasn’t sure what to do. He had allowed ponies to escort him, as promised. Unfortunately, he was devoid of any kindness. Did he have no alternatives for Scootaloo? What was she supposed to do here? She tried to think of the stallion she was kissing before Cadance tried to break the bond. She got to know him well, well enough to tempt herself into thinking of what they might be doing in the months ahead. Is that stallion still around or was it just a cover? For all their power, Decepticons liked to hide.

Was she being used, and if so, for what? So he could lay on a futon and look at the birds with her? Make casserole?

Get close to Twilight? Fluttershy’s face twisted up at that. Before the bond breaking attempt, she and Ravage had been nothing but respectful to each other. No, it looked like Cadance and Celestia bombed big time, but he knows now that it was a misunderstanding. Decepticons, it seemed, did not forgive, and his wrath did not discriminate between the offending princesses and any ponies that tried to help them! Her heart dropped at the thought. She looked at the metal beast operating the alien ship.

Why is he here, in Equestria? She thought of the terra cotta stallion that walked her home, and danced with her. And now, that same guy wanted several tons of metal, and in exchange he would not harm Celestia and Cadance. Extortion was their punishment?

Cloudchaser decided to take point. “Ravage, what will we be doing this evening? During the ride, I mean.”

“I don’t care what you do. All parts of the ship that I do not desire you to go into have been electromagnetically sealed. Know that any attempts to damage my ship will be met with severe penalties.”

Scootaloo was about to kick out some sort of black, delicate-looking device, but instantly abandoned her plan when she heard what Ravage said. That guy wasn’t afraid to bring the pain.

“And where would we be flying to?” Flitter queried.

“The South Luna Ocean.”

That one gave the girls pause.

“Really?” Saffron didn’t expect a destination so far, or so broad. “And it won’t take us two days to fly there?”

“Most certainly not.”

Twilight kept ogling Ravage’s ship, this time from the aft side, scrutinizing a formation recessed into the ship. That must be his propulsion system! Did it move the vehicle using compressed air? How would that even work in space? Suddenly, the system lit up, bright and hot, and the ship levitated and spun itself around as easily as the curious Princess could have levitated a pancake. With an alien whirring the thing left Ponyville, accelerating and disappearing over the horizon in seconds.

Her mind was officially blown. What an incredible species Decepticons are!

Magic? It definitely looked as if Decepticons didn’t have any magic, but the truth was they didn’t need it. Thousands of years of mastering magic didn’t put the ponies in space. The Decepticon stallion seemed to enjoy learning about it though.

Still, there was the biggest problem yet to solve. Whatever reasoning the Visitor had to blend into pony society instead of identifying himself outright was bothersome, as he surely didn’t travel from another star system just so he could work an entry-level construction job.

“Ahem!” Applejack announced. The object of her ire turned around and grimaced. The annoyed farmer cocked an eyebrow, extended a foreleg out, and hoof-beckoned her to within speaking distance.

Back on the ship, Ravage analysed the South Luna Ocean on the main screen, looking at depth estimates using radio telemetry from his satellites. It was a poor system but it was the best he could do until he deployed the sonar buoys, currently under construction on the machine deck.

Fluttershy spoke up. “Ravage, we’re covered in blood.”

Ravage tore himself away from his work, and addressed the yellow mare, momentarily concerned. Indeed, she did have significant staining on her right foreleg, withers, and even her wings, which she had fanned out for him to see. The other mares had their messes aimed at him the same way, with Scootaloo showing how much had congealed on her right back hoof.

Winter had licked clean whatever blood had gathered, and was still licking, getting disgusted comments and reactions from the other mares. “What?” She didn’t understand why they weren’t doing the same thing, possibly their ‘Southerner culture’ dictating as such.

“The waste removal facility is over there.” The Decepticon pointed at the facility’s door, and what looked like a large metal container out in the open.

“Okay, this one’s the bathroom,” Cloudchaser announced, proceeding to close the door and use it.

Other mares were looking at the box by the bathroom.

Pearl Bliss realized what it was. “A bathtub?”

“It certainly smells like a bathtub,” Saffron verified. She crawled in, keen on getting the bloody gunk out of her fur. It appeared to operate like a tub with minimal controls, basically one lever. Posh Canterlot hotels had also used this feature. To the left, a circle with rays coming out of it, that’s the hot water. The budding hoofball star was easily able to get a rush of water going, with the desired temperature being reached almost instantly. There was just one problem. “Ravage, where’s the shower?” Water came rushing in from jets by the bench, so it was a nice large hot tub, but there didn’t appear to be any showering accessories.

“Shower?” That was something he didn’t possess.

“Yeah. Water comes of a shower head. You clean up. It goes down the drain.” Judging by his glazed-over expression, Saffron would have to clean up using other means. “Where is the drain for this tub?”

An effeminate yelp came from the bathroom, momentarily drawing everyone’s attention.

“The drain control is in the corner, at the same height, to the right of the cold water indicator.” Is he really going to have to show them how to use his facilities?

Stomping sounds came from the bathroom.

The water drained out of the tub twenty times faster than it was filled, using a powerful suction. “Ravage, do you have a bucket?”

The other ladies were starting to feel quite apprehensive. After all, their host’s pony body should have the same needs as a normal stallion. Yet, nothing was going as expected.

Cloudchaser burst out of the bathroom. “Do you not have toilet paper?!”

“No, I neither have a bucket, nor toilet paper.” He never intended to pay attention to such minutia, but he might have to start, whether or not his guests were welcome.

“Ugh! You weren’t able to clean up?” Flitter was disgusted.

“I was.” The Wonderbolt reservist scrunched up her muzzle, and her cheeks had a noticeable shade of red. “There’s only one button in there, with seashell drawings on it. I, uh, pressed it, and got cleaned up, but only under the tail.”

“What happened?” Flitter demanded, giving Ravage the stink-eye.

“Those are icons, indicating tractor-beams of the same type at work. Two for the bowl, and one for Cloudchaser.” The girls were still shocked and confused. “They’re shaped tractor-beams. Fimbria rise up from the generator to do precision cleaning. No toilet paper is required.”

Cloudchaser was shaking her head. “I had to jump up and down to clean my other parts.” Their rather terse host was still confused.

Fluttershy intervened. “Ravage, mares don’t have long urethras like stallions. We, uh, need toilet paper to help with that.”

She needed help, he thought, puzzled. Then the entire escort of seven ponies were all females, which meant… “By the pit!”

“I think I’ll sit down on your nice, clean floor,” Cloudchaser threatened, sticking her posterior out.

“No!” The lethal Decepticon warrior brainstormed a way to control this. He could blow them out into the vacuum of space, but then he wouldn’t get his metals. Maybe he could knock them out with gas and keep them unconscious though that wouldn’t stop their bladders from slowly filling.

“Pfft. I got money.” Pearl Bliss approached the flustered soldier. “Ravage, just land in the nearest town, and I’ll buy you some toilet paper.”

Nodding in agreement, “Yes, it will be done. All stop!” With only a slight feeling of deceleration, similar to what the ponies felt accelerating, the ship stopped. On the main screen a map of the immediate area appeared with the Decepticon insignia indicating their position. “We’re at a beach, off the South Luna Ocean. The installation affiliated with the beach is called Sunset Point. I’m lowering the ship to five-hundred meters altitude.”

“WHAT?!” exclaimed about half the mares present.

“It hasn’t been fifteen minutes,” a disbelieving Scootaloo estimated.

Winter’s jaw was still dropped down. “Is this for real?”

“There are twelve-hundred eighty-nine ponies, and forty-six non-ponies in the beach area. They may react badly to a vehicle they’ve never seen before. The next available landing area is four point eight kilometers away from Sunset Point.” The Decepticon held his hand to his chin and started figuring out the logistics of the rather inconvenient landing area. Normally he wouldn’t care about droves of people running away in fear, but he didn’t want biological waste accumulating on his floor. Pearl Bliss was more likely to uphold her offer if the beach ponies remained calm.

Cloudchaser came up with an idea, if her rather sneaky expression was anything to go by. “Or you could maintain altitude over the beach.” Ravage looked at her as if she suggested the planet was flat. “There are three pegasus mares here. We can easily fly everypony down.” The Air Force mare heard whisperings and murmurings of agreement from her fellow ponies, and their host was not disagreeing so she continued. “When asked what we just flew out of, we’ll just tell them it’s an air ship.”

“And they will believe you?” the panther bot queried.

“As long as we all look like ponies,” she winked.

Ravage was bound by agreement to stick around these annoying ponies. “I would be too heavy for you. You would waste time making multiple trips.”

“Too heavy? Well let’s find out, shall we?” Cloudchaser calmly went up to the Visitor, wrapped her forelegs around his waist, and shot up two meters into the air with a very surprised Decepticon pressed against her.

Ravage’s surprise evaporated quickly. This pegasus was one of the stronger ponies, corroborated with her fifteen percent above average black matter absorption. “Fine. We’ll make our descent as ponies.”

“And the blood?” Flitter reminded.

Ravage pointed to a device that was emerging from the ceiling, consisting of a blank metal face supported by a system of collapsible metal rods that unfolded as it descended. Black wires were coiled around the frame. The face flashed, and a geometric shape - a cube - spontaneously erupted from it and gently settled onto the floor. The transparent cube was composed of glowing white rods of light. “Use this in place of a bucket,” Ravage suggested, presuming they needed the bucket to pour water onto their bodies for cleaning purposes. “It may not look it, but it is open on top. The other five sides are force fields.”

=^.^=


Celestia was getting frustrated. The guards had recovered a dust-covered pile of stuff that was her things. Restoring each item one at a time, of utmost importance was her journal. One volume through the next was restored, scrutinized, and put away. Hobbling around and being bandaged up was bad enough, but she couldn’t find what she was looking for in her temporary chambers. She directed search-magic at the rubble heap, the cavern, and finally the whole castle, but nothing came up.

‘Sister, we need to talk,’ came Luna telepathically.

‘Right now is the best time,’ Celestia abruptly answered while Luna maintained the connection.

A couple of seconds wait, and the familiar teleportation flash occurred, after which a concerned Princess of the Night stood. “What is it that troubles you, my sister?”

The Day Princess looked as if she was about to start crying. “It’s gone, Luna.”

“What is?”

“A very special keepsake. After you were banished...” Her sibling briefly eye-rolled. They were going to talk about that again. “Fear and uncertainty gripped our nation. Thanks to indispensible help from General Firefly, the EUP was formed, and from that a secure homeland for our little ponies to grow and prosper.” She grasped her teacup and took a nervous sip. “It was a titanic effort. Many ponies believed that Equestria could not function without two Princesses.”

“It sparked an emigration wave to Saddle Arabia, if I recall,” Luna added, but soon felt like she would have to prod her gloomy sister to get to the point.

“In recognition of Equestria’s successful restart, Firefly gave me a mountain tulip.”

Luna perked up. “The victory flower!” The plain, little white flower withstood blizzards, and dispersed its seeds into rain clouds. The Dark Princess had never heard of it before she was banished. Now she understood the moniker’s origins.

“I was beside myself, Luna.” She looked into her sister’s eyes and saw she was on the same page. “What happened to us?”

Luna lowered her head. “We lost touch; let our negative emotions fester.”

Celestia nodded in agreement. “I felt I was equally responsible for causing our final fight, bathing in admiration while you drowned in suspicion.” Her co-ruler looked grim but said nothing. “To combat losing touch like that, I finally started a journal. It enabled me to revisit my thoughts and feelings on everything from major developments to minor nuances; cute boys, great cakes, wonderful friends, and new discoveries.”

A wry smile appeared on Luna’s face. “Still no love for the girls?” Her sister shook her head, smiling back. “Shame.”

“Suffice it to say that the journal helped us win as many wars as we averted. It steered me away from listening to silver-tongued ponies who wanted to invoke disastrous changes to pony society. It prevented me from making the wrong allies, and the wrong enemies.” She could see that Luna was starting to tire of the journal’s thousand-year long string of accolades. “These volumes,” she said, swaying her foreleg over the shelves of books of the same size, yet with different coloured covers. “These volumes are you, Luna.”

The Night Princess extended her neck, peering in, studying the bookshelf. “Hmm, I fail to see the resemblance,” she mocked.

“You are mentioned over one-hundred twenty-thousand times. One of my problem-solving tools was, and forever shall be, ‘what would Luna do?’”

Luna thought some quick math, tilting her head. “Not daily, but it is nice to be remembered.”

“In the first book, between the first entry and the cover, was the flower.”

“It sounds like you applied some serious preservation spells to it,” Luna assumed.

The Solar Princess looked defiant. “A dragon’s fire could do no harm to it.”

Luna looked forlorn, head drooping down, and foreleg scratching at the floor. “Celestia, is it not possible it may have gone down the mountainside?”

“No!” she shook her head. “The book it was in is intact and sitting right there,” she pointed.

The Night Princess needed her sister grounded in reality. “But was the book closed or open when the guards found it? The flower could still be in the rock pile that was once your ceiling.”

In a rare moment, Princess Celestia looked pathetic and weak, bloodied and bandaged, head down, and legs splayed out. “I don’t know,” she whimpered. The moment passed quickly though, and she reinvigorated herself, standing tall and proud, bandages and all. “But enough about my problems, you said you wanted to talk?”

“Indeed.” Luna paused to rebuild her thoughts. “Do you remember the unusual order given to Aster by the Equestrian Air Force? The one that told Rainbow Dash to practice and perfect a double-rainboom?”

Celestia nodded. “That was strange.”

“I traced the order back to the Canterlot headquarters. The originators of it where Admiral Ironhoof, and General Salt Rock.”

“What was their inspiration?”

“That is the trouble. There was none,” Luna replied with serious intonation. “Ironhoof vehemently denied ever signing such an order, let alone creating it, as did Salt Rock. And our General claims to have been on vacation in Rainbow Falls when the order was created. We are checking the hotel ledgers now, but at the moment I am inclined to believe her.”

Princess Celestia’s eyes narrowed, as she gently placed her injured foreleg on her chin. “A ghost command.”

Luna looked worried. “Only somepony with high-level access could have produced it.”

“And that is just the latest added to the basket of bizarre events,” Celestia continued. “We also have changeling activity detected in the Westerlore Islands, possibly with minotaur mercenaries.”

“A missing epoch tree,” the night alicorn added. That was the worst incident, she felt.

Celestia approached Luna, staring at her with her good eye. “And a very powerful alien.” Her sister didn’t look too accepting of the last point.

“Correlation does not necessarily mean causality,” Luna reminded. She did a good job of hiding her feelings for him, though she was certain her sister was not fooled.

“Then allow me to try to eliminate him from our list of suspects,” a fearful Celestia suggested. Her sibling’s confused countenance was expected. “I need to meet him.”

“Oh?” Luna smiled devilishly. “Is Ravage coming here? To Canterlot?” Perhaps her sister will succeed where she had failed.

Celestia thought on this, nodding in agreement. “It would be my safest option. However, I seem to have an overzealous sister who may burst in without warning and teleport him away.” Luna giggled. Clearly, she was thinking the same thing. “That won’t end well, Luna.”

It would end quite well for me, she thought. “Very well, I shan’t get in your way, but you need to convince him that repeat visits to Canterlot will be necessary, hmm?”

“Agreed,” Celestia said with a nod. She extended her right foreleg and shook hooves with her sister.

=^.^=

Sixty minutes after the mares had begun cleaning up, Fluttershy begrudgingly lifted herself out of Ravage’s really nice hot tub and stepped onto the fur dryer. A cylindrical force field was generated by yet another device that emerged from the ceiling. Vents from the floor worked with vents in the fur dryer that controlled the direction and velocity of the warm, dry air that very quickly removed excess water after just a few pulses. Luckily, Flitter forgot to leave her hairbrush at home, and was willing to share it. Pearl Bliss’ magic was a great help in quickly recovering the styling. Of course, Ravage wore his mane au naturale, combing it with his hoof instead of a brush.

The Decepticon was busy analysing the physiological data on the main computer. The mares were preparing, filling the deck with feminine giggles and chatter, their alien communication infused with shampoo-laced steam, brushing hair, and a staccato of hoofsteps.

It became clear very quickly that the adult pegasi had black matter flowing through their hooves whether or not they were flying, and Scootaloo’s hooves did not. Was this due to being enabled to fly, or to age? Ravage suspected a bit of both, since foals were not strong fliers.

Black matter is composed of subatomic particles that do not interact with normal matter. It could fly through a hundred kiloton gold brick it as if it wasn’t even there. How could he experiment? Matter has no influence, he thought, But what about quasi-matter?

He looked around, making sure the mares were still doing their own thing. Fluttershy was having a surprisingly lively conversation with Winter, as her hair was brushed by the unicorn. From a port in his forearm a small, paper thin rectangle of energon emerged perpendicularly. He found a steady stream of black matter right beside his chair and placed the rectangle in front of it.

It was deflected!

His jagged metal mouth agape, Ravage did not believe what he saw. He found another stream and deflected it as well. He did this two more times, getting the same result both times. He created a small, rectangular hole in the upper half of his energon shim. Placing it in front of a black matter stream he found that the stream carried on uninterrupted through the hole but was deflected everywhere else.

“Ravage,” called out Fluttershy as she trotted toward him.

Her mane was cleaned up and brushed to perfection. She exuded a rare, upbeat attitude that made the stallion bot’s heart rate spike, even though he was in robot mode. “Let’s go,” he replied, quickly absorbing the energon shim and getting up. His connection to Fluttershy was real, and it had nothing to do with magic, or black matter, or wormholes, or any of that nonsense, yet it had no material; nothing to quantify.

And its destruction would cause nothing but pain. Ravage couldn’t wait to get away from this world of mud and slime, get through the pain, and move on.

Assembled at the drawbridge the evening skies of Sunset Point lay in front of them. Flitter flew down with Pearl Bliss and Scootaloo, and Fluttershy transported Saffron. Ravage was impressed with their quick and effortless execution, the pegasi reminding him of Decepticon interceptors leaving for an attack.

Cloudchaser stared into the blood-red eyes of the dangerous Decepticon. He would likely say something stupid or untoward if she asked him to transform outright. The solution was to turn around. “Hop on, Winter.” Her unicorn friend squealed with delight and hopped onto the sky soldier’s rump, proceeding to wrap her forelegs around the neck. “Ravage?” He didn’t respond, but she heard the whirring machinery of countless plates of metal separating and shifting, reforming into a stallion. Drat! She missed it! She glanced behind and there he was, an attractive dish of a pony. Even with the truth on her side, she had to tear her gaze away. Taking flight with Winter on her back, she assumed position over Ravage’s back. “Unless there is another way you want me to carry you, I’m going to hold you under your forelegs.”

“Fine,” he huffed indignantly. He had jet motors, but oh-no, he had to allow a weak flesh creature to move him. Revolting. In truth, the Wonderbolt hopeful was not weak, not by a long shot, and that irked him more so. Without so much as a lurch or any kind of imbalance whatsoever, she mobilized the Decepticon and another mare with grace and speed. Cloudchaser was, without a doubt, impressive.

The beach itself was an experience as soon as his hooves landed. The squishy sand conformed to every bump and crevice. The inhabitants behaved abnormally to what he’d seen so far. Nearly half of them laid down and relaxed, while the other half were robust with energy, running, diving, and swimming in the water and waves as they crashed on the shore. The smell of oil and aromatics mixing with the salts on the breeze was a unique experience. He had witnessed countless beaches on Earth, but he’d never partaken in one, not like this.

“The girls and I already discussed a meeting place, which will be at that Hay Fries stand,” Cloudchaser pointed.

Aunt Wallflower’s Hay Fries was advertised using gaudy yellow signage with red lettering. It was a two-sided information system with two identical signs coming to a point and could be seen anywhere in the beach area. The Decepticon spy began to understand the colour use, being complementary to the colour of the sky, as many businesses seemed to hawk their wares using similar systems.

The pegasus mare continued. “We’ll meet up in an hour. I’m going to fly over the plaza and see if I can spot them, or I can walk if you want to come with.”

“Just one thing,” Winter intervened. A sheepish smile appeared. “Not that I’m complaining, but why did you want to come to the South Luna ocean?”

“I seek deuterium,” Ravage revealed, not caring that such a detail was meant to be kept secret. He could convert much of it to tritium using tools he had aboard his ship.

Planetary analysis indicated that deuterium in Celestia-1’s oceans were about one fifth that of Earth’s oceans, but background radiation was around eight times higher, compared to Earth. Either there was next to no deuterium, or it was all frozen in the ocean depths. Since the wormhole aperture device he was planning needed more energon than he could produce, he planned a fusion reactor to make up the difference. If his hopes were fulfilled, he might make up the energy shortfall with a single ocean deep visit.

There was no indication that the ponies knew anything about isotopes, and with no Autobots present, this ignorance was likely to continue. “Only trace quantities exist in the shallows, so I’m hoping to find more substantive concentrations in the deepest parts of the South Luna ocean.”

“How do you know where the deepest parts of the oceans are?” Cloudchaser queried. She didn’t know what deuterium was, but it didn’t bother her.

“I don’t,” the Decepticon responded. “That’s why I need to fly over them, so I can send devices down to determine where the deepest parts are.”

“Uh...” Cloudchaser didn’t know how to respond politely to this one. In fact, both girls were surprised by his ignorance.

“Ravage, the deepest water is in the Celestial Sea,” Winter offered.

His face screwed up in puzzlement. How could perky, pesky ponies that kept trying to sleep with him acquire such facts?

Cloudchaser slowly nodded. “You went the wrong way.”

“How do you know this?” the Decepticon warrior demanded.

“The bottom of the oceans was mapped by the Royal Navy.” The Reservist’s feathers fluttered, but she controlled her frustration. For all his fancy gadgets and intellect, their sumptuous stallion visitor was still a tourist. “Our nation is successful in part because we trade with other nations, and the cheapest way is by water. I don’t know what it’s like on your world, but we’ve got sea creatures the size of castles that happen to like attacking ships. The deeper the water, the bigger the critter.”

“The ocean floor was mapped by the Royal Navy?” he verified, though he still didn’t really believe it.

“Eeyup.”

“Took over a hundred-fifty years,” Winter added.

“After the Admiral Breakwater Initiative, yeah.”

Ravage pondered the mares’ words. The humans would have disposed of such creatures, why didn’t the ponies? These flesh-creatures have devised cultures that get more complicated the longer you’re exposed to them.

“We go around them,” Cloudchaser finished, making a sweeping half-circle with her foreleg. “And so do our trading partners...”

“Whom we like to remind that it was us that gave them their maps,” Winter winked.

Ravage lowered his head, having underestimated the ponies again. “How may I come across one of these maps?” He suddenly remembered the bird-creature ship he attacked. He took all their iron, and he should have taken their maps as well! If only he had known better.

Cloudchaser thought carefully. If she could get just a little leverage over the Visitor, it could be helpful with future negotiations, maybe even leading to friendship. “A world map of the oceans should be available in Canterlot,” she advised.

“A more efficient use of my time would be flying straight to the Celestial Sea and...” he began, but quickly stopped, avoiding the release of details.

“And buy a map?” Cloudchaser finished. She glanced her comrade, who simply shrugged. “Do you know where to buy a detailed map of the ocean floor? ’Cuz I don’t. Maybe you know the captain of a trading vessel?”

Ravage was going to say steal a map. “Canterlot is a death trap,” he rebuked angrily.

Winter face-hoofed.

Cloudchaser sighed. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she retaliated. Their guest-from-beyond was getting angry, but she was used to it. “Violence is the last option. One of Equestria’s primary objectives is to make allies, not enemies. All you have to do is approach slowly and stop at ten-thousand yards. You have seven escorting ponies. It will be quick to explain your needs and negotiate, especially with the headset you gave to Rainbow Dash.”

Ravage didn’t like being talked down to, but it was their planet, and Cloudchaser’s plan sounded easy enough. He would go in with shields up though. “I accept your advice. We’ll leave after we regroup at the food stand.”

“Uhh, about that,” Winter giddily added. “Could we please stay here a while longer.” As expected, Ravage balked at the suggestion. “I promise you’ll like it.”

“You just happened to pick one of the most popular destinations to get toilet paper.” Cloudchaser delivered the best puppy-dog eyes she could muster. “Just wish I brought the volleyball.”

Volleyball! That was fun. Ravage’s escort already shaved off countless hours of possibly fruitless searching. It may be a good idea to humor them, especially since there wouldn’t be anymore volleyball when he got back into the war with the Autobots. “I’ll have one constructed if you want to play after we meet up.”

The girls cheered, with the pegasus ‘woohooing’ and the unicorn ‘yaying’, but then there seemed to be confusion.

“Constructed?” Winter asked, wondering if she heard right.

“Yes. I’ve sent instructions to the ship. A twenty-point-five centimeter rubber sphere with a three millimeter check-valve adhered to four millimeter shaped padding, adhered to a scratch-resistant fabric.”

The girls were perplexed.

Cloudchaser gave it a shot. “So, you think stuff up and your ship knows?”

“If I command it to.”

“If you want any small object, which I’m guessing is not food or anything natural, your ship can make it?” Winter suspected.

“Eeyup.”

The girls were beginning to understand the breadth of Ravage’s capabilities when a soft fluttering sound caught their attention. Landing gracefully was Fluttershy, looking spookily indifferent. “I’d like to have a word with Ravage in private, if you don’t mind.” Absent was the lack of volume that accompanied her typical speech.

Cloudchaser and Winter looked at each other, scouting for hints of what the upcoming conversation may be about.

“Well alright then,” said Winter, rubbing her front hooves together. “Let’s find the others,” she said with a nod toward the town. “Oh! Ravage has agreed to stay a while longer, and hopefully play some volleyball. Let’s go!” She waggled her eyes at Fluttershy while departing, following Cloudchaser’s flight path.

Ravage noticed that he had caught the attention of the surrounding ponies, who hadn’t just been lounging, but listening intently. “Perhaps we could walk that way,” pointing to a breakwater in the distance. His yellow pegasus friend nodded and off they went.

Fluttershy was content to walk on the beautiful beach while she thought of the best way to broach her recent concerns to Ravage.

Walking through the sand took his stallion mode surprising amount of energy. And it was hot, though his hooves did a good job protecting him. While circumnavigating a family of four building sandcastles, “So now that you know the truth about me, what will you do now?”

“Do you feel anything?” the yellow mare asked coldly, ducking to avoid an overthrown disc. She had to know if he was merely pretending to like her.

“Fluttershy, I feel everything.” He admitted. “It is very different to be a pony.”

“But you’re not a pony, how could you possibly feel the way we do?” she countered.

“Your planet is unique. We have never seen magic before we started observing you,” the stallion bot described. He had Fluttershy’s attention like she was witnessing a disaster. “To properly assess your world, I was assigned a new body, replete with all the faculties that characterize an Equestrian stallion.”

Fluttershy digested this. His people can change bodies! An impressive feat, no doubt, but it made Ravage seem farther out of reach. “Ravage, what do you feel when you think about…” she began, her shyness fighting back, “Me.”

“What do I feel?” This was pretty straight forward. He didn’t even need to consult his data tables. Given that is true motive was espionage, what should be presented as fact?

He could lie. He didn’t need Fluttershy’s support to escape - or did he? Minor tidbits of support from Cloudchaser and Winter had benefitted this goal considerably. Creating energon from magic, his true mission, was more elusive.

His time left in Equestria was short, and he had a war to win, so he decided to tell the truth. She could reject him, severing their emotional connection. This would be good, because it was also one of Ravage’s goals. Alternatively, she could support him, but he would have to work hard to understand his feelings toward her and set boundaries.

“I’ll do my best to be accurate,” he began. “At the sight of you, my heart rate increases. If I checked, I’d likely find that my pupils dilated as well.”

That said, Fluttershy’s heart rate spiked. What a lovely surprise!

“At the sound of you, a wave of warmth envelops me, starting cranially, proceeding caudally, taking about one second.”

That said, Fluttershy blushed, a giddy smile etching itself onto her face.

“The scent of you makes me feel at ease, as if there were no crises to solve.” The war with the Autobots was the crisis Ravage was working to help solve just by talking to his Equestrian counterpart. It felt good to forget about it, even briefly.

That said, Fluttershy’s confidence went to a place she rarely ever encounters. High! The sanguine pegasus took to a hover.

“Your body seems to have a shielding effect,” the Decepticon spy described. “When I am connected to you – when I touch you – it’s like an island in the cosmos has formed. It is just you and I, like a little universe in of itself.”

That said, Fluttershy squealed in delight. She pirouetted in her hover before walking right beside Ravage, making sure their flanks, shoulders, and tails got plenty of interaction. She pressed her face against his, cheek to cheek. “You missed one.”

Ravage’s confusion lasted for only a moment. “Taste?” Why would he need to taste her? “Licking the shed furs from your body doesn’t sound like a pleasant experience.”

“Mmph…” That would definitely be a pleasant experience! “Remember what we did at the treehouse?” she prodded.

“What we did?” And thus, the memories came flooding back. “Oh! You mean taaaaaste.”

“Yuh,” she cooed. “Did you like it?” Without knowing it, her wing had planted itself onto the stallion bot’s back.

“It, it’s, uh…” Stuttering fool! “It was very warm. Very wet.” He reflected on that moment, surprised at what the pegasus was capable of. “And very physical!”

Fluttershy felt as if her long sought-after boyfriend had finally come. But the fleas come with the dog. Some ponies have coffee, or other substance addictions. Some love bacon! Some don’t want to make friends. Others switched from happy and cheerful to angry and irritable in seconds. Ravage happened to be an alien with incalculable destructive powers, though the same can be said of the Royal Sisters.

Only by dating can the two personalities, with all their merits and vices intact, explore and assess inroads into a possible future. His fight with Celestia was going to be a problem, even though she was the one who started it. That would have to be addressed soon if this was going to have a chance of working. “Ravage?”

The Decepticon spy had not answered Fluttershy’s question. “Present,” he joked. What was he going to do? For a moment, it looked like he didn’t need to resist these mares’ advances anymore, since the truth about his civilization was revealed. Yet, their calmest member seemed to be proving that notion incorrect.

“Would you like to go to the Hearts and Hooves Day Festival in Baltimare with me? It’s this Saturday.”

Ravage paused. That was where the worm hole was developing! What was the connection? Hearts and Hooves Day was a celebration of ‘love’, whatever that was. It could mean that cretin, Cadance, was to make an appearance. A smile appeared on his face.

“Uh, does that mean you’ll go out with me?” Fluttershy hoped, interpreting his smile as support for her suggestion.

He couldn’t figure out why the festival location was adjacent to an astronomical event with fewer odds of occurring than finding a specific grain of sand on the very beach he was walking on. Nevertheless, he would give Cadance a proper Decepticon send off, perhaps a missile or three impacting upon her disgraceful existence, and then ending it just as quickly. He would do this on his way out, and he would simply leave Fluttershy in the middle of their interpersonal excursion. It would be magnificent! This is how a Decepticon shows what he thinks of slimy biological life forms and their rules; their misguided, misinformed, misfit CULTURE! Her turned toward the pegasus, smiling. “Yes.” His soon-to-be date squee’d again, her wings flapping in short bursts, giving her momentary lift. “That sounds very engaging.”

Fluttershy was relieved in more ways than one. Her beautiful, cybernetic beau wasn’t just for eye candy. He had to become her soul mate. At what point should she ask him to be her boyfriend? Before the date would be best, but Luna’s date was on Friday. He didn’t seem to like Luna, and his altercation with her sister should have made the whole thing a no-go. Why hasn’t she cancelled yet?

Unlike Twilight Sparkle, the cautious pegasus wouldn’t bombard her potential boyfriend with a cornucopia of questioning. He’d be driven off for sure. Yet why was he here, in Equestria? That was the big one, and he seemed reluctant to just say why his people were studying their world. This question too, needed to be answered soon if this was going to work.

She decided to ask something a little more relevant. “What were you feeling when Scootaloo was screaming?”

“It wasn’t nice,” Ravage recalled, stopping to circle his foreleg around his stomach. “It was like a pit had formed; a negative feeling, and cold.”

This admission reinforced her hope that Ravage was indeed a potentially good boyfriend, and it made the Element of Kindness gasp lightly. The two continued their slow march toward the concrete wall on the water. “Do you like Scootaloo?”

“Definitely!” he replied with a strong nod. “She’s the toughest pony I’ve encountered yet.”

Recalling their conversation on toughness and strength, Fluttershy continued to suspect that such traits were important not just to Ravage, but his people as well. “She doesn’t come off as tough to me. She’s just a filly,” the inquisitive mare baited.

“Scootaloo ignores her disability like pebbles on the street,” he commended. “And then she invents an efficient, new transportation mode that combines racing skill and hauling capability.”

Seeing Ravage gush about the little pegasus like that warmed Fluttershy’s heart. He might not be a killing machine after all. Celestia provoked him, and he spanked her, though his retaliation was brutal. It looked like a segue to mending bridges with their Dear Leader had appeared. “You know, Princess Celestia is a really nice pony.”

“Only as long as I get my metals,” he responded coldly.

Fluttershy knew that any hope of a friendship between those two would take time and trying to force it could reverse the results. Care had to be taken. By talking about their glorious Solar Alicorn, she had to be diplomatic. “She defended us for a millennium, all the while helping us grow.” Her charge frowned, almost baring his teeth. “I’m just trying to get you to understand why we love her.”

“Her ‘defense,’ as you like to call it, is really your air force, your navy, your army, and countless guards policing your territory.”

The pegasus mare was getting frustrated. “Yes, those ponies do the hard work, but Princess Celestia set the policies.” This wasn’t going to work. Ravage was just getting angrier and angrier.

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I will respect our deal only if I am not attacked. If I am attacked by any pony for any reason, you will have failed, and I will retaliate. If it is Celestia that attacks me, I intend to deprive her of her life,” he hissed.

Fluttershy gasped in horror. How dare he! Not wishing to converse with him any further, she turned around and flew away.

Ravage spoke the truth, and Fluttershy bolted! He should be feeling a rush of freedom! Yet, all he had was confusion. Was that all it took to get rid of his escort? Make a promise he intended to keep? Normally, he wouldn’t dwell on such insignificant flesh-creature twaddle, but something set off his stupid emotions which he had no idea how to read.

They had been walking in the wet, compact sand where the waves were crashing upon the shore. He simply walked into the water, swam in for a few meters, and when it was deep enough, he transformed underwater and used his jet motors to propel him to a deep, quiet spot by the beach.

Sitting down on yet another rock, he pondered. He computed thirty-eight minutes till he had to meet those idiots by the hay fries stand, including eight minutes to swim to the beach, and walk. He did not breach their agreement. Fluttershy did. They have no reason to deny him the map, or his metals.

In the old life, he need only be concerned about energon, maintenance, and following Megatron’s orders. Very simple. But now, Fluttershy’s sudden departure made his spine feel cold. His respect for her should have been quashed easily. In fact, he considered disabling her clearance to enter his starship! The puzzled spy referenced his files on pony biology for help.

The best he could do was connect his recent shortcomings to mating displays. It was loss that he was feeling, but what did he find? Apparently, Ravage’s pheromone addled brain may have thought that Fluttershy was good mother material, and her vanishing from his sight, in the about-face way she did, must have meant permanent relationship disfunction. On the plus side, he would continue to avoid the ponies’ messiest method of data exchange. The Decepticon shook his head, causing a few curious nautili to scurry away. Fluttershy’s shyness, or even her kindness, would get her killed in any society less advanced than an agrarian one, so why should he care?

What did she have to offer Ravage? She didn’t seem to have worldly knowledge like her comrades. Her knowledge of the natural world could be useful, but the Decepticon’s powerful weaponry should make him win any conflict against any creatures foolish enough to oppose him.

As to the potential of fatherhood, he found pony procreation one of the most disgusting procedures ever to mar the grandeur of the cosmos. The chances of that pegasus being the mother to his -ugh- offspring was so close to zero it didn’t even register. Therefore, she was eliminated from being anything more than a close contact.

Conclusively, whatever Ravage felt in his pony body meant nothing. Whatever a pony should be feeling was useless to a Decepticon. Even trapped within his stallion body, he could feel all he wanted, but it would not stop him from succeeding in his mission and escaping the world of magic.

Megatron wanted him to give them leaking face plates on the way out. Ravage smiled at the prospect, knowing he could make Baltimare very hot very quickly.

Fluttershy just proved that Decepticons have nothing to say to ponies.

=^.^=

Cloudchaser searched the beach and surrounding areas for their Decepticon guest, ostensibly to ask if he wanted any hay fries, though the real reason was more pressing. Her eyes were keen, even among her fellow pegasi, yet Ravage was nowhere to be seen. True, the appointed time had not yet been reached, but he could not hide just like that.

Fluttershy was also in the sky searching. Rainbow Dash and her other friends never chewed her out for anything, but the escort ponies had no trouble laying into her for her failure to provide a proper escort. It was very unpleasant, and she felt terrible. Even Scootaloo, who had suffered the worst from the implantations, expressed disappointment in her.

She knew getting Ravage to talk about his fight with Celestia was tricky, but mending fences is the first step toward friendship. Yet he threatened to kill the Solar Diarch within a minute. She knew that Ravage’s disgust for Princess Celestia was torched off by her trying to turn him into stone without provocation. Princess Luna described it like being lowered into lava. The pegasus mare stopped mid-flight and hovered, her eyes widening as little shivers propagated down her spine. Her limbs drooped down as she lost a few feet in altitude. Celestia, for all her experience, skill, and empathy, was trying to turn an unknown pony into stone because she didn’t have all the facts. Celestia did that! The dejected pegasus flew again, only more slowly. She dove down closer to the southern part of the beach, headed to where she and the Decepticon parted ways.

“Oh, how it saddens my heart to see you in this state, fair Fluttershy.”

The startled pegasus mare gasped and stopped in a hover. Keeping up with her was a butterfly, or so she thought. “Discord?” The head of the Chaos God had replaced the butterfly’s head, with a face that was equal parts vitriol, and sneer.

“Doesn’t it concern you that Ravage’s people haven’t responded to the incident between that faker and Celestia? He was in so much pain,” he cried, exaggerating despair with an insect leg.

“Well,” Fluttershy thought briefly. Would Equestria try to rescue one of its agents that got into trouble abroad?

“It looks to me as if they haven’t!” Discord concluded.

The Element of Kindness shook herself out of her depressive state. Discord’s appearance was no joke. “He was working undercover. Wouldn’t his people interfering blow his cover?” she countered.

“His cover’s blown. Where are they?”

“Saving face?”

“You think they’re going to strand him here?” He smiled when he saw the yellow mare pause.

“No,” she decided. “No, I don’t think they would.”

Discord fluttered in close, over the mare’s left shoulder. “The scuttlebutt on Ravage is that he’s probably a soldier. What do you think about that?” His top and middle insect legs crossed in confidence.

An alien soldier explored their planet incognito. “Maybe he wants to retire from military service and join pony culture? It is rather nice here,” she suggested, presenting a happy, smiling face, unassailable to negativity.

Discord irked at the mare too kind for her own good. “But Celestia discovered his forward operating base!”

Fluttershy was underwhelmed. “You mean his house in the Everfree forest?”

“More like a castle!” the Lord of Chaos corrected. “It was big enough to house his ship, and then some. Even with Decepticon magic, do you know how long it would take to build a structure like that, and without anypony knowing, not even me?”

“Discord, I was in Ponyville two hours ago. Now I’m on the west coast, all because of Decepticon technology. I’m sure building a little F.O.B. on a distant world isn’t a problem for them,” she parried, gently swiping her hoof like she was shooing a fly.

“Technology?” he sputtered. The trickster would not be the one to be tricked. “Applied science can only go so far, my dear Fluttershy.”

The confused mare’s ear twitched. “Wuh?”

“Technology is for building bridges, wagons, and tea kettles.” Discord lacked fingers, so he clapped the tarsi of his insect legs together. In an instant, they were in the frozen north! “To go the distance, to go to other lands and other dimensions,” he clapped again, this time teleporting them into Spike’s room while he was secretly learning to draw Power Ponies. As he screamed in surprise, his tarsi clapped again and they were back at exactly the same spot, hovering over the sands of Sunset Point. “You need magic. Technology is no substitute.”

“But Princess Luna determined that Ravage’s abilities can only come from technology.”

“That behemoth in the sky,” Discord referred to Ravage’s ship with his right upper and middle insect legs, “Is magical. The fact that it’s made of metal means the magic powering it is greater than any before.”

Fluttershy could only blink, not knowing what to say.

The spirit of chaos continued. “I’ve seen ponies try to explain away phenomena they didn’t understand with technology they dreamt up. Elixirs made from nothing more than berries are not potions made by somepony that truly understands the craft.”

“Ravage can rearrange his body parts to become something else. Is that magic too?” the pegasus challenged.

“You mean like this?” Discord changed into a parasprite in a puff of smoke, his normal head swapped out in favour of the pest’s full-body head. “Or how about this?” he announced, changing again. This time, it was a blue jay.

“No,” Fluttershy shook her head in disagreement. “I guess you’ve never seen him transform.” Discord’s demonstration gave the Element of Kindness food for thought. Could Ravage have a third mode? Was he a triple-changer? There was so much she didn’t know about him or his people.

“The Decepticons are out there, Fluttershy,” Discord’s disembodied voice spoke while the blue jay regained its sense of self and flew away.

Uncertainty seeped in like a sickness, making the gentle mare feel uneasy.

“If Ravage was chosen as their representative, imagine what they’re like,” he baited.

Shoot first, ask questions later? “No!” Fluttershy shook her head. Even if Luna got it wrong and they are magical, they’re an advanced civilization. But the facts stood. Ravage had used his awful weapons against Canterlot, against Celestia, against Cadance! He displayed them proudly on his ship! She started trembling, as fear set in.

Another puff of smoke, and a miniature Discord hovered to the side of the shaking pegasi’s face. “And one more thing. What is it that all soldiers do?” he asked.

In spite of herself, she ventured an answer. “D - defend their homes?”

Discord disappeared again. “They follow orders,” his foreboding voice spoke, fading away with the breeze.

The beleaguered pegasus tried to keep it together, keeping her breaths deep, and consistent, but she was so scared.

Could Ravage be ordered eastward to attack Canterlot?

She looked at the birds in the air, the butterflies on the ground, and the clear skies around her. To think all this could end because of Celestia’s mistake, and by equal measure, her own mistake of abandoning the pony she was supposed to be escorting.

Till now, she believed that war was obsolete, so total had Equestria’s influence over the world had been. War had been replaced with diplomacy. If there was any conflict, it was to be pies and pastries piling up, not bodies. This line of thinking was shared by many intellectuals, most of whom were born and raised in the prosperous pony nation.

But if conflict did come, it would be a war of the worlds where the invaders brought death and destruction. The skies, choked with ash and fumes, their buildings burnt and bombed out husks, the fields fallow, and the trees dead. The very thought of this terrified poor Fluttershy. Could this really happen?

The millennia leading up the age of the Diarchy was punctuated by many periods of full-scale war, and the Royal Sisters made prominent contributions. Make no mistake, Celestia has killed before, and if Ravage was indeed a soldier, he would have killed as well, many times. Fluttershy gently landed on the sand, her head drooping low. The pony world was full of dark places, but Equestria was a bright spot, a condition earned only after thousands of years of fighting.

“You have to fight for peace, don’t you,” she miserably realized. This was the history lesson that her educators tried to drill into her countless times, but she never got the message, her peace-loving nature finding it completely unacceptable. Nevertheless, the Post-Unification period was ushered in, and along with it was Equestria’s enormous sphere of influence. Had the time of Hearth’s Warming to The Redemption of Nightmare Moon not happened, how dark would their world really be? How many warring factions would there have been? What kind of genocidal horrors would have occurred without the ponies’ preventative help? That was just their world. How dark and black was Ravage’s domain: the galaxy?

She wondered what Ravage fought for, assuming he was fighting at all. If having your ship bristling with weapons was the default, then the galaxy must be a very dangerous place.

The pegasus took flight, deciding to circle above the beach using one the many thermals available. It was hot, but she wanted to be alone while looking for the Visitor. Ten minutes later, the warlord himself came sauntering out of the water, and right on time. Had he been swimming this whole time? Why didn’t she see him?

=^.^=

The escort group and Ravage headed toward a volleyball net, two-hundred fifty meters out from the hay fries stand.

“More taquitos?” Saffron offered. Wallflower’s didn’t just offer great hay fries, their mushroom and pepper taquitos were legendary in Equestria.

The Decepticon stallion wondered about the sumptuous offer. “Erm… I feel as if I could keep eating them, and not stop,” he described, his stomach seeming full, yet his hunger strangely not dissuaded. This greasy, spicy food had a strange allure he could not describe.

Fluttershy did not walk beside the murderous alien. She understood why he didn’t like Celestia but wasn’t ready to talk to him just yet. Things felt sketchy. Her whole life, the praises of the Solar Princess were beaten into her, but she never thought of her as a military commander disposing of enemy personnel, even though that’s what happened. Even other ponies were fought and killed. How did her friends find a way to accept this? Her fellow escort ponies didn’t seem to care about the death threat, if Scootaloo’s talking to Ravage like she’d known him for a dog’s age was anything to go by.

“Where’s that volleyball, Ravage?” the little pegasus chided. “There’s another group approaching the net.”

The stallion bot was secretly going over research on hardened energon, which he recently determined was able to deflect the black matter that permeated the Celestia-1 system. It seemed that there was no limit to how small and thin energon slices could get. Was it possible to create a sub-atomic sieve? He sent instructions to his ship to design a device that could build such a sieve and build it quickly. If it worked, he could experiment on Scootaloo! “In forty-two seconds, it shall be dropped into our hooves,” he boasted.

“Do we get to see some Decepticon magic?” the little filly poked, though she was certain he would deliver. An unfamiliar noise from behind them got closer.

The escort ponies gawked at the strangely shaped device that hovered toward them. It was made of metal, the Decepticons’ favourite building material, and resembled a bagel with blocky parts sticking out the top of it with a long antenna. In its spidery grasp, a volleyball was held. “Release it over one of the pegasi,” he ordered.

It chose Fluttershy. Holding the ball, she was surprised when Flitter and Cloudchaser took off for the net, with the other ponies running to catch up. She assumed flight close to the ground and caught up with her peers. The opposing group of ponies reached the volleyball net at the same time her group did, and an argument flared up. The meek mare sighed. This was bound to happen on such a crowded beach.

“Well, if it isn’t Cloudchaser,” an annoyed, green pegasus rapped. “Still a reservist, I see.”

“More than I could say for you, Lightning BUTT,” Cloudchaser growled. “Still using tornados to clear clouds like an idiot?”

Mirroring the looks of the rest of her pals, Lightning Dust was not impressed. “It figures you’d condone civilians trespassing on a military installation.” Strands of her straw-coloured mane framed her fierce, golden eyes. “Oh, I got an idear,” she started in goofy timbre, “Let’s have lunch on that mountain waaaay over there. Garsh! There’s no roads going up, or even leading there.” The whites of her eyes cartoonishly expanded, feigning astonishment. She pressed her hooves into her cheeks and did the gingerbread mare dance. “I know! Let’s take a baWOOOooon!” Her ponies approved of the roasting, giving each other hoof-bumps, and encouraging her.

“A balloon that was carrying Twilight Sparkle, a Princess!” Cloudchaser rebutted.

“Not back then she wasn’t.” It was satisfying seeing her opponent gob-smacked, as if the gears of her brain had rusted together. “At any rate, we arrived first, so make like a tree and leave,” she told the escort.

Ravage determined that this new pegasus was absorbing black matter at forty percent which meant she was probably powerful. Her behavior bore similarities to Rainbow Dash’s, only coarser. Her cohort was composed of mostly of pegasi. One mare, with an all-white mane, tail, and coat, had a different wing structure that he hadn’t seen before, and she had fangs. There was also one short, squat stallion.

“Our two groups arrived at the same time,” Pearl Bliss intervened. Why not decide the outcome with a match?”

“Oh?” Lightning Dust sneered. “You think you can take on the Washouts?”

“Who?” Flitter queried.

“The Washouts,” the de facto leader began, sweeping her foreleg toward her people. “Short Fuse, Rolling Thunder, Funnel Cloud, Blizzard Beast, and Galeforce Ten.” She turned with a dramatic hover-assisted flourish, “And I am Lightning Dust. Not pleased to meet you.”

Cloudchaser turned to her ponies. “Well girls,” she leaned in toward Ravage, eyes half-lidded, “And stallion. Why don’t we teach these, erm, Washouts how to play volleyball?”

The response was raucous, and the match was a go.

Fluttershy was not so eager. “I haven’t touched a ball since I was in school until yesterday,” she analysed. “I’ll sit this one out.”

“Fluttershy’s reasoning is logical,” Ravage’s baritone voice instantly grabbing the attention of the other ponies. He went to Scootaloo, who had side-lined herself to let the adults play. “Have you played this game?”

“Yeah.” She was surprised the alien stallion even approached her. “During family gatherings. Mom and dad always suggested ways to improve, and my aunties always told them to shut up cuz’ I’m the best server.”

“Then we need to switch places,” the stallion bot advised.

Confused, she didn’t understand how she could hold a candle to the impressive looking stallion. “But you’re so big!”

“Judge me by my size, do you?” he retorted, but the little pegasus still didn’t get it. “I’ve seen you drive. You’ve got better reflexes than most ponies.” Her little face started to show agreement. “I think you should play. We stand a better chance of winning if you do.”

With a smile and a sudden leap toward the sandy court, “Okay!” After picking a spot, she looked back at him. “Thanks, Ravage.” Thus, the game was on.

Ravage watched the proceedings. After a bit-toss, Flitter served first. It was remarkable to see how coordinated the Ponyville mares were, despite not being a formal team like their opponents. Ball possession changed soon enough. It was then he felt a pony head rub itself into the right side of his neck. It was Fluttershy, he knew it by her scent. The usual biometrics, like his heart rate, responded predictably.

“Sorry for taking off on you like that,” she spoke softly into his ear. She had been taken in by his impressive display of maturity and felt her own actions hadn’t measured up. As for Discord’s suspicions, the spectre of war between their peoples was just that - a spectre! A nothing-sandwich. If and when the Decepticons questioned Celestia’s bad decision making, she would take responsibility. Ravage didn’t have any other fights in Equestria as far as she knew, so wouldn’t that allay their concerns about ponies?

The affectionate mare didn’t let up. Ravage started wondering if he should develop a response, but saying ‘Your head is on my neck’ seemed redundant. He thought their foray into the frothy waters of relationship building was terminated, and by extension, Saturday’s outing, but it seemed advocates of mating were not deterred so easily.

Ball possession changed again, Winter taking up the server position. She put the ball down and rushed over to her side-lined associates. “Let me help you with that.” Using a combination of magic and physical maneuvering she took the Decepticon’s right foreleg and wrapped it around Fluttershy.

The pegasus mare enjoyed being even closer to her chosen stallion, smiling with approval. Soon she would ask if he would become her boyfriend. Soon! Just before he fought Celestia, Ravage said somepony called Megatron would never allow them getting together. Well, Megatron can suck an egg! If she were serious about keeping Ravage out of the affairs of other mares, she’d have never let him explore their planet in the first place. Besides, the racing of her beau’s heartbeat portended more snuggle sessions that evening.

The Decepticon stallion could smell a mixture of sweat and his shampoo on the amourous mare, his muscles indented by her zygomatic and lacrimal bones. The opposing mares paid them an unexpected amount of attention, especially the green one, Lightning Dust. The powerful pegasus mare leered at him, reminding him of Flitter back in the Warehouse.

Eventually, Fluttershy relented, and they sat as conjugated ponies. Snuggling was a sweaty deed in the heat of the beach, even with the wonderful sea breeze. The two spent the rest of the match commenting on the maneuvers of the players.

The unicorn-pegasus team may not have been as athletic as the all-pegasus team, but they played a lot of volleyball in Ponyville. It was a match between experience and athleticism, entertaining enough to draw the attention of nearly two dozen passers-by. Scootaloo proved to be on par with Cloudchaser. Saffron’s natural gift for sports made her the star player of the Ponyville team.

The match concluded with the Washouts winning nineteen to seventeen. With the sun getting low in the horizon, the Ponyville team found this outcome acceptable, and all six girls dove into the waves of the South Luna Ocean, eager to get some swimming in. The spectators left. It was just Ravage, Fluttershy, and the Washouts. The victors had not reassembled themselves around the net to play more volleyball, even though they had their own ball.

The leader approached Ravage. “Is that your filly friend?” she queried, looking unimpressed with his lady acquaintance.

“No.” Even with his meager understanding of social units, he knew Fluttershy did not occupy that station. He had not dated the enamoured mare. They pressed lips, yes, but that was of her volition, not his.

Ears pinned dismally to her head, Fluttershy was crushed. She wanted to run away but forced herself to stay. Faint heart never won fair stallion!

The speedy pegasus moved in closer, sixty centimeters from his face. “Even though she’s been all over you?” Lightning verified. She saw one of the unicorns practically force the Decepticon stallion’s foreleg onto the love struck pegasus. “Ravage, I’ve seen this before, and it doesn’t end well. Don’t let bimbos hang around you,” looking at Fluttershy, “They’re like barnacles, leaching off your coolness, getting a free ride while getting in the way.”

“A bimbo, you say?” The stallion bot asked, trying to glean information. He also noticed that the feisty green mare paid enough attention to learn his name.

“I am NOT a bimbo!” Fluttershy exploded. They were talking about her right in front of her, how rude! Of course, Ravage was like a tourist and didn’t know what the derogatory term meant.

“High in looks, low in intelligence?” Lightning pressed, now getting in Fluttershy’s face, now finally devolving into something resembling anger and surprise. “Sorry about taking out your balloon like that, but when you fell, you flailed around instead of flying yourself and helping rescue one of your friends.” The Ponyville mare was shocked. The Washouts leader turned back to Ravage. “Low intelligence,” she concluded with a foreleg pointing to Fluttershy.

Fluttershy knew it was stupid of her not to act during that terrible fall, but she was so afraid. Her friends weren’t even mad at her, not even Rainbow Dash. Perhaps they should have been.

Ravage had not witnessed the balloon incident, but those devices were sometimes used for flight in Equestria. Fluttershy was actually falling and didn’t try to fly? That’s an issue, no doubts there. Nevertheless, he didn’t like watching his yellow pegasus associate dragged over the molten metal pools like that, not one bit. She was the closest thing he had to an ally and that put him on the losing side. “Low intelligence is not a qualifier I would use to describe Fluttershy. In fact, I’d say the opposite: high intelligence,” he argued, watching his friend become doe-eyed and smiling crookedly.

Lightning Dust continued unperturbed. “She won’t be there for you when the chips are down, she…”

“Why are you attacking Fluttershy?” demanded the Decepticon stallion.

The green pegasus sighed. “Because I,” she pointed her hoof at herself, “Have more to offer than her.”

“Hey! Don’t forget the rest of us,” interrupted the Washouts’ fanged teammate, two of the other girls joining her side.

“When I’m finished,” Lightning retorted, giving her the evil eye.

Rolling Thunder and Short Fuse backed away, not wanting any part in yet another battle royale of verbal sparring amongst the Washouts. Plus, Short Fuse wasn’t interested in dudes.

The tension quickly heated up to a full-blown argument, but their quarry had walked away by then.

Ravage would have loved to have been entertained by ponies fighting. However, he followed a stronger instinct, one that when distilled down to its essence was to get Fluttershy away from danger. It felt strangely like the wrong decision, but one he felt good about.

Fluttershy, following close beside the stallion bot, was only too happy to get out of there. They found the rest of the escort and were content to watch them jump about in the waves. When the sun became red and sinking into the mists, they decided to call it a day.

Ravage was not happy with their full body water removal technique, efficient though it was. He took note to stay at least four meters away from any ponies about to dry themselves.

=^.^=

“Ravage to Canterlot…”

“Ravage to Canterlot…”

“Come in Canterlot…”

Was his radio broken? He hadn’t been able to reach Cybertron since he got here, now even Canterlot won’t answer. Of course, it’s possible the ponies may not even have the headset close by to answer. The fools.

He kept the channel open while he started work on a means to sort black matter by particle size using energon sieves. It was the first step, he believed, to finally achieving his goal of synthesizing energon from the abundant black matter.

As they took off from Sunset Point, the girls tried to cram themselves into the hot tub. After some testing, they managed to get three in, while the other three waiting on the side. Scootaloo was not inclined to be with the raucous adults and was satisfied observing from the outside.

The girls held conversations like they did on the way out to the South Luna Ocean, but this time they were far more excited. They started to pass the volleyball around, and unanimously decided that it was time to play a game of ‘Cockatrice in the Middle’. Two girls had to volley the ball back and forth over the three girls in the tub, although Fluttershy just sat there, being splashed around by the increasingly violent waves.

Ravage was back in robot mode and programming the engineering computer, establishing the exact size of the sieve openings. He measured width in nanocules, the Cybertronian unit of measurement used to determine widths of covalent bonds, as well as protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, and many other particles. Following the approaching sound of fluttering, a significant weight bore down on his right shoulder.

“Hiya,” Cloudchaser greeted.

The Decepticon had tried very hard to ignore the ponies, and now they’ve made it impossible to focus. He cannot mess up the particle rig he was developing, or it could result in an unstable sieve that would explode during construction. Very slowly, he turned his head toward Cloudchaser, who responded by making slight adjustment to her leg positioning. She was unnaturally chipper and smiling.

“What?” she said, bowing her head closer to his, her eyes dangerously half-lidded. “Am I too heavy?” she ventured.

He stood up with enough force to throw the pegasus, forcing her to hover, and drew his side-arm. In the next moment, the volleyball was disintegrated by a fusion blast, becoming mere dust, diffusing into the air and completing its journey to oblivion. The girls were shocked, eyes and mouths wide open. “Shut. Up.” Having spoken to the unruly ponies, he sat down and got back to work.

Cloudchaser tried to mediate. “Uh, sorry about the mess. Oh! And the noise,” her tone softened. “Are you thinking about going to Canterlot?”

“We arrive in two minutes,” he answered, surprising the ponies again. “Ten-thousand yards out, as you recommended.”

“Wow.” Cloudchaser shook her head in astonishment.

“Definitely a stallion of action,” Pearl Bliss observed.

A small amount of electronic noise came from Ravage’s radio before a voice broke through. He pressed a toggle switch on his ship’s control console, so the upcoming conversation could be heard on the bridge’s speakers.

“Attention Ravage,” it spoke.

“I’m listening,” he replied in a similar way that Megatron would have.

“Her Royal Highness Princess Celestia demands an audience with you.”

“Oh, and why is that?” he said sinisterly, running the voice pattern through the Battle Computer. No match was found, so it was probably a guard on the other end.

The mares were irked by the stallion bot’s lack of protocol. Fluttershy found the prospect of Princess Celestia and Ravage being in the same room to be frightening.

“Arrive one-hundred yards from the north side of Canterlot castle. Put your weapons away. Emerge from your craft unarmed. Instructions to follow.”

He turned toward Cloudchaser. “One-hundred yards?”

She nodded slowly, seriously.

This was quite a bold move from them. They’ve only felt a fraction of his fire power, yet they want him in close quarters with their leader. He dearly hoped they would betray him. Nevertheless, he needed that map, so he retracted his ship’s weapons into their enclosures and flew the ship toward the new perimeter.

“What is your estimated time of arrival?” the presumed guard asked.

“Now.” Ravage turned off the loudspeaker, jumped down the floor shaft, and headed for the loading dock, his jet motors flying him through the gate which had opened just enough to let him through. The gate closed again, trapping his escort inside. He and his ship flew side by side, quickly closing in on the meeting point. His ship’s shields remained active.

Ravage and the Decepticon craft hovered higher than the battlements, holding at precisely one-hundred yards from the castle walls. He assumed a ‘standing’ hover, locking his hands behind him. This was a prone position, but it could draw out an attack. Then he could get on to the business of eliminating Celestia. His fuel tanks were full, and he could keep this up for more than two hours if he wanted to.

Proximity Alert: Unit Princess Celestia.

Ravage dispensed with the 3D graphic that accompanied the alert. He knew what she looked like. His side arm was at full-charge, and ready to be drawn in a moment’s notice. He looked around the battlements, as the alert details had her flying over them, but all he saw was a cloud. It was a cloud flying toward him. His right hand released from the left, his fingers flexing, ensuring perfect movement.

Comparable to the size of Fluttershy’s cottage, the cloud continued to advance of its own accord, and silently followed a trajectory that ended right beside him. It rotated one-hundred eighty degrees, revealing the enemy.

Sitting on her haunches, she relaxed as her enchanted mane and tail gently wafted like seaweed in its underwater domain. She had bandages on all four legs as well as her torso. Judging by their cleanliness, they were probably just changed. If she was severely injured, she didn’t show it. Any fur not covered by bandages was spotless, whiter than the cloud she flew in on. A pair of golden solar cutie marks hugged her posterior. Her face, with a captivating amethyst eye that stood out against her multicoloured mane, bore a gentle smile. A strange fashion accessory covered the other eye.

Ravage wanted to laugh at the spectacle, but he needed information. “What do you want?” he asked sternly.

The Princess’ eye narrowed. None of the escort ponies were present. Obviously, Ravage had capabilities well beyond her ponies’ understanding. He hovered noisily, supported on a column of air his technology was forcing out. His appearance was absolutely frightening, with cold, black steel armoring his bipedal body. The head of the fierce panther was chiseled in place, grim and imposing. The fires of hell burned behind his eyes, mere windows that hinted at the maelstrom that was his mind. Oh yes, she knew she was at a disadvantage, despite resting beside her castle in a city where thousands of troops were ready to strike at the slightest hint of an altercation. “Welcome to Canterlot,” she intoned pleasantly.

“Don’t waste my time.”

“This meeting will be of great benefit to both of us,” she assured. “I assume your technology does not allow you to walk on clouds, so please allow me to perform a cloud-walking spell on you.”

“Is that what you were trying to do back in the Everfree forest?” Ravage was irritated. She still didn’t indicate what she wanted.

“No, I,” she bowed deeply, “I apologize for the pain I caused you. That was not my intent.”

“Apologies are useless.” The Decepticon soldier turned to his side, looking to end the discourse. Map, or no map, he felt only hate for this flesh creature. He noticed several docked airships on the way in. If he scrambled, he should be able to retrieve an ocean terrain map whether his escort condoned the idea or not.

“Then let me cast the spell on you anyway! If it causes you pain, you can shoot me.” Twilight Sparkle and her crew, as well as countless other ponies, stuck their necks out everyday for the sake of Equestria. The Solar Princess welcomed the notion that it was her turn. Her suggestion had a positive effect, as the warrior turned back to face her again.

“That’s a bargain I can’t refuse.” He knew he was being targeted by a plethora of spell-casters and ranged weapons. He would pretend she failed, bolt away, and return on an attack trajectory, strafing her as he came in. The panther bot lacked the speed and guile of Starscream, but he was small and quick, and more than a match for these pathetic ponies. He threw his arms out to their sides. “Well? I’m waiting.”

Princess Celestia taught gifted unicorns how to cast. She knew that the cloud-walking spell operated outside the body, unlike the stoning spell, which worked on the body itself. By the golden glow of her horn and racing of her heart, the spell was prepped, an effort she achieved thousands of times before. That Decepticon was going to try something, she could feel it! “Are you ready?” No response from her target. “Three, two, Oh! Is that Cybertron?” she blurted, looking at and pointing to an empty place in the sky.

“What!” The surprised Decepticon looked to where she was pointing, seeing nothing but emptiness. With the sudden realization that he’d been swindled, accompanied with the little bubbles of residual golden magic popping in the air around him, he could only turn his stunned face back to her.

“Do you need to vomit, Ravage?”

He was still stunned.

“Parasites in the lungs? That’s quite painful, I’m told.”

He recovered, accepting that she bested him.

“Come, emissary of Cybertron,” she beckoned, tapping her hoof on the soft cloud. “Let us discuss things.”

The Decepticon stallion would rather not get close, but he decided that she’d earned a close-quarters conversation. With a burst of propulsion followed by turning off his jet motors, he followed an arc that landed him on the soft cloud three meters in front of Celestia.

She smiled at the aerial skill. “Very impressive leap, Ravage! You remind me of the Wonderbolts.”

He found it difficult to stand up, constantly having to make quick balance adjustments. “It’s not very stable.”

“Perhaps four limbs on the cloud would make it easier for you,” she suggested.

Indeed, being in pony mode would be far easier, but he had to keep himself at full alert to deal with this skilled negotiator. By the whir of hydraulics and stepper motors, clicking as they disengaged and re-engaged, a cyclonic explosion of machine parts transformed into a stallion.

Celestia was speechless. Fluttershy’s description of how he changed from a stallion to his native form and back again did not do justice to what the Princess just saw. Was there really no magic involved? The demonstration of Decepticon technological capability left her feeling smaller. It didn’t help that Cybertronian standards of attractiveness were very high.

The fabulously muscled and shapely stallion opened his mouth. “Are you just going to stare at me?” he said, annoyed.

The Princess shook herself out of her stupor. “Excuse me, I’m still gobsmacked at what just transpired. Now, may I ask what you are doing here on our world?”

Ravage pointed to just below the horizon. “That star of yours has drawn our attention.”

He wasn’t talking about the Sun, was he? Celestia decided it was time for a display of good ‘ol Equestrian magic, and with a glow of her horn and her cutie mark blessed ability, she raised the Sun in reverse, west to east. “You mean this star?” Her horseplay was likely to draw complaint, but entertaining an interstellar guest was more important.

Now it was Ravage’s turn to experience profound disbelief, getting up on all-fours like his fight-or-flight response had been triggered. “By the Pit!” He’d seen the Solar Princess flying in the distance from the Everfree forest, purportedly raising the Sun. Celestia’s ability to raise the Sun with her magic was proven factual and the Decepticon spy was stunned again.

“Oh, it’s just a little thing I do. My cutie mark makes moving the sun second nature,” she boasted matter-of-factly. “What is it about our Sun that captivates you so?”

“It is orbiting your planet.”

“Oh?” Celestia didn’t understand the significance of such an inane thing.

“That is not natural,” Ravage intoned with a touch of flabbergast.

Celestia prepared herself for some world changing news. “Well, scientists from many cultures have debated the magic of the Sun, saying that, if left alone, it would be orbited by planets, and that moons would orbit the planets.”

Her interstellar guest was unimpressed.

“I suppose you are going to tell me that this is the true nature of things,” she presumed.

“It is.”

The solar diarch was glad she was sitting down. An entire school of magic was dedicated to theorizing that all celestial bodies orbited each other regardless of size. Ancient griffon society put to death anybody who challenged this heavenly notion. Now it seemed that arcane celestial theory, one of the courses the Princess taught, was false. “Ravage, does magic exist on other worlds?” she asked, grief creeping into her voice.

The Decepticon stallion sneered. “No,” he answered plainly, shaking his head slowly. “It does not.”

“We are the only ones?”

“This is the only magical star system in the known universe,” he added.

Celestia sighed. “I understand your interest.” There was one foreboding feeling to address. “This is about scientific curiosity? No stealing our food or water?”

“I am the only one here,” Ravage assured. He felt this was something the ponies would figure out soon, assuming they haven’t already.

The Princess found this difficult to believe. “I see. All alone then.” Sojourns were something most pony explorers avoided. Sending only one of their kind, the Decepticons must be powerful indeed. “This is all quite jarring, Ravage. So many new ideas in just a few minutes.”

“Imagine being approached by mares,” the stallion bot hissed. The enemy alicorn chuckled. “Did you get what you wanted, Princess Celestia?”

Now she laughed. “Oh hardly, Ravage! There is so much more I want to talk to you about.”

Out on the battlements, the guards, mages, and other ponies answering the call of duty started to relax. She’s got this.

“I trust your escort is safely aboard your ship instead of escorting you?” she asked.

The Decepticon spy decided that he may yet get the map by simply asking. This wasn’t the firefight he wanted, but his lack of time made him consider the easy way. He extended his front hoof, and an assortment of devices whirred and clicked out of their enclosures. From a tubular tool, a hologram of the ponies on the bridge was beamed. “This is the escort,” he verified.

Celestia gasped as her little ponies turned toward her, as if they heard the Decepticon stallion.

“Ravage?” Fluttershy called out.

Flitter noticed their leader beside him. “Princess Celestia?”

Not knowing the protocol behind this unique situation, they all bowed to her.

Ravage couldn’t help but feel jealous.

“Is everypony alright?” the Solar diarch queried. They looked happy enough.

“Oh yes!” Fluttershy gushed. “Ravage’s hot tub is amazing.”

“Hot tub, Ravage?” Celestia prodded. “For being so suspicious of them, you certainly know how to treat mares with dignity.”

Flitter held back on telling the Princess about the Decepticon stallion’s awful security precautions.

Celestia was surprised as Ravage’s holographic display was suddenly turned off.

“Satisfied?” he asked coldly.

Princess Celestia recovered from the abrupt communications cut off. “Yes, Ravage. Thank you for showing me.”

Her little ponies were safe and sound. It made her feel better about her decision to have a discussion with Ravage.

Celestia continued. “Was there anything you wanted, Ravage? If it is within my power to do so, I will make it happen.”

In addition to the metals? “I will need a map of the ocean floor. I’m told you might have one available.”

“May I ask why?”

Ravage was tiring of all these questions. “I seek heavy water.”

While having other pertinent questions, this answer gave the princess pause. “Water’s weight does not change.”

“Ah, but it does,” Ravage corrected. “The heavier variety can be used to make fuel for my ship,” he described, pointing to his starship.

Celestia stewed on this. “So, the way that coal or wood can be used to fuel furnaces, heavy water – which is still water – can be made to fuel your space craft. Did I hear you right?”

“Correct.”

The Solar Princess had to work harder than ever to maintain her composure. “Ravage, this is overwhelming and exciting!” she spouted, accompanied by a small jump and back kick. Thank goodness for magical splints, because the pain of her injuries was there to remind her to be more careful. *ahem* “I will provide you with the ocean map you seek, but you have to do something for me.”

The Decepticon spy sighed. “Of course I do.”

This was fantastic, and Celestia could hardly contain her excitement. What favour should she ask? Numerous possibilities shelled her mind. See the inside of his ship, or ride within it? Learn some of what was sure to be a cornucopia of the universe’s secrets? She had to think carefully.

“I don’t like wasting time, Princess Celestia.”

“Nor do I,” she responded. She rested her chin on her hoof, her face contorted in thought. “As long as you are on our world, I want meetings every two days, at noon. The first one will be at noon tomorrow, when you pick up your metals.”

The stallion bot was not surprised and expected more to be added to the list.

“You are to follow the laws of our land to the letter.”

Not likely, but he was sure he could come up with a cover story when needed.

“And if it’s not too much trouble, can you do something about this,” she asked, raising her gold eye patch and revealing her gored eyeball.

“Gah!” he recoiled. “Celestia, what happened to your eye!?” Mutilated machine parts and flesh didn’t bother him, so why the outburst? These emotions of his were shifty like quicksand and appeared out of nowhere. How much training would it take to master them? Just as soon as he figured out one emotional conundrum, another appeared.

The Princess was also surprised at Ravage’s response. Perhaps there was more to him than Decepticon steel and cunning. “You made this. From our fight.” No sugar coating. Only the truth can heal.

If he had grazed her head with the gamma laser, half her face would be missing. It must have occurred when she struck town hall. “I will make no promises, but I’ll look into it.”

Princess Celestia was very satisfied with the small iota of positive outcome. Baby steps! “Thank you, Ravage. I believe this concludes our discussion.” Her great wings spread out as she took to a hover. “I will see you at noon tomorrow at this same spot. Farewell!”

She flew back to the castle instead of teleporting, in spite of the pain from her injuries. She felt it would be less jarring for her visitor.

Ravage sensed he was being manipulated. No more deals! He transformed into panther mode and flew back to his ship.

=^.^=

Apparently, his escort had to sleep in a timely manner. The first step was returning Scootaloo to her home. Picking up and holding the little pegasus under his left arm, since she couldn’t fly for herself, he descended to her front yard. His black matter detector confirmed two figures hiding behind a curtain, peeking. He released the filly and she went to the door with no issues.

“Bye Ravage!” she belted heartily as she went inside.

For a Decepticon, saying ‘goodbye’ means you are about to die, usually. Clearly this was not the intended message. Instead of thinking it, he took off back to his ship. He wanted to dump his escort onto a remote part of the Everfree, but they would surely insist on continuing to escort him to sleep, which he didn’t have to do. So the matter, simplified down to the common denominator, was where were they going to sleep? Six hopeful faces turned toward him as he arrived back in the bridge.

“Where are we going to sleep, Ravage?” Cloudchaser asked cordially, as if preprogrammed.

“Get out!” he responded, pointing to the door. “I have work to do.”

Pearl Bliss shook her head. “Nuh-uh. Our job is to watch you twenty-four-seven.”

“Surely, an impossible feat while you are sleeping,” he countered. He turned to the small monitor on the helm to look at the particle sieve model his ship’s computer was proposing.

“Fluttershy,” Saffron whispered into the yellow pegasus’ ear. “Use your feminine wiles!”

“Wiles? I don’t have any wiles.”

“Just go talk to him,” Flitter insisted.

Fluttershy walked a bit, but then took to a hover, slowly approaching the industrious Decepticon. With his hardline stance on basically everything, speaking eye to eye was preferred. “Um, Ravage?” she addressed.

“What is it?” he replied tersely, combing over his sieve model, verifying pore sizes, figuring out how to employ the black matter detector, and calculating an appropriate device size to do a test, among other things.

“Could you, um, come to bed, please?” she asked uneasily, grimacing.

“It may be difficult to understand, but my pony body sleeps whenever I have assumed my bipedal mode,” the working robot explained. “I do not require ‘bedtime’.”

Fluttershy didn’t know what else to say.

“It stands to reason,” Pearl Bliss interrupted, “That you must have slept in a bed in your pony body already, or you wouldn’t have known that your pony body sleeps when you’re a metal panther.”

Ravage gazed at the clever unicorn. “Correct.” He pointed at the corner where his ‘bed’ of packing material was kept.

The mares gathered around his sleeping area.

“Yup, it smells like him,” Winter confirmed.

“You sleep on all this junk!?” Cloudchaser’s outburst was matched with similar cries of disappointment. “Talk about low tech.”

Fluttershy hovered right in his face. “Ravage, you are coming to my place to sleep tonight.” The dangerous panther bot met her face with his own blood red gaze. “We can’t stay here. They can sleep on the main floor,” she decided, hoof-pointing to her comrades. “You can stay with me.” She tackled Discord this way, though not quite so intimately. Perhaps it would work on a powerful alien.

Ravage crossed he arms, forcing the little pegasus to hover further away. “This assertive side of you is most refre…” He suddenly remembered their dalliance at the treehouse, “…Or maybe not.”

“Ravage, I promise I won’t do anything but sleep.” Her debate opponent did not look convinced. “Celestia’s sake, we already napped in my back yard!” This admission caused a ruckus from the other girls. “It won’t be any different in my bedroom.” Yeah, I bet, was uttered from Winter, but every mare including Fluttershy gave her the stink eye, so she quieted up.

There would be less than a week of this trash, then he would be gone. The look on her face when he takes off to the wormhole in Baltimare will be priceless, made all the sweeter with the burning, dismembered remains of Cadance. “Very well, I’ll accept your plan, but know this,” he said, shaking his metal index finger scoldingly, “If you so much as touch me in a way I don’t like, I’ll consider it an assault. Understand?”

“It’s against the law in Equestria to, um, touch ponies that way,” Fluttershy explained, blushing. “Not without being strongly acquainted and allowed.” She had dreamed of touching the single Decepticon stallion that way, after enough time had passed and they knew each other well. It was to be his seal of approval of the pony way of life, and hopefully, he’d become a permanent fixture in Fluttershy’s life. In reality, he was becoming less reachable the better they got to know each other. Would Saturday’s date fix that?

Shortly after, the seven ponies trotted over to Fluttershy’s house. The living room was furnished with sufficient sleeping space once Ravage and Fluttershy brought the futon from the back porch in.

Winter hopped on immediately and patted a spot next to her. “Saffron, c’mere,” she beckoned. “I think we should continue where we left off, uh, three parties ago?”

“Four,” the athletic mare corrected, before smiling wryly. It had been a long day, so it was time to unwind. “Yes, I definitely want to continue!” Her shapely friend squealed in delight. “We don’t have any whipped cream this time though, or cider. How will we do the night cap?”

“Why use cider,” Winter continued, looking over to the last unicorn in the room, “When we’ve got Pearl.”

Pearl Bliss squeaked and blushed awkwardly, covering her snout with a blanket.

Fluttershy flew down from the stairwell to the futon as soon as she heard of the naughty business about to start. “We will only be sleeping here tonight, okay?”

“It’s playtime, Fluttershy. We’ve been working all day!” the lascivious unicorn rebutted.

“Then play some cards. Our guest is spooked by, erm...” The flustered pegasus was thinking of the best descriptor. “Lusty things.”

“It’s alright,” Saffron intervened, stepping off the futon. “We only have to do this until Friday.”

Friday, Ravage thought. That’s when Princess Luna steps in and attempts to date him. If his date with Flitter was eventful, Luna was certain to be a slag show. She knew he was a robot from a planet far, far away. Why did she still want to date him? Why did Fluttershy? He winced, not wanting to think about the horror these mares were capable of. Secretly, he was happy his hostess stood up to that slag of a unicorn.

He had to go through Luna, a barricade as tough as Optimus Prime’s platoon of Autobots on Earth. But when he finally got through, assuming his deuterium and black matter plans also succeeded, he would finally leave this world. The mark he intended to leave behind would serve as a warning to all: don’t mess with Decepticons.

It wasn’t long after when everybody bedded down, and one of the mares used her magic to turn off the lights, instantly darkening the hall. Though he could have used his infrared, it was just two meters to Fluttershy’s bedroom door. It was open, and he pushed the slab of wood to get in. Closing the door, he turned toward the bed.

She was sitting up, her silhouette was softly traced by the moonlight coming in the window, wings spread. She got onto her side; her wings were unusually stiff as she had to use her left foreleg to maneuver the wing behind it. Ravage could make out the almost luminous blue in her enormous eyes, spackles of light reflecting off the mirror and onto them. She was waiting for him. He considered sleeping on the floor, but now was as good a time as any to test whether she was an ally or not.

Gingerly, he placed his hoof on the white patterned sheet, exerting pressure, testing it. It smelled clean. Not really floral, just clean. He got in bed, lying on his back. Unbidden, the pegasus mare threw her head onto his torso, her right foreleg clasping around him. She didn’t make a sound but was content to nuzzle him. Her mane was soft, draping over shoulders like a blanket.

Those wings were crazy-stiff, like fixed-wing aircraft. If memory served, Flitter and Cloudchaser’s wings were also like this at the Warehouse party. Perhaps it was a physiological response for radiating away extra heat before deactivating for the night, though her bottom quarters were tightly blanketed.

Ravage stopped thinking about it and closed his eyes, employing the one tactic he had against overly clingy mares.

Don’t look at it.

=^.^=

A small fishing vessel cruised the calm waters of Baltimare at night. Though only darkness emanated from the interior, it navigated perfectly, as if it was day.

In the cabin, Jocasta scrutinized the coast, evaluating the naval base next door with a spy glass. Total darkness was her ally. She did not need the light.

“Five more days, ponies,” she whispered.

Comments

[SolitariLupus]

I eagerly await the next chapter in 2024.

[Twilight_the_spy]

OUR BI-YEARLY UPDATE

PRAISE

Time to reread the entire thing until im so tired i miss work in the morning :D

... dangit, fine, just two or three chapters tonight.

[Moongaze14]

Yes! Oh, this chapter was so worth the wait.I felt sad that Twilight couldn’t join on the tour, but watching Ravage interact with Fluttershy, Scootaloo, and Flitter’s herd was entertaining. As always, his bond with Fluttershy was adorable to read, especially how much they are into each other. Ravage’s meeting with Celestia was also a delight since it was far more amicable and has potentials for many exciting events in future chapters. The best part is that, due to the secret being out, Ravage acts far more direct to the ponies, especially their reactions to his protocols and his gun. Overall, this chapter is one of my favorites and I cannot wait to see the new one in one or two years from now.

[the flying spaghetti monster]

I wish I were faster. Know that I love doing this and that I intend to see it through to the end. We're well past the half-way point, maybe I'll be able to increase my speed with all the plot lines established. We'll see.

[Time Waster]

Ravage said somepony called Megatron would never allow them getting together. Well, Megatron can suck an egg!

The mental image of Fluttershy marching up to a very confused Megatron and demanding that he allows Ravage to be her coltfriend gave me a good laugh.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

OH MY GOD IT UPDATED

[xiwu]

11384722
I'm afraid it will be a few year before I see that next chapter of this book.

[Starcat5]

11417426
Proto-Predicon, maybe? His current description mostly falls in line with his appearance in Beast Wars.

And in an unrelated note, Ravage clearly has no idea what a Conjunx Endura is. Not surprising, as that was an IDW concept rather than G1. That said, Cybertronian Romance has been a thing since Season 2, with Cybertronian/Organic Romance being even older. Maybe even Season 1, but I am not currently in a position to check.

[xiwu]

Please Update

[the flying spaghetti monster]

11775595
98% finished next chapter.

Jason.

[Poparakelis]

Fluttershy gasped in horror. How dare he! Not wishing to converse with him any further, she turned around and flew away.

Your way of showing emotion keeps being silly even after so many chapters