//------------------------------// // 1 - Keep All Hooves and Wings Inside the Vehicle Until It Comes to a Whole and Complete Stop // Story: Apples, Tanks, N' Badflanks // by ultra1437 //------------------------------// A bright flash and accompanying explosion lit up a small section of forest, displacing a few rotting tree trunks. In their place, the forms of two equines remained, one reeling from their sudden transportation, the other unmoving. “That was a little rough, wasn’t it Celestia?” Luna asked, shaking her head. She turned to look at her sister, to find her sprawled out on the ground, snoozing. ‘Wait, ground? We are supposed to be in Celestia’s tower! Discord, where in Tartarus did you send us?’ Her anger started to grow, along with the crackles in her mane and tail before she walked over to Celestia. Luna poked and prodded at her sister’s unconscious form, earning a few unhappy grumbles. Resorting to a small lightning bolt, she roused Celestia with a strike on her flank. Celestia slurred as she stumbled to her hooves, “What wash that for, Luna? I was tryin’ to shleep!” “Was not Discord supposed to send us to your tower?” Luna asked, hoping she didn’t just make up that little conversation. Celestia remembered the Draconnequus saying something about that shortly before she woke up to Luna’s lightning bolt. “Yeah, he did! Where’d he shend us? This place feels like the Everfree Foresht, but this ishn’t any part of it that I remember.” “I don’t know, ‘Tia, but I don’t think he meant to send us here, he probably used too much power, again.” Luna sighed. “Here, let me fly up and try to get some bearings on where we are.” Celestia mumbled drunkenly wobbled over to sit on a large tree stump. Taking the mumbled response as ‘go ahead,’ she spread her wings and took off, quickly climbing above the forest’s canopy. After a few hundred feet, she slowed to a hover and tried to find any possibly familiar landmarks. They were roughly a mile into a forest, and on its edge looked like a camp of some kind. The camp had large, long grey strips of what appeared to be stone running along one side and out, further into the distance. She noted a lake with a small island just on the other side of the camp. Looking in other directions revealed the start of a desert, and more forest. She descended back to her sister, only to find her missing. “Celestia, sister, where did you go?” A soft snore alerted her to her sister’s location. Celestia was on her back, behind the stump. She’d nodded off while Luna was gone, and had fallen backwards. Luna sighed again. ‘I have to find a safe place for her to rest. She is not going to be happy when it comes time to raise the sun. Maybe the camp has room for us.’ Luna picked her sleeping sister up, draped her over her back, and started walking to the camp. Roughly halfway to the camp, Celestia started snoring again, loudly. Luna put up with it for a few minutes before Celestia’s snoring bested her patience. She set Celestia down and woke her up once again. As she set Celestia down, she noticed the lightning in Celestia’s mane and tail had disappeared completely, yet her own remained. “Come on, ‘Tia, wake up. If we make it to the camp soon, you can sleep in a nice bed,” Luna murmured into one of her sister’s ears. Celestia stirred and sat up a few seconds later. Celestia yawned and stretched. She spoke, surprisingly not slurring her words as she had earlier, “What was that, Lulu? A bed sounds nice right now…” To entice her sister to stay awake, Luna offered, “If you stay awake until we get to the camp, I will even make the coffee in the morning.” Celestia mumbled to herself again and then replied to her sister, “I… I’ll try.” She still wobbled to her hooves and Luna slowly led them both to the camp’s edge. She hadn’t spotted it from the air, but there was a fence surrounding it, made of some metal. The fence was roughly eight feet tall and had what appeared to be some kind of extra wire running around its top. “Come, let us fi-” She turned to where Celestia was standing, only to find nothing there. Hearing a whoosh and a gust of air hit her from above, she looked to find Celestia had just gracefully flown over the fence, only to crash face-first into the ground on the other side. Celestia rolled to lay on her side as she called out, “I’m alright! The ground came up a bit too fast is all.” ‘This is going to be a long night…’ Luna facehooved, flying over the fence herself. She helped Celestia to her hooves. Luna took note of the large buildings nearby, two of which were large enough to store the whole of Twilight’s library-tree inside it, without it touching the ceiling. Their closest sides each had a pair of huge sliding doors on them. One door was partially slid-open with light pouring out, but from their angle, they couldn’t see what was inside. The other five were about half as tall, but they were wider. Two had their doors open, and light spilled out from them. “‘Tia, let us try the smaller buildings first, maybe they have someplace for us to stay.” Celestia followed Luna as they strode toward the closest building. Luna tripped, toppling forward as her nose landed hard on the smooth stone. Celestia giggled as she stopped to help Luna up. “Watch your step, Lulu. I don’t want you to get hurt.” “I’m surprised you saw it when I didn’t,” Luna admitted, turning to see Celestia on the stone, hooves clacking noisily as she walked. “It wasn’t hard, all I had to do was watch for where you fell!” Celestia laughed as Luna huffed petulantly and refused to meet her sister’s gaze. “Oh c’mon Lulu, that was hilarious!” “It was not, sister. It was most undignified of me.” Luna caught up to her sister and they both started making their way to the building. “That’s exactly why I laughed,” Celestia joked. Luna shot Celestia a quick glare before turning away. The alabaster alicorn threw a wing around her sister and drew her into a hug. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you Lulu…” Luna sighed again. “Let us continue, I wish to rest awhile myself. Though there is not yet much for me to do at night, keeping vigil over our ponies dreams I can still do from anywhere.” Celestia yawned before continuing towards the door. “Alright, let's get to bed then.” ‘This door is so big, it is no wonder they need tracks to open it,” Luna thought as she strode ahead of her sister, reaching the door first and peering inside. “Um, ‘Tia? I do not think this is building is a place for ponies to sleep.” The large building was open and spacious, with what appeared to be a few rooms in the back. Lined up along the building's sides were what appeared to be winged boxes. Some were grey, others green, some of both were painted to look like dragons or sharks, the rest left what appeared to be bare. To give the boxes even more diversity, some had big, cylindrical objects attached to their wings or tails, while others didn't appear to have any. The final object was in the center row, near the back. It was lifted into the air, and a long, cylindrical object that tapered off to a point, attached to a large drum, was sitting on a large cart next to it. “What are these things? They look like some kind of giant, advanced paper gliders, but how do they move?” Luna wondered aloud, tuning Celestia in on her thoughts. “Well, this isn’t a place to sleep, let's check the other open ones,” Celestia suggested, looking to Luna to continue. Luna nodded and left, making her way to one of the other buildings with its lights on. As she neared it, a rumbling steadily grew in volume. Still looking into the original building, Celestia spotted a table next to the door with a few books laying on it, their covers depicting a few of the surrounding gliders. She looked over to Luna, who hadn’t yet noticed that she hadn’t joined her. She smirked before levitating a few of the books over to herself, magically copying them. She quickly tucked them under her wings and returned the originals, before making her way over to Luna. Celestia’s head pounded as she neared the rumbling building, as a headache set in. She looked to Luna, wincing as a particularly loud grumble sounded. “Perhaps we shoul—” All of a sudden, the rumbling died away, taking Celestia’s headache with it. As the quiet night settled in around them, Celestia amended her statement, “Never mind, Lulu.” Luna peeked inside, unsure if the rumbling would start again. The building’s interior had stalls, not unlike a farm’s stable. Each stall held something other than animals, though, they were much too large. In each stall sat a tan, boxy object. If anything the two ponies could say about it, was that it resembled a strange mixture of a cart, cannon, and a house. “Is that some kind of magical cart?” Celestia asked, peeking into the building as well. Luna looked to the long tube that stuck out the front and she recognized it as a cannon. “I do not know, sister. We should be careful.” Luna looked back to her sister, only to find her gone again. “‘Tia, where did you go this time? This is the third time you have disappeared on me. Do I have to leash you to myself to keep you from wandering off again?” Luna called out, hoping the white Alicorn would heed her words. “C’mon, let's see if we can find the ursa that woke up. Maybe he can tell us where we are!” One of Celestia’s hooves waved from around the corner, grabbing her sister's attention. ‘Great, either she’s hallucinating, or she actually believes a giant lives here.’ Luna's concentration broke as Celestia's tail flicked around the corner and off her sister's nose. “Celestia, no giants live here. They live in mountain caves, remember? This is neither a mountain, nor a cave.” As they walked along the stalls, a slam in the building's rear echoed through the building, and the door they entered slid closed noisily. Fearing they were possibly trapped, they rushed towards the slam to find a door. Luna sighed in relief. “At least there is a door here we can leave through.” They turned back and wandered through the stalls, checking out the ‘magical carts’ in greater detail. Instead of having wheels sitting on the ground, the cart’s wheels sat in grooves, like widened, modular train tracks. Its sides and front weren’t perfectly flat, but rounded slightly, and the sides had rectangular plates along their length, covering the upper part of the grooves. The top half of the cart was much more angular. It had some kind of hoofholds and storage racks wrapping around the sides and back. On the very top were various little holes and it had a second, smaller cannon that appeared to be set on a rotating track. After their examination, they returned to the main walkway and Celestia slid a bit when she went to stop. She looked down at her hooves and noticed a trail leading from the door to a stall. “Is that… sand?” Celestia asked, carefully stepping away from the twin trails. Luna looked down and confirmed, “Yes it is, ‘Tia. Where did the cart come from, to bring in so much sand?” They followed the trail to the stall, and Luna started sweating from the heat venting from it. Celestia walked up to it, and only when she touched the cart, did she notice the heat. “Wow, this cart’s pretty warm.” Celestia yawned again, as the excitement from the door closing had worn off. “It’s quite soothing, actually.” She leaned against the cart, reveling in the heat. She followed the heat around to its rear, where she found the heat’s source. Climbing atop the cart, she yawned and laid down on its back. “Luna? I think I’m just going to call it a night here. This heat is far too soothing to pass up right now…” Luna sighed before admitting defeat and walking around to check on her sister. Celestia had already fallen asleep, her chest rising and falling peacefully. Luna leaned against the cart’s side, and was quickly lulled to sleep by its soothing heat.