Chapter 3: Dangerous Situations
Revvin’ up the engine, listen to her howl and roar…Highway to the danger zone! Take you right into the danger zone!
The three stepped onto the platform. They had arrived in Ponyville, and Bass was not excited. Sure, he usually liked the nervous feeling he felt when he performed those stage plays back home. That was what he was feeling now, wasn’t it; a sense of stage fright? That usually helped him make his performance better. Only, when he performed in those plays, he wasn’t actually trying to hide anything. He was only playing a character, after all, so there was no need to worry about what would happen should the audience find out that he’s actually an actor rather than the character, because the audience already knows this. Now? He didn’t want to think about what could happen should he mess this up.
To make matters worse, he didn’t have anywhere near enough preparation time. He assumed that because Twilight wasn’t due back for another day that nopony would greet them; so who the hell were these five mares that seemed to approach Twilight and Spike, who stood beside Bass.
“Howdy, Twi! Welcome home!” stated the orange colored mare with a noticeable country accent. Bass, back home, detested said accent most of the time, but he found that it was rather acceptable here. Maybe is all about the character of the individual using the accent?
“How did you know we were coming back today?” Twilight asked.
“I felt an ear flop, stomach ache, neck pop, tail twitch, back flip, tongue itch, burp blast!” exclaimed a seemingly hyperactive pink pony who was bouncing rather quickly and excitedly. “That means that a good friend is coming home early!”
Bass turned to Twilight, his eyes screaming “what the hell did I just witness?”, but Twilight merely gave him a knowing smile.
“Yes, well, we thought it’d be nice to greet you, even though you were barely gone twenty-four hours,” a marshmallow white unicorn said in a somewhat posh way. Hm, Bass thought. I’ve never had an excuse to use that particular descriptive term before. He made a mental note of that observation. “Who, might I ask, is your friend here, Twilight?”
Bass didn’t like the obvious emphasis on the word “friend”. “Oh, him? Well,” Twilight looked nervously at Bass. “Why don’t you introduce yourself? It’s only proper.”
Bass looked nervously (though from the outside, where his acting instincts kicked in minutes ago, he appeared calm and serene) at the five mares. Aside from the orange country mare, pink (and potentially drug filled) mare, and the posh unicorn, there were also two ponies flying on wings. Twilight had, on their way to get onboard the train back in Canterlot, explained the three main pony races, so Bass immediately recognized them as pegasi. One was light blue with a rainbow mane, and the other one was yellow with a pink mane. The rainbow one seemed rather tomboyish, and the yellow mare was obviously shy in Bass’s presence.
He cleared his throat, and the act began. “Ladies,” he began, using a “cool” voice. “The name’s Bass Chord. I’m a bass guitar player who’s in town for the music festival in Canterlot.”
“Really? That’s so awesome! Are you in a band?” the rainbow maned one assailed him in an instant.
Bass gave a dramatic sigh. “Sadly, last week my band decided to break up. We had hoped to perform for the festival, but I’m still happy to go as a spectator.”
“Were in you in a big time band?” she asked.
“No, we were only just getting started. Before we could even think about making it big, our lead singer decided to be a complete ass and quit on us.” He looked over to a donkey passing by. “No offense.”
“None taken,” the donkey said before moving on.
Twilight nodded, keeping a mental note that he had not exaggerated when he said he was a good actor, and that he was good at improvisation. “He’s actually a friend of Shining Armor’s. He had no choice but to come when he did because he was living with his band. When they split up, he was forced to come to Canterlot a month early. Shining sent a letter to Princess Celestia to redirect to me, and since I was there I got it straight from her. He needs a place to stay for a while, so I agreed to let him stay with me for the coming month,” she added on to Bass’s story.
“Really? Shining Armor has a friend that didn’t join the Royal Guard?” the rainbow manes mare asked.
“Rainbow Dash, that’s very rude. Everypony is different. Just because some like to live the rough military life doesn’t mean everyone they know does. I find it more interesting that he’s a musician,” the unicorn said.
Bass was already trying to play off the rockstar character, and he was tempted to go just a little bit further with it, just to see what would happen. Naturally, the sane half of his brain was yelling at him to not do it, but his curiosity overcame him. He approached the unicorn and placed a hoof on her chin. His face was extremely close to hers. “I find it interesting that you find me interesting,” he said. What the hell am I doing? He thought.
She blushed. “Oh, ho ho. Is that so?” She seemed to embarrassed to meet his eyes, but she wasn’t arguing against the contact either. “M-my name’s Rarity.”
“Rarity, eh? I’ll be sure to remember that.” He stepped away. “So, who else do we have here?”
The mares didn’t quite know how to react to what they just saw, and the orange one broke the silence after a long pause. “Oh, right. Mah name’s Applejack. Pleased to meet ya, Bass.” She extended a hoof, and Bass shook it.
“I’m Pinkie Pie! And I have to give you a welcome to Ponyville party ASAP!” the pink one exclaimed.
“Told you,” Twilight whispered.
“I’m Rainbow Dash! You can call me Rainbow or Dash, or my full name! And you won’t meet anypony more awesome than me!” the rainbow maned one bragged.
Bass smiled. “I may have to take that as a challenge at some point, you know.”
Rainbow smiled back. “Good! I like a good challenge! How about right now! Right here!”
Bass waved a hoof. “I’ll pass today. I need to get settled in and better acquainted with my home for the next month.” He turned to the final pony; the yellow pegasus with the pink mane. “What might your name be?”
She looked away. “Fl—ter—y,” she whispher.
“Pardon?”
“Flut---shy,” she said again.
“You’re gonna have to speak up, sweetie,” Bass said. In his head, he cringed at his usage of the word “sweetie”. I’m letting the Rockstar character take too much control. This needs to wrap up soon!
“Flutteshy,” she finally said a little louder.
“Fluttershy, eh?” Bass chuckled lightly. “It makes sense, I’ll give you that much. Nice to meet you.”
“So, Bass, are ya wanting to get yer tour of Ponyville done right now, or later?” Applejack asked.
“At the risk of being rude, I think I’ll pass on the tour for today. I’d like to get settled in first. You know, get comfortable with where I’m going to be staying and all that. I’d like to do that now, Twilight. Unless, you had something else in mind,” he directed the last statement to Twilight herself.
“Well, we have to get ready for Pinkie’s party anyway, so I guess we’ll head home for now. See you guys at Sugar Cube Corner,” Twilight said as she began to walk away.
“WAIT!” Pinkie exclaimed. Bass turned to face her and saw that she was gone. He turned back around in confusion and was startled to see her right in his face, practically staring into his soul.
“Um,” he said, feeling uncomfortable. “May I help you?”
She continued to stare for several seconds, causing Bass to worry that she may have seen through his act. Finally she smiled and asked, “What’s your favorite fruit? I have to know so I can bake as many pastries as I can with it!”
Bass tried to laugh, mentally wiping sweat off of his forehead. “I like apples best, actually. Strawberries are a close second though.”
Pinkie nodded. “Okie dokie lokie!” She bounced away merrily, humming to herself the whole while.
Twilight and Bass gave their departing remarks and left for the Golden Oaks Library; Twilight’s home. Upon entering, Bass was surprised by the fact that she lived in a freakin’ library. “I wish I had a place like this back home,” he said.
“Wait right you. I’m gonna go make sure the guest room is still in usable condition,” Twilight said before walking upstairs.
Bass was about to start looking around, when he felt a claw poking him in the ribs. He turned to see a very upset Spike. “Uh, hey, Spike. You alright?”
“Stay away from her,” he deadpanned.
“What? Twilight? What for?”
“Not Twilight. Rarity. Stay. Away. From. Her.”
“Oh,” he said, and it mentally clicked what was going on. He replied with a simple, knowing smile. “You have a crush on Rarity, don’t you?”
Spike blushed. “Th-that’s not the point here! My point is-“
“Hush, Spike my boy. Don’y you worry your scaly head about it. What you saw was me simple acting a character. The archtype for the character was ‘Rockstar’, so I had to act just like a rockstar to make the character believable. I have no plans for your precious Rarity. She’s all yours.”
Spike looked at him, unconvinced. “Why should I believe you? You could be acting right now!”
Bass sighed. “With that mindset, you can argue away anything I do as being a lie, couldn’t you?”
Spike paused. “I didn’t think about it like that.”
“How’s this, then. For as long as I have to play the rockstar, I will only pursue your Rarity if I try to sneak in hints about you to her. How’s that?”
Spike looked at Bass in awe. “Why would you do that for me?”
“Oh, Spike. Believe me. I may not be that old, but neither am I as young as I was. I know all about love. Especially when you’re crushing after someone,” Bass paused. “Somepony, rather.”
Spike smiled as he imagined him and Rarity on a date. Then a thought struck him. “Wait, how old are you, exactly?”
Bass shrugged. “How long is a year in this world?”
“Three hundred sixty-five days.”
“Oh,” Bass said with a slight surprise. “Lucky me; your calendar is the same length as mine. In that case, this won’t take any math to tell you. I’m twenty-years-old.”
“Twilight’s older than you?” Spike asked.
“She is?” Bass added.
“Yeah, she’s about twenty-four.”
“Hm,” Bass thought for a moment. “That’s interesting.”
Twilight came back. “The candlesticks weren’t properly organized, but I fixed it so it’s okay. The guest room is now available, Bass.” She pointed to the door in question.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Bass said with a slight teasing tone as he walked up the stairs to where she was pointing.
Twilight stared and blinked at him. She turned to Spike. “Why’d he call me ma’am?” she asked.
Spike chuckled quietly to himself. “Beats me.”
A few hours later, Bass, Twilight, and Spike were arriving at Sugar Cube Corner. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep up the ‘rockstar’ act before I lose it and start trying to actually be a rockstar,” Bass groaned.
“Don’t worry about it, Bass. I’m sure you can do it. You did so well, earlier,” Twilight said. “Maybe a little too well, yeah, but well all the same.”
He sighed and opened the door, letting Twilight and Spike go in first. He followed close behind and looked up from the ground. Needless to say, the saying “You’ll shit bricks” was the only thing that came to his mind when he saw how detailed everything was. There was a banner with his name stitched onto it that said, “Welcome, Bass Chord!” On the snack bar was a delicately stacked pile of cupcakes that he wasn’t entirely sure were meant for eating due to the artistic nature in which they were displayed. Each one had his cutie mark on top made of icing. There was a stereo playing (what Bass could only assume was) a style of rock music, and in the center of the room was a black four stringed bass guitar with a card that said “To: Bass Chord. From: Ponyville.”
“What the hell?” was the only thing he could mutter. “How in the hell did they set this up so quickly? Especially considering the amount of detail!”
“That’s Pinkie for you. She pulls out all the stoppers when it comes to parties,” Spike said. “I’m gonna go grab some snacks. See you later, Twi.” He waddled away to the cupcakes.
“WELCOME TO PONYVILLE!” exclaimed the hyperactive pink pony herself. From where she came from even Bass had no idea. He even thought that God himself didn’t know. Then he questioned God’s presence on such an alien world and put the thought from his mind and shrugged. “How do you like it? I couldn’t do as much as I wanted to on such short notice, but I think it still came out alright!”
“Wait, you mean if you had more time you could have done more?” Bass asked. “How the hell is that possible?”
Pinkie nodded. “Well, I would’ve liked to have a huge row of fireworks that would all explode and look like your cutie mark. Then, I would have even more fireworks that would play music as they exploded. And then, I would use even more fireworks to explode into cupcakes that would land on everypony’s plates.”
Bass was at a complete loss for words. Before he could say any words of appreciation, the other four mares approached them from out of the crowd (which appeared to be most of the town). “Howdy there again, Bass. You enjoying your stay so far?”
Bass couldn’t help but nod. “You bet. Better than any hotel I’ve stayed at before. None of them have this level of ‘you’ in anything they do.”
“Did you try the cupcakes yet?” Pinkie asked.
Bass shook his head. “I only just arrived.”
“Here!” she exclaimed as she procured a cupcake from mother freakin’ nowhere. Bass tasted it, and was pleased to find that it was filled with baked apples. Pinkie handed him a second one, which he was even more pleased to find it was full of strawberries. “I wanted to make a batch that had both apples and strawberries, but I think eating two at once is better anyway.”
“Would you like to give a speech of gratitude?” Twilight asked.
Bass was nervous, but he felt he had already been rude enough as it was today. He nodded. They walked him to the stage that Pinkie had built in the middle of the bakery and clapped her hooves to quiet the crowd. “Ahem,” he began. “Uh, hi. My name’s Bass Chord. I’m a bass guitar player who’s visiting until the music festival in Canterlot next month. I’d just like to say-“
“That you’re actually not a pony but a being from another world who has no idea how he got her in the first place and that Princess Celestia wants you to teach Twilight about your world while you learn about our world and Celestia’s best researchers look for a way home for you and the rockstar persona is actually just an act so you can have a cover story to explain your existence in Equestria which is only based on the part truth that you can actually play bass?” Pinkie said in a single breath.
Bass, Twilight, Rainbow, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, Spike, and all of the crowd stared in disbelief at Pinkie.
Bass knew that, to everypony else, Pinkie’s rambling was nonsense. All I have to do is give a quick response denying all of it, and I’ll be-
“How did you know?” Twilight asked.
“DAMNIT!” Bass exclaimed.