The Party

Chapter 3

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There’s always that pause just after waking up when you realise what you did the night before. If it’s a normal day, you will think nothing of it and slowly begin your routine. If it’s the day after a party, you can only brace yourself, eyes jammed shut and teeth clenched, and pray to the gods of alcohol for mercy. Once that instant passes, two things can happen. The first is the most common. A world of pain will crash into you and the suffering of a thousand galaxies will permeate your very being.

The second, less common, is nothing. Your eyes don’t ache and your head doesn’t pound, and you remember everything you did the night before.

As you lie there thinking this in that moment after waking, you beg for the latter.

Thankfully, and despite all the times your prayers were ignored, you receive this blessed mercy.

You open your eyes and see a familiar dark blue mane inches away. Shock is facing the other way, still sleeping. Her chest rises and falls slowly with each deep breath. Taking a moment to ogle her as only the most respectable of friends can, you imagine a situation that will never be. Her light red almost-pink fur is messy and dishevelled like her mane, but that only serves to reinforce the image of wild beauty lying before you. It’s strange seeing the energetic pony looking so peaceful and at ease.

She rolls over slowly and faces you, bright green eyes blinking slowly. Recognizing you, she smiles warmly and pulls you into a sleepy hug.

“How’s it going, dude?” she whispers, voice hoarse from lack of use. You return the hug with confused happiness.

“I’m still alive, so not bad.” She laughs at your response, vibrating against your chest.

“Don’t get any weird ideas about this hug. I’m just saying thank you.”

You raise an eyebrow. “For what?”

“I had a dream about all the shit we got up to last night. You turned a pretty bad night into one of the best I’ve ever had.”

She sounds so earnest and sincere you begin to wonder if somepony replaced her brain while she slept.

“Really? You count getting chased by cops as a good night?” you ask, incredulous. She laughs again, with a bit more volume. You can almost feel the energy building as she wakes up entirely.

“Hell yeah I do!” She lets go of you and stands up on the bed, bucking the air, “Running from cops, chilling with sexy mares, drinking with my new best friend and listening to sick beats is my kind of night!”

You laugh and stand up as well. “Well, when you put it that way...”

She starts jumping on the bed and you join in, not even trying to hold back your giggles at the childish fun.

“And the best part is,” she begins as you hit the bed together and fly back into the air, “We’ve still got,” once more you bounce from the covers, “A whole week left!” she screams joyfully.

You stop jumping. “Wait, what?”

Shock lands, the force sending you straight off the bed and crashing to the floor. She snorts and chuckles at your demise, hopping off the bed and standing over you.

“You alright?” She helps you up.

“Yeah, I – What did you mean when you said a whole week left? The party’s over.”

There is a pause and she frowns at you, as if not sure whether you are joking. “Um, dude, that was the prep party. This is Day One.”

You just stare at her in a complete lack of understanding.

She pokes your chest. “You do remember what this is, right? You weren’t that drunk.” When you don’t reply her eyes widen and she motions for you to sit down on the bed. You do so, as confused as a pegasus without wings.

“Okay, this might be a bit of a shock. I’m guessing you got the invite but didn’t actually read it, right?”

You nod sheepishly.

“There’s no easy way to say this, but whether you like it or not you are at the greatest party event of the year.”

“A party that goes for a week?”

“Not just any party, dude. The greatest one. It actually goes for ten days, but most ponies just call it a week.”

You frown, thinking she’s lying. “I think you’re lying.”

She rolls her eyes. “I knew it would be too awesome for you to wrap your head around. I helped you out of a jam last night, didn’t I?” You nod grudgingly. “Then trust me again and know I’m not lying.”

It’s a good point and you sigh. “Alright, tell me what’s going down.”

“The Lunar Gladiatorial Feast Revival Festival, otherwise known as The Best Fucking Party You Will Ever Go To, is an old tradition that’s been updated and restored since Princess Luna came back. She came up with this idea to have an insanely big mansion built in which she could play games with us little ponies. Instead of making us fight and kill each other though, she decided to make it into a survival-party. A thousand ponies are invited from all over Equestria, commoners like you and me as well as celebrities, and we all have to live through the ten days with unlimited booze and music.”

You spot a flaw. “What’s to stop us from leaving? That’s what we were gonna do last night.”

“They lock us in, dumbass. We could have left last night because that was the prep party. Now we’re stuck here.” Shock didn’t seem the least bit bothered by this development.

“What if somepony gets injured or drinks too much?”

“Then they might die. That’s what makes this party so hardcore.” She grabs your shoulders, sporting a huge grin. “Ponies die at this party, dude! It’s awesome!”

You feel the blood draining from your face. “So what you’re saying is that I’m trapped in this mansion with insane, drunken ponies while being hunted by a roving death squad led by the third most powerful unicorn in Equestria?”

“Yup! For ten days!”

“Oh sweet Celestia what have I gotten myself into.”

Shock puts her hoof around you and rests her head against yours. “Don’t worry, dude. I’ve been to one of these before so I’ll keep you alive.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“No problem. Now, since it looks like it’s before noon, this is a good time to go and raid for supplies. We’ve already got a base room, so that’s not an issue.”

Removing her hoof, Shock walks over to a small set of drawers and opens the bottom one, retrieving a small silver key.

“Locking the door last night was a good move on your part, but we’ll need this if we ever want to keep hold of this room.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are a thousand ponies, but not a thousand rooms. Trust me, later on this place becomes a battlefield.”

You gulp and follow her as she leaves the room, carefully locking the door behind her. The music is playing well known songs at only half the volume it was at last night, which probably means Vinyl is off sleeping somewhere covered in mares and had set up her machines to just roll a playlist. In any case you are grateful, since loud music isn’t really desirable this early.

With your mind no longer clouded by alcohol, some of the halls and doors start to look different from each other, no longer stretching to infinity as they did last night. You try as hard as you can to memorise the path to you room so you can make it back later. Shock keeps stopping to peer into open rooms or test closed ones. Very few ponies seem to have locked theirs like you did, meaning there were quite a few angry, hungover shouts from sleeping partiers.

After about half an hour of searching, Shock bursts through a door into a store room with crates stacked up filled with every sort of food imaginable.

“Jackpot!” she squeals, balancing three smaller crates on her back. “You grab some too. No starving to death for us!”

You grudgingly pick up and balance four crates, determined to outdo Shock and preserve your masculinity. She just rolls her eyes and leads you back through the hall. Together, it doesn’t take long to find the correct corridor and room. You silently praise your memory for doing its job for once.

When all the crates have been unloaded in your room, Shock looks over them in approval. “This is good. I don’t think we even need any more than this.”

You don’t reply, kicking the lid off one of your crates and tearing open a packet of chips. Never has there been a sweeter breakfast. Shock joins in, stuffing her mouth with marshmallows from one of her crates. Together, you absolutely demolish a quarter of a crate each. She gives you a big sticky grin and you return it, wiping the crumbs from your mouth.

“Breakfast of champions, am I right?” she laughs. You nod, having attained a satisfactory level of fullness.

For some reason, watching Shock adorably trying to get pieces of marshmallow out from between her teeth makes you think of Twilight. Now that you can think clearly, you can’t believe how you acted. You met her, and then less than half an hour later you tried to sleep with her. Having always thought of yourself as a somewhat good-natured stallion made it even worse, with your opinion of yourself dropping to dangerously low levels. You felt disgusted with yourself. A pony like you doesn’t deserve to even talk to Twilight.

Shock bops your nose softly. “You alright dude? Your face went from amused to heartbroken in like one second.”

You snap out of it and force a smile. “Don’t worry about it. What should we do now?”

She looks concerned but doesn’t press the issue. “Well, nothing much happens on the first day. We establish our base room and get some food to last us a few days. Normally I would spend the rest of the day partying my ass off, but since somepony tried to fuck Princess Celestia’s student I can’t do that without being caught.”

Wincing, you mumble an apology. Shock just sighs and smiles. “I’m only messing with you, lighten up. Hey,” her face brightens as she gets an idea, “I’ve got an idea! This place usually has a control room of some sort for emergencies. Like, building-is-on-fire emergencies. But I think it also has controls to all the little tricks and traps Princess Luna loves putting around here. If we found it and started messing with the controls, we could force an early end.”

You frown. “How does that help our situation? That’s just a quick path to the cops.”

She bops your nose yet again. “Think outside the box, dude. If we totally fucking wreck this place they’ll be too focused on cleaning up and saving everypony to notice us slip away.”

“Wreck this place, eh? I kinda like the sound of that.” A slow, evil grin parts your lips, one that Shock mimics.

“I bring out the worst in you,” she says cheerfully.

You can’t help but agree.