The Power Ponies

Chapter 3: Honey, I'm Home

Zapp soared over the twinkling skyscrapers, scanning the streets for trouble with a million thoughts bubbling in her mind. It was a beautiful Saturday night, she still had about. . . two hours left of patrol, and the sleepover at Twilight's house had started more than an hour ago.

   She was going to miss all the fun, again, and all because of a stupid patrol. It wasn't like anything ever happened in this place anyways-

   Zapp stopped in mid-air as she noticed something irregular out of the corner of her eyes. A dark shadowy figure was slinking around the streets near the city's largest mall.

   No, that wasn't strange. Actually, it was pretty common for a huge metropolitan city like Maretropolis.

   It was also dressed very bulkily, with what seemed like an over-sized cloak trailed behind. A lot of fanatics did that in the hopes of somehow being mistaken for a superhero and relishing in it- and so did a lot of creeps who hoped to get the trust of innocent citizens because of their cheap costumes.

   That wasn't exactly very uncommon. But then what had driven Zapp's suspicion? She could have sworn that the figure had been following someone. But now, all she could see was a young girl humming cheerfully as she skipped away on the pavement, and the Superhero fanatic staring at the window of a warmly-lit bakery, a good two meters away from the girl.

   Zapp jumped as her phone started ringing loudly. She landed on the nearest roof she could find before pulling her phone out of her ridiculously small pocket and answering.

   "Howdy RD!"

   An unwelcome smile found it's way onto Zapp's face. "Hey, Applejack! What's up?"

   "The sky," Applejack answered, snickering. "Listen, are you still out shoppin' for Scoots?"

   "Yeah, but it's so annoying 'cuz I haven't even one single good thing for her so far! I'm exhausted already."

   Applejack sighed distantly. "Hey, you know I have to go out shoppin' in a while anyways. Groceries an' all. How about you just leave this shopping to me and skedaddle over to Twi's place? You've worked hard, and-"

   "Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh yesyesyesyesyes thank you so much AJ! I'll never forget this!" Zapp let out an excited squeal. "This is so awesome I'll just go over there now and tell them my patrol cut short and have so fun and thank you so much for sacrificing so much for me and I'm so much happy and so much grateful-"

   "Hey! What did I tell you 'bout usin' code when on the phone-"

   Rainbow Dash shut her phone excitedly, not in the mood for nagging at the moment. Oh, who cared about creepy-looking people on the streets when you had a sleepover to get to?

   She hopped up and down happily." Yes yes yes yes-"

  " Put yer freakin' hands in the aeyr 'fore Ah shoot yer brains out!"

   Zapp froze, turning around slowly to see. . . an old man pointing a rifle at her?

   "Sorry, sir, I- I-" Zapp's mind stopped working. Superhero she may be, but Rainbow was still a human in her books, and the prospect of getting her brains blown was not very enticing.

   She sniffed and tried to stop her hands from shaking. "I-"

   The old man lowered his gun hurriedly. "Oh, no! Ah didn't realize you was a super! And a kid at thayt!" He edged over cautiously. "Didn't mean ter scare yeh, kiddo. Jes' bein' careful."

   Rainbow took in a deep breath. "S-sorry-"

   "Don't say thayt!" the old man interrupted loudly. "Ah mean, 'is mah fault, not yers."