Ch.9 - Explosive Mining
Raichu for Hire
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Chapter 9
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Explosive Mining
There were many ways to gain fame and popularity. In Nica’s case all it took it was rescuing ponies from a burning building and taking down the mob, combined with Manehattan’s press trying to increase sales with hot topics.
The very next morning numerous ponies visited Coco’s shops in hopes of talking with the little star, many of them interested in hiring Nica to use her popularity to their advantage.
With an overwhelming number of offers, it was up to Nica to choose her next employer very carefully. Would she become a mascot for numerous sporting events? Join a construction company? Or maybe advertise a few products? Nooo… those would be too easy and too superficial. Her goal was to use her powers to help ponies while profit was just a bonus.
Nica smiled at one specific offer. Working in a dark, dangerous, unstable mine filled with explosive gas, now that was a job for someone of her qualifications.
Equipped with a shoulder-bag and helmet, all customized by Coco herself, Nica took some bits with herself and went towards the train station, followed by Coco and her young assistant.
“Please, take care of yourself,” Coco said with a warm smile before gently embracing the large critter, stroking her back.
“And show them what you’re made of,” Leaf said and hoof-bump her paw.
Nica nodded before poking her fixed collar and her shoulder-bag. The head of a white rat emerged from the bag and squeaked at her.
“Thank you for everything you have done for me and the city,” Coco said, holding a forehoof on her chest. “You have no idea how much I owe to your kindness and bravery. I wish I could, but I can’t even express how grateful I am with words.” She placed the forehoof on Leaf and gave him a cheerful smile.
“I should be thanking you. An opportunity to be helpful and use my powers for good is a reward in itself. I never felt so accomplished ever since I woke up in the Everfree Forest.” She waved a farewell before turning around and running away.
“W-wait… you’re not going to take the train?” Coco asked.
“I’ll just run there, following the railroad tracks. It will be faster this way,” Nica answered before speeding up.
Coco’s mouth opened agape. “B-b-but… the mine is in the mountain between Manehattan and Canterlot… It’s two hours worth of a train ride!”
Nica smirked. “In that case, I’ll reach it in one.”
Mr. Patrick peeked outside from the shoulder-bag, enjoying the pleasant breeze on his face.
“Alright everypony. Say hello to the newest and quite unique member of the team. A Raichu named Nica,” announced a tall unicorn with a headlamp as his cutie mark. His face pale and covered by three scars.
A group of ponies wearing helmets and protective clothing waved at the critter, however, she could also hear whispers ‘run away while you still can', or ‘this job isn’t worth it'.
The unicorn chief cleared his throat and said, “My name’s Dark Lantern, and I’m responsible for ensuring that everything here runs smoothly. The assistance of someone as brave and combat-skilled as you is precisely what we need.”
Nica puffed her chest and raised her head in pride. “I’m ready for any task, no matter how dangerous.” She looked at the unicorn with puppy eyes, holding her paws in a pleading gesture. “Actually, can I have the most dangerous work, please?”
Lantern raised an eyebrow. “S-sure..”
“Yay!” Nica shouted in excitement before jumping up, head-slamming into the ceiling. With the rocky surface being much more durable and dense than most ceilings, she bounced back to the ground and shook her head. Her helmet having received a dent. “That’s some hard stone.”
“We’re mining mostly common iron ore and cheap gold ore from this mine, occasionally encountering more valuable gems with magical properties,” Lantern explained while gesturing at his surroundings. Illuminating gems attached to walls lit the cave. The color of the surrounding walls proved difficult to figure out under the assault of multicolored light. “This part of the mine is stable so we have no need to build any kind of support here. The walls and ceiling are very solid.” He pointed at the darkened tunnel behind him. “While digging with pickaxes, hooves and magical beams, we reached a big pocket of natural gas, and sadly, some of it exploded and trapped our workers. We tried to organize a rescue, but with the explosive gas still spreading in those tunnels, making a move is too risky.” He pointed at Nica. “And that is where you come in.”
Nica looked at the darkened tunnel in worry and next nodded, feeling the heavy weight of responsibility on her little back.
Lantern approached a box filled with some sort of sticks. Holding one wooden object with his hoof, he set it on fire with his magic and presented in front of her. “When dealing with flammable gas, our unicorn specialists levitate such a flaming torch far ahead of them and burn away the gas at a safe distance. However, in this case we’re dealing with gas in higher density which can explode, which may cause rocks from the ceiling to crumble in less stable areas.”
“Is my task to protect others from falling rocks?” She glanced at her own tail and added, “I’m perfectly capable of that.”
“That’s great. When I read the article about how you rushed into a building which was on fire, and how you defeated the mob, I was hoping you had skills necessary to keep us safe.”
Nica saluted. “Just leave it to me.”
“Alright, everypony, move out,” Lantern commanded, yet his subordinates showed none of his enthusiasm.
“Incoming,” shouted a unicorn worker, pointing at the ceiling as rubble started falling down, alongside a few loose stones in a variety of sizes.
A worker with a shovel as a cutie mark tripped over and covered his head. “Heeeelp!”
With a quick jump, Nica shot herself towards the falling stone twice the size of a large stallion, spinning in mid air before slamming the boulder to the side. She flew backward from the recoil, her legs pressed against the rocky ground as she pulled herself to a full stop. The earth trembled under her paws the moment the boulder crashed next to the terrified pony.
She looked around and sighed in relief. None of the workers ended up injured after the last explosion. She glanced at her shoulder-bag, ensuring the good health of her tiny friend.
“You just pushed that large boulder away. You have some serious strength in that tail of yours,” Lantern said with an impressed expression, studying the long tail with full interest.
Nica smiled in return. “If I put all of my power into my ‘Iron Tail’ attack, I could probably shatter this boulder into pebbles, but it would be a waste of energy. I just needed one fifth of that to push it aside.”
“So you favor precision over brute force. I like the way you think,” Lantern said before patting Nica on the back. He turned around and lit another torch, levitating it further ahead into the darkness.
Nica kept walking on her rear feet, once again focusing on using her senses, only to stop next to a stonewall made of several gathered boulders. A weak aura filled with negative emotions came from the other side, as if emitted by someone depressed and devoid of hope. “I think I found someone.”
The group stopped in their tracks and approached Nica, now staring at the indicated wall.
An earth pony worker with a horseshoe as a cutie mark started poking small spot between three large boulders, creating a tiny hole before peeking through it. “There seems to be empty space on the other side.”
Nica took a deep breath of dusty air and concentrated, her tail now shining brightly in the darkened area. With a careful movement of her tail, she pierced spaces between the stones, as if trying to cut parts of the puzzle. Each boulder was carefully pulled away by ponies while an aura of magic kept other stones from crumbling like a house of cards.
With a small open passage ahead of her, Nica lowered herself and squeezed through the hole, finding herself in tight space. Her breathing became slow and heavy as there seemed to be very little oxygen left in this area. Putting more power into her tail, she used it as if a lantern, finding an lying unicorn covered in bruises.
“W-who… l-light…” the pony murmured before taking a few seconds to turn his head, now glancing at Nica with tired sleepy eyes. “A m-m-mir-miracle… Am I s-sav-saved?"
The moment more stones were moved away from behind, she wrapped her tail around the dehydrated pony and pulled.
“Hurry up and bring him some water, move, move, move,” Lantern commanded as his subordinates aided the unicorn before two workers escorted the him towards the exit.
“Is he going to be okay?” Nica asked, staring at her boss in worry.
“He’ll be fine. He’s a bit dehydrated, but a breath of fresh air and some fresh water will get him in shape.”
Nica wiped sweat from her forehead. The atmosphere seemed to become hotter and breathing harder the further they went.
The search continued for hours as three more workers were found and rescued, with more than ten explosions and five cases of falling boulders in between.
The moment the group reached a massive gathering of loose stones blocking their path, Latten lowered his head, so did his subordinates.
“It seems this is as far as we can go. There’s nothing more we can do to save them.”
Nica blinked in confusion and ran towards her boss, now staring him in the eyes. “What do you mean?“
The stallion shook his head. “This place is where the gas leak took place and followed up with a chain of explosions that sealed the area. We already checked all tunnels except this one, which means that the rest of missing workers are trapped on the other side, separated by thousands of tons of stone.”
“We can break through,” Nica suggested.
“Weren’t you listening?!” Lantern groaned. “Thousands tons of stone with a high possibility of explosive gas being between cracks. It would take too long and would be way too dangerous to dig in it.”
Nica’s ears drooped as she observed the depressed group walking in the opposite direction. She glanced at the boulders ahead of her before narrowing her eyes.
“Alright, is everypony safe? Or do we need to make an attendance check?” Lantern asked as he studied his fellow workers, making sure his rescue party wasn’t missing anypony.
“Miss Nica is missing,” said one of the unicorns before pointing at a shoulder-bag and collar in his levitation. “She asked me to hold these for her four minutes ago and now she’s gone.”
“What… but where could she…” he felt trembling under his hooves while the noise of an explosion echoed through the cave, “... be? Oh, ponyfeathers!”
Nica rolled against the rocky ground, her body covered in bruises, burns and dust. After hitting the wall, she stood up on her trembling legs and coughed. Turns out… even ‘Volt Tackle’... doesn’t fully protect from explosions. She kept coughing for a moment before gasping for air while feeling pain in her every bone.
A few moments ago she started using one ‘Thunderbolt’ after another, occasionally hitting the boulders with ‘Iron Tail’ in attempt to create a passage. Displeased with her slow progress, she put the entirety of her power to maintain a long-lasting ‘Volt Tackle’, charging at the large gathering of small stones and large boulders while surrounded by electricity, her body started cruising the obstacles one after another, piercing through while accumulating more and more injuries with each passing second.
A scratch on a forehead, bruise on her forepaw, cut on her leg, and soon her fur looked as if it had been brutally beaten after a hard battle.
The good part about explosive gas being trapped in between stones and boulder was that it greatly slowed down its spread. The bad part however was the extreme force which struck Nica’s already bruised body in a massive explosion.
With a bit of struggle, Nica raised her trembling head to look at the ceiling. Most of the loose stones long gone, leaving only a stable layer of granite.
She pushed herself to stand on her four legs and started walking, and next grit her teeth upon feeling growing pain in her legs, each step causing her agony. My trainer did mention that ‘Volt Tackle’ require a lot of durability, how it can become a double-edged sword. It seems that even though a barrier of electricity partially protects me from harm, it can’t fully protect me whenever I hit very solid obstacles. She whimpered as she forced herself to keep walking. The force of explosion combined with her hitting several large boulders in a row proved too much even for her extreme durability.
With the tunnel ahead of her splitting into a few different paths, she stopped herself at the crossroad and examined each one, only for pupils in her eyes to shrink. Several ponies were scattered all over the place. Some lightly bruises, some bandaged by their own protective clothing, each barely breathing and showing dehydration.
Nica sighed before pushing herself to action, checking one pony after another for heart-beats. To her relief, everypony were still alive, even if barely. Using what left she had of her strength, she wrapped her tail around the closest stallion and raised him above the ground, only to lose balance.
She looked at her own bruised forepaws and rear legs, which were too damaged and not strong enough to support the weight of a grown pony. Heh… it seems I took a step closer in figuring out my limits. Too tired to move, she lay flat against the cold stone, each of her little limbs felt like being directly hit by a ‘Hyper Beam'. Even if her legs were significantly bigger and tougher when compared to the tiny ones she had on her previous evolutions, they were still too small to pull anypony to safety in her current condition.
Suddenly, a view of a white rat running in her direction caught her attention. <Oh… hello Mr. Patrick. It seems I pushed myself a bit too hard today,> she spoke, yet without her trusty collar, her words were nothing but repeats of her own name for everyone around her.
The white rat licked a bruise on Nica’s cheek and next stared at her in pity, whimpering sadly.
“There you are you brave stupid heroic risk-taking critter!” Lantern said as he approached with firm steps. “I don’t know if I should yell at you for nearly killing yourself due to your recklessness, or hug you for opening the way to our fellow ponies."
Nica would chuckle at this remark, if it wouldn’t add even more pain into the pile. She found herself being gently levitated onto Lantern’s back.
“Alright everypony, you know the drill.”
Each worker saluted with determined stares, their attitudes and self-confidence so much different than from before.
Part of Nica wanted to keep her eyes open to watch how ponies are being rescued, yet another demanded for her to take a nap.
“Hey Twilight, you’ll never guess what happened,” Starlight said as she trotted in place, now staring at her mentor who was sitting on her throne with a half-eaten hay sandwich in her magical hold.
“Let me guess. Nica did something brave that got her headline in the newspaper.”
“Well… yes, but what’s important is that she saved many lives at the iron mine between Manehattan and Canterlot. We should prepare a long range teleportation spell and congratulate her personally.”
“I’ll pass…”
Starlight blinked in confusion. “What… but why?”
“The last time I visited her, she convinced me into more of her self-defense lessons. I have been wary of every shadow as if expecting an attack ever since,” Twilight explained before taking another bite of her hay sandwich.
“Are you sure you don’t want to check on her. According to the news, she’s being nursed back to health in a Manehattan hospital due to her heavy injuries.”
Twilight spat crumbles of her sandwich and shouted, “She’s what!”
One long-range teleportation and a few short-range teleportations later, she stood in front of the hospital, feeling as if her heart was trying to escape her chest. Her quick breathing and messed-up mane being a proof of her panic-mode. She was about to take step forward, only to see Nica running outside by the main entrance, not a single bandage on her entire body.
“Twilight! I did it, I was useful again. Truly the second happiest day of my life!” Nica shouted before tackling the alicorn to the ground, her paws wrapped around her neck. “And your timing couldn’t be better. Today we’ll focus on improving your aim. Basically, shoot me with magic while I play the role of a moving target.”
Twilight levitated the enthusiastic critter off her neck before standing up. She stood on her rear legs, spread her forelegs and shouted, “Oh come on!”
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Haha, I loved Twilights reaction at the end.
She's what?!
Hmmm, I thought I caught everything, while proof reading. Guess I missed a spot.
Unless you meant a part of a pony's body, you should replace "cheek" as "check"
And, second remark is more of a nitpick. I think that Nica should be adressed as "Nica", without any titles. At all. But that's just my opninion, after repeated reading. =) Keep writing.
8841927
She saw this comming, yet still walked into it. Oh well, at least she's not skipping her self-defense lessons.
8841943
I don't get the question.
Are you refering to Nica receiving so heavy injuries after using 'Volt Tackle' against thousand tons of stone with explosion in the end (which pushed Nica to limits of her durability)?
Or is it something else?
8841961
Fixed.
I added Miss into it as a sign of respect that ponies gave her considering her accomplishments. If you have a better idea how they can show such respect without the need of any big expanding, I can use it instead.
8842075
Awww... that's so nice, thank you. Glad I could introduce a Raichu character to someone who never got into Pokemon (and succeded)
There's no rush. I hope you won't hesitate to leave comments and feedback.
HAHAHA! Love that ending with Twilight.
8843014
From what I've seen in the show, they don't add Miss or any title, unless it's somepony important, or it's part of their name. Princess Celestia, as part of title, Miss Pomel, as whole name. maybe I did miss some that were to show respect, though. And it's just my opinion.
8843014
I just found that one scene with Twilight humorous.
I can't remember if you said it already but does this take place before or after the movie? If its before the movie then it would be funny if all of Nica's training with Twilight gets her on guard enough that she protects the princess's from Tempest, if it takes place after, Tempest would be a good sparing partner for Nica.
8843668
Considering that Twilight read about Rarity's new punk style mane, it is obvious that Rarity's episode took place off screen in this story while Nica was assisting Coco in Manehattan, so it is pre-movie for sure.
On a side note, I am not sure if I should treat the movie as canon for my stories. It's mostly due to some misses that take place there:
1) The guards vanish for some reasons.
2) Discord didn't do a single thing despite Fluttershy putting herself in danger.
3) Starlight was there and didn't do a thing.
4) Three princesses went down in less than a minute to a unicorn with broken horn (once again useless princesses trope which I hate so much.
5) Entire Equestira (made of thousands of ponies, some strong like Big Mac, Maud Pie and so on) fell to Storm's King army in mere days (it's not exacly implied how much time has passed since the invasion started), yet his army was defeated by main 5 alone with help from small group of alies.
6) All the traveling seems pointless. I saw other movies where after the hero travel to diferent location, he return with an army of alies from diferent nations and reclaim his kingdom in an epic fight. This was something that they planned for the movie of MLP (according to rumors), but was instead replaced by main 5 suicude attack that worked for some reasons.
7) Changeling, Dragon and Yack's alies, why they didn't do anything? They are a force to be recon with and know how to fight.
8) Twilight having alicorn magic was wasted, not only it didn't help much, but she lost it in the end while giving Storm King a weapon of mass destruction. At least against Tirek it felt special as he was forced to use hostages in order not to lose, with Storm King it just felt forced.
So yeah, because of those 8 reasons, I can't take the movie seriously, it falls into annoying clishey other of MLP finales fall (everyone except main heroes are useless). If at the very least some of those points would be adressed in the movie, I would let it slide, but as it is, the movie felt off to me.
Sorry, Twilight, but you don't get away from training. Trust me... I tried, and it did NOT end well...
BTW, BUCKIN HILARIOUS!
now glancing at Nica with tired sleepy eyes. “A m-m-mir-miracle… Am I s-sav-saved?>
This place is where the gas leek took place
and followed up with chain of explosions that sealed
1. Meant to be a closing quotation mark.
2. Leak. Can't imagine a leek made out of gas... Actually, I can.
3. And followed up with a chain of explosions that sealed.
8844024
You're far from the only one the movie was a complete failure that the writers couldn't fit enough plotholes in. The fact that the transformation pearl was broken in pieces in season 8 undermines the importance the movie gave it.
In darkest day, in blackest night, no light shall escape my sight...
9705363
Haha, good one.
This makes me wonder how Nica would look in yellow-lanter's costume. I know that Raichu is orange, but color of electricity is yellow in pokemon, so it would fit her better.