Author's Note

Busy moving house at the moment, so finding it difficult to make time for writing. Just know that this story ain't dead, and neither's TLR! :P

If you find any typos, grammatical mistakes or formatting blunders, let me know in the comments so I can jump on a transatlantic flight to Texas and slap my editor with a soggy trout. Enjoy, horse****ers!

7. Horse****er 101

Where is it? I know it’s here somewhere, damn it!

The dusty old lantern I’d commandeered from an empty corridor wasn’t really doing much to illuminate the windowless storeroom. But I squinted around in the semi-darkness regardless, looking for a particular fancy-looking cabinet composed of metal and glass. Sofas, chairs, wardrobes, and all manner of various other crap that had been on the plane were all piled up along the walls, but I couldn’t seem to find this cabinet to save my life.

After twenty minutes of hefting aircraft furniture around, I finally conceded defeat. I would have to head back to the dorm empty handed. Yeah, that’s where I was staying—a dorm full of colt-sluts. I’d asked to be moved to the safe room with Jason and the girls, but Spitfire was having none of it. Of course, I could have just ignored her and crashed there anyway, but she’d probably just threaten me with Fleetfoot. I wasn’t overly-keen on calling her bluff on that. Fleetfoot scared the crap out of me.

On the plus side though, most of the guys in my dorm weren’t that bad. Well, bar Warmfront, but he was just annoying more than anything else. It turns out not many of them really cared much for Windrunner, so they weren’t all that fussed that my “ship” tore him to pieces.

The dorm wasn’t really just one room. There were others, but apparently they were only used for sex. I’d made it adamantly clear that I didn’t want to see them, despite Warmfront’s many insistences of giving me a “tour”. The only room of the complex I’d set foot in was the communal bedroom. Heh, ponies and their little herding instincts.

Grabbing the lantern once more, I contemplated having a stroll down to the cellars as I stealthily closed the storage room door. The lone “guardspony” that always sat across from keg storage was always there, but never once had I seen him awake. It was like taking candy from a-

“Hi, Jack!”

Smash.

A few choicy curses flew from my mouth as the lantern exploded into pile of glass shards. “Jeez, woman! Don't sneak up on me like that!” I whisper-shouted, glaring at a certain jasmine coated mare.

“Sorry,” Raindrops chuckled with a sheepish grin. “What’s got you so on edge?” she asked, carefully hoof-brushing the broken glass out of her mane. “Wait, why are you hanging around-” She suddenly gasped, a devious grin adorning her muzzle. “You were looking for your human alcohol, weren’t you?”

“What? No! Of course I wasn’t-” I began, before her look of sheer skepticism got the better of me, “-okay, yeah. I was looking for the whiskey,” I grumbled, sweeping the remains of the lantern aside with my foot. “I’m sure you’ll be glad to know I didn’t find it.”

“Well, of course you didn’t. Spitfire hid it in her office weeks ago,” Raindrops said, before smacking a hoof to her muzzle in playful self-admonishment. “Ooops.”

“She what now?”

The mare gave me a playful smile, clearly enjoying herself. “I think she intends to use it as leverage to get you to agree to Warmfront’s—ahem—classroom activities-”

“That’s… not fair!” I gasped, suddenly having the overwhelming urge to sit down. I slid down the storage room door, briefly hugging my knees to my chest before letting my legs lie flat. I needed a drink. Not cider, I was sick of the stuff. No. Jack needed some Jackie D.

I gazed absentmindedly at Raindrops, now around a head lower than her. She wasn’t smiling anymore. If anything, she bore an expression of which I could only describe as sorrow.

“Hey, Jack,” she cooed, clearly torn between wanting to comfort me, and respecting my “keep your hooves to yourself” rule. I’d spent enough time with her to recognise the subtle tells: wings twitching, ears completely flat, eyes betraying her unspoken request for physical contact. Never once had I let her, and never once had I questioned that decision. But, as I gazed into her pleading eyes, I began to wonder…

“C’mere,” I whispered, lightly patting the floor next to me.

Raindrops frowned, taking a step forward, before stopping with a forehoof still in the air. “Why?” she asked, her tone an odd mixture of excitement and suspicion.

“Just get over here,” I chuckled.

She cautiously sidled up to me and sat on her haunches like a cat, but kept her hooves to herself. I reached up and gently scratched between her ears, something I had come to learn was acceptable contact for close friends… or, so I’d thought.

Raindrops gasped, leveling me with wide-eyed astonishment. Her wings briefly fluttered for a moment. “You’d better not be doing this for a joke.”

“What? No. I really mean it,” I said, giving her a warm smile. I’d been kind of an ass to her these past few weeks with the whole ‘no touching’ rule. If I was going to make amends, then this was a start.

“You do?” she questioned, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“Well, yeah,” I said, finally beginning to suspect that something was… off. “We’re friends, right?”

“Yeah, we’re friends. We aren’t rutting, though.”

“Wait-” I slowly began.

“I mean, we could, if you wanted.” She fluttered her eyelashes at me.

I lost my train of thought, my mouth still half open from the unfinished sentence. Raindrops chose that moment to lie down, draping a foreleg and a wing across my thighs and resting her head on my chest. My fingers were still nestled between her ears. Four weeks ago, I’d have been repulsed by the contact, but now… Now, I didn’t really mind.

“But,” I choked, finally finding my voice, “It’s the ears that are off limits! I thought between the ears was fine for good friends.”

“Oh, really? Who told you this?” the pegasus chuckled, grinning up at me.

“Well,” no one, come to think of it. “Felix didn’t seem to mind when I…” Oh.

“Yeah, you two should really close the hangar door when you’re rolling around in the cloud together,” she commented. “Those little displays have started a lot of rumours…”

“Nothing is going on between me and Felix!” I snapped, sounding about as convincing as a sulky teenager denying a crush. Damn it.

“Well, either way—this,” she flicked the hand on her head with an ear, “is usually only acceptable for herdmates. But, I don’t mind you petting me there.” She pawed at my chest with a forehoof. “You’re kinda cute.”

I didn't really have a response to that last sentiment, so I kept my silence. I knew I probably should have stopped petting her, but my fingers had long since moved on to massaging her ears proper, instead of just resting between them.

Raindrops closed her eyes. I could tell she was trying to be quiet, but every now and then, a little moan or whimper would escape her. The wing draped across my things quivered occasionally, and her breathing grew a little deeper. I hadn’t even noticed the alcohol craving had all but vanished from my mind.

The sound of double doors bursting open echoed through the corridor, and I only had time to turn my head before a familiar, fiery Captain skidded to a halt in front of us.

“Ah. I had a feeling you might be- … Raindrops?”

Spitfire observed me and my jasmine-coated companion, the latter half-lying on me. One of her ears was still twitching between my fingers, and her tail had somehow managed to coil itself around my leg.

Raindrops gave a start, finally acknowledging her superior. She quickly sat up, disentangling her wings and tail from me. I sprang to my feet, hoping that doing so would help me explain to Spitfire why I’d been cuddling one of her Corporals in the middle of a corridor.

“So,” the Captain began, giving me an unbearably smug grin. “Not a horsefucker, you say?”

“That was just friend stuff! Like what any friendly friends do. All the time. Ask anyone,” I spluttered, my cheeks heating. I couldn’t even look her in the eye. Bravo, Jack. Give yourself a pat on the back, mate.

“It’s true, Captain,” Raindrops offered, but she too avoided Spitfire’s gaze.

“Oh, really? So, what? You’d just let anypony, hmm, let’s say—Reginald—play with your ears like that?”

Raindrops grimaced. “No, Captain.”

“That’s what I thought.” Spitfire turned back to me, a strange little smile on her face. She contemplated me for a while, before dipping her muzzle beneath her wing. She pulled out a small bottle—a very familiar small bottle—and held it in a forehoof. “You look like you could use a little drink.”

* * *

The sweet, familiar buzz was upon me again, but not nearly enough for this to be even remotely worth it. I was sitting on a blood red couch, in a master bedroom I’d vowed never to set foot in. A king sized four poster constructed of solid mahogany dominated the room. The red satin sheets matched the shagpile carpet and the thick blackout curtains perfectly.

I’d meant to tell Spitfire to shove it under her windswept tail. But instead, I’d snatched the pitiful little five cl bottle from her outstretched hoof and agreed to have relations with a quadruped. Sure, cuddling with a friend was one thing, but full vaginal with a stranger was another entirely.

Suffice to say, I was regretting my decision. Raindrops wasn’t even here. Spitfire had sent her away somewhere. All I had for moral support was an annoyingly cheery Warmfront.

“-already met her, so it won't be like you’re going to be getting intimate with a complete stranger,” he rambled.

Wait. “I’ve met her before?”

“Yeah. Remember? Flitter is the mare who flew you to safety this morning after you, um… fell.”

“The one with the bow?” She was… nice. As first impressions go, I supposed she’d already made a good one.

“Yeah.”

Knock knock.

“Ah, that’s probably her now,” Warmfront chirped, practically prancing over to the door. He opened it with his mouth, and I suddenly found myself contemplating if that was the only knob that had been in there…

Flitter stood in the doorway, the large lilac bow she was still sporting making her look ridiculously adorable as usual. Her mane and tail were a similar shade of ice blue as Cloudchaser’s, and appeared to shine with silky vibrance. She had obviously made an effort to make herself look appealing. She wore nothing apart from the bow—and was giving me some weapons-grade bedroom eyes.

“Hi, Jack,” she purred, with a subtle flutter of her gorgeous eyelashes. Warmfront’s eyes followed the graceful swaying of her shapely behind as she sauntered past him, his unspoken greeting all but forgotten.

“Hi, F-Flitter,” I stuttered. Actually fucking stuttered. Fucking really?

She hadn’t even touched me yet, and I was ready to smash the taboo to pieces, as well as her freaky horse pussy. I couldn’t even blame it on alcohol, either. She was putting the moves on me, and I was about ready to drop my metaphorical panties like a pubescent teenage girl under the bleachers.

The flirtatious mare stopped just short of the couch. Warmfront closed the door, also trotting over to the couch. “Now, I thought we’d start with some basic foreplay techniq-”

“Hooooold on a sec there, Pimp-Hoof,” I interrupted, holding up a hand to the stallion. There was an internal battle raging inside of me. My common sense was screaming at me to make like a tree, and forcefully reminding me that I didn’t fornicate with horses. My dick, on the other hand, wanted me to mount Flitter where she stood and fuck her so hard all of her feathers would fall out. Either way, I needed to buy some time. “Why don’t you demonstrate with Flitter first? Y’know, so I can… umm, observe how it’s done?” I suggested, nervously glancing between the two ponies and hoping they’d agree.

Warmfront frowned. “Well, it’s a little unorthodox, but I guess we could-”

“No,” Flitter interrupted him, still giving me the bedroom eyes.

“Why not?” I half-growled, slapping a hand down on the couch in frustration. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from those half-lidded, lilac orbs of seduction. They simultaneously promised an exotic encounter of which the likes I would never forget, and a lifetime of soul-crushing regret, should I choose to deny her.

“I’ve had Warmfront before. I came here for you,” she purred, sitting on her haunches and letting her wings fan out a little. Blatant peacocking. I slowly exhaled, hungrily taking in every inch of her beautiful feathers. Fuck my life.

“Okay,” I whispered, full of fear and self-loathing. Mostly self-loathing.

“Great,” Warmfront proclaimed, excitedly clopping his forehooves together. “Flitter—stand up, turn around, and lift your tail.”

I raised an eyebrow at the stallion, expecting Flitter to slap him upside the head with her hoof. When she instead simply complied, the other eyebrow jumped up to join the first. Flitter’s ass was now at head-height to me, mere inches away from my face. Her tail was flagging to the left, leaving her glistening marehood exposed in all its intricate, and extremely anatomically-correct detail.

Her lips were slightly parted, and judging from the moisture coating them, Flitter was somewhat of an exhibitionist. The thick labia were a slightly darker shaded grayish-blue than her coat, along with the donut-resembling anus that protruded out slightly from under her dock.

It wasn’t until her clitoris suddenly made its presence known by popping out to wink at me that I was suddenly reminded with no small degree of force that I was staring into the business end of an equine alien. An extremely appealing equine alien, but an alien nonetheless. Something snapped inside my self-abused mind.

Nope.

With a bodily lunge, I launched myself off the couch, ducking and rolling past the bed. Big ol’ bowl of Nope-Flakes. I caught a split second of Flitter’s confused look as I scrambled to my feet, intent on making the speediest exit I possibly could. Wrenching the door open, I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, making sure to throw a few random zig-zags in my path for good measure.

Thankfully, I made it out of the dorm complex with my feet still on the ground. To think I’d agreed to do that for a pitiful little bottle of whisky almost made me want to quit drinking. Almost.

I headed for the hangars, sticking close to the side of the barracks building in case Flitter tried to snatch me up. When I reached the plane, I scrambled up the rope ladder, hauling it up into the cabin with me and quickly heaving the door shut. I was even half contemplating firing the engines up, taxiing to the runway and just taking off to giant star-bear country.

They’d probably be less trouble.

Panting from exertion, I turned toward the staircase. Flitter was leaning against it, levelling me with a frown.

“ARRRGGHH! FACK!” I screamed, nearly tripping over my own feet. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

Flitter sighed. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t run away like I’m some disgusting mule,” she shot back at me, sitting down on her haunches and pinning me with those big, guilt-inducing eyes. Ouch.

“Look—I’m sorry, okay?” I gasped, trying in vain to get my heart-rate to drop back down to an acceptable level.

“A simple ‘I’m not interested,’ would have been fine,” she squeaked, her ears flat to her mane and her eyes… Fuck me. Those eyes. Now, my heart felt like it was going to explode for a whole new reason.

“No, it would have been a lie,” I growled, taking a few steps forward. Flitter shrank back as if I were going to hit her. My face fell. That single reaction managed to hurt me way more than anything else. “Look,” I said, stopping a few feet from her and giving a sigh. “Back home, we humans are the only intelligent race. And… whilst inter-species relationships are indeed a thing, they’re pretty fucking gross. That’s mostly to do with the scourge of humanity fornicating with dumb animals, but, you get my meaning,” I rambled, grimacing at her disgusted expression. “Look, whatever. Humans are cancer. Same old, same old,” I said with a forced chuckle, waving a hand and wishing I wasn’t having this conversation. “The point is: we don’t usually have sex with anything that isn’t sapient.”

Flitter blinked, her eyes seemingly boring into my soul for a few moments. “Ponies are sapient.”

“Yes… well…” I watched as my argument crumpled at the hooves of her logic. She certainly had a point. “What I mean is, we have horses, back home. They’re big. Some are beautiful, but only in the sense of being… like, a majestic creature, or something like that. They’re certainly not sexually attractive.”

Flitter frowned.

I quickly held up a hand. “That’s not to say that you’re not… um…” Fuck.

“I’m not what?” she asked, something sparking to life in her eyes.

“Uhh… w-what I’m saying is that the ponies here only have a vague resemblance to the horses back home,” I stuttered. Yeah, that was happening again.

“Uh-huh,” she said, taking a few steps toward me. Her eyes were definitely no longer sad.

I subconsciously backed away, completely losing my train of thought. Flitter was looking at me like I was a piece of meat. Or, a bale of hay? Whatever. My reasoning for rejecting her advances seemed more pathetic now that I’d actually talked about it. Ponies were indeed sapient. And hot, in Flitter’s case. There was no denying that.

My heel hit the fuselage wall, and the pegasus reared up on her hind legs. Her forehooves found my shoulders and her wings encompassed my back. I was suddenly surrounded by the intimate warmth of soft fur and feathers. My arms betrayed me: coiling around the mare, my fingers finding refuge in her mane.

Her scent was making me stupid. A volatile concoction of heavenly pheromones that instantly had me yearning for more of her touch. Her muzzle, now inches from my face, tilted, getting closer. She gently exhaled, giving me another dose of chemically induced desire.

CRACK.

A flash of pink light burned my retinas, and I crumpled. The afternoon sun suddenly made its presence known on my sweat soaked skin. “Fuck!” I yelled, scrambling to my feet and squinting through half-blinded eyes. I appeared to be on a grass verge, just outside the barracks.

“You’re welcome.”

“Felix!” I growled, quickly adjusting my pants to make my overactive dick less obvious. I was about to yell at her about inappropriate teleportation practices, but I faltered when I got an eyeful of what she was wearing.

“You can thank me for busting you out of horsefucker class later. Right now, I need you glued to my side. If Reginald manages to steal me away, I won't hesitate to transfigure your absent ass into a chipmunk.”

I barely even acknowledged her words. The mare was wearing what looked like the pony equivalent of a cheerleader’s uniform. A tiny blue and white one piece, composed of a vest and a short pleated skirt that barely covered her cutie mark. I couldn’t see from the angle, but I severely doubted it was covering anything else. A large blue bow was tied into her mane, behind her ears. It matched that damned sapphire in her choker collar perfectly. The long, glossy pink curls flowing from her head and rump should have clashed with her outfit, but the stunning unicorn somehow made the ensemble work.

“You like?” she gleefully asked, deftly stepping about in a twirl. I caught a brief glimpse of her nether region. I was right.

“You look amazing,” I breathed, taking in every gorgeous detail.

“You really think so?” she asked, observing me with a smile.

A grey-blue blur suddenly slammed into the ground beside her with a quick succession of reverberating thuds.

Felix didn’t bat an eyelid. “Good afternoon, Flitter,” she said, slowly turning to the pegasus.

Flitter gave a small nicker, her nostrils flared and her wings spread to their full height. “I was busy with Jack.”

“I’m sure you were, but Jack agreed to escort me to the dance, so if you’ll excuse us.”

CRACK.

“Cut it out, you crazy horse!” I yelled, picking myself up yet again and squinting around yet another new location. Fucking unicorns. “Why are we in Spitfire’s office?” I grumbled. Thankfully, the Captain was nowhere to be seen.

“To liberate your whiskey, of course,” Felix chirped, a devilish glint in her eyes.

I frowned. “Won't we get in trouble?” An annoyed Spitfire could possibly draw the attention of a certain bat-shit-crazy General. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

“If we get caught, yeah,” Felix casually replied, her horn casting one of her scanning spells.

SMASH.

Something suddenly barrelled clean through the window, scattering glass shards in all directions. I leapt out of the way as the intruder bounced off Spitfire’s desk and slammed into the wall, knocking several photo frames to the floor in the process.

Felix let out a sigh. “Somepony’s persistent,” she muttered, shaking a few glass shards from her mane and warily eyeing the greyish blue lump on the floor.

“Flitter?” I dropped to my knees, but the pegasus had already picked herself up. She quickly straightened her bow and glared at the unicorn, a devious grin on her face.

“It doesn’t matter where you port to. I’ll find you,” she said, giving her wings a shake.

Felix rolled her eyes, her horn flaring with light. The glass shards on the floor jumped up into the air, fusing together with little flashes of pink light. When nothing but an intact window pane remained, it floated over to its frame and slid into place. “Did you have to make such a mess?” she sighed again, levitating the fallen picture frames back onto the wall. “Spitfire will know someone’s been in here. You know how anal she is with her office.”

“Well, if you hadn’t stolen my student away-”

“Oh, please. You just want to rut him,” Felix interrupted, carefully adjusting one of the picture frames on the wall.

“Well, yeah, that was the idea,” Flitter countered, with an air of stating the obvious.

“How’d you do that?” I asked the unicorn, if only to change the damned subject.

Felix raised a questioning eyebrow. “I’m a unicorn, Sweetie. We can do magic.”

I rolled my eyes. For the love of… “No need to be pedantic. I just meant I’ve never seen you fix something so effortlessly before.”

Her ears dropped a shade, and she smiled. “It’s a Controlzee Reversal Enchantment. Tricky spell, but it can be pretty useful around clumsy, or in this case—reckless ponies,” she said, pointedly throwing Flitter a look.

The pegasus pouted. “Maybe if you learned to share once in a while-”

“Fine,” Felix sighed, levitating several bottles of whiskey out of the cabinet. I made to grab one, but they suddenly disappeared in a flash of pink light. I scowled. “Come with us. With a bit of luck, Reginald might start stalking you, instead.”

The pegasus snorted. “Yeah, right. You know he collects your horn shavings in a jar?”

Felix froze. “Say what now?”

“Yep,” Flitter chirped, grinning from ear to ear. “I hear he also gathers up your mane and tail moult after you’ve been in the shower. Apparently, he enjoys sniffing it in his free time.”

Felicity’s jaw fell open, a look of utter disgust clouding her features. She held up a hoof. “Excuse me, one moment.”

CRACK.

Flitter fell over, clutching her sides, the gleeful sound of her laughter ringing through Spitfire’s office. “Oh, Celestia… Did you see the look on her face?” she chuckled, flat on her back with her hooves in the air and her wings spread. Judging from the half-lidded expression she gave me a moment later, the resultant view was intentional.

“Is that true? Is Reginald really that creepy?” I asked, quietly stepping toward the door and snaking a hand behind my back. It was locked. Figures.

“I dunno. Probably. I only said all that stuff so she’d leave.” She gave me a wink. It wasn’t with her eyes, either.

“Heh… great. Umm… maybe we should get out of Spitfire’s office-woah!”

A surprisingly strong wing suddenly hooked around my leg and pulled. Hard. I was sent crashing down, straight into the waiting hooves of the devious pegasus. She quickly rolled, pinning me to the floor and letting her weight hold me captive. Once again, the gravity of Equador was working against me.

“Now… where were we?” she purred, gently gripping my waist and shoulders with her hind legs and forelegs respectively.

“Get off.”

Flitter smiled, gently biting her lower lip. “I just might, if you play with me enough.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I grunted, attempting to push the mare away. I gave one of her sides a particularly forceful shove beneath her splayed wing, and Flitter was sent spiralling over the office floor. She hit a bookcase, and a number of dusty old Wonderbolt History tomes rained down on her.

Turns out she wasn’t nearly as heavy as I’d thought.

She gave a yelp of pain, one of the book corners hitting her squarely on her left wing joint. I cringed at my ridiculous overcompensation—I guess I’d gotten used to the gravity more than I thought. Being a Wonderbolt, Flitter was far from actually being considered heavy, by any standards.

“Sorry!” I hastily apologised, quickly pulling the books off her.

“That hurt,” she squeaked, her ears once again flat to her dishevelled mane and her eyes the size of saucepan lids.

“I didn’t mean to shove you like that! I just thought you’d be heavier,” he said, like a thoughtless Jackass.

Flitters eyes widened even further. “Are you saying I’m f-fat?” she half-sobbed, looking at me as if I’d just murdered a litter of kittens.

“No! No, that is definitely not what I meant,” I flapped, quickly dumping the books back on the shelf. “I just mean that I’m not used to the extra gravity here. I wasn’t calling you fat. You’re far from it.”

Flitter sniffed, regarding me with glazed eyes. “So… D-Does that mean you… Do you think I’m pretty?” she asked, gently brushing her mane from her face. Probably for dramatic effect.

“Of course I do,” I began, with just a tad more vehemence than I would have liked. Flitter’s eyes found my own, and I knew exactly what she was about to do. She lunged at my kneeling form, and I didn’t think twice about holding my arms out to catch her.

CRACK!

With a particularly bright flash of light, and even a little bit of smoke this time, an extremely pissed-looking unicorn cheerleader stepped into existence next to Spitfire’s desk. Flitter was immediately caught in a pink, shimmering bubble, and slowly floated a few feet up into the air. I quickly dropped my arms to my sides, suddenly aware of a large amount of heat coming from somewhere. It was almost as if I were sat next to a furnace.

“Bet you’re proud of yourself for that little stunt, eh? Because of you, Reginald now thinks I see him as nothing more than a creepy stalker.”

Flitter smirked, her ears straight and one of her eyebrows slowly creeping up towards her mane. “He actually thought otherwise?” she chuckled.

Felicity’s eyes narrowed, and I suddenly realised where the heat was coming from. There was a noticeable red glow at the tip of her horn, beneath the usual pink aura. I nervously cleared my throat. “Umm, Flitter…”

“He guilt-tripped me on to going out on a date with him!”

I did a double take. “What?”

Flitter burst into a fit of giggles. “Oh, Celestia! Gullible, and susceptible to emotional blackmail. Good thing she’s pretty, eh, Jack?” the pegasus howled.

Apparently, that was the straw that broke the pony’s back. With a loud CRACK, Flitter and her shimmering pink bubble disappeared.

“Felix…”

“Relax, your booty call is safe,” she muttered.

I raised an eyebrow. “My booty call?”

The unicorn didn’t answer, instead choosing to let out a sigh and begin adjusting the picture frames once more.

I tried to contain the question bouncing around the inside of my skull, but the persistent little bastard found a way out. “So, you’re actually going out with Reginald?”

Felix grimaced. “Well, I may have went overboard with the accusations. He was in the dorm with a bunch of the other stallions. Everypony started laughing at him. It was kind of… brutal,” she sighed. “When I found out Flitter was lying, I couldn’t exactly say no…”

I paused, trying hard for a look of indifference. I couldn’t quite manage it. All I could picture was the pretty unicorn currently inspecting Spitfire’s office for anything out of place, and the mullet-clad stallion rearing up on his hind legs, clamping his overly-white teeth into those silky, pink locks…

CRACK.

Pain exploded through my hand. I didn’t recall making a fist, but the bits of slightly blood-splattered drywall raining down all over Spitfire’s immaculately clean carpet certainly suggested otherwise.

Felix paused her ministrations to look back at me over her shoulder, a curious expression on her face. “Was that necessary?”

I cleared my throat. You fucking moron. “There was a bug,” I croaked, slowly pulling my battered hand out of the hole in the wall and carefully examining it. Idiot. “I squished it.”

“C’mere,” the unicorn sighed, her horn already lit. The flakes of drywall on the carpet jumped up into the air, zooming towards the hole in the wall. I did my best to ignore the pain as the fragments stuck in my hand carefully extracted themselves and flew off to join the others. The hole gradually disappeared altogether. My hand began to bleed freely, and I cursed myself yet again for letting these stupid feelings get the better of me.

Felix caught the blood droplets with her magic, before casting a complex-looking spell that made my hand go numb. I wasn’t sure if it was actually all that difficult or not, but she put quite a lot of care and attention into casting it. Mere seconds later, the cuts were gone, leaving only a dull soreness.

She looked up at me. “It’s just one date.”

“It’s also none of my business. Thanks for fixing my hand.” I twisted the doorknob with said hand, only to be reminded that it was locked. Ugh.

“Oh, come on, Jack,” Felix cried, falling to her haunches and levelling me with the wide eyed, floppy eared gaze of destruction. “It’s just a pity date,” she exclaimed, wildly waving a hoof in the air. “Plus, you and I aren’t… y’know.”

I tensed up a little. She’d never directly addressed how close we were for just being colleagues. “Aren’t what?”

“Well… I… I never asked you, because I didn’t think you were into po-” Felix froze mid-sentence, her ears swivelling toward the corridor. A split second later, the room span out of focus, and I ended up stumbling face first into a brick wall.

“Holy crap! I wish you would warn me when you’re about to do that!” I hissed, rubbing my bruised nose.

Felix didn’t appear to be listening to me. “Oh, horseapples… That wasn’t Spitfire, that was Fleetfoot, and I think she might have heard us.”

“Did she see us?”

“No, I… I don’t think so.”

“Good,” I sighed, taking stock of the new surroundings.

We appeared to be in a small entertainment district a little ways off from the main base. There were a few bars and restaurants dotted about, and one large two-storey building with blacked out windows and loud, repetitive music booming from within. A large sign that read “STOMP” was mounted above the main entrance. It looked to be constructed of the magical equivalent of neon, the way it lit up with a blue glow.

Two pegasus mares which I presumed to be bouncers—judging by the body armour they were wearing—were standing guard in front of a thick red rope line, suspended by a series of golden stanchions. There were already quite a few ponies queueing up to get in, most of which waved at Felix. A couple of stallions even wolf-whistled.

“Was wondering when you’d show up,” one of the guards said, unhooking the rope. It was the same guard that had groped me earlier that morning.

“Evening, Gloria,” Felix replied, stepping through towards the entrance.

Gloria made to raise a wing at me, but Felix spoke up. “He’s my date.” She positively beamed at me, whilst flicking her mane out of her face with a forehoof and adjusting the large blue bow behind her ears with her magic. I tried to ignore the butterflies having a party in my stomach, a feat that was made a little easier when a drawling, snobbish voice became audible in the distance.

“-was only a matter of time, I mean, we are perfect for each other. Don’t you think?”

This time, I noticed my hand curling into a fist. I wasn’t expecting the soft, warm fur of Felicity’s cheek to suddenly brush against it, though. The unicorn smiled up at me, and I begrudgingly relaxed.

“Heh… Um, sure,” Warmfront replied with a somewhat forced chuckle. Both he and Reginald were making their way to the front of the line, with Jessica and Leanne trailing slightly behind them.

“What’s he doing here?” Reginald shot at Felix, giving me the filthiest look he could muster. Yep. I wanted to punch him again.

“He’s with me,” Felix shot back, scowling at the stallion. Warmfront, Jessica and Leanne stopped, watching the exchange with rapt attention.

“Gonna have to ask you to move it along, Jewel. Are they all with you?” Gloria asked Felix.

Felix flinched. “Yeah, yeah. We’re moving,” she sighed, opening the doors with her magic and trotting agitatedly into the lobby. I could have sworn I’d heard a nicker.