The Hobo: The 'Loyal' Astronaut
"Rainbow, are you ready for this?" A voice crackled over the intercom in Rainbow Dash's helmet.
"Aww yeah Spitfire! You know me, just chalking up another space mission! Whatsit this time?" The girl grinned in her space suit as she lumbered over to the cockpit.
"It's your seventh. Don't get a big head up there Dash, this will be your first time without anybody.
"Ya worry too much Spitty. I got this!" The door opened smoothly with a hiss. The blue-skinned woman hobbled inside and then strapped herself to a chair and did the necessary precautions of checking the fuel gauge and the like. While her hands and eyes checked the various things one needs to check before liftoff, a tune was being whistled. A pang of heartache pierced her heart when Rainbow realized it was Pinkie's Smile song.
"Alrighty Spitty, launch the rocket. Let's see if we can beat the record for fastest time!" Rainbow grinned again, this time a little strained.
"Now now, Crash. This is a prototype rocket, it might not go as fast as we want it to." The voice chided, then a slight pause. "Be careful, ok? If anything goes wrong, abort immediately. That's an order."
"Alrighty Spitty, whatever makes you sleep at night. Launch this thing already!"
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"Alrighty, lost contact with HQ. Gonna get me a snacky wacky while I wait for comms to come online again...and I'm talking to myself again. You know, the weirdest thing is that I don't find this weird anymore." Rainbow Dash unclasped herself from her seat and floated over the food stash in the back. She unhooked her helmet from her suit and left it floating.
A compartment was labeled as spaghetti. Space food, it never gets old. Rainbow opened the drawer and instead of finding packets of dried food, she found a mess of red and yellow hair.
"S-Sunset? What the heck are you doing here! How did you even get in there? H-how did you get passed security a-and is that a spacesuit? Where did you get that!?" Rainbow's heart started beating faster and faster the more her mind started to accept the fact that, she, was stuck in a tin can with Sunset Shimmer.
It didn't take long for the stowaway to extract herself from the compartment and floated herself to face the still flabbergasted Rainbow. "Heya Rainbow. Long time no see. How's life in space?"
"Sunset Shimmer...thi-this is real, right? I mean, you, somehow stowed yourself in my rocketship." Rainbow's mouth was hanging open, her gaze far away, all signs of a person having a hard time believing what was happening right in front of her.
"Is it really your spaceship though? Tell me Rainbow, how do you fare being all alone?" Sunset's teal gaze hard and incalculable. Inertia bringing her ever so closer, inch by inch.
"A-alone?" The astronaut looked like she got slapped. "I-I'm not alone! I've got friends, t-the space team, Brillar Space Tech! We're like one big happy family!"
"Are you really happy Rainbow? What happened to you, sending yourself to space, running away from your friends. From people who care about you. What happened that day? The day you left us."
Rainbow Dash flinched, her eyes slowly getting red and teary. She opened her mouth to try to get a word in, but nothing came out.
"You were the glue you know. After you left, one by one, everybody started to leave. Each going down their downward spiral. Sure, Rarity is doing good for herself, but she lost contact, as did everybody else. All because you decided that you weren't good enough for us!" Sunset ranted, never losing her cool, as she stared coldly at those magenta eyes, staring fearfully back.
"T-they did? I-" Rainbow choked back a sob, "I n-never wanted for that to h-happen. I just c-couldn't handle the pain! I had to run away, I HAD to!"
"Was it worth it? Fluttershy and Twilight are in debt because of you, Pinkie almost got sent to an asylum, Applejack just lost her farm to an arsonist, and Rarity just abandoned us like you did. Where's your sense in loyalty? Huh? Loyal to the end? Yeah right." Sunset finally showed emotion, and it wrenched a knife deeper into Rainbow's gut, her face twisted in disgust.
"Alright! Fine Sunset, I abandoned you all because of selfish reasons!" Tears started flowing from the astronaut's eyes. "I packed up and left Canterlot because I didn't have a single loyal bone left in my body! My friends? Do I even have any? Huh Sunset?"
The tears wouldn't stop, no matter how hard Rainbow tried. The tears floated off her cyan cheeks and bobbed elsewhere. Silence. No answer from Sunset and Rainbow didn't check. Just her sobs filling the empty and quiet space. Then a choked gasp escaped her as she felt a hand drape over her shoulder. Instead of an impassive face or a disgusted one, like the one Rainbow was expecting, she instead saw a sympathetic one.
"Rainbow Dash. Why in the world would you not have friends anymore? Through thick and thin, that's what friends are for. That's the true meaning of loyalty, something you have forgotten. Now let us get some food, I'm kind of hungry." Sunset said in a calm and soothing voice.
Rainbow opened her mouth, wanting to say something, when the comms crackled.
"Gah, is this thing working? Soarin! Make sure it's working! Wait...it is? Uhh...Crash!" Spitfire's voice came out staticky, but it still held a trace of concern. Something Rainbow would not usually notice.
"H-hey Spitty. Everything good down there? Everything is good up here." Rainbow tried frantically to wipe away the tears floating about in her face.
"Are you sure Rainbow? You don't sound too good. Maybe you should head back." There was a slight crackle, then a muffled curse, then more rustling. "Aw, shoot Rainbow. This lonely mission is getting to you. I should've known this wasn't a good idea. Crash, I order you to abandon the mission and try not to live up to your name."
"It's alright Spitty. It's not so lonely as I thought. The stars and a sunset and a grandiose amount of space, just the perfect amount for a gal like me!" Rainbow grinned, if not still sadly, when she heard a sound of confusion from the other end.
"Okay Rainbow, if you say so. But we're here for you, if you need it." The comms beeped, signalling the end of the call.
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"No way! AJ actually did that? That is hilarious! Do you still have the scar?" Rainbow guffawed at something Sunset said, she too, was smiling. In response, she lifted her ratty shirt to reveal, indeed, a scar.
"The tales lie, you know. They say she's the deadest eye in the county. Lot good it did her." Sunset sighed, remembering that conversation a few months ago. "We're going to build her farm again, make it better with a multiple orchards. It should satisfy her for a few years. You coming?"
"Of course I'm coming! I wouldn't leave my friends hanging!" Rainbow flicked away a tear; pretty sure she did it fast enough that Sunset wouldn't see. But she did, and smiled inwardly.
"That's good...hey, when do we land?"
"Um, should be in a few hours." A comfortable silence filled the cockpit, the two girls strapped in seats, one of which was makeshift, as the plummeted back towards the earth.
Where home lies.
Where family and friends lie.
A smile, one of pure heart, graced Rainbow's face as the duo landed on an airstrip. She shut her eyes, rainbow-colored hair flickering about, and only opened her eyes when the rumbling stopped. She turned her head to look at Sunset, to find reassurance or companionship, and instead found an empty seat. Well, almost an empty seat.
In place of an orange woman, a phone sat. Rainbow unstrapped herself and picked it up, trying her very best to not feel hopelessness, and opened it.
No password.
And right then and there, did the tears start. But those tears? Those tears were happy ones.
Author's Note
Eyoooo, el second part of The Hobo series, that I decided will happen. Yay.
After writing this chapter, I realized that it isn't that mysterious, maybe it is and I just know the entire plot and that ruins it for me, or I dunno.
OR maybe I'm sleep deprived and should stop writing.
Anyways, hoped you liked it and I shall take my leave.
