My Little TFW2005- Posting is Magic

Ring, ring. Ring, ring.

A sleeping light blue earth pony cringed at the noise, trying to remain asleep.

Ring, ring. Ring, ring.

Lucky Stars then groaned in annoyance as he pried his eyes open and glanced at his saddlebags sitting next to his head,

Ring, ring. Ring, ring

Reluctantly, he reached his hoof into the bag and pulled out his cell phone. He flipped open the lid and answered groggily. “Hello?”

“Lucky Stars?” a female voice answered. “Where the heck are you guys?”

Stars rubbed his eyes sleepily. “Princess Sweet Pea, is that you?”

The voice on the other end sighed. “Yes, it’s me, and for the last time, don’t call me ‘Princess’ when I’m not in my own kingdom.”

The blue earth pony yawned. “Whatever. What’s up?”

“What’s up is that only half of us are actually back at the hotel. Are you guys still in the building where we had that TFW2005 members meetup?”

Stars thought back to the previous day. He and several other members of a Transformares fansite called TFW2005 had met up at a party in Canterlot. They had planned to have a meetup to get to know one another, then get on a train to travel to Las Pegasus for BotCon, a major Transformares convention. He recalled the party last night, and that he and some of the others had passed out from a combination of over-consumption of ice cream, cake and other goodies and staying up WAY too late.

“Uh, yeah, we’re back at the building, I guess,” he finally answered.

“Well, the train leaves in an hour,” Sweet Pea informed him, “So I’d advise you hurry up.”

“Right oh- see yah soon,” Stars said in his British accent before hanging up. Sleepily, he sat up, only to bump his head on something. As he rubbed his head under his red and blue hair, he glanced around and realized he was under a table.

A gray pony with black hair leaned over the edge of the table. His brown eyes were half closed, and his face was covered in bits of junk food. “Hey, keep it down, will yah?” he asked, annoyed. “I’m trying to sleep here.” With that, he retreated back to the top of the table.

Luck Stars crawled out from under the table. Standing up, he saw the earth pony was lying on the table, using a wadded-up jacket as a makeshift pillow. Around him, the table was littered with candy wrappers and half-eaten goodies.

The blue pony poked him in the back. “Bobado, get up. The train leaves in an hour, and this place is a disaster.”

Bobado groaned with annoyance and reluctantly slid off the table and put on a pair of square-framed glasses.

“Who else is still here?” Stars asked him.

Bobado yawned. “Beats the hoof outta me.”

“Some bloody help YOU are,” Lucky Stars said as he glanced around the room. He could see a few ponies, still fast asleep among the massive amounts of garbage and half-eaten food.

Stars slowly approached a blue unicorn with black hair, a film reel cutie mark, and a face full of freckles. He was passed out of the floor, lying on his back, snoring softly.

Stars nudged him sharply in the side. “Get off the floor, Silver Screen, unless you want to become a floor mat.”

Silver Screen snorted as he awoke. “Huh…? Wha..?”

Stars then tossed a broom at the unicorn. “On second thought, a broom would suit you much better than a door mat.”

Silver groan as he rolled over and stood up, using his magic on the broom to sweep the junk on the floor into a pile.

Satisfied, Lucky Stars searched for his next victim.

An orange pegasus with a top hat suddenly popped out from under a pile of garbage, causing Stars to yelp in surprise.

“Bloody hell, Sunstorm, you nearly gave me a heart attack!” Stars said angrily.

The orange pony yawned and stretched. “That’s CAPTAIN Sunstorm to you, mate,” he said in his best Jack Sparrow impression.

Stars facehoofed. “Just help me wake up the others.”

Captain Sunstorm nodded, then glanced around the room until he spotted a green pegasus curled up on a chair. He had a black and light gray mane and a red LEGO brick for a cutie mark.

The orange pegasus smiled mischievously as he crept over to the sleeping pony. His smile grew larger as he found a can of whipped cream on the floor.

Lucky Stars snickered as he watched Sunstorm carefully spray a large glob of whipped cream onto the green pony’s hoof.

Sunstorm was about to enact the final phase of mis master plan- tickle the green pony’s face with one of his wing feathers- when he suddenly found a whipped cream-covered hoof shoved in his face.

“Seriously?” the green pony started. “If you’re gonna prank me, at least try to do it a little quieter.”

Captain Sunstorm whipped the cream from his face, dismayed that his plan had backfired. “So, Brickbuild, how long have you been awake, pray tell?”

Brickbuild slipped off the chair. “Since that phone rang awhile ago. I’m a light sleeper.”

“Well, then you know that we need to get our plots in gear and clean this place up,” Lucky Stars said as he trotted over to the last pony, another orange pegasus with a black mane and a pencil cutie mark sleeping on a table.

“Sketch, get your lazy flank off their and help us,” Stars ordered.
Sketched rolled over so he was facing away from the blue earth pony. “Make me,” he mumbled.

Stars was about to reply when Brickbuild walked up to the table. Plucking Sketch’s round glasses off the table, the green pony then reared up and kicked one of the legs of the folding table. His kick was well-placed; it hit the lock on the table’s leg, causing the leg to retract. The table fell over, causing Sketch to roll onto the ground.

The orange pegasus shot up. “What in the hoof was that for?!”

Brickbuild handed him his glasses. “Just start cleaning.”

“Whatever,” Sketch mumbled, as he put on his glasses, thankful that Brickbuild had taken them off the table so that he wouldn’t risk them breaking. “Cleaning’s so flippin’ boring.”

“I have Winter Wrap-Up recorded on my IPony,” Brickbuild offered.

“NO!” Sketch replied simply as he hurried to find something to do.

For the next few minutes, the ponies hurriedly swept, tidied, and shoved as much trash as they could in the few trashbags they had.

“Hey, whose Cybertron Starscream is this?” Bobado asked, holding up a maroon action figure.

“Oh, uh, that’s mine,” Lucky Stars said as he snatched up the robot toy and shoved it in his saddlebag.

After what seemed like an hour (but was really closer to about ten minutes), they completed their task.

“I think it looks good enough,” Captain Sunstorm said.

“But it still looks terrible,” Silver Screen commented, pointing to a large pile of pizza boxes haphazardly stacked up in a corner.

“Hey, some day when we’ll be rich and famous, and no one will care if we make a mess!” Sunstorm replied.

Silver shrugged. “Can’t argue with that!”

With that the group abandoned the building they had rented and began the trek towards their hotel.

As they walked, they occasionally glanced at the busy metropolitan city that Canterlot had become over time. Cars and trucks constantly filled the wide streets. Ponies of all shapes and sizes walked up and down the sidewalks that were line with stores, shops and stalls. Police Pegasi made sure that other Pegasi didn’t perform the illegal action of flying over the streets or buildings and instead stayed above the sidewalks.

At last their hotel came into view. It wasn’t the fanciest building, but the service and environment had earned it a good three and a half stars.

A tall, thin alicorn with a light yellow coat and orange and pink hair was waiting outside.

“There you guys are!” Sweet Pea said when the group came in earshot. “The train leaves in a half hour!”

“Where are the others?” Silver Screen asked.

“Still inside,” Sweet Pea replied. “And you say we girls take forever to get ready…”

“Boys take a lot less time to actually get ready,” Bobado started as he walked past the alicorn, “We just put off getting ready longer than you girls.”

“You can say that again,” Sweet Pea muttered as she followed them into the hotel.

In the lobby they found two more ponies- one a red unicorn with orange hair done up to resemble flames and featherpen cutie mark, the other a gray pegasus with a spiky red mane, round glasses and a triangular arrow cutie mark that somewhat resembled the Avengers Logo.

“Hey, Flarefire,” Brickbuild said to the unicorn.
Flarefire looked up from his comic book. “Oh, uh, hi, Bricks.”
“Where are the others?” Bobado asked.
“Still packing up all their junk,” the pegasus, Dunce, replied, not looking up from his Marvel magazine.

“Hey, who you callin’ junk?” asked an orange pegasus with a purple and mint-colored mane and wings and a circular saw cutie mark.

“I wasn’t calling you junk, Buzz Surge,” Dunce replied, still not taking his eyes off his magazine. “I was referring to all that stuff you insisted on shoving into your suitcases.”

“Aw, he doesn’t have THAT much stuff,” said a yellow earth pony with a white mane and a butterfly cutie mark.

“Compared to YOU he does, Imago,” Dunce replied. “I still don’t see how you could fit enough stuff for such a large trip in a single suitcase.”

Imago shrugged. “Hey, I just pack light.”

“C’mon, guys, we can talk about our luggage on the train ride,” Sweet Pea interrupted, “That is, if we actually get there in time.”

After the TFW2005 group had gathered their belongings and checked out, they again began the trek across the city of Canterlot- this time, though, their group was twice as large, making it a bit difficult to stick together on the busy sidewalks.

“Hey, where’d Flarefire and Silver Screen go?” Bobado spoke up.

Being the tallest, Sweet Pea focused her keen alicorn senses on locating the missing ponies. “There they are- at a veggie burger stand.” She sighed. “We SO don’t have time for this. Will someone please go get them?” She was at first pleased to see Brickbuild approaching the stand, but almost facehoofed as he started ordering his own burger.

A minute later, the three colts returned, munching sloppily on ketchup-slathered veggie burgers.

“Can we PLEASE get to the train station now?” Sweet Pea pleaded.

“Well, I kinda wanted to see a musical performance on the other end of town that starts in a few minutes,” Sunstorm joked.

“If you’re so intent on getting there so fast,” Sketch started, “Why don’t you use your alicorn powers to teleport?”

“In public?” Sweet Pea replied as she continued walking in the direction of the train station. “Not a chance! It’s hard enough to not draw attention to myself the way it is!”

Sketch shrugged as he and the other TFW2005 group members followed her to the edge of town.

Finally, they reached the train station. Much to their relief (or at least Sweet Pea’s) the train had yet to leave.

“Hey, look at that!” Imago spoke up. “We’re actually ten minutes early!”

Sweet Pea rolled her eyes. “Let’s just get our tickets already.” She approached the ticket window. Behind it was a female pony with reading glasses and a calculator Cutie Mark. “Hello, we need eleven tickets to Las Pegasus, please.”

The ticket mare peered over her glasses at Sweet Pea, then at the group behind her, as if making sure the request wasn’t a joke. “Alright then, hon. Eleven tickets at eight bits per pony makes your total eighty-eight bits.”

“Do we get a discount for our large group?” Sunstorm asked.

The ticket mare pointed to a sign reading ‘Discounts available for groups with 15+ members.’ “No,” she stated simply.

“Do pegasi get discounts for flying the whole time and not actually touching the floor of the train?” Brickbuild asked.

“No,” the ticket mare repeated.

“Do we get discounts if we ride on the roof?” Silver Screen asked.

“NO! Eighty-eight bits, take it or leave it!” the ticket mare half-shouted, drawing curious glances form other ponies in the depot.

“You should’a let me do the bargaining,” Buzz Surge said as the ponies each withdrew eight bits from their saddlebags.

“I don’t think even you would have gotten very far,” Flarefire said softly as he received his train ticket.

“I agree,” Dunce stated, “This is a train station, not a garage sale. You can’t bargain your way out of everything.”

“I still think they should offer discounts for riding on the roof,” Sliver Screen said as he started for the train.

“Wouldn’t that be considered a safety hazard?” Imago questioned.

Silver Screen shrugged. “I still think it’d be cool.

“Well, I still think that pegasi should be able to ride at a discount if they keep flying for the whole trip and never touch the ground,” Brickbuild commented as they boarded the train.

“Yeah, because you are totally physically capable of pulling that off,” Sketch said sarcastically.

Brickbuild’s head lowered slightly. “It was just a thought…”

“A pretty dumb one,” Sketch muttered as he took his seat.

Brickbuild took a seat a few rows behind him, looking a bit dejected.

Flarefire sat beside him. “Don’t mind Sketch- he’s just a little rough around the edges.”

Brickbuild smiled at the unicorn. “I know. It’s just…” he threw a glance at the orange pegasus, “He reminds me of someone from my past…”

Outside, the Conductor of the train (who looked a lot like the pony version of Alec Baldwin) shouted, “All aboard!” Seconds later, the train began its long voyage to Las Pegasus.