Wub me or Hate me

by Vesperia


Wubs Meeting Somepony

“Who in the name of Celestia are you?! And what the Tartarus are ya doin’ in my shop?!” Demanded the voice to my right.

Since I was technically trespassing I felt I had the requirement to be, at least, honest. I looked over to my right to see who was speaking. It was an old looking, chocolate brown unicorn stallion. His mane was two toned, one smaller stripe was vanilla white and the larger was dark brown. He had a small scar across his chin.

“My name is Vinyl Scratch, I came to Manehatten to try and figure out why some ponies robbed multiple electronic stores.” I said. “I'm sorry that I'm trespassing, I was just going to look around a bit more before leaving. But I can go now if you want me to.”

The unicorn was silent for a moment, his blue eyes staring into mine, seemingly even through my glasses. He gave a low “harrumph” and let his horn’s glow die down. He walked further into the stores lobby and said, “Don't bother trying to find anything here. I've already scoured this place from the roof to the floorboards.”

I was silent as I watched the old unicorn kick a piece of rubble. “Damn thieves. I've been trying to find out who they were myself. Those Celestia damn police aren't doing a thing to help, I think they might’ve been paid to not look into it deeply.”

“So crooked cops?” I asked. Then tilted my head a bit and said, “I guess that makes things a little harder.”

The unicorn looked at me, shook his head, and said, “No, I've been mostly avoiding them. Doing my own research and investigating any leads I find you see. Haven't come up with much, but I still have a couple of hunches left.” He turned his body around to fully face me and asked, “Why do you care? You don't look to be from around here. I’d think I’d recognize you if you did.”

I licked my lips and shrugged, “Well to be honest I didn't have much of a reason to come down here in the first place. I just had a weird feeling that I should investigate the things happening around here. But,” I set my stuff on the store’s counter, opened my bag, and pulled out the broken blue chip piece, “I found this in the alleyway out to the side, behind a trashcan, where I believe the thieves left after robbing the store.”

I held the piece up and watched as the unicorn’s eyes widen. “W-What is that doing here?!”

“I guess he knows what it is.” I thought to myself, honestly surprised.

The unicorn rushed over to me to get a closer look at the chip piece. I set it on the counter for him to look at it with more ease. “You said you found this in the alley right?” He asked.

“Yeah.” I simply replied.

“Then perhaps it must've broken off that strange escape wagon of theirs when I struck it with a bolt of magic, it slammed into the wall you see. That thing of theirs did have some bluish glowing lights on it.” I rose an eyebrow at those sentences. Seems that he tried to fight back. He noticed my eyebrow, rolled his eyes, and replied, “When those thieves broke into my store I was working the counter, counting the days earnings. That was when I heard a loud bass-like boom and my windows shattered.”

“The thieves must be related to the ponies that attacked me and the others on the train. Or perhaps even the same group.” I thought. That bass-like boom sounded familiar, just like the one that knocked over the train.

“Then ponies in some weird get-up stormed my store, from both the front and the back entrance, where the wagon was placed, stealing my stuff. I tried fighting back but that bass-boom left me disoriented, I missed most of my shots. As you can see by those scorch marks here and there. But I guess one got lucky.” He mused, tapping a hoof to his scarred chin.

One thing didn't add up. “But how do you know what this is?” I asked, pointing at the broken chip piece.

The stallion glanced at the chip before sighing. “My family has been doing things with music for generations. In fact, I believe it all started around a thousand years ago.” The unicorn said, looking up into space, lost in thought. Eventually he nodded and continued, “Yes, around a thousand years ago, give or take. One of my ancestors, can’t remember the name, heard a huge boom-like explosion after what she described as some sort of foreign type of music blare from that general direction. She saw a huge pillar of light rise into the sky and ran towards it, thinking it was going to be something interesting.”

The pony shook his head and continued, “When my ancestor got there, she found nothing but ruined and charred bits of metal and wood. But before she left she noticed a bluish glow amidst the rubble. After shifting through the burnt rubble she pulled out a blue chip just like that one, only not broken and intact.”

“No way…” I thought to myself, completely taken by surprise, my jaw dropped. “That has to be the failed experiment of mine that got me stoned.”

 The old unicorn continued, not seeming to notice my shocked and slack jawed expression. “That chip has been in my family ever since. We haven’t let anyone else know of its existence, not even family friends. But now that doesn’t seem to be the case, and that only makes me worried...” He trailed off. I could sympathize with him about that.

I shook my head and leaned forward on my elbows onto the table. “So how did these random ponies get one of these?” I asked. “Better yet, how did they make a new one? I assume the original family one is still in your possession?”

He nodded, “Aye, it is currently in the possession of our youngest prodigy.” The unicorn eyed me, “The prodigy you claim to have the same name of.”

“I figured. Perhaps pony me must’ve found out the secret behind the chip, that could be how she has her own bass cannon and everything.” I thought before looking at the old stallion, gave a small shrug of my shoulders, and said, “Yeah. It’s a long story about the hair and name so I won’t bother you with that. But your ancestor found my failed experiment just before I was stoned for accidentally destroying Cloudsdale, and just after I left. I didn’t think anything would’ve been left over, what destroyed my work in the end was a really large explosion after all.”

The unicorn rose an eyebrow, “Stoned? Like imprisoned like Discord stoned?”

I nodded, “Yeah, but I got free a few days after Discord got resealed. Celestia and I worked things out between us, she apologized for her and her sister being hotheaded and immediately going the imprisonment route without even bothering with a trial. I apologized for accidentally destroying Cloudsdale and terrifying a lot of ponies. Right now I’m staying with her student and working on new tech and research. It’s kinda fun.”

The old stallion seemed to accept that and shrugged, “Well, if the Princess forgives you and lets you wander free then who am I to judge? But I must admit it’s amazing to meet the one who helped drive my family to understanding that chip. I sadly could never hope to grasp its workings, but that little niece of mine works wonders with it.”

“Your niece?” I asked dubiously.

“Yep!” He popped the ‘P’ proudly.

I was silent for a minute before replying, “I really don’t see any sort of passing resemblance that ties you into her family.”

The unicorn rolled his eyes, “The colors of our coat don’t mean much to ponies, genetics is a weird thing in our species.”

“I suppose you got a point there. So what now?” I asked. I really wanted to figure out this whole thing going on here. Now more so than ever.

The stallion rubbed his chin as he thought, he shrugged and said, “Well, since you want to try and figure out this whole thing out like me, how about you and I work together? I already have a nice planning board going on upstairs, along with a few leads, we can do a stakeout at one of the places I have circled down. I could use the help and company.”

I grinned, “Sweet! Kinda like detectives! I’m game.”

The pony grinned back, “Excellent!” He stuck a hoof out to me and said, “Now let me introduce myself properly. My name is Chocolate Rhythm, but you can just call me Choc, everypony else does.”

I took the hoof and gave it a shake, “Great to meet ya Choc!” I released his hand and started packing everything back up. As I did that I asked him, “So, you have your planning board upstairs? Do you live here or something?”

Choc nodded, “Yeah, upstairs is basically an apartment built into the shop. It’s pretty big so I have a guest bed you can use. Not like I have anypony else to share it with.” Choc shrugged at that last comment as I slung my bag around my shoulders and picked my wubboard up. “Now that you’re done with that we can go over a few things about the plan before getting ready.”

I gave him a thumbs up and he lead me upstairs.

♫♫♫

I looked at the wall he had upstairs in his apartment, it had a humongous thumb tack board stuck on it with various news articles and other assorted pictures and thoughts written down. It was completed with a lot of red string connected here and there, some articles were marked with another thumb tack that stabbed the string to it. Most of the articles had circles with an x through them. Some still had open circles.

I assumed that those were the few leads Choc still had left. After giving the board my once over I looked at Choc and asked, “So, which are we going to first?”

Choc levitated an extendable pointer and pointed to one of the circled pictures. “This one. I have a good feeling about this warehouse, I questioned some ponies that work in some of the surrounding ones and they all said that sometimes suspicious looking ponies would come and go around here.”

Choc retracted the pointer and looked at me, “I asked if they heard any strange bass like sounds coming from thee recently but they all said no.” Choc paused dramatically, he flicked his pointer into the air as if to emphasis his next statement, “Except one.”

I rose an eyebrow and gave him a look that screamed skepticism, “And we are going by what one pony said?”

Choc shrugged, “Unless you've got any leads then please present them.”

I sighed, he had a point there. I nodded in agreement and said, “Alright, what's the plan?”

“Glad you asked! My plan is to drop by late tonight in my carriage and observe the warehouse.” Choc said, quite proud of his plan.

“So just a stakeout? No bursting in all spy like and wrecking the place?”

Choc looked shocked, “Of course not! What if the lead was wrong?! We could do damage to some poor pony’s warehouse if we act that rash.”

I had to admit, that was a pretty good reason. But I still had to add, “Well, how about instead of breaking stuff, we sneak in if what we observe is really suspicious enough. That way we can confirm for ourselves and do no unnecessary property damage.”

Choc scratched the underside of his snout with the pointer as he thought about what I suggested. He gave a slight nod of approval a second later, “Yes, that sounds agreeable.”

“Great!” I said. “When do we start?”

“Around nine. That's when most of the various warehouses have been locked up and are empty of workers.” Choc turned around and walked through the spacious, mostly wooden, living room and towards a door on the other side. “Here is the guest bedroom, you should get a bit of rest before we start the stakeout. I'm hoping to leave at least a half hour before nine.”

“Alright. Thanks Choc.” I said, giving him a smile.

He just waved it off, “It's no trouble. See you at eight thirty Vinyl. I'll wake you up, since I can assume you don't have an alarm clock with you.”

“Alright,” I said and with that I closed the door gently behind me and set my bag down on the floor before jumping on the bed and setting my glasses down on the bedside table. The bed was a bit small but I could make do, I fell asleep fairly quickly as I snuggled into the bed covers.

♫♫♫

I woke up a few hours later to Choc gently shaking me awake. “Hey, might want to get ready, we leave in ten minutes.” He said as I blearily open my eyes. I silently nodded to him as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

Choc walked out of the bedroom door and I sat on the edge of the bed, yawning loudly. I got up, stretched, and grabbed my stuff before walking out of the bedroom. Choc greeted me in the living room, he looked to be packing a saddlebag of his own. I didn't get to see what was in it, seems he just finished.

Choc looked over at me and said, “I'm all packed over here. Ready to head out?”

I nodded, “Yeah. I'm packed and ready to go too.”

With that said we headed out of Choc’s store through the main entrance. I looked at the destroyed decorations and asked him, “So, you going to get this all fixed?”

Choc kept his attention on the sidewalk we walked on as he replied, “Aye. I actually have some Minotaurian contractors coming over next week. Say what you want about them, but they certainly know their construction.”

I shrugged, “Well that's good.” I was silent for a moment as we rounded a corner before asking, “So where is your carriage located anyway?”

Choc stopped and pointed to a parking lot full of carriages. “Right over there.”

I looked to where he pointed at and saw a plain brown wooden carriage. It had its paint peeling and had absolutely no decorations on it whatsoever other than some dark brown sheet like things that hung between the axles of the wheels, almost touching the ground, just under the doors. A good thing about it was that it was completely walled and roofed with two side doors that had windows on them. The bad thing about that was that the whole thing just looked like a beat-up box on wheels.

I was silent as I eyed the contraption. Choc just sighed dreamily, “Isn't she beautiful?”

I just smiled uncomfortably, “Y-Yeah, it sure is.”

Choc gave a proud grin, I didn't have the heart to be honest and frank with the dude. The carriage looked to fall apart at a single touch, never mind actually moving the thing. Still, it did look inconspicuous enough to maybe not garner too much attention out on the road. Of course with all of the fancy carriages surrounding it I didn't think it was doing that good of a job.

“Well, hop in. I'll go get myself strapped to the front.” Choc said as he trotted proudly to the front.

I opened the side door as a thought hit me, “Wait, if we are suppose to do a stakeout, then how do you plan on getting in when we get there? You’d be spotted if you try and climb into the carriage.”

Choc looked over at me, smirked, and said, “You'll see.”

I looked at him for a second before shrugging and getting in. No sense in worrying too much about it if the guy has a plan. Once Choc strapped himself in the carriage started moving backwards. Choc expertly moved the carriage, not hitting even one of the fancy carriages around us.

Once free from his parking spot Choc started down the road at an easy pace. I didn't pay much attention to the road as he moved down it. I was still incredibly sleepy and needed some sort of pick-me-up. That was when I looked out the window, I was happy to see something off to the side of the road that would've helped.

I opened the window and shouted to Choc, “Hey!” He looked back at me and I pointed to what I saw. “Stop over there real quick!”

Choc did as I asked and I jumped out. I ran into the late night donut diner, Choc followed me with an incredulous expression on his face as I picked a dozen donuts with just chocolate icing on it and two coffees. He glared at me and I smiled nervously once I saw the look on his face.

“Do you think this is some kind of game?!” He growled out as he alternated between glaring at me and the donuts.

I chuckled quietly, “Heh, well you see-”

I didn’t get to finish as he nearly shouted, “No sprinkles?! What kind of donut eater are you?!” He scoffed and continued, “Yes, coffee and donuts are important to a stakeout, but we can’t simply half-ass this!” He looked over to one of the occupied booths in the diner and said to the donkey there, “No offense.”

The donkey just raised a hoof, “None taken.”

I scratched the back of my head, I honestly thought this was going to go a different route. “My apologies.” I said as I looked at the pony behind the counter. “A dozen chocolate covered donuts with sprinkles please.”

“And I’ll take my coffee with three sugarcubes please.” Said Choc.

The donut pony nodded and went to get the order ready. I looked at the old unicorn beside me and just thought, “Well... I’ve certainly come across quite the eccentric pony. I wonder what being stuck in the same carriage with him for however long this stakeout will be like?”

I paid for the donuts and coffee and the two of us left for his carriage.

“Guess I’ll find out soon enough.” I thought as I felt the carriage jerk forward slightly. I watched the dark streets of Manehatten go by in relative silence.