Viva Las Neighgas

Scootaloo had been living with Rainbow Dash for four months now, but this would be the first time she had tried to venture into her guardians room while she was preparing for a display with the Wonderbolts. Dash had only been a member of the team for a little while and was taking every appearance extremely seriously, planning her flight paths and moves weeks in advance. As Scootaloo walked down the corridor, she heard loud rock music booming through the closed doorway. She wondered how Dash could prepare anything with that racket. Not that she didn't think rock was cool or anything...

"Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo shouted, as she banged on the door. "Are you in there?"

Scootaloo mentally facehoofed as she realised Dash had to be in her room unless she was in the habit of leaving her CDs on full blast and leaving Scootaloo alone the house. She tried the door handle and peered inside, seeing nothing of Rainbow Dash. Perhaps she was around the corner by her bed?

"Rainbow?" Scootaloo shouted again, as she stepped into the room. "You there?"

She leaned around the corner hiding Rainbow's bed from view and saw her sprawled out on the sheets, still in her Wonderbolt uniform. Her eyes were shut and she was snoring. A pair of huge speakers blasted out a track from the new Metallicolt album and a blackboard with complicated looking flight paths and manoeuvers sketched out in blue chalk took pride of place above Rainbow's head , along with some old Wonderbolts posters. Scootaloo's eyes were drawn to a travel brochure resting, open, on Rainbow's back. The cover read, 'Visit Las Neighgas' and depicted a vast cityscape with hundreds of bright neon lights lighting up the skyline.

"Hello," Scootaloo shouted, edging towards Rainbow before gently tapping her on the shoulder.

Rainbow's eyes shot open and she leapt into the air, somersaulting in her surprise. She somehow managed to grab Scootaloo by the wings and pin her to the bed.

"Bloody hell!" Scootaloo gasped. "Let me go!"

"Watch your mouth Squirt!" Rainbow Dash growled, as the Metallicolt track reached its ear-burstingly loud climax. She blinked and her eyes softened when she saw who she had pinned down. She let Scootaloo up. "Sorry, kiddo, I just don't like being snuck up on is all. How come you didn't jump out of the way? I know how fast you can be."

Scootaloo smiled at the compliment and smoothed out her wings. "You just took me by surprise. I didn't mean to startle you though. I knocked and I shouted but your music is just too damn loud!"

Dash laughed and got up. She straightened her uniform and pushed up her goggles before going over to her stereo and shutting it off. Scootaloo's attention drifted back to the Las Neighgas brochure now lying closed on Dash's pillow. She picked it up and began to flick through, marvelling at all of the beautiful displays on the hotel fronts. Rainbow walked back over and sat down, reading the brochure over Scootaloo's shoulder.

"You like the look of Neighgas Scoot?" She asked. "You can come with if you want."

"Wow, really?" Scootaloo gasped. "You're going to Neighgas? How come?"

"The Wonderbolts are gonna make an appearance there in a couple of weeks for the opening of a new casino or something. We'll do an aerial display, sign a few autographs, get our pictures taken a lot and then Spitfire's gonna cut the ribbon. It's gonna be so awesome!" Rainbow sighed happily and flopped backwards onto the bed. "I was gonna tell you as soon as I finished my flight plans but as you saw, I kinda took a nap."

Scootaloo giggled and flopped backwards too. Her eyes caught a picture of a stadium tacked to the ceiling. She looked over and saw Rainbow staring at it as well.

"Is that the stadium you're doing the display at? It's huge!"

"Yep!" Dash replied. "It can seat 80,000 ponies. Just think, Scoot. That many ponies are gonna buy a ticket just to see me! Yeah, Spitfire and Soarin'll be there too but I'm the only one who can pull off a Sonic Rainboom."

"That's true," Scootaloo said. "When are we flying out?"

"Two weeks tomorrow," Dash replied. "I was going to fly out there myself to save the balloon fare but now that you're coming too, I guess we'll have to take one. There's no way you could fly that far on your tiny wings!"

Rainbow ruffled Scootaloo's purple mane affectionately. Normally Scootaloo would have objected to Rainbow saying she was a weak flyer but this time, she let it slide. There really was no way she could fly to Las Neighgas until her wings grew a bit more. Then she remembered the reason she had come into her guardians room.

"Oh yeah! Dash, I came in to tell you that your lunch was ready. I made you soup."

"Aww, thanks Scoot!" Rainbow grinned. "Whatever would I do without you?"

******

Two weeks later, Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash were high in the air, three hours into a ten hour balloon flight to Neighgas. Scootaloo was bored stiff and Rainbow was twitchy from having to stay in the basket. She would get out to stretch her wings, but somepony had to fly the balloon and Scootaloo didn't know how. Scootaloo had finished all of Rainbow's Daring Do books and had been pacing the basket for ten minutes.

"Rainbow," Scootaloo whined. "How long is left of the flight? I'm bored!"

"There's a good seven hours left yet Scootaloo. You need something to do?"

"YES!"

"Alright," Rainbow rummaged around in her saddlebags until she found a deck of cards and a bag of loose change. "How about I teach you how to play Blackjack? Only, you'll have to give me all of my bits back when we're done."

"OK," said Scootaloo. "I'm game."

Rainbow dealt Scootaloo a couple of cards, one was facing down. The card Scootaloo could see was a jack. Then Rainbow dealt herself an ace and a face down card.

"Alright Scoot," Rainbow began. "This is a fairly simple game and it's very easy to learn. You get half of the bits from this bag and use them to bet. You bet higher if you think you're going to beat me, and lower if you're not sure. Now, this is just a practice go so you don't have to bet, but when we play for real you have to. Right, you have a jack, picture cards are worth ten. I've got an ace which is worth one or eleven. The object of the game is to get as close to twenty-one as possible. If you go over, you go 'bust'. Got it?" Scootaloo nodded. "Good. Have a look at your face down card but don't tell me what it is."

Scootaloo had a four. Rainbow looked at hers and discovered that she had a six.

"Alright. Now if you've got a low hoof, you can ask me to deal you another card by saying 'hit'. You can do this as much as you want unless you go bust. Say 'stand' if you don't want any more cards and 'bust' if you've gone over twenty-one. When you say either of those things, I turn over my face down card and draw cards until my hoof equals at least seventeen. You win if your hoof is closer to twenty-one than mine or I go bust and then you get double the amount of bits you bet. If we draw, it's called a push and you get your original bet back. OK?"

"I get it," said Scootaloo. "Let's play! Hit." Scootaloo was dealt a seven. "Stand."

Rainbow turned over her six and dealt herself an eight! "Aww rats! Looks like you won that one kiddo, so let's play for real!"

They played for five hours, each of them playing competitively and taking turns at being the dealer. Rainbow Dash sometimes had to stand up and correct the balloons course or heat the air in the balloon up a bit more if they were dropping but she always came back to deal more cards or to try her hoof at getting more money out of Scootaloo. As she got better and better, Rainbow decided to teach Scootaloo more about the game.

"You've gotten good Scoot," the filly all but glowed at the praise. "If you've got a good head for maths, you could have a go at card counting. Unfortunately, I can't teach you how to do it 'cause I'm not much of a maths pony, unlike Twilight. She could be a Blackjack champ but she considers counting as cheating. But she wouldn't gamble if you let her use your own bits."

"What is counting?" asked Scootaloo

"Well, you basically have to keep track of the amount of high scoring cards left in the deck. If there are a lot, then you have a good chance of getting a good hoof so you bet higher. It tips the odds in your favour but some casinos use more than one deck of cards at once to make it more difficult for counters and, if they catch you counting, they'll dump you out on the pavement and tell all of the other casinos not to let you in."

"I'd still like to learn," Scootaloo said. "Maybe I can find a book that'll tell me how it's done."

"You'd be lucky to find a book like that in Neighgas! What's more, you're not old enough to play in a casino!" Dash laughed. "We're almost there, anyway. Clean up the cards would you? I'm gonna take us lower."

Eventually, when the sun was just dipping below the horizon and the first stars were appearing, the bright Neighgas skyline appeared in the distance. It got warmer as they neared so Rainbow Dash gently flapped her wings to keep Scootaloo cool. The lights got brighter and brighter as they flew closer and Scootaloo stepped closer to her guardian, grinning from ear to ear in anticipation. Rainbow steered the balloon onto a brightly lit landing strip and when they were safely on the ground, she opened the gate on the basket to let Scootaloo out.

"Welcome to Neighgas, kid!" Dash grinned.