Harmony of Machines

by CreeperZone

We Did The Thing

“YOU'RE WELCOME?!?!” Hue was a tad bit mad. “WE WAITED FOR LIKE!! TWO THOUSAND HOURS! WHERE WERE YOU?!!!”

“Gettin' the information, whatchya think?” Ace sat right on down in the bar's booth.

“I THINK that you should have called us! I was cold! And lost! And Felix was scared!” Hue yelled far too loudly for anyone's comfort.

“H-Hey! I... I wasn't scared!” Felix blushed and hid from looks from around the bar.

“Look at him! He's still shaking!” Hue grabbed Felix by the shoulders and shook him dizzy.

“I'm really sorry, Hue, I should have told you. But we did just fine, so there's nothing to worry about anymore, maybe apart from getting back to Maverick and reporting.” Bun gave her drink a hug and took a sip from the steamy cup.

“W-W-W-Wh-hi-c-ch... Hue!” Felix pushed her hooves off of himself. “Ah... Which is why we should get going as soon as possible.”

“I agree with shifty over 'ere, we should bolt before the sun finishes comin' up.” Ace stood up and leaned against the table, giving a look to the bubbly spy and the cute robot.

“Y-Yeah... We should go. So much for relaxing with a coco...” Bun whimpered and drank down the fresh and roasting hot chocolate, she felt the heat coarse down her throat, but even though she could tell it would burn the mouth of a fleshy pony, it phased her not.

“FINE! But I'm not happy about it! Mnnff!” Hue stomped out of the booth and Felix followed swiftly.

The quad-squad trotted down the sleepy streets of a sun-rising Appaloosa, traveling out of the city to nearest Shadow Service issued magic-elevator.

A zap, a zoop and a tired Felix begging Hue to, for the love of all that Celestia's sun touches, please stop making elevator noises with her mouth later, they found themselves exiting into the Shadow Service headquarters.

They spilled out into the vacant lobby, speckling the floors with scattered sand that had stuck to their hooves. Bun lead them inside, passing the resting Blood Diamond on their way.

The elegant pony fixed the subtle reading glasses grazing the back of her crimson mane and lowered her tea. “Busy first day, Miss Button?” She spoke aloud while they passed, though a hovering newspaper clasped in Blood Diamond's magic kept her eyes' attention.

“Yeah, you could say that... Is Maverick here yet?” Bun glanced over and stopped for this brief exchange.

“Well...” Blood Diamond took out her sleek smartphone and checked the time. “It's four minutes past seven, and we're required to be here at twelve sharp... So, he'll most likely be here in five hours and fifty six minutes.”

Bun nodded along, and quirked an eyebrow at her math. “U-Hh, wouldn't that be an hour la... Oh...” She kicked herself a little.

Blood Diamond let out a simple and practiced giggle. “I know, I'm quite the joker outside work hours, he'll be here at twelve, don't you worry.” She returned to her tea.

“Thank you, have a good one!” Bun looked over at her friends with a nod and smile, continuing her walk to the training room reserved for them, the sounds of a grumbly half-argument pushing out from its walls.

“H-Hello?” Bun mumbled under her breath as her hoof pressed the door in slowly, her eye slipping its sightline through the crack as the door opened. Inside she witnessed the silver coated knight in shining frustration known as Pious Duty trying to reason with the five hundred pound behemoth of a dragon.

“-even listening to me? How do you expect me to explain what you did to Maverick?” He shook his hoof and glared deep into the giant beast's eyes.

The dragon shrugged.

Pious turned his head over to the door, eyes worn down from the sleepless day. “Greetings, friends, I do hope your nights bore more fruit than mine.”

Bun and her three followers trotted up to the duo. “We probably did actually, we have the lead Maverick told us to find.”

“Wonderful, I was worried we would fail and I'd hold the blame... Since I doubt the beast would fess up.” He scowled back at the dragon, who crossed his arms and shook his head with his slivers for eyes wandering around the room, a soft grumble leaving his throat.

“Aw, come on, don't be hard on him. I'm sure it wasn't that bad.” Bun cooed up at the dragon with a heartfelt smile.

“He set a civilian's house on fire while we were in pursuit, the ponies inside would have died if I weren't there.” Pious shook his head along with a sigh.

“O-Oh... Well... Okay, but I'm sure he didn't mean it.” Bun's smile grew awkward.

“If you believe so.” Pious trotted by to sit down with the other three at the edge of the room, leaving Bun stranded in the center of the hall with the grumpy red beast a hoof or two away. She turned her head up for her eyes to meet with the dragon, being quickly thrown off by him as he crossed his arms and stomped out the room in a huff.

“Mnn... Buddy...” Bun softly cooed as she watched him leave. After a short look back at the group as they reunited with Pious, she took a quick jog out after the big red beast. She slipped out the training room door to find him slumped over in the hallways, looking like a real grump. "Hey... You okay..?" She whispered over while approaching.

He shook his head.

“Aw... It's okay... Do you wanna talk about it?” The pink robo-pony scooted up beside him, placing a hoof on his monstrous thigh, staring up to his eyes. "You can trust me, I won't judge you, I promise."

“Mfnnf...” He snorted.

“I'm very sorry to hear that... But everybody has emotions, you don't have to be embarrassed about them... Tell me what's gotten you in such a bad mood.” She placed her head down against his arm, her furred cheek rubbing up against the sheen of scales.

Smoke puffed from the side of his mouth.

“Really? He said all that? Oh, darling...” Bun dug the side of her head against his belly and wrapped around him in a fearless hug. "Everyone makes mistakes... I think he just doesn't get how hard it is sometimes being a dragon, being so big makes it hard to live in a world of ponies, especially when so many are scared of you."

He nodded, then grumbled.

“Really? That's what happened? Well, that isn't your fault at all!” Bun leaned away to gain a sympathetic sightline with him. "Why don't you tell him? Surely he'd believe you."

"Grf... Rurr..." He let out a somber whine.

Bun slumped down against him, resonating with his disappointment. “Ohh... He doesn't listen? I understand... Sometimes people just won't listen...”

He shook her and muttered. "Mnff..."

“Oh.” She blinked. "You mean, he just, actually can’t understand you speaking. Right." Her eyes crossed and ears perked up. "W-Wait I can... Understand... Why can I... Understand?... Ah, screw it, probably not the weirdest effect of chaos magic I've felt so far."

"Heh... Heh..." The dragon chuckled, bringing Bun up in his encompassing claws, lifting her into his chest for a massive hug. A massive, bone crushing, hug. Making Bun extremely thankful she no longer had any bones as she squeaked like a dog toy and cuddled him back.

“Y-You’re... Welcome! A-Ah!” She got out as her biomechanical throat was shoved up against the dragon's soft underbelly, giggling herself too.

Their friendly embrace was ended once their dark navy-furred commander rolled up in their business. "Yo! Smaug, Ropony-cop, quit with the cuddling, I wanna do a roundup before twelve, get your butts in here." He shouldered through the training room door.

The dragon dropped Bun gently to her hooves. "Thanks... Let's get in there, bud." They both shared a nod and traced Maverick's path in, gathering in a circle around him as he drank from a steaming paper coffee cup, a dark scarf drooping from around his neck.

“Kay... So. Did you do it? The thing, whatever I told you to do yesterday.” He took a looooooong slurp.

Ace tipped her hat up. “Uh... Yeah, we got names and locations of the guy payin' for these murders, some zebra named Xavierian Deathtouch, they were going to meet him in three days where the Appaloosa highway meets Moonstone.”

Maverick sighed in delight, they grew up so fast. “Nice. Good work, team, that's exactly the info our information team got. So, that's all you got?”

“Was there anything else we were supposed to find out..?” Felix interjected with a wobbly raised hoof.

Maverick couldn't help himself but to chuckle. “Nah, that was it, I'm just trying to fill time until twelve, I'm not exactly enthused to hear Bloody Mary give a speech about the Shadow Service's financial status.” He took another chug and finished his cup. “Aaghh, I swear, nondescript coffee brand kinda sucks... Anyways, I was about to say that your next mission is in three days, the capture and or disposal of this necromancer, we'll be going through the plan after the meeting. Any questions?”

The six of them took some looks at one-another, none of them really wanting to speak up.

“Glad we're all in agreement. You're all dismissed, we have five minutes, so go read a book or something, I dunno what you... "ponies" do.” Maverick began trotting to the door.

Pious felt the need to speak up. “S-Sir... Aren't you a po-”

“Shhhhhhhh...” He put a hoof over his lips while sliding out of the door backwards until he vanished out of the frame.

More glances bounced around the room, the silence broken by Hue after a few seconds. “Should we... Go wait for the meeting?”

Everyone nodded, then left.

Nearly ten minutes later the facility was packed with all her agents and the meeting hall boomed with life for the brief horizon between everyone packing in and the stage being taken by the head of the organisation, Chariots Jobstone.

For the next hour they went through the tedium of overviewing today's tasks, reviewing yesterday's work and a dozen other things my editor said are boring and don't need to be listed. And despite trying her best, Bun could pay attention to none of it as Hue continuously went between trying to chat with her and Felix throughout the entire thing.

That finished and soon a lunch was had, the six sitting across from each other on benches, all together at a table as they ate.

“Swo... Mmm, plan twime.” Maverick pulled up a stool at the head of the table, mouth full of apple. “Whatchya guys got?”

Hue leapt up with waving hooves. “Ooh! Yes! Please! Now you have to listen to me!”

Every non-Maverick creature at the table sighed at Hue's eagerness, while he just chuckled. “Yes, Hue, go right ahead.”

She took a deep breath. “OKAY! So, I have the perfect plan that I kept trying to tell Bun, but she kept shushing me, anyways, so this is how it goes down. Felix, disguised as a gang member, brings me and Hue, disguised as dead bodies, to the meeting location. Then, once Xavierian comes out to collect 'our souls' or whatever, Ace is ready with a sniper rifle watching us approach while Pious is with her watching out for ambushes, meanwhile dragon is flying around nearby which won’t be suspicious because the badlands filled with all the dragons aren't far away, so once he hears the sniper shot he will fly down and pick up the cart that me and Bun will be hauled in, by the way, we'll need a cart, anyways, he'll pick up the cart but not before me and Bun quickly hop out and pull Xavierian's body into the cart so all four of us can get brought out of there before any of his henchponies can get us! Boom! Clean assassination, complete.” She sat back after clapping her hooves.

“Right...” Maverick took another chomp from his apple. “And what if he sends a middlemare instead of showing up himself?” He continuously looked to Hue.

“W-What if he... If he... Sends a middle... Mare... T-Then... Uhhh...” Hue froze in place like an ice sculpture.

“Good, now, does anyone have an actual plan?” Maverick grinned and began at his mashed potatoes.

Bun raised her hoof like she was a filly at school, getting an exhausted nod from Maverick. “Right, well, I imagine what we really need to do is find out where this zebra has his base of operations and then figure out what he looks like, since we have no idea about that, so we should just stake out the meeting location and then follow whoever shows up. Pious can see souls by closing his eyes right? With Ace's ability to track down valuables and my heat vision, we should be able to track them from really far away. While Hue and Felix are much more situated for infiltration, so they can be the ones to scout out the place once we find it. The dragon can be our look-out and back up in the sky if we need him, since yeah, it does make sense for a dragon to be flying around near the badlands.” She then bit her lip gently while taking a look around to read the room of nodding creatures.

“Sounds very reasonable, Bun, good stuff. Anyone have anything to add?” Maverick burped and wiped his lips with the back of his hoof.

Felix mumbled something about him having a question, getting the group’s attention. "R-Right... So, uh, what will me and Hue be doing while you're tracking this middlemare..?"

“Probably securing the perimeter, telling us if there's any gang activity going on nearby, right?” Bun replied to the shimmer.

“Yeah... That sounds good. We'll have ear pieces and stuff right?” He looked to Maverick, who nodded while wiping his mouth with a napkin, his meal done.

“Yeah, yeah, you'll get to have access to the armoury for this one, though be responsible with what you take, cause we have some doozies of weapons in there...“ He leaned in and began whispering as if he was really not supposed to be talking about this, but saying it anyway. “We have a grenade that explodes into more grenades which explode into more grenades. It's called the Scatter-Scatter Splatter and has been deemed a class five explosive, I fucking love it.”

Everyone had a good laugh and got up, all their plates now empty... Apart from Hue's, who still sat stone-still above her full platter of mashed vegetables and hay. “A... Middlemare...” The words fumbled from her lips as she was left alone at the table

“Hue?” Bun went back to the table after putting her plate away for cleaning with everyone else. “Hue come on, Maverick said we have the next two days off.” She shook her from behind.

Hue gasped herself back to life. “BUN! I figured it out, I have a new plan!” She turned around with the glint of youthful excitement in her eyes.

“Hehe... You can tell me about it as we go home, come on.”

---

“I'm coming! Wait up!” Bun stumbled through the doors of the train car, it being held open helpfully by another passenger for her. “Thank you so much... Ah... Have a good evening.” The pony tipped their hat and went into the train car for a seat, and soon so did Bun, sitting down on her own with a massive sigh of relief.

“Ahh...” She melted back into the cushioned seat, it'd been more than twenty-four hours since she'd been home, and even for a robot she was tuckered out.

Now that she had a sanctioned moment of peace on the train, she thought ahead to her home, she almost forgot about it... She had a whole regular life before these past two days flipped all that around, and now she was going to have to go back and pretend like she still has a regular life.

That was gonna be WEIRD.

She wondered about what Disarray and Goldwing and all her other friends must have thought about where she'd been all this time, realising they've probably been trying to call and text her all day, and she hadn't checked her phone once.

“I'm sorry, guys...” She said preemptively as she retrieved her phone from her saddlebag and saw the notification light blinking at her. “Ughh...” The phone flicked on to life...

""‖‖ /^\ [11%]

[20:11]

Sunday, 20 October

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{New Robotics News From MJS}
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Twilight sparkle announces changeling based robotic body-modification research.

Click here to learn more.

{44 New Texts From Disarray}
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Open

{WyndStreme - New hit Music Video dropped yesterday, watch it now! }
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Click here!

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Slide to unlock.

“Fourty four..? Uh...” She tapped into the text messages and began reading through them, each one escalating in worry and frustration at Bun not answering, though surprisingly around halfway through the collection they revealed a new piece of information to her. Apparently some 'government agent' came and told all of her friends that she had been hired on by Twilight to work on the new robot thing, and is currently taking part in a long overnight initiation process. She kept reading until she reached the most recent text of;

Disarray - 19:38:
Bun I swear I won't be able to keep G-wing from holding your surprise party much longer, we're all really glad you got this position but REPLY TO ME DAMMIT, and if Twilight's agents are spying on these texts, I ask of you to get BUN ON HER PHONE. AT LEAST ONCE PLEASE DAMN IT.
Thanks, much love - Dis

“Yeah yeah...” She began typing out her response.

Bun - 20:16:
I am so so so so so so so kinda sorry, I know I should have gotten back to you sooner, but you know how I am... I get tunnel-visioned, and I just focused on this new thing so hard I almost forgot time was passing at all really. I'm coming home now, tell G-wing we can celebrate tomorrow, I'm free for the next two days. See you soon!
Much love - Bun

She sighed and closed her phone once more. "Mmm... A party... I could use a party."

The road home was still and peaceful.

Once off the train, she had trodden through the city as the moon steadily rose to its peak, near-midnight as she passed by some faintly reminiscent alleys, her cautious eyes scanning the hollow city for trespassers.

She found nothing but a splatter of day-old blood on the pavement from a mugging that must have happened yesterday... Poor bastard. Bun thought as she hastily moved on.

Despite the ringing of thoughts through her mind, she slept like a foal that night. A benefit of being able to shut yourself down manually.

---

“Which really helped me sleep, yeah. Fucking Tartarus on fire though, Bun, I thought you were being disassembled so they could see how your insides worked or something crazy like that, you know?” Disarray's ridiculing voice came across the garbled phone call.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I should have told you quicker, and I already apologised, what more do you want? Hehe...” Bun spoke in her mind, the words being transmitted through bluetooth into her phone and to Disarray on the other end of the call.

“Just get your butt over here, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, see you there, Dis. Bye!” She hung up and pranced down the streets.

The sun was shining over a gloriously stress-free Monday, Bun had awoken at eight in the morning, later than she had been waking up for years now. The streets were as packed as ever though, the work rush not to fade for another hour or so... Though despite the bustling streets of shoving ponies, she herself was in no rush at all.

She got to casually trot down to the café her and her friends had arranged for.

Minutes later she could hear the bell tingle as she pushed through the door, her eyes darting to a side booth holding the light blue earth pony stallion and the golden tinted pegasus mare in deep conversation. “Hey, guys! I'm here!” Bun smiled and skipped over.

“BUN!” G-wing leapt out of her seat like a tiger and decked Bun to the ground, hugging the ever living shit out of her on the kinda dusty wooden floor of this café.

“A-Agh!! Aha... G... Hehe...” Bun twisted under her friend's passionate grip. “Y-You okay..?” A wide smile slipped its way out of her lips and tried to hide in the corners of her cheeks as she attempted to lift herself and Goldwing up to a sit.

“BUN! I missed you! So freaking much!!! WHERE WERE YOU?!?!” G-wing hopped up and pulled Bun up with her, both mares now on their hooves, then Bun brushed herself off.

“I got carried away with my new job, I'm very sorry, I'll try to keep up with you guys better, I promise.” Bun scooted her butt into the stall and sighed, the cushions of the seats inviting her to fall back and relax while her optimistic eyes bounced between her two friends.

“I told G all of that already, it hasn't exactly helped.” Disarray chimed in between sips of his strawed hot coco. “Tell her about the surprise party, Goldwing.”

Once Goldwing was in her seat once more and heard Disarray's betrayal of best surprise party practices. “DIS!!! You weren't supposed to mention the surprise party to Bun!!!” She gyrated up and down.

“Yes. I'm aware.” He took a long. Painful. Unending slurp from his straw. “But now that I did, you can tell her about the surprise party can't you?”

“That's true... BUN!” She darted her eyes to the pinkish robot. “Okay! So we're throwing you a party! We got drinks, party games, then we're going to watch some movies and just generally spend the whole night messing around. We even bought a DIY robotics kit we're gonna assemble while drunk and see if it works! I can't wait!”

Bun's smile reflected the traces of the morning sun running through the café window. “That all sounds so wonderful, thank you so much, Goldwing, I can't wait to see the others either.”

“Yeah! I know, it'll be awwwwsome! Though, can you please act surprised when we all show up in your apartment? Pweeeeease..? I promised the others we'd get to scare the heebie jeebies out of you.” Goldwing cupped her cheeks in her hooves and flickered her eyelashes.

It gave Bun a good giggle. “Yeah, of course. I'll gladly lose a heebie jeebie or two for you guys.”

Disarray slammed down an empty cup, wiping his lips of chocolate. “Mmn, good. Now that that's settled, how have you been, Bun? How's the new job actually treating you? You haven't said much at all about it over the phone and I'm dying to know what Twilight's got you doing.” He leaned in with engineered curiosity.

“Oh well, actually it's not really Twilight exactly that's given me this job, you see...” Bun heard a subtle click from inside her ear, followed by a repeating beep ringing within her head.

Right... She realised that revealing any secrets about the Shadow Service would cause the chip that had been implanted in her to blow her brains inside out.

And apparently just thinking about it armed the damn thing. “It's nothing special... They just wanted me for my years of experience working with robotics, just trying to develop seamless prosthetics... That kinda thing.” Her face flushes a little as she bit her tongue as if trying to catch the lie. The chip had gone silent once more.

Disarray gave an enduring smile. “Top secret government stuff?”

Bun nodded with a wince.

“That's fine then, whatever you're doing, just stay safe, yeah?”

“Yeah... Thanks, Dis.”

DING! Goldwing jumped, her wing wrapping around her side to grab the phone out of her bag. “Oooo! I got the text... They're done preparing for the surprise party!”

“Awesome! Shall we head out then?” Bun hopped out of the booth.

Her two friends nodded and came out of the café with her, chatting all the way down the now resting streets, all the way up to the apartment where her new-job celebration would be held.

For the next two days she was going to get to relax, have fun with her friends and be normal again... Well, as normal as she normally would be. Which isn't that normal to be fair. But regardless, she missed this.

She stepped through the door and did her best to act surprised.

Comments

[PixelBat]

Nice. Hopefully there will be more to this