Grey Streak and Comet Burst
By
Phoenix Archangel
“Dude, this’s gonna be easy as apple pie!”
I sighed, shaking my head before facing forward once more, calmly setting an easy pace beside my more… shall we say excited, friend. Lifting a hoof, I dragged the headset I’d had hanging around my neck over my recently changed equine ears. Tapping my iPod with the tip of a hoof, the hauntingly chill sound of guitars soothed my ears of the boisterous idiot next to me as I set my hoof back to the ground, frowning as I did so.
Doubt I’ll ever get used to that, I lazily thought while the muted babble managed its way past the music, and my brow eased back into neutral as the song looped to the beginning. A light blue pegasus with a long auburn mane trotted past us almost happily. Past her, a storefront window revealed my discomfort, along with the street.
A steel-blue eye stared back at me in boredom, a folded wing visible against the stormy grey coat. A short, spiky black mane and tail, streaked ashen-grey, stuck out from my body. An ear was divided at the tip while my mouth was expressionless. Shaking my head again, I turned to look at my friend, Comet Burst.
A goldenrod coat, a bright red and orange mane spikier than mine, a long white and light grey tail. A falling comet was on his flank, his light blue eyes shone with confidence and, again, excitement.
… And he was also being a smartass and flying backwards and upside down in front of me.
I gave it three minutes before he hit something, to be honest.
Ignoring him, I continued on our way while switching to another song. In the break between them, I heard a something akin to a gong followed by muffled groans and a pair of thuds. Sparing a glance behind, I confirmed what I suspected.
Amazingly, he’d collided with another pegasus within a minute.
Comet, now sporting a fairly hefty bump on his skull from nosediving the ground, chose to walk beside me the rest of the way to the… What was it again?
Oh right, the Original Character Immigration Office. Seems like a boring place to work.
Comet, getting a look at the structure ahead of us, immediately reverted to his sugar-happy-child-like attitude and blasted forward with a trail of dust. Muttering obscenities under my breath, even more so when I noticed a few kids around the area, I entered the door.
Or would have if there was one. Judging by the warped hinges, a few splinters and the solitary screw halfway out of the wall, someone wasn’t happy. Walking through the archway, I walked to the desk where Comet was just leaving to sit on one of the various seats with an icepack.
Reaching the desk, I raised an eyebrow in question at the receptionist while glancing at the rather new dent in the front of the counter and over to Comet. After she nodded with a grimace, I tossed it to the back of my head while pulling my headset to my neck.
“Someone not happy with their decision?” I asked, twitching my head back at the door.
“Name?” The mare asked instead. I brushed it off.
“Grey Streak, here to see someone ‘bout gettin’ in. A miss Sparkle, wannit?”
With a controlled exhale, she replied, “Princess Twilight Sparkle will see you in five minutes.”
Wait, Princess? Why the hell would they get royalty to deal with a crappy job like this?
“I don’t know.”
“... I said that out loud, didn’t I?” I sighed. Wishing her a pleasant day, I turned and walked to my friend’s side. Taking up two seats to lay down, I stared up at the ceiling.
“Grey Streak, Princess Sparkle will see you now.”
I blinked away the blank-mind-sleep I’d apparently took. Rolling onto my hooves, I stood before trotting to the hallway to cheers from my dumbass of a friend;
“You got this, man! I’ll see ya on the other side!” I used a wing to wave it off.
Reaching a door marked T.S, I nudged it open to reveal… an alicorn, if my research was right.
Wings, check. Horn, check. Lavender coat, six-point star, check. Yep, Princess Sparkle. Whom was in the middle of putting the last of a series of forms through a type of shredding spell.
Her eyes snapped up to mine as I cleared my throat, a blush growing before she hastily stuffed the remains into a bin. Ignoring them, I took the offered seat while she took what I guessed to be my form from a pile.
“You are Grey Streak, correct?” Twilight started, the blush steadily disappearing as the interview went underway.
“Yep.” The excitement in my response just had to rival Comet’s. Seriously, it must’ve.
Looking over my form, she seemed to be rather pleased by what she saw.
“Now then, Mister Streak, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”
“Which story?” This seemed to throw her off a bit.
“I beg your pardon?” Oh, right, these ‘canon’ ponies don’t actually know…
“Nevermind. Also, just Grey is fine. Anyway, born in Cloudsdale, attended usual schools, camps etc. Hit third fastest in my year group, kept it that way, yada yada yada.” The blinking I got from Twilight seemed to be in surprise, though she certainly got over it quick.
“And what would you be looking for in terms of work?” This question seemed a bit guarded. In fact, I’m pretty sure her horn was beginning to glow. Unbothered by this, I went with the response that I’d already thrown together.
“Manual labour, save up and become a travelling merchant. About as background as you can get, you’d only see me every couple months, maybe years.” A poorly hidden sigh of relief exited the alicorn.
Musta had one seriously weird idea recently, I thought to myself as her horn died down.
Only to flare back up.
“Now, why do you not have a cutie mark?”
A wha- Oh wait, I reminded myself before replying, “Can’t miss what ya don’t want.” Twilight seemed a little troubled by this, but seemed to come to some kind of decision as a green stamp floated above my form.
“Now, while I’d normally be against this, I think I’ll allow it. Provided, of course, that you visit the Cutie Mark Placement before boarding the train. Before I approve, though, I have to ask;
What can you contribute to Equestria?”
Well, time for some cold, hard truth.
“Nothing.”
Silence reigned for a moment, before Twilight repeated what I’d said. “Nothing?”
“Nothing,” I confirmed, “I have nothing to contribute, nor do I have any interest in Equestria.”
… I think I broke her,
“If you have no interest in Equestria, then why are you here?”
I shrugged as I answered, “Bet with my mate, Comet. He put 500 bits saying one, or both, of us’d get in.”
“And you?”
“I said neither. If you want proof, call him in. Do his interview, ask him about it.”
“I think I will,” Twilight said slowly as she sent a note on a magically dusty way. I kid you not, the idiot HAD to slam into the doorjamb for the third time in this weird place. Fourth if you count trying to fly before walking (Took five minutes to pull his head out of the floor… how he broke concrete is beyond me.), fifth for trying to fly through a reinforced glass door.
One of my highlights of the day, to be honest, seeing his stupefied expression through a sheet of four-inch glass that was otherwise clean enough to not exist.
Twilight’s voice cut through my memories of today as she tended to my friend after closing the door and pulling another chair out of thin air with a flash, “Now, Mister Burst -”
“Just Comet, Twi, we’re all friends here,” Comet cockily said, completely missing the deadpan glare Twilight gave him.
“Mister Burst, could you please tell me a bit about yourself?” Despite the question, it seemed more like she knew what was coming. Personally, I wanted to see just how badly he screwed up.
Rule number one of OC’s; Don’t share too much about your story - someone might try and rip you off.
“Well, you see, I went to the same school as my buddy Grey here, et cetera, and became the fastest pegasus in all of Equestria. Heck, I can even perform a Sonic Comet, I’d be happy to-”
The slamming of something wooden, coupled with an exasperated groan, cut him off.
Rule two; Don’t go copying or surpassing a canon. Amazing how this guy’s my friend, really…
“Mister Burst, you, as well as Celestia-knows-how-many-others, need to stop thinking that you’ll get in by copying my friends. In fact,” Twilight took a bit a steadying breath, “I know that Grey here,” Comet shot me a look of disbelief while I just sent him a relaxed look and muttered, ‘Deal with it.’ “Is here on account of a bet between the two of you. However, much as I’d like to prevent you, Mister Burst, from achieving anything, I feel that Equestria would make more use from Grey Streak’s presence than yours.”
… Crap, I was hoping she’d take the whole bet thing more seriously. Oh, how I wish I had my hands again just to… smack…
“Excuse me, miss?”
“Hm?” Twilight acknowledged as she began filing more paperwork, most likely for my entry into Equestria. Comet was sitting there a little shocked, but he still had a little gleam in his eyes that told me he was planning on what to buy. Now that I think about it, the conversion between Equestrian bits and Naruto ryo was fairly high...
“What are the laws concerning violence?”
She blinked at that, slowly looking up to meet my eyes as she said, “Well, in Equestria, you’d be charged with assault, trialled and most likely imprisoned, at most, a month for a minor occurrence.”
Works for me. I quickly turned and decked Comet in the side of the head, knocking him out of the chair before spinning around and kicking him square in the ribs.
Though I didn’t expect him to fly. Or take the door with him...
“Why would you do that?!”
Didn’t expect the Princess to get this startled either, but I’ll take what I get.
“According to your rules, as well as regarding my forms, I can be claimed as prone to violent mood swings,” I smoothly stated as I trotted over to my stunned, slightly bleeding friend, “Therefore, I am no longer eligible for entry into Equestria.”
“Uh, well, I… guess…?” Twilight’s voice was full of uncertainty before it picked back up, “But why wouldn’t you want to be in Equestria? It’s the best place ever!”
Stopping at the door, I tilted my head back at the Princess with a small, almost feral if the reflection I got from her eyes was any indication, grin.
“Because, Princess, this way I get to win the bet. In any case, I have an appointment to get myself sucked into a virtual reality game, where death inside the game means death in real life, with about ten thousand others, and an approximate three-and-a-half thousand death toll, in about… two hours.”
Oh, the look on her face was priceless; Confusion as to what virtual reality was, shock at the existence of such a thing and horror at the fact I was looking forward to it.
“Ja ne,” I finished with a flourish of my limited Japanese before picking up my now-groggy friend and carrying him out, dropping a cheque for 500 bits on the broken door as I passed over it.
By the time we reached the foyer door he was fine to walk on his own. The difference from earlier was that I was somewhat happy, he had a few new bruises and cuts and was complaining.
I tuned him out with the help of my headset, my iPod and a nudge to get his pathetic backside moving. It was a twenty minute trot (as he was in no shape to fly) to the Transition Zone, a further hour getting used to a human body again, and thirty to get to the S.A.O Office branch.
Time was wasting, and I had a game to play.