Flight, the Hard Way by KrisSnow
Lens Flare swooped into the barn ten minutes late. "I'm sorry! I had a last-minute appointment and then family obligations and then..." He folded his wings and stared at the giant machine that filled much of the high-ceilinged building. It had a front compartment with doors and windows, plus wheels and an enormous metal propeller beanie strapped to an engine so big it needed six power crystals. "Anyone here?"
"Boo," a mare said from behind and above him. Lens hopped and spun around with his wings out again. The rust-red mare giggled and stood up on one of the giant propeller blades, holding a wrench in her levitation aura.
"I'm looking for Spiral Wing."
"You found her!"
"But you're..." he tapped one hoof against his hornless forehead.
She tossed her silver mane over her shoulder and grinned. "A unicorn. Yeah, so? You're only interested in pegasi?"
He wasn't racist or anything, but there were so many things you could do with a mare who had wings, or do to her, he hadn't dated outside his tribe for centuries. Except that one griffin. "Your ad in Courtship and Courtesans said you loved to fly, and with a name like that I assumed..."
"Eeyup!" she said, and hopped down. Instinctively he raced to catch the falling unicorn and set her on the dirt floor. She smiled. "I use Old Gilda for flying, lately. Want to see?"
Lens had heard of earth ponies having weird technology, but he mostly lived miles away from the major earth pony towns. Vertically. He trotted after her and watched her climb past some incomprehensible metal tubes and wires and pipes, onto the pilot's cushion. She said, "I tried to copy an authentic design, but ended up making a few changes. One was to add a copilot seat because, you know, friendship. Have a look."
Lens climbed into the second seat, and gaped. Every surface other than his cushion (and even bits of that) was covered with switches, buttons, levers, dials, gewgaws, bobbleheads, and (in an obviously reluctant nod to visibility) windows. Spiral Wing was engrossed in them too, using her levitation to flip, pull and turn various controls.
"What are you doing?" Lens asked.
"Taking off," she said, leaning over him to spot a lever next to his ear and yank it. "Would you mind flipping the rear rotor secondary collective flap disengage corrective blinky light toggle? It's next to the music player."
His eyes glazed over as he tried to read the tiny labels. "What is all this? If you want to fly, there's no need to build something this complicated! Flight isn't nearly this hard to do." Why not ask Celestia to make her a pegasus?
"Where you come from, yeah, but it was way harder where I'm from."
"Where's that?"
She waved a hoof and turned aside. He caught a brief look of pain on her muzzle, but she hid it. "Doesn't matter. It's long gone. I felt like building a flying machine the oldschool way with the help of some buddies, Black Hawk and Chinook. Took me a while."
He watched her go through a full minute of flipping, turning and adjusting that made the contraption start to trundle out through the barn's doors. He heard the propeller overhead begin to spin with a thud-thud he felt in his bones. He glanced at the closed door beside him and began thinking about jumping out. "It must have been hard to find ponies selling all of these parts."
She said, "Oh, we crafted most of them. Cheated with the power supply since the original basically ran on poisonous necromantic goo, but we mined the platinum and smelted the aluminum and hoof-worked the starmetal ourselves after we captured a dragon's foundry." Gradually she was raising her voice over the noise of the whirring, humming machinery, but otherwise she sounded casual. The music player fired up with a song about a danger zone.
His gaze darted nervously around the cockpit and down at the ground, which was a little farther away than it should be for someone relying on a box of gears and pistons. "I need to get back down and stow my saddlebags! My camera and lenses are in them."
"Keep 'em at hoof. You like aerial photography, right? I'll give you some great views on the way to the target range." She continued flipping switches, and the machine leaped higher with a terrifying engine roar.
Lens flattened himself against his seat and tried to still his churning stomach.
"Are you airsick?" asked Spiral.
"Normally I fly with my wings!"
She suppressed a giggle and cast a spell on him, making the nausea feel more distant. "That should help."
The flying machine soared at her command, taking them over hills and fields. His wings kept wanting to flap and his mind was telling him he'd crash if he didn't. He gulped and tried to distract himself. "What was that about a range?"
"I've set up some targets on the mountain over there. Notice the big set of tubes in the nose of this thing? A mare's got to have some protection when she wanders alone in the wilderness, so I added a Vulcan gun."
Lens lay with his ears flat, trying to enjoy the view of both the mountains and the pilot. Terrifying in both cases, but definitely not boring. "Which is what?"
She floated a pair of radio headphones onto his ears, then donned another, then gave him her biggest grin yet. "Six thousand rounds a minute of armor-piercing friendship. Want to try?"
Considering that it turned out to be memorable first date entertainment that made him forget about her winglessness and his fear of mechanical flight, it really was armor-piercing.
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"since the original basically ran on poisonous necromantic goo"
:D
And at the story in general: also :D
So is Lens a native and Wing an immigrant, or am I trying to find subtext where none exists? This was really cute but I can't figure out if it was going for anything else.
On a related note: is there enough information here to identify the plane? I'm assuming it's a WWII-era fighter, but past that I don't see any hints.
Wow, she certainly had time on her hands....
Keep going! ;)
Added to the Grand List of Lines I've Always Wanted to Say.
This is amazing. Also, Black Hawk and Chinook made me laugh. Do they have a cousin named Apache?
Sometimes it's more rewarding to get into the air through hooves and horn than wings, and the best way to explain that idea to pegasi is a live demonstration.
Also, now I want to homebrew an oil ooze in Pathfinder. One with negative energy affinity. Thanks for that.
5593902
Other way around; Lens is native and Spiral is an immigrant who remembers things like airplanes.
Poisonous necromantic goo is the best description of oil I've ever heard. =D
5593902
It sounds like a military helicopter. The propeller was described as a "propeller beanie" (after the type of hat, the most garish of which allegedly did have a propeller on top), and there's mention of a "rear rotor" (the tail rotor). This is also consistent with Spiral Wing's name (a pun on "rotary wing", the technical term for a helicopter's blades).
As for period, ye wiki says the Vulcan was introduced in 1959 (with variants still in use), so it'd be something relatively modern.
All of this points to Spiral Wing being a military helicopter pilot prior to upload, and building a variant of her work-craft for nostalgia's sake.
Having the fic told from Lens's viewpoint rather than Spiral's was a nice touch!
5595770
Oh, that makes a lot of sense but went right over my head! I wonder if there've actually been one-seat military choppers, though; the only ones I can think of seat at least two. Of course, it doesn't need to be a real copter for the story to work, and anyways there's probably time for one more generation of human-controlled aircraft before we all upload.
5593902
I didn't have a specific model in mind, but it's supposed to be a military helicopter. ("Spiral Wing" is the literal meaning of "helico-pter"; compare to "chiroptera" meaning "hand-wing" ie. "bats".) I've been shown video of a very realistic chopper sim where you do maybe four solid minutes of button-pushing to get in the air, and given the lack of a 3D hand model it was like telekinetic button-pushing.
5595770
Lens is a native (talent: aerial photography) and Wing is an immigrant. Seems like certain interests distinguish the immigrants even centuries (or more) later. There's not really anything deeper to the story beyond Wing still missing Earth a bit.
NuclearPony suggests that while a Vulcan gun may be adequate personal protection in Equestria, if you find yourself in Terraria you may need something stronger. That is a bad neighborhood.
5597171
"Ask The Night Guards" (wiki link) had a couple of amusing riffs on Terraria. Apparently
SCPWCP teams are the unicorns that kill you when the "heaven" biome appears, and they've learned that using anything beyond very small amounts of demonite in alloys is a Bad Idea. The blog slowed down quite a bit post-S2, but still has quite a bit of amusing material in its archives.5597171
Aw dang, my name originated as a joke on "ptera" as a root word (specifically, it was inspired by "pterippi" as a more correct term for pegasi) and I had no idea it was part of the etymology of "helicopter". That's rad!
Also, I like how this story seems to be told from the perspective of an Equestrian native instead of an uploaded human, which is pretty rare.
5594026
All the time from now till the heat death of the universe...
5611291 If you ask him nicely, he'll probably send you the link.
Vulcan gun? Oh. Live long and prosper.
images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090320072703/memoryalpha/en/images/5/52/Spock_performing_Vulcan_salute.jpg
5677744 Dude...too soon.
5677753
I didn't know. WTF... today? I just got to read this chapter and I didn't know.
I'm sorry.
Every time I hear or read "Vulcan", I think of him.
I'm sorry.
I didn't know he had COPD until today.
I'm sorry.
5677789 I wondered if you didn't. It's OK, but still, is sad.
5677796 I went from dick to asshole without even trying or knowing. I really failed my luck roll this month - FUCK YOU February!
Still, I thought a gun that shoots out Spocks was awesome and funny...
...I'll go take my beating now.
What a thing to call oil. That was great.
This whole series earned a fave and upvote from me.