//------------------------------// // Pursuit // Story: Friendship is Revolution // by ultiville //------------------------------// The two ponies (and one human passenger) fly about a hundred feet off the ground, eyes locked on the mysterious car that weaves through the twisting streets below. Despite the serious mission, Twilight notices Rainbow Dash can't keep a grin off her face at being in the air again. This doesn't surprise Twilight at all, but she is a bit surprised to see Rachel's face unusually pale, her hands wrapped tightly around Dash's neck. Their quarry is a tan SUV. At first the driver seems unaware of their pursuit. Like many flightless creatures, the human driver appears unaccustomed to looking up. Unfortunately, as they move out from the empty residential streets to the larger, well-traveled main roads, their unusual nature becomes a double-edged sword. With increasing frequency, pedestrians stop dead and point to the skies. As they fly out over Waltham's main street, a sedan on the opposite side of the road pulls over, and a woman leaps out of the passenger side, snapping photos with her cell phone. The SUV speeds up, and hooks an unexpected turn on to the highway on-ramp. The ponies have no trouble matching the maneuver, but it's not yet late enough in the afternoon for rush hour traffic, and the driver floors it as soon as the car's off the ramp and on to the highway proper. "Awright," Rainbow Dash crows, beating her wings harder to keep up, "this is going to be fun." Behind her Twilight frowns, but buckles down with her own wings. Fortunately, the internal combustion engine is no match for pegasus magic, so even as a merely competent flier, Twilight knows she can keep up the pace for a good while. "Do we have a way to get this guy to stop?" Rachel yells over the howling wind, eyes now squeezed shut against the maelstrom of flight at near a hundred miles per hour. "Not really," Twilight yells back, "or at least, not any that I'm confident won't hurt him. I could try to stop it with telekinesis but this is way out of any research I've read, I'm not sure I could do it safely." "So what, we're just going to fly after him until he gives up and stops?" "Sounds great to me," Dash yells. The highway is rising into the air below them. At first Twilight thinks it must be going up a hill, but then she sees the other road crisscrossing below it, and looks around. Ahead the buildings of the city loom large, glittering in the summer sun, and more, larger roads than she's ever seen crisscross in the air in front of her, raised on great pylons. She finds it a perplexing combination of beautiful and disturbing; unlike Cambridge across the river, here virtually nothing of nature is visible, just a seemingly endless jumble of concrete, steel, and asphalt into which they are plunging at speed. "What the hay is this?" Rainbow yells. "The Big Dig," Rachel answers, "it's made to let traffic bypass the city center." "Why's it called a dig?" Twilight asks. The cars loom large below her now, just a few body lengths away, as she cuts under an overpass. "That's why," Rachel says, briefly gesturing forward with one of her arms, though she grabs it with her other hand to retain a strong hold on Dash's neck. Twilight looks up, following the line of her arm, and sees that not far ahead the road plunges down again into the orange-lit mouth of a tunnel. She gulps. "Is he going in there?" "He's out of exits. He can't go anywhere else." "Oh, this is getting good," Dash says. Rachel closes her eyes again and groans. They swoop down, and the bright summer world is replaced with the subterranean half-light of the tunnel. The ceiling is low, and Twilight's hooves nearly scrape the tops of the cars. Most of them have their lights on, and alternating bright and dark trace over the walls, making it hard to make out exactly where they are. The air is filled with exhaust and the sound of horns as the drivers notice the large creatures flying close above them. There's no shoulder outside the two lanes of traffic, and if Twilight and Dash were to try to fly side to side, there'd barely be room. "Heads-up, Twi'," Dash calls from in front of her. The SUV is weaving at daredevil speeds between the lanes of traffic, only adding to the cacophony as terrified drivers lean on their horns in terror. Ahead two large semi trucks are driving in nearly abreast in the two lanes, with barely a car's length between the front of the one in the right lane and the back of the one in the left. Their trailers reach nearly to the tunnel roof, not leaving enough clearance for a pony. "I think he's going to try to shoot that gap!" Rachel yells. "No sweat," Dash smirks. Rachel's right; the SUV speeds up in the clear left lane, then swerves deftly between the two large trucks. The rearmost's horn blares as the driver slams on the brakes, and swerves slightly into the other lane, nearly clipping Rainbow's wing. Rachel says something in a language Twilight doesn't understand, but a tone that sounds like cursing, and wraps her legs around Dash's barrel. Then they're at the gap. Dash nearly folds her wings flat against her body and zips through, making it look easy. Twilight knows it won't be, and takes a deep breath. The rear truck's sudden brake widens the gap briefly, but then the front one slows as well, hearing the horn, and now it's narrowing again, rapidly. She's almost there, but the gap is shrinking too fast - she's not sure she can maintain control if she pulls her wings in that tight. Left without alternative, she lights her horn and briefly vanishes, reappearing in the other lane, ahead of the rear truck. The actual magic of short-range teleportation is effortless for an alicorn as powerful as Twilight, of course, but recovering from doing so at speed is another matter. She maintains her inertial state on reappearance - which is just as well, lest she crash to the ground - but with only a split second to adjust to her new surroundings. They're pushing seventy-five miles per hour despite the tight spaces of the tunnel, and even cutting it close to the leading truck, she's not far from the wall. She turns hard left as soon as she appears, and feels just the tip of a feather touch the concrete wall before she's free and stable. Behind her, the poor driver of the rear truck slams on the breaks again, mouth open in a yell at her sudden appearance not ten feet in front of his windshield. She nearly flies on to catch up with Dash, but then she sees the rear of the truck begin to skew far into the left lane as the driver loses control. She's close enough to see the him realize the same thing, and his eyes widen as he desperately manipulates the wheel. She doesn't know much about trucks, but she knows enough physics by heart to tell it's too late. Behind the truck, a pack of cars is driving close, curiosity overcoming fear as they try to get a glimpse of the ponies. They won't have time to stop if the truck blocks the tunnel. She realizes she only has one option left. The driver's hands drop from the steering wheel as he feels the truck no longer touching the road, and a magenta light surrounds the truck and fills his cabin. Twilight's lifted the whole thing a few inches off the ground and wrestled it straight. Now she pulls it along with her as she flies, holding it in the correct lane through sheer power of magic. Beads of sweat roll down her coat* at the effort of controlling her flight while keeping the truck safely in the tiny lane. The honking has stopped now, and the other truck, traveling at her left flank, is slowing to a stop. All around cars are doing the same, pulling into the left lane as they do. Twilight beats her wings harder, accelerating down the now-clear lane to catch up with Rainbow and the SUV, dragging the giant semi truck behind her. Ahead she sees a blue and prismatic flash as Rainbow banks left, merging into a larger tunnel, then she's in it as well. This one is four lanes, with generous shoulders, and well-lit, and she feels a tightness she didn't realize she'd been carrying lift as she suddenly has room to maneuver. The truck's wheels have long since stopped turning, the driver having taken his foot off the gas once he realized he was no longer in contact with the road. She takes advantage of the newly raised roof and lifts it over the stopped traffic in the left lane, depositing it safely on the shoulder. She catches sight of the door opening, and the driver throws a dazed little wave as he stumbles unsteadily to his feet. She thinks she sees him take out his phone, but then turns back to the pursuit. In the wide space they can maneuver safely, but their quarry has also put on speed, and Rainbow's magical multicolored contrail is lightly visible as she races to keep up. Twilight risks another short teleport on the straightaway to make up the distance, and now they're flying neck and neck, just behind the SUV, which is pushing a hundred in the clear center lane. "Nice moves back there," Rachel leans over, looking either less panicked or resigned to her fate, "I thought we were going to cause a hell of an accident." "I couldn't let anyone get hurt!" Rachel just shakes her head and smiles. "I hope you rub off on us, Princess, and not the other way around. Gonna stop this guy that way now?" Twilight frowns. "If I try that again, I might fall out of the sky, give me a few minutes at least!" Ahead, Dash cries a warning. The SUV 's taken a hard right, angling at the very last minute towards an exit tunnel. It barely makes it, the driver's side mirror missing the concrete support by millimeters. Rainbow has no trouble keeping her course, but Twilight again finds herself falling behind as she slows to make the turn. Sweat is dripping off her flanks and barrel now, and her wings feel like they're made of metal and motors again, not part of her body at all. But between adrenaline and her need to know who would go to so much trouble to avoid them, she manages force them to work, and catches up again. The ramp ascends in a broad spiral and rises out of the tunnel back into the honeyed light of the early afternoon. it straightens out and now only the endless blue sky is above them, dotted with light clouds. Off to the left downtown Boston's skyscrapers loom, so large they look nearer than they are, like Twilight could brush her wing against one like the tunnel wall, if only she banked a bit. But ahead the road descends towards the waterfront, and the horizon in front of her meets only the grey-blue sheet of the Atlantic. A strong breeze kicks up, and she smells salt on the wind. One way or another, their quarry is running out of road. There's a red light in front of them, but traffic's still light, and the driver of the SUV shows no signs of stopping. A horn cries out as a car moves through on green, but the SUV swerves deftly around and continues tearing down the street. They're at the waterfront proper now, and on her left Twilight can see the docks and the water of the bay in the gaps between buildings. Then, barely slowing, certainly with no tell-tale brake lights, the SUV pulls a hard left, so tight Twilight is surprised it doesn't tip over, and screeches into the loading dock of an unremarkable looking warehouse. The ponies bank hard to come about, but the automatic door is already closing, and before they can reach it, it slams shut against the concrete. Panting, Twilight and Rainbow hover outside the unassuming brick building. They hear sirens - a lot of them - coming from the direction of the tunnel. "Well," Rachel says, "any bright ideas, or are we going in a window? Any way you can lift that door up, Twilight?" "I could," she says, head tilted in thought, "but I'd rather not. I'm still pretty tired, and I'm not sure I could lift it and maintain a shield at the same time. I don't want to bet against an ambush." "Yeah," Rachel nods. "So, window?" Twilight looks back at her. "Window."