It had been a very long night.
Seven ponies were sitting at a table in their favorite pub, a dark place with just four tables and one old and grumpy bartender, reflecting on what had just happened. Nopony had ordered any drinks but they had been at the table so many times that the barkeeper didn’t mind; he knew they would order something, eventually. For the time being, it was clear that they only wanted rest.
“You know... with all the things that have happened tonight, I still don’t know why you were there,” Carrot Top said, struggling against the words. Her tongue still felt bigger than it should. Blame that stupid smoke, she thought. “I mean... what were you doing? How did you know I was there?”
Nopony answered. The mare looked around, examining her friends’ faces, one by one. Octavia had leaves and ashes on her mane, Time Turner had blood all over the face, Lyra had a black eye, Bon Bon seemed pissed off, Derpy looked like if she was hungover... The only one who looked okay was Vinyl, who was grinning at Carrot.
Carrot Top looked at her own hooves. They had a little bit of blood on them, and her head felt so fuzzy...
“You okay, Top?” Vinyl asked, smirking a little. “You seem a little tipsy.”
“I think I am,” Carrot said. “Or maybe I’m not. I mean, everything is blurry and stuff.”
“Hmm.” Vinyl licked her lips. “Well, Derpy could try to kiss you. A good ol’ tongue wrestling would do wonders to you, don’t you think?”
Turner raised an eyebrow and turned to Vinyl. “What?”
Octavia raised a hoof in the air. “I approve the idea of Carrot and Derpy making out.”
“Uh, yeah, of course.” Turner nodded. “I approve of it too. What a shame I didn’t bring my camera with me.”
“Shut up, you two!” Derpy looked at them with a frown and a very bright blush on her face. “I had to do that, okay? There was no other option!”
“Well, maybe there’s no other option now,” Turner said. “Also, what?”
“Doc!”
The entire table flinched after Derpy’s yell. Even the pegasus herself seemed to cringe in pain mere seconds after screaming that word.
“Ugh. Good idea,” said Bon Bon. “Do that again; talk as loudly as possible. It’s not like you’ve annoyed me enough tonight, right Derpy? Yeah, why have you stopped screaming? It’s so good for our ears. Like music from the heavens, really. In fact—”
“For crying out loud, shut the hell up.” Lyra raised a hoof and closed Bon Bon’s mouth. She looked offended, but Lyra just rolled her eyes. “I have a headache, and your chitty chat is driving me nuts.”
“I second that motion,” muttered Octavia.
“Yeah.” Carrot nodded. “And you haven’t answered my question. How did you know I was at Blueblood’s?”
Everypony suddenly found that their hooves and the ceiling were very interesting. Silence fell upon the table, and Carrot Top just waited.
“You know, I think I may go home right now,” Turner said. “After all, it’s been a long night, and...”
“Answer my question.”
Everypony cringed again after hearing Carrot’s voice. Then, Derpy reluctantly tapped Carrot’s hoof and sighed. “It’s been a very long night, right?”
Top just looked at her.
“Yeah.” Derpy sighed again. “You know, you’re going to be angry after this, okay? But don’t do anything. Tomorrow, we all will do something about it, and I’m sure you will be the most active, but right now we don’t have the energy to endure this. Also, you might kill Doc.”
Silence. Carrot Top nodded slowly. Time Turner was sweating profusely.
“We found your note,” Derpy said, “and we knew that after discovering that, you would go and beat your coltfriend... well, ex-coltfriend now, I guess? You would beat his brains out with a baseball bat. We had to stop you.”
“That explains why you were there,” Carrot said, “but how did you know...?”
“Boy, here comes the bomb,” whispered Vinyl. “Carrot, try not to explode, okay?”
“What...?”
“I’m awfully sorry, I’ve said so countless times!” Turner bit his lip. “Please, help me with this!”
“Yeah, sure.” Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “You get what you deserve, you idiot.”
“Can somepony please tell me...?”
“Doc put tracking devices in our food,” interrupted Derpy, pointing at Turner. “He knows where we are all the time. All the time.”
Silence.
“As I said, we’ll take care of this later,” Derpy continued. “Now, after discovering this, we knew where you were, and as we also knew that Blueblood was having a party, there was no way we couldn’t go and ‘rescue’ you. If you hit a noblepony while surrounded by nobleponies, you can’t expect anything less than a lifetime in jail, dear.
“So we hit the road as fast as we could...”