//------------------------------//
// II - Conflicting Emotions And Thoughts Via Rapidly-Sequencing Events 
// Story: At Your Service 
// by Deyeaz 
//------------------------------//


II - Conflicting Emotions And Thoughts Via Rapidly-Sequencing Events
 



Midnight, who had been holding a napkin to his nose that he had bloodied on collision with something after a sloppy teleportation landing, examined what he had plowed into.

It was a mare, well-dressed in a clean-cut, suave black tuxedo. Midnight scanned her, from her well-kept hair and lovely amethyst eyes, to the pink bowtie that completed her tuxedo. 'Whoa... she's... kinda cute.' He returned the mare's shopping bags to her. She had gone silent and looked only at the floor, a look of detest on her face. Midnight detected a miasma of unease clog his mind like hair in a drain. 'Was it something I said or did?' he wondered worriedly.

"Er, nice to meet you." He held out the right hand that wasn't staunching any blood, expecting her to reciprocate the greeting. No avail, however, as the pony simply clicked her tongue negatively. He watched her fists clench tightly, almost until her knuckles shone white through her dark fur. He receded slightly, under the impression she might sucker-punch him.

The awkwardness that swam among the two grew in potency. As a gesture of kindness in the attempt to ameliorate any hard feelings between the two, Midnight let his horn glow bright as he surrounded the both of them in a vivid green magic bubble. The rain crashed and slammed into the bubble that shielded them from the rain. "Would you like me to walk you home? You'll catch a cold in this weather."

The silence from the mare in the elegant sand-colored snailed on. Only a weak, reluctant nod was her mere response. 'Better than nothing,' thought Midnight. "Do you live close by?" Another nod of greater reluctance was emitted. "Okay, shall we go?" The mare did not hesitate in barreling towards her home, leaving Midnight to wonder what her attitude was about.





'Filthy nightcrawler... dirty, cavedwelling, rat-eating mongrel!' swore Octavia mentally, looking at the Sarosian in complete and utter disdain, as though a dog had just vomited on her shoes. 'How dare he try to shake hands with somepony of my standing?! He should be shoved back into the underground where he belongs!....' The eyes of passersby fall upon the both of them, as questions jump back and forth like electric current through a wire.

"Is that Octavia?"

"Why is she with that Sarosian?"

"What is that mongrel doing with such a high-class member of society?!"

Octavia's prejudice, while unvoiced, was felt by the Sarosian at once. He began looking at Octavia, worry plastered upon his face.

"I get it: you hate me," he said.

"My, I wonder what gave it away," muttered Octavia sarcastically.

"Hey, she speaks!" Octavia swung at his glowing horn, the sensitive appendage losing its aura as the shield around them cracked into pieces before vanishing entirely. "Ow, what the hay?!"

Octavia felt more questioning eyes watch her and the mongrel, listened to more of their status-breaking insinuations. Her reputation was at stake. "Do not talk to me." Octavia's short bark shellshocked her pest as she stampeded up the steps to her lavish apartment complex. "Do not look at me. Do not mention me in your horrid conversations! Do not even think about me, you grotesque abomination! Now be gone with you!" She rams the door of the complex shut, leaving the Sarosian hurt and confused in the rain.

'Good. Position left intact, and that horrid vermin knows his place.' She looked down at the hand that had touched his horn, and shuddered in disgust. "Now, to just scrub myself clean...."





Midnight turned towards the castle. "Now be gone with you!" He reiterated in a bad caricature of the mare's voice. "Ungrateful bitch," he muttered under his breath as he tossed his bloody napkin into a wastebasket once the wound was clotted. Ponies walking by stared at Midnight, uneasy and afraid; some even disgusted. "And may I ask what in Tartarus are you gawking at?!" The ogling pedestrians, taken aback by the outburst, harrumph'd pompously and scooted off to where they needed to be, paying no more mind to Midnight.

Silently swearing up a storm that would make even the most hardened sailor wet themselves, Midnight fast-walked back to the supermarket, recently remembering why he wanted to go in the first place. After purchasing a six-pack of Horse Power energy drinks, tipping the clerk immensely because he had no change or time, and generously downing one of the cans. A waterfall of carbonated caffeine processed to taste like mint and raspberry surged down his gullet, pumping him full of energy as he made his commute to the castle to start his business as scribe of the princesses.

Fifteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds of jogging crawled by at the pace of a tortoise with a broken leg. Midnight had long since teleported the rest of his energy drinks back to his dorm, praying that Jericho had the decency to not drink them all at once. He walked up to the enormous gate and prepared himself for the long day ahead of him.

"Mr. Midnight Oil!" called one of the guards as they marched over to him.

"'Sup?" 

"The Princesses request for you. They say it is urgent."

"Yeah, yeah," said Midnight, perspiring slightly from his jogging, "tell them I'll be there once I change into my uniform."

"I'm afraid that is out of the question. They request you now." The white guards in their golden armor gripped the scribe's arms tightly and hauled him to the throne room. Struggle as he might, Midnight was having no luck at all with getting loose.

"You know, you guys are really strong." The guards had not uttered a word in retort to Midnight's pointless rambling. "It's like being held by two big pieces of white chocolate." The guards tossed Midnight inside the throne room like an unwanted ragdoll. "Oof! Too much?"

Midnight looked around, and gulped in worry. Three princesses—Celestia, Luna, and the newly coronated Princess Twilight—were sitting in their appropriate thrones. Royal Guards were set up in two lines, one on each side, standing at attention. At the feet of the thrones was a heavily-battered and beaten guard: a closer look showed that it was Cirrus Storm sporting a bleeding nose, a black eye, and several bruises along his body.

Midnight stifled a smile at Cirrus's misfortune: as much as he liked the idea that his bully had reached a bad end, he didn't wish for his elation to be detected by anypony, least of all the princesses. Besides, it looked as though something serious was unfolding at this instant.

"You requested my audience, princesses?" Midnight bows deeply before the three rulers of Equestria.

"Yes," Princess Celestia smiled at her subject. "Thank you for arriving on time." Her smile dissolved, a look of solemnity replacing it instead. "Now, Cirrus Storm, is this the pony who you believe assaulted you?"

Midnight's heart detached from his ribs and plummeted into her stomach. His eyes shrunk to the size of pinpoints as it became harder to breathe. He knew what happened: it was a set-up. Cirrus Storm got somepony to injure him—or he probably did it himself—and wanted to pin it on Midnight himself. 'Sketchy bastard....'

"Yeah, that's him! That's the nightcrawler–"

"Corporal Cirrus Storm, we do not allow such vulgar language in our court. Please refrain from derogative speech, or we will be forced to remove you from this room," dictated Princess Luna, looking down on the roughed-up guard. Midnight gritted his teeth behind a closed mouth, agitated once again at that that word had been said to his face.

"Y-yes, Your Highness," stuttered Cirrus Storm. "It was Midnight who had attacked me."

"Oh, come on!" Midnight groaned in exasperation.

"Mr. Midnight Oil, I'd recommend you refrain from talking out of turn as well," Princess Twilight rebuked. "You're in hot water, too."

"Can we please return to a more important issue?" Princess Celestia rubbed her temples. "Mr. Oil, would you care to explain the events of this morning leading up to your return to the castle?"

"Let's see, I finished up some studying in the library–"

"Ooh, which book?" Twilight urged in curious reverence.

"Starswirl the Bearded's Advanced Spellbook For The Training Unicorn - Level 7," replied Midnight, a little elated at the fact that Twilight loved books as much as he did.

"Ooh, that was a great one! I finished reading Levels 8 and 9 before my coronation!"

"Really?" Twilight nodded happily. "Perhaps I can borrow them afterwar–"

"CAN WE PROCEED?!" Princess Luna screeched, outraged at how immediately they were getting off-track. Midnight and Twilight felt their cheeks sear with the flames of mortification. "So, you were just studying, and then?"

"Oh, yes..." Midnight cleared his throat and resumed his answer. "I went to the mess hall, ordered a salad for breakfast, had a tomato thrown at me by Cirrus Storm–" the aforementioned Pegasus guard grimaced at being called out for his offence "–and so I smashed his face into his breakfast, then I went upstairs to eat, tried to go to sleep and couldn't, went to get energy drinks to keep me awake at work, helped a very pretty, but very rude mare with her groceries and walked her home, then I come back to work... and here I am."

"Okay, now what do you think is wrong with what you did this morning?" demanded Luna rhetorically.

Midnight pondered for a moment on the faults of this morning, before his face was contorted into a complexion of solemnity. "...Yeah, I had a damn salad for breakfast."

"No, and watch your mouth." Celestia cleared her esophagus and went on to say, "What was wrong that you had slammed Corporal Storm's head into his food. You more or less assaulted a Royal Guard." Cirrus snickered at Midnight's demise, before getting snapped at by the Princess of the sun. "Don't think you got off easy as well, Corporal. You technically assaulted somepony who is considered a council member, and that's just as bad. Thankfully, it was just a small food fight, so it won't be regarded as too severe. However, events and squabbles like this have happened undetected in the past, and have just reached our ears right now."

"So in terms of consequences: Corporal Cirrus Storm, you will be given sixty days of consecutive kitchen duties." The storm-grey Pegasus guard groaned heavily in frustration, not at all excited for the hours of suds and dirty dishes ahead of him.

"And as for you, Midnight, you will be placed under sixty days of exclusive community service for one pony, which we have already chosen for you and alerted of your arrival," announced Luna. "You will meet this pony later today at ten o'clock. It is about nine seventeen. You will be escorted by one of our guards there, should you try anything funny and run away."

Midnight began getting nervous. He was starting to hyperventilate, and he could feel his blood pressure rise as sweat leaked down his face. What if this pony was completely and utterly horrible to him? "A-and what should h-happen if I do make a getaway?"

"Well, you'd have to spend twelve months in the dungeons," declared Twilight matter-of-factly.

"O-oh." Midnight was breathing harder now, his balloon of anxiety inflating in an out-of-control manner. "C-could somepony open up the windows?" 

"Very well." Luna nodded her approval of the request. As soon as each guard had thrown the windows open, Midnight barreled towards the nearest one as fast as he could, sticking his head and taking deep generous gulps of rainy morning air, heart pounding at a ridiculously fast pace.

It took half a minute of deep breaths in order for Midnight's heart to regulate its speed, as well as his breathing to return to normal. He pulled his head out from the window, the princesses and their guards looking at him in concern. "Anxiety attack," he coughed as they hummed in understanding before he walked back in front of the princesses. "What about my home in the astronomy tower, and my job? I'm practically bleeding out Bits just to keep that place, let alone pay for food, water, electricity and all that."

"Don't worry," Twilight reassured the skeptical, still wigged-out Sarosian. "All expenses towards your house will be covered while you're under this sentence." She became cold sober when she glanced at the still-injured Cirrus. "However, we have one final issue to cover before the punishment becomes absolute: did you or did you not attack Corporal Storm until he looked like this?"

"What? No!"

"Liar!" Cirrus cried, now feigning a broken arm by grabbing it and clutching it tighter than a mother would to her babe. "You and your little friends did this to me!"

"Princesses, which would be more believable?" propositioned Midnight agitatedly, his disdain for Cirrus swelling by the second. "That I had gone out to get highly-caffeinated beverages so that I can be alert on the job? Or that a strong and able-bodied soldier got his butt kicked by a socially dead, scrawny egghead and his pet monkey?" Midnight then looked down at the ground, almost a bit wistfully, before looking at Cirrus with disdain. "Besides... what do you mean by friends? I don't have any friends to begin with...."

Princess Celestia heard his words. Concern began flooding her being. She had never met a single pony without somepony to call a friend. "Hmm… my apologies, Midnight. It appears we were a bit... overzealous... about our initial judgment of you. You're off the hook for this one." Midnight sighed in great relief, while Cirrus frowned deeply, disappointed that his plan failed. "But, that doesn't mean you're relieved of your previous punishment for smashing the corporal's face into his cereal, and the offences before that. You still have to do community service."

"That's fine by me, Princess. As long as I'm not in loads of trouble."

"Excellent," Luna said happily. "Can somepony take Corporal Storm to the infirmary for his wounds?"

"...I can fix him up." Midnight, against his better judgment, wanted to get in as many brownie points as possible; it could affect his sentencing in a positive way. He figured he would start with healing his foe.

His horn glowed again, and another aura surrounded Cirrus Storm entirely. The cuts on the guard's body ever-so-slowly started to close up as Midnight strained his magic more and more, the leaking blood gradually seeping back into his body. Midnight's horn was almost blinding with light as the healing of Cirrus's wounds quickened, sparks flying hither and thither as the magical buildup heightened.

Midnight's horn stopped glowing. A fully-healed Cirrus Storm landed back on his hooves, good as new. Midnight crumpled to his hands and knees on the floor, caving in like a disturbed house of cards, wheezing and strained from overexertion. Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Twilight were rather impressed: magic for anything involving biology is hard to master, unless your Cutie Mark was a red cross, a heart monitor, or a caduceus. Given that Midnight's Cutie Mark was neither of these things, it was a miracle he wasn't rendered unconscious from magical strain.

"Somepony get him some water and space to breathe!" ordered Twilight, genuinely concerned about his health as somepony fanned his face with the plume of their helmet. "As for his community service, arrange an automobile to transport him to his location."

Midnight felt someone thrust a cup of water into his hands as someone supported him into a sitting position. Cirrus Storm walked over as Midnight greedily drank the frigid liquid life he held in his shaky hands. "Say, thanks for patching me up," said the Pegasus soldier.

"Don't mention it," gasped Midnight, wiping sweat from his furrowed brow. This was a first: having an enemy treating him like an ally. "Er... sorry about this morning, man."

"I-it's alright." Cirrus seemed to also be in the same bizarre predicament as Midnight. "Uh, sorry about the tomato."

"And?" Midnight felt a smug grin formulating in his lips as he watched Cirrus apologize with great reticence. 

"And for trying to get you in huge trouble."

"And?" It felt nice to watch someone squirm when you've them pinned in a corner they can't slither out of.

"And for all the racial slurs I called you."

Midnight's smirk grew wider and smugger. "Aaand?"

Cirrus sighed in defeat. "And for all the years of being a complete douche."

"Attaboy." Midnight slowly got up and extended his hand out to Cirrus. "Apology accepted."

Cirrus slowly, ever-so-slowly reached towards Midnight's hand, finally grabbing it and shaking it firmly. "Oh, no, we're not warming up to each other, are we?" he asked in genuine worry.

"Good Goddess, I hope not," said Midnight, also concerned by the odds of this uninevitable chain of events. 

The sound of a vehicle pulling up outside reached both their ears. "...So, I hope you like community service," Cirrus teased.

"Yeah? I hope you like scrubbing dishes," bantered Midnight as a miscellaneous soldier escorted him outside. Midnight let the wind blast in his face, chilling any sweat from his magic and his anxiety attack as he opened the door to the car and hopped in, followed closely by his escort.

"Hey. Name's Scorch Shot," said the guard, a female. Her voice was slightly scratchy, yet still feminine.

"Midnight Oil." He shook hands with her. "You know the way?"

"'Course I do. It shouldn't take too long." She pressed down on the pedal and snailed out of the castle's front before accelerating down the road towards their destination, shifting gears every so often so as not put too much strain on the engine.

Midnight, fueled with an overdose of caffeine, was unable to obtain any well-deserved sleep on the ride there. Left to his own devices, socially inept, and bored out of his wits, Midnight simply sat there, thumbs whirring together in a flawless and infinite cycle, sneaking glances at his watch every few seconds, eyes scanning his cell phone for anything recent.

Anything to keep his mind off of who he'd have to kiss up to for the next month.

"We're here," announced Scorch Shot, putting the car in "Park", securing the E-Brake, and killing the motor. Midnight peered out the window: several apartment complexes that appeared to border on five-star hotel levels sat before him. Now that he's seen them up close and personal, they look rather familiar... and not in a good way. "They're waiting on the third floor. Let's go."

'They?' yelped Midnight's thoughts as he got out of the car and shut the door behind him. 'There's more than one?' Scorch got in front of him and ordered him to follow her. They entered the second apartment building on their left and climbed the stairs thrice, the air conditioners' cool and bitter wind brushing through their fur.

"394", read the little gold plaque on the door that Midnight and Scorch stopped in front of. She pressed the button next to the doorknob, and the sound of a doorbell blared from the other side of the door, alerting the occupants that they had visitors.

"Coming!" called a feminine voice. It sounded unpleasantly familiar, too. The delicate sounds of intricate locks being undone reached Midnight's sensitive ears. The door swung open, revealing the room's occupant.

Midnight felt his heart sink into his stomach yet again. He saw it, alright, as clear as daylight. He just refused to believe it.

"Oh bollocks, not you."




~End of Chapter II~