The Moon Over The (Canterlot) Castle
“Motherfucker!”
Soarin rounded the corner into the Wonderbolts common room to find Rainbow Dash white-hoofing a game controller, her teeth gritted and wings splayed in absolute fury.
In other words, he had found a perfect target.
“Oh, you’d better believe it! Have you seen the hips on her?” He whistled. “Gah-lee, who would have thought Mama Dash was packing the dumptruck?”
Rainbow Dash fired the controller at Soarin, who, something of a veteran of these scenarios, had preemptively dodged to the right. It hit the end of its cord and clattered to the tile floor, distinctly not, to Dash’s disappointment, coated in a healthy sheen of wiseass brains.
“Whoa there! No need to get violent, Dash. I promise I only think about her once a day. Usually.” He plopped himself onto the couch, wisely leaving a healthy space of one cushion in between him and the would-be murderer just in case she decided to garrote him with the other controller. The TV showed a petite pegasus mare with her hair done up in a Neighponese bun and a gray flight suit, stationary in the air before a field of orange pylons. “What kinda game is this anyway? As far as I can tell it’s just looking at some chick’s ass.” He paused. “Not that that’s a problem, really.”
“Ugh, Celestia, do you ever talk about anything else?” Dash had started wheeling the controller back in, either to resume playing the game or to try for another kill.
“Not if I can help it.”
Dash refused to justify that with a response, instead simply rolling her eyes. “Whatever. It’s called Gran Pegasmo 4. It’s a flight sim. You fly, like, a million different athletes around racetracks.”
Soarin cocked his head in confusion. “Doesn’t look like any racetrack I’ve ever seen. This is just a bunch of pylons in the sky somewhere.”
“Yeah, there’s a bunch of challenges too. Some of them are kinda like Sky License tests, but some of the other ones are called ‘Coffee Breaks.’ They’re supposed to be ‘just for fun.’” She shook her head. “Yeah, ‘just for fun’ my fuckin’ multicolored ass. These things are torture.”
“This one of ‘em?” Soarin asked.
“Yeah, the first one. All you’ve got to do is fly through all those pylons and make it to the end before you run out of time.”
“What, really?” Soarin scoffed. “Doesn’t seem all that hard–”
Rainbow Dash had already raised her foreleg into a pitcher’s stance, controller firmly grasped in hoof. “Don’t. Even. Start.”
Soarin, wisely deciding that he would like to keep his frontal lobe inside his skull, correctly decided to not finish that sentence.
“That’s right, bitch.” Rainbow turned back to the game. “Anyway, yeah it seems super easy, but if you so much as fart near one of the pylons you fail, and the time limit is brutal so you can’t just creep through. Oh, and it plays this stupid godsdamn music every time you fuck up too, just to add a cherry on top of the shit sundae.”
“I guess.” Soarin inspected the scene on the TV. “Isn’t there an open path off to the left? Why don’t you just fly down that one?”
“I tried, but I can’t get through it fast enough. You’ve gotta go all the way around if you do that, so it’s a super long flight and you run out of time.”
Soarin squinted his eyes. “Why don’t you just cut to the right of the cone in the middle? There’s definitely enough space between that one and the one on its right”
“You want to try? Be my guest.” She tossed him the controller, this time at a significantly smaller fraction of escape velocity. “Just press ‘X’ to start. Sticks make you go and turn.”
Soarin caught the controller out of the air. “Yeah, yeah. Bet ya’ I nail this first time.” He pressed the sticks forward on the controller. The mare didn’t move. “Uh…”
“Press the one in the middle. It’s paused.”
“Oh.” Soarin pressed the center button, right stick held forward. The mare gave a few hard flaps and started down the row of cones. “Now, watch and learn, Dash. I’m boutta–”
The mare’s left wing clipped the first cone. The screen pulled back, revealing the word “FAIL,” and, as Dash had correctly warned, electronic drums had started to play. Bafflingly, the pulsing beat was overlaid with a ludicrously deep and hilariously inappropriate stallion’s voice which let loose a sultry “oh yeah.”
It was, as she had warned, some pretty godsdamn infuriating music.
“Ya’ see?” Dash slumped into the couch. “I swear, I’m never getting through this one.”
“Ah, come on.” Soarin hit the “restart” button, and the mare reappeared at the front of the field of pylons. “It can’t take that many more tries, right?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It had been 14 tries. The pylons were still winning.
“Oh, come on you fat bitch, turn, just tur–” Soarin could only watch helplessly as the Neigponese mare yet again careened into a pylon.
There was that music again. “oh yeah.”
“Fuck!” He rared his arm back, preparing to launch the controller into the cinder-block wall.
“Hey, hey! Don’t even think about it!” Rainbow Dash shot into the air, putting herself between Soarin and his intended disposal ground for the controller. “I’ve only got one of those left!” To emphasize her point, she gestured towards a pile of electronic gore in the corner of the room, undoubtedly the remnants of the other controller. “And I refuse to leave this godsdamn couch until I beat this stupid fucking challenge.”
“Alright, alright, fine.” Soarin returned the controller to a normal position. “Let me just give this one more try, I think I’ve figured it out this time.”
Once again, the mare reappeared in the bottom of the screen, and, at Soarin’s direction, rocketed down the alley of cones for yet another attempt.
“Keep it out to the right this time. Don’t fuck this up again, Soarin!”
“Yeah, yeah, will you shut the fuck up, please? It’s hard enough to steer this bitch–”
Both Wonderbolts’ jaws dropped open as, instead of once again plowing into an orange pylon, the mare successfully passed a hair’s breadth to the right of the pylon, shooting back around onto the open lane of pylons with nothing but air between her and the finish line.
“Oh, no fuckin’ way, you’re actually going to–”
“Uh, hell yeah I am!” Soarin watched in glee as the mare crossed the line, coming to a stop as a time appeared on the screen.
0:14:220
“That’s fast!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash. “There’s no way you didn’t get gold for that one!”
BRONZE
“WHAT?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0:13:750
BRONZE
“HOW!” Rainbow Dash threw herself back onto the couch’s backrest, dropping the controller onto the middle cushion. “There’s no way you can cut two godsdamn seconds off that! You just can’t do it!”
A smarmy voice cut in from behind the couch. “Do what? Avoid a major wing fracture every two months? Not get written up another time for fraternization?”
“Get fucked, Misty,” grumbled Rainbow Dash and Soarin in unison.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever bitch.” She paused for delicious effect. “And Dash. What are you two ‘tards doing anyway? Some stupid–” she gasped. “Whoa! Is that Gran Pegasmo 4?”
“Yeah,” replied Dash, rolling her head back around the couch so she could speak to her face to inverted face. “Since when do you know about Gran Pegasmo?”
“Are you kidding?” Misty Fly vaulted the back of the couch, landing on the open middle cushion. “I friggin’ love Gran Pegasmo. I just haven’t gotten this one yet.” She peered at the screen, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Is this some kind of challenge mode?”
Rainbow Dash passed off the controller to Soarin, going around the mare in the middle. “Yeah. You’ve got to fly around all the pylons and make it to the finish as fast as you can. It’s harder than it looks.” She pointed at the screen, where Soarin once again struggled to get the flight-mare to cut around the pylons. “This stupid pony can’t freakin’ turn at speed. She just plows on ahead.”
“Uh, duh! That’s Daihatsa Copa, right?”
“Uh, maybe? I think that’s right. Tiny little Neighponese mare from a few years back?”
“Yeah, that’s her.” Misty answered Dash’s next question before she could ask it. “She’s in the old games too. Anyway, you’re flying her all wrong. Gimmie the controller and I’ll show you.”
Soarin, once again having put the mare across the finish line a few tenths of a second too slow, shrugged and passed it off to the Misty.
“Alright, watch this.” Misty commanded the on-screen mare to fly forward again, but this time went right up the middle into a dense field of pylons. “You’re both going too fast. Copa can’t turn at speed worth a shit, but if you get her down low, she can cut corners like a fuckin’ champ.”
Proving her point, Misty guided the mare through the sea of orange at a measured but firmly maintained pace, slicing around the pylons with a succession of ludicrously tight turns. Impossibly, she came through the other side unscathed, powering out of the field and across the line.
0:13:130
“See?” Misty dropped the controller between her stunned wingponies. “Easy gold. Anything else–”
SILVER
“Huh?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“C’mon Misty, just flare out a little earlier and–”
“oh yeah.”
“HORSESHIT!”
“Don’t you dare throw that controller, horse-fly! I’ve only got–”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Crash! It’s your fault anyway! You keep bitching at me and I’ll–”
“–you chuck it and I’ll shove what’s left of it so far up your ass that you’ll be shitting out buttons for weeks you–”
“–that’s it, slut, I hope you like headlocks, because – oof!”
Spitfire groaned, finishing the very last sour drops of her government issue coffee as she approached the unmistakable sounds of hoofticuffs. She peered over the back of the couch, spotting the writhing bodies of Rainbow Dash and Misty Fly, who were currently engaged in a vigorous session of either no-holds barred wrestling or lovemaking, and Soarin, who remained on the couch and, judging by the gleeful look on his face, didn’t seem to care either way.
Spitfire sighed. “Five, four, th–”
The two mares looked up from the floor, locking eyes with their terminally unamused superior officer before scrambling to their hooves into as dignified an attention as they could when covered in each other’s feathers. “Uh, sorry for fighting in the–”
“At ease, dipshits.” Spitfire removed her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Honestly, I’m mostly just ashamed at how shitty you both are at fighting. On the ground that long and no rear naked choke? What do I even train you stupid fucks for anyway?”
“Eye candy?” offered Soarin.
“Ha ha, very funny, Soarin. We’re all laughing, aren’t we girls?”
Misty shrugged. “I think he might be right. Why else are our suits so tight?”
Spitfire rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh, yeah, you got me. It’s not because of aerodynamics, it’s just so I can inspect all your cheeks in spandex.” She shook her head. “What are you three doing anyway? Some kinda video game?”
“Uh, yeah,” started Dash, who had collapsed back onto the couch and was currently trying to pull a yellow feather out of her mane. “It’s a flight sim from Neighpon called Gran Pegasmo.”
“Neighpon, huh?” A flash of recognition went across Spitfire’s eyes. “I wonder if it’s the one those guys licensed my likeness for a year or two back. It sure sounds like it, at least”
“Could be. I think I saw something about it on the back of the box,” replied Soarin, who had fished the game’s case out from between the couch cushions. “Yeah, let’s see, I think–” his eyes went wide, case falling out of his hooves as he doubled over in laughter.
“What’s so funny, cumrag?” Spitfire snatched the case up from the couch. She put her (secretly prescription) glasses back down, moving the box back and forth until she found a comfortable reading distance. “Ah, let’s see – oh! There I am. – wait, WHAT?” She pulled the box a little closer in. “’Fly with the athletes of today and yesterday, including classics like SPITFIRE ‘89?”
“You hear that?” Soarin had rolled completely off of the couch onto the floor. “You’re a classic, Spits! Just wait, a couple of years and you’ll be playing shuffleboard with all the other blue-hairs!”
“S-shut it, dickweed!” Spitfire shot back, blushing outrageously in embarrassment. Rainbow Dash and Misty Fly had begun chuckling as well, albeit with a healthy dose of restraint as to keep all of their teeth firmly affixed to their jaws when Spitfire inevitably retaliated.
“No need to get testy, Grammy Spit!” Soarin wiped a tear with a hoof. “I’ll get one of the nice nurses to bring over your prune juice on the – oof!”
Spitfire delivered a mighty kick directly to his diaphragm, leaving him gasping for air as he rolled around on the floor. “Much better. Either of you two want to make another crack about your well-seasoned boss?”
Misty and Dash looked at each other, then back to Spitfire. “Uh, no boss. But you, um, look great for, uh, thirty-nine!” said Misty. Dash kept her lips sealed.
“Thanks! I’ll be thirty-nine in April, too.” Spitfire smiled, then turned to the television. “So, what, you’ve got to fly through all the pylons?”
“Uh-huh. We’ve been trying for a half hour.” Dash handed the controller to Misty, who started another run. “But we can’t get through it fast enough.”
Spitfire watched the virtual pony swerve around the cones. “Doesn’t seem too bad.” She raised an eyebrow at the leisurely pace at which Misty approached the final obstacle. “Why are you slowing down so much before that pylon? Can’t you just slide her around with a post-stall maneuver?” She turned back to the gaping faces of the two mares beside her on the couch. “What? I might not know anything about video games, but I sure as hell know how to fly, and that’s what I would do at least.”
Misty shrugged, not moving her eyes from the screen as she restarted the course yet again. “I’ll give it a try, can’t hurt – whoa!” The mare on-screen threw her tail out, sliding around the final pylon and across the line at, as Spitfire correctly predicted, a much higher speed than before.
0:12:635
“Ho-lee shit! That’s way faster!” Dash looked back at Spitfire. “We’re only a half second off gold!”
Spitfire smiled smugly. “See? That’s what happens when you let the experts help. Now, let’s get that half second off, eh? Shouldn’t take long with me here.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Turn! Turn! Slide!” Spitfire barked out orders as Soarin’s hooves and wings flew across the controller. “Power!”
Despite her earlier bravado, it had taken the better part of an hour to scrape off the majority of that half-second, and now the greater part of the Wonderbolts had gathered around the couch, all eager to see the challenge finally completed.
“Hngh, come on, slide–” Soarin slammed his hoof into the ‘stall’ button, sending the on-screen mare siding between two cones with nary a hoof’s breadth on either side, putting the power back on as her flight path straightened back out.
“C’mon Soarin, fuckin’ punch it! It’s right there!” Dash’s eyes shot up to the corner of the screen, where the timer was ticking the seconds away. “We’re so close!”
The forelegs of the mare cleared the finish line exactly as the clock struck 0:11:800, exactly the time displayed as the par time for a gold medal.
The room erupted into cheers, and Misty threw herself into Dash’s arms in elation. “FINALLY! WE FINALLY–”
0:11:800
SILVER
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Living underneath Cloudsdale was pretty swell, all things considered. Sure, there was the omnipresent shade that meant plants had a very difficult time, and the occasional sewage leak about which the less said the better, but, really, one couldn’t complain.
Except when things fell through your roof.
The earth-pony stallion, recognizing the “whizzing” sound as an incoming object, ducked under his kitchen table. Seconds later, a black object hurtled through the ceiling, splintering into a thousand shards of plastic against the brick floor. He extracted himself from his shelter, looking first up at the hole in his roof then at the –
“Whoa!” He picked up a miraculously intact game disc amongst the remains of a Haystation 2. “Gran Pegasmo 4? Score!”
Author's Note
GT4 reference, obviously. Mr. BK4's masterpiece about the elation one feels completing Coffee Break 1 is essential watching. If you've never piloted the mighty Daihatsu Copen to victory around those damn cones, you're missing out.
Yes, the timer did operate as "less than," not "less than or equal too." This is because Polyphony Digital hates you.
Did you know Misty Fly doesn't have a character tag? Did you know I picked her by random chance?
