//------------------------------// // Please Allow Myself to Introduce… Myself // Story: The OC Support Group // by M1ghtypen //------------------------------// Canterlot was home to a great many fine, upstanding citizens that ran equally respectable businesses. There were restaurants that could convince any lover of fine dining that he had died and gone to heaven, cafés with breathtaking views of the city, and enough culture and sophistication to make even the most reserved socialite squeal with glee. The bar that Lightning Dust was drinking in had none of those things. The wine was helpfully labeled "pinkish-red" and the vodka smelled frighteningly similar to rubbing alcohol. The tables were dirty and needed to be wiped down, but the bartender didn't look up to it. In fact he seemed genuinely shocked that he had a customer. Lightning Dust had been to plenty of taverns and bars, but none that were quite this neglected. She couldn't understand how in Equestria a place like this could stay in business. She wanted to drown her sorrows while waiting for her contact, not die of some obscure disease spawned in an unwashed shot glass. Eventually the pony Gilda had told her about arrived. He was a stocky earth pony with a pair of sparring gloves for a cutie mark. His mane was fiery red and his coat was a sunny yellow. The colors reminded her of Spitfire, a comparison that she was slightly uncomfortable with. A green pegasus pony followed him, dull as he could possibly be without literally turning invisible. Both of them wore a pair of plain saddle bags. "You must be Lightning Dust," the earth pony said cheerfully. "Gilda said you were here to join our organization." "I'm here for the freakin' support group, okay?" Lightning Dust spat. She finished her shot and tossed the glass to the bartender, who fumbled with it in his hooves before managing to catch it. "Let's just get this over with. One of my gal pals said you'd help me get over being shot down by the Wonderbolts." "As you wish." The earth pony shook her hoof and flashed a welcoming smile. "I'm Hot Blooded! Do you know why you were made?" Lightning Dust's answer came in the form of a blank stare and a gesture for another drink. "Come on, don't be shy! It's confusing for all of us at first. I promise not to make fun of you." Lightning Dust pressed her hooves to her closed eyelids and tried to block out the rest of the world for a moment. She wanted another drink, but promised herself that it would be her last for the night. She didn’t want to become an alcoholic. "What are you talking about?" "You know, like how I was made for a gritty underworld fighting tournament. What's your purpose?" "I want to join the Wonderbolts," Lighting Dust sighed. "I haven’t got much of a chance at that anymore." Hot Blooded and his friend nodded sympathetically. "Most of us don't do exactly what we were made for," he said. "It isn't your fault." "Uh-huh." Lightning Dust grabbed her glass from the bartender and signaled more insistently. She was just beginning to get frustrated when a pink blur caught her attention. A cheerful mare with an extremely curly mane bounced into the room, decked out from head to hoof in brightly colored clothes and jewelry. “Isn’t that one of the elements of harmony?” Lightning Dust asked. “What’s she doing here?” The newcomer squealed in excitement when she saw the bar’s other customers and seized Hot Blooded and his friend in a bone-crushing hug. “Hi everypony!” she exclaimed. “Who is this?” “This is Lightning Dust,” Hot Blooded said. “Lightning, this is Gypsy Pie. Her real name is Pinkie, but there are a lot of Pinkies here. It gets confusing if we call them by their real names with all of them gathered in one place. Anyway, Pinkie… uh, Gypsy Pie was created to be comically miserable. She’s here because she wants to learn to be happy.” “And I have!” Gypsy Pie exclaimed. “Things are sooooooo much better here! I have great friends for the first time in my whole life!” Hot Blooded’s pegasus friend blushed at the physical contact. “I’d better get going,” Gypsy Pie continued. “I’ll see you inside. Otherworld Castoffs forever!” The green pegasus waved shyly as she bounced away, hoop earrings jingling merrily. Lightning Dust was beginning to think that there was something seriously wrong with this place. “I think you’d better start explaining yourself,” she said. “What’s going on here? How can there be more than one of the same pony?” She pointed to their pegasus companion. “And why haven’t you introduced him yet?” Hot Blooded and his friend shared an anxious look. “You aren’t here for the Otherworld Castoffs support meeting, are you?” “I don’t know!” Lightning Dust was tempted to grab him around the neck and throttle him until he gave her the answers she wanted. “I’m here for the weekly meeting of ponies looking to improve themselves! Is that what you’re doing? What in the hay is an Otherworld Castoff?” “The dark powers meet on Thursdays,” Hot Blooded said. “You came on the wrong night.” Lightning Dust fell forward onto the table with a resounding thump. “I give up,” she sighed. “I’ll just go home. Have fun with Hipster Pie or whatever.” “Gypsy Pie!” the pegasus corrected. He seemed surprised by his own words and fell back into silence. “What’s your deal, anyway?” Lightning Dust asked. “Don’t you have a name?” The pegasus stared sadly down at the table, refusing to look her in the eye. Hot Blooded grabbed his friend in a brotherly hug and ruffled his mane in an attempt to cheer him up. “Nope! This here is my best pal. He wasn’t given a name, so I do most of the talking for him.” “She asked about the rest of us,” the nameless stallion mumbled. “You know, the OCs.” “Yeah, I guess she did.” Hot Blooded cleared his throat and sat up straight in his seat, obviously about to give a speech that he had rehearsed a thousand times. “All ponies are not created in the same way. Most of you are born, but we are not. We do not know where we came from. Our memories are often strange and bizarre, but none of them are real. Sometimes they don’t even match our personalities.” “So what, you just pop out of thin air?” Hot Blooded shrugged. “Maybe. None of us knows for sure when our memories end and the real world begins. For example, Gypsy Pie was taking her yearly trip to the old farmstead when she discovered that her parents were still alive. She doesn’t know if she started existing at the farmstead or on the road leading up to it.” The green pegasus spoke up, though he seemed reluctant to do so. “Blood makes it seem a bit weirder than it really is,” he said. “Most of us just go on with what we were doing before. We find a job and settle in. This group is just for those of us that have trouble adjusting.” “I don’t think I believe you.” Lightning Dust lapsed into silence for a while, thinking about some of the stranger things she had seen in Equestria. “Then again, there are some pretty weird ponies out there.” “Yeah, we’re a strange bunch!” Hot Blooded laughed. “Seriously though, I think most of us are just screwed up versions of normal ponies. Maybe the universe has a hiccup every now and then or something. Take a look at my friend’s cutie mark.” The nameless pony turned around. His mark was a picture of a strange device that Lightning Dust wasn’t familiar with. “Looks sort of like a flat typewriter,” she said. “It’s a keyboard,” the pegasus explained. “Not sure why I know that. That can happen sometimes; we remember weird stuff that doesn’t fit with the rest of the world. It’s like being in a television show with interference from another channel bleeding over.” “What’s a television?” Lightning Dust asked. Hot Blooded facehooved, and did so perhaps a little too hard. “We’re getting off topic,” he said, rubbing at his forehead. He would likely have a bruise in the morning. “The point is that we were created differently. Nopony knows how, but one theory is that we came from another world. Gypsy Pie thinks there are thousands of Equestrias in a bunch of different different universes. That’s where group gets its name; we’re the Otherworld Castoffs because we were thrown out of other worlds.” “That’s assuming that you think Gypsy Pie is correct,” his friend added. “Some of us just think we’re the result of magic gone wrong.” “Anyway, we get together once a week and talk. It’s not too formal or anything, but it helps.” Hot Blooded waived to the bartender, who pretended not to notice. “Groups like us are probably the only reason this place hasn’t been closed down.” Lightning Dust wanted to give up and go home, but she found these ponies oddly intriguing. She was either learning something very strange about how the world worked or viewing it through the eyes of a madpony. It was interesting, if a little confusing. “Mind if I stick around?” she asked. “I don’t have much else to do tonight.” “Sure!” Hot Blooded yanked his friend out of his seat. “C’mon, Nameless!” ***** Lightning Dust – or “Dusty”, as Hot Blooded now insisted on calling her – had never seen so many strange creatures gathered in one place. Ponies of all shapes and sizes were sitting in the crowd, slouched on folding chairs that had been set up in concentric circles for the occasion. Some of them had far too many colors in their manes, and others had manes that clashed with their coats. She saw more than one pair of bat wings in the crowd, even though bat ponies were exceptionally rare in Equestria. The bat ponies weren’t the strangest creatures in the audience. She saw several ponies with griffon paws, multiple alicorns, and even diamond dogs. Every intelligent species in Equestria seemed to be in attendance, along with a few that shouldn’t have existed at all. “We’ve got a newcomer!” Hot Blooded yelled. The entire room turned to face them, causing Lightning Dust to take an involuntary step back. At least half of the eyes watching her were glowing. “This is Dusty. She was supposed to be here for the meeting yesterday, but she’s hanging out with us for tonight.” “Hi, Dusty!” the group chorused. “We’ll start sharing in a bit,” Blood continued as he nudged his nameless friend. “How about it, pal? Feeling up to it today?” “Maybe,” Nameless said. Hot Blooded seemed to accept the answer at face value. “Come on,” he said to Lightning Dust. “I’ll show you around. There are some wicked awesome ponies here.” Lightning Dust tried to smile, but her nerves got the better of her and it came out as a grimace. She warily trotted around the perimeter of the room, eyes on the lookout for any sign of hostility. It wasn’t that she was afraid; she just wasn’t used to being around so many dangerous creatures. Nope, she told herself as she eyed a muscular griffon that was talking to a dragon, I’m not scared. Being scared is for losers. Hot Blooded began introducing her to some of his friends, but she kept getting distracted by a large cage sitting in the corner of the room. It was made of iron and very sturdy, with a thick padlock on the door. A dirty pink pony crouched inside, watching the proceedings with a sullen expression. These OCs might not be as harmless as I thought. Being different is fine, but what if they’ve kidnapped somepony? Lightning Dust looked around at the other group members, but none of them were even looking in the pink mare’s direction. I can’t ignore something like this. Lightning decided to wait until Hot Blooded and his friend became distracted, then sneak away. She soon got her chance when a tiny black alicorn foal caught Hot Blooded’s attention. “Where are your glasses, Mr. Blood?” the filly asked. She watched owlishly from behind a pair of spectacles that made her eyes appear almost comically large. Another filly, this one ivory white with a multi-hued purple mane, frowned crossly. Her pupils contracted like the iris of a camera and her voice grated out of her mouth in a lifeless drone. “Your statement designating corrective eyeware as fashionable apparel was a fallacy!” Lightning Dust snuck away while Hot Blooded fished around in his saddlebags. She skirted several groups of talking ponies and a few remarkably civilized diamond dogs before finally reaching her goal. A line of yellow tape circled the cage’s base. The pink mare watched her from behind a limp, dirty mane. Lightning Dust was horrified to see that she had the same cutie mark as the Pinkie Pie lookalike she’d seen earlier. They’ve kidnapped one of the elements of harmony! “What do you want?” the mare barked. “Come to gawk at Pouty Pie like the others? Am I really that interesting?” “Uh, I’m not sure.” Lightning Dust stepped a little closer, stepping over the yellow line on the floor. “Who are you? Why are you in that cage?” ‘Pouty Pie’ looked interested for the first time. “Y-you don’t know?” she asked in a harsh whisper. “You aren’t one of them, are you?” “You mean an OC?” Lightning asked. “No, I’m not. I showed up on the wrong night.” “Help me!” the caged mare hissed. She pressed her face against the bars and bit back a sob so that nopony else would hear. “You have to call the guards! I’ve been locked up here for days. I-I don’t know what they’re planning, but they already took away one of my friends!” Her tears were starting to cut through the grime on her face. “They took my Dashie! Please help me! Don’t let them hurt me!” Lightning Dust leaned in a bit closer to the cage while pretending to casually brush her mane out of her face. The door was only a few yards away, and she was pretty sure she could make it outside without being caught. She hadn’t trained very hard since getting kicked out of the Wonderbolt Academy, but she was still in excellent shape. She could be at the closest guard station before Hot Blooded and his little friend could blink, let alone try to stop her. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I’ll be back in twenty seconds flat, and every guardspony in the city is coming with me!” A pair of strong, calloused hooves wrapped around her neck. Hot Blooded pulled Lightning Dust away as easily as she might have picked up an empty beer can. She panicked at first and tried to fight back, thinking that she was about to be locked away like the poor mare in the cage. “Stop struggling!” Hot Blooded warned. “You’ll just hurt yourself!” The unhappy Pinkie Pie lunged forward and reached for her, grimy hooves sticking through the bars and grasping for her mane. Her hooves fell inches short, reaching only as far as the yellow tape on the floor. She howled like a windigo and rattled her cage in frustration. “Come back!” she shrieked, her mouth stretching into something almost like a smile but too cruel to be sincere. Somehow she had filed her back teeth into sharp points. “Come back and play with Pinkie!” Lightning Dust felt like her heart was about to explode out of her chest. The color had drained out of her face and her legs were shaking so badly that she almost collapsed. “W-what’s wrong with her?” she asked. “That’s Pinkamena.” Hot Blooded made a feint toward the cage and the crazed pony within shrank away. “She keeps reaching through the bars, no matter how many times you twist her stupid hooves the wrong way!” Pinkamena stuck out her tongue, but stayed on the far side of her cage. Lightning got the impression that she had learned not to reach for the muscular earth pony anymore. “Sometimes we turn out wrong,” the nameless pony said. He was hiding behind his friend like a foal cowering behind its mother. “Nopony knows why. Pinkamena’s only here because Celestia and Luna think these meetings will help her. After that she goes back to the dungeon.” “Pretty green pegasus ponies make perfect pastries!” Pinkamena sang. The pegasus shivered in response. “Just ignore her,” Hot Blooded warned. “She’s pretty good at messing with your head. She’s never been able to mess with me, though. I’m way too smart for her!” He ignored his friend’s quiet snickering. “Let’s find somewhere to sit!” Lightning Dust did a double take as she noticed his new eyewear. His sunglasses looked positively lethal, the lenses sticking out away from his head like the points of a ninja pony’s throwing star. “Nice shades,” she said. “Do they pick up basic cable?” “How do you know what that is?” Nameless asked. Hot Blooded pushed his sunglasses further up his nose and grinned. “Say what you want, but mares dig the glasses.” He gestured to a group of empty chairs in one corner of the room. “Come on, let’s sit down. We’re about to start sharing.” Lightning Dust followed her rescuer, casting one last look back at Pinkamena. ‘Nameless’ was right; everything about that mare was horribly wrong, right down to her creepy smile and scary teeth. The group passed Gypsy Pie on the way to their seats. She waved energetically, her anklets and other jewelry jingling like tambourines. “Celestia help that mare if she ever has to sneak up on anypony,” Hot Blooded muttered. Nameless timidly waved back and Hot Blooded nudged him forward with a little too much force, causing him to stumble. “Dude, there are like eight Pinkies running around here. If you can’t talk to the jingly one, try one of the others. Just make sure you pick one that won’t murder you.” “They aren’t the same pony,” his friend argued. “You should know better than to talk about them like that.” “Yeah, whatever. You mind telling me why she’s so special?” The pegasus looked thoughtfully at the pink gypsy pony. “She’s happy. She remembers a lot of awful stuff, but she isn’t bitter or jaded about it. She doesn’t resent the world for what happened to her.” Hot Blooded grinned, and for a moment the room’s dim lights reflected off his glasses. Lightning Dust got the feeling that he spent a lot of time practicing that pose. “Sounds like you’ve given this some thought! I’ll admit that she’s a pretty awesome pony. Still, you know she’s still really insecure about her looks.” “What are you trying to imply?” the nameless pony demanded. “She’s very pretty!” “And does she know that?” Hot Blooded asked. “I’m not telling you to take advantage of her or anything, and I’m not disagreeing with you. I just think it might do her good to know that somepony feels, you know, that way about her.” Nameless stared at his friend with a mix of irritation and admiration. “You’re really smart all of a sudden. I don’t think I like it.” Hot Blooded threw a foreleg around his friend’s shoulders. “Just stick with me, pal! I’ll have you rolling in mares in no time!” The pegasus stretched his wings forward to hid his face as several ponies gave them odd looks. Hot Blooded waved at a passing alicorn. “Oh look, it’s Trollestia! Hi, Trollestia!” “For the real Celestia’s sake sit down and be quiet before she sees us!” his friend pleaded. Hot Blooded reluctantly did as he was told and the trio waited for the meeting to begin. Lightning Dust prodded the nameless stallion teasingly. “So what’s going on between you and the party pony?” she asked. “Nothing. She doesn’t even know my name.” Hot Blooded facehooved for the second time in five minutes. “I can’t believe you just said that,” he groaned. “Come on, man! You can’t keep letting the same things keep you unhappy. There’s a pretty mare that already likes you sitting right across the room. Why are we still having this conversation?” An alicorn sitting near Gypsy Pie stood up and stomped his hoof for silence. He was covered from head to hooves with shining black armor, and his mane sported the telltale membranous web of a changeling. “We’re about to begin!” he called. “Has anypony seen our fearless leader?” The entire building shook violently. A section of the ceiling that had recently been painted over exploded as a grey cannon ball hurtled into the room. The alicorn let out a shriek that he would probably be embarrassed about later and dove out of the way. The grey blur crashed to the ground with such force that it cracked the heavy wooden planks of the floor. A pegasus stumbled out of the cloud of dust caused by the impact and sat down on an intact chair with an exhausted sigh. “Ouch.” She held her head and winced at what was undoubtedly a bad lump. An ominous crack filled the air. Her chair collapsed, and the grey pegasus tumbled to the ground yet again. The alicorn with a changeling’s mane stepped forward and helped the pony to her hooves. The chair glowed with his magic and reassembled itself in short order. “Thanks,” she mumbled shyly. The alicorn hugged her and then trotted back to his seat. “Who is that?” Lightning Dust asked. Hot Blooded shielded his mouth from view and whispered when he spoke. It was the first polite thing he’d done all night. “That’s Derpy. She’s been here longer than any of us, and she’s done so well for herself that most of us don’t even consider her an actual OC anymore. She’s sort of our role model.” Lightning Dust stared at the strange grey pegasus and, after a while, noticed something extremely off about her. “What’s wrong with her eyes?” “No idea,” Hot Blooded said. “She’s the sweetest mare you’ll ever meet, but she’s unbelievably clumsy. Try not to stare, okay? She’s kind of sensitive about it.” Lightning Dust tried her best, though she doubted that Derpy would have noticed. She was too busy addressing the group from the center of the circle. “Let’s get started!” she exclaimed, all embarrassment forgotten. “I’m sorry for being late. Things have been going really well for me, so we’ll just skip my turn. Who wants to share?” “Song first!” Gypsy Pie shouted. “I have a sharing song!” Derpy and several others forced a smile while the rest of the group groaned. “Maybe later,” she said pleasantly. An alicorn in the outermost ring of chairs stood up. He was almost as well armored as the pony Derpy had nearly killed, and his mane glowed like a tastefully styled bonfire. “I-I’d like to go, if that’s alright,” he mumbled, eyes glued to the ground. The crowd leaned away as he passed, trying to make room for his absurdly large frame. When he eventually made it to the middle of the room the floor creaked under his weight. The group waited while he collected his thoughts. “Hi everypony,” he said timidly. “Hi, Disharmony!” the group chorused as one. Disharmony gave a tiny smile and politely cleared his throat. “I don’t share very often,” he began. Gypsy Pie shoved a hoof into her mouth to keep from bursting into song. “I think the problem is that maybe there isn’t very much to say. I’ve got a lot of bad memories about taking the throne from Celesita. Really, though, who doesn’t?” Every alicorn in the room laughed. “I used to have more magical power than the solar sisters and Discord combined. I could have unmade all of Equestria with a thought, but these days I find it hard to lift a teacup.” Nameless leaned over to whisper in Lightning Dust’s ear. “Something happens to the really powerful magic users before they come here,” he explained. “It doesn’t matter how big and bad you were before; you’re still a normal pony when you get here.” He started to pull away, but then added something else: “Maybe not normal exactly, but you get the idea.” “I was basically Discord before there was a Discord,” Disharmony continued. “It’s almost like something created me, but then abandoned me when someone more interesting came along. That doesn't… doesn't feel very nice.” He wiped away a tear that had trickled down onto his helmet. “I never wanted to be a king anyway; I get panic attacks when I’m around too many strangers. I wouldn’t make a good leader.” After some quiet contemplation he brightened in more than one sense of the word. His mane threw off a noticeably stronger glow as his frown turned into a smile worthy of Pinkie Pie. “Some of my paintings sold in an art show last week. It wasn’t much, but it means somepony liked my work.” He meekly returned to his chair and sat down. “And uh, that’s all I suppose.” The group clapped politely as another creature stood up. This one bore only a passing resemblance to a pony. It had a normal face, but a feathery body and clawed feet. Its canine ears swiveled back and forth as it watched the group through the slit pupils of dragon eyes. “Hi, Rover!” the group said. “Yeah, hi.” Rover looked extremely unhappy to be talking about his problems, but pushed ahead anyway. “I guess I’m sort of a mess. I’m part pony, part griffon, part diamond dog, and part dragon. I think there’s even a little changeling mixed in somewhere. It’s like somepony couldn’t decide what they wanted, so they tossed every intelligent species they could think of into one person. “The only thing more screwed up than my genetic code is my diet. Every meal is a struggle. I get sick if I eat meat, but ordinary pony food tastes boring and bland. I sure as Tartarus couldn’t choke down a gem even if my life depended on it.” The hybrid scratched the back of his head and dislodged a few feathers. “And I shed and stuff. Somepony really should have thought twice before putting me together.” He stood awkwardly silent for a while, then grudgingly muttered something to himself. Derpy cupped a hoof to her ear. “What was that?” she asked. “I said I’ve been making pretty good money lately!” Rover snarled, scowling at the cross-eyed pegasus. “I like my job. Happy now? Can I sit down?” Derpy rolled her eyes (in two different directions) and let him go. She waited for Rover to return to his seat before looking at the rest of the group expectantly. A handful of creatures obediently followed Rover’s example and discussed their problems with the group. A unicorn in a blue jumpsuit missed the taste of Sparkle Cola, a pegasus felt self-conscious about having tie-dyed wings, an earth pony was trying to come to terms with being named ‘Butt Stallion’, and several ponies were suffering from abandonment issues after discovering that their romantic partners had no memory of them. Almost all of the nonexistent relationships in question were with one of the Elements of Harmony, but one stallion insisted that he remembered courting Princess Luna. Her royal guards had not been amused when he requested entry to her bedchambers. Finally, just as Lightning Dust was starting to get bored, Hot Blooded’s friend stood up. The dull murmur of conversation that had sprung up while the group waited for the next speaker fell silent. Unfortunately, so did the speaker. An intensely awkward silence descended on the group, punctuated by the occasional cough and Gypsy Pie’s harshly whispered song. “Step one: close your eyes and breathe in deeply! Two: dry your tears and stop your weeping!” “Hi everypony,” the pegasus finally said. “I’m… me.” With no name to echo the group resorted to a quiet chorus of greetings that was not loud enough to destroy the fragile momentum he had built up. “It’s nice to meet you.” The rest of the group seemed disappointed when he sat down without another word, but the shy pegasus looked incredibly proud of himself. The last pony to share was Gypsy Pie. She bounced to the middle of the room and spun around to great everypony individually, starting with a changeling named Alphonso and continuing alphabetically until she finished with Zorn, Crusher of Gods. “Does she do that every time she wants to share?” Lightning Dust asked. “Pretty much,” Hot Blooded sighed. He was slouched down in his chair, sunglasses dangling from his nose and eyes unfocused from boredom. “Nice mare, but she talks a lot.” His nameless friend didn’t share his apathy toward this version of Pinkie Pie and was listening intently as she rambled on about anything that crossed her mind. Lightning Dust was able decipher only a tiny bit of the massive flood of useless information. Gypsy Pie liked her job, had lots of new friends, donated to an orphanage, and so on. None of it had anything to do with being an OC, which probably meant that she was considered very well adjusted. That was good, but it didn’t make her any easier to listen to. Eventually Derpy had to interrupt. “Um, Pinkie?” she asked. She ignored the eight voices that answered. “We’re almost out of time. Would any of the other Pinkies like a turn?” A host of pink ponies, all of them sitting in the front row, shook their heads. Two of them were wearing red and black jumpsuits, one was hovering a few inches above her chair, and another was sporting a yellow and white color scheme and a pair of wings. “Then I suppose we’ll move on to our oath! Everypony join appendages, please.” The entire group began to recite. Most of them were cheerful, a few were solemn, and one was singing: “I am not a nopony. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous I look Or how convoluted my past might be. I am not a mistake. I am worthy of my own respect. There is nopony I’d rather be than me.” “I’ll see you all next week!” Derpy yelled as the group broke apart and loudly began discussing their plans for the rest of the night. “Don’t forget to tip our friend behind the bar!” As they filed out the group made sure to do as the walleyed pegasus asked. Each of them dropped a few bits into the pickle jar sitting at the end of the bar. Lightning Dust wasn’t ready to return home. Home was a lonely apartment and weather patrol duty in the morning. Home was an empty fridge and an uncomfortable bed. It was what she could afford, but not what she wanted. Luckily her new friends weren’t ready to call it a night either. Hot Blooded threw his leg over her shoulders and pulled her in the direction the little group was going. “You should come to the Gilded Trumpet with us!” He grabbed Nameless as well. “We’ll all go out drinking! It’ll be great!” Lightning Dust pretended to be reluctant, but she knew she wasn’t fooling anypony. “I suppose I could go for a drink,” she said. “This’ll be so much fun!” Hot Blooded exclaimed. He somehow managed to drag both of his friends down the street despite only having two hooves on the ground. “I’m gonna drink until I can’t remember how pants work!” Gypsy Pie giggled. “You don’t wear pants, silly!” “No, but I could if I wanted to. That’s going to change.” As they walked, Lightning Dust felt her mood improving. She hadn’t been truly happy in weeks, ever since the captain of the Wonderbolts had looked her right in the eye and told her she wasn’t good enough. Now, strolling through Canterlot with two strange ponies that she had just met, the world seemed just a little less miserable.