//------------------------------// // Duel 00 Pt3: The Party Animal // Story: Confessions of a Lone Vagabond // by Azure5555 //------------------------------// Welp… party. I stared at my apparel which consisted of my jacket, my only tee shirt, my cap and goggles, my only pair of jeans, and my boots. I gave a sigh and thought maybe I could summon some clothing instead, but I wasn't gonna try and fit myself into the Forbidden Dress and I wasn't gonna go as a monster as Pinkie expressly told me I'd be going as myself for this one… A knock at my door shook me from my musings as I made for the door. “Speak of the devil…” I opened the door and Pinkie had this cabaret outfit on as she gave me a really big toothy smile. “Hey Diane, we uh… going dancing?” She dropped her smile for a second as she blushed and tried to hide her face. “W-well Applejack said you usually wear clothes s-so I thought I might… um you know…” She kinda looked down to the side as she kicked the dirt. Oh riiiiight… ponies don't clothing. “Look, Diane,” Her ears perked up and she huffed out a rather sizeable ball of steam. “You don't need to wear anything if you feel uncomfortable.” Somehow she balanced herself on her hind legs and started to frantically wave her forelegs in objection. “Noooo… no no no no… tonight's all about you!” She dropped down and gave me that toothy smile again, though it looked like she was really uncomfortable in the outfit if her flushed and sweaty face was anything to go by. Shrugging, I closed my door and set up my various house traps as I walked past my welcome wagon. “So Diane,” I could see her visibly tense from the corner of my eye as she bit her lip… for some reason. “You plan every party in town, or am I a special case?” She shakes her head from her daze and jumps forward to catch up to me, following my lead as we cut through the forest of death and darkness. “Oh… well. It's kind of my job to throw parties,” She says as she looks up at me, her eyes going wide as she clings to my leg. “Not that you aren't special!” She lets go and her eyes shrink back to normalcy. “You're the first non-pony I've thrown a party for! I mean, that's pretty special right?” She looked to me again, her features a lot less flushed as she beamed another smile at me. This small pony sure did like to smile. We finally reached the edge of the forest, the light of the night shining down upon us as if in greeting. Pinkie then sort of started to drag me away, almost as if she was afraid that being under the moon would cause her to burst into flames. “Woah, slow down!” I cried as I tried to pull my arm away from her vice grip. “But everypony’s waiting for you!” She said with fear in her voice. “Can't keep guests waiting right?” She jumped and all of a sudden we were front in centre of a gingerbread house. I looked back to the edge of town, surprised to find that the edge of the forest was waaaaay out of sight and that we should not have arrived that fast. “Uhh…” I stared at the seemingly abandoned confectionary with a bit of caution as I stepped back, only for Pinks to start nudging my butt with her head. “Come on, don't be a scaredy pony. It'll be great!” She kept nudging til I was nose first on the chocolate brown door. Curious, I sniffed the door to find that it was really just heavily decorated wood. Finally, I pushed against the finely lacquered door and walked into the awaiting darkness, a copy of Destiny Hero Defender already in my fingers. The door closed and the lights were ignited, several ponies in various costumes and dresses and suits all yelling a single word. “SURPRISE!” Pinkie had shocked me from my daze via a party favor going off in front of my face. I shook my head just in time to get bombarded by several ponies looking to shake my hand or get me to open up. I was maybe pulled through EVERY corner of the room as I was quite forcefully introduced to a large portion of the town populace. Before I knew it, I was finally sitting in a chair and catching my breath with a piece of cake in one hand and a cup of punch in the other. “What… what just happened…” I asked to no one in particular as I felt the room spin. Shutting my eyes, I took a quick swig of the liquid in my hand before biting off a piece of cake. That was my first mistake. The world slowed to a crawl until it all just… stopped. I blinked. Then I blinked again. I kept blinking in the vain hope that maybe I wasn't hallucinating and that maybe I hadn't just been drugged, but then I blinked one too many times. This was my second mistake. I wasn't looking at a stock still room filled with ponies anymore, instead what greeted my vision was a black screen and several gold colored lines of code. I never learned code, so this was completely foreign to me. Once the code finally stopped, my vision blinked back to the party and to a mint greenish unicorn staring me in the face. “Come on Lyra, you can talk to him later! This is probably his first Pinkie Party!” A harsh female voice called as ‘Lyra’ was dragged off by her tail, whining about how she knew that humans existed or something. “What… just happened?” I asked to no one in particular. Again. “Howdy partner! Enjoying yerself fer once?” I snapped my head to the side and caught sight of Applejack. She was wearing this awkward denim vest with an accentuated collar and her Stetson. “I don't really know…” I shakily plopped my empty cup and plate on the floor, wondering slightly how both had been emptied. Applejack started to rub my face a little forcefully as I flinched. “Sorry, sugarcube. Had a little smudge round your face.” She licked at her napkin and applied it to my face again, flinching herself as I sort of pawed her away. It was at this time I noticed Pinks behind her as well as three other ponies of whom I've yet to actually interact with. “Oh right, lemme introduce y’all!” She slid Pinks over as the mare in question happily waved at me. “Heard bout how you two met, musta been a real doozy that one.” “Oh no way! It was really fun! He was all,” Pinks put on a black feathered headdress and a hollowed out stick. “This, is my... BOOMSTICK! Then I was all,” She then removed her head dress and stick for a… pudding hat… and a cane. “Oh no! You ate my sweets! Then he gave me this really evil laugh!” She then got up on her hind legs, put one foreleg on her hip and used the other to twirl a mustache. “Hahaha! Mine is an evil laugh!!” This actually garnered the attention of some of the other party goers, a few gave me worried looks. So, in an effort to run damage control I got off my seat and slung my arm around her neck casually. “Ha! Ah haha… oh Diane, always a character.” This did nothing to mitigate the damage wrought. Instead they looked at me with increasingly reddening faces and audible gasps… I think I made them mad. Pinks looked away with an equally reddining face. I gave a nervous chuckle and pulled my arm away, though it was kinda damp from sweat. “Yes! Well…” A cough from the resident seamstress, garbed in an immense and bright white and violet princess dress, eased the growing tension as the gawking patrons dispersed. “My apologies for Miz Pie, she can be quite jarring when it comes to new arrivals." Rarity was pushed to the side by a blue pegasus with rainbow colored hair and wearing a vest with a lightning bolt for a pin. “Yeah yeah, look pal. If AJ wasn't vetting for you, I'dve kicked your sorry flanks outta Ponyville by now.” This caused Rarity to give an audible gasp of disbelief, Pinkie to lose a bit of her fluff, and Applejack to snort angrily. “Rainbow!” Rarity shouted. “I shall not have such a…” She looked at me as she ran a hoof along my leg. “Wondrous and exotic visitor be talked down to as if he were no better than an animal!” “I'm inclined to take Rare’s side on this one, sugarcube. Yeah I had mah share a misgivings with Vince too, but he's awful nice when he finally decides ta say mor an a few words!” Applejack added in my defense. Rainbow scoffed and started to walk away. “Whatever, you can all come crying back to me once he’s eaten your families. I won't even say I told you so!” She finally walked away, leaving the girls and a couple of the patrons more than a little stunned. “Don't mind her none, Vince. RD’s real loyal, and she's just worried y’all might be more trouble than Timberwolves on Zap Apple season.” Applejack shot me an apologetic glance as she nudged another pony who had seemingly hid behind Pinks. This new pony was also a pegasus, she was this… butter colored and pink haired ball of nerves and fear. She was wearing a pair of baggy blue pony pants, a red Chinese styled vest with those black rope like hooks to keep the thing on, and her hair was done up in a massive braid. “Oh sweet Jesus she's adorable.” I whispered as I knelt down to meet her gaze. The scared thing started backing up, trying her best to hide behind the mass of fluff of her hair that wasn't tied down. “I'm Vincent, it's nice to meet you.” I put out my hand, palm up and close to my chest. She looked to her friends, back to my hand and my smiling face, then back to her friends, and shook her head. Instead, she took a small step forward and did her best to look me in the eyes. “Um… my name's Fluttershy…” She whispered in an inaudible tone, but I still managed to hear her. “Fluttershy? That's a cute name, it's very you.” I replied with a gentle voice. The others started giving me looks, wondering how it was I even heard her. Of course the mare in question simply shrunk back in embarrassment, a mad blush on her face. “Th-thank you? Um… well… mmm…” Fluttershy thusly started to hug the floor, whimpering an adorable whimper as she did so. Nodding, I took out my deck and started going through it just to see if I had anything for this situation. Lo and behold, I had a copy of Rescue Cat and decided to load it into my disk. Much to everyone’s surprise, I turned into a tiny brown white cat wearing a yellow hard hat adorned with a cross. When Shy finally opened her eyes to look at me, well it was like she was a whole other perso- er… pony. She quickly took me into a hug, running her hoof along my head and told me how cute I looked. Honestly, I couldn't help but purr. “So that's how y’all do it,” Applejack commented. “Mighty fine light show iff’n ya ask me.” "Yeah, and I have a thousand plus library of cards to choose from," I answered happily, Fluttershy having started to run her nose along my cheek. "I can adapt to any given situation on the fly." "Oh, are you able to turn into more critters?" The shy mare asked. Shrugging, I took off my cap and started licking my arm to clean my head. "Mmm… Yeah, I guess I am~" I mutter as more and more ponies crowd around me. That was when the questions rolled in. Can you turn into a flower? Can you turn into an automaton? Can you make money? How big can you get? Heck, I think one of them asked me if I was a pony in disguise. One thing lead to another, and three slices of cake later and I was showcasing as much as I could...