Chapter 9 – Public Relations
Pinkie herself made her way through the city, looking through each window as she did. Stopping at every restaurant in order to find anything that would help her friends. She quickly found what it took to by anything in this city as well. Her stomach growled loudly at one point and she searched out a restaurant that suited her. Only to find that she hadn't the means to pay for anything. They didn't use Bits here, they used something called Points. So, she made her way back to the garage, or so she thought. Instead, she found herself in the presence of another garage, one that had many different aliens, and several seemed to be angry at one of them, a foxlike man with dark red fur, long lanky legs and brown cloth covering him up to his bunched up collar and his arms seemed to disappear into his sleeves as he smiled a wide nervous smile at the much larger pigmen with dark violet hair. His face was short, nose pulled in to be no longer than Pinkie's muzzle, large dark brown eyes that shined with mischief, and wisdom.
"Look we don't want your business. We've already got the best of the best." one of the larger Treeopon said.
"Oh but, surely a strong fellow like you can at least hear an old Dryskian out. I still would enjoy getting back to where I belong." the fox said, a wide smile on his face and glee in his eyes, "Besides, you haven't heard my joke yet."
"I don't care. Dryskian's aren't welcome here." the other one said, and shoved the fox to the ground.
"HEY!" Pinkie shouted at him, "That's not very nice!"
"And what of it?" another asked, and then looked at her mane, "Wait, are you one of Angus' crew?"
"Huh?" Pinkie asked, "No, I'm from Tusks' crew."
"Don't lie, if you were from Tusk's crew, you'd have that crazy rainbow hair!" the first one said.
"Well, I…" she began and tried to think of an excuse.
"Only Angus' crew uses pink hair like that." the other one interrupted.
"Wait, no, his hair is darker." the other one said.
"My mane is naturally pink!" Pinkie tried to explain but it seemed like they stopped paying attention. "Come on Fox Man!" she said as the two Treeopon's started arguing about what shades were pink and what was red, "We're leaving."
"Fox Man?" the Dryskian asked, "I prefer Adirondack Simian."
Pinkie instantly pursed her lips together in a spit of laughter, and burst out, "EEEEhahahahah." and a snort in the middle. "They're the same thing!" she continued laughing.
"And that's not even my best joke!" the Dryskian told her.
"Tell me more!" Pinkie insisted as the two of them walked away.
Suddenly he laughed, a cackle of sorts with some wheezes mixed into the sound itself, "You're a wonderful creature, miss. My name is Piks. I'm an unofficial researcher of cultures in this solar system."
"I'm Pinkie Pie and I plan parties for Ponyville back on my home planet." she told the strange creature.
Piks shook his head as he tried to sound every word she had just said in his mind. Then with a smile, he said, "Pinkie Pie plans parties in Ponyville. Ponyville picks a perfect pie. Pinkie Pie is pleased."
This got the pink party pony to burst out into hysterics, "That was great!" she said happily as she walked, but stopped when her stomach growled loudly, "Oof." she grunted in slight pain.
"Hungry?" he asked.
"Starving. I haven't had anything to eat for a while." she told him, and then sighed, "But I don't have any Points, all I have are some Bits from my planet." As she said this, she pulled out a single large golden coin to show him.
"Hmm." he said as he looked to the piece, "Precious metal, gold to be exact." he told her, "I know a few merchants who would love to have some of these, and just maybe make trades for them too. If we play our cards right."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"First we eat. I know a place that sells the best Roakin skewers and Sludgebombs this side of Dryskis." he said.
"Great." she said, and then thought, "What's Roakin, and a Sludgebomb?"
She got her answer quickly, the moment they had arrived they were seated and served. She had ordered a salad with what he explained were carrots with blue coloring, and his Roakin skewer happened to be a large bug of some kind. Ugly in appearance, he had bitten into the thing and pulled out what looked to be some kind of green slop.
"Eww." she said as she watched him in slight disgust.
Then he coughed a bit, "You're telling me!" he said, and set the fried insect down to grab one of the blue carrots from her salad to shove into his mouth. "We Dryskian's are near frozen omnivores but that was just gross."
"Why did you order it then?" she asked the fox.
"It's supposed to be a delicacy on Sunik, and I can see why. The place is pretty barren if you try and live above the ground. It's actually an insult to refuse one, so I thought I'd try it before I actually arrived at the planet. I may just skip that part." he told her, and suddenly the waitress came back, a short lizard lady in a fancy dress and white apron
"What will you be having to drink today?" she asked.
"I'll take a Sludgebomb with two Pertim Ko's, please." he said and turned to Pinkie.
"Um, got anything for ponies?" she asked, getting the lizard girl to lift an eyebrow.
"Well, how about a Murishian Cocktail with a Berry Eye." he offered.
"Is it alcoholic? Because I'm still on the clock!" she told him.
He chuckled, "A virgin Murishian Cocktail please, with the Berry Eye." to this the waitress nodded, and turned back to the rest of the establishment.
"Why didn't she just ask us for our drinks first?" Pinkie asked.
"Because this is a Sunik restaurant, and on Sunik you order your drink last. It's one of their oldest tradition." he told her.
"Oh, I see." she said and bit into her salad, the strange orange leaves and blue carrots actually tasted good to her, sweet actually, like they were dipped in orange juice, but there was no other juice more than the water that sat as tiny drops on the leaves themselves. "Mmmm!" she hummed as she chewed. After swallowing her bite, she hummed again, "This is good!" she said.
"Things that survive underground tend to taste a lot better on that planet." he agreed and reached down to swipe another one of her carrots. That was when their drinks arrived. Pinkie's was presented in a swirled cocktail glass that bent and spun at the handle, it also seemed to be a hollow handle because some of the light pink drink actually flowed into it, and on top, a purple round object floated that had a pure white spot on the top. His seemed to be a bit bigger of a glass, the drink looked a bit thick but moved around as liquid did. A bubble seemed to just hang there at the top of the glass. "Well, bottoms up!" he said and smiled, placing his lips to the top of the bubble, and drinking the concoction like that, the bubble never popped, in fact, it seemed as if the drink in the glass simply followed the line of the bubble as he drank it, only tipping the drink when he had reached one quarter left. "How's yours?" he asked as he finished his drink.
Pinkie looked at the thing on top of the drink, and finished chewing the last bite of her salad, "Well…" she said to herself, "When in Canterlot…" and she grabbed the object at the top, before popping it into her mouth, and her eyes opened in surprise, "It's an olive!" she said, "It's a purple olive!"
"Good isn't it?" he asked and Pinkie nodded, before sipping the drink itself.
"Not bad!" she said as she put on her judging face, "Kinda tastes a little like strawberry and cotton candy."
"Don't tell me you didn't trust me." Piks said.
"You ate a bug." she said as she narrowed her eyes, "As an experiment."
"True." he said as he thought about it, "But I'm also paying the bill, I'm allowed a few mistakes."
"How much do you know about the other planets?" she suddenly asked as the two of them lifted from their seats,
"Hm?" he asked as he opened the restaurant door for her, "Mostly customs and languages, I guess. I've also been scammed a couple of times when I started out."
"Why did you even want to go to that other planet, this one seems to have everything!" she asked.
"Well, believe it or not, I'm not interested in staying put for very long." he said. Getting her to question him, "You see, Dryskian's are nomadic by nature, we have to be. If we don't stay ahead of the dark side of the planet, we'll get locked into a long winter that can easily wipe out an entire family line if you aren't careful. Trees die and food freezes. Even fires or thermal tech do nothing to block out the cold for long, and going underground does no good because the frozen temperatures permeate deep, and I mean really deep into the ground." he told her, a strange nostalgia to his words, "So you could imagine my surprise when I found a downed space ship that thawed from the last rotation, I hopped at the chance to escape that kind of torment. I offered to take my family, of course, my wife and kids are in the hotel at the edge of the city." Pinkie smiled at the thought of a family of his kind, "We traveled around a bit before crashing on this planet, and I started to learn about a few things, especially customs of other species and languages. But it'll be another half a cycle before I am able to even attempt to get a license for this kind of research. I've written a book but, on this planet, it doesn't get much attention."
"So, I've heard." Pinkie said as the two of them walked, "HEY!" she suddenly thought, "Why not join our team?" she suddenly said. He lifted an eyebrow in confusion, "We could use somepony like you. You see I'm the public relations part of the team, and I hade no idea of the customs or even the money of this planet, I'm gonna need help if we're gonna find the right vendor for parts we don't have or even food for our team."
Piks placed a claw to his chin, thinking, "What team did you say you were from again?"
"I'm from Tusks' team, Team Rainbow Dash!" she told him.
He sighed deeply, "Every part of my brain says no." he told her, and she lowered her ears in disappointment, "But, if I talk to my wife, maybe it'll go away. She has a way of getting me to see the right thing. I never make a big decision without her. If she agrees, I'll meet you at your garage before sundown tomorrow. If not, well, then I'm sorry."
"Oh…" Pinkie said sadly, "I guess that makes sense."
"Thank you for your time Pinkie Pie, we'll see what the future has to offer." he said, and placed his paws into his sleeves again, and started to walk away, Pinkie could not say anything, she didn't know what to say. All she could do was let the Dryskian disappear around the corner, and she turned around, making her way back to the garage as the sunset behind her.
