//------------------------------// // On the Rails 3: Rail Harder // Story: ECRL: The Wonderhawks // by WildFire15 //------------------------------// The night before heading to an event was usually pretty hectic. After seven days straight training, packing to leave never seemed like much of a priority as they thundered around their practice track and reviewed footage of previous races at the Vanhoover Challenge track. With the bags packed and piled in the corner of the living room, the team relaxed as Concorde reviewed the instructions in the book for Cauliflower and Potato Curry, making sure he was about to add the right ingredient. He’d taken over most cooking duties after Fleetfoot, Ratchett and Spanner’s last disaster that required them to buy a new cooker and found the process to be quite relaxing after a long day of physical exertion, even if the rest of the team were getting slightly bored of curries. “Tomatoes and sugar, please.” Concorde prompted as he roughly chopped the cauliflower, potatoes and chillies. Pinkie Pie, who was coming with them to Vanhoover to support them, dropped the ingredients into the pan from where she hung by her tail from one of the rafters for whatever reason. She’d joined them for dinner along with Rainbow Dash, who was currently watching Maffett and Fleetfoot playing a fighting game along with Ratchett and Spanner while Dust was in her room as usual. It wasn’t that often they’d hang out together, with Dash going off to do her own thing while Dust went to her room and continued training, despite them pointing out how pointless it was. He didn’t mind hanging around with his team, but hadn’t felt an overwhelming urge to go anywhere with them beyond races, something he usually only did with Maffett. “Having fun there?” Concorde asked the upside down Pinkie as she stirred the contents of the pan. “Yeah!” She smiled. “This stuff smells really good.” “It’s a recipe my mum put together specifically for me.” Concorde replied as he dumped the vegetables he’d just chopped into the pan. “Straight forwards to put together for idiots like me, but too complicated for that lot.” He added, indicating to the crowd around the TV. “Oh, come on!” Fleetfoot shouted furiously at the TV as Maffett, once again, beat her trench coat wearing wolf character Blaidd. Dash, Ratchett and Spanner just laughed at her outburst. “I was blocking!” “I think you were blocking low.” Maffett pointed out as her bo staff wielding cat character, Kung Fu Cat, did her victory pose. “What difference does that make?!” “You can attack high and low, so if you’re blocking low I can still hit you with ‘high’ attacks.” “That’s b******t.” “Well, where’s the fun in just holding down block while I whale on you?” “You’ve won three in a row, Maff. Time to swap.” Concorde said as he put the lid on the pan before heading over. They were playing winner stays on with a tweak, where if someone won three in a row then they let someone else on, otherwise Maffett would be playing all night. “So Fleet stays on?” Spanner asked. “F*** that.” Fleet groaned as she got up to get a drink. “I’ll play!” Pinkie cut in, almost instantly taking Fleetfoot’s place and joystick the moment she moved and leaving Ratchett and Spanner surprised by how quickly she moved. “What’re you playing?” “Paragon Fighter," Concorde answered. "based on that super hero comic book that’s been doing the rounds.” “Ok.” Concorde took Maffett’s place and joystick and picked his usual character, the leather jacket and bandana wearing Bando. Pinkie moved the cursor around the roster for a while as she decided. “I’ll play Twilight’s brother.” She smiled, choosing Shining Armour. “Fair enough, good luck.” Concorde offered as the game loaded. Pinkie started hammering buttons the moment the match started, Concorde dodging out of the way and delivered a few strikes that Pinkie, in her random movement of the joystick, managed to avoid. As Concorde’s character hung for a moment at the end of his strike animation, several of Pinkie’s attacks connected, starting with some light hits that then rapidly turned into a combo of more powerful attacks as Pinkie continued to randomly hit buttons. Concorde desperately tried to either block or counter to get out of the onslaught, but he simply couldn’t get away and went down in a perfect defeat. “Bloody Nora, that was brutal.” Maffett laughed along with everyone else. “What happened, Corde?” Concorde just shrugged before the second round started and he quickly backed away as Pinkie started hammering buttons again, accidently hitting the pause button at one point and resuming the fight after a quick apology. Her constant flurry of moves was different to the mind game he and Maffett effectively played as they both knew the game fairly well and he was struggling to find an opening to attack as Pinkie’s Shining Armour had a longer range then his Bando. After dodging and circling around his constantly attacking opponent, Concorde tried a jump attack to get over the standard blows, but at the peak of his jump, Pinkie managed to pull off a high reaching vertical attack and an almost action replay of the first fight played out as Concorde desperately tried to get out of the combo and failed as ‘Perfect’ was announced again at his defeat. Concorde’s jaw just dropped as Pinkie whooped and everyone else laughed. *** The train left Ponyville early the next morning to head North West to Vanhoover. He hadn’t said anything, but Concorde’s nerves had already started to creep up and he hadn’t slept much the night before. His eyes were heavy and desperately trying to draw themselves shut, but he wouldn’t let them as he read one of his favourite Tintin stories. He always got nervous before ‘events’ of any kind, even just going to the movies with Maffett. He’d never been sure why he got so nervous, but he just went with it and tried to stay out of the way so his nerves didn’t show. Being in a single train carriage with his entire team and whoever else came along, this time just Pinkie, it was slightly more difficult to stay out of the way. Fortunately, there was a comfy, padded bench in the corner which he had taken and with his focus entirely on the book, become somewhat oblivious to what the others were doing. So long as they didn’t bother him, he couldn’t care less what they were doing. Concorde turned the page as Tintin and Haddock discovered the device of the story when he became aware of something as the bench he was laying on moved slightly. He looked up and got the fright of his life when all he could see was a pair of big, blue eyes. “What you reading?” Pinkie asked excitedly. She was stood over him with a big smile on her face that was slightly disconcerting. “Erm, L'Affaire Tournesol.” He answered after a moment, showing her the book’s cover. “It’s one of my favourite Tahntahn stories.” “Is that how you pronounce ‘Tintin’?” “It’s the French pronunciation, aye.” “Puis-je lire ainsi? [Can I read it with you?]” She asked in French, taking him completely by surprise. “Erm, okay. Didn’t know you spoke French.” He smiled, slightly awkwardly in his surprise, which also prevented him from thinking of any way of declining. “Je peux parler français, mais je ne sais pas ce que cela signifie. [I can speak it, but I don’t know what it means.]” She smiled sweetly before sitting next to him. Concorde pondered that nugget for a moment, having no idea how such a thing was possible. He’d met ponies who understood languages without speaking them, but never the other way around. He just shrugged. Dash had told him a couple times that making sense of Pinkie was completely pointless so he just opened up the comic to the first page again. “Seeing as you’re in the real world now, do you want a drink?” Maffett called over. “Please.” He replied, now aware of what was going on around him. Ratchett and Spanner were debating their notes as they usually did while Fleetfoot was making her way through a long letter from Spitfire that she wouldn’t let the others see. Maffett was busy making drinks for almost everyone as Dust did her usual weight training. Dash was having one of her usual mid-morning naps, snoozing gently on one of the benches. “I’ve got an idea.” Concorde announced. Lightening the atmosphere always seemed to help with his nerves. “What sort of idea? You’re not going to prank Dashie, are you?” “Partially yes.” He answered, laying down the comic and walking over to her. Carefully, he moved her closer to the edge of the bench to make it more likely she’d roll off onto the floor. Seeing as it was a wooden floor, he decided to put a pillow where it was most likely her face would land. “Now we wait.” Concorde smiled, the others looking to see what he was doing. Almost as if the train was in on the joke, the whole carriage buffeted as it went over an awkward piece of track and caused almost everything to bounce into the air. With a thud and an ‘umph’, Dash fell off the bench and onto the floor. There were a few awkward laughs before they realized why the carriage had bounced, but it seemed Dash had slept through the whole event and was still snoozing away, even with her face in a pillow on the floor. Concorde just knocked the other pillow off the bench onto her head and went back to Pinkie and his comic.