Misfit Six

by Don Quixote

Part 3 - The Reject

I stepped outside, took one look around and began to swear.

Octy—Octavia, I mean—gets awfully hot under the saddle when I swear. She says cursing isn’t proper for a lady, which is probably true. I always have to remind her I’m not a lady.

This time, Octy didn’t get upset at my language. She stood beside me on our front porch and stared with blank eyes at the blank world around us. Everything had gone black and white and brown, like… like… how the heck do I put it?

Ponyville was like a watercolor painting with the color washed out: all blurry shapes and empty spaces. It’s hard to explain. I’m not good with words, okay?

My name’s Vinyl Scratch, professional DJ. I make music. It’s my thing—my passion or calling or whatever. Octy’s a classical musician, which means she puts audiences to sleep by playing songs written centuries ago by ponies in waistcoats and white wigs.

I met Octy on a train two years ago. We were both musicians trying to get a start, so we hit it off and rented a house together in Ponyville. She wound up buying the place and insisting I stay.

One morning over breakfast, we were talking about all the crazy crises that had hit Ponyville since we arrived, and how it was always Twilight Sparkle and her friends who had saved our rumps with rainbows and the power of friendship and stuff.

I suddenly realized it was awfully quiet. No birds singing. Nothing.

Then we heard screams.

I rushed for the window to see what the heck was going on, and then out the front door for a better look. That was when the swearing started.

After standing and staring (and swearing) for a few seconds, we beat a panicked retreat indoors. I made another pot of coffee. Octy had some tea. We shut the kitchen curtains, lit some lamps and slumped into chairs across the table from each other. For a good ten minutes, neither of us said a thing.

“You drink too much coffee,” said Octy at last, and sipped shakily from her teacup.

“There is no such thing as too much coffee,” I growled. “Don’t we have bigger things to worry about right now? I could be worse, you know. I could be Berry Punch.”

Berry Punch, a violet pony with a messy mane, lived in the basement of Ponyville’s one and only bar. Berry worked as a barmaid during the day and downed record amounts of booze every night. She was notorious for breaking dishes, singing rude songs and finding new ways to shatter Octy’s rules for being a proper lady. It would have been pretty funny if it weren’t, you know, heartbreaking.

Octy strongly disapproved of Berry Punch, so comparing my addiction to Berry’s was a pretty good way to put things in perspective.

“Never mind Berry Punch,” exclaimed Octy, and slammed her teacup into its saucer. “I am going for a walk.”

I snatched off my shades and stared at her. “A walk? Out there? You crazy?”

“There is nothing to be gained by cowering indoors,” she said, getting up and trotting to the sink to rinse her dishes. “Perhaps we can find some help. Are you coming, Vinyl?”

Ponyville had become a graveyard. From the grass, which had turned a murky brown, to the trees, whose leaves wilted and drifted hopelessly to the ground, everything was lifeless. The buildings were the only things not to have lost any color, and they made me feel sick.

Just imagine a funeral. You know: weeping ponies with black veils and soggy handkerchiefs. You got that? Now imagine a dozen clowns honking horns and riding unicycles up and down the aisles. That’s what those buildings were like. They just looked obscene: misplaced blocks of color in a colorless world.

We hurried out of town, away from its sickening rainbow buildings, and entered the park. It was almost nice to see a nice plain stretch of gray and black and brown, gashed by a scar of wet mud where the river had flowed, dotted with leafless trees—and rudely interrupted by a greenish pony sitting on a park bench not far from where we stood.

“Hey!” she said, waving a hoof.

“Dang it,” I mumbled. “It’s Lyra.”

Lyra was a harpist. Even though we were both musicians, I tried to keep away from her. She was nice and all, but she had this creepy obsession with humans. Have you ever heard of humans? They’re these imaginary creatures that walk on their hind legs and have no fur or scales or feathers. How freaky is that?

Anyway, Lyra spent her free time reading about humans and other weird stuff at the library. Every time I saw her, she had some new book about monsters or curses or something.

Lyra had spotted us, so escape was impossible. We trotted reluctantly over to her bench beneath the tall, twisted bones of a tree. It held out empty branches, which did absolutely nothing to shield us from the sight of a bleak gray sky. Rotting leaves covered the ground in a thin, squishy carpet. The smell was awful. Lyra looked every bit as depressed as I felt.

“Good morning, Lyra,” said Octy politely.

“What are you guys doing here?” asked Lyra. “This is like, an emergency. Shouldn’t you be hiding or something?”

“Same to you,” I retorted. “What do you think you’re doing out here?”

I never found out. At that second, totally out of the blue—out of the dingy gray, I mean, if you want to be literal—hurtled a pony who smacked right into Octy and knocked her down.

“I’m so sorry!” exclaimed the stranger, bouncing back up. “Can I help you? Are you okay?”

“I have been better,” said Octy, standing and brushing soggy leaves out of her mane. “My name is Octavia. Have we met?”

The stranger, a gray pegasus with wonky eyes and a blond mane, was dancing with impatience. “Nice to meet you. I’m Derpy Hooves, and I’m also really sorry. I need to go. Have you seen a brown pony with an hourglass Cutie Mark?”

“Time Turner?” I asked. “The sap Mayor Mare left in charge of Ponyville?”

“No, no, the other brown hourglass pony,” exclaimed Derpy.

“Is he like, a doctor or something?” asked Lyra. “I think I met him once.”

“Hang on,” I said. The word doctor called up a strange memory. “Does this doctor guy have a funky accent?”

“I’d hardly call it that,” said a voice behind me. “Different perhaps—unusual even—but funky is a bit strong. Personally, I think it’s rather a charming accent. I suppose I’m biased.”

I whirled round. There stood two ponies with hourglass Cutie Marks. One, a blue unicorn, carried a satchel embroidered with toothbrushes. (It looked just as dorky as it sounds.) The other pony looked just like Time Turner, except for something like an upside-down bucket on his head.

“Do I know you?” I asked. “How the heck did you sneak up on us like that? And what in Celestia’s name are you wearing?”

“It’s a fez,” said the brown pony, exasperated. “Dash it all, some things never change. You needn’t gawk at it. Fezzes are cool. Don’t hate the fez.”

Lyra leaped off her bench and gave the Doctor a hug. “It’s you!” she cried. “It’s like, so good to see you, bro.”

“Get off!” he yelped. “Personal space! Please!”

“Sorry,” said Lyra, letting go. “I didn’t mean to be like, a space invader.”

The Doctor’s reply was cut short by another hug. “Doctor,” whispered Derpy, clinging to him, “I’m really scared.”

This time, the Doctor didn’t seem to mind. “It will be all right,” he said, patting her awkwardly on the head. “I’ve seen worse.”

Looking up, he noticed Lyra, Octy and I staring at him. “Yes, yes, we’ve met,” he said impatiently. “The fire at town hall: bombs, broken instruments and all that. That’s ancient history now. We’ve a new problem.” He frowned and added under his breath, “No rest for the weary.”

The blue unicorn spoke up. “I think I know why things have gone wrong. I’m Colgate, by the way. It looks like you’ve all met the Doctor.”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “I’m Vinyl Scratch. That’s Octy—sorry, Octavia—and Lyra and Derpy Hooves. What the heck is going on?”

Colgate pointed to a sinister line of trees bordering the park: the edge of the Everfree Forest. Apart from Zecora, a weird zebra who speaks in rhymes for some reason, no pony is crazy enough to live in the Forest. It’s pretty much the most dangerous turf in Equestria.

“Somepony broke into Zecora’s and stole the Alicorn Amulet,” explained Colgate. “You remember: the evil relic that helped Trixie take over Ponyville a few months ago.”

“Great,” I said. “The Amulet of doom, now in the hooves of some stupid crook or bully. Who has it this time? Chrysalis? Gilda? Lightning Dust?” A terrible possibility crashed into my mind. “Flim and Flam? It’s the Flim Flam Bros, isn’t it?”

Colgate ground a leaf beneath her hoof. “Nopony knows. Whoever it is, they’re apparently using it to suck all the life out of Ponyville. The Princesses were visiting the Crystal Empire for the Summer Sun Celebration, but they’ve been delayed. We’re on our own.”

Lyra began to panic. “Princess Twilight and her friends have always been here to rescue us!” she gasped. “Without them, we’re like, toast! Ponyville is doomed.”

“No!”

This word, spoken with fiery resolve, made us all turn and stare. Derpy Hooves blushed, but stared back. There was a glint of determination in her unfocused eyes.

“Don’t you get it?” she said. “The Princesses are gone. It’s up to us.”

“We can’t rescue anypony!” I objected. “I mean, look at us! There’s a reason Twilight and her friends are always the ones to save the day. They’re bucking heroes.”

“Heroines.”

“Shut up, Octy. They’re heroes, and they can use the Elements of Harmony. Twilight and her friends are special. We’re not, Derpy. We’re the ones who stand in the background doing nothing. Face it. We don’t have any great gifts or magical treasures, and there’s not a danged thing we can do to help.”

Derpy looked ready to break down in tears. Even so, she stood her ground and said, “Maybe we can’t help, but we can try. This isn’t about us. It’s about Ponyville. Somepony has to do something. If we don’t, who will?”

There was a long silence. We all looked everywhere but at each other: at the dying grass beneath our hooves, at the skeletons of trees around us, at the blank space above us that had been the sky.

“Well,” I muttered at last, “Let’s get this over with.”

Octy nodded curtly. “Whether we succeed hardly matters. Our duty is simply to try.”

“Totally,” added Lyra. “Trying and failing is better than like, not trying.”

“I agree,” declared Colgate.

“I was afraid you would all want to come along,” sighed the Doctor. “Well, I supposed it can’t be helped. Lead the way, Derpy.”

Comments

[The Dimension Traveler]

You just couldn't prevent the fez, could you?

[Don Quixote]

2879887 No. No I could not.

[Mecha G]

valley girl Lyra? seriously? And why isn't Colgate tagged?

[CoatedHades436]

There a limit of 5 character tags.