Throwing up the hood of the Interceptor, slipping it past the V8 engine, Max peered inside. A thin layer of sand coated everything, pasted on by the heat of the engine and sun. His eyes glazed over it without a second glance, searching over the block. Nodding, he gripped the hood, but stopped from closing it when he caught sight of Rainbow, still hovering in place. Her eyes hadn’t left the canyon, where the white smoke shifted to a grayer shade.
Max slammed the hood shut, knocking Rainbow out of her thoughts. She turned to him and watched as he walked alongside the Interceptor towards the trunk. Her brow furrowed with each step he took, her frame quivering. It wasn’t until he was fiddling with the harpoon did she streak over to him, landing on the roof of the Interceptor with enough force to leave a faint dent.
“What the hay was that!?” she shouted, her breathing heavy, hitching every so often. She quickly winced, falling onto her haunches to put a hoof over her injured foreleg. Blood still spilled out of the gash, staining her hoof in red. Max didn’t even flinch as he twisted and pulled the harpoon still lodged into the gas barrel. The harpoon had hit the side, which spilt most of the gasoline. A final grunt and tug and the harpoon was free. An arrow head with several hooks on each side; normal as far as harpoons went. Tossing it aside, Max gripped the barrel and gave it a good shake. There was no sound of sloshing liquid from within, and Max grunted disapprovingly.
“Empty,” he said, pulling his hands away. Rainbow clamped her eyes shut.
“Listen to me!” she blurted, jumping back on her hooves, her wings flaring as she threw her head forward. “All you’ve done is-is shove that… death stick at me, and kill a bunch of people! I thought cutting that cable would help us get through to them!”
Max made to leave, but stopped, staring ahead, “I never promised anything.”
“But you- the cable- and there- Gah!” Rainbow rambled, stomping a hoof, and wincing again, since it was her injured leg. Waving her off, Max continued around the Interceptor to the driver’s side, leaving Rainbow to slump down and hit the side of her head with her hoof repeatedly.
Opening the door, Max ducked inside the Interceptor and grabbed a hold of the corpse still lying inside. With a grip on each arm, Max dragged the body out, the head dripping blood. Rainbow only had to take one look at the body before the urge to puke arose in her. She swallowed it away and lifted a wing between herself and the body.
Max hefted the body to the top of a nearby sand dune before dropping it over the side. The body slid down, pushing aside the sand and leaving a trail of blood before slowing to a halt. Making his way back, Rainbow lowered her wing hesitantly before raising a brow.
“You buried that guy fast,” she said, her voice dying halfway through as she bowed her head.
“I didn’t,” Max replied, completely stoic as Rainbow stared at him in horror.
“You just left him there?” she breathed, “You kill him and don’t even bother burying him?”
The smoke from the canyon drifted faster as the wind picked up. It pushed through Rainbow’s mane, allowing it to sway and wave like a flag. It was enough for Max to look at her, watching as the colors clumped together; no color of hair clashed with another. It was much like how a real rainbow would be. Rainbow moved to the side, her eyes narrowed.
“You’re awful!” Rainbow snapped, eyes flicking over to the canyon. “You kill all of them and don’t feel a thing? I don’t know who you are, but you have to feel something! Anything!”
“Get off my car,” Max growled, making Rainbow harden her expression.
“No,” she stated flatly, standing up high.
“I’m not going to tell you again,” Max said, a hand resting on the handle of his shotgun.
The small action made Rainbow Dash falter, glancing around at the Interceptor and the desert surroundings. Endless sand greeted her, and besides the road and canyon, there were no other landmarks. Rainbow released a breath, wiping a hoof over her forehead as sweat dotted her face. Max gripped his shotgun, looking into the Interceptor to see his canteen resting beside the bag of shotgun shells. There wasn’t a lot of water contained in it.
“You know what?” Rainbow asked, lifting herself off the roof with her wings. “Fine! I’m not even sure why I’m still talking to you. Good bye!”
And she was off before Max could make a move. She flew upward, keeping straight the whole time as Max observed her departure until she was a speck against the sky, only visible by her rainbow mane and tail. After which, he hopped back into his car, closing the door before resting his hands on the wheel. The whistle of the wind could be heard, as well as a girl’s voice.
Why do you do this? Max?
The voice was hollow, floaty, like the wind had carried it. Max snapped his head to the side as his face scrunched up. Quickly, he started up the car, the engine roaring back to life. Gradually, he accelerated off, mindful of the slippery sand underneath. With a wide turn, he drove with the canyon to his left.
Despite driving slower than before, the Interceptor still kicked up a cloud of dust, easily visible by Rainbow as she pressed on towards the sky. The dust cloud made her push her wings harder, her face scrunched up in agitation.
“That guy is worse than Gilda,” she remarked to herself. “At least she gave me her name… and doesn’t kill people.” She blinked, “Actually, a lot of guys are better than him.”
Halting midair, scanning the horizon, she put a foreleg over her eyes, shielding them from the sun. The landscape was flat, the hills of sand barely making an impact. A mountain range rested far off in the distance, just past the canyon, but was faded, barely seen through the haze of heat.
Rainbow wiped her forehead again, the sweat clumping up her fur, “Jeez, it’s hot. When was the last time this place had any weather control? Come to think of it, this place isn’t even in Equestria. Those tall, upright things are here, and those driving machines. But how’d I get here? I remember a book... “ A long silence followed as Rainbow put both of her hooves against her head. “Darn it, why did I read it? Gah, I hope Twilight figures out I’m missing.”
Her gaze wandered over to the dust cloud again, and then a glint was seen further ahead of it. Sparkling in the sun, it would gleam brightly before disappearing, with no pattern whatsoever. It was near the base of a small cliff, and though Rainbow couldn’t make out the object itself, something reflected sunlight off in the distance, a spot Max was heading straight for. Looking between the glint and the Interceptor, Rainbow groaned.
“I’m just looking for the book,” Rainbow reminded, setting course for the blinking light. “I don’t need to talk to that… guy.” She picked up her pace, her wings flapping harder. “I could even beat him there.”
Those words put a smirk on her face, streamlining her body as her speed increased. The Interceptor streaked across the sand as she slowly passed it. She gave a curt nod, but before she could focus back on her flying, two other vehicles rapidly came around a sand dune, closing in on the Interceptor. They were much smaller than the earlier cars, and had no trouble treading through the sand. They twisted and turned amongst each other, in sync with the other’s movements as they jumped across the hills.
Rainbow watched them but shook it off as she pulled her head up, “It’s just going to be like last time. Don’t get involved.”
Despite what she told herself, Rainbow was gliding lower and lower, sneaking glances to the small vehicles. They were rusty ATVs, one having a red exterior, and the other displaying blue. The riders themselves were cloaked in drab brown, their faces hidden by gas masks.
“Hey, brother!” the man on the blue ATV, Blucifer, spoke, his mask muffling his words. He drove closer to the other as he pointed to the Interceptor. “Look! I told you there’d be something from the smoke!”
“I see it, damn it,” the red ATV rider, Redding, grumbled, restraining himself from facing Blucifer. “You don’t have to rub it in.”
“You owe me two koobs, just like we bet!” Blucifer laughed, hopping slightly in his seat. “I also bet three koobs that he’ll be dead before the sun sets.”
“I won’t take that bet,” Redding mused duly, looking to the side. “Considering the sun isn’t even close to setting.”
“Okay!” Blucifer said, pointing across to Redding. “Make it one koob then.”
“I hate you so much,” Redding grumbled.
Max could hear it all, eyeing the followers irritably while bearing his teeth. Rainbow, on the other hand, looked between the two of them with her face blank.
“Are these guys for real?” she mused before vigorously shaking her head. “Forget them! I gotta get home! I don’t care what these guys do with that… monster.”
The last word was enough for her to pull back up, distancing herself from the action. With her presence still unbeknownst to the two drivers, Blucifer leaned forward on his ATV, pulling a pistol from his hip. He held it in his left hand as the other turned the throttle.
“Steady now...” he said, taking aim as he neared the Interceptor. “Four koops says I’ll get him in the head.”
“Five koops,” Redding countered.
“Deal,” Blucifer agreed excitedly.
Their short conversation caught Rainbow’s attention again as she looked back down, spotting the pistol, boxy and black. She squinted at it, tilting her head towards it before her eyes wandered to Max. With the pistol angled in such a way, she gasped, soaring over to Blucifer, leaving a rainbow trail in her wake. She rammed against his hand and knocked the pistol out of his hold before swooping back up. The pistol vanished amongst the sand, and though Blucifer caught sight of where it landed, he could only watch as they sped away from it. Pounding a fist against the handle, Blucifer whipped his head toward Rainbow, flying steadily high above them.
“Darn!” Blucifer shouted, holding up a fist at her. “I call cheating on that bet! The bet is off!”
“Hardly,” Redding said, studying Rainbow. Blucifer groaned as he pounded another fist against the handle. “Something tells me that’s not the usual figment of the imagination we come across. My bet it’s a really ugly bird.”
“Two koobs?” Blucifer offered dejectedly, sagging his shoulders.
“No, it’s more of a personal bet,” Redding explained, holding up a finger. He raised his voice as he asked, “Hey, are you an ugly bird!?”
Rainbow twitched as she ground her teeth, “I’m a pony, you featherbrain!”
“And it speaks,” Redding noted with a sagely nod. “It’s the end times indeed.”
“Whatever, just get her for the lost-pistol thing,” Blucifer snapped, his eyes keenly kept on Rainbow Dash. Her glare was intense, but it didn’t detract him in the slightest. He just smacked his lips. “Plus, I bet she’d make a good meal, right? Or is that cannibalism cause she can talk?”
“Probably a result from reading too many kid stories,” Redding remarked with a shake of his head, whipping out his own pistol. He didn’t waste a second as he fired three shots at Rainbow. All of them missed, whizzing by her as she flinched, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
“How many of those things are there!?” Rainbow yelled frantically, throwing her forelegs over her head. She hissed as she unintentionally opened up her wound, fresh blood emerging as she set the foreleg down. She stared at it with animosity, but it didn’t last as two more bullets zipped past her head, prompting her to pull ahead in panic. “Dang it, why did I help that guy again!?”
“You shoot like a girl,” Blucifer chuckled with a shake of his head.
Redding muttered inaudibly to himself, lowering his gun to the Interceptor and firing a single bullet. It struck the empty barrel, a sharp twang resounding as the bullet bounced off. Max released an angry huff, unholstering his shotgun and holding it aloft.
“Never mind, you shoot like a girl with bad aim,” Blucifer said with surprise, giving a thumbs up. Redding pursed his lips before he throttled his ATV, pulling up directly behind the Interceptor, still aiming his weapon. Rainbow watched, still holding her bleeding wound as confliction laced her face. The rolling hills and uneven ground gave Redding trouble as he adjusted his arm to compensate. It changed so often he couldn’t keep his sights on Max.
“What am I supposed to do?” Rainbow said, her fear shifting to anger as she threw her forelegs to her face. “Why can’t things be simple? Why can’t I be back home!?”
Her eyes snapped back to Redding as the vehicles entered a wide plain. The ground was drier and harder than the sand, cracks zig zagging across the flat landscape. The occasional dead bush could be seen in various spots. Without any hills, Redding had a perfect shot, lining up his pistol.
Once again, Rainbow gasped and made to move, but stopped herself. She glared over to the Interceptor, giving a huff before turning her head away indignantly. She shuddered ever so slightly, sighing.
“I’m a better Pony than him,” she muttered, facing Redding and giving her wings a powerful flap. She shot straight at him, but instead of hitting his hand like with Blucifer, she slammed into his chest. The force nearly knocked him off his ATV, but he was able to keep a grip on the throttle as it veered slightly. Rainbow didn’t let up as she dished out a flurry of punches with her hooves.
“Fuck this ugly bird!” Redding yelled, holding up an arm to block her blows. In doing so, he couldn’t bring his pistol towards her. “Blucifer! Do something!”
“Okay, but you owe me a koob!” Blucifer called back, driving his ATV closer to Redding. Coming up on the right, Blucifer extended a hand, staying within the boundaries of the fray. His hand shifted back and forth, but didn’t intervene.
Hastily holstering his pistol, Redding grabbed a hold of one of Rainbow’s forelegs, only for her to repeatedly punch Redding with the other one. With one hand still on the throttle, he was left in a painful predicament. Blucifer remained uninvolved, his hand hovered just far enough away that no one could reach it.
“Grab her already!” Redding demanded angrily, crying out when another punch hit him in the stomach.
“I was getting to it!” Blucifer replied nervously before throwing his hand forward. Rainbow met it swiftly by biting his fingers, and he screamed in agony. Just as fast as she had bit him, Rainbow released him, and he retracted his hand, nursing it with pitiful mumbles. Rainbow spat to the side, her tongue hanging out in disgust.
“Has anybody here ever heard of a bath?!” she asked, holding a foreleg against Redding’s face to keep him away. She pushed him away as a result, and he waved a foot wildly to maintain his balance on the ATV.
“By all the koobs in my collection, you are worthless!” Redding declared. Blucifer only moaned.
Max raised a brow. All of them were distracted one way or another. Blucifer was still agonizing over his bitten hand, Redding was holding tight to his ATV to stay on, and Rainbow was pushing him away to break free from his hold. He glanced forward, lowering his shotgun as his eyes lingered on the pedals by his feet.
Turning back to the fighting behind him, Max slammed on the brake, and the Interceptor jerked forward as it slowed considerably. The ATVs crashed into the back, and the drivers were flung over the handles. Redding let go of Rainbow, but she couldn’t get away before she found herself tossed forward from the inertia as well, landing on top of the gas barrels. Redding and Blucifer hit the corners of the Interceptor, but couldn’t hang on as Max floored the gas again. The Interceptor blazed away and the two riders slid off as their ATVs flipped and tumbled along the sand. Rainbow had to hold on to the straps holding the gas barrels in place, her hooves trembling.
As the Interceptor sped off, Blucifer jumped to his feet, holding his hands out in front of him, “They were supposed to be easy pickings! I’d bet on it! What happened?!”
“Your incompetence,” Redding said from his stance on the ground, his limbs spread out.
Rainbow watched their forms shrink as the distance grew between them, until they mixed with the haze that fuzzified her surroundings. She still kept her eyes fixated on their position, her expression falling to thoughtfulness. Eventually, the Interceptor climbed upon a sandy hill on the brim around the cracked plain. At the crest of the hill, the Interceptor came to a steady halt before Max leapt out with binoculars in hand. He hurried away from the Interceptor and raised the binoculars to his eyes, catching the two drivers prop up their ATVs, hop back on and drive away, following a snaking trail that matched the plains in terms of terrain. They disappeared behind a hill of sand.
Lowering his binoculars, Max scanned his surroundings. The hill they rested upon was the ridge of the plains, rising several meters higher and forming a bowl shape. The canyon they had driven alongside was gone as Max was unable to spot it. Rainbow regarded him, her thoughtfulness from earlier shifting to determination.
By the time Max turned to her, that determination deteriorated within seconds.
“Off, now,” Max said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder as he walked back to the door he had left open.
“Listen,” Rainbow said, sitting on her haunches as Max passed her, “I hate you just as much as you hate me, but after that… encounter, I think everyone out here is crazier than Discord. So, I need...” She groaned, holding a foreleg over her snout. Max tilted his head to face her. “I need your help.”
“No,” Max answered, hopping back inside the Interceptor. He would have taken off if Rainbow hadn’t climbed over the roof and stood upon the hood, blocking Max’s view.
“What do you want from me?!” Rainbow asked hotly. “I’m completely lost in this messed up world, and I just want to get home. But you gotta be all edgy and mean, like it’s your job to make everyone’s life harder.”
Max didn’t face her, hands on the wheel as he stared forward like she wasn’t in his way. Pawing the hood in agitation - a metal whine emerging - Rainbow lowered her body to face him directly. “If you won’t help a stranger, than maybe you can work for one,” she said. “You want bits? Jewels? My friend is a princess, so just name it already and I can get it! I’ll even help you navigate this desert, just get me out of his place!”
A tense pause stagnated the conversation, neither of them moving or speaking. In a way, it made everything louder around them. The engine hummed and the wind howled. A silent duel was held between Max and Rainbow, staring into each other's eyes without so much as blinking. Hands tightening over the wheel, Max scowled, and Rainbow mirrored it.
“Water,” Max stated, and Rainbow lost the duel as her eyes lit up in surprise, “and food. You have any?”
Rainbow twisted her head, but still kept eye contact, like looking away would mean disaster, “Yeah, we’ve got plenty back in Equestria. Why do you want that stuff though?”
Her answer was enough for Max to loosen up, his shoulders relaxing as he sighed. Rainbow remained baffled, but didn’t say a word. Tensing up again, Max reached beside his seat, pulling out a brown cloth, tossing it to Rainbow. It lightly hit her chest before dropping to her hooves.
“Patch that leg up,” Max ordered, his tone giving no sympathy. “I have enough blood in my car.”