Last Ditch

Chapter Four

"Okay," said Fleetwood, smoking the third cigar that afternoon, "what have you learned, Spike?"

Spike recited the list of things he had learned from his mentor.

"One, dress with style. Two, ALWAYS show good manners to mares. Three, NEVER mention sea ponies at a casino."

"Spike," Fleetwood said, a tear coming to his sky blue eye," that was beautiful. You follow that, and you'll be the best gambler in all of Equestria, like me!"

"Hey," Spike interrupted the brown pegasus, who gave him a sharp glance. "'The best in all of Equestria?' Aren't you that one pony who got screwed and lost 2,000 bits to a mob boss in Fillydelphia?"

"Maybe," he replied, obviously flustered by the small dragon questioning his skills. "Now, I'm gonna teach you about role models, people you should try to be like to score with mares."

"Role models?" Spike said questioningly. "Like Starswirl the Bearded?"

"No, no, no, no, NO!" Fleetwood laughed. "Sweet Celestia, Spike, we're trying to help you score with Rarity, not do a nerd montage to the tune of 'White and Nerdy'! Besides, does anyone you know even KNOW about him besides me?"

"Well," Spike answered, "Twilight knows about him!"

"But," Fleetwood asked, already knowing the answer, "Do you think of Twilight as being 'cool'?"

"Well, no-"

"Exactly my point!" he bellowed triumphantly, "Now let's go through some 'cool' role models."

"You mean like Flavor Flav?"

Fleetwood was disgusted with what Spike viewed as 'cool'. I said 'cool', not 'annoying-ass little son of a Studebaker!'"

Spike was scared of Mr. Brougham when he was angry. When he was, he was very prone to breaking things and beating himself. "Calm down, Fleetwood," he cried, "you're scaring me!"

"Sorry, Spike," the highroller sighed," Now, here we go: Me: Cool. John Lennon: Cool. Frank Sinatra: Cool Carrol Shelby: Cool. Flavor Flav: NOT COOL!"

Spike was confused. "I haven't even heard of most of those people, Mr. Brougham!"

"And thats why you fail with the fillies!" Fleetwood pointed out matter-of-factly. "You should go check out books from the library to learn about these certain people, as uncool as reading is."

"Hey!" called a lanky mustard-colored colt near a door to the back room, holding a book. "Reading is cool!"

"Snails, you air-dammed slacker, you're supposed to be fixing Cheerilee's Buick Special! What are you doing out here?"

"I was, uh, on break?" Snails was thinking of another excuse, when a portly light blue unicorn stumbled through the door he was standing near.

"Hey, Snails, dude," he said, not noticing Spike and Fleetwood, "I've got the stuff. You wanna go play Call of Cutie while we smoke it?"

"Snips, man, not now, can't you see the boss is right over there?"

Snips turned to see Fleetwood glaring at him, definitely angry at what he was planning to do.

"Well, uh, Mr. Brougham," he stammered, "I can explain. Eldorado gave us some of his cigars for payment of working so hard-"

"Nice try, you two," Fleetwood said sarcastically."One, my dad HATES you two, and two, you NEVER do ANY work, hard or not. Now, get out of my showroom and go help Wilcox with that Buick!"

The two slackers scurried off through the back door, and there was a loud CRASH!

"SNIPS, SNAILS!!" screamed a voice cracked with age, "YOU AIR-DAMMED PLOTHOLES! YOU NEARLY BUCKING KILLED ME!! GO CALL AN AMBULANCE, I'VE FALLEN, AND I CAN'T GET UP!"

"Good one, Mr. Eldorado!" laughed a new voice. "Even in severe pain, you can make a good pop cultural reference!"

"Shut up, Wilcox!" growled the first voice.

"Oh my god, dad!" Fleetwood yelled, running into the back room.

It had been half an hour since Eldorado had fallen, and he had been taken away in an ambulance.

Fleetwood walked back over to Spike.

"Well, Spike," he said happily, "crisis avoided. Now, where we?"

"Cool role models?" suggested Spike.

"Oh, yeah, NOW I remember!" he said. "Now we'll be moving on to what I like to call 'Swag'."

"What in Equestria is 'Swag'?" Spike asked quizically.

"What kind of question is that? No wonder Rarity dumped you!" Fleetwood . "Why, it's only the most important thing ever for snagging mares! Just look at me: Suit, Cadillac, Clean-cut, THAT'S swag! So much, it makes me a filly-killer!"

"No, Mr. Brougham," Spike chuckled, "it makes you so swag, that you don't have to threaten to kill fillies for them to go out with you!"

"You're lucky I have a sense of humor, kid!" Fleetwood muttered under his breath. "I think we should get you some new threads, it'll help your appearance."

"What kind of threads?"

Fleetwood gave Spike a 'Really, kid?' stare. "A suit, of course! Do you ever see that Irvan guy in anything but a suit?"

Just then, a factory whistle blew, signalling the end of the work day. Several mechanics, including Mel, Snips, Snails, and a tan pony, who Spike later found out was Wilcox.

"Well," Fleetwood yawned, "You better be getting back to Twilight. I'll pick you up tomorrow to go suit shopping."

"Okay," said Spike, walking toward the door. "Mind if I use the payphone to call Twilight?"

"Not at all, Spike!" Fleetwood said in an upbeat manner. "The roads are getting busy, anyway, and I'd rather you get driven by her instead of getting squashed by a car. 'Bye!"

"Goodbye."

Spike was being driven home by Twilight. The rush hour was taking it's toll on the flow of traffic: They were in a  mile-long backup, going nowhere when Twilight leaned over to him.

"So," she said curiously, "what AMAZING pick-up technic did your AMAZING mentor teach you?"

"Well," Spike said enthusiastically, "He taught me about COOL role models!"

"What do you mean 'cool'?" Twilight asked, suspicious of Fleetwood's teaching methods.

"I dunno, people who were cool, like Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, that sort of thing."

"Hey," Twilight said playfully, "Don't forget Starswirl The Bearded!"

"Twilight," Spike sighed, "Starswirl The Bearded isn't cool."

"He was too!" Twilight defended her idol with strong resentment toward Spike's claim.

"If he was cool, and he's your role model, then how come you never are the life of the party?"

"Spike,"  she said, outraged that her own baby dragon would call her square, "I have too been the life of the party! Like this one time... No, that was Pinkie. Let's see here...."

This was obviously going to take a while, so Spike rolled down the window, and leaned out of the idling car. He felt the sun on his face, and let it's rejuvinating rays soak into his dark purple skin.

He was about to roll the window back up, when he noticed a familiar Rolls-Royce idling alongside them, with it's window down. This was Irvan's Rolls, and him and Rarity were inside, talking. Spike strained to hear them over the noise of traffic.

"...Had to get us thrown off the train, didn't you Irvan?"

Spike could barely make out Rarity's silky voice, and Irvan's low growl.

"I though that the buffet was free with the tickets!" He protested.

"Well, it wasn't, so now we'll just have to stay home!"

"It's alright, honey," Irvan soothed in his low baritone voice, "we could do some sort of arts and crafts project. HEY, here's an idea! You could teach me how to sew!"

Rarity gasped. "Oh, dear!" she fussed, "I forgot about my HUGE order for R.J. Coltfield's! Now i'll lose my contract for them! Nice going, prince charming!"

"Rarity, sometimes you act like such a bi-"

"Now I remember! Once, I was drunk, and I woke up in bed with Big Macintosh!"

Twilight's triumphant shout teared into Spike's evesdropping. He rolled up the window of the Volvo quickly, and faced her.

"That's cool, Twi," he said halfheartedly, "but you're still not that cool. But that doesn't matter, 'cause Mr. Brougham's gonna make me a filly-killer, and Rarity will finally love me!"

"Spike," Twilight sighed, "You CAN'T really be taking this seriously! Fleetwood Brougham can't be trusted, and Rarity and Irvan's relationship is ROCK SOLID! It's unlikely that they'll be splitting up!"

Spike looked over to the Rolls-Royce, and saw Irvan and Rarity screaming at eachother, inaudible only because of the windows now being up in both cars.

"Oh, Twilight," he thought to himself. "If only you knew how wrong you are..."