Iridescence

by Tunalock

[Arc I] Chapter Three: Giant Robots

When Minuteman woke up, he pretended like nothing happened at all the previous night. Picking up his orange jacket, he made his way downstairs to eat breakfast. He was pouring his glass of milk to go along with his toast when he saw his Impala, parked on the front lawn. Dropping the carton of milk, he flipped out his cellphone and dialed Flash Sentry's number.

"Hello?" came the voice from the other side of the call.

"Flash, you gotta listen to me," the worried teen said, "I'm being stalked by Discord's car!"

"The hell is that supposed to mean?"

"My car stole itself last night, and now it's in my front lawn!" hissed Minuteman.

"Alright, calm down. Just come over to my house and we can talk this over."

"No chance, I just need to get away from this thing. It's probably heard you." Minuteman hung up the phone before Flash could respond. He ran over to the stairs and yelled to his uncle, "I'm gonna be taking your bike out, I left mine at the train yard last night!"

"Alright," came the call from upstairs. Minuteman gave a silent shout of victory and went for the back door. Before he went out, though, he decided to sneak into his uncle's desk downstairs and take his gun for safety. With the gun in his pants, the teen then ran outside, grabbed the bike, and pedaled fast down the street as he was being chased by his car.

---

After a while, Minuteman finally left the suburbs and got into downtown Canterlot, where the streets were the busiest. As he turned a corner, he checked behind him to see if the Impala from Tartarus was still there.

It was.

"Oh shit… this day isn't gonna end well…" he panted as he turned back around just in time to have his bike slam into an uneven sidewalk section. He flipped over his bike onto his back on the cold, hard pavement. He groaned as he rolled over on his side, clutching his back. In front of him were Green Leaf and Sunset Shimmer, both stopping their own breakfast to look at him.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay?" Green Leaf asked, rushing to his side. Minuteman groaned again and got up, getting on his bike as best as he could. "What's got you in such a rush?"

"Can't talk, being chased by my car!" was the only reply she got as he sped off down the street.

"I'm gonna see what's up, something isn't right…" Sunset said to her friend as she buckled her helmet up and sped off after Minuteman on her Vespa.

"Oh…" Green Leaf said quietly. "Well, alright, I guess…"

---

When Minuteman reached an abandoned parking lot under an under-construction freeway, he dropped his bike and ran amongst the cars, hoping to lose the possessed vehicle. As he was running among the cars, he found an officer in a police cruiser. "Oh, officer," he said, "I am so relieved to see you! I have had a hell of a day, alright? So, my car stole itself last night, and it's returned, it's hunting me dow-"

Minuteman was cut off as the policeman started advancing the car as if to run him over, revving the engine. "Woah, woah, woah!" he shouted, backing up on the ground. "Listen, officer, I need your help! My car-"

The police car tried to run Minuteman over again, pushing him back. "Alright, alright!" he shouted. "What do you want from me?" The policeman seemed to hold off on trying to run the teen over for a second before something terrifying happened.

When the cruiser revved the next time, the whole car started to come apart. The sides moved outwards, taking the back wheels with them. Out from the back wheels came finger-like projections as legs came out from underneath the chassis. The grill moved toward a chest, and a menacing head with red eyes popped out of the top, growling at Minuteman. "Ho-ly shit…" he said to himself as he got up and started sprinting down the aisle. The robot followed him down, taking much longer strides than the teen. When it caught up with him, the robot swung its arm at him, throwing the teen onto the windshield of a car. "Oh man, this isn't really happening, is it?" he asked himself as the robot got in his face.

"Are you the descendant of Arctic explorers Ice Pick and Belay?!" it yelled at him, slamming its fist on the ground.

"Y-yeah…" Minuteman stammered.

"Where is the map?" it asked, getting angrier. "WHERE IS THE JOURNAL!?"

"Wh-what journal?" the teen asked. The robot only yelled in frustration, coming close to smashing Minuteman into the car. The boy climbed up and over the car, running towards the exit as the monster behind him flung the now demolished car out of the way.

At the other side of the exit, Sunset Shimmer was riding her Vespa towards Minuteman. He was yelling and waving his arms, but she couldn't make out what he was saying. When the two met, though, Minuteman grabbed her leather jacket and pulled her off the scooter, causing both to land on their backs.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?" she yelled, her helmet rolling off her heat. "I was just trying to help!"

"Yeah, well, you can help by not getting killed, alright? I've got this… this thing" – Minuteman pointed at the beast coming ever closer – "trying to kill me, we've gotta go!"

"Oh my Celestia…" Sunset whispered, frozen in fear.

"C'mon, we've gotta go! He's right there!"

Out of nowhere, Minuteman's black Impala powerslid into the robot's legs – knocking it over – and stopped right beside the two teens, opening the door.

In a split-second decision, Minuteman turned to Sunset and said, "You gotta get in the car with me."

"What? Why?"

"Please, you gotta trust me. That thing wants to kill us, and I'm not going to be responsible for anyone's death." Sunset nervously nodded her head, and the two got into the car. As the Impala sped out of the abandoned parking lot, the robot got back on its feet and jumped in the same general direction as its target, transforming back into a police cruiser and turning its lights on.

---

As the Impala drove itself down the street with the police cruiser in pursuit, Minuteman grabbed his head in his hands and said, "Oh Celestia, this is how I'm gonna die. I'm going to die by being chased by an evil, transforming police car in my own evil, probably transforming car." As he pushed his back onto his seat, though, he felt something pushing against his lower back. Pulling the object out, he remembered that he still had the pistol that he 'borrowed' from his uncle earlier. "Aha!" he shouted in excitement. "This ought to do it!"

Sunset Shimmer looked over to see exactly what ought to do it when she saw the gun in his hand. "Oh my Celestia, is that a real gun?" she asked.

"Sure is," Minuteman replied as he pulled the top back, loading the next bullet into the chamber.

"Why do you have a gun with you!?" she screamed.

"Well, I'm not sure, maybe it had to do with my driverless car following me!" he yelled back, poking his head and arm out of the window. He fired a few rounds at the cruiser's tires, none of them doing anything.

"Minuteman, you might want to get back in the car!" Sunset said, a hint of warning in her voice.

"Huh?" The armed teen turned around to see that his Impala was headed straight for a colored window. "Oh Celestia!" he shouted as he pulled himself into the car just before it crashed right through the glass, shards spilling into the car as it spun and slammed its side into a large, wooden stand-up shelf. Pieces of wood flew everywhere as the Impala gunned its engine and bolted out of the empty warehouse, the destruction barely slowing the pursuing cruiser down.

---

As the Impala turned into the construction site, it turned itself into a dark alley-like construction and shut itself off, locking the two teens in the car. Both of them tried to lift the locks back up, but to no avail. They were locked in the car together.

Soon after, the cop car – lights and all – passed by the alley, obviously looking for the black Impala. Minuteman's breathing slowed down as his attention went from the pseudo-cop to the keys turning themselves in the ignition. "Get ready," he whispered to Sunset, who nodded with a worried look on her face.

The next time the cruiser passed, the Impala's engine roared to life, its back wheels spinning in the dirt. It flew past the cruiser – which was just realizing what was going on – and over a wooden bridge. On the other side, the Impala did a 180, opening the door and spilling Minuteman and Sunset out, before transforming into a giant robot similar to the cop car. "Go, Minuteman!" it yelled as the cruiser, racing towards them, transformed back into a robot and tackled the Impala robot. The two bots rolled backwards before they let go of each other.

The cop robot, standing back up quickly, took out what looked liked a mace and yelled, "This one is for my Decepticon brethren!" It then swung at the Impala robot, missing both times.

"Try and get me then, Raze!" the Impala yelled, slamming a fist into Raze's chest.

He flew back into some scaffolding before getting right back up and popping a smaller, thinner robot out of his chest. "Go, Frenzy!" Raze yelled. "Get the Arctic boy!"

Minuteman felt a sinking feeling in his chest. "I think he means me!" he said, starting to run away from the battle as Raze threw the Impala bot into a building. "Come on, Sunset, let's go!" he yelled, grabbing her wrist and dragging her along.

"What's going on, what are those things?" she asked, running alongside him.

"Look, I have no idea, but we need to get away from whatever that thing sent at us!" Minuteman replied, looking back to find Frenzy gaining on them. "Go find something to kill this thing, like a saw or something!" he said, pulling his uncle's pistol out of his pants and firing at the miniature robot. Sunset nodded as she ran off to a shed to look for power tools.

"Come here, Arctic boy!" Frenzy said as it ran at Minuteman, pushing him against the fence. The weak links in the fence gave way, thought, sending the two tumbling down a hill. More shots rang out as Minuteman tried to hit the wiry robot in its head. They landed on another fence, with the teen's back to it, stuck in a struggle to punch the other. Frenzy headbutted Minuteman, knocking his grip off of the robot's wrists. "You're coming with me, Arctic boy!" the robot said, wrapping its spindly hands around Minuteman's neck.

Just when all hope seemed lost, Sunset Shimmer came out of nowhere, reciprocating saw in hand. She cut off Frenzy's arms, freeing Minuteman of his grip, and then said his head off. As the head writhed on the ground, Minuteman said, "Not so tough, now, are you?" before punting it off into the distance.

---

As the two teens climbed up the hill, Sunset said, "So, let me get this straight. You bought a car that seemed broken, but just turned out to be a giant robot?"

"I guess," Minuteman responded.

"Why would you buy an obviously broken car?"

"Because," Minuteman explained, "it was the only one with the windows intact. My car set its alarms off."

Sunset was about to say something, but the two teens found Minuteman's robo-car waiting for them at the top. "Are you two okay?" it asked.

"Y-yeah, I guess you could say that," Minuteman said. "Was that you last night, what was that all about?

"It was a signal," the robot explained. "Something to tell the other of my kind to come."

"What, like the one you just fought?" Sunset said. "Not sure if you noticed this, but you two didn't exactly play nice."

"That was a Decepticon, Raze. He's not my kind, I'm an Autobot. Name's Black Lightning," the robot said as it transformed back into the Impala with the white racing stripes, the door swinging open.

"I think he wants us to get in…" Minuteman said.

Sunset gave a disbelieving laugh. "What for? Where would we go?"

The boy grabbed her by the shoulders. "Look," Minuteman said, "in twenty years, when you look back on everything that happened in your life so far, don't you want to tell yourself you had the guts to get in the alien car with the weird kid from school and go wherever?"

The girl sat there for a moment, debating on this thought that Minuteman gave her. After careful thought, Sunset Shimmer, the girl from another world, got into the alien car with Minuteman, the weird kid from school.

As they drove off, they stopped over at where Minuteman faced Frenzy atop the hill so Sunset could grab her purse. What they didn't see, though, was the head of Frenzy taking the form of her cell phone seconds earlier.

---

"Where do you think he's taking us?" Sunset Shimmer asked, sitting in between the two front seats of the alien Impala that just entered an underground tunnel.

"I dunno," Minuteman responded. Silence came between them before he asked, "Why don't you sit in the driver's seat?"

"I'm not sitting there, he's driving!" Sunset replied. "Who knows if it'll, like, shut off his automatic driving or whatever?"

There was another bout of silence before Minuteman boldly said, "Hey, uh, why don't you sit on my lap?"

Sunset scoffed at him. "And why would I do that?!"

"Because I have the only seatbelt, if you aren't gonna sit in the driver's seat. I mean, safety first, right?" Minuteman replied.

Sunset sighed before moving over to sit on Minuteman's lap as he pulled the seatbelt over them. Once she got settled in, she said, "You know, that was pretty smooth of you."

"I wasn't trying to be smooth," Minuteman said.

"Oh yeah?" Sunset asked. "Well, you were." More silence passed before she asked, "You wanna know something I don't understand?"

"What's that?"

"Well, if Black Lightning's this super advanced alien or whatever, why does he transform back into this rustbucket of an Impala?"

Sunset must have had hit a nerve, because the next thing the two teens knew, their car was kicking them out. "Oh wow, that's real nice. My $4,000 just drove off!" Minuteman said as they moved off to the tunnel's sidewalk, the Impala driving back the way they came. "Sunset, remember, that's not just a car! It's a living being; it has feelings!"

"Well sor-ry for that!" she snapped at him.

"You better be, 'cause we have no ride!"

"Well, if you hadn't picked the alien car in the first place, we wouldn't be here, now would we?!"

"The car picks the driver, Sunset! Especially the alien car from another planet that's not really a car!"

Sunset laughed at him. "You know what? You're the weirdest kid I've known in my entire life. No wonder my ex-boyfriend hangs out with you…"

"Oh, so you broke up with him again? How surprising."

"It's nothing new to see how pathetic he's become."

"Oh yeah? Well maybe it's because you're such a-"

Before Minuteman said something he would have eternally regretted, a car behind them honked at them. They both turned around and, seeing what was in front of him, Minuteman said, "No way." Gleaming in front of the two teens was a tenth generation 2014 Chevy Impala, with the same black paint with white racing stripes. The doors opened, and Minuteman climbed into the driver's seat. He had almost shut the passenger side door before realizing Sunset was still on the sidewalk, thoroughly pissed at him. He contemplated what he would do next before throwing the door back open. "Look," he said quietly, "I'd be a real lousy friend if I left you here alone. You wanna come in?"

Sunset sighed and said in an equally quiet tone, "Sure, thanks," as she climbed into the new Impala, shutting the door behind her.

---

The rest of the ride was silent until the Impala drove up onto the hill it 'stalled' at the other day. It parked itself on the edge and opened the doors for the teens to get out. The two climbed out of the vehicle and shut the doors before sitting on the hood of the car. They then sat in silence underneath the shining stars before Minuteman said, "About what happened in the tunnel…"

"Don't worry," Sunset said, cutting him off. "I never really meant any of it. I've gotten so used to lying that even I'm not sure what's true and what isn't."

"So I'm not the weirdest kid you know?" Minuteman asked.

"No, you still are…" Sunset replied, sighing. "You sure are something special."

"Like… what kind of special?"

"Gifted, I guess."

Their hands were moving closer to each other on the hood of the car as they talked. Just when they were about to touch, however, Black Lightning's radio (Is There Anybody Out There?) went off, startling the two. Not soon after, they saw a group of five meteors in the sky, racing towards them…

---

The little girl was fast asleep, holding on to her stuffed teddy bear. She was awakened by what sounded like thunder from outside, although it wasn't raining. She got out of her bed, teddy bear in hand, and walked out back. In her pool was a monstrous being made of metal, water spilling off of it as it climbed out over her. As it walked over and past her, she mustered up the courage to say in her Southern accent, "S'cuse me, but who are ya?"

An orange girl with blonde hair came walking outside just as the being hid in the trees, saying, "Apple Bloom, what're ya- Apple Bloom?"

"Yeah?"

"What'dja do to tha pool?"

As the girl brought her younger sister inside, who was babbling about 100-foot robots, they didn't notice a black truck identical to the one next to it settling in the driveway before pulling out. This was Ironhide.

---

The military base was quiet as could be. The only one that was awake was the director in the control tower, and even then, he was nodding off. However, he was suddenly awoken by a ground-shaking crash on the airstrip. He jumped out of his chair to see a ball of fire burning out on the strip, grabbing his radio and yelling, "All personnel to the airstrip, all personnel to the airstrip! We have an unidentified object on the runway!"

Soon, the whole of the base had their weapons trained at the fireball. Firefighters came over to put out the fire, only to find a large crater in the middle of it. "Search the perimeter," the colonel said, nobody noticing the green Oshkosh Sand Cat known as Hound driving away from the scene.

---

The third meteor landed in a baseball stadium, right next to a car dealership. The robot had quickly climbed out of the stadium and swung down the the ground below, spying a sky blue Mitsubishi Eclipse inside of the dealership. Lightspeed scanned the car and, with his new form, sped down the road to rendezvous with the other Autobots.

---

"Chug, chug, chug, chug!" yelled a group of teens as their friend was downing a pitcher of beer. A pale yellow freshman was holding a camera, recording the event. Unfortunately, their hazing was cut short as an earth-shaking crash came from outside. As the teens ran out to investigate leaving their drunk friend behind, one of them ran back in and said, "Come on, Featherweight, you gotta record this!"

Outside, there was an automotive shop that was completely destroyed and lit up by whatever had crashed. "Oh man," the same kid said, "this guy's so boned! Who's gonna believe that his shop was destroyed by nothing?"

A siren pierced the commotion as people moved aside to let a green ambulance pass by them, not knowing it was the Autobot Ratchet making his way to the rest of his team.

---

The final one flew right over Minuteman and Sunset Shimmer's heads into Cauldron Lake, slamming into a hill on the way. It quickly climbed out of the lake and ran to a different hilltop, where a red semi with blue flames at the front was passing by. Optimus Prime scanned the car and transformed into it as the two teens watched.

As Optimus drove away, Black Lightning came up behind them in robot mode. "You guys ready to go?" he asked.

"Go where?" Minuteman replied.

"To meet the Autobots," Black Lightning said as he transformed back into the Impala, doors opening. The two teens looked at each other in disbelief before getting into the car, which promptly peeled out of the dirt road.

Author's Note:

Chapters will get bigger as the story goes on, due to how I've planned it. Also, double word count this week for not updating last week.

Comments

[Darkryt Orbinautz]

Okay. . . I write TF/MLP stuff too, and I can feel my inner critic screaming, so. . .apologies in advance if I come across as too harsh.

1) You said at the start that this wouldn't be a straight re-hash of the movie film. Aside from the conversation with Minuteman's dad, and him having a gun so far, it feels. . . like a straight re-hash. You might want to include a new scene or some attention-getting foreshadowing soon, or people are gonna get real turned off.

2) You mention Frenzy turning into Sunset's phone. Someone who's never seen the movie before will not have any idea what this means, and you should really try to make your writing like the person has no idea about the subject. (I don't mean, treat them like an idiot, but still, some things need explaining.)

3) There is no in-story reason why we're being told the names of the Autobot cars in the narration. There was a very sound principle in, um, like this guide or something. . . but paraphrased, it said "if the characters in the scene (The air force, Apple Bloom, the Drunkards) don't know the name of the new character (the Autobots), then there's no reason the narration should know either."

[Tunalock]

3517863 I was actually going to change quite a lot leading up to the battle downtown (which would have been almost completely different), but the story's currently collecting dust. I tried to not make it a re-hash, but it ended up like that anyways, so that' sine of the main reasons why I quit at it. Too much bad leading up to the good.

[Darkryt Orbinautz]

3531658

You know, Notramjet and I are both TF/P authors, and we're both rebooting fics because we felt them . . . unsatisfactory. Why don't you do that? Brainstorm a little!