//------------------------------// // Central: The Fiery InferNOPE Part 2- Changes Were Made // Story: Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship(Season 1) // by Barrobroadcaster //------------------------------// "Dan, put the moron down!" "THANK YOU MISTER LAWYER!" Spinner said, her voice so high it almost screeched. But Dan had other plans. "No, Nicky! At the very least, tossing off the dead weight will make us go faster and might slow that thing down! I'm thinking pragmatically! Aren't I?" he asked Spinner, still holding her aloft. "I'M STUPID! PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!" "Awww, sweetheart, you just gave me a reason TO kill you." "But she made you "awww," Fusey pointed out. "You can't kill a cute pony." "Eh," Dan replied. "We have enough cute with Chrys. And Fluffle," he added a moment after. "And Twilight and... you two, and so on, so we're at our cute quota." He raised Spinner up again, "Ditchin' the henchhorse!" "OH GAWD PLEASE NO!" Phoenix grabbed the captive Spinner and set her down. "Dan, focus. There's a giant robot crab-scorpion-spider pony bearing down on us and we need a way out." Dan looked ahead. The tube stretched on in a cartoony sequence loop that made it evident that even the animation budget for the bad guys was incredibly cheap. Dan looked behind them and saw the robot still chasing them, skating towards them on its insect/crustacean-like legs. It was not in an animation sequence loop, probably because robots are expensive in every category, and was advancing on them, slowly gaining. It snapped its pincers at Dan's neck. Dan looked back to the controls. "Okay... this one controls how fast we're going and this one controls the direction," he said. "Neither of which are helpful." He looked around at the tube they were in. Despite its massive size, there were no doors or pathways leading out now that they were on the main track yet again. Occasionally, they went through one of the glass sections but other than that, no exits. But it did give him an idea. "Quick! Hand me a moron!" Phoenix's brain temporarily malfunctioned as the phrases "they're not morons" and "which one" tried to come out of his mouth at the same time. Instead, he asked, "What for?" "Give me the silver one!" He grabbed Silver Spoon and pressed her face against the controls, "Utensil mare! Talk on the radio and make that thing stop chasing us!" "Arrvv vrrrbb brrrmmbrrr," she muffled out. Dan pulled her face off. "What?!" "I can't control it," Silver said plainly. "We disengaged her from the core and let her loose. She's on her own now." "Wonderful!" Dan sarcastically yelled. "ARRRGGH I AM NOT DYING IN THIS TUBE!" Phoenix looked around, searching for ideas himself. "Our hazmat suits! What if we made it look like we were still on the tram, we distracted the mech and then jumped off?" "Yes! Yes, Nicky, I like that idea. How are we going to distract her?" Phoenix looked at their cargo. The thought of "sacrificing the morons" came to him again. Although he dismissed it at first, he realized he may have been quick to do so. He rubbed his chin and looked at the prisoners. "Take off your clothes." The Blasties' eyes lit up. "Awesome! We're gonna get naked!" "No, take off THEIR clothes. I have an idea." "Ooooh, this is gonna be good," Dan said, rubbing his hands together maliciously. He and Phoenix crowded around the three captive prisoner ponies, their shadows casting over them to signify the darkness of their sinister plan. Two minutes later, said plan was put into motion. Three hazmat suits tied together in a string smacked Magic Gear VOLCANUS in the face, momentarily obscuring her vision. "Seriously? If you think your dirty laundry is going to stop me from smashing you, you're going to need something a lot stronger than that." Just as soon as she removed the suits, Dan's underpants whapped her right between the eyes. "AAAAAAHHHH! DEAR TUBE GOD, WHYY?!!" Dan put his hand on Phoenix's shoulder as the two watched the mechanical monstrosity flail behind them. "Not a bad plan, Nicky. Seen better, but not bad. Good thing I always wear at least two pairs of underwear just in case." The Blast Sisters clapped. "Yayy! Now Phoenix, take your pants off!" "Yes, please!" "Haha," he blushed, "no girls, I think one distraction is enough." "What distraction?" "We can both be your girlfriend at the same time," Fusey whispered in his ear. Phoenix gulped in response. "I've tied up the controls!" Dan yelled. "Everyone, get ready to jump off!" Behind them, the giant mech was still trying to un-obscure its vision from the tiny pair of white briefs stuck on its armor. Fixated and disgusted, it pinched at its forehead where they were stuck on, desperate to remove them but to no avail. It still skated after them, but could not see them through the more immediate concern of undergarments stuck to its metal, possibly oozing Dan juices into its chassis. Dan jumped off the tram, followed by the rest of them. They landed on the walkway next to the tram's monorail, thankful that as usual, evil lairs didn't have handrails to get in the way. "Ah, there we go," Dan said. "She'll be chasing that yellow go kart now instead of us. Genius plan, Nicky." They celebrated, with Phoenix breathing a sigh of relief and the Blasties twirling around, holding their hooves cutely as they spun. "Uh, one thing, Dan," Phoenix said. "What's that?" "You did remember to untie Silver Spoon and the others before you tied up the controls, right?" "Uhh..." Dan thought aloud, and slowly held up the twine they'd used to restrain their prisoners as he did so. It unspooled in his hands until finally it became taut. "Gonna have to get back to you on that one Ni-" "DAN LET GO OF THE-" Too late. The cord caught them and yanked them back into the tram's monorail path. Wrapped around Dan's waist and, by extension wrapped around the rest of them, it began pulling them along the tram. Fortunately, this action of the line tightening dislodged the two Pulse Rifles from the bed of the tram, knocking them directly into Dan's path. Within moments and in incredibly-cartoony fashion, Dan and Phoenix were now wrapped in a bundle along with their friends, using the Pulse Rifles as a pair of skis. "THIS IS INSANE!" Phoenix yelled. "WHY DO HORRIBLE THINGS KEEP HAPPENING TO US?!" "I needed that second pair of underwear right now!" Dan yelled, his spine straightening as the ponies bound to him pulled him down. "AND NOW WE'RE CLOSER! WE'RE CLOSER TO IMMINENT DEATH BECAUSE OF YOU!" Phoenix continued to yell. Dan frowned at him. "We're not THAT much closer to it." Directly behind them, VOLCANUS was carefully peeling off the underwear with the edge of its pincer. Dan and Phoenix and their friends/foes were bound to them, all helpless as the two humans balanced on assault rifles, skiing through a tunnel of solid steel, being chased by a giant robotic crab-thing. The insanity, impossibility and sheer stupidity of the situation was not lost on any of them. Finally, VOLCANUS dislodged the undergarment. "EWW. Ewww-ewww-eww. See? This is why people hate humans. You're all disgusting and your only real strategy is to just fly by the seat of your pants and throw things. Including your pants. But it's okay! Auntie Volca is going to end all your problems, and your species right now. So hold still." She raised her metal pincer and prepared to bring it down. And that was when the tram passed the first mine. Because it wasn't actually touching the monorail, the mine wasn't triggered by the tram. Because the mine had been placed directly in the center of the track, Dan and Phoenix easily swerved with what little control they had to avoid it. But because her two back legs were actually skating on the rail itself, Magic Gear VOLCANUS actually triggered the mine and exploded. "Aaauuh!" "Ha! HahaHA!" Dan laughed. "We're passing back over the bombs we planted!" Fusey cheered. Powdy nodded. "And once again, we prove that explosives are the solution to all our problems." "Yep," her sister agreed. "Didn't we plant like fifty more?" "Oh boy." Strings of the mines the two sisters had primed exploded as the mech raced over them in pursuit of the tram. Although they did not do much damage, they were at least annoying. *BLAM-BLAM-BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM-BLAM-BLAM* *BLAM* "Urrggh... ohhhhhggguh," VOLCANUS said, dazed. "Okay, fine! You set boobytraps on the floor, but watch this!" She inverted her legs and clamped onto the ceiling. Although she could no longer skate, she was at least keeping up with them. "You're mine now, vertebrates!" Blast Fuse and Blast Powder, stuck together, looked up at the ceiling and the giant bug-crab creature still chasing them. They both knew what would come next. "We mined the ceiling right?" "Eeyep." "Hold onto your butts." The first explosion barely made VOLCANUS lose her balance but the next five in a row almost had her dangling. By the time the last one hit, she fell hard... and in to the next string of mines the Blasties had planted, which was actually their first. *BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM-BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM* The explosions shook the tube, causing the metal to fracture and bend with heat. After the final mine exploded, the tube broke. The world at the end of the tube dropped and Dan and company screamed as the tube the tram was pulling them through now crumpled like a soda can and dropped into the complex below, with them and VOLCANUS still in it. The tube landed among several Soviet submarines, knocking them out of their assemblies. They had landed in the middle of the weapons factory floor.