The three Manehattenites had received the keys from reception and were heading to their motel room.
"Not an ideal choice." Parley stated, "But it wouldn't do to draw too much attention to ourselves."
Plomo was busy complaining.
"¿Por qué estamos perdiendo el tiempo? ¿Por qué no simplemente agarramos al fenómeno y termimanos con esto?
"Why are we wasting time? Why don't we just grab the freak and be done with it?"
Parley turned to Plata for translation. "My brother wonders if it is wise to be waiting for the mare to accept our offer."
Parley sighed. "And this is why I'm the one in charge of negotiations." He ignored the growl coming from Plomo. "Gentlecolts, unneeded hostility would be counterproductive. Forcing the issue means that we might face retaliation from the other elements which could ultimately lead to retaliation from Princess Luna. Let's try and avoid that."
"Maricón." Plomo muttered
"¡Plomo! no digas palabrotas." Plata scolded before turning to a curious Parley. "He says that makes sense." Plata explained.
"Plomo! Watch your language."
Parley nodded and opened the door to their room only to find that instead of it having three beds, it had one double and one single bed. "Oh dear. Well nothing we can do about that now, you too are just going to be very cosy tonight." He then made him self comforatble on the double.
"Ah juro que lo voy a desollar vivo a ese pequeño...."
"Oh I swear I'm going to skin that little..."
Plata stuck a hoof out infront of Plomo. "My brother and I are going to go check out the town, get a lay of the land, just in case."
"Fine." Parely said dismissively. "Just try to look a little less like a pair of Manehatten thugs. We don’t want people getting suspicious."
Pokey was doing some busy work around the represantive house when he heard the front door slam open. He turned to see a dishevelled Trixie storming past. “You alright?”
“I AM NEVER HAVING CHILDREN!!”
Pokey shrugged. “Don’t think the collective gene pool will suffer too greatly from that loss.”
“Cancel all my appointments for the rest of the day.” Trixie ordered. “I’ve just had a traumatic experience and need to consult with my therapist.”
Pokey paused. “You have a therapist?”
“Yes. Dr Bourbon. Phys.D, MD, DDS and STFU!”
“That sounds about right.” Pokey muttered. “Well you don’t have any more appointments today.”
“Good.” Trixie marched into her office and then promptly back marched out.
“However Big Macintosh is here to see you and is currently waiting in your office.”
Trixie let out a frustrated groan as she put her face in her hoof. “Remind me again why I keep you around.”
Pokey brought his hoof to his chin and pretended to be in thought. “Well at the top of my head I’d have to say it’s my sharp wit, excellent work ethic, magnificent horn, incredibly nice backside and the fact that without me you’d probably drown yourself in liquor just to escape the paperwork.”
Trixie glared at her assistant for a moment before turning to head back into the office. “For your information your backside isn’t that nice. It’s a 5 at best, 6 ½ when I’m drunk.”
“So 6 ½ on average?”
Trixie would like to have thought that she had gotten Pokey when she slammed the door in his face but she knew that he had gotten quicker.
Big Mac to his credit sat quietly while looking intently at the picture that was behind the desk. Despite her mood, Trixie couldn’t help but smile at the picture.
“My grandfather,” She explained. “Quartermoon the Magnificent.”
“Great magician.” Big Mac answered.
“You went to see him?” that genuinely surprised Trixie. “Where?”
“Canterlot,” Big Mac replied. “With Grandpa.”
There was an unexpected moment of silent camaraderie between the two before Trixie remembered about his meeting with Cheerilee. Turning her back to the picture she faced the farmer.
“Cheerilee told me that you came to her about a job offer for a teaching position in Fillydelphia.”
“Eeyup.”
“Why would you do that? Rural school like this, who knows how long it might take to get a replacement. Why would you risk undermining the education of the school your sister goes to just give Cheerilee a job opportunity?”
“Not your business.”
“Well I’m making it my business.” Trixie closed the gap and got into Big Mac’s face “Cheerilee’s my friend so if I find out that this job offer is just a scheme from the Trust or some noble that’s buying you off I’ll...” Trixie trailed off as Big Mac stood up to his full height and gave her a look that could make stone flinch. “...It’s not a scheme, is it?”
“No.”
“Well good to know.” Trixie backed away, right into a bookshelf, causing a big book to fall down right on her head.
The hard stare Big Mac had been giving her quickly turned into a look of concern. “You okay?”
“Yes yes fiiiinnneee” Trixie ignored the pain as she staggered behind her desk and tried regain a sliver of dignitiy. “So what can I do for you?”
Big Mac pushed a piece of paper towards Trixie before he sat back down. The representative lifted it up to see that it was Bounty Hunting License renewal form filled out to by Mr Macintosh Apple.
“Bounty hunting license?! What does an apple farmer need with a bounty hunting license?” She cowered slightly under the hard look that Big Mac gave her. “But that’s not any of my business, is it?”
“Nope.”
To avoid the ensuing awkwardness Trixie read through the form to check if there were any flaws. All that was left was for her to cross check it with the local bounty hunting registry and to verify all details and then once she signed it off it was sent to head office in Canterlot for approval. It was a straight forward, albeit tedious process that unfortunately clashed with her planned therapy session.
“Well this seems all in order.” Trixie said with trained enthusiasm. “I’ll be sure to process this and have it sent first thing tomorrow. If it’s approved the new licence will be sent to the address listed.”
Big Mac sat unmoving from his spot staring at Trixie.
“There isn’t anything else I need from you.”
Big Mac didn’t even twitch.
“If there are any issues I promise to let you know.”
Still nothing,
“You’re not going to move until I send this away, are you?”
“Nope.”
Trixie groaned. “Fine.”
She got up from her desk and started looking for the bounty hunting registry. After a couple of minutes of fruitless searching and the realisation that she honestly didn’t know where it was, she stuck her head out of office shouted for her assistant.
“HEY POKEY!! WHERE DO WE KEEP THE BOUNTY HUNTER REGISTRY?!”
“HOW SHOULD I KNOW?” Pokey shouted from the kitchen. “WE HAVEN’T HAD TO DO A BOUNTY HUNTER LICENSE BEFORE.
“WHAT SORT OF ASSISTANT DOESN’T KNOW WHERE THE REGISTRY IS KEPT?”
“WHAT SORT OF REPRESENTATIVE DOESN’T KNOW WHERE THE REGISTRY IS KEPT?”
“Ahem.”
Trixie turned back to see Big Mac pointing towards the bookcase she had crashed into. Trixie went over to the bookcase and found that the book that had clonked her on the head had in fact been the registry. She let out a nervous chuckle as she brought the registry to the desk. After crosschecking Big Mac details (name, address, license number etc), searching for the official seal (which had somehow ended up in the medicine cabinet) and some more Representative/Assistant banter, Pokey was out the door with a sealed up envelope to take to the post office.
Only then did Big Mac stand up and take his leave. Once she was sure he was gone, Trixie levitated out a glass and was about to do the same with her spare bottle of bourbon when her gaze fell back to the registry that was still sitting on her desk. Her need for a drink having waned (slightly), she decided now might be a good time to do some digging.
School day was finally over. Aside from the whole Trixie fiasco and having to lecture her students about unnecessary interrogation and torture, Cheerilee felt that it had, all in all, been a very good day. She was busy tidying up the classroom when Ditzy came.
"Hi Ditzy, Amethyst Star came by to pick Dinky up. That had been the arrangement, hadn't it?"
Ditzy nodded, the half sisters were spending the afternoon together at Sparkler's shop.
"Yeah I know. I was actually hoping to speak with you."
"Sure," Cheerilee stopped tidying and faced the mailmare. "What did you want to talk about?"
Ditzy took in a deep breath. "Dinky is doing alright, isn't she? In schoolwork and in other stuff."
"I think she is doing splendidly." Cheerilee replied. "She's growing up into a fine young filly."
"And is she happy?"
"I've always thought so." The teacher answered. "Why? Has she said something?"
"No, it's just." Ditzy sighed. "Would Dinky be happier if I didn't have to work so much?"
Cheerilee paused before answering carefully, "I think she would be happier for your sake. She knows you work very hard but she doesn't blame you for it and she loves all the time you do set aside for her."
"But if I could find a way to not have to work as much and spend more time with her, that would make me a better mother, wouldn't it?"
"That all depends on what you would have to give up to get that extra time." Cheerilee countered. "And being a good parent isn't just a matter of how much time you spend with your children but also the quality of the time you spend with them."
Cheerilee saw that Ditzy still looked unsure. "Look I can understand that you sometimes feel that you don't get to spend enough time with Dinky. That's natural, we all sometimes wish that we had more time to spend on the things that matter to us. But believe me when I say that you manage to fit more love and devotion into one hour than some stay at home parents fit into a whole day." The school teacher then gave Ditzy a hug. "So don't worry. Dinky is doing fine."
Ditzy returned the hug. "Thank you."
Cheerilee smiled. "That's what friends are for."
"So Wind Whistler is moving house on Monday and I was wondering if you could talk to Applejack about letting me have it off."
"Nope."
It had been a slow day so Applejack had gone to pick up Applebloom and take her home, leaving Big Mac and Caramel to finish selling produce and then to pack everything up.
"Oh come on Mac." Caramel pleaded. "I may actually have a shot with this one. You know how hard it is to find a date when you're a farm hand, not to mention your sister..." Big Mac raised a threatening eyebrow. "is a fine lady and a pleasure to work for."
Big Mac rolled his eyes at Caramel's antics but then paused when he saw Plata and Plomo walking through the market. Caramel noticed the change in demeanour.
"What do you see?" Caramel asked. He started to turn to see what Big Mac was looking at but then stopped when the red stallion put a hoof on his side. "Alright, point taken, just easy on the physical contact, folks are already starting to talk bout us and unlike you I already have a hard enough time with the ladies as it is."
Caramel turned, this time casually, making it look like he was checking out stock. When he turned back to Big Mac his tone was hushed. "Yeah, those two definitely don't look like tourists. Think we should check them out?" Big Mac gave a single nod. "Alright so how shall we play it? Cheerful cherry? Lazy gazing?" Caramel sighed when he saw the look Big Mac was giving him. "One Caramel special, coming up."
The blue-eye stallion a picked up a basket of apples and said in a cheerful voice. "Sure thing thing Mac, I'll get these delivered right away." He then sprinted off. Big Mac took a brief moment to check if there were any potential customers coming but all was quiet.
*CRASH*
"¡IDIOTA!"
"IDIOT!"
"Sorry, sorry, sorry."
"¡ DEBERÍA ROMPERTE CADA HUESO DE TU CUERPO, BOLUDO!"
I SHOULD BREAK EVERY BONE IN YOUR STUPID BODY!
"Look I said I was sorry."
Big Mac trotted over to the scene. Apples were scattered everywhere, Caramel was pinned to a wall with Plomo about to bash his skull in. Big Mac casually took hold of Plomo's hoof before any real damage could be done. "Problem?”
Plata sized up the new comer and quickly decided that a confrontation wouldn't be worth it. "No no, my brother and I were just telling your friend he should be more careful." Plata stepped back and started to walk away. Plomo wrenched his hoof out of Big Mac's grip and reluctantly did same, but not before giving Caramel one last shove against the wall and making sure to step on some of the apples as he walked away.
The two stallions started picking up the apples and only once they were certain that that they were alone did Caramel speak.
"Alright, I wasn't able to get much, they were on me a lot quicker than most ponies, they could be military but I'm thinking more likely enforcers. They weren't carrying a lot but I did see a room key for May Flower Motel. Oh and I also swiped this from the one that kept yelling at me in Caballerian." Caramel lifted up his hind leg to reveal a business card he had hidden under his hoof.
Big Mac lifted it up to inspect it, it was for a Manehatten based construction company.
"Any idea what a couple of Manehatten 'Builders' are doing in Ponyville?"
"Nope."
And now we start to see a bit of overlap between the story lines. Let’s see what happens next.
Just a few notes.
Bounty Hunting is a legal profession in Equestria, albeit it one that is licensed and regulated (like in real life). Anyone can apply for a Bounty hunting license but they have to pass a background check and a basic competence test. The bounties are government sanctioned and the bounty hunters are required to follow the same laws as everyone else. While you can make a living from it if you are willing to travel across Equestria to hunt the bounties down, most bounty hunters have day jobs and just collect on bounties that come into their area.
The reason that bounty hunting was made legal was as a way to compensate for the lower number of law enforcement in the rural areas because having bounty hunters in an area would make that area undesirable to criminals that already had bounties on their heads and it gave individuals law enforcement could deputise if the extra pony power was needed.
Caballerian is language spoken in Caballeria which is the Lunaverse equivalent of Spain. There is also a Caballerian speaking minoraty that lives with in Equestria. On a side note, I don't personally speak Spanish and have had to use a translater so sorry if the translations are off.
Lastly, I have gone back and revised chapter one because I realised that I had made Big Mac a little too chatty and I had accidently made Pokey Pierce's nickname Pierce when it is in fact Pokey (not sure how I missed that one). It's more or less the same but any thoughts the revised chapter is welcome.
Love Caballeria. I'm adding it to my list of fanon MLP place names.
One of these days I'm going to post the whole thing for the benefit of other writers.
874535
Personally, I think it'd be more fun if we didn't get a translation for what Plomo was saying, and just had it be in Spanish
(Also, don't feel bad about not speaking Spanish. I myself only speak two languages: English, and Bad English).
Oh, goody. Time for Big Red to bust some melons.
874535 good chapter, i can help you with the spanish dialogue
."¿Por qué son nosotros pérdida de tiempo? ¿Por qué no agarramos sólo al monstruo y somos hacemos con ello?"
should be
"¿Por qué estamos perdiendo el tiempo? ¿Por qué no simplemente agarramos al fenómeno y termimanos con esto?"
"Cobarde débil." never heard of that one ,
"maricon" isn't exactly the same but is a good alternative.
"Ah juro que voy a la piel que poco...." is "Ah juro que lo voy a desollar vivo a ese pequeño ...."
"¡Yo DEBERÍA ROMPER CADA HUESO EN SU CUERPO ESTÚPIDO!"
"¡ DEBERÍA ROMPERte CADA HUESO de tu CUERPO , boludo!"
( I am from argentina so some of my structures are a bit different compared to other spanish speaking countries , but it was mostly in neutral )
I'm not sure yet exactly how the plotlines will come together, but things are proving to be quite interesting so far. I wish caramel good luck with Wind Whistler!
Well Mac seems to be a nice person in this (and a bounty hunter which is sort of cool). I assume either the job offer for Cherilee is legit and coincidntial or its not but Mac isn't aware of it. It could be that after trying to get at the elements one at a time only to be stopped by Trixie the big bad is deciding to try two at once on the grounds that one will distract her from the other.
Alteratively Mac is being an amazing chess player here with the bounty hunter bit being entirely to get trixie's attention to the current bounties which will presumably include on the 'business pony's' working on ditzy thus warning her whats going on.
874690
Yeah that could be fun. I'll try that out next time I have Plomo dialogue.
876068
Thank you so much.
I'm always reluctant about using languages I don't know because translate programs tend to be literal instead of grammatical so I'm really grateful if someone who knows the language looks it over. I've made the changes you suggested, though just to check is "No digas palabrotas." The right thing to say if you're telling someone to watch their language?
878115 yes , "No digas palabrotas." is okay .
876962
Buddy Bounties?
For some reason I can't help but think of Scrubs for some reason.
Yeah I realise things seem unconnected at the moment but I promise as we keep going, the plot threads will start joining up. The problem was that if I didn't start all these things now stuff that would happen later on would seem to come out of nowhere.
Hmm, plot thickens. I liked Big Mac, there, but a bounty hunter?
...
I really love that! As for not speaking Spanish, I speak English, Klingonese and I can conjugate 'Amo' from Latin from high school about 15 years ago...
I speak English AND French maybe I should include more drunk Trixie in my stories?
another excellent chapter. Between the two of us we can really bring out the 'Servile Snarker' side of Pokey out, he's turning out to be lots of fun isn't he? Basically just have him take jabs at Trixie while still doing his job! Even when she constantly question why she keeps him around.
Caramel, Big Mac: they fight crime. that's frickin' amazing! Though Caramel seems a bit too... skilled for a simple farmhand/part time bounty hunter. Think he ran from a bounty on his head?
879565
Either that or he's ex-military who had been screwed over by some higher ups, or both. With a last name like Chance-A-Lot, it would make sense. (If Lyra and Trixie got their last names from the mysterypack he can too)
Pokey is such fun to write, I'm so glad you brought him into Lunaverse canon. Personally I think Trixie secretly likes having him around, though it would be cold day in Tartarous before she admits it.
And we can never have too much drunk Trixie
879663 Oh god... Caramel is Face to big Mac's BA Barracus, unless big Mac's the van
Glad to see someone having fun using Pokey!
880004
Oh Big Mac would definitely be more than just the Van, maybe with some Hannibal thrown in
Though I can picture it now.
Nnnope, I ain't getting on no air ship fool
Though that would just leave us short a Howling Mad Murdock
Or Caramel could be Sam Axe to Big Mac's Micheal Weston though if that were the case I'd need to introduce mojitos to the Lunaverse as well as another character to be the trigger happy love interest.
880278 Murdoch? Just throw in Screwloose! What we need then is a proper Hannibal
also my next story has Trixie drinking a mojito.
What the crap Big Mac........a bounty hunter? Thats a cool idea!
Sorry to be only just now getting around to this, I'd beena bit preocupied. Also, I know my crtitique of your first chapter mignt have come across as a little harsh, but I think you're really improving, especialy your Big Mac; you seem to finally be getting the hang of how to write him.
The bounty hunting angle caught me off guard, but I think I like, and I think I'm finally starting to see how the two plot lines will intersect. Anyway, got some other stuff to do right now, but I'll try to be back for the next chapter later tonight.
*Grins* I love the Caramel special. I freely admit I love the idea that Caramel is actually really intelligent and canny but plays it down.
Rural school like this, who knows how long
her gaze feel back
Caramel was pined to a wall
be more carefull
1. With a rural school like this, who knows how long.
2. Fell.
3. Pinned.
4. Careful.
This Caramel sounds AWESOME. Now I gotta read the rest of the story and hope he's just as cool as he seems.... Big Mac too, but he's always awesome
Great spanish!
needs end " marks.
_______________
This is a fic that shows why Ditzy is 3rd best mother in the FIMVerse. I don't know why Bounty Hunters have as much dislike as Mercs in the Savage Skies series.
Damn, Mac. Even for an apple you're hardcore!
(Rimshot)
874690
You think thats hard? I have to live read the Spanish and I only know Japanese, French, and English. And I butchered the second one!!!
Anyway, I love that this story give a lot of character to Big Mac, gioving him something more than just being the local sex joke. I also love the interaction with Cheerilee as it gives more of her character than just a teacher and makes it so she has a life. Even more so than we relize it seems. I also found Ditzy's desire to be a better mother rediculously sweet.
edit: My emotions sometimes go really extreme when something like this happens in a story. it causes me so much stress and i'm sorry for taking it out on you. I removed my original comment
Applebloom >> Apple Bloom
8845051
Tomato >> Tomato
Lever >> Lever
Applebloom >> Apple Bloom
It's more or less the same.
9143600
No it's not.
Apple Bloom is how her name is actual spelled. Every card, every book un the farking show.
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Apple Bloom is a two word name.