CH13: Danger
Special Thanks:
Editors: Pissfer & Midnight Dancer
Proofreader: Meeester
*****
So you’re getting that mare’s gramophone fixed, eh? Why the sudden generosity?
…..
You claim it’s because she’s been nice to you this whole time? Well, I suppose I can see the logic in that: you be nice to somepony, you get nice things in return, eh? Am I right? You know what I’m talking about right?
…..
Oh, I’m the pervert, huh? Maybe you should re-think that claim before talking to your Number One avid reader!
…..
What do you mean ‘who is this avid reader’!? Me, of course! I’m reading you your damn story, am I not?
Now shush up, it’s time for the next chapter.
*****
Chapter 13: Danger
At first glance, this place seemed more like an antique store than a repair shop. Shelves and tables were strewn lazily about the shop, laden with numerous antiques: knives, musical clocks, and furniture were among the many objects you could see. On a distant table, you spotted a rather peculiar object: a multi-colored cube made up of many smaller ones. You picked it up out of curiosity and examined it. It felt rough and looked worn out as the colorful stickers were awkwardly sliding off.
It was a Rubik’s cube, something you haven’t seen since you were a child. Unable to resist, you gave it a couple twists to see if it still worked. Curiosity got the best of you when you started twisting and turning it, trying to get all the matching colors into place.
“Fancy little toy, isn’t it?”
Surprised, you jump slightly, losing your grip on the cube as it goes sailing away from you. After fumbling with it momentarily, you manage to catch it and set it back on the table. Another quick glance around the store revealed an elderly, brown stallion with a long, white beard. To be frank, he looked more like a mountain hermit than a normal civilized pony. However, you kept that opinion to yourself; no need to gain the animosity of an elder. The bearded stallion gave you the equivalent of a once over and grinned. He picked up the cube in his hoof and absentmindedly gave it a few twists.
“It’s a Rubik’s cube. I’ve had this for quite some time now. I remember the day when some colt around your age brought it in for repairs. I fixed it, but I haven’t seen him since. So here it lies, waiting for another lucky owner to purchase it.” He placed it back down on the table and stroked his beard contemplatively. “So, what brings you here, laddie?”
You mentioned you were only browsing, but that you also came in here for another reason: to see if anyone here had the ability to repair a gramophone.
“Ho hoh? A gramophone you say? I haven’t seen one of those antiques in a very long time. Well, except for the one in the window display. Tell me, do you know what’s wrong with it?”
You mentioned the record needle being broken and the small explosion that took place inside the gramophone, to which the old stallion just chuckled.
“Internally and externally? Well now, in this day and age, it’s no surprise something would go wrong internally. These gramophones are quite the antiques, and they don’t age well.” He looked at the gramophone in the window and then back at you, with a smile.
“The needle I’m sure I can repair, but I would need the actual gramophone to make a proper diagnosis, especially if something is broken on the inside. Do you think you can do that, lad?”
You nodded cheerfully, and after shaking hooves you stepped out of the shop, happy your business was concluded. A moment later, you stop trotting and nearly facehoof as you realize a critical error in your plan.
How are you going to bring it in for repairs when it’s not even yours to begin with?
*****
“You’re going to fix Pinkie’s gramophone?”
Back at Sugarcube Corner, you’ve told Mrs. Cake of the situation, after making sure that Pinkie wasn’t around. You wanted the whole repair thing to be kept secret, since you didn’t want Pinkie snuggling you with one of her hugs.
Mrs. Cake tapped her chin with a hoof, giving a small chuckle.
“That’s very nice of you dear, but I couldn’t possibly give it to you. It is Pinkie’s after all.”
You explained to her that you felt sorry for Pinkie’s gramophone being broken. You told her how thankful you were for Pinkie getting you back into music. You were grateful to her, and you wanted to return the favor.
Mrs. Cake eyed you carefully, examining you from head to hoof, and merely gave a sigh.
"It's not like it's just sitting out in the open, where anypony but me could see it or anything."
You blinked a couple of times. You looked at the corner of the store and did indeed see something over there. You looked back at her and saw a grin planted on her face.
“What’s wrong? It’s not like I’m watching it, so I won’t even know it’s gone.”
You told her you didn’t know what she was talking about, along with a wink of an eye towards her.
"Well, I need to get back into the kitchen and tend to a few things. I'll be awfully busy, so I won't be able to see you off," she said with a grin.
After that, she just walked towards the back, to do who knows what. Honestly, if she was that bad at hinting at things, you would wonder how well she would do in terms of negotiating prices with customers.
Actually, you decided to dismiss that thought, you didn’t want to know. Regardless, you walked over to the gramophone that was in the corner of the room. You looked around you to see that the store was indeed empty inside. Not even Pinkie was around; although, you found that rather strange. You know you separated with Pinkie earlier today to be alone, but the fact she didn’t head back here was just a little odd.
You just shrugged, thinking she was doing something more important, like eating a bucket of candy or something. You lifted the gramophone up with your hooves, and proceeded to carry it out of the store, carefully looking around to make sure no one would follow you.
*****
“Hmm… I see, so this is the little troublemaker, hm?”
Once you brought the gramophone to the repair stallion, he carefully examined it on his desk while you just stood there and watched anxiously. The way he was examining it with the magnifying glass showed he was putting some careful attention to it, but you wondered why he was putting more focus on the needle than on the inside.
“It’s very well taken care of. It’s aged well, and I don’t see any splinter on it either. Your friend must really love this gramophone for such care to be shown to it.”
You give him a silent nod. He looks at the bottom of the gramophone and eyes a few screws that are on the bottom. You only sat and watched him work his mechanical prowess as he opened it up, revealing several gizmos and gadgets inside the device. The stallion ruffled his beard once more.
“Hmm, looks like some minor damage to the gears here. Yes, this shouldn’t be a problem to fix.” You smiled at him. You were worried that the gramophone was beyond repair, but you were relieved to hear the good news. He pokes one of the broken gears with a screwdriver, and places it back down to look at you.
“It’ll take me a few hours to fix this up, but first, let’s negotiate the price to repair this.”
You flinched. With all your joy of getting Pinkie’s gramophone repaired, you completely forgot that this would require money to fix. Admittedly, you did rack up a decent amount of money from working at Berry’s, but did you even have enough to cover the costs of the gramophone?
The old stallion counted up the gears and gizmos inside the broken device, and started writing something down with an ink quill and a piece of paper. After a minute or two passed by, he brought the paper up to you, and your jaw hit the floor.
Fifty Bits.
Not a whole lot, but it was going to hurt you financially for a while. You gave a heavy gulp as you looked at the repair pony, a worried look on your face, to which he just chuckled in return.
“Don’t like the price, hm? Well, I need to make a living, and repairing antiques isn’t cheap. Now you see why I made this my profession. Ho ho ho…”
Part of you wanted to punch him in the face, but for the sake of getting the gramophone repaired, you resisted. You gave a heavy sigh and looked inside your pouch. You had at least eighty of the jingly coins inside. So you had a choice to make.
Pay to get the gramophone repaired, or don’t bother with it at all.
To be fair, you were grateful for Pinkie getting involved with your life. You didn’t like it at first, but that ounce of craziness was enough to push your life forward. Heck, it managed to get you back into music, which you thought you were going to retire from for a long time. But it wasn’t the case.
Why were you thinking of how grateful you were to her though? Because of what she’s done for you? It was beginning to bother you, but you merely shook your head. You needed to get your thoughts in order and focus on the now.
In the end, you placed fifty bits on the repair pony’s desk.
The repair pony took a small step back, a little surprised at the amount of bits he had on his table. He gave a small whistle and looked at each bit curiously.
“Well now, I never expected you to give me the payment right away… And here I thought you young ones were always broke, always offering me loans or an IOU note.”
You raised a brow at his statement, and the repair pony noticed and chuckled.
“Oh nothing, just an old stallion reminiscing about the old days when you young ponies always tried to skip out on payments. Ho ho, those were the times. Anyway, it shouldn’t take more than a few hours to get this repaired. You will be back by then?” he asked, and you nodded. “Good, I’ll see you in a few hours then?”
You nodded again, giving him a hoofshake to confirm the deal. Satisfied with it, you waved goodbye to the repair pony and walked out the door.
However…
*THWACK*
Your head suddenly feels one pound lighter when you realized something just whizzed by overhead. You looked behind you to see that your hat was hit with an arrow! You suddenly felt a cold chill go down your spine when you looked behind you once more, to see who had attempted to strike you with it. But mysteriously, there was no one in front of you, not a single pony in sight.
This was the third time that your life was in danger in Ponyville. Did someone want you dead, or was this some cruel joke?
You nudged the arrow out from the wall and looked at your hat, seeing a gaping hole in it. You growled, wondering what in the world was going on. You examined the arrow in your hooves, only to see it was a regular, wooden arrow with an iron tip at the end.
However, that’s not all that caught your eye.
You saw a shadowy figure in a nearby alleyway. Their horn was sticking out, still enveloped in a soft, magical glow. You squinted your eyes to see who it was, but the presumed unicorn immediately took notice of you and ducked their head into the alley. You put on your hat and dropped the arrow, giving chase to the mysterious unicorn.
You were hot on their tail, chasing them down alleyway after alleyway. They were rather fast for a unicorn, and you could barely keep up. They were still masked by the shadows of the dark alleyways, not giving you the proper line of sight to identify who it is.
The unicorn rounded a corner, straying from your sight briefly. You muttered a curse as you pushed your legs even further, feeling your muscles screaming, but you kept on running regardless.
As soon as you reached the corner, you looked down it to see that there wasn’t a single pony in sight. In fact, upon further investigation, it led straight back into Ponyville Square. You shifted your eyes desperately, looking around to see where the unicorn could have fled. But with the crowd full of ponies, you couldn’t tell.
You stomped your hoof on the ground, mad that you couldn’t catch him, or her. You took a seat on the ground, with your legs giving out from under you. You needed to rest your legs, especially since you pushed yourself to try and catch the perpetrator.
You looked up at the sky, seeing that it was sunset, and yet... there was something odd about the sky. There were some faint grey pitches of cloud, almost like a trail going from one place to another. In fact, the air smelled slightly different, almost like burnt charcoal.
“Where’s that smoke coming from?”
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t look good. Do you think somepony’s cooking something?”
“No, that looks too big to be cooking something. Wait... it’s not a forest fire, is it!?”
A crowd of ponies was looking towards the sky, mumbling to one another and wondering what the smoke was. You looked at the sky once more.
With your legs no longer fatigued, you stood up, satisfied with your short rest. But then you realized something. The trail of smoke came from the direction of where you work. It was very unlikely what you were thinking right now, but...
“Everypony! There’s a building on fire! Somepony call the Fire Department!”
A light green pony came rushing forth out of nowhere, telling the ponies what had happened. You went wide-eyed when you looked at the trail of smoke again. You shifted from curious to scared in a moment, worried about what could be on fire and hoping it wasn't what you thought.
Heart beating like a drum, you rushed to follow the trail of smoke, needing to either confirm or deny your fears. The smell of burnt charcoal started to get stronger the closer you got.
You skidded to a halt at the source of the smoke, your worst fears confirmed. You blinked a few times and rubbed your eyes, hoping this was all just some grand joke your brain was playing on you. You wanted to deny this was even happening, why your good life had suddenly come down to a fear you never thought imaginable.
Berry’s Bar was a living inferno of flames.
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well, this is getting interesting rather quickly isn't it?
3.bp.blogspot.com/-KwS6SGpwS9s/T2ZRVawGMXI/AAAAAAAABeE/zRlZ-rhZ5aQ/s1600/TheWorstPossibleThing.jpg
why someone trying to kill him ;(
because he wears a hat
HAAAAAAAAT!!!!!!
WHO WOULD DO SUCH A THING!
NOTHING BETTER HAVE HAPPENED TO HER!
I also love how this is going. Amazing job! Keep up the updates.
Dang what did he do to get on karma's bad side....
1196340 dont be hard on yourself! Everypony has some writing ability. I'm sure you do, too.
BTW: what is SSE?
1280496 Wut r u talkin' bout?
Pinkie is the AWSOMEST PARTY PONY!
Le gasp! Somepony assasinated his hat.
Shit just got personal.
It HAS to be Sniper from TF2! A bow and arrow and wanting that hat gone. He just couldn't live with the fact that there was a better hat than his! (And it's a ponified Sniper.)
Wow, Sniper? I suppose that would be interesting. I won't believe it til he gets hit with a jar of pee.
1519246
*jarate
I'm gonna read this shit and I will let you know what I think
I hate you
1512474 He ended up in an MLP:FiM fanfic, that's what. He should have known nopony has a happy ending here! They all die in gruesome and horrific ways that lead to mass suicides of readers!
1524821 I know, but it would be described as a jar of pee, how would the guy know it was called Jarate?
1535931
pinkie will randomly shout out
JARATE! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Now, listen, unidenfified assassin(s)... his hat isn't all that bad.
I mean, I prefer stetsons, because stetsons are cool...
But Top Hats can be good too. STOP SHOOTING IT YOU HAT MURDERERS!