Author's Notes:

A bit or a lot different from my usual stuff and a tad experimental. But the person who inspired this weirdness is happy with the results.

So...

Enjoy?

Coco Pommel, to those who had met her, was a sweet, soft-spoken, polite mare.

To those that got to know her, well… their opinion didn’t change much, except for maybe those ponies would add “considerate” and “hard working” to the list.

But there was a side to Coco no one knew about.

A dark side that inside her that urged her to talk back, to disagree…

… to demand, to take what she wanted.

A side that never shut up.

Like, ever…

Coco sat at her… inexplicably plastic desk…

… In her obnoxiously colored baby blue and neon pink colored office with its carpet full of strange, circular-geometrical patterns of all colors.

With a pen that was shaped like a wedge of toast.

Leaning against Coco’s desk with enough weight that the flimsy plastic was starting to bend inward, was her boss. A tall, thin earth pony stallion with a black coat, bright red mane and tail, and bright orange muttonchops that matches his eyes. He was wearing a purple neon and black checkered flannel shirt, gold-colored scarf, square horned rimmed glasses, and yellow galoshes.

“Well, let’s go over today’s outline, shall we?” the stallion said as he seemed to examine one of his galoshes in intent disinterest.

“You mean the itinerary?” Coco asked.

“I’ve decided ‘itinerary’ is a too played out, ‘outline’ is not as often used in these situations.”

Coco fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Of course, sir.”

Coco’s boss launched straight into the activities of day. Coco braces herself for a number of horrible sounding events that she would have to attend.

“First a new coffee shop has started selling lattes flavored with beet pulp.”

Coco’s mind began to wander almost immediately. A defensive mechanism to keep her from fixating on just horrible the day would be.

Coco looked over her boss’s coat, mane, and tail. He had recently dyed all of them because he thought ‘red and black was woefully underrated.’ Though, she suspected no pony had ever been born with those colors naturally.

“Next, we’ll check out the Trashcapades.”

The pony with the fake mutton-chops currently going on about some bizarre thing Coco didn’t really get…

“A new bakery has opened up in which the owner swears literally that his own blood, sweat, tears, and other assorted body fluids have gone into each creation.

…Was named ‘Hipsterdouche’.

“And finally, there’s a band that only uses wet paper bags as instruments.”

Coco hadn’t figured out if Hipsterdouche somehow changed his name to that, or if his parents just resented having a foal.

But his name currently fit him like a handcrafted shirt made out of orange traffic cone and day-glow lime-colored wool.

And working for him was easily as irritating as wearing said eyesore.

“Coco? Are you listening?”

“Mmmmhmmm!” Coco smiled and nodded her head up and down. In truth, she wasn’t listening at all, but she had become adept at writing down everything Hipsterdouche said while simultaneously retreating into her own thoughts and trying to block out the obnoxious and vulgar yelling of her ‘sassy’ side.

“Good, well so far I’ve heard terrible things about the beet coffee, but I’m sure only plebs have tried it, so…”

Coco’s mind began to wander as Hipsterdouche explained how all the terrible things he wanted him and Coco to do were somehow not terrible.

It’s been said that life in the big city was hard. Manehattan was often known as a pony eat pony town.

There was one brief, shining moment where Coco had a job she liked and worked for people she liked. Designing dresses for a play was certainly a fun challenge, but she needed a job to keep the income coming when she wasn’t needed to make dresses.

Somehow Coco found herself working for someone that made her long for the days when she was Suri Polomare’s slave.

Granted, Hipsterdouche hadn’t really done anything to challenge her moral integrity, but everyday working as his personal secretary was a surreal nightmare that she had to somehow live through.

“… Well, that about covers it.” Hipsterdouche concluded. “We better get an early start before a line starts forming for that beet coffee.”

“Could you grab my bag, Coco?”

Hipsterdouche’s bag was made out of tin-foil and duct tape because ‘cloth was too mainstream’. The tin-foil ripped constantly, and repairs were made with more tin foil and duct tape, which turned the bag into a bulbously bagtrocity that was a pain to carry.

Coco stepped to the floor and grabbed the bag off the side of her desk, grunting as she slung the item over her back. It was pretty rare when Hipsterdouche would carry it. Instead the mangled piece of chrome-colored garbage in a vaguely bag shape had become a bloated mass of junk that Coco was forced to lug around. No matter how often Coco went through it and suggested her boss could do with a few less scarves, pens shaped like fish, or peat moss sandwiches Hipsterdouche responded that he ‘you never know what I might that’. The item felt very much like Coco’s personal albatross hanging around her neck, except much heavier and smellier than a dead bird would be.

Despite the obvious shakiness in Coco’s legs just from picking up the bag, Hipsterdouche simply smiled and walked to the door. “Well, we best be off! The newest and greatest discoveries of Equestria aren’t just going to write about themselves!”

After once again being forced to take the stairs because elevators were ‘too mainstream’ Coco and Hipsterdouche were out on the street of Manehattan, on their way to—

“Whoops!” Hipsterdouche said as he shielded his eyes from the morning sun. “Forgot my over-the-glasses sunglasses! Wait here!” Hipsterdouche turned and began trotting back towards the tall office building. “I’ll be right back!”

“Oh… okaaaay…” Coco said shakily as the heavy bag had already began to take its toll on her legs. She soon found her legs giving out from under her.

‘Thud!’

Coco groaned in pain as the heavy bag brought her to the ground, crushing her under the combined weight of duct tape, tin foil, and day-glow scarfs.

Coco’s brow and muzzle wrinkled simultaneously as she and Hipsterdouche walked into the coffee shop. The usually pleasant smell of coffee was mixed with the earthy smell of beets making for a bizarre smell combination that Coco wasn’t sure what to make of.

The misshapen bag was now being pulled by a beat up red wagon she was forced to purchase with her own money.

Coco paid her sassy side no mind…

… and took some solace in the fact that Hipsterdouche seemed to like the wagon, even if he insisted Coco paint it a different color later. ‘Red is soooo overdone!’

Hipsterdouche spotted a pony standing behind a cherry-oak colored counter holding up a newspaper. He smiled. “Good morning, my dear barista!”

The paper fell revealing a tired-looking female earth pony mare with a mocha coat and a long, straight light-brown mane. She looked at Coco and Hipsterdouche with surprise as if she couldn’t believe there were ponies even in the shop. This was followed by a surprised yelp as her eyes took in Hipsterdouche in his full… douchey… glory.

“C… can I help you?” The barista asked in an unsure tone. “Are you lost?” A frown suddenly set on the barista’s face as she stared harder at Hipsterdouche, as if she was still figuring out exactly what he was. “Do you… do you need some money…?” she asked as she cocked her eyebrow.

Hipsterdouche shook his head. “Haha! No! It is us who will pay you for two cups of your fine beet coffee!”

The mare’s eyes darted to a clear carafe full of some reddish brown liquid set in a coffee machine. Her eyes darted back to Hipsterdouche. “Are you… are you sure?”

Hipsterdouche walked up to the counter and reached into a pocket on his flannel shirt. He pulled out a hoofful of bits and placed them on the counter in front of the cashier. “I’m as sure about this as I am about everything I say and do!”

The barista simply gave Hipsterdouche a blank stare.

“Absolutely!”

Coco felt a nauseating sensation her stomach as she was once again confronted with the notion that her bosses utterly unexplainable tastes in everything was not done with any hint of irony at all.

Hipsterdouche continued to smile. “Make them Grande, will you! We’re going to need lots of energy for the Trashcapades!”

“Oh-Okay…” The barista said as she eyed Hipsterdouche suspiciously and gathered the bits on the counter. As the barista opened a brass register she shot Coco a look as if asking ‘Is this guy for real?’

Coco returned the look with one that said ‘Run!’ or even ‘Save yourself!’

The Barista simply gritted her teeth and quickly turned, trotting up to the coffee machine.

Soon the barista had filled two disposable cups with the reddish brown sludge. The smell of beets began to weigh heavily on Coco’s nose.

“I can put on lids if you want.” The barista offered. “But the drink is so thick it usually gets stuck…”

Hipsterdouche smiled and took the cup in a forehoof. “Lids are for plebs,” he announced.

The barista simply cocked her head slightly as she gave Hipsterdouche yet another unsure stare. “… Riiiight…”

Hipsterdouche tipped back his cup and his head, letting the viscous mass slide into his throat as he chugged it.

Coco and the Barista put on matching looks of disbelief.

Soon, Hipsterdouche’s cup was empty. The stallion sat it down with a satisfied smile on his face. “Oh, Coco! You simply must try this! It’s like a beautiful combination of what natural Equestria has to offer the unworthy ponies of this planet!”

Coco swallowed as she trotted up to the counter. The fumes from the coffee started to make her feel dizzy, but she knew she could either drink the sludge or spend all day hearing Hipsterdouche describe the ‘enlightening experience which was probably beyond a plain mare like you anyways’.

Coco took the cup in a forehoof and immediately turned her head to get her muzzle as far away from the offending odor as she could while still holding the cup. She looked over at Hipsterdouche who simply smiled expectantly and then the barista who gave Coco a look of squeamish concern.

Coco plugged her nose with one hoof…

…then took a big gulp of the beet coffee.

Oh, Celestia! This is even worse than I thought! Maybe it won’t be as bad going down…

Coco swallowed the viscous, almost gooey substance in her mouth. I was wrong!

Coco set her large cup back on the café counter.

The barista gave Coco an impressed look. “Hey! You’re the first ponies to try it without spitting it out or vomiting right away.”

“Ba-bathroom?!” Coco exclaimed moments before her cheeks puffed out and she held her mouth closed with a forehoof.

The café worker pointed down past empty seats and booths

Coco bolted where the mare pointed, keeping one hoof firmly over her mouth, limping at a high speed as the pressure behind her lips threatened to give way to the contents of her stomach.

“Correction!” The chipper mare said as she focused her attention on Hipsterdouche. “First pony to try the coffee without spitting it out or vomiting right away.”

Hipsterdouche shook his head. “Coco still has a bit too much of the plebian common pony mindset around her.” Hipsterdouche raised Coco’s cup to his muzzle and gave it a sniff. “She has trouble appreciated the deep earthy tones and bitterness that make up the complexity of this drink.”

The mare shrugged. “If you say so… I can’t blame her though. I think the coffee here tastes like shit.”

“BLRARRRHGGHGH!”

Shut… shut up! Coco replied internally as she raised her muzzle out of the toilet, returned all four hoofs to the floor, and trotted over to the sink. I'm working on it!

There was a knock on the bathroom door. “Oh, Coco?” Hipsterdouche called out. “Are you almost done savoring the delicious taste of the beet coffee a second time in there? We have a tight schedule to keep!”

Coco shot the door a sneer as she wiped at her muzzle with a forearm then turned the sink on. “I’ll be out in a minute!” she said, forcing a sweet voice as she washed her hooves.

“Good! I don’t want to keep the good ponies who organized the Trashcapades waiting!”

Coco sighed heavily to herself.