Dirt. Rocks. Power lines. A seemingly endless line of pavement stretching before them to the horizon. A road sign every once in a while. Twilight had seen nothing else in what felt like forever, but was likely only about nine hours of comic time, judging by the sun’s position just above the horizon.
Twilight held onto the van’s steering wheel with her magic, doing her best to keep the vehicle on the road with declining strength. She’d spent the entire night driving along the highway nonstop, and the tired expression, complete with bags under her eyes and unkempt hair, provided clear proof of such.
Her friends, however, weren’t any worse for wear. It was decided soon after their journey began to alternate the task of keeping pressure on the accelerator between the three of them in hour-long shifts, thereby allowing them all some much needed rest. Twilight had even been offered a reprieve from her driving, her friends being sure they could properly handle the vehicle, but she’d decided against it, believing she’d need to be awake and alert so she could get them out of trouble in case it showed itself.
It was currently Rainbow’s turn to keep the van moving, and the pegasus was doing a splendid job of remaining focused on it despite her mind’s tendency to wander. Rarity and Pinkie slept soundly in the back, their heads buried in their fore hooves while breathing soft and rhythmically. Twilight spared a glance into the van’s rear view mirror in order to get a reprieve from the repetitive scenery outside, but instantly regretted it as seeing her friends sound asleep made her envious and she groaned inwardly.
So… tired…
Almost subconsciously, Twilight turned the wheel slightly to the right, pulling the van off the road onto the accompanying dry dirt. A slight bump rocked the van as it came off the highway, startling Rainbow and rousing both Pinkie and Rarity from their slumber.
“Twilight?” Rainbow said, curiously, craning her neck back to look at her alicorn friend. “Everything okay up there?”
Twilight’s half-lidded gaze remained focused ahead, despite the van not being on the road anymore, as she replied in a hushed, drowsy voice, “Everything’s fine, Rainbow.” One of her eyelids fluttered slightly, begging to be closed before Twilight forced it wide open, revealing it to be bloodshot. “Just peachy.”
“Oh, okay,” Rainbow replied, and turned back around. “So, any idea where we are?”
Twilight turned her head to look out both windows on either side of her, seeing nothing but endless expanses of dirt and rocks, looking no different than the rest she’d seen already.
“If I had to guess, we’re… we’re…”
A thud sounded, followed immediately by a blaring noise that rang through the van and didn’t stop. Rarity and Pinkie scrambled to their hooves as Rainbow took her hoof off of the accelerator, bringing the van to a gradual stop. All three mares folded their ears back to block the awful noise.
“What is that wretched sound!?” Rarity shouted over the noise.
“What!?” Pinkie shouted back.
“What!?” Rarity shouted in turn.
Meanwhile, Rainbow crawled out and up into the passenger seat next to Twilight. Looking at the alicorn, Rainbow saw that her friend had fallen asleep at the wheel, her face pressed firmly against the center. It took a moment for her to realize what had happened, and as soon as she did Rainbow wrapped her hooves around Twilight’s withers and pulled her off of the steering wheel. Immediately, the sound stopped.
“Goodness gracious!” Rarity exclaimed as she and Pinkie came up and peered over the seats. “Just what was that blaring racket?”
Rainbow sighed, then let out a soft chuckle. “That, Rarity, was this car’s horn.” She gestured first to the steering wheel, then to the still dozing Twilight, who had a little drool running down her mouth. “Little Miss Sleepyhead here activated it when her face hit the steering wheel.” She chuckled again and shook her head. “And she’s out like a light from the looks of it if she can sleep through that noise.”
“Awww, looks like somepony shouldn’t have passed on a nappy-wappy,” Pinkie cooed, sticking her face in front of Twilight’s. The alicorn’s breaths blew Pinkie’s mane back, tickling her nostrils and almost making her sneeze right in Twilight’s face, but she lifted her head back up and suppressed it with a hoof to her muzzle.
“Oh, I do hope the poor dear is alright,” Rarity said, reaching a hoof to Twilight chin in a show of concern, only to jerk it back as the alicorn let out a very sudden, very loud snore. “Ahhh!”
Rainbow rolled her eyes at the scene before reaching over to the ignition key with her mouth and twisted it, to which the van’s engine stopped and left everything silent, minus Twilight’s snores.
“Where are we, anyway?” Pinkie asked as she peered through the windshield.
“That’s what I asked Twilight before she passed out,” Rainbow replied, looking outside herself and grimacing at the dry, desert landscape around them. “But wherever we are, it looks like we’re alone.”
“Indeed it does,” Rarity said with a nod. A brief moment of silence passed between them before Rarity took a moment to stretch, her joints audibly cracking as she hummed with delight. “Ah, that’s nice.” She turned to Rainbow and Pinkie. “What say we take a while to get out and stretch our legs?”
“Gee, Rarity,” Rainbow said with a sly smile, “weren’t you the one that wanted to get out of here asap?”
“Indeed I was, and still do,” Rarity huffed. She used her magic to open the passenger side door and climbed over the seat. “That said, we’ve been cooped up in this dreaded vehicle all night, so a little break to stretch would sit well with me.”
“Twilight needs a break more than any of us,” Pinkie said, gently poking her sleeping friend’s side with a hoof. “We should wake her up.”
“Let’s leave her be for the time being,” Rarity said as she stepped onto the ground outside the door. “She needs rest more than anything right now.”
“Yeah she does,” Rainbow said. She gave one last look at Twilight before climbing across the seat and stepping outside next to Rarity. Pinkie followed a second later, bouncing onto the dirt and sending up a small dust cloud which was quickly picked up and carried away by a sudden wind gust. “So, who wants to see the sights?”
“Ooh ooh! I do! I do!” Pinkie exclaimed, bouncing thrice with excitement.
“I’ll stay and keep an eye on things here,” Rarity said. She cracked her neck once before climbing up onto the van’s hood and curling up like a cat, resting her head in her hooves. “You two have fun, and do be careful.”
“Yeah yeah.” Rainbow turned to Pinkie. “C’mon, let’s go see what human deserts are like.”
“Okie dokie lokie,” Pinkie replied, and the two set off at a brisk pace across the dry earth, leaving Rarity alone with the van and the snoring princess inside.
The train pounded the rails as it flew down the line through the forest. The nighttime air shrouded the trees outside from view within the coaches, although most passengers inside were sound asleep anyway. The trio of Applejack, Fluttershy and Spike, however, was wide awake and fidgeting in their seats with anticipation. Nevertheless, the alluring embrace of sleep threatened to claim them time and again, becoming stronger as the trip to Canterlot wore on.
“Yeowww!” Applejack shouted in response to a sharp pinch on her withers.
“You were about to fall asleep,” Spike said, retracting his claw from her. “At least, it looked like you were.”
Applejack pouted and rubbed the spot where Spike pinched her. “I wasn’t gonna…” she mumbled half-heartedly.
Fluttershy’s gaze had been half-lidded as she watched her two friends across from her, but she snapped awake the instant Applejack screamed. Not wanting to risk being pinched herself, she gave her face a few good slaps with her wings, rubbing it afterward to alleviate the soreness.
A few minutes of silence passed afterward, during which time the three friends stayed content with staring up at the coach’s ceiling or stretching lazily in their seats. The only sound to them were the muffled click-clacks of the train’s wheels underneath the floor as they beat against the rails.
“Either of ya wanna go check an’ see if the food coach’s open?” Applejack asked, breaking the silence between them.
Spike shrugged. “I doubt it is, but it beats sitting around doing nothing.” He hopped off the seat and grabbed the saddlebag which housed the HUMAN comic. “You wanna come, Fluttershy?” he asked the pegasus.
Fluttershy gave a simple nod and joined them in exiting the compartment before turning down the corridor toward the food coach.
Twilight only managed to get in about ten minutes of sleep before an offending ray of sunlight from the comic world’s sun shined in her face, pulling her from a most pleasant dream involving Starswirl the Bearded cosplaying as a mathematician professor, complete with nerd glasses and pocket protectors. With an annoyed groan, she turned her head away from the sun’s light, instinctually reaching for her bed’s covers.
She grabbed at nothing.
Confused at first, the previous night’s events slowly came back to her sleep-addled brain, and her eyes shrank to pinpricks when the realization that, not only had she been asleep, but also that the passenger side door was open both registered in her mind.
“Oh no oh no oh no oh no,” Twilight chanted, picking herself up and practically flinging herself outside. She swung her head around to try and spot her friends, and was relieved when she quickly found Rarity by the side of the road, poking the concrete with her hoof.
Twilight made a beeline for her friend, skidding to a stop behind Rarity and sending a small wave of dirt over her as a result.
“Gah! What the—” Rarity turned around, and her face brightened upon seeing it was Twilight. “Oh, I see you’re awake. Did you have a pleasant nap, darling?”
“Never mind that,” Twilight said with a shake of her head. “Where are Rainbow and Pinkie?”
“Oh, well, they went to explore this arid desert while you got some much needed rest,” Rarity replied, brushing some dirt off of her backside.
“They WHAT!?” Twilight shouted, making Rarity wince. “Who knows what this comic world has in store for us!? There could be all kinds of hazards around here, not to mention the trouble we’ll be in if any humans see them! If they get back and—”
Twilight was silenced by Rarity’s hoof in her mouth. The unicorn gave the princess a furrowed gaze that let Twilight know she was overreacting. With a muffled sigh, Twilight relaxed her features, to which Rarity retracted her hoof.
“You really should work on managing your paranoia, darling,” she told Twilight, almost in an admonishing tone of voice. “But I digress. From what we could gather, there’s not another sapient being around for miles, so the chance of us being found out here is below average.”
Twilight glanced around at the desert landscape surrounding them, taking note that it was, in fact, very much barren of any possible signs of civilization, save for the road. “True,” she said, looking back to Rarity with a concerned gaze, “but we still have no idea what else might be lurking around here.”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that!” Pinkie said as she popped up between them, giving both a mini heart attack as they jumped in response. “Dashie and I checked around, and we’re really alone as far as we can tell.”
Rarity and Twilight put a hoof each to their chests to slow their hearts from their respective Pinkie-fueled adrenaline surge. With deep, calming breaths, they each regained their composure and stood up straight, each giving Pinkie a glower which made her shrink back a little.
“What have we told you about popping up out of nowhere while ponies are talking?” Twilight asked with all the sternness of a mother scolding their children for stealing cookies from the jar.
Pinkie grinned sheepishly. “Don’t do it?”
“Indeed,” Rarity affirmed.
“I’m sorry,” Pinkie said, deflating a little.
“Apology accepted,” Twilight said with a small smile. She shifted her gaze around the three of them. “Where’s Rainbow Dash?”
“She decided to fly east over that—” Pinkie pointed to a rock formation about a mile due east of their position, above which the sun shined brightly, “—to scout and stretch her wings.”
“Oh for crying out lo—” Twilight stomped a hoof. “What part of remaining inconspicuous does she not understand?”
“Oh, relax Twilight,” Rarity said, placing a placating hoof on her friend’s withers. “To be perfectly honest, even if Rainbow Dash was to be seen, with her speed she could return here and we’d be gone before anyone could catch us.”
“Yeah, but… but…” Twilight let out a defeated sigh. “Okay, maybe it isn’t that big a deal.”
“Now then—” Rarity turned to Pinkie, “—did Rainbow Dash say when she’d be back?”
“I’m thinking any moment now,” Pinkie said, then turned to face eastward.
Twilight and Rarity followed her gaze toward the rock formation where their friend supposedly flew to. They waited in silence for their friend to return, all while the sun slowly climbed higher into the sky and stretched the shadows of various rocks, dry bushes and other such desert objects between them and the rock formation.
Twilight had to admit, the level of realism to the Enchanted Comic’s world was impressive. She’d come to the conclusion that the Power Ponies comic took place entirely in an enclosed urban environment at nighttime because the spell used to create that comic’s world wasn’t advanced enough to simulate natural environments where small, minute details like as shadows, wind, dirt, and other such natural elements were prevalent. Looking at the landscape around them now, it was clear to Twilight that the House of Enchanted Comics had upped their game.
And yet, there’s still a few things wrong with this world…
A sudden sound of flapping emanated behind them, faint at first, but it grew louder with each passing second. They turned around, and were surprised to see Rainbow Dash closing in on the van from above. Confusion washed over them as they shifted glances from Rainbow Dash to the east cliffs where she was supposed to come from. Rainbow landed on the van’s roof with a small thud before hopping down to the ground in front of them. “Well, that was strange,” she said.
“What was strange?” Rarity asked. “And why did you return from the west instead of the east?”
Rainbow pointed at her. “That’s exactly it,” she answered, then gestured behind them to the rock formation. “I didn’t see any sign of civilization on the other side of that, so I decided to scout a bit further ahead—” She pointed back the way she came, “—and ended up back here.”
“So… you did a loop around?” Pinkie asked, tilting her head.
“I know, what’s up with that?” Rainbow said, throwing her hooves up into the air, before giving her princess friend a questioning stare. “Seriously, what’s up with that, Twilight?”
Rarity and Pinkie gave Twilight questioning looks themselves while she tapped her chin in thought. After giving a few aside glances to the scenery around them, Twilight responded.
“If I had to guess, the spell used to simulate HUMAN’s world for this comic book, while more advanced than the one used for the Power Ponies comic, still has its limits. In this case, it appears that there’s a defined ‘circle of space’ around all of us made to conceal the fact that only so much terrain can be displayed at any one time. If there was only one person in here, they wouldn’t notice, but since we’re a group, any time we try splitting up we’ll just wind up back where we started.”
“So, what you’re saying is that we have no choice but to stick together?” Rainbow asked.
“Pretty much,” Twilight said, then gave the pegasus a stern glare. “Then again, that’s exactly what I’d instructed us all to do in the first place…”
Rainbow sheepishly rubbed her neck. “Yeah… sorry.”
Twilight sighed. “Anyway, we should get going.”
“Are you feeling up to par, Twilight dear?” Rarity asked with concern. “You just spent an entire night driving non stop. Perhaps a little re—”
“It’s fine, Rarity,” Twilight said, cutting her off. She climbed into the van and scooted over into the driver’s seat, bidding her friends to follow. “I’ll be alright, I promise. Now come on, get in.”
Her friends gave each other concerned looks before climbing into the van themselves. Twilight shut the doors with her magic before turning the ignition key, starting up the engine again and causing all the dashboard’s instruments to light up. One particular meter caught her attention, and she gave a low hum in contemplation.
Her friends noticed her pause and moved up to the driver’s seat, looking over at Twilight while she stared at the dashboard.
“Yo, Twilight!” Pinkie called, waving a hoof in front of her friend’s face. “Equestria to Twilight, er—Enchanted Comic book world to Twilight, come in!”
“I can hear you just fine, Pinkie,” Twilight said exasperatedly, pushing her friend’s hoof away and turning around to face them. “It’s just that something’s been bugging me about this vehicle ever since we commandeered it from those robbers.”
“And what might that be, darling?” Rarity asked.
Twilight pointed to the particular gauge on the dashboard. It was a meter with a white stick and the letters ‘F’ and ‘E’ on either end, colored green and red, respectively. The stick was currently pointing at the ‘F’.
“I remember very distinctly writing about how human automobiles run on gas, and how they have a built-in meter displaying the exact amount remaining,” she explained. She turned back to the meter in question, a pensive frown crossing her face. “If the ‘F’ and the ‘E’ stand for ‘Full’ and ‘Empty’, respectively, then this should be the van’s gas meter, but that can’t be right.”
“Why not, Twi?” Rainbow asked, leaning over the seat to better inspect the meter. “It makes sense to me, and I’ll admit that’s saying something.”
“No, it doesn’t!” Twilight said with a little more volume than she’d intended. Upon realizing this, she cleared her throat and continued. “We just spent an entire night driving across the country. The gas meter should be at least somewhere between Full and Empty, but it isn’t; it’s right smack dab over Full.” She threw her hooves up in exasperation. “Why!?”
“I dunno,” Rainbow said with a shrug. “Maybe they just forgot to add that detail in.”
“That’s impossible,” Twilight affirmed. “This comic has done such a great job at re-creating HUMAN’s world right down to minute details such as fully written novels.” She shook her head. “No, they wouldn’t have left out such an obvious detail unless it was intentional.”
“Well, what’s the problem with that?” Rarity asked with a smile. “If anything, this should be to our benefit, since we won’t have to worry about acquiring more gas or another ride altogether.”
“It’s not that, it’s…” Twilight let out a long-winded sigh and slumped in her seat. “I guess there’s two reasons why it’s bugging me.”
“And they are?”
Twilight sighed again. “The first reason is that… Well, I’m a little peeved that the House of Enchanted Comics would change anything about my work. I guess part of me still holds the HUMAN series close to heart and I can’t bear to see any part of it disregarded, not after all the hard work I put into it.”
“Yeah, I can see how that’d make you upset,” Pinkie said, reaching down to pat Twilight on her withers. “But don’t let yourself get all mopey-dopey because of one little detail, Twilight. That’d just be sad, and sad is my arch nemesis.” She looked Twilight square in the eye. “Don’t let it take you over,” she finished in a low whisper.
Twilight blinked for a moment before smiling. “I’ll try, Pinkie. I’ll try.”
“Glad to hear,” she replied, and retracted her hoof. “So, what’s the second reason?”
“Right, well…” Twilight looked outside the driver’s side window as her smile fell into an uneasy frown. “Knowing now that this comic’s world isn’t entirely faithful to HUMAN, there could be things out there that we haven’t got prior knowledge of. If that’s the case, and we come across them, we could find ourselves stuck on what to do, meaning we won’t be able to leave.”
“Oh my, I do say that is a concern, then,” Rarity said with a gasp.
“Puh-leeease,” Rainbow said, taking a fighting stance. “Anything that gets in our way, I’ll just give’em the ol’ one-two and we’ll be on our way in ten seconds flat!” She capped off her proclamation by punching at the air a few times.
“Just make sure you don’t end up blowing your disguise,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. “Which means no flying. At all.”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya,” Rainbow replied. Then a look of remembrance washed over her. “So Twilight, any idea where we are?”
Twilight looked out the window again, taking in every detail she could of the desert landscape surrounding them and trying to match it to what she remembered of the United States from HUMAN.
“I think—” she said after a long pause, “—we’re in the southwestern United States, which means we need to travel east to get to Cary.”
“But this road doesn’t go east,” Rarity noted, pointing through the windshield toward the highway. “If we’re to go east, we need to head toward that rock formation.”
“Only problem there is that rock formation would end up blocking us,” Twilight replied. “That, and on the off chance someone did see us driving across the desert, we’d arouse too much suspicion.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Rarity asked with a frustrated tinge.
“One moment, please.”
Her friends watched as Twilight reached over and opened up a compartment built into the dashboard in front of the passenger’s seat, revealing a slew of seemingly random junk inside: papers, writing utensils, napkins, unopened straws and salt packets, even a gauge of some kind that looked like a very fat pocket watch with no chain attached. All of these Twilight began lifting out and organizing in neat little piles behind the passenger seat, all while mumbling to herself how ‘it should be in here’ and ‘they’d better not have changed this’. Eventually, she levitated a booklet out of the compartment and brought it over to the others, her eyes lit with excitement.
“Here we go,” she said, sounding very relieved. “I remember writing that automobile drivers typically keep an atlas stashed in their vehicles. Glad to see that aspect hasn’t changed here.”
“Well alright then,” Rarity replied, looking at the atlas with eagerness plainly etched onto her face. “So where do we go?”
Twilight opened the booklet and flipped to a particular page which showed the whole southwestern United States. “Let’s see… we went down I-90, then I-84… 15…… Okay, I know where we are.
“I remember seeing a sign a few miles back saying we’d passed through a town called Mesquite, which means we’ll wind up in Las Vegas if we keep heading straight along this road. From there, we just turn onto ‘I-40’ which’ll lead us straight across the country to Warren’s hometown.”
“Ooh, can we stop in Vegas first!?” Pinkie asked, bouncing up and down excitedly before pausing to grab Rainbow Dash and pulling her close. Pinkie then held out her other hoof toward the van’s ceiling and made a gesture while saying, “Neon. Neon everywhere.”
“No, no stopping,” Twilight said with conviction. “We’ll be driving through on our way, but we are not stopping just to look at all the lights. We can do that just by looking out of the van’s windows, anyway.”
“Indeed we can,” Rarity said, giving Pinkie a disapproving glare. “Remember, no dilly-dallying.”
Pinkie deflated in response, letting go of Rainbow Dash who stared up in thought while tapping her chin. “I wonder what human casinos are like?” she whispered, then turned to Twilight. “Las Vegas was this world’s designated gambling city, right?”
“Yes it was,” Twilight replied with a nod. “But we’re not stopping for that either.”
“Why not?” Dash asked with a tilt of her head. “If we won some money we could afford a ride across the country, you know?”
“Yes, Rainbow Dash, I know that,” Twilight said, bemused. “What I also know, is that casinos, whether in the real world or in a comic book, are always packed full of people. More people equals more risk of our disguises being blown, so we aren’t stopping to gamble. Am I clear?”
Rainbow Dash sat down in a huff, crossed her fore legs and looked away. “Yeah,” she said grumpily.
“Good.” Twilight climbed back into the driver’s seat and gripped the steering wheel with her magic. “Now then, time to get moving. We’ve got a lot of distance to travel, so we’d better be prepared for the long haul.” She turned to look over the seat. “Whose turn is it to press the accelerator?”
“That would be me, Twilight,” Rarity said. She didn’t wait for Twilight to speak again before crawling under the seat and firmly pressing her hoof on the accelerator, sending the group on their way once again.