"'Come alone'," Dan read the message allowed. "Well obviously, I'm not doing that."
"What if whoever these guys are refuse to speak to you?" Phoenix asked, tapping the phone's screen. (They sound ominous enough that they're not likely to like refusals.)
"Then it's obviously their loss, Nicky. When someone tells you to 'come alone' or meet them by yourself, don't," Dan said. "Even if it was like an ultimatum situation or a hostage exchange, I'd have you and Chrys out of sight."
"Speaking of hostages, it's surprising Vice/Rice hasn't leveraged Rarity and the princesses against us," Phoenix remarked. "It could be he still has plans for them..."
Dan's fists balled. "No more distractions, Nicky. No. More. We're going after the princesses. And the Rarity, of course."
"We don't even know-"
"WE KNOW THEY'RE ON THE MOON. We're like... ninety-percent sure. Pretty much, we're sure," Dan declared. "I'll destroy the moon too, if I have to, to get them back."
"Uh," Phoenix raised a finger, "that might be a colossally bad idea. World-ending catastrophe-levels of bad idea."
"You know what I mean," Dan chided.
Phoenix nodded. "Yeah, that's why I'm telling you it's a bad idea. There are some things you can't rebuild, Dan. The moon, the planet, those are definitely two of those things."
"Not without the right tools, anyway. Yeah, I get it, I'm just saying... look, you know how violent we are. We'll PROBABLY end up blowing up at least a piece of the moon. Little piece," Dan emphasized with his fingers. "I'm sure nighttime princess will be able to fix it, even if we do."
"Hey, you think we could cheat again and replace the moon with a static backdrop? Before anyone notices?" Phoenix chuckled.
"If it hasn't been already," Dan replied, oddly serious. "Just... don't give anyone any ideas. Speaking of giving people ideas, let's go see the guy who might be able to get us up there."
"Barro?"
"Barro," Dan answered. And they made their way through the camp to find him. Or rather, me.
Dan and Phoenix boarded the Plasma Frigate. Despite appearing to be made entirely of wood, the actual ship itself was encased in a wooden frame meant to give it an old-world feeling. The cold, steel core of the vessel was hidden within a dark shell, similar to Kyurem who was still at the vessel's core. The wood creaked as they walked from the gangplank to the deck, testament to how thorough the facade really was.
Fortunately for them, Barro and Michael weren't hard to find. They were on the deck, hooking up what looked to be some sort of satellite communications equipment to Dan's tank. What was surprising, specifically to Dan, was not that the two news ponies happened to be setting up satellite equipment despite that their broadcasting satellites were destroyed, but the fact they happened to be setting up this equipment on Dan's tank.
"How do we know it's a software problem?" Michael asked.
"Did you plug it in?" Barro asked.
"Yes."
"Did you turn it on?
"Yes."
"And it's still not working?"
"Yes indeed," Michael confirmed.
"Then it's a software problem. Plug it back in again."
Dan and Phoenix approached the two broadcasters. For a moment, none of them said anything, letting Barro and Michael continue working while Dan examined what they had done so far. He nodded, then raised a hand to cover his mouth. "Ahem."
"Huh? Oh, hey Dan."
"Heyo Dano," Michael waved.
"Don't call me that."
"Hey guys," Phoenix greeted. "So... whatcha doing here?"
"Yeah, in case you two news idiots missed the news, there are no satellites up there. So installing a satellite dish to MY tank, while inspired and a very nice idea, isn't going to help us," Dan said, folding his arms.
"Oh uh, sorry."
"Sorry Dan," Barro said, "You were busy so we just asked Clutch if we could borrow the tank. Hope you don't mind," the broadcaster said.
Dan shook his head. "Nah, I don't mind at all."
And ten seconds after he said that,
"AAAHHH! AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" Dan threw Barro off the ship.
"That's one way to drop anchor," Phoenix smirked.
This caused Michael to run to the edge of the deck. "Barro! Uh, pony overboard!" Of course, doing this put him in the proper position so that Dan could easily left Michael's hindlegs up and flip him over the side. Which he did.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Splash, he landed in the shallow lake as well.
Dan then turned around. "Right. Raise the gangplank so they can't get back on and then help me get this Radio Shack garbage off my tank."
"Ha! Radio Shack's not even a thing!" Michael yelled from somewhere down below.
"Dan, we kinda need their help, modifications to the tank aside," Phoenix said.
"Nah, we'll be fine. Ima we'll take the tank to the moon."
"Dan."
"Okay, FINE. We'll upgrade the tank's cannon so it can shoot us to the moon. Is that better?"
Phoenix shook his head. "Seriously Dan, Barro's the only one with space access since we lost Ponyville. We need him."
Dan rolled his eyes. "Fiiiine. Lower the gangplank."
Barro and Michael were just getting out of the lake when the gangplank was lowered. "Honestly, I do wonder if he's just trying to see how much he can get away with sometimes, because all this crap he does doesn't even seem to-GAAGH!" And it was lowered onto Barro.
"HAHA! Hahahaaha!" Michael burst out laughing. "Hahahahaha! The way it just came down right on your-ARRGH!" Until the satellite dish Dan threw over the side landed on him.
"You two clowns get back up here! We need to talk!"
Soaking wet and bruised, Barro and Michael rejoined Dan and Phoenix on the deck. The lawyer was happy to present them with a pair of fluffy Team Plasma towels from below deck. After they were done reconciling, Dan calmly explained to Barro and Michael what they needed.
"AAAAHHHHHH!!!" But first he threw them off the boat again. Not quite done yet.
Michael ran to the edge again. "Barro! Someone, pony ovebo-AAAHH!" There we go.
"Heh, anchors away, eh, Dan?" the lawyer said, clearly on fire with the gags today.
Back on the deck of the ship, Barro and Michael once again dried off. "So you want to use MY spaceships."
"I've actually thought this through quite a bit," Dan said. "Vice or Rice or whatever is probably waiting for us up on the moon, right? So I want to throw up a smokescreen."
"A smokescreen?" Barro rubbed his chin. "Alright, I'm listening."
Dan laid it all out before him. "So, the moon is in orbit. I want you to use your satellite dishes and broadcasting stuff to bombard the moon with signals. Fake signals. Stuff to confuse them, distract them, anything like that. Maybe a program they're guaranteed to be interested in."
"Oh! You know, college football's starting up soon. Maybe we could broadcast a Gators game at Rice," Michael suggested.
"That's Earth, Michael," Barro said. "Honestly, it's a good thing those broadcasts never get to Earth. If one of those Gator fans called up the station in Goldenrod, we'd probably never hear the end of it."
Phoenix leaned forward. "Wait, what about Gator fans?"
"Ah, Gator fans. It's college football- don't worry about it," Barro said, batting away the idea.
But Phoenix shook his head. "No, no- what's this about Gator fans? You said if they called your radio station-"
"We'd probably never hear the end of it," Barro answered. "Those Gator fans, some of them are real nutjobs. They do all sorts of crap before the games like pregame rituals. We did a radio show back in Goldenrod City about it and some of these guys actually claimed their little rituals worked, but they had to keep doing it. Like actual magic could help the Gators win or something."
"You got a thing for college football, Nicky?" Dan asked. "It's Earth. And honestly, football- or American Rugby, as is the correct term, is something I'd rather leave back on Earth."
Phoenix rubbed his chin, his eyes narrowing. Magic was about connections, connections between people... and other things. Maybe, there was some kind of magic in a connection between worlds. Between possibilities, even connections between ideas. There might have been some magic there. If magic could supposedly make the Gators unbeatable, maybe it could work with a certain pony... a certain scientist pony with metal hands.
"So what happens if the Gators lose?" Phoenix asked. "What do the fans do then?"
"Eh, you never hear from the fans when they lose. They always call in when they win, never when they lose."
"They NEVER call in when they lose?"
Barro nodded. "Not once that I know of. Why?"
"No no no, let me be absolutely clear- according to you, the Gator fans NEVER call in when the Gators lose a game?"
Barro nodded again. "No, they never called once when they lost. Not on Earth, anyway."
(Not on Earth...)
"Nicky? Equestria to Nicky, you onto something?"
"Maybe..." Phoenix said, nodding to himself. "Magic is about bringing things in that didn't exist in this universe in a real form, right? Like... it has to be a concept and magic can make it real."
"Yeah. That's how you and me got here," Dan said. To be fair, he didn't know if he had been summoned by somepony, he was just guessing. He was wrong.
Phoenix paced. "What if you could remove something with magic? A... de-summoning spell? Like, what if the Gator fans are removing the possibility of defeat from their universe?"
"Haha," Michael laughed. "Well they'd pretty much have to be doing that non-stop because the Gators lose all the time."
"Just lost to Notre Dame the other day," Barro said. "Got slaughtered. But our station doesn't even do sports any more. If it was still be relayed from Miami or somewhere, it would just go to any random source that would pick it up."
"We lost the satellites right before we were attacked..." Phoenix said, still thinking aloud. (Maybe there's a connection here. Can't believe, all this time the secret to invincibility was that damn argument on the radio.)
"So you want us to broadcast the Florida Gators at the moon," Barro said. "And while they're blinded with less-than-useless sports updates, you will be doing what exactly?"
Dan smirked. "Flying with those orange jumpsuited morons you love so much. Where is Grex anyway?"
"Bold and Dice Squadrons, you're thinking of them," Barro said.
"Yeah- the two groups of orange guys. Where are they?" Dan asked. Behind him, Michael bit his lower lip.
"Really Barro, that WAS the time right there to call in the reinforcements. We certainly did," Phoenix said.
"Where's the rest of your team?" Dan asked.
Barro took a deep breath and sighed. "Remember when they asked you for help?"
"Yeah. I told them to take a hike. They can take care of themselves and it's not like we can-"
"They were wiped out three months ago, Dan. They're all gone."
"Oh..." Dan said. He rubbed the back of his chin. "Well... I, I am sorry, Barro. But seriously- how could they not take care of themselves? And even as I ask, I know the answer- it's because they're idiots. Okay, probably should have been a little more considerate."
"I have Master Braddoh, the Jedi Shadow, collecting orbital readings right now. Along with Colress, we'll find out what happened exactly soon enough," Barro replied. "But it's all right, Dan. Getting involved with them could have jeopardized Equestria... even if you jeopardized it yourself anyway. You get used to this with the news, though."
"Ah. I see," Dan said, nodding. "I wouldn't know myself, though."
"Why's that?"
Dan shrugged. "I don't really watch the news." Barro then threw Dan overboard.