//------------------------------//
// Date Night 
// Story: The Mysterious Adventures of Mare-do-well 
// by Commando-Scarecrow 
//------------------------------//

"Babe, hold me back," She said to her boyfriend at the Toasted Carrot Bar & Grill. He could only give a sigh of irritation as she grabbed a hold of her tail with his mouth from the back. Not for her sake, but for the colt that made the mistake to hack her off in the first place. They guy had been drunk off his plot and started making comments about her mane and then started on her boyfriend for no real reason other than being severely intoxicated. It was one thing to insult her, but if you insulted her friends, then your plot was officially hers.
"Whatsa matter, Griffin!? *hick!*" He clearly had way to much Flim Flam Hard Cider, but it still didn't excuse the way he was treating the couple. "You need your colt to hold you back?"
"Just ignore 'em, Sugarcube." He tried to say, consoling her, but sounded more like a garbled mess on account of him holding her back by grabbing her tail. He had a feeling he wouldn't be able to hold her for much longer, though. "He don't know anything about nothing."
"LEMME AT HIM!" She started to scream with pure rage. "I'LL TEAR HIS BUCKING HEAD OFF HIS NECK!!"
"I can tell who's really the stallion in this relationship! *hick*" He kept goading them, and he started to genuinely hack off her boyfriend. "And it ain't the one with in the cowboy hat!"
That last comment tore it. The boyfriend had enough of this mother bucker, so he did what he had wanted to do for the past few minutes. He let her go. "Oops. My bad." She charged and was on top of him in one tenth of a second, flat.
The plot-hole was struggling to say something, but he couldn't tell what it was. "I know you're not supposed to eat glass!" She said, shoving the mug in his face.
He only watched as she was laying all kinds of whoop-flank on that guy. He turned to the other ponies sitting at that bar to start a conversation. "Any of y'all see the Wing-ball playoffs the other night?" He quickly looked back to the curbstomp when he thought he heard something snap. "Shoot! I didn't even know wings could bend that way!" He got up to stop the fight. "C'mon, Sugarcube. We gotta go!" He grabbed her tail with his mouth and they exited the door, leaving behind a healthy tip for whoever cleans up after the ensuing destruction that was no ponies fault.
"I'm not done with him yet!"
He garbled some words that were probably something like "Yes. You are." She struggled to fly back at the drunken colt, but years off work on the farm gave him above average strength to that of average mustang. "Let's go, Hon."
As he dragged her out of his favorite restaurant, she eventually cooled off enough to talk to him. "I thought I told you to hold me back there!" She yelled, but she wasn't angry, or at least, not at him.
All he did was shrug lightly. "I thought he had it comin'" He retorted confidently. This usually happened to places where they sold liquor. Usually he held her back to avoid a bar brawl, but on rare occasions, he let her go and watched the fireworks. "Besides, you've been kinda stressed out lately, Hon. I thought you could use a good bar fight."
She landed close next to him and took on an amused face. Tonight was supposed to be for him and, not only did it backfire because of some plot-hole, but he still did his best to make it special for her, even if it was a bar fight that he let happen. "Well, I didn't need you to do that for me, you know."
"I know." He said smugly with his eyes closed, as if he was something special. "I did it because I wanted to."
"Yeah, I'll bet," She kissed him on the cheek after she said that. He was special, for sure. At least, he was to her. "Thanks for nothing, Cowboy." She finished statement of gratitude with a smirk on her face and then went to kiss him deeply beneath a street light.
"Any time, Flight-risk." He accepted her kiss and they must have been kissing for almost five seconds before they separated their lips. "Any time."
The moment couldn't have been more perfect in his mind, but he was proven wrong from the next words that came out of her mouth. "Night's still young, Babe." She took a sly grin, "You wanna head home and make some feathers fl-" Her innuendo was cut off mid sentence when she heard a crash in the nearby alley. "What was that?!"
"What was what?!" She gave an amused and wry smile when she heard his voice crack at the end of question, then went back to a serious face. She flew to the other side of the street and carefully peered into the alley that she was certain she heard the disturbance come from, but by the time she got there, she saw only the silhouette of a cloaked and hatted figure standing atop the building. The Hat!
As if set in motion by the mere flip of a switch, she nearly went after what she had naturally thought was a rival, but then stopped when she remembered the real reason she was out tonight: it was a special night for her and her boyfriend. She lowered her wings that she didn't even know she extended and then forced herself to calm down. This was their night, not Mare-do-wells, and she wanted to keep it that way.
"You alright there, Ace?" He asked her as she flew back over to him. "You look like you saw a ghost and then wanted to whoop its flank."
Creative metaphor aside, she was still somewhat disappointed that she had to let her adversary go. She forced a smile, and then went on to give a simple hoof-wave of an excuse. "It was nothing, Babe. Just a raccoon." She walked over to him and kissed his cheek again. "Offer still stands for making my feathers fly," She gave him a competitive grin like she always did when she deeply looked forward to something. "If you're up to the challenge, that is."
He was clearly at least somewhat flustered by the offer, but he hid it by simply tipping his hat to her. "You want a rodeo, Sugarcube? Well, you got one."
She began to walk away seductively, hips swaying and everything, and gave him another flirty grin as she did so. "We'll see."

...

Mare-do-well stood atop her Spire, staring out into the darkness... and waiting for any sign of the Hat to appear. She may have been initially welcoming of the help, but she still needed to know more about what she was getting into. She was still on edge from earlier, obviously. Not from the earlier sex she had, mind you. On the contrary, the fiery love-making, along with the bar fight from earlier, made her feel better than she in days, maybe even weeks. It did wonders for relieving all the stress she had built up from the last few days. He really did make her feathers fly earlier. Regardless, now wasn't the time to think about him and his considerable rodeo skills. Now was the time to stay focused on the task at hoof.
She leapt from her tower and began to fly over her city, vigilantly scanning the town for signs of trouble and searching faithfully for ponies in danger. The Hat said something about something big going down soon, she Mare-do-well needed to step up her game. It wasn't a thought that she particularly relished, either. For so many years she had been at the top of almost everything that she strove for. She beaten only rarely, and even then it was when she had been handicapped in some manner or another, and now? Now she had a rival that, despite not being able to fly or use magic, had beaten her in her own game using his wits instead of his body. He was more on top of things than she was, and that made her... she didn't even know. There was some anger in there, she knew that much. It may have been mixed with some jealousy that he knew what he was doing more than she was. Maybe a little disappointment in herself mingled in there as well. Her thoughts returned to her boyfriend as they often did when on patrol. She remembered the friendship she had nearly shattered to begin a life with him here in New Maredrid. Her heart ached and she felt so much remorse for how her best friend felt when she broke the news to her, but she possessed no regrets for her actions themselves. He had been worth it. He had been worth all of it, and all of this.
"EEEPAAA!!" She heard the scream, admittedly very strange, of what sounded like a colt. She flew over to investigate and, to her surprise, he wasn't dead. He just had both legs broken badly. "GAAAH!" He was screaming like a baby about it though. "Mare-do-well?!" Walked forward and investigated, or would have, had she not been interrupted by two more colts that were screaming on their way down, the same way the first one went.
"AAAAH!!" The two colts were jettisoned from the window at the same time. She subtly pushed the first one out of the way so he wouldn't get killed by his free-falling-friends. "GAAAAH!!" They both broke at least one of their arms and one of them broke a wing, the other broke a horn. She turned on the night-vision of her costumes specs and took a closer look at them. All three of them had a tattoo of a bear on an arm. It was the mark of Black Marauder gang. She turned and looked up the window; sure she'd find what she wanted.
She flew up to investigate who or what sent them flying. Ponies didn't throw themselves out windows, at least not usually. There she saw the end of a coat-tail just leaving the room. "Time to get to the bottom of this!" The heroine thought to herself as she began an all too familiar chase with her elusive adversary. She could barely keep up with his agile movements but, turn for turn, she did not lose him. She matched him, stair for stair and hallway for hallway, until, finally, they were on the roof of the five story high building.
"Who are you?!" She shouted out in an intentionally raspy and gritty voice. "Why do you need my help?!" But still he did not surrender. He gave chase again, only this time, he went over the roof tops. "Why would he do that?", she thought to herself, perplexed. In the skies, she obviously held every single conceivable advantage, so why would he use the roof tops to escape her? She briefly banished the thought, keeping a steady, but quickening, pace. It was deja vu in almost ever since of the word.
Eventually, they made it to one of the buildings at the base of the spire, but Mare-do-well didn't stop. The Hat was cornered. There was no buildings close enough for him to jump to and not fall to the cold brick roads, so there he stood, waiting for the inevitable collision of the two heroes. Even though her rival was wearing sun-glasses at night and bandana over his face, she still made out the faint markings of a smile on his face. "Looks like you caught me, Sheila!" He looked down the side of the building, no doubt hoping for some kind of miracle like what saved him from her last time. How he did that still eluded her, but she would find out.
"You lead me here," She began again with an intentional raspy voice. "Why?"
He began to circle her, sizing her up again the same way he did the first time they met. "And what makes you think I lead you here, Love?" He was still arrogant as hay, but she could tell he had the confidence to back it up. Or at least, he carried himself as such. She had to be very careful about confronting this one. She knew he was an ace fighter, from the way he was able take on all those criminals on that easily. She also knew that he was an extremely cunning, made evident by the way he was able to lead her last time they met and again by disappearing into the night like a wraith. Both their capes and cloaks flowed in the cool wind of the night, and both waited until the other made the first move. Surprisingly, she went first.
She made attack after attack with her front hooves, missing each time as though he were a leaf in the wind. He lunged at her and forced her back a few feet, forcing her reassess the situation drastically. He was about as strong she figured, but he was much more agile in a fight than she thought. She'd need to rethink her classic fighting strategy carefully if she wanted to win. She went at it again, and in a fight with no clear winner, the duel seemed to last for hours, though in truth it was likely only a few minutes. Kick and lunge, buck and counter. It seemed that in terms of fighting prowess, they were nearly dead even. Eventually, she found her perfect opening. He charged at her full force, hoping to throw her off guard with a sudden change from the defensive to the offensive. She quickly side stepped and, with a mighty thrust of her wing, opening it as fast as she could and with as much force that could be put behind it, sent him flying across the roof top. "NOW!" she thought to herself. She quickly flew over to him and pinned him down. "Now to find out who you really are!" She uncovered her mouth and tore off his bandana, inadvertently taking his sunglasses with it.