Chapter Eleven - Stand
Marshall sat on the edge of the STTF (Starbuck's That Time Forgot), his legs dangling over a thirty foot drop, and stared out across the trackless waste towards the distant mountain he could just barely see in the haze. The clop of several hooves sounded quietly next to him and a quiet worried sigh reached his ears.
Without looking he reached up and scratched his equine companion's neck. It seemed to comfort the both of them.
"It's difficult to tell, but... I think they've been dead at least a month, Marsh. That means they were dead long before we ever headed up the mountain."
He grunted. "That first set of sky lights, to the east of where we were at. Back before the trip to the barrier. That was them, I think. They probably died... about when we were dealing with the MB, you think?"
She leaned against him and sighed. "I don't know. Maybe. Actually that all happened pretty fast, so I'd think probably some time during the three weeks we waited to make sure it hadn't tracked us back home. What good does it do to dwell on it, Marshall? My point is, there's no way you could have known, and nothing you could have done."
"It don't feel that way." He observed flatly.
She nodded solemnly. "Of course it doesn't. These people didn't deserve this. Nopony deserves something like this, not you, not me... not these poor people... but WE aren't to blame."
He sighed. "Too far to be worth it, I said. So fuckin' wrong... stupid..."
"No Marshall, hear me out. If we had known, I mean RIGHT then, there'd have been no question. No waiting. We would have found a way to get out here, to save these people, or we would have died trying. You know it's true."
"You would have died trying." Marshall whispered.
Twilight blinked. "What?"
He was silent, and she finally looked at him.
He was CRYING.
"Marshall..." She whispered, spellbound. She had never seen the human cry. Not once. The closest he'd come to weeping had been during the first song they sang together. The Baby James song.
Now the floodgates were open.
He closed his eyes and turned his face away slightly as though he were ashamed. The tears slid down his sun battered cheeks silently. She watched him for a moment, then put her forelegs around him gently. He shook silently in her embrace, completely unable to move.
After several false starts, he finally scrubbed at his face fiercely and then looked down at his lap. "The night I... I woke up, that first night when I checked the camp, you remember?"
She nodded apprehensively.
"I had a dream. A fucking nightmare. I don't ever remember my dreams, Twi... but I think I'll remember that one 'til the day I die. I saw us comin'.... coming up on this fucking mess. I saw you take a rifle bullet right in the throat."
Twilight swallowed nervously, casting a glance at the discarded hunting rifle next to one of the withered corpses.
His voice was full of pain. "You were just... so happy to see other people... so happy, and they just shot you... and I couldn't..."
"Marshall... Marsh, it's... it's ok. It didn't happen. It couldn't have happened. The timeline of events just doesn't match up."
He shook his head. "It could have happened. It was within the fucking realm of possibility. Say we'd left for the mountain right away, instead of waiting to make sure the MB was gone, or I don't know... It may not have played out like that, but it COULD have happened. The worst of it? If that's what WOULD have happened if we came across these people still alive, then I'm GLAD we found them... like this."
She frowned, staring at the side of his profile, the scarred side. He looked tired and deeply ashamed.
"You don't mean that."
He turned his face to meet her gaze and she saw something change in his pale blue eyes. She was absolutely transfixed by the cold, hard, determination in them... and...
Something else.
Something she didn't think she could identify. Something she didn't know if she WANTED to identify. Something fierce and sharp as a blade, and more than a little alien.
Human.
"You look me in the eye, Twilight Sparkle, and you tell me I don't mean it. You tell me I don't mean it, when I say that I would sacrifice these poor sad, miserable bastards a hundred times over if it meant I never had to see something like that happen to you again."
She felt a lump heavy in her throat, and swallowed it down, but she refused to look away. "I... wouldn't want-"
He shook his head slowly, resolutely, his gaze never leaving hers. "I don't care."
She broke the moment then, looking away, more than a little frightened at the idea of somepony who would KILL for her. Certainly she'd seen him kill before, and while she didn't LIKE that he did so, she was realistic enough to realize that his options were much more limited than hers. He didn't kill callously. He killed to survive, whether it be for food or self defense. Still, to kill FOR her... not merely to defend the two of them, but in an abstract way...
She already knew they would both die for the other's sake. They'd saved each other at the risk of life and limb too many times not to have deeply internalized that. This wasn't the same. She could give her life for him.
Kill? Could she... do that? Was it even RIGHT that he was willing to...
It was too much. Too alien.
She could feel his eyes on her for a few moments longer, then he threw his legs back over the wall and set his boots firmly onto the roof, pushed himself to his feet, and walked away from her. He raised his head upwards and just howled obscenities at the great big nothing that was the darkening cloudless desert sky.
Twilight watched silently in a strange mix of nervousness, morbid curiousity, and sympathy.
Finally, he lowered his head, took a deep breath, and grinned weakly at her. "I'm sorry. I needed that. This whole trip, this fuckin' tomb... this desert... THIS FUCKING ISLAND. I must sound like the biggest fuckin' asshole that ever walked the earth."
She looked at his back and smiled, softly. "Maybe a mid-sized asshole. Upper-middle sized, tops. If it makes you feel any better, you're probably the biggest asshole on the ISLAND."
He snorted, letting out a shocked sound of amusement. "You don't think the MB has that title locked down?"
She shook her head, getting into it. "That thing just wants to eat me. You don't even have the common decency to do that, but something tells me you're going to be chewing my flank for the rest of our lives."
He let out another choked sound of amusement and shook his head. "Fair enough."
Her grin faded slightly as her eyes passed over what was left of the humans who had found themselves displaced here. Her ears drooped momentarily, and she lowered her head a bit. She considered the bodies for a moment, then shook her head.
"Something... somepony, has a lot to answer for." She mused darkly.
Marshall turned to her and caught her staring at the mother and child tangled together in final repose.
"Yeah. You got that right." He said, his voice grim.
Never mind that they couldn't even figure out a way to breach the barrier. Never mind that whatever it was that had them trapped here apparently had powers that dwarfed the most powerful beings in Equestria. Twilight felt something stirring inside her, something that resonated powerfully. It felt like... like anger, but that wasn't a pure enough term. Sure, she was angry that something so senseless had been committed. No, it was... it was the sheer INJUSTICE of it.
It was strange. Something equally as terrible had happened to her and Marshall, but in some strange way, she'd come to the probably erroneous conclusion that, if something like this had to happen to somepony, at least it was her and Marshall. They were both tough and resourceful, they could take it. That muted the anger she felt at her situation, at least somewhat.
These people though... a mother and daughter? A teenage boy?
These poor people had apparently never had a chance.
What was being perpetrated here was either cruelty, or the most sickening lack of empathy she'd ever witnessed. Either way, if it was possible...
At all possible...
Twilight Sparkle was going to see it made right.
She frowned. "Should we bury them? Is that... something humans do too?"
Marshall sighed. He stared at them for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "Yeah. Not today, though. Before we leave."
She nodded, and he turned back to her, took a deep breath, searched her face for a flickering moment, found what he was looking for, and nodded back.
Marshall turned, considering the well dressed corpse in front of him for a moment before he reached down and gingerly pulled up the hunting rifle from underneath it, examining it and the scope carefully for damage.
It was a matte black hunting rifle of a specific brand that he didn't recognize, but it was obviously a high end firearm. He worked the bolt and caught the unfired round it ejected, inspecting it. Then after a short examination, he ejected the magazine, noted that it had one round left from what was probably a five round mag, inserted the round he'd ejected from the breech into it and reinserted the magazine, setting the weapon to safe.
Twilight watched grimly, but said nothing.
He slung it over his shoulder, on the opposite side of the carbine. Looting the dead it might be, but there was too much hard practicality beaten into Marshall's survivor soul to ever let a useful weapon go to waste out here.
"Put us back on the parking lot, if you please, Sparks. There ain't nothin' up here I wanna see more of than I have to."
She nodded, and teleported the two of them to the parking lot with a flash of purple fire.
Twilight Sparkle stared dubiously at the monstrosity in front of her. She cocked her head to the side, staring with confused befuddlement.
Marshall hadn't noticed her confused state. He was too busy having a truck-gasm, clambering over the thing like the primate he was.
"Oh man! It's got a rollcage? Holy... that's a controllable spotlight! And that's a suicide knob... that's... a winch... Twilight! It has a fully stocked tool-chest... POWERTOOLS! Is that a goddamn COMPRESSOR I see?!"
Twilight shook her head slowly from side to side. She was focused somewhat lower. Oh there were some absolutely bizarre things to be seen on this "truck". It had, for instance, an odd little picture of a mischeviously grinning little boy urinating on the words, "gun control". Across from it was a legend that read, "You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers". She shook her head, mystified.
The front window, or "windshield" as Marshall had absently called it, had the words, "Crimson Maverick" across the top in red letters. As far as she could tell, that was the name the human had given his truck. She found the idea of a person naming their vehicle to be bizarre and nearly incomprehensible.
Frightening, even.
In addition to this, the bumper had several bizarre stickers, some faded with age, that said things like, "Vote Ryan, '08", and a newer sticker that read, "Say No Moore, vote Trump '12" and "Bennet/Romney 2016". Nestled in among these was a red and yellow sticker that read, "Retired United States Marine Corps, Semper Fidelis" with a globe, anchor, and eagle next to it. She could only begin to guess at the meaning of those stickers.
That wasn't what had caught her immediate attention.
"That" was somewhat lower.
"Marshall, what in Tartarus is... is that what I THINK it is?" She pointed a hoof.
Marshall hopped down off the back of the truck and looked for a moment where she was pointing, then chuckled and shook his head. "It's a novelty item, Twi. Pair of fake testicles to show that the guy who owns this truck thinks that it has "balls". I'm really starting to like this guy. He seems to have embraced his roots so hard he might actually have turned into a tree."
Twilight shook her head. "Stallions. That is so typic-"
She caught sight of the sudden change in Marshall's expression and frowned herself. "What is it, Marsh?"
Marshall had his head cocked at a considering angle, examining the bumper stickers. He looked... odd. As though he was having trouble parsing what he was seeing.
"That's not right..." He mused.
"What?" Twilight asked, curious.
"Those are political endorsement stickers, for the presidential elections that happen every four years. Problem is, they're all wrong. I'm assuming that this guy is a Republican, but even if he was a Democrat, the 2008 election was John McCain versus Barack Obama. There wasn't a Ryan involved at all... and... when I was taken it was April of 2012... that was an election year, but it would have been Obama versus someone else. This implies... that the President of the United States was someone named Moore... and that Donald Trump would be running against him... that's just..."
He shook his head. "This truck has a valid 2017 registration, you can tell by that sticker right there... and... it has Arizona plates. It's from the US, but..."
Twilight shuddered, on the verge of something, but not sure exactly what it was.
"But?" She asked hoarsely.
He gave her a disturbed and slightly scared look. "Maybe it's not from... MY United States."
Seeing her dubious look he continued. "Twilight, these might be joke stickers, but why? This kinda guy, he does NOT kid around about political stuff. Not someone with two decals against gun control on his rear window and a retired Marine Corps sticker on his bumper. That kinda guy takes a very serious attitude where politics are concerned. Especially someone who obviously takes great pains to make his truck look the best it can, but leaves old political stickers on it... that's someone who wants you to KNOW who he's supported, damn it."
Twilight frowned, considering this for a few moments. Then she nodded. The cultural concept of elections was a little alien to her, but she could follow his logic. What he was saying made sense, she just didn't WANT it to. Which of course meant that she was letting her own bias get in the way of absorbing the situation. She let go of her assumptions and reexamined the situation.
After a moment, she nodded grimly.
"Alright. I get it." She took a deep breath and let it out.
"It makes a certain amount of sense, Marsh. We could already extrapolate that it was possible we weren't in our respective universes anymore. There are certain universal constants which would appear to be vastly different by our different accounts. This would appear to support that, indirectly... but if it's true..."
She looked at him anxiously. "Marshall, if the infinite universes hypothesis is... even kind of accurate, as this seems to suggest, how in Tartarus are we supposed to find our way back?!"
He returned her look, then closed his eyes, thinking. Then he shrugged. "Because we have to. We'll keep trying until the attempt kills us, or we get home." He grinned sadly.
"Binary solution set, yeah?"
She considered this with a pained expression for a few seconds, her ears flat against her skull, then she visibly rallied, drawing strength from the human's tired but serene expression of confidence. She nodded.
"If it's possible for things from other universes to come here, then it's possible for them to go back. It's just a matter of finding out how."
Marshall grinned hard and nodded decisively.
She stopped, blinking as epiphany struck her, then her mouth dropped open.
"That's how you do it." She whispered. "That's WHY you do it. Why you turn everything into a you versus them situation. How you've lasted this long. You turn everything into a binary situation, then count everything, every little goal, every small victory as fuel to keep you moving."
He cocked his head slightly, and watched her.
"You haven't lost because you're still alive..." She whispered, shocked at how simple it was, but how FUNDAMENTAL this was to understanding him. "Everything bad that's happened is a hurdle. A setback to overcome. Marshall-"
Whatever she was going to say was immediately lost. He suddenly gave her an obviously exaggerated horror-filled look.
"GASP!"
He didn't gasp, he actually SAID the word gasp.
"She's onto me! Evasive action!" He dove away from her around the far side of the truck.
Twilight shook her head, exasperatedly. "Marshall, you are such a lost cause."
Marshall groaned from the ground, out of view. "Fuck... I forgot how hard asphalt was... I think I broke my goddamn funnybone."
He stood up and walked back over, rubbing his right elbow and flexing his hand with a sheepish look of pain on his face.
She rolled her eyes. "Another moment of pain sacrificed on the altar of lame jokes."
He let out a pained chuckle. "I'm like a comedy marytr or something. Does this mean I get seventy two virgins?"
She frowned. "What would you want seventy two virgins for?"
He snorted. "For strategic de-virgining purposes, silly."
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, Celestia have mercy."
She considered him as he got to his feet, nursing his right elbow. "Don't think I didn't notice you being evasive either."
He blinked. "I would hope not, I'd hate to have to hurt myself again to drive the point home."
She shook her head. "That's not what I meant."
He stared at her for a moment, then his expression became an odd mix of amusement and seriousness. "You're wrong though, Twi."
She blinked. "I am?"
He nodded. "It isn't me against them. It's US against them. Us versus this island, Sparks."
She blinked, touched by this sentiment. She couldn't help but think this was one of those watershed moments that she should take note of, because there was something very HUMAN about the way he'd defined his position. Before she could ponder this he reached over fondly and scratched the base of one of her ears. It never even occurred to her to think it was odd. Ponies were very touch oriented. Her eyes involuntarily closed.
That was something magical that ponies COULDN'T do.
"Come on, Twi. We have a whole Starbucks to explore. After as long as this has obviously been out here, I doubt there's anything edible that ain't nonperishable, but there might be some cookies or something that're still good, if kinda stale." He sighed.
"We could both use a morale booster, to be honest."
She hmm'ed her agreement gently, and he stopped scratching her ear, which a large part of her was not entirely pleased with. That was a morale booster right there, dang it.
She followed just a step or two behind him, watching alertly as he unslung the carbine and scanned the dark glass windows as they approached. He reached over with his off hand, the hand he used to support the carbine, and opened the glass door a crack, then shoved his boot into that crack and opened the door with his body and leg, sweeping the interior with his weapon from left to right as he stepped in. He frowned.
"Twi, I need like... four light orbs, see if you can project 'em well into the interior. Dark as a cave in here, with the daylight fading."
"Right. Will do." She concentrated, then four hovering orbs of soft white light winked into existence and speed to the far corners of the admittedly not very square room. Marshall scanned the interior with the carbine at the ready, then relaxed slightly, lowered the weapon and stepped in. Twilight followed suit, peering around his leg dubiously.
Marshall frowned. "Well... looks like nobody's home. I-"
Twilight froze suddenly, head lifting and eyes widening slightly. Her muzzle twitched.
Marshall half raised the weapon and stared at her.
"I smell..." She frowned, shifting her head slightly in a line across the interior, like someone scanning with a handheld motion tracker, sniffing delicately.
"I THINK I smell..."
Marshall frowned. "What is it Sparks?" He asked, a little anxiously.
Her face slowly broke into awed wonder and joy. Marshall raised an eyebrow.
"Chocolate." She breathed.
Marshall rolled his eyes and lowered his weapon again. "Twi, any chocolate you find in here is going to be a nasty mess. Desert heat for weeks on end with no air conditioning? It'll be all over the-"
"Don't care." She chimed happily, following her nose.
Marshall wrinkled his nose and followed her towards the counter, his expression bemused.
"What are you going to do, lick it off the counter?" He asked wryly.
She considered this for all of a second. "Uh huh!" She chirped.
He let out a chuckle, then froze.
"I'll be damned."
Being more familiar with a Starbucks layout than Twilight, his eyes had immediately searched the counter top where most of the impulse buy candies and treats tended to end up. There, an open cardboard bulksellers box with the Godiva chocolate logo sat forlornly amidst several healthier impulse buy oriented treats. He was expecting it to be half full of a soup of denatured chocolate and dripping down the sides of the counter, but it looked... pretty normal.
"That's not right."
Twilight looked up at him expectantly. "What? Did you find it?"
He answered without thinking. "Yeah Twi, I did. It's up there on the counter. Looks-" He paused, as it suddenly occurred to him that he himself hadn't had chocolate in over five years.
"You think-"
They both froze, staring at the counter. They looked slowly at each other. Marshall's eyes narrowed. Twilight's eyes widened, then took on a steely determined glint. Marshall suddenly caught the look of absolutely focused avarice on Twilight's normally friendly face and blanched.
Several weeks of hard earned friendship and trust suddenly deflated with a noise not unlike a tire going over a porcupine.
Made of steel, and razor wire. Perhaps also on fire.
They both darted forward at approximately the same time, though Twilight was a very slight amount slower since she wasn't actually completely sure which box held her precious. Marshall feinted towards one of the granola bar boxes and she lunged eagerly in that direction, overextending herself. Seeing her fall for his ruse, Marshall adjusted his angle and sprinted for the Godiva box. Twilight realized her mistake quickly, skidded to a sliding halt on the faux-marble tiles, then wheeled and galloped after him, her teeth gritted. Spotting a box fallen from the rooftop ladder, she wheeled again slightly and bucked it in his direction. Marshall half tripped over the obstacle in the still not terribly well lit lobby, and she shot past him with a whoop of triumph.
That turned into a startled yelp when he grabbed her tail and drug her behind himself as he pushed forward, her hooves scrabbling for traction on the slippery tiles.
All seemed lost, then Twilight remembered a very important factor that had been eluding her notice in her haste to get at the gooey treats.
She was a fucking unicorn.
Crinkle crinkle crinkle. Chomp. Smack smack.
Marshall studiously looked away, his expression a strange mixture of disgusted, irritated, and envious. He crossed his arms.
There was an almost sexual moan of satisfaction from next to the counter.
"Oh... soooo good."
Marshall risked a glance and grinned quite despite himself. If it were possible to make the act of devouring something a sensual thing, then Twilight Sparkle was making sweet love to an only slightly deformed chocolate bar, her eyes closed in absolute gustatory ecstasy. She had several smudges of melted chocolate around her muzzle, having devoured one of the semisolid treats in an unseemly degree of haste.
Marshall sighed and shook his head mock sadly. "So it's come to this, Sparkle. I take you in, I feed you, I teach you how survive in a hostile environment, and this VILE act of betrayal is how you repay-"
Twilight opened one eye and glared at him. "You don't understand, Marshall. Cake and candy are a vital part of the Equestrian diet. The Equestrian Economic Bureau uses the baked goods market as a snapshot of where economic growth is at any given time. Ancient ponies invented confectionery before they invented the WHEEL. There's a well documented and bitter war which broke out between Preunification tribes of Pegasi and Unicorns over a stolen recipe for apple fritters. Did you think I was joking when I said I'd kill for baked goods?!"
Marshall snorted. "So... secure in your victory and at least partially sated on the spoils of war, would you mind letting me down?!"
To her credit, she blushed, and the mild glow around her horn faded as she lowered Marshall from his time out corner.
Near the ceiling.
He dusted himself off and sauntered over, a somewhat hopeful look on his face.
"Any chance-"
Her ears laid back and the box telekinetically scooted across the ground behind her forelegs protectively.
"Marshall, this is it. This is all the chocolate on the island. I have to ration it carefully, or-"
He sighed and his shoulders slumped. "Never mind."
Twilight watched him for a moment, then stared down at the chocolate bar she had unwrapped and was about to consume. He hadn't had chocolate in five years. Her initial overreaction had largely been due to HIS reaction, which she was beginning to suspect was mostly just him goofing off anyway. She began to feel the first twinges of guilt.
Little ones, admittedly, but Twilight was a conscientious mare, when she wasn't overreacting.
The chocolate bar bounced off of his chest and he juggled it awkwardly before fumble fingering it and allowing it to plop onto the ground.
He stared at it disbelievingly for a moment.
"I'm NOT going to eat it off the-" He stopped suddenly, considering.
After a long moment he snorted, then shrugged. "Five year rule."
She grinned in amusement. "Five year rule, what's that?"
He glared at her, then picked it awkwardly off the ground, leaving a smear of melted chocolate behind, then sat down next to her with his back against the counter.
"If you haven't had chocolate for five years, it doesn't matter where the fuck it's been."
Marshall took a bite, and then closed his eyes and groaned. Twilight considered him, then the Godiva box, then gave into the inevitable and unwrapped (just ONE more) another bar. Twilight's grin turned into a more gentle expression of shared pleasure.
"Oh, man. I regret nothing." He said around a mouthful of gourmet milk chocolate.
"Yup." Twilight said happily.
Marshall took another bite, a smaller one this time, and considered the Godiva box. He swallowed and considered the bar he was holding.
"You realize there's no way these chocolate bars have spent a month in the heat, right?"
She frowned, considering the bar she was holding telekinetically in front of her. It was slightly deformed, and soft (hence the chocolate stains around her mouth from her enthusiasm) but it was the damage of a few hours in the heat, not several weeks. It still retained a large amount of its original shape, and had not gained the patina of granular sugar that repeatedly melted and resolidified chocolate took on. She shook her head.
"How did I MISS that?!"
He grinned at her.
"You were pretty distracted at the time, Twilight. A little laxity of attention is probably inevitable, if not entirely forgivable." He said with an air of overexaggeratedly sardonic humor.
She glared at him, then nodded. "But..." She trailed off, her eyes widened, and then she stood. "Is there an icebox where they keep the drinks and such?"
He sighed, nodded, and stood himself, gesturing at the cold box.
She raised up on her hindlegs and supported herself with the counter, staring at the contents of the dark glass fronted refrigerator.
Her ears laid back and she narrowed her eyes.
"Those miserable..." She breathed.
"Let it go, Twilight." Marshall said softly.
"But!" She exclaimed.
"It's not worth getting steamed about. It's fucked up, and it's wrong, a tragedy... but it's also pretty par for the course."
Inside the dark cooler were several rows of canned drinks and bottled water, obviously replaced by the Sky Lights just that evening. Just like the trees which had been resupplied to the Rootscrapers, and the chocolate bars they'd just consumed.
"They could have come down off the roof and..." She dropped back off the counter and hung her head as the weight of the entirely senseless tragedy struck her.
He sighed. "Yeah, they could have. They didn't know. Whatever it was that scared them up onto the roof, it scared them badly enough they didn't even check. Of course, depending on how effectively they rationed their supplies or not, they might not have been in good enough shape TO check, Twi."
She looked at him, her expression bleak, and he ran a hand through her mane, his own expression resigned and a little sad.
"It took four days for us to prepare for the trip out, and what... four, five days to get here? We just saw the Sky Lights this early evening, which means if they're on some kinda schedule, it's about nine days between intervals. That's enough time for panicked folks who aren't properly rationing their very limited water supplies to get too weak to react to the building gettin' struck by blue lightning."
He frowned. "Well, not in any way that woulda been productive."
She nodded, but didn't look up. Marshall moved his hand to her chin and lifted her head so that she was forced to meet his eyes.
"Twi... let it go for now." He said gently. Then his expression firmed. "But don't forget."
He dropped his hand, then stared down at his fingers and snorted. He wiped them off on his pants.
"Also, you might want to find a napkin, Twi. Your mouth is smeared in chocolate."
She blushed, then proved that pony tongues were quite a bit longer and more dextrous than the human equivalent. Marshall actually blinked, and his mouth dropped open.
"Did I get it all?"
He just laughed and shook his head, turning away. "Yeah. You did, Sparklebutt. Real classy, by the way."
She batted her eyelashes at him coyly, poorly imitating something she'd often seen Rarity do with effortless grace, then stuck her tongue out at him and blew him a raspberry.
The two busied themselves with exploring the interior of the Star Bucks. A stack of boxes filled with filters, coffee and other supplies lead up to the roof top opening, a ladder built in haste to escape whatever had attacked the coffee shop. For the most part, other than that, the interior looked relatively clean. The exception was a shattered window, broken glass, smashed table, and dried streaks of gore leading out of the hole bashed into the wall.
Marshall stood to one side of the hole and stared at it, frowning. The edges had a worried look, as though they had been forced inward and then ripped back outward with great force. If he didn't know any better, he'd say it almost looked as though a gigantic fist had reached in, grabbed some poor soul and then ripped them back out into the night.
That seemed insane. The size of that fist would have been comparable to a good sized truck, like, Crimson Maverick sized. The hole wasn't just the window, it was part of the wall and interior as well. He shook his head, unnerved by his own morbid curiousity.
An almost ultrasonic squeal of delight caught his attention. Marshall's gaze flicked back towards the counter and he smirked. Twilight had apparently just discovered the little baked goods section of the Star Bucks front counter. She was beginning an absolutely adorable, excited little hop in place, perhaps one part happy, one part eager, and a fair amount counting coup. She began to babble excitedly, her cadence such that, had she been so skilled, might have resulted in a proper rain dance.
"YesyesyesyesYESyesyesyesyesYESyesyesyesYESyesyesyesYES!"
Marshall crossed his arms and assumed a stern expression. When he spoke it was in a measured, Injun Joe sort of cadence. "Ah yes, Dances Like Dying Moose. You have found the baked goods counter. Once the baked goods roamed freely across the land, and were plentiful. Now, only this case remains. The People mourn the loss of our way of life."
Something about the way he said it reminded her of the Buffalo Tribe. She stopped her victory dance and shot him a wry look. "Thank you for that insight, Chief Pain In My Flank, but even your crappy attitude can't put a damper on this!"
A slight squeaking noise interrupted any reply he might have given as she pressed her face up against the glass side of the display case. He rolled his eyes.
Twilight Sparkle was in heaven. Oh, she loved chocolate, certainly. She actually hadn't realized how much she missed the guilty treat until it had been denied her for around two months. Still, chocolate was a once in a while treat, something she used to reward herself. Baked goods, for Twilight Sparkle, as most of ponykind, were not a reward, or even a habit. They were a way of life.
As much as she had missed chocolate, it couldn't hold a candle to simple pastries, or cakes, heck, even a bagel, at this point, if she was anything, it wasn't picky. She hadn't had so much as a piece of toast, or a donut in two months!
Even prisoners got fed better than that! Granted that she was probably in the best physical shape of her life, but there was surviving, and then there was LIVING.
Besides, if she wasn't mistaken, that was a cheese cake in there, right next to a slice of carrot cake and a half a blueberry bagel. She was aware that the clock was ticking on that little beauty. It might already be a bit off.
"I'll rescue you, little cheese cake!" She whispered fondly. Marshall scratched the back of his neck under his keffiyah scarf, more than a little weirded out at this point. She'd been staring for thirty seconds without moving. Her backside had been to him, of course, but he was pretty sure she hadn't BLINKED.
She backed up a couple steps to take a wider look at the counter and exactly how you got into it.
Her rear hooves crunched on broken glass as she did so, and she considered the case. She could break the glass, but why risk getting pieces of broken glass all over her precious desserts?
Marshall sighed. "Hey Twi, you can usually get into those cases from the backside easiest. Unless your plan was just to stare that food into your stomach."
"What would be the fun in that?" She said dreamily.
Its species had no equal. On the cloudy blue orb that it and its ancestors had inhabited for countless eons, it was peerless. The absolute apex predator on land. If it walked, crawled, or slithered on the ground, large or small, it was meat.
Pure and simple.
If it ran or flew, in the end...
It was merely very tired meat.
By necessity, its kind were patient. It was an ambush predator, devoting a majority of its time to lying in wait, conserving its energy for the proper moment. It was aided in this by a metabolism which synched to its surroundings, slowing in times of scarcity and speeding to a terrifyingly fast pace in times of plenty. It could hunt in packs, but this was not typical behavior of it... as it did not need others of its species to breed, nor for protection.
It could accomplish these tasks all on its own. It was not a slave to the necessities of a biome.
It WRECKED biomes.
It could move fast, incredibly fast, considering its typical mode of travel, burrowing under the earth, but it did have limitations. It could not sustain itself above for long, it was incredibly ungainly and slow there. It could not burrow through hard earth. Thus its species had learned cunning. To set traps, to lie in wait, to strike quite literally as lightning.
Well, lightning from below. The metaphor is still quite apt.
Despite its patience, this one was getting rather desperate. It had gone through a moment completely alien to its experience, having never been in a state of... not awareness before. It did not have eyes, it sensed the world through "tingles". The meat that inhabited the sunlit world above it were tingles, large and small, their every foot step or movement a wealth of information, a cascading, rippling explosion of sensory data that shivered along its skin like a tiny voice whispering,
"Eat me, eat me..."
For a moment the world had gone still. All of the tingling had stopped, and then...
It had very limited senses. Touch it had in abundance, of course, No sense of smell. Certainly no sight. Slightly more sensitive hearing, but this sense was so integrally linked to its sense of touch as to be merely a facet of that sense anyway. Taste it most certainly had.
The earth through which it moved was its world, and it tasted... wrong. Where before there were hints of life, scarce though they had been, the earth had been alive.
Now the earth was dead. There was nearly not enough water to sustain ITS hardy constitution, and that was almost unthinkable. It was one of the most water efficient species in existence.
When it had first noticed the change in its world, it had been young. Very very young, just out of its initial, nymph-like, surface jumping state, only fifteen feet long or so. There had been another, an older one of its kind. Larger. Its species did not practice cannibalism often, usually only the damaged ones did, the ones that could not reproduce, or in extremely desperate times when prey was truely scarce. Still, it was not without caution, and the change in the world was startling enough that it did not want to tangle with its superior brethren. It had kept its distance from those delightful, life giving tingles.
The meat-tingles above had taken shelter on a piece of hard earth, thwarting them.
Still, they were patient. They had waited.
Their patience had been rewarded. The large one had fed well. Then there was a tingle to end all tingles. A tingle so great in its intensity that it had been painful, shocking... terrifying. A tingle-that-was-agony. It had fled the painful, blinding tingle, and so had the large one.
The large one had not returned. It had thought perhaps that the large one had been injured. Certainly it had been closer to the tingle-that-was-agony. It thought that perhaps the large one had gone off to die. The younger had not known at the time. In any case, the large one seldom moved now, and its movements were erratic and strange. The younger was cautious enough to avoid it, despite how hungry it was. It was a simple case of mathematics. It ate the meat-tingles, which were smaller than itself. The large one was bigger than it, even if it WAS injured.
It did not want to become a meal itself.
It had gone back to the hard earth, and with the large one gone, it had been rewarded. Being relatively small for its species, young and undernourished, it retained some of its quicksilver ability to move ABOVE as well, and it had used this to great effect, snatching the unmindful meat from the top of its hard earth hiding place.
That had been glorious. The best meal it had ever known.
Then it had waited, but the meat was devious, oh tricky, treacherous meat. It had escaped, somehow.
The tingles had ended, in any case.
It had gotten increasingly desperate, then. It had quickly learned that its world was nearly devoid of meat-tingles of a sufficient size to sustain it. Worse, there was a great shell of hard earth on one side of its territory that maddenly held a great wealth of tingles. Teasing, hateful, spiteful meat-tingles, only just out of reach. A smorgasboard of precious, lovely meat, held tantilizingly close.
On the other side of its stomping grounds was.... nothing. A great, wide, endless wall of nothingness. It was completely alien to its experience, that nothing, like the earth in which it swam merely... stopped.
It avoided that side of its territory.
It had eked out an existence, a pitiful existence, slowly starving, sustaining itself only on those meat-tingles that came just a bit too close, or better yet, strayed fully into its territory. It patrolled its border fiercely, desperately, both looking for a way through the hateful hard earth that seperated it from the feast beyond, and snatching what little sustenance it could.
It had only grown a little in that time, currently only about 24 feet long, nowhere near its full adult growth. It was dying. It was at the stage of growth when it NEEDED food to reach its full adult length and it was not getting that. Even its robust metabolism, its hardy constitution, had never intended that it be without sufficient food for this long. It had taken to long periods of inactivity, punctuated by sudden lethal jolts of violent action as the very small amount of opportunity meat-tingles braved the rocky shelf, for whatever reason meat-tingles did.
If it were capable of despairing, it might have. At this rate, it would die before it reached full maturity. It was... sort of hermaphroditic, in that it required no partner to breed, its reproductive process having more akin to a doomsday clock than anything shared by the meat-tingles. Still, lack of food slowed this process.
Dying, of course, would stop it altogether.
Then had come an exciting time. It didn't really measure time in terms of days and nights, as the concept of such things were mostly foreign to it. It could discern temperature, and it was aware that there were periods of warmth and periods of cold, but this was the extent of its temporal understanding.
The border it "patrolled" was vast. It was inevitable that some meat-tingles would enter and leave. Usually this meant wandering a ways into its territory then wandering back over the rocky shelf, oblivious to the danger beneath it. That something would wander out into that lifeless earth was unthinkable, nearly inconceivable. It was hardly to be blamed if it could not predict the madness of meat-tingles in their small, surface world.
In its inattention, a set of meat-tingles had passed by it. At first it had come out of its semi-hibernation groggily, as though from the great depths of the earth. By the time it had become fully aware of its surroundings, the tingles had stopped.
It had slipped back into its state of unawareness.
The tingles had come back, and though they were fainter, further away this time, it had awakened enough to begin searching.
Thus had begun a maddening round of tingle, stalk, stop, search, tingle, stalk, stop, search. It had narrowed down the meat-tingles progress and while it was not truely sapient, it was terrifyingly intelligent, all things considered, and it was able to extrapolate where the meat-tingles were headed.
The hard earth. The place where it had had its first and most glorious meal. Oh precious meat.
There were three distinct meat-tingles. The largest was one of the same meat-tingles as had been on the hard earth in the beginning, though bigger than the meat-tingle that it itself had taken down. The second was smaller, more... spread out. It bore a resemblence to some of the meat-tingles it had snatched from the edge of its territory on occasion. The third was... strange. It did not slither, as some meat-tingles did, but neither did it produce the repetitious banging on the earth that the other two meat-tingles performed.
This curiousity had distracted it enough for the spread-out-meat-tingle to escape. It still was not entirely certain how the spread-out-meat-tingle had accomplished that. It had been about to snatch it down, when it had suddenly just ceased to be there. Tricky meat.
In any case, the third meat-tingle had remained foolishly off of the hard earth, though it likely thought itself safe, having stopped moving, and remembering where the strange meat-tingle had last been, it had taken full advantage of this, questing up quickly with its grasping tentacles. It had deviously snatched it down quickly and quietly, in an effort to avoid scaring the other meat-tingles.
It wanted them all!
Only to discover that what it had devoured was NOT meat. Treacherous meat. LYING meat.
It had... a taste, strange, chemical, but it was not meat. It was full of WATER! More water than it really needed. Certainly more than it wanted. It had spit out the not-meat tingle in disgust, swimming, circling in furious impatience, the maddening caressing tingles of meat emanating from atop the hard earth, safe, out of reach above it.
Then... opportunity. The large-meat-tingle was very near, so very near the opening it had snatched its glorious meal. It was not, however, in the optimal location for a lunge. The spread-out-meat-tingle had gone through a period of furious, excited tingling, clearly marking its location with its beats against the hard earth. In fact, the spread-out-meat-tingle now approached very... very near the location it had snatched its first glorious meal. It was bigger now... slower to return to the earth's embrace if it were to leave it. It could be dangerous to risk itself above. It was hardy, but it could be hurt.
The large one and its apparently devestating encounter with the tingle-that-was-agony had proven that.
Still, it was desperate, and so very very hungry...
Desperation lending it a perhaps foolish courage, it crashed from the earth in a startling display of force, its jaws opening, spreading like a grotesque flower eagerly to snatch and consume the spread-out-meat-tingle, and the large-meat-tingle, if it was lucky.
Its writhing nest of grasping tentacles preceded it.
The barren, lifeless soil outside suddenly EXPLODED upwards in a fountaining spray of debris as a writhing mass of thick, python-like snakes errupted from the ground and boiled over the broken glass, stretching wide in an oddly coordinated dance of twitching muscle. The mass struck through the hole in the wall and slid whip fast across the faux marble floor. A stench so overpoweringly foul that it made Marshall's eyes water and triggered a momentary gag reflex struck him. He reeled in horror, then saw that one of those python-like things was headed straight for his crotch.
"HOLY SHIT!"
Marshall reacted much like his primate forefathers, leaping backwards over the snapping tentacle and onto the top of an uncollapsed table. His boots sliding on the smooth table top, he performed a leap born of desperation that would have had a ballerina weeping with envy, though his dismount needed a little work. Stumbling into the cash register hard enough that his shoulder would be bruised for days, off balance from the purely reflex action, he stared in horror as the python-things darted in a coordinated lunge for Twilight...
Who simply teleported out of their path, reappearing behind the counter with a pop of displaced air and a flash of purple light. She spun around, slightly singed and out of breath from the emergency teleport her now FINELY developed "something is trying to eat me again" sense had screamed was necessary RIGHT NOW. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened in disbelieving horror as the creatures (creature?) wrapped around the baked goods display and, with a wrench of overstrained metal and a tinkling of shattering glass, ripped it bodily out of the floor and began dragging it across the ground towards the opening.
Her left eyebrow twitched. The left corner of her mouth began fluttering as though a small animal was trapped in her mouth as her cheek muscle developed an involuntary spasm.
"THAT IS IT! I HAVE HAD IT!" She bellowed, her face twisted in a maniacal expression of rage and rapid onset dementia. Her horn burst into scintillating purple brilliance, fully illuminating the inside of the Starbucks.
An aura of telekinesis wrapped around the baked goods case.
Marshall's warning died in the back of his throat at the scene in front of him.
"EVER SINCE I SHOWED UP ON THIS BUCKING ISLAND, EVERYTHING HAS WANTED A PIECE OF MY FLANK, AND I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!"
"Holy shit..." Marshall breathed, his eyes widening. Twilight had begun exerting so much magical energy that she had begun to levitate off the floor, held aloft by sheer force of will. Sparks flickered and spat angrily off of her horn like a Fourth of July sparkler, dancing for flickering moments on the floor behind the counter before vanishing from sight in an instant.
The case... stopped moving, then jerked towards Twilight suddenly.
Something immense and very displeased lurched into the Starbucks from outside. It was a massive worm-like thing, long enough that a good portion of it was still in the desert sand, its mouth opened in a trifurcated grimace like nothing Marshall had ever seen before, those three straining, muscular tentacles stretched taut in their collossal effort to defeat the Element of Magic in a game of tug of war. It jerked, reared back, and began straining backwards. A belch of angry noise errupted from the thing's throat, along with a renewal of that overpoweringly bad stench.
"HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!" Marshall jerked back, now horribly aware that this mass of tentacles and that THING out there were one immense creature.
The case resumed its inevitable slide towards the desert.
Twilight Sparkle clenched her teeth, and then BURST into a raging inferno, like a fireball given pony form. The wave of heat struck Marshall like a palpable fist and he recoiled back, now clutching the cash register like a talisman against evil to his chest. The flames of her living mane extended upwards far enough to singe the ceiling tiles.
"HOLY SHIT!" He screamed.
"I FINALLY GET A BREAK, A LITTLE TASTE OF HOME, AND YOU BUCKING THINK YOU'RE GOING TO TAKE IT FROM ME WITHOUT A FIGHT?! I DON'T THINK SO, BUSTER!"
The case ceased its movement backwards, then amazingly... impossibly began to retreat back towards Twilight. The creature out there in the desert gave a confused mewl of... (was that terror?!) dismay as it was bodily dragged completely out of the desert sand like an enormous impacted molar out of the jaw of a particularly recalcitrant patient.
It let go of the case. The python tentacle things shot backward like they were on fire. They may have been. The bitey parts of them were smoking at least. The thing awkwardly lurched backward, then turned, its armored beak slamming one corner of the building into rubble in its haste to get the fuck away from whatever just had a grip on it. It rolled clumsily off the the Starbucks foundation slab like a very fat man getting out of a hammock, rolling a short way onto the dirt before coming to a rest.
Twilight collapsed to the ground and the fire went out, save for a little flickering flamelet that danced on a flaming granola bar display on the counter before fading into a smoking blackened curled wisp of incinerated cardboard.. She stood there, breathing hard, her sides heaving with the effort of her impossible tug-of-war. She stepped over the broken, crunching, and slightly smoking pieces of shattered glass, nudged her way carefully inside, and gathered a slightly misshapen but MOSTLY unharmed cheese cake to her furred pony breast. The strawberry topping matted her coat.
She did not care.
"This is MY cake, and I am going to EAT it!" She announced in a voice which would not be denied. It was the sort of voice that was immediately followed by Yul Brenner announcing in a sepulchral tone, "So let it be written, so let it be done."
The thing outside rolled about awkwardly, like a blind maggot, before it finally got its bulk into position where it could get rear up and push its armored beak back into the earth. Within twenty seconds or so, it was gone, leaving only a slight depression of disturbed earth and a lingering stench.
Marshall stood up, glanced down at the heavy cash register in his arms, wondered for a moment when the heck he ended up hugging it like a teddy bear, then let it drop with a clang to the floor. Twilight had begun chewing grimly on a levitated slice of cheese cake, her eyes watching the hole out to the desert with a sentinel's purpose. She stuffed the remains of that slice into her mouth and removed a second from the slightly deformed dessert.
Marshall cleared his throat. Her eyes flicked in his direction, and she blinked as though aware of him for the first time, and looked down at the cheese cake.
"Oh... sorry." She said, awkwardly swallowing her mouthful. "Did you want some?"
"No. I'm good." He assured her a little too quickly.
"It's ok, Marshall. We have to eat it now or it'll go bad." She stuffed another slice into her mouth.
Marshall looked out the hole into the desert, shuddered when he saw the depression the thing left in its haste to escape, and shook his head.
"You have at it, Sparklebutt. You wrestled a sandworm for it, it's all yours."
She resumed happily chewing on the cheese cake. A bit of blackened and singed ceiling tile collapsed behind her, but she didn't appear to notice.
"You pro'ly." She swallowed. "You probably should have shot that thing while it was up top, Marsh. It's not going to give up."
Marshall glared at her flatly. "Excuse me if I was a little distracted by my unicorn friend suddenly deciding to be ON FUCKING FIRE!"
Twilight frowned and took another bite. "What are you talking about?"
He stared at her disbelievingly for several beats before shaking his head slowly and wandering away.
Twilight's frown deepened. "Where are you going, Marshall?"
"Bathroom. Because someone put shit in my pants."
He kicked open the swinging door and stalked in grumbling under his breath and still shaking his head.
Twilight frowned in confusion and cocked her head still chewing, considering the grumbling human as he disappeared. She swallowed another mouthful of delicious cake.
"Geez, what's eating him?"
A jar of maraschino cherries resting on a scorched bag of what was probably filters or napkins or the like behind the counter finally gave up the struggle against the internal pressure of its still boiling contents and exploded with a muted pop, startling her.
Marshall's first reunion with modern plumbing in five years was dampened somewhat by the lack of water and absence of toilet paper in either stall. Fortunately, the place hadn't gone so green as to have only warm air hand dryers, and had a full stock of cheap brown paper towels. A half-full canteen and the diet the desert had forced on him meant what little there was to clean up was easily dealt with, anyway. Still, it meant that he had damp damn pants. He hadn't bothered with undershorts, and hadn't for years. The jungle and that first tense year on the island had seen to those.
Which sucked, because he HATED damp clothes, but that beat the alternative.
Despite the realization that the sink probably wouldn't work either he tried the faucet anyway, more out of habit than any real expectation that it would produce any water. He glanced down at the lack of running water in dismay, then stopped, frowning, and stared at a small rectangular silvered object about the size of a slim wallet, sitting on top of a folded note resting on the edge of the sink.
He picked up what he immediately identified as an Iphone of a generation he didn't recognize and the folded piece of paper.
He unfolded it. "Password: 5014 Play video1" was all it said, in hastily scrawled, barely legible block letter english.
Something shifted out of his grasp from where it had been folded up in the note bounced and skittered into the sink and he snatched it by reflex before it could go down the drain.
It was a small, plain wedding ring. The sort a man would wear.
He frowned and pocketed the Iphone, note, and ring, washed his hands with the remains of the canteen at the sink, then walked out into the Starbucks interior.
Either Twilight had eaten that whole damn cheese cake, or she'd stuffed the remains in her saddlebags. Either way, the dessert was long gone. Twilight was in the process of cleaning strawberry topping off of her neck and chest with some napkins. When she heard Marshall step out she smirked but didn't look up from her task.
"Did you catch whoever put shit in your pants?"
"Nope. Got away from me clean. The fiend." He remarked blandly.
Twilight glanced up at this unexpectedly thoughtful tone from him, raising an eyebrow.
"What's up, Marsh? Worried about that thing coming back?"
He grimaced. "Yeah, but I figure you at least put the fear of overextension into 'em, for now. This is a big slab a' concrete, and this far into the interior, I think we're probably ok. No... I found something in the bathroom."
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Marshall, I am curious about human anatomical differences, but not THAT curious. Besides, you should know what THAT'S for already."
He gave her a stricken look. "What?! No! I didn't-"
She smirked.
He frowned in consternation, then shook his head and grinned faintly. "Well damn... Ok, that one was pretty good. You got me, but stop distracting me. I think someone left us a message."
Her expression turned serious, and more than a little curious. "Really? Can I read it?"
He shook his head. "Oh there's a note, but that's not the message. It doesn't work that way. Remember when I told you about media data storage and video playback?"
She stood up, her interest truely piqued at this point. "Yes, yes I do. Did you find-"
He sat down next to her near the shattered counter, removed the Iphone from his pocket, and set the device between them.
She stared at it, lips parted in surprise. To the unobservant, or to those not familiar with technology, it didn't look like much. Just a small silvered rectangle with a dark glass front. However, Twilight could tell just from looking at the exotic materials involved in its construction, and the manufacturing level necessary to fit something so fine together so seamlessly, that this level of technology and the infrastructure it implied was beyond the capability of even the bleeding edge of pony science.
Knowing there was no magic involved in its construction made her even more awestruck. If it could do what Marshall said it could...
"It's so small..." She whispered.
Marshall smirked. "Not what a guy wants to hear after he pulls something out of his pants."
She scowled at him, then shook her head and smiled ruefully.
"Dang... that was a good one."
He shrugged and picked up the Iphone, frowning. "I hope this thing still has battery power..."
He hit the button and the familiar apple logo came on. Twilight crowded exceptionally close, staring in fascination at the graphic. She smiled wistfully.
"Applejack would get a kick out of this, seeing something like her family's style of Cutie Mark on a piece of alien technology."
Marshall grinned. "Better not let Apple Corporation get wind of that. They'd probably sue the pants off of her for trademark infringement."
She snorted. "I don't think she owns a pair of pants."
Marshall gestured imperiously. "Then Apple would probably buy her a pair just to sue 'em off of her. No messin' with big business, Twilight."
She rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the screen.
"What's it doing?" She asked.
"It's probably going through a boot up sequence. This thing is basically a tiny computer, so I imagine it's a self-check for errors and the like, though it's not really something I've ever given much thought to. It's a program. You remember what I said about programs, right?"
She nodded. "It's like a series of instructions that it performs in sequence that eventually results in it displaying or doing something with information, right?"
He grinned. "Yup, only its performing thousands of operations faster than a person can think."
She shook her head, mystified at human ingenuity. What she could have done with that kind of raw data processing capability... After a moment, the small device finished whatever checks it was doing and four blank boxes appeared over a grid of the digits one through nine and zero.
"What's this... some kind of guessing game?" She asked.
He grinned. "Sort of. It's a security prompt for a password. Think of it as a locked door, keeping your personal data and the device itself safe from tampering."
She made a little oh of realization and his finger danced across the display with practised ease, inputing the four digit code from the note. Twilight marveled at how well optimized the device was for fingers.
"How-" She started.
He preempted her, having expected her next inquiry. "I'm a little iffy on the EXACT how, Twi, but this is a touch screen. Basically, as I understand it, my bare fingers are conductive, which changes the capacitance of the specific portion of the screen that I touch. That change in capacitance is detected by sensors built into the screen, which accepts those touches as input."
She nodded thoughtfully, riveted by what was happening on the screen.
A colorful series of small pictures scattered across the display. Marshall made a grunt as he checked the battery indicator. "Hmm... got about ninety percent battery charge left. Baby's got some juice left in her."
When he twitched a finger across the screen, the icons scattered to the side as though he were flipping a page. She shook her head at this display of raw science turned into a consumer good.
"These things have a camera that can capture video and store it in onboard memory... I'm guessing whoever this belonged to decided to leave a video message for anyone who might find it."
He grimaced. "Whoever they were, they figured they weren't gonna be around to tell anyone coming along what happened themselves."
Her ears dipped a bit, and she unconsciously leaned harder against him. He tapped the video in question, hit play, and held the device at a distance they could both see comfortably.
An image appeared on the screen of the bathroom floor and a pair of black work boots, slightly scuffed but servicable. The image resolution was much clearer than Marshall was used to from such devices, but then, that registration tag had said 2017, and five years of development was a lifetime in electronics advancement.
The video swayed dizzyingly, the camera having been flipped from the ground to point upward. A man's face appeared in the camera's view. He was slightly chubby cheeked and lantern-jawed, probably in his forties or so, with a high forehead and dark brown hair cut into a "high and tight" Marine Corps haircut. His hazel eyes focused on the camera and he stared for a moment, then his eyes shifted away.
"Ellie bought me this dang thing for Christmas last year. Didn't have no idea what the hell I was gonna use it for. I don't need no damn smart phone. Hardly know how to use one anyway. It took me five minutes to figure out this damn camera thing. Smart phone ain't no good if it's smarter than you are. Hope its recordin' right. Only gonna do this once. Don't think I could do it again." His eyes flicked back to the camera and he shook his head wistfully, a hint of a sad smile on his face. He had one of those bulldogish faces that became more pronounced as the individual got older.
"If yer one'a them folks on the roof wonderin' what the hell I just did, then I suggest you hang tight. I'll get to that."
He sighed. "If you AIN'T one of them folks on the roof, then I'm gonna assume you got really lucky and that thing out there let you through for some reason, or I actually managed to kill it. Either way, if you got no idea what I'm talkin' about, then stay as far away from the edges of the dang concrete as you can. There's this thing out there... big damn thing, burrows under the ground, like some kinda mongolian death worm or somethin'. Senses vibrations, and it's got some kinda tentacles that give it like a six to eight foot reach. Damn fast too. At least, forty, fifty miles an hour... but that's a guess... didn't see it move long enough to be sure. Either way, it's... it's damn fast."
The camera jerked for a moment as the man in the image lowered the hand holding it, scrubbing at his eyes with his other hand. After a moment, he reoriented the camera to something approximating its former position, but a little closer. From this distance, Marshall and Twilight could see that he looked tired and a little ill. Dark circles were visible under his eyes, and while there were high spots of color on his cheeks, the rest of his complexion was pale under a skin tanned and rough from many years working outside.
"Anyways, if you did stumble on this, then those folks followin' Mr. Winters might still be on the roof. They're gonna need help. I figure they got about four days a' water, the way their goin' through it."
He scowled. "Damn foolish if you ask me. Winters has 'em all convinced that help is comin', that help has to be comin'."
His voice became an embittered impression of someone else. Someone he obviously thought was an idiot. "No way someone is gonna gas a bunch of folks, then pick up a damn Starbucks and move it into the middle of the desert without someone noticin'. I'm an important person, they have to... Christ."
He shook his head. "Now it's been a long time since Boot, but those ain't the stars I'm used to, and that sure as HELL ain't the goddamn moon. So..." He chuckled. "I don't think Mr. Winters knows his asshole from his elbow. An' if this is some kinda government experiment... well... then there ain't no help comin' anyway. Not after what they let happen to..."
He sighed. "They're all scared, an'..."
He looked down. "Not that I blame 'em. That nice couple made a run for it in their compact. Damn Japanese piece a' shit didn't even clear the fuckin' edge of the concrete. They never even made it out of the damn car. That's how we found out about that worm. That... was not a pretty sight."
He looked away, then rolled his shoulders and leaned back, shifting the camera to watch himself. He was obviously sitting on the toilet.
"You know... I spent my whole damn life preparin' for this kinda shit, pardon my french. Picked Arizona because it was out in the middle of nowhere, as states go. Back at my house, I have years of supplies. MRE's... cases of bottled water. Medical supplies... guns... ammunition."
He shook his head and scowled. "My damn insulin... Stupid Marine. Piss poor goddamn planning on your part."
He took a deep breath. "Figured them Democrats were gonna screw the pooch sooner or later. This damn economy's been on life support since that socialist asshole Moore took office, and it's been down hill from there. Been plannin' ahead for bad times, nothin' wrong with that. Ellie thinks I'm crazy, but... no matter how damn paranoid I was, I never figured I'd be teleported in a Starbucks to an alien desert. Gimme some credit..."
He chuckled. "I mean, that's crazy, right?"
His smile faded and he sighed. "So without my insulin, my time is... pretty limited. Them folks on the roof don't understand that this desert's gonna kill 'em before that thing out there does. We CAN escape from it. I KNOW we can. The Crimson Maverick's got more than enough horsepower to get'er done. I tried to compromise with that asshole... gave 'em my rifle to make him feel better... but..."
He sighed. "A man like Winters just takes because he thinks he's entitled. Givin' him that rifle just made him push to see how much more he can get. He's got them all scared and thinkin' I'm some kinda crazy survivalist asshole, tryin' ta make things seem worse than they are. Like I WANTED to be inna situation like this."
He bit his lip. "Thing is, all they can see is what that thing did to that foreign piece a' crap out there. They ain't gonna budge... not unless... not unless that thing is good and dead."
"So... here's the deal folks. I've got a gallon propane tank in my truck. Now I watched the way that thing eats... how it hunts. They don't chew their food, if you get me. Swallow 'em whole, hell... it's big enough... thirty feet or more."
His expression turned haunted and very sad. His brow lowered as he contemplated his next words. Marshall and Twilight watched, transfixed. Marshall already had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen next.
Sadly, he was not disappointed.
"So since I DON'T think help is comin', and they AIN'T gonna move unless somebody does somethin'... I'm gonna take a roll a' duct tape, one of my roadflares, my Desert Eagle... and that propane tank... and I'm gonna go for a little walk."
He closed his eyes. "I figure... I mean, I know that Mythbusters show said that a bullet alone won't set fire to a propane tank an' thank God for that show... but that .50 AE will put a hole in a tank from point blank, and the roadflare'll light that propane."
He grinned sickly. "My buddies an' I used to go out blow up tanks in the desert like that all the time as kids..."
He shook his head.
"You know, I bought my .50 Desert Eagle because it's the most powerful Desert Eagle in production... liberal pussy lawmakers spent a lot of time bitchin' that nobody needs a .50 caliber handgun for protection. They sure changed their tune when that mallshooter asshole in the body armor pulled that bullshit in San Bernadino, walkin' through the cops fire like it was nothin'. That .50 Action Express plus-p-plus'll punch through the body armor that crazy asshole was wearin', sure as shit."
He grimaced. "Now here I am facing somethin' using the goddamn range backstop as body armor. There's no such thing as too much gun; you either kill it, or you don't. Unfortunately that bugger looks like it's gonna be in the don't category."
He shuddered a bit, contemplating what he was about to do. His eyes opened again, and there was a vulnerability to his expression, as though he were barely holding it together. "That .50'll pop that tank. It has to. I figure I just don't stop firin' til I run outta bullets or..."
He winced, and took a shaking breath. "I'm not... I'm not scared. Not really. Well I am... I mean, I don't wanna die, but... what I'm really scared of... what really... I'm scared it won't work."
His expression was agonized, a man in the grasp of indecision. "I just don't want it... I don't want it to be for nothin'."
He looked down. "If you find this... don't assume it's dead. You pack as much as you can into the Crimson Maverick, and you git. Head towards that mountain. That should be safe from that thing... if it can't burrow through six feet a' concrete I doubt it can get through granite, or whatever that thing is made of... Not to mention, there might be somethin' there. Water... food... somethin'. Gotta be somethin'. More than this wasteland, anyways. It's where I'd go, if there was any fuckin' point. I'm gonna leave the keys on the front seat before I... well, you know."
His expression broke suddenly, and he sobbed. A tear made its way down his cheek. "If you get outta here... if you get back... give my wife my wedding ring, and tell Ellie... tell my wife and my little girl that I love 'em. Tell 'em... tell 'em that I tried to do somethin' right... that I..."
He shook his head. "Do that for me, please. I don't know ya, but I think... I hope... you know what it's like to be..."
The camera shook, as if the man in the view was in the grip of a powerful emotion and his hand was shaking. "My address is 324 Greenwood Lane, Benson Arizona 85602. It's about 45 miles out of Tucson, on the I-10. You can't miss it. I was... well, I was in Tucson on call when..."
He chuckled, one of those disbelieving noises, half a laugh and half a cry of denial. "Worst cup a' coffee I ever got."
He sobbed again, a choked noise. As though he were somewhat ashamed. Marshall heard a similar sound from the mare next to him, drawing his attention. Tears rolled down Twilight's cheeks as she stared riveted to the drama unfolding. She shook her head in quiet denial of the truth in front of her. Marshall's mouth tightened into a grim line and he turned his gaze back to the Iphone. He put one arm around Twilight and hugged her. She shoved her cheek against his side and let out a louder sob.
"Welp... I figure I done stalled long enough. Take care of my truck, whoever you are. She's a good machine. Full tank'a gas, just had her checked out."
He rubbed the tears from his eyes and snorted a few times before straightening and composing himself.
"This is Timothy Michael Wright, Staff Sergeant, United States Marine Corps, retired. Husband, and father... signin' off. Good luck... and God bless."
He saluted with machine-like precision, holding the gesture for several seconds. Then he dropped his arm and looked upward, his expression firming as though he were preparing to do something very difficult.
Then the video froze, as the recording finished its playback.
Twilight Sparkle buried her face in Marshall's side and sobbed hard. This man's last message had put a face on this tragedy, given a name to the ghosts. Timothy had undoubtedly walked out there into the desert, alone, knowing what was coming, and determined that if he was going to go down, it was going to be on his own terms.
Either he had not succeeded, or there had been more than one of those worms. Either way, the chance he'd tried to buy with his own life had not been enough.
Not for those poor souls on the roof.
Marshall turned off the Iphone to conserve the battery and put it in his pocket, then shifted Twilight carefully so that her face was buried into his chest. He put his other arm around her, rubbing her back comfortingly.
His expression was hard as he whispered. "Hard core, devil dog. Oorah."
Later that evening, snuggled in Marshall's sleeping bag as far away from any edges of the concrete slab as they could get and still be inside the Starbucks, Twilight and Marshall rested quietly, not quite ready to sleep, contemplating the strange day's events.
They had discovered, to their intense displeasure that their wormy antagonist had apparently made off with their water supply while they had been distracted with exploring the Starbucks. A few tossed bits of broken Starbucks walls and a little careful experimentation had further revealed that said harasser had not quit the field of battle. It was still out there, and it was paying VERY close attention to their little concrete island. Fortunately the Starbucks had been almost completely restocked by the Sky Lights, including its bottled water on hand. The two of them were not in any danger of dehydration.
Yet.
Marshall rested on his side, Twilight resting against him with only her head poking out of the sleeping bags opening, her back resting against Marshall's chest. He had his head propped up by his pack and one arm, and was currently alternating between scratching each of Twilight's ears gently, first the whole ear, then the notched one, then back again.
She had been mostly silent after her breakdown. She'd taken the ex-marine's failed sacrifice hard... very hard. He supposed it was a culmination of things really. Marshall had a lot more experience with death, and it shook him a little to know what had happened. He couldn't imagine how the little unicorn was taking all of this. She'd followed his directions in preparation for settling down for the evening on autopilot, in a state of... well, it felt like emotional shock.
She had shivered for several minutes when they'd climbed into bed. It had taken almost an hour of gentle attention before she'd finally relaxed against him.
He was worried about her. He was considering how to tentatively broach the subject of her wellbeing when she startled him by speaking.
"I'm sorry Marshall." She said quietly.
He blinked, and his hand stilled on the base of her ear.
"What?"
She cocked her head slightly to look at him with one sad eye. "I'm sorry I pushed for this trip so hard. You were right, Marsh. This isn't the answer to our problems. It hasn't taught us anything. It's just another pile of questions, and another monster trying to eat us. I'm sorry. I pushed and pushed, I was so impatient... you... you ran yourself so ragged trying to accommodate me, and I was so..." Her breath hitched.
"I just..."
Marshall let out a deep sigh and shook his head. "Twilight, you didn't hold a gun to my head. I didn't say it was useless. I STILL don't think it is. We've learned a couple more things. Maybe not what we wanted to find out, but we did gather some new data."
He brushed her mane back a bit from her face and one of her ears flicked lazily, staying mostly down, the half cocked position he noted, which if he was reading her right from these many weeks of constant contact, meant that she was sad, and only sort of half attentive to what he was saying. He adjusted himself so that he could more comfortably look her in the eyes.
"Twilight, we are sitting on a huge pile of new resources, and we know a little bit more about how the Sky Lights function, and why they do what they do. We know it's likely that whatever is bringing us here is doing it to multiple universes. It makes sense, I mean... that thing ain't native to earth, not outside of a monster movie anyway."
She sighed. "But..."
"Twilight, you DO push incessantly. You DO constantly strive for more data. I've used more ammunition in the last two months than I usually use in four. I've lost count of the number of times we've almost died. I didn't make a habit of pissing off a new something more or less immune to bullets every week 'til you showed up."
Her ears flattened. She started to open her mouth and he shook his head, shifting his hand to rest on her cheek.
"Let me finish. Those things are true, but do you know... as much as I made this a war between myself and this island, I was in a holding pattern until you showed up. For... hell, I think the last year and a half, I had fallen pretty much into the same routine, day in, day out. I'd GIVEN UP, Twi."
He brushed her cheek with his thumb. "I can put any kind of spin on that I want, but I was on the fast track to crazy town, or..." He shuddered. "Or worse. It's a negative sum game, Twilight. Sooner or later this island was gonna catch up to me."
He smiled at her. "You gave me the kick in the ass I needed to start fightin' again. You did that. So we didn't find what we were looking for here. So what? This isn't the end. This is just another step on the road."
She considered this, her expression a mixture of doubt and indecision.
He shocked her out of this state when he leaned down and kissed her forehead gently. "You gave me back something I thought I'd pissed away forever, Twi. You gave me hope."
She blinked and stared at him, unsure of what to say to this, or even how to feel. Of how to react to this suddenly thoughtful, philosophical Marshall. How many facets did one man HAVE?!
He chuckled at her expression and looked past her, at the night time desert. A wind was whistling faintly through the large hole in the side of the Starbucks where the thing had made its dynamic entry and subsequent exit. It was cold inside the building and getting colder.
"Way I see it, that's worth a few red herrings... and some bodily harm. And some National Geographic chases."
He paused. "A few manglings. Some wasted bullets."
He smirked. "Putting up with your dried hay farts in the sleeping bag."
"Hey!" She exclaimed in protest.
"The constipation that eating nothing but dried meat and fruits is inflicting on me. Oh, when I'm not shitting my pants in terror at my unicorn's sudden transformation into the goddamn Kwisatz Rapidash, that is."
She blinked. "The what?"
"Nevermind, Twi. The point is, none of this has been useless. We've learned more about this island in the last two months than I've learned on my own in five years, in no small part due to you."
She smiled faintly. "I... I guess. Thank you, Marshall. I guess I'm just sorry I got us into this mess. That thing isn't going to stop until it gets us both."
Marshall grinned. "Now, as to that, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I have a plan."
She blinked. "Um..."
He shook his head. "Get some sleep, Twi. We'll talk about it during breakfast. We have a helluva lot of work ahead of us tomorrow."
With that he snuggled her closer, wrapped his arms around her like she was a big pillow, and settled in.
She was silent for several beats.
"Well now I can't sleep. I'm trying to figure out what your big plan is."
"I know." He said matter-of-factly.
"You realize this is going to keep me up for hours, right?"
He chuckled. "Yup."
"You're a dick, Marshall."
He let out a full blown belly laugh. Privately, he had been keeping a seperate score tally for every time he got Twilight to swear at him. "Mwahaha."
She responded after a moment by breaking wind vindictively in his general direction.
Marshall shot out of the sleeping bag like he had discovered a honey badger in it with him and onto his knees, staring at Twilight in disgust as he held his nose. "Oh Gawd..."
She grinned maliciously without moving. "Mwahaha."
He waved his other hand in front of his face as though trying to clear the air, his eyes actually watering. "You know, if anyone had asked me what I thought unicorn farts would smell like before this trip, I'd have probably said rainbow skittles or somethin'."
He paused. "That AIN'T skittles."
Twilight remained silent, savoring her victory.
Marshall stared down at her, full of a burning need for vengeance. Or at least one-up-manship.
He cocked his head, considering the now mostly empty sleeping bag.
Then he muttered two words.
"Dutch oven."
Twilight blinked and started to turn. "Wha-"
Marshall grabbed the edges of the sleeping bag and dragged them up over Twilight's head, twisting the bag so that it was tightly sealed.
Twilight was an unmoving lump in the fabric for about ten seconds, having been confused into immobility, before the smell finally hit her.
Then the struggle started.
"Marshall! Help! It's... it's not going away."
He grinned evily. "Yeah, thick enough Gore-Tex'll do that, Sparks!"
"Marshall! I give, I don't know an air freshner spell!"
He nodded thoughtfully. "I bet your eyes watering makes it hard to teleport too."
"Yes! Uncle! Gah! I can taste it!"
"Mwa. Ha. HA!" He crowed triumphantly.
He opened the bag and dumped the stricken unicorn out. She panted and glared at him hatefully.
Marshall whistled a jaunty victory tune (it kind of sounded like the synthesizer part playing during the chorus line from The Final Countdown) as he stood and flapped the bag like he was beating out a rug, waving away Twilight's warcrime. "...And that's why the Geneva Convention forbids the use of poison gas weaponry."
After a bit more sullen glaring, and Marshall's decidedly half hearted apology, the two slipped back into their respective positions in the sleeping bag.
Marshall waited until she was comfortable, then let rip with his own flatulent contribution to the evenings entertainment.
Twilight froze, then shifted to glare at the now studiously innocent looking human. "Geneva Convention, huh?"
He grinned. "It does specifically allow the use of gas weaponry in retaliatory strikes when a nonsignatory party attacks a bound member with it first."
Twilight just sighed, turned, and let the matter lie. As she settled in, ignoring the lingering... unpleasantness, she realized that once again, Marshall had managed to take her mind off of her sorrows by applying a metaphorical boot upside her flank.
She gently smiled to herself and snuggled closer.
Marshall performed several jumping jacks, then ran furiously in place for about five seconds, his dogtags jangling. A drop of sweat ran down his forehead and splashed on the hot asphalt of the parking lot. He looked hot and sweaty.
Twilight performed the pony equivalent of furious activity next to him, stomping her hooves and galloping back and forth a short distance.
Her mane looked a bit damp as well.
Marshall and Twlight ceased their bizarre antics in the blisteringly heat blasted parking lot near the edge of the concrete slab when they noted movement of the deserts surface near their activity.
"Go." Marshall intoned sharply getting ready. He held the Iphone in his right hand with the stopwatch app open, left ring finger poised over the start button.
There was a simultaneous flash of purple light as Twilight Sparkle teleported herself and one of the ruined tabletops (sans legs) out precisely one hundred seventy six yards (five hundred twenty eight feet) into the open desert.
Early in their association they had discovered that there were slight differences in their cultures respective distance measurements. Twilight had even discovered, to her bafflement, that his OWN people had two distinct measurement systems. When she questioned him on how this came to be, he mentioned something about Americans being stubborn.
This also explained why they were using his measurement standards for most of their work.
Marshall himself was an American. Which apparently meant always right.
Stupid humans.
Marshall watched her intently.
She proceded to dance (badly) on the tabletop for about three seconds. This was the amount of time they had determined (through dangerous and sometimes hilarious trial and error) to be the worm's approximate reaction time to their chosen stimuli. The stimuli in question was also a private joke for Marshall, who had concluded that given the proper context Twilight would do ANYTHING for science.
Up to and including naked tabledancing, apparently.
Ponies were always naked, of course, but it was the principle of the thing that made it hilarious.
Marshall noted a sudden dust spurt from the edge of the slab and tapped the start button on the stopwatch app.
"MARK, TWI!" He called.
Twilight teleported back, watching the desert intently.
Several seconds later, the sand erupted as the thing swallowed the tabletop whole.
Marshall stopped the timer.
"13.44 seconds."
Twilight frowned. "Its reaction time is improving, and it's not getting tired. How many samples does this make?"
"Fifteen." Marshall responded. "Not including that one time I forgot to start the timer, and the time you fell off the tabletop."
She nodded thoughtfully. "Can you average the results?"
He smirked. "Already on it. It averages... 14.24 seconds."
She nodded thoughtfully. "One hundred seventy six yards is one tenth of a mile, so move the decimal point, and..."
He nodded. "It averages roughly one hundred and forty two seconds per mile, or..." He tapped on the Iphone furiously.
She frowned, doing the math in her head and beating Marshall to it. "About twenty five miles per hour. That doesn't factor in its reaction time of course, or varying response levels."
He nodded seriously and bent down, ripping some of the plastic enclosing a case of bottled water to make a bigger hole. Removing two bottles, he tossed one over towards Twilight and uncapped his own, taking a deep swig. "That's what the statistical spread was for Twi."
She shook her head in thought, absently removing the cap from the lukewarm water with her telekinesis and taking a long, slow drink. She gasped, licked her lips, then turned to Marshall. "Still, we should include an error margin."
He nodded again, considering. "Say, plus minus five miles per hour?"
She smirked. She had been thinking that exactly. "So between thirty miles per hour and twenty... that's still incredibly fast. We can't outrun it."
He grinned tiredly. "That's for damn sure. Moot point anyway, Sparks. I don't know about you Fifth Place Leaf Runner, but even at my best I couldn't manage a full on sprint for three days, give or take anyway. Even if it wasn't more'n twice as fast as me, it'd catch us eventually."
Something blasted out of the desert from about twenty yards out with incredible force, coming in at a high ballistic arc. Marshall calmly sidestepped the flying, slime covered table top as it passed through the space he had been occupying and clattered noisely, sliding across the parking lot to rest against the volvo's rear right tire. He nonchalantly finished the water left in the liter bottle and tossed it in a small pile of empties.
"Its aim is improving too." Twilight noted dryly.
Marshall grinned. "Pretty nice of it to keep giving us our test bed back. We were gonna run outta tabletops."
She cocked her head curiously. "You don't seem too badly concerned that it's so fast. You obviously have some kind of plan which involves us being able to outrun it long enough to get to the rock border." She frowned. "Or kill it."
He sighed. "Oh I DO wanna kill it, Twilight. Believe you me, this thing has it fuckin' coming... but if an exploding gallon propane tank, a high powered rifle, and a Deagle ain't enough to do this thing in, then short of tricking it into swallowing C4 we didn't bring with us on a timer or remote detonator I would have had to make out of electrical parts that have been through one crash and badly neglected for five years, and that we don't have ANYWAY, I don't see how we CAN kill the damn thing."
"So you don't plan on killing it..." She mused, considering. "Timothy seemed to think that truck could pull it off..." She sighed, shaking her head at the realization. This was the secret plan she'd stayed up all night trying to figure out. She had obviously been giving him too much credit.
"That's your big plan isn't it?" She asked glumly. She irritably finished her own water and tossed the empty plastic bottle next to Marshall's.
He grinned. "Bingo. Just like the man said. We strip everything we can carry from this carcass of a franchise store and tie it down nice and tight with my good ol' buddy paracord, then we go hellbent for leather 'til this goddamn desert is just a very bad memory."
Twilight frowned. "Well... CAN we outrun it? I mean, I know you said that trucks are fast, but fully laden, can it make that trip fast enough?"
Marshall grinned evilly and patted the Crimson Maverick. "Twilight Sparkle, this isn't just a truck. This is a man's honest pride and joy. This thing is so far from stock I don't think it can even see stock from where it is. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into this truck. It is a vehicle he put his heart and soul, and a not inconsiderable amount of cash into. This truck is as much his baby as his little girl. It is an offroad monster. It doesn't find paths, it fucking MAKES them. It probably has a cargo capacity of around two tons."
She blinked.
"More importantly, this truck was made in 'Murica. If it can't give that damn thing a coronary trying to keep up with it, I'll eat my fuckin' hat. That monster doesn't have a 6.2 liter V8. It sure as HELL doesn't have over four hundred horsepower. I know none of that makes sense right now, but believe you me, Sparks. The only way that bitch is gonna catch us is if we try to make the run for the border in reverse, and even then, I'd lay even odds on it."
She cocked her head. "Well... I'm through being skeptical about human technology, Marshall. If you say that the Crimson Maverick can do it, then I believe you." She sighed.
"I guess that means we have a lot of... packing to do."
Marshall grinned. "The term you are looking for is looting, actually. Then we drive like we stole it. Come on, Sparks. Let's strip everything that ain't nailed down."
Twilight smirked. "Everything that isn't nailed down, huh? That's a remarkable amount of restraint you're showing. For you, I mean."
Marshall chuckled. "Good point, Sparklebutt."
He ruffled her mane and she glared at him. "Why stop at the shit that's not nailed down? I got just the cutest little pry bar this side of forever, yes I do's."
Twilight kicked him in the shin.
Hard.
The unseen predator in the dirt outside circled furiously around the concrete block, impatient for its meat.
A sound of celebration from her human companion caught Twilight's attention and she turned, carefully setting down the seven car batteries she had removed from their various vehicles after some instruction from Marshall. She had been lifting them into the bed of the Crimson Maverick when she heard the noise.
She trotted over curiously to find Marshall opening a small dirty plastic bag of some sort of green grassy looking substance. A strange fragrance filtered past her and she frowned.
"What's that, Marsh?"
Marshall grinned lopsidedly at her and sealed the bag back up. "Remember when we found Ted's Ipod?"
She nodded, confused as to what that had to do with anything. "Oh... I was just thinkin', what kinda teenager with that goatee, and THAT much Jimmi Hendricks and Grateful Dead in his Ipod library doesn't keep a little somethin' for relaxation purposes? Sure enough, our friend Ted had him some weed stashed away in the same place I used to hide it in my first car, bless his predictable little heart."
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Ok, but... what is it? I don't understand why you're getting so excited about a weed."
Marshall folded the bag with precise care and stuck it into his pocket. "It's not A weed. It IS weed. Marijuana to be specific. Just a little medicinal herb. It's good for my glaucoma, Twi."
Twilight wrinkled her nose in confusion. "You don't HAVE glaucoma."
He smirked. "Yes, Twilight that's right. It's very good for my glaucoma, which I don't have."
She blinked.
He rolled his eyes skyward. "It has a few other uses."
Twilight stared at him skeptically, then sighed. "It's a recreational drug isn't it?" She said flatly.
Marshall looked skyward and adopted an innocent expression. He failed quite miserably. "Maaaybeee."
Marshall frowned at the load stacked in the Crimson Mavericks bed. It was a crazy combination of apparent junk. Stripped car parts, mostly wiring, fuses, lights, hoses, and batteries from the other vehicles in the parking lot, wiring they'd stripped out of the Starbucks, including the speaker system the store had used to pipe smooth commercially appropriate jazz at their patrons. The store's undamaged glassware and what limited cooking utensils as were available. Bags of the sort of supplies necessary to keep a coffee shop running from day to day. Various odds and ends from the other vehicles they could reach. Several five gallon buckets of floor wax and cleaner they'd dumped out, cleansed as best they could, then refilled with as much gasoline as they could manage. They'd even broken both of the mirrors off the wall in the bathroom.
Marshall was currently trying to figure out how he was going to fit the fire extinguisher from the Starbucks into the mess. It was packed pretty dang tight.
"Twi... can you shift..." He muttered.
She sighed and concentrated, using telekinesis to try and shift the load over slightly enough that he could shove the fire extinguisher into place. He shoved it in, hard, then nodded in satisfaction. He wiped sweat off of his brow and looked over at Twilight.
She nodded, then helped him slide the large blue plastic work tarp that Timothy had in the rear of his cab. They finished by tying everything down as securely as they could with Marshall's paracord.
Marshall nodded, stepping back. "That should do it, Sparkle."
She nodded. It had taken them the better part of the day to get the whole load stored. It had also taken a large portion of their water supplies, working through the day as they had. It was probably ill advised, but neither of them wanted to stay in that Starbucks another evening, if they could avoid it.
Twilight frowned and tried to shift the whole load with her telekinesis, testing its security. Then she nodded finally and looked over at her human companion.
"So... what now? Do we just leave?"
Marshall didn't answer. He was staring at the Starbucks, his expression somewhat pained. Twilight followed his gaze and realized that he was staring towards the roof. She sighed.
"Marshall, we can't bury them. That thing won't let us."
Marshall shooks his head as though coming out of a daze and sighed, smiling ruefully at Twilight. "Was I that easy to read?"
She grinned back at him sadly. "You made a promise, even if you never said the words, Marsh. I know how you operate." Her expression turned serious and she put a hoof on his leg.
"There's no way to do it safely, Marshall. I think they would have understood."
He nodded with a shadowed, somewhat regretful expression, and turned away. Shaking his head as though clearing it, gestured for Twilight to follow him.
"Come on, Twi. Let's blow this popsicle stand."
She smiled and nodded.
"Right!" She chirruped. She followed him to the passenger side of the Crimson Maverick. Marshall opened the door and gestured with his other hand.
"Your carriage awaits, Madame," he said in a bad French accent.
It took a bit of wiggling to hop into the tall truck, but with some assistance from Marshall, she was able to arrange herself on the seat. She sat on her haunches, watching with mild interest as Marshall pulled the safety belt out and considered her.
"Hmm." He muttered. "You don't exactly have a lap, Sparks. Not sure this is gonna work too well..."
He frowned.
His expression cleared. "Got it. Put that BDU blouse on backwards, Sparks."
She blinked. "What?"
He sighed. "Safety first, Sparkle. Just do it."
She frowned quizzically at him, but complied. Marshall took the shoulder sash portion of the belt and ran it through the back of Twilight's shirt, buttoning up two of the buttons so that the belt was trapped against her back by the shirt. Then he ran the lap belt across the tops of her haunches against her belly. Twilight grimaced as he did so, but he was done too quickly to be worth commenting on it. He buckled the belt.
He stepped back, frowned, then shook his head. "Not secure enough. Be right back."
She watched as he left, silently wondering what he was up to. He returned with a roll of duct tape from Timothy's toolbox.
Stretching out a length of tape, he ran it around the belt and Twilight's barrel, further reinforcing his improvised "doggie" seatbelt.
He stepped back. "Does it hurt?"
She shook her head. "No... I don't know how much good it's going to do in a crash though."
He frowned. "It's better than nothing. It should keep you in your seat, and the passenger side airbag should do the rest. If you have to get out of it quickly, just rip the tape and snap the buttons. It's not ideal, but it's the best we've got, unfortunately. You just weren't built for human seatbelts, Twi."
She nodded. "I trust you, Marshall."
He smiled. "I know."
He slammed her door shut, then walked around the front of the vehicle and got in himself, snapping his own belt in place. He looked over at Twilight.
"You ready?"
She nodded seriously. "Ready."
Marshall turned the key in the ignition the truck started up with a throaty growl. The truck immediately settled into a rumbling purr. Twilight frowned somewhat nervously. She could feel the barely restrained power of the vehicle under her hooves.
Marshall blinked, then fished in his pocket for the Ipod he'd found in the teen's car. He turned it on and plugged it into the slot on the Crimson Maverick's dash. Timothy hadn't spared any options, and the dash of the truck could recharge apple devices and direct their music to the truck's excellent sound system.
Marshall fished through the Ipod's library before grinning evilly.
"Oh yeah..."
He hit a button, and a strange complicated guitar refrain began. Twilight looked at the display, squinted, then frowned.
Marshall raised a finger and hushed her. "Quiet..."
She glared, impatiently shifting as some sort of repetitive riff started building, increasing in volume.
"Ah-auh aaa aauh aaa-ah," he said quietly with a manic grin.
She blinked, then give him a confused look. "What?"
"Ha-uh aaa aauh aaa-ah."
"What?" she asked again, wonding why her friend was apparently freaking out.
"Wa-uh aaa aauh aaa-ah,“ he said again, louder now.
"Marshall, I don’t understand-"
"Ha-uh Aaa aauh AAa-ah!"
"Is this some sort of tribal-"
"HAuh AAa Aauh AAA-ah!"
"War-chant thing hu-"
"Thun~Der!" He barked loudly, startling her.
She blinked. Marshall now let the disembodied voice provide the chant, his only contributions now a repeated exclaimation of 'Thun~Der!', removed his aviator sunglasses from where they hung on his blouse pocket, flipped them open with one hand, and settled them on his face.
Suddenly, a hoarse, growly voice began to sing. Marshall rolled down his window and stuck his head out the driver side to see behind him, as the load had blocked his view behind them. He shifted the truck into reverse, and backed out of the parking spot.
"I was caught
In the middle of a railroad track (thunder)
I looked 'round
And I knew there was no turning back (thunder)
My mind raced
And I thought, what could I do? (Thunder)
And I knew
There was no help, no help from you (thunder)"
Marshall manuevered until he had the back of the truck facing the Starbucks entrance, and a clear shot down the center lane of the parking lot through to the back of concrete slab. He put the truck in gear, and held his foot on the brake.
"Sound of the drums
Beating in my heart
The thunder of guns
Tore me apart
You've been
Thunderstruck"
Twilight glanced over at him and and cocked her head, confused. "Wha-"
"Rode down the highway
Broke the limit, we hit the town
Went through to Texas, yeah, Texas, and we had some fun
We met some girls
Some dancers who gave a good time
Broke all the rules
Played all the fools
Yeah, yeah, they, they, they blew our minds"
Marshall, who had been waiting for his "cue", narrowed his eyes and let a hard little grin grace his lips. The song seemed to be building up to something.
Then he jammed his foot down on the accelerator and the truck roared in fury, peeling out for a moment, before accelerating at an absolutely LUDICROUS speed towards the end of the concrete.
Twilight's eyes bulged in terror. "MARSHALL!!! TOO FAST! TOO FA-"
"And I was shakin' at the knees
Could I come again please.
Yeah the ladies were too kind"
Marshall let out a harsh victorious howl and shook his head. "YOU'VE BEEN!"
The truck shot off the end of the concrete slab with a small spurt of dust. Tentacles shot out of the ground and snapped at the truck as it past. Something bounced brutally off of the rear fender.
The truck sailed through the air for a heartstopping second. The weight of the engine block and cab caused the heavy truck to tilt nose down a bit, which to the unexperienced Twilight was rather terrifying. Fortunately, as there was a hell of a load on the bed, and it was going very very fast, it didn't enough time to tilt far before...
"THUNDERSTRUCK!!"
It slammed into the desert, bouncing on the excellent offroad shocks, the whole thing rattling like it was going to fall apart. Twilight yelped as she bounced up from her seat hard enough to hit her head against the interior. The rear wheels fishtailed for a moment before Marshall got control of it again. Twilight heard a discordant whine out of tune with the song and was confused for a moment, before she realized it was her.
She tasted blood.
The truck shot across the open desert, a stream of dust billowing in a crazy roostertail behind it. A smaller roostertail followed behind as the thing in the desert sand followed, trying in vain to keep up with the Crimson Maverick.
Marshall bellowed. "HA HA HA! Eat my dust you slimy fucker! How you like THEM apples, Twilight?"
"I think I bit my tongue." She said weakly.
"Ah, you'll be fine. Told you she was fast enough." He crowed.
She pointed desperately with a hoof. "Marshall, we're going the wrong way!"
Marshall gave her a chillingly evil grin again. "Why, I do believe you're right, Miss Sparkle."
She gulped at his expression. "Mar-"
"Now we're shaking at the knees
Could I come again please."
Marshall watched the side mirror for a moment, gauging the distance, then frowned in concentration. His nostrils flared, and he nodded to himself.
He smirked, then hit the selector to turn off the four wheel drive, shifting the truck to a rear wheel drive. He shifted into second gear, slightly reduced speed, then flicked the wheel in one direction, before jerking it hard in the other. His hand grasped the suicide knob, allowing him to spin the wheel quickly and still maintain a firm grip.
Twilight found herself thrown against the passenger door by centrifugal force as Marshall performed a flawless bootlegger turn, changing the trucks orientation one hundred and eighty degrees in an instant. He shifted back into gear and floored the accelerator.
Twilight howled louder than the growl of the music. "MARSHALL!!!" At this point, if she ever heard 'ha-uh aaa aauh aaa-uh' again she was crawling back in bed and pulling the covers over her head.
"Thunderstruck, thunderstruck
Yeah, yeah, yeah, thunderstruck, thunderstruck
Yeah, yeah, yeah, said, yeah, it's alright, we're doin' fine
Yeah, it's alright, we're doin' fine, fine, fine"
They shot past the roostertail of dust that marked the worm's location, literally running over one of its questing python tentacles and smashing it against the dirt.
It released a howl of frustration and rage that blasted a cloud of dust.
Marshall began laughing. ""WaaaaHAHAHA!"
Despite the terror, Twilight began to laugh as well, shaking her head. The danger didn't seem to be bothering the human much, he still had a maniacal grin on his face. They shot past the concrete slab and the now empty forlorn Starbucks, once again leaving a billowing trail of dust in the desert air.
Twilight couldn't believe how fast they were going. She just shook her head, and continued laughing at the sudden release of tension until tears gathered in her eyes.
"Thunderstruck, yeah, yeah, yeah
Thunderstruck, thunderstruck
Thunderstruck, whoa, baby, baby
Thunderstruck, you've been thunderstruck
Thunderstruck, thunderstruck
Thunderstruck, you've been thunderstruck"
Well folks, there you have it. I hope that it was worth the wait. Thematically speaking this is a different chapter than the last one, as you will no doubt notice. When I blatantly steal creatures from other fandoms, I try to give the source material a nod, from a thematic perspective. Capturing the feel of the movies those creatures come from was... interesting, to say the least. Now without further adieu, a trio of short omakes for you, two by the esteemable Nugar, and one by newcomer Predhack. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Omake 1: an alternative and entirely reasonable explanation of why there was a man on the roof of a Starbucks with a high powered rifle and several other people who could have been hostages in a slightly different situation. This was inspired by Heretical Zed’s comment on the last chapter where he thought the Starbucks had been transported to the desert in the middle of some sort of shootout. I’m NOT making fun of you, dude, and I’m glad you’ve been commenting on Dust’s story here, but the idea of a shootout/hostage situation on top of a starbucks and the possible reasons for it inspired this.
A Whole Latte Rage, by Nugar
*POW* There was a sliding noise of metal on metal and the tink-tink-tink of an ejected cartridge bouncing across the roof. *POW*
“Take that you sons a bitches!” the man howled. “I’ll kill every fuckin’ one of you pigs, and then I’ll start killing hostages if my demands aren’t met!”
“Sir, please, be reasonable!” a very scared but passably attractive young female barista begged from her position on her belly behind him. “It’s a seasonal item! It’ll be back next year!”
“You can’t lie to me!” he screamed, frothing at the mouth not unlike an over steamed latte. “Pumpkins grow all fucking year!” With another loud POW, another hole was punched in the side of a police car, sending the cop on the other side scrambling to hide behind the engine compartment, arguably the most solid part of the car, given the engine inside.
“I don’t want to die!” the barista cried
“I don’t understand it! Why do you liberal pussy hipster communist barista pinko motherfuckers hate freedom?!” he screamed at her and the world in general.
“All I want is some pumpkins and some coffee and some god damned freedom! Pumpkins that taste like freedom! BRING BACK PUMPKIN SPICE LATTES!”
An Alternative and Entirely Reasonable Alternative Plan To Escaping the Graboid Infested Desert, by Nugar
“Alright, Marshall, I give. You’ve been stopping to giggle to yourself off and on all day, and I still haven’t figured out how to get across miles of desert without getting eaten by that thing,” Twilight said, her ears slumped in defeat. “I’ll admit it, I’m stumped.”
“Oh? The mighty genius unicorn Twilight Sparkle can’t figure out a solution?” he asked deviously. “And it’s so obvious, really, we’ll just use a weapon. But we need to choose” He unslung his M4 and laid it on a car roof, then put the hunting rifle on the hood of Red Maverick on his other side. “We’ll need to choose… a weapon of choice.”
“Marshall, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“We could go with this,” he said, pointing at the M4.
“You said it lacked the penetration to punch through the dirt,” she countered.
“We could go with that,” he replied, pointing at the bolt action rifle.
“You said it couldn’t penetrate either!”
“We could go with this,” Marshall said again, swinging his forearms around in a weirdly disjointed circle while his upper arms didn’t move, pointing back at the M4.
Twilight was thoroughly confused now.
“Or we could go with that,” he said spinning his arms again and twisting his upper body slightly to point back at the hunting rifle. Suddenly he leapt forward and seized her neck in a kind of one arm sideways hug and gestured at the horizon. “Or you could go with us!” he said in a sing-song voice, looking back and forth comically.
A funky beat sprang up out of nowhere, tugging on both Twilight’s magic and her hooves. Her eyes widened.
“You could go with this
You could go with that
You could go with this
You could go with that
You could go with this
You could go with that
You could go with-“
Twilight nearly stumbled, as she was getting into the dance when the music suddenly cut and Marshall leapt onto the trunk of a car.
“Really? You’re gonna use Equestrian crowdsinging against me again?” she complained as he actually started leaping from car to car and she was magically dragged along in free-form dance.
The music started up again, louder and more bombastic than before.
“It was funny the first time, I’ll admit, but it’s just getting tired now…” she complained, watching him boogie around the parking lot.
He jumped down onto the concrete as the music started a fast riff, then cut back to the bass beat as he began a strange, shuffling, hip bumping arrhythmic sort of walk. “Walk without rhythm… and you won’t. Attract. The worm.”
For some reason, she was attempting to do the dance right alongside him, though of course she danced beautifully and gracefully and he was still doing some sort of spastic shuffle.
“Walk without rhythm… and it won ’t. Attract. The worm.” He shuffled around some more, now clearly doing some sort of dance move. Twilight knew she was had, dancing right along beside him on her hind hooves, her forelegs folded hooves down.
“If you walk without rhythm,” he scolded Twilight, “heh, you never learn!”
Her ears lay back and she glared at him.
“Be careful, we don’t know them!” he warned, dancing along again.
“Be careful, we don’t know them!
Be careful, we don’t know them!”
He danced back over to the guns.
““You could go with this
You could go with that
You could go with this
You could go with that
You could go with this
You could go with that“.
“You could go with us!” he cried, panning his head back and forth between her and the big pickup.
““You could go with this
You could go with that
You could go with this
You could go with that
You could go with this
You could go with that
You could go with-““
And Twilight was once again left in dance limbo as the music cut and shifted suddenly. Marshall started dancing again almost immediately, doing several dancing twirls that covered ground as he quite deliberately danced along with the punctuating music to the edge of the concrete slab-
And threw himself off into the jaws of the waiting sandworm below.
“MARSHALL!” Twilight gasped, her horn lighting up immediately to envelop him in a soft purple glow and snatch him from the jaws of death, sending him tumbling into the sky.
“Organically grown… through the hemisphere I roam… to bring love to the angels of light…” he sang, absolutely delighted as Twilight levitated him gracefully spinning through the air. “Yeah, and my girl,” he sang down to Twilight.
Twilight glared up at him.
“She just don’t understand, it’s gone beyond being a man. As I drift off into the night, I’m in flight!” Marshall stood proudly in the air, looking over the land with considerable satisfaction.
The music finally rose to a crescendo and peaked, then cut as she sat him back on the ground.
“Eat your heart out, Christopher Walken,” he said proudly.
Nothing Pithy Comes to Mind, by Predhack
Spike and Marshall watched in silence as the large section of jungle burned with the emerald flames of dragon fire. Occasionally the smoke and flames would move in such a way as to allow Marshall to catch a glimpse of the spot where his palisade had been. In addition to being one of the first pieces of the jungle to have been set fire to, it had the advantage of being well seasoned wood, so it had burned up quickly.
“Y’know,” Marshall said thoughtfully, breaking the silence between the two, “If this wasn’t burning up my home it would be kind of pretty.”
Spike nodded and continued watching. “Yeah.”
Several moments passed before Marshall blinked and looked at the baby dragon again with alarm.
“Did you just talk?”
Spike looked at Marshall like he was an idiot, and answered sarcastically, “No. My roars just sound like I’m talking when I asked if anyone was home. And sounding like I was crying for help while you shot at me that was totally coincidental. And now your mind has snapped and is hallucinating my continued ability to speak after the loss of your house.”
Marshall blinked and considered that. “That does kinda make a lot of sense.”
“Except for the part where I set fire to the entire jungle?” Spike asked in a deadpan tone.
“No, I could have done that during a psychotic episode,” Marshall answered reasonably.
“You can make green fire?” Spike asked.
“Well, you’re the one who suggested I was hallucinating.”
“Ugh,” Spike groaned and rubbed his face with his clawed hands, “This place sucks.”
“See, now that sounds like something my brain would say,” Marshall replied, bending down and patting the dragon on his back, “There there, hallucinatory talking mutant murder turkey. You only have to endure it until we starve to death.”
Marshall stopped and thought a moment.
“I really need to come up with a shorter name for you.”
“My name is Spike,” Spike said, aggrieved, “And I’m not a turkey, I’m a dragon. So the only person going to starve around here is you.” Spike told him, bending down to pick up a rock and tossing it into his mouth like a piece of candy. “Good luck with that.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.032 seconds
Total duration
1,065 users online
1,940,787 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Blah blah blah, probably full of errors. Blah blah blah, probably needs editing. Blah blah blah, decided not to wait. Hopefully you folks enjoy. Standard disclaimer applies.
2110652 Lol I was just thinking about you.
OH FUCK YES GROUND FLOOR. Reading this so hard.
IT UPDATED!
Fantastic chapter as always.
Okay, even before reading this you used Mumford and Sons. I am already happy.
Review: I just read it, and I loved it! I love the pacing. I love the funny jokes. I love the sad parts. I love the exciting moments! I love the characters, and how Twilight isn't just a pony with human thoughts and human morals. I BUCKING LOVE IT! Also Graboids ftw!
The character are so well done, and so interesting. I could read just to hear them talk to each other. Your characters are so charismatic that even after death I find myself hanging onto their every word. I wish I got to know Timothy more, but I will remember him via his excellent backstory. It would've been so easy to portray him as a stereotype paranoid hick and still use his stuff, you made him so interesting and appealing that I actually cared that he was already dead!
I don't usually give compliments, in fact I hope the people I have criticized don't see this review. lol. This is a good story, and I don't see anything I want differently.
BWAAHAHAHAHAHA!
YES
YES
YEEEESS!!
I was writing my inferior story when this updated. Looks like that writing isn't happening anytime soon.
NEW CHAPTER OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG
So we have I Would Smile If I Could updating, then this?
...
\m/ -.- \m/
Graboids... really?
Continues reading.
Beautiful.
This would make an interesting game... one that I would be willing to play... also, sexy chapter like always.
YOU UPDATED!
You just made my day, my evening, and ...
pretty much ruined whatever sleep I was planning to get tonight.
OH HELLZ YES! TREMORS AND CHOCOLATE AND RAPIDASH, OH MY!
...err.....I mean....
Huh, I just watched Tremors. Funny how life works.
Why did you have to upload this at 1 AM?!? I have school tomorrow, er, today, you jerk!
Amazing as always.
Moral of this chapter: do not get in between best pony and her cakes.
Also fan art of her sitting in a truck with a improvised seatbelt would be awesome.
you put a graboid on the island with them? and you killed a character that reminds me all too much of Burt? How evil can you get?
Is the Graboid's name El Blanco, by any chance?
My boy!!!
Just out of sheer curiosity of how far you are into the grand scheme if things.
How many chapters (approximately) are left?
When i caught this update on my email i was going to sleep.
Guess who didnt sleep.
I love you, if you changed the pony references you could pretty well sell this story and become a best seller.
Btw, are you planning on doing a recopilation of the creatures you "blatantly stole"? Most of them ring a bell on my head but i am more used to read in spanish, so i miss some of the references.
I've needed to see some graboid action... I just don't see a desert without hoping that i'm a long way from Perfection, Nevada. Or if i'm close, i hope i brought my BFG.
Kudos, man.
So awesome!
Holy shit man, a 21k word chapter?
As always, amazing chapter. I especially liked that fucking fantastic finale. And the pumpkin spice massacre. And the bloody amazing way Weapon of Choice wormed its way into the story. I mean, come on, that was pretty damn perfect!
I am reaffirmed of the reason why I faved this story.
My best constructive criticism is to STOP relying so much on insertion of song lyrics. Even if you have nothing but the best of intentions, using multiple songs' worth of lyrics in each and every chapter comes across as annoying filler / padding to the reader. The quoted song lyrics at the start of each chapter also brings all gathered plot momentum and story flow to a screeching halt.
TL/DR version :
One or two song's worth of quoted lyrics per story = good.
One or two song's worth of quoted lyrics per chapter = bad.
Okay, I gotta ask, what is the worm monster from?
Gotta' love the Dune reference. Also, the Spike bit at the end was hilarious.
That was worth the wait!
2110726 I was busy NOT writing my inferior story, my progress on my fics has been so slow I feel like I need to start paying my followers compensation
Ohh man! Spike...
"I'll rescue you, little cheese cake!"
This line just make my day.
The Tremors reference was just the icing on the cake.
Ok dudes the worm monster is from "Tremors" not Dune
I gotta a question for you, if you don't mind. I'm sure that because of the situation that this response holds significance with Marshell and his branch, but could you explain a bit about it?
A marvelous update as usual. I love the character building that continues on.
Write on!
I played the song and continued reading with it in the background. It worked well.
2111035
Tremors
2111145
True, but the omake at the end uses the lyrics to Weapon of Choice, which DOES contain a Dune reference.
I don't usually ask for romance in a story, but when I do you make a fucking sequel.
Your story updates, are worth waiting for. 21k words, and all of them awesome! Thanks DustTraveller - you've just made my day!
>4am
>QC updates
>21k+ words
welp thats okay, I didn't need sleep anyway
Loved this chapter. Loved. it.
I love it! I adore this. It is sooo, bucking, nice.
Also, there needs to be an omake where Celestia shows up on the Island.
Stupid graboids, always grabbing things and trying to eat them. So earlier in the chapter, what was that thing that the graboid didn't want to return?
>story updates
I love this.
>AC/DC escape
I love you.
Twilight beeing introduced to "weed"....
th08.deviantart.net/fs71/150/f/2011/305/c/1/lyra___no_by_cptofthefriendship-d4erdjr.png
Anyway, Great chapter. You got me "right in the feels" when you put a story on the dead, not to just disregard them as another casualty. That was some great writing right there.
Waiting on the next chapter. Keep up the Awesome!!
This is definently one of my favourite stories I'm following right now. Awesome chapter. Cam't wait for the next one.
2111034
I disagree.
If would be padding the story if it made up a significant potion of a chapter.
This has one song during the story, consisting of aprox 200 words. I'll even be generous and give you the beginning song, 300 words, and the end song in the comedy extra has probably around 250. That's about 750 words out of 21,462.
I think that's like 3.2% is song.
Not significant enough to be padding.
2111150
Devil Dog is an apellation attached to marines. It's history comes from World War I, specifically coined (supposedly) during action in Belleau Wood. It was in a dispatch from the German front lines to their higher headquarters explaining the current battle conditions that described the fighting abilities of the new, fresh Americans as fighting like "Teufel Hunden" or "Hounds from Hell." It has remained an affectionate nickname for United States Marines ever since. Hard core is a term they use to describe themselves pretty often, at least in my experience. It has about the same meaning as, bad ass, or tough as nails.
2111034 I am sorry that the inclusion of music into the story has hindered your enjoyment so much. I am aware that songs in the story are very much, "your mileage may vary". The song lyrics at the beginning of the chapters are probably a bad habit, but they are also a tradition for me. I've been doing that since around 2001, when I started writing fanfiction, and I'm not going to change anytime soon.
On the subject of music INSIDE the chapter, I can only say that... well, this is an MLP story, bro. Thematically speaking, ponies are surrounded by music. All the time. I actually had a few comments about there NOT being any music involved. This is one of those instances where I really can't win either way, so I have to make a stylistic choice.
I am a musically oriented person. Again, I apologize if that has hindered your enjoyment somewhat.
I should point out that your comment is useful feedback, but its also in the minority, as it goes. Most of the feedback I get about music or songs being in the story is positive, overwhelmingly so. So, I acknowledge your view point, I even agree with you somewhat, from a literary perspective, but the song lyrics and stuff are probably going to stay. If this has permenantly turned you off of my writing, then you have my deepest and sincere regrets.
Mea Culpa.
2111419
It's not really a matter of numbers and statistics. It's a jarring break from the flow of the story. I like when a hyperlink is used, and just skim past the lyrics to the real story, myself.