The Wheel and the Butterfly

A Dan X Pinkie Pie saga

Bonus Arc Dan Vs. Doctor Doom… ?

Chapter 1 Elise Vs. Chris’s Appetite

“GrrrrrrrooooAAAAAAAH!” Elise shouted as the gentle female voice on her phone said, “Call ended.”

“Everything okay in there?” Chris asked from the kitchen.

“No! Everything's not okay in here!” Elise yelled towards the kitchen entrance. “Dan and Pinkie have outdone themselves in the worst possible way.”

“Knowing those two, I’m sure it’ll work out fine,” Chris said casually.

Elise put her smartphone back in her pocket. “We can’t risk that! There’s too much at stake. We need to go right now and make sure they don’t turn Eastern Europe into a smoking crater!”

“Uh… I’m a little busy here…” Chris replied.

Elise pinched the bridge of her nose and let out an annoyed sigh. She made her way towards the kitchen from the living room. “Chris! Dan and Pinkie have the world’s most advanced combat jet, are taking it dangerously close to Russia, and have enough firepower to kick off World War III.” She walked into the kitchen. “What could—” Elise’s shoulders slumped. “Of course…”

“What?” Chris said in a protesting tone as he added a final slice of bread to a cartoonishly large sandwich. “I just beat my personal record in largest sandwich made,” he said as he motioned to his massive sandwich tower on the kitchen table. “Now I’m going to beat my personal record for largest sandwich eaten!”

“We don’t have time for this! We need to stop Dan and Pinkie, again, before they inadvertently destroy the world, again.”

Chris scrunched his lips slightly. “To be fair, Pinkie and Dan usually only get up to enough trouble to maybe level a building. Not the entire planet.”

Elise rolled her eyes. “Fine! Well this is a first for them as a pair then. I need you to be on ‘Dan’ duty. The last thing we need is for him to almost start World War III, again.”

Chris took a generous bite of his sandwich. “WWhy dwo wI al’ays afta bwe on Dlan dluty?”

“Because if you’re on Pinkie duty, suddenly all the food is gone and we have to set up squirrel traps and figure out what mushrooms aren’t poisonous so we can live!”

Chris swallowed. “That was only one time! Besides, when you’re on Dan duty, the Los Angeles area quickly runs out of ambulances to send.”

Elise smirked. “Great! So we’re agreed. You keep Dan in line. I’ll keep an eye on Pinkie.”

Chris sighed. “Alright, but can we set expectations from ‘keep Dan in line’ to ‘Dan damage control?’”

Elise nodded. “That’s fair.”

“How’d Dan and Pinkie figure out how to pilot the world’s most advanced jet, anyhow? Dan’s unpredictable in terms of knowledge, but operating a fighter jet seems a bit out his usual wheelhouse of knowing the exact chemical composition of gunpowder or how many people died when Pompeii erupted,” Chris said, punctuating his thought with another bite.

Elise’s cheeks flushed slightly. “The jet is designed to interface with a number of easily obtainable wireless devices that could manipulate it.”

“Mweeneeng?” Chris said before swallowing.

Elise sighed. “Let’s just say it wouldn’t be hard for Dan or Pinkie to come with something they’re familiar with to get the jet running.”

“Okay, so where are they taking this jet anyway?” Chris asked before taking yet another bite of his sandwich.

“Latvia.”

Chris stared at Elise blankly as he chewed his food.

Elise thought for a moment. “It’s sandwiched between ‘Estonia’ and ‘Lithuania’.”

Chris swallowed and continued to give Elise a blank look as he leaned in to take another bite.

Elise scrunched up her face slightly. “It shares a border with Russia and is almost directly west of Moscow.”

Chris swallowed once more. “Moscow! I know where that is.”

Elise narrowed her eyes. “Can we focus please? The world’s sort of at stake.”

At the word ‘stake’, Chris took another look at his sandwich, a ponderous expression rolled over his face like a gentle fog.

“Chris!” Elise snapped as she stepped over to the kitchen door and opened it. “World peril!” she said as she motioned outside.

Chris turned to Elise with a sad look.

Elise sighed as the corners of her lips lifted slightly into the hints of a smile. “You can take the sandwich with you.”

Chris happily gathered his massive sandwich into his arms, it towering about a foot above his head. He walked over to give Elise a peck on the cheek. “Thanks, honey. I’ll go start the car,” he said as he walked towards the door.

Elise’s eyes shot open wide. “You’re not seriously considering driving while you eat that monstrosity?!”

Chris walked outside, still balancing the sandwich. To Elise’s great surprise, she heard the sounds of a car door being opened. This was quickly followed by the sound of an engine starting.

“Chris! CHRIS!” Elise shouted after her husband as she leapt outside and quickly closed the door behind her. “I’ll drive!”

Pinkie Pie skipped towards the jet’s large windshield and pilot console lined with displays, bright flashing buttons, and an assortment of knobs. Her long curly hair shifted down and up with each bound as it tried to keep up with the hyperactive woman. The golden bracelets on her left wrist jangled with each hop as her loose-fitting pink tee-shirt bearing her cutie mark billowed slightly. In contrast, her white tank top clung tightly to her chest and her blue jeans continued to hug her thighs and legs.

In the pilot’s seat, Dan sat wearing his usual attire of black ‘JERK’ tee-shirt, blue jeans, and black boots. He wore a not-so-innocent grin on his face as he manipulated a small black controller with his thumbs on two analog sticks. Each stick was set downwards of four buttons that Dan would occasionally hit with one of his thumbs. His index and middle fingers rested on a pair of black rectangular buttons on the controller’s side.

As Pinkie hopped up to the co-pilot’s seat and plopped into it, Dan turned slightly and favored her with a smile slightly less steeped in deviousness.

Pinkie gave Dan a dazzling smile in return. “You look like you’re having fun.”

“I am!” Dan said enthusiastically as he pushed forward on both analog sticks, causing the jet to dip close enough to a group of houses that left laundry out to dry. Errant roof tiles were soon airborne in the jet’s wake. “So, what’d you think of Paris?”

Pinkie smiled widely. “It looked amazing from up here! There were so many pretty buildings!” Pinkie leaned forward on her seat’s armrest and batted her eyelashes a few times. “We should go back and visit once we’re done in Latvia.”

Dan pulled the sticks back, causing the jet to climb once more. He glanced at Pinkie, his smile starting to warm up substantially. “Sounds like a date. We should check out the Louvre, draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa for funzies. Maybe even hit up the catacombs and pick up a few souvenirs for people. Who couldn’t use a few extra skulls and femurs around the house?”

Pinkie gave Dan an impressed look. “Wow, you sure know a lot about Paris.”

Dan shrugged. “I’ve picked up a few things here and there. We should also check out King’s Cross, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey.”

“Uhhh… I think at least one of those is in London,” Pinkie said in an unsure tone.

Dan’s eyebrows tensed slightly and his smile dropped. “And just where did you pick up such geographical knowledge, miss pony-person?”

Pinkie quickly reached into her hair and pulled out a yellow scarf with black stripes and a tapered foot-long stick with symbols burned into the backside. She waved the wand a bit and flicked her wrists. “Expecto Patronum!” she said in lieu of a real response.

Dan seemed to ponder this for a moment. “Alright, your source checks out.”

“Yay!” Pinkie said happily. She placed the wand and scarf back into her hair and gave Dan a more serious look. “Do you think Elise will be mad we borrowed her super-secret experimental jet?”

Dan sighed. “We’ve been over this! It’s not her jet. It belongs to the US government, and who pays the US government?”

“We do, but—”

“So, this is more like two employers using a piece of company equipment.” Dan shook his head. “It’s no different from having a company car.”

“Well… I guess that makes sense,” Pinkie said. She looked forward with a knowing look as forests and clouds rapidly shot past the jet as it sped along its journey. “But I can’t help but feel Elise is going to be a little bit peeved over all this.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “She’ll get over it. Plus we’re using it to help punish a known criminal!” He shook his head. “We’re doing a service to the world here.”

“You really think this’ll make the world a better place?” Pinkie asked with a serious expression.

Dan’s features darkened. “Who cares about the world?” His eyes became narrow slits. “This is about revenge.”