//------------------------------// // Property Damage, HO! // Story: Not My Fault // by Daemon McRae //------------------------------// Chapter 9: Property Damage, HO! (Author’s Note: I bet you thought I forgot, didn’t you? Guess what time it is.) I can’t really say actually being in a relationship with Vinyl was that different from just hanging out with her. Actually, no. I totally CAN. It had been a month or so since we’d started our little ‘experiment’, as Vinyl had called it. HAD. At this point we just called it dating. Which was great. It also freaked everpony the hell out. Which was fantastic. The actual awards ceremony had gone off well enough. With nothing really going on between Vinyl and Octavia, the media just kind of drifted off to other things. Namely the supposed romance of two of Octavia’s bandmates. I don’t know, I hadn’t really met them. I mean, it wasn’t really uneventful (one of these days I’ll have Vinyl tell you the story about the not-so-missing underwear), but nothing that really was relevant to the whole reason we’ve all been telling this story. Octavia and Vinyl had found a simple, if uneasy, way to settle their issues. They stayed the hell away from each other. I mean yeah, they said hi to each other and stuff. And it wasn’t like that begrudging, angry ‘hi’ you give to the pony who drew rude stuff on your face while you were passed out in the locker room from too much alcohol and totally thought that stallion was a mare and how the hell was I supposed to know- Anyway. They were chill. I guess it was a good thing, but more than once I’d wondered, and Vinyl had too, what Octavia was doing about her recently surfaced emotional issues. This kind of thing doesn’t really resolve itself in a few days, you know? But anyway, I’m getting off topic. Like I said, the fact that we were dating freaked ponies out. Well, not all ponies. We weren’t exactly going public and making out in the streets. But we weren’t hiding it either. Truth be told, we were still both pretty busy. So most of our time was spent with phone calls, and me flying off when nopony was looking (you’d think they’d pay more attention when their captain flies off, right?), and work. I mean, I may be a master of procrastination and maximizing my free time, but I’m still a Wonderbolt. Still a Captain. And I still have a lot of work to do. Likewise with Vinyl. She can’t just up and ignore all the smaller gigs she has lined up. Not to mention she’s got an album in the works, and Luna knows how much time that must take. Even if she does a bit of the recording in her own home. So you’re probably wondering why we skipped ahead a whole month? Well, as much as we’d love to tell you about every day, and all the awesome crazy shenanigans that happened all the time, in that month the status quo really hadn’t changed. Until Vinyl and I got some letters in the mail. Ones we’d really hoped we could conveniently ignore. Little gold-sealed scrolls. With shiny tickets in them. Oh, yes. They were tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala. Again. Now, I was no stranger to the Gala. I’d been to a couple (the last being the most memorable), and figures out pretty quick it was just a way to gladhoof ponies with a lot of money to get them to shell out for causes they probably weren’t aware of or just plain ignored. Sometimes it was for a good cause. Mostly it was just publicity. And each and every time I got invited I had the same conversation. “Soarin, pleeeeaaaassssseee. Don’t make me go. Please please please please puh-lee-hee-hee-heese.” I was sprawled out on the floor like a schoolfilly and didn’t care. “Sorry, Captain. You have to go. None of us can go without you and they’d raise hell if the Wonderbolts missed the Gala.” Curse him and his mildly feminine attractiveness and voice of reason. “Besides, I doubt the Elements of Harmony will be attending this year.” I know he was trying to be supportive. “What? NO! They were the ONLY COOL THING last year!” I was at least hoping I’d get to see some destruction again. I wasn’t BORED then. Soarin raised an eyebrow at me. “…are you serious? They almost took down the castle!” “And it was GREAT!” He gave me a flat glare. “Except for the ponies in danger thing. That was not cool. Nope.” “,,,you’re going.” “…dammit.” I was just about to have another go at begging when the phone rang. ----- …what? Oh! It’s my turn to tell the story. Ok. Um, yeah. It’s Soarin. What? Ok, ok, I’m telling it! So anyway, Spitfire looked like she was about to start crying crocodile tears again when the phone rang. I thanked my lucky stars. Spitfire crying was more than a little pathetic. Like a puppy. A sad one. Like I said, she answered the phone. “Hello, Captain Spitfire speaking.” I heard some loud rumbling on the other end and what sounded like a voice. “Oh hey, Public Disturbance! What’s up?!” Oh yay. Vinyl. Again. Now, I didn’t really have any issue with Vinyl. She seemed kind of cool. But Spitfire kind of lost all sense of professionalism around her. Come to think of it, crying on the floor saying ‘I don’t wanna go!’ wasn’t really professional either. The boss was weird. They talked back and forth for a bit, and slowly, Spitfire’s expression changed. Now before I go on, let me explain something about my boss. She’s a very good flier. She’s a great Captain. And when it comes down to it, she can suck it up and do damn near anything. I knew she’d eventually go to the Gala, which she knew she had to. And thank god for that, because I was not going without her. Buck that idea. It was boring enough as it is. She even has a decent poker face. She has to, to train the new recruits. But the one thing she does best, aside from flying, is change her mood. Not her mind, she’s way too stubborn for that. If she’d actually decided she wasn’t going to the Gala we wouldn’t have had this conversation. But she’s an honorable, if quirky, leader. But I swear to Celestia I was going to get her a mood ring one of these Heart’s Warming Eve’s. It was as if a switch in her head just flipped. She did it when practice was over, or when she was done with a show, or when she left a particularly droll conversation with a noblepony of some kind. She just… flipped. I’d seen it happen a million times, and it never ceased to amaze me. The conversation wrapped up with a few joking insults and some ‘See ya laters’, and Spitfire hung the phone up a different pony than when she started. Namely, she was practically humming. Actually, she was humming. “Um, boss. What was that?” “Oh, don’t worry about it, Soarin. Now, we were talking about the Gala. I was thinking we go in formal wear this year instead of our costumes. Like, we could take our costumes with us, and wear them when we perform and stuff, sure. But I really want a dress this year.” I could have sworn she said all that in Fancee. “…what? Weren’t you just begging me to let you stay?” She had trotted away from her desk towards the door, but stopped to look back over her shoulder at me. “Oh come now, Soarin. How can you expect me to say no to the Gala? I mean, I certainly don’t want to disappoint my maaarrreefriiieeennd.” She dragged out the word and shook her hips a little, then walked out of the room. Needless to say I was distracted. Just long enough for her to have gotten halfway down the hall before something in my head clicked. “MAREFRIEND?!” --------- “MAREFRIEND?!” I heard Soarin yelling from down the hall. I laughed out loud to myself as Soarin came running up to me, walking in step with me while I made my way to the changing rooms. “Spitfire, that was Vinyl just now, right?” “Yeeeesssss.” I could almost here the pleading denial in his voice. It was delicious. “And you said you were going to the Gala with your ‘marefriend’, right?” “Mm-hmm.” I stopped outside the dressing room to wait for him to connect the dots. “…you… and Vinyl… are… dating?” He got out the words slowly, and tentatively. I leaned in, getting my mouth close to his ear, and in my best ‘I want you right now’ voice, I whispered, “Yes.” He looked ready to cry. But to his credit, he didn’t. He just turned a lighter shade of blue (which, with his coloration, was mildly impressive), and turned around. “I have somewhere to be.” And he ran off. I laughed my way into the changing room, knowing full well he was about to spread the news to the rest of the team. -------- I couldn’t believe it when I got my invitation. The Grand Galloping Gala! I mean, I’m totally not into that high-society fru-fru stuff, but come on! All those bigwigs with money to spare? There was no way in Tartarus I was going to miss that. I mean, yeah, I had a contract with a local record company. And I was making good money. But all those ponies who had, no doubt, a laundry list of social gatherings year round? One good night at a party like that and I could be booked for a year! Not to mention the fact that I was going with my… hehehe… marefriend. At first, it had felt weird to say. I wasn’t entirely sure how it’d work out. And I was kinda worried that it’d get into the newspapers like the thing with Octavia did. But the two of us were so busy (and way too used to sneaking around), that keeping it private was easy as pie. Not that we were hiding it. Spitfire had been clear she didn’t want it to be a secret. We just… weren’t broadcasting it. I know it was a little like showing off, but still. I was proud of her. Proud to be with her. It was a pretty radical feeling. Of course, there was the slight damper that the Gala was HALF A YEAR FROM NOW. And the tickets were basically absolutely making sure that those who were invited, (and those who weren’t) were damn well informed. I’d already talked to Spitfire and told her I was going, cause it was basically second nature that she was, too. I had just been in the middle of mixing a new set when the mail arrived, and when I realized what it was, I called her right away. (Although they weren’t letting me DJ, I was just a guest. Which was cool, I guess.) Then a thought sprang to mind. Was Octavia going? I hadn’t talked to her in a while, and I thought maybe it would be a good thing to break the ice with. Unless, of course, she DIDN’T get an invite. Which would just prove to piss her off. I’d been trying to avoid upsetting her lately. Which usually means avoiding her. I felt bad about it, yeah. But it seemed like she was doing okay. She was smiling a bit more. I decided to bite the bullet and go say hi, at least. I’d talk about the Gala if she did, I figured. And she’d probably only talk about it if she got an invite. So it was all good. I was already knocking on her door when I’d come to this conclusion, which surprised me. I had meant to turn the sound system off before I left, but I shrugged. I’d get back to it. What surprised me more was what happened AFTER I knocked. The door swung open, and it wasn’t Octavia. “Oh, hey there. I’m Vinyl. Sup?” “Ah, so you’re the infamous DJ Pon-3. How do you do? My name is Fancy Pants.” -------- I heard knocking. I was coming from the front door, and I was currently in the shower. “Fancy, could you get that, please?” I called over the sound of running water. The next thing I heard the door click open, and some mumbled conversation. Whoever it was, Fancy Pants deemed it necessary to invite them in. I heard hooves trotting into the living room. I turned the water off, having finished a while ago, and was just soaking. Giving myself a thorough dry, and re-affixing my collar, I made my way into the living room. “Who is it, Fancy? I heard you bring them- Oh! Hello, Vinyl.” “Hey, Tavi.” Vinyl was sitting on my couch, next to Fancy Pants. “What’s up?” “We were just getting ready to go out for lunch. Would you care to join us-“ BOOM. Something had exploded. That was my first thought. We all sat in shocked silence, then suddenly, Vinyl jumped up and screamed “MY RIG!” and ran out. Out of concern, and morbid curiosity, Fancy and I followed her back to her place. What we saw amazed, well, me, at least. I had no idea what Fancy’s thoughts were. There, in the middle of the room, was a large circle of ceiling. And a big shipping crate in the middle of it. A few feet away, Vinyl was hugging all her equipment. She checked wires, and switches, and plugs, and apparently, everything was ok, because she started crying over her turntables. “Oh thank goo-hoo-hoo-dnes!” She took a moment to expel her emotions, then ran to the mess in the middle of the floor. Climbing onto the shipping crate, she glared up. “WHO THE BUCK BROKE MY CEILING?!” In response, a mare popped her head out. Blonde hair, and a grey coat. And a lazy eye. I had seen her before, but couldn’t place it. “That was SO not my fault!” She shouted.