Potential Revisions and additions to A Hard Bargain · 10:41pm Dec 4th, 2012
After talking to some of trhe people at the Lunaverse group. Here are some additions and revisions I'm thinking of doing to "A Hard Bargain". I wanted to get some feedback before finalising it so please let me know what you think..
Chapter 1
When he was sure they weren’t paying him any more attention, Big Mac stopped what he was doing again and looked back at the two unicorns that were walking away, Pokey suddenly having developed a bit of a limp. He didn’t react when he joined by Granny Smith.
“So that’s the Element of Magic?” the Granny asked.
“Eeyup.” Big Mac replied dryly.
“And isn’t that Cutie mark she has the same one as...?”
“Eeyup.”
“You think there may be a connection?”
“Maybe.”
“Still makes ya curious, Don’t it?”
“Eeyup.”
Granny Smith raised an eyebrow. “Yer mighty wordy today, aint ya?”
Big Mac didn’t reply and instead looked at the big clock. “Almost lunch time.”
Chapter 5
Big Mac and Caramel, having seen the smoke as well, had instantly changed their route and arrived at the school shortly after Ditzy had. Big Mac scanned the area and found nurse Redheart tending to some students, including Applebloom who came racing towards him when she saw her brother.
"Big Mac! It was terrible." She wailled. "Ms Cheerilee was teaching us about griffons but then a strange tube flew in to the class and then it filled with smoke and then..." the rest drowned out into incomprehensible sobbing as Big Mac held her close.
"It's okay." Big Mac stroked Applebloom's mane, trying to console her.
The two siblings stayed liked this for a couple of minutes before Applebloom forced herself to back away slightly from her brother. "I think Dinky is in trouble."
"What?"
"After the smoke started and I was trying to get out, I heard her suddenly scream and then something big and grey ran past me and I haven't seen her since."
Big Mac and Caramel looked at each other and then quickly rescanned the surroundings and couldn't see the young unicorn filly anywhere either. Caramel cursed under his breath while Big Mac tried to formulate a plan. Every instinct was telling him to stay and take care of his sister but he knew that there was a small window of opportunity to find Dinky that was rapidly closing.
"Applebloom...I..." He was cut off by Applebloom starring up at him with her big pleading eyes.
"Please Big Mac, you've got to help her."
Big Mac scooped Applebloom up into another quick hug. "Love ya sis." He then turned to Caramel. "Home. Now."
"You got it boss." Caramel replied as he stood beside Applebloom. "I'll catch up after I get her home."
At that reassurance Big Mac turn to run off, hoping to pick up the trail before it was too late. Instead he ran straight in to Cheerilee.
“I'm coming with you.” The teacher said firmly. “And don't you dare argue.”
“No time.” Big Mac replied as he hurried to find a trail. Cheerilee followed only stopping briefly to get some of the parents to watch over the remaining students.
Plomo watched from the shadows as Ditzy walked away from the motel with Trixie chasing after her. He was about to continue following them and make sure Trixie didn’t interfere but found himself flung against a wall. Before the grey stallion had a chance to retaliate, Big Mac pinned him down and started to twist one of Plomo's fore legs in a way it wasn't supposed to twist.
"Listen closely.” Cheerilee said to the pinned stallion. “We will ask questions. You will give answers. Understand?"
"¿Que?"
Big Mac twisted the foreleg further before he spoke. "Escuche atentamente , voy a hacer preguntas y usted contestara ¿Entiende?"
Chapter 7
Author's note. Instead of posting the whole chapter, assume that in the first part, Cheerilee's part was replaced by Raindrops.
"Don't worry, Big Mac isn't doing it alone," Caramel replied. "Cheerilee with him."
"Cheerilee?" Silver Script asked in dismay. "You really think a school teacher is gonna make a difference?"
The midday sun beat down on Plata as he waited in the clearing. Dinky was still in the bag that she had been caught in, struggling and shouting.
“Quiet you.” Plata hissed. “Kids these days.” He then saw three shadows being cast. Looking up he saw a mail wagon (or at least what was supposed to look like a mail wagon) being pulled by four Pegasi descending. “You took your sweet time getting here.”
“It’s not like you gave us a lot of notice.” The driver hoped off the wagon and approached Plata. “Considering that we took a major detour getting here I’d appreciate a little less lip.”
“Quit your whining. You’re getting paid double for this.” Plata turned attention back to the bag. “Now my friends are going to fly you first class to Manehatten. I suggest you stop struggling otherwise they may drop you.” At that moment Dinky’s horn stabbed through the bag. “What the..?”
The clearing was suddenly filled with a bright light. As the adults were blinded, Dinky used her magic to tear the bag open. Once she was free, she ran for it as fast as she could.
Dinky didn't know where she was but she knew that anywhere was better than here. Despite running as fast as she could, Plata, having recovered, soon caught up with her.
The filly came to an abrupt stop when Plata stomped down on her tail, preventing her from running any further. "Listen you little bruja, give me one good reason why I shouldn't snap that horn off."
"Ahem."
Plata looked up from Dinky and came face to face with an extremely angry Big Macintosh.
"I got one."
Any reply Plata was going to give was stopped by a hoof straight to his face.
At that moment the Pegasi had finally gotten over their temporary blindness and had caught up to the scene. Seeing their current employer laying on the ground in a daze and their meal ticket was currently being blocked by the red new comer, they decided to leap into action.
The driver and tried to charge Big Mac at the same time. The red stallion used his front hooves to swat two of them away as if they were flies and head butted the third. After taking what could be compared to a wrecking ball to the face, the third Pegasus went down and stayed there.
The first of the two remaining flew in and bucked Big Mac in the side of the head. Big Mac, only slightly fazed by the attack, put up his foreleg to block the on coming onslaught. When he saw an opening, Big Mac struck out at an incoming hoof. The Pegasus fell to ground and held his hoof in pain, only to be silenced by an upper cut.
Cheerilee raced up to Dinky. “Are you alright?” She asked the young filly.
Before Dinky could reply a Pegasus tried to attack the school teacher. As he stood up on his hind legs, Cheerilee raced in, driving her shoulder into the attacker's chest and unleashing a devasting series of gut punches. When she finally relented the stallion took a couple steps back and doubled over in pain. Cheerilee then finished him off with two hooves to the top of the head.
As she finished that, another stallion flew in, hoping to tackle her. Instead of dodging, Cheerilee stood her ground. When he was close enough, she jumped up, caught him in a reverse headlock and, using the weight change and the stallion's own momentum, drove him head first into the ground.
When Cheerilee stood back up, dusting herself off, the pegasus remained motionless.
“Alright!” The two earth ponies turned to see the driver was back up and was holding a crossbow that he had probably recovered from his wagon. “Don't move!”
“Hey genius, you've got one shot and two angry ponies,” Cheerilee replied. “Do the math.”
When realisation struck, the driver dropped the crossbow and took flight. As the pegasus tried to fly straight up and away, the two earth ponies shared a look. After a nod from Cheerilee, Big Mac held out his hooves. The school teacher jumped into them and as she did, the red farmer threw her skywards.
As she flew through the sky, Cheerilee let out a sharp whistle to get the driver's attention. The pegasus looked down in time to get a magenta hoof straight to the face.
When gravity finally caught up with Cheerilee and the now unconscious driver, she remaining calm descended, right into the waiting hooves of Big Mac while the pegasus had a destiny with hard ground.
Cheerilee chuckled as she looked up at Big Mac. “You haven't thrown me like that since that job you had in Hoofington.”
Big Mac let out a chuckle of his own. “Good times.”
The red bounty hunter then turned his head and saw the remaining Pegasus trying sneak up on him, wielding a large piece of wood as a club. When the Pegasus saw that he had been caught out and the annoyed looks Big Mac and Cheerilee were giving him, he let out a nervous chuckle. He then promptly used the piece of wood to knock himself out.
Big Mac rolled his eyes as he put Cheerilee down but then saw that Plata was trying to crawl away. The farmer stopped Plata’s retreat by stepping on the grey stallion’s tail. When the Manehattenite looked up at Big Mac in fear, the farmer offered eight words of explanation for his actions.
“You attacked a school and foalnapped a filly.”
Next thing Plata knew, he was being held by the Big Mac. He wondered what the point of this was until he saw Cheerilee approach, fire burning in her eyes.
“I'm going to make you regret being anywhere near my students.”
With no means of escape, Plata could only look on in horror as Cheerilee readied her hooves to deliver harsh justice, repeatedly. She then stopped when both she and Big Mac remembered that Dinky was busy watching this. Though not releasing Plata, the two earth ponies turned to Dinky. For a brief moment the three just looked at each other
"Violence is bad." Cheerilee said in a weak attempt not to be a bad example for the young filly.
"Yes, I know." Dinky replied before turning her back to him and covering her ears with her hooves. “Let me know when you’re finished.”
Chapter 7
Things were quiet at the representative house as the group waited for Big Mac’s return. They were in the lounge. Trixie on the couch, practising card tricks to calm herself whilst levitating an ice pack against the side of her face. Silver Script and Raindrops were busy finding a good place to leave the gagged and restrained Parley. Caramel was watching the door while Ditzy was pacing back and forth.
“It’s taking too long.” The grey mare said. “They should have been back by now.”
“It hasn’t been that long.” Caramel said. “Trust me, Big Mac has everything under control. Most likely he’s already on his way back.”
“How can you be so sure?” Ditzy demanded.
“Because I know Big Mac, that stallion is unstoppable even when he’s in good mood but these thugs have managed to get on his bad side.” Caramel said reassuringly. “The only thing we need to worry about is Big Mac leaving enough of those scum bags for questioning.”
*THACK*
“HRMP!!”
Everypony turned to see the restrained Parley dangling from the ceiling like a piñata while Silver Script stood there with the L&T Bat. Realising that he was being watched he quickly hid the bat behind his back and pointed towards Raindrops in an attempt to shift blame.
Trixie stood up from the couch and went to stand beside Ditzy as a form of comfort. “Wait 10 more minutes and if they’re not here by then we’ll go looking.”
*THACK*
“HRMP!!”
“Enough, Silver!” Trixie scolded.
Before any more could be said there was a knock at the door. Ditzy bolted straight for it and swung it open in time for a small filly to tackle her which turned into a big hug.
“Mommy!” Dinky said happily.
Ditzy responded with the hug and returned it with gusto. “Oh Dinky, are you okay? I was so worried?"
"I'm alright, Big Mac saved me."
"I love you so much, Dinky.”
“I love you too, Mommy.”
The two stayed like that, just hugging each other and being so happy to be back together. Single tear feel down Ditzy's cheek as tried to recommit every sound, touch and smell to memory. Her daughter was back and most important, safe. No more words needed said, their world had been made whole again.
Big Mac and Cheerilee then walked through the doorway, smiling at the scene in front of them. Caramel smirked as he went to stand by the crimson stallion.
“Times like these are what make this job so worthwhile.”
“Eeyup.”
Big Mac then got pulled into surprise hug with Ditzy and Cheerilee. “Thank you.”
The big stallion looked like he might have been blushing under his red as he shrugged off the hug. “No problem.”
After all the adults present had taken the time shower the returned foal in boat loads of affection. Trixie approached the farmer.
“Look, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, cause I am really grateful, but as a Night Court Representative I have to ask: What did you do with the thugs that had foalnapped Dinky?”
Big Mac gestured towards to the door.
Everypony headed outside and found what appeared to be a mail wagon.
“A mail wagon?” Trixie asked in disbelief.
“Not a real one.” Silver Script remarked. “The wagon's an outdated model and the paint job is too shoddy to be government issue.”
Big Mac open the back to reveal seven restrained and unconscious stallions. Trixie and Ditzy edged closer to examine them.
“Recognise them?” Trixie asked.
Ditzy pointed to Plata and Plomo. “Those two were working with Parley. I don’t know about the other five.”
“Ahem.”
Trixie turned to see Big Mac holding out a note. The Representative took it and examined it. It was hastily written but still legible and at the top was Big Mac’s name and Bounty Hunting ID number.
These seven individuals that have been captured and detained were in the process of foal napping a young filly.
The two earth ponies should be charged for attacking the school and for foal napping.
The five pegasi, while not involved in the attack on the school, were intending to transport the foal napped individual, known as Dinky Doo, against her will to Manehattan and as such should be charged for being accessories to a foalnapping as well as impersonating mail carriers and carrying stolen and/or illegal items.
Though these are the only charges I am aware of, all seven appear to be career criminals and will most likely have other crimes they can be charged with.
As the one with bounty hunting authority, I take full responsibility for the actions taken to apprehend these criminals.
Any and all actions I have done in the process of capturing these five ponies were done with the safety of Miss Doo as my chief concern as well as ensuring that she was returned to her mother as soon as possible.
I request that this be taken into consideration if charges are brought against me for actions not covered under the Bounty Hunting Act or the Civilian Arrest Act.
Trixie looked up from the note and stared at Big Mac who just shrugged in return.
“He's a writer.” Caramal replied
Chapter 8
Big Mac was manning the stall. It was a slow day so it was just him.
“Um hi.” Big Mac turned to see Trixie standing there. “Are you free to talk?”
Big Mac looked left and right to check for potential customers, when he saw none he replied with an “Eeyup.”
The representative pulled out a cheque. “I wanted to give you this.”
Big Mac took the cheque and inspected it, it was the usual government approved cheque that Bounty hunters received when they brought in a bounty.
“Turns out the leader of the pegusi you took down had a bounty on his head over some smuggling charges.” Trixie explained. “The government decided to give a retroactive bounties for Plata and Plomo due the serious nature of their crimes.”
Big Mac looked down at the figure again. While it wasn't the biggest payout he had received for a hunt, it certainly was more than what he was expecting. When he looked back up he saw Trixie pull out a big bag of bits.
“There also was a retroactive bounty for Parley,” Trixie explained. “Now I know you didn't catch Parley but civilians can't collect bounties so I sort of told the authorities that you caught him.” Big Mac raised an eyebrow, wondering where she was going with this. “Though that means that this money technically belongs to you I was hoping to give it to Ditzy since she was the one who caught him.”
Big Mac nodded in understanding. “Sure.”
Gratefully Trixie put the money away. She was about to say goodbye and walk away when something stopped her. She turned back to the farmer and prepared herself to do something that was never fun to do.
“Big Macintosh. I just wanted to say, I'm sorry for accusing you.” Trixie in a deep breath. “It wasn't right of me to assume that you were up to something and maybe if I hadn't been so focused on trying to prove that you were trouble I might have been able to stop those mobsters before they took Dinky.”
Big Mac personally doubted that but didn't know the situation well enough to judge. “Apology accepted.”
Trixie smiled gratefully, happy that, for once, an apology was enough. Still something
“Look, I know this might seem like I'm taking a step backwards but I'm still curious, why let Cheerilee know about a job offer that could potentially leave your sister's school in the lurch?
Big Mac shrugged. “She's my friend.”
“So that's all it ever was?” Trixie asked. “You letting a friend know about a great career opportunity?”
“Eeyup.” He then gave a kind smile to the look of disbelief Trixie was giving him. “Not everything's a conspiracy.”
Trixie sighed. “Guess not, but when you deal with the Night Court as much as I do, it starts to feel that way.”
“Buck that.” Big Mac said plainly.
“Hey! we're not all that bad.”
The stallion shrugged. “Maybe not.” He then smiled again and placed a juicy red apple on the counter in front of Trixie. “On the house.”
"Thanks." Trixie said gratefully as she took the apple.
As Trixie turned and start to walk off she ran into Applebloom.
"Did you pay fer that apple?"
I like it! Big Mac is still a little too chatty (maybe the 'I'm a writer' line could be Caramel saying 'He's a writer' instead, for exemple), but on the whole it works really well. I especially like that it's Cheerilee who says the 'Violence is bad.' line!
there's a few proofreading issue but I suppose it'll be fixed once the actual fic is updated.
573945
Thanks. Glad you liked it. I'll see a bout making Big Mac less chatty. Are there any particular proofreading issues that stand out?
573966
is one that jumped at me.
should be 'I have to ask: What did you do' (also Big Mac should only motion for them to follow him, not say so).
And
I believe 'for once' should be isolated between commas.
That's the most obvious ones, but I'm no expert.
573995
Thanks, I'll be sure to correct those when I post it in the story.
heh. Job at Hoofington.
I just love Cheerilee referencing things that she had done, with no explanation whatsoever.
How about inverting Mac's and Cheerilee's roles here? It would seem more likely that Cheerilee would be bilingal, you could even add some lines about Mac being frustrated that his prisoner didn't seem to speak his language before Cheerilee shows she can speak it, you could even add a 'cunning linguist' joke if you want to make it a bit more saucy.
574521
I agree with this idea.
Generally I don't see any problems, apart from some spelling/grammar ones that I never feel comfortable calling out 'cause I've made more than a few in my day.
Though, there is one thing, for internal consistency if nothing else: Dinky calls Ditzy "momma," not "mommy."
574521>>617807
Thanks for the feedback
I don't know if Big Mac would get frustrated, even if he couldn't understand what plomo was saying but how about...
Or would that be taking it too far?
Also, I'll be sure to change the Momma thing.
>> 617927
> Cheerilee:
> “¿What?” Cheerilee asked. “You’ve been around enough to know the benefits of being Bilingual. Besides, ¿who doesn’t like a cunning linguist?”
> ——
> Cheerilee
> ¿Or would that be taking it too far?
Ask yourself “¿WWSBSPD?” (¿What would SpongeBobSquarePants do?). SpongeBobSquarePants uses The Triple Entendre BikiniBottom. BikiniBottom refers To a SwimSuit, sexual reference, the nuclear tests CrossRoads which took place at the Atolls Bikini. Yes, all of the characters in SpongeBob SquarePants are nuclear mutants.
If SpongeBobSquarePants can get away with the Triple Entendre BikiniBottom, you can get away with the Double Entendre Cunning Linguist.