A Pokemon Problem
(21) - Opening Presents
I let out a mental breath that I hadn't realized I was holding after reading the large print on the crates. I hadn't realized how stressed and worried I was about the direction of the train's travel. I mean, what if it was going in the opposite direction? Getting everybody aboard the train was a pain, and I was sure that getting everybody off of the train would be even more difficult.
With an effort of willpower, I started hovering again, then immediately regretted making that decision.
In an instant, I flew backwards—or rather, the train flew forwards. I barely had enough time to jam my spiky fingers into the floor and hold on with a grip of death before I shut down my hovering ability. As if somebody had flicked on a light switch, I fell into the floor like a half-ton weight, creating yet another crater and causing the train to squeal and shake.
I had no idea what the hell just happened: it was almost as if my hovering capabilities—anti-gravity magnetism, psychic magic, whatever you want to call it—didn't seem to work well with fast moving objects. I didn't even bother trying to wrap my head around, but instead accepted it as just another clashing trait of an alien body stuck in a foreign world with different physics.
That didn't mean that I wasn't annoyed at having to drag my heavy ass around; far from it.
With slow, ponderous drags, I eventually heaved myself across the floor of the train, leaving three-pronged holes wherever my hands punctured the steel frame. I was so entranced with putting one arm in front of the other that I was taken completely by surprise when Miranda leaped atop my chassis and wrapped her stubby little chicken arms around me.
"Oh, honey-bunch," she crooned. "When you didn't meet us on one of the middle cars, I was so worried—"
"We were worried," corrected a voice that was unmistakably Ryder's.
"I was more worried than the rest of you put together!" Miranda exclaimed. Addressing me again, she said, "What happened? And why aren't you flying?"
I explained as quickly as I could in regards to my escapade of slowing down the train and my subsequent realization that using my hovering ability would give me a one-way ticket to face planting the countryside.
"Huh. I'm glad I'm not the only one, then," Ryder said. One of his hands was missing, and only after searching furtively did I see that it was hanging onto a clump of Seth's shaggy fur. "I have to be touching something that's on the train, or else it'll fly out from under me."
"Great. Just what we need: handicaps," I thought, mostly to myself. I psychically cleared my mind (equivalent to clearing one's throat) and asked, "So what else is on this train? All I've seen are these brown crates."
"That's, well... that's all there really is," admitted Seth, absently sniffing the floor, probably for food. "We managed to hop on the third train car, and from there to here is nothing but crates, of all sorts, sizes, and shapes." He shook, making his hairy back ripple and causing Philomena, who was perched upon the hump on Seth's back, squawk in displeasure.
The absence of anything but crates was certainly strange. If I knew anything about trains, which I don't, it was that they never carried just one type of object: normally there were a whole bunch of different items and objects, right?
My curiosity got the better of me, so I asked Miranda. "Would you mind grabbing and opening up one of those crates for me? I want to see what's inside."
"Sure thing, sweetie!"
I felt Miranda's clawed feet on top of my head as she stood up and tried to grab a box. I couldn't see very much from my floor-locked position, but from the annoyed clucking noise and the fact that she was jumping on my head, I could tell that she couldn't reach.
"Seth, would you mind...?" I made a vague motion towards the jumping chicken on my back.
"Yeah, sure. No problem."
With a couple of steps that each rocked the train however slightly, Seth head butted a stack of crates with a dull thwack, causing them to tumble down and into Miranda's reach. Several bounced off of me, but they might as well have been acorns for all the distress they caused me. With a quick swipe of her claws, Miranda cut the rope around the crate and pulled the lid off, revealing the contents to everybody.
After staring at it for almost ten seconds with no soul speaking a word, Ryder broke the silence.
"Are those... bottles?"
Sure enough, there were eight moonshine-style bottles in the crate, with layers of some sort of padding between them, which explained why the contents weren't currently leaking out.
"Yeah, but what's in them?"
For some reason, Seth took that as an invitation to sheer the top off of one of the bottles with a tusk and dip his tongue into the liquid. I was understandably livid.
"Christ, Seth! Since when does asking 'what's in them' mean 'taste test?' You don't know what's in those bottles! Hell, they might be full of poison, or—"
Seth belched, which derailed my train of thought and made a half-decent attempt at derailing the actual train. "Tastes like apples," he said appreciatively before bending down and taking another couple of laps of the liquid with his small, pink tongue. "And alcohol," he added before diving in again.
I gently flicked him on the nose.
"Ow!"
"Serves you right. No more apple cider for you: you're not the most nimble person here, even when sober, and I don't want you crushing anyone."
While I thought outwardly, my mind was reeling inwardly. Were alcoholic beverages legal in Old Equestria? Was this a smuggler's train?
"Miranda... open another crate, would you?"
"Sure thing!"
She quickly dragged over another crate, this one smaller than the last, and opened it. Inside were bundles of short, red, cylindrical objects, and rolls of some sort of twine, wire, or string.
Suddenly, I was regretting the decision to climb aboard the train.