//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3: Cherry Berry Time 
// Story: The Totally Tubular and Tremendously Tenacious and Turbulent Transplanted Teen 
// by Sparkle Fire 
//------------------------------//


Friday evening, after Ryder’s afternoon classes had concluded


Ryder made his way home as usual, and dragged his school stuff upstairs, laying them down beside the closet. He plopped himself down into the bed and had a quick rest.

Many thoughts raced through his head… ‘Wow, it’s been a rough week, getting used to my school schedule and juggling a job at the coffeeshop at the same time… it certainly takes a while to get used to.’

His train of thought stopped when he suddenly realized that today was his date with Cherry Berry. He sprung from his bed and looked at himself in his bathroom mirror. ‘A t-shirt and imported blue jeans won’t bloody cut it,’ Ryder thought, ‘so I must make myself look presentable...’ 

He bolted into his walk-in closet and fumbled through his nicer shirts and trousers. He decided on a Cosararan-import grey polo shirt and a decent pair of grey shorts. And just for good measure, he dug out all of his military decorations from the war and pinned them on before grabbing his wallet and went down into the living room.

"Kimberly, I'm headed to Stinky's," Ryder called out.

"Let me know when you're on your way home," Kimberly said.

"Okaaaaay..." Ryder opened the apartment door and went down the many flights of stairs to the lobby.

He grabbed a cab and gave the driver the address to Stinky's, an out-of-the-way South Side joint where the owner, Stinky, and his crew fix the best burgers, hay fries, and milkshakes in town.

Cherry Berry was awaiting his arrival, seated at an outside table, where she liked to sit, with a strawberry milkshake in front of her.

"Hey, Ryder!" she crooned almost immediately.

"Hey, Cherry Berry, how's it going?"

"Just fine!"

Ryder sat opposite the young mare, who was eager to know more about Ryder Dmitri, the Cosararan immigrant fellow who attends Canterlot Academy...

Cherry initiated the conversation. "So, tell me what Cosarara's like!"

"Everyone over there's friendly, the quality of life is rather nice, and we have a thing for overthrowing regimes that we don't like," Ryder said.

"That's good to know," she chuckled. "So why did you move over here?"

"The government that we had after the revolution was becoming way too close to those damned Soviets for my liking. Kimberly was concerned that we'd all be speaking Russian by the end of the decade, so we all got together - me, Kim, and my other brothers - and decided to come here. We've been doing better since then."

"The Soviets, hmmm... go on..."

"The ministers were all corrupt, and so were our elected officials," Ryder elaborated. "We decided that enough was enough."

"Hmmm... that's interesting..."

"So we fixed Danny's truck and loaded up Kimberly's SUV and made the long drive over here."

Cherry Berry connected the dots in her head. "Now that's settled the 'communist' rumor..."

"What do you like best about Equestria? Be honest about it..." she continued.

"Considering that all of us have jobs, the opportunities to expand and make a living for yourself are limitless."

"That's a good thing, right...?"

"Yes... it's a wonderful prospect... the princesses should be proud of themselves for helping to build such a well-established economy, and with no meddling government to deal with."

She was impressed at how articulate he could get. 

"Wow... you talk very well," she commented.

"Thanks," Ryder replied. "At least I have the ability to string two sentences together..."

Cherry asked her next question: "So, what's your family like? Like, how are your brothers doing, and how're you getting along?"

She sipped on her strawberry milkshake some more.

"That's an interesting question, Cherry Berry... I would have to say that we usually get along just fine... however, we got into squabbles from time to time."

"So they're relatively nice?"

"They're incredibly easy to get along with."

"What do they do for a living?"

"Liam, my oldest, is in Ponyville working in the lumber mills. Danny works in the gem mines. Bill, last I heard, is gearing up for a bunch of job interviews. Sammy works for the Ponyville Street Department, and Harry is the Ponyville market's 'procurer of foreign goods', so to speak."

"And you work at the coffeeshop, right?"

"Now that is what I'm trying to figure out... with my school schedule and everything, I think I may work weekends and weekday evenings when I don't have schoolwork to attend to."

Cherry listened intently and slurped more of her milkshake. "You're thinking ahead... I like that."

"That's quite nice of you to say that."

“What are you interested in… what piques your fancy, so to speak?”

“Well, for one thing, I love having a drink with my mates. I also like eating good food, traveling, and a lot of other things."

"Like what...?"

"History, nature, technology, politics... you name it," Ryder elaborated a bit.

"Wow, you're interested in a lot!" Cherry Berry complimented.

"Thanks."

She noticed the row of decorative badges and pins on his shirt.

"So he DID fight in that war..." she thought, amazed at what he accomplished for a people in need and his contributions toward the revolution in his home country (that didn't turn out so well in the end). Going on that hunch, she asked him about the decorations...

"What are those pins for?" Cherry Berry asked. 

"These are my decorations from the Great Revolutionary War, 1976-1983," Ryder explained, adjusting them so that his friend could examine them better.

"Radical!" she exclaimed, astounded by his bravery. "I didn't know you actually picked up a gun!"

"I know, right?" he shot back. 

"Totally." She sucked down some more of her strawberry shake.

Ryder felt the need to have a milkshake as well. "In fact, I might go get myself a shake," he said. "I'll be just a second."

"Take your time, sugar."

Three minutes later, he came back, his vanilla milkshake in hand, and sat right next to Cherry again. He sipped a bit of it. 

"So you really fought!"

"That's right, sweets."

"Do you know what those badges mean?"

There were two rows of decorations: stripes on the top for his participation in various campaigns, and pins for honorable actions during the war.

"This green stripe means that I fought on the South Coast, this white stripe means that I fought in the Midlands, and this red stripe means that I fought in the Capitol, when we were closing in on the INGSOC loyalists in the City of Maidens."

"Cooooooool..."

"And I'll explain all these pins... this first one - the Humanitarian Cross - I earned this one in my first year and a half in the war. You see, this was one of the first things I did after I signed up for combat... I drove an ambulance, carrying wounded soldiers and supplies to and from the battlefield.

"After that, I was promoted to Private, First Class, and went with two of my brothers in October 1980 to Crown City on the South Coast. I spent two months down there pushing back the loyalists - first to Murjan, then to St. John's Bay, then to Victoria, Port Royal, and Greston - and eventually to Port Royal, all on the back of a Toyota pick-up truck with a 50-cal on it."

"Awesome!" She couldn't believe what she was hearing. He was like an open book with this stuff.

"I got this pin in December of 1980 in Port Royal, after I shot down three loyalist gunships in one sitting towards the end of the South Coast campaign. Everyone in my unit got drunk and all the night I got the award."

"You're an amazing shot," Cherry Berry commented.

"Yes, yes, yes, I get that a lot," Ryder said. "I was a kickass sniper, too."

He showed off his next pin. "I was stationed at the top floor of a hotel in Port Royal when over the course of two days, I almost single-handedly wiped out three squadrons of loyalists that wanted to retake Port Royal."

"You're that good?!"

"Mmm-hmm." Ryder continued. "After we cleaned up Port Royal, I was promoted to Lieutenant and was taken to Paynesville in March 1981. I was put in charge of ten units and was placed in an artillery squad. Under my command, we easily took Paynesville in a fortnight.

"And that was when we got to Croydon, and my god, we spent the better part of six months trying to flush out all the loyalists. They were everywhere... I mean, in the apartment buildings, in the storefronts, in the sewer lines, hiding under the bridges, sitting on top of the towers, you bloody name it, they were there." 

"What does this badge mean?" Cherry Berry inquired, pointing at a shiny button right next to his sniper pin.

"Glad you asked," Ryder said. "I got this pin after shooting down a gunship and a loyalist supply helicopter in Croydon."

"Sweet..." She sipped her milkshake some more.

"After we finally had Croydon, I was told to report to Southampton. I was tasked with helping to train 150,000 men for combat in the City of Maidens. Once the rebels reached the outskirts of the Capitol, we would receive the order to give 'em hell...

"This took nearly nine months. That was when I got a phone call from the high command of the rebel forces in, I think, October 1982 - 'We've got Hyrum, we've got the hills, we've got the gateway... we have their bloody Capitol surrounded. Get your arse over here.' They didn't have to ask me twice! My CO's readied up the men, got them suited up, got in their trucks, and we hauled ass for the Capitol district."

"What happened next?"

"November 1, 1982... I had my own crew of 50,000 men positioned at the gateway into the city. I remember the loyalists trying to charge at us. One of the CO's gave the order to go forward, and by god, we went forward... We took out loyalists and took supply camps all over the East Side. Within a month, the Marais, the canals leading out of the city, and most of the embassies on that side were ours."

"Wow, that quickly?"

"Yes, that quickly. We had them crying uncle all the way back to their tanks. They were too scared to even come out of their tanks - they even had to shit in their tanks because they were too scared to leave them!!" Ryder collapsed in a giggling fit.

"Are you okay there, skeezer?" Cherry Berry asked, concerned.

"I'm okay, mate..." Ryder caught what he could of his breath and continued where he left off after slurping more of his milkshake.

"Now, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, we had managed to keep them on the other side of the canals. However, something in their twisted minds snapped and on the 26th, the day after Christmas, they had managed to cut me and my troops off on all sides and plug the canals so we couldn't escape. I brought a few hundred of them with me to where they blocked the canal so we could attempt a breakthrough. They had the damn thing booby-trapped, and sure enough, I got hit with shrapnel from an IED."

"My goodness, that had to hurt!"

"The blast alone killed twenty-eight troops and wounded another fifty or so. I was in an intensive-care unit for almost four months."

He lifted up his shirt to reveal a long, crusty scar across his abdomen. "It's just now starting to heal up."

Cherry Berry stared at the cut, astounded by just how in the heck he could have survived a bomb blast of that magnitude and lived to tell the tale.

"You survived that?"

"That's why I have this Survivor, 1st Class badge." Ryder drank some more milkshake, then continued with his story.

"Once I was cleared to continue combat duty, the rebels had already pretty much washed the loyalists and it became a complete friggin' mess. In April 1983, me and my troops helped clean out the North End down to the Hyrum Gap.

"In May 1983, I was stationed on the Peripheral. I had to fire on any loyalist on the outside of that ring road, because at that time, they were pretty much surrounded. On the 19th, I was called out into the Capitol to help pick out the loyalists from a bunch of government offices downtown. I was running towards Kingston Avenue when I took a round of machine gun bullets to the thighs. I wasn't able to walk for over a week."

"Really?!"

"Then how was I awarded my Survivor, 2nd Class badge?"

She noticed a group of five other badges that were separate from the others after she found the other survivor badge. "These badges... what are they?" Cherry Berry asked.

"After the war was over, I was awarded five medals. These are my Cosararan Hero, 1st Class, my Cosararan Hero, 2nd Class, my Silver Star, my Gold Star, and my Hero of the Revolution badges."

"Cosararan Hero..." Cherry Berry was visibly enthralled. She was standing in the presence of a hero.

"But Ryder, if you're a Cosararan hero, why would you leave Cosarara and live here?"

"Because of corruption," Ryder simply said. "Corruption. The government was so caught up in rebuilding the country in their own image that they forgot who really made this whole thing happen..."

Cherry Berry finished her milkshake and tossed the cup into a rubbish bin near the door.

"Nice shot," Ryder commended her.

"Aren't you going to finish that?" Cherry Berry shot back. He noticed that there was still a considerable amount of milkshake left in his cup, and got to sipping.

"If you would... tell me about what makes Ryder a Cosararan hero. Has he seen any past action?"

"Protesting."

"What kind of protesting...?"

"At first, we had the tax protests. Then, we had the environmentalist movement. Then, there was the feminist movement. Then, we got swamped with the race riots and the bloody Latte Rebellion. And that's when the war started, and that all began in 1977 or '78, if I recall."

"Nice..."

"So, you wanna go back to my place? It ain't too far from here," Ryder said.

"You wanna finish your milkshake first?"

"Oh, yes," Ryder said. "Let me drink the rest of it." He sucked down the rest of it and promptly chucked it into the rubbish.

"That will do."

"Let's make tracks, then!"

The two made their way up to the moat's edge, to the Byrnes Island cross-over, and back to Ryder's building. 

“And up we go, about seventeen flights of stairs…” Ryder declared.

“I’ll try and keep up,” Cherry Berry said.

The two caught their breaths once they had finally reached his floor. Cherry Berry collapsed on the ground, panting and a mite short of breath.

“Not used to going up and down stairs, yeah?”

“I didn’t know you lived this high up!” she wheezed out, “... this has to be the tallest building in Canterlot!”

“It could be argued,” Ryder mused, opening the door to the apartment. She treaded inside the door and looked around, amazed at the look and style of the place.

“Totally awesome, dude!” she exclaimed.
“Thanks, mate!”

“You’re welcome.” She plopped herself down on the loveseat. “You mind if I sit here?”

“Not at all,” Ryder said. He opened up the refrigerator in search of something to eat, or to drink, but he didn’t know, exactly. “You want a drink? You must be parched…”

“Sure - what’cha got?”

“I have Pepsi, Dr. Pete, a few beers…”  

“I’ll have a Dr. Pete.”

He pulled out a Dr. Pete for the guest and a can of ale for himself, closed the door, and made his way back towards Cherry Berry.

“Thanks, Ryder,” she said, taking the Dr. Pete into her front hooves.

“No worries.” He leaned on the wall next to the loveseat, cracked open his can of ale, and took a sip.

At the same time, Cherry Berry caught an itch of curiosity. She’d heard about Ryder’s massive closet with lighting and everything, and she was begging to see it.

“Hey Ryder, I heard about your big closet...”

“So you wanna see what it’s like, yeah?”

She nodded feverishly.

“Well then, let us see the closet!” And off they went, racing up the stairs to Ryder’s bedroom. They placed their cans of drink on the dresser and paused to calm down.

Ryder stood up and walked to the door while Cherry Berry stood back in anticipation. He set his hand on the handle and slid the door aside, revealing the treasure trove of clothes hidden behind it - a collection of all sorts of articles, from shirts to trousers to bluejeans to tunics. Cherry Berry speechlessly walked inside.

"And I thought you just came here with what you had in your suitcase," she broke her silence, utterly amazed.

"You'd be surprised at just how much £300 can buy you here," Ryder boasted. "And look..." He fiddled around for a rod that hung from the clothes-rack that allowed him to spin it about. "I can even make it move," he continued, swinging the thing to one side and allowing it to spin freely.

"That's so cool..." Her jaw remained open as her eyes stared into the rotating rack, hypnotising her.

"You been out!" Ryder blurted out, breaking Cherry Berry from her trance.

“Wow… where was I?”

“You were staring into my closet,” Ryder explained.

“Was I? Was I, really?”

“Apparently, if you stare into the closet for too long, the closet starts to stare back at you,” he humorously added.

“Radical…”

Ryder took another swig of his beer.

“Could you try on one of your tunics for me?”

“Sure,” Ryder said, setting down his can of drink and walking back towards the closet before sneaking inside and sliding the door shut. 

Perhaps we should go into a bit of explanation into the garment in question as Ryder prepares to don it. The tunic, in the Cosararan native tradition, is not what you would find in Roman or Ancient Greek texts or artwork; rather, it is a most peculiar article of clothing.

It should be described as being most like a dress, rendered by taking the entire cloth and wrapping it around the body, underneath the shoulder blade. Once that is done, the last bit is tucked behind the first wrap-around created by the cloth in order to prevent it from falling off. The end result should be a tight fit, but it gets the job done.

Ryder emerged from the closet wearing a red and blue striped tunic in precisely the same fashion as described as Cherry Berry eyed him up and down. 

“Handsome…” she said, amazed. “That looks gnarly on you.”

“Thanks, mate.”

“Is that the way to do it?”

“There are people I know that wear it with the dangly bit going over the shoulder, but then you’d have to constantly keep holding it in place, and I find it a bit inconvenient.”

“So you wear it like that?” Cherry asked.

“Pretty much,” Ryder shrugged. “There’s also a little thing that goes over my head that matches this.”

“You’re truly outrageous, you know that?” she said, with a laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that all the time,” Ryder dismissed, proceeding to down the rest of his ale. The conversation paused for a bit.

“You know what would be even more outrageous?” Cherry proposed.

“Like what?”

“I heard a few ponies chatting at lunch today…”

“I’m listening…”

“...and there’s this rumor that a couple fillies wanna ask you to the fall formal coming up!”

Ryder mulled the thought for a brief moment, imagining himself in the embrace of a loving young mare, slow-dancing to the lilting music together.

“Mmmm… that would sound nice… is it true?”

“Yes, it is.”
“Do you wanna go?”

“Hell yeah!” Ryder leaped up and threw his arms into the air.

“Perfect!”

But there was a slight shortcoming in his mind that caused him to step back from his impromptu personal celebration: the fact that he was of a different species.

“However, I have a few concerns.”

Cherry Berry’s ear twitched a bit as she listened.

“I’m a human. Everyone else at my school is basically a horse. How would people think of this? How would my family think of this?”

She stopped and thought to herself right there. “You’re right. It’d be an interspecies thing.”

“And you find it unacceptable?” Ryder said.

“No, no, no, don’t take this the wrong way. I completely support you.”

“But I’m asking about everybody else…”

“I don’t care what the others think. Your happiness is the only thing that matters. Whatever you decide to do, I am, like, 100% behind you.”

“Really?”

“You’re awesome just the way you are, Ryder,” Cherry Berry said. “Remember that.”

“I know,” Ryder replied, with a hint of self-confidence. “I know that.”