Fleetwood Rides Again

Prolouge

I woke to the sound of my alarm.

"Oh, boy, another day in the rat race," I muttered, as I the shut damn thing up.

After that, it started off like just another average day. I put on my suit, walked out the door, and got in my Cadillac. I began driving to work, catching glances from everypony at the sight of the black convertible. I didn't care anymore, at first it was fun to say, "Hey! Look at me!", but it had lost it's fun. Let's face it, my life had no meaning whatsoever.

I pulled up to the dealer, greeted by the smell of gasoline wafting out from the nearby garage, and began to walk up to the doors, when dad came running up, screaming about something, probably the piece of paper he was holding.

"WE GOT IT, BOY!" he cried with joy, crushing me as he gave me a hug, "WE GOT IT BACK!!"

At first I was wondering, "What the heck is up with him? He NEVER shows affection!", but then he elaborated:

Back in 2008, even in EQUESTRIA, the economy was bad. Everypony had to cut back. The Broughams were no exception, we had to sell the mansion that had been in our family since it was built in 1542. The other day, I was talking to a guy I know well, the king of Equestria HIMSELF, Father Night! I was saying something like, "Yeah, I really miss the old place," and apparently, he actually GOT IT BACK!

"Dad, this is great!" I exclaimed, nearly exploding in joy, "Now we can go back to Canterlot!" I actually had never lived there, but dad had, and so had grampa. I remember visiting it, but that was when I was 5, "Now the entire family can move in again!"

"Not so fast, Hotrod!" he laughed, patting me on the back (Since when has he ever even LOVED me?), "You're gonna be livin' there, not me! You've lived with yer parents long enough! I'm finally RID o' you, boy!"

Well, that's typical Eldorado Brougham for you. He shoved me into some random station wagon from the lot, handed me some suitcases, and gave me a farewell.

After a while of driving on the expressway toward Canterlot, I decided to survey my situation:

This day was going pretty bad. I had just been kicked out, and I was driving a Chevy Kingswood. A KINGSWOOD! This couldn't get any worse!

Oh, I stand corrected.

I was greeted by the sound of a siren, and a moment later, I looked in my rear-view mirror to see a motorcycle cop signalling for me to pull over.

"Sir," he said, walking up next to my car, "Do you know you were doing 90 in a 55 zone?"

It turns out, I had been so caught up in thought, I hadn't noticed how fast I had been going. I tried to think up a joke to make the situation go better.

"Well, thank Celestia you stopped me when you did, if I had gone around a corner, I would've DIED, with this being an American car and all, American cars can't turn-"

He silenced me with a sharp glare. "Do you know how dangerous that is?"

I shrugged. "Sorry."

"Sorry doesn't cut it, buddy, you could've killed somepony! You know why my job's the best job in the world?!"

"Because you get to act like you're better than me?"

"What? NO!" The cop had obviously had enough of my sense of humor. "Because I get to put scumbags like YOU behind bars! Now, I want you to come with me down to the station RIGHT NOW!"

I opened my car door, and trotted up to him. Now that I was standing up, I was quite taller than him, and I decided to play that to my advantage.

"And what if I don't, SCOOTER?" I growled, towering over him. "What if I don't WANT to go to jail? Now, you get back on your little moped, and you go arrest somepony else, I'm having a bad day."

I gave him a shove to tell him I meant buisiness, and he dipped his head, trembling in fear, and let out a shaky, "Y-y-yes, sir."

As I got back in the Kingswood, I looked through the rear-view mirror to see the poor kid scurrying back to his motorcycle, and racing off in the opposite direction. I sure fooled him! I continued on down the highway, following a map, one of the few things Eldorado had given me, to the Brougham Mansion.

I turned left, just where it said to, and soon found myself driving down a heavily-rutted dirt road. After some driving, I came to a fork in the road. One sign read "Dead Hill Cemetary", the other two read "Brougham Mansion", and "Everfree Forest". They both pointed the same way.

Well, this day has just gone from bad to worse....

Pretty soon, the tree cover was extremely thick, and I mean THICK! Hell, I was so far away from civilization, I couldn't even get a signal on the radio!

I passed pairs of evil eyes watching me from under the bushes, old cars that had broken down, went over some disused railroad tracks, and I was there: The gates of the mansion. Beside me lay a rusting Packard hearse. It was something out of the old "Scooby Doo" series! In the distance, I spotted the crumbling chimneys of the old building, and I could hear some sort of pounding noise eminating from it's direction. After I opened the gates, which were somehow unlocked, I got back in the car, and kept on going. The pounding got louder as I got nearer. As soon as I rounded a corner, I saw a familiar red pickup parked at the mansion steps.

"HARLEY!" I called as I recognized the Apache Pickup to be my cousin's, "Harley, where ya at, man?"

"Up here!" I recognized Harley's southern drawl, which was unique to him and Eldorado, and looked up to see Harley on the roof, hammering in new shingles. "Eldorado told me ya were gonna live here, and ah thought ah'd fix the roof for ya!"

"Well thanks, Harley, I appreciate it." Man, I have the best cousin ever, he came all the way out in the Everfree Forest to fix up this old place!

Now that I noticed it, the mansion had changed since I was last there: The windows were cracked, the paint was peeling off, and the entire structure looked like it was falling in! This wasn't the old Brougham Mansion.

"Let's have a looksy inside, shall we?" Harley suggested, climbing down from the roof, "It's old and dusty, but all the furniture's still there!"

We opened the great oak doors to reveal the massive interior of the manor. We were standing in a large room, hallways branching out to the left, right, and a single large one in front of us. Above it was a balcony and two staircases led down from it, one on each side.

"Hey, Fleet, check this out!" I turned to see that Harley had opened a trapdoor in the floor. Great, just what every ancient fortress needs, a secret passageway! "You wan' go check it out?"

"Sure, let's make a stupid decision for once! How bad could it be?"

We both headed down the stairs into a damp old mine of sorts. We followed it for three hours, until Harley ran into a doorway.

"Well, this is it!" he announced, "Should we open it?"

"Is there any way you could convince me not to?"

We both laughed for a second, and opened it.

We were standing in a great hall, the sun shining in through stained-glass windows. There were streamers hanging from the rafters, tables with empty punch bowls on them, and all sorts of other party-related stuff.

"Wait, man!" Harley exclaimed, "We're in the Royal Palace!"

"Oh, SHIT, no way!" This was unbelievable! The tunnels Cadence and Twilight had been trapped in during the wedding were the mansion's catacombs! MY mansion's catacombs! Me and Harley began to dance around in joy, until we got tired, and decided to explore.

"Let's go see Father Night!" I proclaimed, "I bet he'd be happy to see us!"

Harley shrugged, "Beats sittin' here, dancin' around like ah couple of queers!"

We went sprinting out of the hall in excitement. As we rounded the corner, I ran into somepony, and Harley, the stranger, and I all tumbled down to the ground, rolling over and over until we finally stopped.

By then, I recognized the pony as none other than Princess Luna! We all got up, and I was about to say sorry, when she began to yell at us.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?! HOW DID YOU TWO BREACH THE CASTLE'S SECURITY?!"

As I sat there, listening to her screaming in anger, I couldn't help feeling a little...Strange on the inside.

"We got in through the caves!" Harley explained, "Fleetwood and ah are real sorry we ran into ya."

"Yes," I added, "We're terribly sorry. We're here to see your father."

"Oh, then. He's out in the gardens." Was that dissapointment in her eyes?

We were led outside to the massive gardens to see Father Night himself, trundling up to us on a golf cart.

"Fleetwood, what are you DOING HERE?" He exclaimed in surprise, "How'd you get past the guards?"

"The tunnels," Harley elaborated, "You see, we were exploring, and-"

My cousin was interrupted by the whooping of sirens. For a second, I thought that 'Scooter' had come back with some friends! We turned to see two dark gray AMC Ambassadors racing toward us, sliding on the grass. As they neared us, they stopped, and some royal guards emerge from them.

"Your Highness," one began, saluting Night quickly, "We've detected a security breach!"

He took one look at us, and immediately determined we were no threat to the all-powerful alicorn, "I see you've got this under control," he concluded, and they got back in their cars, and left.

"So anyway," I continued, watching the two AMC's as they left, "I live down the tunnels from you now! We were exploring a passageway we found, and it lead us to the main hall!"

"Well, you living down the tunnel is a threat," You could tell he was deep in thought, the way he rubbed his chin, "But, hey, just go ahead and take a stroll down the tunnels whenever you wanna see YOU KNOW WHO...."

At first, I didn't know what he meant, but then I remembered how I had felt when I bumped into Luna. It was that day I realized something: I didn't have to be low-down scum. I didn't have to sleep with random mares. I could set a standard. I could pursue a very special somepony, and that pony was LUNA! I had been searching forever, and now, at last, I understood it! I uttered a silent "Thank you" to Eldorado, for sending me on the path I was destined to walk.

Ever since then, I began an intimate relationship with Luna. It was amazing. The Brougham Mansion was fixed up, and the Packard Funeral Coach rotting near the gates was restored. There were some good times, there were some bad times, and here we are now. If you liked this story, you haven't seen anything yet. I'm Fleetwood Eldorado Brougham, and this is Fleetwood Rides again.

"Next time on 'Fleetwood Rides Again'...."

"I just don't think foals should be playing with guns."

"I am in pursuit of a 1972 Chevrolet Kingswood...."

"You're under arrest for Speeding, Obstruction of Justice, and some other crap!"

Fleetwood Rides Again Ending Theme