Laughter Lines

Meet Me There

Chloe's nostrils flared, her lungs shuddering to keep up as her hooves hit the ground in a near-simultaneous beat, then lifted off the ground for a millisecond that felt like floating. Th-th-th-thudforward. Up. Th-th-th-thudforward. Up. Breaths tore through her throat, but she couldn't hear herself for the whomp-whomp-whomp of helicopter overhead.

Police chases were nothing like the movies. Or anime, for that matter. Especially not this one. There were cars following her with sirens blaring and people on bullhorns kept asking her to please stop, asking her if she understood what they were saying, or demanding that her rider pull her over. As if Vivi-chan and Lewis-sempai could do more than hold onto that stupid dog and keep from falling off.

Th-th-th-thudforward. Up. Th-th-th-thudforward. Up.

Chloe was no psychiatrist, but all the muttering Vivi was doing didn't sound good, and Lewis was giving off painful levels of heat. She snorted, pushing herself faster. Faster. How long could she go this time?

Not very long, probably. After the run out to the desert, the run back to the city, and intermittent practice of magic, she was on fumes. Energy out, energy out, energy out. She thought Faster! But her legs responded slower this time. Thu-thu-thud-thud forward. Her lungs burned. Vivi kept slipping around on her back. Was it because of Chloe's sweat or was Vivi trying to fall?

Chloe knew she'd made a mistake trying to stay in this world. It was familiar, it was comfortable, and the only herd she'd ever known was here. Vivi and Lewis and Dulcie, maybe Kay and Arthur too at a stretch. But she only caused trouble by being here. Everyone had to hide her and train her to use her own powers and she only got in the way of their efforts, like now. Who could ignore something her size thundering down a paved road? She could just gnash her teeth, thinking about The Last Unicorn. What she wouldn't give for a stealthy, graceful build like that! Such a rip-off.

With a slighter build, she could probably run for days without getting tired, too. As it was, she had no energy to gnash her teeth over the idea. Hooves so heavy. Too much running today. She just wanted to get away somewhere safe. Vivi-chan would be in so much trouble, and without Dib there, Chloe didn't want to think about what might happen to herself when they got caught. Safe place, that's all she wanted. Away from all the officers who didn't know what to make of her but couldn't stop the chase. Away from the chopper overhead. Away from the-spaceship?

There was a spaceship hooked to a shipping container, parked cross-ways in the road like it had popped into existence there. The ship was the size of a small garden shed and had the word Dib painted in jagged letters on its side. The closest wall of the attached shipping container slid open, right in her path.

No time to swerve. Her hooves skidded on the flooring and she twisted sideways, slamming her side into the back wall. Vivi cried out and dropped from her back to the ground. A large clamp rose from the floor, snapping around the barrel of Chloe's body and another two clamps secured Vivi and Mystery flat to the floor. The wall panel slid shut behind them before Chloe could catch breath enough to whinny.

"This is my second favorite part." A female voice tinged with glee filled the enclosure. "Watch this."

Chloe sagged against the restraint, which gently telescoped into the floor under the pressure, allowing her to kneel. Here and there, little tetris-like pieces of the shipping container popped out and slid aside, giving Chloe a view of what was going on around them.

Outside, police cars swerved wide of the ship, plowing through cozy little rose-gardens and mowing down picket fences on either side of it. Several of the cars stopped, spilling out officers on radios who shouted at each other, at the radios, and at the sky in confusion.