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// Chapter 7 - The Six Dollar Car 
// Story: Beetle & Blood 
// by The Wind King 
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Blue Beetle sat there in a grey void, staring forwards at himself as he slowly rusted away.

It was funny, he thought to himself. He’d never had to think about it before, but there was a strange sort of immortality to his old life. Parts could be replaced, rust could be cleaned away, a hammer and wrench would fix him rather than make the problem worse.

His gaze fell away from the half-buried carcass of metal and oil to blearily focus on the muddy ground, scraps of iron and chips of paint that had flaked off of his old body being slowly swallowed by rain and dirt. Would his new body have that same sort of immortality? Could he simply replace his new doors, or hood, or engine if they got damaged? If that was possible why didn’t The Knight ever do that? If anypony had ever deserved that sort of kindness it was him.

Grey mist pressed in against him, shadows of the last time he’d seen The Knight threatened to take over his dream. Memories of his owner’s helplessness and worry pushed at his thoughts before he squashed them. There was supposed to be an order to his dreams.

Dreams, heh. He’d never had to dream before. All he had had to do was wait for his owner to tell him when and where to go and he’d go.

“So, what kind of car are you looking for, Mr…?” The rough voice carried into the grey mist, waves of sound brushing away the fog from the edges of scrap mountains to reveal them in all their terrible inevitability. The rotting carcasses of vehicle and appliance alike as great a testament to death, decay, and entropy as any graveyard or mausoleum, before they faded back into grey mist.

“Dresden, Harry Dresden.” The second voice rolled over the scrap yard despite how quiet it was, and Blue Beetle twisted his head to look in the direction it had come from. The now visible garage building was barely large enough to house two trucks side by side, a rolling door dwarfed by the towers of old tires and empty chassis surrounding it. “Something cheap, reliable, old, and easy to fix.”

Blue Beetle continued to stare at the building, even as the rolling door eased itself to the side. The heavy steel slab grinded to the side on rusted wheels, only to clang open with the finality of an iron bell. A pair of ponies he swore he recognised exited the building.

Slowly the building behind the two started to melt away into grey mist as the two picked their way across the scrapyard, although only the brown maned unicorn whose horn seemed to scrape the sky from this angle was struggling to not lose his footing on the muddy ground. Blue Beetle could feel tears pooling at the the corner of his eyes as he watched his old owner struggle to not faceplant into the mud, bone white fur stained brown where it splattered against the parts of his fetlocks that the long canvas coat didn’t cover.

He could feel his breath picking up as memories sprang unbidden into his mind, the silhouettes of days long gone by playing against the grey mist; images of the times spent idling by the side of the road just waiting and watching, of mornings with the young monster learning magic by proxy, of driving away from the monsters and demons that sought to tear him and his master wheel from limb, of afternoons spent in the weak Chicago sun while his owner—stripped down to shirt sleeves—cleaned and polished and cared for him. Thoughts of every time he’d broken down only for his owner to have him fixed and made roadworthy again, to give him a purpose again, a purpose he was glad to fulfil no matter how much it took from him.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Blue Beetle turned to look away from his owner, staring instead at the much shorter pegasus who had started talking again, this time without the need to breathe apparently. The dappled gray mechanic was almost flying through the dismal little yard, ignoring the frictionless mud underhoof.

“It’s a little bit further back but I should have something that fits all your needs.” Burnt umber eyes tracked the duo as they continued ever deeper into the metallic necropolis, both of them eventually coming to a halt in front of the midden of rust and that held his old body.

“Found this when I was looking for a couple of spare parts,” Mike placed a hoof against the hood of Blue Beetle’s old body before wiping it across, scraping away a thin trail of dirt and rust to reveal the mostly intact paint job. The baby blue paint cutting through the rust and grime made it look as if storm clouds had parted to show the summer sky. “Old Volkswagen Beetle, model ‘56 by the looks of it. The fact it's been at the base of the pile seems to have kept most of the weather off. The original upholstery and panneling’s been ruined, but the actual innards are still in good working order or easy enough to repair or replace.” Falling back to his hooves, Mike looked up at the tower of scrap that seemed to loom less and less with each passing moment. “Shouldn’t take too long to pull it out either.” The pegasus muttered to himself before turning to face Harry.

“You won’t look pretty, and you won’t be fast, but you’ll get to where you want to go with a minimum of fuss and if it breaks down I could fix it with my eyes closed and my hooves tied behind my back.” The pegasus finished as he started to hover besides the gaunt unicorn, pride and anticipation mixing on his face. Harry continued to stare at the metal carcass while rain fell across his back and dying metal groaned around him.

“Is that the original paint job?” The quiet voice cut through the groaning noise of the scrapyard around the two ponies. Mike paused for a moment before replying.

“As far as I can tell.”

“How much more to touch it up?”

Blue Beetle let the noises of the conversation drift away as he smiled, gazing at his old body. The sounds of the two pony's conversation fading away, before a new sound echoed out over the expanses of discarded machinery. The whinnying cries of a foal tugging his lips upwards as he muttered one of the few things he could halfway remember The Knight saying to himself, before he cradled his newborn self against his barrel; the dream fading away around him as he drifted into wakefulness.

“A time to die, and a time to be born.”





Something about the fractures in Blue Beetle’s mind had kept Luna from truly entering his dream, leaving her to watch as the strange images unfolded before her. Her inability to gain entry leaving her with only more questions.

Who were those ponies? Where was the location she had just seen? What kind of thing had her newest nephew been? What were those shadows she had seen surrounding him? Why had his dream seemed so unformed when even a foal could dream a world into existence?

Snorting in frustration, she didn’t bother trying to hold the dream together as Blue Beetle faded from her dreamscape. The moon called to her to be set, and she couldn’t leave Celestia to do the task alone.

Answers would have to wait.


CHAPTER END