The Preparation
Jason snorted, and woke up. He opened his eyes to the sight of Dash's face. He jumped, before remembering the circumstances behind his 'predicament'. He looked outside. The sun seemed pretty high, he figured he wouldn't piss her off too much by waking her up. He pushed some loose hair away from her eyes. She shifted, and opened the eye that Jason had most recently moved the hair away from. "Hey," he said.
"Hey," she replied. They stared at each other for a moment, not saying a word. Jason quickly broke the silence.
"So, do you have to do anything today?" Jason inquired.
"No, not really, there's nice weather this week, so I'm basically just on call if something happens."
"Well I thought some more about the possibility of capture," he sighed, "and basically, I realized that if I can't stop it, I can at least be prepared."
"Makes sense,"
"So if you don't have anything to do, do you want to make some explosives with me? I'll even tell you how to make the powder..."
"Of course I do! Why wouldn't I want to make things explode?"
"Fair warning, these will be heavier duty than exploding apples, and could, in entirety, be fairly expensive. Just so you know."
"Didn't I already tell you that I have more money than I know what to do with? It's fine."
Jason sighed. "I would rather work for money. I don't like living off of you."
"Hey, well, captain of the weather team and all, I could probably get you a job. Pays good bits."
"At this point, I'll do anything."
"Heh, good."
Jason clapped his hooves together. "Okay, lets actually get up and do something."
"But it's so warm in here..."
Jason tapped his hoof to his chin. "Hey, how does that work? I mean we're half a mile above sea level, under one blanket, on a cloud. How can this possibly be warm?"
"Is it really a problem that it's warm?"
"Well, no, but If I don't manage to find fault with every part of your world, then I'll run out of things to say, and *gasp* that would be a disaster!"
Dash snorted. "Some disaster." She pulled herself out of bed, with Jason in tow. They made their way downstairs with much less falling and rolling than before, and entered the kitchen. Dash pulled out some more apples, carrots, lettuce, etc. and set them on the table.
"You aren't much of a cook, I take it."
"Ha! No, I burn everything. Looking back, it's kinda hilarious. I'm surprised burning things isn't my special talent."
"Wouldn't that be cool though just ZAP!, and stuff burns." He looked at his hoof, and smiled malevolently. "Hey, you know how there's the green fire when I transform?"
"Yeah?"
"Well how cool would it be if I could have that just pop out on my hooves and stuff? Like, whenever I wanted?"
"I guess the only way to know for sure is if you try..." She adopted Jason's smile.
"Here goes nothing." He transformed his hoof into the hoof it already was, creating a pointless bout of green flame. He snickered. He repeated the process several times, until he got the fire going pretty heavily. "Hey," he panted, this was really taking it out of him. "See if it's hot or something." Dash reached her hoof out towards his, and immediately pulled it back.
"Trust me, it's hot."
"Awesome." He let the fire die out, and slumped to the ground, breathing heavily.
"You okay dude?"
"Yeah, just tired. Transforming is pretty easy normally, but I just used the energy from at least thirty transformations." He took a deep breath. "That's going to come in handy at some point." Dash handed him an apple, and he gratefully took a bite. He seemed to realize something, and dropped his form to look at his wounds. They were no longer cracks, but only deep cuts. Jason cheered. "Dash, look!"
"Hmm?" she turned to look at him.
"Look how healed my side is!" she looked a little grossed out. "Oh yeah, sorry, you're eating." Jason sighed. Dash decided to change the subject.
"So what do you got in store with these new explosives?"
"Oh, so many things, but you're going to have to wait and find out." She sighed.
"You just gotta be like that don't you?"
"Hey, after I tell you all of the stuff from my world, I won't exactly have an ace up my sleeve anymore, now will I?" Dash responded with some angry mumbles. Jason spat out an apple seed.
"That didn't taste good. Not like I expected it to..." He paused. "You ready? We can go get the supplies for this if you are."
"Aren't all the things you need right here?"
"For an exploding apple? Yes. For the other stuff I have in mind? Not even close." He laughed maniacally.
"Fine," she set down her food. "Lets get going." She got up and walked out the door, Jason close behind. "So where first, Jason?"
"The Blacksmith shop." They both jumped off of the cloud, and raced down to the shop, landing a few seconds later. "God I love having wings."
"They're the best, huh?"
"You know it!" Jason pushed the door to the blacksmith's shop open, and walked inside. The same pony was behind the counter, and seemed to immediately recognize Jason.
"Hey, there's that pony with the weird orders!" Dash shot Jason a look. He shrugged.
"Do you have down what I ordered last time?" the pony nodded. "I'll take forty pounds of that, plus five pounds of powdered magnesium."
"Even weirder than last time..." the clerk muttered as he walked into the back room. Dash looked over at Jason inquisitively.
"What's in the--"
"75% saltpeter, 15% softwood charcoal, and 10% sulfur, by weight."
"Oh." The pony came back with a set of bags, before retreating into the back room and grabbing another set.
"That'll be nine bits." Dash flipped him the necessary currency. He smiled and pushed the bags towards them. They both picked up some of them in their mouths, and retreated out the door.
As soon as they got outside, Dash moved to the side of the road, and set down her bags. Jason followed suit. "What else do we need?"
"Let's see, baby powder and small airtight canisters. Do you know where we can get either of those?"
"We can get the baby stuff from Pinkie, because she has to take care of the twins, and there's a pony that sells small boxes to keep stuff in."
"Okay, let's go get that baby powder first." Jason picked up his bags, and walked across the street, and down the block to Sugarcube Corner. He pushed inside, immediately seeing Pinkie pop up from behind the counter, a huge smile on her face.
"Oh! Alternis! Fancy seeing you here! I was just thinking about people that come into this shop, and then you came in! Isn't that such a coincidence? I mean, how weird is that?"
"Pinkie, I just need some baby powder."
"Oh, sure. Here you go!" She had pulled a container from behind the counter, though why she kept one there, he had no idea.
"Yeah, thanks." He tried to flip her a bit, but she vigorously shook her head.
"No need, I'm just glad to help a friend!"
"Okay, well, thanks again." Jason pushed his way back outside, followed by Dash, who had waved to Pinkie before turning to leave.
"Two down, one to go," Dash said happily.
"Wait, we also need flint strike rods. Who has those?"
"I dunno, probably somepony though."
"Fair enough." Jason went by a stall with some hardy jewelry canisters, taking all of the small, well built ones, and flipping the owner a few bits, which she gladly accepted. "Now we have one to go." Jason looked around for a stall that could actually have what he wanted, and saw a camping themed stall. "Really," he said to Dash, "Camping? Who camps around here anyway?"
"Honestly? I have no idea." She replied. Shaking his head, Jason walked up to the cheerful pony, and bought most of her fire starters. She nodded her thanks, and Jason turned around. "Now, we can go build these suckers." He picked up the multitude of bags in his mouth and took off, heading for Dash's house.
After several minutes of awkward flying, he landed in her yard just before she did. Jason looked around for any bystanders, and upon seeing none, took the bags in his magic, including the ones previously held by Dash, and moved them inside. He set them down in various piles, separating the new gunpowder ingredients.
"Dash, come here." She trotted over, eyeing the bags uneasily. "Look at what I do with this." He mixed some of the contents of the bags together and lightly mashed them with the mortar. "You mix them together in the same ratio as before, but make sure not to hit it too hard, or it may explode. No pressure." He handed over the necessary supplies, and Dash nervously got to work.
A few minutes later, she had managed to mix all forty pounds without any explosions, surprisingly enough. Jason took some of the mixture from her and poured it into a canister. He grabbed some of the coarse twine that had been wrapped around the bags, and inserted it into the canister. He punched a hole near the top, pushed the fire starter through, and tied the twine around it, burying the other end in the black powder.
"The idea here is that when you pull this starter out, it should scrape against the metal side of the canister, and create enough sparks to set the twine on fire, because it's ridiculously dry. Then, when the canister hits the ground, the powder shifts, hits the fire, and BOOM." She nodded her understanding. "Now, let's just save one of these, and skip the explosion."
"Awww..."
"Hey, this is better." Jason tipped some of the magnesium into the black powder, and mixed it around. "So basically where I came from there were these weapons called 'Flash-bangs,' and the idea was that they blinded and deafened the enemy for a short period of time, which is what this should do. The black powder one is only loud, and if I wanted it to just be a black powder one, there would be far more explosives in here." He was silent for a moment. "So you wanna give it a whirl?" She nodded her head vigorously. "That's what I thought." He handed her the device. "Pull this pin when you're ready. Pull it quickly, then throw it. Let's get outside. Oh! grab two pairs of sunglasses and get ready to cover your ears."
"This is going to be so awesome!" She ran off, returning moments later with the necessary eyewear. They walked outside.
"Hey, build a backstop out of cloud so that it does't fly off and scare everyone, at least not anymore than it already will."
"Sure thing." she made the necessary preparations, and then retreated towards the door.
"So, toss it on my mark, and then cover yourself behind the doorjamb and block your ears. This isn't shit to goof around with. At least not totally." He cracked a smile. "Get ready." they moved near the door. "Toss the thing underhand, and quickly, I don't know how long the fuse will last, but it's pretty much when it hits something that it explodes."
"Got it"
"Ready?"
"Ready."
"Okay." Jason took a deep breath. "Pull the pin." Dash yanked out the pin. "Toss and cover." She tossed out the bomb, and shoulder-covered in the doorway, with Jason mirroring her on the other side.
BANG