Farmer Bruener Has Some Ponies
Vacation, All I Ever Wanted
“You have to get up early in life to succeed.”
― Rip Van Winkle
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Time: 5:58 A.M. Tuesday June 23, 2015
Location: Bruener Farm, Randolph, Kansas
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Dawn struggled over the horizon with the distinct air of an evening spent foolishly.
If the sun had been from Equestria, one might have thought it had wasted far too much time watching pony videos on late-night talk shows, or perhaps it was getting tired of seeing so many reporters interviewing other reporters at all hours. Much like the sun, Mister Bruener had been most adamant last night about his property being off-limits until after eight this morning — and after at least one cup of coffee. After all, the networks had months worth of footage to fill the early-morning talkies time, so the reporters were taking it easy this morning.
From the relative lack of activity around the farm and town, it seemed the ponies were sleeping in also. Or at least until the first reporter caught an interview with the driver of a truck who was making the rounds of the press’s porta-potties just outside of the Bruener property line.
* * *
“Ken Smith, owner of Cats Cans,” said the broad-shouldered man wearing a ‘Cats Cans’ shirt and matching ball cap. He shook the reporter’s hand vigorously while smiling at the camera. “Just cleaning out the sumps before we load up these units and move them to the Country Stampede.”
“I see,” said the reporter, masking an obvious urge to wipe his hand. “And how has our little alien invasion impacted the bottom line of your company? Are you, as they say, cleaning up?”
“Oh, we donated our product and labor,” said Ken. “Didn’t want to take advantage of them, after all. Wouldn’t be a nice thing to do for unexpected company. Anyway, Honey and I are taking advantage of the lull to get all of the potties and the RVs here pumped also.”
“And Honey is your wife?” asked the reporter.
Ken laughed. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that, even though she is the sweetest little thing. Honey Dipper, would you come over here and say hello to the nice reporter?”
A golden, almost honey-colored mare with her dark brown mane and tail fairly bouncing in the early morning Kansas sunshine came around from the back of the truck and trotted up to the reporter. “Oh, you must be with this world’s video newspapers,” she said in a cheerful tone with one hoof stuck out to shake. The hoof was a little odd to the casual onlooker because most ponies were the same color from body to bottom, but Honey had off-white ‘socks’ on three of her four hooves, as well as something the reporter obviously did not like while shaking that forehoof.
“So, you’re a beekeeper back in Equestria?” asked the reporter almost desperately in an attempt to change the subject.
The golden pony laughed and shook her head in a cascade of short brown mane. “Oh, no. Same job as I do here, only without the pumping equipment. It makes the job so much easier.” She patted the side of the truck, leaving a light brown smear. “I may just see if I can take one of these back with me.”
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Time: 6:30 A.M. Tuesday June 23, 2015
Location: Bruener Farm, Randolph, Kansas
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Reporters are not stupid. They can display cunning in ways that boggle the mind when tracking down a story. The problem with their mindset is mostly in preconceptions. If they are doing a story about a child care center being accused of child abuse, they are going to find child abuse, no matter how hard they have to work, or what interviews they may need to ‘color’ for correct interpetation. Eternal optimists, they are willing to dive into a pile of horse poo with the absolute knowledge that there is a pony in there somewhere, or in the inverse, if they are determined to do a story that vindicates their favorite politician from some false and misleading charge of prostitution or gambling, they can develop a considerable blind spot for scantily clad women visiting his office.
The town of Randolph had ponies yesterday.
The portal to take them home had been delayed for two weeks.
Therefore, the town of Randolph should have ponies today.
It was simple logic.
Reality did not seem to match very well this morning.
Several reporters with associated camera and sound crews were wandering the streets of Randolph, and since there were so many reporters in the area and so few streets, more than a few metaphorical feathers were ruffled by turf confrontations that any anthropologist would have been fascinated to watch. A disinterested observer might consider it stalking, or perhaps a particularly odd episode of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom without a convenient Jim Fowler as bait.
After a period of time where their prey did not emerge, one of the braver reporters gingerly approached one of their lairs and rang the doorbell.
A particularly grumpy old man with a fringe of white hair around the edges of his head and a look of perpetual annoyance answered the bell. It was fairly obvious that he did not want to be up this early in the morning, both due to his expression and him still wearing slippers.
“Can I help you?” he huffed.
“Mister Baker,” started the reporter while trying to peer past the old man into the house, “could we talk to your guests, please?”
“If you had dropped by a couple hours earlier,” he responded. “They took off already.”
“They left? I didn’t think their portal—”
“Took the school bus somewhere to see the sights,” continued Mister Baker. “Wife went with them to act as a guide. Bunch of the Methodist ladies too. Do you want to come inside and have some fudge? Them two used up all our sugar last night.”
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Time: 6:01 A.M. Tuesday June 23, 2015
Location: USDA Plant Material Center, Ashland Bottoms, Kansas
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There was something about early morning in Kansas that made Rick Winia really love his job. A hundred and seventy acres of individual plots maintaining fertile cultivars of everything from aldous little bluestem to sunglow grayhead prairie coneflower and everything in between were under his control, but the real pleasure was just being there in the middle of it all. The cyclical pattern of planting and harvesting left patches of the year fairly slow, although summer had a great deal of sweating out in the Kansas sun to manage certain cultivars that had specific needs for their well-being.
He pulled into the gravel parking lot a minute or two later than usual, which was fine. Most of the employees shifted their hours to way early in the morning during the summer so they could get off after two and skip the hottest portion of the day. At first, he thought a herd of deer had wandered onto the property, but deer did not come in a multitude of pastel colors, and most certainly did not come trotting up to his truck with smiles all around.
“Hi!” chirped one of the ponies, a cheerful golden mare with a cascade of orange mane down both sides of her neck, but cut fairly short across her forehead. “Secretary Franz said he’d call Secretary Vilseck—” she pronounced the name with great care “—and ask if we could come over this morning and look at your farm.”
Admittedly, Rick had seen the ponies on television. That had in no way prepared him for actually being surrounded by the fuzzy, friendly, smiling creatures. Admittedly also, he was not the smallest human being on the planet, and knew that he resembled a bear with a beard in some regards, but none of the ponies looked frightened in the least. It was almost funny in a way, and even funnier to imagine Secretary of State Vilseck being woken up at some ungodly hour of the morning with the request.
Introductions followed, and Rick began to understand the importance of color-coded names. Holiday was the leader of the mixed group of earth ponies, and organized their activities as the rest of the PMC’s employees showed up, including the student summer help from K-State. Normally, a tour group would have a few polite questions about the facility phrased in vague generalities, but ponies were curious like cats, and knew more about agriculture than most graduate students from the university who worked summers with him.
It turned out there had been some pegasi in the group, but only to provide transportation, much like an aerial bus with several stops. It certainly was a more adventurous schedule than Rick would have wanted if he were in another dimension filled with strange creatures. Actually in the same situation, he might have just climbed a tree and stayed there until somebody came to get him.
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Time: 6:12 A.M. Tuesday June 23, 2015
Location: Manhattan Regional Airport, Kansas
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Al Goldstein was many things. He was one of many students on the Veterinary Medicine School waiting list, an employee of a company in Albuquerque who manufactured lasers for Sandia labs, a locksmith, a ‘source’ whenever the K-State Chemistry department needed to have some odd piece of equipment built or acquired, and the only student in KSU history to successfully claim Kansas residency while living in the dorms (for in-state tuition).
As part of the Vet Med horde, he had volunteered at the Bruener farm, which was how he found himself in his present situation once they found out he was also a Certified Flight Instructor with an Instrument Rating.
“All systems check, throttle at idle, we’re ready to begin taxiing. Now do you remember the radio protocol, Cherry?”
The magenta pony in the co-pilot seat nodded and adjusted the headset over her fuzzy ears. “Manhattan tower, this is Cirrus aircraft november eight five seven sierra whisky requesting permission to taxi to runway two one for immediate VFR departure.”
“Cirrus seven sierra whisky, you are clear to taxi,” came the immediate response, although what came next was slightly non-standard. “Ahh, we have you cleared VFR altitude thirty-five hundred course one nine zero en route to McConnell AFB in formation with other aircraft, but we don’t see a flight plan for anything else.”
“I’ve got this,” said Al. He keyed the microphone and continued, “We have an invitation from General Nachez at McConnell to visit their flight line and take a tour of the air base. He said they were going to fly in some aircraft from other bases for our guests to look at, and take them up for a flight in one of their KC-10s, but we thought it would be more polite if we flew in with a Mode C transponder and a radio. We wanted to eliminate the possibility of any flight incidents.”
“Ahhh, seven sierra whisky, continue to taxi and hold short of runway for further instructions.”
Al looked over his shoulder at the two passengers, one a cute brunette music major, and the other a whitish-grey pegasus with the most unlikely green and violet streaked mane. “Are you girls doing all right?”
Both nodded, and Al turned his attention back to piloting the expensive Cirus along the bumpy taxiway until he pulled up next to the runway and set the brakes. The flight plan was already programmed into the GPS, he had been talking almost nonstop to the two ponies since they had gotten the aircraft out of the hanger, and it was a good time to just look around to check for any unauthorized aircraft. Or other flying creatures. A bird strike was one thing. A pegasus strike would be tragic on so many levels. That’s why he wanted to keep the Equestrians away from the airport until they were airborne and headed south.
“With this aircraft, we don’t have to worry about vee-one or vee-two, right?” asked Cherry, who was swapping her attention between the ground school book on her lap and the morning Kansas landscape.
“With the length of this runway, we don’t have to worry about it,” corrected Al. “We could probably take off and land three or four times. The Cirrus—” he patted the dashboard of the aircraft “—is one of the more expensive rentals. I’m more used to a Cessna 172, but I’ve qualified on this one so I can fly VIPs. It’s a sweet ride, with all the bells and whistles on the dash, oxygen for going to high altitude, and even if everything goes to absolute sh— Ahem. If the aircraft becomes unstable and can’t be recovered, there’s an emergency parachute. Don’t even look at it now, because once you pull that lever, it puts enough strain on the airframe that it’s totalled, and only good for scrap. Half a million dollars worth of airplane turns into loose change with one yank.”
Blossomforth prodded him with one wingtip by stretching in a way that equine bodies were not meant to move. “Mister Goldstein, if I can make a suggestion. Don’t ever let the Cutie Mark Crusaders within a mile of this.”
A few minutes of idle conversation and idling engine passed before the radio sounded again. “Seven sierra whisky, we are currently in contact with McConnell AFB to verify your— HOLY SHIT!”
There was a brief pause.
“Ahem. Seven sierra whisky, one of your ‘guests’ just flew up to the control tower and knocked on the window. Sorry about the language. He’s pointing to his watch now. Are you on a schedule?”
Al pressed the radio button. “Yes, we are, tower. If you could clear us for departure, we’ll work out our arrival with McConnell en route. Worst case, we’ll land at Augusta and take a bus in.”
“Very well. Seven sierra whisky, you are cleared to depart runway two-one on VFR flight. Winds are out of the south at ten knots, gusts to fifteen. We just received instructions for you to squawk one-two-seven-seven until contacted by McConnell, and they will advise on new transponder code for your arrival.”
“Squawking one-two-seven-seven. Thank you, tower. Seven sierra whisky out.”
“Sky is clear,” said Cherry Berry, who had begun looking out the windows intently while Al reset the transponder code. “No flight hazards, no balloons, no cloud structures.”
“Roger that.” Al pushed the throttle forward and the little aircraft fairly leapt into the air with a short run along the runway. He actually had to throttle back once he reached three thousand feet in order to keep from overshooting his altitude, and in a few eventless moments, had the nose of the aircraft pointed to Wichita. “Ok, we’re set,” he called back over the intercom. “Where are our escorts?”
In response, Blossomforth put one hoof to the ornate earring she had dangling to the side of her head. “Hey, guys! We’re off to the airport with all of the jets! Come on up and we’ll get set for the flight.”
Al could see the glint of aluminum Equestrian vehicles rising up from the old drag strip across the road, mixed with the colorful cascade of pegasi who did not need to ride when they could just fly on their own. He had not heard of any other air traffic around, but just in case he touched the radio switch and added, “Manhattan tower, be aware there are Equestrian aircraft taking off from Midwest Raceway to rendezvous with me, so please alert any other aircraft in the vicinity.”
“Roger that, seven sierra whisky. We see them just fine. There is no traffic in the pattern and they should be clear. Thanks for the warning and have a good flight. Manhattan tower out.”
* * *
The story was remarkably similar wherever the reporters looked. Sometime in the dark of the morning before the first ray of sunlight touched Kansas, the entire population of ponies had slipped away for various destinations, leaving behind several polite notes. Likewise, the Bruener girl had vanished, along with the small fleet of aluminum wagons the ponies had welded together over the last few days, and worst of all, Widget was unavailable to be interviewed. The video from her attempted FBI abduction had gone viral overnight, and she was news! The reporters were even willing to (shudder) pay for interviews with the terrified pink alien!
Instead, all they had was a waste disposal expert, and two musicians who paid little attention to anything but a cello and an electronic keyboard (with headphones).
PBS might have been happy. The rest of the alphabet of media was not.
Another characteristic of the media is they had no idea why the ponies wanted a little alone time, away from them.
To understand, we have to travel back in time to the previous evening. Thankfully, we have an alicorn for that. And a psychologist.
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Time: 9:40 P.M. Monday June 22, 2015
Location: Bruener Farm, Randolph, Kansas
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“Where did your world get so many—” since she was holding the last drops of a shot of good whisky in the crook of her foreleg, the Ponyville mayor’s hoof-motion in lieu of a likely profanity was fairly subdued “—reporters?”
The Bruener living room had turned into an impromptu conference room, mostly due to the fact it was right next to the liquor cabinet, and nearly every participant had one sort of booze in front of them, with various liquid levels. Jon’s Bar and Vegetable Grill had a strict one drink limit before getting into the cans of soda, mostly because the owner of the establishment was not sure if some of them could stop. It also had a ‘No Phones’ rule that was being enforced vigorously, as well as a rule for ‘Sneak in a little something for the bar if you think you can get away with it but don’t take chances being spotted.’
“We think they breed like cockroaches,” said General Hackmore before taking yet another measured sip of some fine Johnnie Walker that had been provided courtesy of RCPD.
“One of them caught me in the bathroom,” hissed the pony mayor. “And I don’t mean just while I happened to be in there, I mean they came bursting in there with a camera during—”
“I caught one of them provoking Scootaloo,” said Cheerilee, who had eschewed the traditional glass for a large Tupperware tumbler containing her scotch on the rocks, heavy on the scotch and light on the rocks. “She was in tears, tears! Asking why she couldn’t fly and just not backing off in the slightest when he saw how traumatized she was.” Cheerilee took a brief drink and reduced a guilty ice cube to pulverized fragments with short, deliberate motions of her jaws.
“Please tell me you didn’t hit the reporter?” asked Sergeant Hardhooves, who had taken the depleted bottle without any need for a glass or other drinking crutch.
“She didn’t hit the reporter,” said Lucky. “Or at least I don’t think a flying piledriver could be considered ‘hitting’ of any kind in court. The paramedics say he’ll recover with no permanent brain damage that they could tell. He landed on a patch of soft ground and only hurt his head a little.”
“I used to roughhouse with my sister,” said Cheerilee.
“Well, they certainly seem to be all greedy fingers,” grumbled Hardhooves. “When I put an armed guard on the seed warehouse like Jon asked, every one of the reporters who came by to get a picture tried to steal the sentry’s spear.” He took a measured drink out of the bottle and did not stop until it was dry. “Then every single one of them wanted an ‘exclusive’ interview with Cadet Goose Down the minute she shows up with Widget. They’ve tried to bribe me. Bribe me! If they tried that in Canterlot, I’d toss ‘em out of the city.”
“Please don’t take the actions of the Fifth Estate as representative of our species,” said Governor Brown, who was holding onto a bottle of Coors Light that he had barely dented. “I’m starting to regret encouraging you to allow them in.”
“Starting?” asked Lucky with a quirked-up eyebrow. “They were trying to steal Clover’s dirty diapers. Thankfully, bacon gives them a little something extra. Isn’t that right, Colonel?”
Colonel DeJoya winced and explained for the rest of the room. “I caught the Rangers slipping his little girl a whole slice of bacon. They’re out dealing with the aftermath now.”
* * *
“Oh, God!” Corporal Menendez tried not to breathe inside his full MOPP gear complete with M50 gas mask while struggling to get the adhesive tabs disengaged from the little pony’s diaper. It was a difficult task, made all the more difficult by being performed on a hairy pony, on top of a poncho liner in the middle of the Bruener’s driveway, at night, by the light of a military flashlight. “It’s oozing all around the edges, like it’s alive.”
“You two idiots fed her the bacon,” said Lieutenant Forsythe, who was standing behind the two ‘volunteers’ and holding the flashlight. “You get to deal with the— Uhk! Fuck! I’m upwind! Gods! I can’t see! Somebody get me a mask! How can that smell travel upwind!”
“Don’t move the light,” managed Fitzgerald through his tears. “We get any spillage over the poncho liner and they’ll have to call in a hazmat team for the whole driveway! Oh, Christ on a crutch, I think the stuff is dissolving the seals in the filters!”
One of the remaining Rangers managed to edge close enough to give Forsythe a mask, which he donned in probably a record time for his unit.
“We lost containment, sir! Shine the light back here… Oh, God. I can’t un-see this. Wipes! For the love of God, somebody get us a few boxes of wipes!”
“If this wasn’t you two idiots’ fault,” managed Forsythe in short, frantic gasps inside his M50 mask, “I’d put you in for some sort of commendation. Put the wipes in the bucket when you’re done,” he added, pushing the orange ‘Home Depot’ bucket a little closer.
“Dry ice,” gasped Menendez. “Freeze the stench. It’s the only way we’ll survive. Oh God I breathed in through my mouth I’m dying!!”
Clover obviously thought it was funny, and kicked her little legs through the process, which involved three entire boxes of wipes, two diapers (one having been accidently dipped in the residoo-doo), and a second flashlight when the first one was dropped and cracked a lens. In the end, by the power of Army ingenuity and MOPP gear, the three brave Rangers faced their disarmed opponent with matching smiles. The discarded diapers and resulting toxic waste had been stuffed into the frost-covered orange plastic bucket, the air in their vicinity was slowly returning to non-toxic levels of pony poo pew, and the disaster was over.
Then there was a second rumbling noise, even louder than the first, and the process began all over again.
* * *
“It shouldn’t be too bad,” said Lucky. “Stars only knows I’ve diapered a few blowouts. Anyway, Doctor Ethan Alexander from APHIS says he’s going to pack the used diapers in dry ice for shipment back to his agency so they can be examined. Those poor laboratory technicians.”
Lyra and Bon Bon had not said much other than to quietly nurse their glasses of chocolate milk, but with a little nudging from her friend, Lyra cleared her throat. “A few days of getting out of here to see the local sights will be good for the townsponies. To be honest, those reporters frighten Bon— I mean me. They’re worse than parasprites. The principal at the school and General Hackmore—” she nodded at the general “—are willing to provide busses and drivers for a few of the local tourist areas. The only thing is if the reporters are that aggressive trying to grab a diaper, they’re going to terrify poor Widget. She’s a sweet young mare, but I don’t think she’s as strong as all that. Nopony really is.”
Cherry Berry raised one hoof. “I think our group can keep her out of the reporter’s hooves for tomorrow. Maybe two days if we go to the zoo in Wichita, also. But, um… I saw the telephone video of what happened to Widget. It has some of the ponies frightened.”
Governor Brown put his half-full bottle down onto a coaster. “I’ve had quite a number of the Kansas Highway Patrol volunteer to be escorts for your trips. Get me a list of your groups, and I’ll make sure each of them has an officer assigned. Unless one of your ponies breaks a Federal law or goes outside the state borders, the FBI has to request permission to claim jurisdiction, and they’re not getting it. Period. So what time do they need to be ready to leave tomorrow morning?”
The mayor told him. Upon due consideration, it seemed to be a rational hour for them to sneak away. Nobody sane would be working at that hour of the morning.
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Time: 10:00 P.M. Monday June 22, 2015
Location: Bruener Farm, Randolph, Kansas
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“We are in need of a therapist,” said the absolutely serious unicorn sitting on the chair in Maria Bruener’s home office. A week ago, if she had seen a unicorn, she would have been absolutely sure she was going crazy. After the last three days, she was getting used to the concept. And today, she had a unicorn for a patient.
It was amazing what you could get used to.
“By we, do you mean—”
“Four members of the Night Guard have scheduled weekly therapy sessions. It is only appropriate that they be continued while we are in this world. We are willing to pay for the treatment out of the Ponyville general fund, and since you are both present locally and licensed in your world, we were presuming you would not mind a few well-behaved patients,” specified Specialist Grace. Her horn lit up with a pale green light and four sheets of paper floated out of her saddlebag to rest on the desk. Each one of them was filled with neat inked script, giving a short description of the individual’s major issues, the general discussion history of previous sessions, and other technical tidbits of the horse-patients. “Optio Pumpernickel and his wife, Cadet Goose Down, and Specialist Thermal.”
“With you, that’s five.” Maria got up from behind the desk and moved over to her chair. “I presume you are excluding yourself because you are avoiding the issue until you return home?”
“I… um… Yes.” The emerald-green unicorn looked up at her. “And I presume you want me to move to the couch?”
“If it makes you more comfortable. Remember, you can speak your mind here.”
“It would make me more comfortable to be home,” grumbled the unicorn while she scrambled up onto the couch. “It’s a waste of bits to have a new therapist. You have no idea what has been bothering me.”
Maria hid a small smile while she settled down in her chair, a notebook and pen close at hand. “If you’re this eager to get home, you must have a hot boyfriend waiting for you.”
“Oh, yea—” Grace broke off with a low cough. “I am currently engaged in a romantic relationship, yes.” Her horn lit up, and a green-tinged image of a dashing unicorn guard appeared in the room, which startled Maria for a moment.
“My word, he is a keeper. Have you written him since your arrival? Told him you were uninjured and explained what this world is like? I saw a number of the Ponyville townsfolk having Spike send their letters, after all, and you are a guard. He must be worried.”
The very tip of Grace’s tongue emerged, made a cautious circuit of her lips, and vanished again, but she did not say anything right away. Maria simply hid a knowing smile and made a few quick notes. The folders she found on her desk this morning had been quite useful to get a handle on the Equestrian patients, although not quite as useful as the odd dream she had last night of a tall woman with dark, flowing hair.
The only question she was left with was just exactly how one bills a therapy session conducted in a dream.
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Time: 11:57 P.M. Monday June 22, 2015
Location: Bruener Farm, Randolph, Kansas
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Nick had never appreciated a quiet night more in his life. Well, as quiet as it got where he was standing next to the tank’s armor skirt. The APU was running on Four-One, charging the batteries and running the hydraulics for most of the evening’s watch, so the high-pitched whine drowned out the distant party-like atmosphere around the media’s trailer park where a certain degree of celebration had taken over.
Reporters are paid by the piece. The ponies were going to be around for another two weeks. Therefore, the reporters were already sharpening their metaphorical knives and drooling over flank steak interviews and ribeye character pieces, all on expense accounts. Crystal had joined the rest of her peers, and Nick was quietly ignoring the buzz-buzz of his phone and her attempts to lure him into their den of inequity… ineqineity… whatever one would call what they were planning on doing with their captive audience of pony-sitters.
To be honest, Nick just wanted to get out of his itchy Class-A uniform and back into cammies for a good night’s sleep. He was half-tempted to dig out a sleeping bag and crash under the tank, if that would not have been asking for trouble. It wasn’t bad enough that General Hackmore and Equestrians were asking for his advice, oh no. The MP colonel in charge of the whole local security operation had confided that Lieutenant Comena was going to get a sudden rank boost once the last tail had waved goodbye, and that the gravy was going to get spread around thickly. He really was not looking forward to it very much. It probably came with an assignment to the Pentagon, and would leave him trapped behind a desk for the foreseeable future.
The crunch-crunch of hooves on gravel alerted Nick to the approach of a pony from the house’s direction, although he could not see a darned thing, or at least until a shadow uncoiled in front of him, and one of the batponies just freaking appeared close enough to touch. With those huge wings, it could only be Goose, although she looked rumpled and nervous, with frequent glances over her shoulder.
“Um… Hi,” she managed in that pure mezzo-soprano that still unnerved him whenever he heard it. “Nick, right?” The batpony sat down in the dusty grass and swallowed, looking up at him with big golden eyes, although with her ears folded almost all the way back. It disquited him for a moment, because she looked a little like a dog that was in pain— Oh.
“Hey, Spaz!” Nick tugged on the piece of string dangling down from the top of the tank, and eventually Sergeant Spasowski poked his bare head over the edge to look down at him. “Can you cut the APU for now? The lady wants to talk.”
“Sure, Loot. We’ve got most of a charge anyway, so we’re good until morning.” The Polish NCO ducked back out of sight and the whine of the APU died down, allowing Nick to squat and bring his face down closer to the young batpony’s level.
“What can I do for you, ma’am? Do we need more photos?”
“Actually…” Goose pawed at the side of her dark armor with one hoof. “The latches are stuck, and I was wondering if you’d help me get out of this.” One big furry ear flicked and turned to face back across the road, leaving Nick to wonder just exactly what was going on.
Particularly when he heard giggling, and saw the faintest flash of pink from the direction of the Bruener house.
“Always willing to help another armored service… um… creature,” he finished. If nothing else, he had been terribly curious himself about how the pony armor fit, and where the catches were. He fumbled around the smooth edge of the warm metal where it met her fuzzy coat, trying to figure out just what went where in the dark. If the undeniable evidence of two mischievous girls across the road were not bad enough, he could hear the occasional click and thump from the tank behind him, indicating some of the members of his own command were peering at his extradimensional brass bra fumbling and probably getting sarcastic comments ready for later.
That is until a quiet thump sounded from in front of him, and a second batpony appeared out of the shadows.
It was Laminia, a welcome relief to Nick. If the pony had been Pumpernickel… No, he didn’t want to think about that. He had come close enough to peeing himself. The batpony mare was bad enough, and somebody that only an idiot would have attempted to argue with, but somehow Scary Bat and Bitch Bat went together like peanut butter and jelly. The resulting Baby Bat was sleeping quietly inside Laminia’s foal carrier, giving off her usual mixed signals of “Pick me up and cuddle me” crossed with “My daddy will rip your arms off if you touch me.”
Nick held himself still. Goose instantly whirled in place, striking a perfect rigid pose with one hoof raised to touch her helmet.
“Armor inspection,” snapped Laminia. “Now.”
Nick had once seen a man field-strip and reassemble a M4-carbine in less than a minute. It made him curious to how fast a motivated pony could accomplish the same task. Bits of pony armor fairly flew as Goose stripped, and in less time than he ever expected, she was standing behind a neat pile of armor.
“Acceptable,” said Laminia, with the same low glower. “Now, take your armor inside and see Missus Bruener in her office. I need to have a few words with your… human friend, and your other friends need to get to bed.”
“But—” The older batpony had an absolutely vicious glare. Nick was fairly sure it could have peeled paint straight off Four-One. In a matter of moments, Goose had scurried across the driveway and into the Bruener’s house, where undoubtedly she was conspiring with the other two troublemakers.
There was relative silence for a short time, followed by Lamina giving a short flap and a glide so she could sit on the tank instead of the ground. It was more comfortable for Nick too, because all he could think of while talking to the Bat-Bitch on the ground was how she could easily bite his balls off.
“Nick,” she started, then hesitated. “I can call you Nick, right? I still get messed up on talking to ponies, so figuring out what pisses off humans is an exercise in frustration. When I was talking to one of the reporters, I asked if she was a nigger and I thought she’d pop.”
Nick snorted, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Um… Yeah. That’s probably a word to stay away from. Were you needing Spaz to make a list? Because there’s a lot of them, and I think he knows ‘em all.”
“Gee thanks, Loot,” drifted down from the top of the tank turret, just out of sight.
“No, I…” The big charcoal-grey pegasus put her head down on her forehooves and let out a sharp breath. “Fuck, this is a pain in the plot, so I’ll just say it. Goose is fucked in the head just about as bad as my husband and me, but you know what I didn’t see when she came trotting over here, trying to get you to peel her armor off?”
“Her… hat?” said Nick cautiously.
“Huh.” Laminia flicked her tail forward and sat up a little straighter. “You’re not as dumb as you look. Anyway, the kid’s got a problem. She got her cutie mark in gliding.”
“That explains the ‘v’ symbols on her rump,” mused Nick. “I guess they’re supposed to look like seagulls. Is she afraid of birds?”
That earned him a Look of Very Limited Amusement.
“When she was very young,” started Laminia in slow, distinct words as if she were talking to an idiot, “her aunts used to take her kiting at the park.”
“They flew kites?” The minute the words left his mouth, Nick knew it was a mistake, and he waved his hands in front of him. “No, never mind. Just keep going.”
“Nocturne females live very protected lives,” said Laminia with only a slight baring of her sharp teeth. “It’s Traditional, since we’re a small fraction of the population, and we have to be careful to avoid inbreeding. So the Canterlot nest that she belongs to really did not like her flying. They thought it was dangerous, particularly when she was young. The mountain has all kinds of tricky currents and updrafts. So her aunts used to give her a piece of thick cord, she’d bite on the end, and that way she could—”
“Oh, God,” gasped Nick. “That’s such an adorable image. Sorry, sorry. It’s been a long day, and i’m a little punch-drunk. Keep going.”
“Anyway. The wind came up when an unscheduled storm blew in, and Goose got swept up above the clouds. With those wings, she almost was too high to be captured. It took three days, and she was catatonic when they brought her to the ground. She never even went outside for the next few years, got a wild hair up her cutie mark that she wanted to be a Royal Guard, which I still think is another form of mental disability. Threw herself into training, wheedled her uncles and cousins into teaching her how to fight and didn’t that ruffle some feathers among the wise old coots who ruled the roost. They thought she should be a proper little foal factory and insisted that she learn how to clean and polish the clan house all night long.”
“She sure cleaned the FBI’s clocks in Kansas City,” said Nick. “The boys have been calling her One Punch Mare.”
“If we can find an inside arena, I’ll see if my husband and Goose can show you how to really fight,” said Laminia with a tiny hint of arrogant smugness. She tapped the dark armor she was wearing and added, “It would probably be good to find her some regular human sparring partners, as long as we’re here. But getting back to where I started, Goose has been working on overcoming her fear of the sky. It’s a long, slow climb. When I first met her, she had this umbrella-thing, like a tent that she could carry over her head whenever she went outside. She used to freeze up cold when she even saw the horizon, but with therapy, practice, and a lot of struggling, she worked her way down to that broad-brimmed hat you saw a few days ago.”
“Falling out of the sky on Friday must have freaked her out something fierce,” mused Nick. “She had to keep going, because so many of your ponies were depending on her.”
“But she still was wearing her hat,” continued Laminia. “She keeps that on every Day and Night whenever she’s outside. Until tonight. I don’t think she even realized she wasn’t wearing it. True love has a way of distracting the mind, I guess.”
“Now, wait a minute,” started Nick before he caught the unexpected smile on the crabby batpony’s face. “Hey! You’re yanking my chain.”
“Maybe a little.” Laminia shrugged. “It comes with the territory. Almost every single Nocturne female is a hopeless flirt. Gotta keep those eggs warm to save the species, after all. But Goose has gone through a lot of trauma. Until today, I never saw her so much as look at another pony’s ass.”
“Oh, no,” started Nick. “Not me.”
“Oh, no indeed,” said Laminia with a smile, or at least she lifted dark lips away from her sharp teeth. “She’s made more progress in three days than I’ve seen in three moons back in Equestria. If it helps to have her chase your monkey butt with those two nitwits egging her on, then so be it, but I expect you to run. If she catches you—” Laminia tapped the tank’s hull with her shod hoof, making a series of dull thuds “—you better hide in there and never come out, because if I don’t kill you, my husband will. Understand?”