"Hey, buddy," hissed the merchant. "Wanna see something?"
Danny looked at the merchant. She was tall, attractive, and dressed in a steampunk outfit that showed off her boobs. Actually, it was just a regular outfit with gears glued on it. But her boobs were nice. Crowds pushed back and forth around them. The con was crowded on a Saturday afternoon, people dressed in cosplay or jeans and t-shirts swirling past and around Danny.
"What?" Danny said.
"I have some really neat merch." She blinked. "What are you dressed as?"
Danny raised an eyebrow. "A snack bar cashier."
"What manga is that?" the merchant asked.
"It's called 'IRL.' You... probably haven't heard of it."
She flipped her hair seductively. Danny turned and started to go. He only had a fifteen minute break and really needed a pee, and the restroom was—
"Hey!" he shouted as she grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. She had a grip like a Terminator and he was concerned for the structural integrity of his collarbone.
She pressed an amethyst sphere, polished smooth and the size of a golf ball, into his left hand.
"Hey, hey, shhhh," said a feminine voice. "He's waking up, thank Celestia!"
He felt soft grass underneath him. His head killed and he still needed to pee. He cracked open an eye and saw a small white horse with a pink mane staring down at him.
"Are you well? Do you have brain damage?" asked the horse. It—she?—was wearing a white nurse's cap.
Danny started screaming.
"Okay, okay, are you calm now?" asked the purple horse who called herself Starlight Glimmer. She was levitating Danny upside-down by his ankle, ten feet off the ground.
"Yes?"
"You sound unsure."
"Yes. Yes, I'm calm."
Starlight levitated him rightside-up and set him on his shoes. The nurse—she had introduced herself as Redheart while trying to sedate Danny—checked Danny's pulse and pupils.
"Very well," Starlight Glimmer said. "Welcome to Ponyville, Danny."
He frowned. "How do you know my name? Are you unicorns mind readers?"
She pointed a hoof at his name tag.
"Oh."
"What's your power?" Starlight asked.
"M...my what?"
Several humans and several dozen ponies had gathered around them. She pointed to a space marine. "Carlos here has Master Chief's powers, since he was dressed in the outfit when he was sent here. Because Equestria is peaceful, he found a job using his opposable thumbs to open stuck jars for earth ponies."
"And doorknobs," said the armored soldier.
"And this is Lady Dimitrescu," Starlight said, pointing to a fat, bald, bearded dude in a nice dress. "We don't need any murderous aristocrats, so she models Rarity's new lines."
"Charmed," growled Lady Dimitrescu in a voice of gravel, cigars, and cheap bourbon. "That dang merchant, am I right?"
"This is Alucard." A tall man in elegant courtier clothing bowed. Starlight said, "He works at the funeral parlor now."
"I have a gift for it."
"Who're they?" Danny pointed at a half dozen tall people dressed in purple winged unicorn outfits. Hanging between their legs they all had giant fuzzy purple—
"Bronies!" snapped Starlight with an eye roll.
Danny was stuck in Equestria. The various wizard ponies (and Sunburst) had assured him of that. There was no spell, no artifact, and no bribe that could send him home. Not even Trixie's suggestion that he put her in a headlock and rub vigorously up and down her horn for several minutes had sent him home, although Trixie now always gave him a big smile and batted her eyelashes when she saw Danny.
So he needed a job. Fluttershy was helping him meet all the ponies of Ponyville until he could find a job—Lyra and Bon-Bon were considering his application for their candy shop—but for the time being, Danny had all day, every day, to just... wait.
So on his first Saturday in Equestria, Danny sat at a table in Sugarcube corner with Master Chief, Lady Dimitrescu, Alucard, and the even more recently arrived Kamen Sauron Rider, drinking coffee and eating a breakfast cupcake.
"Oh crap," said Master Chief, pointing at the door.
Danny turned and looked. A pudgy pink mare stormed angrily into the shop, a scrawny pink teenager trailing at her hooves. The teen looked as happy as if she were on her way to her own execution.
"How dare you!" shouted the mare before she even got to the counter.
"Who's that?" Danny whispered.
"Spoiled Rich," Lady Dimitrescu said, chewing on her unlit cigar and stroking her beard. "She's the town bitch."
"I can see that," Danny muttered. He was having flashbacks to the customers from the convention center snack bar. Not the comic con—those customers were usually pretty okay, if a bit special. He was remembering the hairdressers' convention, or the multi-level marketing convention, or the dance competition mothers.
Those were the worst. He shuddered at the memories.
Mrs. Cake walked trepidatiously to the counter. "Can I help you, Mrs. Rich?"
"How dare you!" Spoiled Rich shouted, even louder.
"H-how dare I... what?" asked Mrs. Cake as Mr. Cake ushered their twins out the back into the kitchen.
"You sold my daughter sugar!"
The pink teenager with the tiara cutie mark sank to her bottom on the floor and buried her face in her hooves.
Mrs. Cake gasped and put a hoof to her mouth. "Diamond Tiara is diabetic? I had no idea! I'm so sorry!"
"Diabetic? Heavens no! How dare you accuse me, me, Spoiled Rich, of having a defective foal! She's not diabetic! You're just making her fat!"
"Wow," Master Chief whispered to the others. Diamond Tiara buried her face deeper into her hooves and began to sob, her shoulders shaking. Three other teenagers (Danny had been in Ponyville long enough to recognize those three as a significant fire and explosion hazard) moved to Diamond Tiara and gave her a group hug.
"And another thing!" Spoiled Rich continued. "You overcharged her! The lemon drop muffins cost half as much at Bon-Bon's shop! I need to speak to your manager."
Danny felt a weird prickling of gooseflesh across his body, and a momentary blue glow suffused him.
"Oh heck," said Alucard. "You've found your isekai power!"
"My what?" Danny asked.
"Go," Master Chief whispered. "Customer service! It's what your isekai outfit bequeaths to you! This is why you're in Equestria! This is your hour. A customer needs you."
"I'm not serving Spoi—"
"Diamond Tiara needs you," Alucard said. "The magic never lies."
"Manager?" Mrs. Cake was saying. "What in Celestia's green fields—"
Danny stood so suddenly that his chair fell over with a clatter. "I'm the manager!" he declared.
What was he doing? He felt like he'd just freebased some Red Bull, pixie sticks, and red dye number 5, his heart pounding and head spinning. He strode to the counter and slipped behind it. Putting a hand on Mrs. Cake's withers, he said, "Thank you, Mrs. Cake. Please go check the ovens in the back."
Eyes wide with shock, Mrs. Cake walked backwards halfway through the swinging doors into the kitchen. Danny's entire body buzzed with magical energy. He felt alive like he hadn't since coming to Equestria.
He smiled as the words, words he would never dare speak to a customer back home, began queuing up in his mind.
Truly, this was his time. He half expected to find a cutie mark on his ass the next time he changed clothes. Exactly what a cutie mark in 'telling customers to suck it' would look like, though, he was unsure. He prayed it would be metaphorical and not literal sucking, however.
"What were you saying," he asked, "about lemon drop muffins?"
"You're overcharging!" Spoiled Rich snarled. "They're half the price across the street!"
Danny looked over Spoiled Rich's head at Lyra, sitting near the back. "Hey, Lyra? What's your wife charge for lemon drop muffins?"
"She doesn't sell muffins," Lyra said with a smirk. "Everypony knows that. She sells candies, not baked goods."
"Perhaps you are mistaken," Danny said. "And your daughter is clearly old enough that we aren't going to police her purchases."
"Look at how fat you're making her!"
Danny looked at Diamond Tiara, who had lowered her forehooves and was sniffling, still wracked with sobs.
The magic tingled up and down Danny's spine, even his tongue felt on fire.
"I remember seeing her playing on the buckball field every day," Danny said, looking at her. Diamond Tiara's ribs showed clearly and her withers and hips were leanly muscled. "If anything, you need to feed her more."
Spoiled Rich spluttered.
"Have you considered our low-calorie lines of sugar-free pastries, however?" Danny said, pointing at Spoiled Rich's own well padded ribcage. "They're high in fiber. Which you could certainly use. Given how you are so full of shit."
The magic seemed to snap, the tingle disappearing in an instant and his stomach lurched. Oh gawds, I just called a customer fat and full of shit! His hands trembled.
"How-how dare you! Diamond Tiara, come along." Spoiled Rich turned on her hooves and stormed towards the door. She stopped and looked at her daughter, who still sat on the floor, unmoving. "I said come along!"
"No," Diamond Tiara whispered in a small voice. Slightly louder, but still quiet: "No."
"What did you say to me? I'm your mother, you don't tell me no!"
"He's right," Diamond Tiara said. She looked at Spoiled Rich as she leaned into the three other teenagers. "He's right, you are full of shit. You've never been my mother, no matter how many chances I gave you to be. I never wanted to admit it before, but... you're... full... of... shit, Mother."
"We'll talk about this at home. But you'll be talking around a bar of soap."
"No, we won't. Two weeks a moon with you is too much. One day a year is too much. Leave my stuff on the street—my friends will help me move it to dad's permanently."
The other three teenagers nodded solemnly. "I've got a cart I can borrow from Big Mac," said the yellow one.
"I'm never spending one more minute under your roof again."
Spoiled Rich raised her nose and let her lip curl. "You're still a foal, and the custody agreement is legally binding."
Diamond Tiara smirked. "Yes. The custody agreement. You know something? The mayor took me aside, while you and dad were signing it in the room with the lawyers, and told me she would help me invoke the 'abuse' clause to get out from under your hoof when you finally went too far. I told her you were my mother and would never—and I gave you so many second and third chances—" she hiccuped and coughed, tears flowing, drowning in snot, but kept talking "—I told the mayor to shut up. I hoped, I really believed, that getting you and Dad under separate roofs, getting you two separated, you could stop being so... you. But I guess I owe the mayor an apology, huh, Mother?"
"You'd rather live in a dingy apartment with... him... than in a mansion with me?" Spoiled Rich's face was starting to fall, the haughty mask slipping. Then she caught herself and the sneer returned.
"He's my dad," Diamond Tiara said. "He loves me for who I am—not who I let him pretend to be, with me as a prop."
Spoiled Rich stormed out. The crowd, ponies and isekai'd humans alike, all cheered, stomped, and clapped.
Mrs. Cake stepped forward, next to Danny. Danny pointed to the lemon drop muffins in the display case. Mrs. Cake nodded.
Danny carried four muffins to Diamond Tiara and her friends. "I think you earned this."
She hiccuped and wiped snot on her foreleg, then grinned. "Thanks."
They ate the muffins and Diamond Tiara recovered her composure, although her face was still puffy and eyes red. "You know," she said slowly, musingly, to Danny, "my dad put me in charge of pony resources at his store's Ponyville location, since he trusts me. ...trusts me, I just realized how good that feels... and I need a new customer service lead. Would you like a job?"
Author's Note
Wait, how did a stupid joke fic meant to mock The Merchant tropes get to be about Diamond's coming of age? Well, I hit the zone and my fingers typed her lines and I was shocked at what she said.
I love it when that happens.
Written while listening to Oakenfold—Stonehenge on repeat. Spoiled Rich written by searching 'karen' on r/talesfromretail.
