//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: The Legend of Mare-Do-Well // by JD2K //------------------------------// The Legend of Mare-Do-Well Part 1: The Mysterious Mare by JD2K Ponyville at night. The stars sparkle in the sky as the moon shines brightly over the sleepy town. Most of its citizens are fast asleep in their beds with the occasional lights still coming from some well-known nocturnal establishments such as the bowling alley's 24-hour admittance tourney, the Retirement Village's bingo night, and of course the Library with its main occupant doing some studying as is her usual activity. However, there is one establishment that is uncharacteristically active that time of the night. Closed to patrons until the morning hours, the Spa has some of its lights on from within. Upon closer inspection, however, it's anything but a routine inventory check. "I tell you, Razor. Coming to this place was a great idea!" The scruffy unicorn with a dirty mustard coat, an uneven-cut dark green mane and tail, and a cutie mark of an open bag with spilled bits was using his meager magic skills to grab as many toiletries, lotions, salves, shampoos, aromatherapy blends and any other artifacts that look remotely expensive or valuable he can find. "We could have hit that town hall, that swanky boutique or even got some well deserved grub at that crazy gingerbread house bakery! But no, you wanted to hit this dive instead, Small Change!" Razor, a sturdy earth pony stallion with a chiseled jaw, dark magenta coat, short cropped black mane, and twin razor blades for a cutie mark stood there with his saddlebags filling to the brim of the stolen loot Small Change levitates over to them. "Don't be such a nag! This stuff's all made from pure Everfree plants. All this loot would sell for a lot among those rich fillies and mares back in Manehatten! I mean, just look at these two's faces. All this is worth at least a hundred thousand bits or more!" Small Change smirks as he points his hoof at the subjects he described. On the floor, bound by their legs and fitted with bridles with ball-gag centerpieces on, are the twin Spa pony proprietors, whimpering and trying their best to scream through their tight gags. When they heard the door knocking, they thought it was a late-night delivery. By the time they realized their mistake, the large stallion broke in as the skinnier unicorn tied them up and fitted those bridles on them. They are powerless to do anything but watch in horror. "Yeah well, let's just get out of here and get as far away as possible. This town gives me the creeps," his bigger yet more level-headed cohort muses as he looks around from side to side in caution. "I mean, this place is practically overlooked by the Big Alli's themselves up in their castle at the side of the mountain!" "Stop being a scaredy-filly, 'Stud'. Both Celestia and Luna can kiss our flanks for all I care!" the unicorn chuckles, "Almost done here, and... All right! We got everything here. We're going to be swimming in bits and all those honey fillies over at Prancer's Paradise in no time!" He then turns his eyes to see the frightened stare of the spa twins. He licks his chops as a thought goes through his head. Razor, however snaps him out of its with a loud snort. "No way in Celestia's name am I going to be holding this stuff like a damn pack mule while you do that, bub! Let's scram, already!" Small Change snorts back as his eyes turn back to the twins. Lowering his gaze, he blows them both a kiss followed by a wink as the two thieves trot outside. As they did, the smug unicorn stomps on the lantern to snuff out its light and closes the door behind him. Only the feeble screams and wails of the helpless occupants inside is all that is heard. "Salt-lick bricks, locoweed joints, fancy platinum-plated shin guards, all those beautiful flanks!" the giddy unicorn jabbers on as they slowly break off into a gallop towards the town outskirts and all points beyond. "We're going to party hard when we get back. Why, I'll even let you try some nightshade!" The earth stallion's eyes open wide. "Nightshade?! That stuff's poison, bub! I like salt and locoweed like any other stallion, but nightshade's a death warrant!" Small Change sneers at him. "What are you, huh? A gelding? You haven't truly lived until you tried some ni-what the BUCK?!" Both robbers screech to a halt as a figure jumps in front of them. Something, or somepony, covered in a long dark grayish-blue cloth and a stylish-looking purple hat with a broad brim and a dark grayish-blue ribbon on the top. Suddenly, the strange figure gets up to reveal an equine shape covered in a tight purple bodysuit and dark grayish-blue bandages on its four hooves. What they thought of originally as a long cloth was actually a flowing cape that blows and extends itself in the nighttime breeze, held in place by a brooch placed in the center of its chest monogrammed with an "M" against a collar folded out from the same purple bodysuit. Suddenly, the figure looks up and the hoods can see this stranger's face is covered in a full head cloth mask the same color as the cape and two large blue patches where the eyes are supposed to be, which looks up at them somehow showing a fearsome scowl. The mask has no opening for a mouth or nose, but clearly by the shape of the snout, it's most definitely a mare. Despite the foreboding presence, this mare is quite small and just reaches Small Change to his neck. In fact, she is only able to meet the lower part of Razor's chest. Small Change takes a couple of deep breaths to get over the initial scare as he looks down at the still frowning pony slightly shorter than him. "Hey there, squirt. Wow, that's some nice Nightmare Night get-up you got there. Aren't you a little early for it though? Now why are you out here scaring, uh... upstanding equine citizens such as ourselves, eh?" The mare just stands there silently, never flinching or moving. The scowl never leaving her gaze. "Rrrright. Well, we must be on our way then. So excuuuuuuuuse us!" Small Change proclaims as he took his front hoof and shoves the mare aside. Strangely, she simply slides across the ground without even moving a single muscle by the force of his push. Her head slowly moved to the side as the hateful glare became more pronounced. With that, the two ruffians walk past her and continue on their way. The unicorn looks back and sees the mare still standing in the same pose with her head turned to the side as she lays an angry eye on him. Shuddering slowly, he looks at his cohort who holds a smirk on his face. "And what's so funny, huh?" Small Change mutters angrily. "Oh nothing. I was just surprised that the all-mighty Small Change, who stared at the boss of the Griffin Syndicate in the eye and didn't even flinch, got spooked like a baby foal by some silly pony in some fancy Nightmare Night costume!" Razor says with a low chuckle. Trying to maintain his image, the unicorn protests, "Hey! She got the drop on me that's all! I swear if I had seen her coming a mile away, I would have stared her down so well that even a cockatrice would run home to Mommy after I'm done with it! I mean, just look at her back there staring at me as if I ju-huh?!" Small Change's words stop as he turned back to point a hoof at the mare only to see she's gone! They only turned their backs for a few seconds and she vanished. To top it off, they are in a wide path with the closest structures being a couple of tent stands some feet away and some buildings built with adjacent walls with no alleys between them for somepony to hide. How could she have moved so fast without them even noticing her? "Buddy, let's get out of here. This place is really starti-AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!" Small Change turns back to face the road only to see the mare standing right in front of them again! Once more, she glowers just as strongly as before at them. The unicorn's patience has left him. "That's it, shorty! Mare or no mare, you've made me mad so make like a parasprite and buzz off!" He then rears up his body to come down with a crushing blow at the strange pony. Without a second to spare, the mare swings her cape around and manages to snag Small Change. She begins to gallop around him with great speed, becoming a miniature whirlwind as she goes around and around him. Razor could just stand there shocked as the pony stops galloping, showing his unicorn cohort wound up tightly in the pony's cape. With one forceful tug, she quickly unravels him and he spins out like a tornado until he crashes into an empty bushel basket and goes down for the count. Razor looks down at the costumed pony staring up at him. "You little runt! When I'm done with you, you'll be nothing but Diamond Dog kibble!" He then unloads his saddlebags and prepares himself. He starts off by swinging his hooves out at the mare and the smaller opponent merely hops from one incoming jab to another. The earth stallion then holds his ground and launches a powerful roundhouse buck with both hind legs towards her and she ducks in the nick of time. Despite her head avoiding the blow, her hat was hit by the impact and falls to the floor. She turns to stare at her crumpled hat and immediately looks back at Razor with rage in her eyes. The stallion again starts with a jab only for the pony to grab her hat and toss it at his face, causing him to stumble around blindly with unconcentrated swings. She blocks his closest strikes with ease and manages to land one of her own on his chest, not enough to hit him hard but enough to knock some wind out of him. She then follows it by jumping up and clapping her front hooves together at the sides of his head to further dizzy him. Razor feels a stinging pain and ringing from his head by the mare's impact as he finally shakes the hat off his face. Fuming, he lowers his thick head ready to swing upward to try and aim for the pony's jawbone. The mare immediately counters by placing both her front hooves forward just as he lifts his heavy head, allowing her to shoot upwards into the air by the force. Staring up while maintaining his balance from the earlier ear-ringing, Razor looks up to see the mare do a gymnastic flip in mid air and aims both her hind legs forward in a powerful drill kick that hits him directly on the top of his head. The blow is more than enough to make him stumble and crash on the floor, unconscious. The mare walks back where Razor tossed her hat earlier and places it back on her head. She then stands up in alert and swiftly rolls to the side. A magical aura-enhanced cart just misses her by inches as it breaks into splinters on the ground she stood on. Looking back in direction of the cart's flight, Small Change is there with a black eye and a lump over his snout. His horn glows fiercely as he picks up another cart from nearby and tosses it at her. The mare once again dodges with ease. By now, the unicorn had just about enough as he starts to grab whatever is around nearby. Bushes, wooden wheels, empty crates, hay carts, a kitchen sink, and anything else that isn't firmly planted on the floor are flinged at the mare. Lowering her eyes carefully, she leaps into the air and lands nimbly on one of the tossed hay carts. Maintaining balance, she jumps from item to item as she approaches her target. Small Change just stands there in shock and fear. Who is this mysterious mare? Why is she so good?! Finally, she jumps off the spokes of one wooden wheel thrown at her, spreads her legs out, and belly-flops right on top of Small Change, putting an end to his attacks. Lying hurt on the ground, he looks up with his remaining good eye and sees the mare standing over him, her cold blue eyes staring at him. Small Change finally is unable to take it anymore. "No...No...NO!!! Please...Somepony! ANYPONY! GET THIS WEIRD MARE AWAY FROM ME! PLEASE!" With that, he crosses his front legs over his face and begins to weep. Soon, he begins to hear voices and looks up to see that not only the mare has vanished, but some of the townsponies start to wake as lights turn on everywhere and they come out to see what the ruckus is all about. Small Change didn't care for whatever the Royal Courts would throw at him. Anything is better than staying in Ponyville and meeting that scary costumed pony again. He immediately confesses to his crime, tells them he tied the spa twins up, reveals all the stolen loot, and even starts to confess to a variety crimes throughout Equestria committed by both him and Razor that spanned from Manehatten to Trottingham. The townspeople were all shocked but have a feeling what happened just now. "It’s Mare-Do-Well! Mare-Do-Well saved us all again!" the Flower Trio proclaim in unison as everypony begins to cheer. Soon enough, word is sent to Canterlot and right on time, some Royal Guard Pegasi arrive with a prison cart. They haul Small Change and the unconscious Razor inside and fly back to Canterlot. All the while, the unicorn keeps shouting and confessing crimes in fear the “weird mare” would return, including the time he once stole an extra cookie from the pantry without his mother’s knowledge. Other ponies take the saddlebags with the stolen items back to the spa ponies, who are later untied, told about what happened and they give a silent thank you to "Mare-Do-Well" for saving their business. They then are taken to the hospital for any trauma from the ordeal. As all this occured, Mare-Do-Well looks down silently at her grateful populace from her vantage point on top of a nearby roof, cape flapping against the night breeze. Another disaster averted. Nodding once, she turns around and hops away nimbly from rooftop to rooftop. ************************************* Twilight Sparkle heard the commotion happening outside but didn't even see fit to venture out, knowing whatever disaster occured, it would be quickly taken care of. With a soft reddish aura, she flips the next page in the tome she is currently studying and writes down notes with a quill and scroll nearby. Suddenly, the door to the library creaks open, spooking Owlowiscious from his perch. Twilight doesn't bother turning around as she knows exactly who it is. "So what was it tonight? Drunk carting? Mugging? Burglary? Robbery? The Crusaders again on one of their midnight cutie mark quests?" Twilight muses as she moves on to the next page. Silence. The prized unicorn pupil sighs and turns around seeing Mare-Do-Well stand there silently. Eyes just fixed on her with no emotion. "Wow. I really am impressed. You really take this whole business seriously. It would make it harder for me to communicate with you despite you being the Ponyville Charades Champ as you said so. Relax. You can go back to being you here." Mare-Do-Well nods once as she takes off her hat and reaches down to her neck to reveal a secret seam. Softly pulling up, her mask crumples towards the cape to the cape it's attached to and reveals the sweat-soaked but still smiling expression of Pinkie Pie. "Oooh, you should have seen my slick moves out there, Twilight! I was all waaaaaaaah hi-yah! and managed to leap in the air and smacked a huge stallion that would make Big MacIntosh look like a colt and even when he was Little Mac he was quite the scrapper as he singlehandedly managed to knock out a crazy bald bull that trespassed on Sweet Apple Acres one time with one good buck to the stomach according to a story Applejack told me when she was a little filly and that reminds me that I really should thank her for giving me her training shoes she used growing up to fortify Bucky McGillicutty...or was it Kicks McGee? But it really really helped me out! Oh, and then this really big meanypants unicorn came out and started throwing everything at me. Shoom! Shoom! Shoom! Shoom! I jumped on each one as my twitchy-tail went mad, but how can it be mad if it's just my tail? I like it being happy and what make me happy are parties with chocolate cake and muffins and cupcakes and sarsaparilla and dancing to my jam and playing Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Pon..." Twilight quickly grabs the Mare-Do-Well mask with her magic and pulls it back over Pinkie Pie's face, causing her to finally stop talking. At least she is gracious to keep that rule that while in costume with the mask on she never has to talk. Twilight sighs in relief and finally looks at her costumed friend. "Pinkie, I don't know what motivates you. After what we did to Rainbow Dash, you insisted on keeping your costume while Applejack, Fluttershy and I threw ours away much to Rarity's fit and then told us you wanted to stay as her. Do you... really enjoy being a hero?" Mare-Do-Well lowers her head a bit and gives a small nod. The purple unicorn and the rest of her friends have asked her why she does what she does. Being both Ponyville Premier Party Planner and Assistant Baker in Sugar Cube Corner as well as Mare-Do-Well would be tiring for any regular pony, but not Pinkie. She just seems to have extra energy to spare. Sure, the ponies all wonder why Mare-Do-Well doesn't use magic anymore like she did when she fixed the dam or uses wings like when she flew by after that deed, but they are still happy to have her around. After observing her from a careful distance while remembering the last time she tried to question Pinkie's abilities all too painfully, Twilight simply deduced that the ponies of Ponyville have hope in their hearts having a hero who never backs down like Mare-Do-Well and protecting them in times where asking for aid from Cantelot nearby took too long. Pinkie, being the embodiment of the Element of Laughter, must feed off the joy felt by others and that gives her strength. How else could her Pinkie Sense and strange interactions of the natural world seem to help her all the time? She was practically born to be a supermare. Hence, why she and the rest of the girls decided to simply let her continue with the mantle of Mare-Do-Well. Any other pony would have burned out by now from having such an exhausting double life that Pinkie Pie the party hostess/bakery helper and Mare-Do-Well the mysterious heroine embody, but she does it just fine. With a satisfied sigh, she places a front hoof on her costumed friend's side. "Please never change. You are both Laughter and now Hope. Never lose those ideals which both the Elements of Harmony and the ponies of Ponyville bestow upon you. You are welcome to visit me anytime in case you need to read more books on Far East martial arts whenever you desire, ok?" Mare-Do-Well, despite not being able to show any facial expression, has her blue cloth suddenly turn moist patch as a small tear manages to seep out from the mask and land on the floor as she gives her purple unicorn friend a silent hug. After releasing her, she puts her hat back on, flings her cape around and softly moves up the stairs towards the open window. Twilight turns around and uses her magic to once again pick up the quill. "Don't be a stranger now," she calls out only to know she was long gone. The prize pupil merely smiles. How long she wishes to send a friendship report about this to Princess Celestia but decides not to for fear somepony or other would read it and find out Mare-Do-Well's secret identity. All she, the rest of her friends and Spike who know that identity can do is cheer silently from the sidelines. The Legend of Mare-Do-Well trots along.