Transformers Prime: Ponies in Disguise

by RavageXeno

Chapter 9

Ducking under the torrent of orange flame, Starscream covered his eyes with his hooves, praying silently to Primus. Shooting over the pony that was cowering in front of the beast, the flames hit the throne, and then cascaded to the ceiling.

When Starscream had thought that the temperature had decreased, he moved his hooves and glanced upwards towards the beast. Which was glaring down at him. Frozen to the spot, he began mumbling incomprehensible mutterings about the ‘War’ and ‘Cybertron’ and ‘experiments’.

“Starscream run!” Rainbow shouted, from beside the throne where she and the rest of the ponies were stood, hopefully out of range of the beast. Jarring him to his senses, the shout made him leap to his hooves and gallop towards the others.

He reached the group and stood there for a few moments, his head and wings drooping towards the floor whilst he was taking deep breaths and trying to calm his nerves. Which was slightly working until he smelt something burning.

“AH! Ahhhhhhh!” Starscream screamed as he looked up to find his red spike of hair in his mane to now have a flickering flame on it’s tip. Using his hooves beat out the fire, he momentarily forgot that he needed to use said hooves to keep him from falling over. Panicking as he fell, he quickly flapped his wings. Slowing and stopping himself just before his snout hit the floor.

*Stomp*

*Stomp*

*Stomp*

Standing back up and turning around, he saw that the metal beast had begun to follow him. It’s glowing red eyes were locked on it’s prey; which Starscream thought was him.

Halfway to the throne the beast stopped. And growled. Before turning it’s gaze towards the other side of the throne, where Haunt was now walking towards it.

“Haunt! Keep back!” Twilight said, a worried expression on her face though she didn’t make any move to stop her. Seemingly ignorant of the comment, Haunt continued walking towards the beast. Which in return, continued to growl at her.

“Stop scaring them you big brute!,” Haunt said as she approached the beast, with a big grin on her face. To the amazement of Starscream and the other guests, the beast did as he was told. Then also lowered his head, so that she could reach it.

Knowing that they weren’t going to be attacked, they relaxed slightly. But none of them were willing to go forward. Which was what Haunt had suggested, after she had started stroking the beast’s head.

Taking a deep breath, Fluttershy moved away from the group.

“Fluttershy! What are you doing?” Twilight asked as she walked towards the group.

“Proving that I’m not a scaredy-cat,” she said as she reached the beast and copied how Haunt was stroking his head. “What’s his name?” she asked quietly.

“His name is Grimmy,” Haunt said, smiling at the pegasus. “Though you three probably know him as Grimlock,” she continued, turning to look at Arcee, Bumblebee and Starscream.

“That’s what happened to him?” Arcee said as she and Bumblebee started forwards, their trepidation gone and now replaced with smiles. “Nobody has seen him since the space bridge exploded.”

However Starscream didn’t share their excitement. Remembering his tainted past, he considered fleeing from the room, before he realised that would mean he could never make it home.

Unless I change my approach... Starscream thought to himself whilst eyeing Grimmy carefully.

“While he may look like your Grimlock, Grimmy is unfortunately nothing more than a replica of the original,” Haunt said which prompted a sigh of relief from Starscream. “Sorry to disappoint,” she continued when she noticed two crestfallen faces.

“But how were you able to see through to their dimension?” Twilight asked, her curiosity overcoming her fear as she stepped closer. “It doesn’t seem physically, or magically possible.”

“Ha, Twilight. Magic doesn’t exist,” Starscream said moving to stand next to her, through the confused comments of the others. “I thought even one as intellectually capable as yourself would know that?”

“What? This entire world is built upon magic. From moving the sun and moon, to each pegasus being able to fly,” Twilight said turning to face him. “How can you say it doesn’t exist when you have seen it yourself?”

“I... um. Was distracted by *ahem* other matters, and having telepathy doesn’t mean magic exists,” Starscream said glancing around whilst he tried think. “But you can clearly see that these machines are created by science, not magic voodoo,” he continued pointing his hoof towards Grimmy.

“Statement: you’re wrong meatbag,” said HK-47 from the other side of the throne. Immediately afterwards, there was a resonant metallic thud from the same origin, as if a pony, or changeling, had just bucked the robot in the chest. Followed hushed mutterings about ‘manners’ and ‘decorum.’

“Wha..?” was the reply from Starscream, as he placed his hoof back on the ground and looked at Haunt quizzically, who was still laughing at the commotion from the other side of the throne.

“HK-47, though... misguided, is correct,” Haunt said as she and Fluttershy stopped petting Grimmy’s head. He then proceeded to stand up straight whilst Haunt motioned to Fluttershy to stand back. “These machines were created by magic.”

Before Starscream could react, Haunt’s horn lit up with a purple aura and a beam of light shot from it towards Grimmy’s chest. For Starscream, looking at Grimmy was like looking into the dark chapters of his history. Though there were a few differences that assured Starscream that he wasn’t going insane. Mainly, Grimmy seemed sleeker and less ‘blocky’ than his counterpart, with longer arms which ended with an extra finger on each hand.

Also instead of the thick gold plates which lined the base of Grimlock’s neck, there was a thin band of gold (almost like a collar) which had a purple jewel embedded in it, above the center of his chest. Where a thin line showed where two metal plates - which made up part of his torso - joined together.

The purple beam hit the jewel, leaving it faintly glowing when the beam subsided and stopped. After a moment of it glowing, a metallic whirring sound started up, and the plates that built up his chest split apart at the thin line, and folded at his side. Revealing the chaotic gears and mechanisms which built up the inside of the robot. At the center of the sprawling chaos, there was a small chamber - which reminded Starscream of a spark chamber of a mech from his own dimension.

Starscream thought that the chamber seemed to be connected to every other part of the robot, but he wasn’t able to follow any given wire for long. Inside the chamber was a shard of purple crystal, exactly like the shard on Haunt’s cutie mark, which pulsed with light every few seconds.

“That shard powers Grimmy, and all of my creations are powered by a similar shard. Which are powered by a large magical charge,” Haunt said motioning towards the crystal with her hoof.

“I’ve never seen a crystal like that before!” Rarity said moving forward for a closer look. “It would look lovely on a dress. Where did you find it darling?”

“That shard was given to me as a gift by Megatronus. Though I’ve since managed to find a small chunk. Though I fear that there is no more to be found, as it is a very rare crystal.”

“Oh, well where did you find that chunk. I’m sure I could go and have a look around myself.”

“Well I would advise not going there. The place lies to the south across the sea, in the heart of dragon country.”

“Actually, I think it would be such a waste to use such a rare jewel on such a mundane thing as a dress,” Rarity said, ending the conversation and moving back to stand by her friends.

“See Starscream. Magic is proven to exist,” Twilight said, as Haunt closed up the panels on Grimmy’s chest.

“Well I still don’t think it exists,” Starscream said, before going to stand away from the group next to the long line of curtains on the wall.

“Don’t worry about him,” Arcee said before Twilight could go after him. “He’s a scientist and like most scientists he... he doesn’t believe in what most would call supernatural.”

“Ah,” Twilight and Haunt said simultaneously. Before Haunt continued in a more serious tone, “though I would keep that information away from certain... ponies.”

“Right! Let’s get on with why we are here,” she said in a more cheerful tone before anyone could ask her what she meant.

Trotting round to her throne she began mess with the controls in the arm of it. Before pulling off a side panel and rummaging with the mass of wires inside. With an exasperated sigh she replaced the panel, before swiftly turning and kicking the panel with her back leg. Smiling when a soft beep was heard from the chair, she turned back to look at a green button that was now lit up.

“Ah, finally,” she said to herself before hitting the button. A low hum resonated around the room as the thick drapes groaned into life, starling Starscream and making him take a few steps backwards.

“So why couldn’t we just move those curtains ourselves?” Rainbow asked, flying up to look at the curtains.

“Because Rainbow, they were created with woven strands of osmium,” Haunt said watching as Rainbow tried, and failed, to move one curtain further along it’s track. “Osmium is the densest, stable naturally occurring metal known. And before you ask, they’re immune to magic.”

The guests had gathered closer to the curtains, but were unable to see anything at the moment due to the sudden influx of sunlight into the room. From what they could see, they could tell that the wall was split into smaller sections consisting of two large windows. The sections were divided by small segments of wall, which were still slightly hidden by the drawn curtains.

Eventually their eyes adjusted enough so that they were able to see outside clearly, without them having to shield their faces. As they took in the scene before them most of the guests exclaimed gasps of horror, with others merely dropping their ears flat against their heads and taking a step backwards.

Though Arcee and Bumblebee, like Starscream weren’t affected by the scene in front of them. As they were used to the side effects of war.

Below the castle the mountain fell away steeply towards a lush forest below, which stretched for miles to the west of the castle into the distance. It also continued for a short distance east, before it turned into the small grassy plains which then merged to the sea, after changing into a sandy beach.

The coastline zigzagged north for around 30 miles until it marked the eastern border of Manehatten. Surrounding the south of the city was a large expanse of brown/yellow ground, which Starscream managed to make out as some sort of dessert. Everypony’s attention was drawn towards the city. Though it wasn’t due to the environmental features.

The city was in ruins.

Great plumes of smoke rose from various points in the city. Either billowing out of the side of a building, or emerging from the shattered remains of a skyscraper. In the windows of some of the larger buildings they were able to make out the flickering pattern of flames.

“Oh my!” Rarity said “This... is... My whatever happened to all the ponies who lived there? How many of them...?”

“None, Queen Olethron seemed to only want to conquer the city, not destroy it,” Haunt said, sneering at her mother’s name. “Her army created a panic, spread through the city and then let everypony leave. They are either staying with friends or family in other parts of Equestria, or taking sanctuary within Baltimare.”

“Why?” Rainbow asked.

“I don’t know. Though i do know that she has turned the town hall into her new headquarters. But none of my scouts can get close enough to the city to find out anything else.” Haunt said whilst using her magic to summon enough cushions for all of them to sit on, and sat down on her own at the base of her throne.

“How long has it been like that?” Twilight asked, walking away from the window and taking a seat on one of the cushions.

“Probably a little over a month,” Nightshade said, sitting on a cushion opposite Twilight.

“What!” Rainbow said, leaping into the air and flying over to Haunt. “Then how come the rest of Equestria, or Princess Celestia doesn’t know about this?”

“Because we can handle this on our own,” Haunt replied curtly, which managed to stop the conversation for a while.

Eventually, everypony came and sat on one of the cushions which were strewn in front of the throne. Though HK-47 decided to sit on the floor next to the throne and slightly behind Haunt.

“Wait, I thought that you said that they came from the Badlands?” Twilight asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes”

“But the Badlands are to the south, how come they attacked Manehatten, which is to the north?” Twilight continued, looking at Haunt.

“We think that there is an underground tunnel, which runs under the sea from the Badlands all the way to Manehatten,” Haunt said, before turning to stroke Grimmy. Who had laid down, with his body curving around the throne on the other side to HK-47 and his head now next to Haunt’s cushion. “The ponies who fled the city told us of a large hole opening up in the city, and the army pouring out of it.”

The sombre mood quieted the conversation again, and despite the light streaming through the windows, made the room seem cold and dark.

“Right!” Haunt exclaimed, jumping to her hooves and startling everypony in the room. “Sod this ‘doom and gloom’, how about dinner!”

---

They’d eaten dinner in a room that was almost identical to the dining room in Scar’s half of the castle, except this one had slightly different paintings, and there was no pony vs changeling battle going on inside it.

Wishing to get them back to their accommodation before nightfall, they were swiftly re-directed towards the chariot and were currently speeding through the air. Their take off was more ‘normal’ than before, though Starscream wasn’t sure that being carried around in a flying chariot was exactly normal.

They were currently flying of the dense forest that was to the west of the window, and if Starscream turned around and strained his eyes he could just make out the distant plumes of smoke which indicated the destroyed city.

“What’s the big deal with that damaged city?” Starscream asked Rainbow quietly, thinking that the other pony might be offended by his questions. And that Rainbow would be less so, as she seemed to have been the least upset in the throne room.

But he had also noticed that she tended to be the loudest of the group.

“The big deal!” Rainbow exclaimed, though she seemed to understand why Starscream had lowered his voice and copied him. “This sort of thing doesn’t happen here, were supposed to be a peaceful nation.

“Granted we’ve had our fair share of battles, though they were sorted out relatively simply and none of them resulted in damage on this kind of scale,” Rainbow continued, keeping her voice low enough so that no one else could hear it over the conversations the other ponies were having. “Though it would be kinda awesome if stuff like this happened more often.”

Thinking, Starscream let the back row fall into silence again. Until his thoughts were interrupted by a tap on his shoulder.

“Mmhm, what?” he asked as Rainbow got his attention by waving her hoof in front of his face.

“How come you didn’t seem to be affected by the city?” Rainbow asked, a confused look on her face.

“Oh, well in our dimension, we were - and still are in fact - at war. Our planet, was almost destroyed by it,” Starscream said turning to look at Rainbow to check that she hadn’t gotten bored with him saying so many words. However she seemed to have guessed what he was thinking, and was glaring at him, urging him to get on with the tale. “So scenes much like that were a common day occurrence.

“However, if Megatron had decided to attack a city, I doubt there would be any survivors,” Starscream continued. “Which makes me wonder...”

“Wonder what?”

“Oh nothing. Just thinking aloud,” Starscream said, before returning to his thoughts. It makes me wonder why he would want to come to a place like this? he wondered silently to himself without being interrupted, as Rainbow was busy admiring the view. As he thought he watched a small black bug which was clinging onto the inside of the chariot, though it flew away not long after he had begun to look at it.

Eventually, the chariot slowed, signalling their descent. Jolted out of his thoughts, he glanced around the chariot, but there didn’t seem to be anything of significance around them in the nearby forest. The most notable thing being a lighter patch of green amongst the usual dark green trees.

The forest didn’t seem as menacing as the trees that surrounded the outskirts of Ponyville. But Starscream sensed that there was something ominous about them, it felt like a bad feeling. As if there was something stalking in the shadows, or creeping through the trees.

It made Starscream involuntary shudder.

Noticing this, Laserbeak gave out a cry which seemed to Starscream to be a mocking laugh. Though he could do nothing but glare at him, as he was perched on Fluttershy’s shoulder, towards the front of the chariot.

The chariot began to spiral as it started its descent, and its speed began to decrease more dramatically. By now Starscream could tell that the chariot was indeed heading for the patch of lighter green. Which upon closer inspection revealed itself to be a small clearing, just large enough to accommodate the chariot.

Once they had stopped spiraling and they had lined up with the clearing, Haunt pulled the lever which swapped the skis for wheels. Landing the chariot wasn’t as smooth as it had been at the castle, the uneven surface making the chariot bounce up and down slightly as landed. So much so that Starscream would have been catapulted out of the chariot, if he had not grabbed hold of the side before their landing.

Instead of stopping, like Starscream thought they would, the chariot maintained a constant speed as they passed through the trees at the end of the clearing. Due to the almost chaotic nature of the forest, they were forced to take a more leisurely speed, though it couldn’t exactly be called slow.

As far as Starscream could tell, there was no path that they were following. But the Seekers seemed to be able to navigate a twisting path through the trees with ease. Starscream glanced behind him, but the clearing they had landed in was already out of sight. Turning back around, he quickly ducked under a stray tree branch that was lower than the rest, and probably would have knocked him out of the chariot. So he decided that it would be safer if he crouched and kept his head below the top of the chariot.

The further they traveled into the forest, the darker it seemed to become. And it seemed to be getting cooler. The absence of the sun’s light due to the trees, making the ponies’ breath come out in little clouds of condensation.

They travelled through the forest for a few minutes, but after a few minutes Starscream thought he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. Like a fleeting shadow. But when he turned to look, there was nothing there. So he just dismissed it as his mind playing tricks on him.

Gradually the ground started to slope downwards for a few meters, before it started to level out again and the trees began to thin. Though it didn’t seem to be getting any lighter. Eventually the trees stopped completely, forming a much larger clearing than they were in before. Far above them the leaves from various trees interlocked, creating a kind of natural ceiling.

However this clearing wasn’t empty like the previous one.

A few meters into the clearing, the ground changed from grass to ancient stone, making the Seekers hooves clip loudly as they walked onto it. This continued for about 10 meters until it hit the side of the pyramid which was sat in the center of the clearing.

The pyramid was like the ones that Starscream had seen on Earth (in someplace called Egypt), though this one was a dark grey instead of sandstone, and was topped by a flat platform with ruined pillars in each corner instead of a point. The top of the pyramid was about 25 meters up, and you reached it by using the stairs which started on either side of the doorway and joined above it.

Taking up almost half of the front side, the door was huge and covered with intricate patterns and long forgotten languages, and probably weighed a ton as it seemed to be made out of two solid stone slabs which slide open from the center of the doorway. Though luckily for them the door was slightly open, creating a (comparatively) small gap which was large enough for three ponies to walk abreast.

“Wow,” Rainbow said, jumping into the air as the chariot stopped in front of the doorway. “This place would be perfect for a Daring Doo book, it’s huge!”

“Well actually, thiss iss only half the pyramid,” Nightshade said whilst making her way out of the chariot. “You’re sstanding on the other half.”

“Awesome!” Rainbow exclaimed, before doing a lap around the pyramid and landing next to the chariot. “So when are we going inside?”

“Actually, you’re not,” Haunt said, jumping out of the chariot to follow her lieutenant, who was now standing next to the opening in the door.

“What!” was the combined response from the ponies in the chariot.

“We’ve spent too much time here already. The forest becomes treacherous to navigate at night, and thats to say nothing of it’s inhabitants,” Haunt said who was now checking on the Seekers. “And we didn’t pick this place to store a powerful artifact because the scenery was nice.

“The inhabitants of the pyramid... don’t take too kindly to strangers,” she continued, walking to join Nightshade by the door. “So we are going to go in and talk to them, and then come and fetch you,” she added before one of them could ask why they were brought along.

“Wait, didn’t you say that the forest has dangerous inhabitants?” Rarity asked, looking warily at the tree line.

“Don’t worry, the creatures of the forest don’t go past the tree line. Just stay near the chariot and you will be fine,” Haunt said as she followed Nightshade into the dark interior of the pyramid.

---

“Gah! We’ve been out here for ages!” Rainbow almost shouted. She was sprawled upside down on the back row, forcing Starscream to move forward to Nightshades vacant seat.

“Rainbow, it’s been five minutes,” said Twilight, who was much more interested in the controls at the front of the chariot than in her surroundings. Though she didn’t dare touch anything, after she had seen what had happened in the throne room.

“Ahh! I can’t take this anymore,” Rainbow said jumping out of the chariot and standing in front of the door, all in one swift motion. “I say we go have a look for ourselves.”

“But Rainbow, Haunt said to wait here,” Fluttershy said from next to the Seekers, as she had been talking softly to Pitch and the others, who were now lying down.

“You said you wanted to prove you’re not a scaredy-cat. Well this is the best way to prove it,” Rainbow said, turning to look at her friends.

“Yeah, but i didn’t want to prove that I was suicidal - by going into a dark scary pyramid, filled with possibly dangerous inhabitants, in the middle of a creepy forest, that does have dangerous creatures in it,” Fluttershy said as she walked towards her friend.

“Well I’m going in, even if none of you are,” Rainbow said, taking a step towards the pyramid.

“Well, if you are so adamant and there is no chance we can change your mind, we may as well come in with you,” Rarity said, getting out of the chariot and joining the two pegasi. “Just so we can stop you getting into too much trouble.”

“Okay then, let’s go,” Twilight said, taking her eyes off the controls and getting out of the chariot, followed by the other ponies. She stood at the front of the group, before tentatively taking the first step into the dark interior of the pyramid.

The interior wasn’t pitch black, as Starscream had presumed, as there was enough light from the doorway to allow the ponies to see where they were going for the first few paces. After they were too far down the corridor for the light from outside to reach them, weird lighting fixtures, that gave out a sickly green light were placed at regular intervals. Which gave them enough light to see by, though it was still dark.

The walls of the corridor were covered in the same strange patterns and languages, though partway down there was a large carved circular mural which contained two strange creatures - which Starscream hadn’t seen on this planet or Earth - which seemed to be fighting each other. Before he could stop to work out what it meant the group moved on, so he couldn’t stop, or he would be left behind.

Not far down the corridor the walls slowly changed into a strange black substance that looked like strange webbing, that was arranged in random patterns.

“Oh my. Whoever lives here seriously needs to redecorate,” Rarity said, whilst trying to dodge a section of it that was on the floor. Not long after that, they hit a junction where the corridor split off into three.

“So, which way do we go?” Arcee asked, looking at the choices ahead of them.

“I say we split up, we can cover more ground that way,” Rainbow said, which made Twilight facehoof.

“The one thing you shouldn’t do in a dark, scary pyramid is split up,” Twilight said, looking down each of the new corridors and then at the group of ponies around her. “I read a book about it... Fluttershy are you okay?”

Everybody’s attention was immediately drawn to Fluttershy, who was stood frozen in the center of the corridor, seemingly staring intently at a wall but it looked more like she was looking through it.

“I... I can hear them. Hear them talking,” Fluttershy said.

“You can probably hear Haunt and Nightshade, where are they?” Starscream asked.

“No, it’s not those two. I can hear others.”

“Okay... how many others?” Twilight asked, as she and the rest of the group started looking around and taking a few steps backwards towards the entrance.

“I’m not sure. A few hundred at least,” Fluttershy said before she noticed that the others were slowly backing away and copied them. Though after a few steps they stopped, and started listening to the silence of the pyramid.

“Okay, I think we’re all overreacting slightly,” Twilight said after taking a deep breath. “We knew there was creatures in the pyramid. And so far nothing has attacked u-” was all she was able to say before she was interrupted.

*AH-CHOO*

Bumblebee sneezed, startling Starscream into backpedaling quickly, and tripping over something so that he was now lying on his back. Looking towards his hooves, he remembered that there wasn’t anything that he could have tripped over before - because he probably would have done the first time.

Instead of a piece of webbing or similar object that he could have tripped over, there was nothing. In his confusion he tilted his head and looked slightly to his side. Where he caught a vague glimpse of a tail like appendage dart behind him.

Turning to see what the commotion was, the group gasped as they saw Starscream. Though none of them made a move to help him.

*Sigh* “It’s behind me. Isn’t it,” Starscream said before a drop of saliva fell on his forehead.

Looking up, he saw a mouth full of piercing white teeth, which seemed to glow, in stark contrast to the dark surroundings. Inside that, he could just make out a smaller inner mouth which it seemed to have instead of it’s tongue.

“Oh scrap, not again!” he said, as he covered his eyes with his hooves and the creature hissed loudly at him.

Author's Note:

Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.

Comments

[Metroid Prime]

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[RavageXeno]

3290398

That's surprisingly accurate.

[Metroid Prime]

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