2...
A week had passed. Twilight had discovered that not just her five closest friends and Spike were going to be pilots this season, but also her boyfriend, Big Macintosh, the ex-Cutie Mark Crusaders, and… Lyra, of all ponies. Despite having hoped this could have been a special thing for just her, she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t ecstatic to have her best friends and acquaintances racing against her on the track. For today, though, all that existed to her was her, her ship, and the track. She was standing in the cockpit of the racecraft, looking around her at the various gauges and dials indicating fuel levels, speed, pitch, yaw, shield, and various other vital functions of the ship. Twilight hadn’t slept in four days for trying to read the instruction manual, which was, quite literally, the thickest instruction manual Twilight had ever seen. At any rate, despite needing to monitor the incredible amount of sensory input being flung at her at hundreds of kilometers an hour as she hurtled down the track, the actual controls for the ship were relatively simple, and specialized for her unicorn nature. A lever that controlled thrust was mounted beneath her chin, designed to be operated by magic. A basic steering wheel was located merely inches in front of her face, again to be operated by magic. A square button beneath her left hoof fired whatever weapon she had handy and a circular button beneath her right would absorb it to restore her shield energy if necessary. Beneath her back hooves were two rectangular buttons that operated the airbrakes, an ingenious system that changed the direction her craft was pointing without actually altering her trajectory that much. Double stomping either of those buttons would result in a valve in the thrust system closing momentarily to redirect thrust sideways, violently and rapidly propelling the ship laterally across the course in a move known as a “sideshift.”
Twilight marveled at the technology that made the ships work. At the birth of the sport, everything had been operated by magic, and a whole slew of unicorns that were all thoroughly exhausted by the end of each race, teams sometimes having to change unicorns mid-race so as not to cause permanent harm from exhaustion. But now… now it was marvelous. In recent years, ponykind had discovered the secrets of splitting the atom, and with it, the need to have Unicorns using magic to run or charge up electronics and technology disappeared. In even more recent years, ponykind had actually managed to create sustainable compact nuclear fusion. That’s how the ships were powered – on-board compact fusion. The ungodly power output of the reactor allowed for the flotation system. An on-board particle accelerator accelerated an electron to nearly the speed of light, increasing its mass to the point where it created a mass of air so dense that the ship didn’t sink through it. It was an ingenious idea, in Twilight’s opinion, and despite the absurd amount of energy and fuel consumed, there was no issue due to being able to synthesize deuterium and tritium via magic. The radiation wasn’t an issue either, as layers of ultrafine lead mesh enchanted to withstand the immense heat of the reactor were places throughout the exhaust system in order to maximize thrust while not turning any racers caught in the exhaust trail into glowing slag. The enchantments had to be refreshed after every race, and are also the cause for the spectacular light shows seen as exhaust trails by the crowd – Unicorn magic is strong, but eighteen million degrees will cause it to spark and wear down in a beautiful manner: the iconic blue and purple trails of ionized magic and air.
At any rate, Twilight was getting ready for her first flight. She had donned the flight suit, an embarrassingly skin-tight cyan and yellow suit that she’d barely had the guts to wear outside of the locker room. Which, she thought, doesn’t make a bit of sense. I’m naked almost all the time anyway…. Today was her first day on the track – she’d been brought to the outskirts of Baltimare to the famed Anulpha Pass racecourse. One of the more simple courses, it generally resembled an oval. Generally. One of Twilight’s favorite corners from any course found it’s home on Anulpha – a wide, humped banked turn that led into an extremely narrow dip before continuing on to an S-bend that a small, single-hulled craft like Feisar could actually get through without needing to turn, given an appropriate angle of attack. As Twilight ran the course in her mind, her memories were disturbed by a voice crackling in her ear. Twilight would have jumped a mile if she hadn’t been restrained by a seven-point safety harness, among other body-immobilizing features, present in the cockpit of the craft.
“Alright, Ms. Sparkle, are you ready to go?” her team manager’s smooth voice and Trottingham accent transmitted magically directly to her eardrum. Twilight took one more glance around the cockpit, making sure everything appeared to be functioning as intended before responding.
“Yes sir, all systems reading at nominal levels.”
“Very well then, releasing final engine limiters and inertial dampeners… now.” Twilight couldn’t help but let out a small gasp of surprise as the massive ship jumped straight up a few feet. She could the engine spinning up behind her, and waited for the signal to begin moving.
“Alright, since this is your first flight, why don’t we start simple. For the first few laps, the speed pads will be disabled, and I want you to keep it at 75% thrust or below. While the shields will be up, it does take them a moment to recharge and they won’t prevent all the damage if you go nose first into a wall at top speed. Does that sound fair?”
“Yes sir,” Twilight had to admit she was a little disappointed she couldn’t go all-in from the start, but she had to admit that her manager’s thoughts made sense.
“Well then, get on with it!” Twilight would have been hurt by the condescending words if she hadn’t practically heard the smile behind his voice. The screen above the starting line changed to simply say “Go!” and Twilight gently pushed the throttle forward.
---
Elsewhere, near Las Pegasus, Rainbow Dash was having her first training day with Icaras. Her day, however, wasn’t going quite as well as Twilight’s. Despite having picked up an affinity for reading years back with help from the purple unicorn, even the abridged manual, cut down by a whopping 750 pages to a mere 1743, proved too much for her to stomach in the week before her first training day. She’d read what she thought was pertinent – controls and readouts – but nothing else. Wearing a similar skin-tight racing suit and strapped into a similar safety harness as her friend on the other side of Equestria, Rainbow Dash examined the cockpit around her. Her front right hoof rested on a pressure-sensitive cross-shaped button that controlled thrust. Under her front left was a joystick that adjusted pitch, yaw, and direction. Her rear hooves covered a square trigger for weapons and power-ups and a circular pad to absorb them. Her manager had impressed on her many times the importance of absorbing weapons instead of using them in her fragile racecraft. After the ninth time, RD had started to believe him, but what still somewhat skeptical. In addition to the hoof-based controls, sensors in the cockpit detected her wing movements and adjusted the airbrakes to match. Flaring a wing twice, rapidly, would result in a sideshift.
“Engine limiters and inertial dampeners released,” a disembodied, mechanical female voice with a Trottingham accent floated through the cockpit. Rainbow Dash had been ready for the rise and relaxed her knees accordingly, legs bending and straightening again in a moment.
“Venom-class fuel detected. Adjusting reactor output accordingly. Reactor output nominal. Weapons disabled. Powerups enabled. Systems nominal. Airbrakes nominal. All systems nominal,” the voice continued, cold and emotionless.
“Can someone shut her up?” Rainbow Dash said.
“Well, some ponies in the older League preferred the synthetic voice, the fount it calming.” The familiar voice of her team manager, and Icaras’ director of operations, Coltnor Burns, replaced the mechanical female sound.
“Well, I don’t. Your voice is much nicer.”
“Well, thanks. At any rate, are you ready to go?”
“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash replied.
“Alright, so, one of the things with Icaras is getting ahead of the pack right from the start. If you press the accelerator right as the countdown says ‘Go!’ you’ll get a significant speed boost. Use this in races to move up, or away from, the pack right from the get-go.”
“Alright, got it.” She was starting to get annoyed.
“As this is your first time piloting an AG Racing Ship, and especially seeing as we had to go to Sol I for our first test… please, for the sake of the unicorns keeping you from dying if you fall off, take it easy.”
“Yep.” Rainbow Dash stated, her eagerness and frustration spilling over a little, “Look, can I just fly now?”
“Ah, yes, sorry. I do have a tendency to ramble…”
The screen above the starting line flashed to a three, a two, and then a one – Rainbow Dash stomped her hoof down on the accelerator as fast as her reflexes allowed the moment it read “Go!”
The next thing she remembered was being on the starting line again, with an exhausted-looking unicorn staring irately at her from the side of the track.
“I suppose it is my fault for telling you about the speed boost, but please, don’t do it again. Keep the thrust low until you get the hang of what you’re doing!” Burns voice, now irritated, filled her head from the audio ports in her helmet.
“Heh… sorry…” Dash squeaked out, before gently pressing on the accelerator and beginning to float around the track.
---
“How in tarnation am I supposed to work this thing?”
“Well, seeing as you lack the extra appendages of a Pegasus or the magical abilities of a unicorn, we’ve fitted the cockpit with a voice recognition system for weapon and powerup controls. Simply say ‘fire’ or ‘use’ for a weapon or powerup, and ‘absorb’ if you need to absorb a powerup. The rest of the controls are hoof-based. Right rear is thrust, front left and right are airbrakes. We’ve been over this, dear.” Auricom’s team manager’s friendly, melodic voice reminded her a little too much of her over-enthusiastic cousin from Appleloosa.
“I know… it’s just… I’m a simple pony. I’m not stupid, just simple. This is kind of… sensory overload for me.”
The orange earth mare was telling the truth (a thing that came quite naturally to her) – the cockpit of her Auricom racecraft was far more complex than anything she’d ever seen before. The way the pilots gracefully guided their craft around every curve, bend, and chicane of every track gave no hint of the massive amount of sensory input they dealt with ever second they spend flying. Come to think of it, she’d never heard or seen anything having to do with the cockpit of an AG Racecraft.
“I never said you were. Come on dear, are you ready? The ship’s all ready to go, it’s just waiting for you.”
“I suppose so…” Applejack made one last quick glance around the cockpit to make sure everything appeared to be ok, and gingerly pressed down on the accelerator.
---
Elsewhere, racing around the iconic Synchro Logistics Dynamo of Moa Therma, a newly repainted purple and white Piranha craft racked up lap after lap, its pilot beating her own record over and over, having been running perfect laps for hours.
“Excuse me, Miss Rarity, but you’ve been out there for six hours. You’ve run thirty-seven perfect laps in a row, with full throttle control and no Pilot Assist. You’ve gotten to the point where you’re beating your own lap record by less than a thousandth of a second. It’s clear that you’ve got control of your craft and know what you’re doing. I think we can call it a day.”
“Hmm, what was that darling?”
“Miss Rarity, you’re almost out of fuel –”
“Oh?” Rarity glanced over at the fuel gauge – sure enough, she was almost out; likely only enough for seven or eight more laps at best.
“Oh dear. I’m sorry, I was just kind of in the zone there…” Rarity laughed nervously, she hadn’t realized how long she’d been on the track, and realized she should probably be getting home.
“That’s ok. The more practice you get the better, we just hadn’t planned on you being on the track so long. And, well, running out of fuel while piloting one of these craft is rather… dangerous, and damaging to the track, the ship, and potentially the pilot.” Rarity liked the voice of her manager. It was foreign, exotic, comforting. It helped his case that he was an extremely friendly pony, as well.
“Alright, I’ll… umm… how do I stop?”
“Is that why you’ve been out there so long?”
“… Maybe a little. I honestly was enjoying myself too much to realize how much time had passed, but the concept of feathering the accelerator to get such a graceful, powerful craft to stop where I want it to just seems… wrong.”
Her manager simply laughed.
“When you get to the starting grid, let off the accelerator and open both airbrakes. You’ll slow down well enough.”
Rarity did as she was told, and promptly slammed her (thankfully, helmeted) face into the thrust lever, knocking it forward and propelling herself down the track.
“Umm… maybe just one more lap?” Rarity was glad that her team couldn’t see her extremely embarrassed expression as she gradually worked her way around the course for another go at stopping.
---
Realizing the fact that their pilots had been born after the fall of the F9000 league and the intense friendship between them, Mirage, EG-X, and Assegai decided to host a few mock races to train their pilots instead of the more traditional speed-lap initiation. The friendly rivalry that the three companies shared also meant the winner of the mock track day had some bragging rights even before the season started. It also helped that unicorn triplets were the managers for each team. This would be an interesting race, though – the three pilots had literally no racing experience. Given the equally low skill levels, and the fact that for the first race weapons would be deactivated, this was a test of courage and hardware. EG-X’s craft was the slowest through the turns but the fastest out, and Assegai’s tight turning radius was bought at the cost of acceleration out of the corners. Mirage had built an obscenely well-balanced craft, almost to a fault – the ship was a true jack-of-all-trades, ace-of-none. Their pilots knew this as well, and Applebloom and Sweetie Belle were quite nervous. Scootaloo, on the other hoof, was quite sure she was going to win.
“So, you girls ready to lose? Coming in second and third, just like with your Cutie Marks?”
Sweetie Belle harrumphed over the intercom and Applebloom hastily replied, audibly hurt.
“Scootaloo! That wasn’t nice!”
“Sorry girls… I just get excited in competition, you know?”
“We know,” Sweetie and Applebloom replied in unison, Scootaloo blushing behind her helmet.
“Alright girls, if you’ve finished your friendly banter, are you ready to race?” An unnervingly immaterial voice filled all three of the young mares heads, giving them all a small start before remembering where the voice was coming from and whom it belonged to.
“Oh! Yes sir!”
“Mhmm!”
“Ah guess so…”
“Well, good then. I’m about to release the limiters on your craft, then we’ll start the countdown and get going, ok?” Sweetie Belle gasped slightly as her lightweight Assegai racecraft sprung up a few feet and began idly rolling left and right, a deep bass rumble reverberating through the sleek ship as the fusion reactors limiters were released. She could tell Applebloom had a similarly exhilarating experience from the words she breathed over the intercom.
“This feels… powerful.” Applebloom looked over the instrument panel, watching lights, dials, and gauges light up indicating a multitude of green-lit system checks. Similarly, Scootaloo was still trying to catch her breath, her wings twitching spasmodically as she tried to contain her excitement.
“It’s like… it’s like I’m flying!!” she squeed to herself, folding her wings down after noticing her ship’s airbrakes had opened, mirroring her own excitement. Glancing up, she realized the countdown had started, and she lifted her hoof in anticipation. The sign flashed to “Go!” and she stomped her hoof down. She felt the massive power surge behind her as the deep green, mantis-like Mirage craft lunged forward in one blinding moment of acceleration… and proceeded to pinball off the wall at the first turn. The shields flared and she blacked out momentarily.
Shaking her head from the force of the collision, she looked up to see a yellow ship and a blue ship blitz past.
“Look who’s racing for second now!” Sweetie Belle chirped over the ship-to-ship intercom.
“Hey! No fair! Get back here!” Scootaloo banked her craft right and pressed the accelerator again, much more gingerly, the ionized magic trail forming behind the craft as it bobbed and weaved over speed pads, rapidly making up for lost ground.
---
Twilight meandered home. It had been a long day, and she was quite tired from the constant expenditure of magic necessary to control the throttle precisely. She wondered to herself if the Pegasus and Earth Pony controls were as tiring, before reminding herself she’d never be on a racetrack for seven hours straight in an actual event. She felt like she’d practically mastered Anulpha today, but that was only one of more than a dozen League courses and at the lowest of the four speed classes her craft operated at. The speed had been beyond anything she’d ever experienced, and it was hundreds of kilometers an hour slower than what she’d be experiencing in a Phantom Class race, if she ever got that far. She chuckled and mentally chided herself for thinking she’d ever be skilled enough to pilot at the Phantom level. This first season will probably be entirely Venom class, maybe with some Flash towards the end… and next season… Twilight Sparkle smiled to herself. Maybe I will get to race Phantom after all. By now she’d arrived at her library home, and upon opening the door, was tackled by a distraught dragon.
“Twilight! Thank goodness you’re ok!”
“Oh course I’m ok, Spike, why wouldn’t I be?”
“Everypony else was back hours ago! I thought maybe you’d had an accident, and were in the hospital, or worse!” Spike sobbed as he hugged Twilight close.
“Spike… there hasn’t ever been a fatality in this sport. You know that.”
“I do, but… Twilight, you’re the closest thing I’ve got to family. You’ve been with me my entire life, and I love you. Not like I love Rarity, but in a weird kind of sisterly sort of way…” Spike trailed off, giving a weak laugh as he wiped his eyes.
“I know what you mean, Spike, and I feel the same way about you. That doesn’t mean I’m not willing to shoot you if it means I’ll win!” Twilight tried to ease the situation a little, hoping it would make Spike feel better.
“Same to you, Twilight. Hey, it’s pretty late. Why don’t we head to bed?” He was still sniffling a little, but cheering up.
“Yeah, we should,” Twilight’s horn ignited momentarily with a brief mane-styling spell, “but I’m feeling so tired I could just pass out~ I need a big strong handsome dragon man to help me upstairs!” Spike rolled his eyes as Twilight, no bearing Rarity’s mane, held a hoof over her eyes and over-dramatically flopped to the ground. She snickered as he unceremoniously picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder, muttering under his breath as he ascended the stairs and threw her onto her mattress before curling up in his own bed at the footboard of Twilight’s. She almost felt bad for teasing him over his love, but Rarity’s long-since acceptance and reciprocation of Spike’s feelings made it only funnier to her.
“Goodnight, Twilight,” he grumbled.
“Goodnight, Spike.”
Twilight sighed as sleep began to take her, pleasant thoughts of the days experiences filling her mind as she remembered what was happening next week:
Combat training.
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Here's Chapter 2 for all 65 of you that read this. Sorry it took me so long. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it!
I see the viewcount going up, but the comments and vote counts stay the same... I'd just like SOME feedback, even if it's negative, please...
Uranium is used in fissure reactors, not fusion reactors. Hydrogen is used in fusion reactors, specifically two isotopes of Hydrogen called Deuterium and Tritium. Fusion as the name suggests is not the splitting of the nucleus of a heavy atom, but the joining together of two lighter nuclei into one. As for the reactor being safe, well I'll let that go because magic is involved. Aside from that the story is okay, just some fact checking would be nice. Anyway good story keep it up.
1775564
I... I knew that... (seriously, I've taken a nuclear physics course, how did I screw that up...) This grievous error has been corrected. Ugh... *smashes face on table*
No worries mate, happens to everyone every now an then, our minds are filled with the information but, then we have to express it and that's when the snafu occurs. Anyway, it's nice to see you changed it and hey now you have two reviews for your story, even if they're just me. Well have a good day or week or insert length of time you desire to be good.
"the fount it calming.” "they found it calming" maybe? Anyways, just found this story. At first I'm like "WIPEOUT AND PONIES?!?! FTW!!!"
Oh man, I used to love WipEout. Played Pure and Pulse on my PSP before it was stolen.
So which of the CMC got which ship? It's not that apparent. Overall, not the best writing I've seen, but I'm loving the story!
ASSEGAI IS BEST SHIP!
3423479
Well, getting off the grid will give you an early lead though, and the Goteki's top speed will give it a bit of an advantage over other ships such as the FEISAR, and it has fairly strong shields (I'm talking about the Fury Goteki, not the normal one). Also, it is Hellfire_WZ's favorite ship to fly, and I also like the feel of a middleweight craft. It also can't be pushed around easily (Unless you slam it into a wall, flying off the track and potentially killing it).
At least none of us fly an Icaras...
Exactly.
Actually, I would suggest including the Icaras fail into your story!
3422746
Well, if you have good enough handling of your ship, you won't need a ton of thrust to get you out of corners. I'll admit though, getting hit by by anything really kills Assagai's momentum.
Gonna go play that right now...
3422746
I've never played Fury actually. I've only played Pure and Pulse. But I agree, Goteki is a beast in Fury. Triakis was also ridiculously good in Pulse, due to the "RID" glitch.
I think Trixie would be a perfect pilot for Icarus...
3434078
PSN ID?
I want to see if a Goteki can beat an Assagai in a Tourney. Also, just did 200 LAPS on Anulpha, top 3000 time!
My PSN ID is: pp-123 btw
3434886
Well, unfortunately, I have no way to play anymore, except for a PS2 emulator, which my poor computer can barely handle.
3437850
That sucks. If that's the case, if you have the money, upgrade your processer and/or hardware that you're running the game on. If you can't do that, then just play Wipeout Pure/Pulse, as they use up less RAM and less processing power.
WHO WILL WIN?
GOTEKI 45 VS ASSEGAI VS FEISAR
3441172
Well, It's a laptop integrated graphics, so not much upgrading to be done there. But once I get a better job, a better laptop will be one of the first things on the list. I've not tried Pure, as I've not found a stable PSP emulator.
Feisar stands no chance.
3441653
Or does it? (I'm talking about the FEISAR)
With a handling stat of 100, nothing will turn quicker. Especially with the Fury variant having the exact same top speed (Well almost, Goteki's is higher: 786 km/h to the FEISAR's 784 km/h on Phantom Class), but the thrust of the Goteki is just amazing. Both craft, the Goteki and the FEISAR are forgiving, as the Goteki's thrust can get you out of pretty nasty collisions and situations, the FEISAR's handling would let you avoid them completely, as well as the Goteki can get back on the power after a nasty hit from a weapon pretty quickly.
3445552
Well, let me say that I've never actually played against real people, but even against the hardest AI, Feisar has never done anything to doge attacks or even make itself harder to hit. I'm sure a good player would be much more aware of his surroundings, and take advantage of the ship's maneuverability. I've never really flown Feisar much myself, so I don't know how capable it is at avoiding damage. I remember reading somewhere that although it's not a stat listed for each ship, the ships themselves do have unique weights, (can't remember which game was specified either, maybe it's all of them) and with Feisar being such a light ship, it is set back quite a bit by any attacks.
TL;DR from what I know playing against the AI, Fiesar's ability to dodge incoming damage due to its increased handling is negligible.
3446295
Are we not surprised?
So the question is now:
Goteki VS Assegai, insane thrust versus an all-rounder?
3446902
Depends on the pilots, and which game. I'm guessing you're most familiar with Fury, whereas I played Pure and Pulse. I'm probably terrible now too, haven't played Pulse at anything more than 20 FPS for over 3 years now.
3449594
Exactly. I've been playing HD Fury for almost a month now, so I am fairly new, but can handle Phantom Speeds on simple tracks (Anulpha, Moa Therma, The Amphiseum, and actually a bit of Sebenco Climb) against the Skilled AI.
In Pulse, the handling of the ships were nearly identical to HD and Fury (I have played Pulse before until the disk cracked into many pieces...
However, that said, I have a bit of a test to see which ship is "better" (As you said, it depends on the pilot) (And what lap times the ships in both games produce):
So, the test is this:
Do Moa Therma Forwards (White for Pulse) - Speed Lap - Phantom Class Speed.
I will do the HD and the Fury ships (Goteki VS Assegai) and post the times in the next comment I make, and you will do the Pulse runs with those ships as well. We'll compare lap times after. We'll both do 7 laps in each ship.
EDIT: Zone Zeus reached! (Zone 79 on that run)
Also 100000 Loyalty with EG-X and Goteki 45!
Nice story. Can't believe someone did another viideo game-pony crossover. Now if I have enough greens to buy a new PSVITA for 2048. I'm stuck with Pulse on a PSP emulator.
1435490 RETURN TO THIS STORY!!!!!!!!!! >:(