My name is Minuette. That’s the only thing I’m sure of at the moment.

Actually, since I woke up, I’m not even sure of that. You know, I opened my eyes and a list of various words, including a brand of a toothpaste, and the name of a character from some TV show ran before them. I already forgot most of them, but Minuette rang a certain bell in my poor, battered head. Not even a soft pillow helped me against my hangover.

Well, it’s not exactly a pillow. It’s blue and soft, but it’s also hairy and it has other things a pillow totally shouldn’t have, like a picture of crescent moon and a wand on it, or a pair of legs and a tail sticking out from it. Apparently it’s somepony’s flank.

Sweet Celestia, what did I do yesterday?

Okay, focus Minuette. Keep it together. The owner of the (quite curvy, I must admit) flank and I are in some wooden room, probably the interior of a carriage or a wagon of sorts. It’s dark, save from rays of sunlight getting through holes in the walls. The whole place smells of sweat and vomit. The unpleasant sensation in my stomach tells me that it could be mine.

I raise my head and look around. As soon as my gaze falls upon the pony I used as a pillow, something clicks in my head. A name.

Beatrix Cinderella Lulamoon.

Who in this world calls their child ‘Beatrix Cinderella’? Well, scratch that. In this country it’s perfectly legal to name a child Silver Spoon, Filthy Rich, Cheese Sandwich… Beatrix Cinderella is not a bad name. Another memory pops up in my head.

Trixie for short. The Great and Powerful Trixie for modest.

I look around the wagon, spotting some rather alarming details. First off, Trixie is resting on a couple of bags made of brown fabric, stuffed with bits. Like, thousands of bits; maybe millions. The holes in the wagon’s walls are a clear indication that somepony was trying to shoot us yesterday. The implications weren’t very reassuring.

Speaking of shooting, we aren’t alone in the wagon. Next to Trixie sleeps a skinny, white unicorn mare with electric blue mane. Her eyes are completely obscured by large sunglasses. She’s snoring while embracing a shotgun – its barrel is dangerously close to her face. To make matters worse, it’s a shotgun designed for earth ponies, with an enlarged trigger to make shooting it with hooves easier. The white mare rests her hind leg on it. One bad dream, one move, and her brain is all over the place. Assuming that she has one. Nopony with a half of a brain uses a friggin’ shotgun as a teddy bear, right?

Well, nopony with a half of a brain sleeps in a wagon that smells like an outhouse after a party that went horribly wrong, but I guess you catch my drift. I mean, since this day already seems to be really bad, I don’t want to make it any worse. And it would be worse if I had to scrap a pony’s brain off the walls. Every time my hooves touch brain, I’m "the Guns of Neighvarone".

Carefully, I aim my horn at her and levitate the shotgun out of her hooves. My magic is lazy, the aura falters and almost dies down, but after a few tries, I manage to summon the gun to me. I open the action. Of course, it’s loaded. Way to go, Vinyl, way to go… I heard from my brother that she swallows, but this load would be probably too much even for her. I take the shells out of the shotgun and place them carefully on the floor.

Vinyl. Vinyl Scratch. I just recalled that name and I feel a desperate need to go outside. My head is killing me, and apparently I spent the previous night partying with the Self-centered Large Ham, known as Beatrix Cinderella “Trixie” Lulamoon and the Horny Large Ham, Vinyl Scratch. Way to go, Minuette. Your mother was totally right. You’re not gonna die peacefully in your own bed, dictating your last will to the herd of foals, grandkids, great-grandkids and other family members, waiting impatiently for your last breath and looking hungrily at your money.

Well, sorry mom, but I actually like this idea. I never liked foals. Like, they creep me out. And I don’t have any money to give to my family. I look at the interior of the wagon one more time. Well, actually I have lots of money, as well as some empty cola cans, cider bottles, a mug with “Best Princess” written on it, a shotgun, and a mysterious briefcase lying on the floor between Vinyl and Trixie. I open the briefcase. Who knows what it contains? Maybe some diamonds, maybe someone’s dirty laundry.

Oh, fuck me. Did I mention that this day was bad? Well, now it’s, like, ten times worse. The briefcase is full of plastic bags with some white powder. Knowing my luck, it’s not flour. Okay, Minuette, inhale. Exhale. Repeat till you calm down. I walk out of the wagon. The air inside isn’t exactly suitable for breathing.

The fresh air helps me to clean my mind, but it also has a rather unpleasant side effect – just after leaving the wagon and taking the first deep breath I threw up on the ground. Apparently, my body decided that reminding me what I ate last night was the best way to fight my amnesia.

I spit on the sand. There’s a desert everywhere. Sand, more sand, some rocks, more sand, some sand in my mane and even more in my throat. Next to the wagon there’s a roadsign: "Las Pegasus" – too many miles for me to comprehend in my current state. "Dodge Junction" – even more miles. "Canterlot", "Manehattan", anywhere close to civilisation – friggin’ lots of miles. Just great.

I try to make any sense of it. We’re in a wagon, in the middle of the desert and apparently we were partying a bit too hard yesterday. During the party, we apparently broke into some bloke’s house and robbed not only his bits, but also his cocaine stash. Or maybe heroin. I’d take some on the tip of my hoof and taste it to find out, but knowing my luck, I’d immediately get high and do something irresponsible.

Well, the bloke we’d robbed probably got pissed (scratch that – he surely was pissed), and tried to make his revenge using, judging by the bullet holes, an assault rifle or two. And an anti-pegasus cannon.

Now, as I figure it out, my mind starts to present other pieces of information to me. The first of them is connected with Vinyl Scratch. You know, my brother used to rut her, so she’s kinda like family. After they broke up, she went to Las Pegasus and began romancing with some casino owner. I remember that a few days ago she called me, asking for a–

Oh, that’s just rich. That’s just too fucking rich. Minuette, you imbecile. You totally deserve to spend the rest of your life with Vinyl Scratch, your intellectual levels are exactly the same.

As you may guess from my cutie mark, I’m a skilled watchmaker. I never liked that, mostly because my brother has exactly the same cutie mark, which he got on the same day as me. And since he’s an earth pony, manipulating with the precise mechanisms was always harder for him and our parents were more amazed by his cutie mark than mine. Life is just not fair.

Much more I like my secondary talents: developments of the ability to precisely move the small elements with my magic. I can repair any mechanical, electronic or magical device: Phones, guns, cider presses, toasters, weather factory’s rainbow-making machine… everything.

And, above that, I’m a skilled locksmith.

I remember that I asked Vinyl why she can’t get a locksmith in Las Pegasus. But she insisted that she needed me and that the work was top secret. I thought that she simply got stuck in the toilet and didn’t want anypony to find out, or something like that. Then she promised me money.

As I said before, I don’t have much money. I’d like to say that I squandered everything I had on alcohol, expensive clothes and zebra stallions, but the reality looks much more pedestrian: the watches nowadays are quite reliable, so they don’t need to be repaired very often, the other watchmaker in town is a handsome single stallion (who is also my brother), and my landlord is a bitch. Thus, I take almost every oddjob I’m offered. Just call 555-08-08 and ask for Minuette. I will do almost anything, except maybe having sex with you or murdering your boss or relatives. And I don’t do windows.

Vinyl Scratch didn’t want any of these things, she just wanted a lockpicker, so Minuette, being a dumb ass she is, went to Las Pegasus and…

Crap. I barely started to speak about myself in third person, and I already summoned her. She walks out of the wagon, narrowing her eyes upon seeing the bright Sun. She looks around and her gaze locks on me.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie wants to thank you one more time!” she almost shouts.

Geez, my head. Chill out, Trixie, what I’ve done to earn such gratefulness? I think when she approaches and hugs me. I feel uncomfortable, mainly because I feel I’m sweaty, dirty, my breath smells of vomit, and Trixie isn’t any better than me in that matter. And then she says something that makes me feel even more uncomfortable.

“Trixie thinks that what you did to her was the best thing Trixie experienced in her whole life!”

Way to go, Minuette, way to go. Congratu-pony-lations. You just lost your virginity to a mare. Worse, to a mare who’s a travelling magician. While you were drunk or drugged out of your mind. My poor mother probably turns in her grave.

That is, she’d turn in her grave if she was dead. And I’d have lost my virginity if it wasn’t already claimed by Caramel, in the kitchen of The Sugarcube Corner, during the “Berry Punch Has a Baby” party. Fun times. Pinkie Pie caught us and made us clean all the mess up; that is, after we told her that we definitely didn’t want her to join.

“Trixie thinks that what you did with those two stallions was awesome!”

What. I cover my face with my hooves. I don’t exactly hear what Trixie is saying, only a bit about their ‘something’ wider than Trixie’s neck.

“C-come again?” I ask. If she’s not exaggerating, I should feel something, right? Like, I shouldn't be able to walk.

“Trixie said that she’d never fight two stallions whose biceps were wider than her neck. And you… you saved Trixie’s life!” She hugs me again.

Geez, girl, calm down. My head is killing me even without her yelling so loud that she’s probably heard in Appleloosa. Good news is that my metaphorical virginity is still safe and sound. Though, the threeway…

Calm down, Minuette. You’re a life saver now, you can’t think about threeways! Focus. But, how can I focus when I hear strange sounds from the inside of the wagon? More exactly, the sound of pony rolling on the floor and swearing like a sailor.

Apparently, Vinyl just woke up.

A minute later she’s outside, with her sunglasses on, smiling sheepishly at us.

“Hi, girls!” She shouts. “Can you believe it? There’s a suitcase full of cocaine inside!”

I feel like I’m going to explode. My poor, battered brain demands answers. I let out a scream of frustration, making Trixie cower in fear. Or maybe it’s pain – she’s hungover too, after all. Vinyl, on the other hoof, stands still against my outburst.

“Relax, Minuette, I’ll share with you…” she says.

“NO!” I shout, approaching her. Our noses are almost touching. “I don’t want any effing cocaine, effing money or whatever the hell else we have in this mother–effing wagon! I want to effing know why I am in this bloody desert, with the former-friggin’-DJ-currently-homeless-junkie and damned-to-Tartarus travelling magician?”

Okay, that’s not exactly what I said. It’d be dumb to say “effing”, don’t you think? Vinyl could think that I’m joking.

Well, I didn’t say “hell” also. Believe me or not, my mother always says that I used to be a cute, well-behaved filly. Vinyl looks at me, confused. It’s actually not much better than her usual expression.

“You should brush your teeth, sweetheart,” she says. “You almost killed me with your breath…”

You thought my previous cluster F-bomb was vulgar? Well, now I apparently manage to offend Vinyl’s mother, father, great-grandmother and a dozen other relatives in less than ten seconds. This finally makes her take me seriously; or maybe she just feels sorry for Trixie who’s at the verge of tears.

Well, crap. Now I feel bad for her too.

“I’m sorry girls,” I say. “I freaked out. The thing is, I have no idea how we got here and from what I suspect, we can all end up in prison.”

Seriously, I’m afraid of that. Remember when I told you that my mother thinks I was a cute filly? Well, many other ponies also think that I’m cute. Too bad, even in the prisons for mares cute ponies quickly learn that a shower is a dangerous place. And that they’re worth two packs of cigarettes.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, we won’t end up in jail.” Vinyl tries to cheer me up, but her frown isn’t helping. “My ex-coltfriend will simply kill us.”

I can’t help but laugh hysterically. They stare at me, from their worried looks I can guess that they think I've finally lost it. Well, they’re not far from truth. I already lost it, the day I went to Las Pegasus.

“What the hell happened?” I ask when I stop laughing.

“It’s all Trixie’s fault,” Vinyl says. “We’d be safe and sound if she didn’t panic and start to shoot beams every–”

“And who made Trixie panic?!” Trixie yells, shaking Vinyl brutally. Luckily, I’ve already covered my ears, just in case. “Who told Trixie that the last unicorn who tried to rob your coltfriend was found with his horn in his ass? While still attached to the forehead?”

“I told that to you so you’d move your fat friggin’ flank a little faster!” Vinyl shouts. Trixie cowers, but it’s probably because her head hurts, not because Vinyl’s arguments are that convincing. When Vinyl runs out of breath, she counter-attacks.

“My flank is fat? Well, Trixie would rather have a fat flank than be a fucking coat-hanger like you!”

“Coat-hanger? You… YOU CHOLESTEROL FACTORY!”

What? I blink in confusion. Even Trixie is confused, but only for a moment. When she comes back, her great and powerful shriek tears the sky apart. Or were that just Vinyl’s eardrums?

“TRIXIE IS SICK OF YOU, YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF DRAGON’S MANURE!” She lifts Vinyl effortlessly and pushes her against the wall of her wagon. “Trixie can’t even look at you! Any mention about you makes Trixie’s stomach twist… TRIXIE LOATHES YOU, YOU ABHORRENT ABOMINATION! YOU… YOU CATAMITE!”

Okay, time to bring end to this. They can insult each other till the end of the world if they want, but I’d rather get out of this desert alive. Also, at that rate they’ll soon resort to violence. I try to catch their attention, but they’re too busy with each other.

“Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo!” Vinyl yells, pushing Trixie away. Apparently she had some contact with classical education, probably when that cellist she used to stalk smashed her instrument against her head. Good thing Trixie and Vinyl are too hungover to cast spells.

“Girls, can you behave like adults?” I ask shyly.

“Fuck off, adults are talking!” Trixie shouts back at me. I hope she’ll never become a mother. I also wonder what kind of childhood she had. Well, now I kinda feel for her. My mother grumbles constantly about me being irresponsible (and, as you can see, she’s totally right), but even when I royally screw up, I can always get tea and sympathy from her.

Okay, definitely enough of this. While I’d like to see Vinyl pedicabo and even irrumabo Trixie (call me a pervert, I dare you. I guess you’d like to see that too), I have enough problems and I don’t want those two to become another one. I go to the wagon, pick up a shotgun and go back to them. Then I pull back the hoofgrip as loud as I can. It’s unloaded, but the sound it makes causes everypony with even a trace amount of self-preservation instinct to stop doing what they’re doing at the moment and look around.

“Minuette, what are you doing?” Vinyl asks, looking straight into the barrels. What kind of question is that? A pony holds you at a gunpoint and you ask them what they are doing? Nah, I just wanted to talk with you about our lord and saviour, Discord. The gun? What gun? It just helps in evangelization.

“It’s just a motivation,” I say. Then I point the shotgun at Trixie. Gun safety, my ass. Well, technically it’s empty, but still. “You will tell me what happened yesterday. Using first person past tense narration. Be brief, my head hurts and when I hold this long and hard thing in my hooves I feel like some kind of a cruel god…” I crack my most uncanny smile. As the shotgun is empty, the god is kinda dead, but still. As Celestia wouldn’t say in public, religion is opium for masses, after all. In this case, of a particular mass, consisting of two ponies who at the moment believe that I’m going to shoot them if they don’t stop calling each other catamites or threaten that they’ll pedicabo each other.

Before Trixie catches her breath, I think about Celestia: she actually never stated that she was a goddess. Sure, she rises the Sun, but that’s not the reason to be called one. And I don’t believe she really does that. Atheist-masochist, that’s who I am.

“So,” Trixie says, “Tri– I mean, I was recently unemployed…”

“Recently?” Vinyl chuckles. “You meant ‘constantly’...”

“Vinyl, that was strike one,” Trixie says. “Two more, and Minuette widens that void you have inside of your skull. Right, Minuette?” She smiles nervously at me. My makeshift cult just earned its first priest. I decide not to answer. The best god is the one who doesn’t talk much. Trixie smiles triumphantly and continues her story.

“I was recently unemployed, when this here idiot told me that she needs somepony who’d be able to get past two guards… Trixie can be very stealthy, you know.”

Yeah, I noticed.

“She also told Tri– me that I’d have to help another pony to get there with me. This pony was you.”

“Okay,” I say and turn to Vinyl. “Now you. Why did you need a locksmith and a magician, why is this wagon full of money, and why did some ponies try to shoot us?”

“Umm… do you know my ex-coltfriend?” Vinyl asks.

“Yeah, he’s my brother after all…”

“Not that one. The one that tried to shoot us yesterday. I guess this means he broke up with me…”

No, definitely not. I always try to shoot every guy I’m with, just to spice up our relationship.

Sometimes I wonder why I’m single.

“His name is Bacio della Morte and he’s the owner of a few casinos in Las Pegasus…”

Oh, give me a break. Vinyl, from what I learned during the time when you insisted on calling me “sister”, I know you aren’t the sharpest tool in the shed. But are you seriously telling me that you met a guy called Bacio della Morte and you thought that he’d be a pony you’d like to get old with? Or that you’d like to be the mother of his children?

“Too bad, as I later found out, he’s a cheating bastard. Not to mention that he makes lots of money and doesn’t want to share with me. I have needs, you know…”

Oh yes, I know. My brother mentioned something about that when he was trying to borrow 50 bits from me. He must have been really desperate – I haven’t seen 50 bits for ages.

“So, I came up with a plan. I knew where he kept money so I decided to steal some before breaking up with him. But I needed transportation.” She poked Trixie’s wagon. “I also needed somepony to get past the guards and somepony to open the safe. That’s why I asked you to help me.”

My hoof contacts with my forehead. Seriously, what I was thinking? That a guy called Bacio della Morte would forgive me? Geez. He was probably preparing concrete for our new horseshoes now.

“Okay, I get it. But what exactly went wrong? Why there’s a briefcase full of cocaine in the wagon? And why did we get drunk out of our minds?”

Vinyl smirks triumphantly. Probably it’s because telling me that would help her win a point in her pissing contest against Trixie.

“When we were going back, covered by Trixie’s spell, one of the guards looked at her. Like… like he knew we were there... She freaked out, the spell broke and then shit went down.”

Suddenly, all the memories of the last night appear in my mind. I put down the gun and collapse to my knees, overwhelmed by my own idiocy and possible consequences of what I just saw. Vinyl looks at me, the silence that ensued getting more and more awkward.

Finally, she decides to break it. “Excuse me, may we discuss this later?” she asks. “I really need to pee…”

Thank you, Vinyl. Just the information I needed. I turn my head away – I definitely don’t want to see this, also I need to wallow in– Not really, I just need to recall all the events exactly and think what to do next.

There’ll be lots of thinking, I guess...

Author's Notes:

After I finished "Berry Punch Takes Manehattan" part of my brain responsible for silly stories felt unemployed, so I finished that old idea of mine...