Tinker, Tanner, Hunter, Spy

by Shamus_Aran

Party Hard

"Wow."

The barn had been scrubbed clean from top to bottom. Three mammoth oak tables lay parallel along the earthen floor, reaching from one end of the massive chamber to the other. Banners depicting pastoral scenes of Equestrian countryside were strung across the ceiling. On the far end lay a comparatively modest stage, with more than enough room for Octavia, Vinyl, and Pinkie. And Archer, if he couldn't talk his way out of it.

Flanking the stage were two massive kegs containing, Archer assumed, the farm's best apple cider. It was from one of these immense urns of inebriation that a very self-satisfied Pinkie was taking an early draft.

No living being should have been able to accomplish alone what Pinkie had in a mere day. Hence Archer's amazed utterance upon setting his eyes on it for the first time.

"You like it?" she asked, before taking a swig of the frothy beverage. "I think I did pretty good."

"Like it?" he parroted. "It's perfect! How did you get all of this done?"

She smirked. "I have my methods."

He paced the outer edge of the room, nodding at the attention to detail the tapestries held. It would have taken a human seamstress months to weave one of these, and Pinkie made seven in a single afternoon? Those must have been some impressive methods.

"So how many are we expecting?"

"Well," Pinkie said, taking another, rather thoughtful hit of cider, "I've invited everypony in Ponyville. But I'm pretty sure not everypony's going to be able to make it. You see, Mayor Mare and her board of directors are busy gearing up for their corporate retreat in Shoeshire, Filthy Rich is taking his family out to dinner at Gusteau's..."

"Wait, wait."

"Hmm?"

"There's a pony named 'Filthy Rich?'"

"Yep!"

He took a seat, rubbing his temples.

"This place is insane."

"Yep!"

"Could we just skip to the part where you tell me how many people are going to show up?"

"Well, no people..."

"What!?" He sat bolt upright.

"But a couple hundred ponies, sure!"

"Oh." He sighed, abandoning his chair for the warm, appley company of the cider barrels. "It's going to be a long night."

That last statement would turn out to be more true than he realized.

***

"Pinkie," Archer slurred, grammar obfuscated by far, far too much cider, "I really don't fink anyone's comin'."

"No, no, I - HIC! - 'm sure sompony'll - HIC! - walk right through that door!" Pinkie proclaimed, apparently unaware of her eyes not pointing in the same direction. "You'll seeee - HIC! - eeeeeee."

Archer laid his head back down on the soft, cushy hardwood table.

"Worst party ever."

"Only if you keep up that attitude, mister - HIC! - Mister Negative."

They'd made a game out of waiting. For every five minutes past the party's planned opening time that no one showed up, they would chug another pint.

They were up to fourteen. If he were capable of doing so, Archer would have thanked the Father above that neither he nor Pinkie were particularly angry drunks.

He was about to drain Mug Number Fifteen when he heard the barn door open.

Standing there, thoroughly nonplussed, were Vinyl Scratch and Octavia.

"Oh, excuse me," the gray one muttered, backing out of the doorway. "Are we late?"

"Late?" Archer cried, standing up wobblingly. "Late!? You n' everyone else were s'pposed to get here..." He turned to the table littered with wooden mugs. "One, two..." He multiplied in his head. "...an hour 'n fifteen minutes ago! What kept you!?"

"Really?" Vinyl asked, tugging her drums over the threshold. "Because our cards said everyone was getting here at nine o'clock sharp, and thought we were arriving early..."

"Pinkie, the card."

"Huh?" The pink party pony pulled her head from its resting place on a pillow fashioned from empty cider mugs. "Whuzzat?"

"You know, th-the... the invitation. Whuzz't say?"

"Oh, hang on." She plunged a hoof into her cumulonimbic mane, rummaging around inside. The noises produced sounded more like a toolbox being rattled than anything else. "Here we go!" She produced a small invitation card, festooned with an old piece of chewing gum and an unidentifiable brown crust.

"’Archer's Welcome-to-Ponyville Extr-r-r-ravaganza,'" she read, making sure to roll the 'r' with as obnoxious an accent as she could perform. "'featuring live music, cider, and traditional human party games and foods. Bring as many ponies as you can, and be sure to get here by...' Ah."

"What?"

"It says nine P.M. here. I don't... Oh, wait! I remember what happened!"

"What!?"

"I was going to schedule the party at twenty-'til eight, but then I remembered Vinyl takes two hours to get ready for a gig."

"So?"

"Well, that and she normally sleeps until six."

Archer could only raise a single disbelieving eyebrow at the drummer/DJ in question, currently unloading her kit onto the stage.

"Guilty," she said with a shrug.

"Alright," he said, uncertainly. "So the party isn't ruined. Good to know. What do we do now?"

"Now," said Pinkie, palming something the size and weight of a gold sterling into his hand, "You take this."

He looked at it. It was a rather large pill, colored bright white and red. "What is it?"

"The Chaser."

***

Alcohol now thoroughly purged from his system, Archer watched with a silent grin as the makeshift mead hall filled with ponies. Ponies of every kind and color, all of which Pinkie introduced by name and pointed out as they entered.

"That one there is Golden Harvest, though most ponies call her Carrot Top."

"I can't imagine why."

"Oh, and that one she's sitting down next to is Lyra Heartstrings! They're bestest best friends!"

"The minty one is giving me a weird look."

"Yeah, she has a.... thing about dragons and other things with hands. She thinks it's a secret that she wants a pair of her own, but really, everypony knows."

A rather odd-looking beige stallion chose this moment to walk in, quickly joining the growing throng of partygoers.

"Who's that one?"

"Uhh.... Oh, that's Time Turner. He makes clocks."

"He looks very familiar."

"I should hope so," his own voice snapped back at him. "He's the one you fell on the other day."

Arrowhead hovered next to him, head adorned with a festively-colored paper cone. "Didja miss me?"

"Oh, immensely," Archer drawled, rubbing at his eyes in the hope that this unwelcome vision was a mere aftereffect of his copious cider consumption earlier that night. "I was almost at my wit's end, looking for something to despise."

"Well," Arrowhead replied, shrinking down to shoulder-angel size for emphasis, "between you and me, I'm not going to hang around for much longer."

"Oh?" the more human of the two asked, interest piqued.

"Indeed. After tonight, Luna has graciously decreed that my presence in your noggin is no longer required, and that I am to vacate the premises forthwith."

"Hallelujah."

"Don't go praising your maker just yet, boy," the tiny tormentor taunted, tapping a miniscule hoof against Archer's head. "You have to make it through the night first."

"So I attend a party and then go to sleep. Big whoop."

"Not so! You see, my friend, you are being tasked with a mission."

"To do what?"

"That's not important."

"Well, who's it from?"

"That isn't important, either."

"Well, for Pete's sake, man, give me something! You can't just say I've got a job to do and then not tell me what it is or why!"

"Oh, but I can," remarked Arrowhead, grinning as he faded from view. "And I have. See you later."

"Arrowhead, get back here!"

Archer's screams, directed at no one, drew at least one pair of eyes from the milling crowd down the hall from him. When it became clear that an infuriatingly vague "you'll see" was all the advance warning he was being given, Archer immediately turned to his tried-and-true method for venting frustration.

He drank some more.

***

Pinkie was onstage, yelling something to the crowd about how nice it was to have them all there, and how awesome the next few hours were going to be, and so on.

Archer had a mug in hand, he was less hammered than he had been half an hour ago, and no Arrowhead annoying him presently. He was happy.

"Heckuva shindig you got here, Hayseed."

He glanced to his left. Apropos of nothing, Applejack had decided to drop in, accompanied by... that white one. Who was she? Scarcity? Hard-to-find....ity? Something ending in -ity. He'd remember eventually. Maybe it had something to do with the cartoon diamonds on her rear end.

"Quite attractive, I must admit," said The Mare with Bedazzled Buttocks. "Sort of has that old-world charm."

"Are you two here for any particular reason, or do you just like appraising the aesthetic sensibilities of other species?"

"Both!" Gemflank said with a wry smile. "As it just so happens, I decided a welcoming present was in order for this sort of occasion." She produced a length of red fabric from a cleverly-concealed saddlebag that hadn't really been concealed all that much. "Voila!"

It was long. It was red. It looked perfect for chilly winter-spring nights like tonight. It was...

"Is this a scarf cape?"

"Made from the finest Las Pegasus cotton!" The white mare beamed.

"It's nice. Thank you. What was your name again?"

"What?" she asked, caught off-guard. Applejack chuckled behind her.

"In my excitement, I seem to have completely forgotten your name. Remind me, please?"

"Rarity!"

"Ah, Rarity. Right." He stood, wrapping the scarf around his neck. "It's lovely."

"You... you forgot my name?"

He glanced back at her. She seemed distraught. Heartbroken, almost.

"I've..." He hesitated, searching for the right word. "I've had a really busy week. Busy breaking in that outfit you made me, and everything." She nodded absently, which he took as a cue to continue. "It's served me well, I'll have you know. Quality craftsmanship... err, craftsponyship. Superior, even. Well done."

From Applejack's amused expression, he could tell he was laying it on thick. Good thing, then, that Rarity ate it up and practically begged for seconds.

"Well," she said, grinning at the showers of undiluted praise, "one cannot excel in the world of fashion without commitment to quality."

He nodded. The words meant precisely nothing, but it was polite to pretend they didn't.

"Enjoy the party," he said, for lack of anything more meaningful. "I know I will."

***

Pinkie was yelling at him. Or about him. He didn't know. He just knew that his name was coming up quite often, which was to be expected since this was his party.

Really, he would have been fine taking home one of the cider barrels. That would have been more than enough party for him.

"Come on, Archer! Get up here!"

"What?" he asked, directing his voice to the room around him rather than the pink pony of unknown location.

"You were going to do a speech, remember?"

"No I bloody well wasn't! Now leave me alone so I can drink some more."

"Come ooooon!"

"No."

"You know you want to! Come on, everypony!" She yelled to the crowd. "Speech! Speech! Speech!"

The horde of crayon-colored merrymakers took up the chant.

"Speech!"

"I don't..."

"Speech!"

"Are you seriously...?"

"Speech!"

"Alright, fine!"

He endured the thundering stampede of applause that was Ponyville's trademark as he ascended to the stage. Pinkie, grinning like the madmare she was, handed the microphone off to him.

"Good luck!"

"Go jump in a lake."

"Oooh, that sounds fun! But right now I have to sit down there and listen to your speech."

He gave a dry smile. "Don't ever change, Pinkie."

He took center stage and gazed out over the hall, packed to the brim with ponies, most of whom were milling about, chattering to each other.

"Well I can't very well give a speech if you're all talking," he said, voice amplified a few dozen times out of the sound system Vinyl had erected on either side of the stage. "Now can I?"

The crowd's roaring chatter faded to a dull murmur.

"I suppose apologies are in order," he said, leaning against the mic stand. The crowd muttered to itself in confusion. "For the whole reason I'm here in the first place, of course. I only ended up staying here because I tried to shoot and eat Big Macintosh. Remember that?"

The unsettled noises a few ponies made assured him that yes, they did.

"That seems like so long ago, doesn't it? Now I'm working for the guy's sister, helping them make a living. Talk about irony."

Sporadic laughter. He could do better.

"The thing is," he continued, "I've only been here a week. Doesn't seem like it, does it? But I have been here for a single week, and let me tell you - I do not plan on trying to eat a single one of you ever again. That's a heck of an impression you've left. By show of hands - err, hooves - who here knew what humans were before monday?"

Two ponies - Inkwell and that Lyra one - raised their hooves.

"Wow. Then I must also apologize for that, because I'm probably the worst crash course you could get."

More laughter, louder this time. He felt vaguely insulted.

"No, seriously, I'm a scout. I used to be a monster hunter..." he paused to let the obligatory oohs and ahhs die down. "...which is far less glamorous than it sounds. You'll see why I brought this up in a minute. Now, we had a head hunter - that is, a guy who was at the head of the hunters, not a guy who hunted heads, that would be stupid. This head guy had a name, but sadly, it turns out Equestrians cannot pronounce it. So we'll call him 'Blowhard.' Is that alright with everyone?"

Wow, that was his best joke so far. That was both encouraging and discouraging in near-equal amounts.

"So I was out on an expedition with Blowhard and we get attacked. Did we get attacked by the Fair Folk, like we were prepared for? No we were not. Were we attacked by Orcs? Not them, either. We were attacked by - get this - sentient moss." This time, he laughed along with the audience. "I kid you not. Giant masses of the stuff just dived on us like living tidal waves. Now, anyway, after we finished burning the forest down..." He paused for effect. "...he told me something very important, which I'd like to share with you all.

"He said, 'Now you're going to be going off without me soon enough, boy, and you've got to remember: Never let your guard down. Fae creatures-' That's our name for anything that's not us, by the way. 'Fae creatures are unpredictable. They'll surprise you in the weirdest of ways. Never assume that they'll be more like what you know than not.' And wouldn't you know it, he's still right?

"I freely admit that I was scared out of my gourd when I first came here. I thought you were all going to kill me. Or eat me. Or turn me into clothing. Or all three, hopefully in that order. But you haven't tried to kill me once! On purpose, anyway," he said, casting a meaningful look at Rainbow Dash in the rafters, who smiled sheepishly and cringed.

"My point being, I should thank you - all of you - for bucking the trend so hard that it broke me of a very dangerous if otherwise reliable prejudice. I no longer believe that all Fae are absolutely, one-hundred-percent evil. Just most of them."

Pinkie clambered up the front of the stage as laughter and applause capped off Archer's monologue. She grinned at him, patting him on the back.

"That was awesome!"

"Can I go back down and drink now?"

"No!"

"Fiddlesticks."

They jabbered onstage for another few minutes as the crowd calmed itself. Finally, Archer brought the microphone back up.

"Pardon me, fillies and gentlecolts. My exuberant friend has a question for everyone here."

Pinkie grabbed the mic stand from him, practically giddy with anticipation. "Good evening, Ponyville! Are you ready to rock?!"

***

He was the only one sitting, he noticed.

Archer had taken a seat, all the better to support Diamond Pick's rather large guitar. The Equestrian three-fourths of the band all elected to stand, either through preference or instrumental necessity.

He was proud to note that, now that he was prepared for it, he could easily detect the presence of a Musical Number, whatever it was.

The air had a different flavor to it, if that made any sense. It was charged with electricity. It had the qualities of that infamous pause between a bolt of lightning and the thunderclap it spawned.

The world was on the edge of its seat, waiting for someone to play a song.

Archer was just glad he wasn't really the one playing.

The guitar played out crisply and clearly as the lights dimmed. A single spotlight fixed on him as he strummed a solo that flowed like a cold alpine river. Occasionally, it slowed. Then it would start tumbling down itself like a boulder cast down a mountainside. A single note punctuated the section, leading into another much like it, cool, flowing, and cascading, ending on a similar sharp point.

And on that point, Octavia took over.

She had taken the microphone, standing to his left and awaiting her cue. As the song's intro ended, her own spotlight beamed brightly and illuminated her, double bass at the ready.

As he played a quiet background, she began to sing.

Her voice was haunting. With only a tiny guitar to distract anyone listening, the words echoed through the hall and back, frigid and isolating in their cavernous acoustics.

As soon as she stopped singing, the guitar grabbed his hands again and made him play it for all he was worth. If the earlier solo had been water and earth, this one was air and fire - angry, livid, and alive. Pinkie was the next to be illuminated in the hot spotlights, playing more or less in unison with him on the violin. Dull thumping drums gave the tune a menacing feel, and if that wasn't enough, the bass coming in reminded him of an invading army - or perhaps a foul warlock, ready to summon demons or what have you.

Never mind the fact that there were no such things as warlocks.

The instrumental teetered on the brink of a precipice, and with a wail of the violin, tipped over. The drums came into their own, pushing the song into its first verse.

Vinyl, for no apparent reason, began singing backup for the chorus. Funny. Most present were under the impression that the drummer was refused a mic as a matter of principle.

And back down again, into the firey, wonderful, active refrain. Pinkie flashed him a wink as they played opposite ends of the tune. He rolled his eyes. As if to follow their moves, their respective parts went in opposite directions. The guitar went down, aiding the bass in underlying the violin, which went up and up into a crescendo to mark the beginning of the next verse.

Wait. Fingers?

And back to the chorus.

As he played, Archer silently wracked his brain. Fingers? Why would an Equestrian song have lyrics mentioning fingers running through hair? Wouldn't they use the word 'mane'? Unless...

With a grin, he realized: He was not playing Equestrian music. He was playing a near-perfect rendition of a Vorlanian classic, one that was composed in praise of the first Jove ascending to kinghood. It was said that to secure his place on the throne, he had to wrestle a hurricane - the Storm that the song referred to. As the chorus ended, he threw himself into the refrain with renewed gusto.

The refrain detoured unexpectedly into a new solo, one played by violin, bass, and guitar alike. It was just as firey and hot and everything before it, and ended on another crescendo, dipping down with a squeal of the violin's strings.

Back into the guitar solo Archer went. He couldn't tell if his attitude was affecting the Musical Number, or if his playing was affecting his attitude, but whatever was happening, he was definitely playing fancier. As his hands slammed the strings with all their might, the melody bounced and curved and danced in the most show-offy manner imaginable.

It was safe to say Archer was enjoying himself.

The chorus broke back in, giving his hands some much-needed rest. Then, just as quickly as it began, it ended, snapping the song's momentum out from under it. With some more fancy fretwork, the guitar guided the rest of the instruments to a stop. The fire went out of the piece, now all cool water once again. With a subdued farewell and an echo to the song's beginning notes, the guitar, too, faded out.

The song ended.

The lights came back on.

And the crowd went wild.

***

Archer felt a weight on his shoulder. He looked back, noting that it was his scarf, flopping onto his back after apparently being suspended in the air.

Wait, had there been a dramatic wind?

Had he just been illuminated by a spotlight, scarf/cape billowing in the wind, in front of a crowd of three-hundred-odd ponies? What's more, had he missed any chance to take a look at himself before he started looking normal again?

Fiddlesticks!

He felt a familiar pang of annoyance, even as he descended the stage steps to mingle with his "adoring fans."

That pang had a name.

It was Arrowhead.

The imaginary pegasus peeked between the heads of two oblivious partiers, face-splitting grin firmly in place. He was wearing a shirt in a hideous shade of bright yellow, embazoned with the words "Archer and the Archettes".

Archer ignored him as hard as he could. Who knew, maybe that had an effect on dream beings like him.

"You like it?" the sadly unaffected dream being asked him. "I made it myself. I was thinking those other three could be the Archettes. Or maybe we could get some Archettes and they could just walk around backstage and carry your stuff."

That was really not funny at all.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Archer asked, in between shaking hooves with Ponyville's quite well-staffed welcome wagon.

"Actually, yes," Arrowhead replied, unusually somber. "This is goodbye. So long, friend, it was nice being here. But old Uncle Arrowhead has greener pastures to plow. More unwary minds to torture. And so on."

"I suppose you wouldn't think any less of me if I wished the next dream you found yourself in would be one where you get eaten."

"By now, I've come to expect it. See you later," Arrowhead called, floating out the hall's broad entrance doors. "And by the way, your mission starts now!"

Archer suppressed a scowl as the mental construct of a pony vanished from his life, hopefully for good.

If he couldn't even be bothered to explain what this elusive "mission" was, then how important could it be? Honestly, the lack of common courtesy brain invaders had today. Disgraceful.

Archer was roused from his ruminations on rudeness by a sudden tremor in the ground around him. The numerous cider mugs clinked and clattered on their tables, and the congregation of well-wishers was silenced for a brief moment.

That silence was broken by the creaking, squeaking, squealing noise of breaking wood. The back corner of the roof caved in, then ripped itself away, leaving it open to the chilly night air.

The Ponyvillians may not have been familiar with the roar from outside that followed, nor the particular flash of bright star-spangled blue that flashed by the cavity in the roof for a split-second.

Therefore, it was entirely prudent and logical for Archer, who was not normally given to hysterics, to point and scream as loud as he could.

"URSA ATTACK! EVERYBODY RUN!"

Comments

[terrycloth]

And nopony runs because he didn't say 'everypony'. Mission failed.

[kajisora]

ohhh dear.

this party just got crashed

[Glassed]

I've told you this before, but I love your comedy. Your sense of humor is amazing!
-Glassed

[RemnantDrive]

Wha-wha-wha-WHAT?!

Why are the people not commenting?

Needs moar attention, this story does.

[Luminous Lead]

932266 [url= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O_kg6EqcRA#t=00m39s]Mission Failed.

Awww yeah, Tutorial's over and the plot's picking up!

Also, I must now check out more of Blackmore's Night.

[Macedoneus]

New chapter? Check.
Funny bits? Check.
Wanting more? Check.

Reason to expand my iTunes Library? BONUS!

[The Gargoyle]

Nice party, well done. Good speech and glad to see he still has a healthy skepticism of other fae creatures while stating his affections towards the ponies. O, and nice chapter length.
And i'm starting to suspect the Ursa might be a test to see how well Archer works with others, rather then an attempt by the king to get him out of the way.
Can't wait for more

[griffinshavesouls]

awwww shit time for super archer OP fight mode!
or not, i mean it is an ursa

[PrincessColumbia]

I have to say, even without the accompanying audio via YouTube, the music scene was magnificently written!

[Alondro]

It is a little-known fact that Ursas are very weak to paprika.

[Kentle Colt]

I can see the muscical numbers, and I love them! Keep it up!

[warpd]

Time for the monster hunter to do his job.

[jinger]

Wait, how well armed is Archer at this point? I can't really remember, but didn't they confiscate his bow? If that's right, he has to either get to it before the Ursa takes out half the town, or take it on with his knife. Or maybe Pinkie has something in her basement. Whatever it is, it'll probably be awesome if Archer's stories are anything to go by!

[MrWhatnow]

This is fantastic and your writing of the music scene w/ accompanying song choice was perfect. This is turning out to be one of the best fics ever.

[shira]

I'm going to have to disagree with the general consensus at this point. It's all beginning to get old. Yes Archer is struggling with everything in the world around him, yes reality/fate/signs/everything beats up on him. I was hoping things would be going somewhere with the reveals of the last couple of chapters but it seems we're stuck back in that rut again. Oh well, the fact that it was hilarious for 20-ish chapters still makes this a must read in my book. I'll catch back up eventually.

[Shamus_Aran]

966190 The struggling part is over. Now comes the thrilling climax that will either unite the two races through sheer awesome or destroy them in an tornado of ursine violence.

[Redbush]

very nice. however with the song link, i long finished the fic before the song had ended :p
but i like a chosen tune with fics.
nice work!

[AliCentaur Br0ny]

I loved the chapter, and it probably would have been even better, had I not accidentally read the next chapter first.

[Plotbuster]

932266 mission fail indeed

[Borg]

I suppose it's that automatic bad memory suppression at work? Humans would surely remember the last ursa attack.