Brothers or Strangers

Chapter two

The Hangover

Aura sat in the VIP section of the finest club in all of Canterlot, wearing a tuxedo jacket with pockets overflowing with bits. Aura sat there drinking the best beer money could buy, and surrounded by beautiful mares. He was enjoying life for once.

A barmare came up to Aura with a new beer, and asked him “do you want pancakes with that?”

“wait, what?” Aura said, confused by the random question.

Suddenly the barmare was on fire, and the club was filled with the smell of burned pancakes and Aura looked around, bewildered by the change of environment.
All of a sudden, the whole club started shaking, and he turned to look back at the barmare, which now had a new face, a familiar face, “Soundflux” Aura said as he gritted his teeth.

“Whoah! WAH! wubba hold your horse shoes a second there!” Aura said. Startled out of his dream. “WHAT is going on!? Why is there smoke everywhere?”

*Crash* “Whoops that not supposed to happen.” A voice said from the kitchen.

Aura had never gotten out of bed that fast, as he galloped straight towards the kitchen of his small flat screaming “WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE...” *smack* just as Aura reached the kitchen, a door had suddenly appeared.

Aura woke up in his armchair in his living room, “oh it was all just a dream” Aura said, with a calm expression on his face. Until.

“Oh, you’re awake!” Soundflux said, his head popping out behind the same door that had knocked Aura out. “I made pancakes!”

Aura’s left eye twitched as he glared at the white unicorn that was now handing Aura a plate of burned pancakes.

“I’m still a bit hungover from last night so my focus was a bit off, so some of them got burned” Soundflux said with a smile on his stupid face. “And so was my balance, so i accidentally bumped into the door, shutting it as you ran into it, with your face, which by the way is a weird way to start the day.” To Aura’s surprise, Soundflux’s face, had just gotten a whole lot stupider than he could imagine.

“What are you doing Aura?” Soundflux said as Aura got up from his armchair, not taking his glare of Soundflux.

“COME HERE YOU LITTLE!”

“I’m taller than you” Soundflux said a little confused.

“AAARRGGGHH” Aura screamed as he charged for Soundflux.

Soundflux scuttled around the living room in a steady pace, Aura in his heels, but not quite able to catch up with him, as Soundflux’s legs were longer. After a good 10 minutes chase through the apartment, Aura had to stop to catch his breath.

“You’re not really good at this, are you?” Soundflux said, a bored expression on his face.

“What do you mean?”

“If we’re playing tag, aren’t you supposed to actually, tag me?”

As soon as Soundflux had finished his sentence, Aura picked up a book with his magick and smacked Soundflux on the back of his head.

“Auch! what’d you do that for!?” Soundflux said.

“Tag, I got you”

“That’s not how it works, that’s cheating” Soundflux claimed.

“Yeah well, so is not having a hangover, after drinking Celestia knows how much you had last night, AND ruining my morning! How did you manage to burn the pancakes this much?... Really?” Aura said as he lifted a pancake into the air, that looked like a piece of charcoal.

“I got distracted”

“EVERYTIME?”

“No!... Yeah...”

Aura launched the pancake towards Soundflux at deadly speeds. Soundflux barely dodge it as it flew straight past his head and onto the wall, where it was stuck. Aura kept bombarding Soundflux with pancakes, but he managed to dodge every single pancake. As Aura got ready to throw his last pancake, Soundflux was caught in a corner. Aura walked slowly with a murderous smile on his face as he hovered the pancake into firing position, Soundflux was stuck in a corner while a crazy unicorn approached him with killer pancakes. Without warning Aura launched the pancake.
The pancake hit the wall with greater force than any of the other pancakes had, Aura was shocked to have missed, he was at point blank range and he missed.
Suddenly Soundflux hovered slowly back down onto his hooves, wiping the sweat of his forehead as he let out a relieved sigh.

“Bwah? How? What? Huh? You? HUUUUH!?!” Aura was so surprised that he was only able to make unintelligible sounds.

“Uh? Are you okay?” Soundflux looked at Aura, slightly worried.

“Y- You have wings? But you’re a unicorn” Aura said as he looked at Soundflux in utter disbelief.

“Well, I’m not a unicorn, I’m an alicorn” Soundflux said as if it wasn’t a very big deal.

Alicorns were royalty; Aura had just assaulted a royalty with pancakes. Deadly pancakes.

“How did i not notice? And what was a member of the royal family doing in a shoddy pub?” Aura asked, still finding it difficult to make coherent sentences.

“Oh you know, I was just out for a drink” Soundflux said.

“Just out for a drink? You were just out for A drink? You had a bit more than just A drink. Celestia knows how much you had; I mean you were pretty much GONE when i found you. Or rather you found me”

“Yeah it was a fun evening; I don’t even remember how I got here. Last thing I remember was heading out the bar” Soundflux said with a slight expression on his face as if he was trying to recall what had happened.

“You don’t remember because you tripped and banged your head into the pavement, and I had to carry you home”

“Oh so that’s what happened; though there is still one thing that bothers me. What was I doing on the floor?”

“Oh... you must have fallen off the couch” Aura said with a sheepish grin on his face, as he remembered the night before where he had just thrown him down onto the floor.

Soundflux looked around the room, and back to Aura with a dull expression “You don’t have a couch” Soundflux said with a puzzled look on his face, as he stared at Aura.

“Oh well would you look at that, it’s time for breakfast. Don’t you worry I’ll make us some more pancakes” Aura said as he dashed into the kitchen.

As soon as Aura opened the door to the kitchen he stopped dead in his tracks with a horrified look on his face.

“My beautiful kitchen” Aura whimpered as his lower lip started quivering.

The entire kitchen was trashed; there was not a single clean spot in the entire room. Everything had been burned, broken or was missing.

“Actually why don’t we just go out for breakfast, I know this really good baker nearby” Aura said as he turned to face Soundflux.

“Allons-y!”

“What?”

“Let’s just go” Soundflux said to Aura as if he was stupid or something.

“Right whatever” Aura said as he left for the door, with Soundflux following close behind him.

________________________________________________________________________________

Soundflux and Aura were walking down the street. Not much was said as they walked, Aura still tried to wrap his mind around the whole, Soundflux being an alicorn and stuff.
Soundflux on the other hoof was distracted by almost everything he could get his eyes on.

“So” started Aura “Do you live in the Canterlot castle?”

“No, or I don’t think so at least” Soundflux said as he turned to look at the castle of in the distance. “You know it’s really impressive that you can see the castle from almost everywhere in Canterlot”

“What do you mean; you don’t think that you live in the castle?” Aura asked with a puzzled look on his face.

“I don’t know” Soundflux shrugged.

“Where do you live then?”

“I...” Soundflux looked as if he was thinking deeply “I honestly don’t know”

“HOW CAN YOU FORGET WHERE YOU LIVE!?!” Aura yelled almost directly into Soundflux’s ear.

“Ouch” Soundflux said as he rubbed his ear “Well i sort of don’t remember where I live. Or anything else for that matter” Soundflux said as he turned his gaze back down to the dark grey unicorn with a concerned look in his eyes “I don’t remember anything since past one and a half month ago”

“Wait, what? So you lost your memory?”

“That’s what I just said”

“Yeah I know I was listening, but still how do you go around for one and a half month without being seen? I mean you’re an alicorn, there are not many of your kind running about these days” Aura said as he stared at Soundflux.

“I don’t know I’ve just been wandering around, trying to figure out why I can’t remember anything”

“without any progress? You are in the capital city of Equestria, and it never occurred to you that you could just have gone to the princesses?”

“I was drunk”

“For one and a half month?”

“I like whiskey”

“Really? You are unbelievable, how in the hay did you pay for the whiskey?”

“Oh you know, a pony has to make a living and even if it means that somepony is mysteriously missing a small amount of bits from their pockets”

“So you’re a pickpocketing alicorn? Well I’ve seen it all now”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know, you could have used your special talent or something to make an honest living?”

“I did”

“that makes no sense” Aura said confused.

“You don’t make any sense” Soundflux said with a flat expression.

“You little!” Aura muttered under his breath. “What exactly is your special talent then?”

“Sound”

“What do you mean “sound” that doesn’t make any sense” Aura said with a dull expression

“of course it does” Soundflux said “listen”

“I can’t hear anything” Aura said. Which was right, he couldn’t hear anything, no birds, no city noise, he couldn’t even hear his own voice anymore. Everything was just gone.

“WHAT IS GOING ON!” Aura yelled and drew a hoof to his mouth, his lips were still moving.
It was driving him nuts, a world without sound.

And in the blink of an eye, all the sound came back, ten times more powerful and for a second Aura was really deaf.

“ARE YOU CRAZY!?!” Aura yelled at Soundflux who couldn’t stop laughing.
Feeling an overwhelming urge to kill, Aura chased Soundflux.

“Oh shi-” Soundflux said as he started to run.

“IT’S TIME FOR ME TO SHOW YOU MY SPECIAL TALENT” Aura yelled at Soundflux as his horn lit up, and all of a sudden balls of green fire flew past Soundflux, barely missing him, exploding on impact with a nearby café table, instantly incinerating it like acid.
The chase went on for a while down the streets of Canterlot, causing widespread chaos wherever they went. Ponies were fleeing in fear of their life as they ran down the street.

As Aura casted his last acid fireball, not intending to hit Soundflux with this one, all this running had made Aura very tired and just wanted to stop and go back to bed, Soundflux accidentally ran into its line of fire. Soundflux looked back in horror as the ball of death was about to square him the face, Soundflux closed his eyes and braced for impact, there was a green flash and a *FWOOSH* sound, and then nothing, when Soundflux opened his eyes again, he saw two royal unicorn guards holding Aura down with magical chains on the earth, and ready to haul him to the dungeon.

“I’M ALIVE! WHOOHOO! Yesh yesh yesh yesh yesh! I’M ALIVE!.... I AM INVINCIBLE!” Soundflux yelled in delight, turning his head towards the unicorn restrained on the ground.
“oh, you just had to go and get caught didn’t you.” Soundflux thought to himself.

“Hey, what gives? I was about to kill that alicorn” Aura said with a confused tone in his voice.
It took him a couple of seconds to realize what he had just said.

“Oh horseapples” Aura thought to himself “Well this one will be hard to explain”

“I know how this might have looked, but it wasn’t really my fault, he started it” Aura said to the guards who only ignored him.

The guards levitated Aura into the air and started heading for the Canterlot castle where he would be put into a nice little cell in the dungeon.

Soundflux tried to interfere by pushing one of the guards into the other hoping he would lose focus and drop Aura, but before he could even get near the guard he too was in chains and was now being hauled to the dungeon with Aura.

“Nice rescue” Aura said sarcastically.

“This would not have happened if you could control your temper” Soundflux stated without looking at Aura.

“I wouldn’t have chased you if you wouldn’t have attacked me with that weird sound magic” Aura said annoyed.

________________________________________________________________________________

The guards threw Aura and Soundflux into separate cells, one of the guards turned and left while the other stood guard.

“Hey could you teach me how to do that chain spell? It could come in handy the next time I want to kill my friend here” Aura asked with a smug smile on his face

“Do not, do NOT tell him that!” Soundflux stated with an important tone in his voice!

“I’m not teaching you anything, now sit there and do nothing while my colleague gets the captain” The guard scoffed, and turned his back on Aura.

“As if they could keep me in this cell, I’ll just break out” Aura thought to himself as he blasted the cell door with a large jet of green fire.
To Auras surprise, nothing happened.

“What? How did that door not melt?” Aura asked out loud.

“Anti-magic cell” The guard said, without flinching at the giant jet of fire that was summoned behind him.

Aura tried again, this time an even bigger flame, but to no use.

“Looks like I’ll stick around for a while then” Aura said with a very unsatisfied look on his face as he sat down on the ground, front legs crossed. “I shouldn’t be here! I should be in my bed!”

“Suppose we just ended up in the “line of fire.” Soundflux chuckled from the other side of the wall between the cells.

There was the sound of something hitting a skull and an “Ouch!” From Aura’s side of the wall.

“Well, well. Look what we got here! A ruffian and a scoundrel” a powerful voice said.