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48.1 (Stainless Steel Fox)
Scootaloo Awoke looking through a grating. A quick self inspection first conformed she had hands, but wasn't human, a pony-anthro? No, a pegasus anthro, though her wings were hidden under a shapeless green sweater. Down below a red wolf in a fancy braided jacket was going on in fractured common to a bunch of other dogs in various forms of scruffy gear about how rich the box sitting on the table in front of him was going to make him. Then the loop memories hit. Air pirates, the mouthy mexicano moron was one Don Karnage, and she was currently in an air vent on a pirate airship called the Iron Vulture. Awesome!
She was apparently one Scootaloo 'Scoots' Skyscorcher, and a soon to be ex-pirate cabin-boy. She rifled the memories, orphanage, bullied as a freak, while this world had bird anthros with wing hands, pegasi didn't exist, runaway, hooked up with the air-pirates because she was mad about planes. She'd managed to keep both wings and gender a secret from the bozos, which wasn't hard as apart from Karnage the entire bunch had more toes than brain cells. She'd been with them a year, gotten fed up a lot sooner, and wanted out.
Which led to her current situation. This was apparently Don Karnage's biggest score, stolen from some big wig industrialist by the name of Sher Khan, and she intended to steal it and set out on her own, acquiring a plane and licence as soon as she was of age. As plans went, it was kind of shy on the fine detail, but then she was only twelve years old. Scootaloo decided to go with it, she certainly didn't know enough about the world to start making her own plans yet.
She opened the grating and dropped down onto the table beside the box. “Wow! That really is a neat treasure! No lesser pirate could have stolen it!”
As she expected the egotistical canine preened, “Yes, of course, I am the fantabulous Don Karnage yes/no?”
“Oh yes, and I wanted to thank you for teaching me how to lie, cheat and plunder. I guess you could call this my final exam...” She scooped up the box and sprung over his head, dropping the red bandanna that showed her pirate affiliation over his head. Using the head of the largest pirate, Dumptruck, as a stepping stone, she landed at the door and kept running. Thankfully this body had her regular lightning reflexes and acrobatic skill.
“It was... wait what?” The pirate finally caught up and yelled, “Stop that boy!”
Scootaloo charged out of the control room and down metal gantries, yells and cries following her. She met some pirates on the way down and yelled, “Get up there and help the Captain, right away!”
As they ran upstairs, she thanked Celestia for stupid villains. Dropping down to the floor of the main hangar deck, she snatched a grapnel launcher from the rack of blunderbusses along one wall and charged towards the open hangar door, shaped like a raptor's beak. Ignoring the yelling growing behind her, she charged up to the lip and dived off. She barely heard from above Don Karnage's voice yelling, “No, my treasure!”
Plummeting from several thousand feet would be a concern for most people, even a pegasus whose stubby wings didn't allow her to fly. She had plenty of fixes in her sub-space pocket, but she decided to get some practice with her in-loop abilities. Her wings popped out of slits in her jumper and she angled her body to power dive towards a cloud, and plunged into it, arresting her fall. Her cloud-walking abilities were another secret she'd managed to keep from the pirates.
She popped her face out of the cloud to check the giant air-ship above her, which was already shedding single engined biplanes like a dog shedding fleas. Whatever else there was nothing wrong with their reactions when it didn't involve actual thought. They plunged after her, and she made sure none of them were headed right for her hiding spot before ducking back in. She tucked the box inside her jumper and made it secure.
She let them dive past her and buzz around below as the cloud floated away from the search area. As she waited for them to drift out of sight, she directed a thought towards Pansy. Any luck finding other loopers?
No-pony from our world, though they may simply be out of range. Locally, I don't have enough to work with yet. Clover's the real expert.
Don't do yourself down, I wouldn't trade you for a dozen Clovers. Keep trying.
She got an impression of appreciation from Pansy, and the question, So what's the mission plan?
Get to this Cape Suzette place where Sher Khan is, return his property, see what we can get out of it, if anything. After that, who knows, Ascend and age myself a couple of years then go after a plane and a pilot's license. From what I know, this world is practically built for pilots. Which means I could have a huge amount of fun here. If I don't find some kind of quest... this looks like the sort of world that'll have one, and I tick all the boxes for a starting out hero.
The pirates had moved out of sight, and Scootaloo figured it was safe to move. She pushed her way down to the bottom of the cloud, and peeked out. Aha, a twin engined cargo job, just what she needed. She quickly fixed pads of clouds around her hooves, and power dived again, unslinging the grapple gun. A quick shot and a dash of weather magic wrapped the grapple around the leading edge of the rudder, and she swung her feet under her, pumping weather magic into them to act as flying skates. Her in-loop self didn't know how it worked, just that she could do it. Her wings could propel her as well, but not as fast as even a slow plane, and unlike her wings, a plane didn't get tired.
She'd been careful to dive below the pilot's line of sight, as the last thing she wanted was for anyone to see her abilities. After about half an hour, they started descending towards a tropical island with some sort of resort that looked to be part tree-house, and partly built out of a wreck of an old galleon. Various wooden docks stuck out into the water at odd angles, with dozens of seaplanes of various makes and models moored at them. The big neon sign said 'Louie's'. Now this looked like a fun place...
She unhooked the grapple gun and let it drop, flying down under her own power, looking for a quiet spot to land. She found it on a beach a short way around from the main docks, and made a neat two point landing. Folding her wings back inside her jumper, she strolled around and climbed up the docks and to the main entrance. She could hear singing from inside, some guy going on about how he was 'gone'. She slipped in the door to see filled tables and a big bear in a flight shirt and wearing a fruit salad on his head singing and dancing. However, he did seem to be looking towards the door and did a double-take as she entered.
Noting it for future reference, she made her way over to the bar where an orangutan in a Hawaiian was mixing up some cocktail concoction. She bounded up onto a stool and waited for him to notice her.
“Hey, short stuff, where'd you spring from?”
“Just flew in, but now I'm here, and I'd like a drink.” She pulled an Equestrian bit from her sub-space pocket. “I don't have local money, but I can pay.”
The orangutan picked it up, weighing it in his hand, bit it and tapped it against the counter. “Well don't that beat all! Where'd a little guy get something like this?”
“Family heirloom.” Scootaloo shrugged. “So, it'll cover a drink and a meal?”
“Cuz, if this is the real deal, you're covered for pretty much everything. Oh, hey Baloo, sounds like your pipes are all in tune.”
“You know it Louie, heh... mind if I borrow your new friend for a minute?” The big bear was trying to sound relaxed and failing.
“Not my call cuz.” He indicated the bear to Scootaloo, “This is Baloo, best pilot in the skies. He's good people. If you like planes, he's the guy to talk to. Tell you what, I'll make you one of my triple split specials. Finest sundae west of Timbucthree.”
“Sounds great!” Scootaloo looked over at Baloo. “One for Baloo here as well?”
“I never pass up free eats.” Baloo's voice was jovial, but still strained. He waited until Louie had moved away and said, “Who are you, and where's Kit?”
“The name's Scootaloo Skyscorcher, and the only kit I've got is what I'm wearing. Let me guess, you're a looper, and I've replaced someone called Kit who you were expecting instead.”
“Hey yeah, but what's a looper... are you talking about the way things keep happening over and over?”
“Oh horse-feathers, sounds like you're new to all this. How many times has it happened for you?”
“About thirty, forty times, you know what's going on?”
“Oh pony, looks like my turn to give the 'welcome to the multiverse' speech.” She glanced around, and whispered, “Pansy, holo-projector and a perception filter please.”
She proceeded to give him loops 101, complete with pretty pictures. Over the loops they'd gotten it down to a fine art. As she put away the projector. “To sum up, looks like you're Anchor for this world, Kit will return next loop, and from how close you two are, he'll probably start looping soon too.”
Baloo was shaking his head. “Kiddo, that's gotta be the craziest story anybody's ever tried to sell me. But I never saw anything like that gadget you pulled either, so I guess I've gotta believe it. So where's little britches?”
“Could be he's skipped this loop, could be he's swapped with me. Pretty much anything can happen with the loops.”
“Great and Powerful Trixie, you've got to vanquish the ursa.”
The Unawake stage magician freaked as she watched two hundred hooves of astrological ursine stride down the main street of Ponyville. “But... no-pony can vanquish an Ursa! I just made up the story to make my act better!”
Snips and Snails went through the border checkpoint of 'Uh oh!' and joined her in the land of freaking out.
She mustered her magic, got ready to try and stop it, when the beast's jaws gaped, and it said in a surprisingly teenage voice, “Hey, pony lady, I don't want trouble, I just want someone to tell me what the heck is going on! What kind of crazy dream is this? I go to sleep in my bed at Higher for Hire, and next thing I'm waking up in some cave somewhere with those two running around my feet! What am I, what are you, what's going on?”
“What? What...” Trixie was eloquent in her incomprehension, at least until her eyes rolled up and she fainted.
“Well that was helpful.” The bear groused. “You two, do whatever you do for fainted ponies, I'm sitting right here until someone comes up with some answers.” He sat back on his haunches in the main square, carefully, checking to see he didn't crush anything by accident.
“So what normally happens next?” Scootaloo asked, as Louie brought over their triple split sundaes, towering concoctions of fruit, ice cream and whipped cream.
“Don Karnage and his yahoos generally show up, looking for Kit and that gem. I usually have us high-tail it out of here before then, but I don't think we can make it...”
The doors slammed open, and Karnage and his goons strode through them. Scootaloo dropped down behind her stool and whispered, “You go get your plane started, I'll distract them.”
“You sure kiddo? These are dangerous guys.”
“Don't worry, I've got this. Make sure those sundaes are to go, I'm not missing out on that.”
“I am sorry to fracture the festivities,” the pirate captain announced, walking in and picking up a drink off the table, “but I have a little announcement.”
Scootaloo was already using the tables as cover to get around to a balcony, the perfect place to attract their attention. Meanwhile Karnage was wasting time posing and threatening Louie. Oh, he was getting extra for that!
She got in position and made her preparations just as one of the pirates fired a warning shot at the roof.
“Hey, no need to wreck the place, Karny!” she called out. “I was just leaving anyway!”
The red wolf crook's head snapped round, and he yelled, “Get him!”
Three pirates charged up the stairs towards her just as she jumped up on the rail, snatching a tiki mask to use as an improvised board, and slid down the bannister, springing and tumbling over the hands that grasped for her. She'd already plotted her route from when she flew off the end, and spun end for end while grabbing a bowl of soup from a passing table. The pirates finally managed to get themselves turned round and followed her back down the stairs. As they did, she flung the bowl to smash just under where the lead pirate, a whiny suck-up be the name of Mad Dog was about to put his foot. He slipped, fell and in the process tripped the pirates charging down after him, leaving them in a nice pile at the bottom of the stairs.
Of course, Scootaloo had other problems to cope with, namely a problematic pirate captain with a pointy cutlass who'd jumped into her path, legs wide and sword out. She'd turned back to face him, and he sneered at her. “It is the funny joke you are making, but I shall have the last ha ha!”
“Pass!”
Scootaloo snatched the nearest thing she could see, a serving fork from a half eaten roast, and folded backwards, limboing low on her board to slide between the pirate's akimbo legs, and fending off the cutlass with the fork. Just to finish off, she prodded him from behind with the fork as she slid onwards, sending him jumping with a yowl of pain.
She straightened up just in time to push her way through the now empty doors, and cursed not having enough time to say something like, The forks are strong in this one... Pansy, who'd gotten caught up on hub universe fiction, groaned inside her head. She was heading down the pier, slowing as she ran out of momentum, and at the end was a yellow cargo seaplane with a red bow and it's engines turning over.
Baloo stuck his head out the open door. “You okay, kiddo?”
“Never better!” She bounded off the tiki mask as she noticed a familiar heavily armed tri-plane docked near him. “Get moving, I'll be along in a moment!”
She might not be in Apple Bloom's league when it came to gadgets, but she knew something about aircraft engines. She flipped the cowling and ripped out a number of important wires, throwing them out to sea.
There was a howl of fury as Don Karnage burst out of Louie's, followed by his goons. “Stop him... Shoot you ridiculous rodents!”
Scootaloo ducked as a blast from a blunderbuss shot over her head, then weaved her way along the dock as other blasts peppered the air around her. At least one took off half the propeller of another pirate biplane. She reached the already moving Sea Duck and dived through the doorway, slamming the door after her.
“I've bought us some time... Maybe I should have flown it away... no, too much start up time.”
The seaplane was already surging forward under Baloo's skilled coaxing. “C'mon baby... wait, you can fly?”
“Anything from a Sopwith Camel to a Star Destroyer!” Scootaloo responded proudly, “Though in-loop, not yet, though I've mad for planes as long as I can remember.”
“Well you'd better buckle up!” The Sea Duck lurched as the keel unstuck from the water and it soared up into the sky. “Yahoooo! Oh man, there's no better feeling than hitting the blue!”
Baloo threw the Sea Duck into a barrel roll, taking the chance to check the island below, “Hey, looks like you got Don Kebab and his mixed meatheads all riled up.”
“That was the idea. You should know that while that guy can keep an idea in his head, unlike the rest of them, two is beyond him. I didn't just escape, I publicly embarrassed him. He's going to want to catch me alive himself simply so he can personally chop me into bite sized pieces. That means he's not letting the rest of his goons follow us until his plane's fixed, and it should keep him from taking it out on the bystanders at Louie's.”
“Yeah, but when he gets fixed up, he's going to be after us horse, foot and marines.”
Baloo was slightly shocked by the calculation in the young ponies voice, and some part of it must have leaked into his voice, because Scootaloo looked over at the bear in the pilot's seat, then turned and hung her head. “I'm sorry. I've kind of taken you for granted. I'm not your friend Kit, I'm just someone who met you a few hours ago and already I've dragged you into danger with me.”
“Hey kiddo, don't sweat it. Ol' Karny and me have crossed propellers plenty of times, and he's always been the one who ditched at the end of it. Besides, I'd never leave anyone in the clutches of that two bit pirate.”
“Well anyway, thanks. So where are we heading?”
“Cape Suzette, you're going to love it!” They were straight and level, and he looked over at the pegasus, grinning. He flipped open a compartment to reveal two slightly melted triple splits. ”I even got desert. Chow down.”
It only took a few moments to polish off the sundaes, and Scootaloo looked over the plane she was in properly for the first time. The cockpit had the look of long use, but had been well cared for and extensively customised. Some of the tweaks almost seemed familiar. She consulted her in-loop memories. “Wow, this is a pretty sweet set-up. A Conwing L-16 with Super-Flight 100 customised engines? This thing must really move!”
“Good eye kiddo!” Baloo patted the console. “Yup, she's my baby. Me and Wild Bloom have spent a lot of time getting her just right... Wait... what?”
“If that's who I think it is, sounds like I'm not the only fused looper. Earth-pony, good with gadgets? Yellow coat, red mane in a bow?”
“Pretty much, though she wears a jumpsuit... Except she should be a male lion called Wildcat. But I remember meeting up with her, working together on the Sea Duck, everything just as clearly. Oh man, this is too weird!”
“Welcome to the wonderful world of fused loops. Your in-loop memories say one thing, your real memories say another. We've gotta get you doing some mental exercises to help you keep things straight.”
“Whoa, I ain't any kind of brain, kiddo.” Baloo shook his head.
“Neither was I, but even I managed to learn them. Besides, if you can get it down, you can learn to create a sub-space pocket, a way to store things so you can carry them between loops.”
“Now that sounds like a mighty useful thing to know!” The big bear glanced over at the young pony, who was looking at the control yoke in front of her with a familiar eagerness. “So, you said you can fly. Can you fly a Conwing L-16?”
“Never tried, but I'd love to find out!” Scootaloo reached out and took hold of the yoke, closing her eyes for a moment as her fingers closed around the grips. She seemed to freeze for a moment, attentive to something only she could sense. “Hello, Sea Duck. Baloo's lucky to have you.”
Baloo had seen Kit take his first grasp of the Sea Duck's controls dozens of times, and for all his natural talent, he was quite naturally somewhat clumsy when he actually took the yoke. Scootaloo was different. When her eyes opened, they flicked back and forth across the instruments as easily as his own. She held the Sea Duck steady and on course like a veteran pilot, and he started to believe what she'd told him, not just with his head, but with his heart.
“Can I, please?” she asked, and didn't need to say more. At his nod, she started doing gentle turns and banks around their base course. She'd flown planes far faster than this, and far more advanced, but she could feel that this one, for all it's primitive technology and limited flight envelope was something special. What she really wanted to do was try out some real stunts, she knew the Sea Duck could take them, but she was only too aware of the privilege she'd been given by flying the Sea Duck at all, and she didn't want to abuse it.
However, her piloting experience included a lot of combat flying, and it was that that caused her to suddenly go into a wing-over and dive.
“Hey what the...” Baloo was answered by the whistle of machine gun bullets behind them.
“Six coming in four o clock high!” Scootaloo rapped out, putting the Sea Duck in a tight roll that put her into a nearby cloudbank. “You have the stick?”
Baloo had grabbed his own yoke as soon as they'd started spinning, but he'd let Scootaloo complete the manoeuvre, as it was pretty much what he'd have done himself. “Roger little dodger, now watch this pre-formance!”
The cloudbank ran out unexpectedly, ejecting them into a maze of towering storm clouds, lightning crackling around them. The pirate biplanes shot out a few seconds later, but scattered and no longer in the deadly staggered echelon formation they'd previously held. Baloo played an expert game of tag with the pirates, swooping, zooming, turning and spinning to somehow out-manoeuvre fighters in a cargo plane.
Scootaloo was itching to get involved, but this was Baloo's world and his plane. She wasn't used to being a passenger while some-pony else was paying the freight. However, she tried to sit back and appreciate the big bear's clear mastery of the situation. At one point he managed to do a wing-over and return to fly straight through the bad guys, scattering them like pigeons, then trolled them into following him into a power dive, right to sea level.
The seat of her pants that Scootaloo wasn't wearing felt distinctly uncomfortable as they headed for the water, but it was clear Baloo had some plan in mind, and she managed to hold on to her impatience and the sides of her seat as at the last split-second he pulled a lever who's function had puzzled her and leading edge flaps flipped up, altering the angle of attack and giving him the lift to pull out into level flight. Several splashes behind them indicated the lead pirates hadn't been so lucky.
“Okay, now that was cool!” The pegasus glanced up and back. “But there are some still up there and they've got us pinned against the sea. I've got some tricks of my own that might help...”
“No need kiddo, see those puffs of smoke?” Baloo pointed to some cliffs ahead with a narrow gorge between them. There were white puffballs appearing from around the tops.
“AA Fire?” Scootaloo asked, and was answered seconds later by bursting noises from above. She glanced out of the window and saw explosions above in the heart of the pirate pack. They scattered and high-tailed it out of there with Karnage's plane in the lead.
“Yep! The cliff guns of Cape Suzette. Drives 'em crazy!” Baloo said with a lazy grin as they climbed away from the sea. Scootaloo switched her gaze away from the approaching cliffs and to her companion, who was relaxing back in his seat.
“You know, you remind me a lot of Rainbow Dash... I think you saw her in the pictures. She's the rainbow maned pegasus and she's the most awesome flyer in Equestria. She's also the Element of Loyalty and would never leave some-pony hanging.”
“Sounds like you think a lot of her.”
“Well yeah, she basically took me under her wing, taught me everything she knew and is pretty much my big sister. I guess you and Kit have something similar. I really hope he starts looping soon himself. You both deserve it.”
There was no calculation in the pony's voice this time, and Baloo made a decision. “Well until he gets back, seems I'll be needing a replacement navigator. You up for the job?”
“Am I ever!” Scootaloo returned eagerly.
“Then welcome aboard, Scoots.” Baloo opened a storage compartment and handed her a green baseball cap. She put it on as they flew through the gorge and out into a wide lagoon.
“Oh, wow!” Once again, Scootaloo had seen far larger and taller cities in her time, but this was one of the prettiest. Art deco towers with sky bridges made a wide crescent around a vast lagoon with an island in it, and were built back into the hillsides of the bowl that enclosed it. And everywhere there was air-traffic, dirigibles, sea-planes, flying back and forth. It made Canterlot sky-port look like a village cross-roads in January.
She noticed one of the biggest towers had a logo which her in-loop memories told her stood for Sher Khan, and that jogged her memory. She pulled out the box. “Oh, hey, I've still got this. Want to hand it over to Khan before Karny and his merry mutts make another grab for it? In short, what's the plan, big man?”
“Huh, normally Kit hides it back at Louie's... Welp, I hook up with Kit, head on back to base, find out I missed the last six payments on the Duck and have to stump up three large ones, three thousand bucks or they'll foreclose at nine tomorrow.” He grinned. “Of course lately, as soon as I find myself back at Louie's at the start of each... loop? I ring up a bookie in Cape Suzette and put on some accumulators I know will pay out. Easy money.
“But first time round, we did a high ticket mission which I blew when Karny captures Kit, and he offers to share the reward for the gem in that box, except it's not a gem, it's some sub-electron dohickey that can create a lot of power. Khan's willing to fork over a solid hundred thousand for it's return, and Karny wants to use it to build a lightning cannon to come plunder Cape Suzette.”
He shrugged. “Man, first time round we went all over the place to try and get that thing back. Turns out Becky, that is Rebecca Cunningham, bought up the company from the bank to run, which made her my boss. Now I don't fuss about business, flying's all I'm interested in, so I was trying to find the fifty k to buy myself out of hock. Cutting out the drama, the pirates make their play, we stop them, destroying the stone in the process.
“I end up back behind the eight ball, flying for Higher for Hire, Becky's new name for the company, with her as the boss lady. Of course, now I've been round the block a couple dozen times, I can get round that easy enough, and did, but you know, it's like that time I saved Khan's life and he gave me pretty much anything I asked for, or when I found out I'd inherited a fortune and a big house. It got lonely being just me, or even me and Kit. So now I let her buy the place just to get her involved.”
“Sounds like quite a lady.” Scootaloo replied. “Is she your special some-pony... some-body?”
Baloo barked out a laugh. “Me and Beckers? Not in a million years! We'd drive each other crazy, heck, we do drive each other crazy! She's a stickler for everything being just so, and I like to take a more relaxed att-i-tude. She's pushy, bossy, mercenary, comes up with crazy moneymaking schemes at the drop of a hat... and she's someone I'd trust with my life, and a good friend.”
“Except for the moneymaking part, that sounds just like another friend of mine, Diamond Tiara. I wonder if she'll be showing up here. If Apple Bloom is here, we might see some others...”
“Man, how many more are there?”
Recounting the other members of the Crusaders took them all the way round the bay and until they taxied up to the dilapidated dock that led to the ramshackle building that housed 'Baloo's Air Cargo Service'. Except the was freshly painted and now said, 'Higher for Hire'.
“What the Sam Hill?” Baloo shook his head in disbelief, and stormed out of the Sea Duck and up the dock.
A pink female pony of more adult proportions with wavy purple hair held back with a bandana was backing out of the doorway. She wore a white turtleneck and violet slacks, and was carrying a bale of old newspapers neatly tied up with string.
“Hey lady, who are you and what do you think you're doin'?” Baloo called out.
She dropped the bundle besides a bunch of others and turned to face him. “The names Tara, Tara Cunningham, and as of 9 am this morning I own this place and that plane.”
“But that's not till tomorrow, and you ain't Beckers...”
Wild Bloom came out, equally grown up, wearing a tatty set of overalls and carrying a box of junk. Her mid-Usland accent was even more pronounced than usual. “Sorry Baloo, I tried to boost the radio to get you the message, but the bank came with the paperwork yesterday. She's got a bunch of lawyer's papers and everything.”
Baloo started to get mad, then realised something. “Then I've got just one question for you all. Are you Awake?”
The stress he put on the word clearly hit a bullseye. Tara slumped slightly and said. “Oh darn, and I wanted to see if I could turn this place into something that could give Khan Insustries a run for their money.”
He heard Scootaloo's voice behind him. “Guys, this is Baloo Von Bruinwald, Anchor and our host for this loop. He's still in his first century. I gave him the intro speech and told him about us. Do we have Sweetie Belle and Nyx on board?”
The two ponies in question came out, younger than usual and wearing rompers. Sweetie Belle exclaimed, “Present, and I hate being a rug-rat!”
Diamond Tiara waved a hand at them and said, “Meet my 'daughters', Belle and Nyx Cunningham.”
Wild Bloom rubbed the back of her head and said, “Sorry guys, but this world doesn't have computer records, if you want to bump your ages a bit, it'll have to wait until we can find the paperwork and rig it.”
Baloo was looking around at the five of them, and just shook his head. “Man, and I thought my life was complicated enough already!”
Scootaloo grinned as she joined up with the other Crusaders. “Don't think of it as complicated, think of it as interesting!”
48.2 (Masterweaver)
"Come on." Apple Bloom was smirking. "I know you have one."
"....the shape was good for runic circles," Silver Spoon admitted.
"AHA! I knew it! Let's see, come on!"
"And silver's a good material!" continued the currently Saddle Arabian filly. "It's not like I--"
"Silver, I've made mechanical flowering fruits. Sweetie's created shaped candies that ring. Heck, Diamond wears hers in the baseline." The farmfilly shook her head. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."
With a resigned sigh, Silver reached into her subspace pocket and pulled out something twice her size.
Pinkie chose that moment to walk in. "...that is one big spoon."
"Er..." Apple Bloom pointed at a small stain. "Is that...?"
"Um, yeah. I used this in fights a lot." Silver shrugged. "It made sense at the time."
48.3 (Indalecio)
The Incredible Mac
Mac awoke. The first thing he noticed were the murmurs of shock around him. At first, he thought they might be directed at him, but no, they seemed to be directed at a teenage boy riding his motorcycle through the desert in front of him.
"Whats he doing? He's going to be killed!" said a gruff, male voice beside him.
He didn't know what was going on; his loop memories hadn't set in, but he knew he couldn't let that happen. He leaped out of the bunker he was in and ran toward him.
He hadn't gotten far when the first of his loop memories hit him. All from his first memories to the latest last night.
He'd been working on something called a Gamma Bomb? These human loops were always kinda weird. But then again, Trixie would've probably gone gaga for something like that.
He'd been doing some last minute checks on the thing with his fiancee Betty Ross.
'Fiance, huh? Wonder if she's awake or not?'
The door opened. In walked two people his loop memories instantly recognized as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross and Major Glenn Talbot. His loop memories and the looks those two were giving him told him that they didn't like him and that the feeling was mutual.
“Is everything ready on the Gamma Bomb?” there was a tone of barely restrained anger in the General's voice.
“Yup.”
The General's eyebrow visibly twitched. He turned to Betty and his expression softened immediately.
“Betty, can I talk to you for a second? In private?”
“What is it Father? If you can say it in front of me, you can say it in front of Bruce.” there was an edge to her voice.
General Ross nodded to the Major. “Leave us for a few minutes, Major.”
“Yes sir.” He saluted and left.
The General composed himself. “You know I don't approve of your dating ...”
“Not this again!” she cried. “We've been over this before. We've got nothing to talk about! “
“Betty..”
“I really think you should go.”
The General turned to Bruce and his face hardened. “This isn't the last of it. Don't even think for a moment that I'll let you marry my daughter.” saying that, he put his hat back on his head and left.
Which lead him back to today. The Gamma Bomb was going to explode, and some dumb kid decided to drive out in the middle of the testing site.
Getting him to safety me managed to toss the kid into the bunker just as the blast was about to hit. 'Whelp, looks like this'll be one real short loop!'
Mac hurt. Near as he could tell he was in a bed, probably in a hospital, hopped up on anesthetics and worst of all, people were talking, preventing him from getting any rest.
'Why Mac hurt? Why people talk? Why can't they just leave Mac alone?' he wondered to himself.
“severe concussion, broken arm...” Through the fog of the anesthesia, he could just barely make anything out.
“survived the gamma bomb..”
“needs to be studied..”
Something must have changed as his head got foggier, the voices vanished and he surrendered to sweet oblivion.
“Good morning!” The one he knew as Betty Ross entered the room. She closed the door behind her and removed what looked like a small silvery notepad from somewhere. She fiddled with it for a few seconds and spoke.
“Ok. No bugs....and I've put up a privacy screen around this room. It should be safe to talk.”
“You're looping?” Mac asked.
“Yeppers.” Betty crossed the room and took a seat at Mac's bedside.
“Well, that makes this less awkward.” Mac was visibly relieved.
“Well, I'm assuming you've got some questions.”
“Eyup. So does that bomb thing always happen?”
“Mostly. Sometimes its a gamma reactor. Sometimes Bruce just like Gamma radiation and decides to experiment on himself. It varies.”
“So is Bruce, I'm assuming its not MacIntosh, the loop anchor?”
“Banner. No he's just a looper, same as me. That kid you saved, Rick Jones, however, is the loop anchor. Well, probably. It could be Steve Rodgers, or possibly Doreen, or maybe that Parker kid. All we know is that those 4 loop a lot. Its...complicated.”
“Complicated?”
“Well, those 4 seem to be always looping, but we're not really sure if they're anchors.”
“Hmm..”
“Oh! Do you feel a pool of energy in your mind?”
Mac closed his eyes.
She continued. “One of the effects of the gamma radiation is that it tends to turn you into a huge mass of muscle. Go ahead. Try touching it.”
"You mean besides deadly radiation sickness?"
Betty sighed. "Just do it."
Mac reached out with mind and tried touching the pool of energy. From nothing, it became a raging torrent of energy that tore through him, giving Mac's already impressive muscles an even bigger boost. From here on, his bed started collapsing under the weight and his casts popped off from the stress. It took some effort, as the energy threatened to overwhelm him, and his muscles burned from the growth they were experiencing, but he managed to retain control of his mind.
“That was dangerous, Lady.”
“But you did it!”
“What would've happened if I hadn't”
“You would've rampaged across the dessert with the army and Father in hot pursuit.”
Mac glared.
“Please, it what usually happens whenever Bruce isn't awake.”
Mac raised an eyebrow.
“He, you, whatever, gets angsty about the transformation, which usually only triggers when he's mad, and becomes obsessed about trying to cure himself, which never works, because something or someone always interrupts it. Either the Hulk himself...”
Mac looked quizzically at Betty.
“That's you, by the way. Or the Army, or SHIELD, or the Leader, or the Abomination...well you get the picture. Which brings me to my next point. Father had decided that since you absorbed all this radiation without any side-effects. Well, the normal side-effects of dying horribly of radiation sickness, that's something that must be studied and used for the benefit of the United States Army. He's transferring you to a secure facility in a few days. They'll be poking and prodding you for years until they get something useful. The fact that it'll separate us is just the cherry on top in Father's view."
“We'll have do something about that.” A spring on his bed popped to as if to punctuate his last statement.
Betty and Rick stood out in the desert.
“So you know the plan?” asked Betty
“Who's the anchor here? If anything I should be asking you that.”
“So..ask.”
“Whats the plan?”
“Ok, so you transform into Colossus...”
Rick just glared.
“Sorry, not Colossus, I meant The Thing.” said Betty, grinning.
“Very funny, Ms, I'm She-Hulk, but Red.”
“Tough crowd. Fine...you transform into A-Bomb. That's still a dumb name, by the way, and I transform into Red She-Hulk, and we go in and bust out Bruce. He transforms, we fight and gracefully lose, Bruce is a hero, or at least less of pariah in Father's eyes.”
“And if we're captured?”
“Clones, from an alternate future, come to set right what once went wrong.”
“Eh..close enough.”
“So we leave now?” A distant explosion rocked the valley.
“I'd stay that's a yes.” said Rick as he transformed into a giant rock-like being with Betty transforming right behind him.
The military convoy was in ruins. Soldiers either milled about expecting new orders, or waited to receive treatment. They raised their rifles as Red She-Hulk and A-Bomb approached.
They put up their hands “Whoa. We mean you no harm. What happened here?”
“Thats classified.” said Major Glenn Talbot stepping forward.
“I think its obvious. Someone attacked the transport, made off with whatever cargo....and headed in that direction.” said Red She-hulk, pointing to some tracks.
“Lets go!” They leaped off in the direction of the tracks.
For the second time, Mac awoke in an unfamiliar environment. He was horizontal in a glass and metal tube. Restraints held down his arms and legs. Looking through the glass covering above him, he could see people in yellow clothes and masks at work beside him.
'They kinda look like beekeepers. No sign or Rick or Betty. Plan probably went wrong, so this is probably as good a time to make my entrance.'
Once again he tapped into that pool of green energy in his mind, and the tube suddenly became very cramped, but shattered as he continued growing. There were shouts of alarm and he continued freeing himself.
“Don't get up. I can help myself.”
Finally freeing himself he leaped up through the ceiling, only to find himself in midair as he seemed to have just left some sort of aircraft. As he continued falling, the aircraft made a lazy turn and started heading back the way he came. Coming toward him and passing him? But it looked like something else emerged as it flew by. A silvery android, that hit the ground a minute after Mac did.
“What are you?”
The only response from the android was to shift into a form similar to Mac's own, green and heavily muscled.
"Avocado." Mac swore.
'Okay. What am I up against?' asked Mac to himself as he dodged a blow to his head. The android seemed as strong and as durable as him. The fact that they'd been fighting for 5 minutes already with no sign of the droid weakening meant that it probably had a pretty strong power source. The glowing aura coming from the android's chest confirmed it. But it also didn't seem to have that much in the way of imaginative. Its attacks were, no pun intended, mechanical and Mac was dodging most of them.
'Now what are my assets and skills.' What most readily came to mind were his muscles, which he was already using. There was his bartender skills, but there wasn't a bar for miles, and unless he could challenge the droid to a contest of mixing drinks, didn't see how that would be any help. The android didn't seem to be open to negotiation, as he hadn't spoken at all, and hadn't visibly reacted to anything he'd said. He wondered if this whole android business was just a stalling action for other reinforcements to move into position, but he'd yet to see anyone else show up during the battle. Maybe this was a test of the android's abilities? Or maybe his?
The only thing Mac hadn't tried were any of his earth pony abilities. He hadn't a chance to practice any of them in this body, and wasn't sure they would work, but this was as good a time as any.
First, bucking. Mac charged his fist with power and swung at what looked like a vulnerable spot. The droid's left arm at the elbow came clean off, launching far into the distance. The droid paused for a moment, its elbow becoming liquid metal, stretching and reforming into another arm and hand.
“Eucalyptus.”
'This is going to be annoying, but this means I can probably puncture its chest cavity if it would just stop moving.'
The second ability he hadn't tried was earth pony plant growth. However, just from looking around he could see he was in a desert, and there wasn't much he could work with. Reaching out with his senses he tried to sense the plant life in the area. Not much, except he was detecting a bunch from inside the android. That didn't make sense, unless... you counted the various seeds and pollen usually in the air. This android must have an air intake, and have brought into itself thousands of tiny seeds. Normally, it wouldn't have been a problem, but...
“Lets add a little something to the mix!” Mac reached into his subspace pocket and removed a packet of apple seeds. Perhaps not the best choice for what he was going to try, but it was what he had on hand. Once at the same time, he torn open and threw the opened bag at the android. At the same time he slammed his foot into the ground, pouring as much earth pony magic into it as he could. The explosion of plant growth was enormous. Right in front of him grew an enormous apple tree, a conglomeration of at least a hundred seeds, which as it expanded threw him back.
Mac landed not so gracefully. The tree continued expanding, but slower now. Mac leaped into the branches to see if he could locate the android. Reaching out with his senses, he could feel it...there! Using his earth pony magic, he bent a path through the ever expanding branches.
Mac finally found the android. It was completely locked down the branches of the tree, and could gain no leverage as it tried to free itself.
“Still moving, huh?” Mac reached up with his fist charged, grabbed through the android's abdomen to the source of its power he felt earlier. It promptly stopped moving.
Through the light of the tree, Mac examined what he pulled out. It seemed to be a small glass cube, about a 3 centimeters in length on all sides, and it literally pulsed with energy. He tossed it into his subspace pocket. He could examine it later if he got access to a proper lab.
He then went out and waited for someone to arrive.
Mac didn't have to wait long. It was another few minutes before a helicopter approached his position and landed.
'A giant tree appearing in the middle of the desert must be an incredible beacon.'
It had a circular emblem of what was probably a stylized falcon on it. Its side opened up, and occupants that he mostly recognized popped out. He could see someone who probably Betty and what she had described as Rick in his A-Bomb form along with General Ross. Also, a bunch of agents in blue uniforms that appeared to be commanded by am eye-patched woman with purple hair that he felt he should have recognized, but didn't. The agents in blue surrounded him with rifles pointed at him.
Mac shifted to his human form. Privately, Mac wondered where the purple pants had come from, and why when he switched back, his pants were back to normal.
“General. Unknown Gamma mutated beings who I've never seen before.” and then he turned to the woman. “I'm afraid I don't have the honor, Miss..”
“Nicole, Nicole Sparkle, Director of SHIELD.”
Recognition finally hit Mac. “Pleased to meet you, Director Sparkle.”
“This is all very well, but we'll need to take Mr. MacIntosh into custody. He's vital to the interests of the US military.”
“I think we could possibly come to an arrangement. Mr. MacIntosh, how would you like to come work for me?”
The General sputtered.
“This offer would apply to you two as well,” nodding to Rick and Betty, who decided to shift to human form as well at this point.
“Betty? What? How?”
“Merged with a temporal duplicate of myself from alternate timeline.” said Betty.
“Same.” mentioned Rick
“Director, I think I'd like to take you up on that offer.”
48.4
Trixie left the stage to the sound of cheers. “Ah, now that's something which I really enjoy about Looping.”
Her glamorous assistant followed her, using a towel to clean whipped cream off her face. “Why do I always get splatted?”
Trixie turned, looking indignant. “Firstly, because slapstick is always funny. Second, it's not always you. I got gunged back in Trottingham.”
Chrysalis' towel stopped moving. “Okay, I had forgotten that one.”
“Lucky you,” Trixie muttered. “It took me half an hour to clean my cloak.” Then she got a mischievous look on her face, darted forwards and licked some of the cream off.
The disguised Changeling flinched momentarily. “Gah! Warn me next time!”
“Make me,” Trixie challenged, sticking her tongue out.
Chrysalis' eyes narrowed. “Maybe I will,” she said, as they reached the wagon.
Bigger on the inside, of course. Trixie's baseline wagon was fine for one, but applying a simple Potterverse charm on it made it suitable for two without Trixie having to tow a Conestoga.
“Shouldn't we set off first?” Trixie asked, a quaver in her voice. “I mean, we do need to get to Manehattan by tomorrow evening, and it's a fair way.”
“Well, you should have thought of that first,” Chrysalis said reasonably. She dropped her shapeshift.
There was a flash of light, and an envelope landed on the table.
“...huh.” Trixie trotted over and picked it up. “I wasn't expecting a letter. Were you?”
“Changelings don't bother with post,” Chrysalis pointed out.
“And it's not from one of your lovers in every port of call?” Trixie teased.
Chrysalis winced, then grinned. “Okay, you win this round. Now, what's in the letter?”
Trixie slit the seal, holding it up for inspection. “Canterlot master of ceremonies, very posh. I remember whenever Twilight and I are co-students of Celestia, we saw a lot of this.”
“Usually attached to damage bills and the occasional lawsuit, if I recall right,” Chrysalis snarked.
“Same difference.” Trixie drew the contents out. “Oh. Oh-ho-ho!”
Chrysalis looked over her shoulder. “What is it?”
Trixie moved the letter so she couldn't see. “Aherm. 'The Master of Ceremonies of Canterlot Palace has been requested and ordered by their majesties, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, to invite you, Trixie Lulamoon, along with guest, to the Grand Galloping Gala to be held in one month's time.'”
They exchanged glances. And then, in near perfect unison, grinned.
“What on Equestria is that?” Blueblood said, staring at the newest entrants to the hall.
Trixie tossed her head, making her starred dress ripple and catch the light. “Yes, bask in the reflected awe of the Great and Powerful Trixie!”
“Not you,” Blueblood said, frowning. “I mean the... the... thing next to you?”
“Oh,” Trixie said in tones of sudden understanding, nodding exaggeratedly. “You must mean my date. She has a name, and it's Chrysalis.”
Seeing that most of the room was now staring, Trixie patted Chrysalis on the back. “She's a queen, you know.”
Chrysalis beamed at the room. This only showed her fangs, which made some of the assembled notables back away a bit.
“Chryssy!” Celestia said, sweeping into the room with her student and her sister trailing behind her. “I'm so glad you could make it!”
“My pleasure,” Chrysalis replied warmly. “How is your sister doing?”
“I am fine, thank you,” Luna answered for her sister, making a slight bow. “I don't believe I have met your date, however.”
Trixie fought to keep a straight face, as the five Loopers all acted as though it was perfectly normal to see a Changeling at the Gala.
Sure, explosions were cool. But as far as pranking the Gala went, Blueblood's expression right now was priceless.
48.5
“I feel weird...” Silver said, experimentally ruffling her wings.
Her aunt, Gilda, looked down at her with a mildly parental expression. “Not surprised, fledgeling, you're a whole new body type.”
“Something like that happened a couple ago, too,” Silver informed her. “My first fused loop, where I picked up Alchemy and Alkahestry, I had two missing limbs.”
“Cool,” Gilda declared, nodding. “That was probably your formative loop, then.”
“Do those always happen?” Silver spread her wings and beat them as fast as she could, rising a little off the ground. “Ow, this is exhausting.”
Gilda reached out a foreclaw and supported her breastbone. “Easy, fledgeling. Flying's as much about technique as brute force, doing it like that's only going to strain something. And no, they don't always happen.” Silver stopped trying to fly, and Gilda deposited her back on the ground. “I'll teach you in a sec. Some loopers – a lot of human ones seem to do this – just keep learning from a lot of different loops, never really picking a speciality. Some of our locals just don't have the need to develop a specific skill set over others – take Sparkle, she's all about magic.”
“I see... I think,” Silver said slowly. “And... your formative one was wherever you picked up that weird magic you do?”
“Yep.” Gilda demonstrated, letting her body bleach white. After a few seconds, tufts of fur or feathers developed at her haunches, and red accents touched up her otherwise brilliant white coat.
Her tail-tip seemed to be on the verge of releasing a drop of ink.
“I learned a couple of forms of the brush magic there, and then picked up the rest a bit at a time.” Gilda's colours went back to normal in a moment. “I've also become a dab hand at painting, too, which is nice. Stress-relieving.”
Silver nodded along. “What about – Tiara?”
“Her?” Gilda cawed laughter. “She's the most hard-assed bitch I've ever met – and that's a compliment, really. She's basically picked up two things – psychic powers, you know, telepathy and scrub like that, and also a mean tactical sense.”
“Right.” Silver Spoon thought that over for a bit.
“Hey – how do gryphons... well, the gryphon government. How does that work?”
Gilda sat back. “Okay, so we're predator-types. I'll bet you see me instinctively as big and tough, and there's a little niggle in the back of your mind evaluating if you could take me.”
“Yeah.” Silver blushed. “I didn't know I was so... arrogant?”
“Gryphons are arrogant, it's healthy.” Gilda waved it off. “So, we're arranged into... well, prides or packs, the meaning is the same. Your village is a pack, your county is a pack formed of the village higher-ups, and so on up to Imperial level. You can move up in two ways – either by election, which is sort of a contest of strength of mind, or by combat, which is a contest of strength of body.”
The elder looper waved her foreleg. “Elections are kinda recent, historically speaking. Anyway, you can only challenge either way within a pack. So if Joe Average Gryphon wanted to become Emperor, he'd start at the village level. If he won there, he'd be a member of the county pack, and could move up there, and so on.”
“What about you?”
Gilda coughed. “I have an unfair advantage. I'm... well, we're... sort of members of the Imperial family. That counts as a pack, too.”
Silver digested that for a bit.
“Griffin civil wars must be complicated.”
“Yep, pretty much.” Gilda shrugged. “Mind you, the pack leader usually has a band of sworn talons who he can have kick the arses of any potential challenger, so he doesn't have to spend the whole day fighting. In practise, successful challenges involve those sworn talons either stepping aside or getting whupped en masse – and either way, we as a species tend to be alright with that.”
“I think I see. So...” Silver examined one of her claws minutely. “So it all gets sorted out in duels?”
“Better than wars,” Gilda agreed. “And we do a lot of betting on the outcomes.”
“So.” Silver raised her wings again. “Flying?”
“Right. Flight basics.” Gilda thought for a bit. “First off, how to glide. It's fairly simple in practise, just hold your wings out stiff.”
“That's it?” Silver followed the instructions. “Now what?”
“Now...” Gilda grinned. “We teach you the gryphon way.”
Her tail slashed across left to right three times, making a set of three parallel horizontal lines.
The resultant instant tornado sent Silver rocketing over three hundred feet into the air.
“Okay!" Gilda shouted up. “Now... sorta fall less.”
“HOW?” Silver asked, panicking.
“Stop falling!”
“I officially hate gryphon teaching methods,” Silver muttered, pulling twigs out of her feathers.
Gilda shrugged. “You were really making progress there. Before you hit the tree. All cleared out?”
Silver inspected her wings. “I think so.”
“Good!” Gilda said, bringing her tail up again. “Ready for gliding practise session two?”
With a yelp, Silver turned and fled.
The elder gryphon chuckled, walking lazily after her. “Wonder when she'll notice she just flew up the cliff...”
48.6 (Vulpine Fury):
"Mac?"
The farmer-become-bartender raised his head in curiosity. "Eeyup?"
...and was bowled over by a smiling and crying Cheerilee. "I'm home! I'm home!" She pulled back and drank in her old friend's confused face.
Apple Bloom came around the corner, and broke into a grin of her own.
"Howdy, Miss Cheerilee! Ah wasn't expecting to see you today! Ah thought we didn't have class today 'cause of the Summer Sun Celebration..."
She was shocked by just how tender the hug was that Cheerilee enfolded her into.
48.7 (Elmagnifico)
Macintosh brought his head up when he heard Cherilee's voice.
"Eeyup?"
That was interesting. She looked ecstatic. This was early in the loop, and typically their interaction was limited-
"Hrnk!"
Ohfewmets howdidhemissherbracingforthatleap thishadbetternotendinakiss - if he avoided That One Day. He really hoped this wasn't one of those loops where ponies had Soulmate Timers on their hooves or some-such mechanical matchmaking and he'd missed the Memory. It wouldn't be the first time. If he'd done the math right, the Loops liked to hook up his baseline version with the schoolmarm about one in three times, which could make things like pre-scheduled dates awkward if he Awoke later than usual.
"I'm home! I'm home!"
Wait.
He definitely would have remembered if she had moved in. A change in family dynamics like that wasn't something you missed more than once. Was she? Why would she be?
"Howdy, Miss Cheerilee! Ah wasn't expecting to see you today! Ah thought we didn't have class today 'cause of the Summer Sun Celebration..."
Ah, her relationship with the Crusaders. That was a plausible reason for her to Loop. And now Applebloom was included in the hug? So probably not that problem. Was this how Shining Armor felt around the looping changeling queen?
Macintosh made a mental note to pay particular attention to Cheerilee in the coming loop. Wistful sighs, stares into the distance, brief disappointed glimpses, unexplained bouts of grief, these would all be looked for. The last thing he wanted was another Chrysalis situation.
48.8 (LordofBones)
"Citizens of Ponyville!" boomed the black alicorn as she appeared in a writhing vortex of shadow and lightning, "tonight, you have heard my beloved sister's speech! You have heard her promises! But I, the Nightmare Moon, Queen of the Night, do not make promises! Where Celestia only offers platitudes, I have already taken action in dispatching the true terror of this fair town, as a mark of my care and benevolence towards my future subjects!"
Celestia just stared at her sister in shock. She had been in no way prepared for Luna to return in this manner!
Ivory Scroll raised a hoof meekly. At Nightmare's nod, the Mayor spoke up, "Um...Your Majesty...I don't mean to offend you, but...er...Lyra stop pushing...what did you mean by the true terror of Ponyville?"
Luna stared at her intensely. "I have banished the rabbit known as Angel, to the Moon, forever."
There was a complete and utter silence, punctuated by a pink-maned pegasus's body hitting the floor in a dead faint.
"THREE CHEERS FOR QUEEN NIGHTMARE MOON! ALL HAIL THE QUEEN!" Big Mac roared.
Scootaloo Awoke looking through a grating. A quick self inspection first conformed she had hands, but wasn't human, a pony-anthro? No, a pegasus anthro, though her wings were hidden under a shapeless green sweater. Down below a red wolf in a fancy braided jacket was going on in fractured common to a bunch of other dogs in various forms of scruffy gear about how rich the box sitting on the table in front of him was going to make him. Then the loop memories hit. Air pirates, the mouthy mexicano moron was one Don Karnage, and she was currently in an air vent on a pirate airship called the Iron Vulture. Awesome!
She was apparently one Scootaloo 'Scoots' Skyscorcher, and a soon to be ex-pirate cabin-boy. She rifled the memories, orphanage, bullied as a freak, while this world had bird anthros with wing hands, pegasi didn't exist, runaway, hooked up with the air-pirates because she was mad about planes. She'd managed to keep both wings and gender a secret from the bozos, which wasn't hard as apart from Karnage the entire bunch had more toes than brain cells. She'd been with them a year, gotten fed up a lot sooner, and wanted out.
Which led to her current situation. This was apparently Don Karnage's biggest score, stolen from some big wig industrialist by the name of Sher Khan, and she intended to steal it and set out on her own, acquiring a plane and licence as soon as she was of age. As plans went, it was kind of shy on the fine detail, but then she was only twelve years old. Scootaloo decided to go with it, she certainly didn't know enough about the world to start making her own plans yet.
She opened the grating and dropped down onto the table beside the box. “Wow! That really is a neat treasure! No lesser pirate could have stolen it!”
As she expected the egotistical canine preened, “Yes, of course, I am the fantabulous Don Karnage yes/no?”
“Oh yes, and I wanted to thank you for teaching me how to lie, cheat and plunder. I guess you could call this my final exam...” She scooped up the box and sprung over his head, dropping the red bandanna that showed her pirate affiliation over his head. Using the head of the largest pirate, Dumptruck, as a stepping stone, she landed at the door and kept running. Thankfully this body had her regular lightning reflexes and acrobatic skill.
“It was... wait what?” The pirate finally caught up and yelled, “Stop that boy!”
Scootaloo charged out of the control room and down metal gantries, yells and cries following her. She met some pirates on the way down and yelled, “Get up there and help the Captain, right away!”
As they ran upstairs, she thanked Celestia for stupid villains. Dropping down to the floor of the main hangar deck, she snatched a grapnel launcher from the rack of blunderbusses along one wall and charged towards the open hangar door, shaped like a raptor's beak. Ignoring the yelling growing behind her, she charged up to the lip and dived off. She barely heard from above Don Karnage's voice yelling, “No, my treasure!”
Plummeting from several thousand feet would be a concern for most people, even a pegasus whose stubby wings didn't allow her to fly. She had plenty of fixes in her sub-space pocket, but she decided to get some practice with her in-loop abilities. Her wings popped out of slits in her jumper and she angled her body to power dive towards a cloud, and plunged into it, arresting her fall. Her cloud-walking abilities were another secret she'd managed to keep from the pirates.
She popped her face out of the cloud to check the giant air-ship above her, which was already shedding single engined biplanes like a dog shedding fleas. Whatever else there was nothing wrong with their reactions when it didn't involve actual thought. They plunged after her, and she made sure none of them were headed right for her hiding spot before ducking back in. She tucked the box inside her jumper and made it secure.
She let them dive past her and buzz around below as the cloud floated away from the search area. As she waited for them to drift out of sight, she directed a thought towards Pansy. Any luck finding other loopers?
No-pony from our world, though they may simply be out of range. Locally, I don't have enough to work with yet. Clover's the real expert.
Don't do yourself down, I wouldn't trade you for a dozen Clovers. Keep trying.
She got an impression of appreciation from Pansy, and the question, So what's the mission plan?
Get to this Cape Suzette place where Sher Khan is, return his property, see what we can get out of it, if anything. After that, who knows, Ascend and age myself a couple of years then go after a plane and a pilot's license. From what I know, this world is practically built for pilots. Which means I could have a huge amount of fun here. If I don't find some kind of quest... this looks like the sort of world that'll have one, and I tick all the boxes for a starting out hero.
The pirates had moved out of sight, and Scootaloo figured it was safe to move. She pushed her way down to the bottom of the cloud, and peeked out. Aha, a twin engined cargo job, just what she needed. She quickly fixed pads of clouds around her hooves, and power dived again, unslinging the grapple gun. A quick shot and a dash of weather magic wrapped the grapple around the leading edge of the rudder, and she swung her feet under her, pumping weather magic into them to act as flying skates. Her in-loop self didn't know how it worked, just that she could do it. Her wings could propel her as well, but not as fast as even a slow plane, and unlike her wings, a plane didn't get tired.
She'd been careful to dive below the pilot's line of sight, as the last thing she wanted was for anyone to see her abilities. After about half an hour, they started descending towards a tropical island with some sort of resort that looked to be part tree-house, and partly built out of a wreck of an old galleon. Various wooden docks stuck out into the water at odd angles, with dozens of seaplanes of various makes and models moored at them. The big neon sign said 'Louie's'. Now this looked like a fun place...
She unhooked the grapple gun and let it drop, flying down under her own power, looking for a quiet spot to land. She found it on a beach a short way around from the main docks, and made a neat two point landing. Folding her wings back inside her jumper, she strolled around and climbed up the docks and to the main entrance. She could hear singing from inside, some guy going on about how he was 'gone'. She slipped in the door to see filled tables and a big bear in a flight shirt and wearing a fruit salad on his head singing and dancing. However, he did seem to be looking towards the door and did a double-take as she entered.
Noting it for future reference, she made her way over to the bar where an orangutan in a Hawaiian was mixing up some cocktail concoction. She bounded up onto a stool and waited for him to notice her.
“Hey, short stuff, where'd you spring from?”
“Just flew in, but now I'm here, and I'd like a drink.” She pulled an Equestrian bit from her sub-space pocket. “I don't have local money, but I can pay.”
The orangutan picked it up, weighing it in his hand, bit it and tapped it against the counter. “Well don't that beat all! Where'd a little guy get something like this?”
“Family heirloom.” Scootaloo shrugged. “So, it'll cover a drink and a meal?”
“Cuz, if this is the real deal, you're covered for pretty much everything. Oh, hey Baloo, sounds like your pipes are all in tune.”
“You know it Louie, heh... mind if I borrow your new friend for a minute?” The big bear was trying to sound relaxed and failing.
“Not my call cuz.” He indicated the bear to Scootaloo, “This is Baloo, best pilot in the skies. He's good people. If you like planes, he's the guy to talk to. Tell you what, I'll make you one of my triple split specials. Finest sundae west of Timbucthree.”
“Sounds great!” Scootaloo looked over at Baloo. “One for Baloo here as well?”
“I never pass up free eats.” Baloo's voice was jovial, but still strained. He waited until Louie had moved away and said, “Who are you, and where's Kit?”
“The name's Scootaloo Skyscorcher, and the only kit I've got is what I'm wearing. Let me guess, you're a looper, and I've replaced someone called Kit who you were expecting instead.”
“Hey yeah, but what's a looper... are you talking about the way things keep happening over and over?”
“Oh horse-feathers, sounds like you're new to all this. How many times has it happened for you?”
“About thirty, forty times, you know what's going on?”
“Oh pony, looks like my turn to give the 'welcome to the multiverse' speech.” She glanced around, and whispered, “Pansy, holo-projector and a perception filter please.”
She proceeded to give him loops 101, complete with pretty pictures. Over the loops they'd gotten it down to a fine art. As she put away the projector. “To sum up, looks like you're Anchor for this world, Kit will return next loop, and from how close you two are, he'll probably start looping soon too.”
Baloo was shaking his head. “Kiddo, that's gotta be the craziest story anybody's ever tried to sell me. But I never saw anything like that gadget you pulled either, so I guess I've gotta believe it. So where's little britches?”
“Could be he's skipped this loop, could be he's swapped with me. Pretty much anything can happen with the loops.”
“Great and Powerful Trixie, you've got to vanquish the ursa.”
The Unawake stage magician freaked as she watched two hundred hooves of astrological ursine stride down the main street of Ponyville. “But... no-pony can vanquish an Ursa! I just made up the story to make my act better!”
Snips and Snails went through the border checkpoint of 'Uh oh!' and joined her in the land of freaking out.
She mustered her magic, got ready to try and stop it, when the beast's jaws gaped, and it said in a surprisingly teenage voice, “Hey, pony lady, I don't want trouble, I just want someone to tell me what the heck is going on! What kind of crazy dream is this? I go to sleep in my bed at Higher for Hire, and next thing I'm waking up in some cave somewhere with those two running around my feet! What am I, what are you, what's going on?”
“What? What...” Trixie was eloquent in her incomprehension, at least until her eyes rolled up and she fainted.
“Well that was helpful.” The bear groused. “You two, do whatever you do for fainted ponies, I'm sitting right here until someone comes up with some answers.” He sat back on his haunches in the main square, carefully, checking to see he didn't crush anything by accident.
“So what normally happens next?” Scootaloo asked, as Louie brought over their triple split sundaes, towering concoctions of fruit, ice cream and whipped cream.
“Don Karnage and his yahoos generally show up, looking for Kit and that gem. I usually have us high-tail it out of here before then, but I don't think we can make it...”
The doors slammed open, and Karnage and his goons strode through them. Scootaloo dropped down behind her stool and whispered, “You go get your plane started, I'll distract them.”
“You sure kiddo? These are dangerous guys.”
“Don't worry, I've got this. Make sure those sundaes are to go, I'm not missing out on that.”
“I am sorry to fracture the festivities,” the pirate captain announced, walking in and picking up a drink off the table, “but I have a little announcement.”
Scootaloo was already using the tables as cover to get around to a balcony, the perfect place to attract their attention. Meanwhile Karnage was wasting time posing and threatening Louie. Oh, he was getting extra for that!
She got in position and made her preparations just as one of the pirates fired a warning shot at the roof.
“Hey, no need to wreck the place, Karny!” she called out. “I was just leaving anyway!”
The red wolf crook's head snapped round, and he yelled, “Get him!”
Three pirates charged up the stairs towards her just as she jumped up on the rail, snatching a tiki mask to use as an improvised board, and slid down the bannister, springing and tumbling over the hands that grasped for her. She'd already plotted her route from when she flew off the end, and spun end for end while grabbing a bowl of soup from a passing table. The pirates finally managed to get themselves turned round and followed her back down the stairs. As they did, she flung the bowl to smash just under where the lead pirate, a whiny suck-up be the name of Mad Dog was about to put his foot. He slipped, fell and in the process tripped the pirates charging down after him, leaving them in a nice pile at the bottom of the stairs.
Of course, Scootaloo had other problems to cope with, namely a problematic pirate captain with a pointy cutlass who'd jumped into her path, legs wide and sword out. She'd turned back to face him, and he sneered at her. “It is the funny joke you are making, but I shall have the last ha ha!”
“Pass!”
Scootaloo snatched the nearest thing she could see, a serving fork from a half eaten roast, and folded backwards, limboing low on her board to slide between the pirate's akimbo legs, and fending off the cutlass with the fork. Just to finish off, she prodded him from behind with the fork as she slid onwards, sending him jumping with a yowl of pain.
She straightened up just in time to push her way through the now empty doors, and cursed not having enough time to say something like, The forks are strong in this one... Pansy, who'd gotten caught up on hub universe fiction, groaned inside her head. She was heading down the pier, slowing as she ran out of momentum, and at the end was a yellow cargo seaplane with a red bow and it's engines turning over.
Baloo stuck his head out the open door. “You okay, kiddo?”
“Never better!” She bounded off the tiki mask as she noticed a familiar heavily armed tri-plane docked near him. “Get moving, I'll be along in a moment!”
She might not be in Apple Bloom's league when it came to gadgets, but she knew something about aircraft engines. She flipped the cowling and ripped out a number of important wires, throwing them out to sea.
There was a howl of fury as Don Karnage burst out of Louie's, followed by his goons. “Stop him... Shoot you ridiculous rodents!”
Scootaloo ducked as a blast from a blunderbuss shot over her head, then weaved her way along the dock as other blasts peppered the air around her. At least one took off half the propeller of another pirate biplane. She reached the already moving Sea Duck and dived through the doorway, slamming the door after her.
“I've bought us some time... Maybe I should have flown it away... no, too much start up time.”
The seaplane was already surging forward under Baloo's skilled coaxing. “C'mon baby... wait, you can fly?”
“Anything from a Sopwith Camel to a Star Destroyer!” Scootaloo responded proudly, “Though in-loop, not yet, though I've mad for planes as long as I can remember.”
“Well you'd better buckle up!” The Sea Duck lurched as the keel unstuck from the water and it soared up into the sky. “Yahoooo! Oh man, there's no better feeling than hitting the blue!”
Baloo threw the Sea Duck into a barrel roll, taking the chance to check the island below, “Hey, looks like you got Don Kebab and his mixed meatheads all riled up.”
“That was the idea. You should know that while that guy can keep an idea in his head, unlike the rest of them, two is beyond him. I didn't just escape, I publicly embarrassed him. He's going to want to catch me alive himself simply so he can personally chop me into bite sized pieces. That means he's not letting the rest of his goons follow us until his plane's fixed, and it should keep him from taking it out on the bystanders at Louie's.”
“Yeah, but when he gets fixed up, he's going to be after us horse, foot and marines.”
Baloo was slightly shocked by the calculation in the young ponies voice, and some part of it must have leaked into his voice, because Scootaloo looked over at the bear in the pilot's seat, then turned and hung her head. “I'm sorry. I've kind of taken you for granted. I'm not your friend Kit, I'm just someone who met you a few hours ago and already I've dragged you into danger with me.”
“Hey kiddo, don't sweat it. Ol' Karny and me have crossed propellers plenty of times, and he's always been the one who ditched at the end of it. Besides, I'd never leave anyone in the clutches of that two bit pirate.”
“Well anyway, thanks. So where are we heading?”
“Cape Suzette, you're going to love it!” They were straight and level, and he looked over at the pegasus, grinning. He flipped open a compartment to reveal two slightly melted triple splits. ”I even got desert. Chow down.”
It only took a few moments to polish off the sundaes, and Scootaloo looked over the plane she was in properly for the first time. The cockpit had the look of long use, but had been well cared for and extensively customised. Some of the tweaks almost seemed familiar. She consulted her in-loop memories. “Wow, this is a pretty sweet set-up. A Conwing L-16 with Super-Flight 100 customised engines? This thing must really move!”
“Good eye kiddo!” Baloo patted the console. “Yup, she's my baby. Me and Wild Bloom have spent a lot of time getting her just right... Wait... what?”
“If that's who I think it is, sounds like I'm not the only fused looper. Earth-pony, good with gadgets? Yellow coat, red mane in a bow?”
“Pretty much, though she wears a jumpsuit... Except she should be a male lion called Wildcat. But I remember meeting up with her, working together on the Sea Duck, everything just as clearly. Oh man, this is too weird!”
“Welcome to the wonderful world of fused loops. Your in-loop memories say one thing, your real memories say another. We've gotta get you doing some mental exercises to help you keep things straight.”
“Whoa, I ain't any kind of brain, kiddo.” Baloo shook his head.
“Neither was I, but even I managed to learn them. Besides, if you can get it down, you can learn to create a sub-space pocket, a way to store things so you can carry them between loops.”
“Now that sounds like a mighty useful thing to know!” The big bear glanced over at the young pony, who was looking at the control yoke in front of her with a familiar eagerness. “So, you said you can fly. Can you fly a Conwing L-16?”
“Never tried, but I'd love to find out!” Scootaloo reached out and took hold of the yoke, closing her eyes for a moment as her fingers closed around the grips. She seemed to freeze for a moment, attentive to something only she could sense. “Hello, Sea Duck. Baloo's lucky to have you.”
Baloo had seen Kit take his first grasp of the Sea Duck's controls dozens of times, and for all his natural talent, he was quite naturally somewhat clumsy when he actually took the yoke. Scootaloo was different. When her eyes opened, they flicked back and forth across the instruments as easily as his own. She held the Sea Duck steady and on course like a veteran pilot, and he started to believe what she'd told him, not just with his head, but with his heart.
“Can I, please?” she asked, and didn't need to say more. At his nod, she started doing gentle turns and banks around their base course. She'd flown planes far faster than this, and far more advanced, but she could feel that this one, for all it's primitive technology and limited flight envelope was something special. What she really wanted to do was try out some real stunts, she knew the Sea Duck could take them, but she was only too aware of the privilege she'd been given by flying the Sea Duck at all, and she didn't want to abuse it.
However, her piloting experience included a lot of combat flying, and it was that that caused her to suddenly go into a wing-over and dive.
“Hey what the...” Baloo was answered by the whistle of machine gun bullets behind them.
“Six coming in four o clock high!” Scootaloo rapped out, putting the Sea Duck in a tight roll that put her into a nearby cloudbank. “You have the stick?”
Baloo had grabbed his own yoke as soon as they'd started spinning, but he'd let Scootaloo complete the manoeuvre, as it was pretty much what he'd have done himself. “Roger little dodger, now watch this pre-formance!”
The cloudbank ran out unexpectedly, ejecting them into a maze of towering storm clouds, lightning crackling around them. The pirate biplanes shot out a few seconds later, but scattered and no longer in the deadly staggered echelon formation they'd previously held. Baloo played an expert game of tag with the pirates, swooping, zooming, turning and spinning to somehow out-manoeuvre fighters in a cargo plane.
Scootaloo was itching to get involved, but this was Baloo's world and his plane. She wasn't used to being a passenger while some-pony else was paying the freight. However, she tried to sit back and appreciate the big bear's clear mastery of the situation. At one point he managed to do a wing-over and return to fly straight through the bad guys, scattering them like pigeons, then trolled them into following him into a power dive, right to sea level.
The seat of her pants that Scootaloo wasn't wearing felt distinctly uncomfortable as they headed for the water, but it was clear Baloo had some plan in mind, and she managed to hold on to her impatience and the sides of her seat as at the last split-second he pulled a lever who's function had puzzled her and leading edge flaps flipped up, altering the angle of attack and giving him the lift to pull out into level flight. Several splashes behind them indicated the lead pirates hadn't been so lucky.
“Okay, now that was cool!” The pegasus glanced up and back. “But there are some still up there and they've got us pinned against the sea. I've got some tricks of my own that might help...”
“No need kiddo, see those puffs of smoke?” Baloo pointed to some cliffs ahead with a narrow gorge between them. There were white puffballs appearing from around the tops.
“AA Fire?” Scootaloo asked, and was answered seconds later by bursting noises from above. She glanced out of the window and saw explosions above in the heart of the pirate pack. They scattered and high-tailed it out of there with Karnage's plane in the lead.
“Yep! The cliff guns of Cape Suzette. Drives 'em crazy!” Baloo said with a lazy grin as they climbed away from the sea. Scootaloo switched her gaze away from the approaching cliffs and to her companion, who was relaxing back in his seat.
“You know, you remind me a lot of Rainbow Dash... I think you saw her in the pictures. She's the rainbow maned pegasus and she's the most awesome flyer in Equestria. She's also the Element of Loyalty and would never leave some-pony hanging.”
“Sounds like you think a lot of her.”
“Well yeah, she basically took me under her wing, taught me everything she knew and is pretty much my big sister. I guess you and Kit have something similar. I really hope he starts looping soon himself. You both deserve it.”
There was no calculation in the pony's voice this time, and Baloo made a decision. “Well until he gets back, seems I'll be needing a replacement navigator. You up for the job?”
“Am I ever!” Scootaloo returned eagerly.
“Then welcome aboard, Scoots.” Baloo opened a storage compartment and handed her a green baseball cap. She put it on as they flew through the gorge and out into a wide lagoon.
“Oh, wow!” Once again, Scootaloo had seen far larger and taller cities in her time, but this was one of the prettiest. Art deco towers with sky bridges made a wide crescent around a vast lagoon with an island in it, and were built back into the hillsides of the bowl that enclosed it. And everywhere there was air-traffic, dirigibles, sea-planes, flying back and forth. It made Canterlot sky-port look like a village cross-roads in January.
She noticed one of the biggest towers had a logo which her in-loop memories told her stood for Sher Khan, and that jogged her memory. She pulled out the box. “Oh, hey, I've still got this. Want to hand it over to Khan before Karny and his merry mutts make another grab for it? In short, what's the plan, big man?”
“Huh, normally Kit hides it back at Louie's... Welp, I hook up with Kit, head on back to base, find out I missed the last six payments on the Duck and have to stump up three large ones, three thousand bucks or they'll foreclose at nine tomorrow.” He grinned. “Of course lately, as soon as I find myself back at Louie's at the start of each... loop? I ring up a bookie in Cape Suzette and put on some accumulators I know will pay out. Easy money.
“But first time round, we did a high ticket mission which I blew when Karny captures Kit, and he offers to share the reward for the gem in that box, except it's not a gem, it's some sub-electron dohickey that can create a lot of power. Khan's willing to fork over a solid hundred thousand for it's return, and Karny wants to use it to build a lightning cannon to come plunder Cape Suzette.”
He shrugged. “Man, first time round we went all over the place to try and get that thing back. Turns out Becky, that is Rebecca Cunningham, bought up the company from the bank to run, which made her my boss. Now I don't fuss about business, flying's all I'm interested in, so I was trying to find the fifty k to buy myself out of hock. Cutting out the drama, the pirates make their play, we stop them, destroying the stone in the process.
“I end up back behind the eight ball, flying for Higher for Hire, Becky's new name for the company, with her as the boss lady. Of course, now I've been round the block a couple dozen times, I can get round that easy enough, and did, but you know, it's like that time I saved Khan's life and he gave me pretty much anything I asked for, or when I found out I'd inherited a fortune and a big house. It got lonely being just me, or even me and Kit. So now I let her buy the place just to get her involved.”
“Sounds like quite a lady.” Scootaloo replied. “Is she your special some-pony... some-body?”
Baloo barked out a laugh. “Me and Beckers? Not in a million years! We'd drive each other crazy, heck, we do drive each other crazy! She's a stickler for everything being just so, and I like to take a more relaxed att-i-tude. She's pushy, bossy, mercenary, comes up with crazy moneymaking schemes at the drop of a hat... and she's someone I'd trust with my life, and a good friend.”
“Except for the moneymaking part, that sounds just like another friend of mine, Diamond Tiara. I wonder if she'll be showing up here. If Apple Bloom is here, we might see some others...”
“Man, how many more are there?”
Recounting the other members of the Crusaders took them all the way round the bay and until they taxied up to the dilapidated dock that led to the ramshackle building that housed 'Baloo's Air Cargo Service'. Except the was freshly painted and now said, 'Higher for Hire'.
“What the Sam Hill?” Baloo shook his head in disbelief, and stormed out of the Sea Duck and up the dock.
A pink female pony of more adult proportions with wavy purple hair held back with a bandana was backing out of the doorway. She wore a white turtleneck and violet slacks, and was carrying a bale of old newspapers neatly tied up with string.
“Hey lady, who are you and what do you think you're doin'?” Baloo called out.
She dropped the bundle besides a bunch of others and turned to face him. “The names Tara, Tara Cunningham, and as of 9 am this morning I own this place and that plane.”
“But that's not till tomorrow, and you ain't Beckers...”
Wild Bloom came out, equally grown up, wearing a tatty set of overalls and carrying a box of junk. Her mid-Usland accent was even more pronounced than usual. “Sorry Baloo, I tried to boost the radio to get you the message, but the bank came with the paperwork yesterday. She's got a bunch of lawyer's papers and everything.”
Baloo started to get mad, then realised something. “Then I've got just one question for you all. Are you Awake?”
The stress he put on the word clearly hit a bullseye. Tara slumped slightly and said. “Oh darn, and I wanted to see if I could turn this place into something that could give Khan Insustries a run for their money.”
He heard Scootaloo's voice behind him. “Guys, this is Baloo Von Bruinwald, Anchor and our host for this loop. He's still in his first century. I gave him the intro speech and told him about us. Do we have Sweetie Belle and Nyx on board?”
The two ponies in question came out, younger than usual and wearing rompers. Sweetie Belle exclaimed, “Present, and I hate being a rug-rat!”
Diamond Tiara waved a hand at them and said, “Meet my 'daughters', Belle and Nyx Cunningham.”
Wild Bloom rubbed the back of her head and said, “Sorry guys, but this world doesn't have computer records, if you want to bump your ages a bit, it'll have to wait until we can find the paperwork and rig it.”
Baloo was looking around at the five of them, and just shook his head. “Man, and I thought my life was complicated enough already!”
Scootaloo grinned as she joined up with the other Crusaders. “Don't think of it as complicated, think of it as interesting!”
48.2 (Masterweaver)
"Come on." Apple Bloom was smirking. "I know you have one."
"....the shape was good for runic circles," Silver Spoon admitted.
"AHA! I knew it! Let's see, come on!"
"And silver's a good material!" continued the currently Saddle Arabian filly. "It's not like I--"
"Silver, I've made mechanical flowering fruits. Sweetie's created shaped candies that ring. Heck, Diamond wears hers in the baseline." The farmfilly shook her head. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."
With a resigned sigh, Silver reached into her subspace pocket and pulled out something twice her size.
Pinkie chose that moment to walk in. "...that is one big spoon."
"Er..." Apple Bloom pointed at a small stain. "Is that...?"
"Um, yeah. I used this in fights a lot." Silver shrugged. "It made sense at the time."
48.3 (Indalecio)
The Incredible Mac
Mac awoke. The first thing he noticed were the murmurs of shock around him. At first, he thought they might be directed at him, but no, they seemed to be directed at a teenage boy riding his motorcycle through the desert in front of him.
"Whats he doing? He's going to be killed!" said a gruff, male voice beside him.
He didn't know what was going on; his loop memories hadn't set in, but he knew he couldn't let that happen. He leaped out of the bunker he was in and ran toward him.
He hadn't gotten far when the first of his loop memories hit him. All from his first memories to the latest last night.
He'd been working on something called a Gamma Bomb? These human loops were always kinda weird. But then again, Trixie would've probably gone gaga for something like that.
He'd been doing some last minute checks on the thing with his fiancee Betty Ross.
'Fiance, huh? Wonder if she's awake or not?'
The door opened. In walked two people his loop memories instantly recognized as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross and Major Glenn Talbot. His loop memories and the looks those two were giving him told him that they didn't like him and that the feeling was mutual.
“Is everything ready on the Gamma Bomb?” there was a tone of barely restrained anger in the General's voice.
“Yup.”
The General's eyebrow visibly twitched. He turned to Betty and his expression softened immediately.
“Betty, can I talk to you for a second? In private?”
“What is it Father? If you can say it in front of me, you can say it in front of Bruce.” there was an edge to her voice.
General Ross nodded to the Major. “Leave us for a few minutes, Major.”
“Yes sir.” He saluted and left.
The General composed himself. “You know I don't approve of your dating ...”
“Not this again!” she cried. “We've been over this before. We've got nothing to talk about! “
“Betty..”
“I really think you should go.”
The General turned to Bruce and his face hardened. “This isn't the last of it. Don't even think for a moment that I'll let you marry my daughter.” saying that, he put his hat back on his head and left.
Which lead him back to today. The Gamma Bomb was going to explode, and some dumb kid decided to drive out in the middle of the testing site.
Getting him to safety me managed to toss the kid into the bunker just as the blast was about to hit. 'Whelp, looks like this'll be one real short loop!'
Mac hurt. Near as he could tell he was in a bed, probably in a hospital, hopped up on anesthetics and worst of all, people were talking, preventing him from getting any rest.
'Why Mac hurt? Why people talk? Why can't they just leave Mac alone?' he wondered to himself.
“severe concussion, broken arm...” Through the fog of the anesthesia, he could just barely make anything out.
“survived the gamma bomb..”
“needs to be studied..”
Something must have changed as his head got foggier, the voices vanished and he surrendered to sweet oblivion.
“Good morning!” The one he knew as Betty Ross entered the room. She closed the door behind her and removed what looked like a small silvery notepad from somewhere. She fiddled with it for a few seconds and spoke.
“Ok. No bugs....and I've put up a privacy screen around this room. It should be safe to talk.”
“You're looping?” Mac asked.
“Yeppers.” Betty crossed the room and took a seat at Mac's bedside.
“Well, that makes this less awkward.” Mac was visibly relieved.
“Well, I'm assuming you've got some questions.”
“Eyup. So does that bomb thing always happen?”
“Mostly. Sometimes its a gamma reactor. Sometimes Bruce just like Gamma radiation and decides to experiment on himself. It varies.”
“So is Bruce, I'm assuming its not MacIntosh, the loop anchor?”
“Banner. No he's just a looper, same as me. That kid you saved, Rick Jones, however, is the loop anchor. Well, probably. It could be Steve Rodgers, or possibly Doreen, or maybe that Parker kid. All we know is that those 4 loop a lot. Its...complicated.”
“Complicated?”
“Well, those 4 seem to be always looping, but we're not really sure if they're anchors.”
“Hmm..”
“Oh! Do you feel a pool of energy in your mind?”
Mac closed his eyes.
She continued. “One of the effects of the gamma radiation is that it tends to turn you into a huge mass of muscle. Go ahead. Try touching it.”
"You mean besides deadly radiation sickness?"
Betty sighed. "Just do it."
Mac reached out with mind and tried touching the pool of energy. From nothing, it became a raging torrent of energy that tore through him, giving Mac's already impressive muscles an even bigger boost. From here on, his bed started collapsing under the weight and his casts popped off from the stress. It took some effort, as the energy threatened to overwhelm him, and his muscles burned from the growth they were experiencing, but he managed to retain control of his mind.
“That was dangerous, Lady.”
“But you did it!”
“What would've happened if I hadn't”
“You would've rampaged across the dessert with the army and Father in hot pursuit.”
Mac glared.
“Please, it what usually happens whenever Bruce isn't awake.”
Mac raised an eyebrow.
“He, you, whatever, gets angsty about the transformation, which usually only triggers when he's mad, and becomes obsessed about trying to cure himself, which never works, because something or someone always interrupts it. Either the Hulk himself...”
Mac looked quizzically at Betty.
“That's you, by the way. Or the Army, or SHIELD, or the Leader, or the Abomination...well you get the picture. Which brings me to my next point. Father had decided that since you absorbed all this radiation without any side-effects. Well, the normal side-effects of dying horribly of radiation sickness, that's something that must be studied and used for the benefit of the United States Army. He's transferring you to a secure facility in a few days. They'll be poking and prodding you for years until they get something useful. The fact that it'll separate us is just the cherry on top in Father's view."
“We'll have do something about that.” A spring on his bed popped to as if to punctuate his last statement.
Betty and Rick stood out in the desert.
“So you know the plan?” asked Betty
“Who's the anchor here? If anything I should be asking you that.”
“So..ask.”
“Whats the plan?”
“Ok, so you transform into Colossus...”
Rick just glared.
“Sorry, not Colossus, I meant The Thing.” said Betty, grinning.
“Very funny, Ms, I'm She-Hulk, but Red.”
“Tough crowd. Fine...you transform into A-Bomb. That's still a dumb name, by the way, and I transform into Red She-Hulk, and we go in and bust out Bruce. He transforms, we fight and gracefully lose, Bruce is a hero, or at least less of pariah in Father's eyes.”
“And if we're captured?”
“Clones, from an alternate future, come to set right what once went wrong.”
“Eh..close enough.”
“So we leave now?” A distant explosion rocked the valley.
“I'd stay that's a yes.” said Rick as he transformed into a giant rock-like being with Betty transforming right behind him.
The military convoy was in ruins. Soldiers either milled about expecting new orders, or waited to receive treatment. They raised their rifles as Red She-Hulk and A-Bomb approached.
They put up their hands “Whoa. We mean you no harm. What happened here?”
“Thats classified.” said Major Glenn Talbot stepping forward.
“I think its obvious. Someone attacked the transport, made off with whatever cargo....and headed in that direction.” said Red She-hulk, pointing to some tracks.
“Lets go!” They leaped off in the direction of the tracks.
For the second time, Mac awoke in an unfamiliar environment. He was horizontal in a glass and metal tube. Restraints held down his arms and legs. Looking through the glass covering above him, he could see people in yellow clothes and masks at work beside him.
'They kinda look like beekeepers. No sign or Rick or Betty. Plan probably went wrong, so this is probably as good a time to make my entrance.'
Once again he tapped into that pool of green energy in his mind, and the tube suddenly became very cramped, but shattered as he continued growing. There were shouts of alarm and he continued freeing himself.
“Don't get up. I can help myself.”
Finally freeing himself he leaped up through the ceiling, only to find himself in midair as he seemed to have just left some sort of aircraft. As he continued falling, the aircraft made a lazy turn and started heading back the way he came. Coming toward him and passing him? But it looked like something else emerged as it flew by. A silvery android, that hit the ground a minute after Mac did.
“What are you?”
The only response from the android was to shift into a form similar to Mac's own, green and heavily muscled.
"Avocado." Mac swore.
'Okay. What am I up against?' asked Mac to himself as he dodged a blow to his head. The android seemed as strong and as durable as him. The fact that they'd been fighting for 5 minutes already with no sign of the droid weakening meant that it probably had a pretty strong power source. The glowing aura coming from the android's chest confirmed it. But it also didn't seem to have that much in the way of imaginative. Its attacks were, no pun intended, mechanical and Mac was dodging most of them.
'Now what are my assets and skills.' What most readily came to mind were his muscles, which he was already using. There was his bartender skills, but there wasn't a bar for miles, and unless he could challenge the droid to a contest of mixing drinks, didn't see how that would be any help. The android didn't seem to be open to negotiation, as he hadn't spoken at all, and hadn't visibly reacted to anything he'd said. He wondered if this whole android business was just a stalling action for other reinforcements to move into position, but he'd yet to see anyone else show up during the battle. Maybe this was a test of the android's abilities? Or maybe his?
The only thing Mac hadn't tried were any of his earth pony abilities. He hadn't a chance to practice any of them in this body, and wasn't sure they would work, but this was as good a time as any.
First, bucking. Mac charged his fist with power and swung at what looked like a vulnerable spot. The droid's left arm at the elbow came clean off, launching far into the distance. The droid paused for a moment, its elbow becoming liquid metal, stretching and reforming into another arm and hand.
“Eucalyptus.”
'This is going to be annoying, but this means I can probably puncture its chest cavity if it would just stop moving.'
The second ability he hadn't tried was earth pony plant growth. However, just from looking around he could see he was in a desert, and there wasn't much he could work with. Reaching out with his senses he tried to sense the plant life in the area. Not much, except he was detecting a bunch from inside the android. That didn't make sense, unless... you counted the various seeds and pollen usually in the air. This android must have an air intake, and have brought into itself thousands of tiny seeds. Normally, it wouldn't have been a problem, but...
“Lets add a little something to the mix!” Mac reached into his subspace pocket and removed a packet of apple seeds. Perhaps not the best choice for what he was going to try, but it was what he had on hand. Once at the same time, he torn open and threw the opened bag at the android. At the same time he slammed his foot into the ground, pouring as much earth pony magic into it as he could. The explosion of plant growth was enormous. Right in front of him grew an enormous apple tree, a conglomeration of at least a hundred seeds, which as it expanded threw him back.
Mac landed not so gracefully. The tree continued expanding, but slower now. Mac leaped into the branches to see if he could locate the android. Reaching out with his senses, he could feel it...there! Using his earth pony magic, he bent a path through the ever expanding branches.
Mac finally found the android. It was completely locked down the branches of the tree, and could gain no leverage as it tried to free itself.
“Still moving, huh?” Mac reached up with his fist charged, grabbed through the android's abdomen to the source of its power he felt earlier. It promptly stopped moving.
Through the light of the tree, Mac examined what he pulled out. It seemed to be a small glass cube, about a 3 centimeters in length on all sides, and it literally pulsed with energy. He tossed it into his subspace pocket. He could examine it later if he got access to a proper lab.
He then went out and waited for someone to arrive.
Mac didn't have to wait long. It was another few minutes before a helicopter approached his position and landed.
'A giant tree appearing in the middle of the desert must be an incredible beacon.'
It had a circular emblem of what was probably a stylized falcon on it. Its side opened up, and occupants that he mostly recognized popped out. He could see someone who probably Betty and what she had described as Rick in his A-Bomb form along with General Ross. Also, a bunch of agents in blue uniforms that appeared to be commanded by am eye-patched woman with purple hair that he felt he should have recognized, but didn't. The agents in blue surrounded him with rifles pointed at him.
Mac shifted to his human form. Privately, Mac wondered where the purple pants had come from, and why when he switched back, his pants were back to normal.
“General. Unknown Gamma mutated beings who I've never seen before.” and then he turned to the woman. “I'm afraid I don't have the honor, Miss..”
“Nicole, Nicole Sparkle, Director of SHIELD.”
Recognition finally hit Mac. “Pleased to meet you, Director Sparkle.”
“This is all very well, but we'll need to take Mr. MacIntosh into custody. He's vital to the interests of the US military.”
“I think we could possibly come to an arrangement. Mr. MacIntosh, how would you like to come work for me?”
The General sputtered.
“This offer would apply to you two as well,” nodding to Rick and Betty, who decided to shift to human form as well at this point.
“Betty? What? How?”
“Merged with a temporal duplicate of myself from alternate timeline.” said Betty.
“Same.” mentioned Rick
“Director, I think I'd like to take you up on that offer.”
48.4
Trixie left the stage to the sound of cheers. “Ah, now that's something which I really enjoy about Looping.”
Her glamorous assistant followed her, using a towel to clean whipped cream off her face. “Why do I always get splatted?”
Trixie turned, looking indignant. “Firstly, because slapstick is always funny. Second, it's not always you. I got gunged back in Trottingham.”
Chrysalis' towel stopped moving. “Okay, I had forgotten that one.”
“Lucky you,” Trixie muttered. “It took me half an hour to clean my cloak.” Then she got a mischievous look on her face, darted forwards and licked some of the cream off.
The disguised Changeling flinched momentarily. “Gah! Warn me next time!”
“Make me,” Trixie challenged, sticking her tongue out.
Chrysalis' eyes narrowed. “Maybe I will,” she said, as they reached the wagon.
Bigger on the inside, of course. Trixie's baseline wagon was fine for one, but applying a simple Potterverse charm on it made it suitable for two without Trixie having to tow a Conestoga.
“Shouldn't we set off first?” Trixie asked, a quaver in her voice. “I mean, we do need to get to Manehattan by tomorrow evening, and it's a fair way.”
“Well, you should have thought of that first,” Chrysalis said reasonably. She dropped her shapeshift.
There was a flash of light, and an envelope landed on the table.
“...huh.” Trixie trotted over and picked it up. “I wasn't expecting a letter. Were you?”
“Changelings don't bother with post,” Chrysalis pointed out.
“And it's not from one of your lovers in every port of call?” Trixie teased.
Chrysalis winced, then grinned. “Okay, you win this round. Now, what's in the letter?”
Trixie slit the seal, holding it up for inspection. “Canterlot master of ceremonies, very posh. I remember whenever Twilight and I are co-students of Celestia, we saw a lot of this.”
“Usually attached to damage bills and the occasional lawsuit, if I recall right,” Chrysalis snarked.
“Same difference.” Trixie drew the contents out. “Oh. Oh-ho-ho!”
Chrysalis looked over her shoulder. “What is it?”
Trixie moved the letter so she couldn't see. “Aherm. 'The Master of Ceremonies of Canterlot Palace has been requested and ordered by their majesties, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, to invite you, Trixie Lulamoon, along with guest, to the Grand Galloping Gala to be held in one month's time.'”
They exchanged glances. And then, in near perfect unison, grinned.
“What on Equestria is that?” Blueblood said, staring at the newest entrants to the hall.
Trixie tossed her head, making her starred dress ripple and catch the light. “Yes, bask in the reflected awe of the Great and Powerful Trixie!”
“Not you,” Blueblood said, frowning. “I mean the... the... thing next to you?”
“Oh,” Trixie said in tones of sudden understanding, nodding exaggeratedly. “You must mean my date. She has a name, and it's Chrysalis.”
Seeing that most of the room was now staring, Trixie patted Chrysalis on the back. “She's a queen, you know.”
Chrysalis beamed at the room. This only showed her fangs, which made some of the assembled notables back away a bit.
“Chryssy!” Celestia said, sweeping into the room with her student and her sister trailing behind her. “I'm so glad you could make it!”
“My pleasure,” Chrysalis replied warmly. “How is your sister doing?”
“I am fine, thank you,” Luna answered for her sister, making a slight bow. “I don't believe I have met your date, however.”
Trixie fought to keep a straight face, as the five Loopers all acted as though it was perfectly normal to see a Changeling at the Gala.
Sure, explosions were cool. But as far as pranking the Gala went, Blueblood's expression right now was priceless.
48.5
“I feel weird...” Silver said, experimentally ruffling her wings.
Her aunt, Gilda, looked down at her with a mildly parental expression. “Not surprised, fledgeling, you're a whole new body type.”
“Something like that happened a couple ago, too,” Silver informed her. “My first fused loop, where I picked up Alchemy and Alkahestry, I had two missing limbs.”
“Cool,” Gilda declared, nodding. “That was probably your formative loop, then.”
“Do those always happen?” Silver spread her wings and beat them as fast as she could, rising a little off the ground. “Ow, this is exhausting.”
Gilda reached out a foreclaw and supported her breastbone. “Easy, fledgeling. Flying's as much about technique as brute force, doing it like that's only going to strain something. And no, they don't always happen.” Silver stopped trying to fly, and Gilda deposited her back on the ground. “I'll teach you in a sec. Some loopers – a lot of human ones seem to do this – just keep learning from a lot of different loops, never really picking a speciality. Some of our locals just don't have the need to develop a specific skill set over others – take Sparkle, she's all about magic.”
“I see... I think,” Silver said slowly. “And... your formative one was wherever you picked up that weird magic you do?”
“Yep.” Gilda demonstrated, letting her body bleach white. After a few seconds, tufts of fur or feathers developed at her haunches, and red accents touched up her otherwise brilliant white coat.
Her tail-tip seemed to be on the verge of releasing a drop of ink.
“I learned a couple of forms of the brush magic there, and then picked up the rest a bit at a time.” Gilda's colours went back to normal in a moment. “I've also become a dab hand at painting, too, which is nice. Stress-relieving.”
Silver nodded along. “What about – Tiara?”
“Her?” Gilda cawed laughter. “She's the most hard-assed bitch I've ever met – and that's a compliment, really. She's basically picked up two things – psychic powers, you know, telepathy and scrub like that, and also a mean tactical sense.”
“Right.” Silver Spoon thought that over for a bit.
“Hey – how do gryphons... well, the gryphon government. How does that work?”
Gilda sat back. “Okay, so we're predator-types. I'll bet you see me instinctively as big and tough, and there's a little niggle in the back of your mind evaluating if you could take me.”
“Yeah.” Silver blushed. “I didn't know I was so... arrogant?”
“Gryphons are arrogant, it's healthy.” Gilda waved it off. “So, we're arranged into... well, prides or packs, the meaning is the same. Your village is a pack, your county is a pack formed of the village higher-ups, and so on up to Imperial level. You can move up in two ways – either by election, which is sort of a contest of strength of mind, or by combat, which is a contest of strength of body.”
The elder looper waved her foreleg. “Elections are kinda recent, historically speaking. Anyway, you can only challenge either way within a pack. So if Joe Average Gryphon wanted to become Emperor, he'd start at the village level. If he won there, he'd be a member of the county pack, and could move up there, and so on.”
“What about you?”
Gilda coughed. “I have an unfair advantage. I'm... well, we're... sort of members of the Imperial family. That counts as a pack, too.”
Silver digested that for a bit.
“Griffin civil wars must be complicated.”
“Yep, pretty much.” Gilda shrugged. “Mind you, the pack leader usually has a band of sworn talons who he can have kick the arses of any potential challenger, so he doesn't have to spend the whole day fighting. In practise, successful challenges involve those sworn talons either stepping aside or getting whupped en masse – and either way, we as a species tend to be alright with that.”
“I think I see. So...” Silver examined one of her claws minutely. “So it all gets sorted out in duels?”
“Better than wars,” Gilda agreed. “And we do a lot of betting on the outcomes.”
“So.” Silver raised her wings again. “Flying?”
“Right. Flight basics.” Gilda thought for a bit. “First off, how to glide. It's fairly simple in practise, just hold your wings out stiff.”
“That's it?” Silver followed the instructions. “Now what?”
“Now...” Gilda grinned. “We teach you the gryphon way.”
Her tail slashed across left to right three times, making a set of three parallel horizontal lines.
The resultant instant tornado sent Silver rocketing over three hundred feet into the air.
“Okay!" Gilda shouted up. “Now... sorta fall less.”
“HOW?” Silver asked, panicking.
“Stop falling!”
“I officially hate gryphon teaching methods,” Silver muttered, pulling twigs out of her feathers.
Gilda shrugged. “You were really making progress there. Before you hit the tree. All cleared out?”
Silver inspected her wings. “I think so.”
“Good!” Gilda said, bringing her tail up again. “Ready for gliding practise session two?”
With a yelp, Silver turned and fled.
The elder gryphon chuckled, walking lazily after her. “Wonder when she'll notice she just flew up the cliff...”
48.6 (Vulpine Fury):
"Mac?"
The farmer-become-bartender raised his head in curiosity. "Eeyup?"
...and was bowled over by a smiling and crying Cheerilee. "I'm home! I'm home!" She pulled back and drank in her old friend's confused face.
Apple Bloom came around the corner, and broke into a grin of her own.
"Howdy, Miss Cheerilee! Ah wasn't expecting to see you today! Ah thought we didn't have class today 'cause of the Summer Sun Celebration..."
She was shocked by just how tender the hug was that Cheerilee enfolded her into.
48.7 (Elmagnifico)
Macintosh brought his head up when he heard Cherilee's voice.
"Eeyup?"
That was interesting. She looked ecstatic. This was early in the loop, and typically their interaction was limited-
"Hrnk!"
Ohfewmets howdidhemissherbracingforthatleap thishadbetternotendinakiss - if he avoided That One Day. He really hoped this wasn't one of those loops where ponies had Soulmate Timers on their hooves or some-such mechanical matchmaking and he'd missed the Memory. It wouldn't be the first time. If he'd done the math right, the Loops liked to hook up his baseline version with the schoolmarm about one in three times, which could make things like pre-scheduled dates awkward if he Awoke later than usual.
"I'm home! I'm home!"
Wait.
He definitely would have remembered if she had moved in. A change in family dynamics like that wasn't something you missed more than once. Was she? Why would she be?
"Howdy, Miss Cheerilee! Ah wasn't expecting to see you today! Ah thought we didn't have class today 'cause of the Summer Sun Celebration..."
Ah, her relationship with the Crusaders. That was a plausible reason for her to Loop. And now Applebloom was included in the hug? So probably not that problem. Was this how Shining Armor felt around the looping changeling queen?
Macintosh made a mental note to pay particular attention to Cheerilee in the coming loop. Wistful sighs, stares into the distance, brief disappointed glimpses, unexplained bouts of grief, these would all be looked for. The last thing he wanted was another Chrysalis situation.
48.8 (LordofBones)
"Citizens of Ponyville!" boomed the black alicorn as she appeared in a writhing vortex of shadow and lightning, "tonight, you have heard my beloved sister's speech! You have heard her promises! But I, the Nightmare Moon, Queen of the Night, do not make promises! Where Celestia only offers platitudes, I have already taken action in dispatching the true terror of this fair town, as a mark of my care and benevolence towards my future subjects!"
Celestia just stared at her sister in shock. She had been in no way prepared for Luna to return in this manner!
Ivory Scroll raised a hoof meekly. At Nightmare's nod, the Mayor spoke up, "Um...Your Majesty...I don't mean to offend you, but...er...Lyra stop pushing...what did you mean by the true terror of Ponyville?"
Luna stared at her intensely. "I have banished the rabbit known as Angel, to the Moon, forever."
There was a complete and utter silence, punctuated by a pink-maned pegasus's body hitting the floor in a dead faint.
"THREE CHEERS FOR QUEEN NIGHTMARE MOON! ALL HAIL THE QUEEN!" Big Mac roared.
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48.1: The plot's going into a tale spin. (Sorry!)
48.2: That's the second biggest spoon I've ever seen!
48.3: "You wouldn't like me when ah'm placid."
48.4: Well known and famous.
48.5: Griffin society, culture, and education.
48.6: Cheerilee was one of the loopers initiated by that big ol' crash a few back.
48.7: This is what we call "panic mode".
48.8: Policies the people can get behind.
48.2: That's the second biggest spoon I've ever seen!
48.3: "You wouldn't like me when ah'm placid."
48.4: Well known and famous.
48.5: Griffin society, culture, and education.
48.6: Cheerilee was one of the loopers initiated by that big ol' crash a few back.
48.7: This is what we call "panic mode".
48.8: Policies the people can get behind.
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48.8 Angel Bunny really had it coming.