“Fluttershy, you have to shift gears.”
“But-but first gear is safe.”
“Yes, I know that you’re capable of doing sixty in first, but 6400 RPM is hard on my ears and terrible for your fuel economy. We’ll have to stop and get more soon.”
“All right, I’ll try.”
As Lyra watched, the gearshift hesitantly moved from first into second. She sighed. “Can you please go a little higher? Maybe all the way to sixth gear?”
Fluttershy whimpered, not a sound that usually came from a 640 horsepower engine, but did manage to go to third.
The cars all seemed to be able to drive themselves. Lyra sat back in the bucket seat and observed. Although she wasn’t sure how, the radios seemed to work both ways, allowing communication car-to-car. When it was revealed that Fluttershy’s tank was running low, they began looking for a gas station. A large complex came into view, with a sign that read “truck stop.”
The concept of credit cards took a little while to figure out, but eventually they were able to obtain gasoline from the pumps. Fluttershy’s owner’s manual requested premium, so Luna purchased that grade for them all so as to leave none feeling left out.
Twilight and Rarity returned from the other side of the truck stop. The woman was fanning fumes away from her face. “Ugh, those diesel pumps are nasty. I don’t even want to know how many trucks have used them.”
“It’s just petroleum,” Twilight reminded her. “I find it pleasantly oily in my fuel injectors.”
“This is why I volunteered to be a person for this adventure,” muttered Rarity. “I wanted to avoid a greasy undercarriage.”
“Speak for yourself!” said Pinkie. “I’ve never had so much fun.”
“There have pretty much been a continuous stream of cupcakes filling up her interior,” said Appleajck.
“Are you saying I have too many cupcakes? I think that’s impossible, but if it’s true I guess we can give some away.”
Lyra rubbed her stomach. “Now that we’ve filled them up, can we do something about us?”
Luna looked towards the truck stop building, spotting a neon Diner sign. She motioned the others to follow her. The four of them entered. At this time of night, there was only one customer. He wore a jacket with a hood, revealing only part of his face.
The man turned to them, nodding a greeting before going back to his food. Rarity approached, putting on a friendly smile. “Pardon us sir, could you tell us what is good to eat here?”
“Nothing’s really bad. I come here a lot to relax when I’m in Nashville.”
“Hey, I recognize your voice,” said Applejack. “I think I might’ve heard you on the radio.”
The man nodded, seeming amused by her voice. “Maybe. Where are you from, sugar?”
“Ponyville, born and raised. It’s kind of on another planet, so you probably haven’t heard of it.”
“I suppose not.” Despite her somewhat strange statement, the man still seemed interested. “So how did you get here?”
Luna wasn’t sure this was a good conversation to be pursuing, but Lyra broke in. “Precise application of a mixture of magic and technology. Isn’t it great?”
At the mention of magic, the man stiffened. He dropped some money beside his plate and got up. With a nod of goodbye, he headed for the exit.
The door slammed open before he got there. A woman wearing clothing that was various shades of black and green stormed in and pointed a finger at him. “Willie Nelson, we meet at last!”
Luna moved forward quickly to intercept her. There was no doubt it was Chrysalis, although the Princess couldn’t imagine how she had gotten here.
A look of concentration crossed the crazed Queen’s face and she flicked her hands at the man. Nothing happened. It looked like magic did not work on this planet.
Luna grabbed her and the two of them traded blows. Chrysalis plunged her hand into Luna’s purse, yanking out the High Energy Matter Integrator, before knocking the Princess to the floor and rushing out.
Willie lowered his hood, revealing long red hair tied up in braids. He knelt, checking to see if Luna was all right.
“She’s getting away!” exclaimed Lyra, looking out the window. “And that’s a really fast car!”
“We have to go after her!” shouted Applejack.
“No way could we catch up. I mean, Fluttershy could come close, but with that much head start and at night…” Lyra didn’t finish the sentence.
“She can’t leave us here,” said Luna, getting up. “The device needs a little while to recharge before it can be used again. We need to locate her quickly.”
“Sounds like you could use some help,” observed Willie. He pulled out a cell phone and dialed. “Hello, Kris? I’ve got a little situation here. No, not something I can talk about on an unsecured line. Let’s meet up.”
“A friend of yours?” asked Luna.
“The best,” confirmed Willie. “Now, I hope you fine ladies could give me a ride. I’ve lost my driver’s license after a few too many cases of driving under the influence.”
“Influence of what?” asked Rarity.
“Marijuana. Could we please get going?”
Luna asked Rainbow if she would be okay with another passenger. The former pegasus was suspicious, but willing to trust Luna’s judgment. She and Willie got into the Prius.
“Nice,” commented Willie. “Good for the environment.”
Applejack and Pinkie pulled up alongside. The woman leaned out the window. “Can I interest y’all in some cupcakes? I’m almost swimming in them.”
“I love cupcakes,” said Willie happily. He accepted a dozen that Applejack passed him. The four vehicles and their passengers formed up and hit the road.
“Tell me about yourself and your friends,” said Luna as she and Willie snacked on cupcakes.
“Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, and myself were part of a paranormal enforcement team a while back. We toured the country while acting like a band, secretly protecting innocent people from things that go bump in the night.”
“That sounds really cool,” said Rainbow.
Willie stared at the radio for a moment, still getting used to the idea of a talking car who used to be a pony. Even nefarious magicians and evil creatures didn’t prepare you for some things.
They pulled up to a gated community. A man waited for them. He had a beard and was somewhat taller than Willie, with somewhat shorter hair. He introduced himself to the group as Kris Kristofferson.
“What about the others?” asked Applejack.
“They both died several years ago,” said Willie sadly. “Natural causes, at least.”
“So sorry to hear that,” put in Rarity.
“I kept telling them both that exercise would do them good,” murmured Kris.
“Not everyone can be a former Army Ranger,” said Willie, patting his shoulder comfortingly.
“Wesley Snipes took my advice.”
“Because he didn’t want the old guy in his vampire movie to outpace him.”
“Er, sorry, but can we get back on track?” asked Twilight. Kris looked at the Jetta in surprise.
“Oh yeah, forgot to mention,” said Willie. “Talking cars.”
Kris considered that for a moment before shrugging. “So what's this situation?”
“In a nutshell: aliens,” said Willie. “These are the good guys. A bad one took the thing they need to get home.”
“Sounds serious.” Kris frowned. “Too bad Johnny isn't with us anymore. I mean, Waylon was all right, but Johnny really knew a lot about aliens.”
“Well, he did give us permission to call him up if we ever needed help again,” commented Willie.
Kris stared at him. “Is that a good idea?”
“Which is worse; evil aliens running lose, or using black magic to reanimate Johnny Cash?”
“I guess you have a point.”
“I'm sorry,” said Applejack. “But did you just decide to get a zombie to help us?”
“That's right,” confirmed Kris. With cupcakes filling up Pinkie’s interior, he elected to ride with Rarity and Twilight.
“Unicorns,” Kris murmured. “And I thought the ‘60s were weird.”
It was a relatively short drive from Nashville to Hendersonville, Tennessee where Johnny Cash was buried. While that was a larger lead Chrysalis would gain, she still wouldn’t be able to use the High Energy Matter Integrator and could be tracked down later.
At least, Twilight hoped so. Princess Luna seemed to believe in these people. The purple Jetta decided to just keep rolling along and put her trust in them.
“Dear, do you think you could keep those large trucks from driving so close to us?” asked Rarity, eyeing some of the traffic they shared the dark interstate highway with.
“How am I supposed to do that?” questioned Twilight.
“I don’t know, speak dieselese to them or something.”
“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way,” said Twilight.
“Why not?”
“Is this one of those ‘It’s magic, I don’t have to explain anything’ moments?” asked Kris.
“I’m glad you’re familiar with the topic,” answered Twilight.
Aboard Rainbow Prius, Luna and Willie quietly discussed their game plan. After resurrecting Johnny, he would hopefully be able to lead them straight to Chrysalis. They didn’t have very long to locate her before the device was able to be used again.
“So you’re all famous musicians?” asked Luna.
Willie nodded. “You could say that, which is why I hope we can keep this away from the general public. They never knew what we did secretly. Heck, I even created drug problems just so it would take attention away from that.”
Luna searched for the right words. “That sounds like a great sacrifice.”
“It sounds pretty cool to me,” added Rainbow. “It’s like you’re a secret agent or something.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” Willie grabbed another cupcake.
Speaking of cupcakes, Applejack was having a hard time keeping them out of her rapidly shrinking personal space. “Pinkie, turn that oven off!”
“But I’ll get bored!”
“So listen to the radio, look at the road passing by, something!”
Pinkie was quiet for a moment. “Hey, what’s that red car doing beside Fluttershy?”
Ahead, Lyra was coaxing her ride into being less afraid of the Ferrari F430 that had pulled up alongside.
“I don’t like that buzzing noise,” whimpered the Viper.
“That’s because it’s got a tiny engine,” said Lyra. “Well, in comparison to yours, I suppose.”
“Why won’t it go away and leave us alone?”
Lyra glanced at the other car. The driver was staring at her and would occasionally rev the engine a little higher. “Well Fluttershy, I think you’re being challenged to a race.”
“I don’t like that idea.”
Lyra shrugged and raised her hands, mouthing my car doesn’t want to at the other driver. He turned away in disgust and shot ahead.
Hendersonville came into view not long after. The sun still had not come up, and the cemetery was dark. Four sets of headlights lit everything up nicely, however.
“Stand back,” said Kris. “This might get ugly.”
He and Willie knelt over the grave, performing some sort of ritual or spell. After a few minutes they stepped back. The dirt began to tremble and spread apart as a fissure opened in the ground.
A man in a black suit rose from the earth as if carried by an elevator. He looked around at the assembled crowd. “Good to see you gentlemen again. Ladies, I don’t think we’ve met.”
Luna took his hand somewhat hesitantly. She didn’t have much experience with reanimated corpses. His grip was strong but not cruel, and carried an undercurrent of manliness so deep that she could practically hear her last coltfriend whimper in embarrassment.
“Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” The man’s voice was deep and rough, sounding like a cement mixer being tossed inside a larger cement mixer. Luna couldn’t imagine how he could sing, but imagined that it was probably the most masculine thing in the universe.
“Nice to see you, Johnny,” said Kris, breaking in. “These fine ladies have a bit of an alien problem, and we were hoping you could help.”
Johnny listened to the story without displaying any emotion on his face. When it was over, he said, “I’ll do it on one condition. Get me a guitar. Somebody didn’t bury me with one.”
“I’ll let you borrow Trigger,” said Willie. He retrieved an extremely battered guitar from Rainbow’s back seat.
“Where did that come from?” asked Applejack in surprise.
“With Trigger, you just don’t ask,” said Kris, shaking his head.
Willie handed his guitar over and Johnny gave it a few experimental strums. He seemed unfamiliar with the junky-looking instrument, but soon had a rather nice tune going.
“That’s nice,” said Fluttershy.
Johnny stopped playing and raised his eyebrows. “Why thank you. I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name, sweetheart.”
“F-Fluttershy.”
“How would you like a little concert? We have a long drive ahead.”
“I would really enjoy that, Mr. Cash.”
“Please, call me Johnny.” He contorted himself to fit through the passenger door of the sports car, bringing in Trigger with him. Lyra shrugged and got in.
“Where are we going?” asked Twilight.
“Just follow Johnny’s directions,” said Kris. “He’ll get us to where we need to go.”
They got back on the road as the sun began to rise.