Mood Music

"Handlebars control the rudder and steering, right grip is your throttle, left grip is your gauges and light. Now hit it rookie!" Dash shouted, and Twilight hammered the throttle. The air boat took off down the murky water way, and they exited the tunnel into the open trenches that once were waterways. Wrecked boats and garbage was strewn everywhere, and made an obstacle course that Twilight guided the boat through with relative ease.

Dash sat in the second seat, which was slightly raised compared to the drivers seat and was positioned right in front of the boat's engine. Dash pulled her pistol from her belt, and turned over her shoulder to aim behind them. Soon, they'd attracted the attention of the Combine, who pursued in their own amphibious vehicles. Theirs resembled modified fishing skiffs, which were small and fast. They were propelled by a steerable fan on the back, much like their own airboat.

9 millimeter bullets ricocheted off the swamp boat, and Dash returned fire on their pursuers like she was born to do so. She put round after round behind them, plinking Metrocops off the boats with skilled marksmanship, and even disabled one of the skiff's engines. The 2 remaining Combine skiffs raced after them, their MP crews kneeling on the bow and firing their pistols at Twilight and Rainbow. The airboat's engine whirred as they moved faster and faster, weaving between lumps of twisted metal and hollow carcasses that were once seafaring vessels. The skiffs pursued ruthlessly, matching every movement that Twilight made exactly. Dash switched shoulders and leaned to the other side, firing off more rounds from her custom handgun.

"How much longer until we hit Ponyville East?" Twilight shouted over the noise of the airboat's engine.

"We still have a ways to go, just keep driving," Dash replied, equally loud.

Twilight continued in the deep grooves of the canals. The trench inclined upwards, forcing the airboat out of the water and onto the dirt river bed. Luckily for them, the airboat was technically amphibious, but not really rated for extended land travel. Twilight jerked forward as they hit the sloped dirt surface, and the boat rocketed off the slope and caught a second or 2 of air before meeting the ground again. The skiffs followed. Dash rocked with the boats harsh movements, and patted Twilight on the shoulder.

"You're doin' great kid, keep it up!" She said over the sound of her pistol's shots.

Twilight held on the throttle as they raced through the canal system with the Combine in hot pursuit. The canals switched between water and dirt terrain sporadically, but both the airboat and MP skiffs were able to traverse them. up ahead, a large boat was laying sideways in the canal and blocked the way forward. Dash, seeing this, turned from her rear firing position and pointed her gun above Twilight's head. She fired 3 rounds, causing several logs to fall into the canal and into a perfect slope for a ramp. Twilight gunned the engine and barreled toward the ramp. Dash pulled the pin on a grenade and dropped it as Twilight drove up the logs and sailed over debris from the boat. One of the skiffs attempted the same jump, but failed to realize the live grenade until they had just run over it, and were sent flying into the rusting steel ship. The other skiff turned and took a different route out of sight.

Not long after the heart-racing stunt, a loud and heavy whirring filled the air, and was even louder than the airboat they were sitting in. Dash turned around, and gasped the words, "Oh SHIT."

"What? What is it?" Twilight asked over the whirring.

"Hunter Chopper! Step on it!" Dash screamed.

Twilight cranked the throttle forwards, and the engine let out a 6000 RPM yelp before surging forward in a burst of speed. The whirring became louder and louder, until it swooped in around a corner behind them, and the telltale sound of the chopper's pulse gun filled their ears. The flurry of pulse rounds came down hard like hail reaching Mach 2. Twilight drifted wide around a corner, narrowly avoiding a quick, forward sweep by the chopper's gun. It rotated with ease around the bend, and kept after Twilight and Dash. Rainbow fired 3 shots at the chopper, but stopped after the bullets bounced off the thick armor with a comical 'ting'. Twilight swerved around another barrage of pulse rounds from the Hunter Chopper, and wrenched the throttle further forward. The engine was barely coping with the constant stress, and began to scream bloody murder as it passed 75 Hundred RPM.

"Dash! Are we close?" Twilight turned to face a pivoted Rainbow, watching the tailing helicopter.

"I don't know! Uhm...There! See those 2 Industrial chimneys? We're about half way there! Keep going!"

Twilight drifted sharply around another turn, and so did the helicopter on their tail. It let out another roaring inferno of blue-yellow pulse rounds, catching the rear of the boat in it's wake. Not 3 seconds after, the surviving skiff from earlier shot out from another canal inlet off to the side, and the cops on board began firing. This time, they had a clear shot at Dash and Twilight. She ducked to avoid the aforementioned gunfire, and Dash raised her gun and unloaded a magazine in the skiff's general direction. She sunk a round into a cop's forehead, sending him over the side of the boat and into the toxic fluids they drove on. Twilight yanked the handlebars to the right, and then to the left, crashing into the skiff's side and shaking another of it's crew into the lethal soup below. Dash hopped out of her seat and over onto the skiff, pistol whipping the bow gunner unconscious and then planting 4 rounds in the driver's chest. She leaped back onto the airboat as the skiff lulled to the side and plowed straight into another rusting ship. The helicopter swooped in closer and charged the pulse gun, unleashing hellfire yet again onto Twilight's swamp boat, rocking it side to side. Twilight heard the jarring noise of a Razor Train horn, and she devised a cunning, yet incredibly dangerous idea. She jerked hard right, sliding up onto the grassy slopes of the shore, hopped a chain-link fence and ended up on a railroad track. The chopper swerved sideways and followed the pair in their daring move.

"Dusk! What the buck are you doing!" Dash yelled.

"Trust me."

The chopped pummeled the area right behind them, and descended to track level.

"Gotcha!" Twilight yelled, as the train horn blared once again, this time much closer. The Hunter Chopper was trapped in the trench between their target airboat and a speeding Razor Train. Twilight slammed the bars left and shot out of a small gap in the fence, watching as the train crashed head on into the helicopter, destroying it in a fiery explosion. Twilight then put the swamp boat back on course for Ponyville East.

"Damn Dusk, I'd never have thought of that, screwin' the Combine with their own toys," Dash said, a rare impressed tone that Twilight had only heard once in all the years she'd known Rainbow Dash.

Twilight smiled on the outside, but deep down she was still moaning in agony. Dash was impressed by Dusk Shine, not Twilight Sparkle.

Soon, the familiar heavy whirring of another Hunter Chopper filled the air, and one sweeped under a bridge and caught on to their tail.

"Oh for Celestia's sake, again?!" Dash cursed under her breath.

"Hold on!"

Twilight gunned the airboat once again, avoiding a barrage from the pulse gun. She zoomed into a concrete pipe, forcing the Hunter Chopper off their rump for awhile. They came to what appeared to be a rebel outpost, crewed by 2 such rebels and one Vortigaunt. These were among the creatures from the Xen border world, an alien planet which attempted to do the same thing the Combine had done. 45 years ago, the Xen creatures were allowed entry by a huge science accident, the Resonance Cascade. These Xen creatures were designed to kill, and did so until Celestia, Luna, and the Mane 6 closed the portal. This left almost an entire world population's worth of the bipedal creatures called Vortigaunts stranded on Earth. They learned to co-exist, and share Equestria. When the Combine attacked and took over Earth, they enslaved the Vortigaunts for their seemingly magical powers, or made them suffer the same conditions as citizens in the Cities. Twilight stopped the boat at the dock, and both her and Dash climbed out. The engine of the airboat sputter and shut off, finally receiving a break from the constant red-line work it was just put through.

One of the rebels fell in line next to Rainbow, and started talking. "Come on, I'll show you what you're up against."

They walk into the medium sized room, which appears to be a dock house of some kind. There's a map on the wall, a desk with some notes, and a table with a pistol and SMG plus associated ammo. The rebel directs Dash to the map.

"Ponyville East is just ahead, nestled in the old Hydro Plant. Getting there, with that Hunter Chopper on your flank? Next to impossible. The Vort's out there working on your boat, that gun is ripped straight off one of the Choppers tailing you now. You'll be able to blow that thing out of the sky. Just watch out for the mines."

The sounds of Vortigaunt magic could be heard from outside.

"I think the Vort's just finishing up now." Dash and Twilight both walked out to the dock, and saw a pulse gun attached to the airboat.

"Oh HELL yeah." Dash said, climbing back into the second seat, which was now the gunner seat.

"Give 'em hell Dash." The rebel said, and Twilight revved the boat engine. They sped off and were, not long after, spotted by the Hunter Chopper.

Swooping in, it charged it's pulse gun and took the first jab at them. Twilight then stopped fast, putting the Chopper in range of the airboat's own pulse gun. Dash charged it, and then gave the Chopper a hard shower of pulse rounds. it granted her a victorious explosion, and a small flame on the right side of the helicopter. It swerved sideways, and ascended higher to get away from the now armed airboat, only to have Dash chase it with pulse fire. It dropped a spherical object with a flashing red light on the top and bottom, which began to blink faster and faster until-

"MINE!"

Twilight jerked right just in time to avoid the bomb's explosion. The chopper was laying a steady stream of these mines, not enough to block their path, but enough to make them swerve side to side to avoid them. Dash let loose another 'magazine' of pulse rounds, exploding the other side of the chopper into a burning flame. The Chopper was smoking from it's rotary engine, and had fires on the tail boom, wings, and lower cockpit, but it still flew. It turned around, flying backwards and returning fire from it's mounted weapon. It purposefully exploded a mine early, which rocked the airboat hard to one side and messed up Dash's aim. About half her shots missed. The Chopper swiveled around and began to drop another round of mines. Twilight weaved around the complicated maze of explosive danger, all the while Dash yelling obscenities at the airborne foe as her weapon sprayed the chopper in blue-yellow bullets. Dash seemed to have struck something vital, because the Chopper's smooth and steady flight became shaky and unstable, the helicopter dropping randomly and jerking side to side like it was dizzy.

"Shoot for that spot again, you cracked something in it!"

Dash charged the gun, before yelling another flurry of curses coupled with pulse bullets at the Hunter Chopper. The bullets pierced the thick armor and into the engine, setting the exhaust vents aflame. The Chopper began to explode incrementally, the explosions getting more frequent until it broke apart mid-flight and crashed into the shallow water of the dried lake.

"TAKE THAT YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Dash screamed in victory.

Author's Note

Chapter 3! Woooo! This one was a fun one to do, with the Chopper chase and the minesweeper segment. Hope you're still enjoying this, cuz there's a lot more on the way.

Also 2048 words!