//------------------------------// // Taking Residents // Story: My Little Caboose: Blue is Magic! // by DarkWing //------------------------------// "Well that was fun." Sarge chuckled once they were a safe distance away from the restaurant. "I'm surprised those snooty guys got so into it." "Being up here has to be kind of boring, so they'd probably jump at any chance for fun." Rainbow Dash smirked. "Highlight of my week right there." "The highlight of mine was that we actually dined with Fancypants. Who would have known my designs would get to be seen in one of Flint Westhoof's pieces." Rarity said, starry-eyed. She turned to Simmons and coughed. "I mean our pieces of course." "So how did you like dinner Tex?" Twilight asked. "After all, we did come here for you." "It was nice... I think..." Tex shrugged. "I don't know, it was something else, that's for sure." "Something else is an understatement." Church said, shaking his head lightly. "But the food was surprisingly not terrible, Tex kept her low profile, and nobody got anything hurt besides their pride, so I guess I could consider this night a success." "I'm surprised by how well you're taking this." Tucker noted. "I thought you'd be-" "Do you have any idea how fucking stupid you are breaking out your key like that?" Church asked flatly. "What if someone had noticed?" "They didn't dude, I made sure I made it bright. Besides, they were too busy fighting to pay any attention to anything else." "How did you make it bright anyways?' Twilight asked. "I wouldn't have thought you'd have control over that sort of thing." "I'm just that good." Tucker laughed. "Probably had to do with all the reflective surfaces." Twilight said dismissively as they reached the train station. "What happened?" The stallion at the station gasped. "Got into a heck of a food fight, that's what happened." Applejack smirked. "Fourteen tickets t' Ponyville. Split 'em evenly between two carts again." "Alright." The stallion smiled. Caboose opened his mouth, but Church put his hoof over it instinctively for two seconds, when he was sure Caboose had lost his train of thought. "Er, I apologize, but I have to go grab some tickets out of the back." The stallion muttered quietly, disappearing into the back room. "I got so much chocolate in my mane you can't even see it's natural colors..." Rainbow Dash sighed as she grabbed a piece of cake off of her mane and dropped it to the ground. "You look good as a brunette." Tucker smiled. "Gee thanks." Rainbow Dash muttered. "Was that bit at the end really necessary?" "I admit, it might have been little overkill but it was Sarge's idea." "If AJ didn't get me with that cheap shot I would have played fair." Sarge muttered. "Cry me a river." Applejack said sarcastically. "Speakin' of outdoin' each other, ah was thinkin' we should restart our lil' competition." "And why would we do that?" Sarge laughed roughly. "I've already proven I'm better." "Really now?" Applejack said with a raised brow. "Th' way ah see it ya only have one point while ah have two." "How so?" "Ya'll guilted me into givin' you two of your points. Once with the timberwolves, an' another with Carolina." "That's because you ran away." "Because ya'll told me to. The first time ah needed to run away on account a th' girls, n' th' second time ah had t' go warn th' others. One of us had to go either way, just so happens that you volunteered to go into danger, so ah hardly say those times count." "She has a point, Sarge." Grif smirked. "But my ankle doesn't work as well as it used to since it got stabbed." "Nonsense, ah've seen ya run just fine with it." Applejack tutted. "What's wrong, are ya scared?" "Fine, we can start it over." Sarge said confidently. "But don't come crying to me when you lose again." "If it's any consolation, I can help you come up with some competitions." Grif said. "Do that and you're dead." The back room's door opened, and the stallion strutted out with several tickets, so the group lined up to grab their respective ticket. "Sorry for the wait." The stallion said, holding out the tickets. When Rainbow Dash and Applejack reached for their tickets, he pulled his hoof away and motioned to the room next to him. "You have a few minutes until the train leaves, so do you mind cleaning yourselves up a bit in there? We already had to replace the seats once tonight, I don't think anypony wants do do it a second time." "Sure." Rainbow Dash and Applejack nodded, trotting into the room to clean themselves off. "So, a food fight, huh?" The stallion asked as Pinkie and Caboose went for their tickets. "Yeah, it was a doozy too!" Pinkie giggled. "I never knew that the fancy unicorns up here could be so much fun." "You'd be surprised." The stallion nodded. "In my line of work, I've seen a lot of ponies act one way, then turn out to be just as normal as everyone else." Rainbow Dash and Applejack came out a few moments later. "Looking good." Tucker said, squinting his eyes to focus on her mane which still had a relative amount of cake in it. "Missed a spot." "Let's board already." Rainbow Dash said, trotting to the cart. The group quickly went into the separate carts and settled in their seats, waiting for the ticket collector to come by. Church looked at Sarge, whose face showed that he was thinking about something. After a few minutes, the door opened and the ticket collector walked in. "Hey, sorry about the cushions..." Church said quietly when the stallion took his ticket. "Don't worry about it." The stallion said hastily, forcing a laugh. "What's wrong?" The stallion looked at the door to the other cart, making sure that nobody was standing near it. "I think we should pay for the seats, so just-" "Don't worry about paying, pal." The stallion shivered. "That red headed mare scares me." "Don't worry, she has that effect on everyone." Grif laughed. The stallion nodded and walked into the other cart to collect the girls tickets. "Uh, small thing here, but don't the other fragments have to eat now too?" Sarge coughed. "Oh shit." Church lunged off of his seat, but eased back into it and sighed. "We shouldn't worry. Delta probably already thought of that." "But how will he know if something is edible or not?" Simmons asked." I mean, none of us know for sure what we can eat. All we've been eating is stuff we could have gotten before." "And thousands of apples." Sarge murmured. "I'll check on them tomorrow." Church explained quietly. "Tex is already fitting in, so there is no sense in leaving them down there." "So I guess that Gary guy is coming up next, huh?" Spike asked. "Yeah, and we're going to need a place for him to stay. There's no more room at Twilight's, and I'm sure as hell not sharing my bed with him." "I can see what I can do about him staying at Sweet Apple Acres." "You'd do that? Why?" Church asked hesitantly. "Now that the Apple family sort of sees me as family, there's talk of Applebloom moving her bed into AJ's room so I can take up her old room since they don't like the idea of family sleeping in the dirt." Sarge shrugged, but added a small smile. "I think that this might give them that little push to get it done. Besides, I want to have a little chat with that Gary guy." "Sure thing. Thanks." "And there is probably enough room in there for a couple more of them. A lot of rope too, just in case we need to string 'em up for bad behavior." Sarge chuckled. "Wow." Grif said, feigning a gasp. "Sarge, I'm surprised. That plan didn't even involve-" "I say we test the rope on Grif first, just in case. You know, to make sure it's in proper roping condition. We may want to punish them, but we don't want to give them serious rope burn!" "And there it is." Grif muttered as the train began leaving the station.