//------------------------------// // Chapter 11 // Story: A New Challenge // by xzillerationer //------------------------------// Chapter 11. Back to Alpha, it seems. I got back to my hotel room, and was alone for a few hours. It was boring. My computers weren't set up, so I couldn't use them, there was no one to talk to, I didn't even think about reading, either. So I just watched TV. It wasn't all that good. I'll spare you my boredom, and cut to when Omega walked in. “I just had the most amazing night!” Omega said, plopping down on his bed, obviously tired from whatever transpired that evening. “Oh? What would that be? Went on a date did you?” Omega nodded. “Wait, I thought you had the hots for Princess Luna!” “I do.” Omega was already confusing me. “Then why'd you go on a date with another pony?” “I didn't.” His short replies were annoying me. “So...wait...you went on a date with Nightmare Moon?” This seemed to get him riled up. “She's not Nightmare Moon! Her name is Luna!” So, what just happened was, while I was off meeting, and striking out, with the pony of MY dreams, the pony of his dreams agreed to go on a date with him? My pony was but a simple unicorn, not even nobility. His was a motherbucking Princess! “You went on a date with Princess Luna!? How'd you get her to agree to that!” “I agreed. She asked me out.” At this point, I was sitting on the edge of my bed. I promptly fell back, landing with a distinct thud onto my mattress in sheer...I'll admit it, sheer jealousy. “The Princess asked you out?! What spell did you cast to make her do that?!” “I didn't, she's had a crush on me since we met back at Nightmare Night all those years ago.” Obviously there's no way any sane pony could keep a crush on someone for that long, but, then again, we're talking about the Princess of the Night-ow. “Wow, you really know how to get some flank!” My teasing was always fun. “It wasn't that kind of date, although she did fall asleep on my shoulder on the ride home.” “Wait, ride home? As in, it wasn't in Canterlot?” Sigh. “No, it was in Ponyville. Enough about me, I saw you with that mare, how much flank are you getting?” “Wha-oh, tons! I got so much that I'm just giving it away!” “So you got none?” Hopefully my plan would succeed, though. Simply asking out Twilight would likely result in disaster, so over the next week I planned to get to know her, make her fall in love with me! Then she'll awkwardly ask me out, and I'll nobly say yes, because that's the kind of stallion I am, a gentlepony. “I'm working on it.” Damn I was smooth. “Uh huh. So you struck out?” “Yes. And I have no idea how to fix it!” “Relax! You just met her! She can't be that golden!” She was purple. “You don't know that! You know me! How many mares do I look at!” “It's not about quantit-” I cut Omega off. “HOW MANY MARES?!” “One.” “Yes, one.” I rolled over in my bed and went to sleep. I was tired, I was sad, and I didn't want to piss him off. I'll tell you the story of that other mare. It was Nightmare Night, in Ponyville. I was dressed as a mouse. A computer mouse. I thought it was clever. Omega didn't think so. Speaking of Omega, he had gone his separate way by this point. I was in line for some punch, when a mare dressed as a scarecrow approached me. It was late, so I was really tired by this point. I kinda just wanted to get some punch and go. “Howdy, Ah ain't seen you 'round these parts much. You new around here?” She asked. “Oh, yeah, sort of.” “Sorta? What does that mean?” She looked at me with an inquisitive eye, and a cocked eyebrow. “I don't live here, I'm just visiting some family. We don't really celebrate Nightmare Night where I'm from.” Omega said that if my timing was correct, this is about when he met Luna. “Visitin' some family? Now that's respectable. Where ya from?” “I'm from Canterborough, but I grew up in Cloudsdale.” “Cloudsdale, eh? Do ya know Rainbow Dash?” Who? “No...?” “Oh, well, worth a shot. Anyways, y'all look awfully tired. Why haven't ya started heading home yet? Or, at least the place yer stayin'?” “Oh, I dunno.” “Alpha, wake up. We have to start setting up the servers today.” Huh? Wha? “Alpha, wake up.” I was jolted awake by my bed suddenly not being under me. “Alright, alright! I'm up!” I said in a groggy manner, that which seems to be the standard for ponies that aren't morning ponies like Omega. “Come on! A couple guards took the stuff already, and plugged everything in. We just have to go configure the firmware.” I looked at Omega with a spite of malice. “Fine.” I won't bore you with the details of that, but we already had everything basically preconfigured. I had to adjust some of the DNS and AD settings, and we were good to go. It left us with a lot of time to hang around the castle. “Alpha?” “Yes, Omega?” “What are we doing?” Truth be told, I don't know what we were doing. Although, later I did find out that Luna had cast a spell on us. But that's irrelevant. We wandered into the kitchen at about lunchtime. There I saw an orange mare I would come to know as Applejack. Luckily, we caught her at a slow point. “Oh, hey there, what can Ah do for ya?” She said. “We got hungry. This place smelled good.” This caused Applejack to chuckle. “Well, we got food aplenty. Don't you worry 'bout that. Grab somethin', we won't be making the actual treats for the wedding until the day before. Keeps 'em fresh.” My mouth watered as I looked over the delectable treats, in disbelief that these would be made for no reason other than practice. “Damn.” I let out as I tasted one, it was just as good as it looked. “You know, I've always loved baked apples.” “Ah, really? That's my specialty, ya know.” She seemed so proud. “Well, got anything else? Like, any meals?” I didn't want to eat cupcakes for lunch, really. “Well, ah got some stuff fer sandwiches, but that's it, we don't really have much in the way of meal foods, most of it will be delivered soon, as Ah'm gonna be making more about the day before fer the actual wedding.” “Sandwiches sound good.” They did. We had our sandwiches, and left. One day I'll have to befriend Applejack. She sounds like an interesting pony to be friends with. We were wandering around when I found a party pony, bouncing around. Apparently this was usual. “Hey! You're that pony that's setting up the computers!” Well, she wasn't that bad. “Yes, I am. My name is-” “Your name is Alpha! I was at the dinner last night! I was so excited when I heard there was a pony there I hadn't met! It meant a new friend!” “I always look forward to new friends!” I put my hoof around Omega. “This one isn't very good.” He grimaced. “I could be both your friends!” Omega slipped away, obviously not enjoying the bromance, with a poor excuse. “I think I hear Luna calling!” And galloped away before I could rebut. Pinkie looked somewhat confused. “Why would Princess Luna call him?” “He and her are dating, as of last night it's official.” Hmm, that went smoothly. “Woah! Dating a Princess! That must be awesome! I bet Twilight's brother knows what that is like!” “You know Twilight?” Pinkie was a VERY interesting character.... “I do! I'm one of her absolute best friends! We hang out all the time!” She bounced, and beamed at the same time. I'm not sure how. “Really? Maybe you could help me with that.” “Oh! Do you want to be her best friend to? You can't have too many best friends!” “Well, about that.” I had started blushing, which was surprisingly easy to see through my white coat. Well, not really. Pinkie seemed to pick up on my cues. “Oh! You like like Twilight, don't you!” If there were any other pony around, I'd shush her, but we were alone for some reason. “....y-yes.” I started to hang my head when Pinkie picked up back up. “No need to feel ashamed! Twilight's a great pony! I'm sure you two would get along great!” “Well, we do, but I was too nervous to do anything and I think I struck out...” “Struck out?” Despite her being wise to the romantic process, she was a bit clueless to that term. Well, it doesn't exactly have much usage outside of Canterborough. “It means I did poorly, as in she'll never date me.” “Silly! I'm sure that's not true! Twilight is one of the most forgiving ponies I know! She's just awesome!” I put on a fake smile. “You sure? I'm sure she'd never go for a stallion like me.” Dropping my smile, I sighed. “She'll never go for a pegasus.” Pinkie, obviously seeing my distress, jumped and sat down next to me. “Come now, I'm sure she'd love you, if you let her.” I raised my head in confusion. “After all, her brother is marrying a pegasus! And a unicorn. She's also an earth pony.” “An alicorn?” “Exactly!” Pinkie's cheerfulness distracted me for a moment, but also brought a smile to my face. I close my eyes, and when I open them, she was gone. That was weird. Looking around a bit, I decided to head off when I didn't find any traces of her anymore. I instead ran into Twilight. Well, sorta. She seemed kinda...off. Unfortunately for me, it was dark, so I couldn't stay and chat. Plus her friends were also there. So, I went back to my hotel room. I fell asleep quickly, to my delight. I woke up to a moon in my face.