A few minutes later…
The ship was now about 30 miles south of Ponyville. Bowlina was checking on the ship’s progress.
She entered the main room. "Alright, the ship doesn't have enough fuel to make it directly to the Cap Kingdom, so I've set a course for the Seaside Kingdom to refuel."
She saw Ruby on a couch, staring at the ceiling with a blank expression on her face. "You okay?"
“I punched a cop…” Ruby muttered distantly.
Bowlina, imitating a psychiatrist, said, “Okay… and how does that make you feel?"
Ruby looked at Bowlina with ire in her eyes.
“Sorry — I’m not helping, am I?”
"Bowlina, this is serious! Do you know what the penalty for assault on a cop is? Three years prison!” Ruby grabbed Bowlina by her bow (in the absence of cheeks). “I can't go to prison! I won't survive!"
Bowlina wrestled her way out of Ruby’s grasp. “Relax, will ya? As long as that cop isn’t part of the IPF, you’ll be out of her jurisdiction as soon as we cross the border! And even if she is, she doesn't know where we're going!"
"Well, neither do we, really..."
"Well then, she's definitely not gonna be able to track us!"
Ruby faltered for a moment. "But now I can never go home!"
"Well... Maybe you could stay with me?"
"Hmm... I don't know... I'll think about it..." Ruby had mixed feelings about all of this, though they were mostly negative.
"Okay…” Bowlina looked out the window. “Well, in the meantime, check out this view!"
She opened the door, and they both went outside. "Woah!"
The view was spectacular. The mountains in the distance glistened in the morning sunlight, the forest below swayed in the light breeze, and the ship flew steadily to the southeast, bringing the promise of adventure.
It reminded Ruby of some kind of a title card.
An hour later...
Bowlina shivered, "Is it just me, or is it getting colder?"
They walked to the window, where they could see white crystals of frozen water falling from the atmosphere. "It's snowing?" Ruby simplified.
"That doesn't make any sense! The Seaside Kingdom is right on the equator; they've never gotten snow before!"
"Something must definitely be wrong, then!"
The ship hovered over a spot near what looked like a gasoline pump, and touched down. Ruby and Bowlina stepped outside, slightly shivering.
Ruby looked around, and was surprised to see that there was a large quantity of giant snails, who were wearing clothes and going around the buildings.
"Why are there so many snails here?" Ruby asked.
"They're the residents of this kingdom!"
"A bunch of giant snails? That's really bizarre!"
"...said the magical talking pony."
"Touché..."
They stepped off the deck, where they were greeted by one of the snails.
"w-w-Welcome t-t-to the Seaside k-k-Kingdom!” she trembled, clearly not used to the cold, “w-w-Will you be staying long?"
Bowlina said, "Actually, we're just here to refuel our ship on Power Moons, and then we'll be off."
"Oh, I'm s-sorry, but all of our fuel lines have f-f-frozen over! We never expected to get s-snow before, so they w-weren't made with cold in mind!"
Ruby groaned, "Oh, that is just — You know, that actually makes sense. Nice job writing that!"
Who are you talking to? Bowlina asked.
"I don’t know; how'd you say that without quotation marks?"
"Touché..."
They then decided to split up and ask around for information as to why the place was freezing.
Ruby walked by one of the snails, who held out a fancy goblet. "t-t-Try some of our s-s-sparkling water!"
Ruby took the glass in her aura, looked in it, then turned it upside down. A solid chunk of ice in the shape of the cup fell out and onto the snow. Ruby gave the goblet back, numbly saying, "I'm not very thirsty right now..."
Meanwhile, Bowlina was looking around for anyone who could tell her what was going on.
"I told you!" she overheard a couple arguing. The guy, who was wearing a coat, said to (presumably) his wife, "And you kept saying that investing all that money into a coat factory was a bad move!"
"But once that Ty-foo leaves and the weather clears up, then what?"
"That's assuming it will ever leave at ALL!"
Bowlina approached them. "What are you two talking about?"
"Well, I'm trying to convince Deborah here that buying all these coats was a good idea!"
"And I'm telling Barry here that it won't be good in the long run!"
Bowlina specified, "No, I mean what you said about the Ty-something."
"You mean the Ty-Foo?" Barry pointed to a giant ornate goblet in the distance, which had a cloud-like creature atop it. "Well, it showed up on the Glass two weeks ago, and it's been lowering the temperature rapidly."
"Okay, thank you for the information."
Bowlina then rejoined Ruby, who asked, "Well, did you learn anything?"
"There's something called a 'Ty-Foo' that's making it really cold." Bowlina pointed it out to Ruby.
Ruby managed to refrain from commenting on the absurdity, instead saying, "And we can't leave until the pipes thaw..."
"So let's fix this problem!" Bowlina blurted out.
"How are we supposed to do that? Unless you're suggesting —” Ruby gasped, “No! We're not going to face that cloud thing! We'd be no match for it!"
"We would be, if I wasn't here!"
"What do you mean?"
"I have a special ability!"
Ruby wanted to question it, but shrugged it off. "Well, how do we use it?"
"You just throw me at something."
"Like what?"
Bowlina looked around, spotting a balloon next to the refueling station. "How 'bout that balloon?"
"Why the balloon?"
"It's the first thing I saw."
"Alright…”
Ruby did what Bowlina said, and threw her at the balloon. She stuck to it with an odd sound, and Ruby realized she was being pulled towards it. Her hooves left the ground, and she dematerialized as her soul entered the balloon.
It is immensely difficult to describe what she experienced next, but I'll try my best:
She felt like she was moving through a liquid, and everything around her seemed to be tinted red. Visions of a rubber factory and a balloon-making company flashed before her eyes as she tried to scream.
When she next opened her eyes, she was back in reality, but something was different. Everything was tinted red, and she could no longer feel any of her limbs. She looked at her reflection on the refueling station beside her, and screamed, “What the — I'm the balloon now?!"
“Yep!” Bowlina replied from the back of her head.
“But how?”
"When you threw me onto the balloon, I temporarily dissolved your body, and moved your soul into the balloon, giving you control of it! My species can do that with almost anything that doesn't have a hat, as long as it isn't too big!”
Ruby, again, shrugged it off. "Well, at least it wasn't alive. If you were able to take over something that was living, that would be really disturbing!"
"Ermm..." Bowlina's tone told Ruby otherwise.
"WHAT!?"
"Let's just focus on the Ty-Foo for now, okay?"
"Okay, but we're going to talk about this later!" She affirmed, still shocked.
Ruby inhaled, drawing air in through her knot. She untied her string, allowing her to float upwards. She then turned onto her side and started to blow out, propelling her towards the giant goblet.
“Woah! This is actually fun, once I get past the weirdness! I’ve always wanted to be a balloon!”
“Really? That’s a weird desire…”
“I mean, it’s not NEARLY as weird as some of my friends’ desires!”
“What are they?”
Ruby then mumbled something to Bowlina.
“Oh, GOD, that’s weird!”
“ ‘God’? What’s that?”
“You don’t have a god? A God is, like, a mythical and all-powerful being that’s usually tied to religion.”
“Oh, we have something like that! Well, except Celestia and Luna actually exist.”
“Who’re Celestia and Luna?”
“They’re powerful Alicorns that control the sun and moon.”
“Well, I guess that explains why time sometimes freezes for no apparent reason!”
They both laughed.
“Wait, what were we doing?”
Her thought was answered when she smacked head-first into a solid white creature, the shock knocking them both out of the balloon. Ruby was returned to her normal form as they both landed on the ice that was covering the goblet. Ruby looked up and was face-to-face with the Ty-Foo.
“Ah, right.”
Bowlina leapt to her hooves and quipped, "Let's put this Ty-Foo on ice!"
“Nice one!”
“Thank you, I just came up with it!”
Then surprisingly, the Ty-Foo said, “Go away! Can’t you see that I’m busy?”
“Wait, that thing can talk?” Ruby asked.
Bowlina gestured to Ruby.
“Oh, right.”
Ruby cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Ty-Foo? Why are you doing this?”
“I’m a Ty-Foo; my entire purpose is to blow!”
The Ty-Foo then realized what it'd said. “d-Don’t take that out of context…”
“But you’re freezing the snails’ homes!”
“Ruby, what’re you doing?” Bowlina was unsure of where she was going with this.
“The thing us ponies do best: Friendship!” She turned back to the Ty-Foo. “You seem out of place; how did you get here?”
“I was in a blowing contest, and the other competitor blew me halfway across the Equine Kingdom. Some ponies then found me, and pushed me down here.”
“Wow… We really have a habit of throwing our problems out for someone else to deal with, don’t we?”
“From what I’ve seen, yes you do.”
“Alright, you don’t have to be so blunt about it!”
Bowlina then decided to go along with Ruby. “Is there any way we could help you get back home?”
“Not unless you have an airship that can fly me two hundred miles north.”
“But we don’t have enough fuel to do that!”
“Well, what are we supposed to do?” She started to think, then saw the Ty-Foo blowing. “I’ve got it!”
A few minutes later, she'd captured another balloon, and was preparing to blow the Ty-Foo in the direction of the cliffs to the north.
“Three, two, one, GO!” she exhaled, blowing the Ty-Foo into a cave near the summit.
“Oh! You put the Ty-Foo into the cave so the cold air stays contained! Nice plan!”
“Actually, I was aiming to blow him above the cliff, but that works, too.”
Three hours later, the snow was almost completely melted.
“Well, it took three hours, but the ice finally melted! Now we can get fuel!” Ruby said, rending me useless.
The snail who'd first greeted them said, “Alright, there’s a limit of ten moons per tourist, but we'll give you fifteen, as thanks for saving us.”
“Why so few?” Ruby asked.
“It takes a while to drill for moons, and ever since two tourists came last month, we’ve been depleted of a large amount of them.”
“Well, isn’t that just -”
“Fifteen moons will be fine,” Bowlina interrupted Ruby's wry comment.
Ruby pulled Bowlina to the side. “Fifteen moons certainly won’t take us to the Cap Kingdom!”
“But it will get us to the Luncheon Kingdom, where we can get more! And besides, we can’t ask for more than they’re willing to give!”
“But we just saved this place from freezing over!”
“Just because we did that doesn’t give us leeway to demand whatever we want! They’re willing to give us five extra moons, and that’s plenty!”
“I guess that makes sense… I mean, the Mane 6 are constantly saving the day, and they don’t ask for anything special…”
“Did someone mention my friends?” another voice chimed in from behind Ruby.
“Is that -?” Ruby turned to see her friend Fluttershy approach from behind. “Fluttershy! What’re you doing here?!”
“Hi, Ruby! I’m actually on a trip to visit the Breezies!”
“Okay… Where are the Breezies?”
“They’re still hiding from the cold. I was just about to tell them it’s safe to come out. What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I’m helping Bowlina here get home!”
“Well, that’s really kind of you!” Fluttershy looked at Ruby's neck. “Wait, where’s your necklace?”
Ruby felt her neck; indeed, it was gone. “It’s gone? It must've come off in the scuffle!”
“Scuffle?! What happened?”
"We were leaving in our ship, when a cop tried to stop us. We tried stopping, but couldn't. She grabbed me, and I panicked, accidentally punching the cop on her glasses!"
"Oh my!" Fluttershy nearly fainted, but calmed herself and asked, "What did the cop look like?"
"She was a purple Earth Pony with orange hair."
"And I think I overheard her say her name as she radioed in for back up. I believe it was Officer Sergeant."
"OFFICER SERGEANT!?" Fluttershy screamed.
"You know of her?"
"She's one of the toughest ponies on the IPF!"
"She's on the IPF?! Uh oh!"
"I should've kept my mouth shut!” Bowlina scolded herself.
This prompted Ruby to stare at the mouth-less Bowlina.
“If she’s really after you girls, then you’d better get out of here!”
“Way ahead of you!” Bowlina replied, then started quickly floating back to the ship.
“Bowlina, wait up!”
“Good luck out there!” Fluttershy waved to them.
They were about to board, when Bowlina turned around and said, “Just a second!” She got the attention of the snail. “You mentioned two tourists who came here last month and depleted your supply. Did they mention where they came from or where they were going?”
“I remember them talking about Mount Volbono.”
“Okay, now we know where not to go!”
Bowlina then rejoined Ruby, who said, “Oh! Now I get why I have to throw you onto the globe!”
“Pretty neat, huh? Let’s go!”
Ruby started the ship, then went inside and waited for Bowlina to finish checking brochures and charting a course.
“Alright, so where are we gonna land?” she asked when Bowlina finally came in.
“Well, the snail said the two tourists who’d lowered this place’s moon supply had gone to Mount Volbono, so that was off the table. I then checked some brochures, and found that Flamburg is the second-most populated city in the Luncheon Kingdom, so that’s where we’ll go.”
“Alright! What’s there?”
“I’ll tell you, right after we review some basic skills!”
“Oh?”
“...and that’s what happened.” Officer Sergeant finished retelling what happened to the commissioner.
“A green pony with a talking bow stole a hat-shaped airship? That’s incredulous, even for this place!”
“But sir, it’s true! I have an eye witness right here!” She gestured to the brochure stand owner, whom she'd brought in.
“It’s true! They went into the sewer to find an airship!” he said.
“Hmmm…. I’m still not sure…”
“How about this: If I bring them in, and they confess, you’ll stop doubting me!”
“Alright, but if you can’t get them, you’ll be on probation for a month!”
“Deal!” they shook hooves, and Sergeant walked out of his office. “Now I just need to find them…”
She then overheard a news bulletin over the radio on the desk next to her: “Breaking news! A Pony and a Bonneter have just saved Bubblaine from a Ty-Foo, and are now on their way towards the Luncheon Kingdom!”
“How convenient...”