Shot Down to Earth

by Ruuis


Chapter 1

Hoity-Toity, being a great fashion critic, never actually slowed his pace in life, never stopped to appreciate the finer things in life. He was always in one place or another, passing his judicial critique upon whatever item of fashion that was required out of him. Whether or not it crushed somepony's desperate dream of being successful in the fashion world very rarely mattered to him; he was only doing his job. Clean and calculating, with a superiority complex towards everypony, he continued, never once really thinking about what he was doing. Yet, fate, the ever unpredictable card player in the poker game of life, would have a twist in store for him.

Hoity was very, very excited. Normally he only got that excited when he was about to do something that would portend a massive opportunity in his life, and this particular event that he was to undertake was just the thing. He was going to this social gathering in Ponyville, at which all the big names in fashions would be involved; he had to go. The thing about fashion, or indeed any industry, was that participants had to make connections, and make them deep. Any social event, any gathering, anything that contained several ponies of note, had to be attended. It was either that, or a loss of a significant amount of power, enough to make ponies doubt the capabilities of the missing pony. It's sort of like being on a battlefield, if anypony stopped moving, they ended up getting shot. Hoity knew that this would be an excellent chance. This meant ponies would end up asking him to critique their work. In other words, in the fashion industry Social events equaled work.

His flight left at lunch, with a five hour journey to Ponyville. It was a long and tedious flight, and Hoity hated travelling. He could endure everything else that life threw at him, but flights were his pet peeve; and being a fashion critic, he got a lot of it. He had to fly practically everyday. He hated the annoyance of being in a carriage in the back which constantly wobbled, the tedium of the scenery and mostly importantly, hardly any pony contact. It was as if he were trapped in a particularly unstable room and given nothing to stabilize it, and no company for five or so hours. The worse thing was that he couldn't do anything about it, really. It was either that or trains, which Hoity hated more than flying, because it meant stupid, unworthy ponies asking him stupid questions and ponies desperately suckering up to him trying to trying to get him to look at their work. It was part of the many pains that came with being famous. The famous ended up with persistent pestilences around every corner, so much so that they could never just go outside, or just go shopping without ever bumping into something or some sort of undesirable.

Hoity lost track of the time a while ago. He ended up going to sleep; it was the only way to make the journey slightly tolerable. This served him well, right until he was woken up by a stirring jolt, which violently shook the carriage.
"What dares interrupt my sleep?!" Barked Hoity, intimidating the younger pegasus desperately trying (and failing) to do his job.
"Sir!" the pegasus began, as true boot-licking was about the only thing that would save him. "There's been a shot fired, sir!"
"A shot? As in, a gunshot?" Inquired Hoity, his voice dripping with worry.
"Sir, yes Sir!" The pegasus answered, starting to think upon his own slim survival prospects.
Hoity was preparing to bark some orders at the young pegasus; as he began to draw breath, another shot was fired. This ended up resulting in complete obliteration of the carriage floor underneath Hoity, plunging him downwards.