"How about this one – the pegasus?"
Wind, scented with sea salt, tousled the blonde curls of a young girl. Her legs dangled over the edge of a tall, metal platform, hovering over the gently churning seawater below. Beside her sat a boy, a handful of years younger, who excitedly read to her from a book opened on his lap.
Paz giggled, and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Well, yes. But I think everybody has heard of that one."
Chico adjusted his cap, which had been nudged off-kilter by the Caribbean breeze. "The stories go as far back as ancient Greece. It's said that the pegasus was sired by the god, Poseidon, and—"
"Poseidon?" Paz interrupted. She stuck her tongue out, squeezed her eyes shut, and shuddered, as though she'd bitten into a lemon. "I have a hard time believing that."
"It's a big world!" said Chico, a touch defensively. "Who knows what's out there? I already have to deal with Snake doubting me; don't tell me you do too!"
"Sorry," said Paz. "I didn't mean to imply anything. I really do find this stuff interesting." She gestured at the book. "Keep going, please!"
Mollified, and finding himself quite unable to be mad at Paz, Chico continued. "Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, people saw the pegasus as a symbol of wisdom. Poets, especially, took inspiration from it. It says here..." He pointed at a particular passage in the book, and Paz leaned closer, her cheek nearly touching his shoulder. "That wherever the pegasus struck its hoof against the earth, a spring would bubble out, containing the music of the Muses." He snapped his fingers, as though he'd come to a sudden realization. "That must be why so many people used it as a source of inspiration – it was the music of the Muses the whole time!" He shut the book, sighing contentedly.
"You're really into this UMA business," Paz remarked.
"Can you blame me?" said Chico. "With all the mysteries still out in the world, who wouldn't find this stuff fascinating?"
"But you get so excited, so passionate, about it. It's fun to see!" Paz dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper "And I think some of it's starting to rub off on me!"
"Yeah?" Chico looked up, into Paz's baby blue eyes. It seemed to register to him, for the first time, how close their faces were. He felt his heart pulse rapidly, and his face grow hot. "You, uh... you're getting into this stuff too?"
"Mm-hm!" The wind tousled Paz's hair again; a springy, blonde curl brushed across Chico's forehead. "You know," she said, glancing away from him coyly. "After your revolution, when Nicaragua's at peace again, maybe you and I could take a trip together."
"Uh..." Chico's tongue suddenly felt thick and cumbersome.
"You know, around the world?" She playfully nudged his shoulder. "We could do some investigating, just you and me. Go to Loch Ness, and take a boat across the lake. Dive to the bottom looking for Nessie. I mean, just for example."
Chico swallowed – a purely reflexive action, as he had no moisture in his mouth to swallow – and managed a shaky nod.
Paz pecked him on the cheek. "It's a promise, then."
A filthy rag suddenly struck Chico in the back of the head, and fell to drape around his shoulders like a scarf. "Chico!" The voice was rough, raspy, and heavy with an English accent. "Time to pull your weight for once! I got a LAV-G with your name on it, caked in all kinds of shit!"
Chico pulled the rag off of his shoulder. His face burned red with shame. "Clean your own damn mess," he muttered under his breath.
"'Oy, you say somethin'?" Chico looked over his shoulder, at a strapping, muscular man in soiled tiger-stripe fatigues, toting an M-16 in his arms. His shaven head reflected light from the afternoon sun, and his face was sooty and streaked with blood – someone else's blood, seeing as he looked quite unscathed.
Through clenched teeth, Chico replied "I said 'sure thing, Swordfish.'" Under his breath, he added "tea-sipping gringo asshole."
"That's what I thought." He shouldered his rifle and backed away, smirking. "Make sure you get nice an' deep into the wheel-well; she's fresh from Honduras, and I think there's still half a torso stuck up in there."
Chico, still grumbling, climbed to his feet. "Yeah, why don't I get it nice and deep into your putana of a mother, you—"
"Chico?"
He glanced over his shoulder at Paz, still seated at the edge of the platform, smiling after him.
"Remember. It's a promise."
And for just a moment – for reasons he didn't quite understand – that promise was Chico's entire world.
Rainbow Dash lies pinned beneath a mass of rubble, helpless, as IRVING totters after her friends. She buries her face in the dirt and shuts her eyes tightly, waiting for whatever form her end would take.
She hears a thud, then footfalls, then something grabs her by the mane and painfully yanks her head up. She opens her eyes. A single point of light, bright blue and burning, meets her gaze.
Rainbow Dash curls her lip in disgust and spits a wad of bloody saliva into Trenton's face.
His grip on her mane tightens.
Paz and Chico? When does this take place again?
Well, looks like good ol' loyalty is hanging on, as expected. Trenton has plans indeed.
4089228 Post-MGS2, pre-MGS4. I used Paz and Chico and the Peace Walker setting strictly for thematic reasons.
Also, Young!Cain cameos.
This chapter gave me feels.....
...if I told why, I'd be spoiling Ground Zeroes.
4089466 Not gonna lie; I felt really sad when I finished writing that scene.
Well, at least we know RD's alive...for now...
Will read later. Premise gives you /5 for now.
I pray she's not crippled, unless this is supposed to open for CyberDash, then again I wouldn't wish forcing that on her either.
4089498
Rude and reckless, I'll agree with, but that is completely in-character for Rainbow Dash.
4098712
Not saying that I like it either or anything, but even that has a basis in canon. Remember the chase scene from Last Roundup?
4100604 Or the way she treated Fluttershy in... uh... the one with the dragon and the mountain. I keep thinking "Dragone, Baby, Gone," but that was the Friendship is Witchcraft episode.
Seriously, though, Rainbow Dash might be crass or tactless, but some episodes portray her as pointlessly rude, arrogant and conceited, which are exaggerations of her normal character traits. It's normal for that to happen in cartoons, where exaggerating character traits for comedic effect is the norm. I guess some fic writers take that practice as gospel, though.
4100809
All I'm saying is, while I don't think that Rainbow is really as unpleasant as that under normal circumstances, that characterisation is not without precedent. Maybe she does need something to justify pushing her to that, and I do think a lot of writers neglect to give her a reason to be that bitchy, but the fact is that she can be like that.
4100829 Oh, I didn't mean to sound like I was disagreeing with you - I completely agree. All the characters are like that, to an extent. Some of the best Twilight episodes, for instance, come when she's acting completely neurotic and unhinged, which is an exaggeration of her natural perfectionism.
4100854
Well okay then.
Celestia's playing them like a damn fiddle!
The BITCH!
Here's to you Chico and Paz...
This chapter gave me some feels by enhancing Ground Zero.
Im playing Peace Walker (stuck in the torture level, cant survive it) and Chico pulls his weight and his crippled sister's weight by making up the majority of the points in my intel team. So Swordfish can only BEGIN to talk smack to Chico if Swordfish is S ranked in combat and A ranked in two different fields. Any less than that, and Swordfish can shut it!
I take it that Swordfish was in fact Cain who was one of like a handful that made the transition from Militare Sans Frontere (MSF), Diamond Dogs, and later to Outer Heaven? Then survived the onslaught of the Fox Hound rookie Solid Snake. If that's the case, then Cain is a bit of a bad ass/lucky and fairly old (or was really young when MSF was still around during MSF's mission to protect Costa Rica).
Was Sword Fish/Cain a Fultoned soldier, a volunteer, or a freed POW?
The reader is alive.
4159828
OH GOD! That song you linked is hilarious and the comments there are killer! I laughed til I cried!
Though seriously, Celestia plays EVERYONE like a fiddle. Especially Twilight.
....Some one needs to get Tara Strong to do that line with Twilight's voice!
Some body get on that!
Yay Dashies alive!