Canterlogic
Sprout Cloverleaf had eaten enough personal pizzas alone, and gotten off of his shift just to come to an empty house that his curiosity was now ready to get the better of him.
Leaning back slightly in his chair, he kicked off his desk with his back hooves, rolling his chair back to nearly collide with the wall, before getting up, and grabbing his saddlebags and keys, giving the last set of paperwork for the day one last check before slipping it into the filing cabinet, and with that his desk was neatly organized and ready for tomorrow.
He hoped Hitch would be proud of him for holding down the fort for the past couple days. This was the first time he had gone solo with this job, and he liked to think he had done an okay job. To be fair, nothing of any major consequence had happened, outside of that unicorn's appearance, followed by his mom's attempt at trying to convince the populace to vote him in as Hitch's replacement.
Sprout hoped he would be back soon, in case she got that idea in her head again. Luckily, she hadn't, but if all of her flyers around town going missing wasn't enough to pull her attention away from Canterlogic, it made him even more curious about what she could possibly be working on pretty much around the clock, and was keeping her out late and leaving early before he even got up... If she was even coming home. He knew Canterlogic had bunks for employees that just couldn't get far from whatever projects they were working on. Maybe she figured he'd be busy enough running things at the sheriff's department that she wouldn't really be missed at home.
To be fair, that was sort of accurate.
He walked east further into town, finding the earth ponies of Maretime Bay on their evening strolls, or having dinner at the various restaurants that downtown offered.
Canterlogic's main concourse was even harder to miss at night, as it was easily the brightest section of town; it would likely even beat out the lighthouse, if it were still in service. The second shift would have likely gone clocked out by now, evidenced by several of the patrons at restaurants he passed by wearing Canterlogic uniforms. The third shift was the smallest, but Canterlogic effectively ran 24 hours a day, especially during production runs, and with the increase in purchases of Anti-Mind-Reading Caps and Anti-Pegasus Periscopes, they would probably have plenty to keep them busy this week. But they certainly didn't need his mom there working copious amounts of overtime for something as simple as a little increased production.
The street lamps led the way to the ever-brighter factory on top of Maretime Bay's largest hill. He went up the slightly wavy ramp of the stone-tiled walkway to the front doors of the factory, and trotted right into admissions, after merely waving his all-access pass in front of the badge reader; compliments of his mom.
Sweets was working the late-night shift at the receptionist's desk.
"Good evening, Sprout. Looking for your mom? I think she's actually gone home for the night," she greeted.
"Well, that'd be the earliest clock-out this week. Just what has she been working on?" Sprout asked, putting his front hooves up and leaned on the desk.
"Now Sprout, what kind of employee would I be if I just blabbed about in-progress products?" Sweets asked.
Sprout slowly raised an eyebrow at her. Nah, she wasn't going to get off that easily.
"Okay, so in that case," Sprout began, setting his front hooves on the floor before digging into his saddlebag. "On what authority should I be admitted downstairs? By the Maretime Bay Sheriff's Department?" He asked, sliding the silver star badge onto the receptionist's desk. "Or... By the authority of a Canterlogic Level 3 All-Access Badge?" He finished, setting the lanyard-attached card his mom had given him years ago onto the desk right next to the law enforcement badge.
Knowing that either one would get him wherever he wanted to go in the factory, not to mention that he was the owner's son, Sweets relented.
"She's been downstairs in R&D most of the time, take a look for yourself. Just keep out of the way if you can, Sprout. Toots is running the night shift tonight."
With a satisfied smirk, Sprout returned the lanyard to his neck and the deputy's badge to his bandolier.
"Thank you kindly, Sweets," he finished, before continuing out of Admissions and towards the elevators. Most went upstairs to factory lines and offices. One single tube elevator went down to the basement. Stepping on board, he hit the button to start his descent. The ride down was slow and steady, and the tinted glass gave everything a green hue. After about a half minute, the sense of descent on his stomach slowed, and the lift came to a stop, before the glass doors slid open, revealing Research and Development. There were about a half-dozen ponies working on various tasks dotted around the room, around a third of the number that would be here during the day. Toots was up on the central platform, slightly elevated above the rest of the floor, and he had seen the elevator come down.
"Oh, Sprout! Good evening. I wasn't expecting you down here tonight. If you're looking for your mom, I think she's gone for the evening," he said to the deputy.
"Yeah, that's what Sweets told me upstairs. Just thought I'd come down here to see what's kept her here so long for so many days. Every single one of my dinners this week has been a solo affair. What have you all been up to down here?" Sprout asked.
"Now I'm not at liberty to say what work we have in progress down he—"
Sprout, who had been anticipating the same corpo-speak answer that Sweets had given him a few moments ago, had already begun to reach into his saddlebags and pull out the all-access pass, and it stopped Toots mid-sentence.
"Alright, have a look if you like, but don't expect me to try to convince your mom if she wants to revoke that. I don't think this was ready to be revealed yet," Toots warned, stepping aside as Sprout stepped up on the platform and approached whatever gargantuan piece of equipment was behind the opaque plastic curtains. He found where the split was in two curtains hanging from the bars above, and parted them with his right hoof, peeking inside.
His eyes immediately widened at what he saw.
Taking up much of the space on the platform was a large vehicle. It could almost pass as a large robotic pony. The locomotion was provided by two continuous tracks, minimizing the terrain that would be able to slow or stop the vehicle. The driver's canopy was up in the head, with the 'eyes' making up the windshield. What was no doubt the most ridiculous part of the whole thing was that it clearly resembled his mom. He had to truly resist slamming his face into his hooves when he saw the vanity plate on the front bumper.
'ROVERLEAF'
"Toots..." Sprout began, pulling his head back from the curtain and turning towards Canterlogic's Operations Manager. "Just what in Equestria does she think something like this is going to be needed for?" He asked, trying to keep the incredulous tone to a minimum.
"Emergency defense," Toots replied. "She said we couldn't take any chances on what Hitch and Sunny could bring back to Maretime Bay."
Sprout took another look through the curtain at the absolute insanity that sat on the construction platform. Unicorn traps and anti-telepathy caps were one thing, but this... This was overkill. It was as if she was expecting Hitch and Sunny to come back with an army of pegasi and unicorns behind them.
Shaking his head in disbelief, Sprout merely turned around and headed back to the lift in silence, riding it up to the first floor and promptly leaving the building, knowing that no amount of sleep was going to set his mind at ease knowing what he now knew:
His mom was out of her profit-driven mind.
Concept art from the G5 movie.
Either Phyllis was going to be much more antagonistic, or Sprout was much, much more of a mommy's boy earlier in production, and they toned him down considerably.
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He actually did a pretty good job and actually being more mature of this situation
Basically she's crazy and something tells me she's going to get somebody killed
This is a change of the situation so it looks like Sprouts was about to check out his mom but apparently she's been pretty busy lately and he wants to look at what was she doing but Toots and sweet tried to tell him not to come in but of course as the deputy they need to know every information what was going on so with that he checked it out and what he feared was a giant robot that Phyllis made and right now Sprout is getting more worried about the situation I wonder is he going to warn the others well I guess we'll find out next time I do like the earlier picture they should have gone with that it would have makes sense for the mother kind of went insane
I gotta say, that Roverleaf in the picture is both terrifying and hilarious
I'm surprised no one made a Trojan horse joke.
This is a good idea for the concept art. I hope that Sunny and her friends can get to the lighthouse without that monstrosity of Phyllis causing any trouble. I seriously doubt that it's going to remain unused though.
11511269
To be fair, that would be more accurate if Phyllis were planning on stashing a few hired soldiers in there and presenting it as a supposed peace-offering to either Bridlewood or Zephyr Heights.
11511273
Yeah. Really looking forward to seeing what kind of tricks Sunny and her friends are going to need in order to make it to the lighthouse past Phyllis and her mecha.
Hey there. Definitely appreciate the effort that went into the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up here. So, Sprout got worried about his mother and went looking around and found out about the mystery project his mother had been working on the past few nights. And, yeah. "Roverleaf" definitely sounds really scary. Again, a wonderful showing of both Sprout's Adaptational Nice Guy (as well as a certain degree of Adaptational Intelligence, even if not to the same degree) and Phyllis's Adaptational Villainy.
Definitely looking forward to more of this.
Given the propaganda they've had for the past couple years, decades, or maybe even generations, I wouldn't be surprised.
11511248
A bit smug perhaps, but definitely more levelheaded than we'd normally expect from him.
11511313
I think Sunny's lighthouse is toward the edge of town, so unless it's completed and stationed by the time they arrive, getting past it shouldn't be a problem. If anything, I can imagine them being spotted making their way up the hill to the lighthouse and the Roverleaf being deployed.
Most went upstairs*
https://m.Well it's too serious of a need!
She went too far this time.
Well, that settles it, Phyllis is the last obstacle for Sunny and the gang to overcome.
Oh dear. Looks like our ultimate antagonist for this story is revealed... and also looks like Sprout is on his way to completing that Face Turn as well. Good for him.
It will be interesting to see how direct the role reversal will prove... at the very least I expect she will do better engineering-wise that the Sprouticus Maximus... not sure if she will have a full army? Then again, just because he has better morals doesn't mean this version of Sprout is SMART... he could be the only one NOT in on his mother's plans.
No... it turns out it is just as idiotic as the original. I hope you can make this work and going with those images did not lead you astray. At least the windshield is hiher up and a smaller target for, say, thrown rocks...
11515624
Fair point, and I could imagine a few better design choices on Phyllis' part, but only to an extent. For one, Sprout aimed to launch a preemptive strike on both races, and while I have no doubt that his vehicle could demolish Bridlewood Forest, there's no way it makes it up the mountain to Zephyr Heights. Phyllis hasn't expressed any intention of mounting an attack, but if she did, she might plan for that. At the same time, both the Sprouticus and the Roverleaf were thrown together in the span of half a week, and while the Sprouticus was only armed with existing Canterlogic products (only with sticky Splatapult goop instead of slippery), I get the impression that Canterlogic's manufacturing and R&D are stretched pretty thin at the moment.