Horsepower #4

You grin at her and slurp up the rest of your syrup-soaked breakfast. “Aw shit,” you say, giving her a grin. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

She snorts and nods. “Yeah,” she says, and pulls out a notebook. Unlike the racing notebooks which are generally torn up and heavily used, this one has been carefully preserved, and she carefully keeps it away from any possible sources of stickiness as she opens it. Inside are still more designs: designs for clothing.

You stand up and saunter over to the counter to turn on the radio. Some dumb but fun pop song is playing and you crank it up and you slide in next to her and take a look at the book of designs, pointing at one. “I still like the Dread Son design,” you say. “The fantasy detective wizard schtick is just so freakin’ cool.” You say.

She nods and flips over. “Yeah… but I don’t know how I feel about our design for it,” she notes, rubbing her chin with a fetlock. “Didn’t we base it off of the cover and not off of the actual character himself?”

“So? The cover has a hat. It looks way cooler. What are we gonna do otherwise, tall skinny-ass guy?”

“Well, shouldn’t it be as close to the original as possible?” She asks, flipping to a fresh page and starting to sketch out a design that was more in line with the actual, in-book descriptions.

“What?” You say and shake your head. “Nah, it needs to look cool. That’s the entire point of cosplay.”

“Oh excuse me,” she says sarcastically. “Let me just go back to my car design and add like, chains and spoilers everywhere to make sure it looks cool. Who cares if it does the thing a car is supposed to?”

“Hey there, Miss Strawpony fallacy,” you say, pointing at her. “A car is MEANT to go fast. A cosplay is MEANT to look cool.”

The two of you look deeply and intently into each other’s eyes, tension sparking between you for a second as neither of you are willing to back down… and then the two of you break out laughing and she flips to another page. “Let’s come back to that one,” she says.

“Right,” you say, and you flip there until your finger comes down on a page featuring a guardsmare with an eyepatch. “Did we ever move forward on this one?”

“No… but we have a lot of junk in the garage right now. It wouldn’t be like, actual armor but we could maybe throw some stuff together that looks like it.”

You cluck a couple of times thoughtfully before nodding and pulling out a pocket flipbook and scratching a few things down. “Paint, coat and mane die, prosthetic horn… I mean, I could do it but it would probably work better on you.”

“Eeeeeh… I’m an Earth pony and you’re a hippogriff. Neither of us will really be perfect on this end of the scale. Might as well have the more physically fit one doing the outfit,” she says while she scratches in a few adjustments based upon your measurements.

“Hey, if you want to join me for some of my workouts,” you say, poking at her pudge until she swats your claw away with a hoof.

“EASILY the best part of being a mechanic instead of a driver is that I don’t have to get up at six A.M. every day,” she says drily. “Other than the constant, terrifying threat of death. But we’re not talking about racing right now!”

“If that’s the case, should you really be doing any more welding?” You ask. “LIke, I like the design, but if it’s too much like work…”

She shakes her head. “This’ll be a piece of cake, and decent practice for when we actually get back to the welding thing in a couple of days. Plus, if I make a single mistake you’ll be uncomfortable, but you won’t die.” She checks back to look over you once more. “Probably.”

You snort and nod, jotting down a couple of extra notes. “One beaked royal guardsmare it is,” you say, and tear it off. “This is all in the budget?”

“Don’t spend seven hundred bits on mane dye and paint,” she says with a bemused smile. “I’ve already planned for things like this, don’t worry too much beyond that.”

You nod and pop off to the store, hearing the telltale clunking of Lug Nut getting ready to do her thing as you head off. Just beyond is the lovely burg of Marewaukee. Well, lovely is a bit of subjective term, especially in the part where you live. It’s not a particularly bad place to live, but there is a general air of destitution and one hell of padlock on your front door. Still, the city itself is pretty nice, lots of different types of ponies who get along relatively well. You nod as you pass some bats huddled around on a street corner. They got you. You’re cool.

Eventually you arrive at the local convenience store, the “Get It and Go”. Convenience store is right: they seem to always have whatever you need, no matter how esoteric. “Morning, Reg,” you call to the elderly bat stallion behind the counter, who gives you a sullen look and then nods once. He loves you, clearly. You pick through the aisles and pick up a pack of Big Mare, the dye, some snack cakes, and a couple of cans of spray paint. You throw it up on the counter and pay up, Reg nodding at you as you head back to the apartment.

Returning, you check in on the garage to see Lug finishing up the base of the armor. You close the door to make sure you don’t cause an accident or something, and set everything down and take a seat. You only have to chill for about thirty minutes or so, though, as it only takes about that long before a triumphant Lug bursts out of the garage, a suit of faux-armor in tow.

You squawk and nearly fall off of your chair before you realize what’s going on and right yourself, looking back over at her. Putting the armor on the table, she looks it over. “It’s not perfect,” she says. “There’s never been a perfectly clear consensus on what exactly the art looks like… but I think it looks pretty good.”

You shoot her a thumbs up as you take a walk around it. “Best I think I’ve ever seen,” you say, and look down at the cans of paint. “Well. Here’s hoping I don’t goof this one up.” You’re almost nervous to start, shaking the spray paint can just a bit longer than necessary before you set to work. Like most paint jobs, it doesn’t start off particularly delicate, just hitting the broad fields necessary to get a rough patch of color down. Then comes the trim, which takes a bit longer, Lug mooching off your snack cakes while you’re too focused to complain at her.

When you’re done, you’re left looking at a surprisingly workable recreation of the armor in question, plus the eyepatch with the accompanying heart. You give Lug Nut a smile as you finish looking it over. “Damn. This one turned out kickass,” you say and take a walk back to the couch. You slump down, stretch out, and yawn in as luxurious a manner as you can.

“Tired already?” She asks as she starts to put a few pieces of fake jewelry you had on the armor. “You haven’t even done anything today.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t do my morning run,” you note. “I’m just gonna take a quick nap, get my energy up.”

She snorts. “Big lazy bird,” she mutters, and you make a rude gesture at her before you hammer out a quick nap.

A bit later, you step into the shower and take a look at the dye in your claw. Lug is standing next to you, heavy duty goggles still tucked onto her head and mane in its usual ponytail. She seems a bit worried. “Are you sure?” She asked. “It could stick in your coat for a while…”


“Yeah, yeah,” it’s fine, you say, brushing her off. “It’s got magic and stuff so that the color comes out better and it won’t hurt my fur. Wears off in 72 hours.” It was one of the cheaper brands, but they probably didn’t skimp on the enchantment. You turn on the water and start to work the dye into your coat. There’s quite a bit of it, so when it all comes out in a glob you have to work to start spreading it out as quick as you can.

“Uh, Comet?” Lug says, watching you with a bit of concern.

“Just a second Nutty,” you mutter as you start to focus on spreading it out a bit more evenly.

“Comet…” She says, standing up off the closed toilet.

“I’m kinda busy,” you say as you finish spreading the goop over the rest of your coat.

“COMET.” She says intently as she stands next to you.

“What?” You say, looking from your pink coat to look at her. Wait. What? You look back down and your vision blurs for a second as your brain tries to blot out what you’re seeing, but reality wins out (as it unfortunately often does) and you’re left staring at the awful, awful truth: your coat is pink.

“GAH!” you say, and grab water to try and splash it out. “WHY IS IT PINK.”

“I DON’T KNOW!” Nutty says, looking around with a panic. She grabs the box and starts reading it over. The water isn’t working: it’s dye and designed to be water insoluble. You turn the water off and grab a towel to try and rub it out, but it’s also designed to be used in day to day life so that gets you about the same results.

There’s some non-verbal screaming in the entire process, you trying to rub, wash, or claw the color out of your beautiful rusty red coat, Lug desperately trying to understand magical jargon on the back of the box.

It’s several hours later and you’re curled up in your bed, blanket wrapped around you.

“Comet…” Lug says through the door.

“Go away!” You say, shifting around and wincing as that lets you see just a bit more of the pink fur that is now your reality.

“The movie starts in an hour we can just-”

“I’m going to stay inside here for the entire week,” you call back. “You can’t make me do anything!”

She sighs. “You have to go to the gym and the racetrack,” she protests. “We’re two weeks out from the Haymaker Circuit. You can’t just skip a week of practice and exercise because you look a bit silly.”

You let loose a groan. Not a particularly rational counterargument, but Lug gets what you’re going for. There’s a pause before she talks again. “Are you really going to let this thing beat you?”

Lug Nut stands out there for a second, waiting, before she hears a thud and a skittering and then a creak as you open the door. “Fine.” You say with a heavy sigh. “Let’s go see the movie.”

In spite of your reservations, the movie turns out to be a fairly enjoyable time. After one person tries to make fun of you, you demand that they fight you in the parking lot and everyone seems to get the idea that you’re kind of touchy about the whole ‘pink’ thing. The movie is the hotly awaited Commandeer sequel. People said you were crazy for thinking it would ever come out, but you’ve finally been proved right. Excellent.

You’re in a much better move as the two of you arrive back at the garage, and the two of you sit down.

“I’m sorry, but Dusk’s return made no sense,” Lug complains.

“Who cares? It was awesome!” You say, miming a dramatic sword swing.

“He added nothing to the plot! All he does is act creepy around that one mare.”

“Hey, just because that one dumbass didn’t try to save him doesn’t mean he had to be out of the franchise forever,” you protest. “He’s a great character!”

She huffs, but sees there’s no dissuading you from this point. “Anyway, I hope you had a good time… but we should probably do a bit of final planning.”

You nod eagerly. The day off was great… but racing is still EVERYTHING, and you’re so close you can taste it. It’s time to finally settle in and make the perfect car.

“I’ve got two major questions. One will help decide the other. It’s what kind of car we’re going to be running for the Haymaker Circuit, but a bit more specifically.”

“As long as I don’t need a spreadsheet or anything,” you say. “I remember when you tried to get me to help with financing.”

She nods. “I know, I know. You’re heuristic, not statistical. You heretic.” She chuckles at her own joke. “Roughly speaking, we’re running a cruiser. That gives us the ability to add on three accessories and two weapons, which run on different types of energy. Unfortunately, we can’t swap one to the other for that reason… But it does mean that we also won’t suffer any speed loss for having them.”

“Alright…” you say. “Accessories are like, armor and stuff, right?”

“Anything designed to help the core functionality of the car… Which is to go fast,” she explains. “There are a lot of different options, but it would take me a while to develop them into something workable. For right now, I can produce armor, a one-use booster, or an auto-repair module. The catch is that if I have multiple of the same type, I can consolidate power and increase the effect of any given accessory.

“Sort of a power at the cost of diversity.”

She nods. “Yeah. Oh, or I could use an accessory slot to expand the crew space. That’d give you an extra pony, but there’s no efficiency bonus, really. You’ll be driving, so I’ll make it your call on what you want. Weapons are anything designed to stop other cars. Again, loads of options, but right now I can really only manage a catapult, a boarding deck, or a ram plate. Same deal as the accessories, but we only have two.”

“Okay, got it. What’s the other thing?”

“We’re going to need at least two other ponies helping on the car. You know, a gunner to use the weapons, a boarder to attack other cars, a grease monkey to keep the car fixed, security to keep off boarders and other things, or a spotter to keep track of information. You can have one pony doing a couple of job, but the more specialized a pony is, the more skilled they are. Still, a lot of cars run support roles, who are basically back-up for all the other roles.”


You nod, this is a lot of stuff you already know, but it’s best to get the details out as concisely as possible while you think about it. “So you need to know what role we’re looking for?”

She nods. “I can put out a wave of hiring stuff. It’ll be best if we pick at the Haymaker Circuit itself.” She bites her lower lip while she thinks about it. “That’s not a lot of time to practice together or anything, but it’s the most efficient for our purposes. What kind of accessories, weapons, and racers should we be looking for?”