Chapter 1: Honey, I Thought You Should Know that I’m in a Hurry
A certain orange-skinned high schooler with blue hair sat at a table in the Canterlot Public Library. His eyebrows furrowed as he furiously typed something on his laptop. He stopped typing to look over what he had typed before frowning and hitting backspace a few times. Then, he started typing again. Next to him sat what looked like a younger, smaller version of him with slightly darker skin. The younger boy also wore a baseball cap and was looking at the older one with an expression of total uncertainty on his face.
“Big Bro, you sure we have to do this?” asked the younger boy, First Base.
“Mom’s treatment isn’t going to cover itself,” his older brother, Flash Sentry, replied. He sighed in frustration. “You’d think that the hospital would give employees better coverage than what we’ve got.”
First Base peered at what his brother was typing out. “Shouldn’t we put why we need the money? We might get more offers that way.”
Flash slowly squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. Then, he put his elbows on the table and lowered his head into his hands. “I don’t want random strangers just handing us money out of pity,” Flash said as he lifted his head, opened his eyes, and resumed typing.
“You were okay with Button Mash’s parents giving us money,” the younger boy countered, mentioning the other families in their neighborhood, “and Micro Chips’s parents are giving us a percentage of the profits from their food truck.”
“Micro and Button’s families aren’t strangers. They’re friends,” Flash clarified without looking away from his work.
“Aren’t strangers just friends that you haven’t met yet?” Base slumped on the table and attempted to smile. He had succeeded in turning the corners of his lips up but only barely.
“You want random people being friends with you just because they feel sorry for you?”
“Good point.”
Flash continued to work in silence while First Base stared at the table in boredom. The younger boy began to tap his fingers on the tabletop to entertain himself. After what felt like an eternity of silence, Base spoke again.
“What if all this work ends up being for nothing?”
“Excuse me,” Flash stopped typing and turned to look at his brother.
“What if we get Mom treated, and she—,” Base bit his lip and turned away. “I mean, it’s pretty far along.”
Flash sighed and put an arm across his little brother’s shoulders. He gave the younger boy a comforting squeeze.
“If it comes to that,” Flash also bit his lip before continuing, “then we need to make sure we earn enough to cover the funeral expenses too.”
“Assuming that Mom doesn’t make us put the money into our college funds,” First Base bitterly retorted.
“The good thing about earning your own money is that you get the final say in what you do with it. At least, for the most part.” Flash turned back to the laptop and added the finishing touches to his work. “What do you think? Am I charging too much?”
Flash passed the laptop to First Base, and the younger boy lifted his head to look over his brother’s work.On the screen was the beginnings of an advertisement that read:
Two Capable, Able-Bodied Young Men Seeking Work
Flash Sentry (age 17) and First Base (age 13)
Available on Monday through Friday from 4pm to 10pm and on Saturday from 11am to 10pm
Skill sets: Yardwork, Gardening, Lawn Care, Carwash, Basic Home Maintenance, Babysitting, Pet-sitting, Dog-walking
$25/hour
Contact: flash_sentry@pmail.net
“$25 an hour, Bro? Really?” Base looked at his brother incredulously. “No one is going to pay us that much to do a bunch of odd jobs.”
“That’s what I thought,” Flash sighed as he retrieved the laptop and deleted the two digits. “I’m also guessing that $20 is still too high.”
“We might be able to get away with it if we say that Mom has cancer,” Base turned and give Flash a rather hollow attempt at a cheeky grin. Flash merely stared at him sternly.
“$17 then, but that’s the lowest I’m going to go.” Flash typed in the two digits and posted the advertisement. “Now, we wait.”
“I sure hope Canterlot City’s got a lot of rich people that needs stuff done,” Base muttered, earning him a poke in the forehead.
The following weekend, Flash pulled his car up in front of a fairly large, purple, two-story house with what looked like a large shed off to the side. He looked the house over and let out a low whistle before stepping out of the driver’s seat and heading to the front door. First Base got out of the passenger’s side and followed. On the way to the door, the two of them passed the car’s trunk which was held down by some bungee cords while the handle of their lawnmower protruded out of it.
Flash rang the doorbell, and the brothers waited for the door to open. A middle-aged woman with light gray skin and purple-and-white-striped hair answered the door.
“Ms. Twilight Velvet, I presume,” Flash greeted, straightening himself.
“Yes,” the woman answered, “that’s me. Are you the boys from the Morganslist ad?”
“We are.”
“Oh, good. Come on in,” Ms. Velvet smiled as she held the door open and gestured towards the inside of the house.“Let’s talk in the kitchen, shall we?”
The boys walked inside and waited for Ms. Velvet to close the door behind them before following her into the kitchen. She took a sheet of paper from the countertop and handed it to Flash who began looking over what was written on it.
“Here’s the list of everything we need done,” said Ms. Velvet. “Do you have everything you need to do them all?”
“Everything except the paint for the fence, the mulch for the flowerbeds, and the ladder for the windows,” answered Flash, still looking at the list.
“Well, you can find all that in shed. I’ll be in my office working. Just ring the doorbell to let me know if you need anything else or if you’re done.”
“Alright then, I guess Base and I will just unload everything from my car, and we’ll get started.”
With that the boys and their customer/host went their separate ways, Ms. Velvet to her office and the two brothers to Flash’s car.
“Hey, Bro,” First Base said. “Why don’t I get the paint and the ladder out of the shed? That way, we’d have everything we’ll need all in one place.”
“Sure, Bro,” Flash agreed. “Just let me know if you need help with the ladder. I don’t want you knocking it into anything.”
First Base ran up to the large shed next to the house while Flash began undoing the bungee cords that tied down his trunk.
Base looked around for a door and found one on the side that was facing the house. However, when Base tried to turn the knob, the knob wouldn’t move. He tried again using more force, but the knob still wouldn’t turn. Base glared furiously at the knob, willing it to budge. Then, the 13-year-old let out a frustrated roar before wildly jingling the knob and assaulting the door. Suddenly, a loud, pain-inducing wail like that of a car alarm filled the air causing everyone present to cover their ears.
“Little Bro, what the heck did you do?!” Flash shouted over the alarm as he ran over to his brother.
“I don’t know!” First Base shouted back.
The boys heard what sounded like two mechanical chirps in quick succession before everything suddenly went quiet.
However, their relief was short-lived when they heard an even more terrifying sound from behind them.
“Put your hands where I can see them and don’t move!” a feminine voice yelled. “I’ve got a taser, and I know how to use it!”
“And one cranky dog who got rudely woken up from his nap,” growled a lower-pitched voice.
“Whoa! Whoa!” Flash cried turning around and throwing his hands up in the air. “Don’t tase us!”
As soon as Flash turned around, his eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. He was face to face with a lavender-skinned, bespectacled girl with a long, dark blue ponytail and pink and purple highlights. The girl’s entire face was glaring at him, and she was pointing a black, plastic, gun-like device right in the middle of his chest. At her feet was a droopy-eyed, purple puppy with green spots. The puppy bared his teeth at them trying to look intimidating, but the sleepy eyelids thoroughly ruined the effect.
“Twilight Sparkle?” he dumbly stuttered out once he found his voice.
“Flash Sentry?” the recently identified Twilight Sparkle replied, lowering her taser and giving him a confused look.
“What’s going on out here?” cried Ms. Velvet, leaving the house and marching over to where the four of them stood.
Flash turned to his brother and gave him a blank stare. Twilight followed Flash’s gaze and turned at the younger boy too.
“I was just trying to get the stuff out of the shed,” First Base squeaked out.
“That,” Ms. Velvet enunciated, realization dawning on her, “wasn’t the shed. That was my daughter’s lab. She’s a little protective of it, so she keeps it locked.”
“That explains the alarm,” Flash deadpanned finally lowering his arms.
“If you boys are looking for the shed, it’s in the backyard,” clarified the older woman before turning and going back inside the house.
Once her mother was no longer present, Twilight turned her attention back to her two intruders.
“What are you even doing here?” she demanded.
“Um,” Flash began as he pulled out Ms. Velvet’s to-do list, “your mom hired us to do these.”
Twilight snatched the list from him and glanced over it before returning it to him.
“Just stay away from my lab, okay?” Twilight ordered sternly. She stooped down and picked up her dog before she turned her on her heels and walked towards the house.
“Yeah, and keep it down. I need my sleep,” the dog added.
First Base’s lower jaw hit the floor, and he began to sputter disbelievingly.
“Th-th-that dog just talked,” stated Base.
“Uh-huh,” Flash didn’t even bat an eyelash as he returned to his car trunk to finish unloading supplies.
“That dog just talked!”
“Just roll with it and help me get the stuff out of the car.”
For the next two hours, the two brothers worked hard to complete everything on Ms. Velvet’s list. First, Flash mowed the grass while Base weeded and mulched the flowerbeds. Then, Flash climbed up the large oak in the backyard and trimmed off the smaller branches while First Base washed the windows on the first floor.
While Flash climbed and pruned the oak tree, he kept finding several of what could be described as assorted robot parts.
He could only guess how they ended up there, but he imagined that it had something to do with the girl who lived here. He shook as many of them out of the tree as he could and manually dislodged the more stubborn pieces from the branches before tossing them down along with the pruned branches. As soon as he was finished pruning, he climbed down to one of the lower branches and jumped to the ground, landing expertly on his feet.
“I’m done with the first set of windows, Big Bro,” Base called.
“Great,” Flash called back as he began to gather the pruned branches and assorted junk into garbage bags. “As soon as I’m done cleaning up, we can set up the ladder and work on the next set.”
As the boys worked, every so often Twilight would glance down at them from her bedroom window. She didn’t know why she was suddenly fascinated with watching two boys work on her yard, but she couldn’t help but watch anyway. Maybe the guilt from being so harsh with them earlier was compelling her to watch them. She felt herself blush from embarrassment as she remembered how terrified the two had looked when she had threatened to tase them.
Twilight startled out of her thoughts, however, when a young and exuberant face appeared at her window.
“Hi there,” First Base greeted. Twilight squealed in response, jumping back from the window. Base waved at her with a big cheeky grin. Twilight awkwardly waved back as he sprayed her window with cleaner and scrubbed it clean with a towel.
“All done, Big Bro,” Base called as he climbed down the ladder. “Let’s move on to the next one.”
Flash picked up the ladder and positioned it under the window next to the one Twilight had been looking out of. As Flash held the ladder steady, First Base climbed up and once again scrubbed the window clean. As the boys repeated the process several more times, Twilight returned to her window and once again began to watch the boys work.
After the boys had finished their fourth window, Flash once again picked up the ladder to move it. This time, however, Flash looked up and ended up staring right into Twilight’s eyes. Twilight gasped as she ducked under her window sill praying against all reasonable hope that Flash hadn’t seen her watching them. Flash, of course, had seen her, but he shrugged it off. He was here to work after all, and he couldn’t let anything take his focus away from doing his job, not even attention from the girl he’s had a crush on since the last semester.
Flash and First Base finished the rest of the windows and put the ladder away. Afterwards, they began to give the fence a fresh coat of white paint. The two of them had barely finished painting about three feet of fence when Base sat on the ground, wiped the sweat off his forehead, and fanned himself with his cap.
“Bro, I think we need a break,” he panted.
“But we’ve got to finish this,” said Flash as he tried to coax his brother back up onto his feet. “We’ve still got to wash Ms. Velvet’s car, and after that, we’ve got another job later this afternoon.”
The brothers looked up and saw two bottles of water surrounded by a purple aura floating towards them. Base stared at the floating bottle with a look on his face not unlike that of a fish freshly pulled out of water. Flash, on the other hand, turned around and saw Twilight approaching them. Her hands glowed with the same purple aura that surrounded the water.
“I, uh, thought you guys could use a drink,” she said, smiling shyly.
Flash smiled back and grabbed the bottle closest to him. It felt refreshingly cold. He twisted the cap and took several long gulps. He hadn’t even realized how thirsty he was.
First Base got over his initial shock and began to drink also.
“Ahhh,” the younger boy moaned in relief.
“I, um, I’m sorry that I almost tased you guys,” Twilight stuttered, “and that I was so hard on you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Flash replied.“I’m sorry that we scared you.”
Flash closed his bottle, set it down, and resumed painting. First Base drank a few more gulps before following suit.
“So,” said Twilight as she tilted her head, studying the boys intently, “why are you guys spending your Saturday doing yardwork and cleaning windows? Wouldn’t you rather be doing something else?”
The brothers froze before turning to look at each other, unsure what to answer. Then, Flash spoke first.
“Yeah, we’d rather be doing something else,” he answered, avoiding looking at Twilight in the eyes, “but our family kind of needs the money right now. We don’t mind giving up a Saturday if it means we can help make things easier.”
Twilight had a feeling that Flash’s answer wasn’t quite the whole story but elected not to press further. Instead, she used her magic to levitate several paint brushes and dip them in the paint before simultaneously making them paint different sections of the fence.
“Umm, Twilight, it’s not that we don’t appreciate your help, but we’re kind of getting paid for this,” Flash objected. “It wouldn’t be right to accept your help.”
“Hey, I’m just helping make sure that you two get to your next appointment on time. We wouldn’t want a potential client thinking that you’re incompetent now, do we?” Twilight countered.
Flash wanted to argue, but he couldn’t think of anything convincing to say. Furthermore, he didn’t really have the time to be arguing. Instead, he resignedly resumed painting. “Just so you know, I’m letting your mom know about this. If she decides to cut our pay, that’s on your conscience.”
Twilight rolled her eyes but ignored him and kept painting.
With Twilight’s help, painting the fence took hardly any time at all, and boys headed to the driveway to begin washing Ms. Velvet’s car. Twilight nearly offered to help yet again, but her friends had arrived for a study group, so she went back inside her house but not before giving the boys another bottle of cold water.
Half an hour later, two dripping wet boys stood in front of Ms. Velvet’s front door, First Base carrying a duffel bag, as Flash rang the doorbell.
“I’ll get it,” a shrill, hyper voice called from behind the door. The door opened to reveal a pink, poofy-haired girl bouncing in place on the other side. “Oh, hiya, Flash.”
“Hi, Pinkie,” Flash greeted back. “Can you tell Twilight’s mom that my brother and I are done with her list and ask her if she’s got a place where we can change?”
“Okie-dokie-lokie,” said Pinkie Pie, dashing back inside and shutting the door.
About a minute later, Ms. Velvet opened the door.
“Alright, boys, come on in” she said with a smile. “Let me just step out and see how you did. Twilight will show you where the bathroom is.”
“Thanks, Ms. Velvet,” replied Flash, returning her smile as he and Base stepped into the house.
“Twily,” Ms. Velvet called. “Can you please show these nice boys where our bathroom is?”
“Coming, Mom,” Twilight answered, just a hint of annoyance peeking through her voice.
Twilight walked into the hallway at the same time Ms. Velvet went out the front door. She paused, looking the two boys over. Their hair was flattened, and droplets of water dripped from every strand. Their clothes were so wet that they practically hugged every contour on the boys’ bodies, and Flash had a pretty good number of contours.
“Looks like someone had a little too much fun washing my mom's car,” Twilight jokingly observed.
“Can you blame us? It was hot out,” First Base retorted.
“Let me just show you guys where the bathroom is.”
One trip to the bathroom and one clothing change later, the boys were once again in the kitchen talking to Ms. Velvet.
Twilight and her friends sat nearby at the dining table, surrounded by books and papers.
“Ms. Velvet, before you pay us, I think you should know that Twilight helped us with the fence,” Flash began.
“Oh, that’s alright,” Ms. Velvet assured him, as she counted her bills and handed them to Flash. “Twily needed a little fresh air today anyways.” Unbeknownst to her, her daughter shot a dirty look in their direction at the sound of her nickname before resuming her studies.
Flash counted the bills he’d been given, and when he had finished, he looked up at his customer with confusion.
“Ma’am, I think you might have made a mistake,” Flash started, holding a handful of bills out to Ms. Velvet. “This is more than what we charged on the ad.”
“Keep it,” she replied, pushing the bills back towards Flash. “You boys did such a good job that I decided to give you a tip.”
“Wow! That’s so nice,” Base interjected. “I hope all our other customers are like you.”
Ms. Velvet chuckled. “A few of Twily’s friends are staying over for dinner. Why don’t you join us? We’ve certainly got room for two more.”
“That’s very generous of you, ma’am,” Flash replied, “but I’m afraid we have to go right this minute.” He looked at his phone to check the time. “Our next client is expecting us in less than half an hour.”
“Well, maybe some other time then.”
“Sounds great. Contact us again if you need anything else done.”
With that, Flash took his younger brother by the arm and pulled him towards the door. The two waved and gave Ms. Velvet their good-byes as they left the house. They quickly yet carefully packed and secured their equipment before getting into the car and driving away.
“Such nice boys,” Ms. Velvet said to her daughter and her friends after the brothers left. “It’s a shame that they had to be in such a hurry.”
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An interesting start.
A couple of, well in the grander scheme, nitpicks
1) Yeah asking for $25 or even saying you'll go as low as $17 an hour as a couple of High school students, not likely, you're looking at minimum wage, maybe a flat $15/her because that's the average for a good quality babysitter, but hey if Velvet thinks you're labor is worth more that $25/hr, that's her call
2) I think that Flash and First should've been to escorted to a specific bathroom, the one Night Light uses as does Shining when he's there, let's just keep to men and women have different wants and needs
However, with that said... Man even among us Flash-fans, the guy just doesn't seem to catch a break.
I wasn't expecting Flash and Twilight to be as familiar with each, not that I object to them being friends, but I have always been drawn to stories in which two very different people discover that they aren't so different (Disney's 1990's animated Beauty and the Beast) but given the rest of the premise, I see why.
So what's the next job?
8975243
Umm, Foxhelm, Flash charged Velvet $17/hr. Furthermore, a big enough house has a bathroom or a half-bathroom just for guests.
8975278
i must have missed when they agreed to the amount, or if Flash editted the ad, fair enough, but I don't recall that it was specified to be the guest bathroom but again those two critics I have are fundamentally nitpicks
8975282
8975284
Oh... Okay my error