If I'm honest, if I hadn't worked it out for myself, I would probably have been surprised, although I don't think my reaction would be quite like Thomas'.

He quite literally jumped up and let off a half-yell, half-scream in the process, if you understand what I mean. His eyebrows were raised further than his ridiculous hairline and his breathing was uncontrollable as well. I could just make out what he said after he'd calmed down.

"What's going on?"

"It's your surprise party, silly!" Pinkie replied in her usual bubbly attitude. "Specifically, your 'Welcome to Equestria' party. It would have been your 'Welcome to Ponyville' party, but then again, you're not exactly living in Ponyville at the moment, so it's you're 'Welcome to Equestria' party instead. Were you surprised? Wereyouwereyouwereyou?"

"Yes," Thomas and Nathan replied, both of whom did look very surprised.

"No," I answered, making ponies gasp and making Pinkie look like I had slapped her.

"WHAT? How not?" she replied, obviously concerned at how I was not even in the slightest bit surprised as she gave me this look with massive eyes. Those things are practically cinema screens for expressing emotions.

"Well, first off," I began to explain. "I began to realise something was up when Rarity started leading us here. Then there was the fact that literally nobod- ugh, noPONY - was in town. The building looks like a place where people would party, the lights were out, and you even said you worked here."

"Oh," Pinkie replied, looking slightly deflated, which was quickly rectified and replaced with a happy demeanour instead. "I'll just have to try harder to get you!"

"Well, now that you've told me, I'll just have to watch out."

"You can try," Pinkie responded. "Anyway, shall we get this party started?"

"Well, as long as Dumb and Dumber here," I replied, pointing to Nathan and Thomas. "...don't get drunk then we should we be alright."

"Okie dokie." After this, Pinkie zipped off to do something else.

"Dumb and Dumber?"

I turned round to see a rather unhappy Thomas. And a rather annoyed Nathan.

"Well, I'm sorry, but it's true," I explained. "You, Nathan, are a lightweight who can't even handle a bit of gin, and Thomas, you don't know your limit, no matter how often you go out drinking. To be honest, I'm actually surprised you're still alive."

"I might not be able to drink that much drink, but at leased I don't go and piss myself in some pub in Ayr," Nathan remarked.

"Better than throwing up on someone's shoes and being an arsehole about it."

"Besides," Thomas added with a wide smirk, making me roll my eyes, as he's just about to start boasting. "I'm probably the strongest drinker in this room."

"Yah sure about that, partner?"

We all turned to the distinctive southern-US accent.

"Applejack? Something wrong?" Nathan asked.

Applejack ignored him. "Yah sure yer the strongest drinker in this entire room?"

"Aye," Thomas replied. "What, dae you think YOU can dae better?"

"Ah don't think so," Applejack replied, making Thomas raise his eyebrows. "Ah'm sure I can."

Silence lingered in the room for a few moments, with the exceptions of a few whispers in the room. Eventually, an impish grin worked its way onto Thomas' face.

"Well, I know a game that we can play so we... know for certain."

Applejack rubbed her hoof against her chin, contemplating the offer. Eventually a similar grin appeared on Applejack's muzzle. "Sure thing. What's this game yer talkin' about?"

"We need some good drinks and a pack of cards," Thomas explained.

Both of these items, a pack of playing cards and a bottle of some beer-type drink labelled 'Sweet Apple Acres Cider' appeared on one of the nearby tables.

"There you go!" Pinkie announced. "That's you set for the game."

"Thanks, Pinkie," Applejack replied.

"No problem, AJ."

Thomas just stood there open mouthed.

"How did you manage to do that so quickly?"

"I'm Pinkie Pie."

"That's not really an answer," Thomas replied raising his eyebrow. I was going to side for Thomas, but for the moment I decided to keep my mouth shut and see where this would go.

"Yes it is."

"No it isn't..."

"Yes it is.

"No, it's not!" Thomas called out, clearly becoming agitated at Pinkie's persistence at that actually being an answer.

I mean, come on. Saying that's an answer is like saying Michael Schumacher won all of those championships because he's Michael Schumacher.

"Twilight, would you?" Pinkie asked, turning to Twilight, who was in the crowd.

Twilight sighed. "Yes it is, Thomas. Please don't argue, I tried finding out what Pinkie's secret was years ago, but I couldn't come to any conclusions."

"Anyway, what's this game ya were talkin' about?"

Thomas broke off his glare from Pinkie and turned back to Applejack. "It's simple. Each of us gets dealt a card, and we play the card to see who has the highest ranking card."

"Okay, Sugercube, but I don't see how the-" Applejack began, before it hit her, with her then making an 'O' shape with her mouth.

"Loser has to take a drink of that stuff."

"Alright," AJ replied, pouring each of them a glass. "Well let's see who's the better one at drinkin'."

"Nathan," Tom called. "Can you be a pal and deal the cards for us?"

"Aye, sure," Nathan replied, picking up the cards and sitting down.

At that moment, I felt a poking sensation next to me. I turned towards the source and saw a particular rainbow-maned pegasus flying next to me.

"Oh, hey, Rainbow. What's up?"

"I don't know what Applejack's gotten herself into by challenging Thomas," Rainbow whispered, clearly wincing at her friend possibly losing.

"I know what Tom's getting himself into," I replied. "A pile of his own sick."

"Eww, that's gross!"

"He's done that sort of thing before."

Rainbow laughed for a bit. "You are kidding?"

I sighed, looking back at Applejack. "I wish I was."

"You got money on you?" Rainbow asked.

"Yeah sure. Why do you ask?"

"Well, ten bits says that Applejack beats Thomas."

"Twenty," I disagreed. I didn't actually have faith in Thomas, to be fair, but I just wanted to maybe wind Rainbow up a bit if he won.

"Done."

As our little conversation finished, the first hand was played. Thomas had played a 8 of clubs, while Applejack played the 4 of spades. This made Thomas a bit cocky, and added to Applejack's annoyance as she drank the whole glass in one go.

"Well, it seems like Applejack is enjoying herself," I absent mindedly commented.

"Ah heard that, Jack."

I laughed nervously on the spot, whilst rubbing the back of my head. "Sorry."

The card game went on for nearly ten minutes, whilst going on a seesaw of Applejack winning and Thomas winning, all the while ponies watching. There was one exception where AJ won three plays in a row, and the quick rectification by Thomas by winning twice in a row.

During this, however, we saw Applejack play the Duke of Diamonds, whilst Thomas played the Princess of Hearts which had me confused.

"Princesses? Dukes?"

"Yeah, in cards it goes; Ace, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten, with it going onto Duke, then Prince, then Princess. Isn't that how it works in your world?"

"No, for us, the Aces and numbers are exactly the same, but then it goes Jack-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. No need to inflate your ego, Jack."

"I'm not joking - although it used to be called a Knave until someone pointed out the abbreviations could be confused."

"Oh, okay. But with what?"

"Well, the one above Jack/Knave is Queen. And next is King. If you abbreviate King and Knave you get K and Kn, which is kind of confusing."

Eventually, after Thomas had nine glasses and AJ had ten of them, Thomas started coughing while taking his tenth glass, and thus the victory was given to Applejack. I nervously turned to Rainbow Dash, who had a large grin resting on her face.

"Ahem," Rainbow fake coughed.

"Fine," I groaned with frustration, and pulled the pouch out of my pocket. Opening it up, I forked out the twenty bits that Rainbow was looking for.

"Thank you, very much. But where'd you get the money from?"

"I did some work for a local pub. I stepped in for one of their regular guys who got sick."

"Thomas hasn't been down there has he?

"No. I mean, he was once, but that was to get me to stop working so I'd come here. Hasn't had anything in there."

"What's the place called?" Rainbow asked.

"The Crystal Barracuda."

Rainbow's eyes lit up in a similar fashion to the way Shining Armor's had earlier. "The Crystal Barracuda? That's one of the best bars in all of Equestria."

"You been in there at all?"

"Yeah, I've been in there a few times. One time it was when we had helped get the Crystal Empire the rights to host the Equestria Games."

"Yeah, Cadence told us about that when we first arrived. How did it go?" I asked.

"Well, Ponyville won the medal count by one medal - thirty seven compared to Cloudsdale's thirty six that year."

"Has Cloudsdale hosted the games before?"

"Well, they should have," Rainbow sighed.

"Rainbow?"

"They were bidding to host the games when I was a little filly. They were so close to getting the bid, but the games were given to Fillydelphia that year, instead. I was quite upset about not being able to host the games that year, so I tried my hardest to make sure that the Crystal Empire got to host the games last year."

"Wow, nice. So, who's hosting the next one?"

"Well, the selection process hasn't been made yet, but Canterlot, Manehattan and Las Pegasus are the three cities that have made the bids at the moment," Rainbow replied.

"So, when was the other time that you were in there?"

"When we celebrated winning the Equestria Games at the bar. The place got extremely crowded that night, but it was still a good night out."

"A belated congratulations on your victory."

"Thanks. Anyway, shall we go back to everypony else?"

"Yep, as long as I don't get wasted like Thomas did."

A distinct sarcastic laugh could be hear from Thomas and out of the corner of my eye, I could make out a distinct two fingered salute.

The party went on for another few hours, which surprised me. We had gotten there at round about seven o'clock and the party had dragged on to eleven o'clock. During this time, Nathan had tried (and failed) taking shots of gin, I had my few share of whiskey drams, and we had spoken to various different ponies.

Thomas tried to make some sort of intelligible conversation with a purple earth pony named Berry Punch.

Not the greatest idea in the world, I thought.

Nathan and I started talking to the town's resident DJ, Vinyl Scratch, who had this electric blue mane that looked kind of... electrifying, and her best friend, Octavia. She was apparently a cellist for Canterlot's Symphony Orchestra.

We had a long conversation ranging from music in Equestria to music on Earth, which I pointed out wasn't as good as it used to be.

"So, do you have any human music with you that we could hear right now?" Vinyl asked, with a hopeful pair of eyes and smile.

"Well, I do have this one playlist on my phone with songs that I listen to so I lighten up a bit," I replied.

"Oh, cool!" Vinyl said loudly. "Can we hear some songs?"

"I don't know..." I replied mockingly, rubbing my chin as if to contemplate the idea. I was really doing this to wind her up, which I was successful in doing.

"Oh, come ON, dude!" Vinyl moaned. "Just play ONE song, please?"

"Alright, alright!" I replied jumpily, pulling out my phone. "I was only kidding. Here, I'll play you a song from one of the most popular bands from back on my world."

"Cool!" Vinyl exclaimed. "What are they called?"

"Queen."

"Kinda short for a band."

"Yes, but they're one of the best bands in the world. They're my personal favourite band out there."

"What's the song you're going to play called?"

"Don't Stop Me Now, which came out nearly 40 years ago. It's one of Queen's most memorable songs."

And so I played the music at full volume, letting all of the ponies around hear the song. The song was very well received, as multiple ponies started dancing during the song. I even started singing the chorus at the end, as did some of the other ponies, including Vinyl, which was actually quite a good mix with the original song.

"So, what do you think?" I asked as the music started fading away.

"That was awesome!" Vinyl exclaimed, with ponies in the crowd humming with agreement.

"You like it then?"

"Yeah! Who's the main singer?" Vinyl asked.

"Freddie Mercury, a man who has become a bit of an idol in music. He wrote a lot of Queen's most memorable songs, while two of the others in the band, guitarists John Deacon and Brian May did some other ones as well."

"What other songs did Queen sing?"

"Well, my favourites are The Invisible Man, Another One Bites The Dust, We Are The Champions and Bohemian Rhapsody, to name a few."

And so we ended up playing the rest of the Queen playlist on my phone, going through all of the songs listed above. Vinyl took a liking to The Invisible Man, while Octavia liked the slower pacing of Bohemian Rhapsody, with various ponies either taking a liking to other songs, or not liking them at all.

I didn't blame them for not liking Queen, although I was quite disappointed.

"So what do Queen do now?" Octavia asked.

"Well, Queen hasn't really been all that popular for a while now," Nathan explained. "Freddie Mercury, the lead singer, died in 1991 from a type of pneumonia brought on by AIDS."

"Oh, that's awful!" Octavia replied, shocked.

"It gets worse," Nathan continued. "Deacon left the band in '97, twenty years ago, and the band hasn't really been the same since then, even with various singers like Elton John and Robbie Williams doing the lead singing."

"Oh."

"But they certainly did a lot better than some other bands in terms of ageing, like The Beatles, who only stayed together for ten years before breaking up. I didn't really like their stuff all that much."

"Yeah, neither did I," I added.

As more songs were played, and us three all made fools of ourselves by dancing, we started to know some of the other ponies. There was a pony called Lyra Heartstrings, who - you guessed it - played the lyre. She became interested in us and our world, so a lot of Nathan's time that night was telling her what our world was like.

All the while, the purple princess was taking down everything on notes. And when I say everything, I MEAN everything. She more or less copied every single word that came out of Nathan's mouth, and pasted it into this notebook. No joke. I even looked at her notes while she went to get a non-alcoholic drink, and everything I could remember Nathan saying was in there.

But eventually, eleven o'clock came around, and some ponies were already beginning to leave. I realised that we needed to get back on the next train to the Crystal Empire and try and get to our bedrooms undetected; I had a feeling at the time that Cadence and Shining might not be all that pleased with us.

You know, staying up until at least half past midnight and not telling them how long we'd be gone for. And they wouldn't be impressed that we were drunk, either.

Well, two of us were.

I'll leave you to figure out which one wasn't.

Anyway, it was getting late so I asked the other two if it was okay for them to leave now.

"Aye, sure 'hing mate. Sound as," replied a rather drunken Thomas.

"Well, it's gettin' late anyway, so aye," replied a less drunk, but still tipsy Nathan.

"Alright then, I'll let Pinkie know that were leaving soon."

And so I walked over to the area where Pinkie Pie was standing, still singing, and dancing to, Another One Bites The Dust. As she saw me approach, she stopped.

"Hey, Jackie!" Pinkie replied, making me freeze.

You see, I haven't heard anyone call me Jackie in a long time. The first time that name was used for me was as a pet name by my aunt-that's-not-really-my-aunt, Karen. In Scotland, lots of folks have an aunt that isn't really their aunt: it's usually your mum's best pal, and when you're a kid, they just get referred to as an auntie, even when there's no blood connection, and the name usually sticks.

But, she stopped calling me that when I was about 14. It's when I first did a track day at Knockhill that I got called it again. A lot of my classmates came there, as it was a sort of unofficial school leaver's party of sorts, a week before the last day of school. I got entered in for this hot hatch race, and even though I didn't win, I somehow managed to the fastest lap of the class.

So, my mates decided to call me Jackie, after Jackie Stewart, the F1 driver, and the name stuck. But nobody's called me that since Brodie died.

"Are you OK?"

I zoned back in to see Pinkie shaking my arm with her hoof.

"Yeah, I'm fine, it's just that no-one's called me that in a long time."

"What?"

Cue another explanation of the 'Jackie' nickname.

"Okay. I'm allowed to call you it though, right?" She asked, worried I was upset.

"Aye, sure. I'm not mad or anything, just a bit surprised."

"So, what did you come to talk to me about?"

"Well, me and the others were going to head on the train, as that's eleven already and it's gonna take us an hour and a half to get back to the Crystal Empire."

"Oh, right. That's not a problem, guys, we all need to go home at some point," Pinkie replied, albeit loud enough for the whole room to hear, although only directed at the other two.

"Thanks a lot Pinkie, I mean for throwing this party as well. It was really nice of you," I said.

"No problem, Jackie!" she smiled.

"Well, until next time, see you later."

"See you later."

"Oh, wait!" I responded. "You wouldn't be happening to be going to the Grand Galloping Gala on Saturday, are you?"

"Yep, I am!" She replied. "It's the going to be one of the best nights ever! It was quite boring before, but we tried to lighten it up over the last few years. Why'd you ask?"

"Well, it's just that me and the others will be there as well. We were down here to pick up our suits for it."

"Ah well, I'll need to look out for you then! When's your chariot leaving?"

"Well, we planned on taking our cars there and showing them off to the Canterlot folks instead."

"Oh, OK then! See you... whenever you show up?"

"Yep, see you then."

I turned back around and headed back to the two idiots that never know their limits.

"Right, come on then, you idiots. Let's go," I grunted.

Nathan managed to get onto his two feet just fine, but Tom? Well, that's a different story.

"Aww, naw, man. Ah'm so sore and ah cannae get up!" he shouted.

I groaned in displeasure. Looks like we have to lift this idiot out, again.

"Get up, Tom," I said, grabbing him from underneath his arm and holding him by his other shoulder, and dragged him out of the bar, ignoring the unintelligible words escaping from his mouth and the stares from other ponies. Nathan, on the other hand, grabbed our suits that we hung up next to the doors.

It took us a good ten minutes to get to the train station, to discover the next train would arrive in five minutes. I sat Thomas down on the bench and listened to some music in the mean time.

When the train did arrive, I picked up Thomas by the shoulder again, and motioned for Thomas to find us both a seat. He came back and led us to a four-seater area that we could all sit in. It was going to be a long journey, so it helped that the seats were comfortable.

What was not going to be comfortable, however, was the inevitable shouting we would be getting from either Cadence or Shining Armor.

We finally came up to the Crystal Empire at around 1 o'clock in the morning, the shininess of the city still shining bright, even at night time, making a beautiful sight to behold. The other major thing that was noticeable was the train station. Or, to be more precise, who was waiting there.

There were six royal guards waiting at the station, two of them being Thunder and Anomaly. Looking from the distance, I could see they were chatting amongst themselves and having a laugh, but once the train's whistle was sounded, and those extremely loud brakes were applied, they stood to attention and watched the train eagle-eyed as it came to a halt.

"Well, time to face the music, lads," I sighed, before getting up, looking at the guards who were as still as a statue and picked up Thomas. "Come on, you stupid wanker."

"Aww, but that's naw faaaaair! These seats were so comfy!"

When the doors were opened the guards focused their stares on us... and said stares turned into ones of shock.

"Jack!" Anomaly called over to me. "What happened to Thomas?"

"He got wasted," I replied, motioning to the cider that was still visible around his mouth. "He dared this pony called Applejack to a challenge involving drinking, and he's had ten glasses of cider from just that alone."

Just then, Thunder lit up his horn and let off a laser beam into the air in what could only be described as a flare gun being fired. Noticing my confused expression, he explained.

"The Princess got slightly worried after you hadn't got off the nine o'clock train, and even more so when you didn't get off the half ten train, and had us stationed hear to look for your arrival. That was a flare to let her know you've arrived."

"What's she been like?" I asked warily.

"Well-"

"Is she pissed?"

"THAT'S ONE WAY OF PUTTING IT, MR. LUSS!"

All of us turned around to see Princess Cadence flying in our general direction. And looking extremely stern at that.

"Look at shoes," I whispered to Nathan, who nodded his head in response.

At least somebody hasn't lost their-

"WHERE IN TARTARUS HAVE YOU THREE BEEN?! AND WHAT TIME DO YOU CALL THIS?!"

"Well," Nathan began. "We were originally planning to get our suits for Saturday-"

"That might be true, but it does not take SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS TO GET SUITS!"

"Well, you see the thing is-"

"Where else were you?"

I sighed. "Pinkie pulled one of her surprise parties at about seven-ish, when we were about to leave."

Cadence's harsh tone from before became slightly nicer. "When did you three leave?"

"About eleven-ish, but it might have been earlier had Mr. Alcoholic here not get wasted," I replied, motioning towards the drunken Tom.

"Aww, mate. You need tae see all these colours, man!"

Cadence looked quite shocked. "How much did he have?"

"Ten glasses of Sweet Apple Cider."

"No wonder he's all over the place! How did he end up drinking that much?"

"His oversized ego caused him to get into a challenge with Applejack. He lost, as you can probably tell."

"Well, let's get back into the castle. It's getting chilly out here," Cadence announced to all three of us as she began to fly back towards the castle. "And once all three of you recover from your hangovers, we'll have a discussion about this."

I looked at the other guards who were a mixture of looking concerned and holding back laughter.

Yep, we're being shouted at tomorrow.