;D

:D

I wrote this listening to Cryaotic.

:D

:D

COMMENT REVIEW TIME!

Zarbapha: That's because it has been ages. And you're most welcome. To be fair, most of the white coats won't get a painful fate, but the two main ones (since the books never say what happens to them) are going to suffer. Very. Much.

LostHero171: Did the dementors kiss you? Them's the breaks. Glad you noticed! I do try to be a bit loosy-goosey with the adjectives.

Now then, LET THE STORY BEGIN!

The land beneath us changed faster than it had in Europe, flashing from city to plains, to forest to desert in the time it took for me to blink. I mean, not really, but you know what I mean.

Twilight had claimed that this city, Dodge, was a couple of hours away, but I don't think she took our pro flying skills into account. The trip seemed much shorter; maybe an hour and a half. Which, of course, was plenty of time for me to silently seethe. Oh sure, it wasn't bad enough that we were chased all over the dang place in our world. Those (insert your favorite swearwords here) had to follow us to a freaking alternate dimension! Of all the disgusting, condescending-

Fang glided up to me silently and grabbed my arm. "Muttering," he said calmly.

Dang it.

Grumpy, I shook off his arm and turned back to the group, who were a few feet behind me and spread out. "All right, guys," I said sternly. "Now, yesterday, if you had told me that the jerks over at Lametex had nothing better to do with their time than chase after a bunch of bird kids in a dimension full of ponies, then I would have asked for the number of your drug dealer."

There were several snorts from the Flock.

"But," I continued, "apparently these psychotic white coats found an even better drug dealer, cause they're here. And worse, they took it out on a bunch of innocent ponies. Right now, they're probably busting out the extra-small dog crates for them." My blood started boiling. "So, how about we get there, and show them that they really, really need to learn when they're beat?"

There was a round of nods. "If they hurt any of those ponies," Nudge growled, looking far more murderous than usual, "I'll make them spit teeth for a week!"

Angel nodded in agreement. "And I'll rip their feathers out!" she cried.

I rolled my eyes at their tiny proclamations of bloodlust and focused on flying. As I did, out of nowhere, I remembered something- we were still wearing the fancy outfits rarity had made for us.

Oh, she was going to be so mad.

When we finally got to Dodge City, my worst fears were confirmed.

Buildings were smashed. Doors were littering the streets, most still attached to their hinges; broken glass was sprayed out on top, and in the middle of it all- tents. White tents. And scurrying in and out of those tents, sometimes carrying ponies with them?

Whitecoats.

And, of course, because the world is mean, there were about twenty Flyboys as well. Not the best odds.

As soon as we were over the town, every single Flyboy looked up and took to the sky.

Dang it.

I yelled out, "Evasive maneuvers!" and dived, tucking in my limbs and wings so that the ground hurtled closer with frightening speed, turning me into a feathery missile with nice clothes and a bad attitude. Just a few feet from the first Flyboy, I stuck out my feet; I slammed into the thing with the force of a cannonball, sending it hurtling to the ground, sparks and blood flying from its skull before it crashed into the ground with a crunch.

All around me, battle burst to life; there was a ripping sound, and I heard Nudge wail, "I liked this shirt!" before there was the unmistakable sound of snapping Flyboy neck. Not even a minute in, and there were clothing casualties.

I focused on my own fights; the Flyboys had started taking aim with their weapons, and it was taking most of my concentration to avoid the feathered darts popping towards me. I twisted around to give the nearest mangy mecha-mutt a roundhouse kick to the chest; without stopping to finish the job, I shot up a few feet, grabbed the legs of the Flyboy above me, and stopped flapping. My dead-weight was enough to make the thing sag a bit; just enough for me to hurl myself up behind it and grab its head. I twisted as hard as I could, and felt immense satisfaction at its neck snapped like a twig.

Somewhere to my right, Iggy cried out. I whipped around to see him loosing height- he'd taken two darts to the arm in rapid succession, and it was clearly taking him effort to stay awake. "Fang!" I screamed, unable to reach him- a Flyboy chose that moment to swing a vicious punch at my chest, and the blow knocked me back a few feet. All the air left my chest in a whoosh. I sucked down more air and managed to choke out, "Get Iggy!"

By this point, the whitecoats had taken notice of the aerial dog-and-birdfight above them, and were coming out in groups to shout and point and flail their arms around. Because really, they had nothing else better to do.

I couldn't stop to see if Fang had helped Iggy- there was a squeal below me, and I looked down in time to see a Flyboy grab a hold of Angel's arm and start twisting. With no time for a strategic attack, I simply dropped on top of him. I didn't do much damage-wise, but it stopped him breaking Angel's arm. As soon as she was free, Angel delivered a punch to the Flyboy's side that actually made a visible dent. "That's for ruining our day with the princesses!" She yelled, righteous fury rolling off of her like heat off the sun. With a twirl of blonde and white, she flipped upside down, bringing up her foot in a snapping kick that took the Flyboy's head clean off.

Jeezums.

Leaving Angel to dismantle the other Flyboys around her, I zeroed in on the nearest one and hurtled towards it. At that moment, I remembered something that had worked last time we fought the Flyboys, and tested it. Shooting towards it, I flicked out an experimental punch to the base of the Flyboy's spine. To my dismay, it did not snap forward and die out. In fact, all it succeeded in doing was breaking my knuckles.

Note to self- they had reinforced the spines to the point of complete unbreakability.

The Flyboy turned on me, eyes glowing like coals. With a mechanical whir it flipped out a fist and slammed it into my side. Pain flared in my ribs, but I beat it down and retaliated with my own punch to the chest. It shot back a couple feet and bumped into another Flyboy. Their wings tangled together, but due to (most likely) faulty programming, they didn't stop to untangle them. They just kept flapping, getting more and more entangled, until finally, their wings ripped and twisted clean off, sending both plummeting to the ground.

And just like that, it was over. The Flyboys littered the ground below us, in various states of mangled torn-upness. Most of them were probably Angel and Nudge's work, due to their murderous rage over their day being ruined. My ribs and side were still sore, and I was having a bit of trouble catching my breath, but I seemed pretty lucky. For a minute, I couldn't even find total, but then I saw a slightly bloodied ear sticking out of Iggy's puffy shirt. Iggy was barely flapping; Fang had a brilliantly black eye and a trickle of blood from his hair, Gazzy's leg was bleeding, and Angel's dress was in tatters where a Flyboy had grabbed the skirt and tried to drag her down. And, of course, out clothes were in tatters.

But that's just your average Tuesday.

Now that one group of mangy evil-doers had been properly dismantled, I settled down to the ground and glared at the stunned group of whitecoats. "So," I said, not even bothering to hide the anger in my voice, "Where's the leader of this joint?"

Without a word, the crowd parted, and out stepped two people I'd hoped never to see again. Doctor ter Borcht, the head nightmare scientist of Itex, and the Director (who had once pretended to be my mom just to mess with me).

"Hello, Maximum," the Director said calmly. "I'd like to say it's good to see you again, but lying won't get either of us anywhere."

I nodded. "Agreed." behind me, I heard five thumps, signalling that the Flock had touched down. "While we're being honest, let me throw out a little promise- if you don't leave right now, I will plant my foot so far up your behind that you'll taste shoelace for a year."

The Director smiled humorlessly. "All jokes aside, I definitely haven't missed your crass sense of humor and empty threats."

I smiled, just as humorlessly. "If I recall, the only reason you're here right now is because I emptied one of my threats." I could tell my the brief flash of unease on her face that she didn't need a reminder of my attempt to let her splatter on the ground.

ter Borcht spoke. "Spare us your pathetic banter, you disgusting failure," he spat. "If you value your continued existence, you vill surrender immediately. Ve haf all de cards right now."

I rolled my eyes. "As tempting on offer as that is, I'll have to turn it down. You see, you actually have no cards. If this were poker, and I were you, I'd hurl the cards and skedaddle." I pointed a finger. "I did want to ask, though...how did you find us in one day? Do you guys really have nothing better to do than stalk a bunch of 'disgusting failures' across dimensions. That's sad, even for you. You need to get a hobby. Maybe knitting little evil sweaters."

The Director seemed honestly surprised. "A day? Don't play games with me, Maximum. We both know you've been here for over two months now."

I snorted. "Sure. Next you're gonna tell me that you actually are my mom."

ter Borcht frowned. "Watch your tongue vhen speaking to your betters, you pathetic, stupid child. You vould be lucky to haf de Director as your biological mother."

I put my hands on my hips. "Yeah, because it's every girl's dream to have a crazy, genocidal wackjob you probably never had any bedtime action as their mother. The other kids would be so jealous!" I pointed at the tents. "Now, again- you all get the heck out of here, or I'm going to open a can of butt-whupping the likes of which you've never nightmared about. These ponies didn't do anything to you."

The Director snorted out her nose. "Ponies? Why Maximum, I didn't take you for such a girly child." Her voice became all business. "These creatures are essential to advancing humanity and the By-Half Plan."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh give it up, Mommykins," I said. "That plan is a bust. Wonderlad is Wonderlame, the Gatorguys are crying crocodile tears, and Spot the Leopard Lass had changed her spots. You. Have. Lost."

The Director scowled. "Be quiet. You're the one who's lost. If you won't come willingly, then we'll just-"

At that moment, something awesome happened.

There were two flashes right between me and the Director. One was a giant pillar of white flame that toasted my face and set my bangs on fire. As I hastily beat them out, a second burst flared up- smaller, darker; a puff of starry blue smoke and silvery light. From these two flares appeared Celestia and Luna, apparently deep in conversation.

"We must make sure tha-" Celestia was saying, before she noticed the gaping-mouthed whitecoats in front of her. She tilted her head and frowned. "Are you the ones who have been hurting my little ponies?" she said. Her voice was smooth and silky and as a sweet as a chocolate cake- it sent chills down my spine.

ter Borcht looked wildly at the whitecoats. "Fire your veapons!" He shrieked. The whitecoats responded, clumsily drawing tranquilizer darts and firing wildly. Most of them were bad shots, but at least four sunk right into Celestia's chest. three more stabbed Luna's side.

The two sisters looked down at the feathery things, mildly surprised and very annoyed. With a flash of light from each horn, the darts vanished- Luna's in a little twist of shadow, Celestia's actually turning to molten slag that dripped off her chest harmlessly. I gaped.

Celestia looked back up. "You are, aren't you?" She said flatly.

At the same time, the princess's wings flared, and they took to the sky, horns glowing in unholy rage as a massive beam of blistering heat and light blasted into the ground at the whitecoat's feet, reducing it to molten glass.