A Tender Moment Part 1: The Team
A/N: a few things before we begin. First, as you probably know from reading my blog, I'm a talker, and I've a flair for the dramatic. Now that's not to say that any of what I say therein isn't true, or isn't exactly the way I remember it. As a matter of fact I did indeed shudder when I read 'you know what'. I was truly scared to death of fics, and the community behind them, irrational as the fear may have been. I make no secret of being scared, and I'm happy to bare my heart and soul to you, my readers, however non-existent you are at time of writing, and how few of you there may be when this whole obsession blows over. (hopefully not for decades still to come, Star Wars, I'm looking at you!) Anyway, I figured I'd get the sad bits out of my system before going on to the story that I so desperately want to tell, if only I could stop talking.
On with the show!
Scott West was bored. Very, very bored. You'd think a war with a species that defies all conventional logic and the basic human understanding of physics, residing in a barrier that nullifies all modern technology because it follows the same suit would NEVER get old. But it did. Months into the human/pony war, he'd lost all interest in it.
Now, it wasn't that he didn't care, not at all. But, he always asked himself, why should he, when it was obvious they were going to lose anyway? Without technology and their advanced weapons, all the humans had were their hands and fists.
Not that that was much use against an opponent that could be punched, kicked, choked, and slapped, and take it all smiling. Hell, the first pony they sent out came equipped with nothing but her bad mane and a little green animal.
But she managed to dodged heavy bombardment by artillery, both old and new, almost as if he saw them coming, and then disappeared in a blast, only to reappear beneath the general's cap, asked if she could borrow his party cannons because they were " fun-tastically loud".
She had then hopped out, the green animal latched dully on his head... on a live, televised first-encounter special that had been going since they had first appeared in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The show documented the first diplomatic talks, to the shortly thereafter breakdown of those talks, to the war still raging. Although it was more like the humans were throwing every weapon they had at the shield, which it would consume, growing to cover an area the size of Australia within the 6 weeks since they'd arrived, showing no difference since it began accelerating shortly after the peace talks broke down.
The "Celestial Sisters", as the media had come to call them, declared that they would only defend themselves as they saw necessary, and left open the offer they had made to those who could make it to the slowly advancing front line: mobile clinics for those who "want a better way, and to live in harmony".
As exciting as all of this had been, Scott couldn't really do anything about it, as he was too young to join the army and fight, which he wouldn't have anyway, and he lived too far from the front lines to go and live in "Equestria" as the ponies called it. Though that certainly was his intent. He was, by far, a supporter of what the ponies were offering. They weren't offering a change of mind, and they certainly weren't offering a quick and easy solution as thousands had hoped when they'd flocked to the gates, hoping that there would be a quick escape to be had. No such luck. The people that went in to those clinics were the same people they were before they went in.
No, what the ponies were offering was a change of biology, and reality. They gave those that accepted a sort of refugee status and the ability for their minds to truly comprehend the idea of a world with no need for war. A truly limitless world, and the mental capacity not to go mad at the sudden loss of everything their reality was suddenly ceasing to be. War, pestilence, and death were concepts, nothing more.
It didn't make it easier to accept for them, however. Those without the will to change their ways on their own were not welcome in Equestria, and no longer welcome home, treated as traitors and often shot on sight after they had left the clinic. The ponies may not be able to die, but a human was a human.
That's not to say that Scott wasn't willing to risk it. They tended to take kids into interrogation camps, preferring to extract information from them and scare them back into polite obedience... usually. Others, they would send to the orphanages, their parents usually gone or thought to be incompetent for not teaching their children friend from foe.
His choice was simple, at least to himself. He had to go as close to his birthday as possible, so that if he did get sent to the orphanages, he would at least be out soon after for another shot when his juvenile time was up.
He, and the other kids he looked after, lived in Scott's two-floor home: 8 year old Anya, 12 year old Razz, and 15 year old R.Z, a quiet kid who had shown that he could wire anything from a television to a small bomb ( they hadn't let him near explosives yet, so he made his own out of boredom).
Scott guessed when your parents were off trying to 'save the world' and the only caretakers are the orphanages headmasters, most kids try to slip through the cracks to get out of the orphanages, while R.Z. made holes. In walls. With homemade explosives. The only drawback of his being a technological genius was that he was highly introverted, and painfully unable to do anything for himself beyond eat, sleep, and bathe.
Scott had been taking care of them all, with the exception of R.Z., whom had joined the group after blowing his way out of the last orphanage he was in 2 weeks ago, for the past 8 weeks, and it was finally time to put his plan into action.
His kids were in agreement, as they knew how the war was going too. They had a grand total of six weeks to get there, but it wouldn't even take them that long, since they were going to take his parents' minivan until they were maybe a weeks travel from there, but to be sure, there was a town every few days journey on foot in case something went wrong and they did have to walk the whole way.
It was unlikely. Scott had planned this journey for the past seven months, maintained the car the way his dad had taught him to, and bought new parts for anything too old to be trusted.
Today was the first day they would set out in the car, fresh gasoline in the tank and 2 weeks worth of food money apiece in their bags, three changes of clothes, plus anything sentimental they couldn't bring themselves to leave without.
Anya had one of her Barbies that she'd had when Scott had found she and Razz at his doorstep, in the pouring rain, along with a few sets of clothing for it.
Razz had his Gameboy that he had brought with him that night also, which Scott had learned Anya stole for him shortly before they arrived here, and 4 sets of batteries plus what was in the handheld.
R.Z. was the odd one out. He didn't seem to give much sentimental value to anything, but when Scott told him to take anything small that he wanted, his eyes lit up, and he rummaged in a few drawers as if he knew this moment was coming for only the past day, and came up with a long coil of wire, scissors, electrical tape, and what was left of an alarm clock he had disassembled a week ago... He had turned it into a countdown clock.
"These." he said, a slight smile on his face as he fit them into his backpack. He seemed to think he'd need them for some reason, so Scott let him have it. There may be a good use for it later. You never know what could happen.
A/N: This was a boring chapter, for the most part, but that was intentional. This way we get the boring "here's what the situation is" and "gearing up" bits of most road trip fics out of the way as soon as possible.
I've noticed A/N's to be very useful tools to get certain questions out of the way, so here's the first one I got from my pre-reader (myself): What's with the title? Well, dear, intelligent, handsome reader, it's a bit of foreshadowing. The tender moment is the goal and the end point. When I reach said end point, I will start a new story on life AFTER the events of "A Tender Moment", which will be my chance to buckle down and give some other aspects of writing a shot... SO! That being WAY off in the future, I'm hardly paying it any mind right now, but it shall be done. Though me being myself, I already have a plan set out for that story too... Also, that one will take a far less cartoonish take on the ponies and buckle down and make them into people. Yes, there are great ambitions for this story. Hopefully I can play 'em out! See you next chapter!