When Rob the earth pony stepped out of his cottage to go to work, there was no way he could have known he was seconds away from incapacitating himself with a self-inflicted episode of heart-palpitating terror.
It was, by all appearances, a totally average day. Maybe even a bit better than average, if you were partial to warm sunlight and fresh sea air. Rob, who was partial to such things, took a moment to admire the idyllic view out over the bay. The same sight greeted him every morning, but it still never failed to bring a serene smile to his face.
“Ahh… Another beautiful day here in Maretime Bay,” he said to himself.
And just like that, it happened.
BA-DUM
Rob froze, the smile vanishing from his face so completely that it was difficult to imagine it had ever been there in the first place. He tried to take a retreating step back into his cottage, but his limbs were locked in place, refusing to budge an inch. The sounds of the morning faded into the background, drowned out in his head by the deafening thrum of his own heart.
BA-DUM, BA-DUM, BA-DUM
If anypony had been watching Rob at that moment, they might’ve guessed he was a PTSD-ridden ex-cop in the throes of a flashback to the horribly traumatic death of his first partner—though why such a flashback would be caused by the weather remained to be seen. In truth, it wasn’t the beautiful day itself that had petrified Rob or even him pointing it out… it was the way he had pointed it out.
You see, Rob was one of the unlucky few ponies in the history of Equestria who could say (after several practice attempts) they suffered from oimoiokatalichiphobia. To put it in terms that can be understood by those not well-versed in Ancient Greek… he had a crippling fear of rhymes.
Yes, rhymes.
In retrospect, the “PTSD-ridden ex-cop” explanation might seem less farfetched.
Rob traced his phobia back to his sixth birthday. His parents, for reasons he’d long since given up trying to understand, had decided to celebrate the occasion with a surprise flash mob of freestyle rapping clowns. There was little shame in a six-year-old colt trotting away from that experience with mental trauma, of course—but was it so much to ask that this trauma took the form of something normal? The clowns were right freaking there, but nooo, it was the song lyrics that his brain decided to fixate on as a threat.
Since that day, whenever a rhyme reached Rob’s ears without sufficient forewarning or preparation, it would be enough to send him spiraling into a near-panic attack.
His school life quickly became a daily living hell. Bullies naturally went after the easiest target, after all, and even the most inarticulate bullies found it pretty damn easy to “accidentally” work a pair of rhyming words into their classroom presentations. Almost as humiliating were the times when the teachers unwittingly did it themselves—suffice it to say Rob would never forget the conditions for “I” coming before “E”!
To their credit, Rob’s parents had tried their hardest to support their son. Once, at the height of their desperation, they had even taken him to a research hospital to undergo a radical new treatment the psychiatrists called “exposure therapy”. Rob remembered feeling distinctly disappointed when he learned that “exposure therapy” amounted to just being locked in a room and having the soundtrack of Hamuleton blared on loop through the speakers. Or rather, he imagined he would have felt disappointed were he not curled up on the floor sobbing hysterically at the time.
It had taken the doctors six hours to admit that exposure therapy was a washout, by which point Rob had been rendered almost catatonic. After being carried from the room on a stretcher, the doctors decided to classify him as an “untreatable case”, and their focus shifted from finding a cure to what they called management of symptoms. In plain language, that meant doing the same thing that most ponies with a chronic phobia were forced to do: adapt.
And so, as he grew up, Rob gradually learned how to protect himself. He never went to sports games, lest the fans around him started up a chant. He always switched off the TV during commercial breaks, out of fear an advertising agency had opted to use a jingle in their marketing campaign. Perhaps most importantly, he now possessed a well-honed ability to recognize rhymes before they left his own lips, instinctively catching himself before he asked at his local grocery store if bags of frozen hay fries came in a larger size, or argued with a coworker that Independence Neigh 2 was a major letdown in comparison to the film series’ debut, or told a door-to-door vacuum salespony that his product was dysfunctional crap because “this suction’ll snap bones”.
He was proud of himself for catching that last one!
But sometimes, despite his best efforts… things slipped through the cracks.
BA-DUM… BA-DUM… BA-DUM…
Rob slowly exhaled as his heartbeat returned to a normal pace. After taking another few moments to compose himself and resolving to not say anything else out loud for the rest of his commute, he finally closed his front door behind him and set off down the street.
Like many citizens of Maretime Bay, Rob worked at the massive Canterlogic factory, whose products had been keeping ponies safe for twenty moons. Keeping approximately one third of ponies safe, that is… from the other two thirds.
Rob's current role at the factory was to sit alone at a table and inflate the countless balloons that would later be included in the company’s Earth Pony Balloon Escape Packs. The only reprieve from the hours spent awkwardly hoof-handling scraps of plastic were the regular interludes to throw away the emptied helium canisters and fetch new ones. It wasn’t what most ponies—or even any ponies—would call an intellectually stimulating workday, but Canterlogic paid generously and Rob’s coworkers were nice enough.
At least, he thought they were. He didn’t exactly have much experience interacting with them. For some reason or another, Rob had always struggledwhen it came to forming social bonds. Even before his fateful sixth birthday, other ponies just didn’t seem to take an interest in him. He had memories of his classmates scattering out across the kindergarten playground, effortlessly mingling into groups to play their favorite games or to simply chat, all while he was left behind to wonder if he was doing something wrong.
He'd been wondering the same thing ever since. Maybe it was his inexplicably Irish accent, in a town where everypony else spoke in the clear, resonant tones of a trained voice actor. Maybe it was his conspicuous overbite, which had inspired the moniker “seizure beaver” from his bullies in reference to the effect said moniker usually had on him. Or maybe it was his fondness for Panama hats; “It’s NOT a fedora!” he would passionately explain to mares on first dates, of which he had many.
But as years passed and Rob’s friend count failed to reach the lofty heights of positive numbers, he began to think maybe it was none of those things. When it came to meeting new ponies, there was something else that stuck out as an obstacle, and infuriatingly, it was a thing that was almost impossible for him to change…
His name.
Rob. Rob. R-R-Rob, Rob. Rob, Rob. Even in his head it sounded weird. Just what had his mom and dad been thinking? Why couldn’t they have had the foresight to choose a name that thematically aligned with their foal’s future personality and career choices, like a normal set of parents?! Most of the ponies that Rob met in his line of work had names like “Machine Cog” or “Mill Horse” or “Blue Collar”—names that immediately told the world, “I’m an assembly line worker and proud of it!”
Rob’s name, on the other hoof, was more liable to provoke questions than offer character insight. “Rob?” one mare had asked him just last week. “You mean like the base form verb meaning ‘to unlawfully take possession of something’?” The mare in this case had been a Ponish teacher, but Rob heard similar (though less wordy) responses from practically every pony he introduced himself to.
It just wasn’t fair. Why were some ponies, through no fault of their own, bestowed with traits that meant they would always be seen as other? Rob sometimes felt like he’d been cursed to remain a side character in his own story, always on the edges of any social interaction. He tried to maintain a positive outlook and find joy in life’s little things, but the truth was… he was lonely.
Crushingly lonely.
On which subject… where was everypony?
Rob stopped in the middle of a busy shopping street and looked around. At least, the street was usually busy. Today, the only movement he could see came from the wares of the Tumbleweeds “R” Us stall that had been caught up by the wind and were gently bouncing across the cobbles.
“Well, this is weird…” Rob muttered, scanning the deserted marketplace. “Where’s everypony disappea—gone?”
Phew. That was close.
Rob strained his memory for an explanation. His coworkers had been talking yesterday about some sort of town event. What was it Blue Collar had said…?
“Hey, Rob! Me and some of the fellas are gonna be skipping work tomorrow to stand outside the Sheriff’s Office, wave placards, shout amongst ourselves, and provoke generalized hysteria! Wanna come along?”
Yes, that was it: an anti-unicorn rally. Rob remembered politely declining the invitation—and not just because protest rallies were hotbeds of unsolicited rhyming. There was also the fact that despite his nervous disposition, he had never really suffered from the phobia most widespread in Maretime Bay—that being xenophobia.
Sure, the visual of a pony equipped with wings like a giant bird of prey was pretty freaky, in a body-horror sort of way, as was the idea of a lightning-spewing rod of bone protruding from a pony’s forehead. But come on, there hadn’t been a single verified unicorn or pegasus sighting in generations! As far as Rob was concerned, that could only mean the other pony races were, like earth ponies, perfectly happy keeping to themselves.
His skepticism was further reinforced by the almost endless list of false alarm attacks reported by the Maretime Bay press. There were only so many times he could read about an “imminent invasion threat” before the reliability of the "imminent" part was called into question. Heck, the last time an enemy unicorn combatant had supposedly been spotted, it was later determined to just be a regular earth pony wearing one of Canterlogic’s pointy anti-mind control hats at a funny angle—which, now Rob stopped to think about it, was a pretty major design oversight.
It was so strange; premium newspapers like The Mare Times normally prided themselves on high-quality reporting, so why were journalistic standards thrown out the window as soon as pegasi or unicorns were brought up? It was a complete mystery to Rob—even more so after he learned the trustworthy investment group that owned Canterlogic also happened to control an eighty percent share of the Maretime Bay news media market.
Regardless, no amount of apathy on Rob’s part could have insulated him from hearing about the town’s most recent incursion. His coworkers had hardly been able to talk about anything else. If witnesses were to be believed, then not only did a pony fitting the description of a unicorn manage to breach Canterlogic’s self-proclaimedly “impregnable” city defenses, but she also spent several minutes prowling the streets, baring her teeth, and brandishing her horn in a menacing manner!
In the end, the alleged unicorn had apparently been able to escape with the help of that weird, hippie, smoothie deliverymare orphan who had caused fifty thousand bits’ worth of property damage at the Canterlogic Showcase just a few hours earlier. At the very least that part of the story was plausible, Rob supposed—that mare was battier than a thestral playing baseball.
The Canterlogic factory was in sight now. The building stood proudly on its hill, the stylized pair of glasses logo overlooking the town as if to say, “I’m watching you!” Rob had always found the damn thing a bit creepy, if he was being honest with himself… and its creepiness factor was definitely amplified this morning by the absence of anypony other than him to “watch”.
Rob nervously nibbled on his lower lip. (His overbite made the converse impossible.) Even taking into account the anti-unicorn rally, the sheer lack of life on the streets was starting to make him very uneasy. There was no background hubbub of commuters arriving for work, no distant drone of factory machinery… complete silence except for the slow *clack* *clack* *clack* of his hooves echoing against the pavement.
Rob stopped at the foot of the hill and surveyed the factory. Like the town itself, it looked totally deserted. Would there even be anypony at the door to let him in? Or when Blue Collar had said “me and some of the fellas”, had he actually meant “me and all of the fellas”?
Well… if literally the entire town is at this rally, I guess I might as well…
Mind made up to ditch his daily balloon-inflating duties, Rob changed his course and began heading toward the Police Department. It wasn’t like a hobbyless shut-in like him had anything better to do.
And who knew, maybe this would be an opportunity for him to make some friends?
Rob felt it before he heard it.
It was as he turned the corner onto the waterfront: a dull, faintly rhythmic vibrating that seemed to emanate from the ground itself. A few more steps, and the physical sensation crystallized into an audio one: the kind of deep, reverberating bass that cinemas would play at the start of films to show off their sound systems. There were voices too, repeatedly chanting the same indiscernible phrase over and over again.
Rob clenched his teeth, fearing the worst—the worst being that the ponies at the anti-unicorn rally were singing. Singing implied a song, and most songs implied rhyming. Still, without a pair of noise-cancelling headphones nearby, all he could do was take several deep breaths to psych himself up before pressing onward.
And then, just as he rounded a bend in the street… he saw them.
The enemy.
Oh, shit, he’d been wrong. He’d been so, so wrong. The other pony races weren’t happy keeping to themselves. They were very, very unhappy—for there, right in front of him, plain as day… was an invasion force. A bonafide army of fearsome, fury-faced ponies marched in lockstep down the middle of the road, each thunderous hoof-fall causing its own minor seismic event. There was music playing too, a sort of deranged war march which, accompanied by the deafening battle cries of a thousand overlapping voices, instilled within Rob a terror comparable to that of even the most melodious of rhymes.
Trying to escape was obviously futile, but he tried anyway, forcing his quivering legs to take two clumsy backward steps before he tripped over himself and fell to the ground. Head spinning, limbs refusing to cooperate, Rob could do nothing but whimper as the writhing mass of ponies came closer, and closer, and… oh, by the old Goddesses, they were almost on top of him! Murderous intent was plain to see on each and every one of their faces—their hideous, horrible, horned faces!
… No, wait! They didn’t have horns! They must’ve been pegasi then, so…
Hang on.
They didn’t have wings either.
These were earth ponies.
And… was that freaking Sprout Cloverleaf at the forefront of the crowd? Deputy Sheriff Sprout Cloverleaf? Heir to the Canterlogic business empire Sprout Cloverleaf?
Rob stared in total dumbfoundment as the crowd marched past, neatly parting so as to avoid trampling him. Confusion had supplanted fear in his head so quickly and sweepingly that he was experiencing a sort of mental whiplash. Nearly a full minute passed before he regained enough of his senses to take notice of the actual words being chanted:
“What are we?!” Sprout led off.
“WE’RE AN ANGRY MOB!” the crowd behind him responded in unison.
“What are we?!”
“WE’RE AN ANGRY MOB!”
“What are we?!”
“WE’RE AN ANGRY MOB!”
Round and round it went. Nopony in the crowd appeared to have any reservations about proclaiming themselves to be part of a mob; in fact, they almost made it sound like a point of pride.
Realizations began to dawn on Rob. These ponies weren’t an invasion force bent on disrupting the anti-unicorn rally; they were the anti-unicorn rally. They weren’t writhing; they were dancing, a bizarre mix of traditional earth pony struts and contemporary headbanging slamdance. On top of that, the music that he had previously identified as a war march was actually just a generic electric guitar riff… though it did weirdly sound like it was coming from both everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Slowly, warily, Rob got to his hooves and began maneuvering his way through the crowd. What in the name of Equestria was going on here? Some kind of political performance art? Whatever it was, the atmosphere was for some reason giving him an unsettling sense of deja-vu, like the memory of a nightmare long forgotten…
Shoving that unpleasant thought to the back of his mind for now, Rob reached out and tapped the shoulder of the closest headbanging pony. “Uh, excuse me? What are you d—”
Before he could finish, the stallion spun to face him and yelled, “WE’RE AN ANGRY MOB!”
Rob frowned. It took him a moment to realize what had just happened. “Wait… No, I wasn’t done. What are you—”
“WE’RE AN ANGRY MOB!”
“No! What are you—”
“WE’RE AN ANGRY MOB!”
“—DOING?!” Rob yelled in desperation. “What are you doing?! I just want to know… Excuse me?”
But the stallion was already dancing away, moving with the rest of the crowd toward the town square.
Rob stared dumbly at the stallion’s retreating, gyrating hindquarters. He was starting to feel like the last sober pony at a party full of drunkards—and the punch bowl had definitely been spiked with something stronger than alcohol. He looked around, naively hoping there was a nearby law enforcement pony who would take his questions a little more seriously… then realized with a sinking feeling that the pony with the most authority here was the one serenading a stalk of corn.
“Look at this corn!” Sprout shouted while gesturing at a maize plant that protruded inexplicably from the pavement.
“IT’S ON THE COB!” the crowd chorused back.
… That was correct, Rob supposed, but not exactly relevant. Was the corn supposed to be a metaphor for something?
Before he could give that possibility any more thought, Sprout came barreling toward him. The sheriff skidded to a stop mere inches away, grinned eagerly, and yelled, “Look at that guy!”
Rob blinked, totally nonplussed. Was he now a metaphor for something?
“Uh, my name’s Rob,” he said, politely introducing himself. But before he’d even finished speaking his name, Sprout was charging back to the center of the square. The music swelled as he launched into a new chant, this time in unison with the rest of the crowd:
“MOB, MOB! M-M-MOB, MOB! MOB, MOB! ANGRY, ANGRY! MOB, MOB! M-M-MOB-MOB! MOB, MOB! ANGRY, ANGRY! MOB—”
The ponies threw themselves into their dancing with renewed fervor, punk teenagers and smartly-dressed businessponies alike. Rob just stood there, a single stationary speck in a sea of flailing bodies, trying and failing to rationalize what he was seeing. Even the town’s wildlife was getting in on the action, with two seagulls and a crab perched on an overturned ice cream truck banging their heads like everypony else. And that was quite a feat, given that crabs didn’t even have heads!
Then there was the matter of Sprout’s voice.Rob had shared a music class with Sprout in school, which meant he’d repeatedly suffered the misfortune of hearing the future sheriff’s singing voice—or more accurately, his offkey screeching voice. In contrast, the pony performing right now sounded like a trained professional. Why, if Rob didn’t know better, he would’ve thought Sprout had somehow stolen the voice of a completely different pony!
But Rob’s sources of unease weren’t limited to crab anatomy and dramatic leaps in vocal ability. He'd just realized, with a twinge of dread, that the latest words shouted by the crowd—“It’s on the cob!”—had rhymed with their previous mantra. Even more disturbingly, his own reply to the sheriff—“My name’s Rob”—had done the same thing.
The connection had been too tenuous to trigger Rob’s phobia at the time. Even now, his first instinct was to disregard the entire interaction as nothing more than a series of unlucky coincidences. After all, there wasn't exactly a prevalence of ponies living in Maretime Bay whose names rhymed with “mob”, so in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases, the rhyming scheme would've been violated!
Unless…
An ominous thought crept into his head. What if Sprout had known in advance that the pony he was going to address had a suitable name? That might even explain why he’d told everypony to “look at” Rob in the first place. But if that were true…
A shiver passed through Rob’s spine as he followed his reasoning through to its conclusion. Could it really be… that this song was about him? Had Rob the earth pony somehow stumbled into becoming the protagonist of a story?
He gave his head a slight shake. No. That was ridiculous. I must be reading too deep into things, he thought. Determined to find some other answer, he cast another glance around the thronging square and caught sight of a pony he recognized.
“Blue?!”
Rob's fellow Canterlogic employee turned to face him with a slightly demented grin. “Oh, hey, Rob!”
“What are you doing?” Rob had to shout to be heard over the din of the music.
“Campaigning, you snob!”
BA-DUM
Rob winced as yet another spontaneous rhyme reached his ears. He shot back the first objection that entered his head: “How do you know the lyrics?”
“MOB, MOB, M-M-MOB, MOB! MOB, MOB—”
Okay, so maybe it hadn’t been the smartest objection… but in Rob’s defense, this wasn’t really an environment conducive to careful analytic reasoning. He swallowed his nerves and tried again.
“But… shouldn't you be working?”
“That ain’t no prob!”
BA-DUM
“I didn’t ever like my factory job!”
BA-DUM
“I spent all day twisting the same knob! And I kept screwing up ‘cuz I was a slob! Honestly, my brain is a useless blob! So now I’m—”
“C-can you PLEASE s-stopthat!?” Rob heard his voice crack. His body was starting to revolt. He could feel his limbs trembling, his throat tightening, his lungs hyperventilating… all his biological processes working in tandem to prepare for either fight or flight. He clenched his eyes shut, trying to block out at least some of the sensations assaulting his overstimulated brain. “I’ve t-told you before! I h-have oimoiokatty… oim… oimoio—”
Blue scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Aw, shut your gob!”
Rob let out a pained cry and stumbled backwards. He felt like he was back in kindergarten—just another day of “Seizure Beaver” getting picked on by his bullies, an image that was only reinforced by the audience that had been gathering around the two ponies, drawn to their shouting match. Their smiles, eerily similar to Blue’s, glinted with anticipation.
“Mob!” the onlookers chanted in hushed whispers. “Mob, mob, mob, mob, mob, mob—”
Rob gasped, his eyes springing open in pure horror. The source of the awful deja-vu that had been affecting him since he’d first laid eyes on this rally had finally struck him. He couldn't believe it had taken him so long to figure out! Hadn't it been a kind of mob—a flash mob—that was responsible for implanting his phobia in the first place? It made perfect, almost poetic sense for the memory to be reawakened here! All it would take was a splattering of facepaint, and these ponies would be the spitting image of the clowns who’d traumatized him all those years ago: closing in with those too-wide smiles, thrashing their bodies like a pack of rabid animals, all the while continuing to chant in those taunting voices—
“—mob, mob, mob, mob, MOB, MOB, MOB, MOB—”
“J-JUST SHUP UP, ALL OF YOU!!!”
The rekindled memory of his harrowing sixth birthday was enough to push Rob past his breaking point. Screw trying to figure out what these ponies were doing; any morbid curiosity had been quashed by the simple, biological instinct for self-preservation.
Flight had won.
Veins flooding with adrenaline, Rob threw his body against the wall of onlookers and tried to ram his way through a gap between two of them.
“Whoa there, pal!” said the pony on his left. “No need to sob!”
“Nothing to fear!” said the pony on his right. “We’re just a mob!”
“Mob!"
“Mob!”
“M-M-MOB, MOOO~OOOB!”
Terrified whimpers escaped Rob as his pummeling hooves finally succeeded in forcing a path through the blockade. He popped out the other side like a cork from a bottle and started galloping, shoving more ponies aside as he went.
Where’s the way out!? Rob internally pleaded. The disorientation of being hemmed in on all sides had made him lose his bearings. With no idea which direction he came from, the only thing he could do was charge straight ahead and pray it brought him to an exit.
… Until he saw something that made him skid to a dead halt.
In front of him stood a stallion who looked like he’d escaped from a period drama—or perhaps a horror. He was dressed in a top hat and an old-fashioned dinner jacket like a traditional gentlecolt, yet at the same time flaunted the same unnatural smile as the ponies Rob had just fled from. The overall effect was creepy enough to make Rob’s blood run cold, cold which soon turned into subzero slush as the pony reached into one of his pockets and withdrew a small object attached to a chain.
“Look at this watch!” he yelled.
From all around, voices came bellowing: ”IT’S ON A FOB!”
Rob screamed. The artificiality of the rhyme was too much for him to handle. He whirled around and galloped in a different direction, but soon found his path blocked by another sinisterly-dressed pony, this one in a lab coat and a facemask.
“Look at this POVID tester!”
“HE’LL TAKE A SWAB!”
“Aahhh!” Rob wailed, again changing course. This time, he only made it a few paces before colliding with somepony—the mob's ringleader himself. Sprout lifted his hoof and waved around a magazine that Rob recognized as the latest issue of Playcolt.
“Look at this porn!”
“IT’S ON THE COB!”
“AAAAAHH—… Wait, what?”
The music screeched to a halt, leaving all the headbanging ponies to awkwardly fall out of sync with each other before coming to rest. Rob tilted his head, his panic temporarily put on pause and replaced by sheer bewilderment.
Sprout groaned and brought a hoof to his face. “What? Nooooooo, guys, that was last verse! Ugh, why does this always—Nngghh~!” He began to stamp his hooves again, though the lack of any discernable rhythm suggested this was less a dance move and more just… a colt throwing a tantrum. “Mooooommy!!!” he howled, throwing back his head.“They’re ruining my sooooong!”
Phyllis Cloverleaf rammed her way out of the crowd before sweeping her son into a crushing embrace. “Ssssshhhhh, dear… I’m sure they didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Yes, they diii~iiid!” Sprout sobbed into his mother’s chest fluff. “It’s not fair... They never get the words wrong in Hitch’s songs!”
“Well, that’s just ‘cuz, uh…" It took a few seconds for inspiration to grace Phyllis’s face. “That's just ‘cuz the lyrics to ‘Crab Romance’ and ‘Don't Litter on my Heart’ are so much more basic than yours, Sugarcube!”
Sprout pouted up at his mother, lower lip trembling. “Really? You p-p-pwomise?”
“Promise.” Phyllis smiled and mussed her son’s mane. “Hey. C’mon, now… Who’s my little Brussels sprout?”
Sprout giggled. “Is it me?”
“Yes, it’s you, silly! And are you a tasty little sprout?”
“I… I’m delicious, Mommy…”
The crowd aww-d in unison.
If Rob needed any further proof that his fellow Maretime Bay citizens had gone completely fucking insane, he’d just heard it.
He needed an escape plan, and fast. Thankfully, his directionless running appeared to have brought him to the edge of the square, as there was an opening to a narrow alleyway just a few paces away. While the crowd remained focused on Phyllis and Sprout—who were now nuzzling in a manner that definitely wasn’t appropriate for a mother and son that age—Rob seized his chance and began innocently sidestepping toward the precious exit.
… He hadn’t been spotted yet… Just a few more steps and he could slip away with nopony being the wiser… Almost there…!
“HEY!!!”
Sprout’s voice pierced the suspense. Rob froze in place as a hundred pairs of eyes turned to fixate on him, all alerted by the sheriff’s shout.
“Where do you think YOU’RE going?!” Sprout demanded. He pushed his mother aside and advanced on Rob with slow, menacing hoofsteps.
Rob gulped. He was beginning to have serious doubts about Sprout’s mental stability; the way his personality switched between whiny brat and enraged demagogue in the bat of an eye was definitely not normal. “P-please! Mr. Deputy Sheriff, sir, I just—”
Sprout shot out a hoof and seized Rob by the throat, holding him in place. “That’s Mr. ACTING SHERIFF SIR to you!” he yelled.
“M-Mr. Acting Sheriff, sir!” Rob obediently squeaked, tears of terror forming in the corners of his eyes. “I… I just… w-wanna go home!”
“We’re not finished with you yet, Rob.” Sprout's voice was as firm and impassive as his grip. “We need you to finish the song.”
“Y-you need me?! Why?!”
But for what felt like the dozenth time, Rob’s line of questioning was ignored. Sprout instead released him before clambering up a nearby lamppost to address the crowd once more. “C’mon, citizens, get it together! Let’s try this one more time: five, six, seven, and”—he flashed the magazine again—”look at this PORN!”
A collective “ooohhh” of realization arose from the crowd, before they all chorused, “IT MAKES US THROB!”
“AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!”
The music blasted back on at full volume. The mob took this as a green light to charge.
Rob yelped as the horde of ponies bore down on him. Mind going blank with fear, he wheeled around and galloped into the alley as fast as his shaky, fatigued legs could take him.
Once again, Rob fled aimlessly, the winding backstreets of Maretime Bay so mazelike that he didn’t even know whether he was running toward or away from danger. Every time he dared to hope that he’d finally seen the last of his pursuers, he would round a corner and come upon another pack of them: always dancing, always smiling those crazed smiles, and always carrying a prop or two to provide the setup for a new agonizing rhyme:
“Look at this biscuit!”
“IT’S A HOBNOB!”
“Look at this Mormon!”
“BELIEVES IN KOLOB!”
“Look at this Unix operating system that needs to have multiple commands scheduled to run at specific times!”
“USE A CRON JOB!”
At first Rob thought the ambushes were random—yet more instances of bullies using him as a prop to vent their sadistic whims. But as time passed and the periods of reprieve between each ambush grew shorter and shorter, the terrible truth sank in: the mob wasn’t just trying to scare him; they were herding him, hunting him, working flawlessly as a unit to block off his escape routes with almost preternatural coordination. Unless he figured something out very soon, his capture would be all but a foregone conclusion.
Rob’s chest burned with exertion. Despite all his running, the music hadn’t gotten any more distant. If anything, it had grown louder, almost to the point of causing physical pain.
Starting to panic now, Rob threw himself down a short flight of stairs before skidding to a stop in the middle of a four-way intersection. His head swung this way and that, frantically searching for an exit—but all four paths, including the one he’d come in on, were blocked.
He was trapped.
“—OB, MOB! ANGRY, ANGRY! MOB, MOB! M-M-MOB, M—”
For the first time in his life, Rob the earth pony wished he wasn't an earth pony. He would’ve given anything to spread a pair of wings and soar free from the claustrophobic alleyways that confined him, or better yet, use a magic spell to teleport directly back to the safety of his little cottage. Alas, with only his four hooves to rely on, he was forced to adopt more… primitive strategies.
Thinking quickly, he reared up onto his forehooves and unleashed a full-force earth pony buck into one of the doors lining the street. The wooden latch yielded with a splintering crash. Rob felt a quick pang of sympathy for the property’s owner, but he had more important things to worry about than potential legal repercussions. Moments before the mob reached him, he hurled himself inside, slammed the door shut, and braced his body against it.
Half a second later, a force that felt as though it could’ve come from the town tram rammed into his back. He had barely recovered from that impact before another one came. Then another. And another.
Even their body slams are on-beat…! Rob realized dimly.
He couldn't hold them for long. A corridor extended ahead of him—a means of escape, perhaps—but with the door’s latch destroyed by his earlier buck, there was no way for him to take off without the mob following mere steps behind.
“—MOB! M-M-MOB, MOB! MOB, MOB! ANGRY, ANG—”
Rob choked back a sob of despair. There was nothing he could do. It was only a matter of time now. Only a matter of time before the last remnants of his stamina would be worn down, and the door forced open. Only a matter of time before he would be overrun, forced to the ground by a hundred grasping hooves, and then…!
And then…
…
Huh.
Strangely, Rob hadn’t given that question any thought yet. What would they do when they caught him? It wasn’t like the ponies on the other side of the door were unicorns, capable of vaporizing his brain with a single psychic blast; or pegasi, whose wings could no doubt break a pony’s foreleg (like swans!) They were perfectly normal earth ponies; the worst they could do was stand there and sing.
For a brief moment, Rob wanted to scoff at himself. What the heck was wrong with him? Was he really so pathetic as to be worked into a frenzied hysteria by a phobia he knew was irrational? Hell, if anything, it might be healthy for him to face his fears for a change, instead of compulsively avoiding them!
Then the moment passed.
Now Rob wanted to scoff at himself for a completely different reason: his own desperate, wishful thinking. Sure, his phobia was sometimes an inconvenience... but for better or worse, it was a part of him. And right now, it might very well have been the only thing that separated him from the mob. He ignored it at his own peril.
Rob grit his teeth, newfound determination building in his chest. If he was gonna go down, he wasn’t gonna let it be like this—cowering behind a door like a little foal. In the name of oimoiokatalichiphobiacs everywhere, he would go down fighting!
… Or running, as the case may be!
Rob braced his hindlegs against the door and prepared to propel himself away. But just before he did, he heard something metallic clatter to the floor, and the bodyslams abruptly ceased.
After an awkward pause, Sprout’s voice asked, “What did you do?”
The reply was sheepish. “Oops. I broke the doorknob.”
Rob let out a strangled gasp of relief. Finally—an ounce of good luck.
Too bad it didn’t last. As he took off down the corridor, he heard one last fateful remark from Sprout:
“Never mind! We’ve got rocks to lob!”
Right on cue, one of the nearby windows exploded. Music flooded into the house, uninhibited by bricks or glass. Rob cried out in pain, both from the hailstorm of debris peppering the side of his body and the earsplittingly loud electric guitar that once again assaulted his eardrums. He brought his forehooves up to cover his ears—and promptly fell flat on his face, having forgotten that earth ponies required at least three hooves to be able to walk upright. Whimpering in pain, he proceeded to shuffle his way down the corridor in a kind of downward-dog position, chin scraping against the glass-strewn floorboards with every step.
“—ANGRY! MOB, MOB! M-M-MOB, MOB! M—”
A crash from behind drew Rob’s attention, and he craned his neck back just in time to see the door flying off its hinges—and straight at him. Rob yelped and dove to the floor, dodging it by mere inches before it smashed to pieces on the wall behind him. When he looked up, Sprout was standing in the now-doorless doorway. The sun blazed behind him in a halo of blinding light, casting a shadow so long that it stretched right the way down the corridor and almost engulfed Rob.
Sprout leered, his grin that of a predator that knew its prey was cornered.
Then he broke into a gallop.
“Eep!” Rob squeaked, scrabbling away with his hindlegs. He pushed himself through a second doorway and tried to kick it shut behind him—but this time he was too slow. Sprout plowed into the room, slamming into Rob and sending him flying into the wall opposite, where he slumped to the floor in a crumpled heap.
Rob groaned, nothing but an immobile tangle of limbs. The adrenaline was wearing off now, and the pain from the injuries he’d accumulated—his overworked legs, his bleeding chin, the scrapes and bruises that covered his entire body—was beginning to set in. In front of him, with blurry vision, he saw Sprout close the room’s only door and snap its lock shut with an unmistakable *CLICK*.
Nowhere left to run.
Somehow, Rob found the strength to clamber to his hooves, waving a foreleg out in front of him as a token gesture of self-defense. “S-stay back!” he stuttered.
Sprout raised an eyebrow as if to ask, “Seriously?” Not deterred at all, he took several calm, deliberate steps forward and slowly opened his mouth. Driven back against the wall, Rob screwed his eyes shut, bracing himself for—
“Look at that guy!”
…
What?
Rob cracked an eye open.
Sprout was simply standing there, one foreleg extended in a point, his expression unchanging. Then, with the exact same voice inflection, he repeated:
“Look at that guy!”
Rob knew what Sprout wanted from him. It was obvious. But equally obvious was that Rob couldn’t say it—not after everything he’d been through. His mouth flapped open and shut, struggling to verbalize some kind of defiance, but the only sound he made was a single repeated syllable:
“Why…?”
“Look at that guy!”
“Why!?”
“Look at that guy!”
“WHYYY!?” Rob screamed, tears streaming down his face. Whatever mental dam that had impeded his speech was ruptured, and the words came flooding out. “This—none of this makes any sense! I’m nopony special! I don’t want to win a war or join a movement or anything! So why me? Why now? Why—” Rob choked on his own voice, and his battered body collapsed once again to the floor in resignation. “Just PLEASE tell me—WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!?!?!?!”
A lengthy pause followed Rob’s monologue. The only sound was the muffled guitar from outside.
Sprout’s smile took on a subtle, mysterious quality. “Why are we doing this?” he repeated, rhythmically strutting toward Rob. The music seemed to grow louder, pervading the room like a gas. “I’ll tell you why…” He opened his mouth, inhaled deeply, and—
“NO, NO SINGING, PLEASE, NO, NO—"
But Sprout paid Rob’s pleas no heed. His inexplicably powerful singing voice soon rang out across the room:
Yes, discord can distress
But we must assess
How we can subvert their scheming
“I DON’T CARE!” Rob shrieked. “Unicorns and pegasi have never done anything to hurt me! Why can’t we just leave each other alone?!”
Sprout sighed and shook his head.
While they don’t seem hostile
Know that they beguile
Appearances can be deceiving
You might believe that their kind deserve embracing
But it’s you they’ll be displacing
And our town they’ll be abasing
Because each one that comes here from their state
Will be a net drain on the welfare state!
Rob gaped at Sprout in disbelief—not because he was spouting nonsense, but on the contrary, because his words actually sounded semi-reasonable for the first time. If Sprout had just opened with this approach instead of his menacing “Look at that guy” routine, Rob imagined he would’ve been far more receptive!
It was true: Maretime Bay's booming economy had in recent years been able to fund some extremely generous social security programs. Of course, Rob had no objection to his taxes being spent on supporting disadvantaged, down-on-their-luck earth ponies, who would surely make every effort to get back on their hooves and become productive members of society… but would members of the other (lesser) races share that ambition? Unlikely!
Rob slowly removed his hooves from his ears, even leaning forward slightly to make sure he didn’t miss any important details. Weirdly, the rhymes didn’t seem to be bothering him any more… Did those psychiatrists have the right idea all along? Was exposure therapy finally seeing results?
Seeing Rob’s growing acquiescence, Sprout grinned wider as he began another verse:
So, if we let them flow
They’ll change the status quo
It will be too late to block it
Boom! Economic doom!
There just won’t be room
Housing prices will skyrocket
It won't end there—they'll all want to seek employments
And it doesn't take clairvoyance
To predict market destroyments
My friend, you are in for a world of hurt
As wages get driven into the dirt
Rob gulped. That was a good point too! His work at the Canterlogic Factory was pretty menial—doubtless a good fit for any migrating unicorns and pegasi, who were well-known to possess atrocious Ponish language skills along with sub-average IQ’s. Would Phyllis Cloverleaf really hesitate to fire him, if a servile pegasus stallion walked into her office and offered to inflate balloons at half the rate of pay?
Of course, some ponies would argue that a CEO’s probable willingness to throw away a loyal employee of ten years for a more easily exploitable alternative was not a reason to oppose immigration, but rather, a reason to campaign for stronger worker rights and union representation to oppose the inherently selfish motivators that were definitionally present in all capitalist institutions—but not Rob! Rob the earth pony was starting to think it made far more sense to stop the lazy unicorns from ever…
Wait a minute.
Rob's eyebrows furrowed. Something didn't quite add up here. Wasn’t there, like, a direct contradiction between unicorns simultaneously being lazy benefit freeloaders and frugal, hardworking property-purchasers? Maybe he should think through the argument again.
… Nah. Thinking was hard, especially with loud rock music blaring in his ears, so Rob outsourced his thinking to the other pony in the room.
“Are… Are they really that bad?” he asked.
Sprout nodded in a wise, sagely manner, and Rob suddenly felt very silly for doubting him. Sprout was an acting sheriff with years of experience trying to stop foreign attacks—and statistically speaking, he’d been very successful, given that only one unicorn had ever gotten past him! How could you not trust a pony with those credentials?
First: their whole race is cursed
Second: they're the worst
There’s no way they’ll think you’re their friend
Third: their culture is absurd
Some of them still herd!
That means they might steal your marefriend!
Rob clasped a hoof over his mouth in horror. His marefriend?! … He didn’t have a marefriend, but it was the principle of the thing that mattered! His hunt for a romantic partner was hard enough in the current dating market. He could only imagine how much worse it would be if he had to compete with a sudden influx of lecherous, polygamous pegasi!
What’s more, he remembered being taught in school that the other pony races held some pretty backwards views on mare’s rights. The thought of innocent, vulnerable earth pony fillies being seduced by exotic foreigners, only to end up trapped in loveless harems… it made Rob’s blood curdle. It made him angry, angry! Really, as an earth pony stallion, he had a duty to protect his race’s mares from such unsavory male specimens!
A strange, new anxiety was lodging itself in Rob’s head. Not like his fear of rhymes. This was… bigger, somehow. More significant. A fear of something so great and terrible that management of symptoms would be insufficient. This demanded action!
“But… what can I possibly do?” Rob pleaded, desperate for any kind of consolation. “I’m just one little earth pony!”
Sprout chuckled.
You need not fear; there’s an answer to your query
See, I’ve got this little theory
And I’ll tell you it sincerely:
The one way for Maretime Bay to stay strong
Is if ponies like you take up the song!
Sprout belted the last word with a finality that could only mean his performance had concluded. He looked down at Rob, a hint of expectation on his face.
BA-DUM… BA-DUM… BA-DUM…
Again, Rob could hear his heartrate thumping in his ears. Whether by chance or by fate, it beat perfectly in-time with the oh-so-catchy electric guitar riff he could hear from outside. But Sprout had stopped singing, so… why was the music still playing?
Was it… somepony else’s turn?
“What do they want?” Sprout asked, speaking rather than singing for the first time in minutes.
Rob looked up into the sheriff’s determined face. It was so sure, so confident—like Sprout knew precisely what his role in the universe was. Rob didn’t think he’d ever felt like that.
“They… want my job…” Rob whispered, as much to himself as to Sprout.
“That’s right.” Sprout nodded. “What’ll they do?”
Almost imperceptibly, Rob’s hindquarters began to sway from side to side. “They… They’ll pillage, and… rob!”
Sprout nodded again. “Bingo. Just one last question…” He placed one of his hooves on Rob’s shoulder and leant closer, voice lowering to an impassioned whisper. “What are YOU gonna DO about it?!”
The word came as naturally as his own name.
“Mob!” Rob yelled, leaping onto his hooves. “Mob! M-m-mob, mob! Mob, mob, ANGRY, ANGRY! MOB, MOB, M-M-MOB-MOB, MOB, MOB, ANGRY, ANGRY—”
Once he started, he couldn’t stop. Like a boulder rolling down a hill, the chant became both cause and effect, both catalyst and reaction. Each word added to his momentum, motivating him, driving him as he galloped past Sprout, down the corridor, and out into the radiant morning sunlight.
Blinking to adjust his eyes, Rob found a sea of faces staring in his direction. They looked apprehensive, no doubt wondering whether he was here to join the throng or to begin yet another round of tag. Some of the faces he recognized: his parents, his coworkers, his old schoolmates… He’d neglected them all for so long—but no longer.
A jubilant smile spread across Rob’s face. He didn’t realize it was the same smile he’d been running from for fifteen minutes. He tossed his mane, raised his head to the sky and shouted three words:
“WHAT ARE WE!?”
The crowd erupted into discordant cheers, but one phrase sounded loud and true:
“WE’RE AN ANGRY MOB!”
Ponies swarmed Rob on all sides, hugging him and patting him on the back, overjoyed that the last remaining member of their community had seen the light. They launched into a triumphant chorus—”MOB, MOB! M-M-MOB MOB!”—which Rob eagerly joined in on, with Sprout performing some crazy vocal riffs in the background.
Rob suddenly felt his hooves leave the ground as several nearby stallions lifted him up onto their shoulders. He laughed, delirious with joy. For the first time in his objectively rather sad life, he didn’t feel like an outsider. In fact… he was beginning to realize that he’d never been one.
It was all so clear now: Rob the earth pony had spent so much time worrying about the “Rob” part of his identity that he’d forgotten about the “earth pony” part. He had never been alone! These ponies didn’t care that he had a weird name or a weird accent or a weird phobia. They cared about one thing and one thing only: he was one of them.
He was an earth pony.
He was a part of the mob.
Still carrying Rob on their shoulders, the crowd proceeded down the waterfront toward the Canterlogic factory. They had work to do, after all—earth ponies were at a major physical disadvantage when up against unicorns and pegasi, so to have a fighting chance, they would need to take advantage of their superior engineering skills. Battle-mechs, firearms, combat drones, nuclear weaponry… Rob didn't know which he’d be working on, but one thing was for sure: he would never inflate another damn balloon in his life.
For some reason, even in the throes of celebration, Rob was drawn to look out over the bay. The same sight greeted him every morning, but he didn’t think it had ever looked this spectacular: two vast, endless expanses of blue which met at a curved horizon; the sun shining down, its light glinting off the crest of each rolling wave; and then the ponies—the precious, perfect earth ponies—all rallying as one, all vowing to do whatever it took to protect their way of life.
And with the song of his people echoing in his ears, Rob was struck by the thought that he'd been right: it really was a beautiful day here in Maretime Bay.
Author's Note
I hope you enjoyed this ridiculously in-depth exploration of one of G5's most incidental characters! Please don't read too heavily into the social commentary - my intent, first and foremost, was to tell a silly story and make people laugh.
This is the first fic I've released, but hopefully not the last. If you liked what you read (or even if you didn't), please leave a comment - it would mean a lot. 
Big thanks to PoisonClaw and Max Bet for proofreading.
