//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Fury // Story: The Life Of D-Pad // by FoxVillain321 //------------------------------// “Do you think I look ok?” I ask. “I mean, do you think a tie would be better?” “D-Pad, you look fine.” Windstorm replies, tying my wings down. Yeah, she’s right. Bowties are always in style. I put on my full-body dress coat over my dress shirt. “I never thought I’d see my little colt finally get to go out with another pony. I’m proud of you, son.” Forge says to me, patting my shoulder. “Thanks, dad.” “Hurry up, D-Pad! You’re going to be late!” Storm Drum calls from outside. “Coming!” I shout, trotting out the door. Swift Strike and Quicksilver are saddled up to a wooden carriage. I sit down in the carriage. My brothers and I take off towards Ponyville. “YO, TAVI! YOUR DATE’S HERE!!” Vinyl shouted up the stairs. Octavia walked down the stairs. She wore a white collar with a pink bowtie. She walked outside to a wooden carriage. “Evening, miss.” Quicksilver said, bowing. “Hey, what’s up?!” Swift Strike shouted. Quicksilver and D-Pad both facehoof themselves. Octavia giggled at them. She climbed into the carriage. “You look very pretty.” D-Pad complimented. “Thank you. You look rather dashing yourself.” She complemented D-Pad. D-Pad smiled. We arrive at the fancy restaurant my dad had told me about. I don’t think I’ve seen so many unicorns in one place! I heard that Canterlot was one of the most prominent unicorn cities, but I think prominent is an understatement. I think they sensed that non unicorns were in their city, as they immediately lifted their noses. Talk about posh. “Have you seen this many unicorns in one place?” I whisper to Quicksilver. “If I said yes, I’d be lying.” Quicksilver joked. I get out of the carriage, and help Octavia out of the carriage. “We’ll be back in a bit. We’re going to try and sell some of our silver trinkets to some of the unicorns here.” Quicksilver says, unsaddling from the cart. I walk with Octavia into the restaurant. Man, look at this place! Red leather booths, fine oak tables, crystal chandeliers, astonishing artworks…this IS posh. “Do you have reservations?” I snap my attention to a mustached unicorn in a tuxedo behind a fancy red podium. “Do you have reservations?” He repeats himself, snootily. “Oh right! It’s under D-Pad.” I say. He looks at a list on the podium he is sitting behind. “Ah…yes, that booth over there.” He points at a booth. We walk over to the booth. “Friendly bunch, aren’t they?” I joke. “It’s because you’re not a unicorn.” She explains. It’s always the little details. We sit down in our booth. “I’ll admit this place looks stunning.” I comment. “Indeed, I admire the work they…” Octavia stops midsentence. “Oh no…” She whispers, hiding her face in the menu. “What? What’s wrong?” I ask. I look around and see two grey unicorns, a mare and stallion, approaching the table. The mare was the splitting image of Octavia, but older and had a base clef as a cutie mark. The stallion bore a weird resemblance of a male Octavia. His cutie mark was covered by his tuxedo. Wait…are they? “Hello, Octavia…” “Hello…Mother.” Octavia grumbles, putting down the menu. I take a few seconds to examine Octavia and compare her to her parents. “HAH! Genetics.” I laugh heartily. I hear Octavia stifle a snicker. The two unicorns give me a quizzical look. “And you are?” The stallion asks me. “D-Pad.” I say extending my hoof for a hoofshake. “Interesting.” He says, staring at my hoof. “You didn’t tell me you were dating someone.” The mare says to Octavia. I would gather a guess that she didn’t WANT to let her mother know she was dating. “He’s just taking me out for dinner. We’re not exactly dating.” She replies. “Oh good, then you will not mind if we join you, then.” The mare stated. Oh I mind. But I have been thrust into an awkward situation here. If I say something, I’ll look disrespectful, and these are her parents. “No, please join us.” I say. They sit down in the booth with us. Wonderful. A waiter comes to our table and asks for our orders. “Chef’s salad and…sarsaparilla.” I say. Celestia, I could go for some vodka and Red Bull. I could down a couple of glasses of it right now. “I will have the same.” Octavia says to the waiter. He walks away. “You never said why you and your roommate moved to Ponyville, Octavia.” Her mother commented. “The rent here was getting too high for our tastes.” Octavia replied. I would not be surprised if she just wanted to get farther away from her parents. By Celestia, if I weren’t the good, gentle pegasus that I am today, I probably would have taped their mouths shut. They just keep going on and on about how wonderful unicorns are. I have half a mind to slam my head on the table so that I knock myself out. “So, what do you do for a living?” Octavia’s dad asked me. “Oh, I’m pretty much a pony for hire. I work where I can get work.” I reply. “Hmm…Interesting…” He huffs. At least one of us leads an interesting life. I can only imagine what boring job you have. I turned back to my chef’s salad. I eat a little more of it. “Where do you live?” Octavia’s mom asks. “About a mile outside Ponyville.” I say, swallowing my food. “Appropriate.” She replies. I don’t know if she’s being blatantly honest, or insulting me. “I’m also very good at videogames. I built a custom pad that non-unicorns can use to play videogames.” “Huh…That is quite a feat. I am surprised an earth pony was able to do that.” Octavia’s mother commented. Okay, I am almost certain that one was an insult. “Excuse me; I have to use the restroom.” I say getting up. “Mother, must you insult him?” Octavia asked her mother. “I wasn’t trying to. I am genuinely surprised he was able to make such a contraption.” She replied. “He’s quite the character. Where did you meet him?” Octavia’s father asked. “He offered to help my roommate and I clean out our basement. He’s very sweet; he even offered to stay longer than I paid him for.” She replied. “You paid him to help clean out your basement?” Her father asked, shocked. “He IS a pony for hire.” She replied. “Why didn’t you just ask someone else who would do it for free?” Her father asked. “I just moved there! Who do you think I knew that could help me?” Octavia retorted. “Why did he have cuts on his face?” Octavia’s mother changed the subject. “…Some plates fell down on him.” Octavia lied. “Surprised he didn’t sue.” Her father commented. Octavia grumbled. “Don’t get me wrong, he is a charming stallion. He’s just a little…off.” Her father added. “And what exactly does that mean?” She asked. “He seems a little anti-social. He never contributed to any of our conversations.” Her father replied. “He’s nervous. He didn’t expect to meet you tonight.” Octavia reasoned. “He also seemed irritated when I talked about pegasi.” Her father added. “He was adopted by pegasi.” Octavia replied. “That explains it, with all the lies they probably told him.” Octavia nearly choked on her salad. “What?” She said, astonished. “Pegasi control the weather. They water the earth pony’s crops, and provide sunshine for warmth. That story’s been told a hundred times over. But all it would take is a bunch of unicorns to learn weather changing spells, and we wouldn’t need the pegasi anymore.” Her father replied arrogantly. “You can’t seriously believe that!” Octavia exclaimed. “Well, it’s true. We even learn spells to walk on the clouds. You’ll soon come to realize that, when it all boils down to it, pegasi are as useless as a common-” WHAM!! D-Pad slammed a hoof into Octavia’s father’s face, knocking her father to the floor. “I’m sorry! I couldn’t hear you over the sound of your teeth rattling!” I yell. I’ve been waiting to do that all night. Maybe now he’ll shut up about pegasi. Octavia looks in shock. “Y-y-you just hit my dad!” She exclaims. “Serves him right for insulting my family’s kind.” I growl. Her father lifts himself off the floor. “How dare you, you filthy earth pony!” “You mad? Come at me, bro!” I shout at him. He charges at me. I try to hit him with my hoof again, but he tackles me to the ground. We scuffle around for a couple of minutes. “Stop it D-Pad!!” Octavia shouts at me. I end up standing on him. “CALL MY FAMILY USELESS AGAIN! I BUCKING DARE YOU!!” He glares at me in anger, then is eyes widen in fear. I look around. Everypony in the restaurant is staring in fear at me. …I don’t have my coat on anymore, do I? “It’s one of them!!” A unicorn shouts in fear. “It’s going to kill that unicorn!!” Another one shouts. “No! Please! Listen to me!” I shout to the crowd. I feel food and silverware being thrown at me. “Get out of here, you monster!!” “Go away!!” “Call the Royal Guard!!” Octavia runs over to me. She tries to shield me. “What are you doing?! Get out of here!! I’ll be fine!!” I shout to her. “No! You’re my friend! I’m not going to let them hurt you!!” She shouts in reply. I can’t help but smile and hug her. “Octavia! Get away from that creature!” Her mother yells out. “No! I want to help him!” She shouts back. She begins shouting in pain. I look down. Plate shards are everywhere. Someone threw a plate at her. Her leg is bleeding profusely. Words cannot describe…HOW ANGRY I AM!! “WHO THREW THAT PLATE!?!” Dead silence. I tear off my ropes off my wings. “WHO. THREW. THAT. PLATE!?!?!” I flare my wings out. Then I hear a clashing of plates. I turn to find a unicorn trying to put some plates back on the table. I gallop over and slam my head into the unicorn, knocking him over. I then stamp my hooves into him repeatedly. He starts spitting out blood. “BURN IN TARTARUS YOU BUCKING BASTARD!! “D-Pad!” I look at Octavia. “Please stop!” I look down at the broken, bleeding unicorn. I suddenly feel grief and regret. Dear Celestia…what have I done! I gallop of out the restaurant door. I take off toward the sky. DAMNIT CELESTIA! WHY DO YOU TORTURE ME!!! So close…SO CLOSE TO NORMALITY! AND THEN THAT BUCKING HAPPENS!! I trot back and forth by a lake. IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT!?! …I’m done…I can’t do it anymore…I’ve tried for so long… With tears streaming from my eyes, I grab a bunch of heavy stones. I jump into the lake, swim to the bottom and pin my wings under the heavy stones. Well…This is it…Celestia…If you can hear me…Just watch over my foster family…That's all I wish…ERGH! I wish this wasn’t as painful…my vision is blurring…I’m swallowing a lot of water…I’m letting my last breath out… Flomp! The heck was that…I thought I heard something…Wait…I see something…Is…Is that Octavia? What is she… She put her mouth on mine. I take a breath of “fresh air.” She then pushes the stones of my wings. I swim upwards. “HEAAAUUH” I start coughing violently. I swim to shore, and I am greeted by my two brothers. Octavia swims out behind me. She has bandage wraps around her leg. “Octavia…” I say. She smacks me across the face. “WHAT THE TARTARUS WERE YOU THINKING!?!?” I deserved that. “I’m really sorry about tonight. I didn’t mean for that to happen. You dad…He was being so horrid… and…You were bleeding and hurt and…I will not be saddened if you want me to leave and never come back.” I say. “Do you think I would have followed you if I never wanted to see you again?” She asks. She hugs me. “It’s not your fault. My father believes that all non-unicorns are unimportant. He treats them like dirt. He knew what he was saying. He wanted to insult your family.” She adds. I sigh. “What about that other unicorn?” I ask She sighs. “He’s being taken to the hospital…You really did a number on him…” “I promise I will learn to control my anger more. It won’t happen again.” I reply. We both sit down and look at the stars. “Well, I have one more problem facing me…” I state. “Which is…” “How am I gonna get my coat back?” We just stare at each other. We then both burst out laughing. “Shame that we don’t have any music…” Octavia comments. … Quicksilver started humming. “Some…times in our lives…We all have pain…We all have sorrow…” Swift Strike started singing. “But…If we are wise…We know that there's…Always tomorrow…” Quicksilver joined in. “Lean on me…When you’re not strong…and I’ll be your friend…I help you carry on...” I join in singing. “For…It won’t be long…till I’m gonna need…” Octavia sings, looking straight at me. We both start slow dancing. “Somepony to lean on.” Octavia and I sing.