So Far...

“Soooo... this is the place? Not the Snot Cannelloni or whatever?” I asked sheepishly. The building was mossy and the brown bricks were frosted in a slime green. The sign was on a post, something I haven’t seen outside old early 1900s pictures. It had writing on it so fancy I could barely make out “Parti de la Tranquillité”.

“Yep, this is the place!” pinkie said happily as she entered. “Don’t worry about me; it’ll be like I’m not even here”

Upon hearing her voice, some of the chefs ducked down and many of the patrons hastily requested their checks, barely touching their food. At one corner of the room, Soarin and Spitfire saw us and buried their heads behind the menus. I guess they’re in the romantic-dinner-make-up phase of their love/hate cycle. I’ll never understand women.

A waiter showed us to our square wooden table, sans tablecloth, and Rainbow and I sat on two antique chairs facing each other, sliding in on the white linoleum floor, overlooking the big bay windows. We picked up our menus, and the obvious ensues. Everything is borderline overpriced, and the food is inedible to humans. It just seems like a million ways to prepare wild grass and some salads.

“What may I interest you in drinking tonight?” a pony in a black suit asked.

“Sprite” I said, out of force of habit.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Sorry, what do you have?”

“Water, teas, sarsaparilla, punch, assorted juices, berry compotes, as well as alcoholic beverages which are listed on the back of your menu.”

“I’ll have water, I guess.”

“And the lady?” the pony asked, looking at Rainbow.

“I’ll have water too” Rainbow replied.

The waiter folded his big black book onto his pen and walked away. Pinkie, however, who was sitting not far from us, started a ruckus.

“What do you mean you’re out of sarsaparilla? It says right here on the menu that you have sarsaparilla! I wonder why it’s spelled ‘sarsaparilla’ if it’s pronounced like sas-puh-ril-uh?”

“Ma’am, would you like something else instead? We have a fine assortment of juices...” said a blue waiterpony with darker blue hair and music notes for a cutie mark. He must have had limited success in his “special talent”.

“Yes, I would like a tall glass of coffee, double sugar and a Red Bull.” Pinkie said emotionlessly.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but... we cannot serve that to you.”

“Are you discriminating against ME!?!”

I facepalmed and Rainbow groaned simultaneously, as more eyes turned to Pinkie.

“Hardly, madam, calling this discrimination would be like calling it religious intolerance to not let a suicide bomberpony to explode because that is the will of his god” he said frankly, but not inappropriately. I like that waiter.

Pinkie huffed and replied “come back in a few minutes.” Her waiter nodded and disembarked, pouring some more water into Rainbow’s cup of ice. Another Rainbow Dash tapped me on the shoulder.

“Ye- OH WHAT THE F-“ I stopped myself. Rainbow froze, looking at us, her muzzle in the glass cup, in the middle of the process of drinking.

“Hello Arthur, I am Rainbow Dash” a voice said, crudely but with significant success replicating Rainbow’s slightly gravelly voice.

“What the heck...? Who are you?”

“It’s me, Pinkie!” Pinkie said in her normal voice. She took off a makeshift mask to reveal her face, and suddenly she became Pinkie again. “The changeling queen taught me to do this the other day. She was really nice and all, and now I can replicate absolutely anypony!” She took a blank mask template out of a rather large metal cigarette box, and a few crayons, and drew a pretty bad picture of Soarin. Surely enough, when she put the mask on, Soarin was staring right at me.

*Ahem* “I am Soarin and I like pie. And Spitfire. But mostly pie.” She said in an artificial baritone.

She returned to her seat right as the waiter returned.

“May I- Oh Soarin, you’re sitting here now? Ok then, what can I get you?”

“I would like a tall glass of coffee, double sugar and a Red Bull.” Soarin said in his artificial baritone. The waiter batted a peculiar eye at the pony and slowly walked away, looking back to see if he was just getting trolled.

“Will you be having appetizers or go right to the entrée?”

“I think I’m ready to order” I said.

“Me too” added Rainbow.

The waiter took our orders, Rainbow ordered some carrots cooked in some French way which she handily mispronounced, though I could likely do no better, and I ordered what I thought was corn wrapped in grass and drizzled in mayonnaise. Then again the French words and the font did me no justice in ordering what I thought I ordered.

“What did you order?” Rainbow asked quizzically.

“I have absolutely no idea” I said at first comically, but then my words faded to self-pity. “I’m probably going to die anyway from lack of iron since all I have eaten as of yet is hippy food!”

“What’s a hippy?” Rainbow asked.

“It’s a counter-culture movement of the 1960s to protest the war in Vietnam and to do drugs, also to rebel against authority, and they had concerts like in Woodstock where more hippies played songs like “We Didn’t Start The Fire” or “I Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die Rag”, which are great songs, and... you probably don’t understand a word I’m saying.”

Rainbow looked at me dumbly, but corrected herself and tapped me on my arm. “You are so weird! What is it with you and Hillter and Vietnam and the rants you do about Bush and the oil companies oppressing the 99%?”

“Well see, on Earth we have mass-media that make these stories on people getting mauled at the zoo or some old grandma finding a finger in her food.”

“Don’t they ever do any news that’s... well... good news?”

“This one time they had a story on Osama getting killed.”

“A killing? That’s good news?”

“Point taken. Yep, we humans just barbaric technologically advanced caveman-nerds.”

Rainbow looked at me funny again but then just faced the fact that she won’t get a straight answer from me whether I want to give one or not.

“I’m sorry ma’am, but this was ordered by Soarin” the blue waiter replied.

“Oh horse flank!” Berry Punch yelled from where Pinkie sat. “I demand that drink!”

“I PLEAD THE FIFTH!” Soarin cried, hiding behind the first thing he could find in his uniform; the Sports Equestriated magazine. Spitfire rolled her eyes and slumped on her elbow.

“Ma’am, please keep your voice down...”

“Are you accusing me of being on my period?”

“No, not by any-“

“ITS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS WHAT PART OF MY MENSTRUAL CYCLE I AM ON!”

“Ma’am... are you by any chance...”

Pinkie took her mask off and revealed her true identity.

“So you have found out my secret Mr...” Pinkie examined the waiter’s uniform. “... Mr. Noteworty.” She quickly taped a bit coin onto the mask and put it on, and the bit coin rolled away, snatching the coffee.

Our plates arrived, and Rainbow received a tray of burnt carrots, and I received a plate of small mushroom stems and a pineapple. Not even cooked or in any way prepared. Just a pineapple.

“Romantic Pinkie says...” I mumbled.

“It’s not that bad I guess...” Rainbow said. She bit a burnt carrot, letting a loud crunch ring through the room. Her face slumped. “First and last time I lie to try to spare anypony’s feelings.” She thrust some bits on the table, as did I, and we left.

“Let’s go get a flatpie or something” Rainbow suggested. “I don’t need any fancy schmancy atmosphere or burnt carrots to make me feel loved.”

“A flatpie? I have never heard of that...”

“It’s kind of hard to explain, but you have to try it. I remember Scootaloo’s face when she had her first. Magic, I tell you.”

A pink shockwave rocked downtown Canterlot and bricks and glass littered the street behind us, as smoke filled the dark blue sky and a little pink dot rocketed through the air, leaving a pink brushstroke behind her.

“I wonder if Pinkie could also break the sound barrier...” Rainbow said, but quickly took it back. No one wanted to imagine the day.

We made a left turn at a firehouse, out of which two stallions sprinted, one with a ladder and a hose, the other with a big red axe, wailing loudly into the night in a warbled cadence. We strolled onto a ramp made of horizontal wooden beams, sand littering the cracks, held down by rows of large nails. It led to a broader walkway, also made of wood, but instead of horizontal rows it had diagonal rows, separated by lateral wooden beams.

“Ah, the boardwalk...” Rainbow sighed. “Free to walk on, with the best breeze and scent of ocean air. Why do people even go to fancy restaurants, beats me. And look!” She pointed a hoof over the long sandy beach, past the rows of jetty, and to a little glowing island, covered in insignificant buildings, with a backdrop of Luna’s moon. “That island is Manehattan, the second most populated city in Equestria, but certainly the most bustling and restless.”

“I thought we were going to a flatpie store?” I asked, or rather stated with heavy doubt.

“Oh we are, it’s right at that place” she pointed her hoof at a giant ferris wheel, glowing pastel colors in the night sky, which by now was nearly pitch black. “It’s called Pony Island; don’t ask me why, it’s not an island at all, and it barely has any ponies, mostly zebras smoking weeds.”

“Mmhmm...” I gestured, smelling the thick stench of weeds in the air already. “Surely it can’t be worse than the human world parallel to this place...”

A few quick gunshots rang from a few blocks away.

“I take it back.”

“Yeah you have to be careful. It’s a lot of fun here during the day, but at night the zebras come out, and smoke their weeds, and often get into chemical fights. That popping noise you heard was probably jars of potion hitting the ground... Just don’t attract attention to yourself, and stay close to a big strong mare like me, and we’ll be just fine” she reassured.

A few eyes batted at us, but other than that it was uneventful, despite the fact that being surrounded by zebras and their by-products, mostly the smell of the weeds, is a huge turn-off.

“Alright, here we are!” she said with large eyes, looking at a sign illuminated by lights that says “Family Flatpie Shoppe, since 1917!” A few other ponies sat on barstools bolted to the boardwalk on the outer rim of the large yellow counter, inside of which 2 stallions scrambled in front of a large oven.

“2 please” Rainbow said, slapping 4 bits on the table and sliding them over to one of the stallions. He nodded and put the bits in a locked box, and continued doing whatever he was doing. Suddenly a third stallion entered the area sectioned off by the counter with what looked like a very large paddle, opened the oven, and pulled out a... PIZZA! IT’S A PIZZA!

Rainbow looked at my face and smiled. “That’s Scootaloo’s exact face!” she remarked.

“No, Rainbow, you don’t understand. THAT IS MY FAVORITE FOOD!”

“That’s also what she said, but first she actually ate her piece... You sure are quick to judge!”

“IT’S PIZZA!”

“It’s... what now?”

A stallion slid everypony a slice on a thin paper plate, and I bit a piece off of mine.

“Oh my gosh, IT IS PIZZA!”

“Is there something I’m missing here?”

“On my planet, we have this same exact thing, but it’s called pizza.”

“Really? A hair-depleted flatpie-loving friendly alien. Those sure don’t come around often” she joked, elbowing me in the ribs, and began happily munching on her flatpie.

We finished our flatpies and headed back to the hangar. We passed the restaurant we were at, which was a charred mess that resembled Twilight’s library after Pinkie; I could tell because both look very much like Berlin in 1945. One stallion poured water on smoldering remains of a kitchen, while another was wailing and flashing red and blue strobe lights on the walls, quite unnecessarily as the whole downtown Canterlot didn’t need to know that they were there, but they knew anyway from the previous explosion. A chef was being helped out of the rubble by the blue waiter.

We passed the guard gates, and after a screening to make sure we weren’t changelings, we were let in and were greeted by some of the other Wonderbolts. We told them about the events and the cause of the explosion, and how we saw Spitfire and Soarin. Almost immediately everypony threw a party, not because they wanted them to be hurt in the explosion, they just knew that when those two go out together, the next morning they are usually too exhausted to deal with those who woke up late. I agreed with their logic and had some shots of vodka with Rainbow, which quickly escalated into a contest. And then we went to bed, and everything sexual happened.