//------------------------------//
// Pony vs. Machine 
// Story: Total Eclipse 
// by Somedudeatemytaco 
//------------------------------//

"Just hold on a minute," I told the group, "this is an airplane contest,  and from what I know, you're not an airplane Dash. I mean, unless Twilight has a spell that can turn you into an airplane, I have no idea how we-"

Then an idea struck my head. An idea so intricate,  so deceiving, and most importantly,  so stupid, that it might actually work.

"So you're meaning to tell me that this is an airplane?" The judge said.

"Yep, 100% airplane, hi-tech airplane that is." I said as I plopped Rainbow Dash onto the table. I have to give credit to Rainbow Dash, standing complacently still like a mannequin for the whole time while I walked up to the judge,  well,  up until the most crucial moment as I put Rainbow down, she let out an, "Ouch!" And turned her head to face me.

"It can talk?" The judge said.

"Umm, of course it does, it has artificial intelligence! Wasn't kidding when I said hi-tech"

"What do you mean, "artificial"! I bet I'm as smart as you are!" Rainbow Dash rebutted  Maybe I should have told her about the plan a little more in-depth.

"Hmm, it has a sense if humor," the judge added, "does it have a name?"

""Of course I do! Rainbow Dash said rather proudly. "It's R-"

I butted in with, "Of course she does! Its, umm..."

I didn't want to give away Dash's real name, you know, just on case something happens, but then again, my mind was blank, so I said the first thing that came into my mind.

" She is...ummm  the R-Dash 5,000!"

Did I really just say that, I thought to my self. Even worse was that Rainbow Dash  was giving me an "are you kidding me" look. Luckily, Dash decided to play along.

"Yeah, I was going to say R-Dash 5,000."

"Well then," the judge said, "you're in. Just stand and wait over there."

As we walked away, Rainbow Dash said, "Really? Of all the names you could think of, the R-Dash 5,000?"

"It was the only name I could think of!"

***

Since we were waiting for the competition to start, I had no choice but to listen to ALL SIX PONIES go on about how, and I quote "confusin', absurd, a little out of place, highly illogical, silly, and just flat out not cool" calling Rainbow Dash R-Dash 5,000. I'll leave it to you to figure out who said what. While that was going on, I heard someone else coming, it seemed like this guy was arguing with a bunch of people too.

"How many times did we tell you, you can't leave all this to the last minute again!"

"Hey calm down, what's so important about this anyways? It's just a stupid necklace."

Ugh. It was that kind of guy. The guy who always thinks just because he's good he's superior to everyone else. The guy that wears sunglasses all the time and becomes a total drama queen when things don't go his way, it sickened me.

"Might we remind you that you came this close to loosing the last match, the only reason why you won was because-"

"ALRIGHT, I know what happened, but let's not put that out in the open air, what's done is done."

As much as I hated to admit it, Sunglasses had a point, those guys were taking this way to seriously. I, on the other hand  had a perfect reason. I had to vanquish an evil alicorn of darkness from another dimension. As these thoughts were going through my head, Sunglasses came my way and started laughing.

"May I help you?" I asked.

"You really think you can win with that?"

"Hey," Dash stepped in, since she was the only one Sunglasses could see, (come on, you didn't think Twilight took the spell off of everyone now did you?) "what do you mean think? Hector knows I can win!

"Oh, looks like someone's got an attitude, how about I come over there and take it out personally!"

"You're not going to do anything!" I said as I stood face to face with him. Luckily, we were of equal height, otherwise I don't think that my threat would have succeeded as much as I hoped I would. "I've seen guys like you by the hundreds, going about so full of themselves, just because they think they're superior to everyone else because of one small little detail. Well, I've got a newsflash for you, you're just a snob who has nothing better to do with thier meaningless lives than to put other people down just for their own enjoyment, in reality,  all you are is a huge d-"

Then I remembered, there were six ponies right behind me, and I didn't want to be the guy that ruined their innocence here. Besides, saying things like that would only lower myself to his levels, something I wasn't so keen on.

"D-do no gooder!" I finish. It may have not have had the raunchiness that I wanted to give him, but it still got to the point.

"Huh, you've got quite some nerve to say something like that," Sunglasses rebutted, especially for someone of your...type. Oh, and one last thing, the name's Amicus, Neques Amicus, just wanted you to know my name when I win.

"Neques... a snobbish name for a snobbish boy. And you shouldn't be worried about me remembering your name, you should be worried about mine: Hector Torres."

With that, me and everyone else walked away, making me feel like a boss.

"Rainbow Dash."

"Yeah Hector?"

"I want you to destroy that guy on the competition."

***

Finally, the time of the race had come. After explaining (more along the lines of making up things as events unfolded,) that how I controlled the R-Dash 5,000 was by a program that I downloaded, making it so that I can't control her using my glasses, which are connected to my brain through...well I can see that I'm boring you, so I'll just get along to the good stuff.

As the racers lined up, I found myself right next to Neque.

Trying to imply a sense of sportsmanship I said to him, "Hey, may the best man win."

"I intend to."

Figures, well I tried! Looking at Neques' craft, and then at his remote, there was no way he could control a complex plane with just two joysticks. That's when I noticed what was behind him. Five guys, each with their own remotes, once again, figures.

The shrill sound of the air horn goes off, Rainbow Dash, Neques' plane, and a few others zoomed off. It was actually kind of sad to see that some planes were still on their launch sequence. In the background, I could hear Applejack and the others cheering for Rainbow Dash. At this point, all I could do was hope.

◆◇◆

This should be a piece of cake, Rainbow Dash thought to herself as she zoomed by the skies This wasn't too far away from training back in Ponyville, so she saw no reason why she could loose. Honestly, she was a bit surprised that a few of the planes actually managed to slightly keep up with her, slightly. The race was easy enough, just fly by a couple of trees, dodge some clouds, turn back and repeat. While doing so, Rainbow Dash thought, as soon as we get my element back, what next, she knew they were going to the next element, but why could everybody (Hector insisted that she use that word when addressing humans, although for what reason Rainbow Dash didn't have a clue,) practically see through Twilight's spell of invisibility.  It worried Rainbow Dash, Twilight's magic didn't work here, how could they so sure that the Elements of Harmony would have the same effect here as in Equestria?  Quickly dismissing the thought, Rainbow Dash told herself to refocus on the race. She was around the halfway point, and she was winning! Even better, that jerk, Necro's, (or whatever his name was, quite frankly Rainbow Dash could care less,) plane was in last. As Rainbow Dash turned to start the next leg of the race, she counted all the poor things she was leaving in the dust, planes, ir whatever they were called. It was weird, at first she swore there were five airplanes, but now there were four! The other one probably must have crashed into something, Rainbow thought as she continued. Later on, Rainbow looked back again, and there were only three. Weird, they weren't in the part of the race with trees yet, so how did it disappear? Then she heard something, it was loud and boomish. She took a look around. Only two planes behind her, Rainbow was starting to think that something was going on, looking back again she was shocked to find there was only one plane left.

It was Nero's plane.

◆◇◆

Something was wrong, I felt it. Around me, several competitors were shaking their remotes, or saying they've lost contact of their planes. It was too far away, but it looked like all of the planes were dropping like flies. 

All except Neques' and my R-Dash 5,000.

Very faintly I could hear Rainbow Dash yelling something, I couldn't make it out, but I didn't have to hear it to finally understand what was going on. As I wad about to confront Neques,  I found out he was having his own problem too."

"Don't you see what you're doing! You didn't even wait fir the right time!" One of Neques' assistants said.

"Shut up! Neques venomously spat out " I don't care about timing, what matters is winning, an I'm going to win, WITH OR WITHOUT YOUR HELP!" with that, Neques grabbed the assistant's remote, and just started mashing buttons. Neques' plane started firing all sorts of things at Dash, from electric bolts to a potato, (don't ask me how that got in there!)  but Rainbow Dash dodged them all. 

That's when I snapped, I wanted to arrange a personal meeting with Neques and my fist, even though with my luck, I'd only end up hurting myself. Just as I was going to tackle the living daylight out of the guy, someone beat me to the punch! It turned out to be the same guy that Neques took the remote from

"Agh! Get off of me you stupid idiot!" Neques shouted.

That gave Dash enough time to cross first in the finish line and win. 

I didn't even wait to see Neques react, me along with the girls went up and cheered wildly for Rainbow Dash.

"Oh come on guys, you're acting like you were expecting me to loose!"

"We'd knew you win Rainbow," Applejack said, "we're just glad to see you here in one piece!"

"Yeah! The way you dodged everything was super-duper amazing!" Pinkie added.

After that, we got our element, and left without even taking a second look at Neques, he wasn't worth it

***

I wanted to look for more elements, but night was quickly approaching us. We had to find a place to camp out. Luckily we found a park nearby with a lot of big trees, so we decided to head there. On the way there, the girls were talking nonstop about everything that happened today. Although about an hour into it, all of them eventually fell fast asleep. I stayed up for a little while longer just to make sure that everything was fine. Normally I wouldn't consider 8:30  sleeping time, but after all that happened today, I was beat. Laying on the ground, (I let Rarity use my sleeping bag again,) I was about to check my phone to see how fat we were from Disneyland,  then I noticed I received a message,  and a lot of missed calls. If you guessed that they were from my parents,  you are correct! Go get yourself a cookie! I didn't read it, call me childish,  but I was really afraid of what my parents would say to me, whether or not they were sad or mad at me, it didn't matter, I put down my phone and decided to rest, in the morning I'd decide whether or not to read it.

I should have read the message.