//------------------------------// // Item 51 // Story: Longbox One-Shots, Book 1 // by EngineGear //------------------------------// Sparrow Lightning wasn't too sure about this plan. His marefriend, Ebony Lunar had always been the brains, while he was mostly the muscle (with some brains for quick-thinking). Lightning had second thoughts about this "work" they've been doing. The way he saw it, It was only a matter of time until their luck ran out. Even since the "Incident", their bank accounts, including Lunar's late parents' life insurance, were flush out due to the stock market crashing, literally. Ebony Lunar was an unemployed nurse, with extraordinary surgical talent and he was an unemployed inventor and scientist with a pronounced talent for technology. They were made for each other and so far, it hasn't worked out until a "golden opportunity" came along. Sparrow was about to said something when Ebony cut him off. "I know and I can just tell you're about to say it......so...do. not. say it." "I think we should bail." "I knew it. I just knew it." "Ebony, just listen to me for once; I don't think we can keeping doing this. I mean all those 'jobs', and for what? Just to fix our financial problems? Is that how you see it?" "I see this as a sign, okay? That thing fell from the skies, into your lab." "What makes you so sure that the sign is pointing in the right direction?" "You made me sure because you got it to work." Lightning was still not budging, and Ebony could feel it. What he needed were support, confidence, and a little bit of innovation. "I know this right sounds hard, but I don't want to wait for somepony to give us a chance. It's time that we took a chance for ourselves." Sparrow sighed. "You're right." Ebony smiled "You know I'm right. I'm always right. About you, that is." "Alright, let's go." As the unicorn and bat-pony placed their masks on, they stepped out of the cart and entered a local bank with a strange looking weapon with them. The ponies and guards looked their weapon strangely before it fires across the bank. The ponies panicked as the guards were easily taken down one by one. The rest of the guards straight up ran for their lives. The robbers demanded that the bank tellers open the vaults, grabbing as many bits as they can, with one of them calming down the terrified civilians, and then making a getaway, blasting near the cops trying to stop them. ///////////////// "What you boys are looking at is Las Pegasus, five days after the Battle of Manehattan. Manechester, seven days the Battle of Manehattan, Ponyville, two days after that robbery and nine days after the Battle of Manehattan, and finally Canterlot, yesterday afternoon" Wind Rider concluded. "My brother and I were just there, they have one of the best fancy restaurants ever," Flam said, irritating Rider and then shutting up at the same time. By the look of things, Wind Rider wasn't very pleased about this. "Of the alien tech we've recovered, how is it that only one of them wasn't collected? This footage alone proves that not only have you failed in collecting all of them, this gun is the only one functioning, while the rest are all dormant. To be fair, I don't think both of you are taking this assignment very seriously." "That's funny" Flim commented. "I was just thinking the same thing about you. While you've been in here gathering video clips, we've been out investigating. Turns out a motel manager met with the couple matching the description; they paid him in cash, full. We'd liked to get a go ahead to apprehend them." "Yeah, yeah, I understand. You got the go ahead, Flim and Spike." Wind Rider froze when he realized his mistake. [Flam] Spike? "Sorry, a force of habit." [Flim] Yeah, we all miss that little dragon. "Alright boys, your mission is to find the alien weapon and neutralize the outlaws." //////////////// "Geez, maybe you should hold the gun more often", Sparrow Lightning complained, massaging his foreleg. "If I keep this up, I might suffer an advanced case of carpal tunnel." With the authorizes on their trail, they needed to take a break from their "work" and lay low for a while Sparrow Lightning looked and saw Ebony smiling back at him. It was a genuine, fun-loving, laughable smile. They can finally start a new life, never worrying about money issues, and it's all because of the alien gun that fell into Lightning's lab. "So, Ebony....how much did we get?" "Enough." "Enough what?" "Enough to do whatever we want." The two embraced and kissed as they went to bed. Before they had a full make-out session, there was loud music next door, booming with high volume. "I know this song, it's Free Bird; This one has a great guitar solo," Lightning commented. Ebony gave him a deadpanned look. It was almost like he didn't know how loud the solo was blaring. "Alright, alright, I'll tell them to keep it down." Sparrow Lightning went to the room beside his own so that he could ask the ponies in there to turn down the volume of the music they were playing. "Hello, anypony in there? Could you please keep the volume down?" Suddenly, the door opened as Flim and Flam jumped him and placed a restraining bolt on his horn for safety measures. Sparrow tried to fight back, but the brothers proved to be stronger than him. Soon, they had him pinned down on the ground as they tried to cuff him. "Quit squirming!" one of the agents shouted. "This will all be over soon." However, Sparrow wasn't about to give up and managed to pick himself up and smash one of the agents against the wall and kick the other in the face. He used this opportunity to knock the music blaring stereo off the shelf to warn his marefriend. "EBONY!!" he shouted. "IT'S THE COP---" Sparrow felt a hoof in his mouth, shoving in a gag. Ebony, without a second thought, grabbed the weapon, arming it. "HIT THE DECK, BABY," she yelled as the weapon blasted through the walls, revealing two unicorns gagging her coltfriend. [Flam] We can talk through---- "YOU BASTARDS!! GET THE BUCK OFF HIM!!" Ebony fires again as the unicorns took cover. "Lightning, you okay, baby?" As Ebony searched the other room, she found her coltfriend, bounded and gagged. He was trying to say something to Ebony, but she couldn't make it out. It was almost if he was trying to warn her. Before she realized it, the two unicorns jumped her and tried to take away the weapon. However, Ebony fought back as Sparrow charged between them, knocking away the weapon. It spun and spun, getting twitching and haywire, and as the four watched in utter shock, the weapon fired. Bits flew everywhere from the destroyed duffle bags and landed on the floor, most of them burnt and dented. Some time later, Sparrow Lightning and Ebony Lunar were tied up, arguing about handle the situation. One of the agents levitated the weapon and showed it to the couple. "Look, about the roughhousing in the room, I'm really sorry." "And I'm really sorry for blasting a hole in the wall. We good?" Ebony asked innocently. The two agents, however, weren't buying it. [Flim] Fifty. Fifty known alien objects hit the ground after the portal closed above Manehattan. All dormant and dead. Except for this one. The weapon was then placed inside a case to bring back to HQ. [Flam] This one works just fine, do you mind telling us how? "Well....Sparrow got it to work." Ebony exclaimed. Sparrow gave her one of those looks like she was kidding or not. "What? You did. You did get it work. It fell inside your lab, you fixed it and got it to work." "I can show how." "He'd loved to show you how." "Just anything but, we can't, we can't go to jail, please?" "Look at him, Look at us, we can't go to jail." "Jail?" said Flim. "Who said anything about jail?" Sparrow and Ebony had a huge sigh of relief. "Our mission," Flam says. " was to find the alien weapon, and to neutralize both of you." Flam took out a knife as the couple gulped with panic. //////////////////// "Agent Wind Rider," Fleetfoot said, called from communications. "Agents Flim and Flam are requesting an entry." "Send them in." Wind Rider replied. "About damn time you two showed up. You were supposed to report in ten hours ago. 50,000 bits worth property damage and I've got Director Spitfire breathing down on my neck. You boys better have a good reason---" Wind Rider stopped to see not only Flim and Flam but the outlaw couple next to them. "Agent Rider," said Flim. "My brother and I would like you to meet Ebony Lunar and Sparrow Lightning. Sparrow here is the latest addition to W.I.N.G.S.' R&D think tank, he's going to help us reverse-engineer some of the alien technology. Ready to earn that badge?" "You bet," Sparrow said, excited. Before they can leave, Wind Rider stopped them. "Stop right there you two, I---" "Almost forgot" Flam interrupted. "Ebony is now your new assistant, and when I mean "assistant", I mean your new protégé." "That...is ridiculous." "Don't worry, Wind Rider," Flim said. "She'll learn everything about you, how you handle missions, and the others thing you do." "Well, I don't see another chair." [Flam] "Now that is ridiculous." The two brothers left with Sparrow to the R&D, ignoring Wind Rider's calls to come back, leaving him with Ebony Lunar. "Do you know how to make coffee?" Wind Rider asked. "No." Wind Rider was smitten; Not because he was already extremely unimpressed and not too keen on the brothers' idea, considering Ebony's incompetence in such work here in W.I.N.G.S., lacking any particular capability, other than her medical skills he researched. He was smitten on the fact that she's not skilled enough to make coffee.