Luna vs. a Tiny Italian Car

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24

Prologue

September 20, 2015
The sun had just about set over the ocean. The waves rolling in were still a good distance from where I lay in the sand. I could already tell that some of the granules were getting inside my boots and clothes. My head was propped up on a bottle of water that I was thinking about drinking.

Luna sat down beside me. I rolled my eyes to look up at her. Her mane and wings were frazzled, and there were dirt and sweat stains on her coat. She looked like a mess, but then I wouldn’t be lying flat on my back in the sand if I felt any better.

“Your wife’s coming,” Luna said. “Just finishing up with the police. They wanted to hold her a little longer because of all the blood.”

“I wish this was the first time.”

She nodded in agreement. She smiled, though. “It’s over.”

“You’re probably going to be going home soon?” I asked.

“I cannot wait for a reasonable shower and a good grooming.”

“I think we could find a curry comb somewhere around here…”

She knocked me in the shoulder with a hoof, right over a place where I was already bruised. I winced and Luna looked apologetic, but we both knew I deserved it.

Luna glanced out over the water as the sun slipped below the horizon. “I want to thank you for your help.”

“I want to thank you for...the adventure, I guess. I’m glad I didn’t die.”

“That would have been bad, wouldn’t it?”

“What you did to that semi truck was bad.”

We shared a laugh. It was all fun and games until an immortal alicorn princess jaywalked in front of an eighteen-wheeler. Then it was hilarious.

Luna stood up. “It’s time for me to be going.”

“Say hello to everypony for me.”

She smiled. “Why, when they could come visit you here?"

I bolted upright. “You've got to be shi-”

Chapter 1

July 31, 2015
Chrysalis called me at a convenient time in the afternoon when I was home and not doing anything else. I was immediately suspicious.

“How do you know that I just got off work?” I asked.

“We’re friends aren’t we, Sandy?” she said, her voice sweet. Not like honey, like saccharine.

“How many guys like me do you say that to?”

“Oh, come on. You know how I manipulate the fanboys on my website and you’re the only one who knows I’m actually a changeling.”

In the two years she’d been running around Earth, Chrysalis had done well for herself with cosplay and modeling. I had heard DeviantArt was considering running a special feature on her page. She’d branded herself as Chrissy West. I was a little miffed that she’d appropriated my last name, but maybe we really were friends. Sort of.

“What do you want?” I said.

“I’m so glad you asked. I was recently contacted by the Princesses of Equestria and the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony.”

My heart skipped a beat. I tried to calm myself down before asking, “What did they talk about?”

“Love and tolerance. Politics. BronyCon.”

“BronyCon, the convention in Baltimore, August seventh-through-ninth?”

“That’s the one,” she said. “The one you have tickets to attend.”

I was somewhat touched that she read my blog about my plan to go to the convention, but had to focus on the big picture. “So what’s the deal?”

“They want to go.”

“They’ll be shot on sight. Do you have any idea the stigma pony conventions have picked up, what with attempted changeling invasions?”

“A rogue changeling invasion is not the same thing as a visit by pony royalty,” she pointed out. “They’ve made the decision to formally introduce this world to theirs at BronyCon.”

“So go to the United Nations, not a group of geeks meeting in one of the top ten most dangerous cities in the US!”

“I’m just passing the message along, Sandy. If you want to argue the plan, do it with them.”

“What do you mean?”

“You should expect a visit soon.”

“They’re coming here?”

“To your house. I told them how to find it.”

“What!? Why? Why me?”

“I merely recommended a dependable person. They’ll need your services as both guide and ambassador.”

I stuttered before managing, “My wife’s going to kill us both.”

She laughed. “Oh, I doubt that.”

“Are you going to be at the meeting?”

“Why would I? This is a meeting between you and them.”

“Coward.”

“Fine,” she conceded. “I’ll be there. Does that make you a happy human?”

“It does. I’m finally getting you to do things for me for a change.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of hundreds of thousands of dollars going into the cash register and millions of worshipers calling my name.”

“Internet worshipers,” I pointed out.

“Just be home tomorrow,” she said, and hung up.

I had more questions, such as: what time, who would be coming, and oh my God, what do I wear to meet with pony Princesses? Something long-sleeve, probably. Ponies would probably understand tattoos on butts, but maybe not on arms.

I hit the button to return the call.

“We’re sorry, this call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again.”

She was sneaky at everything. An untraceable phone didn’t surprise me. Then again, it could have just been Chrysalis imitating the robot network voice.

I put the phone down and the reality of the situation began to sink in. Two years ago, I’d first met Chrysalis when she’d been blown into our world after the infamous wedding incident in Canterlot. Subsequently, we’d gone to a convention, changelings not under her control had invaded, we saved the day, she’d decided to stick around and pose as a human, and now ponies wanted to meet me.

I mean, I’d had stranger days, but none not related to My Little Pony. Then again, if the ponies were coming tomorrow, it was probably going to be stranger than today. Huh, how nice to see that coming. Usually it just hit me in the face.

I would have to tell my wife when she arrived home. Knowing Maria as I did, she would be displeased. It would probably go something like, We can’t have company, the house is filthy! It wasn’t, but you know how the women in your life can sometimes act. Either they went overboard obsessive with making sure everything was just perfect for guests or they became the world’s greatest cosplayer while concealing their true identity as an alien bug horse.

Yes, I know I’m stretching the definition of woman for Chrissy, but you know how alien bug horses can be.

I decided that I needed some input. I sat down in front of my laptop and wrote out a quick blog asking for advice. It seemed like a good idea to err on the side of caution and not reveal too much.

But I couldn’t help dropping a few hints. I simply could not help it. My brony fanfiction profile had gotten super popular once rumors had begun that I personally knew the Queen Chrysalis. If she knew I secretly enjoyed it, she would definitely use it against me.

Chrissy isn’t evil, at least not anymore, but she’s never lost her manipulative streak.

The first couple of replies to my blog had started to come in when I heard Maria’s truck pull into the driveway. I met her at the front door with her favorite beverage and a smile.

I did get a hug and kiss out of the exchange before she put on a business face and asked, “What did you do?”

“Nothing, actually. But you’re still not going to like this.”

When I told her, sure enough, she didn’t.

Maria frowned at me as she stomped some dirt from her veterinary work off of her boots. “Why did you agree to this?”

“I didn’t. Chrysalis just told me they were coming and then hung up the phone.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “All right. We should get started.”

Cleaning the house wasn’t how I wanted to spend a Friday night. The comments from my blog didn’t yield much about how to prepare, beyond “bake cake.” Seemed like a good idea.

We did manage to get the place presentable to receive guests by the deadline. Saturday morning was reserved for freaking out in anticipation.

With nothing to do but wait, we gravitated towards Netflix. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic seemed like a natural choice.

We were two or three episodes in when someone cleared their throat behind the couch.

In our rush to turn around, Maria’s catlike reflexes resulted in inadvertently backhanding me across the face. I’ve got fifty pounds and seven inches on her, but she still smacked the glasses right off my nose. The spectacles went flying, but fortunately I could still tell exactly who all of our visitors were. Ponies are helpfully color-coded like that.

“I hope we aren’t interrupting anything,” Princess Celestia said. It sounded like she was and she knew it, but you don’t rule a country for a millennium and not pick up some tact. Particularly when dealing with people so jumpy.

I groped for the TV remote and turned it off. “Uh, nope. Just didn’t expect you all to appear so suddenly. I expected some sort of magic noises or a flash of light or something.”

“Sandy, you know that TV dramatizes things,” Chrysalis, who was with them, reminded me.

“Is this tee vee the system I’ve heard about that you use to watch the entertaining production that was created from observations of Equestria?” said Twilight.

Maria sensed an oncoming tangent and cut it off. “Not exactly, but before we discuss that, I’d like to welcome you all to Earth and to our home.”

We went around the room with introductions. The Mane Six, the Princesses, Spike, Shining Armor, and Chrissy had come to visit. Considering that the big ones were about as tall as terrestrial ponies and the small ones were somewhere between that and the size of dogs, our living room had gotten crowded in a hurry.

“If we want them out of here ASAP, better keep the best pony fanboying to a minimum,” Maria muttered. She waded into the crowd to give me some breathing room. I found my glasses before they got crushed under somebody’s hoof and put them back on. All the better to see best-uh, diplomat.

With the fourteen of us all talking at once, it was difficult to get a word in edgewise about international relations. Chrissy seemed to be doing the best at running the conversation. She was the designated go-between for the ponies and the people, after all.

She hooked a hoof around my shoulder and pulled me to her side, raising her voice above the crowd. “After my experience with Sandy and his wife, I was thinking it would be just lovely for all of you to experience what they call ‘The Great American Roadtrip.’ It would be the perfect way to see the sights and learn more about the local population. I can recommend it.”

“Wait a second,” I managed to break in, “who’s driving?”

Chrissy smiled. “Why, you are, Sandy.”

“I don’t own a tour bus!”

“How about a clown car?” asked Pinkie.

“It doesn’t have to be all of them,” Chrissy said. “The background ponies can stay at home.”

Applejack started to say something, but Twilight cut in. “If anypony is going, I think Celestia should get the honor.”

“What about you, Twilight?” Celestia replied. “I know you were eager to learn.”

“How about me?” called Rainbow.

“You have wings, you can fly,” Twilight reminded her.

“Me? You’re the one who’s been gaining weight since getting wings!”

“That’s different!” Twilight fumed.

“Chrysalis has done this before. Perhaps she can make a suggestion,” contributed Rarity.

Shining remarked, “If space is limited, she can sit on my lap.”

“Shiny!” Cadance scolded.

“Please stop!” I called over the noise. “I don’t want to have to shove anyone in the trunk. I don’t think it will be possible to bring any of you.”

I looked at Chrissy. “You know that we don’t have enough space after what happened to my Plymouth. All we’ve got now is a tiny Italian car.”

Chrissy frowned. “That is a problem.” She grinned. “Doesn’t mean we can’t try, though.”

“What about the truck?” Maria asked.

“Better, but still not a large enough backseat for a pony,” I advised.

“I was thinking of using it to pull a livestock trailer,” she said.

There was about half a second of silence before everyone started shouting at once.

I usually counted on Maria to be the calm voice of reason, so when she stuck her foot in her mouth and left me as the responsible one, I was lost.

It was a liberal application of the Royal Canterlot Voice from Luna that finally brought things under control. “This is neither the time nor place for misunderstanding!”

In a calmer tone of voice she went on. “Cultural differences are to be expected. Equestrian ponies are not livestock. Please keep that in mind for the future.”

Maria looked like she wanted to protest that some livestock trailers could be pretty luxurious, but bit her tongue.

“Now then,” Luna said, “We all might be interested in inspecting this ‘tiny Italian car’ for ourselves to determine whether it meets our needs.”

Well, if they insisted. I led the crowd outside to a driveway meeting around said vehicle, a white Fiat 500. Rarity was immediately taken with it, which only confirmed my own feelings: the car was mostly ornamental.

The backseat was pretty much theoretical and the trunk was worse than that. The less-than-mighty 101 horsepower engine did manage to achieve 45 miles per gallon, but at the cost of any masculinity I had left.

The car looked even smaller parked next to the truck Maria used for her veterinary practice. The ponies shied away from the diesel pickup, probably not keen on the pasture mud and manure it was splattered with.

The ponies gathered around the car, some of them leaving noseprints on the windows. And sure enough, they came to the consensus that it was too small to meet their needs.

“But it’s so cute!”

I frowned. Yes, yes it was.

It was technically Maria’s car. And she liked it. It was also remarkably cheaper for me to live with an existing subcompact car than to locate, purchase, drive, and work on a hot rod. I never liked economics.

“You could always just teleport straight to Baltimore,” I suggested.

“Teleporting is not so simple,” Twilight advised.

Much as I desperately wanted to hear the science/magic behind teleportation straight from Twilight Sparkle’s brainy mouth, I replied, “If you can get yourselves to my house, I don’t know why going to another place on this planet would be hard.”

“We’d need a specified location to aim for,” Twilight said.

“Well, you found my house. Send Chrysalis to Baltimore and have her set up a beacon or something.”

Twilight considered that. “It makes sense. How did you come up with that? I didn’t think humans knew anything about magic.”

I shrugged, pleased with myself. “I pretty much just spout ideas until something sticks. It’s like my whole approach to life.”

Maria looked like she wanted to say something about that, but Celestia jumped in. “It sounds like a reasonable idea. We will see you at the convention. Please arrange for our arrival.”

“Who’s coming?” I asked.

“We four Princesses,” Celestia replied. “After introductions, further visits will be arranged.”

“Does anyone else know you’re coming? I might have some trouble convincing the convention staff to take me seriously. I write fiction, after all.”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Chrissy.

I nodded, but before I could ask another question there was a sudden beeping and a sharp clang.

Luna skittered back from the car, holding one hoof to her chest defensively. Meanwhile, the car alarm continued to honk.

“Is it always so standoffish?” she sniffed. “One touch provoked it.”

I walked around to the side, wincing as I spotted a hoof-shaped dent in the door. Apparently, Luna’s surprised reaction to setting off a car alarm had been to punch it.

I couldn’t really be angry at a princess from another world for not knowing about car alarms or her reaction to the surprise, but it was property damage that even Saxton Hale wouldn’t be pleased with on his car.

However, Twilight was prepared. “I can fix it!”

With a quick shot of magic, the dent popped out and the paint smoothed over.

I touched the spot. “Wow, thanks. It looks good as new.”

The car alarm was still going off, though. Before Twilight tried to fix that, Celestia decided, “We should return soon. It will take time to prepare.”

“Well, thanks for coming,” I said. “See you later.”

I sounded way more casual than I expected. Huh, maybe ponies really were that easy to befriend.

We said our goodbyes over the beeping horn and they all, save for Chrissy, disappeared into thin air.

“See you next week,” she said.

I said goodbye and went to get the key fob to shut off the alarm. As usual, I pressed the wrong button and the key popped out of the fob like a switchblade. I found the correct button on the second try.

After Maria and I got everything settled down, we sat back down on the couch in the living room. The cake we’d made had disappeared at some point, but there was little else to indicate we’d been visited by otherworldly ponies.

“Sounds like big things are afoot,” I commented. “This is really going to happen.”

Maria picked up the TV remote. “Let’s just use ponies to forget our problems, like normal people.”

I couldn’t argue with that, although it was difficult not to consider the implications. This might be the beginning of a fundamental paradigm shift in government and society, and at such a visible event like BronyCon.

The revolution would be televised.

Or so I thought.

Maria looked at me. “We're still bringing the guns, right?”

I nodded. “All of them.”

Author's Note

This chapter edited by nothingtoseehere and Themaskedferret

This story is fiction, but the roadtrip I'm taking with my wife is real. Even I don't know how it's going to go, but come along on this adventure and let's find out.

Chapter 2

August 3, 2015
Packing for a roadtrip is easy. Gather all the things that you’ll need for the length of time you’ll be gone, and then see what fits in the car. Even with the Fiat, that wasn’t too difficult. Maria and I had only budgeted for a week. It would still be a nice vacation for the both of us.

That is, if it wasn’t going to be so tense.

I’d heard reports that the Maryland National Guard was setting up a perimeter around the convention center in Baltimore. The last couple of years had been pretty negative for MLP conventions, what with the attacks.

The government was still reluctant to admit that Earth had been visited more than once by changelings looking for love in all the wrong places.

And so Maria and I went prepared: clothes, camera, kit.

Maria’s shotgun, my rifle, and both our handguns fit nicely behind the front seats. With the rear seats folded down, our bags covered the stockpile.

I don’t know why Maria’s father had needed a stockless 870, but she sure was handy with the inherited shotgun. Her P229, as well. Not that I was a slouch with my 1911 or homebuilt AR-15, mind you.

From a logistics standpoint, it would have been easier if we didn’t have to deal with four different kinds of ammunition, but if we needed more than we brought, we had bigger problems.

Speaking of bringing our own, we needed to stop at a grocery store on the way out of town and pick up bottled water, fresh fruits and vegetables, almonds, raisins, and granola bars. For the three days we planned to be on the road and the weekend of the convention, it should be enough for plenty of snacks.

After loading the suitcases into the car, I went back to the house to take a last look around. Maria snapped her fingers in memory. “Oh right, I meant to restock the traveling first aid kit.”

“We still have time,” I said.

She shrugged. “I’ll just get the all-purpose bag out of the truck. The needles might be a little larger, but anyone who needs them won’t be complaining.”

She grabbed the all-purpose large-animal-and-apparently-people medical duffel bag out of her truck and transferred it to the car.

The two of us got into the front seat and buckled up. I felt the slight twinge of excitement that always came with the beginning of a long trip.

Heading to Baltimore would be easy once we found our way to major highways, but to get there from our home in the upper peninsula of Michigan took some doing. We could cross the bridge at Mackinaw or drive down and around via Chicago. Or, as I managed to convince Maria, we could ride the ferry across the lake between Manitowoc, Wisconsin and Ludington, Michigan.

We made our way along, following the scenic routes because we had time. We traced the Ohio River into the Appalachians. The eastern mountains aren’t as high as the Rockies, but the roads can be tighter.

For me, roadtrips are all about the experience of seeing something new. Our world is so diverse that you can travel for a day and find a completely different biome.

We rolled into Baltimore on the evening of the 6th. Convention-goers were already everywhere. They were easy to spot.

By chance, I ran into my old friend Gary Oak, who’d I’d last seen at a convention in Seattle two years before. He introduced me to his fellow Canadian, Rianna Parks. They both looked as happy to be in Maryland as any Canadians had since they burned the White House during the War of 1812.

I’m exaggerating. But in case I’m not, USS Constellation was tied to the pier one block from the convention center.

After a few hellos, Gary pulled me to the side for a quick word. “So, did you hear anything weird about this convention?”

“Yes, but please define weird.”

“Well...Queen Chrysalis visited me and told me that I was supposed to organize a slot for the royalty of Equestria to announce themselves to Earth.”

“Yeah, that’s supposed to happen. Need help?”

He waved his hand. “No, I already sorted it out. We announced it as a special tier of ticket prices. On the website, it says anyone who pays the extra price gets to be personal attendant to a Princess of Equestria. Of course, there’s already people jumping at it and they don’t even know we’re serious.”

“Nice. You guys have the money game figured out like Hasbro.”

Gary winced at the name, but begrudgingly admitted it. “Yeah. I had a long talk with Chrissy. She told me the comics and Equestria Girls aren’t canon, Hasbro just made them up for the money. It still doesn’t answer the question of how they are involved with a show about ponies who turned out to be real and living in another world.”

I shrugged. “Faust willing, maybe we’ll find out eventually.”

We went back to where Maria was talking to Rianna, about contact lenses for horses of all things. I would have asked where that came from, when Chrissy suddenly appeared at my elbow. With cosplay that good, it couldn’t be anyone else.

“Sandy, will you be attending the annual BronyCon BarCrawl?” She grinned, everything from the top of her head to the bottom of her spike heels glittering green and black.

“Do you think that’s a good idea with the whole make-sure-the-princesses-have-a-good-time-and-a-productive-diplomatic-session thing going on? Also, for you, wouldn’t it be a bartrot?”

“If he doesn’t go, I will,” volunteered Gary.

Chrissy took his arm. “Perfect.”

“We’ll be back,” said Gary. “Maybe. Time to put on some beer goggles.”

Chrissy winked at me. “Time to take advantage of people putting on beer goggles.”

I shook my head as the two of them walked away. If scientists ever discovered slut-powered energy, she’d be a perpetual motion machine.

Maria and I checked into our hotel. I went out again to meet up with some friends and pass out a few of my custom business cards. It never hurts to get ahead of things.

Apparently Luna had the same idea. She was in my hotel room when I got back.

Author's Note

Special thanks to GaryOak and Themaskedferret

Chapter 3

August 6, 2015
“Uh, hello, princess.”

Luna looked away from the conversation she’d been having with Maria. “There you are. I require your assistance.”

“What do you need?”

“I am unable to locate your friend Gary.”

Oh boy. Maria and I traded glances. She said, “I have no idea where he went with Chrysalis.” She looked impatient, as if it wasn’t the first time she’d explained that.

“Yeah,” I agreed, shrugging for Luna. “It’s not really my scene.”

“But we must fetch him,” Luna insisted. “Celestia’s first panel is tomorrow bright and early. Mine, Cadance’s, and Twilight’s follow it. They must go perfectly.”

I raised my hands. “Hey, I’m sure they will. BronyCon seems well-run. They’d drop everything for you.”

“We cannot leave anything to chance,” Luna pressed. “This is perhaps the biggest event in the history of either of our worlds.”

Well, since she put it that way. “Okay. I’ll try to find him.”

I headed out the door, walking down the hallway to the elevator. I pushed the button and waited, surprised to see Luna step up beside me. I hadn’t heard her hooves on the carpet.

We stood there together, the muzak playing lightly. I shoved my hands into my pockets. She shifted her hooves.

The door opened and I stepped into the elevator. Luna followed me in, carefully turning around.

I pushed the button for the lobby and asked her, “Which floor?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Out in public? I thought you wanted to introduce ponies tomorrow.”

“I have an incognito spell. It comes with being Princess of the Night. If I am not expected, then I may as well be invisible.”

Her horn lit up, and a soft blue glow enveloped her body, fading after a few seconds.

“I can still see you.”

She tossed a look at me. “Because you were expecting me.”

“So people won’t notice you’re there until you call attention to yourself?”

“Precisely.”

The elevator door dinged open and we stepped out into the hotel lobby. Sure enough, nobody seemed to see Luna. Well, they walked around her, but paid her no more attention than if she’d been a potted plant.

I pulled out my phone and looked up the nearest bars. Luna stared at the device with interest, though when I glanced at her, she looked away.

“There’s an Irish pub across the street and most restaurants around have bars. It might be a long search.”

“Then we had best begin.”

I led her to the crosswalk and waited for the light to change. She stood at my side, glancing around, perhaps somewhat impatiently.

We crossed the street. I looked at the other people crossing with us. It was so freaky how I was leading a midnight blue alicorn with a sparkly mane and polished jewelry around downtown Baltimore and nobody seemed to care.

We walked through the Irish place, but Gary and Chrissy weren’t there. Out back, Luna paused, staring at the wooden sailing ship at the wharf.

“Good old ship there,” I said. “It’s named Constellation.”

“It looks respectable enough.”

We crossed to the next block where the World War Two submarine USS Torsk was also a museum.

“What in the world is that?” Luna asked. “It’s such a sleek ship, though still nothing compared to cars.”

Well, sleek compared to a wooden frigate, I suppose. “It’s a seventy-year-old submarine.”

Before Luna could ask, I spotted Gary, Chrissy, and a crowd (herd?) of colorfully-dressed others coming out of a bar. I pushed into the crowd and got Gary’s attention. His breath had at least a few drinks on it. “Hey, I need you for some business.”

He grinned. “Oh, hey Sandy, I was just thinking about something. You drive a Fiat. You’re always complaining about it. But you know what Fiat stands for, right? Fix it again, Tony.” He frowned, as if suddenly remembering something.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I need you to come with me.”

Reluctantly, he disengaged. Chrissy gave me a wave and went with the crowd of others, who were displaying various levels of subtlety in ogling her.

“What do you want?” Gary asked.

“Here’s Luna,” I said, gesturing at the mare beside me.

Gary blinked. “Oh. Where did you come from?”

“It’s a spell,” she explained. “You don’t see me if you don’t expect me.”

I nodded. “Anyway, ‘Ol Spanish Inquisition here needs your help.”

Gary sobered up as we walked back to the hotel and Luna explained her requirements. She seemed to be getting what she wanted, so I left them and went back to the room.

“Did you get things sorted out?” Maria asked as I returned.

“Yep. Let’s hope that’s the last we hear of it.”

Ordinarily, that phrase would be a jinx. But with four princesses around, I figured we had less to worry about in terms of invasions or otherwise.

The next day, the convention kicked off. Ten thousand bronies converged on Baltimore. It was pretty close to the mother of all parties and I was pumped. My previous convention experiences had been great, well, at least the parts that hadn’t been terrifying.

I didn’t see any signs of conflict, invasion, or anything else as Maria and I walked to the convention center. Opening ceremonies went well. Afterwards, we stayed in our seats. The Mane Stage was the largest room in the center, and this would undoubtedly be the place the announcement was made.

A couple of minutes went by. A few reporters, brony press and otherwise, filtered into the room. Cameras were set up. A few people with administrator-level badges appeared. Nobody really seemed to know what was going on, except that something big would be happening.

I checked the time and saw that it was getting close to the top of the hour. Anticipation building, we waited. Nothing happened.

Maria and I glanced at each other. The door opened and I saw Luna walk in. I was the only one who seemed to notice.

She looked around the room. It seemed like she was searching for something or someone and not having any success.

I suddenly had a bad feeling.

Chapter 4

August 7, 2015
Luna came over, seriousness etched on her face. “Sandy, I cannot locate the others.”

“What do you mean, Luna?”

As I said her name, Maria gave a little jump, suddenly realizing the princess was standing there. I guessed that was going to be a common thing.

“Celestia was supposed to be at this event,” said Luna, gesturing to the stage. “In addition, I could not locate Cadance or Twilight.”

“What could have happened?” I asked.

“I have felt a mysterious energy coming from below. We must investigate.”

“What happened to Gary or any of the other coordinators?” I said.

“They are missing. You are the only one I could locate, Sandy.”

Well, if she insisted. Nervously, I got up. So did Maria. Neither of us was armed, but I did feel safer with her beside me. We went with Luna.

She stared with suspicion at the escalators to the lower floors before spreading her wings and gliding down. Maria and I hurried after her.

We went down four floors. I thought I felt a rumbling beneath my feet.

“Quickly,” urged Luna. “They must be close.”

We passed a sign for Exhibit Hall G: Hoof Beatz’s Underground Jam. By now, I could feel the rumbling.

“Luna, wait-”

She slammed open the door and we were assaulted by electronic music, lasers, and smoke. And in the middle of it all were three princesses and about a thousand bronies.

Luna stopped mid-charge, her jaw dropping.

There was a record skip and the music came to an abrupt halt. Celestia glanced around. “Aha, there’s Luna!”

The entire room turned to look and broke into a thunderous cheer over the latest guest.

Well, if that was how it was going to go, we waded in. Raves really weren't mine or Maria's scene, but it was a good place to people- and pony-watch.

Luna still seemed a little miffed. Apparently everyone had assumed someone else had told her about the party.

That was understandable. They were all focused on Oh em gee, ponies aye ar ell!

Hours later, the news was echoing around the world. Ponies were in fact real; they were visiting Baltimore, USA; and Twilight was just as terrible a dancer as the show showed.

When we came out of the convention center that evening, the place was ringed with barriers and bystanders. Some had come to see the princesses, some were there to protest against aliens, some were handing out mixtapes. Sure enough, the National Guard had shown up to stand between them and us.

The princesses stepped out of the convention center, though kept close to the doors. They waved diplomatically. Some people cheered. Some hurled slurs.

A photographer who had credentials or had otherwise gotten on the this side of the barrier raised a camera. I started to move out of the way, but he was too quick in snapping the picture, the flash blinding me.

And that was the photo that went on the front cover of the next day’s Baltimore Sun: the four royal ponies looking graceful and poised, and me in the foreground wearing a derp face.

The internet picked it up. I became memes. People learned my name and I was bombarded on all sides with requests for interviews, comments on my work, and questions on my fetishes.

That only took like two hours.

The next day at the convention, I was a little more horse famous than before. I guess I was okay with that, but it was a strange feeling being recognized on sight. Apparently the newspaper had sold the photo and it was being used on everything from CNN to Buzzfeed.

That only took like four hours.

I became dank memes. Fame sucks.

I went to a few panels, but it was getting weird. People were following me around. I saw the princesses in passing. At least they had larger crowds.

By Sunday night, I’d pretty much barricaded myself in the hotel room. I’d stopped checking my messages because it was nothing I wanted to hear. Maria brought me takeout and I watched TV.

At least we would be on our way back home in the morning. Then I’d only have to deal with friends and coworkers making fun of me. This sudden revelation about the whole MLP thing was something I had been denying for a while. In public, I've always pretended that I'm totally not a brony.

As I lay on the bed like a potato, I turned my head to check the time, rolling back to look at the TV. Adult Swim was on. Robot Chicken was making fun of MLP.

I’m not going to lie, I was kinda getting kind of tired of ponies.

So when there was a frantic hammering on the door, followed by whoever it was giving up and just blowing it open, I was not thrilled to learn that it was Luna.

Of course, I was a little surprised by the whole splintered door thing and jumped up from the bed screaming expletives and waving around my 1911.

Hey, you can’t blame me. I was on edge. Besides, Maria totally responded the same way.

Luna was apparently on a mission and also had absolutely no idea what handguns were. She got straight to the point. “I require your assistance immediately!”

Maria and I traded glances. “With what?” I said.

Someone from a nearby room poked their head around the door frame. Luna glanced over her shoulder and slammed the door. I thought I heard a vague “Ow!” from the other side.

Luna crossed the room to us, her voice coming down, but the intensity still on her face. “Celestia has gone missing.”

“Where did she go?” I asked.

“If I knew, I would not be here!”

Pow, right in the kisser. I cringed. “Okay, what do you want us to do? Don’t you have some sort of tracking spell? Can’t Twilight and Cadance help?”

“The spell failed and the others have gone home,” Luna replied. “Though not in that order. They two returned to enable further negotiations while I stayed to search for Celestia assuming she had slept late with no solar duties to attend to on this planet. However, her room was empty and I do not believe it was without foul play, for you see, the bedcovers were tousled and towels were all over the bathing room!”

“I’d be surprised if she didn’t sleep in the bed or take a shower,” Maria deadpanned.

“Yeah, maybe the maid service just hadn’t been there yet,” I added.

Luna’s eyes cut back and forth, considering it. “But where could my sister have gone?!”

That was a problem. “Let me see if I can find out.”

At least my sudden huge influx of internet attention came with, well, attention. I posted a blog asking if anyone had recently seen Celestia. Within a minute, I had a whole lot of nopes from people all over Baltimore.

“Well, I can tell you where she isn’t,” I said.

Luna glowered at me. “If she was nearby, the location spell would have worked. I know she isn’t here.”

“Alright, but if you can’t find her, what do you want us to do? You know your sister better than I do.”

Luna took a breath. “We cannot allow her disappearance to affect the politics of the meeting of the two worlds. We must find her - quickly! - without involving your government or mine.”

“Can we tell Cadance and Twilight?”

Luna paused, but shook her head. “Let us not worry them just yet. They have important business.”

“Okay, but you still haven’t answered the question. What do we do?”

Luna hesitated again, and Maria suggested, “What about taking a look at her room?”

Well, at the least it would feel like we were doing something and maybe reassure Luna. We left our room. I grimaced at the way the lock was torn out of the door. “Hey, who’s paying for your stay here? Any chance they could put this on their bill?”

“You’re worried about money at a time like this?” Luna glared.

“Well excuse me, princess, I only have a limited supply.”

The condescension in my voice either went over her head or she was too focused to notice.

The princesses had been given a block of rooms on a different floor. We made it to Celestia’s without anyone seeing us. That was fine with me.

The room was slept in and bathed in. I glanced around and then leaned against the wall and crossed my arms. Maria, who watched a lot of CSI, at least made the effort of carefully looking around.

I took my phone out of my pocket and checked my blog again. And then I dropped it and it broke.

Maria heard the screen shatter and looked at me.

I said, “Someone spotted her in Philadelphia. With Tirek.” Only I said it with a whole lot of panicked flailing.

Chapter 5

August 9, 2015
“We must rescue my sister!”

I crossed the room. “I’m going to call the cops. Surely they know how to call someone in Philadelphia who can do something.”

I picked the phone up, but Luna slapped it back down with magic. “The police must not be involved. We must do this ourselves.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“A disturbance like this in the middle of diplomatic negotiations could spell disaster,” Luna warned. “If we can handle this quietly, then we will.”

“But Tirek,” I said. “That kind of shoots down quiet. How did he even get here?”

Luna stuttered. “I-I do not know. With four princesses away from Equestria, he may have pressed some unknown advantage. How he managed to capture Celestia or what he plans to do, I do not know. But we must stop him.”

“How? If he has Celestia’s power, you can’t match him.”

Luna gave me a look and - Princess of the Moon or not - it felt like I was staring at the sun from a distance of about six inches. “Do not tell me what I cannot do. What do you know of it?”

“I’m just saying that I would be a whole lot more comfortable with tanks and machine guns going after Tirek. I know you want to help Celestia, but the last time you fought him you weren't sure you could beat him with all the princesses.”

“We still have time,” Luna insisted. “There is no magic here on Earth for him to grow stronger by absorbing. And I am no weakling. Do not forget that one thousand years ago, Celestia required the Elements of Harmony to defeat Nightmare Moon.”

“And you aren’t Nightmare Moon,” I pointed out. “You’re concerned about Celestia, and trying to prevent Tirek from harming anyone else. That puts you on the defensive, and what happens if you can’t defeat him? Does he take Earth? Does he absorb your power and return to Equestria to claim it too?”

Luna’s teeth were clenched, but she wasn’t trying to burn a hole in my face anymore. “But we cannot do nothing!”

“So let me call the freaking army.”

Luna hesitated, and then asked, “How long does it take to travel to Philadelphia?”

“From Baltimore? I don’t know, an hour or two?”

“Then Sandy, please trust me. We must go. If I can handle the situation, I will. If not, well, we may end up needing an army anyway.”

“Jesus,” I muttered and glanced at Maria.

She shook her head. “If that’s really Tirek, if Celestia is really in danger, we need to get them help now, not an hour from now. For all we know, whoever saw them might have already called the cops. I agree with Sandy, this isn’t a job for us.”

Luna looked at the floor. “Then call.”

I picked up the phone again and dialed 911. “Hello, I need to report, uh…”

Well, what was I supposed to say? I went with “...someone in danger.”

“Where is this?” asked the operator.

“Philadelphia.”

They paused, then asked, “How do you know they are in danger?”

“I saw it on the internet.”

“Where did you see this?”

“It was a comment on my blog. There was a link to where people were talking about it on Twitter.”

“Who is in danger?”

“Princess Celestia, you know, one of the ponies who came to our world the other day? One of the baddest evil villains from their world showed up here and-”

“Sir, is this a serious call?”

“Yes! This is absolutely serious!”

“I’m going to transfer you to Philadelphia police.”

There was a click and a few rings. The next operator picked up.

“Hello, I need to report something. Princess Celestia, one of the ponies that just appeared in our world, was kidnapped by Tirek, a villain from Equestria-”

“Sir, do you know the penalty for filing a false police report?”

“It’s not false!”

“Do you have evidence that what you say is true?”

“I saw it on my blog.”

“Do you have credible evidence?”

I dropped my cellphone in shock when I’d seen the headline. I hadn’t had the chance to read anything further.

“Please, just look into this. Princess Celestia has been kidnapped by Tirek and is in Philadelphia.”

“Look kid, you are by far not the first person to call about ponies today. And you know what? None of those stories have played out. Don’t call again.” The call disconnected.

“Do they not believe you?” Luna asked as I stared at the dead phone.

“They thought it was a prank call.”

“The police will not help?” Luna’s breathing started to take off again.

“Well, they did make a really good point,” I said. “All I know is one headline I saw. Maybe I was the one being pranked.”

“Celestia is not here,” Luna snapped. “Regardless of where she is or whether Tirek has indeed kidnapped her, she may be in trouble and I must find her!”

“Well, let’s go back to our room and I’ll search the internet with my computer.”

Her glare returned. “Oh, now that you aren't so sure that my sister has been kidnapped by a dangerous monster you’re willing to help?”

“It’s not like that…”

“You are a fair-weather friend,” she declared. “I will be going to look for Celestia myself.”

“Hey wait, we can at least tell you were to start!” I stepped forward but she shoved me with a wing. With a look, she said, “You’ve already refused to help.”

Ducking her head, she rushed out of the room before I could say anything else.

Maria and I traded a glance.

“Well, with a guilt trip like that, I guess we can’t stop now,” she observed.

“Yeah, but I don’t think Luna does subtle,” I said. “She’s probably going to go to Philadelphia now.”

Maria was already headed for the door. “Let’s work fast.”

We ran back to the room and I grabbed my laptop while Maria stuffed clothes in suitcases. Within two minutes, I had what I needed, and it wasn’t what I wanted to see. There were no pictures, but enough people had reported seeing Celestia accompanying another quadrupedal creature. Some that hadn’t seen them still reported seeing strange lights or flashes.

I ran off a rough location on a scrap of hotel paper and threw the laptop into a bag. We had our stuff downstairs to the car and our keys back to the front desk in a matter of minutes.

Despite our rush, the hour was already late and it was nearly eleven p.m. by the time we were rolling. Pulling to the exit of the parking garage, I looked right and left. “Where do you think she went?”

“Maybe try the convention center?” Maria suggested.

I didn’t have a better idea. We headed that direction. A group of bronies were still hanging around, despite closing ceremonies having concluded the convention hours earlier.

I rolled down the window and shouted, “Did anyone see Luna a few minutes ago?”

A British voice replied, “She went that way!”

I’d heard all kinds of accents around the convention. Lovely that so many people from all walks of life could come together over a common interest.

But that wasn’t important right now. I followed the indicated direction and drove down the street. Luna was in front of the Ripley’s Believe it or Not! in the plaza, consulting a large marble globe in a fountain.

I threw the car into park at the curb and ran towards her. Maria thoughtfully put on the hazard lights.

Luna looked up as I arrived. She was still glaring, I noticed. It didn’t help that the globe didn’t have any cities listed.

“We want to help,” I said.

She looked at me. I didn’t try to hide my heaving breaths. “You will take me to Philadelphia?”

“Right.”

Luna held her poise for a moment longer and then bolted for the car, me right behind her.

Unfortunately, when she got there, getting in wasn’t so simple. Maria tried to help, but getting the passenger seat slid far enough forward to enable an alicorn to get into the back seat was a difficult proposition, particularly since said pony had no idea how to sit in a car.

But we were all in a hurry and pulled away from the curb with Luna still thrashing in the back seat. She told us to, in fact.

The rough address I had figured went into an old Garmin Maria programmed. With my phone out of action, it was all we had for navigation. Maria didn’t believe in smartphones, and I was starting to wish I had bought her one for Christmas anyway.

The paper atlas on the dashboard could help, but couldn’t pick out specific neighborhoods of a city. We followed the small glowing screen of the GPS as it led us out of town.

“How fast are we going?” Luna grunted.

“As fast as I dare,” I said, white-knuckled at the wheel. The wheels hammered over the road, which in downtown Baltimore, was worse than can be described with words.

Swinging onto the interstate, the ride improved. I still had to cut through traffic, but at least they were going most of our speed.

Luna had managed to get her head between the front seats and stared ahead. The taillights in front and the headlights of the opposing lanes seemed to mesmerize her for a moment. Realizing we had a ways to go, she composed herself. “I want to thank you for doing this.”

I wanted to say something poetic in reply. Some quip that would make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal and that we hadn’t been terrible people a little earlier in the night.

Maria beat me to it. “Someone had to.”

“I would have done it alone,” Luna said, apparently reading too much into it.

Maria had the good sense to drop it. I really didn’t need an argument when I was trying to concentrate on simultaneously speeding like the devil and not getting us caught or killed.

From the place in Baltimore where we started to the place in Philadelphia where we ended up, it was a little less than one hundred miles. We made the trip in a little more than an hour.

I was sweating and shaking by the time we got there. It took a second to get my knuckles to unclench from the steering wheel. While we still didn’t know where Celestia and Tirek were, we were close.

I saw a blue glow in the mirror. Luna raised her head, eyes closed and magic working. She tapped me on the shoulder with a hoof. “Take the next street.”

I made the turn. “How far are we?”

“I am not too sure. The direction is steady, however.”

We drove a few more blocks and Luna had me turn again.

In the passenger seat, Maria had her pistol uncocked but in her hand. My eyes were twitching back and forth, prying the shadows for any detail.

“We’re close,” Luna breathed, suspense thick in her voice.

We took another corner. Bright lights up ahead illuminated a building with a huge staircase out front. I blinked. “Is that-”

There was a flash and a pillar of red light flew from the top of the stairs towards the heavens. Luna jerked and pawed at the window. I saw two four-legged figures zoom skyward in the light, and then it - and they - were gone.

“That was them…” Luna whimpered.

“Where did they go?”

“I...I don’t know.”

Author's Note

Thanks to Suke

Chapter 6

August 11, 2015
If Maria and I weren’t already trying to get out of the car, I think Luna might have broken a window trying to struggle free. Not that she would have fit through the tiny windows in the Fiat.

We ran up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum, and probably faster than Stallone could have done it. There was no trace of Celestia or Tirek.

Nobody paid us any mind. People were always running up the steps. I’d once heard that busloads of tourists would visit the museum and never even step inside.

Luna was breathing hard and twitching her head around. Whatever she was looking for, she wasn’t finding it. The late night – I checked my watch – correction, early morning was quiet and dark.

“They were here,” Luna said, perhaps unnecessarily. “I do not know to where they have teleported.”

“How far could they have gone?” I asked.

“It depends on many factors, though teleportation spells do not typically have superior range,” Luna said. “Add to that factors concerning Tirek’s ability – he is using borrowed magic, we are in an unfamiliar place – and it could have been short indeed.”

“But why Philly?” I said. “Could he have been aiming specifically for this museum? Or is he trying to get somewhere else and just happened to stop here along the way due to the short range of the spell?”

“I wouldn’t call a hundred miles short,” said Maria.

I nodded in acknowledgement. Luna, meanwhile, was scouring the area, head lowered and horn glowing.

“There is some residual energy here,” she muttered. “I can feel Celestia, and I can feel Tirek’s influence. Perhaps now that I know what I need to seek out, I can improve my spell.”

“Anything you need?” I asked.

Luna’s stomach growled so loudly that I heard it from where I was standing. Maria and I hadn’t eaten since dinner the previous night and being awake another few hours made it about time for another meal.

She ignored her stomach and tried the spell. After what appeared to be a few fizzles, she shook her head. “I cannot locate them.”

“What’s the recharge time on magic?” I asked. “You’ve done that spell a few times already tonight.”

“With some time to rest, perhaps I would have more success,” Luna acknowledged, though reluctantly. Her previous hard-charging attitude was still there.

“Let’s get something to eat and we’ll go from there,” Maria said.

Where we were going to take a pony to eat at one in the morning was a good question. We discovered the nearest Walmart was closed. I was a little peeved. Where I’m from, the Walmarts don’t close at night. Freaking east coast. With a little driving around we found a 24-hour grocery store.

At the hotel, Luna had apparently learned not to be too skittish around automatic doors, though her first steps onto the tile of the grocery store were hesitant but curious.

The lights in the back of the store were dimmed, and a few people were stocking the shelves from boxes spread through the aisles. One bored cashier was at their station.

We hit the fresh produce aisle. Not only did it contain things we figured Luna would eat, it was the easiest place to find food that didn’t need much preparation. Also, the bakery was nearby. I think we would all agree that nothing satisfies like donuts after a hard night.

Luna spotted the “meat” sign a few aisles over and pointedly looked away. I decided I probably should not buy jerky for the road.

We got a small collection of fruits, vegetables, baked goods, and bottled water. At the checkout, the cashier glanced at me, and then did a double take. “Hey, didn’t I see you somewhere?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said with as straight a face as I could muster.

“Yeah, I know you! You’re Sandy West! I saw you on the news.”

I continued to deny it all the way out the door. There are some things that you just don’t need to deal with in the wee hours of the morning.

Back at the car, we had to figure out how to fit the food into the trunk and back seat around Luna and our bags. Now that we didn’t have a pressing destination in mind, she minded the accommodations a little more.

“This contraption is entirely unsuited for a pony of my stature,” she pointed out as Maria slid the front seat forward for Luna to climb into the back.

“It isn’t very large,” I agreed. “We might gain some space by folding down the rear seats to create a larger cargo area combined with the trunk.”

It took some doing, but we managed to create a fairly flat area for Luna to lie between our suitcases. The headroom was still limited, but so far she had managed to avoid poking holes in the headliner with her horn. As a bonus, she could now get in through the rear hatch.

“It is still a very small conveyance,” she noted, getting comfortable and digging into the carrots. They were unwashed, but she didn’t seem to mind. At least she chewed with her mouth closed, but the crunching was conspicuous.

Speaking of conspicuous, after the cashier had recognized me, I realized that we might have a problem, especially if I had to go out in broad daylight. Rooting through my luggage, I found the battery powered clippers I used to stay suave. There in the parking lot of a random grocery store in Philadelphia in the middle of the night, Maria gave me a haircut.

She was no salon expert, but getting rid of the signature mohawk I had worn for years was a big step in changing my look. The other thing was ditching the glasses, and I had a plan for that.

When we got back in the car, Luna had fallen asleep with a piece of carrot still sticking out of her mouth.

“Should we wake her?” I whispered.

“If she’s that tired, she probably still won’t be able to cast the spell,” Maria noted.

It was a good point. Maria grabbed a travel blanket and spread it across us in the front seat. Luna, with fur and feathers, and insulated between our luggage, looked warm enough. She was a lot cuter when not freaking out.

Getting to sleep wasn’t the easiest thing in the car, not to mention thinking about Celestia and Tirek. However, coming down off an adrenalin rush, I managed to drift off to sleep eventually.

I woke up a couple hours later to someone knocking on the window. Rianna Parks, from the convention, was outside. I got out of the car and closed the door quietly.

“I got your message,” she said. “What’s so important?”

“I knew you’d be on your way back north, and you have something I need.”

She glanced at my shorn hair and Luna still sleeping in the backseat. “I can only imagine.”

“I need some contact lenses.”

“How do you know I have those?”

“I heard you talking to my wife about vision the other day. Plus, I spotted you at the convention wearing more pairs of glasses than I can count. I figured you were some sort of optometrist.”

“Well, an unlicensed optometrist.”

I stared at her. “How’s that work?”

“Well, you’ve heard of unlicensed pharmacists?”

I hesitated, but decided I didn’t want to know. Rianna asked my prescription and produced a set of contacts from her bag.

I took off my glasses and tried them on. It wasn’t my style – I wore the glasses for a reason – but if I was trying to go incognito it would have to do.

“Thanks, what do I owe you?”

She smiled. “Don’t worry about it.”

We parted with a brohoof and I got back in the car. Luna made a noise and groggily raised her head. She blinked, looking around at the brightening morning sky. She immediately jerked full awake. “What time is it?!”

“Almost six,” I replied.

Her face went through a few shades of what I guessed were embarrassment, horror, and anger. “Why did you not wake me?!”

Maria bonked her head on the window as she was awakened by the Royal Canterlot Voice. My own ears were ringing as I touched the side of her head before turning to Luna. “We decided you needed your rest. You couldn’t cast the spell last night when you were tired.”

Luna held my look for a moment before composing herself. “Very well, I will attempt to cast it now.”

She closed her eyes and concentrated, magic coming off her horn. Her mouth quirked a little and she turned her head slightly. “I think…yes!”

Her eyes opened and she pointed excitedly. “That direction!”

Maria opened the glovebox and pulled out a brass compass that we had gotten at a nautical gift shop. It was cheap, but it worked. Luna seized it and watched the needle spin. “Northeast!”

I started the car.

Chapter 7

August 12, 2015
New York had been a bust. By midmorning when we dove into downtown traffic, the spell signal had already faded. We’d sat there in a traffic jam with Luna growing more and more agitated in the backseat.

Breaking free of the city by the afternoon, Luna had tried the spell again and come up empty.

With no better destination in mind, we’d continued northeast, perhaps in the vain hope that Tirek was working in that direction for some reason. If he’d jumped to Philadelphia, then NYC, the next place looked like Hartford, Connecticut, or Boston.

There was not much discussion in the car after the second failure. We just drove, and ended up on the outskirts of Boston that night.

The next morning, we sat. The hotel’s check out policy was 11 am, so we had a while before being forced to vacate or pay for another night.

Luna looked rough. It must have taken a lot of upkeep to preserve her princess air. Even with her rumpled coat and wings, her eyes looked worse, hollow and haunted.

Maria and I were quietly looking at the atlas and plotting courses back home. I only had so much vacation time, and Maria’s veterinary business always had customers dependent on her. We decided that if this wasn’t wrapped up by the end of the day, we’d have to find a way to tell Luna.

“If we don’t have anything to do but wait, we might try seeing the city,” Maria suggested.

“How can you think of tourism at a time like this?” Luna asked.

“Well, what are we supposed to do?” I said. “We can’t do anything until Tirek pops up again.”

“We must remain vigilant. We cannot afford to relax. Are you losing your resolve so soon?”

Maria and I probably shouldn’t have glanced at each other just then. Luna got up off her bed and approached. “Do not tell me that this has become too arduous already?”

“Well, we aren’t supposed to be here,” I said. “By now, we were supposed to be on our way back home.”

“So this is inconvenient for you? The fate of my sister is ruining your vacation?”

Kind of, yes. “We can’t do this for too much longer. We can’t drop everything. We have jobs. We have commitments.”

“And is my sister not more important?!”

I could throw away my job and whatever money it cost to keep up the search, without any guarantee that we would be successful and rescue Celestia. Maria might be better off, running her own business, but her bank account was tied to mine.

“Is money more valuable to you than a life?” Luna snarled. “Fine, then.”

With a pop, a bar of gold materialized in the air and fell on my foot. I yelped and jerked back. From research I had once done for a story, I knew the average gold brick weighed about twenty five pounds.

“Where did you get this?” Maria asked, staring at the gleaming gold, embossed with the royal seal.

“And wouldn’t you like to know?” said Luna. “Though if it should cost more, I would pay any price for Celestia’s safe return.”

My foot didn’t seem broken. I picked up the brick. “At current prices, this is worth about half a million dollars. Well, maybe less since we’d have to find someone on the black market to avoid suspicion, but still…”

I hated to accept it and confirm Luna’s idea that we were terrible people, but that was more than enough money for me to quit my job and become a professional Celestia-rescuer.

“Okay,” I said, “But now that hotels, food, and gasoline are covered, we still don’t have a plan. Why can’t you ask the other princesses or the Elements of Harmony for help? Surely they’re wondering where Celestia is by now.”

“You are my help,” said Luna. “And I expect you to spare no effort.”

“Do you want your sister found or not?” Maria said. “You want a veterinarian and a government building inspector to locate and rescue a magic princess from another world from an evil villain.”

“We three are the best option,” Luna argued. “Tirek does not know that we are in pursuit. Bringing in others could jeopardize our surprise.”

That was a point, but I was still far from confident. “Couldn’t you at least tell them what’s going on and caution them about rushing in?”

“You know Twilight Sparkle,” said Luna.

“Okay, yeah, but even if things go bad, she and the others can fix it.”

“We will do this my way,” said Luna. “With Celestia indisposed, I am the leader.”

“And leaders have subordinates to give them advice,” I retorted.

Luna stared at me. “Noted.”

If we weren’t going to do anything else, Maria and I took advantage of the downtime to watch Netflix on my laptop. Luna brooded on the other side of the room.

“Arguing with her is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick,” Maria muttered. I laughed.

We were a little too soon in relaxing, however. Luna’s head shot up. “There they are!”

We instantly flew into action, throwing things into bags and rushing out of the room. Using the compass, we determined the direction of the day was west, and zoomed off down the highway.

Springfield was in western Massachusetts, and we were there in less than an hour. Luna directed us down sidestreets. “We are very close.”

Maria passed me my pistol as we pulled up. I shoved it behind my back and covered it with my shirt as we got out the car, letting Luna out of the back.

Moving at a trot, we went down the block and headed for the next. Luna had her wings up and kept her knees loose.

Rounding the corner, there they were. Tirek was about the same size as Celestia, his red and black colors not quite vibrant, but looking better than the show had depicted him straight from Tartarus.

Celestia looked wizened and sickly, her mane limp and dull. A glowing chain that I presumed was forged of magic bound a collar at her neck.

“Tirek!”

Things after that happened faster than it takes to tell. Luna charged. A flash of surprise went across Tirek’s face and he caught a blast of Luna’s magic squarely. It knocked him over and he jerked Celestia’s chain along with him. She took the opportunity to struggle, but he held tightly.

Luna readied another attack, but had to drop it to defend when Tirek launched one of his own. The beam of magic bounced against a shield Luna threw up and broke windows in the houses on either side of the street.

My gun was out and level, but Tirek summoned a huge pillar of magic and vanished before I could fire.

Luna stood, breathing hard and looking furious. She’d blown her surprise and gotten little in return.

People were appearing in windows and already I heard sirens. Maria and I stowed our weapons and hustled Luna back to the car.

“So close,” she growled.

“You got a piece of him,” I tried to comfort her. She ignored me.

Maria made it to the driver’s seat first and started the car. “Where are we going?”

I considered it and shrugged. “The trend has been north. If we’re wrong, we might be able to catch back up later. Luna, ideas?”

That seemed to get through. She looked up and I handed her the atlas, which had a map of the whole US on the first page.

She considered it. “What do you know about Vermont?”

Chapter 8

August 16, 2015
Four days is a long time to wait in a hotel room in Montpelier. If my phone wasn’t broken, I would have spent most of it dodging calls from work. I was supposed to have been back by now.

I used Maria’s phone to let them know I was alive, but was cagey with the details, not mentioning more than a problem with my vacation.

Luna worked on her spell, but made no headway. Perhaps Tirek was more careful now that he knew we were after him. Maybe he had made his next jump out of her detection range.

I had a lot of questions, including where he and Celestia were when they weren’t being detected by Luna. If she knew those answers, she wasn’t telling.

I would describe the attitude in that hotel room during those four days as a slow boil. Discussing it with Maria, we decided that we needed to speak to Luna.

We broke the subject by withholding Netflix. Luna had told us that she couldn’t afford to be distracted, but after endless days without headway, she had started sneaking peeks of the cartoons.

“So you refuse to ask anypony for help,” I began. I saw Luna’s nostrils flare and quickly continued. “But what if we got some help from Earth?”

“Who knows the situation better than you?” Luna asked.

“It’s true that Maria and I have been working on this for a while now, but there are experts that could help us.”

“Your pal Rolling Thunder?” said Maria.

“Maybe, though Hawking isn’t much for field work. Still, we could ask him a few questions.”

“If we were to utilize your associates, where is the closest one?” Luna asked.

“I don’t have many in this part of the world,” I admitted. “But you’ve seen our telecommunication capability. We could have the equivalent of a face to face conversation from right here.”

“Could any of them tell us where Tirek is right now?”

“Maybe my buddy in the NSA, but that would be breaking all kinds of laws and would take a little while to make a secure drop.”

“So you have this idea, but what do you plan to do with it?” Luna said. I could detect a little irony in her tone. She knew she was turning our argument from a few days ago back on us.

“We could start reaching out to people. In a day or two, we might start making real progress. It’s not an instant solution, but we aren’t making any headway with your method.”

I probably should have said “with the current method.” Yes, it was Luna’s method, but my tone sounded like I was blaming her. I kind of was, but I should have been more polite.

Luna didn’t take it well. She might have been about to go on another Royal Canterlot Voice fit when a scroll popped into the air beside her.

She frowned as she grabbed it, pausing before breaking the seal. It was a short message, her eyes flicking left and right only twice.

“What does it say?” Maria asked.

Luna looked like she wanted to be contrary, but replied, “Twilight wishes to know the location of Celestia and myself.”

I couldn’t help but ask, “And what are you going to tell her?”

Luna re-rolled the scroll. “Nothing for the moment.”

“She probably sent a message to Celestia first,” I pointed out. “And receiving no reply, has now tried for you. You have to say something.”

“I could leave you to write a letter to Princess Twilight in my stead,” suggested Luna. “As a brony, you’d like that, correct?”

Yes, I would. Boy, would I. But I tried to keep that out of my expression. “And tell her what? You and Celestia are too busy cavorting around the country right now?”

“It is not a lie,” said Luna.

“Really?”

“Really.”

I let out a sigh that lasted perhaps five seconds before picking up the crappy hotel pen. “Fine.”

The parchment was just as thick and lovely as I expected. I hoped the ink would be legible.

Dear Princess Twilight,

Princesses Celestia and Luna are cavorting about the country and are currently indisposed. Earth is quite taken with them - or perhaps they’ve been taken by it. Don’t worry, they will be back to Equestria eventually.

Sincerely,
Sandy West
By Direction

Luna reviewed the letter and sent it away with a flash of magic. “There. That should keep them calm.”

“I still think it’s wrong to intentionally misdirect your fellow princesses. Did Celestia ever do that to you?”

Luna glared at me.

“Oh, is that it?” I realized I was onto something. “Does that make it okay?”

My mouth gets me in trouble from time to time. When Maria touched my arm, I realized that was far enough. If that didn’t do it, Luna made it quite clear.

“Do you know how it feels to be over one thousand years old and still be treated as the little sister?!”

“Well, as an only child-”

“Not only do I have to prove myself to Celestia, but Cadance and Twilight - barely adults! - do not trust me!”

“I think-”

“And you! This is my affair, not yours, and you will respect my decisions!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Maria argued. “If you’re going to scream and complain, maybe you deserve to be treated like a kid.”

“That’s a good point,” I agreed. “You know, if brings me to mind of something. Sorry, my mind makes strange connections sometimes. When Maria said ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ I mentally changed a word or two and it reminded me of an old Air Force expression that pilots said when they found out they were supposed to fly towards known missile sites and be bait. They even had patches embroidered with their new catchphrase: YGBSM - you’ve got to be shitting me.”

I intended my non-sequitur to descalate, but I think Luna might instead have taken the Royal Canterlot Voice to a whole new level if her head hadn’t suddenly snapped around. “Tirek has reappeared!”

Regardless of what else was going on, that got us to drop the subject. The room was in shambles, but we got our stuff into the car in record time.

Luna consulted the compass. “North!”

Chapter 9

August 16, 2015
I wish I remembered the guns in the back seat before we tried to cross the border.

Then again, they were in a duffel bag beneath the incognito Luna, so maybe I shouldn’t have worried.

The Canadian border patrol agent gave the car a once-over, peering in the windows, and then looked at me suspiciously as I put on a fake smile and hoped my sweating wasn’t too noticeable.

“Anything to declare? Weapons, bear spray?”

Maria and I glanced at each other. “Bear spray?”

“It’s the same thing as pepper spray, so it counts as a weapon. But you didn’t answer the question. Anything to declare?”

“Just the invisible pony in the back seat.” The moment I said it, I realized that calling attention to Luna was exactly the last thing I wanted to do, even if it was a joke.

The inspector didn’t laugh. He didn’t take a second look in the back seat, either, so I guess we dodged a bullet there.

He carefully checked my ID again. As part of my changed appearance, I’d also stopped shaving.

Canadians know beards, though. He let us in. I’d have to think about getting back across the border eventually, but for the moment we were good.

“We’re on the correct path,” Luna said. “Faster, if you please.”

“We can just as easily be caught speeding in Canada as anywhere else,” I reminded her.

“The roadside numbers say one hundred, rather than sixty five,” she pointed out.

“A different system of measurement,” I explained.

“Is this country really so different?” Luna said. “You all look the same.”

I wasn’t sure if that was racist or not. Canadians are people, too.

Though I’m sure if there was to be an argument, Montreal would be the place to have it. More and more roadsigns in French appeared as we drove further north.

Maria had taken French in high school, but was rusty. She still managed better than I did with mostly forgotten Spanish.

The GPS was apparently not programmed with detailed maps of Canada. Our atlas had a few pages on the subject. It wouldn’t be a problem to get where we were going with Luna’s directions, but getting back might be.

It was getting into evening as we approached Montreal. Luna directed us into the city, and after a few turns ended up in front of a showground for something called Cavalia.

“It’s a riding show,” Luna said, reading the sign. She frowned at the picture of dressed-up people and horses.

“Must be strange,” I said, “horses.”

“Not particularly,” Luna said. “They bear as much resemblance to ponies as monkeys do to humans.”

Well, that was an awkward bullet dodged. “Are Celestia and Tirek in there?” Maria asked.

Luna nodded. “I believe so.”

“Do we buy tickets or sneak around the back?” I asked.

“It looks like it’s some sort of Cirque du Soleil thing,” said Maria. “I wouldn’t mind seeing it.”

“First we rescue Celestia,” Luna reminded.

The three of us piled out of the car and went looking for a way in. Luna took to the air, peering over fences and at rooftops.

Near the rear entrance, I paused when I caught of whiff of a familiar smell. Maria noticed it, too. Manure.

The pavement had been scraped clean, but bits of straw and dung were visible on closer inspection. The residue led up to a set of double doors marked with personnel autorisé seulement.

We signaled Luna and she came down to stand beside us, though rather delicately once she realized what had drawn our attention.

The door was unlocked and we slipped inside. Here, there were also smells of hay and animals. The room was completely dark, though.

I felt along the wall. “No light switch.”

“I can’t find one either,” said Maria from the other side of the door.

I was digging in my pocket for a mini Maglight when Luna’s horn lit up with a blue glow. “I had not realized that you could not see.”

“It’s pitch black,” I pointed out.

“I do not often consider such matters,” Luna said. “Princess of the Night that I am.”

When we had the chance, I’d have to see how her night vision stacked up against Trijicon. In the meantime, I looked around in the faint light from her horn. There were stalls with straw on the floor, but no horses. Faintly, I heard some music and the sound of a crowd. Maybe this room was empty because the performing animals were in the ring.

We crossed the room and entered a lighted area behind a door. The floor had several sets of hoofprints on it.

A sign that read infirmerie pointed to a door. Luna stopped in front of it. Her eyes widened and then narrowed. Her horn burst with a charge of magic and she slammed the door open.

On the other end of what looked like a vet clinic, were Celestia and Tirek. This was as close as we’d ever been. Apparently having sensed Luna’s approach, Tirek was already in motion, dragging Celestia out the back door.

I had a fraction of a second to see the expression on Celestia’s face. It was surprised, fearful, but not without hope. Luna hadn’t given up and she knew it.

The door hadn’t even slapped against the wall before Luna was through it. She charged across the room, heading for the door that Tirek had pulled Celestia through. Maria and I were after Luna, a few paces behind.

That was good, because when Luna went through the other door and got hammered into the wall by a blast of magic, we didn’t get pancaked.

I skidded to a halt and covered behind the left side of the door frame, Maria taking the right. Through the door, I could see Luna splayed out on the ground. Chancing a peep around the corner, I saw Tirek galloping away down the street, half-carrying, half-dragging Celestia along with him.

Maria went to Luna, whose eyes were unfocused and lolling. She touched the princess’ cheek, not getting much of a response.

“We need to get out of here before someone comes to see what that was about,” I said.

“Get the car,” Maria agreed. I ran for it. Bringing the car around, I backed up and got as close as I could. Luna seemed awake, but not responsive.

“You want her front or back?” Maria asked.

“Front, I guess.”

We lifted Luna into the car, or rather stood her up and then rolled her in. “What do you figure she weighs?” I grunted.

“This size?” Maria considered it. “Looks like four hundred pounds. Though I’d guess less considering she’s a magical princess. Feels like two-fifty or three.”

We got her in and I shut the hatch. Back in the front of the car, we buckled up.

“Which way did Tirek go?” I asked.

Maria gave me a look that said are we really going after him without Luna’s help? Then it passed and she pointed down the street.

I knew how she felt, though. This was as close as we’d been, and if there was a chance to end this tonight, we were absolutely going to try.

On its best day, the Fiat can’t spin the tires when you floor the gas. With a few hundred pounds of luggage and princess, that becomes laughable. However, despite its other shortcomings, it handles like a gokart. On the tight streets of an old city like Montreal, that was a godsend.

Within a few blocks, we caught sight of Tirek down another street, and I hauled the wheel over. I heard Luna limply roll to the other side as the car screeched around the corner.

Tirek could gallop faster than I could run, but not nearly as fast as even a slow car. Shortly, we were following him within a dozen feet. I didn’t know what to do next, though.

Maria had her window down, but wasn’t even threatening to shoot. I could see that Celestia was too close. That was the same reason I didn’t just run Tirek over. Well, that and he could probably bench press the Fiat.

For a couple of seconds, we just sat there tailgating him. He glanced back and abruptly changed direction. I wasn’t quick enough and had to stop and reverse to follow him down the narrow street he ducked into.

With a little breathing room, Tirek had time to stop and wrench up a manhole cover. Shoving Celestia down first, he glanced up at us before squeezing himself down the hole.

Coming to a stop, we lept out. I brought out my flashlight and pointed it at the hole, gradually edging closer until I could see straight down. There was dirty water several feet below the manhole and no sign of Tirek.

I knelt and put my hand on the edge of the hole, but Maria pulled at my shoulder. “Do you really want to go down there and get up close with him? Besides, we need to get out of here and make sure Luna is all right.”

She was right. We went back to the car. I gestured for Maria to drive. “We need to find a Starbuck’s.”

She looked at me, incredulous but patient to see if I was going anywhere with that. I explained, “Wi-Fi. I need to get in touch with a guy I know.”

“This is Canada. We’d be better off looking for Tim Hortons.”

“Good point.”

And, this being Canada, we found one not two minutes later. By the time Luna was able to move fitfully, we had donuts waiting for her and my buddy knew we were on the way.

I’d always had a feeling that Jean Lecavallier had contacts everywhere. He always seemed to have the hook-up. So when I asked him about a place in Montreal to lie low, we were in luck.

“It’s a surprise to see you,” he said, opening the door. “The last I heard, you were at Bronycon. How did you like the princesses?”

“You can see for yourself,” I said, gesturing at Luna, who was stumbling in after me.

Jean was a hard man to surprise. He was this time, though. It took a little explaining, but we got the story worked out and Luna was feeling a little better by the time we had finished.

“So Tirek was at the show,” Jean said. “I know someone who works there we can ask about it.”

“I wonder if he knew about the sewer layout beforehand, or just went down the manhole out of desperation,” I said.

“We can find out,” Jean offered. “I know a few people who could get us access.”

“Now that he’s on the run again, he’ll probably pop up hundreds of miles away,” I said.

“Information about where he’s been could help us figure out where he’s going,” Luna suggested.

“Well then, I can get you tickets for the next Cavalia performance tonight,” Jean offered. “How about it, princess?”

Author's Note

Special thanks to Dafaddah

Chapter 10

August 17, 2015
While we waited for Tirek to turn up again, Luna reluctantly agreed to see the show. And yeah, it was kind of like Cirque du Soleil with the addition of horses.

Regardless of the species involved, it was a spectacle and I was pleased that Maria and I were at least getting something out of this supposed vacation.

The next morning, Jean bid us goodbye and we left Montreal.

Though I suppose it would have been helpful to know where we were going.

“Do you think Tirek is still going north?” I asked.

Maria consulted the atlas. “There isn’t a whole lot north of Montreal. The track so far - from Baltimore to here - has been curving west. So...maybe Ottawa, maybe as far as Toronto.”

“Back south?” I asked.

“He’s been sticking to population centers,” she noted. “For whatever reason.”

“And we still don’t know what he’s up to or why he joined the circus.” I glanced in the rearview mirror. “Ideas, Luna? You know him better.”

“Tirek has always desired power,” she said. “He has done that by taking magic from others. But here on Earth, there is none that he can use. Perhaps he is still searching and believes he is more likely to find it among concentrations of humans in cities.”

“So there’s no magic on Earth?” I asked.

“I am not willing to commit to saying no. However, I have not detected any hints of it.”

There’s something disheartening about hearing that your entire planet is no special snowflake. Then again, maybe our survival despite a lack of magic was our success. I like it when I can make myself happy.

“So if he’s looking for magic, does that mean he’s trying the old cities, places where there’s a history and a legend?” I asked.

“That’s a lot of New England, where he’s been,” Maria said. “Though I think actual England or the rest of Europe would be better.”

“It’d be hard for him and Celestia to get aboard a ship or a plane,” I said. “Though if he manages it, we’d have a harder time tracking him down.”

“Well, you know people over there, right?” said Maria.

“I do know people everywhere,” I agreed. “The internet is a wonderful place to communicate.”

Speaking of communication, I heard a pop as a scroll appeared in front of Luna.

She unrolled it, read it, and sighed. “This may require significant writing to reply with a suitable answer.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

She glared at me in the mirror. “I will have to tell a long, complicated story in order to distract from the fact that I have no idea where my sister is.”

There wasn’t enough paper on the scroll, so Maria handed over a notebook with lined paper and a pen. Luna, not used to ballpoint, took a while to figure out the appropriate pressure. I heard the paper tear a few times. Glancing back, I saw a mask of frustration on her face.

When she did manage to get the pen to leave lines on the paper, it was not gracefully. The swaying of the car on the road and the irregular writing surface of the luggage stacked around her definitely affected her handwriting. Er, hornwriting.

With growl of frustration, she tossed the pen and notebook away. “This is impossible. Stop the car.”

“Do you want to camp here alongside Quebec Route 50 until you finish writing an excessively long letter, or should we find a better place to stop?”

“I would prefer a better way to write.”

I thought for a moment and then nodded. “I think I know what to do.”

Chapter 11

August 19, 2015
I’d been carefully rehearsing our next border crossing. That morning, when the US border patrolman asked if we had anything to declare, I looked him in the eye and said, “Nothing but freedom.”

He smiled and said, “Welcome back to the United States.”

We’d crossed back into Michigan. After being on the road much longer than planned, we decided to head for home. It would be a free place to stay, and we could do some laundry and rest.

But first, we had to go see a friend to get Luna a typewriter.

Speaking of her, she was still pondering my statement as the road signs changed back to miles per hour and advertisements for Tim Hortons grew more infrequent.

“Was that some sort of inside joke?” she asked.

“Huh?” I glanced at her in the mirror.

“Freedom.”

“Oh. Sorry, that was like five minutes ago. Context, Luna. You can’t just bring things up independently without declaring their origin.”

“Why was a declaration of independence so important?”

Maria handled that one before I could go on a tangent. “We’re mere mortals who have a different viewpoint and mental processes. So next time you want to start a topic of conversation, please make it clear what you are talking about.”

“Very well. So, why did you declare freedom at the border?”

“Fervent patriotism,” I admitted. “I made a joke about one of the US’s dearest values on the assumption that anyone who worked to protect the borders would enjoy it. Fortunately, my tactic worked and we didn’t get a special search.”

“You joke about freedom?”

“Well…okay, painful admission time, the US is not as free as we like to believe, but my statement about it being one of our dearest values is still true. The country was founded on the idea that all people were created equally and have identical rights. These days, we’re even getting close to that being true.”

“How long has it taken?” asked Luna.

“Oh…two hundred years or so.”

“You’re all so similar, I’m surprised it took so long.”

“Don’t ponies believe in love and tolerance?” said Maria. “And yet you’re still racist against zebras a thousand years after Equestria was founded.”

“At least we never claimed to promote equal rights and then take centuries to deliver.”

“You don’t have anything like a written constitution or bill of rights laying out what the government is responsible to provide to the citizens?” I asked.

“Why should we?” Luna said. “The citizens of Equestria trust us. Do you not trust your government?”

“That’s a can of worms,” I said.

“A what?”

“A complicated subject. The government is elected by the people, so we should trust them because we had the faith to elect them. But fewer people care about voting and the people with more money to advertise rise to the top of the polls, and it ends up a mess.”

“And why has the system not been changed?”

“Who would change it? The people who were put in power because of it?”

Luna was silent for several seconds. “If you would like, I will have a talk with your president when I next have the opportunity.”

“Gee, thanks!” That put me in a good mood for the rest of the drive.

My buddy Rob owned an emporium of just about everything. When we arrived, we discovered that he had almost thirty typewriters in stock.

“So what kind of typewriter were you looking for?” he asked. We were seated around a table made from an old wooden cable reel, on chairs made from upturned buckets, using silverware that didn’t belong to the same set, or even three different sets. The accommodations were ad-hoc, but the cake in the center was real and for that, I’d stand and eat with my hands.

“What do you have that might be fit for a princess riding in the back of a car?” I asked.

“That’s strangely specific, but I think I have just what you need.” Rob pointed to a pile that featured a rather nice manual typewriter perched jauntily on top.

“And paper?”

He put a ream on the table.

“And perhaps more of this cake?” Luna asked.

“On the way,” Rob promised.

“You can see her?” I asked. “What with the whole can't-see-the-pony-you-don't-expect spell?”

“Well yeah, I always expect ponies on earth. It's kind of the only thing people know about me.”

It was true, I had to agree.

Luna picked up the typewriter and examined it, finding it to be of her liking. There was a fresh ink ribbon and plenty of paper.

Rob gave us some cake for the road and we got back into the car.

“Nice fellow,” Luna remarked. She fed a sheet of paper into the typewriter and began to compose her response to the letter she had received.

Tac-tac tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-

Maria and I glanced at each other.

Tac-tac tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-tac-ding!

I would never again underestimate how annoying it could be to have a typewriter in the back seat. Luna wasn’t kidding when she said it would take a long letter to adequately and believably explain why she and Celestia still hadn’t returned.

As we headed home, back to the Upper Peninsula, however, her typing came to a sudden halt. “I have detected Tirek!”

Luna popped open the compass, which she had taken to carrying with her. “We must go east!”

East Michigan… My face went pale. “Oh no.”

Author's Note

Special thanks to ROBCakeran53

Chapter 12

August 20, 2015
Instead of going home, we went to Detroit.

YGBSM!

However, Maria and I decided not to say anything about the city and let Luna judge for herself.

Going into Detroit, I figured it would be a good idea to get help. Having a local on the ground, like Jean in Montreal, had proven a boon. So I called my buddy Russell. Not only did he know his way around, he was a pretty big dude.

He met us in a parking garage that was practically empty. We got out of the car, Luna looking around at the scenery, or lack thereof. The garage wasn’t the only empty thing around.

We exchanged greetings and Russell asked, “What brings you to Detroit?”

“Princess Luna is looking for her sister, who has been kidnapped by Tirek.”

He did the standard “surprise incognito alicorn reveal” jump. However, this being Detroit, it wasn’t the most tumultuous thing that had happened recently. She was about the most colorful, interesting thing around, though. Russell took a little bow. “I’ll do anything I can to help, princess.”

“We must go deeper into the city,” said Luna. “That is where I have detected Tirek.”

“We’ve been following him since Bronycon,” I added. “This is kind of unusual, though. While he’s been sticking to cities, this doesn’t fit his standard profile. The last time we encountered him, he was at a Circe du Soleli/horse show mashup in Montreal.”

“Well, let’s see what we’re dealing with.” Russell glanced at the Fiat and made a face. “Uh, maybe I’ll drive myself.”

He followed us and we followed Luna’s directions.

“The signal has grown fainter,” said Luna. “I hope we are not too late.”

I sped up a little. There wasn’t much traffic, but there were potholes the size of tank traps.

“We’re close,” Luna announced. “I think it could be that large building up ahead.”

It looked like a quintessential abandoned factory: flat roof, corroding metal siding, blank windows. Based on the rusted fire escapes on the outside, it looked three stories tall. Trust me, I’m a building inspector.

I drove carefully around the gravel parking lot until we spotted a door that looked like it would open. There was a hasp, but no padlock.

We got out and Luna yanked the door open. Ordinarily I would have been cautious, but after Tirek had been surprised by us before, he’d be a fool not to be expecting us. Before I followed Luna into the building, I made sure to lock the car. Beep!

Russell looked a little disappointed that he’d forgotten to bring a gun of his own to the party, but gamely joined us in the center of the factory floor. There were a few old machines around, but we’d easily swept the place and found that it was empty.

“Up,” said Luna, indicating stairs. She led the group.

The electricity didn’t work, though the dirty windows let in some light. The second floor was made up of smaller rooms, most containing junk. Luna didn’t go into any of them, pausing about halfway across the floor. She squinted upwards, and whispered, “I believe Tirek is up there.”

She turned to find the next set of stairs, but I stopped her. “Will he be expecting you to come up the logical way? Why not go right through the floor?”

Luna considered it, and nodded. I backed away to give her some space. While I thought my idea was pretty good, I must admit some selfishness. I wanted to see Luna cut loose and rip things apart.

She carefully walked back and forth a few paces, narrowing her aim. Then, she pointed her horn upwards and a ball of energy began to form. I felt the hairs on my arms stand up.

A cone of blue magic five or six feet wide flashed upwards with a crack like thunder, punching a hole at least that big in the ceiling directly above her. Dust cascaded down from everywhere else.

Luna glanced down at where scraps and shards of building material had fallen around her hooves. Some were marked with squiggles. “What’s this? Some sort of prepared spell?”

She glanced upward. Two faces painted white appeared, peering down over the edge of the hole.

“Mimes?” Maria burst out, incredulously.

“Are you from the Cavalia show?” Luna asked. “Êtes-vous de Cavalia?”

Instead of confirming that, the two of them dropped through the hole, landing gracefully and taking up poses.

Russell look a step forward and both of them spun to face him. One twitched a finger, naughty-naughty style. Russell took another step.

The mime put up a box. Russell punched him in the face.

The other one started to build a lasso like a cowboy. Russell punched him in the face, too.

Luna laughed. “The first time I have found mimes entertaining. Thank you, good sir.”

“But what are they doing here?” I asked.

Luna glanced again at the runes on the broken floor above. “Perhaps in Montreal Tirek recruited them to his cause? Perhaps he then set up a facsimile of his magical signature here, in an attempt to lure us.”

“It worked,” I pointed out.

Luna frowned. “I am afraid so.”

“I’ll take care of these guys,” said Russell. “If you want to go check the perimeter.”

“I shall also stay here,” said Luna. “Perhaps we can get the mimes to talk.”

We left them there while Maria and I went back downstairs. The car was where we parked it and I beeped the doors open. About half a dozen sketchy-looking people suddenly appeared at the sound.

I guess I’d done a lot of gun-pointing in the last few weeks, but this was the first time I’d had one, or actually a couple, pointed back at me. Fortunately, none of us seemed to be in a particularly trigger-happy mood. A Mexican standoff commenced.

“Get in the car,” I said quietly to Maria.

“You’re a better driver. You get in the car, get it started, and then I’ll get in.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. You want me to toss you your shotgun?”

“That only holds five shots. My pistol has twelve.”

“Fair enough.” I opened the driver’s side door, which caused worrying restlessness among our uninvited guests.

“You guys work for Tirek?” I asked as I reached inside to put the keys in the ignition. I had forgotten to press the button to pop the switchblade key out of the fob and corrected the error with a little fumbling.

“Who?”

“A weird red and black centaur-looking guy.”

There was some hurried whispering from our friends followed by, “Dude had money.”

“Is that all it takes?” said Luna, descending to hover over the car. Nobody noticed her so she cleared her throat and announced, “I am Princess Luna,” followed by a repetition of her previous statement. “In that case, take this and be on your way!”

Maria used the distraction to get into the car as Luna summoned a gold brick and tossed it on the ground. It landed with a tink.

One of them picked it up and frowned, tossing it from hand to hand. “Is gold really this light?”

I put the car in gear and tromped the accelerator to the floor. Front wheel drive doesn’t really allow you to do a quick turn followed by showering your enemies with gravel, so I just went straight ahead. Everyone in front of us scattered, buying us a few seconds. I hauled the wheel over and zipped around the corner of the building.

Maria glanced out the window and commented, “We should probably let Luna in.”

“Give me a second.” I backed off the gas enough so that our pursuers wouldn’t get too discouraged and stop chasing us. As I rounded the next corner, I sped up again.

We arrived back in front of the building as they were going around the back. Maria jumped out. The Fiat’s hatch was opened by a small electronic button up under the license plate frame. Luna had previously discovered that she couldn’t fit her hoof in there, much to her frustration.

She loaded up and Russell came out of the building, hurrying for his car. I had time for a brohoof with him before we again had to run for our lives.

He split off and we both left Tirek’s hired help in the dust.

“So what was with that fake gold?” I asked once we were back on the highway.

“Surely you did not expect me to price-match a villain such as Tirek. I feel no guilt over the deception, either. There is no honor among mercenaries.”

Maria and I traded glances. Luna caught it. “Which is why you are my trusted associates.”

I guess I didn’t feel too bad about it. Even though we hadn’t caught Tirek today, we’d managed to avoid his trap pretty awesomely. That still left the hassle of him hiring humans, however.

“If those mimes came from Montreal, do you think he’s trying to recruit people wherever he goes?” Maria asked.

“If so, our job may have become more difficult,” Luna replied.

“So where are we going to guess he goes next?” I said.

Maria picked up the atlas. “If he goes west, maybe Chicago. If he continues southwest, maybe Indianapolis. His route from Montreal to Detroit was his longest hop yet, though, so maybe as far as St. Louis.”

“We should do some data analysis and figure out his average movement per day,” I said. “Eh, sounds hard.”

“We have nothing more productive on which to spend time,” Luna said.

I was about to suggest she keep typing her letter, but decided that maybe some peace and quiet would be better.

Chapter 13

August 25, 2015
It took a day to work out where we should go next. We were split on destination, trying to figure out where to go to put us close to Tirek’s next appearance.

I wanted to go home. It wasn’t so far away in Michigan and had all the comforts of, well, home. Maria thought that since we were already on the road, we should see a few sights, slyly suggesting the Pink Pony Bar at Mackinac Island. Luna thought we should head south, though was unsure how far.

We eventually ended up camped at a small motel in the hills east of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The joke there is that Indiana has no hills and the only thing east of Fort Wayne, Indiana is Ohio. Also, it was a Richard Bach reference, but I wouldn't expect you casuals to know anything about that.

The city was named after “Mad” Anthony Wayne, a general from the Revolutionary War. I really wish I hadn’t hung around the city long enough to know that. It was also where Johnny Appleseed was buried, so I guess there’s that.

Luna was not particularly enamoured with the place, though the idea of someone spreading apples across the countryside appealed to her.

One evening a few days after arriving, Maria and I sat outside the front door of our room, furniture dragged out onto the second floor level. There was a nice view of the sunset in the distance.

We were passing a glass bottle of cream soda back and forth. We’d been in the motel long enough to start exploring the local area, and had picked a favorite local convenience store from which to source our junk food. Both of us were getting pretty ragged from being on the road. My beard itched. Maria didn’t like it, either. Not that it mattered. With Luna along, sex had been impossible for about a month now.

“Where does this end?” Maria asked, finishing the bottle.

“We’ve been close before,” I reminded her. “All Tirek has to do is make a mistake.”

“We’ve been doing this for more than two weeks,” she pointed out. “How much longer is it going to take?”

“Well, Tirek hasn’t accomplished whatever he’s planning yet. We could have a lot of time.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing. Do you want to be living like a nomad indefinitely?”

“No.”

Luna came out of the room. Her mane and tail had gone limp. She had stopped bothering with whatever magic that had kept them wavy and flowing. Her feathers were crooked. The alicorns were already the most svelte-looking ponies, but she may have lost some weight. I’d noticed the grass around the motel had mostly disappeared.

She’d taken to wearing the compass around her neck on a lanyard made of my spare shoelaces. Every so often, she’d look at it, just to check.

Luna glanced between the two of us staring at her and asked, “Did I interrupt something?”

We were a little too slow to answer and she pressed, “What is it?”

“Just wondering out loud when this was going to be over,” I said.

“It will be over when it is over, and not a moment sooner,” she snapped.

“Yeah, yeah, just talking hypothetically,” I defended. “It would be nice if we could think of a new tact to take.”

“Do you think that I have not been working on the problem?”

“I know you have, but...I don’t know, Luna. It’s been more than two weeks. Do you think it’s time to try something else? Maybe ask for help?”

“You have your so-called Brony Network, do you not?”

“That’s just a handful of people spread across the world. If you were to ask the government, they could do more. Heck, as much as we hear about government spying, the things we don’t hear must be pretty impressive. Now that Tirek is possibly recruiting people to his cause, he might be even easier to find.”

Luna wavered, but shook her head. “I will not harm potential relations with the human world. Ponies will not be seen as weak and needy.”

“It’s been two weeks,” Maria reiterated. “Surely they’re wondering if something is going on?”

“Better for them to wonder than for them to be sure.”

“Come on,” Maria retorted. “It was probably a good thing Sandy’s phone got broken, otherwise they’d have tasked a satellite to track us from space all across the country. And if they expect we have ponies with us, your spell would be broken - if it would even work against a camera in the first place.”

“I know outer space,” said Luna. “I am not impressed.”

“While I don’t know a lot about the United States’ military or intelligence capability,” Maria shot me a glance, “I have no doubt that they possess capabilities that would boggle your mind.”

Luna’s eyes narrowed. “I am the leader of the dominant country in my world. I can look into dreams. I once commanded a military confrontation, and would have succeeded in beating Celestia had she not used the Elements of Harmony. Perhaps the name Nightmare Moon rings a bell? Do not underestimate my knowledge of intelligence or military matters.”

Maria crossed her arms. “Sandy, get her.”

I was ready. “What about that one time where, despite the warning of an imminent attack and a huge shield protecting Canterlot, the Royal Guard was utterly overwhelmed by a changeling invasion, to the point that the Elements of Harmony and even common citizens had to resort to fighting in the street? And you showed up later and asked ‘Did I miss anything?’”

Luna was blue, but her face turned red. She twitched. Maria and I stared at her.

She snapped her wings open and soared over the railing, disappearing into the growing darkness. Within moments, she was gone.

The crickets chirped a little.

Maria glanced at me. “Speaking of changelings, could we get Chrysalis on this? Luna would hate it, but she could help.”

“Maybe.” I frowned, not totally sure Crissy wouldn’t join Tirek. “It’s something to think about. She could definitely help, if she would. I don’t know. Let’s see when Luna cools down and then we’ll talk.”

The two of us sat there as the sun finished setting. The horizon darkened to match the rest of the sky. We went inside. Luna hadn’t come back.

Chapter 14

August 26, 2015
Having nothing else to do, we’d stopped setting our alarm clocks. At least this trip offered us that: no responsibilities past saving Celestia. It was a very big responsibility, but it was the only one we had. Giving so few cares about everything else was liberating.

It was a nice lazy wakeup, the sun coming through the motel room curtains. Maria’s eyes were half-open, watching me as I turned to face her. I moved a little closer.

I raised my head a few inches to check if Luna was watching from the other bed. She wasn’t there. Maria saw my expression and rolled over to see for herself.

Maybe she hadn’t wanted to wake us when she came back. I first checked outside the room and then the car. No Luna.

This hadn’t happened before, and I wasn’t sure whether we were supposed to be worried or not. Then, we turned on the TV. Louisville was on fire.

Well, okay, only a few buildings, but you know how the news is. The anchorperson speculated that the unusual red and blue lights shown in a shaky cellphone video were electric sparks.

Maria and I glanced at each other. Three minutes later, the car was packed and we were headed south.

“Why in the world did Tirek go for Louisville?” I asked. “Chicago or even Indianapolis are larger cities.”

“Or Columbus or St. Louis,” added Maria.

“The magic of bourbon maybe.” It was a weak joke, and neither of us laughed.

We drove in silence for a few minutes. I turned onto I-69 towards Indianapolis.

Maria pointed at a bus with a splashy advertisement on the side. “It says they have free WiFi onboard.”

“Nice.”

She grabbed my computer from the back seat and jacked in as I slowed down to shadow the bus.

Surfing the news sites, a few more facts came to light. Whatever had happened, it began about an hour ago. The area was being cleared now, which probably meant those on the scene had decided the danger was over.

Based on what we’d seen so far, Tirek was probably already gone. I wondered how long it had taken for Luna to fly all the way to Louisville. We’d seen that certain ponies were capable of going supersonic, but no way to know for how long or how aerodynamic an alicorn was.

And speaking of alicorns, we’d have to somehow find Luna in a city of a quarter million.

However, as we rounded Indianapolis at extra-legal speeds, she found us. Maria’s phone rang. Since it was the only phone we had, we’d paired it with the car’s Bluetooth. I hit the button on the steering wheel to answer the ringing coming from the speakers.

An electronic voice asked, “Do you accept a collect call from-”

“-Princess Luna of Equestria-”

“-and all associated charges?”

“Yes.”

There was a click and Luna hesitantly asked, “Hello?”

“Luna, where are you?”

“I am in Louisville.” She said it Lewis-ville. She paused and after a moment found a street sign to read.

Maria set the GPS. I asked Luna, “What happened?”

“I found Tirek. There was a battle.”

“We saw. It’s on TV.”

Luna did not reply, seeming to gather her thoughts first. I said, “So how did it go? It sounds like you demolished a few buildings.”

“I managed to surprise him and he was forced to fight, vice retreat.” Her voice was flat.

“Well, that’s something.” I tried to put a positive spin on it. She’d gotten a piece of him this time.

I heard her breathe, but she said nothing.

“How did you make this call, anyway?” I asked.

“The instructions are printed on the box.”

“Oh.”

We lapsed to silence again. Maria asked, “Are you okay? Hurt?”

“No. I...I mean, I am not okay.”

My fingers tightened on the wheel. “Okay, just hold on. We’ll be there in about half an hour.”

Carrot Top had once claimed that collect calls were free for you and cheap for them. I didn’t know what the phone bill was going to say, but whatever the charge was, it was worth it to stay on the phone all the way there. Luna only communicated with single words, but stayed faithfully by the phone.

We tore into the street where she’d led us and screeched to a halt next to what had to be one of the last phone booths left in North America.

Luna, being quadrupedal, didn’t fit inside. Though, when she hung up the phone and exited the booth, it was almost as if she’d been transformed like Superman - or maybe the opposite of that.

Everything drooped. Her ears, her mane and tail, her eyes. I’d asked her earlier, but when I got out of the car, I asked again, “What happened?”

Luna didn’t answer. Maria asked, “Is Celestia okay?”

“She is alive.”

“So what’s wrong?”

Luna paused so long I thought she hadn’t heard. She took a breath. “Tirek has taken my magic.”

My spine involuntarily arched as chills went up it.

Luna wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I had to trade glances with Maria. On a scale from one to the end of the world, I’d rate it pretty bad.

My hyperbole is better when I’m not freaking out.

Maria asked, “What do we do?”

That, finally, got a reaction from Luna. “We will continue to do as we have: pursue Tirek.”

“Staying the course is what got us - you! - into this situation,” I argued.

Luna flinched and I instantly felt guilty for saying it, though not quite regretful. I thought it needed to be said.

Seconds passed. Maria looked up and down the street and said, “We should go before anyone wonders why we’re parked illegally and standing around this old phone booth.”

A solid plan. Luna, head still down, obediently got in the car.

“Where are we headed?” I asked no one in particular.

Luna’s stomach growled.

“When was the last time you ate?” I asked. She didn’t reply, but if it had been dinner the night before, that was answer enough.

I spotted a Chinese buffet. I glanced at Maria and she nodded.

The place was nearly empty as we walked in on an early lunch. I asked for a quiet booth.

When Luna went for the plates, I saw frustration go across her face as she stared at them. Realizing, I picked one up for her.

When we were gathered around the table, I began asking questions.

“Can you get your magic back?”

“Perhaps.”

“What do we have to do?”

She vaguely tossed her head, staring at her noodles.

“You have to give us something.”

Luna looked at me for the first time that day. “So when I am in charge you dispute my plan, and when I am broken you look to me for guidance?”

Point taken, if a little unfair. “As always, we’re here to help you. But we can’t do that if we don’t know the full situation.”

Luna looked at the table and took a deep breath. “It was foolish of me to attack Tirek directly. I may have been able to defeat him in a straight battle, but engaging him in close quarters allowed him to work the only power he has: taking it from others. And now he has the magic of two alicorns.”

She paused, and added, “At least I can say that Celestia fell while I still am still free.”

“Why does that matter?”

Luna looked up sharply. “Have you not noticed? Do you not believe her to be the superior sister?”

Well, when she put it that way. “Celestia is older and more experienced.”

Luna snorted. “I have no lack of reminders.”

“Surely she wasn’t the kind to rub that in your face.”

“She had no need. I embarrassed myself regularly.”

Princess Luna? Really? “How?”

“‘Did I miss anything?’” she spit. “I slept through the changeling invasion.”

“Well, you’d probably been up all night…”

“Nopony thought to wake me up!” It wasn’t the Royal Canterlot Voice, but what it lacked in volume it made up for in intensity. Luna went on, hissing her words. “Am I really such an afterthought that when Canterlot was under attack nopony thought I could be useful?”

She took a breath through her nostrils, teeth clenched. “If I called on Twilight, Cadance, and the others to go after Tirek, they would shunt me to the side and handle the matter themselves. Not a one of them takes me seriously. Why should they? Equestria got along fine without me for one thousand years.”

It took me a little while to put together my next words. “If Tirek overpowered Celestia, what makes you think that she could save you without help? You know she’d call the Elements of Harmony.”

Luna closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. “I know. But...can I not come out of this with any dignity?”

“We could be risking the fate of the universe just so you can look good,” Maria pointed out.

Luna’s face twitched, but she said very delicately, “I am aware. It hurts to admit when you are wrong, and after holding the same belief for one thousand years it becomes a very difficult thing to shake. But even if I wanted to, I cannot contact Equestria without magic.”

More spine chills. We were on our own.

Chapter 15

August 29, 2015
There’s a song about walking in Memphis and feeling blue. I couldn’t think of anything for staying in a hotel room in Nashville, but hey, it’s the same state.

Luna had been in a funk pretty much the whole time since the disaster that was Louisville. Losing her magic and Tirek gaining power weighed heavy on all our minds. Maybe also the destruction of several buildings, though I later heard no civilians had been caught in the crossfire.

We’d managed to get Luna to do a few things to take her mind off it. The Parthenon in Nashville, a replica of the real one in Athens, was a great one. Luna, and maybe ponies in general, seemed to enjoy traditional art. Moreover, a lot of the mythology in the two worlds overlapped.

That entertained her for about an hour. Then she went back to moping. Though, to be fair, there wasn’t much else I could think of for her to do.

Her ability to cast spells was gone, along with her flight. She didn’t mention any earth pony-equivalent magic, but I guessed that maybe her slim body had lost some strength. She said that previously-cast spells, like her incognito one, were still in effect.

And, as it turned out, she could still detect magic. When Tirek popped up again, Luna was on her hooves instantly. Lifting a hoof to consult the compass strung around her neck, she declared, “East!”

We went. At Knoxville, we departed the interstate on Luna’s direction. Maria frowned as she looked at the atlas. “Surely we’re not headed for Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg?”

“Finding Tirek in a tourist trap town would be bad,” I agreed. “Too many people around. But...maybe he’s at Dollywood?”

Maria gave me a smile for effort, but didn’t laugh. Finding him there would also be pretty bad, for various reasons.

Fortunately, we went on through there and entered the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Shortly thereafter, Luna announced, “We are close.”

My driving got a little more cautious on the narrow two-lane roads. Luna pointed out a few directions. The road dead-ended at a parking lot for a campsite.

With Luna’s urging, we pushed into the woods on foot. There wasn’t a trail. Fortunately, that greatly reduced the likelihood that we would encounter anyone, so we went loaded with everything.

After walking for maybe a quarter of a mile, Luna’s steps grew shorter and more careful. We crested a ridgeline and the three of us immediately dropped behind a convenient outcrop of rock. Tirek and Celestia were down below, visible through the trees in a shallow valley ahead of us.

We all took careful peeps over the rock to assess the situation. I guessed the distance at three hundred yards or maybe a little more. It was hard to tell with the trees.

Tirek looked about the size of a truck. I suppose two alicorns’ worth of magic would do that. Celestia was bedraggled, but still mobile, though he kept her on a short chain.

Behind the rock, we had a whispered conversation. Luna said, “You must shoot him.”

She’d been watching TV and understood some of the capabilities of firearms. I looked at my 5.56 weapon, Tirek’s hulking form, and back at her. “It would just piss him off.”

“What do you suggest instead?”

Well, maybe a tank, but that wasn’t on the table. “I can try.”

Looking at the situation again, I might attempt a lucky headshot. Maybe I would even get a few rounds off before Tirek squashed us all like bugs.

However, “Celestia’s right there.”

“Are you not confident in your abilities?” Luna asked.

“I’m nearsighted, shooting a carbine with iron sights. I’m just saying that I’m uncomfortable having her so close.”

Luna hesitated, but then said, “I trust you.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

The rock was not smooth, but I managed to find a place to rest. My heart was hammering, and breathing exercises didn’t seem to help. Fortunately, Tirek stood still as I squeezed the trigger.

My shot felt right, though I didn’t have time to assess it because Tirek reacted violently. With a roar, the magic orb between his horns lit up brighter than a disco ball. I ducked down behind the rock.

A red laser of magic swept past the hilltop, slicing off trees. One of them started to fall right towards us. Maria and I got out of the way. Luna didn’t.

There was a flash from down the hill and sudden silence. Maria chanced a look. “They’re gone.”

We both turned to Luna. The tree across the middle of her back was about eight inches in diameter. Her breathing was ragged, but her ribcage looked all right. Her eyes were squeezed shut in pain.

Maria and I grabbed the tree. As big as it was, I guessed it might have been a thousand pounds. We didn’t move it much.

Luna groaned and shifted her forelegs. With our help, she managed to jack up her upper body, forming a ramp of her back. We gradually slid the tree off.

Equines naturally get up front end first, while bovines get up rear end first, so I guess we were lucky Luna wasn’t a magic cow.

Sitting on her rump, Luna was breathing hard and still wincing in pain. There was a bare patch on her back where the rough bark had skimmed off some hair. Maria put tentative hands on her neck. “Is anything broken? Where does it hurt?”

“From the shoulders back,” Luna replied.

Maria gently felt along her body. “How’s the pain? What level?”

“I will live.” Luna started to stand, but her tail was still caught. Using the butt of the rifle, we dug it out.

“Walk for me,” said Maria. Luna complied, slowly turning in a circle. She limped on a hind leg.

“You cracked a hoof. Maybe the way you stepped combined with the crushing weight did it,” said Maria. “Though with a crushing weight, I’m surprised a cracked hoof is all that happened.”

“There are perks to immortality.”

“Hang on,” I said, “If a tree landed on you and all that happened was damage wear items like hair and hooves, did you tell me to take the shot because you thought Celestia was bulletproof?”

“That may have been a factor,” Luna admitted.

Maria decided that Luna, as she said, would live. Tirek was gone again, so we turned back for the car. Maria pulled out the medical bag she had brought along and had Luna lie in the car, elevating her injured hoof into traction with one of my belts.

“I’m going to check out the area,” I said. Maria nodded to me and I went back into the trees.

It was easy to find the place again. The trees being cut off was a good indication. I walked down the hill, still a little jumpy but more confident than before. I didn’t think Tirek was still around or that he had left anything behind, but there was no telling.

Surprisingly, he had left something: a few drops of blood. I was briefly pleased with myself, before remembering that I had basically tried to assassinate him on Luna’s order. Well, I think we can argue that we didn’t have any other options. Not that it was that simple of course, but-

I really hate arguing ethics.

I spotted Tirek’s distinctive hoofprints. He seemed to have been there for a while. Circling the area, I couldn’t seem to find where he had come from. Perhaps he had teleported in, as well as out.

But why? There didn’t seem to be anything here. Was he waiting for someone? Was it us? Did he bait us here?

Assuming someone would come to check out the fallen trees, I kicked dirt over the blood and headed back to the car.

I told them what I had found. Maria had worked quickly, and had Luna testing the fix. Luna looked contemplative as she walked. “I wonder if he was testing me. He has my magic, but perhaps wanted to see if I could still track him.”

“Well, it looks like he’s still leading us around,” I observed.

Luna nodded, looking down as she walked. Clop, clop, clop, clank. Maria had a spare horseshoe in her bag, and had installed it to keep the cracked hoof together.

“So where do we go from here?” I asked aloud, grabbing the atlas and opening it. “If we’re going to continue this easterly trend, maybe Charlotte, North Carolina.”

Maria looked up. “I hope you aren’t using this as an excuse to take Luna to a NASCAR track.”

My wife knows me too well.

Chapter 16

August 31, 2015
We went to Wilmington. It was sort of a college town with a nautical flair.

Full of bars, is what I’m saying.

Also, being pre-Labor Day weekend, the bars themselves were full.

The concept of pre-Labor Day was explained to me in line at the convenience store. When the first Monday in September isn’t close to September 1, but there’s a Monday close to the end of August, the first weekend contains pre-Labor Day. For example, this year pre-Labor Day was Monday August 31, and real Labor day was September 7. Any excuse to have a three-day weekend.

This worked great for people who didn’t have jobs, like college students and me.

Not that getting smashed was a great idea with Tirek running around, but he’d been following a pattern lately, and so we took a calculated risk: one drink.

I decided on a beer from the local microbrewery. Maria can’t stand the taste of beer, so she drinks neat whiskey. My wife, everyone.

Luna had a much harder time making up her mind. Choosing between so many beverages made from fruits and grains was difficult. She announced that she would tour the kitchen.

That sounded like a bad idea in the making, but we’d pretty much already crossed the ethical threshold by pretending Luna didn’t exist at buffets and places that charged admission. It was easier than explaining why we needed to pay for our invisible friend while we hunted a guy who might bring about more trouble than the universe had ever seen. War is hell.

We didn’t think Tirek would attack Luna in the back room of a small pub in North Carolina. And sure enough, he didn’t. However, Maria and I got a faceful of a drunk college student.

First he stumbled into our table, and then just kind of flopped into the seat Luna had vacated. Maria and I stared at him.

He blinked blearily at us. “Who are you?”

“Not your friends,” said Maria. “You’re at the wrong table.”

In college, I had once had an intoxicated guy crawl into bed with me. Despite that, I still had not come up with a preprepared response to lost drunks, and was glad Maria handled it.

Though, being drunk, the logic didn’t take hold. He paused as if it was trying to, but then said, “This is like that one time when some chick invited me to her sorority’s kegger: I came.”

“I have also arrived,” announced Luna, appearing at the table. She glanced back and forth, raising an eyebrow at our uninvited guest, who fell over backwards just then.

“A unicorn!” he shouted, pointing at Luna.

“I am an alicorn, that you,” Luna corrected.

He managed to stand up, still pointing and shouting. “Shut up, unicorn!”

A bouncer tossed him out. Luna sat down. Nobody seemed to have noticed her.

When the waitress came back around, we ordered a modest white wine for Luna. We’d waited for her to order, and when all three drinks arrived, we drank. That took about a minute. Luna had drained her glass and looked disappointed. I think we were all feeling the same way about this little excursion.

“Well, this was fun,” I said. “Back to saving the world.”

None of us moved.

“You know, I saw a fudge and ice cream shop a block over,” said Maria.

Instant happiness. She knows me and ponies too well.

With ice cream, we went for a walk along the river, me holding Luna’s cone for her as I stared at the old USS North Carolina battleship moored on the other side as a museum.

We rounded the block, and Maria paused at street sign. “Hey, let’s get a picture.”

I glanced at the sign. Princess Street.

She took a picture of me feeding Luna ice cream in front of the sign. Luna was much more amiable about it. I may be a brony, but I have an image to maintain, thank you.

Of course, maybe I shouldn’t be so concerned about image. The drunk guy from earlier recognized me, and I suppose Luna too, and tried to tackle us.

Maria saw him coming and tripped him. He landed in a heap on my shoes.

“What the heck?” I said, or words to that effect.

“I knew there was something strange about that unicorn!” he said, getting to his feet and swaying like a tree in a hurricane. “There’s a reward for you!”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. It seemed like a drunken ramble, but it was also strangely specific.

He didn’t answer, instead charging forward again. Luna and I stepped aside and let him fall on the curb, again.

“I think we should go,” Maria suggested. “Even if he’s full of it, we don’t need to get wrapped up in his impending public intoxication arrest.”

By the time we had gotten back to the hotel, a couple people had already sent me the news. Tirek, in a video on its way to going viral, had publicly stated that he wanted Luna and/or my head.

He’d apparently interrupted a news report to deliver his message. It looked like the cameraman was trembling, but the image kept fairly well centered on Tirek. He seemed to be outdoors in some city.

“People of Earth, I am Lord Tirek and I come to you with an opportunity. I want Princess Luna of Equestria and her accomplice Sandy West delivered to me. Do this, and I will grant any request you so desire.”

He turned and stomped away. A shaken female reporter stumbled back into frame, holding a microphone that had WSB-TV Atlanta on it. Wide eyed, she glanced at the camera and then at Tirek’s receding back. The video cut off.

I did a quick check of news sites. Speculation was abounding, and my picture from the newspaper was going around.

I shut off my laptop. Maria quietly removed the battery from her cell phone. We speedily packed up and left the hotel without drawing attention to ourselves.

“We need to ditch the car,” I said, when we were on the road.

“And do what?” Maria said.

“Well, it would be nice to get something with more room and horsepower,” I said. “Maybe a rental.”

“With what money?” she said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to use credit cards anymore, now that you’re all over the news. They’ll probably check me out, too.”

“We can use the gold. Oh man, if I could get my hands on a Hellcat Charger…”

“That raises the problem of what black market contact you’re going to use to convert an ingot into cash,” she said. “Are there any of those in the MLP community?”

“Well...uh, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“We should not change vehicles,” said Luna.

I glanced back. “Really? You wouldn’t rather have one that was bigger, faster, and not so recognizable?”

“I have other, more important qualities in mind. Trust me.”

“What qualities? Since when do you actually like this car?”

“I still do not like this car, but trust me on this. Find another way.”

I glanced back at her again. This is stupid was my first thought, but...well, she must have had a good reason. And she trusted me.

I nodded. “Okay, let me see what kind of criminals I can find to get us license plates and stuff from the black market.”

“But wouldn’t a criminal hand us over to Tirek?” Maria asked.

I shrugged helplessly. “This is where I hope Twilicorn didn’t turn them off princesses.”

Author's Note

If you find and identify the two true anecdotes about TNaB contained in this chapter, you win the chance to find and identify the two true anecdotes about TNaB contained in this chapter.

Chapter 17

September 1, 2015
Assuming Tirek was still in Atlanta, we headed there. The extra-legal speeds would draw cops, but it also made it easier to identify anyone following us.

I kept one eye on the mirror. Whether we were actually being hunted or not, the paranoia was getting to me. I’d done what I could to reduce our footprint already, but we needed a few things we couldn’t get ourselves. Fortunately, we had some help on the way.

In the Francis Marion National Forest in South Carolina, far from anyone or anything but a two-lane blacktop, we met my contact Justin. He both loved ponies and wasn’t afraid to shank people. Maybe not exactly the criminal we needed right then, but pretty good.

We pulled into a turnout in the middle of the forest. A minute later, Justin arrived on his chopper. He was soaking wet, but didn’t seem to mind. “Hurricane Erika,” he explained, gesturing to the south.

The weather report said it had been downgraded, but riding a motorcycle through a tropical storm was still bad enough. Justin changed the subject by turning in the saddle to open his bike’s bags, pulling out a set of Maine license plates and a wad of cash.

He handed it over, commenting, “Twenty grand was all I could put my hands to so fast, but if you’ve really got a bar of gold inscribed with the Equestrian royal seal to trade me, then I’ll get the rest.”

I gave him the brick. He pulled out a very large knife and made a shallow nick on the surface. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

He quickly stowed the ingot in the saddlebags. “Where is Luna, anyway? Does she really fit in that rolling tampon?”

“With a little room to spare,” I replied. “She has a spell that lets her remain incognito. You have to be expecting her.”

He chuckled, taking his hands off the handlebars to light a cigarette. “At least you don’t have all of them. What's harder than getting four pregnant alicorns into a Fiat? Getting four alicorns pregnant in a Fiat!”

“What was that?” Luna demanded from behind him.

Justin jerked in surprise, and the motorcycle tipped over, trapping his leg.

Luna smirked. “You should have expected me.”

“Seriously bro, pregnant alicorns?” I said. “What you do with your spare time is your own business.”

We got the bike set up again. Justin looked like he was about to go full fanboy on Luna, but calmly restrained himself. He did glance back, though, as he pulled back onto the highway.

I looked at the new license plates. Michigan had recently stopped using front plates, so the Fiat didn’t have a bracket. Using some of the spare horseshoe screws from Maria’s kit, we affixed the new plate to the plastic front bumper. Not a perfect solution, it just had to work.

I wondered what else I could have, should have, asked Justin to get for us. Fake IDs and credit cards would be helpful, but harder to obtain. An anti-material rifle to use on Tirek would make my day. Should have stopped at the Barrett factory while we were in Tennessee. Ah well. Justin probably couldn't pack one of those to us on a bike, and now that we were afraid to show our faces, we couldn't just walk into a gun shop. And the price tag would blow most of the cash we'd just gotten.

We headed on to Atlanta. We managed to get out of the backwoods and back on the interstate.

As we drove, Maria asked, “I wonder where he got the money.”

I briefly considered it. “I don’t want to know.”

We found out later that Justin, being a criminal, had robbed some people. They were also criminals, from a rival biker gang as it happened. And they wanted the money back.

Remember that, it’ll be important later.

For the moment, we had enough problems. We’d set off for Atlanta based on Tirek’s TV appearance there. Hours later, we’d managed to reach the outskirts, but that only put us in a traffic jam.

There was no guarantee he was still there, and the longer we sat in traffic, the more likely someone might recognize us.

We all huddled down in the car, slowly rolling as fast as the gridlock allowed. Luna wiggled under a pile of clothes to disappear.

It’s strange to see the pavement from one mile per hour. It’s so much more detailed than you’d expect.

“If we don’t have anywhere specific to be, then why are we even here?” Maria asked.

“Fair question,” I replied, “but if we weren’t waiting here, we’d be waiting somewhere else.”

We sat for a little while longer. Behind us, Luna shifted her position and her head appeared between the seats. “I think...it’s very faint, but I may have Tirek.” Her head turned, attempting to get a better fix. “Perhaps...south.”

I put on the blinker and rather rudely cut off a semi. Luna was nodding now. “Yes, we must go south. It is very far.”

I steered the car onto the shoulder and rushed towards the next exit, praying that nobody cut us off. It would be just like karma to pop up like that.

Fortunately, we made it and found the nearest southerly road. “How far?” I asked.

“Very,” said Luna. “It may be the farthest I have ever detected him. I speculate that perhaps without my magic for interference, my sense has been improved.”

“How far is very far?” I asked Maria, who was already consulting the atlas. We’d marked it up with previous locations.

“What’s the bearing?” Maria asked Luna.

Luna consulted the compass and read it off. Maria did some figuring.

“Somewhere in southern Florida,” she announced.

“Why would he go down there?” I asked. “Out onto a peninsula seems like an obvious place to get trapped.”

“It’s still a hundred miles wide,” Maria pointed out. “Even as a peninsula, that’s a lot of territory.”

“How do we know this is a real signal?” I said. “Could it be a decoy like Detroit?”

Luna closed her eyes. A long minute passed as she fine-tuned her reception. Finally, she shook her head. “I am unable to say for sure. Perhaps if we were closer.”

“Well, all right,” I said. “Who wants orange juice?”

Author's Note

Special thanks to Biker_Dash

Chapter 18

September 2, 2015
Florida may be a skinny state, but it is long. It’s like, as Homer Simpson once described it, America’s wang.

Switching back and forth with Maria, we watched the sun set and then rise again on the drive from Atlanta to southern Florida. But then, we kept going. Luna pointed us to the Overseas Highway, to the Keys.

At least there was plenty to keep us entertained on the way. North Florida has billboards by the bushel. Most of them concerned either orange juice, anti-abortion, pro-creationism, or the Ron Jon Surf Shop.

Fortunately, Luna didn’t ask about any of them so we didn’t have to discuss politics, religion, or the sometimes subtle differences between the two. Or orange juice. I would have been in danger of going off on a tangent about the Tropicana Train. At least I didn’t know anything about surfing.

We did stop at one of the many orange juice-themed convenience stores/trinket shops along the way. Partly for a pit stop, and also partly to use a pay phone. I was having an idea, and needed to make a few phone calls.

Once we located Tirek, it would have been nice to have some backup. In addition to the National Guard, there were numerous military bases in Florida. SOCOM was located in Tampa, plus a few Air Force and Navy jet bases.

The trouble was, I didn’t know anyone in any state’s National Guard, the only SOF-type people I knew were based on internet claims only, and the single person I knew in the Air Force worked on C-130’s in Arkansas. So I called a Navy pilot.

“Sorry, man,” he told me. “There’s no fighters at Key West right now, and to hop from Pensacola down to south Florida and actually have some on-station time, we’d need tankers. I can’t get that kind of help from the Air Force because the only airman I know works on C-130’s in Arkansas.”

“Marines?” I asked.

“Beaufort, South Carolina. Even further.”

Well, that was a bust. I might have tried going through the State Department to get the President’s attention so the orders to the military could come back down, but I didn’t know anyone in the State Department, either. Guess it would have to be local law enforcement. At least their phone number was easy to remember.

I stepped away from the pay phone. I found Luna looking at the sunglasses.

“I am unused to so much sun,” she commented. “Especially in this place.”

Florida was easily the hottest part of our trip so far. The heat would have been bad enough, but the humidity was the killer. At least the car’s air conditioning could usually keep up with it. It had been struggling lately with the addition of Luna to cool.

The sunglasses weren’t designed with ponies in mind, but the largest pair of mirrored aviators seemed to come close to fitting Luna. We bought them along with three cups of orange juice.

Then, it was back to barreling south. In Miami, Luna pointed us southwest. There was only one road available to us.

The Overseas Highway is beautiful in that there’s no navigation to be done. The locals don’t talk about addresses, they simply refer to which milepost they're near. It must be wonderfully simple to live in a one-dimensional space.

But as it got later in the day, the sun sank lower and we drove west right into it. Luna had definitely made the right decision to get sunglasses.

At milepost fifty, she announced, “This is not Tirek.”

That seemed to take the wind out of our sails. We slowed down.

“Was he here?” asked Maria. “If not, who could have set up the fake spell?”

“I suspect we will find answers ahead,” Luna replied.

“Well, that, and I wouldn’t drive all the way out here and just turn around fifty miles from Key West,” I said.

It was nearly dusk by the time we rolled into the southernmost city in the United States. I was kind of expecting the t-shirt shops and bars, but not the drag shows and pharmacies. Somewhat amusingly, there was a place called the Pegasus Hotel.

Luna led us to the spell. Remembering Detroit, we expected, at minimum, mimes guarding the area, but it was a pleasant surprise to merely find some squiggles painted on a sidewalk. Luna studied them for a few minutes, then shrugged. “What concerns me most about this is why he led us so far down here.”

“Clearly some kind of distraction,” I said. “But why? And where is he now?”

“He didn’t have goons standing ready,” Maria pointed out. “Maybe he just wanted us to go far away from him.”

I sighed. “So we’ve got a whole lot of driving ahead of us just to get back to where we started. Great. But, since we’re here…pie?”

Yes pie. We found a place. The woman behind the counter had an eastern European accent, and didn’t look like she knew the first thing about pie, but dutifully served us three pieces of Key Lime delicious.

As we were sitting there eating pie, two men wearing leather walked in. One of them pointed a gun at the woman behind the counter. The other pointed a gun at my face. “Where’s the meth?”

I said, “What?!”

That seemed to displease them.

I was kind of wishing we’d gone ahead and asked for backup, from anyone. When a toolbox dropped out the back of a C-130 into a crowded city started to look like a viable option, you knew things had gone bad.

Luna bucked the first one hard enough his feet left the floor. He landed in a pile against the ice cream cooler, winded. She kicked the other one clear over the counter.

“Er, sorry about this,” I said as we scooted for the door. “I hope this isn’t something you’re used to.”

The confectioner shrugged. “I am from Russia.”

We ran for the car and got it headed east into the growing darkness. I was already mentally putting together what questions I was going to ask the next time I got my hands on a phone.

Chapter 19

September 4, 2015
If you only stop for gas, you can get from Key West to New Orleans in about fifteen hours. It’s a little hard on the posterior, but you can get used to anything if you’ve got the proper motivation.

In this case, the motivation was running from angry bikers who were convinced we stole their drugs.

Still confused by that, I called Justin, thinking he might have some insight into the biker thought process.

“Oh, those guys,” he said. “I don’t know why they think their meth is with you. I burned it along with their place when I robbed them.”

Have I mentioned Justin is a criminal?

“So what am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“Stay off the roads.”

“Not an option. How did they find out about us, anyway?”

“One of the great strengths of organized crime: networking. A member of one of their satellite chapters probably recognized some of the serial numbers on the bills.”

“So…any time we spend cash, we should then quickly relocate?”

“Looks like it.”

So now we couldn’t even stay in hotels. And camping in the south during summer was also not an attractive option.

“Well, how about getting us the rest of the money you mentioned? If it's different money, that shouldn’t attract them.”

“Yeah, yeah, give me a couple days.”

“While you’re at it, maybe you could come up with something to work on Tirek. He shrugged off 5.56 the other day. Maybe a fifty-cal would do it.”

“I got something better and more portable, an old M203.”

“Where did you…never mind.”

“See you soon, Sandy.”

That was encouraging, but we had to get through the next few days first.

As we crossed the Florida panhandle, we passed by the Air Force Weapons Museum in Eglin. I remembered a visit I had made during a trip a few years ago. I had found a YGBSM patch in the gift shop. Good times.

That was about the only entertainment on the trip. After such a long piece of driving, all I wanted to do was find a sporting goods store, buy a tent, and go to sleep.

So of course, Tirek was in New Orleans and we had to go after him.

Luna picked him up from only a dozen miles away. It looked like his plan to lure us to Key West had almost worked. If we hadn’t realized it, successfully predicted where he would pop up next, and raced like crazy people to get there, we’d have missed him completely. To be so close when he finally did appear was a pure stroke of luck and we had to exploit it.

It was nice to have a little time to set up. If he would probably be in the area for a little while, we could canvas the place first and make a plan.

I thought about calling my friend the pilot. Maybe there would be some jets at the base south of New Orleans. But we were in a crowded city. Tirek had yet to be kind enough to appear somewhere empty and also open enough to get a laser designation on him.

I guess that still left the option of guys with guns, but figuring out how to contact them was still a problem. Going up to a base and saying, “Hey, we need you to shoot this guy for us,” could work, but seemed like it would take more time than we had. SOF guys might move fast, but they're still part of the glacier that is the government.

We could also go to the police, but they might start asking questions about drug money and fake license plates. Kind of backed ourselves into a hole with that one.

Locating Tirek's general location, we circled the block, careful to stay hidden in traffic. Luna carefully pinpointed which building he was inside.

Maria checked the guns and we pulled into the alley nearest the building. There was a convenient door and I stopped the car beside it, the three of us piling out.

Hiding behind the Fiat’s meager bulk, we went over a final few words of planning. When we were ready, we took our positions. Luna trotted around to the door and made ready. Standing to the side, I raised my carbine and braced.

Luna kicked the door off its hinges and got out of the way. I leaned around the frame, weapon pointed.

Tirek was in the room. I was pleased to see that there was a bandage, albeit a small one, on the shoulder where I’d apparently shot him. He knelt on the floor, his horns nearly brushing the ceiling. There was a table in front of him and on the other side were about twenty bikers. It looked like we’d interrupted a meeting.

Oh my. This was a very bad place to be named Sandy West.

Tirek looked surprised, so we’d done at least one thing right. I saw his expression start to change to rage, but I was already running for my life.

The Fiat doesn’t have much hood, but by God, I slid across it. As I was getting in the driver’s seat, I heard Maria’s 12-gauge go off, but didn’t bother to see what she was shooting at. Luna was already in the back.

The transmission took a shock as I dropped it into Drive with my foot already planted on the gas. Fortunately, there’s very few things weaker than the Fiat’s engine and nothing broke.

I glanced in the mirror and saw a garage door roll up, headlights of motorcycles shining from within. That was actually a relief. The kind of choppers your average motorcycle gang rides aren’t as good at taking corners as a car, much less a sport bike.

However, the motorcycles could cut through traffic with ease, and in a place like the crowded streets of New Orleans, that could make all the difference.

Maria had the atlas out, turned to the inset of New Orleans. It didn’t really help for details, but might keep us out of a dead end.

“South!” she directed.

“Which way is that?!”

“Next right!”

The road was narrow and riddled with potholes. We weren’t in a busy part of the city. I saw that we were coming to a t-road. There was a concrete wall directly ahead, with an open steel gate. I realized it was part of the levee system that was supposed to keep the city from flooding.

If there was a levee, then there was a river. I started to form a vague idea for a movie-esqe scenario where I would go through the gate and then turn sharply so the bikers would miss and ride into the water.

There was a set of railroad tracks directly on the other side of the gate, though, and the bumps of going over them set the car sideways onto a grassy embankment alongside the Mississippi.

In the mirror, I saw one motorcycle completely botch the railroad crossing and fall. The others took it more slowly and we gained ground.

We immediately lost it, though, when the railroad tracks merged with an industrial park for transloading the railcars with river barges. The pavement was a platform about two hundred feet wide and a quarter of a mile long. The powerful bikes started to catch up on the concrete.

Some trucks were parked here and there, and there was some sort of warehouse up ahead. The doors were open and I could see light all the way through. Well, if that’s the way it had to be. I kept the throttle pinned and zoomed into the building.

I could see a whole bunch of surprised dock workers handling various materials blurring by. It felt like doing a trench run on the Death Star. All I needed was a few seconds and we would be out.

More motorcycles were waiting in ambush on the other side of the building, and they’d timed the intercept so that they were a whole lot closer than the previous pack. I could hear unmuffled v-twin engines through the open hatch.

Open hatch! Oh yeah, we hadn’t had time to shut it. Luna was doing an admirable job of bracing back there, hooves spread and hanging on.

“Begone!” she shouted, grabbing something to throw. I realized it was my laptop as I saw it going sailing out the back and clobber a biker in the face. His bike went down and the others following piled in. It was a little like bowling and a little like a train wreck. We hadn’t gotten them all, but we’d bought some breathing room.

The loading dock was rapidly coming to an end as a canal from the river cut inland. I turned the wheel, seeing that the levee coming up was a grass-covered dirt berm instead of a wall. Driving at an angle, I was able to get over it and skid down to the street beyond. Once again, we gained a little ground.

A highway crossed ahead, leading to a short bridge that crossed the canal. As we approached, lights flashed and the bridge began to open in the center.

Well, if we were going to make this a chase worthy of a movie… Maria saw the look in my eyes and started to say something, but instead just found something to hold onto.

“What are we-” Luna started to say as I screeched around the corner to put us on the highway. She turned to look forward, seeing the ramp of the drawbridge as it rose.

The breakaway barrier smacked across the windshield and went on over the roof as it broke off. I heard the plastic lip on the bumper scrape as we hit the incline and felt the wheels bump.

Maria made that gasp-with-clenched-teeth sound that people in passenger seats make when you do something stupid.

Over the top, it almost felt calm and serene for about half a second there. We were fortunate that the bridge was only open a foot or two. The lightweight Fiat landed better than I would have expected on the downslope and we went on down the ramp.

Traffic stopped on the other side flashed by, surprised drivers staring at us as we raced away.

Glancing back, I saw that we’d lost the bikers. I let off the gas and the car slowed down.

Maria’s knuckles were white on the armrest. She looked at me. “Let’s never do that again.”

“We couldn’t outrun them, so I had to take drastic measures,” I pointed out. I glanced back at Luna. “Why couldn’t we get a faster car again?”

“I will tell you later,” she replied. “Perhaps when I manage to get control of my heartbeat. So, much later.”

“Well, if we can’t get a faster car, can we at least soup up this one? Replace a few parts to make it faster?”

Luna nodded. “Can you do that?”

“We can make it happen.” I knew just where we needed to go.

Chapter 20

September 6, 2015
Dallas in September has only marginally cooler weather than August. The auto garage where we’d parked was like an oven.

My buddy Rusty was under the Fiat, examining the suspension and the plastic lip of the bumper that had been scuffed when we’d jumped the bridge.

“Explain this to me again?” he asked from under the car.

“We jumped a drawbridge in New Orleans running from a biker gang. After you finish making sure the car is okay, I want you to put on a turbocharger.”

He rolled out from under the car and gave me a look.

I added, “Also, all the money we have could lead them straight to us, so I can’t pay you.”

“And what am I getting out of this?”

“The thanks of Princess Luna.”

Rusty glanced at Luna. She smiled.

He shrugged. “Works for me. Except...where am I going to find a turbo small enough to fit under the hood?”

“Doesn’t Fiat make a performance version from the factory?”

“If you want a turbo Fiat, go buy one.”

I glanced at Luna and back at Rusty. “We can’t. It’s complicated.”

“Not as complicated as integrating a turbo onto a tiny engine that wasn’t meant to have one without blowing it up, or worse, confusing the computer.”

He had a point. But, we were determined to give it a try. While I’m pretty good at wrenching if I do say so myself, Rusty was in a class of his own and we needed all the expertise we could get.

Maria handed us tools when we asked. Luna hung around and provided motivation for Rusty to spend all day working to install expensive parts for free.

He did all that and more, doing a software reflash and tuning, and performed a final check to ensure everything was tight. We’d had to ditch the plastic engine covering to fit everything in, and even still there were newly-installed pipes running everywhere.

Forced induction, you see, is just like the internet: a series of tubes.

When the time finally came to test it, we all held our breath. The engine actually did turn over and start. It was slightly louder than before, and with a different sound. Probably because we’d ditched the muffler and just let the turbo smooth the exhaust out.

“Test run?” Rusty asked, grinning.

The two of us went. Night had fallen and Rusty pointed me towards an abandoned street. When I was sure we were alone, I put my foot in it.

“What the…?” I gripped the wheel tightly as the car accelerated, happy with the newfound power but confused by a strange shudder in the steering.

“Torque steer,” said Rusty. “That’s right, you’ve never driven a high-powered front wheel drive car before.”

I’d never driven a four cylinder without a muffler, either. The turbo helped quiet it down a little. When the exhaust rusted off Maria’s turbodiesel truck, it wasn’t that much louder either. One of the few times when a part can make the vehicle both faster and quieter.

At least at the lower RPM’s. At speed, the little fourbanger now sounded like a cat in a buzzsaw.

I learned the new feel on the way back to the garage. It felt like a whole new car. Amazing what a little boost can do. Heck, maybe I could learn to like the Fiat after all and stop pining after something bigger and more powerful.

Speaking of what was preventing me from obtaining a car that was bigger and more powerful, I spotted Luna when we got back. She was chatting amiably with Rusty’s girlfriend.

I wondered at the cosplay. It was a little strange to see in a mechanic shop in the middle of the night. Rusty explained that his girlfriend had just come from a local anime convention, one that was ongoing the next day, nearby, and cheap to enter.

“Is it really a good idea to for me, barely disguised as I am, to go to another convention with thousands of people who might know me?” I asked.

I should have asked that before we were already there.

Author's Note

Special thanks to V-Pony

Chapter 21

September 7, 2015
The anime convention in Dallas was held at a downtown hotel. The group of us arrived and made a plan to meet up later. Rusty and his girlfriend went off by themselves while Maria, Luna, and I went to get our badges.

Luna looked around at the crowds as we waited in line for tickets. “Who are these people?”

“Uh…” I glanced around and pointed at the cosplays I recognized. “Hellsing…”

Maria added, “Soul Eater, Host Club, Hunter X Hunter, Sword Art Online, The Devil is a Part Timer, Full Metal Alchemist, Inuyasha…”

I realized that I was a casual.

We got three badges. I asked for one that said “Princess Luna of Equestria,” telling the ticket-seller it was for a friend.

As we walked away, I put the badge on over Luna’s head. She stared at the anime character on it.

“It’s very strange to observe, rather than interact,” she noted. “Much different than the last convention.”

“I know the feeling,” I said. My badge had a name I’d never used before. Trying to come up with something that no one would recognize, I’d gone with a porn name: take the name of your first pet and the street you grew up on.

We wandered through the convention center. There was the standard art gallery and dealer’s hall. Lots of plushies, trinkets, and assorted bric-a-brac. Near a few of the event rooms, I saw a large crowd and tried to figure out what was going on.

A group of people were gathered around a woman wearing what might have been the best cosplay I’d ever seen. Several had cameras on her as she chatted with the crowd and signed autographs. She glanced up and we made eye contact. She winked.

Oh no.

Chrysalis managed to get free of the crowd and sauntered over. “Why hello. Fancy seeing you here.”

“Just passing through,” I said.

Chrysalis glanced at Luna. “I heard what happened. I take it you haven’t managed to find Celestia yet.”

“We have located her,” growled Luna. “Several times. The problem is Tirek.”

Chrissy made a show of checking an imaginary watch. “Wasn’t it almost a month ago that this all began?”

Luna gritted her teeth. “Then why don't you try defeating Tirek?”

“I’m a little too attached to my magic, thank you very much.” Chrysalis paused, frowning. “Wait a minute...I don’t feel your magic at all.”

A beat.

“Did he really…?”

“Yes,” Luna confirmed quietly.

Chrysalis’ brows knit, but then she shook her head. “Nevermind. Not my problem.”

“Not your problem? So then, what happens when Tirek comes after you?” Luna said.

“She makes a fair point,” said a mysterious voice.

My eyes almost bugged out of my head when I saw who it was.

Chrissy smiled at the newcomer. “Sandy, you’ll like this. Allow me to introduce you to Buzz Aldrin.”

“Respectfully, sir,” I stammered, “what in the Sam Hill are you doing here?”

“‘Sam Hill?’” he said.

“Uh...we’re in Texas. It just sounded right.” My face flushed red.

“I'm raising awareness for NASA and promoting space exploration,” he answered. ”There are lots of nerds at an anime convention.”

Made sense to me. “How did you come to meet Chrysalis?”

“A while ago, we were both at the same zero-g photoshoot. I did it to raise awareness for NASA and promote space exploration.”

I remembered how he had come into the conversation. “Wait, you can see Princess Luna? Aren’t you surprised?”

“Kid, I flew combat missions in Korea, walked on the moon, and at the age of seventy nine recorded a hip hop song with Snoop Dogg. There isn’t much that surprises me anymore.”

“Fair point. Speaking of, Luna, you make a fair point. If Tirek’s after magic, Chrysalis might be next on the list. She’s the only one on this planet that still has any.”

We all looked at Chrissy. She faltered. “Well...it isn’t as if he knows where I am.”

“You’re a public figure,” I said. “All it would take is for him to make the connection to your real identity. Then, he could just hang around conventions until you showed up. Plus, using so much magic to create your outfits, he might just pick you off anywhere he pleases.”

Chrysalis crossed her arms. “I think I can handle myself.”

“Tirek has proven devilishly difficult to pin down,” warned Luna.

“Don’t forget that I once easily beat Celestia,” Chrysalis reminded. “And even since Tirek drained your magic and now has two alicorns’ worth, surely he can’t wield it effectively enough to add up to the original sum of that power.”

Luna started to argue, and then looked at me. “Sandy, get her.”

I said, “Chrysalis, when you beat Celestia, you were high on more love than you’d ever had before. Since then, you haven’t had real love in years, just fanboy lust.”

"Well, at least I'm good at coming up with plans," Chrysalis countered. "All you've done is chase Tirek."

Buzz Aldrin said, “It sounds as if you’ve been behind the ball in your pursuit. What if you could get ahead of Tirek and set up a trap?”

We all considered it.

“With help, it could work,” Luna said. “But what would we use to set the trap? What could not only get Tirek’s attention but draw him in?”

“Tirek wants power,” I said. “We’d have to have magic for bait.”

We all looked at Chrysalis.

She said, “Wait, this is a terrible idea! If he wants my magic, then we’d be leading him right to me! Besides, how are we supposed to reverse his magic absorption?”

“I have an idea,” said Luna. “But first, we need to contact Equestria.”

Chapter 22

September 10, 2015
Driving through the Great Plains is the antithesis of an experience. There’s nothing out there. Other than some rolling hills, there’s no terrain to mention. During one stint on a Kansas state road, we drove for forty miles without making even a slight curve or seeing a stop sign.

The weather wasn’t as hot as Texas, but we were all still in the process of rehydrating. I can only imagine what would have happened if we’d had to spend too much time outdoors chasing Tirek or whatever.

Speaking of Tirek, we were less concerned with his next destination, though we were figuring roughly Denver. With some coordination, we were hoping to put our plan into motion.

Tac...tac...tac...tac...tac...tac...tac...tac...tac...tac...tac...tac...tac...tac...tac...tac...tac...tac-ding!

As Luna typed a letter to Twilight with a pencil held between her teeth, explaining the situation and requesting backup, she occasionally paused to take a sip from the biggest Big Gulp cup we could get from a gas station. I mentioned rehydration, but Luna drank like, well, a horse.

She also wore the sunglasses we had bought her. Out on the Plains there was no terrain or trees to block the sun.

The scenery got slightly more interesting as we got into Colorado. We headed for Colorado Springs. Buzz Aldrin was there raising awareness for NASA and promoting space exploration. Being an Air Force town, they were receptive.

Chrysalis, unable to resist being the center of attention, was doing some sort of pin-up girl photoshoot.

We managed to get the two of them wrangled and in the same place to make plans. We needed a secret place to meet, one where neither Tirek nor angry bikers could find us.

Fortunately, in Colorado, I had a buddy who owned a train.

That sentence would usually cause confusion and require clarification, but this whole trip had really changed my standards for what was and wasn’t weird.

Otto the owner-operator engineer greeted us at his siding and showed the way to the stately string of vintage Pullmans. Drawing the shades on the dining car, we got down to business.

We sat around a table. Chrysalis changed back to her native form and stretched before joining us.

Otto had gotten a brief explanation from me about the whole deal, but was still freaking out a little. Rather than spend time on that, we tried to steer the conversation back to the topic at hand.

“Setting a trap for Tirek would probably work best with Chrysalis as bait,” said Buzz Aldrin. Coming from him, Chrissy didn’t protest.

“But first we’ll need a way to reverse his magic stealing,” she quickly added.

“And I have a plan for that,” said Luna. “I know Twilight Sparkle has the ability to help us. We must contact her.”

Luna showed the letter she’d typed. “We’ll need your magic, Chrysalis, to send it.”

“I don’t know that spell,” Chrissy protested. “Much less who to address it to.”

“Which is why I will be assisting you,” said Luna. She looked at Otto. “We will need a little space.”

“No problem.” He showed us to a large boxcar that had been just as lovingly restored as the rest of the train. The wood floor was clean and Luna laid out a few runes with a piece of coal, frowning at the effort of dredging up the memory to use them and also at the taste.

“It has been quite long since I have learned this,” she said by way of explanation. “But I have always believed in backups. This is a way to share magic.”

“What will it do?” Chrysalis asked nervously. “Are you really sure you want to share my magic?”

“Certainly not, but it is our only option,” said Luna. “Do not worry, however. I no more want to possess changeling magic than you want me to have it. Now, please activate the spell by touching your horn to the center.”

Chrysalis cautiously stepped forward and knelt to begin the spell. The runes glowed green with her magic.

“Step back and place your hooves here,” said Luna. She stepped to an opposite set of marks.

The two of them twitched as the spell went into effect and green magic washed over their hooves. For a moment, I thought Luna would turn into a changeling version of herself, but explorative fanfiction aside, that would have been really creepy.

“Now,” said Luna. “I have the letter. Follow my lead.”

The piece of paper slowly lifted off the floor with magic. It hovered between them, rolled up and then, with a flash, vanished.

“Spike should have it now,” said Luna. She glanced down at the floor, then at Chrysalis, pausing before stepping away, breaking the spell.

“And now, we wait.”

Minutes passed and there was no reply. Luna said perhaps there was a time zone difference and Spike may have been sleeping. She had been nearly a month on our planet and had lost track of time. I could tell that troubled her.

“Should we maybe get moving?” I said. “Since we just used magic and all. Just in case Tirek is looking for us, which he is.”

“We can do that,” said Otto. “Hey Sandy, do you want to drive a train?”

“Do I!”

We went to select a locomotive. There were various steam engines around, but I stopped short in my tracks when I saw a yellow and grey monster casting a shadow over them all. “Is that...a DDA40X?”

“I thought you would appreciate that,” he said. “Come on, let’s load your Fiat into boxcar and get this show on the road.”

We got everything hooked up. This was going to be awesome. Riding the rails limited our flexibility a little, but we could always use the car again.

I was up in the cab with Otto when we pulled out of the yard. The enormous locomotive moved the short string of cars with ease. Much as I wanted to stay there, though, I headed back to the sleeper car to check that everything was all right.

Maria seemed to enjoy the train, as she didn't have to help me navigate. Chrysalis was obsessively checking her DeviantArt page with her cell phone. Buzz Aldrin was quietly working on some papers that appeared to contain a lot of science.

Luna sat beside a window, staring at the scenery rolling by. There were a few storm clouds coming in as we headed west for Denver.

“How do you think this is going to go?” I said.

She shrugged. I couldn't see her eyes behind her sunglasses.

I wanted to mention how she'd given in and asked for help. I decided not to.

Luna took a sip from her drink. For a while we sat.

Source

Author's Note

Special thanks to American_Brony

Chapter 23

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, we were in Vegas.

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 24

September 20, 2015
We hadn’t anticipated that it would take a week to draw in Tirek. On the plus side, Justin got us more cash and a grenade launcher. On the minus, waiting sucked and Luna and Chrysalis weren’t making it any easier.

We had set up in a hotel a couple blocks from the beach, eating things out of plastic packages and drinking things out of bottles. Every day, Chrissy would go down to a remote part of the beach and hang out. In this part of the year, there were a lot fewer tourists to interfere. At night she’d stay with us and someone would keep watch.

Luna hung around. After over a month on the road, her fetlocks were shaggy. Her mane had been limp since losing her magic.

I tried to ignore them sniping at each other I’m sure they honestly tried to avoid doing it. Tried being the key word in both those sentences.

It got so bad that Maria went out for a smoke. She doesn’t even own cigarettes.

I was thinking about joining her when a semi truck crashed into the building.

Being on the second floor, that wasn’t as serious as it could have been. It still shook the TV off its stand and broke the windows. The floor sagged and cracks went up the walls.

I’d hit the deck out of instinct. One of the plastic bottles of water we’d bought rolled off the kitchenette and landed on my head.

I sat up and looked around. I absentmindedly picked up the bottle. It didn’t seem right to leave it on the floor. There was some shouting coming from down the hall and I got up to open the door. It was stuck in the frame and I yanked at it.

Something hit it from the other side and it slammed open. Maria fell into the room with some guy grabbing at her. He had a face full of glass and I booted him in the head before he could fall on her. He fell by the baseboard.

Maria jumped up, some of his blood on her clothes, but otherwise fine. She kicked him, too. “That was the truck driver. I think he did that on purpose.”

I glanced out the hole that used to be the window, shading my eyes against the setting sun. “Considering we’re two hundred yards from the parking lot and his tracks look like he swerved around a few trees, yeah, probably.”

“Also the fact that he has biker tattoos,” added Buzz Aldrin. “I theorize he got his hands on a semi because motorcycles don’t respond well to brick walls.”

Made sense. Having got my wits about me, I realized we had a problem and went for the door. “We should get going.”

The Fiat was under a large car cover in the parking lot. We’d placed a few boxes near it to help disguise the shape.

Getting the five of us into the car was even worse than usual, but it helped that we hadn't stopped to grab our luggage. For some reason, I still had the water bottle.

We hadn’t gotten the hatch shut when another semi truck roared into the parking lot.

Fortunately, the car was able to outmaneuver such a large vehicle. He kind of blocked the lot exit,though.

Much as I would have liked to, I know the Fiat wasn't low enough to slide under a trailer like some riced-up Honda. When the truck driver stepped out of the cab with a gun, I decided we needed to explore other options.

Up over the curb and through a chainlink fence we discovered a grassy embankment that led down to another street.

This being California, though, the grass was dry and brown and the car went sideways in the dirt, sliding over the curb at the bottom and fishtailing into the road.

I was fairly certain at least one wheel had been bent in the process of our escape. The tires basically had rubber bands for sidewalls. The low tire light hadn’t come onyet, though, so it wasn’t a pressing problem.

The third truck coming our way was, though.

“Can someone shoot out the tires or something?” I called towards the back seat.

“Or put a grenade through the windshield?” Maria added.

“We lost the bag of guns over the bumps,” Luna reported.

I winced. I also knew we didn’t have much else to throw out since we’d left it all at the hotel.

“I have a solution,” Luna said.

We were headed for a railroad crossing, but I glanced in the rearview mirror. As the car bumped over the tracks, Luna fell out.

At least, that’s what I thought. She landed upright, skidding to a stop on her hooves.

The truck plowed into her and stopped quite suddenly, the grille folding around Luna’s body like a clamshell. There was a faint blue glow from within the folded metal.

Then, a train plowed into the truck parked across the tracks and dragged it away. Otto leaned out the window as he went by. “Choo choo, mothertrucker!” Iron horse is best horse.

I’d brought the car to a halt as soon as I saw Luna bail out. She still stood tall in the road, hooves buried a few inches into the asphalt. The thin sheen of a force field around her flickered and dissipated, her horn glowing for a little longer.

“I knew that would be useful,” she said, extricating herself from the pavement.

“I thought you were out of magic,” I said.

“Knowing Tirek’s nature, I thought it would be wise to have a reserve,” she said. “I used the car as a storage vessel.”

“So that’s why you wouldn’t let us get rid of it.”

“In retrospect, I should have chosen something else. Fortunately, it came in handy even if I could not tell you I had stored a reserve.”

“Why did you do that?”

Luna glanced at me. “Again, knowing Tirek’s nature, should he capture you, I did not want him getting that information.”

“I meant, why did you use your last magic on crashing a truck? We could have outrun it.”

“I also used it to cast the beacon spell for the Element Bearers to locate. They should be here shortly.”

I hoped they would arrive even quicker than that, because Tirek did just then.

He flashed in with an intimidating roar. “Who here has magic?”

His eyes went to Luna, where he paused, but then looked at Chrysalis. She squeaked and hid behind Buzz Aldrin.

I probably shouldn’t have moved just then, though it did distract Tirek. He looked in my direction and raised his arm.

Because his arms were so enormous, I didn’t notice he was holding an RPG until just then.

I’d never been shot at by one of those before, so I didn’t know how to react. It smacked the pavement right next to my feet. It didn’t explode, probably because the distance was inside the warhead’s arming range, but I still got showered with little pieces of asphalt and rocket motor, burning holes in my jeans and maybe concussing me a little.

I stumbled, trying to blink the stars out of my eyes. Luna bucked Tirek in the knee, which appeared to do little more than startle him, but it bought us enough time to get to the car.

“He really takes his revenge to the next level!” I shouted as I dropped the car into gear. It left rubber on the pavement.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Luna replied.

Behind us, Tirek charged. He might have been big and powerful, but running at highway speeds was not his forte. I was more concerned with the magic blasts from between his horns.

Even in a tourist destination like Monterey, the streets were fairly empty on a Sunday evening in late September.

I made a corner and raised a hand to shield my eyes from the sun. It was too late that I realized that sun in my eyes meant we were going west - straight towards the ocean.

The parking lot ahead was open and ran straight into a dune. The car went up it pretty well, but the sand was softer on the back side and dragged the Fiat to a halt within sight of the water.

Tirek kept coming and I looked around for anything I could use. My sunglasses case was handy in the front seat, but the bottle of water looked heavier.

However, just then there were six colored flashes and we were rescued by Twilight & Co.

“Are you ready, girls?” Twilight called. They were. They blasted Tirek with friendship magic.

It was kind of anticlimatic even with the rainbow sparkles everywhere. They took back the stolen magic and left Tirek a husk of what he had been.

“Where is Celestia?” was Luna’s first question, even before regaining her magic.

“Here, sister!” Celestia galloped over the dune, sliding down the face to meet us. Luna wrapped her up in a hug. I saw them talking quietly, eyes closed and holding each other tightly.

In the distance, I could hear sirens. I sat down on the sand and took a breath. Maria checked my face and didn’t find any shrapnel in it, so I figured I was okay.

I suddenly regretted sitting down when Tirek charged at us. He was a whole lot smaller than before, but between his horns and his hooves, I wanted no part of that.

“You will pay for what you-!”

Buzz Aldrin punched him in the face. Tirek went down.

The sirens had gotten closer. “Someone should go talk to the police,” said Maria. She walked away.

I lay back in the sand. The loose water bottle had ended up under my head and I didn’t bother moving it.

Luna sat down beside me. I rolled my eyes to look up at her. She smiled. So did I.