“When do you think he’ll, Hiccup, wake up?” asked a voice from above.
“Jush give the colt a shecond, ok Berry?” slurred another.
“If I throw him a party, he’ll hafta wake up! Otherwise he’d miss his won party, and that’s not very nice.” Giggled a third.
Code Levol blinked slowly, allowing his pupils to adjust to the new light. The first thing he saw was a blue foreleg extended in front of his face. He tried moving his own, and watched as the leg in front of him twitched.
He thought to himself, ‘So I’m back to normal again? I wonder what happened.’
“Hey I think he’s awake! Wakey wakey sleepy jeepy!” the high pitched one said.
“Schleepy jeepy? What’re jou talkin’ abut Pinks?” the first voice questioned.
The second voice rattled his head, blinked rapidly and took in a deep breath. After he felt sufficiently focused, he walked over to the collapsed Code Levol.
Concerned, he asked “You actually awake down there?”
His tone was much clearer, and his words more enunciated. Levol was unsure if he had just been mushing their words together, or if they themselves were slurring them. Unfortunately, he himself was not yet ready to give a full response, and simply grunted in return.
The second voice, who was clearly a stallion told Code, “You’re gonna hafta get up buddy.” And then to one of the others, “Sober up Berry, we gotta get this guy on his hooves.”
The mare known as Berry completed the same motions as the stallion, even in the same order. Almost instantaneously she was rejuvenated. Revived with mental control, the two ponies grabbed Code and lifted him onto his hooves. At first he wobbled back and forth, but the others helped him regain his balance until he could manage to stand.
“I can’t believe you two,” gasped the third one, “You just shake off being drunk like Applejack shakes apples off of a tree. I just don’t get it!”
The two laughed in unison. Both meant to make a response, but the stallion spoke first, “Wow Pinkie, something that even you don’t understand? I think we’ve made a record here.”
Smiling, he decided to tack on the conversation to a more imperative task. Continuing with the previous statement, the stallion addressed Levol “Now like Pinkie said, I had a lot to drink last night, but I definitely remember your coat being red, not blue.” He tapped his hoof to his chin, “Come to think of it, I remember you being both.”
Still groggy with his head in the clouds, Levol answered, “Red.”
“Oh so it was red? Weird, I thought –”
“No.” Levol interrupted, shaking his head “Wait.”
“What is it?” Berry asked, placing a comforting hoof on his shoulder.
“Did you say I was…red?”
“Yes sirree! Red as red velvet cake! Oh. My. Gosh. I love cake! Do we have any cake?” ranted the pink pony.
Levol’s nerves tensed up, forcing him to bite down on his lip excessively. Troubled eyes quivered as the pegasus stood entranced by this new information. Almost immediately he did a one-eighty and began pacing back and forth hastily. All the while he was muttering unintelligible words under his breath.
The stallion, whose name was still unknown to Levol, watched the panicking pony ponderously. His companions did much the same, however with varied levels of interest. The purple hued earth pony known as Berry wobbled by the stallion’s side. Despite having somehow magically reversed the effects of the alcohol, she was still not at a full functioning capacity. Although interested, she clearly wasn’t fully aware of the situation. The pink earth pony, Pinkie, was much more sporadic. She bounced about, seemingly unaware of anything going on in the now empty room.
“You doin’ alright over there?” the stallion asked.
Levol stopped in his tracks, looking straight up. His eyes met the stallions and buried deeply into them. “Tell me what happened,” he said with unemotional decree.
“Starting where?”
“I don’t know, whatever you saw.”
“I saw you rap up a storm on stage against these two other guys that we’re making fun of this zebra kid. Gotta say, you managed to impress me; you have some lyrical skill on you. But the crowd cheered louder for the other guy it seemed, so you took your leave and walked off stage.”
Code began to look very worried again, “You mean I was Red while I was on stage?”
“Nah, nah, let me finish. You see, me and my girls Berry and Pinkie were over by the bar having a few drinks, you know, enjoying ourselves. But then we saw your zebra friend book it out from backstage to the door.”
Levol interrupted, “Zeko? Is Zeko ok? What happened to him?”
The stallion placed a hoof out in front of him, “Calm down, its ok.” The inviting smile on his face showed Levol that he had nothing to fear.
“Anyways, he was going so fast that I knew I wouldn’t be able to catch up. But I did wanna know why he was running, or what from. And as any curious pony would, I propped myself up and began the trek to the stage. Berry tagged along, so with the two of us stumbling out way it took longer than it should have.” He laughed as he spoke, recounting the events as if even the most serious of situations was humorous. “And when we finally reached backstage, we saw the other rapper beating up a pony that looked just like you, but the color red.”
“Oh dear Celestia, no. You’re telling me I got in a fight...” Code Levol’s tone changed from agitated to angry, “and lost!?”
“To be fair, that other guy was a unicorn and was using his magic on you.”
Levol shook his head. Nothing was going his way, and each part of the story just made things worse. Although disheartened by the possibility of it getting even worse from there, he begged the mysterious stallion to go on.
“Not much else happened from there. Berry and I were too far gone to be of any help, and they were leaving just as he got there anyways. I saw you collapse to the floor and get knocked out. Then, like magic, your coat went from a deep red into what you are now. It was only then that I recognized you as the rapper from on stage.”
“But then how did I wind up here, by the bar?”
The stallion shied away, scratching his head and failing miserably at giving an it-wasn’t-my-fault smile. “The thing is, Berry and I, we…” his sentence trailed off. “We kind of tried to pick you up and bring you over to the bar.”
“What do you mean by ‘kind of’?”
“We dropped you. A lot. Like, a ton of times.” he replied while both of them stepped back slowly.
“Why were you even carrying me over there in the first place!?”
“I wasn’t gonna just leave you there! But I also really wanted another mug of cider. And the two things were just so far away. Since I couldn’t bring the cider to you, I decided to bring you to the cider. There were just a few bumps along the way.”
Code Levol was about to yell at the two for being so careless, but before he opened his mouth decided against it. After all, these two were kind enough, even while drunk, to think about helping him out. He didn’t even know these ponies.
“Wow, I, uh, thanks. Really, thank you.” He said humbly. “I don’t believe I caught your names. Or at least, your full names.”
The stallion was the first to respond again, his tongue ever quick, “My name’s Rhyme Flow. Feel free to call me Flow, or Flowny if you prefer. To my left is Berry Punch, she makes the most amazing drinks you’ll ever taste.”
The purple earth pony with the grape cutie mark smiled at his remark. She hadn’t said much throughout the whole situation, but then again, it didn’t lend itself to much.
“And over here,” Rhyme Flow motioned with his hoof to an empty space “was Pinkie Pie. She likes parties and can get a bit, out of hoof, if you know what I mean.”
“I’ve noticed.” Levol responded dryly. “And what do you do, Flow?”
“I flow, you know, that’s how it goes.”
Levol chuckled, “Hey that –”
“Rhymed?” Rhyme Flow raised a playfully sarcastic eyebrow.
“Yeah, haha. My name is Code Levol. You can just call me Levol if you’d like. Or Blue, I don’t mind.”
“What about you being half red and all that?”
Levol let out a hefty sigh. “Y’all wanna walk with me back to my dorm? I think there’s a lot to cover, if you’re interested.”
Rhyme Flow looked over to his two companions. The trio nodded to each other with a collective smile. “Let’s go.”