Arc One: Welcomings - Protagonist's Speech
When school ends and we all funnel out of the building like a herd of mindless cattle seeking greener grass and bluer skies, we have something like seven hours before curfew. Plenty of time to cause trouble. (And, in theory, get home and do one’s homework.) But, I’m a little different, as you may have noticed.
The moment class ended I rushed over, not to the nearest exit that was not a window, but to one of the many open computer rooms. From there I did two things. The first was rather simple. I printed out a map of the location detailed on the pamphlet. (Well, I printed ten copies, because apparently my hooves are clumsy and the A key is right next to the one key and this school does messed up math, but whatever.) The next thing I did was waste away an hour assaulting my homework until it was fully—if cheaply—complete.
Model student, that is me.
Students are all over Academy City after class, from the food courts that seem to spring out of thin air to the arcades and stores that cover the business district from top to bottom. I mean, of course there’s a lot of bits to be made here. After all, something like 70% of the ponies in this town attend one campus or another. And students are known for being very responsible with their money.
It was along one of those crowded roads that I found myself after my work was done. Mares and stallions mingled with fillies and colts, a sea of colourful school uniforms plastered in badges and emblems from various clubs. Merchants called out for attention while the ritzier shops had music systems beating out light-dubtrot rhythms that made my steps bounce.
I liked this place, in a weird way. I know that talking to ponies is not my forte and that I’m rather pessimistic at times, but there’s something about being in such a lively, active city that just makes your blood run hot.
So I got the heck out of there as quickly as I could.
The next bit of my story’s rather dull, and as any good (or at least half-decent) narrator would, I’m going to skip ahead. Suffice to say I got home, avoided any strange dark alleys, took a long shower, realized that all my clothing was composed of the same dull uniform, realized that I didn’t care, got dressed and trotted outside just as the sun was starting to get a little low on the horizon.
Taking out my map—one of the few items I could levitate, since it weighs next to nothing—I found the quickest route to the outer edge of the city and began trotting along, the path illuminated by hundreds of streetlights as I got farther and farther from the centre.
Somepony could have planted a giant sign saying “Here be industry” the moment you crossed from one sector to the next.
Dormitories turned into warehouses and open parking lots where semi-trailers sat in the twilight. Containers were everywhere and train railings cut through the streets—not those of the ultra-fast passenger vehicles, but trains made to transport cargo, the things needed to keep the city’s heart pumping.
It’s funny how you don’t really think about where the stuff you’re scarfing down comes from. Or your clothing, or your technology.
As I slowed my pace down and walked ever onwards on the main road, I looked up to the stubby smokestacks and the many warehouses that were sometimes lit from within, not really perturbed by the darkness beyond the range of the streetlights. Maybe I should have been.
Something rustled behind me, subtle, like a leaf in the wind, but in my state of heightened nerves and full awakenedness (Blame the shower and weird setting) I saw it coming. I spun around, my hooves scratching at the pavement and forming a rough square around me, a solid base.
A leaf bounced on the pavement before the wind carried it on.
False alarm?
Or so I thought.
“It’s just a leaf.”
I think it’s safe to say that all of us have had the experience of being scared out of our wits and jumping to the air. Yeah, that happened. Only I, being a manly stallion, gave out a shrill scream worthy of a two-year old.
“Whoa, calm down! You’re gonna call the whole neighbourhood down on us. Ponies need their downtime you know. Gives them the occasion to contemplate just what they can do with their lives.”
Standing right beneath the post of one of the street lights was my favourite nihilist.
Count of times I’ve made an idiot of myself in front of a pretty girl: Six. I’m on a roll.
Happy End grinned at me, her smile hardly visible within the shadow cast by her hood. And yes, she was wearing a hoodie, one that was light brown and had a design over the front that read: Humans probably don’t exist. “Figured you’d pass by here eventually,” she said.
And then my mind broke. Simple logic would say that, by her statement, she was implying that she was waiting for me here. But logic and past experience dictated that females did not, in fact, do anything good to me.
“So, um, you decided to come?” I asked, trying to stand taller as if I hadn't just totally gone and embarrassed myself.
She shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I did. I mean, it’s probably going to end up being something really silly and I might regret it later, but, well, you never know unless you try, right?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah, I totally want to try things.”
One of her eyebrows arched, but her smile only grew. Somehow that was scarier than any other reaction she could have had. “Come on, kid, don’t get ahead of yourself.” She stood up and began walking, her tail swishing from side to side behind her. “I want to get there early, to check the place out a bit. I’ve got a hunch or two to follow, you know?”
“Um, yeah, sure,” I said as I galloped after her. Somepony once said that you had to act cool and collected around women. He never met Happy End.
By my estimate, we were still a good ten minutes away from the gathering. Ten minutes spent alone with a really cute mare. Ten minutes for me to say something crushingly stupid. “So, uh, Happy. Why are you so... you know, the way you are?” (Why is it that in my head, everything sounds dandy, but when my mouth opens only stupid comes out?)
“Um, genetic diversity? Or do you mean my personality?” she asked, somehow inserting so much bubbliness in her sentence that I feared for my sanity. “I guess.... Well, I don’t know, really. I like gardening,” she suddenly blurted out.
I blinked at her, trying to read her face through the material of her hood, but catching only a glimpse of redness on her cheeks. She continued, “Gardening is rather fun, if you’re into things like that. The flowers, the fresh air. Lots of time to think as you dig your hooves into the mud. If you listen really, really hard, you can hear Equestria whispering.”
And then things got deep.
“I listened. Stories and tales. The trees were old, much older than you or me. Some are even as old as Celestia. But the flowers are always young. So vibrant and strong, but they’re only there for a season at most. Then you have the rocks. They whisper the quietest, and they’re older still. But all of them, no matter how strong, die eventually. It got me thinking. Our life is short, really, really short.”
I nodded. The air was bitter, but sweet. Tiny puffs of fog escaped us with every breath, washing back as we coasted forward accompanied by only each other and the clop of our hooves on the pavement. “So, you try to find happiness despite knowing all of that?” I said, giving in to the crazy. I mean, nature talking to her? Earth pony magic was a thing, but come on!
“Pretty much. You can be bright sometimes, huh, Tighty?”
I grudgingly accepted the compliment and lapsed into silence while she did the same. It wasn’t an awkward quiet where neither of us knew what to say, but a comfortable one, where we were done talking and were able to enjoy each other’s company without talking. Which is a good thing since, most of the time when she opened her mouth, random and slightly scary stuff came out.
The road forked and we took a quick turn to the right, following the path laid out on my map until we began trotting down narrower and narrower side roads where even the constant flow of streetlights seemed to be reluctant to enter.
Ponies were here, either in their normal uniforms or wearing everyday clothing equipped with hoods or bandanas around their muzzles; a weak attempt to remain anonymous, but one that still set me on edge. Nopony doing something legal would try to hide his identity.
“Here we are,” Happy whispered as we turned around the last corner and arrived.
Kudos to the pony in charge of decorations.
The warehouse was a normal building, the kind that we had passed a dozen of on our way there. The doors were opened and in them was a stage, effectively blocking out the main entrance as it rose up a good metre off the ground with its single microphone stand alone in front of the crowd.
50-gallon barrels littered the ground here and there, standing upright to allow the fires blazing within to vent their fury into the night. The flames created flickering displays of red and yellow and orange light that licked across the vague forms of shrouded ponies.
“I’m heading off,” Happy End said abruptly. “See you tomorrow, Tighty, and try not to get too sucked into the mob mentality. Life is too short to live it as another desires.”
I watched her wave goodbye and slip into the crowd, not bothering to try and stop her or change her mind. I mean, it’s not like I could have done anything if I tried anyhow. And I had a few questions to ask myself just then, such as what was I supposed to do now, and why in the name of all things shapely and soft did I even come here?
Thinking ahead, (for once) I moved around to the edge of the parking area-turned-auditorium, hugging the wall of the nearby warehouses before I began trotting to the stage. From there, I had a decent view of the crowd and could easily see the alley sandwiched between the warehouses, an escape path if things got a little hairy.
I only had to wait a full minute or two in the relatively cold and lonely shadows for things to get exciting. More and more ponies were trotting in, a veritable army of low-class losers. Meanwhile, a wall of ponies wearing dark leather coats over their uniforms (Yes, leather, as in, dead skin. Yuck.) lined up in front of the stage, looking positively badflank with dark shades over their faces and similar bandanas hiding their muzzles.
Dust crawled across the stage, slowly climbing to become a shimmering fog that fluctuated and waved, catching the light of the flames and fire before it formed a perfect sphere. When the sphere dissolved a stallion was standing on stage.
I’m not one to be impressed by showy displays of magic, but damn. That wasn’t showy, that was just a display of massive power. This pony was level four, minimum.
He stepped up, the long cloak wrapped around his form waving wildly before settling onto him. His face, a void of darkness, was hidden beneath a full-faced mask with a hole from which his dark purple horn jutted. Yes, he was a badflank too.
“Hello,” he began, his voice smooth and calm, as if he had no concerns in life save for making us feel warm through the chilly night. (Would you be nervous standing in front of an antsy crowd of a few hundred? Exactly.) “I bid you all welcome. It’s not the warmest of days, but hopefully our companionship will warm hearts and mind.
“But, enough with the pleasantries,” he said, and I knew that he was smiling warmly at us beneath the mask. “My name is Protagonist, or, at least, that is what those that follow me have chosen to call me. And I have a simple message to deliver. One of freedom, justice. One of the breaking of shackles and of the pushing of one’s own limits until perfection is reached.
“This city. This wonderful, beautiful city. It chastises you. To it, you are small, you are nothing. You and I, we are very different. Because I am powerful, and you are weak.”
Well, crap, that rustled some jimmies.
“But wait!” he said with such power that any who would have raised an argument froze. “I am not one of the filthy above that looks down with pity at you. Noblesse Oblige, and I intend to oblige you.”
He began to pace along the stage’s edge at a measured cadence. “If weakness is sin, then I will be your absolution,” he said.
“If, to grow stronger, you need to change, then I will be your evolution.
“If change is not enough, then I, I will lead you through the bloody revolution.”
I broke eye contact with the stage, my head swimming as my eyes tried to become accustomed to the darkness. No, I was not sure what was going on, but one thing was for sure. That pony on stage was dangerous. With a capital D.
He continued talking, working his particular brand of magic over the crowd as I watched. Ponies were transfixed, without fear or questions in their eyes. They cheered, the sound reverberating through the arena and making me cringe back into the cold metallic wall of the warehouse next to me. The wall was acting like a sponge, absorbing the constant outpouring of excited screams. I had to get out of here.
Not to sink back into a tangent, but let’s think about this situation for a sec, shall we?
This pony, this so called Protagonist (or Trick Star, as my chubby friend Crosshatch called him) is creating something rather basic. He’s building an army. An army of sad, depressed ponies that already had a touch of anger directed against his so-called enemy. This guy’s a genius, whatever his goal might be. And whatever that goal happens to be, I didn’t want to be part of it.
My life is tough enough as it is. I don’t want to heap another load of trouble onto my back, nope.
So, to cement that idea I began trotting towards the stage, hugging the wall as I made for the alley between the two buildings. The sound of the growing crowd was cut off, becoming much weaker as I slid into the alley.
Now, I was going to head home, relax and forget all about this.
So far, how many times have I tried to avoid problems only to run right into worse ones head on? Yeah, a relaxing evening this was not going to become.
I made it out of the alley behind the building and found the place deserted, save for a few lonely trucks and two ponies in the same leather-vested garb as Protagonist’s followers. They glanced at me once and scoffed before I started trotting away with a quick step.
I could have made it home—and I was so close! But, as my terrible luck would have it, my gaze crossed a mare just as I snuck in behind one of the trucks.
It froze me, forcing me to close my eyes and take a few deep breaths that ended in tiny swears against my own idiocy.
Of course, the next thing I did was turn around.
Standing in the mouth of the alley was the tall mare, her shoulders set wide and proud while long lengths of blond mane wrapped themselves around her visage. She seemed uncertain, shifting her weight from hoof to hoof while testing the air of the passageway.
“Black Ruby?” I asked, biting my lower lip as I approached her from behind.
Her ears perked and she turned, staring up and down at me with an eyebrow raised. “Do I know you?”
Damn, this mare. I mean, there’s pompous, then there’s pompous. So I put on my best scowl and huffed at her. “Know me? Well, you’ve been pestering me since the first day of school about this and that, so, yeah, I’d think that you know me very well, little miss muzzle-in-air.” For good measure I stuck my own muzzle into the air and huffed again.
“I-I’m sorry, sir. But I really don’t know you,” she said again, bowing her head down a little. When she brought it back up, those piercing blue eyes of hers drove a screwdriver into my gut and twisted it. “This happens, a lot. I’m sorry.” Then, she did the unthinkable. She blushed.
Count of times I’ve made an idiot of myself in front of a pretty girl: Seven.
I found myself scratching at the nape of my neck, my own face aflame. “Oh, um, okay? So, uh, what’re you doing? How’d you get here?”
She looked over her shoulder and down the tunnel where the hollow sound of Protagonist’s words were still ringing. “There’s a gathering here. It’s not a good one. That pony. That Trick Star. He’s going to try to destroy this city. A decades-old fight from ancestor to ancestor. I’m going to stop him. As to how I got here. Some fool printed far too many copies of the map at school. It was a simple task to arrive in this location.”
I blinked at her and tried to make my jaw not drop. Okay, I put my idiocy aside, there were more important things to talk about. “And, how, exactly are you going to do this?” I asked.
“I’m going to kick his flank,” she said, raising a hoof into the air and licking her lips. She looked at me then. “What’s your name?”
“Tight Wedge, but you’ll just end up calling me Wedgie all the time.”
“All right then, Wedgie. Since you seem to know me already then I trust that you’re one of my friends. That means you’re a level six, maybe seven, minimum. Want to help me out?” She said this with pure sincerity, so much so that I almost felt bad for spraying her noble face with my spittle.
“W-what?” I asked between giggles, the surprise on her face as she tried to wipe of the fresh sheen of spit only gripping my gut all the more. “You think, that... that I’m a level seven?” There’s something pleasant about a good laugh. It makes you feel good, even in the direst of situations. Of course, when you really think about it, the joke was on me, but I was laughing too hard to figure that one out.
“You’re an idiot,” she hissed, huffing (much better than my own, might I add) as she turned around and whipped out her tail. “I’ll accomplish the task on my own. If you wish to help, I have the impression that you're the sort that only causes trouble.” The mare shuddered. “And I also have the feeling that your life is intrinsically linked with my own,” she whispered.
I watched her trot as a brisk pace down the alley, stretching out her muscles as she made her way down.
A few things crossed my mind:
One, she’s strong, both morally, and, I suspect, physically.
Two. She’s nuttier than apple pecan pie.
Three. I liked her, in a weird, self-demeaning way that was probably going to end with me in tears, not to mention bleeding all over the place.
My hooves grudgingly rubbed against the ground as I followed her, only catching up as we reached the edge of the alley. Black Ruby saw me and we both sighed in the same breath. Before any of us could talk, Protagonist’s next words flowed over us.
“This city. We will claim it as our own. They may have power, but we have numbers, and together, with the violence of our hooves, will we respond!”
Well, shit.
Maybe she was onto something?
Still....
“You don’t have to go out there, you know. I’m sure there’s some sort of police force in this town that can take care of this,” I said.
“You’re right, I don’t. And there is. But, by the time they arrive, it will be too late. Words will have been spoken that cannot be taken back, like feathers in the wind. Your concern is admirable. But please, back away,” she whispered, her voice just strong enough to be heard over the crowd.
Groaning under my breath I rolled my eyes. “Fine, then I’ll bribe you.”
“Bribe me?”
“If we make it out of this alive, I’ll owe you lunch.”
She smiled at me.
It was as if the storm clouds had parted. Redness flushed to her cheeks and those blue orbs twinkled with mischief and laughter. “You’re on, Wedgie.”
Edited by:
]The Misfits
Speak of last-second editing.
This one’s a little weird, and I did purposefully cut it off before it was supposed to end. The next chapter’s going to be a little shorter because of that. But who cares?
Everypony loves cliffhangers, right?
I think that Black is finally shaping up into a pony that some might like, and hopefully the sheer amount of badflank in the next chapter will solidify that liking. Oh, and Happy won’t be back for a little bit, so I had to pump up her lovability (or whatever) to eleven.
Oh, and what do you guys thinks of “The Protagonist” or Trick Star (that phonetic pun!) I tried to make him.... a bit of a melodramatic pony version of Zero, from Code Geass.
Masked villains are best villains,
Ravens D. Dagger
P.S. The next chapter has up-skirt. Muahahahaa!
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Forgot your closing quotation mark.
Forgot your spacing.
Lives? Cliffhangers are alive?! OH GOD NO
3221417
Actually, you don't need a quote (It'd be wrong to use one, in fact) is the next line is spoken by the same character. One of those weird rules.
3221443 Alright then, I'll go back to my numbering format instead
3221472
Oh, and your other edits were (and still are) muchly appreciated!
Who wants to bet that the protagonist is somehow related to twilight? Purple horn. Lots of magic.....
Anyways, good chapter. It seems these are coming out rather quickly so hopefully this cliffhanger wont last all that long.
When I was reading the Protagonist's dialogue, I read it in Stevin Bloom's Amon voice.
Great, Black Ruby's a schizophrenic... yep, time to turn around and head home...
3222103
Is who a boy or girl?
3222555
Nah, she's not.
Give her another chapter.
3222103 If you're talking about the protagonist, it's a guy. Clarified in the later chapters where he emntions of being the opposite sex of Ruby who is a mare.
3222843 If I would have to guess, time traveller? What with your intro and all. That or she blows up stuff but forgets about it due to some kind of aftershock from saidnstuff blowing up? That or could be following with Index's idea of sisters... Wo knows.
This is getting better and worse and better and I'm not sure I can tell the difference reliably anymore. o_o
3230261
How is it getting worse? Please tell me! I want it to only get better.
3230712
Worse is... boy I wish you'd asked this like two hours ago, when I was still mostly coherent. The comment as a whole was meant to be indicative of Tight's life slowly spinning entirely out of control. So, better, he meets two of cute mares, even if they are a little insane, worse because he just got dragged into a war by a time traveler, and better because the story is picking up steam. I was being... I'm not sure exactly what I was being. Probably asinine.
Long story short: don't worry yourself, the worse was in reference to Tight having "SUCH MISFORTUNE" rather than anything related to the writing or story itself.
3230783
Ah, okay, cool!
And thanks.
Comments are sorta the reason why I write pony. It's awesome to see people react to our work!
What a strange journey so far. I really like the feeling of unrestrained energy that comes from this story, like you just sit down and push a chapter with whatever comes to mind, consequences be damned. And, even if I am not sold (yet) on you being able to make a coherent story out of that, there is something oddly fascinating about reading a story like this.
Also, it is working a lot better than any story with this many references has any right to, so kudos on that.
3231140
Hey! I can make a story semi-coherant... if I try.
We have the first three arcs planned out already!
(Look out for a small update tomorrow too. Fight scenes with extra time-manipulation and sauce!)
Everything's piecing together like a puzzle, but I still can't see the end result! Ruby's becoming more interesting, what with her odd memory! Is she, like, moving another direction in time, or something? Wait, what if Tight Wedge on the wrong side of the road!?