Chapter Three: Angel’s Beat

By Feather Scratch

Proof Read by Comet Burst, q97randomguy and mr jerrio

“You’re a... Bat Pony!” In her still semi-conscious state, Daring couldn’t help but gawp at the rarity on her doorstep. She leaned in just a little too close, her eyes wide and unblinking like a filly at an aquarium that just caught her first glance of the exotic fish.

“Uh, yeah, last time I checked.” Angel Beats scratched the back of her neck and forced a grin. Avoiding eye contact was easier said than done at this range. The mare was staring at Angel like she had two heads, and Angel felt her gaze locked on to the rosy orbs before her like a magnet.

“You’re a Bat Pony in Dodge Junction!”

“And with the way everypony keeps staring at me, I’m a Bat Pony who wishes she was anywhere but Dodge Junction right now.” Angel let out a nervous laugh and backed away a few paces.

Daring blinked and gave her head a little shake as her brain finally caught up to current events. She flashed her own sheepish smile and absentmindedly kicked off the bed sheet still clinging to her back like a vibrant red toga.

“Ah ha, sorry about that. It’s been a bit of a week, and I’m no good in the morning without my coffee.” She stepped out into the hall and extended a hoof towards Angel. “I’m Daring Do.”

Angel looked Daring up and down, her golden eyes searching for any further signs of crazy. When she was satisfied there was no more coming, her smile switched from awkward to genuine and she bumped Daring’s extended hoof. “It’s cool. Not many Bat Ponies come this far south, so I’m guessing I look just a little out of place.” She chuckled. “I may as well be an Earth Pony in Cloudsdale.”

The two mares shared a laugh, which, all too soon morphed into stifled yawns. Daring headed back into her basement apartment and waved for Angel to follow. Once inside, Angel took off her hat, revealing her tufted, bat-like ears and let out a deep sigh. “Ah, now that’s more like it! How do you get it so cool down here? It’s like an oven outside.”

Daring had moved across the room to check her reflection in the polished wood of a cabinet and was making a half-hearted attempt to tidy up her bedraggled mane. Giving up, she turned back to Angel. “These rooms used to be a storage cellar before they were done up. Solid stone walls and hardly any direct sunlight keeps the place nice and cool even at midday. Speaking of,” Daring tilted her head, “It’s still pretty early isn’t it? It can’t be that hot outside.”

“It is if you’re a Bat Pony.” Angel sunk into the comfy sofa like it was made of clouds. “Back where I come from, it even snows in the summer. In the winter, if you spilled a hot drink it would be a block of ice before it hit the ground.”

“Yeesh! and I thought Vanhoover was harsh.” Daring sat down in a chair opposite Angel and systematically stretched out every joint, trying to wake herself up. “I mean, I like the cold just fine, but when it starts turning coco into ice cream, I’d say the real estate agent pulled a fast one on you.”

Angel shrugged. “Meh, we like it fine. Even if I did want to throttle the real estate agent, he’s had a good few centuries to make his getaway. So, unless you know a really good detective who specialises in time travel, I think we’re stuck. Anyway,” she sat up straight, her weary body aching in protest, “Artemis Trotson? This is his address isn’t it? Please tell me I didn’t come all the way to Dodge Junction for nothing.”

“Well that kind of depends. If you just have a message for him I can take it, but if you needed to see him in person, sorry, you’re out of luck. Technically, this is only his mailing address. He doesn’t actually live here.”

Angel’s ears fell, her shoulders slumped and she looked almost ready to burst into tears. “Aww, this sucks!” She rubbed her eyes with her hooves and let her head fall backwards over the top of the sofa. “No amount of reward is worth all this grief!”

“Reward?” Daring leaned forward. “What reward?”

Angel's hooves fell to her sides, but she kept gazing, bleary-eyed, at the ceiling. “A pony called Fetlock Hooves. He promised me a lot of bits if I could find his old friend Artemis Trotson for him.

“I came all the way from Transylmaneia, from the other side of the country, to find him, but it wasn’t until I reached Canterlot that I realised I had no idea how to do it. I guess I took for granted just how big the world outside my own town is. Hooves hadn’t given me anything but a name to go on, so I’ve been spending the last few days bouncing from city to city trying to find this guy.”

Daring smiled sympathetically and headed for the door. “You look like you could use a pick-me-up. Come on. I’ll take you to the only decent place in town, and you can tell me everything. How did you know Hooves?”

Angel hesitated, but after a moment sighed, took one last, deep breath of the cool basement air and followed Daring out the door, replacing her hat securely on her head making sure that its wide brim shaded as much of her face from the harsh desert sun as possible. “Well, I first met him a few months ago.”

~~~

All who could afford to were outside, enjoying the closest thing to a summer's day the Walled town of Transylmaneia ever got. The sun shone high over the frozen mountains, not a cloud marred the pristine beauty of the cyan sky and the gentle breeze carried nothing but a brisk chill and the scent of pine from the distant Wintergreen Woods. Some ponies on the other hoof, had work to do.

“How can there be so much paperwork? We never get any business!”

Angel slumped in her wobbly chair, rested her chin on the rickety table and stuck her tongue out at the impossibly large stack of documents looming in front of her.

Her Aunty Autumn Night ran the Transylmaneia Tourist Board whose headquarters consisted of the front half of a tiny two-room house near the main gate of the town. Like most houses on the outer edges, it had a distinctly improvised look with three cobblestone walls and one made from multicoloured glass bottles that caught what little light shone through the town. The shingled roof was a mismatched mosaic of wood and slate tiles that matched the colourful sign above the door claiming ‘Tourists Welcome’ which looked like a filly’s arts and crafts project. It was, in fact; when she was little, Angel had given it to her Aunty for her birthday.

Angel had come to work for her Aunty that past month partly out of guilt and partly out of boredom. She spent most of her free time with her Aunty anyway and felt bad about never being able to return her kindness in any meaningful way. The typically bad business had gotten worse since the recent reappearance of the Crystal Empire. She knew that, short of press ganging tour groups at knifepoint, there was nothing she could do to improve things, but she could at least help Autumn Night with the little stuff. It was either that or spend her days sulking in her Dad’s cave.

It turned out being an extra pair of hooves in a failing business was a lot more work than the young mare had bargained for.

“Don’t grumble, Angel dear. Business will pick up soon.” Autumn Night bustled through the beaded curtain that separated the front office from the living quarters in the back, pushing a trolley loaded with tea and fruit cake as she went. She wore a pair of half-moon glasses on a chain, and her greying blue mane in a bun. Her clearly hoof knitted cream cardigan and permanently bemused expression gave her a constant air of genial good humour. “And the bureaucracy is all necessary. It takes a lot of help from the council to keep a non-profit organisation like this running, and we must go through the proper channels. Personally, I think of it as a game. Each form is like its own little quiz. I see how fast I can complete one and try to beat that time with the next.”

Angel rolled her eyes and took a piece of fruit cake from the trolley, picking out the raisins and counting them as she went; not because she didn’t like raisins, just to give herself something to do besides trawling through bottomless stacks of paperwork. “Speaking of games, on a day like this, a sunny, once-in-a-blue-moon day like this, I bet a lot of ponies will be out Gale Surfing. It sure would be nice to go out and watch, maybe even take a few turns.”

Autumn Night gave a lilting little chuckle and took a dainty sip of her wild berry tea. “Oh, that it would. You know, I was quite the Gale Surfer when I was your age. I once made it all the way to Sombra’s Bane Peak before I was forced down.”

Angel’s ears perked up, and a hopeful grin spread itself across her face. “So, does that mean we can go? I bet I could make it to Sombra’s Bane if I started high enough!”

“I’m afraid not dear. We have too much work to do. The office won’t run itself.”

Ears splaying, Angel slumped back down and harrumphed. She looked at her little pile of precisely seventeen raisins and two mango chunks and began idly rearranging them into patterns.

“Can’t all this wait Aunty Autumn? It’s not like any tourists are likely to show up in the middle of the week, and it may be months before we get another day like this.” Angel leaned across the rickety table, pressing her hooves together and putting on her best pleading voice. “I promise I’ll get all of this done tomorrow but, just for today, can we please go out and do something?”

Autumn Night just smiled and took another dainty sip of tea. When no reply seemed forthcoming, Angel scooted a little closer, throwing puppy dog eyes into the mix for good measure. Everypony she knew would be making the most of this day, and she’d be darned if she had to spend it behind a stack of papers.

With another laugh like wind chimes in the breeze, Autumn Night smirked and looked at her niece over the top of her nose. “I’m getting the subtle impression that you’d like to spend the day outside.”

Angel perked up and nodded her head vigorously.

“Well, we still have a business to run but if it’s an excursion you want...” Autumn Night trotted over to the front counter and began rifling through the drawers, muttering and giggling to herself as she went. After several long minutes searching, which Angel was sure were deliberate considering there was little else in the drawers besides maps and trinkets, Autumn Night popped her head back up with a stack of pamphlets in her mouth. She deposited them in front of Angel and beamed with pride. “You could always trot off to the train station and welcome the new arrivals. Why, I’d bet a friendly hello and a helpful pamphlet would be just the thing to get ponies into the spirit of things!”

Angel cocked an eyebrow at the stack of dusty pamphlets. This wasn’t exactly what she had in mind when she thought of a day out, but who knew? Maybe she’d meet some interesting ponies from faraway lands, ponies who knew about things like proper seasons and magic and oranges. She grinned, tossed the pamphlets in a saddle bag and made for the door. “Don’t worry Aunty Autumn. By the end of the day, I’ll have convinced a bunch of ponies to have a look around, or my name isn’t Angel Fruit Punch Beats!”

Autumn Night cocked her head to one side. “Your name isn’t Angel ‘Fruit Punch’ Beats.”

“No, but I always wanted it to be!” With one last toothy grin, Angel was out the door and running at full gallop towards the train station.

~~~

“I’m sorry, but what does fruit cake and pamphlets have to do with Fetlock Hooves?”

Daring and Angel were sitting at a table in the corner of Dodge Junction’s one and only tavern. Daring cradled a steaming mug of coffee where Angel had opted for a tall glass of apple juice. Lucky for the mares, it was a reasonably slow day, and they had the room pretty much to themselves.

“What, you never heard of setting the scene?” Angel took a deep swig of her juice and smacked her lips contentedly, allowing the cool, tangy-sweet liquid to flood her body with new life and energy. “Besides, the fruit cake’s important. If it had been chocolate cake I might not have left the office that day.”

“Fair point,” Daring conceded. “But can we skip to the part where Hooves comes in?”

“Fine, but you’ll be missing an interesting adventure involving Ninja Ponies, an existential crisis and the world’s biggest jam doughnut!” Angel gulped down the last of her juice and called for another glass.

“Really?”

“Na, I’m just yanking your chain.” The Bat Pony sniggered at Daring’s disappointed pout and upturned her glass over her mouth, tapping the bottom to try and coax the clinging ice cubes to fall.

When her fresh apple juice arrived, Angel instantly abandoned her battle of wills with the stubborn ice cubes and set upon her new tangy beverage with a foalish glee, draining half the glass in a single gulp. “Ah, this stuff is awesome! So much better than the concentrated kind we get back home. Anyway, Hooves.

“It had been a few hours since I arrived at the train station. There had only been one train that whole time, and they were hauling vegetables. Despite my fillyish charms, they were all carrot and no fun so I ended up spending most of the time learning how to play Prodder with Gus, the old station attendant. He said there was only one train left to come in that day, so I figured I’d try my luck, and if I struck out with them, there would still be enough daylight for one Gale Surfing session. Little did I know; the stallion on that train would become a full time gig all by himself.”

~~~

“Straight flush! Better luck next time Gus!”

“Aw dang it, three in a row. Are you sure you’ve never played this game before, young filly?” The grey, old Earth Pony in a smart, if faded, blue vest and hat with a heavy iron ticket belt strapped securely around his barrel, threw his cards down on the empty vegetable crate the pair were using as a makeshift table and sighed. Angel giggled and scooped up the cards, beginning the tricky task of reshuffling the deck.

“What can I say? I’m a fast learner. That and you lick your lips every time you have a good hoof.”

“Ah, that’s a sly trick, young filly. I guess it’s just a mercy we weren’t playing for bits.” While Angel dealt the cards, Gus turned towards the tracks and sniffed the air. He pulled an old fob watch from a small pouch on his ticket belt and checked the time. “Well blow me down. They’re early for once.”

Angel glanced up from her hoof, one ear pricked. “Who is? I don’t hear anything.”

Gus gave a dry, knowing chuckle. “Young filly, you’ll feel it before you hear it, and you’ll smell it before you feel it. The train’s coming, a passenger engine, according to the schedule. Which I think means that’s enough cards for now. You’d best go grab your pamphlets.”

Angel scrunched her nose for a moment before turning to retrieve her saddle bags. She had a bad hoof anyway. Trotting out to the edge of the platform she squinted along the tracks and tried to spot the train in the distance. After a few minutes of nothing, she turned back and scowled at Gus.

“Gus, you old liar, there’s no train. Is it so bad losing to a mare that you have to make stuff up?” With a single flap of her wings, she hopped back over to the crate and reached for the deck. “That’s it. We’re playing for bits now.”

Gus wasn’t listening. He had retreated back into the office and was methodically checking he had everything ready to greet the new arrivals. He opened the front window and positioned himself behind it, standing as straight and presentable as his considerable years would allow.

Angel walked over and rapped the window. “Hello? You can cut the act Gus. I’m not falling for it. Look, there’s clearly no...”

Angel stopped and looked down at her hooves. A faint rumbling was coming up through the platform. She turned to Gus who was just standing bemusedly behind his till. She closed her eyes and sniffed the air. There were the usual smells like snow, pine, dried fruits, and, for some reason nopony could ever figure out, chlorine, but Angel realised, if she focused hard, there was another faint smell being carried on the breeze. “Coal?”

Walking to the very edge of the platform, Angel once again looked down the track, this time straining her ears. After another few minutes, during which the rumbling got progressively stronger, she finally heard the faint squeal of metal on metal. A moment later, a tiny plume of smoke could be seen cresting the horizon. Her jaw dropped, and her head slowly pivoted until she was facing the old Earth Pony. “How in the hay did you do that?!”

Gus chuckled and gave a gentle shrug. “Ponies have their tells, so do trains. Step back behind the yellow line please.”

Angel shook her head and backed away from the edge, a lopsided smile crossing her face. “You ever think you’ve been at this job too long, Gus?”

A few minutes later, the train came to a grinding halt and the engineer stepped out of his cabin. He flicked a lever opening all the doors of the carriages and took a deep breath. “Last stop, Transylmaneia Station, everypony out!”

It was a good thing Angel had covered her ears for the train’s arrival or the bellow might have deafened her. When she was sure it was safe, she lifted her head and looked around. Save for the engineer, the platform was as empty as it had been before the train’s arrival. Angel frowned and trotted over. “Um, excuse me. I’ll admit I don’t know the ins and outs of the business, but isn’t a passenger train supposed to have, you know, passengers on it?”

“It does have a passenger.” The engineer grinned proudly and pointed towards the caboose, “one first class fare.”

Angel cocked her head towards the back of the train then back at the engineer. “You came all the way to Transylmaneia with just one passenger? Who is it, Princess Celestia?”

“Ha, I wish. Na, it’s just some bigwig from Trotingham. Would have turned him away ‘cause nopony else was coming, but he paid for first class. Costs about as much as fifty regular tickets, so who was I to argue?”

For the second time in minutes, Angel’s jaw dropped. A pony who was willing to pay so much to come to, what realistically amounted to the ends of the Earth, by himself, had ‘eccentric tourist’ written all over him. That or ‘bailiff’ and Angel was certain the town wasn’t in that much trouble... yet.

Another few minutes passed, but there was no movement from inside the caboose. “Are you sure he’s actually aboard? Maybe you left the station without him.”

“Trust me, he’s there.” The engineer grimaced like he had a bad taste in his mouth. “Wouldn’t stop talking to himself the whole way, like he was having an argument with his imaginary friend.”

Angel scratched her head and approached the caboose a little more slowly than she otherwise would have. The closer she got the more she could make out the indistinct muttering. It did indeed sound like a heated argument with one half missing. She cautiously poked her head into the open door and drew a breath to begin the welcome speech she had planned, only to let out a yelp of surprise and duck, narrowly avoiding being hit by a high velocity banana cream pie.

~~~

“He threw a pie at you?”

Some time had passed since they arrived, and the tavern was coming to life. The regulars sunk into the grooves they had moulded through years of dedicated patronage, the bartender chatted away with the ponies that had just popped in for an early lunch, and Daring and Angel were enjoying some garden salad sandwiches.

Daring had to hand it to Angel, for a pony that looked tired enough to pass out any second, she could talk. Daring had barely had to contribute to the conversation the entire time. Angel, for her part, was munching away on her sandwich, seemingly too engrossed in her food to care about all the sideways looks her unusual appearance was drawing. She finished the last bite and rocked back on her chair, rubbing her belly and licking the stray crumbs from her face.

“In fairness, it wasn’t meant for me.”

~~~

Narrowly avoiding decapitation by pastry, Angel staggered backwards, tripping over her own hooves in her panic and falling to her rump amidst a sudden confetti of pamphlets.

Before she could recover, or even remove the pamphlet that had fallen neatly across her nose, her wild-eyed assailant had invaded her personal space and was looking her up and down. Just as Angel was contemplating a buck and run, the brown Earth Pony blinked and stepped back, offering her a hoof. “I’m terribly sorry about that, dear girl. For a moment there, I thought you were that loutish buffoon of an engineer. His incessant clattering has caused no end of distraction the entire journey.”

Angel accepted the hoof up and, as an afterthought, shook the pamphlet off her face. “Uh, that’s okay. I guess I should have knocked or something.”

Remembering why she was there, Angel snatched up the pamphlet she had just dropped and held it out to the new arrival. She put on her best greeting-new-ponies smile and cleared her throat. “Ahem. Welcome to Transylmaneia, Equestria’s northernmost settlement and the one and only homeland of the Bat Ponies! I’m Angel Beats, and I represent the Transylmaneian Tourist Board. If you’d like to come with me, I’d be happy to walk you through the town's history and show you all the best sights our beautiful town has to offer, completely free of charge!”

“You’re wrong.” In the few seconds Angel had been talking, the Earth Pony had scanned through the pamphlet, tossed it over his shoulder and begun trotting away. “With the re-emergence of the Crystal Empire, Transylmaneia is no longer Equestria’s northernmost settlement. Also, you’ve made no less than thirteen errors in spelling and grammar in your pamphlet. Dreadfully unprofessional.”

Angel’s ears fell, but her smile remained resolutely fixed in place. She gave a half-hearted laugh and muttered under her breath. “Ha ha, everypony’s a critic.”

Chasing after the new arrival, Angel forced her voice to remain bright and cheerful. “I’m very sorry about the mistake sir. I assure you the facts in the pamphlet were entirely accurate when it was printed. As for the spelling and stuff, I can only apologise. We’re a small operation, and we do our best.”

“Ms Beats!” The Earth Pony rounded on Angel, fixing her with a glare that could melt lead. To her credit, Angel’s smile barely faltered. If she was going to strike out, at least she could say she did her best. “There is one thing I cannot abide and that is flank-kissers. If all you can offer me is a false smile and a ‘learn by rote’ speech then I would ask you to kindly take your business elsewhere and leave me to mine.”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and resumed walking away. Angel’s smile fell. She had known her share of difficult ponies, but that was just rude. “Well fine! I hope you get frostbite, you no good warthog! What kind of self-obsessed jerk throws a friendly hello back in a pony’s face like that? Go fall asleep in the snow. That stick up your rump would make you the perfect pony popsicle!”

Angel instantly regretted her outburst when the Earth Pony froze mid-stride and about-faced. She lowered her head and unfurled her wings a little in case she needed to make a quick getaway. In the blink of an eye, the Earth Pony had stomped back over to her and pressed his face into hers, his glare harsher than ever. He bared his teeth, and for a second Angel thought he was actually going to bite her. To her surprise, he not only didn’t bite her, but after the tension had become palpable, he actually fell back onto his haunches and burst into uproarious laughter.

“That’s what I like to see!” He roared. “A pony that isn’t afraid to speak their mind! Ms Beats,” he stood back up and shot a hoof out in front of the confused Bat Pony, “My name is Fetlock Hooves, and I do believe I’m in need of a guide. Though if you’re tired of working without profit then I have a proposition for you.”

~~~

“And I’ve kind of been working for him ever since as his personal tour guide and all-purpose assistant.”

Angel and Daring had just left the tavern and were heading back to Daring’s apartment. “It was a pretty sweet gig, actually. At first, he just wanted to see everything. You know, the general package. But then things started getting a little odd. He started wanting to talk to individual ponies, to find out about imports and exports, to see documentation and medical records and stuff. It all came to a head a few days ago when he offered me hundreds of bits to go to Equestria and find his old friend. He was panicking, looked like he hadn’t slept in days. I would have said no, but it was so much money, money my family could really use. If I can’t find Artemis Trotson and get him to Transylmaneia then I’ve just wasted a lot of time and bits on a wild goose chase.”

Daring bit her tongue and looked away, wondering how much she should tell Angel. The poor mare had come such a long way. Would she be overjoyed to hear that Artemis was on his way to Transylmaneia as they spoke, or would she be devastated to find out that her employer wouldn’t be there to welcome him? She hoped Angel had a contract.

“Angel,” she laid a hoof companionably on the other mare’s shoulder. “I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?”

Author's Note

Okay, now comes my favourite part. My latest excuse for why the chapter's late!
Not much to tell really. A series of peculiar events involving time travel, a debate with Mark Twain on the merits of amphibious match fixing, a severely sleep deprived griffon, a genie who fancied herself a DJ and a life or death struggle with a particularly cunning mongoose, simply kept me from my computer.
But enough of my hum-drum real life, back to ponies!
Big thanks to my new team of proof readers. They made the discordian hodge-podge that is my brain child into a halfway coherent narrative. Hip, hip, hooray!