//------------------------------// // The Party // Story: The Winds of Change // by AgentSnail //------------------------------// The Party Jason finally pulled himself out of the shower, and simply shifted into his changeling form, allowing the water trapped in his fur to be liberated and fall into the cloud floor, absorbing quickly and turning the cloud a slightly darker color. He chuckled a little and left the bathroom before freezing in place and backpedaling, taking a look inside of one of Dash's bathroom drawers. He pulled out a paperclip, examining it closely in front of one of his eyes. "Shit. Dash!" She trotted into the room, following his gaze to the paper clip. "Don't tell me..." "Yep. A paper clip. Useful for attaching documents, with multiple pages. A fifteen dollar value..." "Jason." "Mmm?" "What are you doing?" "Oh, television commercial. The box with the moving pictures? They'd try to sell stuff to you. Maybe a television, and a generator, and some DVD's, and a DVD player, and some gasoline will show up here and I can show you some time." "That sounds a little far fetched." Jason deadpanned. "I'm in a world where almost everything I do defies every single theory of physics from my home world. Far fetched means nothing." "You and your stupid probability..." She sighed, walking back out of the room. "Hey, we don't actually need to wear anything for one of these parties, do we?" "It's a Pinkie party." She said, acting like that explained everything. "So no clothes. Not like I have any. Maybe your gillie suit would work?" "Yeah, great, creep out the ponies even further than they already are." "Hey. Twilight doesn't think I'm weird. Just because the rest of your friends are either afraid or suspicious of me, except for Pinkie, doesn't mean anything. Maybe eventually they'll see past the changeling alien I am." He snickered before breaking out in laughter. "It's not really that funny..." He wiped his eyes. "Yeah, I just never thought I'd say something like that. Oh, man." He paused. "You want some food? I want some food." "How do you want food this much? You don't even need to eat." "But it's fooooood Dash." "So?" "Foooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo--" "Alright I get it! We'll get some food." She punched him in the shoulder, chuckling. "You can't ever just make anything simple, can you?" "Would you really enjoy talking to me if I did?" "Uh, let me answer that question with a question. Would anypony else?" Jason grabbed an apple and comedically stroked his chin, deep in thought. "Now isn't that the question." He paused, taking a bite of the apple. "Hey, since we may have a new band member after tonight, do you want to show me your cloud drums or something? At the very least I could get them tuned or something. I'm going to act like I know things about drums." She giggled. "Yeah, sure. I practiced a little while you were gone, I'm not too bad at these as it turns out." She led him upstairs into another room. "You know, it's amazing how I haven't even seen all the rooms around here. I guess I'm just not a curious person." "You just forgot." "Yeah, you're probably right. If we're lucky this new member'll be a pegasus and we can just practice in here." He gestured to the airy room. "I should move the guitar stuff in here. I just realized that those must've been enchanted and that that was really lucky." "Most products are enchanted. That's part of the warranty. It also says, if you forget to renew the spell it's not their fault." "Yeah, usually the warnings on products at my home just have pointless warnings because morons hurt or killed themselves with things like cups and string." Dash walked over and sat down on the small chair, and grabbed a pair of drumsticks. "What do you want me to play?" "I dunno, a fast beat, something complicated." She nodded and proceeded to tune what Jason assumed was the snare, resting a hoof on the base drum pedal. Jason took another bite of the apple, slightly nervous about how she would preform. He really hoped that she wasn't terrible. "Here goes nothing." She said, taking a deep breath before she started drumming, slightly surprising Jason at her skill. After all her talk of being rusty, he didn't expect her to immediately pick up a new beat with no mistakes. After a few minutes she hit an accidental rimshot and slowly stopped drumming, then turned to Jason nervously. "Are you actually wondering if that was good?" He laughed, then stopped, realizing she had probably taken that in the wrong way. "It was amazing Dash, I don't know why you worried about it." "Really? Other ponies always said what I played was really weird!" "Yeah, well I play some pretty strange stuff too, that's probably why I actually recognize the talent. If it wasn't official before, it is now. Welcome to the band, Dash." "Awesome!" "It's only me and you right now, don't get too excited." "I really can't wait to meet that bass player." "Hopefully Lyra actually got a bass guitar player." "Ha, yeah. We seriously need to get going though." She pointed to a clock on the wall. "We're almost late already." She put the drumsticks back into a cup that held several other pairs. "I'm sure Pinkie won't mind." "Yes she will, she might go insane like the last time I was late and think that for some reason I wasn't her friend anymore." "So do we need anything, or..." "No, I don't think we have to bring anything, really. What were parties like from your world?" "Well, that depends on if you want to know about college parties or other parties. Those are the real parties. Lots of alcohol, lots of girls, and I don't really remember anything else." "You've gotta know more than that. There were girls apparently?" She was trying to look uninterested. "Yeah, and tons of alcohol. I hardly remembered it the day after, and that was years ago." Dash let out an exaggerated sigh. "I wasn't with any girls when I got put over here anyway, you don't have any competition." "So what makes a party a college party then?" "Oh, ha! College is like advanced school, like really advanced, compared to what you have here. I had, um, at least eighteen years of school total." "Eighteen?!?!" "Yeah, you learn a lot in that time. Not like teaching is any faster where I come from, though." "So what can you even do with all that schooling?" "Well, I became an accountant for a big company. It was probably worth somewhere around the total wealth of Equestria, maybe more. But then again, we do have billions more people." "Jason, as much as I'd love to discuss your old life, we really have to go." "Oh, fine. College parties are between a bunch of young kids who just ended up with more freedom then they know what to do with. Thus, college party." He got up and walked after her, taking another bite of the apple as he turned the corner and walked down the small hallway before descending the stairs. "So, Jason, what happened to Scoots?" "She's crusading, she'll meet us there." Dash shot him a glare. "It's okay, that means she's with her friends. I told her yesterday that I think her cutie mark could be better found doing something in town, so they'll be safe with all the other ponies around." "God, you make me worry too much." "You probably shouldn't have fallen for me then." "Oh, but I'm so glad I did." She leaned over and kissed him, more roughly as time passed. Jason finally interrupted the kiss with a hoof, then pointed to the clock. Dash giggled and pointed at Jason's wings. He groaned before chuckling at her for the same reason. They broke out into pointless laughter, rolling about on the ground as best they could. A few minutes later they managed to compose themselves. "I am so getting my work done early tomorrow." "And I'll be waiting impatiently." Dash laughed, and finally exited the house with Jason, quickly gliding down to Sugarcube Corner through the darkness that now shaded Ponyville. They landed in front of the building, which was darkened for some reason or another. "That's probably not good." Dash said, looking around nervously. "She probably made it into a surprise party, which only Pinkie would do after specifically telling me the time, date, and location of the party." He said, smirking at Dash. She chuckled. "So do you want to act surprised?" "No, we should try to surprise them, and I have a few ways of doing that. I can go in as someone dangerous, and they'd freak out, or we could act like we died when they surprise us. The only problem is that I really don't know how to act, and I don't know who's dangerous around here." "You always get through like half of a plan, and then just run out of ideas." "Well sorry for having limits! It's not like I can get big enough to become Nightmare Moon or Chrysalis, although that second one would just be stupid." "Let's just act surprised." She said, rolling her eyes. "Fine, we'll do it your way." He walked over to the entrance, pushing open the door and holding it for Dash. They both walked in to the darkened room, looking around as nothing seemed to happen. Jason smirked, he could see some of the ponies in the dark, one was attempting to hide behind what looked to be a lamp. The ponies that he could see made a simultaneous movement as the lights went on. Jason shielded his eyes, growling from the painful influx of light. He blinked a few times and slowly moved his hoof away from the front of his face. Pinkie was bounding around in front of him. "Did we scare you? Did we? I hope we did, it was a surprise party after all!" "Yeah, sure, you scared me." "Yay, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to, but it looks like I could!" She started to bounce away. "Enjoy the party!" Jason looked around, focusing on a banner that said 'Welcome back!, and/or welcome to Ponyville!' This wasn't exactly the first time he'd been here, but whatever. He brought his gaze back down, sweeping it over the ponies that were present. Looks like what Lyra had said about the party guests was right, and speaking of Lyra... "Dash, let's go see if we can find that bass player." Some music started up. To say that he didn't really like it would be an understatement. Jason locked his eyes on Lyra, picking her out of the small crowd, and immediately started to make his way over. She saw him and stopped her conversation with another mare mid word to meet him. "Hi Jason!" "Hey, how's it going?" "Great! I got that bassist you wanted, I'm sure you two'll love her!" She turned around and led them back to where she'd been. There was a gray mare that Jason couldn't quite recognize. A look at Dash showed that she was in the same state of partial confusion. "Are you going to introduce us, Lyra?" Dash asked. "Oh, yeah. Dash, Jason, this is Octavia Philharmonica. Octavia, this is Rainbow Dash, and this is Jason." Jason got over his moment of recognition long enough to walk over and shake her hoof. "It's a pleasure." He said. As far as he could remember, she was upper class. Might as well make a good impression. He also seemed to remember that she played the orchestral bass, not the bass guitar. He had only told Lyra about that specification, oh, five or six times now. He stepped away from the hoof shake, clearing his throat. "I'm sorry to ask this, but don't you play the form of bass consistently used in orchestras, rather than the guitar version?" "No, I play both instruments. A friend of mine convinced me to try out the more 'rock and roll', as she called it, type of music. As it turns out I quite fancy the instrument. It's a nice distraction from the run of the mill, classical instruments of our age." Jason chuckled, causing her to raise an eyebrow. "What's so funny?" "I just didn't take you to be a bass guitar player, that's all. I guess I didn't take Dash here for a drummer either." "Yeah, so Jason, how do you want to figure out if she's band material?" Dash asked. "We'll just do the same thing as with you. I'll giver her some sort of bass line, and see how well she does." He turned to Octavia. "You alright with that?" "But of course, I wouldn't want to be in a band that didn't have standards." "Good to know, I guess. We still have yet to come up with a band name, though. God knows we're a different enough set of ponies. Seriously, the fastest flyer in Equestria, an orchestra member and a changeling. If we can't find a name, we're probably doomed." "Wait a moment, you're the changeling?" "Yeah." He figured this was the part where she'd be like 'Oh wait, as it turns out I have other important stuff to do, sorry'. "Well I commend you and your friend here for your bravery. I can't believe I didn't recognize you two sooner. My friends tell me that I'm terribly bad at recognizing faces, but not recognizing your's," She gestured to Dash. "Really proves their point. Those were some excellent speeches, by the way." "Wait, you were there?" Jason asked. "Yes, I fought in your little war, luckily I ended up with a nearly empty zone. I probably wouldn't have done that well in a pinch. Now I've moved here because of the destruction of my house." "I'm sorry to hear that." He turned to Dash. "When and where do you think we should meet?" "I don't know, it's not like we can practice at my house, seeing as it's made out of cloud and all." "We could just use another cloud walking spell." "Or we could practice at my house." They both turned, looking a little surprised. "You sure?" "Yeah, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. It's the red one over kinda by the library." "How does tomorrow afternoon sound?" Dash asked. "As good as anything else." She smiled. "I'm glad you're giving me a chance." "No problem." Dash replied. "Dash," Jason started, "You wanna go try that cider?" "A little too excited, are we?" "I heard it was good, okay?" He started to walk over to the snack table and grabbed an empty mug, as did Dash. He filled it up and took a few swigs before he realized that he needed to shift into Dash's form. A few ponies gasped , and he groaned before turning around. Applejack and Fluttershy were behind him, naturally. They were probably the ones that had gasped. He thought he'd made it pretty clear why he shifted into Dash's form. He took another swig of the cider, quickly downing the rest of the mug. It just tasted like apple juice, maybe there was a mistake? Applejack looked a little angry, maybe he'd get his answer. "I heard ya beat up a pony in town today." "Oh, yeah I did that." She raised an eyebrow. "And may I ask why?" "Yeah, he gave me the stink eye, I had to teach him a lesson." He chuckled as she narrowed her eyes at him and Fluttershy backed a little further away. "He actually tried to kill me though, jumped me with a knife." It always felt strange talking to ponies in Dash's form, mostly because of the voice change. It always threw him for a loop when Dash's voice came out of a different place than her mouth. "He tried to kill ya?" "Yeah, ponies don't really like me that much. The pony's in jail, if you want to see him." She nodded and sighed. "Sorry 'bout jumpin' the gun on ya again." She rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. "Yeah..." He took a long swig of the cider, then turned and refilled the mug. "Maybe you should look at these things from an optimistic point of view for a change." "We'll see." She turned and walked away as Jason faced Dash. "Some party. Where're the Crusaders anyway?" "They're over there by the food." "The punch isn't spiked, is it?" "Nah, Pinkie seems pretty dense at times, but she wouldn't risk getting foals drunk." She said. Jason took another swig of cider. "Does this taste like apple juice to you?" "Well, it is made out of apples." "I mean straight apple juice, no alcohol." She took a sip. "Nah, taste's pretty alcoholic." She said, starting to walk over to the crusaders. Jason looked down at the mug in his hoof inquisitively. "If you say so." He took another swig, looking back up to the faces of Twilight and Rarity. "Yeah, Twilight I found another thing." He hoofed over the paperclip. She looked between him and Dash before apparently figuring out which one of the Dashs was him. "What is it?" "It holds papers together." "Ah. I still haven't found anything out about where these are coming from." "So are you otherwise enjoying the party?" "Yeah, it's alright, you?" "Yeah, I wish I knew more ponies." "This is the portion of town that wasn't afraid or suspicious of you?" "No, that's even smaller. That's just you, Dash, Lyra, and the Crusaders, and I guess a few others that aren't here. Applejack thinks I'm going to kill everybody, Fluttershy's completely afraid of me, and Rarity," he shot a glance her way. "also seems to be afraid of me." Twilight opened her mouth and then shut it again. "Darling, what is it that bugs you so much about ponies fearing you?" "I don't know, It just annoys me that they still see me as a threat after all I've gone through for the ponies around here. I don't want recognition, just for them to kind of see me as just another pony. Clearly that won't happen with the attempt on my life and the fact that most ponies still hate me after the paper came out. If I wanted to rule by fear I would've done it by now." "For your sake then, I'll try to improve." "Cool, thanks. Hey, is that Nightmare Night costume almost finished?" "Why, yes! I finished it only a few hours ago. If I may, I would recommend that Scootaloo come in to get it just before the festivities, because I will need to touch up some of it with makeup." "Like the wounds?" "Yes, I've never done anything like this, and it was just so original, I had to go all out." "Maybe everyone'll want to go as a zombie next year." "Oh, please. It's not anything to get worked up over." "Alright. I'll talk to you later then." Jason shook his head as he walked over towards Scoots and her friends, he might as well see what kind of ridiculous plan they had attempted today. He took another mouthful of cider. Scoots noticed him and turned away from her friends. "Hi Jason!" "Hey Scoots. What kind of crusading were you doing today?" "Oh, Applebloom convinced Applejack to let us run the apple stall for a few hours!" "And how did that go wrong?" "Why do you have so little faith in the success of our plans?" "How did you do?" "Not very well. But you must have some ideas, right Jason?" "Well I think I know what your cutie marks are, but I'm not going to help you find them." "But why?" Applebloom whined, making puppy dog eyes at him. "Would you really want to tell someone later that the big important story behind your cutie mark is that some pony told you what it was?" "No..." She replied. "But, I'll give you a hint." They all perked up. "It's something you've already done. It's not the same thing for all of you, but you all enjoy the different activities." "Well that doesn't narrow it down at all!" Sweetie belle complained. "Oh, doesn't it? Have any of you ponies gone shark wrangling?" They shook their heads. "Well that's off the list. How much did any of you like Manticore capturing?" "We didn't." They chorused. He figured that would be another of the ones they hadn't done. "Another thing off the list. Hopefully you can see where I'm going with this. Your special talent isn't going to be something you hate, and you're already going to have a tendency towards doing whatever that talent is. The cutie mark is just a representation of a talent you already have. It's pretty pointless, really." "How can you say that?!?!" Scootaloo yelled. "Do you think a mark on your flank just suddenly makes you a great actor or painter? It really doesn't. By the time you get the cutie mark, you already know what it's for. I don't have one, and I know what I'm good at, even if I were to change it. I'm still me." He ran through several cutie marks on his flank, just random pictures he thought of off the top of his head before returning to the normal absence of one. The fillies seemed satisfied with his explanation, seeing as they had grappled onto his fore legs in a hug, he assumed. "That was a nice speech." Jason jumped, turning to the new voice behind him. He tried to shake one of the fillies off, but she remained stuck. He turned far enough to see the face of a new mare, who he recognized after a few seconds as Bon Bon. "Thanks! I would shake your hoof, but mine are kinda occupied." She giggled, parts of her mane shaking slightly. "I can see that. Lyra told me that you wanted to play at the Gilded Griffin, and I just wanted to express my gratitude, I mean, it's just so nice of you to do this, especially since you don't even really know me or Lyra, and with business the way it's been..." She wiped a hoof across her eyes. "Thanks." She moved forward and wrapped him in a hug. He managed to free a hoof and patted Bon Bon on the back as she tried to collect herself. "I'm happy to do this show, I'm just glad you provided us with a venue. Maybe we could organize some sort of contract if this stuff takes off. I'm not accepting pay for the first concert. Seeing as there aren't economic depressions around here, I don't really need to worry about saving my money like crazy." She looked up, peering at him through teary eyes. "Why are you doing this?" She asked. He took a moment to think about that. He didn't really feel like he was doing this for money. He definitely wasn't trying to woo either of them with his supposed generosity. He didn't really see it as a big deal, he'd help out a friend, and as an added benefit he'd get publicity. That was it, a friend! "Because Lyra's my friend, and that makes you my friend by extension. It's really not as big of a deal as you're making it out to be though." "It's a big deal to me." She squeezed her arms around him before letting go and dropping back down to the floor with a smile. "Do you know when you're going to be able to preform?" "Well, I could do it as early as tomorrow night, although I'm not sure if we can have that many songs ready, or even one at all." "Just so long as you have a couple, it shouldn't matter too much. It's also fine if you have to wait a few days." "We don't actually have microphones, do you have something that we could use?" "Um, yeah! We actually had a band preform a while back, I think we have some microphones from that. Lyra'll have to practice her magic to power the things and sound equipment, but that should all be fine. "Cool. I'll come by if we're able to do it." He looked around for Dash, seeing that she had ended up in a booth with Pinkie. Scoots was slouched against Dash, looking happy. He honestly didn't know when the crusaders had left his hooves. Most of the other ponies were hovering around the food or dancing. Dancing looked so stupid when you were a small horse, it was just shifting legs around. The cool part about extreme dancing with humans was that they could hold each other up, do twirls, interesting stuff. PEOPLE COULD DIE. This just looked easy and monotonous. He was so focused on the ponies' dancing, in fact, that he ran into the table that Pinkie and Dash were sitting at, jostling the plates of half eaten food. He looked over sheepishly, realizing that at the slow speed he was walking, that must've looked spectacularly stupid. Dash and Scoots were staring at him, while some of Pinkie's legs flailed around above table level as she lay on her back, laughing. The rest of them broke out into a fit of giggles, which eventually subsided. Dash wiped her eyes and slid a mug of cider over as Jason placed his own on the table. He looked up and smirked. "Are you trying to get me drunk?" Dash looked around innocently. "Well it's not going to work." He downed the rest of his first mug, immediately chasing it down with the second. He didn't even feel buzzed. "How are you doing this? The only other pony I've seen drink more mugs of this stuff than it looks like you're going to is Applejack." "I think I hear a challenge coming on. Where is that Applejack anyway?" "Ooh! A challenge! I like challenges! I'll go get things ready!" Jason sighed. What had he gotten himself into this time? "Ooh, Jason, you have to take on Applejack." Scoots said, chuckling. "She's never lost a drinking contest before. Even I know that, and I'm just supposed to be an innocent foal." Jason raised an eyebrow. "She's also never gone up against a changeling that used to be a human that drank amounts of alcohol that would apparently kill several ponies around here. So if I have even a fraction of that resistance to alcohol, I've already won." He assumed a triumphant position. "Or, you'll end up looking cocky when Applejack drinks you under the table." Dash said, smirking. "Well we'll ju--" "Pinkie tells me there's somepony that wants ta challenge me to a drinkin' contest. Ah'm gonna take a wild guess and say that it's you." She pointed a hoof at Jason. "We'll have to see how much of a heavyweight you actually are. No changin' though, ah don't know what that does to the alcohol in yer body." "Yeah, alright. You wanna make bets on what happens if whoever wins?" "Ah was hopin you'd ask!" "What'll you have me do if I lose? Nothing against the law, hopefully." "Nah, Ah'm just gonna have ya have the next crusader sleepover that's scheduled at my house at your house instead." "Fine, if I win, you gotta start trusting me. No more of this, hiding in bushes stuff." "That's it? That there is a terrible bettin' term." "Well that's all I really have to bet." "You're goin' down, pardner, you ain't got a chance." "I think we should move up the competition here!" "I think yer right!" they had been steadily moving closer to each other during the argument, and were now only inches away, trying to stare each other into submission. Dash rolled her eyes and got up from the table. She pushed the two of them apart and held them there. "Solve this with the stupid alcohol! You better not end up with some giant hangover tomorrow, Jason." "No promises." He chuckled. "I'll drink lots of water before I pass out." Applejack had already pulled a table towards the center of the floor, gesturing to him to make his way over. Pinkie bounced out of nowhere with a bunch of mugs balanced on her back. She slid them onto the table, looking back towards the ponies that were making their way over. Lyra and Bon Bon walked over and stood behind Jason, while Rarity ended up behind Applejack. "Are we taking bets now?" Jason asked. "I'll put three bits on Jason!" Lyra said, placing the bits on the table. Bon Bon shot her a glare. "Are you ready to lose those bits, darling? I've got three on Applejack." Rarity rebutted. "Okay, you're going to match each other drink for drink, until somepony passes out!" Pinkie said, a little too happily. "Readysetgo!" _______________________________________________________ They were at least fifteen mugs into there little competition, and Jason was starting to feel the heat. The cider may have had low alcohol content, but he had ingested so much that he was starting to slur his words. "rre you gunna give up yet there Applejack?" "Not unless *hic* you do......first!" Maybe she was more drunk than he was. He couldn't tell. His eyes lazily shifted to Dash, whose face was slightly red from the cider she had drank. She definitely was a hot pony. He'd really like to just go over there and f-- "Pardner, ya'll better catch up, ah'm a mug ahead a ya." Jason reached over and grabbed a mug, downing it as she watched in annoyance. "Ha." He couldn't remember what else he had wanted to say. They both reached over and grabbed another set of mugs, chugging them in unison. By now most of the other ponies had made their way over, and there was a fairly big pool of bets that had been placed. Those coins were shinier than he remembered... He grabbed yet another mug and downed the contents, watching Applejack as she started to do the same, before putting down the mug midway through. She swayed around for a few moments, before raising a hoof to point at him. "Ya know, ah don't real--" THUNK. Her head hit the table as half of the ponies let out a cheer. Jason turned to Dash, giving her a smile that was probably ridiculously sexy. He grabbed the glasses of water that she had laid out for him and downed all of them. He couldn't remember why he was supposed to, though. He got up from the table after deciding that he wanted some cake and started to walk across the floor. Then he got really short all of a sudden as the floor got closer. He ended up passed out on the floor.