An Explosive Journey

Nova, The Bass Dome

When I had stepped down from the DJ booth, Lyra came over towards me with two recognizable mares in tow, Derpy and Berry Punch. Derpy came up and said hi; I couldn't resist giving her a big hug. Come on, who wouldn't? Berry Punch then came up to me and asked me a question.

"So, do you hold your liquor as good as you pick songs on that device of yours, or do you just pass out after a couple drinks?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say that was a challenge."

Berry gave a coy smile, "I dunno, maaaaybeee."

I thought about it for a second, 'If I actually beat her, I could very well become a legend. Ah, what harm could it do?' Stupid question.

I gave we one of Rarity's famous lines, "Oh, it. Is. ON!"

We both then rushed over towards the VIP area, which had a bar and a few tables for ponies to sit at; it was located at the back and to the right. When we got there, a dark purple unicorn stallion with piercing orange eyes and a very messy and unkempt mane and tail was working the bar. He took one look at us and smirked, "Another challenger?"

I couldn't help myself, "Eeeyup." They both laughed.

"Well, since you did kind of save our flanks from a possible dragon attack, and you work for Vinyl, the whole match is on the house, anything that's currently in stock." Berry's face lit up at that statement.

"Well, in that case, how about we start off with a bottle of Canterlot Merlot red wine, from 800?" Shadow Streak's eyes went wide, "You are lucky that this is a favor to Nova, or else you would be picking up the 2,000 bit tab for that on the spot."

I almost choked, "What did you say, 2,000 bits for a 202 year old bottle of wine?"

Shadow cleared his throat, "202 year old Canterlot wine to be exact. That stuff isn't expensive without reason, you know. That was made during the time that Canterlot had a dry period; nopony was permitted to make, sell, or consume any alcohol, by request of the mayor."

Berry nudged me, "So, you wanna get this started, or are we going to just sit here and chat all day long?"

I brought two glasses that would take half of the bottle of wine from my pocket space, "Whenever you're ready, Punch." I poured the wine into her glass, and then mine. We clinked our glasses together, "To being awesome." Berry giggled, "To being awesome."

We both promptly chugged down the wine, which quite honestly tasted pretty damn good, better than even the most expensive wines back home. The both of us finished and set down our glasses at the same time. Shadow just stared at us for the longest time without saying anything, and just looked at us in awe. I turned around and saw that we had already gathered a little crowd of ponies that wanted to see who Berry would be supposedly drinking under the table today.

"Is it always like this?" Shadow nodded, "Unfortunately yes, she is quite obviously the famed town drunkard, who could drink anyone under the table. No one has beat her yet."

I had only one thing to say, "Challenge accepted."

This was enough to gather the attention of most ponies in the dome, prompting even Vinyl to step down and take a look at what was going on. I looked around, and saw that Lyra was pushing her way into the center, most likely to come over and talk to me. I saved her the trouble of having to push through ponies and teleported her right next to me after forming a chair beside me. Instead of sitting on the chair, Lyra seemed to have a better idea: climbing up and laying across my lap. It was a little awkward, but somehow she managed to make it work. Some ponies gasped and whispered to themselves, and it was then that I knew I was gonna have to let the secret out.

"If I may have your attention," The entire dome fell silent. 'Heh, if someone were to drop a needle -' Right then and there, somepony had actually dropped a needle, just to see if everypony could hear it. The entire crowd, myself included, looked at the short black stallion pegasus, with his black mane that had a white streak. He laughed nervously, "Come on, don't tell me that none of you thought of doing that!?" Everypony just turned back to me, as I had news for them that seemed interesting enough for them to pay attention.

I continued, "As I was going to say, I have news for you all. Some of you may have recently seen me within the company of Lyra Heartstrings here," I stroked her mane, making said pony sigh in comfort, "and I would like to point out that yes, we are in a relationship. I have had the pleasure of seeing that most of you here do not hold any qualms about such a relationship taking place, though the rest of you that are present may not feel that way. To that, I have this to say: suck it up, because we aren't going to break up just because some ponies don't like their race being 'defiled', or however you put it. We are not about to change who we are or how we feel just because a few of you do not like us being together, or having to put up with me living here all together." I pulled out a kleenex box, "Got an issue, here's a tissue."

Most of those present laughed at the joke I threw in at the end, and I could see that some of them were not pleased to hear what I had said. I could see a few ponies leaving through the doors of the building. One thing intrigued me though: one of the ponies that was in the group had Celestia's Royal Guard uniform. 'Nothing good can come from this, I know it. Looks like I'd better be careful from now on, as it seems I am on thin ice now.'

I brought my attention back to the crowd around us, "So, who's up for seeing me take on Berry Punch here in a drinking contest?" The entire audience roared in cheers, giving me their answer. "Alright then, here goes nothing."

I called Shadow for two bottles of the strongest rum he had... it was Bacardi 151.

'Holy fudgenuggets, they got Bacardi here. Well, looks like it won't be a boring contest after all.'

Both Berry and I took our respective bottles, poured the drink into our glasses, which were your average scotch glasses, and chugged them one at a time. Berry gave a loud belch as the last glass was finished, and held up her empty bottle, meanwhile I was in the middle of juggling mine with the other glasses. "Oh, you finished? About time. Oh and next time you gotta belch, lemme know, I got an experiment I wanna try." I smirked, taking out a lighter from one of my pockets. Berry giggled at the idea, knowing full well what I wanted to do, though Lyra facehoofed.

"Lyra, I think you might want to get off of my lap, I don't want to be responsible for you getting hurt during this."

Lyra obliged and moved to the chair that was to the right of me, placing her right between myself and Berry Punch. I set the glasses and the bottle down on the table with magic rather than just finishing the juggling. Berry called over Shadow and asked for my old nemesis, vodka. I shuddered. Many times that I had drunk vodka nothing really happened, save for getting wasted, but nothing eventful really. Then there was that one time one of my buddies from work decided it would be a good idea to mix different brands of vodka together, along with a bit of sugar and a bit of those subtle laxatives that you can put into your own food if you have problems taking the ordinary stuff. Needless to say, I was sick for a week straight, and I had never drank vodka ever since. Even the thought of drinking it made me sick to my stomach.

I cringed, and Berry must have seen it, because she then smiled at me and asked in a mocking tone, "Aw, is da widdle baby unable to hanle dwinking some vodka? Shouwd I caw it off?"

"Berry, I have two words to say: no way. Plus, it's been a while since I've had any, so I don't think my body will reject it anymore." BP then handed me the bottle, which was labelled 'Stalliongrad Standard'. I laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh nothing Berry, it's just that it reminded me of something back home in my world."

"Alright then, enough reminiscing, let's get this going."

I raised a glass full of vodka into the middle of the table, prompting what I thought would be only one other glass, but we were joined by a third; Lyra had poured herself a glass. I looked to her, and she had a blush on her face. 'Dawwwww. No matter how many times I see that, it's always cute as hell.'

"So, you decided to join is in our shenanigans Lyra?" All I got as a response was a wide smile; I laughed, "Alright, just don't complain about your aching head tomorrow."

"Aye aye. Now, are we going to get this started, or are you two going to keep stalling?"

"Ooooohh, them's fightin words Lyra, them's fightin words." We both chuckled.

I raised my glass again, "To love, tolerance, and the magic of friendship!"

Everyone shouted in unison, "HERE HERE!"

I chugged down the first glass, as did Berry and Lyra, we then poured ourselves another glass. This process continued until the bottle was emptied of its contents, and it seemed that we were all starting to get drunk. Lyra was intoxicated enough to have me make her stay in her seat, lest she topple over, whereas Berry and I were just getting started.

Berry made a comment about Lyra being a lightweight, and I agreed and thought it was funny.

"She may be a lightweight, but at least she has enough class to get wasted from chugging vodka than trying different mixtures and possibly making herself sick the next day. The last thing I need is to take care of a sick pony because of her own decision to punish her innocent liver, and made her stomach upset from drinking the wrong combination of mixed drinks."

"That's true."

"Hehehe, hey, why are you two so mean, huh? What did I ever do to you?"

Berry got a creepy smile on her face, "Whadda you want me to do to make up for being mean, kiss you?" I saw where this was heading, and for some reason I didn't bother to stop Berry and her stupid yet funny and possibly hot idea.

"What are you waiting for, kiss me you foo-" her words were cut short by a pair of lips. They weren't mine, but Berry's. The two of them were just pressing lips, but then Lyra, in her drunken state, must have prodded Berry's lips with her tongue, because next thing I knew, the two of them were lip locked in a passionate kiss, and I just sat there, taking in the sight before me. Not wanting to miss the oppertunity, I pulled an HD camcorder out of my pocket, and started recording. I held it up with magic, so as to not shake the camera.

'I'm not going to let this chance slip past, I am gonna record this and keep it safe. There's just something about two girls kissing that is incredibly hot, and I'm sure that some female yaoi fans would agree with me and say the same thing about two guys kissing. There's no way that I'm going to sell this or let it out of my possession, but it's something nice to have when there's nothing else to watch.'

The drunken makeout session lasted for a few minitues. 'Seriously, how long are those two going to keep at it?' I stopped recording and turned off the camera. "Lyra, Berry, I know you seem to be enjoying your kiss and all, but this is just getting ridiculous." Berry pulled out from the kiss, and gave me a reply that I didn't really expect to hear.

"Oh, you jealous Nova? You wanna taste the Berry? I'm sure your marefriend won't mind; after all, she did kiss me first, and there really isn't a rule saying there's a limit to how many mares a stallion can have in his group, due to Ponyville's male to female ratio. Mating season is going to come up soon, and that means a LOT of sexually active and frustrated mares are going to be about, so it's common to see about three to five mares to one stallion."

My face was a dead giveaway to how I felt right then and there: utter shock and fear. The male to female ratio in Ponyville as I recalled, was about one male to six females. This made me fear for my life, as I remembered that one scene from Girls Bravo, an anime series where a young boy was transported to a planet that had a male population of less than ten percent, causing the entire city to chase after him. 'I'm all for harems, but not when it's five females that happen to share the timeframe of sexually active periods.'

Berry must have seen my face, as she tried to comfort me a little, which was out of character for her... to me at least. "Hey, don't worry Nova, I'll make sure to go easy on you, but I'm gonna warn you now, Lyra's got a bit of a quirk."

I gave a nervous smile, "Oh I know about that already. She used it as a threat to get me out of a trance when we spotted MicTheMicrophone and JackleApp in Canterlot. I think I actually saw the hammer she was referring to when I first arrived."

"That old thing? I thought I gave it to Twilight as a joke gift. Guess she must've given it to Lyra, knowing she would probably use it. So, let's get back to drinking our asses off, I want this to be a party I barely remembered but had fun at anyway!"

"Cheers to that." We both started pouring ourselves another bottle of vodka. One more bottle of vodka later, Berry was starting to get drunk. I on the other hand had just a bit of resolve left in me. I had a stupid idea, though I figured 'what the hell' and went through with it anyway.

"Hey Shadow, another bottle of that wine, and how about a bottle of absinthe as well?"

Shadow's eyes widened, "Dude, you're not wasted yet!? Do us all a favor, and return that liver to Celestia, I think she's gonna need it back before you damage it too much." I brohoofed him after walking over to the bar and taking the bottles from him.

Walking back over to the table we were sitting at, I noticed that Lyra was sobering up, and Berry was somehow almost completely back to normal. "One, how the heck are you completely sober Berry? And two, how 'bout some wine and absinthe? I don't plan on remembering this night either, and I'm still partially drunk anyway."

Berry took the bottles from me and set them on the table, while I fished out a pitcher from my pocket space. After I set the pitcher on the table, Berry opened both bottles and poured out the entire bottle of wine, and then poured in a bit of absinthe, just enough to get us plastered, but not enough to completely destroy our livers. I took out glasses that were big enough to hold a third of the pitcher's contents, and gave us each one. After pouring the mix for Berry and Lyra, I took the rest, so we each had the same amount.

Lyra cut in before we picked up our glasses, "It's been a fun party, and I doubt I'll remember this night," Lyra looked around and spotted Twilight, "Hey, Twilight, think you could compile a list of anything that either of us do that's either funny, stupid, or just plain retarted during the rest of the party?"

The unicorn mare smiled, knowing full well that this would be a very interesting afternoon and evening, "Sure thing."

Pinkie Pie appeared out of nowhere, and came over to our table, "On three! One, two, THREE! CHUG!"

After downing the whole glass at once, I slammed it down and saw that Lyra had passed out from all the alcohol and excitement.

"FATALITY!"

And that's the last thing I remembered shouting.