Making Friends

by Sir Alexander Wolfgang

II

Dash, Deandra Dash, stood on the the corner of a shitty street in a rundown, dirty part of town, filled with addicts, hookers, and crooks. She traded packets of pinkish crystals for sweet, sweet bits with whom ever slipped a bill her way. She didn’t see faces, all she saw was the money coming her way. Every bit made this day a little better, and if things kept going the way they were, today was gonna be a good day.

A regular bouncing, and skipping to her lo. It was Pinkamina Diane Pie. And she bounced on over to Deandra Dash

“How much, Pinkie?” Deandra asked, looking at an unspecific target, through her shades, across the street.

“Five packs, P-leaaase,” she smiled holding her hands out.

Still looking away, Deandra pulled two packets from her jacket pocket, reached back in and pulled out three more. She handed them to Pinkie, and let her hand wait for cash-flow.

Our jubilant junkie slapped one a one hundred and twenty-five bit bill into Deandra’s hand.

Deandra stuck it in her pants pocket to merge with the growing wad of cash that lie within.

The pink haired gal raced off, eager to get these crystals into her system any way she could.

The rest of Deandra’s day consisted of similar scenarios, until about four ‘O'clock when she called it quits, and headed back to Sweet Apple Acres. She owed Applejack half of todays take. It was an agreement they’d worked out. Deandra slung dope on the streets every day of the month, and at the end of each week Jackie girl took half.

She slammed the door of her car shut, and cranked it. The radio instantly kicked it to a song she ///loved,/// by a band she loved. Hey Ocean!

The old junker pulled out of the alleyway, and into the street. Yeah. Today was a good day.

---

In front of her trailer you could often find Jackie Lee lying in a lawn chair, under a tree wearing nothing but a bra, her hat, and a ratty pair of jeans. On a small lawn table to her right she had a radio playing old country songs, and cowboy tunes, next to a can of beer. To her left,and on the ground, lay her shotgun.

She seldom used it, she just liked to have it around. For no reason in particular, other than scaring off angry yokels.

Her trailer was on the outskirts of the small enclave that is Sweet Apple Acres. It was at the base of a large hill, that overlooked the rest of the park.

Deandra rolled up next to the McIntosh's family pickup, and set the car to park. She stepped outside of it, and pulled the wad of cash from her pocket, and instead of actually counting it out, she simply pulled it into two separate wads, and tossed one into Applejack’s lap. She put the other wad back in her pocket.

Applejack uncrumbled the bills, and began to count them. “You been busy, huh?”

Deandra stepped up to the storm door of the trailer, “Sure have,” she stepped inside whistling a merry toon.

Inside Fay sitting on the floor, with April on the couch behind her, braiding Fay’s hair.

Deandra plopped down next to April, and kicked her feet up on the table. “So,” she began, “Any plans for today, Fay?”

“Well, uh, AJ said that there was a party in the center of the park tonight. I was thinking it might be fun to go.”

“I thought you hated crowds.” Deandra scratched a spot behind her ear.

“I thought I’d try something new. I mean, I’ve been getting out of the rut lately, so I figured, you know. What the hay.”

Deandra nodded. She tried to remember a time when she had seen Fay at an actual party. Not some get together Fay dragged her to where she and her geek friends talked about politics and anime, no not that at all.

A full fledged party, a screaming, raging, get drunk and show your tits party.

The only time, the one time, Fay had been to a real party was the graduation party a friend of theirs threw. Fay hated every moment of it.

She doubted Fay even knew what she was getting herself into. Sweet Apple Acres had parties like this one each month. Deandra knew for a fact that there would be mud wrestling, booze, drugs, loud music, and probably fireworks. Fay didn’t like any of those things, to her knowledge.

Oh, well.

“I love you, Whiskey River Boys!” A typical redneck skank yelled at the top of her lungs, flashing her breasts to the band in the middle of their performance.

This fine example of the human race was largely missed, for in this crowd there were many like her.

Fay walked next to Applejack, a shy and reluctant look about her. She was nervous, and downright scared of all this commotion. Everywhere she looked she saw something nasty. Something she’d seen happening in a nightmare of her’s.

There were people smoking Crystal Candy, people drinking hooch like it was water, and people practicing all manner of lude behavior.

It was almost sickening.

Fay saw the orange thong of a three hundred pound woman being pulled off by the teeth of her lover boy.

Scratch that. It was sickening.

“So, I hear you went to school with Deandra. That so?” Said Applejack, above the roar of the crowd.

“Y-yeah, I did.” Fay said as loud as she possibly could, which wasn’t so very loud at all.

“What was that like?”

Fay experienced a flashback to a million wedgies, noogies, and other high school horrors. She then recounted that it’d be two million if not for Deandra. “It was alright,” she said, shyly.

“Ya know, you ain’t exactly the kind’a gal I ever pictured her to run with. Like, ever.”

“Yeah, I, uh, I can see that.”

The two walked through the crowd until they came to a subconscious destination. A pit of mud, squared with four wooden planks. Inside were two amazonians grunting over the loud country music, and flinging mud, and each other all over the place. They slipped, and slid, fighting for dominance over the other.

Surrounding the two mud wrestlers was a crowd of Sweet Apple Acres finest sloven inhabitants. There were people whistling, and taking bets. Others simply watched, and shouted a symphony of ignorance.

But here we had two individuals who were not lacking in I.Q. Fay Skygrace, and Jackie McIntosh.

These two stood watching, Jackie eager to make a bet, Fay eager to leave.

Fay looked about the mass of people who almost seemed to swarm the mud pit. She realized she was a far cry from the average person here, and she felt so out of place because of it.

The average person here wore a stained wifebeater, or a flannel shirt, and jeans. Most were also wearing dirty old work boots aswell.

Fay was wearing a yellow sweater, shorts, and black flip-flops.

She felt like people were staring at her. Talking about her. Judging her.

It felt like high school.

“Damn, Darlene, pick it up,” Jackie yelled, “I got twenty on you!”

Fay was just slightly surprised at the sound coming from Jackie.

With Jackie, there was just something that seemed so different. Like was just an aura that said she was a little bit different than most people at this gathering. She just seemed so trustworthy. Honest, even. Like in a world of shit she'd see you through it.

“Watch it, freak!” Some bitch says, pushing past Fay. The nerve!

“S-sorry.”

“Now, girl, don’t go ‘poligizen to that sack’a shit.” Jackie wrapped an arm around Fay’s shoulders.

“Sorry, I-I’m just so used to it, I guess.”

Applejack smiled, and shook her head. “You sure are a shy thing, aint you?”

“I guess,” Fay rubbed her arm.

The two watched the mad, scrappy battle before them, as the crowd ‘wooed’ at every punch, every kick. “Why are we watching this?” Fay asked, with a general aversion to violence.

Jackie took a sip of her beer, “‘Cos I got money on Darlene. Used ta’ fight in the pit, but I broke my leg. Now I ain’t supposed to do nothin’ too strenuous with it. Ain’t got a knee cap on it no more.”

For the next half hour or so Fay just listened to the raucous of the denizens. She felt like her brain cells were dying from the toxicity of what assaulted her from every on every one of her senses.

“And the winner is,” a short scrawny man with a thick country accent said loud enough for everyone in his proximity to hear, “Barbara the Brute!”

Jackie girl looked on at Barbara slackjawed. “Sun damn it!” She was counting on Darlene to win.

Fay didn’t understand the enthusiasm in this sport. For one you have to get all gross and icky in the mud, for two you might hurt, or get hurt by someone, etcetera, etcetera.

Her gaze wandered the crowd a bit, and she saw a tall man, who seemed bullish in the face, and the bronze body of a god covered in the rags of these folk. There was just something about him that said “Don’t delay, seize the day!”

“Anyone wanna go around an’ ‘round with this behemoth of a gal!” The scrawny redneck man yelled.

The crowd never stopped yelling over the sketchy sound of the band performing.

But one woman did step forward. And what do ya know it was the same lady who shoved past our fearful little protagonist here earlier. The one who called her a freak.

The stocky bitch stripped down to just her undies, and stepped into the mud to face Barbara.

They immediately started a tussle, punching, biting, kicking, what ever, just to get ahead.

Fay winced at a particularly brutal punch thrown by the bitch. And it was that punch that floored Barbara the Brute, slapping down into the mud, all her weight crashing into the brown mushy slop.

“And it looks like we got a winner!” The scrawny little announcer man yelled. “Is anyone tough enough to down this bitch? Anyone at all?”

As a pair of toughs dragged The Brute out from the pit, Fay heard, among the groans of those who bet on the Brute, a faint whisper coming from Jackie Lee. “Why don’t you fight?”

“B-because, I might get h-hurt, or I might hurt someone else, and I-I-”

“Nonsense,” and with that, Jackie shoved the poor girl into the mud, soiling her perfect yellow sweater, and shorts. She lifted her face from the muck, and before her she saw the Bitch. “By the way, Jackie said, “I’m puttin’ ten bucks on you!”

“Well, look who it is,” the Bitch said.

Scrambling to her feet, Fay begged: “P-p-please, miss, I-I don’t wanna fight, m-my friend pushed me in h-”

The bitch pulled Fay to her feet, and grappled her into a rib cracking bear hug, thrashing from side to side, squeezing with all of her might, and then some.

Fay’s face contorted into one of pain, and confusion. She was dropped limp into the mud, falling to her knees.

“Haha, get a load of this freak.” Fay heard that drop from the Bitch’s mouth, in a steamy slew of words, that just lit a fire underneath her. For the first time in her life Fay was becoming utterly pissed off. Not frustrated. Not annoyed. Pissed the fuck off. Then it clicked. Don’t delay, seize the day.

She sprang up, tackling the Bitch into the mud with a screech that sounded like a cat. She punched the Bitch not once, nor twice, but three times with each fist before she realized what she’d done. And then, amid the pained groans of the Bitch she smiled, and dove back in for more, pummeling away.

Blood poured in two thin little streams from the Bitch’s broken nose, mixing with the mud, and the sweat on her body. Fay finally let up once she truly became aware of her surroundings. Once she grasped the fact that people were watching this little outburst.

All around her people stood in silence, holding their beer cans. Even the band stopped playing, just to stare at Fay. To talk about her. To judge her.

“Uhh,” Fay said, looking down at the woman beaten into a bloody pulp. “Yay,”she finally said, putting her hands up, as if she were cheering, a look of absolute perplexion, with vague hint of agony. Her heart beat so fast she was genuinely afraid she’d have a heart attack if it beat any faster.

The crowd cheered in an uproar of drunken stupidity.

Fay had never been so conflicted in all her life. On the one hand these people were cheering, for Fay no less. But on the other hand these people were cheering for Fay. That meant all these people’s attention was focused squarely on Fay.

Fay started to hyperventilate, breathing faster and faster, just staring back into the crowd, eyes scanning across the different hicks, and brain-dead drunks.

Until, of course, Jackie jerked her out of the mud pit, gave her a hug, and said: “Nice goin’, yeh really fucked the bitch up!”

And Fay was, well. Fay was still freaking out.

---

Deandra snoozed away on the couch, as a drab documentary played on the old, half busted television. In her dreams she was surfing great waves of euphoria, however, in reality, her nose was pressed up against a dirty sock.

April, and her friends Sarah, and Frankie came crashing through the screen door, jerking Deandra from her splendid slumber. She quickly rose, scanning the living room for the source of this wretched commotion.

“Oh, hey Dash!” Frankie said, a look of excitement etched into her face, clutching a red back pack.

“Uh, hey, kid,” Deandra rubbed her eyes, still waking from her nap.

“Done anything cool lately?” Frankie asked.

“Cut it out, Frankie, she don’t wanna be bothered jus’ now,” April cut in with her thick country accent.

“No, it’s alright kiddos, I’m fine to talk,” she stretched, hearing a pop come from her spine.

Sarah tugged on April’s arm, “Come on, go find your sister.” And those two little rapscallions ran along, leaving Frankie alone with her hero. Her idol. Her goddess.

Frankie rushed over and sat awkwardly close to Deandra on the couch. “What’s something you’ve done that's cool, c’mon, tell em, please, please,” she begged.

“Well, have you heard anything on the news recently?”

“Like what,” Frankie smiled, brushing a purple lock of her hair out of her face.

“Like something totally awesome.”

“Well,” Frankie rubbed her chin, “I heard April and Sarah talking about a house fire, over in the Cloud district. They said it was arson.”

“Bingo,” Deandra winked at Frankie.

“Omigosh, you did not! That is so fucking cool,” Frankie laughed a little laugh, and held out a hand for Deandra to high-five. Deandra accepted that offer. “Hey, Dash, can we go for a ride?”

Deandra glanced over at Frankie as she put a cigarette into her mouth, “Sure your parents won’t mind?” She lit the cigarette.

“Heh, my parents won’t give a shit where I am, as long as I’m home when the social worker visits.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

The two stood up, walked outside the trailer, and over to Deandra’s car. It was on this meager trip that Frankie asked: “Hey, can I have one of those?”

“One of whats?”

“A cancer.”

“A what?” Dash opened the driver side door. It creaked a rusty, metal, creak as she did so.

“A cigarette, Dash.” Frankie walked over to the passenger side, and got in the car with her backpack.

“You’re twelve,” Deandra sat down behind the wheel,shut the door and started the car.

“So?”

“They’re bad for ya’ kid,” Deandra backed the car up about ten feet, just enough to get out of the driveway.

“You smoke ‘em,” the kid pointed out.”

“Yeah,” Deandra said. “But I’m stupid. Don’t be stupid like me.” She drove off towards town.

The trip to town was about a twenty minute drive. Deandra got there in ten.

Frankie loved every second of cruising with the fast paced Rainbow Dash. It was life on the edge. Edge of what? Who know’s, who cares? Speeding through the intersections, head hanging out of the window, screaming in ecstasy.

It was times like this that reminded the young Frankie just why she was alive. So she could live.

The only thing stopping Deandra from running the red light was that in the corner of her eye there was a police cruiser. So, she eased up on the gas, and rolled the car right to that line that indicates just where to stop.

“So, kid, where’d you wanna go?” Deandra asked.

Frankie put her head back into the car, and sat down. “I dunno, just around. Why?”

“Because,” the light turned green, so Deandra accelerated, “I need to make a quick stop. Somethin’ I forgot to take care of earlier.”

Frankie nodded, looking out the window. “Can we get some fuckin’ ice cream?”

Deandra looked at her young, foul-mouthed companion. “Some ‘fucking’ ice cream, you say.”

“Yeah.”

Deandra shrugged, “I don’t see why not. After I run this errand, though, okay?”

“Okay, thanks, Dash.”

Deandra cruised around the neighborhood at a safe speed, not wanting to draw attention to herself. It wasn’t hard, considering the fact that she was driving a rusty, twenty year old coupe, in a part of town that was, if nothing else, sketchy.

Our young anti-hero meandered over to the other side of town. The side filled to the brim with hookers, and run-down warehouses, and riddled with your occasional chopshop.

She parked her car next to a chain-link fence. On the other side was a warehouse that hadn’t ‘officially’ been used in some ten or so years. “Stay here, kid,” she said to Frankie. Frankie always obeyed Deandra, and now was no different.

Deandra walked around the fence and over to the side door of the ware house. The small, normal one. She walked inside, and up a rusty flight of stairs, trying not to be creeped out by the eerie creaking of worn metal, a jingle of heavy chains.

At the top of the staircase there was light on in a room. She walked through the doorway, and saw the back of just the woman she’d been looking for. A purple haired chemist.

“Knock, knock,” Deandra said.

“Fuck,” the chemist said in surprise, turning around, almost dropping what was in her hands. “Don’t fucking sneak up on me, Dee.”

Deandra smiled, “I didn’t sneak up on you,Terri, you’re just a bit jumpy about the crackdown you said was happening.”

“And? It’s pretty fucking reasonable to be scared when cops could come bashing through the door at any minute.”

“The door was wide open,” Deandra pointed out, not a hint of smugness on her face.

“Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.” Terri turned around, getting back to work.

Deandra snickered, waltzing over to where Terri stood and peeked over the chemist’s shoulder to see a plethora of tubes, beakers, and flasks, all with some colorful liquid in them.

“Do you mind?” Terri said, glaring at Deandra.

“Sorry,” Deandra backed up. “Just wondering when the next batch’ll be done.”

“It’s over there,” she pointed to a table against the wall to their right.

Deandra walked over to the table, as Terri got back to work, mixing chemicals, and what not. Deandra saw, on the table, a white paper bag, containing what she could only guess was a load of candy. Not candy for kids. Grown up candy. Candy that’ll rot your teeth, and rot your brain. Candy that was highly illegal in all of Equestria. Deandra opened said bag, and peeked inside. Her guess was right. Inside was a pound of the colorful drug. She’d spend the week selling it, from about twelve to four each day.

“Thanks,” Deandra said, leaving about a thousand bits where the package was before she took it.

Deandra walked back down the steps, then out of the warehouse, and back to her car, all the way not bothering to hide the package. What’s the point? Cops in this side of town are the real criminals.

Back at the car she spied an individual talking to Frankie. She hustled on over, just to so what gives. She grabbed this person’s shoulder, “Hey, what gives?” She asked, sternly, before she recognized just who it was.

“Oh, howdy there Dashie!”

“Pinkie? What are you doing here?”

“Well, I saw your car, and I just knew you had to be around, but you weren’t, and there was this kid left alone in the car, and I thought that that was pretty weird for someone to leave a kid alone in this part of town, so I came over to talk to the kid, and-”

“Okay, okay.” Deandra tried ending the conversation, walking over to the driver side door. “Take care, Pinkie.”

Pinkie rambled on and on, not talking to anyone in particular as Deandra drove away. Deandra wasn’t afraid that she’d hurt Pinkie’s feelings. She was too high to have feelings.

At the first stop light Deandra handed the white package over to Frankie. “Put this in your backpack, kid.”

“Oh, okay. Why?”

“Because if we get pulled over the cops won’t search you. You’re a kid.”

“Ooooh, what’s in it?” Frankie’s mind raced with the different possibilities. Money, drugs, maybe even a severed head. She tried to look inside the bag, but Deandra stopped her.

“Don’t look inside, just put it in your pack.”

“Oh, alright,” Frankie said, defeatedly, then did as she was asked, putting the bag away in her bag.

And off the two went, on an almost fleeting search for ice cream. After which Deandra headed back to Jackie’s trailer. Frankie lived in the trailer park too, so it wouldn’t be a long walk home for the young preteen girl.

Deandra took the package from Frankie before they parted ways, then stepped inside the trailer, alone. She hid the package somewhere it won’t be found, grabbed a beer, then sat down on the couch, waiting for today’s trailer park jamboree to end.

---

Jackie was all kinds of excited.

Fay, on the other hand, was distraught. “I can’t believe myself, oh fuck, I’ve never even been in a fight before, sweet mother of Celestia, I don’t know what came over me,” etcetera, etcetera.

“Calm down, now,” Jackie said, “With moves like ‘at you might just have a career in the mud pit.” Jackie thought of all the money to be made.

“Oh, no.” Fay put her head in her hands.

“Lighten up, gal. This ain’t a bad thing. Hell, we could make some real money, me and you.” Jackie put an arm around Fay. “Jus’ think about it.”

Fay put her hands down, and noticed where they were headed. Jackie’s trailer. Fay was so glad. All she wanted was to get out of sight. She was so embarrassed she just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. And, substituting a hole with a trailer, she just might do that.

The two stepped inside, leaving the loud noise, and commotion of the crowd behind them.

And on the couch there sat Deandra Dash.

Jackie stretched, then said something about laying down for a nap.

“What happened to you?” Deandra asked Fay.

Fay looked down at her muddy, messy clothes. She’d lost one flip-flop in the mud pit, and she’d be damned if she was going back after it. “It’s complicated.”

“She beat the piss out some bitch in the mud pit,” Jackie hollered from her bedroom.

Deandra looked off towards Jackie, then slowly moved her glazzies gaze over to Fay. “Really?”

Fay nodded her head, rather sheepishly.

Deandra smiled.

Comments

[Sir Alexander Wolfgang]

4734635 Hey bud! I plan on continuing this, I just don't know where I'm going with this yet.

[Sir Alexander Wolfgang]

5772860 Thanks so much, but don't hold your breath. I've really run out of ideas for fanfiction, to be honest. I suppose I've moved on to more original fiction.

I won't say I'm abandoning this story, but it may very well never be updated again. Very sorry, but if you have any ideas yourself, feel free to share them with me.

[Sir Alexander Wolfgang]

7060359 Shit, sorry haha. Idk tbh I've moved away from fanfiction, but i dont know. Thanks for checking back, though. Thanks a lot haha.