//------------------------------// // Ticket Mayhem // Story: Alexandre Viator: the Alicorn King // by ScarletRhine //------------------------------// One week later, Alex & Twilight were helping Applejack on the farm harvesting apples. AJ, Tempe, and her family were bucking the trees while Alex was flying from tree to tree, picking the apples and placing them into a shoulder bag. "Thanks for the exercise, Applejack Rainbow Dash was right. You're an excellent kickboxer, and it does help with harvesting." Twilight said as she picked up any of the stray apples that didn't fall in the baskets and put them into it. "Now, if we could get Spike to help out a little more." She said as Spike was digging through the collected baskets looking for a quick snack. "I am helping. I'm making sure that none of these are bruised, and if they are, I'll eat them so that it doesn't lower the harvest quality!" the dragon said as he found one with a particularly mushy spot from falling down onto the ground. Looking closely at it, he decided that this would be his snack and took a bite out of the mushy part. "See, I told you I know that Granny Smith does this once they're in the barn, but I'm too small to do much more than quick inspections and carry the baskets to the wagon." Alex landed next to a barrel and carefully placed the apples in. "I may not have the leg strength to buck the apples out of the trees," he started. "But I can fly up to the apples and pick them. That way, there are fewer bruised apples." He looked at the mares with a smile. He noticed Twi's belly had a small bump in it as it was two months after his arrival and mated with Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash & her. Plus, the month they spent on Earth, he wasn't surprised Twilight had started to show, even if any pony looking at her would have to be as perceptive as Rarity and himself. With a smile, he launched himself back into the air and glided to the next. "While Ah normally don't allow this as we apples tend to harvest our crop the earth pony way we do need the extra help our time away did last a bit so Big Mac got behind on harvest." Applejack said in response. "Plus, as one of your herdmates, you're part of the family all of you, yes even you miss dragon princess." Applejack teased Tempe. Alex picked a few apples as he said, "I don't know anything about the earth pony way of harvesting, but the human way of harvesting involves pi..HEY! WATCH THE FLAMES SPIKE!" Alex yelped as he dodged the flames from Spike's flaming blechmail. He was glad he had Rarity make him some shorts as the fire would've lit his pants on fire otherwise. "Sorry, that was a letter." *Spike said as he handed over the scroll and was holding eight golden tickets, both Twilight and Tempe recognized. Alex landed as Twilight opened the letter and began to read. Alex looked at Tempe and asked, "What're those tickets for? You and Twilight acted surprised and seemed to recognize them." "They're grand galloping gala tickets, one for each of us and a plus one for you. Since you're both royalty, you're obligated to attend without needing a ticket. I technically would also be considered that, but due to the fact that my title isn't public for the most part, I would need a ticket just to maintain posterity." Twilight remembered what Celestia told her once she and Alex had gotten back to Ponyville with Tempe after fighting Nightmare. "My faithful student isn't just something I call you Twilight. It is legally your title. You are considered an apprentice Arch mage and the official when it comes to magic that I should look to. It is why I easily fund all of your independent research projects since that's actually part of your job description to look into anything that might be magical in nature and advise me about it." Celestia had told Twilight. "Now I don't expect any of my students to actually advise on magical matters nowadays, but it was set up during the early days of equestrian society since I was both student and teacher at the time." Alex looked at the sky and then said, "I got to call it a day. I got to realign my day/night schedule, but I have to greet the first batch of helpers to restore Castle Viator, formerly the Castle of the Two ISisters." Alex wrote down a list of book titles. He then added, "Applejack, when is the earliest Granny can take time off?" "Now, Alex." Applejack scolded. "We may be poor, but we ain't beggers. We can't rightly accept charity." Alex looked his farmer wife and said, "It's not charity. It's family looking after family. The Apples & the Viators share one thing, family takes care of family, and since you let put a foal be put in you, you're a Viator as much as you're an Apple." After that, Alex flew off to Sugarcube Corner for croissant and a cup of hot chocolate. Alex landed and entered and picked up a tray and headed to the bin that held the croissants. He noted that Redheart and a blue maned unicorn. Pinkie bounced up him and hugged him. "Take a seat, hubby." Alex raised the tray to block the twin spit takes that shot out. "Don't mind if I do." The sound of a hard facepalming caused Alex to look at the table Redheart was seated at. "What's wrong?" He asked. The nurse sighed, "Let's just say I just realized I had made it harder for myself and leave it at that." Alex nodded and picked up a croissant with some tongs that took a table. As he waited for Pinkie to come and take his order, a blue maned white unicorn mare with dark glasses joined hlm. "Yo." She said, "Tall, dark and batty. I heard you're the son of Princess Luna." Alex nodded. "By marriage." He said, "Why do I have a feeling there's more to what you just said that. " Tempe appeared nearby, having flown over to check in on her little brother. "Agent Heart." The draconic princess said with respect. "Heard about what you did during the time I was up on the moon." Red Heart just waved her hand, saying, "Just doing my job while finishing my nurses' training. I resigned once it was completed and now work at Ponyville General." As Alex sat down, he noticed Vinyl. "I heard your old stallion had just woke up from a stasis spell put on him by Nightmare Moon." Alex nodded as he replied, "He went to rescue some people somehow he ended up here 1000 years ago." "Must've been a bummer." The DJ said. Alex nods. "Dad fell in love with Princess Luna and married her. Heh. She's now my mom, and guess what? I was sent eight tickets to something called a grand galloping gala, and I was informed I am obligated to show up there. Seven are taken by my herd and Spike while my sister and I are both royalty, so we don't need an invite as it's an obligation for us to show up, but I have one extra." "Really?!" Vinyl Scratch exclaimed. "My Girl Octavia is going to be performing but she wasn't able to secure a ticket for me so it'd be an awful nice of you to let me use that ticket to be with her on one of her biggest nights in her career." The normally stoic and cool DJ decided to try acting cute by taking off her glasses and fluttering her red eyes at Alex to convince him. "Compared to her reasons for wanting to go to the gala, mine feel silly." Redheart said. "I was hoping to meet Lady Luna in person." Alex looked between the two mares, his brain blue screening, as he realized his mistake. "Uh…Ohlookatthetime! Ibetterbeflyingofftomeettheforthemeetingtheexpertsthatwillbehelpingme." He turned to leave the booth only to end up face first into Cheerilee's ample bosom. A brilliant streak of gold being able to be seen in between the two soft orbs. "Is this..." The teacher said quietly before her voice dramatically leaped in volume "A TICKET TO THE GRAND GALLOPING GALA?!" The mare's voice could be heard throughout the entire town catching the attention of everyone. "Oof!" The schoolmare said. "Why are you in such a hurry, hansom?" Alex suddenly felt like a mouse that had fallen into a room of hungry cats. "Uh. Bye!" Alex quickly said before snatching the ticket from between Cheerilee's breasts and dashing out. And ran right into Spoiled Rich. "You got a ticket for the Grand Galloping Gala." She said. "My husband could use that to make useful connections to improve Barnyard Bargains. GIVE IT TO ME!" The snobby earth pony then lunged. She didn't count on the thestral's reflexes, honed from years of adventures, were fast enough to zip out of her reach. Stuffing the ticket in one of his pockets he flew into one of the storage buildings for lumber and hid in it on the upper level, in the darkest area where his dark coat rendered him invisible. His clothes enchantments rendering them invisible as well. While the town searched for him, Alex sat behind a stack of two by fours, using his echolocation to watch the inside, while he thought things over. Meanwhile, in Sugarcube Corner, "That was so uncool Spoiled." Vinyl Scratch groused at Spoiled Rich. Redheart crossed her arms as she said, "trying to take that ticket may have convinced him to either destroy it or send it back." Cheerilee walked to the street and dragged the social climbing earth pony there by her tail with the unicorn entertainer and the Medimare following close behind. "UNHAND ME!" Spoiled Rich yelled. "Spoiled Milk." Tempe said having recently looked into the gold digging mare after her mother had told Tempe about one of Diamond Tiara's nightmares. "You assaulted royalty, you're going to go into jail for a week and this is me being lenient!" "THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING! NOOOOOOOO!!!" Mrs Rich wailed as a local guards mare literally dragged her off. The other three mares watched with glares, The DJ then sighed then said, "Looks like I will miss Tavi's best night of the year. And I had hoped I got lucky." The other two mares sighed and turned to head back into Sugarcube Corner. Tempe then burped out a sealed envelope herself. "Hold that thought!" She said recognizing the seal to be Celestia's. Opening the envelope she pulled out two golden tickets and a small note saying "I'm sorry that you didn't get your tickets with the others but Luna never told me the magical frequency of your fire so I had to beg her to allow me to send this to you. One of the tickets is actually for Miss Vinyl Scratch, Octavia had received it as a benefit of being a performer. A certain doctor told me that she would miss the ball if it had come to her as it would have without his intervention so handed it to me to send it to you instead. The other is your plus one ticket. Use it how you see fit. Love you, Celestia" "Well I'll be damned, it seems that tavia actually had a ticket for you but Derpy kind of screwed up," Tempe said , handing the one that had Vinyl Scratch 's name on it to her. And I've got a plus one so I could take you Cheerilee if you want. I'm not opposed to helping my brother get a bigger herd." Alex smiled then handed his plus one ticket to nurse redheart, who grabbed then pulled him into a kiss, molding her body against his.