"Clyde"

by BRyeMC

Rating: teen
Tags: Rarity, Romance, Slice of Life, Alternate Universe, Main 6, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 7441

Clyde's tale of trying to find hope in loneliness.

"Clyde" really had nothing going for him and deemed himself very unlucky in the first part of his life. Even his real name was forgotten and abandoned in the sea of loneliness.

After watching his father and brother leave him and seeing his mother die in the hospital in front of him, he always seemed alone and struggled to find happiness. His only true childhood friend was the music that his brother gave to him. Music remained his only true friend for a long time. That was, until he met Tyrone and the rest of his new friends. Especially, a certain "Rarity" on a trip returning from Seaddle.

Some later story scenes tie in with The Poncho Chronicles I: The Beans and The Poncho Chronicles II: South Beach.

Published 2013-12-16 03:10:04 UTC
Last updated 2013-12-16 03:10:04 UTC

New Beginnings

Clyde

Hm, where to start? Oh, I know.

       My name’s Clyde Danner. Actually, to be frank, it’s more of a nickname, but that’s for a different story for a different day. Anyways, enough with that minor detail, let’s go back to the beginning.

I was born in the small town about 100 miles north of Canterlot. This town, was where I soon would learn to forget about in the coming years. My parents were part of the middle-class as they couldn’t afford their own house, so we had to rent out an apartment in the town. My mother worked for the town’s bank and my father worked for some company that I never learned what it actually did.

I also had a brother. However, I really don’t remember much details about him. He was much older than me, about eight or nine years, so we never really connected or bonded a lot, or if at all.

Anyways, I’ll skip the first four years of my life, as I don’t remember them at all, but that’s normal. When I was five, I attended the local school, like all the other ponies did once they became that age. I never really enjoyed the social aspect of school, as I usually sat near the back of the room and diligently completed my assignments without talking to anybody else. At the time, I enjoyed the solace.

However, after a few months, my dad left my mom. That was the last time I saw him and the first time I saw my mom extremely sad. I remember walking into the house after school and heard her crying a lot. To calm myself, I used my brother’s music player, as I didn’t have my own.

Music and I had a special connection. Once I put on those headphones, the outside world meant nothing to me. The cool sounds and touching lyrics either hyped me up or made it feel like a tragedy occurred right in front of me. Because of these songs, I started to understand rhythm, tune, and all that other cool, musical lingo.

Life would then return to normal for a few more years.

After I turned thirteen, my brother left for that military/guard life. I never did see him again after he left, but he gave me his old music player, the one that I used way back when I was five. He told me how to put songs on there and then gave me a hug. I’m pretty sure that was the first time he ever even did that.

So then, it was just my mom and me left.

I was still doing good in school, great even, but I didn’t enjoy it as I never really made a true friend yet. Now in school, or at least the one I attended, you were able to bring a music player and listen to it as long as it never bothered the others. I never had that problem, as I usually had the volume to 40 percent so I could still hear the others if they tried to talk to me. I usually just pretended I didn’t hear them and resumed ignoring them. Also, around this age, most of the others already had their Cutie Mark, by at this point I’m just going to call it their mark since I think it just sounds silly for colts.

Soon though, an event happened that changed my life. My mom got really, really sick. I took my mom to the ER, but unfortunately, she was so sick that there wasn’t a guaranteed cure. I spent the last few days with her at the hospital. I could see it in her eyes the glee that was brought when I sat beside her bed everyday. After three days of being submitted, she passed away.

At this point, I ran back to my house, almost in a distraught state. Of course I didn’t want to believe what happened, but it did. I watched it happened. Right in front of me. To try to forget about it, I turned on the television set, but alas, that didn’t help any. I grabbed my brother’s-, no wait, my music player and locked myself in my room. I spent the whole night locked away in that room, listening and trying to distract my mind. I looked up at my posters on the wall of some of the bands I had on my music player. These of course, I took from when my brother left. I thought to myself, I’m never alone as long as I have music.

The next morning, I decided to write a letter to my brother. The only problem was I didn’t know where exactly he was. I scavenged the house and found paper and stamps, and finally the address to where his training school was. I wrote to him what happened, how I felt about it, and what I was going to do now.

I was going to leave this town. Leave it and never come back. Why you may ask? There was nothing left for me here. I had to leave, it was the only logical choice.

I packed up my backpack from school with the remaining food from the kitchen that we had. I went back up to my room for the last time and locked the door. I left the house, locking the main door too, and walked to the street. I looked back one last time, which I remember brought a tear, but I shook it off. I then ran away from that house, never to see it again.

My journey out of the town wasn’t difficult at all. I knew the small town very well and knew what towns were adjacent to it. The closest town was about ten miles to the south. I knew that was my best option to start so I began my journey, only stopping for brief hunger or thirst problems. About three and a half hours later, I finally made it to that small town.

Because this was my first time in this town, hell, first time in another town, I followed the signs to the park. There, I could sit down and look around or even ask somebody for directions to an inn or something. Once I got to the park I sat down on the first vacant bench I saw, the one near the basketball court. It was late midday by the time I sat down. There was a lone pony on the court, about my age that I assumed. He was shooting his basketball at the hoop, and was making nearly every shot. Impressed, I continued watching him. His fluent movements with the ball doing all sorts of neat tricks, fascinated me. After a few more minutes I decided to walk up to him.

Once he saw me approaching, he stopped playing and looked at me. “Ey mane, whatchu want?”

I told him how I was impressed by his skills. I also was able to see his mark on his side which was a basketball with a dollar sign on it. I see why he’s good now. His special talent of basketball gave him that mark.

“Thanks bro. I’m Tyrone. As you can see, I play everyday but usually by myself. I ain’t got nobody else to play against.” He looked at me strangely before speaking again. “You wanna play?”

I never played basketball before, but after watching Tyrone play, I was thinking pretty confidently. He handed me the ball and I tried dribbling it around as Tyrone did earlier. The ball kept bouncing away from me or hitting my foot. Tyrone began to laugh, but I ignored him. After some more unsuccessful attempts, I tried shooting the ball. I airballed every single time. At this point, Tyrone was rolling on the ground laughing. I yelled at him.

“Sorry cuh, that was way too funny. Ey, what’s your name anyway? I never seen you around here before.”

I told him my name, my real name, and where I was from. I told him the story of how I managed to get to this exact spot and why.

“Shit man, that’s pretty sad. You can come to my house tonight if you want.”

At first I thought about declining, but then again, I had nowhere else to go. I accepted his request, which he was quite happy. He then led me out of the courts and into the streets of this unknown town. After going through alleys, main streets, and even through backyards, we arrived at Tyrone’s “crib” as he called it. Tyrone led me into his house, which he then introduced me to his parents. He told them I was a friend from school and that my parents were out of town for the week. Oh, how that sentence bothered me. He also told them that my name was “Clyde”.

“Well Clyde, nice to meet ya!” said Tyrone’s dad, giving me a handshake. “As long as you don’t steal my shit, we are going to be great friends.”

I told him that I wouldn’t. Soon, we had dinner, which was fried chicken night. After dinner, Tyrone showed me to his room as I would be staying there. On the way up the stairs I asked him about the “Clyde” thing.

“I thought you wanted to be incognito, besides, you look like a Clyde to me. One of my idols in life is that old western outlaw whose name was Clyde. I want to be famous one day just like him.” I was going to make a comment, but I held it in. I’ll let him have his dream. I guess I would be called Clyde now.

When night came about, we both tried to fall asleep. I use the word tried because I was physically unable to. I heard Tyrone snore beside me so I grabbed my music player. After a few songs, I was finally able to fall asleep.

The next morning, Tyrone and I went back to the court. He wanted to teach me how to play basketball. I tried dribbling again, but failed. Discouraged, I sat down beside my backpack and pulled out a bottle of water. While I was taking a drink, I noticed that my music player fell out of the bag. Just then it hit me. I finished my water and picked up the ball again. This time I attempted to dribble the ball in a tune with a song. Just like that I was dribbling.

At first, I could only dribble, walk and dribble, and occasionally switch hands. After mastering these basic techniques, I switched tunes with another song to learn how to improve my dribbles. At the end of the day, I was able to spin, sizeup, hesitate, and do anything with that ball. Tyrone was impressed.

“Damn cuh, you might have better handles than me! How about a simple drill?” We played this game where we had to dribble the ball and try to poke out the other player’s ball while still maintaining control of yours. At first, we both played conservative, but after a few minutes, we started to assault each other. I managed to beat Tyrone four games to three.

The next day, Tyrone helped me with offensive skills, like a simple layup and shooting. I got the layup thing down pretty quickly, but shooting was really the obstacle. We continued practicing at the court for the next week. In that span, I mastered layups, eurosteps, and passing/dribbling, while decently making shots from the perimeter or three point line.

One day at the courts, about two weeks after I met Tyrone, two other ponies around our age walked up to us.

“We saw you novices playing around here for a week now, you think you can take us?” asked the taller one of the two. They both were kind of scrawny so in my head thought Tyrone and I could take them easily.

“Oh yeah?” said Tyrone, “how about we play for that cash?” The other two looked at each other laughing while I nervously questioned Tyrone on what the hell he was thinking. “Don’t worry bro, this is how I make bank around here. That’s why I have a dollar sign on my basketball mark, it’s because I’m a baller that plays for money now, and later in life, will ball in the professional league.” Tyrone bet 50 dollars, or 5000 bits, whatever you want to call it, while the other two bet the same amount. The game was the first to 21. It was on.

My job in this 2v2, was to manage the ball and pass to Tyrone whenever he was open. Tyrone didn’t want me to shoot it unless I knew I was going to make it. I also had to guard the shorter of the two opponents which wasn’t a huge problem as he never really attempted to score. The game was mostly back and forth until we managed to break away and lead by two, with us having 20 points and them 18.

All we needed to do was to score one more time and we would win. When I received the ball, I dribbled around trying to get Tyrone open. He scrambled around but couldn’t get open so I decided to try and score a layup. Once I froze my defender for just a split second, I ran up to the basket. As I was about to toss it up, Tyrone called my name which made me turn and look. His defender ran up to me and blocked the ball and threw it back out to my defender. He stood behind the three point line, which in this game was actually the two point line, and threw it up, making the shot. Now we were tied.

Discouraged, I walked back to recieve the ball again. Tyrone came up to tell me don’t worry and quickly ran to his place. I took the ball and started to dribble around, thinking of a plan. While I was walking around, I noticed my defender would occasionally look away from me, looking towards Tyrone as if I would pass it to him. I did a hesitation in his face and saw him jerk back. I grinned. I knew exactly what to do. Once he returned to his normal spot, he played me closer, which will help me anyway. I did an assortment of moves on him, making him confused. I then did a crossover on him, which to my surprise, made him fall on the ground.

I hurried up and looked at Tyrone about to pass to him, but he pointed to the basket. He wanted me to take the game winning shot. I stood there for a quick second, seeing my defender trying to stand up again with his arm in my face. Quickly I stepped back and shot the ball, mimicking the shooting form Tyrone taught me. I watched the ball sail through the air, almost as if time slow downed. After what seemed like a year, the ball went through the basket. It went it. We won.

Unless you ever hit the game winning shot before, it’s hard to describe the feeling you get. The adrenaline during that moment made me feel like the King of the World, even though I won a simple pickup game. Tyrone ran over and jumped in the air. Our opponents came over and shook our hooves and gave us our winnings. After they left, Tyrone pointed at me.

“Shit, bro! Look!” Confused, I turned around and looked around not seeing anything. After spinning around like an idiot, Tyrone told me to look at my side. I scanned down and saw that I finally had my mark. It was a basketball, the same as Tyrone’s, except instead of Tyrone’s dollar sign, I had a music note. I was so excited, I was about to cry in joy, which was weird because after my mom died, I thought I cried out all of my tears then so I wouldn’t ever have to go through that again. I wasn’t one of those ponies who hadn’t gotten their mark yet. I finally grew up, I was finally an adult. I grinned to myself. So this was my path in life now.

For the next few years, that was the exact path in life Tyrone and I went down. Because of Tyrone, I became the rising star of basketball in the neighborhood. We went undefeated in that town and earned over one thousand dineros. However, Tyrone wasn’t satisfied yet.

“Yo Clyde, we need to take our talents elsewhere, you feel me?” At first I couldn’t understand why he would want to leave his hometown, but at the same time I understood that there wasn’t anymore opponents left for us to face. I agreed with him. “Good, we’ll head to this town closer to Canterlot. Since we are heading closer to the city, there’s bound to be ballers everywhere.”

So we left Tyrone’s hometown. Tyrone’s farewell to his parents was personal to him as I could see sorrow in his face after we reached the outskirts of the town. I decided to leave him alone, as sometimes, that’s the best place to be. After a few hours of traveling on the main road, we reached this so called town.

We learned that this town, named Verona, was the second closest to Canterlot, the first being another small town called Ponyville, which of course will come important later. Anyway, we choose to explore this new town for a bit and we came across a certain pony slumped in a chair outside of the town’s main university lunch hall. The university was simply called Castle, in homage to its castle-like appearance. When I first saw this pony, I thought he was the sketchiest thing I’ve ever seen. This of course, was Poncho.

Poncho had multiple pieces of paper with markers. He was scribbling on the paper so fast and messy, that I couldn’t even tell what he was writing. After a few seconds, he noticed our presence and looked up.

“What are you doing?” asked Tyrone. He walked up to Poncho and picked up his papers. “I can’t even read this man.”

Poncho grabbed them back quickly. “It’s my chemistry project that was due six months ago. I can still get 5% credit on it if I do it.”

Just then another pony came over. “Hey Poncho, how do you feel about blumpkins?” This pony was Cannon Schultz.

Poncho started to freak out. “God damnit, Schultz! I told you blumpkins are one of the most unsanitary acts in the world! Who the hell would ever want one?”

Cannon looked over at us. “Hey guys, would you ever want one?”

I stood there thinking, as I’ve never been asked, nor thought about it before, while Tyrone said they would be “aight.”

“See, I told you, you sketchy fuck.” Cannon looked back over at us. “Anyways, who the hell are you guys?”

Tyrone and I recalled our adventures prior to my arrival his town. I used the “Clyde” card, saying that was my name. Cannon perked up at the sound of basketball.

“Ballers, huh? We so happen to have a basketball team for the school. We aren’t that good, but if you are as good as you say, you should be able to help us win a championship. Tryouts also so happen to be today.”

Tyrone became excited. “Winning the championship in front of the fans. The true life right there. We are both in.” Tyrone never gave me a chance to speak, but I just went with it. “Wait, don’t we need to be registered members of your university? I’ve never been to school.” I also wondered as I haven’t been to school since I left my hometown those years ago.

Cannon smiled. “No worries. Anyone can vouch for you. I’ll come with you and you can put the details relating to me on there saying that I’m taking in foreign exchange students for extra credit.”

After that, Cannon showed us around the school. After taking the tour and being accepted to the university through the school’s chill dean's order, we had to wait until the end of the day to actually try-out for the team. Tyrone and I had the same schedule as Cannon so we weren’t too confused on where to go. At lunch, we sat with Cannon, Poncho, and the rest of our future friends.

Going around the table, Cannon started naming them all off for us. “Here we have yours truly, then Poncho who you’ve already met. Next is Patel, the lazy bastard, then Wahlburn the druggy.”

“Hey, fuck you man,” yelled Wahlburn.

“Easy, anyways, finally we have our ballers of the group Sticky and Rivs, Rivs being the only non-Earth pony of us. They will also be trying out for the team today with us.”

“Hey, you forgot me,” said the pony at the end of the table.

“No, we didn’t Jeb. Nobody cares about you,” said Cannon. Everyone else laughed while Jeb sighed in disappointment. Tyrone and I spent the whole lunch period talking about random shenanigans that happened to us for the past years. I avoided the full story as I didn’t want to completely detail my life yet. I still wanted to maintain that mysterious dude factor.

At the end of the day, Tyrone, Cannon, Sticky, Rivs, and myself all went to the Castle Nights basketball tryouts. Tyrone breezed through and made the team as soon as he tried out. Sticky, Rivs, and Cannon all made it too, but everyone noticed some errors that could be fixed in time. Finally, it was my turn. I did all the tasks, drained every bucket, dribbled past the dummies, played great defense, and made the team with flying colors.

The next year, or two, was spent on us competing against the other local schools to try to win the local championship. The first year on our quest, our team, led by Tyrone of course, won our division title for the first time in school history in over fifteen years. After that point, Tyrone and the rest of us became super popular amongst the school. Tyrone loved the limelight while I tried to shy away from it. I didn’t play for fame, only for the thrill of the game.

The second year of the season, as defending champions, our lineup remained the same as the prior year; me at point, Cannon/Rivs at the two depending on the other team’s lineup. Tyrone was our small forward and Sticky was the power forward. Our center was some random dude that I didn’t know until last year. He was only on the team for those rebounds. This year, however, I decided to do something different. I wanted to be one of the team’s main scorers.

At first, my friends were a bit angry for me keeping the ball more instead of passing and setting up plays, like the players at my position should, however, after a few games they didn’t mind as I usually got on a roll that I couldn’t miss. Throughout the season talks about our team, Tyrone, and surprisingly to me, myself, were all over the news saying how good of a team we were led by the two great captains.

We made it to the championship again, which instead of scoring a whole lot, I passed it around to confuse the enemy. We won again which made us back-to-back champs. However, our victory was short lived as we went back to offseason practice for our next goal; become the first 3-time champions in the history of the university and local area.

The third, and last, season of basketball was a special one to me. Not only was it our last year of schooling, but it was also the last season of basketball too. We were the clear favorites to actually win the championship again, and three-peat, while Tyrone and I held hopes of leading the team again.

However, in December that all changed.

We had already clinched a playoff spot by that time so Coach really didn’t play the starters a lot throughout the game. However, since one of our players was taking off the court due to sickness, Coach asked me to finish the game for him with a minute or so on the clock left. I went in there, just passing it trying to waste time. When we missed the shot, we hustled back while they tried to hail mary the ball down the court for a quick layup. The ball was deflected by the dude’s arm and made it’s way out of bounds. I jumped after it to save it for our team to waste down the little remaining clock. When I landed, I knew my season was over.

When I landed, my left hind leg snapped and I felt the most painful feeling I’ve ever felt, even worse than the emotional depression from before, go through my body. I fell down, thrashing on the court in agony. Coach, Tyrone, and the medical team rushed over to stop me from doing anymore harm. I couldn’t remember what they were saying to me, as everything was woozy and sudden, but I do remember getting carried off the court with an injury applause.

At the hospital, the doctor told me that I severed both my flexor tendons in my hind leg and required surgery to fix them. Recovery from that would take at least a year to two, maybe even three if I was really unlucky.

I sat there distraught, for the second time in my life. Ballin’ was my destiny, and here I was, told that I couldn’t play it until I recover, or worse, not ever again. I still had a music, but I didn’t want to completely shut out basketball, not yet.

I went into surgery the next day and stayed at the hospital for two days after that. I returned to the bench after two weeks of mini-rehab, to root for my team. I wasn’t able to do physical activities yet, only psychological activities to keep me calm and focused on recovery. I watched our team play the first playoff game, only to lose by a buzzer beater from half-court. I blamed the lost on my injury those weeks ago.

For the last remaining semester after the basketball season, my friends shook off the lost as a learning thing while I remained sidelined for another year. I remember turning down other ponies requests for helping me. I usually sat in my room at Cannon’s house after school and listened to my music all day. No matter how alone I would ever feel, music was always there for me. During this time I also began to teach myself how to play the guitar. I found a beat up acoustic guitar in Cannon’s basement one day that I used to attempt to play songs from my music player.

In June, we all graduated. No longer did I have to wake up early for no reason and learn about stupid topics like chemistry, or science in general. I began my rehab during the summer, finally being able to exercise, lift, and brisking jogs. I really had no plans after school, only hoping for a miraculous comeback and go undrafted to the professional league of basketball. What a story that would be.

It wasn’t until August of that year that something productive for all of us happened. Patel and Sticky got Seaddle Seacawks preseason tickets and wanted all of us to go with them on a bus trip across the country. All of us was for the idea, except Poncho, who later went anyways since we called him a bitch if he didn’t go.

Our trip was pretty bland until we reached Seaddle. We didn’t really stop for anything exciting, only for snacks because Poncho ate nearly every goddamn food we had alone. The game itself was really cool, seeing and finally hearing how loud that stadium really got. After the game, we even managed to get some autographs. My favorite autograph was from their corner, SherMan.

On the way back to the bus, however, was the true exciting concept about the trip. A group of six mares, along with a small, pot loving dragon, joined us on the bus ride back towards home. Seeing how their town was close to ours, they wanted to just take this bus as it would cost cheaper. We, or maybe just a few of us, were down with it.

During the bus ride, we soon learned our new companions names. You had Twilight, who was the “leader of the pack”, Fluttershy, who never really spoke, Pinkie, who was the gungho-party type, Applejack, who nobody really talked to nor liked even though we met her not even an hour ago, Rainbow Dash, who reminded us of a female Tyrone, Spike, who Wahlburn took an early friendship with due to them both enjoying weed and all of that stuff.

And then there was Rarity.

Unlike the others, there was something about her that stood out to me. Maybe it was her alluring appearance or how she rarely looked enthusiastic about the bus ride and trip back to the east. I noticed for the past few days that she always looked like she was either extremely sad and missing something, or just plain lonely.

It wasn’t until the night when the group got split up due to Phaselus Civilis and she was with the group I was part of when we first made a conversation. When I saw her on the knoll that night and everyone else was asleep, I decided it was time to try to cheer her up and be that guy.

When I sat down beside, I could tell she was trying to ignore me. I looked up into the sky to see two stars in the sky that I recalled from a research I had to do back in school. I remember silently chuckling. Maybe it was destiny for us to meet here after all..

After a few attempts to talk to her, she finally looked at me, directly eye to eye, to tell and show me her point of being up on the knoll alone. Like her beauty, I also found her eyes very captivating. After her pointless ramble about being alone here, I felt a cool breeze go by us. I saw her shiver, so I decided to pull the cliché “guy gives girl a jacket to make her stay warm from the cold air” card. After I gave her my jacket, she warmed up, in both cases.

We mostly talked about hobbies first. After telling me about her life she looked down and saw the scar on my leg from my surgery a couple of months ago. “How did you get that?” she curiously asked.

I also looked down at it. I never really paid much attention to the scar before this. I remained staring at it while telling her my timeline. I saw the details of her face change during it, like she actually felt what I felt during my life. I kept going, telling her about the first time I met Tyrone, my mark, playing for the school, and then finally the injury.

“So, are you going to give up on it?” she asked me, “I mean, that’s a part of your life.”

I sat there for a moment blankly. I told her I wasn’t going to quit, I couldn’t quit. Other than music, there was nothing else as a motive for me. If it wasn’t for Tyrone and music, I would be alone.

“Don’t worry Clyde,” she said to me, “You’ll never be alone. You have Tyrone and the others. Plus, I’ll help you and support your comeback if you choose to do so. I would love to see you play if you say you’re as good as you say.” She smiled. This smile, which I soon figured out, was solely geared towards me and not only for basketball at all. The sun was rising in the vast horizon. Rarity was right. I wasn’t alone anymore. Unlike the time of my early years, I had friends now. Even a new one I made that night, which was also my first female friend that I ever had. Back in school, since Tyrone and I were so popular, all the girls tried to get with us. Tyrone loved the idea and dated a new girl every week, while I stayed focused on basketball and school work.

We made our way down the hill in front of her tent she had. She asked me if I wanted my jacket back, but I didn’t care for it anymore. I wanted her to keep it so I had a hidden motive to earn it back.

It wasn’t until we were captured by the cult and put into cells for one week until our my next encounter with Rarity. Everyone was forced into small, compacted, cells, that could only hold two ponies per cell. Rarity was my cellmate and it was here where I soon realized that by the end of the week, my friendship towards her was slowly turning into a romantic bond. Obviously I didn’t want to say anything yet or force her into a relationship that was much larger than friends, as I didn’t want to lose our friendship and my first female friend. Plus, I didn’t know if she even liked me more than just a friend. During this imprisonment, Cannon and I were forced into arena-type training and deathmatches for Charles’s enjoyment. I strived through that so I could make sure Rarity and her friends got home safely, as I didn’t want to see them die for no reason because of us. It wasn’t until later when I did actually “die” through the arena and later revived by her to see that she also had these same feelings towards me.

After the whole “Beans” thing ended, on our way home, our bus managed to get stuck at South Beach. It also just happened to be home of some zombies so that was also an issue.

In general, of the couple days we spent in South Beach, I spent almost all of it with Rarity. Poncho seemed to dislike that and we had that dispute, which later caused a split between the group. I decided to leave our hotel shelter to head to the nearby arena but Rarity wanted to follow me. I tried to persuade her to stay with her friends, but she wouldn't listen. Since it was her choice and she would’ve came with me anyway, I had to protect her no matter what, even if none of my friends liked the idea at all. Still to this day, they keep calling me a douche for not following the Bro Code by ignoring them for some girl.

After the whole zombie thing ended, we returned towards Ponyville. On the bus, Rarity and I sat in the back most seat. The others were scattered around either sleeping or joking around. Rarity rested her head on my shoulder, which I soon learned became one of her favorite habits she gained after meeting me. I didn't mind as I enjoyed her company the most out of everyone else on the bus combined, exempting Tyrone of course. On the road after leaving South Beach, about an hour or so after departure, Rarity looked up at me.

“What are you going to do after this Clyde, darling? Will we rarely see each other now?” Another habit she gained was calling me “darling” after our encounter with CB and the Flamers. Again, I didn’t mind one bit.

There was a slight hint of fear in her voice this time though, like she didn’t want to hear my honest answer and was afraid that I would completely forget about her once I got home. Truth was, I didn’t have a honest answer. Not yet at least. I sat there thinking for a good amount of time. I never really had a home, other than the town where I was born at, but that was out of the picture now. Plus on the other side of things, I didn’t know exactly what to do next in my life.

When the bus reached Ponyville, the others got off. Spike was hesitant to leave Wahlburn as he was his drug buddy for life, but Twilight didn’t care and dragged him away. I told Rarity that I would visit in a week or two, as I wanted to take time to think about future plans.  I could tell she was disheartened, but I could also tell she understood my request.

When we finally got back to our town, everyone quickly made their way to their homes to get well deserved sleep. Tyrone and I crashed down on the two sofas in Cannon’s basement.

“Shit man, that was some pretty crazy shit we been through lately. Guess it’s just another normal day for Tyrone and Clyde.” Tyrone gave a laugh.

I laughed too. I had to. Tyrone was the craziest dude I knew, along with being my best friend for life. Without him, I don’t know where I would be. I asked him what he was going to do now.

“Me and Poncho had this same conversation. I told him I was going to take a break from ballin’ for a while and start a pimping business in another ghetto town. Easy cash man.”

I sat there and stared at the scar on my leg. I then thought of Rarity, as I knew she would help me make my comeback happen, by having her as my main motivation. I told Tyrone that I was going to keep playing, mostly for her, and if that failed me, start a music career, as a producer or singer/rapper that maybe someday, he could help with.

“Clyde getting soft now, huh? Nah man, but if she believes you can make a comeback then so do I. I’ll let you get a head start anyway. When I make a return, you’ll have real competition.” He laughed again then stood up. I joined him as we clutched hooves in a bro-clutch manner.

I followed my plans and went to Canterlot to try to get a spot on the city’s professional team, the Crusaders. Cannon, Sticky, and Rivs also joined me there. It was my first time being pressured while recovering from my injury. I was able to do all the drills from before, but I used slight precaucion. Even though we didn’t go through the official draft, we still made the extra spots on the team. The Crusaders weren’t a particular top-tier team that made the playoffs every year, in fact, they haven’t been in the postseason for over twenty years, but I was here to mostly try and recover my skills I had before. Championships could wait.

Our coach, who was also a rookie for the team this year, went by the name of Tebow, and apparently was well known as he got wins in his earlier seasons with a different team in the west. His two references were a sports analyst, Kip Bayless, and another pony who only wrote JC as his name.

Since I was part of the team, we all received a free condo room in either Canterlot or another town close by. I chose Ponyville. Cannon, Sticky, and Rivs wanted Canterlot originally, but decided to just come with me instead.

We had practice five to six days a week, one or two being film days, and usually a break on Fridays. Since the preseason was approaching, Tebow wanted us to stay focused. Preseason games really didn’t matter, but I didn’t argue. On Friday, a week after joining the team because we had off, I went to go find a certain girl in town.

I knocked on the front door of the Carousel Boutique waiting for Rarity to open the door. She told me earlier what her house-slash-business looked like and where it was located with respect to the town square. I haven’t talked to her since that night we returned home so I decided to buy some flowers to be even more cliché and for more bonus points. When the door finally opened, I saw her face light up then heard her squeal in glee and nearly tackle me, hugging me tightly.

After she stopped hugging me, I told her about the past week, which she then proceeded to hug me tightly again. After she stopped the second time, I decided to finally take her out on our first official “date” since I was making straight bank for playing for the professional team. She didn’t decline my offer, and quickly ran back inside to get ready.

After our little dinner “date”, Rarity gave me a tour of Ponyville, like where all her friends lived. Most of them were home, so they all talked to me as if I was a friend from the past they haven’t seen in a decade. I was surprised they bothered talking to me as I really didn't spark any conversations with them on the trip, except Spike. When I regrouped with Spike, he asked how Wahlburn was doing. I told him he was doing deals now in his hometown, which Spike thought that was good for him.

When I finally received my Crusaders jerseys a few days later, I went over to Rarity’s. All basketball jerseys were sleeveless, but I, even in my university days, would wear a shoulder sleeve on my left shoulder. Since Rarity was my number one fan after all, I wanted her to embroider her cutie mark onto my sleeve, as a homage to the whole “A knight wears the colors of his lady into battle” phrase that I always enjoyed. She thought the idea was super adorable and romantic so she happily went along with it.

For the next year, life remained mostly the same for me. Our team missed the playoffs again, but I did get some mentions of being on the All-Star Rookie team along with Rivs. If I wasn’t playing basketball or jamming out to music, I was usually with Rarity out somewhere, whether it be watching movies together, eating together at a restaurant , or simply just staring at each other. Other than Cannon, Rivs, and Sticky, I rarely saw my other friends as they still lived back at the university town. I think I hung out with Rarity’s friends more than my own in that span of time.

Speaking of which, at the time of this, our return from South Beach was about a year ago. I’m wondering if another trip to somewhere is being planned by-

Wait. Why the hell am I still writing this?

* * * * *

“Am I done yet?” asked Clyde as he leaned back on the chair. “I came over here to borrow a movie, not write a damn book.”

“Sorry Clyde, I asked Rarity if you could do this for me and she didn’t mind,” said Twilight. “If you ever do become super famous, I want to be your editor and publisher of your biography. Plus, since you are dating one of my best friends, I need to know if I can trust you fully.”

“It’s been a year already. If we lasted that long, then I’m pretty sure that’s a good sign.” Clyde stood up, stretched, and looked out the window. “Can I just have the movie? It’s getting late.”

“Oh yeah, it’s on the shelf beside the door.” Clyde sighed and went towards the door as Twilight picked up Clyde’s written documents of his life with magic. After scanning the first paper quickly, she looked up. “Wait, Clyde isn’t your real name?”

Clyde turned around. “Nope.”

“Does Rarity know?”

“Of course she does. Only Tyrone and her know it. It’s not important anymore, so they probably wouldn’t tell you anyway if you asked them. Anyways, thanks for the movie, we’ll return it whenever one of us has some free time.”

“Why that movie anyway?” Twilight asked, “it never really got great reviews.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” said Clyde looking at it. “Sometimes we watch movies to not really watch the movie.”

Twilight stared at him confused. “What?”

Clyde blinked. “N-Nevermind then. I’m leaving. See you later.” Clyde grabbed the disc and quickly exited her library to avoid any more awkwardness.