Marketplace
Sweetie’s POV
...
Big Mike, who was a few yards away from us, started walking over. He was still thumping his ear to try getting his hearing back to normal.
"How can Big Mike help?!" He shouted. Big Mac and I both flinched.
When Mike got close enough, I took in a breath. “Sorry for screaming,” I loudly called at him. “You know. For. Almost two minutes straight,” I trailed off.
“It’s okay,” he assured me. “Big Mike will be fine when he can feel his ears again!” He gave me two big thumbs up, something else that I understood from knowing Spike.
I nodded along. "That's...great..."
I looked anywhere but towards him while Big Mac started trying to talk to him. Thanks to how terrible this hay bale tasted, I didn't want to look at that. So, in order to avoid the guilt, I stared at the shiny plastic parts at the ends of my fingers.
They all went a little past where the fingers ended and seemed kind of solid. Like they were the last few pieces of my hooves.
They looked kind of nice the way they branched from the center of my claws where my Cutie Mark was. It was as if the claws looked like little suns.
Wait. Cutie Mark?
I held up my claw to the light and stared at the back of it. Sitting there, being completely different colors from my claw, was a shield made of red, light purple, and dark purple. Inside of that was a star with a music note in the center.
My Cutie Mark.
My Cutie Mark?
“Big McIntosh?” I tried looking at him but my eyes were trapped on my Cutie Mark. “Is there anything on the back of your claws?”
I saw Big Mac’s shadow move around and after a brief pause I had my answer.
“Eeyup.”
Forcing my eyes to look and, yep, on the backs of his claws was his Cutie Mark, a giant green apple.
Then he glanced down and saw mine.
“...I don’t remember this,” I told him.
His shadow showed him turning his head to the side.
“I don’t remember getting them,” I repeated. “Why can’t I remember my Cutie Mark?”
“What’s a Cutie Mark?!” Big Mike walked over. He was still loud but it was getting better.
What’d he just ask me? That question nearly took me by more surprise than my own Marks.
“A Cutie Mark,” I repeated louder. He probably still can’t hear me. Double oops.
Big Mike shook his head. “Never heard of it.”
What? “What?” My brain and my mouth blurted the same thing. “What do you mean you don’t know what a Cutie Mark is?!”
Big Mike frowned. “Is it a new toy or something?”
I could feel my eye twitching. So, to see if it would help, I held up my Cutie Mark for him to see.
When he got close enough I saw a light go off in his head. “Oh, you mean a tattoo! Yeah, Big Mike’s not a fan of those!”
“No, not a tattoo.” I pointed to his claws. “Don’t you have Cutie Marks?”
“Nope.” He blinked. Then his face faded into horror. “Wait, do I?!” Big Mike looked at the back of his hands and gave a sigh of relief. “Oh good. For a second, Big Mike thought whoever stole him and his Good Chair tattooed Big Mike.”
Then Big Mike gave a low gasp. “Wait. Did they tattoo his Good Chair by mistake?”
I kept staring. There’s no way. Everypony knows about Cutie Marks. Right? There’s no way!
Big Mac walked over and put a claw on Big Mike’s shoulder.
“Nnope,” Big Mac answered.
“Whew! That’s good.” Big Mac instantly calmed down. His volume was turning normal too. “Do you think it’ll be safe at that chair shop though?”
“Eeyup.”
“Okay. But, do you think the store person will let Big Mike get it back later?”
“...Eeyup?”
The two went back and forth for a little longer while I sat there; my mouth agape.
What is going on? I held the sides of my head with my new claws.
Am I going crazy? Because I don’t understand any of what’s going on...I feel really sore from sleeping so that means this can’t be a dream. Right?
I turned to face a different direction from atop my hay bale. Big Mike was asking random questions at this point about chairs and, for some reason, a trumpet now, and Big Mac was just giving him ‘eeyup’s and ‘nope’s.
Dream or not, I continued. How’s come Ponyville looks like a giant fair anyways? And, on top of that, when and how did that giant forcefield show up?
I craned my head upward to stare at the purple thing above me. This was the first time I was looking at it and it felt so foreboding on so many levels. For one thing, I could feel it.
My parents told me that was a unicorn thing. That, if there was magic stronger than you were used to, you could sense it even from a distance. Like a gust of wind, or heat, or a strong smell. It was different for everypony but in the end, you still felt it somehow.
For me, I always tasted grapes. My tongue would get all tingly and the taste would always be there. First time it happened was at a magic show my parents took me to in Manehattan. I tasted grapes all day, even when I was drinking orange juice.
But now? It felt as though my tongue was coated in grape jelly. Although, there was another feeling too. One that made another chill go down my vertical spine.
I think we were being watched.
I wanted to prove myself wrong so I started looking around. The dome was above me and that very pink Ferris Wheel was ahead of us by several streets. It was as tall as the buildings in Manehattan.
There, I thought. That’s where something was. I could taste it. No, really, I literally began tasting grapes the more I looked at that Ferris wheel.
There and the forcefield, I listed. I didn’t know much about magic but I knew that the two grape tastes were different. But why?
”...hehehehehehe…”
I turned around, checking around me one more time. Aside from Big Mac and this other...creature thing, it was silent. I didn’t even see any birds or animals around. Come to think of it, no clouds either.
The buildings around us were empty too. All of their doors were left wide open and inside each of them I could see party decorations and trash littering ponies’ living rooms. There was even a pile of pink stuffing in one of the windows upstair—
The stuffing moved.
I felt hair on the back of my neck stand on end. After taking a moment to shake my head, I took another glace back at the window. Now there was no stuffing there. Instead it was...a pink frosted cake?
I know that cake wasn’t there before, I told myself. I would’ve noticed all the candles.
“Um...Big McIntosh?”
“Eeyup?” Big Mac, and Big Mike, both stopped talking and turned to acknowledge me.
“Where were you two going before I woke up?” I asked. I had no reason to panic but something didn’t feel right. That grape taste on my tongue was getting harder to ignore too.
Big Mac opened his mouth to answer but nothing came out. So instead, he looked to Big Mike.
The two had a small staring contest before everything suddenly clicked for Big Mike.
“Oh! You mean Mike!” He pointed out. “Um. Well, Big Mike doesn’t know this town. So, he was just gonna keep walking till he found a map or something.” As he talked, he reached into the pocket of his clothes.
When Big Mike found what he was looking for, he pulled out a small green rectangle and studied it. “He wanted to use the map on his phone,” he told us. “But it’s dead somehow.”
The map is dead? I blinked. And what’s a phone?
I turned to Big Mac for answers but he only gave me a heavy shrug.
I frowned. Neither of them have any idea of what to do next. Same goes for me too I guess. All of this is so weird.
Kssshhhh!
I wasn’t the only one that heard it. All three of us whipped around to see pieces of a glass bottle scattering across the road about five yards away from us.
“...” We all stopped talking, watching as the bottom of a glass bottle was rolling in a small circle. There was a dining table besides the glass shards with a folded umbrella in the middle of it.
With pink stuffing hanging out of the umbrella, I noticed.
“Weird,” Big Mike pointed out. “Think it was the wind?” He asked as he started walking towards the bottle.
“Nope.” Big Mac sounded on guard too.
He’s right, I agreed. It couldn’t be the wind. There’s no clouds or pegasi in sight. There can’t be wind without weather ponies.
“Be careful,” I said softly.
“Don’t worry,” Big Mike walked backwards for a few steps to give me a happy smile. “Big Mike won’t get cut.”
It’s not the glass I’m worried about, I realized.
But I didn’t say that. So instead, Big Mike strode up to the glass and shifted it around with his foot— another thing Spike told Scootaloo and me about. When he found something he thought was interesting, he picked it up.
“Punch Juice,” Big Mike read out loud. Then I saw him frown. “Seventy proof?”
“Punch Juice?” I glanced up at Big Mac. “What’s tha—” “Nope.”
Big Mac shared Mike’s frown and gave me one of those shaking heads that any adult would give a foal.
“There’s a lot of them,” Big Mike told us with a serious tone. He referred to the table which had seven more bottles in one pile and five in another.
Big Mac gave out a frustrated groan. “Berry Punch,” he murmured quietly. “Big mess?” He asked, walking over to the table.
“Uh-huh.” Big Mike took a second to pick up the bigger pieces of glass and set them on the table.
When I realized I was a little far from the guys for my liking, I carefully stepped off the hay bale and slowly shuffled my way over.
“Ya know, Big Mike’s noticed a lot of trash around here,” Mike told Mac. “Is it usually like this?”
“Nope.” When Big Mac arrived on the scene, he picked up a bottle and inspected it.
“That’s not good.” Big Mike wiped his hands on his pants. They were the same material as the pants Big Mac had, but shorter, stopping just above the knee.
“Nope.” That time, Big Mac sounded angry. Then he glanced up at the umbrella. “Huh.”
“What?” Big Mike had the umbrella pointed out to them and they now both saw the pink stuffing hanging out the bottom of it.
I made slow progress but got about halfway to them when I saw Big Mike reach for it. Both of the guys were distracted enough by the stuffing that they didn’t notice the umbrella shifting around.
I stopped walking. “Guys?”
Big Mac started to turn around but Big Mike grabbed the stuffing before it was too late. Thinking it was a drawstring for the umbrella, Big Mike pulled it down and at the same time, the umbrella stopped moving.
“...Weird,” Big Mike announced, pulling the stuffing again. And again with more force.
When that didn’t work, Big Mike tried one last time. He took the stuffing in both hands and heaved it down in one tug.
Big Mike suddenly had the edge of the umbrella brush up against his face as it flapped open, revealing three pink ponies all hanging either from the under part of the umbrella or holding onto the umbrella pole.
The three identical ponies all stared directly into Big Mike’s face as three huge grins spread across each of their faces. Then, all at once they flung from the umbrella and attached themselves to Big Mike like tape.
“You found us!” “Way to go!” “Congratulations~!”
They all started cheering and laughing, not minding that Big Mike was flailing around and trying to pull the ponies off of his body. When that failed to work, he tripped on a nearby broken piece of pinata and collapsed onto his back.
Ponies! My expression lit up for a second only to catch myself. Wait. They all look the same. That’s a little weird.
One of the ponies comically bounced away from Big Mike like a runaway wheel and over towards Big Mac while the others clambered around Big Mike so they could see his face.
“Woah, you’re big.” “And tall!” Both ponies complemented. “What are you?” “What’s your name?” “Is there something fun you wanna do?” “Fun?!” “FUN!”
“Uhhhhhh.” Big Mike took his time blinking. “Name...Big Mike?”
“Big Mike?” “Sounds big.” “And Mike-ish!” “We’ve never met a pony like you before. Well, maybe that’s because you’re not a pony.” “You sure? He can talk like a pony!” “And he played hide and seek like a pony.” “Do you think he likes the same food as ponies?” The second pony let out a high pitched gasp. “Wait a second! If he plays the same games as ponies—” “—Annnnd he’s really really super good at playing games ponies like—” “—Then that means he must be really sup-tastic-pendous at playing fun games!” “Fun?!” “FUN!”
“Fun.” The third pony said with a very deep voice as she stared at Big McIntosh.
Big Mac looked down at the third identical pink pony as she stared directly into his eyes. I couldn’t see her face but I saw Big Mac getting visibly uncomfortable when she didn’t look away.
“Um. Eeyup?” Big Mac nodded stiffly.
What resulted was the third pink pony shaking like a volcano. Then, not like a volcano, she erupted with giggling and confetti everywhere, littering every inch of ground in a two yard radius.
Something feels wrong here, I thought. Whoever these ponies are, they haven’t turned into what we are. They should be more normal than us but...why do they feel so wrong?
“So, Mr. Big Mike, do you know what you’ve won?” One of these two crazy-looking ponies asked as both of them were still standing on Big Mike’s body.
“...” Big Mike, again, just kept blinking. It took him a solid five seconds just to raise a finger and point at one pony. Then the other. Then look at his hand as he held two fingers.
Finally, after all that thinking and time spent, Big Mike had his answer.
“Two?”
Welp. Big Mike has stopped working.
“Close~,” the other pony sang. Then she reached over and pulled the third pony back beside her despite either one of them definitely out of reach before. “You’ve won three of us! And we just know that we can give you the best overly-duper tour of the—wait for it...”
The ponies all took off from Big Mike, leaving a cloud of dust in their tracks as they all jumped up on the unfolded umbrella. When it somehow held all three of their weight, they struck this dynamic pose with one of the ponies standing on the hooves of the other two; like a pyramid.
“Welcome to…” They said in pitch perfect unison.
“PINKIE PAAAAAARK~!”
All of the ponies kept that pose, bearing down on us with face-stretching smiles.
Out of awkwardness, Big Mike started applauding with his claws while he sat up on the ground. But his ever so lost expression made it obvious he had no idea what to think.
Big Mac decided to stare at Big Mike wondering why he was applauding whatever that greeting was. Then he turned around to look at me who was watching from the back of our trio.
Aside from watching, all I did was have a hundred questions running through my head. I had plenty lined up but the only one that I thought mattered was probably the only one these ponies probably couldn’t answer.
What’s happened to Ponyville?