Grey sighed, looks like this party didn't have any coffee, although Shine was upset about something a little different.
"Are you kidding me? What kind of party doesn't have booze!?"
Shine was currently complaining to the pony behind the bar about the lack of certain kinds of beverages. Luckily for Grey, someone had covered the entire party with a translation spell, so he was able to set the link to standby mode and relax. As he set 'learn about magic' in his idea brain, he looked around the party. There were several Pokemon and ponies mingling, and even a couple of legendaries had shown up. He noticed Flux walking towards him, his body language stating that he had been up to his old tricks, and failing miserably. "So, who'd you try to hook up with this time?"
"I met this cute Sylveon, who already had a mate."
Grey chuckled, "Honestly, why do you keep doing this?"
"Because I do occasionally get a date."
Grey sighed as Shine floated over with a glass of punch, "Stupid Pinkie Pie saying no booze cause it might hurt the Pokemon, Pokemon can handle booze just fine."
As she said that another pony walked up to the bar and ordered a drink, but as the bartender pulled the tap, it squirted in her face, causing Shine to start laughing her face off.
"Thank you karma, you deny me my booze, YOU GET CIDER IN THE FACE!"7
Grey sighed, “I can’t wait to find the rest of the team, at least they can be trusted to behave in public.”
“I dunno, Shine’s kinda nice, after you get used to the whole ‘ghost’ thing,” said Ferria.
Grey chuckled as a white unicorn with a purple mane walked up to them, “Welcome, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. I’m Rarity, and I must ask, how did you manage to get your skin so shiny?”
“Special Anville Town Metal Coat,” said Grey, “I’m Grey by the way.”
“Anville Town?”
“Best engineers on the planet,” said Grey, “well, Earth anyway. Gonna need to build the Anville name up from scratch, should prove interesting.”
“You’re an engineer you say?” said Rarity, “I happen to be a fashion designer myself.”
“To each their own,” Grey said as he popped a tart into his mouth, as Ferria looked at Rarity with a look of minor confusion on her face.
“Excuse me,” she said, “you wouldn’t happen to be the same Rarity who ran afoul of a local Diamond Dog pack, would you?”
“That I am, horrid brutes,” Rarity said, turning towards Ferria, a nervous grin appearing on her face as she noticed exactly what Ferria was, “er... no offence?”
“None taken, you can’t expect an outland pack to be as civilized as a Canidian city,” said Ferria. “Besides, when my father heard about how you managed to best them, he was laughing for 5 hours straight.”
“Well, I suppose it is rather humorous when you think about it miss...?”
“Ferria Forgeburn, daughter of Gimli Forgeburn, Lord of Black Anvil,” said Ferria, as she clasped her right paw over the left side of her chest in a form of salute.
“A Lord?” Rarity said, “well, I must say I never expected... Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, I think I see one of my friends.”
Ferria scratched her head as Rarity walked away, “I wonder what that was about?”
“Probably a little trouble meshing her past experiences with meeting you,” said Grey before turning towards Flux, “by the way, I noticed you managed to contain yourself for once.”
“Are you kidding? The last three times I hit on a Rapidash, I got kicked into low earth orbit,” said Flux, “I have no desire to see if the pattern holds with ponies.”
Grey was helping himself to some rock candy as the others decided to mingle when he saw a somewhat familiar face come towards him. Of course, it would be a little more familiar if it wasn’t upside down.
”Hey Grey” said Deoxys, ”I was hoping to find you.”
“It’s nice to see you too,” said Grey as he levitated Deoxys some candy, “you do know you don’t have to do that right?”
”Stupid Hoopa had me doing this for so long its become a habit,” grumbled Deoxys as he righted himself.
Grey just chuckled. “So, what were you thinking about?”
”Latias is gonna race a pony tomorrow, was trying to figure out which one would win.”
“And what’s your opinion so far?”
”I don’t know enough. I mean, I’ve raced Latias before, so I’ve got a pretty good idea of what she can do,” Deoxys said as he shifted to his Speed Form, ”but I’ve got bubkis on this Rainbow Dash other than she can break the sound barrier.”
Grey whistled, “Sounds like that could be worth watching.”
”I’ll see you there then,” Deoxys said as he floated off, once again upside down.
“Wonder what he’s thinking about know,” Grey said to himself as Ferria rejoined him.
“I have no idea who this Pinkie Pie is, but she sure knows how to throw a party.”
“Good thing someone put up this translation spell,” Grey said as he saw a group of foals playing tag with some Pokemon, “the whole thing could have gone south real quick if half the guest didn’t have a clue what the other half were saying.”
“No argument there,” Ferria said as she had a sip of punch, “not sure why they didn’t use runes though.”
“Runes?”
“Diamond Dog magic. Special symbols that, when done correctly, have various effects,” Ferria explained. “they may take more time and effort than unicorn magic, but they can function almost indefinitely if they aren’t damaged. Runemasters can even create teleportation gates, although those are strictly one-time only.”
“Sounds useful,” said Grey, “I wouldn’t mind learning some of that.”
“I brought a few books with me,” said Ferria, “you’re welcome to have a look.”
“Thank you very much,” said Grey. Now he had something to occupy his time between his morning coffee and the race.