Freedom Thirty-Five
Twilight Sparkle,
I have an important task that may help with your studies in friendship. Not far from Ponyville lies a chaotic place where many of my laws are disregarded, Sunnyvale trailer park. There is much hostility among residents which often leads to violent clashes between them. That is why I am asking you and the other Element bearers to assist this place and its residents by teaching them of your lessons of friendship. I warn you, many of these ponies are ex-convicts and petty criminals, so do be careful around there. I would hate to see any harm come to my faithful student or her friends. You will find Sunnyvale a few miles north of Ponyville, there is only one road going that direction, so it should not be hard to find. I wish you all the best of luck.
Your mentor,
Princess Celestia
Twilight looked up from the letter at Spike.
"Well, what did it say?" Spike asked.
"Apparently we're supposed to help the residents of a... trailer park."
"Seriously? A trailer park? Isn't this better suited for a welfare program?"
"According to the Princess, this place is in desperate need of harmony. She said it's residents constantly break the law and clash with one another."
"Any form of law enforcement?"
"I'm pretty sure she wants a more permanent solution than arresting them or throwing money their way."
"Why do I get the feeling this is going to be unnecessarily difficult?"
"Spike, its just a trailer park, we'll be fine. I'm sure the residents are reasonable ponies who would be glad to accept our friendship. Who knows? We may even see them coming up to Ponyville."
"I'm worried you're only right about seeing them in Ponyville."
"You're making this seem worse than it is Spike. Now lets go get the girls so we can meet these ponies for ourselves. They'll just love a friendly bunch like us."
Twilight gathered her friends and told them of their new task, receiving odd looks from everypony save for Pinkie. After she had them all together the group was on their way to Sunnyvale. Much like Twilight, the other ponies assumed the task was of little risk, almost a joke. After about half an hour of travel, the group noticed a wooden sign reading, "Sunnyvale Trailer Park, Jim Lahey Trailer Park Supervisor." The group turned onto the road leading into the park. They found two ponies at the entrance who seemed alarmed at their approach, but disappointed after a second glance.
"Any idea who they are Mr. Lahey?" asked a peach colored earth pony in a white button up shirt which the pony seemed to perpetually wear.
"Don't bother with them Randy, they'er probably just here for one of J-Rock's films." said the beige unicorn with a receding mane.
Randy and Lahey were fine with letting the mares pass, until they saw the purple one leading the rest towards them. Lahey decided to let the purple unicorn who appeared to be the group leader speak first.
"Excuse me, I was wondering if one of you would know where I can find the park supervisor." said Twilight to either pony.
"That would be me, park supervisor Jim Lahey. What brings you to Sunnyvale?" replied Lahey.
"Well this may be a bit hard to believe, but I'm here by order of Princess Celestia. She claims this park has problems with residents breaking laws and creating discord among other residents. Would you know anything about this or be able to name anypony responsible?"
"Holy shit Randy did you hear that?"
"Celestia? How'd they get her attention?" asked Randy.
"I don't know, but they really fucked up this time."
"How bad?"
"Randy, Princess Celestia has sent ponies to deal with them! They've taken their little shit raft up shit creek into shit river and out into the shit ocean and just now remembered to bring a shit paddle! We'll never see that loser Ricky again!"
Lahey hadn't been this exuberant since the last time Ricky took his shit raft up to shit creek, but he didn't make it to the shit river before getting arrested. His new attitude could almost pass him off as sober, but the flask by where Lahey was waiting put that dream six feet under. Still, maybe he wouldn't be so compelled to drink with Ricky and his friends finally gone. The Celestia sent mares arrived at a conveniently close time to the next pony, a light blue earth pony with a brown mane and facial hair, the one whose shit raft was drifting in the shit ocean. Lahey didn't hesitate to greet Ricky.
"Ricky, so wonderful you could join us. You'll be thrilled to meet our new friends."
"The fuck are you talkin' about Lahey?!"
"Why, these lovely mares seem to be looking for some troublemakers in my park, some that happened to have attracted the attention of Princess Celestia herself."
"Why would Princess fuckin' Celestia be pissed at me?! Who the fuck sends a group of random fuckin' mares to deal with shit anyways?! You must be fucked in the head Lahey cause these girls are fulla shit!"
Ricky and Lahey's argument quickly changed into an incoherent storm of obscenities. Twilight and the rest of her friends were confused by this, none of the six had ever dealt with an argument as intense or as nonsensical as this. After fifteen seconds of this, Twilight had enough.
"WILL BOTH OF YOU JUST SHUT THE...", she felt the situation called for a naughty word, "...BUCK UP!" yelled Twilight at Ricky and Lahey. "No Ricky, we're not full of...", two naughty words would be overstepping Twilight's boundaries, "...it. And no Mr. Lahey, we're not here to arrest Ricky or his friends. Celestia said this place was plagued with disharmony, so we've been tasked with helping the residents of Sunnyvale learn about friendship and creating harmony in this trailer park."
Ricky and Lahey didn't hesitate to laugh. Randy was the only one of the three who seemed to take Twilight seriously.
"C'mon guys, she has a good point. I mean, you and Ricky are always fighting, and it always ends in disaster for one of you. maybe if we just gave friendship a chance we could really improve Sunnyvale. Don't you want to stop trying to get Ricky arrested and just run a normal trailer park. What do you say guys?" said Randy.
The six mares from Ponyville were touched by Randy's words, they had almost began to gain hope in bringing friendship to Sunnyvale. Only Spike foresaw the disaster Ricky and Lahey were about to make of Randy's inspiring moment.
"Well Randy, I'd love to see more friendship in Sunnyvale, and I think we might see it someday, if we can get rid of criminal losers like Ricky." said Lahey, effectively killing the moment set up by Randy.
Ricky was about to engage in his natural response to any insult from Lahey by throwing various curses at him and awkwardly wrestling with Randy, but he was beaten to the response by Twilight.
"Listen guys, we aren't just some random mares here because we feel like it, we're the Elements of Harmony and we've been sent by Celestia herself! If you don't at least try to cooperate, you may attract unwanted attention and be dealing with the Royal Guard instead of us." Twilight warned. This time the two seemed more intent on listening.
"Okay fine. If one of you wants to come along with me and help me take care of some stuff with Julian that'll be fine. Just don't pull any Royal bullshit or magic fuckin' harmony stuff alright?" said Ricky.
"I'll go with him." said Rainbow Dash quickly, as if everypony else wanted to be around Ricky. The two were immediately off, Ricky wanting little more to do with the rest of the group.
"Ok Dash, you can go with him. Girls, we should probably..." Twilight turned to see Applejack and Rarity were missing. "Fluttershy, did you see where AJ and Rarity went?"
"Well um, Applejack called this, um, a waste of time. Then Rarity, well, she sort of walked off to. I was going to tell you but you seemed busy talking, so i thought I'd wait until you asked about them to tell you." replied Fluttershy.
Twilight almost agreed with Applejack, but she couldn't leave a job like this incomplete. She knew where the difficulty in this task was, and why Spike wasn't fond of them getting anywhere near Ponyville.
Rainbow Dash and Ricky made their way through a series of trailers to get to Julian's. The trailers were nothing impressive. Most were nearly identical four sided rectangular prisms with decks to elevate the resident to the door. They were nothing Applejack and Big Mac couldn't put up in a few hours. Dash was just glad to get Ricky alone. She needed to talk with him about something she didn't want her friends know. She noticed his cutie mark before anything else. A leaf from and infamous and illegal plant he was associated with around the park. She had to ask him...
"So are you a dealer or what?"
"How did you figure that out?!"
"Honestly, what else could your cutie mark represent?"
"I could be a fuckin' plant scientist or some shit. What if I'm just like good at weed biogy?"
"Then you might know how to pronounce Biology."
"Don't pull out a bunch of big ass science words on me, I'm not good at vocablary and stuff."
"Whatever, I was going to say, the only nearest dealer is all the way in Cloudsdale and overcharges me every time. If you could sell in Ponyville, I could get you more and better paying customers than you'd ever get in this trailer park."
Ricky pondered that for a moment. If it were up to him, he would already have started, but if he wanted to do anything like this he had to go to Julian.
"Tell you what, I'll talk to Julian about this. We already have a plan in order, and he gets all pissed off every time I do something without asking." said Ricky as they neared Julian's trailer.
The two walked onto Julian's deck and entered through a screen door, then a wooden door. Dash was impressed by the trailer's incredible use of such a small space. Somehow, a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms and a bathroom had been crammed in, of course at the cost of any breathing room. Ricky guided Dash through the kitchen and into the living room, where a grey unicorn with a black mane and goatee was seated on a worn red couch. The unicorn's cutie mark appeared to be a glass filled with an unidentified liquid.
"Ricky, what did I say about company during important times like this?" asked the grey unicorn while levitating a drink matching his cutie mark.
"Don't worry Julian, she's alright. She just wants to buy some dope off us, that's all. It's not like she's a cop or anything. " said Ricky.
"Ricky, the last time you said that we ended up with six months in jail."
"Relax, I have like a fifth sense when it comes to telling out cops."
"You guys don't have to worry, I'm a weather pony, not a cop. Just think of me like a loyal customer, who can get you more loyal customers." said Rainbow Dash.
"Listen, I'd love to, but we have to focus on our big sale first. After that, we can probably help you." said Julian.
"Well maybe I could help."
"Are you sure? This is one of our biggest sales yet. Do you even know who we're selling to?"
"No, who?"
"This is Freedom Thirty-Five, we're selling to the Royal Guard."
Spike was content with silence. He had only so much tolerance for stupidity as displayed by Ricky. He concluded that if he would just shut up and stay behind Twilight he wouldn't have to talk to anypony. He, Twilight and Pinkie Pie had gone off to see more of the park, so far to his disappointment and Pinkie's indifference. Spike was pleasantly surprised at Pinkie's approach to Sunnyvale, he would hate to witness an argument between her and somepony like Ricky. He desperately hoped nopony would bother them and they could go home. J-Roc had other plans.
"DAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUMMMMM! Looka these fiiiiiiiiiiiine mares that just happened to walk into Sunnyvale." said a solid white unicorn with a blond mane. He wore a watch on his left front leg, painted gold, a chain on his right front leg, also painted gold, and a chain around his neck, following the painted gold trend. Behind him was a blue earth pony with a black mane and beard, with a red cap with the letter "T".
"Oh hi. My name is Twilight Sparkle. I'm from the nearby town of Ponyville. This is my friend Pinkie Pie, and my assistant Spike." said Twilight.
"Oh I see. You tired a those lil colts in Ponyville, so you come to Sunnyvale for a real stallion, ya know what I'm sayin'?" said the unicorn, dramatically raising his pitch on sayin'.
"We don't just have colts silly, we have lots of stallions! Lets see, there's Big Mac, Caramel, Mr. Cake, Ace, All Aboard, Baritone..." began Pinkie before receiving an interruption from J-Roc.
"Nah, dem mahfuckas ain't real stallions, not like J to the R-O-C! Ya know what I'm sayin'?You know what I'm say eeeerrrrrrreeehh ya know what I;m sayin'?"
Did he really just try to mimic turntables? thought Spike.
"Listen, if ya'll mares got some down time, ya know what I'm sayin'? I do some for the adults only films, you know what I'm sayin'? I could use some fine mares such as yo selves for my latest production, ya know what I'm sayin'?" said J-Roc. Pinkie's response would indicate she didn't know what J-Roc was saying.
"Wait, do you mean its super violent? Because I watched one movie that was super violent and I would definitely agree it is for adults only. Or maybe its like a super slow and boring movie that only adults would want to watch anyway. I watched one of those once but I got suuuuuuuper bored so I..." said Pinkie.
"Don't worry about it Pinkie. I think you should just stop talking to my friends here. You've clearly disturbed Twilight, and led Pinkie Pie to completely miss your intentions." said Spike in defense of a mortified Twilight and oblivious Pinkie Pie.
"Oh dis lil lizard mahfucka thinks he can be frontin' on J-Roc! Well you best be watchin' ya'll backs cause you been hatin' on the J to the R-O-C! I'm out!" and with that J-Roc backed away keeping eye contact with Spike until eye contact was no longer possible.
Spike expected idiots, but not perverted idiots with an aversion to grammar. Spike hated J-Roc, Twilight thought him indecent, and Pinkie still had no idea what just happened. If I could only have her indifference. thought Spike.
"Spike, lets just go home. I think I'm done here for now." said Twilight, who proceeded to lead the trio out of the park and back to Ponyville.
Fluttershy was in pursuit of a little grey kitty she desperately needed to catch. Not so much because of any actual urgency, but it was just so damn cute, she had to keep it away from a place like Sunnyvale. She followed it through a maze of various trailers, not managing to get close but still keeping up with the thing. A couple more minutes of following the thing it scurried inside a blue shed. She cautiously approached the shed doors and slowly opened one. With the door open a crack she could see the kitty, then came the voice. It sounded uncomfortably stained, and almost seemed to crack at the pitch the owner was using. It almost seemed as if whoever produced the voice was exhaling far too much to get a single word out.
"Ricky, is that you?"
Fluttershy shot away from the shed and stopped a few feet away. She stared at the doors, as if it were a dragon instead of a pony. She saw the doors open, form them emerged an ivory colored earth pony with a blond mane and comically large and round framed glasses. He noticed Fluttershy immediately.
"Your're not Ricky. What are you doing chasing my kitties like that? You scared little Admiral Peppers."
"Oh I'm sorry, its just I was so worried about the kitty when I saw him near these really mean ponies. I didn't want the poor thing to deal with the supervisor or the one pony, um, Ricky." said Fluttershy.
"Oh Ricky, got no respect for my kitties. They're just little guys you know? But Ricky just thinks he can yell at em' and make em' protect his dope. Kitties can't be around that kinda stuff. Some ponies just don't know how to take care of a kitty, so I got to take care of em' here, nopony else does."
Fluttershy seemed to have lost her fear of him and gained more fear of Ricky and the supervisor. At least this one seemed to be nice, caring for all those poor kitties. Ricky on the other hoof, seemed a monster, leaving any animal around such an illegal substance like that. She decided she liked this pony, he was considerably nicer than anypony else she'd met in Sunnyvale.
"Well um, my name's Fluttershy. What's yours?" asked Fluttershy.
"My name's Bubbles. What brings you to Sunnyvale Fluttershy?" asked Bubbles.
"Well my friend Twilight brought me here along with the rest of our friends. We're here by order of Princess Celestia, and I guess this park isn't very well off because we're supposed to teach everypony about friendship."
"Well I'd agree this park could use more of that. Everypony round here's always fuckin' fighting and yelling and throwin' bottles and shit. It's like they don't even care about what happens to them. Worse yet, Lahey and Randy are always tryin' to land Ricky and Julian in jail. I'll tell you that Lahey wasn't that bad before he started drinkin' again. He used to be in the Royal Guard you know, but his alcohol problem got him kicked out and left him a trailer park supervisor."
"That's awful! You must be one of the last caring ponies here, taking care of the poor little kitties stuck here. I also take care of animals in Ponyville, they're just not all kitties."
"Well I'd like to see em'. Would that be OK with you?"
"Well, sure. It's nice to see a pony who also has an affection for animals."
With that the two began their route through Ponyville and to Fluttershy's cottage. She seemed proud of herself that she had successfully befriended a new pony so quickly, and didn't cry once. Twilight would be so proud of me, I'm already on my way to helping the park. I wonder how she's doing. Not well. Spike was trying to comfort her back in her library, and failing miserably. No book was going to erase her encounter with J-Roc that quickly. She and Bubbles were about halfway to Ponyville when they passed a worried looking Rarity and Applejack.
"Have you girls seen Applebloom or Sweetie Bell?" asked Applejack.
"No, I'm afraid we haven't.." said Fluttershy.
"Oh hayseed. That must mean they've been there awhile."
"Been where?"
"I didn't want to believe Big Mac when he told me, but apparently they're in Sunnyvale with Scootaloo's friend Trinity."
"Oh I know her.", said Bubbles, "She's a nice kid, my friend Ricky's daughter."
"Ricky's?!" shouted Applejack and Rarity in unison. The two left Fluttershy and Bubbles faster than they had left Twilight and their friends.
"Do you think we should help them?" asked Fluttershy.
"Nah, Trinity ain't that bad. Luckily Lucy takes good care of the girl. I'm sure those kids are fine." answered Bubbles.
The two resumed their journey completely oblivious to what the Cutie Mark Crusaders were about to get into.
"That's all there is to it?" asked Applebloom.
"Well what else could be to it?" chimed in Scootaloo.
"OK, we're going after the supervisor and his assistant. Just follow us and do what we told you." said Trinity. Trinity was a pink earth pony filly with a golden mane and a blank flank. The lack of a cutie mark got the CMC instantly accepted into the group including Trinity and three other colts.
The group made their way through a few properties before creeping up on the Supervisor's trailer. Lahey and his shirt wearing assistant Randy were outside, Randy standing in front of a grill. Randy caught the group in front of the trailer, but it was too late to do anything. All Randy could do was shout the infamous phrase, a phrase feared throughout the park.
"BOTTLE KIDS!"
