The Regulars

DISCLAIMER: The following story is for a fanfic challenge where the more cliches you fit into your fic, the better. This is an affectionate parody of sadfics and grimdark fics, and not to be taken seriously. I say this here so that readers don't read the first few paragraphs and come knocking on my door demanding five minutes of their life back.






On the outskirts of Manehattan, sitting between a dilapidated Burger King (The owners of which realised too late that they would have got more revenue if their menu was vegetarian) and a small Tourist Information office was a small tavern, originally known as "The Prancing Pegasus"  but known simply as "The Barn" to its locals.

This small section of the city never found itself particularly busy; the Tourist Office had become redundant over time, seeing as most of the main attractions of Manehattan were located in the city centre, and nopony was able to repurpose the old McDonalds building, as they had trouble getting through to the high security prison cells in which the original owners resided. One could speculate that the whole street was deserted, were it not for the one fleeting sense of activity that came from the tavern, where the majority of the locals spent their free time. The entrance to the tavern was quite uninviting, with a few empty bottles laying by the side of the old wooden door, and a faded sign overhead bearing the traditional title "The Prancing Pegasus" which had been graciously graffitied over by a bored local to advertise its new title.

The Barn always had a few ponies gathered round the bar, skulking in the murky light and quietly conversing with each other in gruff tones. The general murmur of the main bar was suitable for some, but a certain group of regulars felt it didn't set the right tone. A door was situated on the other side of the bar. From behind it a voice rang out:

"Barkeep!"

The bartender sighed. He started pouring a selection of different ales and tonics from the bar. This group had ordered the same drinks for themselves ever since they started coming here, and the bartender knew the selection all by memory. He caught the attention of one of his waiters.

"Hey, Shady Hooves, could you take this lot over to the separate room? I don't think I can handle going in there and hearing their damn voices again."

"Sure thing, Greasy Palms." The stoic waiter nodded obediently. He hated going into that room as much as the bartender did. Dealing with this group of regulars grew tedious very quickly. He walked over to the door, and as he did so the voices from inside the room became clearer and he could distinguish between each voice individually. He took a deep breath to prepare himself as he opened the door, and was met by an uptight sky blue pony with a white mane.

"What in Celestia's name was taking you so long? The Great and Powerful Trixie hasn't had a drink in ages!" She turned away from the waiter, focusing once again on the game of Texas Hoof 'em the group had going round the table.

"Ah, get over yourself Trixie." A female Griffon glared at her
from across the poker table. "We've been waiting just as long as you have to get served."

The waiter walked over to the Purple coloured pony on the other end of the table. Out of the crowd in here, she always seemed the most reasonable one to talk to.

"We were expecting your rainbow coloured friend here this evening." The waiter pointed out the glass of vodka and fruit punch on his tray, which had been pre-emptively prepared for Rainbow Dash by the barman. "Will she be here tonight?"

"I'm sorry, she can't be here tonight." Twilight replied, whilst gratefully levitating her glass of sparkling wine off the tray. "There's a sad tale behind that, unfortunately."

The waiter groaned. He wasn't paid enough to listen to the group sit around and compete with each other over who had the most tragic story to tell. He quickly walked around the table, setting down drinks whilst trying not to draw attention to himself, whilst Twilight set down her cards and leaned in so the other ponies (and Gilda) could hear her story.

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Rainbow Dash landed in front of the entrance to Twilight's Library. She knocked on the wooden door and paced excitedly on the spot, giggling at the prospect of what she was about to ask. Twilight opened the door, and smiled to see her friend Rainbow Dash standing there, grinning at her with an excited look on her face.

"Hey Rainbow Dash, what's up?"

"Twilight;" Rainbow Dash tried to talk between her giggle of excitement. "I was just talking to a famous flyer, Gusty Winds, and he said that there were spells capable of enchanting your wings, allowing you to soar through the skies at unimaginable speeds! Can you imagine how useful that would be for my performance for the Wonderbolts? I could blow the audience away with that spell!" Rainbow Dash hopped into the air, unable to contain her excitement at the thought. "Now, he said that the only problem with the spell is that it is incredibly difficult to pull off without a trained unicorn. But that shouldn't be a problem for you, right? You're the most talented Unicorn in Ponyville!"

Twilight blushed at the compliment. "Just give me a minute Rainbow. I'll try to find a book on enchantments and look it up."

"I'll help you find it!" Rainbow Dash enthusiastically set foot inside the library, and trotted towards an unorganised pile of books in the corner.

Twilight frowned. "Sorry about this. I've been kinda lazy with keeping the place tidy as of late." She craned her neck to try and see the titles of the books on the top shelves. "Aha! This will probably be our best bet." She levitated down a copy of The Enchanters Enchanting Chart of Enchantments and laid it on a small table so she could flick through the contents.

She frowned in concentration as she started reading the section on Performance improving enchantments. After a couple of minutes, she eagerly pointed out a section of the book to Dash.

"This must be it!" She burst out. Rainbow Dash's excitement was contagious. She scanned over the paragraphs dedicated to enchanting wings to improve flight speed, then drew in air through her teeth and turned to Rainbow Dash.

"This looks pretty difficult." She looked at Dash uncertainly. "Are you sure you want me to go through with this?"

"Positive." Dash said. "Any side effects will be worth it when I'm soaring past crowds of thousands doing speeds of which they've never seen!" She couldn't stay put on the ground anymore and took to hovering a couple of feet above the floor of the library, waiting for Twilight to finish preparing herself for the spell.

"Alright." Twilight said hesitantly. "Stay still while I concentrate."

Rainbow Dash obediently placed herself on the floor of the ground and waited patiently whilst Twilight focused her horn upon her. A blue light began streaming from the horn, and slowly drifted towards Dash's wings and began wrapping itself around them.

"Wooah, this feels weird. Twilight, you got this spell under control, right? Twilight?"

There was a big purple flash which radiated throughout the library and filled the windows with purple light, and Twilight was pushed back by the shockwave resulting from the spell. She sat up and shook her head, trying to get rid of the dizzy sensation the spell had brought upon her.

"Rainbow Dash?" Twilight piped up nervously. She gazed over to the spot where Rainbow Dash was standing, waiting for her eyes to adjust after the flash.

Her eyes widened.

"Dash? You- you're wings….." Twilight ground to a halt, not sure how to deliver the news.
"What?" Dash looked around curiously. "I don't feel any faster admittedly, but I do feel like I've lost weigh-" She stopped. She tried flapping her wings, and when she failed to lift off the ground she craned her neck around, trying to find the source of the problem. When she out why she was having trouble getting off the ground, she keeled over in a panicked faint.

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"HER WINGS WERE GONE!" Twilight yelled dramatically, spilling the last remnants of her sparkling wine over the table in the process. "And it's all MY fault! You'd think a pony that was taught by Celestia herself wouldn't have so much trouble pulling off magic like this!" She started sobbing and swaying slightly. "They've got experts working on getting her wings back, but she's had to live without them for the past week, and who knows how long it'll take to find… to find a…."

She slumped onto the table, quietly murmuring to herself. The others around the table all looked at her.

"How much has she had?" Trixie asked.

"Three glasses of sparkling wine." Replied Gilda. The whole table shrugged and resumed their game of poker. Twilight sure was a lightweight.

After studying the hoof of cards she'd been given, Trixie chirped up.

"That story is nothing compared to what happened to me recently. This past week has been horrible, and that spell of Twilight's did much more damage to me than it did to that silly old Pegasus."

"What?" Gilda looked over her cards at Trixie. "How in Equestria could that spell have affected YOU in any way?"

Trixie took a sip of her sherry and cleared her throat, preparing herself to elaborate on the terrible things that have happened to her.

"Many months ago" she started dramatically, raising a hoof into the air as she set the scene. "I had just suffered what I thought would be the most humiliating event of my entire life."

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"Hah! You may have vanquished an Ursa Minor," Trixie scoffed at Twilight "but you will never have the amazing, show-stopping ability of the Great and Powerful Trixie!" with this last outburst, she burst into a trot, leaving behind a puff of smoke behind her.

"I had never felt so shaken." Trixie narrated. "My whole reputation had been ruined by some stupid cosmic bear and that infernal bookworm, Twilight. I ran towards the nearest city I could, hoping to find some lodgings now that my carriage had been destroyed. I found an old flat here in Manehattan, and resided there for several months, making a living by performing cheap magic shows wherever anypony would allow me to. After several months, I decided it was time to face my demons and make my way back to Ponyville. I needed to know if I really wasn't the greatest and most magical pony in Equestria, and there was only one way to find out."

Trixie walked along the path leading to Ponyville. As she neared the Town Square, she kept her head low, not wanting to be recognised by the ponies who would remember her ridiculous display a few months back. She remembered running past Twilight's house, which was a tree that had been transformed into a library. She spotted it in the distance, and reluctantly started walking over to the tree, hoping to confront Twilight and prove once and for all that she, Trixie was the most Great and Powerful Pony ever known. As she got closer she noticed that the front door had been left open, and she had half a mind to march right in and yell at Twilight for all the distress she'd been through. She was pondering how to handle the situation when a loud noise and a colossal wave of purple light burst from within the library, radiating through the door and windows. It towered over her, and over several of the adjacent houses.

Trixie gasped. What kind of spell was that? She didn't think she'd be capable of conjuring up a wave of energy that big, and she didn't even have any idea what the spell was trying to accomplish. She peeked gingerly inside, and her eyes widened as she recognised the Rainbow maned Pegasus that had tested her skills against her months ago. Why was she keeled over on the floor? And where were her wings? What monster would not only be capable of de-winging a pegasus, let alone find the magic power required for such a thing? She saw Twilight approach the body of the unconscious ex-pegasus.

Trixie galloped away from the library as fast as she could. She ran all the way across town, scared that Twilight might have seen her witness the atrocity that just happened. She ran back through the town centre, looking behind her as she went to see if she could make out a purple unicorn chasing after her. In her panic, she failed to notice a disorganised flurry of ducks running around in front of her until it was too late. She skidded on the mud in an attempt to stop herself, and in the attempt managed to slip over a muddy patch of ground in her path, sending her flying into the mass of traumatised ducks, which proceeded to swarm around her in a panic until somepony managed to shoo them away.

She slowly picked herself up, filled with horror over the sudden realisation that all eyes in the Town Square were on her.

"Hey! Isn't that 'The Great and Powerful' Trixie?" Somepony in the crowd chortled.

"I think it is!" replied another, guffawing at the state she was in.

"What's wrong, Trixie?" a third asked. "Can't vanquish a flock of ducks either?"

This set the whole crowd off laughing. Unable to bear it, Trixie galloped away, trailing mud and feathers behind her.

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"It was so humiliating!" Trixie screamed, glaring in Twilight's direction, hoping to get some sort of reaction out of her. Twilight however, was busy having a very animated discussion with the table directly under her face, and when Trixie saw that she was preoccupied, she continued with her rant to the rest of the group. "Luckily Nurse Redheart caught up with me later that day and explained that the spell was a horrible mistake on Twilight's behalf, so I didn't have to leave Ponyville under the impression that a deranged killer was after me." Trixie scorned, and downed the last of her sherry. "Not that any of it matters, seeing as I can't show my face in Ponyville ever again." She blinked a couple of times, then steadied herself by placing her front hooves on the table. "Nopony deserves such injustice, least of all The Great and… Great and Powerful…" She hung her head, unable to finish her sentence for shame.

A yellow hoof was placed on her shoulder in consolation.

"You know…um, not that it's any of my business…but don't you think you've had a little bit too much to drink?"

Trixie batted the hoof away. "Oh, mind your own business you fussy mare!" She turned around to face the yellow pony, and raised her eyebrow. "I thought you didn't drink alcohol."

The yellow pony stumbled to get her words out, and anypony who didn't know her better would suspect that she too had been drinking more than she should have. "Oh, um… I mean, it's not usually my thing, but- well… this week's been kind of tough for me as well."

Fluttershy took a very delicate swig of her glass of mead as she began to tell her story.

"Ever since the Grand Galloping Gala, it's been playing on my mind that I might not be as good with animals as I once thought I was. It got worse about a week ago, when I was guiding a flock of ducks back to my cottage…"

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Fluttershy walked backwards, guiding the ducks along in single file. She had just reached the edge of the town square, and decided to stop momentarily to take a breather.

"We're nearly there now, little ones." She crouched down and nuzzled the lead duck. "That wasn't so hard was i-" A noise came from Twilight's library. It was loud enough to make the whole library shake, but the real spectacle was the radiant purple light that now surrounded the place. It was taller than several cottages stacked on top of each other. The citizens of Ponyville were used to seeing to seeing all sorts of spells and enchantments lighting up the windows of the library, but Fluttershy reckoned that nopony had seen a spell so large it radiated through the very tree.

Unfortunately, this was far more than the flock of ducks could handle. They quacked wildly and ran back through the town square, seeking some form of shelter.

"Oh no!" Fluttershy squeaked. "This is simply awful! It'll take ages to round up all those birds again." She flapped her wings and started picking up speed, heading back towards the town centre to find them.

"Wait a minute!" Trixie burst out, interrupting Fluttershy's story. "YOU are the reason I cannot show my beloved face in Ponyville anymore? YOU are the reason I'm sitting here right now, sitting in a dark room with a bunch of losers and complaining like some old workhorse?"

Fluttershy squealed as Trixie made an advance towards her, and nearly fell off her chair in retreat. "I'm so sorry! I never meant for anyone-"

"Calm down, both of you." Gilda scorned at Trixie, and took another swig of her whiskey and ice. "I want to hear the rest of her story."

Fluttershy regained her composure and nervously sat down on her chair again. "As I was saying, I was becoming more and more worried that my control over the animals was slipping, but I had to shrug that off when I heard that my friend Rainbow Dash was in trouble and needed all the support she could get…"

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Fluttershy stopped outside Nurse Redheart's medical tent. The nurse herself was there to greet her.

"Is she okay?" Fluttershy asked apprehensively. "I've been so worried…"

"Physically she's okay, and most of the shock has worn off." Nurse Redheart frowned. "But it's not natural to see a Pegasus pony unable to fly for this amount of time. She's getting restless."

Fluttershy walked into the tent. Upon recognising the yellow Pegasus, Rainbow Dash smiled weakly.

"Hey there, champ." Rainbow Dash greeted her warmly. The two exchanged hugs before Fluttershy sat down on her haunches at the foot of the bed.

"So, um… how are you holding up?" Fluttershy asked sympathetically, knowing what sort of torture this must be for someone like Dash.

"Meh." Rainbow Dash bravely attempted to shrug off the ailment. "I've had my ups and downs, but they say that there must be a way to reverse the spell somehow."

Fluttershy sighed. "I wish there was something I could do. I feel as helpless as a child right now."

Rainbow Dash lay back on the bed, as Fluttershy's words sank in.

"Hey Fluttershy! I've just had the most amazing idea!"

Fluttershy blinked, not sure whether to be nervous or relieved that Rainbow Dash had thought of a solution to her problems. "You have?" she asked, making sure to choose her attitude carefully so Rainbow Dash didn't get carried away.

"You remember when you were a kid in flight school, and you always said you were a weak flyer." Dash began, getting more excited as the idea unfolded in her head. "You were saved by a bunch of passing butterflies, which managed to carry you several feet above the ground."

Fluttershy's stomach lurched. She pieced together the final parts of Rainbow Dash's plan.
"You're good with birds, aren't you? What's to stop you from sending a flock of them down here to pick me up, and carry me on their backs? If a bunch of butterflies can do it, birds could carry me as high as I wanted!" Dash looked at Fluttershy with a keen expression on her face. "That wouldn't be any trouble for you, I've seen you organise birds in any formation you want before. Gosh, I haven't been this excited for days!"

Fluttershy saw this as an opportunity to dissuade Rainbow Dash from her crazy idea. "And what happened the last time you were this excited about an idea of yours?" She asked.
Rainbow Dash stopped for a moment and contemplated. "I see your point." She replied, looking back at where her wings used to be and looking forlorn. She soon perked up again. "But this isn't like that! I NEED to fly, Fluttershy, you know that." She leaned towards Fluttershy, desperately trying to appeal to her kind nature. "You're the only one I know that's good enough with animals to pull this off." Fluttershy blushed and hesitated.
"Please?"


Rainbow Dash lay forward, trying to make herself comfortable on top of the flock of birds.

"Ready, Fluttershy?" Rainbow Dash craned her neck back to look at the nervous Pegasus.

"Ready." She responded, before whistling loudly, signalling for the birds to take off in flight. The birds took off in organised formation, and made their way towards the clouds, higher and higher. Rainbow Dash flew along the sky for miles, with Fluttershy in tow, making sure the birds didn't break formation and that Rainbow Dash was safe at all times. After flying around for a couple of hours, Fluttershy decided it would be sensible to start descending, seeing as the birds would be tired. They smoothly continued to descend down and down, Fluttershy carefully guiding the birds in front, when some sort of contraption flew straight through the middle of the flock of birds, causing them all to fly in their own direction to save their own feathers. Rainbow Dash yelped and started flapping her hooves, which in retrospect was an undesirable alternative to flapping your wings when you find yourself several stories above the ground.

"Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!" Fluttershy squealed, not sure how to handle the situation. She dived after her but it was soon clear that she wasn't going to catch up with the falling ex-pegasus.

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"She's in the hospital for a lot more than missing wings now." Fluttershy sniffled. "I knew I shouldn't have listened to her! I couldn't control those animals if her life depended on it! And it nearly did!"

Before Fluttershy had the opportunity to start wallowing in self-pity, Gilda spat out her drink and stood up from her chair, outraged.

"You mean I wasn't dreaming?" She spat out the words in a mixture of rage and incredulousness.

Everypony at the table was looking at her in surprise, and she could see that she had to explain herself.

"I've had a horrible time of it the past few months." She started, calming down and taking her seat again. "I was feeling awful recently about losing my temper at Rainbow Dash at a party ages ago. We hadn't talked since then and I was starting to feel the first pangs of guilt I'd felt in a long time."

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Gilda sighed as she sat at the edge of her bed. All these months she had tried to convince herself that she didn't care about Rainbow Dash and that she would be a lot better off making friends with her own species. Stupid ponies. Pathetic waste of space, the lot of them.

But she knew she didn't mean that. She had a general contempt for ponies, but Rainbow Dash was different. She was cool, she didn't have the same attitude as most of them and Gilda liked that.

She wandered round her house aimlessly. The sun was slowly setting and she knew that once again, she would soon have to try and fall asleep. It was always impossible with such a weight on her mind. She looked up through the skylight in the roof and watched as the sun slowly went below the horizon.

She shrieked in fear as a screaming ex-pegasus slammed into her skylight, making the whole roof tremble. She panicked and ran back to her bed and hid under the covers.

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"Have you any idea what it's like to see a vision of your best friend wingless and splatted across your roof with a look of terror on her face? "Gilda screamed. "I thought I had a nightmare!"

"Wha-?" Somepony slurred from the head of the table. "Did someone call me?"

Gilda fizzled out and sighed, turning towards the dark blue Alicorn. "No, Luna. No-one called you."

Luna had been quiet, sitting by the head of the table. She didn't participate in the poker game and barely spoke a word, every now and again taking a swig of her bottle of Moonshine. Everypony round the table wondered how she was able to sit upright with that sort of a drink, but she seemed to handle it better than most ponies.

"You're… you're right" she slurred. "No-one ever needs anything from Luna. Not second-rate, inferior little Luna over here." She hiccupped, and took another small swig from the bottle, grimacing at its strong taste. "This must be one of the few places left in Manehattan that'll serve this stuff." She remarked. "Back when I had power, every establi- eshtablish… place that sold alcohol would be willing to serve you this stuff if you paid em right."

"Oh?" Fluttershy responded curiously. "It sounds like you have your own story to tell."

"Of courshe I do. It's my turn!" She thumped the table with a hoof.

"Years and yearsh back…"

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The sun had set over Equestria once again and Luna had just finished turning day into night. She surveyed the land as the sun set and watched as all the ponyfolk turned out their lights and hey is my bottle empty why is the room spinning did I ever tell you I loved you guys-

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"Um" Fluttershy leaned closer to inspect Luna, who was passed out over the table.

"Is she dead?" Gilda asked, raising an eyebrow at the abrupt ending to Luna's story.

"I don't think so." Remarked Trixie as she prodded the unconscious Luna with a hoof.

"Maybe we should call somepony." Fluttershy suggested, nervous over the thought of royalty being in trouble.

"Nahhh, she'll be fine." Gilda responded, then let out a little snort. "Out of all the stories that've been told here tonight, that wasn't my favourite, I admit."

"Mine's better!" Piped up a high pithed southern accent sitting on the opposite side of the table. "Mine's a real doozy!"

Trixie furrowed her brow and looked at the pony on the other end of the table. "How did a minor get in here?"

"My story's a sad tale." Applebloom addressed everyone at the table with a hushed tone. "Not for the faint of heart at all." She took a small sip of her lightly carbonated apple juice before continuing.

"About a week ago I was fixing up the old barn when the biggest life changing thing happened to me…"

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Applebloom took a couple of paces back, admiring her handiwork. The barn looked better than ever. She'd applied a fresh coat of paint onto it, she'd replaced all the old splintery boards with fresh new ones, and she'd cleaned out the old hay and put fresh batches in. She'd become remarkably adept with power tools at such a young age and expertly measured and cut all the wood to the right size, drilled in structural support wherever it was needed, and sanded and varnished all the edges of the building to make sure everything fir in smoothly.

Applejack walked up beside her with a tray carrying a flask of tea and was taken back at what she saw.

"Wow, Applebloom. I was more than happy to let you try your hoof at fixing the old barn but… this is incredible!" Applejack handed the flash of tea over to Applebloom.

"Thanks sis!" Applebloom smiled. "I really worked hard at it." She took the flask from Applejack. "You know, I'm really starting to like this tea stuff."

Applejack laughed. "Haha, eeeyup!" she grinned as she looked at Applebloom. "How very like a builder." She started giggling excitedly and kept on glancing at Applebloom's flank, wondering when she would notice.

Applebloom looked up at her. "What's up with you Applejack? You're acting a might strange today."

Applejack pointed to her flank. "I think you'd be giggling too if you realised what's happened to ya."

Applebloom gasped and craned her neck around, not sure if Applejack was talking about what she thinks she was talking about. On her flank was a picture of an electric drill, pointing diagonally upwards and gleaming in the sunlight.

"Oh Applejack! I'm gonna be a Builder! A Handypony!" She bounced up and down, not sure what to do first. "Oh, wow, wait till I tell my friends about this!" She cantered as fast as her little legs would take her. She was lucky enough to find both her friends, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle talking down in the park.

"Scootaloo! Sweetie Belle! Check out this!" She rushed forwards to show the two ponies her cutie mark, and they both recoiled, not sure what to say.

"Isn't it amazing?"

Both ponies grinned at her, but the smiles lacked sincerity. "It sure is great, Applebloom," Sweetie Belle spoke "but what are we supposed to do now?"

"Yeah." Joined in Scootaloo. "We can't have the Cutie Mark Crusaders with only two ponies in it!"

Applebloom paused for a moment, not wanting her friends' disappointment to spoil the moment for her. "I can still help, and y'all are still welcome to use the clubhouse." She smiled, hoping the others would accept the offer.

"I suppose…" Scootaloo started, whilst looking into the sky uncomfortably.

"Well maybe…" Sweetie Belle hesitated, suddenly finding the ground very fascinating to look at.

"Aw, come on guys!" Applebloom tried to rally the two. "I can use my new building skills to build us anything we want!" Applebloom thought for a moment. "Scoots, you said you really wanted to learn how to fly, right?"

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"It was going so well!" Applebloom shouting, thumping her hoof on the table. "I built them a hang glider, and we met a few up a few days after and tested it on by jumping off the highest mountain we could find." Applebloom lowered her head. "But then we crashed into a flock of birds and Sweetie Belle got scared. They haven't talked to me since." She sulked and rested her head against the table, more out of inadequacy of height than any form of inebriation.

The ponies silently sat round the table. All of them had run out of steam. Whether it be alcohol, yelling, or the awkward discomfort of realising you're sitting in a bar with ponies much older than you, no-one had anything left to say.

It was the bartender who broke the silence.

"Come on, you lot." He ordered, opening the door and shedding light onto the miserable group of ponies. "Closing time."