> Friendship is Qwarktastic
>  by Tired Old Man
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Can I get an order of Galactic Cheesy Curls?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"No, wait, make that two orders! And a Solana Slider!" 

A large, burly man in a green superhero costume was sitting in his luxurious space cruiser. It was painted a bright lime green, and upon it was a logo of a planet with a thunderbolt shooting out from beneath it and two small moons orbiting the planet. The orbit lines were clearly visible on the side.

"Anything else, sir?" asked a voice through the intercom, sounding slightly dejected at what they were doing. The burly green man didn't notice.

The man leaned into the intercom and almost whispered, "You have any...banana milkshakes?"

"One banana milkshake then. Is that all, sir?"

"That'll do it!"

"Excellent, sir. Please pull up to the next window."

He obliged. As soon as he did so, a tractor beam grabbed hold of his ship as a large, deep navy blue starship uncloaked below him.

"What the?!" the man exclaimed, shocked that he couldn't move his ship as he yanked at the steering controls.

The drive-thru window opened, and the he turned to see a robot in a butler uniform standing there with some sort of spray gun in his hand.

"Your order, sir." The butler sprayed the green man with a nerve-relaxing agent, and it only took a few seconds for the green-clad superhero to fall onto his dashboard, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he descended into a forced sleep.

The butler pressed a button on his arm and spoke. "Captain Qwark has been successfully detained, sir."

An evil, robotic voice responded through his arm. "Nice work, Lawrence! Bring him to the brig IMMEDIATELY!"

Lawrence sighed. "Of course, sir. However, there is one more thing."

"And what is that, Lawrence?" the evil voice asked in a slightly disgruntled tone, as if it knew what was coming.

"Would you like fries with that, sir?"

His arm involuntarily shook as the voice screamed at him. "LAAAWWWWWWWREEEEEEEEEEENCE!"

------------------------------

Qwark woke up a short time later strapped to a large, round mechanical device of some kind. 

"Oof, I feel like I just ate a Blargian dung beetle," he said as nausea hit him soon after he awoke.

He heard laughing, and raised his head up to see who was responsible. His eyes shot open wide with anger at his captor.

"Doctor Nefarious!"

The thin, navy blue robot cackled some more. Piercing red robotic eyes glared back at Qwark as the gears in Nefarious's head clicked and turned within a large green glass egg-shaped dome.

"Qwark! Today is the day that I will finally get to be rid of your meddling once and for all!"

Qwark laughed. "Hah, fat chance, Nefarious! My friends will bust me out of here any time now!"

Nefarious grinned. "Ah, but you see, I've already thought of that! I've sent your pesky little friends Ratchet and Clank away from here with a fake distress beacon! There's no way they'll figure out it's a fake and get back here in time!"

Lawrence interrupted, having just appeared at Nefarious's side. "Sir, I'm sorry to report they failed to go directly to the distress beacon. Clank appears to have decoded the distress signal and they're heading our way."

"WHAT?!" Nefarious screamed. "Then we need to hurry NOW, Lawrence! Give me the detonator to the Black Hole Generator!"

"Of course. Here it is, sir." Lawrence pulled out a small button panel with an antenna sticking out on the top. Nefarious swiped it from Lawrence's hand before addressing Qwark in a theatrical manner.

"Behold, Qwark! When I push this button, the device you're strapped to will generate a black hole to crush your hulking squishy body into NOTHING! Naturally, Lawrence and I will be perfectly fine, won't we Lawrence?"

"Yes, sir. We will be magnetized to the floor of your ship as soon as you press the button," Lawrence confirmed.

"Then let's not waste any more time! GOODBYE, QWARK!" Nefarious pressed the button, and the machine Qwark was strapped to began to hum to life.

Qwark needed to act fast. He had to do something, anything to delay or stop the activation of this machine. His hands were strapped down to his sides, so he desperately felt around for something on him from that angle.

He felt his blaster. Somehow Nefarious and Lawrence had overlooked a special pocket he had in the buttock section of his suit. It made sitting very uncomfortable sometimes, but it was nothing like the irritation he had dealt with from his days as a Personal Hygenator salesman.

He quickly pulled the pistol out and raised his arm slightly, straining against the ropes binding him to the Black Hole machine. He aimed as best he could at Nefarious and fired his blaster.

The shot hit the detonator, much to Nefarious's shock and surprise. However, there was none more surprised than Qwark himself. That shot had to be one-in-a-million, and Qwark cheered for himself at his little achievement.

"Hah, take that, Nefarious! Looks like your black hole thingy won't destroy me after all!"

"QWAAAAAAAAAAAARK!" Nefarious screamed in rage.

However, the machine refused to stop its actions. Instead, hitting the detonator caused the machine to malfunction as electricity shot off of it in small arcs, striking the sides of the ship. Qwark's idea didn't work. In fact, it may have made things worse.

Then something odd happened. Instead of generating a black hole, the machine opened up a tear in space, similar to the time portals Nefarious had seen during his investigations of the Great Clock and the Fongoid tribes.

"...er, Lawrence? Was that supposed to happen?" Nefarious asked.

"Not that I'm aware of, sir. It was your design, after all," Lawrence responded.

The supervillain huffed and crossed his arms. This was nothing like he had originally planned. Just what had Qwark done?!

The tear in space pulsed for an instant. Then...it began to suck violently at the area around it.

Nefarious and Lawrence were the first to be pulled in. The shot that destroyed the switch disabled the magnetism they would have had to save themselves from the tear, and both flew through it as soon as the vacuum started. Qwark got one last look at Nefarious's face, and managed to see something he didn't expect. Fear in Nefarious's cold, calculating eyes.

Not that he had much time to contemplate that. Qwark and the machine were slowly lifted up and pulled through the tear themselves. Qwark had tried to scream, but no sound could leave his mouth as the vacuum threatened to take what air he had. He held his breath and closed his eyes as he passed through into the black void, thinking they were being ejected deep into the depths of space.

He didn't know what was on the other side of that tear in space, but it had closed as soon as he and the machine passed through it. At the very least, he thought he would go out like the hero he was, taking the galaxy's most dastardly and devious supervillain with him in a blaze of glory.

However, the machine still crackled with life, and before him a shot of electricity surged forth and opened up a second tear in space.

Qwark struggled against the ropes again, and found that his bindings had loosened severely since he and the machine were sucked through the first tear. He quickly untangled himself and stuffed his gun back in his buttock pocket.

Having no better options available to him, he kicked off from the machine and tried swimming to the tear that had just opened. He didn't know where he was going...but he had no better options.

It was at that moment while he was swimming he spotted Nefarious and Lawrence doing the same thing as he was. They clearly didn't want to be stuck here either, but there was no time to take them down. Qwark didn't know how long the tear was going to stay open, and didn't want to gamble on finding out how long.

As soon as they all entered, they were all sailing off in different directions. Qwark was falling toward a small town in a valley, overlooked by a castle built into the mountainside. Lawrence was heading off toward that very same castle. Lastly, Nefarious was sailing towards what looked to be a city resting upon a large bed of clouds.

Qwark's mind was processing all this new information as best he could while he was still sailing in the air. He hoped Nefarious would crash right through the town and break up into plenty of scrap metal before hitting the ground. Same goes for Lawrence crashing into the castle.

Then the last thought hit him. What about me?

He looked around and spotted what looked like a large tree in the town. That would have a ton of leaves and branches to cushion his fall!

He spread his arms open wide as he turned his body towards the large tree. He had no parachute, but knew that his massively muscular frame could survive the impact. He didn't work on those iron hard abs for nothing, baby!

As he drew closer, he brought his arms inward to cover his chiseled face and braced for impact.
> How was I supposed to know the tree was hollow?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I mean, come on! From the top it looked a like a regular tree! You can't blame me for trying to land in a tree!" Qwark reasoned.

"I totally can! You just ruined HOURS of book stacking...whatever you are!" A small purple dragon with green spines was fuming at him.

Qwark had just crashed through the tree. Not into and out to the side, straight THROUGH...to the bottom...onto a table. It was almost like he picked the only tree that was hallowed out and turned into a library. Who even DOES that? Why didn't they just put those books in a regular boring old public building, anyway?

"What I am? Don't you mean who I am, little guy?" Qwark asked.

"Stop calling me that! The name is SPIKE!" Spike huffed.

"I'll call you that as soon as you stop calling me the Green Giant, kiddo!" Qwark retorted.

"Alright, just WHAT is going on in here?"

A purple pony rushed in from the front door. Spike turned to acknowledge her while Qwark continued to stare at the little dragon. Usually kids like him would be running up to him asking for autographs when he made a grand heroic entrance...like he just did.

Spike spoke up first. "Twilight! This Green Giant minotaur-looking thing just crashed into the library!"

"Minotaur? Kid, I'm not some mythological creature! Hah, next thing I know you'll be telling me that unicorns exist!"

Qwark felt a burning gaze fall upon him, and he turned to see the purple pony called Twilight glaring at him...hard. They had a horn on their head...and were those wings on its sides? There were flying unicorns here?!

Eh, he'd seen worse from the inside of a Protopet before. It wasn't THAT odd to him now that he thought about it.

"Uh...I'm sure there's been some huge misunderstanding here. I'm Captain Qwark, galactic superhero...and former president!" he said, striking a buff pose.

Twilight's eyes faded from anger and into starry wonder. "A...galactic superhero?"

"That's right, little purple pony! I've saved the Solana galaxy from countless threats and abominations that dared to disturb the peace...and I've taken down a few with one hand tied behind my back."

"Hand? What's a hand?" Spike asked.

Qwark stared blankly at the dragon. How did they not know what a HAND was?! Even he knew what a hand was, and it only took him four years to figure that out!

Qwark realized that would be difficult to explain though, especially coming from him. He thought for a minute, then asked a simple question.

"Uh...you got any crayons?"

-----------------------------

Nefarious crashed into one of the buildings over in the floating city on the clouds. He surmised that landing on the ground was a bad idea given his thin, lanky metal frame that constantly needed readjustments from Lawrence.

His crash landing hadn't gone unnoticed, however. His red eyes looked past the rubble he landed in and saw ponies. Tons of squishy, winged ponies staring at him.

He didn't like those overly large eyes staring at him. Not one bit.

"What are you squishies staring at?! RUN! Be in TERROR!" he yelled as he burst out from the rubble, claws extended in the air menacingly.

They all fled, as expected. Nefarious smirked, and proudly took a step out of the rubble and onto the clouds they walked on.

He promptly fell right through.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..." He screamed as he fell...but then he remembered he still had jet-powered feet. He activated the thrusters and stopped his descent, then rose back up to the cloudy city.

He thought for a minute. Why didn't he use those earlier when he was falling?! Lawrence could have told him that he could do that!

AAAAGH! That's it! He needed Lawrence NOW!

"Lawrence!" Nefarious called out. No response. This irritated him.

"LAWRENCE!" Again, no response came. He sighed before saying Lawrence's name one last time.

"Lawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeence!"

Lawrence's hologram finally appeared. "How can I be of assistance?"

"Lawrence! Where are y-" Nefarious began, but Lawrence interrupted.

"Just kidding! You've reached my holographic voicemail. Leave your name and a brief message. Ta ta!"

"AAAGH!" Nefarious screamed in frustration, dismissing the hologram and throwing his metal claws into the air in balled fists. "Useless butler!"

With Lawrence unable to be contacted, Nefarious resolved to...ugh...ask one of the squishy ponies where he was. He floated around looking for a pony to talk to that he hadn't already scared off earlier.

Turns out a pony would find him first as a grey mare slammed into him from above and sent them both through the clouds.

Again he activated his thrusters to stop them both from falling as he looked at the grey pony in his claws. She had a blonde mane and tail, and there were pictures of bubbles on her flank.

Nefarious was baffled. Why did this squishy have bubbles on her butt?! What did that even mean?

The pony then turned her head to look at him, and he saw the strangest eyes looking back at him..or was it one eye? The other eye was off doing something else entirely, and Nefarious had an odd feeling in the back of his mechanical brain. Sympathy.

He remembered Ratchet's grenade scarring his face, and how one of his eyes got loose after the blast. That was a bad memory he didn't want to resurface.

Nefarious decided this pony was worth talking to after all. He'd consider annihilating her last if he had the chance.

"You, squishy, where am I?" Nefarious asked.

She didn't appear to hear his question, for out of the blue, she hugged him. "Oh, thank you thank you thank you!"

Nefarious didn't quite know how to respond to this. He considered getting angry, but remembered his Fongoid anger management classes. Getting angry now would probably drive them away, and he needed information. But...how to respond?

"You're...welcome?" Nefarious tasted rust in his mouth. That hurt for him to say, but he quickly regained his composure by slowly pulling the pony off of him, holding them in the air.

"Now, I'll ask again, squishy. Where am I?"

"Oh, well, you're in Cloudsdale! And my name's not 'squishy,' it's Derpy. Derpy Hooves."

Derpy?! Suddenly he thought 'squishy' was doing them a favor. He resolved to call them by their name now.

"Alright...Derpy, is that the name of this flying city?"

"It sure is!" Derpy exclaimed.

"Well, what's the name of this...world, then?"

-----------------------------

Lawrence had landed in a castle after crashing through some decorative glass. Surprisingly, he came to little harm after the impact. His rotund body was naturally somewhat rubbery, so he bounced around for a bit before stopping and coming to his feet.

He dusted himself off and observed his surroundings. He had landed in a very ornate-looking throne room. Not quite as fancy as some he had designed begrudgingly for Doctor Nefarious, but it had met his standards.

He turned around and saw a white pony wearing golden regalia upon them. He surmised that they were the ruler of this castle, if not the town he landed in, and decided to play it cool...for now.

He gracefully bowed and returned to his usual neutral pose with his arms at his sides, standing up straight and tall.

"Greetings, madam. Might I ask where I've landed?"

"Freeze!" came a shout from another pony. In a moment, Lawrence was surrounded by a group of ponies clad in golden armor.

Golden armor? He had hoped the gold was merely decorative, because it was hideous armor to wear otherwise.

They had also pointed spears at him. Lawrence resisted the urge to smile, instead stating a rather obvious fact to him, if not them.

"Please, put those away. You'll scuff my suit," Lawrence stated.

"Keep your hooves where we can see them!" Another guard called out to the strange robotic figure.

Lawrence mused at the term they used to describe his hands. He wisely raised his hands up in the air, indicating surrender.

The royal-looking pony spoke loud enough so the guards surrounding Lawrence could hear. "Weapons away, my Sun Guard. I can handle things from here."

The Sun Guard were wary, but put away their spears and gave Lawrence some space as the regal pony left her throne to approach him.

Her question was simple, but firm. "What are you?"

"A butler, madam. My name is Lawrence."

"And I'm Princess Celestia...but you don't look like any butler I've seen. That also sounds more like your occupation, not what you actually are."

Lawrence registered her title. A princess? These ponies were truly medieval.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't know you asked it in THAT sense. I'm a robot then, built to be a butler."

"A robot?" Celestia tilted her head. "What's a...robot?"

Lawrence rubbed the spot where his temple would be. This would be a long explanation for ponies that clearly have shown themselves to already be technologically inferior.

-------------------------

Qwark took two hours to draw a vague explanation of a hand. Turns out he was a terrible teacher, as his explanation just seemed to confuse Twilight and Spike even further. Almost giving up, he tried the simplest explanation he could think of.

"They're things that let me do things that you can't do with your hooves."

"Like what?" Twilight asked.

Qwark thought for a moment. How was he going to show that?

An idea hit him. He reached into his buttock pocket and pulled out his blaster.

Er, he thought it was his blaster. It was his Pocket Crotchitizer.

Twilight "oohed" at the strange device he pulled out, not knowing what it was, but being mystified by it all the same.

Meanwhile, Qwark was having a mental dilemma, the worst possible battle he could ever fight. He had to be very gentle in explaining precisely what he was holding.

"This is a...pocket...scratchitizer! It relieves the...uh...stressful itching I have all over my body," Qwark said.

"How does it work?" she asked.

Qwark prayed the charge pack was empty. "Well, you just press this red button here and it...just works."

Qwark pressed the button. It began to grasp at nothing. Son of a-...him!

He didn't want to give it to Twilight now, so he did a different kind of demonstration as he began to place it at different spots across his body. Everywhere...but THERE. It was incredibly awkward as the Crothitizer pinched and pulled at his arms and chest while he tried to make relaxing facial expressions.

The Crotchitizer stopped after a few minutes, its charge pack fully depleted of power as it whirred to a halt. Qwark breathed a sigh of relief. Twilight noticed, so he quickly explained it as a sigh of...well, relief from the itching.

She seemed to accept that explanation. Spike didn't.

"Since when did superheroes like yourself need stress relief?" he asked.

"No one ever said being a superhero would involve working in a stress-free environment, kid. Even superheroes like me deserve some well-earned R & R from time to time," Qwark stated with his usual blank stare.

"I can understand that," Twilight stated. "Ponyville is such a crazy place that sometimes even I need to rest myself."

"Ponyville? Is that what this town is called?" Qwark asked.

Twilight blinked before responding. "Oh, that's right. you're not from around here, are you?"

"Twilight, one moment I was sitting at a Galaxy Burger drive-thru, and the next moment I find myself flying through the sky towards your tree...house...library...thingy?"

Twilight didn't understand what a drive-thru was, but she understood that he was probably more confused about her world than she was of his. "Right, sorry. Well this town is called Ponyville, but the whole land is called..."

--------------------------------

"Equestria? I'm WHERE?!" Nefarious screamed.

Derpy was taken back slightly, now free of Nefarious's grasp. "Yeah, this whole place is the land of Equestria! I should know, I'm one of the designated mailmares that delivers mail all across it!"

Nefarious paused as he remembered exactly how he met Derpy. If she delivered the mail like she met him...she would be a very destructive ally. 

He HATED that idea, though. Teaming up with a squishy would probably cause his brain circuits to fry.

"Well, Derpy, is this land of...Equestria...led by someone? A ruler, perhaps?" he asked.

"Sure! It's ruled over by Princess Celestia!" Derpy wore a smile at saying her ruler's name.

FINALLY, someone he could identify as one in a position of power! He now had another target to consider taking out as soon as he annihilated Qwark, wherever that fat oaf was.

...but he DIDN'T know where Qwark was, and that bothered him immensely. Still, this leader he heard of was a better lead to follow than nothing.

"Could you tell me where this Princess Celestia is?"

"Tell you? Why, I could take you there! I've got some deliveries to make there next anyways!"

Great, a traveling companion. At least it wasn't exactly teaming up with her, WHICH HE DESPISED. 

Plus, she could prove useful in helping him get past whatever security they had stationed at the castle. He flew off behind Derpy, letting her lead him to this Princess Celestia pony.
> Oh, and I'm dreadfully sorry I broke your window, madam.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I suppose it's not everyday a robot such as myself crashes into your castle," Lawrence stated with a bit of enthusiasm.

Lawrence had to search for alternative words in his database to give a rough, but accurate explanation of how robots like himself worked. He was very careful, however, to avoid such points like how they can be disabled...or humiliated, as Lawrence remembered Ratchet and his use of the Groovitron Glove when he had fought Nefarious at his space station. Even though he was assisting Nefarious at that time, he had to hide his amusement toward seeing his employer "get down and get funky with it."

Celestia blinked a few times and shook her head. Lawrence's explanation of what robots were was...highly advanced. Far more advanced than the technology they currently had.

Lawrence noticed her shaking her head. “Did I say something to confuse you, madam?”

“No...it’s just so much to take in, Lawrence. We don’t have anything like you here.”

Lawrence pondered the technological gap between them. Might he already be at a significant advantage?

...then again, did he even want to take advantage of them like that? This Princess Celestia “pony,” as she called herself was rather nice. He didn’t even feel like being snarky and witty, which was REALLY odd for him to feel considering that was how he had coped with Nefarious for so long.

“Oh, it’s quite alright, madam. I’ve had experience with more ‘primitive’ species before. Rest assured, I can adapt.” Lawrence was thinking about Qwark as he spoke the word “primitive.”

“Ah. Well, then it’s good to know that our ways won’t appear foreign to you then,” Celestia smiled.

Her smile made Lawrence’s cheeks heat up for a moment, giving a flushed look to him. He could get used to this. Perhaps now would be a good time to tender his resignation to Nefarious.

Just as he thought that, two Sun Guards marched in.

“My Princess, there’s been news of a strange creature crashing into Cloudsdale,” one of the guards spoke.

Oh goodie, either the buffoon or the twit lives, Lawrence thought.

“Do you have a description of this creature?” Celestia asked, her voice regal and louder than Lawrence had first heard from her. She wondered whether or not this creature would be related to Lawrence.

The second guard spoke up. “Eyewitnesses have claimed to see a blue bipedal creature with sinister-looking red eyes rising out of the rubble and scaring off the cityfolk. Nopony knows where this creature went since it broke free from the rubble.”

“Oh dear,” Lawrence stated.

Celestia turned to Lawrence. “Do you know who it is?”

Lawrence sighed. “It’s my employer, madam. His name is Doctor Nefarious?”

Celestia was right. They were related after all. However, she brought a hoof to her chin and pondered for a moment about his name. Nefarious was rather sinister for a name, and she wondered if they might be evil...and by extension, if Lawrence was evil too.

“Is he dangerous?” Celestia narrowed her eyes and asked Lawrence this in a serious manner. Lawrence noted that she probably responded this way due to his employer’s name...which was an accurate assumption to make, in all honesty.

Lawrence decided to tell a half-truth in an attempt to ease her worries. “He’s a reformed supervillain, madam. He tried to take over the galaxy...twice, but was met with an astounding amount of resistance both times. I had been with him for his endeavors most of the time, being the loyal butler that I am. However, he’s taken steps toward a more...peaceful existence, I can assure you.”

Celestia wasn’t quite convinced, and her face showed it as she was deep in thought over Lawrence’s explanation of his employer. A supervillain that tried to take an entire galaxy twice didn’t exactly sound like they were fully reformed. 

However, she reminded herself that even a chaotic being like Discord was converted after being shown the magic of friendship. Perhaps it might do the same for Doctor Nefarious? 

It seemed to be working for Lawrence at least...though could she be certain of that? Reading this robot’s thoughts was impossible, for she had secretly tried to while he explained what a robot was and failed. His facial expressions were also very difficult to read most of the time, although his gestures were easy to identify when he did them. The only constant indicator she could pick up on was his tone, and even that was hard to pick up on due to the slightly metallic sound of his voice.

Could she trust him? Lawrence had seemed rather honest and forthcoming with information, though she knew he was hiding something. Those that usually give out information so freely do so to hide something deeper and darker than what they have chosen to reveal.

However, Celestia had the wit about her to not press the matter. She had secrets of her own that were worth hiding as well. Still, she decided to ask a question.

“Do you believe your employer will find you?”

Lawrence brought his hand up to his chin and scratched it. He wasn’t eager to see Nefarious again, but knew how persistent he could be. 

“With any luck, madam, he’s already on his way here. In the meantime,” - Lawrence looked at the shattered glass fragments on the floor - “would you mind if I tidied this place up a bit, to repay you for breaking your window? I do hate leaving a mess...especially one I created myself.”

Celestia decided to allow it. She was thankful Lawrence was honest enough to take responsibility for his actions...or inactions, as it were. She didn’t believe he had any control in how he came here, and yet he was still willing to clean up the damage he caused from it. Perhaps he was trustworthy after all...though she would still be on her guard around him.

She pointed towards one of her Sun Guards. “Find a broom and dustpan at once.”

Lawrence bowed, but made another suggestion. “Madam, mind if I request a mop and bucket as well?”

--------------------

“So...let me get this straight. This town is called Equiville in the land of Ponestria. This land is ruled by a Principal...Soluna?” Qwark scratched his head in confusion.

Twilight facehoofed. This was the twelfth time she had gone over this with Qwark. Spike had resolved to go visit Rarity after the seventh time, not wanting to stick around any longer than that.

Before Spike had left, however, he had her send Princess Celestia a letter stating that a superhero called Captain Qwark has landed in Equestria and seemed harmless, if somewhat dim-witted. She stated she would continue to study him and educate him about Equestria while he stayed in Ponyville...assuming that the education would be easy enough to do at the time she wrote the letter. Oh, how wrong that would be.

“No, Qwark. Ponyville in the land of Equestria! We are governed by a Principality, and ruled over by Princesses Celestia and Luna!” she huffed.

“Right! I said all of that exactly!” Qwark smiled his trademark grin.

Twilight responded by throwing her hooves up and yelling in frustration. She’d have better luck trying to explain Advanced Magical Theory to Applejack at this rate.

Just then, Qwark’s stomach growled angrily.

“...erm, mind if we go find a place to eat? I didn’t exactly get my meal at Galaxy Burger earlier, and I’m starving!”

Twilight knew she was hungry too, but realized she didn’t know what Qwark was capable of eating.

“Um...Qwark, before I suggest a location, what does your diet consist of?”

Qwark thought for a moment before responding. “Twilight, I’ve eaten many foods throughout my heroic career. I can handle anything you can throw at me.”

Twilight grinned, thinking of a certain rainbow-making factory in Cloudsdale. “Anything, you say?”

“That’s right! Although…” Qwark looked around before he leaned into Twilight’s ear. “I really enjoy bananas if you have them. Oh, and ice cream!”

Twilight was familiar with both of those foods, and came up with a simple solution. “Well, I know a place that sells banana splits. Does that sound good to you?”

“Does it ever!” Qwark cheered, then made his way to the door...and realized he probably wouldn’t fit through it.

“Uh...Twilight, you happen to have another...superhero-sized entrance?”

Twilight’s eyes lowered, and she pointed to the hole in the roof of the library.

“OH! Right. I’ll...fix that later. In the meantime, is there another way out of here that I can fit through?”

Twilight thought for a moment, then came to a rather simple solution.

“Stand close to me, Qwark.”

Qwark had a confused look on his face, but obliged as he stood near her.

Suddenly, her horn began to glow, and in a flash of bright light, Qwark found himself standing outside the tree next to Twilight.

“Whoa! How did you do that?”

Twilight smiled as she looked up at him. “That was magic, Qwark. Teleportation magic, to be precise.”

“Using that horn of yours? That’s what unicorns are capable of, if I remember correctly,” Qwark stated with a thoughtful expression.

Twilight stared at him with an incredulous look. He remembered something she taught him?! There was hope for him yet!

“Exactly, Qwark!” Twilight cheered...then stopped when she realized she was making even more of a scene as ponies in the town had stopped to stare at the giant green creature towering above them.

Twilight quickly collected herself as she addressed the townsfolk. “Attention everypony! This is Captain Q-”

Qwark held a finger up to Twilight’s lips, shushing her on the spot. “Relaaaaaaax, Twilight. I know how to handle a crowd. Watch the master at work.”

Qwark straightened up, and began his own address to the townsfolk.

“Attention, citizens of Equiville! Your town shall be troubled no longer by any villain that seeks to harm it! I vow to protect you all from the next threat that seeks to endanger this quiet and comfortable land, for I am Captaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin Qwaaaaaaaaaaaaaark!”

As he shouted his name, it had echoed through the town, down every street, through every open door and window, even reaching out towards Sweet Apple Acres, Fluttershy’s Cottage, and Rainbow Dash’s cloudy home.

If Twilight had any hope of Qwark’s integration into Ponyville being subtle and slow, he just shattered it with that announcement. She couldn’t stop herself from facehoofing again.

----------------------

Nefarious had stopped flying, and was hovering in place.

Derpy noticed, and stopped as well. “What’s the matter, Nefarious?”

“I...thought I heard something. Whatever it was, it’s making me REALLY angry right now.”

“Angry, huh?” Derpy closed her eyes and thought for a moment. “Nope, can’t think of anything that would make me angry right now!”

Nefarious paused for a moment to consider his thoughts. There’s only one thing that would make him that mad, and that was if Qwark was alive. He couldn’t be, though. If Qwark’s crash-landing was anything like his own, he was probably dead!

Although...he HAD wormed his way out of dying before. Like when Nefarious had blown up his own star cruiser just to destroy Qwark. He was CERTAIN that had annihilated him then! However, he had lived somehow. If he could live through that...Qwark might still be alive even now.

It didn’t do him any favors thinking about it at this time.

“Nevermind, Derpy. Let’s just keep moving.”

“Uh...alright then!”

Just before both started to move towards Canterlot, a prismatic blur slammed into Nefarious, sending both a fair distance away from a confused looking Derpy...well, more confused than she usually looked.

Nefarious, meanwhile, was busy stabilizing himself and pushing back against the blur that struck him with all the force his thrusters could manage. Soon enough, he had brought him and his opponent to a standstill, who was now revealed to be a cyan-colored pony with a rainbow-colored mane and tail.

Nefarious grabbed the pony by their neck and tossed them aside. They had spun around for a moment before stabilizing themselves and hovering a short distance away from Nefarious.

“What is your PROBLEM, squishie?”

“Problem! I’ll tell you what the problem is...whatever you are! You’re holding that mare hostage!” She gestured to the gray pony, who was trying to approach them both as they began to argue.

“Stay away, Derpy!” The cyan pony and Nefarious shouted, then both said nothing else when they realized they said that at the exact same time.

“YOU know Derpy?” the cyan pony asked.

“Of COURSE I do, squishy! She’s my escort into Canterlot!” Nefarious explained.

“Hah, likely story,” the pony huffed, unconvinced.

Derpy interrupted. “It’s true, Rainbow Dash! Doctor Nefarious even saved my life as I fell toward Cloudsdale!”

Rainbow Dash? That was the name of this annoying squishie? Who names these creatures, anyway?!

At Derpy’s words, Rainbow Dash looked less tense, but no less combat-ready as she looked back toward Nefarious.

“Is that true, Nefarious?”

“If it wasn’t, she would be a pile of squishy goo right now,” Nefarious bitterly remarked.

Rainbow Dash didn’t like his attitude. He seemed so...evil, yet he was acting docile. The only creature she knew that acted this way now was Discord, and even though Fluttershy had reformed him, she still had doubts about whether or not that was actually true. To have another like Discord around only invited trouble to her.

“Now, before you so RUDELY interrupted, Derpy and I need to leave,” Nefarious stated, content the situation was resolved...in his eyes.

“Hey, stop calling me squishy!” she huffed. ‘The name is Rainbow Dash!”

Nefarious ignored her, thoroughly irritated by the prismatic pony at this point. “Come, Derpy, let’s be off before this squishy makes me do something I WON’T regret.”

Derpy nodded. “Sorry Dash. I told him I’d take him to Canterlot, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

Rainbow Dash had a very bad feeling about that strange Nefarious guy. It was a feeling that he was up to no good while he was here. She wouldn’t let him out of her sight, no way, no how.

“Nuh-uh. I’m going with you guys.”

“WHAT?!” Nefarious yelled, turning around to face Dash once again.

“Listen squishy, I’m already compromising MY ethics dealing with one of you. I do NOT need a second squishy following me aro-”

Derpy placed a hoof on Nefarious’s shoulder. “Nefarious, let it go. I know Dash, and she can be...very stubborn at times. No offense, Dash.” She flashed a smile to Rainbow Dash as she said that last part.

“None taken,” Dash admitted. Even she knew she was an adamant pony at times.

Meanwhile, Nefarious considered his options. He probably couldn’t get rid of this pony through any nonviolent means...and if he tried violent means, that would make him out to be a threat against this land. He didn’t mind that happening somewhere along the line, but this early would put him at a major disadvantage.

As much as his computer logic HATED this conclusion, letting Rainbow Dash come with was the most sound solution for now.

Nefarious threw his claws up in defeat. He would have to let this slide...for now.

“Fine! Just don’t get in my way, squishy!” Nefarious flew off toward Canterlot, leaving both Derpy and Dash behind, only for Dash to show up next to him a second later, lazily flying with her belly up toward the sky.

“Hah, as if you could keep up with me, Nefarious!” she bragged.

A circuit fried in Nefarious’s brain. Was this squishy challenging his superiority?! 

Nefarious picked up the pace. “You DARE think yourself better than me, squishy?! I’m the PINNACLE of mad science and robotic creation!”

“Sounds like that makes you the king of the eggheads!” Dash teased.

EGGHEAD?! Ooooooooh, this squishy was making him ANGRY now! 

“At least I don’t look like something QWARK would draw when he was twenty six!”

Rainbow Dash didn’t know who or what a Qwark was (it sounded like an egghead word Twilight would use,) but it made her mad anyway.

Both Nefarious and Rainbow Dash were flying faster now, flinging insults back and forth at each other. Meanwhile, Derpy was barely keeping pace with the two of them, albeit her being a short distance away from them the whole time.

At this rate, Derpy estimated they would make it to Canterlot in less than twenty minutes...perhaps even less for them once they broke away from her. She knew Rainbow Dash was the fastest flyer in all of Equestria, but Nefarious was matching her pace the whole time...or was it the other way around? Derpy didn’t actually know how fast Nefarious could fly, but he was already flying faster than she could at her maximum wingpower.

Derpy began to wonder if having Rainbow Dash go along with them to Canterlot wasn’t such a good idea anymore.

-----------------------

Captain Qwark had achieved the impossible, at least from Twilight’s point of view. Despite having zero influence in the town of Ponyville, his boastful protection announcement managed to get some cheering from the crowd that had gathered around him. In a matter of mere seconds, he had already become a celebrity in the town, and Twilight had no idea how Qwark managed to do it in such a short time.

Meanwhile, Qwark was basking in the “oohs” and “aahs” as he waltzed through the town behind Twilight, making heroic poses and grand gestures as he went. Twilight thought Qwark was now an odd fusion of Iron Will and “The Great and Powerful Trixie”, yet somehow lacking their combined arrogance.

Twilight felt very uncomfortable getting this much attention. The last time she felt like this was when she had put an Ursa Minor to sleep, but to see Qwark taking it in stride so easily...he must be a superhero, or at least have a superego to match his appearance. Twilight wasn’t sure she could tell the difference right now.

They finally parted the crowd of ponies and made it to Sugar Cube Corner. Again, Qwark was too big to fit through the door to access the interior dining area, but the Corner did have an outside counter and a few chairs and tables set up around it. 

Qwark’s unusually small waist seemed to fit perfectly into the chair, though the hulking mass of his body made his chair squeak uncomfortably. Qwark didn’t seem to notice, and Twilight quietly wished that the chair wouldn’t break.

Twilight approached the outside counter, and found a pony working there she had seen many times before. 

“Hi Pinkie.”

The pink pony with poofy-pink mane hair turned around and smiled widely. “Hi Twilight! What brings you here?”

“Oh, I’m just-”

“Introducing a giant green space man to this town, right?!” She pointed towards Qwark

Twilight blinked. “Yes, Pinkie. How did you know?”

Pinkie’s smile was wider. “I felt a tail twitch earlier, which means something was falling from the sky! I looked up, and this giant green space man crashed into your library. I figured you’d bring him out sooner or later, and here he is!”

Twilight shook her head. “Right...well, his name is-”

“Captain Qwark! I heard him yell his name when he announced himself to the town! Also, the last reason you’re here is because you came for sweets, right?!”

Twilight sighed. “Correct, Pinkie. Qwark wants a-”

“Banana split, and you want two cupcakes!” Pinkie chirped.

“Okay, how did you know Qwark wanted that?!” Twilight shouted in frustration. She knew Qwark told her that in a secretive manner in the library, so there was no way Pinkie could have known-

“Oh, he smells like bananas! That’s how I know!” Pinkie cheered.

Twilight blinked again, then turned to Qwark and sniffed in his direction. Sure enough, she DID smell the sweet scent of bananas coming off him, albeit a faint smell. How did she not notice that before?!

Regardless, she hung her head in defeat. Pinkie somehow managed to know basically everything about Qwark and their visit and explained how she knew it all in less than thirty seconds from their arrival at Sugar Cube Corner.

In the time it took for Twilight to raise her head again, instead she saw a banana split and two cupcakes sitting on the counter, and Pinkie still there with a wide grin.

“That’ll be five bits,” Pinkie stated firmly.

Twilight pulled out a small cloth pouch and levitated five bits out and placed them on the counter. Pinkie counted them all before placing them in the register. Twilight gave her a quizzical look, and Pinkie shrugged, stating the last time she counted something wrong, she ended up about ten miles from where she was supposed to be.

Pinkie gave one last look at Qwark before returning to her work. 

Twilight asked, “Don’t you want to say hi to him, Pinkie?”

“I can’t, I have tons of baking to do, Twilight! That and I need to look after Pound and Pumpkin as soon as I’m done. Mr. and Mrs. Cake have their own evening planned and they’ve asked me to babysit again. Busybusybusy!”

That was the last Twilight heard from Pinkie as she vanished from the counter and into the kitchen. Twilight levitated her cupcakes and Qwark’s banana split towards the table he was sitting at.

“Here you go, Qwark. My treat!”

“Well, thank you Twilight! You didn’t go and have to do that for me, though. I’ve got tons of bolts from all the various sponsorship deals, promotions, and general super heroic deeds I’ve performed over the many years I’ve been in action!” Qwark proudly declared as he began to dig into his banana split.

Twilight was only stuck on one word in that statement. “Bolts?” she asked.

Qwark stopped eating and reached into his other buttock pocket (NOT the one with his Crotchitizer) and pulled out some rather large screws, nuts, and bolts and placed them on the table. Twilight looked them over, thinking them to be rather oversized...but VERY shiny.

“All totaled up, that’s about ten thousand bolts where I come from. Not bad, eh?” Qwark smiled as he scooped up more ice cream.

Twilight blinked, looking at his currency, then to Qwark, then back to his currency again. She didn’t quite know what to think of it.

“Is...is that money where you come from?” she asked.

“It’s only the standard intergalactic currency widely accepted by over two hundred separate galaxies and counting. Why?” 

“Well…” Twilight didn’t want to say this to him, but… ”Your ‘money’ might not be good here, Qwark.”

Qwark was about to take a bite of banana, but dropped it and his spoon as soon as she said that. Suddenly, his eyes turned watery...and pleading.

“You...you mean I’m BROKE?!” Qwark asked in despair.

“Until we have some sort of exchange rate for your bolts to bits...I’m afraid so.”

“OH, WHAT CRUEL IRONY!” Qwark yelled melodramatically. “I, Captain Qwark, had to land on a planet where my bolts are WORTHLESS!” Qwark slammed his head on the table and covered it with his hands, causing his split to topple over and one of Twilight’s cupcakes to fall off.

Twilight looked at the now feeble-looking Qwark and felt really bad for telling him the truth. However, something odd struck her as he looked at the blubbering green superhero. He reminded her of Rarity when she was in hard times...that’s IT!

“Qwark, I’m sorry for telling you about your money...but I think I can make it up to you.”

“No amount of banana splits will make up for my millions of hunks of scrap metal, Twilight.”

“Then how about an outfit or two made by the best fashion designer here in Ponyville?”

Qwark lifted his head and his eyes lit up. His disguises always helped him get out of tight spots before...or into them, whenever he was infiltrating one of Doctor Nefarious’s hideouts. It wasn’t money, but it would make him feel better.

He stood up with vigor and gusto, and said to Twilight, “Where’s this designer?”

-----------------

Nefarious and Rainbow Dash made it to Canterlot in less than ten minutes. Both of them were flying at a speed just under the Sonic Rainboom threshold, yet neither of them noticed as they continued to fling names at each other.

Meanwhile, Derpy would take a bit longer to reach Canterlot, about five more minutes. When she got there, Rainbow Dash and Nefarious were STILL arguing, both of them hovering in front of the main castle door.

It was at this point Derpy had enough, and decided to point out where they were. “Uh...we’re finally in Canterlot, you two.”

“AND ANOTHER THING, SQUISH-” Nefarious yelled, but stopped when he heard Derpy. He looked down, and tentatively touched the ground with his feet, wanting to make sure it was solid.

Rainbow Dash noticed, and giggled. “What’s the matter, egghead? Take your first step here on a cloud?”

“SHUT UP, SQUISHY!”

Nefarious planted both feet on the ground, thankful there was solid ground to stand on at last.

“So, is this where Princess Celestia lives?” Nefarious asked.

“Yep! This is her castle. Huge, isn’t it?”

Nefarious shrugged. “I’ve built bigger robots than this castle.”

He walked up to the door, and kicked it hard. The door slammed open and revealed a very clean-looking throne room with a very simple, yet delicate design.

Nefarious HATED it. It gave NO sense of evil or fear. Nefarious took a step forward inside.

“Nefarious, wait-” Derpy said, but it was too late.

Nefarious slipped and fell on his back. Dash laughed as soon as she saw this, while Derpy nervously looked away.

Nefarious did the only thing he felt like doing at that time. Screaming Lawrence’s name.

“LAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENCE!”

“Right here, sir.” Lawrence popped up to the left of Nefarious, holding a wet mop in one hand.

“Lawrence! What are you doing?!” Nefarious yelled as he rose to his feet.

“Mopping the floor, sir. Didn’t you see the sign?” Lawrence pointed to a “Caution: Wet Floor” sign nearby depicting a pony slipping and falling.

Derpy said nothing. She noticed the sign first, but didn’t want to say anything to Nefarious. He seemed really mad right now.

“Aaaaagh! WHY are you doing this, then?”

“Repaying a debt, sir, for breaking a stained glass window upon my entrance.” Lawrence pointed up toward the broken window with a large, rounded hole in it.

Nefarious grumbled, somewhat happy that Lawrence had caused destruction upon his entrance, yet had decided to clean it up not long after.

“What is going on out here, Lawrence?” Boomed a regal voice as Celestia came in, having heard Nefarious scream Lawrence’s name earlier.

“Ah, my employer has arrived, madam.”

“Doctor Nefarious, I presume?” Celestia asked toward the blue robot that was now present in her throne room.

“CORRECT! And who are you, squishy?” Nefarious asked apprehensively.

“I am Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria,” she stated firmly.

FINALLY, Nefarious has seen the ruler of this land in person. It didn’t really surprise him that it was another pony, though she did look bigger compared to Derpy and the blue squishy pony. Already, the gears in his head spun as he began to formulate a plan to take care of Celestia, but she interrupted with some news.

“Also, I have just received a letter from a former student of mine. It mentioned another creature that had crashed into Ponyville.” Celestia paused. 

She wasn’t sure why, but she felt saying the name of this creature was a bad idea. Still, she wanted to know if these two robots knew the name, and more importantly if they were all related to each other, and thus came from the same place.

“Do either of you know a...Captain Qwark?” she asked.

Nefarious’s eye twitched, and he found himself shouting his nemesis’s name.

“QWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-”

Nefarious’s brain short-circuited, and he was frozen in place as a familiar soap opera began to play from his head.
> Oh, Lance! Why did you come back for me?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Because I love you, Janice. I always have, and always will,” Nefarious spoke in a voice not his own, but belonging to a rather saucy, suave gentleman.

Everypony in the throne room except for Lawrence wore dumbfounded looks on their faces as they all stared at Nefarious.

“Oh my,” Lawrence stated, “that soap opera reaches all the way out here?”

Celestia was the first to recover. “You’re aware of this...whatever just happened to him, Lawrence?”

“Yes, I am. There are times when a robot can overload and malfunction. This is his way of doing so. Now, if you’ll excuse me a moment.” Lawrence began to approach Nefarious.

Derpy recovered next. Her free eye saw Dash, who was still processing Nefarious’s drastic change. 

“What are you doing, Lawrence?” she asked.

Lawrence stopped just in front of Nefarious. “What I’ve been wanting to do ever since we ended up here. This is the best part of my day.”

Lawrence smacked Nefarious hard in his face. As soon as his head jerked to the side, Nefarious could finish his yell, and he was free to move again.

“-AAAAAAAAAAAAAARK!”

Dash finally recovered from her shock only to begin laughing again. Derpy was stifling her giggling with a hoof, while Celestia cracked a small smile.

Nefarious turned and glared at Dash and Derpy. Derpy stopped giggling, but Dash was still having trouble getting her laughter under control. Nefarious decided to ignore her and turned back to Celestia.

“Where is Qwark?! He and I have a score to settle!” Nefarious demanded.

Celestia narrowed her eyes and looked at Nefarious, her smile from earlier turned upside-down in an instant. She could sense the malice Nefarious had for this Captain Qwark creature.

“Doctor Nefarious, I know not what your quarrel is with Qwark, but while you stay in the land of Equestria, you shall NOT bring harm to them or to any of my ponies while you stay here.”

Nefarious pointed a cold metal claw at Celestia. “And what are YOU going to do to stop me, squishy?”

Celestia’s horn glowed, and Nefarious found himself bound in a yellow aura as he was lifted into the air. He tried moving his limbs to reach for the laser pistols in his legs, but found he was completely frozen in place.

“I am the sovereign ruler of these lands, and with that title I bear the responsibility of the many lives within them should a threat come to pass. As you have plainly laid out before me, you fully intend to bring harm to a creature from your world who is under the guidance of my former student, who now happens to be a princess of this fair land. As such, Captain Qwark is a sovereign guest of these lands, so should you bring harm to him, you WILL be seen as a threat to the land of Equestria.”

Nefarious, unable to move or even speak, could only listen to Celestia’s warning and stare at her with cold, furious red eyes. In less than two seconds, he was caught off-guard and easily outmatched, and quickly realized that his vengeance on Qwark would have to wait. If he continued his resistance like this, that royal squishy would tear him into nothing but a head and a pile of scrap metal.

While Derpy and Dash were looking at Nefarious with mild amusement present on their faces, Lawrence was busy analyzing the magical hold Celestia had on Nefarious. He noted that her horn glowed the same color as the aura around Nefarious, and easily deduced that was the conduit through which she was able to control him. During her explanation of the land of Equestria, she had described the use of magic to him, and how unicorns and alicorns were the only ones prominently capable of doing so through their horns. Lawrence didn’t quite understand that as she did not demonstrate it to him, but now he did...and he realized that while they come from a world of technological superiority, they have only done so because they lacked the usefulness of magic.

Nefarious felt the magical hold on him loosen slightly, enough for him to move his mouth. Princess Celestia  asked, “Do you understand my warning?”

“I do, squishy. Now, PUT ME DOWN!”

“My name is Princess Celestia, Nefarious. I’m honoring you by calling you by your name, and I would hope that you do the same.”

Nefarious scoffed. “Your hope is in vain, squishy! I only give that honor to those that annoy me enough...or in one case, where they have a worse name than ‘squishy.’”

“Sir, do pardon my interruption, but shouldn’t you consider that you being immobilized would qualify as an annoyance?” Lawrence chimed in before Celestia could respond.

Nefarious thought about it for a moment and realized that WAS annoying. Thinking further, he realized he was highly annoyed by Rainbow Dash the entire time he argued with her as well. Maybe he should call her by-no, that’s too many names. Plus, she already hates being called a squishy.

“Thank you, Lawrence. Very well, Celestia, I will heed your warning,” Nefarious bitterly spoke.

Celestia finally relinquished her grasp on Nefarious, who fell from the air and landed on his feet, only for him to slip since the floor was still wet. Nefarious just grumbled and rose to his feet, instead posing a rather obvious question to Celestia.

“So...if I’m not allowed to exact vengeance on Qwark, what AM I supposed to do?”

--------------------

“Twilight, I’m not so sure going to this place run by a rare pony is such a good idea. You even told me they stud everything with gems! Do I look like a gem-wearing person to you?” 

Twilight sighed. “Qwark, her name is Rarity, and she doesn’t put gems on everything she designs.” Twilight paused for a moment, then came to a small admission. “Although she does put gems on most of her designs…”

Qwark shook his head. “Twilight, I refuse to wear any clothing she has if all they have is gems on them. I’m a masculine hero, you know. I need something to show off my chiseled physique.” He immediately struck a pose to make that point more apparent.

“Well, I hope she has some designs that will work for you...if they even fit.”

“What was that?” Qwark asked, having heard her mumble something at the end.

“N-Nothing, Qwark. Look, we’re here!” Twilight nervously pointed a hoof towards a large Carousel-themed building.

“Ah, so that’s why it’s called the Carousel Boutique. It looks like one!” Qwark exclaimed, thinking he said something intelligent.

Twilight decided to ignore Qwark. It was saving her from earning any more headaches as they approached the door. 

Thankfully, the door was large enough for Qwark to enter without needing a teleport inside. Twilight pushed the door open and ushered the green superhero inside.

It just dawned on her why Qwark was right about this being a bad idea as soon as Rarity noticed them enter.

“Well, hello Twili-AAAAAAAAAUGH! What is that...that...creature WEARING?!”

Twilight sighed. “Rarity, this creature is a superhero called Captain Qwark.”

Qwark gave Rarity an offended look. “Hey, I’ll have you know this outfit took me two years of seamster classes to get right! Do you have ANY idea how much time I’ve spent making spandex for this?”

Rarity paused. This creature knows how to be a tailor? And it made THAT?! Ugh, what a horrid color!

...but she didn’t want to be offensive to Qwark, especially if they’re a guest of Twilight. Rarity would have to ask her what this was all about later.

“But that’s not why I’m here,” Qwark continued. “I’m told you own quite a selection of outfits and-”

Rarity’s eyes lit up, and she didn’t hesitate. “Why, YES darling, of course I do! Just give me a moment to find a few things.”

In an instant, Rarity dashed off into the back, where she could be heard ruffling through something back there.

Meanwhile, Qwark was slightly baffled. “Twilight, does she even have outfits that are my size?”

She shrugged. “Rarity’s had all sorts of new clientele that aren’t ponies this past month. Last I heard she was working on a griffon ensemble, so she may have something for you.”

Rarity came back with a rack filled with costumes and was magically levitating a screen over and placing it in front of Qwark.

“Alright, I found a few things that might work. Now, to get you out of that costume!”

Twilight could hear Qwark grunting, fidgeting, and at one point screaming as Rarity tangled with him behind the screen. However, due to the screen, all she could see was a small grey cloud just above the top of the screen.

Spike came out from a side room holding a stack of various colors of cloth and noticed Twilight.

“Hey Twilight! What’s all the commotion?”

“OUCH! Watch where you’re putting your hooves, missie!” Qwark complained as he felt her finally slip something on, but was unable to see it in the cloud of chaos she conjured.

“Stop resisting me, Qwark! The sooner you do that, the sooner I can finish!” Rarity retorted.

Twilight shook her head. “Qwark’s trying on some new outfits, Spike.”

“Oh man, THIS I gotta see!” He wore a mischievous grin as he set the cloth down on a table, then stood next to Twilight.

“Aaaaaaand done!” Rarity exclaimed as she moved the screen out of the way and joined Twilight and Spike in marveling her work.

Twilight’s eyes were wide open in shock, as were Spike’s at that time. Rarity’s eyes were wide open as soon as she saw her work, and it was the same look as the other two.

Qwark was wearing a pink mask and gloves, shining white shoes with a pink dot on the side of the shoe, and a frilly pink tutu with a large pink sapphire on the back of it. Qwark made a heroic pose as Rarity pulled the screen away, his back turned to them as he flexed his arms out to the sides.

“Well, girls? How do I look?” Qwark asked.

Spike doubled over in laughter as soon as his shock wore off first. Qwark heard it and turned around, seeing Spike rolling around on the floor, while the mares still held shock-filled faces.

Qwark was confused. “What? Was there something on my back?” He turned his head to look behind him, and the first thing that caught his eye was the sapphire.

He turned back with an angry look. “Twilight, I told you I don’t wear things with GEMS in them! What part of that didn’t you understand?”

Both Twilight and Rarity’s jaws dropped to the floor, while Spike’s laugher only got louder. The GEM was the only thing he noticed was wrong?! Was he not aware of how girly he looked?!

Qwark held a dismissive look. “Rarity, next outfit please. And no gems this time.”

That line was enough to shake Rarity out of her stupor. “O-Of course, darling. Let me find...something different then.” She quickly buried her head in the clothes rack she brought and looked for another outfit.

Meanwhile, the sight of Qwark in a tutu was burned into Twilight’s retinas. The memory of him NOT being embarrassed in the slightest at wearing it was etched into her mind as Rarity frantically sought out something, ANYTHING else to change what she just put on him.

------------------------

“I can’t believe this!” Nefarious yelled in frustration.

Nefarious, Lawrence, Derpy, and Rainbow Dash all left through the main door of the castle. Celestia had decided to send Nefarious off to Ponyville to negotiate a truce with Qwark. Nefarious refused immediately, but she had threatened him with imprisonment in Canterlot’s dungeon if he continued to put up any further resistance. He begrudgingly accepted, thinking that some freedom was better than none at all.

“It could have gone worse, sir. She could have decided to imprison us both, and we both know how well something like that went last time,” Lawrence stated.

Nefarious groaned. The memory of him stranded on an asteroid with Lawrence resurfaced at that moment. He was NOT keen on repeating something like that ever again. But still, making a truce with that imbecile Qwark?! She might as well have asked him to shake hands with that cyclopic monkey Qwark had in his meddlesome Q-Force! AND offer that monkey a banana while he was at it!

...not that he saw much difference between the two of them, now that he thought about it.

Nefarious crossed his arms. “I still think she’s sending us off on a fool’s errand.”

Dash interjected. “Hey, if Princess Celestia thinks this will work, you HAVE to give it a shot. She’s usually very knowledgeable about these sorts of things.”

“Nobody asked YOU for your opinion, squishy!” Nefarious angrily pointed a claw at her.

“Didn’t have to,” -Dash smirked- “I usually give it out freely anyway. Plus, Celestia tasked us to watch you two, remember?”

“Yep!” Derpy chimed in. “She wants us to make sure you two don’t cause any trouble while you’re out making peace!”

Ugh, that was another thing Celestia did. In order to ensure he wouldn’t deviate, she had assigned Derpy and the blue squishy as temporary sentinels to oversee the two robots as they left Canterlot to go to Ponyville.

Flying wasn’t an option this time, as Lawrence didn’t have any flight capabilities. However, Nefarious had an idea.

“Lawrence, does your teleporter still work?”

He checked his arm, then looked back at Nefarious. “It’s still functional, sir. However, my communicator appears to be broken. Must have been from my crash landing. My apologies.”

Nefarious gritted his metal jaw. With Lawrence’s communicator broken, he can’t contact him and vice versa. However, a functioning teleporter was good enough for now. That would afford them the ability to travel great distances without needing to use the vehicles that the squishies likely operated here.

However, they didn’t know the location of this town called Ponyville. Dash helpfully pointed out where the town was, so Lawrence made some calculations in a fraction of a second to find some relative coordinates to place them outside the town.

“Destination is set.”

“Then let’s not waste any more time. Teleport us there.”

“Right away, sir.”

Lawrence pushed a button on his arm, and in an instant the world warped and distorted around them. One moment they were in front of Canterlot Castle, and the next they were on a dirt road a short distance away from Ponyville.

Rainbow Dash and Derpy were both very confused. The teleportation they were familiar with usually involved a flash of light, then reappearing somewhere else. Not this strange world-distorting magic...or was it they who were distorted and warped while being teleported? It hurt their heads thinking about it.

Nefarious and Lawrence were unfazed, however. They had used it multiple times and had gotten used to the effects, but Nefarious chuckled as he looked at the ponies, who seemed a bit dazed.

“What’s the matter, squishy? First time teleporting?” He prodded at Dash.

“NO!” she retorted while shaking her head to clear her mind. “This was just different, is all.”

“I take it you have your own manner of teleporting then, miss?” Lawrence asked.

“Not me personally, but one of my friends is really good at magic, and she’s done it many times. It usually looks a bit more awesome though since there’s always a bright flash when she disappears and reappears,” Dash elaborated.

A bright flash? Nefarious thought that was ridiculous. That wasn’t even remotely CLOSE to being subtle! 

He had always enjoyed the lack of any detectable effects from their way of teleporting. It made it seem less gaudy, but more importantly it helped whenever he and Lawrence needed to infiltrate a location without being spotted, usually to pilfer dangerous weapons technology...or in one case, a bank just to acquire funding for his space station.

“Well then, now that we’re here, it’s time to find Qwark so we can get this over with!” Nefarious said as he began stomping towards the town, walking off the dirt path and into a small field of flowers along the way.

Rainbow Dash sighed. “I sure hope the Princess is right and this all works out.”

Lawrence seemed confident. “I’m sure Doctor Nefarious will find some way to make it work. He always makes me work whenever he’s planning something diabolical, and since that’s not the ca-”

“LAWRENCE!” Nefarious called out from a good distance ahead of Lawrence and the two ponies.

Lawrence sighed. “Coming, sir! Ponies, if you’ll excuse me.” Lawrence shuffled off toward Nefarious, leaving the two ponies behind.

Derpy and Rainbow Dash exchanged looks of concern before flying to catch up with the two robots. If Lawrence’s statement was true, something bad was about to happen, and they would need to be there to prevent it if they could.

--------------------

Qwark was now posing in a clean black and grey business suit with gold trim on the cuffs, complete with a black tie, a white dress shirt, and formal black dress pants. He was still wearing his green mask and gloves, but everything else about him looked very formal and dashing. It reminded Qwark of his Galactic President uniform, minus the gold Qwark symbol he would have had pinned on his chest.

“Wow, that actually looks incredible!” Spike was in amazement, somewhat jealous that he didn’t have a suit like that. He made a mental note to ask Rarity to make one for him later.

Twilight simply nodded her head in agreement. Her mind was still reeling a bit from the tutu, even though Qwark had tried on ten different outfits since then. He really seemed to like the tropical outfit Rarity put on him, although Twilight wondered where Rarity had gone to get such inspiration for that floral design on the shirt.

Rarity was also quiet, instead opting to have Spike offer commentary. Having a male give his opinion on a male’s outfit seemed rather fitting, and her commentary would be useless since she thought all of the outfits she picked looked fabulous on him...besides the tutu, of course. She didn’t know how that got on the clothes rack anyway.

In the end, Qwark had picked the tropic outfit and the suit, but for some reason he insisted that she find him more feminine outfits as well. Rarity asked why, and he said such outfits had let him commit superheroic actions under the nose of some of the galaxy’s most devious villains.
“I don’t question the tastes of my foes if it gets me in through the front door!” he proudly declared.

Neither mare dared question Qwark further after that, figuring that if he had no shame in wearing a tutu, he wouldn’t be embarrassed wearing feminine outfits, either. Rarity promised she would find some for him later, but for now she had to resume work for another client.

Qwark, Spike, and Twilight left the store.

“Sheesh, Twilight, you didn’t tell me she would be so rough!” Qwark said, walking out in his regular superhero costume. He had earned a few bruises from her hooves trying to get some of the tighter outfits to fit on him.

“I forgot that she tends to get forceful like that. Sorry, Qwark,” Twilight apologized.

“It’s fine, I’ve tangled with worse. Have you tried fending off a hungry war grok on a tiny chunk of rock in space?”

“Uh…” Twilight wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, so she tried a generic response. “No...but it sounds dangerous!”

“That it was, Twilight…” Qwark sniffed.

Twilight tilted her head. “Qwark?”

“Sorry, just got something in my eye.” -Qwark rubbed his eye- “I just miss my little Snowball.”

Twilight was about to ask what he meant by that when all of a sudden Spike belched a gout of emerald flame. A scroll materialized from it, and Twilight grabbed it in a levitating cloud of magic.

Qwark stopped rubbing his eye and noticed the scroll. “Twilight, what is that?”

“A letter from Princess Celestia. I had sent one to her earlier to tell her of your presence here.”

Qwark frowned. “Twilight, if you wanted me to send a letter to a distant fan, I could have done that.”

Twilight frowned back. “Qwark, this is serious. Someone like you hasn’t shown up in Equestria before...ever. First contact protocol states that the rulers must be made aware of new creatures that are not native to the land of Equestria. Normally, they would also be one of the first to initiate contact as well if possible, but she sent a letter instead.”

Twilight blinked as her mind processed her own words. Why did Celestia only send a letter instead of coming as soon as possible? Twilight expected a hastier response as well, but an hour had passed since she had sent the letter, and dragonfire delivery doesn’t take more than a few minutes, at best.

“Oh, alright. So, do I finally get to meet your leader? Is that letter announcing their arrival?” Qwark started to look himself over, making sure he looked presentable.

Qwark’s voice snapped Twilight out of her thoughts, but her response was quick. “I’m not sure, but I would hope so!” Twilight opened the scroll and held it up to her face, and began to read it out loud.

“Princess Twilight Sparkle,

I am glad to hear that first contact with this Captain Qwark you mentioned has gone well enough for you to take him on a tour of Ponyville.

However, I too have also had my own first contact with two creatures called ‘robots.’ Both of them seem to know Captain Qwark. If he is with you, tell them their names are Lawrence and-”

“Doctor Nefarious,” Qwark finished, gritting his teeth. “I should have known that bucket of bolts would survive his landing!”

“You know them both?” Twilight asked.

“Know them? They tried to kill me, Twilight! Twice...no, wait. Was it three times?” Qwark tilted his head, trying to find the right number as he began counting on his hands.

Qwark was very preoccupied with counting now, so Twilight continued the letter, saving her questions about his near-deaths for later.

“Lawrence has informed me that Nefarious is a reformed supervillain. However, he still seems to harbor ill will towards Captain Qwark. Due to Nefarious’s antagonistic nature, I have sent him and Lawrence off to Ponyville so that they may talk and negotiate a truce. Both robots are under the watchful eyes of Derpy and Rainbow Dash, as I have made them sentinels and escorts for the duration of these negotiations.

I ask of you to oversee the peace negotiations between these outsiders. Be careful, Twilight. I had to subdue Nefarious once within my castle walls in order to ensure his compliance. Do not be afraid to do the same should things get out of hoof.

Should the negotiations go well, I wish to hear a full report on the matters they have discussed.

Your former teacher,

Princess Celestia.”

Twilight finished, and Qwark had stopped counting. Despite him counting his three digits multiple times, he still didn’t know whether it was two or three times he had almost been killed by Nefarious. He leaned towards three, just to be safe.

“So, your ruler Saladia forced Nefarious into peace negotiations with me?” Qwark asked.

“Celestia. Also, it sounds like that’s how things went over in Canterlot, and she wants me to keep an eye on things in her stead.”

“I wonder why here, though? This isn’t exactly the ideal location to hold a peace talk,” Spike added.

“Maybe it’s due to this town being a more...down to earth place?” Qwark wondered aloud, not sure if it made sense.

However, it made sense to Twilight. Considering Celestia had to control Nefarious in her own castle, hosting negotiations there would put unwanted pressure on them. Out here, there were more level grounds to discuss terms...and should things get out of control, Twilight was certain she would be able to handle it.

Just then, her train of thought was broken as Qwark screamed and ducked.

A reddish-orange beam had pierced the spot where Qwark was once standing and hit the side of Rarity’s boutique, leaving a scorch mark on the wall.

Twilight’s eyes traced the beam over to a metallic blue bipedal creature, who was holding an arm out with something in its hand. Twilight didn’t need to think twice about the fact that whatever the creature was holding was dangerous enough to have Qwark dodge the shot that came from it.

“QWARK!” the blue creature shouted as it moved forward. 

Qwark recognized the sound of the voice, and stood up to look at the creature that called his name, pulling out his blaster as he rose and aiming it at the blue robot.

“Doctor Nefarious!”

> I will ANNIHILATE you, Qwark!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Not going to happen, Doctor!” Qwark rebutted, though his face quickly turned to one of confusion. “But I thought you came here to discuss peace negotiations!”

Nefarious shrugged. “It’s easier to negotiate peace with a laser pistol in your hand. Not that YOU are deserving of ANY peace, ever!”

Lawrence shuffled onto the scene behind Nefarious. “Sir, it looks like your direct assault plan failed...and you seem rather occupied. Want me to go back to the drawing board for you?”

“Quiet, Lawrence! I’m busy negotiating!” Nefarious huffed, not breaking his red eyes away from Qwark in the exchange.

Derpy and Dash soon flew in, and stumbled across the standoff. Neither of them knew the green creature that Nefarious was talking to, though they assumed it was Captain Qwark.

Still, they dared not interfere. The standoff between the two bipedal creatures was so tense it could be felt in the very air around them. As both of them were Pegasi, they could feel the wind currents in the area, and it told them that something big was going down here, and that it was out of their league now.

Twilight was too busy being stunned by the rapid meltdown of these peace negotiations. Both Qwark and Nefarious were pointing weapons at each other, and both of them were fully intent on using them should the situation escalate any further. She was barely able to register the presence of Rainbow Dash and Derpy in addition to the other strange robot that came with Nefarious, who she presumed to be Lawrence.

However, there wasn’t any time to think about her friends right now. She needed to do something to break this tension, so she teleported herself in between the two.

“Both of you, stop this!” she objected. “I don’t know what caused all of this, but this is NOT the way to go about resolving it! Can’t you both put away your weapons and talk?”

Qwark responded first. “No can do, Twilight. Nefarious just tried to kill me...again! You want me to play nice with a villain that has no problems shooting at me? I don’t think so.”

Nefarious ignored Qwark’s remark, and continued with his tirade. “Qwark, you’ve meddled with my plans for the LAST time! Were it not for YOUR interference shooting at that switch, you’d be DEAD and I’d be relaxing in Pokitaru right now! Instead, you went and sent us all here with your idiotic plan!”

“Hey, you didn’t give me much of a choice, Nefarious! Either I did something to save my hide, or you’d be free to threaten the galaxy with whatever plans you would come up with once I was gone!” Qwark shot back.

This was going nowhere for Twilight, but she heard something in this argument that stuck in her head, and she had to ask about it.

“Well, why haven’t you both tried to go home yet?”

Suddenly, the tension that was felt by everyone present lowered slightly as both Qwark and Nefarious contemplated her question.

Qwark realized that not once had he asked about a way back home. It never even occurred to him how many friends he was missing back in the Solana galaxy. Ratchet and his robot pal Clank were probably searching for him right now...and he hadn’t even bothered trying to contact them. Outside of Nefarious, this place seemed peaceful enough to not warrant a superhero being present.

However, simply Nefarious being here was enough for him to know that he couldn’t leave here yet, not while that robotic menace still stood on free soil and not behind bars. Things might be different if Nefarious went along peacefully, but Qwark knew that would never happen, not in a million years!

Nefarious came to a different, yet somewhat similar conclusion. With his immense technological genius, he could easily build a ship that would get him and Lawrence home, assuming he could find or make all the parts he needed on this planet. It wasn’t an impossible task, but it would be time-consuming and potentially difficult. There were no Zoni to help him this time, and he doubted there was enough technological progress here to build anything beyond basic metal items. Maybe some mechanical tools with wiring, if he was lucky.

However, did Nefarious even want to leave? He had been caught off-guard by that Celestia pony in the castle when she held him in the air with that glowing stasis field. If he could find some way to contain, prevent, or harness that odd power that disabled him for himself, he could probably crush this entire land under his metal foot in an instant, like he had with the peaceful Fongoids and using the Zoni they worshipped before Ratchet interfered.

There was also the fact that outside of these ponies and Qwark, Ratchet and Clank still haven’t found them yet, which would make his task all the easier to accomplish here. The gears in his green egg dome soon began to turn...and a plan beginning to form in his crazed, psychotic supervillain mind.

However, for it to work, he needed to...ugh, play nice with the squishies for now. Thus, he did something Qwark didn’t expect...or anypony else. He holstered his laser pistol.

“Doctor? What are you doing?” Qwark asked.

“What does it LOOK like I’m doing, you buffoon?! I’m surrendering and willing to talk.” To prove his intent, he raised his clawed metal hands into the air.

Qwark bought it, and put away his blaster. “Well then, let’s get down to brass bolts! Twilight, is there a place where we can discuss our terms?”

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief that things seemed resolved, but there was something...off about his surrender. Why did Princess Celestia have so much trouble with him only for him to act docile now? Did she really get to him, or was there something more to this than Nefarious was letting on?

She noticed that Qwark didn’t seem to know this...or care, even. Somehow she knew he was hopeless to be convinced otherwise right now, so she decided to keep her suspicions to herself.

“I suppose the library is a good spot for it then.”

Qwark smiled. “Perfect! Come along, Nefarious! We’ve got talking to do!” Qwark brought Nefarious into him with one arm and held onto him tight.

“ARGH! Let me go, you oaf! I can WALK, you know!” Nefarious complained.

Qwark ignored him. “Twilight, let’s get moving. I...still need your help getting into the library,” Qwark stated, and began to take steps toward the library. Twilight nodded, and began to pace behind the two, keeping a close eye on Nefarious the whole way.

Nefarious started to realize this might have been a terrible plan. He turned his head back and wriggled against Qwark’s strong grip, yet was unable to budge. His eyes sought out his last escape route.

“Lawrence! Help me!”

“I would sir, but I don’t believe you need my help for negotiations. You seem to do that awfully well all by your lonesome,” Lawrence responded.

“LAAAWWWREEEENNNCE!” Nefarious yelled in a volatile mixture of rage and desperation.

“Your robo-butler is right, Nefarious. We need a man to ma-er, robot talk here. You know, mano y roboto, right?” Qwark tilted his head, wondering if he got that phrase right.

Nefarious felt his loose eye slide out of its socket right at that time.

-----------------------------

Derpy, Rainbow Dash, and Lawrence all stood and watched as Nefarious was dragged away by Qwark. Nefarious tried digging his claws into the earth as a final effort to stave off the inevitable, only to leave drag lines all the way down the dirt path.

Lawrence couldn’t show it, but he felt ecstatic in seeing Nefarious like that. Oh, if only he could do that himself without getting fired...oh well. He still had his moments whenever Nefarious froze up. That slap he gave him earlier in the castle still felt good on his hand.

“So...uh...what do we do next?” Derpy asked Dash.

“I suppose you both will need to watch me now,” Lawrence answered before Dash could respond.

Dash shot him a small glare. “She didn’t ask you, Lawrence.”

“On the contrary, miss Dash, I do believe it would have been about me anyway. You wouldn’t want another robot to cause trouble like that, would you?”

Miss Dash? Sheesh, Lawrence really was proper for a butler. However, he had a good point. Letting him out of their sight would only invite more trouble, and trouble was something Ponyville didn’t need right now. It got enough trouble as is.

“No, I won’t let that happen,” Dash responded. “However, we still need to do something while the eggheads and that Qwark creature talk things over.”

Lawrence thought for a moment before asking, “Do you happen to have a music store somewhere?”

“Music? You listen to music?” Dash asked.

“Well, I play instruments, to be more precise,” Lawrence clarified.

“Oh, I know a place! Follow me, and I’ll take you there!” Derpy chimed in before flying off into the town.

Lawrence and Rainbow Dash shared a look before following Derpy as she led them through the town of Ponyville. As it was still afternoon, many ponies were trotting about, though many if all stopped to watch the strange robot shuffle along the ground, unaware of what it was. They also showed signs of fear, though it was somewhat alleviated by the fact that Rainbow Dash was flying alongside him looking like an escort, while Derpy continued to lead them on. 

Dash wondered if this was really a good idea. Gossip was beginning to spread ever since Nefarious stomped his way through the town moments earlier, enraged and looking for Qwark. Most didn’t notice Lawrence as he was escorted by the mares. However, now that Nefarious was gone they most certainly did notice Lawrence now, and she could tell they were wondering if he was as frightening as Nefarious.

“And we’re here!” Derpy shouted to the two behind her as she hovered in front of a store with a vinyl disc hanging just above the doorway. It read “Vinyl Scratch’s Music Emporium” in bright neon colors on the disc.

Derpy’s calling derailed Dash’s train of thought, but none were more surprised than Lawrence as Derpy opened the door and ushered him and Dash inside.

Before Lawrence’s eyes sat a medley of musical instruments, recording devices, headphones, speakers, amplifiers, and various other musical technology that spat in the face of Lawrence’s notion that these ponies were as stone-aged as he had determined from his run-in with the castle guards. Not only was this a refreshing sight for him, especially as his blue eyes fell upon a bass guitar in the back of the store next to a drum set, but this also confirmed the possibility that there was indeed technology they could work with on this planet. 

Nefarious would be delighted to hear this news...almost as much as Lawrence was at finding another bass guitar. Nefarious decided to smash his last one into pieces on an asteroid, and Lawrence still hadn’t quite forgiven him for that.

Lawrence walked over and picked up the bass guitar. A white pony with dark and bright blue hair walked down the stairs in the back corner, not noticing Lawrence as they came down. They were wearing a pair of violet tinted shades.

“Well, hello there! Welcome to my music emporium!” The pony greeted the ponies she saw as potential customers. “My name’s DJ-PON3, with a three at the end, but other ponies know me as Vinyl Scratch. What can I do for ya?”

Before either pony could respond, they all heard Lawrence playing the bass guitar in the back. At first, he was testing out the strings and tuning the instrument, but then he began to play his Bass Odyssey solo.

The nimble work of his fingers made the guitar sing like a rockin’ canary. Dash and Derpy were entranced by his music, as was Vinyl, who was bobbing her head up and down as Lawrence continued to play.

Lawrence stopped for a moment, and his eyes fell on the drum set for a moment before he turned to face his pony audience.

“I don’t suppose any of you can play drums?” he asked.

Vinyl immediately volunteered as she went over to the drum set next to him and started a rhythm for him, which he easily accompanied. Derpy and Dash opted to simply sit and listen to the jam session as Lawrence found his groove again in that little music shop.

----------------------

“Alright, let’s go over what we’ve discussed so far...again,” Twilight said.

It had been two hours of bickering and arguing between Qwark and Nefarious. It was less negotiating and more like bitterly coming to an equal arrangement with insults tossed back and forth the whole time. 

Qwark and Nefarious were silent, both had their arms crossed and patiently waited for Twilight to review the agreements they came to...well, just one agreement, actually. That’s all they could manage at this rate, and even this agreement would still come under fire.

“First, Nefarious, you will work with Lawrence to make this ‘spaceship’ to get you all back to wherever you came from. Qwark is not allowed to assist with construction of this vessel, but he wishes to make sure that Nefarious doesn’t commit any evil acts while in Equestria. To do the latter, Qwark will supervise Nefarious the entire time you both remain here.”

Nefarious snapped. “I NEVER agreed to that!”

“Nefarious, right now you can’t be trusted to do anything alone, so someone has to watch you until you earn our trust, and that might as well be me,” Qwark rebutted.

“I’d rather be watched by squishy ponies than have this blithering oaf hovering over my shoulder!” Nefarious shot back, though his statement was directed toward Twilight.

“Why is that, Nefarious?” she asked.

“Because you ponies are more tolerable to deal with than HIM!” He bitterly remarked.

Twilight sighed as Qwark gritted his teeth. This was going to result in another debate again, and she wanted to cut that off before it started.

“Then why not have Qwark check on your progress once a month, and have somepony watch over you the rest of the time?”

Both Qwark and Nefarious contemplated this. Nefarious spoke first.

“That is...reasonable.”

“I don’t like it, but so long as he’s being watched the whole time, nothing should go wrong,” Qwark said.

“Then negotiations are finally over? Why don’t you two shake hooves?” Twilight asked.

Both of them looked at her quizzically, and she realized her error. “Sorry, I mean...hands?” She shrugged.

Both of them looked back to each other. Nefarious’s cold eyes met Qwark’s determined eyes, and in that moment an understanding of minds was met between a genius and an idiot. They shook hands at last, despite both being slightly cross at how long the negotiations lasted.

Twilight, on the other hoof, was happy to see these negotiations come to an end. These two were flinging so many foreign insults at each other her head was having a hard time processing it all, and she wanted to write a letter to Celestia about the success about the negotiations as well.

At that point another problem just surfaced in her head. Building this spaceship would take a long time according to Nefarious, and none of them had even remotely discussed living arrangements.

“Do you two know where you’re going to be staying for the night?”

“No,” both of them echoed at the same time.

However, Nefarious continued. “However, I don’t need a place to stay. I don’t need sleep unlike you squishies, so I can work on the ship as long as I want!”

“Need I remind you that you need to be watched, Nefarious?” Qwark asked.

“Then WHERE do you suggest I go, Qwark?”

Qwark didn’t have an answer to that...but Twilight did.

-----------------------

“Oh no, Twilight. You are NOT puttin’ this robot-thing here under my roof!” An irritated orange mare with a stetson huffed at the insane suggestion Twilight was making. 

“Applejack, please. It’ll only be as long as it takes for Doctor Nefarious here to build a ship for them to get home!” Twilight responded.

“I don’t care who they are or where they’re from, but ya can’t just lease out my barn to a foreigner you just met here in Ponyville!” Applejack snapped.

Applejack couldn’t believe this. One minute she was busy practicing for the next Apple Bucking Season, the next Twilight comes along and brings two large bipedal creatures with her and trying to explain the thin blue shiny robot called Nefarious needs a place to stay. Frankly, just his name alone rang all sorts of bells in her head saying he was up to no good, and she wasn’t about to have that on her farm.

Nefarious was equally bothered by Applejack. He noticed she had very perceptive eyes about her as she carefully looked him over not long after Twilight introduced. He could feel her eyes boring into him as well as a raritanium-tipped drill, and he didn’t like it. He concluded that she would be very troublesome to deal with. Out of all the squishy ponies he had met so far, he was already certain that he would annihilate this one first...after Princess Celestia, of course.

Twilight sighed. She could already tell this wasn’t going to work out...but then she remembered that Qwark also needed a place to stay. She was already growing tired of teleporting Qwark in and out of the library.

“How about Captain Qwark, then?”

Applejack turned and looked Qwark over with the same piercing gaze. Qwark felt quite nervous, but he still stood there proud and heroically.

After a minute or so, Applejack seemed somewhat satisfied. “Him I can deal with, Twi. However, it won’t be a free ride. I can let ya stay in our barn, but you gotta do some work on this orchard as payment for room and board. That sound fair?”

Physical labor? Qwark flashed a large smile. He had a body BUILT for that, so this should be easy!

“Absolutely, Applejack! I mean, look at these massive guns!” -Qwark flexed both his arms- “This sounds like a great deal to me!” Qwark stated with a slight bit of arrogance in his tone.

“Great! In that case, ya can start right now with helpin’ me gather more apples!” Applejack declared, leading Qwark off toward where she was bucking the last tree she was working on.

Twilight smiled as they walked away, but that smile faded as she looked at Nefarious, who had crossed his arms and was tapping his foot impatiently.

“Well, this clearly didn’t work out. Where to now, squishy?”

Twilight had to think for a moment. Nefarious had already met Rainbow Dash, so she might be willing to keep an eye on him...but could he walk on clouds? That seemed doubtful, he didn’t look like the flying type from how he walked around...but she couldn’t say that for certain. 
Come to think of it, outside of him using that pistol earlier, she had no idea what Nefarious was capable of...and that scared her more than anything.

She shook her head, remembering that Nefarious still needed a place to stay. Then it hit her, there was one pony who might take him in...but it already seemed ridiculous to her with how reclusive and shy she was. Then again, this pony had already reformed the embodiment of chaos, and she knew how much trouble that draconnequus caused, so it was worth a try.

-------------------------

“So, uh...Captain Qwark, how good are you at bucking?”

Qwark stopped and blinked at Applejack, wondering if he heard her right. “Uh, could you rephrase that?”

“Kicking! Are ya any good at kicking?”

“Hah! Applejack, I’ve kicked down so many steel doors and stone walls during my heroic career, a couple of trees shouldn’t be a problem for me.”

Applejack was uncertain, but Qwark seemed so confident she thought he would be able to do it. “Alright, Qwark. Why don’t you start on that tree over there? I already set some baskets down near it.”

Qwark walked up to the indicated tree with many bright red and green apples dangling from it. Qwark bent his legs, lifted a foot, and slammed it into the tree. His foot left a very sizable dent in the bark, but the apples did not fall. Frustrated, he kicked it again, but besides leaving a bigger dent, no apples fell.

Now quite angry, Qwark put all his strength into his third kick against the tree. The impact left a deep dent in the base of the tree, and finally shook all the apples loose as they landed in the baskets around the tree. However, it also uprooted the tree, causing it to begin toppling over. Qwark panicked and grabbed the tree and pulled it back to its original position, just as Applejack turned around after hearing the apples land in the baskets.

“Wow, nice work, Qwark!” she praised.

Qwark flashed a smile, and leaned an arm against the tree, in what he thought to be a cool and relaxed pose. “Nothing to it, Applejack. I told you-aaaaaaaaagh!”

Qwark forgot he uprooted the tree, and promptly fell over as the tree tipped and crashed into the ground, knocking over two of the baskets and spilling his hard-earned bounty all around the area.

Applejack’s reaction was a mixture of fear and anger at the scene. Fear won out first as she quickly approached him as soon as he began to fall.

“Qwark, are ya alright?!” A slight tone of panic was present in her voice.

Qwark shook his head and rose to his feet. “I’m fine...and sorry, AJ. These trees are stubborn things!”

Applejack narrowed her eyes. “Stubborn? Naw, you’re doing it wrong then.”

Qwark tilted his head in confusion. “Applejack, I’m kicking trees. How is that wrong?”

She gestured to the large dent in the tree. “For a start, you’re kicking the trees too dang hard! While ya do need a good buck to get the apples off, that’s just overdoing it. Here, watch me.”

Applejack led Qwark over to another tree with more buckets neatly arranged around it. Qwark stood a small distance away as he watched her approach the tree, turn around, and give it a good buck. She left nary a scratch on the tree, but the apples all fell down and landed neatly into the buckets, which stunned Qwark.

She turned around, and chuckled at seeing Qwark with his mouth gaping. She then explained, “Qwark, it’s all in the right technique. Ya can’t just use brute force, it’s more like...like a polite shove to move through a crowd of ponies. However, in this case it’s more like I’m askin’ the tree to let the apples fall, and my buck is strong enough to ask that, but not so strong that it’ll hurt the tree. Does that make sense?”

For the first time since he entered Equestria, Qwark completely understood an explanation that was given to him. He recalled many days where he had to part crowds of fans and onlookers with his muscular arms just to get to his trailer back when he was doing endorsement deals and promotions all across the galaxy. Now that he had a better idea of what she was talking about, he had a better grasp on how to handle her apple trees.

He nodded. “Alright Applejack, I know how to get these trees to drop their fruit without hurting them.”

Applejack wore a smug grin. “Is that so? Well, you can try it on the next tree as soon as you clean up that mess ya made earlier.” She gestured to the fallen tree and the two tipped buckets of spilled apples. Qwark nodded again, and went over to fix his mess. Thankfully, it only took him a few minutes to replace the tree and gather the apples scattered around, and soon he was ready to try his luck with the next apple tree.

This time, he arranged more buckets that were stacked in a pile nearby around the tree. Since his feet were more useful for breaking things down, he didn’t use them this time. Instead, he took a karate stance, and drove his hand into the side of the tree with a well-aimed chop. There was a small dent from the impact, and the tree shook for a brief moment before half the apples fell off the tree and neatly into the buckets below. Undeterred, Qwark planted a second strike to the other side of the tree, and a smile filled his cheeks when the rest of the apples fell into the buckets, while the tree was still standing. 

Applejack witnessed his method, and thought it odd (and somewhat inefficient), but at least Qwark figured out how to do the work without wrecking her precious apple trees. She nodded to him with a satisfied smile, then the two both began harvesting apples at their own pace.

> WHAT?! You want me to live HERE?!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nefarious angrily pointed toward a moss-covered cottage at the edge of a forest as they approached it. “WHY here? Are you afraid I’ll cause more trouble in the town, squishy?”

“Twilight! My name is Twilight!” she yelled in frustration.

“You’re ignoring my question, squishy,” Nefarious snidely remarked, emphasizing “squishy” as much as possible..

Twilight’s eye twitched. Her initial thought that Nefarious might be more tolerable than Qwark was quickly shattered by Nefarious’s insistence on calling her and her friends “squishies,” whatever that meant. What she did know was that he clearly meant it as an insult, but any attempts to get him to stop were only met with more insults. 

This was the complete opposite of Qwark. While he made mistakes, he at least meant well in trying to adapt and remember details. Meanwhile, Nefarious was simply blatant and not caring about being corrected at all, even though he knew full well what her name was. It irritated her at how resilient he was.

She took a deep breath, deciding it was better to answer his question. “Nefarious, the owner of this cottage is one of the friendliest, kindest ponies I know.”

“Kinder than that orange pony who turned me away?”

“Her name is Applejack, and she turned you away because she saw something in you she didn’t like.”

“I’m a SUPERVILLAIN! That should be obvious!” Nefarious stomped on the ground angrily.

Twilight facehoofed. He was almost as terrible as Discord with how much he was irritating her.

“Nefarious, can you trust me on this please? I promise this will work.”

Nefarious merely crossed his arms and looked away. Twilight turned her head away from him as well, leaving him and turning to her thoughts. What made this “robot” creature so distrusting of ponies and Qwark? Why did he keep calling us “squishies”? Did that carry some deeper meaning than she was aware of?

“We’re here, squishy.”

Nefarious’s words snapped Twilight out of her thoughts as they stood in front of the door to the cottage. She knocked on the door immediately, then stood back and waited for a response.

The door opened slowly, revealing a pale yellow pony with a long pink mane covering one of her eyes.

“Twilight?”

“Hello Fluttershy. I brought a-”

“Eep!” Fluttershy squeaked as she looked at the strange blue bipedal creature towering over her. She quickly shut the door.

Nefarious huffed, and eyed Twilight with a look of pure, unfiltered skepticism. She responded by glaring back at him before knocking on the door once again.

“Fluttershy, please, his name is Doctor Nefarious, and he needs help.”

Nefarious glared at her. “I need help?!”

Before Nefarious could go off on another tirade, Fluttershy opened the door and flew out, immediately asking questions about Nefarious as she flew around and inspected him carefully.

“Oh, is he injured? Has he been involved in an accident?”

“No. He’s-” Twilight started to explain.

Fluttershy noticed a small scar on his face across his right eye, continuing up into a crack in his green-tinted dome about a third of the way up.

“Oh, you poor thing! What happened to you?” Fluttershy asked.

Nefarious’s gears in his head ground against each other as he recalled a painful memory of Ratchet lobbing a grenade at his face that exploded less than two feet from his face, causing his hideous scarring and his red eye to loosen from its socket.

“Ratchet,” he spat.

“Ratchet?” Twilight and Fluttershy echoed at the same time.

---------------------

Lawrence’s jam session had continued for what felt like hours. By now the music had spread far beyond the entrance to the Music Emporium (Vinyl hooked up speakers during a small break period and had set them outside), and it had caught the ears of many ponies passing by. Soon enough, a crowd had formed outside the store as they eagerly got swept away to the tune of Lawrence’s nimble fingers and Vinyl’s drumming.

All good things must come to an end, however, as Lawrence decided to finish with a solo that melted the crowd outside into a frenzy. Their cheering was so loud it cracked the storefront window outside.

Vinyl was sweating by the end, her mane slightly frazzled as she rocked her heart out on the drum set. While Lawrence showed no signs of fatigue (a robot’s stamina is never to be underestimated), he noticed that Vinyl was getting tired and ended things early. 

This was an important thing he remembered, considering that his previous band had an amazing lead guitar who happened to be an odd organic Mystic from another galaxy. They were very deep and introspective, which Lawrence ignored basically the entire time, but the Mystic could do things with his guitar that baffled him at the time, yet were amazing to watch nonetheless.

It would be a few minutes as Lawrence put away the bass guitar where he found it, and once the crowd realized the music had ended, they slowly dissipated away from the store to resume their day.

“Whew...that was a rush,” Dash spoke, blown away by a performance that, in her opinion, was super-awesome and cool!

…not as cool as her, though. She was still pretty awesome.

Derpy clapped her front hooves together in applause, shouting, “Encore! Encore!”

Lawrence looked at Vinyl, who was breathing deeply and frequently. She was in no condition to continue, and that could be seen plain as day.

“I’m sorry miss Derpy, but I’m afraid that will be all for today.”

“Yeah, huff...I’m pretty beat. You know how to play...whatever you are,” Vinyl said.

“I’m a robot, miss Scratch, and you may call me Lawrence.”

Vinyl straightened up, her breathing less frequent as she began to get her second wind. “Lawrence, huh? Cool name, sounds sophisticated...but kinda groovy.”

“Well, I am a butler, so some level of sophistication and etiquette is expected,” Lawrence stated.

“And yet you play some awesome rock n’ roll,” Vinyl countered.

Lawrence shrugged. “I may be proper, but I dabble in rebellious actions from time to time.” -he gestured to Derpy and Dash- “These two can attest to that.”

Both of the mares snickered as they realized what he meant by that. Vinyl tilted her head to the side, wondering what was so humorous, but decided not to pursue it. She needed to ask Lawrence something else anyway.

“Hey, you happen to be looking for a way to kill more time? If so, I’ve actually got a few music gigs lined up this month, and I think you’d be perfect!”

Lawrence pondered on this opportunity. A chance to be in a band again would do wonders to vent the stress of working for Doctor Nefarious, AND it would give him time away from his employer so that he can indulge in his favorite hobby.

But...what if Nefarious truly needed him for some dire emergency? His communicator was broken, and if Nefarious was in grave danger...Lawrence both smiled and shuddered at the thought of losing his long-time employer.

“...I’m sorry, miss Scratch, but I must decline. I have a previous arrangement with my employer demanding that I come at his beck and call. So long as my communicator is broken,” -he pressed a switch on his arm, which opened a panel nearby revealing a fried mess of wires and circuitry inside- “I need to be within earshot of him so that I might perform my duties admirably.”

Vinyl brought a hoof to her chin in thought for a moment before she flashed a large smile. “Hey, what if I could fix it? I’m pretty good at wiring things together to get them working again.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t insist on that, Miss Scratch. I’m afraid I don’t have anything to compensate you with for such a task,” Lawrence responded.

He immediately assumed the bolts he carried were worthless here. Though he did not know the currency of his land, it was safer to think his currency had no exchange rate here considering they didn’t even know what robots are. 

She seemed to brush off the notion of paying her, however. “Aw, don’t sweat it! After that performance you just gave, I think I owe you one!”

Lawrence was confused. His music...was a form of currency? Not only that, it was a currency this pony was willing to accept?

While he thought about how that even worked as a medium of exchange, Vinyl began inspecting his arm, and noted the components that needed repairs or replacement as necessary. 

“Alright Lawrence, I’ve figured out what I need to get that communicator of yours working again. Just give me a minute to get my tools, okay?”

Lawrence finally came to the conclusion that her offering was one of simple generosity, as that sounded much more logical than music equaling out as a form of currency. That sounded incredibly backwater and naive, even for this technologically inferior land. 

He gladly accepted the offer when Vinyl returned with tools in her magical grasp, knowing full well that would allow him the additional freedom that he had always enjoyed...in exchange for the occasional long-distance call from Nefarious. He easily believed that the benefits far outweighed the one disadvantage of dealing with his employer.

Her smile widened in response, and she set to work immediately.

----------------

Twilight had been persistent, but outside of the name Nefarious uttered, he refused to divulge any information about the one called “Ratchet.” This infuriated her, for it sounded like whoever this “Ratchet” was, they seemed capable of easily keeping a close eye on Nefarious. Furthermore, they might be able to get Qwark, Nefarious, and Lawrence back to their own galaxy without any more trouble happening as a result of their stay in Equestria!

Nefarious was firm on keeping his metal lips shut on the matter, however. He had completely regretted saying the name of the nemesis that had given him FAR more trouble than Qwark ever had. The LAST thing he wanted was Ratchet and Clank coming to this world and destroying his plans for galactic domination...AGAIN!

Fluttershy, however, was much more caring and concerned for Nefarious’s well-being. Although she did not know who this “Ratchet” was, she could easily tell how much the name flustered the robot, despite the limited expressions he could give due to having a rigid face.

She had let Twilight pursue her questioning of Nefarious about Ratchet for some time, but when it became very clear that he didn’t want to talk, she intervened.

“Twilight, that’s enough. I believe Nefarious needs some time alone,” Fluttershy stated with finality.

Twilight wanted to object, but she relented...for now. “I suppose so. Fluttershy, can you watch over Nefarious now that you’ve looked him over?”

Fluttershy brought a forehoof to her chin in thought for a moment. “Why, yes, I can do that Twilight --” Nefarious shot her a glare that made her recoil in fear “-- I-If that’s okay with him…”

Nefarious merely huffed in response, but didn’t refuse as he stomped into Fluttershy’s cottage. Twilight sighed in relief, taking that action as a “yes” before departing to leave those two alone. She had other business to tend to in town anyway; In particular, she needed an update on that robot servant of his, Lawrence. She had not seen him since escorting Qwark and Nefarious out of Ponyville, and wanted to see if Rainbow Dash and Derpy were making sure that he wasn’t causing any trouble.

As soon as Twilight teleported away in a flash of magenta light, Fluttershy closed the door and looked toward Nefarious, who was sitting on the sofa in the main room. His eyes were darting around, taking in the spacious surroundings around him.

Then his eyes fell on Fluttershy, who was staring at him with curiosity present in her eyes.

“Is something wrong, squishy?”

Fluttershy played with her hooves nervously. “Um...did-did you want something to eat?”

Nefarious raised a metal eyebrow before breaking out into a fit of evil laughter.

“Eat? Hah, that’s rich!”

Fluttershy tilted her head. “You mean you don’t have to eat?”

Nefarious scoffed, “Robots aren’t squishy organic lifeforms! WE are not limited by the banal needs of sleep, drink, or hunger!”

Fluttershy gasped. A creature that didn’t require food, water, or bedrest? Why, any other animal she knew that didn’t get any of the three for some time would be…

“You...you shouldn’t be alive,” she squeaked out, beginning to take a few steps back in fear.

“Wrong, squishy. I’ve never felt more ALIVE!” Nefarious cackled.

Again, Fluttershy tilted her head. “You mean...you weren’t always like this?”

This time, it was Nefarious’s turn to tilt his head. “What makes you think that, squishy?”

“I-it was just the way you spoke, Doctor Nefarious. You made it sound like something happened to make you what you are now.”

Nefarious pursed his metal jaw for a moment. This squishy was more perceptive than he thought.

“...you’re correct. I was once an organic, just like you.”

“What happened?” she asked.

Nefarious felt his loose eye twitch involuntarily move around in its socket. “QWARK happened.”

--------------------

“Whew, finally done!” Qwark wiped the sweat off his brow before looking behind him to admire the work he and Applejack had accomplished.

Applejack did not expect Qwark to harvest apples as fast as he did, but once he got that weird-looking chopping pattern down, he was moving from tree to tree at a rate that could rival her own on a harvest day that wasn’t during Applebucking Season. 

She didn’t like the little dents he had put in the trees, though. He was still hitting the trees a little too hard, but she didn’t have time to complain about it when more than half the orchard still needed to be cleaned out. Now that it was all over, though…

“I must say, ya did a fine job Qwark.”

“Thanks, Applejack! All in a day’s work for a superhero like me.” Qwark flourished and struck another heroic pose, forcing Applejack to roll her eyes in response.

At least he’s not as bad as Trixie, she had to remind herself. 

“Yeah yeah. Come on ya jolly green giant, we still got apples to store.”

Qwark broke his pose. “Hey, the little dragon thing called me that too! Do I really look that massive?”

“Honestly, ya do. Only creature I know that’s as big as you would be a manticore, and I don’t like bein’ around something as ferocious as that.”

“Manticore?” Qwark asked.

“It’s this big ol’ lion with bat wings and a scorpion tail. You’ve never encountered somethin’ like that where you’re from, Qwark?”

“Nope, but Applejack, if you’ve seen the monsters I have seen, a flying cat with a stinger would be the least of your worries.”

Applejack thought she had a faint idea of who he was alluding to. “You mean that Nefarious fella, right?”

Qwark was actually thinking about the Protopet, a blue puffball with two eyes and a red dot antenna sticking out from its head. He had tried to use a Helix-o-thingy on it to save the Bogon galaxy from a threat that he had created (those were desperate times in his superhero career) using them. It was supposed to make every Protopet he sent to every corner of the Bogon galaxy completely docile --when at the time they were violent and ravenous-- but it backfired as it made the Protopet he used it on gigantic, the size of over twenty of him, and its first response was to swallow him whole. That was not an experience he wanted to remember.

...and to think all he had to do to avoid that situation was to make sure the batteries were set into that Helix doohickey properly (he had put them in backwards)!

Although...to be fair, he wouldn’t have had experienced the joys that would come from the Crotchitizer if that didn’t happen, so everything balanced itself out in the end.

“Qwark? Qwark, are ya there?” Applejack asked, breaking Qwark’s train of thought.

“Oh...uh, yeah, let’s go with Nefarious,” Qwark answered half-heartedly.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. She had a feeling he wasn’t thinking about Nefarious. He would have answered much sooner if that was the case, so he had to be thinking about someone...or something else.

Qwark was keen on avoiding such conversation about the dark times of his past, however. He hastily scooped up three half-barrels of apples and made his way towards the Apple Family Homestead. “Come on, Applejack! These apples aren’t going to move themselves!”

Applejack shook her head. As much as she wanted to know what had caused Qwark to get so lost in his head, she had a deadline to meet. “Right behind ya, Qwark!” She had stacked two half-barrels on her back and carefully made her way through the orchard, catching up to Qwark as they reached her home.

-----------------

Meanwhile, in the Solana galaxy…

In a small fighter-class starship dubbed the Aphelion, a lombax and his small robotic sidekick scoured the remains of Nefarious’s destroyed star cruiser. 

“Aphelion, analyze the debris for signs of spacial distortion,” the lombax spoke.

As Aphelion began scanning the debris, the lombax called Ratchet desperately looked among the debris himself for any signs of Captain Qwark.

“Ratchet, I am not certain that Qwark is alive,” the small robot spoke.

“Don’t say that, Clank! He’s survived an explosion like this before, remember? He even had time to get to his hideout on an asteroid!” Ratchet’s voice was angry, but shaky as a slight bit of fear was present in his words.

“I know, Ratchet. However, we must consider the option that he may have truly passed on. I know you do not like it, but it’s an equally probable conclusion to these events.”

Ratchet slammed his hands on the dashboard. “Clank, can’t you sound optimistic instead of apathetic right now?”

Clank placed his small hand on Ratchet’s. “I am merely pointing out the possibilities...but I wish to believe that Qwark is alive, too.”

Ratchet looked at his friend and smiled, before Aphelion beeped to life with a response.

“Spatial distortion detected. Origin: Unknown. Destination: Unknown.”

Ratchet smiled at first, but it quickly faded. That could mean that Qwark was alive...but they didn’t know where he ended up. He could have been ejected into space somewhere else, or even to some other planet in another galaxy entirely. The chances of finding him now are slim to none.

Ratchet hung his head in defeat. “We’re never going to find Qwark, then. There’s no telling when or where he is now.”

Clank chimed in. “I wouldn’t be so sure, Ratchet.”

Ratchet lifted his head up and turned to look at Clank. “What do you mean?”

“We still have the Dimensionator,” Clank stated with confidence.

“It’s broken, remember? I don’t even know how to fix it.”

Clank smiled. “When has that ever stopped you from ‘winging’ it?” Clank laughed at his own joke, remembering the time when Ratchet had attached high-flying Levitator wings to him without giving the supplied instructions more than a passing thought.

At this, Ratchet laughed softly, and his confidence had resurfaced. “Thanks, buddy. Looks like we’ve got a Dimensionator to repair.”

> That should do it, Miss Scratch.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lawrence was baffled at how much finesse Vinyl had. Sure, he had dextrous hands that were quite capable of making the most advanced robotic repairs, but Vinyl had dexterity that rivaled his own. It was surprising, to say the least.

“Are you sure, Lawrence? I haven’t even done any checks to be sure I wired it up properly. Also, could you just call me Vinyl?”

“That is unnecessary, Miss...Vinyl?”

She shrugged. “Close enough, I guess.”

Lawrence nodded before continuing. “I can already tell that your work is exquisite. I can use it right now, if you are still uncertain.”

“I’d like that, Lawrence.”

Lawrence closed the open hatch leading to his exposed wiring, then began to fiddle with a small console on his arm. Much to his dismay, the only way he could test it was to contact Nefarious. Lawrence savored the few precious seconds he had left before potentially being bombarded by his employer's remarks. 

Lawrence activated the power to his communicator. A red light shined on his arm, indicating a connection to Nefarious. He wondered if Nefarious even noticed that it-

“LAWWWWWWWRRREEEEENNNCEEEEE!”

Nefarious’s scream shook Lawrence’s arm involuntarily for a moment, stunning Vinyl and rousing Dash and Derpy, who had decided to take a short nap while Vinyl was busy working. 

Vinyl asked, “I take it your communicator works then?”

Lawrence sighed before responding, “Correct, miss Vinyl.” 

Lawrence pressed a few buttons on his arm to mute the sound so the other ponies couldn’t hear. If he could have a private conversation with Nefarious like this without being detected, it would be a boon to their plans.

“Yes, sir?”

“LAWRENCE! Finally, this blasted communicator works! WHERE ARE YOU?!”

“I was busy getting the communicator repaired, sir. Is this important?”

“YES, this is important, you robotic buffoon! This squishy pony won’t leave me alone!”

“Sir, pardon my asking, but aren’t we supposed to be monitored by ponies the entire time during our stay?”

“This is different! This pony won’t stop asking me questions about my past!”

“When you were...oh, how did you put it, ‘one of those filthy organics’, sir?”

“Correct! Now Lawrence, how do I get this pony to shut up?”

“Why not annihilate them, sir?”

“I WISH! However, I still need to be nice to these ponies for a while longer until I figure out the secrets of their powers.”

“Then why not tell the truth, sir? If you want them to trust you, you must be willing to show them that you are trustworthy.”

“Supervillains aren’t meant to be trustworthy, Lawrence! That’s one of the first rules of supervillainy!”

“It’s rule number forty-six, sir.”

“Lawrence, I didn’t ask you to tell me the rules to supervillainy!”

“But sir, remember rule forty-seven?”

“‘Don’t leave your star cruiser parked in neutral?’”

“That’s rule twenty-five, sir. Forty-seven states, ‘Be trustworthy enough to fool your foes into thinking you’re their friend if you intend to betray them in the end.’” 

Lawrence made a mental note to scan Nefarious’s data banks for any signs of corruption at his earliest convenience. Misremembering details to the single, most important rulebook to supervillainy raised a red flag for him immediately concerning his employer’s functionality.

“AHA! Fool them with the truth long enough to conceal the lies! Excellent plan, Lawrence.”

“I do shine when appropriate, sir. Much like you after breaking a fuse box with your fist.”

“Of course! Nefarious out.”

“Yoohoo, Lawrence! You in there?” Dash prodded at Lawrence’s head from behind, making hollow noises as her hoof clanged against the metal.

Lawrence twisted his head around 180 degrees, which startled Dash as she flapped away, almost knocking over a record stand in the process. Derpy chuckled at the small comedic display.

“I’m here, miss Dash. Is something wrong?”

“N-no, nothing’s wrong,” she stammered. “It’s just...you kinda zoned out there for a minute. Vinyl thought something went wrong, so she went upstairs for more tools.”

Lawrence rotated his head in a full circle and saw that Vinyl had indeed vanished. “Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry. I was running a self-diagnostic to make sure everything was functional.”

Rainbow Dash gave him a blank stare, and so did Derpy...he thought she did, at least. “How do I put this, it’s like...checking one’s self for injuries and fixing them, if possible.”

Clarity shone in Rainbow’s eyes. “Oh, I get it! It’s like when I go through my Wonderbolts training and I crash from messing up a maneuver! I look myself over to make sure everything’s okay, and if it is, I just go right back to practicing!”

Derpy chimed in as well. “It’s also like when I check myself every time I crash into a building as I’m delivering mail! If I can still fly, I just go right back out the hole I made and carry on as usual!”

Lawrence looked at Derpy for a moment before turning to face Rainbow Dash. “She delivers your mail?”

Rainbow Dash rubbed the back of her neck. “Well...it’s a long story.”

------------------------

“You can come out now, squishy. I’m done yelling.”

Fluttershy hid under her sofa the moment Nefarious yelled out Lawrence’s name. She did not want to come out, and Nefarious’s words were not helping to coax her from her spot.

Nefarious was thankful for the silence (and a squishy cowering before him), but he reminded himself that continuing to make negative first impressions like this would only make his plans more difficult to accomplish. 

He tasted battery acid in his mouth as he thought of what he would have to do to get this squishy to believe him. After running through his next words in his head enough times to where it would sound convincing and not forced (much to his dismay), he decided to give it a try.

“I’m sorry...Fluttershy. Would you please come out now?”

He shuddered inside as the words left his mouth. He couldn’t wait for this situation to be over so he could go back to yelling at these inferior ponies.

Locks of pink hair came out first from underneath the sofa, followed by the rest of Fluttershy’s body. She meekly flew up and sat on the sofa next to Nefarious.

“I-it’s okay, Doctor Nefarious. You just scared me with your loud voice...and I don’t deal with loud voices like that too well.”

“Then you and I are going to have a very hard time getting along.” Nefarious was doing his best to keep his voice low, although the words he stressed still came out louder than the rest of his speech.

“Everything takes time, Nefarious. I’m sure that soon you’ll be able to talk to me without screaming out names like that.”

“Who, Lawrence? I yell his name ALL the time, Fluttershy. I’m afraid that’s just something you’ll have to get used to.”

“I-I’ll try,” she squeaked. “Now then, you weren’t always like this, right?”

“Correct. I used to be a mad scientist born of flesh, bone, and squishy organic matter like you.” Nefarious began making various gestures to accompany his story. “I was a genius then, too! Long have I terrorized the populace of the Solana Galaxy with many plans to destroy or overrun their precious homeworlds with my very own Amoeboid army!

“But then HE came: Captain Qwark. This beefhead bulwark has thrown monkey wrench after monkey wrench into ALL of my plans by battling my gooey minions time and again, succeeding at every turn! He even managed to confront me after I invaded Blackwater City by somehow clinging onto my ship and staying there for six days! Six days! No smart man could possibly survive in space for that long!

“And yet Qwark did. He had snuck into my main stronghold, fought his way through my security, and confronted me within. We bantered for a short time until he DARED to remind me about...high school.

“We were classmates in...ugh...Biology. I hated him SO MUCH back then! Did you know he cleaned the blackboard with my pants while I was still wearing them?! That was so humiliating for me!

“I was the laughingstock of the high school. Everyone mocked me, calling me ‘that freak with the headgear’ after Qwark made it popular. I never understood why everyone liked him! He was a stupid oaf! A twenty-six year old man in high school?! Who raised him, Florana monkeys?”

Nefarious sighed heavily as he vented his childhood woes. Fluttershy remained quiet and placed a hoof on his shoulder for comfort. Much to her surprise, he didn’t brush it off.

“After that dreadful experience, I graduated with barely passing grades. However, my genius would NOT be denied so easily! I furthered my studies into the creatures known in my world as Amoeboids. Soon I managed to develop a method of cultivating them for my own personal army, and I capitalized on this by terrorizing planet after planet with my slimy abominations. Things went well enough for me to even pick up a butler on the way!

“But then Qwark came to ruin my plans, and I fell into my machinery after he tried to give me a wedgie. Qwark left my lair thinking I had died, but no. I was reborn! I clawed my way out of the gears and cogs, formerly organic but now a machine, no longer limited by my squishy restraints! It was then that I vowed to annihilate Qwark once and for all!”

“But why haven’t you...annihilated him yet?” Fluttershy hadn’t heard the word “annihilate” before, but it sounded terrible as it left her mouth.

Nefarious scoffed, “I plan on annihilating him as soon as I leave this planet. Until then, I need to build a ship that will get us out of here. As for why, we don’t belong here. Qwark and I know this. Your world is far too peaceful for him to be heroic...but for me, it’s a squishy playground. That’s why he wants us both gone from here, just to make sure I don’t cause any trouble for you.”

Fluttershy closed her eyes and thought for a moment. “Nefarious doesn’t seem like a bad robot. If he’s able to talk to me on a level like this, then maybe there’s hope for him. I’ve touched the heart of a servant of Chaos...I can do the same for a robot, right?”

“Is something on your mind, Fluttershy?” Nefarious asked, noticing her calm expression.

Fluttershy felt the words lodge in her throat, but she was determined to speak her mind. Having an idea in mind, she cleared her throat before responding. 

“Do-do you want to play a game, Nefarious?”

----------------------

Qwark left Sweet Apple Acres as soon as he dropped off the last barrel of apples at the homestead. Applejack told him that there wasn’t any more work he needed to do today, so he resolved to go find Twilight as soon as possible to learn of Nefarious’s whereabouts.

He found her at the library. Twilight had to teleport him in again; she made a mental note afterwards to look into getting a bigger door. 

When Qwark asked about Nefarious, what he learned from her inside the library was something he wasn’t content with.

“Hah, Nefarious not being evil? Fat chance! I know that somewhere within that cranial construct of his is a diabolical plan just waiting to happen!”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “Qwark, I left Nefarious with a pony that reformed Discord, our most chaotic resident. Why are you so certain that he won’t change?”

“Twilight, he’s already tried to be good once! And even then he was reluctant to be a hero! I’m certain he won’t change his ways just because you set him up with a nice pony,” Qwark rebutted.

“Wait, what?” Spike interrupted before Twilight could respond as he came out of the kitchen, holding a bowl of crushed gems. “Twilight, you set Fluttershy up on a date?”

Her eyes widened in response as she turned her head to face Spike. “WHAT? No I didn’t! I was just explaining to Qwark that I set up lodging for Doctor Nefarious with Fluttershy!”

“...Twi, I don’t know who that is, but it still sounds like you set her up on a date.”

“AAAGH!” Twilight yelled. Her frustration peaked as smoke started to billow out from her mane over the gross misunderstanding.

Meanwhile, Qwark was actually enjoying the situation that had just formed before his eyes. Against his better judgment, a misunderstanding like this would be just the thing he needed to prove his point that Nefarious is still evil.

“That’s right, little buddy! Twilight’s playing cupid’s advocate, and she just told me the good news! I can’t believe Doctor Nefarious and Fluttershy hit it off so well!” As Qwark spoke, he put his acting lessons he took on his homeworld, Kerwan, to good use. He made a grand, wide-armed pose for his first line, gestured to Twilight for the second, and lastly cupped his hands, holding them up to his face for the third.

Twilight was on the verge of exploding as Qwark blatantly led Spike along. “Qwark,” she spoke through gritted teeth, “what are you doing?”

“Why, I’m helping you help Nefarious help himself by discovering true love!”

Spike made a gagging motion. “Ugh, since when did you get so sappy, Qwark?”

Qwark struck another heroic pose, bending his elbows inward and balling his fists, placing them on his sides. “It’s a hero’s duty to cultivate joy and happiness wherever he goes, Spike. I will not rest until Nefarious and Fluttershy give love a shot!”

At this point, Twilight’s mane was now lit on fire. She had had enough of Qwark’s theatrics. “Qwark! Stop lying and tell the truth, NOW!”

As soon as she flared up, Qwark panicked and crashed through the library door, leaving yet another Qwark-shaped hole. If there was a place he didn’t want to be, it was inside a hollow tree with a pony on fire.

The problem for him was that Twilight was now chasing him, galloping after him in hot pursuit. He forced his legs to pick up the pace to keep ahead of the blazing mare. He did NOT want to get caught by her, not when everything was going according to plan: a plan which he quickly admitted was one of the worst plans he came up with. 

Spike took one last look around the library before he decided to give chase after Qwark and Twilight. If there was anything more he wanted to see besides Fluttershy and this Doctor Nefarious fellow hooking up, it was Qwark getting his rear torched by Twilight.

--------------------

“So Derpy became Ponyville’s mailmare after an accident with a storm cloud?”

“Er...‘accident’ isn’t really the word I would use to describe the destruction she caused, Lawr-”

A girlish scream echoed through the town and into Vinyl’s store, interrupting Rainbow Dash’s story.

“What was that?” Derpy asked.

Lawrence recognized the voice. “I believe that’s Captain Qwark, miss Derpy. And by the sound of things, he’s rather distressed.”

“WHAT? We need to go find out what’s wrong with him!” Dash said.

Derpy nodded in agreement, while Lawrence felt compelled to investigate as well. However, he had one last matter to settle before he could do so.

Vinyl was still occupied searching for tools, so Lawrence looked around the front desk until he found a notepad and a pencil. He hastily scribbled a few words on the note.

Miss Vinyl,

I appreciate the services you’ve rendered to me. Mere words on this primitive parchment cannot express enough of my gratitude.

However, certain events have come up that call for my attention involving a space ape. I must depart with Miss Dash and Derpy to investigate.

Feeling the strings of the bass beneath my fingertips was a liberating experience that I wish to relive once again. I will come back and accept your band offer when I can.

~Lawrence

“Lawrence! What are you doing, writing a swan song? We gotta move!” Dash remarked.

“Coming, miss Dash.”

Lawrence placed the note on the counter before departing with Dash and Derpy outside.

The scream had long since vanished from earshot, but the trail blazed by whatever was following him still smoldered with charred earth and smoke. A few ponies had gathered around the trail, curious about its origins.

Dash realized upon further inspection that the trail probably belonged to Twilight...which meant that whatever Qwark did to her must have really pissed her off.

Lawrence shuffled up behind Dash, while Derpy was up in the air looking for more smoke to figure out which way it led.

“This trail looks fresh, miss Dash. Do you have an idea as to who made it? I doubt Qwark is responsible unless he set himself on fire--in retrospect, that actually seems likely.”

“No Lawrence, this belongs to Twilight. I only heard about it from Fluttershy, but when Twilight gets, like, REALLY mad, she lights on fire.”

“Oh dear. Combustible ponies that are immune to flames? Doctor Nefarious won’t like this.”

“I say, that is rather...illuminating, miss Dash.”

Rainbow Dash wondered if he meant that as a pun, but shook her head clear of the thought. Derpy came down from the sky, relaying that she spotted a smoke trail heading outside the town toward Sweet Apple Acres.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened at the information, realizing that Applejack might not like it if half her orchard was going to burn down by Twilight’s fury. Beckoning Lawrence and Derpy to follow her, she bolted off toward the acres ahead of them to try and cut off the impending inferno before it could cause a catastrophe. 

Derpy decided to stick with Lawrence, partially due to his top speed being slower than either of the pegasi, and partially due to not wanting to get in the way of a blazing alicorn.

Lawrence decided to send a warning to Nefarious, just in case Qwark was coming his way. Reactivating the communicator, he began to relay his message.

“Sir, I thought I should inform you that-”

“Not now, Lawrence! I’m playing ‘Go Fish’ with Fluttershy.”

“What? But sir, it’s abo-”

“LAWRENCE! I’m doing what you suggested and I’m currently being nice to a pony. Do NOT interrupt my nice time!”

Lawrence sighed, and shut down the communicator. On one hand, Nefarious being busy like this would easily curry favor with the locals, but on the other hand...Qwark was probably heading his way.

He shrugged before moving down the burnt trail, practicing his forehand and backhand along the way. He had a feeling Nefarious would need a good slap or two after this incident.