The Sparkle in his Eye

by Tatsurou

4-gotten: Landing

Unfortunately for the group, the shuttle back to Magnos was entirely on auto-pilot, and thus was unable to redirect its path when Ephemeris passed by. One of Ephemeris' grasper tendrils knocked the shuttle off its path, causing it to instead crash into an icy region of the planet known as the Polar Sea, a good ways away from their actual destination.

Thankfully, the shuttle's crash protocols were well designed, and no one actually got injured from the crash. Once everyone was upright, Twilight accessed her comms. "Dad, we need directions," she spoke up. "Which way to Vilerog Plateau?" She waited for a response, but none came. "Dad? Mom? Aphelion? Anybody?"

"Something's jamming communication signals," Nefarious spoke up as he approached. "You won't be able to get through."

"But..." Twilight began worriedly. "But..." Tears started to appear in her eyes, freezing in the icy wind.

"Don't worry, Twilight!" Qwark proclaimed reassuringly. "We'll be alright! We just need to get to a more equatorial region, and I know how to do it!"

"Really?" Alister demanded waspishly. "How?"

Smiling, Qwark pulled out a compass and waited for it to lock onto north. He then carefully moved around until he was going East or West, walking back and forth while watching the compass needle. "Alright, the pole's over there," he declared, pointing in one direction, "so we go that way!" He firmly pointed in the opposite direction before marching off.

"How do you know?" Nefarious demanded, getting up in Qwark's face.

"At the magnetic poles of a world, every direction is North," Qwark explained logically. "So I just determined from the compass needle which way the pole was by how the needle shifted, and am going the other way!"

"Stop being so smart!" Nefarious complained angrily.

Giggling, Twilight turned in the direction Qwark pointed. "Well, we don't know what else to do...so let's go!"

Qwark's deduction appeared to be accurate, as the path that revealed itself proved to be guarded by Minion robots, including a new variety armed with flamethrowers. Once past the first such robot, the group made their way across freezing cold water by leaping on chunks of ice that floated out. The cold made it almost impossible for Twilight to fly, drastically reducing her maneuverability. As her magic also became harder to draw on as ice formed on her horn, she was forced to rely more and more on the others. However, they were able to handle things quite easily, and took turns carrying her when that became necessary.

After a time, they found themselves riding a sequence of ice chunks that broke away to float along the surface of the water, steering them by distributing their weight to the corners of the ice blocks. Each trip was thankfully short, and mostly guided by the currents. As they continued, they managed to spot a building in the distance.

"Looks like a collector outpost," Alister deduced as he examined the building through a farviewer. "We might be able to get a ride to Vilerog from there."

"Then we should get there as soon as we can," Twilight confirmed. "Before I freeze my feathers off." She squeaked as Nefarious scooped her up. "What are you-" Her words were cut off as warmth flooded her body, melting the ice from her feathers and horn. "Ah...how'd you do that?"

"Just briefly redirected the heat exhausts of my robotic systems," Nefarious explained. "Thought it would help."

"It does..." Twilight murmured, relaxing in the warmth.

Before long, the group found their path blocked by a large group of heavily armed Minion bots that continued to drop down on distant ice flows. As the wave continued, Nefarious eventually became frustrated. "This is ridiculous!" he cried out. Shoving Twilight into Alister's grip he turned to Qwark. "Throw me!"

Not about to question, Qwark picked Nefarious up, spun around, and hurled him like a javelin at one of the large Minion bots. Nefarious grabbed hold of its dome, ripped it open, and began messing with its circuitry, making it fire on its own allies. This made the rest of the battle pass much more rapidly.

"Good thinking there, Doctor," Alister complimented as they caught up to him.

"Talk later, move now," Nefarious growled, scooping up Twilight to keep her warm again.

After a brief trip on a slowly dissolving ice flow, the group came across a new hostile life form, massive creatures that looked like a blue cross between a gorilla and a bear, with thin wings on its back called a Grungoth. As they lunged to the attack, Alister spoke up. "I think the Grungoths are hungry..."

Grinning widely, Qwark reached into a pocket, pulled out some tablets, and tossed them accurately into the Grungoths' mouths. The Grungoths snapped them up, paused, then turned and walked away.

"What...?" Nefarious began in confusion.

"Snowball's ration pills," Qwark explained, showing them off. "Twilight made them. I figure if they can fill up a mecha-War Grok..."

Nefarious and Alister both shuddered as they remembered that particular 'pet' of Qwark and Twilight's, causing Twilight and Qwark to giggle and chuckle respectively.

As they made their way further forward, a message reached their communicators. "Twilight, can you hear me?" Ratchet's voice came through, somewhat scratchy.

"Dad?" Twilight gasped out eagerly. "Dad?"

Static was the only response for a bit, showing that the signal still didn't quite make it through. Then Ratchet's voice continued. "Look, if any of you can hear me, we've got a partial fix on your location, and we're sending down a vendor pod! It should help you..."

The signal cut off, but the vendor pod dropped down in sight. Twilight let out a sigh of relief as the group approached it.

Comments

[Starcat5]

1 views

...meh.

On topic, it is interesting to be reminded that Twilight isn't actually overpowered in this fic, so much as she lets everyone else be overpowered. Seeing her being debuffed by the cold like this really hit that fact home for me.

[Sigmacipher]

7525601 That's kind of a thing in these fics...characters of said universe complementing the styles of the ponies...which lead to benefits on both ends...

[JMP]

7525601 Making everyone else overpowered was more this specific arc than anything else. She did make causality her bitch earlier in the story, and her overpowered nature allowed her to wrap up the Quest for Booty arc in a single chapter. Everyone in the PWNY-verse is overpowered; that's the whole point of these stories.

[Starcat5]

7525621
...fair enough.

[FrostTheWolf]

"Stop being so smart!"

Yeah Qwark... STOP!

[Chrome Masquerade]

Another awesome chapter. I wonder what'll happen next?
(I've been trying not to go too far forward in the game because i want to keep up with both stories, so this means i can move forward again!)

[Bones_]

7525601 Twilight can build weapons, Vinyl can build people.

[TheifofZ]

7526645 Now if these versions of them should ever meet, should we call the resulting omni-desctructive bot Dr. Doom?

[ArchAngelGundam]

That was fun, may I have another? Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.

[cyberlord4444]

7525621 Except for the villians, they are doormats.

[Dirty Bit]

Qwark definitely has his moments of awesome and funny in tandem.

[Just Defender]

I know I was objecting to this pairing a few chapters back, but now, I'm curious to see fanart of that scene with Twilight being swept up for warmth.

[Kenshinryuu]

So when will we see Snowball again??I'd like to see him come on an adventure with Twilight or have her spend some time playing with him or giving belly rubs.

[Senou Natsuru]

7527053 That had me laughing for a good ten minutes. If only for the "Don't tell the elf." Line.

[Lazy Coyote]

We've seen clank angry, we've seen quark angry, I'm still waiting for rachet to go berserk.
Awesome story by the way, cant wait for the next chapter.

[Tatsurou]

7530747
You had that, though off screen, back in the Size arc.

[Jake Witt]

7530747 So you're waiting for everybody to have crapped corn flakes? ...mmmkay than.

[The Chronicler]

I really like this story, but as someone who's never played the games it just seems to drag on and on and on...

[Orphan]

7857020
Have you read any Time Loops?