Fear and Loathing in Las Pegasus

The mare at the sporting magazine's Manehattan headquarters was not helpful. First she claimed to have no idea who I was; then she said she wasn't aware of any Minty 500 or the article I needed to write about it, and by that time I was pouring sweat. I shoved Celestia's letter onto her desk, and after reading it impatiently, she at last gave me a grudging advance check for 300 bits. I have never been able to properly explain myself to pencil-pushers. Pay no attention to anyone who asks you to "wait a moment" or "calm down" or "fill out this form" or "please stop stealing our sugar cubes." These are delaying tactics. Ponies like that are just trying to hold you down. They don't understand the urge - the joy of flight, the shameful thrill of encroaching eggheadism, the sheer buoyant pleasure of a life where it's always time for dessert.

Neither did I, once. I used to think I was the coolest filly alive, but I was square as a bale of hay 'til I got to know Pinkie Pie. She hooked me up and strung me out; never a bad trip, never a confection I regretted consuming. I've tried to explain it to Twilight Sparkle and Applejack and some other friends of mine. But they just look at me as if I'm crazy, the same as this hitchhiker of ours, and ... Tirek's maw, what if I am crazy? A mad beast, drooling with lust for all things esculent and saccharine, impossible to reason with, a menace to pony society? "She who makes a beast of herself gets rid of the pain of being a pony," one of the books in Twilight's old library said. But civilization has its uses, and to function in it one must follow rules - not religiously, but enough to keep everypony else off your back.

I flew right out of the magazine office through an open window and dove gracefully into our futuristic carriage, where Pinkie Pie sat waiting.

"This is all they gave us?" she said, her ears drooping slightly. "But that will never be enough - not unless we have access to something really crazy, like unlimited credit from the Crown."

I assured her we would, and showed her the royal traveler's checks given to me by the Princess. "Celestia would never hang us out to dry! Don't worry about it, Pinks. Have a little faith in the goodness of ponykind. Just hours ago we were sitting in that hotel, dead broke and exhausted, when a royal message arrives with orders from a total stranger in Manehattan requesting my journalistic services; then they send me straight over here where another total stranger gives me 300 bits for no reason at all ... this is the Equestrian Dream in action! We'd be fools not to ride this thermal as high as it can take us!"

There was no good way to prepare for a trip like this, I told her, because a trip like this had never been taken before. All we could do was wing it: take all the mind-bending confections we could carry and screech off across the desert to cover the story. But what was the story? Nopony had bothered to say. Of course it must somehow relate to the Minty 500, but beyond that what was our angle? We would have to come up with our own. Choose your own direction or get taken for a ride, my father always said to me. Free enterprise. Free will. An adventure limited only by our own imaginations.

Pure gonzo journalism.

I am still vaguely haunted by that green stallion's claim that he "surely never rode in a carriage like this one before." Neither had Pinkie and I, and who's to say we deserved the privilege? I felt like King Boreas. I was tempted to pull over once we reached the city limits and draw up some kind of common-law contract whereby we could just give him the car and divest ourselves of the responsibility. But this manic notion passed quickly. Even in my own compromised judgment, I knew this was not practical. Besides, I had plans for this car. Clear visions of blazing into Las Pegasus in the baddest carriage ever built, maybe doing some serious drag racing ... screeching up to a stoplight by the Ponet Fantastique and start shouting at the traffic: "All right, you gutless changelings! You pansies! When this goddess-damned light turns green, I'm gonna blow every one of you wimps off this road!"

Right. Challenge the bastards on their own turf. Hit the juice pedal with a flask of the finest fermented cider on one hoof, jabbing the horn ferociously ... red eyes insanely dilated behind these gold-rimmed greaser shades, howling gibberish ... a genuinely dangerous drunk, crusted with salt and cookie crumbs, trembling with terminal psychosis, waiting for the light to change ...

How often does a chance like that come around? Especially now, when we're breeding a lost generation of emotional cripples? They try to lock every door in your mind before you can even peek through the cracks, and make you as joyless and bored as they are. Twilight Sparkle never told me the true significance of Star Swirl the Bearded's work; I had to discover it for myself. Oh, he didn't just write about magical theory, young foals. He also wrote about society, about life, about the dangers of living in a bubble and closing the mind to good things - and evil things. The less you experience, the less you challenge yourself, the more vulnerable you are to the Tireks and Chrysalises and King Sombras of the world. You can't always count on the Elements of Harmony to come down and save you. So if you do happen to be stranded on the side of a dusty road one day, and the ride you flag down happens to be a snazzy red convertible carrying two deranged dessert-swilling fiends, remember that the true danger isn't them. It's the helplessness you have learned and allowed to fester, the inability to cope with extremes.

Our whole trip out here was one big extreme. It was a gross, clumsy, physical salute to the dazzling possibilities of life in this world - but only for those with true grit. And we were chock full of that. Grit, and cupcake frosting.

Pinkie Pie understood this, in her own roundabout way; she'd been defying boundaries before she even learned what they were, rejecting any and all limits to her potential with a giggle and a cheeky grin. But our hitchhiker was not an easy pony to reach. He said he understood, but I could see in his eyes that he didn't. He was lying to me.

The car suddenly veered off the road and skidded into a patch of loose gravel. I was thrown against the dashboard. Pinkie was slumped forward over the wheel. "What's going on?" I yelled. "We can't stop here. This is fruit bat country!"

"My heart," she groaned. "Where's the medicine?"

"You don't need heart med ... oh. Right. I'll hook you up." I flapped around to the back of the car, opened the trunk just wide enough so that I (not the kid) could see inside, removed the kit-bag and fished out a few honey-cured hay cubes. The stallion stared. "It's okay. This mare has a bad heart. It hurts when she goes too long without tasting the sweetness of life. But I've got the cure; just sit tight." I put a comforting front leg behind Pinkie's head and fed her one of the cubes as her fluffy mane tickled my coat.

She chewed and swallowed with a blissful smile. Moments later she jerked and flailed her hooves, staring straight up at the sun and nearly tumbling into the back. "Play the kazoo, Dashie! Give my heart a rhythm to beat to! Volume! Clarity! Sonic friendship!"

"Not so loud!" I barked. "And don't tell me what your treatment plan is. You're talking to a doctor of journalism!"

Pinkie Pie was laughing out of control. "Oh, Dashie, what are we doing in this giant oven of a desert? Why would anypony ever come out here? To party? To gamble? You can throw a party anywhere, and you're gambling with your life as soon as you clear the MacIntosh Hills. We must be loco in the coco. Somepony call the guard! We need help!"

"Don't mind this cream puff," I told the hitchhiker. "She's off her medicine. You see, we're both doctors of journalism, and we're heading out to Las Pegasus to cover a horse race. The great horse race of life! You have to gamble with it before you can understand it. But try to tell that to those damn gryphons!" And then the sugar twitches started anew, and the twitches turned into fits of convulsive laughter ...

My friend turned around to face the stallion, pushing up her shades to reveal the mad primordial gleam of self-awareness within. "The truth is," she said in an exaggerated whisper, "we're going to the Minty 500 to find a gryphon named Grampa Gruff. I've known him for years, but he stole two bits from us. You know what that means, right?!"

I would have shut her up, but nopony can turn off Pinkie Pie when she really gets going, and I was helpless with laughter anyway. What were we doing out here, anyway? Going insane? I had to admit it was the perfect spot for a full-blown crack-up.

"It means Gruff's gonna get snuffed!" Pinkie raved at the petrified kid in the backseat. "He's gonna get his just desserts!"

"With extra frosting!" I blurted out, breathlessly. "That money-grubbing shyster won't get away with this! What's happening to this country when a filthy-feathered old wheezer like that can extort money, kidnap a doctor of journalism and try to talk her to death?! Tartarus on earth, that's what! Judgment day is coming, and we're your saviors! See my wings? See her halo of pink hair? What more do you need?"

"We are divinity!" Pinkie howled, laughing so hard she was tearing up. "And we taste like it too! Come up here and find out, stallion!"

The young unicorn was climbing frantically out of the backseat and scrambling down over the trunk lid, his face a blushing mask of terror. "Thanks for the ride," he yelled as he backed away. "No really! You two ladies sure are nice, but, um ... I've gone as far as I need to go! Thanks a lot!" His hooves hit the dirt and he started running back down the road. Out in the middle of the desert, without a tree in sight.

"Wait a minute," I yelled. "Come back here and get some cider." But apparently he couldn't hear me. I shrugged and trumpeted a solo on the kazoo, serenading his unexpected departure.

"Good riddance, Dashie," said my friend. "We had a real freak on our hooves. That colt made me nervous. Did you see his eyes?"

"You sure run into some weird ponies these days," I chuckled, opening the passenger door. "Move over. I'll drive. We have to get to the city before that kid puts the guard on our tails."

"Aww, that'll be hours!" Pinkie said, but she moved over anyway. "He's a hundred miles from anywhere."

"So are we." I flew around to the driver's seat and got in. "Hang on," I yelled as the wind-scream took over again; I stomped on the accelerator and we continued whirring down the road. "We have to get to the Minty Hotel by four. Otherwise we lose our press pass and we might have to pay for our room."

She nodded. "But let's forget that horse hockey about the Great Equestrian Dream," she said. "The important thing is the Great Pinkie-Dashian Dream." She reached into the kit-bag, fumbling out the salt shaker of confectioner's sugar. Opening it. Spilling it. Then crying out and flailing pitifully at the air, as our fine white dust blew across the country like a twister and was gone. "Oh, nuts!" she moaned as her mane dropped. "Did you see what Celestia just did to us?"

"Celestia didn't do that, you clumsy mule!" I shouted. "You did it! You're a fucking dietician, aren't you?! I was on to you from the start!"

"Don't say such silly things, Dashie," Pinkie growled. "Sir Lintsalot and Madame le Flour might get upset with you."

I blew a raspberry, still fuming. Las Pegasus was just up ahead. I could see the overdeveloped mess of clouds rising from the desert dust-haze: the Ponet Fantastique, the Lucky Horseshoe, Trenderhoof's Tavern and Seabiscuit's Palace, pale rectangles looming ominously in the sky. We had thirty minutes left; it was going to be a close shave. Our goal was the big light green tower of the Minty Hotel, downtown - and if we didn't get there before we lost all control of ourselves, the San Palomino Stable, one of the larger jailhouses in Equestria. I could make it, though. No problem, no sweat. There was just one thing I needed to calm my nerves, to counteract the sugar rush, to steady myself before we steered ourselves up the cloud-ramp.

A big, long, dreamy lick of salt.

KILL THE LIES THAT HURT MOST AND THE
TRUTH WILL DIE PAINLESSLY

This quote is scrawled wildly on one of my scrolls from the Minty Hotel. I have no idea what it means except that it sounds vaguely like something Star Swirl would have written; I was thinking of his work at the time, when I wasn't stumbling through a world of wide-awake nightmares. That was another era. Many things have changed since his day. And now I was in Las Pegasus, the city of bartered souls and wasted bits, as the racing sports editor of this fine slick magazine that sent me out here in the Great Red Dragon for some reason nopony claimed to understand. "Just check it out," they said, "and we'll take it from there ... "

Indeed. Check it out. How complicated could that be? Well, I won't beat around the bush. When we finally reached the hotel it became apparent that I had overindulged, as they say; took a much longer lick of a much more potent block than I should have, and now everything was a mass of bleary shadows that pulsed and jabbered nonsensically. I knew I was in no shape to deal artfully with the registration procedure. We were forced to stand in line with the other press ponies - which turned out to be very tough under the circumstances. I kept telling myself: "Be quiet, be calm, lean on Pinkie ... speak only when spoken to; name, rank, and publication, nothing else ... ignore the effects, pretend nothing unusual is happening and that the bellcolt taking our luggage isn't growing scales ... goddess, he really is! Does he know? Should I tell him?!"

I won't attempt to describe my terror when I finally reached the front desk and began babbling at the clerk, trying to remember my pen name. All my well-rehearsed lines withered to barely connected syllables under that earth mare's stony gaze. "Wazzup ... Minty? I mean, um ... hotel pony. I'm Rainbow Blitz. I mean, Aurora Dash. I mean ... Aurora Blitz. That's it. Totally on the list, you know it. That's for sure. Full coverage, reporting on the Pinkie-Dashian Dream, the magazine, you know? Centerfolds of hoofball centers, yes ma'am. The Princess knows me. Of course this mare with me is not on the list, but she's my supplier. I mean, driver. Uh, moral support. Yeah. Just check the list and you'll see ... a bunch of mimeographed letters, and ... my name. What's the score here? What's next?"

The mare never blinked. "Your room's not quite ready," she said. "But there's somepony looking for you."

"No!" I shouted. "What? Why?! We haven't done anything yet! Did that damn stallion snitch? What did he tell you?! It's lies, all lies! We - mmmmph," I finished as Pinkie Pie helpfully clapped a hoof over my mouth. I slumped nervously over the top of the desk and sagged toward her as she held out the envelope, but I couldn't accept it. The mare's face was actually changing, warping; from well-groomed gray coat to shiny green, blunt muzzle to pointed snout and a forked tongue. It snaked out to taste my fear, drooling hungrily ... deadly poison! I jerked my hoof away just in time, reeling back into Pinkie as she stepped forward and accepted the envelope. The drops of venom fell smoking and sizzling on the wooden surface. Mare in the Moon, what was that stuff?!

"I'll take care of this," she said cheerfully to the lizard mare. "This mare is the best young flier in Equestria and a super-awesome journalisticator! She has a bad heart, but I brought plenty of medicine. My name is Doctor Gonzo. Prepare our suite at once, please, with extra extra mints on the pillows. We'll wait in the bar."

The clerk shrugged as she led me away. I suppose in a floating city full of half-mad zombified slot jockeys, no one really notices a salt freak. We struggled through the bustling lobby and found two stools at the bar. I sat in mine only after verifying that there were no spikes hidden inside the cushion, waiting to make bloody mulch out of my hindquarters. That was just the kind of demented trick that Grampa Gruff would pull. My friend ordered two 'Minty juleps' and a dish of gumdrops, which I choked down nervously as she opened the envelope.

"Hmmmmmmmmm." She scowled at it through the magnifying glass she must have whipped out when I wasn't looking. "If I'm not mistaken, this ... " She gummed the paper, sniffed inside the envelope, and stared at the message upside down. " ... is a letter."

I groaned.

"Hey, good detective work takes time," Pinkie pouted. She studied the words even more closely. " 'Where in Tartarus are you girls? Meet me in Room 420 and step on it. Sandy Parchment'. Do we know her?"

I swayed slightly on my stool. Sandy Parchment? The name rang a bell, but I couldn't remember; couldn't focus. The bar was turning into a veritable house of horrors, with sickening things happening all around us. Right next to me a massive reptile in a third-rate leisure suit was knawing messily on a mare's neck, turning the carpet into a blood-soaked sponge; impossible to walk on, no traction at all.

"You'd better get our hooves shod with cleats," I whispered, "If we want to get out of this room alive. All these lizards don't have any trouble moving around, do they? That's because they've got claws on their feet, lucky bastards. Herbivores like us just have to make do."

"You think it's weird in here? Wait 'til you see what's happening in the elevators." She shuddered and gestured toward the gleaming metal doors. "Two words: mu ... zak. It's the worst thing in the whole wide world. My hair straightens every time I hear it. Where's our kazoo?"

I shook my head. "Forget that! What about our room? And the cleats? We're right in the middle of a fucking reptile exhibit! And ponies are serving booze to these goddess-forsaken things! They'll pump us full of poison, wait for us to die, claw us to shreds and then fight over the pieces."

"I dunno - they look pretty much like regular ponies to me, unless ... what if they're all lizards wearing really convincing pony costumes?!" Pinkie's eyes got big and watery. "If they are, you'll save me, right? You'll pick me up and fly me out of here."

I swallowed the final gumdrop, finishing what might very well be my last meal, and stared back at her. "I'll fly you as far as it takes," I said softly.

She smiled gratefully. If that was the last thing I ever saw tonight, at least it was something good.

When green, scaly death did not immediately follow, I took another cautious look around and saw a group that seemed to be watching us. Their teeth flashed dully, dripping blood. Apparently they'd already dined. Maybe that made them less dangerous than the others. "Look at that bunch over there. I think they've spotted us!"

"That's the press table, Dashie. That's where you have to sign in for your credential thingies so they'll let us in with the other reporters." She took a sidelong glance across the room. "Let's get it over with. Just stand up and follow me. Put your hoof on my back. We'll get your pass, get our room, you'll come down soon and everything's gonna be okay. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Okay," she tittered, and led me gently over in the direction of the table. Somehow we managed to walk through the pools of blood without slipping or even staining our hooves. The room was a blur. As I moved the edges of the lizards' bodies seemed to disintegrate, exposing cold sinew and bone. I fought down a wave of nausea and looked away. We couldn't let it end here. The job must be completed. Wonderbolts-in-training never surrender!

Follow the sweet-smelling pink thing, I told myself as I trotted through a low-lit den of monstrosities. That way lies salvation.