Date Fifty-Seven - Rolling With The Punches
Cheerilee double-knotted the laces on her skates. It’s going to be fine. If foals can do it, so can you. Dropping her hoof back to the carpeted floor, she rolled the skate back and forth a few times. With each pass, the ground seemed to slide away from her with alarming suddenness. Sweating, she added another knot to each skate.
“You okay?” Sprocket glided over to her with a fluid grace that inspired deep envy. “You don’t look so hot.”
Swallowing, Cheerilee dug down deep and found her special smile. The one that helped put her students at ease when they’d done something that had embarrassed them or were feeling especially unsure. “No, no! I’m, um… I’m excited.”
Sprocket’s eyes drifted down to her hooves. “I think you’re cutting off your circulation. Your legs are swelling.”
“Mrgf fmfp mkblbv!” Cheerilee said while tugging at the laces with her teeth.
“Sorry?” Sprocket replied.
Cheerilee sighed. “I’m just a bit nervous, too. It’ll pass.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be right by your side until you find your balance” A slow smile crept its way across Sprocket’s artfully scruffy face. “I sincerely hope that takes all night…”
Cheerilee’s heart skipped a beat, and her cheeks burned. Between his slight beard, tousled, sun-bleached mane, and twinkling eyes, Sprocket just oozed roguish earth-pony charm. She offered him a skate-clad hoof. “Oh, I’m an awfully slow learner when I want to be. You might have to take extra time with me.”
“We’ll just see how the night goes. Further attention might be in order,” he replied, hooking her fetlock and hauling her up to her hooves. “I take pride in my work, after all. So what do you—whoa!”
“Whaaa!” Cheerilee’s other hooves shot out from under her in three different directions. Running furiously in place, her legs worked into a blur while she fought to maintain her balance. Finally, her skates settled on left and she careened toward a wall before Sprocket’s grip on her fetlock tightened and he yanked her back.
“Hmmm. This might be harder than I thought,” he said as he draped a leg around her barrel and pressed her firmly against his side. “You weren’t kidding when you said you’d never done this, were you?”
Cheerilee shook her head. She could feel her cheeks burning again—this time unpleasantly—but when she caught his eye, she found herself grinning. “I guess you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
Winking, Sprocket nestled her more closely against his side. “It’s a grind, but every job’s got its upsides. Take this one.” He tilted his head over to her, then waggled his eyebrows. “The scenery’s fantastic.”
Cheerilee sniggered and rolled her eyes. “Just get me out onto the rink, Grassanova.”
~~~
“Will you watch it?” Cheerilee snapped at the passing teens. One of them had whipped by her close enough to ruffle her mane.
“You’re doing fine,” Sprocket said, steering them at a snail’s pace through one for the skating rink’s curves.
Cheerilee’s knees definitely did not think that they were doing fine. They were clambering for solid, dependable hoof placement in the immediate future, with one hundred percent fewer circular attachments thrown into the agreement. With each gliding advancement, they argued in favor of going on strike. Her hooves seemed to agree, and they often headed for the door. Or the concession booth. Or the restrooms. Often all at once.
But each time she found herself out of control, Sprocket adroitly pulled her back into position. After a short while, her hooves found a certain rhythm to follow. She leaned when he leaned, and they traced a shallow arc together around the oval rink.
“See? It’s not so tough,” Sprocket said, pushing them slightly to the left. A grinning stallion whizzed by them, then leapt into the air. Twisting through a complex series of spins, he landed facing backwards and doffed his hat to Cheerilee. “Soon you’ll be doing stuff like that, and poor ol’ Sprocket will be sitting all alone on the benches.”
Cheerilee shook her head at the display. “I think you’ve got a while before you have to worry about—whoops!” Her right, front leg flew out and she twisted toward the floor.
Turning with her, Sprocket scooped Cheerilee up into a standing position. One hoof around her waist, the other held her rogue hoof as well as it was able to through his skate. Together, they spun in lazy circles, face to face in the center of the rink. As they slowed, Sprocket looked away for a moment. “Um, it’s probably gauche to mention right now, but we should talk about the fee for this lesson.”
Cheerilee stiffened. “Fee? What fee?”
“This one.” Pulling her in close, Sprocket kissed her.
Her eyes flew wide, then she leaned in. The light, spicy aroma of his cologne filled her senses, and his body felt blazing hot against hers. The world around them dimmed.
Or it did until the whistling started.
Snorting out a series of giggles, they broke apart. “You’re just jealous!” Sprocket yelled out to one of the passing groups of kids.
“Yeah, right!” the colt fired back, laughing. “Go get a room!”
“Look, I think I need to sit down for a few minutes.” Cheerilee said, still panting a bit. Her heart was racing, and her knees were trembling worse than ever. “I don’t think I can stand on four legs much longer, much less two.”
“Okay, let’s—”
A crackling speaker came to life, followed by thumping music. “Alright, Hilltop Rink roller-fanatics! It’s Friday night, and you know what that means!”
As a cheer rose from the crowd, Cheerilee turned to Sprocket, her eyebrow arched. “What does it mean?” Across the rink, several ponies waved to their groups and rolled off into the arcade.
“No idea,” he said, shrugging. “I usually just skate out by the pond, but that’s no good for a beginner. It’s too bumpy. I wanted you to start—l” Sprocket frowned up at the speaker, then continued in a louder voice over the thumping beat “—to start on a smooth floor.”
A cold lump settled in Cheerilee’s stomach as she tracked the steady stream of stallions and mares exiting the floor. “Let get out of—”
“That’s right!” screamed the speaker. “You’ve waited all week, but it’s time to tighten those laces! Hilltop Rink proudly presents Equestria’s one and only out of cont-roll skating event: Shock ‘n’ Roll!”
Sprocket hesitated for only a moment before pushing off toward one of the exit doors, but it was a moment too long. The ponies still on the floor screamed when the lights when out, then giggled behind their hooves when several unicorns hiding in alcoves above the rink fired out swirling, twisting beams of light from their horns in time with the music. From somewhere that Cheerilee couldn’t quite see, a thick fog began filling the room.
“Let’s just find a wall and follow it!” Cheerilee said, squinting through the mist. While dazzling, the unicorn’s lighting effects were making it very difficult to judge where they were. At each end of the rink, a blinding beam of arcane power pierced the fog, and where it met the floor, the boards glowed.
“So get ready, skate-o-holics! We’ve got the light! We’ve got the sound! All that’s left is that kar-azy ground! Hold onto your hide, ’cause you’re about to ride! Ride the wave, that is!”
Cheerilee and Sprocket screamed and threw their legs around one another when the floor dipped. What had once been a flat surface had turned into a steep hill. Several groups of skaters flew past them, leaning into the acceleration.
“Get me out of here!” Cheerilee shrieked as her hooves scrambled in all direction. Somehow, her flailing seemed to increase their velocity.
“I’m trying!” Sprocket’s head twisted, trying to look everywhere at once. “I can’t figure out which—aah!”
The floor beneath them tilted hard to the right, rising as it went. Traveling at breakneck speed, Cheerilee and Sprocket found themselves skating parallel to the building’s wall, then into a teardrop loop. Just in front of them, the pony that had doffed his cap at them earlier wiped out and slid down the rest of the loop’s decline.
Cheerilee screamed again when Sprocket scooped her up, then threw her across his broad back. He had just enough time to jump over the prone stallion. “We’re going to break every bone in our bodies if we don’t get off this floor,” he growled. The fog cleared up just enough to see that the ahead had morphed into a series of moguls. A pack of whooping ponies high-hoofed each other as they navigated the difficult terrain. Grunting, Sprocket shot off the path and out into the open air.
“What are you doing?” Cheerilee said, wrapping her hooves around his neck as tightly as she could manage.
“Ow! Watch those skates!” he replied, leaning away from where her wheels had slammed into his ear. “If we want to get out of here, we need to fool those unicorns. It looks like they’re enchanting the rink when the skaters get there, so I’m trying to take a path that they won’t expect.”
Cheerilee glanced down at the floor rippling and twisting beneath them. It seemed terrible far away. “Why don’t you just talk to them?” she yelled back over the blaring music. “Oh. Right. Are… are you sure about this?”
“No,” Sprocket replied, his mouth set in a grim line. “Do you have any better ideas?”
Shaking her head, Cheerilee held on for dear life.
“Okay, now that everypony’s warmed up,” the speaker yelled again over the music, “let’s get this party started!” Several more unicorns with slightly bored expression trotted up to the half-wall that separated the floor from the surrounding lounge area. Each levitated a rubber ball from a bin and shot it out into the mass of skaters. Off in the haze, several meaty thunks echoed out, followed by screams and laughter. As the balls bounced back, the unicorns fired them off again.
Shaking his hoof at them, Sprocket angled for the closest exit door. “You maniacs! What is wrong with you? Somepony’s going to get hurt here!”
The nearest unicorn catch a careening rubber ball and fired it out into the fog. “Hilltop Rink is a Skate At Your Own Risk family funporium. Says so right on your entrance ticket.”
“Well, get us—”
But Sprocket’s words were ripped away when the floor sprang up beneath them. Suddenly, they were soaring through the air again and back into the thick things.
“They’re working to keep everypony together,” Sprocket yelled out over the music. “Look, I think we’re going have to jump for it!”
Cheerilee’s eyes widened. “What?”
Sprocket looked back over his shoulder at her. “This place is designed to keep skaters in, but we want to get out! To do that, we need to do what they don’t expect us to do. If we don’t, they’ll just keep funneling us back out onto the floor!”
Cheerilee released her death grip on Sprocket’s mane just long enough to wave at one of the unicorns. “Hey! Hey! Help us!”
The unicorn gave a half-hearted wave back and returned to shooting multicolored beams of light through the fog.
“Look, I know you’re new to this, but we’re going to have to work together!” Sprocket held her eyes for a moment before turning back to the floor. They were just about to land again. “I’m just not strong enough to jump out of here with you on my back. You were doing great before. You can do this!”
Cheerilee bit her tongue as they landed with bone-rattling force. “I… I can’t!”
“You can!” he replied through labor breaths. “All we need to do is skate together for a few seconds to build up speed, then jump whenever the track rises again. Five seconds! That’s all it’ll take, and then we’ll be out of here!”
Trembling, Cheerilee tightened her grip around his neck, then slowly—very, very slowly—she forced herself to relax and slide back to the floor. Immediately, her hooves scrambled out from under her, but Sprocket hooked his hoof around her barrel. Taking a deep breath, she willed her hooves to match his, stride for stride.
Within seconds, they were picking up speed, assisted by the rink, which had chosen to dip down into another valley. Cheerilee’s mane streamed out behind her, and the wind made her eyes tear slightly. She’d clamped her jaw so tightly shut that it was beginning to ache.
“Ready…” Sprocket called out when the floor tilted up again.
Cheerilee’s leg muscles were burning, but she forced them to keep up.
“Almost…” he growled.
Sweat streamed down Cheerilee’s brow, but she skated on.
“Now!”
Together, they leapt as they crested the hill. The pair arced gracefully over the writhing wooden floor and out toward the cushy couches that ringed the lounge.
“See?” Sprocket said, grinning. “I told you I’d be right by your side the whole time. Now—oof!”
A barrage of rubber balls slammed into Sprocket, and he fell, Momentum yanked Cheerilee out of his grasp, but off into a new direction. While he plummeted back toward the rink, she now flew out toward the double doors that led outside. Cheerilee barely had time to squeeze her eyes closed and clamp her jaw shut before she slammed into the doors.
They flew opened with almost no resistance, and she was suddenly rocketing down Ponyville’s steepest hill. She hasn’t given the name ‘Hilltop Rink’ much thought on the way up, but as she careened out of control down that same path, it seemed like an incredibly irresponsible place to have a skating establishment.
“Get out of the way!” she yelled unnecessarily as she flashed by several shocked ponies. Up ahead, another group dove out of her chaotic, zigzagging path. “Get out of—uh oh.”
Cheerilee’s pupils shrank to pinpoints, and she backpedal with all of her might, but it did little to arrest her ever-increasing velocity. Velocity that was taking her directly into Ponyville’s town square, which was currently hosting the Rare China and Extremely Delicate Pottery Festival. And past that, Ponyville’s Haphazardly Constructed Fruit Stand Festival. And the annual Half-Filled Cardboard Box Festival.
Sighing, Cheerilee stopped backpedaling and leaned into the inevitable.
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Cheerilee was so close on that one. She actually got a kiss!
And in another three months, she'll be out of the hospital and ready for her next date?
No! Cheerilee, don't you know you're meant for Caramel?!
Also, holy crap, I forgot how good this story was! This read like something right out of the show! Glad you're back to it, friend.
6455053 Thanks! I write this between other things, so it kind of disappears and reappears depending on my time. I've been really busy lately.
6454900 Hospital? Cheerilee is made out of steel. She'll have some bruises, but she's had worse than this.
6454882 Sprocket is one smooth stallion...
That cover pic. To echo silverquill, that is the face that made me a cheerilee fan.
You keep rooting for her, but you know it will always end in tragedy. Hilarious, china breaking, fruit covered tragedy.
I'm not sure what I liked better, the homage to G2 Cheerilee with the Roller Skating in general or the homage to classic chase scene destructables at the end. (I'm also guessing that like the last time, this one also ended with two stallions carrying a Q&S sofa across the street, which they 'helpfully' lifted out of Cheerilee's way).
I have a question. If I were a foal in Miss Cheerilee's class, and I turned in this story for one of our writing assignments, what do you think her reaction would be?
6455272 Detention. Definitely detention.
6412115 Thanks for these! I guess I forgot to fix them after you sent them to me. I squashed them now!
6455123 That face still cracks me up when I see it, even after all this time.
6455249 She's kind of the Charlie Brown of the MLP fanfiction world.
6455250 I almost sent her through a pane of glass, but I figured that might actually hurt her, so I held back. Hasn't she been through enough today?
Huh. Usually this kind of date is reserved for Caramel. I guess he can't be the only nice guy who has all the rotten luck.
I must say, this one had a lot of twists to it. I was just bracing for the moment Sprocket would turn into this big sleaze, but no. He just kept being decent. Heck, he got to kiss Cheerilee, and she actually enjoyed it! You go, big guy.
6455337 There have been other nice guys with bad luck. Bell Curve and Ponoka come immediately to mind.
I was hoping that kiss would catch people off guard. He brought up this fee thing, and so I wanted people to be ready for the date to go south there. Also, I like to create serious rivals for who could possibly win Cheerilee's heart in the end.
Are you going to keep going until you get to a thousand chapters?
What a coincidence that they would set up all those things downhill from a skating rink.... that was built on top of a hill for some reason.
It's like the town was designed by a madman.
6455394 I'm going to keep going until I get sick of it or run out of ideas.
6455400 And a better question still, why did Balance Sheet allow Stormy Skies to open up an insurance shop there?
6455424 But what happens when you exceed a thousand chapters?
>leaned into the inevitable
That's… far too accurate, actually.
(But the lines before were great, too.)
6455717 I throw myself one hell of a party and rake in those sweet, sweet upvotes.
And probably get a Presidential Medal of Freedom or something. Seriously, that's a lot of chapters. Hero material, right there.
Dawww... they're so cute together!
Reading sprocket actually reminded me of my brother in law. One smooth guy
Y'know, this date wasn't all that bad.
What about the Festival where they celebrate walking two ponies back and forth across the road carrying giant panes of glass and/or mirrors?
6457429 I thought about it, but that seemed too dangerously sharp. Plus Ponyville doesn't host that unless three months from now.
Sponsored by the National Equestrian Injury Lawyer Bar I see...
I am so glad that I finally read this. Eagerly looking forward to more. Heck, I might even do a guest chapter.
6475362 Glad you liked it! I've slowed down on chapters recently because I've been working on other projects, but I hope to be ruining Cheerilee's life more in the future.
Oh wow...this is something new...though it seem to be one of the best dates so far! She did, after all, get a kiss!
Love this sooooo much!!! Each and every one is funny! There's a few grammatical errors but it's ok.
6486141 I'm glad you enjoyed it.
6494889 This is my relaxing story. I don't worry too terribly much about perfect grammar, punctuation, etc. I try to make it fairly clean, but I don't go over the chapters a million times like I do on my other stories. Still, if you see one, let me know and I'll go fix it.
I'm happy to hear that you're enjoying it despite the grammar issues, though!
So sad this is ending.
Ok, I guess I can see why you would cancel it, (I really never expected to see 1000 chapters of this go up, though I was prepared to be impressed) but is there a particular reason that you removed the story description?
6517929 Weird. I didn't mean to do that. I have a new computer and the touchpad on it is very sensitive. I might have accidentally moved the cursor when I was cancelling.
Knew it would one day have to stop short of an actual thousand dates.
Thank you for 57 hilarious chapters of poor dates, rediculous stallions and wonderful comedy. I'm sad to see the story end but will remember it fondly.
Well, at least it went out on a high note. You could see them eventually getting together.
Sorry to see this story go. But thanks for all the fun stories featuring one of my favorite mares. You have a good talent and thank you for sharing it.... And she ends up with Caramel.
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6572944 It's not for sure over with. I just don't really feel like being on this site at the moment. However, I have many ideas for this story still. I may mark it as Incomplete and upload new chapters in the future. We'll see how I feel about things in the next month or two. I thought I was just tired of writing pony, but I think mostly I was just tired of hanging around on this site. After a bit of time passes, that will probably change.
This has been cancelled?
6475362 Your comment fics are pretty good, so why wouldn't you?
6587509 This fic always brightens my mood. Frankly I was never that much of a fan of Peanuts or Charlie Brown. It was too formulaic. This is fresh and keeps putting in curves. It's sort of like Daily Dinosaur Comics, or a haiku. The structure is well known but you can still do so many wonderfully hilarious and unexpected things there with little differences. I am truly saddned that you'll be leaving us for a time. I wish you a speedy recovery.
Are there any specific rules for writing guest chapters? What qualifies someone to do a chapter?
6740279 Unfortunately there aren't any more guest chapters because this story has been cancelled. I'm not really writing pony stuff nowadays. There is a chance I could get interested again and start this story back up, but as of now it's been mothballed.
You know, this guy was really a sweetheart; definitely falls into the category of "Bad Dates beyond her or her date's control" and instead of backpeddling or sticking his hoof in his mouth, he really helped her through it. It's a shame to see the story cancelled, I really did love reading it!
I've skated once and was phenomenally horrendous at it, but this sounds like a lot of fun!