Luna vs. a Tiny Italian Car

by totallynotabrony

Chapter 17

September 1, 2015
Assuming Tirek was still in Atlanta, we headed there. The extra-legal speeds would draw cops, but it also made it easier to identify anyone following us.

I kept one eye on the mirror. Whether we were actually being hunted or not, the paranoia was getting to me. I’d done what I could to reduce our footprint already, but we needed a few things we couldn’t get ourselves. Fortunately, we had some help on the way.

In the Francis Marion National Forest in South Carolina, far from anyone or anything but a two-lane blacktop, we met my contact Justin. He both loved ponies and wasn’t afraid to shank people. Maybe not exactly the criminal we needed right then, but pretty good.

We pulled into a turnout in the middle of the forest. A minute later, Justin arrived on his chopper. He was soaking wet, but didn’t seem to mind. “Hurricane Erika,” he explained, gesturing to the south.

The weather report said it had been downgraded, but riding a motorcycle through a tropical storm was still bad enough. Justin changed the subject by turning in the saddle to open his bike’s bags, pulling out a set of Maine license plates and a wad of cash.

He handed it over, commenting, “Twenty grand was all I could put my hands to so fast, but if you’ve really got a bar of gold inscribed with the Equestrian royal seal to trade me, then I’ll get the rest.”

I gave him the brick. He pulled out a very large knife and made a shallow nick on the surface. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

He quickly stowed the ingot in the saddlebags. “Where is Luna, anyway? Does she really fit in that rolling tampon?”

“With a little room to spare,” I replied. “She has a spell that lets her remain incognito. You have to be expecting her.”

He chuckled, taking his hands off the handlebars to light a cigarette. “At least you don’t have all of them. What's harder than getting four pregnant alicorns into a Fiat? Getting four alicorns pregnant in a Fiat!”

“What was that?” Luna demanded from behind him.

Justin jerked in surprise, and the motorcycle tipped over, trapping his leg.

Luna smirked. “You should have expected me.”

“Seriously bro, pregnant alicorns?” I said. “What you do with your spare time is your own business.”

We got the bike set up again. Justin looked like he was about to go full fanboy on Luna, but calmly restrained himself. He did glance back, though, as he pulled back onto the highway.

I looked at the new license plates. Michigan had recently stopped using front plates, so the Fiat didn’t have a bracket. Using some of the spare horseshoe screws from Maria’s kit, we affixed the new plate to the plastic front bumper. Not a perfect solution, it just had to work.

I wondered what else I could have, should have, asked Justin to get for us. Fake IDs and credit cards would be helpful, but harder to obtain. An anti-material rifle to use on Tirek would make my day. Should have stopped at the Barrett factory while we were in Tennessee. Ah well. Justin probably couldn't pack one of those to us on a bike, and now that we were afraid to show our faces, we couldn't just walk into a gun shop. And the price tag would blow most of the cash we'd just gotten.

We headed on to Atlanta. We managed to get out of the backwoods and back on the interstate.

As we drove, Maria asked, “I wonder where he got the money.”

I briefly considered it. “I don’t want to know.”

We found out later that Justin, being a criminal, had robbed some people. They were also criminals, from a rival biker gang as it happened. And they wanted the money back.

Remember that, it’ll be important later.

For the moment, we had enough problems. We’d set off for Atlanta based on Tirek’s TV appearance there. Hours later, we’d managed to reach the outskirts, but that only put us in a traffic jam.

There was no guarantee he was still there, and the longer we sat in traffic, the more likely someone might recognize us.

We all huddled down in the car, slowly rolling as fast as the gridlock allowed. Luna wiggled under a pile of clothes to disappear.

It’s strange to see the pavement from one mile per hour. It’s so much more detailed than you’d expect.

“If we don’t have anywhere specific to be, then why are we even here?” Maria asked.

“Fair question,” I replied, “but if we weren’t waiting here, we’d be waiting somewhere else.”

We sat for a little while longer. Behind us, Luna shifted her position and her head appeared between the seats. “I think...it’s very faint, but I may have Tirek.” Her head turned, attempting to get a better fix. “Perhaps...south.”

I put on the blinker and rather rudely cut off a semi. Luna was nodding now. “Yes, we must go south. It is very far.”

I steered the car onto the shoulder and rushed towards the next exit, praying that nobody cut us off. It would be just like karma to pop up like that.

Fortunately, we made it and found the nearest southerly road. “How far?” I asked.

“Very,” said Luna. “It may be the farthest I have ever detected him. I speculate that perhaps without my magic for interference, my sense has been improved.”

“How far is very far?” I asked Maria, who was already consulting the atlas. We’d marked it up with previous locations.

“What’s the bearing?” Maria asked Luna.

Luna consulted the compass and read it off. Maria did some figuring.

“Somewhere in southern Florida,” she announced.

“Why would he go down there?” I asked. “Out onto a peninsula seems like an obvious place to get trapped.”

“It’s still a hundred miles wide,” Maria pointed out. “Even as a peninsula, that’s a lot of territory.”

“How do we know this is a real signal?” I said. “Could it be a decoy like Detroit?”

Luna closed her eyes. A long minute passed as she fine-tuned her reception. Finally, she shook her head. “I am unable to say for sure. Perhaps if we were closer.”

“Well, all right,” I said. “Who wants orange juice?”

Author's Note:

Special thanks to Biker_Dash

Comments

[D48]

Well, it is unfortunate that Biker could not get you the kind of firepower you need even if it is understandable that he could not fit that monster on Woona, but as I said before you have a good justification for getting military help now so I would go shopping for military bases. I know there are a bunch of major air bases down there as well as some spec ops training so you should be able to find help without too much trouble, especially if you can get in touch with some of the military people around here.

[Biker_Dash]

6380945 you never know what the Biker can get... and tha Biker also happens to own a very large truck

Also... SpecOps training down there is a bit of an understatement. More like Snake Eater Central

[Herald of Opera]

“Somewhere in southern Florida,” she announced.

Ah, Tirek going shopping for some friends on the other side?