But Wait...There’s More!
- 12: Free With Purchase -
Before she set up her stall at the town square, Vinyl decided to walk around and observe how the other ponies hawked their wares. She walked past ponies that had no idea what they were talking about, and ponies that quite obviously despised their customers, their products, even themselves. Vinyl nodded grimly in self-recognition on the last point and kept walking.
“Come one, come all!” the voice of a stallion beckoned to her. “See the must-have toys of the gift-buying season! Shrinking Violet, Spoke, Soft Heart and all the rest of the cast of that hit etheric show, The Risking It All Team! Get them now before tomorrow night’s season finale!”
With a big grin on her face, the DJ joined the crowd in front of the booth. “Who’s the toypony?” she asked the mare next to her.
“That’s Kong Fun,” the stranger informed her. “He runs a tiny little shop off Colton. He made his name selling this cute little game where a monkey drops marbles down an angled chute that you have to jump your player over to rescue the Princess. Only game I know of where a donkey was the protagonist.”
While the mare was saying this, Kong had surrendered his place in the limelight to a couple of unicorn colts who were self-consciously playing with his toys.
“You’ll never win, Dark King!” said one of the colts in a high-pitched voice, waving one of the hollow wooden toys around.
“Oh yeah?” asked the other colt in a deep-pitched voice. “Let’s see how you do against my trained dragon—also sold separately by my dad!” This statement was accompanied by the revealing of a rattling figure that had only appeared on RIAT’s posters, never in the actual show. “GHAR!” he then proclaimed in his version of a dragon voice. “I’m going to eat you all up if you don’t give the Dark King the code phrase to get into the Light Queen’s castle!”
“While he’s talking, Fidelia tosses a lit match into his mouth, causing him to blow up!” exclaimed the first colt, waving a different toy around.
“Wait, I don’t think dragons work that—” the second colt began, dropping out of character.
“THERE’S NO TIME!” The first pony shouted the magical catchphrase for ignoring logic, grabbing the dragon toy and throwing it to the ground. It was a testament to Kong Fun’s craftponyship that the toy did not fall to pieces at this treatment. Nevertheless, the second pony started crying, loudly.
“Um, wasn’t that a great demonstration by little Mario and Junior?” said Mr. Fun, rushing on stage and passing the two colts into the arms of their mother.
“Excuse me!” said a voice from the crowd, as Eggplant Perturb pushed forward past Vinyl Scratch. “Mr. Fun Pony! Is this where I go for returns?”
“Ahhh...one moment, folks,” said an exasperated Kong. “I have to take care of this customer, and then I’ll get right back to you!” He dragged the professional party planner into a corner and attempted to get a confidential conversation out of him. What actually happened, however, is that he would whisper while Eggplant shouted.
“What can I do for you, dear sir?” Kong began.
“I wish to return this shoddy and unprofessional merchandise!” Eggplant replied.
“But these appear to be in perfect order. What do you find wrong with them?”
“Well for one thing, the three girl-horse toys all use the exact same model! Soft Heart should have a different eye shape than the others, and you can quite obviously feel the painted-over holes in Fidelia where you would insert a horn to turn her into Shrinking Violet or a pair of wings to turn her into Soft Heart! And making them all the same size is completely unrealistic! From certain remarks made by the others throughout the series, coupled with the backstory revealed in Episode 5, it is obvious that Shrinking Violet suffered from stunted growth, and therefore should be significantly smaller than Soft Heart! You should know that if you’re the show’s licensed toymaker...wait, are you the show’s licensed toymaker?”
“Shh...not so loud!” Kong took a moment, probably to see that yes, every single one of his potential customers did hear that. “As a matter of fact, RIAT does not have a licensed toy manufacturer at present. My application is still being processed. But the lack of action by Mr. Wells’ lawyers assures me that my work has not substantially hurt the spirit of the program. I also think you’re being a tad bit too judgmental about a fairly inexpensive toy designed to exercise a growing colt or filly’s imagination.”
“Oh, we don’t want to exercise Zip’s imagination!” exclaimed Eggplant. “The last time that happened was what landed us in Canterlot in the first place!”
“Look, I can issue you store credit, or you can exchange them for any one product, no matter the cost.”
“Anything?” asked Eggplant. “What’s your latest toy?”
“The Wild Card figure,” replied Kong. “She’s one of my finest creations. You have to admit, every colt and filly has pony and dragon toys, but how many of them have griffons? Wild Card comes with a day old baguette (for clobbering bad guys), a flute, and a bag of disguises for Mysterio, any of which she can hold in her claw.”
Eggplant spent a few moments inspecting the demonstration toy he had been handed. “Wow, she really can hold all of that stuff! That’s amazing!”
Kong beamed. “I call it the Kong Fun grip.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t get Wild Card—it will give Zip too many crazy ideas. What about that dragon toy? It looked really good.”
Kong dashed over and scooped up the fallen toy from before to pass over to Mr. Perturb. They soon had themselves a deal.
~ ~ ~
Vinyl eventually purchased a cheap educational toy from Mr. Fun—a flat version of Fidelia with a “math thingamajig” in its stomach. She then went to her appointed space and set up her booth.
To her regret, she discovered that she was more successful yesterday when her brain had been offline, because she made zero sales. In fact, most ponies fled the area as soon as she began her pitch. Nevertheless, she was certain that a few stayed to watch and listen from what they considered a safe distance. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
That night, Twilight took the group out to an all-you-can-eat buffet near the campus. There, stories of the various pony’s adventures were exchanged.
Vinyl was not surprised in the least that the interview with Prince Steadfast had not gone well. It turned out that Steadfast and Prince Blueblood were on the same bowling team. Rainbow Dash had shown remarkable restraint during the interview: she waited until after the Prince remarked about the inability of Rarity’s hips to fit through a pair of double-doors before using his head to put a new skylight in the greenhouse.
On Monday it rained.
With some effort, Vinyl maintained her enthusiasm, and yet she still didn’t make any sales. She suspected that at least three ponies snuck up on her when they thought she wouldn’t notice to see if she had a forehead-mounted eye hiding under her mane.
~ ~ ~
Late in the afternoon she overheard the following conversation. It was alright for her to spy on this particular conversation, because she was fairly sure that she was the topic being discussed.
“That poor thing! Aren’t we going to do anything for her?” asked a female earth pony.
“Her? She can take care of herself,” replied a male earth pony. “She got herself into this mess, after all.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Doctor, but wasn’t it one of you who got her in this mess?”
“It was Ten, as a matter of fact,” replied the doctor. “I never did trust the evens.”
“But you’re Four!” the female protested.
“Ah, but Four is different, Romana. The smallest squared prime number. Somebody as smart as you ought to know that!”
“Somepony as smart, Doctor,” Romana corrected him. “Remember where we are.”
“How could I forget? At least they have proper sweets around here. I don’t think I could stand a diet of straight grasses. Now come along: to the observatory! We need to find out if this [something] is truly as illuminating as advertised!”
And then the two ponies left. Vinyl didn’t recognize the name of the object the doctor was referring to at the end, but she was coming to the conclusion that Canterlot was Equestria’s capital of suspicious happenings, and so-called “doctors” were at the bottom of all of them.
~ ~ ~
Nothing of note happened for the remainder of the afternoon. When the nearby clock tower rang six o’clock, Vinyl packed up and headed back to Rarity’s apartment. After all, she had the place of honor as a living etheric player.