Hey there. My name’s Dave; not Dave Twinkles, or Davebubble, or even Donut Dave. It’s just Dave. I’m a salespony, and I live in a little town just south of Canterlot called Ponyville. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because, even though Ponyville is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, we’ve got something that no other town in the world has; a six little super heroines. Or, at least that’s what they say.
You see, nopony’s ever actually seen these mares do anything… well, heroic. We’ve certainly heard the stories, but I feel like the evidence in their so-called heroics is a little lacking. Like that time our little town was elected to host the Summer Sun Celebration for Celestia herself, but instead her evil sister showed up. So what do these mares do? They run off into the everfree forest in the middle of the night, and when they show up a couple hours later, everypony thinks they’re flippin’ superheroes.
Or that time that Discord thing showed up. Now I’ll admit, things were pretty weird during that whole mess; I was pretty busy pulling carrots out of trees so I could feed my legs, so it’s hard for anypony to confirm very much that was going on at all. But you’re gonna sit there and tell me that the only ponies that weren’t effected just so happened to be the same mares, and that they just somehow managed to turn that monster into stone? Nopony bothers to think that, I dunno, our god-like rulers had anything to do with it? Or the royal guard, maybe? Nope, it just has to be our beloved elements of harmony. There’s no other explanation. It’s just nutty.
Now, I’m not saying I resent these mares or anything, they’re nice girls, and some of them aren’t half-bad looking. But I just have a hard time believing that the whole world revolves around them, ya’know? Though, this isn’t to say that weird stuff doesn’t happen around here. Lemme tell ya’ the some days in Ponyville are just weird. Like, I have no idea what’s going on kind of weird. Like, little fluff-balls eating civilization as we know it, or the gates of Tartarus opening below our hooves kind of weird. Though I didn’t know exactly how weird it could get, until a pony by the name of Newscoop showed up in my life.
It started on a Friday in the middle of June; I remember it was a Friday because I was heading to the store to get some milk. I always found it a little weird that we ponies sold cow’s milk to one another; I mean, yeah, it’d be even weirder if you were taking the milk that came from some mare in town, but cows aren’t exactly pets, I mean they can talk just like you or me. But I still bought milk every Friday, because I’d usually run out by then, and if I didn’t, I’d have some extra, no big whoop.
But anyway, I was at the store, checking the dates on the cartons, ‘cause one guy doesn’t exactly burn through a carton and I didn’t want it going bad, when I see this stallion in a trench coat and a big brown fedora heading straight for me. That freaked me out a little, cause I thought he was gonna flash his pony bits at me or something, but right as he got near me I saw a little glowing pen and notepad float out of his pockets.
“Are you Dave?” He asked me, in this real hush-hush tone of voice, before looking suspiciously around the store.
“Uh, yeah, that’s me…” I started, but he immediately started writing furiously on his notepad. Is this guy for real?
“I’m Newscoop, from the Ponyville Inquirer. I’ve heard you have some interesting theories about the elements of harmony.” The fact that I thought they were a load of hooey wasn’t exactly a secret, I’ll admit. While I didn’t go parading it around, I wasn’t really opposed to telling my friends, or really anypony who asked for that matter, how I felt about it. I mean, I’m not out to hurt anypony’s feelings, but these ladies have bypassed some the roughest economic and political struggles most of us have to go through. I mean, they’ve actually broken some laws, some big ones, and nopony even complains because they think they’re friggin superheroes!
Not that I was ready to tell this guy all that. I mean, I’m pretty open about my views, but I’ve never even heard of the “Ponyville Inquirer,” and I don’t exactly want my face and life philosophies to be plastered next to some article proclaiming “I discovered a seapony!”
“Uh… well, what have you heard?” I’m usually better at smooth talking my out of something like this, but right about now, I just wanted him a few inches farther from my face. Seriously, this guys smells like a friggin drainpipe.
“Word is a pony by the name of Dave has been saying that the elements of harmony actually aren’t the elements of anything,” His voice was still all hush-hush, despite the fact that I don’t think anypony would have cared if we were talking about burning down Canterlot. “That their awards and recognition aren’t the result of their own heroism, but of the biggest hoax Ponyville has ever seen. That’s what I’ve heard”
“Well, uh, maybe you have the wrong Dave.” Seriously, this guy was starting to creep me out.
“I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s anypony else in Ponyville named just ‘Dave.’ And you know what else I think?” I cringed a little when he said this, just desperately hoping he wouldn’t get any closer. “I think you’re right.”
Even to my own surprise, hearing him say that helped me ease up a little. Nutjob or no, I wasn’t used to hearing anypony actually believe me. I mean, what’s so hard to believe? I’m not some sort of crazy conspiracy theorist; I’m just connecting the dots. So that’s what I told him.
“Hey man, I’m no conspiracy theorist or anything, I’m just connecting the dots, ya’ know?”
“Yeah, I do. It makes sense. I mean, when has anypony actually seen these mares do anything that they’ve claimed to? Why do they get so much entitlement out of it?”
Now this guy was talking some sense. “Yeah, I mean, look at Twilight Sparkle. Nice enough mare, but for some reason she’s on government payroll. Why? What does she even do?”
“She reports the magic of friendship to Princess Celestia,” he said without skipping a beat.
I tell ya’, If I was drinking something right then, I’d done a spit take right into his face. The magic of friendship? What kind of job is that? Clearly, I needed to rethink my career choice.
It was evident that Newscoop could see my own surprise. “Here,” a small white card was levitated from his pocket, “this is my card. Come to the address listed and we can get an interview, and maybe get to the bottom of this.”
I held it in my hoof, looking over the address as I thought aloud. “You know what? I think I will.” I gave him a friendly smirk and a nod before turning around to grab a carton of milk. You know what, I thought to myself, he’s probably right. I should tell Equestria about this, it’s not just absurd, it’s a scandal! I was actually getting excited. Things were weird around here thanks to those mares and their free reign, and I was getting sick of it.
I had no idea how weird it was about to get.
So, there I was, standing outside the office of a pony that I had really no reason to trust, just scratching my head wondering why I was there. I mean, I was there because I also had no reason not to trust this guy, and I really had nothing better to do, but that fire that was in my stomach when we first met wasn’t really there anymore.
The place was easy enough to find. Office buildings aren’t exactly common in a small town like Ponyville, but there are a few, mostly for those working for the Ponyville branch of some business, or for pencil-pushers who want to start their own. Each of the doors had a number and the name of the company that owned it in the window. Each one, that is, except the one that just had a big piece of paper slapped on the window, with the words Ponyville Inquirer scribbled on the front. Wonderful.
Not that this guy would give me the chance to change my mind. I waited for maybe a few minutes tops, and I was about to head out, before he opened the door and pulled me inside. To be honest, a few minutes is actually not much time for him to notice me, and I’m surprised he did at all, seeing as the window has a sheet of paper plastered over it and I wasn’t sure enough to actually ring the doorbell.
“Were you followed?” What kind of question is that? Followed by whom? I scratched my head another time before I just decided to play along.
“Uh… no, no I don’t think so.” As soon as I was in there, the smell was the first thing that got to me. If I thought Newscoop himself smelled strange, I was not prepared to get a whiff of his office. Not that it smelled bad, just strange. And, to be fair, it wasn’t much worse than my apartment, either. Yes, there are apartments in a small town like Ponyville. I didn’t really know this either when I first got here, but it seems folks are in a much more educational mood when they find out you can’t really afford a mortgage.
“Good. We can’t afford a leak this early on.” Oh, great. This guy really is as crazy as I feared. What could I possibly leak? What does that even mean? I’ve already told everypony about how I feel about this whole thing; did he really think I’d hand out the card to his office or something?
He motioned to one of the desks in the room. “Alright, this is your desk; let’s not waste any time.”
“Woah, hold up. You never said anything about working here.” I backed away for a moment, reaching my back hoof towards the door.
“Look, do you want to get the truth out or not? That’s gonna take some paperwork.”
“I’ve already got a job, I’m not gonna be your desk jockey. “ He didn’t seem too happy at that. Newscoop paced the room a couple times, stroking his chin with a hoof, before turning back to me.
“Hmmm.. . well, I think you can still be of some help.” Oh, thanks. Glad to know that my opinion is still valuable to you, even though I’m not dedicating my entire life to this cause of yours. This guy’s really full of assumptions, let me tell ya.
“Look, I thought we were just going to talk about what I already knew, I’m not some kind of investigative journalist or something!” He just eyed me for a minute before speaking, and for a second there I thought he was gonna do something, like hurt me or something.
“Alright, shoot.” Now, this is the part where I should have been blabbering off like a madpony. I mean I talk about this all the time, sometimes to the point where whoever’s listening would just start ignoring me.
“Uh, actually what I already told you is about the most of it.” I could mouth off to my co-workers about this for hours, so why didn’t I have anything to say to this guy? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that their offices didn’t smell like week-old sardines.
He stopped for a minute, silently eyeing me, before he made his reply. “Oh really? Because I thought you were going to say something about how the mares in question have some sort of government support, and how they’re treated so well so that they’re figureheads for the town, even though they never did anything. I thought you may also say a thing or two about how they’re taking work away from the guard, and getting away with unlawful and dangerous activity on a frequent basis due to their celebrity status.”
Oh yeah. That too.
“In any case, we need to find out exactly what these mares were doing on these specific nights if we’re going to expose them.” He started pacing the room again, muttering to himself while switching his eyes from the floor to me and back to the floor again. I can tell you, between the smell and this here pony, I really wanted to get out of there.
“Well, what do you suppose we do?” I interjected, hoping we could resolve this as soon as possible, “We can’t just ask them.”
It’s when I said that that he stopped and turned back to me. “Maybe… maybe we can.” What? He can’t be serious.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am. I know it sounds unorthodox, but tell me what they say, we might be able to glean a little from their stories. Maybe they won’t match up or something.”
I wasn’t sure this even qualified as a plan, but I was looking for any excuse to get out of there. A pony with cahonies would have left a while ago, just through being fed up with this guy, but a mix of modesty and weakness meant I needed a good excuse to just bail like that. “Sure, I’ll go ask them.” I gave him a nervous nod and a sort of wave/point gesture as I headed out the door.
The air outside smelled as sweet as a freshly baked pie compared to Newscoop’s office, and I gave a nice full whiff before moving on. Kind of made me crave a freshly baked pie.
On that impulse, I headed to Sugar Cube corner, Ponyville’s residential bakery. I decided to myself to talk to these mares if I came across them, but I wasn’t going to seek them out. It’s not like I owed Newscoop that much, in fact I didn’t really owe him anything.
The bell hanging above the door let out a gentle ring as I entered, and I could hear one of the owners calling out from the kitchen in back. “We’ll have somepony serve you in just a moment!”
“Uh, thank you,” I tried to call back. It didn’t take long before a bright pink blur flew up to the counter, practically pulsating with sugar-induced energy.
“Hi, Dave! Whatcanigetcha?” Ah, crap, I forgot she worked here.
“Hi, Pinkie,” I feebly replied.
Okay, now let me put this particular mare into perspective for you. Pinkie Pie was friendly to the extreme; she was always joking, and she usually went out of her hyperactive way to make her friends happy. Now, that’s all good and fun, but the thing about Pinkie Pie was that she was friends with every pony in Ponyville. I mean, Ponyville isn’t a large town by anypony’s standards; in fact, if somepony had never seen a small town in their life and they wanted you to show them a picture of exactly what to expect, you couldn’t go wrong with this quaint little town. But, that said, there’s still a population of, like, 2,000 ponies.
Pinkie Pie knows all of them. Every single one. By name. She knows what you look like. She knows what you sound like. She knows where you work, and probably what your cutie mark is. If she hasn’t met you before, she will go out of her way to throw you a party. It’s unsettling.
“So, what can I do for my most-special-bestest-buddy in the whole world? Well, except all my other super-bestest-buddies of course!” She let out a little giggle-snort before leaning into my face, and I can swear that the size of her eyes doubled.
“Well, I’d like a pie, and uh-“
“Cherry or apple?”
“Apple. But anyways, Pinkie, I’ve got a question for you, if you’ve got a sec.” I bashfully looked away from her eyes as I spoke. What was I doing? It was just a simple question, but I knew it was the first step into a whole mess that I really didn’t want to get into.
“Surey-durey! I’m always happy to help out my friends!” I swear, her smile was so wide it almost looked like she was trying to eat me or something.
“Uh, yeah… anyways, I was wondering where you were last year at the summer sun festival? You know, when Princess Celestia was supposed to show up but her sister did instead, except she was all evil?”
“Omigosh! I remember that night because I was like
‘Imsoexcitedareyouexcitedbecauseimexcitediveneverbeensoexcitedexceptthatonetimethatisawyou-‘ uh, I was talking to Twilight, when I say you I mean her not you, ‘andiwaslike HUUUUUUUUUH!’ It was the greatest!”
Okay, what? What is she even talking about?
I shook my head to return my focus to the matter at hand. “Anyway, when Nightmare Moon showed up and everypony just ran for it, where did you go?”
“Oh me? I went to see my friend Twilight! And then all of us went into the Everfree forest! It was really scary, but kind of fun too! We laughed at some trees and fixed Steven Magnet’s moustache, and Fluttershy even got to make friends with a Manticore! And then Twilight learned all about friendship and we got these neat necklaces! Wanna see?”
“Uh, no, thanks.” I paused for a moment, futilely trying to decipher the random bunch of information I was just given, before speaking again, “Now, when you say, ‘all of us,’ who do you mean, exactly?” I knew most of the mares involved, and that there were six of them, but I didn’t have all of their names yet.
“Oh, that’s just Twilight, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and me! Why do you ask?” She tilted her head in curiosity, though her smile didn’t shrink an inch.
“Oh, no reason. I was just, uh, curious.” I know, I’m a pretty crappy liar.
Still, she seemed to buy it. “Okay, see ya’ later, Dave!”
I walked out of the store with a pie on my back as I tried to piece together Pinkie’s story. I honestly had no idea if she just confirmed or refuted what the town believed; in fact, I’m not sure what her story was at all. Something about yelling at trees, and fixing a manticore or something. Did that even have to do with the conversation we were having?
Well in any case, I decided to go over my mental list of which of her friends I knew already. Twilight Sparkle was the town librarian, and Applejack was one of the Apples, which ran the huge apple farm outside of town. I think that Rarity is that mare who runs the boutique, and I believe I heard something about Rainbow Dash being a pegasus that spends a lot of time in Ponyville. I hadn’t the most remote idea who Fluttershy was, though, so I’d have to ask somepony else sooner or later. But first, it was time for some pie.
Before I was going anywhere I had a nice slice of pie to enjoy, so I decided to trot over to the outdoor tables by the market and enjoy my purchase. I could have stayed at Sugarcube Corner, but I really needed to get away from that pink ball of energy as soon as I could manage. I know she really just has the best intentions, but I can't help it, she makes me nervous. No way a pony that energetic doesn't have something with a little more "oomph" than just sugar, ya' know?
Besides, I wasn't going to let the weirdness of this afternoon ruin my confectionary treat. The best part is that an apple pie doesn't have anything really weird or unnatural about it, like the cow's milk does. Well, I guess it does have a crust made from bread, which means that there's yeast in it, which means that I'm eating little cooked bacteria. But seriously, any food sounds downright freaky if you over-analyze it. The important thing here was that the smell was enough for me not to care.
But anyways, enough about the pie. The point is that I was involved in my snack when I had a face to face collision with her. The pie I mean. Because the back of my head had a bit of a collusion with the flank of speeding blue pegasus, and it drove me face-first into the pie.
"Geez! What in Equestria are you doing?!" I sputtered between fits of coughing.
"Heh, sorry about that. I'll make it up to you, I swear!" the mare rubbed the back of her rainbow mane abashedly as she hovered over me.
"You bet your sorry flank you'll make it up to me! Who just charges headfir-" wait a minute. Rainbow mane? Wasn't one of the ponies I was looking for supposed to be rainbow something or other? I felt like this was a pretty good indicator of what I was looking for.
"Hold up, isn't your name Rainbow... someth-"
"Rainbow Dash, the one and only! Sorry, no autographs." Oh, well, at least she's modest about it.
"Yeah, yeah. Look, I need to ask you something. Do you remember where you were the year Celestia was supposed to show up during the Summer Sun Celebration?" There were other instances I wanted to ask about, but I decided if I was going to make this an investigation, I should probably be consistent.
"Well of course I remember where I was! I was in the Everfree forest, kicking some Nightmare Moon flank!" Well now, I think I know where these rumors started.
"Oh yeah? I'm supposed to believe that old pony's tale is real? And that little old you managed to 'kick it's flank'?"
"Hey, what's the big idea? You trying to start something?" She started to weave back and forth in the air, with her hooves raised up by her face. I suddenly got the distinct feeling this pegasus wanted to pick a fight with me. Well, I'd never hit a mare (or at least I hadn't yet, and didn't really want to start), and furthermore, I'm pretty sure this spunky little pony would kick the crap outta me.
So, yeah, I didn't really want that to happen.
"Look, I'm not trying to start anything, I just didn't know that... yeah. I didn't know. Thanks for... enlightening me?" It would take a miracle for something as weak as that to work. Luckily, I guess arguing with a pony with an insanely massive ego counts as a miracle.
"Yeah, it's no big deal. It can get pretty hard to believe that ponies come as awesome as me. But trust me, I'm the real deal." She took the time to strike a few aerial poses as she spoke, probably to emphasize her point... somehow.
That gave me an idea, though, and I tried a different tactic. "Okay, so how exactly did you beat Nightmare... whatever?"
"Oh, you wanna know the details, huh? Well first I followed Twilight and all our friends into the Everfree forest. They were all a bunch of scardey-ponies, but not me. I'm fearless. Then we ran into a manticore, and I was all like, 'wha-bam!' And there were these evil enchanted trees, but I was all like 'bim, bam boom!' And then there was this huge sea serpent, but I was all like 'you want a piece, big guy?' and then I was all like 'who-pow!' And then the Shadowbolts showed up, and they were all like 'Oooh Rainbow Dash, join us because you're so awesome' But I was all like 'no way!' Because I'm the element of loyalty!"
Huh. Yeah, glad I got that cleared up. I'll just go back to Newscoop and tell him that they went 'wha-bam,' and then it'll all be clear as day. Case closed.
"Yeah, um, okay, thanks for clearing that up."
"No problem. And hey, if you ever want an autograph, you know where to find me!" No. No, I really don't.