//------------------------------//
// Broke: Ice-cold Chicken 
// Story: Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship(Season 1) 
// by Barrobroadcaster 
//------------------------------//

Somewhere in the Frozen North

The ice and snow whipped around the Flutterbird. In actuality, the wings of the gunship were blasting the blizzard-like winds away from the area it hovered over, creating a clearing in the snow. Pitch dark again, the lights of the vehicle illuminated the powdery-white surface below. The side hatch of the Flutterbird opened and Dan came tumbling out.

"AAAAAHHH!" He hit the snow face first. "Y-yo-yo-YOU ARE INS-SANE!! You're all INS-S-SANE!!"

Zeal braced his hoof on the side of the aircraft. "This is the coldest part of Equestria," he declared to Dan. "If you are exposed for more than a minute, you will die a very slow and painful death." He closed the hatch.

"YOU'RE A MAD MAN!! MAAAAAAADDD!! AAAAAAAAAAGHH!!" The Flutterbird flew away with Dan shouting at it, leaving him alone in the cold darkness of the frozen tundra. "W-W-WHEN I G-G-GET OUT OF H-HERE, I'M GONNA K-KILL Y-YOU! K-K-KILL YO-YOU ALL!!!"

Dan's training was exactly like that. Over the course of a few days, Zeal would take Dan and leave him in the middle of some place inhospitable and expect him to make it out alive. If Dan failed, he would be forced to do it over. The only goal was to survive. He was never completely alone, even though it seemed like it. Several zebras from Zen Zeal's legions were always nearby, watching, monitoring him. They were seeing how he progressed and learned and were also there to keep any real harm from befalling him. They didn't help him in any way except by keeping him alive.

True to his nature, Dan learned and adapted quickly. He was left at the top of a barren mesa in Donquestria, tossed off a boat in the middle of the monster-infested Wild Sea, locked in a locker at a train station in Dodge City, strapped to a handcart heading towards a cliff, tied to a tree near the mouth of an erupting volcano, thrown into the caves of the Badlands and dumped in a sewer in Detrot. Each time, Dan eventually triumphed over each challenge and was then made to redo it until Zeal was satisfied. Usually, not until after Dan was enraged beyond rational thought.

"This will be your last task."

"Oh, gee, too bad," Dan said. "And to think, the only souvenirs we'll have are the cactus needles, tranquilizer darts and various other things that have been jabbed into me over the past couple of days. What sweet memories." Dan looked around. He appeared to be in some sort of kitchen. "This a cooking challenge, or something?"

"No," Zen said. "As before, your only task is to survive."

Dan looked down at himself. He was wearing a uniform, apron, rubber gloves and hairnet. "Kitchen duty? Really? THAT'S my final challenge?"

Zen nodded. "You are scheduled for an eight-hour shift including two ten-minute breaks and a half-hour lunch."

"The old nine-to-five grind, eh? Can practically do that in my sleep. Actually did, once. How many times am I going to have to do this?"

"Once."

"Once?" Dan repeated. Zen turned and walked out the backdoor of the kitchen. "Just one time? Really? Easy! Heck, I'll even take minimum wage hours! And I'm not even working the register? This is gonna be cake!"

Outside, Zen Zeal took one last look back at the restaurant he had left Dan at, the last challenge of his training. A large, unlit neon sign stood in the front of the parking lot, its sun-faded display visible from all sides as it rose, casting a shadow too small to offer even a compact car adequate shade. The colors and letters on the sign were faded, partly blackened from the poor construction and a burnt-out bulb dislodged by weather, still conveying the same message to those apathetic enough to want the fast food it represented that it did decades ago when it was installed. The name of the restaurant, still visible after all this time, read: Pollo Tropikale.

"You are a sick, sick zebra, General Zeal," Phoenix said.

"I know," Zeal said, making no effort to hide what he had done.

"That place has more health code violations than menu items!" Phoenix exclaimed.

"I... don't quite understand. What is a pollo?" Chrys asked.

"It's pronounced poy-yo. It's Spanish for chicken. But that place..." Phoenix shivered at the very thought of the fast food restaurant known as Pollo Tropikale. It evoked horrific images of food that should never be eaten, never prepared.

"Is it dangerous in there?" Twilight asked.

"AAAAAAAAAHHH!! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH DEAR GAWD IT'S EVERYWHERE!! IT'S IN THE RICE!!!!!"

"In ways you could not imagine," Zeal answered. "The challenge has begun."

Since its creation in the late eighties, Pollo Tropikale had been responsible for more cases of food poisoning than any other fast food restaurant in history. Claiming to specialize in Caribbean-style and Latin American cuisine, the food consisted mostly of chicken, pork, beans and rice coated with citrus seasonings and pepper, then grilled. A traditional staple of many communities in the Caribbean and Central America, Pollo Tropikale was created to bring that unique style of cooking to a larger American audience. Its failure cannot be overstated.

The standards of Pollo Tropikale, if they had any to begin with, were truly atrocious. Their grilled chicken could be either undercooked, overcooked or a combination of both, marking the only instance of the scientific Hot Pocket-effect observed outside of a Hot Pocket or Boston Market rotisserie chicken. The restaurant did not store nor cook their food at the proper temperatures, hot-held(cooking and keeping the food under a heat lamp before serving) for far too long, and did very little to sanitize their working environment. The result was possibly the most disgusting place to work at, eat at or drive past.

Dan was well aware of the restaurant's reputation. Commonly located in lower-income areas, such as in the parking lots of Home Depot, Pollo Tropikale was frequented by unskilled laborers, immigrants and working-class individuals; Dan's people. Their more-hearty and rugged existence served them by giving them more intestinal fortitude in many cases, allowing them to actually eat what passed for food there without suffering much indigestion. The kind of person that drowns a meal in hot sauce and has a beer to wash it down. They usually pay for it later.

Eight hours later, Dan finished his shift.





Ponyville General Hospital, I.C.U. room 2

"The antibiotic treatment is working fine, but I'd like to keep him here for the night to be on the safe side."

"Thank you, doctor," Twilight said.

"How are you feeling, Dan?" Chrys asked.

"Fine. I think," Dan said. He couldn't really see at the moment; his eyes were swollen shut. Covered in bandages and an I.V. attached to him, Dan truly looked like he had been through a war.

"If it makes you feel any better, Zeal said he's going to give us more land now after this," Twilight said.

"I'm going to kill him if I ever see him again," Dan replied. Considering he couldn't see out of his eyes, though... they weren't sure what to make of that statement. "I don't understand it."

"What's that?"

"I didn't eat any of the food. How do I have a stomach infection?"

"Did you breath in the air?" Phoenix asked.

"Yeah."

Phoenix nodded. "That'd do it." (There's salmonella in the air at that place.)

Twilight decided it was time to have a word with the general. She stepped outside Dan's hospital room. Zeal was waiting for her.

"Wha-oh."

"Have him drink this." The general hoofed her a bottle of vibrant, purple-blue-green-indigo striped liquid.

"A potion? Oh, uh... thank you."

Zeal bobbed his head downward, what passed for a nod. "He will be prepared now for threats from without and within."

"So... it really was part of his training?" Twilight asked. "I'm sorry if I seem skeptical, but... how is this supposed to help him battle the king and queen?"

"Do you know how they will fight?" Zeal asked. "Do you know where the battle will be waged?"

"Well, no."

"If the legends are to be believed, the power of the monarchal alicorns is near-absolute. Possibly greater. You presume the war will be fought among the stars and that is where you plan to engage them. But a predictable enemy is a defeated enemy, and I doubt the king and queen shall be so predictable."

Twilight's eyes went wide in shock. "You... they could fight us anywhere." It was true; their plans up to this point were predicting the actions of the king and queen. It was true, they had known of the possibility they could bypass any orbital defense on the moon or with satellites the ponies planned on using. By positioning their forces in orbit, Equestria could better react. But what if the king and queen committed all their forces to a ground assault? It would force Dan and company to come to them.

"I do not claim to know magic the way ponies do, but I know war. This is our home, the entire planet, not just one nation or another. All are linked, and all are threatened. Now, Dan will know this world better than our enemies. Now, the homefield advantage is truly ours," Zeal said.

"So do you make all of your soldiers work at a crappy fast food restaurant?"

He nodded and shrugged. "At least I don't make them eat there."

"Fair enough." Twilight went back in the room to check on Dan. After he was discharged, they went out to Hayburger for hayburgers.