Friendship is Escape Velocity

by Cardboard Box

...When to Fold 'Em

The horses snorted in annoyance. They’d been looking forward to bedding down in the Novac stable, but instead they were being herded into the middle of the old motel that was the main structure of town.

It was also an effective fortress.

On the other hand, Vanessa and Sheridan were there as well to groom and fuss over them, which those familiar with the route and the town agreed was quite acceptable.

It was the six strange little ponies hogging most of the girls' attention that made them irritable.

Rarity wouldn't have given a buck. The two human foals – almost yearlings, she gathered – had quite a way with a curry-comb, and while the results would give any manestylist fits, it was infinitely better than when she'd arrived. Right now, she was carrying a chocolate bar and a soft drink labelled 'Nuka-Cola' in her magic, en route to where Pinkie was watching over Twilight.

Pinkie's mane was limper than anypony liked, and Twilight's head was swathed in bandages. However, the unicorn's barrel was still rising and falling regularly. The town doctor had an unnerving bedside manner, but she'd still got Twilight out of danger.

The earth pony heard her friend approaching and turned, one forehoof to her lips. “Shhh! Twilight's sleeping, and the doc says we shouldn't wake her up, just let her wake up naturally and – ooh! For me?”

“Yes dear,” Rarity managed to reply around her cargo, “That nice...” she fumbled for the human mare's name, “Jeannie May thought you might like a little snack.”

She deposited the ancient sweet and drink before her friend.

Pinkie frogged the chocolate bar and looked at the single huge word on it curiously. “Hershey? What's a hershey?” A quick juggle and the back, with its all-important seam, failed to provide any explanation.

What it did reveal was that Equestrians tend to have a little trouble unwrapping human-style packaging. After several attempts to undo the paper and foil with frogs and lips, the mare just shrugged, then popped the whole thing into her mouth. Several gurning seconds later, she spat out the wrappers.

Neatly folded. Typical Pinkie.

“Heh,” snickered an NCR soldier, who'd been initially preparing some sort of gun with a ridiculously wide barrel, “Hershey for the horsie.”

Pinkie and Rarity just stared back at him, shocked; it took them a little while to remember the local name for their larger, mute counterparts.

“That was awful,” a faint voice derailed their thoughts even further.

“Twilight?”

The unicorn opened one eye and looked at Pinkie. “Hi guys…” she murmured, scant seconds from an abortive ponypile, her friends only just remembering that squeezing her brains out her ears probably wouldn’t help them get home.

---

Rainbow Dash was on patrol. That’s what she told herself. She was looking for any sign that those… those human griffins… were on the march already. Not looking for signs that Haversack Joe had escaped. No. The Legion were more important since they were more dangerous.

It didn’t help that once the Legion had overrun the Ranger Station, they’d performed their crucifixion act. The mare couldn’t bring herself to look at the figures writhing or sagging there. She just hoped that none of those wretches was Joe.

In any case, those Legion dweebs seemed to be just preparing, so the pegasus just turned her tail to them and…

…heh.

An evil grin crossed the mare’s face as she turned in a wide arc, for a high-altitude pass over the encampment.

There is a child’s rhyme ending in relief that there are no airborne cattle. However, for a brief moment in the Mojave, there were equine aviators, and some of the Legion didn’t manage to get out of the way.

The resultant restoration of order set Inculta’s plans for attack back almost an hour.

---

“I’m still thirsty,” Twilight said at last, frowning at the empty water bottle she’d just emptied.

“I’ll get something!” Pinkie hopped up and looked around. Oh yeah! There was a shop in the big Dinky, she’d seen humans go in and come out with stuff including drinks and really that thing was too big to be dinky because she knew a Dinky and maybe they had some drinks left inside so just up the steps and –

“Ooh! Pretty!”

Cliff looked with some amusement at the small pink pony goggling at the toy rocket. “It’s all glowy!” she added, peering in the little windows at the liquid inside, then seemed to rock back on her hind legs, forelegs gripping the top and starting to twist. “What’s inside? Is it juice? Ooh! Maybe it’s a magic potion and –”

“Whoa there little lady!” Cliff plucked the souvenir from Pinkie’s hooves. “Drink that stuff and all you’ll get is the REPCONN Shakes.”

“The repcon shakes? Is that like a dance? It sounds like a dance. I got to shaakke,” and her voice, already high pitched, rose several octaves towards ‘randy mosquito’, “the repcon-repcon shaaake…”

“Hell no, settle down there twinkle-toes!” Cliff dived to grab a Dinky toy that the mare had absently knocked off the counter. The NCR guy he’d been selling ammo to just rolled his eyes and removed his fingers from his ears. Lucky prick.

“Lemme tell you what these are,” he began, “these here are souvenirs that used to be handed out to visitors at the REPCONN rocket testing site out west of here. Thing is though, they’re filled with rocket igniter, Isotope-239. And it looks just like Nuka-Cola Quartz. So kids would open ‘em up and drink the stuff, and start puking, fever and shaking. So, they ended up dumping them all here I guess.”

“Ooh,” Pinkie said again, a little sadly at the thought of no magic potion. “Can I show my friends this? ‘Cause I think they’d really like this and it looks kinda all magicky-glowy hey maybe Twilight knows more about this stuff and oohbye!”

The two men looked at each other for about half a minute while the inexplicably pink and marshmallow-flavoured cloud of dust dissipated. A lot later Cliff would discover that a bottle of drinkable water had also vanished as well.

---

“What’s this?” Twilight stared at the tubby object. It looked a little like some sort of lantern, except light only emerged through three tiny holes on one side. The thing was sort of wide at the base and pointed at the top, which was painted red, and rested on three legs. On the other side, the legend ‘REPCONN NEVADA’ could be made out.

“It’s a REPCONN souvenir only it’s filled with some icy-dope 2-3-9 stuff and apparently foals thought it was Nuka-Cola and drank it and got sick and so when I saw it I thought maybe you’d like to see it too!” Pinkie smiled, then blinked and started rummaging through her mane, finally extracting a little bottle. “Oh yeah and I got you a drink too.”

“Icy-dope? – oh! An isotope.” Twilight’s studies came to the fore, and she shuddered. What sort of idiot handed out containers of radioactive stuff to foals? Cautiously, she extended her magic towards the object, intending to bring it up for a closer look.

Instead, she yelped, something to do with unexpectedly sliding forward a couple of inches.

“Twi’? You okay?” Both Rarity and Pinkie blinked at their friend worriedly.

“Um…” the unicorn eyed the model rocket suspiciously, then carefully gripped it in one forehoof. She lifted it up, noting the flowing writing on one side, but it didn't feel odd or magical. Putting it down, she hefted the bottle of water that Pinkie had also brought along. That didn't feel odd or magical at all, not even when she lifted the drink in her magic. Returning her attention to the model rocket, she carefully closed her telekinesis around it, before quickly releasing the thing again.

“Rarity, would you move this with your magic please?”

“Um...” Rarity looked doubtfully at the object. “What for?”

“It's an experiment,” Twilight said, “I mean, I don't know if it's me, or... just try to move it with your magic? Please?”

Not much of an experiment, Twilight thought, not with a sample size of just two. But if my suspicion is correct...

Rarity also yelped in surprise, stumbling to her knees. “That thing pulled on me!” she exclaimed indignantly, getting back up and regarding her now grubby (again!) forelegs.

Twilight smiled. “Hypothesis confirmed,” she muttered to herself.

“Hippopotamus? Where?” Pinkie's head gyrated in anatomically unspeakable fashion, looking for large and aggressive African mammals.

“Darling...” Rarity frowned at both the rocket and Twilight uncertainly. Perhaps that concussion had disarranged more than Twilight's manestyle. “What are you talking about?”

“Pinkie,” Twilight started.

“I can't see any hippopotamuseseseseses,” the pink mare observed, “I mean hippopotamuseseseses – I mean there's a hippopopotamus, then another hippopotamus, then another hippopotamus say don't you think there should be a word for when you have more than one hiphopopotamus around that's easier to say than hoppopotpotipatootamus –”

“Hippopotami,” Twilight interjected loudly with a sigh.

“Huh? No you're not.”

“Not what?” Twilight's ear began to twitch along with one eye.

“You're not a hippo pot! You're a pony! Ooh wait! Maybe the hippopotamus is in its pot and that's why I can't see it! So we just need to find something big and square because hippopotamuseseses are big and I remember in school something about the square of the hippopotamus hide...”

Twilight closed her eyes, and from behind twitching eyelids, counted to a high number. Around her, assorted mercenaries, NCR soldiers and watchers were all trying, some more than others, to keep a straight face at the obviously crazy little mare as she babbled on, doing terrible things to mathematical terminology. Any passing hippopotami wouldn't have approved either.

“What was your hypothesis, dear?” Rarity finally asked, tuning out Pinkie. Being able to ignore manic pixie dream mares was a vital survival skill in Ponyville.

“I think...” Twilight was clearly thinking very hard, before closing her eyes and casting the tracking spell she'd been using almost ever since they arrived in Goodsprings... just a few days ago? Sweet Princesses of the Sun and Moon!

She could barely feel the little container of... what was it again? Oh yes, 'igniter'... because of the enormous signal from the west.

“Girls, go find the others,” she declared. “We're almost there.”

---

“Almost where?” Rainbow Dash shuffled her wings with irritation. She didn't care for all the egghead talk. All that mattered was that the little toy with the glowy bits was something to do with whatever had dragged them all here.

“Ah don't git all the fancy talk,” Applejack spoke for them both, “All ah git is that whatever's brought us here has somethin' to do with this REPCONN bunch, an',” she jabbed a hoof westward, “we're off ta have a word an' kick plot an' get 'em to send us home.”

“Um,” Fluttershy murmured, looking down at the ground, “But... how are we going to get out of here, with those... those...”

An awkward silence fell as Fluttershy curled up in a ball. The imminent battle, or siege, was going to be a problem.

“Uh... ladies... ponies?” The old human stallion looked a little uncertain. “Can't help noticing you're pointing towards the old REPCONN rocket testing facility a lot.”

The herd looked at each other and blinked, before looking at the prospector and blinking at him. “Rocket testing?” Twilight asked at last.

“That's right!” the man nodded, before settling himself on the ground with some effort, “For years that's how Novac earned its water, by prospectin' that place for valuable stuff. Electronics, power cells, scrap metal, that sort of thing. At least, until Jason Bright and his gang of ghouls came along.”

“Then what happened?” Applejack and Rainbow Dash mentally placed the name “Jason Bright” at the top of their lists of 'folks to kick the plots of'.

“That crazy ghoul pretty much took over the place. Claimed dibs on everythin'. Also kept goin' on about flyin' to a better land or some craziness. And then if he wasn't bad enough, well, hell, I know from experience... nightkin started appearin'!

“Now, Bright's band were bad enough, what with having to either sneak around or fight 'em for decent salvage, but when you've got fuckin' invisible mutants as well as the feral ghouls huntin' you... well let's just say the prospectin's dried right up. If somethin' ain't done, well, not much hope for this ol' town.”

Silence fell again. “So,” Rainbow Dash spoke up, “We've got spells to find invisible monsters, right?”

“But how the hay are we goin' to get over there?” Applejack was the voice of pragmatism, “I'll bet a bushel of Sweet Apple Acres' finest that them Legion varmints are watchin' the town right now.”

Rainbow Dash snickered.

“What's so funny?”

Apparently it was a short, pungent tale involving objects descending from a great height. Certainly it was well received by the surrounding humans.

“OK girls, I have an idea,” Twilight said at last. She felt better, not least because, finally, answers were almost within reach. “Let's get some rest and meet back here at sundown.”

---

As the sun dropped over the other side of the Colorado River, a number of NCR troops moved quietly out of the Novac Motel, kicking up some dust in the process. Astute observers would have noticed, however, a most peculiar dust devil not only follow the soldiers, but break off and around the corner of the large building, before shooting over the broken road and behind a house.

In that shelter, Harmony Incarnate returned to visibility, Twilight noticable short of breath. Rainbow Dash's wings were twitching; she wanted to fly, but no, apparently her contrail would be too obvious, even over what the human soldiers were going to do.

There was a distant bang, then a too familiar chattering from the south. “C'mon Twi,” she muttered, “getcha breath back.”

Twilight's breathing slowed, then she shook herself. “To those rocks over there,” and for a brief moment a lavender laser pointer sparkled across the target. “Right.” A lavender flicker shrouded her, and her friends, from sight again. “Let's go!”

Author's Note:

Finally. The block is over. More or less. Now I have to figure out how The Mane Six Meet the Nightkin is likely to go. Yay me.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Will Rainbow Dash be beating anybody up in this story? Will she be reaching Unstoppable Rage levels of anger? Will she be giving out any No Holds Barred Beatdowns? What about the rest of the mane six?

[Jack Kellar]

Here I was hoping Haversack Joe hadn't ditched them. It's gonna take one hell of a lot of lateral thinking for the girls to get out of this mess.

[Cardboard Box]

5516981 Oh, he didn't deliberately ditch them. Let's just say he's in no condition to be any help to them anymore.

[Jack Kellar]

5518851 Anymore... or yet?