Reinventing the Iron Will

Rarity surveyed the crowded house party with her friends. “I thought you told me this was to be a formal affair?” she said with a hint of annoyance in her voice. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie giggled at this. Rarity decided she would not let her friends’ pranks get the better of her. “Oh, well, I suppose it’s not so bad being the most fashionable pony here,” she said haughtily.

Twilight looked around the room uneasily. “Are you sure about this, Fluttershy? It looks like Iron Will has some pretty sketchy friends.” Many of the ponies from Ponyville were there, but there were also some teenage dragons, Canterlot hipster unicorns, goats, griffons, and Twilight could swear she had seen some changelings lounging around near the back of the room. No music was playing yet, but the place was filled with the noise of many conversations and occasional outbursts of laughter.

Spike slipped off into the crowd and over to the refreshment table. He waited until nopony was looking and slyly poured a bag of sugar into the punch bowl. “No one will suspect it was I who spiked the punch,” he chuckled to himself, before going back to be with Rarity.

Pinkie zipped up to the punch bowl, accidently knocking a goat out of her way. She filled and downed a large cup of punch. A shocked look came over her face. “Wow! That was really, really, really sweet!” She downed a couple more cups for good measure and then helped the goat to his feet.

Iron Will entered the room and gave Vinyl Scratch the double thumbs up. She promptly set her turntables spinning, pulling off some sick scratches before blasting the room with dance techno.

Pinkie and Rainbow Dash were among the first guests to start dancing. Many of the ponies and creatures in the room soon joined them. Twilight and the others hung back and watched. Big Mac was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh, what the hay,” said Twilight, though none of her friends heard her over the music. She ran into the middle of the room to dance, keeping closer to Rainbow Dash than Pinkie, since the pink pony was already flailing so wildly nopony dared get too close.

Fluttershy trembled visibly, though it was unclear if it was her nervousness or merely the bass shaking her body. Rarity noticed her friend’s trepidation and beckoned her to follow.

“Where are you going, Rarity? Don’t you want to dance?” Spike yelled, barely audible above the music.

“Don’t be silly, we’ll get all sweaty and mess up our outfits if we do that,” Rarity yelled back. “Let’s find a room where it’s not so infernally loud. You always said the best kind of party was one where you just spend time with your friends. We don’t have to get involved in this insanity.” She escorted Fluttershy, Spike, and Applejack through several posh rooms. The decorations and furnishings were tasteful in Rarity’s opinion, but it was very much a man’s house. The mansion was so large; she hoped they would not get lost. Eventually, they found another crowded living room where the music was at a tolerable decibel. Nopony was dancing, but the room was abuzz with conversation.

Big Mac sat quietly on a couch near the edge of the room. He seemed to be at a loss as to what he was supposed to be doing. Applejack broke off from her friends and trotted over to plop down on the couch next to him. “Gosh, Macintosh, I’m plum tuckered out. I didn’t expect ta be spendin’ the evein’ like this. Ya think anypony would notice if I moseyed on out of here and hit the hay?”

“We should prob’ly hang around for a bit longer,” said Big Mac. “If we leave so soon, we might offend your friend Fluttershy. She invited us here and she seems pretty sensitive.”

Applejack smiled. “Huh, that’s very thoughtful of you.”

Three familiar looking teenage dragons approached Rarity, Fluttershy, and Spike. “Hey spike,” a menacing looking red one greeted him. “Still hanging out with namby-pamby ponies?” He looked between Spike and Rarity. “Hey, I see what’s going on here… Well played bro,” he said, giving Spike a fist bump that almost knocked the little dragon over. “Well, see you around, dude. Check us out later. We’re in a band and we’ll be playing tonight. We’re gonna rock so hard. We’re gonna tear the roof off this place!”

“Uh, cool, yeah I’m sure you guys really rock,” Spike said nervously.

“Nah, we actually kind of suck. We’re going to tear the roof off after the show.”

Spike breathed a sigh of relief after the other dragons left. He turned to Rarity. “That was a close one. I thought they were going to beat us up and demand that we give the phoenix egg back.”

Rarity looked bemused. “We could have taken them. I can cast spells and we’ve got the Apple siblings relatively close at hoof. I’ll bet they can carry their weight in a fight.”

Just then, Iron Will stumbled into the room. His usual air of confident was not present. The minotaur slumped down in a pile of beanbag chairs at the far end of the room. Fluttershy hastily weaved her way through the party guests and trotted over to him. “Oh my goodness, are you okay?”

“Yeah, uh, I’m fine. What do you think, Fluttershy, great party right?” He winced slightly as he spoke.

“Oh yes, it’s very, um, ‘off the hook,’” Fluttershy said, doing her best to sound encouraging despite the fact that she was clearly very uncomfortable being in a room with so many strangers. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Me? I’m fine. It’s just that some pink pony accidently kicked me in the stomach while she was dancing. The moral of the story is that you’ve always got to be flexing your six-pack, otherwise something like that can really knock the wind out of you. That pink pony has also broken a couple of lamps too, but hey, sometimes you’ve got to go hard or go home.”

“Oh no! I’m so sorry I invited Pinkie. I should have known she’d get out of hoof. She’s trying to party harder at every party she attends," Fluttershy said with note of desperation in her voice.

“Take a seat and relax, Fluttershy,” Iron Will said as he picked her up and smashed her into a beanbag next to his. “So that pink pony is your friend? Tell me about your other friends, so I know who to watch out for.”

Fluttershy looked around the room to see if she could point out her friends to him. “That’s Rarity and Spike over there,” she said happily. They appeared to be talking with some well-to-do unicorns.

“Huh, I guess they call her ‘Spike’ because of the horn.”

“Oh, that’s Rarity. Spike is the baby Dragon. Rarity is a fashion designer and Spike is, well, actually, I’m not really sure what he does. I think he’s paid out of Twilight’s scholarship money for helping her with stuff.” She looked about the room to see where Applejack had gotten to. “Oh, and there’s Applejack,” she said, indicating where the orange mare was sitting on a coach across the room.

Iron Will froze with shock when he saw Applejack. “Wow, she’s really pretty. I’ll bet she works out at lot,” he murmured.

The little pegasus was surprised at this. Nopony seemed to notice Applejack for being as beautiful as she was. Perhaps it was because she was rarely trying to be pretty. “I think she’s very pretty too. I wish I could be as strong as her.”

The minotaur tore his eyes away from Applejack and peered down at Fluttershy. “You can be as strong as you want to be. I’ve got a world-class gym in this house. You can come by and use it any time you want. Tell me more about this blond pony friend of yours.”

“Oh, um, let’s see, she’s a really honest apple farmer. She works really hard and has a lot of responsibility, because she helps take care of her little sister Apple Bloom and her grandmother. She’s also really good at sports.”

“She’s inspirational,” Iron Will said, as he gazed upon Applejack dreamily. “Huh. Iron Will has never fallen for a pony before.”

“You should go and talk to her,” Fluttershy encouraged the minotaur. “She’s really nice and she’s the only one of my friends who doesn't tend to go totally crazy.”

“Wait a second, that’s not her special somepony sitting next to her is it?” Iron Will asked indicating Big Mac.

“Don’t worry, that’s her brother. He’s really nice… and handsome,” Fluttershy immediately wished she had not let that one slip out. Iron Will probably wouldn’t allow her lack of confidence to prevent her from facing her crush. She was surprised, however, at what he asked next.

“So, did you bring your rabbit? Maybe I could use him as a manipulative prop when I go and introduce myself to Applejack. Tactics like that are very important when wooing somepony over. At least that’s what I’ve written in my books on assertive dating.”

“Angel actually shredded the invitation card and stuck his tongue out at me when I asked him if he want to come. I can’t even remember why he was mad at me.”

“Really? Come on, Fluttershy. A wise man once said, ‘when somepony pushes you around, throw them to the ground!’ If you let a little bunny push you around how do you expect to ever muster up the courage to talk to that red fellow over there?” he said, pointing to Big Mac.