Psychedelica – Pastel Ponies
A pony story by Joseph Raszagal
As inspired by stuff best kept away from children
Chapter Twenty One – Wherein a Mint Green Mare Busts My Door Down to Demand My Attention

You know, some days you can just open the front door and grab the newspaper without getting tackled full-force by a pint-sized rainbow pegasus.

Lying on the floor and struggling to catch my breath after getting the wind knocked the fuck out of me, I ruminated over the fact that this was clearly not going to be one of those days.

"Rainbow, did I ask to get steamrolled?" I grumbled as I dusted myself off. "I am not asphalt."

"YeahsorryaboutthatJeremyIjusthadtomakeitherereallyquickandohweshouldreallyhidesomewhererightnow!" she blurted, punctuation be damned.

Shifting my eyes back and forth, I closed the door and very cautiously said, "I think I caught the tail end of that. We have to hide. So... um... okay, why do we have to hide?"

A loud thumping on the door that I'd just closed was my answer.

Turning to face Rainbow Dash, I motioned my head towards the door.

"You burst into here, knock the crap out of me, then tell me that we need to vamoose. Now it sounds like someone's trying to chop the whole goddamn tree down. What's going on, kid?"

"I know you're in there!" came a feminine, but waaaaaaay too enthusiastic voice. "You can't run from me!"

Well fuck, I think my Chris Hansen sense is tingling all of a sudden. Losing a bit of my anger, I instead took the big brother approach.

"Is everything alright, Rainbow?" I asked quietly, kneeling down to meet her eyes. "Do I need to go get Pinkie Pie?"

Shaking her head rapidly, the filly pulled her Gameboy out of her saddlebags before depositing them on the floor and said, "She's after this and she's crazy!"

Okay, so scratch To Catch a Predator. More like To Catch a Nintenkid.

Hey, don't look at me like that. The fanboys can get pretty nutty sometimes when you go and rile 'em up. Check out any big video game expo if you don't believe me.

"Please, please, please, I have to see it!" shouted the voice again. "I've never seen anything like it, you have to give it to me! I need to take it apart! Please!"

"No, it's mine!" Rainbow hollered in return, clutching the portable game system to her chest. "Go find your own!"

"I've never seen that thing before! There aren't any others! I have to have it!"

Dammit, this is stupid. I never signed a contract saying I had to deal with psychos trying to steal from little kids that used to be adults. That'd just sound... fucking nuts.

Know what I mean?

Anger officially on the rise again.

“Alright, Rainbow, get behind me,” I warned her. “I've been to ComiCon. I'll handle this.”

Reaching out with my magic, I bit my lower lip as I forced my aura to surround the handle. Turning it, I opened the door. Immediately thereafter, I was tackled to the ground for the second time that morning, this time by a mint green blur.

Rage Level: 20 %

“Where is it, where is it?!” she exclaimed in a frenzy, lifting my hooves and flipping me around like I was her own personal ragdoll.

“H-hey, watch it, lady!” I barked, shoving her off of me. “Touching comes after dinner and a movie, not before!”

Rage Level: 40 %

Unfortunately, in the process of extricating myself from her green grasp I'd inadvertently tossed her towards a very concerned-looking Rainbow Dash. The wild mare was rooting through the filly's discarded saddlebags in seconds. To be honest, I wasn't even sure I saw her as she pounced on them. Chick was fucking quick.

“Where, where, where?!” she yelled.

“Why, why, why?!” I yelled back.

Rage Level: 60 %

“Because!” she screamed, her tail thrashing back and forth as she lost patience with the bags and just dumped their contents out onto the floor.

“Bitch, that's not even a real answer!”

Rage Level: 80 % - Warning, Jeremy is reaching critical mass.

As if finally registering that somebody was pissed and shouting at her, she craned her neck to face us from her position looming over the pile of stuff that wasn't even hers to loom over.

And it was then that the psychotic pony finally caught sight of her prize.

Rainbow was still holding it... meaning the filly was about to get smashed into tiny bits by somewhere around one hundred pounds of insane mare.

Zooming off into the kitchen like a bullet, the little pegasus barricaded herself beneath the dinning table and presumably awaited her imminent doom.

She didn't really need to though. She'd forgotten something specific.

Or maybe I just hadn't mentioned it before.

Either way, let's just say that it's not a good idea to mess with kids while I'm around.

Eye twitch...

Rage Level: 100 % - Warning, Jeremy has reached critical mass.

Jumping forward as the green pony attempted to pursue her prey, I landed on top of her and decided that the best course of action to end this whole fiasco would be to scare the fucking shit out of her.

Classic combat tactic: Match crazy with more crazy.

“BITCH, IF YOU DON'T COOL YOUR JETS RIGHT THIS FUCKING SECOND, I WILL GO COO-COO FOR COCOA PUFFS ALL OVER YOUR SKINNY ASS! SHIT WILL BE REAL! SHIT WILL BE INTENSE! THIS LIBRARY WILL BECOME 'NAM, I WILL BECOME CHARLIE, AND I'LL BE ALL OVER THE GODDAMN PLACE SNIPING YOUR WHOLE PLATOON! MOTHERFUCKER, YOU'LL BE PUTTING AGENT ORANGE IN YOUR BOWL FULL OF BALANCED BREAKFAST, AND ONCE THAT'S ALL GONE THERE WON'T BE ANY AIRDROPS TO BRING YOUR SORRY ASS MORE! YOU'LL HAVE TO EAT YOUR FUCKING BOOTS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO STARVE! HOPE THEY TASTE GOOD TOO, BECAUSE MINE SURE AS HELL WON'T AFTER I'M DONE SHOVING 'EM UP YOUR USELESS GREEN ASS HARD ENOUGH TO PUNT YOUR FUCKING LUNGS INTO DEEP SPACE! DID YOU CATCH THAT, PRIVATE?! DID YOU?! DEEP SPACE! I WILL FUCKING KICK YOUR LUNGS OUT OF ORBIT IF YOU DON'T CALM YOUR CRAZY TITS DOWN RIGHT GODDAMN NOW!”

...

W-wow. Been a while since I've gotten a good chance to explode.

...

Judging by the expression that I got in return, I'm actually kind of surprised she didn't wet herself.

Serves her right, bullying a little girl.

“U-um... p-please d-don't kill me,” she stammered, doing everything in her power to avoid making eye-contact with me.

Finished yelling, I instead moved on to that quiet tone of voice that makes your victim silently wish you would just go back to breaking volume records. You know the tone.

“Unless you march in there within the next ten seconds and apologize for terrorizing her all so you could get your grubby little paws on a fucking toy, I don't know. I'm seriously debating it.”

Before that could happen, however, a blinding flash of light appeared several feet to our left, thus increasing our party of three to a party of four as Twilight teleported into view wearing a combat helmet.

“I heard yelling, wear's the fire?!” she exclaimed, spinning about in search of any sort of calamity.

After finding nothing outside of Rainbow beneath the table and the mare pinned beneath me, the lilac librarian visibly relaxed and tossed her headgear aside.

“Lyra, what are you doing here? Better yet, Jeremy, why are you sitting on top of her?”

Lyra, huh? Glancing down at her flanks, I rolled my eyes. Why do almost all of these ponies have names pertaining to their butt tatto~ oh, sorry, their Cutie Marks? Is it some sort of pre-destiny thing or something?

Eh, whatever.

“Crazy girl comes storming into the library trying to steal RD's Gameboy,” I quipped, returning my focus to my captive. “I intervened.”

Eying the green pony with a scowl, Twilight questioned, “Is this true, Lyra?”

The most that Lyra could manage was a frightened nod.

Heaving a sigh, Twilight huffed, “Jeremy, let her go. I think some introductions are in order. After that, a very long lecture on theft of property, but introductions first.”

“How about a noise complaint?” came Spike's voice from the top of the stairwell. “Seriously, the sun's barely up.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” I groused. “I barely even made it to the newspaper.”

Glancing up, I peered through the open front door that was rather amazingly still attached to its hinges and spotted my own prize. Still sitting there.

With an irritated snort, I amended, “I didn't make it to the newspaper.”

Because, dammit, I like to keep up on current events.

A bit of tea and coffee seemed to do wonders with calming everyone down. Lyra still twitched from time to time whenever her eyes fell upon the little electronic device that she'd apparently die without, but aside from that everything seemed to return to normal.

Er, as normal as anything can really get around here anyway. Talking ponies, griffins, magic: you know, normality.

Suspension of Disbelief Level: Banana %

As it turned out, Lyra, Lyra Heartstrings, was an old acquaintance of Twilight's from back during her schooling days in Canterlot. To say that she was an odd pony would be like saying that a clear sky on a sunny day is only kind of blue. Whereas Twilight's obsession had always been in the studying and practice of all things arcane, Lyra's was in technology. Throughout the entirety of breakfast, she ranted and raved about all of the new inventions that Equestria had seen come about over the past 20 years, ranging from crank-less phonographs to the advent of the radio. And, sure, I'll admit, it was kind of cool seeing someone so enthusiastic about tech, but I was still pretty angry and it was going to take more than a trip down memory lane to fix that.

“Look, I'm gonna lay this out for you really clearly, alright?” I said, facing the green mare as I sipped my hot java. “The Gameboy belongs to Rainbow, not you. You try to take it from her again and I'll shove that horn of yours straight up your nose.”

Sighing, Twilight scolded, “Jeremy...”

“No, she needs to hear this,” I retorted, still focusing on Lyra. “You might have an issue with being an asshole, Twi, but I don't so long as I think someone really deserves it. However, with that said, I think we can come to some sort of an arrangement.”

“Oh?” the green girl piqued hopefully.

“Yes,” I answered. “You still can't have the Gameboy, but there are a few other things I've got lying around upstairs that you can. But before that, you have to apologize. And I want you to say it like you mean it, missy. I did not get out of bed today to have this kind of a talk with a grown fucking adult, got it?”

Turning from me to the colorful filly she'd wronged, Lyra gulped and said, “I'm... I'm sorry I tried to steal that from you, Rainbow. I know it's yours, not mine, I just... I got carried away. I should have just asked you if I could look at it. I didn't. Can you... can you forgive me?”

The pegasus looked nonplussed, but after a few seconds spent mulling it over, she relented.

“Just don't do it again, alright? I'm almost to the Elite Four.”

“What?” questioned Lyra in confusion.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” I interjected, rising from my seat and motioning for her to follow. “Besides, you don't even have a starter. How could you even hope to make it past the first route?”

“Uh... what?” she repeated.

Trading a wink with Rainbow, I smirked, “Heh, again, nothing. Now c'mon, I'll show you some stuff that'd knock your socks off if you had any on.”

Disturbingly reminiscent to Pinkie Pie, as soon as Lyra laid eyes on my pile of odds and ends, she materialized some shit out of fucking nowhere. Unlike Pinkie, the green unicorn seemed to prefer screwdrivers and hammers over confetti and streamers. It took every ounce of power in me to clamp onto her tail and drag her away before what was left of my remaining Earthly possessions was reduced to nuts and bolts.

“Calm down!” I exclaimed after getting the situation back under control. “You can play with the stuff that doesn't work, but leave the things that do out of the equation! Jeez!”

“Heh, sorry,” she said, blushing, “guess I got carried away again. But just look at all of this! I just... oh my gosh, I've never seen so many things that I've never seen before!”

Crossing my eyes for a moment to delete that painful statement from my brain, I coughed and continued, “Right, well, let's start this off. Ground rules. As I said, you can do whatever you'd like with the things that I couldn't get working, okay? All I ask is, if you do somehow get any of it functioning again, come back to me and give me a heads-up on what exactly it was that you did. I kind of have some plans in the works and this pile of junk here, believe it or not, could turn out to be really important in the future.”

“Oh, I believe you!” Lyra chirped as she set her tools down. “Nothing's more important than the pursuit of science!”

Victims of experimental testing might disagree, but whatever.

Pulling a few choice pieces out of the mountain, I placed each down on the floor in a row in front of her.

“Still not sure how the fire detector got dragged along for the ride, but by default that's obviously something that should get looked at. This one here's just a toy car, but it's remote controlled, so I'm thinking that should be a high priority too. My old digital camera looks like it's in decent shape, but it's missing its battery and the lens wouldn't even extend anymore even when it had power. Lastly, this CD player could be valuable, what with the furthest audio recording technology around here being vinyl, but the damn thing wouldn't even turn on when I plugged it in. All of this shit could be useful, but as things stand right now it's all trash.”

“Really, really cool trash!” the unicorn added energetically.

“Granted,” I said, facing her and quirking an eyebrow. “So, you'd like to mess around with any of this stuff?”

“Totally!”

“You... have the know-how to do it?”

“Only one way to find out!”

“Huh, alright then. You have the equipment and space to do it?”

After a quick succession of rather painful looking nods, she cheerfully answered, “Yep, I have my own basement workshop! Bon-Bon likes to think I'm wasting my time down there, but any time spent tinkering around is time well-spent in my book. Oh! You should come over and see it sometime! We can have lunch, I can introduce you to my better half, and after that I can show you all of my projects that I've been working on!”

You know, trying to hold onto a steadily fizzling anger towards someone is really difficult when they're being adorable. And, crap, I guess she did apologize to Rainbow and everything anyway.

Why the Hell not? I've already decided to give her a few things, might as well see where they'll end up. Who knows, I could get a lab partner out of this. That'd make my job a whole helluva lot easier.

Shrugging, I gathered together the small row of devices and placed them in my saddlebags. Grinning, I pointed my hoof towards the window and asked, “When are you free?”

To be continued in Chapter Twenty Two – The Energy, the Ecstasy, the Candy, and the Workshop...