The ruin of many a poor pony

Did Celestia drop the moon on me?

Shinning Armour struggled to wake himself. His nose throbbed from where someone had obviously punched it. He lifted his head off the cold and stony ground. A puddle of effluvia he could sense came from several different sources had missed his face from inches. Someone had pulled off his good oral hygiene award, bit into it and spat it back at him in disgust.

He glanced at a nearby clock tower. Three AM. Shinning glanced back to confirm that, indeed, he was sprawled before The Mare in Heat. Typical for the evening following graduation it was doing a brisk trade in chaos.

From inside he could hear screams and shouts. The musicians who had been playing in the basement had finished smashing their instruments on the stage and were now bashing them over the heads of the audience. The local constabulary, well overwhelmed, were trying to cope with the train of bruised patrons stumbling out. Normally they turned a blind eye to the establishment: colts will be colts, after all.

Tonight would be spoken of in whispers for years to come. Assuming The Mare In Heat survived tonight (which was still an open question) the cadets of the academy would regard it with awe and reverence Princess Celestia would envy.

Shinning picked himself off and tried to clean off his uniform. The bad taste of whatever they brewed lingered in his mouth. If Twilight sees me like this…

Twilight!

After the graduation parade she begged her parents to stay behind. Spend time with her brother who she barely saw anymore, and he decided why not let her accompany him on the post-graduation ritual. Her parents shrugged: why not? What was the harm in some brother-sister time?

What was he thinking taking her in there? He could remember little of the past few minutes, a combination of horrible liquor and a blow to the face. His mind raced through the horrible possibilities.

Plan A: Find out what happened and get her---fast.

He made it through the door as the last of the band was tossed out by a grimb-looking unicorn. He glared at Shinning but let him pass.

Inside the room was bedlam: several different groups had broken into open warfare, claiming various quarters of the bar for themselves. Some stalwart drinkers occupied the bar, ignoring the volleys of bottles, glasses and profane language behind them.

An earth pony made a war cry and dove off the pool table into a group of brawlers. Almost instantly he flew across the room and against the wall; he leapt up, undisturbed, and charged back into the fray.

“You!” another earth pony called. He pointed directly at Shinnng, raising a bottle in his hoof until the bartender yanked him out of the room with a teleportation spell. The bartender gave Shinnng a most sour look, reproaching him for something that apparently was most foul indeed.

Plan B: Don’t figure out what happened. Just save Twilight, and his sanity.

He felt a hoof prod his shoulder. A lecherous grin from a filly was directly behind him.

“Hello there, you handsome cadet.”

“Hey,” Shinning said, “have you seen a small filly, purple, sparkle cutie mark?”

“Are you looking for something special?”

“No,” Shinning said forcefully, “she’s my sister.”

She laughed. Shinning felt extremely uneasy.

“I may not be your sister,” she cooed, “but my love is just as strong.”

“No thanks. Now,” he said, “if you’ll excuse me…”

He pushed past…the individual and walked towards the bar. Her Adam’s apple bounced as she huffed indignantly. The bartender was scrubbing a glass clean. He put it on the counter to turn his attention to the next glass; it was immediately scooped up and burled across the room.

A black and blue pony with a paddle cutie mark (was that legitimate?) frowned at Shinning. “You should be ashamed, accosting my fillies!”

Lady, if those are fillies, I’m Nightmare moon.

Shinning fought his way to the bar. “Excuse me!” he bellowed. “I’m looking for someone!”

The bartender spat into the glass. “Oh yeah?”

An earth pony ran across the bar and straight into battle. His opponent met him on the far side of the bar and together they rolled along its length.

“Like what?”

“Filly, small, purple!”

He thought for a moment. “Oh yeah,” he said, “I saw her go out back.”

Shinning’s heart nearly burst. Out back was one most rumoured sections of The Mare In Heat. Out back was where the most shameful desires were indulged. Out back was not Equestria but a netherworld of sin and depravity.

“Was she with anypony?”

The bartender thought for a moment. He smiled wickedly.

“A small group of fine young colts.”

Shinning’s blood froze. What were they doing to his poor, defenceless sister?

The bartender laughed. “She said she was going to take them to school.”

Shinning ran out the back entrance of the bar. Her ran out to the small structure that constituted out back. Several passed out stallions littered the ground and Shinning shuddered to think what had exhausted them.

He burst in where several stallions sat watching Twilight scribble an equation on a blackboard. “…equal to or greater than the reaction!” Twilight said, then belched and laughed.

The other ponies laughed. Twilight made another equation. “Now,” she continued, “about inertia…”

Shinning smiled and breathed in relief. After an hour Twilight collapsed into a heap. Shinning flung her on his back and they walked back to his lodgings.

“Welcome back to the land of the living.” I’m tying a bell around your neck from now on.[

Twilight moaned. She rested her head against the desk. “Don’t tell Mom or Dad.”

“Of course not,” Shining said. “What a waste of good leverage.”

“Ha ha.”

Shinning cobbled together several random ingredients into a glass. He dropped it in front of his sister. “Drink this,” he instructed her.

“What is it?”

“What we use around here for hangovers.”

“Will it work?” Twilight asked, knowing full well she could answer the question for herself.

“You’ll stop feeling bad about ingesting too much alcohol and start feeling bad about pouring that down your throat. Whether that counts as an improvement I defer to you.”

Twilight sighed. Considering the pounding in her head and the vile taste in her mouth this would be suitable punishment. She closed her eyes, uttered a prayer to Celestia and drank it. Worst mistake….scratch that, second worst mistake of her life.

“This was a mistake,” Twilight said.

“Look, be thankful Rock found somewhere else to lay his head last night so you could sleep this off,” Shinning said. “From experience, trust me, waking up in The Mare is not at all fun.”

“All I feel is exhausted, embarrassed, pummelled and ashamed,” Twilight said.

“Welcome to the Royal Equestrian Guard.”

Shinning offered a brohoof. She punched it.

“Hoo-rah.”

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