//------------------------------// // 4 - To date or not to date Iron Will // Story: The Minotaur, the Princess and the Train Tracks // by Beware The Carpenter //------------------------------// Iron Will limped down the street rubbing his right kneecap where that palomino in the stetson had bucked him; both annoyed, and very glad that he’d managed to jump back at the last moment, because he had the disturbing feeling that she was aiming for something higher. In hindsight however, Iron Will should probably re-think his wording in offering to pay a mare to pretend to be his wife for the next few hours. CRASH! "Oh come on!" Iron Will followed the vivid cursing to a small, outdoor auditorium on the edge of Ponyville; where several earth ponies were hiding behind the remains of a massive speaker that had split open on the ground, from the vicious tirade of a white unicorn mare. One earth pony, presumably the crew’s chief was trying to calm her, “Settle down Miss Scratch, our insurance policy pays for this.” “That’s the only reason I’m not kicking your sorry flanks! But I got a concert in three hours and if I don’t have working speakers, I don’t have a show! You’ve broken two speakers already, and that was my last spare; You guys are meant to be professionals!” “These speakers weigh twice as much as you do, the ceiling where you want us to hang them is three times as tall and all we have to hoist them up with is this ladder. You’d need either pegasi, or a whole lot of magic to hang these up right; which you could have had if you hadn’t booked a crew at the last possible instant. The pegasi and unicorns got booked out weeks in advance by-” “Don’t say that name.” Hissed Scratch, “It’s like she expects me to believe she needed to hire every crew of stagehooves in town except a quartet of dyslexic, earth ponies midgets! She hardly has any equipment!” Iron Will was in need of a fake marefriend, and a public spectacle to fake his death; this mare had a public show in a few hours, and needed some heavy lifting. “Perhaps Iron Will could be of some assistance.” he suggested, stepping over the red rope and onto the stage and flexing his muscles. The DJ turned and gave him a hard look which softened as she took in his stature, then indicated four speakers on a nearby wagon, “I gatta get these speakers hung up on the roof, but these bimbos are too short to reach; if I helped steady them with my magic could you-” “No need for your pony magic,” informed Iron Will, already lifting two of the speakers, one in each hand. Being careful not to bang them as he climbed the steps and flicked them each over their respective hooks with casual precision; one, two, three, four; easy! The face of the unicorn showed his work was appreciated. “Woa, dude! You got the like, best pecks ever; and you just totally saved my show!” The mare reared and leaned one of her forehooves against Iron Will’s knee, “Name’s Vinyl Scrach, but you can call me DJ-Pon3; if you ever need help with something, you give me a call.” “Actually; Iron Will is in need of some assistance.” “Oh?” “I has a proposal to make; one which will benefit us both.” Vinyl Scratch hopped off his knee, and looked up at his mischievously, “What exactly do you have in mind?” “Iron Will needs to publically fake his death this afternoon, and wants to do it posing as protecting the mare he loves. If you introduced me at your concert as your special someone, dedicated love song to me, then arranged for someone to try and kill you, I could fight them and pretend to die in your place, then hid me somewhere safe overnight; Iron Will would be extremely grateful.” Vinyl Scratch stared for a moment then pulled her sunglasses up, pulling with them the sides of her mouth into a demented smile; “That… sounds… AWESOME!” Iron Will could hardly believe his luck, “Yes; of course it would!” “That could make the best show ever; and I have just the toy to make it work. I got this fully sick motorized manticore backstage that’s one of those new robots that you can steer with magic; it breathes fire and everything, nopony’s seen it yet and I’ve been charging it up all week. We could bring it out, chain it up, I could start teasing it and making it do tricks, then it can get off the chain and try to kill me, then you come in and the two of you can kill each other!” “… That could work.” “And we can get like, lots and lots of fake blood and stuff the manticore full of it so when you fight there can be like blood and guts just everywhere and – ooooo this is too good!” Vinyl motioned for iron Will to lean down, he reluctantly complied and was quickly set upon by the white unicorn whispering in his ear, with each passing sentence convincing him more and more that this was one seriously demented little pony. “…That… could work.” Was all Iron Will could think of to say; seriously hoping he could talk her into a much simpler version of her plan that didn’t involve chainsaw nun-chucks. “Yes; YES; it could!” Cried Vinyl, rubbing her hooves together maniacally, “But… it doesn’t really sound like my kind of show.” “What?” Vinyl put her hoof on his shoulder, “Look, dude, I’d love to help you, really I would; but I’ve already got a full show planned for tonight, and a wagonload of fake blood and death on my stage is a little bit more oomph than I’m cool with. But my housemate, Tavi, is doing another concert at the other end of Ponyville tonight, and she is like totally crazy; up to her neck in blood and martial arts and all that sort of bling. She pretends to be all prim and classical, but that’s to shock people when she goes nuts, like when she hacks her cello to pieces half way through a performance and eats it. She’s got five robot manticores and a whole crew of unicorns to steer them, and a dozen pegasi to smear fake guts around, but for the last week she’s been freaking out even more then usual because she keeps changing her mind on what to do with them. Go talk to her about your whole ‘need to fake your death’ thing, tell her the plan I came up with, and she’ll be all over you faster than you can say Tavilishious!” “Your doing competing concerts… and you want me to help her?” “I gatta be fair to my competition don’t I? We’re doing a test to see whether ponies prefer the conservative stuff like me or the really crazy stuff she does, but I couldn’t say I’d won unless I fought her at her best. She’s gonna do like a ten minute free concert right outside our house to get people’s attention, and then move to the theater on the other side of town, but if you left right now you could get her just as she started her warm ups. Go to the water fountain, take a left, second right and look for the blue house with the earth pony playing the cello outside. Tell her you want to help her with her concert, and tell her the plan with the manticores and fake guts and she’ll be begging you to do it! She’ll probably even pay you like, a thousand bits or something!” “…Are you sure?” “Am I ever?! She’s totally into this sort of thing; plus she’s nuts for minotaurs. You look in her room and she’s got posters of minotaur superstars and surfer dudes pasted so thick on the walls, someone could walk away with her walls and no one would even know it; I guarantee she’ll be gob smacked! Now go on, you got a lot of work to do before your concert big boy.” Iron Will thanked the helpful unicorn and turned towards the fountain, “Wait!” Vinyl grabbed half a dozen flowers from the base of the stage and wrapped them into a bouquet with her magic, “I almost forgot to tell you; Tavi has this bad habit of biting strangers, but if you hold the flowers in front of you she’ll get those instead and they’ll calm her down. Also; don’t forget to get down on one knee, otherwise she won’t be able to hear you since she’s almost deaf from all her bucking loud music.” Iron Will thanked the unicorn again and left; soon finding the musician and her house, just as he’d been told. True; she didn’t look like the blood crazed maniac Vinyl Scratch had described, but he knew looks could be deceiving. The mare nodded to him happily when he stopped to listen for a moment, and then stopped when he dropped to one knee and offered her the flowers. Iron Will had considered saying a much simpler idea of Vinyl’s plan, but reluctantly decided against it. If the first plan he mentioned wasn’t enough for Tavilicious, she might start adding to it and from Vinyl’s description of her, there was no telling where she might end. He told her everything from Vinyl’s plan except the chain-saw nun-chucks but compensated for it by the added suggestion that Tavilicious dress in a rubber rooster costume so she wouldn’t get hurt using the any of the flamethrowers or crossbows. For a long time the mare simply stared at him, her face betraying no hint of emotion; then, very slowly, she picked up her cello, walked backwards to her door, fumbled uncomfortably for the knob and then slipped inside without breaking eye contact or saying a word. The sound of the door being bolted and deadlocked broke any hope Iron Will had that she was coming back. Iron Will sighed, thinking maybe he’d been had. He had about four hours left until sundown and he still needed to find a mare; any mare would do so long as she could hold a charade for a few hours. The soft jangling of metal caught his attention. Iron Will turned to see a zebra mare, wearing golden neck rings, bracelets and one earring with saddlebags stuffed with herbs from a Ponyville vender. What was a zebra doing all the way in Ponyville? Whatever the reason, Iron Will was in luck; a mare this far from home was probably lonely and Iron Will was fluent in Zaharren from staying several years in Timbucktoo. So so long as this zebra hadn’t brought any camels with her when she left the Zaharren, she would do perfectly. >>> Desperate Measures >>>