The Unwilling Command

by KGBCowgirl

No Inhibitions, No Regrets

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. That's the popular line when going to the Sin City of North America, right? I was bound to get into more trouble than I was prepared for if I listened to that advice. Did I care? Hell, no. I was on the run from a federal agency that I suspected was on someone's payroll, and I needed a temporary source of income. I can't count cards to save my life, but I had other... skills that could now be put to good use, morals be damned.

I just hoped that none of the more unsavory types that resided in Las Vegas discovered my little ability...

---

"No." I snapped.

Vinyl tugged on my shirt as we wandered the floor of Caeser's Palace. "Come on! You know you can win!"

I was being asked to use my aura sight to essentially cheat at cards. Yes, I could sense the emotions of the people around me like a radar, and I could read people like open books, but I was not about to...

I heard Celestia sigh from behind me. "Just do it, Maximus. It's not like they can actually catch you."

That made two women trying to get me to play dirty. I had to step up my game if I wanted them to leave the subject alone. I had over fifty thousand dollars locked away in the trunk of my car, and I knew that would be enough to get us to San Antonio without any trouble. However, I made the mistake of telling Vinyl how Vegas gambling worked. Statistics and chance had almost no place in games where emotions were as good of an indicator as knowing what cards were on the table. I looked to Octavia pleadingly, hoping she would be the voice of reason.

"I agree with them." She pointed to Vinyl and Celestia, who were silently cheering.

Why did I put myself in such a predicament, one might ask?

Simple: men are stupid and women are evil.

I groaned and hung my head in resignation as I was dragged to the blackjack tables. I had a very bad feeling that this was going to not end well.

---

My suspicions were unfounded as I managed to slowly accumulate winnings, careful to moderate my "luck" so as to not arouse any attention from the casino's security teams. I kept my glasses on, but watched the reactions of the other players out of the corners of my peripheral vision. I knew that they were wondering how I managed to call almost every on of their bluffs, but not many people placed stock in the use of metaphysical auras as a method of reading people. I was up by almost twenty thousand and rising. I kept a wide area of awareness, looking for anyone who was watching me. I noticed a few individuals who hadn't left their own spot, perfectly in a line of sight with my seat at the tables. I signalled to the dealer that I was ready to cash out.

He looked at me suspiciously, but I was tired and showed it. Years of insomnia can create these wonderfully deceptive dark circles under one's eyes that don't fade for a very long time. Take that and add the fact that I was stressed, and it looked like I hadn't slept for days. He nodded to me and I threw my chips into a case to bring them over to the cashing booth, Celestia following closely behind me. I saw the group that had been watching me stand up and start towards an intercepting course. I subtly quickened my pace and pulled Vinyl and Octavia from the penny slots. I had a minor suspicion that Vinyl had been using her magic on the machines, since she struck a jackpot as soon as I walked up to the pair.

"I made about three months of my usual pay in less than three hours, happy now?" I grumbled while Octavia helped Vinyl scrape up the coins that were spilling out like a waterfall. I only received a cheeky grin in response, Vinyl's eyes obscured by her purple glasses. When they finished cleaning up the mess, Octavia dragged Vinyl away from the slots, receiving some assistance from Celestia. I managed to make my way to the cashing booth and gave the clerk my chips. His eyebrows raised at the sight of my winnings.

"You did well, I see..." He said slowly.

I shrugged in response. "My first time here, if you can believe it." I pointed back to Vinyl, who was still doing a minor victory dance. "My girlfriend over there did well on the penny slots, too. Her sister... not so much." I leaned in a little closer. "The guys that are walking over here," I nodded towards the now identified men in what looked like casual suits. "I don't know them, and they've been watching me for the last three hours. You mind calling security?" He nodded while sliding over several bundled hundred dollar bills. I nodded my thanks and slipped out one of the bills. "I'm gonna stick around for a bit, wave when you see security." I handed him the money, and he grinned, nodding his confirmation.

I walked back to the Equestrians, carrying my winnings. Vinyl's glasses dropped a little as she gaped at the bundles of money. "You won all of that?" She gasped. Both Octavia and Celestia seemed equally impressed. "Why did you leave if you were doing that well?"

I grabbed my backpack from next to the slots and threw the cash inside, putting a small lock on the zipper. I put on a fake smile while hugging Vinyl before whispering. "The guys in the suits over there? They haven't stopped watching me since I started winning big, and they reek of bad news." I released Vinyl and turned to Celestia. "I don't supposed you can read their minds, can you?"

The Princess shook her head. "I can only do that with people like you, who have been chosen by my subjects." I gritted my teeth a bit. I raised my sunglasses and looked around, slightly focusing on the group of men as I looked around. Their auras were all a foggy pink, which put me even more on edge. They were trouble, and I didn't bring my weapons with me. I looked over to the cash clerk and saw him wave slightly. I nodded towards him, and looked around for the security personnel.

"What can we help you with sir?" A voice said from behind me. I turned around slowly, and saw the earpiece the man in front of me was wearing. "You are the young man who called for security, correct?"

I nodded. "Those gentlemen in the corner over there," I twitched my head toward the group, who I had a feeling would not be there for long. "Have been watching me for an uncomfortable amount of time. I think my luck may have drawn some unwanted attention." I could tell the security officer was skeptical at best. He would need some convincing if I was going to receive any sort of aid. "I'm going to walk toward the exit, since I only made a stop here for the sake of my girlfriend and her family." I put an arm around Vinyl, with which she responded by putting her own arm around my waist. I let my face become serious before I spoke again. "I don't want to have to deal with any trouble, so if you could please help me out?"

Celestia walked up next to me, somehow keeping her normally flowing hair under control. "We would greatly appreciate any assistance you could render, sir." She moved a bit closer to the guard, and I saw him blush lightly. Score one for Molestia? I saw the guard walk away and caught the word "mafia" while he talked into the earpiece. Yep, score one for Fireball-Flank.

---

I hate magic. I really hate magic.

Vinyl was abusing her magic in an attempt to get my pants off while Celestia had locked the door and barricaded it with her own ethereal energies. I was again in a position without aid from Octavia, since I had been specifically warned that Vinyl was in heat.

And being the dumbass I was, I didn't think twice when Vinyl asked me into our rented room, alone, to help her with an undisclosed something. Now I was in a room with a humanized mare, who was in heat, locked inside until I somehow satisfied her. I wasn't ready to disclose a rather important fact about myself just yet, but now was looking like a good time for an excuse I hadn't used since my time in the service.

"DAMMIT CELESTIA, OPEN THE DOOR!" I yelled, banging on the door from inside the room, attempting to twist the handle. Yet, every time I tried, the door was either so hot I couldn't touch it, or it shocked me like a taser. "I NEED AN ADULT!"

Then I felt Vinyl pressing he breasts against my back as she leaned in next to my ear and whispered. "I AM an adult, hot stuff."

"FUCK!" I screamed at the top of my lungs as I began to try to demolish the door to get out. After the first few strikes, though, it seemed Celestia put up another barrier. "YOU FAT-FLANKED CRAZY WOMAN! SHE'S GOING TO DEFILE ME!" Remember how I mentioned that I was overdue for a panic attack? Yeah... I was almost there.

Celestia's voice echoed in my head. "Just give her what she wants. It can't be that bad."

That last sentence broke me. My brand of panic attacks are actually closely related to complete mental destabilization of a severe degree. I turned away from the door, taking advantage of my last few moments of lucidity before I blacked out. "Vinyl, I need to tell you something." I reached out and pulled her close, eliciting a small squeak of surprise.

"What's that, Bass Drop." She asked as she moved up to kiss me.

"I'm a virgin. Please be gentle." I replied before we kissed.

To be perfectly honest, I don't remember much past that first kiss, but, according to both Celestia and Octavia, the volume levels we both reached may have violated some of the hotel's noise ordinances for quiet hours.

---

After that single night in Vegas, Vinyl became, for lack of a better term, clingy. Wherever I went, she wasn't any farther than a few feet away, barring the bathroom. It took the better part of our second day after leaving L.A. to finally cross the border into Texas. I'd thought ahead, because instead of taking the direct route through El Paso, I arced our trip north so we would be entering closer to the panhandle, thus avoiding complications with the border patrol officers. I respect the whole national security deal. But, border patrol officers in Texas, from my experience, not the happiest people in the world.

We made it through the panhandle without any complications, and I even managed to make a quick nostalgic trip through the town where my old training base was located. I took one look at the front gate, shuddered at the winter I spent there, and continued driving. It would have taken an additional ten hours of driving to reach San Antonio, had Celestia not finally spoken up as we got back on the highway after stopping for gas.

"I know where we need to go." She said simply.

I sighed and pulled over onto the shoulder before bringing up the GPS. "I hope you tell Jay and all of your other little science experiments where we're going. 'Cause I sure as hell don't know them all."

Celestia giggled at my irritation, which only earned a flat look in response. "Washington D.C. That's where your country's leader resides, correct?" She asked.

"Yeah..." I replied cautiously. "But one does not simply go to the white house and talk to our head honcho..."

Celestia waved my comment aside. "I can convince her to speak to us, but we must ensure that the Elements of Harmony are present for the meeting."

I facepalmed, getting ready to go on one of mt famous tirades in an attempt to correct her again when I thought of something that was a bit more pressing. "How do we get my cousin, the seventeen year-old on a plane to D.C. on his own without my aunt and uncle flipping shit? They won't exactly be to keen with the idea of sending their son on a cross-country trip, even if it is to prevent an inter-dimensional apocalypse."

This seemed to give Celestia a bit to think about. I knew I couldn't safely fit six people in my car, especially since driving to D.C. would take another two days. I had the money, but not the space, and Jay was almost as big as me, so we wouldn't be able to fit his giant ass into my car.

"Does he have his own vehicle?" Celestia asked after a few minutes. I pondered whether his parents could even trust him with a car, since I was the one who taught him how to drive... in California... during low traffic hours.

I shook my head. "His dad could probably reason getting him a car, but his mom nearly pissed herself the last time I drove during one of my visits." I chuckled as I recalled Julie's screams of "SLOW DOWN!" while I tore down the I-35 at about ninety, barely slowing down for the turns and cloverleaf intersections. "Auntie Julie still has a vendetta against me after my last visit."

Vinyl piped up at that moment, and I really wished she hadn't. "You just won all that money, right? Why not buy him a car?"

"Oh, that's a wonderful idea!" I said sarcastically. "Then I can be prosecuted for the kidnapping and reckless endangerment of a minor!" I looked at Celestia in the mirror. "Can't you just teleport him cross country after we get to D.C.? You seemed to have no qualms about doing that to me back in Ventura..." The Princess giggled as I reminded her of my reaction to teleporting sixty miles.

"That might be a bit much for him..." She replied as her mirth subsided. "How far is this, what did you call it? D.C.? How far is it from San Antonio?"

"Really fucking far." I muttered. "About 1600 miles, as a rough estimate. Almost twenty seven times the distance you decided to teleport us for my first experience... sadistic bitch..." I glared at I the mirror before turning my attention back to the road. We were still en route to San Antonio, since I need to talk to Auntie Julie and Uncle Tom about our predicament. Then I heard my phone ringing and handed it to Vinyl. She answered the phone and put it on speakerphone.

"Max! How's my favorite cousin?" Jay almost yelled into the phone.

I sighed before responding. "I'm your only cousin, idiot. What's up?"

"The Princess says we need to go to D.C.? When did that come up?"

"She pulled a 'Take me to your leader' bit. Auntie Julie might be a problem, though. You know how she can be, especially if I'm involved."

He laughed a bit. "Mom still wants a restraining order placed against you, but Dad says she has no case against you." There was a slight pause before he continued. "I do have a car. You know that, right?"

"Who in the name of Hecate gave you a car? You know what? I don't want to know, they're probably in an institution or something." I shuddered at the thought of Jay behind the wheel, since he decided to pick up all of my bad habits and enhance them to titanic levels.

"Dad bought me a Mustang!"

Yeah, may the gods have mercy on the world. My potentially insane cousin had a muscle car...

"Oh, so he's not in an asylum, he's just related to me. Yeah, that's so much better." I thought for a moment before an idea popped into my head. "Will Auntie Julie even let you go? I know that Celestia can be a bit... persuasive when she wants to be." There was a bright flash of light from the back seat and I looked in the mirror to see Celestia was no longer present. 'I am so boned...'

---

Turns out that Julie didn't need much convincing, just a severe amount of coercing and deception. I finally made it to the house in San Antonio to be met with the whole Cross-Gino family sitting out on the front driveway with several luggage bags in the back of Jay's Mustang. I stepped out of my car, followed closely by Octavia and Vinyl, and quickly had to dodge a thrown shoe from my aunt.

"Why didn't you tell me that you were going to take your cousin to an engineering convention?" Julie demanded. "I would have said yes right away!" She was a little woman, but she, like my mother, had the ability to scare the shit out of me at any moment. She stood at 5'5", with curly blonde hair, green eyes, fair skin and a skinny figure. She and my mother had surreptitiously gained a combined title as the "Duchesses of Blue-balls" since they made it into a game to shamelessly flirt with any of the men that tried to talk to them. Whenever I came to visit, Jay, Uncle Tom, and I would make bets on how many guys would try to buy her drinks and get ruthlessly shot down. I almost always won, since my mom played the same game with my stepfather.

I looked over her shoulder to look at Jay. He was an almost perfect clone of me, but instead of growing his hair out and dying it, he kept it short and left as its natural blonde color. I hated to admit it, but the kid was essentially my "Mini-Me", down to the periodic insanity. However, in opposition to my constantly stoic expression, Jay was a happy teenager, able to make anyone smile, no matter what the situation.

"Oi! Midget! What did I tell you about keeping Auntie Julie informed?" I threw up the facade almost instantly, knowing he must have put together quite the tale to deceive his mother. I swear, she was a human lie detector, who just happened to be a sniper with shoes. Why she threw shoes instead of something a bit less painful, like a football or something similar, was beyond me. Unfortunately, she was my mother's sister, and both of them were sharpshooters with their weapons of choice.

I saw Jay holding a large black case, which took me a moment to identify. "Dad finally let me get my license! He even gave me one of his old Remingtons!" Great, the mad genius who built a backyard railgun had a shotgun. Uncle Tom was going to a new circle of Hell for that. "He even showed me how to clean it and..."

I put a hand up to stop him before turning back to Julie. "Where did he tell you we were going, Auntie?" I saw her eyebrow twitch at my title for her. I only really called her Auntie since I liked to get a rise out of her. "I know he tends to skim over certain details..."

"You and my son are going to D.C. for a few weeks for a national engineering convention. You'll also be doing the usual sightseeing and you have promised to not antagonize any government officials while you two are there." Julie paused to take a breath. She then pointed to Vinyl and Octavia, who were both shifting nervously under my aunt's piercing gaze. "The young lady with the blue hair is your new girlfriend and the girl next to her is her sister. They will also be coming with you on the trip since they've never left Los Angeles."

Celestia walked out at that moment, chatting with Uncle Tom cheerfully about something before she waved to me. "Max! Good to see you! I have the hotel reservations booked, so we should be good to go when we get to Washington." How did she do this? I don't know, nor do I care. Princess Fireball-Flank made things happen, and that's all I cared about at this point.

"And miss Celestia here," Julie continued. "Is the sponsor for Jay Jay's little trip."

"MOM!" Jay whined, his voice cracking a bit. He was a late bloomer, poor kid. Of course his voice was the last thing to change, so he was a bit insecure about his mother's childish nickname. I had to constantly remind him of the odd name that my own mother had given me, which had absolutely no like to my real name.

I had to keep myself from laughing while Auntie Julie went into "Overprotective Mother Mode" and started gushing over how worried she would be and how she would "Miss her little Jay Jay." The glare I received from my cousin did nothing to shut me up, and even Vinyl and Octavia were having trouble containing themselves. Uncle Tom sighed and shook his head ruefully as he watched his wife embarrass their only child.

"Hey, Auntie Julie!" I got her attention, saving my cousin from his plight. "We need to go soon. I'll follow the Air Force's old rules about long distance travel and make sure the midget eats real food. I'll have him call you whenever we make any stops and take the obligatory pictures." I saw my aunt's expression soften before she rushed to embrace me as well. "Now, I understand Jay has a guest of his own..."

I hate myself sometimes...

A bright pink blur sped up to me and stopped less than an inch away from my face before the verbal cannon fired.

"HiI'mPinkamenaDianePie,IwantedtoknowifyoulikepartiesandIheardyou'reJayJay'scousin!Wow!Youtwolooksomuchalike,likeyou'retwinsorsomething!Ihopewecanbereallyreallyreallygoodfriendsandthatwecanhavetonsoffun!JayJaysaidwe'regoingreallyfarandmeetingsomeimportantpeople!IsittrueyoucanusemagicAreyoureallydatingVinylorareyoutwojustfriendswithbene...mmfph!" I clapped a hand over the pink demon's mouth before my ears could be further assaulted. Since I had practice translating "drunk" to "not drunk", and "Pinkie-speak" was about the same, just faster, I proceeded to answer the questions in order.

"Hi, Miss Pinkamena. I don't particularly like parties, but I work at a lot of them. Yes, Jay is my little cousin. We're not twins, we just look a lot alike. I don't really know you that well, so the friend thing will have to wait." I paused to take a breath, keeping my hand on Pinkie's mouth to keep her from bombarding me with more questions. "Yes, we're going to the nation's capital and we'll be talking to some important individuals. It's not magic. And that last subject is not appropriate for discussion in front of minors." At the last response, I nodded toward Jay with a smirk. I removed my hand and signaled to Jay that we were about to leave.

"Keep him out of trouble!" Julie called out as we entered out respective vehicles, Celestia mercifully joining Jay and Pinkie. Then, I swear to every god in existence, the air around her turned dark before she directly addressed me. "If anything happens to my little Jay Jay, you know what will happen..." Julie's demeanor turned back to normal while she waved goodbye. Like I said, the woman scares me.

Author's Note:

I think I'm starting to either degrade in my writing style or I'm breaking my old bad habits. Please tell me if there's been any significant changes since the first chapter. I am going to have a few moments of intense seriousness, but I need to work out where the proper settings for them would be. Also, I may be getting started on the other characters I wanted to bring in for the little pow-wow in D.C. That said, I really do need help with any other characters, since I can't really produce more than three character personalities at once.

As always, please review. Reviews are good.

Comments

[KGBCowgirl]

2504227 They don't really teach us those tricks in the Air Force...

And I thought Spetsnaz didn't really need weapons?

[Jman796]

2504240Spetsnaz doesnt need weapons because the operator himself IS a weapon. But they do have ciperka (siperrka? idk how to spell it) entrenchment shovels that can be used to the equivelent of a throwing knife. It's on Weaponology.