Luna vs. a Tiny Italian Car

by totallynotabrony

Chapter 23

September 13, 2015
Las Vegas, man what a place. Never have you ever seen someplace so glitzy and so artificial. It only stood to reason that it would be Chrysalis’ home base.

We rolled in on the train and took a large taxi to her place. It was a pretty sweet pad that she'd covered with pictures of herself.

We set up shop and got down to the business of planning.

Tirek hadn’t appeared in Denver. Luna had a hint of him in the direction of Salt Lake City, but we made the difficult decision to give up that chase to focus on the trap we were laying.

Chrysalis had large maps that she used to plot her cosplay appearances. We repurposed them to get a feel for the lay of the land.

The Nevada desert wouldn’t be a bad place away from the general population to have a showdown. Trouble was, we’d have to come up with some sort of 4x4 to get out there and Tirek could escape too easily. He’d also have ample room to bring an army with him if he so chose.

The mountains would be harder for both of us to access, but maybe we could find a nice box canyon to trap him in.

Or, perhaps the beach. Pinning him against the coast could work. Tirek didn’t look like he could swim.

We’d also have to coordinate with Twilight & Co. In Luna’s letter, she’d instructed them to hold off on coming to Earth. That many new visitors could easily trip Tirek to our plan.

That is, once we managed to put together a plan.

Chrysalis would head out to the Pacific. The rest of us would be in standby, waiting on Tirek to show. The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony and/or Rainbow Power would drop in and sneak-attack him. Everypony would get their magic back and Tirek would be returned to Tartarus.

“But what if it doesn’t work that way?” said Buzz Aldrin.

That kicked off a round of contingency planning. We had a plan for if Tirek showed up and managed to gain Chrysalis’ magic. We had a plan for if he showed up with backup. We even had a plan for if he showed up and also brought brownies.

That last one wasn’t serious, but by God, we did plan for it.

The high-level discussions began to wear at everyone’s nerves, and when we decided that we’d covered all bases, everyone agreed that we should blow off some steam.

Well, we were in Vegas.

Being there was an Air Force base nearby, and that loads of conventions happened in Las Vegas, Buzz Aldrin knew his way around. Being that she lived there, and that loads of conventions happened in Las Vegas, so did Chrysalis. The rest of us tagged along.

Of course, Chrissy tried to make it about her. Given that she was just about to embark on a bait mission, we decided to let her have it.

If you’re looking for a party in Las Vegas, you can find one. I must admit that I’m not really good at things like that, and it wasn’t until Luna was being hugged by strippers that I realized we’d found one.

Luna, for her part, was a good sport about it, though reserved. So was Maria, but that was because she didn’t like strippers.

We all toasted to victory. One way or another, this would be over soon.

Comments

[totallynotabrony]

6413246 You wanted Luna hugs.

[Chicago Ted]

Las Vegas, man what a place.

Just drop by Southern California sometime. I'd welcome you there.

[D48]

6421172 Yeah, I was just hoping for one of the main characters to hug her instead.

...Now that I think about it, I can totally see Chrysalis being affectionate to annoy Luna while she is powerless to resist.

[Lithl]

Leave it to an astronaut to make sure the group has backup plans and redundancy.

[Herald of Opera]

Las Vegas, man what a place. Never have you ever seen someplace so glitzy and so artificial. It only stood to reason that it would be Chrysalis’ home base.

I'll just leave this old Tumblr post here:

I’ve never been to Las Vegas but I love it in concept because it sounds so made up. Imagine if you were reading a fantasy novel and they were like “smack in the middle of a deadly inhospitable desert there is a glittering city of indulgence and lawlessness and cheap sin that has specifically engineered itself to obfuscate your sense of time and keep you there as long as possible while they take all your valuables.” You’d be like yeah that’s some wizard shit