Auto-imported from derpibooru.org (1698760)

Heavy olive-drab wings beat the air above the northeastern sky of Ponyville, the gryphon they belonged to scanning the ground as she flew overhead. It'd taken a good few months for her to finally get settled in, but now that she was she could finally begin her search for that explosion-valley again. Under her breath, she did let off a quick curse — of course the snow had to all melt away, couldn't have made it easy and let her see an obvious indication like a bunch of craters, could it? Still, she knew enough to know she was looking for a valley, and there can't be too many of those just thrown all over the place…

Pausing in the sky for a moment, some movement caught her attention down below, in a long clearing. She faintly recognized the place from when she flew in — looked a lot different covered in all that snow — as it'd been where the airship stopped over to get the gasbag refilled, or something. Blimps were never really her thing. Still, the red-winged flying machine that was being dragged out of one of the hangars was proof enough that there was at least someone local to the area down there who could help, and whether they wanted to or not, they sure as hell would be…

The dark-blue pegasus let off a tired sigh as she shut the hangar doors back up, resting against them for a moment. "Geh, note to self, seriously consider some modification to add wheels at some point. Least she's got shock absorbers as it is…" She trotted towards the front of her flying machine, disappearing from sight for a moment as she passed under the wing, the flightcap-wearing gryphon landing on the middle of the dirt strip ahead of the aircraft. The pegasus did jump a little at the sudden entrance, understandably, but regained herself fast enough. "A-ah, uh, hi, can I help you with something?"

The gryphon adjusted her flightcap and goggles, walking a bit closer to the pegasus and her flying machine. "Yeah, this might be a bit odd to ask, but can you point me to… uh… Bangline Valley, I think? The one that's been having a lot of explosives thrown around it lately, lotsa big bangs and whatever. Oh, my name's Hispano, by the way." She paused for a moment longer, taking a look at the waiting flying machine, and then glancing back to the… pegasus. Huh. "…also, what's the story with you and this bird, huh? Your wings not work for you, or somethin'?"

The pegasus blunk a few times, unable to keep herself from letting off a small chuckle. A gryphon looking for Bangline valley to watch the explosions, she was half-temped to ask if she knew a pegasus by the name of Twintails or not, maybe as a distant relative of him — or, hell, might even be a distant relative of her own. "Night Strike, and nah, my wings work fine. I just like flyin' the Stork here for that long-distance speed, it's just a bit relaxing to not have to do all the work to fly all the time." She rested a hoof on the side of the aircraft's engine, wearing a grin. "As for Bangline valley, yeah, I know the place, Twintails has me test aerial bombs there every now and again. The folks that live there aren't given the heads-up too often, but, eh, they don't usually complain, anyways. You here to see some of the testing?"

Now, that definitely made Hispano confused. There's ponies actually living on a bomb test range? And they aren't, well, finely minced? What kinda weird stuff is going on here… "Hang on, whaddaya mean 'folks that live there'? They aren't… they know they're living in the middle of an explosives test range, right? And they don't complain about it? Just what kind of explosives are you testing, because the kind I've seen in action usually end with an entire ammo stockpile and the island it was on flattened by the force of three tons of TNT."

It was Night Strike's turn to blink in surprise, as she trotted around the front of the Stork to rest against the seat. "Wait, you actually saw Castle Bravo go up? Hah, you have no idea how much I'd love to've viewed that, we don't usually go too much bigger than half a ton equivalent around here. Or, well… it's a bit complicated, the explosions here are more measured in kilofwhoomps than kilotons… it's this fancy metal Twintails makes, P-235, I don't know the specifics but that doesn't matter when you consider just how pretty the explosions it makes are." She wore a smirk, leaning back to think for a moment. Well, she was just gonna go for a leisure flight, maybe seeing if that golden pegasus had any bombs ready for testing wouldn't be amiss… "Hey, you said you're here to see some explosions, I think I might be able to arrange a test for you today. And if you're real nice, Twintails might even reach into his workshop and get you a new toy so you can start making some bangs of your own…"

Hispano's face lit up bright at that — she'd just came here to watch some blasts, and all of a sudden she might be able to go and make her own? This day just keeps getting better and better! Okay, so they might not be real black powder and cordite explosions, but, yanno, if that pegasus says they're still pretty… "Sounds great to me, but, uh, you wanna explain what the hell a 'kilofwhoomp' is? Or, well, what a 'fwhoomp' is?"

Night Strike blunk a few times, again — wow, this gryph really was out of the loop, wasn't she? Well, guess she'll end up learning one way or another…

Upvotes at import: 19 | Stars at import: 14
Posted previously at: 2018-04-04T06:48:31 | Posted previously by: the-furry-railfan