Rick, a robot, and a team of soldiers are sent to locate a recon team that went missing. What they find, no one ever expected.
It's the robot's perspective on everything. Rick is logging his experiences, thoughts and actions of Equestria. At first he doesn't have an opinion about the place, but as things drag on, his opinions begin to form.
Note, will add more tags as I see fit. 's shame there's no robot tag. 'Love robots.
Note, Story is rated teen because it may contain violence at a later date.
Also note, this is the first story I've written for a site like this. Can't tell you how honored I am to use this site!
It was a day like any other. But you know how these stories go, at the end of the day, it surely wasn’t. In my defense, I didn’t think I’d wind up here at the end of it all. Where am I? Equestria. Who am I? Rick. Ex-T-704 sniper. Yes, I am a robot, no I am not some mindless automaton. I am a machine. Like Data from Star Trek. Sentient and considered alive, but made out of machine parts. I am a machine built to kill. I am strong, fast, and I never ever miss.
So. How did I get here? Easy. I was deployed here. Search and rescue mission. What a wash. Anyway, we were trying to find some kind of tracking beacon. Tracking beacons are hard-wired to the insertion capsules, so they never break off. A recon team was dispatched here, and has not reported anything in seventy two hours. And FreeTec military guidelines state that whenever a recon unit goes dark for three days, search and rescue teams must be dispatched. I was in the lead ship. I was also told to provide overwatch. Not the videogame, people. I was to post up where I could see everything.
Problem was we never found the capsule until the second day… in the middle of the forest.
Through my scope’s lenses I could see everything for about three kilometers. My gun can shoot further than that, but I don’t really care. I found some high ground with my back to a rock face. I and my spotter were loaded for bear in case anything jumped us.
My spotter’s name is Daniel Featherway. He’s a homeboy from Salt Lake City, Utah. He’s good on the scope. Master with the trick knife. He and I knew we weren’t really in any danger. We shot at some alien creatures that got the jump on our guys down below, but other than that, the only action we saw was some birds landing on my rifle barrel.
Our boys went beneath a thick set of trees. Before they did, I told them that I saw a trench, possibly ID’ing the potential crash site. I told Daniel to use the waypoint designator to tell the boys where it was. With coordinates received, it was not two more minutes until they found the pod. We were ordered to rendezvous at the mark we made.
This is where things get a little weird. We’re about to start talking about splitting up to cover as much of these woods as we can so we can find these missing reconnaissance men, when we hear a rustling in the bushes. Being the only robot in the squad, I am the only one equipped with infrared cameras. I scan the bushes and see a small figure, seemingly crouched, holding a rectangular shape in one of it’s forward appendages.
I called out to the creature, “Hey! I can see you! Drop any weapons you may have, and emerge slowly!” The creature vanished from my IR feed in a bright flash of light. “Dammit. It’s gone.” Squad leader changes his orders to setting up camp. Since we were now at the outskirts of the forest, trees thinning and the like, I decided to get two other guys and build us a fire pit.
After camp was set up, we assigned guard posts, and shift changes. The sun started to set over the horizon, and squad leader reported in what we had done.
Night time was a little spooky. Thin fog formed around the area, and the moon was full. Howls of presumably wolf-like creatures could be heard. If I had hair, it would have stood on end at some point during the night. I kept my sniper rifle close.
Morning was clear. Not a cloud in sight for miles. The howling stopped shortly before dawn. I had been up all night, so my processors needed some time to relax. I removed my body armor and jumped in a nearby stream to clean off the dirt which had accumulated on my plating. The squad leader told me I needed to scout ahead for any civilization. I gladly obliged.
I scanned the radio frequencies for any civilian radio. I got a faint signal, but it was on the same frequency as FreeTec’s satellite orbiting the planet. I paid no mind to it. I chalked it up to being residual energy that was bouncing off the mountains behind me.
I decided to follow the river we camped by upstream. By sunhigh, I wasn’t finding anything. But right as the sun was beginning to enter the twilight zone, I saw a cottage with multiple birdhouses and beautiful landscaping out front. I radioed back to camp what I had found.
It was already well into the wee hours of the morning by the time I made it back to camp. I relieved the guard on duty, and stood there until everyone woke up.
I helped pack up camp. Once we were all set, I took point and led everyone to a new campsite about half a klick from where I saw the cottage. I chose the campsite, mainly because you still have to take a long winding path to get to the cottage, and it minimized our chances of detection. After setting up camp again, I was ordered to do a little more solo recon of the area. Since I had seen a house, someone must have built it, and a town may also be nearby. The locals may be human. I was to make contact if the locals are human, but if not, then I was to send my optical feed back to camp, so that pictures and other data may be extracted, and most importantly to avoid contact.
The sun was going down by the time I made it back to where I saw the cottage. There was some brush by the river. I decided to sneak into the brush, cross the river, and sneak along the path. Perhaps I would find a town where there are more creatures.
Turns out, I found exactly what I thought I would. Homes built with accents hearkening back to around the sixteenth century. I snapped some pictures and sent them back to camp. As I went into the town, the streets were bare, save for an equine-like creature sleeping on a bench. I deduced it must have been male due to the hard angles on the presumed head. There was a giant castle off on the opposite side of town that looked to be made of solid crystal. I ventured a little towards it for a better view and took a bunch of pictures, sending each one back to camp for my squad leader’s report.
I decided to go to the edge of town and wait for morning. Making note of the creature sleeping on the bench, I decided it would not be crazy for this type of creature to be the dominant species. I radioed back my plan, and got the OK.
I finally was able to officially observe the dominant species. The equine-like creature I saw on the bench was a homeless man. Boy are these things colorful. They were so brightly colored my photoreceptors started to fry. I warped some new ones in from the FOB just in case, but before they fried completely, I snapped some pictures of the locals, and adjusted my photoreceptors to colorblind.
I didn’t bother to wait around town. I booked it back to camp in half the time it usually takes. But since it was the morning, I made it back just before midday. On my way back, I saw some towers rising out of the side of a mountain, overlooking some other city.
After giving my report I requested my CO that I do some recon to take some pictures of the surrounding area, especially the towers on the mountain. The CO permitted it. I set out on foot and found a viewpoint.
I decided to get a higher elevation to get a better look at the towers rising over the city. It was a bit risky, since I risked being spotted. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if I had been spotted already.
I managed to take some pictures of the castle and city below. The azimuth I was looking down at and the sunset made for some beautiful pictures. I sent them back to camp for the boss to upload to FreeTec’s servers. I signalled for my return.
Upon my return, everyone was asleep except for the guards. I relieved them. The moon was breaching the peaks of the tower mountain.
I sat down. The nights have been uneventful ever since we moved camp. Nothing came out of the forest unless it was harmless. Deer-like animals and rabbit-like animals have been observed. Postures of each animal as well as structure seem to be more cartoonish in comparison to the fauna of Earth.
I sat back with my back up against one of the logs around the firepit. The stars were so bright that night. I decided to power down into sleep mode, light sensors set to detect dawn light levels to power on.
Dream Sequence: “How can a mechanical presence dream? How can humans be here on Equestria? How can beings of great violence seem so peaceful? Technology vs Magic… how does one survive without it?” I heard a voice so sweet and kind it must have come from a goddess! But I’ve never heard such a voice… how was this person able to access my secure data vault?” Sleep mode was overridden by my CO. Something seemed to have spooked him. I noticed everyone else was spooked.
“The voice in our heads… did you hear it too, Rick?” “I heard a voice in my mind as well. It was with me when I was accessing my secure data vault, but I have never heard such a voice in my life. All signals with the wavelength to access my files remotely have thus far proved to originate from Sol. Civilian radio stations do not exist here,” I replied.
“What did it say to you?” I told them all what the voice said. When I asked if this is what they heard, they nodded. The CO hammered it all into his daily report.
“Did we get the green light to search the areas yet?” I asked. “The order hasn’t come down from the top yet. The men we need to find are still out there, I know, but we need more intel as well.” The private assigned to our squad spoke next. “So, why don’t we ask the locals? I know it sounds crazy, but how bad could they be? They’re obviously civilized.” Everyone stared at the private as if he had lobsters crawling from his nose.
Despite our initial judgment, we considered it. We unanimously voted who would go to represent us. Of course, all fingers pointed to me.
We planned for contact to begin in the morning. With my capacitors charged and optics re-tuned, I set out for the long trek to the nearby town.
Instead of taking the beaten path, I opted to walk in the river. It wasn’t so deep, and the current could probably not even push a toy boat. It only came up to my shins.
It was midnight around when I left. Since I took it slow along the path, it was already getting close to twilight hours. I had to periodically dodge a group of six locals and what appeared to be their bipedal pet lizard.
Microphones did not pick up any speech, but my cameras did manage to see their mouths moving in a way that resembled English, but I could not be certain.
Couldn’t help but notice what the things were wearing. They all looked to be wearing binoculars. The white one with purple hair had some weird helmet on. Since it was still dark, I was able to observe closer than normal. I had to drop the NVG’s to hide my eye glow. After I observed, I moved on.
The sun was barely peeking over the horizon when I reached the bridge by the cottage I saw earlier. I took note of the different forest animals that appeared to be guarding the bridge and the cottage. I silently rose from the river on the other side of the bridge. I made damn sure to stay out of sight, so as not to alert the guard animals.
I found a pavilion in the middle of the square. I decided to sit down in the middle of the pavilion and wait. As soon as I sat down, the party of seven came across my location. The looks on their faces… priceless.
The little lizard approached me, carefully, holding out its right claws in the way of a handshake. Despite the diminutive size in comparison to my grippers, I grasped his claws, and did a light handshake. It should be noted that if cringing from awkwardness were a part of my programming, I probably would have.
The little dragon, bravely if not a little shaky, spoke. He introduced himself. I say he, because that is what the voice sounded like. I didn’t hear too much of what he was saying, but it was perfect English. I was speechless from trying to process so much new data.
“Uh, did you hear me? My name is Spike. What’s yours?”
“Oh, yes. Erm, sorry. My name is Rick. Processing terabytes of data at once,” I half lied.
“Is that a lot?”
“Yes.” We sat in silence for awhile. I spoke up. “You know, I always dreamed that first contact would go differently than this, but somehow, it always goes this way. Awkward.”
“Do tell,” Spike said. “Well,” he continues, “Do you want me to introduce you to my friends?”
The six ponies as they called themselves, introduced themselves to me, cautiously. All the while a crowd was forming. I learned that this happens a lot.
I learned the lavender one is named Twilight Sparkle, the blue one was Rainbow Dash, the white one was Rarity, the orange one was Applejack, the yellow one was Fluttershy, and lastly the pink one was Pinkie Pie. Dear Maker Pinkie has a motor mouth. If I were human I bet I wouldn’t have understood her, and despite the fact they all had put on brave faces, I could tell they were scared to the bone.
I told the seven I was not alone. A few other men had come with me, and had come before me. Twilight, despite her obviously covered up fear of me, seemed more focused on meeting my squad. I simply told her and her friends to follow me. It would be a half-day’s walk. We somehow walked out of the town without without causing complete and utter chaos.
I started thinking as to why the ponies took to my presence so well. I asked Fluttershy why, as she was the only one who wasn’t wary of me. She told me that her little bird friend told her she saw me and my friend on the mountain with the weird L shaped contraption, and giant binoculars. I told her the little bird, as odd as this sounded, was referring to the sniper rifle and the target scouter scope. I pointed to the sniper rifle, still slung across my back.
Before I could ask about the missing men, I noticed the ponies were beginning to slow down. They had scared looks on their faces. I was walking backwards so I could still talk and lead at the same time.
Rainbow Dash pointed with a hoof and said “Behind you...” I swung myself around. I balked. What stood before me was a pack of wolves made out of sticks. “T-timber wolves!” came the frightened stammer of Fluttershy.
They jumped me. The timber wolves tore through my body armor, but my metal body stopped them from completely gutting me. I deployed my arm cannons and fired some plasma at two of them, but that only made them angrier. I resorted to busting their sticks. I grabbed a wolf by the tail, turned around, windmilled the wolf through the air turning it head over heels, and slammed it on the ground in front of me, killing it instantly.
Then the ponies joined in. Spike resorted to burning the timber wolves. I made note he was a dragon, not just a lizard. Twilight shot magic from her horn, and Rainbow Dash basically ninja’d the poor wolves to submission. I ended the wolves with blasts from my arm cannons. Twilight set fire to the sticks that once made up the wolves saying they’d just come to life again if this isn’t done.
I admired their prowess in eliminating the wolves. They’d prove to be a great asset in battle, I’m sure. I then realized we are not six hundred feet outside of town. I chalked up this attack to just dumb luck.
The late afternoon was beautiful. The trees gently swayed in the wind, and the river gently lapped at it’s banks. Wildlife stirred from time to time. I began to ask about the other men. “Did any of you meet any humans before?”
The white one, Rarity spoke. “Oh yes. I saw them trotting along carrying those snipper rifles, like the one you have. They were wearing the most disgusting green I have ever seen.” She’s seen them.
I ignored Rarity’s mispronunciation. “Did any of the rest of you see them?”
The yellow one, Fluttershy spoke. “I-I did. They scared me. I was sleeping on my couch with Angel bunny. All of a sudden I hear something hit my window. I thought it must have been a bird. I hate seeing those poor little things hurt. I knew I had to help it. But to my surprise, I saw no bird. I saw a monster with a giant round, lifeless eye staring back. I ran and hid.”
Ah, they’ve got a T-011 camera drone. It must have misjudged where it was and made contact with the window. “You saw a drone, Fluttershy. It was no monster,” I said.
“Oh what a relief… what’s a drone?”
“I’ll tell you all about it later. Did any of you see the pod come down?”
The blue one, Rainbow Dash, spoke. “There were some meteors within the past few weeks. Meteor showers are common this time of year. There was only one large one that came down in the Everfree. I think that’s the one you’re referring to.”
“Then indeed it is, Rainbow.”
“Did any of you see which way the men and the drone went?”
Fluttershy spoke again. “When I hid, I could see my window from where I was. The drone moved toward the back of my house. I went to the back to see if it would do anything to my animals. It just stared at them making a clicking sound. After it was done, it flew away. Only then did I see a group of creatures laying in the tall grass on a hill. They crawled back behind top of the hill and went towards the railroad tracks.”
Rookies. They probably would’ve never been seen had they had more experience. Railroad noted. “That is valuable intel, Fluttershy. Thank you.”
The sun finally dipped below the horizon. A beautiful sunset took over the sky, and made brilliant red brush strokes out of the high clouds. The wind picked up again slightly. My touch sensors lit up gently to the wind’s gentle blowing. It gave me an idea to catalog the weather patterns.
I decided to lead them on a sort of a short cut. We reached the camp at around twilight hours. Aaand I just realized that the lavender one has the same name as the time of day… Not important. My CO is seemingly more excited than usual. Once the ponies saw the group of men sitting around a large camp fire, their expressions became, again, fearful.
“Welcome to our temporary Forward Camp,” I say, trying to make them feel comfortable. Their expressions calm… a little. I decide to introduce my human counterparts. “Ponies, these are the men of 3343rd marine division. That’s Daniel, Marcus, Amos, Sweetwater, Joses, and Archie.”
The ponies said ‘nice to meet you’ in their own way, and they mingled for awhile. The CO seemed ecstatic like a little girl.
I had some time to think to myself whilst the ponies were mingling. What I didn’t understand was why these creatures were all colors of the visible spectrum instead of more common colors? DNA testing may prove why they are this way. Some talk of someone called ‘Princess Celestial’, I think, called my attention.
“Excuse me, Twilight?” I began.
“Did you need me?”
“You said something that piqued my interest, ma’am. I would like to gather information.” I believed I had to gather as much intel about this place as possible. “This Princess Celestial… who is she?”
“Princess Celestia,” she corrected. “She is one of two co-rulers of our nation of Equestria!”
This was interesting. Not only was there a form of government here, it was a diarchy. Two rulers of equal power! I made redundant copies of this information.
“Hey, you don’t think Princess Celestia knows where our recon team is, does she?” I asked, half hoping that she’d say yes, half hoping that Twilight herself knew.
“I think Princess Celestia knows they’re here, but it’s Princess Luna that will be able to place them in space. She has the power to enter dreams.” My face isn’t very expressive. I am capable of few expressions. If my eyes could have gone wide, they would have. I made note of the name.
‘Princess Luna. Name derives from ‘lunar’, and lunar means moon. Celestia derives from Celestial, and if something is celestial, then it’s likely a star or… the sun. Dear Maker what does this mean?’ I was thinking very hard. Twilight waved a hoof in front of me, snapping me out of my reverie.
We were going to meet the royalty of the land the very next day. The ponies had made themselves at home in our little camp. The CO and I forced ourselves to avoid shutting down for the night. CO had always been a night owl, but halfway through the night, he went to bed, realizing he should probably look his best for tomorrow.
I remained active. My power cells were still at around ninety percent when the sun began to rise. I checked the clock on my HUD. It was around an hour too early today, and it came up quickly. Noted as a possible anomaly.
It was around noon when the ponies finally came to. The men were washing their armor in the river, and our one augmented soldier was fervently cleaning his plating. When they were finished, we began the trek back to town.
The sun stayed fixed to the spot the entire walk back to Ponyville. I noticed that when we returned, there was the usual evening bustle, and a look of relief on all the ponies faces. I suppose no pony was shocked, however, at the fact that a group of humans and a robot were flanking them.
We were led to the castle from before. Up close it was even more beautiful than I had imagined. The sunlight from the midday (It was now approaching midnight) sun was striking the castle, and it made the castle sparkle beautifully as we neared it. I noticed the look on Twilight’s face fall a little, as if she knew if something was not right. But I suppose she was ignoring the midnight/afternoon sun.
As soon as the last man stepped through the great doors in the front of the castle, the doors closed gently on their own, enveloped in blue and gold auras. I noticed the light from the outside switched off, like a light, and moonlight began to show through.
Despite the lowness of the light outside and no apparent light sources inside the structure, the inside was lit brilliantly.
Two large winged unicorns stood in front of us. Once again, if my face could express more than it could, my jaw would’ve dropped to the floor, and my eyes would be wide open. All six men were white-faced in shock, and thankfully had closed mouths. I made sure to magnetically lock mine shut.
The winged unicorns had long flowing manes and tails that looked as if they were flowing in the nonexistent breeze. They had welcoming expressions on their faces. Looks of loving care. But they shifted to concern when they saw the looks on the faces of the men.
The dark blue one spoke. “You are afraid? Do not be afraid,” she said in a gentle tone. The look in the alabaster one’s amethyst eyes told me the dark blue one does not usually speak in this way. “We mean you no harm,” she continued. “You must have no end of questions. I believe it fitting to begin this encounter with introductions as if we are to be friends.” The alabaster one rolls her eyes a little.
The alabaster one began, “I’m sorry for the shock, dear humans. I think we should have presented ourselves a little more modestly. My name is Princess Celestia. This is my sister, Princess Luna.” Celestia turns her eyes to me. “You gave our people a tiny fright. I can see why. My sister sensed a great deal of goodness in you. In all of you for that matter.” Noticing the looks of shock were still on the faces of the men, Celestia said, “I believe I didn’t help the shock. Forgive me. Twilight? May you have some tea made for us?”
We sat down in a large dining hall, beautifully decorated with gilded scarlet red curtains, brilliant chandeliers, expertly painted paintings, and a beautiful mahogany table, with chairs covered in soft red fabric. The chairs were a tiny bit too small for the men, who all averaged at around six and a half feet tall.
Spike was not happy to get out of bed, but glad to see the humans hadn’t killed his friends. He gladly made tea for fifteen, knowing full well, somehow, that I couldn’t drink any. His heart was in the right place though. What’d Sweetwater call it? Oath of inclusion? I think so.
The men seemed to greatly enjoy the tea. Once the chatter died down a little, I addressed the room. “I believe we have some questions.” I used a gentle, happy tone. I wanted to make sure I didn’t scare anyone, though I turned more serious. “We are only on this planet because a few of ours who came before us went missing, last seen heading toward the railroad. I think I speak for all of us here when I say I want to know where they are. Do you know where they are?”
Celestia looked as if she had nothing to say. With a look of worry on her face, she turned to Luna. Luna’s eyes brightened. “I know where they are as of two days ago, but sadly, they must not have slept last night. I could not see where they were. I wish to tell you exactly, but I cannot at this time. They must sleep before I am able to pick up their location.”
I spoke again. “This is valuable intel regardless. Where were they last you saw?
“They were in the tunnel spanning the Appeloosan badlands and Equestria’s grasslands.”
Twilight piped up. “How did they make it that far already?”
Daniel spoke up. “Free Tec recon teams are trained to stay awake for long periods of time, and they move at all times. They document everything they can see about an area. Every one of them has eye augmentations. Machine-Brain-Interfaces, or MBI’s, that allow them to see what each other is seeing on a closed network. Highly encrypted.
CO Marcus spoke, “That could be a way to track them, but we’d have to get within a kilometer to find their network signatures. But even if we did get to their network, we won’t have access to their visual feeds, unless we hack into their network.” Marcus cracks a smile. “I’ve got a plan. Rick, prepare your sensors.”