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Bad Company

by Symphony

Chapter 12: Ch. 11 - LOUD NOISES

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Author's Notes:

I will write up a blogpost soon which will reveal my decision on the shared universe of Xenophobia and this story.

Also yes, since I just got back here I currently have no secondary editing in place except for what I spot myself.

Jay's scream slowly died down and he opened his eyes to stare at the scene in front of him. Right there in the middle stood Pinkie, surrounded by several ponies he didn't know along with Twilight and Fluttershy who were giving him victorious smirks.

”I mean, uh... Wow, what a surprise!” He put a hand on his chest where his heart was. ”Jesus Christ Pinkie, you almost gave me a heart attack...” Jay took a few slow breaths. The branches rustled behind him and parted from magic.

Rarity came out, looking disgusted from the fact that she had to pass through something dirty like that. She looked up at Jay with a smile after she cleaned herself off with a quick spell.

“Jay, welcome to your party! Pinkie decided to wait to host it until you had settled down.” The party pony in question waved madly at the two. “So once we gave her the go-ahead, she went to business and nearly tore the town in half looking for supplies...” Rarity looked less than pleased as she said that. “And here we are, ready to socialize!” She made a grand gesture with her right hoof at the crowd waiting for his blessing.

Jay cast a suspicious glance to the gathered ponies. When he didn't see any nearby throwable rocks or pitchforks in the crowd, he gave a smile and held out his arms.

“Well then, let's get started!” A cheer came and everyone started talking to eachother, some even asked him a few short questions.

Rarity's eyes widened as she noticed the blood on his arm.

“Darling, is this blood?” Jay snapped to attention to the prissy pony as he felt a warmth on his right arm.

“Yeah, I knicked it on the fence when I was passing through, no biggie.” He moved to wipe the blood off his arm with his shirt. He heard a gasp from in front of him and something zipping at him. He turned to see Fluttershy examining the cut on his arm.

“Come, let's go over there and get it cleaned.” She put a wing on his back and walked toward a bench which had some napkins and water on a nearby table. Jay rolled his eyes but decided not to argue with her. Getting situated, he held out his arm for her.

“Could you um... Pull up your sleeve some more..? If that's not a problem for you, of course!” Fluttershy twirled her hooves, not looking directly at him.

“Sure, no problem.” Jay did as he was asked, pulling up his right sleeve and sighing as he tried to focus on something else as Fluttershy went to work cleaning off the blood and putting a bandaid on it. Something caught her attention though.

“What's this..?” She asked him, looking at the mark on his arm. She could only see part of it as the rest of it was still hidden under his shirt. It looked like two black rose thorns entwining.

“Oh that? That's just my tattoo. Here, let me show you...” He took off his shirt, not caring that he was now effectively topless. “Here.” He turned his upper body so she could see his shoulder better.

The intertwining rose thorns continued up his arm, leading her eyes to what looked like a bear skull facing her directly with the maw open and the top of it cracked. She eeped and looked away. Jay looked at her in confusion before he put his shirt back on and looked around at the party that was in full swing around the two.

“Is that what your s-special talent is?” She wouldn't look at him anymore

“Special talent..?” He scratched his chin with a left hand, noting to himself that he really should shave soon. “What do you mean?”

“Well...“ Fluttershy began, clearing her throat. “For ponies, our cutiemarks represent what our special talent is. Like my butterflies mean that I'm good at taking care of animals.”

Jays eyes widened as he understood what she meant, giving her a quiet “Oh.” Jay leaned back and rested his elbows on the table behind him. “For humans, a tattoo means you want to mark yourself with something, or someone you really like.” He made a small gesture with his left hand toward his right shoulder.

“Tattoos are art, your body is the canvas to put it simply. There's no deeper meaning to a tattoo, like it doesn't specify your identity like a... cutiemark would.” Jay tried his hardest to sound serious as he said the name of their marks.

“I see...” Fluttershy said after a while. “So... How do you get a tattoo if no magic is involved?”

“A needle dipped in ink poking your skin very, very fast.” Jay answered without missing a beat.

When no reply was heard, he turned to Fluttershy who was looking very pale and her pupils were the size of pinpricks. “Uh...” He waved a hand in front of her eyes. “Hello, anyone home..?” When no reaction was made or a sound from the pony, Jay decided to get up and leave her alone for a few minutes, shrugging as he walked away.

“Hey, Twilight.” Jay called to the unicorn as he came closer to her. “Sup Spike!” Jay extended a fist to the young dragon, who bumped his fist with his own. “Hell of a turnup, didn't expect so many ponies to bother showing up..”

Twilight frowned at his choice of words but decided not to speak up on it as Jay would probably see that as a challenge of her patience. “Well, not many ponies pass on one of Pinkie's parties.” Twilight replied, nodding to a stallion who greeted her. “And uh... Well, ponies are interested in knowing about you!”

Jay spat out his drink, barely missing an earth pony mare. He hacked and coughed for a few seconds, apologized to the mare and turned to Twilight with a raised eyebrow. “Knowing about me? Why?” Jay frowned at his now empty cup and threw it in a nearby trash can.

“Well... Most of the questions are about how you got here, when you got here and where to send the bills for property damage...” Twilight said the last part sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head with a hoof.

“Alright then...” Jay patted his thighs, rolled his shoulders and looked around until he found what he looked for. “Yo Pinkie!” He called out. As if appearing from thin air, the party pony popped into existence in front of him.

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees, Jay?” She bounced to his head level and stayed suspended in mid air, making him recoil slightly at her sudden appearance and from her obvious useage of ancient eldritch magicks.

“Uh...” Jay meekly raised a hand and pointed at a nearby stage. “Is that microphone on the stage plugged in?”

Pinkie, still frozen in air did a sudden ninety-degree turn to where he was pointing. “Yup! That one is plugged in and ready to make some noise!”

Jay raised both his hands to his head and rubbed his temples, then held out his hands toward Pinkie. He turned and snapped his head to Twilight, mouthing 'what the fuck' and silently demanding an explanation for this bullshittery.

Sighing as he gave up trying to figure it out, he gave Pinkie a small smile. “Thanks, now if you'll excuse me...” Pinkie dropped to the ground behind him, ignoring Twilight's giggling.

He made his way through the crowd of ponies, apologizing and answering a few questions on his way to the stage. When he reached the stage, he jumped up and nearly stumbled. Righting himself and coughing awkwardly with a small blush on his cheeks, he approached the microphone and tapped it.

A crowd started to form at the noise, giving him their attention. He frowned as the microphone barely reached his stomach. Unscrewing a nut on the stand, he started to pull it up. And up. Aaaand up until it popped out of place and the stand splitting in two.

He fumbled to catch the upper piece of the stand without breaking anything. Finally settled, he heard laughs coming from the crowd and he gave them a crooked smile. He pulled the microphone loose and disposed of the metal rod, clearing his throat.

“Thanks everyone for coming out this morning,” He began, raising the microphone to his mouth. “I heard from the resident librarian slash nerd that some of you had questions for me.” He held down the mic and scanned the crowd.

A hoof lifted near the back. Bringing the mic back up, he pointed at a mint green unicorn in the back. “Yeah, you! Please say your name so I can give you a straight answer.” He waited patiently.

“I'm Lyra Heartstrings, I just wanted to know how you got back here after the last time?” She looked at him expectantly

Jay chewed his lower lip for a few seconds. “Well, I can't explain it too well...” He shrugged. “All I know is that the portal here was a dimensional anomaly thing which closed soon after I came back. Next question?” He looked over the crowd again until another hoof lifted. He pointed at an earth pony stallion this time.

“I'm Time Turner. So... You said that the portal closed, does that mean you can't go home?” The stallion asked, kicking the dirt. “Sorry for saying it so harhsly...”

Jay could feel his muscles tense and the tightness in his chest returning. He took a few slow breaths to calm down before answering. “Yes, that does mean I can't go home until another anomaly is found. There's no guarantee that anomaly will bring me to the right dimension either...” He ran a hand through his hair.

“And a follow up answer to that if anyone's curious, I came back here around a week ago.” As he said that, a few hooves dropped down as he answered their question. A new hoof shot up.

“Your turn, miss!” He pointed to an earth pony mare close to the front. Since she was the closest, he sat down on the edge of the stage. “Go ahead. I'm all ears.”

“I'm Daisy, I run a flower stand in town and... I'm sorry to ask this but when you were here the first time you wrecked my cart and I had to buy a new one...” She looked down at the ground.

“I'll cover the costs that you spent on your new cart, no problem.” He looked her straight in the eyes with a smile and stood back up. “In fact, all of the property damage costs will be covered. All I need is a name, a reason and an amount!”

He scanned the crowd once again, noticing several smiles. He saw Twilight standing in the back of the crowd with a huge grin and she was excitedly hopping around on her hooves.

“So, who here needs that?” Almost all the hooves in the vicinity shot up instantly, even Rarity's hoof joined in. His mouth formed a very thin line and he felt sweat bead on his forehead.

He sighed. This was gonna take a while. Recieving a parchment and an inkwell courtesy of Twilight, he set to work.

“Form a line, ponies!”


A couple of hours after the party had ended and everypony had gone home, Jay walked home with a lavender unicorn in tow. He was slightly buzzed. He had to exert some self control, after all. It wouldn't be right to be shitfaced while writing IOU's.

“I've lost all feeling in my hand.” Jay stated.

“You did a good thing stepping up to take responsibility that, Jay!” Twilight hummed happily as she browsed through the scroll of names and numbers.

“It feels like my hand is about to fall off.” He moaned and shook his right hand a few times.

“Stop acting like a little filly Jay and let me count this real quick...” Twilight leaned forward from the couch in Jay's living room and tapped the quill against her chin, her eyes scanning over the papers back and forth.

She brought the quill down to a paper on the glass table in front of her full of scribbles and wrote some more on it. Jay laid down on the couch on the other side of the table, absent-mindedly listening to the scratches of quill against paper, rolling his wrist.

He frowned. “...My hand still hurts.”

“Oh you'll be fine, just put some ice on it and stop moving it around so much...” Twilight spared him a glance. Looking up at the grandfather clock to their right, she noticed that it was getting rather late. “I should get going soon, I got to make sure Spike doesn't stay up too long.” She got up from the couch and stretched.

“Twilight..?” Jay looked at her. “Look, I just wanted to say uh...” His eyes fell from her to the floor, then back. “Thank you for y'know... Helping me so much and stuff.” He sat up from the couch and stretched his arms behind him and stood up.

“No problem, Jay!” Twilight smiled up at him as they started walking toward the door. “Friends help eachother with whatever they got.”

Friends, Huh? That's new.

Opening the door for her, he followed her outside to the steps. “I'll maybe see you tomorrow, Twilight. I gotta head to town hall and do some things.”

“Feel free to drop by the library when you're done, our doors are always open!” Twilight waved farewell to him and walked to the gate.

Jay walked back inside and locked the door behind him. Sighing, he heard the warning beep of the gate opening from his security system. He slowly walked up the stairs, dragging a hand on the railing, he continued walking to the master bedroom once on the second floor.

Once inside his bedroom, he pulled off his shirt and threw it on a chair in the corner. Lying down on the bed, he scratched his right arm and stared at the ceiling. Seconds ticked off to minutes to what eventually felt like hours.

After some rolling around, he closed his eyes. They snapped open a few moments later as he realized his mistake.

“Shit, I forgot to check up on Fluttershy...”

Meanwhile in the park...

Fluttershy shook her head, noticing it was dark and that nopony was around.

“Hello..? Anypony?”

She heard a howl in the distance and squeaked then ran home as fast as she possibly could, doing her hardest to ignore all sounds around her.

Next Chapter: Ch. 12 - I don't look for trouble... Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 4 Minutes
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