//------------------------------//
// We Get Around 
// Story: Legends of Equestria: The Long Road Back 
// by JimmyHook19 
//------------------------------//

Before long, it was another day in the world, with the sun in the sky, same as ever. Starswirl and Mistmane snored soundly in the hotel room, before being suddenly awoken by a very loud and very noisy alarm clock.

"Gah!" Starswirl cried, before landing on the floor. "That accursed thing is incredibly loud!"

"It did the job of getting us up though, didn't it?" Mistmane replied. "We've had some very long days recently, and the internal body clocks we have are somehow less reliable than before."

"I think that has something to do with tiredness," Starswirl sighed, rubbing his eyes and consulting his journal. "I wonder if there's an anti sleep spell in here."

"That's a bad idea," Mistmane told him. "A sorcerer back home once experimented with magic like that, casting a spell that rendered the test subjects unable to sleep. Each of them went mad and had to be put down lest they become a threat to others."

"OK, so maybe I won't," Starswirl replied. He flicked through his journal to another page. "Though I think this may be more useful. We need to unpick the newest set of coordinates that Flash Magnus gave us. May I see the letter?"

Mistmane nodded, opened the bag she had, which was next to the flower which she still had on her, and levitated the letter over to Starswirl, who then began to read it.

To whomever reads this,

I have no idea how Somnambula was able to get it to this Ash Land place, but you have to get us help. The Sphynx is back and she killed most of my unit and I am the only one left. The Sphinx (spelt wrong) is extrermely dangerous and not to be trifled with.

My current position is as follows. Grid coordinates are 33°20'58.8"N 115°43'47.3"W. Somnambula is here with me. Hury. I have no idea how long we have

left. Please hurry. If you find this, you must stop Him and ensure he never finds the device.

Flash Magus

"You were right," Starswirl sighed. "The writing is very sloppy and full of mistakes. He must have been in a great hurry when writing it. But what is rather more important is that it tells us where he is." He activated the map spell, and then fed in the coordinates, which he hoped would tell them where they were.

After some whining and whirring, the spell eventually spat out a location, and Starswirl studied the map in confusion. "33°20'58.8"N 115°43'47.3"W is in the middle of nowhere, next to a large lake, in a small town with mostly small buildings according to streetview mode. What is he doing there?"

"Maybe it's something to do with the Sphynx in the letter," Mistmane suggested. "Though what I don't understand is how he manages to spell 'Sphynx' correctly in one sentence, and then in the next spells it wrong."

"Maybe it's not our place to question such matters," Starswirl admitted. "How far are we travelling today?"

"Oh, a very long way. But first, I suggest we do some sightseeing and take our mind off things for a while."

"Really?" Starswirl was incredulous indeed at this news. "We are wasting valuable time with these endless sightseeing stops. We have no clue what's happening here or indeed where to go, and you want to look at things?"

Mistmane gently put a hoof on his face. "If there's one thing that's important to learn, it's to appreciate the smaller things in life," she said. "The ultimate destination doesn't matter. It's how you got there that counts."

Starswirl sighed. "All right. But we do need to keep an eye on our clocks."





After another nourishing meal in the morning, the duo set off on their next sightseeing run, which saw them head north and then take two lefts whilst travelling down a street marked with a 12 miles per hour speed limit, which they found very odd indeed. Then again, that was the point. It stuck in their memory, so mission accomplished, I guess.

They then spent several hours looking around the California State Railroad Museum, which confused Starswirl as he had absolutely no idea what these machines were or what they did. It did, at least, explain the iron monsters they had been seeing throughout the trip, but safe to say he wasn't sure why Mistmane had picked this one out given the lack of such technology back home. After a day which had included travelling over a nearby set of iron rails, they were ready to head out on their journey once more. They started their journey by heading to the East, before taking a left turn and then a right. Before them the road constantly wiggled back and forth between left and right, leaving the pair very dizzy and confused.

"Why is the route so wiggly?" Starswirl asked. "Why can't they build wavy streets like normal ponies?"

"They seem to like straight lines around here," Mistmane replied. "It's all rather confusing really."

They then joined a bridge that towered of the city, which then ran over a river (and not a rother), before rattling over the same river again, before taking a slight left turn and continuing onto another road. Several roads, as a matter of fact. After another left turn, they merged onto another road and stayed on it for quite a long time. Eventually, after travelling through large amounts of nothing, they passed over a creek, and then through a town. They crossed two bridges on their way through even more nothing that was occasionally punctuated by the odd body of water.

"This scenery is horribly dull," Starswirl sighed. "It's so flat, and there's so much sand! It reminds me of Saddle Arabia."

"This may seem hard to believe, but I actually miss the mountains and snow earlier in the trip," Mistmane sighed. "It reminded me of the mountains back home."

"I remember how you reacted when it snowed at the School of Magic. You were certainly very happy those few days, even if a lot of the scholars were not."

"Snow brings back happy memories of growing up," Mistmane noted. "This heat is quite oppressive though!"

"At least it's not humid here, unlike at Hayseed," Starswirl grumbled. "I was thankful that Meadowbrook had installed air conditioning."

As the duo walked on, the terrain suddenly became more interesting, and after two right turns the road surface began to climb into the air. The duo found themselves walking along a giant grey bridge, seemingly held aloft in the sky with naught but pieces of iron cable. It was also very long indeed, which was a very long way for two tired unicorns to walk, but they reached an island and went into a tunnel.

"This bridge goes on?" Starswirl asked, as they emerged from the tunnel and saw the bridge continue on ahead of them.

"This seems to be two bridges in one," Mistmane noted, as they joined the next span and began to cross it. This also took an incredibly long time, and they finally entered the city before them. After seeing a giant red robot fly by, they took lots of winding turns through the streets of this city, joining and leaving several roads in the process before winding through some twists and turns. After some final turns through a tight set of roads, they arrived at a place to rest.

As they entered the hotel, neither realised a figure in armour was watching them through binoculars from a nearby building. "Targets sighted," he said over a radio. "Mistmane and Starswirl confirmed, over?"

"Roger that," replied another voice over a radio. "Strategy confirmed. Lock down the city."