//------------------------------// // Chapter 16 // Story: Luna vs. a Tiny Italian Car // by totallynotabrony //------------------------------// August 31, 2015 We went to Wilmington. It was sort of a college town with a nautical flair. Full of bars, is what I’m saying. Also, being pre-Labor Day weekend, the bars themselves were full. The concept of pre-Labor Day was explained to me in line at the convenience store. When the first Monday in September isn’t close to September 1, but there’s a Monday close to the end of August, the first weekend contains pre-Labor Day. For example, this year pre-Labor Day was Monday August 31, and real Labor day was September 7. Any excuse to have a three-day weekend. This worked great for people who didn’t have jobs, like college students and me. Not that getting smashed was a great idea with Tirek running around, but he’d been following a pattern lately, and so we took a calculated risk: one drink. I decided on a beer from the local microbrewery. Maria can’t stand the taste of beer, so she drinks neat whiskey. My wife, everyone. Luna had a much harder time making up her mind. Choosing between so many beverages made from fruits and grains was difficult. She announced that she would tour the kitchen. That sounded like a bad idea in the making, but we’d pretty much already crossed the ethical threshold by pretending Luna didn’t exist at buffets and places that charged admission. It was easier than explaining why we needed to pay for our invisible friend while we hunted a guy who might bring about more trouble than the universe had ever seen. War is hell. We didn’t think Tirek would attack Luna in the back room of a small pub in North Carolina. And sure enough, he didn’t. However, Maria and I got a faceful of a drunk college student. First he stumbled into our table, and then just kind of flopped into the seat Luna had vacated. Maria and I stared at him. He blinked blearily at us. “Who are you?” “Not your friends,” said Maria. “You’re at the wrong table.” In college, I had once had an intoxicated guy crawl into bed with me. Despite that, I still had not come up with a preprepared response to lost drunks, and was glad Maria handled it. Though, being drunk, the logic didn’t take hold. He paused as if it was trying to, but then said, “This is like that one time when some chick invited me to her sorority’s kegger: I came.” “I have also arrived,” announced Luna, appearing at the table. She glanced back and forth, raising an eyebrow at our uninvited guest, who fell over backwards just then. “A unicorn!” he shouted, pointing at Luna. “I am an alicorn, that you,” Luna corrected. He managed to stand up, still pointing and shouting. “Shut up, unicorn!” A bouncer tossed him out. Luna sat down. Nobody seemed to have noticed her. When the waitress came back around, we ordered a modest white wine for Luna. We’d waited for her to order, and when all three drinks arrived, we drank. That took about a minute. Luna had drained her glass and looked disappointed. I think we were all feeling the same way about this little excursion. “Well, this was fun,” I said. “Back to saving the world.” None of us moved. “You know, I saw a fudge and ice cream shop a block over,” said Maria. Instant happiness. She knows me and ponies too well. With ice cream, we went for a walk along the river, me holding Luna’s cone for her as I stared at the old USS North Carolina battleship moored on the other side as a museum. We rounded the block, and Maria paused at street sign. “Hey, let’s get a picture.” I glanced at the sign. Princess Street. She took a picture of me feeding Luna ice cream in front of the sign. Luna was much more amiable about it. I may be a brony, but I have an image to maintain, thank you. Of course, maybe I shouldn’t be so concerned about image. The drunk guy from earlier recognized me, and I suppose Luna too, and tried to tackle us. Maria saw him coming and tripped him. He landed in a heap on my shoes. “What the heck?” I said, or words to that effect. “I knew there was something strange about that unicorn!” he said, getting to his feet and swaying like a tree in a hurricane. “There’s a reward for you!” “What are you talking about?” I asked. It seemed like a drunken ramble, but it was also strangely specific. He didn’t answer, instead charging forward again. Luna and I stepped aside and let him fall on the curb, again. “I think we should go,” Maria suggested. “Even if he’s full of it, we don’t need to get wrapped up in his impending public intoxication arrest.” By the time we had gotten back to the hotel, a couple people had already sent me the news. Tirek, in a video on its way to going viral, had publicly stated that he wanted Luna and/or my head. He’d apparently interrupted a news report to deliver his message. It looked like the cameraman was trembling, but the image kept fairly well centered on Tirek. He seemed to be outdoors in some city. “People of Earth, I am Lord Tirek and I come to you with an opportunity. I want Princess Luna of Equestria and her accomplice Sandy West delivered to me. Do this, and I will grant any request you so desire.” He turned and stomped away. A shaken female reporter stumbled back into frame, holding a microphone that had WSB-TV Atlanta on it. Wide eyed, she glanced at the camera and then at Tirek’s receding back. The video cut off. I did a quick check of news sites. Speculation was abounding, and my picture from the newspaper was going around. I shut off my laptop. Maria quietly removed the battery from her cell phone. We speedily packed up and left the hotel without drawing attention to ourselves. “We need to ditch the car,” I said, when we were on the road. “And do what?” Maria said. “Well, it would be nice to get something with more room and horsepower,” I said. “Maybe a rental.” “With what money?” she said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to use credit cards anymore, now that you’re all over the news. They’ll probably check me out, too.” “We can use the gold. Oh man, if I could get my hands on a Hellcat Charger…” “That raises the problem of what black market contact you’re going to use to convert an ingot into cash,” she said. “Are there any of those in the MLP community?” “Well...uh, I wouldn’t be surprised.” “We should not change vehicles,” said Luna. I glanced back. “Really? You wouldn’t rather have one that was bigger, faster, and not so recognizable?” “I have other, more important qualities in mind. Trust me.” “What qualities? Since when do you actually like this car?” “I still do not like this car, but trust me on this. Find another way.” I glanced back at her again. This is stupid was my first thought, but...well, she must have had a good reason. And she trusted me. I nodded. “Okay, let me see what kind of criminals I can find to get us license plates and stuff from the black market.” “But wouldn’t a criminal hand us over to Tirek?” Maria asked. I shrugged helplessly. “This is where I hope Twilicorn didn’t turn them off princesses.”