Today's writing: Friendship is Deceptive (Patreon)

 ACCOUNTABILITY:

WORD GOAL MONTH TO DATE: 28,500

ACTUAL WORDS WRITTEN (INCLUDING THIS): 7,848

(I'm really, really far behind on this)

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

(note: this takes place during "The Ticket Master": the Decepticons-turned-Equestrians are settling in to Ponyville life and getting to know the town)

Laserbeak quietly took a bite of the apple in his claw. At first he hadn't cared for the whole eat-and-excrete process that came with organic bodies, but he'd come to appreciate it. Nothing replaced a good energon recharge, but apples were, so to speak, growing on him. Oh, there was a flavor missing that he craved, but he got that when he raided the Kitty Kibble bag at night- the flavor of meat-byproduct. For the rest of his needs, these apples, plus an occasional pastry stolen when opportunity presented itself, seemed to fit his needs just fine.

Furthermore, these little stolen snacks had advantages energon lacked. For one thing, no Autobots showed up to blast you in the face for stealing apples. For another, you didn't need Soundwave or Starscream to set up the energon conversion process from whatever Earth power source they were looting at the moment. No, with organic food it was just grab, gulp, and go- no hassle at all. 

And that suited Laserbeak just fine, because it left him more time and freedom to do what he did best- surveillance. 

He knew the other Decepticons thought he was an idiot and a coward. He was fine with that. Almost from the day of his first initialization he'd recognized a basic fact of existence: the only hope of weak bots like himself was to ally with the strongest and make themselves so useful as to become valuable- something to be protected rather than just exploited. The other Decepticons had made a joke of it- "Who's leader this week? Well, who's Laserbeak kissing up to?"- but since Laserbeak and his bother were still functioning after millions of years of civil war, he had the last laugh, didn't he?

And for all their contempt, none of the other Decepticons- not even mighty Megatron- had realized that the new town librarian, Twilight Sparkle, was or would shortly become a nexus of power. She had defeated Nightmare Moon, hadn't she? She was the personal student and protege of the ruler of the land, right? But no one had given any thought to learning more about this creature who might become a pawn in Megatron's plans... 

... no one except Laserbeak, that is.

So, while the target of his surveillance, her reptilian assistant, and one of her pony friends knocked apples out of trees and gathered them into baskets, he watched from another tree- a tree already stripped of its fruit- and listened, trying to chew raw apple as quietly as he could.  

He missed his holographic imager, his internal record banks, his high-gain microphones. This new phone of his didn't even have ideal ears- he kept having to turn his head sideways to better hear what the ponies were saying. And when he reported to Megatron, he'd have to do so by voice- so inefficient, so annoying for him and his audience alike.

But he stayed, unseen and unnoticed, and listened as the dragon burped, watched as a scroll emerged from the smoke. That held his attention enough to make him drop the half-eaten apple and listen even more closely.

He listened to the pony in the hat talk.

When the blue flying pony with the polychromatic hair showed up, he listened to her, too.

So... this Grand Galloping Gala, as Laserbeak understood it, was an event where the powerful of Equestria gathered. And invitations, apparently, were a most exclusive commodity. 

If the powerful of Equestria were in attendance, shouldn't Megatron be as well? He might find some disaffected nobles or senators or whatever this planet had, willing to listen to a few well-chosen words on the subject of regime change. Or her might take some hostages, or launch his coup then and there, if opportunity presented. Such a gathering opened all sorts of possibilities...

But first Megatron had to get invited to the Gala... or just get his hands- hooves- on one of those golden tickets!

Laserbeak watched and waited as Twilight Sparkle said something about lunch and walked off, then waited a while longer as the orange pony and the blue pony hoof-wrestled one another. Only after sixteen bouts, with victory equally split between the two, did they finally leave, allowing Laserbeak to flee his perch and take to the skies unseen.

Only then, halfway back to Ponyville, did Laserbeak realize that, for all his stalking of Twilight Sparkle, he'd never actually followed Megatron on his patrols... which meant he had no idea where his leader was at this time of day.

Grinding his beak, he soared high above Ponyville, circling around in search of a silver stallion in a beat-up guard helmet...

“Good morning, Mr. Starscream!”

Starscream looked up from the shopping list in his hoof- his mouth-writing had improved from illegible to merely undecipherable in two days- to meet the eyes of a well-dressed earth pony with a jeweled tie-pin and a touch of gray in his mane around the temples. “You remembered!” he said, honestly surprised. “You remember my name after my visiting only once?”

“I try to remember all my regular customers,” the well-dressed pony said. “And since you’re one of the new town guard, I expect to be seeing a lot of you in the future.”

“Too true,” Starscream muttered. He still hadn’t thought of a clever way to shuffle off the chore of grocery shopping onto one of the others without losing power over the collective purse in the process. In a louder voice he replied, "Unfortunately I don't believe I caught your name when I was here last time."

"Filthy Rich, that's my name," the pony replied. "Owner and CEO of Barnyard Bargains, with over thirty locations all over Equestria. But I choose to live here in Ponyville, where it all began." He gestured around him at the clean, well-organized store filled with almost all the necessities of daily pony life. "My great-grandfather founded the business, you see. And I still keep a hoof in running the old flagship store, just to make sure everything runs smoothly."

"I quite understand, Mr. Rich." Starscream didn't agree with it one little bit, but he understood there were people like Filthy Rich who believed hands-on knowledge of their enterprise was essential to their success. Starscream held to a different philosophy of management- that of maintaining the big picture, leaving subordinates to handle the details and motivating them with severe punishment for idiocy. A leader lowering himself to the level of his underlings was just... demeaning. 

But he'd lived too long climbing the ladder of ambition to let this contempt show in his face. Instead Starscream extended the parchment on his hoof to the earth pony and said, "I've got rather a long list today, Mr. Rich. Perhaps you could help me with it?"

Filthy Rich accepted the list and, a little to Starscream's surprise, didn't squint or turn the page or anything. "Going through rather a lot of groceries, aren't you?" he said conversationally.

"Well, there are ten of us," Starscream pointed out. "I don't suppose you could get us a... discounted bulk rate?"

"Hm..." Filthy Rich looked at the list again. "I probably shouldn't say this, but you should get some of this at the farmer's market booths. They're open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and fresh is always healthier, you know."

"Sending business to your competitors?" Starscream asked.

"Why not? I'm also their biggest customer!" Filthy Rich laughed. "Half of every harvest any farmer around here has ends up on a train bound for the Canterlot distribution center, and from there to each of my other stores! But most of it gets there in cans or jars. Still healthy, but as I said, fresh is better when you can get it." He tapped the list again and continued, "But for the rest of this... well, it's mostly bulk goods. I could arrange a weekly delivery service. The guardhouse is only three blocks away, so I won't add a delivery charge. And if you're really going through this much food in a couple of days, it'll save you time and trouble."

Starscream's eyes widened. It would indeed. Less time inside Barnyard Bargains meant more time in the books, finding a way off this fluffy rainbow world and back into his lethal steel body. "That's most kind of you, Mr. Rich," he said.

"Please," the earth pony said, "call me Filthy."

Starscream's poker face had weaknesses, and suppressing the desire to laugh was one of them. He did manage to not laugh out loud, but when he said, "If it's all the same to you, Mr. Rich, I'd rather not," the words bobbled out of lips struggling not to stretch into a wicked grin.

Filthy Rich rolled his eyes. "If I had a bit for every time I've heard that," he muttered. "Let's got to my office and work out the details."

Thundercracker and Skywarp soared high above Ponyville, watching the ponies going about their daily lives far below. 

"Hey, Thundercracker," Skywarp said, "see that fruit cart over there? Five bits says I can bullseye that with a rock from here, first try."

"By the Allspark, Skywarp," Thundercracker groaned, "how many times have I gotta remind you- Megatron said no trouble." How many times had Skywarp suggested something like this? Seven? Eight? He'd lost track. He hadn't been able to spot a food store or anything like that without Skywarp making some suggestion about how to destroy it from the air. 

"Eh, you always were a stick-in-the-mud," Skywarp muttered. 

"Only when one of your stupid pranks gets me there," Thundercracker muttered. "I want to maintain a mud-free lifestyle. And so does Megatron. So quit looking for mischief and try to find some kind of work that involves flying, why don't you?"

"Myah nyah neer nad involves flying neer nee ner," Skywarp mocked under his breath. Then, after a moment, he said, "Why don't we ask those flyers over there? There's a whole lot of 'em."

Thundercracker followed Skywarp's pointing hoof to see about half a dozen pegasi, led by a blue pegasus with rainbow hair. They appeared to be corralling a blanket of clouds and moving it across Ponyville, cutting off the Seekers' view of the town below.