//------------------------------// // Rocket Science // Story: LEGO Equestria Girls // by Chronicler06 //------------------------------// Chapter 9 Rocket Science Twilight Sparkle and her team had put on their helmets and stepped outside to examine the pile of Lego parts that used to be their spaceship. After witnessing the destruction of it on a live video, they had no idea what they should do. The Wonderbolts were still on-edge after the recent attack, so none were willing to let them borrow any of their spacecraft. It was Luna Playwell who had suggested that they venture outside and take a closer look at what remained of the spaceship. She had left to observe the interrogation of Lightning Dust before she could offer any further advice, but at least it was a start. Rainbow Dash kicked a stray part toward the pile in the middle. “Great,” she said dejectedly. “Now how are we gonna get back?” Twilight looked over many of the Lego parts in the pile and was able to recognize most of them, but she couldn’t quite remember how they all went together. “Well, it looks like all of the pieces are still here,” she said with slight uncertainty. “Maybe we could build a new spaceship.” “SPACESHIP!” shouted Pinkie Pie enthusiastically with a jump. That sudden outburst drew confused looks from the rest of the team. Pinkie looked around at them in confusion and said, “What?” Applejack ignored her and asked Twilight, “You sure ‘bout that? Ah know nothin’ on how to build a spaceship.” “How hard can it be?” said Twilight as she picked up two random pieces. “Just grab some parts and start putting them together, I guess.” She put the two pieces together. She wasn’t sure what part of the new spaceship those pieces would be, but at least it was somewhere to start. “Not like we’ve got any better ideas,” said Spike with a shrug before walking up to the pile of Lego pieces. “You can say that again,” grumbled Rainbow Dash as she and the others also began to approach the pile. Everyone began combing through different sections of the pile, eventually separating it into a few smaller piles. Progress was slow to start, due to high levels of uncertainty on what to build. Rainbow Dash, in particular, was already having doubts. “Who am I kidding?” she muttered to herself as she tossed another piece over her shoulder. “This wouldn’t be such a big problem if we actually knew what we’re doing.” Her frustration began to boil over as she started punching the pieces piled up in front of her, sending them flying into an even messier pile. She went through about half of the pile before finally stopping to take a breather. Fluttershy had silently watched the whole thing. She was not the kind of person who said, “I told ya so,” but she had to admit that, had she stayed behind to guard the spaceship as she had originally requested, then perhaps this big mess would never have happened. Instead, she waited for Rainbow Dash to calm down a bit before politely asking, “Feeling better?” Rainbow sighed in frustration and muttered, “I don’t know.” Not long after that, Spike was fortunate to discover two pieces that had remained together. Rarity looked over and also saw how useful those attached pieces could be. “Lovely,” she commented as she snatched the parts out of Spike’s hand. “Hey!” protested Spike as he grabbed one of the attached parts, while Rarity continued to hold the other one. Their little tug-of-war inevitably came to an end when the two pieces separated. Spike was sent tumbling backwards into another pile. He quickly climbed out, but noticed that his hands were now empty. The part that he had held onto most likely ended up inside the pile he had fallen into. Spike could only moan in disappointment. One the other side of that pile, Pinkie Pie noticed a rather long piece lying on the floor. “Ups-a-daisy!” she said happily as she picked it up and carried it on her shoulder. As she turned around to start going somewhere, the long piece swung around and smacked Rainbow Dash in the back of the head. “Ow!” exclaimed Rainbow as she fell forward. “Whoops! Sorry,” said Pinkie as she spun around to look at Rainbow, unwittingly causing the piece she was carrying to swing around and strike Fluttershy in the head. “Ouch!” exclaimed Fluttershy as she also fell forward. “Whoops! Sorry to you, too,” said Pinkie as she spun around to face Fluttershy, unaware her long piece now swung back towards Rainbow Dash. “Whoa! Watch it!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash as she ducked down to avoid getting hit. “Whoops! Sorry again,” said Pinkie as she spun around again towards Rainbow, unknowingly swinging the part at Fluttershy again. “Please stop doing that!” whimpered Fluttershy as she cowered against the floor, which thankfully prevented her from getting hit again. “Whoops! Double sorry,” said Pinkie as she spun around yet again to face Fluttershy. “Gimmie that!” shouted Rainbow Dash as she got up and snatched the long piece out of Pinkie Pie’s hands. She then grumbled under her breath as she stormed off with the piece. After a brief silence, Pinkie turned to Fluttershy and asked, “Did you catch any of that? Because I didn’t understand a word she said.” Unlike Pinkie, Fluttershy had a better understanding of Rainbow Dash’s current emotion, so she replied, “Um, maybe it’s best that we not know… if that’s okay with you, that is.” After a little more digging around in the piles, everyone began putting some of the pieces together. Within only a few minutes, a structure began to take shape. Although everyone contributed to the build, each of them had a different idea in mind of what the finished model should be like. Applejack lifted up a small engine assembly and brought it over to the underside of a wing. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” demanded Rarity as she walked up to Applejack. “Ah’m attachin’ this here engine to the wing,” replied Applejack as she began to lift it into place. Before the sub-model could be attached, Rarity grabbed it and said, “Well you’re doing it all wrong, darling. It should go over here.” She pulled it over toward the end of the wing. Applejack glared at Rarity for trying to take over like that “Ah think it should go over here,” said Applejack as she pulled the small engine assembly back toward the base of the wing. “I’ll have you know, it’ll look much better over here,” insisted Rarity as she tugged the little model back toward the end of the wing. “But it would work better if it was over here,” stressed Applejack as she tugged the sub-model back toward the base of the wing. Before long, Rarity and Applejack were in a tug-of-war over the small assembly, neither side willing to back down. Twilight noticed this and quickly decided to intervene. “What is wrong with you girls?!” she exclaimed as she walked up to the two arguing minifigs. “Just strike a compromise and put it here.” She pushed the engine assembly up until it clicked into place at the middle of the wing. “Honestly, there’s no reason this has to be complicated. It’s just rocket science.” As Applejack and Rarity begrudgingly moved on to another part of the construction, Spike climbed up to the top of what had been built so far. He turned back and motioned to Pinkie, who began tossing some pieces up to him. Each time he caught a part, he would quickly attach it to whatever part of the spaceship he thought would best need it. After about half a dozen pieces, he caught the next one in such a way that made it top-heavy, causing him to lean backwards uncontrollably. “Whoa! Whoa! Ahh!” he screamed as he lost his balance and fell off the unfinished spaceship, landing flat on his back. “I’m okay,” he said weakly. Progress continued to be frustratingly slow, but the finished model was finally coming together. There were only a few more pieces left to attach. “This better be worth it,” mumbled Rainbow Dash as she casually tossed a random piece onto the structure. “Almost…” said Rarity as she carefully fitted another part into place. Applejack attached one of the last pieces and said with satisfaction, “That should do it.” Twilight dusted off her hands as she stepped back to join her team. “There! All done!” she said proudly as she and her team looked up at their new spaceship. Actually, it was not something to be proud of. There were a lot of jagged edges in some places, the wings were not attached symmetrically, and a lot of interior parts had been placed on the exterior. “This is a spaceship?” asked Spike incredulously. Rainbow Dash screamed in frustration and shouted, “I knew this was a dumb idea!” She picked up one of the small spare pieces and threw it at the poorly-built spaceship. When the piece struck it, the spaceship completely collapsed into a pile of parts, not much different from how it all started. Rarity sighed and said, “Back to square one.” “No, Rainbow Dash,” said Twilight calmly. “We just went about this the wrong way.” Twilight wouldn’t admit it aloud, but this had been her idea. She was still confident it would work, but she knew a change in strategy was needed. She tapped her chin thoughtfully and said, “Let’s see… What should we do differently this time?” “Ah doubt we’ll get anywhere at this rate,” said Applejack. “None of us are exactly skilled at buildin’ spaceships.” “There’s gotta be at least one of us who can come up with a good idea of what to build,” said Spike desperately. “That’s it!” Twilight suddenly spoke up. She ran back to the pile of Lego pieces and began digging around. “I know we had one around here somewhere,” she mumbled as she kept searching. “What are you looking for?” asked Fluttershy. “If you don’t mind me asking.” “Aha! Found it!” cheered Twilight as she held up the item she was looking for: a pencil. She then ran back to the others, grabbing a large flat square part along the way. “Rarity,” she said as she practically shoved the two items into her teammate’s hands. “Sketch an idea for a spaceship.” Rarity looked completely baffled by such a request. “Excuse me, dear, but you want me to design a spaceship?!” she asked. “That’s right!” replied Twilight with complete confidence. “But I am a fashion designer, not some… engineer,” said Rarity with uncertainty. Twilight sighed. “I know, but we don’t exactly have any engineers with us right now.” She then spoke with a reassuring voice, “Look, I’m not asking you to write an instruction manual. Just sketch anything that comes to mind. The only requirement is that it has to be a spaceship and use nothing more than the parts available in this pile. Can you do that for us?” Rarity hummed thoughtfully as she looked down at the blank surface in her hands. “Ya sure this is gonna work?” asked Applejack uncertainly. “Let’s face it,” said Rainbow Dash doubtfully, “we’ll have better luck convincing the Wonderbolts to let us borrow one of their spaceships, and we already how hard that’s gonna be at a time like this.” Rarity suddenly gasped and exclaimed in a sing-song voice “Idea!” She began quickly scribbling on the blank piece in her hands, sketching out the spaceship design she now had in mind. Rainbow Dash and Applejack looked over her left shoulder, while Spike and Fluttershy looked over her right shoulder. After no more than a minute, the sketch was complete. Rarity held it up in front of herself to admire her work. “Perfect!” she said with satisfaction. “Excellent!” said Twilight as she snatched the sketch out of Rarity’s hands. “Hey!” protested Rarity. Twilight ignored her as she shoved the sketch into Pinkie Pie’s hands and asked, “Think you can build that?” Pinkie Pie needed no more than one second to look over the entire sketch before replying with a salute, “No problemo!” She instantly zoomed off to the pile of Lego parts, leaving the sketch behind in her wake. Once she arrived at the pile, she literally appeared to be in many places at once as she started throwing together all of the pieces. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Click! Clack! Whoosh! Whoosh! Click! Clack! Click! Clack! Whoosh! Click! Click! Clack! Clack! Whoosh! Click! Clack! Click! Clack! Click! Clack! Click! Clack! Finally, Pinkie stood atop the completed spaceship as she threw the last piece into place with a final clicking noise. She then spread her arms wide out and cheerfully shouted, “Ta-da!” The entire team had watched the entire assembly without anyone saying a word. They were still left speechless as they looked up at their new spaceship. It was more than just a decent model; it actually looked even better than the original one that had been blown up. Rainbow Dash was the first to speak up. “Awesome!” she exclaimed excitedly. “Now that is a spaceship!” “See, girls? We are a good team,” said Twilight in satisfaction. “We just needed to focus on our strengths.” “Either way, the results are what matter,” said Applejack contently. “Now that we got ourselves a spaceship, let’s climb aboard an’ get goin’.” Everyone silently agreed and began to enter their new spaceship. The lower deck of the new spaceship served a similar function as on the old one. Once the air-lock was closed and the interior air became safe to breathe, everyone took off their helmets and left them with their spare change of clothes. Applejack grabbed her hat and followed the others up to the control room at the front of the ship. It was here that the differences became clear. “Huh, new seating arrangements,” commented Spike. The seven seats were now arranged in two rows; three in the front and four in the back. In the front row, Rainbow took the seat to the right of the pilot’s seat, while Rarity took the one to its left. In the back row, from left to right, sat Spike, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy. Twilight Sparkle sat down in the pilot’s seat and pulled out the User’s Manual once more. As soon as she opened that book, she quickly realized something. “Uh oh, we’ve got a problem,” she said worriedly. “What is it, dear?” asked Rarity. “This is a completely different spaceship, which means the User’s Manual is now useless,” explained Twilight before tossing the book behind her back. She sighed in disappointment. “I’m afraid I have no idea how to fly this thing, nor do I have any way to even learn how to fly it.” Everyone looked at one another uneasily as they realized what this meant. They knew they would need a new spaceship, but it had never occurred to any of them that they would also need someone who knew how to pilot such a ship. For a spaceship that they had built on their own, that would not be easy. “Let me give it a try,” offered Rainbow Dash. “A highly-trained Wonderbolt knows how to fly just about any spaceship, even custom designs. If I’m gonna join them someday, then I’d like to prove that I’ve got what it takes.” “Okay,” said Twilight uncertainly as she got up out of the pilot’s seat. As she switched places with Rainbow Dash, she asked, “How do you plan on figuring out how to fly this spaceship.” “Easy,” replied Rainbow Dash as she sat down in the pilot’s seat. “I’m gonna improvise.” “Ohh, I don’t like the sound of that,” said Fluttershy uneasily. “If anybody’s got any better ideas, I’d love to hear them,” said Rainbow Dash, looking around at her teammates. When she got no replies, she turned back to the controls in front of her and flatly said, “That’s what I thought.” Before Rainbow even touched anything, Twilight immediately tapped the side of her seat to make the seatbelt automatically strap her in. The rest of her team quickly did the same. Rainbow didn’t need to be a genius to figure out why everyone was quick to react like that. Who could blame them? In fact, she even decided to put on her own seatbelt for the same reason. “Okay… here’s hoping we don’t blow up,” she said before pressing one of the larger buttons on the console. That button activated the engines, which were currently set to Hover Mode. This allowed the new spaceship to slowly rise up off the landing pad. “So far, so good,” remarked Rainbow Dash. “Now let’s try to raise that landing gear.” She looked over the entire console for a button or switch to raise the landing gear. Unfortunately, not many of them were properly labeled. Forced to do some guesswork, she decided on one likely button and tapped it. A squeaking noise made Rainbow look up and see a pair of windshield wipers swiping back and forth over the front window. “Nope, that’s not it,” she said as she tapped that button again to bring the wipers back down. “Let’s try this one,” said Rainbow before tapping another random button. This made her seat quickly recline all the way back, taking her with it. She tried to get back up, but her seatbelt held her down. “Uh, little help here?” Applejack removed her seatbelt and stood up. With one mighty kick, she sent the seat and Rainbow Dash back into the upright position. She then sat back down and put her seatbelt back on. “Thanks,” said Rainbow Dash over her shoulder. She turned back to the console and said, “How about this one?” The next button she pressed caused some insanely loud rock music to start blaring throughout the entire ship, forcing everyone to cover their ears. Rainbow quickly tapped that button again to shut off the music. “Kinda awesome, but not what I need right now.” She took another quick look and chose yet another random button. “Maybe it’s this one.” When Rainbow pressed that button, all that seemed to happen was a faint mechanical noise. Twilight remembered the description of a similar noise mentioned in the User’s Manual for the old spaceship, specifying it as the landing gear being raised into the ship. Since they had no way of seeing it from the outside, that noise would be their only clue. “I think that’s the one you’re looking for,” she said. “Good!” said Rainbow with determination as she grabbed onto the flight controls. “Now that that’s taken care of, let’s fly!” She pushed forward on the controls, but the spaceship moved rather slowly in that direction. She then pulled back, forward again, and in many more directions, but it continued to move at a snail’s pace. “Come on! Why isn’t this thing moving?” “Maybe ya left it in park,” suggested Applejack. Rainbow Dash looked down at the console and, sure enough, it was still in Hover Mode. She face-palmed before reaching over and switching it to Launch Mode. The main engines ignited, sending the spaceship shooting forward at high speed. Everyone was quickly thrown back into their seats from the sudden acceleration. Rainbow Dash held tightly to the flight controls and pulled back on them, steering the spaceship upwards away from the surface of the Moon. Once they were vertical, the ship started spiraling uncontrollably. “Left! Left! No, right!” shouted Rainbow as she struggled to regain control. After enduring nearly a minute of violent shaking, she was finally able to stabilize the movement of the spaceship. Directly ahead of them was their destination: planet Earth. Twilight let out a sigh of relief and said, “Well, I’m glad that’s over. Now we just let this thing reach maximum velocity and wait another ten hours until we get there.” As Rainbow was about to switch the engines to Cruise Mode, she noticed a big yellow button nearby. “Hm, I wonder what this does,” she said to herself, before pressing the button in question. The spaceship suddenly began to accelerate even faster, throwing everyone back in their seats again. The seven minifigs screamed as the whole ship rumbled from the incredible speed. Rainbow Dash quickly recovered from the shock and reached over to the console. She was about to tap that button again when she noticed the velocity was climbing much higher than before. That was all she needed to see to make up her mind. She left that button alone and continued to do her best to keep the spaceship on course. “Rainbow Dash!” screamed Rarity. “Shut it off!” “No can do!” exclaimed Rainbow as she continued working hard to keep the ship under control. “We’ll get there much faster this way!” Twilight looked up at the planet ahead and — despite it moving around all over the window — could actually see that it was slowly growing larger, which indicated they were getting closer at a much higher speed than anticipated. Realizing what Rainbow was up to, Twilight said with concern, “I hope you know what you’re doing!” “So do I,” responded Rainbow Dash, doing everything she could to keep the planet directly ahead. As the seconds ticked by, their destination slowly grew ever larger — visual proof of the unbelievable speeds they were flying at. After just over minute, they were already very close, but the constant violent rumbling had made it feel like hours. Finally, Rainbow Dash decided they were close enough to slow down, so she reached forward and tapped that big yellow button again. Whatever it was that now deactivated, it caused the spaceship to quickly slow down considerably. The force of that massive deceleration would have flung everyone forward out of their seats, had they not been wearing their seatbelts. Finally, Rainbow pulled back on the controls, bringing the spaceship to fly parallel with the surface of the world just a few hundred miles below. Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief. “What was that?” asked Rainbow Dash. “Did you like that turbo charger I installed?” asked Pinkie Pie excitedly. “Turbo charger?” asked Rarity in confusion. “I never specified such a thing in my sketch.” “I decided to add a few surprises,” answered Pinkie innocently. “We didn’t have the right parts to make one of those FTL Warp Drive thingies, so I decided to go with the next best thing.” “Where in the Lego World did ya learn to build stuff like that?” asked Applejack. Before Pinkie could give a reply, Applejack shook her head and said, “Never mind. Ah don’t wanna know.” “I don’t care how she built it,” Rainbow Dash spoke up. “The only thing that matters is that it worked, and this ten-hour flight has now been cut down to just ten minutes. Now that’s something I consider awesome.” “As long as we don’t have to do that again,” muttered Spike. Rainbow looked over the console once more and tapped a key that brought up a map on the tiny display screen. “Huh, look at that. We’re already flying over the Castle Region,” she told her teammates. “Prepare to reenter!” And with that, she set the engines to Reentry Mode and brought the spaceship down to a shallow angle. Having read in the User’s Manual about what reentry would feel like, Twilight told her team, “Hang on for another bumpy ride!” As they started the reentry, the air around the spaceship began to glow from the intense heat. The atmospheric friction that created this heat also caused the ship to shake around again. For a spaceship that they had literally just assembled on their own with no prior experience, it seemed to be holding together quite well. “I think I’m gonna be sick!” shouted Spike over the noise of reentry. It wasn’t long until the spaceship slowed down enough for the heat to dissipate and the ride to smooth out. Outside the window, the team could see the surface below consisted of scattered woodland and meadows. Rainbow Dash set the engines to Hover Mode and said, “Now that we made it through, all there is left to do is land this thing.” She tapped a button to bring down the landing gear, but instead made the windshield wipers come on again. “And that’s not the landing gear button,” Rainbow deadpanned. She shut off the wipers and hit the correct button. Once that was taken care of, she began to slowly lower the spaceship. “Careful!” Twilight suddenly exclaimed. “Watch out for those trees!” Rainbow looked out and saw that she was lowering the ship directly over a dense forest. She immediately stopped the descent and began to move over to the nearest clearing. “Careful!” Fluttershy suddenly exclaimed. “Watch out for that meadow!” “Why would we want to avoid that?” asked Rarity in confusion. “Such a clearing would make an ideal landing site.” “But you never know what kinds of helpless critters could be hiding in the grass,” Fluttershy pointed out. “We might hurt them if we try to land here.” “But we have to land somewhere,” argued Twilight, “and this meadow is our best bet.” “Don’t land in the meadow, Rainbow Dash.” “Land in the meadow!” Twilight and Fluttershy continued to argue back and forth, while Rarity tried futilely to resolve the issue peacefully. Spike wouldn’t stop complaining about feeling airsick, while Pinkie Pie didn’t make things any better by pointing in random directions and shouting, “Over there! Over here! Over there! Over here! Over there!” In the middle of it all, Rainbow Dash was unable to get anything done in her attempt to land the spaceship. Applejack realized that all of this nonsense was getting them nowhere, so she decided to take action. “Oh, for Ole’s sake, just land already!” she exclaimed as she took off her hat and tossed it at the console in front of Rainbow Dash. With remarkable aim, the hat struck the power button, shutting off the engines. With nothing keeping it aloft, the spaceship simply dropped down to the open ground that was not far below. The impact violently shook the spaceship and everyone inside, but it was fortunately not enough to break anything loose. “See? Nothin’ to it,” remarked Applejack confidently as she removed her seatbelt. “Yeah… that’ll work,” said a slightly dazed Rainbow Dash. The impact had knocked her hair piece askew so that it covered one of her eyes. After quickly getting over her dazed state, she readjusted her hair and removed her seatbelt. “I suppose that’s one way to solve our problems,” said Rarity as she and the rest of the team removed their seatbelts. “Not that I would recommend it in most circumstances.” Spike breathed rapidly and heavily into a paper bag before stating, “I’m just glad we’re finally on the ground.” Twilight got up out of her seat and said, “Yes, now that we’ve landed, let’s begin our next mission.” “But first, I suggest we change back into our normal attire,” said Rarity. “Now that we are no longer in space, there is no need for us to wear these spacesuits anymore.” “Sounds good to me,” said Applejack in agreement as she retrieved her hat. Everyone got out of their seats and headed for the lower deck to grab their spare change of clothes. Their space mission was over. Now, it was time to help save the Castle Region.